#and this is why jake wears a jacket and tie instead

[lesuccube]

➚ 𝐅𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐑 : ᴊᴀᴋᴇ ʟᴏᴄᴋʟᴇʏ — ꜱᴀɴᴄᴛᴜᴀʀʏ

𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒 — three shots fired : two to the body , one through the heart .

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 — angst bug , mild dark trojan [ read at your own risk ! ]

𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 — not beta'd , constructive criticism is welcomed . reblogs and comments are appreciated .

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓 — 4.1k

my demons are begging me to open up my mouth

i need them, mechanically make the words come out

they fight me, vigorous and angry, watch them pounce

ignite me, licking up the flames they bring about

jake lockley was a simple man. or at least that's what he likes to think. he was created by marc's subconscious to protect him from distress and physical harm. that was his reason for existence. nothing more, nothing less.

but the reality was that he was a broken man, much like his alters steven and marc. he was born from abuse, like steven, and his sole purpose was to shield that little boy from the horrors of his mother's pain. he shares a body with two others, needing to hide in the shadows because they absolutely cannot know about his existence nor the blood in his hands when marc's have been stained red enough that his conscience can't wash it all away.

he did not need to place the burdens he carries to his brothers, he was their protector and if staying in the dark and letting them be oblivious to his presence was the only way to protect them, then so be it.

jake was the one who took the hits for them, used his fist on those that dared try and harm the body, pounding the offender's face over and over until their face was black and blue and unrecognizable. even if it meant the boys would wake up to split skin on his knuckles. jake lockley is the system's protector, nothing is going to change that.

i sold my soul to a three-piece

and he told me i was holy

he's got me down on both knees

but it's the devil that's tryna

when marc became moon knight, jake briefly took over the body and had confronted the 7 foot tall skeletal bird known as khonshu, the egyptian god of the moon and the night sky. he sees all and knows all despite being unknown by the other two.

at first he demands khonshu to release marc from their agreement knowing it will lead to more danger and marc, the original, cannot be harmed. he tried hard to fight for marc's freedom much to the god's entertainment before striking another deal with jake.

on the day marc gains his freedom from being khonshu's avatar, he shall take his place instead. why look for another avatar when there's a completely different person residing in marc's body that marc (and steven) is unaware of?

but jake? jake had other plans. he told khonshu he'll be his avatar then and there, to let him take on the bloodier and brutal missions to spare marc any more bodies in his hands. he'll take them for him instead. this, of course, amuses khonshu who promptly agreed. their body was never going to be free from his clutches and the egyptian deity was going to take full advantage of the man's brokenness to do his bidding.

hold me down, hold me down

sneaking out the back door, make no sound

knock me out, knock me out

saying that i want more, this is what i live for

the job was easy for jake. he's used to a life of violence, letting his fists do the talking to get the answers he needed. he fought until his body held a constellation of bruises that don't easily fade away because he doesn't want to wear the ceremonial suit like marc.

instead he prefers his usual clothes consisting of his signature flat cap, a jacket, a white dress shirt underneath with a black tie done neatly, pressed trousers and black belt and some nice leather shoes.

what he did accept from khonshu was a pair of leather gloves, the knuckles of them designed with a faded crescent moon, to symbolize that he was doing the egyptian god's dirty (well, dirtier) work.

jake doesn't front often, only coming out when its necessary or when his brothers are sound asleep. some days he'd wake up in steven's warm flat, other times it's in that godawful tiny storage room marc uses. either way, he'd get up in the dead of the night, taking control of the body in what little time he has before letting it rest, relinquishing control to the other two once more when the sun begins to peek over the horizon.

hold me down, hold me down

throw me in the deep end, watch me drown

knock me out, knock me out

saying that i want more, this is what i live for

most missions that jake partakes in are always the same. it's either a weasley person trying their hardest to evade getting caught by this mysterious person that's dwindling the numbers of their group or a particularly difficult man to put down. on cases like the latter, jake would use a gun or dagger. if his fists can't take them down, these things surely will.

it's gruesome to say the least, the way he can only come out when he's required to by his duty as khonshu's avatar or when marc faces imminent danger. he never needed to take control over steven because the brit wasn't in any danger working at the museum.

the only time he took over steven was to ask that one coworker of his out for steak. shame she thought it was steven, but he can't exactly give himself away in steven's workplace. poor man didn't need any more confusion and mess when he's already on his boss' bad side. steven didn't need jake to add another reason to her ever growing list to hate him.

selfish, taking what I want and call it mine

i'm helpless, clinging to a little bit of spine

they rush me, telling me I'm running out of time

they shush me (sssh), walking me across a fragile line

the only time jake gets to front for a long time, say two days, is when the system is exhausted. if marc pushed himself too hard or steven tried staying up all night again, jake gets absolute freedom for a few days.

he works as a cabbie, it's a method he uses to lure the poor victims on khonshu's hit list. one day, the door to his cab opens, to lo and behold, beautiful, innocent you.

jake never believed in love at first sight, he thinks it's cringe and stupid but you, oh you just proved him wrong.

dressed in a simple yellow sundress and white cardigan to maintain decency, you were a pop of color amongst london's gray streets and brick walls. you looked like sunshine after the rain personified.

you greeted him with a smile, telling him where you were headed, a psychiatric hospital near the general hospital. he was never one to make small talk with his innocent customers, until you. you who made jake break nearly every rule he's told himself since he cannot front for long periods of time. but you? oh he had quite the fun talking to you.

on the short trip it took to take you there, he had managed to learn that you work there as a permanent staff. he also learned of your name, testing the way it rolls off his tongue and ended up sounding like music to his ears. you gladly indulged his questions, a naturally friendly person, he notes to himself as he listens to you talk in his backseat, occasionally watching you through his rearview mirror.

it's another thing he finds out he likes about you but he can't help but worry if people would dare try and take advantage of you with your sweet smiles and lovely personality. jake shouldn't really bother himself with such thoughts but he found it hard to resist, not when it comes to you he realizes.

i sold my soul to a three-piece

and he told me i was holy

he's got me down on both knees

but it's the devil that's tryna

khonshu knows about jake's new fascination with you. he'd often remind the man to forget about you, that you'd be nothing but a mere distraction to the higher purpose he's taken jake in.

on the rare times jake fronts in broad daylight, he would wait for your morning shift to end, parked outside the psychiatric hospital's door, leaning against his car with a cigarette lit and between his lips, the nicotine burning warmth into his lungs as he puffs out the smoke to london's every chilly air.

you'd come out of the doors mere minutes later in your casual clothes, the colors making your eyes stand out more as you smile and wave at him, bounding towards him with a giggle. he'd put out his cigarette, stomp it with the sole of his shoe before opening his arms to a welcoming embrace.

more often than not he'd lead you to his car with an arm slung over your shoulders, getting as close as he can amd enveloping himself in your floral and nectarine scent. he likes how your perfume lingers on the fabric of his jacket sometimes, it makes him feel like you're still with him even if he dropped you home hours ago.

jake began to pick you up more often on the two months marc and steven's worlds began to collide. he took advantage of marc's grief of the loss of his mother and steven's apparent confusion of missing days in his work.

he used those two months to build the relationship he has with you now, still platonic but there was definitely something more. if your lingering touches and flirty quips were anything to prove.

so he waits for you in the cold london air during the end of your shifts, sometimes even takes you to work when your night shift starts if he has the chance, and you'd always greet him with a smile and wave.

one time though, khonshu decided he's had enough of jake's silly little crush on you. it's past 7 in the morning, jake's driving you home and you were sat in the back and talking his ear off about the things that happened during your shift. he'd laugh and make a comment or two but he's more focused on driving, choosing to enjoy the sound of your voice as he does so. but the god has other plans.

he materializes himself, seated next to your oblivious self, just within jake's peripheral in the rearview mirror. the sight of the skeletal bird next to you has him tightening his hold on the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were definitely white under the leather gloves he wore.

he hates seeing the god next to you, his tall and boney form too undeserving of your sunshine and warmth, not that khonshu wanted either of those.

"i told you to stop meeting this woman jake." khonshu reminds him, to which he only responds with a clench of his jaw, "¡no te atrevas a tocarla!" he grumbles under his breath. "what was that jake?" you ask, curious and innocent to the 7 foot tall god next to you threatening him about you.

"do you really think she'll still love you, no— like you once she finds out who you really are?" the egyptian deity goads, thumping his staff on his car's floor.

"¡cállate, maldito pájaro!" he cusses out, a little harsher, a little louder this time. it makes your brows furrow, moving to the edge of your seat as you place a hand on the back of his seat on the driver's side.

"no, really jake... are you okay?" you were concerned for him, which warms his heart but does not ease the foreboding feeling of fear that he was about to lose you. he fights himself not to think about it right now, not while you are still around.

"estoy bien, neña. no te preocupes." you were glad to have taken your spanish classes in highschool seriously, often mingling with patients in the hospital who also spoke the language. "if you say so. but! if you need a friend to talk to, i'm always here for you."

of course, that's the type of person you were. kind, caring, to jake you were the most precious person there is in his otherwise bleak life. like a soft patch of grass and wildflowers in the otherwise dry land he calls life.

"por supuesto, cariño. ahora siéntate bien, no puedes lastimarte de alguna manera." he smiles, not wanting to worry you any further.

khonshu slams his scepter down once more, the echo loud in jake's ears as the threat of the god's words loom over him like his skeletal shadow before fading out of sight.

"stop this jake, while i am letting you or else i will do it for you."

hold me down, hold me down

sneaking out the back door, make no sound

knock me out, knock me out

saying that i want more, this is what i live for

he would never allow khonshu to get his hands on you. he may be the god he serves but he wasn't going to let him dictate his life. though deep down jake knew better than to go against him because he would never want you to get hurt. especially because of him. and if disappearing quietly from your life is what keeps you out of harm's way, then so be it.

it's been two weeks since jake last picked you up. he's avoided fronting as much as he could, only coming out whenever he's called in the middle of the night.

you thought he was just busy. he was a cabbie after all, he had other people to pick up and bring to their destinations. he won't always be available to take you home. doesn't mean you didn't miss him though. jake has made a small home in your heart, driving his way into your life and permanently parking himself there, a spot dedicated to jake and only jake.

he was the highlight of your day whenever he would come around the psych hospital, all the fatigue and weariness easing off your bones once he'd sling his arm around you.

so these past two weeks, your heart quietly sinks when you don't see his cab parked just outside the doors of the hospital, a cold puff of air greeting you instead of jake's warm embrace as he meets you, smelling of cigarette and leather and musk. you'd end your shift a little disheartened as you hail a cab to bring you home, always secretly hoping it was jake who would stop and take you in.

hold me down, hold me down

throw me in the deep end, watch me drown

knock me out, knock me out

saying that i want more, this is what i live for

jake missed you as well in those two weeks, terribly so. it felt like hell being in the dark corner's of steven and marc's consciousness where he'd wonder how you were doing, if you were okay. if you missed him like he missed you. you did, but he didn't know. couldn't know because of the risk he knows he'll put you under if he fronts to meet you.

it's half past two in the morning when he's able to grab hold of the body, his movements sluggish because none of them were getting enough rest with marc drinking his memories away when khonshu wasn't sending him off to places, steven would stay up late just to catch himself and keep himself from doing god knows what in his sleep and jake, who'd take control of their shared body at the wee hours of the night, barely an hour of sleep in their system but does he care right now? no. why? because two weeks of being away from you was hell and he won't stand another second of not being in your presence.

so he throws the sheets off their body, puts on more presentable clothes from steven's wardrobe since he was the one fronting during the day these past weeks. he found a simple gray sweatshirt and hoodie, exchanged his pajama pants for a pair of jeans and protected his feet with a pair of old sneakers the brit rarely wears.

after that he takes his time to walk to you, not caring if it would take him a while. he'd use this time to think carefully about what to say to you if he manages to even catch your attention while you work. or maybe you'd be on a quick break? he hopes so.

hold me down now

hold me down now

hold me down

jake was so absorbed in his thoughts he didn't realize he was already at the hospital had it not been for your hands holding his shoulders. "jake?" came your voice, soft culverts coming out in a whisper that rings so loudly and lovely in his ears in the silence of london's empty streets. he snaps out of his trance upon hearing your voice, so sweet and kind.

wordlessly, he pulls you in an embrace, not caring at the moment if khonshu was watching his every movement, he just wanted to be as close to you as possible. at first you were surprised, unsure on whether or not to reciprocate but in the end you do.

how could you not when your heart misses him so? even if he smelled different, like old books and clean linens, there was a scent you'd recognize anywhere that belongs solely to jake.

with your arms wrapped around his form, holding his body against yours as you breathe him in. he was real and he was holding you. it soothes the yearning that settled in your body in an instant. he was real and he felt like a safety net, anchoring you back to shore, rescuing you just in time to pull you back above waters before you sink into a sea of emotional turmoil.

that night in each other's embrace, you both felt like you'd come home after a long and exhausting day of being so far apart from each other. in that silence, you had both found solace and understanding where you stood in each other's lives. he was special to you as you were to him. jake had put up a delicate white fence over the luscious green grass and blooming flowers you had planted in his heart, his own garden in his desert he calls life. you were his oasis.

i sold my soul to a three-piece

and he told me I was holy

he's got me down on both knees

but it's the devil that's tryna

after that visit, jake slips away from your grasp again. steven and marc had found themselves in cairo, quietly lending them a hand when it mattered, saving them when their life began teetering close to the edge and quietly returning to his corner. they didn't need to know about him. not yet, not while his hands remain bloody and his ledger dripping red like waterfalls.

he helped marc amd steven out of sticky situations, even saving layla a few times as well. he thinks it's nice that marc had found a safe haven of his own with the woman but jake can't help but feel a little angry and jealous because he can't have you that way. not when they share the same body and face. so he took that bubbling anger out on the poor soul that had tried to hurt him, knuckles bloody and raw from punching so their face it's almost unrecognizable with all the blood pouring from their head to their mouth.

even though he was helping the two out in stopping an ancient god from killing off millions of people, jake's selfishness can't help but think of you during your time apart. he misses you even more now, he realizes. he wonders if he'll be able to see you again after this.

hold me down, hold me down

sneaking out the back door, make no sound

knock me out, knock me out

saying that i want more, this is what i live for

jake was proud of marc from his hidden corner of their consciousness when he refused to kill harrow, against khonshu's orders. he felt happy that his brother no longer had to stain his hands any redder than they should. but deep down jake knew he would be the one to end it all. after all, he is their protector (and with his affections for you, that extended to you as well).

he knew that khonshu would call for him one day soon to finish what marc cannot, for he is, after all, the one that carries the burden of dirtying his hands for them.

that was the deal he had bargained for his brother/s after all.

hold me down, hold me down

throw me in the deep end, watch me drown

knock me out, knock me out

saying that i want more, this is what i live for

jake finds himself in front of your hospital one afternoon when they returned from their duty in egypt. harrow was sent here, an idea he had left in marc's subconscious. in reality, it was just so he'd be able to see a glimpse of you.

selfish as it was, he thinks it's the only way he can see you again. he takes hold of harrow's wheelchair from a nurse, telling her in spanish that he was there for him. she had seemed to understand and let him be, moving on to a different patient to care for.

jake walks down the halls of the hospital, hoping to see even the faintest glimpse of your bright smile but to no avail. what he doesn't know though, was that you had seen him first, unsure in the beginning but you saw his signature cap and gloves and you knew for sure your eyes weren't playing tricks on you.

he was back and he was taking one of the patients admitted at the ward? throughout the time he's picked you up and took you home, he's never said anything about knowing someone in here. you followed him silently, asking one of your co-workers to cover for you a bit.

you see him take arthur harrow inside a limo you didn't know he drove, kicking the wheelchair with such anger it makes you pause in your steps just a little ways from the exit. you see him enter the driver's side, windows rolled up and slams the door shut, you took that as cue to make your way out. you approach the limo with hesitant steps, about to knock on the tinted windows when you see two flashes of light from inside the car, the muffled sound of a gun ringing so loud it has you gasping, snatching your hand back before it lands on the glass.

jake did what he had to, he sought justice to the death their body suffered from when harrow shot them within the dig site where steven discovered ammit's ushabti. it was time to repay the favor, he had shot them twice so he thought it was only fair to do the same. though this time, arthur harrow won't have the same chance to return to the land of the living the way marc and steven did. he had to atone for his sins, there was no redemption for arthur harrow.

but he hears something outside his limo, makes him roll his windows down just a tiny bit only to see your shaken form right outside, fear and shock evident in your features; from the way you held your hands, holding yourself as you took some steps back and away from the white vehicle. jake knew right there and then that he had scared you away, that he might have just lost you. the god in his backseat remained quiet, his presence like a foreboding shadow.

"i told you to stop seeing her didn't i jake lockley? did you really think she'll accept the life you live, the blood staining your hands?"

a part of jake knew that the tall bird was correct but he didn't want to accept it, he couldn't— wouldn't believe it. he loves you and he knows you do too, if that one late night visit says anything about how you two felt about each other. but the longer he stared at your scared form, the tears that threatened to spill from your eyes, the more jake began to realize he had to get away.

yes marc didn't deserve to know about the red on his hands...

translations:

¡no te atrevas a tocarla! — don't you fucking dare touch her

estoy bien, nena. no te preocupes. — i'm fine baby. don't worry.

por supuesto, cariño. ahora siéntate bien, no puedes lastimarte de alguna manera. — of course sweetheart. now sit properly, can't have you injuring yourself somehow.

[pokimoko]

Hey guys, I think I just found Jake’s Moon Knight suit:

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

that time of year

Warnings: non-consent sex and rape; intimidation, guns, threats of violence, cuckish behaviour.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. It features mob!Ransom Drysdale and Jake Jensen x reader. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Synopsis: You get invited unexpectedly to a holiday party by a friend but the night’s about to take an even more unexpected turn.

This is for @stargazingfangirl18 @navybrat817 @drabblewithfrannybarnes​ hoe-liday challenge! My prompts were Ransom + "sweetheart, that dress just got you added to the naughty list." + repaying a debt with sex

Note: Hope you enjoy this festive fuckery, hehehe.

Thanks to everyone for reading and thanks in advance for all your feedback. :)

I really hope you enjoy. 💋

warning graphics by @its-just-may​

<3 As usual, I’d appreciate if you let me know what you think with a like or reblog or reply or an ask! Love ya!

It’s sweet of Jensen to ask you. Really. He knows you don’t have any plans for the holiday. No family to go visit and no particular attachment to the time of year. Plus, you owe him one. He took several viruses off your laptop and made your virtual life much less stressful.

Deep down, you also know he has no one else to ask. He wasn’t exactly subtle in offering his plus one spot to you or mentioning that everyone would have one. What he kept mysterious is who exactly is throwing the shindig or why they invited him. He isn’t exactly a social butterfly, as much as he tries. No judgment, you aren’t either.

The dark blue velvet is your little holiday treat to yourself, tiny faux diamonds set into the dress, a slit to mid-thigh that makes you feel more sophisticated than you are. The event justifies the impulse purchase as you slip your feet into a pair of silver heels to match. You’ll be chilly but isn’t that the cost of looking good?

As you check your reflection one last time, you hear the electric chime of your doorbell. You swipe up your phone to view through the lens and find Jensen bouncing on his feet as he waits.

“Who is it?” you say playfully.

“Hurry up and let me in, my toes are cold,” he whines.

You laugh and shuffle away, carefully descending in your heels as you grip the railing. You aren’t exactly graceful even though your outfit gives a different impression. You tap to the door and turn the lock back as you let Jensen in.

He slides in on his soles and stops short as he sees you. His brows rise and he clears his throat, fixing the knot of his tie, though it’s not exactly straight when he finishes. You tut and and shoo his hands away.

“Gosh,” you unloop his tie, “you know they have about a dozen videos on Youtube on how to tie it yourself. Nice Windsor knot and all.”

“Well…” He looks down and watches your hands work, “I don’t see a tie on you.”

“Pfft,” you scoff and pull down his tie so it lays neatly down his dress shirt. You’re not a fan of the brown of his jacket and the teal of the silk but he’s not exactly a beacon of style, “I told you I was wearing blue.”

“It’s blue,” he runs his fingers along his tie.

“You’re colour blind,” you roll your eyes.

He chuckles and shoves his hands in his pocket, the black coat over his brown jacket pushed open as he gives a sheepish smile, “you look… nice.”

“Thanks, not too bad yourself now I prettied you up,” you joke, “so, I still have no idea about this thing? Should I bring something? My boss gave me a bottle of prosecco instead of a raise.”

“No, I think it’s fine,” he says, “it’s, um, a charity thing.”

“Charity? So a donation?” you wonder as you slide open your closet and take out your houndstooth coat; talk about tacky.

“Everything’s taken care of,” he promises, “but we should get going.”

“Right, well, I gotta go grab my phone,” you pull on your coat, “you’re driving right?”

“Yep, I’ll just go warm up the car,” he fidgets with his pocket, “you really do look… um, good.”

“Alright, I’m going,” you pout and head for the stairs, “don’t need to bribe me with your empty compliments.”

He opens his mouth but he keeps from arguing. He nods and turns awkwardly back to the door.

“I’ll wait for you,” he pulls it open and steps outside, leaving you to make the perilous climb in your steep heels.

🥂

You check your coat and keep your clutch under your arm as you enter the large hall. The party, more so a gala or what you imagine those to be, is sparkling with white strings of light and golden champagne. You glance at Jensen. You don’t exactly expect him to have friends in high places.

Servers in sleek tuxedo uniforms hand out long-stemmed glasses and offer hors d’oevres from their golden trays. You take a drink and a stuffed mushroom. You chew to keep busy and sip the champagne with a little too much zeal. Jensen spills his down his jacket and tries to play it off.

The pluck of harps and the dulcet tone of piano hum in the air as a live band in silk and satin plays on a low stage draped in ivory and a felt table stands ready for the deep coffers of guests. You feel entirely out of place, especially on the arm of the man next to you.

“Um, Jake,” you turn to him and take another gulp of bubbles, “how exactly did you get an invite to this?”

“Er, I know a guy,” he glances around.

“I feel like a sore thumb,” you utter, “I mean, these women are wearing designer gowns and I’m wearing a mall rag I could barely afford.”

“You look good,” he says promptly, “very good. I mean it. Plus, just take a look at me, if I’d known tuxes were to be expected–”

“Jakey boy,” a voice cuts through the din and you turn on your heel to face the approaching man in a burgundy jacket. He offers his hand and Jake shakes it as his chest puffs and he holds his breath, “I was starting to think you were cutting out on me again.”

“Not at all,” Jensen exhales, “I was just looking for you.”

“Mhmm,” the man peeks over at you, his blue eyes are almost the same shade as Jensen’s and he has an oddly similar shape to his jaw. He was Jensen if he had a trust fund and charisma, “you brought a date?”

“Uh, oh,” Jensen glances over at you as your ankle almost bends beneath you, “yeah–”

“Ransom,” the man curtails the awkward introduction and offers you his hand, “I am the host of this little… soiree.”

You give him your name as you balance your champagne in your other. He notices as he releases you and takes the glass from you lithely.

“You look like you need a refill,” he snaps his fingers and turns as a server approaches, he switches out your glass for a new one and hands it back, “here you are. Now, Jakey, we got some catching up to do. First, I need to make the rounds so you and you’re… lady get yourselves something to munch on and we’ll connect later, say…” he checks his golden rolex, “twenty minutes. Just go back through there–” he points, “behind the stage. You’ll see Danny, he’ll get you sorted.”

“Sure, uh, you know I told you next month I’d–”

“Not here, Jakey,” he pinches his cheek like a child, “bring the girl.” He smirks between the two of you, “nice meeting ya, sweetheart. I’ll catch up with you real soon.”

“Um, alright,” you look over at Jensen in confusion.

“He’s a good guy,” Ransom slaps Jensen’s shoulder, “really, I just wanna get to know you. You know, those we keep close are the best marker of character.”

“Sure, he’s nice, uh–” you flinch as he lightly touches your arm and leans in to kiss your cheek.

“Excuse me, sweetheart,” he lets his fingers trail down your arm before he turns away, calling out to another man as his rich voice carries over the party.

“That was… weird,” you say and swig down champagne.

“He’s like that,” Jensen says and he rubs his neck, “I’m sorry. He makes me nervous. Kinda why I asked you to come.”

“Of course,” you mutter, “can’t suffer alone, right?”

“No, he’s cool,” Jensen insists, “he’s just really confident. And a bit scary.”

“So what exactly are you chatting about, anyhow? Seems real urgent. Isn’t this a party?” you wrinkle your nose.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” he says, “you can hang back.”

“No, I’ll go with you,” you assure him, “don’t really wanna be in a room full of strangers alone.”

🥂

The second glass of champagne has you a bit tipsy. Not a good combination with your heels but you hang onto Jensen to keep from slipping. He leads you across the room and you catch his lingering gaze at the poker table. He was always one for a game of chance but it was usually just a careless gamble on a sports game or who could balance a book on their head the longest.

A dark-haired man greets you on the other side of the stage and Jensen tells him Ransom sent him. He leads you into an attached room, a sort of office, with a green leather chair and large mahogany desk. It feels like some sort of movie about underhanded mafiosos.

“Fancy,” you say as the door shuts and you detach from Jensen to sit on the low couch, a table with a crystal decanter and dark liquor beside it, “ugh, it feels good to get off my feet.”

You stretch out your legs and roll your ankles around as you groan and put down your clutch. Jensen paces and considers a golden globe closely as he leans over the desk. You notice how he wipes his sweaty palm on his pant leg.

“You okay?” you ask.

“Fine, I just… wanna get this over with.”

“You sure it’s alright I came?” you cross one leg over the other.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine,” he says, “you’re not the issue.”

“Is there something going on?” you arch a brow.

“No, just, I don’t know, feel like a dweeb around these guys,” he sighs, “always the nerd, right?”

“So, find someone you do fit in with,” you say, “who even is this guy? I mean, he’s not exactly the D and D type.”

“God, you think I’m just a geek, don’t you?” he pouts as he turns.

“No, I didn’t mean it like tha– Jensen, look who you’re talking to,” you plead, “I’m just saying, this isn’t high school. You don’t need to fit in and this guy, well he just seems like a pompous jock. Those guys are the lamest.”

You hear low voices and quiet. Jensen shakes his and blows out a breath as he glances at the door. Ransom steps through and his cheek twitches as he sees you first, only looking at Jensen as he shuts the door after him. He raises his chin as he strides across the room and evades the other man.

“Early, for once, Jakey boy,” Ransom says as he nears the cabinet in the cornet, glass peeking in a crystal glasses. He takes out two and sets them beside the decanter. He fills both and hands you one. You accept it awkwardly. “Sorry, I didn’t even ask,” he turns to Jake and takes a drink, “you want some?”

Jensen shakes his head and sniffs. He faces the other man as his glasses obscure his eyes, though you can tell he’s on edge by the way his throat constricts.

“I’m gonna venture a guess and say you two aren’t… together,” Ransom leans on the desk, lifting one leg as he points between you, whiskey swishing in his glass.

“N-no,” you answer as Jensen remains quiet.

“Go on and drink, sweetheart,” Ransom urges, “it’s good stuff. Goes down well with the champagne.”

You squint, confused, but do as he says.

“She doesn’t have to be here for this,” Jensen says softly, “please.”

“You brought her, Jakey boy,” Ransom shrugs.

“I told you, I’ll have the money next month,” Jensen grovels, “I came, right, that shows I’m not trying to cut out–”

“You owe me,” Ransom insists, “and I’ve forgiven enough of your shit. My patience has never been very long but you’ve stretched it further than anyone. You came, you know what’s owed, so don’t act so surprised.”

You shift nervously and put down the glass. Just the smell of the alcohol is making you queasy.

“What’s going on?” you eke out.

“Don’t worry, I’m about to explain. For both of you, first, Jakey, have a seat,” he gestures to the chair to your left.

“Let her leave, please,” Jensen says.

“Sit down,” Ransom repeats firmly, “don’t make me make you.”

Jensen cringes and slowly makes his way to the chair. He lowers himself and you stand suddenly, a trickle of fear down your spine. Ransom stops you and catches your shoulders.

“Now, where are you off to? We’re just getting settled in,” his eyes drift down and he clicks his tongue.

“Jake,” you utter and look at Jensen. Ransom grabs your chin and makes you face him.

“Let me explain then,” he pushes you down and you sit weakly. He kneels and places his hands just above your knees, rubbing the velvet of your skirt, “sweetheart, that dress got you added to the naughty list.”

“I don’t–”

“Shh,” he hushes you, “you see, Jakey boy likes to gamble and he was winning big. On a streak really but you know those always gotta come to an end and what do you know, his luck runs out. Money too. Now he’s overdue,” his hands trail up and he squeezes your thighs painfully, “and he hasn’t paid me. He just keeps promising and promising,” his fingers poke at you and you whimper as you grab at his hands, “and he thinks he can just keep on telling me next month, well, that’s not how this shit works. If he doesn’t pay, I find something of equal value–”

“You’re hurting me,” you gasp as you try to peel his fingers away.

“Stop–” Jensen slides forward and grabs Ransom’s arm.

Ransom rises and knocks Jensen back with an elbow. He strikes him with the back of his hand and deflects the response. He shoves Jensen back into the chair and reaches to grab you by the back of your neck. He forces you to your feet so you struggle in your heels.

“Do it again, Jakey, and I start breaking her fingers,” he snarls, “don’t make this harder than it needs to be. You’ve already dragged me through the fucking shit.”

“Please,” you beg as you stand on tiptoes.

“Now, sweetheart, don’t get premature, we’ll get to the part where you scream,” he taunts as he reaches for his belt. He takes out a handgun and points it at Jensen before he can stand again, “your choice, Jakey, I can blow her brains out,” he puts the muzzle to your temple, “or I can blow her back out.”

“Don’t hurt her,” Jensen quavers.

“Oh, I can make her feel real good,” he moves the gun around your chin as he pulls you against him, his hand snaking around your neck, “but the best part is, you get to see it all.”

“Please,” Jensen gulps.

“I tried, Jakey, I really did, and I didn’t want it to turn out like this,” Ransom continues as he wiggles his crotch against you, “but you didn’t have to bring her and flaunt that ass in front of me.”

Jensen sniffles and lowers his chin.

“Please, don’t–” you squeak.

“Now, sweetheart, I feel you shaking with anticipation so let’s not play innocent,” he slips the gun down your front, over your chest and stomach, and pushes along your vee, “do what I say and you and the boy walk out… maybe with a slight limp.”

You swallow and nod. He snickers and carefully lets you go as he takes the gun away. He steps back and points it at Jensen.

“Jakey boy, you keep your eyes on the girl and sweetheart, as much as I love the way that dress looks on you, it’s comin’ off,” he chirps, “turn around."

You shake as you obey, senseless as the fear overflows and burns in your veins. You flinch as you feel him step closer and he pinches the tab of your zipper and draws it down until your dress slackens. You catch the front and he hums.

"Ah, let it go," he orders and you do as he bids, shimmying free of the velvet sheath. "Good, now, sweetheart, come over on the couch and sit." He steps back and you move cautiously back to the couch and lower yourself, "put those legs nice and wide."

You bite the inside of your lip and spread your knees. He smirks and you watch him round his desk and lock his gun in the top drawer.

"Now, let me warn you, Jakey, Danny's watching that door so don't think me putting this away is your out," he intones as he slips his jacket down his arms, "is it worse you never got it in her?"

He drapes his jacket from the back of Jensen's chair and rubs his hands together, "now pay attention, you might learn something."

He rolls his sleeves up and nears the couch. You press yourself to the back and he kneels between your legs. You wince as he tickles your thighs and keeps you from bringing your knees together as he moves closer.

His hands crawl up and he frames your hips. He urges you forward and swipes his hands under your ass. He pulls your legs over his shoulders as you slip down on the couch.

"Please," you murmur as your terror bubbles over, "please--"

"Sweetheart, I'm being nice," he purrs, "let's not spoil it."

"Ransom--" Jensen sputters.

"Sit there and shut up!" Ransom snaps, "remember, how this happens is up to you. You want me to be mean, you keep talking."

You grasp the couch as you try not slip further. You shy away as Ransom turns back to you and smirks. You see him bite his lip before he dips his head down and trails a hand up to tug your panties aside.

“Now why did we choose these ones, hmm?” he teases as he rubs the lacy black panties, “maybe she does like you, Jakey.”

His hot breath tickles you and you gasp as suddenly his lips brush against your folds. His cool tongue delves down and flicks over your clit. You exhale wispily and clench your teeth as you squeeze your eyes shut. You push your head back and your fingers curl as he seals his mouth around your bud and sucks. The pressure pinpoints at the tip of his tongue as he swirls it around.

“Go…d…” you mutter senselessly as your legs hook wantingly around his shoulders.

He hums and it sends a thrill through you unlike anything you’ve felt before. He turns his hand and traces two fingertips along your cunt. He runs them up and down as he keeps lapping at you thirstily. He prods firmly against your entrance and slowly you stretch around his invasion.

He chuckles as he sinks in to his knuckles and you moan. Even with just his fingers, you feel full. Your walls squeeze him as you tilt your hips unthinkingly and welcome his touch. He bends his fingers and rocks his hand as he sloppily drinks you up.

Your thighs are alight as he plucks at you and the coil winds around his fingers. You pant as your hand shoots down and pushes his head down desperately. You’re almost there, so close. Your hips move without permission and you ride his face over the edge of bliss.

You cry out pathetically as you latch onto the couch above your head, your other hand still twined in Ransom’s thick but finely cut hair. He urges you through the ripples of delight but doesn’t stop, even as you’re weak and squirming. He pushes his fingers even deeper, shaking his hand as he growls against your cunt.

You whine and bare your teeth as your lashes snap open. You can hardly breathe as he coaxes you past the point of pleasure. It’s so good it hurts, yet you want more. Your hips buck uncontrollably and your head lolls. Your drooping eyes meet Jensen’s, his jaw tensed as his eyes glisten but he won’t look away.

You turn your head and shame and try to push Ransom away. He looks up at you and winks, drawing back and wiping away the string of spit that hangs from his lips. He licks away the shimmer on his lips as he lets your legs fall off of his shoulders and stands.

“Mmm, nice warm up, huh, Jakey boy,” Ransom mocks as he grins at the other man, “sweetheart, take those tits out for him. I’m sure he’s been dying to see them.”

Your lips part but you clamp them shut just as quickly. You swallow and push yourself up, reaching back to unhook your bra. It slumps down your arms and you let it drop down to the floor. Ransom comes closer and fondles your tit, pinching your nipple as it grows hard and pointy. You squeak and he snickers.

“Get up on your knees,” he bends to tap the couch beside you, “facing him, sweetheart.”

You shake your head and cross your arms over your chest, mortified. He sighs and grabs your elbow, wrenching you up and around. You fight him, helplessly, as he gets you onto your knees. He forces your hands flat onto the leather and holds them there.

“Now, you’ve been a good girl and I’ve treated you nice, haven’t I?” he slithers, “so let’s not make this any harder… He’s got nice teeth, I’d hate to break them.”

“Please,” you whimper as he slowly straightens and slaps your ass so you exclaim.

“Please what?” he says as he slips he rolls your panties down your legs, “please fuck you?”

You sniff and hold in another whine. Your panties twist down to your knees and he climbs up behind you, stretching the fabric as he urges your legs apart with his. He gropes your ass, groaning as he does and slaps it again.

“Fine piece, Jakey,” he says, “don’t know how you held out so long.”

His hands leave your ass and you hear a metal clink. You catch Jensen’s eye again and drop your chin down to hide your face. Fabric rustles against you as Ransom shifts behind you. He snakes his arm down and grazes your stomach with his large hand. He bends over you as he slides his fingers down to your cunt and lines his cock up from behind.

“Look at him, sweetheart,” he growls against your hair, “now!”

You raise your head and you stare at Jensen blankly. You grit your teeth and dig your nails into the leather couch. Ransom enters you, an inch at a time, a long exhale as he gets deeper and deeper. As he reaches his limit, you’re shaking, overwhelmed by the fullness.

“Mmmm, look at her, vibrating for me, huh?” Ransom rasps, “shit, she’s fucking tight.” He jerks his hips so you squeal, “or maybe I’m fucking big, huh, sweetheart?”

You hum and nod as you suck in your bottom lip. You can barely see straight as you resist rolling your eyes back. He twirls his fingers around your clit as he begins to thrust, long and careful, drawing out the friction. Your moans betray you and escape you in quivery breaths.

“She smells good,” Ransom nuzzles your shoulder as he speeds up, “mmm.”

He sits back as he loops his other arm around you and takes you back with him, lifting you against his lap as he moves your body. He bounces you against him, fingers dancing on your bud as his other hand grips your chin and he pokes two fingers into your mouth. You murmur and puff as he slams into you from below.

“Shit, happy holidays to me, Jakey, this is a hell of a gift,” he sneers and nips at your shoulder.

You hang limply from his grasp as he fucks you, your body his toy as he plays with you in front of another. You reach back blindly and grip his open belt as you drone. You quake as you cum again, spasming wildly as he carries his motion.

“Look at her, what’s that, three, four times? Hard to keep count,” Ransom says through shallow breaths, “shit, I think I might just cum, sweetheart.” He keeps his pace and grunts. “Jakey, should I cum in her, hmm? Maybe on these tits?” He slips his hand down and cups your chest, “better hurry up and decide.”

Jensen doesn’t answer. You hear a smothered sob and Ransom pulls you down as his hips jerk against you. He swears as his body tenses and his rhythm turns spasmic. He sinks to his limit and hugs you against him, stilling you as he spills into your cunt hotly. He hangs his head as his damp breath clings to your hair.

He lifts you off of him and lets you fall onto your stomach. He gets to his feet and tuts as you roll onto your side and hug yourself, shivering and shaking from the heat still coursing in your veins. He chuckles as he nears Jake and pulls the fabric square from his jacket pocket. He steps back and wipes his shining cock.

“That’s the interest, Jakey boy,” Ransom says, “I still expect the rest. Next week, or I come find you.” He crumples the black silk and tosses it, “Maybe I’ll get to her first.”

“I… next week,” Jensen croaks and you look at him, his face red with streaked tears, “I’ll have the money.”

“Well, damn,” Ransom zips up and checks his watch, “I was almost looking forward to more.”

He swipes his jacket from the back of the chair and pulls it on as he struts to the door. He pauses and glances back, his hand on the knob.

“Get her cleaned up, Jakey,” Ransom orders, “you gotta walk her outta here. If she can even stand.”

He turns and opens the door, shutting it sharply behind him as the din of the next room seeps in briefly. You huff and push yourself up. You refuse to glance at Jake as you stand and scoop up your dress. You slip into it and scoop up your undergarments.

“I’m sorry,” Jensen utters.

“Don’t,” you sniff and try to smooth out the dress, “I just wanna go.”

[coeurdastronaute]

Footy 8

Previously on Footy

“Not a bad view for spring break.”

“You’re hard to impress. Has anyone ever told you that?” Lexa complained as she adjusted her tie. She looked over at her girlfriend after a few moments of quiet, fully expecting to see the teacher peering out toward the golden Sunset Boulevard sunset. Instead, Clarke was lounging against the glass and looking at her, meeting her eyes in the mirror. “Oh, you meant me.” 

“I did mean you. You are very astute. You should have been up for the Most Astute Athlete award tonight instead of boring ol’ Best Female Athlete”

“I quite like that one.” 

“Instead of Best Record Breaking Moment, then.” 

“Yeah records get broken daily, right? I mean, the one I broke just so happened to be standing for fifty years and was for both men and women, but yeah,” Lexa grinned, tilting her head as she adjusted her jacket, smoothing this and that of herself. 

It was more color than she was accustomed to wearing, but Clarke liked it and Anya approved of anything that wasn’t completely black, so Lexa was left with a rose gold floral tuxedo. She let Mia pick out the cuff links though, which were, in her own opinion, inspired, as two little Scotties sat on her arms despite no one in their family ever owning a Scottie. 

“You know what was record breaking?” Clarke ventured, carefully slipping on her heels. 

“What’s that, darling?” 

“Last night. And this morning. And this afternoon.” 

“All those interviews I did? I know, that was impress--” Lexa cocked her head, finally turning around. “Oh, are you talking about the sex? Because I agree. That was fantastic. I truly outdid myself and they should give me Best Action Athlete for the extreme sports I invented.” 

“See, you ruin it when you talk yourself up. That’s my job. You should be humble. I don’t know if you are capable of fathoming if you win.” 

“You’d be surprised. I’m a great winner.” 

Standing in her heels, Clarke was a vision. Lexa carefully tucked a stray piece of her own hair back, careful not to undo that wondrous work the glam team Indra sent over, had done. They were really working with an uphill battle when it came to herself, but Clarke… It was going to be distracting. The slit of her dress was going to star in many fantasies for years to come, and the dip of her dress was absolutely violent. Lexa swallowed and caught herself staring, gratefully before her girlfriend could mock her. 

“If you don’t win, my father might cancel his subscription to ESPN magazine, just so you’re aware.” 

“Wasn’t he on the cover like a dozen times? Isn’t it free for him at this point?” 

“It’s the principle,” Clarke promised. “Okay. I’m ready. Do you think people will mistake me for a professional athlete?” 

“I do not,” Lexa chuckled. “But only because people will recognize you as the little pig-tailed girl who sat on Jake Griffin’s shoulders after he won the Olympics.”

“I should have dressed the same as I did that day. Do you know what I’m not looking forward to?” 

“Oh, you aren’t looking forward to our date to a major awards show in your girlfriend’s profession that just so happens to be televised?” 

Lexa offered to hold the hotel room door open as they made their way into the hall and the team of publicists and Indra’s people, the army it took to make the entire process happen reasonably worry-free. 

“I’ve already been,” Clarke shrugged, unimpressed. “Four times.” 

“Okay, darling, what are you not looking forward to, since you are the expert.” 

There was a fluttering around them, fixing this and that on their clothes as they made it to the elevator. Lexa was certain she heard Indra’s voice over some assistant’s phone, asking a million questions and not waiting for an answer. 

“Everyone likes to ask me why I never followed in my dad’s footsteps, and I hate having to acknowledge that the great Jake Griffin fathered a pathetically uncoordinated human being.” 

“You’re not uncoordinated.” 

“That’s sweet, but untrue. It’s made worse only by the fact that my mother is a gifted surgeon. Great hands and great legs, but my brain is mush when it comes to coordinating the sets.”

“How many times will you get asked?” 

“At least a dozen.” 

“Thank goodness I brought you then,” Lexa exhaled as she held open the elevator doors gallantly. “I hate answering any questions about myself.” 

“That’s not true.”

“It is. I get terribly uncomfortable when it comes to telling strangers things about me.” 

“It did take you weeks to tell me you were a soccer player,” Clarke measured as they walked through the lobby. 

Lexa slipped her hand into Clarke’s and gave it a squeeze before someone shouted her name and she gave a quick wave to a fan. 

“I wish your dad was here. That’d help,” Lexa finally sighed. 

“I don’t know if he’d look as good in this dress.” 

“Well, if you inherited his legs, I’m not sure that’s true.” 

With a punch, she winced and helped her girlfriend into the waiting SUV to take them to the theater for the awards show. She deserved it, but it still stung. 

“You have to know you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, you know that, right?” Lexa whispered, leaning close as the car grew quiet with the absence of people hovering and humming. 

Clarke shivered slightly due to the air conditioning and the warmth of Lexa’s voice against her shoulder and neck. But she was good at playing it, and she wasn’t going to make it easy. 

“You should have opened with that.” 

“I’m more of a closer.” 

“We’ll see about that, I guess.” 

Lexa chuckled and knotted their hands together again, nervously rubbing her thumb along her girlfriend’s knuckles. She let out a breath and looked out the window until Clarke rubbed her thigh to keep her leg from jumping. When she looked back, Clarke was smiling at her and Lexa felt better. 

XXXXXXXXXX

“Where you been hiding?” 

“Oh, you know, just  across the world,” Lexa grinned and quickly hugged her old college teammate. “Couldn’t stand beating you so often.” 

“You’ve gotten funnier,” Beth forced a fake chuckle. “You never used to have a sense of humor. Must be the weather in the UK.”

“It suits me fairly well.”

It’d been nearly two years since she’d seen Beth Whitaker. Two years since she’d decided to put in for a trade and not tell anyone that she was leaving. Lexa was notoriously bad at responding to any attempts at reaching out. It was a wonderful part of the evening she hadn’t anticipated, to see all of her old friends and colleagues. She wasn’t used to that part-- the missing. The warmth. 

“Have you met my girlfriend?” Lexa slipped her arm back around Clarke’s waist. Beth shook her head and quickly shook the teacher’s. “Clarke Griffin, this is Beth, my old defender from my college days.” 

“And current professional athlete,” she offered. 

“Right, yes. Sorry. She was always a baby to me. It’s hard to think of her as an adult. We played together my final year.” 

“And I think we all know about the Griffins,” Beth reminded Lexa. “Please tell me the Most Winningest Coach of All-Time is not also giving pointers to this one? The rest of us mere mortals have to make a living, too, you know?” 

“Unfortunately,” Clarke sighed, “My dad tends to get more of Lexa’s adoration and attention than I do some weekends.”

“You’re an asshole, you know?” Beth accused, earning a shrug and sly grin from Lexa as she turned her attention away from the soccer royalty. “Jake Griffin.” 

“You think it’s wonderful, until he appears in the tunnel after you’ve already finished practice and then spend another three hours with him on the pitch.” 

“It’s weird, but that didn’t sound like a complaint,” Clarke snorted, earning a squeeze. 

“We should really catch up. I’m staying at the Wiltmore for the next two days before getting back. Some of the girls would be happy to see you, you know?” 

“I’d love to,” Lexa nodded. “It’s a good reason to tell Indra to go easy on the meetings. I just have team meeting with National and a training session, and some endorsement things…”

“And that photo thing,” Clarke remembered. 

“Damn, I thought I was busy. I get it, you’re a superstar.” 

“Please don’t encourage that,” the art teacher rolled her eyes, earning a pinch on her side. 

“We’ll set something up for tomorrow,” Lexa promised. “What are you doing after this thing?” 

The lights flashed, indicating it was time to stop mingling and time to find their seats, but Lexa waited expectantly, not bothering to care, suddenly more excited to reunite. It gave her an idea to push the tickets a day and make a pilgrimage. 

“The After Party for a bit.” 

“Find me there, for sure. Gather as many of the crew as possible.” 

“Sounds like a good time,” Beth nodded. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Clarke.”

“Likewise.” 

Carefully Lexa guided Clarke toward their seats, nodding to a few other people who were too far away to speak with just yet. There were so many people that Lexa was intimidated by, that it was hard to imagine anyone would be intimidated to speak with her. She wondered if she had the same effect that Serena Williams had on her. Clarke didn’t suffer from any of it, it seemed, and that was reassuring enough. 

“Do I get to hear all kind of College-Lexa stories tonight?” Clarke teased as they sat down where they were instructed. 

“God, I hope not.” 

“Why’s that?” 

“I wasn’t always the stirring specimen you see tonight,” Lexa sighed. “I was once extremely focused and boring. Quite a nerd, some might say.” 

“You? Impossible.” 

“It’s very true.” 

“I can’t wait to hear any stories, and even more excited to see all of your hard work and focus pay off tonight,” Clarke promised, kissing her girlfriend’s cheek, earning a kiss on her knuckles. “I always forget you had an entire life before me.” 

“I seem to forget it as well.” 

“Don’t.” 

“Sometimes it’s for the best,” she shrugged. “But I do miss some of them.” 

“You are going to brag about training with my dad, aren’t you?” 

“Oh definitely.” 

Clarke rolled her eyes and settled close as Lexa put her arm over the back of her chair. She was certain it was the first of many introductions and words about the other, more well-known Griffin. But Clarke felt how attentive Lexa was, and it felt natural. It almost, as weird as it was, felt like a relatively normal date night that just took a lot longer to be ready for, because suddenly they were in a hall full of the world’s greatest athletes, but they were a pair, isolated in their own world amidst that universe. 

Clarke squeezed Lexa’s thigh as the lights went out. 

XXXXXXXXX

The applause proved to be so overwhelming that Lexa was certain she hadn’t heard the name right, and she looked it, slightly delayed in figuring out that it was her. From her couch, the older sister of the pair squealed as her daughter played on the floor, not terribly interested until she saw her aunt’s face appear. 

Amidst the hubbub, Lexa looked surprised as Clarke kissed her cheek and hugged her tightly. Anya felt a warmth in her heart at the pair, at how happy her sister looked, at how adoringly Clarke looked at her as well. Before the younger Woods made it to the stage, Anya felt tears on her cheeks. 

“Why are you crying?” Mia asked, furrowing so much it looked permanent and etched. 

“I’m just happy, I promise,” Anya smiled, quickly wiping her cheeks. “Auntie Lex won an award. A big award.” 

“It’s a big trophy,” her daughter agreed. “Will she let me hold it like the other ones?”

“Probably.” 

On the screen, Anya watched as Lexa hugged and thanked the presenters as the music played and the applause accompanied. She held the trophy and smiled. For a moment there was almost quiet, and Lexa looked at the trophy in her hand and grinned. 

“I’m not one for words, and I apologize in advance for the fumbling that I’m sure is about to happen,” Lexa swallowed and squinted against the lights before taking a big breath and squaring herself. “I am humbled beyond compare to be even spoken in the same breath as my fellow nominees.”

“Is Auntie Lexa famous?” 

“Sometimes.” 

“She’s on TV a lot.” 

“Yeah,” Anya whispered, unable to stop from crying. She coldn’t even pretend to stop, and it kept streaming down her cheeks. 

The nerdy little kid, the determined, headstrong girl she worked two jobs to support and keep, who was certain she was going to take care of them both one day, was there, and she was safe and set and she’d done it. 

Mia slid into her mother’s lap and wiped her cheeks by patting them as best she could. 

“I want to thank the media, my team, my coaches, the players around me-- the ones who tell me to stop and it’s time to go home. The ones who kept me sane. Indra, who has been with me since college and taken care of me and guided me.”

The applause continued for her again. 

“I would not be here without my mother, who I’m certain is watching and bragging about me to any apostle who will listen to her. She is going to be unbearable behind those pearly gates.” 

There was a chuckle amongst the people, and Lexa wiped a tear from her face and steadied herself. 

“To my sister and my niece. Who I’m sure are happy, and upset that Serena didn’t win as they told me numerous times she would.”

The camera looked at the tennis star who laughed and waved at Lexa, earning a little bit of a faint from the soccer star. 

“My sister-- the woman who dropped out of school to take care of me after we lost our mom. The woman who never took a sick day or called off, who believed in me, even when I couldn’t. The woman who is perhaps the only reason I am standing here. This one is yours, Anya. I told you I wouldn’t stop.” 

The applause rang out again as Lexa juggled the trophy. Anya hugged her daughter and kissed the top of her head. 

“To Mr. Nash, my neighbor who let me kick the ball against his fence, who took me in and drove a stringy neighborhood kid to practice to keep her out of trouble. Who drove four hours, every week, to see me play in college. You are the best example of compassion I could have ever asked for.”

Lexa wiped another tear and smiled. 

“To my girlfriend, for not knowing who I was when you met me. You have my heart.” 

The camera moved to Clarke for just a moment who beamed at the player on the stage.

“To you all, I thank you, for judging me solely by my hard work, and not the one bedroom, fourth floor walk up I come from.  For the kids with the second-hand cleats. For the kids who just got told it’s stupid to dream and hope. For the ones who are in the darkest moments they’ve ever encountered. It can get better. I think you again.” 

Lexa bowed, as some stood and clapped. Clarke wiped at her cheek and Anya sighed before chuckling to herself. 

“She’s going to be unbearable this week.” 

“She’s not a bear,” Mia disagreed. 

Her cellphone started ringing, and Anya picked it up without looking. 

“Yeah, I saw,” she chuckled. 

XXXXXXXXXX

The blur of the past three or five days seemed momentarily at bay as they drove down unfamiliar streets. Lexa seemed to know them like the back of her hand, quickly pointing out landmarks that were simply the parking lot she learned to drive in, and the field she played her middle school games on. 

Clarke couldn’t help but happily except when Lexa asked her to take an extra day to fly up to visit her home, to see Anya and Mia. Lexa was exhausted from press and from meetings, training, and calls. They had the time. They needed the escape. 

Sitting in the passenger seat, Clarke felt Lexa squeeze her thigh before pointing at a high school that was once her own. Lexa talked quickly when she was excited. It was one of the few times she did, as she was usually so measured and calm. But being home, showing it off to someone, it was different. 

They rented a car at the airport and drove through downtown, stuck in the traffic of the city, and they wove through dilapidated buildings and overgrown lots. Lexa pointed out the building that was barely standing up where her and Anya lived after her mother died. A few blocks further, they drove toward the house they rented next door to Mr. Nash, the man who inspired the degree of fate that linked them. 

After most of the morning was spent haunting, they began to leave the city limits, and the yard got nicer, the yards got bigger, the houses grew in proportion. 

“We would drive out here to play sometimes,” Lexa explained, leaning forward and surveying it. “I promised Lexa I’d buy her and Mia a place in the best school district, where they’d be safe and have everything they could want.” 

“You are pretty good at keeping promises.” 

“They make good fuel.”

Clarke smiled to herself as they finally pulled into a driveway. 

“You didn’t have to buckle the trophies in.” 

“Can’t have them clunking around,” Lexa disagreed as she pushed her sunglasses up, pushing her hair away from her eyes. “Don’t want to dent them. They’re owed to others. Come on. This isn’t our last stop.” 

Like a kid, she was excited and jittery, and Clarke ate it up as Lexa opened the back seat and took the heavy award for the best Record Breaking Performance. Clarke realized, sitting there in the passenger seat, seat belt half off, that she was in love. It felt like a very weird moment to realize it, as Lexa lifted a trophy like a dumbbell, impatiently waiting for her girlfriend, grinning happily and looking like an absolute goof. But Clarke had that thought in her head, that she was in love, and she hadn’t remembered ever feeling that before in her life. She’d certainly never had that thought creep up so suddenly and plainly. 

So she got out of the car and grabbed her girlfriend’s collar, kissing her quickly, but with purpose before heading toward the front door. 

The house wasn’t huge. It was a beautiful Victorian with a lawn to die for, with a jungle gym  on the side, and a tire swing in the front. A porch swing creaked slightly in the breeze. 

Lexa rang the bell as they stood on the large porch. Clarke adjusted her girlfriend’s jacket collar, fixing and smoothing it. 

The elderly man that opened the door was smacked at the sight on his porch. Hair still as wild as the day he met her, she’d suddenly grown into her knees and nose. Lexa smiled at Mr. Nash. It’d been nearly two years since they’d seen each other despite talking on the phone weekly. There was something special to the reunion. 

Clarke realized what was happening as she watched Mr. Nash smile and shake his head. He was wearing an old Standford Grandpa shirt. This was the second house Lexa bought, and it was for the man who drove her home from practice, who’d adopted the Woods’ girls. 

“Did you know how much they wanted to charge me to mail this thing to you?” Lexa began, looking at the trophy in her hands. “Figured I’d just drop it off.” 

It was only after that, that he threw open the screen door and gobbled the soccer player up into a monumental hug. They rocked and clung to each other. 

“I am so proud of you,” he mumbled, tearing up behind his glasses. Lexa sniffled. “I am so, so proud. Your mother would be so proud.” 

“I ran out of room for this kind of thing,” Lexa shrugged, wiping her cheek quickly and smiling as he held her shoulders. “I meant it when I said this was yours. I got this because of you, and everyone should know.” 

“You honor me beyond compare, you know that, don’t you?” 

“I also had these lying around,” she murmured, digging in her back pocket for the plane tickets. “Tokyo, for you and the gang. You’re my lucky charm, you know.” 

Mr. Nash patted Lexa’s cheek and grabbed her head, hugging her to him again. 

“Any excuse to see you,” he shook his head. 

Clarke pressed her hand to her own throat, swallowing the moment and what it did to her. She sighed, finding her heart growing even more, if it were possible. Lexa didn’t have a large circle, but she had important people and a ledger of debt she was convinced she’d never pay, despite not even knowing that she didn’t have to at all. 

“I, uh,” Lexa pulled away. “Thought you might want to meet Clarke, as well.” 

“The girl who stole my granddaughter. It is a pleasure.” 

Graciously, he held out his hand and bowed to kiss Clarke’s, earning a chuckle and an eye roll, embarrassing Lexa. 

“I think it’s more of a lease situation,” Clarke assured him, earning a laugh. 

“You were right,” he nodded at Lexa before putting his arm around her shoulder. “Come inside. Give me that,” he held the trophy. “Heavier than you think.” 

“That’s what I thought too,” Lexa agreed. 

Clarke followed and took a deep breath. 

She was most certainly in love. 

NEXT

[wiypt-writes]

Too Loose And You’ll Lose It

Ch7: Old Habits Die Hard

Part 2

Co-written with @icanfeelastormbrewing​

Summary: It’s the day of Pooch’s wedding, emotions are running high and it all comes to a dramatic conclusion.

Pairing: Jake Jensen x OFC Stella Stevenson

Warnings: Bad language and a whole heap of angst. Smut (NSFW, 18+)

A/N: So here is part 2 of Chapter 7…and it’s explosive! Translation: Chinga tu madre, Cabrón = Go fuck your mother, asshole.

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and classified as 18+. Please respect this and do not read if you are underage. We do not own any characters in this series bar Stella Stevenson and the other OCs. By reading beyond this point you understand and accept the terms of this disclaimer.

TLAYLI Masterlist // Main Masterlist

Chapter 7 Part 1

Lay your demons at the door, this is what we're fighting for, trying to clear the air but nobody's talking. We've been breathing this disease, trying to find a way to see, but the end is in your eyes, let's finish this tonight.

“What I don’t get,” Jensen looked at the bridesmaid who watched him with rapt attention, twisting a strand of hair round her finger, “is why come to Mexico and not get married on the beach?”

“Well they thought about it, but then Jolene decided she didn’t want to get covered in sand.” The red-head shot back. “So they chose this terrace, it’s kinda on the beach, I mean, you can see the ocean.”

“But if you don’t want to get sandy, why come here in the first place?”

“Because it’s cheaper.” She shrugged.

“So you’re saying Pooch is a cheapskate.” Jensen raised his eyebrow and she hesitated before she shook her head.

“No, that’s…” she began to talk, protesting that wasn’t what she was saying when he heard Roque shout out Stella’s nickname.

“Hey, Arty!”

Jake instantly glanced over his shoulder to look for her, and when he saw her, the air was completely knocked from his lungs.

Her dress was a gorgeous watercolor-like ombre blue. The deepest of sky blue shade covering her shoulders with wide straps and a deep v-neck line that wrapped at her breasts and it lightened just at the lower ribs to a cotton blue, before trailing down at the hemline in a pale blue almost white shade. The cut exposed her leg to mid-thigh, giving just a peek of the petunia inked into her skin. Her hair was pulled back off her face in an elegant, sleek pony tail and her lips popped a deep, burnt red. Her blue eyes stood out under thick lashes and perfectly lined eyebrows, the rest of her make up remaining neutral. She'd only been in the sun a day, but just as it always did, it had kissed her body in a way that made each little freckle pop and her entire frame glow.

The salty sea air and sunshine always looked good on Stella Stevenson and today, the overall effect made Jensen's mouth water.

“Holy shit.” He muttered, turning away from the girl and conversation without so much as a goodbye, leaving her stood there shooting daggers at his back.

Stella smiled as Roque kissed her cheek, then Cougs and finally Clay before she stepped back and smiled as their Colonel’s arm curled around the slim, petite brunette to his right.

“Stel, this is Emma, Emma this is Stella.”

“It’s nice to meet you.” Emma smiled, “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Why doesn’t that fill me full of confidence?” Stella laughed and Emma shook her head, smiling.

“Oh, no, I assure you, it’s all been good!”

As the two women continued to chat and laugh, Jake stood there, waiting for his turn, hands jammed into the pockets of his dress slacks. Eventually, Stella nodded and turned to him and he flashed her a smile.

“You know, that’s the second day in a row I’ve seen you looking like a grown up!” She quickly scanned him up and down, taking in his well-fitted, steel grey suit. The top button of his jacket fastened, nipping in at his slim waist and spanning over his broad chest and shoulders. The crisp white dress shirt underneath stood out against the suit, and matched his white pocket swatch, the entire ensemble pulled together by the steel grey tie which matched his jacket and slacks.

As she was looking, Jake leaned forward, her perfume sending him lightheaded as always. He placed a gentle peck to her cheek, his chin brushing her ear slightly. “You look stunning.” He whispered, and he didn’t miss the goose-bumps that appeared on her skin as she swallowed and pulled away.

“Thanks.” She stood still, simply looking at him, and the two of them were locked in a gaze before Stella cleared her throat, breaking the spell. “You guys know where we’re supposed to be seated?”

“Yeah, we’re on the right,” Clay gestured, “Grooms side or whatever.”

The gang moved to find their seats, Jensen stepping forward ready to offer Stel his arm but Roque beat him to it.

“Always the gentleman, huh?” She smiled at him and he chuckled, a deep, low timbre rumbling from his chest.

“You know me, Arty.”

Jake watched them go, before he gave a yelp and clutched at his side, glaring at Cougar.

“Stop drooling, Jensen.” Cougar peered at him from underneath his hat, smirking as Jake rubbed at the place on his ribs where he had dug him with his elbow.

“I’m not drooling, shut up Cougs.”

Thankfully, Cougar left it there and they moved to take their seats along the row that Clay, Emma, Roque and Stella had already occupied. Cougar, whether on purpose or not, reached the end of the row first and slid in next to Stella, separating her from Jensen. Jensen rolled his eyes, but before he could get too pissed about it, Pooch arrived, in a simple black pinstripe three piece with an ivory and red striped tie, and made his way down the aisle, greeting everyone. He stopped at the row that contained the Losers and smiled, Jensen pulling him into a hug, clapping his shoulder as he pulled away.

The thing with weddings, is that no one can actually tell you were the day goes. They seem to pass in a whirl and Pooch’s was no exception. What felt like mere seconds after The Groom had arrived, but was in fact more near to twenty minutes, the music started and Jolene appeared at the large arch at the back of the terrace, walking slowly with her dad down the aisle, in a gorgeous knee-length fitted lace dress, which set off her curves and legs perfectly, her curly ebony hair pinned up elegantly at the back of her head. As she reached Pooch, she reached up and straightened his tie and Stella heard a “Pay up, Captain” to her right. She turned to see Roque reaching over Emma, handing Clay a twenty, not even looking at him, and she let out a soft snort, shaking her head.

The Bride and Groom exchanged simple vows and Pooch head tears in his eyes as he made his declaration. At that point, Jake couldn’t help but take a glance at Stel to find her looking down at her hands, the fingers of her left twisting the white gold and ruby solitaire ring that sat on her right ring finger, a gift from him for her twenty-first. He swallowed a little, as he hadn’t seen her wear it in a while before she glanced up, and he took the opportunity to study her pretty profile for a second before he turned his attention back to the front for the ring exchange.  Before long the new Mr and Mrs Pooch headed down the red carpet in the middle of the aisle to cheers and the guests filed their way back inside for drinks whilst the staff set up the outside terraced area for the reception.

To Jake’s delight, there was no huge stuffy sit down meal, it was just a large buffet which meant he could eat what he wanted and how much he wanted, which suited him perfectly. What didn’t suit him, however, was that he didn’t see that much of Stella, at all. Post eating and listening to the speeches, whether intentionally or not, she avoided him, spending most of the time sipping champagne and cocktails chatting to Emma and few of Jolene’s friends. Jake was left to mooch around, mainly with Cougar who was absolutely trying to get into the blonde bridesmaid’s panties. Unfortunately, she was stuck like glue to the red headed one that Jake wasn’t interested in.

“You make a shit wingman.” Cougar gave a jab to Jensen’s rib with his elbow as the two girls wandered off.

“Good job I’m not a pilot then.” Jensen shrugged, taking a pull from his beer as his eyes scanned the room for Stella.

At that point they both got strong slaps on their shoulders as Pooch drew up behind them both, leaning between them a little.

“Your momma was a pilot.”

Cougar and Jensen both looked at one another before they slowly turned to glance at Pooch.

“Did you just drop a momma joke on your wedding day?” Jensen snorted

“A shit one at that.” Cougar added, tipping his hat slightly with the neck of his bottle.

“Come on guys! As you have just said it’s my wedding day so let’s have a drink together before Jolene’s, sorry my wife’s,” at that he grinned, “bridesmaids hunt you down again.”

“What if I want to be hunted?” Cougar shrugged

“Hence why I said before. Pay attention Cougs.”

“Chinga tu madre, Cabrón.” Cougar smirked, causing both Pooch and Jensen to snort as they knew that insult very well having heard it a few times.

“I dare you to say it to her face.” Pooch looked at him as Cougar merely smirked, giving him a wink.

Pooch rolled his eyes, “what about you, Jensen?”

“I don’t wanna fuck Momma Pooch!”

“Why? What’s wrong with her?”  Pooch looked at him.

“What? Nothing, that’s just gross!” Jensen pulled a face.

“He’s considering a trip down memory lane instead.” Cougar teased and Pooch groaned.

“Dude! Seriously, you need to get over it!”

At that Jake turned to look at Cougar. “No I’m not, stop making shit up!” Cougar shrugged, smirking slightly and simply held his gaze as Jensen groaned. “Whatever, man.��

Cougar merely shrugged, as chilled as ever whilst Pooch laughed and handed them a drink from a passing tray. “Well, I think that deserves a toast. To the first married Loser…oh, wait, that would be me! And to Jensen who seriously needs to stop flogging a dead horse!”

Jensen took a deep breath, once upon a time he’d fully expected to be married by now, full disclosure, to Stella. Maybe a kid on the way if there wasn’t one around already. And that thought gave him a perfect way out of this current train of conversation.

“How long till Baby Pooch comes along?”

“Dude, if it was up to me he’d be on the way already!” Pooch grinned.

“He?” Jensen shook his head. “Nah man, you want a girl.”

“What? No! I want a little Pooch. Why would I want a girl?”

“A girl always loves her daddy.” Jensen shrugged. “Like Gracie, man, she’s awesome. There’s just something about seeing her with Robert. It’s cute.” He paused and grinned. “I want a girl. Imma call her Daisy.”

At that Cougar let out a snort as Pooch began to howl with laughter.

“Who’s Daisy?” Clay asked as he appeared with Roque, the pair of them smirking at something.

“Jensen’s first born. Apparently.” Pooch wiped his eyes.

“Wait, what?” Roque frowned and turned to Jensen. “You have a kid?”

“No, it’s a hypothetical one.” Jensen shook his head.

“Good.” Roque blew out a breath. “Do me a favour and never reproduce, Jensen.”

“Fuck you Roque,” Jake snapped back. “I’d make a great dad.”

“Yeah, well, you might wanna start ‘daddying’ that chick in the red dress over there, because she’s eye-fucking you shamelessly.” Roque nodded over his shoulder and Jake turned around. He gave the girl a once over, she was pretty but…his trail of thought died as he spotted Stella was stood alone at the bar. He necked his drink and holding up his glass he stated, “need a refill.” before he turned and headed over the room.

“Yeah, sure.” Pooch rolled his eyes as Cougar gave a low chuckle.

“Told ya.”

“Man he just can’t help himself, can he?” Roque shook his head as the three of them watched Jensen who approached Stella, his hand dropping to the small of her back as he leaned over to talk to her.

“Nope” Clay let out a sigh as Stell laughed at something Jake said. “Ahh, leave him to it, we can always do damage control, as usual where he is concerned.”

“How do you damage control a suicide bomb?” Pooch looked at Clay and Roque snorted.

“Pooch is right, dude is basically a hand grenade right now.”

“Don’t get involved guys.” Clay shook his head and Cougar nodded.

“I agree with boss. If Jensen’s gonna pull the pin, he can dive on it.”

“The problem will come when he tries to ‘pull her pin’ and she kicks his ass. But, fortunately I will be enjoying my wedding night.” Pooch shrugged. “See ya, Losers. Don’t have too much fun!”

The three of them watched him wander off over the room, shouting to someone, and Clay’s eyes fell on his date, Emma, who was smiling at him and waving from her spot at a table.

“I will also be enjoying Pooch’s wedding evening.” Clay winked and walked off.

Roque turned to look at Cougar. “Don’t even think of it…”

Cougar merely chuckled, tipped his hat and also wandered off, hands in his pockets as he sauntered over to a group of girls.

“That’s okay, just leave me here, I’m good!” Roque called after them before he let out a sigh. “Assholes.”

****

As the hours passed they drank, a lot. And naturally, where alcohol is involved inhibitions start to lower. There was a lot of fun being had, a lot of jokes being shared and other stupid activities being partaken in, such as a raucous drinking game Stella and Jake played against  Pooch’s uncle and his brother.

Which they lost, spectacularly.

Stella was feeling fairly light headed thanks to the mix of champagne, beer and cocktails running through her system, along with a few shots of tequila and somehow, she had no idea how, the two of them ended up on the dance floor, dancing to some really random shit when ‘La Bamba’ started playing. Jake grabbed Stella’s hand with a whoop of joy and started twirling her round, her face creasing in laughter as they let loose, Jake showing off his pretty neat footwork

“I thought you said he wasn’t taken?” The red headed bridesmaid gestured to Jake as she stood next to Pooch and he snorted.

“He’s not”

“Could have fooled me.”

“It’s complicated.” Pooch shrugged. “Long story short, she’s taken, he’s not. He wishes she wasn’t as it’s his fault she is.” He turned to the woman besides him. “If that makes any sense.”

From the look on her face, it made no sense at all, which wasn’t surprising to Pooch as he struggled to make sense of Jensen and Stella’s fucked up dynamic, but before she could reply there was a slap on his shoulder.

“Ten bucks says they end up in bed together,” Roque slurred.

“No way man.” Pooch shook his head, “she won’t cheat on Evan.”

“Fuck that guy,” Roque snorted. “Look, she’s hammered, here alone, I’m calling it.”

Pooch was about to tell Roque that Evan present or not, Stella would cut Jensen’s balls off if he tried anything when the familiar opening bars of ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ cut across the dance floor.

Both Stella and Jake paused a little, Jake running his hand through his hair as he gestured to the tables, clearly asking Stella if she wanted to quit dancing when she shook her head, giving him a smile, which Jensen returned as she took his hand, the pair of them beginning to sing and dance along.

“Twenty bucks,” Roque hiccupped, upping his stake.

“You’re on.” Pooch shook his hand as the bridesmaid snorted.

“And you’re losing.”

Pooch watched her go and then turned back to the dancefloor to see Jake and Stella now dancing pretty close...

This had always been their song. That was why Jensen had asked if she wanted to sit it out when it had come on, but she’d refused, and as such he’d been twirling her round to the music just like he always had. After one spin, they end up facing one another, singing very loudly as Jake threw his arms up and around, Stella snorting and laughing at his antics.

“Do you remember dancing to this at prom?” Jensen grinned as he continued to throw his arms around wildly, Stella shaking her head. He smiled, his mind straying back to that night, how amazing the entire evening had been, not least for the fact it had been the first time they’d fully given themselves to one another. He remembered laying there, after, as they both giggled and kissed and cuddled, thinking there and then that was it for him, there’d never be another girl who came close.

And then he’d pulled a Jensen, and ruined it.

“Of course I do.” Stella smiled. “Life was simpler back then, huh?”

“Isn’t it always?” Jensen asked as he spun her back round, pulling her in so her back was to his chest, hands dropping to her hips as the electric guitar solo struck up signalling the song was almost at and end. He felt Stella take a deep breath.

“Well we were kids.”

“But it was easy.” Jensen dropped his chin to her shoulder, his cheek brushing hers. “It was just you and me and the rest of our lives ahead.”

Stella tilted her head to look at him as the song faded into ‘I’ve Had The Time Of My Life’ and she pulled away, turning to face him with a shrug.

“Didn’t quite work out the way we thought though did it.” She asked, her hands sliding round his neck.

Jensen sighed, his fingers flexing against her hips. “I know. I fucked up.” He swallowed, the lump thick in his throat and Stella shook her head.

“Don’t.” She warned. “Not now.”

But Jensen wasn’t listening. He had to get it off his chest, he couldn’t stand the sick, hot feeling he got every time he thought about her and Evan. He needed to tell her, even if she told him there was no chance for them ever again, at least he’d know.

“No, just listen to me, Stelly, please.” His eyes locked onto hers. “There’s not a day goes by I don’t regret it. You know that, right? And no matter what happens I’ll always-“

He was cut off as Stella landed a harsh, stinging slap to his left cheek, his head whipping to the right. He took a deep breath, stunned, before he turned his head to face her, shocked splashed across his handsome features.

A few people around them stopped dancing, and Stella could hear a few hushed whispers, along with a louder shout of ouch, from who she had no idea. She opened her mouth to say something, the tears spilling from her eyes before she realised she needed to get out of there, and fast. So she did.

She hurried out of the room towards the hotel lobby and elevator, wiping the tears that were falling down her face. She knew she shouldn’t have done that, and maybe it was a little harsh, but the anger she felt towards Jake at that moment in time was insurmountable. He had left her, twice basically, and continued to fuck with her head, and then had the audacity to try and ...well, she didn't even know what he was trying to do. Her head was a mess, a fuckery of conflicting feelings, and she was as drunk as she could remember being in a long time, which wasn't helping.

She was also well aware that she'd just made a complete scene at Pooch's wedding, potentially seen by his entire family and friends, and that not only embarrassed her, it also made her feel like crap for being that asshole guest that everyone would be talking about for months to come.

*****

Jensen ignored both Roque and Clay who had crowded round to ask him what the hell he'd done to deserve a slap, but he simply pushed them out of the way, only one thing on his mind, getting to Stella and making her listen. He hurried out of the room, skidding to a slightly unsteady halt in the corridor before he jogged down the hallway and into the lobby where he spotted her at the elevator.

“Stel!" He yelled her name in an attempt to stop her, drawing intrigued and surprised looks from the guests and staff alike in the atrium. "Stella, wait!"

She didn't turn around, but he could tell she'd heard him, well, everyone in the lobby had heard him, but if that wasn't evidence enough to show that his calls across the foyer had reached her, the fact that she began angrily slamming her hand against the elevator call button certainly was. Jensen hurried across the shiny tiled surface, the heels of his dress shoes clicking as he went, expertly side stepping a couple who were walking through with cases, cursing as he saw Stella stepping into the elevator. He continued running, but just as he skidded to a halt he caught a glimpse of her angry tear stained face as the doors shut.

"Fuck!" He shouted, banging his hand on the wall just above the call panel. Spinning, he almost collided with a young couple who were looking at him, and the man shot him a filthy glare as he pushed between them, running to the stairs. He took them two, sometimes three at a time as he raced to the fourth floor in an attempt to catch her, and he burst into the corridor in time to see her stalking to her room.

He paused to take a breath, relief flooding his system at the fact he'd manage to catch her before she got to her room, before he realised he still had to stop her.

“Stel!” His shout was a desperate plea, and she spun to face him, her face surprised clearly at how he'd managed to get there so quick, and whilst she was still he took his chance. “Look, I’m sorry I made you upset but-“

With that she gave an angry growl almost as she turned around and carried on, the heel of her shoe catching a little as she did, causing her to stumble and Jensen felt his anger boiling over, this was fucking ridiculous, and here he was shouting down a hotel corridor, to her fucking back.

"For fucks sake, Estella, will you a stop being a bitch and just listen to me?"

At that she stopped dead and wheeled round, sheer venomous disdain etched across her face. "I am SICK of listening to you Jacob." She spat his full name back at him, in response to him using hers. "It’s always the fucking same. You know if anything I should have listened to you years ago when you dumped me and stayed the fuck away from you and your stupid-"

"You just slapped me, Stella!" Jensen exclaimed "In front of everyone in the fucking room! The least you can do is hear me out, I deserve that surely?"

"You don’t deserve shit." She snorted. "Now take a hint and leave me the fuck alone!"

"What, like your boyfriend?"

The words flew out of Jensen's mouth before he had even registered them, and from the look on Stella’s face she was as shocked as he was that he'd gone there. She took a deep breath, looked at the floor before she raised her head and stared at him, fresh tears in her eyes and Jensen sighed in frustration at himself.

"You know, just when I think you can’t go any lower." Her voice was soft and sad now, and Jensen stayed silent as he knew that had been a low blow. She took another shaky breath, shaking her head. "I’ve never come so close to hating you as I have right now. You are an asshole."

"Stell, look, I’m sorry. I shouldn't have said that..."

"Go to hell." She stated, her voice flat as she turned and carried on walking towards her room.

"Cougar told me what Evan said." Jensen blurted out, more words he hadn't planned on saying, and once more she stopped dead.

"Fucking-"

"Did you say it back?"

There was no answer.

"You didn't, did you?" Jensen continued to press as she started walking towards her again. "That's why he isn't here, aint it? Because you couldn't say it, and you fell out, and-"

"You tell me," she stopped at the door to her room, foraging in her purse for her key, "I mean, clearly you have all the answers and know everything about how I feel and-"

"Damnit Stella, just-"

"You know what?" She spun to face him as he stopped besides her. "Evan might not be perfect but he’s never dumped me for no fucking reason, then used me as and when he wanted. But, I suppose that’s on me because I was never strong enough to tell you to fuck off and now that I am, you don’t like it." She raised her hand and jabbed him in the chest. "You don’t like the fact I’m not there when you want to fuck something because I’ve got someone else in my life-" another jab "-someone who… who loves me and I-."

"And you what Stel?" Jensen interrupted her rant with a snort and she fell silent, her eyes flashing. "See you can’t even say it, can you?"

Stella glared at him, a look that would make anyone else quiver in their shoes but not him, not now. He was too far gone trying to make his point, trying to make her see his point, to care how angry he was making her.

“Just admit it Stella," he arched his eyebrow, stepping forward. He planted one hand by her head, palm flat on the surface of the door as he leaned closer to her, his voice level and even as he stated, “you don’t love him, you never will.”

“Fuck you.” Stella stumbled over her words a little, before her hands planted on his chest and she shoved him. Jake stepped back, slightly off balance more to the alcohol in his system than the force of her push, but he steadied himself, moving forwards again. She made to shove him once more but this time he was ready, and his hands caught her wrists, fingers curling round them as her room key fell to the floor.

“Fuck me yourself.” He shot. At that she shook her head and scoffed. “What’s the matter, Stel?” Jake’s voice dropped a little as his grip around her wrists tightened, and he pressed her further into the door, his head dropping, face inches from hers. “Scared you might like it, still?”

“Asshole.” Her voice was nothing more than a whisper and she pulled her arms violently to the side, Jake letting go. Once more she pushed him, this time he stepped away so she could bend and retrieve her room key from the floor, which took her a few attempts, her hand and eye coordination impaired from the drink. Eventually, she grabbed it and stood, a little unsteadily, turning her back to him.

As she slid the card into the slot, Jake was once more in her space behind her, his hands softly on her waist and he leaned towards her, his breath hot on her ear.

“Don’t be a chicken, Stel.” His voice was gravelly and he braced, waiting for another blow, but it never came. She swallowed a little, her chest heaving, and she made no attempt to stop his advances. She'd let go of what she had to say, and now she was physically proving him right in his assumptions and her denials

Emboldened by this, Jensen placed a soft kiss to her neck as she pushed the door to her room open, causing her breath to catch in her throat. She turned to him, her eyes locking into his and Jensen could see the conflict behind them. There was a war going on between her head and her heart and, had he been sober, Jensen probably would have walked away, knowing what he was doing was pretty shitty and unfair. But he wasn’t sober. He was drunk, and not just on alcohol but sheer desire for the woman stood in front of him. His Stelly. The girl he still loved.

As her large, clear blue eyes bounced across each of his whilst she grappled with her internal turmoil, Jake stood stock still waiting for her to make her move. He took a deep breath, expecting her to shove him away for that final time, and he would have taken it then, having already proven his point to both her and him, but then he saw it, that familiar darkening of her eyes.

The spark Stell still carried for him, that small flicker of a flame that for so long had been starved of oxygen, suddenly exploded and she reached out, grabbing his loose tie, bringing his lips crashing down to hers. Jake surged forward, pushing her backwards as he continued to kiss her, kicking the door to her room shut with his foot before he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close,  pouring every single bit of emotion and frustration he’d felt over the past few months into the kiss.

It was urgent, it was desperate, and the pair of them stumbled around the hotel room, Stella pushing his jacket off and tossing it to the floor somewhere before she yanked off his tie, her fingers moving to undo his shirt. Jake's hands fumbled with the floaty tulle skirt of her dress as he pulled it up around her waist, trailing hot kisses down the side of her neck whilst Stella pushed his shirt down his arms where he shrugged it off. Her hands planted on his chest as she smoothed her delicate palms over the solid planes of muscle, sliding them down over his defined abs and he gave a soft hiss as he felt her nimble fingers undoing the buckle of his belt. In a quick move that made her squeak slightly, he reached down and grabbed her ass, hauling her off the floor, her legs wrapping around his waist as he backed her up against the large sliding doors which led out to the balcony. His lips pressed back to hers whilst her back hit the thick glass a little harder than he had intended, drawing a soft grunt from her mouth as it rattled in the frame.

“Ow.” she mumbled against his mouth, grabbing a fist full of his hair and tugging harshly so he looked at her. He gave an apologetic grin she looked at him for a moment before her hands moved and plucked off his glasses, in a movement that really shouldn’t be hot but for some reason it always was. He took them from her, depositing them in his pocket as his lips gently latched onto her neck, sucking at the pulse point. A barely there whimper sounded in his ear as he nipped at her skin and his attention moved downwards, hot, open mouthed kisses traced down her sternum which was exposed between the deep V neckline of her dress. A low moan left her mouth and her hips pushed down against the bulge in his trousers and he pressed into her, giving her the friction she was asking for. Her hands skimmed down his spine, her fingers making his skin burn and prickle as they danced over his back, coming to rest on his broad shoulders , digging into his muscles as Jake pushed his hips up again, grinding against her.

Neither of them were thinking straight, it was way past that point. This was a pure, carnal desire between two, once-upon-a-time long term lovers, both desperate to scratch that deep itch that they still had for one another. But still Jake paused, pulling back so he could take a moment to look at her. She was slightly dishevelled, strands of her hair had fallen loose from her up-do, framing her heart shaped face. Her cheeks were flushed, lips swollen from his kisses, but it was her eyes which caught him. He'd always loved her eyes and now they were staring at him with a wild, lust filled look that he knew so well. He swallowed a little, before she moved her hands to his cheeks, pulling his face back to hers. Jake moaned into this kiss and his hands moved round her back, her feet landed on the floor as her back slipped slightly against the smooth surface she had been pressed against. Their mouths remained open, pressed together, sharing air as Jensen slid the zipper of her dress down, causing it to gape a little at the front and he reached up, thumbs gently running on the underside of the straps before he slid them down her arms, placing a soft kiss to each of her shoulders in turn. As he pushed the soft, blue chiffon of her dress down to her waist he couldn’t help the carnal growl that rumbled in his throat as he saw she wasn't wearing a bra.

"Fuck, Stel. You're beautiful. You’ve always been beautiful." He muttered, his lips back on hers as his hands cradled her face. She stepped out of her dress, his hands moving down to grip her hips, fingers curling over the softness of her flesh as he pushed her back against the cold surface of the window. His lips claimed hers again before he moved his mouth, nibbling his way down the column of her throat, tongue dipping into the hollow at the base of her neck, teeth grazing her collar bone as he mapped his way down her body in a way he had done so many times before.

Stella felt Jensen's hands sliding down her bare thighs as he sunk to the floor and her brain had barely registered the fact he was on his knees, when he hooked one leg over his shoulder, shifting her soaked panties to one side. At the first touch his mouth made to her inner thigh she sighed in pleasure, the raw scratch of his short beard a contrast to the warm, softness of his mouth as he moved upwards before he finally gave one long lick over her sex, dipping his tongue into her a little, causing her to cry out in pleasure, one hand falling to his head, the other palm slapping against the glass surface behind her. He repeated his action, his tongue flicking up through her sensitive outer lips and this time he sucked on her clit, causing her back to arch, her had dropping back in sheer pleasure as her shoulders pressed further onto the glass in an attempt to keep herself up-right, all the time writhing at his actions.

His tongue and lips worked in tandem, un-doing her lap by lap, all the time she was vaguely aware of the fact she was begging him not to stop, her words punctuated by gasps and pants, manicured nails digging into his scalp as her hand curled over his head, fingers tangling into his short hair. It wasn’t long before Stella felt that familiar tightening across her stomach and her leg trembled slightly as she fought to keep herself upright.

“Fuck, JJ,” she stuttered, as he let out a groan, the vibration so pleasurable it was almost painful as his tongue dipped in and out of her entrance, continuing to fuck her the way he had always been able to do. The burning in her stomach suddenly took over her entire body and she gave a loud cry as she came, her head falling forward before it rolled back again against the window with a hard thud as the world around her went silent. She grasped Jensen’s shoulder as her leg gave way and he quickly stood up, catching her easily, a grin on his face as she opened her eyes and looked at him, her pupils blown with lust, her thighs once more locked round his waist. He kissed her again, the kiss absolutely filthy as he stepped back and turned them, crossing the room where he dropped her gently onto the bed.

She knelt up on the soft mattress, her now almost completely loose hair falling over her face as she hooked her fingers into the belt loops of his dress slacks and pulled him to her. In one smooth, fluid movement of her hands she’d undone his flies before she slid his pants and boxers down in one swoop. She dropped her head and took him in her mouth without so much as a warning, her eyes locked onto his.

“Shit, Stel” he mumbled, his hands tangling into her hair, guiding her softly as she moved, her head bobbing back and forth before she pulled away to lick along the base of his shaft, tracing the vein in the underneath, and Jensen knew then if she carried on he was going to blow his load before he’d even gotten to the main event.

“Get up here.” His voice was low as he cupped her face and guided her back up, kissing her again. With a gentle shove, Jensen pushed her back on the bed, stepping out of his remaining clothes before he crawled over her, sliding her lace underwear down her long, smooth legs. He didn’t give her a chance to say anything before he gave her ankles a soft tug, pulling her down further on the bed, crawling between her thighs, his mouth tracing its way up from her belly to her breasts which were heaving, nipples pebbled in excitement. Knowing exactly what would leave her nothing short of a wreck underneath him, he turned his attention to her right breast, lapping and sucking, grazing with his teeth whilst his hand palmed at her left. She let out a soft, breathy moan, which was music to Jensen's ears as his mouth and hand traded places. He worked her over, till she was begging to feel him where she needed him, her knees clenching around his slim waist, desperate for something to help the burning that was between her legs. He shifted his position a little, propping himself up so he could kiss her deeply again, hands on either side of her face as he buried himself inside of her, with a loud groan.

“God you feel so good, Stel.” His mouth moved over her jaw to her ear as he praised her, nipping at the lobe. At his words Stella gave a loud groan as he thrust up into her again, deeply, burying himself to the hilt before he rotated his hips in a dirty grind, a move he knew drove her wild. She cried out, clawing at his back and he groaned as she tipped her hips up to meet his.

"You know,” another thrust, "he’ll never be able,” another thrust, “to fuck you the way I can," he rotated his hips for another grind which caused her once more to cry out, nails biting at his back as he drove a little deeper, "because he doesn’t know you like I do."

To prove his point, one hand moved and gently wrapped round the front of her throat, giving the gentlest of squeezes but he knew that would send her feral. It was something he had discovered a long time ago, being so in control the rest of the time, Stella loved when he would take over like this, dominate her a touch and whisper cheeky, dirty little things into ear. It had always driven her crazy and tonight was no exception. He’d succeeded in throwing fuel onto the fire that was already raging, and a sharp, strangled wail of his name stuttered from her lips as he felt her fluttering around him.

"You were made for me, Baby Girl." Jensen’s own voice was a low growl as his hips picked up their pace, Stella's head falling back onto the pillows as Jake's mouth claimed hers again, the kiss sloppy and desperate matching the rhythm of his thrusts.

Because he was. He was desperate for this woman. Desperate like he’d never been desperate before.

“Jakey.” She keened underneath him, hands still clawing the muscles of his back which were flexing under her touch, equally as needy for him as he was her. He reached down to hook a leg over his shoulder causing her to mewl loudly at the change of angle and depth as he continued to drive into her like his life depended on it. He bent over, mouth swallowing another loud moan as he did, feeling her sweat soaked skin slick against his.

“Fuck, baby I’m close,” he stuttered, his hips snapping back and forth, “see what you do to me?”

Her beautiful eyes were wide, her mouth pressed to his as she let out a broken lament as her walls fluttered around him again, causing him to almost purr in delight as she did. She was close, so fucking close. And it felt good. As his cock dragged in and out of her, the feel of him sliding up against her spot had her worked into a complete frenzy, and she was teetering right on that edge.

“Don’t stop,” she panted, her head falling back further onto the pillow as she grasped his arms whilst he continued to fuck her into the mattress. And then, her stomach tightened and she felt the rush of pleasure that she knew was the end, beginning to wash over her. "Oh, God, Jake...I'm..."

"Come on, Stel." Jake growled, his hips still pumping in and out of her "Cum for me, Baby, just like you always do."

At his words, she gave a low, sultry whimper and her eyes fluttered shut, nails digging into his biceps as she shuddered underneath him, her back arching as her walls clamped down on him, milking his cock and that was it. He was done for, just like he always was when it came to this woman.

“Shit, Stel," he groaned as he felt his abs tighten as he came with a force he hadn't felt in a long time. His hips faltered as he cried out, shooting his load straight into her, before after one final, deep thrust he collapsed on top of her, his face buried into her neck.

The room was silent bar the sounds of their deep, heavy breathing as they both came down, fighting for control. Jake felt her hands gently move round to tangle in his hair, nails scratching his scalp and he raised his head, eyes still closed, enjoying her touch.

“Jake,” she finally whispered, still slightly out of breath but he didn't miss the tremble in her voice and he raised his head, opening his eyes to see her looking back at him. Her cheeks were flushed, hair all over the place and fuck, he’d never see anything so damned beautiful in his life as her undone underneath him. But her eyes, they were misting over with tears and he swallowed, shaking his head.

"Stel… " he began, and she turned her head away from his, screwing her eyes shut as her face crumpled.

"Fuck, what did we just do?" She whispered, opening her eyes and she looked at the wall to her right for a moment before Jensen tipped her face back round to him.

"Don't." He shook his head, pressing a kiss to the bridge of her nose. "Don't do this, not now." He pressed their foreheads together, his nose bumping hers and she gave a quiet sniff as he pressed his lips to hers softly.

“Do you want me to go?” He didn’t really want to ask the question, for fear of her answer but she shook her head, her eyes a little lost as she looked at him.

“No, I don’t. And that’s the problem.” She whispered.

He wanted to try and assure her that it was all okay and that they hadn’t done anything wrong but his words died in his throat, because he knew technically they had. Whatever was going on with her and Agent Shitname, she was still with him, meaning she’d cheated and he knew that would be cutting her up inside.

And now Jensen felt like shit for putting her in that position.

He gently pecked her lips again and with a soft movement he pulled out from her and lay on his back, his hand rubbing his chest. After a little pause he felt Stella turn into him and her head lay on his chest, his arm curling round her shoulder as she sniffed a little, turning her face into his sternum.

“It’s gonna be okay, Stelly.” He pressed a kiss to her head.

It was lame, but it was all he could thing to say. He wasn’t surprised when she didn’t reply, and there wasn’t another word spoken between the two of them before they both fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.

****

Stella woke the next morning, her bare back pressed into a hard, muscled chest and didn't even need to turn round to know whose arm was thrown round her waist. As the memories of what had happened the night before flooded her brain she squeezed her eyes closed, taking a deep, shuddering breath, fighting the urge to snuggle further back into the arms of the man she knew so well. Instead, she gently untangled herself from Jensen and without a glance back headed quietly into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. She glanced in the mirror and grimaced as she saw the previous day’s make up was streaked all over her face. Grabbing her cleanser from her toiletries bag she wiped it away, tossing the cotton pads into the trash before she turned on the shower and stepped into the stream. She stood there for a while, her face titled to meet the water as it beat down on her, washing away the silent tears that were pouring down her cheeks.

Ten minutes or so later she stepped out, almost working on auto pilot and dried herself off, before grabbing one of the hotel provided towel robes. Once wrapped in it, she squeezed the water out of her hair, dragged a brush through it and then opened the door.

Just as expected, Jensen was still flat out in the bed, although he'd now turned onto his back. It had always been a joke between the two of them that he could sleep through a damned earthquake after a heavy drinking session, yet never failed to hear his alarm. Stella took a moment to study his face, a face she knew by heart, every freckle and line, the curve of his nose and angle of his jaw. Biting her lip, she moved towards the back of the room, made herself a coffee as quietly as she could before she retrieved her phone from her purse that had been tossed down carelessly the night before and headed out onto the balcony, closing the doors behind her.

She sank into one of the chairs, tucking her legs under her and glanced at the screen. There wasn't much battery left but she had a couple of missed calls. One from Clay and another form Cougar, both probably wondering where she had bailed to, and one from Evan. She swallowed as she also spotted she had a message from him too.

Ev- Hey, Pumpkin. Look, I'm so sorry about how things went down the other night. I overreacted, and that's on me. I really hope you're having a good time. Please call me when you can, and we can talk when you're home xx

Stella felt the guilt twist in her gut even more and she gave a sigh, tossing her phone onto the table.

"He’ll never be able to fuck you the way I can, because he doesn’t know you like I do."

Jakes voice rattled around her head and she took a dep breath, looking over the balcony down at the pool area below. Try as she might, she couldn't even deny he was right. The sex with Evan wasn't bad, in fact she would go as far as saying it was pretty damned good, likely to be earth shattering to most women. But, to her, there had always been something that held her back.

And now she was forced to admit head on what she'd been trying to deny for months. It was because he wasn't Jake.

Jake Jensen had worked her way into his heart from the day they had met when they were merely eleven years old, and try as she might she couldn't shake him. That year they had been apart, she'd tried so hard, and had been sure she'd managed, and then she'd seen him and they'd fucked, and fallen back into that awful cycle of being together but not being together.

She couldn't stay with Evan. She'd known that even before last night had happened but the fact she'd basically opened her legs so easily for Jensen went to prove that she didn't love Evan, and she wasn't sure she ever would.

She took a shuddering breath and then her attention jerked upwards as Jake opened the balcony door, his hair mussed, top half bare as he rubbed his eyes, his glasses in his hand.

"Hey." he offered, almost shyly and Stella gave him a nod.

"Hi."

There was an awkward silence as he sat down on the chair opposite her, slipping his glasses onto his nose. He watched as she avoided his gaze, glancing over the balcony, occasionally looking at her hands which were worrying one another. Eventually, he could stand it no more and he reached over to take her hands in his.

"Stel, look, last night..."

"Last night was a mistake." She spoke, her eyes locking onto his. Jensen felt his gut churn, her words an icy blade digging into his heart.

"So, you’re just gonna pretend like it didn't happen and go back to that prick?" Jensen looked at her, his voice measured and Stella shook her head.

"No, I can't do that. Not now. Me and Evan are over, I'm gonna tell him when we get back. I don't love him, you're right. Because if I did I would never have given in and slept with you." She licked her lips.

Jake swallowed and looked down at his hands which were clasped around hers before he raised his head to stare her straight in the eye. "I'm sorry." he said eventually. "I'm sorry if you felt like, well, like I pushed you..."

"No, that's not what I'm saying." She squeezed his fingers. "I just, me and you, we can't keep doing this. We go round and round in circles and…" She took a shuddering breath as she trailed off, unable to articulate what she was trying to say.

"No, I get it." Jake gave her a small smile. He let go of her hands and stood up. "I should probably erm, go,” he gestured to the door, “I need to shower before breakfast and the taxi to the airport arrives."

"Okay." She nodded.

She watched him open the door to head inside, before he paused and turned to face her.

"I know you said what happened last night was a mistake, but I just want you to know that I wouldn’t change it for the world."

With that he gave her a final smile and headed back into the hotel room. Stella could see him through the glass doors as he hastily dressed, before without so much as another word he left, and as she heard the door to her room close, the tears once more began to fall.

**** Chapter 7 Part 3

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

The gang on their wedding days

[Been meaning to post this one for a while — since I’m applying to get married today, now seems like the time.]

Jake steps into the room like a child wandering into his parents’ dinner party.  His bow tie is askew, seams of his jacket misaligned for all that it’s a custom-tailored tuxedo.  If the buttons of his shirt aren’t one hole off from their intended placement, they still manage to convey that impression from across the room.

Rachel feels a rush of affection for him, her first best friend.  The boy who’d run and fought and splashed through mud with her, back before adults started telling her to be careful of her dress and him to be careful of her.  Only he could show up to his own wedding looking like he’s ready to be expelled at any moment.  Only Jake.

And yes, she gets mushy at weddings.  Sue her.

Tom steps up next to Jake, far more elegant in an off-the-rack suit.  Some people actually got the fashionable genes in this family.

Rachel surges across the room.  Tom gets a quick hug, and then she turns all her attention on Jake.

“You only have to look nice for the next three hours,” she tells him briskly.

“Three.  Hours,” Jake repeats.

With expert motions she realigns his… everything, until at the very least the clothes are sitting the way the tailor intended.  She tries to finger-comb his hair, thankful for the heels that put her at an inch above his height, but it’s obvious that he has also been running his hands through it and the style is hopelessly deformed.

“You can survive anything for three hours,” Rachel says as she does all this.  “I’ve seen you do it.”

“But if I mess it up—”

“Then stop, go back, and do whatever it is over.  We’re not exactly on a time pressure, here.  Nobody’s gonna die if you trip at the altar or forget your lines.”

“Okay.”  He stuffs his hands in his pockets, deforming his jacket again.  “Okay.”

She can see him starting to relax as he glances around, shoulders coming down.  Cassie’s place isn’t quite like they remember — it’s been repaired since the war, the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic expanded to nearly five times its original size — but it still feels as close to home as any place does.

“Have a glass of water,” Rachel says.

“But what if I have to pee during the ceremony?”

She rolls her eyes.  “Babysit him,” she mouths at Tom.

Tom gives her a gesture in response that approximates What do you think I’ve BEEN doing?  Whether he means the last four hours or the last twenty-six years is, really, a moot point.

Rachel leaves him to it, and charges off to go check on the others.

************

Marco leans against a tent pole, trying to roll one of the rings across his fingers the way Vegas poker players do with chips.  So far it’s not going well.

“Canapé,” Ax is saying carefully.  He attempts to lean next to Marco, nearly going all the way over.  “Can-nap-peee?”

“Uh, no.”  Marco catches the ring as it makes its third or fourth bid for freedom, stuffing it back into his pocket.  “That…”  He tilts his champagne flute to point.  “…is a canopy.  Or a chuppah, I guess.  Canopee.  Canapay is the little pastry thing you’ve already filched in bulk, don’t think I didn’t notice.”

“Ah,” Ax says.  And then, “This temperature and rate of precipitation is within optimal survival parameters for humans, is it not?”

“Nuh-uh, Ax-Man, I will not be pulled in by your smooth small-talk skills.”

“Did you not wish to make conversation?”  Ax frowns.  And then he stuffs another canapé in his mouth.  “This is making conversation,” he adds through the mouthful.

Marco squints.  “Is it, though?”

“It is indeed.  Did you know that the rotating-wheel can opener was patented in 1870?”

Marco’s response to that one gets cut off when Rachel comes charging across the open tent space like a small freight train.  Tobias is balanced on her shoulder, flaring slightly as she runs.  She yanks the champagne flute out of his hand.  Marco makes a squeak of protest, but Rachel just sets it firmly on a bussing tray and turns back to glare at him.

“What did we agree?” she asks sternly.

Marco rolls his eyes.  “That I’d stay sober-ish for the toast, and not do anything too embarrassing.”

“You’re the best man.  You have one job, Marco.”

“Excuse you, the best man’s one job was that banger of a bachelor-slash-ette party we did Wednesday night.  Did you like the part where we all dived out of a helicopter and flew clear through the lower atmosphere to that rooftop bar?  Because—”

“So you got the drinking out of your system.  You promised.”

“Sober-ish, come on, it’s just one wine-spritzer-thing!”

Rachel turns away from him, looking Ax over.  “You realize you’re going to have to demorph and remorph at some point before the ceremony, right?” she asks.  “And that when you do, someone’s going to have to go through the whole kit and caboodle of getting you into that tux all over again?”

“Yes,” Ax says.  “Yes, I do.”

She stares at him.  He stares back, looking as innocent as it is possible to look while also chewing three jalapeño pastries at the same time.

«You should probably just listen to her,» Tobias suggests.  «By the way, where’s your date?  Not that I quake in fear for the wedding cake or anything, but, uh…»

“Menderash has been instructed not to eat anything on a human plate without seeking my opinion first,” Ax says, somewhat stiffly.

“Yeah,” Marco says.  “So far he’s only eaten two earthworms, a candle, some decorative sand, and part of Collette’s bouquet.  You two have nothing to worry about.”

“Part of Collette’s bouquet?” Rachel demands.  “We can’t send a bridesmaid up the aisle without—”

“Already replaced it, I am on top of this.”  Marco flips his hair back from his face.  “I am a flower master.”

«So where is Menderash now?» Tobias asks.

“Helping Cassie’s mom,” Marco explains.

«And Cassie’s mom is…?»

“Delivering a baby cow.”

Rachel makes a noise like she’s choking on air.  “Doesn’t Michelle have vet techs for that kind of thing?  She’s supposed to be getting ready, not, not…”

“It’s cool,” Marco says.  “She’s got her makeup on, her hair is done perfectly, she’s got an apron-thing to keep her dress nice and gloves over her nails, it was a breech birth so they needed a real doctor and Walter was busy supervising the caterers, she’s got Menderash and Steve helping her out—”

“She kidnapped Jake’s dad?” Rachel demands overtop the continuing babble.

“He said he had never delivered an offspring outside of his own species before, and expressed deep curiosity on the subject,” Ax offers.  “Menderash is a certified medic with andalite training, so they should be well-equipped to assist.”

Marco makes jazz hands in the air.  “It’s a free pre-dinner show!  Cow birth.  Better than icebreakers.”

There’s a very long pause.  Rather than dignify that with a response, Rachel turns and stalks away.

Marco watches her go, halfway awed at her ability to navigate an open yard so well while not only wearing six-inch heels and a multi-layer floor-length dress, but also balancing an enormous updo on top of her head and a red-tailed hawk on her left shoulder.

“Is it just me, or did Jake and Cassie make a monster when they asked her to be maid of honor?” Marco says.

«You wanna take over her responsibilities, then?»

Of course Tobias heard that.  Stupid hawk hearing.

“No thank you!” Marco yells after them.

Cassie, meanwhile, is currently picking her way across the open space under the tent, bunches of dress hiked up to above her knees.  This last is, of course, the source of Rachel’s consternation.

“Here.”  Rachel attempts to pull the wads of skirt out of Cassie’s hands and drop them back to the ground.  “You’re going to wrinkle it.”

Cassie stubbornly refuses to let go.  “You told me not to let it drag on the ground.  If I let it down, it’ll drag.”

“Cassie, Cassie.  That is a hand-tailored Christian Dior gown that I commissioned to be custom-fitted to your measurements.  There is no way that it is too long if you let it…”

Cassie drops the bunches of tulle.  The end of the skirt falls all the way down, where the bottom two inches rest, unmistakably, on the muddy ground.

Rachel somehow manages to wince with her entire body while also not moving at all.

«It’s a look,» Tobias suggests, by way of consolation.  «Kind of.»

“How…?”  Rachel peers closer at Cassie.  “Wait, where are your shoes?”

Cassie shrugs, embarrassed.  “Uh, inside somewhere.  I was having trouble balancing in them.”

“Well that’s why!”  Rachel’s emphatic gesture almost dislodges Tobias.  With years’ experience, he dodges her waving arm and retains his perch.  “The dress was tailored to fit you with shoes on.”

“They were getting stuck in the grass—”

“They’re kitten heels!”

“Yeah, and they’re still heels.”  Cassie looks stuck somewhere between amusement and embarrassment.  “I don’t really do heels.  Sorry.”

“Hey Tobias?” Rachel says, as if to thin air.

«Nuh-uh, leave me out, I want no part in—»

“Remember me telling Cassie that we should really try the whole outfit on before the wedding?”

«Uh.  Yes?»

“Do you also remember Cassie agreeing to it, and then the day of, haring off to go try and save a bunch of vultures instead?  Remember how we tried to reschedule, and there was that ALF mission on the same day so she never showed?  Remember that?”

Cassie clears her throat loudly.  “I think it’s a very nice dress.  It’s fluffy and also comfortable, and look!”  She tucks her hands away.  “It has pockets.”

«Vultures are actually fundamental for waste disposal in ecosystems all over the world, and the poisons used on livestock—»

“Do you think you could at least wear the shoes long enough to go up the aisle?” Rachel asks.  “And maybe even for a few photos as well?”

 “Uh.  I’ll try.”  Cassie hikes her skirt back up (Rachel full-body winces again) and starts picking her way across the lawn back toward the house.

“There’s no way I’m going to be able to un-wrinkle it in time,” Rachel mutters.

«Yep.  So you’re just going to have to live with it.»

“I hate living with it.”

«Wanna go check on whatever monstrosity of a replacement bouquet Marco probably inflicted on Collette?»

“Fine, fine.”

**************

Cassie walks up the aisle in a custom-tailored gown, an edelweiss and valerian flower crown, and slightly muddy Timberland work boots.  The sole on the boots is apparently tall enough that the skirt does, not, in fact, drag on the ground or get tangled in her feet.

«Somewhere out there,» Tobias comments, «Christian Dior is crying into an overpriced silk handkerchief and doesn’t even know why.»

Marco has never more deeply felt the utter unfairness of Tobias being able to use thought-speak while human, because they’re currently standing at the front of the aisle and he can’t even respond.

But Rachel should still count this one as a win.  The gown looks stunning on Cassie, lacy and princess-ruffled while also having the kind of practical cut that allows her freedom of movement.  And, Marco notes with a smirk, freedom to wear her morphing leotard underneath; the purple spandex is just visible peeking out from underneath the white silk neckline.  He’s got morphing clothes under his own tux — never leaves home without ‘em — so really, he can’t judge.

Plus, Michelle’s got her dress and just her dress on by now, and her locs are still tucked into their silver-beaded updo.  Really, the cow birth was just a momentary inconvenience.

“Hi,” Jake whispers, when Cassie reaches him.

She grabs his hand.  Then she stuffs her bouquet into one of his jacket pockets, and grabs his other hand.  “Hi,” she whispers back.

“This is pretty exciting, huh?”

“Yep.”

Ax clears his throat delicately, and they stop talking.

“There is an Earth tradition,” Ax says to the entire assembly, “that the captain of any ship may perform a wedding ceremony at will.”

In the front row of seats, Michelle laces her fingers through Walter’s.

“Although there is no legal precedent for this custom,” Ax continues, “it is nevertheless possible to become ordained as a wedding officiant if one just completes the proper applications.”

One of Jake’s great-aunts mutters something loudly about the lack of rabbi.  Sarah leans over and kicks her in the ankle.  Rachel beams her approval.

“Therefore, I am here to make official through human custom that which has already been forged through affection and respect.”  Ax looks from Jake to Cassie and back.  “The bond between warriors who have fought and faced death together can be neither lessened nor improved upon by mere ceremony.  The honor shared between two such beings who have chosen to risk loving each other in spite of knowing the reality of loss is one that we recognize today.  We can recognize it, but not sanctify it beyond the sanctity of what these two humans have already shared.”

Rachel lets out an audible sniffle.  Marco does his best not to smirk at her.  It’s not that sappy a speech.

“I have been assured that the bond between two humans who like each other far exceeds the bond between those who merely enjoy each other’s company,” Ax says.

And now Marco has to fight the urge to bang his head against the nearest support pole.

“I have witnessed this myself.”  Ax stares around the room.  “I have witnessed compromise and forgiveness, compassion and challenge between these two.  I therefore believe it is correct and proper that this bond be formally recognized by the State of California.  Is there anything you would wish to add?” he says to Jake and Cassie.

Cassie leans up on tip-toe.  Jake bends to meet her.

She whispers her vows into his ear, not bothering to share with the rest of the gathering.  After a moment, tears on his face, he leans in and whispers back.

Recognizing his cue, Marco grabs the rings and passes them over.  They’re boring-looking, in his opinion, plain silicon bands without anything shiny.  But they’re also easy to morph, easy to shovel manure while wearing, easy to wear without catching on anything.  Very Cassie.  Very Jake.

Speaking of which, the Timberlands prove to be a good call.  When the time comes, Cassie stomps the shit out of that ceremonial glass.

**********

In a slight break with tradition, Rachel and Tobias are actually the first ones to go back down the aisle.  Then Marco wheels Collette out, followed by Tom and Melissa, then Jake and Cassie go.  That way, Rachel’s got time to sprint back over to the main tent and check on the banquet.

Most of the tables are arranged correctly, the centerpieces in place and the cards arrayed.  Rachel does a mad sprint of the room, straightening decorations and confirming with the caterers that they got all the instructions about who needs what in their diet.  Between the number of kosher eaters on Jake’s side and the number of vegetarians on Cassie’s, Rachel made the call to go all the way to a fully vegan buffet.  That’s probably going to get some of the relatives complaining about kids these days and rabbit food, but there’s no pleasing everyone.

Rachel deftly switches a few of the placecards, thereby putting Jordan on point to deal with their great-aunt and grandmother who have both already overindulged at the open bar, muttering an apology as she does.  She puts Tobias to work making sure the bows on the backs of chairs are straight, and rushes up to the long table at the front to confirm that the armless chair meant to accommodate Cassie’s bulky skirt is in the correct place.

D.J. is here, playlist at the ready.  Dance floor is clear of grass.  Weather’s holding, but tent covers are on standby.

Slightly sweaty, she rushes back out with a chair under each arm just in time to catch the guests coming across the lawn.

“Everyone except the parents, head off to the cocktail hour!” she calls.  “Jake, Cassie, moms and dads, with me.”

While Marco’s date (a photographer named Dakota) sets up the camera, Rachel goes into a flurry of motion straightening bowties, adjusting hairdos, and touching up makeup.  Steve’s got a spot of cow blood on his forehead, she discovers to her horror, and by the time she’s done scrubbing that off Jake’s managed to get his tuxedo jacket misaligned again.  Finally she steps back, breathing hard, and nods to Dakota.

Everyone smiles.  The camera goes off.

“Okay.”  Rachel claps her hands loudly, because Jake and Cassie are looking ready to stand up and go join the reception.  “That’s one down, just twenty-three to go.”

********

Rather than tossing her whole bouquet all at once, Cassie picks it apart and gives a single flower to every single guest she can find.  When the bouquet itself runs out, she disassembles her flower crown and hands that out piece by piece until everyone’s got at least one blossom.  It just seems fairer that way, she says when Rachel asks.

Several of the traditions, Rachel reflects, seem to be lost on Jake and Cassie.  They cut the first piece of cake… and immediately hand it to Ax.  And then they cut the second piece, and the third piece, and keep right on cutting slices of cake and handing them out to people until Rachel has to step in and wrest the knife away.  She’s grateful that they refrain from any of the food-fighting nonsense, since both their wedding outfits are headed to a charity auction first thing tomorrow morning, but honestly.  They’re supposed to eat the first two slices, not drop half a tier of cake into the black hole of hungry andalite.

Cake served, Marco clinks a fork against a glass.  “Ladies, gentlemen, and proletariats!”

There’s a general murmur as people look around, trying to spot who’s speaking.

With a hand from Jake, Marco climbs bodily onto the banquet table.  “Everyone!” he shouts, and now they’re all looking at him.  At him, and at the champagne flute in his hand.  “Jake and Cassie!”

It gets a polite round of applause.

“Gotta start at the beginning, right?”  Marco looks around the room, grinning.  “So there I am, some snot-nosed three-year-old, minding my own business.  And this chubby, dorky-looking little white kid comes running up to me and is like…”  He leans in.  “‘You wanna be my best friend?’”

He grins at Jake, who is flushing bright red.

“I shit you not, that was his opening line.  ‘You wanna be my best friend?’  So I’m like…”  Marco pantomimes reeling back in shock.  “I dunno man, seems like a lot of commitment to make to a total stranger.  You want explore our options first, maybe get a prenup, see if we’re compatible?  I mean, for all I know five years from now you’re gonna find some younger, hotter best friend and then there I’ll be out on my ear with nothing to show for it.”

There’s a smattering of laughter throughout the room.  Marco visibly draws strength from it.

“But you know what?”  Marco leans down to look around, smiling like he’s got a secret.  “Little dork kept right on showing up to my house and letting me use his television and getting his mom to give me fluffer nutters, and next thing I know it turns out he really is my best friend.  I think he was onto something.

“Anyway, you think that one was bad…”  He raises his eyebrows.  “Couple years later, there we are in first grade, and this girl in teeny-tiny first-grader overalls comes into the room like…”  

Marco claps one hand over the top of his champagne flute and clamps the other under the base, and actually walks a few steps down the table with the determined air of a very small and klutzy version of Cassie.

“And her opening line is…”  Marco raises the flute to his mouth like it’s a microphone, dropping his voice.  “‘You wanna see my moth?’”

Again, there’s a smattering of laughter.  Cassie has a hand over her mouth, halfway doubled over in giggles at the memory.

“Now, us being minuscule and all, I’m like ninety-nine percent sure that there was no double entendre going on here,” Marco says.  “And I have to admit, no one has used that line on me since.  So I say ‘sure,’ because I’m like six years old and this seems like a reasonable question.  She lifts her hand up…”

Marco accompanies this with a pantomime of peering through his own fingers into his champagne.

He looks up.  “And it’s not even a freaking moth!” he cries out.  “Turns out, it’s just some little worm thing.  So I tell her.”  He puts on a snotty voice, mocking his younger self.  “‘That’s not a moth, that’s just some little worm thing.’”

There’s a pause.  Marco glances around the room.  “See if you can tell where this story’s going.”

Marco and Cassie glance at each other.  Cassie’s grinning smugly.

“She puts it in the classroom’s terrarium,” Marco drawls.  “It turns into a rock.  Two weeks later, rock cracks open and out pops a moth.”

The room cracks up again.

“So fast forward another few years, and she’s standing there holding this eight-eyed, venom-fanged thing.  And she’s all like ‘just touch the spider, Marco.  Don’t you want to be a spider, Marco?  Isn’t it cute and fuzzy?’  As if she is completely unaware that she’s holding a giant-ass eight-legged freak.”  Marco takes a sip for strength.  “And right then, I look at Jake.  And I’m thinking Jake, don’t ever let this girl go.  Because if she doesn’t even think wolf spiders are ugly, then she’s got no idea about you.  So here’s to Jake and Cassie.  Made for each other, because no one else will have ‘em.”

Jake pokes Marco in the ankle, but he’s laughing as he does it.

“All right,” Marco says, “brace yourselves, and someone get some more tissues for my second mama, because I’m about to get sappy.  I love you, Jean!” he calls.  “I know we all gotta cry it out sometimes.”

She laughs and flaps a dismissive hand at him, but she’s also misty-eyed already.

“Dudes, I gotta be honest.”  Marco is looking at Jake and Cassie.  “I didn’t think we’d get here.  I honestly did not believe, for a good long while there, that there were gonna be any weddings or graduations or driver’s licenses in any of our futures.  Just seemed like a good idea not to bet on any of us having any futures, you know?  Seemed like it might be the surest option.”

Cassie laces her fingers through Jake’s.  Silently, her mouth pressed into a line, she nods.

“So, uh.”  Marco sniffs, spinning back around and thrusting his champagne flute into the air.  “Here’s to me being wrong, yeah?”

“To Marco being wrong!” Jake echoes, and tosses back his glass.

“To Marco being wrong!” the entire room calls back.

Marco jumps back down, Cassie and Jake catching him as he lands.

**********

After everyone but Menderash and Ax has finished eating, it’s Tom who becomes the next one to tink a fork against a glass for attention.

“In the spirit of full disclosure,” he tells the room, strolling slowly toward the head table.  “I promised my brother there wouldn’t be a horah.”  Tom stops, directly next to Cassie.  “But what he didn’t know is that I’d already made a promise to my new sister-in-law that there would be.  So what’s a guy to do?”

He snaps his fingers.

At this cue, several things happen at once.  The DJ switches to “Hava Nagila.”  Several people mob Jake at once.  Tom grabs Cassie and lifts her bodily over his head, carrying her chair and all to the middle of the dance floor.

With a squeak of laughter, Cassie grabs the top of Tom’s head for balance.  Jake is being hauled out next to her on a chair of his own, supported by Tobias and Menderash and Rachel and James.  Marco and Ax are herding the rest of the gathering, shoving people into a circle and linking arms together as they go.

“I hate you!” Jake calls over the sound of the music and his own fit of giggles.

“Gotta keep the in-laws happy!” Tom yells back, unrepentant.

*********

“You sure you’ve got everything you need?” Rachel asks.

Cheyenne, the head caterer, gives her a double thumbs-up.  The staff are tipped and most are ready to go, having divvied up the several extra schaeffers’ worth of falafel and butternut squash puree and other entrees that Rachel’d set aside for them.  Melissa is set to take over tending bar from here, as planned, and she’s going to keep the groomsmen after for a few minutes for cleanup duty.

“Okay.”  Rachel glances around at where the last of the countertops are getting a quick once-over with disinfectant.  “Okay.  If anything comes up…”

“I have your number.”  Cheyenne smiles and nods.

Pushing back out of the room, Rachel heads for the gift table.  Everything looks like it’s in good order, but she wants to make sure it all gets packed up properly and that none of the cards get lost in the kerfuffle.  It’s mostly donation receipts, at Jake and Cassie’s request, but some of the traditionalists on both sides came with soup tureens or the like —

“Hey.”  Jake catches her by the arm.

Rachel turns to look at him.  “What’s wrong?  Is it the great-aunts?”

“Nothing’s wrong.  It’s all perfect.”  He’s smiling shyly.  “Thanks.”

“I need to check on the gifts,” Rachel says, because she’s a coward who doesn’t know how to do mushy conversations, especially not with Jake.

“The gifts are fine,” he says.  “It’s all fine.  Because you made it that way.  So… thanks.”

When he pulls her into a hug, Rachel can’t resist straightening his hair one last time even as she returns the embrace.  “You realize I do this for fun, right?” she asks, holding him at arm’s length and looking him in the eye.  “Like, I could’ve hired a wedding planner, but honestly why bother?”

He shrugs.  “Doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate everything.  All of it.  Without you, Cassie and I wouldn’t even…”

Then, because this is all getting too honest, Rachel links her arm through his and drags him onto the dance floor for, he’s about to realize, their middle school gym class’s favorite godawful square dance.

*********

When she has do-si-doed Jake within an inch of his life, Rachel tosses him at Cassie.  She pivots around and gives Tobias a flourishing courtesy; he returns it with an equally ridiculous bow.

“It is marvelous, how well they have adapted their balance to compensate for their lack of legs,” Menderash comments to Ax.

“Very true.”  Ax leans next to him against the bar.  They are currently sharing a delicious beverage Melissa has made for them, simply by unscrewing the lid from a nearly-empty jar of olives and handing over the remaining liquid.

It is true, some of the dancers are more talented than others.  Michelle and Walter are synchronized with each other and the beat of the music, even if their choice of moves is not nearly as audacious as the spinning thing Marco and Dakota are doing.  The bride and groom, meanwhile, are looking at their own feet and keep bumping into each other as they move.  Between their relative unconcern with anyone but each other and the broad hem of Cassie’s dress, the other couples are giving them a wide berth.

“Do you wish to attempt such feats?” Ax asks, glancing at Menderash.

Menderash gives a full-body shudder.  He flaps one hand in an andalite gesture that, if translated to English, would approximate fuck that.

Ax grins, drinking more olive juice.

“Have you done such a thing?” Menderash asks.

“Never for very long,” Ax says.

Jake and Cassie have given up on dancing entirely, descending into a giggle fit in the middle of the dance floor as they both attempt to disentangle Jake’s cuff link from the lace of Cassie’s hem.  Rachel swirls by, briefly blocking their view.  She’s switched partners.  Dakota is doing their best to teach Tobias how to waltz while Marco and Rachel are now swing-dancing their way across the dance floor.

As both andalites watch in awe, Rachel spins Marco in a circle, swinging him out and then drawing him back close to her body.  Marco pirouettes, throwing his head back so that his hair flares around his face, and then throws himself backwards.  Rachel catches him neatly around the waist, dipping him nearly to the floor.  Marco braces on her shoulders and she flings him upward with her whole body so that she actually lifts him off the floor for a second before gracefully sweeping him back down.  They separate until just the tips of their fingers are touching, and then spin back together until Marco suddenly swoops under Rachel’s arm, coming up on the far side as she pivots around in time fro him to fall back against her.

Ax is reminded of the way they fight.  There’s something almost joyful in their ferocity on the battlefield.  There’s something almost frightening in their enthusiasm on the dancefloor.  Neither of them seems to know how to do anything by half measure.

One by one the other clusters of dancers have stopped to watch as well.  Jake and Cassie, now sitting hopelessly tangled up in each other, seem quite happy to have the spotlight stolen.

Rachel swoops an arm around Marco’s waist and slides into a back-and-forth tango step.  Within two beats he’s caught on, falling into the same rhythm as her.  When the tempo of the song changes he grabs her shoulder and nudges her into a circular waltz.  They’re unrehearsed, and inexpert, but moving with such force and communicating so rapidly that it doesn’t really matter.

“Yes,” Menderash says softly, “I very much do not wish to attempt to dance.”

Ax smiles at him over the rim of the olive jar.  It’s empty, and in the time it takes him to set it back on the bar and catch her eye, Melissa has replaced it with maraschino cherry liquid.

The song crescendos; Marco leans his full weight back as Rachel flings him into a long spiraling turn that ends with him sliding on his knees clear between her legs, popping up behind her just in time to brace as she tips backward into him.  She spins once, twice, four times, then swings him into a dip so low that his hair brushes the floor.

As the song ends they freeze like that, chests heaving, hair damp with sweat.

They both seem to become aware at once that the whole room’s watching them.  Marco opens his mouth to say something, when Rachel’s smile turns wicked.  That’s the only warning he gets before she opens her arms and lets him drop.  Marco squawks indignantly, throwing out both elbows to catch himself.  He gets ahold of Rachel’s arm and tries to yank her down as well, but ends up pulling himself to his feet as well.

The whole room breaks out into clapping.  Marco sweeps into a low bow.  Rachel visibly considers pushing him over again before deciding against it.  Instead she runs to try and rescue Cassie’s hand-sewn lace hem and Jake’s antique silver cufflinks from their respective owners’ incompetence.

*********

“Hey Tobias?” Rachel says around a yawn.

«Uh-huh?»

Idly they watch as Tom waltzes Cassie’s grandmother around the dance floor.  She’s 4’11” to his 6’4”, so it’s pretty hilarious to witness.  But at least they’re not totally mismatched: each has a single sprig of valerian from Cassie’s bouquet tucked behind one ear.

She and Tobias are sitting on the ground at one corner of the dance floor.  Rachel’s got her shoes off to massage her aching ankles, and Tobias is perched back on her shoulder.  With clever motions of his beak he’s fishing the pins out of her hair one by one, dropping them into her hand as he slowly disassembles her updo.

“How do you feel about never, ever getting married?” Rachel asks.

Tobias drops another bobby pin into her hand.  «Best idea you’ve had all year.»

[cocastyle]

Thankful

Pairing- Jake Peralta x reader

Word Count- 4,870

Warning- none

A/N- here’s my first attempt at a Brooklyn 99 one shot! I’ve recently become obsessed with the show and was in the middle of watching season one when I saw the Thanksgiving episode and had this idea. I plan on writing more Brooklyn 99 one shots as I go seeing as each episode makes me fall more and more in love with the show than I already was before. I hope you all like this!

When asked which holiday was someone’s favorite, most people responded with Christmas or Halloween. But for Y/N L/N that holiday was Thanksgiving.

It was the holiday where she could celebrate being thankful for everything good in her life, where she could stuff her face until she fell into a food coma, and the holiday in which she could spend time with the people she loved and cared about, the people she was thankful for.

So Y/N was always excited when it came to Thanksgiving, but this year was different for this was the first year she would be spending the special holiday with her friends of the 99th prescinct in Brooklyn and Y/N was determined to make it perfect especially for Jake Peralta.

Y/N had been working at the precinct for a little under a year and had even been dating Jake for a few months now, so she had heard a lot about how the man hated Thanksgiving and wanted nothing to do with it. He wouldn’t tell her what the reason was, but then again, he wouldn’t give her the chance to even ask, always pushing aside the topic before it had even begun.

But Y/N, being the Thanksgiving loving person that she was, wanted nothing more than to show her boyfriend just how great the holiday was, even if that meant just getting to spend an evening with the man she had grown to love.

Luckily for her, her best friend Amy Santiago wanted to host a small Thanksgiving dinner for the squad, so Y/N had been quick to volunteer to help the girl make all the necessary preparations. Now it was just a matter of getting Jake to come.

Knowing that the man would decline if he knew too far in advance, Y/N waited until Jake entered the precinct on Thanksgiving Day after just getting back from a case to ask him.

“Check it out, chair jockeys!” Jake exclaimed as he walked into the room with a bag of cocaine in hand. “While you were busy tickling the ivories on your computers, I was doing a bust. Cocaine!” Y/N chuckled softly at the voice he made before Jake handed the cocaine over to an officer. “Thanks, Lucius,” he said.

Jake’s eyes then flickered around the office as he looked for someone, finally stopping once he caught sight of Y/N. Jake grinned and walked over to the girl before giving her a quick kiss in greeting and wrapping his arm around her waist.

“He ran, I pursued. Whole thing turned into an awesome car chase,” Jake said, obviously trying to impress his girlfriend. Y/N knew better than to think that was the actual story, but she just entertained the boy by looking impressed.

“Well, at least you’re done early, so you have time to go home and change for Y/N and I’s Thanksgiving dinner,” Amy said.

Jake furrowed his eyebrows and opened his mouth to object to coming, but Y/N was quick to stop him with a kiss. She pulled away and the boy instantly smiled at her with a dreamy expression on his face.

“Please come,” Y/N whispered as she gave him her best puppy-dog eyes. “Please. For me?”

Jake frowned slightly, his eyes flickering over the girl’s face. “I know what you’re trying to do and let me just say that is manipulative,” he said as he pointed a finger at her.

“Please? All you have to do is dress up,” Y/N said as she walked over to her desk and sat down. “Ugh. Why do we have to dress up for Thanksgiving?” Jake asked. “I don’t even celebrate that stuff. The whole holiday is based on overeating. We should be wearing velvet track suits and diapers.”

“Jacket and tie,” Amy insisted. “Rosa’s even wearing her formal leather jacket.” The three looked over to said woman who nodded, “It’s the one without any blood on it.”

“You’re gonna dress up, and you’re gonna give a toast about what you’re thankful for. Start preparing,” Amy told him. “Oh, I prefer not to prepare for my roasts. I just wing ‘em like scat jazz,” Jake said before beginning to imitate jazz. Y/N shook her head, a small smile on her face as she stared at the man who had stolen her heart.

Amy gave the girl a look and Y/N was quick to look away, knowing that Amy (and everyone else in the precinct) just wanted her to tell Jake that she loved him already, the one thing the two hadn’t done since they started dating.

“Are we singing?” Scully asked, breaking Amy’s gaze away from Y/N which the girl was silently thankful for. “No, no, no, no,” Jake said in a rushed voice, but Scully didn’t seem to notice and began to sing some opera.

Realizing there was no stopping the man, Jake looked to Amy and Y/N. “I’m not dressing up for your party,” he whispered.

“But you’ll come?” Y/N asked in a hopeful voice. Jake’s eyes flickered over to the girl before he hesitantly nodded his head. “Fine, I’ll come,” he said. “But I’m not dressing up!”

And with that, the man was rushing off leaving Y/N to do a little happy dance. Part one of her plan was complete.

Jake Peralta was officially coming to the Thanksgiving dinner.

- - -

By the time the Thanksgiving dinner had arrived, Y/N was practically bouncing up and down in excitement. She had arrived early to help Amy set up everything seeing as Amy had been kind enough to make all the food and Y/N had been waiting and watching as their friends began to trickle in.

It was only when she got a text from Jake saying that he was there that Y/N sprinted over to the door and opened it up, coming face to face with her boyfriend.

“Wow,” Jake whispered breathlessly as he stared at the girl in front of him who stood in a black sweater dress that fit her just right and black boots to match. Y/N blushed and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear while Jake looked her up and down. “You look gorgeous, L/N.”

Y/N smiled softly, but it faltered slightly as she took in the man’s appearance. He was really set on not dressing up. Instead of a nice shirt and tie like Y/N and Amy had told him, Jake had gone out of the way to do the exact opposite, wearing one of his usual plaid shirts with a blue jacket over it. Even the tie he wore to work had been purposefully taken off much to Y/N’s dismay.

“Thanks. You look. . .um. . .comfy?” Y/N muttered. Jake smiled, not noticing the small amount of hurt in her eyes. “Thanks, that’s what I was going for. I was being serious when I said I wasn’t going to dress up,” Jake reminded her.

“I can see that. Uh. . .come on in,” Y/N told him. Jake nodded and entered the small apartment before asking, “You sure this is Amy’s place? It looks like my grandma lives here.”

Y/N gently whacked the man who smirked and looked to her. His smirk fell slightly when she noticed how she looked out of it and he frowned before putting a hand on her arm. “Hey, what’s wrong?” Jake asked.

“Oh, my God, Amy, that’s so cool that you still live with your grandmother,” Gina said, interrupting the conversation the two had been having and saving Y/N from Jake’s question. “I live alone. This is my stuff. I like quilts,” Amy told her with a shrug.

“Stop. Each sentence is getting sadder,” Gina said. “It looks like you live on the set of Murder, She Wrote,” Rosa commented.

“Well, I gotta say, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. I mean, the football game’s not on, so I can still watch it later at home. And it’s kind of cool to visit a time before electricity was invented,” Jake teased.

Amy frowned and reached for a stack of papers with a sigh, “I have to practice my toast.” “Woah, Amy. How long is that?” Y/N asked, her eyes wide. “Eight pages,” Amy responded.

“Single-spaced?” Jake questioned. “Double-sided,” Amy added. “Santiago style,” Y/N and Jake muttered making Amy crack a small smile while the couple chuckled.

Jake wrapped an arm around Y/N waist and was about to question her about earlier when Terry interrupted. “Mm-hmm. Hey, excuse me. Can we please eat? My body is starting to digest itself. Terry needs nutrients,” he said.

“No eating until the Captain gets here,” Amy told him. “Okay? Sorry.” “Don’t apologize. I’d rather spend Thanksgiving at your house than with my sister,” Rosa muttered. “It’s so pleasant and boring. But, Holt, at your house, surrounded by these idiots? Guaranteed train wreck. Thanks for the invite, Amy and Y/N.”

The doorbell rang, breaking the conversation and making Amy tense up. “He’s here! Okay, he’s here, everybody. Be cool. Hitchcock, why do you have your shirt off?” Amy asked and the whole room looked to the man who was sitting shirtless beside Scully.

“Can’t spill food on your shirt if you’re not wearing one,” Hitchcock replied. Amy shook her head slightly and rushed over to the door.

Sensing that Jake wanted to talk, Y/N looked to her boyfriend and said, “I’m gonna go help Amy and make sure she doesn’t ramble too much.” Jake didn’t even get a chance to say anything back before Y/N was rushing after Amy.

The two friends opened the door to see Captain Holt standing there. “Captain Holt,” Amy greeted. “Happy Thanksgiving, Sir,” Y/N said with a smile. “Happy Thanksgiving. Your apartment was very easy to locate,” Holt told Amy.

“Thank you so much. You look beautiful,” Amy said. Y/N facepalmed and looked to Amy who frowned at her word choice. “Weirdest conversation ever,” Jake called out. “Nice work, you three.”

Y/N sent her boyfriend a small glare while he just winked at her. The girl sighed and clapped her hands together. “How about we eat?” Y/N suggested. “Yes, please!” Terry practically yelled.

The group all chuckled and made their way over to their seats. Y/N was still a little upset and hurt by Jake, but it all washed away when he pulled her seat out for her and made sure she was all situated before sitting beside her, taking her hand in his almost immediately.

Y/N smiled lovingly at the boy and kissed his cheek before Amy cleared her throat to gain everyone’s attention. “Before we eat, I’d like everyone to go around and say what they’re thankful for this year,” Amy said.

“I’ll go,” Y/N announced before she stood up, grabbing ahold of her drink. “First of all, I just wanted to thank you all for coming. It really means a lot to me and Amy that you all came. I guess I’ll start by saying that I’m thankful for each of you. The move from my last precinct was pretty hard for me, but with all of your help, you all made it a whole lot easier. I never expected to create so many friendships or to find someone who I am lucky enough to call my boyfriend, let alone find a group of people who would become like a family to me. So I guess I just want you all to know that I’m thankful for everything you all have done and for the family you all have given me. To you all.”

Everyone was smiling by then, even Jake who hadn’t taken his eyes off of the girl since she sat next to him. Y/N held her drink up in the air and the others did as well before everyone took a sip of their drink. Y/N sat down and Amy looked around the table to see if anyone else wanted to go.

Jake let out a sigh and grabbed ahold of his beer bottle. “Fine, I’ll go next. I am thankful that Thanksgiving only comes once a year. People stuff themselves, and then at midnight they run to appliance stores and trample each other to death. It’s a garbage holiday.” Jake sniffled and pretended as if he were about to cry. “I’m sorry. I just get emotional when I talk about how bogus Thanksgiving is.”

Y/N frowned and set her drink down on the table while Amy scoffed and muttered, “I’ll just go. I actually prepared a little something.”

“You did?” Jake asked in fake shock, but Amy ignored him.

“When I was a little girl, playing cops and robbers. . .” Amy began, but was cut off by the sound of someone’s cellphone ringing. That person happened to be Holt who quickly stood up and went to take the call. “Excuse me. Please. Continue, Santiago,” Holt told her.

A panicked look appeared on Amy’s face as she sisd, “Or I could wait.” “No waiting, just toasting. I want you to toast. Now I wanna eat toast. Give me some toast!” Terry exclaimed.

“Okay, I’ll be right there,” Holt muttered before walking into the room. He stuffed his phone in his pocket and looked to the group. “I have to head back to the precinct.”

“No. Why?” Amy asked. “Someone stole ten thousand dollars from the evidence lockup,” Holt explained. “That’s awful,” Y/N said at the same time her boyfriend exclaimed, “Yes! Oh, awesome.”

He stood up while everyone looked to him confused. “Why is that awesome?” Holt asked. “It’s a case,” Jake explained. “You said I could hop on any case that came up. It’s a Thanksgiving miracle!”

“Wait, Jake. Do you really have to go? I actually kind of wanted you to-“ Y/N began, but he was already grabbing his jacket. “I’m sorry, baby. I’ll see you later, okay?” Jake asked as he bent down to peck her cheek. He then stood up and grinned at the whole group. “Have fun, you guys. Let’s roll!”

And with that, Jake and Holt were walking out the door, leaving the rest of the squad watching after them.

A deflated look crossed Y/N’s face and she looked back to see everyone watching her sadly. “What?” Y/N asked. “We’re sorry. We know how much you were trying to get Jake to like Thanksgiving,” Charles said.

Y/N shrugged. “It’s no big deal,” she said as she forced a smile. “He doesn’t like Thanksgiving and that’s that.”

That was a lie and everyone could tell just from the look in her eyes. It was a huge deal for Y/N, even if it was just a stupid holiday and Jake hadn’t even made an effort to enjoy it for her. Y/N let her eyes drop down to her empty plate, ignoring the looks everyone was still giving her.

“Let’s eat.”

- - -

Y/N let out a small sigh as she put her head in her hands. This could not be happening.

After Jake and Holt and left, the squad had discovered that Amy didn’t know how to cook and that all of the food was disgusting, so the dinner had been ruined.

Wanting to fix it, Charles has suggested going to bar, but they had all been kicked out within minutes of being there. Now they were back the precinct, still all dressed up and still all starving, and Terry was trying to get to Scully’s secret food stash that was hidden away in the ceiling.

How it had come to this? Y/N wasn’t sure. But the one thing she was sure about was that this Thanksgiving was the worst one she had ever had. Maybe it was because she had been trying too hard to get Jake to like it. Maybe that had been her first mistake. After all, if she couldn’t even get her boyfriend to want to stay, then how could she expect to be able to host a great Thanksgiving dinner?

“Sarge, am I too heavy?” Charles asked, breaking Y/N away from the wallowing in her own self-pity that she had just been doing. She lifted her head up and let an amused smile break out onto her face once she caught sight of Charles sitting on Terry’s shoulders.

“No,” Terry answered the man. He then looked to Scully, a fire in his eyes. “Where is it?” “There, the one with the water stain,” Scully said. “There’s a lot of food up there?” Terry asked. “Yeah, it’s a smorgasbord,” Scully assured him.

Y/N perked up slightly as she watched Charles reach for the ceiling tile. Maybe Thanksgiving could still be saved?

However, Y/N was proven wrong when the tile slipped from Charles hands and fell to the ground, revealing old wrappers and rats. Everyone let out screams while Y/N groaned, feeling tears begin to prick her eyes. “Of course,” she muttered to herself. “Of freaking course.”

All she had wanted was to spend her favorite holiday with the man she loved and her new family and now not only had their dinner been ruined three times, but Jake had been gone the whole night just so he could skip out on Thanksgiving.

That plan she had? Yeah, that had pretty much gone out the window.

“I think the rats got to it,” Scully said. “You think?” Terry asked. “This is the greatest thing that’s ever happened,” Rosa muttered as she smiled at the rats.

Not being able to take anymore, Y/N shook her head and stood up with a sniffle. She wiped at her nose and quickly picked up what purse. “Okay, it’s over,” she said defeatedly. “I’m sorry everyone’s Thanksgiving was ruined. You all can go home now, that’s what I’m going to do.”

“Y/N, wait,” Amy called out, but the girl shook her head and looked around at her friends with tear filled eyes. “No, it’s fine. Thanksgiving is over. It’s dead. It was a bust. Just. . .I’ll see you all tomorrow,” Y/N muttered before turning on her heels and beginning to walk out.

“Y/N!” Charles called after her, but the girl was already gone.

- - -

“The money was still in the bookie’s safe. All the numbers match. Let’s head back to Santiago and L/N’s party,” Holt announced as he put the money into his jacket.

Jake frowned. He had been able to miss out on the party because of the case, but now that it was solved, what was his excuse?

Thinking for a moment, the man turned to Holt and gave him a small shake of his head. “Ah, no thanks. I think I’m gonna head home and watch the football game, which was ruined for me!” He yelled as he glared at the men they had just arrested.

“What’s your problem with celebrating Thanksgiving?” Holt asked. “It’s a sucky holiday,” Jake replied. “It’s always sucked. My mom worked. My dad was gone. And I sat at home, watching football.”

“Look, Jake. I came from a very formal family. My parents were not especially affectionate,” Holt told him. “Really? ‘Your Honor’ wasn’t a big snuggler?” Jake asked in amusement.

Holt ignored the man and continued, “But the beauty of being an adult is that you can make a new family with new traditions.” “Well, that’s nice, Captain, but I don’t have a new family yet, so I guess I’m stuck with my awesome old traditions,” Jake said as he turned to walk away.

Holt looked at him confused. “Even L/N?�� He asked. Jake blinked abefore turning to look at the Captain. “What about her?” Jake questioned.

“She helped plan this whole night just for you and you don’t think she did that because she cares about you? Because she thinks of you as family?” Holt asked.

Jake blinked in surprise. “She what?” He questioned, not believing that Y/N would plan the night just for him.

“Peralta,” Holt sighed. “L/N planned this whole night for you so that she could show you how fun Thanksgiving can be. It’s her favorite holiday and all she wanted to do was share it with you, to show you how much it meant to her and how much it could mean to you if you let it.”

Jake shook his head. “I don’t think you get it, Captain. Y/N wouldn’t do something like that for me,” he told the man. “You sure about that?” Holt asked as he titled his head slightly.

He didn’t give time for Jake to answer before he sighed and turned to walk away. “Okay. I’ll tell the squad you couldn’t make it.” Holt then walked away leaving Jake by himself.

“Thank you,” Jake muttered, but instead of feeling even the tiniest bit grateful, all he felt was guilty for ruining the night that the girl he loved had planned for him.

“There’s no way,” Jake whispered to himself. Why would Y/N do something like that for him? Still. . .Jake let out a sigh of frustration before hurrying out the door and heading towards his apartment.

After all, he had to change into something nice if he wanted to make it up to his girlfriend, right?

- - -

“I’m here! I’m here!” Jake exclaimed as he walked into the meeting room where the group was all about to chow down on their Thanksgiving meal of foreign foods.

The squad all cheered while Jake, now fully dressed in a suit and tie, smiled and walked over to an empty seat. “Finally something to actually be thankful for.”

“What are you wearing?” Rosa asked in amusement. “Y/N and Santiago said to dress up, so. . .” Jake trailed off as he gestured towards his outfit. “Although, I did it mostly for Y/N. Okay, it was one hundred percent for Y/N.”

“I’d expect as much,” Santiago said. “Well, you look beautiful. That’s my thing now. I’m just owning it.” Jake gave her a grateful smile before his eyes flickered around the room, trying to find the eyes of the one person he really needed to apologize for.

A frown formed on his face once he came up empty handed. “Where’s Y/N?” Jake asked.

The whole squad fell silent and looked down at their plates, trying to avoid the man’s gaze. Jake frowned more and looked to his best friend. “Boyle?” He asked.

Charles looked up at his friend as a guilty look flashed across his face. “She went home,” he suddenly blurted out. Jake looked at the man confused before looking at everyone else for confirmation. “She what?” He asked.

Amy sighed. “She was upset about the whole Thanksgiving thing not going the way she had planned and you leaving, so she went home,” Amy explained.

“And you let her? Even when she was upset?” Jake asked as he quickly stood up. “You’re the one who left her!” Amy shouted in defense.

Jake frowned, knowing that she was right. He was silent for a minute as he tried to think of what to do before he let out a small gasp. Jake then looked to Charles and smiled.

“Boyle, can I borrow some of this food?”

- - -

Y/N stared blankly at the bowl of ice cream that sat in front of her, a million emotions running through her head as she did so.

By now she had ditched her dress for a pair of her comfiest sweatpants and one of Jake’s shirts that she had stolen the last time she was at his place. And as the events of the night continued to haunt her, Y/N began to stuff her face with ice cream, hoping to eat away her feelings and somehow make herself feel better.

Her therapeutic eating didn’t last long before there was a knock on the door. Frowning, Y/N reached over and turned on the TV in an attempt to drown out the knocking and get the person to leave.

However, the knocking only grew louder and more persistent the longer she took and she eventually let out a sigh as she reluctantly turned the TV off and went to the front door.

She threw open the door without a second thought, not caring about her appearance enough to even attempt to look somewhat decent. This was a mistake on her part and Y/N’s eyes widened at the sight of Jake Peralta standing before her dressed up in a nice suit and tie, a strong contrast from the clothes he had been wearing the last time she saw him.

“Jake,” Y/N whispered out in surprise. “What. . .what are you doing here?”

Jake’s eyes scanned over the girl and Y/N started to grow self conscious as she seemed to curl into herself in an attempt to hide how awful she looked. Jake only smiled and let his eyes lock with hers as he stared at her like he always did, like she was the most beautiful thing he had ever had the pleasure of seeing.

He then held up a small paper bag and Y/N was instantly hit with the smell of spices and something that she didn’t recognize but that had her mouth watering. “I brought food,” he said as if it answered everything.

Y/N watched him with weary eyes before smiling softly and taking a step back. “Come on in,” she told him making the boy smile as he did as she said. As he walked in, Y/N took the time to take a good look at Jake. “You’re wearing a suit,” she commented.

“Yeah, someone once told me that you’re supposed to dress up for Thanksgiving meals like this, but it seems I overdressed,” Jake teasingly said as he looked to the girl.

“Damn, I forgot I was wearing this. I. . .I’ll just go change real quick and we-“ Y/N began as she went to walk away, but Jake was quick to grab her wrist and halt her in her tracks.

“You look stunning as always, Y/N,” he assured her. Y/N softened slightly at that and felt herself relax as she looked at the boy. He blushed under her gaze and looked to the floor.

“Listen, I. . .I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting about this whole Thanksgiving thing. I never really had a family to celebrate with, so it was hard for me to come to terms with the fact that now I do. You put in all this effort to help me have a nice Thanksgiving for once and I was a jerk and I’m sorry. Then there was the whole thing with the toast earlier and how I was rude after you had just said a nice toast. I’m sorry for that too.”

“What I really should’ve said was how thankful I am for you. You’ve made me a better person since the day we met and have given me everything without expecting anything in return. I’m so thankful for you, Y/N, and I’m sorry I don’t tell you that as much as I should. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to have that Thanksgiving dinner with you now. And I promise I won’t be rude or try and leave before it’s over,” Jake said.

He let his eyes flicker back up to her and he frowned slightly once he noticed the tears in her eyes. “You’re crying. Why are you crying? What did I do?” Jake asked, his voice coming out rushed and in a panic.

Y/N just smiled at the boy and shook her head at him before grabbing onto his tie and pulling him forward. Jake blinked in surprise at the sudden proximity and Y/N smiled lovingly at him before whispering, “I love you, Jake Peralta.”

Jake’s mouth fell open in shock before a goofy grin appeared on his face. “I knew it,” he whispered teasingly making the girl give him a look. Jake chuckled and leaned in slightly so that their lips were almost touching. “I love you too, Y/N. Always and forever,” he said.

Y/N smiled before tugging the boy the extra inch closer, resulting in their lips crashing together in a passionate kiss. They kissed for only a moment before Jake was relucnatntly pulling away.

“As much as I would love to keep kissing you and declaring my undying love for you, I just drove fifteen minutes here and the food is already starting to get cold,” Jake pointed out.

Y/N chuckled and leaned forward to peck the boy’s lips. “Then let’s get this food out and start eating! I’m starving!” Y/N exclaimed.

Jake let out a small laugh and pointed at the girl as she began to walk away. “I knew I loved you for a reason,” he muttered.

Y/N just winked at him in response before holding a hand it for him. He quickly took it and smiled in adoration at the girl as she began to walk them towards the dining room.

It was only when they got to the table and Y/N began to put the food out that Jake whispered, “Happy Thanksgiving, Y/N.”

The girl stopped in her tracks and looked back at the boy with a huge grin on her face. She leaned in and gave him a small kiss, a kiss that had him blushing slightly and smiling that goofy and dazed smile of his.

“Happy Thanksgiving, Jake.”

[clarketomylexa]

That’s What Best Friends Do

“I love you,” she tells Lexa in earnest.

Lexa cocks her head, nose scrunched and finger curled into the spine of her book, marking the page. “Why.”

Clarke is taken back. Her and Octavia have been exchanging cheesy ‘I love yous’ since the second grade and there isn’t any real reason for it other than ‘that’s just what friends do’. She shrugs and purses her lips. “I don’t know,” she says plainly,  and amends the words Octavia tells her, “that’s just what best friends do.”

read on ao3

They meet in the first grade.

Lexa is sweet and Clarke thinks she is cool in her own quirky way.

She moves in on a Sunday and she stands on the other side of the picket fence as they talk, in a green sweatshirt with tiny, little pugs on it and one leg of her denim overalls rolled an inch higher than the other, rainbow piñata socks on show underneath scuffed up sneakers. Her hair is braided into a crown around her head—a style that Clarke files away among what Octavia likes to call a ‘fishtail braid’ and how to tie her shoelaces for later—and she has a scar above her top lip that Clarke imagines she got doing something exotic.

She’s so much cooler than the kids in her grade that Clarke almost wants to yell out how unfair it is that she won’t be going to her school in the Spring.

“But Oakside is so far away,” she laments, hands fidgeting with the Barbie doll tucked beneath her arm. Most of the kids her age in their cul-de-sac go to Ridgeview. Privately Clarke thinks Octavia is the only one worth talking to though, because she has it on good authority that Miller picks his nose and Bellamy just tries too hard.

She isn’t allowed to tell people that though so she watches Lexa shrug.

“My cousin goes there.”

Abby calls her from the porch a moment later and Clarke is forced to say goodbye to her new friend to wash up for sinner. She thrusts the topless Barbie over the fence in a form of peace offering—Lexa’s eyes bulge out of her head and Clarke wonders if she’s never seen a Barbie before so she makes a mental note to invite Lexa over to play with them—and tells Lexa with the utmost importance that she will talk to her tomorrow.

“I made a new friend today,” she tells Abby and Jake from her stool by the kitchen sink as she methodically washes her hands like the chart tacked to the wall tells her to. Jake says she’s a ‘sociable child’ which Clarke thinks is adult speak for ‘will talk to anything that moves’ because once she made friends with a duck in the park that had one leg and an eye that didn’t open. But if being ‘sociable’ means she can talk to Lexa again Clarke will accept the title gladly.

When she closes her eyes she can see Lexa’s pretty braid and the way her eyes aren’t quite one colour but not two either. Like what would happen in art class when Clarke mixed turquoise and forest green together on her plastic pallet because she was using what Miss Henry called ‘artistic license’. Maybe God or whatever Bellamy’s new theory on who created the universe used their ‘artistic license’ when they were making Lexa too.

It makes an awful lot of sense when she thinks about it.

“Clarke you’re wasting water,” Abby reminds her, ferrying pasta bake and green salad from the island to the table and Clarke dries her hands obediently and tucks her stool into the scullery to claim her chair.

“Her name is Lexa,” she continues. “She has piñatas on her socks. She lives next door.”

“The Shepard house sold?” Jake asks.

Abby nods. “I met the new owners at the open house last month. She’s a lawyer,” she looks at Jake in the way Clarke has noticed her parents do when they are talking about ‘parent things’. “I don’t think he’s in the picture anymore.”

“What picture?” Clarke pipes up, distracted as she uses the spoon to scrape the cheesy, bread crumb topping from the side of the dish. She likes drawing. Her favourite is when they finish their worksheets quickly on Friday afternoons and her teacher tells them to bring a piece of paper and a book to lean on, and takes them to the playground to draw the plants and the bugs. The boys in her class spend the time throwing sticks at each other but Clarke always finds a corner to tuck herself into and a lady bug to examine.

She likes the colours.

“Your Mom means that Lexa’s Dad doesn’t live with her anymore,” Jake explains. He takes the spoon from Clarke and scoops the stuck piece of pasta bake onto her plate before topping it up with salad and ignoring the way she frowns at the limp lettuce leaves.

Thinking on it, Clarke nods without ceremony. “If Lexa’s Mom’s a lawyer,” she posits, “can she arrest Nate for stealing my gel pens?”

Nate sits across from her in art class and has a habit of stealing her stationary when he thinks she isn’t looking because he likes colouring his notebooks with sparkles. It’s annoying because she refuses to tell on him and Abby says she doesn’t want to buy her more if they are going to continue to go missing so she has to resort to using Octavia’s ones without the good smelling scents.

“I don’t think that’s how it works, honey,” Abby laughs.

“That’s prob’ly for the best,” Clarke smacks her lips in thought, “he sticks them up his nose.”

Clarke invites Lexa over two days later to play with her Barbies and Lexa sits on her lawn in a bright pink long-sleeve with patches shaped like fried eggs on the elbows and socks that have milk and cookies on them.

When she jokes that Lexa is wearing her breakfast, Lexa smiles so wide Clarke thinks the world will split in two.

She invites Lexa to the lake three months later.

It’s a five hour drive to the house that has been in Jake’s family since he was Clarke’s age but it’s one that they take every twenty-second of June when Abby has cover at the surgery. The house is big and old, with a deck and a new paint job and big windows that overlook the lake. If you squint on a clear day, you can see the proud, white facades of the houses on the other side with their boat sheds, trellises and peaked roofs.

A jetty sits in the water and a tree clings to the bank with a tire-swing Jake had fastened to the middle-most branch—against Abby’s better judgement but she never can stop her husband when he has one of his ideas—so that when you stand as far as you can up the bank and let go you can fly out far enough not to touch the bottom of the lake. It’s Clarke’s favourite thing since she learnt how to do a handstand on the side of the garage.   

Not that Clarke has to sell it really, because after three months of Barbie Dream house in the front yard Lexa is nodding as soon as she mentions it would mean spending the summer with her. She explains diligently that there is a double bed in the room Clarke usually stays in—because Abby said that sometimes people don’t like sleeping in the same bed as other people—but that they can sleep in the bunk room instead, or Jake can pull the trundle bed out.

Lexa just nods.  

She is fairly sure that is she asked Lexa to jump off a cliff, she would walk straight off it, piñata socks and all but then Clarke would miss her too much.

She stands on the Griffin’s porch on the morning of the twenty-second, in cactus socks and second-hand short-alls—the pants cut down to her size—with funky patches sewn into the bib, thumbs working their way under the straps of her backpack as her mom thanks Abby profusely.   

She’s a pretty lady, with Lexa’s smile and round glasses who looks both flustered and relieved as she sweeps a hand over her daughter’s forehead and admits in a way Clarke knows she is supposed to pretend not to listen to that Lexa is having trouble making friends. Which Clarke thinks is ridiculous because Lexa is sweet and funny. She wears her hair like a crown and has been rolling the legs of her pants up at different lengths for three months because Clarke said she thought it was cool.

Clarke’s chest aches when Lexa won’t look up from the tips of her shoes and she thinks that Lexa’s mom mustn’t know what she’s talking about.

Clarke has been doing multiplication in math.

She knows that two and two is four, and three and three is six.

And if that’s true then she thinks Lexa and summer must equal something like ‘better than good’—but not ‘bestest’ because Lexa says ‘best’ is already a superlative.

Clarke doesn’t know what a superlative is, but Lexa can define words like ‘diversification’ so she thinks Lexa must be right.

They swim until water rattles in their ears and Jake teaches them to fish off the jetty after they stand on stools to help him pull the rods down from a shelf in the boat house, carefully showing them how to thread the bait onto the hook and cast the line into the water. When Lexa can’t get her hands around the line, face contorting unhappily, Jake heaves her onto his lap and repeats the process patiently until her frumpy frown straightens out.

They go out on the boat on hot days; Jake makes the boat corkscrew so that the water froths out in a V behind them, and when Clarke begs, he flings them writhing and giggling into the water by the strap of their life-jackets and fishes them out again while Abby rolls her eyes.

It’s in the quiet moments though, when the lie on the grass in damp swim suits and sunscreen-sticky skin, that Clarke discovers two very important things.

The first: Lexa does this thing when she is happy where she scrunches her eyes and throws her head back to laugh and it’s so ‘positively lovely’—which is another thing that Lexa says a lot—that Clarke makes it her mission to make her happy every day of her life.     

The second: every time Lexa is happy, it makes Clarke feel ten feet tall. It’s a feeling that starts in her toes, ticking the soles of her feet and shooting like growing pains up her legs until her stomach is hot and her cheeks are pink and she feels stronger than before. She is pretty sure that if she were to climb the tallest tree on the bank and let go, she would fly and not fall.

She thinks about it as she sits, chin sticky with lemonade popsicle on the jetty.

Lexa lays sprawled on her back, legs akimbo and arms stretched out into the sky. Her fingers are splayed and her whole face is contorted so that she can squint up at the sky and trap the sun in the circle of her fingers. She has freckles peeking out shyly from the bridge of her nose and when she notices Clarke staring, she drops her hand and smiles. It’s lopsided—like her pant legs and her socks—but it’s whole in a way that makes Clarke’s stomach flip-flop.   

“Want to see something cool?” she pokes Lexa in the soft of her ribs with her pointer finger.

Lexa nods, pushing herself up onto her elbows, intrigued, “uh huh.”

She folds her legs and cocks her head. Clarke makes sure she is watching before she picks her way up the jetty, where the grassy verge tangles with the roots and rocks.

The tire swing is tucked over a low branch—at her mom’s request because technically Clarke isn’t supposed to use it without ‘adult supervision’ but Lexa talks like an adult sometimes with her ‘therefore’ and ‘henceforth’, so she thinks it will be okay—and stands on a rock that juts out into the water with one leg, reaching out with the other until she can feel the tire under her fingers. Grinning, she pulls it into her hands and hooks a leg over the rope, taking three steps back and launching herself off the bank.

She lets go when the tire is just about to swing back like Jake taught her and surfaces just out of the shallows, hair in her eyes and heart thumping against the cage of her chest. When her ears unclog, Lexa is whooping and the jetty bends and gives beneath her uncoordinated victory dance.

“I can go higher,” Clarke garbles, mouth full of water.

Lexa’s whole face shoots upwards in disbelief. “Cannot,” she says.

“Can to,” Clarke insists, arms flailing as she doggy-paddles inelegantly to the shore.

Their life jackets are hooked over the railing of the deck and it crosses Clarke’s mind that maybe she should go and get hers, but if she does Abby will see her through the kitchen window and she gave them instructions not to go in the water when she went in to put lunch together.

She fishes the tire swing towards her and steps back as far as the rope will go this time, rooting her toes firmly in the soggy grass. Lexa is staring at her in wide-eyed apprehension but Clarke sets her brow until it furrows above her eyes and her stomach whooshes out from under her as she kicks off the bank, mud stuck between her toes.

It dawns on her when the air is whining in her ears that maybe this isn’t such a good idea.

Her foot catches and before she understand what is happening she is careening back towards the bank, heart stuck in her mouth.

Lexa lets out a sharp yelp, as Clarke’s hand slips. She lands face down in the dirt, the air punched out of her chest, still for a moment until pain blooms across her right cheek and a cry escapes her mouth before she can recognise it as hers. She hears a shout when her ears stop ringing, and rolls with a hard gasp onto her back as Lexa’s head and shoulders swim into her vision, awful worry crunching her face. She pets Clarke’s hair as Clarke blinks up at the sky, voice trembling as she coos ‘it’s okay, Clarke’ and ‘I’m here, Clarke’ in a high, thin voice that Clarke can’t help but think is less soothing and more unsettling, until the thick goo that seems to be sitting on her lungs seeps away and she can breathe.

But then her mom appears—all grumpy line in the place of her mouth—wiping her hands on her pants as she squats on the grass and Clarke thinks she is going to puke all over again.

“Mom,” she squeaks, whining as the right side of her face throbs hotly.

Abby takes one look at her—wet swimsuit and lank hair, blood pooling beneath her eye and Lexa’s hand squeezed tightly in a balled fist—and tsks, tucking a hand under her to sit her up and Clarke sways before falling into her chest, whining ‘it hurts’ into the soft neckline of her shirt.   

The first-aid kit is found and Abby asserts that it won’t need stitches.

She gets a talking to about not doing what she’s told—which Lexa stands through too, fingers wound through Clarke’s in a way that makes it hard to focus on why ‘insubordination’ is a bad thing—and she wears a hulk band-aid on the bony jut of her cheek for a week.

Lexa traces it with a feather-light finger as the lie, side-by-side in the double bed beneath the lazy turn of the ceiling fan in the room that has been Clarke’s since she was three years old. She wears llama pyjamas and is unapologetic about not wanting to sleep on the trundle bed Jake offers to make up for her, instead, pressing herself into Clarke to feel for the bump of the scab forming under the band-aid with a frown in the way that makes warmth curl under Clarke’s ribs.

“I did it on purpose,” Clarke says, eager for anything to get rid of the crunch between Lexa’s eyebrows. She wants to reach out and touch it but her hands shake so she doesn’t.

Lexa blinks slowly, “nuh uh,” she says without heat.

“Did to,” Clarke fists her hand under her chin and nudges Lexa’s nose with her own. She smells like bubble-gum toothpaste and the Griffin’s shower-gel and the wonderful notion that Lexa is hers wafts in her mind until she can’t help but smile. “Now I match you.”

Lexa reaches up to touch the shallow half-circle above her top lip like she’s forgotten about it, fingers tapping her teeth for a minute before she shakes her head. “Yours is cooler,” she says definitively, “I got mine falling off my bike,” she explains, “you got yours flying.”

Lexa smiles her world-splitting smile and Clarke thinks that while swimming and the fireworks Jake sets off for the Fourth of July are all well and good, bedtime might be better. It’s a secret she will take to the grave along with how she only pretends not to like broccoli but the stripy wallpaper and floral sheets of the room feel impenetrable and Clarke builds them a fortress out of cotton sheets and shadows cast from soft lamp-light; a place where Lexa is hers.

She wraps her fist around the top of the sheet and pull sit over their heads until they are breathing the same hot air.

“You’re my best friend,” she says wondering why her throat gets hot and tight as she does so. The words have been sitting on her chest since the day they met—a secret locked tight like the acorns she keeps in the sticker decorated box beneath her bed that is so true she feels it in her bones every time Lexa talks.

Lexa’s eyes go big. For a horrible second, Clarke thinks that it was the wrong thing to say and her stomach flip-flops but not in the way she has come accustomed to it doing when she is around Lexa—this flip-flop feels like the warning kind that comes before Clarke has to go in search for her mom in the middle of the night because she ate too much ice-cream in one go and it winds itself into a knot so tight the only way out is up. But then, Lexa mumbles ‘best friend’ under her breath like she wants to taste it and nods, smiling so warmly Clarke wants to wrap herself up in it like a blanket and never crawl out.

“I’ve never had a best friend,” she admits, cowering behind the words like they will change Clarke’s mind. When Clarke doesn’t reply, she peers at her intently and Clarke recognises the look that she gets when she is helping Clarke with her addition and subtraction worksheets. “Is it different from just being a friend?”

Clarke thinks about it for a moment.

“Yes,” she eventually lands on, “and no.” Lexa nods. “It just means more,” Clarke whispers, “it just makes it more special.”

“Okay, then,” Lexa decides.  “You’re my best friend too.”

Lexa is soft when she sleeps. With her admission she goes limp like pasta when you put it in the pot and Clarke manoeuvres her happily, all gangly limbs and knobbly joints, until she can tangle them together like a puzzle—the kind that isn’t meant to unravel—and when Abby comes to check on them, if it weren’t for the different colours of their pyjamas, she wouldn’t know where one started and the other ended.     

They talk during the year but it isn’t the same.

Lexa gives Clarke a pair of socks for her birthday with tiny little sloths embroidered into them—Clarke knows they cost her whole allowance and for that it means the world. She presents them with as much importance as when she knighted Clarke in the woods behind the lake house with an old plank of timber they found in the shed and she hangs over the fence every day after school with her lopsided smile and embroidered overalls, telling Clarke about the books she reads and her nine-year-old cousins shenanigans until her mom calls her in.

Sometimes, when Lexa’s mom is working she stays at Clarke’s on Saturday nights and on those days, Clarke can almost pretend it’s summer. They stand on stools in the kitchen side-by-side as Jake stirs the pasta sauce and lie in Clarke’s twin bed at night, watching the glow-in-the-dark stars. But Lexa is all angles unfortunately—she looks forlorn whenever someone mentions it to her, but Abby insists that she will grow into her lankiness—and while in summer it provides places for Clarke to tuck herself into comfortably, during the year, the positions she has to contort them into to make them fit clench at her chest.

She presses sloppy kisses to Lexa’s forehead to tries and convince herself otherwise, but Clarke comes to the conclusion that Lexa isn’t hers during the year when Lexa regretfully turns down an invitation to go bowling when Jake offers to take her, Octavia and Bellamy one Friday night.

She stares at her toes when she tells Clarke that her mom said no and she looks so much like the snail that Clarke found on the back path without its shell one morning that she pester her for more information.

Two weeks later, Clarke has to say no to backyard pizza with Lexa and her mom because of Octavia’s seventh birthday party—a slumber party that ends at eight when they all inevitably fall from their sugar highs that Lexa isn’t invited to despite Clarke’s best efforts.

Octavia doesn’t like Lexa. She says she’s ‘too colourful’ with her stripy shirts and rainbow patches even after Clarke explains her theory about ‘artistic license’ and Clarke thinks it’s a horrible reason not to like someone. When she asks her mom Abby tells her that Octavia is probably feeling left out and Clarke thinks that maybe, she isn’t Lexa’s during the year either.

The thought is so distressing, she lies awake with it at night, raggedy Ann doll squeezed under her armpit as she stares at the spot where the wall meets the ceiling. She twists her finger over the woollen curls.

Summer is four months away but suddenly, it becomes the center of her universe.

Clarke is nine years old and Abby has set them loose to play in the thatch of trees beside the house.

They pick through the leaves in shorts and t-shirts while their bathing suits dry over the railing and play catch with the neighbour kids until they are flush faced and breathless. Lexa wears popcorn socks beneath her sneakers and Clarke slips a hand, fingers splayed, over her mouth to mask the sound of her heavy breathing as they crouch in a heavy crush of limbs behind a tree. They are pressed so close together Clarke can feel the rapid pat-pat of her heart and when the Monty and Jasper run past in a flurry of kicked-up leaves and pine needles, Lexa licks a wet stripe across Clarke’s cupped palm with a fierce brand of mischief in her eyes until Clarke squeals away.

They spend the rest of the afternoon as the taggers but Clarke can’t find it in herself to complain.

The next day tag becomes boring and they think of a new game.

Clarke remembers the story book that she packed in preparation for the lazy hours her and Lexa were sure to spend lounging on the grass—a thick tome her grandmother gifted her for Christmas completed with the words ‘For Clarke’ scrawled inside the front cover in her thin, looped writing that Clarke equated to the threads of the spiderwebs that hung from the beams in the shed. It contains everything from fairy tales to folklore.

She lays it on the picnic table and points to the characters illustrated in battle garb, assigning one to each of them.

Clarke is the sky princess, thrust from her cloud-top home—Olympus, Lexa corrects her quietly, pointing to the illustration of a tall, columned building gleaming atop the point of a high mountain. Her inspiration comes from a short story about a boy named Hercules that Clarke knows nothing about except for the fact that she dimly remembers watching a Disney movie about a boy who was half-god and half-human and had an angry goat instead of parents. She drapes a strip of gauzy fabric over her shoulders rummaged from the depths of the house, a dress-up left over from her aunts’ childhood summers, and threads flowers through her hair, feeling suitably wispy and ‘effervescent’, which Lexa tells her means ‘like air’.

Lexa is the warrior queen whose territory Clarke falls unwittingly into. Clarke thinks it suits her—she peers at the illustration of the woman with braids and leather armour, riding a horse with a sword in her hand and battle-paint on her skin and the slight downward turn in the corner of her lips is so similar to the way Lexa’s face contorts sometimes and she congratulates herself for putting two and two together. Ignoring the short yelps when she mistakenly tugs a stray curl, she clumsily threads Lexa’s hair into a braid the way Octavia taught her at recess. The outcome is less than good. Lexa bears more resemblance to the mangy cat that stalks the neighbourhood begging from scraps than a warrior-queen but she smudges wads of dirt over her eyes to fix it ignoring the way everything inside her goes warm and melty when she smiles—like the s’mores the make in the fire-pit at night in when Lexa is in pyjamas that smell like the Griffin’s detergent and socked feet.

Jasper and Monty grow restless, encroaching on the bubble Clarke has built for them with bored whines and Clarke thinks it’s lucky that Santa Claus never gave her a baby brother for Christmas two years ago because she got Lexa instead and Lexa smells much better than a boy. She assigns them characters anyway; the palace guards, and they search the ground for suitable ‘spears’ wielding gnarled sticks with as much menace as nine-year-olds can.

She kneels before Lexa’s throne—a fork in the twisted branches of a tree—with a circlet made from daisy chains in her hair, head bowed and launching into a wistful monologue of her harrowing journey to the ground, complete with fierce dragons, and a sea-witch who tried to barter unsuccessfully for her voice, while Monty and Jasper level their sticks at her in mock-fighting stances.

Back straight, Lexa blinks at her behind her crude war paint and Clarke thinks time stops.

Later—after they are called into lunch by Abby—they lie, sprawled out in the grass in the sticky heat of the day. Lexa has her bathing suit on beneath her shortalls instead of a t-shirt and her hair has dried in soft corkscrew curls around her hairline so that if she wasn’t peering so intently down at the book she has spread out before her, Clarke would reach out and wind one around her finger.

Instead, she feels like her body is humming with energy she doesn’t know what to do with.

Jake always likes to explain his work to her, he sits her on his lap and draws out maps of electrical circuits, explaining the mechanics of them and Clarke feels oddly similar to an overloaded circuit right now. Like she is plugged in to too many things and it’s making her unable to sit still.

Fingers splayed on the grass, she kicks up into a handstand, grinning at how Lexa looks upside down and the way she mouths the words she’s reading like it will help her remember them better. When she stands back up, the blood rushes back to her head and she peers over Lexa’s shoulder.

“What does ‘fealty’ mean?”

The word sits on the top line of the page in neat, Times New Roman font and it tastes so elegant rolling over Clarke’s tongue she can’t help but ask.

Lexa cranes her neck to look up at her, squinting one eye against the glare of the sun. A swathe of sunburn tints her cheeks red. “It’s like a promise,” she poses like a question, grappling for the right explanation, “or a vow.” Clarke cocks her head. “It’s like when you make a promise to someone,” she tries again, pushing herself up onto her knees so that from her angle, Clarke blocks the sun, “like, ‘I’ll love you ‘till the end of time’.”

Clarke has to rally herself against the sudden burst of dizziness that hits her in the chest with the force of the tee-ball bat in gym class. Lexa kneels in front of her, freckled-nose and braided hair, and if Clarke thought time had stopped before, now it ceases to exist entirely. The world has become just them; this sticky-sweet moment that has wound itself so eagerly around her chest.

Fourth grade science class has brought rudimentary explanations of the universe—how everything they touch is made up of things called ‘atoms’ and how when she looks up at the sky, she has to imagine the biggest thing she can possibly comprehend and then quadruple it and it won’t be nearly a one billionth of what is really out there. To Clarke it doesn’t make an awful lot of sense, the vastness of it all makes her head spin but the one thing she does understand is how the earth rotates around the sun because it’s similar to the way she thinks she rotates around Lexa.

“I love you,” she tells Lexa in earnest.

Lexa cocks her head, nose scrunched and finger curled into the spine of her book, marking the page. “Why.”

Clarke is taken back. Her and Octavia have been exchanging cheesy ‘I love yous’ since the second grade and there isn’t any real reason for it other than ‘that’s just what friends do’. She shrugs and purses her lips. “I don’t know,” she says plainly,  and amends the words Octavia tells her, “that’s just what best friends do.”

Lexa doesn’t come with them in the summer between sixth and seventh grade.

With help from a contact at work her mom gets her to the top of the waiting list for a sleep away camp in the Maine and Lexa pulls up the website on the Griffin’s computer in the kitchen on Saturday night, scrolling through page after page of girls in tennis whites and soffe shorts, playing field hockey and toasting marshmallows around a campfire.

“I don’t really want to go,” Lexa says quietly, nose wrinkling at Clarke’s silence. Behind them Jake dices vegetables for tacos and a bespectacled Abby checks through Clarke’s book report for spelling eras but the comforting familiarity does nothing to stop Clarke souring at the blindside. “My mom thinks it will be good for me.”

Clarke is getting tired of what Lexa’s mom thinks will be good for her.

The woman is sweet and kind. She has heard her parents talking about how she ‘does her best’ for Lexa which she knows is what adults say when they are commiserating the hardships of single-parenthood but in her worst moments Clarke wants to shake the woman until she understands that Lexa’s quirks don’t make her ‘unique’ in the way that people talk about people who are different, they make her special.

So what if Lexa likes books better than people? Clarke likes girls better than boys and nobody is up in arms about it.

Sometimes it feels like Lexa’s mom aches for her to fit in more than Lexa does.

She can’t stop Lexa from going though, and the morning before they would usually leave for the lake sees her standing on Lexa’s front porch instead, with a horribly permanent pout on her mouth that she can’t shake. Lexa stands before her in sneakers, navy shorts and a tee with her camps logo printed on the front in bold white letters, her hair in two, tight braids and she looks so startlingly un Lexa-like stripped of her embroidered socks and circle of braids that when Clarke winds her arms around her neck in a dramatic goodbye, she finds herself mouthing a silent prayer to whomever is watching to put her best-friend back together again.

Hooking her chin over Lexa’s shoulder Clarke makes her promise to write weekly, hating the tears that seem to be squeezing their way out from beneath her eye-lids, and Lexa swears a solemn vow to do so, nose tucked into the crook of Clarke’s neck.

When it’s time to let go Clarke reluctantly untangles herself and retreats back to her own front yard, pressing herself against the white fence and waving vigorously as Lexa’s mom loads her and her trunk into the car and the Sedan inches its way out of the driveway.

“You’ll see her in August,” Abby reminds her, arms tucked over her daughter’s shoulders, “we can buy some stamps and you can write to her whenever you like.”

Clarke nods dumbly, trying not to let the whole affair feel like an awful betrayal.

When they make it to the lake two days later after a near silent five hour drive, it rains for the first time in as long as Clarke can remember.

In lieu of her best-friend, Abby has extended the invitation to her sister-in-law and her kids and Clarke stares at her cousins—five-year-old twins and a nineteen-year-old who is more interested in her boyfriend who insists on calling Clarke ‘squirt’ at age twelve-and-a-half than she is in Clarke—wondering how she is supposed to bestow the honour of her summers on people who are so clearly unqualified.

She wallows in the absurdity of it all as she is relegated to the bunk-room, watching with her stomach churning and a hot, angry thing she doesn’t care to understand clawing at her ribs as her Eden is invaded by her cousin and her Air Jordan wearing boyfriend with his stupid, unbrushed mop of hair. And even though Clarke is relatively sure a five story drop onto concrete wouldn’t do any damage to the twins—they’re dim-witted at the best of times and they paw at the t shirt Lexa bought her for her birthday like it’s something they are allowed to touch—her aunt decides it’s best if Clarke takes the top bunk, despite the fact that puberty is beginning to bring her her promised growth spurt and folding herself into the top bunk is a feat worthy of a contortionist.

The bout of water-logged days mean the boat stays in the shed and the twins grow restless in the sticky-wet heat. Clarke takes it upon herself to commandeer the role of ‘moody teenager’ two years too early and sprawls out on the wooden floors near the closed glass doors and punches the buttons of her Nintendo DS until Mario stops obeying her commands as the rain beats at the window panes. She thinks it’s pathetic fallacy, or whatever her English teacher had said when she explained the way authors use the ‘external environment’ to show a characters ‘internal emotions’, because if she could peel back a layer of herself and peer into her soul, she is sure the unhappy, slate-grey of the lake is what it would look like.

She hopes it isn’t raining on Lexa too.

They cut their trip short and Clarke is sitting with her chin in her hands when Lexa returns.

Her ponytail sticks to the nape of her neck where it is secured with an elastic, remaining stubbornly in her t-shirt and shorts even though Aurora invited them around for pizza and too cool off in the Blake’s pool—even the promise of seeing their newly acquired black Labrador puppy wasn’t enough of a bribe to get her to give up her post.

Her and Lexa have been exchanging letters once a week without fail over the eight weeks of Lexa’s session, detailing each other in on the smallest things. So much so that Clarke thinks she is the one who has been rotating through six activities a day and sounded off to sleep by Taps at precisely nine-twenty but it hasn’t been nearly enough. It’s stupid, but she needs to see Lexa again with her own eyes, as if to make sure she hasn’t disappeared into thin-air like a product of her imagination.

“Clarke!”

When she looks up, Lexa is standing three feet away from her, tanned and slightly breathless. Her mom’s Sedan is still inching its way into the drive, which means Lexa took a flying jump from the passenger door while the car was still in gear to find her. She’s wearing tiny, navy running shorts and her camp tee—slightly faded from almost daily washing and eight-weeks’ worth of sun—hangs off her teenage frame, knotted at her hip so that the hem rides up to reveal a long triangle of skin that makes a hot, aching thing build in the pit of Clarke’s stomach. Instead of deciphering it, she propels herself from her crouch on the porch to fling her arms around her best-friend’s neck, instantly recognising the way Lexa seems imperceptibly broader and stronger in her arms. Her shoulder blades flex beneath the press of Clarke’s hands as she draws her desperately closer and when Clarke prods a finger at the offending strip of skin at her waistband—teasing her mercilessly about her bare midriff—gone is the softness Clarke usually finds there when she curls into her in their shared bed at night.

Instead she is long limbs and lean muscle, her cheeks are dusted with sunburn and her hair is lighter, but the worst? Her freckles are on show and this time it isn’t Clarke who has put them there, but a girl by the name of Costia who’s neatly printed name is in the center of those scrawled on the back of Lexa’s shirt in permanent marker.

They lie on the mesh of Clarke’s trampoline after Lexa has hauled her trunk up to her room—her mom gave her four hours before she had to return next door and sort out her laundry—with cans of diet coke sweating in their palms as Clarke recounts the story of walking in on her cousin and her boyfriend being more intimate than strictly necessary on a family-friendly vacation.

“I almost barfed,” she giggles heartily, “I wanted to end it all right there but my mom talked me down from the ledge.”

“Oh, the dramatics,” Lexa sighs, grinning. She takes a sip then looks at Clarke seriously. “Was it really that bad without me?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” Clarke says softly. It wasn’t bad so much as it was empty, completely void of all of the things that made summer summer and Clarke has been left with the odd feeling that she is returning to school having not had a holiday at all.

Lexa screws her nose up and nods, “if it makes you feel better camp sucked too.”

“No it didn’t,” Clarke laughs, curling onto her side, “but thank you for making me feel better.”

Lexa piques a brow. “Are you call me a liar?” she accuses, feigning a hurt look. When Clarke shrugs, she flings a leg over her hips and pins her to the taut mesh of the trampoline with her arms by her ears and Clarke tries not to gasp at the electric shocks that skitter across her skin when they touch. Instead, she collapses into laughter, tipping her head to the side as Lexa knees her beneath the ribs, demanding ‘take it back, take it back’ in a low, teasing voice.

“Fine!” Clarke gaps, writhing against the assault, “fine!” She paws at the smooth length of Lexa’s thighs where they sit nestled against her waist. “I believe you.”

Clarke has a hard time pinpointing exactly what happens next.  

Somehow she raises her head and simultaneously, Lexa goes to lower hers. The result is a cacophonous collision of foreheads and noses; Clarke opens her mouth to whine in pain and finds a mouthful of Lexa’s bottom lip instead, eyes bulging as her pulse skyrockets to a speed she thinks surely signals a cardiac arrest.

Lexa makes a noise that resembles something close to an ‘oof’ then her fingers come to Clarke’s cheek in concern. “I’m sorry,” she smiles ruefully—it’s the same lopsided, word splitting smile she has always had and it does something to quell the stagnant uneasiness that has taken root in Clarke’s spine, if not the smouldering build up of who knows what in the pit of her stomach—and runs her thumb in a practiced motion over the short, white scar beneath Clarke’s eye.  

“It’s okay,” Clarke whispers. She fiddles with the edge of the tie-dyed bandana that is wrapped and knotted around Lexa’s wrist, trying not to focus on the impending sense of doom she feels as her body betrays her.

[fightevilandthengetblownup]

FIC: Surpassed All Men

She had first noticed something strange just before her 38th birthday, but Jo couldn’t ever have imagined what it would mean for her.

Leaning in the mirror one morning, she had been absolutely certain that the laugh lines beside her eyes were appearing smoother than they had in years, the crinkles less deep and the fine lines almost completely invisible. Jo had written it off purely on her trying a new moisturizer the week before that Ombre had brought back from her latest jaunt to Paris, and had instead brushed it aside in favor of chasing Billy and Fi downstairs for breakfast that sunny morning as a treat to celebrate the start of middle school for Billy.

The next time was the evening of her 40th birthday, where she found the lack of silvers in her hair and the fact she looked brighter eyed and bushier tailed than she had since before the kids were born - all three of them - to be exceedingly perplexing as she’d lent a hand on the ornate wall mirror in their bedroom while Grey’s lips were fastened at her neck and his hands slowly drew the zip on the back of her dress down. She’d even voiced the oddity of it, saying quietly “I’m lookin’ pretty good for forty, aren’t I?” but the other merely chuckled and spent the rest of the night whispering gently against her skin just how good he thought she looked.

Seven years later, Jo thought about it again as she helped her daughter fasten the back of her dress tightly - a small shock rocking through her as she realized her baby girl was almost an adult. Turning eighteen this year and all, and wearing heels that made her even taller than her mother ready to run downstairs to go to the long-standing tradition of teenagers of Prom, with the small group of girls she sometimes spent time with at school. Fiona was looking so nervous and young, and giving her daughter a tight hug, Jo moved the last bit of her hair back into place as there was the sound of the doorbell ringing, and Grey shouting up that he needed to take a picture or fifty before Fi left with her friends. Jo laughed as their daughter scurried downstairs, looking every bit the young lady she’d grown into, but as Jo started packing away the makeup and hairstyling equipment she’d helped dress her girl up with, she found herself frowning at how unaged her hands looked for a woman with her youngest child almost grown. And there wasn’t any moisturizer to blame it on this time.

But she didn’t have the chance to ponder too long on it though - the years between with kidnapping and stress, with chasing after her lost lambs (all three of them at their own times), with phone calls and research, with her working longer and longer hours in the library above the bar rather than out on the road, and with more and more new hunters filtering through and calling on her first and foremost. The first time she heard Jake laugh and describe her as the Hunting Goddess he prayed to whenever he got caught in a bind, Jo had laughed just as hard herself; and when she got a denim jacket with it embroidered as a gift from some of the older hunting kids-turned-adults lead by Krissy Chambers and her girlfriend Josephine for her 50th, she’d found it all the funnier.

Her thoughts didn’t start catching up to her until she was zipping the exact same dress from fifteen years earlier up as Grey fixed his tie and went to fetch her almost-vintage necklace that Jo found herself frozen to the spot in fear. Rooted in the very spot before the mirror that she had looked in and noticed she looked great for forty, and now was seeing that she looked even better at fifty-five than she had then. She found herself staring, eyes wide and frightened, drinking in the lack of lines that should have surrounded her eyes and tugged from her lips; the lack of greys throughout her hair when even Sam who was younger than her had truly entered an equal measure of salt-and-pepper to his own hair; the way her skin didn’t sag and had no signs of sunspots or wear from long nights, raising two children, hunting for decades and just general aging. That she looked barely a day over a very good thirty-five shook her to her core, and when Grey came over to drape the chain around her neck, their dinner plans were canceled immediately as Jo found herself sobbing against his chest.

---

“This had better be important, gorgeous, cause you know I'm a very busy man.” Gabe found himself saying immediately as he appeared, lounging in a way the projected carelessness and a display of the debauchery the quiet, panicked prayer had called him away from, in the largest chair available in the room. It took a lot of planning and thought to make sure to land reclined and relaxed the way that he did right then, pointing towards the space he knew she was standing in before he’d even appeared with the Snickers bar he was enjoying before she’d called for him. “You’re lucky you’re my favorite person, Jo, or I’d be very annoyed.”

“Gabe. Look at me.” The blonde’s voice was tight and a little bit shrill, especially for someone who every time he’d seen her over the years was always ready for a laugh. Gabe blinked in confusion, tilting his head towards her as he took another bite from his candy bar. “Not like that, you fuckin’ - please, can you... Look at me.”

“Beautiful, I don’t know what you mean at all.” “For fuck's sake, can you make sure I don’t still have any of it?” “Any what?” “The fuckin’ shit that made Fi, you fuckface!”

“Well that’s not very polite, you want to try that again?” Gabe found himself frowning a little - his skin crawling that he felt the small spike of anger at being spoken to as the little hunter was, but also that he was feeling slighted by it at all in a way he hated to feel happen - as he sat up a little straighter and watched the pacing blonde. “You’d like me to...” He spoke softly and directing, waving his hand as if to draw the rest of the words out from the other.

Jo gave a loud sounding groan, and he almost laughed watching as she tugged at the roots of her hair for a moment before she spun to face him and snapped out through gritted teeth. “I’d like you to make sure there isn’t any angelic mojo still in me.”

“Why though? I checked it when your little bundle of joy - by the way, how is she going these days? - came out.” Gabe quirked an eyebrow up at the other for a moment, confused. 

It had been one of the most concerning times of his long existence, in a way, back then. That he’d felt the disturbance some quarter of a century or so earlier in the flare of power that he’d known to be one angel, and one angel only, sent a chill of fear down his spine to sense. He’d waited all of thirty minutes before he snapped where it had come from and had been horrified to realize he’d been at the perky, blonde hunter’s kitchen just in time for breakfast and still surrounded by the overwhelming power burst around them. It had been even more horrifying than the idea that the Cage had been opened to find out exactly had caused it instead.

He’d barely strayed from the area for the whole time. The constant shifts of power distracting whenever he left the area, and the fears some other member of the Host might come down to investigate had found him setting up his own entertaining shop in the nicest hotel in the city to keep an eye - out of sight and without the hunter or her monster’s knowledge though - on the situation. That Jo had told him, through tears and a bottle of Jack that Gabe had zapped the alcohol out of, the details of her resurrection and the horrific plans that could have occurred had added to his desire to stay close by. The only advantage to popping in so regularly had been the baked goods from a cranky pregnant lady with an obsession for chocolate and strawberries. The day the little girl had been born, Gabe had come to check on mother and daughter alike and confirmed that all that energy had exhausted itself out of her.

That Jo didn’t trust his determination at the time felt somewhat insulting, but the terror he caught in her eyes was chilling enough to excuse it for the time being.

“Fine, gorgeous, come here then will you.” Gabe shifted slightly, and as the blonde approached, his lips quirked up in a smile as he patted his thigh cheekily. “Let’s get a look at you then.” He patted his knee again, raising a brow at her and hoping that the playful antics might help soothe whatever was causing the uncharacteristic seriousness. It hadn’t been so long since he last saw her that Jo should have lost her sense of humor, or at least he didn’t think so.

There was a beat of silence before the archangel let out a noiseless sigh of relief at the bright laugh his actions got out of the other. “Only for you, Gabe,” Jo replied, voice tinged with amusement under the stress, as she moved towards him and actually complied with his joke to perch on his lap with a tight laugh of her joke of her own. “Now, Santa, can you take a looksy?”

“Right away, you just tell me if you’ve been a good or a bad girl this year, yeah?” He quipped back, a hand going to support her back before he shook his head free of his playful behavior and focused on her actual request. Jo looked fine, so far as he could tell just looking at her - she looked exactly as he always pictured her, bright and happy over that undercurrent of fear - but as he leaned closer he suddenly realized exactly how frightening that could be. She looked exactly as she’d always looked. Not a single difference from over thirty years, from that bar in New Orleans where she’d laughed at him and batted her lashes a little too much. “What the-”

“I fuckin’ know, Gabe!” The shrill tone was back, but this time it didn’t bother him any as he felt a little like being shrill himself. This shouldn’t be happening, and that her first thought was in fear about that horrific plan still being in place and waiting to let her be prepared to pop out some abominations well into her twilight years made his stomach churn the number of sweets inside harshly. “Am I-?”

“It’s... it’s not that.” He replied gently, thumb rubbing at the base of her spine as he tilted his head and looked deeper. None of that angelic trace was still in her, just as there hadn’t been the moment her daughter was born - the daughter she looked like she could almost be the older sister of. There was no sign of any Grace running under her skin, nothing at all like that. The relief in him was palpable at it, but that didn’t answer at all what was occurring to her. “Don’t worry, Jo, that’s all gone still.”

“Well then what on earth could it be?” “I’m still looking, you impatient brat.” “Look quicker then.”

Gabe huffed a laugh at that, feeling the way the tension in her seemed to release immediately at his confirmation, but there was still something wholly unsettling about the situation. This was unnatural whatever it was, and leaning closer, he gave a quiet sigh looking up at the other in concern.

“Now, Jo, I promise I’m not trying to cop a feel what with your still being a very gorgeous MILF - but I’m going to need to, uh, check your soul.” The archangel spoke calmly as he realized whatever was going on was deeper than the shallow level he could sense at it was, and as Jo gave him an incredulous look and then a short nod, he sucked in his own calming breath before he rolled up his sleeve and gently pressed the hand against and into her chest.

The moment his fingers grazed it - not her soul exactly, because that wasn’t what it was anymore - he knew that somehow something miraculous had started. And that was when the screaming started.

---

“A what now?” The quiver in his voice cut her to the core as she stayed exactly where she had laid herself out as soon as she had been alone after Gabriel had left.

It had been a full day since she’d found out the cause of her mysterious age-defying. Or rather, that there was a cause but one not so easily explained as to say it was this or that entirely. A somewhat of an explanation, but more so a promise to return with an answer as soon as he could; and where usually where such a promise from the archangel-trickster would be taken with a grain of salt, the serious tone and the concerned look he had delivered her had settled her frayed nerves after the achingly painful experience of whatever he had done to her. It had felt like someone had touched her very core and no matter how prepared or gentle the archangel had been, it had hurt more deeply than anything else she’d ever felt. Like a complete rejection of the invasion.

Jo had stayed laid out on the couch all afternoon and all night. She hadn’t made a move to get up that morning so far, and she should have remembered that Grey was due home sooner rather than later but after the blinding pain she’d not remembered much of anything other than that she never wanted to feel it again.

“He doesn’t know for sure.” Jo returned with a sigh, stifling a yawn as she finally pushed herself to sit up with what would have been a crack of her back if she really was as old as she was. Instead, she barely felt a small crick in her neck despite laying stationary for twenty-four hours. 

“But he said something about a god?” Grey’s voice was still sharply tinged with concern and fear, the same it was every time the concept of the beings of faith were brought up. A fear Jo knew she should have, but had been unable to muster herself before now - and even less so now. “As in, there’s a god involved in whatever has happened to you? Which... Why would... Jo, what?”

“I don’t know, hun. I don’t know.” “But you have to know! I thought you’d just won some more or something, I didn’t realize-” “If I had done that, I’d have told you like last time.”

“Sure, but that doesn’t change the fact some god is fucking with you, Jo!” Grey’s voice was harsh and panicked, and Jo shifted to lean into his side with a quiet sigh as she could see his hands turning over and over to wrap about his wrists, tugging at the cuffs of his hoodie nervously. “Is it that voodoo lady?”

“If it was her, she’d have sent me somethin’ tellin’ me, hun,” Jo replied as calmly as possible, blinking in surprise when she realized his fears and anxiety seemed to have completely lifted her own off of her shoulders as if he’d absorbed it all for the both of them. Giving a quiet laugh, she leaned in closer and bumped her forehead against his own gently, eyes closed and lips tugging into a tiny smile. “I don’t... I don’t know what it could be, but I trust that Gabe’ll find out what and it’ll all be fine.”

“Oh sure, trust the freaking angel of all things!” “Grey!” “You and I both know your track record with angels is fucking shoddy, Jo, and you’re saying to just trust that this one has your back?! That he’s going to have your best interests in mind? That he’s not going to go get bored or distracted or run off to have a gay old party with some pagan piece’a shit rather than find out what is happening to you?!”

Jo bit her lip as Grey’d jerked himself upright, working himself further up as he paced across the space between the coffee table and the wood fire. Over the years they’d been in the house - shortly before Fi was born - she had been surprised over and over that stretch of the floor hadn’t given way from the number of times she’d watched him pace that exact same line. Back and forth, arms flung wide and teeth clicking around certain words as he got more and more frustrated at the situation. Watching quietly, Jo let out a silent sigh as she waited for the moment he would reach the end of his rant and then ask the inevitable calm question that he always did - never the same question, but always something that calmed his fire right down as soon as he’d asked it.

“Okay, fine, so we wait for the angel, fine. But what exactly did he say to you, Jo?” Grey’s voice was soft and cracked, and Jo couldn’t help but feel blessed that both Fi and Billy had moved out over the last few years so she wouldn’t need to worry they might overhear something they shouldn’t. “What did he say?”

Shaking her head and rubbing at her temples, Jo tried to recall the exact phrasing that the other had said to her during those head thumping moments after he’d stopped whatever it was he’d done and her mind was still screaming at her in pain beyond any she’d had before. Her eyes closed and laying back face down on the couch, Jo slowly let out her breath before she could think any clearer.

“He said.. it felt like a god.” “What felt like a god?” “My soul. He said that.. something about a god was on it, or in it, I’m not sure.”

“He..said your soul was touched by a god?” Grey’s question sounded uncertain and uncomfortable, and Jo wasn’t surprised at all to hear his feet pad across the floorboards and then the dip of the couch beside her before the comforting feel of a hand ran through her hair. “Is that what he said?”

“No. He said it felt like a god.” She repeated the words again, curling in on herself and tilting her head up into his touch with a sigh. The world could collapse around her right then and there, and none of it would matter so long as his hand continued to stroke through her hair and calm her like that. 

“It.. felt like a god?” Grey repeated to himself quietly, the curiosity and a tiny slice of fear worked it’s way into his tone as Jo nodded her head and shuffled forward a little to rest her head in his lap. “Like.. it is a god?”

It sounded strange in his tone, but she was too tired to care or take in what words he was stating right then. Her last few days had been too stressful to think on much, and as she curled closer and slowly relaxed into his touch, she didn’t think much on how she could hear the faintest voice sounding very, very far away whispering her name before she finally fell to sleep for the first time since her disastrous birthday.

---

[katmstanton]

Fatherhood - Ch. 22

How about some fluffiness before things get serious for a bit?

Tags: @obfuscateyummy @mrsrafaelbarba @madpanda75 @sweetsummertime99 @julie-yard @surrealdiaries @ctfarhan @esparza-army @dreila03 @lyssa1385 @theoofoof @MsNYC 

Chapter 22:

“Jake, are you ready to go?” Olivia called out as she walked into the living room putting on her last earring.

It was the day both her and Rafael had been dreading since they had met with Langan a few weeks prior. Today would be when they attended their first court hearing with child services for Jake since he moved in with Rafael.

Neither Rafael or Olivia had pushed Jake to talk to them about the letters and notes he wrote and had instead allowed Langan and Dr. Miles to speak with Jake about them privately.

Langan had advised them to not pressure him to talk about them and instead to allow him to talk about them on his own time. He also knew he didn’t to give child services any more ammunition in what he felt would be a tough and emotional hearing anyway.

As much as she hated to admit it, she was nervous. She knew neither her nor Rafael had done anything wrong or had done anything that would make the judge not believe Jake was in a stable, loving home.

However, she also knew that there was only so much they could do in court as they would no longer be NYPD or ADA when they entered the room. Instead, they would be parents of a 13 year old. Parents of a child they did not know existed a few short months prior.

As she finished cleaning up from their breakfast Lucy arrived to take Noah to school. Both her and Rafael had agreed that Noah did not need to be at court as he would not understand what was happening.

Instead, he would go about his normal day and Lucia would pick him up from school if they were not out in time. Both of them had wanted to Jake to also attend school but Langan had advised them the court would need to speak with Jake so he would need to be present.

“Hey Lucy! Noah should be ready, let me get him for you.” Olivia said as she let the younger woman in.

“It’s no problem, Olivia! Noah is a wonderful kid and Jaje us too. You guys just focus on Jake and court today. Lucia and I have everything figured out for Noah today.”

The two woman shared a smile and both of them squeezed the other’s hand, eyes filled with emotions. She truly loved Lucy and everything she had not only done for her and Noah but also everything she had done for Rafael and Jake since Jake arrived.

Before she could move towards the hallway to get Noah she heard Rafael moving down the hall towards the kitchen. As she turned to ask him to stop by the boy’s room she had to take a moment to admire what she was seeing.

She had seen him in a suit more times than she could count and she swore the man never wore the same tie twice in a month but as he moved down the hall there was something different about him.

As she took in his dark grey, three-piece suit matched with a baby blue shirt and his blue polka-dotted tie she couldn’t help but smile as she watched how the suit fit him just right. She had a feeling he had picked up a new suit when he took Jake but now that she saw it on him she couldn’t help but be glad. His hair was perfectly parted and she was sure she would need to get him more product with the amount he had used to plaster his hair down.

It wasn’t until he chuckled and gave her a slight smirk that she was jostled back to reality. As she looked at him both he and Lucy chuckled slightly.

“You okay, Liv?”

“What.. oh.. Yea! Umm.. do you mind getting Noah for Lucy? Plus Jake needs to be ready to go as well.”

“You just want to stare at my ass as I walk away don’t you?”

His retort made her eyes go wide as the blush crept across her face. Both of which caused Lucy to laugh once more and Rafael’s smile just grew as he walked slowly backwards towards the hallway before going to check on both boys.

As he reached the door to Jake’s room he knocked before opening the door slightly. Before he could say anything he could hear Noah’s small voice trying to explain to Jake how to tie a tie properly as well as coaching him on giving a handshake. Rafael could only smile as he listened to the two for a few more seconds as he remembered having the same talk with Noah about a month prior to Jake arriving.

Noah had come up to him one night while he was reading a case with Liv’s old patrol cap on and asked him if he could wear one of his ties to school one day for career day since he wanted to be a lawyer-cop. The two would then spend the next hour talking about ties and how to show people you mean business through a handshake.

He smiled as he listened to his boys a few seconds longer and when he realized Noah’s voice was turning into frustration at the older boy he decided to speak up.

“Hey guys, you ready?” He stated as he slowly opened the door further before taking a step in the room.

He had to take a moment at the sight in front of him as he entered the room. Jake’s desk chair had been dropped as low as it could go and Noah was standing on it in front of Jake between him and mirror on the wall. He could see the younger boy’s frustration in his body language and how he held his hands on his hips looking squarely at Jake.

“What is going on in here?”

“Papi.. Rafi.. I am TRYING to teach Jake how to wear his tie but he won’t listen to me.”

“No. I am listening but you are in the way and I am trying to get dressed Noah.” Jake said and Rafael could hear the frustration and nervousness in his voice as he spoke.

“Noah, why don’t you go ahead and join your mom in the kitchen. I think Lucy is here to take you to school and don’t forget you get to spend this afternoon with your abuela.”

Noah happily jumped down from the chair with Rafael’s help and before he ran out the room towards Olivia and Lucy he turned towards Rafael with a stern face.

“Good luck counselor.”

It took all Rafael had not to laugh as Noah spoke and he could see the smirk on Jake’s face starting to creep in as much as he was trying to fight it. It wasn’t until Noah was out of earshot that both shared a laugh and Jake spoke.

“I think we will all need help if he ever does become a lawyer-cop one day.”

Jake’s statement made Rafael laugh harder and she shook his head as he moved to stand in front of Jake to help him with his tie and suit.

“It’s not that I wasn’t listening to him. It’s just..”

“I know. Try being me when Olivia has an idea stuck in her head and won’t take no for an answer.” Rafael stated and both he and Jake shared a small smile before Rafael went to fix Jake’s tie for him.

As he tied the tie, still hanging on Jake’s neck, he explained everything step-by-step while also showing him what everything looked like in the mirror. As he explained everything he made sure to verify Jake understood before moving to the next step. Afterwards he stood behind Jake with both hands on his shoulders as Jake then tied the tie by himself with few words from Rafael.

Rafael smiled at Jake in the mirror as he helped him into his suit dark grey suit jacket. The two had decided to have matching suits when they had went to get fitted. However, Jake had abstained from the vest, unlike Rafael, and Rafael had let him pick out his own shirts and ties while he was getting his pants hemmed. In the end, Jake had picked out two different shirt and tie combinations with pocket squares for each with the help of one of the salesman.

“Thank you Rafi.” Jake said as he smiled at Rafael through the mirror and Rafael smiled back as he squeezed the boys shoulders.

“Anytime mijo.”

[myrish-lace-love]

Jake + Amy (Brooklyn 99 fic)

Summary: Amy still hasn’t gotten over Jake, despite that awful road trip where she told him her feelings were in the past. Amy’s convinced there’s no way Jake still cares about her the way he used to - not even after his breakup with Sophia. Amy makes a trip to the precinct late at night, trying to drown out her persistent fretting with work. She slips into an old habit - doodling - and draws her name and Jake’s together on a napkin. Embarrassing, but harmless. Then Jake walks in.

A/N: This is my first time writing for this fandom! I’m halfway through season 3, but saw the season 3 finale episode title, “Jake and Amy,” and couldn’t get this idea out of my head. :)

***

Amy - color-coding, rule-following, five-minutes-early-for-everything Amy - has a secret. She doodles, when her other coping strategies fail her. When, for example, paperwork couldn’t soothe her. Usually plowing through a stack of files – imposing order onto a tiny universe – helps her carry that feeling of calm over into real life.

But tonight, her folders were neatly squared away and her mind was still restless. She’d come in to try and stop the constant stream of doubt and second-guessing in her head. She was alone in the precinct, with nothing but the faint buzz of fluorescent lights to keep her company. She nibbled on her lip while drawing on the back of a napkin with a blue ballpoint pen.

Jake + Amy. It was silly, straight out of the fifth grade, though granted she and Jake did act like fifth graders around each other sometimes. But it was an easy, private way to make the connection between them. To skip over the messy talk about feelings and consequences and things left unsaid.

Teddy had been right. Jake was the problem in their relationship. Teddy, being the sharp detective he was, knew it. He called her out on it, during that awful road trip. To make matters worse, Amy had lied - at least by omission - leaving Jake with the impression that any feelings she’d harbored for him were in the past. When, in fact, she was pining for him now.

Meanwhile, Jake had fallen for Sophia. Beautiful, smooth, immaculate Sophia, who seemed right for him. Sarcastic. Outgoing. A better fit. But Sophia had crushed Jake’s heart, and he was only starting to recover.

Now, maybe, there was a small space, an opening for Amy and Jake. Which is why Amy’s sneaky subconscious drew them together on a napkin, surrounded by a curly-cue heart.

Except Jake had seemed so deeply in love with Sophia that Amy refused to acknowledge there was still room in Jake’s life for the two of them. You know. Romantic stylez. She and Jake were friends. Friendship was good. Dependable. And not at all what she wanted.

She’d been floored when Jake first confessed his feelings. Speechless. He’d spoken to a truth inside her she didn’t know existed. And then he’d left, vanished into the mob, maybe never to be seen again, and she’d thrown herself into her relationship with Teddy. To try to forget the softness in Jake’s eyes, and the answering flutter in her stomach.

“Amy?”

She startled. Jake was in front of her, wearing a rumpled flannel shirt and blinking owlishly. Of course. Of course Jake had to come in tonight too.

Amy groaned and dropped her head on her desk. She could hear him already. How is the fact that you doodle not the most hilarious part of this night? Is that a heart? Amy, I’m swooning. He’d do something dumb like get down on his knees, like he had after the bet. Amy Santiago, will you marry me?

“Just take the napkin Jake. Go ahead, put it up by the vending machine. Get it over with.” He’d probably frame it.

Silence. She peeked through the arm of her suit jacket. Jake was standing stock still, staring at the paper as if it might bite him.

Read more below or continue on AO3

“I, uh….”

“C'mon Jake. I just handed you the office gossip for a week.” Boyle was definitely going to sing.

He met her eyes and she caught her breath. Softness and wonderment flickered across his face. Sentiments that didn’t look like they would instantly dissolve into a wide-mouthed grin and ha I totally got you!

The same vulnerability she’d seen each time he’d confessed how he felt.

He stunbled over his words. “I was gonna get caught up on that B&E but…I gotta go.” Then he took off like she’d lit a fire underneath him.

Amy closed her mouth after a minute. She took the doodle and stuffed it in her bag. He’d be back to normal tomorrow, searching her desk for it.

She dragged herself home, ate Chinese takeout without tasting it, and almost threw the stupid napkin in the stupid trash.

Her hand wavered. Jake + Amy. She kept it instead, tucked it deep into the drawer in her bedside table. She felt better, somehow, knowing that she’d written it down. Yes she was pathetic, but really at this point who’s counting?

She flailed around for a good minute before whacking her alarm the next morning. Messy emotions aside, she was, in fact, an adult, and proud of it, and she was going into the office, damnit. So she dragged herself into the precinct, picking up heavily sugared coffee on the way and bracing herself for the inevitable fallout.

***

Jake bounced into the office the next morning, smoothed his hand over his tie, and got to work. Nothing seemed amiss, apart from a tightness around his eyes. Amy sighed and sipped her caffeine.

Rosa glared at her. “Amy, you look like crap.”

Jake cleared his throat. “Amy was working late last night.”

Here we go.

“Just…” Jake faltered. “Being the smart, dedicated detective she is.”

Boyle perked up. “So wait, you were here too, Jake?”

Jake waved his hand. “Oh briefly. Came in to check on a file” - despite everything Amy shot him a warning look, don’t, because they were still partners and she still had his back – “that I definitely did not put in my bag because who brings home confidential files? Who does that? I casually rifled through one, thought some brilliant crime-solving thoughts, and headed home.” Jake turned back to his computer.

Awkward silence filled the room.

Diaz frowned. “What the hell is wrong with you two?”

“Nothing!” Amy said, in that chipper voice that grated on her own nerves sometimes. “Completely normal morning here.”

Rosa snorted. “Yeah sure. Whatever.”

Amy kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. She needed Jake to kid about this. Because it was too weird otherwise. Too…real. Pretty soon she was going to have to talk to him about it, and while that had seemed like the most awful outcome possible last night, it would be an improvement over this standoff. But no matter how many times she glanced over at his desk, Jake wouldn’t meet her eyes.

After lunch, Amy had resorted to hiding away, sorting files in the evidence locker, when the door creaked open.

“Hey,” Jake said, too brightly. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Amy’s stomach churned. She couldn’t do this anymore. She closed the drawer and turned to face him. “Jake, please, wait. Why aren’t you making fun of me?

Jake looked away. His shoulders hunched. “Did you mean it?”

Amy took a deep breath. She could joke around. She could try. She gave him a half-smile. “Are you asking me if I meant my doodle?”

“Yeah. Is it like an equation?” He was putting up a valiant effort too, but she saw the strain on his face. “Jake plus Amy equals - wait there’s no answer that doesn’t sound sexual. Never mind.”

There were lots of answers, actually. Great detectives. Great team. A rhythm and pattern that made sense.

Jake ran a hand through his hair. “Okay, yeah. That’s exactly what I’m asking.”

It had to hurt, to walk in and see evidence that she hadn’t been completely honest with him about her feelings. It was time for her to be brave.

“I wrote a childish note you weren’t supposed to see and I was going to destroy it. Because yes, I like you, that’s not in the past for me, that’s now. And that’s not fair to you. Not something I can ask of you. Not after you just broke up with Sophia. And you don’t care about me that way anymore. ”

Jake finally met her eyes, and his gaze was pained.

“Amy, I…”

Jake reached for her and she rushed to meet him. She’d imagined kissing him many, many times, but she’d never thought it could be this sweet, this tender. He cupped the back of her head and kissed her like he intended to savor it, like he couldn’t quite believe this was happening either.

Only the two of them could have turned I like you into something more loaded than I love you. They’d managed to transform a silly phrase into a concept that was enormous and vast and terrifying. But it had to be vast - large enough to hold all the time’s he’d had her back and she’d had his, when his jokes made her bite her lip to keep from laughing, when his big heart caused problem and solved them.

They broke apart, and Jake rested his forehead on hers. A bubble of happiness rose in her chest. He was warm, and solid, and here, holding her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he pulled her closer. His breath ghosted over her ear.

“Thank god you told me, because I still like you too. I never stopped. Not even when I was with Sophia. I think she figured it out, and broke it off. Because you’re the one for me, Amy. You always will be.”

Amy snuggled furather into his embrace. “Yeah. Me too.” She should probably offer more. But she sucked at feelings too, almost as much as Jake did. They were a hell of a pair. At least they could be terrible at it together.

“I almost had a heart attack, seeing that napkin.” He drew back, and his smile had that familiar smirk. “Ha, heart attack, like the one you drew.”

She giggled. God she’d missed this. Missed him. “Seriously, this is the lowest-hanging fruit ever.”

He touched her cheek. “You know, I never asked you when your feelings for me stopped. I wondered, but I didn’t want to pry.”

Amy tangled her fingers in Jake’s hair. “They didn’t. You’ve got a curly-cued heart to prove it.”

“Okay, seriously, did you doodle in school? I have to know.”

“Sometimes. Late at night. Never in class.”

He smiled at her. “No, of course not. Someone might have seen you. Secret’s safe with me.”

Amy’s doodle did appear on their wedding invitations years later. Boyle, ever the romantic, framed his, and gave it to them as a gift on their one-year anniversary. So Jake + Amy was, eventually, framed and hung on a wall. Amy traced her fingers over it each time she walked by in the hallway, grateful that a silly hobby had been the key to Jake finding his way back to her.

Or, for them finding their way back to each other.

[andrewuttaro]

New Look Sabres: GM 2 - NJD - Goals for Everyone!

Undefeated. Let’s just say that as many times as possible before we inevitably can’t anymore. If this team plays well these first couple weeks not only could it be good for the long run to get a good start but, there are some very telling challenges coming up. We’ll get to last night’s opponent, a very well upgraded Devils team in spite of what the score says, but tomorrow we take a jaunt down to Columbus to face a Blue Jackets squad that isn’t what it was last year. Next week proper we got the two divisional rivals Buffalo maybe fighting for wildcard spots with later this season: Montreal and Florida. The Sabres hammered the Habs last season but I’m not certain that will happen again. Florida absolutely had our number and the addition of Coach Q and more competent goaltending is a little frightening. Then Dallas visits before the annual October California road trip. There is a lot of off time in early November because of the Global Series in Sweden so if October looks good we’ll have a lot of time to sit on it. If we’re all being honest, we need some time to just feel good about this team. The Devils are an interesting club to consider this season. Some folks have them winning the Met while others have them missing the playoffs by dozens of points. It’s weird in a league that stresses parody so much that such a wide chasm can exist between predictions but here we are. I’m going to err on the higher side after the first couple games they’ve put up. A 2-0 drubbing of Columbus followed by a shootout loss to Winnipeg that looked like a rout the other way for most of the game. Those examples are here to say what we just saw last night was a little explicable. It’s a bit of tale of two games in that this would’ve been a night to remember no matter the outcome.

Fifteen of the Sabres Twenty plus former Captains participated in a pregame ceremony that was touched off by Rick Jeanneret coming out to get a standing ovation. There was emotion before the puck even dropped. The crowd went crazy for the 50th Anniversary jerseys when they appeared on the jumbotron and booed when the Devils came out. It was bordering on a religious experience already and then… *breathes out nostalgically* …then this current Buffalo Sabres teams put together the fourth, fifth and sixth straight periods of complete, full-effort team hockey. Before we get to the four-course meal that was this game, I think it’s important to say the reason we have to get legitimately excited about this club right now is that we’re seeing levels of effort and consistency through two games that were few and far between in past seasons. A lot of people were talking about how bad a Coach Phil Housley must have been to not get this level of play out of mostly the same the roster last season. I see the reasoning there but all that blame you’re sending that way, turn it into credit and send it Ralph Krueger’s way. We joked about how this new coach talked a big, group buy-in rhetoric in the preseason that was supposed to pay dividends beyond the mere culture this culture that we’ve gotten so used to with the Buffalo Bills. But the tight, fast, everyone playing-together jargon we kept hearing is now unfolding right in front of us. If this guy gets Marco Scandella, Vladimir Sobotka and dare I say it… Rasmus Ristolainen to not be statistical black holes then he’s the miracle worker we’ve been waiting for. Only time will tell after all, we’re two games into an 82-game season. Wow though. Just wow, what a game I got to be at.

This game was incredible from almost the very start. Will Butcher got called for holding on Jack Eichel and to that I say: Will, you could’ve been Sabre and gotten to hold Jack legally, but there you are going to the Sin Bin for it! On the ensuing powerplay the puck found it’s way to Eichel beside the net and instead of shooting point blank the current Captain threw it out to Victor Olofsson who winds up for maybe a half second and then shoots it through the woods into the net. That goal was special. I don’t know if Devils goalie Mackenzie Blackwood even saw it. That will become a theme tonight by the way. The Sabres goalie, Carter Hutton, has now had two great games and I want to give him huge props for holding the fort again last night, but he only needed to make 18 saves to win this after facing a total of 20 shots. He’s seen far busier nights. The whole game I’m trying to figure out if the Sabres defense is good now or is the Devils offense just so bad? I mean the Devils have Hall, Hischier, Simmons, Zajac and Hughes so they should be a threat, but Marco Scandella had the best 5 on 5 corsi of every person wearing skates in this game. Like… what is going on? If I wasn’t at the game with people yelling all around me I would have thought I ate something strange and was on some kind of groovy hallucinogenic trip. Well the good kept coming and after another holding call against the Devils Jack Eichel cleaned up a Jeff Skinner rebound on the powerplay. Blackwood couldn’t control it deep in his own crease and there it was 2-0 Sabres at 17:26 of the first. For what a fun start it was, you go to the intermission with the most dangerous lead in hockey thinking this game is still very much a game. By the end of the next period it would become a rout.

Before most of the enthusiastic crowd was back to their seats Kyle Palmieri scored a one timer off a Taylor Hall assist to cut the lead in half. Now I don’t know why but this game featured bone-rattling hits. The kind of thunder dome stuff that gets a crowd going. Jake McCabe was landing them left and right. This is generous for me to say because the shots were lopsided in favor of the home team throughout this game, but this was the only time the Devils could’ve taken control of this game. A goal to tie it early in the second and this would’ve been an entirely different game. Even at the 2-1 score line the crowd was a factor in this game. There were sporadic Bills cheers and totally spontaneous Let’s Go Buffalo chants. This little tyke rarely-sitting next to me was losing his mind and he was something of a barometer of the fans overall. Every time the puck got knocked out of the defensive zone there was deafening cheers. It felt like a playoff game and I’ve only been to Amerks playoff games and those have all turned to shite lately. This game did not. It was electric in there. Want to know how good the Sabres were doing? Kyle Okposo and the retread third line that we decried at the end of Training Camp were hemming the Devils in their zone! What!? Kyle Okposo redirected a shot originating from Rasmus Dahlin at the blueline and we’re up 3-1. Unreal. It only got better. Jeff Skinner, streaming into the zone with Marcus Johansson and *checks notes* Vladimir Sobotka, gets a cross-ice pass and shoots in short side. 4-1 Buffalo.

We all feared the guy we just signed for eight years to big money wouldn’t score until November with that Vladdy anchor on his line; but no, on only his tenth shot of the young season he sinks one and we get to see that beautiful smile again. The second period was a total shooting gallery, but one non-scoring play this period made a girl sitting a few seats down from me screech in a way you normally only hear in comedy clubs. Jack Eichel skates through red-jersey defenders moving the puck all around and dekes the ever-living daylights out of Nico Hischier. The poor kid fell on his ass like they were playing street basketball or something. The crowd went wild for the rest of the shift. In this environment, the Devils gave us another powerplay opportunity! You’ll need to watch the replay on this one. A clinic in Captaining unfolded as Eichel dribbles the puck in the right circle looking for someone and makes the kind of meaningful eye contact with Victor Olofsson on the other side that can only mean one thing: go to the goal. Eichel passes it through not one, not two, not even three but four Devils defenders to Victor who bounces it off of either Reinhart’s skate in front or Blackwood’s pads and recollects his own rebound. Not a second later Olofsson takes another shot and buries it. Correction, Reinhart passed it back to him. It’s as if this goal was going to happen one way or another. That made it… *pauses for dramatic effect* FIVE to ONE Sabres. Gee, I felt greedy.

I could talk for hours about how completely new the Sabres powerplay looks through two games this season, but the score was now 5-1 and I still have more goals to get to. In most games I’d call that box score a rout, but this game gets chippy. Remember I told you Jake McCabe was leveling hits left and right? He landed one in the middle of the game here on Taylor Hall that immediately unleashed pandemonium. I need to use every meaning of that word here because the crowd went wild and rose to their feet while some “extracurricular activities” if you will unfolded on the ice. It took a couple minutes to sort out the penalties, but McCabe knew what he did and went down the tunnel bopping fist bumps like he just won a WWE title. What resulted was three minors and two majors and a 23-year-old building struggling to keep the noise in. The Devils didn’t get the lift they needed from that fight. Not from that fight, not from running McCabe, not from running Hutton. The third period begins, and we get Travis Zajac goal to make 5-2 but… here’s the reason this article is so long again: the Sabres still had more goals to score. Sam Reinhart gets the puck way out by himself in the left circle and shot it bar down. I know Blackwood was trying to catch it with his glove over his head, but it was already in and it just looked like the poor kid was begging for mercy. “Please oh please don’t keep shooting at me!” 6-2! I’m feeling greedy now! The crowd is now doing that chant where they count the goals and ask for another. I am not swearing in disbelief now for no other reason than the child sitting next to me. I just didn’t know what to do with myself. My teams don’t score this many goals. We’ve seen probably a dozen breakaways in these first two games and no goals off of any of them. That changed when Sam Reinhart challenges PK Subban in his own defensive zone and poke checks the puck free. Subban can’t get to Reinhart and falls down briefly. Reino just takes off and goes five-hole on Blackwood. He puts his hands in the air like, yeah, just pay me now. Can we just pay him now? At this rate he’s going to score 5.2 million goals and Terry is going to have to drill a new well just to pay for it. 7-2 Sabres is the final outcome of this home opener.

There is so much to take away from this game that I’ll probably be referencing it for a couple weeks. Our New Look Sabres reply guy tweet of the game is actually a tweet not a reply. It comes from The Charging Buffalo’s Joe Marino who points out “the Sabres haven’t won the first three games of the season since the 08-09 season”, exclaiming Monday is huge. This recap is getting a little long and I’ve got a Bills game to go watch so I will agree wholeheartedly and invite you to look forward to Monday night’s away game in Columbus. I for one cannot wait. This team has got me in hook, line and sinker. Like, share and comment on this blog; at this rate we may have some fun this season and fun is best when it’s shared. I hope we can share in the fun together here. Who knows what these guys can accomplish if this is the level of play we see out of them in even half of the remaining eighty games ahead. Let’s Go Buffalo!

Thanks for Reading.

P.S. Rasmus Ristolainen: actually good! I’m looking at you Winnipeg, that blueline ain’t looking so hot!

[fantroll-purgatory]

@party-ponies-no-its-not-mlp

FIRST: Alternia or Beforus or some type of AU?

Alternia, but like on an alternia where the Beta trolls never existed, but trolls like the Signless did

Ooh, so like the Signless and the ancestors were all natural-born on-planet trolls and were not created or cloned through ectobiology? Interesting premise.

Name (preferably include how you came up with it and why): Rivlos Iqtaaz (I got it out of a random troll name generator, and i thought it was cute)

I like Rivlos for her caligniousexual nature, as it sounds a bit like Rivals! Manufacturing a meaning where there wasn’t one before haha. Iqtaaz most closely reminds me of…. Iqta’, an old Islamic method of tax farming that allowed greater autonomy under leadership. So we can keep that name and work it in thematically. Name magic we’ve done here.

Age: 7.38 sweeps

Strife Specibus: Riflekind (this is because my computer tried to autocorrect Rivlos to Rifle)

I do appreciate the pun, but maybe a set of throwing batons? 

It still allows her to utilize it like a ranged weapon, but fits her interest in cheerleading!

Fetch Modus: Charm Bracelet Modus, where basically she keeps them all on a charm bracelet, but in order to make sure she picks the right thing she has to not touch ANYTHING ELSE on the bracelet, which gets harder as she acquires more stuff

This is so cute. Her finances interest originally tempted me to do an accounting log but… this is too cute to pass up.

Blood color: Violet

Symbol and meaning: Honestly, when I first made her I randomized all of the possible sign options, and she got a spade. I used to make her what I call caligniousexual, or only sexually attracted to her pitch partner. It’s cool if you change it to Aquacen or Aquacer.

Hmmm. Hm. Hm. I do like the spade sign, so I’ll figure out a way to match it with Aquacen/cer and violet sign language.

Trolltag: achievementContestant

audaciousCaptain, maybe? Recognizing her sassy nature and leadership capabilities. 

Quirk: The quiכk brΘwn fΘx jumps Θver the lazΨ dΘg

I think you should maybe have her <Bracket her sentences with spades3< instead of utilizing too many special characters. Maybe have her replace O’s with ꚙ to represent links, the bonds between people.

Special Abilities (if any): none

Lusus: South American Sea Lion with walrus tusks, peregrine wings, and elephant ears

This is a fun idea but I think………… I’m going to recommend a Portuguese Man O’ War type critter, a big ol’ collection of creatures. Because they’re a little biological confederation of four separate organisms working together and I think that’s just lovely. Also because sea lions are aquatic mammals and she’s a violet, so she needs a fully aquatic lusus.

Personality: Loves to travel, likes troll pita bread, a natural born leader, confident…sometimes, able to speak to a crowd, does endurance running for fun, aloof, doesn’t make friends easily, kind-hearted, wise, bad at keeping friends when she does make them, socially awkward when not leading, lonely even in crowds, sad, can be a smartass, a self depreciation extraordinaire, an amazing writer, very envious of people who can make and keep friends easily, caring and loving, loyal, creative, sasses with out thinking, then gets super embarrassed, knows a lot of totally unimportant trivial facts, rather polite, a bit naive, shy when not leading, and easily influenced (sorry for the block of text! D: )

Don’t worry, text blocks are a great way to communicate personality haha. I like her a lot! She has a lot of great variation in her personality. I hope she has some pretty big leadership goals. To tie back in the taxation thing I referenced and her interest in finances, maybe she could be the leader of a communal area? Like act as protector over a defined area and people pay her taxes for the privilege of her leadership? But they’re able to come and go as they please, of course.

Interests: Finance, Cheerleading, Pets, Fashion, Dolphins

Dolphins are the cheeriest animals even if they’re very dangerous, so I appreciate that. Maybe she should be interest in animal training in general? Teaching animals to do tricks, teaching them to work together and do jobs…

Title: Mage of Blood

I think she might best serve as a Sylph of Blood. Someone who is able to passively form and create bonds and create FROM bonds. Her inverse would then be Prince of Breath, which implies a little destruction of Freedom, but that’s fine when it’s necessary.

Land: The Land of Ink and Pulse (thanks 9 from creative classpect! :D) (I didn’t send in the commission [mainly cuz i’m broke] but i did find it when searching for Mage of Blood lands)

I don’t feel comfortable grabbing right from another source for this… I might recommend the Land of Pom and Pay. A land with pompom trees and some such about money, with an added bonus of being a Pompeii pun that could result in explosive city fun where she has to bring the consorts together to help them either save each other or rebuild.

Dream Planet: Not sure, sorry D:

I think prospit might be most fitting.

Here’s the picture of her

  (If that doesn’t work, she has a black bob cut, thinnish horns, cleft lip, wears a black tunic that drapes between her legs and behind her, grey hammer pants, purple boots, and her symbol is either Aquacer or Aquacen, I’m not sure)

I didn’t make the sprite, and I made her on the Fargo Fiction Doll Sim thing, back before the Extended Zodiac came out

The picture didn’t work, unfortunately. So it’s from scratch we go:

Horns: I made them thin as you noted and had them reflect the nature of her symbol! 

Hair: I gave her a cute and voluminous bob, complete with a headband and a hairbow. 

Face: I gave her sharp eyelashes and made her seem really lively and enthusiastic! Her eyes are edited from Terezi’s. The mouth (edited from Vriska’s) gives her that cleft lip and some big teeth. 

Jacket: I patterned it off of dog-training jackets, meant to be waterproof and bite-proof! 

Symbol: It’s an abstracted spade with wave sides that references the crosses found in the Aquacer symbol. 

Skirt: It looks a little like a pleated cheerleader skirt. 

Shoes: Edited from a pair of Jake’s, some white boots! 

As a final note, I LOVE this blog, even though I just discovered it today. You guys do amazing work here, and are so sweet and kind to people. In fact, the whole reason I sent in my character was because you all made it look so fun and exciting. Thank you so much for reading this, and I’m so sorry if it’s super long for you. Have a good day/night! :D

I’m so glad you love this blog! We love putting a lot of care and attention into the work. Thank you so much for sharing your troll and for the compliments. I appreciated reading about her a ton! Have a good day/night yourself!

-CD

[flauntpage]

Shooting Blanks: What’s Wrong with the Flyers After Getting Shutout by the Wild in Consecutive Games?

This is bad hockey.

So bad in fact, that we are throwing out the concept of takeaways for this one.

(O.K., fine, you want takeaways? Here you go – Brian Elliot was really good for his fourth straight game in goal. Scott Laughton’s line was the only line that was consistently good. Robert Hagg keeps getting better and better as a defensive defenseman and Devan Dubnyk is unconscious right now in net for Minnesota – that’s it).

Seriously, the real problem at hand that needs to be addressed is the state of the Flyers in general.

How is it that the team has a (cough) .500 record (cough) and is in worse shape than it was at this time last season? How is it that the offense is completely non-existent? How is it that questionable coaching decisions continue to get shrugged aside?

If this isn’t an organizational epidemic, it’s getting darn close and somebody needs to come in and fix it soon, or this will be a lost season before we reach Thanksgiving.

Heck, if my historical analysis is correct, it’s almost at that point now.

Come with me down the rabbit hole…

1. A bad spot

The Flyers, at 8-8-2, are last place in the Metropolitan Division but only six points out of first place. That means the division is either really good or really mediocre.

Either way, it’s where the Flyers are situated – behind seven other teams – that is of the greatest concern right now.

Why? Because it’s near impossible to move past enough of those teams to get into the playoffs.

Since switching to four divisions in the NHL instead of six in the 2013-14 season, teams in last place on Nov. 15th have reached the playoffs exactly once (6.3%) – and that was the Columbus Blue Jackets, who made a torrid push in 2013-14 just to get in.

Wait, 16 teams is a small sample size and not necessarily a good enough history to use to define an argument.

Fair enough – let’s take it a step further.

Since the institution of the shootout and the creation of the dreaded loser point in hockey, there have been 64 teams in last place on this date (NOTE: in 2012/2013 there was a lockout-shortened season, so I used Feb. 8, 2013 as the date there as it was the most approximate to the number of NHL games played in the season compared to other seasons).

In that time, only 11 of 64 (17.2%) have rebounded from a last place start on Nov. 15 to make the playoffs.

O.K. – so it’s happened before. Maybe not frequently but it’s happened. And, not to mention, with 18 points, only four teams in that time have been in last place in their division on this date with more points than the Flyers currently have, and two of them made the playoffs (50%) so it’s at least a 50-50 at this point, right?

Wrong. Let’s take it even a step further.

Everyone keeps asking about this odd quirk in the Flyers schedule that has them playing 17 of their first 21 games against Western Conference teams.

Well, that only made it more imperative for the Flyers to get off to a better start, because that means the Flyers will play 48 of their last 61 games against Eastern Conference opponents – and of those 48, 27 will be within the Metropolitan Division.

Well, that’s good, right? More of a chance for them to play the teams they need to leapfrog.

No. Not exactly. Unless the Flyers go off on a ridiculous tear – and by ridiculous, it needs to be more than 10 games, as evidenced last year when they won 10 straight at one point and still missed the playoffs – then they are going to find themselves frustrated.

Because, let’s be realistic, they aren’t going to win them all. And several of them will slink into overtime, which brings the loser point into play.

The Flyers will be on the plus side of some of them and on the minus side of some, but that’s the problem with it, as long as teams still get points for losing from time-to-time, playing catch-up is all the more difficult.

Let me put it this way – the Flyers need to register 75 points in the remaining 61 games to get to that 93-point threshold which many consider the the point total needed to be in the conversation for a playoff spot.

To do that, they would have to go something like 34-20-7 the rest of the way. Impossible? No. Improbable considering the opposition? Yes.

And to think, that’s just to be in the conversation for a playoff spot. Just three years ago the Pittsburgh Penguins were the last team in the playoffs – and they had 98 points. So 93 may not even be enough.

Some will argue that it’s way too early to be talking about this – but I’ve been blowing this horn for years now that It’s far worse to struggle early in the season in the NHL than it is to struggle later in the season.

If you get out to a fast start it’s easier to overcome a bad stretch later in the season than it is to get behind the eight ball and try and work around it.

Nevertheless, here are the Flyers, in last place on a date when 56.3% of the teams previously in their spot on Nov. 15 (since switching to four divisions) were still there come season’s end.

2. The offense is in shambles

Yes the Flyers have been shutout in back-to-back games before, even by the same team (amazingly it was also against Minnesota – in 2003).

But they’ve never been shutout five times in the first 18 games of a season before. I don’t have the stat readily available, but I would venture to guess that not many teams have.

Heck, the Flyers record for being shutout in a season is 10 times – and that was before I was born, so you know it was a long time ago (1968-69).

These Flyers are on pace to tie that before Christmas.

And really, there is no relief in sight. The Flyers are operating with too little talent up front. Plain and simple.

With a couple of exceptions, all of these guys are good NHL role players, so it’s not a knock against them individually, but it’s them collectively that’s the issue.

So much so that the Flyers may be forced to break up the one line that has been productive for them this season to try and add scoring elsewhere in the lineup.

Here’s how bad it’s been:

The only forwards not named Claude Giroux, Sean Couturier and Jake Voracek to score a goal this month are Dale Weise and Valtteri Filppula – who each scored a goal in the same game against Colorado.

That’s six games with only two goals from forwards not on the top line.

And, if you want to really take it to another level, only four times have the Flyers gotten multiple goals in a game from forwards not on the Flyers top line:

Opening night in San Jose (Wayne Simmonds hat trick and Jordan Weal)

The crazy game in Nashville that they lost 6-5 after the bad coach’s challenge (Filppula had two, Travis Konecny and Nolan Patrick)

The blowout of Washington in the emotional home opener (Scott Laughton had two, Filppula and Simmonds)

The loss to Colorado (Weise and Filppula).

Not surprisingly, the Flyers are 3-0-1 in games when they get more than one goal from lines not nicknamed “The Ginger Beard Men.”

But those games are few and far between.

Simmonds has six goals, but three came on opening night. He is now in a 10-game goalless drought, which is the second longest of his Flyers career (he had a 16-game drought in his first season with the team, when he was considered a third liner).

He also only has two assists in those 10 games and, until recently, has been invisible.

That said, he has been playing through a lot of pain. He has a groin problem that won’t go away. He was hit by several shots on his legs, he had oral surgery to deal with the loss or potential loss of several teeth – and he hasn’t missed a game.

But not being 100 percent has taken a toll.

That aside, Simmonds needs to score. The power play has been ugly lately – and that’s where he’s made his bones in this league.

The Flyers aren’t getting enough traffic to the net – and that’s Simmonds’ office.

Frankly, the lack of scoring starts with him. He gets a pass for not scoring at his usual pace, but if he’s healthy enough to play, then he’s got to at least contribute a little bit in his circumstance, and he’s not.

It all snowballs from there.

Filppula got off to a great start, but was replaced on the power play by Couturier and now is off the second line entirely after a failed line shuffle by Dave Hakstol.

He’s been a turnover machine in the last few games and doesn’t play nearly enough good defense to be considered a true checking line center.

Maybe it’s just a rough patch for him, but as a team leader (he is wearing an ‘A’ after all) he needs to improve his on-ice game as well.

Weal was supposed to be a gritty goal scorer willing to be the Danny Briere-type little guy unafraid to go into the greasy areas around the net, but he was lost along the boards for far too many games. He looked better last night as a center, with decent possession numbers (55.17% Corsi For), so maybe there’s something there with him in the middle of the ice, but again – he’s not scoring.

Travis Konecny is an offensive talent, but he keeps getting shuttled all over the lineup and can’t find consistent chemistry with anyone. It’s frustrating to watch and you can see it on his face when he’s playing.

He’s not a good defensive forward, so the Flyers need to find him a home where he can be productive, but if no one else is being productive, then what are his odds?

Even the checking line of Raffl, Laughton and Leier – despite having a pretty solid game last night in Minnesota – they need to start finding the net. Raffl doesn’t have a point yet. Laughton has turned into the old Couturier – reliable defensively, but is struggling to finish, and Leier, for all his great speed, doesn’t get enough shots on net (although he did ring one off the pipe last night).

Weise and Jori Lehtera? I don’t get either one.

I’m fine with Weise as a fourth line forward. He does enough to play there, although Hakstol had him on the second line last night, which is a big no-no.

But Lehtera gives you nothing but size. He’s slow. His passes are slow. He has no shot. He plays on the periphery too much for such a big body. He offers nothing.

This secondary scoring needs to be figured out quickly. And that falls on…

3. The coach

Hakstol should be in trouble as a coach as far as I can see. We’re into his third season and a lot of the same issues remain and he hasn’t found his way out of it.

Look, sometimes as a coach, you can only play the hand you’re dealt – I use Brett Brown as a great example here in Philadelphia – and you can only do as best you can with what you have.

But Hakstol has better talent than Brown ever did in his first three seasons coaching the Sixers – and he’s not doing anything with it.

He doesn’t seem to be all that great of a motivator either – at least not at the NHL level.

There was always a gamble with an NCAA coach with no NHL experience running a team at this level. And while he’s not incompetent, he’s also not getting the results.

John Stevens was fired when he was coach here for being too chummy with his players and not holding them accountable when they didn’t produce. His last few games were a mess offensively – but not to this proportion.

Getting shut out five times in 18 games is evidence of a system that is broken. Sure, the Flyers system offensively was scoring 3.42 goals per game in October, but once it’s on film, other teams figure out how to defend it, and it becomes incumbent upon the coach to find tweaks to the system to keep it functional.

In November, the Flyers are averaging 1.50 goals per game, almost two whole goals less than in October.

It’s not like they aren’t getting chances – the Flyers have been pretty solid as a puck possession team this month (second half of the Chicago game excluded) – but they aren’t finding a way.

And if they keep on struggling to find a way, then maybe they need someone else to show them the way.

156:09

That is the amount of time that has passed since the Flyers last scored a goal.

— Broad Street Hockey (@BroadStHockey) November 15, 2017

    Shooting Blanks: What’s Wrong with the Flyers After Getting Shutout by the Wild in Consecutive Games? published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[1upmushrooms]

The Legend of the Mario Bros Episode 1 (1up Deadfic)

Author’s Note: Warning. This might hurt XD. 

 Alright, you thought some of the shit I’ve posted here was old, you thought some of it was corny, some of you even thought some of it was embarrassing! But today my friends, you will see the true pinnacle of old embarrassing and corny fan fiction! 

This is by far, the oldest piece of writing I’ve posted on this tumblr. You see, this was made in 2010. Yes, even seven years ago I was still writing...and boy have I changed over the years.

This particular story came about because I wanted to tell a reboot origin of the Mario Brothers with a darker edge similar to the Nolan Batman movies (The Dark Knight was only two years old at this point and was very fresh in my mind). 

This also came about because of the original Super Mario Brothers movie (a film I quite like). I had the idea that the reason people didn’t like the movie wasn’t necessarily because of all the adaptation changes but because of the Genre shift. I thought that, had the film been a quirky fantasy instead of quirky sci-fi, people would’ve been far more forgiving of elements like the girl being Daisy, the subplot of the rock, etc.

And that’s what I set out to do. Play loose with the source material, get dark, except this time go with the fantasy angle. However, there was an unforeseen problem, this isn’t really a darker look at the Mario origin....It’s what a 13 year old idiot thinks is a darker look at the Mario origin.

So you get lame attempts at edgy storytelling, however there’s something even more egregious. You see, I wasn’t really ready to tackle on the full “Write like it was a professional book” thing so, I wrote in script format! No, I am not shitting you! I did this!

So get ready to cry ladies and gentleman, cuz here we go!

Episode 1: Origin FLASH! FLASH! Many cameras as King Toadstool (wearing a neat robe and crown) walks up to the stage, then many cheers and claps are heard as he sets up the microphone.   Person: King Toadstool! King Toadstool! King Toadstool: Uh, yes you there. Person: King Toadstool, what’s your opinion on the ongoing Subcon war? The flash photography keeps going. King Toadstool: Uh, no comment but as you see we seem to have it under control- Person: But sir, Subcon has incredibly gotten stronger and stronger each day! King Toadstool: Well, we’re handling on it, as you can see our new representative is dealing with these issues. And of course, I’m talking about our new representative, uh, ladies and gentlemen, may I present Wart! Then most people roar of applause as Wart the new representative (with a blue cape and business clothes) comes to the stage and acknowledges the cheers. Wart: Uh…thank you. The people still cheer. Wart: Thank you ladies and gentlemen. Uh- The people still cheer. Wart: Thank you people. The people stop cheering. Wart: Now as you see, our new weapons, the Bob-ombs (shows people) of course and the Bullet Bills. People ooh and ah at the Bullet Bills. Wart: Now listen. I know times are tough, and everything may seem bad, but things will always get worse before they get better. More people applaud as Wart then raises his hands to silence the people. Wart: Well, if there aren’t any other questions I guess I’ll leave now. But then one person raises his hand. It’s the same one who asked King Toadstool some questions. Person: Sir, what about the Scared 2? Wart: Well, we haven’t found anything yet, but trust me we’ll find them and take care of them, because god knows……we need them now. Wart then sees a cloaked figure shows a sign that means “Come here.” Wart: Uh, that’s it now. Goodbye. Wart then leaves as some people are puzzled. Then the cloaked disappears as well. King Toadstool then approach’s the stand. King Toadstool: Well, uh…I’ll go follow Wart. King Toadstool leaves suddenly as the people are now totally confused. Then, Toadstool follows Wart and stops him. King Toadstool: Tell me you got it under control! Wart: Trust me Toadstool! Everything’s fine! King Toadstool: Fine?!?!?!?! You call Subcon somehow infiltrating our base and stealing our weapons fine?! It’s a disaster! You said that everything will change for the better! You said my daughter will live in a better world. Wart then stops. Wart: And I meant it. But it’ll take a while! Trust me! Everything will be better soon! Wart then leaves as King Toadstool stands there. King Toadstool: For your sake I hope your right. Then, in an abandoned parking lot, the cloaked figure is standing in the middle, as Wart approaches. The cloaked figure quickly turns around but then sighs in relief. ??? : You know, you ought to say something before you stalk behind something. Wart: You should’ve stayed here where I put you! ??? : There’s been a change of plans. Wart: What?! ??? : We found them. Wart: What?! ??? : Yeah. We have everything their names address every single thing. Wart: Good, then get ready. Part 2 will soon begin. Come on Kamek. Kamek then takes off his hood. Wart: Let’s go. ??? : Oh, so you think that just because you know where these guys are, you can just get rid of them and the prophecy will be over? Wart and Kamek turn around to see another figure in a circle of light. His face is blocked by the darkness surrounding the circle. But his voice seems very familiar to both Wart and Kamek. Wart: Well if it isn’t my asylum freakish brother, Koopa. Bowser: Actually its Bowser moron. Wart: Well, what are you doing here? If you think I’ll agree to partner with you, your nuts. Bowser: Oh, I’m pretty sure you won’t agree with me. Since you think I’m a complete embarrassment to you. Wart: Well you are. Just think of it. Wart, representative of the Mushroom Counsel, the first amphibian ever to have this possession, related to Koopa, a maniac who was locked up in an asylum. I shiver thinking about it! Bowser: Oh yeah, your embarrassed to be around me, when uh Kamek is it? Has done more dangerous and critical crimes than me? Wart: The difference is Kamek can erase all of his records. Something you still to this day have failed at. Bowser: Oh, just because of that, he’s better? Oh bravo Wart, you are so smart! (Fake claps while falsely smiling though they couldn’t see it.) Wart: Don’t insult me you filthy swine! Bowser: Hey, all I’m trying to say is, you can’t possibly stall the prophecy if you’re going to go ahead with your plan. Wart: I’m not going to stall it! I’m going to end it! I’m going to kill them both. That way, the prophecy will die and it’ll take a million years for 2 more to be born but by then, the Mushroom Kingdom will end. Bowser: Your nuts if you think that’s going work. Remember that special “power”? Wart: I’ll take care of it. Bowser: You think that’ll work? Wart: Stop stalling! Kamek! We are leaving now! Bowser: Ok then. Leave. Wart and Kamek then leave as Bowser grunts, meanwhile, at the Mario’s house. Martha and James Mario (Who’s wearing a black suit with a white shirt and black tie) are busy getting ready for a party they’re attending. James: Martha! Are you ready? Martha then comes in looking busy. Her red dress is marvelous and neat looking. Her red high heels are magnificent and elegant. Martha: Yeah, just got to do one more thing. James: What? Martha then looks at James as if she couldn’t believe he said it. Martha: Our kids! James: OH! Sorry! James then heads to the nursery where their suns Mario and Luigi are. Mario and Luigi are playing in their crib as Martha and James come in. Martha then looks at the brothers and holds each one and kisses both of them. James: Uh Martha? (Points at watch) Martha: Hold on! Martha then picks up Mario and looks at Mario first, she smiles, and then she puts Mario down, after that, Martha picks up Luigi and does the same. Then after she puts Luigi down, she turns to James. Martha: Ok, we can go now. James: Look I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be late for this! Martha: Ok, we can go now. Martha and James then leave as Mario and Luigi just sleep there quietly. Meanwhile, at the party, Martha and James arrive to the party in time as they open the door to find a costume party. Martha then gives James that look again. James: What?! Martha: You took me away from my two boys, just to drag me to a costume party?! We don’t even have costumes. James: Actually, (looking at Martha) you’re a rose. Martha: I guess (looks at her dress) but what about you? James: Uh, excuse me. James then unbuttons the rest of his jacket, puts on black sunglasses and a black hat. James: Oh who I am you might ask? Uh, Jake, “Joliet” Jake if you may. Martha then sighs and puts on a little smile as James goes to the snack bar Martha then sits down in a chair. Meanwhile James is sipping some fruit punch as he bumps into someone. James: Oh uh, sorry man. The person turns around to face James. He had a red suit complete with a hood. His pants were blue. And he had a mask, which was white and had 3 holes (2 eyes and a Mouth). James: Uh, what are you anyway? The person then shrugs. ??? : I don’t know. This person was in fact, a Shy-Guy, one of Wart’s minions. James: Then, why are you dressed as it? ??? : I don’t know. James: Ok. James then goes somewhere else as the person draws out a walkie talkie. ??? : Targets are here sir. Meanwhile at that same parking lot, Wart is holding a walkie talkie too. Wart: Great. Now, you know what to do. Now, back at the party, ??? : Of course. The person then grins as he then walks somewhere else. Meanwhile at the parking lot again. Wart: Ok. Now that the Shy-Guys are in check we can kidnap the Mario Bros and kill them at our lair. Kamek: But, why not kill them at their house why wait- Wart: SHUT UP!!!! Kamek: Ok, ok, ok! Jeez. Wart: Now as I was saying- Back at the party, the person is now walking towards Martha. ??? : Sup. Martha: Uh, hi? ??? : Mind if I sit here. The person puts his glass down. Martha: Uh, sort of. My husband might come back, so just to make sure. ??? : Well, ok, I’ll go somewhere else- The person then purposely drops Martha’s glass. ??? : Aw man! I’m sorry! Martha: Oh it’s ok. (Half sarcasm) Just like blowing my kids off just for a costume party. ??? : Oh. Uh, here have mine. The person then hands Martha his. Martha: Ah no thanks. I don’t need it anyway. ??? : Hey come on, it’s the least I can do. Martha: Ok, fine. Martha takes the drink. The person then leaves as Martha then drinks some of the punch. Martha: Ugh! It tastes horrible. Martha puts it down. But then, there’s a sweet aftertaste, as Martha has another drink. It actually tastes better than before. Meanwhile at Toadstool Castle, King Toadstool is sitting at his throne. King Toadstool:  “Sigh”, This Kingdom will never be ok will it? King Toadstool waits around to see if an answer will surface, but that never happens. King Toadstool: I need more friends. Later at the party, Martha has entirely drunk the entire glass that person had given her. Now she was feeling very hungry and tired. Martha then gets up and finds James, dancing on the dance floor. Martha: Ugh! James: (stops dancing) you alright? Martha: What does it look like genius?! Of course I’m not. James: Ok, jeez woman. Come on lets go. Martha: Can we get some tacos on the way? James then stops and looks at his wife. James: Ok, seriously, what’s up? Martha: Nothing, I just want some Tacos. James: (looks suspicious) Ok? Martha: Well?! Are you going to stand there or are you going to go to the car and start it! James: (Mumbles) if I got a dime for every time I… Martha: Well MOVE!!!!! James: GRR! James then opens the door and has Martha go through first, though James had no choice because Martha rushed through before James could move any more. Then in the parking lot, Martha waited for James to open the door for her. Martha: AHEM! James: GRR! James then opened the door for her as he got in his own and started. After a long trip at Taco Bell (Martha couldn’t decide if she wanted Burritos or not. Martha decided that she wanted some.)   James: Are you good now? Martha: (Eating) Oh yeah. This is good. James: Eat with your mouth closed please? Martha: Hey, I’m hungry here! James: So? Martha: So I need to eat! James: Ugh! Martha: Just keep driving. James: Hey! Can you at least give me my food?   Martha: Why do you need to eat? (Big swallow) Just drive! James: Meany. Martha: Just drive. But then Martha gets even hungrier as he begins shoving the food in her mouth. James: Martha! Stop shoveling! Martha: Stop talking! Meanwhile at the parking lot, Wart is then checking a camera installed in the car. Kamek: Nice move there Wart. Wart: I know it was. Kamek: So what was that stuff that girl drank? Wart: Superior Nitro. Kamek: Oh. Wait! Isn’t that the stuff where one-? Wart: Uh-huh. Kamek: Wow. You stoop very low sometimes. Wart: I know. It’s a curse. Back at the car, Martha then starts seeing bright stars everywhere. Martha: Wow. Pretty! Martha puts up this goofy smile and sits there looking funny. James: You ok? Martha: Uh huh! Oh, their now bunnies. James: Honey? Martha then closes her eyes and slumps back. James: Hello? Martha then wakes up and sees a black and damp jungle full of centipedes, and spiders. Martha: AHH!   James: Martha! What’s wrong?! Martha turns and looks at James but she instead sees a flies head that’s buzzing. Martha: AAAH! GET AWAY! GET AWAY! GET AWAY! Martha then starts unloosening her seatbelt and gets out of the car. James, horrified, stops the car and gets out trying to find Martha. He finds Martha looking around everywhere. But in her mind, Martha keeps hearing her baby’s squeals of laughter but doesn’t find them. And finally James gets close to her, but all she sees is her husband and kids in a mirror, she tries to get in the mirror but fails. Martha finally falls down and hears something. ??? : Good night! Sleep tight! Martha’s eyes then close as James tries shaking her up. But she doesn’t budge! James then lays her down, and cries uncontrollably as he gets up. James: Good-bye Martha.   James then heads for his car until he’s hit in the head. And the last thing he sees before fainting. He sees the same guy from the party. James: You! James then blacks out. Meanwhile at the Mario’s house, the Shy-Guys broke into the house, and kidnapped the Mario Bros. Shy-Guy #1: We got them! Let’s go! The Shy-Guys then run from the Mario house as they head to a place where a giant bird is waiting for them. Shy-Guy #1: Albatoss! We’re here. The Albatoss then sat down, ready for the Shy-Guys to get on.  The Shy-Guys with the Mario Bros. and sat on tight. For 10 minutes the Albatoss was just flying. Until they were crossing the mountains, and suddenly, Mario was slipping off. The Shy-Guys tried to catch Mario but instantly he fell off. Mario then (in a bag of course) fell and fell until he landed on Yoshi’s Island. Shy-Guy #2: Aw CRAP!     Shy-Guy #4: Wart won’t like this. Shy-Guy #5: Let’s just pretend it didn’t happen ok? Ok. Let’s just go to Subcon already. The Albatoss then continues to fly towards Subcon. (End of Episode 1)

[simplyleez]

If you pretend so much it feels real - Archie/Betty/Veronica - Part 2/7

Betty really doesn’t want to be forced into a relationship by her mother so when she’s forced to a formal event to find a significant other she lies. She tells the suitors that she’s taken only she isn’t consistent with her story, telling one she has a boyfriend and the other that she has a girlfriend. In her time of trouble she turns to the only people she can think of who can pretend to be her boyfriend and girlfriend - Archie and Veronica.

For the Riverdale Kink Meme - Betty fends out an unwanted suitor by saying she has a girlfriend. She fends off another by saying she has a boyfriend. The unwanted suitors each discover what she said to the other, and one or both of them confronts her and accuses her of lying. Betty insists that she does have a boyfriend AND a girlfriend, that she’s part of a happy “throuple,” and she ropes in Archie and Veronica to back her up. This can go one of two ways: A. Smutty one-shot, maybe all taking place at a party, and ending with Betty, Archie, and Veronica hooking up for real (possibly getting caught). Doesn’t have to lead to them dating for real, but could. B. Story with more plot that actually does lead to them becoming a proper triad. Smut would be welcome but not necessary. Also it would be fine to make Veronica the one fending off the unwanted suitors at the beginning.

Find prompt here

Part 1 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 (to come)

The ride was pretty much silent. Betty refused to look anywhere but out of the taxi’s window until they pulled up at the mansion. It was beautiful, Betty had to admit it as she stood before the entrance while her mother paid the driver. It looked elegant and sophisticated yet still intimidating, like you could get lost in the many hallways and that it could hold many, many suitors.

 Betty jumped slightly as Alice’s hand came to rest on her shoulder, pushing her slightly towards the open doors until Betty has nowhere else to go but inside. She can’t run but she wishes she had done before. Before her mother got her hopes up. But now she’s here and it’s much more real than before.

 Only a few guests have arrived so far, it being early in the evening, Alice insisted they stay close enough to the entrance to see who comes in but not too close to see needy (which Alice really was). “Betty, dear, you stay here and I’ll get us some drinks, it might be a long night.” With that her mother was gone from her side, Betty had the urge to run and maybe never come back. But chance of running very far in these heels were little.

 Alternatively, she pulled out her phone, debating whether or not to text anyone but changed her mind, instead aimlessly scrolling social media. Her mother reappeared with two glasses of what looked like champagne, she grabbed the glass after putting her phone away. Betty knew what was coming, her mother would try and persuade her to talk to suitors but Betty prayed she wouldn’t.

 “Betty,” Alice turned to her daughter “do you think you should talk to a few people?” It was less of a question, more of a command, which Betty obeyed. It was still early in the evening yet around one hundred people must already be here, at least that’s what Betty estimated a she circled the outside of the large ball room.

 Wandering around the outside seemed to be a safe option, Betty had come into contact with few people since her arrival an hour ago. She had finished her champagne a while ago but had no intentions of getting anymore; her mother on the other hand was standing against the bar, ordering glass after glass, seeming to get less and less interested in what Betty was doing. However, Betty was adamant to make an effort, she wouldn’t let her mother down even if it meant making herself slightly uncomfortable.

 Lost in thought, Betty wasn’t watching her footing and stumbled. She internally cursed her heels before there was a hand on her bicep, helping her stand upright. “I’m so sorry,” Betty was quick to apologise, turning around to face the short haired brunette woman who was dressed all in white making her look elegant, it made Betty slightly jealous as she would have loved to wear a lighter coloured dress herself.

 “No, no, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t leave my things lying about in the middle of the floor.” The other quickly apologised, pulling her belongings closer to her feet before facing Betty again. “I’m Grace, my parents kind of dragged me here, you know, hoping to find me that special someone.” the brunette sighed, Betty could relate they were practically in the same boat, she was relieved to find someone who didn’t want to be here either.

 “I’m glad I bumped into you then, I’m Betty,” she held her hand out for an obligatory formal hand shake which Grace took. “I’ve also been dragged her by my mother, who I think it’s all a bit too much for seeing as she’s at the bar,” Betty gave an awkward smile, nodding towards the bar. “Well, I should go and, uh, make an effort to talk to people but it was nice meeting you Grace.” The brunette smiled back at her, understanding Betty’s situation, before Betty continued to make her way around the room.

 She didn’t make it very far until she saw a fairly tall, unthreatening, quite dapper looking man, who was also looking right back at her. His blond hair was swept to the side, wearing a light grey suit with a pastel blue tie which, yes, did match his eyes. Betty thought, then and there, that this night wasn’t going to be a disaster and that she could possibly try and enjoy herself.

 “Hi, I’m Betty,” her voice was confident yet calming, attempting not to come on too strong, “Kyle,” he responded, again Betty gave him an obligatory handshake. “Are you enjoying this, uh, I’m not quite sure what to call it, this event?” Betty thought it wasn’t exactly the most riveting sentence starter but it was a starter. “Could be better,” Kyle responded, Betty could only laugh in agreement, “I feel exactly the same, kind of being forced here against your will puts a downer on the situation,” Betty said, her eyes drifting to the bar again to watch her mother sip at what looked like a combination of a spirit and lemonade.

 “Same here, both my mom and dad think I could use some opportunities to meet girls,” Kyle stopped to laugh lightly, looking over to who Betty assumed were his parents, “you know, it probably would have been thoughtful of them only they have quite caught onto the idea that I’m gay.” Betty laughed with him this time, both at how unfortunate and hilarious his situation was.

 “I feel so sorry for you, I guess the best thing is just to survive the night.” Betty was unsure of what to say, giving him the same advice that she’d given herself at the start of the night. And that was the end of their brief conversation. Betty decided she could probably leave sooner than she expected as Alice probably won’t care too much by now, and Betty has made an effort.

 She was pulled from her thoughts by a tap on her shoulder. She turned around abruptly, coming face to face with another man around her age. He wore a worn down navy jacket with a plain white shirt and jeans which seemed out of place at an event like this, “hi, I’m Jake.” There’s no obligatory handshake, Betty keeps her hands clutched on her bag tighter because she just gets bad vibes from this guy, his smile is too sly and his body language too shifty.

 “I’m Betty,” she attempts to keep her voice neutral but she hears the annoyance in her tone, it’s just too long of a night in a too posh place with this shifty character. In all honesty she just wants to be at home or somewhere as equally comfortable where she doesn’t have to pretend to be prim and proper. Her mind wanders to her friends, just the five of them sitting at Pop’s gossiping and not having to pretend.

 “So, are you here alone? Like, are you single?” Oh god. This isn’t what Betty wanted, she hoped that no one would actually take this event as a serious opportunity to find a partner but here he is. “I’m here with my mom but I, uh, I have a girlfriend, sorry.” Betty doesn’t know why she apologises but she just wants out of this awkward situation so she lies.

 “Oh, okay,” Jake sounds defeated and Betty is thankful, thinking this is time for her to escape when Jake speaks up again “you ever thought of having a threesome?” That’s Betty’s cue to get the hell out of there. “No, no thanks, bye.” Betty’s turning around and walking away as quickly as she can in those heels, praying to the highest heaven that she never has to speak to him again.

 Betty’s ready to leave now so starts making her way over to her mother but is intercepted by another male, he looks slightly older than her but he’s definitely dressed to impress and has the money for it. “Harrison,” he states, holding out his hand which Betty shakes quickly as she watches her mother out of the corner of her eye, “I’m Betty” she’s sick of introducing herself by now.

 He starts making small talk but Betty tunes out, watching her mother order another drink and she really needs to do something because her mother will not like the fact she might make a fool of herself in the morning. “Look, I’ve got to go my mother-” she’s cut short by Harrison’s hand on her arm, gripping her slightly so she won’t move but Betty shrugs it off and glares daggers at him. “I have a boyfriend, leave me alone!” Betty practically storms away from him, towards the bar.

 “Mom?” Betty’s concerned now, Alice only looks at her, her eyes are sad and disappointed. “Betty, I-I’m so sorry, I know you don’t want to be here, I’m s-such a bad mother,” Alice’s voice is weaker than before and Betty is just confused but feels bad nevertheless, “you’re not a bad mother, yes I didn’t want to come but you’re only trying to help me.” Betty knows now is time to leave, her mother finishes off her drink as Betty fishes her phone out of her clutch and texts Archie.

 Betty: Arch I need a big favour, I’m at the event and my mother’s wasted. I don’t know what to do.

 Archie: Don’t worry me and my dad will come pick you guys up :)

 Betty: You don’t have to do that!

 Archie: Too late already going to ask dad.

 Betty: Uh, fine, thank you so much.

 Betty smiles to herself, not putting her phone away so she knows when Archie gets here, “mom, come on, we’re going home.” Just when she gets Alice on her feet she’s faced with both men she recently spoke to and her heart sinks, she just looks expectantly at them. “You told me you had a boyfriend but told Jake you had a girlfriend, you’re such a liar, who’re you lying to or do you not have any?” In that moment Betty’s kind of glad her mother probably won’t remember this tomorrow morning and replies “both, I’m part of a, uh, throuple, look I’ve got to get my mother home first then I can explain.”

 Betty doesn’t wait for a reply but pushes past them with her arm around her mother, they sit down on a bench outside and immediately knows who she’s going to ask a favour from.

 Betty Cooper created a chat.

Betty Cooper added Archie Andrews.

Betty Cooper added Veronica Lodge.

Betty Cooper renamed the chat Please Help Me.

 Betty: Archie have you left yet?

 Betty: Please say you haven’t

 Archie: Not yet, what’s wrong?

 Veronica: WTF is going on???

 Betty: I need both of you to come to this event in your best dress and pretend to be my partners, it’s a long story but I NEED to get some assholes to stay away from me.

 Veronica: Absolutely, anything for you B.

 Archie: Okay but you’re explaining this when we get there.

 Betty: Deal.

 Veronica: How about a lift Archiekins?

 Archie: I suppose so… yeah no problem.

 Betty: You guys are the best!!!

 Veronica: We know we are, well at least I know.

 Veronica: B I don’t own any dresses that aren’t black so we’re going to match.

 Betty: That’s fine :)

 Veronica: Archiekins don’t dress like a scruff please!

 Archie: You think really lowly of me :’(. On my way now Ronnie get ready!

 Veronica: Shit okay better go change then.

 Archie: Betts are you alright?

 Betty: Yeah I’ll just explain once you’re both here. Tell your dad thanks though I really appreciate this.

 Archie: He would do anything for you Betts and so would I :)

 Betty lets out a breath, her mother is unusually quiet and tense beside her, she knows they need to talk about their problems but not now when her mother is off her face. “I’m sorry Betty, I just want you to have such a- a good life but...” Alice trails off, her attention drawn to the approaching car.

 Archie and Veronica step out, Veronica dressed in a short black cocktail dress with her usual pearl necklace and dark lipstick while Archie looks nothing like his normal self, in a dark black suit that Betty isn’t sure it’s actually his because it’s not the sort of thing he owns. Betty pulls herself from her thoughts when they approach her. “Mom,” Betty turns to her mother who’s slumped on the bench “Mr. Andrews going to drive you home okay, take care of yourself, don’t worry about me I’m going to stay out for a while longer, okay?”

 Her mother doesn’t reply but stands with Betty’s help, Archie smiles faintly at her and helps her mother from her other side. He helps Alice into the passenger's side while Betty goes to the drivers side, “thank you so much Mr. Andrews, I’m so sorry but very grateful.” Fred just smiles back at her, “don’t worry, just have fun you three and take care.” With that the car pulls away and Betty faces the other two again.

 Veronica is the first to break the awkward silence, “B, you’ve got some explaining to do.”