#face of an angel; heart of a ghost: grayson

[nxttheendxfthestxry]

Closed Starter: Road Trip (Clue Crew/Stiles/Amaryllis)

“Remind me why I thought this was a good idea.”

Sammy is sitting shotgun, glancing to Lily, then back at the others. Heather shrugs wildly when their eyes meet. “Like, I didn’t really wanna go, I just saw the others going and didn’t have a good reason to say no.”

“You love your friend, Sam, we both know this,” Audrey rolls her eyes with a laugh.

“The real question is why you’re all here. Stiles makes sense,” Sammy gestures around.

“Road trip,” Grayson answers without missing a beat.

“I have an invention from Gwen that I wanna see how well it’ll work on cases,” Oliver admits.

“I’m the one who had the van keys,” Lily answers, glancing to her with a small shrug.

“Adventure! And I’m the one with the weapon,” Audrey points out. “I still don’t know how I feel about the messages your friends were sending.”

“Great.” Sammy rolls her eyes and shakes her head, checking the GPS again. “How’re you feeling about me, Nancy, and Sylvia’s detective group so far, Stiles?”

@storystartsanew​

[j-graysonlibrary]

Heartbeats; Paradise Chapter 6

Title: Heartbeats; Paradise

Author: Jay Grayson

Word Count: 112K

Genres: Psychological thriller, drama, sci-fi, LGBT+

Available on: Kobo and my website

Synopsis: Melvin Hardy and Kade Axel appear to be a match made in heaven. After a meet-cute in the rain, the two quickly find themselves in a burgeoning, wholesome relationship.

Yet, things feel…off. It isn’t the ghosts of their pasts that resurface to test the strength of their partnership—no—it’s something nebulous. Something indescribable. Melvin can’t put his finger on it but, the more time he spends with Kade, the more he starts to wonder what’s real and what’s pure fiction. 

Full chapter 6 under the cut:

Chapter Six:

A glow radiates off of me—I can feel it. Even if Kade isn’t physically with me, I carry him in my heart and, each time I close my eyes, I can see his face. Those angelic features look back at me and remind me of all the blessings in my life now.

I’m changed.

“Dude, you look like you got laid,” Hugo greets me as I walk into the office.

I laugh. “You say that every time you see me now.”

“Yeah but…” He leans in as if inspecting me thoroughly. “It’s more potent this time. If you haven’t done it yet, I don’t know what I’ll say.”

“I’m not telling.” I won’t kiss and tell. Kade’s privacy is more important than mine and I doubt he wants everyone to know that, since the night of his party, we’ve been having penetrative sex a couple times a day. It’s no one’s business but ours.

“Lame.” Hugo huffs and then spins in his chair. “Do I at least get to meet him any time soon? I wanna know who’s stolen my friend’s heart.”

I respond with a dry chuckle. He’s always been over dramatic but I’ve never experienced it directed at me like this before. It’s certainly different.

“Actually,” I interrupt my own laugh, “Kade’s bringing me lunch today. So, yeah, you will get to meet him.”

Hugo brightens considerably and almost jumps from his chair. “Really!?” After I nod, he does a little dance out of excitement.

“You are ridiculous,” I mention and roll my eyes, ready to get to work.

But he drops all of his eagerness in a second and his face falls as well. “Wait, now might not be the best time…”

I quirk an eyebrow. “I’m not rescheduling my date,” I say simply before inquiring, “Why do you say it’s a bad time though?”

I suspect one of Hugo’s long winded stories is on the horizon and I resign myself to getting nothing done until later. But I can’t deny that his rants are usually quite entertaining though clearly exaggerated half the time.

“You know that club I drug you to a few years ago? The one by the bay?”

There are a few clubs that way but I nod anyway. I do recall the night though it’s clouded in a haze of color and dance music.

“I went there this past Saturday just to blow off some steam, ya know? Maybe cast my line and see what bites. The usual.” Hugo waves his hands as he talks, adding a degree of animation to his tale. “I run into this lady who asks me for a dance. She’s pretty so I oblige and I feel some real chemistry there, ya know? But then! She stomps my foot and spits at me! Says some weird nonsense in a foreign language and points her finger at me.”

“What…?” I try not to laugh as I’m sure the scene was shocking to be caught in the middle of.

“I thought maybe she was a previous one night stand or maybe someone I rejected before or something but she tells me it’s cause I cut her off in traffic!” Hugo throws his arms up and then slaps his hands on his legs. “I mean—! Come on, can you believe that?!”

I snicker, unable to hold it back.

Hugo doesn’t slow down. “She then says she’s cursed me for one hundred days.”

“…And that’s why you can’t meet Kade today?” I smirk at my friend’s ridiculous situation.

“Well I don’t usually believe in that sort of supernatural business but since then things have been a little…weird.”

“Weird, how?” I ask for clarification.

“I had a tire go flat on Sunday, my bacon burnt, and have you seen my hair? I think I have a new cowlick.” Hugo points at his head with a disgruntled frown.

 I try to find a difference in his hair but it looks exactly as it always does to me. Another laugh erupts out of me and I shake my head. “Hugo, nothing looks different.”

“Well it’s there!” he insists. “Then, this morning alone, I found expired milk in my fridge even though I bought the half gallon just last week and there was a roach in my sink.”

“Sounds pretty unlucky.” I smile and rest my chin in my palm, leaning heavily on the armrest of my chair.

“You jerk—you don’t believe me at all, do you?”

“I believe you’ve had rotten luck these past few days.”

Hugo narrows his eyes and scoots back behind the wall of his cubicle. I can still hear him mutter his argument, “It’s a curse, man.”

I can think of several logical explanations for all of his misfortunes but I keep those to myself. Hugo needs drama to survive and, if there is none, he’ll manifest it.

Honestly, I’m a bit grateful he’s having an off day. Maybe his charms will take a rest when Kade gets here and I won’t have to worry about him using a dated, cheesy pick-up line on my boyfriend. Not that he would be serious but Kade doesn’t need to be exposed to that.

Though, now that we’ve been as close as two people can physically be, I have far less concern regarding Kade falling for Hugo.

Those kinds of thoughts still flood my mind as I work through the first half of my day. I try to chase them away and I manage to replace most with just the image of Kade or the memories of our most recent nights together. That has a different kind of repercussion, however.

I cross my legs and bite my lip, wanting nothing more than to have Kade in front of me right now.

“Son of a—” Hugo’s outburst breaks me from my thoughts and I laugh before I even know what’s happening. “My computer just crashed!”

I can’t keep my snickers contained, especially when his head pops up from over our cubicle wall and he’s scowling.

“The curse is real, Mel.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s lunchtime anyway,” I say as I log out of my computer, ready for the upcoming hour.

“Easy for you to say; you have something to look forward to.” Hugo runs a hand through his hair.

“You were looking forward to it too, if I recall correctly. You did a happy dance and everything.” I stand up and push my chair in, eager to look for Kade. So far, the halls are empty. I turn back to Hugo and add, “Don’t mention your weird curse stuff to him.”

“I won’t,” he groans and leans against our shared wall.

“And no flirting.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he replies with a toothy smile that I don’t trust in the least.

I turn about again until I see the crown of blonde bouncing closer. My heart soars and catches in my throat—the excitement nearly causing me to fall back into my chair. A smile pushes itself onto my face without any effort on my part and I take a deep breath as he rounds the last corner.

Kade is wearing one of his cutest outfits—a polka-dot tunic with a bowtie and baggy short pants that make him look even smaller than usual. I want to sweep him into my arms right away and kiss him but I hold back and not just because he’s carrying a sack of food.

“Good afternoon, honey,” Kade says with a wide, bright grin. He lifts himself up onto the tips of his toes and gives me a small kiss. There is a lingering taste of melon on his lips.

“It’s great to see you. I hope you didn’t get too lost.” I know my cubicle isn’t the easiest to find so I’m happy he’s managed to get here with relative ease.

“It wasn’t too bad.” His eyes squint as he smiles and I can’t think of anything else to say. I just want to stare at him.

Then Hugo clears his throat. “Oh,” I say and move my hand to the side, introducing him, “This is my friend, Hugo.”

He steps out fully and enters my space with his hand outstretched for a handshake. Kade takes it and offers him a polite smile in turn. “I’m Kade,” he says.

“Oh I know who you are.” Hugo looks practically evil as he grins. “You’re all Mel talks about.”

“Yeah?” Kade turns excitedly to me and I know I look as guilty as I am. He chuckles and moves his free hand to cover his mouth. “That’s so sweet.”

“Yeah, he’s a romantic,” Hugo replies, pushing at my shoulder and effectively moving directly in front of my boyfriend. He combs his hand through his hair and carries a crooked smile that I’ve seen too many times before. “But he’s a little boring sometimes, yeah? A little too predictable?”

Kade’s eyes go wide and he shakes his head. “I like that though. Mel’s so reliable and kind.”

Hugo laughs. “I’m just messing with you. You’re very cute when you’re flustered.”

“Hey,” I interject and push him back, putting a little more force than I might have needed to behind my shoulder. He stumbles to the side but catches himself just fine. “Stop harassing Kade. What did I tell you?”

“I’m not scaring him,” Hugo pleads his case and raises his hands. “Right, Kade?”

“I didn’t say anything about scaring. Stop flirting.”

“Am I flirting?” Hugo asks Kade again rather than properly respond to me.

My boyfriend, pink in the face, can’t even look him in the eye. “I…I dunno.”

“Do you feel wooed?”

I can’t take it anymore. I grab Hugo by his collar and push him against the nearest wall that will support his weight. The wall still shakes and Hugo is clearly surprised by the sudden shift in both my mood and his location. He glances up at me and keeps his hands up and at his sides.

“Whoa, Mel, I didn’t mean it.” He sounds genuinely shaken but I don’t care.

I let him go and turn my attention to Kade. He’s shocked as well but he doesn’t seem scared like Hugo. I grab his wrist and pull him down the hall, to a spot I know won’t be crowded.

With no eyes on us, I duck into a supply closet and drag Kade with me. The darkness is jarring but I keep my hands on him, gripping his shoulders now.

“Don’t let anyone talk to you like that,” I say but I know it’s not his fault. I even know Hugo wasn’t serious but there is a fire in my veins that I can’t ignore. It commands that I act and I am too weak to resist.

“You really are jealous,” Kade mentions and I swear I hear a hint of a smile in his voice. It is practically confirmed when he asks, “What would you do if I flirted back?”

I can’t even imagine and a white hot passion encompasses me. I pull Kade’s body closer and I latch my mouth onto his, not missing my mark, not even by a centimeter. I devour him, letting him know that he’s mine and mine alone.

There is no room but we work around that limitation and remove only what clothes we need to. Hushed moans and gasps fill the small space and I keep the noise to a minimum by constantly jamming my tongue down my boyfriend’s throat. The heat in my stomach drives me through the session and I claim Kade in just a few short but demanding moments.

He’s dazed by the end and holds my face in his hands gently. “I’m all yours, Mel,” he whispers and rewards me with a slow, sweet kiss.

We have our lunch without any more talk from Hugo who has left for the break room by the time we get back. I don’t care at all and simply enjoy the rest of my hour with my stunning boyfriend.

He feeds me and I feed him, each of us occasionally dropping some food by accident or making a mess of the other’s face. I want to take him back to the closet and have a longer session but I know there’s no time—I’ll have to wait until we’re back home.

I bet he’s thinking the same thing.

We part with one last kiss and I watch him leave up until I can’t see him any longer. Once he’s gone, I slink back into my seat and I feel a weight on my chest.

Hugo returns in the next beat and cautiously checks over into my cubicle. “He gone?” he asks with noticeable hesitation.

I raise my eyes to meet his and what I wasn’t feeling earlier tugs at me. A frown takes the place of my smile and I say, “Yeah…sorry about earlier. I don’t know what came over me.”

To my surprise, my friend smirks and shakes his head, letting me know there are no hard feelings between us. “I know what came over you,” he remarks, “You’re totally in love, Melvin. It’s sweet.”

I do love Kade—more than anything—but can I just treat Hugo like that without recourse? I didn’t think much about it until now but I really do feel bad about how I acted.

“Well…okay,” I don’t argue with him any longer, not wanting to talk about it anymore.

Hugo returns to his desk and I turn toward my computer, only stopping to check my phone. I expect a message from Kade, letting me know what he’s up to now that he’s free for the rest of the day but, rather than that, my screen flashes with a message from someone I have not thought of in some time.

It’s a simple statement from Gladis—my one relationship before Kade.

“I’m in town next month. Let’s meet up.”

[nxttheendxfthestxryarch2]

Closed Starter: Happy Haunts (Clue Crew/Aoife)

“FINALLY!” Grayson’s practically vibrating as the Clue Crew gets in line.

Sylvia smiles to herself and reaches out to him. “Well, come on, pumpkin.”

He laughs and jogs up to her, following them in... bouncing off at the entrance and frowning to himself. “Huh. Let me try that again.”

Walking up carefully this time, he starts to walk through... and bounces back again. “Hmm.”

As he’s trying again, Sylvia frowns to herself, softly turning to a cast member. “Excuse me. Do you sage or do any form of warding to keep... er,” she pauses. Have to word this right, Disney magic and all. “To keep your residents protected from the less friendly spirits?”

@bxrn-thc-pxgcs​

[dx-yxu-believe-in-ghxsts]

Double Open Starter: Ghost Buisness

“Okay. You know what? It’s weird,” Grayson tells Nancy as he sits down with her. “I have yet to figure out how I’m supposed to respond to the dead here at AP.”

Nancy wrinkles her nose. “Fantastic way to tell me there’s ghosts here at AP.”

“I mean, the non-student ones, specifically, yeah, there’s more than a few at any given time. The thing is, I don’t think they get what the family business technically is. Like, my dad and I are kinda hunters in a way? Except instead of full-blown banishment, we put them in a thermos long enough to toss them back through the ghost zone portal. And I don’t think I’m supposed to do that here? But it’s...”

“Your usual work, right?” Nancy chuckles. “Got it. Amateur detective, I have to remind myself constantly I don’t need to snoop on everyone at school and find out if they have any dirty secrets I could apply to a case.”

Grayson coughs. “Nancy!”

“Seriously, I’m too observant for my own good. Speaking of, how’s it going over there?” Nancy glances down the table at the student listening in to the pair. Not that the two of them had been necessarily quiet, but the other was trying to act like they weren’t listening, so. “We don’t bite.”

[nxtmyweird]

Septuple Solo Para: I’m Awake and I’m Alive

She finds Nancy sitting on top a table in the library.

Sylvia sighs and reaches out a hand to her closest friend, shivering slightly when she slips into her nightmare. Finding herself in the Jones family home. “Nance? Nancy.”

Hearing a soft whimper, her head turns and she sighs softly. Nancy had a lofted bed that she hung curtains off of to hide her computer and workspace from the world from. Usually, she kept them pulled back... unless she needed to cry.

Walking over, she pulls back the curtains, seeing Nancy curled up under her desk. “Hey. Hey, little one. What is it, what happened?”

Nancy sobs, peaking up from where her head was curled up against her knees and launching over, hugging her. “Dad and-- and Mama Daphne said-- said I wasn’t any good, that I was letting them down and letting my mom down and-- and-- and--”

Sylvia sighs and gently runs her fingers through Nancy’s hair, shaking her head. “Hey, hey, that’s not true, okay?”

“B-b-but, but--”

“Shh, no. No buts, Nancy Kate Jones. You’re one of the best in the business. People request you by name and for good reason. You know your stuff and you know what you’re doing. You know that, and I know that. And your dad and Daphne know that, too.”

“But they said, they said--”

“You’re dreaming, little one,” Sylvia brushes some of her hair back up, wiping her tears gently. “You’re just having a nightmare. There’s another evil takeover in Auradon, whoever started it cast a sleeping curse over everyone that’s been trapping them in their nightmares. It’s just a bad dream, and I’m here to help you wake up.”

Nancy sniffles, lip quivering. “How?”

“You just need to face your fears, little one. You’re just scared your dad and Daphne don’t think you’re enough but you know they do, they think you’re more than enough, and they’re so proud of you, aren’t they?”

Nancy sniffles, trembling against her, her lip quivering.

“Your dad helped you build those shelves you keep all your trophies from your cases on, right?”

Nancy sniffles and nods.

“He wouldn’t do that if he wasn’t proud of your accomplishments, little one. It’s okay, Nance, we all know how good you are.”

Nancy sniffles, but nods slowly...

And in a blink she’s in the library as Nancy sits up, rubbing her neck... turning to Sylvia and hugging her tightly with a sniffle. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me yet. We gotta find the others. Where would Sammy be?”

And that’s how they find themselves heading for Sammy’s room, and Sylvia tries the door. “It’s locked.”

“Not for long,” Nancy answers, getting into her bag and grabbing her lockpicking set.

In a moment, the two are in, finding Sammy asleep with part of her closet on her bed. Coordinating that week’s outfits, of course. Sylvia sighs, walking over and brushing Sammy’s hair from her face...

Finding herself... once again in Sammy’s room, but without the closet spread on her bed. Turning to Sammy’s makeshift vanity, Sylvia suppresses a laugh. Of course it’s something like this. “Hey, bug.”

Sammy whips around, tears rolling down her face and trying to cover her head. “No, no, don’t look at me, it’s awful!”

“Sammy,” Sylvia can’t help the chuckle that escapes her. “It’s not that bad.”

“It is!” Sammy whines. “Nothing is working on it!! Sylvia, it’s awful. I can’t do it!”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, you’re just having a nightmare.” Walking over, Sylvia picks up a hair brush from Sammy’s vanity and pulls up a chair, brushing it for the sake of keeping her hands busy more than for the sake of trying to fix anything. “Someone cast a sleeping curse over Auradon. It’s just a bad dream, bug, not a real bad hair day. I promise.”

Sammy sniffles, peaking at her in the mirror. “...yeah?”

“Yeah,” Sylvia chuckles softly. “Your hair is fine. It’s just a bad dream. Everyone’s been trapped in their worst nightmares, from what I’ve seen. The only way to wake up has been to face them, or internalize that things aren’t as bad as they seem or you’ve imagined.”

“...how many of these have you seen?”

“A few. I woke up my friends Sam and Melinda, and Lillian of all people, then I got Nancy and we came to find you.”

“...this is just embarrassing for me, isn’t it?”

“A little,” Sylvia chuckles. “It’s okay, bug. I kinda had it figured your nightmare might be something along these lines.”

Reaching out, she boops Sammy’s nose, making her laugh weakly. Smiling, Sylvia sighs, getting the mess of red hair to lay flat at least. “So. Facing your nightmare.”

“...wait,” Sammy pouts, picking up a hat off her vanity and pulling it on, which only barely covers the damage. She frowns in the mirror... but sighs, nodding, grabbing her bag and forcing herself out the door...

Sylvia blinks and smiles, finishing brushing Sammy’s hair back from her face as the girl wakes up, mumbling, rubbing her eyes.

“Tell no one,” she warns, and Sylvia nods with a laugh, smiling.

“C’mon, bug. We’ve got some friends to find.”

In the garage, if it weren’t for the sleeping curse, Sylvia would have a hard time believing anyone was asleep. Lily had been blasting rock music and was sound asleep in front of her toolbox-- probably grabbing something when the curse hit.

Sylvia walks over and kneels down gently, reaching up and grabbing her shoulder...

She’s... in a park? Sylvia turns and finds Lily sitting blankly on the swings. Going over, she drops into the swing beside her. “Hiya.”

Lily looks up and looks at her, and that’s how Sylvia sees that the girl has definitely been crying, though she isn’t now, and just looks... angry, which is normal. “Mind telling me what’s going on? Where are we, peanut?”

There’s a pause as Lily eyeballs her before sighing. “Park near my house. No one really uses it at this hour.”

“Why are we here?” Sylvia cocks her head.

“My stepmother kicked me out of the house,” Lily looks away from her and chucks the pebble she’d picked up at the dirt. “I don’t know what’s going on. She just went off on me about how terrible and ungrateful I am and threw me out. Said I’ll never see my dad again.”

Sylvia nods. “Well, peanut, the good news is, this is a nightmare. It’s not real. You’re in a sleeping curse. The bad news is, I’m not sure which part you’re actually afraid of, because the way to wake up is to face your fears.”

Lily looks at her, raising an eyebrow. Sylvia nods. Lily sighs and shrugs. “Well, isn’t it obvious? It’s about Audrey being evil, how’m I supposed to face that?”

“Well, yes and no,” Sylvia shakes her head. “I know you pretty well, Lily, and I... don’t think you’re actually scared of Audrey being evil. I think you’d find that easier, because then hating her makes sense.”

“What else would it be?” Lily snarks.

“You’re afraid of losing your dad,” Sylvia answers simply. “He’s your entire life, anybody who knows you knows that. You’re... peanut, you wanna be scared of your stepmother being evil, but that’s not what bothers you about her. You just wanna know she’s not gonna take your dad from you.”

Lily sniffles, tearing up again. “Shut up-- no! No, it’s just her being evil, it’s just my stepmother being a real monster, it’s--”

“Aw, Lily,” Sylvia reaches out, pulling their swings together just to hug her. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

Lily sniffles, burrowing into her. “I just don’t know where I’d be without him, I don’t know what I’d do, I-- I--”

“Shh, I know, I know. But listen to me. You know no one’s going to take him from you, right? Not even her. She’s been in your life for, what, 15 years now? Peanut, you have every right to choose not to like her, but I just need you to know she’s never gonna take him from you. Your dad wouldn’t let her. You’re as much his world as he is yours. He’ll never ever leave you. Okay? He’ll leave her before he leaves you.”

Lily sniffles, nodding, crying harder...

And Sylvia blinks, registering the loud rock music again and wincing, smiling as Lily wakes up, though.

Sammy skids over and hugs her best friend, and Lily sniffles, clearing her throat, laughing. “You don’t wanna do that, I was working before I passed out, I’m probably greasy.”

“I don’t care,” Sammy says, hugging her.

Sylvia smiles softly, and then addresses Lily. “Can you keep these two safe? I gotta find the others.

“Aye, I can do that,” Lily nods, motioning Nancy over. “Keep in touch, let us know if you’re in danger.”

“Will do,” Sylvia smiles and hurries out of the garage.

Sylvia finds Grayson in the cafeteria. Probably looking for a snack to get through his studying, knowing him. She sighs as she reaches out to him...

And is surprised to find herself in what she assumes must be his family home, heading for-- “WHAT are you DOING?”

Grayson yelps, looking back from the old portal to the ghost zone and blinking. “Sylvia? How did you find me?”

“You’re asleep, pumpkin, you’re having a nightmare, you’re still on campus at Auradon Pr-- no, you don’t get to distract me right now, what are you about to do?” Sylvia grabs his arm and pulls him away.

“Nightmare?” He bites his lip. “...promise?”

“I promise,” Sylvia squeezes his hands. “Did you see the sky go dark before whatever happened to you happened?”

He nods. She nods. “Someone cast a sleeping curse over Auradon. I opened my eyes and found myself at the kitchen counter of my family home like Auradon didn’t exist. You’re just having a nightmare, pumpkin, but I ask again, what the hell were you doing?”

Grayson sniffles and rubs his eyes, pulling uncomfortably at the suit his grandparents had made him to explore the ghost zone. “I... I thought my ghost side was... gone. I couldn’t go ghost and-- and you guys all left me, and my dad gave up on me and stopped spending time with me and my grandparents didn’t care about me anymore and--”

He sniffles, motioning to the ghost zone. “I thought if I stepped through I might... might end up like dad. More half-dead than quarter-dead but... but then everyone would... would come back...”

Sylvia sighs and hugs him tightly. “Aw, pumpkin. You know we don’t care about that, right? Not us, not the Clue Crew. You’re ours, we don’t care at all about that, you’re still our friend and a great detective even without being part-ghost.”

“...yeah?”

“Yeah,” Sylvia smiles at him. “And your parents don’t care. They don’t. You have to remember how much of a miracle it is that someone who’s half-dead could even conceive. There’s no way they would love you any less if you lost your ghost powers. Your mom’s not part-ghost, did she have any trouble helping your dad?”

He shakes his head. She nods with a smile. “Exactly. No one cares about the ghost aspect. We love you, pumpkin, as you are.”

He nods, hugging her tightly...

...and blinks slowly reaching back to the back of his head as he sits up. Sylvia pulls back and smiles. “You okay?”

“I think I hit my head,” he admits... before turning to his shadowy form and back again, smiling. “But I’m okay.”

Sylvia nods, helping him up. “Still gotta find Heather and Oliver.”

“I think I know where Heather is,” he says, and she nods, motioning for him to lead the way.

And, he’s right, they find Heather asleep by her locker with the door open. Thank god WOOHP hadn’t gone looking for her. Sylvia sighs and kneels down, gently brushing Heather’s hand out of her face...

...blinking in confusion as she looks around the unfamiliar bedroom. Hearing rustling in the closet, she steps over to it but it opens quickly before she has the chance to open it herself, finding Heather in a frenzy as she slings a bag over her shoulder. “Sylvia? Nevermind, we gotta go, like, now--” the blonde grabs her arm and drags her to the window.

“Heather, what’s going on?”

“What’s going on is I lost my clearance, and we gotta go before WOOHP catches up with me to erase my memories, Sylvia, please, c’mon!” Heather opens her window and half climbs out it.

Sylvia sighs as she follows after her. “Oh, baby, you’re okay--”

“Not for long!”

“No, I mean-- this isn’t real. Heather, you’re having a nightmare. Someone cast a sleeping curse over Auradon--”

“Explain on the run!” Heather grabs her arm and pulls her out the window, running over to her car. Sylvia sighs and follows after her.

As they’re heading down the road, Heather holds up a hand. “Okay, so like, you say this isn’t real?”

“About as real as me waking up at the kitchen counter at home and finding Auradon didn’t exist, yeah. You’re asleep, baby, this isn’t real.”

“Okay, but like-- but like, what if, like, you’re wrong? I can’t, I totally just, this is my life, I can’t just, like, let it go.”

“Heather, baby, I promise. I found you asleep in front of your locker with Grayson, and when I grabbed your arm, I found myself in your dream. You’re asleep, you really are,” she sighs. “You have to face your fears to wake up. So you’re afraid of losing your clearance, losing your memories of your spy work?”

“Yeah...” She sniffles. “I love being a spy, I love how things are, I know that’s stupid but it’s just-- it’s like, really fun and I just, like, if I’m not that then I’m just...”

“Another dumb blonde,” Sylvia realizes, and Heather nods, sniffling, crying. “Baby, pull over. I don’t wanna find out if we can get hurt in dreams like this.”

Heather sniffles but nods and complies, pulling off to the side of the road and sobbing. “Sylvia, I’m scared. I don’t wanna just be some ditz from Beverly Hills like everyone thinks. I’m so much more but like, if this happens...”

Sylvia sighs, reaching over and playing with her hair. “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay. I know, you’re scared, but you know something? You are so much smarter than you realize, even without the spy stuff. You know what? That’s just like Sammy. She’s not a detective, she’s not some kickass badass fighter. She’s just a diva, and we love her, and we love you. You are more than a spy, Heather, you always have been, I promise.”

Heather sniffles, shaking her head. “But-- but-- but, I’m not, I’m--”

Sylvia sighs, rubbing her arm. “Shh, you are, you always have been. You haven’t always been a spy, but you’ve always been Heather, and you are loved just as Heather. You can still be so much even if you weren’t a spy. I know you could be, because I know you, Heather. I know you.”

Heather sniffles, sobbing leaning over to hug her...

And Sylvia smiles down at the girl as she wakes up in front of her locker, sitting up, blinking and rubbing her eyes. “Like, ow.”

“Yeah, figures,” Sylvia chuckles, helping her up.

“Ohmygod, like, Sammy--”

“Actually, she’s okay. I woke Sammy, Nancy, and Lily, and they’re in the garage. We’re gonna get Oliver and head to join them and come up with something, okay?” Sylvia smiles.

Heather sighs and nods as Grayson helps her up, taking deep breaths. “Okay. So, like, let’s do this.”

Oliver is shockingly difficult to find, but when they manage to locate them, Sylvia chuckles softly, seeing they’d fallen asleep replaying a certain song. Of course. Walking over, she gently sets a hand on their shoulder.

Oh. Oh this is... yeah, she’d call this one a nightmare. “What in the hell?”

Someone grabs her arm and pulls her down. Sylvia squeaks and looks over at... “Oliver? Jinkies, sunshine, you scared me. What’s going on?”

“You should be scared,” is all he mutters, looking up and watching the sky. “I don’t know what happened, but someone altered history again, and someone went against my grandpa’s wishes.”

“What do you mean?” Sylvia sighs. Easier to resolve a fear if she strikes at the core of it, unfortunately.

“It’s complicated--? Come on,” and Oliver pulls her along quickly to an alleyway. “So, my grandfather, in one version of the timeline, created a robotic bowler hat that was supposed to help someone get ready in the mornings, but, the original variant became... sentient, and evil. DOR15 was supposed to be shut down and locked up as another failure, but... wasn’t off, and escaped. She planned to destroy my grandfather for abandoning her, humanity for existing and my family just to make my grandpa suffer, but... when he was a kid, my dad went back in time, found my grandpa as a kid, brought him back to fix things, and... eventually, my grandpa as a kid, vowed to never invent the hat and fixed the timeline entirely. DOR15′s evil plans never came to be, which meant my family was spared from her mind control based wrath. Except. Somehow. The timeline was altered again. And this is the result.”

He pulls her into a very abandoned looking building. Probably condemned, if she had to guess. “How did you escape? Are you okay?”

“Well... that’s just it,” Sylvia sighs. “This isn’t real. You’re asleep, you’re having a nightmare. Auradon’s under a sleeping curse, sunshine, I promise this isn’t real.”

Oliver blinks, looking at her, then at the door, shaking his head. “I don’t believe you.”

“Hey, sunshine, it’s me,” Sylvia takes his hand. “It’s me. I promise. You’re just asleep. Everything’s fine-- well, evil takeover, sleeping curse, everyone’s trapped in their nightmares-- but everything’s fine. This isn’t real.” She shakes her head softly as she says that, smiling at him.

They bite their lip and look at the door again. Reaching up, Sylvia turns their head away. “It’s okay, it’s okay. You just want your family to be okay, right? I know, I know. But I promise you it’s just a nightmare. It’s not real, your family is fine. You’re safe. You’re safe.”

They sniffle and hug her tightly. Sylvia smiles, hugging them back, rubbing their back. “Come on, realistically, who’s ever gonna look at your grandpa’s story and try to make that hat again? Who’s ever gonna take that story and go, ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine, I can do it and this won’t happen’? Nobody, sunshine, nobody is gonna do that, is gonna do this. I promise. I promise.”

Oliver sighs, nodding slowly, smiling weakly...

...Sylvia chuckles when they jolt awake. “Morning. Well, afternoon. If you can even believe that. C’mon, we’d better get back to the garage. Nancy, Sammy, and Lily are already there. We’ll work something out from th--”

“Eretria,” he interrupts, looking around between the three and shaking his head anxiously. “No, no, I gotta-- I gotta wake Eretria first. I’ll meet you, okay? The garage? I’ll meet you. Go on back, I’ll be there, just go.” He gets his stuff together quickly.

“Oliver--” Sylvia starts.

“Go! I’ll join you, it’ll be fine,” they smile at their friends before heading out abruptly.

Sylvia sighs, flinging a hand at the door, shaking her head. Heather rubs her shoulders. “He’ll be okay.”

“Yeah, it’s Oliver,” Grayson agrees. “They’ll probably come back with snacks and half a dozen unfinished plans they borrowed from their sister. C’mon, we should meet up with the girls.”

Sylvia sighs and nods, worried.

[its-lxcked]

Septuple Solo Para: Well, Gang...

“Sammy, I mean it, I don’t care that we’re in Auradon. There’s no way in hell you’re gonna convince me a place is really haunted,” Sylvia is saying as Nancy walks over to sit with them at lunch.

“Look, I’m just sharing the rumor. Oh, hang on-- Heather!! Over here!!” Sammy waves to her new friend, gesturing to the seat she’d saved, smiling at her sister as well. “Hey, Nance. I was just telling Sylvia about the thing I texted you about.”

“The haunted, condemned house?” Nancy asks, because Sammy texts her about literally everything.

“Like, the what?” Heather asks as she sits down with Sammy, before remembering her manners. “Oh, right, like, I’m Heather, so totally nice to meet you. What’s up with the haunted house?”

“Nancy, Sam’s older sister, and that’s Sylvia. Sylvia and I are part-time amateur detectives, so when thinks get wonky, they usually get swung our way.” Nancy nods a bit with a half-hearted wave with a soda in her hand, before taking a swig.

“She’s also leaving out that neither of us believe in ghosts,” Sylvia adds on.

A tall boy walking by catches himself and staggers backwards at that comment. “Sorry, couldn’t help but overhear. You don’t believe in ghosts?”

“Uh, no, I really don’t,” Sylvia shrugs. “It’s always someone faking terrifying stuff just to keep nosy people away or to get insurance money for something. At the end of the day, Nancy and I unmask the bad guys and they go to jail.”

“Well, that’s not very fun. Mind if I pull up a seat?” He’s asking, but he swings his legs around a seat anyways with the girls. “I’m Grayson Fenton. 1/4 ghost myself.”

Nancy chokes on her soda, coughing for a moment. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Yeah, it’s a bit of a story, but the long story short is that an accident in my ghost-obsessed grandparents’ lab half-killed my dad. He and I can both transform between a solid form and...”

Grayson suddenly turns into a shadowy figure of himself, reaching out and passing his arm through the table before switching back and bringing his arm back up to rest on the table. “...well, my dad’s ghost form looks more humanoid than mine does, but you get the picture. Our job is to keep ghosts from wreaking havoc on the mortal world by making sure they stay confined to the ghost zone.”

Sylvia is sitting there, open-mouthed and looking completely and utterly horrified. Finally, finally, she chokes out a simple, “What?”

Grayson shrugs as Lily sits down across from Sammy, reading the looks on the other four girls’ faces. “What happened?”

“He’s a ghost,” Sammy points to Grayson.

Lily pauses and shrugs. “That’s Auradon for you, I guess.”

“One-quarter,” Grayson corrects. “And my job is to catch actual ghosts. Our gear for that is more than a little... unconventional. Like, check this out.” He pulls his Fenton Thermos out of his backpack. “This actually is meant to pull in ghosts and trap them for later release in the ghost zone. I’m... obviously not in the position to demonstrate it, as the only nearby even slightly ghostly entity.”

“That’s ingenious inventing,” says a boy looking over Grayson’s shoulder, forgetting that boundaries are a thing.

Grayson jumps. “Whoa! Do you mind?”

“Huh? Oh, sorry, my bad. Oliver Robinson,” is the response, extending his hand to Grayson.

“...Grayson Fenton,” he finally meets, shaking the other’s hand, glancing at the girls, who all shrug simultaneously.

Nancy nods to the last open seat at their table. “You’re welcome to join us, Oliver. We just go severely off topic. We were on the haunted house.”

Oliver raises an eyebrow as he sits down. “We were on the what now?”

“I’m with him, but you have my interest,” Lily offers, sitting up a bit.

“Oh, there’s this rumor about some super haunted building on the outskirts of the city, guess the building got condemned but they weren’t able to tear it down because something kept stopping them whenever they tried. The theory goes it was the house’s original builder and owner,” Sammy explains.

“Okay, no, yeah, I am definitely in camp ‘random homeless man living in a condemned space and trying to keep people from tearing down his home’,” Sylvia instantly says, before munching on a carrot stick.

“That’s just it, they can’t find any evidence at all that there’s anyone in the house,” Sammy says. “I just thought it was cool.”

Nancy shrugs a bit. “I mean, I haven’t had a good mystery in a while. Or adventure as a whole.”

“Told you should’ve come to Annapolis,” Sylvia grumbles under her breath.

“Like, what happened in Annapolis?” Heather looks at Sylvia innocently.

Sylvia chokes on her carrot stick, holding up a hand and coughing and sputtering for a minute. “Absolutely nothing major, but it was a change of scenery.”

Nancy rolls her eyes. “What I’m trying to say is...”

...and that’s how, hours later, seven kids pile out of the van Sylvia had driven them over in, walking up the overgrown path as the sun sets behind them to an empty house.

“Okay, just because I brought it up doesn’t mean I wanted to tag along,” Sammy is grumbling a bit as Nancy passes out flashlights to the rest of them.

Heather nods. “Like, could we have at least come out here during the day?”

“Well, last I checked, we’re all going to school, so, not really, no,” Nancy points out. “C’mon, where’s your sense of adventure?”

“Nonexistent,” Sammy points out, still grumbling as her sister pushes the flashlight into her hands.

“C’mon, it’ll be quick,” Grayson shrugs. “I have a ghost sense. I get a specific chill when there’s a ghost nearby. You’ll even be able to see my breath. Then after this I think we can pester Sylvia enough to stop for ice cream.”

Sylvia rolls her eyes, clicking her flashlight on and pushing on the front door, shining her light in as it creaks open, not locked. “Ooh, that’s a sign. I don’t like that.”

Though it does lean more towards her theory that someone’s been coming and going. She presses on in and the others follow after her, with Heather taking up the rear of the group and taking a moment as the others fan out inside to look back over her shoulder and around outside to make sure there’s no threats out there before she follows them in.

Lily holds up a stick she’d grabbed from outside on her way up to the porch, using it to gather up some cobwebs and pull them out of the way. “This place does look pretty empty, I have to say.”

“Huh, that’s odd,” Nancy’s saying from another corner, poking her head around the corner of a doorway and then looking back in.

“What’s odd?” Sammy jumps at every little creak and casts a panicked look to her sister.

“The proportions of the rooms here. Almost like...”

Oliver walks over, knocking against the wall Nancy’s staring at and getting back a hollow thunk. “Oh, definitely a hidden passageway. Welcome to Auradon, older builds are bound to have them.”

“Yeah, but that’s like, castles and stuff, isn’t it?” Heather looks curious.

“Well, there’s gotta be a way to open it from here,” Sylvia takes charge. “Fan out, start pulling on things, especially things that would normally look like solid fixtures on the wall.”

Grayson pauses, then swaps to his ghost form and walks through the wall. After a second, the wall slides open slowly, and Grayson shines his flashlight out at them, his hand pressed against a button on the wall. “...found the trigger.”

Nancy laughs. “Score! All the rewards, half the effort. I like you. Let’s go.”

Sylvia grumbles under her breath. Sammy shines her flashlight in and squeals. “Ew!!! Ew, ew, ew, I am absolutely not going in there!”

Nancy sighs. “Fine, then we’ll split up. I’ll take Grayson and Lily and we’ll see where the tunnel leads. The rest of you can search the rest of the house. Sound good?”

The others nod, and Sylvia immediately starts to the stairs as Nancy presses onward. Heather sighs and sets a hand on Sammy’s shoulder. “I totally get it, don’t worry. Thank you for saying something, I didn’t wanna look like a wuss in front of a bunch of people who don’t know me.”

Sammy shrugs and heads towards a door on her right, underneath the stairs. Heather follows after her as Oliver heads up after Sylvia.

Sylvia had found an old bedroom and was just about to walk out when her foot nudges a floorboard, popping it right off. Glancing down, she blinks at the sigh of a box inside, kneeling down and picking it up, opening it up and gasping in shock. “Jinkies!”

“What?” Oliver walks over, peering over her shoulder at the box and letting out a low whistle. “Woooooow.”

“So, what do you think is going to be at the end of this?” Grayson asks, from the back of the pack.

“Could just be an emergency exit from the house,” Lily says in the middle, shining her light along the walls.

“I doubt that, though,” Nancy says, hanging a right with the tunnel and coming to a set of stairs leading down. “Oh, I definitely doubt it now.”

Carefully, she presses her foot on the first step, testing her weight against it and then stepping down. “They seem safe.”

“That’s reassuring,” Lily remarks dryly, but follows behind her nonetheless.

At the bottom of the stairs, they come upon a locked door. Nancy glances to Grayson, who passes through the door but then comes right back. “Nope. That’s actually a really, really complicated looking lock on the other side. More like a puzzle than a lock.”

Nancy nods and gets into her bag, producing her lockpicking tools. “Then this calls for plan B.”

“So, how often do you do this stuff?” Lily asks as she keeps her light balanced on the lock when Nancy kneels to break in the old fashioned way.

“I’ve been on cases since I was a little kid. It’s fairly regular work, I guess. You’re the mechanic, right?”

“Aye, that’s me,” Lily notes with pride, smiling a bit. “Your sister speaks highly of you, y’know.”

“She talks about you a lot, too,” Nancy remarks, pausing when she hears a click. “There we go.”

Pushing the door open, she gasps. “Oh, my, god.”

Sammy sighs as she runs her fingers over the desk in the study she and Heather had found. “I know the place is condemned and stuff, but if Sylvia and Nance are right and the problem is just a squatter, you’d think they’d do a little better job cleaning up the place. This is just gross.”

“Hey, like, take a look at this,” Heather responds, turning around with a paper in her hands that she’d picked up from an end table beside an armchair. “These are, like, financial records. And they’re, like, recent, too. The name’s torn off.”

“What? Let me see,” Sammy walks over, taking the paper from her friend and reading over them by the light of her flashlight. “Yikes. Whoever these belong to, they’re not doing so well. Wonder how these got here.”

Both girls share a look when they hear some floorboards creak behind them. A hand on her shoulder causes Heather to whip around and deck the strange man who’d grabbed her, and Sammy screams.

Sylvia and Oliver’s heads shoot up at the scream downstairs, and Sylvia frantically shoves the box they’d found into her bag as they tear back downstairs to find the girls, discovering Heather holding down a guy who’s grumbling beneath her heel.

“Who the hell are you?!” Sylvia snaps, now very suspicious given what she and Oliver found upstairs. He glares at them and doesn’t answer. Sylvia rolls her eyes. “I’m gonna see if I can get reception outside.”

“No need,” Oliver says, holding up a finger.

“Do you have cell service in here?” Sylvia raises an eyebrow.

“No, but I’m a Robinson. I don’t need cell service.” They come back with a small metal sphere from their pocket, hitting some buttons on the screen part and causing it to let out a soft, steady beep. “My dad’ll pick up on that and call the police and give them our location. We should check on the others, though. We can’t be sure this guy’s alone.”

“I’ve got him contained,” Heather says, pressing her heel into his back further to drive the point home. “Go.”

Sylvia and Oliver nod, and Oliver hands the small ball to Sammy before he and Sylvia head back to the secret passageway.

Nancy stares in shock at the bodies before them. Probably other people like the kids, nosy about the alleged haunting, who got too close to something. Though she’s not sure how to judge what would be considered “too close”. Grayson stays back in the doorway to make sure no one can sneak up on them from the tunnel or shut them in, but she and Lily press onward into the room. “I...”

“Nancy, I’m not the detective, but I don’t think that all of these bodies have come from just the past few months since the building was condemned,” Lily murmurs.

Nancy looks over to where Lily’s pointing her flashlight, at the skeletized remains beyond the first three they’d seen upon walking in. “I think you’re right.”

“We need to get out of here,” Lily says. “Before we’re next.”

“I concur with that one,” Grayson says from the door, but then looks up. “Someone’s coming.”

The girls look up and rush to join him at the doorway, relaxing when they see the two people who descend the stairs. Sylvia sighs. “Hey, there you guys are. Everyone okay?”

“We are. What happened up there?”

“Some guy tried to attack Heather and Sammy. Not sure exactly what happened, but Heather had him ground with a foot against his back. We came down here to get you. What’s in there?” Sylvia stretches up on her toes to peer over.

“We need to get back up there. NOW.” Nancy says, shoving through the group and taking the stairs two at a time back up the tunnel.

Oliver’s about to ask questions when he sees the bodies at the same moment as Sylvia, the two taking off after Nancy with Lily on their heels. Grayson glances back one last time before going ghost and shooting straight back up into the main house and then follows the sounds of a scuffle to find Sammy and Heather, Heather grappling with the girls’ would-be assailant.

As the others skid in, Sylvia draws her taser, trying to get a good lock on the guy. Heather seems to notice this and flips them into a position that only seems unfavorable to her for a moment. Sylvia nods and fires, locking the guy up and givine Heather a shot to properly restrain him.

Sammy still looks entirely stressed out. “This is why I hate the mystery business.”

“Okay, what is going on around here?” Oliver asks, not noticing Nancy over at the desk.

“That’s an excellent question, kid,” comes a voice, and the seven look over at the new person in the door. He holds up a badge. “Auradon PD. We got a call from one Wilbur Robinson regarding his son and some kind of emergency beacon?”

“That’d be me,” Oliver holds up his hand, reaching out and reclaiming the beacon from Sammy to deactivate it. “Oliver Robinson. I alerted my dad to our location when we caught this guy after he tried to attack Heather and Sammy.”

Sylvia looks up from where she’s been reading over Nancy’s shoulder. “Officer, I think I’ve just about got it all figured out.”

He and the others turn their lights to her. Nancy holds up the journal she’d been reading from. “This was left here by the original homeowner. He was a private man, and he had every reason to be. He was a cat burglar. Most of the money and jewels he stole were sunk into building his private residence, with a room to hide some of his bigger pieces hidden from any prying eyes. He even writes he plans to allow himself to die in there to throw off anyone daring hunt for his treasures. That’s the skeleton Lily and I found in the basement.”

“But he didn’t hide the most precious pieces with them,” Sylvia picks up. “Those were kept separate, somewhere he chose not to write down. I’m talking a minor fortune for any kingdom or any individual in jewels. He wrote of them, but not where they were hidden. Our new friend here was sabotaging the efforts of the city to tear down this house for fear the jewels would be lost forever, or unearthed by city workers and given to the museum. What I can’t figure out is why--”

“The financial slip!” Sammy exclaims, picking up that paper from where she’d dropped it. “Heather and I found this before the guy snuck up on us. The name’s missing, but whoever it belongs to is in financial ruins. Finding any of the original owner’s treasure would bail him out from a debt he could never ever escape otherwise.”

The officer looks impressed. “You kids are pretty good at this thing. But, I do have one last question. Where’s the missing jewelry?”

“I found it,” Sylvia says, reaching into her bag and pulling out the box she and Oliver had found upstairs. “I knocked into a loose floorboard in one of the bedrooms upstairs and this was under it.”

She opens it up, revealing the jewelry inside it to the group under the light of a collection of flashlights. Sylvia adds, “Like I said, minor fortune. Enough to buy your way out of debt, or... disappear and never be seen again.”

“Well, now, that’s impressive,” he says, in shock, but not really moving for anything else, staring at the box in Sylvia’s hands.

Nancy notices, instantly getting a bad feeling. “Officer, where’s your backup?”

The instant Nancy asks that question, he scowls, and that’s all Sylvia needs. She slams the box shut and tosses it to Grayson, who grips it tightly and focuses, turning both it and himself into a ghost and shooting outside the house with it towards the van.

Heather yelps as the guy breaks loose from her at last and ducks his swing, scowling. “I’ve just about had it with this.”

“I hate detective work!” Sammy yells as Lily brushes in front of her, trying to get them both out the door.

Sylvia scowls when the fake officer bears down on her. “Oh, hell no, I did not just survive Annapolis for a dirty cop and a wannabe crook to beat me.” She kicks him right between the legs and then shoves him over as Heather knocks aside the crook, and the rest of the group flees out the front door to the van.

Lily slides into the driver’s seat without even debating it, barely giving them time to all get in before she’s backing out, and Oliver slams the door shut behind him as they get into the road and screech off towards the police station.

As they get away from the house, Sylvia gets into a call in the backseat to get on with the station properly, saying something quieter at first and then speaking up rapidly as she looks behind them and sees the police car coming in hot after them, flying through a rushed explanation of the situation at hand.

Heather suddenly pulls out a star-shaped bottle of perfume, and Nancy notices. “IS NOW THE TIME FOR A PICK-ME-UP TO YOUR BEAUTY ROUTINE?!”

“Not at all,” Heather answers, reaching back and opening the back door and aiming outwards at the way-too-close cop car, spraying at it. The liquid that comes out immediately freezes the car, including the tires, and the two occupants are thrust forward at their windshield in the abrupt stop. Heather reaches out and slams the van door back shut, taking a deep breath. “I knew that one would come in handy.”

She looks back at her fellow passengers, who are no longer staring, and there are 5 and a half (Lily mainly keeps her eyes on the road) pairs of eyes on her. “I’ll tell the story once this is over with.”

When Lily pulls them up to the station, Grayson hands the jewelry box back to Sylvia and the gang heads inside, meeting up with officers who were appraised of the situation and giving them the rundown on everything they had uncovered and discovered at the house. It takes a while to get everyone’s individual statements, but soon, the kids are let go... after getting to see their two would-be attackers brought into the station in cuffs, anyways.

Back in the van, Sylvia reclaims the keys to drive them back to the school, but everyone else is looking at Heather, who sighs.

“Okay. So, like... I’m a spy. I work for an agency called the World Organization of Human Protection, or WOOHP for short. Our mission is to keep the world safe from crazy supervillains with convoluted evil world domination plans, and we also work in security details for world leaders. WOOHP is trying to establish ties here in Auradon, and one of the ways they did that was by sending an agent undercover into the country to help keep everyone at home appraised of things that are happening here so we can offer aid in the biggest situations. What you saw in action back there was the Ice Queen Perfume, which is just liquid nitrogen in a bottle, essentially, that instantly freezes whatever it comes into contact with when sprayed. All my gadgets are made to look like typical teenage girl stuff so that, like, if someone found my spy stuff, they wouldn’t know what they found.”

Sylvia casts a glance at Heather in the mirror. WOOHP. She’d run into them in Annapolis, too, and they’d tried recruiting her before. But she wasn’t interested in that.

Though she wonders if Heather might have been the agent they met in Annapolis. Just briefly. Then, she pulls the van into a parking spot at the school, killing the engine and... sitting there.

They all do, for a minute. Nobody moves to get out, and nobody says anything for a long minute.

Then, Nancy clears her throat. “We made a great team back there.”

“Yeah,” Grayson says. “I mean... it was actually kinda...”

“Fun,” Oliver finishes the thought, and the others all nod in agreement.

Sammy bites her lip, then closes her eyes and clears her throat. “I’m gonna hate saying this, but... let’s do this again, guys. I hate the mystery business, but that was... fun.”

“I’m in if you’re in,” Heather says instantly.

Lily nods. “Aye. Count me in, too.”

“I’m down,” Nancy says, as Oliver and Sylvia both nod in agreement as well. All heads turn to Grayson, who sighs, and sticks his hand out into the center of the group.

“Let’s do this.”

The others pile their hands in on top of his quickly. Sammy pauses. “Okay, but guys, we need a name.”

“Can’t be Mystery Inc.,” Sylvia jokes. “That’s kinda taken.”

“Mystery Gang?” Oliver volunteers.

Nancy wrinkles her nose. “Nah, too similar to our parents. The Clue Gang?”

“No, no, wait,” Heather says. “Like, what about... The Clue Crew?”

The others look at each other at that and nod. Sylvia laughs. “On three. One... two...”

On three, they all break with a dorky exclamation of, “The Clew Crew!”

[txtally-heather]

Open Starter: Getting Started

“So, what do you think?” Nancy asks the group of the poster sitting on the table in front of all of them.

“I mean, it looks nice,” Sammy answers.

Nancy wrinkles her nose. “I sense a ‘but’.”

“But, you don’t really expect posters hanging around a school campus to attract cases to us, do you?” Sammy shrugs. “I mean, what we did was great, even I’ll admit it, I just think...”

“I have to agree. It’s not like people with serious mysteries to resolve are looking for their detectives on the campus of a prep school,” Sylvia admits. “Nancy, I get called to consult on things all the time. Maybe we can get things that way instead.”

“You guys are such pessimists. The only way to know if something will work or not is by giving it a shot,” Oliver looks at the rest of them. “I say it doesn’t hurt to try.”

“Excuse me,” Heather turns to a student who’d been watching the debate. “Like, we need an outside opinion regarding a group business matter, do you think you could, like, maybe help settle a debate?”

[fxirytxlcfxtc]

@unscrxpted​ - What Happened in Auradon Starring Sylvia Dinkley, Melinda Pollari, Nancy Jones, Sammy Jones, Grayson Fenton, Lily Montgomery, Heather Baker, Oliver Robinson, & Audrey Possible

“Well, not haunted,” Grayson jokes as he walks in with them.

“Still, like, really creepy,” Heather shudders. The building seemed much, much more labyrinth-like from the inside, she thinks.

And it’s clear the others agree. “Aye. I strongly advise against splitting up,” Lily remarks softly.

“Guys, we’ve been on so many weird cases at this point,” Sylvia shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “Just following up on the weird disappearances and noises and it’s over with again.”

“Some of us aren’t detectives,” Sammy huffs, annoyed, reaching down and fixing the strap on her heels.

Sylvia pauses, glancing around at the rest of them, leaving this for someone else to address.

[whirlybirbs]

birbs, dick grayson has my whole heart but you're making me wANT TO GIVE IT TO JASON on a sILVER PLATTER 🥺

SUMMER IN THE CITY   ;   J . T . 

pairing: jason todd x gender nuetral reader, est. relationship

warnings: local vigilante is sweaty

a/n: imagine fighting goons in summer heat, i’d be so pissed. anyways, have some tooth-rotting fluff with my murder angel, jason.

“You��re sweaty.”

“Helmet doesn’t have AC.”

Jason Todd’s voice is a low rumble, nose pressed to the curve of your bare shoulder as he buries his face into your open arms. You laugh, eyes shut, and nestle your fingers into the inky tufts of his hair. 

You’re still half asleep. You’d been beckoned awake by the window to your bedroom sliding open quietly and a certain vigilante slipping inside minutes ago. The moonlight shifted around him as his boots met carpet, as arms pried his helmet off and he stripped tiredly in the glow of the string lights you’d been kind enough to leave on for him. 

Calloused fingers found the light’s switch by your bedside, darkening the room, and he’d thrown himself into your queen-sized bed.

It’s a hot night in Gotham —late August heat is the kind that sticks to you. Jason, happily kicking the sheets away from himself, sighs happily when your bedside fan rotates over him. 

Your nails ghost his back.

Jason groans, large hands curling to secure themselves around your ribs. 

“God, Jay,” you mumble, laughing, “You’re so sweaty.”

He lifts his head and you pull open half-mast eyes to see the rosy glow of exertion settled on his cheeks. Charmingly, his lips go crooked as he speaks — his voice is laden with exhausted humor. 

“Do I smell...?”

“Like someone who just paraded around the city in layers of kevlar knit spandex and ceramic body armor? In the ninety-degree heat?” you ask amusedly, fingers cruising through his thick hair that wants desperately to stick up from being stuffed into the helmet poised on your dresser, “Yeah, Jaybird, you do.”

He laughs as he curls closer. The fan passes over him again and he’s finally starting to cool down. Goosebumps rise over the taut muscles in his back. Frankly, Jason doesn’t care if curling up close to you is gonna make him hot again in an hour — it’s been a shit night and he just wants someone to play with his fuckin’ hair, okay? 

Can’t a man have someone play with his hair? 

Your nails scraped the base of his neck as you rake your fingers through the mess of black hair and Jason groans. Faceplants back into your shoulder. Kisses your collarbone. 

“M’ sorry I smell.”

“Eh,” you mutter, ghosting a kiss to his temple, “If I cared I wouldn’t have left the window unlocked.”

[strangerquinns]

I’ve never sent in a concept before so forgive me if I’m awkward lmao but I have really bad rosacea and it’s super embarrassing and my face and arms get red when I’m hot or embarrassed and I was wondering g if you could make a concept where grays girlfriend is really insecure too and he tells her that she’s beautiful just like- stupid fluff? 🥺 I could really use it rn but it’s totally ok if not!

it was sadly another warm day in la, the sun blaring down towards the earth making it feel hot, sticky and all around gross. but a sense of annoyance and being self conscious was also washing over you. you had rosacea, which means any time you got hot your body slowly flared with redness.

it made you insecure at times and sadly this was one of them. the moment the others in the house learned it was going to be a 100 degree day, they immedialty wanted to spend the day out in the pool. the last thing you wanted to do. all you wanted was to stay inside with the a/c blaring and staying beneath the covers of yours and graysons bed.

but as grayson walked around the house looking for you, already dressed in his swim shorts, he became worried. he walked out to the backyard after lunch with ethan and kris and was enjoying the sun but looked around to see that you were missing. a deep frown was set on his face as he looked for you. he checked the living room, the kitchen, even the podcast room knowing how much you enjoyed the silence. but he couldn’t find you. of course the last place he checked for you was your shared bedroom. a heavy sense of relief washed over him as he saw you form lying beneath the crisp white comforter.

slowly grayson walked over to your side of the bed and knelt down to come level with your face, or what he thought was your face since you were buried beneath the blankets. the a/c was cranked up so much goosebumps ghosted over his skin and cause him to shiver slightly

“angel?” he spoke softly, pulling gently on the comforter to expose your face. your eyes looking up towards him, he could instantly tell that something was wrong as his eyes took you in. “you ok? was worried when you weren’t outside with us,”

“not in the mood for a pool day,” you shied away from him as he pulled the blanket away more and more. the softness of your voice only concerened grayson more.

as he full pulled the blanket down, your upper half now exposed to him, he was able to see the soft pinkness that danced across your skin, and then he knew. grayson knew of your insecurity, but to him, it another beautiful aspect of you.

he looked towards you “[y/n], you don’t have to hide away from me...or e and kris. you know we don’t care about this,”

“I can’t help it. I hate how my skin is,” you groaned and rolled your eyes. “it’s so ugly and I don’t want people looking at me,”

grayson reached down and caressed your face gently, causing your eyes to look back up towards you. he could see the thoughts storming through your mind all he wanted to do was take them away.

“I love you and think every inch of you is beautiful, and I will do everything I can to be able to make sure you know that.”

your heart warmed at his words and you quickly sat up before kissing him deeply, pouring every ounce of love you had for him into the kiss. grayson moved to pull closer to him, gripping tightly to your waist. you pulled back and rested your forehead against his - keeping your hands cupped along his jaw, gently rubbing your thumb against his skin.

“I love you, you know that right?” you whispered and looked deeply into his eyes.

he smiled and pecked your lips “i know baby, and i love you. Always.”

after a moment you climbed from beneath the blankets and moved to slip on your bathing suit. when your rosacea started to show, grayson made sure to gently caress your arm before leaning down and kissing the skin. it made your stomach flutter each time, and had you falling deeper in love with him.

Hope I did this well for you babes

[333dolans]

Girls Like You // G.D

Hey loves! So I’m such a sucker for the twins as dads so I thought I’d write a lil something for dad!gray🥺 after that lil vid on his IG I was already soft and then a video got recommended to me on YouTube so I just had to write something🤍 Here’s the video for reference: https://youtu.be/qVBAOAMU7hg

Warnings: Dad Gray because it’s what we all needed🥰 literally just fluff!

Tags: @evergreendolan @dolansficsandpics @livexdolan @rhyrhy462 @reidscriminal @blindedbythelightt

Time is such a perplexing and peculiar concept for you to try to wrap your head around. The perception of time is subjective. For you, the past 4 years have felt close to a lifetime, yet also went by unexplainably fast, in the most intense and spectacular way. When spent with the right people, time feels distorted. You’re left unaware of how long has passed, yet still you never find yourself searching for the nearest clock or grabbing for your phone to check the hour. You find yourself revelling in the enthralling feeling.

It’s always felt like this with Grayson. From the day you first ran into your own personal angel in aisle 7 of Gelson’s, you have savoured every single moment spent with this man. Always thanking your lucky stars that you had ran out of avocados that day. Now here you are, on the 4th anniversary of that initial interaction, standing in the doorway of your shared bathroom admiring the two people you were undeniably put on this earth for. Heaven above knows they are your heart and soul in human form.

The sight unfolding in front of your eyes left you in complete awe. Words can’t describe the amount of love that was flowing through your body as you watched your fiancées big arms encircling your sweet little buba, holding her close to his bare, warm chest. You swear you felt your heart swell at the cheeky grins that took occupancy on their faces. You couldn’t help but pull your phone out from your jean pocket and begin filming.

Coming from the speakers in your bedroom, played “Girls Like You” By Maroon 5. Standing in front of the mirror, gently swaying in time with the music, Gray was staring at his beautiful baby girl with nothing but pure adoration. You could see the tears forming in his eyes as he attentively watched her every move. He studied her facial expressions with so much love and fondness, loving her little giggles when he began to quietly sing along with the song, only loud enough for his princess to hear. “I wants sing too dada!” Your precious 2 year old daughter, Fallon, bellowed. “So whats stopping you? Sing along baby!” Grayson grinned, tickling at her sides.

So many thoughts were filling your head but you were rendered speechless. Words couldn’t capture what you were feeling, but you wished you could experience it forever. You will never understand how you got so lucky. Whoever was watching over you, you couldn’t thank them enough for the life they have blessed you with. Once the final notes echoed between the tile walls, you stopped the video you know you all will treasure for years to come. You pushed off of your spot on the door frame and made your way over to your loves.

“Mama!! I missed you s’much!” Fallon shrieked, stretching her little arms out for you to take her in your own. You gladly scooped her up, smothering her face with lots of kisses, making her laugh uncontrollably. Gosh did you love this kid.

You took in a sharp breath as you allowed your eyes to take in the sight before you. Wearing nothing but his fitted dress pants, Gray stood in all of his glory. How was he still able to take your breath away every single time you see him? 4 years later and he still made your stomach flutter with just a simple look in your direction. In that moment, you were convinced there is nothing you would not do for your little family, they have your whole heart. After a few moments of silence, filled with your unwavering stare, Gray lightly ghosted your lips before locking his lips to yours.

Although no words were exchanged, the passion he put into the kiss spoke enough. You could feel the love radiating from his touch. When you broke away, you kept your foreheads pressed against each other’s, staring into his eyes.

“As adorable as you two were being, our reservations are in 30 minutes and the restaurant is a 25 minute drive. Get a move on Dolan, I don’t think they’ll appreciate public nudity.” You snorted as you trailed off into the bedroom to get Fallon changed into her outfit for the evening.

As you slipped the blush pink dress over her wavy brown locks, you let your mind drift to the scene that had played out just minutes ago, it already felt so long ago. When you were gazing into Grayson’s eyes, Fallon in your arms, you swear you saw your whole future reflecting in those warm pools of honey. This. This is where you were meant to be.

[nxttheendxfthestxry]

"Oh, no, there's absolutely no excuse for what I'm about to do!"

[baby-grayson]

Kind Stranger|GBD|Finale

Parts 1-13

Words: 2.5k Tags: @not-gbd​ @styles-dolan​ @evergreendolan​ @someonetogray​ @vintagedolan​ @prettyboydolan​ @dolansficsandpics​ @graysavant​ @baby-turtles​ @dolanpornhub​ @wheezeatmedolans​ @dolansontheblock​

A/N: I can’t believe we have arrived here. There are so many things I want to say and I can’t thank you enough for reading, especially if you started reading with part 1. This story had re-energized me as a writer for the first time in years. I’ll keep it brief, but this is so special to me. I can never hear enough from your guys about your thoughts, opinions, and reactions. 

Grayson Dolan was lucky that his home in Malibu was a rental. Being a rental, he could throw it in the back of his mind and forget about it when he moved into his new, renovated home. He would have the chance to walk into a new space, a fresh space, and decorate every corner of the house with new memories. When he was ready to move into that new house, promising opportunity and positive potential, he could choose to leave all his memories from the rental in the past.

Grayson was running out of spaces that weren’t tainted by the events of the summer. Kate’s apartment was stained in the ghosts of their first night together. The beach was sullied by the first time they met, and the first time they said I love you. His van was forever soiled by their first kiss. Hell, even the LA county aquarium was discolored in the memories of their first date.

They were all good memories. No, they were great memories. But they were the remnants of the internal war he struggled with that summer. Some days, he was a normal 20-year-old guy; kissing his girlfriend for the first time when taking her home from their first date as her lips opened like a rose against his surprised mouth, admiring her as he drove down the freeway while she sang along to 90s pop songs while the wind blew through her hair, waking up in the morning and adoring how the morning sunlight cast beautiful shadows over her angelic face from where she snored in his arms. By night, he was a struggling 20-year-old star; watching the love of his life break down when he had ignorantly asked her to keep their relationship on his terms, stuttering in front of a fan while his petite, feminine, heroine faced the daunting aisles of a CVS alone, and laboring for coherent words, feelings, and breaths while staring at her fragile, soft frame draped in his shirt. 

All those moments happened in spaces. Tainted spaces. Colored in the story of a young man who was given everything he wanted, before he was ready for it. 

Now, Grayson Dolan was faced with a decision that tormented him in a way he hadn’t realized was possible.

Grayson Dolan was no stranger to hazardous emotions. He knew them all too well: grief, guilt, and all-encompassing self-hatred.

And yet, she made it all fade away. She made him feel light.  She lifted his heart up. Her demure hands supported his heart with a strength that induced the inner sensations that he was a man who had never been hurt before. 

But that was far from the truth. He knew the ache of a broken heart better than most people. He knew it well before he had met her, but Kate had reminded him more than once what it felt like to be a man without a center of gravity. She never meant to: she never sought to break Grayson’s heart. He recognized her drive to be an independent woman and her uneasiness with his lifestyle. Grayson knew, in his deepest of hearts, that she would never purposefully hurt him.

Kate loved him. She really truly loved him. Grayson could see it in the gold flakes in her eyes. He felt it in the way she would always look for his hand to grab onto. He heard it in her groggy words during the early mornings they shared together. He tasted it every time her luscious lips pressed sweetly against his. He would forever associate the small of love with sweet vanilla and citrus undertones. 

His definition of love was Kate. 

So much so, that a year later Grayson would design a candle for Wakeheart. He worked tirelessly on the perfect blend of sweet vanilla and fragrant citrus. He packaged it in a gold label, reminiscent of the traces in Kate’s eyes. He named it Love.

But on that August night, Grayson Dolan was very lucky that his home was a rental. It meant that a man who clung tightly to emotional memories and nostalgia, could speak without the fear of returning to a triggering space every day. 

A small open window allowed sweet summer air to diffuse through the living room. Kate sat across from Grayson, on an armchair. She wore a pensive look, with a tight mouth and concerned eyes. Her long eyelashes touched the tops of her cheekbones only to blink, the only time she took her eyes off Grayson. Her hands gently fingered the arms of the chair, feeling a soft velvet plush. 

Grayson sat on his couch, with a hunched back. He balled his hands into fists and tangled them between his knees. He exhaled roughly and sucked on his teeth. He grabbed the side of his face and slid his hand into his hair. He unlocked his jaw and let out another breath. Inwardly, he decided that breaking the silence was more important than choosing the perfect words, “I’m sorry.” That was always a good place to start when you felt terrible.

Kate swallowed audibly and sat back in her chair, keeping every muscle stiff. “You’re sorry?” She knitted her eyebrows together.

 Grayson gave a small nod, “I’m sorry for everything I’ve done to you.”“I realize now that maybe I love you in a way, a deep way, that you will never love me.” His heart twisted in on itself, “And it’s not right if I want you around in hopes that you will someday, somehow, suddenly start feeling the things for me that I have felt for you all along.”

 “You loved me in a way that I never loved you?” Her voice was soft, surprised, and colored in shock. She repeated his words out loud not for emphasis, but in hopes that saying them would help her achieve the smallest ounce of understanding. 

Grayson nodded and bit the corner of his bottom lip, “Yeah.” He took in a rough breath, “I just—” he looked down at the ground and back at Kate, “I look at you and I see everything.” He started to spiral, “I love you in a way that makes my brain dizzy. That makes me wish you were in every room. That makes me think about how you slept last night. That ---” he bit his lip, struggling to turn emotions into words, “That tells me a life without you will always be worse, in every way, than one with you.”

“Grayson,” Kate started, her face contorting into images of sadness, confusion, and horror, “I do.” She nodded, a big indigent towards his implications. “I do love you Grayson, I told you that.” “I know you do, but you just—you rule every corner of my mind and heart,” he held out his palms from where he sat. Grayson searched his mind for his next words, but he quickly learned that your truest thoughts will always come from your heart, “I almost wish you could meet yourself as another person so that you might understand how hard it is for me not to love you with everything in me.”

Kate felt a crack from deep insider her being. Her mind went blank. Her stare was so strong that she bored holes in the top of Grayson’s head from where he looked at the floor. When he looked up to meet her eyes, he saw a tear drop down the left side of her face. 

She shook her head softly, in disbelief at what was happening. She spoke outwardly and without redress, “Is that why you invited me over? To tell me that I never loved you enough?” Her voice broke, “I didn’t know what this was supposed to be Grayson,” she felt a large tear well up on her eyelid, “but I wouldn’t have come if I knew this is what you were going to say.”

Grayson’s eyes darted around her figure, from her tears to her shaky hands to her crossed ankles and to quivering lip. His breath stopped. His eyes wanted to crawl inward and never return to light again. His heart, which was already hanging on a loose thread, dove into the pits of his being.

He was seeing her cry for the first time. 

He was seeing her cry for the first time. And he was the reason she was crying.

 Grayson’s tongue moved in his dry mouth. His words were unsure, shaking like a rickety bridge hanging above an open chasm. “Not just to say that, I—I wanted to talk about why I don’t think we should be friends anymore.” He tucked his hands underneath his thighs to avoid succumbing to his instincts to hold her, “I love you too much to just be your friend.”

Kate shook her head, more than dissatisfied with his response. “Fine,” she was curt, “We can not be friends. We can be something else,” her face was turned down in sadness, but her voice held a pitch of bitterness. “But” she clenched her teeth, “do not say,” she stuck out a finger toward him, “that you love me,” her voice broke, “more.” Kate closed her eyes, forcing a few tears to stray down her face. She pointed her face towards the ceiling, as if the air was better up there. She brought her face down. “Grayson Dolan you really don’t know what you do to me.” She opened her eyes. Her next words were just a whisper, barely audible over the sound of the wind blowing in through the living room window. “I love you. I’m in love with you.”

She met her lips together, sucking them in slightly. She pursed them. Grayson released his hands from under his thighs and rested them on his knees. “You’re—” she nearly scoffed at herself for what she was about to say. When did the engineer turn into a poet? “You’re like the sun Grayson, you’re like my sun. Like when you’re around, the world is light and happy and I know where I am going but then you’re not there and it’s all so dark and a little scary and I know I can do it but I would prefer to do it all when the sun is out.” Her words mashed together as her speech got quicker. “Grayson Dolan being with you is like finally having my left arm. I was getting by just fine with my right one before you, but now that I know it what it’s like, going back will never be the same.” 

She closed her eyes, as if bracing herself for an invisible impact. “It was never you Grayson. You’re wonderful Grayson, you’re amazing Grayson, you’re—I love you Grayson. And hearing you accuse me of not feeling the same way as you…that hurts.”

She didn’t stop herself from speaking openly, “The world is a scary place for someone like me Grayson. I’m a disabled girl who’s trying to save the world, there aren’t very many of me for a reason. And when I have to be strong, or face the unthinkable, finding someone who lets me be soft, who lets me put my guard down and really be. I used to think I knew what love was, and then I met you Grayson Dolan.”

At this point, her eyes were red and swollen from the salty sting of tears. Her lips were plump and engorged. She let out a breath before finishing, “It was never you Grayson. It was your life. It was your life and my life, two things that I’m pretty sure were never supposed to be together. To be honest Grayson, I don’t think guys like you and girls like me were ever supposed to be together because now that I loved you,” she shook her head, “I don’t know” she commented lowly. 

“I don’t deserve you,” Grayson’s voice was firm and stable compared to Kate’s rickety one. He bit down on his bottom lip, “I wanted to talk to you tonight. Here. To tell you that,” he sucked his top lip in quickly, “You’re too good for me.”

Kate wiped a few tears from the corners of her eyes, only sending more tears down across her cheeks. “What?” 

Grayson shook his head. When he tilted his eyes toward the ceiling, Kate noticed a few small wells forming in the corners of his eyes. He swallowed hard before starting again. “You’re everything I ever wanted.” He gave something that sounded like a sad chuckle, “Beautiful. Smart. Caring. Funny.” He shook his head, stopping himself from continuing. “But I met your way before I was ready enough to love you the way you deserve to be loved.” He huffed, “I shouldn’t try to love you if I know I’m not ready.” Kate’s mouth transformed into the smallest circle on the bottom of her face. Her eyes went wide in bewilderment. 

“I don’t know how to do this” He wasn’t sure if he meant talking about this or love, but he didn’t know how to do either. “I’m not ready for the kind of life I know I could have with you.” His hands landed on the couch with a tap. “I don’t know how to communicate; I don’t know how to express myself fully and openly. I don’t know how to keep you safe when we leave our—our bubble,” he gestured to the rental home, “I don’t know how” he motioned his hands in the air before exhaling, “to do this.” 

Grayson let his head hang low, “Sure, I love to kiss you. And yes, I love to cuddle. But there is a difference between showing someone you love them and showing up to love them-- knowing what to do when things get hard.”

“So what are you saying?” Her voice sounded hollow and lost. She felt like someone had punched her in the stomach while asking her to do complex math. 

“I’m saying that,” Grayson’s voice broke for the first time. A single tear escaped his right eye, “We should.” He stopped himself. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to be in each other’s lives. At least for right now. For a while. You should be with someone who is more ready for what you have than me. I love you too much to make you wait for me.”

The look on Kate’s face after he said that was the reason that Grayson Dolan was very lucky his Malibu home was a rental. If his home wasn’t a rental, Grayson would be faced to picture the gut-wrenching, heart breaking, Earth shattering image of Kate crying on his armchair every time he walked into his living room. He convinced himself that he did the right thing, even though it nearly killed him inside to do it. 

Leaving his rental home felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, even if it did make his life more complicated because his house wasn’t ready yet. When Ethan suggested a road trip, partially out of necessity but also out of recognition for his brother’s broken heart, Grayson was more than happy to say yes. Even the LA sidewalks were overflowing with memories of Kate. Grayson gladly accepted the chance to get away from all of his tainted spaces.                 

((the epilogue will be coming out tomorrow night))

[nxttheendxfthestxryarch2]

“The only straight I am is straight up dead inside.”

[dx-yxu-believe-in-ghxsts]

Closed Starter: Immediate Exit

He’s seen her around school and heard whispers about what she did, what happened. In all honesty, though, Grayson’s not been one to care much for rumors. Just never been his kind of thing to focus on.

So he decides, at one point, seeing her on her own and hearing a group beside him snickering about her, to walk right over. “Hi, I’m Gayson-- Grayson Fenton, and now that I’ve successfully fucked it all up and made it awkward, I’m actually gonna make my exit.”

@untxld-stxries​ (Audrey)

[atlas-of-a-human-soul]

frENEMIES, pt.9 {Quarterback AU}

Summary: Long overdue, Y/N and Grayson finally reunite.

Warnings: angst, fluff, indicating a spiked drink

Series Masterlist

"Being lonely and being alone are two entirely different things. One is imposed on you and one you choose. Yet somehow I found myself with a little bit of both.

Every year that went by and I watched new couples form and break up, I longed for a relationship of my own. It wasn't due to lack of trying, because I did try! However, for some unknown reason every guy I got close to would soon ghost me. And for a while I thought it was me, like I'm the reason why they all leave. Funny thing is, none of them were ever important to me - not like the cocky quarterback I felt drawn to despite him being able to raise my blood pressure dangerously high without even speaking.

In these years he had been flagged as a hothead, a bomb just waiting to go off and I had no idea why. Maybe he was just as misunderstood as me, because no matter how much we fight, in the end it always felt like he had my back.

It was something I learned when one of those frat parties turned into something more than I bargained for. All I remember is having a good time, dancing with a handsome stranger, then waking up in my bed with my quarterback sat by my side. I had a killer headache and parched mouth and as if he could read my mind, a glass of water was soon offered to me. Once I laid back, a little confused, I looked at him and the worry etched in every line of his beautiful face - no trace of the cocky guy I was used to.

He played with my hair until I fell asleep and ran his knuckles down my cheek so softly, tenderly, careful as if I were made of glass and he could break me. He told me everything will be fine and i should sleep some more, that I am safe and he won't go. 

I believed him.

I trusted him without restrain, and I knew...I knew he'd protect me. The line between love and hate had always been blurred with us and that night it didn't even exist.

I know what happened that night now. Not just that night but with every guy that thought I looked like a fun night and nothing more that you made sure would never hurt me.

Thank you for being my guardian angel, quarterback. I'll always remember that."

When Grayson showed up, seeing her engrossed in a daydream of sorts, her back turned to him, he still couldn't find a way to calm his heartbeat. She looked formidable from behind that desk, but it wasn't about how she looked at all but what she might do when she sees him.

He can tell her book had none of the bitterness he thought she felt for him. None of the hate. Nothing negative at all. Even his flaws were so artistically written that he came off like a good man.

Flaws. Grayson knew he was full of them. The scar between his eyebrows and the one on his chin. His coldness towards people. His ability to scare away anyone that looked at him, or her - especially her. His temper, his womanizing ways, his asthma and his dyslexia. 

However, that is usually only how deep people saw into him. But she? She saw him fully. She saw past all the nastiness that consumed and and saw what he truly was. Beautiful. Because what is a human being without flaws? She knew that the flaws make people who they are. They make everyone individual and their own person. That flaws make people interesting. And a human with flaws is a beautiful one. His flaws were the main reason she ever fell in love with him, and not some measly prince who has their whole life handed to them with a gold crown. She loved him, flaws and all.

The book was emotional, funny, filled with all the things he hoped she'd once say to him but never did. Had he known she truly felt so much for him, Grayson would have stopped at nothing until he made her his girl.

And now, looking at her with fear in his chest, he still opened his mouth - it was always faster than his mind.

When she turned around, he had never thought he'd hear the heavenly sound of his name upon her lips and what truly took him by surprise is the moment she put down her cup and leapt into his arms.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, allowing him to hold her up so she doesn't end up hanging. He found his face stuffed with her hair, but he didn't mind the gentle reminder of her signature scent, it didn't change all those years.

In her embrace the world stopped still on its axis. There was no time, no wind, no rain. There was something so warm, something that felt right, smelt right. She let her body sag, her muscles become loose. He gave her the respect of an equal, holding her a little stronger than it allowed her the freedom to breathe, but in that embrace she felt her worries loose their keen sting.

"Wow!" Letting him go way too soon for both their comfort, Y/N took a step backwards, her smile never leaving her face. "You look a lot bigger in person than you do on my TV!" She exclaimed and it didn't take long for Grayson to realize she watches his games.

"Fangirling over me? Watching my games? Are you sure you're really Y/N? I mean, you should watch what you say, someone might think you care." Chuckling, he puts his copy of the book on the desk as she rolls her eyes at him and he felt a lot more at ease once he’s seen her usual sign of frustration with him.

"Yes, asshole, I care about you." She didn't try to maneuver around it, admitting the truth shamelessly as he smiled at her candor, truly grateful he finally heard her say it and not in an audio version of the book.

Grabbing her by the hand, he pulled her into his chest swiftly enough to make her gasp, his smile bright as their eyes remain glued to each other, neither able to look away.  His eyes are so different, more soft than she knew eyes could be.

"That's better. It sounds more like you." He says quietly, just above a whisper as he wonders if she can tell his heart is nearly breaking his rib cage.

A moment later, her palm splayed against his chest feels just that, her eyes dropping to where her hand can feel every single erratic beat. Her cheeks turn a darker shade of pink and he knows she knows and he doesn't give a shit.

For the first time in forever, he can't find it in him to regret letting her know she has his heart in the palm of her hand - both figuratively and literally.

"Three years, huh?" He raises an eyebrow as her eyes flicker back up to his. Clearing her throat, she nods before tapping his chest and taking a step back.

"Yeah. You haven't changed much. Just the hair...and your arms got bigger!" She exclaims, chuckling nervously as she looks around to make sure they're still alone.

"Do you regret it?" Her voice is oddly quiet, her arms crossing over her chest as she let out a shuddered breath when his eyebrows furrow at her question.

"What?"

"I don't know...everything?" Forcing a smile, she leans back on the desk behind her for support, afraid she might fall - literally and figuratively for Grayson. Her treacherous heart already felt like it could bleed itself dry just for one damn moment of pure happiness with him and it scared her more than anything.

But Grayson had to think, to understand why she’s asking him that. He likes that she wants to own her mistakes, but she needs to forgive herself too. Until she does that she'll never let him in to help her heal. And he wanted that - a second chance with her more than anything. He would give anything.

He was quiet for a moment, too long for her not to let her past insecurities flood her. Her chest felt like it would collapse under pressure and her face burned like hot lava, she opened her mouth to tell him to forget she ever asked but he started talking instead.

"Just because we never really worked back then doesn't mean I didn't love you. And it doesn't mean that I would ever regret having the privilege to know you. To just be around you. I regret being a coward. I could have done more because even then I knew I wanted you to be my endgame." And there wasn't a single pause in his answer, no trace of any sort of doubts. Grayson meant what he said and be felt it with all his being.

He wished he was more capable of being raw and vulnerable with her, to have made some changes to the way they communicated. Something that would have given her a chance to see he was besotted with her, not the playboy he portrayed himself as. Come to think of it, he'd trade everything, even football, just to have her. She was more important than he knew...until she was gone, he really had no clue.

And while she was still reeling from the word love he used in context of them being something more than just frenemies, she couldn’t help the glistening tears from filling her eyes.

"Yeah", with tears in her eyes she sniffles. "Me too. I wish I wasn't so wrapped up in my own fears. That I at least tried, you know? Maybe we would have been happy", rubbing her nose, she gives him a small smile. 

But when he takes a step closer, someone else enters the bookstore and she finds herself panicked, yet relieved when the person seems to vanish in the stalls instead of coming to her for an autograph.

"This isn't...uh...If someone would to see his together, they would figure it out.” People have been trying to figure out who the mysterious quarterback is for years and one person is enough for a media frenzy to start. 

“We should find a private place. Maybe my apartment?" She rambled as Grayson slowly closed the distance, his mischievous smile growing with every step.

"Let them figure it out. I don't give a shit." And before she had a chance to react, his lips found hers. Lips parted, she moaned against his as he pressed her closer to him and she submitted willingly, and he fucking loved it. 

They kissed without a care in the world, his arms around her tight as he kept her close, their mouths locked in a new kind of an argument, one against oxygen. They couldn't breathe, their kiss anything but gentle, relentless and passionate and filled with so many emotions they wanted to scream at the top of their lungs but neither could handle the thought of breaking the kiss.

Until it was broken by a voice Y/N didn't recognize, but Grayson sure as hell did.

"Grayson? Babe?"

Wiping her mouth, Y/N took a step back as her legs trembled, still overwhelmed by the electrifying chemistry between them that seemed to have burned through her sanity. She didn’t dare look away from him, catching the stunning beauty from the corner of her eye.

"Grayson, tell me this isn't what I think it is. Tell me and I’ll believe you." Y/N whispered barely, her voice laced with a desperate plea and a hint of disappointment she couldn't relieve.

"It's not." He starts, but the long legged blonde stepped beside him, staking her claim.

"Why the hell were you kissing my man?"

And that’s when Y/N truly got a good look at her incredible beauty, but also her very pregnant belly.

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PART 10