#and it was quite literally what saved maths for me

[decodedparagram]

My life is falling apart :^

[macfrog]

sweet child o' mine | pt. ii

hi. this is max's lawyer speaking. please don't get mad at her for this part. she asked me to let you know that she loves you all and hopes that you trust her. sincerely, jimmy mcgill

pairing: neighbor!joel x fem!reader

summary: you're pregnant with joel miller's kid. he's dating someone else. you deal with it.

warnings: reader is literally pregnant so typical pregnancy stuff like nausea (none of the v word, y'all are safe with me), ultrasound scene set in a hospital, anxiety and guilt surrounding pregnancy, description of body change/growth, brief and i mean brief discussion of abortion, joel is dating someone who isn't reader, age gap (late 20s reader, late 40s joel), reader has no physical description save for hair, cursing, genderless use of buddy when referring to baby, joel kisses someone who is not his partner, mention of alcohol, disturbing & semi-graphic nightmare about being involved in car accident, reader has a panic attack, discussion of dead parents, fluff and the beginnings of angst DISCLAIMER: this series covers some issues which i know may be sensitive and possibly triggering to some. warnings will always be as thorough as possible, but if there's ever anything you feel i've missed, please let me know. feel free to drop by my inbox anytime.

word count: 9.2k

pt. i / series masterlist | main masterlist | playlist | follow @macfroglets w notifs on to be the first to hear when i post 🩵

“I know, I know,” Joel holds a palm up, “it’s nine thirty. I know. But I had to lug all this wood over here, and it – You okay?”

You realize when he pauses that you’re gaping at him, wide-eyed and frozen in place behind your front door. Your jaw hinges shut, a gulp like carpet burn down your throat. You didn’t hear a word he just said.

How does he know? He can’t possibly. Did he sense it, from two lawns away? Dream about the binding of cells, the furnace left lit in your body from that night? The embers still floating, just waiting to catch to life again?

Did he do the fucking math, the way you probably should’ve? How does he fucking know?

The minute the question leaves your mouth, you regret it.

Joel’s eyebrows drop. “How did I know what, kid? That you need new closets? Like you ain’t been nipping my ear about ‘em for weeks?”

Your eyes unlock from his and shift to the slats of wood leaning against the balustrade. The toolbox hanging from his fist. The worn jeans and the white dust marks on his thighs. He doesn’t fucking know, you idiot.

Joel steps forward. Takes your wrist. One grounding, steady hand around your thrashing pulse. “You’re freaking me out. What the hell’s –?”

“Nothing,” you chirp, remembering. The closet. The deal. The fucking – the deal. You withdraw your arm. Hidden up your sleeve, quickly slipping out of his grasp, is the news that his life is about to change forever.

Maybe. You don’t fucking know.

“No,” you continue, blinking the burn of sunlight from your vision, “I just – I forgot. Sorry. Come in. Sorry.”

“Quit sayin’ sorry,” he mutters, eyeing you suspiciously. He lifts a foot and hovers it over the threshold, hesitating. Like the first step across a minefield; instinct telling him to tread carefully.

And you swear an oath to yourself, swear it on your own life: if he doesn’t put the heel of his boot in your hallway, if he turns around right now whether because his instinct is razor sharp, or because he forgot his lucky screwdriver, or purely because he needs to take a fucking leak before he gets started – you will never tell him. He will never know.

If his intuition is that good, he’ll turn around and never show up on your porch again. If he has any sense, he’ll forget any of this ever happened. Deal off.

“How’s the stomach?” Joel asks, sole still three inches from wood.

“What?” you bleat, your heel knocking against the bottom stair. It’s a little more panicked than you intended.

“Yesterday,” a crease forms between his brows, “you said you had a weird stomach. That any better?”

Oh, you think, and as you open your mouth to reply, his foot hits the ground. No answer needed. He was coming in whether you tried to deter him or not.

“Oh, yeah. It’s – Well, it’s better than it was. I think I worked it out,” you grimace, tongue curling under the tinge of anxiety and – well. “Thanks,” you add, noticing the brisk cut of your replies.

The heavy thud of his footsteps follows you upstairs, blunt on the carpet as you lead him up. Joel sets the toolbox down and casts your room a quick glance, snapping back to you as soon as you notice him.

You tug on the corner of the bedsheets, a heat bubbling beneath your cheeks. Something shy and self-conscious, all of a sudden. The reality that you don’t feel close enough to this man to share the anatomy of your room with him, mixed with the knowledge that the two of you are, now and forever, bound by the anatomy of something a little more significant than dirty laundry and dusty wardrobes.

A little closer than most humans get, let’s say.

“You want a coffee or something?” you ask, crossing your arms and leaning back against the window sill.

“You havin’ one?”

“Sure. Wait – actually –” Can you have coffee whilst pregnant? A woman at work quit it altogether when she fell pregnant with her son. Fuck. “I’m – No. I’m good. But let me go make you one.”

Joel shakes his head, amused. Screwdriver burrowing into a door hinge already. He flashes you a tickled grin. “I’m good just now, kid. Wait until you’re makin’ one. Thanks.”

You lift a shoulder. “Welcome.”

His eyes flit from the twist of silver to your hunched shoulders, your arms crossed protectively over your chest. “You gonna stand there ‘n watch me all day? You my foreman now?”

“Sure,” you reply, and he laughs. You sniff, twisting your foot into the carpet. The plastic test itches against your skin; you can feel the two lines ripping into your wrist like tiny burns. “I can go, if you want.”

His lip turns, musing. A quick flick of his jaw. “You’re good company, all in all.”

Metal clanking against metal; fingers knuckle-deep in the toolbox. You can hear the harsh sound across your body, like the point of screws and bite of rust are actually scoring your skin. The groan of a near-fifty-year-old man rising to rip a decades-old door from its home. The creak of wood as it splits.

Everything so heightened that it’s actually painful.

Joel straightens up and pauses, turning his screwdriver between his fingers. “Are we –? We’re good, right?”

“Good?”

“Yeah. You’d tell me if things were weird?”

“Why would things be weird?”

His answer scrawls itself across his face. Your response scoffs from your lips.

“I just,” Joel sighs, “I feel like something might be off with ya. Maybe you just ain’t feelin’ too hot. But you’re quiet.”

“Quiet,” you whisper, palms locking heavily against your biceps. More defensive than convincing.

“Yeah. You usually annoy the hell outta me.”

Over your shoulder, Alice Brown waddles down her driveway, eyeing her flowerbeds. She pauses when Diane’s station wagon pulls up across the street; stands motionless as she watches the round figure climb out and totter to her own front door.

“Just – not in a very annoying mood, I guess,” you offer, staring at the white head of hair fluttering in the breeze. The glint of a trowel in her hand.

Joel’s chin lifts. He studies you, tongue tracing the ridges of his teeth. And then he’s nearing you, turning until you’re shoulder to shoulder, two silhouettes stood against the bright square of blue sky inside your window frame. His arms crossed; his stare fixed.

The words begin to boil in your stomach. Violent bubbles against the wall of your midriff. Rising like steam, fading into nothingness over your tongue, the sting of heat where your voice won’t collect them.

Joel moves from foot to foot. It feels like some kind of merry dance, some choreographed moment between you – like a skit in a comedy show. I know something you don’t know.

“What happened – at the wedding,” he murmurs, addressing the polished gold of your bedframe.

Some small sound passes your lips. An affirmative. You’re on the same page.

“We didn’t use – you know. And with you not feelin’ well, it’s…” A deep breath. Chest full of a ghostly bravery. And then he asks, “Are you –?”

Silence swallows the end of his question whole. You didn’t need it, anyway. The stiffness of his frame, his stare shooting straight ahead. The lack of oxygen between you – both holding your breath for fear that something might tear loose from your lungs. He knows. He knows he knows he knows.

You gulp. “…If I was?”

His head cranes upwards, focusing on the cracked plaster of your ceiling. The realization slowly trickling down over his skin. It hasn’t seeped through, hasn’t bled into his brain yet. “Then,” another breath, “then it’d be a conversation…” His voice is halved, split somewhere between knowing and – what is it? Hoping?

Your eyes slip over to the worn sleeve of his T-shirt, stretched around the swell of his bicep; scaling up to his shoulder, the tight set of his jaw. He’s so much taller, he’s so much older. There’s so much life lived and so many lessons learned behind his eyes that you wonder how much the news I’m pregnant would actually crack him.

Your eyes meet. You whisper, “Then – talk,” and his expression softens.

He blinks away whatever’s left of his trying, his polite attempts to skirt around it. He sheds probably a good three decades – turns back into some doe-eyed boy, wonderstruck and terrified. His voice is quiet, and at the same time, the heaviest with emotion you’ve ever heard it. “Are you?” he asks, and immediately, he blurs behind a wall of tears.

Your sentence gets caught in your teeth. It made no sense to begin with. Tangled between your molars, latching at the back of your tongue. Your hand slowly pulls free from your sleeve, the little white test between your fingers.

Joel’s eyes instantly drop, staring at the pale stick with a fraught expression you understand to mean the message has finally reached his brain. The same words now ringing between his ears: She’s pregnant. She’s pregnant. I got her pregnant.

You hold the test out, quivering in the daylight. He takes it in his thumbs, instantly soothing its tremble. Everything muted, every movement steady and considered. And suddenly the sight of that positive test feels less scary, in his hands. Feels like a smaller problem, if that were ever possible.

And he says nothing, and it’s almost unbearable to watch the shape of his lips thin, the shadow beneath his brows darken. Agonizing to stand here and wonder what the next words over his tongue will be.

He stares at it a moment longer. You count the beats of your pulse in your throat. You wrap your arms tighter around your body, holding your skeleton together.

Joel’s lips part. Your breath freezes. Whatever he says, you don’t want to miss a syllable.

“Are you –” he blinks, “– are you feelin’ okay?”

You stare blankly. His eyes finally lift.

“What?”

“Are you feeling okay?”

Your head jerks. “I’m – I’m fine. I mean, I’m fucking shocked.”

He nods. “How long have you known?”

“Took that right before you showed up,” you say, eyes diving to his hands. “Twenty minutes, maybe.”

He’s still switching between you and the test. Checking those two lines are still there, as if they might fade to nothing, and then checking you’re still there – as if you might, too. Might be swept off if he’s not keeping an eye on you.

His face pales. He sinks back against the window ledge. “Jesus,” he breathes, a hand down the scruff of his chin.

And it feels like relief, like a mirror sat before you, presenting the honest truth: you’re fucked, and Joel thinks so, too. It embeds the shock into the cushion of your brain, the weight of it absorbed and laid bare for every particle in your body to pay it a visit. What the fuck do we do now?

“Yeah,” you sniff, “Jesus.”

But then his arm wraps around your shoulder, reminding you you’re still solid. Still whole. He holds you to his side, and when you turn into him, he takes you in the other and pulls you flat against his chest. His lips to your hair. His breathing slowing yours.

“We’re gonna work it out,” he says into your hair. “We’re gonna – Jesus, I did not expect…We are goin’ to be fine, alright? You are goin’ to be fine.”

You’re nodding, the prickle of tears flooding across your eyes again. They’re doing nothing, his words – blunt against your skin and insignificant to the fear swelling around your heart – but it feels better to be afraid with someone. Feels better to hold onto something stronger, something bigger, while you feel yourself beginning to shrink.

“What do we do?” you ask into his shirt.

Joel loosens his grip, pulls away until you’re staring at one another. “What do you wanna do?”

“I don’t…” Your head’s shaking, lips moving quicker than your voice will offer the words over. “I don’t think I want to get rid of it.”

He nods, a hand coming up to hold your cheek. “Alright. Then you don’t have to. You don’t gotta do anythin’ you’re not comfortable with.”

“But,” you sniff, guiltily averting his gaze, “this fucks everything up. Everything’s about to change.”

Joel takes a long, slow breath. “It complicates some things, that’s for sure.” He looks out to the street; Alice Brown now hauling weeds from the edge of her lawn. In his exhale, he breathes a name.

“V…What?”

He looks down. Eyes dance around your damp cheeks. “Vanessa,” he says, clearer now.

“Vanessa?”

A nod. His nose wriggles with an awkward sniff. You push off from his chest.

“Who the hell is Vanessa?”

Joel lets you go; lets you step back. He watches as you brace yourself against the ledge. Runs a hand through his hair while he fixes the right order of words. He’s thinking. Carefully.

Too fucking carefully. He’s taking too long.

“Joel. Who’s Vanessa?”

“She’s…” He sighs. “She’s my ex. From Tommy’s wedding. Vanessa Hart.”

Your jaw slackens. The purple dress. The hair like silk, a halo around her head where the light kissed her perfectly. Her plump lips; the way her head tipped back to laugh. The amount of air you felt her take up the second you laid eyes on her, the second you saw her, arm on top of Joel’s.

“Vanessa,” you whisper, your eyes descending his frame. The memory feels menacing now: her sweet giggle a sneering cackle, and you’ve no idea why. The bulky jewels around her neck, her clawed fingers on his arm.

Joel’s hand sits inches from yours on the wooden sill. Alice is walking back inside.

“We, uh…we swapped numbers the morning after the wedding, at breakfast. I didn’t think much of it, but we’ve seen each other a couple times since.”

This isn’t the time for another it’s a date, it’s not a date argument. What the fuck does he mean by –

“Seen each other?”

“Mhm.” He owes you better than that. He reckons so, too. “Dates,” he clarifies. “We’ve been on a couple dates.”

“Oh.”

Your heart falls to the pit of your stomach. Plummets, dragging with it your breath and your nerve and any other words you can think of. Your chest gnaws at the edges of the cavity left behind. It hurts. It stings.

Though you’ve no right for it to hurt or sting: as far as you were concerned, as far as you think Joel was concerned, that night was a one-off. It meant as little as the alcohol draining from your glasses, the vacant buzz of love and hope loose in the air. Equally as intoxicating as each other.

Cataclysmic, for the first little while. So heavily awkward that you would wait to watch Joel head out in the morning, clear of your path, before you’d set off for work. It felt like the aftermath of some natural disaster – the cleanup of debris and mistake.

But oh, it feels like a punch to the gut. Low, unexpected; a foul move by someone who never meant to hurt or not hurt you. Someone ignorant to every move he made, right up to this moment.

Your arms wrap around your body again, as though tending to the bruise left by the sucker punch shaped something like that tall woman named Vanessa.

Joel scratches the back of his neck. “We were…we were seein’ about starting things up again. Me ‘n her.”

“Yeah,” you nod, “I got you. That’s – I mean, I’m – I’m sorry, Joel, I –”

“Woah, woah,” he’s stepping forward now, “hey, no. No way. This wasn’t you. Well, shoot – it kinda was you. But it was just as much me, right?”

You smile, your face back in the safe hold of his hands. Tears roll down your cheeks, collecting in the corners of your mouth. His thumbs swipe them away.

“This was just as much me,” he repeats, voice soft and soothing.

“But, you know – if you wanted to – just ‘cause I don’t want to get – so if you didn’t wanna have to – that’d be okay, you know that, right?”

His head snaps back, brows low. It’s the first time he looks like his cool has broken all morning. It’s the first time he looks…downright offended. “Are you kidding me?” he asks, and then, “Tell me you’re kidding.”

“I just – I know this ain’t ideal. It’s even worse if you’re tryna make it work with Vanessa. So if you felt like it was too much, then…”

Joel shakes his head. “Shut up,” he says, edged with some kind of groan. “Stop talking, right now. Stop. You gotta take a deep breath, alright? I’m here, ‘n I mean I’m here. We’re in this together. I am not running out on you.”

“Joel –”

What was a mere crack in his cool before, rips through it now like lightning spreading across the sky. He closes his eyes, a sigh escaping between his teeth. “If you think I would leave you right now, to deal with this on your own –”

“I don’t,” you tell him, his vexation powering your sudden animation. You wipe your tears away, shaking your head. “I’m just saying, it’s a fucking lot. I don’t want you to feel trapped. I’m giving you an out, man.”

“I am not interested in taking it. Enough. Conversation over.”

“And what about Vanessa?”

“What about her?” he asks, the question dripping in something akin to anger. He catches himself, draws it back in. “She’ll just – We’ll talk, I’ll explain it. The hell else can we do? One thing at a time, okay?”

“Right,” you nod, “okay. One thing at a time.”

“Let’s just build these damn wardrobes. I sure as hell didn’t lug all that timber over here to not do ‘em.”

“Okay,” you repeat, making for the door.

“Ah.” He clicks, and you turn back. “Where the hell do you think you’re goin’?”

“To get the timber.”

“I don’t think so,” he says, pointing to your bed. “Sit down. Relax. You ain’t getting a damn thing.”

Joel calls it a day at six o’clock.

The skeleton of the closet is up: a smooth, tan frame lining one wall of your room. Much bigger, much sturdier than its predecessor.

You’re in the same spot he left you in: lying across your bed, admiring his handiwork. He’s good at what he does. You told him twice, and the two of you almost heaved both times. Compliments aren’t something you’re used to handing one another.

He left, maybe, three hours ago. Said he had to shower; said he’d be back first thing to finish the job. You sat up to see him out, got struck by a wave of nausea so bad that you fell back to the bed with one hand on your stomach and the other over your lips, and Joel had insisted – demanded – that you stay where you were.

I’ll be back later to check on ya, he assured, setting a glass of water at your bedside. And then he told you to call him if you felt even remotely off – sick, or panicked, or had a tickle in your throat that you couldn’t clear – and that’s when the two of you realized that you don’t even have one another’s numbers.

And you laughed, the both of you; laughed at the absurdity of you carrying his child when you don’t even carry his contact details in your phone. Laughed at how quickly everything has turned one hundred and eighty degrees in the few hours since you woke up. It felt like some form of release, the only way to clear the blockage of tension in both your throats. So, you laughed, until you felt sick again, and Joel swept the hair from your shoulders to cool you down.

The attentiveness is…new. It’s interesting. It’s kind, in the same way that being told to say hi to whoever your grandma is talking to in the grocery store, is kind. Sweet, the same way that answering the door on Halloween to a bunch of kids you don’t know from a street you don’t recognize the name of, is sweet.

Whatever. It’s fucking weird, alright?

You’ve never seen this side of Joel. You didn’t know or even think, in your wildest dreams, that he existed. Let’s face it: you two have spent the entirety of your inhabitance next door to one another, antagonizing each other. Your favorite hobby has always been pissing Joel off – teasing him for having backache, seeing how far down his porch you can launch his newspaper and he’ll still go get it. Playing the same kind of music you heard him playing on his guitar that one time, full-volume from your kitchen window just to fuck with him.

And, likewise: his favorite hobby has always been…well, ignoring you. Doing everything he can not to engage. If it weren’t for that fucking cat lady and her jittery green Chevrolet, none of this would’ve ever happened. She was a catalyst where one was neither needed nor wanted. You would’ve gone about your life, pinning your underwear only slightly more carefully to your clothesline, and Joel would’ve gone about his, doing – whatever the fuck he does.

Sure, it’s weird. But it’s nice. It’s nice to have him on your side, turning to check on you rather than snap at you for something. Nice to have him talk – actual, rounded words in place of grumbles and mumbles and groans and sighs. Nice to hang out with him and watch him work and ask questions about screws and power tools and pretend to be interested just to distract from the weight of queasiness in your stomach.

Your hands trail down, cupping around your navel. Your stomach still feels like your stomach: still soft, still spongey under your touch. If not for the two more tests you’d taken this afternoon, perched on the bathroom counter waiting for Joel to unstick his gaze from his watch and announce, That’s three minutes – both also positive, by the way – you’d have no fucking clue.

You hold the bottom half of your tummy, fingers rubbing gently over the skin that will soon enough grow and swell and protect.

“Hey,” you whisper, staring at the stationary ceiling fan overhead. A pause. An awkward inhale. “…hey, little buddy. I don’t – know you very well, yet. I figure you can’t even fucking hear me, but whatever. Just wanted to say hi. I’m – Ew, no. I’m not Mom, yet. What the fuck. I don’t know who I am right now, so just…maybe go easy on me until I figure that part out. And after, too. Alright? Are we…we cool?

“You can’t tell me, I know. I just have to assume we’re cool. Okay. Well. Keep growin’. Keep…doing your thing. You’re doing great. We’re doing – we’re doing alright.

“Good job, kid. Good job.”

Joel tells Vanessa two days later. She takes it…about as well as you might hope.

He says they talked for four hours. Three cups of coffee and a drive to Taco Bell later, she agreed to meet you. Properly. Not across the cluttered dancefloor of Tommy’s wedding.

She –? Is – is that a good idea?

I don’t know, kid. It’s the best I’ve got.

Meet me? Like, come kick my ass for sleeping with her boyfriend?

Joel had sighed and deadened his eyes on yours. Not her boyfriend, he corrected, passing you a sweater folded a little slapdash for your liking, and wasn’t her boyfriend when we slept together.

You shook the sweater straight again and fixed his work, muttering to yourself that at least he’s a better builder than he is a folder.

Joel heard you, and let it go. Passed you another – unfolded – sweater to sit in your wardrobe. Let’s just see how it goes, alright?

Alright.

We’re really trying this again. It’s only been a couple weeks.

Okay.

And neither of us have had much luck in that department since we broke it off, y’know?

Joel. I said okay.

He held your gaze a moment too long. Okay.

You’re on your porch when he strolls over, wrist blocking the six o’clock sun from his eyes. Newspaper in his fist, wind licking the corners. “Forget somethin’ today?” he asks, meeting you at the top of the steps.

“Came out to get it,” you brace yourself on the railing, “felt sick. This is me workin’ up to it.”

“You want me to toss it back onto my lawn so you can go fetch me it?”

You smile, eyes screwing shut. “Was coming over to ask what time for tomorrow.”

The reminder snaps him from his happy daydream. He says, “I was comin’ to ask you the same thing. Seven work?”

“Seven’s good. Are we getting food?”

“You wanna get food? I figured maybe you wouldn’t be up for it, what with the, uh…” Joel gestures to your hunched position, your head low between your shoulders, your deep, deliberate breaths.

“Maybe just drinks,” you utter, gulping back the sharp taste of bile.

He nods. “Drinks it is. You okay? You need anything?”

“I’m good. Thanks. See you guys at seven.”

Four minutes early, there’s a knock at your door. You pull it open, and there they are. Picture-perfect, like they might be posing for a holiday card. A bottle in his arm, a bunch of flowers in hers. A timid but genial smile between her cheeks, a twinkle in her eye. That same circle of shining light around her head, brunette tresses curled into bouncing waves.

“Howdy,” Joel says, stepping into the space you create. He dips his head, kisses your cheek, whispers a brief, Y’okay? in your ear. You nod quickly, gently shifting him out of the way.

Vanessa lingers for a moment in the doorway. She glances from Joel to you again, blinking in the porch light. Her pale skin lit in an ethereal glow. She’s prettier up close.

Joel addresses you, hand brushing the small of your back, “…this is Vanessa.”

“Hi,” she says, and pushes the flowers towards you – a small bouquet of gypsophila and eucalyptus. Bright, polite. Each sprig laden with the burden of appearing simpatico, but important. Meaningful, in the airiest sense of the word. “Hi,” again.

“Hi,” you echo, and then feel stupid for having nothing more to offer. You can feel Joel’s eyes on you, hot on your shoulder.

But Vanessa takes the weight from your chest. “It’s nice to meet you – officially. I saw you at Tommy and Maria’s wedding. You looked so beautiful.”

“Thanks,” springs from your tongue sooner than the rest of the sentence. Your brain scrams to find more words. “You looked – you looked great, too. Do you wanna –? I mean – Sorry. Come in. Obviously.”

She clicks over the threshold, her pale dress floating into your hallway like she’s part of a dream. She’s just as beautiful in this light, relaxed form – pastel blue and the glimmer of golden jewelry – as she was in the sleeker, more dramatic form you saw her in before. An aura about her which captures and tends to your attention. Intense, captivating, but not intimidating.

You usher them to the living room, offer them a space on the couch while you take Vanessa’s flowers to the kitchen. Joel follows you through, sets the bottle on the counter.

“Nonalcoholic,” he says, unscrewing the cap.

Your eyebrows jump. “Great. Thanks.”

“She’s nervous,” he murmurs, leaning in. “I know you are, too. Y’all are similar like that.”

You slot the stems into a vase of water one by one, carefully organizing a display. “She seems sweet,” you assure him. “She shouldn’t be nervous.”

“Neither should you.”

“Is this…totally weird for you?”

Joel breathes in deep, filling three glasses. “Yeah,” he says, eyes never lifting from the sparkling peach.

“Sorry.”

He angles his jaw. “Stop sayin’ you're sorry. I’ll kick your ass.”

Your head drops between your shoulders, eyes lifting only to his elbows. “Sorry.”

He scoffs, swiping the glasses and stepping back to let you out first.

“I’m trying not to make it weird,” you offer, slipping by.

“I don’t want you to try anything.” He kicks your ankle lightly and follows you back into the living room.

Vanessa sits forward and clasps her hands around her knee when you sit back down, shifting as though to reach for you before she stops herself. “How are you feeling? Joel said you’re a little…worse for wear, right now.”

“I’ve been better,” you say, smiling. “Just morning sickness. Which lasts – all day.”

She nods sympathetically. “My sister had it rough with her first. I actually…” She twists around, reaches for her purse, fishes out an orange packet. “I brought you some ginger tea. Kate told me it helped her a lot, so.”

She holds it out in almost trembling fingers. Likewise, you steady yours to take it from her, thanking her with a shy nod of the head. “That’s so kind,” you reply quietly, eyes darting to Joel. He’s staring at the pack in your hands, watching as you turn it over to read the back.

“And – listen,” Vanessa continues, the acceptance of her offering clearly fueling her assuredness, “I don’t want anything to be weird – between you and I, between you and Joel. I know this situation is…new. It’s, um…”

“It’s kinda weird,” you say, humoring. “It’s okay. I know.”

She breathes a relieved laugh. “It is. Thank God you said it.” She glances back at Joel, who smiles at her, slips his hand onto her knee. “But I guess,” a deep breath, “I guess it is what it is. And we’re all adults, you know? We can make it work, right?”

Your head switches rapidly between nodding enthusiastically and shaking enthusiastically. “Yeah. Yes. No, absolutely. And, you know, me and Joel – there isn’t – we’re not at all…”

“Oh,” she bats the idea away, “I know. I know that. He told me everything. It’s – You know, it’s just a timing thing.”

Joel’s staring down at his hand locked around her leg. Unblinking. Unmoving. His expression doesn’t shift until the two of you settle back into your seats; until Vanessa asks if he’d mind making you a cup of ginger tea.

You barely notice his absence, the way she takes you up in conversation. Like twirling you off in some kind of dance, each sentence strung safely to the next. There are no lulls, no awkward pauses. She asks about work, asks about your family. She tells you stories about her niece, who’s three now, and compares how you’re feeling to how she remembers her sister feeling.

Then her work, and the IT guy her friend hooked up with, and her class at the gym which she’s trying to convince Joel to come along to, and Kate’s hot yoga class every Thursday night, and the new sushi place which just opened downtown and You gotta try it some day; the nigiri is divine.

And you nod along, and you laugh at her anecdotes and tell your own, and Joel tells her to tell you about the jazz band who were playing at the restaurant they visited a couple weeks ago, and you offer to top her drink up and she says she’ll do it herself and she leaves you and Joel alone for the first time all evening, and – it’s weird.

Because – behind the veil of conversation you’re doing your best to uphold, sits an image of this very night – only, in Joel’s house. In Joel’s house, on Joel’s couch, drinking nonalcoholic wine with Joel’s brother. Joel and Vanessa leant against one another on one couch, Tommy and Maria on the other.

You can’t help it – you’re wondering what Maria thinks of Vanessa. How long they knew each other, if at all, before the breakup. Whether they hung out, whether they discussed sushi and yoga, or the housing market, or their Miller boyfriends and their annoying Miller habits.

Maria would’ve liked her, you think. Would’ve found her as lovely as you do. And the idea, the image of them giggling together at family parties and being Tommy’s Maria and Joel’s Vanessa – presses a firm, bullying finger into the bruise you thought had faded some from the other day.

And once they’re gone, once you’re left alone again – lying in still silence, closed in on yourself by the thick darkness of your room, nothing but you and your thoughts and your unborn child for company – it slips out.

“Fuck her, right?” You hold your hands out, addressing your stomach. “She was so fucking nice. Did you like her? Fuck me, I liked her. I hope they break up.”

And then, realizing who you’re talking to: “No. Sorry, baby, no. I don’t hope they break up. I want your dad to be really happy. But – Goddamn. She was so sweet. I thought she was gonna slap me, and she just – she brought ginger tea! Fuck. They look good together, don’t they?”

It’s just hormones. Just the emotional trip that is being four weeks pregnant. Everybody feels like this when they fall pregnant – sensitive, vulnerable, clingy. Right? Right?

Your words sit stagnant in midair. You swear you can see them, heavy and intruding. Awkwardly lingering someplace they don’t belong. Because none of it even matters – the hormones, the emotions. The weird knot burning a hole in your chest, shaped like a clenched fist, knuckles branded by the heat of longing. It can’t matter.

You’re where you are, he’s where he is. A pillow in your arm, Vanessa in his. Feet apart, bricks and mortar and something like twenty years and two dates too late separating you.

Both staring up at the ceiling, wondering who the other’s thinking of.

“At eight weeks, your baby is roughly the size of a raspberry.”

Your knee bounces, breath coming and going in shaky ripples. The rubber sole of your shoe cries against the sterilized hospital floor. Your chest hums anxiously and your throat catches when you swallow and are the lights too bright? The room too hot? You’re sweating. Why are you sweating? Can you breathe right now?

Joel nudges your arm and your eyes roll to the pamphlet in his hand, his finger tracing the words. “C’mon,” he utters, leaning in, “how can anything the size of a raspberry be scary?”

You squint under fluorescent white. “A raspberry that grows into the size of a watermelon, can break my ribs, make me throw up, make me lose hair, and then tear my vagina apart on its way out? That’s pretty scary.”

He smirks. “Not to me it ain’t. My vagina stays perfectly intact the entire time.”

“Oh, fuck off,” you reply, whacking him.

He laughs, swatting your palm away, keeping ahold of your fingers inside his own. “Speaking of – we gotta talk.” He elbows you, waiting until you’re looking again to speak. “We gotta cut the language.”

“Cut the language?”

“Uhuh. Rein it in. And by we, I mean you.”

“Uh,” you scoff, “I don’t think so. When you do the growing, then you can rein your own swearing in. Leave me alone, asshole.”

“Charming,” Joel says. “You know the baby can hear you? You want it to come out swearin’ like a trooper?”

You grin, tipping your head to him. “If it comes out and says anything, we’re rich. So – yeah. Let it.”

He opens his mouth to reply when a nurse emerges from a nearby room and calls your name.

“You’re up, kid,” Joel says, standing beside you.

You turn back, speaking before your brain settles on words. “I’m scared.”

“Hey,” he says, taking your hand. He squeezes it gently, uses the other to keep you facing him. “This is the easy part, right? We’re just going to meet them.”

“Oh, fuck,” you breathe, and wander over to meet the nurse. Joel’s hand a vice grip around yours.

She leads you into a similarly washed-out clinic room, only slightly dimmer with the lights turned out, and yanks a roll of paper across the bed. Tapping it twice, she smiles. “Hop up, darlin’.”

You settle into the crinkly paper, leaning back until you’re blinking up at the speckled ceiling. Another door opens and a woman in a white coat floats in, and you swear that if it weren’t for Joel’s Evenin’, ma’am when she greets the two of you, you’d believe she were a figment of your imagination. Another character in this fucking insane dream.

“Not often I do these past five o’clock,” she says, clicking her mouse and typing on her keyboard and fixing a hair grip back into her bun. Casual. It’s not even a thing to her, introducing parents and children. She does this all fucking day.

Joel tosses half a glance to you and then realizes you’re not currently in the room. He pinches your hand again. It grounds you for all of two seconds.

“Yeah, uh,” he clears his throat, “work commitment. I couldn’t get away any earlier, so we’re havin’ to do this a little late.”

“What do you do?” she asks, staring at her screen. Her glossy brown eyes and rich, dark skin.

“I’m a contractor,” Joel replies, thumb stroking your shoulder.

Something bubbles in your stomach, something akin to jealousy, an urgency to tell her that right now, in this room, he’s mine. No more questions. Something which quickly dissipates when you remind yourself to quit being fucking ridiculous and that right now, in this room, he’s someone else’s, and the thumb on your shoulder is merely to hold you back from fleeing. Nothing more.

The sonographer nods. Her name badge reads Freya. Pretty name. Stop picturing what your kid would look like as a Freya. You are not naming them after the first sonographer you meet.

“Shouldn’t be too long, then y’all can get home for the night. You live nearby?”

“Twenty minutes’ drive. Not far, are we?” Joel asks you.

Your eyes shoot down to his. “No,” you push your cheeks up, telling Freya, “not far.”

She flattens her lips against one another, lending you a sympathetic smile. “You got nothing to worry about, honey. Promise. Gel might be a little cold, that’s about as scary as this gets. We’re just gonna make sure everything’s looking good, check your dates, check your measurements. You’re doing great.”

“You hear that?” Joel murmurs, settling down into the chair by your side. His hand hasn’t left yours. His voice is low, meant just for you, when he repeats, “You’re doin’ great.”

You huff a laugh, some nervous release from your lungs.

Freya smiles, face lit by the faint glow of the screen in front of her. “We ready?”

You roll the hem of your tee up when she motions, bunching it under the wire of your bra. She squeezes a bottle over your stomach, which tenses solid when the frozen bite of gel curls right below your belly button. Freya smiles apologetically when you wince. Told you, she murmurs, and your breath escapes in a slightly more comfortable laugh. Lighter, easier. Scariest part over.

She presses the probe to your skin and spreads the gel, coating the bottom of your tummy in a slippery slick which tickles with each inch she covers. Two buttons pressed, and a dark image appears on a screen opposite you.

A gray fan, speckled like the ceiling above your head. Dark, black shapes growing and shrinking at the turn of Freya’s wrist. She pauses, two blobs onscreen: the larger, black, round, home to a smaller, misshapen one. Flecked with white and silver and moving slowly, gently, but – right there.

“Mom, Dad,” she grins, “meet your baby.”

You and Joel move forward at the same time, drawn closer to the crunchy image as if by some kind of natural magnetism. Eyes never blinking, lips agape. The shapes flutter, the smaller dipping in and out of view.

“You see right here, right in the center?” A white cross appears over the blob’s middle. “That little movement? The kinda – pulsing?”

You each nod. Your nails dig so deep into Joel’s hand that you risk drawing blood.

“That’s the heart. Ticking away.”

“The heart?” you ask, watching the rhythmic flicker in the center of the screen.

“Yep. Perfect, too.”

She hits another key and suddenly the room is filled with a muffled thudding; a steady, energetic pulse in your ears. It matches the movements onscreen, the tiny throb of the baby’s chest, the shape of your womb moving like waves before you.

And suddenly, it's real – all of it: the screen and the room and the sonographer and you, and Joel’s hand encasing yours, holding your knuckles to his lips, and –

And the heartbeat. Right there, right in front of you. Shy, probably as nervous as you are to introduce themselves. Feeling your eyes on them, curled up somewhere safe inside you. Right there.

You turn to Joel, and his illuminated face is staring straight at the screen. Eyes soaked with tears, blinking as they form, cheeks dappled with wet. He draws his eyes from his child only to look back at you, only to mirror your stunned smile, your disbelieving laugh, more tears dripping down into his beard. He sits up, presses his damp lips firmly to your forehead.

Freya mutes the heartbeat, pauses the scan where the image is clearest, and sits back. “I’ll give you guys a moment to yourselves,” she says, wheeling back in her chair. “Take all the time you need. I’m right outside.”

“Thanks,” Joel mumbles for the both of you, sweeping hair from your face.

The door closes on your little bubble – you, Joel, and the grainy image of your baby. The evidence that – yeah, that night happened, and yeah, you’re forever changed because of it. The evidence that you’re about to become a mom, for real, no matter how much the thought makes you feel like your stomach is kicking around at your ankles.

And the evidence that, no matter how scared you might be, how unprepared and unworthy you feel – you fucking adore that little blob already.

Love it as much as Joel does, stood over you, kissing your hair and whispering words you’re only half-listening to. A quiet thank you, a shaky I can’t believe it. Something about showing his brother. And when you look up at him, blinking at one another, inches apart – he takes your jaw in his hands and lowers his lips to yours.

Different. Softer. No want laced through. No urgency. Nothing needed, nor requested, that isn’t already right here in this little bubble of yours.

He kisses you slowly, eyes closed, holding you until you pull away for breath. His nose bumps against yours and you laugh, heads together, eyes low.

“Still scared?” he whispers.

“Terrified,” you tell him.

“Me, too,” he says, and kisses you again.

You lean back against the bed, relief settling your bones and soothing your heartbeat. The notion washes over you that, if you could, you’d stay in this room forever. Staring at the screen, holding Joel’s hand. Whispering fears into his mouth and letting him swallow them in a kiss.

He hands you some paper towel and helps you drag it across your stomach, your eyes still fixed on the little shape opposite. He hooks his chin over your head – the fresh, woody smell of his cologne infiltrating your lungs and throwing you under the haze of something you’re not quite sure how to define.

“Duck,” he says, voice vibrating into your skull.

“Huh?”

“Start saying duck. Make the baby think we’re saying that, then you can say –” he lowers his voice, “– fuck, all you want.”

“The hell would I have to say duck for?”

Joel stands upright and shrugs. “I don’t know. Think of somethin’. A nickname, maybe.”

“Duck?”

He nods plainly, glancing over to the screen.

The pillow beneath your head sighs as you turn from Joel back to the ultrasound. “Baby Duck,” you offer, and he smiles.

Smiles in a way you don’t think you’ve ever seen him smile. Eyes glistening, cheeks swollen. Something innocent and earnest about it. Something pure.

He agrees. “Baby Duck it is.”

Joel insists that you spend the night at his place.

“It’s been a big day,” he reasons, fixing the bed in his guestroom. “Just – let me run around after you for a little bit.”

You fight your corner as much as you can be bothered – I gotta maintain my independence, I’m gonna be a single mom soon enough, you know – but, truthfully, you’ll take any excuse to have him rush around at your beck and call. Some days you open your mouth and he hears the wet click of saliva between your lips, and grabs a glass of water for you before you’ve even voiced the request.

He orders takeout, settles shoulder-to-shoulder with you on the couch, and lets you pick whichever movie you feel like putting him through until the food’s gone, he’s out of beer, and you’ve abandoned Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles for an argument about the best part of pizza.

You don’t like the crust?

Nope.

What fuckin’ age are you?

If it ain’t stuffed, it’s just not worth it.

At eleven, you bid him goodnight and wander upstairs, falling into a sea of navy-blue sheets to be delivered to sleep by the serene silence of Joel’s home. It takes no time for your eyes to flutter closed, the soft sheen of moonlight painted across the wall, sweeping from your view to be replaced in a whir by –

Lights. Overhead and all around and so bright and so close that you swear they’re etched on the inside of your eyelids.

You’re in the backseat, watching them soar by in blurs of white and red and amber and green, and your pulse is rattling through your veins and throbbing between your temples and you can’t focus on any one object for longer than three seconds, before your eyes roll and your head dizzies.

A word, slung from your lips in a half-wakened attempt to stop it. A word you barely recognize at first, don’t understand the meaning of. It’s been years. Why now? Mom.

You’re not sure why, or who you’re even reaching out to. There are two figures in the front seats, heads facing forward. She’s not turning around. She’s not even fucking moving, not reacting to the speed or the lights or your voice. Mom.

You scream it, the syllable ripping violently from your throat, and your tiny fingers reach for her swirls of hair. You pause, staring at the chipped polish on your stubby, kiddy nails. Mom, I’m scared.

The distorted blast of a horn scoops the car up in one motion, hurtling over itself along the freeway. You’re thrown to the roof of the car, plummet back down to your seat; the seatbelt throttles you, rips a burn deep into the skin of your neck. Back up again; your head hits the spongey roof of the car. Your stomach somersaults.

Mom, please, you wail, swiping for her hand. It’s lying limp by her thigh, dark droplets on her wrist. Mom Mom please Mom I’m scared Mom please I’m so scared I –

“Baby.”

His voice is low, earthy. It chews apart the high-pitched squeal of brakes and screaming. The glass smashing. The metal crunching.

You lift from the bed like it’s ice water, gasping when you finally surface back on Earth. Your chest heaves, it’s not sucking in enough breath; you can’t breathe you can’t breathe you can’t fucking breathe.

Joel whips the cover from your legs and you roll from the mattress, feet planting on the floor. You bend forward to grip onto the sheets, a choking rising up your throat, closer and closer until it tugs on your tongue.

“Icantbreathe,” you pant.

Joel’s body curves around yours. “You’re alright,” he’s telling you – urging you; one hand between your shoulder blades, the other holding your wrist for fear you might collapse. “I’m here, you’re okay. You’re at my place, you’re safe, but, kid – I need you to slow down. You’re hyperventilating.”

You work your breathing to the strokes of his hand up and down your spine: in out in out in and out and in and out and in, and out, and in, and…out…and in…and…out.

“That’s it. Keep doing that. You’re good, baby, I got you. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

In – and out. In – and out again.

The room slowly desaturates back into boring, moonlit blue. Feeling sputters back into your hands, clawing at the sheets once the sharpness dissolves. The cotton pets back, smooth under your quivering touch. Your lips stop tingling, your ears stop ringing. One after another, until your blood settles back to a steady stream and you straighten up.

“Can you sit down for me?”

“No,” you whimper, and Joel nods.

“That’s alright,” he says. “I’m gonna get you a drink, that okay?”

You grab his T-shirt. “No. Don’t leave me. Please. Sorry.”

He cups your frozen cheeks. “I ain’t goin’ anywhere. Just downstairs. You can come.”

He settles you at his kitchen table and shuffles over to the cupboards, rubbing his eyes. You feel the heat of embarrassment and guilt, watching as he settles down with a groan minutes later.

“Ginger,” he tells you, voice rounded by his mug, sliding one of your own over to you.

“Sorry,” you mumble, lifting it with two hands. The smell sharp, cutting up the remnants of gasoline and smoke.

“Many times do I gotta say it?” he asks dryly. “Quit sayin’ you’re sorry.”

You gulp nervously. “You got work in the morning. You’re gonna be exhausted.”

“And if I hadn’t let you keep me up watchin’ chick flicks, I’d be rested. That’s something I can deal with later. I got you to worry about right now.”

You shake your head; the ceramic hits the table with a sharp thud. “I don’t want you to worry about me.”

“Well,” Joel sniffs, “you’re carrying my child. I’ll always worry about you.”

You sit back, the curve of the chair cradling, your heart beating lamely against the wood. Joel’s jaw rests in the cushion of his palm, staring back at you.

“What time is it?” you ask, and he glances over his shoulder.

“Three. Take a sip.”

“I’m fine.”

“Sip.”

You obey, lifting the tea and swallowing harshly.

He watches every move, every shift reflected in his dark eyes, decorated by a tense, stony expression. “Does this happen a lot?”

“Never,” you say. “This never happens.”

Joel cranes his jaw, cracks his neck. “Alright,” he sighs, “that’s okay. Breathe again. You’re doing fine.”

But you don’t feel fine. The dregs of panic sizzle into something thicker, hotter. Anger. Frustration. “Why the fuck is this happening?” you hiss, fingers prodding into your eye sockets. “What the f–?”

“Easy. I don’t know. Hormones? Stress?”

“You sound like my fucking doctor.”

Joel smiles. Amusement, before concern wipes over it again. “Let’s just give it some time to pass, okay?”

You nod, hanging over your drink, the silhouette of your reflection staring back at you. The steam snakes up, seeping into your skin, bubbling under the surface. Wiping clean any memory of freeway or nail polish, like coating over a bathroom mirror. The shapes still visible behind, but blurred. Gone.

“How’s Vanessa?” you ask, an attempt to distract yourself.

Joel adjusts a little awkwardly in his chair. “She’s good. She loved the scan photo. Showed it to her sister. They’re sure it’s a boy.”

“Ha. Joel Jr.”

“Joel Jr.,” he agrees, and then attempts to distract himself. “So,” he says, “Allandale.”

“Mhm?”

“Wonder if I ever saw your mom or dad. When I was there visitin’ Sam.”

You shrug. “Doubt it. I mean, they always lived right next to the elementary school, if that helps. My mom was a first-grade teacher. The two of us used to walk there ‘n back together, every day.”

“First grade, huh? Best one.”

“Yeah. Yeah, and she was the best of the best. She used to go all out for her kids; used to go to Michaels and get all this crafty stuff so they could spend all afternoon making little houses or zoos, or – whatever she could think of. And she’d always keep some aside, bring some home for me to make one, too. One time, she came home with all this blue tissue paper and little foam fish, and we made an aquarium together.”

“That’s pretty cool,” Joel says.

“Yeah,” you say again, nodding eagerly. “She was so cool. And fun, y’know? I just remember her being so much fun. I always felt safe with her, felt loved. I actually used to think she hung the sun every morning, just for me.” You take a deep breath, replacing it with a broken sigh.

“What about your dad? What was he like?”

You frown. “He was…fine. Real quiet, reserved. A little grumpy, I guess. I always got the idea he couldn’t be bothered with me, young as I was. Always wanted to be left alone. I think my mom overcompensated a lot.”

Something flashes across Joel’s face that seems to say he knows – or, at least, he understands. Almost imperceptible, a quick flicker of annoyance. “You miss her?” he asks, switching back.

“My mom?” You almost laugh, gripping onto your mug. Staring at the slow swirl of ginger. A shrug which presents more like a flinch; an animal swatting a fly away. “I miss those parts, when I think of them. The aquarium, the walking to school. Miss the memories. But I don’t think I knew her well enough or long enough to miss her.

“I’ve lived way longer without her than I ever had her. Done everything without her, like –” gesturing down, “– this. But, sometimes…sometimes, I bundle the sheets up behind my back in bed, and I pretend it’s her. Pretend I have a mom, and she’s cuddling me to sleep. I dunno. Maybe that’s what missing her feels like.”

Joel soaks in every word you say, letting the shape of each one settle on the table between you before he speaks again. Letting them be spoken into the dead of night, collected by no one, and letting them fade into silence. Secrets sweeping off into starlight. Nothing you would admit in the daytime.

“What was her name?” he asks, voice timid and gentle in the dark kitchen.

You almost choke on your tea. “Shoot – I’m sorry. That was a lot. Sorry. She, uh – Her name?”

It brings the first genuine smile to your lips; the memory of your mom now clear behind your eyes. Her round cheeks, her fluttering earrings. The deep, dark curls of her hair, thick ringlets twisting and lighting in the sun. The gap between her front teeth, the purse of her lips as she kissed your cheeks, your hands, your tummy.

Her name like a melody in your head; a safe word, a calming mantra when the world becomes too noisy, too saturated, too sharp to bear. Two syllables. Two little beats, like a piece of her still lives in the sound of her name.

“Sarah,” you tell Joel. “Her name was Sarah.”

[https-immotmari]

❝ Crush na crush na crush kita! ❞ ─── pjsk boys!

WRITER'S START IN BEING DELULU!

Just from the title, y'all should have a thought of where I come from lmao ＜（＾－＾）＞! Anyways, third request came in and I hope you don't mind the reader's gender being neutral, thank you!~

fandom! .project sekai character(s) used! .akito shinonome, toya aoyagi, tsukasa tenma and rui kamishiro gender of reader! .gn!reader however, implied fem!reader implied in toya's and tsukasa's sections head start! .reader, in both akito's and toya's, is a senior, reader in toya's section is tsukasa's older (by one minute) twin sibling, light angst in toya's section, rui's reader is a foregnier and doesn't understand nor speak japanese very well however, they can understand english

. . .akito shinonome!

❝ Di mo ba nadarama? (Don't you feel?) ❞

what in the H E double hockey sticks is he feeling?!

he doesn't know why his heart goes crazy just the mere sight of you he doesn't know why he suddenly stutters his words when talking to you, he just doesn't understand why his mind wants to see you every day.

well, to everyone, it's no surprised you've captured the hearts of majority of the student population in kamiyama high. you're literally the IT girl/boy/person of kamiyama and you aren't even aware of it.

you're even a great senior! he met you through toya, who was trying to find tsukasa since he wanted to confirm something and they found him talking to you, and he was instantly whipped! though, he denies it.

toya lightly teases him that he acts like a mess when you're around him and akito just barks back with lies, just to save his pride.

"I'm telling the truth, toya. I don't act weird whenever (last name)-san is around." akito denied his best friend's, toya, accusation. him? having a crush on the school's heartthrob? that's stupid. he would never-

"excuse me?" akito suddenly froze on the spot as toya twirled his head only to see you carrying a bunch of test papers. "oh? toya? and uhm.." you squinted your eyes, trying to recall the name of the frozen ginger beside toya, "oh right! akito, right? you're ena's cute little brother, hm?" you tilt your head forward a bit, smiling in his way.

in the end, toya had the last laugh as he watches his best friend being completely different around their senior, "I told you so." as akito clutches his chest, where his heart is at.

just innocently dropping hints to toya that he 'needs' help with a difficult math problem, that's probably a year above them level, and that he needs a reliable and amazing senior to help him.

he ends up having tsukasa and sometimes rui, it's rare having you to 'help' him since you're quite busy as well.

but, that doesn't stop him! he often has toya delivers his little gifts, after a long time convincing toya that it was his older sister's, ena, request to deliver 'her' gifts, to your desk when you're not around, some students may have thought that toya has a crush on you.

his little gifts consist of key chains of (favorite things), sometimes flowers and pins with your favorite series/anime/manga/etc.

how he knew this? he actually got information from one of ena's conversation with you and your post from your social medias, in which he secretly hearts everything on an alternative account.

he turns into a lovesick puppy the moment you walk in, if he were a puppy, his tail would be going crazy all the while his face would be a hot mess.

during the sport event, you were one of the mc's and it made akito's motivation in winning increased TO THE MAX!

he was running faster than ever, even ena was suprised to see her little brother like that, poor tsukasa who was on his back, tsukasa was holding onto akito's shoulders for dear life.

"shinonome-san is running as fast as ever! it seems like he's eager to win, don'tcha think, partner?" the other mc look at you, waiting for your commentary.

you chuckled, smiling as you watch the intense match between your juniors, mizuki and akito. "I couldn't agree more, partner! even poor tenma-san is holding on for dear life~" both you and your partner snickered.

after he won that match, he was congratulated by you over the mic and no one can image the furious blush appearing on his cheeks, like, YOU, out of all people, were to congratulate him first before toya can?????

he was on cloud nine that even toya had a difficult time in getting him back to his senses till they were in their band practice, an hand to shake him back to life.

he denies this for a long time but, on valentine's day, instead of the classic chocolates and flower, he actually got you special and that he's proud of but, never admit it was him.

he got the valentine's day special chocolate pancake with (favorite fruit) on the side from the place where he usually buys his pancakes, he bought it using his hard-earned money. he also made oragami flowers, bouquet of flowers actually, the flowers being all of your favorite kinds. he actually spent a lot of time and dedication on the oragami flowers and learned them from a lot of youtube videos.

of course, he remained anonymously.

out all the gifts you've received that day, his gift stand out the most due to his effort in making it perfect. you gushed about it to your friends and one of them was ena. she had a gut feeling that it was her little brother, akito, but never got confirmation.

he doesn't know why his heart goes crazy just the mere sight of you, he doesn't know why he suddenly stutters his words when talking to you, he just doesn't understand why his mind wants to see you everyday. Don't you feel it?

. . .toya aoyagi!

❝ Crush mo rin kaya ako? (Do you have a crush on me too?) ❞

you're actually tsukasa's older, by one-minute, twin sibling so, he's known you very well.

though, he wasn't able to have a lot of conversation with you back then since you were more focused on your youngest sibling's, saki, health and was always in the hospital, in which he couldn't go, fearing that it upset his father.

despite not often having to chat with you, toya can see you as the loving and caring older tenma sibling, within the three tenma siblings, you're the matured and calm one, one of the reasons why toya and you got along pretty well.

him crushing on you came when you caught him tearing up a bit after an argument he had with his father, he was a little kid at the time, and instead of degrading him for crying, you sat beside him and comforted him, whispering nothing but sweet things to him as he cried in your shoulder. you comforted him like how you comforted tsukasa whenever he has his episode due to him thinking he wasn't a great enough brother for saki.

after comforting him, you gave him a small smile and encouraged him to go after what he loves the most, and at that moment, the thing, or person, he loves the most at the moment, till now, is you. he just doesn't realize it till his unitmates told him he was, in fact, has a crush on you.

he felt the warm and loving aura coming out of you that you always give to your family, especially to your younger siblings. something he had craved from his father ever since he was born and yet he never received.

after that day, this little kid was always following you around like a little duckling, except in the hospital, in which you find it to be amusing and adorable since you've ever known toya to be the quiet yet blunt stoic kid and seeing him following you around whenever him and you are inside your house.

toya, at the time, didn't know why his cheeks felt warm and his heart going slightly faster than before whenever he encounters you. it makes him space out sometimes.

one time, he made a claw machine empty because he wanted to give you plushies like he gives to saki, through tsukasa, as well! you were surprised to see a lot of stuff toys in your room when you got back home from the hospital.

it made your face brighten up and as a thank you, you gave toya one of your beloved books in which you cherished the most so, image the shock expression he had once tsukasa told him that it was one of your cherished books you held dearly, and you gave it to HIM??

upon knowing that fact, the book you gave to him now has its very own section in his bedroom shelf, it even has its own clear protection case to keep the dust away if he's not reading it at the moment.

nobody is allowed to touch the book besides him and you.

now that you two, alongside tsukasa and saki, have grown into teenagers, you two have more screen time with each other now that saki is finally out of the hospital!

since you and tsukasa are the same age, meaning when toya was a freshman in kamiyama, you were a senior at miyamasuzaka, the same all-girls school saki is in.

despite being in different schools, you two interacted a lot! especially when all four of you hangout after school!

his feelings for you were rather obvious, at least to tsukasa and saki, he was so different from his quiet and stoic self.

whenever you're around, he smiles more often all the while talking to you, toya can't help it! you're just a beautiful scenery, it's a crime to not admire you. saki even called him out-

"(n/n) sure does look beautiful, right, toya-kun?" saki innocently teased the blue haired individual, who was admiring her older sibling as they baked a bunch of cookies for the four of them.

toya immediately snapped out of his daydreaming upon being called out, "o-oh.. yes, of course they are." he shyly nodded, feeling his cheeks warming up. saki simply chuckles, knowing damn well that she'll be the matchmaker alongside her older brother.

when vivid bad squad was formed, he immediately rushed to you and told you about it, you smiled at him, he was finally doing what he wanted and not what his father wanted, and you were proud of him.

whenever he's at band practice, he often unconsciously rambles about you to his bandmates, an and akito teases him about it, telling him that they didn't know toya has a crush.

that's when he furrows his brows, crush?

due to his oblivious self, an and akito, mostly an, explained to him that he has a crush on you, and he was like "oh...oh!"

now with this newfound information, he felt even more nervous around you, sometimes stuttering his words as if he's malfunctioning robot.

his heart just goes crazy and with the way you acted around him these couple of years, thanks to an explaining how most women acted when they have a crush on you, he wonders if you also have a crush on him too?

. . .tsukasa tenma!

❝ Cross my heart, P.S. I love you ❞

he met you first in phoenix wonderland, you were a guest invited by one of your friends.

he, alongside his troupe members, was greeting the guests ever-so loudly and cheerfully and when his orange-yellow eyes set on you, his world just stopped right there and then.

your (h/c) was shining, complimenting your sparkling eyes and dazzling sweet smile, he felt his heart was racing, racing fast.

he was so stunned that when you and your friends came up to him and his troupe members, he was fumbling with his words all the while his troupe members cheerfully, mostly emu, greeted you and your friends. tsukasa's eyes were mostly on you, though he did try to act normal and tried to look at your friends as well but, his eyes kept glancing over you.

rui, who noticed this, teased him after you and your friends went away. tsukasa denied it, saying you look 'familiar' to him though, rui didn't seem convinced.

over the time your there, his eyes were trying to find you again, wanting to see if he was daydreaming that time but yet every time he sees you, he malfunctions again.

on the other hand, you caught him spying you from afar and whenever he quickly hides, you find it amusing.

he didn't know why he wanted to find out more about you, though you were a random guest, you can be EVERYWHERE!

but, I guess lady luck blessed him after a couple of weeks, he was in front of saki's school, miyamasuzaka, and while waiting, he saw you again! alongside your friends.

his eyes went wide, and my dude just stood there like 🧍‍♂️

once he and saki were back at home, he immediately bombarded her with a lot of questions about you.

"hey, saki, do you perhaps know somebody in your school with (h/c) hair and (uniform style/details about your uniform)?"

"oh, well there a lot of people with (h/c) hair in my school but, with the way you describe certain details uniform, I think you're referring to (last name)-san!"

that's where he learned about you as he watched saki talking about you gleefully, you were an assistant and close friend to the MORE MORE JUMP! members, no wonder why saki seems happier to talk about you to her older brother.

and no wonder he recognized you, he once saw you in shizuku's social media, in which he follows since they are good acquaintance with each other.

he thought about messaging you since shizuku tagged you in that one post. he wanted to formally apologize for weirding you out on that day.

and that's how you basically meet the blonde weirdo yet cutie from the theme park you visited a few weeks ago again. he firstly messaged you by introducing himself before apologizing for his behavior a couple of weeks ago, you honestly find it amusing and adorable. you two chatted with each other all day, and then the next day, and the next day-

after that, he invited you to hangout after school whenever your free, sometimes he brings along saki and toya, since you two bonded within the private messages you two have been sending each other.

honestly, he hasn't moved on from your first encounter, he still acts like a silly idiot around you. tsukasa doesn't even know why like, you're like everyone else, average yet has a certain charm around you making tsukasa even more invested into you.

whenever he's around you, he feels like very different that has him questioning himself about it. like, why does he feel funny around you but not to others? why does he feel the urge to impress you more with his charms and talents? why does he stutter his words out like a fool whenever it's you? WHY DOES HIS HEART YEARNS FOR YOU?!

I feel like he's seen a various of romance theaters, movies, dramas, etc (thanks to saki) so, he caught up with what's happening to him, it went like this;

"I'm in love..." the blonde muttered, finally knowing the reasons why he's acting differently to a certain someone. he had finally solved the mystery of his strange behavior whenever you're around!

"I'M IN LOVE- HAHHHHHHHHHH?!" tsukasa immediately stops himself upon seeing in the corner of his eyes, his troupe members all can be seen in the doorway, spying on their leader while rui was recording it with his signature smug cat-like smile plastered on his face.

in the end, let's just say rui, maybe emu and nene, got their blackmail for tsukasa.

he was quite shy at first but, he warms up since in his thoughts, he NEEDS to impress his crush, aka you, because the only way your crush is gonna notice you and wants to talk to you is to impress them! (tsukasa's words, not mine)

expects him to be a very, very, VERY gentleman towards you such as carrying your things, bringing you little snacks, escorting you to your house to your school along with saki, and many more that I can't possibly list down.

when he heard you were a fan of phenny-kun, he just has to impress you with his voice imitation of phenny-kun, he just had to. I mean, it IS his job, alongside his troupe members, to make people smile. his day brightens up whenever you enjoy his imitation of phenny-kun! doesn't he love you too much?

he probably made a play dedicated to you and have scenarios where you, the main character, and he as the love interest, he's too busy daydreaming he didn't notice that one of rui's inventions is coming straight to him-

he became a simp, your simp to be exact.

doesn't he love you so much? Cross his heart, he'll love you wholeheartedly that's for sure!

. . .rui kamishiro!

❝ 'Di ko alam ang nangyayari (I don't know what's happening) ❞

he honestly didn't expect himself to be having a crush on somebody, especially when his crush is oblivious foreigner such as yourself.

you were the infamous transfer student he had heard about from the juniors; it was quite obvious due to your appearance alone, so you stick out like a sore thumb. if that wasn't bad enough, you also had a hard time understanding and speaking their language. you usually kept quiet as you feared that you might sound like an idiot when speaking japanese.

so now, picture this, a transfer student from (country) that has a hard time understanding and speaking japanese in a japanese high school, seated next to the well-known troublemaker of kamiyama high, now surely it won't be chaotic? spoilers, it did.

rui honestly finds you amusing, he would chuckle whenever he would ask for something to you, and you would completely give him another thing instead what he asks for.

it was another day in class in this new high school of yours, if the lectures make your head dizzy because it's difficult in understanding the teachers a bit, the purple head boy next to you makes it more difficult.

"psst.. mind letting me borrow your eraser for a moment?" he whispered to you, not wanting to get caught by the teacher. rui watched as you confusedly scanning your desk, trying to understand what he wanted from you.

'okay, he clearly wanted to borrow something... but, what??' you were thinking a bit too hard that the lecture from the teacher is mentally blocked from your head, now focusing on the given task by your seat mate.

"um.. t..t..this?" you tried pronouncing the said word in japanese but, it only sounded broken a bit, all the while showing rui a sharpener.

and that moment, rui kamishiro knew, he'll be going to enjoy this year.

you being shy reminds him a lot about nene but, in your reason, you were afraid of sounding stupid while speaking his country's language. though, he'll give you the benefit of the doubt since you were learning how to speak the language.

he teases you even though you mostly don't understand all he just said, which amused him more while you were determined to learn about the language more to know what rui is saying to you most of the time.

eventually, it was one of your daily routines to have rui tease you every day, even though you don't understand half of it but, hey! you're at least getting better with your japanese.

and with that, rui and your friendship began to develop as time went by, the purplenette introduced his unitmates to you and you were thankful that they introduced themselves in english. p.s rui rambles about you to them.

sometimes rui say english words to help you understand what he or other people are saying. though, if someone was mocking or insulting you, rui wouldn't even try to tell you what they are saying instead, he just guides you away from them by wrapping one of his arms around your shoulder and distracts you, though you had a gut feeling that the person was saying bad stuffs to you, you pick up some of their words and understand soe.

I think rui having a crush will take a long time since he's more on focusing on his inventions and his performances with his unitmates so, catching his attention in you, romantically, it's going to be a long ride. though, if you did, in which is going to happen, congratulations then.

though, he did start to feel whenever your around as the days goes by, and honestly, dude was confused. I feel like he has no grasp of like love and crushes since he's probably more focus on his works and his unit's performances that he doesn't have the time to think about anything else like love.

so yeah, it took him a long time to solve this difficult equation on why he feels weird whenever you are around/mentioned. he doesn't know what's happening to him.

with that, he went to nene and intentionally drop a topic like "what if somebody feels weird whenever somebody's around them, like something's making your heart beats faster?" and nene just look at him with a blank expression of hers, already knowing what's up with her childhood (best) friend however, she won't say it just for fun.

even with his newfound feelings, he acted the same but, once you come closer to his chest area where his heart is at, you'll hear his heartbeat. his teasing is still the same though he increased it to the max, anything for you<3

within school/lunch breaks, he'll teach you japanese words and how you pronounce them while you teach him english/(native language) words and how you pronounce it. though, that doesn't mean he'll stop teasing you just because him and you are teaching each other different languages, from time to time, he says to you compliments in japanese and when you try to pronounce it, his smug cat-like smile widens even more.

but, he'll only get scolded by you after you search about the phrases back at home, he'll do it again and again even if he's going to get scolded by you and he'll probably get the silent treatment by you<3

although jokes asides, he'll calm you down whenever you're feeling really anxious about speaking japanese, especially in front of the class whenever a teacher calls you out for recitation. he's one good listener and advice giver, so any problems you have, please go to him and he'll make it better, especially for you.

fast forward to summer holidays and school was ending, with all the moments and days you've spent with rui, you finally made a decision, something you'll feel embarrassed about but, hey! rui someone that is dear to you. as rui finished packing

up his things and mostly every one of your classmates were outside now, you approach rui very differently unlike the way you've approached him before this.

"rui.." you muttered out, loud enough for the said person to hear and make his head turn towards you.

"hmm, yes?" his eyes went immediately towards you, seeing a letter in your hands, your gaze shyer than ever, and some sort of red tint in your cheeks.

"I.. uhm.. I.." you stuttered out, trying to find the words you wanted to say to him. rui, noticing it, gives you a pat on the head as a sign of encouragement as what he always did to you whenever you feel nervous/anxious.

eventually, you finally did as what you have planned the day before, "I.. just want-ted.. togiveyouthis..!" you quickly finished yourself, saying it all in japanese, while handing the letter to him before quickly rushing out, leaving rui with a dumbfounded with a letter in his hand.

the mad sciencetist, I mean, the purplenette boy stared at the letter the rest of the time as he walks home, wondering what you wrote in this. though once he had opened and read it, he lets out a smile, not his usual smug cat-like smile but, a genuine and gleeful smile.

with his heart beating crazily as he only thought about what you wrote in that letter, his thoughts filled to the brim with you, he honestly doesn't know what's happening right now.

WRITER'S END IN BEING DELULU!

Apologies for the long wait! school just recently started and this january I'm filled to the brim with projects and performance task ＞︿＜!

and also, I had writer's block with rui's section though special thanks to one of my lomls @liqis-postoffice for the ideas &lt;3

rules! + masterlist!

[duskymrel]

Part 6 of TWST as my friend group quotebook

We all need to be put into a psychiatric institute. Also, as always, any line with a '^' before it was something said or done by yours truly <3

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

^Jade: *sneezes*

Trey: Why do you sneeze so politely but also violently 

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

^Ace: I’m pretty sure the nacho cheese at school will give me cancer

*brief pause*

Crewel, cheerfully, without a hint of sarcasm: Oh, that’s good!! 😊

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

Ruggie: The urge to be an independent woman leaving my body the second I see my math score 

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

Ruggie: *makes his Kahoot name “thing”*

^Leona: Ruggie you’re literally objectifying yourself. Whatever happened to feminism? 

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

^Vil about to do Leona’s make-up: What's your eye shape?

Leona: Black

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

Jamil, to ^Azul: I feel bad for whatever prehistoric fish evolved into whatever you are

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Idia: stop showing me ads for SEX WEED1!1!2!1‼️‼️1!1!2‼️‼️‼️1!1‼️!1!21!1!1!1

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

^Epel, after Gym: Oh my SEVENS it’s hotter than Satan's sticky, sweaty, puckery asshole in here right now-

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

Ace: How do they have ancient African sheet music if they didn’t have any paper

^Sebek: *Actual explanation on how people documented things without paper*

Ace: I asked that question to a group of kids and they all got so offended and called me racist

^Jack: You’re not racist, just stupid

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

^Trey, to Cater over text: i’m used to seeing the amazing sunshiney person you are but you look like you air fry children in that picture

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

Idia: MOTHERFUCKER HE DOESN'T KNOW IT'S "UNHOLY" QUIT KINKSHAMING HIM YOU SAD FUCK 😭😭😭

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

Rollo: If God wants you to die, I won't save you. It's God's will.

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

^Floyd: If I rip your dick off and shove it up your ass, is that masturbation or gay sex?

Riddle: WHAT-

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

Ruggie, to ^Leona: How you got all that in the front but nothing in the back?

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

Ortho (About Cater and Idia): Hey, are you two dating?

^Cater: Um, no, why? 

Ortho: You were nice to him. 

^Cater: HELLO ??!!?!?!💀

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

^Azul: I’m too pretty to die 🥺

Jamil: I think your ego is killing you faster than this run ever could

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

^Ace: *Bumps into somebody at the cafeteria in the morning* Oh, sorry.

^Ace: ...Nvm it’s just Deuce.

Deuce: *offended noises*

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

Ace: Guys I think Riddle is going to turn into a neko catboy he’s coughing like he’s about to cough up a hairball 😭

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

[alphajocklover]

Hey bro, I have a bit of a strange situation going on. You see, I’m a big nerd, like playing dnd, good at math, into card games nerds. And I never really questioned it. But recently, I’ve found myself wanting to be more active, I’ve been wanting to become something I am not, a big strong guy. And it all stared when I rediscovered the Xmen through the show and upcoming movie. Could you, I mean, would you mind helping me become like my ideal man, Wolverine?

I want to be the small hunky and hairy beats he is, oozing with libido and sex appeal.

It's a little strange, but I’ve been getting a lot of superhero requests recently! Not that I’m complaining, I love writing about superheros. They’re interesting characters who have long histories and decades of lore to use. Plus they’re usually hot as fuck. And Wolverine is one of the hottest. Muscular, with a thick layer of hair, and gruff as can be. He’s traditionally a loner, but he has a certain rough charm to him. There’s a reason he’s been a part of almost every superhero team at one time or another. People can’t get enough of the guy. It could be his inventive power set, his ability to change with the times and still remain interesting and relevant. Or it could be that he’s an incredibly manly hunk whose animalistic nature makes people weak in the knees. He’s everything you ever wanted to be, or at least everything you’ve wanted to be since you saw those new X-Men cartoons. When you watched them, something awakened in you. And now… you’re becoming just like him.

You’re not becoming him, if that’s what you’re thinking. Whatever is happening to you can’t give you claws like Wolverine or coat your skeleton in adamantium. I mean, in our world adamantium doesn’t really exist, and even though some transformation methods could turn you into a perfect replica of wolverine or add onto the periodic table, this one won’t do that. It’s more fun to be a stud without the responsibility of being a superhero anyways, especially since one of his main powers is to survive incredibly painful situations. Now you get all the pleasure, none of the pain, and an absolutely studly body.

One common fun fact that people like to bring up about Wolverine is the fact that he’s… while he’s short. Really short. Since Hugh Jackman is over 6 feet tall, people tend to forget that in the comics Wolverine is a complete shortstack, standing at 5’3”. So, I’m afraid to say that you’re going to shrink quite a bit. Luckily, being shorter just makes your new muscles look even bigger and better. Your biceps are enormous, your pecs are amazing, and your abs are almost inhuman. That, plus a heavy layer of manly, thick hair, and you look like you walked right off the pages of a comic book. Or out of a very suggestive movie. Of course you don’t want to just look like Wolverine. You want to be like Wolverine. Which means a few… adjustments to your personality.

That might seem daunting or scary at first, the idea that your personality is going to change. But you won’t feel that way very long. Nothing is going to faze you anymore. Just like Wolverine You’re tough as nails and you act like it. Literally nothing throws you. You’re a certified badass. Yes, you have a sensitive side like the real Wolverine, but most people aren’t gonna see that. Most people, from your manly new friends to the girls you hook up with, are going to see the manly man, the strong warrior, the beast.

There are some small differences between you and Wolverine of course. The main one being that the guy in the comics doesn’t hook up with people very often. Too busy saving the world. And when he does get a love interest, the feelings between them are pretty serious. You don’t have the same patterns. You’re the type of guy who has a new girl every night and is constantly looking for more pussy. You can’t help it, with a massive cock and an even bigger libido. You’re the best at what you do, and what you do is fuck.

**Hey guys! Hope I did Wolverine justice. He’s a super hot character and I had a lot of fun writing a tf inspired by him. Hope you enjoyed!**

[yslende]

cabin 16 ー children of nemesis headcanons

| author's note: yeah i only really made this because i figured out that nemesis would be my godly parent. quite a few of these are based on me. probably not going to do any more of these, if only because i'd be unable to emulate this amount of detail again.

vindictive. do i even need to say it.

ambidextrous. the lot of them.

all of them have stares that seem like they look right through you. 

insane resting bitch and poker faces. nothing shows unless they explicitly let it.

⬆️ however, any emotion they feel, they feel it STRONGLY. happiness? more like euphoria. sadness? more like depression. annoyance? more like fury. (the furies *wish* they had what nemesis kids do.)

they're the type of people to be fashionable by default because all they wear is black, red, and Leather Jacket (which is a color in itself.)

⬆️ despite this, they don't mind the camp shirts, if only because everyone else is wearing them.

three options: read rulebooks for fun, be the reason rules are created, or both. 

they treat death like a trip to the dentist: an unpleasant inevitability. 

unshakeable loyalty. once you've got a nemesis demigod on your side, they'll follow you to tartarus and back.

⬆️ likewise, if you harm them or their friends, there is nothing they won't do to get back at you. nothing is beneath them. be terrified.

natural skeptics. nemesis is a daughter of nyx, so some of her kids have likely been to the underworld. they've met shades. even so, they'll passionately argue against the existence of ghosts.

weirdly good memory. of course, they remember every insult said about them, but they also remember how many arrows you shot into the woods at archery practice last tuesday. especially good with remembering strings of letters or numbers.

⬆️ they're some of the few demigods that can do math. they do it for fun, that's how bad it is.

really good at strategy, but often people don't go along with their plans. see: nothing is beneath them.

geese fucking love them. a common sight at chb is watching geese try and bite everyone's faces off, then trip over themselves to be pet like drugged cats by the nemesis cabin.

all super good at board games, especially chess, settlers of catan, and monopoly. uno skills are 50/50.

they're the type of people to save every deus ex machina item in a video game for later, and then proceed to never use them.

great sense of balance. they're great at tightropes, and can do triple pirouettes (a type of turn in ballet) easily. they like perching in trees and watching during capture the flag if they're not fighting.

if you're unwilling to debate or close-minded, be prepared to find spiders in your underwear. *especially* if you're an athena kid.

⬆️ probably have a tarantula as a cabin pet, named 'houdini,' because he keeps ""escaping"" to the athena cabin. it's super unfortunate like that.

⬆️ they also probably have a favorite wild goose, too. 

there are no extroverted nemesis demigods. if one seems like an extrovert, they're either in denial or masking super hard.

they're the type of people to do all of the group project work alone. they have no patience for anyone who can't pull their weight.

each have their own methods of organization. if you touch their stuff you will die. they always know.

can't sleep without the ends of their blankets tucked underneath the mattress and the sides perfectly even. it just feels off to them.

socialism. communism. literally anything except pro-capitalist. look at me in my face and tell me i'm wrong.

optimistic pessimism? very 'the glass is half-empty, but at least there's something in there' vibes.

about as blunt as a club. if you want the brutal truth, ask a nemesis kid about your swordsmanship. you'll come out crying.

they take things very literally. jokes often fly over their head, but they catch sarcasm and veiled insults faster than hermes runs. 

always take things seriously. even things that aren't supposed to be taken seriously. like 'packing rocks in snowballs' seriously.

all of them despise bullies with all of their being. there isn't a nemesis demigod who won't introduce their knee to a bully's crotch for fun. hades, they'll *pay* you to let them do it.

their fighting skills and athleticism increase when serving justice, revenge, or vengeance. like normally, they're really good, but then someone steals their marshmallow or something and then they get REALLY good.

like to put extra effort into scaring and prank new campers before being nice to them. trial by fire, i guess.

however, after the inital hazing, they protect unclaimed kids with their lives. again, see: nothing is beneath them.

want to know everything, including but not limited to why you didn't put any grapes on your plate to every single reason why your godly parent acts the way they do towards you. once again, see: nothing is beneath them.

fight best with either a sword or a shield, but they're especially good with both. 

(sidenote: their favorite swords would probably be executioners' swords, which imo are super fucking cool. their favorite shields would probably be aspis (roman: clipeus) but specifically the ones with faces or figures carved in them.)

nemesis isn't a super caring mother tbh. she punishes her children mercilessly if they do something wrong or malicious. however, likewise, she praises them lavishly whenever they complete a quest or do something that demonstrates the power of cabin 16.

⬆️ her kids either have huge problems with authority or zero problems with authority. most swing wildly between the two, but that's what balance means, right?

friends with cabins: 1, 5, 8, 13, 15, 20

chill with cabins: 3, 9, 12, 14, 17, 19

does not get along with cabins: 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 18

[aihoshiino]

chapter 159 thoughts!

Chapters Since The 143 Kiss Happened And Went Entirely Unacknowledged And Unaddressed Count: 16

Aqua Hoshigan Status: White

Surprise! As predicted by literally everyone in the fandom, the stab was a fakeout! To the shock of perhaps three people, no, one of the titular Kos of Oshi No fame was not, in fact, dying in an unceremonious cliffhanger stabbing - the only real question was exactly what sort of fakeout it was going to be. I did see quite a few folks suggest 'Akane in a wig and a stabproof vest' even in jest so congrats on calling it! Admittedly this is kind of silly but I would take 'silly' over the character assassination massacre that last chapter's apparent twist would've been any day of the week.

I guess if anything about this reveal surprised me it's that Kana wasn't involved at all…? Unless this is a double fakeout and something's going to happen at her graduation (which is not impossible for reasons we'll get into). Whereas all the buildup for Ruby (seemingly) getting stabbed basically only came in the same chapter it happened in, we've been getting some pretty heavy handed hints that something might happen to Kana for over 60 chapters now if my mental math is right - her parallels to not just Ai and Yura (i.e, our two on-screen victims), language associating her with the "type" we see targeted and that huge "Kana Arima will always protect Ruby Hoshino" red flag dropped by Gotanda, among other things. Kana is also the character who has the most actual direct parallels with Ai, where Ruby is defined mostly in how she differs from Ai… Or at least she does when the story makes sense lol. But I guess we'll see.

Either way, I personally have mixed feelings on Akane's involvement here, in this moment. On the one hand, I like what it represents about Aqua's development - the reason he and Akane broke up was over her 'endangering herself' but really it was because of Aqua's mortal terror over the people he loves being hurt in association with him. Letting Akane get involved here is an expression of growth and trust on his part and I do like that.

On the other… this is super Akane just being treated like a convenient device for the plot, as has happened to her before. It really feels like Akasaka has realized he made her way too competent as a character so he only busts her out to use as a blunt force tool to patch up his story. Hate that shit! Akane deserves better.

THAT SAID… Ichigo's involvement here is something I do straightforwardly like even if the execution isn't perfect. Now we're past the fakeout, I can say that my worst case scenario for The Stabbening was the "Aqua uses his 1337 surg30n ski11z to save the stabbing victim and make up for not saving Ai" because people have been predicting that Literally since volume 2 and I'm gonna be real with you, I've fucking hated it no matter the configuration of characters or events involved lol. It would, even if only subtextually, frame Aqua's self-loathing and suicidal ideation in relation to the incident as justified and that he somehow needs to 'redeem' himself for his failure of not stopping a grown man with a knife from stabbing his mother to death when he was literally four years old.

Ichigo, by contrast, actually is at least partially responsible for Ai's death. He is a literal agent of the system that abused and exploited her, he failed to support her properly as both her manager and her father and it's ultimately his commodification of Ai and B-Komachi as a whole that created the kind of fan attitude that gives birth to a person like Ryosuke. He's the person who actually needs to make up for failing Ai, so having him literally reenact that failing and getting able to do it right this time for the purposes of protecting Ai's beloved children is a direction for his character that I really like.

^_^ However! I do not feel anywhere near as positively about this retcon to Ryosuke and Nino's characters!!!!

like. come on, man. do i even need to explain why this is bad. even outside of how utterly transparent a retcon this is, these kinds of 'everyone is connected!!!' surprise twists are really not suited to a story like Oshi no Ko. They make the world of the story feel much smaller

In addition… it really feels like lately, Akasaka has this problem where he tries to make things more dramatic and complex by adding twists and reveals about Secret Additional Context like this to a character's behaviour but ends up just flattening them by way of making them more cartoonish as a result. Ironically, Nino and Ryosuke are both victims of this with this new retconned in connection and it cheapens not only their own arcs but their relationships with Ai (and how her own arc is informed by her relationship with them in turn) as a result. It's a cascade failure that wrenches everything else down along with it.

The other big reason this retcon frustrates me as much as it does is not just because it entirely shatters the logic of Ryosuke as a character but because one additional picrosecond of thought put into his could not only have prevented it, but even added to the story in some really meaningful and interesting ways. As other people are surely going to point out, this is an insane level of hypocrisy, so - lean into it! Make that hypocrisy explicit and textual!

Parasociality is already inherently illogical and the types of misogynistic hostile masculinity Ryosuke expresses towards Ai are already internally contradictory ideologies. Idol fan culture, too, is built on hypocrisy, especially in a gachikoi group like gen 1 B-Komachi. The girls are expected to roleplay as being romantically (and implicitly, sexually) available to their fans while also being pure and virginal to the point of farce. None of this shit makes sense! So leaning into that by explicitly acknowledging Ryosuke as a hypocrite and acknowledging these contradictory expectations could only have done the story well.

As it stands, this retcon just doesn't work. Like, look at the Ryosuke we see in those flashbacks - happy, healthy and functional enough to be close to at least two B-Komachi members. Are we really expected to believe that Ai rizzed him so hard she mindbroke him into being a Phantom of the Opera tier basement dwelling incel? Or are we supposed to believe Ryosuke was Like That simultaneously with him dating Nino? Literally no direction you come at this from makes any sense whatsoever lol

Ichigo supposedly knowing about them dating at the time also raises approximately one hundred billion questions. Primarily: DID NO ONE THINK TO TELL THE COPS AT THE TIME??? The guy who brutally murdered Ai in her own home just happened to be banging one of her coworkers who was known to have a bad relationship with her and this just… never came up?? Even though the news report on the incident explicitly says the police were investigating the possibility of an accomplice being involved?? AGAIN, NO MATTER HOW YOU APPROACH THIS TWIST IT JUST DOESN'T WORK…

I will say. For all my complaints, that final exchange between Akane and Nino, about how badly Ai and Nino ultimately just wanted to be regular friends… that really hit. It felt like a little flash of the messed up but deeply, achingly human Nino from 45510 I'd been missing so much every since she was turned into this weird caricature of herself. I'm still incredibly dissatisfied with the majority of her handling after the Movie Arc but if this is the note she gets to go out on, I'll take that W.

Concert time! Congrats to AkaMengo for creating a concert scene that annoyed me even more than the last one!

This is the sort of thing I mean when I talk about the ways in which the narrative has excessively favoured Ruby makes her come off as excessively self-centered in a way that is clearly not intentional. Not only does the story frame her as seemingly taking over the concert but she's also portrayed as the center every time she's on panel - even though that's Kana's position, that she only took in the first place because Ruby pressured her into it. This isn't something that happens by accident - in-universe, this can only have happened because the Strawberry Productions staff pushed Ruby into the center AT KANA'S GRADUATION CONCERT and instead of saying "hey, this is KANA'S GRADUATION CONCERT maybe she should be center", Ruby just went along with it. This is not my girl!!! This is not the Ruby of the First Concert arc!!!

No wonder there are in-universe fans getting pissed off. B-Komachi isn't even real and I'm getting pissed off. Like, can you imagine going to your favourite idol's graduation and her nepo baby coworker who's already constantly upstaging her is hogging the spotlight at her last ever idol performance? I would be physically incapable of not starting to throw rocks.

To make matters worse, the story is continuing to try and push what it flopped out last chapter of Ruby supposedly surpassing Ai as an idol. Like I said last chapter, I didn't buy it then and I extra don't buy it now!

Not only is the story still failing to do the work necessary to believably sell this, but the only way it seems to be able to try is to lean so heavily on Ai associated imagery that the whole thing is at risk of buckling under the weight - the double hoshigans, her outfit and even her popping Ai's iconic volume 1 pose. Not only does this feel generally unearned, it also falls flat as a moment where Ruby is supposed to be strutting her stuff as an idol because she is literally, explicitly, just imitating her mom.

Like… Remember when Aqua and Ruby had that big moment of Aqua telling Ruby not to try and be like Ai anymore and to get out of her shadow? Remember when Ruby and Kana had that heart to heart where Ruby said she'd be a star in her own way and she wouldn't be like Ai? How does that remotely cohere with the story relying so heavily on these callbacks? How am I supposed to believe Ruby has surpassed Ai and is shining in her own way when the seemingly only measure of success in this regard is how much she resembles Ai in the process of doing so?

Ruby has been catching strays left and right pretty much the entire time I've been doing these chapter reviews so let me be clear: I think this sucks because I think this sucks for Ruby. It completely undermines everything the story has previously set up regarding Ruby finding her own way of being an idol and it also cheapens the relationship she previously had with Ai's memory. Instead of the love and reverence she once had for her mother's legacy and efforts, now it feels like Ai has been used as a stepping stone to prop up Ruby's success story. The narrative is fighting for its fucking life to sell us on the idea that Ruby has surpassed Ai, but the execution is so ham-fisted that it ends up doing the opposite. By relying so heavily the imagery of Ai's radiance and her idolhood, it’s clear that the story doesn’t trust Ruby to stand on her own merits.

Like… fuck, man. Maybe this is a lot to read into four splash pages with no dialogue and maybe there's more to come from this concert - Kamiki is watching a live broadcast, after all, so the show is still ongoing. Maybe there'll be something in the concert to come that resolves some of my frustrations here. But this is all so consistent with the way the story has framed B-Komachi for almost 100 chapters now that it's hard for me to imagine it even recognizing that this is an issue, let alone taking the steps necessary to fix it.

And speaking of Hikaru………. man, what even is there to say about that ending lol

Much like last chapter, anything I could say about it necessarily relies on context and info we don't have yet. This is such an obviously deliberately provocative cliffhanger like last chapters that I don't see the point in trying to speculate too much about what it could all mean when Aka has historically gone hard on fakeouts. All I'll say is that like with last chapter's apparent twist, if the story is straightforwardly going to follow through on what is being presented right now with no additional twist, it will be much worse off for it.

At leas we'll find out next week whether or not that's the case. I ain't gonna lie I fully expected us to be on break again…

[skania]

Aqua, Akane and their relationship during his "Freedom" period

I know a lot of people dismiss Aqua's words to Akane in Chapter 97 because he wasn't shown being all smiles during their time together, but I think those people forget that Aqua has a very complex, very difficult, very painful rapport with happiness.

He has lived his entire life, be it as Goro or as Aqua, feeling guilty. Goro quite literally felt guilty for existing: he couldn't forgive himself for living at the expense of his mother. This guilt is accompanied by a feeling of powerlessness: he beats himself up because he couldn't do more for Sarina, and as Aqua he blames himself because he couldn't save Ai.

He assigns no worth to his own life. He has panic attacks when he lets himself enjoy things. Even something as innocent as Ruby reminding him of Sarina makes him think that he is unforgivable because he doesn't deserve salvation.

After living this way for so long, it's only natural that he still struggles with allowing himself to be happy during his "Freedom" period.

To make matters worse, this newfound freedom was born from Aqua running away from the truth and from all his issues. Ichigo said so himself, there is no way Aqua didn't notice the loophole. Himekawa literally tells him what age he was when his dad died, some simple math would've automatically let Aqua realize that the timeline didn't add-up.

But Aqua didn't want to realize it. He blinded himself to the truth because Himekawa gave him the escape he has been desperately yearning for since (at least) the TB arc.

Since Aqua didn't actually solve any of his issues and traumas, it's to be expected that they keep weighting down on him throughout that year. After all, healing takes time.

We see this weight very clearly in his dynamic with Kana, since his Ai-related trauma is the biggest factor in him completely avoiding her.

We naturally also see it in his dynamic with Akane.

Three examples come to mind:

Akane tells him that she enjoys being with him. We know for a fact that Aqua is reluctant to part ways with Akane, which means he enjoys being with her too. But he isn't used to letting himself enjoy things. So, how does Aqua react?

His guilt flares up and he focuses on how undeserving he is of her, even trying to convince her (and himself) that their relationship is nothing but a lie.

Something very similar happens here:

Akane tells Aqua that she wants to see him, and Aqua looks torn before admitting that he wants to see her too. It'd be easy to interpret his expression as Aqua feeling guilty because he is about to lie to Akane, specially since this page is followed by a page of Kana crying over him. But I believe it's the opposite.

We see him that very chapter asking Akane about her schedule so they can see each other. This alone shows that Aqua does want to see Akane, and the fact that Akane later says that Aqua has been doing his best not to lie to her confirms Aqua is being truthful when he tells her that he wants to see her soon, too.

So, why does he make that sad face?

I believe it's his guilt flaring up again. Knowing him, I bet that thoughts like these ran through his mind:

Does someone like me really deserve to live a normal relationship like this? Would Akane want to see me if she knew that I'm the reincarnation of Goro Amamiya? It it okay for me to want to see Akane even though I know Kana is hurting because I've been avoiding her?

Still, it's important to notice that we can see the positive effect that time has had on Aqua. During that first example, Aqua tried to put up a wall between him and Akane by claiming that their relationship wasn't real; during the second, he hesitates but ultimately admits that he returns the feeling and wants to see her too.

This trend of Aqua becoming more open with time continues in the last example, which comes precisely from Chapter 97:

Akane confirms that she is glad that she is dating him, that he makes her happy, and Aqua looks utterly caught off-guard, as if the thought of being able to make Akane happy was shocking to him.

His most telling reaction happens right after, though:

Aqua's lips tremble. He looks near tears. Why?

Because to him, who felt like he was underserving of salvation, being with Akane has felt remarkably close to it.

I feel that this moment right here contextualizes all the examples I mentioned before: Akane does make him happy and he doesn't know what to do about it half the time, because he isn't sure if he deserves that happiness at all. But Akane makes him feel like he just might.

And the truth is that he doesn't want to give up on it—on her, because to him his relationship with Akane has become synonym to the happiness that has been eluding him all along.

So I personally can't dismiss his words to her during Chapter 97, because to me they are actually meant to reveal the way Aqua has been feeling all along.

[destiny-in-the-universe]

Intern! Randy: RC9GN AU

So, I've decided to retouch on the fic and figure why not talk about it a little!

For those who are aware of the older posts, intern! Randy is a canon divergent storyline (set sometime in between the two seasons-) where it follows Viceroy's - I mean McFist, duh, latest plan to capture the Ninja. While I like to think they know the Ninja's a student, they're still under the impression it's an 800-year-old immortal and not literally a teenager for ahems reasons. Viceroy suggests the best way to uncover the Ninja's identity is by hosting an internship program for Norrisville High students.

Somehow, through silly cartoonish ways, Randy lands the interview though I like to think he still has skills Viceroy would be interested in (such as math). Things are going well at first surprisingly, and of course no one is suspecting a thing but then McFist - who isn't entirely as dumb as a bag of rocks - starts putting two and two together, realizing Randy sounds and acts somewhat like the Ninja. Though given how Viceroy has seen Randy's clumsiness, he easily dismisses it- thinking it's one of McFist's insane assumptions.

At some point because McFist is hardly subtle, Randy discovers the true purpose of the internship program - only he can't exactly quit without arising suspicion and decides he might as well use being an intern to his advantage. Deciding to keep each other on their toes, between McFist still convinced Randy could be the Ninja and Randy trying to stop their plans, things are only a mess waiting to happen.

Now on to my favorite part!

Due to the nature of this AU, I like to think that the Sorcerer isn't so involved just to further push the adoptive father-son narrative I want between Viceroy and Randy. This is going to be a fairly lighthearted and comedic storyline, but I felt like covering other stuff that might be included too!

Thoughts for Intern! Randy

One thing I thought of was the idea that Randy lives at the McFist manor-? Now, I will say Viceroy lives there too since that seems vaguely implied in canon- (and because I said so, duh). Instead of Randy having to commute so much, at least it saves him time in getting to McFist Industries.

Randy happens to be good at coding since it makes sense to me- like, the hyperfixation of video games aside, I just thought it would be neat but guess what: I, in fact, do not know coding so bear with me here. On the account of I wanted to, I also felt it would be a great way for Viceroy and him to bond- also that if Viceroy is somehow involved in the production of video games (sort of, if you count "Weinerman Up" as an example of this!), then Randy's going to flock to him more than McFist.

I do think there's the potential that Bash and Randy get a little closer, but they're not fully friends - they just learn to tolerate each other a little better.

Due to some potentially wacky shenanigans, I do like to think Viceroy eventually catches on there's something strange going on with Randy- if the odd timing's between his disappearances and the Ninja's sudden arrival isn't already a strange coincidence. (coughs except every adult in the show is stupid coughs)

But moving on!

I am honestly just looking forward to the other general shenanigans that may happen in this because- there's a lot that has to be considered if, well, everyone's convinced the Ninja is literally 800 years old. Like are they just blind?? (or is it some ancient magic coming into play whenever the mantle is handed down to the next freshman because Finja was absolutely not a freshman- when did the switch happen to freshmen being the ones to take on the title? I'll talk about this later, as per usual)

Anyway-

There's probably going to be some angst coming into play, but nothing too major because the purpose of this AU is honestly pretty light in comparison to say, The Kitsune and the Ninja or ITNV. Though I want to keep things interesting- hence why other stuff will be coming into play eventually.

Now unfortunately, I am considered scrapping the original WIP and making it slightly more interesting because my latest introductions to the fanfics have felt somewhat boring in comparison to what I could write. Though without much further ado, I hope you come to enjoy this!

I don't have the slightest clue when the fanfic will be complete, but hopefully this will be soon!

[gothicwidowsworld]

First kiss M.A

Warning: literally based of my first kiss experience, yes i know its embarrassing but also fucking hilarious also couldn’t find a gif from the episode i wanted so have this instead :)

“I… I don’t understand how I keep getting roped into this shit.” the y/h/c young woman grumbled loudly taking a sip of some leftover French chardonnay. The chardonnay had been an unexpected but welcomed surprise, after complaining a few episodes ago about the sheer amount of reds that were featured the wannabe sommelier Clément Novalak made sure to select a white for the girl. Clem had probably dropped the name of the province the golden liquid had come from during his spell about aged oak barrels and the apricot orange-peel floral notes but in this exact moment Y/N could not have cared less. 

“Because you love spending time with us.” Marcus replied, shooting the girl a cocky smile as his honey eyes captured her familiar y/e/c over his sunglasses. “Debatable.” Y/N hummed snarkily. “Clem is bearable at times, but you two….” Y/N gestured at the two Kiwi boys before trailing off taking another sip from her sadly rapidly emptying glass. “I’m going to take that as the compliment I’m hoping it was intended to be.” The French driver mumbled, absentmindedly readjusting his bow-tie.  “Aw you know I love you Clemmie” the y/s/c young woman exclaimed in a sing-song tone playfully throwing her free arm around the tuxedo donned man. “And yet no love for me… not even a little. What kind of girlfriend are you!” Marcus moaned in disbelief at the long-time friendship being rubbed in his face. “Oh quit whining and get on with it.” Y/N sassily retaliated rolling her eyes at the Kiwi’s hysterics. 

“Fine.” Marcus grumbled, however he struggled to hold back the building smile. If there was one thing Marcus sucked at it was hiding his emotions. It didn’t take a genius to work out how he felt about the young woman. From the way his soft golden hazel eyes would sparkle to the small twitches of his upper lip as he tried to bite back a growing grin. “I meant to ask Max during the podcast but I never got around to it, so when and where is your first kiss.” Marcus continued, still slightly kicking himself that he’d forgotten to ask such a juicy question to Max ‘rejected him 26 times’ Fewtrell himself. “We can re-divert!” James stated quickly a smug grin beginning to form, the grin targeted towards the F2 Driver dropped quickly when Clem expertly deflected the question “Actually James when was your first kiss.” The Frenchman asked. “It was in Whangamatā actually in 2013.” The dark blond began setting the scene. “2013?!” Y/N coughed out choking slightly on a sudden giggle. If she did the maths quickly that meant James hadn’t kissed anyone until he was sixteen. This new found knowledge practically obliterated the cool suave Bond-like demeanour James had built up. There wasn’t anything wrong with saving your first kiss, absolutely nothing wrong with going at your own pace. But Y/N had known James since he was 18 and the idea that James could probably have somewhat confidently chugged a weak beer before even locking lips with a girl was mind blowing. Shooting the older man an apologetic smile Y/N continued listening to James retelling of probably one of his most awkward life milestones. “Did you give her a wee pecker.. Or was it a slobbery kiss?” Marcus quizzed his fellow countryman, enjoying the growing bashfulness coming from his mate.

Soon it became clear it was Y/N turn to share her recollection of her first kiss. She wished she could lie and say she simply didn’t remember but knowing Marcus well she knew the Kiwi wouldn’t let it go, especially if he thought it could potentially be a little embarrassing. Groaning Y/N pondered for a second, placing her wine glass down and tucking her legs neatly beneath her. Adjusting her hoodie she racked her brains, the Screaming Meals Trio were some of her closest friends but there were still some things the girl didn’t feel needed to be shared and reliving certain parts of her childhood was one of them. Boy looking back Y/N was embarrassed enough, she didn’t need the trio pissing themselves laughing. So, what about your first kiss Y/N/N ?” the French native asked, his narrowed dark hazel eyes sparkling with mischief. “Marcus didn’t have to share his so why should I?” Y/N frowned, narrowing her eyes playfully at the Kiwi sat directly across from her. “Well firstly mine wasn’t that interesting, secondly it’s my show.” Marcus called out, poking his tongue out a little at his reasoning.  

“Ok first kiss.” Y/N began pausing for a second. “Like first proper kiss when you were aware of what was happening?” Y/N asked slowly hoping for some clarity, her head tilt in slight confusion. 

“Woah woah woah how many guys have you kissed that you ‘weren't aware of?’” Marcus objected loudly shuffling forward from his relaxed position, emphasizing his point with air quotes. Marcus wouldn’t call himself jealous, in fact that’s one of the last words he’d ever associate with himself, but the idea that there could potentially be a list of guys who’d kissed his girlfriend before him was difficult. The Kiwi Driver couldn’t help the surfacing insecurity, I mean what if (god forbid)  they were better kissers than him? “Don’t be gross Marcus… I mean like I don't want to say 4 or 5 mate… I barely remember it other than he’d been nagging me for ages and apparently he was no longer satisfied with my sadistic self only letting him kiss the bottom of my foot…” 

Stifling a giggle at the mixture of reactions from the boys Y/N shrugged as if her statement was beyond normal. “Also sorry Greg if that made you realise you had a foot fetish or something….” The girl added, reaching to collect her previously abandoned glass. “Uh… ok so what about your first proper kiss then?” Clem managed to ask, the Frenchman still slightly frozen in shock. “Um I was in year four so like 8… oh god…” Y/N trailed off cringing at the memory of this relationship. Hell could she even class it as a relationship? It hadn’t lasted that long, but it had been her first real exposure to boys. The boy in question had been the popular boy at school, all the girls had wanted him and he’d picked her. Something young Y/N had been so immensely proud of. 

“I’m probably going to regret asking this but how old was he?” James interrupted hesitantly, a look of concern filling his pale features. “I think. I think maybe 11? Oh fuck that’s  questionably dodgy.” the young woman groaned in realisation. “That’s like mega dodgy… 10 shades of dodgy.” the insurance broker agreed quickly, running a hand over his face. Silence fell over the small group. You could probably have heard a pin drop, or the sharp intake of breath from an extremely baffled Kiwi named Marcus Armstrong. “Jesus Y/N/N I think I can hear some police sirens.” Marcus exclaimed, clearing his throat, all the brown haired driver got in response was a half-hearted shrug. “Well you wanted something interesting?” the y/h/c girl replied simply. 

[ofthecaravel]

But You Look So Cool

A Danny Wagner/Sam Kiszka fic

Summary: Danny has a crush on a familiar face.

Tags: Fluff, cutesy bullshit, IDIOTS ALERT, literally just the stupidest goofuses alive, NSFW shit AHHHH

Words: 10.8k

A/N: Just trying to keep my Sanny girlies fed. Heavily inspired by Crush by Ethel Cain, everybody go listen to Ethel Cain right now or I will explode you with my mind

Let me know what you think!

~~~

Danny Wagner knew there was no shame in ditching the typical post high school route of moving across the country to start college. Well, maybe it was more like an affirmation he said to himself begrudgingly in the mirror after coming home from work and getting ready to go to class at the local community college. He’d escaped his parent’s house, not that there was anything bad to escape from, and now lived in a crappy one room apartment that he paid for by working a job that he liked an average amount. Every other day, Danny took classes at the community college. He couldn’t help but feel like he was wasting his early twenties saving money and starting small, even though he knew it was the smartest option for him, considering he wasn’t actually all that sure what he wanted to do with life. There weren’t a lot of things Danny was sure of about himself quite yet, but he had faith that it would all fall into place. It had to. Right?

Danny wasn’t sure when things would start to become clear to him, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be during any of his classes. This was an endurance part of his life, he had decided. Get them done, get the associate’s degree, and THEN go from there. He was taking a pretty low course load so he could keep up with work and, well, his sanity, and this was a September where he was taking a whopping two classes. They were both pretty basic, a math course and a history course, and he didn’t expect much from them apart from taking the occasional nap and scurrying to do all of his homework last minute like he’d done his entire academic career. 

What Danny especially didn’t expect from his first day of classes was walking into his math classroom (only after double and triple checking he had the right room), taking a seat by the window, and then becoming acutely aware of the smell of cigarette smoke. As he dug his laptop and notebook out of his bag, he wrinkled his nose at the smell and prepared to meet whoever had drug this scent in with them. He could see someone had sat next to him while his neck was craned, and when he straightened, Danny looked to his right and was immediately seized by a cold jolt of surprise. The guy next to him was undoubtedly the smoker, but he was also undoubtedly someone Danny had gone to school with prior. 

It was Sam, Sam Kiszka, Sam Kiszka who had been on the robotics team and favored shadowing his older brothers over cultivating a group of friends. Danny had known him with a shaggy emo haircut, braces, and an arsenal of class clown cracks. He’d ultimately lost track of Sam during senior year, when news broke of his dad’s arrest and Sam had shrunk moodily into the shadows while his brothers disappeared into college life and made their own name beyond crime and scandal. 

Danny had a feeling that whole era of Sam’s life played a factor into the man he’d grown into. This new Sam sat slouched in a smoke soaked leather jacket with a ratty backpack and scowl playing on his face. It was weird to see him like this. Danny almost wanted to say something, but after Sam’s feline glare passed over him and quickly slid off, he decided not to. He was annoyingly aware of the effect it had on him, though. There was a nervous tremor in Danny’s hand as he opened up his laptop and logged in, staring at himself in the reflection of the dark loading screen and checking for eye boogers or frizz in a sudden attempt to smooth out his sleepy appearance. 

The smoke smell was dizzying now in such close proximity, equal parts overwhelming and delicious. Danny breathed it in and, instead of letting out an almost longing sigh, he let out a huge sneeze. In doing so, he knocked his forehead against his keyboard and scooted backwards in his chair in the same motion. Red faced, he looked up and saw almost every eye in the previously quiet room trained on him. Someone called out a ‘bless you’ and he thanked them with an embarrassed smile, finally looking over to see Sam’s assessment. Danny felt his face go hot all over again when he saw Sam was side eyeing him with an amused smile. When they made eye contact, Sam quickly looked forward again and his smile crumpled. For some reason he couldn’t pin, Danny’s heart fluttered.

His mind started racing as his anxiety made him more and more aware of Sam’s presence and every little move. Did Sam remember him? What the hell had he been up to the past two years? Danny had heard rumors that Sam slipped in and out of the county jail since his dad had been sentenced to death row, unconsciously mirroring his family legacy in some sort of effort to cope. But as far as Danny knew, that was just hearsay. As the professor started the lecture and Danny started to focus, his last thought was that maybe he and Sam would grow to be friends over the course of the class. 

--

Danny gave up on that hope after the third class. Even during icebreakers, Sam had barely spoken and seemed to daydream the entire class, taking bare bones notes and racing out the door the second the lecture finished. Still, Danny gave him well prepared smiles in the split seconds that Sam’s eyes would drift over him, considering that Danny’s eyes were now almost always on him. Danny himself was a little startled by how distracted he was by his silent classmate. They had exchanged zero words and yet Danny found himself driving up to the building with anxious butterflies as the days went on. He started fulfilling weird little compulsions he’d never felt before, like standing in front of the mirror messing with the way his hair fell, even though he always left it back in its wavy, brushed-out side part. Danny sat in class with his back straighter and his face hidden by his curtain of waves, using them as a cover to sneak glances at Sam’s frowning profile.

 In such a tizzy, Danny had spent the time after a family dinner to corner his sister and ask her for a second opinion on why he was feeling so crazy. He had scoffed when she’d begun to laugh in his face, looking at him like he was the stupidest person alive.

“What, you asshole?” Danny asked, shoving Josie’s shoulder as she stifled her laugh with a hand and used the other to grip his shoulder in comradery.

“You idiot,” she giggled. “You’re not being possessed by the devil. You have a fucking crush.”

Danny flushed and laughed at the accusation, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, okay, sure, right,” Danny mocked, leaning against the doorframe of his sister’s room. “We’ve literally never spoken.”

“You don’t have to talk to someone to have a crush on them,” Josie explained.

Danny paused.

“You don’t?”

“No? What, is this your first year on Earth? Are you experiencing emotions for the first time?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Seriously! Have you never had a crush before?”

Danny thought about it. 

“Yeah, in, like, high school,” Danny answered. “I had a girlfriend, thank you.”

“Oh, please, you only dated her because she wouldn’t leave you alone,” Josie accused with a creeping smile. “Sounds like this guy is giving you the real deal. Congratulations, welcome to feelings.”

“What do I even do about it?” Danny whined, sliding down the wood panel and sitting hard. “This shit sucks.”

“Ask him out!” Josie insisted, forming a little heart with her hands. “Follow your heart.”

“You’re a fucking cornball,” Danny countered. “I feel like I should probably talk to him minimum one time before I do that. I mean, I don’t even know if he’s…you know, whatever. Would even be into me.”

“Oh, I bet he’s totally into you,” Josie assured. “When you said he smiled at you after you sneezed? Totally into you.”

“You’re just feeding my delusion.”

“I’m making up for lost time you spent fake dating a weirdo in high school.”

“Yeah, this is some real sentimental bonding we’ve got going on right now.”

“Come on, you wimp,” Josie said, tossing a pillow at Danny’s head. “Do literally anything. Don’t let him be the one that got away.”

“You’re so dramatic, fuck,” Danny accused, but smiled. “Fine, okay, I’ll talk to him.”

--

Danny did not talk to him. Danny really did plan on talking to Sam during their next class, but when Danny pulled into a parking spot, he found himself next to Sam and his grungy motorcycle. Worse yet, it was one of September’s warmer mornings with a humidity left over from a storm the next before, which meant that Sam was shirtless and covered in a fine sheen of sweat. He took off his helmet and shook his hair out, unaware of Danny’s jaw hitting the floor as he combed it through with one hand and dug a shirt out of his backpack. After allowing himself one more sidelong glance before he stumbled out of his car, Danny saw a scattering of tattoos on Sam’s wiry arms and hiding on his ribcage. The words died on Danny’s tongue and in his mind and he decided that maybe he’d wait another day, so he did. And then he waited for two more weeks after that, and even then, Danny couldn’t get himself to even breathe in Sam’s direction.

The only person keeping Danny accountable was Josie, and she regularly expressed her upset towards Danny’s lack of action. The siblings had a long standing tradition of raiding the convenience store by their house on Saturday evenings so they had a proper snack arsenal for movie night, and on the Saturday after the one month mark of Danny’s class starting, Josie followed him through the aisles and chastised him.

“Why do you even care so much?” Danny hissed at her as he absently looked through rows of crinkling bags of chips and pretzels. 

“Because this is the most exciting thing that’s happened to you since you graduated, you nerd,” Josie answered, plucking a bag of chips out of his hand and breezing by. “Plus, it’d be fun to have someone to razz you with.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a kind and gentle soul? Because they were lying.”

Josie laughed and they both continued a steady bicker as they swept the aisles. They settled in the candy aisle for a heated debate on what the “mood” of their candy should be that night. Suddenly, a raucous round of hissing and popping started up outside and they both startled, looking towards the sound. It was the sound of firecrackers, and the owner let out a disgusted sigh and stormed out from behind the counter. He’d seen the Wagner siblings in his store since they were little, and since they were the only ones in there, he quickly told them to not steal anything and then ran out the doors to investigate. The two of them exchanged an amused look and started a joking dialogue about how much stuff they could fit in their pockets when the bell on the door jingled again. They quieted, thinking the owner was back so soon, but Danny felt the wind get knocked out of his lungs when he looked behind him into the next aisle and saw a familiar helmet. He mouthed ‘shit’ and turned around again, Josie quickly picking up on the nervous twitch in his features and looking for herself.

“What?” she whispered, almost inaudible, following Danny as he scooted into the next aisle over to put an aisle between them. Danny gave her a look, and then jerked his head at the man once before widening his eyes. Instantly, her mouth fell open and she started peeking over the top of the shelves to try and catch a glimpse at Sam’s face.

“No way!” she breathed again. “He rides a motorcycle? Hot!”

“Shut the entire fuck up,” Danny seethed, feeling a chill run down his spine when he heard Sam’s boots in the aisle behind them. He moved quickly, a rustle of bags and wrappers as he did. Danny and Josie stood very still when they felt Sam stride into the aisle they were in, exchanging a look and then respectively picking up a snack and examining their wrappers intently. Danny took a brave look over at Sam and saw him pick up a bag of Skittles and then pocket it brashly in the joking way he and his sister had pretended to. Danny blinked in surprise; maybe Sam really was the criminal people made him out to be. Hopefully shoplifting was the worst of his crimes. 

Sam moved down the aisle towards them and looked up at Danny, the two of them exchanging a moment of tense eye contact before Sam’s dark eyes flickered over the Twix in Danny’s hands and then away again. Sam walked behind the two of them and then with a quiet ‘excuse me’, he reached his arm in front of Danny and plucked a Twix from the box. Danny stood frozen to the spot but leaned politely out of the way, trying to subtly stomp on Josie’s foot when she sneakily reached up and sank her nails into his forearm in a silent urge for Danny to say something.

However, Danny hardly got the chance to breathe before the owner walked back into the store with an annoyed huff, which caused Sam to startle and then hustle back past them and slip behind a display. Danny and Josie shared a confused look and tracked the top of Sam’s helmet as he sneaked around the perimeter of the store, clearly trying to make his way to the door without being seen. Unfortunately for Sam, they heard his boot knock loudly against a bottle and the owner looked up from his paper. His face immediately twisted into a fury.

“KISZKA!” he bellowed, slamming his paper onto the counter as Sam scurried down the first aisle and out the door, the bell banging loudly as the owner followed him out in a hurried jog. Danny and Josie quietly stood and watched the two men disappear around the corner in a flurry of yells. 

“Well,” Josie finally said as they slowly approached the counter and started piling their stuff onto it for when the owner returned. “He seems really nice.”

“Shut up,” Danny muttered, knowing his face was thoroughly flushed from both nerves and embarrassment. 

“No, really, I’m super excited for your prison biker wedding.”

“Shut up.”

--

On Monday, Danny was sitting at his table going over the Excel graphing exercise that had driven him nearly crazy the night prior when something was loudly dropped next to him. His reflexes were not as sharp from his lack of sleep and he jolted, calming when he saw what had been dropped on his notebook: a Twix. Danny immediately looked to his right and watched Sam fall into his seat, cracking his neck and unzipping his backpack like nothing had happened. Heart racing, Danny picked up the chocolate and caught Sam’s eye, holding it aloft with confusion crinkling his arched brows. Sam looked at the Twix like he was surprised to see it, sniffed absently and then reclined further in his chair. 

“It’s a bribe,” Sam finally spoke, his light voice betraying his cool, edgy facade. 

“Pardon?” Danny asked dumbly, trying not to stumble over his words.

“A bribe,” Sam repeated, looking at Danny like he was stupid. “It seems like you know what you’re doing in this class, right?”

“Barely,” Danny muttered, looking back at the admittedly correct graphs on his screen. 

“That’s better than how I’m doing,” Sam scoffed, loudly dropping his laptop on his table and pulling a bulky thermos out of his backpack. “I figured a little bribe would help to make alliances.”

Danny looked back at the candy in his hand.

“You stole this.”

“So, what? You and your girlfriend were talking about stealing.”

“That was my sister,” Danny clarified with a curl of his lip. “We weren’t actually going to steal anything, it was just a dumb joke.”

“Well, aren’t you a perfect angel?” Sam sarcastically batted his lashes at Danny and then rolled his eyes, cracking his knuckles aggressively. Danny bristled at Sam’s attitude, even though a small part of him was thrilled by it. 

“I don’t know how you think you make friends, but it’s not like this,” Danny snipped shakily, lifting his chin and looking back at his screen. He could feel Sam staring at him as he pretended to care about his homework. 

“You’re Danny, yeah?” Sam asked casually after a minute.

“Yeah.”

“I remember you from high school.”

Danny hesitated and met Sam’s eye again. Sam smiled, knowing he had Danny’s attention. 

“I didn’t do much in high school,” Danny laughed awkwardly, a little incredulous that Sam would’ve paid any kind of attention to him back then. Danny had friends, sure, but he coasted through classes and invested most of his time with the golfing team, playing video games and banging on the drumset in the basement. He and Sam had mutual friends but had never run in the same circles. 

“I remember you anyways,” Sam went on, picking at the skin of his thumb. “You weren’t the type of person to pass up the chance to help out. And I bet that hasn’t changed much. So, you know, if you could help me with an assignment or two, that’d be sick. Plus, I’d make it worth your while.”

“Will I continue to be paid in Twix?”Danny joked, flushing at Sam’s surprising comprehension of Danny’s character. Sam laughed, a sharp noise that sent chills down Danny’s spine. 

“You’re fucking funny, dude,” Sam grinned. “If that’s what you want, but I can get you whatever you need. Pick your poison.”

“Poison?” Danny echoed, blinking blankly. Sam’s eyes softened slightly as he realized Danny wasn’t picking up on what he was putting down. He looked almost endeared.

“Yeah, man,” Sam continued, his voice lowering as he leaned towards Danny. “Dope, coke. If that’s not your vibe, I’ll buy you a stupid six pack or roll you a blunt.”

“If I help you do your homework, you’re going to give me coke?” Danny hissed, leaning in as well. “You’re going from Twix to cocaine for trigonometry?”

“I have to graduate,” Sam hissed back, his voice urgent. “Not graduating is not an option for me. I’ve already flunked a class once and if I fail again my family will-”

Sam cut himself off with a groan and flopped dramatically back into his seat, crossing his arms and stretching his legs out. 

“Forget it,” Sam snapped, color rising to his cheeks as he let out a huff. “Forget everything I said. I’m fine, it’s fine.”

Danny paused as he watched Sam shift in his seat, his eyes clouding over as he stared down at his lap. If he didn’t know any better, he’d have thought that Sam might be starting to tear up. 

“Hey, man, I’ll help you,” Danny relented, his heart nearly hammering out of his chest as he said it. “Don’t worry about paying me back or anything, though. Actually, I’m more motivated to help you if you promise NOT to give me drugs.”

Sam stared silently at him for a moment, clearly waiting for Danny to pull the rug out from under him and tell him he was only joking. But Danny was sincere in his promise, and Sam’s tense shoulders loosened slightly. 

“Cool,” Sam said quietly, nodding once. “Are you busy after class?”

Danny was supposed to have lunch with a friend, but in a split second he decided to cancel. 

“No,” Danny answered quickly. 

“Wanna go to the library and, I don’t know, you tell me what the fuck is happening in this unit?” Sam suggested, his voice lowering as he got to the end of his sentence. Danny couldn’t help but let a painfully endeared smile cross over his face as he pretended to think for a second and then nodded. 

“Yeah, that works,” Danny agreed casually and Sam mirrored his nodding. 

“Sweet.”

“Yeah.”

They looked at each other for a moment, letting a few awkward beats pass before Sam cleared his throat and turned his attention back to his thermos. Danny watched him unscrew the chunky lid and take a deep sip, causing Sam to visibly hold back a wince as his eye twitched and he screwed the lid back on. He looked back at Danny, who was regarding him with another look of surprise.

“What?” Sam whispered.

“Dude,” Danny said simply, unsure whether to be concerned or to laugh. 

“Shut up,” Sam replied, narrowing his eyes like an angry cat. 

“It’s 9am,” Danny went on, a giggle at the end of his words.

“Shut up,” Sam repeated. 

The professor got out of her seat and turned on her computer, signaling the beginning of class, and both of them fell silent as the lecture flashed on the projection screen. Danny decided to try and sneak one more look at Sam before he tuned in completely, allowing himself to relish in the anticipation that they were going to be spending the afternoon together. When he looked, he saw Sam was looking back at him, and they both turned away quickly and didn’t make eye contact for the rest of the class.

After an admittedly awkward walk to the library, Danny very quickly learned the extent of just what kind of student Sam was. His eyes wandered, his questions branched into a myriad of tangents, and oftentimes his conclusions made no sense. A particularly hard problem had Danny making Sam slowly backtrack his process to how he arrived at his answer, which made Danny even more confused and further infuriated Sam as he was reminded of how lost he was. 

And yet, Danny was exceedingly patient with him. When the light outside started to fade and they gave up on making any more progress, Sam seemed genuinely shocked that Danny had stuck around as long as he had. Sure, when he got home that night Danny gave an extra little scream into his pillow from how hard he had fought Sam to try and help him understand the unit they were on, but Danny really hadn’t minded getting to spend some actual one on one time with Sam. Between tense discussion and slow calculations, Danny had actually had a lot of fun. 

--

Danny finally admitted to himself that he was completely and totally screwed after the next couple of study sessions with Sam. The issue was that not only was Sam even hotter up close, but that he and Danny got along famously. When he wasn’t cussing out his textbook (or Danny, on occasion) or staring off into space, Sam was funny and quick witted and a surprisingly good listener. He had this habit of cradling his jaw with both hands while staring wide eyed at Danny and the textbook he was working off of, nodding occasionally and scribbling down Danny’s process with his bottom lip sucked in between his teeth. 

“You’re really getting it now, man,” Danny said proudly one afternoon, watching Sam’s flimsy mechanical pencil work its way down his notebook page as he linked together a probability. 

“Maybe a little,” Sam mumbled, flipping a page to check the answer sheet. 

“Seriously, you’ve made hella progress,” Danny went on, motioning at Sam’s paper with his own pencil. “You don’t even need the cheat sheet, I know that’s right.”

“Still gonna check,” Sam insisted, seeming to shrink under Danny’s praise. Danny frowned, watching Sam grow somber in the way he always did when he scoured his homework for problems. Normally, Danny just let him take his quiet pause, but this time he felt himself  saying something before he could stop himself.

“You know that you’re smart, right?”

Sam looked up quickly, looking almost disgusted by Danny’s compliment.

“Yeah, okay,” Sam mocked, crinkling his nose. 

“You are,” Danny continued. “You were smart in high school, too. I mean, you did robotics and debate and stuff, right? You’ve gotta be clever to do all that.”

Sam blinked, his look shifting from unbelieving to almost shy.

“You remember all that?” Sam asked, his voice oddly soft. Danny felt his face flush.

“Uh, well, yeah,” Danny stammered slightly, shrugging like it was nothing. “I noticed lots of stuff in high school. It was a lot more fun than doing my own stuff, I guess.”

“You did cool stuff, too,” Sam said hesitantly, looking back at his page. “Golf is…cool.”

“No, it’s not,” Danny laughed, and a smirk slipped onto Sam’s face.

“Nah, it’s really not,” Sam agreed, the smirk growing to a cheeky grin. “You know what I mean. You were a cool person.”

“Oh, am I not cool anymore?” Danny teased, basking in the realization that at least once, Sam had thought about him back then.

“You’re still cool,” Sam smiled, his eyes boring into Danny’s own as Danny’s smile grew wide and dopey.

“Cool,” Danny replied dumbly, seeing Sam’s eyebrow raise in his peripheral vision as he pretended to start on another question. 

“Not good with compliments either, huh?” Sam accused lightheartedly.

“I guess I just don’t get them that much,” Danny answered honestly. Sam immediately let out a sharp, one note laugh that earned him a dirty look from the librarian and a confused smile from Danny.

“What?” Danny asked. Sam looked him up and down once with an amused smile, but once he realized Danny had absolutely no clue what he found so ridiculous, his smile quickly died. 

“Nothing, whatever,” Sam backtracked, letting out another much quieter laugh as if to make up for the brashness of the first one. 

“Nuh uh, tell me,” Danny insisted, quickly swiping Sam’s paper out from under his hand and holding it hostage under his forearm. “What’s so funny, funny guy?”

“Nothing!” Sam doubled down, his usually edgy tone taking on a brand new whining quality as he tried to yank his paper back. The annoyed knit of Sam’s eyebrows gave Danny a small thrill he didn’t quite understand. 

“You tell me why you laughed or I eat this fucking piece of paper.”

“Oh, I would actually love to see that, go right ahead.”

“Come on, Sam, tell me,” Danny all but begged. “Why is it so damn funny I don’t get compliments on the reg?” 

Sam still refused to meet his eye, half heartedly trying to slide the paper out from under Danny’s arm with his fingertips gripping furiously. 

“I don’t know, I guess it’s just weird considering you look, you know…” Sam trailed off, his tan cheeks rosy as he stumbled to his point. “Looking the way you do, I’d think maybe you’d be fending ‘em off ‘on the reg’. Your words, not mine.”

Danny blinked, still vaguely lost.

“Looking the way I do?” Danny echoed slowly, and Sam rolled his eyes. Danny looked down at himself, trying to decipher whatever Sam was getting at. “Is there a big sweater crowd here that I was unaware of, or…?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Sam mumbled, finally pushing Danny’s arm back with one hand and grabbing his paper with the other. “Nevermind.”

Danny spent the rest of the night trying to understand just what Sam had been telling him, but it didn’t hit him until that last second before he finally fell asleep. Danny had sat up abruptly when the thought settled on him, his adrenaline jerking him upwards like a puppet so hard that his knee collided with his cheek. He fell back onto his pillow with a prolonged groan, pressing the heel of his palm to his sore cheek, feeling his blood pulse as he blinked up at the ceiling with the realization spinning in his head: Sam thought he was attractive. And he had said it right to Danny’s face without him knowing. As he began to drift off again, Danny thought he might be the stupidest man alive. 

--

Danny certainly felt like one when the next time he saw Sam, he approached him with sheepish energy and a big, tender bruise on the plane of his cheek under his right eye. Sam’s mouth fell open and he immediately reached up to touch Danny’s face, his fingers softly grazing over the bruise as his dark eyebrows drew together in confusion.

“What the hell happened to you?” Sam asked, his eyes suddenly lighting up as a snarky comment generated in his head. “Oh my god, did you get in a fight?”

Danny, realizing there was no way he could explain the true nature of his injury without sounding like an utter idiot, quickly nodded in agreement and tried to look remorseful. Sam’s mouth fell open again. The sparkle in his eye paired with his ability to be so quick to believe made Danny’s stomach flutter in adoration.

“Yeah, no biggie,” Danny said coolly as he slid into his seat, shrugging off his bag as Sam landed on his seat harshly, his eyes still stuck to Danny’s face. 

“Who did you fight?” Sam gasped. “Did you fight a cop? Oh, please say yes.”

“Yep, you know me, big cop fighter,” Danny agreed, sarcasm edging his voice as he shot Sam a sly smile. Sam slumped in his seat as he began to scowl.

“Oh, fuck you, don’t lie to me,” Sam pouted, crossing his leather clad arms. “Seriously, what’s with the bruise?”

“It’s stupid, I’m fine,” Danny laughed. 

“Do we have to cancel midterms studying later?” Sam asked, looking concerned. Maybe even disappointed. “I don’t wanna, I don’t know.”

“Are you worried I’m going to strain my small bruise too much?” Danny teased, butterflies fluttering again at Sam’s genuine worry about his well being. 

 “I don’t know!” Sam spluttered. “I want to make sure my teacher isn’t being held back from teaching me.”

“Sure, sure,” Danny smiled, finding a random surge of confidence and channeling it by mocking one of the first things Sam had said to him. “Aren’t you just a perfect angel?”

Sam immediately fell silent, rolling his eyes deeply and lolling back into his seat, turning away from Danny for a moment before flopping his head back towards Danny. 

“Maybe I am,” Sam joked, giving Daniel a theatrical wink before scoffing and shaking his head, reacting so heavily that Danny figured that he must’ve been genuinely flustered by Danny’s accusation. It was hitting him again now, that Sam might actually like him back. It still felt like a reach, but Danny let the satisfaction of the possibility straighten his spine confidently while Sam continued to sputter. 

--

By the time midterms had come and gone, Danny was beginning to become actually convinced he might have a shot with Sam. A lot of this was attributed to Sam suddenly and consistently indulging in a habit Danny was well acquainted with: kleptomania. 

“Sam, you have got to stop,” Danny said defeatedly after Sam dropped yet another grocery bag of snacks on the table in front of Danny before collapsing in the booth across from him. This study session was at a coffee shop, which Danny thought might deter Sam from his now expected habit of bringing Danny bags of treats and the occasional other small, random items. 

“Why? It’s funny,” Sam insisted as he did every time Danny questioned why the hell he was doing this. “Come on, laugh.”

“I am not laughing, thank you very much,” Danny said haughtily, sifting through the bag with two fingers. “Aw, come on, there’s even more than last time. Those poor store owners you’re robbing are going to start to notice, you know.”

“Whatever, as if they could prove it was me,” Sam scoffed with pride, cracking his neck cockily. 

“Security cams, Sams,” Danny remarked, tying the handles of the bag together. “Seriously, it’s just not worth the risk. I don’t know why you think I’m so desperately in need of a couple hundred granola bars.”

“Totally worth the risk,” Sam argued. “I have a great time doing it, and then you have a great time not starving.”

“Why would I be starving?”

“You said you barely even eat during the days you work. Boom, problem solved, shut up and eat your damn fruit snacks.”

Danny’s heart suddenly began to slam against his ribs as the feelings that accompanied Sam’s shockingly sweet intentions jolted every nerve ending in Danny’s body. 

“You started being a full blown klepto because…you didn’t want me to be hungry?”

“So?” Sam’s voice was sharp and defensive, but when Danny blinked at him, he saw Sam’s eyes soften for a fraction of a second and he knew. 

 “It’s just…actually very nice of you,” Danny said, his voice petering out slightly at the end of his sentence. “Now I kinda feel like a dickhead for yelling at you. Even though I still don’t think you should steal.”

“I accept your apology,” Sam answered jokingly. “So, which homework are we going over today?”

“Oh, we actually don’t have anything due on Friday,” Danny said. “I’m slightly concerned you don’t remember her saying that, but, yeah, we don’t technically don’t have to work on anything.”

“Oh,” Sam said simply, tensing and then relaxing in the same second. “So, we’re just…like, hanging out?”

“I guess,” Danny replied, masking his nerves by taking a sip of his drink. “I mean, we can look ahead in the book. Or you can, like, go if you want.”

“No, no, it’s whatever,” Sam said hurriedly. “I mean, I already ordered a drink, so.”

“Yeah, I mean, then you gotta stay,” Danny teased, still a little surprised by his own ability to flirt so quickly lately. “Maybe we can even attempt a conversation without talking about trigonometry.”

“Sounds like pulling teeth,” Sam agreed, arching a dark brow in amusement. “I’m down.”

“Should I ask you how your day was?”

“Definitely not.”

“What about your childhood?”

Sam bristled but somehow twisted it into a weak smile.

“I don’t know, you were there for a good chunk of it,” Sam smiled, and Danny melted a little. “You weren’t super involved or anything, but you probably know the gist of it.”

“Mm, I guess,” Danny shrugged. “Not enough to know how you went from being such a nice little nerd to…wherever you are now.”

“Is there something wrong with me now?” Sam snapped, giving Danny the stink eye.

“No, no, but you’re definitely a lot different than you were 5 years ago,” Danny went on and Sam swallowed, his eyes traveling in the air next to Danny’s head uncomfortably. 

“True,” Sam agreed sullenly. 

“I didn’t mean to, I don’t know, drag up anything,” Danny said nervously, taking note of the dark cloud settling over Sam’s head. “Just making conversation. I mean, I admit I am curious, but you can change the subject.”

“It’s…fine,” Sam sighed, shifting in his seat and finally taking off his jacket as he talked. “I mean, you know all the shit that went down with my family. I guess it’s just kind of a weird thing for an angsty little teenager to deal with, and doing spontaneous, adrenaline rush inducing shit is a lot easier to do than dealing with emotions. Way more fun, too.”

“I get that,” Danny said softly. “I was worried for you for a while in high school. You didn’t come to school for like a week straight once and I totally thought something bad had happened.”

“Really?” Sam asked. He looked surprised that Danny had remembered that, and he also looked a little guilty.

“I mean, yeah,” Danny stammered. It was true; it had been a little hard not to be on the lookout for Sam after his dad’s mugshot had been plastered on every newspaper in town.

“Well, I was fine,” Sam insisted, guilt still gracing his features. “With everything going on, I figured nobody would care if I stayed away for a little while. I was pretty much just taking tabs in the woods and eating at drive throughs and stirring up shit at random bars.” 

“That sounds like it sucks,” Danny blurted, and Sam looked startled by his candor.

“It did suck,” Sam answered plainly. “But it could have been worse. I mean, I only got arrested once.”

“That’s a miracle,” Danny joked and Sam laughed. 

“Honestly, yeah,” Sam agreed with a feline smirk. “I’ve gotten up to some pretty crazy things in my time.”

“I’d love to hear about them,” Danny smiled, cupping his chin in his hand in an effort to look tuned in completely to Sam. Sam laughed again and mirrored Danny’s cheesy motion with a higher notch of dramatics, making both of them chuckle before Sam launched into a highlights reel of the craziest things he’d experienced in the past couple of years. With every new anecdote, Sam loosened up more and more, his eyes staying round and playful as he gesticulated often and laughed between his words. Even though his stories painted him as some kind of a wild thrill seeker, the Sam sitting in front of Danny was exuberant, sweet, and kept collapsing into fits of giggles that made him snort and giggle all over again. Danny couldn’t help but stare.

-- 

   Suddenly it was November, and Danny and Sam put their heads together to work through the review packet they’d been given. The truth is that the review packet had all the basics of the units they’d gone through, and the professor had said that the final was going to be a collection of all the simplest concepts so there was no reason to unnecessarily stress, but Danny and Sam began to study like it was the bar exam. At this point, both of them were quietly aware that Sam would be able to pass this final without Danny’s help, and that their studying sessions didn’t actually involve all that much studying anymore. They’d go to the library or a coffee shop or any kind of quiet establishment, pull out their folders and pencils and calculators, and then not touch them for the next couple of hours while they chatted. On a few occasions, Sam would shut down when the conversation got too close for him, and Danny knew that during those times he was waiting for Danny to go, but he never did. He’d pick a new topic, broach it carefully, and wait for Sam to warm back up to him. That unthinking kindness was a big part of why Sam actually started to feel comfortable opening up to Danny, even if it was only a little bit. It was also why Sam started to feel like he would do anything to get alone with Danny, such as feigning that he absolutely needed them to start meeting up twice a week more than once. Right before the actual test, Sam even considered inviting Danny over to his place to…not study, he wouldn’t get away with saying that’s why he wanted him over. That’s why he never ended up offering. Part of it was shame, honestly. He didn’t like the imagery of Danny, bright and clean, standing in the basement he called home and pretending to like it. Or even actually liking it, seeing as he seemed to like everything Sam pitched to him, even when it was a tale of arson or getting an unseemly tattoo in an unseemly place. 

What it was, really, was that Sam wanted Danny alone because he had a big, fat crush on him. When he’d first seen Danny in class, he’d recognized him from school, sure, but his first thought was that he was absolutely drop dead gorgeous. So gorgeous that he looked entirely out of place hunched over his laptop in a stained t-shirt that he assumed doubled as his uniform for work. Sam wasn’t stupid, he knew that his look attracted his stares, and usually he loved the attention. But he felt uncharacteristically nervous when he began to notice that Danny’s eyes couldn’t stay off of him during class. In fact, even after becoming friends and becoming arguably close friends, he still felt nervous under Danny’s gaze. He wanted to keep his eyes on him at all times, and as the last day of class drew near, he was worried he was going to lose it. Sam knew he had to make a move. He just wasn’t sure how.

--

“Come over.”

Danny blinked.

“Hm?” Danny asked with a closed mouth, looking up from his paper to see that Sam wasn’t even looking at him. Sam was regarding the motor oil under his nails with great intensity.

“Come over,” Sam repeated, slowly and theatrically. “After the final tomorrow. We’ll party and lay a semester of unrelenting torment to rest.”

“Oh,” Danny replied dumbly, suddenly feeling very warm under the collar of his green sweater. “Yeah, sure, sounds fun. Should I bring anything?”

“Nah, I’ve got enough liquor to be deemed a public fire hazard,” Sam grinned, finally looking at Danny to flash him his teeth. “You’ll probably have to crash for the night, though. We’re going to get pretty fucked up.”

“Oh, are we?” Danny challenged with a smile of his own. “I don’t know how wild a two person party can get.”

“I’d invite other people but they wouldn’t understand the true heart of the party like we do,” Sam explained dryly. “You can pick what we watch.”

“Sweet,” Danny sang, his knee bouncing from jitters under the table. He couldn’t stop thinking about the prospect of sleeping in the same room as Sam. “Do I get to sleep on the couch, or is it a pillow and a blanket situation?”

“Whatever you want, bro,” Sam answered coolly, looking back to his nails. “All I know is you don’t get the bed.”

“You must be so proud of your twin size mattress.”

“Hey, she sees plenty of play,” Sam purred, blatantly lying. He winked and Danny rolled his eyes, landing his attention back on his paper.

“If ‘she’ saw plenty of play, you wouldn’t still have a twin,” Danny accused, his stomach turning at the thought of anyone other than him in that bed with Sam. Sam scoffed.

“Hey now, mattresses are expensive as fuck,” Sam argued, reaching a defensive headspace where his arms crossed and his lip curled. Danny loved it.

“True, true,” Danny humored him. “So, do I get to ride home with you on your big scary motorcycle or do I have to follow you in my car?”

“We’ll see if your excuse for a car can keep up with my Harley. I’ve been meaning to ask you to drag race, anyways.”

“My sheer spite would make my car go faster than your tricycle.”

“Tricycle?!”

Danny laughed as Sam flew into a sputtering tirade of defending his motorcycle, counting out bullet pointed arguments on his fingers as Danny sat there with a dopey smile on his face. Danny wondered if Sam had caught on to the fact that he fired him up just so he could watch him fizzle down. At the same time, Sam wondered if Danny knew how much he liked that he did that.

--

Danny’s nerves began to run wild about halfway through his final. Not because of any uncertainty at his answers, but because as time passed, he realized just how soon he’d be at Sam’s. He was worried about what he’d be like after a few drinks and finding himself completely alone with the man he’d begun to fantasize about more and more every day. Actually, he hadn’t thought of much else but what he was going to do about this hangout time with Sam, or rather, what he wanted to do. A gentle, almost innocent crush had morphed so quickly in such a short time, and his feelings were quickly developing in a way that kept his head filled with images of his hands on Sam’s hips and how Sam’s neck might look when covered in bruises. As one of those thoughts started to drift into his mind, his thoughts whispering about how it was a very real possibility, Danny’s pencil began to fly over his paper as he hurried to finish as fast as possible.

Sam didn’t keep Danny waiting for very long after he did finally turn in his final and hurry out into the hallway. Sam had dressed pretty nice for once, in his own uniquely Sam way. He had on a rumpled white shirt with a dark green leather jacket, paired with dark jeans that boasted only a few scuffs and minor rips. He stomped after Danny down the hall in heavy workmans boots.

“How was it for you?” Sam asked, his body language bordering on giddy as they burst out the doors into a chilly, biting breeze that immediately reddened both their cheeks and noses. 

“Honestly? It was kind of easy,” Danny said brightly and Sam immediately let out a laugh, kicking an icy stick as they approached where they’d parked their respective vehicles nearby. 

“I knew you’d say that, ugh,” Sam complained. 

“What, was it hard for you?”

“No, it’s just more annoying when things are easy for you,” Sam explained. “‘Cause everything’s easy to you, so, like, duh, of course you thought it was easy.”

“Sorry for being smart?” Danny laughed apologetically.

“Yeah, you better be.”

Danny scoffed and Sam laughed, brushing a few stray leaves off the seat of his bike and straddling it. Danny’s breath caught slightly when Sam adjusted himself, his back arching for a few seconds before he settled down, fiddling with his gloves while Danny dragged his gaze away from the seat of his bike. They weren’t even at Sam’s yet, and he started to become really worried about his capacity for self control.

-- 

Danny worried again when they arrived at Sam’s grungy apartment building and he watched Sam flip his hair over his shoulder as he fumbled for his keys. 

Danny worried some more when Sam insisted on standing sideways in the doorway to dramatically present his living room to him, so that Danny felt his chest drag against his upper arm as he squeezed past. 

Danny worried the most in the moments right after the door closed. Sam pressed his back against the wood coquettishly while grinning softly at Danny, and Danny sort of floated out of himself when he felt his body turn on his heel and march right up to Sam. Sam’s eyes widened and his goofy introductory remarks died on his tongue as he looked up at Danny in puzzlement right before Danny gently palmed the side of his tattooed throat and brought his lips to Sam’s. And Sam, the rough edged, chain smoking, eye rolling, pain of a man immediately buckled at the knee and sighed into the contact, his rough hands grazing Danny’s neck before diving into his hair. Danny felt his entire body go blindingly white hot with nerves as he gasped and went in for another kiss, his jaw angling perfectly against Sam’s as he held him firmly against the door. Sam arched against the wood and into Danny’s touch, melting against whatever contact he could find on the taller man. After a minute of Sam writhing and Danny nearly blacking out from the pleasure of Sam’s soft lips on his own, Danny finally pulled away for a deep breath of air, maintaining frenzied eye contact with Sam as he watched him paw lightly at his neck and take gasping breaths. 

“Hey,” Danny breathed, his voice raspy and shaking. “I’m sorry, I should have-”

“Took you fucking long enough,” Sam cut him off, his shining lips splitting into a wild smile. “I mean, fuckin’ A, man. I was starting to think I was reading into nothing.”

“Definitely not nothing,” Danny replied quietly. “A very nervous something.”

“Well, the something is mutual,” Sam grinned, giving Danny a proper up and down with his eyes and chuckling softly. “Very, very mutual.”

“Cool,” Danny said shyly, dipping his head to try and hide his smile, as if he hadn’t just slammed Sam against a door to steal a kiss. 

“Come back,” Sam whined softly, grasping Danny by the collar of his corduroy jacket and pulling him back into his embrace. “Come on, don’t be a tease any more than you already are.”

“I’m a tease?” Danny asked with delighted disbelief, smiling into the contact of Sam beginning to kiss along his jaw and neck. “You were the one who was going to make me sleep on the floor tonight.”

“Oh, baby, you were never going to be sleeping on the floor,” Sam whispered in his ear, kissing his jaw and working his way up to giving Danny one, long kiss on the lips before speaking again. “I always get what I want.”

“You want me?” Danny asked against his lips, getting lost in the wide expanse of Sam’s dark eyes. 

“You don’t know the half of it,” Sam purred, cupping Danny’s jaw and pulling him into a series of slow kisses while Danny’s mind continued to reel at Sam’s reciprocity. With Sam biting his lip and kissing it better in succession, along with his willowy fingers tracing down Danny’s chest, Danny was honestly beginning to find it hard that this wasn’t a miracle from the universe. Or maybe some kind of dream that he’d fallen into without realizing. He couldn’t even begin to comprehend that this scenario was exactly what Sam had been picturing for their evening the entire time. 

Once Sam’s tongue made its way into Danny’s mouth, adding warmth and licking smoothly, Danny started to hurriedly shrug off his jacket and toss it blindly behind him before starting to work Sam’s off of him. It exposed the patchwork of tattoos along Sam’s arms, tigers and daggers and snakes in the traditional style popping against the white of his shirt. To his surprise, Sam’s hands left Danny’s cheeks and boldly slid up under his sweater, causing Danny to flinch and yelp at the feeling of Sam’s ice cold fingers on his warm skin. Sam giggled, still keeping their lips locked together as he grabbed at Danny’s waist and sides, his hands unable to stay in one place. Matching Sam’s reckless abandon, Danny suddenly bent at the knee and hooked his arms around Sam’s thighs, boosting him into the air. Sam hummed into his mouth, crossing his legs behind Danny’s back and snaking his hands out from under Danny’s sweater to tangle back into his curls.

“My bedroom is the door behind you to the right,” Sam mumbled breathlessly, fidgeting slightly against Danny’s firm front.

“That’s awful forward of you,” Danny flirted, taking a moment to breathe and appreciate the weight of Sam in his arms, holding him up with very little effort. This could come in handy.

“Well, do you want to fuck me or not?” Sam scoffed, a further blush flushing his face as he said it. His pupils completely swallowed up the warm brown of his iris as he stared expectantly at Danny, who had to take a second to concentrate on not cumming in his jeans right then and there.

“Yes, god, yes,” Danny answered quickly, immediately starting a slow, backwards walk towards Sam’s bedroom as Sam grinned wolfishly and descended on Danny’s mouth hungrily again. 

Eventually, they fumbled their way into the bedroom, Sam closing the door behind them before Danny dropped him on the bed and climbed over him. Danny considered continuing with his conquest, but he found himself looking up to observe his surroundings. Sam’s bedroom was small, with wrinkled posters and flyers for basement shows and concerts peppering the gray walls. There were clothes all over the floor, along with the butts of cigarettes and a myriad of worn out sneakers and boots. Sam watched Danny’s expression carefully as he assessed the mess that was his room, his eyes tracking the pattern on his quilt before smiling at Sam again. 

“It’s cute in here,” Danny declared, looking at a string of lights taped to the borders of the walls while Sam blinked in surprise at his words. 

“No, it’s not,” Sam muttered, looking around his room and seeing only the disregard for his own environment in the mess he’d created.

“Nah, it’s all very you,” Danny explained, looking at the room and seeing the person behind it all. He imagined Sam wobbling on a stool to paint the walls their moody gray, or pulling his quilt out of a box and smoothing it lovingly over the sheets, wondering if it had been made for him by a relative or hand picked from a thrift shop with a curated eye. It was all painfully adorable to him. It was all so…Sam. 

Sam saw the adoring shine in Danny’s crinkled, hazel eyes and felt all his seductive confidence fly out the window, only able to bat his lashes up at him and marvel.

“You really don’t think I’m a scuzzball, do you?” Sam asked with a note of amused realization, his sentence lifting into a slight one note laugh. 

“Never have,” Danny answered honestly, cocking his head at Sam while smiling warmly. “I mean, you can pretend all you want, but I know you’re not who you pretend to be. You’re just…”

“What?” Sam challenged, slightly defensive of the persona he’d worked hard to maintain over the years, and also slightly embarrassed that Danny had seen through it so effortlessly.

“You’re just you, I guess,” Danny shrugged as best he could while holding his weight on his elbows, still hovering over Sam’s reclined body. “And that’s not very scary to me.”

Sam was silent for a minute, unsure of what to say to that. Initially, he’d been annoyed that Danny was so nice to him, figuring the other shoe would drop at any time and he’d reveal his worst intentions. This was a pattern Sam was accustomed to. But Danny really meant what he said. He didn’t just see through Sam, he saw him fully, and Sam realized with a relieved jolt that he had never really been annoyed about it. He was grateful. 

But Sam was still very much in a certain state of mind, and his body reminded him of it when he looked down and saw how his crotch had lifted to press against Danny’s without his realizing. He figured maybe there was a certain way he could show Danny just how grateful he was. 

“Why don’t you show me just how scary you can be?” Sam invited lowly, his hand returning to Danny’s cheek as his thumb swiped over Danny’s bottom lip. This small action seemed to remind Danny of how they’d ended up here, and Sam watched with restrained delight as Danny’s eyes glazed over slightly. 

“What do you want?” Danny asked quietly, adjusting and hovering further over Sam, his look of genuine caring slowly morphing into something almost predatory as he smiled. His hair fell around them, the rest of the world falling away.

“I already told you,” Sam pointed out haughtily. “I want you.”

“I’m getting kind of tired of your attitude,” Danny fired back. “You know I want specifics.”

“Is that what you want? Specifics? Not me?” Sam grinned cheekily, enjoying pressing Danny’s buttons even more now that he was getting the idea that he’d be rewarded for it. Danny rolled his eyes and shook his head at Sam.

“Be that way,” Danny hummed, straightening and sitting hard on Sam’s lap, causing him to let out a strangled whine as Danny pulled his sweater off. “Guess I’ll just call the shots.”

Sam really wanted to conjure up a fiery retort, but his mind went fuzzy and blank at the sight of Danny with his shirt off, his broad chest exposed and his smile cocky and triumphant as he watched Sam flounder wordlessly. Sam became even more aware of the strain in his jeans when his eyes traveled downward and he caught sight of the trail of dark hair just over the waistband of Danny’s pants. 

“Do you even know how much I like you?” Danny started, casually undoing the clasp of his watch and leaning to the side to drop it on Sam’s bedside table while Sam propped himself up on his elbows. “I literally thought I was going to flunk the class because you were so distracting.” 

“I didn’t even talk to you,” Sam said simply, barely audible. 

“Didn’t need to,” Danny affirmed. “My mind did most of the distracting stuff.”

“Like what?” Sam prodded, tipping his chin up to stare unrelentingly at Danny in a pathetic attempt to regain control. Danny, taking advantage of this surprising burst of dominance that Sam seemed to give him, gently grasped Sam’s chin.

“Well, initially, I had all these ideas of how we’d end up kissing for the first time,” Danny explained. “Shockingly, none of them ended up being how it went, but I’m glad I had options. And, I mean, those ideas just sort of developed over time. I’d wake up and be all surprised that I’d cum in my pants and not on you.”

Sam’s jaw hung open and Danny shut it gently for him, his body pulsing with heat as his adrenaline raced in his veins.

“You gonna teach me some more, hm?” Sam finally managed to say, straining to try and steal a kiss. “Or do you want me to lead?”

“I’d like to see you try,” Danny grinned, pushing Sam onto his back. Sam, breathless, watched Danny move his hands down to Sam’s aching groin and begin to undo his pants, fingers shaking with anticipation. Sam pushed his hair off his forehead and pressed his covered dick into Danny’s hand after his pants had been tugged down to his knees, not speaking but letting a needling whimper escape that made Danny smile. 

“What are we going to do with you, Sam?” Danny teased, running his thumb up and down Sam’s concealed length.

“Danny,” Sam choked out as Danny took his hands off of Sam and began to unzip his own pants. The lack of touch was almost unbearable at that moment. “Come on, fuck me, please.”

“That could look like a lot of things,” Danny said absently, freeing his dick and palming it casually, letting out a slow sigh of relief. Sam stared unabashedly at Danny’s impressive and admittedly intimidating length. He’d fantasized about what he might expect, but the real thing was almost overwhelming. But he knew what he needed.

“In me,” Sam whispered, his tone bordering on longing. “Please. I can take it.”

“You can?” Danny questioned, trying to keep up his domineering tone despite the wind being knocked out of his lungs at Sam’s request. “Have you been getting ready for me?”

“Maybe,” Sam admitted quietly. He took a dangerous leap with what he said next. “But those randos don’t even hold a candle to you.”

Danny flinched, jealousy immediately rolling over him in cold waves as his mind started to conjure up disgusting imagery of Sam on his back for anybody other than him. It must have translated into his expression without his knowledge because Sam’s open mouth twisted into a smug smile, arching an eyebrow at Danny. It was a dare, and Danny dared to prove himself. 

“Shut up before I make you,” Danny snarled, challenging Sam to call him out for being all bark and no bite. But Sam obediently shut his trap, lowering himself slightly on his elbows and spread his legs ever so slightly, inviting Danny in without a word. 

--

“So…was I better than those other ‘randos’ stretching you out?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, I was joking.”

Sam’s whole body was in absolute, delicious agony, his face buried into the crook of Danny’s neck. He attempted to even out his breathing, his throat raw and his chest tired after all the pornographic moans and whimpers that had escaped him when Danny had driven into him with varying amounts of mercy over the course of what felt like hours. Sam’s shoulders were already blooming with a score of bruises where Danny had left teeth marks, anchoring himself to Sam in animalistic moments of passion when he threatened to finish far too early. Danny’s body was aching too, his abs and hips tense and his shoulders in their own pain from holding himself up for so long. It had been worth it to keep the sight of Sam’s gasps and fluttering eyes, and he was certain he had enough material in his mind's eye to keep him satisfied in his own personal endeavors for weeks. Danny brushed his fingers lightly up and down Sam’s spine, his lips pressed to the crown of Sam’s head as they laid in silence, recovering. 

“Do you want to hear something crazy?” Sam said, his voice muffled by Danny’s scorching hot skin. 

“Sure,” Danny replied, giving Sam’s hair a quick kiss after he said it.

“I used to have a crush on you in high school.”

“What!” Danny blurted, attempting to push Sam’s shoulder up so he could see his face, but Sam buried his head even further into Danny’s neck. “Explain!”

“I just did!” Sam laughed, his voice still muted. “It wasn’t anything serious but, yeah, I guess you were kind of my hallway crush. It’s no big deal.”

“Wow,” Danny said dreamily. “And look where you are now. How exciting for you.”

“Shut up!” Sam groaned, finally lifting his head and giving Danny a fake frown, his face glowing and flushed. Danny mocked his frown back to him, laughing at his expression and tucking a sweaty strand of hair behind his ear.

“I definitely thought you were cute,” Danny smiled. “I was super into emo haircuts.”

“I hate you,” Sam deadpanned, looking unamused.

“Is that why you just let me cum in y-”

Sam pressed his palm over Danny’s mouth, muffling his subsequent laugh. Sam let out an exasperated sigh and leaned over to reach into an opened drawer of his bedside table, items rattling out of sight until he emerged with his prize: Marlboro Reds. Sam bit down on a cigarette and slid out another to offer it to Danny, who wrinkled his nose at it initially but took it between his fingers anyways, studying it while Sam pulled free the lighter and rolled onto his back next to Danny.

“You ever smoked?” Sam asked, lighting his cigarette and taking a deep inhale while Danny shook his head no. Sam blew out a thick cloud of smoke before rolling onto his front, taking the cigarette out of Danny’s hand and sticking it in Danny’s mouth himself. Danny wanted to protest, but froze when Sam leaned over and pressed the tip of his lit cigarette to Danny’s, both of them silent save for the crackling of the paper and tobacco as Danny’s cigarette began to glow. He took a hesitant inhale, letting the heady warmth settle on his tongue before he began to cough, sitting up sharply and choking on a cloud of smoke while Sam chuckled and patted him on the back.

“You’ll get there,” Sam assured him through laughs.

“I don’t know if I wanna get there,” Danny wheezed, letting the cigarette fizzle between his fingers instead of taking a second drag. 

“You don’t have to, just figured I’d give you a taste of the wild side,” Sam grinned, the cigarette dangling attractively from his bottom lip.

“You’ve given me more than a taste of that,” Danny said with a wink. Sam chuckled again, blowing smoke out of the side of his mouth as he stared with glittering eyes at Danny.

“I like you,” Sam said simply, conjuring the innocent butterflies in Danny’s stomach. 

“Thank you,” Danny answered shyly and Sam immediately slapped his arm.

“Say it back!”

“I like you!” Danny laughed, slapping Sam back. “You knew that!”

“Yeah, but I like hearing you say it,” Sam hummed proudly. 

“You’re weird.”

“You’re weirder.”

“You’re the weirdest,” Danny teased, taking another more careful inhale of his cigarette and releasing it with only a mild clearing of his throat. “Ooh, look, I’m learning.”

“Maybe I had something to teach you after all,” Sam smiled. “I guess I never really needed to bribe you into helping me, huh?”

“Not at all,” Danny said. “But I’m enjoying the reward of just you.”

Sam’s smile widened and Danny smiled right back at him. It suddenly seemed so ridiculous that there had ever been a time when he was afraid to speak to Sam. How could he have looked at his puppy dog eyes and cute shaggy hair and not dragged him into his lap right then and there? Danny figured he had time to rectify that, doing just that and catching Sam in a smoky kiss, suddenly thrilled about all the things that they could continue to teach each other.

--

[japhan2024]

I had no idea you liked star trek too, I just knew you for smosh and Dan and Phil. That's so cool!! Would you be willing to write a little ianthony star trek au? Or have you already? No problem if not, I know that's kinda vague. Love your blog btw :)

Yes I LOVE Star Trek! I literally had so much fun writing this, it got a bit out of control LOL! But yeah I hope you like it!!

The logical choice

Words: 2,436

Genre: action/adventure, a Star Trek episode, first kiss

Rating: teen or general audiences

Read on AO3:

"Captain's log, stardate ???[writer's note: I can't do math!]. What would have been a diplomatic mission to Vulcan, a completely safe route, turned out to become something quite different. Ian was going to let our starship T'hy'la be blessed, and we would join a Vulcan fleet to covertly inspect the edges of Federation space. But all of a sudden, we were violently sucked into a wormhole, and were spat out, smack dab in the middle of the Delta Quadrant."

Anthony paused. He looked out of the window of his suite. He'd read a lot about Captain Janeway's voyages through this quadrant, and her years long quest to get back home. Panic stirred deep within him. He shut his eyes tightly and took a few deep breaths.

"We've been stranded here for a few days now. Chief Agnew, Ensign Bowe and their crew have been hard at work to repair the damage done by the violent yanking through space that T'hy'la has endured. Our deflector shields malfunctioned and structural integrity scraped by within an inch of collapsing. I truly believe that a bout of fate has saved us."

His communicator chimed. It was a benign sound, but it still made him jump.

"Captain, we've done all we can. Technically the ship works, but we lost a lot of deuterium. We repaired the injection subsystem, Tommy really outdid himself. But it's no use, we can't start with this little fuel."

"Thank you, Spencer," Anthony answered, trying to sound comforting. "You've done well. it may be time for us to try and reach out for help."

The door beeped.

"Come in."

"Captain," Ian strode into the room.

Anthony's Number One, and a Vulcan, Ian somehow always calmed Anthony down. And it was better, the closer they stood to each other.

"Number One, please tell me what you think of the situation?"

"We have done short- and long range scans, and have found no life-forms or ships. However," Ian raised one sharp eyebrow, "We did scan a gaseous nebula. It's all around us and could be the reason our sensors didn't pick anything up. Although it is not without risk, logic suggests we send out a distress signal."

"Agreed." Anthony sighed. Who knows what kind of aliens were out and about here, but they might as well try.

~

"Amanda, what's the matter?" Mister Topp, the ship's EMH, asked with kind, light-blue eyes.

"Shayne, I feel something big," she collapsed dramatically on a medical bed in the sickbay. "It's something I've never felt before, and you know I sense almost anything, being quarter Betazoid. "I- I don't know. It's not good, but also not evil. It's just... something infinite, almost. Like an ultimate power. It makes me dizzy."

"Well," Shayne smirked, "Courtney was just here, and her ego does tend to be infinitely big. I guess her Klingon side gives her the extra confidence." He sighed. "But she could be a bit nicer to me."

"Shayne," Trevor intervened. "You were flirting with her the entire time. She wasn't even here for a medical exam. She just checked in on us to see if everything was safe and you insisted she take three different blood tests! I'd be annoyed too," he laughed.

"I wish I could sense how you're feeling," Amanda beamed at Shayne. "But I can't sense a hologram. I do know how Courtney feels, though..." She winked at Shayne, who blushed.

"Amanda, it seems like you're back to normal. Please report back here if that changes again. Bye now!"

"Not without my hug," she teased.

"Why do Betazoids always want to hug!"

"I think it's just her," Trevor giggled.

"Get in here!" Amanda commanded. After the group hug, she went back to her Ship's counsellor's office.

Her communicator chimed.

"Hello commander Hecox," she smiled, as she sat down and crossed her legs over the couch, usually reserved for her patients.

"Counsellor Lehan-Canto. We need to talk."

~

Keith, the ship's Conn officer, observed the Bridge while captain Padilla was resting. He had never thought he'd be this far from home, but there he was, in the Delta Quadrant. Strangely, he wasn't worried. He looked at the beautiful multicolored nebula outside.

Suddenly, he got a transmission request.

"Captain, to the Bridge, we're being hailed!"

Not a moment later, Anthony walked in. "On screen," he commanded.

"WELL WELL WELL," a grinning, huffing alien said to them. "WHAT HAVE WE HERE!!! A NICE STARFLEET SHIP, NO LESS! "WHAT ARE YOU DOING SO FAR FROM HOME?"

"This is captain Anthony Padilla of the starship T'hy'la. I assume you received our distress call."

"WE SURE DID, RIGHT, GUYS?" the alien looked at two very beautiful and scantily-clothed people on each side of her.

"Oh yes, Angela, we sure did," one of them replied with a honey-sweet voice.

"YES, WE DID, CAPTAIN. LET ME INTRODUCE MYSELF. I'M ANGELA, AND THESE ARE MY FRIENDS CHANSE AND ARASHA. And..." Angela lowered her voice menacingly, "you have invaded OUR space."

"We've been sucked into a wormhole against our will and are stranded here without deuterium. We could trade you for it, We have latinum on board. Don't Ferengi always like a good deal?

"HA! YOU THINK YOU KNOW THE FERENGI HUH! Yeah, we do always want a good deal. But I don't think you'll be able to give us one. Your starship is called T'hy'la? HA! What a weak Vulcan/human hybrid concept. Don't you know the Rules of Acquisition? Rule 21: Never place friendship above profit. So, my little FRIEND, why don't you give your ship to me, and I will send you on your way back to the wormhole?"

Anthony scoffed. "I'm sorry, but have you scanned our ship? We could easily defeat you."

"Well..." Angela smirked even wider, and scratched behind her enormous ear. "I guess I didn't make myself clear. If you DON'T give me your ship, you will be dealing with my friends. Not these idiots here," she gestured to Chanse and Arasha. "I mean them."

And in one moment, all hope left Anthony's soul: two large, square spaceships emerged. It was the Borg.

" HAHAHA! You have one hour to respond!"

Angela disconnected.

"Red Alert," Anthony commanded.

~

The sirens were wailing through the ship.

"Not Red Alert again? We just fixed up the entire ship!" Tommy threw up his hands in exasperation.

Spencer put his gloved hand on his shoulder. "I was really hoping we could go to the holodeck and play DnD again. But it's not in the cards for us this time."

"Sword and shield in hand," Tommy bumped his shoulder into Spencer.

"Saving the day, just like we do everyday at work!"

"Even though I never get a promotion!"

"You really should, Tommy."

They were play-fighting with their engineer gear, and seeing Spencer laugh and goof off, suddenly made Tommy realize something. He was in love with his boss.

"Hey, why'd you stop?" Spencer was still booping him with a pretend-sword.

"You're adorable."

"Dude. I know."

"I mean... I..."

"AB," Ian said, walking quickly past them.

"Did he make up a nickname for us?!" Tommy said, wide-eyed. "Do Vulcans do that?"

"I think Amanda has been teaching him to be more normal, I mean, better at communication. Not doing that is normal for a Vulcan, of course."

"Imagine them together in a room!" Tommy laughed. A Vulcan and a Betazoid, they couldn't be more opposite!"

"Well, if I can sense anything, it's that those two have some chemistry going on," Spencer said with a smug look on his face. "I mean, she calls everyone 'imzadi' but her voice is softer when she says it to Ian. Huh... But sorry, you were going to say something?"

"Oh..." Tommy blushed. "Nevermind..."

~

"Ian, what did you want to talk to me about?"

Amanda visited Ian's quarters. It was very clean and neat and indeed very Vulcan.

"Please, sit," Ian gestured to the one table in the room, with two small chairs.

They both sat down. Amanda couldn't help but feel attracted to Ian's stoic earnest. And he was cute, too...

"I heard you sensed a presence, ever since we've been stranded here."

"Yes! I have been, and it seems like it's getting stronger too! If that is even possible. It's like we're at the epicenter of something."

"I sense it too."

"You do?"

"Yes. We Vulcans might not show our emotions, but we feel a lot of things. And I have felt this once before. Amanda, we are in grave danger."

~

"Ia- Number One!" Anthony was so glad to see Ian as he walked onto the Bridge.

"We are very much outnumbered, captain," Ian said. "It would be logical to surrender."

Ian walked closer to Anthony. Anthony sighed in relief. Whatever would come next, he could bear it with Ian at his side.

"But I advice against it."

"What?"

"The Ferengi woman is the obvious culprit, luring ships here to loot and then let them be assimilated by the Borg. However... She is not the one in control here."

Ian and Anthony heard clapping behind them.

"Well done, commander Hecox," a woman with long black hair, dressed in all black, spoke.

"Who are you?" Anthony demanded.

"She is Q, the most powerful being in the universe."

"You know her, Ian?"

"I know her, from long ago. She called herself Olivia Sui then."

"And I kept my eye on you, Ian. I expected great things from you! And even though you are obviously the smartest one on this ship of idiots, you've become boring! You used to make me laugh, Ian..."

Anthony felt a sudden annoyance at this Q. Why was she so interested in his Number One?!

"What do you want, Q?"

"What do I want?! I want to laugh again, damnit! So," and she snapped her fingers, and the entire ship was gone. Instead, he, Ian and Amanda stood in an empty, white world. Angela, Arasha and Chanse were also there. "If you make me laugh first, I'll zap you straight home! But if not... then you're back at the mercy of Angela here."

Amanda, Anthony and Ian huddled together.

"So, is she an ex of yours or something?" Amanda whispered.

"We were betrothed once."

"What?!" Anthony fumed.

"Ha, your anger amuses me already, captain. But I'm not laughing just yet!"

Anthony looked straight at Q, and began to mime. Physical humor was his strong suit. He fell over, mimed that he was stuck, rolled over the ground... to no avail.

"You failed! Next!"

Angela walked forward.

"SO, HERE'S THE JOKE! TWO BARS OF LATINUM WALKED ACROSS THE STREET! AND ONE OF THEM SAID, LET ME WALK IN THE MIDDLE NOW"

"Elementary concept, expertly executed," Q said. "But not enough to make me laugh. NEXT!"

Amanda walked forward. She got really close to Q, and Anthony felt Ian tense up. He took his hand. Ian squeezed extremely hard. He probably forgot his Vulcan strength for a second.

Wait, did Ian care this much about Amanda? Were they- was Ian just dating everyone and Anthony didn't know it? He figured, he couldn't blame the girls. Ian was so handsome, so strong...

"I guess you don't know who I am," Amanda began. "I am the daughter of Deanna Troi and William Riker. That makes me one quarter Betazoid... and I sense that you don't want to laugh at all. You want to FEEL something. And I'll give it to you. I've reached a certain age, you know..." Amanda tip-toed her fingers up Q's arm.

"Give mommy a smooch!"

"Noo, no, get away from me!" Q took a few steps away.

"HA! THERE, YOU GIGGLED!"

"Did not!"

"I saw it! You laughed, Q!"

"Okay, fine, I did! But I'm not done just yet! I guess I will zap you and your stupid ship back home.... after.... THEY kiss."

"Who?"

"The captain and his Number One."

"What?" Ian and Anthony said in sync.

"Yeah, hahaha! That will really make my day! Don't tell me you haven't sensed it, Betazoid? They are all in."

Amanda looked down. She really liked Ian and he liked her too, but she knew that his heart belonged to his captain. On all their intergalactic adventures, Ian had saved Anthony so many times and vice versa, they had developed an unbreakable bond. They had never acted on it before, but now, apparently it was the only thing that would save them.

"So, you cooked up this whole charade, just to get them to kiss?"

"What? It's not a charade, I'm eternally bored, I had to think of something!"

Q walked up to Ian and Anthony. "Now, do the thing," she said, pressing her two index fingers together.

Ian looked at Anthony. The intense warmth of his brown eyes overwhelmed the Vulcan. He would normally never show it, in fact he had never given Anthony a clue that he was interested. But he was. All the times he had seen Anthony change clothes, when Anthony had hugged him after they were safe from danger, he had never reciprocated. But now, he had no choice.

"It's only logical that we do this. But I have to confess, Anthony... I've been longing for a kiss from you for an eternity. And I need to know if you're okay with it now."

Anthony blushed deeply. Was Ian just saying this because of the situation? Why did he make it more dramatic than it needed to be? "Ian... Have you really? I've loved you for such a long time... And I've also always wanted an opportunity to kiss you. But I never dared, I never thought it was appropriate, seeing as I'm your captain and all."

"Yes, you acted logically as well."

"Ian..."

Anthony took Ian's chin between his fingers and pushed it upwards.

"Excellent!" Q said, but they didn't hear her.

"Anthony..." Anthony saw a wild fire ignite between Ian's eyes. It was scary but Anthony wasn't afraid. He pressed his lips agains Ian's.

Ian growled and kissed him back, grabbing on Anthony's curls. Anthony couldn't believe the feeling. It was scorching hot, but so, so comfortable. He wanted to stay like this forever.

When he opened his eyes, they were back on the T'hy'la and back in the Alpha Quadrant.

"Are you okay, captain?"

Anthony looked at Ian. He could cry. Nobody remembered anything, except for him.

"I- I need to take a break..."

He walked off the bridge. As if by magic, Amanda was waiting for him there.

"Captain, I sensed your emotions, they quickly heightened. Do you want to talk about it?"

"I think that's best, Counsellor."

"Come on, I'll take you to my office."

[rocketonthemoon]

seahorse au 👀👀

sideguitars asked: seahorse au pls i have so many questions

quite honestly is the kinkest filth I've ever written because unfortunately I had a conversation with a friend about how the supers are aliens and well. it hasn't left me alone for about 2+ years now.

But it has made me do a bunch of research and dare I say world building and trying to figure out what's sexy and what's science and what's sexy science which. As far as writing exercises go is pretty fun not gunna lie

I'll put the snippet/more discussion under a cut to save at least a little face even though there's nothing explicit in this snip

“It’s a dual process - Kryptonians are made to both deliver and receive. The difference in sexes is just…. How many a body can handle at one time.” “How many??” “Well actually - ok.” Kara pauses to close her eyes. Her eyebrows scrunch together in a lopsided way. Lena’s seen this look many times before - usually relating to work or Kara doing something complicated in the cape. But as Kara begins muttering under her breath in her mother tongue, Lena realizes it’s her look of translating something. Something probably rather complex. “When you do math, how often you have to remember to simplify it?” “Literally all the time.” Kara’s answer comes too quickly to be anything but the truth and the pink that dusts her cheeks a moment after simply confirms it. It’s fun, still discovering the vast complexity that is Kara Zor-El.

The idea honestly is to have two chapters: one to do the talking and character exploration, one to do the filth. We'll see if it ever actually sees the light of day but at the moment it is about 2k long which. Is setting up to be one of the longest things I've ever written outside of a school paper.

Also in case it's not obvious I'll just put myself on blast and say that it's straight up "what happens if Kryptonians lay eggs with their partners" and then I looked up how exactly Seahorses do the do and well. Here we are.

[wilsons-striped-ties]

SOOOOOOOOOOOO ive gotten SUPER MUCH CLOSER to passion fruit!!! i went back to school at the end of june to give a gift to the canteen auntie i worked under as it was her birthday and i bumped into passion fruit like five times and we did chat quite a lot, from then on i feel we did become much closer hehe (he also admitted he looks at my instagram quite frequently and jokingly complained that i always took pictures with him but never posted any of them) and he saved my ass because i told him it was auntie's birthday (they adore each other its a very cute thing) and he went out in the middle of his day literally to get her fruits (he asked me what she liked so i did tell him) and then he went back to tell me that when the auntie asked who told him, he said he didnt know and i almost married him on the spot

and i took the chance to confirm if it was his birthday the next week and he kept saying he didnt know, but that really goofy smile on his face gave it all away

so guess who stayed up very late after exams, rushed homework and ran around to get ingredients just to bake him passion fruit cupcakes? ME. (do you know how hard it is to get passion fruit pulp, i had to go onto lazada but its his favourite fruit so i wont complain)

it was my first time baking cupcakes and especially first time touching anything mildly related to passion fruits but in the end it all worked out perfectly! oh my goodness guys it was insane

i went to school and literally waited outside the conference room for him to show up to his meeting (both his best friend and the vice principal knew i was finding him because he was insanely late) but in the end he showed up and i gave him the cupcakes when he asked me what i was doing there and i saw him melt. i literally saw him melt. all that hard work? WORTH IT.

i told him i didnt know if it was really his birthday on that sunday but to be safe, i baked these and he then proceeded to say that i shouldnt have in the smallest voice ive ever heard him produce and i was like its really my pleasure and i was about to leave, then he was like "you dont want to take a picture?" i was like what picture. then he literally went "you always like to take pictures with me, take a picture of you giving me the cupcakes then" and i was like okAY SURE and so we took a really cute picture together and

i asked him to sign my history guidebook (first time i wanted to, i forgot the book and the second time, i was too focused on my pity party regarding mango) and he agreed man his signature was so cute and our fingers brushed i was dying

and afterwards i saw him a second time while walking around and he gave me a really shy smile and i smiled back

and then in the evening, i was at the canteen doing math work while waiting for my sister and he and his best friend (another teacher) walked across the canteen and this is the moment i knew, i was done for

he lifted the bag with the cupcakes in a very cheeky manner and i was laughing (we were like on opposite ends of the very large canteen) and he nudged his friend and they both came over to me (cause he drives his friend home) and basically from the conversation:

-his friend was joking about if i knew his own birthday (to bake him cupcakes too HAHAH) and passion fruit just spilled the date to that, unfortunately it's during the holidays so i cant really do much so ill bake something for teachers' day

-passion fruit was poking fun at me doing math cause his friend is a math teacher

-i used to wear a mask every day to school cause my immune system is whack thanks to a genetic condition but i dont anymore, and cause his friend doesnt recognise me apart from my name, passion fruit said something like this: "this one is the type to always wear mask, even after covid still wear mask, i can only recognise by her eyes"

-siR YOU RECOGNISE ME BY MY EYES????

-this means a real lot because my eyes are one of the things about myself that i am most insecure about so it really really touched me in ways he doesnt know

also, he said he preferred my cupcakes over my cookies cause i asked him, and teachers day i was planning on being boring and giving cookies again but now im gonna make frosted brownies so i hope he likes them!!!

so all in all, we are practically married now and tomorrow im coming back to school in hopes of seeing him again, will update whenever im here, love you always byeeee

[chirpsythismorning]

Has anyone theorized why the Duffers chose to focus on Ten (10) specifically at the start of season 4?

Because looking back, how he was framed at the beginning of s4, compared to the end, makes it obvious he was a red herring.

In 4x01, we get our first (less detailed) recount of the massacre at Hawkins Lab, with the focus singling out Brenner and Ten. While I think there could definitely be important ideas hidden in the subtext during those scenes between them, Ten doesn't seem to hold any importance to the overall story, as his own character, beyond what's given to us in that premiere.

Because in 4x07, when we get a more detailed recount of the massacre, we're now viewing this moment from El's perspective at that same time Brenner and Ten first come into view. But it's at this moment the audience realizes that it was never about Ten.

By the end that same episode, Ten is merely canon fodder. He was given almost all of our focus, and then he was gone. And that was it. But I think that's because it's obvious he was never meant to be important to the overall story in the first place.

Ten was placed at the start of the story, not only as a distraction, but to also act as usable early promo footage.

No, but seriously. It's quite common for shows to post the first 10 or so minutes on YouTube before the actual premiere of a new season. In fact, Stranger Things has done this with the first 8 minutes of s1 & 4.

Planning for marketing and advertising is so fucking essential to Stranger Things roll-out, they would've probably wrote and filmed those scenes, knowing that it could, and very likely would, be used early-on in the promotion circuit (because later scenes in the season are usually filled with spoilers), which meant whatever they focused on couldn't give too much away. If anything it needed to make you think you were getting a lot in the foreground, when in reality the true answers were tiptoeing in the background.

What I think makes the choice to focus on Ten at the start of the season so interesting though, is that he's the number right before Eleven.

Our focus, right from the jump, is specifically on the number that has proximity to Eleven...

And so why do that? Why focus on Ten and then drop him into obscurity?

Maybe to distract us from the fact that the number we should've really been focusing on also has similar proximity to Eleven (literally and figuratively and numerically)... Mayhaps Twelve??

I promise you guys, I was minding my business, doing research for a completely different post, when I noticed a detail that expanded on my curiosity in regards to Ten.

Now, I'm not the kind of byler that tries to add up a bunch of numbers and say that it means something, and that's honestly mostly because I suck at math (and so no hate to the bylers that do that bc that's more of a me problem). And yet despite that, I really don't think this is even reaching. I think they made the choice to focus on the numbers they did and the way that they did, for a reason.

Although Ten didn't give us much of a purpose beyond s4 misleading opener vibes, he still started off the season with a fleeting, but still larger focus than the rest of the numbers besides El.

And so besides Ten and Eleven, which other number played a big role this season?

Two.

Though that's not to say Two operates as a red herring. I would say he actually plays a substantial role the entire season. He has a beginning, middle and end to his arc that stretches the entire season and feels layered in ways that make it clear he was more than just a blip to keep us busy.

And so, for the first episode of s4, these specific numbers were credited first before the rest, as they apparently played the biggest roles. And so, I just find it kind of ironic that:

Do you see it?

Okay, if you're still stuck I'll help you out:

The Duffers have admitted since s4 premiered that a lot of the surprises/answers they're saving for the end of the show, can likely be found within the show itself. This is because, a lot of the choices made, especially in season 4's case, were with the end in mind. And so details that maybe even seemed meaningless or ended up going nowhere, probably had a purpose that went beyond what we assumed when we were first confronted with those ideas. And that was probably the intention. Otherwise the surprise element wouldn't even be there.

Although it might seem like nothing is here, and maybe there isn't. Maybe I am reaching.

I still can't help but feel like these Hawkins lab scenes specifically hold the truth to what is going to play out in season 5.

Because the brothers have also admitted s5 is going to delve into the origins of Hawkins Lab and how Brenner's program went from involving Henry, to evolving and including multiple kids...

Honestly that alone should be enough of an admission that the s4 lab scenes probably hold more answers than we realize. All those choices they made, were made with the truth about Hawkins Lab in the back of their mind.

And so if they're going to make those revelations about the lab in the final season, and s5 is apparently going to also spend a lot of time telling us about Will's disappearance, whatever this all entails has to fit nicely with those scenes of the lab in s4. Because those scenes were extremely recent and also presumably written and talked about beside their outline for s5, meaning that they had every chance to hide the answers in the details... which they've literally admitted to doing by saying the answers to the ending are hidden in the show already... why am I even rambling about this in long form. This isn't a reach if you're actually considering what is in front of us.

That's not to say that we have the full picture yet to comfortably support Twelvegate as a full blown guaranteed theory. Because even though the evidence is astounding, there's still so much missing.

I think the imagery of time/clocks over the seasons being built up, going into the end of the show, and still without really delving into the time/clocks aspect fully, is maybe why I'm so open minded to how they could go about Twelvegate.

What we know about the past regarding Will's childhood along with what happened to Will when he went missing, for all we know might not even be the full truth. And there is some evidence that the facts surrounding Will's disappearance were changed between season 1 and season 2 and so... why was that? Back then fans thought it was just a copy/paste error, but now within the context of twelvegate... it's quite fascinating...

There's also theories Will himself created the upside down? And so, if that were to be the case, in any capacity, I imagine that his role in everything is a lot bigger than we imagine. Like that would make him equally as well known at Hawkins Lab as El.

It's not like we've gotten any imagery like that before, with Will being the center of interest at Hawkins Lab... Oh wait--

It's not like Will has ever been 'the boy who lived' level well known or anything...

But maybe that's because he's literally 'THE BOY WHO CAME BACK TO LIFE' well known!!

WILL BYERS IS THE CHOSEN ONE? WILL BYERS HOLDS THE ANSWERS TO EVERYTHING WE'VE BEEN OVERLOOKING AND MISSING FROM THE BEGINNING???

Then there's the fact that Will himself could play a role in how time is going to impact the last season and presumably our perception of the past itself, specifically in relation to Will and his time at Hawkins Lab (possibly).

Lots of fans predict time travel will be involved in some capacity. Though there is a lot of pushback both in the byler fandom and even in the ga at the possibility of this, because I think a lot of people associate time travel in storytelling with entire story resets and so they're scared that time will just start over and everything that occurred over the seasons would become meaningless. And I guess I could see why that would be disappointing.

However, even if time travel plays a role, and I do think it likely will in some way because the foreshadowing is too extensive to not have been intentional, that doesn't mean I think they'll do it in the most conventional or predictable way possible. I think it would have to be way more complex than what most people expect, and it probably wouldn't erase everything they've been through, assuming what they've been through is even the full truth to begin with...

[my-little-loverboy]

I had to restart his save since it got corrupted- which means it’s time for a new ref!!

I’ve committed to the fact that this man dresses like an 80s dad in any modern au.

Tries very hard to read as the ideal paladin, good morals, strong sense of justice n what have you. He is unfortunately full of trauma and identity issues, fear of his god is a HUGE THING and breaking his oath accidentally is a perpetual anxiety too.

I’ve also decided he has the shittiest, patchy ass beard. Usually he’s clean shaven bc he doesn’t like having facial hair but he’s not quite adept enough with a dagger to shave with one and tries exactly once to shave (failing miserably, much to Astarion’s entertainment) before giving up until act 3 when he buys himself a new razor.

I really should draw him holding the blood of lathander more but that mf is agonizing to draw man there are, so many layers to it.

I finally remembered to draw his glasses on his ref, yippee.

I’m making him an actual dnd character sheet so I’ll probably attach that once it’s done

I’m side tracked I’m supposed to be talking about his lore huh

Whoops

Anyway, tw for abandoment (passing mention) emotional abuse, death (of a parent + en masse,) mental illness that’s being ignored, chronic pain and illness (also being ignored until he can’t)

His actual like- lore lore is below the break.

Born in the underdark, his mom fucked off with him bc the underdark isn’t a great place to live generally speaking, and she had the means. His dad decided last minute to stay in the underdark.

Taken in by the temple of lathander in elturel bc his mother was chronically ill and not expecting or able to be making this kind of journey on her own with a very small child. Ended up being moved from the temple to a hospital after it was determined that she probably wasn’t getting better.

Charlie ended up being mostly raised by the temple, went to school there and was taught how to read and write + basic math. But spent most of his free time working to pay for his mother’s (and soon his own) medication.

Turns out the of the myriad of issues his mother delt with (migraines, persistent nausea and dizziness, chronic joint issues) were genetic, so by time he hit puberty he was working his ass off to pay for it.

You may ask me “cake, didn’t that aggravate his joint issues?” Yes. Badly. He was not given any other options, the fact that they were alive at all was a godsend (I use the word godsend intentionally, he believes, strongly, that lathander is keeping him alive for some reason beyond his understanding, that is the root of his devotion.)

Did you order mommy issues? Hope so bc he has them in spades. You can only be hear your dying mom say she regrets saving you life as a literal toddler so many times before it starts fucking you up, and she said it (and other delightful(/sarc) things) plenty in the months leading up to when she died.

Shortly after her death, and suddenly needing to work way less (his medication was significantly cheaper than his mothers) he devoted himself to the temple, and was eventually approached bc some kids he went to school with to see if he wanted to join their little class thing. The temple liked to train their folks in groups of 4, in hopes of building strong teams should they choose to stay together.

He agreed, and found out that the temple would pay for his medication in exchange for dedicating himself fully to his training and his studies (and occasionally them using him as a scout, being small, naturally stealthy, and decently quick had its advantages.)

Took his oath with one of the other people he was trained alongside when he was 17, and they were collectively sent to continue their training at the nearby Fort Morninglord.

Things were solid, until he was sent along with a group of seniors to Baldurs Gate as a sort of test to see how he would do on a longer mission before officially joining the Order of the Aster.

He did well, all things considered. Unfortunately between him leaving and returning is when Fort Morninglord got eaten by the shadowfell for some reason. (That’s a canon event btw)

So, with all his friends presumably dead, maybe worse, and all his shit left inside a heavily guarded, very cursed fort. He did the reasonable thing, and fucked right off.

He ended up joining one of the seniors he went to Baldur’s Gate with in going to Waterdeep, while they didn’t particularly need another paladin. The temple of lathander in Waterdeep accepted them both until they were able to find stable employment.

Charlie mainly did small jobs for merchants, working as a guard for high value stuff, moving cargo on/off boats, mostly physical labour. It didn’t pay particularly well, but he could afford a little room above a tavern, and his medication.

That��s where he was, and how he lived for almost 130 years until he got wormed.

May or may not be blindly devoted to Lathander bc of… all that. literally any bad thing to occur to him is swiftly written off as a test of his faith, surprising to damn near everyone he is not one for converting people. (He definitely reads like he would though, it’s the theology special interest, there are few gods he won’t speak extensively on. He just defaults to lathander)

Fr though? Having trouble finding a god to worship? Ask him, he will give you an answer or more accurately- a list.

Yknow when you sprinkle random facts into your characters to make them less flat? Yeah my man collects maps, particularly outdated ones.

The only reason he’s not fucked post-worm is bc it fends off the worst of his usual symptoms. He has conflicted feelings about it (on one hand, being able to put honey in his coffee and not feel like his brain is exploding is nice, on the other, what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck.)

Post game he is left in a… state. He’s gotten used to life with less pain and is absolutely bedridden for a WHILE bc suddenly he’s being hit with his usual pain n symptoms but he’s not used to it anymore so it’s absolutely destroying him.