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im-not-a-l0ser · 4 months

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Part two of Another Ongoing Fic That I Need People To Encourage Me To Finish

Admittedly, this could be considered a Swedish Barbeque story more than a michie story, but it's a chapter of a michie story, so....

It's also much longer than my last one, since it essentially includes two plots.

Feedback please, I'm terrified; this is my first time writing them.

2- Trevor and Rudolph

“Mom, can I have my friend over tomorrow?” Trevor asked as soon as he saw her coming down the stairs.

“Uh, well, I suppose. But only if you’re okay with Richie’s friend being around too,” She said. Trevor looked over to his brother, who was sitting at the other end of the couch. His face was buried in his volume of Haikyuu, clearly just trying to cover his face.

“I thought you guys usually go over to Peter’s?” Trevor said. Richie cleared his throat, pulling the manga away from his face.

“It’s not Pete or Ruth,” He said quietly.

“You have other friends?” Trevor asked genuinely, even though it earned him a swat in the arm with the manga.

“Yes!”

“Who?” Richie froze and curled back into himself, opening his book back up.

“None of your business,” He grumbled.

“Well,” Their mother interrupted. “Your father has a meeting tomorrow evening, and I’ll be with Becky, so you can get some pizza or something?”

“Sounds good,” Richie said with a nod.

“Yeah, that works,” Trevor agreed.

The next day went by excruciatingly slowly.

Trevor only had his last period with Rudolph, which was an English class, and he was looking forward to it all day, and when he got there, he was so anxious.

It got worse as they walked through the halls to their lockers. Their lockers were on opposite sides of the hall, but almost directly across from each other, which meant that they could walk together, but it kind of made Trevor feel more nervous.

This would be the first time Rudolph was coming over to his house. They’d gone out— as friends, of course— before, but this was the first time they’d really be alone.

Trevor didn’t even know what to do! It’s not like he had friends over very often! He didn’t even know what Richie did with his friends, they usually hung out in his room.

That was an even more terrifying idea. Not that Trevor didn’t clean his room, he did, especially the night prior, but he didn’t know if Rudolph would think there were implications or something. He was still a bit confused at Hatchetfield culture. He was pretty good at general American stuff, but there were some things in Hatchetfield specifically that he found odd.

“Are you okay?” Rudolph asked, catching Trevor’s attention.

“Hm? Yeah… Yeah, I’m fine,” Trevor said with a nervous laugh.

“Are you sure?” He pressed. His accent made Trevor more nervous, but it was kind of pleasant.

“I’m sure,” He said with a smile. “Oh, Richie’s friend is coming over today too, so you guys might see each other, is that… okay?”

“Of course,” Rudolph responded with a smile and puff of laughter. “I don’t mind Peter. Although, Ruth is kinda…” He made a face.

Rudolph avoided Ruth at most costs. She found his accent attractive too. It made Trevor feel guilty for feeling the same way.

“But we could just go into your room.”

“Oh, well, it’s not Ruth,” Trevor said. “Or Peter. I don’t actually know who it is,” He admitted.

“Oh, alright,” Rudolph said.

“Is pizza okay? That’s what my mom said that we should get, but we could probably get something else Door Dashed if you’d prefer—”

“Pizza is great, Trevor,” Rudolph reassured. Trevor swallowed and nodded. They slowed as they stopped for their lockers. “Anything sounds great if it is with you.”

Rudolph’s quiet remark was easily covered with the sounds of people scrambling through the halls, and especially at the sound of Trevor opening his locker.

They walked to Trevor’s house in comfortable silence, filled with the sounds of nature and cars. Neither of them noticed how they’d glance at each other, or how Rudolph carefully stepped in perfect sync with Trevor, trying not to let his height give him an advantage. He’d stare down at their shoes on the sidewalk, making sure to align their step to the right distance.

When they arrived, there was an unfamiliar bike leaned against the porch. It must've belonged to Richie’s friend.

“So, uh…” Trevor said, walking up the porch steps, “What do you want to do? We didn’t really talk about it…”

“Anything you like,” Rudolph responded, unhelpfully.

“That’s not an actual answer!” Trevor huffed.

“Well,” Rudolph said, “It’s not exactly fun, but I do have some homework I need to complete. If that is alright.”

“Of course it is,” Trevor rushed to reassure. “I probably have some too. What class is yours for?”

He pushed the door open. Richie’s shoes were sitting next to the door, but those were the only additions.

“Geometry,” Rudolph responded, running his hand along the strap of his bag.

“Oh, yeah, I’m not in that,” Trevor pouted.

“Is that a problem?” Rudolph asked. “I can do it later.”

“No, it’s perfectly okay, it just means I won’t be able to help out or anything,” Trevor responded, nearly disappointed in himself.

Richie was always the one who was good at math. Trevor was good at English, and some History, but Math and Science were never really his strong suit. They must’ve split the attributes in the womb. If they weren’t twins and instead were one person, they’d probably be unstoppable.

“I am happy to just spend time with you, Trevor,” Rudolph reassured this time. “You know this. I like being your friend.”

“Right,” Trevor sighed. “I-I’m sorry. I’m not used to having people over.”

“I know,” Rudolph answered. “Is there anywhere I should put my bag?”

“Oh, right! Should we work at the table or the couch? I prefer working with something in the background, so the couch… could work better,” Trevor said, trying not to spiral in his internal debate.

“Perfect,” Rudolph said, walking over to the couch. Trevor scrambled to catch up, definitely a little frustrated and flustered in his behaviour. “You can put on whatever you like,” He said, pulling out his school work.

“Right, yes,” Trevor laughed lightly. He quickly threw on Hairspray and pulled out his own school work.

Trevor hummed along to the music as he worked, and Rudolph looked at him after every math problem with a fond smile.

Rudolph finished his short assignment first, and slipped the work into his bag. He positioned comfortably toward the tv, but kept his eyes on the focused boy next to him. He glanced at the tv every so often, but Trevor was more interesting anyway.

Eventually, Trevor finished his work too, and stuffed it into his bag, finally looking back at the boy he’d been semi-avoiding. Rudolph immediately averted his eyes, afraid he’d been caught, but the smile on his face said he wouldn’t mind if he had.

“Were you staring at me?” Trevor teased, poking Rudolph in the ribs.

“Yes,” Rudolph admitted quickly.

“What?” Trevor defaulted.

Luckily, Richie came down, saving them both from the embarrassment that would definitely come as ‘without love’ began on the tv.

“Oh, sorry to interrupt,” Richie said. “Can we order pizza now? We’re a little hungry. We have A lunch,” He said with a small laugh.

“Yeah, go ahead,” Trevor said.

“Pepperoni sausage sound good?” Richie asked, pulling his phone,”

“Yeah, sounds great. Rudy?”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Rudolph agreed.

“Either of you want pop?” Richie asked. “I’m getting an orange pop for him.” He pointed back toward the stairs, indicating his friend.

“We’ve got Dr Pepper, I’m good with that,” Trevor dismissed.

“Dr Pepper sounds good, yeah,” Rudolph agreed.

“Okay, I’ll get it ordered. Call for me when they get here— Do Not come and get me,” Richie said. Trevor and Rudolph looked at him strangely but nodded in understanding.

“We missed most of the movie,” Rudolph said as Richie walked upstairs. Trevor worried that Richie heard and would misinterpret what he said.

“I, uh, yeah,” Trevor said. “We can go back if you want.”

“No, that’s alright,” Rudolph said. “I’ve watched it before.”

“Really?” Trevor asked, lighting up.

“Of course,” He said, “You really like it. So I watched it.”

“We should watch Legally Blonde The Musical while you’re here!” Trevor chittered excitedly, “And maybe Ride The Cyclone!”

“Whatever you like,” Rudolph said.

“Wait, we should watch something you like too,” Trevor said. “Just to be fair.”

“We can watch what I like when we hang out at my house.” Trevor tried to bite back his smile as he leaned back against the couch. “Okay,” Rudolph breathed, wishing that Trevor would’ve changed trajectory and leaned toward him instead.

Once the credits began to play, there was a knock at the door.

“Richie!” Trevor called up the stairs, quickly followed by footsteps scrambling down the steps.

He ran into the kitchen and grabbed the cash off the counter before rushing to the front door.

The transaction was near silent, with the pizza deliverer simply stating the price, and then the sound of the door shutting.

“I’m putting it on the counter,” Richie called, already walking into the kitchen.

Rudolph and Trevor exchanged looks before walking, a bit awkwardly, to the kitchen.

Rudolph hadn’t really interacted much with Richie, but he knew that despite looking the same, he and Trevor were very different. Trevor was afraid something bad would happen, like he had been the whole time, simply because Rudolph was in the house. Not even mentioning Richie and his own friend, it was a lot of anxiety going around.

Richie put a couple of slices each onto two plates and struggled to hold the two plates, orange pop, and dr pepper.

“We can help bring those up if you need,” Rudolph offered. It looked like Richie could drop anything at any given moment.

“Nope, no,” Richie said with a laugh. “I can handle it alone,” He said.

“Why didn’t your friend come down to get it?” Trevor asked. “Did you just want extra pizza so made up having a friend over?”

“No!” Richie spat. “But that’s genius and I may do that in the future.”

It was clearly a joke, but also clearly something Richie would consider doing under certain circumstances.

“Enjoy your date,” Richie said before walking off.

“Whoa, what?” Trevor asked, turning to Richie’s new direction. Next to him, Rudolph laughed a little.

“He’s just teasing, Trevor, it’s okay,” He reassured. “I know that he is joking.” Trevor sighed and covered his face.

“Sorry,” He said. “Richie’s such an ass sometimes.”

“Like you aren’t,” Rudolph joked.

“Oh, shush,” Trevor said, shoving Rudolph in the arm.

“See?” He asked, motioning to Trevor’s action.

“Okay, whatever,” Trevor laughed, setting his own plate. “Get food so we can watch Legally Blonde,” He said, licking grease off his fingers.

“Hm?” Rudolph asked. “Oh, right,” He said. “You can go to the couch and set up, I’ll be out in a moment.” Trevor nodded, pulled a dr pepper from the fridge, and walked back to the living room.

Rudolph returned just as Trevor made it to the musical. He was sitting much closer this time. He leaned across Trevor to set his soda on the table next to the couch.

“Sorry,” He muttered quietly as he returned back to his spot.

“No, y-you’re fine,” Trevor said with a small laugh.

“Start the musical,” He said, motioning to the tv with his pizza.

“Right, yes.”

It was admittedly difficult for Trevor not to sing along with the music, but it was easier when his mouth was stuffed with pizza.

After a couple of times of Rudolph reaching over him, Trevor offered to grab it for him. The warmth was too much, not to mention being able to feel the form of Rudolph’s body, which was annoyingly fit and strong, especially when Trevor compared it to his own, slightly pathetic thespian body.

It was when they got to So Much Better that they heard a song coming from the bathroom. Something Japanese, which pretty much confirmed that it was Richie’s phone.

“Did Richie leave his phone in there?” Trevor asked, getting up.

“Maybe,” Rudolph said, following though he didn’t need to.

They followed the sound and found his phone under the pizza box. It was just an alarm for him to do his homework, so Trevor hit snooze.

“I guess we should… give this back then,” He said with a small laugh. “I mean, I can go by myself, you don’t need to come.”

“Well, if I don’t, I’ll just be sitting bored on the couch, so.”

Trevor rolled his eyes, but allowed Rudolph to follow him upstairs to Richie’s bedroom.

There was music coming from his bedroom too, which Trevor recognised as the theme song to… an anime. He couldn’t remember, but he knew that it wasn’t BabyMetal, which was the music playing for the alarm.

He knocked on the door, but there was no response. He sighed and pushed the door open.

“I got your pho… ne,” He said, trailing off once he saw what was happening.

Richie was with someone as he said, their empty plates sitting on his messy sidetable. His laptop, which was playing an anime, sat at the end of his bed, threatening to fall.

Behind the laptop was Richie, with a large guy underneath him. Rudolph covered his mouth in shock. The guy and Richie didn’t seem to notice the pair in the doorway.

The alarm sounded again. Richie’s head flicked up before he rolled them both off the bed and popped up from the other side, leaving the other guy on the floor.

“Oh, hey, my phone!” He exclaimed. Trevor stepped closer, to which Richie wildly motioned for him to stop. “Nope, no, I got it!” He said, climbing over his bed. He grabbed his phone and shut the alarm off. “You guys can go now!”

“Was that Max Jagerman?” Rudolph suddenly asked, his voice slightly muffled under the hand covering his mouth, but he’d let a gap form between his lips and palm.

Trevor laughed at the question. No way in hell would Max Jagerman be in Richie’s bedroom, especially underneath Richie, attached at the lip and… elsewhere.

“Whaaaa— No!” Richie exclaimed, lying terribly.

“Holy shit, no way,” Trevor blurted, stomping over, followed by his friend and brother.

The three of them hovered over Max, who was still laying on the floor. His arms were crossed awkwardly, his legs bent upward over his hips to cover his vulnerable parts from Richie’s somewhat protective brother.

“Uh,” Max hesitated. “Hey,” He said with a nervous laugh, waving slightly. Richie sighed and reached his hand out for Max, who took it, but essentially just lifted himself up alone.

“Are you okay? I didn’t warn you or anything—”

“I’m fine, you dork,” Max scoffed, ruffling his boyfriend(?)’s hair.

“What…” Trevor breathed. He ran his hands from the bridge of his nose up through his hair. “H-How long has this been going on?”

“Uh,” Richie hesitated. “A while? I-It doesn’t matter,” He said with a nervous laugh. “But hey, you can’t yell at me, it’s not like you told me about your not-so-little boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” Trevor nearly shrieked. “Don’t change the subject! You’re dating a literal monster!”

“He’s not like that anymore,” Richie argued, “And you didn’t seem to ever have a problem lusting over Edward Cullen or Jacob Black! And those are actual literal monsters!”

“Except they’re not, because they’re fictional characters.”

“I’m just saying, you have no right to judge me having a boyfriend who used to bully people,” Richie asserted, gripping Max’s hand with both of his own.

Max squeezed his hand back, feeling his anxiety.

“Richie, you really don’t see anything wrong with dating a guy who harassed you every day sophomore year?” Trevor urged. “What do you think is going to happen when you’re committed? You think he’s not going to turn bad again?”

“Trevor,” Richie muttered. “We’ve been dating a really long time.”

“We’re already committed,” Max confirmed. “I am, at least.” Richie and Max smiled at each other. “I don’t want to be with anyone else ever again.”

Richie smiled and rested his forehead against Max’s chest.

“Richie,” Trevor asserted. “You’re going to get hurt.”

“Then I’m going to get hurt,” Richie said, turning his head. “The moment you see any sign that Max is hurting me— emotionally, physically, whatever— you have every right to step in. You have my permission to object. Before that happens? No. You don’t get to say shit about my relationship. Max and I have overcome what we used to be, and now we make each other happy. Whatever we were before doesn’t matter, okay?”

Trevor was tense for a moment, but eventually groaned in defeat.

“Fine,” He grumbled. “Whatever. But you have to stop joking about Rudy and me dating. We’re just friends.” His voice got quieter as he continued, wanting Rudolph to interrupt him and object. It hurt to say.

Richie got to be with the boy he liked, a boy he had to overcome a terrible relationship with once, and now didn’t. And Trevor couldn’t even get with a boy who loved spending time with him.

“Fine,” Richie agreed.

They both sat in the moment, breathing out the tension before Trevor and Rudolph left the room, leaving the couple alone again.

Trevor and Rudolph took their seats again, this time with Rudolph many more inches away from Trevor.

Rudolph didn’t say anything for the rest of Legally Blonde. He didn’t even look at Trevor, even when Trevor sang along to the music.

Rudolph looked upset during Take It Like A Man, like he couldn’t breathe, or didn’t want to.

Trevor didn’t want to bother him.

By the end though, Rudolph’s demeanour didn’t look too much better. He looked broken.

Trevor turned off the show as soon as the finale song was finished.

They sat in silence for a moment, which felt like so long.

“Did you like it?” Trevor asked.

“Yeah,” Rudolph said, leaning down to grab his backpack. “I should get home soon.”

“Uh… are you—”

“I had a good time today,” He said, finally looking at Trevor with a bittersweet smile.

“Hey, what’s—”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” He said before walking away, slamming the door probably more agressively than he intended.

Trevor put on some random video that he’d seen before, sitting with his knees bent up, Rudolph’s can clutched between his hands.

He flicked the tab down before, hearing the ‘twing, twing, twing’ that came with it as his head rushed through many ideas, anxieties and fears regarding why Rudolph left so fast.

Unfortunately, the one he settled on was that… Rudolph might’ve been homophobic.

Later, when Max and Richie left their room, they noticed his unhappy demeanor.

“Hey,” Richie said, confused.

“Where’s Rudolph?” Max asked, voicing Richie’s curiosity.

“He left,” Trevor said. “Little while ago.”

“Why?” Max asked, earning a small shove from Richie.

“Dunno.”

“Hm,” Richie hummed. “You really have no idea?” He asked, like he had any clue.

“Yeah, shut your mouth, Richie,” Trevor muttered.

“Yeah, you’re hopeless,” Richie remarked before leading Max out the door.

Trevor went on autopilot the rest of the night, the fear of Rudolph hating him for being queer invading every thought he had.

He was afraid the next day when Rudolph seemed to avoid him.

But he was still at their regular seat at lunch. They always sat together. Since Rudolph first arrived. He just needed a place to sit, and there was a free space.

More than one, actually. Trevor sat alone most days, since Caitlyn flitted from table to table.

Rudolph was sitting with his headphones on, poking at the Hatchetfield food with his fork.

“Hey,” Trevor said with a nervous smile as he sat down next to him. Rudolph nodded politely. “Hey, c’mon, Rudy…” Trevor pulled Rudolph’s headphones down. “What’s wrong? Did I… Did I do something?” He leaned a little closer. “Does it have to do with Richie?”

“No,” Rudolph said, pushing Trevor back with his finger. “I’m just tired.”

“Rudy…”

“Please stop calling me that,” He requested. “It makes me feel like a child. I am not your child.”

“I did something. Tell me what I did, let me fix it.”

Rudolph stayed silent. He stood up, scaring Trevor that much more.

“Come on,” He said, motioning for Trevor to follow.

He did, both excited and anxious, wondering if he was going to be hurt or if they were just going to talk.

Rudolph led him to the auditorium. It was usually quiet. The only time it wasn’t was when Band class was going on backstage, which was only in the morning during the offseason.

They sat on the edge of the stage, letting their legs dangle off.

“Okay,” Rudolph breathed.

“Okay,” Trevor responded with a smile. “Okay, tell me what I did wrong. Tell me how to fix it.”

“Does it… rebel you so much? The idea of being with me? Is really so bad that it… makes you want to scream like that?”

Trevor paused.

“What?”

“You just… got so angry with Richie…” Rudolph always pronounced Richie’s name as if there was a T in the middle of it. “... whenever he joked about us dating. And I know that we are not dating. But you…” He cleared his throat. “You are so beautiful. And passionate and wonderful to be around. So last night, I had this… this stupid flicker of hope that you would. I don’t know. Do something? Something not friendly. Something like Richie and Max. Elle and Emmette. I thought maybe you wanted that too. And y-you had to know. How I feel. But I suppose that didn’t mean you’d feel the same way.”

“Rudy,” Trevor said. “U-Uh, Rudolph,” He replaced. “I didn’t know. That you liked me. I-I wasn’t even sure if you liked me platonically. Especially after you left. The idea of you liking me, th-the way that… I like you was far too good to be true. Too good to indulge the thought of.”

“Trevor,” Rudolph said, turning his body to face him. “Who wouldn’t love you?”

“No one as good as you.”

“I hope that means I haven’t got competition,” Rudolph said, earning a small giggle from Trevor.

“You don’t,” Trevor said, taking Rudolph’s hand, hesitating for a moment when he realised how much bigger they were than his own.

“I’d… really like to kiss you right now, vackra,” Rudolph said. “I wanted to kiss you yesterday. And most days once I got to know you.”

“I guess you’ve got to make up for lost time then,” Trevor replied.

And he did.

Rudolph finally kissed Trevor the way they’d both wanted to for so long.

(Later, Rudolph visits the Lipschitz house again and Richie walks downstairs as they kissed gently on the couch. He remarked about how they totally weren’t dating before leaving the room. Neither of them cared enough to tell him off or explain how things changed. It was just so nice to have each other for real now.)

#nerdy prudes must die #starkid #richie lipschitz #max jagerman #michie #rudolph npmd #trevor lipschitz #swedish barbeque

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juicywritinghoard · 1 year

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Setting Prompts

A. Something about this place screams “probably not haunted but don’t stick around to find out”.

B. Thank you for taking me to the aquarium for my birthday. I am gonna be a freak in the gift shop about it.

C. Nothing at this carnival is going to cheer me up so don’t even try. Except…

D. You cannot keep making secret agent music with your mouth if you don’t want to get us arrested. I can fill golf course holes with cement without you.

E. Admittedly this was a bad place for a picnic, but on the other hand, I’m having a great time and no regrets.

F. Oh god, oh Jesus, what is that?? Oh, just a bunny. OH NO OH HELP WHAT IS THAT-

G. This real estate is giving mad Hansel and Gretel vibes rn and I will lick the walls if no one stops me?

H. Okay, while they do actual serious errands, our goal is to find a collection of objects under fifty dollars that will definitely, absolutely implicate us in a premeditated murder. And…break!

I. Nothing says “let’s get ice cream” like baseball sized hail.

J. If you don’t want to get in trouble for playing hide and seek in the fancy department store, you gotta hide better, duh.

K. I’m sorry I spilled nacho cheese in the jewelry store. It might happen again.

L. I’m having a crisis in the craft store. Again.

M. No, I’m not going to sell you this fish. Please leave the store.

N. So it was just supposed to be a little funny ha-ha joke but we put [counts on fingers] like quadruple the appropriate amount of bubble bath in the fountain…

O. I refuse to have some kind of epiphany about this divine experience. I did not ask to be awake at dawn and I would not be awake at dawn if I had a choice about it.

P. So you know how you were like, no way is it possible to fill a pool with Jello? Well,

Q. No, sorry, I’ve been banned from the candy store. Yep. And the bookstore. Uhuh. I’m really sorry, I have also been banned from-

R. Call back later, I’m spending my life savings in the arcade. No, I promise I’m being so normal about it. This has nothing to do with my child enemy. No, no, I promise!

S. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with a little dumpster diving. Just be less stupid about it maybe?

T. I’m afraid of heights, is the problem? Which I was not aware of until I got up here.

U. Oh man, I want to join their backyard barbeque so bad. Do you think I can pass for a cousin? Surely they don’t know all their cousins. Look at all the fun they’re having, oh man…

V. I didn’t expect the world to end in the coffee shop, but here I am…

W. You keep asking why I’m wet and not how was the sea? Was the sea fun? Did you meet a mermaid and join a mermaid party and almost drown? No, I don’t want to talk about it now.

X. Admittedly my coworkers don’t suck, it’s just the job that’s cuckoo banana-nut-muffins bonkers insane.

Y. Why do I feel like this place is so fancy, they’re gonna hand me a receipt for the air I breathed while I was here?

Z. Hurry up and figure things out, before I get fired from a second morgue. Please?

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peterparkers-bad-youtube-apology · 2 years

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Hello!I have a summer prompt request if you don't mind. Can you do prompt 96 with the characters Peter Paker? I don't know, Peter sounds like someone who would be scared to swim Ina pool or ocean... since he's a spider and all and spiders don't do well in water? Thank you for reading this and I hope you have a great summer!

Okay love here you are! It was funny writing for me because I'm scared of water so like I would be Peter in this scenario lol. Anyways I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think and as always reblogs and feedback are greatly appreciated, love you xx

Can’t Swim

96 - "I can't, I don't know how to swim."

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Warnings: Mentions of fear

Summary: Peter is embarrassed to tell you that he can't swim

Regular Masterlist

Summer of Love Prompts

Summer of Love Masterlist

⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

A heat wave had struck New York, bringing blazing hot temperatures that you were almost certain you wouldn’t survive. You were desperate to find some way too cool off but every local pool and swimming spot was so packed you wouldn’t even be able to make it into the water. Luckily though, you had an aunt in Jersey with a large pool in her backyard. It was a bit of a drive but after talking to Peter and some of your friends you all agreed it was worth it. Wednesday was slated to be the peak of the heatwave so you decided that would be the best day for you to go. Your aunt agreed to let you all over while she was at work, promising to even barbeque for you all once she got home. In your mind it was going to be a perfect day, and everyone seemed just as excited as you were to be there. FInally laying eyes on the pool felt like spotting an oasis in the middle of the desert.

“I am so excited,” you squeezed Peter’s arm as you tossed your towel down onto one of your aunt's lawn chairs, “It’s gonna feel so great in there.”

Peter nodded in agreement and set his towel down beside yours, “I’m sure it’ll feel great.”

“I know it will,” you kissed his cheek before tossing your shoes off. You squealed suddenly as your feet hit the hot pavement, “Shit, the pavement feels like fire, I gotta get in P,” you ran for the edge of the pool, jumping right into the deepest part of the pool.

Peter held his breath while he watched you disappear under the water. You bobbed up just a second later with a big smile on your face, you swept your hair out of your face while you urged your friends to come join you.

“You good?” MJ raised a brow at Peter, noticing how apprehensive he was to move anywhere near the pool.

He nodded, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be fine,” he assured.

“Alright, well I’m getting in, but take some time if you need it,” she patted his back before pacing over to the edge of the pool.

You taunted her for a minute before she jumped in beside you and you started splashing water at each other. Ned and Betty opted to get in the more shallow end first and swim over to you. Peter still hadn’t moved from the lawn chair.

“Peter,” you called his name sweetly and waved over to him, “Come on, aren’t you gonna get in?”

He swallowed and nodded, ‘Yeah, coming,” he walked up to the edge of the pool and stopped right at the edge, “You know I think I’ll just hang out here for a little bit actually, we just ate a little bit ago,” he explained, “I don’t wanna cramp or something.”

Your lips tugged to a pout as you waded towards him, “Okay, but you should at least dip your feet in, it’s like a million degrees out.”

“R-Right,” he cleared his throat before nervously sitting on the ledge of the pool, he shivered as his legs hit the water, “Yeah, that’s nice.”

“So nice,” you agreed, crossing your arms over his lap, “Love you.”

“I love you too,” he smiled down at you, his nerves starting to ease just a bit.

You grabbed the edge of the pool and pushed yourself up with puckered lips. Peter leaned down to give you a quick peck.

You pushed off the wall, gliding back over towards your friends, “You guys wanna play some games or something?”

Betty was quick to nod along, “We should have a chicken fight, oh, oh, or shark and minnows?”

“A chicken fight would be fun,” you turned to MJ, “We’d totally kick their asses.”

MJ nodded in agreement, “Yeah you guys wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“Oh you’re so on,” Betty grinned.

Peter watched from the edge of the pool while MJ hoisted you onto her shoulders and you and Betty began to try and push each other over. All of you were laughing and yelling and splashing each other, it looked fun, but Peter was content to just watch. He laughed harder than anyone when you wobbled off of MJ’s shoulders and both of you fell into the water. Betty and Ned cheered and high fived while the two of you began demanding a rematch.

After your second loss you and MJ began to turn on each other, both of you claiming that the other hadn’t done their job properly.

“If I was on Peter’s shoulders I totally would have won,” you argued, turning suddenly to your boyfriend, “Right Peter?”

He blushed, “I-I don’t know.”

“Well come over here, we can try,” you flashed him your best puppy dog eyes, “It’ll be fun.”

“Uh,” he could feel his cheeks burning while he wracked his mind for some kind of an excuse, “You know that’s okay, I’m actually really comfy here. I-It’s more fun watching you guys anyway.”

You knit your brows for a second before nodding, “Okay, but later, after Peter gets in, I’m gonna wreck you guys,” you threatened.

It continued like that for a while, with you all splashing around and playing various games. You tried a few more times to get Peter in the water but he continued to tell you that he was fine just watching. You tried not to show it but you were disappointed. You’d never gone swimming with Peter, and you were excited to spend the day in the water with him. He’d seem excited too, but now he was refusing to leave the edge of the pool. Everyone was getting ready for a round of Marco Polo when you swam over to him and decided to try once more to get him in the water with you.

“Hi,” you crossed your arms over his lap and smiled up at him.

“Hi,” he smiled back.

“You should come play with us,” you drew small shapes on his thigh while you spoke, “It’ll be fun,” you sang.

“That’s okay, I like watching,” he gave you the same answer he’d been giving you all day.

You knew Peter well enough to know when something was wrong with him. You had no idea what was going on though, as far as you knew you hadn’t upset him, but maybe that was it. Maybe something had rubbed him the wrong way and he just wasn’t in the mood to be around you, but that wasn’t very Peter like. He was always quick to bring up issues and talk them out, and even during his alone time he liked having you there with him. Plus he had been his normal, happy self all morning, things had only changed after you got into the pool.

“Peter?” your lips suddenly fell to a frown, “Are you okay?”

His cheeks flushed again, “Of course I’m okay.”

“Really? Because you’ve been acting weird since we got out here.”

“I’m fine,” he insisted, “I’m totally fine, don’t worry about me alright? I don’t wanna hold up your fun.”

“But if you’re not having fun we can do something else,” you pursed your lips.

“I am having fun,” he brushed some of your wet hair away from your face. He hated the idea of you missing out because of him. Sure he would have liked to have fun with you all, but he didn’t mind sitting and watching as long as you were having a good time. “I think everyone’s waiting on you to start the game.”

You let out a shallow sigh before covering your eyes with one of your hands and turning around, “Marco!”

You waded around the pool in search of your friends, all of them trying to throw their voice and knock you off their trail. It was fine at first, Peter sat back and laughed while he watched you struggle to chase after Betty. It wasn’t until you ran into one of the pool railings that he started to have an issue with the game. While the small event had caused everyone else, even you, to burst into laughter, it worried Peter. It hit him all at once and suddenly he couldn’t believe how calm he’d been previously. Wandering around a pool with your eyes closed was dangerous. You could hurt yourself, hit your head and slip right into the water, and then what would Peter do? Normally he had the confidence that he could save you from anything, protect you from any threat that presented itself, but he wasn’t sure he could at the moment. What if he froze up as soon as he hit the water? What if you drowned? What if he didn’t freeze up but you hit your head on the cement pool ledge and bled out? It all started to play out in his head like some sort of horror movie.

“Uh, Peter?” Ned raised a brow at his friend, noticing how intensely focused he was on you, “Are you okay?”

Peter snapped back to reality in a second, “Uh, yeah,” he forced himself to nod as he dragged his eyes away from you, “I am totally cool, just thirty, like really thirsty. I should probably go get some water,” he laughed awkwardly, “Anyone else want anything?”

Everyone had turned to look at him. Ned and MJ seemed to have some idea as to what was going on, but you and Betty both looked puzzled. When no one answered he pushed himself up and went pacing into the house.

“I’m gonna go with him,” you declared as you swam towards the edge of the pool.

You ran back to your shoes and pulled your towel around yourself while you chased him inside. Peter had gone straight to the kitchen and began guzzling water, hoping it would calm his shot nerves.

“Peter?” you raised a brow while you watched him down a glass of water.

“Hey,” he slammed the glass down on the counter with a forced smile, “W-What are you doing in here?”

“Checking on you,” you crossed your arms, “Was there some sort of emergency or..?”

“No,” he pushed his hand through his hair, hoping to seem casual, “Just dehydrated.”

“Peter come on,” you sighed, “I know somethings going on, you’re not a very good liar.”

“I just want you to have fun today, I don’t want you to have to worry about me.”

“Peter I don’t want to have fun if you’re not okay,” you took his hands in yours, “Will you please just tell me what’s going on? If you’re upset about something we can talk about it. I don’t really know if I did something or-”

“What? No, (y/n),” he groaned, “I am not upset with you, not at all.”

“Well what’s going on then?” you pressed, “You seemed excited for this all week, what changed?”

“I was excited, I am excited,” he let out a frustrated sigh, “I-It’s just…” he trailed off for a second, “I really want to get in there with you and have fun with everyone, but I can’t, I don’t know how to swim,” he stared at you like he’d just admitted some sort of awful secret.

“You can’t swim?” you raised a brow, “Like you never learned how?”

His cheeks were burning hot and bright red, “No, I learned when I was younger, I just can’t anymore. There’s just been a few times when I’ve got caught up underwater, Spiderman stuff you know? I had this really close call, I got stuck under all this debris and I almost blacked out. Every time I’ve gotten in the water since then I’ve just sort of froze…”

“Peter…” you frowned and set your hand on his arm, “You could have just told me, I wouldn’t have planned this whole thing if I knew.”

“I don’t want you to not do the things you like because of me though,” he leaned back on one of the counters and ran his hand through his hair, “Plus it’s sort of.. You know… Embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing?” you knit your brows, “It’s not embarrassing Peter, you’re a hero, you save lives and you put yourself in danger for the sake of others all the time,” you wrapped your arms around his waist, “It is totally understandable for you to have some trauma from that, and it’s nothing to be embarrassed about, especially when you’re talking to me. I’m your girlfriend Peter, it’s my job to take care of you and help you with that stuff. Please don’t ever feel embarrassed to tell me about this stuff.”

The corners of his lips threatened to tug to a smile as he leaned in and kissed your head, “I should have told you about the water stuff before, you just seemed so excited. I thought maybe I’d feel better after we got here or something.”

“Yeah but I can always just go swimming when you and I aren’t hanging out. I’d rather do something we both like when we’re together,” you hummed, “I promise I won’t drag you out swimming again. I’m sorry about today.”

“I love you,” he pecked your lips quickly, “And you don’t have to be sorry, you didn’t know. I still had fun anyway, I like seeing you all have fun, and even just sitting on the edge is nice for the heat.”

“And we’re gonna have a little barbeque later, that’ll be fun too,” you laid your head against his chest, “I love you too by the way.”

He pressed his lips to the top of your head, “I love you more.”

You hummed, “I love you most.”

⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

Taglist:

@spideyssunshine @spideyspeaches @niallsvirgosun @namoreno @roseke @collywobbl @thevery-firstpage @zspideyy @emistrash @andreagf956 @tomsirishgirlx @peachyafshawn @agbspidey @nj01 @sleepybesson @misshale21 @prancerrparkerr @raajali3 @ellabellabus07 @mayal0pez @xoxomaterialgirl @minjix @inthegetawaycarwithtaylah @blankspaceblankday @holyhumorliteraturelight @graciexmarvel @edgycatx @secretsthathauntus @kbakery @negasonic-teenage-asshole @lnmp89 @mcushvft @maytemurillo @liltimmyst @gloomynigvts @cest-la-vieve @itscaminow @katiaw2 @afro-hipswriter @chrissybang @plshie @book-lover20 @hem-lemon @princessria127

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haikyuu-and-more-haikyuu · 2 months

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Valentine HC

So there is like one hour of valentine's day here were I live, so let's do some HC just because...(i actually think valentine is a stupid thing, mostly because it's just not so big here; but stores tries to push it). I have been single for my 25 years of life, but I often give gift's to my bff's. Like small stuff; like a little chocolate and some homemade shit they can hang on their wall or something. Just to make them feel a little more loved. Hope you all had a great day and that your week will continue in that manner <3

Sugawara x Sawamura: Depend on year to year. Since Daichi is a cop, he will sometimes have a shift in the late evening or night, so they can't be doing much. If Daichi is stuck at work; he will call a flower shop and make them deliver a bouquet to their home so Sugawara would be met with a gift when he comes home. Sugawara can't send flowers to the station, but he packs a hefty lunchbox and does the extra stuff as to make heart shaped rice balls and send a note with. He will also have dinner ready or at least a plate that Daichi can reheat if he comes back really late. If they have the evening off, they just order in food and dessert and just enjoy themselves. If they feel like it, they go out and take dinner at a barbeque restaurant and maybe go to a bathhouse.

Yamaguchi x Tsukishima Also depends if either of them have work or not. The museum closes earlier than the office Yamaguchi works at (if it's not holiday period with more tourists). But they usually just go out to eat and maybe catch a movie if they see anything that interest them. If they can't make the time cut, Tsukishima will drive over to Yamaguchi's work, if he is stuck at the office, and he would of course already have picked up some burger and fires ( so they will become soft when they arrive home). Yamaguchi, if he knows Tsukishima will be stuck working longer hours, he will also pick him up and have bought a store-bought cake they can share. They have been friends since childhood, they don't want or expect the other to give anything bigger than some food that they can share.

Kageyama x Hinata Both are athletes and busy. Sometimes they have late practice, sometimes they are out traveling with their sparte team, sometimes they are together, but still busy. I think neither of them would do too much. Maybe Hinata will buy a box of the jelly energy drinks Kageyama likes to have. Kageyama would probably do a similar favour back and buy him a pack of energy bars he could just stuff in his bag and have something to-go when he needs it. I do think they would both have tried at one point ot do something more romantic; but it wasn't for them and they have time for regular date night throughout the year - so they 'dont 'stress it too much. If they have time though, they make a heartly meal together and give each other massages.

Kuroo x Kenma Both of them are busy. Kenma has a yearly stream for his viewers on valentines. It doesn't take too long, but it's something to prepare too. Kuroo is busy with work as usual, but they both make sure to have the evening for just the two of them. They take a drive to disconnect for a few hours and just pics a place to eat dinner on the road. Sometimes it's ramen, sometimes its a hot-pot place, sometimes it's McDonnel's. Sometimes they drive to a desser cafe and then to start talking until they closes and are forced to leave whatever place they decide. They have a rule to not buy a gifts, but if either see the other lacking something; they just sneak it in on that day as an extra specialty.

Tanaka x Kiyoko Tanaka was very nervous the first real valentine they had as a couple. He and Noya had tired to brainstorm some ideas he could do to treat Kiyoko, but they all seemed to extravagant or to little. Kiyoko, the first year, just shoved up with some chocolate. As in Japan's, on valentine day; girls give chocolate to the guys. And a month late, the guys give chocolate back on white day (14th of March). So Tanaka of course gave chocolate back when it was time. They still stuck with the tradition, but also have a date night at a restaurant and just take a walk through the city centre. Tanaka tried to act though, but it doesn't take much for Kyoko to make him stumble over his words. Kiyoko also tries to act cool, but one romantic gesture from Tanaka have her blushing all over the place.

Iwaizumi x Oikawa They didn't get together until a few years after high school. Plus Oikawa plays for Argentina and Iwaizumi coaches the Japan's Men's volleyball team. So there's a hurdle. If they can make time and the time zones doesn't mess them up too much, they skype call for hours. If they, by miracle: is near each other, they have this weird way of rivalry since they support different teams and will often tease and goad on each other. They know it's just for fun. But when evening comes; they can always be seen walking the same path home. Oikawa one year sent Iwaizumi some money with the message to just buy himself a gift. And this started a tradition. They send over a small amount of money with the massage to just buy themselves a steam bun or a bar of cholate or some extra stuff they want with the massages to take care.

Ushijima x Tendou Ushijima is a very practical person and Tendou is literally a chocolatier in Paris. So they face some of the same problems Iwaizumi and Oikawa have. Tendou makes batch of his finest chocolate that Ushijima likes and sends it over with express delivery so it will arrive around valentines day. I feel like Ushijima is the kind of guy that likes those confectionary chocolates with nuts in them. Ushijima doesn't really understand the in's and out's of this day. He did receive more than enough confession and chocolate in school; but he never really cared about that. At the start, he didn't feel like he could give a chocolate-maker some cholate as a gift. Maybe it would have been too much. Doing something else out of the norm, made him feel like he didn't care enough. Now that he knows the people Tendou works with; he makes a deal that they go out and buy some flowers for him and a gift card on an eastern Asian themed restaurant that they go together when he is visiting paris. Tendou always appreciates it, especially since he misses Japan from time to time.

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mxnzies · 7 months

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NPMD thoughts! (SPOILERS UNDER CUT)

oh my god. the jump in quality from the digital ticket to the actual edited version is INCREDIBLE. fucking LOVED the details of costumes, the set, the lighting, the writing on the panels... everything was fantastic! starkid has come such a long way and it was incredible to see the seats filled for the show in the edited version!!!

spoiler thoughts, would love to hear what other people thought! warning for rambling and a lot of caps and excessive punctuation since i can't control my emo-shuns after watching a starkid show, as always 🤪

i was really hoping for the boy jerri/girl jerri moment AND the coffee shop bloopers from the digital ticket to be in this one, but every performance is unique and i'm glad we got to experience the new hatchet-town cameos!

GERALD AND ZIGS AND MAN IN A HURRY (JEFF CAMEO!!!!!) MY BELOVEDS <3

speaking of, i hope the bonus features include bts from the night where the power went out!

high school is killing me is STUCK IN MY HEAD

dirty girl was so fucking good HD. INCREDIBLE

sadly i really wanted some wider shots, especially when everyone was onstage and particularly during the lords in black scene - though it was AMAZING to see the details up close since from the digital ticket we couldn't really see what was happening.

THE SCREAMING WHEN JON STARTED TALKING AS WIGGLY... ME TOO!!!

fucking ADORE the "show me your hands" theme playing with curt's cop, and the "inevitable" piano playing when paul and emma were in Beanies. THEY'RE SO CUTE but it makes me sad BUT FOREVER AND ALWAYS RIGHT <3

also the nightmare time theme during the interval!!!

one thing i really miss about these new starkid recordings is that we don't get the stage bows :( i would have absolutely loved if they did something akin to TGWDLM in black friday and NPMD, where the credits roll over the footage of the cast bowing and the claps! the bows at the end of a show are always so fun, it's a great moment of catharsis for everyone and seeing the cast smiling and happy is something i missed here. ESPECIALLY WITH THE ENERGY IN THE HOMECOMING DANCE

will can STEP ON ME as Max. he's so meta and plays the part so well! apparently the role was rumoured to possibly be Jeff's but I'm so glad Will was Max. we needed the fresh blood onstage in the hatchetverse!

it's so incredible Bryce was able to perform onstage and that Jae got a cameo! HELL YES TO THE NIGHTMARE TIME GANG <3

really wish bryce and kim had bigger roles in this musical, especially bryce as before the digital ticket came out starkid hyped her up so much on the socials. BUT SHE NAILED HER VOCALS and when everyone started screaming/applauding when she hit That Note!!!!! YES!!!!!!

love how we can make comments on the recording, seeing everyone so hyped about the show and loving the show is so affirming! i hope everyone who worked on the show is feeling the love!

i still don't really understand the barbeque monologues and feel they're a bit out of place, maybe because it's an american school musical thing?? but lauren fucking owned it!

kim screaming after ruth died. GET IT SLAY ME WITH YOUR RANGE MAAM

compared to my first impressions from the digital ticket, this is a huge step up. some songs were a bit hit or miss, but man i was crying at the end about peter and steph. love how, like the other two hatchetverse musicals, the ending note was fucked up! that being said tho i am keen for starkid to move onto another potential parody OR a new IP outside of the hatchetverse. i'm super keen to see what the future holds for the company! it's absolutely on my bucket list to watch a starkid show live now <3

#starkid #npmd #npmd spoilers #hatchetverse #hatchetfield #nerdy prudes must die #nerdy prudes spoilers

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jinkieswouldyoulookatthis · 7 months

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Your choice of SPN character has been hit with a curse of Endless Chatter. Write one run-on sentence of dialogue for them (until your own stream-of-consciousness runs out!).

Hey, Sammy, how about we jump in the car & go take a drive, like, to Colorado or some place, I'm thinking mountains, but I could be convinced to find a beach somewhere, maybe somewhere warm, sand between our toes, ya know, how long has it been since we've taken some us time, because I cannot remember the last time we were able to just kick back & relax, although, hey, remember that time down in Key West when we... shit, you know what, I don't really remember much of our time in Key West, hahaha, that was a good trip, even if I did end up needing antibiotics, no, don't give me that dirty diaper look, it was a good time, a GREAT time, and you seemed to be all smiles for days too, at least all the way up to Jacksonville where we ran into that ghoul, ew remember the pit full of bodies it had hoarded, god that was disgusting, although at least they were already piled up so we could burn them all at once without having to touch them, I really surprised the fire department didn't show up because that was one hell of a blaze once we got it going, it smelled like barbeque, which was super disturbing, always is, OH and then we found that BBQ joint on the way through Mississippi and you didn't want to stop, said I was gross for even thinking about ribs, but they turned out to be, like, the best ribs and it was just this little shack by the road, which is weird because it seems like there is a direct link between the quality of food and shadiness of the location serving it, but not all the time because there was this taco place in Tucson that gave me the runs for days, but the giveaway on that was the cockroaches, which I really wish I had noticed before I ate those tacos, but a shady, rundown building in a bad part of town tends to equal great food, but if there are cockroaches... run, why aren't you eating, is your rabbit food not leafy enough or something, maybe you should order a burger, all that fiber cannot be good for you, you're a big guy you need more protein in your diet, hey, excuse me, can we get another burger over here, bacon and cheese, please, and another milkshake, oh hey, do y'all still have pie, last time we came through her you had pie, cherry I think, and it was AMAZING, so if you have pie can I get a piece, thanks, a burger will get you feeling bet... why are you looking at me like that, is there something, do I have something on my face, no, what the hell, Sam, you haven't said anything since we got here, and I know I'm the one that got hit by the whammy but that doesn't mean I should be doing all the heavy lifting conversation-wise, and you've got to know a counter-hex that will fix this, right, because my throat is actually starting to get a little sore and, I dunno, I feel like I'm running out of things to talk about like this one time, I think you were at Stanford when this happened so you may not know this already, but stop me if you've heard it before, HA, like you could stop me from talking at the moment, that's funny in a really not funny kind of a way and seriously would you stop just staring at me like that and fucking do something already, other people are starting to stare too, like that guy in the Henry Blake hat over there, what's he been fishing or something, what's up with all the fishing hooks in a hat, that's like asking to get one stuck through your finger, and anyway, so this one time I was, shit, I don't even remember where it was, someplace with, not cactuses, bu they like cactuses, you always used to correct me on what they were called when we were kids, what was that... gah, whatever, it'll come to me, but the place was dry and dusty and flat and there was this abandoned-looking gas station that, I shit you not, had the best toilets, like they weren't made of gold or anything, because they would have been stolen, but they were clean, weirdly, immaculately clean, like the whole bathroom was shiny and squeaky and practically glowed, open the door at night and you could probably see the reflection in space, did you know that astronauts have to use a vacuum to pee, they pee into a vacuum...

#did y'all know that there is a 4096 character limit per text block?#well you do now #anon asks #lol this was fun

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cookiedoughmeagain · 3 months

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Haven rewatch, episode ten - The Hand You’re Dealt

This is a great episode, even if the end is kinda depressing. But there’s not one but two separate Troubles, with interesting characters behind them and a tricky investigation to figure out what’s going on. PLUS, it’s a great Duke episode; I love his conversation with Vanessa (“Everything’s illegal somewhere”) and the way he tries to help her; AND all of his snark with Nathan is fabulous.

Also love Duke’s, “nobody was cool in high school, not even me,” comment - even if I don’t believe him ;)

Some details about the plot bother me though, little things that don’t quite line up, like the phone conversation the Principal has before she gets in her car, or Vanessa sulking around in the police station; I get that these things are designed to build the mystery or whatever, but I’m not quite sure they work.

And then there’s Nathan - last episode he was willing to shoot someone who looked like Audrey, simply on the basis that he could feel her (or rather couldn’t) - ie he risked his friend’s life on the theory that his being able to feel is specific to Audrey and that therefore the person standing in front of him was not her. This week he’s poking himself with forks and leaning on fence posts to check that same theory; it seems slightly the wrong way around. I know some of the earlier episodes were originally planned in a different order, I wonder if that’s the case here too. (I guess it would have to have changed fairly early in the process though, for Eleanor and Julia’s plotlines to make sense.)

Audrey and Julia are really cute with their cocktails.

Given what we later learn about the Colorado Kid and the day he died, I really don’t understand how Eleanor can have been at his autopsy.

I like Duke and Vanessa, it’s a shame she wasn’t in a few more episodes - plus Haven could definitely use all the counsellors it can get!

I love that moment when they throw the barbeque in the pool and it looks like nothing’s going to happen - bit awkward if you’ve ruined someone else’s burgers for nothing XD

Why is Vanessa able to remember some of what happened on the day the Colorado Kid died? It would be interesting if Duke got some of those memories back too.

I love how Nathan follows Audrey’s lead when she decides to wind Matt up, even if he does look kind of horrified when Matt blows himself up.

Love that the irrelevance of fate is one of the few things Duke and Nathan are prepared to agree about.

Also such a shame Julia didn’t stick around; having her as ME and an ally for Audrey and Nathan could have been really cool. Potential love interest maybe for Duke, or at least someone else like him who is a local but has also spent a lot of time away (and is back in town only reluctantly). The four of them working together on the Troubles, could have been a really nice dynamic for a while.

My final thought though - Vanessa’s 1980s vision of how the Colorado Kid was going to die isn’t born out by what actually happens when we eventually see it on screen in season five; so … maybe fate can be changed afterall?

#haven syfy #havenfanrewatch #s01e10 #the hand you're dealt

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thisismysecondrodeo · 1 year

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School Daze - Chapter 2

AN: Whoops my fingers slipped and this is now a multichapter series (at least 3 chapters if I had to guess lol). I will eventually post this on ao3 as well once it's complete!

Rating: General (series becomes Explicit)

Tags: Michelle Lasso, Henry Lasso, Second Chance Romance, Alternate Universe - College/University, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Time Skips, Ted and Beard have the purest friendship, Ted Lasso Deserves Love, Getting Together

Part 1 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Fic Masterlist

“You said your friend Beard told you to ask me out in college? Was that the guy you used to leave theater with?”

You were sitting at Ted’s kitchen table, wearing a barbeque t-shirt he had probably purchased around the time the two of you first met, sipping at a mug of coffee. The man in question was standing in front of the stove, cooking eggs for the two of you, in flannel pants and no shirt. Looking at his broad shoulders and the smattering of freckles on his back only reminded you of last night, and you had to avert your eyes to stay focused. It wasn’t like you to sleep with someone so soon after meeting them, but he somehow felt like an old friend and a complete stranger at the same time. It was exciting and novel, and if you thought about it too hard you might freak out a little bit but you’d save that for after breakfast.

“Mmhmm, sure was.”

“Whatever happened to him,” you questioned, as Ted slid eggs and buttered toast onto a plate and sat it in front of you, before taking the seat diagonal to you so your knees brushed under the table.

Ted chuckled, leaning back to look at the clock over the stove, “Oh, he’ll be here in…about 30 minutes, actually.” You sputtered on your coffee, not expecting that the frail friend from theater would be in Richmond with Ted. “We coached together at Wichita State and then when I got the invite to come out here, I was pleased as punch he was willin’ to go on this adventure with me.”

“That’s sweet that y’all are so close,” you said with a smile. “I wonder if he still remembers me?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t bet against it because that’s a bet you’d lose,” Ted chuckled. “Beard’s got a mind like a vault.”

The two of you ate in comfortable quiet, sneaking glances and blushing between bites.

“I don’t usually—”

“So how long are you—”

You accidentally spoke in unison, both of you encouraging the other to go first until you finally acquiesced. “I was trying to say, I don’t usually…move so quickly. But it was such a pleasure running into you and, uh, well, you don’t feel like a stranger. What I’m trying to say is, I know Beard will be here in 30 minutes, but I’d like to see you again. If you’re interested.”

Ted looked down at his plate, a tendril of brown hair falling over his eye and a blush creeping up from his chest to the tips of his ears. “Well, I was tryin’ to ask how long you’d be in town, because I would really, really would like to see you again. Make up for old times, so to speak.”

“I’d like that a lot,” you locked eyes with Ted and the two of you got a little lost, but the rattle of his phone on the countertop pulled you back to the present. “Ah, you gotta go to work. My hotel has a great restaurant if you want to get dinner tonight? I have one more week here.”

Ted stood up and cleared the plates, checking the message on his phone, “Beard’s running a few minutes late, buys us some time. Dinner sounds just lovely and I will be there faster than you can say 'Jack Robinson.' Now, could I interest you in a shower and a change of clothes?”

You laughed, pushing away from the table and following Ted into the bedroom you were much more acquainted with now. “Oh, if we share a shower we’re going to need more than a few minutes,” you teased, tugging playfully at the drawstrings on his lounge pants and watching his pupils expand.

The two of you managed to make it out of the door on time, your clothes from the day before tucked into one of Ted’s farmer’s market tote bags, and your coat covering up Ted’s borrowed clothing. Beard stood at the bottom of the stairs, a cup of coffee in each hand, an arched brow the only sign that he was at all surprised to see you.

“Y/N. Long time no see!”

“Beard, I presume. A pleasure to officially meet you. I’ll let you two get to work.”

Ted took his coffee and you made to head in the opposite direction, but before you could take a step away, he tugged you gently by the arm to get your attention. “Let me know you made it back, okay?” You smiled and nodded, touched at his concern. He cut his eyes over at Beard before ducking and pressing a sweet kiss to your cheek.

Despite being in your 20s when you met, something about Ted always made you feel like a schoolgirl. As you walked away, you pressed a hand to where his lips had met your skin and grinned to yourself.

22 Years Ago

“I’m telling you, Ted, she’s so into you! You shouldn’t give up.”

Beard was reclining in the beanbag chair Ted kept in the corner of his dorm room, a half-smoked joint in one hand and a cup of instant noodles in the other. Ted was on his narrow twin bed, tossing a tennis ball at the ceiling again and again.

“I’m not giving up,” he protested, catching the ball one last time before sitting up to look at his constant companion. “I just think, ya know, if it was meant to be she wouldn’t be so hard to find again! I’m just gonna…let the universe take it from here. Maybe we’ll have a class again next semester.”

Beard was unassuaged, his eyebrows furrowing. “Fine. But I bet you $100 right now that she’s the one. To be paid on your and Y/N’s wedding day.” Beard stuck out a bony hand and Ted rolled his eyes, a small smile as he shook reluctantly.

“Whatever you say Beard-o,” Ted sighed as he fell back onto his bed. He didn’t know how Beard could be so confident about it, but it seemed harmless if a little childish.

Though the semester was over, Ted was taking summer classes and he still held out hope he might see you around. He wouldn’t say he was actively looking but he certainly kept his eyes peeled—which is how he noticed Michelle a few weeks later, the only other person in an empty university parking lot.

Beard kept his thoughts mostly to himself when Ted told him about Michelle; his money was still on you, as he reminded Ted. Ted just shook his head, throwing on a jacket to meet Michelle for ice cream.

And when he and Michelle got married, Beard silently paid up.

Present

“I can feel you thinking, Coach, what’s on your mind?”

Ted and Beard stood shoulder to shoulder on the side of the pitch, Roy busy clomping around behind the slower players. Beard took a deep breath before responding, folding his arms tightly across his chest.

“Was surprised to see Y/N this morning, that’s all.”

“Ain’t that something,” Ted asked, immediately enthusiastic, “after all those years and she’s just…here! And divorced, like me.”

“I guess that’s what I’m stuck on Coach, what’s she doing here? Now?”

Ted looked over at his best friend, taking off his aviators in surprise, “Come on now, Coach. You’re not suggesting that she’s out to get me, are you? You used to be her number one fan!”

“Yeah, well, things change in 20 years, Coach. I’m happy for you, but you know I’m always looking out for you too,” Beard said gruffly, before stepping onto the pitch with Roy and blowing his whistle to round everyone up. Ted stayed where he was, hands on his hips, mulling over the nature of romance and coincidences.

You left your hotel for some sightseeing and shopping, a new outfit tucked under your arm for your date with Ted, and when you returned Beard was sitting in the lobby. He was wearing his hat pulled low over his brow and he reclined against the couch in his training clothes. You stopped in your tracks before making your way over to him.

“Hello, Beard,” you had a hint of suspicion in your tone you didn’t attempt to hide. “Didn’t expect to see you so soon. I imagine this isn’t just a coincidence?”

“No, no it is not,” Beard shook his head, sliding over slightly to make room for you to sit. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

You set your bag down on the floor before sitting at the end of the couch, your body angled towards his. “Depends, can I ask you some first?” Beard gave you a go-ahead gesture so you asked, “how did you know where I was?”

“Ted mentioned the two of you were getting dinner here, I put two and two together.”

“And where does Ted think you are?” Beard didn’t say that this was a secret excursion, but he didn’t have to.

“Lunch with my girlfriend, Jane.” You didn’t know that you were worried that Beard was the one here to confess his love until he said he had a girlfriend and you immediately released a sigh of relief.

“Little creepy,” you responded matter-of-factly. There weren’t any other people floating around the lobby besides staff here and there but you lowered your voice anyway.

“That was my nickname in college,” Beard joked, and you knew he was joking despite the lack of any emotion on his face.

“Well, then I’m glad I didn’t know you better.”

That got a genuine laugh from Beard, a sharp bark of amusement that surprised both of you. It effectively reduced the tension between the two of you but you still didn’t know why he’d sought you out.

“So what can I do for you?”

Beard sighed, crossing one leg over the other and folding his hands on his knee. It seemed like the idea of saying a lot of words to you was making him preemptively tired.

“I have been Ted’s best friend for a very long time. I remember you, well, actually. And to be honest, I was rooting for you,” that admission surprised you, your eyebrows raising, but you didn’t interrupt, “but you disappeared off the face of the Earth and now here you are and I guess I just…I’m trying to keep my oldest friend from falling too hard, too fast and you disappearing again.”

It wasn’t what you expected—it was a little codependent but well-meaning and, more importantly, valid. Your lips tightened into a slight grimace that Beard must have taken to mean you weren’t sure how to answer, so he phrased it as a question, “So I guess I’m asking as politely as I can, where did you go and why are you back?”

“No, it's a fair question. And I figured it would be something Ted and I would talk about eventually though I do appreciate your…proactive…friendship. In short, I didn’t know Ted was looking for me; when he didn’t call I thought we’d just missed our chance. The two of you didn’t see me again because I dropped out, which is a much longer story and I didn’t go back until after you all had graduated.” Beard listened intently, a wince of embarrassment when you mentioned dropping out and he realized he was asking after something rather sensitive.

“By the time I was in a place to even think about Ted, I looked him up and he was married. And then I got married, and,” you trailed off, waving your hand in the air in a vague way to communicate ‘you know, life.’ Beard just nodded. You weren’t annoyed by Beard asking like you might be with someone else, partially because he didn’t pry any further and partially because you felt something of a kindred spirit in him. He knew what it was like to not have life go your way. “And I’m here because I’m on vacation. It was genuinely a coincidence. A happy one. Serendipity, right?”

“Serendipity,” Beard repeated, a small smile on his face. “I’m sorry for interrogating you. But don’t feel like you need to keep any secrets from Ted, especially not on my behalf. He’s…done a lot for me, and I’ll take any chance I get to attempt to return the favor. Even if it’s a slight overreaction.”

You just nodded as Beard stood up, clapping his hand on his thighs and adjusting his hat. You were gathering your bags when you realized he hadn’t left and when you looked at him, he winked. “For what it’s worth, I’m still rooting for you.”

He didn’t wait for you to answer before walking away and you grinned at his retreating back.

The next time you came down to the lobby, it was Ted on the couch waiting for you, in a navy suit and white shirt, no tie, and a bundle of pink stargazer flowers in one hand.

He looked perfect.

<- Part 1 | Part 3 ->

#ted lasso #ted x reader #ted lasso fanfiction #ted lasso fanfic #ted lasso x yn #ted lasso fluff #fluff #au

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alarawriting · 8 months

Text

52 Project #53: After The Chicken Story

And here it is, the bonus story, a sequel to the one I started this project with.

*********

Things have been kind of crazy around here the last few years, not just because of the pandemic, but there’s been a lot going on. Gotta say that mostly, those years haven’t been real great for us. Lots of changes, some good, some bad, some eh, but that’s life, right?

So my oldest daughter went to college to become a marine biologist, and now she’s on an expedition to study the Kraken in the harbor. Gotta say I didn’t expect it. Not because she didn’t show any interest in marine biology, she was crazy for it when she was young, but because every girl around here seemed to want to grow up to be a marine biologist, kind of like every girl when I was growing up wanted to work with horses. Except my wife, she’s terrified of them. Most of the kids who wanted to be marine biologists did not end up that way, but my daughter’s working on a master’s degree in it. Wants to do all this stuff with conservation and the Bay. Which, I guess, the Kraken lives in the Bay and if we piss it off enough by dumping crap in its home territory so there’s no food for it, it might burn the city down again, so there’s a good conservation argument for you.

My oldest son, the ninja, has actually left the country; he’s gone to Japan to study under ninja masters at some ninja school. Either that, or break into working for Nintendo, because what he really wants in life is to make video games. Being a ninja isn’t a profession for him, it’s a way of life. I miss the kid, he never writes home. Would it kill him to drop us a note on Discord? But it sounds like he’s happy, which is the important thing.

And my younger son has a web comic going. Well, it’s not exactly a web comic, more like one of those mixed media things where he’s got comic pages and audio files and animations and mini-games and all that kind of stuff, about, supposedly, a fictionalized version of himself going into the tunnel under the road and traveling to the Underworld. It’s like, Dante’s Inferno as rewritten by Gen Z. Not literally Dante’s Inferno, I think he’s only ever read the Wikipedia article about it, but similar concept. Surprisingly, it’s mostly a dark comedy. I haven’t asked him if any of it is true, because I don’t want to know.

My youngest kid’s not doing nearly as well, since we brought back her timeshadow from the moon. I never took her seriously when she used to say she had a clone on the moon; turns out that, while a timeshadow is technically not a clone, she did actually have a copy of herself up on the moon. (Nowhere near my family’s barbeque grill. I’m starting to think I’ll never see that thing again.) The thing about timeshadows is, if your timeshadow touches you, it merges into you and then you have all of its memories, but if it had problems, you probably got them too. And living on the Moon for most of your life is not good for timeshadows any more than for regular humans, so when they merged, my kid got frail and weak – not as bad as someone who’d lived on the Moon their whole life, in the weak gravity, but worse off than she was. She didn’t get any taller, though. The timeshadow had shot up like a string bean, side effect of Lunar gravity, but when they merged, my kid got the deficits and not the benefits.

I wish it hadn’t happened and part of me regrets bringing the kid back from the moon, but the thing about a timeshadow is, it’s not entirely real, but it has thoughts and feelings just like the real human it’s a copy of, so what was I gonna do? Leave someone who is essentially my daughter up on the Moon without family? My daughter has lost enough of her childhood memories that she no longer has any idea how the timeshadow got on the Moon or why she even had a timeshadow, and the daycare she used to go to is out of business, so I don’t think there’s any way I can find out.

Things got kind of bad for my wife, too. The last time I talked about things, it ended up looking like we were going to buy our annoying neighbor’s house after my wife harassed her into leaving the neighborhood. Well, that didn’t happen, because my wife lost her job, and then ended up with breast cancer. They had to take them off. She looked into getting breast missiles but the damn things are too hard to reload, so she got pockets instead. Now if she really wants to keep something safe, she can stick it in her boob, not just in her bra. I always thought that those things were only for drug smugglers, but my wife wants to be able to go to the beach by herself and keep her credit cards and ID on her person when she goes in the water, and apparently she can seal up the pockets to be waterproof. So far evidence suggests she’s cancer free and the thing never made it out of her breasts, and that’s good, so things could be worse. The people who did buy the annoying neighbor’s house are nice folks, a Hispanic family where the father works in some kind of industrial chemistry as a scientist… I think. At least, he’s got some crazy shit in his swimming pool.

And then, my idiot boyfriend let the Fae know his true name. He’s a trans dude and very proud of the name he picked. He wasn’t going to go deadnaming himself when the Fae dude he met asked if he could have his name. So now his paperwork is not going through, and some stupid thing keeps happening every time he tries to legally change his name, because apparently the Fae now own his name. He’s considered changing it to a different name, but once you start to think about yourself as a name, that’s apparently your True Name. So he could maybe solve the issue of the paperwork, but he can’t solve the problem that fairies know his name and keep calling him. Sometimes he tries to sleepwalk straight out of the house; we’ve found him in the middle of the street in a fugue state, or talking to people we couldn’t see. My wife’s been trying to help him with the paperwork, but since she’s had her own battles to fight, it hasn’t worked so well.

We still have chickens. But now we also have a 2 dimensional dog, a cockatoo who works tech support, and approximately seventeen cats. I can’t really keep track of them all. They’ve cleared out the rat population, which is good, because Orion the assassin cat has been getting up in years and isn’t quite as murderous as he used to be, but they break out into two clans and the clans feud like the Hatfields and McCoys. We’re not at war with the city over the chickens anymore; now it’s the yard. Mostly about the Fae circles, but also about mowing the lawn, which, you try mowing over a Fae circle. And tell me how it went, fifty years when you pop back into reality, if you ever do.

Anyway, this story isn’t about the chickens, or not nearly so much as the last story was. It’s more of an explanation of why things ended up the way they did.

So first off, work. Now, I’ve been working from home from before it was cool; got my own IT company, works with Amazon Web Services helping other businesses deal with them. When my wife lost her job, she started working here as well, which was just as well because then when she got cancer, she could get all the time off for chemo and stuff that she needed. A year or so later, when the news about the pandemic first hit, business was jumping. Everybody wanted to get into the cloud and not have to come into the office anymore.

Huh, actually, no, that’s not where it starts. Let’s start with the two dimensional dog.

So my youngest kid really wanted a two dimensional dog. They’re pretty rare, on account of being two dimensional. You ever hear of a paper tiger, well, this is a paper dog. They’re not really two dimensional, but something about, most of their mass is phased into a different dimension and we can only see the part of them that intersects with this plane? They can be very intimidating because you look at this dog, you think, goddamn that is one skinny dog, and then it comes up to you with its jaws hanging open, panting, and it looks like a smile. A giant smile. A giant, very toothy, very scary smile. This is a dog you want to keep happy because you don’t know what it will do if it’s not happy. They’re very tall, and very long, and very very skinny, but the mass is there, as you can tell when the dog jumps up on you.

Ours came from Russia. Well, her parents came from Russia. Well, her ancestors. We’re not really sure when it was that Russia engineered two dimensional dogs, but we know that when the Soviet Union fell, people over there started selling these dogs to the US because they were weird, and rich people love weird, and Russians after the collapse of Communism really wanted the money. Then some people who probably weren’t all that rich spent too much money on the dogs so they could look richer than they were, and ended up having to sell off puppies for a lot less than they wanted when the dot com boom busted. My daughter wanted one ever since she heard about them. She was super into science and math, and the idea of a two dimensional dog really appealed to her.

My wife’s ex used to have one he got from a rescue, but we went looking for the rescue and found out it had to shut down after they accidentally accepted a Hound of Tindalos, and you know how that goes. So we had to buy our dog. Her name’s Svetlana and she will do anything to get some peanut butter, regular butter, cheese, potato chips… you know, anything you might imagine your teenagers would clean you out of. Being that she’s two dimensional, she will absolutely slip through any crack in a door you leave, including the fridge door if you don’t shut it all the way. We’ve lost so much butter that way.

Now, Svetlana loves cats. Loves cats. Before we got her fixed, she loved them in a kind of not-entirely-PG-rated way, but even after that, she really wants to play with cats. She is six times as tall as a cat. Cats do not want to play with her. At the time, we had three cats – Orion the mighty hunter/assassin cat, Odin the grumpy ancient man who our best guesses had at 24 years old then, and Tiamat, the tortie who thought she was human. Well, who at least thought she deserved to be able to get chicken out of the refrigerator and sit at the dinner table. They had their normal cat idiosyncrasies; Tiamat liked Rice Krispies but hated fish, Odin enjoyed sleeping in the litter box, and Orion liked to cross-dress. Well, not sure you can call it that since female cats don’t generally wear frilly doll dresses, either. But the kids – and my boyfriend -- thought it was fun to put dresses on him, and while the others would immediately divest themselves if you tried to make them wear anything, Orion seemed to enjoy his dresses. He’d even head-butt the kids if one of them was holding a doll dress, until the kid put the dress on him. None of these cats wanted anything to do with Lana.

Coincidentally, my boyfriend’s parents in Canada had a bunch of local feral cats who’d just had kittens. You see where this is going.

Sylph was a pretty little Siamese kitten who enjoyed playing with my boyfriend’s parents’ dog. We thought she’d make a good friend for Lana, and because she had a sister she was inseparable from, we didn’t want to separate them. So we ended up with Raven as well, a solid black cat who became the photographic subject of many memes about how the void wants chicken.

Lana, big dumb goofy nerd that she was, got too enthusiastic about playing with the kittens. The kittens didn’t appreciate it. Then the kittens turned into teenage female cats, at which point we discovered that Lana is actually a lesbian xenophile… ailurophile? You can’t call it bestiality when they’re all beasts. This was more than a little disturbing, and we all wanted to return to our illusions that our dog loved our cats in a wholesome friendly way, so we arranged to get them all fixed, Lana first.

And then Covid hit.

If you had pets you might remember that right after Covid started, the vets all turtled up, nothing but emergency appointments. Fixing animals was apparently not an emergency. Lana got done in time, but our little girls, not so much.

We did our best to keep them inside, but with all the secret tunnels in the basement, the rat warrens that come up in the laundry room, and the holes in reality that the wall squids made, we cannot in fact keep anything the size of a cat in, or out. I mean, cats can’t usually phase through walls, but they are one of the only animals on the planet fast enough to catch a wall squid, and if they tag the thing, they can often follow it right through its phase. Since they can’t actually enter the dimension the things come from, though, this generally leaves them outside whatever wall they were going through, which is fine when it’s the interior living room wall and not so great when it’s the wall covered with ivy outside. The only thing that keeps stranger cats from turning up in our house at random is ours are so damn territorial, and the only thing that keeps our cats in is nothing. Nothing can keep our cats in.

By the time we got Sylph and Raven rescheduled for their spays, they were both pregnant with kittens.

There are some vets that will abort kittens while spaying. Not the ones around here. Also they both had lots of them. Sylph had six, Raven had five. We have a tradition around here that kittens don’t get real names until they’re adults, they get temporary names. So Sylph’s six were Up, Down, Top, Bottom, Strange and Charmed, and Raven’s five were named after five members of Voltron, from the old series my wife grew up with, not the reboot. And she left out Sven. I think she forgot he existed.

As if this was not bad enough, Tiamat got pregnant. See, we’d never fixed her, because the one time we had an appointment, she managed to disappear, and she’d get fat and then thin again within weeks, not long enough to bring a pregnancy to term. We knew that her father and her brother were the same cat, so we figured she might have some kind of genetic abnormality preventing pregnancy. Nope! Or, maybe. Maybe she needed exposure to cat pregnancy pheromones to be able to bring a litter to term. She had four. We named them after the Three Musketeers plus D’Artagnan.

If you’re counting, you know that at this point, we had a total of twenty cats.

Meanwhile, we were hoarding food. Frozen and nonperishable, I’m not talking about stuff you have to refrigerate. We bought three new freezers (which took forever, because everyone else apparently had the same idea), filled them with meat (we hooked up with a butcher and got a whole cow, a whole pig, a whole emu, and a couple of deer), then filled our pantry and multiple bins with dry food. With Covid going on, we didn’t want to have to leave the house and go shopping any more than we had to. We even got dry milk. Which is disgusting, by the way, do not use it for your cereal, but it does tolerably well when the instant mashed potato box says to use milk to make mashed potatoes. We didn’t go full prepper with MREs and dehydrated food, but only because my boyfriend’s parents were preppers and he was able to advise us that that stuff tastes like shit.

Twenty cats produce a lot of cat poop. My boyfriend, whose job it was to clean the cat boxes, was frequently distracted by the Fae trying to call him. My wife and I were overwhelmed with work. My son the ninja helped out for a while, but then he got accepted to study under a ninja master. I thought there was no way he’d be able to go; we were in lockdown. Japan wasn’t accepting US citizens. Hell, Canada wasn’t; my boyfriend could go visit his parents because he was actually a Canadian citizen, but we were worried that he wouldn’t be able to come back, so he didn’t.

Ninjas, apparently, have resources that most ordinary Japanese citizens don’t. They came in a helicopter in the dead of night, and we only knew about it because he went to say goodbye to the chickens and woke them up and they started clucking, which set off the dog. We got outside in time to see my son disappear up the helicopter ladder, promising us, incorrectly, that he would write. You’d think ninjas wouldn’t use something as ostentatious as a chopper, but the truth is our city is lousy with choppers. Police choppers. News choppers. Medevac choppers. Elementary school bus choppers. Ghostbuster choppers. No one here blinks when they hear the sound of a helicopter overhead, and a blacked-out ninja helicopter looks exactly like a blacked-out police helicopter.

Since then we mostly hear about him through his brother, who does not have the level of detail sufficient to make my wife happy, but at least we know enough to know that his ninja cover is that he’s interning at Nintendo. Apparently ninjas do not really live in secret compounds where they dress all in black and train non-stop; the point of being a ninja is that you blend in, so ninjas get real jobs, and they’re plausible jobs that the ninja is good at doing. My son’s always wanted to make video games, so he’s in the best possible place, I think. I hope he’s doing well at learning Japanese, though. They only had French, German and Spanish in school and he somehow managed to skip out on learning any of them. I think the school decided that C++ counted as a language.

But this meant my son wasn’t around to help with the cats. My older daughter had moved out a while back while she was getting her degree, and she was living in her own apartment so she didn’t need to come back home for Covid like the college kids in the dorms did. My younger daughter hadn’t yet merged with her timeshadow, we didn’t retrieve her from the moon until the following year, but neither she nor my younger son were willing to be much help. Meanwhile, dry food, in bins, much of it in cardboard boxes that bugs can slip into, some of the bins chewable by mice. Plus, all the restaurants were closed, so the bugs and the mice and the rats all wanted to find someplace that still had food. And our house, as mentioned earlier, is porous to anything the size of a cat, or smaller.

First we had the plague of mealmoths, that infested everything we owned made of grain or nuts. We love nuts, and my wife is crazy for pasta, and we have rice, and cold cereal, and bread. The way you’re supposed to purge your house of mealmoths is throw out all your grains and don’t bring any in for two weeks. This was not happening. I wanted to build a cedar pantry, but a. very busy at work and b. not allowed to go to Home Depot, and not about to try to have expensive wood shipped to the house. The business was doing well, but not that well. I knew from my tunneling project and my attic renovation that if you need wood shipped to you, you end up having to buy way more of it than you need, which is why there are still piles and piles of lumber in my attic.

Instead we ordered tons and tons of jars and plastic cereal bins with bug-proof seals and stuff like that to store all our grains in, and my wife had to go through them all to identify what the bugs had already gotten to, and then throw bay leaves into all the containers. Apparently mealmoths hate bay leaves.

The dishwasher stopped working. By now, we could get repair people again, but the repair guy said that the wires underneath the thing had been shredded by mice, and he didn’t know how to fix that. We tried getting a warranty repair. Turns out warranty repairs don’t cover shredded by mice.

So we got a new dishwasher, and I stashed the old one in the garage, figuring I might be able to repair it once I had some spare time. Twenty cats managed to clean out the rats before they even got a foothold, but apparently they had been slacking when it came to dealing with the mice. It was understandable, given that most of those cats were kittens and three of the cats who weren’t kittens were occupied raising kittens. Odin was too old and there was only so much Orion could do by himself.

The world outside basically stopped. My daughter didn’t go to her middle school graduation, didn’t attend the school she’d been so enthusiastic about going to for high school, and then by the time they opened the schools again she was too fragile to walk around the school building. We tried to get her into a program where she’d get to still be attending school from home, but the school did not understand how a timeshadow merge could possibly have made her too weak to go to school, and they refused. Meanwhile, my son just stopped going to high school, basically marking time until he turned 18 and could drop out, working on his web comic. And me and my wife worked from home, and my boyfriend was on disability and didn’t work anyway, plus you really can’t work when the Fae are trying to summon you and you have to hide out from them. So nobody ever left the house. My wife would go out for groceries, when we weren’t doing Instacart or when she needed to pick up stuff for my home improvement projects, but aside from that, nobody went anywhere. Not even the yard; my wife used to garden, but we were busy, plus, Fae circles. No one wants to risk stepping in one of those.

When there’s no routine, when nobody has to leave and nobody has school and the people who have a job are working pretty much all the time, time disappears. I’d look up from my PC and find an entire month had gone by. It seemed like this was a bit much even for the liminal timelessness of no routines, and then we found the infestation of time flies. Fuckers love fruit. You know the saying, time flies like a banana, but we had a peach tree and apple trees and a mulberry bush and grapevines and tomatoes all over the place, and this apparently attracted the time flies, who then moved into the house after we killed the mealmoths. Time flies don’t look too different from regular flies; they look just like cluster flies, those incredibly stupid little guys who live in the walls and are too stupid to figure out how to get back into the walls once they get out, so we’d never noticed. They lay their eggs in fruit, but they themselves eat time, and they don’t care about bay leaves, or mint, which we were using to try to drive the mice off.

Problem was, with five people never leaving a house, hoarding food, and having twenty cats, as soon as the time disappeared the house became an utter disaster, and there was no way we could have an exterminator over. Also no way to call an exterminator anyway, because nobody was actually answering phone calls! Anywhere!! And we didn’t have the time to follow up on anything. It’s a miracle we got the cats fixed and managed to give some of them away. Not nearly enough, mind you. I don’t know whether we got rid of three or five or seven but we still have an absurd number of cats. And cats will chase mice, and wall squid, and Orion was willing to go after rats, but none of them were gonna touch a time fly.

We put up flypaper, of course, and rubbed mushy banana on it to attract them, but once the time flies have infested your house, you have a lot less time to get anything done, including getting rid of your time flies. Then the oven broke, but since we have two halves of a house, we had two ovens, so we didn’t do much to get it fixed. My wife wanted it to get fixed before Thanksgiving, but with the time flies, that was ambitious.

Then my boyfriend brought home a cockatoo. How he managed to find the time to get a cockatoo, I’ll never know. The family who’d owned the cockatoo apparently had to get rid of her because she was “wrecking our home.” I wondered, how does a bird you can keep in a cage wreck a house?

The bird decided she was my mate, and that my wife and boyfriend – who did most of the bird feeding chores – were her rivals in a harem anime. When I let her out, she wouldn’t let them come near me. Apparently the home-wrecking in question had not been literal destruction of a house, though she was capable of that too if she was bored enough. My boyfriend kept trying to win her over, but my wife had never forgotten about the birds who pecked her dog’s eyes out because the dog claimed that birds didn’t exist, and she was an introvert, so she was happy to go hide in her office all the time and never go near the bird.

Meanwhile, if I put Jessica – the bird – in her cage, she shrieked. All the time. Ever hear the Cure song “Like Cockatoos?” Where Robert Smith says that the night sang out like cockatoos, and it sounds all sad and romantic? Yeah, Robert Smith never went anywhere near a cockatoo. They do not sing. They screech. And they burble, and they talk, but when they’re bored, or angry, or angry and bored, they screech.

I couldn’t have Jessica climbing all over me while I was working. Sure, everyone loves when your cat photobombs the Zoom call, but the bird could talk, and did not give a shit about professional office language. I couldn’t have her screaming either. So I gave her a job. She was now Tier 1 tech support. One of her favorite things to say was, “What the fuck, Amazon?” This endeared her to the customers, who were generally calling in because AWS had done something to screw up their day. She really enjoyed interacting with the customers, they liked her, and my existing tech support team liked having someone to semi-screen the calls. Of course, she couldn’t type what the customer’s complaint was into a ticket, but she could peck a touchscreen with a co-worker’s face and make a call to tell them what the complaint was, so they could enter the ticket.

Cockatoos don’t eat time flies, either, and the time flies loved the fruit in her bowl, so we started losing even more time. The bills didn’t get paid. There were gaps of three months in telemedicine visits that were supposed to have been two week follow-ups.

We got rid of the majority of the infestation when the summer ended and all the fruit had been harvested. Turns out that time flies really do not like caffeine. We used old coffee and painted it on bananas and apples, they’d come lay their eggs, and then the eggs would die because of the caffeine. We couldn’t do anything about Jessica’s food because you can’t feed caffeine to a cockatoo, but time flies don’t really like dried fruit so much, unlike Jessica, who loved it. They also don’t care for seeds or nuts. And we weren’t feeding the chickens fruit, and obviously neither the dog nor the cats ate the stuff, so we finally managed to take a breath, come up for air, look around ourselves -- and realize that now we had a massive roach infestation.

We tried spraying. We thought that would be enough. Then the new dishwasher stopped working, we got a warranty repairman, and he told us he couldn’t do it. Warranty wouldn’t cover it. When he took off the cover and showed us the little roach apartments, with the roaches sitting around their dining room tables feeding the crumbs they’d stolen to their four million children, looking up at us and giving us the finger (technically, the leg, but I knew what they meant), we realized that spraying commercial pesticide was not going to solve this. But now the fuckers had destroyed our second dishwasher, so this meant war. And without time flies draining all the time away, we had the resources to go to war.

I’d planned to spend the winter months renovating the bathroom. I didn’t mention our bathroom, did I? The new house, the one my wife’s parents bought, had two bathrooms – a nice big one on the upper floor and a tiny little water closet with just a sink and a toilet on the first floor. But in our original house, the one we owned, there was only one bathroom, and it was a galley where literally most of the length and width of it was taken by the bathtub, so to get to the toilet on the other side of the bathroom you had to slide along the wall like you’re making a home music video for “Walk Like An Egyptian” by the Bangles. Or else stroll through the tub. Or else use the rings I bolted to the ceiling joists for my ninja son and swing along the ceiling, but he was the only one who could do that. My boyfriend, a big guy, could barely use the thing. So almost immediately after we got the other house, everyone stopped using that bathroom and switched to the one next door, except for my ninja son because his bedroom was right next to it and it was convenient for him. Ninjas are good at slinking through narrow passages. Now that he had left, I’d planned to tear the whole thing out, and his bedroom, and replace them both with a normal-shaped bathroom and a slightly smaller bedroom.

I didn’t get the chance. We needed to do battle.

It hadn’t helped that some neighborhood ne’er-do-well, who was probably high as a kite, broke into our house in the middle of the summer because our dog was mouthing off to him, threatened the dog, told the cockatoo he’d fuck her up (we know this because she started saying “Gonna fuck you up!” every time we told her it was bedtime or that she needed to be quiet or stop climbing in my hair), and smashed all our fishtanks. Fortunately we had no fish. Unfortunately we had like five fishtanks because my boyfriend had wanted to rescue feeder goldfish and breed guppies for sale, so we’d filled up three forty gallon tanks and two twenties, plus a few tiny five gallons, and then due to the time flies we’d never gotten around to putting fish in them. This did terrible damage to the floor. We had the guy dead to rights on video, managed to actually get the city police to pick him up and a prosecution going, and then he jumped bail and fled, possibly through a Fae circle because no one ever saw him again. He was gonna owe us several thousand dollars for the floor damage.

After we got rid of the time flies, we discovered that the damaged floor had become completely porous to roaches, so what had probably started as a basement infestation had become a full blown house emergency. There were roaches in the cereal. (This was the fault of whoever wasn’t following the mealmoth protocol and leaving the cereal out of the protective plastic bins.) They’d destroyed the dishwasher and were working on the refrigerator. Every cabinet and drawer we had was entirely full of the little assholes, plus the condos they’d built in the dishwasher, plus several of our sealed bins of food that turned out to be less sealed than we’d thought.

Meanwhile the city had sold our house to some asshole lawyers in Ohio, because we hadn’t mowed our lawn, and we had allowed Fae circles to spring up there, which was considered a hazard. Which it was, yes, but only to us and people trespassing on our property, and how the fuck do you safely get rid of those things anyway? We had racked up several thousand dollars’ worth of fines for not being able to mow the lawn because of the Fae circles and not being able to get rid of the Fae circles because we couldn’t safely mow the lawn, and then the time flies interfering with our ability to remember to pay the damn fines before they ballooned. We were still in a state of national emergency at this point, the vaccine was right on the horizon but no one we knew had qualified to get it yet, and they wanted to make us homeless because we didn’t mow our lawn. This was absolute bullshit, and personally, I think may have been retaliation from people at Animal Control, who are not the same guys that fine you for your lawn but they work under the same overarching department in the city government. If we hadn’t gotten rid of the time flies, we might not have been able to respond in time. There was stuff in there that was nonsensical, like fines for having high grass and weeds in February, or for not having cleaned up the area where we put our trash cans in 2019, or for too many kites on the roof. Why does it even matter if there are kites on the roof? We put them there to distract local falcons away from our chickens! They can’t fly into the power lines, they’re tethered with metal cable!

Also they threatened to chop down our mulberry tree because it was in the way of the street light, which didn’t work anyway and which, when it did work, blinded people in my son’s old bedroom, which my younger son was going to move into as soon as we finished the bathroom renovations. Which as it turned out we couldn’t even start, but he moved in anyway because his room didn’t have a ceiling. His older sister had been exorcising ghosts from that room and somehow this made the ceiling fall in, so we’d been using cheap fake paneling in lieu of a real ceiling, and this does nothing to stop ghosts getting back into the room. So my wife put barbed wire around the mulberry tree. Well, it wasn’t really barbed wire, it was tomato cages she’d unraveled and linked into each other in a crazy way that made a fence with sharp wires sticking out of it in all directions. The city fined us for that, too, but she was going to challenge that in court, because no one was going to hurt themselves on it as long as they didn’t try to trespass on our property and mess around with our tree.

Anyway, so we paid off the lawyers in Ohio to get full title to our house back, and we paid off the city’s fines, which, due to lockdown, involved going to city hall, then going to the basement of city hall because the front door was locked, then giving several thousand dollars in cash to a garden gnome because someone at the city had thought it was fun and whimsical to replace the cash drop with a garden gnome. The cash drop was now in his mouth. Then we called every day for a month before we managed to get someone on the phone who could confirm that yes, the garden gnome had had the money and the city managed to get it out and put it on our account, but they wanted another $200 in interest because the time between us dropping the cash and them picking up the cash and putting it on our account was somehow our fault.

And all this time, we’re battling the roaches.

They’d proved themselves immune to pyrethin or whatever that stuff is in most commercial pesticides, whereas we had a house full of people who’d blow up with allergies when anything even slightly nasty was in their airspace, so no more pyrethin for us. We had to get by on organics. Cloves, lavender, mint, citrus – turns out there is a reason humans eat a lot of the stuff we eat, and it’s not just because it tastes good. It’s because it preserves your food, because pretty much every critter except for bedbugs and time flies hate the stuff. Mixtures of boric acid and sugar. Diatomaceous earth. A new dishwasher that’s fully enclosed so it’d be a lot harder for them to get in, and putting the old dishwasher into a gigantic garbage bag, then buying dry ice and filling the bag with it to try to suffocate them all. It worked, but the dishwasher was still toast, and once again, the warranty repair people wouldn’t fix it. The roaches might have been dead but the repair guy could plainly see the condos they’d left behind.

While this was going on, the second oven broke, so we had to get people in to fix them both. Guess what. No, no, you’ll never guess. No warranty repair. No repair at all, actually. The oven that had been under warranty turned out to have been fried by a pair of lovebird mice that had decided to get amorous right where their pals had been gnawing at electric wires, so when we turned the stove on, the current went through both mice, and now we had furry mice skeletons trapped forever in a posture that made it clear they’d been mating. The other oven was destroyed by roaches, and the repair guy, who we were paying for, not a warranty repair, refunded our money because he wasn’t willing to touch it.

We had no ovens and we were sick and tired of buying warranties that would never be honored, so we went to a place called Roy’s Discount Appliances, which was in the basement of a warehouse that used to belong to Toys R Us before they went out of business, and was a maze of ovens, dishwashers, refrigerators and washing machines that were used, refurbs, or on deep clearance because the manufacturer had discontinued them. Nothing like trying to shove two ovens into a minivan where you’ve removed the back seats, but you brought three people, so now one of them has to ride home sitting on the side of an oven and your tailgate won’t close so you have a bungee cord holding it down. We paid cash to get a 5% discount, and I strongly suspect some of those appliances fell off the back of truck, if you know what I mean.

Meantime, we’re repairing the floor. This means putting everything from the first floor of the house, except for the kitchen since it has a stone floor, into one of those portable rental units – not a storage facility because we wanted close access to it. The basement tunnels are prone to flooding, so we didn’t want to use them, also the staircase down there is a little too rickety for me to feel secure carrying my 80-inch television down it.

The city refuses to give us a permit for the storage unit. Says we have to pay our fines. We just did that. They record this stuff in cuneiform printed by dot matrix printers onto carbon sheets, so we have no way to tell if the fines they’re talking about are new fines, or the old fines that we paid cash to a garden gnome for, because we’re not organized enough to know where most of our mail is, so we don’t have the originals. Also we can’t read cuneiform. My wife’s dad can, but my wife doesn’t want him to know how big our fines are or how badly organized we are, and she thinks she could learn cuneiform if she had two weeks of free time. She does not have two weeks of free time. But my boyfriend makes friends with all the neighbors – he always did, but it’s especially been important since the Fae started calling him – and the Hispanic family with the chemist dad offers us their shed, which turns out to be significantly bigger on the inside, for less than we’d have paid for a portable storage unit. They’re just a couple of houses down the block, so it’s almost as good as a unit.

We spend a few months ripping up badly damaged tile and rug, all of which date from at least the 70’s and I always hated anyway, scrubbing off floor adhesive, and laying down a new hardwood floor, just us. By which I mean mostly just me, my wife doesn’t do handyman stuff (she helped with the scrubbing part, and she buys the supplies, but that’s it) and my boyfriend hasn’t really been useful for anything since the Fae started calling him. So now the roaches can’t get upstairs from the basement, but it’s too late, they have a beachhead here now, and so what we’ve just basically done is locked ourselves in with them. We start seeing more of the little fuckers. Now they’re getting into books and DVD cases and clothes hampers. Some end up in the bedroom.

You may ask why we don’t hire an exterminator. Remember the twenty cats? Maybe down to thirteen or seventeen or something by now – some of them spend all their time outdoors – but there are a lot of cats. And they’re at war with each other.

There’s the Canada clan – Sylph and Raven themselves have decided they are outdoor cats, but most of their kittens still live with us – and Tiamat’s clan, which includes Orion and Odin because Orion is one of Tiamat’s brothers (hopefully not the one who is also her father, but we got them from a hoarder’s kid going through his parents’ property, so we never actually found out), and she’s decided that Odin is less awful now that he’s a gazillion years old and she has the Canada clan to compare them to. My youngest daughter, who is mostly confined to her room due to physical weakness and compromised immune system, treats Tiamat’s kittens like they’re her own children (including carrying them around baby style, putting them in toy strollers she is way too old for, and occasionally putting one in a toy Pack n Play and then covering it with a large cardboard box as a “time-out”), so they have a home base. The Canada clan grew up in our bedroom, so they have a home base. The rest of the house is a war zone.

Whenever you walk through the house, there are cats hissing at each other, yowling, swiping at each other, chasing each other, the works. It’s still cold outside, so we can’t get them to go out and do their fighting outdoors like civilized cats. Our homeowners insurance dropped us when they found out about the tunnels in the basement. (They didn’t know we made the tunnels, and we didn’t admit to it, but insurance inspectors can be incredibly thorough when they want to be.) We haven’t been able to get a new policy yet. So my wife does not want a guy traipsing around the whole house where he might get tripped or scratched by warring cats. We’ve all learned to dodge, but an exterminator wouldn’t necessarily be experienced with being in a cat war zone.

It’s one thing to get repair guys into one or the other of the kitchens, they have doors and we can lock the cats out if we have to (I know most kitchens do not, in fact, have doors that can lock out the rest of the house, but we needed one back in the days when we had Angel, our beagle who we called that because as soon as you weren’t looking at him he would sneak into the kitchen and eat anything he could find, like the Weeping Angels on Doctor Who except with less neck breaking and more stealing your PB+J the instant your back was turned. That was before we had the other house, but we installed a similar door on the other house to keep the two dimensional dog from sneaking into our bedroom and pooping there.) It’s another thing to have a guy going all over your house while your cats are setting up ambushes for each other. And without homeowner’s insurance, we can’t risk it.

So it’s down to us. But we’re creative. My boyfriend has been seeing giant bugs that look like a cross between centipedes and beetles. Like the wall squid, they’re not entirely in our reality; he can see them because of his connection to the Fae. Well, my wife looks them up and apparently they are predators who eat bugs. We just have to get them over into our reality, and then figure out how to dispose of them. We can’t get frogs because the cats would attack them, and we can’t get an anteater because exotic animal, need a permit and besides, it’s not called a roach eater. We can bring the chickens inside to go roach hunting from time to time, but they poop all over the floor so the cure’s almost worse than the disease.

In our yard, there’s an old wooden gate that fell off the new house shortly after we got it, and instead of throwing it out, we leave it in the yard and move it around from time to time to kill weeds. The Fae made a circle on it. We carry the wooden gate into the house, and then my boyfriend leaves out sugar water to attract the centipeedles through the circle. Now we have centipede beetles the length of a human foot (which is mostly a lot shorter than the measurement named for it) in the house. Possibly this was ill thought out. The cats try attacking them, but it turns out, cats find centipeedles just as creepy as humans do, and the damn things have some pretty tough armor. It doesn’t take much before the cats get intimidated and leave them alone. Even Orion the assassin cat gives them a wide berth.

Turns out, the centipeedles are great at killing the roaches, but no one wants centipeedles in their pantry, or their silverware drawer. My daughter just literally stops eating off anything but her own private stash of sealed paper plates and plastic silverware because she’s so creeped out by the thought of either roaches or centipeedles touching anything she might eat off of. This isn’t great, the kid is already too thin and too easily put off her food. She was always picky, but apparently the timeshadow spent ten years eating moon cheese and is having a hard time stomaching Earth food, so now everything nauseates her, gives her a stomach, or is unappetizing in the first place.

One thing I will say for chickens: they’ll eat centipeedles. They don’t care, it’s all food to them. The cats have learned that chickens are much more of a threat and much less of a prey than they might think. Lana the two dimensional dog will happily chase the chickens, but she’s less two dimensional than she used to be. She doesn’t get enough exercise and she steals a lot of food, so she’s looking considerably more three dimensional than when we got her, which is good because it keeps her from slipping through closed doors, though bad in the sense that it’s not that healthy for her. There is enough clutter around the place, what with my tools, piles of lumber for the floor, and boxes of books that were deemed too heavy to carry over to the neighbors’ shed, that chickens have plenty of places to take shelter from a two and a half dimensional dog. And if we let Jessica the cockatoo out, turns out she thinks centipeedles are a fun piece of moving string to catch and tear in half. You’d think that a predator like a cat would be better at killing a centipeedle than a hookbill bird, but turns out, the centipeedles’ bellies are barely armored and the cockatoo has nearly opposable thumbs on her feet. She can flip them over, and then peck, peck, crack, done.

So we’ve got the chickens running around the place in chicken diapers to eat the centipeedles that we brought over from the lands of the Fae to eat the roaches, but we still have roaches and we still have centipeedles because it turns out you can’t control house bugs with predators. Spiders might be better at it and my boyfriend wants to get some, but my wife shoots that down.

I’m kinda at my wits’ end here, and then my youngest son wants to show me something.

So to understand this, I gotta tell you something about the layout of my house. We’ve got a full duplex, both sides, thanks to my wife’s dad. The front of the house is on a busy street, and my bedroom and my youngest daughter’s bedroom face that. The back of the house faces our deck, and my ninja son’s former bedroom (from the original side we had) and the guest room (from the new side we got) face that. Then there’s a room in the middle of our original house, that my younger son used to have, but now he’s moved into his older brother’s room. The bathroom is next to the boys’ bedroom, and also faces the deck.

Back a few years ago, before Covid, I did a renovation on my ninja son’s bedroom where I made it a little smaller, in preparation for making the bathroom wider. Then I didn’t have the opportunity to work on the bathroom. So there’s a narrow corridor between the bathroom and the bedroom. I threw together a quick and dirty closet to occupy some of that space, so the boys’ bedroom now has a closet in the corner that faces the bathroom and the deck. My younger son guided me over to this closet, and pulled up a trap door that I hadn’t known was there. There was a spiral staircase underneath.

So I went down the spiral staircase, of course, but I was freaking out. This hadn’t been here when I worked on the boys’ bedroom. I redid their entire floor, when they were so young they shared the room and my older daughter had the middle bedroom. There was no way this trap door could have been there when we moved in. There’s also no way it could be going where it’s going. My sons’ bedroom sits over the kitchen, but the kitchen has an addition in the back where we keep the laundry machines. This spiral staircase would theoretically be going right down into it.

Except it’s not. I’ve got pretty good spatial perception, so it doesn’t take me long to figure out that this very narrow little column is going between the two houses, at the edge where the kitchens meet the additions. I don’t know how it’s possible that I missed it. I’ve done so many renovations in this house. This is crazy.

The spiral staircase goes down underground and into a tunnel, which is not one of the tunnels my son and I dug to connect all the basements in the neighborhood. Technically this tunnel isn’t even in my basement; the foundation only goes as far as the original house, so the additions have no basement. This tunnel goes under my deck, then deeper underground, then turns, and comes up…

Ok, this is super weird. It’s a buried pillbox. This is like a basement, except what if your basement had a roof of its own rather than just being part of your house, and it was sticking out of the ground about two feet, with a lot of windows, and it was the size of maybe two rooms in your house put together, and it was at the back of the yard belonging to the neighbors with a swimming pool.

The room is mostly empty. There are tools, and some very iffy towels, and several empty beer cans, and a bottle of Windex and a really nasty roll of paper towels with spiderwebs all over it. I ask my son, “Did your brother know this was here?”

“I don’t know. If he did, he never mentioned it.”

“How long has it been here?”

“I don’t know, I just found it!”

There is no door, aside from the one we came in, and no staircase up to the ground level, but I open one of the windows and squirm through.

The fence around the neighbors’ swimming pool is about five feet tall, so I can see over it. My neighbors are sitting on their swimming pool. I mentioned the father’s a chemist or something, right? He’s got these substances that you mix into your water to change its solidity. They’ve turned about three quarters of their swimming pool into a semi-solid – a little bit squishy, their feet are leaving footprints in it when they walk around, but it holds their weight – and the remaining quarter, they’ve left as water so they can dangle their feet. There’s an entire entertainment center sitting in front of the pool, including a huge CRT TV, a VCR and a dozen super old video game machines like the Sega Saturn or the Nintendo GameCube, protected from the rain by a shade umbrella. Nothing is protecting this stuff from the water from the pool, though. They’re watching The Little Mermaid. I lean against the fence, and my neighbors notice me. The chemist greets me. “What’s going on, man?”

“I just discovered that this structure you have in the back of your yard is connected to my son’s bedroom.”

“Oh, wow,” he says. He gets out of the pool. He’s wearing swim trunks, but aside from his legs, he’s completely dry, since he’s been sitting on top of his pool dunking his feet and watching The Little Mermaid with his family. “You didn’t build that thing?”

“No, I didn’t build it.”

“But you built the tunnels.” I like this guy; he discovered the tunnels shortly after moving in, but he thought they were great. He wanted to get chickens himself, but there isn’t room in his yard with the swimming pool. The roof of the underground structure is completely covered with planter boxes full of tomatoes, peppers, flowers, herbs, and rutabagas. I don’t know why they’re trying to grow root vegetables in planters, but there’s enough foliage that I can tell what it is. The sign doesn’t help, it’s in Spanish. For obvious reasons I can read “tomato” and “jalapeno” and “serrano” in Spanish, but not “nabo sueco”, which probably means rutabaga because that’s what’s planted there.

“Yeah, a few years back, but I had no idea this thing was even here. Most of the tunnels go directly between the houses, not under the back yards.”

“Cool. I thought it was yours, but I didn’t know for sure. Can I go inside?”

“Well, there’s no door, but if you want to come to my house we can go down the staircase from my son’s room.”

So we traipse back over to my house, and then up to my son’s bedroom, down the stairs, through the tunnel, and into the empty underground structure. “This gets a lot of light for a thing underground,” he says. “A lot of windows.”

“It’s nice. I don’t know what it’s doing here, but maybe I’ll install some doors to give you and me privacy, and then make a trap door in the roof. I might have to move your rutabagas, though. That way you can come in and enjoy the space, too. Maybe we’ll make it some kind of den. You play board games? Role-playing games?”

“Not in English, not the role-playing games. I used to have an 11th level paladin before we moved here, but I was playing in Spanish. Board games, it’s mostly been Chutes and Ladders or Monopoly or some shit like that.” His kids are younger than mine.

“Well, we can put some furniture down there if there’s a trap door to lower it through, and get some lighting in.” There’s only one lamp, a work lamp clipped onto one of the ceiling joists. Its bulb works but is very dim. There’s one power outlet in the place. I’m gonna have to trace it back to see if it’s my electricity or his. “Set up some board games, maybe a mini-fridge with beer and Coke. We could hang out sometimes.”

“Yeah, that would be good. You like zucchini? My wife has too much zucchini.”

“I don’t, but my wife loves it. I could trade you some eggs.”

So that’s how I made friends with the mad scientist guy down the block. No idea what company he works for but they make some crazy shit. That stuff that makes the pool solid? Amazing. I don’t know how he keeps it from circulating through the entire pool, though. Maybe he’s got underwater baffles up to control the flow.

I tell my wife about this thing, and she looks at me funny. “Uh, yeah. You built that.”

“I did not.”

“You did. You got drunk one night and you said you were gonna seriously screw with the woman who called Animal Control on us. Then you built a tunnel to her house.”

“How the hell did I build that entire basement structure thing?”

“Oh, no, that was already there. You just connected to it. Same way you connected to the city’s underground tunnels.” Yeah, truth is, my son and I didn’t really build the entire tunnel system under the neighborhood. There was already a tunnel the city made and we just dug connectors to everyone’s basement, few years back.

“When were you going to tell me about this?”

“Why would I tell you about it? You’re the one who built it. I thought you’d remember.”

Okay, maybe I need to control my drinking, but that was a stressful time, with that woman being responsible for me losing my two roosters to Animal Control. Roosters aren’t allowed in the city, because the city is sexist. Apparently I built the trap door, the entire spiral staircase, and the connecting tunnel in one night, and I made my wife, my boyfriend, and my ninja son help, and now I’m the only one who doesn’t remember it. That’s embarrassing. After that woman did that, and tried to stop us from rescuing our own chickens, my wife started anonymously harassing her and sending her moldy videotapes until she sold the house and left town. Gotta say I like the new owners a lot better.

I hang out with the scientist a couple nights a week, after we get some furniture in there. My wife goes swimming in their pool, but I’m not a big fan of swimming; I go to the bunker with him and we shoot the shit and drink some beers, while my wife and his wife talk about gardening and practice my wife’s very rusty Spanish. My wife learned about ten languages but isn’t fluent in any of them, although she can say “This beautiful green Earth will soon be mine!” in Japanese. Maybe she shouldn’t have learned so much of it from anime.

It’s not easy to admit to anyone that you’ve got a roach problem, let alone a new friend, but liquor lubricates a lot of conversational topics. Yeah, okay, so it’s not always beer we’re drinking. Sue me. I tell my friend about the roaches, and he tells me his company is working on this really amazing fantastic pesticide. It’s a fungus that destroys exoskeletons, and it infects bugs, and only bugs, and makes them do Cordyceps type bullshit where they crave light instead of hiding in the dark like verminous bugs usually do, so they come out where you can see them. Then you can kill them, or let the infection kill them. I’m kind of worried about zombie apocalypses but he assures me that the fungus cannot infect humans, or anything without an exoskeleton. That’s the only place the spores can grow.

That sounds awesome.

So we get some from him and we mix it with sugar and we put it down everywhere. Big rectangular squares around all the furniture. Up table legs and counter sides. All around the edges of the tables and the counters. We’re taking no chances. We pull out the dishwasher and oven and coat the bottoms and backsides of them. Normally this stuff would be scary expensive, but our pal is giving it to us for free – well, “free” meaning we’re giving him tons of ground beef from the cow we bought, plus weird organs because his wife knows how to cook them and me and my wife would have to google it, plus eggs. And my wife is helping his wife learn English, but that maybe doesn’t count because she’s helping my wife learn Spanish, so that’s a pretty even trade. We watch their kids sometimes too; we don’t have a swimming pool, but we do have practically every game machine released in the US and a couple that were Japan only, and a gigantic library of media on hard drive, most of which was legal. Well, somewhat legal. Well, a good bit of them, my wife borrowed from the library and then ripped to hard drive. The kids are not unhappy to come over our house, is my point.

By this point everyone is vaccinated and my friend’s workplace always was pretty safe because it’s a clean room, where people wear Tyvek suits over their entire bodies, and masks and goggles, long before Covid was a thing, and his wife doesn’t work and me and my wife work from home and their kids are still going to school online and mine aren’t going at all anymore. So we feel pretty comfortable sharing air even with Covid still going on. We’re seeing a lot more bugs, but my pal reminds me that that’s part of the goal of this stuff, to entice them to come out and bask in the sunlight so we can kill them more easily. His kids like to run through our house with water guns full of soapy water, shooting bugs (and each other, and my boyfriend, who plays with them). I don’t mind as long as they stay well away from the computer equipment and they clean up the water spills once they’re done. It’s free housecleaning. These kids are more helpful at keeping the place clean than my own kids have been in years.

Then we start to see clusters of the bugs stuck on the wall. It looks like spots of mold, but turns out to be mold-covered bugs sitting on the wall semi-stuck to each other. I’m allergic to mold. My friend says it’s not that kind of mold, am I allergic to mushrooms? And I point out, the spores, yes I am, because I used to grow mushrooms in my basement and they’d spray spores out every so often and my nose would run like it was training for a marathon. He’s chagrined, says he didn’t know, because yeah, of course these things are gonna come out in the sun and spray spores. Light makes them spore, that’s why the mold makes them want to go into the light.

So now I’m popping Zyrtec like it’s candy and there are more and more moldy bugs turning up. For some reason they really want to join up together, like the mold wants them to make a mold mat, so they all go stand next to each other, centipeedles and roaches and ants and fleas, all together. It’s getting flies and mosquitos and mealmoths, too; they don’t eat the sugar we mixed into the liquid suspension of spores, but if they land on the mold mat because they think it’s ordinary wall or floor, they’ll be joining it in a day or two. Spiders, too, presumably getting infected by eating infected bugs. It spreads outside because the house is porous and the bugs can go in and out; there’s a giant ant colony burrowed into the dirt walls of the tunnels I made a few years back, and those guys are coming up out of the dirt and making giant mold mats of ants on the sidewalk and in the grass. It’s pretty gross. My friend begs me not to tell anyone who asks about the product I used; apparently it was experimental and he could lose his job for giving it to me. Well, thanks, buddy, wish you’d warned me! He assures me this never happened in the lab. I’ll bet they didn’t have nearly so many bugs in the lab, and they were probably in terrariums or something where there just weren’t all that many bugs per habitat.

At the point where the outdoor walls start getting covered with mold mats made of ants and earwigs and the fleas that lurk in the grass waiting for unsuspecting cats to walk by, the city gets on my ass. Apparently my walls are covered with mold and I need to clean them off, it’s unsanitary and releasing spores. “You think?” I say with my red, teary eyes and in between violent sneezes as I fish for more Kleenex in my pocket. I cannot actually get anywhere near the mold mats, not without a full on respirator. We have N95 masks and safety goggles, but I try those things and a. the safety goggles immediately fog up so I can’t see and b. it doesn’t help, the spores are getting into the safety goggles and getting into my eyes anyway.

My wife, my boyfriend and the friend-who-got-me-into-this-mess step in to help out. They’re spraying the mold mats with bleach, which would kill the bugs even if the mold hadn’t killed them yet, and scraping them off the walls with shovels and brooms. The ones they find in the yard, they dig underneath and cover them with dirt, then copper fungicide because, unlike bleach, that won’t kill plants that try to grow in the dirt. My friend has some more weird chemicals he thinks might help, but frankly I’m done; I got centipeedles to kill the roaches and then I got this stuff to kill the centipeedles and the roaches and it’s just made matters worse. Everyone in the world is allergic to roaches but not nearly as badly as I am to this mold. I’ve graduated to Benadryl, and bourbon, which does nothing about the allergies except to help me sleep through them. My wife says I’m not supposed to drink while taking Benadryl but I ask you, how do you look at your walls covered with mats of dead bugs that are growing mold and not drink?

The ants apparently go everywhere. Other neighbors are ending up with mold mats on their lawn. This is getting out of hand. I joke about setting the neighborhood on fire, but my wife reminds me that setting mold on fire just spreads spores.

So that gives me an idea.

We’ve got this water main that’s been broken for, oh, ten years now. The city keeps coming out to fix it and it just doesn’t fix. First it was up the street, pouring water down our street for years, winter and summer, which meant the road would turn into a slick sheet of ice every winter. Then they fixed it so that now it forms a pond in the median right outside my house. Maybe eventually they’d have stoppered that up too, but they left a backhoe on the median and somebody stole it. Not me or my family, for once; we checked the cameras but they weren’t pointing at the backhoe so we never figured out who did it. Anyway, mold likes damp, but things that like damp don’t necessarily like serious amounts of water, right?

My friend and I hook up pipes to the broken water main, and connect them to hoses, and connect the hoses to pumps, and pull all the water up the street to some of the neighbors behind my house who paved their back yards. We empty out the furniture from the underground room and clean out our respective basements, first, and park the cars up the street on the hill above all this. Then we let the water go.

This floods the neighborhood.

Yes. Again.

Everything below the level of where we’re pumping the water main to gets flooded. Yards and basements fill with water and wash down the hill to the river, which is really more of a cranky little creek most of the time, and the river washes it all down to the bay, where it should be diluted to the point where it won’t hurt the crabs. My friend assures me that this mold was bio-engineered to not be good at handling a lot of water. It can drown, too, even its spores. If they’re floating in water and they encounter a crab, they won’t be able to germinate on its shell. This is very important because around here we love our crabs. Of course, all this disturbed some local ghosts – ghosts don’t like flooding – but honestly I feel like it’s just negligence if you still have ghosts. We had all those floods a decade ago, like the one my car floated off in, so everyone should have known by now that there are ghosts in the area and they don’t like floods, so get them exorcised pre-emptively. It’s kind of like not having fire extinguishers in your house, if you don’t get the exorcism done.

We go around to any of our neighbors with a mold mat on the walls, and spray it off with a power washer. So far thankfully none of them have ended up with mold mats inside their houses, which just goes to show you how much the gods hate my house. We do not admit that any of this is our fault, just being good neighbors and helping out, but unfortunately my neighbors know me too well.

So this is great. Our animals are free of fleas, there’s no flies or mosquitos around for once in our lives, the mealmoths and the roaches and the centipeedles are gone, there’s no ants. And this is true all over the neighborhood. The bees seem to be fine; bees seemed to know not to land on the mold mats, and we didn’t poison with sugared fungus outside, so there was nothing to attract them to the fungus. Wasps, unfortunately, are fine too, but fuck it, they’re pollinators and I have fruit trees so I guess that’s okay. So this all ought to be great, right? Everybody happy, the whole neighborhood free of bug pests?

The city is now fining me out the ass for “stealing water”, even though come on, it’s bubbling up from the broken water mains so much it made a mosquito-growing pond, and I’m the one who got rid of the mosquitoes. (For the larvae in the pond, we just used mosquito dunks, plus our stunt temporarily drained the pond.) My neighbors are suing me for various things, including pain and suffering, water damage to their yards, riling up ghosts, and the death of so many poor innocent little buggies. (Are you kidding me? There are people around here actively mourning the deaths of flies and roaches. What the hell is wrong with people?)

And that is why I have posted this GoFundMe. Because I got rid of an entire neighborhood’s worth of bugs, at least for this year – no illusions about them coming back next year now that we’ve washed away all the spores – and people are suing me for it. And I’m not willing to throw my chemist friend under the bus legally, since he could lose his job, so the defense “this guy told me it was okay” is not gonna help. And everyone who wanted to get into the cloud when Covid hit already has by now, so business is not exactly booming anymore. Anybody want to help a guy out?

#52 project #comedy #surreal #magical realism #I actually have no idea how to describe this genre

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kiljoius-writes · 10 months

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Chapter 3/5: Romance is Boring

“How was it?”

“How was what?”

Konohamaru bites his lip in amusement at Hanabi’s panicked voice answering her sisters.

“The…beach…?” Hinata asks, tilting her head as they both take a seat with the Uzumaki’s at the barbeque restaurant they were about to eat at. He looks over to see her face growing red.

“Hot,” Konohamaru interjects, resting his elbows on the table. “Pretty tiring, Hanabi was all sweaty, right?”

He sees her jaw flex, clearly gritting her teeth. He smirks.

“It was fine.”

“Just fine?” Hinata asks, curiously. “You love the beach, Hanabi. I thought you’d be excited.”

“Oh, she loved it,” Konohamaru continues, bumping his foot into hers. “Had a great time, I could tell.”

He’s not lying, anyway.

And apparently, she really had had a great time, because when they returned to the village, she was rolling in his bed with him more often than he could have imagined.

He’d been told by women that he was good, but to have Hanabi Hyūga visiting him nightly (and sometimes daily, too) made him feel like a damn king.

Suddenly, Konohamaru found himself with Hanabi a lot.

His friends took note.

“Please don’t tell me you’re fucking Hanabi.”

“Wh—what?!” Konohamaru hits his fist into his chest as he chokes on a piece of karaage, eyes blowing wide as he looks up at Moegi.

“Damn, right here, right now?” Udon asks in a joking voice, elbowing Moegi as he pulls his beer to his lips. “Brutal, Moegi.”

“Konohamaru,” Moegi says, warningly as she eyes him over her beer, “tell me you aren’t.”

“The hell—” He grabs his own beer and glugs it down, stalling. He sets it back down before shaking his head. “Not your business.”

“Oh GODS!” Moegi slams her hand on the table between them, shaking everything on it forcefully. “You disgusting pervert!”

“Nice one.” Udon raises his fist towards Konohamaru who glances at it before rolling his eyes. Udon drops the hand. “Is she as nimble as they say?”

“They say?” Konohamaru perks an eyebrow, trying not to let a hint of jealousy cling to his words. “Who says?”

“I dunno.” Udon shrugs. “A few of the guys.”

“Udon!” Moegi punches his shoulder. “Shut your drooling mouth! None of those guys have ever bedded Hanabi, I know it.”

“How would you?” Konohamaru leans back, bringing his beer to his chest, hoping she’s right.

“Because Hanabi would tell me,” she points out, tapping her chopsticks against her plate, “she doesn’t sleep with just anyone. But…you guys have been…”

“Hanging all over each other,” Udon finishes, taking a sip.

“We haven’t.” Konohamaru shakes his head and Moegi scoffs.

“Yeah right. You guys went on that vacation, and ever since, I can count on one hand the number of times I haven’t seen you with her.” She holds up a finger. “You guys were at the training grounds together.”

“Saw you guys go into a movie together,” Udon adds, and Moegi lifts another finger.

“You brought her for drinks the other night.” Another finger.

“You’re offering to babysit the Uzumaki kids a lot more often.” Another.

“You guys actually took a mission together last week.” Moegi’s hand splays out.

“Not to mention the dozens of times I see her trying to be sneaky at your window.”

Konohamaru pales. Moegi closes the hand into a triumphant fist.

“Mhm.” Moegi looks at him smugly, folding her arms over her chest. “Gotcha.”

Udon barks a laugh, pushing his glasses up his nose. “That last one was a lie, idiot.”

“Fuck…” Konohamaru mutters, looking away.

“How’d you do it?” Udon inquires, leaning in, and Moegi joins him.

“Seriously?” Moegi pushes as he leans back from their leering gazes. “She hates you. Or hated you, I guess. She would have rather died than let you put your grubby hands on her.”

Konohamaru taps his finger on the table, staring down at his empty plate. He brings his beer back up to his lips, contemplating whether to tell his stupid friends anything.

Because, if Konohamaru is honest, he’s not even sure.

The past two months had been a whirlwind of passion with Hanabi.

They hadn’t officially declared themselves anything concrete. If it had to be described as anything, it would be friends with benefits—even if they hadn’t ever really been friends.

And Moegi was a huge proponent that being friends with benefits was a dangerous path, and Konohamaru couldn’t help but agree.

Mostly because he was falling victim to those dangers.

Feelings.

“It’s…nothing,” he sighs, setting his beer back down to pull out his coin pouch.

Moegi gasps, eyes growing wide. “Oh no.”

“Moegi…” Konohamaru grumbles, digging for money.

Udon raises his eyebrows, glancing from Moegi to Konohamaru. “Oh, shit. He’s…not…”

Moegi leans in. “Falling in love…”

“With…”

“Hanabi?!” Moegi and Udon gasp in unison, pressing their shoulders together.

“You guys are shitty together,” Konohamaru huffs, dumping a random amount of money on the table, desperate to escape this encounter.

“No, no, no!” Moegi whines, covering her face as Udon sighs, shaking his head.

“Konohamaru, you’re an idiot,” Udon tsks, Moegi nodding in agreement.

“He’s going to be a crying, heartbroken mess in two months.” He hears Moegi tell Udon.

“I give it one.”

Konohamaru stomps out of the restaurant and takes a deep breath of air in, pinching the bridge of his nose.

He isn’t falling for Hanabi.

Is he?

As Hanabi buries her face into a pillow, her skin is practically burning on her back from Konohamaru’s lips leaving trailing kisses there. As he thrusts into her, one hand guides her hip and the other relentlessly teases her clit. Explosive energy is building up in her, and she tries to tell him, beg him—then, suddenly, he’s pulling out of her and flipping her onto her back, dropping back onto his elbows and covering her lips with his own.

As he pushes into her again, she lets her muffled moans travel from her mouth directly into his, hooking her legs around his hips. His hand travels down her stomach until it reached her clit again and she keens loudly, his lips leaving her as he braces himself with one hand. She squeezes her eyes shut, clutching the fabric of the sheets underneath them as heat builds in her core once more. “Fuck—Konohamaru!” she whines, hips bucking upwards as she feels it wash over her.

“Coming for me?” he whispers eagerly, and she knows he’s admiring her. Every single time he drags an orgasm out of her, he takes her in with his eyes. Seems he really enjoys watching her, and she doesn’t really mind, as long as he keeps gracing her with those fingers.

“Yes, yes—” she gasps out, pulling a hand up to grip the pillow under her and bite down on it.

“Gods, you’re gorgeous,” he groans, fingers still working her clit even as she comes down. “Fucking beautiful.”

She pants under him, unable to respond as her other hand wanders to the dip of his back, fingernails digging. She feels herself spasming around him as his thrusts become longer and slower, dragging her slick along himself. She reaches down to push at his hand. “Kono—stop—”

“Really?” he whispers, leaning back in to cover the crook of her neck with his lips, “you want me to stop?”

“With—with your hand—” she whines, grabbing at his wrist, “it’s sensitive!”

“Mhm,” he mumbles against her skin, digging his teeth in before releasing, “and you feel amazing around me when you come.”

“Fu—ah—” She arches her back as his fingers remain there, rubbing deep circles. “Kono—”

“One more,” he begs quietly, and she can’t even pretend to dislike it, he’s just so damn charming, “then I’ll stop.”

“Fu—fine!” she whimpers, reaching up to wipe at her face, a mixture of tears and sweat on her cheeks. He trails his lips up from her neck to her cheek to kiss them away.

“You’re so good to me,” he whispers against her cheek, pressing his hips deeply into hers, filling her completely before stilling himself there, fingers still relentless. She pants, pushing her nose into the pillow below her, clenching around him. “Hanabi, I’m fucking addicted to you.”

“Shut up,” she breathes out, shaking her head.

“It’s true.” He covers her lips with his and bites down on her lip. She cries out, legs tightening around him instinctively. He releases the lip. “I can’t stop thinking about you, making love to you.”

“Don’t call it that." She digs her fingernails deeper into his skin until they feel slightly wet with blood. He hisses quietly, burying his nose into her hair.

“Why?” he asks, still working her over even as he remains inside of her. “Every day for the past month—”

“It’s not—”

“Come for me, honey.”

She gasps, whines, twists.

“Come for me,” he repeats, pulling himself back up to look at her again, “fuck, yes.” His way with pillow talk is so much better than any other guy she’s ever been with. He could have her a mess with just a few words and she tries to pretend that pisses her off. As her walls flex and her legs tighten, he runs his fingers through her hair, pulling her face back up to look at him, and she finally opens her eyes, finding his face overcome with hunger. That was the only way she could describe it, the relentless hunger he had for her, for her body and everything she gave him. Then he leans down to kiss her, and she kisses him back. He pulls back just a bit, his lips still teasing hers, and then—“I love you, Hanabi.”

“Fuck—!”

Hanabi moans, louder than she had before as she feels herself gush, tighten around him, wet and sloppy, and—what?

“What the—” she gasps out, “what did you—”

“I love you,” he repeats, he sounds so sure, “I fucking love you, Hanabi—”

“Get off of me!” she yelps, pulling her hands to her chest, “what the hell—”

“Really?” he breathes, “you don’t love this?” She gasps as he pulls out of her and quickly works his way down until he’s between her legs, his tongue on her.

“You didn’t say that—” she huffs as he drags his tongue along her slit, lips covering her clit. She grabs at his hair and pulls, harshly. “Kono—”

“I fucking love you,” he repeats, though it's muffled as he pushes his tongue inside of her, and she has no choice but to dig her fingernails into his scalp. “I love you, I love this—” She bucks her hips into his mouth as he speaks, “—I love your body, your eyes, your smile—” She whines as his finger enters her, immediately curling upwards. “How you talk, how you fight.” She grips his hair tighter. “How you look when I’m fucking you.”

“Kono!” she moans, urgently trying to bring him up, and he finally relents, fingers pulling out of her with a lewd sucking sound. “Fuck—what are you—” He cuts her off as he pushes himself back inside of her, grabbing her from under the knees to pull her apart as he rests on his shins.

“I don’t care—” he pants, the sound of their skin slapping and her moans filling the room, “—I love you, Hanabi.”

“Kono—” she whines, pulling the pillow over her face as he pumps in and out of her, until she feels him twitch inside of her and his movements come to an abrupt halt, filling her to the hilt. “Gods!”

Then he collapses on top of her, arms coming around her waist to hold her tightly up against his chest. “I don’t care, Hanabi, I really don’t—” She tenses up. “I'm in love with you”

“You—you can’t-“ She instinctively wraps her arms around him.

“I already am,” he breathes into her neck, pulling her closer if that was possible. “I’m already in love with you.”

“You’re an idiot,” she sighs, turning her face away. "You’re a horny idiot. You’re in love with fucking me.”

“That, too,” he admits, slowly pulling up from her. "But I love you, too. All of you.”

“Shut up,” she shoots back, forcing her palm into his cheek to push him away. He reaches up to grab the hand and pushes it back into the bed.

“I won’t,” he inhales, pushing the wrist in harder, “won’t shut up until you understand—"

“You’re so dumb.” She shakes her head, trying to wiggle her wrist away. “Delusional, you just love being inside of me.”

“Of course, I do,” he breathes, grabbing her other wrist to pull above her head, “I love every single part of you.”

“I’ve treated you like garbage for ten years." She finally looks up to lock her eyes with his.

“I don’t care. I fucking love you.”

“You can’t love me.”

Konohamaru pauses to look at her, really look at her.

He hadn’t planned on going about it this way, but he didn’t even regret it when it slipped out. In fact, he leaned into it.

Konohamaru had always worn his heart on his sleeve, and Hanabi had always poked at that heart in some way or another. He never had expected her to rip it off and take it for her own, though.

For months, they’d been acting like a couple. She was in his bed every night or every other night barring missions. He was taking her on dates, kissing her in public (despite her resistance), and calling her his girlfriend to anyone who asked. And Konohamaru decided that he had in fact fallen for Hanabi.

So as they lay in a hotel bed together after attending some clan leader's wedding that she had been expected to go to (and that she had invited him as her date for), Konohamaru decided now was the time. After watching several haughty men approach her and be swiftly rejected, he had to make sure she knew.

“I can love you,” he retorts, leaning down to take her lips with his, and he smirks against them when she returns the kiss. Then he trails his lips down the corner of her mouth, her chin, her neck, reaches her chest and begins drawing circles with his tongue around her nipple. He tightens his grip on her wrists as she wiggles under him, then pulls them together to lock into his one hand. He brings the other hand back down to find her hip and steady her.

“Y—you can’t,” she pants out, and he decides he wants to hear her panting out her words for the rest of his life. He drags his finger across her hip bone, dipping back between her legs to find her clit again. “Kono, gods!”

That, too. He wants to hear her cursing his name underneath him for the rest of his life, too.

He whispers into her chest, “let me love you,” before wrapping his lips around the teased nipple, simultaneously dipping his finger between her puffy folds.

“No-” she exhales shallowly, but he ignores it, instead deciding she wasn’t adequately taken care of if she wasn’t screaming his name.

So he moves quickly, releases her wrists and pulls his hand from between her thighs, and spreads her wide open. He positions himself against her opening and pushes in, slowly, while running his thumb over her clit, swollen from his relentless teasing of it the entire night.

“F—fuck—” She reaches out for him on instinct. That makes his heart flutter, the way she needs him, and she can’t even hide it. He grins, willingly obliging, coming back to rest on top of her again. He keeps his hand between them as he fills her and her arms wrap around his neck, forcing his nose into the crook of hers. “Kono, please—!”

“What, honey?” he mumbles against her neck, trailing his lips to her ear. He connects his lips there, asking, “what do you need?”

“Ahh—” she gasps out as his tongue teases her, his fingers tease her, he teases her. “I don’t—I don’t—”

He groans into her neck as he feels her tighten around him. “Fuck Hanabi,” he grinds out, nearly coming himself as her walls suck him in, “how—” he inhales sharply as her heels dig into his back, “—how do you expect me not to fall in love when—” he feels her nails digging again, “—you’re so damn perfect—”

He pulls his arm from her back to drag himself up from her, just enough to capture that pretty flushed face as she comes for him. It’s almost unreal how much he enjoys watching her come, almost more than coming himself—but not quite. It really does it for him when he can see her moaning, gasping, struggling to breathe as he works her over, and—

Fuck—

“Come for me,” she breathes, coming down from her own high and the words shove him over the edge. When she reaches up to drag her fingers into that spot behind his ear, he groans a deep, throaty groan, leaning into the touch as she whispers, “that’s right, good boy…”

Then he collapses.

He might have overdone it when he lost track of how many rounds they had gone because he almost instantaneously falls asleep on top of her.

Hanabi sighs shallowly as she wraps her arms around Konohamaru’s neck, letting him be cradled by her as he sleeps.

He had to be going insane.

Drunk off her, maybe. She had that effect on people, she figured.

Let me love you.

“Damn…” she sighs against the crown of his head.

Well, this wasn’t what Hanabi expected when she stumbled into the shower with Konohamaru.

Amazing sex? Well, she had heard he was good in bed and he did not disappoint. Someone to drag with her to clan events? He made good company, it was easy for them to banter insults about the posh people who attended them. A sparring partner who actually gave her a run for her money? Hyūga trained with Hyūga and that was terribly boring, training with Konohamaru was fun and he always kept her on her toes (and subsequentially curling them).

But love?

Hanabi couldn’t love him, and he couldn’t love her, either.

Hanabi has too much baggage and him not enough. She’s a mess, and she decided a long time ago, no one should be forced to love this mess. And now that she actually kind of cares about Konohamaru, she’s certain she can’t let him end up loving her, either. He’s actually…kind of sweet.

Not kind of, he is sweet. He bandages her hands for her when he notices she’s cut up after sparring, he sweeps her up by the legs and arms to carry up hills, he washes her hair for her and spoils her in bed. If Hanabi didn’t know any better, she’d think her heart was melting whenever he did those things. She never thought her heart to be soft and squishy like her sisters until Konohamaru.

And he’s not just sweet, he’s funny, brave, and surprisingly intelligent. Calling him dumb as rocks was her and Udon’s favorite insult for him, but that just wasn’t true, she realized. His quick wit stopped surprising her within weeks of hanging around him in some friendly capacity.

When Moegi and Udon began fake-gagging anytime they were together, she knew she was getting too close.

Hanabi gasps and shoves Konohamaru off of her when some deep rumbling comes from his chest.

He also snores.

She couldn’t love someone who snored. No, that was simply unacceptable.

Tiredly, she drags herself to the bathroom to get ready for bed, and promptly falls asleep next to him, praying he won’t invade her dreams tonight.

Not that he hadn’t been in them every night since that day.

Konohamaru chose not to bring it up the next day, decided to let her stew in his confession of love for a little longer.

She’d come around, he knew it. He’d make her come around; he had no problems doing that. She just needed some time, he figured, and that was okay. It had only been around 6 months since that day at the beach, but he was sure of it. He had fallen in love with Hanabi, just like his stupid friends told him.

6 months might not be enough time to convince her, so he’d just have to keep at it. Keep taking her on dates, keep tagging along wherever she went, keep making sure she was satisfied in bed. Being a clan heir must be exhausting, and he would ensure he was there to take a little stress off of her.

So when they go on a relatively relaxed mission together a month later, a delivery, he corners her.

“We have a couple of extra days,” he tells her as he grabs her hand, pulling her towards him before she can react. She gasps and stumbles into him, hands pressing up against his chest as she looks at him. He smiles down at her, really enjoying the way she fits just right up against him. He’d dated plenty, but Hanabi was really the first tall girl he had dated, and he clearly didn’t know what he was missing. He still towers over her, but it’s kind of nice not bending halfway down to kiss a girl. Especially a girl as beautiful as she is. Her beauty had just been lost on him for the last decade because she had been such a mean girl.

“So?” she asks, tilting her head curiously. A little smile ghosts her lips and he leans in to take them with his own. She giggles into the kiss, and he pulls her in closer until her chest is flush against his. That's a good sign. He wants more good signs.

He pulls back just slightly to speak, “so the Waterfall village is less than a day away…we could stay there tonight.”

“Oooh.” She bites her lip as he pulls back a bit more to take in her pretty smile. “It is very pretty there.”

“Like you.”

“Oh.” she shakes her head, rolling her eyes. “When did you start saying such cheesy things?”

“Ah,” he says with a grin, rubbing his nose against hers, “I’ve always said cheesy things, just not to you.”

“I see.” She raises an eyebrow. “I should consider myself so lucky.”

“Lots of people would think so,” he agrees with a nod, leaning in to take her for another kiss before she can return with yet another snarky remark.

Being teased by her had always made his blood boil in the past, but now, it makes his heart feel light.

He pulls away and then turns his back to her, crouching to his knees. He looks back at her curious expression and waves her towards him, “I’ll carry you.”

“Oh!” She laughs, swatting the top of his head. “I’m perfectly find walking.”

“I know that,” he clarifies, nudging his head, “but I want to. Please?”

She clicks her tongue, rolls her eyes, but she still has a smile on her face and pink cheeks.

All part of the plan.

Next Chapter ->

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