#i hope none of you get too attached to this tommy. hes gonna be gone and its gonna suck

[anachronistic-falsehood]

sometime after dstuck ch 70 is where a tommy dies btw. like this is no secret ive been saying this is coming ever since a tommy came back from the doomed timeline like He Will Die. there are one too many rogues of time in the session its gotta be evened out. tommyinnit more like deadinnit. haha gottem. but yeah dead tom. like this isn't even a spoiler its just something that has 2 happen. u understand im sure <3

[arvinsescape]

Could you write something with tom being super clingy after not seeing reader for a while and not wanting to share her with anyone?

Tom’s clingy.

A/N: I loved this I hope you enjoy!! Thank you so much for sending it in and thank you for your patience 💕💕

Warnings: None that I’m aware of.

Tom had gotten back just over two hours ago, a month long stretch of filming had seemingly left him very touch starved. He was quite literally all over you, kissing all over your face, keeping you cuddled into his chest, holding your hand. You were currently led on the couch, cuddling and watching a film.

You’d held it long enough but you needed to pee, moving Tom’s arm that was slung across your waist, you suddenly felt resistance as he pulled you back into his chest, nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck.

“Where are you going?” He asked as he kissed at the exposed skin of your neck.

“Tom, I need to empty my bladder.” You giggled as he huffed and reluctantly let you go. You moved from your comfortable spot on the couch, watching as Tom rolled onto his back, slight pout on his lips before making your way to the bathroom.

As soon as you were done you headed back to your doting boyfriend who instantly grabbed you and pulled you onto his chest, a slight ‘oomph’ leaving your lips as you collided with the toned area. Tom instantly wrapped his arms around you and you laughed.

“Are you trying to suffocate me?” You teased as he relaxed his grip slightly.

“Sorry, just missed you.” He said as he kissed the top of your head, you nuzzled in to his chest, leaving a kiss there.

“I was gone for like two minutes.” You pointed out and he groaned.

“No, I mean while I was away.” He clarified and you smiled, he never missed an opportunity to shower you in affection but this time when he’d gotten home it was like it had been dialled to a thousand.

**

This continued on for a solid two days, you went to make a brew? Tom’s arms would be around you. You went to load the washing machine? Tom was hovering. You found it endearing and slightly amusing, especially once Tess had gotten jealous of Tom having all your attention, last night had been amusing.

You were laying in bed, waiting for Tom to get out of the shower, he’d huffed when you declined his offer to shower with him. Tess jumping up onto the bed with you as she attempted to get under the duvet.

“Tess, it’s our secret that you sleep in here.” You laughed as you stroked her, tail instantly wagging at the affection as she licked at your cheek. It was strange that you and Tess had a mutual understanding, she only ever slept in yours and Tom’s bed when you were ill and in bed all day or when Tom was away filming.

It wasn’t that he hated her being in bed, he just preferred if she didn’t, but when he was away? You let her join you. However, tonight she was going to push her luck and get into bed with the two of you, you laughed as you caved and let her under the duvet with you. 

Tom appeared and flopped into bed, wrapping his arm around your waist when he felt Tess shift closer to you. She was attached to your side as she always was when she was sleepy. Tom stroked her head a few times before nuzzling his head into your back.

“Since when does Tess sleep in bed?” He asked and you shrugged.

“She wants a cuddle too.”

“You’d let her get away with anything.” Tom said as he pulled you closer to his chest, interlocking your legs.

“I would not.” You would. You do. “Just, she’s settled now, let her stay.” You begged and Tom breathed out a laugh before kissing the back of your head.

“Okay, but it’s gonna get too hot in here.” He said and of course he was right.

Ten minutes later and you were kicking your feet out of the duvet, you were now sweating as you were wedged between the two. Neither of them left an inch of space between your body and theirs, Tess was in a deep sleep and Tom’s breathing had almost evened out, signalling he was almost asleep.

You wiggled around as you tried to create some space, trying to lift Tom’s arm that was weighing heavy on your sweating figure. His grasp tightening as he attempted to keep you still but the heat was becoming unbearable as you huffed.

“Stop moving.” Tom grumbled, half asleep.

“I’m too hot.” You huffed out and Tom laughed.

“Told you, move Tess.” He said with a half hearted laugh.

“Tom, just shift over.” You huffed as you attempted to move his arm again.

“I don’t think so darling.”

“Come on, she’s asleep and you’re not.” You tried to reason.

“Nope. I’m not moving.” Tom said stubbornly, you weren’t going to win this one.

“So you want me to move Tess? She’s asleep and she’s comfy, plus you’re more hot than she is.” You tried again.

“Nice try sweetheart but no, if anyone is moving it’s Tess.”

“You’ll still be next to me.”

“Not close enough love. Besides Tess has had you all month, I haven’t.”

“You move her.” You said, hoping to not have to move the sleeping dog from her spot. It suddenly dawned on you that you were all sharing your side of the bed, Tom’s almost untouched. “Wait, just move back.” You said and Tom complied, shifting the two of you backwards and onto his side, away from Tess who was sprawled on your side.

The sheets were cooler on his side and you couldn’t be more thankful as you felt your sweating stop. Tess huffed in her sleep when she felt you move, waking up almost instantly to see where you’d gone. You watched as she stood up and moved closer to you again.

“Tess, come on. Out now.” Tom said as he pulled you into his chest, impossibly closer. “No, come on. You know you’re not supposed to be in here.” He said as she looked at him before huffing and jumping off the bed, finding her dog bed on the floor.

“That was mean.” You yawned out. “You should share you know.” You teased and Tom huffed.

“Not you baby.” He mumbled out quietly, sleep lacing his voice as he drifted off to sleep, you not far behind.

You were making a brew when your phone pinged, your friend having texted you to see if you wanted to go out for lunch. 

“Babe, I think I’m going out for lunch with (Y/F/N).” You said as you made your way into the living room where you’d managed to leave him this time.

“You’re going out?” He asked, almost deflated.

“Only for lunch. I’ll be like two hours.” You laughed.

“That’s so long.” He said as he grasped your hand, entwining your fingers as he rubbed his thumb on the back of your hand.

“It’s really not.” You snorted. 

“I just wanna stay in and cuddle you though.” He said.

“What is with you?” You asked him amused. “You’ve literally not let me out of your sight for three days.”

“I’ve missed you.”

“Tom, we’ve done this so many times. You’re never this needy.” You laughed as you poked his chest, he grasped your finger in his hand and held it to chest. 

“I’m not allowed to miss you?” He asked and you snorted again.

“I know you too well. What’s up?” You asked and he huffed.

“I don’t know, I just missed you so much. Like more than usual, all I could think about was how cold the bed was in my trailer and how much I missed having you next to me. I don’t know I realised how much I just don’t ever want to let you go. I know we’ve been together two years but this just felt different, I hated every second of being away from you.” He said and your heart melted.

“I realised something while I was away this time and I don’t wanna scare you off by saying it but I realised how much I want to marry you. I’m not asking right now but I just want you to know how much I love and appreciate you. How much you mean to me.” He said and you were sat there in shock. Tom Holland had just told you that he didn’t want anyone else, that you were all he wanted in life.

“Sorry, I don’t wanna scare you or put pressure on you.” He said sheepishly, completely misreading your shock. You snapped back to reality as you looked at him, a grin spreading across your lips as you threw yourself at him, cuddling into him.

“I love you too Tommy. I’d marry you tomorrow if I could. I don’t see myself with anyone else.” You said as you peppered his face with kisses.

“Sorry I’ve been so clingy baby,” he said as he moved a stray piece of hair from your face. “I’ve just missed you so much and I don’t know when I saw you for the first time in a month after coming to the realisation I want you forever. It was like a truck of emotions hit me and I don’t wanna let you go.”

“Don’t apologise for loving me Tom.” You smiled as you sat in his lap. “But I do need to go and see (Y/F/N).” Tom grinning at you.

“Okay baby,” he said as he kissed your temple. “Go have fun, i’ll be here when you get back.”

[missymurphy1985]

The Premiere

The Premiere of Peaky Blinders, Series 6. You've had a secret lust for your co-star for the last 10 years, would this be your last chance to finally get your way with him?

This was a request from @noctvrnalmoth

Taglist - @queenshelby @peakyscillian @ntmynouis @margoo0 @being-worthy @janelongxox

Lights flashing, cameras clicking, paparazzi calling your name left right and centre... God you hated premieres. But you plastered your game face on and gave the what they wanted like the good little actress you were. Series 6 of Peaky Blinders was premiering in Broad Street, Birmingham, appropriate as the series was based in the city - it felt right that that's where the final premiere should be.

You heard the crowd of fans behind you suddenly go wild as a car pulled up to the red carpet and the man himself stepped out of it. Your breath caught in your throat as you suddenly remembered the cameras were on you, and you quickly switched your game face back on. You couldn't hide the cheesy grin though, as Cillian Murphy stood smiling for the cameras. He made his way to the group of fans be happily signed a few autographs and took a few selfies with them. Thanking each of them for coming out, he waved and made his way over to you.

"Hey Ada," he smiled in his Brummie accent, knowing it made you laugh when he called you by your character's name.

"Tommy Shelby has arrived I see, did you leave Cillian in the hotel room?" He snaked an arm over your shoulder and you posed for more pictures together. Rumours had abounded for the last ten years of a romance behind the scenes between you, but none of them were true. You were good friends, that was all, no matter how much more you wanted.

"He was cramping my style Ada, can't have that at a premiere can we?" You giggled as he squeezed your shoulder, before reverting back to his Irish accent. "Reckon they've got enough photos, it's fucking brass knuckles out here!" He led you both into the hall where a waiter stood with a tray of champagne glasses. He took two and handed one to you. Clinking your glasses together in a toast.

"Here's to the end," he smiled, a touch of sadness in his eyes.

"It's been one hell of a ride though Cill, we've had a blast haven't we?"

"That we have y/n, that we have. Let's go cringe watching ourselves on camera, yeah?"

"Let the clenching begin!" You linked an arm with his and made your way into the auditorium together to the waiting interviewers.

Sitting on a chair each, the two of you glanced at each other and smiled. Both of you hated these promo interviews at premieres but at least you were doing this one together. Answering the questions as professionally as possible, the interviewer suddenly changed the topic to a more, personal, one.

"You must have seen the rumours flying around about the two of you in recent years?"

Cillian shrugged as you tried to hide your blush with a hand, pretending to laugh.

"There will always be rumours like that when co-stars of the opposite sex have chemistry onscreen - we've learned to let it go." Cillian always had an answer for it.

"It's a weird one though, I mean, I play his sister, you'd think the rumours would be about you and Tash, or Annabelle!" You smiled, your eyes meeting Cillian's. Did he just glance down at your cleavage?

"Tumblr has gone WILD about the two of you, fan made stories about you making out in secret onset, sneaking off together? Clear it up for us now - is there any truth to them?" The interviewer probed, hoping for some kind of sexy exclusive. Cillian's famous eyebrow raise quickly followed.

"If there was, we wouldn't admit it would we? The whole point of 'sneaking around' would mean it was a secret, wouldn't it? Be pointless to ruin the illusion now.." he smirked. The interviewer was stunned. So were you - you'd never done anything of the sort.. what was he doing? The papers would go wild with this tomorrow! You hid your face in your hands and snorted. He wasn't having the upper hand in this.

"He wouldn't stand a chance anyway." You smirked.

"Is that so y/n?" He turned to look at you. "These blue eyes didn't make you weak at the knees when we were filming? The strong jawline not having the Tommy Shelby effect?" Those blue eyes were staring you down now, you had no words. Just then the bell rang to signal the end of interviews - the premiere of the new series was about to begin in the auditorium. The interviewer was still slightly agog - what exactly had he just witnessed here?

"That was amazing wasn't it? They did an incredible job editing it all, just brilliant!" You gushed as you and Natasha left the auditorium.

"Not bad at all!! I'm gutted we won't be filming together again though y/n.." she hugged you tight. "And I'm sure Cillian will miss you too." She smirked, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh god don't you start, those rumours have been plaguing me for years!! We're just friends Tash!" She nodded, still smirking, and glanced behind you, seeing Cillian making his way over.

"I'll see you at the party, yeah?" She made her way to the casino next door where the after-party was being held.

Two strong hands clipped your waistline making you jump, nearly spilling your champagne.

"Too easy y/n," Cillian chuckled.

"Asshole," you laughed, slapping his arm playfully. He smiled and, arm over your shoulder again, he walked with you to the casino.

"I'm not staying long y/n, so I'll say it now yeah?" He ordered the two of you a drink at the bar and turned to face you. The loud music drowning out most of the noise. You couldn't hear him very well.

"What?"

"I said, I'm not staying long y/n! I need to tell you something." Louder now, bending down to talk into your ear. Your drinks arrived and you made your way to a slightly quieter corner.

"Should I be worried Cill?"

"Maybe.." your breath caught again. "See, you know those rumours? The ones about us basically fucking behind the scenes?" Your cheeks burned.

"Oh those? Um.. yeah.. what about them?" He cleared his throat, bending to whisper loudly in your ear.

"Didn't you ever wish they were true?" You pulled back. The fuck did he just say?

"What?!" You nearly dropped your drink from the sudden movement.

"Just once, didn't you ever just wonder what could've happened?" His blue eyes so dark, looking right into yours.

"Listen, I'm not asking for a relationship, god knows neither of us need that right now, but this is the last time I'm gonna get this opportunity before we part ways for good. Meet me on floor 7 in 15 minutes. Room 712. If you don't come, I'll know the answer. If you do... Well..." He squeezed your hip, downed his drink and walked away. You stood in shock for a minute, collecting your thoughts. Okay, so he was right about one thing - neither of you were interested in a relationship. This would be a one time thing, no strings attached, which suited you down to the ground.. yes you found him impossibly attractive, but you both just came out of very high profile serious relationships... Maybe a quick fling wasn't such a bad idea? Get it out your systems, move on... You downed your own drink and left the party. What room was it again....

Room 712. The door was slightly ajar. You checked your watch - 18 minutes. You knew he was a stickler for timekeeping but you couldn't resist being a little late. Without knocking, you pushed the door open to find an empty room. Shit... Being late wasn't such a good idea now... Quickly scanning the room, you saw the ensuite door emitting steam from it. He's in the shower... This could work... Opening the door you saw his outline through the shower door, rinsing his hair under the hot water. You quickly slipped your dress to the floor, along with your underwear, and slowly eased yourself into the shower with him, quietly. You snaked your hands over his firm waist and he jumped, turning to face you, wiping water and soap out of his eyes.

"Too easy, Cill." He composed himself and smiled.

"So you did come then?"

"Well, not yet, but I'm hoping you could help with that?" You smirked, and looked down to see his erection already forming.

"Wanna let me get out first?"

"Nope, no need. There's plenty of room in here..." You sank to your knees and took him into your mouth.

"Ah... Fuck me..." He gasped as you sucked him to full erection.

"Now now, Mr Murphy, we'll get to that part soon enough..." Taking him back in, your tongue swirling around the tip, teeth gently scraping the underside of his cock. Sinking his head down, and backing into the shower wall, allowing the water to cascade over your back, he watched as you expertly sucked him, groaning into his shaft and cupping his balls lightly, giving them a sharp tug now and again. He couldn't take much more and lifted you to your feet.

"I'm not finishing in your mouth y/n.. I have a much better destination for it..." He knew you were on birth control, you'd spoken about it before when you were both going through yours respective breakups. Both of you also getting your checks done after your partners had cheated on you. All clean and ready to go.

Moving you against the wall of the shower, he angled the water away slightly, pressing his lips to yours. Snaking a hand down between your legs he was impressed to find you already wet for him. Smiling against your lips, he slowly inserted a finger deep inside, causing your hips to buck against him.

"Yes... Cillian yes..." Pushing a second finger in, he tipped them up and towards him slightly, catching hold of that sweet spot inside. You jumped again.

"Too easy y/n..." You couldn't help your hips rocking against his fingers, groaning deeply as he fucked you with them, picking up the pace. Your orgasm built quickly and he felt your walls clenching, but he quickly removed them and lifted you up, wrapping your legs around his waist, he pushed his hard length into you. Your mouth opened wide with a loud groan as it hit that magical spot on the first thrust, and you screamed his name as your orgasm finally hit, Cillian pounding into you as you called his name. You just prayed the room next door was empty...

He tangled his hands into your hair as he continued thrusting up into you, your nails were clawing his shoulders as you moaned loudly - a second release quickly building.

"Need to move, my legs are killing me!" He groaned into your neck, and begrudgingly lifted you off him, keeping your legs round his waist as he turned the shower off and carried you into the main room. Sitting in the chair, he sat you back on his lap, a leg either side of him

"Want me to ride you Cill?" He nodded as you ground your hips against him, not taking him inside you just yet. If this was the only chance you had to do this, you were making it last as long as possible.

"Fuck.. don't tease me y/n..."

"Want me to ride that big cock of yours Cillian? Bounce up and down, back and forth, round and round.." your hips mimicking your words making him gasp. Your mouth teasing his now, tongue tracing his lips. He kept moving to kiss you fully but you kept pulling back.

"Jesus y/n..." You sank down onto him, taking him inside you. Riding him hard, your second orgasm burning inside desperate for release. He pushed you back slightly and moved your fingers down to your own clit. "Rub it... Wanna watch you..." You happily complied, head thrown back in pure ecstacy as you rode both him and your fingers to your orgasm. Shuddering with the release, feeling your juices coat him, he picked you up again and lay you down on the double bed, relentlessly pounding into you now while you clutched at his back, nails surely drawing blood now. He was like a man possessed, harder than he'd ever been before.

"That's it... That's it... Fuck... Cillian!" You were screaming his name as he grunted against your neck.

"Gonna cum y/n... Fuck..." With a loud groan followed by your name he came hard, filling you completely as a third orgasm took you along with him. Pulling out slowly, catching his breath, he remained on top of you.

"My shoulders are fucking shredded y/n..." He laughed, feeling the sting from where your nails had scratched him.

"Sorry... You were just too good..." You breathed, still coming down from your high. He rolled onto his back and pulled you into his arms. You lay there silently for a while, playing with his chest hair.

"That was worth the wait.." he smiled and kissed the top of your head. All you could do was nod, words suddenly becoming impossible. You'd never been fucked that good before in your life.

"Let's make a deal," he tilted your face up to look at him, gently leaning down to kiss your lips. "If we work together again in the future, and we're both single, we do this again. What do you say?" You smiled. You were worried for a second he was going to profess his undying love for you - definitely not what you wanted from this.

"Deal. Hey, there might be a role for me in the movie yet," you winked, biting your lip. He smirked down at you and rested his head back on the pillow.

"Can't wait." You sat up to get ready to leave, you both knew you couldn't stay. One of you had to go back to the party so as not to arouse too much suspicion.

"This was fun, right? And we're okay?"

"Yes, and yes. All good. Stay in touch? No matter what?" He watched you get dressed and fix your hair, reapplying your lipstick.

"Definitely." You leaned over him to steal a final kiss, and headed out the door smiling, both of you silently praying Ada had a place in the movie, and vowing to remain single for the foreseeable future.

[blinder-secrets]

Count For Me

tommy x anxious reader, 2164 words

a/n: i’m not gonna say the reader is having a panic attack specifically, more that they’re experiencing a lot of anxiety, so take that with a pinch of salt pls. i’m not suggesting this is how all anxiety feels or that it can be alleviated like this every time, im just basing it on my own experiences so enjoy!

You’re sat in the kitchen, or rather, the stairwell to the kitchens. You had every intention of making it there, of sitting at the large oak table in the fore-room, and having tea. Bread. Of letting Frances relax and serving yourself. But, instead, you’re on the last step down, legs bouncing on the balls of your feet.

It can only be described as fretting, incessant worry; your mind is agonising over things already done, over what’s to come next. It isn’t guns, or business, or family arguments that’s got you. It’s something invisible. Unknown, but biting away regardless. It’s sitting on the step and thinking about everything, and nothing — it’s losing yourself entirely, feeling the hand tighten around your throat, the dread, the weight of it in your chest. You sit and you feel afraid. After all you’ve seen in the world, all you’ve been through with Tommy. It’s your own head that works itself against you now, your own commentary that rots your mind in the quiet moments. Fuck. If you said it aloud they’d laugh you out the room. If you told Pol she’d say you were sick, that you needed air and spirits, and none of this Shelby wreckage to pull you down.

‘In the kitchen, Sir.’

Oh, Christ, Tommy’s home. You hear him, direct and toward where you're hiding. From his footsteps, it seems like he’s coming from the opposite wing, so he’ll make it into the kitchen before you ever did.

He calls your name through the hallway. It bounces off the cool tiles.

‘I’m here, Tommy,’ you say back in a false tone; you dread him finding you more than the rest of it.  

You’ve got maybe a minute to collect yourself, but from the way your feet are sinking through the stone of the floor beneath you, that’s not going to happen. He arrives in the kitchen, says your name again. He can’t see you from where he is.

‘On the stairs,’ you tell him.

Once he’s in front of you, your energy spikes. It’s easier to ignore the feeling when you’re with him. He tucks it away for you, somewhat, just a bit. ‘What is it?’ he asks, shaking his head slightly, his lips parted. A cigarette leaks smoke from between his fingers. He’s taken his coat off, but the jacket’s still there. Still dressed like he could leave again at any moment.

‘Nothing.’ You smile. ‘Are you back now?’

‘For now,’ he answers. He steps forward, places the back of his hand against your forehead. ‘Are you sick?’

‘No. Just wanted to sit somewhere.’

He doesn’t believe you, he knows you too well. You still your knees but they’re bouncing again before you can offer an explanation.

‘Tell me,’ he insists, clueless.

Where do you start? What could you possibly say that would make sense. I was going to make lunch, Tommy, but then I sat down here and I couldn’t get up again. ‘Nothing,’ you repeat, pausing to force a swallow. ‘I don’t know, really.’

He takes a drag. On the exhale, he offers the smoke to you, silent but willing to help. You shake your head; it’s not your habit, it doesn’t calm you like it does with him.

‘Has something happened?’ he asks. He’s patient, waiting for you to give him a way in, prepared to go slow when you need it.

‘No, nothing’s happened.’ Nothing you knew of. You were doing fine, going about the day like normal, and then suddenly you weren’t. It had already swamped you before you realised it was coming. ‘It’s just my head,’ you say, forcing the words over a breath that hadn’t quite made it. ‘I think it’s out to get me, Tom.’

He sighs. His lips pour smoke onto the tiles as he looks down. Another stress for him: you sat on his shoulders like the rest of it did, weighed him down without meaning to. You feel yourself rock forward, your head pulling into your chest, like there’s string attached from your chin to your heart and now it’s constricting. ‘Sorry,’ you pant, though you may have said it in your head. It could’ve been a thought amongst the sea and you wouldn’t have known. Sorry for the stress, Tommy, sorry for it all.

‘Hey,’ he says, repeating it firmly after a pause. ‘Hey. Look at me.’ His hand goes to your face, fingers leading your chin upwards until your gaze is on him. ‘Whatever it is, it’s just noise, alright? Just shit in the trough.’

Your lids drop a fraction. ‘Tommy…’

‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘You’re here, with me, right, in the kitchen. Don’t let it pull you under.’

You don’t want to. You’re scanning him, looking for something to ground you, the gold of his cufflink, the button of his waistcoat. Nothing sticks. You’re trying to focus but it’s splitting your attention again. Filling your head with the noise, the pull, the drag. ‘I think I’m going mad,’ you say. Your head’s so tight you can’t make sense of it.

His brows draw together. You focus on the crease in the skin between them. ‘What is it?’ he asks. ‘Eh? What’s worrying you so much?’

‘I don’t know,’ you answer honestly. It sounds like a plea but it’s all you can give him.  

You feel like a horse on the track; everything’s past you, behind you, loud in the stands and betting against you. There’s a worry to your left but it’s overtaken by the one on your right. So much at once, too often and too fast to know which is the biggest problem, which is the one causing the damage. If you could pluck something out, you would. If you could tell him, it’d be the first thing you did. There isn’t an answer to his question that doesn’t just make it worse — the more you try to put a name to it, or explain, the harder it gets to breathe. You can feel your heartbeat in your wrists.

Swearing, you drop your head again like it’s a lead weight, letting his fingertips drag up your cheek with the motion. ‘I can’t tell,’ you say weakly. ‘Feels like I’m drowning.’ 

The ring you’re wearing sits loose on your index finger; you spin it around the knuckle nervously, forcing a shallow breath each time the ruby completes a loop. If you look at him again you might cry. He didn’t ask for this, he didn’t know what to do with you anymore than you knew yourself.

Clearing his throat once, Tommy puts the cigarette between his lips and bends to grab you with both hands. He takes you by the elbows, thumbs tight on your arms, and pulls you to your feet before you have room to complain. You try to avoid his gaze, but his head ducks and chases your eyes until you give in.

‘Listen,’ he starts. He takes the cigarette out, blows the smoke away before he talks. ‘I won’t let you, alright? No-one’s drowning here.’ He looks certain, dedicated, his eyes dig through yours and back into the noise. ‘There’s nothing going on in there that we can’t sort. Okay?’

You want to believe him, so you nod. The next breath you take swells your chest into his.

‘Come here,’ he says briskly, pulling you after him as he walks you deeper into the kitchen. ‘When we were in France—stand there.’ You’re put by the table. He goes to the nearest drawer, pilfering through the silverware as he continues, ‘When we were in France, they told us we had to count.’

‘Count?’

‘To still our hands.’ He turns, pushing the drawer shut with his hip, and files through the forks he’s now holding. ‘Bullets, cards. Saw John counting his teeth once.’

You blink like it’ll help you listen. Everything he’s saying is going in, but bouncing back again. It rattles in your ear canal like coins down a well.

‘Here,’ he says, offering them to you. ‘Count them.’

You hesitate. Then he grabs your wrist, sets your palm straight, and pours the cutlery into it.

‘Go on.’

Mumbling an agreement, you turn to the table and put the first fork onto the wood. One. Two. You hope he doesn’t notice the slight shake along your fingers, the clumsiness as you pass forks from one hand to the other.

‘Do it out loud,’ he guides, as he stands beside you. He exhales, dragging it out and pushing the smoke over your shoulder; you’d forgotten he even had one lit.

‘Three,’ you say. ‘Four.’  

All those cigarettes. Lips barely his unless there’s one between them. They’ll get him one day, you think. The cough will get worse and then it’ll be you, on your own in this big house, you looking after Charlie, you with the ache and the grief and the silence.

‘Stop thinking,’ he chides. ‘Count.’

‘Five, six, seven.’ You sigh. The forks clatter on top of one another. ‘Eight, nine. This is stupid, Tommy. Ten.’ You turn to him, expectant of something else, something more helpful.

He just raises his eyebrows, gesturing for you to pick them up again. ‘Now do it over.’

‘Again?’

He nods. The cigarette is extinguished, flicked to the floor and crushed between his sole and the tile. ‘You do it again, and again,’ he lists, ‘until it feels like you can breathe.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

It takes four rounds of it before your chest loosens; four tens, over and over, forks placed down and picked up again as you count. He stands in silence the whole time, his hands in his pockets, his eyes on the table. How he doesn’t tire of it, you don’t know. He clears his throat occasionally but doesn’t say anything until you break the rhythm.

‘I think it’s worked,’ you mumble, taking care as you set the last fork down. ‘I feel better.’

It’s not all gone, but you feel calmer. Stiller. Your hands aren’t as jittery and the room feels big again, cold and empty and utilitarian.

He sighs, heavily, thankfully. The noise loud and partnered with a rough tone. ‘Alright,’ he says. He clicks into motion, pulling his hands free and turning to you so that he can bracket them around your face. His fingers are rough, warm, grounding. The rings stamp your cheeks, cold like ice. ‘What did I say, eh? Nothing we couldn’t sort.’

You smile limply and put a hand to his wrist. ‘Thank-you, Tommy.’

You hadn’t expected him to break through it, to make you pause. Breathe. It’s usually the other way around, you calming him. You sifting through the muck. It had never crossed your mind that it would work in reverse.

‘Next time,’ he says quietly, ‘you tell me.’ His chin dips a fraction, blue eyes laced with intent. ‘You tell me as soon as it get’s too much, alright?’

‘Okay,’ you promise, nodding between his palms. ‘Sorry.’

His lip tweaks slightly. ‘What have you got to be sorry for?’ he asks. Then he tilts up to kiss your forehead and, pulling back, utters ‘my silly girl’ under his breath.

You can’t smile. The question almost loses you again. You have plenty to be sorry for, you think, handfuls of apologies shoved into each corner of your brain. ‘Let’s do something,’ you say quickly, chasing the scatter away. ‘Distract me, please.’

He kisses you, lips firm and sure against yours in an agreement, a promise. ‘I have something to show you,’ he says afterwards. His grip on your face drops and he takes a hand instead, fingers curling around your palm. ‘The new horse is here.’

‘It is?’ You cling to him, put your free hand around his bicep and pull tight to his side like the closeness will help. He looks at you like he understands. ‘Well, show me then,’ you push, almost able to smile into it. ‘She was pretty from what I remember.’

‘Very pretty,’ he agrees. ‘Come on.’

You follow him through the house and across the drive. He doesn’t stop talking the whole way, which is unlike him, but he knows any silence will just cause you to slip again, to overthink until you’re tumbling. You answer his questions, dumb as they are, like he doesn’t already know the answers. You tell him what you had for breakfast, what you read in the paper. He asks, and he drawls, and he comments on the bloom of the roses as you pass them. He keeps going and going, until you’re so wrapped up in him, and the house, and the world outside, that everything else falls quiet. Peaceful. He fills your head with his own voice and you thank him for it. You thank him, and you hold on like it’s the only thing keeping you above the water.

‘You alright?’ he asks, checking once you’ve reached the stables.

‘Yes, Tom.’ You smile, meaning it. ‘I’m with you, remember?’

[onecanonlife]

In which Tommy travels back in time and tries to prevent a nightmare from happening to everyone he knows. Everyone else, meanwhile, is highly concerned.

(fic masterpost w/ ao3 links)

(first part) (previous part) (next part)

(word count: 4,132)

--------------------  

Part Four: Eret

“They’re here.”

The words are said in her own voice. She does not remember willing her mouth to move. She does not remember how she got here, nor where here is. Inside, somewhere, for sure; her surroundings are blurry, twist and warp everywhere she looks, and it’s confusing, dizzying. The air is hazy, clouded with smoke and drifting sparks, flickering on a hot, dry wind, and a film of red has descended on her vision, as if her glasses are tinted. She doesn’t know what’s happening, nor why she spoke, but even as she listens to the words, she is certain of their veracity, a deep, dark dread pooling in her chest. They are coming. They are coming for her, and for everyone else.

She is scared. It is a wide, unfocused, fear; she can’t seem to concentrate enough to figure out what or who she’s scared of, what or who they are. The details slip away when she tries to grasp them, and the act of thinking feels like wading through thick mud. Her thoughts are foggy, unfocused, and she can barely feel her own body, like she’s a passenger in her own skin.

But she is scared. Her skin buzzes with it, with a pure, unadulterated terror, with the sensation of running out of time.

“We knew they’d find us,” someone says. They—no, he, he feels right in a way she can’t explain—he stands next to her, though she cannot turn her head to look. His voice is familiar to her as summer rains, the crunch of a footstep on sand, the ring of a pickaxe on gold, but she does not know him. “We knew this was inevitable. I’d hoped for more time, but—”

He is scared, too. She can hear it in his voice, and every inch of her aches to soothe him.

“We won’t be able to win this,” she hears herself say instead. “Not against all of them.” Her voice pauses. “Not this time.”

“Who’s here?” a new voice says, lighter than the first, accented differently, reverberating with an echo that wedges in her bones, empty and unnatural. Their presence feels like an absence. “Do we have visitors?”

“Enemies, more like,” the first voice says.

“Ah,” says the second. “I’ll go tell them to fuck right off, then.” A pause, and then, “Is Techno coming?”

A name she knows but doesn’t. A face flashes in her mind’s eye, and once gone, she cannot remember it.

“Maybe,” says the first. “Why don’t you go see? And if he’s not, you can go ahead and, um, tell them to fuck right off. That’ll be really helpful.”

There is a blue of motion in the corner of her eye, someone passing out of the room, though they are soundless, and the air does not change with their leaving. She still cannot turn to look.

“He’s not what he was,” she hears herself say. “He won’t be able to hold them.”

“I know,” the other says, and there is defeat in his tone, heavy and terrible. She wants to take his hand. She wants to look into his eyes. She wants to know who he is. She can do none of those things. “I know. There’s nothing else we can do now. Are you ready for this? What you were telling me about?”

She feels herself swallow past a lump in her throat. “Ready enough to try,” she says, and her voice is choked. “But I don’t—”

“Hey, hey, hey,” he says, and then, he is in front of her, and he is right there, but her eyes will not focus, and every time she blinks, she forgets his features, forgets—but she cannot retain them long enough to describe them, even to herself, and she’s left with nothing, like trying to snatch at dying embers before they go cold and turn to dust. She thinks she could cry with the frustration of it, and she still doesn’t understand, has no idea why she wants to know so badly, why this is so important to her. “It’s all gonna be okay.”

“It won’t be,” she says. “I didn’t want it to end like this.”

“Neither did I, old pal.” There are lips on her forehead, a gentle kiss. She leans into it, wants to keep the memory of it forever. “Don’t think of it as an ending. Just a—a see you later.”

She laughs, unhappily. “There won’t be a later.”

“Maybe not,” he says softly. “But I’d like to think that’s not true.”

There is a sound, then, a noise like a shriek and a cry and a grinding of metal against metal, discordant and clanging, and it’s as if it punches her in the throat. She gasps for breath, the air suddenly too thin to sustain her, and past the sound, the terrible sound, the sound that is drawing closer, some destructive thing on the hunt, she hears his voice: “We’re out of time.”

Behind her. There is someone behind her. She turns, and her vision flares with red, but she can make out blond hair, blue eyes, something small and pink held in their arms, clutched to them desperately, protectively, and then the world is tilting, blurring and changing, and the turns again and she is kneeling, her knees on hard stone, and she knows, she knows that something awful is happening, and they’re out of time, they’re all out of time, and her hands mark the ground with desperate, rushed motions, smearing paint—no, blood. She doesn’t know how she knows that, but she does, and her motions, too, are beyond her control.

And yet, they feel natural. Like something buried in her rising up to the surface. She has no idea what she’s doing, even though her body does, and yet, and yet—

The universe hums at her fingertips, and it is as familiar as her own name.

“Eret,” someone gasps, someone pleads, “Eret, what’re you—he’s still up there, we have to go get him—”

“He’s buying us time,” she manages, her voice distant to her own ears. The next words that she says are not comprehensible to her, power vibrating through them, something other, something wrong and yet right all at once, and the blood—it is her blood—begins to glow, shimmer with a silver-red light, and she can barely look at the patterns she’s made, her mind skittering off of them like a rock skipped across a pond; she’ll sink if she lets herself.

“Eret, please,” they say.

She stops her chanting. The spell is set. Half of her feels calm, serene. The other half of her feels like she’s screaming.

“I couldn’t save anyone else,” she says. “I’m sorry. But I can do this, at least.”

“Wh—Eret!”

Alarm, true alarm, fear, and she meets their eyes. His eyes. His face solidifies, sharpens, becomes clear. His eyes are duller, his hair streaked with white, his face scarred. But it’s Tommy. Too old and too young all at once.

The glow brightens, illuminates the contours of his face. Lights up the room. Warms her skin.

Tommy screams.

The world rips, or perhaps she is ripping the world, but she is falling, falling back and away, falling out of herself and a void is underneath but not in time for her to escape, the world is imploding but there are footsteps, there is someone shouting, and someone yanks her head back by the hair, and there is a sharp slide of a blade across her neck, a gush of something hot, and then pain, and—

Eret wakes up choking.

He sits bolt upright, hands flying to his neck, pawing at it, pressing it, trying to stem a flow of blood that does not exist, close a wound that is not there. It takes several full minutes for his body to convince his brain that he is whole and unharmed, that he is neither bleeding out from a blade to his throat nor tumbling into some vast emptiness as the world destructs around him, destructs from something he did—

What was that?

Slowly, he calms, regulates his breathing, but not all of the panic leaves him, adrenaline flooding his veins and setting him shaking. He takes his hands down from his throat, stares at them; they tremble, but there is no blood painting them.

That is, perhaps, the most vivid dream he has ever had. And also perhaps the most frustrating. He can’t say he’s ever had one like it, where he felt like he was trapped within himself, unable to affect his own actions, spouting off words that he had no context for.

He shudders, suddenly, a full-body convulsion.

Air. He needs air.

It’s the dead of night, it seems. L’Manberg is quiet, peaceful, enjoying her first night of true independence. It’s still a bit hard for him to believe, that it was won just like that, and by Tommy, no less. He was prepared for the conflict to stretch out a lot longer, little though he liked the idea. But now, it’s all over, and they have to figure out how to proceed. Or at least, Wilbur does; Wilbur is still in charge, president now rather than general. He’s not sure how he feels about that.

He likes Wilbur. Rather a lot, actually. But sometimes, it concerns him, how much Wilbur seems to enjoy power.

Though he’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy the thought of having a little power himself, power to protect anyone he chooses, to lead if need be, so perhaps he’s just a hypocrite.

All thoughts for later, though. For now, the night air is a balm on his face, fresh and free, and he breathes in deeply. The world is fine. He is fine. He can even imagine where the dream came from; Tommy was acting so very strangely yesterday, and he’s been stressed in general, so it’s not hard to figure that his mind conjured up some outer manifestation of it, some representation of the way he feared everything would come crumbling in around them. Dreams are tricky things. It’s never wise to put too much stock in them.

The one thing he can’t push aside was the other person. Not Tommy, and not the one who left. The one who kissed his forehead, called him a friend. He’s not sure why his mind would invent someone when he has plenty of friends here to fill the role, and something about it unsettles him. Because the depth of attachment he felt for this person, who he is sure he doesn’t know, who he doesn’t recognize at all, was frightening, almost, in its intensity.

And yet, it was also comforting. Familiar. Safe.

Absently, he reaches up and touches his forehead. He’s reading too far into this, to be sure. But he can’t help but wonder who he was, even if he was just an invention of his troubled, tired brain.

He sighs, and decides to mount the walls. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to fall back asleep any time soon, so he may as well have a decent view. May as well help keep watch, even though they supposedly don’t really need to anymore. He’s not sure he’ll trust this peace until the documents are all drawn up and signed, but hopefully Dream is a man of his word. Hopefully he is one that keeps his promises.

The night is peaceful, and there’s a cool wind blowing from the northeast. He turns his face into it, breathing deeply, and that is when he sees it: movement. A figure on the ground, moving slowly but steadily toward the walls. He leans further out, trying to get a better look; is this something he should raise the alarm over? One person probably can’t do a lot, unless that person is Dream. He hopes it’s not Dream.

He squints as the figure approaches. They really are making a beeline for the walls, and there’s no indication that they’ve seen him. He wonders if he should call out, make them aware that they’ve been observed. Would that dissuade a potential troublemaker?

And then, the figure gets close enough for him to make out details. Rumpled red and white t-shirt, blond hair. It’s unmistakably Tommy. Which begs a new question: what is Tommy doing outside L’Manberg’s borders so late at night?

He did the same last night, from what Eret gathered. Went to Dream and traded his discs for L’Manberg’s freedom. A risky ploy, one that he’s surprised actually worked, but he supposes he’s been underestimating the value that this discs have to many people on the server. He wasn’t here for the onset of the wars over them. Still, he admires the sacrifice that Tommy made, even if he can’t make heads or tails of that interaction they had yesterday.

But then, Tommy’s always been a bit of a strange kid. This was a new kind of strange, but he’s fifteen going on sixteen years old, and he’s proven himself to be resilient. He’s sure everything is fine.

As he muses, Tommy clambers his way up the wall, and once he’s up, he just stands there for a second, leaning against one of the parapets. His face is pinched, lined with exhaustion and something else, something that Eret can’t quite interpret in the dim light of the stars. He seems preoccupied, caught up within himself and whatever he was doing, and Eret considers letting him go without saying a word. But concern wins out over that, and he clears his throat. Tommy jerks, wheeling on him violently, lips slightly parted.

“Hey, Tommy,” he says, raising a hand to placate him. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You didn’t startle me,” Tommy says. “I’m unstartleable.”

He smiles, inclining his head. “I’m not sure that’s a word.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Tommy says. “What’re you doing up here?”

“Unsettled dreams, I’m afraid,” he says. He sees no reason to hide it, and perhaps admitting to a bit of weakness will put Tommy more at ease. Currently, he’s holding himself tense as a bowstring. “I came out to get a bit of air. What about you? Any particular reason to go for a stroll this time of night?” He cuts himself off before he can say something stupid, such as, I’m sure Wilbur wouldn’t be happy to know you’re out and about this late. Because while that is the truth, and he’s sure Tommy knows it, knows that the man is protective over him like he is over practically nothing else, he’s also sure that Tommy’s independent spirit wouldn’t appreciate him pointing that out.

“No,” Tommy bites out. “No reason at all.”

That is so clearly a lie that it’s almost insulting. But he takes one look at Tommy’s closed off posture, the jut of his chin, and decides to leave it. What’s most important is that Tommy is back safe; he won’t pressure him to reveal something he’s not comfortable with sharing.

“Alright, then,” he says. “You’re welcome to join me, if you’d like.”

Tommy shoots him a scathing glare at that. But to his surprise, he then walks over, a bit hesitantly, and joins him in bracing himself against the ramparts, staring out over the surrounding countryside. He doesn’t say anything else, and Eret tries to study him without making it obvious.

“I think it’s pretty amazing, what you did,” he says. “I can’t pretend to understand how difficult that was for you, but you single-handedly won us a war. You’ve probably had your fill of receiving thanks, but I think it bears repetition.”

“I know it was amazing,” Tommy says, and his voice is oddly hollow. “I’m very amazing, thank you so much.” He sighs, then, shoulders hunching a bit. “No, it just—it just needed to be done, so I did it. That’s all there was, really. Not even sure if it’ll hold up. Dream’ll use them as leverage if he thinks he can get away with it, and then we’ll have a whole other mess of problems.”

“Do you think he’ll keep his word?” he finds himself asking. Perhaps it’s the maturity Tommy seems to be displaying, the awareness, but he seems like the one to ask.

“Don’t know,” he says. “At this point? I hope so. He’s still got people he’s accountable to, so maybe. If not, we’ll have to kill him.”

“Right,” he replies, and wonders when death entered the picture. They knew it was a risk, of course, in war, but no one has died yet, on either side, and he rather thought that everyone was looking to keep it that way. “I pray it won’t come to that.”

Tommy snorts. “Let me tell you something, Eret,” he says. “Praying doesn’t do shit. Gods die just as easily as men do.”

That—sure is something for a teenager to say. He’s not sure why it strikes such a chord in him.

“Hope, then,” he says, and tries not to reveal that he’s rattled.

“Hope’s not much better. Unreliable, that is,” Tommy mutters, and Eret thinks that it might be time to change the subject. Otherwise, he’ll have to confront just how jaded Tommy sounds, and as much as he likes the kid, he’s really not sure that he’s the one best equipped to help him, even if Tommy would allow him to do so. Surely, someone like Tubbo or Wilbur would do better in trying to talk him through it.

“I’m not sure I understood what you were trying to thank me for, earlier,” he says. “Or yesterday, rather.”

Tommy shoots him a glance. “Don’t worry about it,” he says dismissively. “You don’t need to make it a thing. It wasn’t a thing.”

“It felt a little bit like a thing.”

“Well, it wasn’t, so piss off.” Tommy frowns, and then turns to face him fully. He turns as well, trying to show him that he has his undivided attention. “Look, it was just a, a general thank you, yeah? Enjoy it, because you’re not getting another one. But you’re not completely shit all of the time, I guess.” He sounds so very put upon in a way that only teenagers can, and Eret suppresses a grin. “Don’t read into it, shit head. But listen, Eret,” —His tone shifts, suddenly, going lower, more serious, and Eret leans in a bit on instinct— “you are sticking around, yeah? With us, with L’Manberg?”

“Of course,” he answers, taken off guard. “I’ve no plans to be elsewhere.”

“Good,” Tommy says. “That’s—that’s good. Not that I care if you stay or not! Don’t get ideas! But you should stick around, because we are clearly superior to everyone else on this shit server, and we’ll treat you right. Not like Dream would. Especially not like Dream would.”

“Right, yeah,” he says, sort of feeling like he’s lost the thread of this conversation, and more than a bit disconcerted at the intensity of Tommy’s words. “Don’t worry, I have no plans to go anywhere near Dream.”

“Good,” Tommy says again, and this time, he seems satisfied. Eret raises an eyebrow at him, but he just goes back to looking over the edge of the wall, and Eret shakes his head a bit, going to push his sunglasses further up his nose.

And then realizes—he’s not wearing them. Hasn’t been wearing them this whole time.

“Shit,” he hisses, and pats himself down frantically, trying to see if they’re anywhere on his person, but of course they’re not. He’s wearing his nightshirt and loose trousers, and he can picture exactly where his glasses are: sitting on the nightstand beside his bed. He didn’t think to grab them, shaken by his nightmare as he was, certain that he wouldn’t be running into anywhere else.

“What? What’s the matter?” Tommy asks, alarmed, and he realizes something else.

His eyes have been on display throughout this entire conversation, and Tommy hasn’t said a word about them. Hasn’t so much as reacted. Hasn’t so much as stared. And that—that is foreign to him. Incomprehensible. He knows very well what his eyes bring to mind, knows very well the reasons why he chooses to hide them. Better that than to scare everyone around him away. Better to hide than to have no one. But Tommy hasn’t said a word about them. He hasn’t—

He doesn’t know what to do with this.

“My glasses—” he stutters out. “I don’t—I don’t have—”

“Oh,” Tommy says, and visibly relaxes. “Yeah, did you drop ‘em somewhere or something? Did they fall out of your pocket?”

That—that is not what Tommy is supposed to be asking. Eret shakes his head, but the motion brings him no clarity. He’s trying to think past the drumbeat of instinctive anxiety, though it’s fear that apparently has no basis, even if he doesn’t know why.

“You’re not scared?” he manages.

Tommy’s face goes slack in surprise. Surprise, as if that’s the last thing he expected Eret to be asking, but surely, surely he understands Eret’s nerves? Surely he understands why Eret is confused? Surely—he must know, right?

And then, he sees a bit of that understanding dawn on Tommy’s face, his lips forming an ‘o’, and Eret braces himself.

“Of what, those?” Tommy says, making a general sort of gesture. “Gonna take more than that to frighten me, big man. You’ve got some weird fucking eyes, but I don’t see why that should bother me. And fuck anyone who is, right? They’re just eyes, man. Everyone’s got ‘em.” He pauses. “Except for Dream, maybe. We’ve never seen them. He could be hiding anything under that mask. Wait, shit, what if he hasn’t got any eyes? What if he doesn’t have a face?”

He sounds genuinely disturbed by the line of questioning. But also, he’s darting glances at Eret every now and then, as if checking to see what his response will be, and—is he trying to distract him? To calm him down, perhaps, in the most Tommy-like way possible?

Something in Eret’s chest grows warm.

“As far as I know, Dream’s just a guy,” he says. “I’m sure he’s got a face.”

“An ugly face, maybe.”

“You—” He can’t help but check. He needs to know, needs to be certain. “You really don’t mind them?”

Tommy shrugs. “Nothing I haven’t seen before,” he says. “They’re fucking strange, and you’re fucking strange, but it’s alright, man. You don’t—I mean, I know you, and that seems more important than anything else, yeah?” And Eret’s face must be doing something at that, because Tommy scowls at him, sudden and ferocious. “No, no, I see what you’re thinking, this isn’t a thing either, you bastard. This isn’t a thing. You’re just being an idiot, so I’m correcting you. This is a correction, because I simply can’t let you go on thinking things that are wrong. You get that? I’m right and you’re not and I’m telling you that. That’s what this is.”

“Right, of course,” he says. “I wouldn’t dream of claiming otherwise.” He pauses. “But thank you, Tommy. Really. That kind of means a lot.”

Tommy’s face reddens. “Whatever,” he murmurs, but he sounds unmistakably pleased. “It’s fine. I’m gonna—I’m just gonna go now. G’night, Eret.”

“Goodnight, Tommy,” he replies, and watches as Tommy practically runs for the nearest ladder.

And he remembers his dream. Remembers Tommy looking at him with trust and terror in equal measure. Remembers the scars that dotted his face in the one second that it became clear. Remembers the tremble in his voice, and the horror in that last moment as someone came up behind them and slit his throat.

He gets a sudden, overwhelming urge to call out to him, to ask him about it. But he tamps down on it. To do so would be ridiculous, after all, and Tommy seems to have enough on his plate without him adding to it. And what would he even say? Oh, by the way, I watched you watch me die in my dream just a bit ago. You don’t think there’s any meaning to that, do you?

Because that would go over so well.

So he just watches as Tommy sets foot within the L’Manberg borders and heads off at a good clip toward the building he’s claimed as his house. It’s kind of a sad structure; they really do need some better architecture around here. Maybe he should get on that. He’s a fairly good builder himself. He might be able to draw up some plans.

For now, though, he turns his face back toward the stars, and tries to feel like there’s nothing missing.

[spidernerdsblog]

I forgot that you existed: Chapter Two

A/N: Chapter two is here. Tensed situation arising between our ex lovers. Hope you like it. Feedbacks and suggestions are always welcome.

Pairing : Tom Holland × Singer reader

Summary : It's been more than five years since you and Tom have gone their own ways after a heartbreaking breakup which had left both of you shattered. Both of you thought that you were finally over with each other and were happy in your respective lives until you meet again at a reunion trip planned by your best friend and you realise you are still not done with each other.

Warnings: none

Mini playlist: Endgame by Taylor Swift

Music playing from car stereo

I don't wanna touch you (I don't wanna be)

Just another ex-love (You don't wanna see)

I don't wanna miss you (I don't wanna miss you)

Like the other girls do

I don't wanna hurt you (I just wanna be)

Drinkin' on a beach with (You all over me)

I know what they all say

But I ain't tryna play

I wanna be your endgame

I wanna be your first string

I wanna be your A Team

I wanna be your endgame, endgame

 You leaned on Tom's shoulder as he drove the car. Your hot breath falling on his neck as you start kissing his sweet spot behind his ears as he lets out a soft moan. Your hand intertwining with his free hand resting on his thigh. "Stop it love" Tom mumbled softly.

"Tom" you said softly "Tom!" This time you called his name loudly and Tom suddenly broke out of his trance and was brought to reality it wasn't you but it was his beloved fiancee Eleanor . She straightened herself to look at him with concerned eyes "is anything wrong Tommy?"

 "No love everything is fine" he reassured her

 His attention went to the song playing. He frowned and said "just this song irks me, not a fan actually of such kind of songs."

 "Seriously Tom, how can you not be a fan of Y/N, her songs are too good." El started gushing over you.

 "Yeah I know you are a huge fan of hers but I prefer old school hip hop." Lies.

He was your biggest fan since childhood though he doesn't admit it now but he is very proud of you. Seeing you grow into such a big star makes him admire you more. After so many years he still adores you and your songs. He was nervous to meet you and be in close proximity to you for so many days. Yes he still had feelings for you and that is why your songs wreaked havoc in his mind making him feel your presence even if you were far away from his life. He sometimes feels guilty that he isn't being true to El as soon she is going to be his wife and you still reside in his heart. He can never love anyone as he did to you. El was a very humble, sweet, understanding and smart person whom he got to know through one of his friends. Soon both of them found they had a lot in common, small chats turned into dates and then to a full fledged relationship for 2 years. Dom and Nikki approved their relationship and wanted their son to settle down and finally see him happy. Tom wasn't much excited about the wedding so all the planning he left on El.

 It was around noon when you three finally arrived at the beach house. You were filled with nostalgia as you had lots of fond memories connected with this place. There were a total of  5 bedrooms in the house. 2 were reserved for the couples, one for Tom and another for Harrison's other two friends Ed and Chloe, the others had to share. You liked the sea facing rooms and there were only two on the first floor. You immediately ran upstairs. You suddenly stopped in front of the first room and glanced at the empty room which once belonged to only you.

 Sounds of laughter "Tom stop.. Please oh I can't breathe" you said giggling as Tom tickled you even more. You both laid on the bed and laughed. You took out your phone to take a selfie to capture this moment. Tom kissed your cheek as you clicked the photo. You threw the phone on the bed and climbed on top of him straddling him around the waist as you planted soft kisses on his forehead, his cheeks and lips. You sat back to admire him " I love you so much Tommy" . He rolled you over to be on top of you

" Love you too princess." As he connected his lips onto yours.

 You brushed aside your thoughts as you went to the adjacent room and placed your luggage on the floor. Zendaya came with her luggage afterwards. It was a nice room with a queen sized bed and thankfully an attached bathroom.

 "You don't snore right?" Zendaya chuckled

 "Don't know about snoring but I do kick in my sleep." You laughed.

 "Okay let's freshen up first then we can start unpacking our things." Z said

 "Yeah you go first I need to make a call to my second mom." you chuckled.

You had three missed calls from Alex which left you wondering what was the matter. You put your airpods on and called him. You came out of the room as you started strolling in the corridor.

 "Seriously you don't trust me do you? I have barely spent a day here and you have already called me three times."

 "It was important the company wants you to do a concert at the beach carnival there."

"What! Dude I'm on a vacation and they expect me to do a concert."

 "Yeah it will be nice for the promotion, kind of a tour actually and I think it's good only for you to keep you distracted from, you know what I mean"

 "I don't know I need time to think"

 "There is nothing to think the concert is on the last day of your stay so you will get to enjoy your vacation as well as do a little interaction with your fans good for your rep."

 "Still I need to think Alex . I have to go for rehearsals then I need to know the whole schedule of the event. It's a lot of work."

 "I'll handle those things and get you in touch with the event manager, don't worry."

 You were walking backwards through the corridor as you were talking, you suddenly bumped into a solid sturdy figure, you lost your balance letting out a light shriek as you thought you were about to fall, instead you felt two strong arms catch hold of you, one hand on your back and one wrapped around your waist. You fluttered opened your eyes and your eyes were met with those familiar hazel brown eyes and loose brown curls falling over his face. Tom looked at you with concerned eyes; he himself couldn't stop admiring you. This is the closest he has come to you in the past few years. Your familiar lavender scent was intoxicating for him, he also noticed that your hair is longer than before which made you look more beautiful. You two were so lost in the moment that the whole world hazed out for you. Both felt a warm feeling inside.

But you were brought to reality as Alex started talking.

 "Y/N are you there? what happened?"

 You pulled away from Tom's hold as you stood straight and stuttered

"yea…Yeah I'm fine can I…Can I talk to you later? I'll think and tell you okay"

 "Okay honey bye take care love you"

 "Yeah bye love you too Alex"

 As you turned back to Tom you both blurted out "I'm sorry"

 "No no it was totally my fault I wasn't looking where I was going" you said eagerly.

 "It's okay" Tom said

 You purse your lips and smiled as you were about to turn to go to your room he spoke again

 "By the way Hi! meeting you after a long time."

 You sheepishly looked at him "yeah Hi"

"So how have you been?"

 You were a little taken aback by his warm gesture because he had almost stopped talking to you after the whole breakup "I'm fine, how are you?"

 "I'm fine too" . Tom was about to say something but you were interrupted by a loud shriek

 "Oh My God!!! I can't believe this Y/N Y/L/N" excitement in her voice. "I'm such a huge fan of yours." She pulled you in a tight hug you didn't get the time to process what was happening as you looked wide eyed first to Tom and then to the girl.

 "Oh sorry Hi I'm Eleanor you can call me El I'm Tom's fiance nice to meet you." Your eyes immediately went to the big shining rock adorning her ring finger. A tinge of jealousy creeping inside you.

 "Hey! nice to meet to you too"

 She turned towards Tom and asked "you guys know her ? Why didn't you ever tell me?"

Tom fumbled at his words "umm.. Yeah we have been together since childhood." He looked at you as he continued speaking "then she left and we lost touch" the last line was obviously directed to you.

 "Uh ah correction it was you who lost contact because I was always in touch with the boys. By the way where are they? Can't wait to meet them."

 "They will be here in any second I guess" El said

"I can't believe you know each other since childhood, he always says that he doesn't like your songs"

 "Oh does he?" you looked at him quirking your eyebrow

 "No I didn't say that I don't like her songs I just said it's not my type"

 "Yeah yeah I know you're an old grandpa you prefer old school stuff." you said sarcastically

 "You are coming to our wedding right?" El asked

 You looked at Tom "umm I don't think I'm invited besides I may not have time to attend it. When is it by the way?"

 "Next year in March"

 "Great!! Wish you both a happy married life."

 "Uh ah.. I'm not accepting your bland wishes. You are invited to our wedding and you have to sing at our reception."

 "I would love to honey maybe I'll compose something specially for you guys but I don't think your husband will like that as he hates my songs" you looked at Tom

"Oh leave Tom anyways he has given me all the responsibility of planning the wedding so you are coming and that's final."

 "Okay dear as you wish" you placed a hand on her cheek and smiled.

 " Let's take a selfie. I really want to capture this moment," El insisted. You stood in the middle one hand on Tom's shoulder and the other on El's. You all smiled as she clicked the picture.

 Suddenly there was a lot of noise of people laughing and shouting and you immediately ran down the stairs. There stood Harry, Sam, Paddy, Tuwaine in the middle of the living room. As they saw you they ran towards you and circled around you for a giant hug.

 "Hey!! Y/N missed you so much so happy to see you again"

 "Me too guys"

 "We are going to have lots of fun this time gonna do everything we used to do when we were kids." Paddy said beaming with joy.

 You smiled and you all hugged again. Your eyes went up the stairs to find Tom staring at you. You looked away as you started chatting with them. Jacob, Ed and Chloe also came in later.

………………….

Zendaya and Harrison were sitting on the couch as you kept pacing the room

 "Seriously Y/N it isn't a big deal. It was just an accident stop stressing out about it."

 "It is serious for me Z . The first day on my trip I fell into my ex's arms and had a moment don't know about him but it was definitely a moment for me. And then there is his fiance who is such a sweet and humble person who doesn't have any clue of what relation I share with her husband.Why did I give into your plan God only knows uggh!!!" You sat between them on the couch holding your head. 

 Harrison wrapped his hands around your shoulders and tried to comfort you.

 "I know it's a bit weird for you to be around El due to your past with him but please for my sake try to tolerate just for 10 days."

 "You have vodka right?" you asked

 "Uh yeah why?" Haz looked at you confused

 "I'm exclusively reserving it for me because I'm gonna need it for the next 10 days if I have to stay here." You smirked

 "Tom, are we there yet can I open my eyes?"

"Patience love patience" Tom said, covering your eyes as he led you towards the beach.

It was your 16th birthday and your families had decided to celebrate on the beach house. Tom had told you that he has a surprise planned for you and you were growing impatient to know what it is. You both finally reached the spot Tom removed his hand from your eyes and you slowly opened your eyes as you saw the sea in front of you, waves thrashing on the shore. You looked around to see that he had decorated candles around you in the shape of a heart.

 "Seriously this is your surprise?" you asked him confused.

 "No love, the best part is yet to come."

He kneeled on his right leg as he took out a box from his pocket. He opened it to reveal a sparkling ring. He took it in his hand. He took your left hand and slid it in your ring finger and said

"Y/N Y/L/N will you be my girlfriend forever?

I liked you since childhood but didn't have the courage to say because I thought you were just a passing crush and you are my best friend and didn't want to ruin our friendship. But now I know that I feel happy when you are around, I like to spend time with you, that I love you. You don't have to say yes but I really wanted to say this to you.

 Your eyes were filled with tears, you bent down and kissed him to stop him from talking anymore .Tom gets a little shocked at your sudden act but then he kisses you back. You pull back after sometime as you cup his face with your hands.

"I liked you too Tommy and yes I will be your girlfriend for lifetime.

You looked at the ring to admire it.

"I know this isn't a real diamond because I can't afford a real one right now" Tom said scratching his head

"Your love is worth more than a thousand diamonds." you said as you kissed him again

 You were standing at the porch leaning on a pillar as you sipped into your cola can. You looked at the ring on your finger that Tom gave you. Out of habit you used to wear it everyday but now it's time to let go of it you thought.

 "So you finally had the courage to come here." Tom said grinning.

 What?! You frowned

 You previously thought maybe he's over it and now you two can be on good terms but you were wrong as here he is in front of you again being all cocky.

 "I mean after all these years you finally came here"

 "Firstly, this is my best friend's 30th birthday so couldn't afford to miss it. Secondly stop prioritizing yourself Tom, not everybody's lives revolve around you, not mine, at least" you scoffed

 "Yeah because your life's current priority is Alex right?"

 Was he jealous after he heard you talking to Alex you thought in your mind.

"What? Seriously Tom" you smiled and shook your head. He is my manager and he's like an elder brother, a mentor to me. Why even am I clarifying to you? You don't owe me anything so just leave if you don't have anything else to say."

 "I just came to say that stay away from El. She is my fiance."

 "Yeah I know she is your fiance you posted it on Instagram dufus. I even congratulated you and I had expected a thank you from your side but never mind. "

 It was three months ago you were at your LA residence enjoying an off day. You were scrolling through your Instagram. When you saw the post with the caption she said yes❤️💍. Even after your breakup you guys followed each other to avoid any kind of gossip by the tabloids. You both were very private person so you never went official with your relationship but there were rumours of you two being together which eventually died down. For the first few minutes you didn't know how to react to the whole thing. The life you once imagined for yourselves he is living it but you are no more in it. Your eyes welled up but you overcame your emotions and felt happy that at least one of you is finally going to be happy in life. You liked the picture and commented congratulations🎊❤️❤️❤️.

  "And I also know that she doesn't know about me. Why didn't you tell her about me? Scared of the feelings you still have for me huh?" You smirked

 "Just shut up Y/N. I hate you and that's never gonna change. And you are not gonna tell her anything okay!"

 "But I love you Tommy." You grinned

 Tom scoffed, rolling his eyes and frustrated he started to walk away.

 You called him back "Oi!! Don't worry I'm not gonna tell her anything but I'll still advise you to go and tell her. It will be better and less awkward if she gets to know it from you rather than from anyone else. Trust is the foundation of a relationship, don't break it."

 "Look who is talking about trust and relationships. It's our matter, we can handle it, don't need your advice."

 "Okay cool" you gave a thumbs up

 You really felt exhausted after the whole conversation putting up a no care attitude was really hard as you were totally bothered by the whole ordeal.

………………

 After you and Zendaya finished unpacking your stuff she was exhausted and so decided to get some rest. You on the other hand decided to go for a stroll near the cliff. It was one of your favorite places to go. That place gave you peace and tranquility. You slid your sling bag around your shoulder and put your lyrics notebook inside it. You used to always carry that everywhere whenever you get an idea you note it down in it. You walked along the seashore feeling the cool sea breeze all over your body. You reached the cliff and took a deep breath standing on the edge. You looked over the sea the sun was setting with a golden and orange hue spread across the horizon. It was enchanting. Suddenly some ideas started coming in your head so you took out your notebook and started scribbling on it.

 "What'cha writing?" You were startled by the question you looked back to see Tom climbing the cliff towards you

 "What came to push me down the cliff?" You asked sarcastically

 He rolled his eyes "no seriously what are you writing?"

 "It's none of your business "

 "Come on you can tell me about your new song"

 "I can but first tell me what happens in Avengers 5?"

 Tom shook his head and laughed

 "What?! I'm serious I really can't wait for the movie. Are you bringing back Tony Stark or not. I still cry watching endgame."

"Marvel still doesn't trust me so can't say" he laughed as he took a deep breath and said "I really like this place".

 "Yeah me too"

 "I'm really happy that you came Y/N everyone missed you for the past years"

"And what about you?"

 "Yeah I also did a little." You both smiled.

 You are still confused at what Tom is trying to do. A few moments ago he was being all so mean and rude to you that you were almost about to have a breakdown and now he is here telling you that he missed you. What game are you trying to play with my mind Holland you thought.

You were looking away as Tom stole a glance of you. He really felt guilty, he wanted to apologize for his behavior but showing his anger towards you he thought was the only way to stay far from you. He had a lot of things to say to you but didn't know how to say he missed the time when he could say you everything without any hesitation but now things seemed very complicated for both of you.

 "By the way you look beautiful with long hair. It suits you. "

 You felt a warmth rising in your cheeks as you blushed. You tucked in the stray hair strands flying in the sea breeze behind your ear.

"Umm thanks you look handsome too as always." You smiled awkwardly

 Both looked at each other for a moment then you broke the silence "umm okay then I think I should get going see you around"

 "Yeah sure" Tom nodded

 You turned to go as Tom called you "Y/N! I'm really happy for you. I really am."

 You turned and smiled softly "the feeling is mutual Holland".

Taglists: to be added send a message or ask I'll be happy to add you in the following chapters.

@sophs-library​ @sleepybesson​ @spideyparkerstark​ @itstaskeen​ @milli86​

 @astridcommings

[absentlyabbie]

family and (mis)fortune

or, tommy merlyn accidentally part-time joins the batfam

hello, please enjoy and have mercy, pretty much all of my batfam knowledge is informed either by batman: the animated series or tumblr posts. be gentle with me, i know so little about jason todd, i’m doing my best

this meta developed over whatsaspp in messages to @andyouweremine, @acheaptrickandacheesyoneline, and @storiesofimagination

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Just a fun little notion to mull over: Malcolm Merlyn dies/disappears (hallelujah) in the two years after his wife’s death and leaving his child behind. Accident and happenstance bring Tommy Merlyn, orphan, to the attention of Bruce Wayne. And thus Tommy becomes a part time foster sibling to the batfam

(lol the above was supposed to be it, the end, literally the entire whole thing, but then all the rest happened)

Like. Say Bruce (probably he knew Rebecca?) takes over custody of Tommy. For the sake of the boy and his clear attachment to the Queens, especially Oliver, Bruce has Tommy enrolled as a boarding student at Starling Academy. So the boys still get to spend the school year together, and sometimes in the summer or over holidays Oliver visits in Gotham

And Tommy is pretty much just a part time addition to the Bruce Wayne orphans-who-eerily-resemble-me collection, so it’s several years before he catches on even a little to what Bruce and older foster brother Dick get up to after dark

But eventually he DOES find out. And maybe he doesn’t suit up too, but Bruce can’t have one of his kids knowing about Batman and not prepared to protect himself so he gets a lot of the same training

(Meanwhile Tommy grows up with siblings and a father figure(s)—heyyy Alfred—who show him care and don’t abuse him. And maybe even therapy. But also he gets to maintain his closeness to Oliver and even Thea because he still spends most of the year in Starling)

As a better adjusted dude all around Tommy is probably a moderately better influence on Oliver. Like he can’t change everything but maybe things are mitigated. Then the gambit still goes down (probably Malcolm didn’t actually die after all? He just went deep into the league or whatever and continued to influence things in Starling towards the Undertaking from the shadows?)

In the wake of that Tommy moves to Starling full time and insists to everyone including Bruce that Oliver is still alive etc etc. he doesn’t give up hope (although also maybe he doesn’t get involved with Laurel? Maybe.) and then Oliver actually comes back

More or less most of canon stuff goes on except now you have a Tommy who eats breakfast casually with Batman and multiple Robins and has training and has been inside the Batcave and knows what it looks like when someone he loves is not doing a great job of a) hiding how deeply traumatized they are and b) concealing their vigilante side gig

(@acheaptrickandacheesyoneline contributed: "Oliver, you need to get better excuses"

"Excuses for what?"

"Like that. Right there"

To which i responded: “Look I know the reckless playboy thing seems like an awesome cover story at first but trust me, if you don’t balance it right it just makes everything more work than it’s worth”)

Bruce calling Tommy ostensibly just to check in with his foster son but non-covertly actually sniffing around about this murderous new vigilante in Starling

Tommy very awkwardly and transparently lying that he has no idea who it could possibly be

Tommy tries to crack bad jokes about how he just seems to attract cape and cowl types to wherever he lives and Bruce heaving the longest sigh on record because Tommy and Dick really are way too similar for Bruce’s mental health

Also in this headcanon Bruce was definitely like early 20s when he took in Dick so he was like maaayyybe 27 when he took in Tommy. Putting him younger than 40 or just over at time of Oliver’s return. So Bruce is like barely older than Diggle

Okay my math wasn’t great. So if Dick is a few years older than Tommy and Oliver and Bruce adopted him at like 22, let’s say Bruce is 24 when Rebecca dies and Tommy is 8... 26 when he takes custody of Tommy... which means he’s actually like 43 at time of Oliver coming back from the dead (subject to change, i’m bad at math!)

The way I picture it is that Bruce knew Rebecca (maybe their families knew each other??) and went to her funeral, where he observed the lost looking, clearly devastated eight year old that widower Malcolm was too busy brooding furiously to attend to. Bruce never liked Malcolm. They’d met a few times over the years and he always thought Rebecca could have done better. Malcolm always stuck Bruce as oily and shark eyed. Something cold and hungry under the surface of his charming facade. But Rebecca seemed happy with him so it wasn’t his business

That boy though. The image of that grieving boy, his whole world snatched away and not even a kindly butler to hold his hand at the graveside, that stays with Bruce, nags at him. He checks up on the remaining Merlyns from a distance after returning to Gotham. He’s unsettled and unhappy when he learns Malcolm has run off, leaving his young son behind with some hired help and power of attorney vested in his friend Robert Queen. He follows the situation for two years. When Malcolm returns he’s hopeful Tommy’s life will go better than Bruce’s did, but Malcolm only leaves again all too soon. And then he disappears. His plane goes down or something (who even cares as long as Malcolm is gone-zo, pfft bye bitch). And Tommy is truly alone, an orphan in name as well as circumstance now

Bruce knows there’s no other family to claim Tommy. He knows the boy is staying with the Queens at the moment, that Robert has guardianship, but it’s also apparent they’re in no rush to formalize the situation to anything more permanent. Bruce decides to go to Starling himself and see what will become of Tommy

It’s immediately obvious the Queens are a mess. Infidelity and fighting and periodic separation between Moira and Robert. Moira is just recently pregnant. And she seems anxious and uneasy about Tommy. Even as she does seem to care about him, she also seems determined to keep him at arm’s length. However it’s just as obvious that despite all this, Tommy and the Queen boy might as well be brothers for as close as they are

It’s clearly not an ideal situation. Bruce being Bruce decides he’s just gonna fix things. But when Moira catches wind of it she goes oddly protective and it leads to a face off between the two of them. Moira hits Bruce about being too young, unmarried, having no prior relationship with Tommy, living so far from everything Tommy knows. 

Bruce hits back with brutal truths, the killing blow that Moira clearly has no intention of making Tommy part of her own family. Robert may have slightly more ground to stand on, but ultimately they all know that if the Queen marriage falls apart, it’s not Robert who would take custody of Tommy in the aftermath of another family disintegration

And so with the cooperation of Moira and Robert and a lot of money, Bruce becomes Tommy’s legal guardian and works out with the Queens an arrangement that has Tommy in boarding at the same school Oliver attends and charges Moira and Robert to act in loco parentis for daily or immediate matters. Moira will eventually unclench and let Tommy connect easily with Oliver and even Thea, because with Malcolm gone she doesn’t have that fear about her baby girl and her secret half brother putting her family at risk

And then @storiesofimagination was sad that there would be less Thea/Tommy sibling shenanigans in this AU, to which I said:

Oh but there will still be plenty of that! Because Tommy spends most of his school years largely in Starling and a lottttt of time at the Queen home. And Moira isn’t as uneasy about Tommy adoring Thea and vice versa because with Malcolm gone/presumed dead she’s less worried about her indiscretion being exposed

So @andyouweremine asked if Dick and Oliver get along

Dick is a few years older than Tommy and Oliver so he probably didn’t spend loads of time with them during Oliver’s visits? Not none though. Tommy thinks Dick is absurdly cool so Oliver might have been a little bit jealous but also thinks Dick is cool. Dick almost definitely thrives on the fact that living human beings think he is cool

But yeah. Dick. Dick is probably weird about Tommy at first. Is this a threat? A rival? Nope it’s a shy goofy kid who thinks Dick is way funnier than Bruce does and looks up to him and he’s only around for holidays and summers so he’s the best part time little brother ever

They get on like a house on fire probably. So many bad jokes. So many. Bruce probably hides from the puns down in the Batcave even when there’s no mission because Dick can either hang out with Tommy or annoy Bruce in the super secret crime fighting lair but not both

Tommy loves the hell out of Alfred. He’s like Raisa, only Tommy gets to keep him

Alfred is just pleased to have a charge he doesn’t have to semi regularly do sutures for

If we’re going full batfam, Tommy and Jason probably can’t stand each other most of the time, but it’s mostly because Jason is extremely prickly and acts out wildly (younger days, obv)

Years later when Tim arrives on the scene, Tommy delights in being the older brother at last. They don’t have tons in common but they get along well enough

AND THEN, because @andyouweremine campaigned to ship Tommy/Dick because both Tommy Merlyn and Dick Grayson are as bi as they come:

Tommy would absolutely have the world’s most awkward crush on Dick at least in his teens. He so would though. Dick would probably be his bisexual awakening. Oliver would get sick of hearing about it. Tommy just looks up one day at like 14-15 while Dick is tooling around the house doing dumb acrobatic impressive-feats-of-athletic-dumbassery and there’s all those taut muscles and a flash of rock hard abs and suddenly Tommy needs to go to his bunk excuse himself to his bedroom to freak out privately that apparently he also likes boys now and ugh WHY THIS ONE

(later in life he’ll somewhat bitterly lament that his type seems to be “taboo.” probably he mentions this to Jason when they are both adults and sharing a beer and doing some extremely rare bonding, and Jason shoots him one hell of a side eye like “Please tell me you’re not into underage girls because I will kill you and I won’t feel bad.”

And Tommy barks a mortified laugh and says “No. Jesus Christ, no, I mean people—adult people!—that I should stay away from, because I should know better or they’d never be into me or, uh,” sweating nervously, hoping his face isn’t telegraphing DICK GRAYSON  or OLIVER QUEEN to someone trained by the actual Batman, “other reasons.”)

And you know, Tommy probably doesn’t find out about his foster dad and foster brother being Batman and Robin until he’s like 16-17. So right before Dick stops being Robin/Jason arrives on scene

Not telling Oliver about kills him

And he’s probably torn between reactions. Excited/in awe that his found family are actual superheroes. A little self conscious and insecure that his found family are superheroes but he’s just... him. Stressed that Bruce and Dick are regularly putting themselves in danger. A little off balance and hurt because Bruce Dick and Alfred have all been keeping this secret from him for years

Eventually he knows why they didn’t tell him. Because it’s so hard not to tell Oliver. He doesn’t actually want to brag to the world and he’s not dumb enough to just accidentally give it away, but not telling Oliver is excruciating, and Oliver can probably tell there’s something Tommy is hiding from him all of a sudden. 

It probably puts a new and awful strain on their relationship, but Tommy finally puts the words together to beg Oliver to understand that he has to keep someone else’s secret. That it’s important and not his to tell and that that’s the only reason he wouldn’t tell Oliver something. Things are still stiff for a little while but Oliver accepts it eventually. Especially after Tommy likens it to how just because Tommy has told Oliver he’s bi it wouldn’t be okay for Oliver to tell somebody else Tommy was bi without Tommy’s permission

And so, after Tommy finds out that he’s part of the actual batfam, Bruce makes him train. Not to take up a mask but to be prepared to protect himself if what he now knows were ever to endanger him

Tommy actually doesn’t want to take up a mask. He’s never been a big “family business” guy, even if he did intern at Wayne enterprises last summer

The strain of keeping Bruce’s secret from Oliver was bad enough. Tommy can’t imagine keeping it secret from Oliver if that same secret was his own

(After all, Tommy may have interned at Wayne enterprises but so did Oliver. He stayed with the Waynes the whole summer and Bruce was never more stressed out in his life over things not directly related to costumed villainy)

--

@memcjo @klaus-hargreeves-katz @its-a-pygmy-puffle @keabbs @princesssarcastia @obscure-sentimentalist

[luciana-galvez]

A Night Of Surprises

Fandom: The Dirt

Words: 3.2k (i got carried away oops)

Pairing: nikki sixx x reader

Warnings: none i think

Notes: this doesn’t quite fulfill the last request but i hope you like it anyway anon. also if you want to be added to the taglist or be taken down for specific stories (because i get confused about who wants to be tagged in what haha) just let me know!

Request:  Anonymous Could you write an imagine for Nikki sixx where he falls in love with a girl who wears a lot of pink and is really girly and maybe not into the same scene that he’s into!? I like the soft-hard dynamic😂 I love your writing by the way and I’m so glad you’re writing for the dirt😭😭💖

@miserablecunt Can you write an imagine for Nikki?! Literally anything!! I just need more of him and I have no ideas😂

Anonymous  can u write something about nikki being with a girl who is actually quite girly and everyones like ?????? why ????? 💞

Backstage at a heavy metal concert was the last place you had pictured yourself ending up in. The more you thought about the, the more unlikely it became, but here you were, part of the team to get Mötley Crüe ready for their first American tour on a daily basis.

“Vince, where’s your choker?” you asked pointedly.

“What choker?” he retorted with a confused look.

“There’s a choker that goes with your outfit,” you said, already mentally going through the last hour to see where it might have become lost in the process.

The whole band was about to go on stage, and Vince had showed up late already, and now a piece of his outfit was missing, and the perfectionist in you was suffering. This whole rock and roll business really wasn’t for you.

“Give me two minutes,” you said as you already turned around and jogged back down the hallway, trying to check all the dressing rooms before they had to go up on stage.

When you had studied fashion and costume design, this really wasn’t what you thought you’d end up doing. You had pictured yourself working for a big designer, or even played with the idea of working for Hollywood, but designing costumes for a metal band hadn’t occurred to you even in your wildest dreams.

But then Tommy had offered for you to give it a try. You two had gone to high school together and kind of lost touch afterwards when you went off to university and he did whatever allowed him to rock and roll. His words, not yours.

And then a few months ago you had run into him again, and he had told you about this band he was in, and you had told him about finishing your degree, and he had ecstatically told you about how his band was looking for over-the-top costumes. You had laughed it off at first, but Tommy had been so persistent that you eventually agreed to at least meet the band.

You went into the meeting expecting to meet a rowdy bunch of guys that deemed themselves too cool for school and that you would part ways acknowledging on both sides that it wasn’t the right fit, but when you did meet them, things turned out differently.

Yes, it might not have been the right fit, especially when you showed up to the meeting in an outfit that was the exact opposite of what was considered metal. But when Mick and Nikki doubted your ability to make costumes for them so vehemently (“We’re not going to perform in pink fucking ruffles” you remembered Nikki saying), you were determined to prove them wrong.

And that’s how you ended up as Mötley Crüe’s official costume designer.  

Now, you were desperately rummaging through each of the dressing rooms in order to find Vince’s choker. Luckily, you eventually found it in Vince’s dressing room and cursed him out under your breath for being a slob. At some point they really had to start making your job easier.

You hurried back out of the room and jogged down the hallway until you found the band. They were standing at the stairs to the stage, ready to start their show any minute now.

“Okay, got it,” you announced and walked up to Vince, easily attaching the choker as he craned his neck.

“Let me have a look at you,” you said when you had finished, and the whole band stood up a bit straighter for you to inspect the outfits.

You tweaked at Tommy’s outfit, readjusted Mick’s harness, and eventually stopped in front of Nikki, searching your pockets for the black paint you knew you had in there somewhere.

“Your paint is smudged. Hold still,” you said and carefully held on to his chin so he wouldn’t move. “Hold still.”

You used your thumb to try to wipe away the smudged edges of the lines, but the paint didn’t come off. You sighed. “How did you already smudge this before the show even started?”

Nikki simply shrugged.

“Lick this,” you said, holding out your thumb to him.

“What?”

“I’d do it myself, but that’d be weird,” you said, and when he didn’t move, added “Just do it.”

He eventually licked your thumb hesitantly, and when you tried to get the smudges of this time, it worked without a problem.

“There we go,” you said more to yourself than to him. All that was left to do was reapply another layer of paint, and Nikki patiently let you.

“Alright,” you said, letting go of his chin and taking a step back to look at your finished work. “Try not to ruin your outfits tonight, will you, boys?”

“We don’t make promises we can’t keep,” Vince shrugged, and you rolled your eyes, but your gaze stuck to Nikki, who was looking at you with a peculiar expression.

“What?” you asked.

It looked like you had startled him out of his train of thought, because he simply shook his head in confusion and mumbled “Nothing.”

And then it was time for them to go onstage. You stayed long enough to watch them play Shout At The Devil and then retreated to one of the crew’s backstage rooms, which was now peacefully empty as most people were watching the concert.

You found your backpack in the corner, pulled out your sketchbook, and made yourself comfortable on the couch. You spend the next forty minutes playing with new ideas for costumes until the noise level outside started rising up again, which told you the show was over.

You went out into the hallway just in time for the band to turn the corner, and your eyes started scanning their outfits for damage.

“You guys listened to me,” you said in surprise as you noticed that they were, except for a few tears here and there, mostly intact.

“We have our moments,” Vince shrugged.

It was your job to make sure all the costumes were ready for every show, and on particularity bad nights it had happened that that you stay almost all night after a concert in order to fix the damage. Sure, they had multiple costumes and could afford to lose one or two, but if you wouldn’t spend so much time cleaning up after them, they would run out of outfits two weeks from now.

You waited until they had all changed out of the costumes and collected them to bring them to the bus. Seeing as they were in pretty good shape, you could take the night off and fix them up on the bus ride to the next stop tomorrow.

You knocked on Nikki’s door last and waited for him to let you in. Instead of his glamorous black costume, he was now in black leather pants, a white-and-black striped shirt, and a leather jacket. The paint on his face was still there, and you smiled as you saw that, naturally, it was smudged again.

“You’re staying to watch Ozzy?” he asked as he handed you his stage outfit and you threw it over your arm with the others.

“If I don’t watch your show, what makes you think I’d watch the prince of darkness?” you grinned.

“You don’t watch our show?”

You laughed. “Sorry. I watch bits of it, but it’s not quite my scene.”

He sat back down on his couch and gave you an inquiring look. “So, what kind of music do you listen to?”

You shrugged. “I like ABBA, Fleetwood Mac—”

“Evidently,” Nikki smirked and gestured towards your outfit. You were wearing your flowery jumpsuit with a pink belt that made you look particularly hippie.

“Evidently,” you agreed and pointed at it.

“So, what are you up to instead?”

“Now?”

“Mhhmh.”

“I’m gonna drop these,” you held up their outfits, “on the bus and then I’ll find a quiet diner and work on my sketches. And I’m starving, so I’ll head out now.” You started walking back to the door and added, “Enjoy the concert and your afterparty. Or strip club. Or wherever you end up today. Just don’t let it be jail,” you turned back around for a moment and gave him a playful wink.

“Actually,” Nikki started as you were halfway through the door. You stopped and looked back at him, and he looked like he was still contemplating what he was about to say.

“Do you mind if I join you?” he added after a moment.

You leaned your head to one side and narrowed your eyes, trying to figure out if he was fucking with you. The band was notorious for their wild afterparties, so that Nikki wanted to skip it and instead accompany you to a diner seemed entirely out of character.

“Okay,” you said, but it sounded more like a question.

He didn’t seem to notice. “Cool,” he said, took another swig from the whisky bottle that was standing on the coffee table in front of him, and then got up. “Ready.”

You lifted an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. When you left his dressing room, Tommy was excitedly jumping towards the two of you from the other side of the hallway.

“Dude Ozzy is about to start, let’s rock and roll!”

“We’re actually gonna head out to dinner,” Nikki said simply and Tommy’s expression turned to confusion for a moment. His gaze wandered from Nikki to you and back again, and then he broke out into a big grin and clapped Nikki on the shoulder. “Alright man, make sure to use protection.”

“Jesus Christ Tommy,” you uttered exasperatedly and he laughed, already skipping further down the hallway to get the others.

Nikki and you walked to the crew bus in silence, and he stood back and waited while you handled the outfits. Then, you were on your way. It didn’t take you long to find a diner that wasn’t too busy, and you sat down in a corner booth and ordered waffles while Nikki simply opted for a drink.

“Go ahead,” Nikki said as the waitress disappeared.

You simply looked at him questioningly.

“You said you’d come here to sketch,” he explained.

“You came with me to….watch me sketch?” you asked.

Nikki shrugged. “I’m curious to see what you have in store for us.”

You looked at him for a moment longer, trying to gauge what had gotten into him today, but then decided to go with it and pulled out your sketchbook.

“I don’t have anything finished but I’ve been playing with a few ideas,” you started as you flipped through the pages until you found the one you were looking for. “Like here,” you said and pushed the notebook over to Nikki, “I’ve been wanting to introduce a bit more color, so I thought something like this for Tommy. You’ve seen him sport leopard print pants, so I’m thinking to get a bit more pattern into his look.”

“And here,” you said and flipped the page over for him, “I really like Vince’s look with only the harness and no shirt, but I want to mix up the pants a bit. So instead of having him in plain black leather pants, I want to experiment with introducing the color scheme from the harness into the pants as well and get some red patches in there.”

You paused for a moment, but Nikki remained silent. “Like I said, none of these is finished and they’re just ideas I’ve been playing with…” you trailed off and looked up at him. He had a concentrated look on his face as he studied your sketches. You watched him start to flip through the pages and realized you were anxious to know what he was thinking. The longer he remained silent, the more you thought he hated them.

“What do you have in mind for me?” he asked eventually, looking up at you for the first time.

“I haven’t gotten to it yet, but I was thinking of puffy shoulder pieces.”

You could see that he was about to protest, so you quickly added, “No, not like you think!” You laughed. “Something like this,” you trailed off and pulled the notebook back to yourself and flipped to an empty page. You rummaged in your bag for a pencil and started sketching what you were thinking off.

“See, not like housewife-puffy-shoulders,” you continued while sketching, “but more like ‘Sydney-opera-house puffy. And then add some chains or studding.”

Nikki craned his neck to watch you sketch and nodded, contemplating. “Yeah, I like that.”

You smiled. “Good.”

It was another fifteen minutes before your food arrived, and you spent it in silence as you continued sketching and Nikki watched. When he had announced that he wanted to join, you had expected it to be awkward, but you were surprised how comfortable silence was with him.

When the waitress brought your food and his drink, you put your sketchbook away and hungrily started digging into your waffles.

“So, do you do this every night?” Nikki asked. “Go to a diner after the show and sketch?”

“Mostly,” you said between bites. “When I’m not stuck fixing your costumes I tend to look for a quiet place to be alone.”

“Why?” he asked, but there was genuine interest behind the question.

You thought for a moment. “Your lifestyle can be quite overwhelming,” you shrugged eventually, “sometimes I just need to get away from it for a while.”

“My lifestyle?”

“You know, sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll,” you smiled.

“It really isn’t your scene, is it?”

“Nope.”

“Then why did you agree to do it?”

“To prove that I could,” you replied honestly. “You were so disbelieving that a girl that likes pink can design costumes for you that I made it my mission to prove you wrong. I like a good challenge.”

Nikki grinned. “I can appreciate that.”

“So,” you leaned forward, “what turned you into the badass rockstar that you are?”

“An unfit mother, a non-existent father, and a revolving door of asshole stepfathers,” he shrugged it off, but you could tell there was real pain behind his act of not caring.

“Ah, the classic story,” you replied, not unkindly. “So you fill that hole with sex and drugs?”

“And I assume you are the cheerful girl that you are because you had a rosy childhood with a picket-fence garden and Sunday night family dinners,” he challenged you, but there was no hostility in his voice.

“Well, we didn’t have a picket-fence, but our Sunday night dinners were lovely,” you grinned and he laughed.

“No wonder everyone in your family is a saint.”

“Well, my bother used to live the rockstar life,” you said. “He wasn’t unlike you. Lots of alcohol. Lots of drugs. Lots of getting arrested.”

“Oh, and he didn’t manage to influence you and pull you to the dark side?” Nikki smirked.

“No,” you replied matter-of-factly, and your expression turned serious. “Because he overdosed and died.”

Nikki’s face fell. “Shit.”

“Yeah,” you replied. “Shit indeed.”

Nikki thought for a moment. “Then why would you agree to come on tour with us? And spend all day every day around people that constantly do drugs and party?”

You shrugged. “I stayed away from it for a long time, and cut everyone that did drugs out of my life. But to be honest,” you paused, trying to find the right words, “I don’t know, it just became easier to be around it? I know the warning signs of when it turns from normal partying into an actual issue. I couldn’t save him, but maybe I can save the next one.”

You were silent for a moment, contemplating on how to formulate your thoughts. “Listen, I know you think I’m this naïve, gold-hearted girl from the Valley without a worry in the world, but I know how dark life can get. I’ve been in a really fucking dark place after he died, and it took everything I had to crawl back out of it. I’m kind to people because I know what it’s like to wish you were dead every day.”

Nikki stared at you for a long time after that, with an expression you couldn’t quite read. Eventually, he cleared his throat. “You really have your shit together, don’t you?”

And with that, the tension was broken. “Not really,” you laughed.

You ended up spending five hours in the diner, talking about anything and everything. Nikki told you about trying to get his mother arrested, about running away from home without a place to go, about coming to LA and unsuccessfully trying to make it with a bunch of bands before he finally found Tommy, Mick, and Vince, and you told him about your family, about working two jobs when you were in college because you were determined to pay it off by yourself, and about your high-school prom where you ended up having to take care of your drunk date all night.

When you walked back to the hotel, Nikki gave you his jacket, and you gratefully wrapped yourself up in it. You could see that a bunch of people that passed you gave you curious looks, surprised by the miss-matched pair of a mean-looking rocker next to the girl in the flowery jump suit, and you had to smile at their irritation.

Nikki accompanied you all the way to your room, and when you got there, he was visibly unsure about what to do. If you were honest, you were absolutely enjoying seeing Nikki Sixx, who was usually so smooth with women, be nervous.

Apparently, when you didn’t make a move, Nikki decided not to push it and awkwardly took a step back. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

You couldn’t supress a smile as you told him he would, and then you turned around, opened your door, and leaned against the doorway. Nikki had already turned around and was heading back to his room, you assumed. So he really was going to just leave, huh.

“Nikki,” you called after him and he turned around. You rolled your eyes playfully, pushed the door behind you open further, and made a gesture with your head towards your room. “Get in here,” you laughed.

Nikki was clearly surprised, and he dropped his head and smiled before making his way back to you. He stopped when he was opposite you in the doorway, and the proximity of your bodies made your heart beat a little faster. He was close enough that you had to glace up to look at him.

“Are you always that smooth with the ladies?” you grinned.

“Shut up,” he said and didn’t wait before pressing his lips to yours.

The kiss was intense and sloppy and wild, and you enjoyed it more that you had enjoyed anything in a long time. You were so entangled in each other that you stumbled into your room and almost took out a small side table and two lamps, and when you took of his shirt, you were grinning to both ears.

This night really was full of surprises.

tags: @supernaturalvikingwhore  @miserablecunt  @sighsophiia  @fandomshit6000  @flizaa @hi-my-name-is-riley  @electradestiny  @starlalove  @kingbouji3  @sweetshutter  @baiabouk 

[spideymybucky]

A thing for Co-stars

Pairing: Tom x reader ,Zendaya x Tom 

Warnings: fluff and angst, just cuteness!!!!

Word count: 1.4+

A/N: Well, thanks for reading and this came to me because idk. Things happen and my brain is weird. Y’all like it? Would you like more? My request are open cause im bored, so blow me up babes! 

Tom Holland wasn’t expecting any of this to happen. He wasn’t expecting his life to turn into a whirl wind of events, red carpets, paparazzis, or just being put into the spotlight so fast. He  also wasn’t expecting to fall in love with (Y/n) (Y/l/n), while being in a ‘relationship’. He felt as if everything was sleeping right out of his hands.

He sat on the white high chair with Clair, the make up artist, retouching his foundation. He looked at his phone, reading the article published by one of the gossip sites. Tom Holland and Zendaya called it quits? Read the headline. He bit his lip as he scanned over it. It seems as if  Tom Holland, Spiderman himself, might have cheated on Zendaya with his new co-star (Y/n) (Y/l/n). Talk about drama. They were seen walking out of a restaurant together. An insider said “Tom has never felt this way before. He truly is broken, he doesn’t know who to choose.”

He threw his phone on the counter and sighed. He wasn’t ready for this side of fame. Nothing was supposed to come out of to co-stars eating together. His gut said it was a bad idea, even (Y/n) said that, but he ignored every sign and insisted. He just wanted a bit of time with her.

“Mate, stop stressing about it. I already sent a statement to PR and they’re gonna deal with it.” Harrisons stated. He nodded and looked at the mirror.

“Well, love, you’re all done here. Tell (y/n), if she needs a retouch to come to me. Sara’s gone for the day, you know an emergency or something.” Her crooked smile was something that made every ones day. She was like a mother hen to all the actors.

“Sure, Clair.” He answered smiling. Harrison followed him to the set. It wasn’t a big production, but it was highly anticipated for its cast. He read his scene, taking notes from Guillermo, the director until he had to leave. He looked around, not seeing much of the cast here. He was sure the he had scenes with her, but she was nowhere to be seen.

“(Y/n)’s gonna be late, so we’re gonna shoot the shot/reverse shots first without her and continue with the 23rd scene followed by the 2 and 4 scene, ok?” Guillermos’ thick latin accent  noticeable more then ever. The crew members nodded and started arranging the set. All the house scenes were to be done this after none, and later they had to fly to Thailand to continue.

Filming continued for the next few hours, it was hard doing everything alone. He didn’t have his co-stars input or how he should act. Guillermo called it quits, unsatisfied with the 23 scene after two hours. He wasn’t angry, just annoyed by waste of time. He looked down at his clock and it was 8:30 pm. He sat on his designated chair with a snack on his hand, and looked through his phone. More articles were being released, his name was trending and it annoyed him.

“Well, if it isn’t my cheating boyfriend.” A feminine tone came from behind him. He turned around and saw Zendaya smiling.

“Hey, Z, What’ya doing here?” Tom spoke with his mouth full of bread.

“Gross, Holland.” Daya, scrunched her nose in disgust. He laughed and swallowed, almost choking.

“Sorry, sorry. Forgot how lady-like you are.” Zendaya rolled her eyes and sat next to him.

“Well, Tommy boy I’m here to relive you of your guilt.” Tom looked confused at Zendaya.

“What are you talking about, Z?” He asked confused out of his mind.

“I talked to your manager and we’ve decided to release a statement about our break up, and how its been a year and a half or something like that since then.” She showed him everything, how it was going to go down and it was going to be posted on both their instagrams. He looked at her with hopeful eyes, feeling better than ever. It was a weight lifted of his shoulders.

“Z, you didn’t have to do that. I know how private you are in all of this. I-Thank you.” Tom mumble out as he engulfed her into a hug. A high pitched laughter interrupted their hug, as Tom pushed Zendaya a way. He looked at the door to find (Y/n) laughing at her phone. She looked up and caught Tom’s honey-brown eyes. She then averted them and saw Zendaya next to him, her eyes wide with intrigue.

“I’m guessing thats her.” Zendaya mumbled, slightly showing Tom. He nodded and sighed.

“Yeah” he whispered out.

“You sure do have a thing for co-stars, don’t you?” Zendaya humorously said. He glared at her.  Why is he so unlucky? He thought. (Y/n) stood in front of them with a tight lip smile. Her eyes roamed from Zendaya to Tom. They looked close, like any couple would, and happy.

“Hey, Uh…” She whispered out, scared her voice would betray her.

“Hey, I’m Zendaya but my friends call me Daya or Z, or ya’know, you can call me Zendaya. Its up to you. ” With her hand out, (Y/n) grabbed and shook it. Dayas’ big smile plastered on her face as (Y/n) was to scared.

“Yeah, I know. I’m a big fan of your work. I’m (Y/n).”

“Thanks, boo. Me too, I’m a fan. I loved you in Captive.” Her warm smile made (Y/n) guilt grow. She nodded, forcing herself to smile and act as if nothing happened that night-which nothing did, except some glances here and there.

“I just wanted to clear the air and say nothing happened that night. Tom and I were just having dinner, after a long day and Paparazzi were there. I should’ve known it was to risky, I didn’t want to cause any problems. You and Tom make such-” Zendaya burst out laughing, making (Y/n)s’ rant cut short. Tom smiled lightly and nudged Z.

“No no no no, we aren’t-I mean we were but now- its”

“What Tom’s trying to say is that we aren’t together.” She motioned at both of them. “We were an item but its over now, he’s just one of my best friends.”

“Oh, ok.” She sighed in relief and smiled at them. “I should get going, Guille’s kind of mad at me.” She slowly hugged Zendaya and smiled at Tom before retrieving. Tom looked at her go, slipping away from him again and he sighed. Why was he such a dork? Can’t he just talk to her and not make it awkward?

Zendaya on the other hand looked at both of them. (Y/n) was stealing glances at Tom, every no and then. Her eyes full of love and hope, but with every small glance a bit of hope decade. Thomas, on the other hand, was trying his hardest to push down his feelings and ignore (Y/n). He acted as if nothing happened, with a broody look on his face. He was stealing glances too, both of them oblivious.

“You shouldn’t just stay there staring at her. Go on and ask her out before that wannabe Zac Efron does.” Zendaya winked at him. She grabbed her coat and slipped it on. Tom stood up next to her, falling a few feet short.

“Yeah, I know. I know.” He said hugging her.

“Get on it Thomas, cause she’s gorgeous and if I were her I wouldn’t wait for you to get your shit together.” She smiled and waved at him, leaving him speechless.

She was right, though. He had to talk to her, tell her how he felt and how everything went down that night. He didn’t mean to make her feel uncomfortable or put her in any kind of situation where she was affected. He needed to do it before anyone else got to her. She was gorgeous and talented, how can someone not like her? Licking his lips he stood up and walked to her.

(Y/n) looked at him and smiled. She set better after what Zendaya said. He was free, no relationship attached to him, and that made her revaluate her relationship with him. She was attracted to his innocent smile, his puppy dog eyes and his wild curly hair. She could see herself with him, talking for hours and just laughing at everything. The hardest part about everything is envisioning a future together, and thats what both of them did.

“Hey…” He mumbled out. She smiled at him, making him slightly dizzy and out of breath.

“Hey.” She whispered out before looking up straight into his eyes.

Right there and then they both knew, everything was going to be ok.

Tags

@run-girl-on-fire-run @savvythedork @iwokeupinabadmood @thechickvic @its-shaula-wii @unicorngummybears @hahajalen1 @melaerica @phenominiallfabiola @takeabreathandbeanxious @kealohilani-tepise @she-had-theworld  @schischi  @h0tshotholland @profangirllex @richiethotzierz@bellagrayson-wayne @chonisberonica @rockyrocket15 @mariejoycarter @charlsxblog @alainabooks143 @mercurys-rhapsody @its-a-mess-here @omg-i-am-lord-voldemort @bartonsbowandarrow @andreuskystuff@avatheexceed @imma-witch-bitch @chewymoustachio @rachelscosplay @au-shay-lia @fuckingpasssword @andreuskystuff @liveanddiehere @loxbbg​@beckastark @babymadz@shootingstarsaretearsofheaven @spideymood @spider-scrub acceptance07  @emmaewatson

[raywritesthings]

Dear Friend, 1/?

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, Felicity Smoak, Joanna de la Vega Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary: When Felicity decides to get serious about Ray, she knows it won’t be a good idea for Oliver to be hanging around. So she turns to the world of online dating to keep him distracted. Unknown to the both of them, over the summer Joanna had set Laurel up with an online dating account in the hopes that her friend could move on from past failed relationships. There’s only one way this can end. *Can also be read on my AO3*

Not for the first time, Felicity wondered what she was going to do about Oliver.

After what had seemed an age, he had finally asked her out and they were going to give things a shot — only for him to back out thanks to a bomb going off in the restaurant. Definitely not her usual fantasy ending.

She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t been hurt. He’d tried to tell her it wasn’t due to a lack of feelings on his part, but Felicity wasn’t really interested in what his excuse was. If he really loved her, he would want to be with her no matter what. She’d waited too long to settle for anything less.

And then things had changed.

Put off as she’d been by her new day job boss at first, Ray Palmer had quickly grown on her. Lifting her out of the secretarial pool had been a small mercy, for one thing. She would have rather stayed in her retail job than go back to that. And he was open with her about his past and the things he struggled with, more open than Oliver had been in three years. She felt like he saw her and as more than just a last resort.

Ray was...something. A something she sort of wanted to see what it might become. But that was never going to happen with Oliver and the specter of their nonstarter relationship hanging over her. She only had to look back two years to see how he’d single-handedly dismantled Laurel’s chances with Tommy to see where that would go.

Things would be best if Oliver’s attentions were directed elsewhere, that much was clear. But she doubted she could convince him to start a relationship with someone who didn’t even know his secrets if he wasn’t willing to date her and be the Arrow at the same time.

If she could just give him the illusion of pursuit to distract himself with, that might just be enough. He wasn’t any good at hanging onto relationships anyway, so it’d probably be more fun for him to not actually be in one, merely testing the waters of one — or perhaps several, if that was what it took.

Her chances of getting him to try speed-dating were slim to none, at least not in person. But there was a much more convenient alternative she thought far more likely.

“Technology saves the day again,” Felicity thought to herself. Now how to put this in a way he might actually be willing to consider.

She puzzled over that for the rest of the workday and on her drive to the Verdant. When she arrived, she found herself in luck; Oliver was the only one occupying the Cave. The salmon ladder, too. She was really lucky today.

As tended to happen, Felicity’s careful planning came out in a single blurt. “So, I was thinking about your problem.”

Oliver paused on the rung he was currently hanging from and looked down. “My problem?”

“Your dating problem.”

He grimaced and dropped down onto the mat. “Felicity—”

“I know, I’m the last person you want to talk to about this. But let us consider why we are in this situation in the first place.”

Oliver said nothing, but he wasn’t running away either. Not that he had anywhere to run when this was both his base and home. Felicity took this as a sign to continue.

“You don’t feel you can be close to another person while being the Arrow. But you would also like a relationship. So I thought of a way to achieve both of those things.” She reached over to the table where Oliver had placed his phone along with his water and wallet.

“What are you doing?” He was more puzzled than angry-sounding, and he made no move to stop her as she entered his password and went to the app store.

“I am downloading an online dating app and creating an account for you.”

“Online dating?” He echoed, incredulous. Oliver made a grab for the phone, but she pulled it in towards her chest, still typing away. Felicity knew he’d never force it out of her hands even though he could. “I don’t want that.”

“But you need it. You don’t stay single long, Oliver, and there is a long line of ex-girlfriends who can attest to that.”

He didn’t have an argument to deny that, and they both knew it.

Eventually he said, “I don’t think online dating is the best way for someone like me to date, Felicity. I have a reputation that would be hard for a stranger to see past.”

“That’s why it’s anonymous.”

“Anonymous?”

She nodded. “You get a username and a little bio description, and then you match with another person based off the answers you gave to various preference questions. Then after you have a certain number of conversations, you can choose to share your picture or name or whatever.”

“What if you don’t want to?”

“Then don’t,” she said with a shrug. She had to suppress a smile as well, as that was ultimately the goal here: keep Oliver busy with possible romances for as long as possible. She could never see him settling down with one, at any rate.

“So, your username. Any ideas?”

Oliver was silent. Still a reluctant participant, then.

“Hm. Well, what about…” Felicity snapped her fingers. “King of Survival. Get it? Cause surviving is kind of your thing, and the king part is a play on your name. Can’t really use Queen. That would definitely be giving off the wrong vibe,” Felicity said, her smile fading when he didn't laugh. Not that she would’ve expected it. She typed it in and hit the box for the next page. “Anyway, now there’s just the bio and answering some basic questions about preferences.”

She began typing out what she felt to be a fair and accurate description without getting into any incriminating detail. Oliver wandered over a little closer. He looked as though mentally he was starting and stopping several sentences.

“What sort of questions do they ask?”

“The basics. If you’re a neat freak or a slob, cats or dogs, favorite foods. You’re not big on sweets, right?”

“Actually, I — well, I don’t dislike them.”

Felicity looked up in surprise. She would never have guessed. “But you drink black coffee.”

“Sure, because it’s coffee. But I like, you know, ice cream. And Thea and I, every Christmas we used to — well, it doesn’t matter.”

Felicity was glad. She wasn’t particularly interested in Oliver’s Christmas traditions with his sister that had no doubt fallen by the wayside long ago. She held out the phone. “Maybe you should answer the questions.”

He took it and stared down at the screen. “There’s no chance you’re gonna let me just delete this thing, is there?”

“Nope.” Felicity reached out and touched his arm. “Just give it a try. For me?”

Oliver’s shoulders rose and fell with his sigh. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is,” she said scarcely before he’d finished. “Okay, so answer the questions, and then you should be all set up and start seeing other profiles.”

Oliver’s deep frown remained throughout as he hit the button for this or that answer. But John and then Roy soon entered the base, meaning she couldn’t really ask. Oliver was going to need privacy if she wanted him to actually try, and something told her John would say this wasn’t a good idea.

As the boys all left the Cave, however, she decided a little peek wouldn’t hurt. Just to make sure he’d finished setting up the profile. To her relief, he had, and slowly more and more matches were being brought up for him to look at.

“That’s one distracted Oliver and me in the clear,” Felicity muttered to herself, locking Oliver’s phone and setting it aside again.

So far so good.

—-

It wasn’t until the next morning that Oliver got around to looking at his phone again, much less the newly-added app. Part of him thought to just ignore it altogether, but the device had been periodically beeping with notifications. Probably as it found new supposed matches for him. This was ridiculous.

Oliver couldn’t even believe he’d agreed to this. What interest did he have in online dating? He wished he could be with Felicity, but it was just too much of a risk. Was this just her way of trying to prove a point to him? He already knew that the life he’d chosen could only be a solitary one.

But he supposed he owed it to her to give it a try. She’d gone ahead and put the app into his phone, anyway, so it was useless to argue whether or not it was happening. And it wasn’t as if he had anything else to do during the daytimes. Even he knew training for the entire day only to fight through most of the night was more of a detriment to his health in the long run than anything. And he’d promised Felicity.

Oliver opened the app and began scrolling down a list displaying accounts that had been selected according to his own preferences. They each had their own username and a short bio attached, and his eyes caught on one in particular.

JusticeIsAWoman

Career-driven. Closer to thirty than I’d like. Slow to get to know, but passionate about the people close to me. Really just looking for a friend.

That could work. At the least, it didn’t really sound like an actual relationship would result — which he didn’t want in the first place, but he didn’t want to hurt some anonymous person’s feelings over it.

He could tell Felicity he’d tried even if it didn’t work out. At the least it wouldn’t be lying.

And something about the bio’s frank tone intrigued him. It felt more authentic, like someone he wouldn’t mind talking to, even if it only lasted a few minutes. And there was no denying the irony of a vigilante pursuing justice.

Nothing ventured…

He hit the icon that opened up a message box and began to type.

—-

Work was not exactly going well today. She was still tired and a bit sore from her workouts at the gym, not that she was about to give those up. It was the only time she really felt alive anymore, not like at the office where she had to pretend everything was fine and that she hadn’t watched her sister’s body fall off a rooftop only a few short weeks ago.

It wasn’t that she hated her job. It just wasn’t enough anymore, not when the city was regularly on the verge of crisis the past few years and the justice system couldn’t even try keeping up. Sitting on the sidelines and watching Oliver and the others do something about it just grew more and more frustrating with each passing day.

It wasn’t as if she could have much of her own life anymore. She was lying to her father about Sara, lying to anyone not on Oliver’s team about the Arrow, and lying to herself about why she kept turning down various invites to go out or be set up with a friend of a colleague. Why not do something worthwhile with the time she wasn’t using?

A vaguely familiar sounding ping came from her purse. Laurel dug around in it for her phone and blinked at the screen. Then she groaned.

“Speak of the devil.”

There was a notification from the dating app Joanna had made her download this past summer. It had been a while since she’d heard anything from it; truthfully Laurel had been pretty sure she’d fended off the majority of any potential suitors, which she realized was not what her friend had wanted at all.

“You need to get back out there,” Joanna had said. “Seriously, Laurel, you have gone through so much, and I don’t want to see you give up on a single part of your life. And that includes relationships.”

“Joanna, I appreciate that, I really do.” Laurel had tried for a smile, not wanting to make her friend feel bad. “But it’s not that I’m not dating because I’m still hung up on some guy.” Not the guy Joanna had probably been thinking of, anyway. “I just really don’t have the time to date around.”

“Who does anymore? That is why all the young professionals have gotten into this nifty thing called online dating.”

She’d suppressed a groan. “I think you mean old people.”

“Yeah, on eHarmony, sure. But there’s sites for busybodies hitting their thirties just like you and me.”

“I’m not sure it’s going to look that great for the ADA to be online dating,” Laurel had said, thinking it an easy-out.

“Then we’ll set you up with one of those anonymous sites,” Joanna had decided. “It’s more for the practice than anything. Just to boost your confidence so you can start dating in the real world again.”

Grudgingly, she’d handed her phone over and let Joanna search for and download an app that met the right specifications.

“Now, you’re gonna need a username. Something kind of mysterious and sexy—”

“I’m not trying to be sexy,” she’d reminded her friend.

“--but still you,” Joanna had continued as though Laurel hadn’t spoken. She’d bitten her lip in a long few minutes of thought, and just when Laurel had begun to hope they’d been stymied before this could really begin, Joanna’s eyes had lit up. “Oh, this one’s perfect!”

Laurel had leaned over the table to watch her friend’s typing. “Justice is a woman?”

“And that woman is you. Come on, it fits.”

She’d coached Laurel through writing a little bio section that didn’t give away any real personal details and a brief questionnaire that was meant to determine her preferences. Laurel had insisted on making it clear she wasn’t really in the market for a relationship; just a friend would do.

“You realize most guys are gonna take that as code for a one-night stand, right?”

Joanna had been right, which had meant a couple solid weeks of slogging through various offers and blocking anyone who sent her an attachment on sight. With a little bit of tweaking, the messages had slowed to a trickle — though most of those were requests to join some pre-existing couple’s threesome since she’d honestly listed her openness towards talking to either men or women once Joanna hadn’t been watching.

But she’d forgotten all about it especially in the wake of Sara’s murder. Laurel unlocked her phone with the full intention to just delete the app, but her eyes caught sight of the message that had been sent.

KingOfSurvival: is the looking for a friend part of your bio for real?

Something about it gave her pause. It wasn’t exactly easy to tell over the internet, but the question seemed genuine. Although she wasn’t sure what to make of that username. The likelihood was that she was reading way too much into it, however, so with that in mind she typed out a terse reply.

JusticeIsAWoman: is that the setup for some kind of ‘change your mind with a dick pic’ maneuver

The reply was almost immediate.

KingOfSurvival: no

KingOfSurvival: I just meant I could use a friend myself. I’m not really on here to see anyone or hookup or anything with pictures

KingOfSurvival: do people really do that?

JusticeIsAWoman: you wouldn’t believe how often

She sat back in her chair, considering the turn this had taken. He wasn’t interested in dating her or sex, but he’d messaged her anyway. And in the middle of the workday. That didn’t exactly speak well for him, but maybe he was on his lunch break. Laurel hadn’t been planning to take one, but there wasn’t anything pressing on her desk at the moment.

JusticeIsAWoman: if you’re not interested in dating, what are you doing on a dating site?

KingOfSurvival: couldn’t I ask you the same?

“Touché,” Laurel muttered under her breath. He’d already sent a second message before she could begin typing.

KingOfSurvival: truth is a friend signed me up for this

JusticeIsAWoman: same thing happened to me

KingOfSurvival: that might say something about the company we both keep

JusticeIsAWoman: is that why you’re looking for new friends

There was a longer wait for his answer, and Laurel chewed her bottom lip, wondering if that remark had been a bit too biting.

KingOfSurvival: I laughed more than I should have at that

KingOfSurvival: but really, I guess my personal life is a little complicated and having someone else to talk to would be nice

Complicated personal life. Well, she doubted it could be as complicated as hers. And really, what was she doing chatting with some random stranger on the internet while her whole world kept getting knocked out from under her?

But having someone else to talk to would be nice. Someone who didn’t see her as all her past mistakes, or as just another fellow alcoholic. Wasn’t that the whole point to this anonymity?

JusticeIsAWoman: well, I don’t know how good I’ll be at it, but I can try to be that someone

JusticeIsAWoman: but there’s no way your personal life is more complicated than mine

KingOfSurvival: we’ll have to agree to disagree on that

KingOfSurvival: but if you need someone to talk to, too, then this might work out for both of us

JusticeIsAWoman: looks like it

She happened to glance at the time at the top of her screen and gave a guilty start

JusticeIsAWoman: but maybe later. Kind of need to get back to work

KingOfSurvival: oh, right. My bad

JusticeIsAWoman: are you unemployed or something?

KingOfSurvival: or something

JusticeIsAWoman: hm

KingOfSurvival: don’t you need to get going?

A short laugh escaped her at that, which surprised her. She actually couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed. Probably with Sara on the roof…

What was she doing? Laurel shook her head.

JusticeIsAWoman: fine, you get off easy for now

She set her phone aside face down and resisted the urge to check when it chirped again with her new anonymous friend’s reply. She’d save it for after work. That was the responsible thing to do.

Was it wrong to feel like she had something to look forward to now?

[megaphonemonday]

hashtag blessed

approximately forever ago (I’m real slow filling these prompts in case none of you have noticed) @alwayskels sent me this: Ginny is pregnant with Bawson's first baby and her appetite is insatiable! It turns into a thing where like fans take pics with her at restaurants #EatWithBabyBawson. It's all one big joke in good fun. Mike and the team have a field day with it.

And I have wanted to do a multimedia fic for a long long time. I sensed my opportunity and took it. This was a labor of love and I’m actually really happy with the way it turned out. Hope you like it, too!!

read on ao3 | version with image descriptions

The fact that everyone, from bloggers to commentators to fans to people who’d never actually watched a game of baseball in their life, immediately read into Ginny’s placement on the 60-Day DL shouldn’t have been such a surprise. It seemed like every time Ginny so much as changed her coffee order, the public at large was eager to dissect and discuss the incident ad nauseam.

This was no different.

Another elbow strain. Tommy John for sure. She’s out for the season.

No, it’s just a jammed finger I think. They probably wanna make room on the roster, try out some of the newer prospects in AAA.

But did you see her favor her left hip last week? Her landing was off the entire game against the Rockies. It’s gotta be that.

And, of course: Well, what if she’s pregnant?

By far, that was the most popular explanation.

If it weren’t also 100% correct, Ginny probably wouldn’t be so annoyed about it all.

Then again, the sheer number of times a possible Ginny Baker pregnancy had been rumored and reported on—She walked out of a restaurant with her hand on her stomach? Pregnant. Had a less than stellar outing on the mound? Super pregnant. Sent Mike out to CVS to get tampons because she couldn’t be bothered to pull herself together enough to leave the house? Obviously trying to cover up the fact that she was, you guessed it: pregnant—someone had to hit on the truth eventually. 

It was cold comfort.

It’d be a little funny if it wasn’t her uterus constantly under such scrutiny. And if she hadn’t had all these hormones flooding her system for the past three months.

As it was, Mike was much better situated to find the humor in the situation. He was currently sitting by her side on the couch, one arm draped casually over her shoulders, reading out the responses he liked the most and counting the number of people who’d finally gotten it right. He could afford to find it all funny, though. He’d only been involved in the parts that were fun for them both.

Which wasn’t precisely fair, Ginny knew.

In the three or so weeks since Ginny’d told him the news, her husband had been on cloud nine. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t been trying for this in the general sense—they both wanted kids, but Ginny was still going strong and Mike was willing to wait—but they hadn’t put a lot of effort into it. (Aside from getting as much practice in the baby-making department as they could.) 

So, Ginny’d gone off to Spring Training, not once suspecting what might be forming somewhere behind her belly button.

Not until she couldn’t stop throwing up.

It was so bad, she’d had to skip a start. She’d told Al it was just the stomach flu, and even believed it. Only his skeptical smile and insistence on a doctor’s appointment made her wonder if it was something else.

Needless to say, the skipper’s suspicions paid off. She was pregnant. Nearly nine weeks along.

Ginny will never, as long as she lives, forget the look of awe and tender devotion that took over Mike’s face as she told him, shell-shocked and jittery and still happy as hell, that he was going to be a dad.

His hand came up to cup her cheek, and Ginny could feel the way his fingers trembled. Just like his lips as he swallowed, eyes shining. “I’m gonna be a dad?” he repeated, like he needed to hear it again, just to be sure.

She nodded, covering his hand with hers, and finally letting the brilliant, excited grin spread across her face. “Yeah,” she breathed, just before he crashed into her, his lips stretched just as wide as hers.

And how could she help but laugh when he wrenched himself away, his hands fluttering uncertainly near her stomach. “Shit! Are you all right?”

“I’m pregnant, not fragile,” Ginny promised, though Mike still looked doubtful. To prove her point, she pulled him back in and set about showing him how tough she was.

Since then, Mike had been pretty reluctant to leave her side. Which made the one road trip she’d been on something of an experience. He hadn’t been able to come up with a plausible reason to follow the team to New York and Philadelphia, but Ginny had no doubt that he’d really tried. He’d had to settle for hourly text updates, and when she was too busy to reply, pumping his former teammates as subtly as possible for information on her condition. Since more than one of those teammates asked when Mike had gotten such separation anxiety, Ginny figured he was semi-successful.

Which was why she knew that Mike was secretly relieved the team had elected to put her on the DL rather than risk complications.

If she was being honest, Ginny was relieved, too. Unexpected or not, she’d already grown attached to the little bundle of cells growing inside her. Much as she loved her job, she wasn’t as disappointed to give up a season as she’d once thought she’d be. Then again, after four seasons in the show, Ginny no longer had to battle and grind and push to keep her spot in the rotation. No, she’d probably never move much beyond her spot as the number five starter, but her ERA and win-loss record spoke for itself. She wasn’t going anywhere.

Even after a baby.

So, the public could speculate and take to Facebook and Twitter to talk about her all they liked. They couldn’t change the fact that Ginny Baker was living the dream: a starting pitcher in MLB, married to the love of her life, and expecting her first child. 

That was real. That was tangible, unlike all the talk currently flooding the internet. 

And real life, the life where Mike’s fingers were toying with her hair and she could smell their dinner simmering away on the stove, that was what mattered.

People said pregnancy was magical. 

Ginny had more than a few doubts on that front. 

Going into this, she had no illusions that her North Carolina public school sex education had been anything close to adequate. Which was why she’d set out to fill in the gaps in her understanding.

(Not the process of making the baby—she had plenty of experience with that, thank you—but what came after.)

And the more she read about pregnancy, with all its potential dangers and complications—the more horrified she became. 

“Did you read this?” she demanded throwing What To Expect When You’re Expecting on Mike’s cluttered desk. 

He peered at the book for a second before glancing up to her, his reading glasses slipping down his nose. Which just wasn’t playing fair. He knew how Ginny felt about his glasses. 

(In fact, it was potentially those exact feelings that would wind up taking all of Ginny’s research out of the realm of theoretical and landing it squarely in reality.)

“Which part?” he hedged, closing his laptop and giving her his full attention. 

That was one of the things about Mike. It didn’t matter how irrational Ginny knew she was being, he always treated her concerns and fears with nothing but complete gravity. And he never tried to talk her down without knowing what those concerns were. 

She swallowed. “All of it?”

“Not yet,” he answered honestly. “I kind of figured we had time on that front.” His eyes narrowed and darted down to her flat stomach before landing back on her face. “We do have time, right?”

“Yeah,” she laughed, which was apparently all she’d needed to let this pile of worries melt away for the time being. Ginny wouldn’t forget the things that’d scared her, but Mike was right. She didn’t need to worry about them now. “We’ve got time.”

But that was before she found out she was pregnant. 

In the after, Ginny had become remarkably zen about it all. Sure, she’d probably see pimples in places there hadn’t been since she was an acne-prone teenager and later she’d need to pee every fifteen minutes and the mood swings didn’t sound like a walk in the park, which was to say nothing about the changes she’d have to make to her diet, but—

(And it was a pretty big “but.”)

But at the end of it all, she’d have someone who was the perfect blend of her and Mike. Someone who was proof positive of how much they loved each other. Someone to add to their family. 

And that was a fair payoff for what Ginny would have to go through to get to that point, she thought. 

Just. She didn’t always have to be reasonable about it, did she?

In retrospect, Ginny would acknowledge that she could’ve been less dramatic. But her whole life, she hadn’t been able to eat cilantro without thinking about the time her pop washed her mouth out with soap for repeating the curse Evan Larson had taught her in pre-K Sunday School. Now, she nearly ate half of Livan’s sopes before he remembered to tell her he’d asked for extra of the disgusting herb. 

What the hell had pregnancy done to her taste buds?

She’d honestly thought Mike would find the story funny, maybe even figure out how to get it down to 140 characters so he could tweet about it. 

(He’d really gotten into social media post-retirement. Eliot had been more than delighted to give him a tutorial that first winter, and soon, Mike could give the best of them a run for their money. Privately, Ginny thought he mostly used it to avoid finishing the memoir he’d insisted on writing himself, but whatever made him happy.)

She certainly hadn’t expected him to send out a panicked group text to nearly every one of their friends and acquaintances asking if they knew of her whereabouts. Since she’d been in the clubhouse, trying to keep up appearances that this assignment to the DL was injury-related, approximately half her teammates came rushing into the dining area to check on her and make sure Livan wasn’t in the process of murdering her or something.

Since the Cuban was too busy laughing his ass off at Ginny’s distress, which, while rude as hell, wasn’t going to kill her, most of them wandered off to finish their pre-game prep. Still, not a single Padre had any desire for their former captain to burst into the clubhouse in a haze of Ginny-induced panic. As team captain, Blip took it upon himself to inform his predecessor that his wife and future offspring were fine and headed home.

It wasn’t that Ginny didn’t feel bad for worrying him, but she also felt he could afford to take a step away from the edge of constant panic. Some time after that haze of blissful anticipation wore off, Mike dove headfirst into preparation mode. He called it nesting; Ginny'd call it something else. Currently, he was in the midst of trying to baby-proof the entire house and refusing to believe that they didn’t need a toilet lock for at least six more months.

(Ginny did her best to distract him when he really got going, and while there was a certain novelty in being the calm and steady one now, there were only so many times she could lure him back to bed—or the couch or the shower—without raising his suspicions.)

So, she listened to her captain and went home to talk Mike down. After all, the team wasn’t wrong in assuming it was only a matter of time before Mike burst into his former domain, wild-eyed and terrified. 

When she walked in the door, it was to that exact sight. 

Mike had clearly been pacing a hole in the floor, his car keys clutched in one hand, like he didn’t quite trust Blip’s report and was fully prepared to rush out if Ginny didn’t make it home quick enough. Any exasperation she might have felt faded away at the palpable fear etched across her husband’s face.

The keys dropped to the floor when he caught sight of her. In no time at all, he had Ginny wrapped up in his arms, his face pressed into her hair as shuddering breaths wracked his frame. 

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, smoothing her hands up and down his back. The muscles there didn’t quite relax, so she rucked up his shirt, laying her palms against his warm skin. By degrees, his breathing evened out, all while Ginny promised, low and sure, “I’m fine. We’re fine.”

He nodded but didn’t loosen his grip on her.

“Are you okay?”

Mike nodded again, and Ginny felt the precise effort it took for him to make the high-wire tension of his muscles loosen, approaching something close to normal. She pressed a kiss to his collar bone and another to the base of his throat, waiting until he sighed. 

Finally, she tipped her head back to look him in the eye. There were still more than a few jitters clanging around somewhere in that head of his, but he looked far more settled than he had been. 

“The sky’s not falling, Mike. I’m not gonna tell you not to worry, but this is a good thing, what we’ve done. Let’s enjoy it.”

“Okay, Gin,” he said, nodding his agreement. He’d follow her calls for this. There was still a hint of uncertainty in his eyes, but his smile was steady. 

That was a start, and, with them, a start was all they needed.

After Ginny asked Amelia to issue a statement about the impending addition to the Baker-Lawson family, she sort of expected to be done publicly talking about the state of her uterus. 

She was pregnant. She and Mike were very happy about it. She and the developing fetus renting out her womb for the next however many weeks were healthy. 

What else did anyone need to know?

How she’d ever deluded herself, Ginny would never know because within minutes of the statement going live, the news had exploded across the internet. It probably didn’t help that it wasn’t just ESPN and Fox Sports reporting on it. No, gossip sites and blogs had picked it up, too, and run with it.

Which was to say nothing about Twitter. 

All it took for people Ginny had never heard of, people she’d never meet or even pass on the street, to weigh in on her pregnancy was a valid email address and an internet connection. 

And they were all led by none other than her husband and his crusade to make #BabyBawson a thing.

If Mike was disappointed that she’d nixed all of his social media-based pregnancy announcements, he’d gotten over it quickly. He didn’t respond to every congratulatory tweet, but only because it was an impossible task. As soon as he’d get done with the last of them, a hundred more would’ve been posted. 

When Ginny’d asked him to enjoy the ride, she was pretty sure this wasn’t what she meant. 

But, he was happy, and it was hard to argue with that. 

In fact, a lot of people were happy about this baby. People were excited for her, which was a gratifying change from the usual reaction when Ginny’s name was in the news. 

It was pretty overwhelming, too, if Ginny was being honest. Overwhelming enough that she mostly elected to stay off social media. 

If only her friends had gotten the memo.

Not that Ginny even minded Evelyn sharing this. It was different when it was her closest friend sharing her excitement.

Ever since she first found out, Evelyn had been her rock. Evelyn was her only good friend who was also a mom. She was the only person Ginny could talk to about all the changes her body was going through or about what to expect next.

After the requisite congratulatory hugs and celebrations and check ins, Evelyn Sanders got down to business, peppering Ginny with enough information to make her head spin. Everything from the various pros and cons of a midwife versus a doula to the nitty gritty details of breastfeeding to the best yoga positions to keep her back from getting too sore once she'd swelled up like a blimp was laid on the table.

“Oh, and we still have all the parenting and pregnancy books, so don’t worry about buying those, either.”

Ginny laughed, the weight of keeping this secret from her best friend lifting off her shoulders. “Ev, the boys are twelve! Were you just waiting for this moment?”

“Yes,” she responded immediately, setting Ginny off again. “I tried to donate them once, but Blip snuck them out of the box like I wouldn’t notice. I don’t think he’ll mind them going to you two, though.”

Blip hadn’t quite given up the dream of a baby girl Sanders, but he’d gotten much more philosophical about it all. With Ev back in school, and getting her business up and running, he could admit that the past few years wouldn’t have been ideal timing to add on to the Sanders clan. Anyway, he and Evelyn were still young; they had time.

Maybe—just maybe—by the time Mike and Ginny were done with the books, Blip and Ev would need them again.  

After all, it'd be kind of nice for their families to have two generations and three sets of best friends.

So, the fact that Evelyn was ecstatic for her, that was nice to know, nice to have everlasting proof of, even if the world got to know about it, too.

And anyway, Evelyn’s online exuberance didn’t have anything on Mike’s.

He was an excited first time dad. How could Ginny blame him? 

Honestly, though, it didn’t bother her that people were talking about her. Not really. Sure, it was one thing for her husband and friend to talk about how excited they were and an entirely different one for a stranger to do it. That was more than a little strange, but she’d mostly accepted that that kind of attention was a part of her life now; ever since Ginny first started making waves in the minors, people had been talking about her. If she let it bug her, she’d never get anything done. 

Just, she didn’t particularly want to deal with it herself. 

So, she did her best to shrug off her clogged notifications on Twitter and Instagram and go about the business of growing another person inside of her. 

And, lately, fending off some of the truly ridiculous cravings that had taken over her refrigerator and life. 

The cravings, when they came, were no surprise. Remember, Ginny’d done her research. If anything, she’d been looking forward to them. Someone who’d already enjoyed her food, Ginny looked forward to a period of judgment-free eating. After all, was eating banana peppers on everything for a week straight that much stranger than some of the “health” foods her trainer had tried to convince her to eat?

She knew what Mike would say, but the little disagreements were what made a marriage interesting.

But while Ginny—and Mike, who had cheerfully taken on the sudden increase in grocery store runs—took these cravings in stride, the same couldn’t be said for the public at large.

Ginny’d always liked food and had never bothered to pretend she didn’t. But, since she was a woman in the public eye, this was often treated as some sort of alien anomaly. People always wanted to know what she was eating: her game day meals, what she had on cheat days, secret diet tips. 

Of course her cravings were no different.

Between Ev and Mike, people had definitely clued in and picked up on the fact that Ginny had really settled into the inexplicable cravings stage of pregnancy. There was tons of advice pouring in from all over the world. How to deal with it and what to do when they were impossible to sate. It was all incredibly sweet, even if Ginny couldn’t sympathize with the impulse to send a total stranger pregnancy advice.. 

Less sweet—more puzzling—was how invested people continued to be in these cravings of hers. 

In retrospect, it shouldn’t have been so surprising that run of the mill pregnancy cravings had become such a fixation for people. The public at large was hungry for details—#BabyBawson had trended at least three times—that Mike and Ginny just weren’t providing. Since they’d chosen not to find out the sex of the baby, debates about possible names or future careers were too theoretical to keep anyone’s attention, and even though her and Mike’s relationship had caused something of a stir when they first went public, they’d now settled hard into boring domesticity. Well, Ginny wouldn’t call it boring, but she could see how cozy dinners at home and trips to the farmers market didn’t exactly make for riveting news.

Aside from Mike’s unbridled excitement, the only information anyone really had about Ginny’s pregnancy were the cravings. Where else would all that curiosity fixate?

It wasn’t until she came across Mike taking a picture of their grocery list, though, that Ginny realized just how fixated it was. 

He frowned down at the pad of paper sitting on their kitchen table, next to the neglected bags of groceries and his keys. As Ginny started putting things away, approvingly noting that he’d anticipated her sudden desire for Nutella and bananas on toast, Mike squinted up at the overhead light and shifted, his shadow moving away from the table. 

“What are you doing?” she asked, already unscrewing the jar. Why wait for toast, anyway? A spoon was good enough. 

“Taking a picture,” he replied absently. 

Ginny rolled her eyes, not that Mike noticed. She drifted over to his side and propped her chin on his shoulder, peering down at the phone in his hand. 

“Are you seriously posting our grocery list to instagram?”

“Our third grocery list this week,” he corrected, bumping her hip with his, but failing to dislodge her. 

Ginny just laughed, leaning harder into his side. She didn’t pay much attention as he picked his filter and fiddled with the settings; she was too busy planning on getting him back in bed for an afternoon nap. When he made a satisfied noise, though, she turned her attention back to the screen and couldn’t help but laugh again.

“What?” Mike asked, grinning down at her. 

“Our unborn baby does not need two hashtags. It doesn’t even need one!”

He laughed, too, and kissed her forehead. “That’s not what the internet thinks, Gin,” he said, and sent the picture out into the world.

Whether he meant to or not, with just one post, Mike set off a verifiable social media movement. Seriously, when Eliot looked into it, he couldn’t help but be impressed by how quickly the hashtag took off.

The one time she brought herself to look at the search results, it was mostly full of people talking about how cute it all was, how excited Mike was about her pregnancy. 

Ginny couldn’t disagree.

He was cute. Ginny’d lost track of the number of pictures of onesies and maternity shirts he’d texted her, mostly without comment but the intent clear. Still, she had every single one saved in a folder on her phone. Going to Target with him had become next to impossible since he always ended up in the baby aisle, staring in awe at all the tiny shoes and blankets and toys. 

If Ginny’d thought about it, a picture of that—bearded, take no shit Mike Lawson undone by the sight of some baby essentials—would’ve blown #EatWithBabyBawson out of the water. 

As it was, she liked getting to keep that part of him all to herself. 

Even if the internet was blowing up with her eating habits as fast as Mike could supply them. She’d leave the social media stuff to him.

But then her teammates had to go and get involved. 

Technically, there was no reason for Ginny to keep going into Petco. She wasn’t actually injured. It wasn’t like she had to check in with the team trainers or make sure she was keeping up with her workouts. Which she was; Ginny might be taking more naps than she was used to, but even pregnancy couldn’t completely erase her practically boundless energy.

Then again, she’d spent her entire adult life in and out of stadiums. It didn’t feel right to be anywhere else during baseball season. 

Her teammates were generally pretty good about her and her growing baby bump’s presence in the clubhouse. There were enough dads on the team that no one hassled her.

Well, not in ways she couldn’t take.

Ginny didn’t care what anyone said. That omelette was delicious. She even got Jean-Luc to try it and in spite of his refined Parisian sensibilities, he’d admitted she was on to something. 

So had every Padre that she’d convinced to take a bite. 

Which was, admittedly, a pretty small group. Not that she could blame them considering how territorial she’d been over her bag of Funyuns the other day. Sonny was just too busy smarting from the way she’d smacked the snack out of his hands to admit to her culinary genius.

And really, they were just lucky she hadn’t shown up with the peanut butter and olive kick she’d been on the week before. 

In protest, Ginny resolved to steer clear of the clubhouse for a while. See how much they liked having the clubhouse menu go back to skinless chicken breasts and steamed vegetables every meal. They’d beg to have her back in no time flat.

Habit was a hard thing to break, though, and the following day, Ginny found herself back at Petco Park. Frowning, she stared up at the familiar facade outside the players’ entrance. She couldn’t go inside. Not if she wanted to teach her ungrateful teammates a lesson. 

So, rather than winding her way to the clubhouse, deep below the stands and concession booths, Ginny decided to stay well above ground. Cheerfully, she circled around to the front gates, calling Eliot as she walked.

It’d been a long time since she’d actually had the chance to sit and watch a game; she might as well take advantage of the opportunity. And since Mike was knee deep in edits to his memoirs, Ginny figured her beleaguered social media manager was the perfect recipient for her second standing ticket. 

After all, she’d put him through quite a bit lately. Even though Ginny still replied to the tweets and Instagram posts from her friends and teammates and whoever else Eliot deemed appropriate on her own, he took care of the rest. 

And the rest was substantial.

Technically, this was well above his pay grade. As Vice President of New Media in the Slater Management Group, monitoring one client’s social media presence should’ve been well beneath his notice. But Ginny didn’t quite trust the horde of interns and associates Amelia’d hired to form the base of her sports agency empire. 

And anyway, Eliot was a bit of a pushover. Supply him with enough snacks, and he’d do anything.

Ginny wasn’t exaggerating. She really could only go so fast, which was its own adjustment to make. In spite of all the eating she’d been doing, she hadn’t put on a ton of weight. It was the bump that slowed her down. Practically overnight, it’d blown up, delighting Mike who already had a hard time keeping his hands off her.

Where before she’d been able to hide the swell in loose tops and baggy sweatshirts, there was now no denying that Ginny Baker had been knocked up, and Mike couldn’t be any more smug about it. 

“You popped,” he grinned, coming up behind her as she frowned at her reflection in the mirror. This shirt had fit just last week. How was it pulled so tight now?

His hands landed on the fullest part of her belly, and Ginny couldn’t even bring herself to roll her eyes. Instead, she turned slightly to the side to better observe the molehill that’d become something of a mountain. 

“I guess I did,” she finally laughed, leaning back against Mike. “It’s not so bad, right? I mean, as long as I don’t get bigger.”

Wishful thinking. 

That’d been a few weeks ago and it seemed like all Ginny’d done since then was get bigger.

She didn’t feel slow per se, but she was suddenly so much more conscious of how she had to navigate spaces. Not only did she have to escape the grasping hands of strangers—Seriously, what about a pregnant woman’s stomach made people so eager to reach out and touch?—she had to plan her routes differently, allow herself more time to make it from Point A to Point B. Ginny could no longer slip through crowds or skip down the stadium stairs without a second thought. Maybe Mike and his worries had rubbed off on her, but she was conscious of every step she took now, careful in the extreme.

If some of her teammates were more than willing to poke fun at her for this, Ginny didn’t really mind. 

After all, she was more than capable of getting them back.

(Like he could’ve said anything else when she knew exactly where he slept. Still, Ginny made sure he knew exactly how happy his response had made her the first chance she got.)

And he didn’t keep his petty vengeances to the internet, either.

He did look to it for his inspiration, though.

During the All-Star Break, for those Padres unlucky enough to neither be selected to the team nor have any real plans to get out of it, Mike hosted what he named: “Top Chef: Not-So All-Stars.”

He thought it was funny, at least.

It was less a cooking competition than an excuse to make his former teammates come congratulate him on his impending fatherhood and bring food along with them.

Ginny did taste test every dish, though. Less because she wanted to rank them and more because she wanted to see what their wives and girlfriends had to put up with on a regular basis. 

Either being pregnant was messing with her tastebuds more than she’d thought, or her teammates were less of a disaster in the kitchen than she’d expected. Nearly every single one of them produced something that Ginny wouldn’t mind eating. Most of it even passed Mike’s more exacting standards. 

“Did you seriously make Lorena eat this last time she was pregnant?” he asked Salvi, peering suspiciously at the casserole dish. 

“Make her? It was all she’d eat for four days straight. I though I was going to have to invest in Ore-Ida to keep enough tater tots in her house to keep her and the boys fed.”

Mike still looked skeptical. 

“Just try it, old man,” Ginny teased, already trying to decide which of her teammates’ cooking she was going to try next. Omar’s ropa villeja looked pretty promising. “Or Salvi’s gonna think you’re chicken.”

When the first baseman started clucking under his breath, Mike swept a mutinous glare between him and his wife, who definitely wasn’t holding in a burst of laughter, and scooped a heaping forkful into his mouth. After a long moment of thoughtful chewing, he swallowed and pronounced, “That was disgusting.”

Ginny didn’t bother reining in her laughter after that. 

It wasn’t just her teammates and friends that got in on the fun, though. Ever since Mike had created #EatWithBabyBawson, people had been adding to it like crazy. Eliot always made sure to tell her when it trended in San Diego. 

Which was essentially every other day.

Mostly, it was people documenting their sightings of Ginny in the wilds of the city, creating a spotty map of her movements and the evolution of her cravings from day to day. 

Needless to say, as Ginny’s food swings (as Evelyn had taken to calling them) rolled on and on, there were many points of data to add. Hundreds of little incidents between Ginny and fans, all documented for posterity on social media.

And Mike encouraged them. 

If they were approached in a restaurant and Ginny was feeling up to it, he always cheerfully took a picture of his wife and her fan and often even sweet talked his way into getting a copy of the photo for himself. Ginny wasn’t unconvinced he wasn’t saving them in a scrapbook somewhere. 

He certainly had more than enough material. 

If Ginny wasn’t feeling up to it, though, Mike was the best buffer in the world. Even if he weren’t naturally charming, he’d learned over his close to two decades in the show how to interact with fans, how to joke and cajole and make a stellar first impression without doing all that much. It was one of the things Ginny admired about him. While she could fake her way through any number of uncomfortable interactions, Mike hardly ever got uncomfortable in the first place. He was too easy in his skin for that. 

Either way, the sheer number of positive Ginny-and-Mike interactions with the citizens of San Diego certainly had to be laid at Mike’s door. The bigger Ginny’s belly grew, the testier she got.

While she was always grateful for fans and their support, she was more than happy to leave their appeasement to Mike. After all, he wasn’t the one growing a whole new person. 

And he was more than happy to take that responsibility. Especially since it meant he got to trawl the internet for more fodder for the scrapbooks he swore he wasn’t making.

He showed the last one to her as they sat in bed at the end of a long day at the beginning of August. There were still two months to go until Ginny’s due date, but she couldn’t imagine getting bigger. Lying flat and looking down her body, she couldn’t see her toes unless she lifted one swollen ankle into the air. Which she did to frown at how fat her feet had gotten. 

She paused in this endeavor, though, when Mike waved his tablet at her. Ginny obligingly took it and skimmed over the story. When she was done, she handed it back and informed him, “I don’t even wanna know how you find this stuff.” 

“Then I won’t tell you,” he replied, prompt, before raising one eyebrow at her. The grin on his face had her melting even before he teased, “Sounds like someone’s got a crush on you. Should I be worried?”

Laughing, even as a little foot drummed away inside her belly, Ginny teased, “As long as you don’t cut off my animal style fries like you did all my cheese plates.”

“Listeria’s no joke, Baker.”

She waved him off, but plucked one hand from his tablet and laid it low against her stomach. What only a few months ago had been a slight flutter against her insides had become a definite kick. Mike’s face lit up and he abandoned his device and scooted down the bed so he could press his ear to the dome of her belly. Ginny watched fondly, even when the kicks shifted to her kidneys. 

“Once this thing’s out of me, I’m eating so much brie, Lawson,” she promised. 

“I’ll buy up all the cheese in France if that’s what you want,”

“And the wine, too?”

“So greedy,” he laughed, lifting up so he could press a kiss against her smiling mouth. When he pulled away, he said, “Whatever you want, Gin. It’s yours.”

“Just you. Just you and this one,” she said, laying her hand back against her stomach, right next to his. 

“Sounds good to me.”

By the end, Ginny wouldn’t say that she completely understood the dynamics of #EatWithBabyBawson, but she’d also accepted that that was okay. It didn’t matter that she had no clue what most of these people got out of it. 

There was something, and it didn’t matter that she was on the outside of it.

What she did know was how lucky she and her unborn baby were to have so many people in the world who cared so deeply about them. These were good people who wanted only the best for her and her family, and were trying to make sure, in whatever small ways they could, that she had an easy pregnancy.

(And if she got some excellent restaurant recommendations out of it, that was just a bonus.

Ginny’d be lying if she said she didn’t go out and try each and every one of these. They did not disappoint, either.)

So while her cravings had settled down and she was back to mostly eating like herself, she still appreciated the fact that people took time out of their day to worry about her. 

These were good eggs. Ginny didn’t completely understand them, but she was grateful for them nonetheless.

Which was why, even minutes after her water broke, while Mike dashed around the house collecting her go bag and going through his three separate checklists, Ginny sat down at the kitchen table. 

Waiting at her place was the snack she’d just made for herself. Nothing fancy— the opposite of fancy, in reality—but she’d really been looking forward to eating it. Maybe it was the prospect of her own child’s nearing due date, but Ginny’d been thinking about her own childhood lately, and an after school classic sounded delicious. 

She was just coming back to the table with a glass of water when she felt something wet spill down her legs. 

Frowning at the still full glass, reality didn’t set in until Mike cursed behind her. 

“Did your water break?” he asked, faint. 

“I think it did,” she replied. 

And he was off, leaving Ginny to contemplate her uneaten snack.

Mike rushed back into the kitchen, looking pale and eager and vaguely nauseous, just as Ginny fished her phone from her pocket and gingerly eased into her waiting chair.

“Ginny, what are you doing?” he demanded, sounding like he’d love nothing more than to pick her up bodily and deposit her in the car so they could dash off to the hospital. 

“Taking a picture,” she snarked back. Her fingers flew over the keyboard as Mike shifted impatiently at her side. Once everything was just how she wanted, she tapped the screen one last time and sent the picture out into the world. 

Only then did she turn to look at Mike and, with a smile, say, “What are you waiting for? Let’s go have a baby.”