#didn’t think I’d ever have the capacity to finish a fic but. my first complete long fic is all grown up now. sniffle

[fluffydice]

HOLY SHIT Say I’m the Best (Bow to Your Princess #1) reached 1,000 kudos, what the fuck,,, that’s so cool. I know not everyone who reads my fics is on tumblr, but to those who are, thank you so much <3 everything you guys do motivates me to create

[wonderful-writes]

Presume

Pairing: Tom Riddle x Fem!Reader

Summary: Tom thinks you’re too pretty to be any good at academics. You can imagine his shock when he’s proven wrong.

Word Count: 2k (2,097)

Author’s Note: The idea for this fic was given to me by @bellaswansrealgf. It was such a fun topic to write, so thank you so much bae for coming up with the idea! I’ll definitely be using more of your suggestions in the future.

Tom Riddle found himself becoming increasingly irritated. How could Professor Slughorn possibly expect him to work with a partner? What kind of fool did Slughorn think he was? Tom was perfectly capable of completing his project himself, and it was rather insulting for his professor to assign someone to help him. And not just anyone. Slughorn had assigned you.

You, the pretty girl, were in no capacity an ideal partner. You were friendly and charming and surely too bubble-headed to know a thing about potions. You were probably irritating and selfish and vain, too. Tom would have rather been partnered up with the clown from Gryffindor than with you.

“Tom, right?” you asked as you took a seat next to him. You were dressed in neat robes and had nicely styled hair. You probably spent all morning on it.

“Yes,” he replied curtly without so much as a glance your way. He began flipping his textbook to the desired page and scanning it with his eyes.

“I’m Y/N,” you introduced.

Tom ignored you as he continued to read the page.

“So, what kind of potion do you think we should make?” you asked him, opening your own book.

Once again, Tom didn’t bother to look up or respond.

“Hello?” you tried again.

He let out an exasperated sigh. “Listen, I know potions is probably not your area of expertise, so it’s best if you just sit there and let me work.”

“Excuse me?” you asked, surprised at how this stranger could claim to already know you without having ever spoken to you. “How would you know if I’m not good at potions?”

Tom scoffed. “If you haven’t noticed, you don’t exactly look like you’d be much of an academic.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you questioned, starting to get offended.

“Well, I’m the best in the class,” Tom said like it was the most natural thing to come out of his mouth. “Professor Slughorn probably sent you here so that I could babysit you. You can’t be any good if you need me as a mentor.”

“I don’t need you as a mentor,” you told him. “Professor Slughorn wanted us to work together for this assignment.”

“Like I said,” he replied, turning back to his book, “maybe you should let me handle the assignment.”

You were beyond aggravated. How could someone who barely knows you make such assumptions about you? You were more than adept in potions, and it was unfair of him to shut you down without letting you prove your skills.

“You realize this assignment is worth 25% of our grade, don’t you?” you asked him as you crossed your arms.

 “Precisely,” he answered. “Which is why I won’t let you mess it up.”

You had never met a more arrogant person.

“If you’re going to be this way,” you declared, “I’ll just ask Slughorn if I can work alone. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience the great Tom Riddle.”

Tom breathed a sigh of relief as you packed your belongings and walked away. You were attractive, sure, but you were also annoying. He was glad to be rid of anyone who didn’t let him take charge.

Slughorn allowed the two of you to work separately. To Tom’s approval, you set up your station far away from his. He almost pitied you. It couldn’t be easy for someone like you to complete an entire project by yourself. People like you only cared about their appearances or what the latest gossip was. There was no way you could make any of the complicated potions on the list of options for the assignment without help.

~

By the end of the week, Slughorn had finished grading the students’ potions and their accompanying essays. Tom, ever so confident in his abilities, was shocked when he didn’t receive a perfect score.

“What did I do wrong, Professor?” he asked after class had been dismissed. “I could have sworn I didn’t miss anything.”

“You forgot to crush the bay leaves before you put them in,” Slughorn explained. “But not to worry, my boy. You chose a highly complex concoction. It is almost guaranteed that any student who attempts to recreate it will forget at the very least one step.”

“Did anyone else choose that potion?” Tom wondered.

Slughorn nodded with a twinkle in his eye.

“And did anyone get it right?” Tom asked. He was doubtful that anyone in the class could have succeeded at something he failed to perfect, but it didn’t hurt to ask.

“That’s for me to know, my boy,” the teacher answered. Seeing the frustrated look on Tom’s face, he chuckled and added, “Just know that you shouldn’t judge your partners so prematurely.”

Tom spent the majority of the night ruminating on Slughorn’s words. Could it be that you were the student who had gotten the perfect score on the potion he had attempted? He refused to believe it. Slughorn must have been referring to another student, one that Tom was paired with in the past. You couldn’t possibly be the partner in question.

~

It had been weeks since Tom came in second for the first time in his life. He convinced himself that it couldn’t have been you who bested him. Of course, he speculated who the true victor could be, but he couldn’t put his finger on who in the class could be worthy of such high marks.

Eventually, the time came for the annual examination preparation. Professor Slughorn’s students were assigned a series of practice exams to help them prepare for the actual ones. Each practice test focused on a different area within potions, and it was the students’ job to be well-versed in all of them.

At the beginning of every week, a new practice exam was passed out, and the grades for the previous week’s exam was posted on a roster at the front of the class.

Tom never bothered with making a show of checking his grades, knowing fully well that he would always be at the head of the class. But with the newfound knowledge of a possible competitor, he couldn’t quell his curiosity.

Making his way to the front of the room with the usual throng of Slytherin boys, he displayed no sign of concern. Why should the best in the year have to worry about some halfwit who ran into a bit of luck one time?

His air of indifference was quickly squashed, however, when he approached the posted practice exam scores and saw that his was the second highest. Second? That couldn’t be right. Tom Riddle never came in second. Who was first? Who could feasibly best Tom Riddle at a potions examination? The most brilliant student in all of Hogwarts, and in his best subject too?

He was horrified beyond comparison when he saw none other than your name at the pinnacle of the score sheet.

You.

Impossible. There was no chance that the bubbly girl with the face of an angel, er, a moron, could ever have received such excellent marks.

He’d seen you around, and you were most definitely not the kind of girl who cared about your performance in school. You were always smiling with your friends or tucking your hair behind your ear or dazzling a crowd with an extraordinary story. When you weren’t smoothing down your clothes or checking your made-up face, you were befriending the professors, something only stupid people needed to do.

So how could you have gotten a higher score than him? There must have been a mistake. He would have to ask Slughorn about it after class.

As he walked back to his seat, he glanced at where you were positioned, a table not too far from his own. You had already started on your assignment for the day, making quick work of the cutting and crushing of ingredients. Sure enough, you were dripping with the grace and beauty of someone who most likely didn’t know the difference between reed and foxtail.

How could one possibly be proficient in any academic subject when they looked like that? You probably spent more time shining your shoes than studying for exams. Then how did you beat him, and twice?

He watched you work for the remainder of the period. To his surprise, you were doing everything correctly. You never added a drop too much or a sprig too little. You stirred with precision and knew what color to look for in the brew. You seemed to know exactly what you were doing. Were you truly more intelligent than he had originally presumed?

Still unconvinced, he approached Professor Slughorn after dismissal to question the scores from the most recent exam.

Slughorn only sent him a mysterious look before answering, “Everything is as it should.”

-

After the third week of coming in second place, Tom decided that it was enough. It was time he put his troubles to rest and find out for himself what sort of witchcraft was in play.

“Are you cheating?” he abruptly asked you the moment you took your seat. Professor Slughorn was not yet in class, giving the students ample time to converse before lessons began.

Startled, you stared back at him. “What?”

“You must be receiving help on your practice exams or at the very least borrowing notes from someone,” he stated matter-of-factly. “So tell me. Who is it?”

You had had enough of this arrogant git’s behavior. “What makes you think I need help? Is it so hard to believe that you are not the only person in this room who can do well in school?”

“Well I- you see, you’re not exactly the sort to put much thought to academics,” he defended.

“And what sort is that?” you questioned.

“You know, the vain, pretty lot,” he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I’d imagine you spend more time on your appearance than on your academics.”

You gaped at the boy before you. “You think I’m pretty? And before you go on, my appearance has nothing to do with my drive to excel in scholarly affairs. I’ll have you know I’m more than capable of receiving just as good of marks as you are, despite what you think.”

“Then work with me on today’s partner project,” he challenged.

“Excuse me?” The last thing you were expecting was for the high-and-mighty Tom Riddle to want anything to do with you after his blatant rudeness.

“If you’re truly as good as you say—”

“You mean as good as the scores prove,” you cut in.

Tom rolled his eyes. “If you’re really that good, show me. Demonstrate your skills on today’s potion, and I’ll believe you.”

So the two of you spent the class working together on the assigned potion. Tom made sure to stand back so that you could have the freedom to do things on your own, silently hoping that you would make a mistake. But you didn’t.

Your potion was perfect. There was not an herb out of place or a drop not potent enough. Everything was as it should.

You had clearly proven to Tom that you were a skilled student, worthy of his second glance. You only hoped that the self-righteous twat would realize not to judge people before knowing them.

“While I hate to admit my own shortcomings, you were right,” Tom conceded.

You smiled at his admittance. “Thanks, Tom. I’m glad you learned something from this experience.”

He had expected to feel more disdain at the fact that he had finally found his match. He was waiting for annoyance, jealousy, some spark of rage at being second-best. But all he felt was a strange sensation.

You were quite honestly brilliant, and he couldn’t remember a time when he genuinely thought that about a fellow student. You were quick-witted, sharp-tongued, and unafraid to back down from a challenge. You stood up to him despite barely knowing anything about him, other than that he was a royal pain to you. And, not to mention, you were quite a sight to behold.

It was no secret that Tom kept to himself more often than not. Sure, he had a group of peers who respected him — whether out of fear or genuine liking is up for debate — but he never got to know anyone on a personal level. He never let anyone get too close or see him for someone other than the shining pupil with big plans. But, for once, he wanted someone to share his genius with.

He intended to make you that person.

—

Part 2

[dp-marvel94]

Dan Redemption with a twist

So I'm still geeking out over my ask that @stillebesat answered a few days ago, the one where about an upcoming fic. I've been playing around with a really similar idea, with a redeemed Dan fusing with a clone of Danny, for months now.

Here's my idea:

First of all, my preferred version of Dan is basically Danny but evil. He less fused with Plasmius and more consumed his powers so Dan doesn't have any of Vlad's memories. Next, I'm a big fan of the idea that Dan deeply regrets killing his human half and is, for lack of a better word, haunted by the action. It was the first death of his reign of terror, his final chance to turn back from the dark path he was on and...it was his suicide.

Now, Dan doesn't realize any of this for what feels like centuries. He's trapped in the Fenton thermos in Clockwork's lair, alone with only his thoughts. And the knowledge starts creeping in, all that he'd lost, all that he'd done. He realizes that he misses his friends and family and to his surprise, he hopes his younger self saved them. But then he realized that he tried to kill them. And the guilt starts creeping in. The regret follows and he remembers all the rest of his crimes. He doesn't have enough humanity, enough emotional capacity to be wrecked but he's no longer a rage fueled destructive monster.

Then to Dan's shook, Clockwork releases him without a word. The master of time dumps him in the new timeline, maybe a few months after the events of TUE. To his dim relief, Dan finds that his friends and family are all still alive. He watches them for a while, trying to process where he is and what happened. But then he runs into Danny. And things don't go well. It's a rocky start. Danny does not trust Dan at all. He doesn't trust that the older ghost has no intention of hurting his loved ones. Danny is ready and willing to fight and recapture him. The younger's opinion doesn't change until Dan saves him and Jazz during a ghost attack. The two ghosts, at Jazz's insistence, come to an uneasy impasse. Danny will leave Dan alone if the older ghost leaves him and his family alone. Dan isn't really happy about this arrangement but it's better than being trapped in the thermos again and he does have no intention of hurting his younger counterpart or his loved ones.

So Dan concedes. He stays out of Danny's way. He watches. He catches glimpses of his former friends and family from a distance. And it hurts. Dan feels out of place, disconnected. This isn't his time, isn't his place. He's stuck on the outside looking in... and this timeline already has a Danny, one who didn't make the aggresous mistakes he did. And those mistakes... the guilt's still there but like all other emotions, it's dim and distant. That's how it's been since his death, with every emotion but rage. But still, Dan does not like being on the outside looking in. He needs to do something else with himself, find some place he can belong.

Then Dan remembers Vlad. He had gone to the older half ghost after losing everything. And... Vlad had tried to help him. Separating the then halfa at his request had been a horrible idea but Vlad had been trying. Vlad did care about him. And.... the man must be so lonely now. Lonely like Dan himself is.

It's something of a wim but Dan goes to the older halfa. And at first, it's a surprise to Vlad and then seemingly a dream come true. Here in front of him is a version of Daniel who wants to stay by his side willingly. This Dan is more powerful and experienced than his younger counterpart, though not as experienced as Vlad. The young man is willing to be taught and all he seemingly wants is companionship. Yes, it would be a dream come true except...

Dan will not tolerate any of Vlad's shit. He will not be used to hurt anyone ever again. He will not take part in any of Vlad's schemes against the Fentons. It's a high price to pay but the older man backs off. Vlad is content to not be alone and have a chance to convince Dan to work with him.

So Dan stays with Vlad. With the older man busy with work, Dan has free reign of the mansion for most of the day. In some ways, it's nice. Away from Amity Park, there's no temptation to check on his former loved ones. His longing for a life he can no longer have is diminished. Vlad's mansion provides ample distraction, in the library, the game room, the gardens. But... the days are long and often lonely and the nights... they're even worse. The large building, empty and quiet, it's too much like a time Dan wishes he could forget. The memories are stronger now. After the fiery explosion...weeks of weeping in his room. Somber diners with Vlad where he couldn't force himself to eat. Waking up from another nightmare.

Without his humanity, the grief isn't as soul wrenching as it should be. But it's ever present, the memories on repeat. And there is little to break them up. As a ghost, Dan cannot sleep. He cannot eat. He can't truly feel the sun on his face or the comforting chill of the water on the pool. All physical sensations are dimmed.

And Dan starts to realize, it's excruciating. He feels incomplete, like there's a gapping whole in his chest. The memories of his own death, seen from the outside, return. His own icy blue eyes wide with fear and pain. Red blood spattered on his face. It's horrifying. Or it should be. If Dan could muster up more than the dimmest shadow of the emotion. But he can't, because the part of him that could died 10 years ago. And... this is wrong. He is wrong.

He should have died completely as himself, as Danny Fenton. He shouldn't have watched his death from the outside by his own hands. He shouldn't be this half being that couldn't even be bothered to die properly.

Dan stews, a forgotten anger growing as he longs for something he'd once wanted rid of. His human self, his Fenton, his humanity... he wants it. He wants to be truly, completely himself again. He wants to be whole enough to fade, to move on.

But that is the problem with ghosts, especially one like him. They do not change. They do not move on. As much as Dan acts like he is older, like he is different, he is not. He's the same angry, broken teen that he was ten years ago. And he will never be anything else.

Dan rages, trashing Vlad's training room. Soon enough, his anger is spent and the young man comes back to his senses. Dan huffs in frustration and annoyance at himself. He'd rather enjoyed Vlad's training room and now the man himself will likely be cross with him. Dan does his best to put the room back in order and find something else to do.

But the pain, regret, and longing linger. At some level, Dan thinks he's being ridiculous. All his former loved ones are alive. Dan isn't alone. He has Vlad and the ability to determine his own future. This world wasn't ravaged by his hand. His mistakes have been erased. He should be free. Except...

No, his mistakes are not all erased. His own death returns to his mind over and over. He shouldn't think about, he shouldn't dwell on it but...

One day, Dan goes down to Vlad's secret lab. He knows he shouldn't. This is such a breach of Vlad's trust but... this is were it happened. The young man stares at the metal table. If he was capable of feelings cold, he would shiver. There, where he was pulled out of his body. That wall, he cornered his human half there, the boy cowering in fear. There, that control panel was spattered with his own blood.

Dan wishes he could cry but he's not human enough for that. He's not human at all. But he wishes he was.

Startled by the thought, the full ghost turns away. He shouldn't wish for things he can't have but... no. Dan's eyes flicker around the room, looking for small differences from his memories. Some of the equipment is laid out differently. There are different samples on the shelf and... that door wasn't there before.

Dan walks through and finds... metal and glass chambers in different degrees of construction. A few are filled with ectoplasm and there in the back... if Dan had a heart, it would stop. There in a clear pod with a breathing mask over his face is...Danny Fenton. No, that's not right. This isn't... this isn't his timeline. And his younger counterpart is in Amity Park so....

Dan frantically searches Vlad's computer, his notes for answers. Clones. Vlad had been trying to clone his younger half ghost counterpart. In the tube... clone 3. Fully human. Suffered mental decline from 2 weeks gestation and eventually brain death a month later. Body kept alive by machines since... the week Dan arrived.

Dan wishes he could feel shock. He wishes he could feel relief. From the data, this was the first attempt that even resembled something human. The others were by all measures animals, in no way sentient. And it appears Vlad hasn't continued working since Dan came to live with him. But still...

Dan confronts Vlad, asking about the experiments, about the clone kept on life support.

"I could not bear to pull the plug." Vlad answers, surprisingly sober. "I'd hoped his condition would improve." There is a far away look in his eyes, a longing. "I tried everything I could think of to stop the degradation but..." The older half ghost shook his head. "I'm continuing to monitor 3's status." There was a pain in Vlad voice. "I fear he won't live to see the outside of his chamber."

Vlad was in denial, Dan thinkd. This clone is gone, like his own human half. The heart still beats, the lungs still breath but...

He shock his head. "Before you approach me, I consider...if I could create a viable, ghostly clone and coax the spirit to hybridize with the body..."

The idea was ridiculous and he should be disgusted, hearing all Vlad had done, what he had planned but...

"That is all in the past now." Vlad finished sadly.

All in the past like the loss of his own human half. He shouldn't wish for things that he couldn't have but...

"I'm a viable ghost..." Dan could barely believe the words coming out his mouth. "Not a clone but... I am without a human side."

Vlad is staring at him like he has another head, something which Dan was sure he did not currently have. "Daniel...are you suggesting... what I think you are suggesting?"

Was he? It was ridiculous, impossible. He could not replace his human side by... possessing an animated corpse.

"No. I am not." Dan denied. "Forget I said anything."

Vlad gave a nod, dropping the conversation. But Dan did not forget. This idea... it was wrong. It was impossible. He couldn't be made a half ghost again. But...

The temptation. If anyone could get it to work, it would be Vlad. And if it did...the ghost floats to what had been his bedroom and laid down. If it worked, he could sleep. He could eat. He could go out in public with human. It would necessarily be a replacement for what he'd lost but...

No... this was wrong. This was basically a clone of himself whose body he wanted to steal. But... was it really? This was an empty body, no mind, no soul. It was mad science but... Dan was already the product of mad science.

And if it worked, not as an overshadowing but a hybrization... he could truly age, he could grow passed what happened. And he could feel more than the pale shadows he could now.

The next day, Dan asks Vlad for what he wants.

"Are you sure?" The man asked. "This could have unknown consequences on your body or your mind. You could even destabilize."

That gave Dan pause. This might not work. He might end up in unknown pain or even fade but... "this is worth the risk."

The pair work together, planning and experimenting. They give the body transfusions of Dan's ectoplasm. The younger ghost practices envisioning himself as a halfa again. He prepares himself.

"I will need to reduce you down to your core." Vlafd says solemnly.

Dan places his existence in Vlad's hands. After blowing off seemingly endless amounts of energy in a desolate portion of the Ghost Zone, the older halfa repeatedly shocks him with the Plasmius Maximus. Dan's body pops out of existence, leaving his core exposed.

As just a core, there is no sensation. No input. No output. It's terrifyingly like being in the thermos again. Dan knows he is being moved. Vlad is doing something to him but... there is nothing and too much at the same time.

Dan can not process. He is cradled. There is something beside him, something around him reaching out. Something is changing. He is changing. It is too much. Dan loses consciousness for the first time in ten years. It is not sleep. There is no dream. He can think one moment, separated from the world. And the next...

He is under water. Something is beeping. He feels light but heavy. Cold but warm. His center is fluttering, something straining and pounding. An emotion. Something that might be panic or fear suddenly rises in him, crashing over him as a wave. An equally panicked voice comes from in front of him. Then there's a sting in his neck. Sting? Pain? Pain, it's been so long since he felt pain. And... his neck? He has a neck again. Dan blacks out again.

The young man comes to again. There is still something beeping near his head. He's not under water now but laying on something soft. Soft and warm. Warm....Dan can feel that. His breath hitches. Breath... he feels lungs move on his chest. And...he feel heavy and warm. Something... something happened. He can't remember what...

Dan's eyes flutter open, falling on... Vlad.

The man's eyes met his, relief flashing across them. "Daniel." He sighs. "How do you feel?"

"Feel?" Dan crocks. Is that... is that his voice? "What...what happened?" The ghost (?) thinks he might know. "Did it work?" He whispered.

Dan's voice... his voice is high, like when he was a younger teen. It should feel strange but...

"Take a look." Vlad says, offering him a mirror.

Dan reaches forward with a shaking hand. His hand... it's not gloved, neither is it blue. It's.... he stares. It's a pale peach color like... his hands are smaller and thinner....

"Daniel." Vlad interrupts. "It's alright." He holds the mirror up and...

Dan meets blue eyes. His own blue eyes. Eyes he never thought he'd see again except on someone else. His eyes water as he reaches towards the mirror. "It worked."

His new heart is aching, a thousand emotions hitting him. Joy, happiness, relief, grief, guilt, regret. All of them are bigger, nearer, more real and soul-aching than it's been in years. He should be upset. He looks and sounds like a kid again. But... "I'm alive."

He is alive. And it is a joy. A gift. A promise. He will not waste this second chance.

The newly remade halfa is crying and...it's never felt so good.

[sofwrites]

fic writer interview

i was tagged by the ever lovely and talented @jake-amy 💖

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Currently 15 separate ones, though I do typically put my one-shots under one work so it’s more accurately about 30! 

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

258,394 currently :-) 

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

Three- Harry Potter, Princess Diaries, and Bridgerton

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

What Came Before Colin Realized: Multichapter work that spans from the incident to RMB. An accidental fix-it fic that turns Polin into a real slow burn. 

Bridgerton Stories: A collection of canon-compliant Bridgerton one-shots featuring different sets of couples, friendships, and family nonsense. A fun way to expand the Bridgerton universe. 

Welcome to the digital age, babe: Modern AU mixed media fic that spans Penelope and Colin interacting over an entire decade. Includes cringe early 2010s social media posts, a slew of birthday messages, some pretty hilarious puns and innuendos my amazing beta helped create, and a true slow burn. 

The best thing I never had: Also could be called, What If Colin Realized Too Late. A Colin POV one-shot of falling in love with Penelope after she’s fallen for someone else. 

21st Century Bridgertons: A collection of modern Bridgerton one-shots featuring various couples. Just another place for me to put little ideas in. 

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

I do! When I first started writing for Bridgerton, I was worried people would find it annoying if I replied to those that didn’t have questions/things to specifically reply to, so I was really hesitant. Now that I’m a bit more involved in the community, I don’t stress so much about it and try to reply to most comments! But I do wanna say that even when I don’t reply, I re-read and hold all of those comments close. 

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

I think that “The best thing I never had” is the only angsty ending I’ve ever written, and it was definitely... angsty. I did, however, put multiple warnings for it so no one can fault me. 😅 

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

No, and I cannot imagine how people do it in complete honesty. ALL the power to those with big enough brains for that though. 

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Ooof yeah, I’ve gotten a few. I think it unfortunately stems from my place in the fandom and people thinking certain things are overrated. In complete honesty, it sucks a lot and holds more power than I’d like. 

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

lol no, unless you count the lil fake-outs I sometimes include

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I hope not! 

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but if anyone would want to, let me know! 

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

I haven’t yet, but @jake-amy and I might write a Gregory/Lucy fic if we ever get our gears in order 🤓 

13. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

ok so I have a note on my Notes app that lists my favorite ships, so I’ll pick some of those (sorry I simply cannot pick an all-time): Mia/Michael (Princess Diaries), Katniss/Peeta, and Jonah/Amy (Superstore)! My favorite Bridgerton couples, however, are: Colin/Penelope, Francesca/Michael, and Gregory/Lucy

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

I’ve had a modern Polin multichapter fic planned out since last May with about 5000 words written that I don’t think I will ever have the mental capacity to finish. I also have a Bridgerton high school au drafted that I hope I get to but can’t be sure. 

15. What are your writing strengths?

I think I do a good job expressing my character’s emotions through description/cues rather than just writing them out. It’s one of the comments I got most frequently on Digital Age, which was really cool since 95% of it was through texting/posts. 

I also think I do well in building anticipation in a scene. My favorite parts in movies/books are the lead up to things like a kiss, and I love writing them out as well. 

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

I think I have a hard time finding a medium between “long-winded” and choppy writing, and I spend a lot of time focusing on how much extra content should be between each line of dialogue. I also really struggle with imagination and thinking up different scenarios/things for the characters to be doing. 

Also, proofreading. I get tired looking at the same words over and over again. 

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

I’ve only ever written a few bits here-or-there in other languages, but I’d rather not include anything I’m not fluent in or I don’t have a friend fluent in. I grew up speaking another language fluently, but I also didn’t have any formal education in it so I’d even be hesitant to write anything in that language. 

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

My first published work is an 80k marauders multi chapter fic that I never finished so... Harry Potter. 

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

Oh god, I never know what to say to these because I think I mix up how much I liked a fic vs. how much others liked a fic. But I’ll do my best. 

WCBCR will always have a soft spot in my heart because it really connected me to Penelope and Colin as characters and helped me understand their relationship better. I think It was glorious was most enjoyable for me to write because it brought me back to early 2021 when I really was excited to write most of the time. I also really like An unexpected visitor, which is a bit of a random Anthony&Gareth one, but I like working through some of the more random pairings. 

tagging / saying hello to: @overripe-citrus-fruit @fact-fictionx​ @hallownight89​ @sirphillipcranestanaccount 💕or anyone who sees this and wants to give it a go! take some time and interview yourself ✍️

[helena-thessaloniki]

Hi Helena! Big fan of your writing here🥺♥️ Your rivamika fics are my safe space 😭 (if you have time to answer) i’d love to know when you first started shipping them, why, and what made you continue to love this ship (or anything else to do with your journey as an RM shipper)? i love your characterisation of both levi and mikasa individually, but even more so, your portrayal of their dynamic as a couple, which is why i wanted to ask so badly ☺️ x

Hey anon! Oh woah, first of all, thank you so much. Second of all, oh god, you probably shouldn't have handed me the mic. heh 😅

I’m afraid to look at the word count of this response, I’m sure it’s much more than you bargained for, but I appreciate the question and enjoyed thinking through my response (: Most importantly, I’m so glad you find my stories as a safe space. It’s really an honor. Thank you for sharing with me 🖤🖤

TL; DR As a longtime reader, writer and lover of stories and story-telling, by being someone who pays attention to how stories are crafted and deliberately developed from beginning to end, I sincerely thought Isayama was setting up rivamika as an endgame relationship. So, I read into and interpreted meaning out of ALL their interactions and became deeply invested.

I don’t necessarily ship them cause of the parallels, age gap, enemies to lover trope, height difference, or some of those common reasons and/or kinks. I’m more basic and boring than that. I love the concept of them coming together as though it’s inevitable.

They both are unbelievably strong, selfless, and have suffered so much loss— so, no one else could truly understand them as well as they can understand each other. They both probably would have always settled for a stable, simple life, and been alone and lonely even without realizing it— instead, they find each other, and realize what it means to actually no longer be alone, to do more than just survive. It’s this understated bond, as opposed to a dramatic and passionate romance, that I envision in them and that I love so much.

Then, the passion, heat, the romantic "spark"— I think that’s an added bonus, the cherry on top, the perfect final puzzle piece. They’re both so physically capable, can speak through their actions, and don’t show much need or capacity for emotional/ verbal communication, so the ability to connect with each other through physical intimacy and mind-blowing sex seems like another given.

Still, at the end of the day, for me it comes back to their ability to fully depend on each other, to the inevitability. Not like some soulmate trope where they 'have no choice' in it, but like the stars aligned to prove it's right. How each of them have only one other person on the whole planet who could see and understand them, to be on par with them, to make them realize there’s more to life than settling and surviving, and they happen to find it in each other.

You asked, I rambled 😅 Here’s a breakdown of my thought process in my rivamika journey. For those who make it to the end or want to skip to the end, I'll finish with the excerpt of the very first rivamika scene I felt compelled to to write.

I've tried before to re-watch and remember the exact scenes, exact moments, that initially captured my full attention, but I guess it was all of them, the gradual and cumulative compilation of their earliest interactions.

Mikasa always appearing cool and indifferent, and paying no attention whatsoever to others fawning over, like Jean initially falling for her, but then her strongly reacting over Levi in the courtroom showed how uniquely capable he was at getting under her skin.

Of course, the scene in the forest chasing the Female Titan was a critical one. I think of that as the first time both Levi and Mikasa were truly able to see the other's strength, mental and physical. And for them, orphans and trauma survivors who have suffered extensive loss, I think that seeing strength in another person made them feel less alone. Less alone in a deep, quiet but cataclysm, life-altering sort of way, even if not a romantic one. Like they didn't know it was something they didn't have, something they didn't expect to get from life, but then found it with each other.

(Even when we found out Levi was an Ackerman, I was disappointed if it meant they were immediate relatives, but willing to accept it wouldn't be a romantic end to loneliness, it would be a familial end to loneliness. But... the author never explored that. Not once.)

In that forest scene, manga and anime, the way that Levi pauses to really look and see Mikasa and think about who she is, what she’s gone through, and how strong and dedicated she is now— that was a defining moment. It was also a visual demonstration of Levi breaking character, from aloof and ruthless, to considering and curious. I thought Yams was showing both of them do that on purpose.

Then, Levi getting hurt because of Mikasa in that scene felt like another clue. Sure, it was while saving Eren, and sure, it could have been meant to humanize super-soldier Levi, or sure, it could have been another aspect of how Mikasa rushing into things over Eren ends up hurting other people that later changes in her character development, but it felt like a very pointed statement about Mikasa being a vulnerability for Levi. And that's swoon-worthy, right? Most of us have been exposed to and conditioned by stories about how special and romantic it is to be the one and only girl who can make an otherwise disinterested or unattainable guy actually pay attention to her, and so admittedly I fall right for it.

I’m sure I’m forgetting plenty, but the opening of season 3 felt like confirmation. When Levi figures out Kenny's behind things and entrusts Mikasa with instructions to share with the others, instructions about fighting people instead of titans that ultimately everyone else besides her struggles with, and when Mikasa lets Levi hold her back from chasing after Eren, her most important way of trusting and having faith in Levi, I honestly took that as cues from the author that rivamika was endgame. I let myself get truly invested from then on. That’s that understated bond I was referring to. To me, that unspoken but undeniable trust is the most important dynamic.

Seeing them fight together or fight similarly has always been fun and powerful and fulfilling.

I'm newer to the snk club. I was originally an anime-only fan and started watching in fall 2019, I think. I wasn't on tumblr, twitter, or anything else to see fandom discourse. So, I didn't know that the rooftop scene of Mikasa fighting Levi over the serum was such a staple for our ship until much later. I love the scene just like many do for all the reasons we do, but I don't think the actual scene was pivotal for me, so much as it's aftermath. I thought it represented two things.

One, it was an important marker in Levi's characterization. Hands-down one of the most striking scenes to me is the one where Levi is in the alley, somber and alone, listening in on Eren, Armin, and Mikasa talking together. It artfully shows his longing for hope and connection. So, when Levi chose Armin for the serum, that represented Levi choosing hope. And when Mikasa ultimately gave up fighting Levi and didn't choose Armin, which Armin finds out about later on, I see that as an important marker in Mikasa's development. It puts a wedge between her and Armin/Eren [Armin, because he knows she would have let him die, and Eren, because Armin is too special to him and he couldn't look at her the same way after realizing she would have let him die]. That distance between her and her childhood friends is one I don't think could ever be healed completely, one of those painful lessons in growing up. By doing that, it then also puts a distance in Mikasa's own childhood self to her current self. I thought that matured her and separated her out in a way that was another clue toward eventual rivamika developments.

That's a whole other conversation on Mikasa, but I’ll stay on track. Her love for Armin was absolutely authentic and fierce, but at the end of the day, at the core of her being, she chose survival over hope. Meanwhile, Levi chose hope over survival. To me, that was soft, fertile ground for the reasons why eventually, if/when Mikasa found hope and chose hope, that could directly tie together with her inevitably in coming together with Levi. Again, less butterflies and fireworks, but more natural and in a way that was just a given.

I wrote Beyond the Walls before reading the manga from the Marley Arc and on, so that's why most of that story is her journey into embracing that hope. *manga spoilers* There's a lot of meta, criticism and talk about Mikasa's silent, off-screen and subtle style of character development in the Marley Arc and afterward. I won't go down that road, I'm still processing the end of the manga to be honest, but I think it's fair to say she does eventually end up choosing hope over survival when she lets go of Eren and saves humanity instead. I love the “Stay with Me” line and think it’s perfect; a simple but profound display of trust and their deep-rooted bond in a really understated way. *end manga spoilers*

Here's something I always wanted to talk about in full but haven't. It honestly reads to me like Yams was building toward rivamika, and didn’t do anything to stop that until too late. There are tools authors can use to ensure we stop shipping a pair or start shipping a new one; love triangles are commonly used in every artistic medium and we’ve all been persuaded by these tools. But Yams didn’t use these tools to make sure readers didn’t feel convinced by rivamika. For all the reasons I listed above, more I'm forgetting, and for the following:

If he wanted us to think they were family and it would be incest, he should have added in a conversation between them realizing they were (close) family and that they weren't the only ones left in their biological family like they thought. But he didn't.

If he wanted us to think it was completely inappropriate between a child-and-adult and student-and-teacher, then he could have done something to ensure Mikasa looked childish or Levi looked older, but no. They barely look ten years apart. I do think it's unacceptable and that there's a power imbalance between a child-and-adult relationship regardless of that, and that there can't be true consent when one is a superior and another a subordinate, so I personally age-up Mikasa in my head and try to handle his position of power responsibly in my writings... but the point being, by the end of canon, there's no inappropriate or non-consensual romance between them, yet there's a lot of history and chemistry that could naturally lead to an age-appropriate and consensual relationship. If Yams didn't want us to think so, he could have made it more clear that there were reasons it wouldn't happen.

The only thing that makes sense to me is the author planned on rivamika endgame but was shamed/pressured out of it (either internally or due to others) OR that the author somehow accidentally created such vibrant chemistry and an incredible dynamic between them. Like, he didn't put enough convincing substance of eremika in, didn't make Levi look old enough, didn’t have one of them do something unforgivable in the other’s eyes, etc. Those are some of those tools he could have used. Romance was never a key component in snk. And since we now know Yams planned or needed eremika endgame for sake of plot and the conclusion of the manga, I personally think he didn't know what to do with the riveting rivamika substance and chemistry being much more convincing to readers. Once he had them so well built-up, maybe the only option he felt he had was to just stop putting the characters together. We get little-to-no rivamika interaction, platonic or practical, after season 3 all the way up until the very end. But there was so much of it beforehand ?? So, it simply doesn't make sense. I think the author just straight-up cut any and all interactions out between them because it was too convincing and moving, more convincing and substantial than eremika. But, as the end of canon shows, we needed to have some eremika buy-in. It's messy writing and unskilled in the romance department, but considering for how long and how complicated snk has been in a creative process and how lackluster the eremika romance (the main and apparently pivotal romance) is developed, I think it’s plausible to say the author effed up.

As far as writing fanfiction goes, there's just so much room to explore them. In canon, we aren't given enough insight into their individual perspectives, let alone their dynamic together, so it feels like a blank canvas to work from. I think that's part of why I love to write them, and also why I don't necessarily read much of them. When I first started shipping them while watching the anime, I read a few of the classics that were canon-verse, but I haven’t really read much since. For me, exploring and discovering them as a writer is the most fun. (It's one of the reasons Naruto and Harry Potter have such large fanfiction collections. There's so much world-building and so many characters, but there's also so much left to the imagination.)

In general, I'm drawn to strong characters, especially women, who are multidimensional enough to be real, vulnerable and soft. Mikasa is the pinnacle of that. I don’t necessarily like to write about her love or infatuation with Eren, but I do respect and admire and consider it integral to her character and her amazing capacity to love. We can have strong, kickass women who falter when it comes to love but are still considered strong for it. The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive and Mikasa is a beautiful example of that.

And Levi is strong, but real and vulnerable too; he’s honestly a fantastically developed character, from Petra explaining to Eren in the beginning how he’s not the amazing hero he’s painted to be to the public, to how Levi genuinely cares for Erwin and others and chooses hope despite all he’s suffered.

The end of the manga wrecked me a bit. Kind of like Games of Thrones. You have something that was so epic and well-done for so long, a rushed ending that isn't immediately sensical and isn't fulfilling is hard to stomach. Eventually, I'll move on from the denial of that and process what I think and feel about it. The whole reason we have fanfiction is to expand on canon, but it's made me put rivamika on the back burner until I figure it out. So I'm a little less hyper-fixated on the pairing right now even though interacting with you all and asks like this remind me what brought me here in the first place. 😊

To conclude, I’ll share that the very first rivamika content I wrote was a compilation of moments I thought could be inserted into season 3. These are still moments I plan to edit and publish one day. For anyone that actually read this far, I’ll put a rough and unedited excerpt of the first scene I ever wrote about them.

Thank you again anon 🖤😊

BEGIN EXCERPT [after the rooftop fight for the serum, immediately following the ceremony where Eren touched Historia by kissing her hand]:

Part of her was embarrassed at such a flagrant act of disobedience to a superior, especially to one who saved her and countless others' lives in the past. But mostly, she was anguished by the situation Captain Levi put her in once he revoked the serum meant to save Armin and planned to use it on Commander Erwin instead. Her current ostracization and self-loathing was not entirely her own fault. Anger she felt toward herself was just as easy to wield against him.

It must have shown in the grit of her teeth or defiant tone, because he turned to look at her, more aloof than curious.

Like a flint struck to steel, it ignited the fury she felt toward him.

“I shouldn’t have hesitated. I should have just killed you,” she answered him at last, piercing him with eyes darker than the night.

He wasn’t concerned. “You’re good, but not that good.”

Her hands fell to her side, fists clenched as she stood with a single, fluid movement. Before she could let loose a threat, he sighed.

“What’s the problem, Ackerman?” He was dismissive, his shoulders relaxed and posture loose.

The fire too furious to contain, she went sailing for him with the same speed from the battlefield. Her fingers already curled, she tightened her grasp as she swung her fist into his gods-damned apathetic face.

Levi wasn’t unprepared. He easily side-stepped her, then snatched her wrist to steal her momentum. Though he tried to toss her aside, she was no less fast; Mikasa dug her heel in and spun, her other arm shoving hard into his chest.

Too graceful to stumble, Levi used the chance to hook her second arm too. He caged both her wrists in a grip so strong, she was sure it bruised her bones. Still, he only looked at her warily, almost bored.

“Shouldn’t you be grateful? I chose Armin.” If his reminder was meant to ease her anger, it had the opposite effect.

Fury and desperation gifted her additional strength. She shoved into his chest hard. Levi shifted backward, nearly forced into loosening his grip; within that split second of an opening, Mikasa slammed her elbow into his chin, rocking his head backward.

“You did,” she seethed, but as fast as the fire inside her exploded, it was doused. Her next words came out broken and damp. “But I didn’t.”

Levi remained stern and otherwise unmoving as he attempted to flex his jaw through the spasm of pain. As the momentum of the fight died down, he loosened his hold on her wrists and evaluated her distraught frame.

Mikasa immediately released her own hands and turned away from him, eyes stinging from tears she refused to shed as she focused on the stars ahead. Admitting the harsh words aloud hurt her far more than any injury she could inflict onto him.

Not only was Armin one of the only friends she had, but he’d been a steadfast one throughout almost all she could remember of her life. After the trauma of her childhood, it was Eren and Armin who embraced her, whom she learned to love. Now, though, there was a wedge between her and Armin she was not sure could ever be removed. What was worse, as deplorable and selfish as she knew it proved her to be, was the painful wedge it now put between her and Eren too.

Once again, she found Levi standing at the peripheral of her sight, close enough to see but far enough to be a blur at the edge of her watery vision.

“You almost killed me.” Levi repeated his earlier words, but he said them with an odd bite, torn between frustration and patience. “You would have killed me to save him.”

Too late, Mikasa realized he hadn’t meant these words as an accusation, but an odd form of validation. She bit her bottom lip, teeth puncturing too hard; the tang of metal was sharp on her tongue when she swallowed blood.

“You thought about letting your closest friend die,” Levi said quietly, tiredly. “But I did let mine die. I left him for dead, when I could have saved him.”

Mikasa was startled from her selfish reverie, for the first time acknowledging the sacrifice he made on that fateful afternoon. She’d been too absorbed in her own relief, and then, her own regrets to consider what the decision had done to him.

For a brief moment, she considered turning to face him, but the stark reality of the matter made her refrain. How could she feel pity for his loss, when his loss enabled her gain? An uncomfortable knot tightened in her stomach.

“Tch,” Levi sighed. He was only one notch less taciturn, but for him, that was soft. “You’ll live with your guilt, and I’ll live with mine.”

His words granted Mikasa’s tears the permission to spill. She buried her face further into her scarf, both hands trembling at the worn threads. As quietly as he arrived onto the roof, Levi disappeared from it.

.

.

It was rare for him to indulge in alcohol or celebrations, but Erwin’s absence felt more tangible than his presence ever did. Levi distracted himself with the chaos of the few remaining Scouts that Erwin had died entrusting his legacy to, and attempted to drown the pain with whatever drink Connie Springer shoved into his hands.

He found Hanji with their ale long-forgotten about on the table as they half-stood from their seat, frantic while explaining some morbid experiment in great, vivid detail to an unsuspecting and slightly horrified MP officer.

Though Levi wordlessly took the seat beside them, Hanji paused their rant to slap him hard on the back, an enthusiastic greeting flying from their drunken lips. The MP took this chance to excuse himself, a pathetic attempt at politeness, but Hanji either didn’t care or didn’t notice.

“Ah, Levi,” they smiled at his drink, though it didn’t entirely reach their one eye. “Where you been?”

Levi didn’t answer. “You know, shitty-glasses, you’re even more unbearable about your experiments when you’re drunk.”

Hanji waved dismissively and reached for their ale. Years spent in battle and command together had gifted both of them with an eased familiarity, and sometimes, genuine friendship. In the same manner he ignored their question, Hanji ignored his lack of response and went on with their original inquiry.

“Careful, Captain,” Hanji warned lightly. “Now that there’s far fewer Scouts, you having a favorite might cause some division.”

Even though Hanji meant the words, there was a glint of mischief that twinkled in their remaining eye.

“It’s not favoritism,” Levi countered bluntly, turning his vision toward the young man on the far side of the room. “Eren is simply the best chance that we have in this war.”

Hanji laughed as if he’d made a joke and Levi looked back to stare at them, unable to be surprised at their quirks or oddities any longer, but still a touch curious about what spurned this current demonstration.

“I wasn’t talking about Eren,” Hanji said at last, a pointed nod toward his injured chin.

Levi blinked. He didn’t realize he was nursing his injury with the hand not on his drink. As though it were too hot to touch, Levi dropped his hand.

Hanji was not judgmental, nor inquisitive. In a war-torn life of losing too many cadets entrusted to him, the fact that Levi found a soldier with the strength and skill to remain safe was not only rare, but worth special attention. Still, it made him too lenient.

“Sometimes I think you’d let her get away with murder,” Hanji chided halfheartedly.

When he thought of Erwin dead in his grasp, sometimes he wasn’t sure if he already had.

[violetwolfraven]

Hey :)

Could I request 18 ("I didn't ask you to do that!") for Sprace in canon era? Maybe some angst with a Happy Ending?

Bold of you to assume I have the emotional capacity to write angst if I’m not putting a happy ending or at least the potential for one in there. This should be fun! I need to write more stuff from Spot’s POV so I’ll try that today!!

This is kinda Spot’s side of the ikeshot fic I just wrote btw.

Tw: violence, stab wound mention, blood.

...

Spot’s hands were shaking as he washed the blood off in the washroom of Brooklyn’s Lodging House.

He was more rattled than he’d ever been since he became King of Brooklyn, and that was including every brawl, rumble, and attempted coup he’d endured since he was 13. It was even counting the heart-pounding adrenaline from when he and Race first got together, the terror of letting himself care about someone.

Caring about people was terrifying. It still was.

But what Spot was feeling now wasn’t just fear. It was anger. It was protectiveness. It was just this kind of... shakiness down to his core.

Jester, the leader of Queens, had apologized and offered what help he could, but it hadn’t made it any better. Neither side knew who’d broken the terms of the rumble and brought a knife. Jester swore he’d told his kids to come unarmed.

But the damage was already done.

They’d had to rush Hotshot back to the Lodging House.

There was so much blood.

“Hey.”

Spot was already so rattled that he jumped, not having realized there was anyone behind him.

Fortunately it was just Race, but he was still kicking himself that he let himself get snuck up on like that.

Wait, it was Race... in the middle of the night in the wrong borough?

“What’re ya doin’ here?”

Race shrugged, coming over to stand next to him, “Bluebird showed up at our Lodging House. She said Rafaela said Hotshot was hurt and you needed me.”

Spot made a mental note to remind Rafaela that Bluebird was too young to be on the streets alone at night, but with the fact that she’d known to send for Race...

He guessed he wasn’t particularly surprised. Raf was always intuitive, and she’d known Spot longer than anyone else still in Brooklyn. Of course she knew about them.

“What else did Blue tell ya?”

“Nothin’. What happened?”

“The usual,” Spot muttered, “We fought Queens again. Only this time... this time nobody won. We called a truce cause Hotshot got stabbed.”

Race’s eyes widened, “Oh, damn.”

“Yeah. We agreed no weapons, but somebody snuck a knife in. Jester swears he don’t know who. He wasn’t lyin’.”

“Is Hotshot okay?”

Spot shrugged, “He’s alive.”

Panic shot through his heart suddenly at the realization of how close it had come with how ‘he’s alive’ was the only thing Spot had to say right now.

Between having to carry Hotshot home and keep the stab wound from killing him, he hadn’t had time to think. Hadn’t had time to panic. It was just keep Hotshot alive and whatever you do, do not think about what happens if you lose him.

Spot left the room quickly, speed-walking up the stairs to his room. He could hear Race following, but he couldn’t bring himself to care until he got up there and saw his second. He just had to be sure he was still with them.

Hotshot was unconscious and pale, but still breathing, thankfully.

He was a big, strong kid, but he looked young and vulnerable in the moonlight.

He was 15.

He was 15 and he’d almost died on Spot’s watch tonight.

“Hey,” Race said quietly, closing the door behind them, “He’s gonna be okay. I can see him breathin’ from here.”

“You didn’t see the blood,” Spot mumbled, “There was so much of it. I thought he was gonna bleed out right in front of me.”

“He didn’t.”

“He coulda. He almost did. And it woulda been my fault.”

“C’mon Spot, it ain’t like you’re the one who stabbed—“

“Why are you even here, Race?” Spot hissed, turning to him, “Why’d ya walk over the bridge in the middle of the night, huh? I didn’t ask you to do that!”

“No, ya didn’t,” Race admitted, still meeting Spot’s stare and matching it for intensity, “Your friends did, cause they knew ya needed someone to be there for you and ya wouldn’t let them be. So I’m here. For you. So talk to me, love. Why do ya think Hotshot bein’ hurt is your fault?”

Spot really wished he could argue. He still felt shaky inside, and talking about why felt dangerous. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to go over to Queens and punch every kid there in the face or if he wanted to run away and find some dark corner to cry in, but he was just... shaky. Rattled.

He trusted Race, though. A part of him wanted to lean on him. To talk through this soul-shaking fear that for some reason was stemming from almost losing his second.

“It’s my fault because Queens stepped in on our territory one time and I couldn’t leave well enough alone,” he said finally, “I planned that rumble. I knew it’d end in Brooklyn injuries and... and... God, it almost ended in us losin’ Hotshot.”

It was only now fully sinking in that Spot didn’t know what he’d do if Hotshot died. He didn’t know if he’d be able to run Brooklyn without him. He could lose a lot, but he could not lose Hotshot.

“He’s 15 years old,” he whispered, “He’s a child and I almost got him killed.”

Race was still looking him in the eye, completely level. A little sad, but mostly just calm.

As scared as he still was, it was helping Spot calm down, too.

“It wasn’t your fault, Spot,” he said firmly, “Ya can’t account for every risk every time. You couldn’ta known a Queens kid would break the terms.”

Spot shrugged, pointing to his temple, “See, up here, I know you’re right. But in here...”

He gestured vaguely to his chest. The part that still felt cold and shaky with fear.

Four years of being king, and he’d managed not to lose too many kids in that time. He’d lost a few to sickness, but those were predictable. Those were preventable, if he planned hard enough. And deaths via gangsters or bad parents were preventable if he made sure everyone was careful, so overall, Spot managed to keep most of his borough alive, or at least predict it when one of them was going to die and make sure he and everyone else was prepared for it.

Hotshot’s close call was so sudden. Spot hadn’t expected it. He guessed that was why it was freaking him out so much. That he hadn’t predicted and prepared for if a Queens kid was armed.

The fact that he hadn’t accounted for that risk was probably why he felt so guilty. He felt like he should’ve known. Should’ve warned Hotshot before he got hurt.

“You told me once that I was your biggest weakness,” Race muttered, putting a hand on his shoulder, “I don’t think that’s true.”

“What?”

“Spot, ya don’t let a lot of people in, but with the ones you do, it’d destroy you if you lost one of ‘em. That’s why you’re so rattled over Hotshot. Cause this was a close call and he’s like a little brother to you.”

That was... true, even if Spot had never really thought about it before. He knew he cared for Hotshot, but he’d never really thought about how it was something similar to how Joey cared for Bart and Walking Mouth cared for Les.

“I don’t know what I’d do if I lost him,” he admitted.

Race put his arms around him, leaning his head onto Spot’s shoulder, “You won’t lose him. I’m pretty good at first aid and stuff. I’ll stick around tonight if it’d make ya feel better.”

Spot did want Race to stay, though it wasn’t for his first aid skills.

“In the mornin’, you’s should head back over to Manhattan,” he said quietly, “Hotshot ain’t gonna like bein’ on bedrest, so bringin’ Ike over to make sure he stays in bed is probably our safest bet.”

“Oh, good idea. Those two are so cute.”

“Y’know who else is cute?” Spot asked, feeling suddenly like things might turn out alright.

“Who? Me?” Race asked with a laugh.

“No. Your mo—“

Race was already trying to keep his laughter quiet by the time he put his hand over Spot’s mouth, “Don’t finish that sentence. You’re ridiculous.”

Spot shoved his hand away, smiling, “Look who’s talkin’.”

“Guilty.”

Spot didn’t feel so shaken anymore. Race was here, and Hotshot was a strong kid, and everything was going to be fine.

[princess-geek]

Love Lesson

This fic is dedicated to my guardian angel @storyofmychoices. Besides she's a wonderful a writer, she's an incredible human being whose kind and light are endless. I never could thank her enough for what she has been doing for me.

Dear Dani, I know you usually don't read Hunt's fics written by other authors, but I hope you accept this one.

I hope you enjoyed it 😊💕

Choices Book: Red Carpet Diaries (a couple of years after Book 3)

Characters: Thomas Hunt, Miss Taylor (@storyofmychoices ), mentions to Jessica Massena (my RDC MC) and Matt Rodriguez.

Words: 1748

Warnings: none

Notes: English is not my first language. Please, excuse me any typos /or grammatical errors.   

Special thanks to @alj4890 for be by beta reader.

Jessica Massena exclusive pregnancy photos -  The most handsome Hollywood parents to be talk about the challenges of parenthood.

Thomas sighed and poured some more of the expensive scotch in the glass. He has no idea why he was wasting his time reading garbage press. He'll be the baby's godfather. He knew every detail about the issue. All the sacrifices she did to conceive...how the first months of nausea got her down. But now, she was radiant...healthy...happy...with Matt. 

She had woken up his senses and melted his heart unlike any other woman in years. He never actually had confessed his feelings because it was clear like crystal whom her heart belonged to.  For a while, it drove him crazy. Nowadays, he had made peace with his feelings and he came back to his old self. He also recognized that it was nothing more than a crush, a fever of an almost middle-aged man caused by her infectious joy.  Jessica Massena was a closed chapter in his life.

He abandoned the magazine and refocused on his research. A tragic death of a beloved teacher in a shooting at a high school inspired him to approach the question of USA public schools’ problems. He had read tons of news and academic papers about it, but they were too theoretical. He needed to breath that air, step on those dirty floors, hear the sounds. So, he decided to visit some public schools in area.

Since he was invited to speak at a university conference in New York, Thomas decided to visit some schools there too.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Kids and teens. Many. Too many. It was a banal New York school. Perfect.

As he wandered through the corridors, he saw a girl crying, hidden in the corner of lockers. Thomas wanted to do something, but he didn't know what to do or even what to say to calm the girl down. He never had a good way with children.

While Thomas was still distressed in his dilemma, a brunette stopped her hurried march, stepped back, placed a giant coffee cup on the floor and knelt beside the girl.

She gently wiped the girl's tears away. Thomas couldn't hear clearly what they were talking about, but he noticed that the girl calmed down as the woman spoke to her and stroked her hair.

“After class, I promise I'll go with you to talk to the principal. They can't do that and get away with it!”  the brunette promised hugging the girl tightly.

It was the last thing Thomas heard before the bell rings.

With confusion in the crowded corridors, Thomas lost sight of the girl and the brunette. 

The school board recommended him to visit Miss Taylor's class, classroom no.51. It took a while, but he finally found the classroom. Before knocking on the door, Thomas suddenly felt nervous, with a knot in his stomach.

‘In the name of art, Thomas, in the name of art …' he murmured before knocking.

The door opened. Many pairs of expectant eyes looked back at him with curiosity. When the door opened a little more, it revealed the brunette he had seen with the girl.

His eyes fixed on her sweet chestnut for a moment, and, no matter how cliché and cheesy this may be, his heart literally skipped a beat. Thomas felt an inexplicable warmth come to his face. Fortunately, the beard would camouflage his rosy cheeks. Whatever happened in those seconds, it didn't seem to affect the brunette who looked away.

“Is this Miss Taylor’s class?”

“Yes.”

“I have permission from school board to attend your class. I’m…”

“I know who you’re... please come in,” she smiled shyly, “I apologize for not having a seat for you ... the room is at its maximum capacity ... but if you want you can sit at my desk…”

“No way, Miss Taylor! Don’t worry about me. I am going to the back of the room. You won't even notice my presence. Thank you for having me.”

 She just nodded.

“Class, let me introduce you Mr. Hunt. He is a famous director…”

“We watched one of his movies a few weeks ago, didn't we, Miss Taylor?”

“Yes, we did…”

“Mr. Hunt, Miss Taylor is a huge a fan of you…she said she watched all your movies…”

Miss Taylor's cheeks changed to increasingly reddish tones.

“Kids let me finish, please…”

“Is it true that Jessica Massena blow you off?”

“Samantha don’t be nosy! I’m so sorry, Mr. Hunt…they’re well behaves kids. I'm sure this is the excitement speaking for them,”

“I'm not making anything up ... it's in all the magazines!” Samantha protested.

“Miss Taylor is single, and she already has a soft spot for you…You could ask her out!” another girl added.

“Children, you’re crossing the line ... one more inappropriate observation and you are grounded!”

“That’s okay, miss Taylor…they’re just kids.” Thomas said.

“Thank you for understanding, Mr. Hunt...As I was saying, Mr. Hunt will be here at school for some days and attend some classes for research proposals.”

“This is for a new movie?”

“Can we be part of it?”

The students were even more excited.

It took some time for them to calm down, but little by little, Miss Taylor, in a sweet and serene voice, managed to calm them down and refocus their attention on her.

After correcting homework, Miss Taylor started her Math lesson. The way she explained it was truly remarkable…inspiring. She put in those numbers the same passion he had seen in the greatest actresses.

She was very affectionate with the students. One of them was having troubles in understanding an exercise. Miss Taylor explained it once, twice, three times ... always calmly and patiently.

“Very good! I knew you could do this.” Miss Taylor encouraged the student.

Jessica Massena was a consuming fire, but the brunette teacher was warming his soul, a kind of heat that settles on the skin, on the bones and makes us feel good and at peace.

From time to time, when she thought he wasn’t looking, Miss Taylor threw him a discreet shy look. When their eyes locked, she blushed, adjusted her hair nervously and looked away.

Thomas found himself completely mesmerized. In fact, he felt like he was in one of those cheesy movies where the main character is completely lost gazing at the girl, there is a pop romantic ballad playing in the background and the sun shines brighter.

 He didn't notice time passing, delighted to hear and observe her. The bell woke him from the trance.

“Sorry again for the kids... and for and the indiscreet remarks.”

“No need to apologize. It's part of the children's charm ... at least that's what people say.”

“I hope you found our class useful for your research.”

“Yes...thank you for having me...”

There was an awkward silence for a few seconds. Whenever one looked, the other looked away.

“The pleasure was ours. If there is anything that kids or I can do for help...”

He barely heard her, captivated by her natural features. Her lips were two beautiful pink lines. Thomas had never thought of his life being enchanted by a nose, but Miss Taylor's nose was the cutest nose he had ever seen. The director was so distracted that he didn’t notice he was leaning against a desk, which, at some point, gave in to his weight, causing him to lose his balance.

She tried to grab his arm to hold him, but the force of gravity had no mercy and the director ended up falling on the floor dragging Miss Taylor with him who landed on top of him.

Just a couple of inches were separating their lips. “Kiss her!” a voiced shouted in a corner of his head, “Are you crazy, Thomas?” another inner voice replied, “You’ve only known her for a couple of hours ... What would she think of you?”

I must have hit my head very hard... his rational self thought.

“Oh Lord, I’m so sorry, Miss Taylor...Are you okay?”

“Yes...and you? I’m so sorry. I was trying help and my clumsiness got things worse like the usual…”

“No, it was all my fault, Miss Taylor.”

Her perfume. It was not like the expensive signature perfume the women who he usually crossed paths. Her hair smelled like honey and her perfume was soft with hints of flowers.

“Maybe we should get up?”

“Yes, of course, sorry.” Thomas babbled.

She got up first and held out her hand to help him. Thomas declined delicately. A gentleman must help the lady and not the other way around.

However, when he got up, he fell out of balance again, falling once more.

Miss Taylor smiled to avoid laughter.

“You can laugh. This is absolutely ridiculous,” Thomas said, allowing a smile to appear on his lips.

He rose from the ground with as much dignity as possible, shaking the dust and smoothing his blazer. Moved by the instinct of help, Miss Taylor helped him to clean up. At some moment, their fingers touched and grazed each other’s for some seconds. She blushed and took her hand from his arm.

“May I offer you to a coffee? I mean, offer a coffee to you…as an I’m sorry coffee,”

“You don’t have to do it, Mr. Hunt…”

“Just Thomas, please…and I insist…It’d be a pleasure for me.”

“I…I'd love it…”

“Great! Do you recommend any place special?”

“Wait , I can’t…I’m sorry, I promised to help a student after classes…she really needs me today…I’m sorry…”

“She…your students are lucky to have you.”

Miss Taylor blushed. “I’m not that special…I just love what I do…I think you can understand me on that point…You used to be a professor too...and, you know how it is...When we love our job, we don’t just do it...we breathe it.”

Yes, he could understand that. And he was understanding that this he was feeling was something he shouldn’t ignore.

“I’ll come back tomorrow to Mr. Somerset’s classroom. Maybe, after classes tomorrow?”

She smiled.

“Until tomorrow.”

Thomas gently grabbed her hand, taking it to his lips and planting a gentle kiss on it, “I’m counting the minutes. Have a lovely evening, Miss Taylor.”

He made his way out of the classroom, but not resisting to steal some glances of her along the way, which cost him a blow to the shin, courtesy of desk’s iron leg. When he threw a last glance at the doorway, she said:

“Danielle. My name is Danielle.”

[bush-viper-cutie]

“No One Listens” || YEAR 3 – Ch.40 (HP au)

                              Chapter List

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Day posted: 2/6/2021

Word count: 2,888

Relationship: EVENTUAL severus X oc (slow burn)

Rating: E for everyone

Warnings: none

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A/N: This is my first fan fic I’m writing mainly as a way to practice. This is a retelling of the hp books with an inserted character. Although most every character will be written about, this is mostly for the pro snape fandom. Please do not fear, although this is a severus x oc story, it is an incredibly slow burn as I do not intend for them to get together at all until after the final book events. Chapters will be posted twice a week.

This derivative work follows the events of the Harry Potter books by Jk Rowling and is intended as a fun way to practice my writing. Thank you for reading :D

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Heather and Hermione followed Madam Pomfrey as she moved Harry into a bed next to Ron. He looked pale and there were beads of sweat trickling down his temples.

“When will he wake up?” Hermione asked.

Madam Pomfrey placed a cold towel on his forehead and sighed. “Soon I suspect. How many where there?”

“Dozens, maybe hundreds… or more…” Heather tried to count all the misty cloaks in her memory but they all morphed into one nightmare-ish cloud of anguish and torment.

“Oh dear.” Madam Pomfrey shook her head and moved onto Ron again.

Heather and Hermione sat on the chairs by Harry’s bed and waited for something to happen. Hermione seemed to be waiting for Harry and Ron to wake up, but now that Harry was safe under Madam Pomfrey’s care, Heather waited for Professor Dumbledore to show up like he always did after these events.

She would settle everything with Professor Dumbledore as soon as he arrived and save Sirius, their only chance at a better home. She and Hermione would tell him everything that happened and their reputations as good students should at least warrant an investigation into it all.

“Shocking business…” a grim voice sounded from outside the hospital wing, just barely audible enough in the quiet chamber. “Shocking…”

Heather turned and strained her hearing.

“Miracle none of them died…”

Heather turned to Hermione and whispered, “I think that’s Fudge.”

Hermione nodded. “Is he alone?”

The voice was growing louder. He must be walking down the hall towards them! Heather moved to stand at the foot of Harry’s bed, ready to face the Minister of Magic with the unbelievable truth they’d all learned tonight.

“Never heard the like… by thunder, it was lucky you were there, Snape…”

“Thank you, Minister,” Snape said courtly.

Heather’s courage began to diminish. If Professor Snape was the one he was conversing with, then her reputation as a good student would surely be ruined if he mentioned her attack on him to Cornelius Fudge. She wondered if it was possible for her school file to transfer to a ministry file. Would her future employers be able to open up a file and know all the reasons for her detentions? Maybe she should hide again…

“Order of Merlin, Second Class, I’d say. First Class, if I can wrangle it!”

“Thank you very much indeed, Minister.” Professor Snape had never sounded more kindly.

Heather and Hermione exchanged wide-eyed looks. Although Professor Snape had done nothing for uncovering Peter Pettigrew and his whereabouts or listened to Sirius plead his innocence OR saved them all from Professor Lupin’s werewolf attack… She supposed she could look the other way, considering Harry was safe in bed next to her and not at the mercy of hundred or more soul-thirsty dementors.

“Nasty cut you’ve got there… Black’s work, I suppose?”

Her courage drained completely.

“As a matter of fact, it was the Potters.” He now sounded right on the other side of the hospital doors.

Furdge gasped. “You don’t say! Why, I wouldn’t have thought Harry to be the kind to – ”

“Black had them bewitched. I recognized it immediately. A Confundus Charm on each one, Weasley and Granger included, judging by their behavior. They seemed to believe there was a possibility he was innocent. They weren’t responsible for their actions… However, their interference might have led to more serious consequences had I not regained my consciousness in time. I believe they thought they were going to catch Black single-handed. Had their previous bad behavior not been excused, I’m sure they wouldn’t have even attempted it. They’ve gotten away with a great deal before now… I’m afraid it’s given them a rather high opinion of themselves… And of course the Potters have always been allowed an extraordinary amount of license by the Headmaster – I can hardly manage the girl with the boy being permitted just about anything.”

Heather closed her gaping mouth and crossed her arms. ‘Manage’? Her frown was as deep as Hermione’s. How were they to convince him if Professor Snape was going around saying they had been Confunded!

“Ah, well, Snape…. You know how it is, with Harry Potter and of course his sister… We’ve all got a bit of a blind spot where they’re concerned.”

“And yet – is it good for them to be given so much special treatment? Personally, I try to treat them like any other student. And any other student would be suspended – at the very least – for leading their friends into such dangers. Consider, Minister… against all school rules set in place for them, after all the precautions the Ministry put in place for them, they found themselves out-of-bounds, after hours, consorting with a werewolf and a murderer – and I have reason to believe they’ve been visiting Hogsmeade illegally too – ”

“Yes, yes, well… We shall see. We shall see… They have been undoubtedly foolish – ”

“Foolish. Half-witted. Irresponsible. Imprudent – ”

“They are children after all – say, you’ve really no idea what made all the dementors retreat?”

“No, Minister… By the time I had come ‘round, they were all heading back to their positions at the entrances.”

“Oh dear… Their behavior both amazes me and frightens – to be perfectly honest. You don’t think Black had commanded them in any way before he fell to their effects?”

“Trust me, Minister, Black hasn’t the skill or capacity for the knowledge. He is merely a dangerous murderer through sheer excitement for chaos and his atrocious disregard for lives. Potter is lucky to be alive. If the dementors hadn’t exhausted Black half to death – ”

Heather jumped. Was Sirius really half dead? But he wasn’t being treated in the hospital wing… Hermione looked to her with concern. She hoped Professor Snape would leave already so they could have the Minister’s ears to themselves.

“I am sure this night would have ended quite differently,” Professor Snape finished.

“Ah, you’re awake!”

Heather turned to Madam Pomfrey and saw her looking down at Harry. She was carrying the largest brick of chocolate she’d ever seen.

She took out a little wooden mallet from her nurse’s apron pocket and began crushing it on Harry’s bedside table. “Belgian dark chocolate, only used for emergencies. And don’t mind the cocoa solids if you find any, those’ll perk you right up – What do you think you’re doing, Mr. Potter?”

Harry sat up and slid his glasses up his nose. “How’s Ron?”

“He’ll live – Just one moment, Potter – ” She tried to push him back into bed but he wiggled out before she could.

“We need to see the Headmaster,” Harry said hoarsely.

“Fudge is right outside,” Heather told him. “When he comes in here we can, but first – hey!”

“Good then let’s go tell him right now.” Harry pushed passed Hermione and Heather and headed for the door.

“Potter,” Madam Pomfrey said as soothingly as possible. She had come around the bed and planted herself in his way. “It’s all right. They’ve got Black. He’s likely already locked away upstairs. The dementors should be performing the kiss any moment – ”

“WHAT?” all three of them yelled.

Madam Pomfrey angrily sushed them. “Mr. Weasley is resting – as you should be, Mr. Potter.”

The hospital doors swung open and Professor Snape and Cornelius Fudge stepped in, having heard their exclamation. Fudge didn’t look very pleased, seeing Harry out of bed and trying to get around Madam Pomfrey.

“You should be in bed, Harry.” He turned to Madam Pomfrey, “Has he had any chocolate?”

“Excuse me, Minister, please,” Heather cut in before Madam Pomfrey could drag Harry away. “Please, its important – ”

“Sirius Black is innocent,” Harry began talking over Heather. “We saw Peter Pettigrew tonight! He faked his death – we can’t let the dementors do that thing to Sirius! He’s – ”

Hermione joined in the explanation. “He was Ron’s rat, Scabbers, of course we didn’t know that – he’s an animagus you see and – ”

Fudge was shaking his head and waving his hands around, trying to halt their talking. “Harry, children – Please, you’re all very confused. This dreadful night has been far too much, hasn’t it? Let’s get you back in bed, Harry. Madam Pomfrey, please. Don’t worry, we have everything under control, children – ”

“BUT YOU HAVEN’T!” Harry yelled. “YOU”VE GOT THE WRONG MAN!”

Heather clasped her hands together pleadingly, desperate. “It’s true, please believe us, he’s innocent and Peter Pettigrew is getting away – ”

Professor Snape approached from behind Fudge’s shoulder. “See, Minister?” he whispered. “Completely confunded… Black’s done quite the job on them all.”

“NONE OF US ARE CONFUNDED!” Harry roared, throwing his arms up angrily.

“Minister! Professor! This conversation is distressing my patients and I must insist that you both leave.” Madam Pomfrey now began motioning them both away. “Mr. Potter, Miss Granger – this way to bed, please.”

“No! I’m not distressed! I’m trying to tell them what happened if they’d just listen!” Harry said furiously but Madam Pomfrey had found the perfect opportunity at the last word and stuffed a chunk of dark chocolate in his mouth.

Madam Pomfrey pulled Harry by the arm and forced him into bed. She turned back around and pointed at the door. “Now, visiting hours are over, please, Minister.”

But before Madam Pomfrey could shoo them out, the door opened and Professor Dumbledore came in, spotting them immediately.

Heather ran up to him and walked by his side as he approached the group. “Professor! Peter Pettigrew is gone – and Sirius Black is – ”

He walked on, ignoring her completely without even a look her way. Her heart dropped. Everyone was ignoring them! An innocent man was about to die and not a single person in the room was willing to hear them out!

“Headmaster, I’m trying to deliver the proper care to these students. I must insist that everyone leave so that they may calm down – ”

“Of course, Poppy, my apologies. However I do need a word with the Potters and Miss Granger for just a moment.” Professor Dumbledore looked at Harry, “I’ve just been talking to Sirius Black – ”

Professor Snape scoffed in revulsion. “And is he still telling the same fairy tale he’s planted in their minds? Something about a rat and Pettigrew being alive – ”

“That very one,” said Professor Dumbledore, regarding Professor Snape closely over his half-moon glasses.

“And does my evidence count for nothing?” Professor Snape spat. “Peter Pettigrew was not in the Shrieking Shack, nor did I see any sign of him on the grounds.”

“That was because you were knocked out!” Heather said too quickly to rethink her words.

“And who’s fault was that!” he snarled.

“But it’s true,” Hermione began, sounding like she often did in class. “If you had only arrived in time to hear – ”

“Miss Granger, HOLD YOUR TONGUE!”

The Minister jumped at Professor Snape’s tone. “Now, Snape. They are clearly disturbed in the mind. After what happened, we must make allowances – ”

“I would like to speak to Harry, Heather, and Hermione alone,” Professor Dumbledore cut him off. “Cornelius, Severus, Poppy – Please leave us.”

“Albus! But they need rest and – ” Madam Pomfrey frowned at Professor Dumbledore’s polite smile and huffed. She marched off across the room and slammed her office door shut.

Fudge took out a large golden pocket watch from his waistcoat and consulted it. “The dementors should have arrived by now.” He looked out the window and shivered, turning back to Professor Dumbledore. “I’ll meet you upstairs.” He walked to the door and held it open for Professor Snape.

Professor Snape made no intention to leave and Fudge walked out, letting the door close on its own.

“You surely don’t believe a word of Black’s story?” Professor Snape whispered, his eyes fixed on Professor Dumbledore’s half-lidded eyes.

“I wish to speak to Harry, Heather, and Hermione alone,” Professor Dumbledore repeated politely.

Professor Snape took a step closer. “Sirius Black showed he was capable of murder at the age of sixteen,” he breathed. “You haven’t forgotten that, Headmaster? You haven’t forgotten that he once tried to kill ME?”

“My memory is as good as it ever was, Severus,” Professor Dumbledore said quietly. He stared down at Professor Snape for several seconds until he turned on his heel and stormed out of the room, slamming the door louder than even Madam Pomfrey.

As soon as it turned quiet, the three of them began speaking at once.

“Sirius is telling the truth! We saw Peter Pettigrew escape – ”

“ – he’s an animagus and ran when Professor Lupin turned into a werewolf and – ”

“ – a rat with only four fingers – ”

“ – is completely innocent and it’s really Pettigrew who – ”

Professor Dumbledore pressed his finger to his lips and they immediately stopped talking.

“You three must listen very closely, and there is no time for interruptions,” he said calmly. “It is your word – the word of three thirteen year olds who have already been accused of being confunded – and the word of a convicted criminal against the Minister’s and a member of my staff – a head of house no less – with no shred of proof to discredit the street full of eyewitness accounts who swear they saw Sirius murder Pettigrew. I myself gave evidence to the Ministry that Sirius had been the Potter’s Secret-Keeper.”

“But Professor Lupin can – ” Hermione was cut off by Professor Dumbledore’s hand held up to stop her.

“Professor Lupin is currently running deep within the forest, unable to tell anyone anything. By the time he is human again, it will have been too late for Sirius. Even if Professor Lupin could give his account to the details of tonight it would count for very little. Werewolves are deeply mistrusted by most of our kind and the fact that he and Sirius are old friends – ”

Harry was shaking his head. “But – ”

“Listen to me, Harry. It is too late for explanations. By the time you get anyone to listen to you, Sirius will be worse than dead. Professor Snape’s version of events is far more convincing than any of yours.”

“He refuses to listen because he hates Sirius!” Hermione wiped the tears that had started running down her cheek. “That’s why he refused to listen in the shack. All because of some stupid trick that Sirius played on him YEARS AGO – ”

“Sirius’ actions this year have not helped his reputation. The attack on the Fat Lady, entering Gryffindor Tower with a knife, none of those are actions of an innocent man. We would need Pettigrew, alive or dead, to have any chance at overturning Sirius’ sentence.”

Heather frowned. “But if you believe us, Professor… Can’t you – ”

Professor Dumbledore shook his head. “I have no power to make these men see the truth, or to overrule the Minister of Magic.”

Heather’s lips began to tremble as she ran out of ideas. What could they do? Their word didn’t matter. Sirius’ word didn’t matter. Professor Lupin couldn’t give his word and even if he did it wouldn’t matter. In a matter of seconds Sirius could be given the kiss and not even Professor Dumbledore could save him. Do they just give up?

She hugged herself and squeezed tight, wishing she could go back in time and act more enthusiastic about possibly living with Sirius. She regretted feeling so cautious about him and not participating in their special moment in the tunnel, godfather and godchildren reunited. “So then, what can we do? What do we do?”

Professor Dumbledore’s tone changed and he spoke very slowly, “Sirius is locked in a prison cell inside Professor Flitwick’s office on the seventh floor. Thirteenth window from the right of the West Tower. To save Sirius… we’ll need – ” His eyes moved to Hermione. “more time.”

Heather stared at Hermione intensely as she pieced together what Professor Dumbledore was saying.

“But – Oh!”

Professor Dumbledore smiled. “Keep in mind, you must not be seen. Miss Granger, you know the law – and you know what’s at stake… Do – not – be – seen.” He turned on his heel and was already across the room by the time Harry had realized their conversation had ended.

“B-but what – I don’t – ” Harry sputtered.

Professor Dumbledore opened the door and looked at them over his shoulder. “I’m going to lock you in. It is – ” he pulled out a pocket watch and flipped it open, “five minutes to midnight. Three turns should do it. Good luck.”

He closed the door and a click echoed through the chamber. Harry whirled around and stared at Hermione with Heather – who was crossing her arms over her chest, still staring but with an added frown.

Hermione ignored them and pulled on a golden chain around her neck, pulling a little trinket out from under her sweater. “Come here, both of you, quick!”

Harry moved towards her and Heather was pulled into them before she could open her mouth to start her long string of complaints. Hermione threw the chain around the three of them.

“Ready?” Hermione didn’t look up at them for confirmation. She picked up the trinket – it was a tiny golden hourglass with sand that sparkled with the light – and began twisting.

Heather watched her closely. “And when were you going to tell us about – ”

At the third twist, the hospital chamber dissolved.

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@lokilover-39

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[calumcest]

fight so dirty but your love’s so sweet

[ao3]

SO i participated in a fic event with a bunch of other very talented writers where we all took a prompt and had to include a phrase in the fic. my prompt was lashton - bad boy so...here is what i managed to come up with 

the masterlist of all the fics for this event can be found here 

this fic would be absolutely nowhere without @calumsclifford and @5sosnsfw i owe them an eternal debt of gratitude for their help with coming up with ideas and listening to me scream about it for days on end because i just could not write it and also to jex for betaing for me i owe you my soul at this point i think 

also i literally said when i started this i was going to struggle to keep it under 10k but honestly what do you expect from me? brevity? absolutely not. on the topic i want it to be known that i finished this fic at exactly 4:58pm and it is due at 5pm will i ever change? no. keep your expectations of me low and we will all do just fine 

-

Luke hates a good ninety-five percent of his job. 

A solid thirty percent of that comes from the fact that he works as a receptionist at a hotel, which he thinks is possibly the most thankless job humanity could possibly have created. A further ten comes from the fact that his desk is right next to the kitchen, meaning mouth-watering smells are constantly wafting under his nose, and Luke’s not allowed to eat on shift. 

Fifty-five percent of it, though, is Ashton.  

Ashton doesn’t work at the hotel, but Luke’s pretty sure he’s there more regularly than half of the staff who do. He’s Calum’s friend, or they live together, or they’re in a gang together, or something, because Calum is how Luke knows Ashton’s name. Ashton will always slouch against Luke’s desk, cigarette tucked behind his ear, and then Calum will come out of the kitchen and Ashton will push himself off the desk and walk out with him. Luke’s never spoken to Calum, but he knows Calum’s boyfriend Michael works as a concierge on night shift, and that Michael doesn’t like Luke’s organising system. Luke doesn’t like Michael’s, and especially doesn’t like that he has to rearrange his entire desk every day when Michael’s shift ends at nine a.m. Neither of them is willing to be the first to give in, although privately Luke thinks that if Michael ever said a word to him about it he’d fold and let Michael have his shitty system and probably, like, Luke’s house, or something. Luke’s not very good at confrontation or standing his ground. 

Here’s the thing, though. Luke kind of likes Ashton. He likes the way Ashton’s black curls fall into his face and he doesn’t seem to care, likes the way his hazel eyes light up when he smiles, likes the way he gesticulates a lot when he talks. Ashton’s hot, and Luke’s lonely, and lusting over hot guys from afar is pretty much how he’s lived his entire life.  

However, Luke doesn’t like people leaning against his desk, which is one thing Ashton does. He also doesn’t like strangers speaking to him outside of a professional capacity, which is another thing Ashton does. He especially doesn’t like when he’s trying to deal with a difficult guest and Ashton takes it upon himself to tell them to go fuck themselves, because then Luke’s job is made ten times harder.  

“I’m so sorry, sir,” he says, hurriedly, as Ashton leans back against the desk, leather jacket rubbing noisily against the wood. 

“Excuse me?” the guest says to Ashton, halfway between incredulous and infuriated. Ashton shrugs. 

“You heard me,” he says coolly. “Go fuck yourself.” 

“Sir, I sincerely apologise,” Luke says, almost begging. “Of course I can refund you for breakfast. Which room number should I process the refund for?” 

“Who are you?” the guest says, and Ashton pushes himself off the desk, drawing himself up to his full height. 

“You wanna know who I am?” he says. His tone might be lazy, his face might be carefully slack, but his hazel eyes are hard, an edge of a threat in the way he cocks his head. 

“I want your name,” the guest blusters. “I want to file a complaint for your behaviour.” Ashton’s lips quirk up in an amused smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. 

“I’d be happy to introduce you to my boss,” he says, taking another step closer to the guest. The guest takes a small step back, stumbling as he does, and Ashton edges closer, baring his teeth in a grin. “But I can’t promise you’d come back in one piece.” 

“Your room number?” Luke says, trying to diffuse the situation, and it only comes out as half-squeaky, which is pretty good going for him. 

“Uh, actually, it’s okay,” the guest says, words tripping over themselves in their hurry to leave his lips. “Um. Thanks.” With that, he turns on his heel and speedwalks out of the lobby. 

Well. Fuck. 

Ashton watches him leave, then grins, pleased with himself, and turns back to Luke. Luke swallows, feeling himself flush under the heat of Ashton’s gaze. 

“You’re welcome, pretty boy,” Ashton says, when Luke says nothing. Pretty boy. Luke hates when Ashton makes fun of him like that.

“Thanks,” Luke mumbles, even though he absolutely doesn’t mean it. Guests like that never just leave it; his manager will be getting a strongly worded email later, and Luke’s going to get fucking reamed for it. 

“You’re fucking cute when you blush,” Ashton comments casually, sauntering back over to Luke’s desk. Luke doesn’t know what to say to that, never does, so he says nothing, pretending to be completely preoccupied with making a note for James, the guy on evening shift, to process the refund for the guest anyway. He’s not sure why the guy waited until five p.m. to ask for a refund for breakfast, but whatever. James’s problem now, not Luke’s. 

With two minutes left to go on his shift and Ashton’s eyes burning into the back of his head, Luke busies himself with gathering his things together so he won’t have to look at Ashton. He can feel Ashton’s eyes follow him as he gets up and shrugs his coat on, and wishes Calum’s shift would hurry the fuck up and end already. Luke always has to wait an extra couple of minutes for James, who’s always late, and Calum’s usually out of the door at five on the dot. 

Sure enough, as Luke watches the clock on his computer tick over to five, the door to the kitchen bangs open and Calum strides out, face splitting into a grin when he sees Ashton. 

“How’d you get here?” he asks, and Ashton pushes himself off Luke’s desk again to fall into step with Calum.

“Took Michael’s bike,” he hears Ashton say as they walk out. “Mine’s still in the fucking shop.” 

“He’s going to be pissed if you get him another tick-,” Calum says, cut off when they walk out of the lobby. James passes through the door they’d pushed open as it swings shut, and Luke lets out a heavy sigh of relief. 

“Would it kill you to get an earlier train?” he asks James as he pulls his bag off the chair, even though this is early for James. 

“Maybe,” James says. “Haven’t tried it, just in case.” Luke rolls his eyes, shouldering his bag. 

“See you tomorrow,” he says. “I’ve left a couple of notes for you.” James nods, sitting down in the chair and pulling the keyboard towards him. 

“See you,” he says. Luke nods, starting to walk away, when James shouts- “Hey, Luke!” 

“Huh?” Luke spins around to see James holding out a scrap of paper. “What?” 

“You left this,” James says, waving the paper. Luke frowns. 

“No I didn’t,” he says. 

“Well, it says Luke on the front,” James says, arm still outstretched. Luke hesitates for a moment, because he really hasn’t left anything behind - he’d checked meticulously when he’d been packing, anything to avoid Ashton’s gaze - before crossing the room back over to James and taking the paper from his hand. 

“Thanks,” he says. James makes a ‘don’t mention it’ hand movement, eyes already on the computer screen. 

Luke’s eyes flick down to the piece of paper in his hand - it does indeed say ‘Luke’, which kind of surprises him, although he’s not sure what James would have had to gain from lying about that. 

“You’re going to miss your train,” James says, not looking up from the screen, and shit, he is. Luke pockets the note and heads towards the doors of the lobby. 

“Wouldn’t miss it if you would fucking get here on time,” he says, pushing the doors open. 

“Fuck you!” James sing-songs after him, and Luke grins as the cool May air hits his face. 

 -------

 Luke forgets about the note in his pocket until he shoves his hands in his pockets to protect them from the biting wind on his way from the station to his house. He curls his fingers around the paper so he doesn’t forget about it, not wanting to lose it to the wind that’s howling in his ears, only letting go even when he has to unlock the front door.

As soon as he’s safely inside and has kicked his shoes off and chucked his bag down next to the sofa, he pulls the note out of his pocket and unfolds it. 

Golden boy, 

Golden curls, golden smile, golden heart. You burn me with how bright you shine, drown me out with your smile. 

What I wouldn’t give for you to see me. 

- AFI 

Luke stares at it. 

What the fuck? 

This has to be some kind of a joke. AFI? Like the fucking band? Luke doesn’t even listen to them. Or, actually, maybe there’s another Luke this is intended for. Luke does work as a receptionist, after all. Maybe someone dropped it off, wanting him to pass it on to a guest called Luke. It’s a pretty common name, so that’s not out of the bounds of possibility. 

Yeah, Luke thinks, folding the note back up carefully and putting it back in his pocket. He’ll check the list tomorrow morning, and see if there are any Lukes staying at the moment. 

 -------

 Michael’s always gone by the time Luke gets to the desk, even though Luke gets there ten minutes early every day. Luke often wonders how long Michael’s actually at work, whether he just fucks off at eight when things start getting slow after the early morning checkouts have gone. 

The start to the day is usually slow, which is good since Luke always has to reorganise the entire desk from the way Michael’s trashed it (seriously, who puts the returned room keys in alphabetical rather than numerical order?). It takes him until half-past to sort that out, cross-referring the guest database to the keys and hoping some deity takes pity on him and curses Michael to the ninth circle of Hell. By then, a steady stream of people are going in for breakfast, and Luke starts getting his first red-eye check-ins. 

The note completely slips his mind (again) until a lull at half-past three makes him decide to check his phone, which is in his jacket pocket. His fingers brush the paper as he reaches in, and he suddenly jolts, remembering he’d been meaning to look up all the Lukes currently staying at the hotel. 

Phone forgotten, he pulls the database up again, and does a quick search for Luke. Four names flash back at him, and Luke sits back, sort of satisfied, sort of disappointed. Some part of him had kind of hoped there weren’t any Lukes staying, and the note had been intended for him. The last time anyone had said anything nice to Luke was probably, like, a good three years ago. And it was probably his mum. 

He sets a note next to all four Lukes for himself, James and Michael to ask whether they’d been expecting a message when they check out, and then pushes the note from his mind and gets back to work. 

He barely even notices the time pass, so focused on answering emails, until there’s a tapping at his desk. He looks up, a customer-service smile already plastered on his face, only for it to slide off when he sees Ashton. 

“No need to look so happy to see me, pretty boy,” Ashton says, flicking a lighter on and off idly, but his eyes are twinkling. Luke swallows, and turns back to his screen. 

“Good afternoon,” he says politely, typing out a reply to a booking request and steadfastly not looking at Ashton. Ashton leans against Luke’s desk, leather jacket rubbing loudly against the wood, and Luke wishes he had the balls to tell him to stop. 

“I’m not a guest,” Ashton says. “You don’t have to be polite to me.” Yeah, but I’m kind of terrified of you, Luke thinks sourly, as he nods primly. 

“I’m on shift,” he says. “I’m polite to everyone.” Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Ashton’s lips quirk up in a grin. 

“I bet you are,” he says, pulling the cigarette from behind his ear and putting it between his lips.

“Um- you can’t do that in here,” Luke says, as Ashton flicks the lighter on again and lights the cigarette. Ashton looks up, arching an eyebrow. 

“Oh?” he says, around the cigarette. “Are you going to stop me, pretty boy?” Luke opens his mouth, and then closes it again, because who the fuck is he kidding? He’s not going to say shit. The fire alarm will speak for him, anyway. 

Ashton smokes in silence for a few minutes, and Luke thanks God that five isn’t a popular checkout time, so he doesn’t have to deal with guests throwing Ashton (and Luke) dirty looks. Five more minutes until Calum comes out, he tells himself. He can make it through five more minutes. 

“Do you smoke?” Ashton asks after four and a half minutes have passed, out of the blue. Luke blinks at him for a moment, realising Ashton’s talking to him. 

“Uh, no,” he says. Ashton cocks his head. 

“Shame,” he says. “Bet your lips would look good around a cigarette.” 

Luke has absolutely no idea how to respond, because he never knows what to say when Ashton mocks him like that, but he’s saved from answering by the door to the kitchen slamming open and Calum walking out, already grinning before he even sees Ashton. 

“Mate, I got a pay rise,” he says, as he and Ashton set off without a backwards glance. 

“Who’d you fuck for that?” Ashton asks, laughing as he dodges a punch to the arm from Calum. Luke just stares at them as they walk away, still bickering about Calum’s pay rise, wondering why Ashton gets such a kick out of making fun of Luke. His thoughts are cut short, however, when the fire alarm suddenly starts blaring. 

“Oh, fuck,” he says, scrambling to his feet and sprinting to the box to press the reset button before guests start piling down the stairs. 

Grace sticks her head out of the kitchen door, frowning. 

“Wasn’t us, I swear,” she says, seeing Luke pressing the reset button like his life depends on it. 

“I know,” Luke says. 

“Why does it smell like smoke in here?” 

“Uh, does it?” Grace’s frown deepens, and then there’s a shout from the kitchen and her head disappears again. The fire alarm finally stops, just as James walks through the door, giving Luke a confused look as he ambles over. 

“They burn toast again?” he asks, because none of them are ever going to let the kitchen live that one down. Luke shakes his head, and James wrinkles his nose. “Hey, why’s it smell like smoke out here?” 

“Don’t know,” Luke says as he shrugs his coat on, hoping there’s no ash on the carpet, or anything. “I’ve got to go, I’m going to miss my train. See you tomorrow.” 

“Hey,” James says, holding out another piece of paper. “Stop leaving shit behind.” 

“That’s not mine,” Luke says. James frowns at it, and then at Luke. 

“Says your name on it. 

“Yeah, I think it’s for a guest,” Luke says. “I made a note in the system. There’s four Lukes here right now.” James’s brow remains furrowed. 

“No, I think it’s for you,” he says. 

“I’m pretty sure it’s not,” Luke says. 

“Take it.” 

“I have to go.” 

“Well, take it with you.” Luke rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t have time to argue with James anymore because he really is going to miss his train, so he just snatches the note out of James’s hand and makes a mental note to bring it back tomorrow. 

“Don’t miss your train,” James calls, as Luke speedwalks towards the door. Luke just flips him off over his shoulder, hunching into himself as the cold May wind wraps itself around him. 

 -------

 This time, Luke reads the note on the train. 

Golden boy, 

I try not to look at you, as if you were the sun, but I see you, like the sun, even without looking.

Let me bask in your sunlight. 

- AFI. 

Luke frowns. 

He knows those words. That’s Anna Karenina, with the pronouns changed. Someone’s quoting Tolstoy to whoever this mystery Luke is that these notes are intended for, and Luke’s kind of a little bit envious. He wants someone to write him romantic, literary love notes. 

Whatever, he thinks, shoving the note back into his pocket with a little more force than strictly necessary. He hopes whichever Luke gets these notes appreciates them, and the effort Luke’s putting into getting them to him. 

 -------

 There’s a note in the system when Luke gets to work the next day. 

not luke evans - michael 

Okay, Luke thinks, clicking on the three remaining Lukes still checked into the hotel. Their checkout dates are all in the next couple of days, so Luke still has time to get the notes to whichever one it is. He’s put both scraps of paper in a corner of the desk, folded carefully so the name is clearly visible, lest James or Michael forget about them.  

He clicks off the Luke Evans note, and another note pops up. 

stop fucking with the room keys - michael

Luke’s kind of outraged at that. There’s literally nothing that makes any less sense than organising the room keys alphabetically rather than numerically. It takes more time to do anyway, because it means cross-referencing the key number to the guest database. He’s not sure whether Michael’s joking or just a masochist, but either way, Luke’s not having it. 

Stop putting them in fucking alphabetical order then. - Luke 

He presses enter before he has the time to second-guess it, because this is a topic that’s close to his heart, and if Michael actually fucking listens it’ll save Luke half an hour every day. He quashes the instant flare of fear that forces its way up his throat the minute he’s made the note, because he’s a little bit terrified of Michael, and clicks onto his emails, ready to make a dent in his already-full inbox. 

It’s a Friday, which is one of the busiest days at the hotel, so Luke’s checking people in and out for most of the day. His cheeks hurt from politely smiling by the time it starts to slow around four-thirty, and he has to stop himself from sighing when a shadow appears over him twenty-five minutes later. He’d hoped that was it for guests for today.  

When he looks up, though, he’s confronted with Ashton, leaning against his desk with a grin on his face. He’s not sure whether that’s better or worse than another guest. 

“Afternoon, pretty boy,” Ashton says. He’s got his usual leather jacket on, and his hair is all fucking windswept, and Luke doesn’t think he should be this attracted to someone he doesn’t know and is a little afraid of, but whatever. 

“Afternoon,” Luke says politely, averting his gaze and hoping Ashton doesn’t see the slight blush creeping up his cheeks. Ashton’s gaze flicks over to the pile of room keys Luke’s still got to wipe.

“Busy day, huh?” he says, indicating to the room keys with a tilt of his head. Luke just nods, and keeps typing. “Y’know, I sometimes wonder if I should quit the day job and become a receptionist.” 

“Oh,” Luke says, because what the fuck else can he say? 

“Yeah,” Ashton says. “Probably wouldn’t be nearly as much fun, though.” Luke purses his lips. He’s not sure whether Ashton’s trying to shit on Luke’s job, big up his own job, or get Luke to employ him. Luke’s not in charge of hiring, anyway, and if Ashton’s hoping he’ll put in a good word, he’s got another fucking thing coming. 

“Right,” he says eventually, when it becomes clear Ashton’s waiting for some kind of response. He kind of wants to know what Ashton does for a living, given that he seems to have the time to hang around waiting for his friends during normal working hours, but he’s far too shy to ask. Plus, what if the answer’s, like, assassin, or something? 

He doesn’t end up needing to ask, though, because Ashton supplies the answer for him. 

“I work at a bar,” he says, flashing Luke a grin. “Barback.” 

“Not bartender?” Luke asks in surprise, before he can stop himself, because Ashton doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d be content to not be the centre of attention. Ashton laughs, and Luke’s stomach flips at the sound. He’s not really sure why it makes something warm fizz through his veins, why it makes him want to make Ashton laugh again. 

“Not trained,” he says. “I’m just working off a debt.” And, okay. Luke’s not really sure he wants to know what said debt is. No debt that needs to be paid off by barbacking sounds like one Luke needs to hear about.  

“Right,” he says again, hoping he doesn’t sound as flustered as he feels. 

“You should come by sometime, pretty boy,” Ashton says casually. “Bar’s on King Street.” 

“Oh,” Luke says. “Thanks. Yeah. Maybe.” Jesus Christ. His job is talking to people - why the fuck is he suddenly so bad at it when it’s a hot (and mildly terrifying) guy?  

“You can drink on the house,” Ashton says, eyes twinkling, “as long as you give me your number afterwards.” Luke feels his mouth drop open slightly, stuttering as his mind tries to both process what Ashton’s said and string together some syllables in response, but then the door to the kitchen slams open and Calum stalks out, looking furious. Luke jumps at the sound and shrinks into himself a little at the irate look on Calum’s face, but Ashton just looks over his shoulder lazily. 

“Afternoon,” he says idly, falling into step with Calum, who doesn’t even pause.  

“You come on Michael’s bike again?” Calum says, and Ashton nods. “Good. Fucking crash it on the way ba-” The door swings shut behind them, cutting him off, and Luke stares at where they’d been standing two seconds ago in surprise. What the fuck could Michael have done that was so bad Calum wanted Ashton to crash his bike?  

Luke shakes himself out of it and starts shoving his things haphazardly in his bag, because he’d been too distracted by Ashton to remember to pack, and as he’s wrapping his scarf around his neck, James ambles through the door. 

“Fucking cold out,” is how he greets Luke, from underneath his scarf. Luke indicates to his own.  

“It’s May, mate,” he says. James rolls his eyes, pink-cheeked from the wind, and tugs his scarf off as he walks behind the desk.  

“See you tomorrow,” Luke says, heading for the door. 

“Stop leaving your fucking notes behind,” James says, before Luke’s even got halfway there, and Luke rolls his eyes before spinning on his heel to face James. 

“They’re not for me,” he says. 

“They are,” James says, holding the note out. “Why else would whoever’s leaving them leave them here?” 

“Because they don’t know the room number of the Luke they want?” Luke suggests. James rolls his eyes. 

“They could ask.”

“Maybe they want to remain anonymous.” 

“They’d be anonymous to this hypothetical Luke, anyway, because they’re dropping it off at the reception,” James points out. 

“Well, I-” 

“Take the fucking note, Luke.” Luke scowls, but James isn’t going to let this go, and Luke doesn’t have the time to argue or he’s going to miss his train, so he just rolls his eyes and snatches the note from James’s outstretched hand. 

“Hope you make it,” James calls behind him as he starts to jog towards the door, and Luke just flips him off without looking back. 

-------

 Golden boy, 

Your lips are on my mind day and night, night and day. I wonder just how many other hearts they’ve sent racing. 

You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how. 

- AFI.

Luke frowns at it. Huh. Gone With The Wind. Whoever this AFI person is knows their literature, and Luke’s trying his best not to be impressed by it. 

Whatever, he thinks, shoving the note back into his pocket and trying not to be too sullen about the fact that some Luke out there is getting romantic, literary notes written for him. He’ll put it with the others on the desk on Monday. 

 -------

 Luke’s weekend is spent watching movies and eating junk food, with a little feeling sorry for himself sprinkled into the mix, so he’s feeling pretty well-rested by the time he gets into work on Monday morning. He steps through the door at ten to nine, shakes out his umbrella before slotting it neatly into the umbrella stand, and heads over to the desk that Michael has already vacated, as usual.  

There are two notes in the system for him when he fires it up. 

not luke johnson - michael 

alphabetical order makes it so much easier to sort through fuck you - michael 

Luke scowls at the screen, tapping out a reply before he can think better of it. 

How does it make it easier to sort through?! You have to cross-refer everything to the database!! - Luke 

He clicks off the notes, mentally crossing out a second of the four Lukes, which reminds him to set the third note on top of the other two in the corner of the desk for James and Michael to see. 

Besides Fridays, Mondays are the busiest days for check-ins and checkouts, so Luke’s face is already aching from the polite smile plastered on his face by ten past two. He’s idly rubbing at his cheeks when the door to the lobby swings open, and Ashton comes striding in, looking somewhere between furious and concerned. Luke starts in surprise, checking the time to be sure he’s not, like, missed two hours of the day somehow - nope, definitely ten past two - but Ashton doesn’t even stop at Luke’s desk, doesn’t even spare him a glance as he heads for the door to the kitchen. 

“Um- you can’t go in the-” Luke starts, but he’s cut off by the door to the kitchen banging shut behind Ashton. Luke stares at it, and then sighs. Whatever, he tried. 

He turns back to his screen, expecting to hear Calum and Ashton striding out of the door any minute, laughing and joking and nudging each other, but the door stays shut. Instead, after Luke’s read the email in front of him at least three times, mind elsewhere, he hears raised voices shouting in the kitchen, although he can’t make out what they’re saying. 

He clears his throat, and reads the email again. This isn’t any of his business, he tells himself, trying to focus on just what week Ms Barnet wants to book seven rooms. Ashton’s perfectly capable of looking after himself. 

(He vaguely registers that maybe he shouldn’t be more worried about a stranger than about his colleagues, but whatever.) 

The voices get louder and louder, still muffled by the kitchen door, and Luke strains his ears to try and hear what’s being said (he’s pretty sure he can make out a bunch of fucks). After a good two minutes, the door slams open again, making Luke jump, and Ashton walks out, Calum leaning into him, an arm slung over Ashton’s shoulders. 

“...can fucking look after myself,” Calum’s saying irately, as Ashton strides towards the door, Calum limping at his side. Ashton’s got his arm around Calum’s waist, clearly supporting his entire body, and Luke tries his best not to think about how strong Ashton must be to do that. 

“Look after yourself? You fucking fainted, Calum, and they let you keep working!” Ashton says furiously. 

“I’m fine, Ashton, I told you, I’m fucking fine,” Calum spits, and Ashton growls, like, literally growls. Luke swallows, hard. 

“Oh, sorry, Doctor Hood, want to show me the medical degree you’ve got to back up that opinion?” Ashton says sarcastically. 

“Fuck you, Ashton, seriousl-” the door swings shut behind them and cuts off their conversation, leaving Luke staring at where they’d been standing half in surprise, half in arousal. 

Okay, so he might have just discovered he has a bit of a thing for protective men. Or, maybe he’s just discovered he’s got a bit of a thing for Ashton. Which, frankly, isn’t much of a discovery, more of a confirmation. 

He shakes his head, trying to erase all the images this has conjured in his mind, and resolves to look into getting laid as soon as possible.

 -------

 Luke scours his desk before he leaves on Monday, but there’s no note. He finds himself a little disappointed for a moment, because it’s kind of nice to be able to kid himself that the notes are for him for a minute or two, before James finally arrives and he’s able to push it out of his mind in favour of shouting at James for being a whole ten minutes late. 

On Tuesday, Luke finds himself tensing up around ten to five, but Ashton never comes and Calum never leaves. There’s no note on Tuesday either, and Luke wonders whether maybe the fact that the mystery note-leaver isn’t getting any responses from the mystery Luke has disheartened them, and immediately feels guilty that he hasn’t tried hard enough to get the notes to the right Luke. The thought is forced out of his mind, however, when James arrives (half an hour late) announcing that the trains are all cancelled because of some signal failures and he’d had to carpool to work, so Luke needs to, like, call an Uber, or something. 

“Fuck’s sake,” Luke says, because he really can’t afford an Uber all the way home. 

“I know,” James tells him, sitting down in the chair heavily. “At least you’re not the one who’s going to be dealing with pissed off guests.” Luke has to concede there. 

Luke goes to the station anyway, in the vain hope that the Sydney Trains will actually fulfil their single function as a transport service, and is informed by an overwhelmed-looking station guard that it’ll probably be another three hours before they’ve sorted out the problem and got all the trains moving again. 

Great, Luke thinks, as he walks out of the station and into the cold mid-May air. Where the fuck is he supposed to spend the next three hours? 

He wanders around aimlessly for a while, sits down on a bench in Hyde Park for about ten minutes before the wind starts threatening to take his nose from him, wanders around some more, and then, because the universe wants Luke to lose the will to live entirely, it starts to rain. 

Great. 

Luke ducks into the nearest building - a bar, he can make that work - and shakes the water out of his hair, chancing a glance at the bar itself. Seven isn’t too early to order himself a shot, right? 

He stops short, however, when he sees who’s behind the bar. 

Ashton. 

He’s about to turn on his heel and walk out - he’s dripping wet, in a terrible mood, and Ashton’s terrifying on the best of days - but it’s too late. Ashton’s already spotted him, face splitting into a grin, beckoning him over to the bar. Fucking hell. 

Luke edges over hesitantly, trying to surreptitiously arrange the curls around his face - fucking rain, honestly - giving Ashton a hesitant smile as he gets to the bar. 

“Didn’t think you’d come, pretty boy,” Ashton says, still smiling, as Luke reluctantly sits down on the bar stool opposite him.

“Um,” Luke says, glad that the bar is poorly lit so Ashton won’t see the blush creeping up his cheeks. “It’s raining.” That doesn’t dim Ashton’s brilliant smile at all, though.

“I remember saying you could drink on the house,” he says, eyes twinkling.  

“Conditionally,” Luke says, without thinking. Ashton looks at him for a moment, and then laughs. Luke’s stomach flips, heat pooling low in his abdomen - Jesus, someone as hot as Ashton shouldn’t be allowed such a cute laugh.  

“Is giving me your number such a burden?” he says, grinning. Luke flushes, and looks away. He doesn’t get why Ashton gets such a kick out of making fun of Luke like this. He’d thought he’d left the days of people pretending to be into him for fun behind in high school. 

Ashton seems to sense Luke’s trepidation, and leans back from the bar. 

“Relax, pretty boy,” he says. “I don’t bite.” Luke can’t help the sceptical look he sends Ashton’s way, and it’s met with a dimpled grin. “Okay, I do, but you’ve gotta pay for the privilege.”  

“I don’t have any money,” Luke says, because it’s true. That’s the whole reason he’s here in the first place; he can’t afford the fifty dollars it’d cost him to Uber home. 

“Well, lucky for you, I’m in a generous mood,” Ashton says, leaning against the cupboard behind him. “What’ll it be?” Luke hesitates. On the one hand, he really doesn’t have any money, and if Ashton reneges on his offer, Luke’s kind of fucked. On the other hand, he’s had a shitty day, he’s still got an hour until the signal failure might be fixed, and he wants a fucking shot.  

“Tequila chilled, please,” he says eventually. “But I thought you weren’t a bartender.” Ashton’s lips quirk up in a grin, as he reaches for the tequila and a glass. 

“I’m not,” he says, raising an eyebrow. “But what are you going to do, tell on me?” His tone is both amused and challenging, and Luke swallows. They both know Luke’s not going to do shit. 

“That’s not chilled,” is all he says weakly, when Ashton pours the tequila straight into the glass. Ashton laughs, and pushes the glass towards Luke. 

“Try it,” he says. Luke stares at it, wrinkling his nose, and Ashton grins. “C’mon, I’m not trying to poison you. You’re far too pretty for that.” Luke bites his lip, but picks up the glass and glances at the clear liquid in it warily. He doesn’t even know Ashton, he thinks. This might be, like, straight hydrochloric acid, and Luke would be none the wiser until his oesophagus disintegrated. 

Despite his better judgement, though, and largely due to the heat of Ashton’s gaze, Luke raises the glass to his lips and tips the tequila down his throat, wincing as it burns down his throat. It’s warm, and it really does burn, but it burns in a good way, kind of peppery in his mouth, and Luke finds he doesn’t actually mind the aftertaste. 

“Huh,” he says, as he sets the glass back down, staring at it in surprise. 

“Told you,” Ashton says smugly. “Want another one?” Luke hesitates, and Ashton rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning. “On the house, pretty boy. You look like you could do with one.” Luke nods, and Ashton pulls the glass back towards him and pours him another shot. Luke watches him pour, trying not to think about the way his fingers are curled around the neck of the tequila bottle. He blames it on the alcohol making its way through his veins, ignoring the fact that it’s far too soon for it to have had an impact.  

Ashton pushes the glass towards Luke, who takes it and downs it without a second thought. Ashton laughs again when he sets the glass back down on the bar, eyes crinkled at the corners. 

“Rough day, huh?” he says. Luke, fingertips tingling, cheeks a little warm, nods. 

“Yeah,” he says. 

“Guess that’s what happens when I don’t show up for a day,” Ashton says, eyes glittering, and there’s something behind the humour on the surface that Luke can’t quite put his finger on. 

“Is Calum okay?” Luke asks, without thinking. Ashton looks at him for a moment, surprised, and then nods. 

“Took him to hospital,” he says. “Doctor said he should rest for a few days, but he’d be fine. He’s kind of pissed about it.” Luke can’t help the snort that escapes him, and Ashton’s lips curl up in a smile. 

“He sounded pretty pissed at you,” Luke says, as Ashton pulls the glass back towards him and pours Luke another shot. Jesus. Luke’s not even going to make it on the train at this rate. 

“He was,” Ashton says nonchalantly. “But Michael would have been more pissed if I hadn’t picked Cal up from work, and I’d take Calum’s wrath over Michael’s any day.” Luke wrinkles his nose. 

“Michael has a terrible organising system,” he says, swirling the tequila around in the glass. 

“He says the same about you,” Ashton says, which makes Luke start in surprise. 

“He knows who I am?” Ashton gives him a funny look. 

“Of course he knows who you are,” he says. “You’re day shift.” 

“Oh,” Luke says. “Day shift. Yeah. That’s me.” 

They lapse into silence for a while, Ashton gazing at Luke like he’s trying to work something out, Luke staring through the bottom of the glass and wondering whether he really should take this shot or not. 

“Are you afraid of me?” Ashton asks, eventually. His tone is even, and his face is calm, but Luke sees the tension in his posture, the hardness in his eyes. 

(Luke takes the shot.)

“Uh,” he says, when he sets the glass back down on the bar. “I’m afraid of everyone.” It’s not technically a lie, and Ashton considers it for a moment before shrugging. 

“I’m not trying to trick you, pretty boy,” he says, and he’s aiming for casual but Luke hears the seriousness beneath it. 

“I didn’t say you were,” Luke says, now definitely a little buzzed. Ashton cocks his head and narrows his eyes, gazing at Luke.  

“You don’t trust me,” he says after a moment. Luke shrugs uncomfortably. 

“I don’t know you,” he says. Ashton scrutinises him for another moment, and Luke desperately wishes he had something that wasn’t Ashton or his hands to stare at, before Ashton grins. 

“Let’s change that,” he says. 

“Huh?”

“Ask me anything you want to know,” Ashton says, putting his elbows on the bar and leaning forward. His hazel eyes glint in the dim light of the bar, and Luke parts his lips to respond, but finds himself too caught in the brown-gold-green. 

“Uh,” he says intelligently, shaking himself out of it when he remembers that hello, staring at hot and intimidating guys is kind of a bad idea. “What?” 

“C’mon,” Ashton says, eyes sparkling with amusement. “There’s got to be things you want to know about me.”  

“What’s the catch?” Ashton laughs, tipping his head back, and God, Luke wants to mark up that throat. Jesus. He makes a mental note for the future that tequila at seven p.m. is a no-go. 

“You really don’t trust me, huh?” Ashton says, grinning. “Well, I was just going to let you ask, but...how about I get to ask questions in return? Quid pro quo.” Luke swallows. 

“Okay,” he says, because what’s he got to lose? 

“But you have to be honest,” Ashton says seriously, and Luke nods. He’s a shitty liar, anyway. “Alright. You first.” Luke’s eyes widen, and Ashton looks at him expectantly.

“Uh. What- what’s your favourite colour?” he asks stupidly. 

“Seriously?” Luke shrugs, averting his gaze to the glass still sat between the two of them. “Okay. Green. Why don’t you ever speak to me when I’m at the hotel?” 

“I’m on shift,” Luke says automatically. “What’s your favourite food?” 

“Carbonara. Do I bother you?” Luke hesitates. He’s tipsy enough that he can’t lie, but still sober enough that he doesn’t want to potentially aggravate Ashton by being too honest. 

“Yes and no,” he says after a moment’s consideration. “When’s your birthday?” 

“Sixteenth of July,” Ashton says. “What do you mean, yes and no?”  

“Yes, because I’m trying to work and you’re really fucking distracting, no, because you’re-” Luke coughs, feeling himself flush. “Uh. Do you have any siblings?” 

“A brother and sister,” Ashton says. “Because I’m what?” Luke swallows. 

“Give me another shot,” he says, and Ashton laughs.  

“I think you’ve had enough,” he says, grinning. “You still need to get home in one piece, pretty boy.” Which, shit, what time is it? Luke pulls his phone out of his pocket - fuck, ten to eight, the trains might be back up and running by now - and pushes himself off the bar stool. 

“I’ve got to go,” he says, steadying himself against the bar as his vision spins from standing up too fast. “Uh. Thank you? For the drinks.” 

“Hang on,” Ashton says, catching Luke’s arm as he turns away. Luke’s skin burns red hot under Ashton’s warm, calloused fingers, and he tries not to let it make him even giddier. “You owe me a number.” 

“I don’t know my number,” Luke says, and Ashton frowns.  

“Hey,” he says, sounding a little concerned. “You can say no.” 

“I’m not saying no,” Luke says. “I’m saying I don’t know my number.” Ashton blinks at him for a moment, and then drops his arm. 

“You’d say no if you meant no?” he says, like he’s not quite sure he believes Luke. Luke nods. 

“That’s why I’m not saying no,” he tells Ashton, and then his stomach lurches, because fuck, that might have been a bit too forward for Luke, even in his mildly inebrieted state. “Uh. I really do have to go. Thanks.” Ashton nods, leaning back against the cupboard behind him and folding his arms. Luke closes his eyes so he won’t have to stare at Ashton’s biceps. 

“See you around, pretty boy,” Ashton calls, as Luke turns on his heel and heads for the door as fast as he can without looking suspicious.  

The cool May wind crashes over him when he stumbles outside, and Luke gulps in the crisp air like a drowning man. 

Jesus Christ, he thinks, tipping his head back and letting his eyes flutter shut. Hopefully Calum has to stay home for a long enough time that Luke can legally change his name and move to Perth, or something. 

 -------

 On Wednesday, Luke checks a tired-looking Luke Newham out. 

“Thank you very much, sir,” he says politely, when Luke Newham hands his room key over. “Oh, by the way - we had a number of notes arrive for a Luke in the hotel. Were you expecting anything?” Luke Newham looks surprised.  

“No,” he says. “Definitely not for me.” Luke frowns, and nods, and mentally strikes Luke Newham off the list. 

Well. It’s got to be Luke Byrne then. 

On Thursday, Luke arrives to find a note in the system from James on Luke Byrne’s guest data.  

Told you they were for you. - James 

Luke frowns, and reaches for the three notes folded carefully in the corner of the desk. 

Golden boy. Surely that’s not Luke? Okay, he thinks, looking at the first note - golden curls, yeah, he’s got blonde hair, but besides that? Golden smile, golden heart? If whoever is leaving these notes thinks Luke’s customer-service smile is golden, he’s going to have to recommend a lobotomy. And, he thinks, shuffling to the second and third notes, nobody could think he shone like the sun, nor have their hearts sent racing by his lips. Luke just isn’t that person for anyone, never has been.  

He spends the whole day puzzling about it, so consumed in trying to make sense of the situation that he doesn’t even realise how fast the time is going until the door swings open at ten to five, Ashton already grinning as he walks over to Luke’s desk. 

Oh, fuck. 

Luke hasn’t seen Ashton since the night at the bar, and he’s been trying his best to keep Ashton out of his mind, too. He’d nigh-on had a panic attack when he’d thought back to their conversation in the shower the next morning, so he’s counting the repression as being for health and safety reasons, which is definitely permissible. 

However, he can’t avoid Ashton at work. 

“You look happy to see me, pretty boy,” Ashton remarks, leaning against Luke’s desk, that one fucking curl falling in his eyes, and Luke forces the trepidation off his face. 

“Long day,” Luke says.  

“Need another pick-me-up?” Ashton asks, lips quirking up in a grin. Luke wills his blood to remain where it is and not rush to his cheeks, and averts his gaze back to his screen. 

“No,” he says, and then thinks it might have come out a bit curt, and adds, “thank you.” 

“Well, you know where to find me if you change your mind,” Ashton says. Luke nods tightly, and taps out a response to an email. 

“Michael says someone’s been receiving mystery notes,” Ashton says after a moment, far too casually. Luke’s eyes snap to him, and narrow.  

“What?” he says. Ashton shrugs. 

“Says someone’s been leaving notes for a Luke, and you’re trying to find who it is,” he says. Luke hesitates, then nods. 

“Well, they’re for a Luke, but I’ve checked with every Luke that was staying here when they came,” he says. “So. I’m going to check whether there are any Lukes due to arrive soon.” 

“You ever stop to consider it might be you?” Ashton asks, amused. 

“Well,” Luke says. “I mean. No? Like, I’ve thought about it, but- I’m not, y’know. That kind of person. I mean. Nobody, like.” He shrugs uncomfortably, wishing he’d never opened his mouth in the first place. 

“Nobody what?” Luke sighs. 

“Nobody would do that for me,” he says, all in a rush. Ashton raises an eyebrow. 

“Oh?” he says. “Says who, pretty boy?” Luke opens his mouth - to say what, he’s not quite sure - but they’re interrupted by the kitchen door banging open, Calum striding out, beaming. 

“I’m going to do it,” he says to Ashton. 

“Good,” Ashton says, pushing himself off Luke’s desk. “Only taken you a decade.” 

“Are you fucking mad, as if he would have said yes when we were sixte-” 

“See you tomorrow, pretty boy,” Ashton calls, and Luke starts in surprise. Ashton never says goodbye, forgets all about him as soon as Calum comes out. 

“Uh,” Luke stammers, “bye?” Ashton throws him another amused glance over his shoulder, and falls in step with Calum, who’s saying something about how he had to wait for the right time, okay, sixteen is way too young, even if he already knew back then. 

Luke stares after them for so long after the door has closed that his eyes start to water. 

Ashton doesn’t say goodbye to Luke. It’s one of the universal laws of, like, life, or something. The sky is blue, the Earth is round, and Ashton doesn’t say goodbye to Luke. Luke’s honestly not sure what to make of it - does Ashton think they’re, like, friends now, or something? Is he just trying to unnerve him? Yeah, it’s probably that, he thinks. Ashton clearly gets a kick out of making Luke flustered, and throwing him a curveball like that is a surefire way to do it.  

When Luke finally tears his gaze away from the door and back at the desk, he notices another scrap of paper to the left of his computer screen. He reaches for it, frowning at the Luke on the front, and opens it. 

Golden boy, 

Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love. 

- AFI. 

Hamlet. AFI is quoting Hamlet. Not just that - he’s quoting a lesser-known part of Hamlet, which means he’s either googling ‘romantic quotes to put in anonymous love notes’ or he’s well-read. Luke decides to choose it’s the latter, because the idea of that makes his heart skip several beats.

Although, to be fair, that might just be him jumping in shock when James slams his bag down on the desk. 

“Got your daily note?” James asks, seeing the piece of paper in Luke’s hand. Luke flushes, and folds it back up. 

“It’s not mine,” he protests weakly, getting to his feet, and James rolls his eyes. 

“We checked every Luke in the system,” he says. “Who the fuck else is it going to be?” 

“Maybe it’s for a Lucas,” Luke suggests. “Maybe Luke is a nickname.” James pinches the bridge of his nose. 

“You’re fucking impossible,” he says, holding his hand out. “Let’s see it.” Luke hesitates, and then drops it in James’s hand and busies himself with getting his things together so he won’t have to see the look on James’s face as he reads. 

“Put it on top of the pile,” Luke says, his back to James as he shrugs his coat on. 

“Luke,” James says, like Luke’s the stupidest person alive. Luke resents that. “This is about you. This is about you doubting the notes are for you.” 

“It’s not,” Luke says. 

“You’re doubting a note written about how you shouldn’t doubt the notes?” James says, eyebrows raised. Luke scowls into his bag. 

“Fine,” he says, turning around to face James. “And what if they’re for me?”

“Then we find out who’s leaving them,” James says, swinging himself into the chair and spinning around. 

“How?” James shrugs. 

“You’re going to miss your train,” is all he says. Luke scowls, and flips him off. 

“Get an earlier fucking train,” he calls, as he jogs towards the door, because shit, he really is going to miss his train. 

“No can do,” James shouts after him, and Luke flips him off again, almost shutting his finger in the door as it closes behind him. 

 -------

 Luke can’t sleep. 

He’s been lying in bed for two hours, tossing and turning, but he can’t get the notes out of his mind. 

What if they are for him? Luke’s barely even stopped to consider the idea - no, he’s actively stopped himself from considering the idea, because there was no way they were for him, and it would have been stupid for him to build up that kind of hope only for it to come crashing down. 

But now that they’ve checked every Luke in the system, he has to toy with the idea that maybe, just maybe they are for him. Sure, they could be for a Lucas, or for a Luke that’s still to arrive, but the rational part of his mind tells him that the likelihood of that is incredibly low. Logically, he knows he’s looking for other explanations because the idea that they could be for him just doesn’t compute. Luke’s not someone who gets romantic notes. Luke’s not someone who gets romance full stop - the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for him is pay for his cab home from their place. 

(He still thinks about Nick fondly.) 

And if they are for him, that opens up a whole new can of worms. Luke’s barely even given any thought to who AFI might be, because he’s been telling himself the notes aren’t for him. But now that he’s starting to entertain that notion, that question is crowding into every corner of his mind. 

Is it a reference to the band? Is it some kind of cryptic musical reference that Luke’s somehow supposed to understand? Or maybe it’s someone’s initials? AFI are pretty unusual initials, he thinks. He doesn’t think he knows anyone with a name starting with F, or a surname starting with I. Maybe it’s double-barrelled? 

He sighs, and rolls over onto his side, trying to put all thoughts of the mysterious author of the notes out of his mind. There’s nothing he can do about it now, and running in circles in his head clearly isn’t helping. He’ll just have to pay better attention tomorrow, see who’s dropping pieces of paper on his desk. 

You know, a little voice in his mind tells him as he’s on the verge of falling asleep. Ashton starts with an A. 

Luke pushes the thought away and allows sleep to envelop him. 

 -------

 On Friday morning, Luke pushes the door to the lobby open, yawning from his lack of sleep, and stops short. 

Michael’s there. 

He’s standing by the desk, hands on his hips, looking distinctly irritated. 

“Oh,” Luke says, completely bewildered. Michael’s never there. 

“I’m specifically supposed to give you this,” Michael says, thrusting a hand out. As Luke edges closer, he sees a piece of paper in it, the same scratchy handwriting spelling out his name on the front. 

“From who?” he asks. 

“Can’t tell you,” Michael says shortly, dropping the note in Luke’s hands and hoisting his bag over his shoulder. “I’ve left the keys in alphabetical order, and if you fucking mess them up again, I’m going to have Calum commit a fairly serious crime against you.” Luke clenches his teeth, watching Michael as he saunters out of the room without waiting for a response from Luke (not that he would have got one anyway), only dropping his gaze to the note in his hand when the door closes behind Michael. 

Okay, he thinks, unfolding the note, and trying to ignore the way his heart is racing and his fingers are fumbling with the paper. So the notes are for him. 

Golden boy, 

Maybe I’ve been too subtle with these. Maybe you needed the pomp and blare, and not the old friend through quiet ways, the seeming prose. 

- AFI. 

Luke frowns at it, sitting down in his chair and pulling up a browser on the computer. He’s not really sure whether these are AFI’s own words, or whether it’s a quote from something he hasn’t read before. However, a quick Google informs him it’s a (very butchered) line from Anne of Avonlea, which immediately makes Luke’s heart jump a little, because who outside of bookworms reads any further than Anne of Green Gables? Jesus, Luke’s already a little in love with AFI, and for all he knows it could be James playing a prank on him. 

And, like, okay. The notes are for him, and it makes Luke’s palms sweat a little just to think about. AFI thinks he’s a golden boy. AFI thinks he’s worth sending romantic literary notes to, and wants him to know they’re for him. 

And, more importantly, Michael knows who AFI is. 

Luke stews on that all day, thoughts stumbling over each other in their haste to get to the forefront of his mind. Why wouldn’t Michael tell Luke who it is? Why is AFI so keen to remain anonymous? Are they embarrassed to like Luke? Actually, that would explain a lot, and Luke can’t really fault them for it. He’s not exactly anyone to show off to friends and family. 

He’s so preoccupied that by four-fifty he’s only about two-thirds through the emails he should have answered, but as soon as he feels the familiar presence of Ashton looming over his desk, he knows he’s not going to get anything more done. He sighs, leaning back, and looks up at Ashton, who’s grinning at him. 

“Afternoon, pretty boy,” he says, looking particularly pleased with himself for some reason. Luke decides not to ask. 

“Hi,” he says. 

“You look pensive,” Ashton remarks. Luke shrugs, a little uncomfortably. What the fuck is he supposed to say to that? Yeah, you wouldn’t happen to know who dropped a note off for Michael to give to me this morning, would you? Cheers, mate. By the way, I’ve wanted to fuck you for, like, six months, and your presence is getting a bit unbearable, so would you do me a favour and not show up again until I’m out of this dry spell? 

“Uh,” he settles for. Close enough. 

“Heard you met Michael this morning,” Ashton comments, examining his fingernails. 

“Yeah,” Luke says, even though he’s met Michael before. “He’s, uh.” Bitchy? Luke’s not sure insulting Ashton’s friends is the best idea he’s ever had, so he says nothing. Ashton seems to get it, though, and just laughs. 

“Yeah, he’s like that,” he says. “But he’s lovely when you get to know him.” 

“Right,” Luke says doubtfully. Ashton just grins, and reaches for the cigarette behind his ear. 

“Uh,” Luke says. “You can’t smoke in here.” 

“Oh?” Ashton says, raising an eyebrow, cigarette already halfway to his lips. “What are you going to do about it?” Luke opens his mouth, and closes it again. Then, suddenly-

“I’ll give you my number if you don’t,” he blurts, and then immediately feels himself turn an impressive shade of red. Ashton’s hand stills for a moment, and then he grins, and tucks the cigarette back behind his ear. 

“If I remember correctly, you owe me your number anyway, pretty boy,” he says, but he’s still smiling. 

“You almost gave me a hangover,” Luke says, but he’s reaching for the phone in his coat pocket anyway, if only to spare himself from having to look at Ashton. Jesus Christ. What the fuck came over him? 

“Not my fault you’re a lightweight,” he hears Ashton say, and he scowls, unlocking his phone and pulling up his own contact. He spins back around to his desk and pulls a piece of paper towards him, scribbling the numbers down at the top. He hesitates, and then writes Luke at the top, even though Ashton clearly knows his name. He’s not sure how many numbers someone as attractive as Ashton must be receiving on a daily basis, so it can’t hurt, right? 

He pushes the piece of paper towards Ashton, who takes it with a grin, reading the numbers at least three times. 

“You know, I know your name,” he remarks. 

“I know.” Ashton glances back at the numbers again, and looks like he’s going to say something else, when the door to the kitchen opens. 

“You come on your bike?” Calum asks Ashton, who nods. “Good. I’ve picked out a few places I think might have good ones.” 

“In your budget?” 

“Fuck you,” Calum says, as they start off towards the door. “I got a raise, remember?” 

“And you still think Michael’s going to say yes when he hears how you got it?” Ashton says, sounding amused. 

“He already knows,” Calum says dismissively, pushing the door open. “And it’s not like he’s above threats of violence himself.” 

“I’ll text you, pretty boy,” Ashton calls over his shoulder, just before the door shuts behind him. 

Luke’s glad the door’s between them, or he might do something stupid like shout yes, please do, and please fuck me while you’re at it after Ashton. 

Jesus, he thinks, putting his head in his hands. Ashton’s got his number. He’s given Ashton his number. He, Luke Hemmings, had the gall to give the hottest guy in the entirety of Australia his number. 

Whatever, he tells himself, packing his things together. Ashton’ll probably forget to text him, anyway. Luke’s not exactly high up on anyone’s to-do list. 

 -------

 Much to his surprise, Luke’s first text from Ashton comes on Saturday evening. 

0491570156  Evening, pretty boy. 

Luke looks over at his phone lazily when it chimes, not intending to answer his mum when Mike Ross is about to get found out as a fraud by Jessica, and jerks upright when he sees the nickname. 

Hi. 

Hey. 

Hi :)

Hi! 

Hi 

Luke types and erases each one. Too serious, too enthusiastic, too childlike, not cool enough. By the time he’s decided to just bite the bullet and go for Hey, Ashton’s typing again, and Luke erases it all and waits with bated breath. 

0491570156 You typing an essay or something?

Shit, Luke forgot Ashton could see when he was typing. God, he’s going to have to start typing on Notes, or something. 

Me Sorry. Hi 

It’s terrible, but so is Luke, so it’s fitting. He clicks off the chat so he won’t have to see Ashton typing, and saves him as a new contact, by which time Ashton’s sent another message. 

Ashton You sound pleased to hear from me 

Luke swallows. He’s not sure whether it’s just because it’s over text, but Ashton sounds kind of pissed. 

Me I am!  

He erases that immediately. 

Me I am, I’m just surprised 

He bites his lip, and then thinks fuck it, takes another gulp of his wine, and adds a line. 

I’m also pretty bad at talking to people. 

Ashton’s reply is instantaneous. 

Ashton You’re cute when you’re flustered 

Ashton Although honestly, you’re cute all the time

Me I’m flustered all the time

Luke stares at the screen, willing Ashton to respond, heart beating wildly. He’s not exactly known for his flirting prowess. 

Ashton Damn...thought I was special 

Luke inhales deeply, and types without letting himself think about it. 

Me Never said you weren’t the reason I’m flustered all the time 

This time, Ashton replies immediately. 

Ashton Good :) I was starting to think this was all one-sided 

Luke lets out a shaky exhale. What’s that supposed to mean? 

He’s halfway through typing out a message along those lines when another text comes through. 

Ashton Sorry, my shift is actually about to start. Wasn’t expecting you to reply so quickly 

And then another: 

Ashton See you around, pretty boy 

Luke stares at it, and then puts his phone down, slightly dazed. 

He’s not going to think about this until he absolutely has to. 

 -------

 ‘Until he absolutely has to’ turns out to be about ten p.m. on Sunday night. 

Ashton Hey, pretty boy

Ashton I’m on my break 

Luke jumps when his phone chimes, and grabs for it with fumbling fingers. 

Me How’s work?

Ashton Oh, you know 

Ashton Only had to kick out one guy so far 

Ashton So pretty good 

Luke huffs out a laugh. 

Me Pretty sure that’s a bouncer’s job, not a barback’s 

Ashton I’m a good multitasker 

Okay, Luke doesn’t have, like, a thing for bouncers, but the idea of Ashton squaring up to some drunk guy and throwing him out is kind of doing something to him. He blames it on the fact it’s late, he’s tired, he’s desperate, and Ashton’s far too attractive for his own good. 

Me Clearly, since you bartend too 

Ashton Hey, you said you wouldn’t tell 

Me Telling you doesn’t count as telling 

Ashton You don’t know who might be watching over my shoulder 

Luke grins. 

Me Who’s watching over your shoulder? 

Ashton No one, but it’s the principle of it 

Luke doesn’t really know what to say to that, but he’s saved from having to come up with anything by another text from Ashton. 

Ashton You should come by the bar again soon 

Me Bars aren’t really my scene 

Ashton The way you knocked back those tequila shots says otherwise 

Me I said bars, not alcohol 

Ashton Come after closing, then 

Luke hesitates. 

Me I have work during the week. I can’t be out at three 

Ashton Then come on Friday 

Luke exhales heavily. 

Me Maybe 

Ashton You can say no

Me I’m not saying no 

Ashton :) 

Ashton Break’s over. I’ll see you soon, pretty boy x 

Luke throws his phone down on his bedside table, pretending for the sake of his sanity that he hasn’t seen the fucking kiss at the end of that message, rolls over, and goes to sleep. 

(And if his dreams are filled with dimly lit bars and hot guys in leather jackets, that’s a total coincidence.) 

 -------

 It comes to a head on Tuesday. 

On Monday, Luke’s note had read: 

Golden boy, 

Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others. I think we are the latter. 

- AFI. 

Luke hadn’t had to look that one up - it’s Sense and Sensibility, anyone would know that. It might have made his heart race a little, seeing those words in the rushed, scratchy writing he’s come to associate with AFI, and knowing that they’re for him. Someone out there thinks that despite the fact they’ve only been leaving him notes for a little over a week, that’s enough. 

Ashton doesn’t show up until a minute before Calum’s shift ends on Tuesday, which is unusual for him. He’s got bruised knuckles and a black eye when he does turn up, and he can only throw Luke a slightly half-hearted smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, and doesn’t even call him pretty boy. 

“Hi,” he says, sounding tired. 

“What happened?” Luke says, frowning. Ashton shrugs. 

“I owed someone a favour,” he says simply, and there’s a tone of finality to his voice that tells Luke not to pry. Luke swallows, and nods. 

“You should put ice on that,” he says instead, nodding at Ashton’s eye, and Ashton huffs out a laugh. 

“Yeah, I-” he starts, and then the door to the kitchen bangs open, and Calum’s striding out, looking stricken when he spots Ashton. 

“What the fuck?” he demands, coming up to Ashton and cupping his face in his hands. “Jesus, was this Leon?” 

“Ben,” Ashton corrects, and Calum drops his hand. 

“Ben?” he says, an edge of fury to his voice. “Which Ben?” 

“You know which Ben,” Ashton says uncomfortably, turning away from Luke and heading off towards the door. Calum jogs after him, making a noise of anger. 

“Ashton Fletcher Irwin, what the fuck did I tell you about going after Ben?” he says dangerously. 

“I know, but Sam said-” Ashton says, cut off by the door swinging shut behind them, and Luke never gets to find out what Sam said. 

It doesn’t matter, though, because he’s gaping at the spot Ashton and Calum had just been standing in. 

Ashton Fletcher Irwin, Calum had said. Ashton Fletcher Irwin. 

AFI. 

Luke barely even notices he’s on his feet until he’s at the door, tearing it open and looking around wildly. The cold May air heads straight for his nose and ears, but he can’t even bring himself to care, rushing down the steps when he spots Calum and Ashton arguing by two motorbikes. 

“...owed him, Cal, you and I both knew he was going to call the favour in at some point,” Ashton’s saying. 

“Ashton,” Luke says, and both Ashton and Calum turn to him in surprise. 

“Yeah?” 

“Ashton Fletcher Irwin.” Realisation dawns on Ashton’s face, and he swallows. 

“Yeah,” he says, a little quieter this time. 

“You?” Ashton squirms a little, and nods. 

“Holy shit,” Luke says, because he doesn’t get it, can’t wrap his head around it. “Fucking- you’re AFI.” 

“Yeah,” Ashton says. “Look, I’m sorry, I just-” 

“You read Anna Karenina?” Ashton glances at him in surprise. 

“What? Yeah, it’s one of my favourite books.” 

“And Hamlet?” 

“Who hasn’t read Hamlet?” 

“Gone With The Wind?” 

“I- yeah? I just-” Luke takes a deep breath. 

“You’re AFI,” he says, again. Calum’s watching this entire exchange with something between bewilderment and amusement, leant back against his bike. 

“I just said that,” Ashton says. 

“You wrote me romantic notes.” 

“I- uh, yeah. I did.” Luke blinks at him, and takes a deep breath. 

“You- did you mean them?” 

“Of course I meant them,” Ashton says, sounding surprised. “How could I not? Jesus, Luke, look at you. You’re a fucking fantasy come to life. I’ve wanted nothing more than to kiss you since the day I first saw you. You think I was coming to pick Calum up from the hotel to be a good friend?” Luke stares at him. That’s the first time Ashton’s said his name, and Luke wants to hear it for the rest of his life.

“I’ve wanted to fuck you since the moment I saw you,” he says, without thinking. Ashton chokes on his next breath, and Calum sniggers behind his hand. 

“I’m going to go ahead,” he says, still smirking, throwing a leg over his bike. “Be safe, boys.” Ashton flips him off as Calum kicks his bike into gear and rides off, leaving Luke and Ashton alone in the deafening silence that follows Calum’s roaring exhaust. 

“I wasn’t expecting that,” Ashton says, after a minute. Luke bites his lip. 

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” he says, “but I have no idea what I’m doing. I almost never do.” Ashton laughs at that, amused and fond, before his face falls again, like he’s just remembered something.

“Luke,” he says carefully. “I- look. I like you, but I’m- I’m not a good guy.” 

“Shouldn’t I be the judge of that?” Ashton sighs. 

“No,” he says. “I- look. I’m trying to be better, okay? But I don’t want you to get caught up in all this. I’m trying to end it.” Luke hesitates, and then nods. He’d kind of known Ashton was mixed up in something, and he finds that it doesn’t really bother him. 

“Okay,” he says easily. 

“No, Luke, you don’t get it,” Ashton says, sounding a little frustrated, and Luke takes a bold step forward, because what the fuck does he have to lose now, and places a hand on Ashton’s forearm. 

“Hey,” he says, summoning all his courage. “You owe favours, you’re repaying debts. You don’t have to tell me what they are. I’m okay with that.” Ashton frowns at him.  

“I’m ending it,” he says again, like he doesn’t think Luke believes him. “These are the last few jobs. I’ll be out of the bar in a few weeks.” Luke nods again. 

“Okay,” he says. “I can wait a few weeks, if you want me to.” Ashton tilts his head, and stares at Luke. 

“You’d do that?” 

“Well, I’ve waited six months, haven’t I?” A slow grin spreads across Ashton’s face. 

“You don’t have to wait,” he says. “It’s not- like, I’m not in the fucking mafia, or anything. I just don’t want you to get caught up in my business.” Luke shrugs. 

“I’m good at lowkey,” he says, and Ashton huffs out a laugh. 

“Yeah, I can believe that,” he says. “So. How about mine on Friday, instead of the bar?” Luke blinks at him. 

“Don’t you have to work?”  

“Not if I call in sick,” Ashton says. Luke hesitates, and then a small smile spreads across his lips. 

“Yeah,” he says, grinning. “Yeah. I’d like that.” Ashton grins back at him, swinging a leg over his bike and pulling his helmet on.  

“I’ll text you,” he says. 

“Yeah,” Luke says, a little dazed. “Text me.” Ashton kicks his bike into gear, and Luke sees his eyes crinkle, which means he’s smiling.  

“See you around,” Ashton says, “golden boy.” 

[twixtandshout]

Tagged by @pidgeonpostal! And not tagging anyone else because I have SOILED the original template (soiled it!!) in deference to my [brushes off skirt] mostly clean public-facing appearance.

...I’ve been making a lot of Spongebob memes lately for someone who has not seen Spongebob.

How many works do you have on AO3?

71!

What’s your total AO3 wordcount?

...306,834. Jesus.

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

Uh. Many! I do a lot of one-offs (and/or start long things I never finish) in many different places. My top three fandoms by fics written are RWBY (29), Undertale (25), Gravity Falls/Transcendence AU (4).

Bet you can’t tell where my hyperfixations have fallen. 

I’ve also got some Pokémon and Sonic the Hedgehog fics back on my ff.net account, or I think I still do, anyway, but let’s never go back there pls

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. Sweeter Than Honey (Undertale): Taking a Completely unsurprising first place, with over 600 more kudos than the runner-up, the haphazard Underswap fic featuring a post-college self-insert I wrote just after high school! I shake my head some at how overblown and ridiculous the gap between this and all my other stuff is (c’mon, guys, I’ve written way better fics), but this is also the fic which prompted me (and at least one other person!) to start using they/them pronouns. I’ve gotten a lot of really sweet comments about how seen and appreciated it’s made people feel, so I can’t get down too far about it.

2. To Be A Hero (BNHA): I don’t count myself as part of the BNHA fandom, for a number of reasons, but for something that’s arguably the main motivation for the entire plot, Midoriya’s quirklessness is something I’ve never thought has been handled well. This fic marked the first time I (somewhat tentatively) claimed the disability label (thanks again to Sweeter Than for prompting that realization) to hold that lens over canon. It also really shot up my chart, dang! It’s the only thing here I’d consider “recent.”

3. Three-Sentence Shipping (Undertale): Self-explanatory.

4. Brothers Beyond Bonedaries (Undertale): Ah, the way-overcomplicated AU³ I got nowhere close to finishing. One of the things I really like about Undertale is the interface screw, how Toby Fox uses the medium of the video game to pull off crazy things and enhance his game, but most of the fic written for the fandom seems dedicated to explaining it away, grounding it, rather than taking it to the next step and messing with the medium of fanfiction when you keep the story going. I tried to do something cool like that here, playing with questions like narrator and authorship and breaking the fourth wall, even taking the “final boss” fight to a “totally separate” fic reached through the first by link – but, well, then I never finished it, which probably didn’t make anything less confusing for the poor folks who missed the intent.

5. Spirit and Such (Gravity Falls: Transcendence AU): A whole fic written to line out a particular image I had, which, naturally, never made it to the page. I consider it a bit of a cautionary tale for myself when it comes to writing (near-)original content; there’s a lot I look back on and cringe. I still love the characters, though – well, the important ones – and I think just stepping away from the tried-and-true Mizar formula nets it a star sticker here.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

>w>; I try, but a lot of the time I just don’t have anything to say? Like, oh, you liked it? Neat. There’s not much to respond to in comments like that, and then I’m weighing falling down on an ~obligation~ to respond to every message in my inbox vs annoying people with copy-paste fluff responses all down the page. Plus I know I make more of an effort to comment on things that didn’t get the attention I feel they deserve, so if I’m driving up my own comment count with nonsense, am I preventing myself from being in a position to receive more comments later? And then if I do comment, am I being too effusive or running people’s ears off explaining things they don’t actually need to know? Sometimes people just want to express interest or admiration and don’t necessarily want a whole peek and guided tour behind the curtain.

Can you tell I have anxiety? x3;

Anyway, I do respond when I can. And I keep most of the comments I’ve gotten to go back and reread. 

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

Hm, hmm. Lots of stuff in the TQ Nonsense series would probably qualify! I’m thinking of Unfixable, Wolfsong, and Ethanol. And there’s Bursting Through A Blood-Red Sky (I Can Live, I Can Breathe), of course, but that was always intended to have a fix-it epilogue. It’s just that I wrote it in a couple of hours day-of, stared at it, and decided I didn’t wanna just then. But now that’s As Long As You’re Still Burning Bright (I’m Still Awake), and that’s probably the best romance I’ve written, so that one worked out.

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve ever written?

Now and then! When the urge strikes. Uhhh, I’ve got a series of Doctor Who x Undertale crossovers I actually made a whole dang verse for that never made it to print. Get a couple great comments on that every few months or so. I think the World Trigger x Undertale crossover is probably weirder, though, by virtue of WT being a very small fandom. My enthusiasm kinda sputtered out on that one.

Mostly I just daydream crossovers with whatever happens to catch my eye at any given moment. I have a lot!!!! Though odds are out on whether I manage to remember any of them once the initial thought’s passed, lol.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Gotten a couple eyebrow-raising comments, but I think mostly I’m just too small a writer to draw that kind of attention.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don’t? think so? Think my tastes are a little niche for most people to bother ^^;

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I had someone apologize once for any language mistakes in their comment cause they had to run it through a translator! That’s not what you asked (the answer is no), but it’s very flattering to think that someone liked my fic enough to read and comment despite the language barrier.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes! :D @pidgeonpostal was gracious enough to agree to co-write Five Nights at Denny’s with me off an idea about shoes. This has fulfilled a long-held dream of mine (collabing with someone, not the shoes) and also introduced me to some lovely people.

What’s your all time favorite ship?

Who has time for just one? ;3c Honestly, I care more about the characters and how the relationship – any relationship – between them changes them than I do about ~A Ship~ as a solid, bounded noun-object. I’ve got characters I like more and less and feelings about who does and doesn’t have chemistry in which directions with whom, but finding anything that agrees with those preferences is hard, harder when you take alloromanticism into account. I’ll play in any sandbox with cool toys, especially if other folks have already built sick sandcastles there.

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

[kicks every single unfinished fic further under the bed] What nooo no WIPs here, everything on my account is either finished or does not exist

I’ve got a couple extra chapters of Sweeter Than floating around unposted, but 1. that fic’s a mess 2. high school Twixt and post-college Twixt are different people and trying to contort myself into three other me-shapes just cause people Like this fic is not something I’m super interested in 3. it’s headed for an emotional dip and I’d rather leave it where it is than post two chapters, stall out again, and leave folks with a bad end.

As for other fics... it’s looking more and more likely that v7 of my Yellow Brick Road AU will never actually make it out. >w>; I’ve got some really great ideas, but not enough to make me feel like I know what I’m doing, and that’s a big roadblock. Plus trying to engage with RT’s Atlas-Mantle worldbuilding in any serious capacity is... a headache. I can’t recommend the Happy Huntress Cinematic Universe enough, but it leaves some pretty big shoes to follow! And I’ve got small feet. <w<;

What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue’s fun, probably as an extension of characterization. I love tearing into what makes people tick, especially against the backdrop of their environment, the story they’re in, and the people they’re up against. Voice is a double-edged sword; I’ve been told my writing is really recognizable and individual, but on the other hand, I’ve been growing frustrated with with the limits of my narrative ability. There’s a strong rhythm I keep when I write (you might notice it here, even) but that leaves me feeling predictable and stale. I’m not sure I’m great at setting as a matter of course, but I’m pretty good at describing setpieces where the need comes up; that comes from my background in poetry, as does the fun I have with sublimating and abstracting complex imagery. And I think I bring some needed nuance to the universal. For good or ill, I don’t do what “everyone else” is doing.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Well, writing, for one thing. If I don’t know how something’s going to go and don’t have the urge to write it, it isn’t getting done, which means there’s a billion things that will never see the page and a few hundred more that are never getting finished. I lose momentum easily and have a hard time getting started, and I put way too much standing on finding a foothold with other people; as critical as I am of my work, I have high expectations for the stuff that passes muster, and it never seems to measure up. I’m also really uncreative. Yeah, I can mix up elements and extrapolate events, but coming up with things wholesale is really hard, which is why I avoid it wherever possible and steal/reskin stuff from other places instead.

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

Something along the lines of “Hoo boy, I am Not qualified for this but hopefully it’s decent anyway.” Maria’s Spanish lines haven’t been a big deal – I’ve used it sparingly and, as a Latin language, it should be easy for English-speaking audiences to pick up on the gist – but I’ve had a harder time with Tai’s Chinese, both because I have Even Less background there and because it is, of course, an entirely different language system. If I write it out in English or Romanized italics, am I colonizing it or changing the meaning? If I write it out in the presumed-original characters (presumed because it’s Google Translate and who knows if I’m even barking in the right forest), am I confusing or alienating my presumed-majority-English-speaking audience? Where should I put the translations? Should I put the translations? And for Frisk’s sign language, thinking back, are the brackets I used instead of quotes alienating/infantilizing? I like that different characters give the text between a different feel, but I’m not an ASL speaker – and I’m pretty sure the word is “speaker,” which would only reinforce that that demographic would rather I didn’t do that. It’s important for all these characters, I think, that they use non-English language where it makes sense; it’s part of who they are. But as a white monolingual English-speaker, I don’t think I can really weigh in.

What was the first fandom you ever wrote for?

Thaaaat’d be Pokémon, followed closely with Sonic the Hedgehog. Whether those fics are still on my ff.net account or not (pretty sure I’ve purged them, but you never know) I’ve still got a couple saved to a folder on my current laptop, ostensibly so I can look back and see how far I’ve come and more practically to allow for the possibility of furthering group cohesion through public shaming.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I still like the idea behind The Man Who Is Atlas, and Burning Bright (Still Awake) gets props for being my current fic, though it’s currently in that spot where I’m excited to get new chapters posted but also quietly marking everything up in red pen. I think Harbinger gets the crown here, at least for now.

[galactic-magick]

Opposites Attract: Remus x Reader

Request: Could you do a Remus x innocent! reader fic? Basically the reader is a pure child just like patton but somehow even more of a cinnamon roll? -anon

Summary: You make some weird crafts with Remus and admit your feelings to each other.

Words: 800+

Warnings: Remus-typical content (although I honestly kept it pretty tame)

Author’s Notes: I may have made him uncharacteristically soft and awkward oops but I hope you like this anon!

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Remus has been trying for weeks to get your attention, but everything he says or does seems to go right over your head. He’s never been very accomplished in the romance department anyway, usually anyone he tries to flirt with runs away screaming, but something about you is different. Although you rarely understand the off-the-walls and gross things he goes on about, you’re always friendly to him and make an effort to include him. Regardless, he doesn’t think you’ve ever viewed him as anything more than a casual friend, and you probably have no clue of his intentions.

Nothing’s really going on today, so you spend some time with Patton. You’re pretty close with him, as your temperaments are very similar. You love playing games and cooking and baking together, and today you decided to dabble in some crafts.

Roman helps you conjure up anything you can think of, lots of clay, paper, stickers, strings, fabric, and various tools. Patton jumps straight into making friendship bracelets for everyone, and you start messing with some clay.

Remus usually tries to avoid talking to you when Patton is around, since Patton is very disapproving of him in general, but how could he pass up this opportunity?

“What do we have here?” Remus leans on the table, glazing over the scattered supplies.

“We’re making crafts! Want to join us?” you reply, rolling around a piece of clay in your hands.

“I’d love to!” he sits down next to you. “I know! We could make-“

“We’re not making nude sculptures, Remus,” Roman glares.

“I was actually going to say make a cake out of glue and then eat it, but I like your idea better Roman!” he laughs.

“I was just going to make some animals…” you say, forming the base of a tiger.

“Oh, well, of course!” he grins. “We can do that,”

For the next couple hours, you and Remus make every animal you can think of. You make elephants, cats, dogs, turtles, fish, bears, and many more. Obviously, Remus’s are not normal in the slightest, but you don’t mind. All his versions of animals have tongues and teeth where they shouldn’t be, extra eyes, ears, noses, and limbs in strange places. Patton and Roman stare at him in horror, but you honestly don’t see a problem.

“Can you bring them to life?” you ask him, setting all the animals in a row.

“Your wish is my command,” he smirks, wiggling his fingers. Soon enough, all the animals take their first steps and run around the craft table, shuffling things around and bumping into each other. The ones you made seem to function like the species they resemble, but Remus’s immediately start causing chaos, breathing fire and attacking each other. “Play nice,” he scolds, picking up a dinosaur-lion like creature that was hissing at your elephant.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s just their way of saying hello,” you smile.

He’s always so dumbfounded by how chill you are with him. Do you actually enjoy his company? Do you actually not mind his ideas?

Of course not, why would you? It’s obvious you have more fun with Patton and Roman and the others. It’s not like you go out of your way to hang out with him, right? And why would you ever return his feelings? After all, no one would even guess that you of all people are the person he has the hots for. You’re his complete opposite, but that’s what makes you so intriguing. Your sweetness and obliviousness is incredibly charming.

Later that day, when Remus had returned to his room, he hears a knock on the door.

“Hey, can I come in? Your five-headed giraffe monster keeps trying to eat my bunny,”

He swings open the door and with the wave of a hand the animals and creatures go back to being inanimate objects.

“Thank you,”

“Anything for you,” he bows, making you giggle.

“Would it be alright if I came in?”

“You…want to?”

“Yeah, why not?”

He opens the door wider and you step inside. You don’t seem to be bothered by the weird gory posters and weapons on the walls, or the obnoxious noises coming from random places at random times.

“I had fun with you today, you know,” you say.

“Well of course you did!” he cackles. “Wait, you’re serious?”

“I always do,” you nod. “And um, actually, your creature wasn’t trying to eat mine, I just wanted an excuse to see you,”

“Oh?”

Without warning, you wrap your arms around him and hug him tight.

“Oh…” he didn’t think he even had the capacity to be flustered, but he completely melts in your embrace and has no idea what to say. “I…like you too,”

“What?”

“I like having fun with you too!” he quickly corrects himself.

“That’s not what you said,”

“Yes it is! You know I would never lie to you-“ before he can finish, you kiss his cheek and smile. “You…like me too?”

“Yes,”

“You realize that’s the worst possible life decision you could’ve made, right?”

“Mhmm,” you fall into his arms again, and this time he welcomes you and holds you close. Against all odds you’ve somehow come together, and he has no intention of screwing it up or letting you go.

[spookyceph]

Good Graces Pt. 2

Finally got the second half of this fic together. Find it on Ao3 or the first part here on Tumblr. 

Nothing explicit takes place, however, the non-canon talk is of a sexual nature. Also, Dabi is a masochist and likes being ordered around. But we knew this already, didn’t we?

Words: 2,789

Rating: M for language and sexual themes

The wait ended two days later in the same spot. Dabi was in the process of pouring himself his second drink of the night when a misty-edged hole opened in reality behind the bar. From it stepped the tall, elegant form of Kurogiri. Dabi had never really considered what a demon might look like, but the League’s second-in-command/butler/voice of reason provided plenty of inspiration. Impeccable suit. Ability to show up anywhere. Form too immaterial to hurt, but still capable of making someone pay for trying. As always, Dabi gave him a polite nod and fought back memories of how it had felt to unexpectedly be elbow-deep in that shifting darkness.

“Ah, Dabi. Just the person I was hoping to see.” Deep. Smooth as high-end nihonshu. The kind of voice that could talk somebody into trading away their firstborn. Or into joining a half-assed villain ensemble.

Dabi paused with his glass to his lips. He made a sound he hoped came across as Yes, I’m listening rather than Help, I’ve swallowed my own tongue in mortal terror.

“Shigaraki Tomura wishes to speak with you at your earliest convenience.”

This was it. This was not a drill. Dabi put down the glass without taking a sip. “Where?”

“He is in his room at the moment. I will open the way, if you wish to go now.”

He’d just slid off the stool when the words registered. The air behind him changed. It was like the faint static charge living things gave off and a feeling of being watched all at once. Except Dabi knew if he turned he’d see only a hazy oval of black floating there, the perfect width and length to swallow him completely.

He didn’t want to use the warp gate. No fucking way. Problem was he’d already gotten up—couldn’t sit back down without looking like a coward or a dumbass or both. And he sure as hell wasn’t about to admit he already knew where Shigaraki’s room was to the person who amounted to the closest thing the guy had to a father.

So, Dabi grabbed his glass again. Knocked back the contents. Pretended it was just like jumping into a cold pool on a summer day as he turned and plunged into the waiting darkness.

Nothing existed anymore. Not time. Not space. Not self. Then something—maybe Kurogiri’s will or just simple momentum—carried him back into being. He returned to reality with a gasp. Catching his balance, he blinked and took stock of his new surroundings.

Shigaraki sat on his heels not a meter away, staring up through the stiff fingers of his favorite fashion statement. Large sheets of paper littered the floorboards in front of him. Maps, Dabi realized, noting the grid lines and coordinate markings. Somewhere way out in the sticks, if all the green and brown were any clue. Turning his head, he saw shelves lining the walls. Books? No, too many the same size and too thin. Cases for games—hundreds of them. More than one person could finish without giving up on everything else in life. Then again, what did he know? He’d never been allowed to have any as a kid. Never been allowed to have anything that might distract him from the glorious future planned out for him since day one. And just look at how well that had gone.

At any rate, the room didn’t seem to have the right ambiance to banish or murder someone in. Dabi let his hopes peek out from the bunker of suspicion.

“What’s this stuff for?” he asked, nodding to the maps on the ground.

Nothing from Shigaraki for an adrenaline-spiking second. Then, he crooked the fingers of one hand. “Sit.”

Dabi obeyed, pacing himself. Step in closer. Let one leg fold under him. Just bend the other so the sole of his boot lay flat on the floor. Rest same side elbow on knee. Prop the whole casual façade up with the other hand behind him.

“You got something you wanna say?” Cool nonchalance despite all the spit having vanished from inside his mouth.

Closing those intense eyes, his boss-and-possibly-more drew a long inhale. Didn’t even gag on the musty museum specimen smell of the taxidermy clutching his face. Then it was Dabi’s turn to suck in a breath as Shigaraki pulled off the gray hand with fumbling fingers, setting it aside.

“I want you to lead the others on their first job,” he said, complete with direct eye contact.

Any pretense of self-assurance abandoned Dabi. His stomach clenched as if braced for a punch. He pumped his brain for something droll, snappy, cocky in response. The well had run dry. He settled for practical.

“What do you want us to do?”

Shigaraki’s shoulders relaxed a fraction, though his stoic expression never wavered. “I was given some interesting information about UA’s precious fledgling heroes. Seems they’re headed to a remote training camp in the mountains for the summer. No one will be looking after them except two of their teachers and four pros who specialize in wilderness rescue missions. I want you to ruin their little retreat.”

Dabi’s spine went stiff and straight as an exclamation point. “I didn’t sign up to kill kids—even baby heroes.”

But Shigaraki was already shaking his head halfway through. “Killing them isn’t the point. That would generate too much outrage, hypocritical or no. The police might actually pry their heads from their asses and make a united effort to hunt us down with that much public pressure on them. Not to mention every third-rate pro in the country would crawl out of the woodwork, looking to make headlines. We’d be finished before we ever got started.

“No, what I have in mind is some training of our own.”

Attention swapped places with apprehension. “Oh?”

“None of us have worked together. Most of us haven’t worked on a team at all. This is an opportunity to test how well your quirks and styles compliment or clash with one another.”

“So, what? We crash their field trip and start fucking shit up? Flee the scene when the fighting gets too heated?”

“I came up with a level objective for you to focus on.” From on top of the maps, Shigaraki scooped up a thick manila folder and handed it to him.

Taking it, Dabi flipped to the first set of pages inside. His expression stayed set in stone while his stomach took a cliff dive.

A pretty girl with skin the color of bubblegum and squiggly little horns peeking out of her cotton candy hair smiled out at him from the photo in the top corner.

Name: Ashido Mina

Age: 15

Quirk: Acid

“You got hold of the students’ profiles? Impressive.” And a potential fucking disaster waiting to happen.

Shigaraki shrugged modestly, lightly scratching a new crop of scabs that had popped up in jagged furrows on both sides of his neck. Scabs that hadn’t been there a few days ago. “It’s just their teachers’ assessments of their quirks and performance during class assignments. Personal information like relatives and home addresses were better protected.”

The vice slowly closing its jaws around Dabi’s thumping heart released. Regardless, he made sure not to linger on any one student as he leafed through several of the profiles. Just focused on breathing normally and pretending to read for what seemed like a reasonable amount of time before moving to the next. He’d wait until he didn’t have an audience to allow himself to register anything.

“What’s this objective supposed to be?” he inquired.

“Capture one of the stronger, more notable students and ask him to join us.”

A muscle in his cheek jumped when Shigaraki reached over and flipped to a report in the middle of the folder. Dabi forced himself not only to look but see.

The boy scowling out of the picture was blonde. Broad-shouldered. Red-eyed, though not as beautifully as the one sitting across the way. Dabi’s pulse evened out.

“Bakugou Katsuki,” he read. “Isn’t this the kid they had to bind and gag at UA’s Sports Festival—even though he won the damn thing?”

“The same.”

“The hell do we want him for? I thought we were full capacity on lunatics already.”

A sigh. “To spook the school’s supporters and society at large, for one. It’s not enough to kill heroes. More will just take their place. We have to convince people to withdraw their support of them. Turn against them, though that won’t come until later.”

Dabi snorted. “This little asshole will never agree to sign on with us. He’s obsessed with proving he’s above everyone else. I know the type.”

A twitch of interest crossed Shigaraki’s face. Instead of pressing, though, he filed the slip away in that mysterious brain of his. “I don’t give half a shit if he agrees. All that matters is he blabs to anyone who’ll listen that we targeted and tried to corrupt him once we let him ‘escape’.”

Tapping his fingers on the stack of papers, Dabi let the big picture come into focus. “Instead of outright attacking the school, we’re undermining their image. Making all the mommies and daddies wonder if a career as a pro is as great as they thought it would be for their precious snot-nosed bastards. Getting donors to think twice before reaching for those wallets. We’re playing the long game. Smart.” A thin smile tugged at one end of Dabi’s mouth. “Which leaves just one question. Why have me lead instead of yourself? People might accuse me of sleeping my way to the top.”

A lovely shade of pink, like the inner coating of a seashell, livened up Shigaraki’s cheeks. “We never—!” He huffed and turned away, pink deepening to rose and spreading to the tops of his ears when he noticed Dabi’s smile had widened to a grin. “You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?”

“Guilty. Well, on the last part anyway.”

Shigaraki continued to fume, hopes of an answer dwindling with each second of silence. Then, just when an apology was in the works, “Because I’m a shitty leader.”

Dabi exchanged his smile for arched eyebrows. “”And you think I’d make a better one?”

“You take initiative when you need to, and show restraint when you should. You’re able to read people without giving away much of anything about yourself. The others respect you. They like you. Anyway, from a purely tactical standpoint, since your quirk is long range you can attack and give orders without getting swept up in the melee. And…” Blood-soaked irises looked at him through a tangled curtain of white hair for a moment before flitting back to the safety of the maps. “I trust you.”

Every response Dabi had lined up crumbled. With them gone, he couldn’t pretend not to notice what they’d been hiding. Exposed to proper light and air, it bloomed, bright and bold despite the ruin it grew from.

“I won’t fail.” The words were hoarse, but came out easily enough for a promise he’d swore to make to no one except himself ever again.

“I know you won’t. Because this isn’t about winning or losing. I want you and the others to test yourselves as individuals and as a team. Do your best. Find what works. What doesn’t. We’ll figure out where to go from there. Together.”

He’d joined the League of Villains looking for a means to exact revenge. Being told what he’d always wanted to hear made for a hell of a bonus prize.

Dabi pounced. His mouth mashed into Shigaraki’s, muffling an astonished yelp. Cold hands latched onto the front of his shirt. Not Decaying. Not shoving. Clinging. Insisting. He obliged, wrapping his arms around the other man’s waist and shoulders, then letting his weight carry them both to the floor. They rolled across the maps, scattering stolen papers as they went. Lips and teeth and tongue combined in different ways between every panting break for air.

Winding up sprawled on top, Dabi relocated his kisses to Shigaraki’s neck. The whimper that came out of him when just a bit of suction was applied under the corner of his jaw went directly to Dabi’s dick. Shigaraki writhed, supple and strong, yet unsure and overwhelmed. His fingers—three on each hand—clutched hard enough to hurt through a carapace of scar tissue. The scabs crosshatching his neck scraped the tongue and tasted of rust.

He surpassed any fantasy conjured up in the past few weeks. Because he was real. Unpredictable. And, in that slice of time at least, he was Dabi’s.

Shigaraki gasped and arched at the feel of a hand slipping up under his shirt. Dabi became so absorbed in the smooth, cool texture of the skin beneath his fingertips he didn’t think anything of the arm that snaked around his own, or the heel hooked behind his knee until, with a sharp twist of hip, he was rolled. The air rushed out of him in a huff as he hit the floor. Shigaraki didn’t look it, but he was solid, planting himself on Dabi’s chest and pinning both his wrists above his head.

“No,” he said, decisive if out of breath. “We do this my way.”

Dabi kept perfectly still. One wriggle, one shift, and he would’ve cum in his pants right then and there. So, he relaxed one muscle group at a time. Controlled his breathing. Showed his boss what a good boy he could be.

“What did you have in mind?” he asked, already positive he’d like the answer.

Despite his command of the situation, Shigaraki’s gaze wandered off to the side. Unsure. Shy. God, it was going to be fun fucking both descriptions right out of him.

“I don’t have…experience…with this, ah, subject.”

Dabi had to keep his teeth clamped together to keep from laughing. Good. He had to be good or he wouldn’t get any treats.

“So, I thought…maybe we could each make a list. Of things we like—or might like. And of stuff we don’t, or aren’t interested in. Then…pick and agree on an option. Until…until someone gets bored or just doesn’t want to anymore or…whatever.”

The habit of exceeding expectations was quickly becoming one of Dabi’s favorite things about his new boss. “Is that what you’ve been up to these past three days? Thinking about what you want to do to me?”

Shigaraki shifted his weight forward a bit, breathing definitely speeding up a notch. “Not the entire three days,” he muttered.

Dabi rested his hands on slim hips, keeping them still before they sent him over the edge. “When did you want this list?”

He considered, worrying his already cracked bottom lip with his teeth and then catching the trickle of blood with the point of his tongue in a way that made Dabi’s toes curl in his boots. “We’ll need to start meeting regularly to work on the plan anyway, so…tomorrow, at this time.”

Meaning he had already made a list and wanted to see what Dabi came up with. “Done.”

“Well.” Shigaraki cleared his throat lightly. “It’s settled then.” Carefully, he started to slide his leg over. Froze when a soft hiss escaped Dabi. A finger stroked one of the staples in his cheek before pulling back, remembering permission to do so hadn’t been agreed on yet.

“Did I hurt you? When we rolled over?”

Absolutely precious. Dabi smiled. “Not as much as I want you to.”

Red eyes blinked rapidly, wide and startled. “I’m…sorry?”

“Don’t be. Now go on. Let me up.”

Still looking a bit lost, Shigaraki did, sitting with his arms wrapped around his legs. Dabi sat upright on a long exhale. Paused to collect himself. Got to his feet when he was reasonably sure he wouldn’t ruin his last clean pair of pants doing so.

“You’re leaving?”

The note of disappointment in Shigaraki’s tone almost toppled his resolve. He looked over through lowered lashes. “I have something pressing to take care of at the moment. Unless you don’t want to wait for a list to find out what it is.”

One glance below Dabi’s belt transformed confusion into open-mouthed understanding. “Oh.” Shigaraki buried his face in his knees. “Sorry?”

“I already told you. Don’t be.” And before his willpower evaporated completely, “See you tomorrow.”

He’d made it to the door when a final thought sprung on him. Pausing with his fingers on the handle, he peered back over his shoulder. “You didn’t come up with this whole training camp plan just to score some alone time with me, did you?”

The choked sound that came from Shigaraki was answer enough. Dabi finally allowed himself to laugh as he let himself out.

[rose-mori]

alright!! ♥︎ could i get a bigby x fem! reader fic, however the reader themselves is a “mutt monster”? (very much so like how Jersey can shift into the Jersey Devil) and Bigby finds this out through following her around and kind of approaching it like “Oh, so this is what goes on during your freetime?” - @monstercoffin

The first request I got! I kind of went in a different direction and the type of being the reader is was kept vague but I hope this entertains nevertheless! Thank you for your patience I hope you enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I should really be heading out now” She stares at the office exit from her seat in front of Bigby’s desk before facing him again. Bigby looks up from his paperwork and frowns as he notices not only the way her frequent glances at the door hold a sense of restrained longing but also the way her leg is bouncing anxiously and how she’s constantly shifting in her seat uncomfortably, not to mention the longer she’s seated there the more shallow her breathing seems to get. He’d never known her to be an overly anxious person before but ever since they’ve been spending more time together he’s noticed she tends to get into an uncomfortable and almost panicked state nearing the end of the day. He’s asked her about it before but she always rushes off with a flimsy excuse. When she starts digging her nails into the arm rests of her chair he stops trying to assess her and decides he won’t let her get away without an explanation this time.

“Are you in some sort of trouble I don’t know about?” With his brows knitted, eyes full of concern, and his frame leaning towards her as he was already slouched over his paperwork, his gaze holds an intensity that she isn’t equipped to deal with at the moment.

“No! Of course not I just- It’s really getting late and I don’t want Snow to come in and get on my case about distracting you or how I-“

“We both know Snow is gone for the night and that doesn’t explain why you acted like this all the other times.” He sighs as he gets up out of his chair and walks over to the other side of the desk. Crossing his arms and leaning against the desk he examines her further. She can’t make eye contact with him for more than a second and her body language suggests that she’s experiencing physical discomfort. She realizes that he’s analyzing her and gets up quickly, causing Bigby’s eyes to widen and then furrow his brow in confusion and frustration. “When are you gonna stop keeping me in the dark?”

She can tell he’s starting to feel hurt. She can hear it in his voice and see it in his eyes. ‘Just tell him it’s not that big of a deal really’ one side of her thinks but the other reminds her that Snow has been really cracking down on Fables whose true forms aren’t that of a human, monitoring them closer than ever before and sending them to the farm at the slightest infraction. She understands why Snow is doing it but there must be a less intrusive and stressful way of going about that right? Hiding her true form from Bigby felt wrong. She feels a deep pit in her stomach whenever she has to stammer some lame excuse out and watch him get continuously more suspicious but what is she supposed to do? If Bigby knows then he’s put in a compromising situation, he either keeps it from Snow or informs her, and that’s a burden she doesn’t want to place on him.

He notices her contemplating and softens his gaze. “Please, trust me.” He says earnestly. Her heart almost stops.

“It’s nothing really. It’s just a personal matter.” That’s not enough for him to relent and she sighs. “Look, I can assure you I’m not in any danger whatsoever otherwise I would tell you right away okay?” Bigby pauses for a bit at this.

“Fine”

She sighs in relief.

“I’m still not happy with you keeping things from me.” He makes his way back behind his desk.

“I know I know it’s just embarrassing and not something I want to talk about is all.” She gets up and gives him an apologetic look. Bigby just hums in response. “Anyway I should probably get going now, it’s getting pretty late.” She waves as she rushes out, leaving Bigby in the dark yet again.

————

————

It’s been another quiet day in Fabletown. Bigby finds it odd but not unwelcome, at least not completely. Contrary to popular belief, Bigby did not get to find time for himself during rare times of peace, instead he has to go through all the paperwork he otherwise can’t get to due to being too busy trying to either talk or knock some sense into the residents that tend to not listen, depending on how hostile they are. However, it seems Snow has a touch to rival that of King Midas’ when it comes to keeping people in line which leads Bigby to where he is now. Just doing paperwork.

His admiration for Snow’s abilities is slowly starting to turn to annoyance with every file. Thinking back on it, this was a majority of what Bigby did before everything with The Crooked Man. Perhaps the constant action during that time has lessened his patience for the norm. To make things even less interesting, (Y/N) is not here today. Snow advised her to not come since there really wasn’t much for her to assist with after she spent the last week finishing organizing all the paperwork to make it easier for Bigby to go through. He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. He can’t stop his mind from trying to figure out what she’s hiding. Leave it to her to make him lose focus, although he wishes it wasn’t because he was worried.

As if on cue he catches her scent, and decides that he could use a breath of fresh air and some sun. She’s a few blocks away, that’s a good distance for a walk.

~~~~~~

~~~~~~

Her scent led him to a bar, and a small one at that. He’s heard of it before, it’s gotten popular in the short amount of time it’s been open. With all the talk about this place it definitely takes Bigby by surprise when he sees how little the maximum capacity of the place probably is and further more the lack of people there. Just one glance around the room and he can’t see her but her scent is strong. There’s no denying she’s here somewhere. The few patrons that are there seem awfully wary of him. He can’t pinpoint if it’s just them reacting to him normally or if there’s something they’re hiding. A terrible thought flashes through his mind and he holds back a scowl. He can’t afford to jump to conclusions, and it seemed genuine when she said she wasn’t in trouble. Bigby calms himself down before taking a seat in front of the barkeep. “Small place you got here.”

“Smaller the place the lower the rent.” The man says. No offer for a drink, the usual for most places that want Bigby to leave as soon as possible.

“It’s funny. I’ve heard so much about this place that I expected there to be customers.” Bigby looks around the almost empty room to emphasize his point. The barkeep scoffs.

“If you want a more lively atmosphere I’m sure you can find another place with one after you fuck right off.” He turns his back on Bigby.

“Haven’t heard that one before.” Unamused, Bigby looks at the bookshelf against the wall. It looked out of place in what was probably the smallest dive bar Bigby had ever seen. “Why have a bookshelf in a place like this?”

“Christ, is there something wrong with having a bit of decoration?” The barkeep says with a lot more venom than before and now Bigby knows he’s probably onto something if that struck such a nerve. He gets off the stool and make his way towards the bookshelf.

“I don’t look too much into interior design myself but I think the place would probably seem a lot bigger if you didn’t have this taking up so much space.” As he inspects it he notices how dusty most of the books are, all except one. He rolls his eyes. “Really?” He mutters under his breath.

“H-Hey, what’re you doing?”

Bigby smirks as he looks back at the barkeep. “This is the type of shit Mundies come up with in mystery novels. You could’ve at least hidden it with a spell and make me work for it a little, maybe even invested in a duster.” He turns back to the bookcase and pulls the book, which turns out to be a lever. The bookcase moves and opens up a much more lively bar filled with creatures of all sorts. “So this is why everyone’s coming here.” He walks in and ignores all the shocked patrons. There’s not a single human looking person in there but her scent is undeniable.

“Bigby?!” He hears a familiar voice behind him and turns around to be met with something that doesn’t match his image of who the voice belongs to.

“Uhh? (Y/N)?” He says with cautious confusion.

“Why are you here?” She asks clearly upset and embarrassed. Not only is her cover blown with him but everyone in the establishment is staring them down.

“I uh-“ Now it’s Bigby’s turn to be embarrassed. He doesn’t really have a reason to be here other than tracking her down. (Y/N) groans before he can answer.

“I can’t believe this, let’s go outside.” She transforms back into her human form before taking his arm and leaving the building.

————

————

“So that’s why you’ve been running off?” He walks closely next to her on the sidewalk heading back to the offices.

“If I’m in this form for too long I get so uncomfortable to the point that I can’t stand it. I don’t know how you manage Bigby.” She sighs. Bigby glances down at her before shoving his hand in his pocket and pulling out a pack of Huff n’ Puffs.

“You should’ve told me.” He says with a cigarette between his lips. He puts his pack away and grabs his lighter.

“I didn’t want to put you in a position where you’d be withholding something from Snow that she would want to know about.” She frowns and keeps her gaze at her feet.

“I appreciate the sentiment but I’d prefer you didn’t keep secrets from me, I worry for you.” Bigby snaps his lighter closed and shoves it back in his pocket. She blushes and turns her head away from him.

“Well lucky for us that’s the only thing I wasn’t being honest about.” (Y/N) looks back at him with a serious expression. “Please don’t tell Snow.” Bigby frowns and she starts getting apprehensive. She turns in front of him and stops him, she looks up at him with pleading eyes and grips his shirt. “I can’t afford glamour to help make keeping this form less straining and I know once she hears how hard it is for me to keep my form for long she’ll keep an extra watchful eye on me and I wouldn’t be able to stand that.”

Bigby stares down at her wide eyed as she pleads her case. When she’s finished, he tosses his cigarette to hold her by her shoulders and calm her down. “I won’t tell Snow I promise.” (Y/N) immediately sighs a breath of relief and releases all the tension in her body and her grip on his shirt.

“Thank you Bigby.” She smiles up at him sweetly, catching him off guard yet again. He uncomfortably adjusts his collar before putting a hand on her back and turning her around to continue walking.

“Don’t mention it. Besides, now I know we have a lot more in common.”

[mego42]

Writer Asks

Tagged by @sothischickshe, @bourbon-ontherocks and @medievalraven who are all v lovely and for reasons unknown to me, want me to ramble about my fic so like, blame them for this I guess

Tagging @fairhairedkings, @riosnecktattoo, @inyoursheets, @foxmagpie, @pynkhues if you feel like it

ao3 name: ms_scarlet (origin story no one asked for: I came up with it for a creative writing class where we had to submit everything under pseudonyms for anonymous full class critique, which was gr9 and not at all traumatic, and I was deeply obsessed with both the Grateful Dead and Sublime versions of Scarlet Begonias at the time)

fandoms: the only fandoms I’ve written fic for are bellarke/t100 and Good Girls (and Buffy but it was way back in the day, pre-organized archives and has been completely lost to time which is For The Best)

number of fics: 14 (lol, 5 over the course 3 years in t100 fandom and 9 since joining the GG fandom at the beginning of s3, you could say I have been inspired)

fic i spent the most time on: a song inside the halls of the dark for sure, it’s the first multi chapter I’ve ever done and I’m far enough into it that I will be super honest, I was extremely dubious over whether or not I’d actually see it through when I started but huzzah! It’s happening. But yeah, I spend like, a lot of time thinking about it, writing it (lmao obvs), rewatching clips of the show to pick apart characterization and mannerisms, etc, etc. I try to work on it in some capacity every day (sometimes that just means outlining or deleting chunks of my outline and crying about how much I hate myself) to keep up momentum so yeah, def that one.

As far as one shots go, there’s blood in my body (I’m holding on) for bellarke, I think I spent a month, maybe 6 weeks working on that

fic i spent the least amount of time on: as the world turns, the blunt burns, I was doing my usual lazy Saturday morning scroll through Tumblr before I got out of bed and saw a post like I want beth and mick to get high together (I would love to give credit but I haven’t the foggiest notion who said it, I wasn’t intending to write it so I didn’t pay too much attention, I’m the worst, I’m sorry) and then some dialogue popped into my head maybe 10 min later and I think I wrote the whole thing in like, 45 min on my phone. Cannot emphasize enough how little I thought about it (or proofed it tbh, yikes, so many typos) before posting

most hits: overall, I’ve Got You Here my t100 post s3, alt s4 thing. For Good Girls, a song inside the halls of the dark

most kudos: overall, there’s blood in my body (I’m holding on) - bellarke modern au. For GG, still song.

most comment threads:  a song inside the halls of the dark by a M I L E (it twice as many as blood, the next highest), the GG fandom is so lovely and supportive and friendly and I love you guys, I really do

most bookmarks: same as kudos, blood overall and then song for GG

highest total word count: lol song is killing it

favorite fic i wrote: oh man, that’s hard. I love them all for different reasons. Blood was my first ever AU (I am a canon/canon-divergent ho) and it also deals with some stuff that’s important to me so that’s always going to have a special place in my heart. I’ve Got You Here was the first time I tried to tackle something bigger than a missing scene or short one-shot so that’s also significant.

I’m really proud of smoke, fire, it’s all going up because I think I did a p good job with the Rio POV there. I’d give her a HA! And a HI-YA! is special bc it’s my first outside POV and it was based on so little info it was basically OC, so that was a fun challenge.

All of that said, obviously, a song inside the halls in the dark is my fav. It’s been the biggest stretch of my skills (I had NO! IDEA! If I could plot and pace on the level required to sustain the fic I’d originally outlined and it’s only grown from there tbh), it’s also been like, the loveliest experience? I keep saying people’s reaction to it has broken my brain and I’m not actually just saying that. I’m deeply overwhelmed. And last but emphatically not least, it’s how I’ve gotten to know @nickmillerscaulk who, on top of being an incredible editor (seriously y’all, she is Skilled, I’ve learned so much from her), is such an awesome, amazing person and I’m so very glad we’ve become friends.

fic i want to rewrite/expand on: Oh man, idk. Pills N Potions is the easiest because it’s a prompt collection! Send me prompts! I can’t promise I’ll write them right away (my ADHD is so very real and only dubiously under my control during quarantine, so I live in constant terror of losing the thread of song especially this close to the end) but I def want to flex my quick and dirty short fic for funsies skills. I’m super looking forward to @goodgirlsficrecs prompt-a-thon.

share a bit of a wip or story idea you’re working on: ahahaha oh man, my google drive is littered with partially drafted or outlined ideas. I have a bunch of missing scene things I started at various points in s3 that are realistically dead in the water.

In terms of WIP/ideas I’m still intending to work on/finish:

A post 311 Rio POV pwp

A fishing/fencing/flute playing fluff for @medievalraven because I keep taunting her with my tags for song

The Good Guys (Rio, JT and Stan) thing that snowballed in a post way back when from @jazillia007, @nickmillerscaulk, and @inyoursheets

I still low-key want to do the transcripts for the Mick, Annie and Ruby group chat. I might save that for whenever I rewatch and have it running concurrently to s3, idk we’ll see

A Jewel Thief AU that I am wildly hyped about. I outlined the first chapter of it around when I started posting song and haven’t let myself do anything with it because I know once I get started I’m going to abandon whatever else I’m working on

More Annie POV, I don’t have any specific ideas, I just really love writing Annie POV

[kuriquinn]

just because it ain’t broke, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be improved

I feel like a few things need to be qualified about the feedback culture discourse if it’s going to stay civil.

Feedback advocates ARE NOT demanding every single consumer leave feedback on every single piece of art or story every time they log on to the internet.

Consumer advocates ARE NOT suggesting that fanartists and fanwriters are not entitled to feedback ever.

Let’s not go putting words in each other’s mouths, that way inevitably leads to lurking trolls deciding to become keyboard warrior anons.  

Feedback discourse is not meant to shame anyone, consumer or writer, it’s to open a discussion about how the general culture could be changed for the better.

That said, fandom in general is in need of a change in how consumers and creators interact with one another. 

One of the main arguments I have seen in the past few days is that passively consuming fandom works (with the occasional outlying consumer occasionally or always leaving feedback) has always been the norm, is currently the norm and will always be the norm.***

Which to me boils down to, “we’ve always done it this way, why change it?”

(I doubt I need to give all the historical examples of where that kind of thinking has gotten us, or how it’s been challenged.)

Just because it’s normal practice now and everyone does it this way and supposedly always has done it this way, doesn’t mean we can’t strive for something better. Fandom creators and consumers are in a symbiotic relationship—without the consumer, we have no one to share our work with but ourselves and maybe a few close friends; without the creator, consumers don’t get access to new content related to their interests (or at least have diminished access). 

We need each other.

If tomorrow some law is passed that basically bans all fan created content from the web and some major purge happens just deleting everything that doesn’t belong or isn’t endorsed by the actual creator, what happens to the fandom? I can tell you right now, creators will keep creating—we just won’t be able to share it with anyone but our closest, real-life friends. And consumers might keep consuming fan-created content, but it will be in a much smaller capacity. 

Neither side wants this.

So why not discuss ways to make the fandom experience better for both sides here? Including listening to the parties in the relationship who are basically explaining something that is discouraging/damaging to them?

It’s a pretty simple equation: 

creators produce/share free content --> consumers enjoy free content--> consumers provide feedback--> encouraged creators produce/share more free content, continually improving over time-->consumers continue to enjoy free content

VS

creators produce/share free content -->consumers enjoy free content without providing any indication they care about the content-->creators still produce free content but at lower frequency/quality over time (months, years, etc.)-->consumers continue to enjoy free content without providing any indication they care about the content -->creators still produce content but not longer share their work or start putting their work behind a paywall--> consumers complain that so many favorite creators now want money for their creations

Obviously, this is a generalization and doesn’t speak to every single creator and consumer’s behavior, but as both a creator and a consumer, this has been my experience more often than not. 

Now, I know not every single person is going to provide feedback on every single piece of art or writing they encounter. But right now, the average fandom consumer defaults to the following behavior:

Consume fanfic/fanart + [leave likes/kudos] + move on to next

(At the moment, even the kudos is entirely optional, since a majority of consumers don’t even bother with that. )

We need to change this default behavior to:

Consume fanfic/fanart + did I like it? = No? + move on to the next

Consume fanfic/fanart + Did I like it? =Yes? + reblog/share [and/or leave a comment]

(I’d make a flowchart, but I’m doing this on my phone, so...kinda hard.)

It takes the same amount of energy to reblog/share a fanwork as it does to leave kudos/likes. So if you like something but don’t have the energy/confidence/interest to comment, the least that can be done is boost the signal and pay it forward.

We need to normalize this behavior instead of passive, entitled consumption.

Again, this is NOT a call to FORCE people to leave feedback.

It’s more like when you’re a kid and your parents teach your to say “please” and “thank you”. Obviously, their goal is that as you get older, you will automatically say those things in the appropriate contexts, such as when you would like something or are expressing gratitude.

Does that mean everyone in the world uses “please” and “thank you” when interacting with others? Not at all. We’ve all run into some real dickheads that are downright rude for the sake of being rude, as well as people who are unintentionally rude because they don’t think it’s worth their time to be polite. Would the world be a better place if everyone did use “please” and “thank you”? I like to think so.

The reason we’re talking about feedback culture now is because we want a better future in the fandom. We want a better situation than what we have right now.

And honestly, if we can have people start treating fan writers and artists better here at the unofficial level that is fandom, think of how that kind of change and discourse could change the way art and literature is viewed in the world at large? Because right now, we live in a society where funding for the arts is more often passed over for funding sports, business, military, etc. The only sectors of society that are treated worse than artists and writers are the teachers, nurses and retail workers (and don’t even get me started on the trend of female-dominated sectors of the economy rating lower than predominantly male-dominated ones!)

Personally, I think a lot of these disagreements could be mitigated by an update to Ao3’s feedback system.

Kudos is like a checkmark on a list. “Yep, read that...Yep, read that.” 

The only time I don’t leave kudos on something is if I didn’t finish reading it. And yes, that is my personal experience, but we’re human beings and we tend to frame the actions of others based on our own practices.

The kudos feature should be replaced with a new system either emojis (think Facebook) or canned comments (pre-written responses generated by a simple keystroke). For the simple fact that these can better convey the emotions of the consumer than a faceless kudo.

Having started using an emoji based system last year, I can tell you from experience that every week or two, I have someone comment to me how much they like being able to use an emoji to get their words across because they’re not good with words / their first language isn’t the same as mine / they’re still processing what they’ve read and can’t formulate a response yet/ etc.

TL;DR: The purpose of discourse related to feedback culture is to try to normalize leaving feedback on fanworks, instead of passively consuming—not forcing people to leave feedback.

_______________________________________________________________

***It has NOT always been this way. I have been part of several fandoms in my time— Lord of the Rings, Gundam Wing, Beyblade, Harry Potter, Inuyasha, Supernatural, Rurouni Kenshin, Doctor Who, Naruto, Batman/DCU, to name a few. And twenty years ago, people left way more feedback than they do today. Even on the really terrible stuff (and I say this as someone whose first fanfics were exclusively dedicated to horrible Mary Sue OC self-inserts), if you posted a chapter of something, within the next day you had a half dozen comments—more if you were writing a one-shot/completed fic. Ten years later, I noticed feedback started to be almost half of that; now it’s even less. The content hasn’t changed; the quality of writers hasn’t changed. However, the mindset of the consumer has definitely changed.

[sodalitefully]

1-30 hehehe

Anon you’re a ballsy motherfucker and I love you.  BUT you didn’t choose a fic for 24-28, or a word for 29!

What was the first fandom and/or pairing that you wrote fic for? Uh, probably Danny Phantom when I was like twelve 😂

Do you participate in any writing events or challenges throughout the year? If so, what do you like about them? Nope bc this is a small fandom and we don’t do many of those.

Do you write fics from start or finish, or jump around? I usually start at the start and then when I get stuck I’ll just skip that part, keep going, and come back to it later.  If I have an idea and I’m afraid I’ll forget it, I might also skip ahead and write it.

Do you outline before you start writing? If so, how far do you stray from that outline? I love outlining more that actually writing lmao, the longer the fic the more I outline.  I usually stick to it pretty closely, which isn’t aways good for my writing...

What is the perfect environment for you to write in? Quiet and private.  Other than that I haven’t figured out the tricks to getting myself to focus :(

If you’re really concentrating, how many words can you write in a day? Occasionally when I’m really inspired I’ll write like 1000, but more often I just write a paragraph or two.

Which part of writing do you struggle with most? Too many ideas, too little actual writing capacity.  It’s hard to focus on finishing fics bc I get too distracted by my other ideas, and I rarely write sequels bc there’s so much I haven’t gotten to share yet.

Do you listen to music while you write? If so, share a song that’s been inspiring you lately. Nope, can’t write with music, I get too distracted.  

Do you prefer to write AUs, canon divergence, or canon-compliant fic? AUs!!!

Do you enjoy writing dialogue, exposition, or plot the most? Probably dialogue? Exposition is great bc I get to explain the AU, but It’s not good for the flow of the fic.  Dialogue can be really satisfying to write when you get in a groove with it.

If you could only write angst, fluff, or smut for the rest of your life, which would it be? Fluff!

Is there a trope you haven’t written yet but really want to? Oh god so many.  I have notes on tons of tropes I’d like to write... I’d like to do a college AU (and I meant to do it while I was actually in college but oops).  I posted a soulmate AU once but I’d like to do another.  Oh and I have lots of ideas for crossover AUs and I’m still deciding how to handle those.

Is there a trope you wouldn’t write if it was the last trope on earth? Honestly probably not.  I’m not huge on character death, genderbends, or reader inserts, for example, but I have ideas for fics involving all of those. 

If you were stuck on a desert island with only two characters, which would you pick? No one from gnr that’s for sure, that’d be a disaster.  How about... Percy Jackson and idk Wonder Woman?

A Hollywood producer tells you that they want to film just one of your fics. Which fic would you want it to be? Hmm out of the fics that I’ve posted... maybe Sumthin’ for Nuthin’ actually? I abandoned that poor fic but I still really like the plot.  And there’s plenty of longer, more plot-heavy fics I have outlined that would be cool to see as films.  In general I often imagine concepts visually instead of with words.

What is your most underrated fic? Saving Grace didn’t get a lot of notes and I get why – it’s kinda niche and there’s no actual romance.  But I think it’s well-written and I’m proud of it.

What fic are you most proud of? Maybe the whole cat!slash universe?  I don’t think it’s my best writing per se, but I’m still really attached to the concept and it was a pleasant surprise that other people seemed to like it too.

What is a line/scene you’re really proud of? Give us the DVD commentary for that scene. I’ve always been partial to the paragraph in Sweetness that ends with “Their coffee has long gone cold (and so has Duff’s spine - snakes give him the heebie-jeebies), but Slash’s enthusiasm is sweeter than the Duff’s half-eaten bowl of melted ice cream, and Duff is eating it up with a spoon.”  Just... the coffee is cold and so is Duff’s spine, Slash is sweet and so is the ice cream, and using “eating it up with a spoon” idiomatically while it’s also thematically relevant to a sentence about dessert... I really like to layer meaning when I can.

Who is the easiest/hardest character for you to write about? Why? Slash tends to be the center in most of my writing, but actually I think it’s easier to write from Duff’s pov.  Maybe bc when I’m writing sluff I can just channel my crush on Slash through Duff lmao.  Interesting tho bc when it comes to the real people, I find Slash much more relatable than Duff or the others.

What’s your favorite minor character you’ve written? Hah maybe Slash in the funeral home AU, it’s a duzzy ficlet so he’s just a side character but I got a kick out of writing his and Steven’s background antics.

What is the one fic that got away? Well, I really wish I’d finished Sumthin’ for Nuthin’ before I kinda lost interest in Motley Crue, that fic was gonna get more dramatic from there.  Would it be worth it to just post the outline?  Plus there’s a few potential longfic ideas that I’ve put a lot of love into, but I doubt they’ll ever be posted or completed considering the way I can’t seem to focus on one idea long enough to write more than a one-shot :( But hey I guess you never know.

Have you cried while writing a fic? Nope.  I do have some angsty ideas though, hopefully they’ll surface someday.

If you had to remix one of your own fics, which would it be and how would you remix it? Someday I’d like to rewrite the cat!Slash fic from the beginning, make it a real multichap or at least a proper series of vignettes.  Id also be interesting in a darker version of that AU, since there’s definitely potential for that in the concept.  But I’m pretty attached to the fluffy little universe I made, so I’d probably prefer to explore those darker themes in a different (but maybe similar) universe – I have a few ideas.

How did you come up with title for [x fic]? Most of my fics have self-explanatory titles or none at all, the only one I have much to say about is Saving Grace.  Duff needed a miracle to get out of his situation, Slash was his saving grace.  But also, Grace is the name of Duff’s oldest daughter, and Duff’s motive in the story is trying to “save” her.  Despite the double meaning in the title, I avoided referring to the child by name or as Duff’s “daughter”/explaining how they ended up together.  I wanted to maintain some of the mystery of the apocalyptic genre: characters with mysterious origins, found families, aliases, etc.  That’s definitely one of the ways that Mad Max and DOOM influenced this fic.  (Oh, also Serpentine is a dick joke via a wttj reference: “My serpentine.”  That’s it tho, the rest are pretty straightforward.)

Which idea came to you first in [x fic]? Feel free to send a fic for any/all of the next few questions! Generally speaking, my ideas are character driven, I want to portray a character or relationship a certain way and I build a world that allows me to do that.

Which part of [x fic] was the hardest to write?  Always the end.

If you were ever to do a sequel to [x fic], what do you think might happen in it? Whichever fic you have in mind, there’s a very high chance I have ideas.

In [x fic], what is a happy, post-fic headcanon you have about [pairing]? Same as above!

Send me a word. If it’s in your WIPs, include the sentence and a short summary of the fic. – Send me a word anon!

Tell us an idea for a longfic you want to write in the future. Ok, so I have three main longfic ideas, but the easiest one to explain is an AU set in a version of the 1980s where ancient greek deities exist, Axl’s life is parallel to that of Perseus, and Slash is cursed like Medusa.   Lots of drama, lots of influence from greek theater, untrustworthy gods, unrequited feelings, dramatic irony... fuck I hope I write it someday.  

Alright mad respect for anyone who got through all that!  Thanks for the ask, and feel free specify a fic for those last few questions if you wanna