#and is currently sending a lot of shit that i brought as a freshman back home

[theowhy]

[thiam] following footsteps

2.4k / g / oneshot

note: hello friends :’) long time no post, i just never have any free time these days. my writing brain cells are rusty but here’s a short thing that was meant to be a, uh, christmas fic but that i couldn’t wrangle into shape until now. it’s not terribly contingent on the christmas season and i hope it’s enjoyable even two months late lmao

The cold is the worst thing when Liam finally comes to. Everything bombards him at once: the bruising ache in his back, the smell of dirt and pine and damp clothes. But the cold—that chills him straight to his bones.

“Shit,” Liam says.

“‘Shit’ is right,” says Theo, a disembodied voice somewhere off to Liam’s left because Liam can’t even bear to open his eyes yet. He’d recognize Theo’s presence even if blind or dead.

How annoying. Though in this moment, it gives Liam a weary sense of comfort, knowing he’s not alone.

“What happened?” he groans, bringing a hand up to gingerly touch his temple where a headache currently pounds.

“You got your ass handed to you,” Theo says. He shifts, clothes rustling, a crunching sound beneath his feet.

Ice? Liam opens his eyes.

They were in the forest, he finally remembers. And sure enough, they’re surrounded by dark trees and a white landscape, grey clouds beyond them, a hard ground beneath. There are rocks, too: Theo must have found some kind of outcropping in the hills to shelter from the snow flurrying through the air. Had he dragged Liam under here after… whatever happened before he was out?

“Yes, I dragged you here,” Theo says, then rolls his eyes. “Don’t look at me like that, your face was obvious.”

Liam grimaces. “Did I get hit?”

“Thrown through a tree, actually.” There’s way too much pep in Theo’s voice when he says it. He points out away from them, towards a splintered tree stump in the distance. Its other half lies not far past it, slowly being buried beneath the snow. “That one.”

“Ouch.” Explains why Liam’s back is killing him. “What was it?”

“You don’t remember?”

“I got thrown through a tree, cut me some slack.” Liam gingerly moves to sit up and rub some warmth back into his arms.

“It was… I don’t even know how to describe it.” Theo frowns as he remembers. “I’ve never seen anything like it before. This big white ball of… energy. Ice. It got mad when it saw us and blew you into that tree. There’s been a snowstorm ever since.”

“Did you… kill it?” Liam asks apprehensively.

“Hell no, I grabbed you and hauled ass. You’re lucky it didn’t follow.”

“So it’s still out there? We have to tell the others.”

Theo wordlessly digs into his pocket and pulls out his phone. He taps the home button. The screen doesn’t light up.

Liam gapes. “Did you seriously bring an uncharged phone out into the middle of nowhere?”

“It’s not my fault you were out for an hour, okay?” Theo snarls. “We were supposed to take a quick look around and go back, I didn’t know some mythical snow spirit whatever the fuck was going to attack us. At least my phone is still in one piece.”

“What?” Dread sinks into Liam’s stomach. He digs into his back pocket, pulls out a mess of circuits and glass and dented metal. He squeaks, “Oh no.”

“Yeah, nice.” Theo sighs. “What is that, your second phone this year?”

“Third.” Liam buries his head in his hands. “My parents are going to kill me.”

It was hard enough convincing them to let him go on this trip to the mountains, where Scott and the rest of the pack had rented a cabin for the weekend. Ostensibly it was to investigate reports of sudden blizzards and extreme snowfall, something Deaton had thought concerning enough for them to check out. But in actuality, none of them expected it to be anything more than some random meteorological weirdness. Scott brought his Nintendo Switch and Mario Kart. Lydia brought wine.

But they’d hardly settled into the cabin before Scott suggested they take a look around before dark, just to get some work in before Mario Kart and chill. Figures Liam didn’t even get the chance to kick Theo’s butt at Mario Kart before the universe decided to screw him over and make his parents ground him forever. It’s not his fault his life suddenly became full of a whole lot more fighting than Liam ever expected, even into his senior year of high school.

“There’s no way I’m gonna try and find my way back in this blizzard,” Theo says, with the finality of a nail into a coffin. “So I suggest you get comfortable.”

Liam sighs, watches the white puff of his breath fade into the air. The wind howls in long, drawn out tones. His whole backside is wet from lying on the ground. His head still hurts.

“Yeah, real easy,” he mutters, pulling his knees up and wrapping his arms around them. First things first, try to get his body to stop shivering.

There’s quiet for a moment. Liam’s so preoccupied finding any vestiges of warmth in his body that he startles when something soft is pushed onto his head. He turns his gaze towards Theo.

Theo, whose beanie has now been placed on Liam’s head.

“It ain’t much, but take it,” Theo says, hardly more than a murmur, nearly lost to the sound of the wind. But Liam hears him.

“I’m fine,” he says.

Theo rolls his eyes. “Liam, just take it.”

“But what about you?”

“I can handle a little cold.” Theo crosses his arms tighter, breathes a big exhale that sends a shroud of white around him, thick as smoke. It hides him for a moment but fades away soon enough. His hair is mussed from tugging his beanie off. His nose and cheeks are red, and there are stray snowflakes on Theo’s shoulders, caught in strands of his hair.

It’s more than just a little cold. The beanie helps, in a small way; Theo had given what little he could. That matters, Liam thinks.

It must be that—along with instinctual, human need—that compels Liam to scoot closer until he’s pressed up against Theo’s side.

Theo goes rigid.

He doesn’t say anything. Neither does Liam.

Finally, Theo says, “What are you doing?”

“It’s cold,” Liam says simply. “You said get comfortable.”

“Comfortable does not mean sitting on top of me.”

“I’m not on top of you,” Liam scoffs. “We gotta huddle for warmth.”

“Sure, huddle. Not cuddle.” Theo pointedly scoots away. Liam follows. “Liam.”

“Theo, come on. I’m not dying out here.”

“I’m not dying out here, either,” Theo says, then shuts his mouth.

Liam laughs.

“Glad you find this funny,” Theo grumbles, but this close together, Liam can feel the way he relaxes, the way he presses in by one reluctantly given inch. But it’s something.

Liam tugs the beanie more snugly onto his head, trying not to smile. Yeah. It’s something.

It doesn’t change the fact that they’re stuck out here until whichever happens first: the blizzard goes away (not looking likely), the pack finds them (even less likely, given that Liam hopes they have the wisdom to stay out of the blizzard, too), or God intervenes. Liam’s never had much luck with the last one.

So he takes in his surroundings instead. There isn’t much to see, really, besides trees, trees, and more trees. The occasional bush. Plenty of snow. And—

“Oh!” Liam says, sitting up straighter and pointing. “Mistletoe!”

Theo doesn’t even look and says, “Nice try, Liam. If you wanted to kiss, you could just ask.”

Liam sputters and shoves Theo hard on the shoulder, which hardly budges him. Theo smirks. “No, dude, ugh. Christmas was like a month ago, anyway. I mean there’s literally mistletoe growing on the trees.”

“Riveting,” Theo drawls, but humors Liam anyway. He looks out to where Liam’s pointing at a bushy mass growing in the branches of one of the trees ahead of them. “That it?”

“Yeah.” Liam squints. He can see its leaves rustling with the wind, how different they are from the leaves of the oak tree it rests in. “Phoradendron villosum. Pacific mistletoe. Don’t eat it.”

“I know that.”

“Did you know mistletoe is a parasite?”

“It’s poisonous, that doesn’t surprise me.” Theo looks mildly interested anyway, and Liam feels a small thrill of victory over it. It’s not often that he gets to share some biology knowledge that Theo doesn’t already know. “So why are people obsessed with hanging it in doorways and stuff?”

“Why do people do anything? Superstition. Folklore.” A particularly strong gust of wind sends a branch of the mistletoe flying. It lands in the snow a few feet ahead of them. “Some cultures saw it as a symbol of fertility. I guess the white berries remind them of—er.”

An awkward beat of silence.

Theo says, “I hope the snow kills us soon.”

Liam’s face burns. At least he feels a little less cold now.

He clears his throat. “Anyway… It’s also associated with protection from witches and demons and stuff.”

“I never took you for a mistletoe nerd.”

“I wrote a report about them in freshman bio. It was kind of interesting. Makes it a little less romantic to know they actually kill the trees they grow on.”

“How beautiful,” Theo says flatly. “You’re still a nerd, though.”

“Shut up.” Liam nudges his shoulder against Theo’s. The corner of Theo’s mouth tugs up just slightly.

Liam’s never done it before, kissed someone under the mistletoe. Hayden came and went too quickly for them to ever reach Christmas, and there hasn’t really been anyone since. There was never any time. And, more honestly, no one else has ever made him feel quite the same.

Well. Almost no one else.

But that’s only ever been a passing daydream, one that’s plagued him in random moments. On an elevator ride back down to the first floor of Beacon Hills Memorial. In the passenger seat of a truck. In sparse texts, shared late at night long after pack meetings have ended.

In a snowy forest, surrounded by no one else.

“Hey, Theo,” Liam says.

Theo grunts and turns towards him.

“What?” he says.

Liam presses their lips together. Theo stops breathing.

A kiss would describe it generously. Liam breathes when it becomes evidently clear that Theo won’t. That’s fine. Taking him by surprise is pretty nice. In any case, the kiss ends almost as soon as it began, and Liam pulls away from the corner of Theo’s mouth. The warmth lingers afterwards.

“W-What the hell was that for?” Theo stammers—Theo, stammering—and brings his hand up over his mouth.

“Mistletoe,” Liam says.

“You—idiot.” Theo brings his other hand up to cover his face, but it’s not enough to hide the red lingering at the tips of his ears. It’s a nice color. “You are so… You…”

“Yeah, you too,” Liam says, not bothering to suppress a grin.

Theo gives him a look through the gaps between his fingers, and Liam expects him to grind out another poorly executed insult when Theo drops his hands, his eyes widening, mouth falling slack.

“What?” Liam says.

Theo just grabs him by the shoulders and tugs him back, further into their little shelter.

“What?” Liam says again, more irately. He turns to look where Theo keeps gaping over Liam’s shoulder.

He finds a great, big ball of blue. Liam’s voice dies in his throat.

His first thought is of ball lightning, something he and Mason had spent one sleepover watching way too many videos of on YouTube. In truth, they didn’t care for the science of it rather than the fact that it looked super fucking cool. Just a sphere of pure energy and light, sweeping through open plains or swathes of sky. This doesn’t feel quite like that, but on the surface it seems the same: crackling, blue-white energy, swirling in a sphere that must be a meter wide, at least. Its core is opaque, like hard ice, and there’s a strange hum about it as it drifts closer to them.

It is frighteningly close. Theo draws an arm out across Liam, pushing him against the rocks at their back. But the sphere doesn’t attack them, doesn’t whip them with a sharp slice of wind like Liam was hit with earlier.

It only drifts over their hiding spot, passing by like an elk through the woods. Calm and constellated with flecks of ice and snow. Something about it feels as old as time itself.

Both of them hold their breaths as it passes. It disappears over them, drifting over the hill. The winds calm. The snowfall begins to diminish until it ceases completely.

It’s quiet.

They stay still for one, two, three heartbeats. Then Theo drops his arm. They both exhale.

“Holy shit,” Liam says, panting like he ran a marathon. “Was that it?”

“No, it was a different big blue ice ball,” Theo says. “Of course that was it.”

“That… was awesome.” Liam crawls out of their shelter to look around for any sign of it. It’s long gone, not even a trail left in its wake.

“I see you’ve already forgiven it for trying to kill you.”

“I don’t want to get thrown through a tree again, but it didn’t attack us this time. We probably spooked it earlier. And look, it stopped the blizzard.”

“You’re way too chipper for seeing something that unreal,” Theo says, following Liam out.

The newly returned sunlight falls over Theo’s shoulders, making him that much easier to see. Theo turns his face up to the sun. His damp hair curls at his temples.

Despite Theo’s griping, Liam can see the wonder in his eyes, the way they glow. He looks alive. Liam thinks about how the blood inside him and the blood inside Theo must be the same, despite everything.

Liam says, “Hey. Thanks.”

Theo frowns. “Why?”

“For saving me earlier.” And the time before that. And the time before that.

Theo scoffs, and where Liam usually sees shutters falling over his face, a mask piecing back together, now he sees a hint of a smile. Something brighter, underneath.

“Whatever,” Theo says, and snatches his beanie off Liam’s head so he can ruffle his hair aggressively.

“Dude!” Liam yelps. 

Theo laughs and whirls away, tearing through the snow in a direction Liam will have to trust is home.

There’s no hesitation at all before Liam chases after him.

--

note: big ice ball inspired by the leschach entite of ffxii. because..... im a nerd :p 

[samingtonwilson]

Apartment 8C - Chapter 4

The First, First Date

SERIES MASTERLIST // PREVIOUS PART

Summary: college au. you and bucky are the closest of friends, the most functional of roommates, and… exes. but just because it didn’t work out romantically doesn’t mean he has to move out! it’s not like he’s so deeply in love that he can barely breathe. totally not in love. at all. not even a little. maybe.

Pairing: bucky x reader

Warnings: LANGUAGE, the use of marijuana/pot/weed/reefer/that loud

A/N: i had a bad thought while writing this chapter and i’m not going to share it with y’all because that might put y’all off this story. actually fuck it, i’ll share the thought. isn’t it so weird how obsessed we all are with love? like these are college students with so much more happening in their lives but they’re sitting around and always talking about love. and a lot of us do that shit too. weirdos. 

There’s a knock at the door and Bucky replies to it with a groan. A loud, I don’t give a fuck if the neighbors hear me kind of groan. 

Slumped on the couch, phone balanced on his stomach and remote control set on his thigh, he very nearly snarls. He doesn’t bother to pick up either electronic as he stands, letting his phone fall face down on the area rug while the remote knocks against its corner with a clang. 

His journey to the door is comprised less of steps and more of a slide, a glide, a bit of a skate. He’s thankful he kept his socks on and unlocks the door, eyes half-lidded and heavy head tilted back. “The delivery instructions said to text and leave the bag at the door, not to knock and make me get up.” 

“That how you talk to delivery people? They should ban your sorry ass from Doordash.” 

He straightens his head and glares at Steve— smirking, smug, smart ass Steve who holds a large brown paper bag in one hand and a six pack in the other. It somehow makes Bucky frown deeper. “You intercepted my delivery?” 

“And brought you beer,” he holds the cardboard case up and shakes it, smiling. 

That smile fades, however, when he pauses in thought for a moment. He frowns then, indignant. Pushes Bucky out of the way to cross the threshold into the apartment. “So, you know, you’re fuckin’ welcome, you ungrateful jerk.” 

A sigh and Bucky shuts the door. He watches as Steve appraises the room and feels no shame at the look of disgust on Steve’s face. Instead, he rolls his eyes when Steve fully faces him. “I don’t want to hear it.” 

“You clean out your fridge? It broken or something?” Steve asks. He sets the bag and beer onto the coffee table, shuts Bucky’s dead laptop that he hasn’t bothered to charge. Steve then places Bucky’s phone and the remote control on the couch and begins to gather the empty take out containers still cool from the refrigerator. 

Bucky grits his teeth at the sight. “Steve, just— What the hell are you doing?” 

“Picking all this shit up so we can eat and watch the game,” there’s a cheerful lilt through his words. He sends a smile Bucky’s way, humor in the blue of his eyes, as he passes to toss the containers into the trash. “Thanks for asking, Buck. What the hell are you doing?”  

“I—” Bucky still stands by the door. His arms are crossed over his chest, his brow furrowed in incredulity when Steve crosses to the couch once more and falls into the cushions with a sigh of relief. “Steve, I’m not in the mood today, man.” 

“In the mood for what?” The volume of the television is turned up, Steve hugs the elephant cushion to his chest. “You were gonna watch the game anyway, so was I. Might as well do that in the same place and eat a li’l somethin’ while we’re at it.” 

Bucky’s sigh is one of defeat. He takes steps back to the couch rather than skating over, and sits beside Steve with a mumbled, “I didn’t order anything with your fat head in mind.” 

Steve leans forward to pull the bag open, paper crinkling as he pulls a sandwich from the depths. He tosses what remains in the bag onto Bucky’s lap. “Stopped at a deli on the way here. Don’t know what the fuck you’re eating but it smelled like dog shit.” 

He smiles to himself. Wryly. “What deli you stop at?” 

“Shelsky's.” There’s pride in Steve’s voice. Arrogance in his posture. “I didn’t want to cheap out and settle for something worse.”

“That’s where I ordered from, you fucking snob.” 

“Must’ve ordered something nasty then.” 

A sarcastic hum of agreement and Bucky shakes his head. He narrows his eyes at the television as Steve flips through the channels in an attempt to find something more entertaining than the advertisements currently airing on Fox. “Why’re you really here?” 

“It’s Thursday night,” he replies, using a keychain to pop the cap on a bottle of beer. “Titans are playing the Jags.” 

“You don’t care about either of those teams.” 

Steve drops his smile now. He scowls and settles back on Fox, unsatisfied. “Can’t a guy eat a sandwich, drink a beer, and watch a game with a friend without the third degree?” 

“Couldn’t have done that with Sam?” 

“I do a variation of this with Sam almost every night. Wanted to spend time with you today.” 

“But—” 

“Buck, for shit’s sake, let me be here for you without making us both live through me saying why.” He reaches forward to pull another beer from the carton, placing it in Bucky’s lap, and slouches back against the soft grey velvet. “And if you wanna talk about it, I’m here for that, too.” 

“What’s there to talk about?” Bucky asks, more rhetorical than expecting an answer. 

There’s a pause as Bucky gazes at the television with practiced focus. His arms fold over his chest again. His knee bounces.

“She’s on a date,” he continues after the lull stretches for too long. “She was going to start dating eventually. I’m okay with it. Happy for her. T’Challa’s a good dude. Good looking, good soccer player. Smart. It’s nice. Good for her. I’m happy for her. She deserves someone like him. I’m happy for her. 

“He actually came to the door. Didn’t text her to meet him downstairs, didn’t show up empty-handed. We both know how uncomfortable she is with actual romantic gestures and I guess he knows, too, because he gave her a Ziploc of peaches like she had in class the day they met. It’s nice. He’s a good dude. I’m happy for her.”

Through the thick silence that falls over them, Steve blinks. “Christ, you know you just spoke for a minute straight without taking a breath? I think you said ‘I’m happy for her’ thirteen times.” 

Bucky’s inhale is loud and pointed, his exhale a huff. He’s no longer interested in eating the sandwich he’d ordered, suddenly full from all the leftovers he’d tucked into just minutes ago. All he wants is for Steve to leave. 

Well. That’s not all he wants. 

But it trumps his other desires. Momentarily. 

“I know you’re happy for her,” Steve says as Bucky parts his lips to tell the former off. Bucky shuts his mouth now, though. And just listens as Steve’s voice grows softer, eyes no longer dancing in humor. “But I know you’re fuckin’ miserable, too.” 

He knows there’s no point denying it. No point denying what’s so plainly written across his face. 

But he tries anyway. “M’not miserable. I’m ha—” 

“You can be both.” Steve, unwrapping the parchment from his sandwich, keeps his eyes on the television. “It’s possible to be happy for her but miserable at the idea of it all deep down. S’why I thought you might wanna move out.” 

“She’d still go on dates if I’d moved out.” 

“You wouldn’t have to watch her going on them.”

“I’m okay with her dating.”

“I’m okay with a lotta things, too. Doesn’t mean I wanna see it all happen in front of me.”

Bucky watches as Steve takes an impossibly large bite out of the sandwich, Russian dressing smearing over his lips. “I’ve got a date, too.” 

“Buck,” Steve’s mouth is full. Horribly so. And Bucky scowls at the sound of his thick voice. “This ain’t a date. Don’t know how many times I gotta tell you. I just don’t feel that way about you, man.” 

A sarcastic smile and even more dry laugh. “Shut the fuck up. I’m talking about Connie.” 

Steve scowls as he swallows. “That perky little brunette from the bar?” 

“Perky?” 

“I can just look at her and tell she was on her high school cheerleading squad.” Around another bite, he adds, “Seems nice enough, I guess.” 

“She is nice.” He pauses only to mumble more to himself, “And emotionally available.”

Steve cocks an eyebrow and briefly looks at Bucky in skepticism. “What, you determined that from just a few days of talking?” 

“On the second day she told me she’s liked me since freshman year orientation.” He sighs your name then. Slowly. Laboriously. “She was somethin’ else entirely. You know how long it took her to admit she liked me?” 

Steve nods upwards and flips the channel when the commentators on the pregame show begin to argue. 

“Took her three months after we started dating to admit she liked me. And she never said it again after that.” 

Steve drags the back of his hand over his lips, wiping off a bit of stray dressing. In visible disgust, he wipes his hand on the discarded butcher paper. “Some people show their feelings rather than say them.” 

Bucky seems to smile at that. Unbeknownst to himself, there’s a slow grin spreading over his lips. 

He thinks of instances. Instances when silence would act as a wall but actions a wrecking ball. 

The morning after your third date when you’d tried your best— despite your absolute inability to cook— to make the breakfast he always orders at the diner in Astoria. 

The eggs were runny in places, burnt in others and the bacon was traumatically floppy under a layer of not-even-close-to rendered fat and added oil. You’d apologized as he scrubbed the pan and plates, bright yellow dish rag waving as you insisted repeatedly that you couldn’t live if you’d given the guy you’d only just begun to date salmonella. 

Independence day when you’d Irish-goodbyed from Steve’s birthday party only twenty minutes after arriving to steal away to the rooftop of Mama Wilson’s brownstone in Harlem. 

You’d said something about fireworks and pizza, a six-pack of beer already snagged off the kitchen counter. Played it off as Sam’s idea, his house keys in the pocket of the navy blue bomber jacket you’d “borrowed” from Bucky. Nothing about Bucky’s hatred of parties at the Rogers-Wilson residence, though. Not even a hint until he overheard your apologies to Sam’s mother for the intrusion— an apology you later denied, kissing him silly to make him forget any further questions. 

The week before you’d broken up— a week Bucky remembers less for the distance you’d successfully created— when you sought comfort in him after a long day. 

Your boots had been kicked off by the door, your bag and its contents scattered beside them. You’d tearfully slurred words together, words he barely caught, in explanation. Something about work, and school, and your mother’s unnecessary opinions about your major and future. Something which forced sobs from your chest as you set your head against his. You’d wrapped your arms around him tightly, the two of you huddled together on his worn barcalounger as he stroked your hair and pressed kisses to the crown of your head. 

It’s well after the game has ended— Steve vengefully chowing down on your once-hidden stash of This is for when I have my period chocolate, Bucky barely paying attention to the episode of The Office the two had resorted to watching— when you come home. 

Hair mussed, lips swollen with gloss smudged every which way, you stumble through the doorway with a laughed, “No more rule-breaking on the first date, T’Challa.” 

The door is shut and locked just as T’Challa begins to respond. You spin and press your back to it, still laughing but quietly, more to yourself. You open your mouth to greet Steve and Bucky, both looking at you in either confusion or amusement, but shut it as a knock at the door cuts you off. 

“I’ll call you,” T’Challa promises through the wood. There’s a chuckle laced through his words, a smile in his voice. 

Exaggeratedly, you scoff. Still grinning however. “Who calls?” 

“I do,” he replies without concern that your neighbors may complain about his volume. “And you’re gonna pick up.” 

“Oh, am I?” 

“Yeah, you are. ‘Night.”

You don’t respond beyond a hum and stand at the door until you’re sure he’s gone. A nod to yourself and you step away as you remove that navy blue bomber jacket to toss it onto the counter. You also toss a smile over your shoulder to Bucky. “You here just to eat my chocolate, Rogers?” 

“No,” Steve says without a glance in your direction. “I ate your ice cream, too.” 

You shut the freezer. Empty-handed. Frowning. “Your stomach’s just a bottomless pit, huh?” 

“I’m a growing boy.” 

“Have I told you how uncomfortable it makes me when you call your grown-ass self a boy?” you remark, settling for a bottle of water from the refrigerator. You pause before shutting the heavy steel door. “You clear out all the leftovers, too?” 

Steve peers at Bucky, the latter stuck in a thoughtful, sad stare, and nods. “Yeah. We’re all out of food at my place and I don’t get paid ‘til tomorrow night.” 

You’re frowning in consideration as you walk to the barcalounger and fall into it sideways, legs swung over the opposite armrest you’ve set your back against. “Fair enough. How was your day, Buck?” 

The question breaks him from whatever daze he’d fallen into and he blinks. Averts a steady gaze when you shift a bit to look at him. “The Jags won.” 

You smile. It’s warm, a little honeyed. “Is that good or bad?” 

“Neutral.” He can’t help but smile himself. It doesn’t even falter as he asks, “How was your date?”

A shrug. Your eyes narrow at Michael Scott as he attempts to toss pizza dough. “T’Challa got a large popcorn at the movies.” 

“Damn, he’s got money.” 

You laugh, startled. Bucky grins when you do, too. “That’s what I said! I also beat your high score at pinball in the theater arcade.” 

“Went on a date with a guy who’s got money, beat my pinball score. You’ve just had a magical day, haven’t you?” 

There’s a softness and affection in the way Bucky speaks and looks at you, your responding giggles just as sweet. Steve, sitting between the two of you, almost feels as if he’s intruding on something, an empathetic ache in his chest as he watches. “Explain the pinball thing.” 

“Bucky and I went to the movies last month and fucked around the arcade while waiting for our showtime. And he got so competitive.” You roll your eyes at the memory. “We ended up missing the movie because he was determined to beat the high score this poor kid had just set when we got there. Took him hours and, like, forty bucks in tokens.” 

“It didn’t take me hours.” 

“We got there in the afternoon and by the time we left, the employees were cleaning the popcorn machines,” your expression and tone leave no room for argument. “Only took me two hours.” 

Steve looks between you two, fighting the urge to scoff at the satisfaction in your eyes and the combination of annoyance and so much adoration in Bucky’s. “Two hours? You miss the movie again?” 

“No, I snuck out before the movie ended. Said I had to pee and went straight to the machine so none of the kids in our auditorium could take it before I got there.” You ignore Steve’s disappointed gaze. “T’Challa was confused and probably unhappy I made him sit there for so long while I played.”

“Probably unhappy?” 

“I didn’t ask.” A nonchalant shrug and you flash them a knowing smile. “Beating Bucky’s score was my priority so I could come in here and casually mention it like I’m not bragging only to bring it up everyday for the rest of his life.” 

Your eyes meet Bucky’s and, at the look you’re giving him, Bucky has to remind himself that the two of you are no longer in a relationship and he can’t just kiss the arrogance away. “Sucker.”

—

It’s a makeup caboodle. 

Pale pink and lime green. A tropical flower sticker pasted to the clasp. There’s a ribbon tied to the handle— deep magenta velvet in a neat bow. 

It’s unassuming. A little innocent looking. Like it should belong to a seventh grader in the nineties just learning how to use glitter eyeshadow and lip balm palettes. 

It’s when you pop it open, the mirror attachment springing up only to reflect Wanda’s skeptical features, that the pungent smell permeates throughout the kitchen and small living room. Skunky, but a little floral. 

A speckled glass pipe, multicolored glaze splattered over a white base, sits in the top compartment alongside a few toothpicks and a package of rolling papers. In the compartment directly below rests a round steel grinder, three-tiered and emblazoned with the engravement of a manufacturer’s name. 

The biggest compartment holds many small glass jars. Tiny mason jars you’d bought at a flea market. All different colors, all labeled with white circular stickers. 

Wanda sits up in her stool at the sight, pulls the caboodle toward herself and sifts through the jars. She removes three of the jars and looks at you with widened eyes. “You’re insane.” 

You shrug and take the grinder when she hands it to you. “I like being organized.” 

“You should see her room,” Bucky says as he shuts his bedroom door behind him, shoes in hand. He smiles at the two of you, beard freshly trimmed to just barely above stubble and eyes a bright blue. “Most organized mess I’ve ever seen.”

You nod, tearing a bit of the sour diesel bud apart to place carefully between the metal teeth in the topmost chamber. You smile at her from your spot atop the counter, legs folded and back pressed against the shelves behind you. “There’s a method to my madness, Wan. Hand me a toothpick.” 

She complies and removes a blue jar without a label. “What’s in this one?” 

“Blue dream. Jar’s blue and I ran out of stickers.” There’s a click as the lid is magnetically snapped back onto the grinder. You twist it to the left twice, then to the right once. “You picking her up or meeting her there?” 

Bucky, leant against the wall as he slips his shoes on, looks up. “What says ‘This is a real date, not a hookup’?” 

“Going to dinner and not having sex after.” 

He replies with a dry laugh and narrowed eyes. “Which of the two options— picking her up or meeting there— says that?” 

“Picking her up.” You tear the stem off the bottom of the bud and place it as a barrier over the hole in the pipe’s bowl. “Might be too late to tell her that now, though.” 

“Already told her I’d pick her up. I was just making sure I did the right thing.” You see his lips spread into a self-satisfied smirk when you finish filling the bowl. “Looks like I did.” 

You smile back, though sarcastically. “Girls like a little humility in the guys they date, you know.” 

“She’s liked me for three years now,” he says. He pulls on a jacket and pats every pocket on him to make sure he’s got his wallet and keys. “She knows what she’s herself getting into.” 

“Bucky, baby, I live with you and I had no idea what I was getting myself into.” 

Wanda snorts a laugh at that, taking the pipe and a bright pink lighter from you. 

Bucky’s eyes fall into a glare. “So normal first dates don’t end in sex?” 

“No, they don’t. Most people actually wait until after the third date. It’s, like, in the dating manual for successful relationships.” 

“Huh,” he breathes. He takes his phone when you remove it from the charger to pass it to him, smiling up at you. “Looks like we were doomed from the start.”

“Maybe.” You watch as Wanda exhales a steady stream of opaque smoke punctuated by a soft cough. You slide her bottle of water to her. “Or maybe we’re the exception to the rule. Apart, we should follow normal date conventions. But together, we were too hot to wait that long.” 

Wanda hands you the pipe and lighter. “What happened to humility?” 

Before sparking the lighter, you answer, “I’m not dating a girl.” 

Your next inhale, once you’ve adequately charred the top layer of pot, burns in your throat and you hold it in your chest. You smile at Bucky when he shoots you a sly grin, lips in a cirlce as you exhale. “Have fun. Don’t order the tiramisu. They skimp on the espresso.” 

He nods once and straightens his jacket. You watch as he unlocks the door, opens it, and steps through with a simple wave. Your eyes remain on the door even after it shuts. 

It isn’t until Wanda’s fingers brush yours that you break your stare. “What?” the question is nearly barked when she offers you a look of something eerily similar pity. 

“Nothing! You just— You look a little lovelorn.”

Your features crumple. “Ew. No, I don’t. I look amazing, you look lovelorn.” 

“Okay, Queen of the land Defensiva,” she mutters once she’s exhaled. “I’m just saying. You were staring at that door like you want to take it home to meet your mother.” 

“Maybe I do. It’s a nice color. I picked the yellow out myself.” 

“Nat told me about that night at the bar. About how Bucky flirted with that Connie chick right in front of you.” She watches as you take a hit and your head lolls back against the shelves. “That must have sucked.” 

“It did.” You trace the bumps on the ceiling and sigh. “But it’s okay. Larger picture, broad scheme of things. It’s okay.” 

“What’s that mean?” 

A shrug. You take a sip from your own bottle of water. “We’re both okay. We’re both moving on, we’re still able to be friends and roommates. I can sit here and watch him go on dates with her if that’s what it takes. A little pain for the larger cause.” 

There’s a beat of silence as Wanda takes a long drag. You break it as you muse, “Do we talk about this shit too much?” 

“Yeah, maybe. Should we order a pizza?” 

--

CHAPTER 5: ARE YOU OVERCOMPENSATING?

[mychemicalxmen]

The Umbrella Academy College Theatre Kid AU Plot

Alright bitches, ask and ye shall receive. 

Here’s the 6k summary of this ten-chapter monstrosity I almost wrote a year ago and just now attempted to flesh out.

Canon divergence from the point of their birth onward. The Commission doesn’t exist here, it would just make everything a little too complicated. No Luther/Allison either, personal preference. If anyone would want to try writing or drawing a scene from this universe, I would be over the heckin moon, please feel free to do w/e if any part of this inspires anyone. And if anyone just wants to shoot hc, pop off!

But yeah. This is a crack concept treated dead seriously. Buckle up.

Chapter One - “Overture”

-I wrote this chapter, but it’s Really Not Good. I had just watched the show and hadn’t written fic in a Hot Minute.

-Welcome to Umbrella University, a top-tier school with a sacrilegiously large budget for the fine arts!

-They’re all freshman atm.

-Basically, all of our kiddos (except Five, we’ll get there) are cleaning the theater between shows in the fall season. Allison is acting House Crew Chief and is overseeing the whole thing. The others are on House Crew for various reasons - tech class credit, volunteer hours, etc. No one is actually studying theatre for their major except Allison, who’s double-majoring in acting and something else

-They’re essentially strangers (except Ben and Klaus, who are assigned roommates). They’re all aware of their own powers, but not any of the others’.

-As they clean, the host on the radio is going on about the one-year anniversary of his favorite “Hargreeves Five” (the current Academy, made up of different kids from the 43, and definitely not based on the ASBO Five) battle, apprehending a robber named Erick Webber in New York City. He was a starving actor who stole from large donation funds that were supposed to be distributed to other starving artists. The battle got violent, and fire got involved. What a spectacle!

-Vanya, who has accidentally skipped her meds that day, sees a rat and screams, prompting Luther to drop the lighting equipment he’s working on. Loud sound. Telekinetic energy starts going.

-There is a comically convenient chain reaction in which all of the siblings’ powers are triggered at once - Diego throws something, Klaus levitates, the Horror has to hold up the light rig, Allison has to rumor to memory-wipe the witnesses, etc.

-Once they have the situation under control, they realize it’s… weird. The odds are absolutely astronomical. How the hell did they all end up in the same place??

-There’s no reason to believe anyone brought them together on purpose, except maybe fate, or whatever Mysterious Space Magic caused their birth in the first place. They have a private House Crew meeting with a lot of freaking out and questions and bonding.

Chapter Two - “God I Hope I Get It”

-Fast forward to junior year. Since that fateful day, the theater has become the siblings’ home base. Luther is the shop foreman this year, Allison is seated at the right hand of the theatre department director (a sharp middle-aged woman who directs half of the shows), Diego knows his way around lights, and Klaus frequently builds and paints in the scene shop. Allison’s the only one of them who actually performs.

-The fall season includes Hair and Othello, and the joint audition for both is quickly approaching.

-Vanya, however, has been drifting away from it all for some reason. Allison finds her in the quad one day and encourages her to audition for Othello. Apparently, the theatre director has observed Vanya’s love of reading plays from afar and asked for her specifically. Vanya doesn’t want to go anywhere near the theater, but she’s touched by Allison’s belief in her and reluctantly says she’ll think about it.

-Diego is going through his classes and can’t help but feel like there’s this one freshman that’s just… following him. Looking at him funny. Keeps showing up in all his usual spots. Must be one of those obnoxious wiz kids - there’s no way in hell that he’s eighteen years old.

-Vanya has a monologue in her back pocket, her favorite from Winter’s Tale, ready to go. But when the day of the audition comes, she walks into the theater for the first time in months, and she breaks down and runs to the bathroom. Allison is too busy helping the director to console her, so she sends Klaus to check on her.

-Klaus talks to her through the door and tries to hype her up for the audition. Ghost!Ben tells him to reel it in.

-Vanya eventually admits that she drifted away from the theater because it was always a special place for the six of them, but after Ben died in a car crash in sophomore year, thinking about it just broke her heart all over again.

-Klaus doesn’t quite have the tact of language to bring her comfort, but Ben does. Without revealing he can see Ben, Klaus just echoes his words. Saying that Ben would still want her to be happy here. Saying that it’s okay to take time to work through all those feelings. He stays there until Vanya’s calm enough to come out of the bathroom, hug him for a really long time, and then go into her audition.

-The cast lists go out, and all the siblings run to see the one for Othello. Allison is the stage manager, to the surprise of no one, and has already seen that she’ll be playing Dionne in Hair. The headmaster’s kid (who I never gave a name, so let’s just call him Ollie) is playing Othello, some guy named Leonard is playing Roderigo, and Vanya is playing Desdemona. While they’re leaving to celebrate, Diego sees The Weird Freshman sign his initial on the cast list, confirming his role. He takes a peek at it later and wonders how this five-foot-six gremlin was cast as Iago, and what kind of a name is Five, anyway?

Chapter Three - “Good Morning Starshine”

-Production on Hair has begun.

-Diego is still a vigilante, but like, specifically for the college’s organization for fighting sexual harassment. Make no mistake, he is not endorsed by the club in any way, shape, or form. But when fellow criminal justice major Eudora Patch gets catcalled on a late night walk home from the library, a fraternity douchebag gets his hoodie pinned to the wall with a knife and receives an extremely harsh talking-to.

-Eudora just sighs into the darkness like “Diego was that really necessary” and keeps walking and Diego runs up to meet her like “yes??”

-Insert exposition here about how they’re exes but there’s still that Tension and fond bickering from the show. Eudora thinks he should get involved in other things on campus, but he immediately rejects it. No. Nope. Nothing else going on. Just lights. And Batman.

-Luther and Allison often hang out in one of the hallways of the theater for lunch. Allison complains that she’s in charge of a lot of little projects in the program, and it’s hard to get people to listen to her. Luther complains that Diego hasn’t been showing up to help in the shop lately. Even though Diego’s not officially on set crew, it’s a little suspicious that he hasn’t been around.

-The mainstage theater has been going through a very fancy refurbishment, and a new chandelier just came in. How the department has the money for a chandelier, no one has any idea. There’s an inside joke that the theatre director must be having a scandalous lesbian affair with the headmaster.

-After a while, Luther enlists Klaus to help him to figure out what Diego’s hiding. With their single shared braincell, it takes them a little too long to realize that Diego’s name is on the Hair cast list. But that can’t possibly be right.

-Luther and Klaus sneak into the blackbox (a smaller, more intimate theater) in the middle of a Hair rehearsal and, sure enough, holy shit, Diego is actually onstage as one of the tribe people, lowkey having the time of his life.

-Enter UT Dallas transfer David Katz in the role of Claude. And it’s just. On sight. Klaus is down for the goddamn count.

-“Who is that??” “I know, right? Like, that’s our brother.” “No, no, not him. The really pretty one.”

-At the end of whatever song they’re doing, Diego locks eyes with Luther and almost dies of embarrassment right then and there.

-Cue big long childish argument of “why didn’t you tell us you had any interest in being in the musical?” and “I didn’t know I had any interest either oKAY you weren’t supposed to find out” “how wouldn’t we have found out you IDIOT we LIVE HERE.”

-At the end of rehearsal, Diego is feeling entirely beaten down. As is Allison, up to her eyeballs in responsibility. They sit on the loading dock and Diego admits he didn't want to make a big deal out of the fact that he was in Hair. But he’s actually really digging the songs and the messages and the comradery. Even though musical theatre is dumb. Allison assures him it’s nothing to be embarrassed about.

Chapter Four - “What’s the Buzz?”

-Production on Othello has begun.

-Fluffy opening that’s just a montage of Disaster Klaus repeatedly trying to justify sitting in on Hair rehearsal. “Sure, Allison, let me cut out those gels.” “Sure, Dance Captain, I can record the choreography.” “Shut up, Ben, I’m just really into American military history.”

-Meanwhile he’s just…… watching the show, listening to Dave sing, waiting for the right moment to strike up a Totally Casual Conversation with him.

-And it happens! Eventually.

-Diego meets Eudora on the loading dock and comes clean to her about the fact that he’s in the musical. Eudora is shocked and amused and teases him a little for it, but she’s ultimately supportive. And endeared. Cute bickering.

-When she leaves for her next class, Five is six feet away sipping coffee like “Oh, you’re both the same major? Aww that’s adorable.”

-Diego finally confronts him and asks him what his deal is and Five says something cryptic about “Reggie’s bastards”. Diego grabs him by the arm and drags him to the empty dressing room and interrogates him on everything he knows.

-Five is somewhere in his thirties, he can teleport, his body’s been screwed up by time travel complications, he knows about all the others, and he’s “played a game of hopscotch with an unsympathetic god”. When asked why he came back to this time in particular, he dodges the question with some snarky reply of how he’s not sure he made the right call.

-They decide not to tell everyone else all at once, until they hear faint movement. They find Klaus buried under a throw blanket on The Couch that every theater has, a little stoned, stirring from a midday dressing room nap.

-”I’m a BOY in LOVE, leave me aLONE.”

Chapter Five - “No One is Alone”

-Once again, Allison is overwhelmed. She had rumored her way into the double major when she didn’t actually have the high school credits necessary to graduate on time, but since meeting the other siblings, she’d sworn off using her power. If she was caught, it could start a breadcrumb trail to the others and expose all of them. And like, they just want to get out of here with their degrees, man.

-The theatre department director has had to assign her the most incompetent freshmen in the world to manage with assorted housekeeping tasks. They have an attitude, they don’t know how anything works, and Allison simply doesn’t have the time to lead them. She comes to the theatre director to explain this.

-And for the first time in a long while, the director expresses sternness to her. And it hurts.

-”Come on, Allison, we both know you’re good with people. You can be very persuasive when you want to be. You will work this out.”

-It’s very pointed. She will work this out. There is no other option.

-And. Not to be self-centered, but the spring musical is going to be Cabaret, and Allison has been convinced she had Sally Bowles in the bag. But if she gets on the director’s bad side halfway through junior year…

-It’s a particularly tense day, ten minutes before she has to sign in for Hair rehearsal. Some poor freshman is organizing the costume closet and just doesn’t get it and doesn’t want to be here and the director demands that this is done by the end of the day.

-So. It’s just one. It’s no big deal. She just heard the oddest little rumor that the student could make the closet perfectly tidy within the hour.

-Five and Vanya are at rehearsal for Othello. Now that he’s actually talked to Diego and Klaus, he feels a little more at ease being in this place and time. The two have plenty of time to chat while on breaks. And because Vanya is such a chill, calming force compared to the stubborn and impulsive Diego, it goes a lot smoother.

-Neither of them can stand Ollie, the headmasters’ pretentious son who’s playing Othello, going on and on about his actor step-brother in New York. Whatever. He likes to creep around the scene shop, too. Like he’s judging the tech. I’d like to see YOU pick up a drill, sir.

-He’s also really close to the theatre director. No one’s ever heard them interact, but they’ve sure seen them together. And he’s not even putting in all the hours for her that Allison is.

-Vanya and Five probably get coffee before rehearsal. Run lines. Five rambles about the flaws in Shakespeare’s philosophies over an americano. And they eventually tell each other their stories.

-Pogo had gone with Sir Reginald to examine the children and their potential prior to adoption. Reginald’s technology sensed great power in Vanya, even as an infant. After Vanya’s mother refused to sell, Pogo went behind Reginald’s back and made contact with the mother, advising her on how to suppress Vanya’s powers (but not emotions) with medication whenever they couldn’t be internally controlled. Vanya was good at self-control for much of her childhood, but the adjustment to college and grief of losing Ben put her back in a risky zone, so she’s been leaning a little more heavily on her medicine these days. She knows the adrenaline she gets onstage is good and natural, but it makes her nervous about forgetting a dose again.

-Five’s mother was quite a character. The name came from the fact that, during birth, Five first hit the air at exactly 12:00:05.

-Five had practiced his time jumps all through his childhood. (With none of the spite and rush he had in canon, he had no need to leap years right away, so he took it slow.) Sometimes he would get stuck in a place for a while, but his mom was cool and understood this. He would adapt to the new environment, anywhere between hours and weeks, and jump right back when he got enough rest to use his power again. There were some bugs, some problems with exact accuracy of destination, but he was always working on it. He was very lonely, though, never getting to meet with any of the other 43 and being discouraged from doing so by his mother.

-There was a portion of the future he got stuck in as a teenager in which the nation was governed by a tyrannical organization called “The Macbeth Enterprise”.

-Vanya immediately tries to shush him at this point in the story because he said the Bad Theatre Word. The director is very superstitious. She takes it deadly seriously and has threatened to actually penalty anyone who says it in the theater. Five just chuckles.

-And luckily, they’re rehearsing in the blackbox today, so even if the director could hear, it’s not “in the theater”.

-The future he saw was a century ahead of them, far beyond their lifetime. He was able to glean a little information about the origins of the Enterprise, but he shares none of this with Vanya. Firstly, those in power had high-tech augmentation that gave them a perfect replica of the kind of superpowers the 43 had - mind manipulation, immortality, etc. And secondly, they were credited with destroying the Hargreeves Five. As if the Hargreeves Five were a danger to society.

-What he does tell Vanya is that he’d never made any attempt to change the timeline before, but that’s just what he decided to do. With what little information he had, the only thing he could think of was to ruin the Enterprise’s namesake.

-Five spent literal years of his life, traveling from city to city across centuries, dooming various productions of Macbeth with Commission-level pragmatism until the name of the play itself became the taboo we know irl today.

-Vanya’s laughing. Five is too, honestly. It’s crazy.

-But he didn’t do what he did out of a ridiculous dare to himself. He did it out of desperation to not only to save the country, but to save his family as well. The family he’d never known. The kids all across the globe who went through the same strange hell of differentness that he had since birth. The Hargreeves Five, of course, needed to survive, as they’re responsible for maintaining peace on earth anyway. But if the Hargreeves Five were hunted down, why would the Enterprise stop there? Wouldn’t all 43 of them be in danger? Would all their gifts be harvested from them, and would they then be thrown away?

-But who knows if Five actually made a difference? He prays that it did. But the years of isolation in his personal mission convinced him of one thing - he should know his family. He had no idea when the country would start falling to shit - if it still would - but he could keep an eye on it alongside people who understood him. And with his foresight, maybe they could rise against the evil together.

-And maybe he was just so tired of being alone.

-So, digging was done through the Internet and several libraries in several eras. He found his insertion point at the University. He knew he’d have to look a little younger to fit in.

-But naturally, he got some equations wrong.

-Eventually, Five is formally introduced to Luther and Allison, who welcome him with slight skepticism, followed by a strong bear hug. Five’s not sure how to take the physical affection. He nods, which is a completely normal response to a hug, wraps his arms back around them, and tries to keep his eyes from leaking.

Chapter Six - “Whispering”

-It’s tech week of Hair, and because he’s been blowing his voice out in rehearsal from underdeveloped technique, Diego is on vocal rest.

-Most of this chapter is Diego Is On Vocal Rest and Everyone Gives Him Shit About It in a Loving Way.

-“Everyone” includes Eudora. She just bought her tickets for opening night.

-One early afternoon, Luther and Klaus are back in the scene shop together - Luther’s moving some lumber around and Klaus is carefully painting a setting onto a flat - and Luther vents that he’s not looking forward to running spotlight on Othello. He knows he can do it, but he wishes the theatre director would trust him with more authority and let him be Technical Director.

-Ben is eternally rolling his eyes and bitching about how entitled Luther sounds. He’s already the goddamn shop foreman. Klaus tries not to laugh at how annoyed Ben is about this.

-“But Diego could totally go back to lights for Othello! Hair will be over by then! He’s the pro! If I were TD I’d put him back on in an instant!”

-Dave wanders into the shop and says “hey” and Klaus nearly drops his wet paint brush onto the floor.

-After the brief succession of clumsy attempts Klaus had made to connect with Dave, Dave is actually bothering to return the effort.

-Luther is oblivious as hell while he’s toting the lumber around just like “Oh hi! Welcome! You’re new right? I’m Luther. I’m the shop foreman. You ever been on a tech crew before?” and this whole cringey spiel of small talk he usually gives to new students.

-About a minute into the small talk Luther finally sees how awkward Dave feels and how tense Klaus looks and he’s just like ohhhhh.

-He moves his task about eight feet further away to give them some space to talk. Even though that’s definitely not where the lumber is supposed to go. He just doesn’t want to make it weirder.

-Anyway. Insert fluff that isn’t obscenely flirtatious but is like… flirting with flirtatious.

-Later on that day, Leonard is tapped by the headmaster to join Student Government. Must’ve been one hell of a GPA. The new commitment forces him to give up the part of Roderigo in Othello.

-Leonard tells Allison this. Shit. Just what she needed today. She turns to her assistant stage manager and murmurs, shrugging off the guilt as she says it: “I heard a rumor you broke the news to our director as gently as possible.”

-After an eternity of assembling, dusting, and re-dusting, the Umbrella University theater chandelier is finally risen, ready for the first show of the season.

Chapter Seven - “The Life of the Party”

-After a hurried round of reviewing the audition tapes from the beginning of the year, Dave has been cast to fill the part of Roderigo.

-The technical director of Othello quit. No one’s really sure why. He was solid. But Luther’s been asked to step up, and he’s been trusted to pick anyone he wants to fill his previous spot on lights.

-Cue super petty conversation about how they both know Diego’s bomb at lights but they still annoy each other just by existing. Nonetheless, Diego agrees to hop onto Othello crew.

-Guess what, y’all, it’s opening night of Hair.

-Hard cut to Eudora, Luther, and Klaus, standing awkwardly together in the theater lobby, holding bouquets of various sizes and colors, convincing themselves that it’s a totally platonic gift to give to an actor.

-The show goes great. At the end of opening weekend, the cast and crew and friends go out to celebrate at the local bar and grill.

-At some point, the drinks are on Ollie, and everyone knows he and his mom are loaded. So. More drinks are had than ought to be had.

-ESPECIALLY by Five. He starts rambling about this girl named Delores in his quantum physics class and how he’s not sure if he’s allowed to find her attractive because of how complicated his age is.

-Vanya needed to get drunk. She deserved it. Now she’s yelling about this girl named Sissy in her chamber orchestra. What is happening.

-I’m not saying that Klaus and Dave had their first kiss while buzzed and behind the TUA equivalent of an Applebee’s, but I’m not not saying it.

-Luther has like two beers and starts getting emotional about how pretty the moon is.

-In classes the next morning, everyone’s hungover as shit.

-Except Allison, who was the extra careful Mom Friend and made sure her siblings made it home safe.

-Except Klaus. Who. Y’know. Didn’t really make it home. Ben goes to his 8 AM and takes Ghost Notes for him.

-Sometime that week, Luther comes into the director’s office with a question and sees her finishing a phone call, looking distraught.

-He asks if she’s okay. She doesn’t want to explain, but it eventually comes out that her son was in an accident of sorts three years ago. It’s almost the anniversary. He just got another treatment for the burn scars across half of his face. The director is still grieving the fact that it’s highly unlikely he’ll find success in his dream to be a Broadway actor.

-Luther warns Allison that the director might be in a worse mood this week. So that’s great.

-At an Othello rehearsal, Allison is calling cues from her promptbook. She pretty much has them memorized. But apparently, as the theatre director tells her, she keeps getting them wrong today?

-Allison could swear that last time she was at rehearsal, her book was different. What she’s reading is unfamiliar - lefts instead of rights, blue-outs instead of black-outs, etc. So she’s stumbling.

-On break, the theatre director expresses her frustration to Allison. We’re almost in tech week, for God’s sake. Allison apologizes and promises it won’t happen in the run.

-Allison blames her screw-ups on the stress of her overcommitments. Vanya sees she’s a little upset after the exchange and invites her to hang with her and Five after rehearsal.

-Vanya and Five have actually opened a pretty decent dialogue on mental health as it relates to their abilities, with Five’s powers damaging his psychological state and Vanya’s mood being an element of her telekinesis. Vanya reminds Allison that she’s got a lot on her plate, so she should try to take it easy where she can.

-Vanya still has anxiety, and it tends to flare at the part in the play where Othello smothers Desdemona with a pillow. They had worked out a safe plan in rehearsal. The pillow is thin and held at an angle so Vanya can still breathe, and it is only going to be held for a count of twelve. No longer, no shorter.

-Vanya and her siblings also take some more time to bitch about Ollie, too. Did you hear him accidentally call the director “mom” the other day? How embarrassing. What a dork.

-Hair closes and Othello tech week begins.

-A new batch of freshman House Crew members are cleaning up the theater one day with the radio on.

-It’s now the three year anniversary of the host’s favorite Hargreeves Five battle, a showdown against aspiring actor and convicted robber Erick Webber that went up in flames.

Chapter Eight - “Brush Up Your Shakespeare”

-The twelve-hour cue-to-cue tech rehearsal for Othello is a nightmare. But aren’t all cue-to-cues nightmares?

-They are.

-There might be some fluffy sibling stuff here, but nothing important. Luther, Diego, and Allison are speaking on headset with each other (“on com”). The channel also includes the assistant stage manager and assistant tech director.

-About five hours in, Luther and Diego get real sick of each other. Luther is redundant with his directions. Diego knows what to do. Diego keeps jumping the gun on cues. Passive aggression ensues.

-Allison has had it up to HERE and says “Look, if you’re gonna be children, can you please do it on a different channel?”

-And they do. They dedicate a whole other radio channel to Luther and Diego arguing where the rest of the crew can’t hear it.

-It’s during the cue-to-cue that Allison screws up the calls one too many times - is someone editing her promptbook when she’s not around? - and gets one more comment from the director. It’s worded like encouragement but spoken like a threat.

-“Allison, you were doing so well with the freshman. Just tell yourself you can do this. You’ll be perfect.”

-At lunch break, she wants to collapse. She goes to the bathroom, locks the door, and looks into the mirror.

-“I heard a rumor that you followed that promptbook perfectly.”

-The day after cue-to-cue, Vanya realizes she’s lost her meds. They have to be in the theater somewhere, but she can’t find them. Her siblings assure her that being in the show has improved her overall confidence, and they’ll all come running if she starts to have a meltdown for any reason. She’ll be able to control her emotions until she can get a refill. This warms her lil heart.

-The final dress rehearsals come to pass. Vanya continues to flourish. Five continues to impress and confound. Allison is flawless. Luther and Diego get over themselves. Klaus and Eudora get front row seats for opening night. It’s going to be a packed house. The local news are coming and filming segments to promote the program. As if the program needs any more support. The chandelier still boggles the mind.

-Opening night. The show is going spectacularly until Act V, when Ollie starts pressing the pillow over Vanya’s face.

-This is always the hard part. But it’s just a count of twelve, underscored by two bars of music.

-Until it isn’t. 

-Ollie keeps pressing. This wasn’t what we rehearsed. 

-Allison sees this from the booth and almost feels like they should call a hold, but her rumor kicks in and she can’t help but keep calling the show as normal.

-Vanya starts to hear the music amplified in her ears and starts to lose control of her power.

-Luther and Diego are both in Allison’s headset as the building starts to shake. “Allison, you need to call hold. Right now. Call hold!”

-Panicking, Vanya sends a pulse of energy out, knocking Ollie halfway across the stage, sending the flats crashing down, and shattering a row of stage lights. When she stands up, Ollie is smiling.

-The news crew caught it on tape. The audience is freaking out. Most of them try to flee but are trapped inside at the back of the house.

-Allison’s next call is the newest and strangest unauthorized edit she’s seen in her promptbook. It’s for the wrong play.

-“Spot B to Macbeth.”

-At the first time that its trigger phrase has ever been uttered in the building, the chandelier starts to glow and expand. Then, it drops, lower and lower, until it is right in front of the stage.

-It was never just a chandelier. It’s a piece of extra-terrestrial technology. Standing on the shelf on top of it are the director and the headmaster.

Chapter Nine - “The Point of No Return”

-I don’t know exactly how I’d reveal all of this, but here’s the gist.

-By the way, this is them coming out as extra-as-hell supervillains. So the way this is revealed is probably extra as hell.

-The director’s son is Erick Webber, a starving artist who resorted to a life of crime to pay his bills and got himself tangled with the Hargreeves Five, who are responsible for half of his face burning in the heat of battle.

-The director and the headmaster actually have been romantically involved for a few years, all but legally married.

-When the directors’ son was forever barred from the career of his dreams, the director and very wealthy headmaster first got together. The headmaster got her a job at the school.

-They wanted revenge for their son. But they also deduced that the Hargreeves Five were too immature for their powers and potential to ruin lives. They were just dumb kids. Their powers must be taken from them and placed into more capable hands.

-The couple had done extensive research, learned about the power potential in the 43, tracked down as many of them as they could find - preferably those already living in America - and hired all sorts of people and services to promote Umbrella University to them. They offered each one of them a sizable scholarship.

-They got seven of them.

-And they arranged meetings with characters that Hargreeves had done some shady deals with so they could acquire the otherworldly technology needed to set their plan into motion.

-And Macbeth was the trigger word for the invention - the story of an old celebrated king slain to make room for the rightful leader, as plotted by an empowered and bloodthirsty woman - so they had to put it in a theater. They had to ensure the trigger wasn’t spoken in the room until the correct time.

-Five realizes at this point that the efforts he made to change the past didn’t stop the Macbeth Enterprise, it just gave them a way more convenient origin. God dammit.

-The siblings realize Ollie was in on the whole thing. He had to make sure all seven of the kids were in the theater at the right time, so he snooped around and reported back to the Evil Moms. They let Luther be TD so Diego could cover lights. They cast Five, made Allison recruit Vanya, and made Allison SM. They took out Leonard and cast Dave to ensure Klaus and Ben would be there for opening. Ollie hid Vanya’s pills during the cue-to-cue.

-Allison realizes the director knew about her power all along and really was suggesting that she use it. Allison had done exactly what they wanted her to. They must’ve had someone re-do the promptbook each day and everything.

-The point is, there’s now news footage of a girl with unpredictably dangerous powers ruining a perfectly good school play and two women making a solid case that these children can’t be trusted with their gifts. The chandelier machinery revs up to perform its task - stripping all of their powers away.

-Five knows it won’t end there - the powers will be turned against the Hargreeves Five. Their abilities will be harvested too. And the hands that they’ll all end up in will be military-minded and will seize control of the nation, ruling by fear.

-There’s an extensive fight scene here. One that, again, I have no idea how I would write. It’s something that involves a level of family teamwork that they would not have if the theatre program didn’t bring them so close together in the first place. So it’s pretty ironic and kinda sweet.

-We find out that Dave and Eudora are absolutely ride-or-die for their idiot boyfriends that they just found out have terrifying superpowers, and they each have a moment where they contribute to the takedown.

-Ben is summoned because he legally has to be. The Horror can do some serious damage to the machine, and he finds he’s unaffected by its drainage because he’s dead as hell.

-Vanya grabs a violin from the pit where the underscoring was being played and shreds away at it to channel her power.

-The fight has heavy parallels to the prologue scene, where everyone’s powers went berserk because Vanya saw a rat and freaked out. Except there’s obviously a lot more at stake and a lot more direction in it.

-All of that gets resolved, somehow. Any of their power that gets drained gets returned to them once they get the machine shut down. Luther effortlessly snaps the tape of evidence in half.

-Allison uses her last rumor of junior year to memory-wipe and send away the cameramen and the witnesses.

-Except Eudora and Dave, who are surprisingly chill about this and promise to keep it all secret.

-The gang has no idea how to explain all the damage to the authorities, but the Criminal Justice Duo knows how to detain the bad guys in the costume closet and highlight some evidence to draw the focus to the less-than-legal dealings they made to set up their plot in the first place.

-Corruption? In college administration?? Pssshhh noooooooo never.

-The story embedded in the rumor is that the chandelier overheated and combusted, so everyone ran out. The police will discover the alien tech and go from there.

-Still, the superpower squad realizes they should lay low. Play dumb if interviewed. Skip class for a couple days and stay far away from the theatre department.

-Diego is up on the catwalk - the walkway above the audience where they maneuver the spotlights - collecting his stuff. He hears some footsteps on the ladder and sees Eudora climbing up to meet him.

-Diego starts to say something snarky and casual and Eudora’s like “No. Shut up. Just. Please. Shut up.” and kisses him.

-After weeks of pretending not to care as much as they really did and a solid half hour of having no idea if the other would live or die, here they are, standing over the decimated theater, finally at ease in each other’s arms

Chapter Ten - “Curtain Call”

-And that’s… it. When the siblings start coming back to classes, no one comes after them for whatever happened.

-Needless to say, the rest of the run of Othello has been cancelled. All theatre classes will be moved online or converted to classroom formats until repairs can be made to the building. There’s a new interim headmaster and theatre department director.

-It’s going to take forever for them to fix the damage done to the theater, and even when they do, it doesn’t feel right to keep that as their home base. So, where to now? How are they gonna fill the rest of their electives?

-All of the fine arts buildings are stacked close together. Music major Vanya has an idea.

-Second semester, Diego takes beginning percussion. Luther joins the marching band (and far exceeds the athletic demands for it). Klaus picks guitar back up. Allison ventures into vocal jazz. Five is a natural at composition.

-Sharing practice rooms. Cramming for theory exams. The entire works. They’re music kids now!

-They’re thrilled when they find out that all of their respective ensembles will be featured in the spring concert. 

-But does the conductor of Vanya’s chamber orchestra seem a little… eccentric to you?

...

im a broken woman from this. god dammit.

[bunnykass]

INARIZAKI AS FEELING IVE HAD WITH GUYS IN HIGH SCHOOL

this was supposed to be funny but became very reflective and sorta emotional for me. therapeutic tho😌

TW: mentions of underage n*des, cursing, grammar and spell errors

KITA - the senior in my law class freshman year.

He was country, would wear cowboy boots to class and levi’s (i live in texas). He was a eagle scout. very sweet boy. always brought coffee in those cups to class,and he drove a range rover. i’d share sunflower seeds with him all the time and id make fun of him cause instead of breaking the shell and eating the inside, he’d just eat the shit whole. but like i said he was 18 and I was 14. more of crush we never really did anything, one time though he did argue with me on snapchat about immigration and the annexation of hawaii. He had a brother who was a freshman, and in the beginning of the second seamstress I would flirt with him but again me and never did anything.

OMINI - my freshman english teacher

(tw mentions of sexual assault, grooming, teacher-student relationship)

LMAOO. i had just gotten really into lolita (gross🤮) and so I would literally talk to older guys on the internet (one time i met up with marine even though I was like 15) ANYWAY, so when I started his class i was like damn we about to have a ezra and aria shit. he was super nice to “pretty girls” and “pretty boys” what I mean by that if you weren’t the beauty standard, he was kinda a dick to you. one time he pissed me off though cause he lost a assignment, made me re-do it but only gave me a 70, and i lost interest in him after that. he also accused me of defamation of character because i found his mugshot and was showing everyone.btw he was accused of SEXUAL ASSUALT??? but apparently the mugshot was fake or wasn’t him i don’t remember. he never counted me late or absent tho

ARAN - my best friend

been friends with this kid sense 8th grade. He was in love with this girl though that was leading him on all though out middle school but i really had a crush on him by the time high school started he had gotten over her. when we were freshmen’s he told the whole football team I was a whore cause i wouldn’t send him nudes (i know this sounds bad but i promise it wasn’t plus this was 3-4 years ago) so we didn’t talk to each other till summer going into sophomore year. me and him are still friends and we literally hang out almost every weekend, i love him and he’s loves me. he’s very thing i’d want in a boyfriend but because we’ve been friends for so long doing intimate things with each other like sex seems weird. While we both wish we could be in a relationship we both realstically know it wouldn’t work :(. <3

GINJIMA - my freshmen boyfriend

had fallen in love with me when like school started but like my best friend aran said, i was whoreing’ (not really tho cause i’m still a virgin) so when he asked me to homecoming I was like no. but eventually through out the school year me and him got closer we had like 3 classes together, 2 of them were back to back so we were jus cute like that. my first legit relationship, he was nerdy as hell and the biggest fucking dork. my freshmen year I was what the yt would call a hot cheeto girl and i weighed a lot more back then and he was 6’2-skinny white boy so we fucking looked like glora and melman from madagascar. were like discord moderator and daddy’s kitten shit. he was funny but he was really mean to me and because i was very insecure at the time i lacked setting boundary’s so i’d just take it. he also bought me a roku which i still have today, he was always buying me shit, and i taught him how to take dick pics. he was the first guy that didn’t just like me for my fat tits but i felt like the only way i could keep him around was by oversexualizing myself which ultimate let to him breaking up with me :( honestly no hard feelings though we were both like 15. him an his current girlfriend are so cute, and me and him are cool.

this is a conversation we had a few weeks ago.

SUNA - my yubo boys

my take away from being in highschool is guys do not give a shit about what you look like or how you’re built, unless they’re insecure, and also self-worth. I got on yubo my sophomore year and had it till my junior year. if you don’t know what yubo is its essentially a teen dating app. now i never went to meet these guys irl i have friends who did... and i just want to stay ted bundy would’ve had a field day with these hoes but would engage in online sexting. which ig is illegals cause i was still under 18. at this point in my life i was just so insecure and seeking male validation that i was throwing ass for people over the internet to people i would never meet. this isn’t one person either this is a collective of i don’t even know how many boys. i feel sick thinking about this but i cant take it back and i just have to encourage my sister and potentially future daughters about this.

Miya twins - my tower moments

these two, like the miya twins are very similare but different. I consider them both tower moments because after them two i change completely how i viewed myself and life. if you aren’t familer with tarot the tower card represents sudden and necessary changes usually the situation tends to me negatives and the outcome following is good. these two are also my most recent compared to the other and i’m still dealing with them today which is why i wanted to give a lil intro. idk if yall believe in astrology but those two have gemini in there big 3 and idk i feel like that has a lot to do with our situationship

OSAMU- my theater teachers son

so technically majority of our relationship was middle school but it carried into high school.he was so mean to me up until 8th grade like i said he was my theater teachers son, and he hated her class. at that time his family had so many issues and i think he didn’t have a outlet. my brother had died around the same time so i too was going through shit. while our issues weren’t the same he definitely confined in me a lot and trusted me with so many things, i don’t think a boy/guy ever just laid everything on me like that and it wasn’t in a “be my therapist” kinda way. he fucked up though, we were in musical theater behind the stage in a closet. his mom was just a couple feet away in the audiences teaching class. me and him were talking per usual, and without a warning he put his tongue down in my mouth. and tried putting his hand down my bra. i was so fucking scared i had never been touched like that. it was my first kiss and i didn’t even tell him he could do that to me. i obviously stopped taking to him after that until the summer going into freshman year when we started sending nudes back snd forth. i don’t like to blame people for my problems but i think i began to hyper sexualize myself because of him. when i wouldn’t send him shit he’d block me, ive finally outgrown him as i now my self worth know occasionally i’ll unblock him and hang out with him for fun but it’s nothing serious. he’s stuck on me like tic though and always bring up the fact he kissed me once in 8th grade 🙄

ATSUMU - my “twinflame”

he was a year older then me and i met him on snap chat that should’ve been a red flag. we started by sending nudes but eventually we started to develop feelings however as soon as things got serious he’d pull out. when his relations with other girls wouldn’t work out he’d always come back to me during that time together he’d love bomb me. take me on dates make out with each other in front of hobby lobbies on sunday, my happiness started to depend on if he talked to me or not and this went on forever. by the time quaratine happened he blocked me because he got a girlfriend? idk if that’s why he blocked me but i assumed that eventually he unblocked me because pussy that good. i gave this man so much power over my life that when i took it back i truly learned by self worth. i will never tell this man this but because of all the shit he pulled on me i’m actually confident. i don’t regret meeting him. occasionally he does try to pull his shit on me and i play along with him. i think the reason i can’t let my gemini boys go is because i’m too scared for a relationship but i know that no matter what they’re both their for fun 😌.

[movedto-jewishbucke]

summary: Following a bad breakup and an overdose, TK Strand starts to reevaluate his life with the help of his therapist and he realizes the relationship with his father isn’t healthy… for either of them. Concerned that he might relapse due to his father’s over-involvement in his life and needing a fresh start, he decides to relocate to Austin, TX. author’s note: this is not an anti-Owen Strand blog or fic

updates: every other Tuesday; chapter 2 will be up May 12th tag list [comment or send an ask if you’d like to be added or removed]: @cupidmarwani

available on ao3

Something he likes about his therapist is that she never pressures him to talk if he doesn’t want to. Unfortunately, this means a lot of their sessions consist of them staring at each other, waiting for someone to break the silence - like now. He knows what he wants to say, what he has to say, but he’s scared because voicing it to another person makes it more real and means he actually has to follow through. Right now, he doesn’t know if this is something he actually wants because it’s such a big step, but he knows this is something he needs if he wants to get better.

“I think I need to start over.” He lets out a deep breath, because it’s like a weight has been lifted from his chest. TK slowly shifts his attention from the flower painting hanging behind his therapist’s head to her warm brown eyes.

Is it weird for him to think she seems more motherly than his own mother? Maybe that’s another issue of his that he needs to bring up… with a different therapist.

“Okay.” She nods slowly and adjusts her notebook so it’s balancing on her knee, which gets his anxiety spiking but before he can say something, she starts talking again. “What does starting over look like for you?”

In the two weeks he had been thinking about what he needed, he had never gotten into the planning stages. He knows he needs to start over, but he doesn’t know what that looks like or where to begin.

“I just…” He sighs, tearing his gaze away from her, choosing to look outside at the Manhattan traffic which seems way less chaotic than his life feels. “I love my dad,” he says, still refusing to look at her, “but ever since I overdosed, he has been a lot to deal with.”

That’s not entirely true and TK knows it, so does Dr. Cohen because she’s the one who very gently pointed out that their relationship went beyond a normal father-son bond. Why she would point this out when Owen is paying her bills, he doesn’t know; maybe she pointed it out because she cares more about his well-being than her paycheck.

“I know he loves me and just wants to make sure I’m safe.” But he’s an adult with a career, an apartment, a drug addiction, and a codependent relationship. It’s too much to deal with, and now that he’s aware of their codependency issues it’s a lot harder to ignore all the ways Owen violates his privacy for the sake of “protecting” him.  “Sometimes, he makes me want to relapse.”

At this, he chooses to look over at her to see if she gives a hint as to what she’s thinking or how she feels about him saying he thinks about relapsing because of their relationship, but her expression is blank.

“What does he do?”

What doesn’t he do? He shows up at his apartment uninvited and with no warning, which is bad in and of itself but it’s made worse when TK has a guy over.

“One time, he went through my apartment to make sure I didn’t have drugs.” This had happened about three months ago, after he had overdosed for the first time in years, and at the time he had made excuses for him and downplayed his own feelings. Now, he’s angry at himself because he allowed him to violate his privacy in such a monumental way, and he wishes he had brought it up to Dr. Cohen when it had happened instead of brushing it off as “not a big deal.”

More recently, Owen has shown up at his workplace which would have been fine if he had at least asked or given him a heads up, but he didn’t. “Before my overdose, he would always show up to my work unannounced and it was fine, but now it seems like he’s invading my privacy.” He shrugs slightly and slowly meets her gaze. “Maybe I’m making a big deal out of nothing.”

“What you’ve just told me are very obvious privacy violations,” she says, flashing him a small smile that is gone as quick as it came. “I can’t imagine anyone who would be okay with these things happening to them.”

TK focuses on a stain on the floor, mulling over her words and trying to decide if she’s right about him not overreacting. “I’ve tried talking to him about these things,” he mutters, seemingly to himself because his eyes are still trained on the stain. Is it a coffee stain? He hasn’t ever seen her drink coffee during their sessions though. “He didn't… he told me he was just worried about me and that any parent in his shoes would do the same thing.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have brought this up because it’s draining to think about, let alone talk about, and he’s starting to get the feeling that she might be judging him. He can’t say she would be wrong to judge him; he’s an adult who lacks any sort of independence from his father and sometimes he judges himself for that.

“Your father is very prone to… ignoring boundaries, as we’ve discussed in previous sessions, and that is not your fault.”

She pauses, taking a deep breath and shifting in her seat, and this gets him to look up at her instead of the stain. What kind of stain is it?

“I don’t know your father but I think he sees his actions as normal, healthy behaviors so when you confronted him, suggesting they weren’t, he chose to double down instead of consider the possibility that he has been unintentionally harming you.” She pauses again and he thinks she’s giving him time to process her words, but he’s not quite sure. “I think your father can’t let himself consider that possibility because based on our conversations, he has made keeping you safe and alive his primary purpose in life.”

He wants to object, to point out that Owen is a firefighter and that is his primary purpose in life: to save other people, not his family. But he knows that isn’t true and hasn’t been true since his first overdose eight years ago.

Instead of commenting on Owen’s other behaviors or acknowledging what she said, he chooses to do what he does best when the current topic starts to be too much for him to handle: change topics.

“I just think I need to start over.” He sinks into the plush chair and pops the string of his hoodie into his mouth, which reminds him he should invest in one of those fidget toys he sees his students with so he can stop ruining his $30 hoodies when he gets anxious.

“Why do you think you need to start over?”

Another thing he loves about her is that she handles his topic changes smoothly and doesn’t force him to talk about shit he doesn’t want to; he’s given the freedom to process his problems at his pace, not hers.

“I love this city,” he states, glancing out the window to watch the traffic again. “But if I don’t leave, I don’t think I’ll ever get a shot at being my own person,” he pauses and looks back at her, a frown tugging at his lips when he says, “or recovering.”

Owen is trying his best when it comes to dealing with all of his baggage, he knows this, but it’s too much sometimes and as much as he hates to think it, his dad threatens his recovery more than helps it.

“You said it yourself in our third session,” he starts, leaning toward her, propping his elbows up on his knees, “we’re codependent.” TK pops his hoodie string back in his mouth as he thinks over his next words, trying to figure out what he’s wanting to say. “We need space,” is what he finally comes up with, blurting it out the second it comes to mind.

For a few minutes, the only sound in the room is the ticking of the analog clock that sits on her desk, and he’s not sure if she’s wanting him to say more or she’s trying to figure out what to say. Then, she speaks.

“And you think relocating is the best way for you to get space?” She sounds skeptical which gets his anxiety going and he starts chewing on his string again, worrying that he voiced the wrong solution to his problems and upset her.

Truth be told, he doesn’t know what to do to get out of this rut he feels he’s in, because every decision he comes up with he feels is the wrong one but moving is the one idea that doesn’t seem bad. He wants to scream but he’s not sure how that will help the situation, so he stays quiet until she speaks again.

“Walk me through it, TK. How do you think relocating will help your recovery, your relationship with Owen, and other issues in your life?” She doesn’t sound angry, she sounds like she genuinely wants to understand his thought process, but he still feels like a child who is being forced to explain his decisions so he can understand how idiotic it is.

“I just can’t juggle my job, my recovery, and a dad who is too invested to the point that I want to relapse,” he says, flinching a bit at how loud he spoke. He wants to scream but he’s not sure how that will help anything and it might just make her kick him out, even though they still have thirty minutes left and the session was paid in advance.

“Everywhere I look I’m reminded of what I don’t have, what I lost.” He pulls his foot up into his lap, picking at a chunk of dried dirt on the sole. “When we broke up, I lost my friends because they were his friends first.”

The only friend he has is the fifty-year-old German librarian at his school, but it’s a stretch to call her his friend because he sees her more as a grandmother figure than someone he’s going to watch the 15th installment of Fast & Furious with.

“I love my students.” This year he’s teaching freshman English and they’re not quite as bold in how they address him like his senior class was the year before, but he still enjoys teaching them. He loves hearing their feedback on each unit and their thoughts on how he should make it better for the next class or year and he enjoys reading their essays on the books they’re forced to read because his students are funny and a little mean.

“I love the Jewish bakery on 7th because they make the best bagels and lox.” He has been going to their bakery every morning before school for four years now and he knows the family quite well, but the most they know about him is that his name is TK and he likes sesame seed bagels and iced caramel coffee. It’s weird, because he knows their only daughter died in a car accident three years ago and they’re raising their 9-year-old grandson, and that Mr. Goldstein went into remission three weeks ago. It’s not because they haven’t tried to get to know him, though. They have, but he has shut them out because he doesn’t want them to get too close or they might realize he’s a fuck up.

“I love my Iranian neighbor.” She was the first one to welcome him with a plate of an Iranian dish he can’t remember the name of and a warm hug when he moved into the apartment complex. When he realized she was alone he started visiting her. Every Saturday, they go to the park to watch the birds then they stop by the market so she can stock up on groceries. She teaches him her family recipes and her language, and in exchange he offers her his company which he knows she appreciates because of the way her face lights up when she sees him. No one has visited her in five years and his heart aches to think that she will be alone if he leaves.

He sighs, flopping back in the chair and focusing his attention on a crack in the ceiling. “I can’t go to the Italian restaurant on 4th anymore because that’s where I proposed.” It’s not like he’s banned from the restaurant, he just feels like throwing up every time he passes by the storefront because he’s reminded of the worst and most embarrassing moment of his life.

It’s not just the restaurant, though.

It’s the spin cycle place where Alex used to go and where he met the love of his life; it’s the Mediterranean place they’d eat lunch at on Tuesday; it’s the bookstore on 4th where they met; it’s his own apartment where they would steal kisses in the kitchen as they danced around each other trying to get dinner prepared, or the bedroom where Alex would spoon him while they watched old horror movies.

If it’s not reminders of Alex and the life they could’ve had if he hadn’t cheated, it’s reminders of his failed overdose and everything he has lost because of it.

“My job doesn’t know I’m an addict.” But they do know he isn’t a good fit for the school and isn’t able to perform his duties effectively anymore, so he’ll be out of a job at the end of the academic year. He can’t blame that entirely on his addiction though; the school has been looking for a reason to fire him since his first year when parents complained about him being openly gay. Unfortunately, he gave them the reason they had been looking for because after his overdose his job performance tanked to the point that his students were behind the rest of their grade and parents were, once again, complaining about him. (But at least this time it wasn’t about his sexuality.)

“I need to get out of here,” he whispers, closing his eyes and folding his hands across his stomach. “I need to start over somewhere new, somewhere I can be independent, somewhere I can focus on my recovery, somewhere I can… I don’t know.”

He just needs a fresh start in a new city where no one knows his name or his grocery list of fuck ups.

[okietrish]

I’m Glad You’re Here.

Warning: This baby includes talk about self harm and suicide. Please read at your own risk.

Pairing: Jake Kiszka x reader

Word Count:  2990

A/N: If you are experiencing anything of this variety please get help, y’all can even message me if you need to. I’m open ears darling.

Also, hello. It’s been a while.

Please enjoy.

__________________________________________

Laying in bed with Jake was always relaxing. Just you and him, music playing low in the background gracing the peaceful, silent moments with rhythm. Talking about anything and everything, from the rain patting against the square window to the complex comparisons of each other's childhoods and the detailed memories. Having only been officially together for 3 months, this was still new to both of you. Happy and new. There was still a lot you didn’t know about each other, the small things that come up in the moment, the things you learn as your observe each other with love and admiration. In moments like this sometimes you take turns spitting out random stories as different topics come in and out of the natural flow of conversation, or sometimes you just sit in sweet silence, enjoying each others steady breathing and music.

You were currently laying in Jake's lap, him sitting straight up against his headboard; fingers playing with yours delicately, absentmindedly even. The entire scene was peaceful and warm, welcoming to trust and comfort. When Jake brought your left hand to his lips, placing delicate kisses to each finger, he noticed the marks on your wrist. Paying him no mind, your eyes closed, transfixed in the steady baseline currently blessing the room, in the company to the rumble of thunder crashing through the clouds. 

This gave Jake the opportunity to look closer, inspecting your skin; noticing three definitive white lines that were about a half a centimeter wide each. One was long, across the entire length of your wrist, placed about three inches down from where your palm ended. The next one was slightly shorter than the first, the last one was the smallest and a bit crooked in comparison to the others, curving slightly up.

“Y/N” Jake hummed, tone soft, fluttering across to you while he kept his hand in yours.

“Yes?” You didn’t open your eyes at first, still drifting within your own little world. With a steady kiss to your palm, your reality returned to the stunning man above you. His gorgeous eyes crinkled at the sides when they met yours, quickly falling closed in thought before he spoke again.

“Can I ask you something? And you don’t need to tell me if you feel uncomfortable okay?” He was nervous, afraid of offending you, afraid of you running from him, afraid of the answer he might hear. He placed another kiss to the back of your palm, to comfort you, but also to give himself reassurance.

“Of course love, I trust you.” Turning your head slightly to kiss his stomach over his t-shirt. The trust you had in Jake came naturally. He listened to understand, to comprehend. He was there to support you through life. In the year you’ve known him, the even smaller amount of time being together romantically, you became transparent with him. It was easy to trust him, even easier to love him.

Jake took a deep breath, looking to your face with a small smile before refocusing on your hand. He took your hand into both of his. Ever so slowly, he ran one finger beside the marks he discovered.

“What are these scars from?” He kissed your wrist then, stamping his question with love before looking back to your eyes only to find them staring off into the empty space of the room. Jake held his breath, wordlessly begging you to speak, to say anything to him, to confide in him.

“I um….” a deep, stuttering breath broke through you chest before you went on, “when I was younger, my depression got really bad. The.. the only way I can describe it is that I felt trapped. I uh, didn’t know what to do, so I turned to cutting myself to cope.” You couldn’t look at him and he didn’t say anything. He just sat there processing what you just said, nodding his head up and down slowly. Placing a delicate kiss on your wrist once more, trailing a line of kisses up to your fingertips again. 

“Thank you for telling me.” Letting go of your hand he gripped the sides of your face, pushing your hair back. “Can we talk about it?”

That was the thing about Jake, he never pushed you. He always asked if you wanted to talk about a specific topic. He knew that you childhood hadn’t been the easiest, he understood that in all due time you would let it all out. Slowly, but surely. He also understood that there was a time and place for conversations like these,  he let you choose when that time was. The respect he had for you was deserving, you held the same amount for him.

“Yeah, we can. I just have never expressed this before, so bare with me, yeah?” You brought your hand up to meet his that was stroking your cheek. You pressed a kissed into his palm, already feeling your heart rate increase.

“I’ll be with you the whole time Y/N, just take your time.” He slipped his hand into your hair, lightly twisting a peace between his fingers while looking at you to continue.

“There were a few years of my life where I really didn’t know who I was anymore. I blacked out a lot of it, other than the bad parts, cause ya know that’s just how life works. You remember the bad shit more than the good stuff.” You giggled to yourself for a moment, Jake let out a laugh as well at your bluntness towards life, something he loved about you.

You sat up, removing yourself from Jake's lap in order to look at him properly, sitting criss-cross between his spread legs. He took your hands into to his own, gently squeezing them.

“I was 12 when it all started. I just remember starting to hate myself, I’m not sure why. I started shrinking into the background of life. Wearing boring clothes, not talking as much, becoming an observer. But the thing is with being an observer, it’s so easy to start comparing yourself to everyone you see. ‘Oh I’m not as skinny as her.’ ‘She has so many friends, I’ll never have that.’ It started off with just me thinking I wasn’t good enough. I hated myself, it was easy to internalize because no one really paid any attention to me. I was alone, but it was my choice to be that way. In a weird way it was comforting. I started to like it.”

“It’s weird how we can become so used to ourselves, even if that version of ourselves isn’t healthy.” Jake added, connecting to your complex mind. His heart broke with the memories you expressed. He wished he was there for you, knowing the impossibility of it all. He still wished he could have been there for you somehow. It hurt him to know how much pain you carried at such a young age.  “When did it become physical for you?”

“I think about freshman year of high school… Or around that time, I’m not really sure.” The shutter in your voice gave truth to your pain. How it all still lingered, how it always will. 

“Why then? What changed after those years?” Jake’s voice was soft, not an ounce of judgement ran through it.

“People started noticing me. They noticed how outcasted I was and began to bully me. It’s one thing me to hate myself, but when other people started to vocalize what I had been thinking for years it wrecked me. It was like they were giving truth to all the things I thought. It wasn’t my choice to be alone anymore, they surrounded me with their judgment and exiled me. Looking back at it now, what they use to say sounds so dumb.” You rolled your eyes at the thought of it all.

Jake smiled at your expression, “What did they say about you?”

“Oh ya know I was overweight so they called me fat and ugly. Plus, I wore men’s clothing and had an undercut, so they called me a dyke and a lesbian. I got so defensive…”

“Well Y/N you do like women too!” He raised his eyebrow at you, tilting his head slightly forward with a smirk.

“Yes Jacob I know this!” You laughed out, “Time really does change your perspective on things.”

“That’s very true. If someone called you a dyke today you would probably just agree with them and walk away” He chuckled at the idea of it. You were so confident in sexuality now, to think of a time where you weren’t was hard to imagine.

“You love your masculine girlfriend, don’t deny it.” You leaned in and placed a heavy kiss to Jake’s lips. He hummed into it, pulling away slightly to place his forehead to yours.

“I do… Mostly because you have a great style and I can steal your clothes.” You huffed in response, pushing him back slightly sending him into a quick fit of giggles. Seconds of silence followed, quietly resettling the serious tone into the room.

“I was so young and insecure,” you explained, “ I didn’t want anyone to look at me in general, let alone in a negative way. It got really bad. I was heckled in the hallways, even got shoved against the lockers once. People posted shit about me on twitter. I really couldn’t get away from it anywhere. My home life was terrible, my parents didn’t pay attention to me. So I uhh, kinda just shut off my emotions. I became numb to it all. I just took it as it came.”

Jake’s hands found their way to your thighs, tracing patterns as he listened intently. “Did you tell anyone?” He questioned.

“No.” Your eyes dropped away from his, staring at his hands that seemingly froze at your uncharacteristically short reply.

Jake lightly pressed his fingers into your skin, grounding himself to you before asking, “Why not?” 

“I thought I deserved it.” Tears were in your eyes now, welling up quickly, one falling directly onto Jake’s hand as you tilted your head up seeing that his eyes mirrored yours.

“Oh Y/N…” He said more to himself than to you.

“And ya know, it wasn’t scary to me. It was so normal. Rock bottom was my new home.” You sniffled before continuing. “Being numb doesn’t last forever though, your mind craves emotion, it craves some sort of feeling. I needed to feel something, but emotions weren’t an option.” A steady flow of tears were gracing your cheeks, the kind that weren’t accompanied by a sob. They were lonely tears reminiscent of a time were you were as well. 

“I was in the shower one day shaving my legs and I accidentally cut my ankle with the razor. I jumped, obviously, because it hurt. I watched the blood run down the drain. Then I did it again to my thigh. Over and over and over again.”  Jake pulled you into a hug then, needing to hold you while you continued, crying on his shoulder, gripping onto the back of his flannel.

“I did it because I could control it, ya know? For that short moment I was in charge of the feeling, even if that feeling was pain. I kept it to my thighs and my hips in order to hide it. I didn’t want anyone to see them and think I was weak, or attention seeking. It was the opposite of that. They are covered in little white lines, but my tattoos cover most of them.” Jake pulled back from the hug and wiped your tears away with both of his thumbs.

“But you have three on your wrist.” He was confused. “You hid them on your thighs and hips, why switch for a moment to your wrist?” He looked at you expectantly, but you didn’t reply. You just stared at him blankly. “Y/N, you don’t have to tell me, if you can’t love. You’ve already given me so much, you don’t have to.” 

You shook your head, “No. Thank you, but I need to... I want you to know.” A small smile flashed onto your lips, but quickly fell. 

Jake nodded along with you, ready to listen to whatever you were willing to tell him, “Okay love.”

“My wrist was um, the last time I did it.” You looked at him, waiting for a comment. The way he looked at you warmed your skin. His eyes were glistening with tears, yet he was fully invested in everything you had to say. His eyes shifted down, quickly blinking to clear his vision, before he spoke just above a whisper.

“Why your wrist though?” His eyes took yours into their stare, depicting his love for you in one look. You were letting him see into your soul and make a home there. You looked back to him with the same sense of affection. Your eyes were strong, open wide enough for Jake to see them dilate as you thought. The small line between your brows became evident as your mouth slipped down at the sides. You eyes never looking away from Jake’s.

“That’s where I could hit my artery the easiest.” A frightening sense of clarity came through your voice as you spoke, a juxtaposition to your normal fluctuating tone filled with untamed pitches. You were sure in your words. 

Witnessing Jake process what you meant was almost as painful as experiencing it. His eyes squinted quickly in confusion at your statement. Not understanding what your meant, his eyebrows knotted as his head quickly shook, as if he was shuffling all of his thoughts into place. After a moment his eyes grew wide in realization, diving into yours with a look that you can only describe as fear laced with heartbreak, as if he was silently asking you for confirmation to what he never wanted to hear. When you nodded your head slightly tears immediately filled his eyes, running down his face falling onto his shirt. 

“Y/N.” His voice cracked, losing strength at the thought of you trying to take your own life.

You cried with him. Seeing Jake so upset was enough to make you sob, but seeing him be so distraught over the pain that you felt so long ago... The idea that someone cares for you so much, so much to cry for you, to cry with you. The idea was overwhelming. Overwhelming with love, so much love. 

You placed your right hand to Jake’s cheek, softly caressing it as he leaned in, tilting his head into your hand. 

“But I failed. I’m alive.” You couldn’t help but smile at the sweet man in front of you who sniffled as you spoke. “It was the failure that lead me to so much success. I got the help I needed, I figured out who I was. Who I REALLY was, in a healthy perspective. For a while I didn’t know what to do with myself. Being happy was so unfamiliar, it was terrifying, at times it still can be. I had to learn what if felt like to feel again. After years of my mind telling me I wasn’t worthy of happiness, I finally got it. I worked my ass off for it.”

Jake pulled you into a hug, wrapping his arms tightly around you as he spoke softly into your ear.

“You are so strong. How you are still so kind and loving after going through hell amazes me.” He pulled back in order to look into your eyes once again, leaving his hands resting on the sides of your neck. “I am so happy that you failed, that you’re still here. You deserve to be here. Your soul is far too beautiful to leave the Earth so soon.” 

Crimson raised to your cheeks at his compliments, still is awe at how someone so wonderful thinks the same of you.

“I love you, ya know” He quirked up a smile at his own words causing you to giggle.

“Yes, I know. I love you too.” 

You both fell into a trance of admiration and bliss, only to be interrupted by Jake’s eyebrow raising in question. 

“What’s that look for?” You laughed at you pressed your finger to his eyebrow, jokingly pushing it back into place.

“Why didn’t you get a tattoo to cover the scars on your wrist? I mean you covered the ones on your thighs and hips and you have other tattoos as well, so why not here?” He pressed his thumb to the light white lines, once again examining them, noticing how they are slightly raised to the touch.

“I don’t really know honestly. I thought about it for a little while, after I got my hips done, but I kinda like them, as a reminder ya know? As if they are a tattoo of their own variety, there to show me what I’ve been through. That if I can make it out of that alive, I can do anything.” Your hand joined Jake’s as you spoke, gently running your finger over your physical memories. Jake huffed in response.

“Wow...” He looked at you baffled, trailing off at the end of his word.

“Wow?” You giggled at his blunt comment.

“You’re amazing.” He kissed you sweetly, holding your face in his hands before abruptly pulling back, dramatically opening his mouth in shock before smirking at you.

“I just can’t believe that I get to date the strongest, kindest, most beautiful dyke in the world. It’s a fucking honor.” 

“JACOB!” You cackled at his comment.

“What? I love my sexually ambiguous girlfriend.” He shrugged his shoulders as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

“You’re damn right you do. I’m fucking great.” You wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him into a longing kiss. 

“I’m glad you’re here, ya know?” Jake said with his lips still brushing yours.

“Me too.”

_________________________________________

Self indulgent much? HA!

I hope you enjoyed, as always let me know what you think and all that jazz. I haven't written something in forever, so this feels good.

Tags: @bigthighsandstupidguys @dontumisfire @myownparadise96  

do you guys even remember asking to be on my tagged list? That shit was ages ago! 

If you’d like to be tagged in all my fics shoot me a message.

Thank you so much.

All my love,

Trish.

[swiftlymoniquesblog]

You and Me and You- Winchesters x OC Miliana

Masterlist | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

A/N: Hi friends! I’m sorry I haven’t been updating anything in so long! Life has been crazy! Work was chaotic, I went out of town for my birthday last month, yes the one I was supposed to spend with the SPN cast :(, and I moved towns. I’m currently in a temporary living environment as my family searches for a new place! So yeah, I’m so sorry I haven’t been around. On top of that, the mobile app has been so freaking glitchy and it’s super annoying. I’m not on my laptop as much but it might be worth it to read more fics! I hope everyone is well and please, send feedback! 

Xxx Monique

Word Count: 2,420

Chapter 3- 1997- Miliana’s POV

It was just another day in high school for me. I didn’t think I was all that special, yet everyone wanted to be my friend. I tried to keep to myself since I wasn’t like any normal sixteen-year-old. No, I was raised by the infamous supernatural hunter, Bobby Singer. Yeah, that was a fun childhood. He was always in and out of the picture but he made sure to show me and tell me how much he loved me. It did help too when the Winchester Brothers would come to stay with me. They were good friends of mine but their Dad kind of went a bit crazy. He found one monumental case up in like Canada or somewhere, packed up all his things, including his sons, and off they went. It’s been six years since I’ve seen them. My Dad tried to stay local for all his hunts since he believed girls can’t and shouldn’t be hunters, and I guess that makes sense, considering a demon killed his wife, but still, I grew up in this life; I understand it. Jody and her friend Donna, who also is a Sheriff, would come by and bring some of the girls they would take in. Just to help them out, kinda like what Bobby did with me. They’d come around when my Dad had a case that wasn’t close to home and it’s not like I’m not old enough to stay at home alone; Dad just gets freaked out.

“So Miliana, you’re almost done with your sophomore year now. How’s that feel?” Jody asked me one day when she and Donna came to stay with me. They brought some girl, Jessica, to stay with us too but I didn’t like her.

“Oh, I’m excited but I’m also ready just to start junior year,” I admit.

“Why’s that, kiddo?” Donna asked.

“Well, there tend to be more ways to get involved in junior and senior year…” I trail off my thoughts, avoiding the real reason I couldn’t wait to be an upper-class woman.

“You mean there’s a prom once you become a junior?” Jody gave a knowing look.

Damn, she was good. Yeah freshmen and sophomores had dances but they were separated from the juniors and seniors and we didn’t get the same respect as they did.

“Well yeah,” I admit, sheepishly.

“That makes sense. Plus, you’ll feel older and feel like nothing is impossible.” Jody said, clapping a hand on my shoulder.

She was exactly right. I loved Jody like she was my Mother. She kind of was, given the fact that when it came to girl stuff, she would be the one I called. My Dad would just get all embarrassed and wouldn’t know what to do. You can probably figure out how my first period went; awkward.

“Hey, I have to get going. I’m on the planning committee for this year’s end-of-school-year dance, as they call it for us lower classmen. I have to meet before and after school so I won’t be home until late!” I yell as I’m grabbing my backpack and rushing out the door.

“Don’t forget to call before you leave school so I can alert your father! Jody called, as I scurried out the door.

“Yeah!” I yell in response as I run out the door and down the driveway to meet up with my friend, Sandy. She was already further in life than I was. Sandy came from a wealthy background; Daddy paid for everything. She had a boyfriend, was gifted a car on her sixteenth birthday, and was already planning to attend college. She would be turning seventeen the first week of June so she was already “older” than the other sophomores.

“Hi, Sandy!” I say as I throw my bag in the back and off, we went.

“So, you won’t believe what I heard!” She starts with the daily gossip that was floating around campus before we even get there! This was a routine for us. Sandy would come to pick me up and would tell me all the latest drama before we even get to school. She’s very into other people and for the most part, this school doesn’t do a lot in private.

“What’s up today, Sand?” I ask. I was the only one allowed to call her that. She hated being called Sand but for some reason, we’re friends and I can call her Sand. Normally, you wouldn’t think two girls like us would be friends, but I stood up for her when some other “popular girls” were getting in her face, so I threatened to give all of them high-calorie snack bars, and they all backed off. Oh, that’s another thing. Almost all the girls at this school are on a low carb, no fat diet. They mostly ate salads all the time and ate like rabbits, which is why Sandy and I became friends. We both have high metabolisms so we can eat like pigs and never gain any weight; all the other girls are jealous.  

“Jared Kingston and Carly Wright are having an extremely public break up on the quad; again.”

“Jesus, again? Isn’t this like the twelfth time they’ve broken up?” I ask. Jared and Carly were your typical power couple; Jared, football captain, Carly, head cheerleader.

“Thirteenth.” Sandy corrected me.

“Don’t they get tired of all the drama? And for the love of God, can they not be so public about it?”

“Well, you know how Carly is. She thinks MTV is going to walk in one day and do a reality show off her non-existent singing career.” Sandy and I laughed. You sing a solo in the seventh-grade talent show and suddenly, you’re a professional singer.

“Hell, if anyone is a singer, it’s you, Mills. Get it?” I just scoff at Sandy’s lame joke, playing off my last name being Singer, and before I knew it, we were at school.

We parked the car and began grabbing all our stuff when a real sleek classic black car drove up to the front of the school. Parked rather crooked, two young boys got out of the car and everything around me suddenly came to a halt. I knew that car. I didn’t get a chance to see them because there was a thrall of students surrounding the car. Jared and Carly’s break up long forgotten, as guys were impressed with the car and the girls were impressed with the boys who came from that car.

“Whoa, who do you think they are?” Sandy asked me, snapping me from my thoughts.

“No one worth our time. Come on.” I say, strutting off, but not before I got the feeling one person was staring at me. We got to homeroom Spanish and chatted away with all our friends before Mrs. Ramirez came into the room.

“Clase, cálmate (“class, settle down)!” Mrs. Ramirez had the philosophy to speak in Spanish and have us try and figure out what she saying until she ended up having to tell us anyway. Not sure this was a very useful way of teaching but this what she did.

“Buenos días clase, tenemos un nuevo alumno. Este es Sam Winchester.” (“Good morning class, we have a new student. This is Sam Winchester.”) My head snapped up; it couldn’t be.

“Saluda a Sam.” (Say hello to Sam.)

“Hi, Sam.” A very few students had bothered to say hello to the new student, who was ushered to sit down in the only open seat in the class; next to me.

“Hey, I’m Sam.” He says, sitting down, but not making eye contact with me. I didn’t know what to say so I just kept quiet, hoping he would remember me.

“Do you not…holy shit. Miliana?”

“Hi, Sam,” I say, tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear.

“Wha-what are you doing here?” He asks me in surprise.

“I should be asking you the same.”

“You never left Lawrence?” He whispers/asks.

I shake my head. “You know how my Dad felt about a girl being a hunter. He didn’t want me to have to see that life once I reached high school. Said I needed every normal high school experience I could get.”

“Well Miliana Singer, you are far from normal.” He said, causing heat to suddenly appear in my cheeks.

“Sra. Singer, Sr. Winchester, ¿tiene algo que quiera compartir con el resto de la clase? (Ms. Singer, Mr. Winchester, do you have something you want to share with the rest of the class?).”

“No Sra. Ramirez (No Mrs. Ramirez)” We both said in unison, our attention now on the lesson.

“¡Bien, entonces ciérralo! (Good, then zip it!)” As the rest of the class went on, I couldn’t help but steal glances from Sam. He was exactly how I remember him but he grew! He must’ve hit a growth spurt somewhere in those six years since I saw him last because he’s a freaking giant now. His hair is longer now too. He occasionally would flip it out of his eyes and it would send a whiff of his cologne and his natural “Sammy scent” as Dean used to call it, my way. His eyes were a mix of green and brown, like the color of the trees right before they begin to change color for the fall. And his smile was a big and bright and contagious as ever.

“Señorita Singer, ¿le gustaría resumir la Constitución española? (Miss Singer, would you like to summarize the Spanish Constitution?).

“Um…” I trail off but a voice spoke up.

“España es una monarquía y trabajan para mostrar la importancia de la libertad, la justicia, la igualdad y el pluralismo politico. (Spain is a monarchy and they work to show the importance of freedom, justice, equality, and political pluralism.)” Sam responded in perfect Spanish, to which everyone in the room took notice of.

“Muy Bueno señor Winchester. (Very good, Mr. Winchester). To which Sam just winked at me. Holy crap, what was happening here? How has he gotten more attractive all these later? And what is he doing in tenth? Wasn’t he supposed to be a freshman? He’s fifteen after all! I don’t know what his game is but I’m going to figure it out and figure out why he’s back in Lawrence. He got out! Why would anyone want to come back here?

The bell rang, indicating the end of the class and the prime time to catch up with Sam. However, with him being so tall, once he grabbed his backpack, he was out the door in a flash.

“This boy!” I said in my head. Keeping up with him was going to be a struggle considering I’m only 5’6. Rushing out the class, I zig-zag through the crowded halls, looking for that floppy head of hair. Finally, on almost the opposite side of campus, there he was. He was lucky to have a top locker but I guess because he’s so big, it makes sense.

“Sam!” I yell, just a few feet away, but quickly catching up.

“Millie, hey.” He said smiling that perfect smile but using my nickname; the only my closest friends and family can call me. It was weird hearing him say it since he feels like a stranger now.

“Miliana,” I tell him.

“What?” He looked a bit stunned that I corrected him.

“It’s Miliana. Only my closest friends and family get to call me Millie and since you left…” I instantly regretted it when the words fell off my lips but there it was.

“Ah yeah, I guess I kind of deserve that, especially since we didn’t even get to say goodbye,” Sam said, slowly nodded his head as he understood why I was hostile.

“Yeah, no offense but your Dad is kind of…” I say but he interrupts me.

“A douche? Yeah, I know.” Sam said, knowing all too well how I felt about how his Dad just ripped him away from me. “How’ve you been?”

“Good, surprised to see you here. Actually, why are you back in Lawrence?”

“Well Dad figured to move closer to home for a while but Dean still loves the hunter life so he and my Dad go out on a lot of cases.”

“Are you left alone a lot?”

“Oh yeah, but I’m going to living close to your Dad. There’s a small little house that is just up the road from where you guys are so I figured I’d stay there.”

“So, you’ll be around more often?” I tried to hide my hopefulness but I knew Sam; he could tell.

“I hope to, at least until graduation.” He grinned at me and my heart fluttered. Stop it, Miliana.

“By the way, how are you a sophomore? You’re fifteen!”

“Oh that. Well, I’m pretty advanced for my age so they set me up as a sophomore.”

“I’d say you are pretty advanced; you speak Spanish fluently!” I comment, still being stunned that he spoke so effortlessly. “Why are you taking a Spanish class if you’re that fluent?”

“Eh, I needed it for credit so I thought it would be the easiest A I could come by. Plus, I have separate assignments than the rest of the class.”

“What?”

“I’m an in-class tutor. When Mrs. Ramirez can’t tutor students in need of some extra attention, she looks to me. Turns out, a lot of the class is struggling so we made a deal; I tutor and learn all her lessons, I get the credit.”

Okay, Sam was so much cooler than I remember him being. He is so sweet and caring and smart and, oh no, I can’t be falling for him. No way, no! We had one little incident when we were kids but that was it; we were kids! We didn’t know what love or crushes were then. I cannot be falling for my childhood friend.

“You good there, Miliana?” Sam said, bringing out me of my thoughts again.

“Yeah, I’m good, thanks.”

“You sure? You looked like you were thinking about me shirtless or something.”

That son of a bitch! “What? Pssst. You wish Winchester!”

Sam just chuckled and shook his head but grabbed some more books out of his locker and set them in his bag, patted me on the shoulder, and bid me farewell. Shit, I’m so screwed.

 (Reference for the Spanish Constitution because I don’t plagiarize: Smith, Carr, Spain. Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Inc. 2020 16 August. 2020 18 August. https://www.britannica.com/place/Spain)

Forever tags: @fandom-princess-forevermore @simpleb00x @juju-la-tortue @forever-trapped-in-my-dreams 

Taglist: @tlovescoffee @tykezparkerstark

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[childofthetheoi]

my religious journey - hellenic polytheism

this is going to start when i started on the hp path because before that it was a MESS yall. but uuuuh here we go!

edit: uh holy shit this really got away from me - i’m really not kidding when i say i could write books about this stuff. there’s a tl;dr at the bottom

here’s an attention-grabbing summary: my path has had a LOT of bumps and pain and sadness but im in a really good place right now!

okay, so my hp path began when i was 16-17 ish (i’m 22 now). i was raised presbyterian and wasn’t personally christian, but i liked the idea of having something to believe in and help guide my life.

my high school years were some of the darkest of my life second only to freshman year of college, and i felt like i was floundering and needed an anchor. i started thinking about religion, but i just Wasn’t Christian, so that wasn’t a path for me. i had dabbled a little in general paganism, doing some things here and there, so i started turning my attention to the theistic forms of paganism. i followed a lot of people who were very open about their faith, and i think that really helped me feel comfortable with taking the first steps - i wasn’t weird for being pagan.

at first, i looked to the kemetism. i had a lot of interest in it as a kid, so i thought that was as good a place as any to start... but nothing ever really clicked for me. i felt pretty bummed about that, because i was just so desperate for SOMETHING (you’ll find this is a common theme here lmao). so i went back to being unsure, until i started to take a hard look at things that felt powerful to me and special. i’m someone who is incredibly drawn to the ocean and the night sky, but also fire in any form. so, i started looking into those things individually. i’m not really sure how, but i eventually ended up reading a bunch on hellenic polytheism - this is around age 17-18.

nothing still quite felt right that i was reading, but i really liked hekate. i started trying to reach out - i built an altar, made offerings, said prayers, the works. i now do think she was there with me, but i was so caught up on needing Big Signs and Religious Moments that i just discouraged myself when that didn’t happen. i stopped working with hekate at age 19 - i was upset, mostly with myself for my own perceived failures. i went back into sadness and desperation, and continued to read about hellenic polytheism and following blogs on tumblr about it. i was frankly jealous of everyone else, because they seemed to have these intense, special relationships with these deities. i think part of my downfall is that i am an extremely skeptical person - and i tend to be a bit dense and miss the little things. i had (and have, at times!) SO much doubt in me, and i just didn’t see the whole religion thing happening for me.

finally, at the end of 2017 (age 19) i met one of my best and most special friends sarah. i honestly don’t remember how i found out she was a hellenic polytheist, but i don’t think it was until 2018? anyway, i asked her a bunch of questions and was just generally excited to actually meet someone IN REAL LIFE who was pagan like me. she is... a very patient person, and answered any question i asked her (and still does - bless you) about her experiences.  something that sarah said off-handedly at one point really changed the game for me.

there’s no right way to do or experience religion. WHAT? i had lived my whole life thinking there was One Right Way to do everything, and she crumbled that impression with just one sentiment. i don’t think i’ve ever actually mentioned this to her - but it really opened me up to realizing that things may turn out right for me, and i’d find where i belong in religion.

i spent a lot of 2018 in a lot of pain and upset about not being able to figure out religion, and it all came down to new year’s. i had been talking for months about wanting to find my place, and a deity (or several) to worship and maybe even dedicate myself to. i told her about how much it hurt to feel like i was lost, searching for my anchor. she did a tarot reading for me about my path, and told me about where i was and where i was going. she told me she felt someone extremely excited to meet me, almost like they were outside a window - pointing and jumping in my direction, and going “I CHOOSE THEM! I WANT THEM!” this absolutely flabbergasted me. a deity, excited about meeting me? excited about having me in their followers? surely that couldn’t be right.

i took this experience to heart, and began trying to reach out and soul search about who could be reaching out. i hit a lot of brick walls, but i kept reminding myself that i was strong, and that it would happen with time if i just kept myself open.

and then it happened. i was in my room, doing a general prayer, basically just talking out loud about how badly i wanted to ‘meet’ this deity.  then hermes hit me like a brick wall. i feel like this is a universal experience for people who worship hermes, lmao.

i did a ton of research, started directing my prayers at hermes, and i realized that he was in every facet of my life. i felt him when i worked out, i felt him when i was in class, i felt him on the road, i felt him when i was at my lowest points. and, honestly? he really was excited to have me. i had someone on my side.

i’m not sure i can even begin to put how happy, overjoyed, satisfied, and peaceful i feel now that i have been working with hermes, worshipping him, loving him. his presence in my life is honestly one of the best things that has ever happened to me, and i cannot express how thankful i am for him.

TL;DR: i had an extremely bumpy path throughout my religious life, and when i stopped putting pressure on myself to be perfect, i finally came to the new beginning i was looking for.

if you’re curious about any part of my story, or want to know more about my worship with hermes, or even about random things like how i think my christian upbringing affects my current religious path - PLEASE send them my way! i would love nothing more than to share.

i may make another post soon about more specific things - the things i have experienced working with hermes, my particular relationship with him, my doubt, other things like that in various posts. i’d really like to share more in the future, because i know it’s important to me to try and help others religiously - i pray that my stories can help anyone like others have helped me.

i hope you enjoyed reading this, and maybe it brought some kind of new perspective to your worship or your path ♥

[elizabeth-234]

The Supplejack

Chapter Four: They aren’t There Yet 

Previous: Chapter three - Meeting Aunt May

Warnings: none

Summary: Peter Parker has been alone his whole freshman year but finds hope when Stark Industries announces a science competition. The prize? An internship with Tony Stark.

Peter closed his eyes for a moment to center his mind before heading to the front desk. He traced his eyes across the grooves in the tile as he waited for the clacks of the keys to be silent. The air was cool and he pulled his sleeves down to cover his clammy palms. The man sitting in front of the computer looked up. Peter’s face heated when he apologized and Peter waved him off.

“I didn’t see you there. What can I do for you today?”

“I’m, uh, Peter. Peter Parker and I have an appointment.”

The man started typing again and nodded his head. Peter’s fingers trembled as he reached out and took the ID badge. The secretary must have seen May walking around the entrance, admiring the architecture, because he gave Peter another guest badge. He clipped the badge onto his shirt making sure it laid flat. His name was printed in bold letters across the middle of the card. The muscles in his stomach clenched. It should have been someone else’s name there. It shouldn’t be him who was here today.

Peter thanked the secretary and hurried over to May. They walked in to the main part of the lobby and craned their necks to take in the glass ceiling. The panes angled up and narrowed into a point at the center. The rays of light filtered through the glass onto various parts of the room, illuminating corners and wall space that wouldn’t normally see the light of day. It was, like the rest of the building, ethereal.

The lobby was peaceful today. He had imagined pushing his way through crowds of people ready to watch. All of them would be milling about aimlessly ready to stare as he inevitably made a fool of himself in front of Tony Stark. That was how his daydreams started the past week before they morphed into something more sinister, something he would rather not think about now.

It was with a sigh of relief that the space was clear. The instructions were to wait in the lobby and May found a seat on a comfy looking couch. He stood in front of her, shifting his feet back and forth. What he wanted to do was pace the entire length of the lobby. To stretch his legs and make himself forget for a second why he was there, but he didn’t want to take up anymore space than he already was so he stood in front of May. She patted the seat next to her but he shook his head.

He was facing toward the front watching the lights ripple like ocean waves against the floor. Maybe they should just leave now. He could send an email later saying he was sick and to give the opportunity to someone worthy. His fingers clenched against the hem of his shirt and he thought of Ben. The title of Uncle was purely in name only. Ben was his dad in every sense of the word and Peter knew how much he would have loved seeing Peter do this. He was always encouraging him to step out of his comfort zone to prove he could do anything. The tile glued his feet where they were and Peter’s lips sealed his doubt away.

His heart was beating so loud that if it escaped his chest it would bounce off the glass and echo around the room, cluing anyone listening how nervous he was. The secretary glanced curiously at him and Peter gave him a crooked smile before turning back around to face the doors.

“Peter Parker. Fourteen years old, lives in Forrest hills, New York, and goes to Midtown High School.”

The squeak of his dress shoes scuffing on the tile made him flinch into himself. The muscles in his back rippled and tensed at the voice. That voice was familiar to him. It was the voice he heard numberless times in interviews and YouTube videos through the years. He spun around to see the subject of those videos standing before them.

The man was wearing jeans and a t-shirt causing Peter to look down at his own button down and dress pants with derision, hating that he talked himself into dressing up. The shirt was one of Ben’s and was hanging off of his shoulders but the pants were the opposite and were short around the ankles from before his growth spurt. His fingers dove into his tie to try and loosen it around his neck.

Mr. Stark held out his hand as he stood near the couch. With realization Peter scrambled back over to where the two adults stood. Once in front of the man he briefly glanced up, avoiding his eyes, to observe his face. The famous goatee had sharp lines and was quirked in a hint of a smile. Peter stared at the face plastered onto the t-shirt as he raised his hand. It was some type of band shit but Peter wasn’t sure which one. The printed image was faded and an obvious love for the shirt was worn into the material.  Mr. Stark’s hand was warm and strong around his own petite digits. He flickered his eyes up to the man’s face before promptly bringing it down again. Then Mr. Stark turned toward May and gave her a wide smile.

“You must be his lovely Aunt. I’m Tony Stark but please, call me Tony.” A light pink painted her cheeks but she kept an unimpressed expression until Mr. Stark turned away from her to face Peter once again at which time she wagged her eyebrows at Peter.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sir.” The laugh enlarged to fill the atrium.

“Don’t call me Sir, I work for a living. Tony is fine.” Peter wouldn’t look at the man’s face so he wasn’t sure if it was a joke or not. To be safe he attempted to smile and nodded. He knew that he was being impolite but his stomach clenched at the thought of seeing disappointment now that he was face to face with the man. “Well, it’s good to finally meet you as well. Are you excited for today?”


He nodded again and stared at his shoes. Although the man’s shoes looked fancy on inspection, he noticed the sides of the rubber soles were trod down and there were scuff marks adorning the top of the toes. You could tell a lot about a person by their shoes. Peter got in the habit of looking at them when he felt uncomfortable and learned what the marks meant. They were nice shoes, a good brand, and although there were scuffs they were cleaned recently. Like the t-shirt it was respected and cared for.

Peter heard a sigh and his stomach clenched at the thought of making the man feel bad. He forced himself to look up and the man caught his eye before smiling. It didn’t leave Peter feeling all warm inside but it was enough for the man to smile back. Mr. Stark clapped his hands and welcomed them to the building before leading them to the elevators.

The space was silent besides the soft tune of a flute playing in the background and for the first time Peter got an up close look at the man he knew since childhood. It was a strange feeling, to know someone so well and yet know nothing about them. Mr. Stark’s hands tapped along with the music and it gave Peter a moment to really observe him. Staring at the man now Peter felt like he was getting a chance to peer behind the tinted glass. There was nothing blatantly different between the man standing before him and the man who was frequently the topic of the news.

But Peter could see past the exterior and notice the small discrepancies. It was like second nature to him. Like he could infer things from his shoes, Peter knew that Mr. Stark used this other persona to hide behind. Peter knew that because he often hid away from the world himself. The man’s physicality was more subdued here. Instead of opening his arms wide and making himself more grandiose, he stood with his shoulders back and feet apart. Confident but conserved.

May asked Mr. Stark a question about the building and they began talking. His voice, which commanded attention anywhere it was heard, still had that same draw but he didn’t use it to dominate now. He steered the conversation and listened with rapt attention while May told him about herself. Peter blushed and ducked his head when she brought up how proud she was of Peter for signing up for the competition.

There was some other quality, too. It was something too abstract, too visceral for Peter to understand, yet.

“Well, Peter and May. I thought we would start with a tour for the both of you. I thought getting to know the place would be a good first step for today.” They both agreed and he took them to the first of many labs.

Peter was star struck. The equipment and facilities were all he ever dreamt of and more, but a thought rung through his head during the whole tour. Why? There was no real reason to go on the tour before giving his presentation.

His curiosity was brimming over and as they went to another room with a model arc reactor he had to know how it worked.

“So, by using the arc reactor it funnels the energy of the electrons outward from inside the inner core which means it creates a substantial energy current. The possibilities for clean energy are right at your fingertips then.”

“Exactly, Kid. You’ve been doing some read on this haven’t you?” May smiled looking between them. Peter blushed when he realized how candid he’d been.

“I, well, I like reading.”

“Jim Rohn once said reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary.”

“Oh, um, it’s just something I enjoy. I’m not sure I fit into that category.” His voice was soft and he pulled his sleeves back down. At the silence he looked up to find both adults staring at him. He went to open his mouth but shut it again.

“Don’t count yourself out just yet, kid.” He said before stepping in front of a set of frosted doors leaving Peter a step behind. May put her hand on his shoulder squeezing his tense muscles and followed Mr. Stark forward.

He trailed behind them wondering which room they were going in next. There on the table was his presentation. The vial of Weaver gleamed against the silver next to the stack of papers he brought.

Everything sped forward. There were voices playing in the background and his vision narrowed to a tunnel. Peter found himself standing before the two adults who were now sitting. The recited words that came out of his mouth were his own but it felt like they were being filtered through someone else. That he wasn’t the one actually saying them. He stared at the space above his audience and on autopilot continued on.  His hands trembled and the blood rushing to his head made it difficult to concentrate.

Then it was over. He heard clapping behind a veil of white noise and his eyes landed on May. She smiled and he hoped he made her proud. His heart was thrumming in his chest and he felt like he had been on a rollercoaster ride.

The time they took on the tour helped to calm the energy pouring off of him. The confusion melted away the further they went into the labyrinth of rooms. The man wasn’t anything like Peter had thought he would be. He was patient when Peter built up the courage to ask questions. He opened the door for himself and his aunt, letting them in a room before him, and he even introduced them to Friday. The kind voice called him Mr. Parker at first but Peter quickly had he call him by his first name. Mr. Parker was what he was used to people calling Ben. What people called Ben. She had apologized and wished him good luck, which made him blush bright.

Now standing there after his audition, the yearning compressed inside his chest and threatened to explode out. He needed to be chosen. There was no way he could go back to how he was before, not after being here today.

“May, you’ve got quite a son there.” Mr. Stark rose from his seat.

“Yes, I do. Don’t I?” She said with a smile.

“Why don’t you go relax in the waiting room while I go over some things with Peter. There’s coffee in there. Please help yourself.” May looked uncertainly at Peter but concealing his panic he forced himself to nod.

Peter’s eyes followed her out of the room and then glanced at the man who was observing him. He shifted back and forth under the scrutiny.

“I just wanted… That is, thank you Mr. Stark for allowing me the opportunity…” Peter’s mouth shut with an audible snap when the man’s hands rose up.

“There is no need to thank me. I have to say that I saw your presentation at the hall and it was good. I’m not just saying that. The idea is brilliant.” Peter’s blush magnified as he kept talking.

“So, I’ll just have to have the others on the board sign off and then we can get going. How does that sound?”

The world stopped spinning for a moment. Peter stared at the man who was leaning his hip against a table and stared right back at him. The man’s expression was soft and Peter dropped his eyes to the floor, trying to wrap his head around the words.

“What?” His voice came out as no more than a whisper and Mr. Stark, who got up and was walking to the door May left out of turned around. He spied Peter still in the same spot as before. “Do you mean that?”


He came back and gently set his hand on Peter’s shoulder.

“You got it, kid. You and select individuals from the list of other candidates have been chosen. Today was more of a formality if nothing else but I couldn’t resist the chance to show off all the tech to someone who would appreciate it.”

“I…” It was like their handshake earlier but somehow more. Peter stood there for a second, overwhelmed with the emotion he felt. He was floating. A year worth of work had finalized in this moment. A year worth of late nights, scratched out and crumbled papers, and relentless determination to finally achieve his goal. Peter fought the pricks in his eyes but they came heedless. His back dug into the metal as he fell into the table for support.

“Are you okay? Peter?” The voice rang out like the beams of light on a light house and Peter swam toward it. He swam through his thoughts toward the safety the voice would bring. He was sure of it.

It was the first time since Ben that an adult besides May had touched him in a caring manner. The warmth seeped through the pores in his shirt and into his very veins, energizing and fusing as it traveled. Peter found himself leaning forward, unconsciously trying to get closer to the man. All he wanted to do was burry wrap his arms around the man in thanks and soak up the warmth forever but he reeled back as if something struck him.

Mr. Stark’s eyebrows were furrowed and his lips were pulled thin. He was afraid he had done something wrong, was being too casual. What was he thinking? The man’s limbs moved slow, giving Peter enough time to stop him if he wanted. Little did he know that some force inside himself immobilized Peter. Mr. Stark moved his arm forward and Peter held his breath. At the last second Mr. Stark brought his arm back and ran his fingers through his hair. His chest deflated and Peter leaned further away not caring that his back ached.

He sidestepped and started to gather all his materials, waving Mr. Stark off saying he was fine.

“If you insist. Are you sure, kid?” Peter nodded and tried not to notice the relieved expression the other man wore. The two started walking out of the room. All the sudden Peter couldn’t wait to get out of there.

“Um, Mr. Stark?” He spoke before they left and rejoined May. The man turned with an expectant look on his face. “Thank you. I promise I won’t let you down.”

“I have a feeling you won’t, Peter.”

—

May was elated by the news and couldn’t contain her tears as they stood in the lobby and gave him a hug. Peter was only slightly embarrassed and wouldn’t even let himself think the word jealous when she gave Mr. Stark a bear hug too. She grinned cheekily to the man who quickly stepped back and looked uncomfortable with the contact.

“Thank you so much, Mr. Stark. Peter worked so hard and I knew he had it in him.”

“Please, Tony is fine and I’m looking forward to working together.” He said with a wink. May laughed and invited Mr. Stark for dinner as thanks. That brought a whole slew of images. Some were negative: Mr. Stark entering their little apartment and storming out with a disgusted face. The man sneering at the chipped paint and dusty cupboards. Some were more positive. The three of them eating dinner as the snow fell outside the window and the fireplace burning bright. Peter shook those thoughts from his mind. They didn’t even have a fireplace and why would Mr. Stark be eating with them anyway?

May gave Peter one more hug before Mr. Stark said goodbye. He left Peter with a stack of papers that needed signing and work plans he wanted Peter to brush up on. He was curious as to who the other interns were and realized he probably wasn’t going to be seeing Mr. Stark all that much during the program. Peter squashed the empty feeling down at the thought.

The air was brisk when they walked down the stairs and Peter stared up at the building again. The city lights reflected and gleamed in the evening sun. The subway ride home was quiet but he could feel the energy radiating from May. She leaned over and rested her head on his shoulder, whispering how proud she was of him.

When they got back home they started dinner. They combined leftovers with some vegetables on the edge of rotting from their fridge.  Peter chopped and May cooked them together. Her song drifted through the kitchen as they worked and Peter found himself tapping to the tune. They chatted about the next chapter of the Austen he read for class. His hand came up to hide a laugh when May went on about the qualities of a certain dark haired gentleman.  

Later, Peter sat on the escape ladder staring out. Layers of buildings blocked the whole view but he pretended he had enhanced vision that let him see the whole city.  He imagined the feel of the wind through his hair as he flew through the city and he rose up, free from the burdens of his thoughts for a moment. As he opened his eyes he was disappointed to find himself back on the stair. Slipping into his bedroom the bed groaned under his weight and he closed his eyes. He could hear May roll over in the next room and wondered if she was sleeping yet.

His thoughts swirled, reflecting on the day and what new experiences Tony Stark would bring to his life.

Thank you!!! 

Chapter Five: The Beginning

[pr1ncessjasm1ne]

Love Sick

Summary: Y/N reminisces on memories that have led to the confessions of her best friend, [college!]Grayson, admitting his feelings. Word Count: ~ 5,600 Warnings: Cursing, mentions of smoking and drinking, but mostly fluff. A/N: Yikes, this is my first time posting for this fandom and NOT on my side blog, this is also the first time I write with a concept that I really like and needed for myself.  I grew to love it and I might make a part 2, so PLEASE FEEL FREE TO GIVE FEEDBACK AND LET ME KNOW IF YOU WOULD WANT A SECOND PART!!! <3

tags: @cutesydolan @joeyskinnyleg @hmmmethan @ohmydolantwins

My days at university have been exceptionally beautiful during many moments. I was getting to date my best friend, whom I met here. It was an occurrence that I never really expected. It all started my freshman year. It was move-in day, to be exact.

“Mom, it’s to the left,” I instruct her on the other end of the large, blue plastic moving cart that we had unloaded my stuff into from our car. It was move in day for my first year of college, and I was ecstatic to be settled in and meeting new people to make friends immediately. I was also super excited to finally be away from home where I had never been allowed out of the house.

“Okay, number 205, right?” she asks as she slows down in front of the room. I nod in confirmation and move around to unlock the door. I guess I beat my roommate, since it was empty.

“Sweet, I want the bottom bunk!” I smiled at my mom as I started to walk in and she followed with the cart.

“Yay! If you fall off when you’re sleeping, you’re only a couple of feet off the ground!” She teased. She likes to think I’m a huge clutz in avoiding the reality that she’s oblivious to, which is that she’s the huge clutz. But whatever. I rolled my eyes in response and asked her to start putting the sheets on my bed while I go get the second cart with my dad.

The second I stepped out my door, I bumped in to a taller, larger man holding a huge box that hit my face. “Oh shit- I’m so, so sorry!” I heard as I clenched my eyes shut and held my hands to my temple. I open my eyes to find a pair of beautiful, deep green orbs decorated with some thick and sharp eyebrows currently furrowed with concern. 

“Uh… it’s ‘kay,” I giggled. I felt like I forgot the entire English language in that moment. I continued my hold on my temple before he gently removed my hands by the wrists, making me shiver a bit.

“Oh no, did the corner of the box hit you? It looks like you have a little cut.. oh my god, I’m so-“

“Hey, it’s fine! Nothing a little Neosporin can’t fix,” I reassure, “just be a little more careful, please. I’m asking for everyone.” He sports a small smirk and I caught his cute little dimple. The little dimple I didn’t know I would ever come to love so much.

“Okay, you got it. But still, I’m so sorry. Can I do anything?” He asks, without realizing someone was behind him trying to push another cart. It was my dad, bringing in the second cart I was supposed to help him with.

“Y/N, who’s this?” My dad blatantly asks. Grayson drops his hold on my hands and looks up. Dad has never been fond of any boys in my life, saying they were clearly only after one thing. It was no different with any stranger who looked between 17 and 20 years old. He’s a little overprotective, I guess.

“Good question, what’s your name, boy-who-hit-me-with-his-box?” I cross my arms and cock an eyebrow. He shifts his eyes between my dad and I, growing a little red in the face.

“I promise it was an accident- I’m Grayson…” he smiles a bit awkwardly. I couldn’t help but giggle at his reaction to my dad’s glare after I mentioned the incident that brought our meet, to begin with.

My dad completely dismissed Grayson’s existence and asked me to move out of the doorway to bring the first cart in and replace it with the second one. I did as I was told and moved over to let my parents handle the moving for a second.

“Do you need any help with that box, by the way?” I asked, pointing down at the box he had dropped when he grabbed my wrists. He quickly bent down to pick it up and let out a small chuckle.

“Actually, I wouldn’t mind a spotter to make sure I don’t hit anyone else,” he smiled in my direction. How am I supposed to resist that smile? I moved to be in front of him and led him down to the boy’s hall of the residence.

“What number?” I asked, slowing down my pace as we made our way down.

“220, right there,” he pointed me to the door just a few feet away. I helped him steer clear of a couple of parents he couldn’t see, and probably would have hit with his obscenely large moving box. I noticed the door was prompted open, so I let myself in. I let curiosity get the best of me and decided to watch him for a bit.

“Bottom or top bunk?” I asked. He set the box down behind me and dropped to his knees to start unpacking it.

“I want the bottom bunk, but I know my brother is going to use the ‘I was born first’ card to claim it once he gets here,” he sighs. I take the liberty to sit down on the bottom bunk to test it out.

“Hmm. Unless you want to hit your head constantly on the top bunk, I think you dodged a bullet there,” I stated while holding the metal bars above me.

“Same difference, I’ll hit my head up on the ceiling, too. I just don’t wanna climb,” he smiles. He shifts his focus from the box over to me, and I notice he caught a glance of my exposed thighs in my shorts. I immediately felt a bit insecure and I covered them with my hands before standing up.

“True. Well, good luck to you, Grayson. I have to go help my parents before they complain and say I’m avoiding them,” I say while peeping into his box. It looked like a bunch of tech stuff and lost interest for the moment, making a mental note to ask about it later. “I’ll see you around,” I sport my biggest smile as I leave the room.

“Bye, Y/N!”

 I saw Grayson very frequently that year. We bumped into each other nearly every day first semester; I saw him after sociology as I was making my way into the building and he was making his way to class. During midterms season in early October, I would get annoyed of my roommate talking to her boyfriend from back home every single night while I was trying to study. I decided to go in the common room of the residence hall one night and found Grayson taking up an entire table with his laptop, books, and notes spread out as he was studying. That night, he was wearing a white hoodie and gray sweats, looking real cute and cozy. He had his hood up and fidgeted with the strings, which I later found out he did often. He was alone in the common room, which indicated that it was pretty late at night considering that was a popular study space. Even though there was plenty of space, I still sat at the table he occupied because I didn’t want him to feel lonely, even if we were both going to be silently working on our own things. That quickly turned out to be the opposite of what we intended. Every time we started studying, he would ask me random questions about myself and got me rambling for hours. Eventually, this became a problem because we would never really get work done. I found out his twin brother, Ethan, was always playing video games late at night while he tried to study. I didn’t mind that I would hardly get my work done with him. I enjoyed getting to know him every few nights at 3 in the morning until the sun rose and we called it a night and went on with our lives.

Second semester, I found him in my statistics class. Our late-night study sessions, therefore, started to become intentional as well as more frequent. The fact that we both actually needed to study and had each other for support didn’t stop us from getting distracted and talking about literally anything else. I also started hanging out with him in our rooms which eventually led to hanging out outside of the residence hall. We started going to the dining halls together along with his brother, Ethan, and my new friend Alena. Alena quickly made a move on Ethan one night while we were all taking a walk around the lake nearby to stargaze. I was very happy for them when they shared their first kiss together, but it made me a bit sad when I had no one to share an experience like that with. Grayson suggested I should get on tinder, but I didn’t cave then. I was always hoping something would spark between us and bring us together and I don’t think I would have wanted there to be a chance for it to happen with someone else. Not at that time.

Over summer, Grayson and Ethan went back to New Jersey, while Alena went back to her hometown of San Angelo, Texas. I made my way back to my small town in California, which was only a few hours away from our university. I was happy to be back home, but I missed Grayson more than anyone. We started sending one another consistent snapchats of random things that happened throughout our day. Or random selfies with “bored” somewhere on the caption. It always depended on the day, really. But there was never a day I didn’t see his gorgeous face on my screen. At some point in the summer, we started to facetime at night, continuing our late-night chats from the study room. Most times, he would be sending me things to watch on youtube and watch my reaction. It was something we liked to do at our distracted study nights as well. Other times, we would just keep each other company while we played video games or one of us was trying to sleep. It became habitual to fall asleep to the sound of Grayson Dolan’s soft snores even though he had never physically slept next to me. I almost couldn’t sleep the night I moved back up for the second year of college.

“This apartment is sick, [Y/N]! You could throw parties here!” Grayson exclaimed, sitting on my new bed. I let out a small giggle as I sat next to him. “I’m not really a party girl, Gray,” I tilted my head at him. He averted his gaze and stared at his lap.

“You’re right, but I’ll be coming over a lot. This is way better than the small studio Ethan got us stuck with,” he said shifting his eyes back to mine. I felt a slight rush of heat and decided to lay down and stare at the ceiling to shake off the effect Grayson’s eyes had on me. I hadn’t looked into them since the last day before summer, and I forgot how intimidating they were. I always felt like Grayson could see into my soul and take it to keep whenever he laid eyes on me.

“You’re welcome to stay whenever Ethan won’t stop geeking out,” I offered. “But you’re also welcome whenever, and you know that”. I was trying so hard to suppress the smile that threatened to stretch out my cheeks. I felt him lay back next to me, and I shifted my attention to his face.

“Thanks, beautiful,” he almost whispered. I swear if it had been any lower, I wouldn’t have heard him. I almost pretended not to hear it, but my smile and blushing cheeks made it evident. I quickly sat up again, shaking off this feeling.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want Grayson to know how I felt, nor was it that I was afraid of rejection. I genuinely just wanted to keep Grayson around as platonic as I could for as long as I could. I also did not think he was anywhere in my league, but I wouldn’t let that flood my mind. I enjoyed Grayson and his company. His actions and words never crossed any boundaries of mine and I couldn’t tell if that was intentional or not. Regardless, he was my best friend and Alena would kill me if she heard me say it. I tried to tell myself I was just lusting over my best friend because I was horny, and he was the closest guy I had around. Besides him and Ethan, I didn’t have many guy friends who were straight in my life at the moment. And I definitely did not want to pursue Ethan after him and Alena had hooked up one night and she caught feelings for him- BAD. And I can’t blame her. Ethan was amazing, sweet, hilarious, and the tinge bit of annoying was actually endearing on him. However, he was no Grayson to me. Sure, Ethan checked up on me and sent me random memes every now and then. But my second year showed me just how close Grayson and I were going to get.

 It was a cold night during finals week of first semester when I was studying at the library and I got my period out of nowhere. No, it wasn’t just that I was far from my apartment and couldn’t get a pad that made me lose it. It was also that I was so close to failing the class I was studying for, and it was that I had spent 14 hours studying the material that day alone, and that I hadn’t had a proper sleep for 4 days also studying for this exam.

While I was sitting in the bathroom stall, crying my eyes out at 1 am, I tried to call Alena to see if she could bring me a pad or tampon from home. To my dismay, her phone was off and I kept getting sent to voicemail. Just a few minutes later, I got a text from Grayson, who had also been studying with me at the library:

gray<3: hey u good?

I knew he was no stranger to periods and wasn’t one of those boys to get freaked out by it, so I decided to call him.

“Hey, what’s up? You’ve been in the bathroom for a while. I got worried,” he said. I tried to muffle my sobs and get myself together.

“I got my period and I don’t have anything with me, Alena won’t pick u-“

“HEY does anyone have a pad or tampon?” I heard Grayson say away from the speaker. “My friend is in the bathroom, she doesn’t have anyth- oh thanks! Yeah I think she’s in the bathroom on this floor,” he said to someone else. I started laughing at his shameless behavior. He was never hesitant to make sure I was taken care of but this was just amusing to me. “Okay a blonde girl is gonna come in there any minute now, she had something useful,” he giggles. I reciprocate the laughter as my heart jumps a little bit.

“Thanks, Grayson,” I say before hanging up.

While small, the gesture stuck with me that night. He also went to the campus convince store located across from the library and bought me some snacks to cheer me up while we studied a bit longer. When we were done, he walked me back to my apartment and stayed the night. When I asked him why he wanted to spend the night during the most stressful time of our semester when he could be bundled up and cozy in his own bed, he said he would rather make sure I’m extra warm and getting cuddled when I was on my period and stressing over exams. This was new territory in our friendship and we had yet to test the waters. We had cuddled before, but it was always for a short period of time and while others were present. Most times, it was when we were watching movies or playing games with a group of people and we were stuck sitting on the floor. I would lean my back against his chest as he leaned against a couch or cabinet. That night, he held me in the same position but laying down, with one arm gently around my waist and the other tucked around my head as he stroked my hair every now and then. It was the first time since summer that I had fallen asleep to the sound of his soft snores. I found myself drifting off easily to the gentle, warm feeling of them against my hair. To say I caught myself falling in love with him that night is an understatement. I finally admitted it but didn’t know where to go from there. It was different from how I had seen him before.

Winter break separated us again, and the facetime calls became more frequent than they had been over summer. It got to a point where I started introducing him to my family over facetime, and he did the same. Nonetheless, I was surprised on Christmas Eve when he facetimed me asking to open the package that he sent me through the mail as a Christmas gift for a reaction. I was in the living room where my family had been gathered to watch a Christmas movie when he texted me to check the mail. I didn’t expect to see a small box and a separate envelope from him in there. Immediately, I ran up the stairs to my room with my family asking what I was doing. I didn’t pay attention to them and bolted straight to my bed as he called. I answered and sat down before opening the envelope first, as he requested.

The first thing I found in there was a hand-written note reading:

“Y/N,

First of all, you don’t understand how much I miss you. Seeing you through a screen literally does you no justice. I’d rather be giving you this in person. Second, you’re so special to me. You’re my best friend. And my best friend deserves the best. I really hope you like it. I chose it myself and Ethan said it was nice… I kinda trust him. I just thought of you instantly when I saw it. Lastly, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

- Gray”

I think he knew exactly how to pull at my heartstrings by this time, and he knew handwritten notes were one of my favorite things. I kept all the random sticky notes with jokes and doodles he put in my notebooks when I wasn’t looking while we studied at the library all those nights. He didn’t know I kept them all in the back of my planner, sticking them an inch apart to create a collection.

I pulled the next thing out of the envelope, which was three Polaroid pictures we had taken at three different times. The first picture was an attempted selfie that was mostly Grayson’s smile and my eye featuring one of the ears of my cat ear headband. On the bottom, written in sharpie was: “10/31/17 – one of my favorite nights”.

“So we’re dressing up just to hang out and eat candy?” I asked Grayson from my bed, as he sat against it with his laptop open searching for last minute DIY Halloween costumes.

“No, we’re dressing up because it’s Halloween. It’s tradition,” he states sternly.

I didn’t dare question Grayson and his love for holidays. He ended up asking me to do some skull makeup on him, which I did… poorly. And I just stuck on my cat ears that I had laying around for when I wanted to push my hair back while doing my makeup. I went full out with him and drew some whiskers on with eyeliner and drew a pink heart on my nose with lipstick. He insisted we should take a polaroid and the one that came out was the one he sent in the mail. We burst out into laughter after we saw the developed photo because Grayson swore that he had the perfect angle for us to be in frame, and he was totally wrong. But at the time, it was the last of the film he had, and we decided the photo would suffice for memories and we took a few selfies on his phone for better measure. That night ended in us watching Rick and Morty until I passed out in the bed where we were sitting against the wall, and Grayson went home. I didn’t know why it was one of his favorite nights, so I asked him while we were on facetime.

“It was the first night I saw you fall asleep in front of me,” he said with a bit of hesitation in his voice, “all the other times were over facetime.” My lips betrayed me when I tried to hide my smile. I didn’t think Grayson had such fond memories of small things like this as I did. I thought I was the only one.

The second photo was one of Grayson holding a joint in his mouth and I held a lighter against the joint and smiled at the camera. Again, written in sharpie: “11/11/17- baby’s first weed”. I laughed hysterically at this one. This was from the first time Grayson and I smoked weed together, and his first time ever smoking.

“Okay, remember to hold it in your mouth and then when you pull it away, inhale it,” I instructed Grayson. My housemate Kiara had brought home several joints and left them out on the living room coffee table for anyone who wanted them. I was curious to see what Grayson would be like while he was high. Alena was with us, and she had never smoked before either.

“Wait, let me take a picture with Grayson’s polaroid!” Alena exclaimed. We posed somewhat silly, and then I lit the joint for Grayson.

Grayson took a puff of the joint and breathed as I had taught him. His eyes were getting a little bloodshot as he kept taking hits, and they were also a bit hooded and seemed sleepy. I knew he was high when the three of us were sitting in comfortable silence while lightly playing The 1975 from my phone. I heard a slight snort escape him. It took me a little bit to react, looking over to him and giggling inexplicably.

“What?” I asked through a smile.

“I don’t know,” he replied, still giggling. “I just wanna laugh!!”

“It’s the weed, Gray!” Alena cackled out. I couldn’t believe the lightweights that sat on each side of me on the couch. I was also high, but I obviously forgot what it was like when you smoked for the first time.

After a while, Alena felt the sleepiness hit her and she knocked out in her bed, leaving me alone with high Grayson. We sat in the same silence with the light sounds of the music for a while before Grayson admitted he was feeling the munchies hit him. We made our way to the kitchen when I remembered I had some left-over, pre-made cookie dough from baking cookies for Alena’s birthday last month. Right as I put the cookies in the oven, Grayson wrapped his arms around my waist from behind and lifted me up.

“Gray!! STOP!” I squealed and laughed. I would have normally begged him to stop for a bit longer, but he turned me around and sat me up on the counter next to the stove. I choked on my breath a little bit as he spread my legs apart slightly to allow himself in between. I didn’t know what was going on because he had never done this before, but I wasn’t going to complain. His face was close to mine, and I noticed his eyes fixed to my lips, then my eyes, and then my lips again. I couldn’t handle the intensity in this interaction, so I grabbed the cookie dough wrapper and started picking at the bits of lingering dough to stick in my mouth. “Want some?” I asked with a slight shake in my voice, holding out my dough covered finger. He smiled and accepted the cookie dough I held up, licking up the dough and going for more from the wrapper. I didn’t want things to get awkward with Grayson if I had made a move and kissed him when maybe he was just super high and admiring me for no reason.

The last photo was just of me, asleep on his chest with his hand through my hair. This was from the morning after he had spent the night during finals and I didn’t even know he took this. This time, the sharpie just read “12/13/17 – nervous x nbhd”. My heart escaped my entire body and I felt my head start to spin. I knew this meant he wanted me to know that I made him nervous, as The Neighborhood had so perfectly titled their song. I couldn’t breathe, but before I could ask Grayson anything, my mom barged into my room.

“Y/N, come back down please. We’re doing family stuff,” she said eagerly, “don’t be rude by staying up here.”

“Okay, give me just a second mom, Grayson sent me this-“

“Y/N! Now!” she whisper-yelled. I put the polaroids away in my desk just in case my mom wanted to punish me for smoking weed or being asleep on top of a boy.

“Hey, Grayson I’m sorry. I gotta go, but I’ll open the package later?” I bit my finger nervously.

“That’s fine, go do family stuff. I’ll be awake,” he reassures me. I felt butterflies in my stomach knowing I’ll be talking to him later.

While watching yet another boring Christmas movie with my family, I couldn’t help but think about Grayson deciding to put that song title on the picture of me sleeping. What did this mean? Was there any meaning to it at all? I was stepping in more uncharted territory with Grayson, and with anyone. I hadn’t had a boyfriend since the beginning of high school, so I forgot how to interact with boys I liked. I also didn’t get much practice since I was too busy swooning over Grayson to pay attention to any other guys who might have been potential interests. Grayson didn’t make it very clear if there were any other girls in his life, but the more I thought about it, the less I could think of a single time he talked about being interested in a girl. I grabbed my phone and texted Ethan.

Y/N: Hey I need to talk to you        Don’t tell Grayson!!! PLEASE!

Eetee: What’s up??

Y/N: Okay I need you to be completely honest with me right now

Eetee: Ok…? I always am but ok

Y/N: Yes. So does Grayson like me??

       Read at 9:47pm

I got nervous as he left me hanging for a good 15 minutes.

Y/N: ETHAN PLEASE DON’T SAY ANYTHING TO GRAYSON

Eetee: I can’t tell you anything either

Y/N: What do you mean?

Eetee: You’re asking someone who was sworn to secrecy on this subject. Shouldn’t that give it away?

Eetee: Btw that should be a totally obvious answer, but I can’t insinuate anything. Just talk to him

Ethan knew Grayson was in love with me. Grayson had told him about every single time he got me to smile so much that my faint dimples started showing. Grayson told him about every snapchat I sent him while he held up his phone and said “Isn’t she so cute?!” Ethan was there every time Grayson came home from hanging out with me, feeling sad that he couldn’t find the courage to confess how he felt. Ethan was also there the night Grayson got high and came home giggling hysterically. He knew he had smoked, but what he didn’t expect was to hear Grayson tell him how he almost kissed me. He almost found the courage to act on his feelings, but I made cookie dough our “cock-blocker”.  Ethan wanted to tell me all of this right then, but Grayson made him swear he wouldn’t spill a word to me because he wanted to do it himself. He needed to find the right words and the right time.

I decided to leave my family once again, claiming that I was tired and promised to come back down if I couldn’t sleep. It was a cheap excuse, but my family finally let me go and I immediately facetimed Gray as I locked the door to my room.

“Hey again,” he smiled through his barely open hoodie. He was snuggled up in his bed and looked so perfectly cute. I could never get enough of him.

“Hi, sorry about earlier. I’ve been so eager to keep talking to you.”

“It’s okay. Go open your present,” he flashed his toothy smile as he commanded me to open what he sent.

“You know you didn’t have to get me anything, right? The pictures are amazing, and I was so close to crying before my mom came in,” I admitted.

“Cool, then it worked. Now open what I WANTED to get you because I know I don’t have to get you anything,” he chuckled. He knew I was stubborn about gifts and I hated being materialistic.

But when I opened the package, I didn’t expect to see what he had gifted me. It made my heart stop for the second time tonight, but also start racing faster than it was already going. I stopped fighting my smiles at this point. “Gray….. what the…?” I whispered.

“Just wanted you to know how much you mean to me.” He said sweetly. It was a beautiful, dainty gold necklace with a small crescent moon adorning that I had seen in a jewelry store we checked out when Ethan wanted a new chain and we tagged along. It was very pretty but I couldn’t afford it and I had honestly, completely forgotten about it. I’m surprised Grayson remembered how much I loved it when I saw it.

“Why did you- when did you- what?!” I was out of words. This was the most attention someone had ever put into a gift for me. Even though I didn’t wear jewelry often, I knew I was going to be rocking this necklace every single day just because Grayson had gifted it to me.

“I know you love the moon, and you loved that necklace so much. I saw it in your eyes when we were at that store. I went back like a month later by myself and got it. Saved it for Christmas.” Grayson sounded really proud of himself, and honestly, I was too. This was such a sweet gift and it truly made me want to be the first to confess how I felt and get it over with.

“Grayson, I love it. Thank you so much,” I gushed, “god, I love you…” I said quietly. I felt an awkward silence fall on us, and I was unsure as to if he heard me or not. I kept my focus on the necklace to avoid seeing his face if he had heard me.

“Y/N… I need to tell you something….” He said quietly, losing his short-lived confidence. I looked at my phone screen to see him tucked behind his hoodie that he had pulled the strings on, only his nose and some of his forehead visible. “I’ve had a major crush on you since we met, and my feelings just keep getting more intense. I wanted to tell you in person, I swear-“

“It’s okay, you have told me in person,” I cut him off reminiscing in all the memories where I left myself wondering if he liked me or if it was just a delusion of mine. The pictures and his confession of said “crush” was enough confirmation that I had been waiting for.

“What do you… oh, the pictures?” He chuckled, opening his hoodie a little more, to peek through. “Yeah, I was hoping you caught on eventually… I just- I’m not sure how to tell someone I like them, so…”

“It’s fine, I love the pictures. I love the necklace. I’m so, so happy right now, Gray.”

We spent that night on facetime until 5 in the morning in my time zone, but he was up until 8 in the morning, where he had to go open presents with his family. We talked about our different memories where it was obvious that we had feelings for one another and we both felt like the other was not into them. I laughed at how he thought the time I changed in front of him was because I thought of him as a brother. But I was very drunk, and he walked me home that night to make sure I was okay. And I needed help getting out of the dress I had worn because the back zipper got caught on something and fell off completely. Everyone else in my apartment was still out partying and Grayson was the only person around, which was fine by me. I pranced around in my underwear after he helped me out, hoping it would be a bit amusing or maybe spark a bit of innocent, drunk fun between us. He admitted he was also drunk that night, being overly tempted to finally kiss my lips as well, and touching my bare skin made him too nervous to make a move. He didn’t want to send the wrong message, so he avoided contact with me until I needed to be tucked into bed when he kissed my head through my hair. I hardly remembered that, as I was pretty wasted. But, he told me how nervous he was I’d get weirded out by it.

This is where it really started.

[multi-fandom-oneshots]

The Right Partner (Steve Rogers x Darcy Lewis Fanfic)

A/N: This fic was inspired by the song The Freshman by The Verve Pipe there will at least be a sequel to this fic. Give the song a listen and let me know what you think!

—————

Steve didn't couldn’t really pinpoint the exact moment where it had turned from friendship to more. He was just watching Darcy dance around the kitchen singing off key as she made cupcakes. He sighed and thought to himself “god I love her”. Then he immediately went to the gym and destroyed three punching bags.

Darcy had been dating Ian since Steve had known her. He knew she was head over heels for him but Steve didn’t get it. There was something about the guy that kept him uneasy. Like how he would sometimes look through Darcy rather than at her. He would pick at her for her quirks that should be cherished, like she was an embarrassment rather than a blessing, but Darcy loved Ian, so Steve kept his mouth shut.

He and Darcy were curled up on the couch one afternoon when she told him the news. 

“Hey Steve, can I tell you something?” Darcy asked with hesitation in her voice.

Steve paused the movie they were watching and turned towards her, her tone alerting him to the fact that she was about to say something serious. “Of course, Darce. You can tell me anything.” 

Darcy inhaled and Steve saw that her eyes had become teary. 

“So, I, uhh…” Darcy trailed off, muttering the last part of her sentence.

“I’m sorry, Darcy. I didn’t hear you, what?” Steve was frowning now. Darcy looked so small curled there on the couch, there had to be something wrong. 

“I think I might be pregnant.” Darcy blurted. 

Steve tried to hide the shock he felt and the pang of sadness that he wished she’d be having his child. He knew that was wrong to think but he couldn’t help it. 

He grabbed Darcy’s hand and squeezed. “Congrats Darcy. That is good news, right?” 

Darcy just shrugged and started chewing on her bottom lip. “I honestly don’t know. I haven’t told anyone but you. I’m scared to tell Ian.” 

Anger welled up in Steve’s chest, hot and fiery. He took a deep breath and tried to hide the fact that he was falling apart. “Why are you scared to tell him Darce?” 

Darcy was chewing on her lip anxiously now. He resisted the urge to reach out and smooth her lip with his thumb. 

“Well he’s always said he didn’t like kids, that they would be a burden to his career. And we’ve been dating over a year and we haven’t even taken the step to move in together yet. It’s just a lot at once and I don’t know, I’m overwhelmed.” 

Steve wrapped his arm around his girl—no, not his, not in the way he wanted. “Darcy, Ian loves you. I’m sure he’ll be overjoyed.”

Darcy perked up a bit at Steve’s confident tone. “You think?” 

Steve smiled, trying desperately to hide the fact that he was breaking inside. “Of course.” 

“Okay, okay. I can do this.” Darcy spoke. Steve wasn’t sure if it was to him or herself but her confidence seemed to be slowly reappearing so Steve didn’t question it. 

“I think maybe I should go talk to Ian. FRIDAY, is he still in the labs?” 

“Yes Miss Lewis, he is currently located in Lab 617 on the 61st floor.” 

“Thanks, J Man. And Steve—” Darcy bent to kiss his cheek, “thank you, you’re the best.” 

Steve didn’t get a chance to reply before she had entered the elevator. He raised his hand to his cheek as if he could still feel the warmth from her lips. And then his alert to Assemble went off. 

—————

He and the rest of the team had been gone for three days and by the time their mission was completed Steve was on edge.

He nor any of his team members had heard from Darcy, and either that was a good sign, she was so caught up in the excitement of expecting a child that she hadn’t thought to touch base with the team, or her talk with Ian hadn’t gone well and she was now facing her situation all alone. Steve didn’t know which outcome he was hoping for, a tiny piece of him hoped that Darcy would need him when he got back and he hated himself for it. 

Steve was brought back to the present when a firm hand landed on his shoulder. 

“Son of Rogers, what ails you?” Thor questioned. 

Steve shrugged “It’s nothing Thor, just worried about a friend.” 

“What I have heard from Sam, Barnes’ recovery is going well.” Thor responded, assuming that Steve was worried about his newly found best friend. 

Steve mustered up a smile for the god in front of him. “Buck is doing well, but that’s not who I’m worried about at the moment.” 

Thor nodded solemnly, sensing that Steve didn’t really want to go into detail. “Well if I could ever be any assistance to you all you must do is ask.” 

“Hey, Blonde Babes, we’re fifteen minutes out.” Clint yelled from the cockpit. 

Steve nodded solemnly and began to gather his gear. 

—————

Darcy felt like a fool, she wanted to die, just cry and cry until her body ran out of water and she wasted away. She also wanted to plan and execute Ian’s slow and painful demise. So needless to say she felt conflicted. 

She had locked everyone out of her room, even Jane, who had long since given up trying to break in, FRIDAY was a hell of a doorman. And she had inadvertently smashed her phone when she threw it in a fit of rage. After she calmed down she began to reflect on her current situation. 

Ian was an ass, and she should have seen it from the beginning. But she let herself get carried aways in the fantasy of what could be if she just gave it enough time. She knew for sure she was keeping the baby, Darcy had always wanted to be a mother, and was already growing fond of the infant inside her, even though she knew it was so early in the pregnancy.  

The fuzzy feeling of motherhood began to fade away as Darcy began to panic. When she had imagined being pregnant it had been different, she had someone who loved her there to support her. To hold her hair back when she had morning sickness, to rub her swollen feet and run out and get her weird craving food at ungodly hours. But she wouldn’t have that. She’d be all alone. 

FRIDAY roused her from her panic. “Miss Darcy, you asked me to notify you when the team landed.” 

Darcy stood, she wiped her face, hoping that no one would comment on her tear stained face. She practiced her smile in the mirror then sighed, it was watery but not terrible. She smoothed her hands over her jeans and bit her lip. It was now or never. 

—————

Steve’s face fell when he saw her. She was smiling but he knew it was a facade. He rushed to her then, engulfed her into a hug, forgetting to try to hide his feelings. 

“Hey, Doll. I missed you.” he whispered and his heart broke when he heard Darcy’s muffled sobs against his shoulder. He picked her up, her body immediately wrapping around him, as if she was holding on for dear life. He whispered to her, sweet nothings, trying hard to help her. He was also trying to hold back his rage but he would put a pin in that and come back to it later. Right now his girl needed him. 

Steve carried Darcy to her room, thankful that FRIDAY had opened the door so he didn’t have to let go of Darcy. She was still crying but her sobs had faded into small hiccups. He carried her to the couch and sat, holding her in his lap, not quite ready to let go of her quite yet. He rubbed her back hoping to soothe her. 

She muffled something into his shoulder and only then did her let some space between them. 

“What was that, Doll?” 

“I got your vest all wet.” she said apologetically. 

“Don’t worry about it. Do you want to talk about it?” Steve was afraid to ask but if Darcy wanted to talk about it he would be there to listen. 

She shrugged and looked down at her hands which had started to fidget with the buckles on his tac vest.  “Nothing much to talk about. I told him, he left me. And now here I am. alone.” Her voice broke on “alone”, another fresh wave of tears spilling down her cheeks. 

He wiped away her tears, despite the rage he felt his touch was gentle. “Darcy you’re never alone, you’ll always have me.” 

—————

A while later Steve finally went to get up. Darcy had cried herself to sleep an hour or so ago and since then he had just been sitting and thinking. Trying to keep himself from breaking every bone in Ian’s body. He sat on Darcy’s couch until he was sure that when he did get up to go visit Ian he would be able to keep his anger in check. 

As we went to leave he looked over at Darcy. She looked so small curled up the blanket resting under her chin. Steve knew knew no matter what happened he would be with Darcy every step of the way. She would not go through this alone. 

Although he told himself he wouldn’t kill Ian, he didn’t have a problem scaring the shit out of him. So Steve broke into his apartment, sat in the armchair facing the front door and waited. 

He didn’t have to wait long, Ian’s keys jingled in the door a mere fifteen minutes later. As Ian entered Steve flicked the lamp beside him on. He’d be lying if the high pitched scream the man let out didn’t make him smile. 

“What in the bloody hell are you doing in here?” Ian yelled. 

“I’m sure you can figure it out.” Steve snarked his voice dripping with hostility. 

Ian rolled his eyes then. “Did Darcy send you? To get you to intimidate me into allowing her to come back?” 

Steve griped the arms of the chair so hard that the wood groaned under his hands. He clenched his jaw, trying to hold his tongue. “I came here to tell you to stay away from Darcy. You didn’t deserve her and you won’t hurt her anymore.” 

Steve stood to go but the next words out of Ian’s mouth stopped him short. 

“It’s her own fault, I’m not responsible. She’s the one who fell in love in the first place.” 

Before Steve knew it his fist was connecting with Ian’s jaw. There was a loud crack and he felt the man’s bones crack under his knuckles. 

“If I see you near Darcy, hear that you’ve been trying to get in contact with Darcy, or if you even think about Darcy or her child, you’re a dead man.” All the venom he had felt for the Ian over the years leaked out into this one sentence. The man was on the floor, clutching his face, pale and shaking. “Do you understand?” 

Ian just nodded, eyes wide.

“Good.” 

—————

To Be Continued…

[marvelsviking]

Ain’t It Fun

Steve x Reader (Fluff) College AU Word Count: 1,536 A/N: This fic is for @caplansteverogers Song Fic Challenge. I fucking love this song and the minute I saw this on her list, I thought of Steve. I thought it was appropriate to set this in college because this is loosely based on a personal experience with someone in one of my classes. Hope you guys enjoy this! 

College has been an absolute nightmare to Steve since he first arrived. He had gotten in on a full scholarship due to his outstanding grades. He had thought that high school had prepared him for college, for the real word. Everything would go smoothly for him and he would give his fellow students a run for their money.  

But man, was he wrong. Currently, he was swamped with homework and was to his surprise, failing all 8 of his classes. He thought he could do it, it hadn't been too hard to balance 8 classes in high school, but college was a whole different ballpark and he wasn't sure how he would survive the rest of the semester.  

You're not the big fish in the pond no more You are what they're feeding on

Steve found out that he wasn't the only person that had this dilemma. The college was filled with smartasses like him who thought that they were going to be the hot shit students. But there was one person who fascinated and irritated him to no end.  

His roommate.  

Steve had managed to snag a role as a Residence Assistant in his co-ed dorm and shared a room with his one of his RA's that lived on the same floor as him. Since they were RAs, their dorm room was massive and their rooms were separated by a living room and kitchenette so neither felt like their privacy was ever invaded on, but they still saw each other enough to pick up on the temperament of the other.  

At first, Steve thought she was just a lazy, irresponsible, know-it-all. Both of their schedules started at 7am, as their first class started around 8am, Steve's classes ended at 4pm and by time he got back to the dorm, ready to do homework, she was already there on the couch, dressed in her hoodie and shorts, eating ice cream and watching the latest Netflix show. Steve assumed that she skipped the rest of her classes and due to her being home so early and to the fact that he never saw her do a single piece of homework or do an ounce of studying. Every now and then when Steve would stress over homework in the living room, she would pop up behind him and begin to correct his work by leaning over his shoulder. Like she was doing now.  

"Conjunction word. Right there" Her chest pressed against his shoulder as she leaned down and pointed at the 'won't' typed on his screen as he was constructing his 10-page essay.   "Your professor is going to take off points for that."  

"How do you know?" Steve snapped his head towards her with a scowl sported on his face.   "What the fuck would you know about writing an English paper, huh?"

"I'm an English Major, I think I know how to write a paper." Her brow furrowed and that only angered Steve. He stood up and looked down at her, the couch creating a space between them.  

He crossed his arms over his chest and stood his ground.   "Oh, so you think that just because you’re an English Major that you can skip class and not do any work?!"  

"Okay! What the hell are you talking about?! I do my work! Don't get mad at me because you thought taking 8 classes was a good idea! And in your freshman year no less!" She yelled back, her fist clenched at her sides.  

"I thought I could handle it okay?! I-"

"You thought you were prepared? You thought that you could walk in here and easily get the spot as Top Student because you were in high school?"

"W-well, yeah. You're right." His anger was short-lived when his arms slowly fell to his sides and a deep breath fell from his nose.  

"And now you're all stressed out because you're alone in the real world. Right, Stevie?" She spoke mockingly and Steve didn’t have anything to come back at her with. She was right, he thought that he could run things here like he did before in high school. But he was wrong.  

Silence stood between them for a while as Steve's focus was on the ground below him, avoiding her gaze. Then finally, she broke it.  

"And for your information, I do my homework. I'm just more comfortable doing it in my room. And I only have 4 classes. So, when you don't see me for hours on the weekend, I'm in there, busting my ass off." She pointed to her room and Steve felt overwhelmed with guilt.  

"Sorry. I shouldn't have judged you like that."   "Apology accepted, I guess. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm making ramen. You want some? You look like you could deserve a break." She turned on her heels and started toward the kitchenette.  

"Thanks, but I really gotta finish this paper. It's-"   "Steve. If you don’t get your ass in here, I'm dragging you in by your ears."   "Yes, ma'am." He gave in and followed her, helping her make the ramen. When the ramen was done, they sat down at the dining table and mostly ate in silence. But Steve had so many questions boiling inside him that they just had to burst out.  

"Four classes?"   She was in mid-slurp when he spoke. She looked up at him with a raised brow and noodles hanging from her mouth. Steve had to stop himself from laughing at how cute she looked in that moment.  

She slurped the remaining noodles and covered her mouth as she spoke and chewed.  

"Yeah, didn’t wanna overwork myself. You know, between school and work."

Steve slightly choked on his ramen in surprise, and she quickly leaned over and hit his back as he coughed up noodles.  

"Shit, are you okay?" She giggled. "Yeah, I'm fine. Are you? You have a fucking job while you're in college?!" He finally said when his coughs calmed down.  

"Yeah? I gotta make money somehow. A lot of things are fun, but being broke isn't." She sat down close to him and brought her bowl with her.   "What about your parents? Don’t they send you money?" Steve couldn't believe how busy the woman in front of him was. He thought he was the busy one, but she brought a whole new meaning to the term.  

"Oh. My. God, are you a trust fund kid?!" She leaned forward, her face struck with amusement.  

"No! My mom just takes good care of me is all." He leaned back a bit as her closeness took him by surprise. "Oh, you’re a mama's boy then?" She smirked.  

"No! She just helps me out when I need it." Steve turned away from her and continued eating.   You had continued eating as well, and Steve thought that was the end. But once again, he was wrong. "So, what? Does she also come here and do your laundry for you too?"   "...Sometimes."  He murmured into his bowl as he had finished his noodles and started to drink the broth.  

"Hey, I'm not shaming you or your mother's love. It’s just that, college is, well for me at least, supposed to be about doing your own thing and getting a taste of freedom, ya know?" She finished the last of her noodles and pushed her bowl away from her.  

"I get what you're saying." He set his bowl down and directed his body to face her again. "But that doesn't mean that you're on your own, Y/N."  

"You are on your own in the real world, Stevie. I mean, sure, I could call up my mom right now and cry to her about how stressed I feel. Hell, you can too. Doesn't change anything, cause the stress is still there." She shrugged.  

"Then what do you do? What do you do when you’re so stressed out that you feel like your life is over?" Steve leaned in closer to her subconsciously.  

"I remind myself that it's not. I mean, think about it" She moved her hands on the table as she spoke.   For some reason, Steve thought it was fucking adorable how animated she was with her hands as she talked. He wondered how he didn’t notice it sooner.  

"After college, you're free to do what you want. You can either go straight into a job if you're lucky, take a break and do your passion, whatever. If I hang on to that freedom, the stress doesn't get to me as much." She laid her hands flat on the table and stood up, taking her bowls with her to the sink, washing them.  

Steve followed her and gently pushed her aside so he could take over for her. She muttered 'thanks' and he smiled at her.  

"Well, maybe you could help me function in the real world?" Steve joked and she let out a slight chuckle.  

"Maybe. Goodnight, Steve. It's been fun." She leaned up on her tiptoes, kissed him on the cheek, and walked out the kitchenette towards her room. She smiled at him as she closed her door and Steve brought his hand up to his cheek. He could feel his face burning up and his stomach flipping.  

"Goodnight."  

Tags: @caplansteverogers @blackcaptainrogers @avengersandlovers @erisjade  @a-splash-of-stucky

[unlessimwrongwhichyouknowimnot]

okay another pride prompt - two (or more!) people in a queerplatonic relationship that you havent written before! any characters of your choice

I knew immediately that I wanted to write about Philinda, because after FitzSimmons, they’re the couple that’s so obviously queerplatonic, but I really struggled with what to write. I brainstormed a bit with @buskidsburgade (thanks for that!) and got a couple ideas, but I couldn’t quite get them to work in fic form. So, I decided to take a page out of @florchis‘s book and write a bullet fic detailing Phil and Melinda’s relationship from pre-series to the end of season 4 similar to how she re-wrote Demisexual Fitz’s story. 

It got long, and kinda angsty because SHIELD, but I hope you like it!

Phil Coulson never really cared about dating in high school.He was too busy learning everything he could about Captain America, PeggyCarter, the Howling Commandos, and SHIELD.

He’s recruited by SHIELD his freshman year of college andgoes to join the Communications Academy.

He goes on a few dates while he’s there, but he never formsany sort of romantic relationship with anyone. It doesn’t really bother him.The Academy Library has many more books on Captain America than he’d had accessto before.

After he becomes a fully-fledged SHIELD Agent, he findshimself being frequently paired with Melinda May, an Operations graduate. Theyquickly become friends, and nothing more.

Garrett doesn’t believe that Phil and Melinda are onlyfriends. He insists that they must be sleeping together, or even if theyaren’t, that Phil must want to. He doesn’t. Not with Melinda.

It’s the early 2000s when Phil stumbles on some newvocabulary: Asexual. Aromantic. Queerplatonic. “Huh,” is his reaction.

Asexual kinda fits. He isn’t a virgin, but sex isn’tsomething he desires all the time. Maybe gray-asexual fits him? He isn’t thatbothered with the specifics.

Aromantic definitely fits him. He struggles to define it,but he knows it makes sense.

Queerplatonic is another good word. He finally has somethingto describe his relationship with Melinda.

She’s alloromantic and allosexual. He’s spent enough timelistening to her talk about her dating partners to know that much. He’s seenthe way she and Andrew interact. There’s something between them that Phil justdoesn’t understand.

He goes to her to talk about what he’s figured out. She’saccepting of the possible asexual identity and the aromantic identity. Then heexplains about queerplatonic relationships and how he thinks they’re in one.

She gets it, and she agrees, but then she starts worrying.Is she cheating on Andrew? Is forming an emotional connection with another manconsidered cheating? Will Andrew be angry or accepting? Does their relationshipbreak SHIELD’s fraternization protocol?

Melinda wants to keep it between them, but Phil pushes,gently, that they should talk to Andrew, if only to alleviate her fears thatshe’s cheating. Phil says they’re not because there’s no romantic or sexualfeelings between them. Melinda still has doubts.

Finally she agrees that they should talk. Luckily, as atherapist who does his best to keep up with the various orientations andidentities people have, Andrew is familiar with all the terms Phil and Melindaare using.

Andrew is jealous at first. He’ll admit that. But he’s knownPhil long enough to trust that he’s being honest when he says that therelationship he has with Melinda is strictly queerplatonic and non-sexual. Hecan’t deny them the emotional connection they have. They’ve been through someshit together, that Glasgow mission in particular. He’s aware that people whohave been through what they have form close bonds. He tells them he acceptstheir relationship.

Everyone’s happy. Phil comes over frequently to spend timewith Melinda. They invite Andrew to join them when he can. Melinda and Andrew’srelationship grows stronger. They start to talk about starting a family.

Phil meets Audrey, and they form a connection. He explainsthat because of his job and his sexual and romantic identities they can’t havea relationship like she might want. Audrey understands. She still wants to try.They spend time together, have fun together. Phil hasn’t felt a connection likethis since Melinda.

He talks to Melinda about it, and she’s happy for him. “I’dbe a hypocrite if I didn’t want you to have more relationships, Phil,” shetells him.

Then Bahrain happens. Andrew does his best to be supportive.Phil is always there, encouraging her to talk about it, sparring with her whenshe needs to physically fight the memories. But the pain is too much. Melindawithdraws. From Andrew, from Phil, from field work. She requests a transfer tothe Administrative Department, which is granted. She and Andrew divorce. Philremains a field agent. He’s given special assignments: TAHITI, the AvengersInitiative. He doesn’t have time to talk with Melinda anymore. She won’trespond to him anyway.

Phil and Audrey start seeing more of each other. They startplanning a trip up the coast. Then Phil is called to assemble the Avengers.

Melinda hears reports about how Phil was killed in actionbefore the Battle of New York. She’s devastated. She regrets shutting him out,but she had to. Being around him after Bahrain just brought up memories shedesperately wanted to forget. “Let the girl go.”

Director Fury calls her to his office not long after theBattle of New York. He tells her all about TAHITI, how Phil is no longer dead,how he can never know what actually happened to him. He explains the mission,asks her to evaluate what they’ll need and give him the report. He’ll give theparameters to Phil. He warns her that Phil will want her as part of the team.Melinda’s okay with that. She’s ready to start repairing their relationship.

They form their team. FitzSimmons, the young, genius scienceduo who are the talk of SHIELD isn’t Melinda’s first choice, mainly becausethey aren’t cleared for combat, and they have no field experience to speak of,but their scientific record speaks for itself. Agent Ward is Maria Hill’schoice, one Melinda approves. The agent is surly, and his people skills need alot of work, but he has a dry sense of humor that Melinda appreciates, and he’snot bad to look at either. Phil decides to add one more, because of course hedoes. He’s Phil. He’s compassionate. That’s one of the things she loves abouthim.

Their relationship picks up almost where they left off.Their camaraderie hasn’t changed even with the separation. Phil is above her inrank now, which is different, but they’re still equal when they’re not actingas agents.

Melinda starts having sex with Ward, and she thinks shefinally understands Phil’s aromantic nature a bit better. There’s no romance atall in her relationship with Ward. She keeps it secret at first, but the guiltof keeping things from him gets to her. This secret she can tell him. Fury’ssecret, she can’t.

It comes out, of course. All secrets do, eventually. He’shurt. She’s hurt too. Their trust is broken, and he sends her away. She goes.She’s determined to find answers. To prove that she cares.

She finds the hard-drive and brings it to Phil. “Huh,” ishis reaction. They apologize to each other, and forgive each other. Theirrelationship has never really been physically intimate, but that night theyshare a bed. They need to be close.

They defeat Garrett, arrest Ward, and find a new base.Melinda thinks that maybe they can start to rebuild their lives.

Then Phil starts to carve. Melinda finds him the nextmorning, passed out from exhaustion on the floor, knife in hand, and the wallcovered in those strange symbols. She knows instantly what this means. Shehelps Phil to bed, and once he’s had some more sleep, they talk. She tells himwhat she knows. She makes him promise to get her each time he feels the need tocarve. She starts to make plans.

They go undercover together as husband and wife. “We’remodern,” Melinda tells their mark. If only he knew how true that was…

Phil wants her to shoot him in the head. She can’t. Shewon’t. She’ll send him to Australia. He likes kangaroos.

“Point is,” she tells him, “no matter what happens, I’lltake care of you. That’s my plan.”

“That is,without question, the sweetest, most selfless thing anyone has ever wanted todo for me,” he tells her, “but I need you to forget all that, and kill me asordered.”

“Phil, please.” How can he ask that of her? After everythingthey’ve been through?

“Hardchoices are coming. I need you to make this one. For me.” For him. She doesn’tlike it, but she nods.

Luckily,it doesn’t get to that point. He figures out what the carving means and theimpulse goes away. She doesn’t have the words to describe how relieved she is.

Theyneed Andrew’s help. He’s the only one they trust to evaluate Skye. She goes tosee him. It’s awkward. He’s a little annoyed. She should have called him back.He agrees to help anyway.

The baseis taken over by Gonzales and his team. May does her best to resist, to helpPhil escape, and convince the others that he’s not the threat they think he is.But Gonzales and his team know the Director’s secrets. Melinda knows that it’spart of the job—keeping secrets—she’s done it before. But this secret—Philmeeting with Andrew behind her back—that’s too far. They’ve always been openwith each other about their various relationships. Melinda knows, logically,that Phil probably went to Andrew for therapy, but still! Andrew is her ex, and it feels weird that the manshe’s currently in a relationship with, non-sexual/non-romantic though it maybe, is talking to the man she used to be in a relationship with.

Andrew shows up after it’s all over, to help them deal withthe ever-growing number of traumatic experiences they’ve faced. He and Melindastart talking again, just like they used to before Melinda bottled all herfeelings up inside her. They steal Phil’s whisky. Andrew encourages her to takea break, go on vacation with him. Melinda agrees. Phil is supportive. She cantell he’s sad; she hopes that he’ll miss her. But all he does is tell her it’stime she took a break.

The vacation with Andrew is great, but then it’s like hedisappears off the face of the planet. He doesn’t return her calls, or answerher texts. She doesn’t know what she did, but she must have done something.

She goes to see Phil. She lets him know things went southwith Andrew, but that she’s not ready to come back yet. They share a drinktogether, and he listens to her vent. She lets him know she’s going to spendsome time visiting her parents, and leaves again.

While she’s gone, Phil meets Rosalind Price. He doesn’ttrust her, but she does intrigue him. He can flirt, pretend to be alloromanticand allosexual. He wants her to trust him.

They find out that Andrew is Lash. Melinda is devastated.Phil wants to help, wants to be there for her, but he remembers how she wasafter Bahrain. She just wanted space to process in her own time. So that’s whathe gives her.

He trusts Rosalind more now, but not enough to come out toher. He’s not sure she’d be accepting of his relationship with Melinda. He’sworking toward it though. Sadly, he never gets the chance. It’s Melinda’s turnto give him space.

Melinda is pissed when she learns how Phil jumped out of theQuinjet into the portal, but she’s so relieved when she learns he’s alive. Shewaits anxiously for the pod to return to the Zephyr, and when Phil exits, shehugs him. Later, when they’re alone in his office, she lets him know just howstupid she thinks he was, going through the portal like that. He lets her yell,doesn’t try to defend himself. He just stares off to the side, like he’s lostin his thoughts. She realizes that something happened on Maveth, something thathe’s not willing to share yet. That night, they share a bed, and she holds himwhile he cries.

Time passes. Andrew dies. They save the world again. ThenDaisy leaves, and Phil steps down. A new director takes over, and their team issplit apart. Phil is sent to do field work on the Zephyr with Mack. May istasked with training a special strike force team. They barely see each other,or even get a chance to talk. The new director puts up motivational posters inthe bathrooms. It sucks. Melinda considers leaving again, but chooses not to.She needs to stay, to protect her found family.

Phil is worried when he learns that Melinda is infected, andhe’s furious when Mace refuses to give him any information, then relieved whenSimmons reports that she’s been cured. He’s slightly alarmed when Simmonselaborates on exactly what the cure was, and then he’s curious about whatMelinda saw before she died.

Melinda doesn’t remember much of what happened while she wasinfected. But she remembers seeing Phil, and she remembers the comfort thatbrought her.

He’s annoying about it, repeatedly asking her about what shesaw. She wonders if he saw her before he died? Not that he’d remember. TAHITItook that away.

When he vanishes, she does everything she can to get himback, even getting Radcliffe to read the Darkhold. She knows Phil will bepissed when he finds out, but she doesn’t care. She needs him back, and theDarkhold may have the answers. She’s right. Radcliffe and his robot build aportal. When it opens, and she sees Phil being sucked into the darkness, andFitz doing his best to pull him out, her heart stops for a second. She tries torush in to help, but Radcliffe stops her. There’s nothing she can do but watchand yell at him to fight.

“I knew you weren’t gone,” she tells him when he comes backthrough.

“I know,” he responds.

Melinda remembers going to get AIDA. Then, she’s in a spa. Andagain, and again. Then, she’s escaping. And again, and again, and again. Then,she’s back in Bahrain. She saves the girl. She goes home to Andrew. She has noidea who Phil Coulson is.

Phil is mad at himself that he didn’t recognize that Maywasn’t the real May. He should have known. They’ve been through so muchtogether. He should have known. He kissed her—kissed it? Why did he do that?Their relationship has never been very physically intimate. He’s fine withkissing, and he loves Melinda, but she’s never been on his list of people hewants to kiss. Though lately…

He searches for her, the real her. The Russian brings up anassignment he and Melinda worked together, before Phil learned about hisidentities, before Melinda and Andrew were together. He had known, even then,that his relationship with Melinda was different, and special. She brought updating, and even though he wasn’t that interested, he was willing to considerit. For her.

Then, he’s a teacher. And Melinda May is the Hydra Agent whoendangered them all.

But, Phil has doubts. Something isn’t right about his life.It must be the soap. Hydra is brainwashing him with the soap. He learns how tomake his own.

Daisy brings Agent May to the Resistance’s base. Phil can’thelp but feel drawn to her. Daisy had mentioned that they were close in theother world. Phil wonders exactly how close?

He gets shot trying to leave, and it feels oddly familiar.May is there, helping him. “Come with me,” he tells her. “Just follow my lead.”

He wakes up in an unfamiliar room. May is hooked up next tohim. “Come on, May. Jump.” She wakes with a gasp.

He fills her in on everything she missed, carefully leavingout one certain detail. She picks up on it though. “What aren’t you tellingme?”

“I drank the bottle of Haig.”

“You piece of sh—” Phil is only slightly grateful that theexplosion stops her from finishing.

They don’t really have time to actually talk about whathappened, but they do their best in between setting up the plan to captureAIDA. Phil really wishes they had another bottle of Haig to help make the talkeasier, but they’re a bit busy at the moment. He really wants to reaffirm theirqueerplatonic relationship, maybe discuss physical intimacy, but he can’t dothat at the moment. He vows to buy another bottle as soon as everything hassettled down around them.

He isn’t able to keep that vow.

[and-his-name-is-rouge-crimson]

1-100 or whichever you care to tell me... I would like to know everything though :3

Well here goes the rest of my night :3 1-100 here we go.

1. When you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal, or more cereal than milk?

Answer: It honestly depends on the cereal. If it’s anything from the CheeryO’s family, I’ll eat that milk-less. If it’s Cookie Crisp, or Cinnamon Toast Crunch, I had better have some damn milk.

2. Do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a cold wintery day?

Answer: FUCK NO!! WINTER SUCKS!! 

3. What random objects do you use to bookmark your books?

Answer: I just remember the page number. Despite my crap memory, I somehow manage to remember what page I was on when I’m reading.

4. How do you take your coffee/tea?

Answer: I’ll take an energy drink instead.

5. Are you self-conscious of your smile?

Answer: Admittedly yes, I don’t like giving toothy smiles whenever I or someone else takes a picture.

6. Do you keep plants?

Answer: No, plants=bees. I hate bees. I’m not allergic or anything, I’ve just been stung one too many times for me to feel comfortable around bees. Hell if anything buzzes past my ear, I reflexively flinch even if it’s just a house fly. So no plants for me.

7. Do I name my plants?

Answer: *skips*

8. What artistic medium do you use to express your feelings?

Answer: I write. A lot, though I’m a little self-conscious to post a lot of it

9. Do you like singing/humming to yourself?

Answer: Oh hell yes, I’ll do this all the time. At home, in the car, at work, with my friends … I’ve said too much.

10. Do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach?

Answer: I answered this one already, but since you asked me to do 1-100 (and like a fool who clearly does not value what he does with what is left of his evening) I’ll answer this one again. I’ll fall asleep on my stomach or back, and somehow find myself awake on my sides.

11. What’s an inner joke you have with your friends?

Answer: Ohhh there are several, all with an interesting story behind it. Anyone reading this feel free to ask about said stories of said inside jokes. However, the two best ones I can think of at the moment are: “White-face Mexican Jesus,” and “I’m trying to send a donkey to someone for their birthday, but customs is being a bitch!”

12. What is your favorite planet?

Answer: Pluto (”Ohhh but that’s not a planet anymore” fuck off it’s a planet if I say it’s a planet. And that’s the bottom line, because Stone Cold said so!)

13. What is something that made you smile today?

Answer: Listening to Neon by Jeff and Casey Lee Williams.

14. If you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like?

Answer: Shit. I’m still figuring Tumblr out, so I have NO idea how to link stuff (embed or html or whatever the fuck it is) so… for a base idea, probably something like 221b Baker Street from BBC’s Sherlock.

15. Go Google a weird space fact and tell us what it is.

Answer: *skips*

16. What is your favorite pasta dish?

Answer: Just give me spaghetti and meatballs.

17. What color do you really want to dye your hair?

Answer: Purple. It’s my favorite color, but I seem to have a distinct lack of purple in my wardrobe. But if I was to dye my hair, it would have to be a real dark purple.

18.  Tell something dumb/funny that has since gone down in history between you and your friends that is always brought up.

Answer: *deep breath* No.

19. Do you keep a journal? And what do you write/draw in it?

Answer: I do not keep or have ever kept a journal.

20. What is your favorite eye color?

Answer: Dark brown, kind of like my own.

21. Talk about your favorite bag. One that has been to hell and back, and that you love to pieces. 

Answer: Okay, well I still use this backpack. I’ve had it since my freshman year in high school. Its right strap is worn down, because I only ever wore it over my right shoulder, and still only ever wear it over my right shoulder. There’s also a Wings of Freedom button on the right strap, despite my dislike for the Attack on Titan anime (I liked the manga better). That backpack has been through high school, survived college, and gone to every single anime convention I’ve gone to since I’ve had it.

22. Are you a morning person?

Answer: No, I’m more of a crack of noon person. But high school has ingrained it into my brain that I need to wake up at the ass crack of dawn.

23. What’s your favorite thing to do on lazy days when you have 0 obligations?

Answer: Oh so everyday I don’t have work? Okay then. I either write or play video games, I’m currently playing Mass Effect Andromeda and loving it (despite the issue with the character customization).

24. Is there someone out there that you would trust with every single one of your secrets?

Answer: Yes, and they know who they are.

25. What’s the weirdest place you’ve ever broken into?

Answer: My friend Neil and I once had to break into his own house because he forgot his keys, and nobody else was home. There was a ladder under the balcony of his parents bedroom, we set it up, and Neil held the thing in place while I climbed up and over the ladder and over the balcony (thank god the sliding glass door was unlocked).

26. What shoes have you had forever and wear with every single outfit?

Answer: Normally my shoes don’t last that long.

27. What’s your favorite bubblegum flavor?

Answer: Ummmm… I don’t have a preference to bubble gum flavors. :3

28. Sunrise or sunset?

Answer: Sunset. Sleep is good.

29. What is something really cute one of your friends does, and is really endearing?

Answer: One of them is our designated group mom, and she cares for all of us. Love you Panda!

30. Think of it: Have you ever been truly scared?

Answer: Yes. There is a local haunted place close to where I live. It was an old rock crusher/munitions factory back in WWII, before it exploded and covered nearly all of it’s workers in acid. Since then the place has been haunted by the spirits of the workers who have died there. And then some idiots attempted to perform some ritual to summon some sort of demon … And it fucking worked. Anyways, my friend Neil and I go up there a few years ago on Halloween. In reality I allowed myself to be talked into it, but I was so freaked out the whole time we were up there, and I could have sworn I was seeing shit move just past the range of my vision. Anyways we are about to head back to his house, and we are right in front of the old rock crusher, when I become aware that Neil is not walking beside me. When I turn around, I see him passed out in front of the old structure … Then I hear this horrible voice in my ear: “Leave him, he belongs to us now.” 

31. What is your opinion of socks? Do you sleep with socks? Do you confine yourself to white sock hell? Really, just talk about socks.

Answer: *skips*

32. Tell a story that happened at 3am while you were with friends.

Answer: Ummmm there are no stories like that. Even if we’re at cons, we’re asleep before midnight.

33. What’s your favorite pastry?

Answer: Cinnamon covered doughnuts. So good~

34. Tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a child.

Answer: I had/have 3. A lamb, and 2 teddy bears. I don’t remember what happened to the lamb. I know it’s in the house somewhere, I just don’t know where. But as for the teddy’s: One is a standard-size teddy bear named *drumroll* Teddy. I was adopted when I was 4 days old, and Teddy is the only thing that I have from my birth mother. The second one is larger, kinda like the size of a carnaval prize. He was given to my by my Uncle Desmond “Dezzy” Caine (I really miss Uncle Dezzy), so he’s named the Dezzy Bear. I still sleep with both and I’ll be 25 in like 9 days. Dezzy still props up my pillows.

35. Do you like stationary and pretty pens?

Answer: Meh, they’re not so bad. I have really bad handwriting so I’m kinda divided 50/50

36. Which band’s sound would suit your mood right now?

Answer: Nightwish. Oh their lead singer’s voice is beautiful~

37. Do you like keeping your room messy or clean?

Answer: Messy, definately messy. Sure it looks disorganized, but I know where everything is in the mess.

38 Talk about your pet peeves.

Answer: No, it’s too late at night for that shit.

39. What color do you wear the most?

Answer: White. Undershirts mostly. I would wear more purple, but there is a distinct lack of purple in my wardrobe, and not a lot of purple clothing in the stores I shop at (mostly Hot Topic) that fit/I would wear.

40.Think of a piece of jewelry you own. What’s it’s story? Does it have any meaning to you?

Answer: Ummmm admittedly, I have a lot of jewelry pieces. Mostly necklaces that I rarely wear. My favorite by far, is a pewter dragon with it’s body wrapped around a blue crystal. I bought it at the county fair a few years back, and it was the last one that was ever sold from that vendor, because I havent seen his stall in the past few years.

41. What is the last book you really, really remember loving?

Answer: Monster Hunter Memoirs: Grunge. It’s a new book in the Monster Hunter series by Larry Correia.

42. Do you have a favorite coffee shop?

Answer: No, I don’t like coffee ever since I made the mistake of drinking the swill on an empty stomach.

43. Who was the last person you gazed at the stars with?

Answer: My friend Neil, and that was years ago when we decided to head up to a local haunted area.

44.When was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything?

Answer: This morning in the shower :3

45. Do you trust your instincts a lot?

Answer: Yes. Going back to when Neil and I were up at the rock crusher, and I heard that voice in my ear. Something told me: “Neil is your brother, get his ass out of there!” I grabbed him, and ran for it.

46. Tell us of the worst pun you can think of.

Answer: Is this some sort of pun-ishment? Well I guess you can call me the Pun-isher (hate myself).

47. What food do you think should be banned from the universe?

Answer: …shit I had something for this, and now I can’t remember…

48. What was your biggest fear as a kid? Is it the same today?

Answer: I was afraid of the dark as a kid (mostly due to my brother being an ass), and that fear carried through. I still have to sleep with a light on.

49. Do you like buying CDs and records? What was the last one you bought?

Answer: I haven’t bought a CD or a record since I had my first iPod. The last one I bought was Disturbed’s Indestructible album.

50. What is an odd thing you collect?

Answer: I answered this one before, but I’ll do it again. I collect and assemble Gundam models. I have 8 currently. And I have yet to finish/start the assembly on the last 3.

51. Think of a person, what song do you affiliate with them?

Answer: I think The Animal by Disturbed would suit Neil just fine.

52. What are your favorite memes of the year so far?

Answer: *skips*

53. Have you ever watched the rocky horror picture show? Beetlejuice ect. What do you think of them?

Answer: Nope.

54. Who is the last person you saw with a genuine look of sadness on their face?

Answer: That would be my cousin who had to recently put her elderly golden retriever to sleep. Something like that is never easy, and I know how bad the pain of losing a pet you have had for years feels.

55. What is the most dramatic thing you have done to prove a point?

Answer: Ummm that’ll be the time when *skips*

56. What are some things you find endearing in people?

Answer: When I find something, I’ll let you know.

57. Go listen to bohemian rhapsody. did you reenact the lyrics?

Answer: Um whoever doesn’t needs to be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

58. Who is the wine mom, and who is the vodka aunt in your group of friends?

Answer: Me on both occasions.

59. What are some of your favorite myths?

Answer: Mostly the ones involving the 80′s horror movie villians.

60. Do you like poetry?

Answer: Meh.

61. What is the stupidest gift you have ever given/received?

Answer: I gave my mom trick candles to use on my brothers cake a few years ago … And they found their way on to MY cake. Does that count?

62. Do you drink juice in the morning?

Answer: Very rarely, and when I do it’s cranberry.

63. Are you fussy about your books and music? Do you keep them organized or leave them be?

Answer: I leave them be. It goes back to the question of how I like to keep my room.

64. What color is the sky where you are right now?

Answer: It’s steely grey. It’s in the transition of seasons. Winter to Spring.

65. Is there anyone you haven’t seen in a long time that you’d love to hang out with?

Answer: Yeah, my friend Neil.

66. What would your ideal flower crown look like?

Answer: *skips*

67. How do gloomy days make you feel?

Answer: Yep skipping that one too. *skips*

68. What is winter like where you live?

Answer: Hoth

69. What are your favorite board games?

Answer: Risk … and I cannot think of any other ones of the top of my head.

70. Have you ever used a ouji board?

Answer: Fuck no! I am not stupid enough to do that! Especially after what happened after the rock crusher.

71. What is your favorite kind of tea?

Answer: I don’t drink tea.

72. Are you a person who needs to note down everything you need to do or else you’ll forget it?

Answer: Only when I am at work, and even then I rarely note things down.

73. What are some of your worst habits?

Answer: *skips*

74. Describe a good friend of yours without using their names or gendered pronouns.

Answer: Hmmmm… Long and lanky, unkempt and scraggly hair and beard. Quick wit, sharp tongue, but with a big heart.

75. Tell us about your pets!

Answer: I had two white Siberian Huskies. Tundra and her brother Topaz were born on the same day I was, and we had 18 great years together.

76. Is there anything you should be doing right now but aren’t?

Answer: Nope.

77. Pink or yellow lemonade?

Answer: Why not both?

78. Are in the minion fanclub or hateclub?

Answer: I’m in the “I don’t give a fuck” club.

79. What is one of the cutest things anyone has ever done for you?

Answer: They wouldn’t want me telling that story.

80. What color are your bedroom walls? Did you chose that color? If so why?

Answer: They’re white, but if I could paint them, they’d be purple.

81. Describe on of your friend’s eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of.

Answer: *skips*

82. Are/were you good in school?

Answer: I was decent. Not good, not bad, but decent.

83.what is some of your favorite album art?

Answer: I care more about the songs rather than the artwork.

84. Are you planning on getting any tattoos?

Answer: Yes, I’m planning on getting either the enochian sigil from Supernatural, or a full back tattoo of a set of angel wings with the words: “Angels on our shoulders” above them.

85. Do you read comics?

Answer: Not really

86. Do you like concept albums?

Answer: The hell are those?

87. What are some movies you think everyone should watch at least once in their lives?

Answer: All the James Bond movies, Star Wars including the prequils, and the 3 original Indiana Jones movies.

88. Are there any artistic movements you enjoy?

Answer: The only one I can think of (and I’m not sure it even counts) is the Renaissance

89. Are you close with your parents?

Answer: Yes very close, although they drive me crazy at times I still  love them.

90. Talk about one of your favorite cities.

Answer: *skips*

91. Where do you plan on traveling this year?

Answer: Well my group is planning on heading to Washington DC for Ota-con this year.

92. Are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese? Or do you barely sprinkle a pinch?

Answer: The cheese. Give me all the cheese!

93. What is the hairstyle you wear the most?

Answer: Short and very unkempt.

94. Who was the last person you know to have a birthday?

Answer: My girlfriend. :3

95. What are your plans for this weekend?

Answer: The same thing I do every night. Try to take over the world.

96. Do you install your computer updates quickly? or do you take forever?

Answer: Yes. :3

97. Myer briggs type, zodiac sign, and Hoggwarts house.

Answer: What the hell is the first one? But I’m an Ares, and a Gryffindor.

98. When was the last time you went hiking? And did you enjoy it?

Answer: it was years ago, and no I hate nature.

99. List some songs that resonate with your soul every time you hear them.

Answer: I have 220+ songs on my iPod that attest to that very question.

100. If you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, and one that allows you to go 5 years into the future, which would you press and why?

Answer: I’d go into the future. Past is past and that’s where it belongs. Plus when I go back to when I pressed said button, I would have an advantage over everyone else *evil smile*

[matskreider-blog]

eddies phones: undeletable apps, 31 games, twitter, insta, starbucks lu's phone: undeletable apps, twitter, games eddie makes him download so he can get bonuses but like what other places do they go so often they have usual orders for//kisses everywhere!! juuse kisses where he can see skin and then gets down to business and really goes for it and sooner or later juuse is just slowly taking peks apart with just soft kisses(ahh i've been packing all day and idk if i'm getting everything i need???)

you are damn right with them apps and all that, okay, eddie is a hoarder and then uses lu’s excess phone space to fill in more stuff - although lu’s phone also probably has bank apps and, like, waze to make traveling easier, etc.

dunkin donuts is probably much the same as starbucks - mcdonalds and wendy’s they actually fight over, because mcdonalds makes better fries but wendy’s makes better meals, and eddie loves their lemonade, so they go to wendy’s for one meal and mcdonalds for the other. sometimes eddie springs for a salad but he usually winds up ordering fries along with it anyway, just because he can

taco bell is for extreme cases of withdrawl for eddie, if they’re in a place without taco trucks, and eddie always goes for beef chalupa’s because he cannot be stopped - the man gets like…5 and just consumes them all with a fury

any bar type of place (or club), eddie gravitates towards the tyson barrie end of the spectrum - chocolate margaritas, fruity stuff, all of that. occasionally, if things are getting wild, a dirty girl scout

i’ll let you imagine lu’s reaction to that one

lu, himself, pretty much sticks with beer and shots, but he likes kissing eddie because eddie always tastes so good after he’s been drinking, so sometimes lu just stays sober because he wants to kiss his boyfriend/husband - if they’re not within walking distance of where they’re staying for the night, then of course he takes it upon himself to be the designated driver

pekka letting out these little sighs that slowly turn into little gasps and then whimpers, and then it turns into juuse gently pushing his shirt up a little bit to stroke over his skin, and then the whimpers turn to little whines because he wants more, but juuse’s being so gentle and slow with him

it’s nice and lazy and warm and comfortable, and they just want it to last forever, juuse pulling these noises out of pekka, pekka feeling so good and taken care of - that’s the ideal life for these losers