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cantaloupe-draws · 3 years

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El Chico del Apartamento 512

Irl! Quackity x Female! reader

Summary: Nothing interesting ever happens in the apartment complex you live in. It’s the same old routine for you. Constantly turning down your neighbor and heading too and from your apartment. Well that’s up until you meet the very cute boy that lives in apartment 512 that you can never seem to gather the courage to talk too. To make make matters worse, he shows up to the cafe you work at

Switches from Reader’s s POV to Quackity’s POV at the very end

Genre: Song fic, fluff, somewhat cafe trope, strangers to lovers, crushes

Warnings: use of Quackity’s real name, creepy neighbor, cursing, and I think that’s about it

Song :El Chico del Apartamento 512 by Selena

Lyrics are in bold

—

Every day is the same down the corridor

Every day it’s the same old thing. I pass the same old doors as I make my way towards my own at the end of the corridor. Counting the room numbers as I pass.

“508, 509, 510,-“ I count and but as soon as I reach room 511 the door suddenly swings forward and I’m greeted by both a whistle and Chad, my neighbor.

“Y/n baby I keep on waiting for you to go on a date with me like you promised,” Chad said as he stood in front of his door frame, right arm resting on the door. “I need to show you around town,” he said with a smirk as he rested his face on his fist.

I scoffed as I moved away from him, “The only thing you need right now is an urgent shower. You stink like a pig and it’s absolutely disgusting. Besides, I never promised you anything” I said, trying to continue on my way, but Chad just kept getting more and more persistent with every rejection. His nagging was getting annoying.

“Come Y/n I’ll take you to this bar across town, I’ll even pay for your drinks” he kept persisting.

You would think that any decent guy that’s asking you out on a date would obviously pay for them himself. It’s a given but this is Chad we’re talking about. I was sick of his terrible date ideas and I had to face him once again.

“Listen, I don’t know how many times I’ve told you this and how many times I’ll have to repeat it but, I don’t want to go on these stupids dates with you,” I told him as I rejected for what seemed to be the millionth time. And as soon as I said that the door beside us swung open.

Out came a young man wearing a navy blue cap that was covering almost the entirety of his hair but still managed to expose small tufts of dark brown hair from the sides. He looked up at the predicament Chad and I were both in and I was able to get a good look at him.

He had almond-shaped eyes that were a dark brown color and had various beauty marks scattered around his face. He was attractive. Very VERY attractive. Oh no I’m in deep shit, I thought to myself as I quickly turned away when I felt that I was staring at him for too long. He turns away from us and heads towards the elevator doors.

I stayed stunned for a few moments then turned to face Chad again, completely red in the face, dumbfounded, and at a complete loss for words. But before Chad could get another word out I quickly rushed to my apartment and leaned my back against the door once I got inside. My heart is beating fast and my chest feels tight and constricted. I quickly got myself a glass of water from my faucet and though it helped with my fast heart rate, it didn’t help the butterflies swarming around in my stomach. It might sound crazy but I think I’ve just met the man of my dreams.

Ever since then, I’ve made sure to take my sweet time walking down the corridor in hopes to see the cute boy from apartment 512 again. I’ve gone as far as to purposely make small talk and fake my interest in Chad in hopes to see him once more.

—

The boy from apartment 512 the one who makes my poor heart beat fast.

I walked into the elevator quickly pressing the button towards the first floor when I heard someone yell “HOLD THE DOOR PLEASE!”

Loud footsteps came barreling towards the elevator. The yell of itself was enough to get my blood pumping but, to make matters much worse it was the cute boy from apartment 512 who was coming towards me.

“Thank you so much,” he said out of breath once he got inside. He offered me a smile of gratitude as the elevator doors closed. I noticed that he wasn’t wearing a cap this time but, instead he was sporting a grey beanie with red and blue stripes.

‘He’s the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my entire life’ I internally screamed to myself.

“Yeah, no problem” I responded quietly in hopes I wouldn’t make a fool of myself.

Even if there weren't more than two pieces of dialogue uttered between us, it was enough for my heart to beat faster than the speed of light.

—

The boy from apartment 512 who causes me to stutter like I've never done before.

I was manning the cashier station at the cafe I worked at. It was filled to the brim with people who were either typing away on their laptops or having a conversation with their friends.

But on this day, I had finally learned his name.

The busy atmosphere had me tackling customers' orders from left to right, “Hello, may I take your order?” I said as the next customer approached me.

But surprisingly enough, I was greeted by a familiar face.

The cute boy from apartment 512.

“Yes, hello I would like a caramel macchiato please,” he said and I felt my face go red instantly.

Oh my god, it’s him again, I thought as I knew that my brain would start to scramble once more. “O-of course. Coming right up, n-name?” I asked him as I completely stumbled on my words.

“Alex,” he said, “Okay A-Alex your name will be called out when your order is ready,” I tell him as I continue on with my work.

My coworkers had never seen me lose composure like that. It was clear that they would never let me live this down but even if I made a complete fool of myself in front of him, a huge part of me also just wants to keep talking to him both night and day.

—

But today I have finally truly decided to confess my love to him

I mentally prepared myself for the next time I interacted with Alex. I’ve finally decided that the next time I would run into him, I would finally ask to get to know him better in hopes that one day friendship will blossom into a wonderful relationship. A giddy laugh escaped me as I thought of the idea.

The cafe was busy as usual, with the same groups of people coming in. As it hit peak rush hour the line of customers just kept getting longer and longer and I was attempting to quickly attend to them to the best of my ability. Somehow, this was not enough to deter the feelings of butterflies in my stomach.

I knock on his door and I get goosebumps,

a blonde answers the door and my heart breaks

As I heard the bell above our door ring once more I raised my head and saw him, Alex. He was holding the door open for a woman as she walked in. They stood close together as they waited in line. This might seem like a bit of an exaggeration but when I saw them conversing together waiting in line the butterflies that were once fluttering disappeared and were replaced with dread. As my heart dropped, I realized that one thing was wanting to be friends with him but, that doesn’t change the fact that I had grown feelings for him. If he’s in a relationship then, what now? I felt lost as to how to handle this.

As the line in front of me kept getting shorter and shorter, I was becoming anxious as his turn was approaching. Though as it was almost the pair’s turn to order, Alex suddenly turns around and leaves the line and when his turn arrives he still wasn’t there. Despite this, I still went ahead and tended his apparent girlfriend.

I truly felt my heart breaking into pieces when suddenly she asked:

"Were you looking for my brother?"

“Hello, may I take your order?” I asked her, “Yes, can I have a vanilla latte please? But um, can we wait a couple of minutes for my brother? He went to the restroom and didn’t tell me his order,” she asked. Then the realization hit me like a ton of bricks, this was his sister. I’m so dumb, how could I’ve not realized the resemblance between them?? “Yeah that’s no problem” I finally responded.

Soon enough Alex came rushing towards his sister, “I’m so sorry for the wait” he said once he reached the both of us. “Just hurry it up. I’ll be waiting for you at the table” His sister said as she turned her back to the both of us.

Turning my attention to him as I rang up his order he then speaks up “You’re one of my neighbors aren’t you?” He asks me with a grin. I stop in my tracks as if I’m a deer in headlights.

“Yeah I am actually” I smile at him trying to muster enough courage to continue our conversation.

“I thought so, you were the one who held the elevator door for me the other day right? Also, the one who was yelling at my neighbor.”

My face instantly goes red as I thought back to the first time I met Alex. “In my defense he deserved it. He’s been harassing me ever since I’ve moved in” I shudder at the thought of Chad.

“Yeah I’ve realized that he really is a douche, he enjoys banging on the damn walls at three in the morning” he said as we laugh together at the stupid things Chad has done.

“Okay, okay you’re order will be out shortly,” I tell him with a smile, feeling my heart skip a beat. But Alex doesn’t move from the line.

“To be honest the whole reason I even came here wasn’t really for a drink or anything.” He said gazing towards the floor and rubbed the back of his neck.

“This might be a bit sudden because we’ve barely met but I wanted to actually ask you for your number since you seem really nice and you’re very pretty. If you’re not interested then that’s fine, I’ll just take my drink and go” Alex said sheepishly.

After I heard these words I found myself dumbfounded. At a complete loss for words. ‘DID HE JUST SAY THAT??? HOW DO I RESPOND???’ and from there my mind was absolutely speeding to the point where I just stood there. ‘HURRY UP AND DO SOMETHING!!!’ I yelled at myself, but yet still nothing managed to escape. Alex began to fidget more and more playing with his hands as I just stood there without a response.

“It’s okay, I’ll just go now.” Alex quickly said leaving.

—

Alex’s POV

‘SHIT. FUCK. MOTHERFUCKER. STUPID IDIOT.’

I cursed at myself while I walked towards my sister. Laying my head on the table, covering it in utter embarrassment.

“That didn’t go well, did it?” My sister said while casually scrolling through her phone. “And here you were boasting about how much of a smooth talker you were. You sir, just got rejected.”

“Will you shut up?” I groaned at her not raising my head. I’m already embarrassed out of my mind and she is not making it any better.

“Fine fine, you big baby I’ll go get our drinks and then you can go home and cry.” She said standing up as our orders were called.

‘God, why did I think it was a good idea to bring my sister along? How had it not crossed my mind? I hadn’t even given it a second thought as to what I was gonna do if I did get rejected. And to make matters much worse I just got rejected in front of my sister. I will never hear the end of it at family reunions. I’m already mentally digging my grave when I heard my sister come back.

“I think this one is yours” She said as she placed my drink in front of me. I raise my head slightly so I would be able to see what was in front of me. I looked at my cup as it said:

‘To the cute boy from apartment 512’

‘xxx-xxx-xxxx -Y/n’

—

A/N- So this is the first time I’ve ever wrote fan fiction before, I mainly stick to drawing so please excuse any mistakes I tried my best. But I hope you liked it over all. Also the lyrics in English don’t make as much sense as they do in Spanish, and it’s was bugging me so if they seem a bit odd you know why.

A special thanks to @tofuyami she really helped me with the brainstorming and editing process <3

@hungoverhellhound @cherrysirin @tofuyami @nealocus @struggling-with-time @bugsinmycoldsoup @venusacrossthestars @galaxygnf

Also stand Selena always -🍈

#quackity x reader #dream smp x reader #mcyt x reader #one shot #quackity #dream smp #real person fiction

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onelovewonderwoman · 3 years

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first class || charles xavier x reader

i’ve been on an x-men binge and fell into a hole of james mcavoy and charles xavier again, so here we are. i haven’t written fics in a long time, so i tried to again. i’m uncreative so like the title is just the first movie because of the fact that it’s set during that time. kind of like self insert cause there’s a few bits and pieces where there’s canonical plot and interactions, so disclaimer for that. anyways, hope you guys enjoy! ps also don’t have enough energy to find a fitting gif so maybe i’ll find one later maybe i won’t. we’ll see

words: 5.8k

warnings: not proofread (i spent three days on this so i don’t have the energy anymore haha), writing lacks emotional depth, drug use and mentions, intent of murder, thoughts of (murder, rape, suicide, etc.), poorly written two paragraphs about kissing, angst, we ignore moira and charles’ romance cause... duh, it’s x reader and it’s too difficult for me to work around it rn a haha

masterlist

The rooms were always the same. They were dark, illuminated only by the dimmest of lights emanating from the occasional lava lamp or fairy lights. Fairy - ironic word for such situations, such rooms. Filled so heavily with smoke it made it hard to breathe, let alone see. And the floors; the floors always felt different.

In hindsight, it was probably the one thing that had her realizing the rooms were never actually the same. Sure, they had the same smell, the same overcrowdedness and moving bodies, the same darkness, even the same taste, but the floors testified to the difference each room held.

Sometimes, when the world would freeze and all the people around her became nothing but a mesh of warm bodies, she could hear the floor creak under her feet with every step she took. There she was - the house right down the street from her.

Other times, the floors felt sticky under her shoes. She assumed it was tequila. There were always too many bottles around to count, surely there would be spills. Or, some poor guy could have pissed himself like that one time. When her shoes sounded like velcro as she walked across the floor, she was at the house all the way across town.

In any case, she felt the same ankle up. One of her favourite parts had to be the way the music always abused her ears - so high, it made her feel lightheaded. More so than she already had been both. Sex was not nearly regular enough for her to compare, but she knew what she would feel every time the music was loud enough to make her head buzz and throb with a vengeance was more erotic than anything anyone could ever do to her.

The place could change but the scene never really did. Down to the people - she knew this for sure. She knew every beating heart around her like they were her own. She never only felt it there, but in her head as well. Even as it buzzed, she felt it. Sometimes it tore at her skull as if trying to escape - ironic.

Now, why did the scene change one evening in 1962? She told herself it was fate, but it had merely been wishful thinking when she knew why. How did she know? She knew the man sitting next to her on the worn down couch, nearly entirely unconscious and reeking of weed and vodka, knew the girl across the house, the girl across the house knew the man next to her and that - so on and so forth - meant she knew all three of them, even though they didn’t know her. So, for two new men to walk into the house, their eyes focused - focused on her - changed the scene entirely.

Now, the music became nothing more than an assault on her ears; the lights became too bright at the same time as the dark became too dark; the air became heavier than usual; and she sobered up at the feeling of something - someone - in her head. Then, it all caved in. It was as overwhelming as it always was, but she was used to it enough to handle it for a little while, at least whilst remnants of her high remained. She couldn’t say the same for the shorter of the two men she saw keel over at the pressure.

He got over it pretty quick, from what she could tell. “Charles Xavier,” he introduced himself as, “This is my colleague, Erik Lensherr.”

A quick trip from the couch to the door had her standing on the lawn of the house of the night with the two men. Crickets could be heard fighting against the sound of the music blaring from the house as she swayed on her feet, making wet sounds in the grass from earlier rain. Charles stood not much taller than her, charm emanating from him and the way his piercing blue eyes seemed to smile despite his furrowed brows and mouth set in a straight line as he stared at her, waiting for a response with his hands tucked into his coat pockets. Erik stood taller, stoic and calculating.

“And?” She crossed her arms across her chest, both in discomfort and the fact that the chilly night air had begun to bite at her skin, her long sleeve doing nothing to help. “I should care why?”

If the incident earlier wasn’t enough, the way the both of them looked at her was enough for her to know why. “What’s your name?” Charles asked, having her notice then the English accent on his tongue.

The second she gave it to him, he smiled - almost sympathetically - at her and hummed, “You have an incredibly busy mind, Y/N.”

“And you have an incredibly nosy one, Charles.” That had Erik letting out a chuckle, one that felt like approval to her ears.

Never in a million years would she dare say yes to anything of the sort the two men proposed to her that night. A team of mutants; not necessarily that she thought it was absurd or a horrible idea - no. It made sense, not factoring in their current climate, to have a team of mutants fighting against the evils of the world. The horrible idea was to have her join. No, she wanted to tell them, “I don’t think it’s such a good idea.”

“That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking too,” Erik agreed with her, catching both herself and Charles off guard, “We’ll be going then.”

He offered her his hand. She didn’t know how long she stood there staring at his outstretched arm. Sometimes her high slowed time - it could have been five seconds or five minutes. When she finally looked away from his hand, up at him, she saw he stood unwavered and patient.

“You don’t have to, you know.” Her eyes shot to Charles as he broke the silence. He shook his head, brows still furrowed and mouth set in a straight line. “You’re under no obligation.”

For Charles to know, she understood. He had just been in her mind long enough to know that most of it wasn’t even hers. For Erik to know and offer her his hand made her wonder just how desperate he was to assemble the team - for whatever reason that she was about to find out in a moment.

“We leave now.” Was all he said after he tore his hand from hers.

An hour hasn’t even passed when she found herself on a plane with the two men, mind still buzzing but this time not with a high. This time, with an overwhelming anger and anticipation. The way Erik didn’t make eye contact with her and Charles sent worried glances her way throughout their trip to their “base” was enough to tell her that they knew she had already been briefed on what was happening - the reason behind their assembling of a team. Rather, she knew specifically of the personal motive behind it.

All it made her heart feel like it was beating a mile a minute. It pounded against her chest so hard she was sure at least one of them could hear it. So badly did she want to hide out in the plane’s bathroom and take something to stop the pain, but it was off the table. For now.

Soon enough the flight ended, and she came to find out their “base” was a covert CIA facility where they placed the other mutants they rounded up before her. She just as quickly met and said goodbye to Moira MacTaggert, a CIA officer working with Charles and Erik to stop Shaw. His name alone sent sparks of rage flowing through her veins.

She was left with the group when the three went off that night. There, she came face to face with Raven, Sean, Alex, Hank, Darwin, and Angel - or, Mystique, Banshee, and Havok. Darwin and Angel were “self explanatory”, considering they were already nicknames and described their powers fairly well. Hank was just… Hank.

Her turn came around quickly, once everyone settled down from Alex’s show of his “gift”, when all heads turned to her, sitting at the end of the couch. Raven smiled at her - she liked her, she was sweet - “What about you? What’s your power?”

“I’m,” She paused for a moment, the eyes on her making her anxious and curl into herself hoping, praying, another mutant wouldn’t touch her. “I can move things. With my mind.” She gave a tight smile to Raven and nodded her head, as if to reassure herself. “I can move things with my mind.”

Raven’s smile only widened, excited by either the prospect of her being able to move things with her mind or the opportunity to give her an alias. She assumed it was the latter. She excused herself to the washroom just as Raven asked the group what they thought. “We’ll have one for you once you get back! Promise!” Raven called after her.

Body filled with anticipation, she nearly ran to the washroom, willing the door closed behind her after she entered. It was small, but clean - CIA property after all.

She tried. She really did. Albeit, making contact with a mutant was always the worst; Erik especially. The trauma, the pain, the thoughts. All them clawed at her brain, as though they were tearing through it layer by layer until nothing but them remained within her skull.

Nothing could stop her from taking out the small baggy in her back pocket and tearing it open. Nothing could stop her from taking it, only to feel a rush flow through her. It would take a bit, but soon enough she would stop feeling them gnawing on her very existence. Soon, numbness would wash over her and she could just be no one.

She guessed she was in the washroom for about half an hour. Staring at her reflection, at the floor, at the ceiling, at anything, but when she made her way back to the room, she found it in disarray. Music was blasting from the radio, chairs flipped over, Raven on top of the couch dancing as Hank hung from the ceiling light, the rest of the group messing around with their powers. She couldn’t tell if they were experiencing some high of their own or just happened to have gotten their hands on some alcohol.

“What are you doing? Who destroyed the statue?” Moira’s voice broke her out of the trance she was in watching the group. Slowly, she turned her head to see her, Charles, and Erik walking over as everyone else froze. Moira was angry, that much anyone could tell, but the two men were unreadable.

Hank was the first one to reply back, jumping down the ceiling, panicked, “It was Alex.”

“No. Havok.” Raven seemed to stay unfazed, still standing on the couch with a wide smile on her face. “We have to call him Havok. That's his name now…”

Raven’s words melted away from her. Her focus wasn’t elsewhere; it was simply nowhere at all. She stared at everyone in the room, yet no one at all. So caught up in nothing she didn’t notice Charles himself staring at her until Erik uttered something under his breath and walked away with Moira following, brows furrowed in what looked to be confusion. Just as she caught his eye, he looked away.

Directed at Raven, he spoke firmly, “I expect more from you.”

Not long after, they had gotten word that Shaw would be in Russia, and so she was left with the group of mutants when the three left alongside the CIA to get their hands on him. Before, it would have made her wonder what purpose the group of mutants really served if they didn’t want them there to help. Now, after the incident, she understood why.

By no means were any of them prepared for such a task. She couldn’t claim to be either. She only agreed because she knew a part within her would hate her for not coming and at the very least trying to help.

Just when she thought she and the solemn group couldn’t be any more of a liability, she was proven wrong. Because now Sebastian Shaw stood in front of them, smug and irritating as ever, after having his lackey drop an unsuspecting CIA to his death in front of all of them and cornering them.

“Good evening. My name's Sebastian Shaw, and I'm not here to hurt you.” She was sure she wasn’t the only one assuming he had taken out every single CIA operative in the facility to make it this far; a thought that filled her being with even more dread than she was already feeling at the sight of him. “My friends, there's a revolution coming. When mankind discovers who we are, what we can do, each of us will face a choice. Be enslaved or rise up to rule. Choose freely, but know that if you are not with us, then by definition, you are against us. So, you can stay and fight for the people who hate and fear you. Or you can join me, and love like kings and queens.”

They all watched, both shocked and betrayed when Angel took the hand Shaw outstretched, standing by his side even when he murdered Darwin in his attempt to stop him with Alex. She didn’t see it - she turned away the second Shaw released the energy he’d taken from Alex into Darwin. She heard it, though. The explosion. When she turned back, as Shaw, Angel, and the men he had brought with him retreated, she saw nothing. There was no sign of Darwin; not even a speck of dust.

Suddenly, her chest tightened and the clawing came back.

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

The person who happened to almost send them home also happened to be the one who provided them a new place to train their powers for the fight with Shaw. Charles was entirely serious and extremely close to sending them all home; “They’re just kids.” But Erik made it clear to him that they couldn’t be anymore, not after Shaw.

Charles lived, alongside Raven, in a massive mansion that had been entirely too big for her to take in, but it provided the perfect space for them to train their powers. Each of them were assigned rooms by Charles personally that day.

He took the liberty of walking them each there. She didn’t know if it was just her or a Charles thing, but he stayed quiet. Unusual for a man that had so much to say. But then again, with what they’ve already been through, she couldn’t imagine he was feeling very chatty. She certainly wouldn’t have been in his situation. Granted, she would be feeling the same way now, but in her predicament by this point, she wouldn’t mind someone else’s verbal company.

The second he guided her through the bedroom

door, she began to take in the sheer size of the room, feeling bigger than life itself in the way that she was feeling. The bed was even better; huge and looked as though the softness of it would swallow her into a warm hug. Her first instinct would have been to jump right onto it, but the fact that Charles ceased to leave and instead remained planted there, giving her a look she couldn’t make out once she turned to face him, made her fight against her urges.

She opened her mouth in an attempt to utter an “Are you alright?” but never got the chance. Instead, Charles spoke as soon as her mouth opened, slowly, as if to make sure she understood every word he was saying like she had been incapable of doing so before, “Training starts tonight, but I’ll be seeing you tomorrow.”

With her brows furrowed in confusion, she nodded, and Charles began to walk away. He stopped by the frame of the door, back to her, and spoke again, “Try and get some rest.”

With that, he shut the door behind him. Now, she was left in the room alone, tiredness washing over her. Awaiting the next day, she decided to fall into the cloud that was the bed and fall asleep while she could.

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

The next morning was when Charles asked to see her - by Raven. The young woman led her over to a room, an odd dome shaped one, where Charles stood waiting. He wasn’t the same as the night before - uncomfortable, was the only way she knew to describe it - welcoming and encouraging.

“We’ve got plenty of work to do,” Charles spoke, hands in his pockets, as she entered and Raven excused herself elsewhere. Looking around, she could see evidence that training had started last night, namely Alex’s. Dark scuff marks were streaked across walls of the dome on the end farthest from them and small balls of fluff on the floor remained, assumingly left behind in the midst of a quick clean up of training dummies that had been torn open.

Despite the mess, several other objects were placed across the floor. All ranged from light to heavy. Chairs, weights - it looked to be anything he could have been capable of carrying in with the help of the others.

She stopped in front of him. “What’s this?”

The man’s smile widened before he started, rather loudly at that. “Well.” He moved towards the objects then spun around to face her, arms outstretched. “This is the beginning of your training.”

She raised an eyebrow, looking at the man unimpressed. “You want me to move this stuff around?”

“You’re not just moving stuff around.” Charles shook his head, arms dropping to his sides as he declared. “You don’t need to move everything here. I only need to see how much you can handle.” His head tilted as he looked at her, blue eyes meeting her own as his expression retreated to one of curiosity. “And how you handle it.”

She didn’t think the professor was aware of the innuendo within the situation, so she let it go despite the sweet stomach dropping feeling that came over her. Instead, she shrugged. “Then what?”

“Then,” Charles hesitated for a moment, “Erik was able to move a satellite dish. If it happens to be possible-”

“A satellite dish?” She laughed incredulously, “You can be serious.”

Charles nodded towards her, challenging her statements as he took a few steps forward. “And what is it that’s making you believe you’re incapable of doing anything similar?”

“Look.” She shook her head, looking directly at him when she said, “I can move the average household item, shut a door and maybe, just maybe, bust it down, but I couldn’t push your couch across the room, let alone move a fu- a satellite dish.”

Charles’ brows furrowed. “And that’s what you believe?”

She hummed. “That’s what I know.”

“Well,” he sighed, disappointment written across his face that sent her into a spiral, “There’s not much we can do if you don’t believe you can better yourself, is there?”

The second he walked past her was when it felt as though ice water had been spilt onto her. A mixture of confusion and gloom washed over her before she turned to see Charles’ back, still moving towards the door. “What?”

He stopped in his tracks at her exclamation, waiting several moments as if contemplating before he turned back to her. Carefully, he asked, “Why do you take them?”

She shook her head, looking almost offended. “How did you-”

“Your mind,” Charles confirmed, “It gets quieter.”

The offence on her face never ceased, but the uncomfortable mixture of feelings she was overwhelmed with had her shrug in response to his question. Charles only nodded and gave her a tight smile before turning back.

She closed her eyes, resigning herself with huff. She could go back to the life she had come to know and hate, or she could take the second chance he was giving her even if it did include the prospect of some suffering.

“I don’t take them for fun.” The sound of her voice made Charles stop again. This time, he waited. “When I touch a person I don’t just take every experience. I take every memory.”

He turned around to face her once more and gave her nod, signalling her to continue. She breathed in and out. “I see and I feel everything that’s happened to them. That’s a lot and it’s enough, but that’s not why I-”

She cut herself off, feeling herself choke on the words before shaking her head and persisting herself on despite Charles’ look of concern. “I take them because, when I take their memories, I take all of their thoughts too. Every one. So every thought of murder, or rape, or suicide, or any fucked up thing, keeps tearing me apart from the inside out.”

Charles nodded, walking closer to her, choosing his words carefully as he spoke, sympathy written deep in his soft voice, “And they scare you.”

She shook her head. Looking away from him for a moment, she willed away tears she felt gathering. She turned back to him. “The thought of acting on them scares me.”

Although slightly taken aback by the revelation, Charles holds his composure. He nodded before opening his mouth to respond, walking closer as he began.

The only reaction he got was her taking a step back, shaking her head. “I swear I’m not a bad person.” Charles assumed she didn’t want him touching her - considering she took away every thought. “I’m always all these people at once - I don’t even know who I am.”

“Then we will figure it out.” Charles tilted his head, making sure her eyes met his when she attempted to look away. His voice was soft and reassuring to her ears, even if she didn’t know whether to believe him or not. “You aren’t alone, Y/N.”

As it turns, the drugs were having a large effect on her ability to use her powers - the next few days told her as much. By no means was she capable of moving a satellite dish, but she had been able to take her powers to lengths she never thought she could have been able to.

Most of it was due to Charles - he’d spent most of the next few days with her, pushing her, sometimes to the point where she’d snap at him. She always calmed, though, and Charles always remained coolheaded.

Still, they grew closer. Or at least she grew closer to him. She couldn’t tell if the praise, the laughs, the banter, and the willingness to come back together after a fight only meant something to her. She hoped it did - because why else wouldn’t he just give up on her? All that time spent on advancing her powers to defeat Shaw, and he still talked about helping her as though their relationship would continue past this mission.

Part of her wanted to touch him so she could just know. Even if he hadn’t taken such a liking to her as she had him, at the very least try to understand him in his entirety and make a space for herself in his life. Then, another part of her was horrified at what she would find in there.

For the time being, there wasn’t much opportunity to dwell on it. The day they would head out was coming soon, and Erik suggested the group get a good night’s rest. They would all need it.

With her luck, she didn’t know why she thought that sleep would come easy that night. Whether it was due to adrenaline, anxiety, or anything else, didn’t matter. Because whatever was keeping her up had her pacing the hallways of Charles’ estate that night.

She wasn’t looking for it, but instead happened upon a conversation.

“… no difference. Shaw’s declared war on mankind. On all of us. He has to be stopped.” She heard Charles’ voice through a door as she passed by. Although knowing that he could probably make out the sound of her mind from a mile away, she still stopped by it. She grew even more curious when she heard Erik’s voice.

“I'm not gonna stop Shaw. I'm gonna kill him. Do you have it in you to allow that?” A moment of silence passed and she shifted on her feet. It made the floor creek. She shut her eyes and bit her lip, nervous, expecting to hear the sound of one of their footsteps coming to open the door and catch her eavesdropping. Whether they heard or not, she didn’t know as Erik continued on, “You've known all along why I was here, Charles. But things have changed. What started as a covert mission, tomorrow mankind will know that mutants exist. Shaw, us, they won't differentiate. They'll fear us. And that fear will turn to hatred.”

“Not if we stop a war,” Charles’ voice wavered on a line of urgency and assurance, “Not if we can prevent Shaw. Not if we risk our lives doing so.”

Charles very well could have been doing nothing but reassuring Erik with his words, but she couldn’t help but wonder if he was actually trying to reassure himself. As if the world wouldn’t either discard or abuse them once they’ve served their purpose of their betterment.

“Will they do the same for us?”

“We have it in us to be the better men.”

“We already are.” Erik’s voice quickly turned from calm to urgent when he next spoke. “We're the next stage of human evolution. You said it yourself!”

“No, no!” She heard Charles attempt to cut Erik off before he sighed. She could practically hear the disappointment in it, although she couldn’t say she felt the same. He only let Erik continue.

“Are you really so naive as to think that they won't battle their own extinction?” She heard him pause. “Or is it arrogance?”

“I’m sorry?” As if Charles had misheard him.

She shifted on her feet once more as their voices became more hushed, despite the feeling coming from the room becoming more hostile than calm. This time, she was more careful. Nothing made a sound below her feet when she moved closer to the door, pressing her ear against it, as well as her left palm for support.

“After tomorrow, they're gonna turn us. But you're blind to it, because you believe they're all like Moira.”

“And you believe they're all like Shaw.” Came Charles’ immediate response. Calmly, she heard him continue, “Listen to me very carefully my friend. Killing Shaw will not bring you peace.”

Erik’s voice never wavered when he told Charles, “Peace was never an option.”

Footsteps came far too fast for her to move away from the door. In a split second, she found herself leaning against the door to crashing into Erik’s chest when he pulled the door open. For a moment, Erik stood staring down at her, watching her attempt to recompose herself and attempt to apologize. She didn’t get a word out before he moved past her and walked away.

She watched his form retreat before she turned back to the room. Standing in the doorway, she saw Charles sitting in the chair facing away from her. With his eyes closed and fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, he sighed, “You realize I can hear your mind from across this house?”

She took a step in, almost reluctantly. She didn’t imagine Charles would be content with anything she had to say, but maybe she could make him understand. “Erik’s right, you know.”

Her words had Charles’ eyes snap open. He got out the chair, setting down the drink he was nursing on the table next to him, before he turned to face her. “Excuse me?”

“Peace isn’t an option ‘cause we’re never gonna get peace.” She shook her head, desperation in both her voice and eyes as she stared into his. “Erik thinks they’re gonna turn on us. They might not, but it doesn’t mean any of us will get any peace. They won’t all be like Shaw, they won’t all be like Moira, but most of them - most of them will just be human. They’ll fear us and they’ll judge us. It doesn’t matter how harmless we are or not.”

She watched as Charles took a step forward, his head tilting to the side, expression unreadable as his voice remained calm. “You can’t be serious.” It was a statement - a wrong one.

“Shaw needs to die,” She spoke with assurance. She felt her eyes fill with tears, Charles watching her suck in a breath and release as he began to walk closer to her, before she spoke in a whisper, no longer trusting her voice, “Shaw needs to die for what he did to us. We’re going to kill him, Charles.”

They’re faces we’re merely inches apart, chilling her to the bone as he looked at her. What she thought he would never do is what he tried the second he began to raise his hand, speaking quickly to her when he asked, “Us?”

His hand almost cupped her cheek when she turned her head away from it. Immediately, his hand froze. Charles watched her profile as more tears welled up in her eyes and her lips began to tremble. Voice weak and tearful, staring away from him, she pleaded, “Please don’t confuse me. I can’t-”

“I know you feel it,” Charles’ other hand came up to guide her face back to him despite her, whispering carefully, “But it is not your cross to bear.”

His hand was warm against her cheek. Comforting - enough to make her mind go blank. Wishful thinking, of course, because soon the clawing in her head would come back with a vengeance at having a man such as Charles touch her. For now, though, he felt safe. Stable. Enough so that she could close her eyes for a moment and let the tears fall as he leaned down to her and let his forehead press against hers.

“You can’t help but feel his pain,” She felt his breath against her lips as he spoke, his voice the same soft and soothing as she’s known it to be, “But you can decide what you do with it.”

She shook her head gently and pulled away, but still letting Charles’ hand rest against her cheek. “It’s not just-” she whispered to him, mouth feeling dry as her eyes avoided his, trying to piece her thoughts together. His hand slid down to the base of her neck, guiding her eyes to his. She licked her lips before she swallowed. “I barely knew Darwin, but he killed him right in front of us. And it was cruel and scary and I couldn’t even make myself look at it when it happened.”

“I know.” Charles brought his other hand up to brush away slow falling tears she hadn’t even known began to escape. He voiced nothing but concern, letting her continue as if he knew what she was going to say next.

Her hands reached up to wrap around his wrists, not to pull his hands away from her, but to simply hold onto them. Almost as if they were an anchor to make up for the tears she now felt were falling faster down her face as she realized. “For the first time, I think I want something, I feel this anger and fear, because of my head. I saw it first and I felt it first. It’s mine, and now I have a real responsibility to take care of it.”

“Not with murder.” Her hands tightened around his wrists as he brought her face closer to his own. A frown on his face as he desperately told her, “I meant it when I told you that we would figure this out together. You told me you were never your own person, that you don’t even know yourself. We were - we are - going to bring you into existence. I beg you, Y/N, don’t let yourself be brought into this world as a murderer.”

His words, as beautiful as they were, only half registered within her brain. All she found herself focusing on then was how close he was. She would think back later and come to realize that it was because the only thing making her tears stop and giving her the will not to commit a murder was the prospect of approval she would get from a man like him. From someone who could never understand her struggle, someone who never tried to or tried to make her feel as though there was some way out. From someone who wanted to build on it and show her the strength she could find within it.

Realistically, she knew he would have a few words for her if she ever outwardly admitted to him that she used approval as a means for bettering herself, but it was the best she could do at the time being.

Charles’ brows furrowed as he watched her face, spaced out and regarding him with an expression not even he could read. Somewhere deep down, though, he knew he had gotten through to her. His lips curled up slightly, speaking lowly with amusement evident in his voice, “Now where did you go?”

Her eyes shot from his lips to his eyes once more. As quick as they made eye contact, she leaned forward to press her lips against his. Lips soft, she kissed him carefully, one hand moving to cup his face. Only in the last few moments did he respond to it by kissing back.

She pulled away, looking at him nervously and letting out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding in. Her mouth was dry again. “I’m sorry-”

She was cut off by Charles’ lips on hers once more. She kissed back instantly, sighing into the kiss in content. Feeling Charles smirk against her lips and deepen the kiss, she put both hands behind his neck, pulling his body closer to hers. He took her lower lip between his teeth, pulling slightly as he let his hands trail down her body to her waist, pulling her to make sure there wasn’t the slightest gap between their bodies.

Their lips broke apart, but only long enough to allow for a quick breath. Charles pushed his lips back into hers as her hands snaked down to the collar of his dress shirt, playing carefully with the top button.

Eventually, their lips broke apart as they caught their breath. Bodies still pressed together, Charles leant forward to rest his forehead onto hers, her eyes still close, for a moment before pressing a kiss to it. He placed his chin on top of her head and rested there, her head resting against the crook of his neck as she felt him - anticipating what it would feel like to feel nothing but him.

#x-men #x-men first class #x-men days of future past #x-men apocalypse #x-men dark phoenix #charles xavier x reader #charles xavier imagine #charles xavier one-shot #x-men imagine #x-men one-shot #charles xavier #erik lensherr #raven #mystique #sean #angel #hank mccoy #james mcavoy #michael fassbender

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you-are-constance · 3 years

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Watching through JATP again has made me realize a few things, especially with Caleb and Julie. They’re both generally colored purple (there was a really good post that elaborated on that but I can’t find it rn!!), but there’s more than just that similarity.

Right here, in The Other Side of Hollywood, Caleb is giving his introduction to the song. He’s warming up the audience, getting them prepared for what’s sure to be a great show. And then, as the song becomes more upbeat/louder, he makes the rest of his performers enter and become visible. With a flash, they’re there.

Remind you of anything?

Let’s take Edge of Great for example. Julie’s leading them. She has a shorter intro in this song, but it’s still there. And with the drum line, the music picks up and the guys appear with a flash behind her. In a very similar way to how it happened in the HGC. The exact same flash of light. (It’s the way that ghosts teleport in, which is why it’s the same, but still. it's more than just the flash that makes it similar)

(and can I also add that the audience has the same reaction? even if they know what's coming - which isn't always the case - they're shocked. shocked and obviously enjoying it)

So now we’ve got the intro and how the rest of the group appears behind the lead, what next?

Well, let’s look at Julie. At each song that she performs with the band, there’s a point where her voice changes and she enters into what I like to call her ‘Rockstar Zone,’ (where her voice is in a higher range, just think of the moment in Stand Tall where she first goes “Whatever happens, even if I’m the last standing” that’s her Rockstar zone). Right then is usually when the rest of the band joins in (the only exception in Stand Tall, which is why it stands to reason that they were supposed to come in at “Whatever happens, even if I’m the last standing” but that’s for a different time).

And though it’s not as drastic of a change, Caleb’s voice does the same thing. (llliiIIIFFE IS GOOD ON THE OTHER SIDE OF HOLLYWOOD.) He’s in that higher range throughout the song (sure, in some parts he’s back in the more moderate area, but Julie has that in a lot of the songs, too)

So what’s different? What’s the difference between them? They both give intros to their songs, they both stand in front as the rest of their group appears behind them, their voices shift and get into that higher register throughout the song. What separates them?

Caleb never shares the spotlight.

Time after time, for most all of Julie and the Phantom’s performances, Julie takes a step back and lets Luke have a solo. Or, even in Stand Tall, they all have solos. (In Flying Solo, that’s not the case, but that song is a bit of an outlier in the songs that the band performs.) Julie always takes a step back and lets the others shine.

Sometimes she’s stepping back completely (shown above), other times, she’s sharing the spotlight directly with others (especially Luke) like in Finally Free.

And it’s so easy for her! It’s just like second nature, to let others show their greatness. It’s not even a second thought for her to let Luke take a solo and play with Reggie or Alex. She does it automatically on their first performance together. It’s just natural!

But Caleb doesn’t do that. He’s always at the front. He’s always leading his entire band. No one else gets to shine like he does! Not even when he’s trying to convince the guys to join his band. He’s forcing them to the stage, and giving them their moments of glory, but he’s not stepping aside to let them have it, either. He’s bringing them on, introducing them to the crowd. He’s letting them have their moments, he’s letting them shine, but it’s not at all the way Julie does it. And this:

When Caleb says, “How do you like my new band?” as he stands (even just slightly) in front of them, he’s taking all the credit for himself.

They played the solos, they performed for the crowd, but according to that line, they belong to Caleb, and so does all the credit that they should get. Caleb doesn’t share, like Julie does. He keeps all the credit and fame for himself.

*gets off my little soapbox* thank u for listening

#jatp #julie and the phantoms #netflixwewantjatp2 #Constance thinks too much #Constance’s gifs #Constance's gifs #jatp analysis #caleb covington #julie molina #cheyenne jackson #madison reyes #i just think it's neat y'know?#how the lead and the main antagonist have so much in common??#but their differences lie in how they use their power/influence #Julie knows she's great and she knows the people around her are great #so she lets them shine #Caleb knows he's great and he knows the people around him are great #so he takes credit for the things they do #just... parallelism... my beloved #this is probably full of mistakes and misinformation and that sort of thing but whatever #my brain wouldn't let go of it until i wrote it all out #and now i will torture all my followers with it #netflix pls renew it i literally watch this show weekly #and look what it's made me do #i! am! thinking! too! much! about! this! show!#someone help

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pinkandgreenarepurpleandyellow · 2 years

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Part 2 of me slowly irritating the fandom to death with mediocre pencil sketches and world-building concepts!

A quick disclaimer: A lot of the stuff here is just me fleshing things out bc I love filling in small world-building holes. The base for the style guide was @soledadcatalina's post from several years ago (that I currently cannot link bc Tumblr hates me) but with a lot of additional stuff based on my personal concepts and various experience/people I've met who have done some versions of these things (not the fighting and killing stuff, just bits and bobs). Although I'm a bit of a clothing nerd and love both analyzing and constructing design elements for wardrobe I am not a professional. (Image ID at end of ramble below the cut)

Ok so in my quest to find any vital descriptors I re-read the first there books, then Silent Night, then the bonus chapters, and then Lockdown again. The clothing is described as grey in a few places but the cover of Solitary shows Alex's jumpsuit to have stripes, so I finally came to a compromise. The jumpsuits start out as black and white striped classics but the warden is cheap and so the ink is shitty, quickly blotting and fading and staining so the older jumpsuits are a greyish color. (This will be come relevant for bandanna section of this post, towards the end). The actual Furnace logo is something that a little extra effort was put into, possibly being embroidered into the fabric (tbh yes I think the warden would do something like that just to be an extra level of asshole). The material itself is also not the best kind, and can shrink if overheated for too long.

Each latest batch of inmates is given a brand 'new' jumpsuit with distinct stripes for their first day. After they go into the showers, their uniforms are now officially part of the prison-wide circulation. There's always a very slight surplus for the sake of laziness and mild convenience, but not enough so that popped can vandalize the torsos of the jumpsuits or smuggle a second one out. But that doesn't stop people from fucking up the legs and the sleeves.

So, as a general rule, sleeves are fucked with more than legs partially for safety reasons and partially because shorter than expected sleeve are less of a pain than being tall and dealing with pantlegs that fit like capris on you because some short assholes just have to make it all about them even though plenty of the jumpsuits have shrunk over time so you think they could just vandalize those instead. So there's a certain amount of jumpsuits around that will actually fit on shorter kids, with very few additions or removals due to the risk of getting beaten up for constantly fucking up the uniforms. A good way to tell a short old-timer from a new fish is that the old-timers will push and shove for the ripped-leg jumpsuits while the new fish will try to go for either the less worn out models (that don't fit in the slightest and have the stripes still) or the leftovers.

Aside from the ripped legs, the solution most short kids have is the roll the excess up somehow. On someone taller, the baggy look is an option but when the fabric is a foot longer than your legs, you gotta do something. New fish go for the very big and bulky cuffs that have to be rolled up like 7 times to let their feet touch the ground directly. More experienced kids tend to make stylistic cuffs. Maybe it's mis-matching the height to which the pantlegs are rolled to, maybe it's rolling one leg the usual way and rolling the other one inward, but the cuffs end up looking more stylistic than necessary, which adds to the overall look.

Moving up, we've got sleeves. Most are also too long, but are usually shorter than they started due to inmates instantly ripping small pieces off of the edge for toothbrushes, hair ties, or just boredom. The life cycle of the sleeve is 'Starting length', 'fraying at edges', 'loose t-shirt sleeve length', and 'sleeves torn off completely'. Most of the older jumpsuits are in the latter two phases. Sleeves are narrower than the legs by a slight margin. Again, despite the inevetable degrading of the material over time, the number of shorter-sleeved jumpsuits is relatively stable, although it does go up and down more frequently.

With these basics, you can start telling apart people's time spent in the prison, level of deference to the warden, their hierarchal status, and their odds of survival in encounters with the other inmates. Of course, some of the excess or completely worn out jumpsuits are stolen and scavenged or ripped apart and passed around for anyone who needs more fabric tan there is in a sleeve or who needs a big square/rectangle of material.

Finally, the part that I personally get excited about, bandanas, accessories, and miscellaneous usage!

Skull Bandanas: Canonically all surface items are confiscated and I have no doubt that includes the gang bandanas. On the surface they probably either buy them or use paint (depending on area and resources, etc) but neither of those are really an option within the Furnace itself. So, to make a proper Skull bandana: take an extra jumpsuit, cut out a decently sized square, bleach out a rough circle in laundry (put some extra focus on the black stripes to make it look more natural), either burn the fabric at laundry /kitchen or get soot/the blackest dust available in the chipping and turn the white stripes surrounding the Skull black this way, and then use the same process for rough eyeholes. More detail-oriented members can heat up shanks/small pieces of metal and also add on rough teeth and holes in the nose area.

The finished product is a roughly black square with a roughly white skull in the center, to be worn only by the Skulls. Atempts to mimic the design to blend in don't work as the Skulls are relatively selective. Most of the bandanas were made within the first month (using just striped squares for the first part) and to get one now usually requires ousting a previous member unless Ambrose makes an exception (made twice within the span of five years).

Fifty-Niner Stripes: Usually made with the a mixture of dust and dirt from chipping. Some of the more unhinged members had tattoos from the surface but nowadays it's mostly dust/soot used as paint (can be stored in some extra rags and mixed with some of the chemicals in the laundry).

Leopard marks: These are established as cigarette burns on the surface and shiv-made holes in gen pop but I do think someone suggested 'hey what if we just use dust like the others' and promptly got shanked for it.

Accessories: So that sounds a bit weird, but allow me to explain. Strips roughly the length of sleeve's circumference can become improvised hair-ties, good for anyone who can't/won't see a slicer and anyone with long hair, which I imagine isn't too small of a population. Longer and thicker strips of cloth wrap around feet to act as (shitty) improvised socks. And even though wearing a bandana even remotely similar to the ones the Skulls use will get you killed, plenty of inmates make a similar version (sometimes just a long and wide rectangle) to act as durags or very basic headbands to keep sweat out of their brows during hard labor. Unlike the Skull ones, these tend to be either striped or faded grey.

Miscellaneous: Obvious, but the the sleeves and pantlegs frequently act as bandages since no one wants to go to the infirmary. There's also the pre-emptive use as a basic form of wrist/ankle tapes and a shitty version of a boxing glove by wrapping cloth around the hand. Shorter strips wind around shanks to make handles. Scraps and useless pieces of the jumpsuits quickly add up and some clever people figure out that they can sweep up all the pieces, shove them into the pillow case or under the sheets and get slightly better sleep.

[Image ID:

Two pictures of black and white pencil sketches on paper. The first shows four generic inmates dressed in the Furnace jumpsuits lined up and facing the camera. Aside from one with black stripes on his cheeks and one with a bruise on his face, they have no facial features. The focus is on the uniforms and their distinctions. The second page has more small notes about Skull bandanas.

Inmate Uniform Notes (going right to left for inmates, head to toe for notes):

On the first kid, who is dressed in a striped Furnace jumpsuit zipped up all the way with baggy sleeves and extremely rolled up-cuffs the notes are: "Surface hair" (referring to clean and neat haircut), "Zipped up", "New uniform, bolder stripes", "bulky sleeves covering hands", and "very rolled up legs".

The second kid, who has messy long hair and a partially unzipped jumpsuit with faded stripes, baggy but uncuffed legs, and ripped up sleeves (down to wrists), has the notes: "Can't/won't see the slicers", "mostly faded stripes", "worn/torn sleeves", and "baggy legs, maybe a little rolled".

The third kid is significantly taller, with hair in a slightly neater cut pushed back and two stripes on his face, marking him as a Fifty-Niner. He is holding something in his right hand and there are bandages wrapped around his left fist. His jumpsuit is completely faded and partially unzipped, with the sleeves ripped off and the legs fitting almost perfectly, if a little big, and he has the notes: "better cut since in a gang" (hair), "coal/dust lines" (gang markings), "arms completely torn off", "stretched and worn out after years" (in reference to whole jumpsuit), " 'bandages' made of ripped sleeves" (fist), "stripes fully gone", and "excess bit [of pant leg] tucked under".

The fourth and final kid is shorter than the first three, with closely cropped scruffy hair, a bruise on his left cheek, and cloth wrapped around his right wrist. His jumpsuit is zipped all the way up, the sleeves are rolled to the elbows, and the legs are mismatched, with the right ripped short and the left cuffed. The notes around him read: "scruffy cut (wounds hidden)", "Zipped up but other details make this a fashion choice", "fading stripes", "casual sleeves", "improvised brace for wrist", "shrunk from overheating" (referring to the uniform fitting him despite him being smaller than average), "mismatched legs" (one ripped, one rolled up), and "stylistic cuff" (referring to rolled up leg).

Skull Bandanna Notes (and misc) (going roughly right to left, top to bottom):

Bottom right corner shows two small hair ties, one made of just one scrap, and one with a second scrap twining around, mimicking an elastic hair tie. Above, in the main square, are two versions of the unfolded Skull bandanas, roughly square-ish with the Skulls having circular eye sockets, small slants at the nose, and vague outlines of teeth. The top version is more detailed and the bottom is more likely to be what was worn in gen pop.

Across the top are three rough sketches of inmates wearing the bandanas. One is wearing his to cover his scalp, with the skull front and center. A small note on his points out the grey area in the middle, cutting through the black and white, reading "stripes faded but not gone". The one in the middle has his bandana tied around his neck and is looking up. The last boy wears it around his forehead, still leaving the top of the head uncovered as he glares down.

At the bottom of the page there is a simple sketch of part of a jumpsuit, with the stripes and a note "bleached out with time". The picture next to it shows a rough square (the starter for a Skull bandana) with visible stripes. A note to the black stripe reads "bleach (laundry)" and the one to the white stripe says "burn or cover in black dust (laundry/chipping when guard is distracted)".

Between the boys wearing their bandanas and the starter sample are small pictures of a few shanks and sketch of a Fifty-Niner in profile, glaring to the side. A note points to the mark on his cheek, reading "soot".

End ID]

#man did this get long #escape from furnace #eff this #eff #worldbuilding #style guide #the skulls (eff)#fifty-niners (eff)#leopards (eff)#yes I'm over tagging #accessible fanart #I have so many more thoughts honestly #the world-building I do for my hperfixations #*le tired voice* zee drawings #updated art tag for now ig

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jaskiers-sweetkiss · 3 years

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The Mercer Legacy - Part 4

Pairings: Luke x Reggie x reader, Julie x Flynn x Carrie

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: mentions of Reggie’s parents fighting in the edits

A/N: oh man I’m so excited for this chapter. I usually share a lot of bits and pieces with the Ghost Squad while I’m writing but I’ve kept this one under wraps as a surprise! I hope you like it! As always, let me know what you think and drop a comment/send me an ask if you want to be tagged!

Part 3 Masterlist TML Masterlist

___

“Oh, by the way, Julie said her girlfriends are coming to watch practice today,” Alex said, looking up from his phone and you narrowed your eyes at him.

He tucked his drum sticks into the water bottle pocket of his backpack before slinging it over his shoulder as if he hadn’t just dropped a bombshell on you.

“Girlfriends,” you repeated, drawing out the ‘s’ at the end. “As in multiple girlfriends?”

“Yeah, keep up Y/L/N,” Alex said teasingly before realizing why you had questioned it. “I told you you had no reason to be worried.”

When you arrived you were excited to meet Julie’s significant others and also glad to not have to sit alone during practice. However, that excitement quickly turned to surprise when you stepped into the garage.

“Carrie?”

“Oh hey Y/N,” she replied, sounding unphased but you noticed the light pink blush spreading across her cheeks. She hadn’t expected someone else she knew to be there just like you hadn’t/ “What’re you doing here?”

You tilted your head towards where Alex was settling in behind his drumset and Carrie nodded in understanding.

“I should’ve guessed,” she smiled and you were taken aback slightly at how genuine it was, used to her stage smile.

“He and I are going to have a long conversation about sharing information,” you said loud enough for Alex to hear on the other side of the studio, glaring at your best friend who just rolled his eyes in response.

“I know Reggie and Luke too.” You directed your words back to Carrie, glancing over to the two boys for the first time since you’d arrived to find them looking back at you and you tried to fight back the heat rushing to your cheeks. It didn’t seem to stop Carrie from noticing and she smirked knowingly.

“Ahh,” she hummed quietly to herself as if she’d just put something together but you had no idea what it could be.

“What?” You questioned a bit abrasively and you winced at your tone. You just didn’t like that she seemed to know something that you didn’t.

“Nothing, just— and you didn’t hear this from me— Julie said Reggie and Luke haven’t been able to shut up about a girl for weeks. I just didn’t expect it to be you.” Carrie shared in a hushed whisper and you flushed in earnest this time, your throat going dry at the information.

“Hey, Mercer are you gonna introduce me to your girl or?” The girl who you assumed was Julie’s other girlfriend called, thankfully interrupting your conversation with Carrie before you had to come up with a response. She slung her arm around your shoulder as she spoke.

Alex rolled his eyes but hollered back, “Flynn that’s Y/N, Y/N that’s Flynn.”

“I take it you’re the one nobody around here shuts up about?” Flynn asked as she stepped away from you.

“Flynn!” Carrie hissed, eyes flashing.

“What, is that supposed to be some secret?” Flynn replied and you laughed while Carrie rolled her eyes fondly.

“Apparently I am,” you shrugged with a shy chuckle.

Flynn nodded pensively, looking you up and down.

“I get it,” she said finally and you felt yourself blush for the umpteenth time since you arrived.

Carrie rolled her eyes, huffing out a quiet “oh my god.”

“Hey PeterPatter you better hurry up before I steal your girlfriend,” Flynn called to Luke and Reggie over her shoulder and you wished the ground would open up and swallow you right there. Luckily when you chanced a glance at the guys they seemed just as mortified as you, both of their faces beat red as they both pointedly avoided looking at each other or you.

“She’s not-”

“I’m not-”

The three of you blurted at the same time, your heads snapping up to stare at each other with wide eyes. Flynn cackled at that and Carrie smacked her arm, muttering something under her breath that you didn’t catch.

“Wow you guys make it too easy,” Flynn said when she finally stopped laughing, pretending to wipe tears from her eyes.

“Julie, can you please make your girlfriend stop flirting with my best friend,” Alex whined and Flynn flipped him off. “There’re already too many people here who do that,” he added, looking pointedly at Luke and Reggie and you turned to glare at him.

“Fuck you,” you mouthed but he just grinned cheekily.

“In your dreams,” he mouthed back and you stuck your tongue out at him.

“O-kay,” Julie said once she noticed Alex sticking his tongue out at you in response, interrupting the chaos that had consumed the studio. “Why don’t we start practicing.”

The boys nodded hurriedly, settling in behind their instruments while you, Carrie, and Flynn moved to make yourselves comfortable in the various chairs and couch.

“And Flynn? behave,” Julie called at her girlfriend’s back.

Flynn mumbling something petulant under her breath before plopping down on the couch next to Carrie, throwing her arm around her girlfriend’s shoulder and pulling her into her. You did your best to stifle a laugh at the reluctant way that Carrie leaned into her girlfriend, arms crossed over her chest and what may look like an annoyed expression but you could see the fondness in her eyes.

The three of you chatted amicably throughout the band’s rehearsal, you getting to know Flynn and getting to know the “real” Carrie. It was nice, they were nice and you quietly wondered why you hadn’t formed a friendship with Carrie sooner. You’d always been amicable in school, but your social circles never really overlapped so you’d never had a reason to really talk to each other. You wished you had.

Practice flew by quicker than usual in the presence of both good music and good company and before you knew it the band was packing up their instruments and Carrie and Flynn were standing to go talk to their girlfriend. Before she got too far, Carrie nudged you in the direction of the two guitarists and Flynn sent you a sly wink.

You stumbled slightly from the force of Carrie’s push but continued to meander over to the band set up, intentionally avoiding the eyes of your best friend who you were certain was smirking knowingly at you.

“Oh hey, Y/N!” Reggie said cheerfully when he glanced up from zipping up his guitar case to see you making your way over. “Luke and I were thinking maybe ice cream now that practice is done? Since you missed out the other day?”

You turned to find Luke nodding in agreement to Reggie’s statement and you smiled, heart warming at the gesture. You were certain that they’d be upset with you after you bailed on them with a shitty excuse the other day but it seemed they still wanted to spend time with you, and for that you were grateful.

“I’d love that,” you agreed, “Is Alex coming with?”

“Um, well, I was kinda hoping it could just be the three of us?” Luke spoke up, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “There’s been something I’ve been wanting to talk to you guys about…”

You nodded thoughtfully, trying to fight back the frown that threatened to take over your face as a pit of worry opened up in your stomach.

“It’s nothing bad! I swear!” Luke rushed to reassure you both as if sensing your worries.

“Okay.” You nodded again, this time more to yourself. “In that case, there’s a conversation I’ve been meaning to have with you both too.”

You weren’t sure why you’d volunteered that. Maybe you had been emboldened by Luke’s statement.

“I have something too but maybe we should wait and talk about it all over ice cream?” Reggie added hesitantly, sounding even more nervous than you felt.

You all agreed, deciding that whatever news you each needed to share with one another would be improved by the presence of ice cream. With your plans settled, Reggie and Luke finished putting away their equipment and you all said goodbye to the rest of the group before setting off.

It was a short walk from the Molina’s to Reggie’s favorite ice cream place and an even shorter trip with Reggie on his skateboard and you on Luke’s bike handles. Normally you’d spend a ride on Luke’s handlebars giggling loudly (or screaming whenever Luke would swerve suddenly in order to scare you) with Reggie skateboarding by your side. This time though you were all silent and you felt like you were buzzing with anxiety over the prospect of confessing your feelings to the two boys.

The three of you were uncharacteristically quiet as you got your ice cream, each of you paying separately rather than the usual fight over who got to pay this time. It made your gut twist, anxiety welling up once more at what Reggie and Luke had to say.

It wasn’t until you were sat around a table that anyone tried to speak up.

“Okay so-“

“Right, well-“

“I just want-“

The tree of you started at the same time before freezing abruptly. You couldn’t help the shocked laugh that bubbled out of you and you flushed at the inappropriateness of it. However, it seemed to break the tense atmosphere that had surrounded you all since you left the studio, Luke and Reggie breaking into laughter of their own.

“I’ll go first,” you volunteered, startled again when you heard the two boys speak in unison with you.

The three of you fell into short-lived laughter once more before you spoke up again, alone this time.

“Seriously, I’ll go first... if that’s alright?”

You thought back to the message you’d sent Alex weeks ago saying that you weren’t ready to have your heart broken like that. You certainly didn’t feel more ready now, but something in you needed to get this out. Heartbreak or not, at least you’d know for sure.

“Ladies first,” Luke acquiesced and you sent him a brief but grateful smile.

“Okay, um...wow this is a lot harder than I thought,” you muttered to yourself, stuttering over your words. “You guys are great guys and amazing friends but-“

“I have a crush on you!” Reggie blurted, cutting you off mid-sentence and you froze, unable to do more than blink at the boy.

“Both of you,” Reggie clarified after a moment before he began to ramble. “And I didn’t want it to change anything between us because you guys are so important to me and it’s totally okay if you don’t feel the same but...”

“But you just had to get it out there,” Luke finished, a knowing look on his face.

“Yeah, how’d you...?” Reggie trailed off, peering curiously at Luke.

“Because I have a crush on you too, you dork,” Luke confessed with a small laugh that sounded less like he thought the situation was funny and more like he was trying to hide how nervous he was. “Both of you.”

Luke and Reggie turned to look at you then, their nerves obvious in their facial expressions and suddenly the atmosphere was tense again.

“I... I-“ you tried to force out the words before cutting yourself off with a groan. “I can’t believe you guys!”

“What?”

“Here I am trying to get the words out and you- you guys cut me off and... and beat me to it! It’s- it’s not fair!”

“You... what?” Luke asked the question again, this time less out of confusion and more disbelief.

“I have a crush on you— both of you— too and I was trying to tell you but,” you gestured wildly about you as if to reference what had just happened. “I guess it doesn’t matter, huh?”

You were grinning by then, completely unbelieving of your luck. You felt breathless with it, the rush of the adrenaline from your confession combined with the euphoria of Luke and Reggie’s reciprocation was enough to make your head spin.

“So, what now?” Reggie asked, looking surprised that you’d made it to this point. You couldn’t blame him, you felt the same way.

“I vote we eat our ice cream before it’s entirely melted and call this our first date.”

You grinned as you watched Reggie and Luke blush but nod eagerly. You couldn’t help it that your cheeky grin slipped into something much sappier and fond as you watched the boys, your boys.

___

JATP Taglist: @meangirlsx @morganayenneferburnham @n0wornever @bright-molina @reg-peters @calamitykaty @sunsetcurvecuddles @dream-a-little-bigger-x @bright-patterson

TML Taglist: @marinettepotterandplagg @everyonesannoyedwithme @percico-heronstairs @starjane312 @ifilwtmfc @jatphatones @cherrymaybank @sorrowfulfragmentation @stargazing-dreamer-girl @daisybutterlions @mynameisntluke @willex-owns-my-heart @theolivekiddo @90ssunsetcurve @avngrsinitiative @thatfandombitcch

#jatp #jatp fic #Julie and the phantoms #Julie and the phantoms fic #social media au #Alex mercer #Reggie peters #Luke patterson #Julie molina #Flynn jatp #flynn nolastname #Carrie wilson #peterpatter #peterpatter x reader #Luke x Reggie x reader #triple threat #Julie x Flynn x Carrie

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nicknellie · 3 years

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Anonymous requested: roommates Alex and Willie share a bed on the night of a storm and it becomes a habit, resulting with a confession and a kiss. (This was edited/simplified just to make it shorter.)

Sorry this has taken me so long to get round to! I absolutely loved the request and it was a joy to write, especially since I’m so stuck in my JatP feels for the anniversary. I’m always a sucker for a one bed trope too! I really hope you like it, thanks for the request!

Raging Storms and Lovesick Hearts

There were times that Alex wasn’t sure if moving in with Willie was the best decision he’d ever made or the worst. In many ways, it was a decision he would never go back on – living with Luke and Reggie had been fun during the day, but apparently neither of them had ever heard of sleep and decided to make that Alex’s problem, so now that he lived with Willie it was nice to finally know what it felt like to be well-rested. It was also great because he got to spend much more time with Willie, something he’d craved for as long as he’d known him.

But that was also sort of the worst thing about it all.

Being around Willie all the time was beginning to drive Alex a little bit insane. Not in a bad way, it wasn’t like he felt stifled or had grown bored or frustrated by Willie’s near-constant presence in his life. If anything, it was the opposite. Nowadays, he got to see every version of Willie, not just the smiley, put-together version he saw when they met up on odd weekends. Now he got to see tired Willie, just rolled out of bed, still unsteady on his feet from sleep; he saw even more of the kind, generous, fair Willie who offered to do the dishes whenever Alex cooked dinner; he saw the childishly exhausted Willie who crashed on the couch and slept for three hours every time he got back from the skatepark; he saw adorably sleepy Willie at night when it was nearing midnight and he was reluctantly going to bed, eyes already drooping closed; he saw paint-splattered Willie, brushes tucked behind his ears and shoved into his hair, headphones in, working tirelessly on some big piece that Alex admired every stage of; sometimes, he saw a version of Willie that made his heart ache, a broken version of Willie with tears running down his cheeks as he wiped furiously at his eyes as Alex did everything in his power to console him. He saw every version of Willie and he wanted them all so badly, but he couldn’t have any of them.

And sure, he’d brought this upon himself. When the guy he’d been pining over for exactly one year had asked if he wanted to move in, he could have guessed that it would ruin him, and he could have said no. It would’ve been easy.

But Alex had seen the smile on Willie’s face, the excited glint in his eye about the prospect of living together, and his affirmative answer had been out of his mouth before he’d given it a second thought. He was paying the price for his thoughtlessness now, condemned to watch Willie be anything but his for as long as they lived together. Frankly the whole thing was exhausting – he had to wonder if that was adding to him getting a good night’s sleep every night.

There was another reason he preferred nights now, not just because he could rest easily. Night was the only time he didn’t see Willie, the only time he could get a little respite from his aching heart, lie alone in the dark and pretend he was the only person on Earth. Maybe it was a little lonely and more than a little sad to think of things that way, but it was a change from his usual pining at the very least. He thought that having that time to escape his feelings was definitely doing him some good.

Until the night of the storm.

There had been warnings about it all week. Alerts popping up on Alex’s phone, breaking news plastered on every TV he saw, articles about finding shelter and stocking up on food just in case the storm was worse than they thought. It was only supposed to be a passing thing, been and gone overnight, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

It had been raining all day, a dismal drizzle, the kind of rain that was so fine you didn’t realise you were soaked until you felt your clothes sticking to your skin. But around midnight, everything kicked off. Alex lay in bed, toying with a fraying thread on the duvet cover, listening to the rain hammering against the windows hard enough to rattle their frames, the wind whistling as it bled through the streets outside, the claps of thunder loud enough to deafen as they came just seconds after bursts of lightning illuminated his entire room. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little bit frightened, but he curled up tighter in his bed, pulling the covers close, and tried to force sleep.

A knocking sound made his eyes snap open. At first, he wondered if he’d imagined it, or if it was the sound of something hitting his window, but then it came again. And yes, it was definitely a knock. A knock at his bedroom door. A knock on his bedroom door at half-midnight in the middle of a storm. And there was only one person it could be.

Alex stretched as he swung his long legs out of the bed and flicked his bedside lamp on. He pulled open the bedroom door, squinting in the sudden burst of light from the hallway, and was met by a timid-looking Willie with his hair braided back, wearing his pyjamas, fist still sheepishly raised as if to knock on the door again.

“Hey,” Alex said, voice low with fatigue. He tried to stifle a yawn as he scrunched his eyes, forcing the tiredness out of them. “Is everything okay?”

He must have not hidden his exhaustion as well as he’d tried because Willie winced before saying, “Sorry. Did I wake you up?”

“No, no,” Alex assured him, “I couldn’t sleep anyway. The storm is too loud.” Willie nodded awkwardly, casting his gaze around, seemingly trying to look anywhere but at Alex. It was strange – Willie wasn’t the type to avoid talking to someone, especially if it was Alex, who was suddenly left feeling very concerned. “Is it… Is that why you’re awake too?”

“Kind of,” Willie replied, a half-smile on his face that quickly flickered out of existence. He shook his head, taking a few steps back. “It’s silly. Don’t worry about it actually. I’ll go back to my room. I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

“Hey, no,” Alex protested, clutching Willie’s wrist as he tried to turn and walk away, stopping him in his tracks. Willie didn’t turn to face him, but did stop trying to leave, so Alex took that as a victory. “You could never bother me. And whatever it is, I’m sure it’s not silly.”

Slowly, Willie turned back around to face him, some mixture of hope and nervousness dancing in his eyes. When Willie looked down again, Alex followed his line of sight and saw that he still had a hold of Willie’s wrist. He dropped it suddenly, instantly aware that he’d been holding on too long and if he wasn’t careful Willie might take that to mean something that Alex definitely couldn’t have him knowing which would introduce a whole different kind of storm. (But before he let go, he could have sworn he felt Willie’s pulse racing; maybe it was his nerves, but maybe it was something else… something Alex didn’t want to get his hopes up about.)

“It’s just… I’m not really great with storms,” Willie admitted softly, meeting Alex’s eyes again. “They freak me out. I was just going to ask if I could… if I could, you know, sleep in here with you tonight? If it’s totally out of line you can say no, I get it, man, I won’t be up–”

Alex shook his head, not wanting to let him spiral, knowing that never ended up well for anyone. There was a pretty major part of him panicking over the fact that Willie was going to spend the night in his room, but that part was outweighed by the even bigger part of him that was worried and concerned for Willie, the part of him that wanted to protect Willie at all costs.

“No, no, it’s alright,” he said, interrupting Willie before he got too lost in his own head. “Come on, you can sleep in here. I don’t mind.”

It was only as the two of them backed into the room and Alex shut the door, blocking out all the light from the hallway and leaving them dimly lit by just his bedside lamp, that Alex remembered that his room was very small and ill-equipped for impromptu sleepovers. Which was to say, there was only one bed.

His internal panicking doubled in an instant. Because there weren’t many options here. He could make Willie sleep on the floor, which seemed incredibly harsh and unfair considering the state he’d just come to Alex in. He could sleep on the floor himself, which he really didn’t want to do because it would be cold down there and he didn’t like the idea of being able to see underneath his bed. They could relocate to Willie room down the hall where there was a small sofa that one of them (probably Alex) could sleep on, and they’d still be in the same room, but he knew they were both tired and switching rooms sounded like a lot of effort. Which just left sharing the bed, and truth be told, Alex was utterly terrified by the idea.

He was about to say something, ask Willie what he thought the best course of action was, but the words died in his mouth as he saw that Willie was already climbing into the bed. He already seemed much more at ease, the worry lines around his face softening as he closed his eyes. After yet another brief panic, Alex got into the bed again and laid down beside him.

He could hardly hear the raging storm over the incessant beating of his own lovesick heart.

The whole thing felt so intimate even though there was nothing overtly intimate about it. Really it was just one friend helping another, Alex being there for Willie when he was frightened, lending him a bed and a comforting presence. But they were so close, touching all along one side of Alex’s body, their breathing synced, the world around them slowly fading into nothingness until it was just the two of them.

After some time, it was impossible to tell exactly how long, Willie said, “Thank you, Alex.”

Alex sighed quietly, letting his eyes fall closed. He shuffled ever so slightly closer to Willie on the bed and as his tiredness overtook him he lost a little control over his inhibitions. Before he knew it, he’d thrown an arm around Willie’s waist, holding him close, their bodies curled together. When he registered what he’d done, he almost pulled away, but Willie relaxed into him so he let his arm stay where it was.

“Don’t mention it,” Alex whispered to the darkness around them. “I’m always going to be here whenever you need me.”

In moments, they were both asleep, the storm still raging outside.

When Alex woke up the next morning, the storm had all but died. He could still hear the gentle pitter-patter of rain drumming on the windows and roof, but the wind had long since ceased, as had the thunder and lightning that had lit up the night. He exhaled contentedly, relaxing against the warmth on the left side of his body, and nearly drifted off to sleep.

But then he realised what – or rather who – that warmth was.

The events from the night before came flooding back to his with all the ferocity of the storm itself. Willie coming to him in the middle of the night, how frightened he had seemed, how Alex had offered up his room, and how they’d fallen asleep tangled together. Now they had woken up in the exact same way, and Alex had no idea what to do about it.

If he moved, he risked waking Willie and that was a conversation he would rather avoid. But if he stayed still, Willie would eventually wake up and he’d still have to have that awkward ‘remember last night’ conversation. There was really no winning here. Even in a situation where he was cuddling the love of his life, he couldn’t come out unscathed.

So, he went for the slightly immature third option and opted to feign sleep, letting the whole thing be Willie’s problem whenever he woke up.

And eventually he did, not long after Alex. When Alex felt him stir and stretch, he tried to slow his breathing, keep his eyes closed only gently, and even let out a few fake little snores to try and sell the piece. His eyes were closed, so he had no idea if Willie even looked at him, but moments later Willie slipping out from his grasp and Alex heard the tell-tale creak of his bedroom door. Only when he heard it click shut did he breathe a long sigh of relief.

Honestly, he had thought that would be it. One night together and then Alex could get back to his nights of peaceful sleep. Only there were two things in the way of that:

One – suddenly, without Willie sleeping in his bed, Alex found that sleep was much harder to come by.

Two – after that night, Willie slept in Alex’s bed more often than not.

Alex really had no idea how it became so routine, but it did. About a week after the storm, Willie knocked on his door again and told Alex he’d had a nightmare, asking to sleep in his bed again. And who was Alex to refuse? So they’d slept in the same bed again, they’d woken up a tangle of limbs, and Willie had crept out while Alex pretended to sleep.

Then just two nights later, Alex’s resolve had broken and something had possessed him to go to Willie’s room and invite him back to his own. He had made up some flimsy excuse, something about his heater having broken and him needing warmth, but Willie hadn’t questioned it. They’d slept in the same bed again, they’d woken up a tangle of limbs, and Willie had crept out while Alex pretended to sleep.

And the very next night, they hadn’t even discussed it before the two of them just went straight to Alex’s room and climbed into bed together. They’d slept in the same bed again, woken up a tangle of limbs, and Willie had crept out while Alex pretended to sleep.

For something so focused on sleep, it was ridiculously tiring.

After it had gone on for a few weeks, Alex had to wonder if maybe this whole thing meant something. If maybe he wasn’t alone in his feelings. If maybe Willie felt the same, but had similar hang-ups to Alex – he didn’t want to ruin their friendship, didn’t want to embarrass himself by admitting to unrequited love, didn’t even know how to bring it up. Maybe sleeping by each other’s side had become something of a safety net for them, a teetering middle ground on the border of friendship and something else entirely.

And as Alex lay awake, head rested on Willie’s chest, listening to his heartbeat, he knew suddenly that he had to push it. No matter how much that frightened him, he had to take that leap and push them into the uncertain territory that was something other than friendship.

When he sensed Willie waking up, he did not pretend to be asleep.

He eased his head off Willie’s chest and rolled over to lay on his front, watching Willie as he blinked awake endearingly. Alex’s heart was practically beating out of his chest, but he knew he had to do it. He had to take that leap.

“Good morning,” he said quietly.

Willie smiled gently, rubbing at his tired eyes and pushing his hair out of his face. “Good morning, hotdog.”

“I think we need to talk,” Alex said without preamble. It wasn’t the most natural segue into the matter at hand, but that hardly seemed to matter right then.

Willie blinked, clearly a little surprised, but then he nodded. Alex took a deep breath, steeling himself, and let it out.

“I really like you, Willie,” he said, maintaining eye contact even though it was the most petrifying thing he’d ever done. “Like, a lot. So much that it’s been kind of driving me crazy for a year now. I’ve wanted to tell you how I feel for about a year now, but every time I tried all this doubt and anxiety just told me it wasn’t worth it and that you could never like me the way I like you. And I believed it. I never said anything, and I fooled myself into thinking I’d be alright if we were just friends. But after all this, sharing a bed almost every night and then pretending it never happened… it’s proved to me how much I need you. I can’t sleep without you next to me, Willie. I want you by my side all the time. All of you. So, if I’m not reading this whole thing dramatically wrong, then I want to finally ask you to… to be my boyfriend.”

For a long moment, Willie said nothing. He held eye contact, like he was searching Alex’s eyes for the truth, whatever it might have been. But Alex had said the whole truth. He’d let it all out, he’d told Willie he needed him. All he could do was hope that Willie needed him too.

The moment ended abruptly when Willie breathed out and almost silent, “Yes,” and then surged forward to kiss Alex.

He was kissing him.

This was a possibility that Alex had never allowed himself to entertain, a thought he’d never followed up, a scenario he’d never imagined. He had known that once he thought about kissing Willie, he would be ruined if it never happened. But the real thing was better than anything Alex could have thought up in his wildest dreams anyway. It was like a muffled explosion – both harsh and soft, near and far, dangerous and safe.

When they separated, Alex rested his forehead against Willie’s trying to get his breath back and his heartrate under control.

“I’d been wondering if I should say something,” Willie chuckled, stroking his fingers through Alex’s hair. “You beat me to it.”

Alex smiled and pressed another soft kiss to Willie’s lips. “Doesn’t matter. We got there eventually.”

The next morning when they both woke up in Alex’s bed, Alex didn’t need to feign sleep. He pressed a kiss to his boyfriend’s cheek and pulled him tighter. He thought that after months of missed opportunities, they definitely deserved a lazy morning in bed together.

#willex #jatp #alex mercer #julie and the phantoms #willie jatp #alex x willie #willie x alex #fanfiction #fanfic #writing #my writing #fluff #friends to lovers #only one bed #jatp fic #willex fic #first kiss #alive au

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ask-the-chaos-creation-crew · 2 years

Note

Just to any mods in general: When designing a character do you go through many design changes before settling on a final design?

I'll put it under a cut since it's kinda long.

Ellis:

not rlly tbh , tha only one's who'v rlly gone thru any sort of design changes was alien , tyrant , teen , an horror (an even then most were 4 sake of convenience/amplifying their characteristics y'kno ?)

4 example:

- while alien may hav gotten a new Frill around his neck now , he also used 2 b able 2 split his mouth all tha way down 2 his abdomen . not sure y i had that but i don't now

- horror's monster form design was a Lot different from how it was back then (never posted it publicly tho) . biggest difference was that he had eyes and a nose !!! an also chains on his wrists an ankles

- tyrant had a Lot mor scars , altho they were simplified 4 convenience sake . him being blind in one eye was ALSO not a thing originally ! ended up adding it bc ,,,, idk lol thought it looked neat

- i jus made teen look mor liek a ,,,, well a Teenager . fuckers sixteen now he can b a little edgy as a treat <3 also unrelated but fun fact he has three parents ! i forgot 2 include one of them when teen reveals who stars parents r whoops

Pearl:

For me I just kinda .. make the character design and then … keep it like that until I look at it again and go “ew”

Spinmp:

usually when i have an idea for character design i make a few sketches on paper to see what i like. ive usually talked about personality, characteristics, backstory etc beforehand so i have a vague idea of what i want it to look like!

-OWA's design changed a lot, more specifically his outfit and its colors. He used to wear a jacket until I decided that he probably wouldn't enjoy the restrictive movement that comes w it, and also drawing his scars seems cooler to me than just a normal jacket.

-Burnt Toast was going to originally be humanoid before the final design! He was going to have only one eye and a lower jaw, and he would wear a mask around people he didn't trust. After changing his story slightly, he ended up being the giant time noodle seen today :]

-Lizard RHM was actually very tricky at first. I knew I wanted him to be a lizard, but it was very difficult to decide how humanoid he would be, what his color scheme would be, what kind of lizard he would resemble, etc. Orange and spikey stuck out to me the most! im a sucker for orange. i love orangh

Sam:

i kind of just accidentally make design changes over time and go "oh i guess this is how i draw them now lol!!"

the most common thing for me to do is to make hair fluffier over time or make the character shorter by accident

Bliss:

I tend to stick fairly closely to the original design (in Alex's case, I have not changed anything about them, but that's just because I got attached to the silly), but more often change the character's personality over time (Alex went from someone barely making ends meet and working paycheck to paycheck to a popular YouTuber because of a joke AU I made).

There's an example and exception contained in one OC of mine, who went over a huge personality overhaul (went from sad to thembo) and also had a lot of his features changed as a result of him actually being given an ethnicity (he didn't have one before), after which I changed his features accordingly.

I'll also change a physical design if the old design has bad memories attached to it (I recently redesigned a character because his outfit was created by my abuser).

Milkyway:

Personally, I haven't really changed anything much design wise for my aus (except for my modsona she got a redesign recently). Triple Treat really only had this one rather dark joke I have since tossed aside I guess. However, how an au of mine did go through a bit of a change... Kid!

Initially, Kid was meant to be a rather shy and quiet child. He didn't really talk with people or other kids at his daycare, his only friends being his toys. Mama V also wasn't part of the initial concept, coming from a suggestion that one of the other mods had

As you can tell, Kid has perked up quite a bit. He's a LOT more friendly and cheerful, and a lot more... Peculiar to say the least, with some of the things he's able to so ;)

Well, I guess there's also a lot of the ideas I had for Reaper! I just, haven't really been able to implement them.

If you want an example... Well, let's just say...

Reapers... Aren't always Reapers :>

#ooc

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13uswntimagines · 4 years

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Stupid Games, Stupid Prizes (Alpha!Preath x Omega!Reader)

Request: alpha!Tobin and alpha!Christen fight over omega!reader? You can choose who the reader ends up with.

Hey dudes, I hope you enjoy this as much as i enjoyed writing it! Hit me up with Requests, Questions or if you just want to say hi!

This was getting out of hand. You shook your head, watching Tobin’s sulking for as glared at anyone who approached her. Yes, very very out of hand. What had caused the typically chill alpha’s mood to turn sour? That was the Stanford sweater that you were currently wrapped in. The red sweater that smells distinctly like Christen, and you had a feeling that it appearing in your locker wasn’t a huge coincidence.

The two had been at each other’s throats for the past week, and you were sick and tired of being at the center of their constant game of tug of war. You had thought the idea was stupid, to begin with. The bite marks on your neck and the ones on theirs made the entire effort pointless. But “it’ll be fun they say”, “It’ll make you feel wanted” and help the three of you connect with your more... primal urges, but right now you felt like a toy being fought over by two pups. There was nothing sexy or loving about it.

You huffed, settling back on the bench, blatantly ignoring Christen’s smug grin and Tobin’s pout. “You ok?” Alex asked, settling down on the bench beside you, wrapping an arm around your very tense shoulders, and releasing a wave of soothing pheromones. Alex was like your older sister, her inner omega claiming you as such the moment she set her eyes on you, which wasn’t surprising considering that her mate Kelley’s inner alpha had claimed you the same way.

“I’m just great,” You sassed, glowering at Tobin who was taunting Christen with the soccer ball. Christen bared her teeth, clacking them together at the cocky alpha.

“They look like they’re going to rip each other’s heads off,” Mal mumbled as she sat on your other side, and Kelley slid in behind her mate. Kelley would typically be in Mal’s spot, but with Chris and Tobs in this state, she knew that getting too close to you would not be well received by your alpha’s. Plus, her inner alpha wasn’t a fan of the massive amounts of pheromones Chris’s sweatshirt currently had on it.

“Mmm,” You hummed, leaning further into Alex, allowing her scent to wrap around you like a blanket. Combined with Christen’s scent, it was incredibly relaxing, though you did miss Tobin’s smell.

“You sure you’re ok?” Kelley asked, peeking over Alex’s shoulder, trying not to get too close.

“I’m just tired, and I want to cuddle my mates but they’re too busy having a dick measuring contest,” You groaned, cringing when Christen finally snapped and shoved Tobin, stealing the ball away from her and firing it towards the goal.

“You’re the dumbass that agreed to it in the first place,” Kelley snorted and you rolled your eyes at her, pouting. The premise was that your two alphas would be fighting for your attention, not that they would be unable to stand being in the same room together. In the beginning, it had been fun, watching them squabble and try to get you to wear their cloth or cuddle with just them, but now it was really fucking with your camp routine.

“Like 2 weeks ago. I thought it’d be over by now,” You growled back, releasing as many dominant scents as you could muster. Kelley was joking and you knew that, but you were tired and cranky and you didn’t want to be teased anymore.

“I’m sure wearing Chris’s sweater isn’t fanning the flames at all,” Alex chuckled, easing the tension that had settled over you with a little puff of her soothing scent.

“Kelley’s was unavailable,” You grumbled, burying your nose in the hoodie.

“Damn right,” Alex laughed back, sinking in the sweatshirt she had stolen from her own alpha. The last time you had taken Kelley’s Stanford sweater by mistake both your alphas and Alex had been pissed. It was disrespectful to wear another alpha’s scent, especially if said alpha was already mated to your best friend.

“So the thing between Chris and Tobs is a sex thing?” Mal asked, her eyebrows furrowing.

Something like that,” You smirked at her. Technically it would probably end in a sex thing, but the game was more complex than that.

“Is it like the time you stole Lindsey’s jacket?” Mal questioned, quirking her head to the side like a small puppy. You laughed at the memory. That had been more for Soran’s benefit than your own, but you supposed the concept was the same. Lindsey had for sure gotten the possessive omega reaction out of Emily.

“Same game, different rules,” You mumbled thoughtfully, the memory sparking a few ideas in your brain.

“I still don’t get why the sweatshirt is such a big deal,” Mal huffed, settling back in her seat and pulling a pout that rivaled Tobin’s.

“You’ll understand when you have an alpha of your own kid,” Kelley laughed, reaching behind you and Alex to pat the young omega’s back.

“Who are you going to let win?” Alex grinned at you as Tobin finally managed to catch up to Christen and steal the ball away, shoving the shorter woman back.

“I don’t let anyone win, that’s their problem. All I do is enjoy the show,” You grumbled, huffing when Tobin sent a wink your way and poured when you stuck your tongue out at her.

“Except you’re not enjoying it?” Mal asked in confusion. You shook your head, throwing your head back with a groan when Chris tackled Tobin for what you assumed was winking at you. This was less of a dominance battle and more of a stupid pudding contest.

“I was, but now it’s just annoying. They’re acting like pouting pups,” You grumbled, bringing your hands to your face and scrubbing your eyes. You were tired and all you wanted was some cuddling and to not have to choose between your two favorite people. You wanted to snuggle into Chris’s neck while Tobs drew invisible shapes on your back.

“You could always safeword,” Alex said softly, running her hand down your back and carefully untangling your fingers from your hair. She could feel the frustration rolling off of you in waves, and released her soothing pheromones (along with Kelley) in an attempt to calm your frayed nerves. She carded her fingers through your hair, the corners of her lips turning up when she felt you begin to practically purr in her neck.

You knew that with one word this stupid game would be over, but that wasn’t the answer. You needed to teach your two donuts a lesson they would never forget. A lesson that would ensure they never drag their stupid games out this long again. If they wanted to play dumbass games, you would show them that they would only win dumbass prizes.

“I don’t think I need to. I think I have a better way to show them how fucking stupid they are,” You growled into Alex’s neck.

“You’re going to make them regret this aren’t you?” Kelley chuckled knowingly.

“Absolutely,” Alex felt you smirk, her smile vanishing. You had one hell of a mean streak in the pitch, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to see what you had in store for your mates.

*****

The end of practice and the ride back to the hotel were relatively uneventful, as Mal clung to you and prevented the brewing argument between your mates over who got to sit with you. She also dragged you to an impromptu movie with Emily and Lindsey. You could have done without the whining from your two adult mates, or the pouts, but not feeling like a rope toy being pulled between two pups was very nice. Soran and Mal’s cuddles were a good substitute for your mates as well, but soon enough it was time for team dinner.

You were honestly dreading it a little bit. Your alphas were probably going to be mopey and grumpy and you just weren’t in the mood to deal with it. What you hadn’t expected was to walk into the dining room and see that your usual seat between your mates was missing. You growled lightly, your good mood was all but gone as you marched up to your typical table.

“Why aren’t there enough seats?” You asked, glaring at the very innocent looks Christen and Tobin were shooting your way, and ignoring the giggles from the rest of the table.

“There are, yours is just a little more padded,” Christen smirked your way, pointing to her lap. You rolled your eyes, trying not to let The annoyed pheromones creeping out of Tobin cloud your judgment.

“Hop on short stack,” Christen again patting her lap after a few seconds of you staring at her in disbelief, releasing a small puff of her most dominant scent. It called to you in the most sensual way possible. It settled in every crevice of your brain, blinding you to the cocky smirk that She sent Tobin’s way. She was sure that she had won this round. You shook your head trying to clear your vision, only to be met with another delectable scent. It made your mouth water.

“Or you could sit with me, you know you love how I smell little one,” Tobin murmured, resting her hand on your hip, and pushing her scent towards you in another powerful wave. It threatened to pull you under, but again you shook your head, pulling away from her warm body.

“As tempting as both those offers are, I told JJ I would sit with her today,” You stuttered quietly, forcing yourself to turn away from the two women and towards the Alpha who had already saved you a chair. You almost laughed at the enraged growl that sounded from your mates, Christen’s fingers on your wrist preventing you from making your way over to where JJ, Sam, Abby, and Rose were seated. You glanced back at your alpha, who was glaring in the direction of the table in question.

“That isn’t part of the game,” She grit her teeth, her scent changing from sensual to calling for your submission, Tobin’s joining hers. Your fists clenched and your body tensed. The game wasn’t fair if you couldn’t play too.

“Says who?” You retorted with a snort, pulling your wrist free. The alphas shared a glance before their scents backed off, and they both poured. You grinned at the women, your smile showing far too many teeth to be kind. “That’s what I thought,” You straightened your shirt and skipped off to sit with JJ.

You knew your alpha’s eyes were on you as you touched her arm, and leaned closer than they would have wanted. They loved JJ, but they weren’t as comfortable with her as they were with Kelley and Lindsey. Three could play at this game, and you were pretty sure that you were winning and you weren’t even trying yet.

****

You weren’t playing fair, and you knew that. You were using most of your team's fed-upness with your mates to your advantage. They wanted this stupid game to end almost as much as you did, so they were up for whatever they could do to help you. So, you had been taking turns hanging out with all of the alphas besides your own. It was driving them crazy, and you were finally beginning to understand why the hell they had suggested it in the first place.

Today just happened to be a game-day against the English Women’s National Team, and you were prepared to put an end to this nonsense. It all started with you being late to the bus. The moment you stepped into the vehicle, you could feel your mate's eyes on you, and you purposefully avoided them, instead, finding another alpha’s bright orbs. You smiled at her mischievously and began to make your way towards her.

“Hey sweet cheeks,” Tobin called as you passed her, finally drawing your attention. You glanced down at her, and she patted the seat next to her. “I saved you a seat and included the cuddles for free,” She sent you a very cute, shy smile, opening her arms invitingly. You couldn’t help the giggle that left your lips.

“Like she wants to be covered in your alpha stench Tobin,” Christen hissed from the other side of the aisle. Tobin around you at her. She had felt how much your omega wanted her cuddles, and the warmth her alpha could offer you. Christen had to go and fuck it up for her.

“What you think she would prefer yours?” She growled back, releasing a steady stream of dominant pheromones, directed solely at Chris, but inadvertently hitting you as well. You rolled your neck fighting the urge to submit. It seemed as though they forgot you were there entirely. You sighed.

“She obviously likes my sweater better,” Christen snarled, running her fingers down the side of your favorite Stanford sweater. You internally scolded yourself for wearing the damn thing. You should have known that it would start another pointless alpha battle, but it was just so soft, and you cuddle both of them in it, so their smell was engraved in the fabric.

“Actually guys, I already promised Becky that I’d help her with her crossword, so you’re both on your own,” You mumbled lowly, stepping past the women and trudging towards Becky.

“Look what you did,” You heard Tobin whisper after a few seconds.

“Me, this whole thing was your idea,” Christen huffed back. You smiled just a little at Becky, hopefully, this whole thing would be over soon.

*****

The game against England was as much fun as you thought it was going to be. You had played for Arsenal and Man City, so it was always amazing to go against your old teammates and friends. It also helped that you scored 2 pretty sick goals.

Your smile widened as you approached Leah, the blond alpha pulling you into a hug the moment you were in reach. You laughed for a moment, smirking at her as you pulled your jersey over your head. Passed it to the English player, who pulled her jersey off and handed it to you.

Your days in the UK had not been a good time in your relationship with Chris and Tobin. It was just after the Rio Olympics and all of the emotional turmoil that came with it. You had missed the PK and though they wouldn’t say it, you knew that they blamed you for the loss. In a stupid argument they had said that they and the team were better off without you, and witching 24 hours you were in London preparing for practice with your new team. Arsenal.

Leah had helped you pick up the pieces of your broken heart and sewed yourself back together. She taught you how to love yourself, even when you felt like your mates didn’t love you anymore. Leah was Jordan’s wholeheartedly, but the pair had taken you under their wing. It was a strong bond that your alphas absolutely despised. Maybe it was a low blow to use it against them, but maybe it was the perfect blow to end this stupid game.

Before you could pull the jersey over your head, it was ripped out of your hands, and you were thrown over a shoulder and headed towards the tunnel. You didn’t mind the view of your alpha’s behind, but the dominant pheromones that they were pumping out were making you dizzy.

****

“You’re ours little omega,” They growled as they pushed you up against the cold tunnel wall. Tobin placing her lips on the left side of your neck and Christen doing the same on your right. Your knees almost buckled as they began to assault your neck in kisses, further marking you as their own.

“No more games,” You said breathlessly, placing a hand on each of their chests and pushing them back. They didn’t deserve a reward after all the shit that they pulled. You were supposed to be mad at them.

“You broke the rules little one,” Tobin whispered, her lips ghosting over your mating mark, up to your cheek and caressing the shell of your ear, sending a shiver down your spine. Christen decided to lavish her mating mark in kisses.

“No, you two were being jackasses, so I decided to play. No more games, or find out what other tricks I have in store for the two of you,” You growled, shoving the alpha’s away from you. They pulled their heads away making eye contact with you but still kept you pressed into the wall with their hips.

“No more games,” Tobin said seriously. Her fingers squeezing your arm lightly, leaning in and placing a sweet kiss on your lips.

“We’re sorry we were being stupid,” Christen whispered, kissing your cheeks, nose, and lips between each word. You hummed back, suddenly feeling guilty for using the team and Leah against them.

“I’m sorry that I made you jealous,” You mumbled, suddenly finding your cleats very interesting. Gentle fingers cupped your chin, and soothing pheromones wrapped around you like the softest blanket. Your eyes lifted to meet a set of warm brown and green orbs looking at you concerned. Careful lips touched your own, and you knew that you were forgiven.

“Well you won, so what’s your prize?” Christen said quietly against your cheek, her body heat warming your whole right side.

“And cuddles, I deserve cuddles,” You moaned quietly. You had missed being able to be near both of your mates at the same time without them bickering over who you wanted to be with more.

“lots of cuddles,” Tobin hummed against your skin. Your omega purred at the contact and your cheeks dusted pink when Tobin’s lips quarter up at the sound.

“And maybe a bath,” Christen hummed, her alpha rumbling loudly in her chest at the content scents pouring off of you. How could they be so wrapped up in their competition that they didn’t notice what you needed? They had a shit ton of making up to do, and they knew just how much you loved skin on skin contact. Her hand splayed across your still bare stomach and she suddenly remembered that you were standing, pressed against the stone tunnel wall where everyone could see in only your sports bra. She slipped off her jersey and brought it over your head to cover you. No one but them got to see your abs.

“A bath with the two of you sounds nice,” You hummed, laughing loudly when Tobin lifted you bridal style and began to carry you towards the showers, Christen yelling in protest as Tobin raced off without her. Sure they drove you crazy, but at the end of the day they were your mates and you loved them.

#uswnt x reader #uswnt imagine #uswnt imagines #preath x reader #preath imagine

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missorgana · 3 years

Text

and they were roommates

pairing: alex/willie, background julie/luke

fandom: julie and the phantoms

rating: general

word count: 2383

warning: swearing

summary: Luke and Reggie make a bet about who can set up their dumbass, pining friends, Alex and Willie, first. What could possibly go wrong? (everyone lives au, matchmaking friends)

(my 12 days of fanfiction event is back with another willex fic for the gays! thank you to my babe @georgiawarrs for the prompt, really hope you enjoy this 💖 uwuuu. and don’t forget, you can still send me prompts if you haven’t already!)

read on ao3

“So it’s a deal, then.”

“Bring it on, dude. I’m so gonna win.”

“Not in a million years, Reg!”

…

In short, Luke and Reggie’s bet is about who can set up their shy, stubborn best friend Alex with his roommate, who he’s been crushing on for God knows how long, first.

Not as simple as it sounds.

Before you ask, no, this is not something they usually do. Or they’ve ever done before.

But honestly, Luke’s had quite enough of the blonde dancing around Willie, previously mentioned roommate, when he’s voiced his feelings for the other boy to his friends multiple times.

Their friend’s only argument when they bring it up is, “No way he’d ever date me. I’m way out of his league.”

And best friends just can’t let each other talk like that about themselves, can they?

Also, having met Willie a handful of times, it’s clear to Luke, Reggie and their moms, probably, that he’s head over heels about Alex.

Even the time Luke met him alone in the cafeteria, all he talked about was Alex. It’s honestly adorable.

And annoyingly stupid.

So, the mission’s clear: get the two dumbasses on a date, ASAP. And since Reggie insisted he could do it more effectively than Luke, they decided a bet didn’t hurt, not when they were helping their friend out.

What could possibly go wrong?

…

Reggie’s first move happened to be during the boys’ usual lunch plans, and obviously, Luke ain’t gonna miss it.

Sometimes Julie and Flynn join them, but she texted him they were late for band practice, sadly so. He totally didn’t mope about it. But Reg’s right he’ll see her after class, anyway.

Just, that’s a long time, you know? Flynn’s told them they’re too codependent on each other, but he just thinks she’s joking, truth be told.

Anyway, the boys are currently seated on the grass, giving them a perfect view of the football practice, not that they were into that sort of thing. They had to discuss the next Sunset Curve gig, which is fucking huge, and Luke can’t wait.

Julie’s written another perfect song. All her songs are perfect. Just trust him, okay?

But just as Alex’s phone pings with a text, “Hold on, it’s Willie.”, he casually throws the statement out, and Reggie looks at Luke with a spark in his eyes.

Perfect opportunity, he gotta give him that.

“Y’know, Alex,” he starts, trying painfully hard to not be suspicious, “Why aren’t you having lunch with Willie?”

The blonde discards the phone in his hoodie and blinks at his friends.

“We always have lunch together.” he answers, varily, oh God, Alex almost looks disappointed.

Thankfully, Reggie picks it up just as quick as himself, shaking his head, “I know! I know, just… uh, I mean, you’re roommates. Would be weird if you never spent time with him.”

Then he nods. Winks in Luke’s direction. That boy is the least smooth person he’s ever met.

And Alex frowns, “We did homework together last night.”

Oh, yes, the study dates. Emphasis on study, not dates.

The blonde always seems perpetually nervous when he’s brought them up in the past, which was another reason why Luke was sick of him not making a move. Although, he hasn’t talked about them for a while, surprisingly.

He steps in, Reggie should be thankful, “I just think, Reg too, you could invite him to lunch tomorrow.”

“Really?” Alex asks, looking a mixture of shocked and excited.

“Yeah, man. Julie eats with us all the time, why not?”

Reggie’s quick to add, “And Flynn!” and Luke nods eagerly in agreement.

And although their friend seems convinced, shyly smiling, picking up the phone again, he still continues the questioning, “Well, they’re in the band.”

Ugh, he’s impossible.

“But they’re also our friends, and-”

“Hey, and my girlfriend!”

“Yes, yes, dude, we know.” Reggie draws out the last syllable and pats his shoulder, “And Luke’s girlfriend. But your friends are our friends, Alex.”

Subtle argument, he likes it. Well, it’s a start.

And the blonde finally shrugs, so he thinks they’ve won him over, “Alright. Thanks guys.”

Good thing he’s texting again, not catching the two boys’ smug eye contact.

Luke knows this is Reggie’s victory, but hey, same end goal, right?

…

Two days later, Luke’s prepared to start his own plan.

In case you’re wondering, Willie was supposed to have lunch with the gang on Tuesday, however, Alex let them know he had to help out his dad and cover a waiter’s shift at the café. The blonde’s disappointment about the situation was obvious.

So it’s Thursday, and when Luke spots Willie on the way to campus, on his skateboard, alone, most importantly, he decided to act quickly.

“Willie!”, it’s hard to yell when he’s running, because, damn, he really should do something to better his shape, at least so he’s not dying after a few minutes of jogging. Luckily, the other boy hears him and slows down.

He chuckles and pats his back, not funny, “Hey, man. You okay there?”

Luke’s totally fine, of course. Just hopes he’s not totally red in the face, is all. If that’s the case, Willie’s got heart enough to not mention it.

“Definitely. Ya mind if I walk with you?”

The shorter boy looks surprised. Fair enough, he supposes, Luke always picks up Julie on the way here normally, but she’s got early classes today, so. A bit rude of the school planning, or whatever, honestly.

Maybe he misses her, which doesn’t make him cheesy, okay? It’s only been two days, but like, even when he has a bad day, when he plays wrong, or his parents argue with him, she smiles at him like it’s all gonna be okay.

Luke can’t think about her without getting sappy, so he’s gotta focus on the mission, for now, and Willie’s nodded in response, casually rolling down the sidewalk so he’ll catch up.

“So, I’ve been thinking,” he tries as casually as possible, keep it cool Luke, don’t give away your true motive, “You like Alex, right?”

The other boy jumps down from the rail he used as a ramp, landing with the same surprised face as before. He also does this thing where kicks the skateboard up and catches it under his arm.

It possibly confuses the hell out of Luke, to be honest, then again, one might feel the same about him playing the guitar, or, you know, any skill you don’t have. Too much thinking.

“Of course I do.” the skater tells him simply, and confidently so.

In his mind, he can easily picture himself winning this. Huge applause, cake, the lot.

“Good! I know, but you know, you should totally invite him to one of your skating…” he pauses, because Luke’s honestly sure where he’s going with the sentence, regardless, when nothing else works, freestyle, “Gigs?”

Willie looks at him with a weird expression, then laughs heartily, turning his eyes to the ground. He hopes that’s a good sign.

“Competitions?” the shorter boy helps, to which Luke nods, but the other keeps going, “He’s come by in the park sometimes, but you might have a point with that. You think he’ll like it?”

“Uh, duh.” he says with a click of his tongue, “Not that he’ll admit it, but trust me.”

And although it sounds settled and set in stone, the skater gives him another weird look. Luke brushes it off, because really, getting dating advice from your crushes’ friend is a bit ridiculous. What’s he supposed to do when they’re so stupidly stubborn, though?

“Alright, I’ll give it a shot.”

…

Guess what? Luke’s earned himself a point ahead of Reggie, due to the brilliant idea he voiced to Willie last week. Yes, brilliant, obviously!

“We’re in a tie, you know that right?” Reg tells him, which isn’t true at all, because his lunch proposal only half worked, and that’s exactly what he tells his friend.

The boy rolls his eyes. “Not fair”, his ass!

Anyway, Alex was excited going to his crush’s skating show on Friday, and they both consider that a win regardless. The blonde’s raving about it over band practice, well, less the show, more how pretty Willie looked when he tied his hair up in a bun.

Needless to say, they both find their friend adorable, almost can’t contain some self-satisfied smiles. So far, so good.

Their nosy attempts at figuring out if Alex then got himself together and made a move crashed devastatingly, however.

“Couldn’t talk long after, curfew.” he told them, and damn, he looked like a puppy kicked to the curb.

So goddamn annoying, but alright, this time around it was out of their power.

Luckily, it’s Sunset Curve’s next gig in two days, and Reggie’s got the perfect countermove, Luke’s gonna give it to him. This move being inviting Willie to previously mentioned concert, and since it’s the first round of Battle of the Bands, tension’s high.

Their best friend pales when they announce the exciting news.

“This is a good thing, dude! He’ll love seeing you play!”

“And us- Ow!”

“You deserve it.” Luke simply tells Reggie, crossing his arms.

“Guys!” the blonde interrupts, fiddling with the drumsticks and looking like he just saw a ghost, “I can’t just play knowing Willie’s there! What if I fuck up?”

And so Luke has to shake his head at his dear, overthinking boy. Not that Luke’s haven’t had that consideration before, hell, his mom and dad hearing their tape terrified the shit out of him, but that fear’s getting in the way of the matchmaking.

Besides, those two are meant to be. Seriously, he knows they’re barely halfway in their young lives, all of them, but they’re perfect!

Smiling at each other all the time like idiots. Luke’s got a feeling he does that with Julie, too.

“You won’t,” Reggie interrupts his own train of thought, “You never do, Alex.”

“Besides, he looked thrilled, man! We’ll leave you alone after the show.”

“Promise!” Reg chimes in, and they wink in semi-unison, just to get the point across. It’s almost worrying when Alex sighs, but he shrugs nonetheless.

“If you say so.”

…

So although the gig went fantastic, and Alex and Willie were annoyingly cute but even more so awkward as hell around each other after, Luke’s maybe going a bit crazy.

Okay, alright, it’s only the third week, but neither of the boys seem to be giving clues that they’re finally realising how stupid they are.

Maybe Luke doesn’t know, explicitly, if Willie crushes on Alex too, but it’s obvious! 99.9 percent!

It’s ridiculous how much their best friend’s pining leads up to nothing, and both of them start to understand some of those slow burn fanfictions out there. Which Reggie made him read, by the way. If anyone asks Reg, he’ll blame it on Julie, probably.

Thankfully, an opportunity presents itself on a silver platter, when Carrie Wilson throws her over the top birthday party.

To be honest, Luke’s not sure how to feel about her, given the past long feud, even though Julie’s assured him she’s changed. He’d trust her with anything, so it’s fine. And seriously, he swears he overheard Flynn asking Carrie on a date, but their friend denied it straight up to his face.

Regardless, since guests (meaning, the entire school) are usually allowed a plus one, Reggie and himself figured it was their job to arrange Alex bringing Willie along.

One weird detail to it all, before they could even bring it up, Alex chimed in, during what feels like their 500th Star Wars marathon night, “You guys… you- uh, you think I should invite Willie to Carrie’s party?”

Did the universe just thank them for their service, or something?

Of course, both boys eagerly nodded, practically jumping in their bean bags, while simultaneously making a little of a deal of it as possible.

Literally proof that soulmates exist, Luke thinks. Yes, that is melodramatic, but he doesn’t give a shit, frankly.

Only problem?

They’re at the very party, the center of the mission now, and Alex and Willie are acting just as shy as usual. The blonde’s even fiddling anxiously, like he always does around his crush, and given that they haven’t lost sight of either of them yet, Reggie voices another sigh to him.

Maybe this is a sign from the universe to not intervene, then, he supposes.

They’re at the ping pong table, the two boys, who apparently are determined to remain clueless for eternity, left for the kitchen to get more snacks.

Seems like Julie’s noticed his own beated demeanor, cause she appears at his side, leaning her head on his shoulder. He can’t not smile, just a little bit.

“What’s got you two losers down?” Flynn asks, suddenly in front of them, and Reg will probably mopily deny he jumped.

“Ugh,” is all Luke says.

“Alex and Willie are impossible.” Reggie adds, nodding in agreement, and instead of the expected understanding, Julie frowns up at him.

“What do you mean?”

Maybe Luke’s sort of embarrassed admitting the plan to her, sensing she’ll find it silly, but really, he can’t hide anything from her, and they’ve given up by now, anyway, “We’ve been trying to get them to admit their feelings for each other.”

Flynn’s frowning now, too.

“We actually had a bet-”

“Yeah, but! Like we love Alex, and he’s so lost on him. But we’ve tried everything.”

“They’re too annoying.” adds Reggie for good measure.

And all of a sudden, Julie’s giggling. Her best friend too, and judging by the look Reg’s giving him, he’s just as confused as himself. She’s so cute when she’s laughing, though, despite this boggling his mind.

“How do you guys not know this?!” Flynn’s saying, and when they’re only scratching their heads, because how do they expect them to understand that, Julie smiles her sunshine smile and pokes Luke’s chin, “They’re roommates, you know.”

That doesn’t make any sense. Whatsoever.

Not until Alex and Willie return with a bucket of popcorn, the skater hanging on to their friend’s hoodie sleeve. Of course, he makes his leave for the bathroom, kissing the blonde’s nose on the way.

Reggie looks at Luke. Oh my god, they’re roommates.

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hteragram-x · 3 years

Text

Firefighter AU [again]

New story for the AU. This time about Virgil wondering who the hell is Logan. Also, apparently, Virgil’s main personality trait in this universe is thinking that Remus is very pretty and then being like: “hey! who said that?!”.

If it’s the first time you see this AU I think you can still understand what’s going on without reading older posts, but in case you’re interested: [HERE] is the introduction, [HERE] are some general HCs, over [THERE] you can find a story where Remus and Virgil met for the first time, and [HERE] is previous story :>

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Word count: 2240

Relationships: technically Dukexiety, but they’re not there yet; Creativitwins

TW: mentions of fire (what a surprise), small injury, mentions of blood, some animal bones, swearing (because I’m mentally 12 and think that swearwords are fucking hilarious)

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Because Logan Said So

Over the last four months Virgil has learnt a lot about his new co-workers. Not every information he managed to gather was particularly interesting or even worth remembering, but having that knowledge helped with making the new workplace more familiar. And familiarity brought comfort.

He learnt, for example, that their janitor – Jeremy – was the most grumpy and easily annoyed person in the entire firehouse despite being the youngest janitor Virgil has ever met. It was relatively easy to avoid him most of the time, but if he wanted everyone to know about his problems with something you would be informed that he’s unhappy regardless of your own involvement, or lack thereof, in the situation.

Virgil also learnt that Anna was pretty helpful when it came to failing equipment and technology. They weren’t employed to do the repairs, but it didn’t stop them from trying to fix everything anyway. The guy with very short hair, whose name Virgil could never remember, was leaving his helmet in unexpected places and had three kids that he talked about all the time. Alex was often late, but always stayed at work longer than anyone. And that one girl everyone called Apple for some unknown reason was currently building a house and you couldn’t escape hearing about it, no matter how much you didn’t want to at the moment.

Talking to Virgil about issues he wasn’t that interested in seemed to be the common thing among most of his co-workers.

Pretty standard stuff. Nothing out of the ordinary.

What was also not out of ordinary was the bird skull lying on his desk this Tuesday.

“Remus! Is this a gift or are you just leaving your stuff all over the office again!?”, he half-yelled knowing that the younger twin had to be somewhere in the building at this hour. Not that he memorized his schedule or something. He just knew…

Suddenly a head with a mass of unkempt hair and spider webs on top of it popped from under his desk. It was not the first time Remus was staying there, but Virgil still winced seeing the man crawling from the tiny space. It cannot be comfortable, he though for probably fifteenth time.

“There’s no way it’s comfortable in there,” he pointed out, also for fifteenth time.

“It isn’t”, Remus said, like he always did and smiled, stretching his long arms above his head. Even without his shoes – he always walked around the office in just his socks, because of course he did – he was still much taller than Virgil which somehow managed to fluster him more every time he noticed the difference.

Virgil decided to ignore the futile argument instead pointing at the skull and a couple of sticks he’s just noticed next to his computer.

“Can you keep your mess out of my desk?”

“You didn’t even say ‘hi’ to me today”, Remus pouted.

“I’ll say ‘hi’ when you take your stuff from my space,” he sighed.

Remus groaned, his arms hanging loosely at his sides in resignation.

“God… you sound like Logan.”

A-ha! There he is. This mysterious “Logan”, whoever he was.

Over the last four months Virgil has learnt a lot about his new co-workers. But no other person was as interesting and worth knowing as Remus himself. The number of weird quirks Virgil has memorized about the guy was unmatched by any other person working at the firehouse which was in no way a surprising score given the circumstances in which they’ve met.

He was weird in so many ways that it almost seemed normal again. And according to Roman he used to be even more chaotic and unpredictable when the twins were younger. At first Virgil was pretty nervous around the guy – with all of his jokes about violence or with his creepy staring – but now this… interesting behaviour became just a normal and entirely expected part of his days.

If Remus run into the room and didn’t stop until he hit the wall… fine. Virgil just checked if the guy was okay and went back to work. If he bit the bar of soap… also fine. You just had to make sure he didn’t swallow it all and forget about it for the rest of your day. When he left some of his most disturbing sketches on the fridge, you just commented on his skills as an artist or flipped them, so the picture was facing the door of the fringe, if the drawing was particularly disgusting.

A standard day with Remus.

Apparently talking about some “Logan” that no one ever met was also a standard part of his character. And Virgil was very annoyed at himself knowing how jealous he sometimes felt because of this mysterious guy. The jealousy, however, seemed to weaken a bit when he realized that Roman was also bringing the name up almost every day. It started to sound like an inside joke that Virgil was too nervous to ask about.

“Okay! Your desk’s just as clean as my legs yesterday when I jumped into the river to find a shiny stone, but it was a broken bottle, so I got glass stuck in my hand!” Remus smiled even wider, showing a little too many teeth and lifting his palm with three fingers covered in bandages.

Virgil pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Why do you have zero self-control?”, he asked, very much aware that the question was pointless.

No one knew. And if someone did know, it definitely wasn’t Remus.

“Sounds like a question Logan would ask”, said Roman who has just appeared out of nowhere behind Virgil. The shorter man shivered a little, not expecting anyone except for Alex who was finishing his shift to be in the room with them.

“It does!”, Remus agreed poking the bandages with a finger. Knowing him, Virgil assumed he wanted to check if it’ll make the wound open and colour the fabric with blood. “And like I said, I just cleaned up your desk.” The firefighter moved much closer to Virgil towering over him with some different kind of smile. He really was smiling a lot for a person, who wanted to appear at least a little scary most of the time. “Where’s my ‘hi’?”

The shorter man glanced up at him, suddenly feeling a little overwhelmed with the whole situation and all of his conflicting feelings. It definitely wasn’t the first time he found himself in a position like that. He should have got used to Remus being annoying and invading his personal space long ago. Or maybe he did get used to that and he was just confused by the fact that he really… didn’t mind?

“Hi,” he said finally, the corners of his lips lifting slightly.

“Hello,” Remus answered with something twinkling in his green eyes.

There was a minute of silence. None of them seemed to want to move.

“You’re both gross,” said Roman decisively and ruined the moment by rolling his eyes and walking right between them to the adjacent kitchen.

Virgil felt blush creeping up his neck. He completely forgot about the second twin being in the room with them. Wouldn’t be the first time he got distracted like that.

And he couldn’t even get mad at Roman… that was a little bit gross. …In a good way.

“You can keep the bird skull if you want to. I planned to paint it and add to my new sculpture, but I have plenty more to use instead.”

Virgil was more than grateful for the change of the topic.

“No, thanks. But show me the sculpture once it’s done.”

That was apparently a right thing to say, because Remus looked very satisfied with himself which was always nice. Virgil really liked to see him so cheerful, even when it meant complimenting some naturalistic painting or listening to his unsettling ideas. He was even more handsome when he seemed genuinely happy… wait, what?

Virgil coughed nervously and quickly moved to the desk, putting his bag down and turning the computer on. When he was adjusting the headset and checking his microphone he looked back at Remus and gave him a little shy wave.

“Don’t set yourself on fire today,” he said using their usual equivalent of ‘good bye’.

“No promises!”, was a standard reply.

***

Roman grabbed a bag of gummy worms from Remus’ hand preventing him from showing them all into his mouth at once.

“Stop eating so much sweets. You’ll already too energetic today.”

Remus shrugged and took a long sip of some energy drink he’d been hiding behind his back.

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“It cannot be healthy for you!” Roman tried to grab the can as well, but Remus was sitting on the kitchen counter, so he easily lifted it out of his brother’s reach.

“Why?!” he asked in a whiny tone.

“Because Logan said so!”

“No, he didn’t.”

“But he would if he was standing here right now.”

“…fine!”

Remus jumped off the counter sending his twin annoyed look, but he put the drink away, only now noticing his slightly shaky hands. He hasn’t said anything to not give Roman the satisfaction and moved to the changing room to dress for their upcoming training.

Virgil followed him with his eyes, not even trying to hide the confusion. Remus almost never did anything, because it was healthy or responsible. What was happening?

Who the hell is Logan?

---

“Roman! …Roman! ROMAN!!!”, Remus looked up seeing his brother sitting atop the fire engine with a book. It was his favourite place to escape the noise, people… and work. “Get down here, you lazy motherfucker! We’re moving the old hoses to the new room.”

“Have fun then!”

“They’re heavy! Come back here and help me!”

“I’m busy…” Roman looked at Remus from behind the book, hoping he’d just get bored and walk away. “And you can lift them yourself, come on.”

“No, I can’t! They’re packed in those bigger boxes. If I do this myself I’ll drop them on my feet or hurt my back and Logan said it’s dangerous!” Remus smirked, already knowing he won the argument. “And do you really want to leave me unsupervised?”

“Okay, okay. I’ll help… It’s not your fault you’re a weak baby!”

The rest of the conversation was too quiet for Virgil to hear through the open window from the garages below. The twins probably moved to the other room to finish the task. And Roman, who truly didn’t like this kind of repetitive labour, helped without much complaining… Strange.

Who the fuck was Logan?

---

“Roman, you forgot the scarf. It’s freezing. Logan said you’ll catch a cold!”

“Logan would already give you a lecture for sleeping on a chair like that… At least move to the floor… I’ll bring you some blankets… Yes, I know it’s 4am. You think I’m happy about it?”

“If Logan saw the mess you’ve made he be so disappointed with you…”

“Okay, stop staring at cute boys and get back to work! Just imagine if Logan saw you right now. It’s pathetic. Oh… is my little brother blushing?”

“What do you mean ‘why’? Just stay safe. Because Logan said so!”

“Because Logan said so!”

***

“Okay… who the hell is Logan?”

Remus looked at Virgil from the axe he’s been sharpening on the office floor. He was clearly confused, not expecting anyone to talk to him after Roman left the room a few seconds ago.

“What?”

Virgil gripped the fabric of his trousers nervously.

“I’ve asked who’s Logan.” There was a moment of silence. “You… you two keep bringing him up and I… I know that no one with that name works here and no one else is ever talking about this guy. If it’s a guy.” He stopped himself before he started rambling. “So… Who is Logan?”

Remus was looking at him with a very weird set of emotions in his eyes. It was impossible to decipher what he was thinking or feeling at the moment which was pretty unusual for a person who was normally so open with what he thought or felt.

Finally he went back to cleaning the axe lying on his knees.

“Wouldn’t you like to know operator boy…” he said with a smirk.

Virgil blinked, even more perplexed.

“Y-yes! That’s why… Of course I want to know! That’s why I asked in the first place!”

This time Remus openly laughed as if Virgil just told him a joke. It was one of his loudest and wildest laughs that most people learnt to ignore after working with Remus for a while, but it was still pretty creepy for anyone unfamiliar with the firefighter’s personality. Virgil would find it pretty pleasant to listen to if it wasn’t meant to mock him at the moment.

“I don’t know what’s so funny…” he said defensively. He already regretted ever asking the question. Maybe it was a wrong moment? Maybe he should have asked Roman instead?

“Of course you don’t! Oh, the irony…”

He was very close to asking “what’s the irony”, but decided against it. Apparently he wasn’t getting any actual answers right now. Okay. He could wait and be patient when he wanted to. He’s already been waiting for months before the curiosity finally pushed him to say anything. There were other ways to get that information. It might be a difficult task, but he’ll learn the truth… eventually.

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General writing taglist: @imma-potatoo

Taglist for this AU: @isabelle-stars @wintersandsunshine

Let me know if you want to be added to the taglist or removed from it :>

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dotsayers · 3 years

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20 Questions: Writer’s Edition

tagged by the beloved @myrmidryad

this is a LONG one so here’s a cut to avoid do you love the colour of the sky syndrome

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

101 after a recent purge... no one may know about my Past

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

329004! used to be about 350k but again... purge

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

on ao3 i’ve written for (chronologically) doctor who, skyfall, discworld, les mis, star trek, lord peter wimsey, marvel (various), in the flesh, red vs blue, roosterteeth rpf, check please, hockey rpf, star wars, daredevil, rivers of london, dishonored, emmerdale, dirk gently, holby city, hot fuzz, kj charles, guardian, the covert captain, taskmaster rpf, good omens, ghosts, roswell new mexico, leverage, schitt’s creek, the magicians, 9-1-1, it chapter two, the magnus archives, the old guard, the mandalorian, the ritual, the locked tomb

way back on the pit of voles i wrote for twilight, harry potter, hetalia and xmen first class. and on the newsround chatrooms i wrote exclusively harry potter fic about my oc neville and luna’s daughter

as you can tell i am not prone to staying in one fandom writing wise, i tend to end up with one complete fic and seven abandoned wips concealed deep in my google drive

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

finally see what it means to be living (captain marvel, carol/maria, i really hit the zeitgeist with this one i think i was something like the fifth fic in the ship tag)

do whatever you think (the magnus archives, this series is actually #2-7, then #8 #9 and #11 for me so i’m going to cheat a bit)

standing in a world of my own (daredevil, matt/foggy/karen, another zeitgeist hit! really miss writing for daredevil actually... it’s a perennial fave)

a winding road that stretches towards the truth (iron man, tony/rhodey, i STILL don’t know when this got so many kudos. i swear i looked away when it was at 100 and suddenly it ended up here)

where the long shadows grow (star trek aos, kirk prime/spock prime, thank god some people are checking the prime kirkspock tag is all i’m saying!)

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

i don’t really Do angsty endings... possibly a blanket of stars just because i ended it on something of a cliffhanger and then completely zoned out of rnm for long enough that i forgot where i was going with it. there was definitely the intention of fixing things but then i just... did not do that. and now the show is on s3 and i’m over a season behind! life comes at you fast

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

where the long shadows grow, because it reunited kirk prime and spock prime and they DESERVE TO BE HAPPYYYY. i’m a complete sucker for presumed dead/back from the dead stories, actually, so on a similar theme i have two (TWO) daredevil fics which follow the trope, one about ray coming back post-s2 (might never be normal again) and one about foggy and matt reuniting post-endgame (in the corner, taking up space). this is the only time i will ever acknowledge endgame ever again

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

i do write crossovers! in fact i am often roundly mocked by my friends for the increasingly esoteric nature of my crossovers. way back in secondary i wrote a twilight/labyrinth crossover where angela was sarah and jareth’s daughter because i had a massive crush on a girl who liked both twilight and labyrinth. however, since that has been comprehensively scrubbed from the internet, i think my craziest crossover is probably part three of ‘traced upon the skies’, already an esoteric crossover of rivers of london and hot fuzz, when i added in a crossover with the horror movie ‘the ritual’ just because i wanted rafe spall’s character to be happy

8. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

EXTREMELY rarely and only with extreme embarrassment. i will not be any more specific than that

9. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

i used to really struggle with doing this, to the point that i had over 300 comments just. lingering in my inbox unanswered. so i decided to give those up and just commit to answering them from then on, which has been working fairly well for about a year and a half now. i love getting comments but i get overwhelmed really easily and struggle with replying in a way which feels meaningful without getting in my head about it!

10. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

yes lmao it was for a harry potter fic on ff.net where harry got sorted into hufflepuff instead of gryffindor. it wasn’t a very good fic but i think the fact it was clearly written by an 11 year old should have scared off at least some of the less flattering comments.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

i don’t... think so? i don’t know how i’d find out to be honest, my vanity googling is rarely very effective

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes! as bronze may be much beautified (skyfall, mallory/bond) got translated into chinese, i was extremely pleased. i think it’s mandarin but the ao3 page for the translation doesn’t say and my mandarin is.................. extremely poor

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

also yes! me and jess little-smartass have written a lot together, although only our star trek/les mis series has been published, more’s the pity. we spent a lot of les mis fandom time workshopping aus and we were always extremely correct about all of it, imo

14. What’s your all time favourite ship to write for?

oh god. i think probably kirk/spock, although there’s some recency bias to that since i reread space manhattans recently and was reminded of my love for them. i really like writing jon/martin but i’ve mostly done that from outsider pov which is a bit different to writing shipfic, i think. joe/nicky from tog was also something i really liked writing but i struggle with plotting longer fic with them

15. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

i recently went through my abandoned fic folder so i actually have a few options for this. the obvious choice would be ‘any of the hockey ones’ but i did delete most of those just for my sanity. more recently i started writing a vaguely smutty pre-the thing mac/fuchs fic for alex @milkdrinker5000 which i really WANT to finish but am struggling with. most obscure answer (even beyond the thing) and most likely to remain unfinished is the insanely in depth post-tog booker/copley fic i had planned out back in about october. i wrote a good 6-7k of that one and then i realised it was going to be, like, difficult, and decided if i was going to put that much work into something it may as well be the novel im meant to be writing

16. What are your writing strengths?

once a friend told me i had an excellent facility for dialogue and ive thought about it every time i write ever since. i love writing dialogue and i think i’m good at knowing what sounds ic and what is right out.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

one of the things i struggled with for a really long time, and honestly still have trouble with, is depicting action in words. once i wrote a hockey fic which featured multiple hockey games and i spent probably four times as much effort editing those to make sense and be interesting that i’ve ever done on a talkier scene.

18. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

i’ve done it but only when i knew more or less what i was talking about - i did italian at school so i felt confident using it for nicky in something particular and real. i try not to italicise when i drop in words from other languages, which is what i usually do when i’m using a language i haven’t studied in depth (for example, joe’s use of arabic in some of my fic), and to only use words which i’ve heard used by native speakers in that context. i think if you don’t feel confident using another language, generally speaking, you shouldn’t do it. and for god’s sake don’t use google translate for a full sentence

19. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

harry potter on the newsround chatboards. ariana lovegood-longbottom my sweet child

20. What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

this used to be an easy question because hands down the fic i was proudest of on posting it was i’ll be seeing you. i spent a year and a half on research and writing! but these days i do cringe a little at my hockey fic, and i think i’m prouder of some of my shorter works. let’s do a curveball and say layer on layer, down on down, which is my favourite of my rnm fics and the one i like most from a narrative voice perspective. getting michael right was stressful and i’m still proud i got it down for a TIME LOOP FIC, my absolute favourite trope

tagging @little-smartass and @leescoresbies just in case they want to try this

#gin i can't BELIEVE you wrote for xiaolin showdown. iconic #text post tag #tagged in #writing tag

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gamergirl929 · 4 years

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Think Fast (Emily Sonnett x Reader)

@heathtobination Request: USWNT x reader with maybe mal or Emily x reader as well where reader has these killer reflexes and the younger members keep throwing crap at her to see if she’ll like catch it and someone throws an actual kick or something when the reader is heavily distracted and hits her in the face or something?

“THINK FAST!” You hear Sonnett shout and your hand snaps up, stopping the bit of napkin that Emily had thrown across the table at you.

You give Sonnett a cocky smirk, the blonde rolling her eyes with a huff.

“One of these days Y/N...” Sonnett shakes her finger at you, eyes narrowed. “I will, hit you with something, I swear it.”

“Let’s hope it isn’t a car.” Mallory says as she flops into the seat next to you and your eyes widen as you stare at Sonnett who grins maliciously.

“No.” You point at her and she smirks.

“We’ll see about that.”

You smirk when you see Kelley, Christen, Tobin and Alex approaching the table.

“Chris, Kel, Emily said she was going to run me over with a car.” You pout and Emily’s eyes widen.

“You’re such an assh-

Emily is cut off when Kelley smacks her in the back of the head, quickly followed by another slap from Christen.

“Hey!” Emily shouts when Tobin too smacks her, the woman’s hazel eyes narrowed.

“Why did YOU hit me!?” She exclaims and Tobin shrugs.

“Because the cool kids are doing it.” Megan says as she gives Sonnett’s forehead a flick.

Meanwhile across the table, you’re basically dying, tears streaming down your face as you laugh.

“Shut up.” Emily growls, throwing a bit of toast across the table at you, that you quickly dodge.

“Damn it.” She grumbles and you grin.

“It’s going to take a lot more than that to get me Sonnett.”

***

“THINK FAST!”

You duck, the soccer ball completely zooming over your head and you grin, your tongue trapped between your teeth.

“Son of a bitch.” Sonnett mumbles and you snort, kicking the black and white ball at her.

“THINK FAST!” You shout but the ball smacks Sonnett in the side of the head before she can even turn to look at you.

“DAMN IT!” She yells grabbing her head and you snort, the other younger members of the team laughing, some dropping down onto the field, as they howl with laughter.

Sonnett’s bottom lip juts out in a pout and you sigh, jogging over to her and gently cupping her cheek.

“You okay?” You ask, noticing the slight flush of her cheeks and she nods rapidly, swallowing hard.

“YEP!” She yells, her voice an octave higher.

Your eyes widen, brows arching as you shake your head, swiping your thumb across her red cheek.

“If you say so.”

Unbeknownst to you, a number of the players are laughing, not because of Emily getting hit by a soccer ball, but because your obliviousness knows no bounds.

***

“THINK FAST!”

Emily lets out a lengthy groan when you catch the ice cube she’d just thrown at you from across your hotel room.

“Gotta do better than that sweetheart.” You wink and Sonnett rolls her eyes, cheeks dusted pink.

“Yeah, yeah.” She grumbles, as she flops onto the bed beside Lindsey, Rose and Sam, meanwhile you flop down in your bed beside Mallory.

“You ever going to learn?” Lindsey asks and Rose giggles.

“She never will.”

Mallory stretches, snuggling into your side with a squeaky yawn.

“You’re never going to get one over on Y/N, Son.” The brunette smiles and you shake your head as she snuggles into your shoulder.

Meanwhile, across the room, Sonnett’s bottom lip is jutted out slightly, but not enough for anyone to notice, or so she thinks.

Lindsey shakes her head as she wraps her arms around her best friend, the woman leaning back against her.

Your brow furrows as you glance across the room, a knot forming in your chest, something that surprisingly feels like jealousy.

You shake your head, turning back to the TV, but you can’t help the way your eyes dart to Lindsey and Sonnett every few minutes.

There’s no way you could be falling for dorky, mildly irritating Emily Sonnett...

Right?

***

Halftime.

It’s halftime during the game against Thailand when Emily Sonnett makes her move.

It just so happen you were talking to Mallory, the two of you laughing at something the shorter brunette had just said.

Later, Sonnett would admit that a bit of what she was about to do was fueled by jealousy, but of course, that wasn’t right now, because right now Sonnett was grinning mischievously.

“THINK FAST!” She yells and your eyes widen.

Emily gives the soccer ball at her feet a kick, just as you turn around, giving you only a second or two to react.

Unfortunately for you, a second is far from enough time for you to react and it smacks you right in the face with a crunch.

You double over, grabbing your nose and Emily’s eyes go as wide as saucers as she runs over to you, kneeling down in front of you.

“Y/N! I’m so sorry!”

Mallory is also at your side, a hand on your back as she sends Sonnett an angry glare.

“Jesus!” Mallory exclaims when you pull your hands away from your nose, revealing the extent of your injury, blood pouring from your nostrils, the flesh of your nose already bruising.

“Oh shit.” Emily whispers when she sees the usually straight part of your nose is slightly curved, jutting out on one side.

“Is it that bad...?” You ask and Emily grimaces as she cups your cheeks.

“Let’s get you inside...” She frowns and you move to your feet, teeth gritted as Mallory hands you a random towel to put on your bleeding nose.

“Keep your head tilted back.” Christen says as she guides you towards the locker room, green orbs narrowing as she glares at Sonnett.

“I didn’t mean to!” She pouts and you shake your head when you hear a smack, knowing that Christen had smacked her upside the head.

Another smack though has your brow furrowing, that is until you hear Kelley’s voice.

“Seriously? You had to break her nose?”

***

“FUCKKK!” You scream loudly as the team’s medic snaps your nose back into place, your eyes watering as you blink rapidly.

From outside the door Emily winces, running her hands down her face.

“I am so sorry Y/N!” She yells through the door and you shake your head with a small smile.

The medic pulls the door open and Emily immediately runs inside, hazel orbs staring at your bruised and bloody nose.

“Looks like you got me Sonny.” You grin and she shakes her head.

“I didn’t want to hurt you.” She frowns and you give her a soft smile.

“It’s okay.”

Emily shrugs, jumping up to sit on the bed beside you.

“I mean, you do look better...” She winks and you roll your eyes.

“You know I was a snack before this, admit it.”

Emily’s cheeks flush and you turn to her, brows furrowed.

“Are you alright?” You ask, head cocked to one side and Emily swallows hard.

“Think fast.” She says and your eyes widen.

“Please don’t throw anything at m-

You’re cut off when suddenly, Emily surges forwards, her lips pressing gently against your own.

Before you can reciprocate, Emily pulls back and jumps off the trainer’s bed, running out the door just as Mallory pushes it open, alongside Kelley and Christen.

“What was that about?” Mallory asks and you shake your head, mouth hanging open.

“I-I don’t know.”

***

After much convincing, Vlatko lets you back on the field for the second half, though this time wearing a nose guard, which makes the fans and Thailand players look at you curiously, wondering what exactly had happened in the little span of time between the first half and second half of the game.

Emily had avoided you like the plague, meaning that the kiss the two of you had shared hadn’t really been discussed, and needless to say, you were ready to discuss it...

Well more than discuss it, maybe you could put your mouth to better use.

You clear your throat when the whistle blows you cheeks flushed red as you dart downfield.

“Eye on the ball, stop thinking about kissing Emily.” You whisper under your breath, but you can’t help but again, think of how the woman’s lips had felt against your own.

***

The usual, bubbly and silly Sonnett had been quiet as the game went on, much to her teammate’s worry.

“Is she alright?” Megan whispers to Tobin who shrugs.

“I have no idea, I’m not use to her being this quiet.”

Lindsey nods rapidly.

“Yeah, it’s freaking me out.”

Meanwhile, Emily’s hazel orbs haven’t left your running form, the ball now at your feet, though the woman can’t pay any attention to the game, considering her mind is racing with thoughts of the earlier kiss between the two of you.

“More like I kissed her...” She whispers sadly under her breath, remembering the way your lips stilled when she’d pressed her lips against yours.

Emily is so zoned out in fact, she doesn’t realize that her teammates had moved to their feet, clapping as you run in on goal.

Emily’s cheer is the loudest when the ball sinks into the net and you throw your hands up, your teammates careful not to bump your injured nose.

You turn to the bench, grinning when you see Emily standing up and cheering along with your teammates, your heart skipping a beat when your gaze falls to her lips.

You clear your throat and dart downfield to finish out the game.

***

Your goal ends up being the last of the game, the whistle blowing a short time later.

The first thing you do is rip the annoying nose guard off your face and the second thing you do is make your way towards the bench, towards the woman who’d been on your mind the entire game.

Emily’s hazel orbs widen when she sees you approaching, swallowing hard when you eventually stop in front of her.

“Think fast.” You whisper and Emily’s brows furrow, eyes narrowing as she cocks her head to the side.

“What do you me-

You cut her off much like she’d cut you off earlier, with a kiss.

Emily inhales sharply, but immediately reciprocates, kissing you like she’d wanted to in the locker room, like she’d wanted to for so long.

“FUCKING FINALLY!” You hear Mallory scream, you and Emily pulling apart with a snort.

“LANGUAGE!” Christen and Tobin shout at the young forward who simply shrugs.

You lean your forehead against Emily’s with a beaming smile, your grin widening when she pulls back and places the gentlest of kisses to the tip of your nose.

“Please don’t throw anything else at me for a while.” You frown and Emily shrugs.

“We’ll have to see about that.”

Your eyes flutter shut and Emily grins mischievously.

“THINK FAST!” She yells and your eyes flash open, though instead of getting pelted in the head with something like you’d expected, her lips press gently against your own.

If this was what would happen every time Emily said think fast, you think you could deal with that.

#uswnt x reader #emily sonnett x reader #emily sonnett imagine #emily sonnett imagines #uswnt imagine

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murdershegoat · 5 years

Text

nothing's sweeter than summertime and american honey

(written under the influence)

(also on ao3)

lena thinks she might be hallucinating, because there is no way kara danvers is skateboarding in the luthor family pool.

wait. go back a step.

why is the luthor family pool empty??

it’s the second last week of summer, and lena stands on the back porch, her arms now self-consciously folded across her half-naked body. she stares in confusion as kara danvers appears on one side of the pool and then promptly disappears, only to pop up at the other end moments later.

‘kara, can you quit it?’ comes a gruff, familiar voice. alex danvers from ap bio is fiddling with some pool equipment at the edge of the yard. ‘this is a huge job for dad and you’re gonna get us fired.’ neither girl has noticed lena yet, for which she is very thankful.

‘take a chill pill,’ comes kara’s reply. ‘you just wanna finish quickly so you can go see maggie.’

even from her distance, lena can see how red alex’s face goes. ‘shut up! we’re just friends.’

kara snorts. ‘sure, jt and britney are also “just friends.” just admit you like her.’

lena assumes they’re talking about maggie sawyer, who had transferred into alex’s grade late last year. alex grumbles something in response that isn’t a denial, and lena feels her heart soar. alex danvers is a l-- she likes girls?? lena bites her lip.

this summer has been a nightmare of loneliness, even more so than usual. her mother hasn’t been home in a month and lex had flown in yesterday and spent the day with her, only to fly out early this morning before she woke up. she’s spent the summer sending emails to her penpal jack, lazing by the pool, and clearing her search history of questionable googles. she’s also been grappling with a huge secret, something she can’t tell anybody (not that she has anybody to tell in the first place.) her secret is this: she really wants to kiss somebody. and that somebody happens to be in her grade. and that somebody happens to be a girl.

it happens to be the girl who is now skateboarding in the suspiciously empty luthor pool, the girl who’s impossibly smart and funny and kind. the only person at Midvale High who’s not seemingly shit scared of lena.

the realization has been haunting her all summer, refusing to give her a single moment of peace. and now, knowing that alex is, is also like she is, and hearing the way kara gently teases her about it... well, lena doesn’t feel as lonely anymore. she wants to say hello to the sisters, to ask alex a million questions and ask kara how her summer is going and if she wants to maybe, like, hang out together or something. but just the thought of either thing makes lena’s heart race uncomfortably fast and her mouth go all dry. she turns around and slams open the sliding glass door, but apparently she doesn’t know her own strength. as she steps into the doorway, the door ricochets against the the end of its track and bounces back, hitting her in the side of the head.

‘FUCK,’ she screams, before turning white and whirling around.

both danvers sisters are staring at her. kara looks concerned and alex looks livid.

‘yo, luthor,’ kara calls out. ‘you okay?’

lena wants to say yes, but then she feels something sticky on her temple, and brushes her hand against it.

great. she’s bleeding.

next thing she knows kara has her sitting on one of the deck chairs, and lena’s not sure if she’s got a concussion or if kara just looks extra.... phenomenal today. she’s wearing a basketball jersey and shorts and lena keeps catching glimpses of her sports bra. kara takes off her baseball cap and wipes her brow.

lena frowns. ‘you cut your hair.’

kara’s gorgeous long hair is no longer, instead it’s short around the sides with a messy tuft on top.

‘you don’t like it?’ kara asks, running her hand through it.

‘it looks... dope,’ she replies, immediately regretting her choice of words.

‘i did it out of solidarity with alex,’ kara says, grinning. ‘she wanted to get a buzz cut but she was a bit self conscious.’

alex comes back into view, carrying a first aid kit with her. her hair, too, is shorter than lena remembers it being. alex cleans up the side of lena’s head.

‘look, i don’t think you have a concussion, but you can hang out with kara and i while we finish the pool and i can keep an eye on you.’

‘alex is a junior EMT now,’ kara says proudly. ‘she’s also pretty much single handedly running our dad’s pool company this summer.’

right. the pool. that’s why they’re here.

‘why were you skateboarding in it?’ lena asks.

‘it won’t leave any marks,’ alex says quickly. ‘i promise. don’t worry about a thing.’

‘no,’ lena says, wincing as alex keeps prodding her tender head. ‘i mean, why is it empty in the first place?’

alex averts her eyes. ‘it was empty when we got here. we just gave it a scrub and an acid wash to get rid of some of the, uh, stains at the bottom.’

okay. lena thinks she knows what that means. and it also explains why lex left so early this morning. he fucking killed someone in the pool and needs to clean up after himself. fuck. she’s so damn stupid, thinking he’d actually come home to spend time with her. and she feels so embarrassed, having to explain how she’s used to her brother killing people so she’s not surprised or shocked by this.

kara lays a hand on her shoulder and smiles down at her. lena thinks she’s about to comfort her in some way, and she feels her heart start to race again.

‘can i grab something to eat?’ is what kara says instead, and lena’s face falls at the same time Alex whacks her sister’s arm.

‘kara, that’s unprofessional.’ but lena just smiles.

‘what do you want?’

///

lena didn’t think her day would be spent watching the danvers sisters fill her pool and eat sandwiches prepared by bertha the luthors’ cook, but here she is. kara sits on the grass across from lena, her toes digging into the green grass. she has what lena can only assume is a birkenstocks foot tan -- four fat white strips of skin on an otherwise perfectly browned body.

the pool is filling behind them, and alex sits on the other side of the yard, whispering into her cell phone.

‘how’s your summer been?’ kara asks with a mouthful of turkey sandwich.

‘quiet,’ lena replies. ‘my family’s been busy and not around much. i’ve hung out with our staff, but i don’t think it counts if they’re paid to spend time with you.’ she laughs, trying to detract from how sad it sounds. ‘how is yours?’

‘busy. my dad’s been, uh, he’s sick. so alex and i have been doing all the pool jobs. not much time to hang out with friends.’

‘and alex... she’s... with maggie sawyer?’

kara chokes on her sandwich.

swallowing painfully, she lowers her voice. ‘could you, like, not say anything? i was teasing her and she’s freaking out because she’s not sure if you heard anything or not and it’s still... new and our parents don’t really know and if the school finds out---’

‘don’t worry,’ lena assures her. ‘i won’t say a word.’ her chest swells at the way kara smiles gratefully and lena realises she’s an absolute goner, head over heels for someone who could never like her back. lena almost wants to tell her the truth. maybe it’s the sun beating down on them or the welcoming scratch of grass against her legs or the summer feeling that has finally settled over luthor mansion. but before she can say anything, alex calls out.

‘kara, come help me finish treating the water!’

///

‘it should be good for swimming after about twenty four hours,’ alex says, packing the last of their equipment into the truck. lena hands them both the envelope lex had left, plus a hefty tip for each of them.

‘we can’t accept this,’ kara says, shoving the notes back into lena’s hand. alex doesn’t follow suit.

‘don’t be dumb,’ lena rolls her eyes. ‘my brother left it here for you, and i don’t want it.’ she hands it back to kara, who pockets it angrily. alex looks pleased her sister’s conscience hasn’t cost her the cash.

they climb into the truck and it rumbles to life.

‘catch you later, luthor,’ alex says, giving her a little salute.

‘hey,’ lena says, before she can talk herself out of it. ‘did you guys wanna come hang out tomorrow? the pool’s all clean and it feels like it’s a waste if i’m the only one using it. and you can bring ma-- a friend, if you’d like,’ she directs the last part to just alex.

alex’s eyes bore straight through her, trying to size her up.

‘we should be finished work by the afternoon,’ she says finally. ‘we’ll see you then?’

lena grins. ‘awesome.’

///

the last few weeks of summer fly by with a new routine in place. the danvers sisters finish work in the early afternoon and make their way to lena’s house, picking up maggie on the way. they lounge around the pool and bertha makes them mountains of food and her husband michael teaches them how to barbecue and lena finally understands what summer is supposed to feel like.

alex and maggie give up whatever pretense they were holding onto a few days into the routine, holding hands and stealing kisses whenever they thought the others weren’t looking. kara pretends to be grossed out but lena sees the happy gleam in her eyes as she does so. she wonders if kara can see the wistful look in hers.

spending time with kara feels like a dream. she tries to teach lena how to skateboard on the long, winding driveway that leads up to the house. lena stands as rigid as can be on the board and kara holds onto her waist and guides her along, assuring her that she won’t fall, catching her when she inevitably does. in return, lena teaches kara the basics of fencing because kara seems oddly excited to learn, and it’s the only thing that lena can actually teach her. kara’s skill-set seems exhaustive and incredulous. it’s like she’s a superhero or something. after just a couple of afternoons of practice, she’s better than some of the people lena’s been fencing with for years.

kara, lena is learning, is impossibly great. like, she’s known that for years; they’ve been in the same homeroom for two years, and are in lots of other classes together. she’s seen kara’s brain in action, and her humor and her kindness. but now she’s learned of a different kara, one that isn’t always in a great mood, one that isn’t always trying to please people.

kara still has walls up, lena’s sure of it, but she’s letting lena into the inner fortress, one layer at a time. and in turn, lena welcomes kara into her own heart, desperate to know the girl, and in turn, be known by her.

///

‘you know i’m... i’m... gay, right?’

it’s the first time lena’s said it out loud, and the sound of it alone makes her feel warm and comfortable in a way she’s never imagined. it’s a few days before school goes back and they’re floating alone in the pool -- maggie and alex taking the afternoon for themselves. she doesn’t quite know why she’s telling kara; maybe it’s because she knows how accepting kara is of alex and maggie, maybe it’s because she needs kara to figure out her big, overwhelming feelings.

‘i didn’t know,’ kara says with a small smile. ‘but thank you for telling me. i’m glad you feel comfortable enough to tell me.’

‘nobody else knows,’ lena confesses. ‘i mean, i barely know. i only really figured it out earlier in the summer.’

‘what made you realise?’ kara asks, before shaking her head. ‘sorry. you don’t have to answer that.’

‘it’s okay... i just... i realised that the feelings i had for this girl felt more... urgent? than i’ve felt about people before? like, i needed to be near her in a way i don’t usually need to be around friends.’

‘what’s she like?’ kara asks, and lena blushes.

‘she’s beautiful. and she’s wickedly smart. i feel like she would’ve been a handful as a kid, but she’s learned how to balance out that recklessness a bit. and she makes me laugh a lot.’

‘she sounds great,’ kara says, and lena laughs.

‘you have no idea.’

a lull settles between them as they float side by side. the sun begins to disappear behind the woods at the back of the property, and with it goes the warmth of day.

‘you know...’ kara says. ‘alex told me she thought you were gay. said she got a vibe.’

‘really?’ lena doesn’t know if she should be embarrassed or scared or proud.

‘yeah. she also said something else.’

‘what’s that?’

kara leans forward, no longer floating on her back. lena does the same and faces her.

‘she said... she said she thinks you like me.’

lena wonders if drowning herself is a viable way to get out of this conversation. or maybe she can just... swim to the other side of the pool.

‘lena?’ kara prompts.

‘yes?’

‘is she. is alex. is she right?’

lena looks at the water, unable to meet kara’s eyes.

‘yes.’ she says, in an impossibly small voice.

kara closes the space between them. she rests a finger under lena’s chin and tilts her head up. lena bites her lip as she looks into kara’s annoyingly blue eyes.

and before she can register anything else, kara is kissing her. she tastes like chlorine and sunscreen and cola lipsmacker and lena has never tasted anything quite as good. lena’s hands find kara’s neck and kara’s find lena’s hips and they stay like that -- making out in the pool -- until the sun is no longer in the sky and they’re both just slightly shivering.

‘do you want,’ lena says, slightly breathless. ‘do you wanna maybe go up to my room?’

kara grins and kisses her again, chaste and quick. ‘can we stop by the kitchen first?’

#supercorp #lena luthor #kara danvers #supercorp fanfic #supergirl

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