#gobby nervous

[gunkillerodin]

I wake up. I get called by love goblin. Hap noise. Later confess to love gob. It may work... I nerv it gud. Me soft gobby child hope not die. I go onto my day.

[ohmyeyesmyeyes]

on tonight's episode of 'crushes with beefcake'... - nate mack

dad!nate x f!reader

summary: josh has some questions and nate jumps at the opportunity to tell a little story of his own

warnings: swearing, mentions the death of a grandparent, fluff (psa this is just a little palette cleanser fic thing, i had inspiration and i ran with it)

word count: 5.9k

It wasn’t very often that your son called a family meeting. In fact, in the entire history of people that had called a family meeting (excluding little Leyla), he’d never called a family meeting. He frowned upon them. Groaned at the words and sulked the entire way through them – as most ten year olds probably did.

Which was why, after putting him to bed and after you and Nate had both wandered back downstairs to watch a film, it was a shock to hear a pair of determined footsteps echo down the stairs with a clear purpose. The only thing more shocking was when he stood in front of you both, brows knitted together and a nervous frown on his face, and the words “I want to declare a family meeting right now” tumbled out of his mouth.

You’d blinked and Nate had sat up, removing his legs from where he’d draped them across yours. And when Josh turned around and strolled into the dining room, dragging a chair back out behind him, you shared a curious look with Nate – who looked as though he couldn’t decide if he should laugh or be worried.

And then you had to swallow a laugh and put on a serious face when Josh placed the chair in the middle of the living room, facing the both of you and lacing his hands together.

“It feels like we’re about to get therapized by our kid.” Nate muttered under his breath, and you swore you could feel your mom-face slip for a moment.

“Or it’s an intervention. Did we do something wrong?” You whispered back.

You felt Nate pause and then tense. 

Josh was oblivious, trying to adjust his seating position on the chair to find a comfier one, and probably also trying to stall because of the suddenly tense atmosphere that had enveloped the room.

Nate shuffled closer to you, his bicep and thigh touching yours, partly to reassure himself and partly to get closer so he could whisper into your ear without the risk of being heard, “What if he heard us?”

You inhaled, your stomach dropping unpleasantly. It had been one of your fears as a parent – the idea of scarring your kid in that way was absolutely mortifying. You had friends that had unfortunately experienced it, and there were a few choice words thrown around, so even the mere thought that Josh could have…it was enough to make you squirm uncomfortably.

“Nate.” You whispered, your tone causing him to whip his head towards you, a crease now prominent on his forehead, “If that ever happens, I give you permission to divorce me for trauma to the kids, okay?”

Upon hearing your words and realising they weren’t as serious as you’d initially made them sound, Nate’s face broke into a soft grin, thumb coming up to lightly brush under your eye, “For future reference, I’d much rather pay for their therapy than ever even think about divorcing you.” And he pressed a cheeky kiss against your lips as a way of sealing the promise.

“Ahem.” Josh coughed pointedly, and both you and Nate spun to look at him, feeling an awful lot like you’d been caught in a forbidden act of affection – which was pretty ridiculous considering the fact that it was at the hands of a gobby ten-year old.

Nate’s hand fell naturally on your leg, draped across your knee and curling around the top of your shin as you both turned your full attention to your son. Josh was pretty tall for his age, every bit of Nate’s build as he possibly could be. It was that, paired with Nate’s eyes and mouth that sometimes had you doing a double-take when you looked at him. It was like looking at a younger version of Nate again, back when you were both in school – not that Nate had stuck around for too long.

And you were reminded of that when Josh took charge of the entire room, and how similar it was to that funny expression Nate used to wear at his age, and even to this day – before games, dad-duties, serious conversations. It was their concentration face.

“He’s kinda scary–”

“Are you two done flirting now?” Josh interrupted, throwing Nate an unimpressed glance as his eyes darted between the two of you with about as much disdain for parental affection as he could possibly muster.

You swallowed, trying not to laugh and partially succeeding, and slowly pushed Nate’s hand off your knee. Josh’s eyes closely followed your movements, looking rather pleased with your reaction, and you could feel Nate’s disappointed glare burn the side of your face. It seemed to diminish in intensity somewhat when he caught the stifled twitch of your mouth as you wrestled with a smile.

“We weren’t flirting–” Nate denied, shaking his head and bumping your knees together – compensation for not being able to actually have a hand on you at this particular moment in time.

“I ordered a family meeting, excluding Leyla.” Josh groaned, hands on his cheeks in a show of hopelessness and frustration, “That means I’m the Head Judge, I get to make the rules, and Rule One is now no flirting–wait, Mom, where’s the Wooden Hammer Thing?”

You pushed yourself off the sofa, wandering into the dining room and picking out the gavel from one of the shelves and walking back into the living room to see Nate scratching his head with red cheeks and Josh sitting scarily chipper on the chair, hand out awaiting his Wooden Hammer Thing.

“It’s a gavel.” Was all you said, a little hesitant to say much else out of fear of…Josh’s unexpected wrath, “What happened?” You pointed the gavel between them both, slightly concerned for Nate when he shook his head, clearly embarrassed at something.

“Dad was watching you walk away and I set a new rule because it was annoying me.” Josh shrugged, taking the gavel from you.

“What rule is that?” You asked, intrigue skyrocketing when Nate pushed himself towards the far end of the sofa, as far away as humanly possible as he could get away from you in such a small space. 

Josh sighed, “I’ll paraphrase because I need to talk about something important. Basically, no horny behav–”

“No what now?”

“Where did you even learn that word?”

You and Nate spoke at the same time, you with confusion, and Nate with a hint of outrage as his eyes remained fixed on Josh, who, for the first time since he’d come back downstairs, was looking sheepish. His cheeks were a little red and he was grinning rather shyly, shoulders curling in on themselves.

“It was on TV the other day, someone said it.” Josh shrugged, before noting the still evident look of mild horror on both you and Nate’s face, “And I Googled it because I didn’t know what it meant.”

“No, don’t Google it!” Your hand covered your mouth, images and words that he could have seen flashing in your mind  – images and words that no ten year old should ever be subjected to, ever.

And to think Nate was worried about being heard? Why did kids have to be so good with technology and Google nowadays? When you were Josh’s age, YouTube was a dating site, so to think.. 

“It’s okay, I didn’t click on pictures.” Josh pulled a face, “The words were enough.”

There was a sputtering sound from the other end of the sofa, and you turned to find Nate also with his hand over his mouth, failing to hide a snort of laughter despite his earlier complaints. It seemed to die out, though, when he saw the identical way you and Josh were looking at him: with a hint of amusement and a tad of impatience.

He coughed, clearing his throat and straightening, “Sorry. Got something stuck in my throat.”

You rolled your eyes fondly, patting him on the leg (because even if he tried to move to the other end of the sofa, with the way he’d spread his legs, you barely even had to lean over to reach him).

“Whatever you say, Beefcake.” Josh muttered under his breath, and your hand stilled on Nate’s thigh, face freezing.

You didn’t have to look at Nathan to feel the piercing way he tilted his head to glare at you out of the corner of your eye, frustration clearly written across the panes of his face, “You created that.” He muttered, breath hot against the shell of your ear as he moved back over to you, his arm resting against the back of the sofa.

You said nothing, just resisted a smile and leaned against Nate’s arm, relishing in the way he draped it against your shoulders, drawing you against his chest. 

There was a brief flicker of hesitation when you leaned fully into him, wondering if this was the so-called ‘horny behaviour’ that Josh had ruled out of the meeting, but when he looked back up from where he’d been picking a strand of hair off his Penguin’s pyjama top, he didn’t say anything. Just sighed a little, and shook his head, like it was pointless trying to get you to adhere to his rules in the first place (which it was – Josh was the one treading in uncharted waters: it was nine pm on a school night – a time strictly reserved for unwinding with Nate on the sofa).

“Okay,” Josh began, back straightening, “I gather you here today–” 

You could feel Nate’s stomach tense and a shaky breath be exhaled in an effort to not break.

“To talk to you about something.” Josh took a deep breath, “It’s something I hold very close to my heart, but it means I have to ask you for help and questions because…” he shrugged, snapping out of the role somewhat, “in all my life, I’ve never not known how to talk to a girl.”

Oh.

Nate stopped laughing, and you felt your eyes widen in surprise. 

“Mom, Beefcake. I got a crush.” Josh slowly slipped off the chair, landing on his knees and holding his hands up to the sky, a pained expression on his face.

“I don’t know where he gets that from.” Nate muttered, gesturing to the dramatised scene occurring realtime in front of you.

“I think that’s just him.” You nodded along, suppressing a smile.

Josh returned back to his seat, smiling innocently and like he hadn’t just cried to the heavens, and you wanted to take him off the chair and sandwich him between you and Nate. 

Gosh, he’d grown up too fast. You could have sworn only last week you were bringing him home from the hospital, and now he was getting penalties for roughing in his games and asking how to talk to girls.

You scooted over, patting the space between you and Nate, “Come on.”

Josh rolled his eyes and fashioned a groan but followed you anyway, throwing himself down and eliciting a huff of pain from Nate as he half-sat on him.

“Okay,” you started, hands going to stroke through his hair, “tell us about why you need help with this crush.”

Josh practically reddened under your gaze, crossing his arms and swinging his feet – like he instantly regretted even bringing it up – but you applauded his bravery. Your mom had to pester crushes out of you because you were so scared if you told someone that the crush in mention would somehow hear you whisper their name.

“Her name’s Aimee, she sits behind me in class. I’ve tried talking to her, but she’s kinda quiet and I think I intimidate her a bit because…I’m not quiet.” He mumbled, fingers absentmindedly picking at his sleeve, “And I don’t want to scare her off.”

Your heart squeezed a little, and you were at a loss of what to actually say. You’d never been in that position before, usually the roles were reversed: you were the quiet one crushing on the louder person. Naturally, your eyes fell to Nate, who, it seemed, had got something in mind and had already been looking at you.

He was smiling like he knew something you didn’t, and you furrowed your brows, questioning his motives when he looked back down towards Josh.

“I’m gonna tell you something that I think’ll help.” Josh peered up at Nate, something akin to hope and excitement lingering on his face as he watched Nate talk, “When I was your age, maybe a bit younger, I had a massive crush on this girl. She was in a couple of my classes in middle school, and she was quiet. She didn’t put her hand up to answer any questions, even though she should’ve because she knew all the answers anyway – and I thought she was the prettiest girl in school by far–”

“What was her name?” Josh interrupted, frowning slightly.

“That’s not important.” Nate shook his head, “Anyway, in one of my classes in particular, we were assigned seating plans, and she sat on my table, with two other people. And I’d never spoken to this girl in my life, so all I knew was that she was pretty, pretty smart, and pretty shy. And it took me a couple of weeks to even ask her for the time–”

“No way.” Josh muttered sarcastically, and Nate frowned at him, bottom lip sticking out.

“I’m tryna help you.” 

Josh blinked, “Get to that part, then. You’re just spewing words.”

Nate pressed his lips together, meeting your eyes across Josh’s head with a straight-faced look. You didn’t pay it much attention – in all honesty, you were trying to figure out this mystery crush he’d had. Nate had been a pretty known person when you guys were in school, what with his hockey and everything, but even despite that he’d always been pretty tight-lipped about his middle school crush, and it had always felt a little silly to keep pestering him about it, so you just…left it.

“Fine.” Nate continued on, one hand reaching out to grasp yours, even as he turned his attention and focus back on Josh. His grip was tight, cool wedding band a nice contrast to your warm hands, and you tuned back into what he was saying, “And once this girl got used to the people she was sitting with, she started talking, and it turned out she was pretty funny. She used to say these things under her breath that only the table could hear, and we’d either all get a telling off for laughing, or we’d all know the answers to the questions.” Nate sighed, “Then the entire table got split up because we were distracting everyone.”

Something in the back of your mind seemed to click at that moment.

The same moment Josh spoke up, “Then what?”

“Then we left school and moved away.” Nate shrugged.

Josh pushed himself up off the sofa, arms crossed, “How’s that supposed to help me?”

In any other situation, you would’ve turned to Josh, tried to calm him down or say something reassuring, but you couldn’t quite pull yourself away from the crinkles in the corner of Nate’s eyes, or the way that he was still smiling like he knew something no one else did. Your mouth parted unconsciously at his words, and your brain went blank. His hand was still tangled with yours, squeezing every so often.

“Because eventually she opened up, and I didn’t have to change anything about me for that to happen. It just takes time, and she has to learn to trust you and be comfortable around you.” Nate continued, either ignorant or choosing to ignore the way you were intent on just staring rather awe-strickenly at him, “I’d also say it was a minor character misjudgement from me, because it turned out she was just quiet around people she didn’t know very well. She liked to sit and observe before chipping in.”

Josh was quiet for a second, deep in thought, and you took the opportunity to use your free hand to poke Nate in the cheek. Once, twice. He caught your hand, bringing it to his lap, and almost as though he was purposefully trying to drive you crazy, he reached for your leg, hauling you across the space Josh had just left. All without paying you a single scrap of attention.

“So I just have to be patient?” Josh asked, a rather dumbfounded look on his face.

You turned your attention back to your son, curling into Nate’s side again and feeling rather smug.

“Yeah. Maybe dial the noise down, though, let her know you’re paying attention to her instead of shouting to your friends, or interrupting.” Nate pressed a kiss to your head, a hand going to cover your mouth as you opened it to say something.

Josh caught the action, raising a brow in your direction, “Sounds doable. Did you break Mom, or something?”

You nodded, and you could feel Nate shake his head.

Josh looked unconvinced, so you licked Nate’s palm, attempting to pry it away from your mouth so you could defend yourself, but he’d clearly expected that kind of retaliation because he breathed a laugh, momentarily tightening his grip to prove he wasn’t fazed.

Josh took a few steps forward, reaching for Nate’s arm, “Can you unhand Mom, please? She wants to say something.” 

Nate let go, still keeping an arm around you but resting his opposite arm on the side of the sofa, head in his hand and looking at you with a knowing smile.

You inhaled, “He’s not telling you the whole story.” You pointed an accusing finger at Nate, and Josh gasped.

“Beefcake! How dare you deny your son the truth?” 

Nate laughed, but didn’t elaborate.

“Ask him what happened after.” You encouraged Josh, nudging your head back towards Nate.

Josh peered at you, mouth curved downwards in befuddlement, “He said nothing else happened.”

“Ask him again.”

“Dad.” Josh started, eyeing you cautiously out of the corner of his eye, “What happened after?”

Nate glanced at you, eyes darting to the sparkling bands on your left hand, before settling on Josh, who still hadn’t quite moved from where he’d folded his arms.

“I moved to Minnesota for a bit, then back home when I was sixteen. Then Colorado when I was seventeen or eighteen,” he pulled a face, not too bothered on the specifics, “And then about six years later, I came back home one summer and saw her standing in the ready meals aisle of a superstore, looking just as beautiful as the day I left – and still the prettiest person I ever laid eyes on.”

Josh glanced at you out of the corner of his eyes, uncertainty clear – he couldn’t tell whether to run to your defence and interrupt Nate’s spiel, or let him carry on. And you gathered that from your clear lack of upset, that he chose the latter.

“You have to know that it took some guts and I gave myself a bit of a pep talk, but I went up to her, introduced myself and she remembered me–”

“Dad, you were literally an NHL player.” (And Josh returned with the reality check.)

“She remembered me, and I asked if she wanted a drink and she said yes.” Nate finished, leg kicking out to poke his foot against Josh’s leg for interrupting him – but the younger MacKinnon was still looking rather lost on the entire subject.

“What then?” He pressed, yet again throwing you another worried glance, to which you simply grabbed his hand and pulled him to sit on your knee — he didn’t fight it like you expected, just put his arm around your neck, his hand resting comfortably against Nate’s forearm, and placed his head on your shoulder, yawning softly.

“Three years later I asked her to marry me and she said yes. And now,” Nate smirked, “we’ve been happily married for nine years, and have two beautiful children called Josh and Leyla.” 

You felt Josh sigh against your collarbone, “I don’t want to play the long game, Dad. Not like that.” 

You fought a grin at Nate’s drop in expression. You could tell he’d been expecting some blown out reaction of ‘wow’ or ‘wait, that was you and Mom?’, and the lack of thrill from Josh had clearly knocked his confidence a little, because he shifted, pulling a face.

“If I hadn't played the long game, you wouldn’t be here.” He reasoned, eyes flicking to you.

Instead, Josh lifted his head up, looking you dead in the face with your husband’s eyes, “Did you have a crush on Dad in school?”

You hesitated.

Nate mock-gasped, both hands flying over his mouth, even though you knew he already knew that little smidge of information.

“You didn’t?” Josh asked, recoiling slightly, “Then why did you tell me this story? I thought you were supposed to be inspiring me, not tearing me down and stripping me of my confidence?” He questioned, clearly appalled.

You laughed, “Okay, you gotta bear in mind that the first time I met your dad was on that class table. And it was only about four weeks until we were moved around again, and then he left to go to Minnesota, so he didn’t have time on his side at all.” You took a breath, “Or a pair of balls, apparently—”

Josh cackled at Nate’s expense.

“I can’t believe—” Josh giggled, “that you were literally in love with Mom, a-a—” he practically dissolved into a boneless heap in the middle of you and Nate, hand clutching his stomach, “and she didn’t even know you existed.”

“That’s not true.” You objected, “I knew Na—your dad existed, I just…Look.”

Josh dove into another fit of giggles at your struggle.

“If your dad hadn't talked to me in that one class as much as he did, he wouldn’t have left a good enough impression or given either of us a reason to catch up with each other all those years later. And when I saw him again, y’know, we’d both grown up. He was…This is probably gonna gross you out, but your dad was fucking hot when he came home—”

“Mom, language!” Josh scolded, a grin on his face.

“And he was polite, kind, funny, and impossible not to fall in love with. So, no, I didn’t really have a crush on him in school. I liked him, for sure, it had crossed my mind that he was cute, but it just wasn’t our time then.” You cringed internally (who’s time really was it at ten years old?), “But I definitely had a crush on him as a twenty-four year old adult.”

“Did that mean Dad was pretty much just, like, full-on in love with you at that point?” Josh queried, glancing between you both.

You looked at Nate, taking in his excitement at telling the story. You’d talked about it before, in hypotheticals just before you got married, about what your kids would think of the story of how you guys met. It wasn’t particularly exciting, there were no big confessions of love in the rain, or jealous exes, or miscommunications. It was simple, quiet and calm. Like turning on a light in the dark.

And it didn’t take an expert to be able to find the way that happiness seemed to pour out of Nate. He practically glowed with it. His eyes were wide and he hadn’t stopped smiling, and it was clear he’d been planning this conversation for a while: the keeping you in the dark thing was a welcome surprise, entirely shocking on your end, but you could tell he was just being honest.

“I wasn’t full-on in love with Mom at that point,” Nate squeezed your hand, “I was maybe a little bit in love, and part of that was because she was wearing a Halifax Mooseheads t-shirt when I saw her again.”

“What was the other part?” Josh quizzed, eyes a little heavier.

“That after one conversation I liked her even more than I did when we were in school, which I didn’t even think was possible.” 

You rolled your eyes fondly, “Don’t listen to him–”

“What? It’s true.” Nate interjected.

Josh watched the two of you bicker for a few seconds, a slow smile on his face. It wasn’t very often that you and Nate could really show him this was what you were like, between Leyla’s nappies, Josh’s hockey, Nate’s hockey, your job, household chores – the MacKinnon household was busy. The only time all four of you seemed to be in the same room at the same time was the occasional dinner and weekend, and even then it was a rare occasion. 

“You guys are just really big kids with really big crushes on each other.” Josh muttered quietly, shrugging at his realisation.

You stopped, words dying on your tongue as you took in what Josh had said. Then you looked at Nate – who seemed to be nodding without even realising it, “Yeah. Yeah, it kind of is.”

Then Josh shook his head, “So why can’t I believe what Dad says?”

“Because even after all of that, I made the first move. And said ‘I love you’ first–”

Nate guffawed from behind you, flicking your ear, “That's only because you made me nervous and I didn’t want to scare you.”

You tilted your head curiously at him, and judging from the way Nate’s eyes seemed to zip cautiously between you and Josh, you could only assume Josh was shooting him the same glance, “That’s pretty ironic considering I’m supposed to be the ‘quiet’ one.”

“You’re not that quiet, though, are you?” Nate teased affectionately–

“Is that a horny thing?” Josh scrunched up his nose, fidgeting uncomfortably and pulling a face like he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer, and you tried not to smile, shaking your head.

He was getting tired, you could tell. His attention was starting to dwindle, he was blinking sleepily, and you’d caught him trying to swallow a few yawns when Nate had been storytelling.

“No.” Nate frowned, “I just meant your mom isn’t quiet when you get to know her.”

You nodded, pushing yourself up off the sofa just as Leyla’s cries started to filter through the baby monitor next to Nate. Three pairs of eyes snapped to the small screen, and Nate picked the device up, turning to you and Josh with raised brows, “I’ll go check on her.” He ruffled Josh’s hair as he walked past, and you both watched him walk up the stairs.

Then Josh turned to you, eyes clearly struggling to remain awake for much longer.

“You know we’d never do any of that…um.” You hesitated, “Horny behaviour, in front of you.”

He nodded, yawning, “I know. I don’t mind the flirting, though.”

You swallowed, a little shocked by his revelation considering how much he seemed to protest against seeing it, “You don’t?”

“No, it’s nice to know you guys still like each other.” Then he huffed a laugh, “I had no idea you and Dad went to school together.”

You shrugged, placing a hand on the back of his head and nudging him towards the stairs. He went without complaining, turning back to look at you after your silence, “Well, I had no idea your Dad had a crush on me in school, so we both learnt something new tonight.”

“Wait, you didn’t?” Josh smiled, meeting you at the top of the stairs and peeking through Leyla’s door before following you towards his room.

“Nope.” You opened the door to his bedroom, facing an old trio of hockey posters that Nate had taken from his childhood room, “He might have played the long game, but I don’t think either of us would have changed it for the world. I mean, who knows, maybe if we’d have talked more in school, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

Josh seemed to think about it as he climbed under his duvet, you choosing to lay at the foot of his bed as he made himself comfortable. 

“When did you know Dad was the one?” 

Your heart stuttered a little, and your words seemed to get tangled in your throat – momentarily caught off-guard by the question.

Truthfully, you weren’t aware there was a specific moment in time that made you stop and just know that Nate was the person you wanted to spend the rest of your life with. It had built up slowly as your relationship progressed; talks of the future were brought up pretty early on considering what he did for a living, and eventually it got to the point where you just knew that there wasn’t going to be a breakup or a break. That realisation had just planted itself into your head, that it was gonna end in marriage, and you couldn’t have honestly dreamt of anything or anyone more suited to you.

There was no one, and then there was Nate.

“If I had to choose, though,” you wondered aloud, eyes briefly glancing at the family photo Josh had chosen to have on his bedside table, “I’d probably say that I knew, or at least suspected that your Dad might be it, about four months into us dating. Neither of us had said ‘I love you’ at that point, because actually getting to know each other with your Dad’s schedule was pretty hectic and the timezones made it difficult, but my grandma passed away and I had to fly home from Montreal–”

“Because you were working there, right?”

You nodded, a bittersweet smile on your face, “Yeah. And I remember I left your Dad a message before one of his games, and when I landed back in Nova Scotia, there were missed calls, texts and one voicemail; I waited until I got back home to listen to it, and it said something along the lines of ‘I’m so sorry, I know how much she meant to you, blah, blah, blah, is there anything you need or something I can get your family?’ And I remember thinking, ‘What? Why would he be asking me all of that?’ And then I looked at my texts and there was information for a flight and it turned out he’d booked the earliest one he could after finishing his game.” You took a breath, slowing everything down, “I cried for most of the two days he stayed and looked after us all. By that point, we’d known each other for about a year, but we’d only been dating four months, and it was the first time he met my family and he was an absolute angel.” You swallowed, a lump forming in your throat at the memory of that period in your life.

“Did Grandma and Grandad like him?” Josh snuggled further under his duvet, stifling a yawn with his hand.

You opened your mouth, about to answer, when the bedroom door creaked open and Nate padded in through the door, flicking the overhead light off and turning the bedside lamp on as he took a seat next to you. His hand came to rest on your thigh, a welcome and reassuring squeeze, but his attention was on Josh, “I think that signals bedtime.”

You nodded in agreement, but Josh seemed to blink manically and sat up in bed, his covers falling around his torso, “But I have way more questions—”

“And you can ask them tomorrow.” You promised, running a hand through his soft hair and pressing a kiss to his forehead, “Are you okay with Aimee, though?”

He nodded, cheeks reddening as he seemed to shrink into himself again, and you smiled at his cuteness, “Love you, sleep tight.” You whispered, pulling away and letting Nate have his turn as Josh whispered them back.

You slipped out of the room, heading into Leyla’s room at the other end of the hall, tiptoeing in to peer over her crib bars. Nate had settled her again, and she was laid on her back, blonde hair a wavy mess, fists curled shut near her head. Her eyes were closed and she looked peaceful zipped up in her Bambi onesie. 

It was barely ten seconds later when you heard Nate’s steps creak the floorboards, his arms caging you in against the side of the cot as his front pressed against your back. His head came to rest on your shoulder, nose nudging the side of your cheek when you turned to face him.

“I can’t believe you had a crush on me in school, and you kept it from me for more than a decade.” You smirked, raising a smug brow in his direction as he bit the inside of his cheek.

“You mad?” He checked, no real concern in his tone as he fought to conceal the amusement in his eyes.

“No. Just shocked you managed to keep your mouth shut for so long.” 

He rolled his eyes, “Well, it was worth it.”

“You’re a sap sometimes, y’know.” You nudged him playfully, “But I wouldn’t change it.”

“No?” He hummed, and you shook your head in response.

You knew he heard the entire conversation with Josh – it would have been hard not to, considering Josh couldn’t whisper for shit, and Leyla’s room was directly opposite, but there wasn’t a need to talk about it immediately. It was partly because you’d talked about it before – it was something you’d both discussed in a whisper after he’d proposed – and also partly because you’d gotten to the point in your life where Nate had perfected the ability of reading you at any given point, and vice versa.

And right now, you were both pretty content.

“Leyla’s gonna come home from school one day and start talking about crushes.” You whispered, watching him closely as he scowled, glaring at you out of the corner of his eye.

It made you smile, not wanting to laugh in fear of disrupting her sleep.

“I don’t even want to think about that.” 

“It’s scary, right?”

“Terrifying. She’s my baby girl, I don’t want her to grow up.” He reasoned, pressing a quick kiss on your cheek.

You were both silent for a while, watching her eyelashes flutter mid-dream, and her little fists gently clench and unclench.

“I wonder what she’ll be like.” You whispered.

You felt Nate breathe a laugh against your neck, “Hopefully not like Josh, in the nicest way possible, I don’t think my patience could take it.” He teased, eliciting you a gentle laugh.

“Josh is one of a kind.” You shook your head fondly. He could be cute most of the time, but when he loses his patience or gets too cocky (or just refuses to do the things you ask of him), he can be a little menace — something Nate struggled to get a handle on at first. 

They clashed a bit.

“It’s because he’s got your smarts—”

“But your fucking audacity.” You finished.

Nate gasped, a look of sheer disbelief written on his face, “That’s not true.” He denied, shaking his head.

“Your parents were the ones that said that.” 

He quietened, lips pulling down in a frown as his eyes focused on something you couldn’t see, “Really?”

You nodded, “I mean, I’m paraphrasing, they actually described Josh as a ‘smart boy but with Nate’s bold cheek.” You snickered as he pulled another face, letting go of the railings and stepping backwards for the door, “Need some time to think about it alone?” You teased.

Nate nodded, eyes wide, “I’m just gonna go get changed.” 

“M’kay, love you, Beefcake.”

“That one’s not come from me!” He hissed, smiling all the while, before disappearing from sight.

[choke-me-joey]

hi babe! could you write something about Joe spending christmas with you and your family? Some fluff so you don’t have to write the word cock for a second 😂

GIRL LET ME TELL YOU I CAN ONLY TAKE SO MUCH COCK

...that's what she said

This turned out to be longer than I imagined, and I hope it meets your expectations. I actually have a smut prompt request for visiting family at Christmas which I think will follow this perfectly 🥰 but for now....WE FLUFF!

You wished you'd driven. It would have given you something to focus your mind on, other than your all consuming panic about what was to come. Your leg wouldn't stop bloody bouncing.

Joe was nervous too, although he didn't let on. You could tell because he'd changed his outfit 4 times before you'd left.

It was just over an hour and a half's drive to your parent's house. You and Joe had been invited there to spend Christmas eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day with your mum, dad and 3 older brothers. Joe had actually paid for his own parents to go abroad this Christmas, so you didn't have to worry about splitting the time between both families. Besides, you'd already met his family.

This was Joe's first time meeting yours.

"So when you bringing Eddie home, then, Y/N?" Your older brother Jack had teased over the family Zoom call a few months ago.

"Shut up, his name is Joe." You'd said through gritted teeth. You loved your brothers, really you did, but God they loved to pick on you as the baby and only girl of the family.

"Still don't believe that you're actually dating him," your second oldest brother Tom laughed and you rolled your eyes. "What? We haven't actually spoken to him yet, he's conveniently always busy when we have our calls every week."

"Hey, leave her alone, not her fault her big time actor boyfriend is never home." The sarcasm in your eldest brother Charlie's voice made you scowl.

"Well, I've spoken to him, and he seems perfectly lovely. Leave your sister alone, boys." Your mum sighs, shooting you a small soft smile.

"Why don't you invite him for Christmas, Y/N? We'd love to meet him." Your dad offers and your stomach sinks as your brother's faces all break out into grins.

"Yeah, go on, Y/N, we've gotta meet this famous boyfriend of yours." laughs Tom. "Give him the old big brother talk."

"If I bring him home, you are absolutely not doing that, or I'm telling your girlfriend about the time you came home drunk, pissed in the pond and killed our koi."

That shut him up.

You had asked Joe if he wanted to come, and he didn't hesitate in saying yes. In fact he seemed quite excited about it, but as the time grew closer he was definitely getting nervous as you briefed him on your family, so when he offered to drive, you thought maybe it was best to let him concentrate on that and let you do the worrying.

"So...Jack is 2 years older than you, right?" Joe asked you, as the sat nav informed him he had 5 miles left on the motorway.

"Jack is 2 years older than me, yeah, then Tom is 4 years older, and Charlie is 5 years older. Even though he's the oldest, he's the most chill out of the 3 lads. It's actually Jack who's the gobby one. Him and Tom used to fight all the time growing up."

"Right, good to know, don't piss off Jack. Or Tom. Or Charlie. Or anyone in your family." You could see his grip tighten on the steering wheel ever so slightly. You place a hand on his knee.

"We can turn around and go home if you don't wanna do this, Joe."

"Y/N, I'll be fine. Besides, I'm in this for the long haul, so I have to at least convince your dad to like me." Joe grins, taking your hand in his and kissing it, making you melt in your seat.

When you arrive at your parents, you catch a glimpse of your brothers at the window. You glare at them and your mum comes up behind them, yanking them all away. She shoots you another little smile and you wave at her.

"Come on, let's get this bit over with and we'll get the bags later." You say raking Joe's hand in yours and walking up the front path and opening the door. Your mum descends on you with an excited little squeal, hugging you tightly. She then turns to Joe.

"And you must be Joseph! It's nice to put such a handsome face to a name and voice!" As if she wasn't a massive Stranger Things fan. Flirt. She gives him a little hug. "We're so happy to have you here."

"Thank you so much, Mrs Y/L/N. You have a really lovely home. And it's just Joe, please." He smiles, ever the charmer. Your dad and brothers then make an appearance, all looking at bit menacing. Your dad comes over and hugs you tightly, offering his hand out to Joe, who shakes it.

"Nice to meet you, Joe, we've heard lots about you."

"Thank you sir, likewise."

"Ah, none of the sir stuff, lad," your dad then tells him to call his by his name. "And I suppose I better let these 3 reprobates introduce themselves."

Your brothers, shockingly, make very polite introductions and say how happy they are to meet him.

"Want a drink, Joe?" Charlie asks holding up a bottle of beer for your boyfriend, who gladly accepts.

"Come on mate, we'll show you around." Jack says, gesturing through to the kitchen.

"Dad, go with them!" You hiss, well aware of your brothers' intentions on getting Joe alone. Your dad chuckles and follows them, leaving your mum and you in hallway. You sigh. "Oh my god."

"Oh, darling, he's so lovely!" Your mum grins at you, giving you a squeeze. "So much more handsome than he looks on TV! And so well spoken!"

"Mum, your fangirl is showing." You laugh, following her into the kitchen and watching as the 5 men walk around your parent's large garden. Jack gestures to the pond, and says something, making all 5 of them laugh. "He's telling the koi story isn't he."

*

A few hours later, you and Joe had settled in and you were sat in the living room with your family, chatting after a lovely dinner you helped your mum to prepare.

"So, Joe, tell us about yourself. And nothing obvious, mate, we already know who you are." Charlie says, although he's not mean about it. "Although, if you could tell me if Eddie is really dead or not that would earn you serious brownie points."

"Charlie!" You hiss, kicking him.

Joe laughs, rubbing the back of his neck.

"As much as I want to, mate, I have no idea." Your family makes a noise of disappointment. "I'm sorry, I wish I could tell you!"

"Ignore them, Joe, please! I do." Your mum calls from the kitchen and you laugh. Joe smiles at you, slipping his hand into yours and squeezing gently.

He was so much more relaxed than he was earlier, and it warmed your heart to see him getting on with your family so well.

*

The next afternoon, after a beautiful quiet Christmas morning, you were surrounded by family members, including grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. You had warned Joe that Christmas was always a big thing at your home, but you don't think he really understood just how big.

Joe was currently chatting to your dad, your grandad and some of your older cousins as you sat on the sofa with your 3 month old baby cousin Sophia in your arms, her mum, your mum and your aunty all sat around with you watching some of the older children playing with their new toys.

"That's a beautiful necklace, Y/N, was that a Christmas present?" Your cousin, the baby's mum, asks, taking a sip of Prosecco.

You glance down at the silver chain hanging around your neck, so delicate you'd forgotten it was there.

"Oh, yeah, it's from Joe," you smile running a finger over it. "He got it for me whilst he was in Italy."

Your mum, cousin and aunty all exchange looks. "What?"

"Nothing, Y/N, love," your aunty smiles over the lip of her glass. "He's a keeper, I think."

"Oh I don't plan on getting rid of him any time soon." You smile at him across the room and he comes over, kissing you on top of your head. "Want a cuddle?" You gesture to the sleeping baby in your arms.

"Is that alright?" Joe looks at your cousin.

"Yeah, of course! Gives me a break, she's a right little leech at the moment, Y/N has a magic touch so it seems."

You stand up so Joe can take your seat.

"Sit back, use the arm of the sofa to support your arm and her head...that's it," you say softly as you pass Sophia over to him, helping him to adjust so he could hold her correctly. You're pretty sure your knees almost give way as you stand back up and take in the sight of your beautiful boyfriend holding a beautiful baby. You sit on the sofa arm next to him, both of you looking down at Sophia. You see a flash out of the corner of your eye and look up; your cousin had taken a photo, a massive grin on her face.

"She's so tiny," Joe said softly, looking up at you. "What should I do with her?"

"Just hold her, she's pretty milk drunk right now so she'll be out for a bit." You giggle, pushing some of his curls away from his face and kissing his forehead.

"Do you want kids, Joe?" Asks your aunt and you shoot her a look. You know what she's doing.

"Up until about 5 minutes ago, I wasn't too sure, but uh, yeah I do." He says, unable to take his eyes off of Sophia.

"I'll get you another drink," you say, kissing the top of his head again and heading into the kitchen to top your own glass up and get him another beer.

As you were pouring your drink, a pair of arms wrap around your waist. You smile as Joe kisses your shoulder. "Are you having a good time?" You ask him, moving him with you as you get some ice from the freezer.

"The best, your family are brilliant." Joe says into your shoulder. "You?"

"Mmhm." You turn and hand him his beer. He pecks your lips in thanks. "Speaking of my family, you never told me what my brothers said to you yesterday. I sent my dad out for backup. I know what they're like, they've scared off boyfriends in the past."

"You mean there were others before me?!" Joe feigns shock, clutching his chest. You laugh, shoving him gently. "Well, yeah they gave me the old 'what are your intentions with our baby sister' talk before your dad made it outside."

"Oh? And you're still here...impressive." You grin and he plays it coy, shrugging. "So what are your intentions with me, Joseph Quinn?"

He moves behind you, one arm around your waist, steering you so you can see into the living room, where your cousin had her baby back in her arms and her husband was stood with her, both of them cooing over Sophia who had just woken up.

You tilt your head to look at him. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." His lips then meet yours, sealing the unspoken promise.

[hikarinokusari]

Credit : @capochiino --- Link to their post I didn't know what to draw and I thought of doing the "so fucking done expression meme" from Capochiino.

Featuring : Les Arpenteurs, the PCs from the CoS campaign I try to dm : Khal (@xyanmajor's main PC), who has found a regeneration ring from Krezk's Abbey but as he regenerates real fast and it only makes him a very fast refillable tasty Caprisun so some NPCs always ask about him wearing the ring, Ireena who is not their fated ally but they decided to keep her as such, Ellkedrin our warforged who had a nervous breakdown in Argynvostholt when he discovered the coffin was used as a wine bottle shelf, Gobby who is a green sickly dog to every barovian, Neriel the elf wizard who told the party that dispel magic would work on polymorph but if they really didn't want to wait for her to prep the spell, they could knock the polymorphed child with a shovel to 0 HP and it would do the work ... and Rahadin who is just a mood honestly.

[talentforlying]

@ohsunshine: ❛ Don't lecture me about family values. You're just as shit in that department as I am. ❜ / from roman lmao — HOUSE OF USHER STARTERS

it's a cattle prod to the synapses: a shock of sheer sheet lightning that seizes all the ligaments charged with the alignment of his spine, wraps them around its fist, and yanks it ramrod straight. for a moment, startled off-guard, there's nothing to him but the slaughter, the old blood of a generation past dripping down the siding like fresh, wet paint — automatic, incandescent rage.

the little fucking weasel.

' boo fucking hoo. ' it cracks out like a whip: unimpressed. unsympathetic. ' the mean man readin' you the riot act's got riots of his own, that about the long n'short of your prize-winnin' argument there, gobby? ' a fist prises itself loose to clap open-handed over his heart, satirically wounded, head tilting mockingly to one side. ' roman bleedin' roy's so virginal to the notion of hypocrisy that there's about to be three wise men paradin' up the street any bleedin' day now, is that right? you fuckin' infant. '

the anger is his new blood: scalding hot, pulsing out through every limb, leaking out of wounds both new and old like swamp gas. it's easier to be angry than it is to be scared — his father taught him that. maybe both their fathers taught them that. ( doesn't stop him from wanting to find that matching wound on roman and dig his fingers in and twist. )

' fuck me, i thought you were at least a little smarter than this. turnin' the bit that's got you nervous around on the other bloke — that's just fuckin' obvious. that's the kind of chickenshit thing people do when they're scared i could be onto them. ' his voice slides down in register, sharp edges ground down sleek and hypnotic; the blue of his eyes is future-tech electric, each pupil the black hole lens of a camera. SMILE! you're on tape. ' i am onto you, aren't i? middle child, youngest boy. scavenger animal. so shit-scared that you're nothin' and no one in a family full to the brim with someones, an' when they finally stop tossin' you scraps, you'll starve. '

there's something under that word that drags through his belly like a blade, and abruptly, sickeningly, he realizes that the low buzzing along the curvature of his skull is the cloying feeling of being sated — his rage desaturated, like an old heirloom photograph of itself, like he'd just been projecting the static image of something he'd borrowed from someone else. inherited from someone else.

CCTV eyes blink, and there's no watcher in the booth anymore; just someone turning the bit that's got them nervous around on the other bloke. fucking obvious.

' know how you stay fed, when you inevitably fuck it all up? huh? ' it's eerily even, disconnected. ' y'don't bite at the bigger fuckin' dog. 'cos i don't need to be better than you to still be right about you. get me? '

[greenmenace]

(this anon 💚) Nice!!!! I can’t wait to see it. Omg, I want a tattoo but I’m a wimp. 😂 I’m terrified of needles! If I were to get one, then, although I have many ideas, I want it to be small and meaningful. My middle name is Daisy, so I was thinking a small daisy tattoo on my left wrist (but not right on my veins!). I also love sunflowers. Definitely also an awareness ribbon tattoo - specifically suicide awareness and eating disorder awareness, because they are something I personally… struggle… with, especially the eating disorder. Sorry to get personal, but anyways, I can’t wait to see the design!

Honestly, getting tattooed isn't really that bad! I do understand why you'd be anxious and terrified though, I was pretty much like that with my first one haha.

I love the idea of getting ones that are meaningful, mine are of course characters that mean a lot to me. With Sonic it's because I've grown up loving the franchise since I was little and Shadow has always been a firm favourite and I just love his character development (I'm not including the recent from 2010 because they've butchered his character which I'm still mad about).

Jack Sparrow's swallow tattoo is an interesting one because 1, his character is absolutely brilliant and hilarious and yes very attractive hehe. And 2, I've been in heavy support of Johnny Depp for such a long while now so this one particularly means a lot to me.

With Gobby and Ock, I grew up with the Rami trilogy and I've always admired those two because they're absolutely such amazing villains but I never really fully appreciated them and of course Willem and Alfred's portrayal of them until I went to watch No Way Home in december. And they've just taken over my thoughts and I've even started a little collection of mine with buying Green Goblin merch! I'm also planning on making a cosplay (the full armour!) of him next year which I'm both excited and nervous about.

Onto a tattoo that doesn't have any relation to fandoms or characters, I have two little star tattoos on the top of my forearm (how I forgot to mention I have absolutely no idea), and they represent my granddad and grandma! They really meant a lot to me and I miss them so much. Me and my sister got those stars in the same spot on our arms whereas my mum and aunt have those on their wrists. We all got those on the same day!

Definitely getting meaningful ones or tattoos that represent something important to you or highly important awareness is absolutely worth it. Sorry for me getting personal here but that doesn't really matter!

My artist is currently sketching up the design after me sending more reference pictures, I'm so excited too!

[edith-hyde]

So Gobby in the latest chapter was manifesting himself as Norman’s dark urges and I got nervous when he said “we” in front of Y/N bc like-

HELLO

The biggest slip up of his life XD

But yeah, Gobby is sneaking in where he can.

[biblicallyaccuratechicken]

oringes are perfect snackfoods for little gobbies who like doing precision work involving fragility, precision, and threads but don't want to actually put work into a real task

they're also great for all the textured-fabric-picker-atters who grew up with moms who scolded their nervous habits without providing a suitable alternative so they tried sewing and knitting and making friendship bracelets to try to scratch that same itch but also grew up in a manner that made those practices unsustainable and now they have to fix every little tiny thing they look at but that's exhausting because everything needs fixing in one way or another so they stare at their phone all day to keep from going crazy

[peterpparkerwrites]

accident - part two

warnings: language pairing: peter parker x reader word count: 7.9k

masterlist ~ requests are closed

~

Gobby decided to take a break for once, which meant you had time in the morning to stop by yours and MJ's favorite cafe.

Ned and MJ had a different English teacher than you and Peter, and sadly for you they got the fun one - instead of having to sit through school for most of the day, their teacher was taking their class to go see some movie adaptation of a book they were reading.

In a way, you were kind of glad if would be just you at Peter for at least the first half of school - you knew you had some explaining to do, even though he said he wouldn't ask any questions.

He looked a little nervous as you walked up the front steps of the school, trying to balance carrying two cups and your books under your arm that wouldn't fit in your bag. You tried to ignore the way he was looking at you when you approached him.

Finding out your perfectly normal-seeming friend had superpowers was probably a bit much. Maybe he was wondering if you'd grow an extra arm next.

"Hey," you greeted him anyway, holding out one of the cups.

"Hi?" He stared at your hand blankly.

"I brought you coffee," you smiled a little, though even Peter could tell it was forced. He gave you yet another funny look.

"You...don't need to bribe me. I already told you I wouldn't tell anyone."

"I know, and this isn't a bribe. More of an apology? I didn't mean to spring something that big on you. And I'm sure teleporting for the first time with no warning wasn't fun, either."

"It wasn't that bad, actually," he shrugged, taking the coffee from you with a small smile. "But thanks."

Now you were the one giving him a funny look this time. Even Spider-Man was basically laying on the floor for ten minutes trying to recover when you first did it with him. There was no way this boy didn't get even slightly dizzy.

"You got some weird powers I should know about, Peter?" You teased, missing the way he stiffened up. "I teleported a guy away from a robbery last week who literally threw up from how bad it was. You didn't even get a headache? I'm almost disappointed."

"Did you want me to throw up on you?" He asked incredulously, and you laughed, shaking your head.

"No, thanks for not doing that, guess I'm just surprised," you took a sip of your coffee, giving him a look again. It was a little strange how easily he was taking all this, and you felt like you needed to say something about it. "This isn't...going to make things weird between us, right? I'm not trying to talk so casually about it and dismiss your feelings if it's a lot. If you want space or something I can-"

"No!" He said quickly, almost startling you, "No, I mean...of course not. You're still Y/N, just with powers. No offense, but I interned for Tony Stark, I've seen weirder things."

You didn't think about that. But, shit - maybe you should have - Spider-Man was constantly around Stark Tower. That didn't matter, though - you trusted Peter not to say anything to him if they ever crossed paths.

"Well, now I feel like I gotta one-up the weirdos you've been seeing. Wanna teleport into class?"

"No, are you crazy!"

"That was very obviously a joke," you snickered at his horrified expression, "But we should at least walk to class so we aren't late for once."

"Uh, right. I knew that."

By lunch, Ned and MJ still hadn't returned. You and Peter assumed they probably got to just go home (lucky little shits), and sat at your bench near the edge of the school grounds. Peter was a great listener, and you finally had someone to talk to about the other side of your life - aside from Spider-Man. But it wasn't like you could talk to Spider-Man about this side of your life, and having someone that knew both was such a relief that you didn't realize maybe you were talking too much and annoying your friend.

He was staring at you with an indecipherable expression on his face as you were in the middle of some rant about an old villain you beat with Spider-Man, and you immediately dropped your grin and looked at the ground.

"I'm sorry, it's just - it's so relieving to have someone that knows, I felt like I've been bottling it up and it's been so stressful," you sighed, "I can chill out, I'm sorry."

"You don't have to apologize," his expression was soft when you looked back up at him, "Sorry, I was just getting lost in the story. I...I can see how hard it must be to keep this a secret. You can always tell me anything, Y/N. I promise it's safe with me."

You couldn't bring yourself to meet his eyes, the way he was looking at you making you feel off. Peter had always been cute, you weren't blind, and you definitely used to have a crush on him that you never spoke of - but still, he never looked at you like that before, or said such sweet things like he had been since he found out you were Bypass.

"Thank you," you forced yourself to say, standing up quickly to change the subject. "Five bucks says Ned and MJ don't come back until fifth period."

"Ten bucks they don't come back at all."

"Deal."

-

A couple days later, Green Goblin made another appearance, much to your annoyance. You used to joke about anything being better than sitting through science class - somehow you didn't think that your science class would be getting threatened by a goblin man that threw green bombs.

Your teachers were trying to evacuate everyone calmly, but it was sort of a mess as several kids seemed to be debating between running away screaming or filming the whole ordeal. The Goblin had blown up some area on the south side of the school, coincidentally the same one where you and Peter were over a week ago when this exact thing happened.

He chose to attack again when the school was finished blocking off and just starting to repair the area, which still didn't make sense to you.

Among the chaos, you were able to slip away to your alley. Spider-Man was likely on the way already, and you were a little annoyed you left your suit at home - still, it would only take you maybe two seconds to jump there and jump back to the alley.

You were right about to teleport straight to your room, when a red and black figure dropped right in front of you. You both stared at each other for a minute, his masked eyes wide as your real ones were.

"Uh, hello," you said awkwardly, so glad he showed up when he did. Otherwise he would've been just in time to see some "random girl" teleport. You felt so weirdly exposed in front of him, not even sure how to act without giving away that you were Bypass. Would he just know the second you spoke more than one word?

"Hi," Spider-Man said in a similar tone, his masked eyes narrowing, "Whatcha doin' back here?"

"Um...hiding? There's kind of a supervillain running around blowing things up, so."

"Right, I noticed. In an alleyway, though?"

You had taken several measures to make sure this was an alleyway that pretty much no one ever went into. The last thing you expected was for Spider-Man to ever come here.

"I mean...yeah? I didn't have many options since the Green Goblin sort of blew up the other side of my school."

"Your school, huh?" His eyes narrowed again before he shrugged, "I guess this is a good hiding spot. I chose it to do some surveillance here since it seemed like a good place. Guess great minds think alike!"

"Okay..."

What in the hell was he talking about? Surveillance? Since when did he do that?

"Well, anyway," he held his wrist out and tapped it, and you watched blankly as a blue hologram showing a map of the streets near you popped up. You really needed him to leave so you could suit up.

"Uh," your eyes darted to the end of the alleyway, "Should-should you really be doing this here? Should I be seeing this?"

He stared at you, "What, are you secretly a super villain?"

"Well, how would you know?" You said, frowning. He was being dumber than usual.

"You'd be a shitty one for exposing yourself like that, so I have a feeling you aren't," he chuckled, and you frowned even more. "Let's see. We're on 62nd right now, Gobby was last seen on 108th, he can't have gotten too far..."

"Uh, Spider-Man?" You hoped your tone wasn't sounding as annoyed as you felt. "Shouldn't you be meeting up with Bypass somewhere? Maybe she's looking for you."

"That's true, I do wonder where my partner is," he put his hands on his hips and stared at the sky, and you resisted the urge to scream at your horrible luck. "She's not usually late to the party. Teleporting makes that easier, I suppose."

Maybe if you left me alone I could go change into my suit, you thought angrily, crossing your arms. "Strange."

"I better go after our green friend, uh thanks for the company...?"

"Y/N," you said awkwardly, a little startled when he grabbed your hand and shook it.

"Y/N," he repeated quietly, holding your hand a second longer than necessary.

Hearing him say your real name made you feel kind of fuzzy inside, and you hoped it didn't show on your face.

"Nice to meet you, Y/N, you better find somewhere safer to hide than some random alleyway!" One of his masked eyes winked as he lifted a hand to the sky and swung away.

You were cursing under your breath the entire time it took you to suit up and teleport to the rooftop you saw Spider-Man swing up toward.

"Hey, took you long enough!" Spider-Man's cheery voice made you want to smack him with something.

"Trust me, I tried to get here faster," you said through gritted teeth, kneeling down next to where your partner was crouched behind the ledge, watching the damage below.

"What's got you in a bad mood?" Spider-Man asked teasingly, and you really wished he knew your identity just so you could get mad at him for being held up.

"Nothing, just some idiot wouldn't leave me alone so I couldn't teleport here." Not like he would know he was the idiot.

He let out a loud laugh, holding his stomach while you gave him a weird look. "Well, you made it just in time, sweetheart. Gobby is having a field day with this high school."

Right on cue, that cackling laugh that made you cringe was heard from not too far away. You both crouched down even more as he passed somewhat close, and you made a face at the unflattering up-close view of your newest enemy.

"What is his deal?" You mumbled, curious now more than ever as to why he was targeting your high school. A sudden, horrifying thought came to mind that maybe he had found out your identity and was looking for you there outside of the suit - but that had to be impossible. You were certain no one but Peter knew who you were.

"I have a risky idea, since he doesn't know we're here yet," Spider-Man hesitated, his mask turning toward you. "I had a tracker, I just can't get close enough to him to stick it on his suit or even his hoverboard. But...like I said it would be really risky..."

"Spit it out," you said impatiently, waving your hand.

"Well, you can teleport."

"No shit, Sherlock."

"Okay, let me finish! You can teleport onto his board with him, stick my handy dandy tracker on while pretending to just try to land a punch or something, and then teleport back."

You frowned at him, "Well, you were definitely right about it being risky."

"At this point, I would do it if I could, but I've tried. And he's hurting more and more people every day, and it's really bothering me that he's targeting this high school so much...I don't know. Do you think it could work?"

You hesitated, watching as the Goblin did another pass over the school, yelling something you couldn't hear from this far away. "I don't think we have a choice anymore. We need to stop him. I can try to teleport to him but it would have to be really precise or I'll just appear in midair and have to teleport again so I don't fall to my death. It would be a lot of teleporting, I'll tire out quickly."

"Oh, you know I'd always catch you if you fell for me, sweetheart," One of his masked eyes winked and you rolled your eyes, even if that line did kind of work on you - you were a sucker for stupid lines like that, even if they were pathetic.

Anyway.

"Okay, well you can't do that if Gobby is high up around no buildings for you to swing by, or if he's distracting you with his fun little bombs. So like I said, the timing has to be perfect. If you can distract him enough to slow him down while he's focusing on throwing bombs or something, that would help a lot."

He pressed his tracker into your gloved hands. "Okay. Give me a few minutes, stay up here, I'll try to make him come closer to make it easier for you."

"Thanks," you held your fist out and he bumped it, nodding at you. "Good luck."

"You too."

If there was anything Spider-Man was good at, it was annoying supervillains. Goblin was shouting angrily as he flew over the building you were on, hiding just out of sight. Spider-Man swung over too, shouting out something about how he should've chosen a different shade of green that morning.

You watched the way Goblin was flying, trying to pinpoint where he would go direction-wise. He was gritting his teeth and getting ready to lob another bomb at your partner, and you knew that your moment. You took a breath and shut your eyes, concentrating.

It was perfect timing.

Your feet landed on the back of his board and you instinctively grabbed Gobby's shoulders so you wouldn't fall, making him yell in surprise and try to throw you off immediately.

"What the hell are you-" He sounded even worse up close, and you tried not to look down. Heights were really not your thing.

"Man, you really do need a better dermatologist!"

"What?"

You pushed down on his right shoulder with one hand, dropping Spider-Man's tracker with the other onto his hoverboard when his head was turned toward the right to look at you. It was hard not to grin as the little spider locked into place. Bingo.

"Get off, girl," Goblin growled and reached a hand back to grab you, but you let go of him and teleported again.

Unfortunately, it seemed to be one too many. As soon as you appeared on the rooftop across the street, your knees felt weak and you struggled to stand upright. That distracted you from the second green bomb he threw at you - and this time you didn't move fast enough.

It hit the ground two feet in front of you and sent you flying against the brick wall behind you. The impact stunned you too much to think to teleport before you could hit the bricks, so you felt the pain shoot up your arm and chest at the awkward angle you hit it at before you crumpled to the ground with a groan.

The asshole let out another cackle before the sound of his hoverboard was further away, and the lighter sound of feet landing a few yards away from you was much more comforting.

"Hey, you-are you okay?" Spider-Man's voice sounded shaky as he helped you to your feet.

"That hurt," you wheezed, ignoring the pain dancing along your abdomen and wrist. "But I think I'm good."

"I shouldn't have had you do that, I'm an idiot," he muttered to himself as he held you up, "Let's get out of here, don't even think about teleporting right now."

"I don't think I could yet even if I tried," you winced as he held you tighter, shooting a web across the street. "Be careful."

"Of course," he said softly, adjusting his arm so it wasn't squeezing against your hurt one.

The second he landed you both somewhere far away from the school and police, you let out a pained wince and nearly dropped to the ground. Spider-Man caught you and gently sat you down to lean against him on the ground.

"Shit, what-what's wrong, what can I do?"

"It's just my arm, I'm a baby when it comes to these things," you tried to say nonchalantly. Your chest was definitely aching and you knew your arm would need to be wrapped, but the last thing you needed to do was stress him out more.

"I can swing you to a hospital-"

"Spidey, I appreciate the offer, but I can literally just teleport home."

"Oh, yeah," he said awkwardly. "Wait, home? No, you should really get checked out-"

"Secret identity to protect, remember?" You chuckled, pretending it didn't hurt when you did. "Besides, you never go to hospitals when you're hurt."

"Fast healing."

"Whatever. You got stabbed one time and went home, I think I can get a little bruised and go home."

"You had a bomb thrown at you."

"Hey, the bomb itself didn't hit me, we both know that."

He was silent as his gloved hand moved up your wrist, and you tried your best not to make a noise when he gently held it. "You're telling me this isn't hurting that bad?"

"Nope," you squeaked out. If you could see his face, you were certain he'd be glaring at you.

He then moved his hand to your stomach, and you ignored the mix of slight pain but also butterflies you felt as he did that. "Not here either?"

"No," you whispered, glancing up to see how close he was to you. His masked eyes were narrowed but you didn't break the stare even as that weird feeling starting building up in your chest again.

"Fine," he said reluctantly, moving his hand back. You almost missed it. "Go home and rest, I'm serious. I better not see you at patrol tonight if you aren't 100% okay."

"I'll take an Advil or something."

"Bypass."

"Okay, fine. I won't come if I'm really hurt. I promise."

He still seemed hesitant to just let you leave, but you didn't give him much of a choice as you teleported away. One perk to that super power - just randomly leaving conversations you didn't want to be in.

A few hours later, and you realized he was probably right. While your chest felt better, your wrist was still aching. You had plenty of bandages but you were having a really hard time wrapping it with one hand, and it made you more frustrated the longer you took.

It wasn't like you had Spider-Man's phone number to ask him to help you. Your parents would flip if you asked them for help. No one else knew your secret...wait.

You pulled your phone out and pulled up Peter's contact, taking longer than necessary to type a text out to him since you could only use one hand without being in a lot of pain.

hey can i come over? it's kinda important

You frowned at your phone after you sent it, not even sure if this was the best course of action. Maybe you should've been honest with Spider-Man before, but he was always so overbearing when you got hurt, and you didn't want him to start thinking you were weak.

Before you could change your mind, Peter replied.

of course! :)

You smiled slightly, grabbing your bandages and focusing on his room before teleporting there.

"God, shit," Peter jumped out of his chair when you appeared, and you tried not to laugh at his expression. "I-I was not expecting you to do that."

"You said I could come over?"

"You couldn't use the door?" He said incredulously, and then his eyes darted down to where you were cradling your wrist. Of course he noticed that immediately.

"I didn't want May to panic," you explained, sitting on the edge of his bed, "I can't wrap this stupid thing by myself, but if I leave it like this, I'm probably going to just hurt myself more."

"I thought..." he trailed off as you gave him a confused look. He shook his head and took the wrap from you gently. "I mean, of course I can help. Did this happen during the Goblin attack today?"

"Maybe."

You watched him silently for a moment as he started wrapping your hand first, like he had done this many times before. The way he'd been acting around you since he found out you were Bypass had been making you feel funny, like how you used to back when you were certain you had feelings for him.

Everything got weird when you met Spider-Man. Those lingering feelings you had for Peter were definitely still there, but they felt muted when you were with Spider-Man. Once he was dating Liz and then MJ you kind of let it go, and realized you liked Spider-Man as more than a friend, which just sent you through another painful crush considering he didn't want to reveal his identity or find out yours.

Seeing Peter caring for you like this since he found out your secret made it way more complicated.

"You didn't want to ask Spider-Man for help with this?" He interrupted your thoughts hesitantly as he continued wrapping your wrist, and you tried to avoid making any pained noise.

"No, he always gets stressed out when I get hurt, cause he heals faster," you paused, "Pretend I didn't say that. He probably wouldn't be happy with me talking about his powers to other people."

"He probably wouldn't mind one little detail slipping by accident," Peter cracked a smile, "And I'm sure he gets stressed out for good reason. I don't like seeing you hurt...either."

"He doesn't like it even more. It would be cute if it wasn't also kind of annoying," you snickered, trying not to wince as Peter laughed with you and shifted against the hand he was wrapping.

"Aw, you think he's cute?" Peter teased lightly, chucking as he wrapped another strand.

He glanced up when you didn't answer, giving you an unreadable look. "I...I was just joking."

"I know you were," you frowned, staring pointedly at the wall. It was obvious he was still looking at you, waiting for you to say something else, but you weren't really sure what to say. The longer the silence, though, the more obvious it was that his comment bothered you.

"Do you..." Peter trailed off, but you got the gist of the question that he didn't want to finish.

"Hey, you told me you weren't going to ask me any questions about this whole hero thing," you said a little jokingly, knowing full well that he didn't mean this when he said that.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have said anything. That's between you two."

It was. But...it was kind of nice to have a somewhat uninvolved third party that might be able to give advice or even just moral support. Peter was your friend, and he was helping you and keeping a secret for you when he didn't have to - what was one more secret?

"He doesn't want us to know each other outside the masks, it...it would never work. I wouldn't mind but I know he would," you hesitated, "Just because I might want more doesn't mean...I don't even know how he really feels about me in general, much less in...that way."

Peter was silent, focusing pretty hard on wrapping your hand. You were pretty sure half of what you said was too vague or confusing to make sense to him, but the gist of it was there. Never had you admitted out loud how you felt about Spider-Man, but it was almost relieving to do so.

Although it was kind of weird to talk about it with a boy you also had confusing feelings for.

Whatever.

"Pretty sure he'd be disappointed by who's underneath the mask, anyway," you tried to joke, but you couldn't help but wonder if there was any truth to that statement.

"I'm-I'm sure that's not true," Peter said quietly, and you finally made yourself meet his eyes when he looked up at you. "I bet he thinks the world of you, actually."

"You really are the nicest person I know," you smiled at him, ignoring when his face turned pink and he focused on finishing your bandages. "And the best person that could've found out my secret. Seriously...thank you, Peter."

"You never have to thank me for this," he said softly, not quite meeting your eyes as he set the remainder of your bandages next to you. "I'm glad I found out you're Bypass. I can't imagine anyone else being her."

You felt those stupid butterflies in your chest as you stared at him, even more confused than before. As if you didn't just spit out your feelings for Spider-Man.

"So, you gonna tell him?" Peter asked suddenly, pulling you out of your thoughts.

"Tell who what?" You asked, sounding distracted.

"Spider-Man...how you feel about him."

You made a face, "I don't think that would be a very good idea."

"What, you don't think he would feel the same?" Peter's tone turned serious, and you shrugged.

"Sometimes I think he does," you bit your lip, "Like...I'll catch him staring. Or when he gets really scared when I'm hurt, it feels like maybe he does. He calls me sweetheart all the time but I can't ever tell if it's a joke, because sometimes he'll say it differently and...I don't know. I don't think I can even entertain the idea, I'm probably just imagining something that isn't there."

"I don't think you're imagining it at all," Peter spoke so confidently that you looked up at him in doubt, "Seriously. He'd be stupid not to feel the same."

"How...are you so sure?" You asked quietly, watching him as his face turned red.

Huh.

The sound of his phone ringing made you jump, and you didn't even realize how close you both were until he was scrambling to get up and answer it.

"Uh, hey-hey May," he said quickly, giving you a look that was somehow between apologetic and frantic. You bit your lip to keep from laughing, opening your phone to check the time, not realizing how late it had gotten.

"Yeah, I'm home. Oh, you're getting Thai? Okay..."

That was your cue to leave. You grabbed your remaining bandages and stood up, almost surprised by the disappointed look on Peter's face as he hung up with May.

"Headed out so soon? May's getting food if you wanted to stay," he sounded a little hopeful, again making that stupid feeling come back.

You needed to get yourself together.

"Nah, my parents are probably expecting me, but thank you," you grinned, "I gotta patrol pretty soon anyway, so."

"If you're still hurt, you probably shouldn't go," he said seriously, and you shrugged.

"I'll be fine. Night patrols have been pretty dead lately."

"If you say so," he didn't seem very convinced, but it wasn't like he could stop you. You stepped forward and hugged him tightly with one arm, and his arms came up around you immediately.

"Thank you again, Peter. Have a good night."

"See you later, sweetheart," he smiled when you pulled back, and you just barely caught his expression turning horrified as you teleported too quickly to even stop yourself.

You arrived in your room and stared blankly at the floor, what he just said finally catching up to you and your thoughts began to run a mile a minute.

Sweetheart. He called you sweetheart.

You stared at the picture of you and Peter hanging on your wall of photos, not even wanting to entertain the stupid thoughts suddenly going through your head. It was a nickname, it was just a stupid nickname and yes only one person had ever called you that before, but that didn't mean it was exclusive to them. Even if it was said so casually, like he'd been calling you that...for a while.

Okay, you let yourself entertain the stupid thought.

Peter was always late, more than you were. Peter was angry when you exposed yourself as Bypass to him. Peter always seemed to know when you had been hurt. Peter didn't get side effects the first time you teleported with him. Peter was certain about how Spider-Man would feel about things, even when it came to how Spider-Man felt about you. The way Peter looked at you lately, the way Spider-Man seemed to hesitate before calling you Bypass, the way Peter turns bright red every time you talked about how much you admired your parter-

You had to be seeing things. You had to be imagining and making assumptions like an idiot, because they couldn't be the same, right? That would make this situation more fucked up than it already was.

"I bet he thinks the world of you, actually."

You stood up abruptly, shaking your head at yourself. They couldn't be the same person. You liked Peter, and you liked Spider-Man, and that would make this too easy. But that would also mean that Spider-Man knew your identity the whole time and decided not to share his own.

He wouldn't have done that. Not unless he thought you would have a problem with them being the same person, which was sort of in character for Peter-

No. You marched to your desk and grabbed your phone, getting all the way to Peter's contact before stopping yourself.

You put your phone down angrily, knowing you were probably just being stupid. Peter was so smart and shy and awkward in kind of a cute way, so he wasn't really that much like Spider-Man, was he? Spider-Man flirted with you (even if jokingly) and dropped the stupidest jokes at the worst possible times, and was really fit and coordinated in a way you never saw Peter. He could hardly hold a basketball without hurting himself somehow.

Unless it was an act to hide his identity.

No, nope, no way. You put that thought away, knowing nothing but trouble would come from it. As you suited up for your nightly patrol with Spider-Man, you tried not to think about it too much, almost hoping you were wrong. It wouldn't make sense, even if it actually, really did.

Spider-Man was pacing when you teleported to the meeting spot. He actually jumped when you appeared, and you frowned - he hadn't been spooked by you, ever.

"Uh...what's up?"

"Nothing! Nothing at all," he said quickly, playing with his fingers and leaning back on the balls of his feet.

"Why are you so...nervous?"

"No I'm not," he laughed, and it came out more of a high pitched squeak. "You-you're the one that's nervous!"

"What?" You almost laughed, but his bizarre behavior was almost starting to concern you. In fact, he was acting so much like Peter when he was nervous that you were a little more certain in your supposedly stupid theory. It still sounded a little ridiculous - and you weren't sure how you'd react if they really were the same person. But either way-

"Do you have feelings for me?"

That caught you a little off guard. You stepped back slightly, eyeing him and wishing you could see his expression if only to see if he was joking or not. But his tone sounded dead serious.

"Um...are we really doing this right now?" You asked weakly, glancing at the glowing red sign on the side of the building you were on, "On top of a Virgin Media store?"

"Bypass," he pinched his mask where the bridge of his nose presumably was, "Yes, we're doing this on top of a Virgin Media. Do you prefer Wicked Willy's across the street?"

"I don't want to answer your first question," you said quickly, ignoring how you both deflected to humor when you were nervous, "I-I don't want to mess with the friendship we have and I'm worried my answer would ruin everything."

Spider-Man stared at you for a second, and you realized you basically did just answer it for him. Where the hell had this even come from? Why did he have to suddenly ask you this now, out of nowhere-

Peter. You felt your chest tighten up a little. He was the only one who knew, and he wasn't the type to tell personal things like that to others for no reason.

Unless he didn't have to tell him. Because there was one simple answer that could explain not only this, but Spider-Man's weird behavior lately and how Peter was way too calm about your powers. And you were already briefly considering it to be a possibility even before this conversation.

Spider-Man took a step toward you, interrupting any thought that went through your head.

Your heart leaped when he pulled his mask up, but he left it tucked around his nose. There wasn't even a second for you to really see what the bottom half of his face looked like, because he was already kissing you.

As much as you toyed with the design, your mask was always better fitting when it only covered half your face. Spider-Man had tried many times to convince you to wear one that fully covered your face, but you didn't care for any of the ones you tried. You were convinced you had a forgettable bottom half of your face, anyway, and it hadn't been an issue before.

Considering how easy it was for Spider-Man to kiss you now, you were more than glad you didn't decide on a full faced mask.

It took you a second to respond, the shock of the conversation and him just kissing you out of nowhere making it hard for your brain to function. One of his hands cradled the side of your face, his thumb fitting just beneath where your mask rested as his lips moved against yours. His other hand slid down your shoulder, moving to hold your waist.

You couldn't help the noise you made when his hand shifted to your back, pulling you closer. No one had ever kissed you like this, and the feeling of it mixed with the realization that he did return your feelings made you want to melt. The fingers of your unhurt hand moved up to his face, and you realized you were feeling him for the first time as your fingertips danced along his jawline.

He finally pulled back as the tips of your fingers started subconsciously sneaking underneath his mask, just feeling the tips of his hair. His gloved hands came up to hold your wrist, not pulling them away, but not letting you move any further.

"Bypass," he said carefully, almost warning you. You weren't going to do anything crazy like rip his mask off, but his voice made you pause, your hand settling on the side of his face. You never heard him without his voice changer in his suit, and his soft, breathless, real voice made you freeze, because...it was familiar.

Your eyes moved down to the part of his face that was exposed before you could stop yourself, the supposedly ridiculous thoughts from before sneaking back into your head.

It was too hard to focus on anything but the bottom half of his face, something you'd never think you'd be able to see. The first thing you noticed was that he looked as familiar as he sounded. Your thoughts from earlier came flooding back even more as you looked back up to where his masked eyes were. You could almost picture that familiar face, and you were pretty sure he had the warm brown eyes you had originally fallen for.

He was still silent as he stared back at you, probably wondering why your heart started beating faster again. Because you were even more positive you knew exactly who it was behind that mask, and suddenly the idea of it being true scared you.

You were too lost in the realization to realize his lips were pressed together tightly, his jaw clenched.

"I can't do this," Spider-Man whispered, and you felt like your heart dropped to the bottom of your feet. The emotional roller coaster he was putting you through was probably going to be the death of you at this point.

"What?" You asked weakly.

He tensed at your reaction, suddenly frantic. "Wait, that's - that's not what I meant! I should've started that differently, God, I'm so bad at this-"

He grabbed your shoulders, and you clung onto the confusion instead of the rejection, knowing that was more bearable. He was acting so weird and you were pretty sure you were going to combust if he didn't start explaining his behavior.

"I meant, I can't do this without first being honest with you. I...I know who you are. Under the mask."

If possible, you tensed even more. That was probably the last thing you expected him to say right then, though it would make sense if he was who you were starting to think he was. You decided you should maybe just let him explain before jumping to conclusions. "...What?"

"I've known for...a while, Y/N." The sound of your real name coming from Spider-Man for only the second time before made you flinch, and his grip on you suddenly loosened. He was giving you the option to leave. "That's not all. I know you, and you know me. In our...civilian lives, I guess. We're friends."

"O-Okay..." You stuttered, your brain starting to feel like you were doing a marathon in your thoughts. He was just confirming what you were already suspecting. You only had one friend that you used your powers in front of, that knew you were also Bypass.

He pulled his mask completely off before you could think to ask.

Brown curls, freckled pink cheeks, a slightly crooked nose and untamed eyebrows hovering over familiar brown eyes. Really, you should've guessed it long before this, and you were already almost positive of who he was in just the last few minutes - but seeing Spider-Man turn into your best friend right before your eyes was still enough to make you a little shocked.

You were right after all.

"You..." your voice dropped off, not even knowing what to say.

"I totally understand if you're angry and you want space to think about this," Peter said quickly, though it sounded like that was the last thing he would want. "I can leave you alone and give you time, I promise. I just...let me talk first, please?"

"Okay," you whispered, watching him shut his eyes for a moment and sigh before speaking quickly in a very Peter-like way.

"I almost exposed myself as Spider-Man the exact same instant you told me you were Bypass. What you said to me, that feeling of not helping when you knew you could help - that was exactly what I felt, and you just beat me to playing the hero. I could never let anything happen to you, as Y/N or as Bypass. That's part of why I never wanted us to reveal our identities in the first place, I have people in jail that know who I am, leaders of government agencies that can hold that over me - I never want that for you. I never want your identity to be used as blackmail, ever.

"But I still hesitated in that classroom, and you didn't. I think - I got angry because I realized too many things at once. I could have been anyone, and you were risking your identity getting out just to save me. Imagine if you were stuck with Flash - that would've been on twitter the second you teleported away. And then I was mad at myself for not acting sooner and letting me be the one to take the fall instead of you. I was mad that I didn't realize it before, that Bypass and Y/N were the same person, and I fell for both sides of that person even before I knew that."

You stared at him wide-eyed, as if that was a surprise after the kiss he just laid on you. Still, it was kind of surprising to know he liked both sides of you first - just like how you felt about him. He brushed his thumb against your cheek, his eyes growing softer as he smiled at you.

"It was too perfect, too simple. Both of the girls I had feelings for ending up being the same girl. I...I never thought I'd be that lucky. But then I knew it wouldn't even matter if you didn't feel the same for me as Peter or as Spider-Man. If I couldn't meet up to your expectations for either of them - me. But..."

His voice trailed off as he brought his other hand up to your mask, his fingers carefully lifting it off your face so he could meet your eyes properly. "You told me you did have feelings for me. As Spider-Man, at least. I knew that I couldn't lie to you anymore, and I had to tell you the truth. About how I feel and who I am."

You were quiet as he took your hand, placing your mask in it and closing your fingers around it. This was honestly the last situation you would have expected for both of you to be unmasked in front of each other for the first time, but you weren't complaining.

"I'll...understand if your feelings for Peter and Spider-Man don't match up," he said when you still didn't speak, though his expression was pained, "If you want to stay just as friends, I can be okay with that."

"Are you insane?" You finally spoke, your tone making him flinch. "You - Peter, Spider-Man, whatever - have put me through the most emotionally distressing five minutes of my life. Actually, the last several days of my life. Of course we aren't going to be friends after this."

"Oh," his hands dropped, "I-I mean, I understand that, too, I just thought-"

You grabbed his face much like he had done to you earlier, and pressed your lips to his. He let out a surprised noise when you kissed him, but he was quicker to recover as his arms carefully came to wrap around your waist and pull you closer to him.

This one was not nearly as long as the last one, because you pulled away to laugh at the expression on his face.

"I am so confused right now," he said breathlessly, and your lips rose in a smile.

"We aren't friends, because you mean a lot more to me than that. Both sides of you do, and they always have. Even if both of those sides put me on emotional rollercoasters all the time."

"Oh," he visibly relaxed, a smile forming on his lips, too.

"You still got a lot of making up to do, Spidey. Especially for that time you bothered me for like ten minutes when you knew I needed to go suit up. Jerk."

He snickered, "That was hilarious. You're cute when you're mad, sweetheart."

"Uh huh," You acted like that nickname coming from Peter's mouth this time didn't make you want to melt.

His laughter softened as he leaned his forehead against yours, still smiling like an idiot as his hands found your waist - but you were definitely smiling just as much. "I am so glad this was your reaction. I was...I was seriously worried."

"Eh, you had no reason to be. I already knew you were Peter."

"What?" He looked almost upset, which made you laugh. "How? I-What?"

"Peter," you cupped your hand around his face, giving him a loving smile, "You're an idiot. You were not careful at all, in fact you were very obviously messing with me multiple times and then turning tomato red when I told you I had feelings for Spider-Man. And to top it off, you literally called me sweetheart as Peter, when that has strictly been a Spider-Man thing. Like, hello?"

"I-I guess you got me there," he mumbled.

"And while I definitely think you should have just told me," you gave him a dirty look, "I understand where you're coming from. If it had been the other way around...I might've done the same."

His hands moved up your back as his face relaxed, the crooked smile he was giving you making you melt. "I figured you'd yell at me for the rest of my life, but I prefer this much more."

You grinned at him.

"I'm not much of a yeller."

~

tag list:

@somefuckshit1 @nocturnalms @sanniesdiary @peter-parkers-passport @chosuah01 @runawaywithmyghost @baby-bi-bi-bi-yeah @jallerentrags @spideysloverera @jemimah-b99 @redsakura101 @folklore-mcu

[redladydeath]

random little details for the octogoblin corpse bride au that i’ve been coming up with for the past week

Norman’s green bc of rot

Gobby’s the worm

Norman’s got a fire poker sticking out of his torso as a reference to the glider

We assigned Amberson the Barkis role so like. he accidentally kills Norman during an argument because Norman’s refusing to go along with his plan for him to marry some heiress, take her money, and run. He hides the body in the forest and then 20 years later tries to go through with the plan himself with Rosie.

Otto’s parents weren’t able to find him a wife until he was like 40 because of the scandal

N&O as wide-eyed, idealistic 20 year olds who truly believe they can make their plan work. Twenty years later, Otto is jaded and world-weary, but Norman is frozen in time as the idealistic young man he once knew who still thinks they can find a way to be together

What if they used to have a “knight in shining armor” thing when they were young? Like, Norman would half-jokingly say that Otto was going to be the one to rescue him from his abusive family one day and he ends up being right, just. twenty years off and under very different circumstances

Thinking about little baby Otto sneaking his way to Norman’s house in the dead of night, terrified but invigorated, thinking they’re about to run off and start their new life together, only to be caught, told that Norman Isn’t Here Anymore (they say he left without him), and returned to his parents, heartbroken and humiliated. And then spending the next twenty years believing that Norman abandoned him/was just manipulating him the whole time, only to reunite with him on his wedding day and learn the dark truth

“Otto, what happened to you? You look like you’ve aged twenty years!” “…my brother in christ you are literally a corpse”

During the wedding rehearsal, Otto’s already nervous as hell and is only made 10x more so when his ex’s dad walks in to watch bc he still lives in town and, even after 20 years, still holds a grudge against the Octavius’ for “turning his son gay.“ Otto accidentally setting Rosie’s mother’s dress on fire was honestly one of the better outcomes for this situation

The other villains are the denizens of the underworld

“Arghhh! Why can’t you understand?! She’s my fiancee! You’ve been dead for twenty years! I’ve moved on, Norman!”

Norman feels bad that he “lost” his original engagement ring. Otto lies and says that his family just so happened to find it a while back and it’s back at his house— all he needs to do is go back to the surface and get it.

When they get to the surface, Norman’s initially like “I’ll go there with you! :D” because he’s kinda in denial about being a decades-old corpse. Otto convinces him to wait in the clearing by telling him he wouldn’t want to be seen by Otto’s parents or else they might get angry. He doesn’t stay put for very long though because Gobby is an agent of chaos.

Harry, Larry, Flo, and Moe are Otto’s childhood pet snakes that Norman gives him back as a wedding present

“But first, a toast! To my dear son: always the best man, never the groom! Tell me, Norman, how does it feel to always want something you can never have?”

Amberson: *impales his son on a fire poker* Amberson: how could Octavius do this

Norman is legit about to kill Amberson during the climax, but chooses not to, although he gets what he wanted like one minute later though, so…

Playing the piano together was something Norman and Otto used to do when they were young

Thinking about Norman just being so terribly lonely, waiting for decades down in the underworld for Otto to come back to him

Also thinking about Otto being horribly insecure once he gets to know Rosie and realizes he likes her, feeling like he’s too old and “ugly” for her (even though they’re the same age) and that she deserves to have a young, handsome man without any of his scandalous baggage as her groom

Rosie was married to someone before she was engaged to Otto, but her previous husband divorced her when he realized she was infertile

Norman asking Rosie to “take care of him for me, would you?” during the end scene when he’s about to move on

…Wait I just realized: Rosie’s technically Norman’s step-mom for like two hours in this AU

Norman and Otto having one last tender goodbye-hug before Norman departs for the great beyond

Worm Gobby likes to pop out of Norman’s head at inopportune times with unhelpful comments

Otto didn’t recognize Norman at first because, you know, twenty years of rot. It was actually his tooth gap that got him to realize that it was him. They got five seconds of staring into each other’s eyes in disbelief/love before Gobby decided to pop out and Otto started screaming again

I feel validated in assigning Doctor Strange the Elder Gutknecht role, this seems like a very him thing to do, especially after MoM Strange: Wait! We must abide by their rules— We are amongst the living. Amberson: * dies * Strange: Okay kids, he’s all yours.

first time otto's felt alive in years and it's watching his dead teenage boyfriend waltz around a graveyard

gobby: hey dipshit, your hubby's scared of you and is trying to abandon you otto: * actually rejects norman * gobby: 🥺🥺🥺 ...you're too good for him anyway, you've got so much going for you

Thinking about the flowers in Corpse Bride!Norman’s hair. like. did he put them there himself? did they just get caught there and he never took them out? are they growing there? every option is cute/kind of sad Otto: * plucks a flower out of Norman’s hair * Norman: Ow Otto: 😶

also, not mine, but it’s too good not to share

In what would be like the piano scene Norman: Pardon my enthusiasm. Otto: I’ve missed your enthusiasm.

[stevenbasic]

Post 225: Scenes from a Party, p8: A Chat Amongst Witches

Just away from the bar, three young women stood talking. Bianca, Sammi, Emily - each a new hire at Far Horizons Medical Associates and - despite their shared history - their first real chance to chat. Still waiting for Subject Zero, they watched the small crowd on the dance floor enjoying the evening. They smiled and laughed themselves under a small circle that seemed unusually dark, in a weirdling space from which no sound came. A little privacy is important, still, they’d agreed. They had just seen him, their new “boss”, being dragged off the dance floor by the dark-haired Anomaly in the red dress. Emily, brunette herself and a recent Westhall grad, tried to look over the crowd, see if she could still catch a glimpse. That Angie girl might be a problem, she thought to herself, and told her new sisters. She’d asked the tall, bosomy redhead - Bianca - to keep the two in a mind’s eye...

“They’re in the back hallway,” Bianca said, mindful but relaxed, aware of the ersatz couple through the aether. “Angie’s trying to find them a room.” Casually, she pulled up at the neckline of her purple party dress, which struggled to contain breasts that had obviously swelled since she’d been fitted just last week. This new colony, or “hive”, or whatever it was, was doing a number on her tits. But she knew she shouldn’t complain; her abilities had already doubled.

“Watch your presence,” Emily warned. As strong as the redhead was becoming, Emily knew Bianca needed to work on her obfuscation; he seemed sensitive, too aware of the spell’s gaze, “We don’t want him any more nervous than he already is.”

“Yeah I get it,” Bianca said, “I also just made sure the doors all got locked.” Calling her invisible hand back, the lights on the dance floor blinked and flickered, threatening to blow out and causing a momentary stir among the other girls.

“Careful,” Emily urged, nearly hissing.

Inwardly, Bianca bristled a bit. Why this girl, Emily, had been given charge of their little mini-coven, the three of them, was beyond her. Yes, she’d been head girl at that sorority last year, but so what? She didn’t need a handler anymore, Bianca felt. Not like this little Australian chick obviously did; she was a bit…erratic...

“Yah, what’s the worst that could happen?” Sammi Hanes, the youngest of the three and currently indeterminate of hair color, drawled in her strong Outback twang, “You don’t want the slapa giving him a gobby, hm? In the bloomin’ coat check?” In her Freshman year at Westhall, Sammi was ostensibly an intern at the practice and a transfer from overseas.

“What??” Emily chuckled, amused at her young charge’s brogue. Taking a moment, she straightened the tautly-stretched skirt of her black dress over her thick hips.

“Yeah,” Bianca added, “Speak English, please.”

“Sorry,” Sammi laughed, “I forget I’m surrounded by Yanks.”

Emily, tasked with keeping these two in line, knew she had to be nice. She hadn’t had the chance to really bond with either, this being their first time together as a trio. “So,” she asked Sammi, sipping at her vodka and tonic, “I saw you at the Kappa Kappa Gamma after-hours a couple weeks ago…” That was the night, Emily knew, that Sammi took part in her first sacrifice, some FDA inspector working with the new product. It had likely fed her powers, but whatever she had gained there would - if the rumors were true - be dwarfed by the amplifications she’d see here, as part of this new brood. Emily herself had felt it already, an early, new blossoming of her naturally potent gifts. What it would bring, eventually, to both she as well as Sammi and Bianca, remained to be seen. “What gets you to the States?” she asked Sammi, pressing on, “All the way from Australia?”

“Ah, you’re thinking I got sick of sacrificing Koalas and Wallabies for my cantrips,” Sammi joked, laughing at her own wit, “a little witchy-witch humor, there. But no seriously it was a huge honor. They asked both me and my sister to come over, train. Grow.”

”Your sister is Laura, right?” Bianca asked, recalling the pretty chick with the rainbow hair, “The computer girl at Evolution?” Until just recently, Bianca had worked at Evolution Pharm herself.

“Yah, righty. She’s the smart one in the family,” Sammi answered, “But, I can do this…”

Before their very eyes, Sammi began to change. Bianca and Emily watched as Sammi’s hair went from a mousy brown with pink streaks to a dramatic, golden blonde with vibrant blues and purples. “...and this:” Even more dramatically, her already healthy breasts suddenly ballooned up into her cute, A-line party dress, goobing up two cup sizes and spilling over the neckline.

“haha cool a shapeshifter,” Bianca laughed, moderately impressed.

“That is cool,” Emily agreed. The skill was actually relatively rare, she’d heard, an innate talent in certain families. She’d never met one before. She might be useful, for sure. “Those boobs will get you some attention,” she continued, noticing how Sammi - who had just started swaying to the music, tossing her newly-colored mane around and attracting the gazes of some of the male dullards nearby, “...looks like they already have,”

“Haha let’s have some fun, ladies…” Sammi sang, sneaking a hand down her now-full decolletage, into her bulging cleavage, and pulling out a silver flask.

Emily laughed. “Pink Panther?” she asked.

To that Sammi just nodded, her smile growing wide and wild, unscrewing the cap and offering it first to the tall redhead…

Bianca looked on, and began to laugh as well, shaking out her own mane of thick, red hair as she took the flask. Oh this is going to be fun, she thought, feeling the eyes of men on her. Instinctively she began to look around for a victim, a thirsty one, taking a quick swig of the contents herself.

Emily leaned in, took the drink from Bianca. “Just watch out, girls,” Emily said, in confidence, “most of these guys aren’t fully domesticated yet.” She took a drink.

”Yah but I don’t think any of them will complain,“ added Sammi, taking the flask from Emily and growing herself another cup size…

==================================

Morph on first image credit to Migsanch. Please reach out to me brother, I miss you :) Also thanks to CaptainAmbiguous for his help and encouragement on this post and Joyce Julep for allowing me to dip my toes into the world of her story “The Witches of Kappa Kappa Gamma”. For more on Sammi, Bianca, Emily and the other witches of the Westhall Chapter, check out the GITJ Companion Story “Seeking Approval” at my Patreon.

[rebelwrites]

Secret Admirer Part 2

Jax Teller x Reader

You can find part 1 here

You were in disbelief that Jax was the person who had been sending you all the little gifts over the last month, like it just didn’t make any sense.

Your mind was racing as you leant against the wall smoking a cigarette, what do you where? What do you say? How do you act?

Jax saw you standing against the wall, your face screwed up in confusion, he wasn’t going to lie, he always found it cute the way you screwed your face up, strolling over to you he flashed his famous smile.

“What's on your mind?” He asked pulling you out of your thoughts.

“Oh urm, just about tonight” You said taking a drag on your smoke “Like what do I wear, do I dress up and make an effort leaving something to the imagination, do I hide the real me, you know the gobby little shit. What if they don’t like that I am basically an honorary member of the club, like I can’t hide it seen as all my jackets have the reaper on”

Jax had to hide his true expression, the fact you were so nervous about the date made his heart melt.

“All I can say darlin’ is don’t change a thing about you okay” He smiled “If they don’t like the way you dress, how you act and the real you then whoever it is doesn’t deserve to even spend the evening with you tonight. But definitely don’t dress like a crow eater everyone knows you are more classier than that”

“Yeah I guess you are right” You nodded while tossing your smoke on the ground. Maybe it wasn’t Jax afterall, but why would they have the other half of the bumper car token? One thing was you were now even more confused about the whole thing.

“Darlin’ I am always right” He winked.

“I’d best get back to work” You smiled at him “I will catch you later okay”

Before Jax could say anything you had disappeared, running his hand through his hair he took a deep breath hoping that the plan Chibs and Tig had didn’t backfire.

Pulling into the parking lot of the park, you checked your phone. Laughing at the texts of encouragement of the boys. You took a deep breath, resting your head on the steering wheel. It was now or never right.

Following the instructions on the letter, you wandered through the park, cigarette hanging from your lips as you tried to find where you were meant to be meeting this mystery person. When you spotted the Harley, you knew that Harley and you would always be able to pick that specific one out of a line up, it was Jax’s.

Your heart was pounding in your chest right now, you didn’t even know Jax liked you more than a friend. Taking a drag of your smoke you looked around and saw the back of the person you were meeting, standing looking out onto the lake.

There was no denying who it was.

It was Jax.

“Jax” You shouted as you got closer to him “What are you doing here?” You still weren't sure if it was him all or whether this was a cruel joke.

“I’m waiting for my date,” He smirked, placing his hand on your hip.

“This has gotta be a joke” You whispered “Come on where are the cameras”

“Y/N it isn’t a joke I can assure you of that okay” He whispered “The gifts, the letter they were off me”

“Wait what” You whispered looking into his blue eyes.

“Well technically they were off Chibs and Tig” He shrugged “But they decided to play cupid because apparently they were sick of us avoiding the truth”

“That explains how they got this then” You laughed pulling his half of the bumper car token out of your pocket and placing it in Jax’s hand.

“The sneaky bastards, I was wondering where this went” He whispered running his hand over the plastic.

“You were?” you asked.

“Yeah I keep it in the chest pocket of my kutte, above my heart. I have since I was a prospect. I hate riding without it. It's kinda my good luck charm” He whispered with a smile on his face. “Sorry that sounds weird”

“Jax” You whispered placing your hand over his as he put the token back in his kutte “It isn’t weird because I did the same, but it's on my keys”

You pulled your keys out of your pocket to show him the other half of the token.

“Its my reminder that no matter what I have someone back home that will always be in my corner, always have my back, and when I am driving like I do it reminds me to get home safe” You whispered placing your hand on his cheek. “It isn’t just half a token, to me it means the world because it reminds me of you Jackson Teller, the person that took me on my first date because that prick stood me up”

You felt him lean into your touch. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath the smile on his face grew.

“I guess this means the club wants us to be together, for you to be my old lady, to be the queen of Samcro” He whispered, linking his fingers with yours.

“I guess they do” You whispered as you closed the gap between the both of you. “But that's what the club wants, what do you want Jax?”

His eyes shone with love, under the low light.

“I want you to be my old lady, my best friend, the person I run to when things go bad, my protector, my rock, my queen” He whispered brushing his nose against yours.

“Well then” You giggled “Why haven’t you kissed me yet”

“You are such a dork” He smirked.

“Yeah but you love it” You winked wrapping both your arms around his neck.

“Damn right I do” He whispered as his lips brushed against yours.

This was it, the moment both of you had been waiting for since that date when you were 16 but neither of you had the balls to do anything about it. As soon as your lips connected, everything felt right. The world finally had meaning, you had found your other half, your soulmate.

SOA TAGLIST

@chibsytelford @talicat713 @corebore123 @nothingeverdies @teapartydreams @mrspeacem1nusone @khyharah @itmejado @beth-winchester21 @rocketqueen @auroraariza @trulysuccubus @haynsey @witching-hour @destynelseclipsa @edonaspanca @abbiesthings @enamouravecleslivresetlechocolat @jadesamhart @lady-pswrld @ly--canthrope @hennessyauntie @gemini0410 @i-love-scott-mccall @est11 @mystic-shadows42 @sugary-x-sweet @starrynite7114 @skyofficialxx @terminallygenius @lauraashley93 @leaalfred @angelreyesgirl89 @sheeshgivemeabreak @marquelapage @meteora-fc @penny4yourthot @justahopelessssromantic @ilikechocolatemilkh @mayans-sauce @xbreezymeadowsx @ben-c-group-therapy @-im-fantastic- @bigcreatorwombatdreamer @milaxmariex @cubblycie @little-diable @hotdamnhunnam @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead

[the1northlanderprincess]

No Way Home review!

I saw Spider-Man: No Way Home, and OH. MY. GOSH. SO GOOD. EPIC. Best MCU movie since Endgame. It had everything you want in a Marvel movie; it was fun, action-packed, awesome visual effects, and humorous. But, what really sets this movie apart from others is that it is character-driven and has a lot of heart. The MCU Spider-Man movies have always been good like that, yet it’s this one that drives it home (no title pun intended).

With that said, I can’t contain my feels enough to give a spoiler-free review, so I am going to put it under the cut.

Okay, the fallout from Beck’s video went by really quick. The timeline was really confusing, when it went from crowds outside school to the three friends opening their letters in a quiet restaurant.

I was not expecting Matt Murdock to show up. I was legit surprised, and that was really cool.

Dr. Strange’s intro felt a little discombobulated; it didn’t flow right. It was only one of the few scenes like that, so it was fine.

The scene with Peter and Stephen when Stephen cast the spell was awesome. Tom and Benedict really played off one another well. Heck, all of their scenes were incredible. And may I just say, that I LOVED seeing more of Dr. Strange and how he was given more depth, which I will get into later.

Holy crap, the fight between Peter and Stephen was spectacular! It was so awesome to see the Mirror Dimension.

The Villain Roundup was so much fun, and it was hilarious, too. I just loved their reactions to Peter, and all the witty banter exchanged between them. 

Gimme ALL the easter eggs!

Alfred Molina and Willem Dafoe are treasures, slipping back into their roles like they never left them. 

Doc Ock was the first one to be redeemed! Honestly, I didn’t know that they were going to take this route, but I liked it. Besides sticking to Tom’s Spider-Man altruistic nature, it was a way for the audience to get some closure with the previous franchises. Anyway, doesn’t surprise me with Doc Ock. He was never really a bad guy.

The scene with Peter discovering Norman wasn’t Norman? Brilliant. The whole sequence with his sly remark about Peter’s spider sense and May sneaking to get the cure was something out of a suspense. It was a really neat and different feel for a MCU movie. 

Everything goes to crap. Poor Peter. It made sense for Green Goblin to be the main villain, but wow.

I was accidentally spoiled with May’s death when searching for the leaked Dr. Strange trailer. Why it was in that tag is beyond me, but there it was. So it didn’t shock me as much as it would had I not seen it. However, it was the manner. I admit, I had hoped it was just someone speculating when I saw that she got up after the blast. Then she says The Line, one of the best deliveries of it that I’ve heard. I thought Gobby was going to come back and strike the killing blow. But the way it happened was so much more tragic. The acting was incredible, and it was all around a hauntingly beautiful shot.

The two other Peters coming through the portals was awesome. Like, it wasn’t as epic as the Endgame scene, but still pretty sweet. There weren’t any loud cheers in my theater. What I get for not going on opening night. There were a few excited gasps for Andrew and some “woo”s for Tobey.

The Peter rooftop meeting was so nice. That’s all I can really say about it.

What I really like about all the Peters being together was how you can tell they were different from one another. There’s Tobey!Peter, who is the mature, sensible one. Then there’s Andrew!Peter, who is like a nervous bundle of energy. And of course there’s Tom!Peter, a glass half full kind of guy.

The final battle was cool. It felt like the one from Spider-Man 3, only a million times better.

Andrew!Peter saving MJ was just.....ahhh. Hit me right in the feels. It was one of the times I got close to crying during the movie. That utter sadness on his face was truly heart-wrenching. On a side note, Andrew and Zendaya have some chemistry, y’all. I’d like them to star opposite one another again in similar hero/love interest roles.

The moment where Tobey!Peter stops Tom!Peter from killing Norman was powerful stuff, man. Tom is really growing into an awesome young actor.

The “reunion” with Doc Ock and his Peter was phenomenal and warmed my ice cold heart, especially when Doc happily says, “you’re all grown up”. Wow, talk about a nostalgia trip. All the feels.

I liked the little nod to Miles Morales, and I’m a little surprised we didn’t get a cameo.

The Peter hug....oh gosh. Another warm, fuzzy moment. Those three actors have natural chemistry. Like, it’s as if they’ve been in another Spider-Man movie together.

The memory spell being done was really something else. It was another powerful scene, whether it was the exchange between Peter and Stephen or the Three Musketeers. 

The ending was so bittersweet. Peter is all alone, has moved into a rundown apartment, and has to make a new costume. But it seems very hopeful at the same time when he goes out the window. It’s a new beginning.

I don’t like the new costume. I’m sorry. I just don’t.

Technical notes

The score: understated, but pronounced at the right moments. I loved hearing the Danny Elfman Spider-Man score.

Cinematography was A.MAZ.ING. Like, seriously.

Dr. Strange

Okay, so I absolutely loved seeing more dynamics out of Stephen Strange in this movie. We got to see him be more emotionally inclined, which hasn’t been seen since, really, his introduction. He knew what Peter was going through in sacrificing happiness and a personal life. I can tell that will have a significant role in Multiverse of Madness. He also looked upset when Peter finally agreed to do the original spell.  Well done, Ben.

I’m really hoping that Christine will play a bigger part in MoM than just that wedding scene and being a short spot of Stephen’s man-pain. However, going by the trailer scene with him looking at the watch she gave him, it’s safe to assume she will be important. I think Stephen has done a lot of self-ruminating about his choices and thinking more about having a personal life.

Overall, what an awesome, awesome film....It is easily in my top 3 for Marvel movies. I definitely want to watch it again in theaters.

[letseat-eorzea]

Open Book Day: Thaliak’s Codex

[ hosted by the wonderful @thaliakscodex​ ! ] Howdy y’all! Heavens to Betsy, what a day it’s been! I finally got some time ta head out and get some good tucker. When I told the boys at the guild I was headin’ to Thaliak’s Codex, ‘Buki and ‘Boha jumped at the chance to make me get em’ some books, so it wasn’t all eatin’ and sleepin’! I was a lil’ nervous to head inside, but the promise of some good food was a mighty fine lure.

When I walked on inside, the kind staffers pointed me toward the cafe. It’s a good thing, too! I got all lost lookin’ at the decor. It was as pretty as a peach!

The kind Viera darlin’ at the counter gave me a menu. Everythin’ looked so good! It was real tough to decide on somethin’ to eat. ‘Course, I ended up choosin’ the special for the day: Macarons n’ Chai tea. It was as delicious as it sounds! I was full as a tick! If ya ever visit, I recommend it with all ma heart. Can’t wait to try the rest o’ their menu on my next visit! After eatin’ I realised I hadn’t paid! Gave the girlie and m’self a good fright. Bless her heart! With my eatin’ done, and my stomach all satisfied, it was time to go get those books fer the boys.

I had a good look around.

I managed to get ‘Boha a book named “Nine Gobbiebooms”. He said it was a great lil’ book he’d been wantin’ a while. ‘Buki jumped in all antsy after he asked me for it, though, I’m not sure why! Said he wanted a book too; and to surprise him. Well, little known, but I’m the master of surprisin’! I got the Gobbie book easy enough, even if I had to ask for a hand. I’m awful short, y’see. I couldn’t reach the shelf. Thankfully a kindly miqo’te helped me out, though, it was a bit tall for em’ too! Thank ya, Delina! Gettin’ a book for ‘Buki was awful tough. I was browsin’ the shelves for somethin’ I hadn’t seen on his before, but I had no luck... I was stumped! A tall young man came to help me out. He surprised me a lil’! Turns out all the proper magic mcguffins’re all locked up and need a permit! I had a real bee in my bonnet that the boys didn’t tell me, but that’s the pits! He gave me a book I (thankfully) hadn’t seen before. I figured ‘Buki could use it for teachin’ the younguns. Maybe next time I’ll ask him to gimme one of those permit-thingies. All the same, thank ya, Nhe’a!

With all my eatin’ and shoppin’ done, I was all tuckered out! I had a good look ‘round their upper floor before I left. Couldn’t hurt, right? They had some kinda big bird... figure. Toy? I dunno! But it was mighty scary! Taller than three of me combined, I say! I didn’t bring enough to get my own lil’ antique, but maybe next time, right?

Before I knew it, it was closin’ time. It really flew by! I’ll be damned if I didn’t enjoy every minute of it. If ya need a good book, or just wanna relax, Thaliak’s Codex is the place ta be! I could give them nothin’ but a 10/10 on all fronts! The staff were super kind n’ ready to help out, and there was all sorts’a novels! I could browse em’ til’ the cows come home! I’ll be sure to visit again, an’ I’m hopin’ to see some of y’all next visit too! That’s all fer now! I’ve got some books to deliver. I’m sure ‘Buki and ‘Boha are waitin’ for me back at the guild. Signin’ off, Nonobu ♪

[kharonion]

20 OTP Questions

I saw this floating ‘round the river bend, and I felt like tackling it! I thought about which I wanted to do... and I decided on the Infernout FO3AU husbands! They’re so different from my other OTPs, and I need any excuse to keep fleshing them out!

1. Who can outdrink the other?

Charon, definitely, between his bulking frame and relatively high tolerance. Though, after his battle with alcoholism upon his return from Anchorage, he’s eased up considerably.

2. Who says “I love you” more?

Even though they are married, those are still words that they both sometimes fumble over like teenagers, as if they still can’t believe they have found the other. They choose to show love over saying it, though when they decide to say it, it’s fairly even who does.

3. Who has trouble sleeping alone?

Gob, not at all helped by his fear of being alone in the dark. Especially now that he and Charon live together, he tends to be clingy at night.

4. Who swears more?

Charon has the mouth of a good few sailors. Gob is able to stop himself most of the time.

5. Who does more of the housework?

They split the housework evenly. The only instance this isn’t the case is when Charon is bedridden with chronic pain, in which case, Gob more than happily takes the workload.

6. Who forgets their anniversary?

Neither. They both have that very important date ingrained.

7. Who steals the duvet in their sleep?

Charon unintentionally does, not only because he’s pretty big for the bed, but he also tends to get cold very quickly. Gob rectifies this by just clambering on top of him (unless Charon makes himself the little spoon first).

8. Who keeps the other awake at night with their snoring?

They both snore about the same. Charon, though, tends to be more obnoxiously loud because he tends to sleep on his back.

9. Who finds stray animals and begs the other to let them keep them?

Neither of them are big on having pets, but Gob--the big heart he is--is the one to go out of his way to help strays first.

10. Who usually makes dinner?

Charon is the designated chef of the house. Gob can’t measure spices out for shit and tends to get nervous around knives.

11. Who plays their music out loud?

They both love a good crank-it-up-and-jam session. Simply because of his exposure to loud noises both in the Army and on-stage, Charon has to turn up the volume more-so.

12. Who hogs the bathroom?

Charon tends to fall asleep in hot baths/showers... so, him.

13. Who gives the most compliments?

Both love to go on about what they love about the other, whether intentional or not. Though, in the case of some of their more intimate moments, it’s Gob.

14. Who usually starts/causes arguments between them?

This... is a toughy. When in his plummet into alcoholism, Charon was most definitely the one to start and/or cause fights. A very angry drunk by trade, topping it with the new struggles of PTSD and chronic pain only exasperated it. After his recovery and cracking down on therapy, this has toned down significantly. He’s opted more-so to hold his tongue instead, so Gob now starts the “arguments,” though they’re more spats or disagreements than anything.

15. Who isn’t afraid to embarrass the other in public?

Gob, given he’s so naturally eccentric, and Charon hate-loves it.

16. Who gives the other cringe-worthy pet names?

They each have a somewhat cringe pet name for the other: “Charbear” and “Gobbie,” respectively. Other than that, they use pretty general ones like “dear,” “babe,” etc.

17. Who fusses over the other when they get sick?

Both have a tendency to do this, but it’d have to be Gob. Taking care of Charon during and after his hospitalization definitely helped facilitate it.

18. Who finds it impossible to stay angry at the other for long?

Neither of them have the ability, at all. When it comes to being angry at one another, both the boys have the wills of wet noodles.

19. Who clings to the other for comfort when they’re sad or scared?

100% both.

20. Who is more ‘physically passionate’? (hugs, kisses, or maybe more…)

Depends on the situation. In general, Charon tends to be the more physical or touchy one. In... other, more intimate situations, though, it’s Gob, focusing entirely on worshiping Charon’s body.

[glittergummy]

Skatin' Hearts - Goblinborn Ficlet Collection - Part 3

Rollerskating had to be a good date idea, right?

Norman suggested it, but Gobby was unsure given he was good at his balance on his glider but on rolling blades? He couldn't be sure.

After a check-in and they got their roller skates, Gobby obviously picking the green neon rollerblades.

He acted like a deer in in the headlights, able to stand up and balance in place with his pupils wide as the moon.

Norman chuckled and moved to hold onto his waist, facing him as Goblin clinged to him, chittering and his ears back as he felt nervous, nuzzling under Norman's neck.

Norman kissed his forehead, petting his helmet.

"It's alright, pooka. You just need practice, c'mon, I won't let go. Let's go to the rink, yeah?"

Norman helped and held the Goblin's clawed fingers, carefully pulling him towards the rink with ease.

The poor green kept his paws on the older man, shaking like a leaf and afraid to fall as he began panting nervously.

Norman just smiled. How cute.

It would be alright though, Norman just taking it easy as he held his hands at arm's length and Goblin protested, ear flicking as he went still again, letting Norman lead him around the floor.

When they came to a stop, the little gremlin held onto Norman again, afraid of the man letting go suddenly, even though he did swore he wouldn't do such a thing.

A soft pat on the head for the Goblin as he nuzzled up into it, closing his eyes before opening the bright yellow irises, watching Norman.

"You're getting the hang of it, bugbear!"

Gobby smiled a bit, wagging his curled tail as Norman took his hands to kiss on the back, wrapping his arms around his neck as he held Gobby's waist.

"How about we try with you leading this time?"

Gobby felt a bit more confident, switching and turning slowly as Norman held his hips to manuever him, kissing the back of his neck as Gobb's pupils got wide again, ears back and blushing soft green over his scales as they stood up, giggling.

He moved his arms out, gyrating them in circles to keep his balance as he slowly moved forward with a kick of his foot, the blades rolling underneath against the smooth wooden tiles.

Gobby squealed, pleased with his achievement and spent the rest of the night holding onto Norman, skating with him.

Goblin was panting from the exercise, taking off his blades to put on his tipped jester shoes as he sat in Norman's lap, enjoying the pets and rubs as he nibbled at the human's neck, purring and vibrating.

What a fun night!