#i really think fandom melts your brain and leaks it out of your ears

[thottybrucewayne]

I wish yall were as dedicated to opposing genocide as you were to being entertained. "We can be pro-Palestine AND save ofmd" You are all spineless, gutless, and dedicated to preserving the status quo because even of INCH of discomfort is too much for you. Can't boycott, can't protest, but you can raise money for a tv show.

[bakugou-jpg]

Cherry wine || Single dad!Tsukishima

So hello! This is something i’ve been planning on posting for awhile now. Idk if i like it or not and Tsukishima might be a bit OOC since i haven’t been in the Haikyuu fandom for very long but oh well. Tomorrow i’ll try and post the masterlist for it and how many chapters it’ll have!

-Prologue-

“I’m pregnant”

The silence that fell over the room became deafening, not a single sound except for the distant students outside of the dorm building chatting and laughing together. The fan in the corner of the room buzzed, rotating left and right and rustling some papers on the desk. The wind softly blew through his hair, making the heat more bearable than it was before but at that very moment his thoughts and gone completely blank.

The girl in front of him leaned onto the desk that was placed behind her and knitted her eyebrows together, not in anger but purely because she had been lost in thought. Her arms were crossed and she looked at the boy's feet, biting her bottom lip while doing so.

To say it was a shock, was simply too lightly. I mean, yes, the two of them hadn't exactly done much to prevent it that night so it had been quite the possibility but it had never crossed his mind. She was pregnant, something he did. The clumb of cells that was currently busy forming into a little human was because of him.

"Tsukishima"

Tsukishima's head snapped up and for a moment his eyes widened slightly. They held eye contact for a moment, neither of them breaking it. They were both, confused. Neither of them knowing what to do know and neither of them knowing what to say.

The boy adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. He folded his hands together and fiddled around with them, something he unconciously did when he was nervous. "..Oh"

Its all he could think of at that moment. Tsukishima,  a man who always knew how to respond to whatever situation with either a logic answer or a cocky remark now felt silent. He was a rational person, but now it seemed that his brain short circuited.

The girl sighed, her eyes falling down to the ground once again. She moved one of her hands to rub over her face and then started biting her thumb nail. "I found out on Sunday. I..wanted to think about it myself a bit first. Hope you understand" She said, her voice trailing off.

Tsukishima nodded. "Of course."

Another silence.

There was one question he was dying to ask, of course, the most obvious one. He was a strong believer of the belief that it was her body and her choice and that he didn't have ANY saying in what she wanted to do, but he was still curious. At that moment he didn't even know which decision he wanted or preferred. Would it be bad if he asked? Or was it too soon?

"What do you- " "I-"

They both fell silent, not wanting to interrupt one another. Tsukishima excused himself and nodded towards her. "Sorry, go on".

The girl in front of her looked a little anxious and bit her lip before taking a deep breath and closing her eyes to calm her nerves. She breathed out and locked eyes with the boy standing in front of her. "I've thought about it..and decided what choice i wanted to make and i hope you can support me in that."

Tsukishima quickly nodded and waved his hand. "Your body your choice. Whatever decision you make i will respect it so do not rely on my approval" He said, something which made her worried expression relax. It felt as if there had bee a weight lifted off of her shoulders.

She nodded, letting her eyes roam around the room for a second trying to figure out how to put it into words.

"For the longest time i've planned out what i wanted to do with my life, with my future. Go to college, study to become an archeologist and become succesful and travel around..A baby can't fit into that plan, not yet."

Understandable. Tsukishima understood what she meant, for he too had a plan of what he wanted to do in the future. Work in a museum, it was something that he loved the idea of ever since he was a kid. She wanted to become something bigger, so of course a baby would only get in the way.

She cleared her throat and fiddled her hands. "I do, however, want to give it a chance of being able to live. For him or her to find out what joys life can gift to you and how wonderful the world can be..So i'm going to give them up for adop-"

"I'll raise them"

What.

The girl's eyes widened and she looked at Tsukishima in shock.

Tsukishima pushed himself off of the wall and looked at her for a second before taking a step closer to her. "I'll take responsibility and raise them."

What was he saying?

The girl blinked in surprise, her mouth slightly agape from the sudden response one that she had not expected in a million years. Tsukishima's eyebrows were slightly knitted, something which showed he was dear serious over this. "..please"

Why was he saying this?

The girl snapped out of her daze and ran her fingers through her hair, her other hand cupping her still flat stomach. "I-..Wh- Tsukishima..are you serious?" She asked in disbelieve, still taken aback from the reaction. "With all due respect, Tsukishima, but i really hope you understand i am not planning on raising this baby alongside you nor am i planning to hop in at a later age. I just-"

"I don't care for that. You won't have to be involved in any way, i'll make my own money, buy my own two bedroom apartment, raise my own kid. I'll work it out, if you want i'll cover half of all your medical bills" Tsukishima said while leaning back again, looking at her with his usual stoic expression again. Yet, his golden brown eyes held a mixture of confusion and fear. But that was something she would never be able to catch onto.

God what the fuck was he saying

The girl sighed and shook her head a little, trying to wrap her head around what was happening. "I mean..Medical bills won't be a problem, my family's wealthy enough to be able to cover that without a problem..I just..I thought you were passionate about this college course and wanting to succeed? Its not some kind of puppy you raise, can leave at home for the day and to come back at the end of the day and feed it and sometimes throw a stick around, Tsuki-"

"Do i look like an idiot to you?" Tsukishima said with narrowed eyebrows, tapping his finger on his other arm impatiently. Surely, he fooled around with her, but Tsukishima couldn't stand the way she thought she was better and smarter than him.

The girl rolled her eyes and sighed. "You know what i mean" She snapped back. "Its gonna be a big responsibility, its gonna get in the way of you making it big out there."

Once again, a silence fell over the dorm.

Tsukishima's thoughts were screaming at him. Telling him this decision was an impulsive one, how he had to think it through first and asking him over and over again what he was thinking. He knitted his eyebrows together and stared at the ground, slowly nodding.

"I know what i'm doing"

No he did not

The girl nodded and shrugged, her eyes glancing to the clock hanging on his wall. She looked back at Tsukishima and hummed, pushing herself off of the desk. "Well, okay then. I've got class in ten minutes, we'll discuss the details later on. Take care" She said, pushing herself off of the desk. Her hand reached out for Tsukishima's shoulder and gave it a small squeeze, something which made Tsukishima just the slightest bit uncomfortable.

He didn't even say anything, simply too caught up with the sea of a void that suddenly washed over him. It numbed all of his thoughts, all of his surroundings as the thumping of his own heartbeat echoed in his ear.

The click of his dorm room falling back into its lock flew past him, not even having noticed the girl had left. Tsukishima stood there for about 10 minutes until he was pulled back to the surface, something which made him fall back onto his bed. He put his elbows on his knees, his hands raking through his hair as he looked at his ground with slightly panicked eyes.

He let out a long sigh, his hand running over his face as he threw his head back and leaned it against the wall. It was already dark, the only people outside being the ones going to their night classes. It was cold, after all it was October and the weather hadn't been exactly the nicest out.

Tsukishima glanced out of his window, his eyes following the form of the girl who was just left his dorm and was now running outside to arrive at her class in time. His eyes were locked onto her until she had turned a corner, now out of sight.

What did he just agree to?

He let his eyes slowly slide down from his window to his bed, a place where his phone was resting. Without really thinking about it, he reached out for the phone, pressing a few buttons before bringing it up to his ear.

"..Tadashi? I..i fucked up"

Nine months felt a lot longer than it usually did. While a school year usually felt like it flew by rather quickly to Tsukishima, these past few months felt like as if there was a chain with a heavy ball chained to his ankles. Every minute, every second felt like it took forever.

As the trees lost their leaves, the snow covered the ground. As the snow melted away, the flowers started blooming again. As the flowers grew higher, the temperature did too. With every transmission, Tsukishima's feet grew heavier and heavier. It all lead up to that one moment. One moment that would change his life forever, a moment he'd remember till' the day he'd die.

As the seconds ticked by, they turned into minutes. As the small hand of the clock moved forward made a full circle, the hours started moving by. Slow, very slowly. Tsukishima lost sense of time, sitting in that chair waiting for someone to give him a sign and to inform him of the slightest bit of news. Anything.

His thoughts even stopped at some point. Surely he was panicking internally and the fact that his phone kept buzzing in his pocket, his family and Yamaguchi repeatedly asking him how it was going, didn't make it any better. Hell, the fact Yamaguchi managed to leak the information to his old teammates didn't soothen the buzz in his pockets at all. But he just stared at a wall.

The ticking of the clock, the water that dripped from the tap, the foot steps from the nurses, the distant screams of agony and the phone that rang every 15 minutes in the nurses office started to feel like a pattern. A never ending pattern that had repeated itself almost a million times already.

"Mr. Tsukishima?"

Fuck

Tsukishima's head snapped up and his eyes met the one of an older woman who was wearing a long blue cover up and a mask hanging next to the side of her head. She wore a smile on her face, a tired one, but a happy one. She had discarded the gloves she wore and Tsukishima noticed some light blood smears on the gown she was wearing.

"He's here"

He

In the past 9 months that had passed, Tsukishima had never thought that his feet could feel more heavier. But in that moment it felt as if Medusa herself had locked eyes with him and stared into his golden brown eyes, drinking in his beauty before stiffening his body and turning it into stone.

He didn't notice how his lanky long body had gotten up from the chair he had been sitting at for the past few hours and how he was now silently walking behind the doctor, following in her footsteps as she lead him to a room.

"The mother told me to inform you she didn't want to see your son and that she'd appreciate it if you stayed away for a little while" The nurse said while holding the door for him open.

His son

Tsukishima looked around the room, noticing how extremely empty and silent it was. The beds that were there were empty, waiting for a new patient to arrive. The blind were closed, but it let the slightest bit of light through cascading down onto to the little bin standing in the middle of it, surrounded by two other nurses that were busy with what was inside of it.

The two nurses looked up at him and smiled, one of them walking towards the exit of the room while the other reached out for the bundle of blankets inside of the little bed. She picked it up, stepping towards Tsukishima with a very kind small. One he didn't notice, for his eyes were only focused on the very small baby she held in her hands. "Meet your son" She said while holding the baby out for him, adjusting his hands just slightly so he'd make the baby feel comfortable.

He held out his hands, taking the bundle of blankets into his arms and immediately holding him close to his body. Tsukishima made sure to support his head, remembering all the things he read in a book his mother gifted him after having announced the news. He wouldn't dare to cause the baby any discomfort, it felt as if he was made out of the thinnest porcelain in the world.

"We'll give you a moment, we'll be next door if u need us" Tsukishima heard the older nurse say before the door shut behind her, leaving both him and his son alone in the room.

The baby slightly moved around in his blanket, one of his tiny arms poking through and stretching out towards Tsukishima's face before returning back into the comfort of his warm cocoon. A small yawn left the baby's mouth, a sight that made Tsukishima's eyes soften.

"Someone's pretty tired, huh? Nine months of sleep ain't enough for you, buddy?" He whispered, peering into the little eyes that were slowly opening up revealing a very familar pair of golden brown ones although his appeared to be just a bit more darker. It also didn't Tsukishima long before he noticed the dark blonde hairs poking out of his hat, ones that almost matched his own but just being a shade darker than his own.

He grinned and stroked the baby's cheek, taking in every detail of his face. "Aren't you just a sight for sore eyes, like i'm looking into a mirror." Tsukishima said with a short snicker.

In that very moment, Tsukishima felt his feet get lighter. The heavy chain on his feet he carried around for months that got heavier and heavier broke, just by the single stare the boy had on him. He didn't care anymore, about what he was gonna do in the future. He didn't care about if he'd still be able to finish college or if he was gonna be able to pull through.

Every thing he did, was gonna be for him. Every decision he made, was gonna be with him in the back of his mind. Every thing decent nice thing he did, he did hoping he could be somewhat proud of his old man.

And so, from 7 years from that moment, on Tsukishima was going to have a succesful career. One he had achieved after graduating from college, something he couldn't of have done without the motivation he had after his son was born and he was going to make sure his son was always first with whatever he did.

"Welcome to the world, Kaoru"

[ghostmartyr]

Fic: A Terrible Idea [7/?]

Fandom: Attack on Titan Title: A Terrible Idea Author: Immi Rating: PG-13 Summary: Ymir’s pursuit of the hot cheerleader was meant to stay strictly lustful. But it’s a high school AU with a ship tag, so you know, fuck that. Notes: Hey, so if you’re just seeing evidence of this fic now thanks to the Galliard ship tags, this is a yumikuri fic, but this chapter is in Galliard’s pov, and so his romantic woes are unavoidable and awkward. And hopefully entertaining. Obviously it’s not meant as a standalone, but it probably can be read as one for the sake of ship feels.

Segment summary: Porco is a bi disaster.

I II III IV V  VI

This wasn’t happening.

Mr. Smith had a standing policy. Help out cleaning his classroom at the end of the week, get extra credit as judged by the custodian. Porco did not need the extra credit, Ymir could fuck right off with that, but he wasn’t going to turn it down. Kenny’d had them fighting for Levi’s approval through chores since second grade. He knew how to clean a room.

For anyone who cared to know, that meant he was easy to find on Friday afternoons, scraping gum off desks with Connie and Sasha (who did need the extra credit).

Reiner Braun was not supposed to care.

He wasn’t supposed to be sitting on a desk Porco had just cleaned, pretending to be cool, while people who did care were prepping for practice like the coaching staff told them to. Good to know this was the work ethic that kept him off the team.

“Hi,” he’d said, smiling that toothpaste commercial grin Porco’s way, stepping into the history room like he belonged there.

He didn’t. He had history with Mr. Dok. Reiner had no reason at all to be sitting on a desk in Mr. Smith’s classroom, shooting finger guns at Connie and breathing so deeply that the buttons on his polo shirt were straining to keep his oversized muscles from bursting free.

That wasn’t some kind of accident.

Marcel joked that Reiner was too swol for things like clothes. Marcel, being a normal person, didn’t get it. Porco had survived a year of PE with Reiner before. Mr. Quarterback Superstar had a thing for flexing in front of mirrors. He would come to school shirtless every day if he could. Wearing clothes that barely fit, showing off the body that everyone fell over themselves to praise every time his team scored him a touchdown, was as close as he could get.

Ymir said he was too much of a square to use steroids. He was, but there was no natural reason for someone’s arms to be that big. Marcel was ten times the athlete Reiner was, and he still looked like a person, not a teenage bodybuilder.

“I was looking to hit you up, and Marcel said you’d be here,” Reiner had said, propping his sculpted ass on top of Porco’s hard work. Yeah sure, Levi wouldn’t notice that at all.

Now Reiner was looking at him like Porco had anything to do with this conversation. It wasn’t even a conversation. Reiner just decided to walk in and ruin his day, and since that couldn’t be enough, he was trying to turn it into a group project.

Did he somehow not remember what those went like? Those five weeks of third grade where they were paired in art were the longest of their short lives, Kenny getting called in three separate times—culminating in him being permanently barred from PTA thanks to Reiner’s mother (what was her problem)—and last Porco had stepped in that room, the air conditioning vent was still clogged with papier-mâché.

Not to mention last year’s English mess. It was like he lived to tear down Porco’s grade point average.

Cluing in a little in the stony silence, Reiner got to the point.

“Your sister’s friends with Historia Reiss, right?”

The point was that this was actually fucking happening.

“She is not my sister,” Porco said, sourly.

Reiner barely had eyebrows, but what was there knit together. “Ymir?” he said, like Porco couldn’t figure out who they were talking about on his own. “Marcel said you guys were family.”

There was something sick about Reiner using Marcel’s good nature as a weapon. Porco glowered at the concerned pouting thing his lips were doing. He hoped Reiner knew it made him look stupid.

Porco cleared his throat. The words weren’t showing up the first try. “She’s Ymir. What do you care?”

Reiner perked up. Like, his whole body bounced like a spring. “You know how homecoming’s next week?”

No, really? That thing the student council had thrown away their budget for to get banners covering every other hallway? That was happening? Who could have guessed.

Porco nodded obediently, jaw clenched. Ymir had dragged him into enough school plays for him to know when he was supposed to be following a script. Not that Reiner would care. He had his pep talk face on. Sunshine confidence was leaking out of his pores. He was impossible to talk to when he got like this. He was impossible most of the time anyway, but it was somehow worse when he had that sparkle in his eyes to go with his teeth.

“I,” Reiner announced, “want to ask Historia to the dance.”

Porco’s concept of a just and fair world crumbled.

“What.”

“Yeah,” Reiner said, somehow not hearing the blood-curdling scream resounding in Porco’s chest. “It seems like the thing to do, you know? Every school has a power couple. Doesn’t hurt that she’s some kind of saint. She raised more money for the cheerleaders’ fundraiser than they’ve had in years, and—”

And what, he didn’t get enough pretty blond when he looked in the mirror? Blood pumped loudly in Porco’s ears. Reiner’s visage blurred.

Perfect logic. No, let’s not date someone we know, and maybe like for reasons that aren’t total crap, let’s go with the person who matches some absurd popularity scale that neither one of us really deserves. Such sense. Much thought. Wow.

Where did he get off, anyway, thinking about asking someone out on such short notice? Asking someone out he clearly didn’t know anything about, and dragging Porco into it because he wouldn’t know tact if it bit him on his perfect ass, and holy fuck, Historia Reiss?

Really?

Connie and Sasha were scrubbing windows. The squeaking matched his grinding teeth.

Was taste just not a thing? Did he miss something? Was walking around like an alien abductee in now?

Reiner had never even talked to her, if he had he wouldn’t need a damn proxy to hold his behemoth hand.

He was talking to Porco just fine—he was still fucking talking, so clearly conversational skills gave him some kind of buzz—but sure, no, go for the opposite of that. Treating each other like equal human beings who didn’t need stilts to be at eye level was way too conventional and un-creepy for the undisputed lord of the school.

“—pretty, too—”

Porco saw red.

“Fuck off, she’s already dating my sister!”

…

…

The windows stopped squeaking.

Reiner’s mouth stayed open, without sound, and that was so damn preferable Porco was going to kill something, hopefully him. The pressure in his head let off, and a crisp twinge of satisfaction took its place.

For the five seconds of peace he had before his brain caught up.

“Oh,” Reiner said.

Connie and Sasha were both staring, looking like summer break had come back early.

Oh, Porco thought.

Oh no.

“I guess that doesn’t work, then.”

Reiner lifted himself off the desk, arms flexing for pure show. The creases in his ill-fitting shirt said his abs were doing all the work, and Porco didn’t know why that mattered, but he was in hell now, and some of that meant watching Reiner-the-human-specimen getting to his feet in slow motion while flames crept up Porco’s face.

This was not happening.

“They aren’t public about it,” Porco blurted. Dawning horror made his voice come out echoey. He made as much eye contact with Reiner as he could stand. “Don’t go—they aren’t… Don’t spread it around.”

Reiner’s face melted into compassionate understanding. Awful look for him. “No problem. I wouldn’t—hey,” his hand was on Porco’s shoulder and he wanted to bite it off, “I know how it can be.” What did that mean. “Don’t worry about a thing, man. I’ve got your back. And theirs.”

He was smiling. Why was he smiling. Porco needed him to stop.

“You should let Ymir know they’re a really cute couple.”

They weren’t, and there was no way Reiner had ever had that thought until five seconds ago.

He gave Porco’s shoulder an extra pat. “I’ll catch you at practice.”

The silence left in Reiner’s wake when he exited the classroom was how most horror movies started.

Porco looked at Connie.

Connie looked at Sasha.

Sasha looked delighted.

“Ymir finally has a girlfriend?”

Hell.

----

Staying in Mr. Smith’s room until every other human being in the school was gone was not going to work out. Ymir would find him and laugh at him. Then maybe never speak to him again. Marcel would find him and want to know what was wrong. Levi would find him, ignore him, and tell Kenny something was wrong.

Pieck would find him, and be so wonderful he’d want to tell her what was wrong.

Pieck did find him.

She stood in the doorway, leaning too heavily against it. Her arms hated going a full week with crutches. Ymir usually made good on playing pack mule for her backpack, but there was a limit to how much they could help. It sucked.

Pieck smiled through the shadows under her eyes. “It’s not like you to take so long with the cleaning, Pock.”

There were days when that smile was all Porco needed to love life. Today was one of them before Reiner showed up and got him to ruin everything. Porco stopped viciously scrubbing his desk with a paper towel. “Pieck,” he said, “have you ever done something really stupid.”

“No, never,” was the real answer to that. Pieck was the only person he had ever met who was immune to bad decisions. He’d known her since they were five. She was just gifted like that. Even Marcel had his screw-ups. Like being friends with quarterbacks.

Pieck rested her chin on top of her crutch. “Oh dear, what have you done?”

He frowned at his abused paper towel. Cleanser and force had torn a hole in it.

“Reiner wanted to ask Historia out to the homecoming dance.” And that was still the most fucking irritating thing to think, forget saying it out loud. If these people wanted a blonde, short, emotionless girl to rip their hearts out of their chests, they should hit up Annie. All the same stupid kinks, none of the delusion that there was something real there.

He’d told Ymir that and she told him to shut his whore mouth.

Pieck cocked her head. “He hasn’t heard? She’s not going.”

…

Well fuck that, too. Historia Reiss was some kind of cursed object designed to fuck with his life. Days after talking to Reiner weren’t supposed to get worse. Before Ymir and her stupid crush that he wasn’t allowed to call a crush without her whining, him alone in a room with Reiner was peak misery.

He sucked the injustice up and glowered at his desk. His stomach wouldn’t stop squirming. “I told Reiner Ymir’s dating Historia,” he said.

He could hear Pieck’s brain humming in the empty space of a thousand missing comments about how tactless and idiotic that combination of words was. And he’d said it in front of Connie. Sasha could remember when not to gossip. Her best friend knowing the gossip and giggling with her in study hall helped with that. Connie could not keep his mouth shut. That was how he kept losing the stashes of weed he tried to hide around school. He told people about them. Regularly.

Porco’s fingers flexed.

Ymir was never going to forgive him.

It was over her sex life—which she didn’t even have, it didn’t matter how many times she called it that—so what’d he care, but.

“Less accurate things have been said,” Pieck said. Her crutches thumped across Mr. Smith’s floor.

Porco moodily ripped his paper towel into smaller pieces. “Yeah, dating isn’t really what she’s after.”

“Isn’t it?”

Porco gave Pieck a look. It melted in the face of her smile. It was a lot closer than the doorway now, and proximity upped its powers to reincarnation levels of healing. He probably didn’t deserve that right now. Fucking Reiner. He murdered the butterflies and focused on the much easier target of Ymir being a horrible person. “You’ve had to listen to her just as much as I have. I don’t think she knows what romance is.”

And if she did, she definitely didn’t care about it. He knew enough about Historia now to feel like a pervert by association.

Pieck sat down on the desk next to his. She twirled one of her crutches. “And we all know that people never evade their feelings by telling themselves it’s something else.”

Porco snorted. “Are you kidding me? No one really does that.”

Especially not Ymir. He could almost say he liked that about her, when she wasn’t making her main mission in life having sex with a girl she barely knew. If Historia turned out to be a serial killer, she had the money and family lawyers to get away with it. They’d already sprung one family member out of jail. It wasn’t like he and Marcel and Kenny could back up the legal fees to bring someone like that to justice. He wouldn’t even get a chance to say I told you so.

“Well,” Pieck said, after a delayed pause, “you would know your sister best.”

“Not my sister.” His mouth got tired of saying that over and over again, and it was doubly annoying with people who knew what was up, but Pieck just smiled at him, sending rainbow cotton candy fluff to fuzz up his brain.

“She won’t hate you, Pock.”

Porco rolled his eyes. Mr. Smith needed to do something about his air conditioning. He was overheating.

“She won’t,” Pieck repeated. Her calloused hand stroked the back of his before cupping it warmly. “She knows how important Reiner is to you—”

“Pieck.”

She squeezed his hand. “And even if she didn’t,” Pieck continued, like she wasn’t leaving him scarred for life by making his heart swoop through the air and crash into a brick wall at the same time, “she will be delighted to have something to hold over your head. You are now the horrible person who started the rumor that she’s interested in feelings. You’re going to be doing her chores for weeks.”

Hurrah. He could hear all about how badly he was folding the sheets she planned to defile her not-girlfriend on. “Are you trying to make me feel worse?”

Pieck patted him compassionately on the head. “Never.”

Porco scoffed and looked out the window.

Stupid air conditioning.

Fucking Ymir.

Next

[never-a-tale-of-more-poe]

SPARIA: PART ONE

Hey guys! So, I decided to make this into a short, multi-chapter fic instead of just a one-shot. I will post this on FF.net and Ao3 at some point during the day tomorrow. Feel free to flood my inbox with feedback!

Title: The Story of Us Characters: Spencer Hastings, Aria Montgomery, Hanna Marin, Emily Fields, Alison DiLaurentis, Mona Vanderwaal, Ezra Fitz Fandom: Pretty Little Liars Rating: M Trigger warnings: sex, cheating/affairs, etc Summary: In which Aria turns up at Spencer’s one  hot summer night after being unable to sleep. They have a long-overdue conversation, which blossoms into something so much more..

No! No, please!”

Spencer was crouched over Hanna’s lifeless body. Her skull had been crushed in with something sharp, like a fireplace poker. Blood poured around her head, and it was caked in her hair. “Hanna, p-please!” But she knew it was useless. Hanna was dead.

And so was…

Emily - it looked like she had been strangled.

Alison - she had been stabbed so many times in her face, neck and chest that it was hard to tell which wound had killed her.

The air around her was cold. Spencer was deep in the woods behind the Lost Woods Resort, surrounded by the bodies of her best friends.

Except for one.

Aria stood just a few feet away. Her black hoodie was ripped and even in the dark Spencer could see the blood splattered all over it. Her left hand held the bloodied knife and fireplace poker. Her right hand was clenched tightly around a rope.

Spencer’s eyes flitted up to Aria’s face – it was blank, completely devoid of any emotion. “A-Aria,” Spencer’s voice cracked. “How – how could you?”

Aria shrugged carelessly. “You haven’t even seen my best work yet. Wait for it.”

Bang!

Spencer shot up in bed, gasping for air. Her bangs were matted to her forehead with sweat, and her heart was beating rapidly in her chest. Her eyes darted around the room as she breathed deeply, trying to force her body to calm itself down. It took a moment for Spencer to realize the continued banging was someone knocking on the barn’s front door. She glanced at the digital clock on her nightstand – 1:25A.M. Who the hell was knocking at this hour?

 Bang!     

“Okay, hold on! Jesus!” Spencer called out. She stumbled out of bed and over to the front door. Through the glass panels she could Aria. Spencer’s brow furrowed and she flung the door open. “Aria? What are you doing here?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Aria mumbled. “Ezra and I had a fight and he ¬– ” she trailed off as she noticed Spencer’s current state. “Are you OK?”

Spencer moved to the side to let Aria in. She shut the door behind her and locked it. “I’m fine. I just had a nightmare.”

Aria slipped off her coat and hung it on the rack next to the door. “About what?” she asked, kicking off her boots and walking into the spacious living room.

Spencer frowned. “Uh…” She paused to follow Aria and sat down next to her on the couch. “I dreamt I was back in high school and only got accepted to seven out of the eight Ivy League Schools.”

It wasn’t exactly a total lie. She did have that dream once. When she was twelve.

Aria stared at her. “How tragic,” she teased.

There was a long stretch silence between them. It was comfortable, if not just a little tense.

“So,” Spencer cleared her throat and grabbed the remote to the TV off the coffee table. “What did you and Ezra fight about?” she asked, as she turned on the television and changed the input from HDMI1 to HDMI3.

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” Aria grumbled. “Sorry for waking you up, by the way.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m glad I was woken up anyway,” Spencer shrugged. She opened the little compartment in her sectional couch that separated the two armchairs, removed two controllers, and passed one off to Aria. “We may not be able to save Rosewood from our conniving little tormentor, but we sure as hell can save Princess Peach.”

“What?” Aria grinned. She glanced at the controller in her hand. “You’re not serious?”

Spencer setup the game and turned to Aria. “I happen to take my princess-saving, dinosaur-ass-kicking duties very seriously.”

“Whatever you say, Spence. Whatever you say.”

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“Wait, so am I the green guy or the red guy?” Aria’s eyes followed the little digital man on the TV screen on front of her. She and Spencer had only been playing one of the ‘Mario’ games for a couple minutes, but Aria was already lost.

“You’re Luigi,” Spencer explained calmly. “Remember?”

“Is that the red guy?”

Spencer sighed. “No, Ari. Mario is the one with the red hat. Luigi is the one with the green hat.”

Aria smiled. “’Ari,’” she repeated. “You haven’t called me that since we were kids..”

“I’m the only one who has ever called you that,” Spencer smirked. “Remember what happened when Hanna did?” She took her eyes off the screen to glance at Aria.

“Yeah,” Aria nodded. She pressed the buttons on her controller to move Luigi forward so she could catch up to Spencer’s Mario. “You told her continuous use of lotion would absorb into her skin and infect her bloodstream and she’d die.”

Spencer grinned. “She shouldn’t have used my nickname for you.” On screen, Mario jumped over a mushroom enemy.

“She cried, Spencer,” Aria said with a hint of fondness in her tone, but amusement leaked through.

“Good.”

“Damn it!” Aria cursed as Luigi fell through a gap from one platform to the next. “I keep dying.”

“You suck,” Spencer giggled.

“Shut up!” Aria shoved Spencer and snatched her controller out of her hands.

“Hey!” Spencer squealed. “Give it back!”

“Make me,” Aria taunted playfully.

Spencer glared at Ari and pounced on her. The two tumbled over and Spencer wound up pinning Aria beneath her. Almost as if by reflex, Spencer’s hands moved to lock Aria’s arms to her side.

“I win,” she smirked triumphantly.

Aria stared up at Spencer. The controller her slipped from her hand long ago and had fallen somewhere on the floor. But all she could see, all she was able to focus on, was Spencer’s beautiful brown eyes. Beautiful? Her mind echoed. “U-uh, you’re kind of squishing m-me,” she choked out.

But Spencer was also lost in her best friend’s eyes. God, Aria was stunning. Her body seemed to melt against Aria’s like they were made for each other; like their bodies were two puzzle pieces snapping together to form a breathtaking image.

“Spencer,” Aria squeaked. “G-get off.”

Spencer broke out of her trance-like stare and shook her head. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “Sometimes I forget how tiny you are.” But she didn’t move away. Instead she brought her right hand up and gently traced Aria’s lips with the tips of her fingers.

Tingles danced down Aria’s spine. Spencer’s fingers on her lips made her nerves crack, her stomach swoop, and her heart beat a taboo against her chest.  She shut her eyes and inhaled slowly. Maybe when she opened her eyes she would see how silly she was being? “Aria..”

Aria opened her eyes. Spencer was smiling down at her with such a warm, caring smile that Aria could have sworn her insides turned mushy. “Spencer…”

And then their lips were connected. Spencer had pressed her lips to Aria’s in a tentative kiss, and Aria immediately lost her fingers in Spencer’s thick tresses and kissed her back. Their kiss felt like nothing either girl had ever experienced before. It was heated, it was passionate, it was so wonderfully electric that Aria could hear her blood pumping through her veins, and Spencer could practically feel the neurons in her brain firing.

Finally the need for oxygen became too great to ignore, and they broke apart, panting.

“I…” Spencer started.

“What..” Aria began.

The girls burst into nervous laughter, and Spencer brushed her fingers down Aria’s cheek. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “That was…”

“Amazing?” Aria breathed out. “I – I mean, sorry..”

“Don’t be,” Spencer swallowed.

Silence.

And then Aria locked her arms around the back of Spencer’s neck and pulled her down for another kiss. This time it was feverish. It was almost desperate; like a craving neither of them realized they had. Aria dipped her hands under Spencer’s shirt and danced her fingers up Spencer’s back.

“Mmm,” Spencer sighed against her lips. Was this really happening? Aria’s fingers paused in their motion and Spencer, sensing her hesitation, pulled back to pull off her shirt. She threw it to the side and tugged on the hem of Aria’s shirt, and locked eyes with her in a questioning gaze.

Aria nodded. She watched in fascination as Spencer’s hands disappeared under her shirt. Her heart thumped in her chest as Spencer’s nails raked down her back, only coming to a stop at the clasp of her bra.

“Can I?” Spencer swallowed. She had to be dreaming. There was no way she was about to remove the bra of the one woman she had been in love with since high school. Right?

“Please,” Aria breathed, her tone breaking on the last letter.

Spencer unhooked Aria’s bra and it fell away, revealing Aria’s chest. She reached behind herself and removed her own bra. She normally didn’t wear a bra to bed, but had been too tired to take it off before she had turned in earlier.

Aria ran her tongue over her teeth. Spencer may have had a small chest, but the girl had a serious set of abs. She ran her fingers over Spencer’s core and felt the taller girl shiver beneath her touch, which sent a rush of heat between her legs. Shit.

Spencer caught Aria’s hand and brought it up to her lips. She kissed each finger, her gaze never once breaking from Aria’s.

Aria swallowed hard. “It’s really hot in here, d-don’t you think?”

Spencer smirked. “Oh, is it? I bet you would feel cooler if took off your pajama pants.”

Aria grinned. “Help me?”

Spencer smiled. “I’d love to.” She shimmied out of her own pajama pants and underwear, then eased Aria out of hers. “Wow,” Spencer exhaled. “You’re..you’re beautiful, Aria..”

Aria’s cheeks flushed. “Not as beautiful as you.”

Spencer sat up and held out her hand. Her eyes were dark with lust but her heart was so full of love Spencer thought it would burst. “I-I’ve been dreaming about this for so long, Aria,” she confessed.

Aria leaned in for a kiss and rested her forehead against Spencer’s. “Me too,” she admitted. And it was in that moment that she realized she had. Denial was a powerful defense mechanism, but Aria was finally ready to stop bottling up her feelings. “Can we move to your bed?”

“On one condition,” Spencer smiled.

“Anything,” Aria promised.

“Paint me like one of your French girls.”