#maybe the real roommates were the gays we met along the way

[nijuuuu]

Fire Hazard

As y’all could apparently tell, a certain fic author has inspired me to write some gay. So here’s some fluffy gay.

Original fic for @fictober-event​.

Prompt 19:  “Yes, I admit it, you were right.” 

Rating: T+

Title: Fire Hazard

Warnings: Alcohol mentions, light harassment

AO3 mirror here.

Sophie moved like a skillful calligrapher’s brush, leaving behind deliberate, knowing strokes with every footstep. When she got close enough, the scent of freshly brewed lattes drifted through the air, and when the sun was shining, you could see pretty auburn dots run along the nape of her neck. Even her dorky glasses paired absurdly well with the gently cresting waves of her umber hair.

Sophie was beauty. Sophie was grace.

And Sophie was irritatingly straight.

“Why don’t you take a picture, paintcan? It’d last longer,” she smirked, shimmying into her usual chair.

Cait glared and stuck her tongue out. “Tough luck. I’m stuck with you until the lease runs out. And… I was staring at your shirt. You have a rough night?”

Sophie tilted her head to the side and absentmindedly ran two slender fingers over one of the holes in her shirt, revealing just a little more of her smooth, pale skin. “Hmm, I seem to recall you having a rough night yourself a while back. Or, more accurately, waking up next to one.”

“She was a mistake. A drunken, mistake, you overpaid coffee machine, and that was three months ago.” Cait avoided her roommate’s gaze by lifting her mug of scalding tea to her face. HOT HOT HOT. Keep it together.

Sophie giggled, a sound so bright it could make the sun wear sunglasses. “Well. It’s costume day at the cafe! Isn’t that exciting?”

“You going as ‘laundry night’? You’re gonna be freezing your butt off.”

“Think more ‘drop-dead gorgeous werewolf,’” Sophie shot back, a hint of honey in her voice. A few keys jingled, and suddenly she was waltzing her way to the front door. “I’ll post the finished look on Insta, ‘kay? Look forward to it! And I’ll get tonight’s groceries. Just grab a good lunch, sleepyhead!”

And just like that, the scent of lattes disappeared, and the sky was downcast again.

See? Irritating.

Cait let out a beleaguered sigh and sank down in her chair. “Sleepyhead” was a new one. And with every new one came a new emotion she didn’t know she could have, and certainly not one she knew how to deal with.

She didn’t sign up for this. Not at first, at least. Despite their constant bickering, the two had been good friends since high school. When they managed to get into the same university, they decided to move in together. Sophie was kind of a mess back then, and she had terrible taste in men. So moving in was for her own good. Yep. That was it. Cait could think of no other reason.

Until Sophie became less of a mess. She started to go through boyfriends slower than one a month, thank god, until the number finally dwindled down to zero. Then came her brushstroke movements and the way she would gently lift that lucky soup spoon to her lips. She started to do heart-melting little gestures, leaving fresh plates of cookies on the countertop, placing little sticky notes on the fridge to wish her roommate a good day. And then she landed that new job at the cafe. Cait was always weak for a good latte. She never stood a chance, really.

It had been almost two years since then, two tantalizing years. “Never get with your roommate,” her friends had cautioned her. “It never ends well.” That, plus the fact that Sophie had loudly proclaimed her love for men after a drunken night or two of revelry. Ah, how love can fizzle out as quickly as it sparks. Really, Cait never stood a chance.

“So can my dumbass heart stop for just one second!!” she yelped, leaping up in her chair. She couldn’t think straight with her roommate around, damnit! How inconsiderate. How irritating. She had commissions to finish, and a strongly worded letter to send to her professor, and that 200k slowburn wasn’t going to read itself.

That last one sounded good right now. Drawing could wait. Cait slapped her mug into the sink and trundled her way over to her laptop.

A few tear-jerking hours later, she felt her phone buzz on the tabletop. She took a glance. The barista of her dreams had just shared a post on Insta.

Cait had never unlocked the screen faster.

Sophie always looked cute in her uniform. But today, she was positively heavenly. Her apron caressed the generous curves of her torn shirt, giving the slightest peeks to a sight that could make anyone’s stomach churn. Her black stockings stretched over her short but heinously delicate legs, ending inside her fuzzy brown boots. She was holding a drink and biting the straw with a vengeance while wearing a playful expression on her face that really did not help Cait’s problem. Actually, the adorable creature was even baring a set of fake fangs, which really, really did not help the problem. Her hair was tied back in a loose ponytail, and a soft wolf-ear headband sat atop her head. And she was winking, her long lashes practically kissing the lenses of her big round glasses, showing off a hint of her brownish-red eyeshadow that unfortunately drew the line of sight directly to those irritatingly honeyed irises.

She was probably violating a few dress codes. She was a fire hazard. A horribly dangerous fire hazard in Cait’s heart.

Another notification broke the silence. This time, it was a DM.

Soupie: Paintcan!!

Soupie: New look uploaded!!! ;>

Soupie: Pretty fired up today.

Kitcait: Oh. Didn’t notice

Soupie: Well, NOTICE!!!

Kitcait: Still wearing that shirt in the freezing cold I see

Kitcait: Blogger to the core

Soupie: ...

Soupie: If you didn’t like the look, you can just say so.

Kitcait: No!! No. I actually think it’s really cute. Really. I don’t think anyone else could pull it off as well. Cute and seasonal. Nice ears lmao

Soupie: I--

Soupie: Thanks.

A moment passed.

Soupie: Suspicious thanks, but thanks, Cait.

Kitcait: Ye

Soupie: How’s your lunch going? You eating well, you vampire?

Cait snorted and sent Sophie a quick selfie with her half-eaten cup of instant noodles.

Kitcait: Meal of champions

Soupie: HEY!!!

Soupie: You’re gonna pass out from malnutrition some day!

Soupie: We’re going to have a decent dinner and I will cook the whole thing and feed it to you by hand if I have to.

Kitcait: Looking forward to biting your hand

Soupie: Worth it. Break’s over gotta go see you in 4

Ahhh,

Oh, jeez.

That adorable, kindhearted, devastating idiot.

How was she supposed to concentrate on anything now?

“Deep breaths, dumbass,” said Cait, clutching her comically pounding chest.

It was a bright, crisp autumn day outside. Some fresh air couldn’t hurt. A quick stroll might help. Maybe she could go get those groceries instead. But she would have to meet Sophie as she got out from work. You know, so they didn’t accidentally double up on expensive produce. Yeah, that’s why. Not because the short, peppy woman happened to be Aphrodite in an apron.

Cait stood up tugged on her overcoat. She paused as she saw the enormous orange blanket scarf that hung by the door, a relic from the previous tenants of their apartment.

Well. Just in case, yeah?

Cait lifted the fabric and hung it on her arm, and she was out the door as well.

Her arms were starting to get sore from lugging around two full bags of food, but luckily for her, she had the gift of long legs and a quick gait. And she was already getting close to the cafe. It would be all worth it if she could just see--

Sophie, standing right outside her workplace, in all of her ‘drop-dead gorgeous werewolf’ glory. The bottom of her shirt was tied in a little knot now, lifting above her midriff and her long plaid circle skirt. Cait tried her very, very best not to get lost in the sight of the most dazzling roommate in the world.

A roommate who, to her immediate dismay, was chatting with a local frat boy.

“Jerry, I’m too tired for this, I really have to get home--”

“Come on! Hey, you look great today.” His voice rumbled up and down the street like a revving engine, attracting more than a little attention from passers-by.

“I really have to--”

“Just one drink? I’m buyin’! We can go get the good stuff!” The wild gorilla-man gesticulated a little too enthusiastically. Enough was enough.

“Sophie!” Cait stepped forward and ruffled the barista’s hair. “Funny I should see you here.”

“Hey!” Jerry’s tone soured. “I saw you at that party. You’re that dy--”

“Six-foot-tall, MMA-certified lesbian,” snapped Cait, “who would love an excuse to smack your scrawny ass into the leaves. Or, you know. To call the cops.”

The man scoffed and thankfully began to trundle away. “You’re no fun anyway.”

Cait let out a shaky sigh. It really wasn’t like her to pick a fight, but hell if she didn’t look at least a little bit cool in the heat of the moment.

She turned back towards Sophie.

“Hey. Are you hurt?”

Her roommate shook her head and stepped a little closer, holding the sides of her arms. “I’m okay. I don’t think he was going to do anything, he’s just kinda pushy, but...” Sophie looked up with soft eyes. “Thanks. Cait.”

Suddenly, fireworks.

So irritating!

“Anyway, MMA? Really?”

Cait chuckled, thankful for the change of topic. “I did taekwondo as a kid. Same difference.”

Her roommate let out a heart-stopping giggle, and they started walking back home. Somehow, up close and in person, she was a couple thousand times cuter. And suddenly the sidewalk became an object of close scrutiny.

“Achoo!”

Cait quickly glanced back over and let out an involuntary snort. Sophie was shivering in her scandalously frayed top, her nose and cheeks growing pink.

“Come on, wolfie, let’s sit down somewhere.”

As they made their way to a park bench, the taller girl slipped off her overcoat and draped it around Sophie, who let out a noise somewhere between a grunt and a breath of appreciation.

“Told you you’d get cold,” said Cait in a hushed tone, tucking the scarf around her friends’ neck.

Sophie scrunched up her face in a way that made the lesbian say a quick internal prayer of thanks that the two could exist at the very same point in time, just centimeters apart in this cold, cruel world.

“Yes, I admit it, you were right.”

Ugh.

Even her pout was perfect.

Then she flipped around and pressed up against Cait, filling her mind with nothing but coffee grounds and confetti. Sophie’s hair was on fire in the golden-hour glow as she leaned her head against her roommate’s chest. A couple stray threads tickled Cait’s jaw and positively set her cheeks ablaze as well.

“You know,” Sophie said with a playful sigh, “you’d be pretty good boyfriend material.”

Cait gave a slightly bitter scoff. “What about girlfriend material?”

They said nothing for just a moment too long.

The world passed by a mile a minute around them, and the feisty barista was uncharacteristically silent.

Suspiciously silent.

Sophie buried her face in that annoyingly orange scarf.

Cait fought back her heart as it threatened to leap up to her throat. She’d felt this before. But something was different this time. Oh gods, maybe, just maybe, something was different this time.

“Soph,” she whispered softly, her voice breaking with every heartbeat. “Can… can I see your face right now?”

The shorter girl disobediently turned the other way.

But Cait leaned forward, reaching out, and suddenly she was slowly easing her pouting crush’s head to face her own and gently prying the warm, soft scarf back downwards. It revealed a constellation of vivid freckles set aglow. And Sophie’s face was the most beautiful shade of red in the world, even redder than Cait had imagined in her wildest dreams.

“Holy cow,” Cait exhaled.

And for a single, heart-stopping moment, all the two could do was stare.

Until all of a sudden, fingertips were combing through umber hair, and slender hands were clinging on to the others’ back, and lips were meeting each other in near-painful desperation.

Sweet, soft, tender paradise for just a few seconds.

“I thought--”

“Cait. Hush,” whispered Sophie, looking directly into her roommate’s eyes this time.

And they both obliged and came together once more, a whirlwind of emotions kicking up in Cait’s heart that managed to settle on something warm and almost tearful. The kiss was gentler the second time around, a little kinder, and just a little harder to pull away again.

Then they both sat back into the bench, wide-eyed, looking off into the treetops.

“Weren’t you straight?” blurted Cait.

“Back then? I said I liked guys, you disaster, not that I exclusively liked guys.” Sophie seemed to be fighting back an enormous smile, cheeks still holding their brilliant rosy tint. “Plus, you didn’t hear what I mumbled after that. That I was maybe starting to think about girls. Well. Girl. To be accurate.” She continued, voice trailing off.

“Oh,” was all said girl could manage, as she felt soft arms wrapping gingerly around her.

For a beautiful moment, Sophie was all there ever was.

“You know,” the barista giggled mischievously into her roommate’s ear, “I can maybe. Think of some other nicknames I’d like to call you now.”

And Cait was on fire again.

“How about we make dinner first?”

[cooloddball]

your thoughts about saying Mish and Jen meeting at the right time is really interesting because I reckon their interactions would have been very different, as you said Jensen was the kind of person to thank jesus for an award and misha was a bit of a rebel, so they probably would have had this very interesting chemistry, but it'd be like enemies to friends to lovers (or friends whichever way you think...i am just perceiving) - where as by the time they met now, Jensen was with Danneel so I 1/?

think Danneel kind of helped him become a bit more liberal (okay that's not the word but more just relaxed and helped maybe with toxic masculinity etc - he didn't drink with straws until he was into his 30s etc). Which is why Danneel and Misha get on so well cause they're quite alike. 2/2

I get what you mean and as much as I believe Danneel brought him out of his shell, I don't think Jensen was ever in any shell, it was a perfectly curated image for his career. There is nothing wrong with that, we all have images to uphold when it comes to our jobs and public lives vis-à-vis our privates lives.

You may be wondering why I'm saying it was crafted image and not a shell. Remember Jensen when he came to Hollywood, a young 18-year-old fair-haired charming boy. He seemed so free and happy being with his best friend (read as bf imo) Ty.

Here are a few posts about Jensen and Ty, including photos and interviews.

Then, he joined Days of Our Lives and he had other "relationships" with men that were pretty sus and rumours started circulating that he was gay.

Even his friend Ty tweeted something rather weird

Maybe it has nothing to do with Jensen but...There’s a lot to unpack about his and Ty’s relationship. It’s mind boggling.

You also mentioned him drinking with straws until he was in his 30s. He said his dad told him that real men don’t drink through straws. That’s an odd thing for a father to say to their child. Was he worried that Jensen wasn’t “manly”? Like what would prompt a parent to say that to their child? I don’t want to assume anything but that statement gave me John Winchester vibes. The fact that also Jensen had to call his dad after every episode of spn aired to get his feedback is just nerve wrecking, I can’t even imagine what it was like for him. Maybe that’s why he left home as soon as he turned 18. He was supposed to go to college with Ty but he moved to Hollywood instead and Ty took a gap year to join him there and they became “roommates”. As I said, there’s a Lot to unpack from his past life. 

In Hollywood you need to have a certain public image to get certain jobs. Do you think if he were perceived as gay he would be cast as Dean? Of course not. So, I think he was always and still is that carefree guy he was back then but as you said Dee who is a rebel helped him shed his layers but he still had some left. And then Misha came along and it was like his whole world was turned upside down. He has said that Misha and Dee are twisted and very similar so I can't even imagine the chaos that is Misha, Dee and Vicki. Once Dee,  Misha and  Vicki came into his life, hewas now with people who lived their lives on their own terms, unapologetically. And it may have taken a while but he shed all of the shells he had. 

That's why the Jensen we saw on the gag reels was not the same Jensen we used to see on panels. He was always freer in panels where Misha was present be it a cockles panel or a J2M panel. He even started being overly affectionate by giving Misha behind the ear kisses on the red carpet, spanking him, caressing his face during public interviews etc.

I mean as the years went by he shed more of his shell to the point where he wasn't afraid of what people thought anymore and as much as some people may say straddlegate is not public, it is in the public domain, YouTube is in the public domain. It just takes a few keyboard strokes "Jensen 2019 cons" and jib10 will show up among other things.

He also went ahead to post that jib10 selfie on his IG. Which tbh is gay AF. I have never seen men stand dick to dick, nip to nip and abs to abs like that before unless they were on top of each other or against each other doing grown-up things.

So I think if he met Misha back then, it wouldn’t have ended well for them. Jensen was too focused on his career and how he is perceived while Misha used acting as a means to an end to reach more people for socio-political change. A goal he has achieved. Acting was never his endgame. So, I think that as much as they would have fallen madly in love when they were younger, it would’ve ended badly and we probably wouldn’t have gotten Misha playing Cas or destiel or cockles. In retrospect, maybe it could’ve still happened because by the time Misha joined the show, Jensen was starting to be his real self again thanks to Dee.

I'm rambling now. I hope this makes sense because I'm never sure if I make any sense.

[cellard0ors]

Fic: Movement (2/?)

Still dedicated to the wonderful @peachworthy. you read part one than you know - GMM Rhink AU - College Student Link/Pornstar Rhett AU

“Got it right again, man! You’re going to ace this test!” Rhett crows as he tosses down another notecard and Link pumps his arms in triumph. The two of them are settled in the kitchen, piles of books and notecards spread around as well as few bottles of beers and some bowls of chips.

Link picks up one chip and pops it into his mouth, grinning at his roommate fondly, “Well, couldn’t’ve done it without you, pal. You are, without a doubt, the best study buddy I’ve ever had.”

“Aw shucks, gonna make me blush,” Rhett laughs even though it’s Link who feels his cheeks actually grow warm, his friend’s laughter a common cause of the occurrence.

They’ve been living together for over a month now and it’s been beyond amazing. Link would’ve never guessed a guy like Rhett and a guy like him would work so well together.

It’s like they’re the world’s weirdest, most convoluted puzzle yet all the pieces click together to form a full picture that is nothing short of a masterpiece. True, there’s a lot about Rhett Link doesn’t know yet (and gosh is there a lot he wants to know) but their friendship is running smoothly.

Well, smoothly save for the massive crush Link has on the guy, albeit he’s doing his damned best to squash it. Yes, Rhett’s attractive and yes, he’s the first guy Link’s ever met that he’s felt a real zing for, but the fact of the matter is – Link would much rather have him as a friend and roommate than lose him as a…well, Link’s not sure if he’d lose him, but the mere possibility keeps Link’s lips sealed.

Besides, it’s okay to crush on someone and never act on it. People do it all the time. Not to mention that it’s a bit…odd to crush on someone in Rhett’s line of work. Isn’t it?

Link can’t think of too many people who will admit to crushing on an adult film star. Regular, mainstream film stars, sure – but adult film stars?

Yeah…

Although, to be frank, Link’s sure there are some that do. And, hopefully, some of them are not the creepy internet troll-y kind of people, but genuine salt of the earth folks like himself. Because, okay, he is crushing on one so…

Rhett is toying with the cards, maybe looking for the next question to quiz Link on when he asks idly, “Y’know, Link – I gotta say, I admire your stamina.”

That remarks makes Link choke on the drink he’s just been consuming, a cough clearing it up some as he croaks, “I’m-I’m sorry?”

Rhett hums noncommittally, as if not noticing the gaffe, “You’ve had yet to grill me about my job. Normally, once folks hear about it, that’s all they want to talk about.”

“Oh,” Link breathes out loosely, “Well, ah-? It-? It just…seemed rude to-to ask…”

“Been over a month living with me now. You telling me you ain’t interested?”

“I didn’t say that!” Link quips back much quicker than he would like, but Rhett just gives him the most perfect smile. All sincere and warm beneath his beard and remember, Link, you’re doing you’re best not to crush on him!

Rhett is still toying with the cards, eyelashes downcast, the very visual definition of shy as he murmurs, “Just sayin’…I don’t mind if you wanna ask some stuff.”

Link’s eyebrows rise in such a way as to damn near bump his glasses off, “Y-You sure?”

Rhett draws in a deep inhale and then sits the cards down. He crosses his arms and leans back in his seat, looking quite serious even despite the casual red flannel and jeans, as if this was more of an interview (or perhaps an interrogation?) than anything else, “Shoot.”

The a million and one questions that Link has kept at bay about Rhett’s job and more personal life threaten to cave his skull in as they crash about in his mind. However, he has to go with the obvious, “Know this’ll be predictable, but…why?”

Rhett just bobs his head in an understanding nod even as Link pushes on, “Why and how?”

Rhett sucks on his teeth before picking up his own beer and taking a fortifying sip before continuing, “The two are kinda interconnected to be honest. Had a fallin’ out with my family. Think I mentioned it in passin’ to you once. But, to clarify; they weren’t too happy with my chosen living destination nor with the fact that I’d come to terms with the notion that I’m attracted to both the ladies and the gents.”

Link’s mind immediately (and joyously) clings to ‘the gents’ remark, bookmarking it for future reference, even as Rhett continues his tale, “You grew up where we did. So you get it.”

Link does. And then, to nail the point home, Rhett adds, “Probably get it a lot more than others. If my…instincts are to be believed.”

Shit.

SHIT.

Link’s whole body immediately bursts into flame, the tips of his ears so hot he’s sure they’re glowing bright red.

Rhett knows I’m gay. He knows. I thought having a radar for that kind of thing was bullhonkey, but he knows and oh, lord, oh lord – do I give off some sorta vibe? I know that girl in my screenwriting class, Stevie, she teased me about being an A-Level twink or something, but I didn’t think-!

Rhett’s laughter carves right through Link’s insecurities, “Take a breath, brother! Look like you’re about to pop!”

Link does and Rhett just shakes his head, still grinning, “Point being – I was pretty much a babe in the woods when I came to LA. Not two nickels to my name, so I took whatever gigs I could get. Managed to snag a few commercials and things of that nature, but you know the drill. Jobs are hard to come by. And a guy of my height?”

He blows out a big breath and tosses all of those luxurious curls about with a rueful head shake, “Yeah, most people fingered me for a baller, so – again – jobs were hard to come by. But then, wouldn’t you know it? A friend of a friend of a contact told me about this part they thought I’d be perfect for.”

Another deep barrel chested chuckle emerges as he reminiscences, “Mighta been nice of ‘em to let me know it was actually a part of me they thought would be perfect.”

Do not zero in on his crotch! Do NOT zero in on his crotch! Charles Lincoln Neal the Third DO NOT-!

Link keeps his eyes so steadfastly forward he probably looks like some bug eyed zombie. If Rhett notices, he doesn't comment, “Anyway, when I found out what the role was, I had planned to politely decline but, y’know, the money they offered…”

There’s an easy shrug and this Link can look at. He looks at Rhett, who looks a bit sheepish as he scratches at one side of his beard, “I mean, again, you grew up where I did. So, you know how the whole ‘wait until marriage’ thing was drilled into your head, but I figured it wasn’t like anybody would know. My family’d cut me off, my friends were few and far in between, and the people on set…”

Now he looks a bit happier and Link can’t help but smile along with him, “The people on set were all right. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the kind of stories people tend to spin – the exploitation, the drug abuse, other questionable stuff…place I was at wasn’t like that. I mean, maybe I just lucked out or something, but it was…”

Another shrug and he goes for his beer again. Link figures this is as good a time as any to get in another question, “So, you did that and then you…? Just kept going?”

Rhett nods as he drinks, the bottle leaving his mouth with an obscene pop that Link is going to do his best to forget all about right now and certainly not recall at any point in the future (and most certainly NOT when he’s jacking off later), “Yeah, I did the one and the director really liked me. He pull me aside and told me about this company he was trying to set up with a couple of buddies of his. They wanted to go in a classier direction – know how funny that sounds, but he was serious.”

“So, what? No, like, blockbuster porno knock offs? Like ‘Sex in The City and ON the City’ or ‘Arma-get-it-on’?”

“Think you stole that last one from an episode of CSI.”

“I did, doesn’t change the question.”

They’re both smiling like a couple of fools, but the mood is good and the atmosphere light as Rhett sighs, “Yeah, nothing like that. I’ve actually worked with a few female directors, shot some things with great budgets, nice lighting, good costumes…”

“Oooo, costumes,” Link teases in the silliest voice and Rhett swats out at him. Link avoids the hit even as Rhett rolls his eyes, “I’m serious, dude. Some of the things that department pumps out looks better than anything you’d see in Hollywood.”

“Hmm, some kinda wood,” Link snickers and this time Rhett’s swat makes impact, brushing Link’s shoulder and Link would be embarrassed by the giggle he lets out, if it weren’t for the way Rhett’s nose is all scrunched up, making him look beyond adorable, “You’re sucha brat!”

Link sticks out his tongue and Rhett just laughs. They turn their attention to the drinks and chips for awhile before Link circles around to another question, “You like it then?”

“It’s a living,” Rhett confirms, not really answering one way or another, “Like I said – make great money, work with some really nice people.”

“Uh,” Link scratches behind one ear, “Hate to ask, but, um…clean people?”

Rhett doesn’t seem offended, “You bet. Have to be. Another reason I’ve done this as long as I have. Money's great, but the safety is even better. I’m currently under contract with that same company I told you about – the one that director brought me under. On top of wanting to,” he air quotes his next words, “be classier’-”

He drops the quotes, “They wanted to provide an excellent work environment. Heck, me and the other actors and actresses probably have a cleaner bill of health than the entire state. Can’t shoot scene one until you’ve got the A-Okay.”

“Huh,” Link absorbs that with some surprise, but then, he supposes it really shouldn’t be. The adult film industry is a big lumbering beast right alongside it’s more recognized counterpart. No reason one shouldn’t be as cautious as the other. If anything, one has more right to be cautious.

Thinking on this, Link suddenly feels an odd pang. It’s a shame in one way that’s one viewed as more reckless than the other, more questionable. But, when viewed through a mostly puritan lens…

Not wanting to get too philosophical, Link switches gears, “You been in a lot of films?”

“My fair share.”

Another dodge, but Link will let him have it. However, he can practically feel devil horns rise as he asks with a naughty gleam to his eye, “Win any awards?”

Rhett’s practically preening, “Several.”

“Really?” Link asks with some surprise, but Rhett suddenly looks quite naughty himself. Naughty and…a bit too hot for Link’s liking as the heat that always seems to surround him when he’s near Rhett rises and woo boy, he’s really failing at this squashing-the-crush thing.

“If you’re a good boy, maybe I’ll show you one of my trophies some time…”

Everything in Link melts into a puddle and he’s not sure what expression he’s wearing, but it’s one that makes Rhett’s whole face light up, “…or maybe, just maybe, I’ll show you a little somethin’ else…”

If it’s possible for a melted puddle to also explode, then Link’s just done it. Rhett bursts into guffaws as he reaches forward and, very smoothly, pushes Link’s jaw up because Link’s jaw? It dropped. He didn’t even feel it drop.

And then, to just add more fuel to the fire, Rhett rubs the pad of his thumb along the bottom of Link’s chin, right below his lip, “Damn, son…you’re just too much for words.”

“I…”

That’s it.

That’s all that Link can offer.

Just one sound, one vowel.

Silent and stunned and Rhett draws back, looking like the cat that ate the canary as he lets him go and rises up from his seat, “Think you need a moment. I’ll be back in a bit.”

And – just like that – Rhett saunters out of the room.

[queeriouspunx]

Listen I just watched Aquamarine for the first time since I was 11 and I remember really liking it for some reason and upon rewatching it, that reason is obvious. It's so freaking gay.

Okay so it's about this mermaid who has left the ocean because her dad wants her to marry a mer-man. If she can prove that love exists, she won't be forced to marry the man.

Meet the two girls who help her (sans names because I am bad at names and also did I mention I have indulged in some satanic lettuce?). But one is a bossy, possessive, anxious femme and the other is a soft-butch baby queer who isn't out to herself even though she wears knee-length cargo shorts, a checkered belt, short-sleeve buttton-up shorts, a thick watch, and those puffy skater shoes that were big in the late 2000s. Did I mention the low ponytail? And even though she is bullied for living her best baby-butch life and dressing like a boi. Anyway they love each other a little extra much and are very sad because Baby Butch's mom is dragging her off to go down (under) to Australia and Bossy Blonde CANNOT handle it. These two gal pals meet a mermaid, though, and the mermaid says that if they can get someone to prove love is real by telling her "I love you," she'll grant them a wish. They don't even have to discuss it - Baby Butch and Bossy instantly know that their wish will be for Baby Butch to stay gay in Florida with Bossy forever.

Now about the mermaid: Aquamarine is obviously autistic, aro, and ace, but she knows she needs to find someone to love her and randomly picks some guy. I swear this pick is completely random. Kind of like how before I was gay I just said I had a crush on whatever guy my friends had crushes on, and then we bonded under the guise of "talking about boys." I see you, Aqua. Of course, the guy Aquamarine picks is the same guy Bossy and Baby Butch like! Seems fishy but okay. Anyway, the first time she meets him she asks him if he loves her and when he doest tell her he loves her, she is (justifiably so) flabbergasted and a little affronted.

(Ohh side note: I forgot about the way Aquamarine felt up Bossy's foot the first time they met. And how Baby Butch couldn't stop staring at Aquamarine's tail, and how Aquamarine was like, "Touch my tail, Baby Butch!" And Baby Butch said excitedly, "Oh, it's slimy!" I had to experience it so you have to too. Oh and the second time she meets Bossy and Baby Butch she is naked and turns around to show them how cute her butt is! By the way, when Aqua is in mermaid form, she is topless! Like, this is an impressive amount of free the nipple for a children's movie. This is no big deal except for when she is taking a bubble bath and Baby Butch "has to" dive into the (average-sized, a.k.a. not large enough to easily fit two people and a tail) bathtub with her topless new queer-platonic girlfriend. Reminds me of a bathtub scene in another movie I loved as a childhood. Hmm.)

Anyway this mean girl who supposedly also likes The Guy (don't worry, he's the only boy in this movie and he has no personality - just a pretty stock character to move the, uh, super heterosexual plot along). Except she has a girl gang (which yes, does feature the only character of color - how did you know? Womp womp). Mean Girl is way more invested in making sure other girls can't date him than actually spending time with him herself because she wants to be popular and chosen and her dad is a jerk. (My prediction: she will probably either sleep with her straight roommate or married professor in college. Maybe both.) This is why, when Aqua further humiliates Mean Girl by not being out as a mermaid, making Aqua look cr*zy (haha how funny! Not. But Mean Girl did lock her in a water tower) so Mean Girl pushes Aqua into the ocean. Now that Aqua is in her father's reach, he starts to pull Aqua back to him with his mystical water vacuum powers.

The resolution of the movie is, predictably, gay. Baby Butch and even hydrophobic Bossy, who is afraid of water because her parents drowned, jump into the whirlpooling ocean to save Aqua. (Damn, I wish were that easy to cure my phobia of vomit, but whatever.) The three of them have this big Tender Queer Moment (TM) while holding onto a buoy: Butch Baby and Bossy (BB and B) don't want Aqua to leave. BB and B look at each other and know now that they don't need a wish to love each other forever, so they offer to use their wish to keep Aqua with them instead. Aqua says the wish wouldn't work - the boy man said he only "liked" Aqua, not loved her. But then Baby Butch and Bossy tell Aqua that they love her, and this makes her cry, and the Queer Tear of Love falls into the ocean and Aqua's father reverses his decision to force Aqua to marry a merman. Poseidon says queer platonic love is real and powerful while whiny hetero horniness is just boring and sad,, to be honest.

Tldr; Technically not a good movie but very gay. Either makes fun of every movie trope, or uses them all unironically. Not sure which is funnier. Excellent mid 2000s fashion. If you are gay, high, 11 years old, or all three, you might like this film.

[dualswordskings]

Ulrich handles very well being in love with Odd. (spoiler : it's not true)

aaaaah i’m finally done with this rbfkdjw i hope you guys will enjoy it !! i’m not english so sorry if some things don’t make sense. (i’d love to see what you thought about this so don’t be shy to comment or leave tags if you reblog 👉👈) a big thanks to @vexfulfun for motivating me to write this djsjd that being said... enjoy !

• Yumi comes out to Ulrich as aromantic a few months before they finally beat Xana, and now that they're on the clear about the nature of their relationship, it's easier to move on from the massive crush he had on her since Day One. Considering how pretty chaotic their relationship was sometimes, he thinks that the next time he gets a crush on someone it will be easier (spoiler : it's not. it's really not.)

• He figures out his crush on Odd a few months after putting an end to Lyoko, during the summer break. They got closer a few weeks before the end of school, and they've been texting or calling each other almost non-stop since the holidays started. Now Ulrich is lying on his bed, looking at the blank walls of his bedroom, wishing Odd was here to fill the silence like he did in their shared bedroom at the school, when it hits him and he's like. oh. Oh. OH NO.

• At first he thinks it's going to go away if he doesn't think about it, so he tries, but now that he knows, he sees it everywhere. And it doesn't help that Odd keeps texting him things like "hey it sucks without you, Kiwi and i miss you". (Granted, Odd does says the first part to every of their friends, but the Kiwi part ? that's just for him, and Ulrich loathes how proud and happy it makes him feel)

• So, yeah, the "i do not see it, i can not see" method doesn't work at all, but it's okay ! Ulrich is Smart, he can find a solution to that ! Maybe if he represses it hard enough, it will go away !

• Surprise : it doesn't work too.

• So whatever. Ulrich has a crush on Odd. It's fine, it's totally fine. (It's not.) He can handle this. (He can't.)

• Ulrich ends up being in a constant crisis about it during the whole summer, until the last week before school starts and he texts Yumi to tell her everything because, and he hates to admit it, he can't handle it and he might need help.

• Yumi instantly makes fun of him BUT she does help and at the end of the day Ulrich is much calmer about it because he finally got it off his chest and can now think a bit more clearly.

• So, he has a crush on Odd. And it... might be not that bad. Actually, it's okay. Yes, he has a crush on his best friend, and so what ? It's just a crush, and it will all be over soon, when they get back to seeing each other everyday and Ulrich is going to remember the little things he dislikes about Odd and why they would never work together anyway.

• ...It’s a month and a half in the school year when Ulrich thinks he should start taking circus classes, because he's becoming a clown.

• His crush does not go away. His crush gets WORSE. because of course he dislikes things about Odd, like how coward he can be sometimes, or how bad his feet smells, but it's not important compared to how many things he -loves- likes about him. and the worst thing is, they do work well together !

• Ulrich hates it ! He is tired of feelings, he doesn't want them ! Why did it have to be Odd ! Why does he keeps getting crushes on people he shouldn't !

• Eventually, after a long time.. He learns to live with it. He ends up accepting (for real, this time) the fact that he has a crush on Odd, and that it's not going away any time soon. And he's fine with that ! If he's destined to pine over Odd forever, then so be it. Ulrich finds that it's not a terrible way to live, anyway.

• He does try to date some people there and there during high school, but he always ends up cancelling plans after the second date because it's clear it's not going to work and people deserve better than being a last resort to a guy who has a crush on his best friend.

• He takes a gap year after high school, because he doesn't really know what he wants to do with his life. Odd goes to an art school in a close town, and ends up being roommate with Sissi, of all people ! (She moved out of their city before starting high school, and she changed a lot during that time).

• They don't see each other as much as they used to, since they're not in the same town anymore and they both have different things to do. They were both scared of drifting apart or not finding the time to hang out with each other (or with the rest of the group), but in the end they make it work.

• But still, a lot of things change. They spend week-ends together, whether it's Odd going to Ulrich's place or the opposite, and sometimes they go out, or they stay inside when they can.

• Ulrich barely sees Sissi because she's not here a lot during week-ends, and he still believes that Odd has been lying to everyone when he says she's nice now and they're getting along really well, because there's no way that's true.

• Anyway, the point is. They spend a lot of time together, and Ulrich ends up having dog food for Kiwi for when Odd comes over with him, and Odd ends up having Ulrich's clothes in his closet (and yes, sometimes he wears them but you can't blame him ! it's not his fault Ulrich keeps forgetting to take them back !) (what really happened is that Ulrich only forgot his clothes one time, and then he noticed Odd wore them, and look, he's enough of a disaster already, let him at least have this, he's been pining for *years* now). It's totally not gay, purely platonic, of course.

• And then comes The Competition. They don't remember when it started, but one day they noticed that every time they hung out outside, people mistook them as a couple and... well. They started playing along, calling each other ridiculous pet names, and of course it turned into a competion, to see who could come up with the worst pet name and who could be the most mushy.

• They're insufferable. Jeremie, Aelita and Yumi are planning their deaths because they're so tired of their stupidity.

• There’s no “rule” for this, but they never call each other pet names that are used a lot, like "babe" or "darling" etc. It always has to be ridiculous. Why, you ask ?

• Because one day Ulrich called Odd "babe" and they just. stared blankly at each other, both desesperatly trying to hide the fact that they were screaming inside, and both went "uh. that was weird. let's never mention that again." and that was it.

• So voila, everything is fine in their lives. They flirt (but as a joke), and they sleep in the same bed when they see each other during the week-end (because the couch is uncomfortable, and it would be rude to make someone sleep on it) and Odd wears Ulrich's clothes sometimes, and Ulrich keeps dog food in his apartment for Odd's dog (but there's nothing domestic about that). Everything is fine.

• Yumi, Aelita and Jeremie aren't as stupid as them though, and they kind of notice that... there's no way this is going to end well for Ulrich. (Ulrich hadn't planned on telling Aelita and Jeremie about his crush, but they figured it out themselves after a few years, because Ulrich is sometimes pretty obvious) (yes, Yumi, Aelita and Jeremie are keeping bets on who's going to confess first)

• So Yumi tries to talk to Ulrich, like 'hey maybe you should confess because you're kinda acting like a couple but you're not and we don't want you to see heartbroken the day Odd starts dating someone else'.

• And Ulrich wishes he could pretend everything is fine and there's no way this could go wrong, but he's a Responsible Adult now, or at least he's an old teenager, and maybe it's time to.. stop waiting. Maybe he could tell Odd, and it would make their friendship change, but maybe that's for the best. Maybe. So he promises to think about it, and he does.

• There's comfort in the way things are now, but at the same time, Ulrich has to move on someday, because as much as he loves loving Odd, it doesn’t stop it from hurting. and he doesn't want to wait until forever to confess either. the only reason he hasn't done it by now is because he's never sure about how Odd really feels about him, but then again, if he waits to be sure, then he'll never say anything.

• So it's decided. Ulrich is going to confess, and then life will move on, with or without Odd in it.

• He hopes it will be with Odd in it. He really, really hopes it will. He doesn't know what he would do if he had to live without him. Because before being his crush, Odd is his best friend since middle school, he's family, and Ulrich can't find the appeal of a life without Odd, no matter how hard he tries.

• (Fuck, Odd was right when he told him he wouldn't be able to live without him, the first day when they met.)

• It's a good thing to know you're going to confess. But the important question is, how are you going to do it ?

• Ulrich doesn't know. UnFortunately, he doesn't get the chance to think about it for too long.

• One week-end, while they're watching Pacific Rim again in Odd's apartment, with Odd buried in Ulrich's big hoodie, his legs resting on Ulrich's lap, Sissi comes home early.

• It's a little bit awkward between her and Ulrich, in the way that they're only acquaintances now, so they don't know each other really well. But that doesn't mean they don't get along, which is why it's not much of a problem when Sissi decides to watch the end of the movie with them.

• But she keeps glancing at them, especially Ulrich, until it's time for him to leave. And it's weird, because Ulrich doesn't understand why she would do that. It might be stupid, because it's not a big deal, but Ulrich got a sinking feeling in his stomach during the whole ride home and it doesn't leave him even after.

• Odd texts him a few hours later, and for the first time Ulrich doesn't want to know what he said. But still, he opens his phone and reads the text, because he's a weak man who can't refuse anything to Odd.

• It's something along the line "Sissi thought we were a couple hahahaha, that's so weird."

• It shouldn't be a big deal. It shouldn't. It's not the first time someone tells them they look like a couple anyway. Heck, they often pretends they are with the pet names competition. But there's something about that makes Ulrich sick in his stomach.

• Technically, nothing is wrong, because Odd still texted him, and he's laughing about it, like he always does, but. But Odd never uses capital letters, and he never types "hahaha" and he never puts punctuation in his texts, and sure, it's just some details, but Ulrich knows Odd and he knows that something is wrong and that somehow, now, everything is going to change. For the better or for the worst.

• He types back a simple "yeah, weird." and Odd never replies.

• It's... strange, for about a month. Odd starts avoiding him, answering his texts really late (if he answers them at all), never calling, coming up with shitty excuses to not spend time with him. They don't see each other once. Ulrich doesn't know how to feel about this situation.

• He's frustrated, because what the hell ? What happened ? Did he do or say something wrong ? He keeps replaying the last time they saw each other in his head, but he can't find anything out of the ordinary, except, well. their last texts.

• It angry, too. Because he doesn't understand. Odd had never been bothered when people mistook them for a couple, so why did he now ? And even if this was the reason, his behaviour still didn't make any sense. Odd would never stop talking to someone just for that, or at least he never did before.

• Did he discover Ulrich's crush on him and decided to put some distance between them because he thought it would be awkward to acknowleged it ? Odd had never acted like that when learning someone loved him, but maybe because they were best friends, this was different ?

• It hurts to think about it. It's not like Ulrich wasn't prepared to be rejected if he were to confess, but losing Odd like this ? It sucks. Odd is his best friend first and foremost, so of course Ulrich doesn't want him out of his life. He just always thought Odd would want him to stay in his, too.

• He's angry, and he's sad, and he's hurt and he's tired of this. It makes him mad that Odd was right when he said Ulrich wouldn't be able to live without him, and he’d like to believe that maybe he's got it all wrong and something else happened to make Odd stop talking to him, but he knows it can't be anything else after spending time with Yumi, Aelita and Jeremy. They all acted a little awkward, and Ulrich knows Odd still talks to them on the regular, and it's enough proof to know that the problem is indeed with him.

• He talks to Yumi about it, and she just tells him that Odd is an idiot and that maybe he should still confess so he can move on.

• Ulrich actually starts thinking about it, after the third week. Moving on that is- not confessing, because that is way too scary.

• And of course it's not going to be easy and it sucks but if Odd wants to act like a dumbass then fine, Ulrich isn't going to wait and cry about it forever. He deserves better than this bullshit anyway.

• (It doesn’t make it any less hurting. Ulrich is not really sure he wants to fully admit that he lost his best friend.)

• He tries to talk to Odd a few times during those three weeks of course, but it never ends anywhere. He either leaves him on read or answers vaguely and doesn't participate in the conversations. Ulrich tries to confront him one time, and they end up fighting. It's not a big fight, but it's still shitty, and Ulrich stops trying after that, and Odd doesn't say anything.

• Then out of nowhere, on the fourth week, Odd calls him. Ulrich stares in shock and considers for a brief moment not answering and ignoring him, because that would only be fair, but he ends up answering, because maybe this their chance to make it right again and fuck, he missed his best friend, okay ?

• It's... it's awkward. At first, Odd tries to act like nothing happened, and Ulrich pretends that they don't need to talk about it, but they both know ignoring the elephant in the room won't resolves anything.

• And surprise ! After a few awkward silences, they do end up talking about it. Or at least a little.

• Odd apologies, but doesn't offer any explanations, and Ulrich decides that it's enough, at least for now.

• They start catching up on what they missed during the month, though not a lot happened on both sides, and they joke around and that's pretty much it.

• Ulrich is sure life is going to go back to normal (until he confesses), and he's happy with that, but then it's the end of the call, and Odd tells him about this movie that's going to come out soon and how they should go watch it together, and Ulrich agrees, and Odd says "cool, so it's a date then ?" which is. what. WHAT.

• Ulrich takes five whole minutes to answer because his brain decided to shut down. He's not sure if it's a joke, like their pet names competition, or if it's a dream, but it can't be real. Except Odd is silent at the end of the line, so he must be serious, and oh, Ulrich is a weak, weak man.

• "Uh. Yeah, ok." "Cool, see you on the week-end for our date then !"

• And that's it. That's how the call ends and Ulrich doesn't know for how long he stares at his phone like it holds the secrets of the universe, but when he finally registers what happened, a lot of time has passed.

• Ulrich has a date. With Odd.

• He wakes up Yumi by calling them. (They're mad because they lost the bet on who will ask the other out on a date first, but she doesn't tell him that.)

• And so the week-end comes, and Ulrich gets ready. to go on his date. with Odd.

• He's expecting this to be a bad prank but still, he takes his time to dress well and make sure he looks good. And then he goes pick up Odd on his motorcycle and tries his best not to have a gay panic when Odd comes out of his apartment wearing his best date outfit with the jean jacket Ulrich bought him for one of his birthday.

• They go to the cinema, and it's awkward at first, because how are you supposed to act on a first date with your crush who's also your best friend who you also haven't talked to since a month ? It's.. a little bit weird, doing romantic coded things together for real and not as a joke, but it's nice. It's something they could get used to, something they /want/ to get used to.

• And so it doesn't take long for them to be comfortable around the other again, and everything falls back to normal, and they have an amazing time.

• None of them confess that day, because they want to take the time to enjoy this new thing, and they go on a lot of other dates and Ulrich feels weird because he's not used to have luck on his side when it's about romance, but he's definitely not complaining about it.

• A few months later, when they're coming home to Ulrich's apartment after a midnight walk with Kiwi, Odd tells him about the month when they stopped talking to each other. It slowly becomes a confession, because it turns out Odd realized he was in love with Ulrich after Sissi's comment and didn't know how to process it, but Ulrich cuts him in the middle of it to confess how he feels because 1) he hasn't been suffering all these years only to not confess first and 2) Yumi would kill him if he didn't.

• So that's how they start dating.

• Yumi, Aelita and Jeremy are like "finally ! we can have peace now. no more them being fools." and also very happy because they've been waiting for this for so long and their best friends deserves to be happy together.

• jokes on them though, because now that they're dating, they're worse than before. the pda, the jokes, the love confessions at any given time, they're everywhere. the awful pet names ? even worse now because they call each other regular pet names too.

• But hey, for their friends happiness, they can endure it. a little. they do deserve to be happy after all of this.

• Bonus :

Later, after a few years of being together, someone looks at them and goes "wow, you're such good friends ! i would love to have a bro like that", and it's the pet name competition nightmare all over again, except it’s reversed. Yumi, Sissi, Aelita and Jeremie have to deal with them calling each other "bro" or "dude" constantly and they regret being friends with them.

[mycatshuman]

Fright Night But Make It Gay

Chapter 1 : Virgil is Sus

Next | More

Pairings: Prinxeity, Hinted Intrological and Moceit

Warnings: "kidnapping", arguing, let me know if I missed any.

Here it is! This years Halloween fic! Based on the movie Fright Night because, you know, vampires.

🎃🕸👻💀🕷🎃🕸👻💀🕷🎃🕸👻💀🕷🎃🕸👻

It really was a dangerous situation they had found themselves in. Although, maybe they should have been more cautious at the very start. Maybe, if they had taken Roman seriously from the very beginning when he had said their new neighbor was a vampire, they could have put an end to all of this without much issue. But things just didn't work out that way. And now they were stuck in a perilous situation that used to only seem possible in fairy tales.

The group knew they had to be smart about this. Remus offered to just kill the vampire, however Logan pointed out that they knew nothing about real life vampires. They didn't know if something would happen to their friend and roommate, Roman, if they killed the vampire. Leave it to Roman to get involved with a vicious vampire. 

Patton tried to be optimistic. "Maybe he's a good vampire?" He had said when the situation ripped apart their realities. Janus actually popped that bubble. "But we can't be sure he is, are we really going to risk Roman's life for the chance that our blood-sucking neighbor is vegetarian?" 

In hindsight, Patton and Remus should have left Janus and Logan to make the plan considering they tended to be the level headed ones in most situations. Janus and Logan had quickly pulled together a plan after they had calmed the other two down enough to think. It would go like this: when Roman got home from play rehearsal, they would tell him they were going on a short trip. Then, they would drive to the home of Peter Vincent, the vampire expert and ask for his help. It couldn't be too hard, could it? 

--------

Roman did not expect to be bombarded when he got home late that night after play rehearsal. His roommates shoved him right back outside and into the car with the explanation that they were all going on a trip. Roman was too tired to argue that they all had school tomorrow so he just went along with it. But when he woke up the next morning to find himself in the van on the side of the road with all his roommates napping around him, he found himself doing a double take.  

He carefully climbed out of the vehicle and dialed his boyfriends' number. "Hey, Virgil?" He asked as the other picked up. "Do you think you could pick me up?" He squinted as he glanced around for any road signs but all he saw was wide open fields. "I'm somewhere outside of town, not sure where, all I see is wide open fields." 

"Turn your location on your phone and put in my address, dumbass," Virgil responded even as he nervously bit his nails. Where were Roman's roommates taking him and why? 

Roman flushed red. "Oh right." He turned his location on and returned to the call. "What would I do without you?"

"I don't know," Virgil replied. "What was that?"

Roman frowned and turned around to look for the source of the noise that his boyfriend asked about. "Oh! It's Remus! Hey! What are you-" the line went dead. 

Virgil gasped and quickly pulled his phone away to stare numbly at his phone screen. What just happened?

-----

"What was that for?!" Roman yelled as his brother yanked his phone from him and hung up before shoving it into his pocket. "I was talking to Virgil!" 

Remus shook his head. "Come on, Roman. We have to go." 

"No! I have classes. We all have classes." 

Remus growled. "No."

"No?" Roman asked in disbelief. "Why not?" 

"Because I said so." 

Roman rolled his eyes and huffed angrily. "You're not my dad! You guys can do whatever you want but I'm going home!"

Remus's eyes widened, fearful. "No! You can't!" He exclaimed. 

Roman froze at the twinge of desperation in the other's voice and looked back at his brother. "Why?" 

"We, as your friends, can not let you go back to that vampire. We are taking you to Peter Vincent so we can help you and get rid of the vampire," Logan explained as he stepped out of the van, having been raised by Remus's loud shout. 

Roman blanched. "What? You can't hurt Virgil!" 

"He's a vampire! A monster! He'll kill you!" 

"No, he won't! He loves me!" 

Janus and Patton tumbled out of the van, having been awoken by the angry voices. "What are you shouting about?" Janus asked grumpily. 

"Roman called the vampire and tried to lead it to us!" Remus yelled as he pointed an accusatory finger at his brother. 

"Virgil is not an 'it'!" Roman shouted. "Yes, he's a vampire but he has never hurt me! He doesn't kill anyone! He's not a monster!"

The others stepped back a little at Roman's outburst. He didn't often raise his voice in anger. His face had turned a little red as he got frustrated with his friends. "You didn't even listen to me the first time I said he was a vampire! You just ignored me and acted like I was a child! And now you want to rip me away from my boyfriend and my classes just because you're making assumptions about him and you can't bother to give him a chance!" 

"We're just trying to protect you, you idiot! Who do you care about more, your family or some monster you just met who will kill you at any moment?!?" Remus screamed. Why couldn't his brother understand they were doing this for his own good? 

Roman froze. He could feel his heart breaking inside his chest. He's trying to force me to choose? "I…" Roman felt his body weaken and his knees gave out beneath him. 

"Roman!" Remus exclaimed and rushed to his brother's aid.

"Roman! Are you okay?" Patton exclaimed as he stepped closer to his friend. 

Roman sat unblinking as he stared through them. "Roman?" Logan asked, concerned. His friend did not respond. 

----------------

Roman had always had a rather active imagination. Paired with his twin brother, Remus, the two had caused quite a lot of headaches for their parents. Between Remus and his interest in the dark and cryptic aspects of the world and Roman with his fanciful, romantic overlook, they had come up with many stories in which dark monsters needed to be defeated in order to save a kingdom and find the most magical thing of all, True Love. And then with the release of entertainment like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Vampire Diaries," "Twilight," and more, it only fueled their creative minds. Remus found himself pretending to be a daring and crazy vampire hunter scientist who experimented on the vampires he captured and killed. Roman found himself fantasizing about his own vampire lover, forever the romantic. Of course, they were all seniors in college now. They had outgrown their "childish" fantasies.  

The two brothers lived in a two story house in a neighborhood close to their college with three roommates; Patton, Logan, and Janus. They all got along fairly well. All were very different guys in terms of personality, likes and interests, but they were good friends. Having known each other since preschool, the five of them would say they knew each other pretty well. That's why, when Roman came running down the hall one night, loudly screaming something about a vampire next door, the other four nodded their heads and gently coaxed him back to bed as they wrote it off as some sort of dream he had. A miracle on their parts, it was hard to get Roman to calm down so quickly when he was hyper. But when the next morning brought more talk of a vampire next door, they began to get a little wary. 

-----------

"I'm telling you guys, I saw this guy carrying boxes of blood bags into the house. What more proof do you need?" Roman exclaimed. 

Remus yawned briefly. "Roman, vampires don't exist. It was probably just the beginning of a wet dream or something." 

"I'm eating!" Janus grumbled, annoyed. He glared at the twins from his spot at the table. 

Remus snorted tiredly. "Relax, I wasn't planning on going into details, it's too early." 

Roman wrinkled his nose. "It wasn't like that, Remus. I really did see it!" 

Logan sighed as he poured his third cup of coffee. "Okay, say this was true, and there really is a vampire living next door, what then?" 

Roman sighed dreamily. "He bites me and I become a vampire and we get married and live happily ever after." 

Patton smiled nervously. "Uh, isn't that a little too optimistic, kiddo? Even if there was a vampire next door-" 

"Which there's not," Logan cut in. 

"doesn't mean things are going to go well." 

"Yeah," Remus agreed. "What if he's trying to kill us all or something?" 

"He wouldn't do that," Roman replied stiffly as he crossed his arms. 

"And why is that?" Logan asked. Roman mumbled in response. 

"What was that?" Janus asked, a raised eyebrow telling Roman that he knew exactly what he had said. 

"Because he loves me okay!"

Remus, Janus, and Logan burst out laughing as Patton tried to hold back an amused smile. "But you haven't even talked to our neighbor. You don't even know his name." 

Roman opened his mouth to argue only to slam it shut again.

"See, you're being irrational, Roman," Logan said. 

"Well, he will love me, he just doesn't know it yet."

Remus rolled his eyes. "You are ridiculous! Seriously, I thought you got over your vampire phase back in high school. How did you let yourself get so desperate for a boyfriend that you began hallucinating?" 

Roman flushed red. "He really is a vampire," he replied hotly. "And I'm going to prove it!" 

Remus snorted. "Good luck with that!" He shouted as Roman stomped up the stairs, his lack of classes scheduled for the day leaving him the only of the five roommates not required to wake up at the ungodly hour of 6am. 

Patton teetered uneasily. "He sounds upset," he commented. "Maybe we shouldn't have been so harsh." 

"Trust me," Logan began. "He'll be fine. He just needs some time to himself and then he'll be back to gallivanting around the house excitedly telling us everything that happened to him that day. 

Patton bit his lip. "Well, if you're sure…" 

---------- 

Roman sulked in his room until the last of his roommates left. He stared out his bedroom window for a few moments inspecting the house next door with great interest. And I'm gonna prove it! Soon, he was jumping up and scrambling to find the perfect outfit. Cute and casual, but not too casual. He didn't know this guys type yet so he couldn't factor that in yet but cute and casual would have to work. But just to be sure, Roman pulled on a silky red dress shirt with two of the top buttons undone just a bit. Maybe the red would attract the vampire because it shared the same color as his favorite snack, blood. After getting dressed, Roman carefully applied some light red to his lips and a nice eyeliner with a wing sharp enough to draw blood. His eyelids had a nice gradient of red fading into black. Vampires liked black too. At least he hoped. 

Soon, Roman was ready. He carefully walked down the stairs so as to not mess up his outfit before the hot vamp next door could see. He left the house and walked next door with some sugar cookies they had gotten from the store last week. It would be a(n excuse to go over and see the hot vampire) housewarming gift. He was practically buzzing with excitement by the time he reached the neighbor's front door. Taking a moment to compose himself, he briefly wondered if maybe the guy he thought was his neighbor really wasn't and was one of the movers he had seen moving things in a few days ago. He shook his head, no harm in trying. He raised his hand and knocked.

When the door opened, Roman was slightly disappointed to find no one standing there until he heard a quiet voice speaking from behind the door. "Yes?" 

"Um, Hello. I'm Roman Belmonte and I just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood with some homemade cookies." 

"Mm," a voice said uncertaintly from the shadows. Roman peeked in a little more, fighting against the lack of light in an attempt to see the person he was speaking with. What he was able to make out took his breath away. High cheekbones and pale skin stood out against the shadowy backdrop as dark hair hung over eyes that seemed to glitter in the darkness. Time to turn up the charm. 

"Oh who am I kidding," Roman exclaimed. "These aren't homemade cookies, they're store-bought." Roman chuckled. "I was just trying to impress you, I caught a glimpse of you when you moved in and well, what can I say, you're gorgeous." He flashed a bright, flirtatious smile. 

The person behind the door snorted. "

I don't know, I mean you're hot as hell but then I found out that you didn't even make me homemade cookies and I don't know if I'm willing to date a guy who won't even put in the effort to make homemade cookies. What, are your kisses gonna be store bought too?" the other snarked as they opened the door further motioning for Roman to step inside. 

Roman's jaw nearly dropped. Okay, not going as planned and he most certainly did not plan for the guy to look that fucking hot this early in the morning. Beautiful purple hair and stunning eyes, rich like honey stared back at him with a mischievous glint. Roman licked his lips. "A date? I don't remember mentioning anything about a date...but if you're offering." 

The other snorted. "Princey, Princey, Princey, so naive." Roman's knees felt weak. "You're gonna have to do more than flirt with me to get a date with me." 

"Is that a challenge?" Roman asked.

The other grinned. "Sure, pretty boy." 

Roman grinned. "Be prepared to go on a date with me." The other rolled his eyes. Roman handed over the cookies. "I know they're just store-bought but they're still good." Then he turned to leave. 

"Wait." Roman turned back to the other. "You don't even want to know my name? That's going into the cons."

Roman flushed at the teasing voice. "I-well-uh, what's your name?" 

"Virgil." A smirk. "Good luck on that challenge, Princey." 

Roman smirked right back and left to go and fall face first on his bed and squeal. 

----------------

Remus shared a glance with Logan, Janus, and Patton. They were on the road again. After wasting an hour over trying to get Roman to respond to them, they just gave up. They put him in the back and took off towards the home of Peter Vincent. Roman seldom blinked. As they drove, he continued staring off into space. Unbeknownst to his friends, he was reliving the memory of the day he had first met Virgil. It brought happy feelings, and the thought of losing that happiness killed him. But he also couldn't leave his family, he still cared for them.

The only way Roman could properly explain how he was feeling was to say that he was being split in half by two equally strong sides. On one hand, he could choose Virgil and hurt his family and himself. On the other, he could choose his family and hurt himself and Virgil. Where was the third option? He could prove Virgil wasn't bad. But how would that work? How could he do that when he was stuck in a van driving away from his boyfriend. He didn't know.

There was only one thing Roman was certain of: he had to prove Virgil wasn't a monster. 

🎃🕸👻💀🕷🎃🕸👻💀🕷🎃🕸👻💀🕷🎃🕸👻

Let me know what you think!

Everything taglist: @misery-killed-me @superwholocked-for-life @mirror2thespirit @aroundofapplesauce @lyditist @little-euro-girl @unicornofdarknessstuff @maryann-draws @odette-ssbu

FNBMIG Taglist: @lehuka123

[kaleidoscopeminds]

for the prompts! “All I do is drink coffee and say bad words.” with either malum or mashton? i'm not sure which one it fits better so you pick!

Maggie I’m sorry this took so long but I’m hoping that a bit of mashton fake dating will make up for it! This is supposed to be a prompt fic which rapidly turned into 2.5k written whilst I was at work and has almost nothing to do with the prompt, but I hope you enjoy, love you endlessly!

“I can’t believe I forgot,” Ashton groans, haphazardly pushing a hand through his hair and tapping furiously on his phone screen.

“You okay there Ash?” Michael puts Ashton’s coffee down in front of him before dropping into the seat opposite him.

“Shit. Shit. Fucking fuck. Fuck my life.” 

“Oh I’m Ashton Irwin and all I do is drink coffee and say bad words.” Michael puts on a pompous voice, laughing into his own coffee and watching Ashton stabbing his phone in frustration. 

“Oh my god no,” Ashton whines, dropping his phone onto the table and closing his eyes. 

“You want to share with the class?” Michael says amused, waiting for Ashton to finish his breakdown quietly.

“My boss is having a party which has been planned for ages and I promised I would go to, but I forgot it was tonight.” Ashton grimaces, taking a sip of his coffee.

“And you’re this upset because that means you can’t spend the evening with me eating pizza?” Michael says teasingly. “It’s not a big deal Ash.”

“No you don’t understand,” Ashton says, making a face. “I have to bring a plus one.”

“Why?” Michael asks. “Is it a requirement?”

“Because I told them I have a boyfriend,” Ashton mumbles into the rim of his mug.

Michael ignores the weird twist his stomach does at the thought of Ashton with a boyfriend and smiles wryly at Ashton.

“Wow who is the lucky man? He must be extremely extremely mysterious if I haven’t managed to catch a glimpse of him yet,” Michael says.

“Shut up, I only said that because my boss seemed dead set on setting me up with his daughter,” Ashton scowls. “Apparently ‘I’m gay’ isn’t a good enough reason to not want to date Lucy.”

Michael snorts, Ashton’s new boss seems like a decent enough guy but from what Ashton’s told him does sound unreasonably interested in Ashton’s personal life.

“So you’ve got, what, five hours to find a boyfriend?” Michael asks with a small laugh. “That’s going to be challenging even for you.”

“Shut up,” Ashton says, rolling his eyes and taking another drink from his mug. He pauses, then looks up at Michael with a contemplative look in his eye, and Michael knows him well enough to know he’s planning something. Michael feels his stomach drop and his heart rate increase when he realises just what Ashton’s planning, always able to read him like a book.

“No, absolutely not,” Michael says, shaking his head.

“But Michael,” Ashton says pleadingly. “You’d make the ideal fake-boyfriend.”

Michael knows this to be true, but mainly because he’s actually in love with his best friend, something he’s spent the last five years desperately trying to conceal. 

“Why can’t you just tell them you broke up with the aforementioned boyfriend?” Michael asks, wiping his sweaty hands on his jeans surreptitiously, trying to hide the panic in his voice.

“Because Lucy is going to be there and he’ll try to set us up again I know it,” Ashton looks at Michael with a beseeching look. “This is perfect, you already know everything about me, and I know you’re available later because you only had plans with me.”

Michael shakes his head again, this was such a bad idea. He was just about able to keep a cap on his feelings for Ashton whilst doing friendly things but spending a whole evening pretending to be his boyfriend? Holding hands? Touching? Michael’s honestly not sure he would survive it. But Ashton’s looking at him imploringly, and Michael is weak, so fucking weak when it comes to Ashton, and he feels himself nodding.

“Fine,” his voice cracks slightly and he clears his throat.

Ashton smiles at him, sunny and wide, like Michael has hung the moon, and Michael can’t help but grin back.

He is so fucked.

X

“So I reckon we won’t have to stay too long,” Ashton says, pulling his shoes on. “Just make the rounds a couple of times, schmooze the right people, then we can come back here and order pizza.”

Michael had come to Ashton’s apartment before the party as it was closer and so they could arrive together, and Michael wishes this was like any other day when they would spend the evening on the sofa, eating take-out and shouting at bad reality TV. Instead he’s dressed in a stupid suit, getting ready to go to an event he’d rather die than be at, and has to pretend to be Ashton’s boyfriend to boot. Michael wonders what he did in his past life for him to be tortured in this way.

“Okay so how did we get together,” Michael asks, fiddling with his collar as he looks at himself in the mirror. He frowns at himself, he never likes the way he looks in formal clothes, he just looks awkward and wrong in them, Ashton on the other hand looks ridiculously good in his black shirt and well fitting black suit trousers, hair slicked back from his face. But Ashton always looks ridiculously good, Michael thinks sourly.

“Why don’t we say we were friends and then we figured out we liked each other,” Ashton says, coming to stand behind Michael. “As close to the truth as possible, makes it easier to remember.”

Michael is honestly going to die, he’s sure of it. 

“Yeah, okay,” he manages to get out, shakily.

“Relax, Mikey,” Ashton says, reaching up to sort Michael’s collar out for him, brushing his fingers along the back of his neck and smoothing his hands over his shoulders. Michael represses a shiver under Ashton’s hands. “No one will suspect a thing, we make a great couple.”

And doesn’t Michael fucking know it, he thinks, looking at the two of them stood in the mirror.

“You look great,” Ashton says quietly, dropping his chin onto Michael’s shoulder for a second before sweeping his hand over Michael’s back and pulling away.

For about the fiftieth time that day Michael thinks what a bad idea this is. 

X

Okay so maybe it could be worse. Michael has to admit he kind of likes being at Ashton’s side, his hand slipping round Michael’s waist as he pulls them from group to group, Ashton murmuring in his ear who each person is as they approach, Ashton introducing Michael as his boyfriend and dropping a kiss on his cheek every now again. As long as Michael ignores the fact that knowing it's not real cracks a hole in his chest the size of Texas, it's actually sort of nice. Ashton keeps smiling at him encouragingly, and Michael thinks that occasionally he gets an especially fond look in his eyes, but that’s probably Michael's brain getting a little over-active.

“That’s Steve, my boss,” Ashton murmurs to Michael as they approach an older man and woman, standing with a younger woman who’s about Michael’s age, maybe a couple of years younger. “That’s Angela, the wife, and Lucy, the dreaded daughter.”

Michael pinches Ashton’s side. “Don’t be rude, she might be nice,” Michael reprimands quietly.

Ashton just rolls his eyes at Michael before putting his million dollar smile on as they walk up to the group. Michael is endlessly envious of the way Ashton can fit into any situation, effortlessly charming and genial, where Michael stutters and muddles his way through social situations.

“Ashton!” Steve, the boss, booms at the two of them. “There you are! And who’s this?”

“Hi Steve, great to see you,” Ashton says, a smile on his face. “This is my boyfriend, Michael. Michael, this is Steve, my wonderful boss.” 

“This is my wife Angela, and daughter Lucy,” Steve responds, gesturing fondly at his family. “So this is the famous boyfriend?” He looks at Michael with interest.

Michael smiles, a little uncomfortably, but Steve doesn’t seem to be showing any ill-feeling towards the two of them. He does notice however, Lucy, give Ashton a very deliberate look up and down. He moves slightly closer and moves a hand to rest on Ashton’s hip possessively, if he’s going to pretend to be the boyfriend, he’s going to fucking pretend to be the boyfriend.

“So how did the two of you meet?” Steve asks.

Ashton gives Michael a grin, slipping his fingers into the spaces between Michael’s on his hip before turning back to Steve and his family. “We met at college, we were roommates, and we were best friends almost immediately. I drove him mad by drumming on anything and everything without my kit and he wound me up by playing video games into the early hours of the morning, but even that couldn’t drive us apart.” Ashton laughs fondly at the memory before continuing. “After college we moved to LA at the same time and shared a shoebox apartment until we got grown up jobs and managed to afford to live separately, but I missed him as soon as he moved out. It was only recently we figured out we were meant to be together though.”

Michael’s heart is racing and he feels that crevice in his chest widen with every word Ashton speaks. Michael aches with the want of it, with the longing in him growing unmanageably large, fighting its way out of the chasm that's been split down the very centre of him. He needs Ashton to stop talking immediately but also he thinks he might die if he doesn’t hear every word of this, just once, real for just a second. 

“Oh how adorable,” Angela coos. “Michael lets hear your side, how did you know Ashton was the right one?”

Michael blinks and flexes his fingers in Ashton’s grip. He feels Ashton’s other hand come up underneath his jacket to rest on the small of his back, fingers stroking soothingly.

“I mean how could I not?” Michael starts quietly, then throws caution to the wind, the words tumbling out of him before he can stop them. “He’s the kindest, most passionate and strongest person I’ve ever met. Everything he does he does with so much purpose and love. He’s been endlessly supportive, the best friend I’ve ever had and the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” He takes a deep breath. “How could I not fall in love with Ashton Irwin? It was inevitable.”

There’s a tense pause as he feels Ashton turn his head to look at him, and Michael resolutely avoids his eyes, continuing to look at the smiling family in front of him. Michael vaguely hears Angela cooing some more at the two of them, but everything has faded to white noise as he feels Ashton’s eyes bore into the side of his face.

“Could you excuse us for a second?” Ashton says brusquely, not waiting for an answer, just grabbing Michael’s hand and dragging him out of the room and outside the back door. 

Michael takes a deep breath of fresh air as they stand next to a dumpster, nervously looking at Ashton who’s looking back at him intensely, raking his hands through his hair. 

“Ashton what‒” Michael starts.

“Did you mean it?” Ashton interrupts him, looking at him fiercely with something imperceptible in his eyes.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Michael says, heart racing and hands shaking.

“Michael please,” Ashton begs. “Did you actually mean it?” and Michael hears his voice trembling slightly. It’s that which does it for Michael, as if he’s ever been able to deny Ashton anything.

“Of course I meant it,” Michael says quietly. 

The next thing he knows, he’s pressed up against the wall and Ashton’s lips are on his. Michael inhales his own gasp, brings his arms up to wrap around Ashton’s neck, and kisses back with everything he’s got.

After a few seconds Ashton breaks away to rest his forehead on Michael’s. “Why didn’t you say anything?” He says breathlessly.

“Because we’re best friends. Because you don’t like me like that. Because it could ruin everything,” Michael whispers, closing his eyes so he doesn’t have to look at Ashton. “You don’t have to pretend for me, Ashton. Please don’t.”

“Michael, Michael,” Ashton breathes, and Michael feels his hand cradle the back of his head. “I love you.” Ashton laughs, like he’s startled himself by the fact.

Michael opens his eyes and is met with a burning look in Ashton’s that he’s never seen before. Ashton leans in to kiss him again but Michael pulls back.

“No, Ashton I can’t, you don’t actually mean that” Michael says shakily. “This means more to me than it does to you and I can’t, I can’t do it.”

Ashton moves with Michael and stays with his cheek pressed against Michael’s, breathing heavily in his ear. “You don’t know that Mikey. This means everything.”

“But I do, you can’t just decide now that you love me,” Michael says desperately. His brain is going a hundred miles an hour, everything he’s ever wanted has been laid out in front of him and he desperately wants to grasp it but it seems so unrealistic, that Ashton could love him back.

“I haven’t just decided now, I think I was all along I just didn’t know.” Ashton leans back and looks at him earnestly, eyes glittering. “But God, this whole evening having you here, pretending to be my boyfriend I realised how much I wanted it to be real, how much I wanted to have you there under my arm every damn day.” He pauses to brush his hand through Michael’s hair. “How long have you loved me for Michael? When did you know?”

“From that day in the library,” Michael says, looking down, not able to look at Ashton when he looks at him like that. “I text you complaining I was cold, and you turned up with my sweater and my favourite coffee.”

He hears Ashton inhale sharply. “That was the first month of freshman year, Michael. That was five years ago.”

“I know,” Michael whispers, still looking down.

He feels Ashton’s hand come up and pull his chin up to look at him, and then he’s pressing kisses to Michael’s face, his forehead, his cheeks, his nose. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I’m slow and stupid,” he murmurs, interspersed with kisses. “Will you let me love you now? Even though I’m dumb and oblivious and undeserving?” 

Michael is frozen, unable to process everything that’s happening, only able to blink at Ashton, hands still gripping his shoulders loosely. 

“You actually want to be with me?” He says slowly. “You… love me?”

Ashton laughs. “Yes I love you, I might have only realised ten minutes ago but I love you and I want to be with you, I promise. Be with me Michael, be my real boyfriend.”

“Okay,” Michael says simply, lips spreading slowly into a smile.

“Okay?” Ashton says, hazel eyes sparkling at Michael more than ever. 

Michael nods, smiling even wider. 

“Can I kiss you now please?” Ashton asks.

Michael nods and Ashton immediately presses their lips back together. Michael sighs into it, hands gripping Ashton’s shoulders and pulling him closer, and vaguely wonders whether he’ll ever be able to refuse anything Ashton asks him.

[gleekto]

Full Fic: Even Better Than the Real Thing

Words: 18,295 (how did that happen?)

Full fic now on AO3

Summary: College AU/Famous!Blaine and Fanboy!Kurt - Kurt POV

Kurt really doesn’t have time to figure out the dating world between being a freshman at prestigious theatre school, LAADA,  and his active but secret blogging life in the Sing!Fandom. So what if Sing! ended last year? There are still fics to read and actors to follow. Especially the uber talented heartthrob lead, Blaine Anderson. He can act. He can sing. He can even dance. He’s gay. He’s out. And he’s only 24. Kurt is willing to twiddle his thumbs and click refresh until Blaine Anderson’s next project.

He just didn’t expect the next project to be on his roommate Rachel’s new TV show.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12

Even Better than the Real Thing (13/13)

They decide to tell Rachel first. Aside from being the obvious choice, she would be a nightmare if she ever found out she was second shrift to anyone in Kurt’s life. He would definitely not be able to handle her moping around the apartment wondering if he even really considered her a friend in the first place - last week he finishes her oat milk, this week, he’s dating her co-star and she’s the last to know. Of course, in this scenario he never had any of her oat milk, and she wouldn’t be the last to know, but regardless, not telling her first certainly wouldn’t be worth the headache.

“So you think we should just let her walk in on us?” They’re still lying half naked in Kurt’s bed hours after their “reunion”, Blaine lying on his front, Kurt on his back, with Blaine’s butt as his pillow. “I mean she should be home in what - 20 minutes?”

“Oh shit,” Kurt looks at his watch. “More like 10. And I think my breakfast dishes are still sitting on the table.”

They scramble to put on clothes, quickly make Kurt’s bed, and Kurt amusedly watches Blaine try to figure out how to arrange his throw pillows, while he finishes cleaning up his dishes. By the time Rachel waltzes in the front door, they’re sitting across from each other at the kitchen island, each with a cup of hot lemon tea, and trying to look casual.

“Hi Kurt. I have had the busiest day. Let me tell you I’m completely exhausted-” Rachel finally looks up and sees them. “Blaine?” Kurt can feel Rachel trying to come up with a way to phrase her obvious question.

“Hey Rachel,” Blaine smirks, amused, but doesn’t offer any explanation. Kurt kicks him under the table. “Ow.”

“So you’re um-” Rachel purses her lips. “Both feeling better now, I take it?”

“Much better,” Blaine smirks again. 

“Okay yes,” Kurt huffs. “We are feeling better and we are,” Kurt motions between Blaine and himself. “Yes.”

“Yes?” Rachel claps her hands excitedly. “This is so great - can you imagine the PR headlines for the show?” Kurt glares at her and she stops. At least for the moment. “I mean, I’m very happy for you. So anyways. You have my blessing.” Kurt laughs out loud.

“Thank you?” Blaine looks at her suspiciously.

“Well, Kurt is my best friend and I do have inside knowledge that you are a good kisser.” Now Blaine laughs out loud. “So may you be blessed with all that goodness.”

“Oh I will be,” Kurt says and Rachel at least looks slightly embarrassed. So he’ll take it as a win.

...

The fun part is telling Mercedes - it’s always so satisfying to have her approval. They FaceTime her.

“You look better,” She notices right away.

“I am,” Kurt beams, Blaine standing behind the computer out of her view. “We talked and-”

“And?” Her eyes go wide.

“And, yeah,” Kurt shakes his head still in a bit of disbelief. We’re seeing what happens.” She squeals in the best way. “And actually,” Kurt smiles even wider, “There’s someone I’d like to introduce you to.” Kurt’s favourite part is watching Mercedes’ jaw drop as Blaine saunters into the frame.

“Hey Mercedes,” He smiles his warm smile. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“And you, Mr. Blaine Anderson.” Mercedes smiles reflexively shaking her head back and forth. “I am just - wow. Hello.” Kurt remembers being starstruck. It feels like a long time ago.

“No need to be so formal,” Blaine dismisses. “Kurt just calls me Mr. Anderson.”

“You wish,” Kurt elbows him in the side.

“And he even has a sense of humour,” Mercedes is still smiling dumbly.

“Well, maybe next time we’re alone,” Blaine whispers so only Kurt can hear and he gets elbowed even harder, Kurt trying to remain casual.

“So we do need to ask you not to mention this - or any of our future hang outs - on your blog,” Kurt adds, half in jest all in earnest. 

Mercedes nods but Blaine chimes in, “Though if you did say that you had a friend who met me, and that I do have a much better sense of style than Colin Red, I would appreciate it.”

“You did get yourself a comedian, Kurt.”

“My style is better,” Blaine huffs.

“And you can mention that ‘your friend’ said the guy Blaine was with was at least a 9/10,” Kurt says.

“You mean a 10?”

“Aren’t you sweet,” Mercedes nods at Kurt, impressed.

“You think I would date a 9? Please. It will all be confirmed when I talk to my publicist, anyways,” Blaine says nonchalantly.

“Your publicist?” Mercedes and Kurt repeat at the same time. Mercedes in shock, Kurt curious.

“Just give me five minutes.”

...

Who is the pretty face having coffee with Sing!’s favorite heartthrob? You asked  and JustJay has the answers. His name is Kurt Hummel and we have got the SCOOP! 

Kurt laughs as he clicks on the link the next morning. Blaine had spoken to his publicist for a total of five minutes and said a sum total of seven words. Kurt Hummel...Dating...19...LAADA...Rachel’s roommate.

Sorry to any of the hopeful fans out there. Blaine Anderson of Sing! and That’s So Rachel fame, officially confirmed that he is off the market. At least for now. He is dating Kurt Hummel - and he’s his co-star’s roommate. Awkward!

But good luck to the happy new couple!

And that’s it. Kurt Hummel is dating Blaine Anderson. And some of the more ‘high end’ entertainment bloggers note that Blaine requests privacy about his personal life at this time. At least that way they can decline couple selfies when a fan sees them out to eat.

...

Kurt isn’t able to see Blaine again until the weekend, thanks to a lengthy  location shoot. He has the week to catch up on his school work, only being mildly distracted by Blaine’s flirty texts - He laughs out loud to his empty apartment when a pic of Blaine shirtless in his trailer, with the top of his boxers showing above his jeans, pops up. 

Blaine: Finally gets to see me shirtless whenever he wants.

What an ego. 

Kurt: Definitely not as often as I want.

Kurt is pretty sure that’s what makes Blaine come right back to Kurt’s apartment with Rachel that Friday, rather than at least dropping his bag off at home first. “First weeks of dating are always the hardest,” Blaine says as he shuts Kurt’s bedroom door and pulls Kurt on top of him and kisses him long and slow. 

Kurt pulls back. “The hardest?”

“Mmmm,” Blaine mouths along his neck. “Very hard not to want to be naked all the time.” Kurt can’t really argue with that. Despite his sense of romance, he definitely does not want to go out right now.  

It doesn’t take them very long to shed their clothes and crawl into Kurt’s bed to wrap around each other. Then it slows down as if in slow motion. The last time they were together was desperate - Kurt was surprised and nervous and unsure of what was happening. Now he’s calm (in a horny sort of way) and he lets Blaine wrap around him as Blaine explores his body - the sensitive spot two inches under his armpit, the strip below his belly, even his balls which Blaine cups in his hands. He moans in appreciation and Blaine likes it. He likes it too.

He lets Blaine finger him open that night while Blaine gives him a blowjob and it doesn’t even feel like a thing. Kurt is on his back and Blaine is sinking up and down on him, wet and slow, slurping in a sort of grotesque satisfaction. Kurt lifts his knees up to see what might happen andBlaine pops off momentarily and stares at Kurt’s open legs, then stares at his eyes as he grabs the lube. When Kurt nods, Blaine sinks back down and touches him so effortlessly that Kurt forgets to be nervous. Light presses turn to one finger, then two. In and out.  So many sensations and then he’s coming in Blaine’s mouth.

There is just something very easy about being with Blaine Anderson.

...

Rachel is the one who convinces them to do the interview. 

They’ve been dating uneventfully for half a year when That’s So Rachel gets renewed for a second season. Other than the occasional photo request or silly headline - Blaine Anderson buys some strawberries while out for a walk with his beau - Kurt feels like he’s having a pretty regular first relationship. They spend several nights a week together, but not every night, they see plays, bake cookies, hang out, have spectacular sex thanks to Blaine’s well honed skills (It’s not my skills, it’s you, Blaine says over and over but Kurt still thinks he’s indulging him). Tumblr seems like a distant memory though Mercedes tells him there is an active RPF fandom writing fics about them  - Klaine, she says. What on earth is a klaine? And he’s still acing all his classes.

Then one day the request comes from good old JustJay, and Rachel is all in.

“It will be such great publicity for our new season,” Rachel insists. “The true love behind the show. Come on, you know it will be fun.”

Kurt definitely does not know that. Neither does Blaine. But they give in mostly because Rachel is pure enthusiasm and what really is the harm? So they find themselves sitting on a little couch in JustJay’s small rented studio, arms crossed on their laps like the little old couples in When Harry Met Sally.

“It’s true. He was a fan,” Blaine confirms. “Of my first TV show, Sing!”

“That’s his false modesty talking. I was a fan of Sing! But mostly, I was a fan of Blaine Anderson - young, out, gay. Not bad looking,” Kurt teases. “But I was Rachel’s friend and roommate long before I knew anything about them working together.”

“It was serendipity,” Blaine squeezes his hand and the camera pans in. Kurt can just imagine the fics that will come out of this.

“It was random luck.”

Blaine continues, “We have a lot in common - growing up gay in Ohio, love of musical theatre. We even both sang in show choirs. I’d never date a fan, though.”

“But,” Kurt continues his sentence. “When we met through Rachel, I was too embarrassed to admit I knew who he was. I was just trying to get through a five minute awkward conversation with my celebrity crush without making  a fool of myself.”

“But I wouldn’t let him go.”

“He wouldn’t let me go.”

And the rest is history.

[petri808]

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 22 | 23 | 24

thank you so much for your patience with this late chapter! I had some frustrating family drama pop up so I wasn't able to finish it until today. Enjoy!

“Lucy, Lucy, Lucy!” Levy plops onto the couch next to her friend. She grabs the blondes arm and shakes it. “Omg you won’t believe what happened today at school!”

“What? What? The teacher you hate croaked?”

“Pfft, I wish. No! I met Natsu’s roommate! Well, technically I’ve known the guy for like a year from school, we were lab partners, remember Gray, I think I mentioned him, anyways, yeah, he totally gave me all the details I wanted to know!”

But at the name Natsu, Lucy frowns and sits back. “Lev, you know I just wanna move on from this...”

“Just hear me out, I promise it’ll be worth it.” She leans in, “trust me.”

Lucy rolls her eyes. “Okay, fine. Spill. What did Gray have to say?”

“So... starting with that Touka chick. Everything Natsu said was true. You’re not the first girl she’s harassed over him, in fact he offered to contact the other girl if you’d like to ask the person yourself.”

“That’s not necessary, I believe it.”

“He also confirmed that the profiles you saw on Ig are fake and how she’s been stalking him for a couple years now.”

“So Gray’s just his roommate?”

“No, he said they’ve been friends since middle school, so he knows Natsu well.”

“Anything else?”

“The stuff he told you about his family are true. Um, he works at a place called Yousei Mart, and that he’s an idiot but a good guy that is just really naive sometimes. The more he talked, the more I remembered him mentioning his roommate before. Like venting about stuff. Anyway, he said Natsu’s been completely distressed over all this and he thinks you should give his friend a second chance. I think so too, Lu, cause I believed him that Natsu’s a great guy and this whole Touka business is just unfortunate.”

The blonde pulls her legs up onto the couch, wraps her arms around them and rests her chin on her knees, thinking about everything she’d learned. Did she really want to deal with the baggage? What if Touka continues to harass her or them? It would be unfortunate to lose a guy like Natsu, because he really did seem like one of the good guys. She pulls up the memories of him on the train when he’d cornered her... ‘he was really devastated...’ and to do what he’d done, the amount of time he spent chasing and waiting for her, he must really like her to go that far.

“Well, Lu? What do you think?”

She’d definitely be using a higher standard to judge him, so he’ll need to be very convincing to gain her trust a second time, but, “I guess it couldn’t hurt to give him another chance.”

“Then there’s just one last thing for you to do.”

“Ugh,” she groans, “call him.” Lucy picks up her phone and dials Natsu’s number, but he doesn’t pick up. So, she hangs up without leaving a message. She made the first call, now it was his turn to respond if he wanted a second chance.

Approximately thirty minutes later an out-of-breath Natsu is on the phone. “Sorry Lucy! I was in class and the teacher is a real dick about cellphones.” He’d literally run out the room the second the lecture was over to call her back.

“It’s fine, I thought that might be the case.”

“Did you wanna talk to me about something?”

“Yeah, first have you spoken to your roommate at all today?”

“Um... no, why is something wrong with him?”

“Well, in that case...” she pauses and takes a deep breath. “So, turns out your roommate and my roommate have a class together, actually have had several, so they know each other and today they talked about us.”

“Really...” guess he’ll be calling Gray after this phone call!

“Look, bottom line is I believe my friend and since she believes your roommate about you and that girl... I’ll give you another chance. But remember! It’s not because I trust you yet it’s because I trust them.”

“I’ll take it! I understand totally and I promise I’ll do anything to prove to you that you can trust me.”

“I mean, I’m not sure how, but...”

“Um...” Natsu thinks fast, “are you busy right now?”

“Now? Um, not really...”

“I gotta run or I’ll be late for work, but can you meet me at Yousei Mart near Haramachi park as soon as you can?”

“Why?”

“Please?? I’ll buy you dinner too for coming.”

‘Ugh...’ “Okay, I’ll get ready and head over.”

“Thank you!! I’m just really happy you’re giving me a chance Lucy. Okay, I’ll see you soon!”

Lucy hangs up the phone and lets her roommate know she was heading out to see Natsu. The location he’d asked her to go to was several blocks away and takes her 20 minutes to get there. So, as she walked, she did her best to keep her cool. Half of her was thrilled to try again while the other half still apprehensive. Natsu had sounded so excited too, she could almost picture the man doing a victory dance the moment they’d ended the phone call. But where was this place that he wanted her to go to? She knew it was like a convenience store, maybe that’s where he works? Must be if he’d said he needed to get to work and still wanted to see her.

“Irasshaimase!” Lucy hears as she enters the store. A bit odd for a convenience store, but welcoming, nonetheless. She’s greeted by an employee, a red headed woman.

“May I help you find anything?”

“Actually, I’m here to see Natsu. He asked me to come.”

“Oh! You must be Lucy! Please, follow me,” the woman gestures, “he’s in the back working on inventory. My name is Erza by the way and we’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Really?” Hopefully nothing bad...

“Oh, yes. The pretty blonde he met on a train. The guy can’t shut up about you,” Erza laughs. “It was just weird, well new because we’ve never seen him so excited over a girl before.”

Lucy blushes from the compliment. “How long have you worked with Natsu?”

“Hmm, four years, I think. He started when he was still in high school, but I’ve been here a little longer.” They reach the back area and find Natsu hunched over some boxes tagging items. “Here he is, Natsu, your friend Lucy is here.”

“It’s okay for me to be back here?”

“I don’t see why not,” the woman shrugs. “We’re a pretty tight-knit crew here, like a family, so it’s also pretty lax how things are run.”

“Oh. Okay, thank you Erza.”

“You’re welcome. Stay as long as you like.”

Once the woman goes back to the front, Lucy turns to Natsu who was waiting patiently. “Well, I’m here. What did you want me to see?”

“That was part of it,” he smiles. “You said you didn’t know if you could trust me, so what could be better than introducing you to people who know me best. And people like Erza, she’s got no problem telling it like she sees it. If I was an asshole, she would have been the first to tell you to run away.”

“Yeah, she mentioned you’ve been co-workers for a few years. She seems nice, but I can see what you mean cause she looks tough too.”

Natsu laughs, “that’s an understatement. Oh! Come with me,” he grabs her hand and pulls her along, “gramps is still in the office, so you should meet him!”

“Gramps?”

“He’s the owner. Real name’s Makarov but he tells us to call him Gramps. He really is like a grandfather figure to us. Gave me a job at 17 and I’ve loved every minutes being here!”

She follows along, allowing him to hold her hand. Lucy couldn’t lie that his larger hand was nice and warm, and it felt snug and secure together. ‘Stick to your guns woman!’ She chides herself in an effort to fight the emotions bubbling to the surface. What was it about this man’s damn smile that made her heart thump!

Natsu knocks on the doorframe before going in. “Gramps! There someone I want you to meet.”

The older make looks up from his paperwork. “What is it brat, I’m busy here.”

“Be nice old man, this is that girl Lucy I told you about.”

“Oh... the elusive Lucy you’ve sold your soul for.” He snickers. “Welcome, my dear, it’s nice to finally meet the woman who wrangle our Natsu.”

“W-Wrangle?” She sputters. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about. We barely had one date.”

“I’ve known this kid for a few years and he’s never so much as looked at a woman. I thought he was gay for the longest time till you came along.” He grins. “And by the looks of you, he lucked into a good one.”

The blush on Lucy’s face increases. “I don’t know about that. I mean I’m nothing special.”

“Lucy,” Makarov leans into his desk, “may I call you Lucy?” Once she nods, he continues. “Never sell yourself short if someone gives you a compliment. Take it from this old geezer, when a man is willing to give you his heart, that means you’re pretty special in their eyes.”

She had nothing else to say against such logic. “Thank you, gramps.”

“You’re very welcome,” he smiles. “Now get out, I have work to do.”

For a few more hours, Lucy hangs out with Natsu in the back while he works, and as promised, he buys her a bento dinner from the restaurant next door. Throughout the evening, his co-worker Erza and one more named Mira drops by to check on them or add to the conversation. She learned a lot about him from them because they were not shy about embarrassing the man. It was hilarious!

But best of all, Mira is the sister of the girl who was harassed by Touka. According to the woman, Touka had started off with the same tactics when she’d thought Natsu was seeing her sister Lisanna. Showing up, trying to talk to her, coming off all sweet and innocent. But Lisanna had a boyfriend who eventually scared the girl off. With Mira’s help, Lucy could finally be confident that Natsu had been telling the truth all along.

When the store closes, Natsu insists on walking Lucy home due to the late hour. He pays for them to take the train to make it a faster and safer trip. So, once settled in their seats, she sighs and turns to him. “I believe you now,” her voice is kept soft and low from the other travelers. “You were telling me the truth.”

It was like a wave of relief washes over him, but in that moment, it wasn’t time for an I told you so, so he just grins. “Movie date next?”

[thewildsophia]

.Tech Junkie. Little Witch Academia//Constanze x Reader

Constanze Amalie von Braunschbank-Albrechtsberger x Female!Reader

A/N: Please, just let me be a lesbian for the little tech junkie. Please. Just this once (maybe twics-). I told you guys I was a simp for her and here we are.

Word Count: 3051

You had first met Constanze through Akko. She had suggested the two of you “become friends” since you were both interested, and well versed, in engineering. You had tried to seem nonchalant about it, but in reality you were super excited to meet her. 

She had actually first caught your eye during the Academy’s broom race about two months ago. The addition of a separate engine and propellers to her broom along with handles was honestly such a cool concept that you wish you had thought of. Seriously, she had made an entirely different power source for her broom. Ever since you saw her broom in action you’ve been trying to find ways to talk to her. The only problem is that you didn’t actually know her all that well; for that matter, you didn’t really know anyone all that well since you had started your time at Lunanova this year. 

Despite being loud, excitable and somewhat annoying at times, Akko was kind enough for you to get along with, see as she’s also new and all. The two of you had only been casually friends until she had gotten to know Constanze. You remember the day after the two of them spend time together, how she wouldn’t stop talking about her; not that you minded the subject matter, but rather how loud she was being. 

Akko had talked your ear off about her and you couldn’t help but feel a little bit of jealousy rise up in you as you listened to her. You were pulled from such thoughts, however, when she mentioned introducing you to her. She went on about how you two would ‘hit it off’ for your love of engineering and technology and that you two would make great friends. 

You perked up at this idea and, as calm as you could, agreed to it. About three days after your conversation with Akko, she had introduced you to Constanze. 

You were never that good with first impressions and holy crap this girl made your knees weak. She was short -- shorter than you -- and small, yet she still gave off the vibe that she could beat your ass. 

You remember introducing yourself and shaking her hand and, wow, she had a pretty firm grip. She was somewhat standoffish the first time the two of you met but you understood that; afterall, you were very much the same way when you first arrived at Lunanova and before you met Akko (because even if you didn’t want to admit it she had actually helped you become more extroverted than you were before). 

Akko had pretty much led that conversion for the majority of your time together, but it was towards the end of your get together that you noticed Constanze was having trouble with something. 

Glancing over at her work, you saw that amongst all the metal components and welding tools, she had a small breadboard in her hands, trying to wire -- what you assumed was -- a combination circuit, although there were definitely flaws in what she was doing. She had the resistors in the right places and the wires that connected to ground and power supply were good, but the wiring for the actual circuit was all wrong. You assumed she had tried to wire the breadboard like a parallel circuit while adding in components of a series -- which was understandable, a combination circuit was just a combination of series and parallel circuits -- but that just isn’t how wiring works. 

“Stop,” You had said after a moment of watching her fiddle with the breadboard which shocked you and her. She looked up at you, almost glaring before you continued, “You don’t need that many wires. Remove the ones here, here, and here, then move the two red ones to sideways and connect them in the plugs above the resistors up here and connect the black ones to the ones below the valley and to ground.” You explained the best you could, although she stopped doing what you told her to do after removing the extra wires and moving only one of the red wires over. 

She looked up at you, scrunched her nose then shoved the breadboard into your hands, turning back to welding a few loose bits of metal together. Taking that as your cue, you began rewiring the breadboard into how it’s supposed to look. You heard Akko talking in the background, somewhat shocked at the sight before her, but you didn’t pay her any mind, instead focusing on the task that was literally in your hands. 

“What are the tolerances?” You asked. She handed you a schematic that listed the total voltage, resistance, and current. You took the paper, looking over the schematic.

“12 volts, 5 amps, and 908 ohms…” You whispered to yourself as you quickly finished the circuit, “Where’s it’s power supply?” You asked and she pointed over to a desk that had a small power supply, one that probably didn’t go over 30V. 

You connected the power supply -- making sure to turn the voltage and current to the right number -- to the circuit and grabbed a multimeter that was nearby and began measuring the resistance. The resistance was off by a few hundred, so you turned everything off and examined the resistors. 

“You got a box of spare resistors?” You asked, looking over to Constanze, noticing that she was pointing to a small brown box only a foot away from you on the desk. You smiled sheepishly, saying, “Oh. Thank you.” 

You swapped out the resistor with the wrong bands with the correct one, turned everything back on and boom, 908Ω exact. 

“Circuit’s done.” You said handing the disconnected circuit to her. She quickly took it and hooked it up to the project she had been working on and, unlike before, things actually started to light up and functions were being completed. 

You smiled at her work, amazed that she could do all of that in such a short amount of time. While you were admiring her work, you had almost missed the small smile that she sent your way. You felt your face flush red and you quickly turned away clearing your throat. 

“No, bad thoughts,” You think to yourself, “She’s probably not some gay ass engineer like you are. Stop being a lesbian for someone you just met for God’s sake!” 

“It’s getting late,” Akko said, pulling you out of your thoughts, “We should all be heading back to our dorms now.” 

Constanze nodded, removing her safety gear and putting it away. 

“Come on, Y/N, let’s go.” Akko said, grabbing your arms and dragging you out of Constnaze’s workshop. Despite not wanting to leave just yet, you had classes in the morning, so you let Akko drag you along. You turned back one last time to see Constnaze waving to you two, and before you turned back around, she sent you a wink, which made you breath hitch and face heat up. 

“No, there’s no way,” You thought as Akko’s voice played almost as background noise to you, “She can’t be…can she? I thought I was the only lesbian here, and I’ve done a pretty good job of keeping that secret from others.” 

Akko had already dragged you to your room and left you there. Your hand hovered over the handle as you continued to think. 

“The only way she’d be able to tell is if she’s also…” You gasped at the idea, hands clenching at your sides. Your face flushed and you opened the door to your shared dorm, careful not to wake the others up. 

You quietly got changed into your nightclothes and went to bed, doing your best to fall asleep. You would come to find, however, that the only thing to come that night were more thoughts and questions about Constanze. 

~~~~~~~~~~

It had been about a month since your first meeting with Constanze and the two of you had become surprisingly close to each other. You’d help her out in her workshop whenever she asked for you, mostly wiring circuits for her.

She had actually introduced you to her roommates Amanda and Jasminka when she had you come over and help her. The two of them had immediately picked up on your feelings towards Constanze and, one day, decided to talk to you about it. 

“So, Y/N,” Amanda started, and you looked away from the breadboard in your hands to where she was perched on her top bunk bed. Constanze had left the dorm room to, you assumed, her workshop to grab a few parts she forgot in the first run over there. “You’ve got a thing for Constanze, I see.” 

You inhaled sharply, quickly turning back to your work and continuing to wire. 

“Oh God, oh fuck. Were you really that obvious? Did anyone else know? Did Constanze know?” 

“Shut up.” You said harshly and you felt a little bad at how aggressive it sounded but at the same time it really wasn’t any of her business. From your peripheral, you saw Amanda raise her arms in defense before continuing. 

“Hey, I’m not judging!” She said quickly, putting her hands down again. “Just thought you’d like to know that she’s also interested.” 

“What?” Oops, you had said that out loud. 

“Yeah, you’ve been on her mind for, like, at least the last month,” Amanda said, peaking your interest. “Everytime she comes back from the workshop after working with you, she has this stupid little smile on her red face and whenever I’d ask about it she’s quickly scrunch up her face and glare at me, motioning that it was ‘nothing’ but, let’s be real, we all know what it was.”

You hand pinched the wire in between your fingers tighter, still somewhat convinced that she was trying to punk you. You doubt, however, subsided when Jasminka spoke up. 

“Quiet isn’t always subtle, and you two definitely aren’t subtle,” She said, offering you a chip. “Despite being some of the smartest students at Lunanova, you two are pretty dumb not to have realized the other’s feelings by now.” You stuck your tongue out towards her at that jab, before biting your lower lip in thought. 

“There’s…got to be another reason. How would I know if she even likes women, let alone me?” You thought as the room grew silent. “I guess they would know her best, so maybe they’re right.” 

“How…do you know this for sure?” You asked hesitantly, slowly looking up towards Amanda. She scoffed before saying, 

“Are you kidding? Her feelings for you are written all over her face whenever she comes back from seeing you.” She swung her legs over the bed and jumped down, grabbing you by your shoulders and spinning you around towards her. “If she doesn't like you in a romantic way, I’ll…burn my own broom!” She shouted, motioning to her broom that was resting in the corner. 

You stared at her a moment, still unsure if Constanze actually liked you in a romantic way. You looked away and sighed, slumping back in the chair. 

“I just…don’t get how she could ever like me in that way.” You said, removing Amanda’s hands from your shoulders. She looked at you questionly. 

“What do you mean?” She asked. 

“What I mean,” You started, picking the discarded breadboard up, “Is that it’s difficult to first see Constanze as a girl who likes another girl and secondly that that other girl is me. Me of all people!” You exclaim, hooking the small power supply to the circuit. 

“Why is that?” Jasminka asked, cocking her head to the side. 

“Why? Because I’m, like, nothing compared to her,” You say, throwing your hands in the air for emphasis, “Constanze, she, she’s just so…amazing. It’s like she manages to be cute yet deadly at the same time. She's beautiful in a rugged way and that’s something I find so likable about her; she’s different but not bad. And that’s not even considering the kind of things she can create. I mean have you seen some of her works? They’re magnificent! She’s just…perfect. And I’m just…me.” 

The room was silent and when you looked up from your work towards Amanda and Jasminka you saw that the two of them were looking at the door. You turned in your chair to look at the door and there stood none other than Constanze herself. 

She stood in the doorway, wide-eyed and bright faced, holding a box of electrical components. You sat there, staring back wide-eyed at the fact that you didn’t hear the door open and that she, of all people, was the one to walk in on this conversation. It felt as if time stopped as no one dared to speak. You opened your mouth a few times, trying and failing to say something. 

She slowly set the box down on the ground before walking up to you. You had pressed yourself as far back against the chair as you could as she approached you. She was only a foot away from you when she grabbed your hand and gently squeezed it. Your breath hitched in your throat and your face burned at the simple motion. She brought your hand up a bit and covered it with her other one. 

Quietly, she sighed.

“I,” Constanze started, and you had almost missed it, “I like you. A lot.” She whispered, turning to look away from you. Her voice was beautiful to you. Soft and delicate, yet it still held the same reserved tone that her personality had. You looked at her face, noting the noticeable blush there, but you remained silent. 

Did you hear that right? Did she just say that she likes you? You? 

You grabbed her hands that were holding your’s with your free hand and she looked over at you. 

“I-I like you too,” You quickly said, “A lot.” You added. You gently tugged at her hands, bringing her closer to you and she let you. She was mere inches away from you when she surged forward, pressing her lips to your own. 

Her’s were warm and soft, yet slightly chapped most likely due to her chewing them while she tinkered. She let go of your hands before the two of you intertwined them together, never breaking from the kiss. She pushed back against you a little harder and you did the same, relishing the small sound that was torn from her throat and echoed in your head. The two of you only pulled away what you heard Amanda scoff.

“Ugh, get a room you two.” Amanda said, and Constanze glared over at her. She let go of your hands, taking off one of her gloves and throwing it at Amanda. Amanda held her hands up in defense as it was thrown and she laughed. You also laughed at the scene before you and smiled before looking at Constanze. 

“You’re beautiful.” You sighed and she looked over at you, red face and all. She mumbled something under her breath as she walked back towards the doorway. You were scared that she was going to leave before you saw her grab the box next to the door. She walked back to where you were, dropped the box on the desk and, instead of pulling up a chair, sat in your lap. Your lap. 

You quietly gasped in surprise at this and Constanze stopped moving for a moment, making sure that you were okay. After a moment of you not protesting, she reached in the box and pulled out a circuit board and grabbed the soldering iron. Before she got to work, however, she handed you the breadboard that you completely forgot about saying, 

“Finish.” You took it from her and did as you were told, adding the necessary components to it. 

You spent the next two hours like that until it became dark and you were required to return to your dorm. Jasminka and Amanda had already retired to their beds when Constanze had walked you down to your dorm rooms. 

When you arrived, Constanze tugged at your sleeve, motioning for you to come closer. You complied and she pressed a kiss to your cheek, and you smiled, giggling a little bit at the display. When she pulled back you returned the favor, cupping her face and pressing a kiss to her forehead. You smiled at the laugh that left her lips. You pulled away, standing up and straightening yourself. 

“Goodnight, Constanze.” You said placing your hand on the door. 

“Y/N,” Constanze said, grabbing your attention. 

“You are not nothing,” She continued, taking your left hand in her own, “You are not less than me. You are more. You are beautiful. You are perfect.” She finished, kissing the top of your hand. You stood there surprised with wet eyes. In all of your 16 years, no one’s ever said such things about you.

“Goodnight, lovely.” Constanze said, dropping your hand. You dropped to your knees embracing her. It started with a quiet sniffle, then broke into a sob as you began to cry into her chest. She stood there stiff for a moment before returning the hug, resting her cheek against the top of your head and running her fingers through your H/C hair. 

You remained like that for a good few minutes before you composed yourself and stood back up, rubbing at your red eyes with the palm of your hand. 

“Okay?” Constanze asked, and you shook your head. 

“Thank you,” You whispered, “No one’s ever said something so nice about me before.” She smiled gently while rubbing your arm. 

“Go sleep.” She told you, and you listened to her. You opened the door to your dorm and watched as she turned around to leave. 

“See you tomorrow.” You said, and she waved back at you. You walked into your room as quiet as you could closing the door. Once in, your legs practically gave out and you slumped against it. You hugged yourself as you thought about the events of the day. 

Her reciprocating your feelings. Her small self sitting in your lap with your arms around her waist. The comfortable silence between the two of you as you worked.

Dear God you had fallen hard for her. 

But you didn’t mind that.

A/N: I’m not too much of a fan on how this turned out but none the less I like this fic. I’m also a female in engineering and I think it shows with how detailed I get in some parts.

[adoredontour]

all the fics i read and loved this month, from longest to shortest!

loving you’s a bloodsport by tolvsmol @rosesau 106k

harry is a bratty prince, louis is a guard who works in his palace, and niall is the only who's got his life in control.

as someone once said: this is not a love story, but love is in it. that is, love is just outside it, looking for a way to break in.

Say Your Prayers by nothing_but @writing-about-larry 59k

Louis was left wondering what the fuck this encounter had been. Coming to this camp - especially after learning that it was a religious one - he had never expected to find himself in a bathroom with the attractive, strictly Catholic, not-gay-or-anything head counsellor making flirty remarks. Quite the opposite, to be honest.

Or the one where Harry, head counsellor at a Catholic summer camp, dedicates his time to what he loves most, year after year. It’s mostly the same every summer; the place, the topics, the games. This year, however, there’s a new assistant counsellor stumbling into his camp, and possibly his heart.

(we will be) as if chosen by alivingfire @alivingfire 35k

There's not a royal in the world who doesn't carry some sort of secret, and Prince Louis has more than his fair share. To protect himself and his family, Louis withdrew from the public eye and tried to live a quiet life, biding his time until his sister Lottie could take the throne in his stead. Unfortunately for him, the national media and the worst person Louis has ever met team up to bring him kicking and screaming back into the spotlight.

Under the watchful eyes of millions, Louis has to figure out how to keep his carefully constructed house of cards from falling, and the first step to accomplishing that is to keep from falling in love with the irritatingly charming Prince Harry, who just won't stop showing up and trying to whisk Louis out of the constraints of his boring life.

Or: the course of true love never did run smooth, because sometimes people are stubborn and sometimes people are scared and sometimes, just sometimes, love can cause just as many problems as it solves.

& more under the cut!

Running in the Shadows by rainbowninja167 @rainbowninja 26k

“Zayn was right,” Liam says. “Someone is searching for his asset, and they’ve got about a month’s head start on us.” “And I assume this is where I come in?” Louis asks wryly. “We don’t have a lot of information – Zayn did a very thorough job protecting him – but we think there are three strong contenders: a photographer, a baker, and a yoga instructor.” “Seriously? Do we even know this bloke’s real name?” Liam shoots Louis a small grin and shrugs. “Yeah, actually. The man you’re looking for? His name is Harry Styles.”

Louis is an MI6 agent, and Harry is...difficult to find.

Sunrise on Your Sins by cuppalouie 25k

Louis Tomlinson is at his wit’s end trying to keep up with all the responsibilities and demands that come along with being the Crown Prince of England. Exhausted and desperate for an escape, his life is suddenly derailed when in walks Harry Styles, renowned rentboy and expert on all things BDSM. Blessing or curse, Louis decides to see where this unlikely partnership will lead.

Or: Sometimes the things that aren’t meant to last end up being the only reason we keep holding on.

(summer is over) and i wanna leave you satisfied by patdkitten @doncasterkitten 25k

On the very last night of his summer break in London, Louis Tomlinson hooks up with a hot guy. When he gets back home, his roommates tell him that they're going to be getting a new roommate. Said roommate? The same hot guy he hooked up with back in London: Harry Styles, who's looking for a quiet place to go to school and just wants to keep his head down. Funny how he keeps getting noticed, though.... 

was in no hurry, had no worries by defencelouis @larrywmi 21k

The year is 1999 and Harry can’t stop dedicating songs to Louis on the radio. Or the one where Harry hits Louis with his car.

we’ll be together (even when you’re lost) by fairytalelights @lookslikefairytale 20k

Louis is confused. Does Harry want to date him? But why? Is he looking for a casual friends-with-benefits arrangement? Does he think they are soulmates? Louis almost wants to laugh at how ridiculous the idea is. Nothing's changed. His body feels the same as it did a hundred years ago. Unchanging, stuck in time. He'd definitely notice if he found his soulmate. Maybe Harry doesn't know it yet, but dating people in the hopes that they turn out to be your soulmate if you just wait long enough, never works out.

or, the one where you don't age until you meet your soulmate, Louis has been twenty years old for a long time and just wants to grow old with Harry.

The Baby Whisperer by jacaranda_bloom @jacaranda-bloom 18k

Harry’s newborn baby is having trouble sleeping and nothing he does seems to work. Tired and alone and at his wits end, Harry is at a loss until a new neighbour arrives to turn his world upside down.

OR the one where being neighbourly takes on a whole new meaning.

Wild honey, when I dream of you. by evelynemesis 6k

He thinks back to a time where morning runs – if he ever made it out of bed - were for two coffees instead of one; mornings where there was his grumpy-faced boyfriend in the seat next to his, moaning and complaining about it being too early, even if it was noon; mornings that used to end with coffee flavoured kisses and intertwined hands.

It’s been a while since then, Harry thinks.

the first time I ever saw your face by sweetrevenge @cocoalou 5k

“Hi, is this seat taken?” The stranger asks and Harry swears he short circuits for a moment. He’s been staring at him from across the bar all night and he still doesn’t feel prepared to see him this close up. He gazes at the stranger for what probably is an inappropriately long amount of time, eyes catching on things he hadn't noticed when he was sitting so far away. He opens his mouth to say “No, please sit” but then... “Did you know that center bit of citrus fruit is called a juice sac?” Harry is a little bit enamored with the gorgeous stranger sitting across from him at the bar.

you’re safe like spring time by soldouthaz @soldouthaz 4k

And it's bad enough that he's trapped in the library during a storm, but it's infinitely worse that he's stuck in the library during a storm with his teammate and sworn enemy - Harry Styles.

somewhere I can rest my soul by togetherwecouldbealright @eversincenewyorks 3k

“I’m Louis Tomlinson,” the boy says, holding his hand out. Glancing down at it, Harry starts at the word beautiful written there, just along his pointer finger. It seems someone else knows exactly how stunning Louis is.

Willing himself not to act like a complete and utter prat, Harry takes Louis’ hand in his own and quietly murmurs, “It’s nice to meet you.”

Or, the AU where the way your soulmate sees you is tattooed onto your skin.

[sleepless-in-starbucks]

if love was a snake, it’d have bit you

Ao3

Summary: Remy, Patton, and Drew are dating. This is a fact. Remy, Patton, and Drew refuse to admit they are dating. This is also a fact. Guess it's up to Roman, Virgil, and Emile to force them to acknowledge the truth. Content: Some swearing, kissing (mostly face kisses, but some lip kisses too), nb!Patton + nb!Emile, genderfluid!Remy, oblivious gays, seriously guys, so much obliviousness, the obliviousness might kill you, gods know it killed me, Disneyland cast member AU Pairing: Romantic Mosleepceit Additional notes: So many additional notes           -Big thanks to @emo-disaster for beta-ing for me and confirming the gays in this fic are wayyyyyy too oblivious           -This fic is almost 11k words. it was meant to be around 3k. I’m so sorry.           -Inspired by, but not actually based upon, this disneyland cast member au           -This is probably hella inaccurate to real Disneyland but i don’t care alright           -This fic is a (late) b-day gift for the one-and-only @notveryglittery !!! She’s an incredible person who I’m extremely happy to know, and I’m really hoping she even kinda likes this mess of a fic dsfbcdsjf

~~

    “-and if you’ll just sign here, I can finalize that upgrade for you.”

    The woman smiled at Remy as she accepted the pen he offered her. She looked tired, her entire appearance screaming ‘overworked mom’ even without the literally screaming (playfully, but still screaming) kids behind her. She definitely needed the vacation.

    “I can’t thank you enough for this,” she said gratefully, quickly signing the paper Remy offered her.

    “It’s no problem, ma’am,” Remy said, smiling politely as he took the paper and pen back, hitting a few keys on his computer as he did. “Just happy to make your stay as magical as possible. Here’s your keycard.”

    The stressed mother accepted the keycard from Remy with another smile. “Thank you.” She reiterated the sentiment before convincing her children to give her their hands and heading off for the elevators, her wife following with the luggage. Remy smiled after them, briefly letting the last of the room change form sit unfinished on his screen.

    “You’re going to get yourself fired for that eventually, you know.”

    Remy’s smile only grew at the sound of the all-too-familiar voice. He turned back to his work then, enough of Roman in his peripheral for Remy to tell he was strutting his stuff as a friend of Flynn’s. “Ah, you know they love me too much for that.”

    “More like they don’t look hard enough to catch all your illegal ‘on-the-mouse room upgrades.’” Roman corrected, leaning against the back of the receptionist desk. “Though if they ever do? You’re screwed.”

    “Shush, I’mma be gay and doing crime til Disney falls.” Remy responded cheekily. “And speaking of people who are going to get themselves fired, shouldn’t you be over in the good ol’ Disneyland already?”

    Roman shrugged. “Shift doesn’t start for another half an hour. I’ve got time.”

    “Time for what, exactly?”

    Roman grinned at that. “Gossip, of course!”

    Remy grinned now, too. “Well, if you’re looking for tales, a little birdy’s been keeping me updated on a blossoming relationship between one of the friends of Rapunzel and one of the friends of Snow White-”

    “Oh, not that kind of gossip.” Roman interrupted, waving his hand dismissively. “I’m talking the good gossip- preferably about you and your boos.”

    Remy scoffed, shaking his head as he hit the enter key and finished out the form. “Hard to gossip about those which I do not have, hun.”

    Roman groaned, slumping against the desk and throwing his head back. “Oh, please, Remy, don’t tell me you’re still in denial.”

    “Denial about what?” Remy asked, finally turning his full attention to Roman. “The fact that I’m single?”

    “The fact that you have not one but TWO partners!” Roman answered, dramatically holding up two fingers. “Not only are you being a proper partner HOG you are refusing to admit as such.”

    “Well if you’re just looking for someone to be the soul to your mate, handsome, I think I can hook you up.” Remy said teasingly, briefly lowering his sunglasses to wink at Roman.

    Roman met the wink with a deadpan stare. “You’re a taken man.”

    “Only if you make it so.”

    “You can’t keep pretending your partners don’t exist.”

    “I can if I don’t have any partners.” Remy told him, finally pushing his shades back over his eyes and giving up at his mock attempts to seduce Roman. “Now, of course, I have two very close friends with whom I do many things with, but given I’m not dating either of them, calling them my ‘partners’ seems a little much, don’t you?”

    “I get it, I get it, I have good friends too.” Roman said, as if he were going along with what Remy was saying until he quickly added, “Except I’m not obviously DATING them!”

    “You’re hopeless, princey, truly hopeless.” Remy said in response, smirking as he patted Roman’s cheek. “Ya gotta stop finding romance where it simply ain’t.”

    “The only thing I am finding is the truth behind all the bullsh-”

    “Remy!”

    Both Roman and Remy turned from each other, gazes moving to the entrance, where the voice had originated from. The owner of the voice was hurrying over to them, their blond curls pulled back into a loose ponytail, keeping their hair out of their face and allowing them to smile brightly at both Roman and Remy. They stopped in front of the receptionist's desk, taking a moment to catch their breath and straighten their relatively small red tie.

    “Heya sunshine.” Remy greeted easily, smiling at Patton in a way that was a little too soft to be a proper smirk “May I ask what brings you here in the middle of your shift? You’re gonna get yourself fired.”

    “‘Worth it for a chance to see you.” Patton told him sweetly, giggling just a bit and ignoring Roman’s expression of self-confirmation. “Buuuuuuuut I'm on lunch break. Just came over to ask what you wanted for dinner. I know the plan for tonight was take-out, but I just realized that we have all the ingredients to make lasagna- aside from the noodles, which we can pick up on our way home- so I thought it might be fun to make that tonight instead!”

    “Sounds wonderful to me.” Remy answered. “We’re going to keep it a secret from Dee though, right?”

    “Of course!” Patton agreed. He leaned over to stage whisper to Roman, “It’s his favorite.”

    “Oh, you guys know each other’s favorite dinners, do you?” Roman asked, smiling in a knowing way and wiggling his eyebrows at Patton. Patton tilted their head to the side, clearly confused, while Remy answered casually,

    “Of course! You can only live with someone for so long without picking up on what they like to eat. Dee’s favorite is lasagna. Patton’s favorite dinner- which is coincidentally their favorite breakfast, lunch, and dessert as well- is waffles. And mine, of course, is a nice big cup of espresso-”

    “Don’t lie!” Patton cut him off, smiling as they leaned on the counter and ended up within an inch of Remy. “Your favorite dinner is chicken soup!”

    “Remy hates soup.” Roman said, raising a suspicious eyebrow.

    “Not chicken soup.” Patton confirmed, not looking away from Remy. “That’s his favorite, no matter what he says.”

    “Mmm, nice try, Pat, but that’s not it.” Remy denied. Patton pouted at him then, and almost immediately Remy relented with, “My favorite dinner is your chicken soup. You’re the only one who knows how to make it right, hun.”

    Patton giggled. “I make it just like anyone else would!” they insisted, though their smile brightened even as they spoke.

    Remy’s smile grew as well as he leaned forwards just a bit, pressing his forehead against Patton’s. “Nah, honeypie, you got somethin’ all the other recipes don’t.”

    “And what’s that?” Patton asked.

    “Loooooooove.” Remy answered, grinning broadly, seemingly happy to ignore how cheesy his answer was.

    Patton didn’t mind the cheesiness. “You’re too much,” they said, too playfully to be chastising.

    “Better than being too little.”

    Patton just grinned at that. “I have to go.”

    “Alright, sweetheart.” Remy said, expression seemingly not changing, though a close observer (aka Roman) might have noticed his smile dip just the slightest. “See you at six?”

    “Mhmm!” Patton confirmed with a hum. They pulled away from Remy, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead before they ran off, waving one last goodbye as they reached the doors before disappearing outside. Remy lazily waved his fingers after Patton, watching the doors a moment after Patton was through them before turning back to his computer and his work.

    “Ready to admit you’re definitely dating at least one of your partners?”

    “Nope,” Remy replied without missing a beat. “Though if you really want me to have a partner, you’re single… I’m single…” Remy waggled his eyebrows at Roman.

    Roman ignored his advances. “The chemistry between you and Patton is so strong I’m surprised nothing’s exploded yet.”

    “That was weak.”

    “Shush.” Roman waved his hand dismissively. “I mean, for the love of Apollo, they kissed you goodbye!”

    Remy half-shrugged. “They do that with all their friends.”

    “They didn’t give me a kiss.”

    “They were in a rush.” Remy explained away. “But if you really want a kiss-”

    “-I will get it from my darling friend of Rapunzel,” Roman finished for him, having leaned over to check the time on the bottom of Remy’s screen. “I got so distracted trying to get you to tell me the truth I lost track of time.”

    “What truth?” Remy asked, tone light. “The one about us making a perfect couple?”

    Roman smiled sweetly at him, as though Remy was naive. “Maybe in a universe where you didn’t literally live with your soulmates,” he said, patting Remy’s shoulder before he turned and headed towards the door. He raised his hand over his shoulder without turning back, half-waving at Remy as he added, “Call me when you’re done being in denial!”

    Remy just let out a light huff of amusement, shaking his head and turning back to his work. Roman could say whatever he wanted, but the fact remained: Remy was (un)happily single and most certainly not dating his roommates.

    Yeah, sure, maybe he could’ve mentioned that his ‘best friends’ were also his crushes, but, hey, it wasn’t like that was that important, right?

    ~~

    Patton was staring intently at the floor. Well, more technically, they were staring intently at the mess on the floor and trying to convince themself they were supposed to be cleaning up said mess and not doing anything else with it.

    The bell near the front of the store rang as the door swung open, but Patton ignored it. Plenty of people filtered in and out of the store. They did, however, pay attention when the sound of approaching footsteps got closer than the signs should have allowed.

    “I’m sorry, this aisle is currently closed, if you don’t mind-” Patton started immediately, tone polite as they looked up, fully expecting to find an angry customer who refused to go over one extra aisle for whatever sweet treat they were looking for. They stopped when they saw who it was, polite-but-fake smile being replaced by a genuine one. “Oh, Virgil, hello there!”

    Virgil smiled back, half-waving before he turned his focus to the floor, careful to step around the mix of glass shards and chocolate-covered balls of something as he came up next to Patton. “Busy day?”

    Patton shrugged. “It was fine until someone didn’t put the jar fully back on the shelf. I’m just glad no one got hurt.”

    Virgil nodded. “That’s good,” he agreed. “Waste of some perfectly good candy though.”

    “It is,” Patton bemoaned, looking sadly at the mess. Virgil side-eyed them.

    “Pat, you haven’t been considering eating the fallen candy, have you?”

    “Maybe?” Patton tried, looking at Virgil only to find his expression completely disbelieving. They sighed. “Yes. It just looks so yummy! Even mixed in with all the glass! Because the glass sparkles and makes it kinda magical looking and it couldn’t hurt to have just one-”

    Virgil put a hand on Patton’s shoulder, stopping them from bending down and grabbing one of the candies before they could move an inch. “All the candy here’s magical. Eat some of the candies that aren’t also glassy.”

    “Mhmm,” Patton hummed in sad annoyance. “But it’s such a waste… I can stop it from being waste…”

    “You could, but should you?” Virgil asked.

    Patton groaned. “I shouldn’t,” they said. “But I want to…” They sighed, turning their gaze from the tempting mess to Virgil. “Distract me. Why are you here?”

    “Other than to stop you from making poor dietary choices?” Virgil asked rhetorically before going on, “I’m avoiding Roman.”

    “Avoiding him?” Patton repeated. “I thought you two were getting along. Don’t tell me he started another prank war-”

    “No, he’s just being annoying,” Virgil answered. “He wouldn’t stop bothering me while I worked, because Remy apparently hadn’t been in the mood to entertain his gossip, thereby making me the person stuck listening to it. Guess Kev’ decided letting me walk it off for half an hour was better than me tearing a costume in frustration.”

    Patton nodded as they moved to once more hold their broom, beginning to sweep up the mess as they said, “What was the gossip?”

    Virgil leaned back on the shelf behind him, waving his hand pointlessly. “Oh, same old same old. Just talking about you and your partners, mostly how oblivious Remy is- which, I get it, Remy can be obtuse, but that doesn’t mean I want to hear about it all morning-”

    “What?!” Patton cut him off, voice a higher pitch than they had intended, stopping halfway through a sweep to look at Virgil in disbelief and confusion. “My- what partners?!”

    “...Remy and Drew. Duh,” Virgil said slowly, blinking at Patton as if they were missing something incredibly obvious. “You know. The people you live with. And are clearly dating. Those partners.”

    Patton laughed, a weird hybrid sound of amusement and awkwardness. “I think you’re a little confused there, kiddo. I’m not dating Remy or Dee- they’re just my friends!”

    “Yeah. Friends you’re dating,” Virgil said, raising an eyebrow at Patton. “Don’t tell me you thought I wouldn’t notice. It’s fairly obvious.”

    “I don’t know how it can be obvious if it isn’t true.” Patton responded, going back to sweeping as they looked away from Virgil. “We’re just friends. At least I am, anyways.”

    “What does that mean?”

    Patton briefly looked up from their work to look at Virgil instead. “Aw, shucks, Virge, you’ve seen how Remy and Dee look at each other. If anyone’s dating, it’s them.”

    “And you?” Virgil pressed, prompting Patton to look down again at their work. “I’ve seen how Remy and Drew look at each other, but I’ve also seen how you look at them. They’re pretty similar looks, my dude.”

    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Patton answered, even as their cheeks flushed a light shade of pink. They risked a glance at Virgil, only to find him looking at them disbelieving. “Okay, maybe I love them a little more than just as friends.” Continued disbelief. “A lot more! But that doesn’t mean we’re dating.”

    “And why does them looking sweet at each other make them dating, but you doing the same just makes you just friends?”

    “Because I think I’d know if I was dating them, silly.” Patton responded simply.

    Before Patton could continue, or Virgil could speak up, they were interrupted by the sound of quickly approaching footsteps and the slight crunch of glass as the newcomer misstepped and stepped on the mess. “Well this looks… delightful.”

    “Dee!” Patton said, dropping their broom against the shelf as they carefully (but still hurriedly) stepped around the mess to approach their roommate. He was dressed as a friend of Aladdin’s, wearing baggy pants and a raggedy shirt-vest combo, his small red hat carefully hiding his bun, presenting the illusion of him having short hair. Slight touches of make-up highlighted the scar running from beneath his left eye to the bottom of his jaw, Drew always happy to tell the very dramatic tale of how he got it in a sword fight (when the truth of the matter involved a very long story having to do with toast, ferrets, and the reason why he wasn’t allowed to use the ice machine anymore). “What’re you doing here?”

    “Why, unhappy to see me?” Drew asked sarcastically, though he was smiling at Patton.

    “Never!” Patton responded resolutely. They wobbled a bit as they got closer to Drew, almost stepping on a particularly ugly shard of glass, but Drew reached out and grabbed one of their hands before they could fall, stabilizing them and helping to lead them right up in front of him. Patton giggled at his help, not releasing his hand even once they were done moving. “Just curious. Shouldn’t you be at the wishing well?”

    “Oh, I was,” Drew told them, free hand rising up to tuck a stray curl behind Patton’s ear. “But then I wished to see the loveliest face in the world and found myself here with you.”

    Patton giggled again. “The wishing well must be broken if it didn’t just provide you with a mirror.”

    A touch of pink coloured Drew’s cheeks at Patton’s words, and in the background Virgil turned from watching the two of them to stare blankly at the shelf across from him, as though it was a camera and he was in The Office. 

    “Trust me, angel, it made no error,” he said, despite his minor blush. “But to better answer your question, have you noticed how bright it is outside?”

“Of course I have,” Patton answered. “It must be warm out there.”

“It is warm,” Drew confirmed, sounding as if there was more he wasn’t saying but wanted Patton to pick up on anyways. “Some might even say it’s hot.”

“Just like you?”

Drew’s blush grew. “I think you’re missing the point.”

Patton’s smile turned a shade mischievous. “I’m not. I’m just waiting for you to admit to it.”

“Cruel, sweetpea, cruel.”

“Just admit it already!”

Drew sighed dramatically. “Alright! I fold! I admit that hydration in the face of the harsh sun is important.”

“Andddddd?”

Another sigh. “I admit that I forgot my water bottle, which I likely wouldn’t have done if I had simply used one of your sticky notes.”

“I even doodled a snake on your reminder!” Patton said, lightly hitting Drew’s chest. “It was cute AND helpful.”

“Just like you,” Drew commented, moving his hand from Patton’s hair to cup their cheek as they flushed. “And I’m sorry, dear, I really didn’t think I’d need it.”

“And yet, you’re here,” Patton teased lightly before turning towards Virgil, extending a hand. “Virgil, there should be a water bottle behind you- think you can hand it to me?”

Virgil did as he was asked, glancing behind him and finding that, yes, perched on the shelf was a metal water bottle covered in snake stickers. He grabbed it and turned back towards Patton, passing them the bottle. Patton took it and turned back to Drew, offering it to him.

“Oh, must I take it?” Drew asked, looking reproachfully at the bottle. “You’re so much nicer to hold.”

“Mmm, you need to get back to work before they catch you slacking,” Patton told him. “I’ll still be around to hold later.”

“Is that a promise?” Drew asked, even as he let his hand fall from Patton’s cheek to take his water bottle.

“Even better,” Patton answered, letting go of Drew’s hand so that they could loop their pinkies together instead. They raised their now joined hands so that they were in easy sight of Drew. “It’s a pinky promise.”

Drew smiled. “Good,” he said, bending his pinky a bit to squeeze Patton’s. “I’m holding you to it,” he punned before reluctantly stepping away, letting his and Patton’s pinkies remain linked until he was forced by distance to let go.

“So,” Virgil spoke up, slightly startling Patton, who had been waving at Drew until he walked out of sight. “You’re not dating them, you lied?”

“I didn’t lie!” Patton defended, moving back towards the broom as they spoke, once more careful to avoid the glass as they stepped. “I’m not dating him! Or Remy!”

“Oh, yeah, because calling each other petnames and trading compliments til you’re both blushing and not wanting to let go of each other and looking at each other like you’re the other’s world is really just ‘best friend’ behaviour,” Virgil said, voice thick with sarcasm.

“We’ve lived in the same apartment for months, Virgil, we’re close!” Patton said as they went back to sweeping. “That doesn’t make us partners.”

Virgil let out a breath. “I know, Pat, but you really should see the way you two were looking at each other. It sure as hell wasn’t plain-ol’ friendly.”

“Language.”

“Stop dodging the point.”

Patton stopped their work, turning to look at Virgil as they rested their chin on the broom handle. “I don’t know what point you think I’m dodging, kiddo. Dee- and Remy- are my friends. They’re dating each other, but I’m not dating them. It’s not that hard to understand.”

Virgil didn’t respond to that at first, instead just blinking slowly at Patton a few times. “I’m starting to understand why Roman was in such a mood,” he finally said as he pushed himself away from the shelves. “If Remy’s half as oblivious as you are, I’d be complaining too.”

“Oblivious about what?” Patton asked, confused. “They know who they’re dating and who they’re not.”

Virgil didn’t answer, instead just chuckling and shaking his head. “I should get back before Kevin decides to be less lenient about my wandering time. See you later, pine-on.”

“Bye, Virge!” Patton said cheerily. “And good pun!”

Virgil responded with a half salute behind his head as he wandered off. Patton watched him off as they resumed their sweeping, focusing on their work and not any of the interactions that had just occurred. Say what he would, Virgil was wrong- Patton’s relationship with Drew and Remy was strictly platonic, and they had no plans to mess with what the three of them did have (an amazing friendship) anytime soon.

~~

Drew dropped his bag before he collapsed against the wall, sliding down it halfway as he let out a huff. Though the day had been no longer than any other, the sun had been much more annoying than usual, and he was ready to be home and surrounded by not only air conditioning but also people he could stand. Absentmindedly he rubbed at the remains of make-up on his face, the only part of his costume he was still in since having changed out at the end of his shift.

“Are you suffering from heatstroke, or just bored?”

Drew looked up, finding Emile in front of him, smiling in amusement.

“A bit of both,” Drew answered truthfully. “Forgot my water bottle at home, though Pat had grabbed it for me at least. But neither their shift nor Remy’s is over for at least another fifteen minutes, so…”

“So I’m just someone to distract you until one of your partners can take over?” Emile asked, teasing.

“My partners in crimes, you mean?” Drew said. “Because I’ve told you before, Em, I really shouldn’t be talking about them here- you’re going to ruin our plan to invade ‘Beauty’s palace and get the treasure.”

“And what treasures are you going to find in there?”

“Hopefully, the key to a full hundred years of rest,” Drew told them before adding, “And gold. Mostly going for the gold.”

“Mhmm.” Emile hummed. “Happy to hear you’ve got your future set. Your criminal enterprises sound like they’re going to go over very smoothly. Now, as to your actual partners…”

“Do you think I’m cheating on my current criminal partners?” Drew asked, sounding offended. “With whom, another team? Emile, I thought you knew me better than that.”

“I think we both know I’m referring to your romantic partners.”

“Ah, yes.” Drew crossed his arms and leaned further back against the wall. “You’re referring to my roommates, who somewhere along the line you got confused as also being my romantic partners. They’re not very good at crime, you know.”

Emile grinned. “Not even good at stealing your heart?”

Drew just waved his hand dismissively. “Patton steals the heart of everyone they meet. Remy is not subtle at all when they go for the steal. Neither of them would make it a day in the world of crime.”

“But you admit that they’ve stolen your heart.”

“I admit they steal everybody’s heart.”

“But not like they’ve stolen yourssssss.”

Drew sighed, pulling his water bottle out of his bag and taking a sip of the water while he waited for Emile to stop. “Don’t be like Virgil and Roman, Emile. You’ve been given the precious gift of actually having a brain cell. Don’t waste it.”

“You can say whatever you want, Drew, but that doesn’t change the truth, even if you’d like to pretend it would,” Emile replied calmly, sounding smug. “We’ve all seen the way you three look at each other. You can’t lie your way out of love truer than that of Tiana, Naveen, and Charlotte’s.”

“Don’t have to lie to tell the truth,” Drew responded, returning his water bottle to its place in his bag. Before Emile could rebuke his words, the door that led outside of the first aid station opened, and two people walked in.

“Excuse me,” Emile said politely to Drew before they headed towards the people. After a brief moment of conversation, Emile walked further into the building with one of them while the other came over towards Drew.

Drew smiled when the newcomer was close enough for him to identify. “Hello, darling.”

Remy returned his smile, leaning against the wall and facing Drew. Remy was clearly off-shift, both costume and nametag removed, and was now sporting a sea-green bracelet. “Good evening, charming. Miss me?”

“Constantly,” Drew answered effortlessly. “I assume the same to be true of you?”

“I miss you every second you’re not in my presence more than the moon misses the sun,” Remy answered, maintaining veir composure for a moment before veir expression broke and ve laughed. “Like that one? I heard someone in the lobby tell it to their husband.”

“It is unbearably cheesy,” Drew told ver. “Though I’m sure also very sweet, if you mean it.”

“Good thing I mean it then,” Remy said jokingly. “People suck. I got yelled at twice today. I missed you and your not-yellingness.”

“Is that all you missed about me?” Drew asked, smile turning sly. “Because I know I miss you for more than just your sometimes-not-annoyingness…”

“Oh really?” Remy asked, shifting so that ve was facing Drew even more. “Well, I miss you for your not-yellingness, and for your looks- scar most certainly included, hun, it makes you look roguish- and for your mind, and your charisma, and, of course, your snark.”

    “You flatter me.”

    “Look in a mirror, sugar, you make it easy,” Remy told him. “Now I’m dying to know why you missed me.”

    “Oh, how could I not?” Drew asked rhetorically. “There’s your charm, as sarcastic as it may be, your humor, your refusal to stand down against idiots, and your sense of fashion- though I must confess, I consider it a sin to hide such dazzling eyes.”

    “Compliment my charm when you’re the real charmer ‘round here- I see how it is,” Remy said playfully, smiling.

    Drew returned the smile. “I’m just telling the truth.”

    “Mhmm,” Remy hummed non-committedly, though veir smile didn’t drop. Ve reached forward, brushing some of Drew’s hair behind his ear before moving to run veir fingers through it. Drew leaned his head closer, allowing ver easier access to his hair as ve pulled it over just one of his shoulders. “Your hair’s a mess.”

    “It’s been in a bun all day.” Drew explained, closing his eyes and focusing on the soft and calming feel of Remy brushing through his hair, occasionally scratching at his scalp. “It got tangled.”

    “Too lazy to fix that problem yourself, sweetheart?”

    “I like it better when you do,” Drew admitted.

    Remy chuckled as ve continued, veir attention turning more towards gentle touches against Drew’s skin as ve worked. “I should braid your hair tonight. Might not tangle as quickly that way.”

    “If we do that, we’ll need to stop at the store on the way home,” Drew said. “Our beloved sunbeam will want to put flowers in my hair, and I do not believe we have any at home.”

    “We already needed to stop for some dinner fixin’s anyways,” Remy told him. “We’ll just add ‘flowers prettier than your face’ to the list, though I’m afraid if we go looking for those we’ll never find them.”

    Before Drew could return the compliment, the sound of approaching steps stopped him. He opened his eyes just enough to see that they belonged to Emile, who was smiling broadly and just a touch satisfiedly at them, before he closed his eyes once more.

    “Hey there, babe,” Remy greeted. “How you?”

    “I’m peachy keen!” Emile answered enthusiastically. “Yourself?”

    Drew didn’t need to see Remy’s face to know that ve was smirking. “I’ve got the prettiest man in the world melting into my touch, so I’d say I’m doing pretty swell.”

    “Bold words from the most gorgeous being to ever grace this planet’s surface,” Drew countered, opening his eyes so he could return Remy’s smirk. “And I’m not ‘melting into your touch,’ I’m giving you easier access to the hair you so wish to tame.”

    “Whatever you say, sugar.” Remy responded casually, right before ve ran veir hand through his hair again, stopping halfway through to press veir fingers against the base of his neck, rubbing just the slightest of circles into his skin, which was cheating, because ve knew perfectly well that was one of his weak points. The motion alone had Drew leaning closer towards Remy, letting out a small sigh that morphed into a huff halfway through.

    “That’s cheating,” Drew said, trying to sound accusing but only succeeding in sounding tired and slightly whiny.

    Remy laughed. “Don’t care, darling, not even a little.”

    Drew hissed at ver, only earning himself another laugh.

    “Well you two certainly seem happy,” Emile pointed out, the slightest hint of trickery in their tone.

    “I’d like to think we are, yes,” Remy said.

    “Not that it’s surprising,” Emile continued, failing to sound very innocent. “I’m sure anyone’d be happy spending time with one of their partners.”

    “I’m sure they would,” Remy said neutrally. “Not sure what that has to do with anything right now-”

    “They’re talking about my partners in crime.” Drew interrupted. “I told them earlier about my plan to raid Sleeping Beauty’s class and steal her secrets to a hundred years of sleep.”

    “I see. Well I do hope you plan on sharing those secrets because goodness knows I could do with a good century of napping.”

    “Goodness and me,” Drew agreed, reaching forward and pushing Remy’s sunglasses up a bit, frowning at how dark the bags under veir eyes were. “Why else would I steal the secrets if not for you?”

    “Awwww, you care,” Remy cooed, tone a mix of goodheartedly mocking and sincere. “And what do you mean, ‘goodness and me’? Hun, you are goodness.”

    “You’re sweet, but we both know that’s Pat.”

    “I don’t see why it can’t be both of you.”

    “This is getting ridiculous!” 

Drew and Remy turned towards Emile at their outburst, Remy tilting veir head to the side in confusion while Drew asked,

    “What is?”

    Emile waved their hands at the roommates. “You two! You three! This!”

    Remy and Drew glanced at each other before looking back at Emile. “This?” Remy asked.

    “You’re so oblivious it puts the Scooby Gang’s obliviousness to Shaggy’s godhood to shame!” Emile said, thoroughly exasperated.

    “I’m sorry what was that-”

    “I mean, look at you two!” Emile said, gesturing at where Remy’s hand was still running through Drew’s hair. “All you do is compliment each other and worry over each other and know exactly what to do to make the other melt into your touch!”

Drew shrugged. “So? We’re friends.”

“And we’ve lived together for months,” Remy added. “Kinda hard to not pick up stuff about each other.” 

“This moved past friendship weeks ago,” Emile told them, crossing their arms. “You can pretend to be sly, but you aren’t.”

“We’re not pretending anything,” Drew replied, raising an eyebrow. “Are you alright, Em? No offense, you seem a little... agitated over this.”

Emile squinted at them. “You’d be agitated if you were me.”

“Huh. Vaguely ominous,” Remy commented idly, unperturbed by the conversation. “You should really talk to Roman though. He’s been having the same misconceptions about me and my roommates’ relationship. I’m sure you two lovelies can find the truth if you talk it out.”

“We’ve already found the truth,” Emile said confidently.

“If you say so,” Remy responded, reaching into veir pocket as ve spoke, pulling out veir phone and checking the time. “Patton’s shift should be over in a couple of minutes. Wanna go greet them?”

“The only sunshine I always want to see,” Drew answered. “Don’t tell them we’re going to braid my hair just yet, though, alright? I’d prefer to surprise them.”

Remy grinned. “Of course, hun.”

Drew returned the grin before shifting over so that he could pick his bag up, ignoring Remy’s protest at his hair moving out of playing-with range. “You do know that going to Patton requires moving, right?”

“I do, but that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.”

Drew chuckled as he straightened up, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “You can play more with my hair when we get home, starlight, don’t worry. Come on, let’s go get Pat.”

Remy pouted, but ve still lifted veir arm and allowed Drew to slot himself in against veir side as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Remy’s arm wrapped around the top of Drew’s shoulders, holding him close as they headed towards the doors.

“Have a goodnight, Em,” Drew called over his shoulder right before they left, door lightly thudding as it fell shut behind them.

Emile let out a little huff. “Night-night lovebirds,” they said, even though they knew the couple in question couldn’t hear them. They waited a moment after they left before pulling out their phone, flicking to the group chat they, Roman, and Virgil had lovingly nicknamed ‘operation Get These Gays Together’ (originally known as ‘operation if they don’t get together I’m going to shoot them and then myself’ when Virgil named it) and sending a quick but vital text.

Usually, Emile preferred the passive route. They preferred to push people towards the solution, help them subtly, let them figure it out for themselves with only a bit of their help.

But that method was driving Emile (and Roman and Virgil) insane. They had tried the easy, passive way.

It was time to be aggressive.

~~

The first thing Remy registered upon waking up was that they’d really rather not. The little bit of sun that made its way through their half-open eyelids was already too much and they were almost a hundred percent certain they still needed another five hours of sleep to be anything close to well-rested.

Therefore, immediately after opening their eyes, they shut them once more, rolling over and pushing their face into the surface beneath them to try and drown out all possible light. While this did solve the immediate problem of ‘too much light,’ it presented a new one for them to deal with- the fact that something close to him was warm and moving.

The discrepancy between where they remembered falling asleep last night- on the couch, alone- and where they must be now- somewhere big enough for more than one person to be sleeping, and apparently not alone anymore- was enough to convince Remy to open their eyes again. It was easier if only for the fact that the sun was now behind them, illuminating the sight in front of Remy instead of blinding them.

Remy was unsurprised to find the warm moving ‘thing’ was, in fact, their roommates- Drew curled up against Patton’s back, arms wrapped around their chest, one of Patton’s hands resting on top of Drew’s and their other sprawled out across the bed, almost touching Remy.

The sight made Remy smile. They reached out to lay one of their hands over Patton’s outstretched one, gently rubbing circles and nonsense patterns into their palm while they waited for them to wake up. While they would like to figure out how they ended up in bed instead of on the couch, and while they knew all three of them would eventually have to get up for work, they didn’t see the point in rushing anything. If they were already late for work, hurrying now wouldn’t change that, and Remy had decided long ago that there were few things in the world that mattered to them more than seeing both Drew and Patton rested, relaxed, and happy.

Slowly but surely, Patton began to wake up, shifting around in Drew’s grasp for a moment before their eyes fluttered open and they saw Remy. Upon seeing them, Patton smiled a sleepy but fond smile.

“Good morning, sweetie,” Patton greeted them, yawning partway through their sentence. They twisted their hand a bit so that they could hold Remy’s, beginning to rub circles into the back of Remy’s hand. “You look nice.”

Remy found it doubtful that they, in all their sweatpants, ratty t-shirt, and disheveled hair glory, were looking like anything more than a mess, but they were loath to reject any compliment that came from Patton.

“You look just as cute as always,” they returned, smile growing at Patton’s small giggle at their response. “I am, however, a little curious as to why I’m seeing your beauty right now.”

Patton’s brow furrowed in confusion for a moment before smoothing out as they realized what Remy was asking. “You fell asleep on the couch last night, right?”

“Last I recall, yes, and I’m sorry to say I don’t remember coming to… wherever this is.”

“It’s my room,” Patton answered. “I was cold, and I had pinky-promised Dee we could cuddle. We were goin’ to ask you to join, but you fell asleep while we were putting away the lasagna and we decided we didn’t want to risk waking you to move you. You’re such a light sleeper… and Dee said you hadn’t been sleeping as much recently.”

As Patton finished speaking, they reached out to brush a thumb underneath one of Remy’s eyes, as if they could erase the bags that were there.

Remy reached up with their free hand to catch Patton’s, gently pulling it away from their face and intertwining their fingers instead. “Don’t worry about me, sunshine, I’m fine. Just a few more sleepless nights than usual.”

Patton hummed, clearly not satisfied, but they didn’t say anymore on the topic. “I know I didn’t bring you in here,” they said instead, looking forlornly at the space roughly a foot long between them and Remy. “I wouldn’t have brought you in here for cuddles and then not cuddled you,” Patton explained, sounding melancholy.

In an attempt to at least partially console them, Remy scooted closer to Patton, narrowing the gap to only a few inches. They kept themself from moving all the way against them only because they knew exactly what would happen, knew Patton’s arms would wrap around them and hold them close, trapping them in the cuddle pile they’d have no will nor want to escape, and, as nice as it sounded to let reality drift away as they sank back into sleep so close to their two favorite people in the world, Remy knew they couldn’t, knew they had to be at least a little bit responsible and wake up and go to work and do more than just waste the day away holding each other.

Though damn if that wasn’t a tempting thought.

“So does that mean Dee moved me?” Remy asked.

“He must’ve,” Patton answered before frowning. “Though I don’t ever remember him getting up… here, I’ll just ask him.”

Patton turned over slightly, letting go of one of Remy’s hands so that they could gently shake Drew’s shoulder. “Dee? Dee, honey, do you think you could wake up for me? Please?”

In response, Drew half-groaned, half-yawned, and shifted so that his head was pressed into the crook of Patton’s neck, effectively hiding him from both his roommates and the sun. Patton giggled quietly at his action before they titled their head around and pressed a slightly awkward kiss to the top of Drew’s head. “I know you don’t want to, love, but you’ve gotta get up.”

Drew didn’t respond for a moment, but eventually he sighed, lazily lifting his head away from Patton’s shoulder. He returned Patton’s kiss atop their head before shifting his attention to Remy, blinking blearily as he focused on the third person in the bed.

“Mornin’ darling dearest Dee,” Remy greeted. “Sleep well?”

“Mhmm,” Drew hummed noncommittally, but from the way his arms tightened around Patton, holding them closer, Remy could guess he had slept very well curled up with Patton. “What’re you doin’ here?” he slurred, awake enough to realize Remy should still be out on the couch if not awake enough to speak properly.

“We were kinda hoping you could answer that one, hun,” Remy said. “Because I don’t remember coming in here, and Patton doesn’t remember moving me.”

Drew frowned. “I didn’t move you. Wanted you to sleep.”

“So I’ve heard,” Remy commented, now frowning themself. “So. If none of us put me in the bed, and none of us have any sleep walking and/or possession problems we haven’t told the others about…”

“How did you end up here?” Patton finished for them, completing the trifecta of frowns.

The unanswered question finally convinced Remy to sit up, squinting as they looked around the room for some explanation. It did appear to be Patton’s room, from the animal posters hung on every wall to the rainbow they had painted onto the light switch cover with nail polish, so it was unlikely they had all been kidnapped, which Remy was going to consider a good thing. Something did stand out to Remy, however.

“Hey, Pat, you haven’t put any random notes on your door recently, have you?”

Patton shook their head in confusion. “No. Why do you ask?”

Remy didn’t answer them immediately, instead sliding out of the bed and heading towards the door. Tapped to it was a folded note, ‘to the oblivious gays’ scrawled on the front of it. Remy pulled it off the door, unfolding it and quickly scanning the message inside. When they finished, they groaned.

“I’m disowning all of our friends.” Remy said, tossing the note to the side in annoyance as they grabbed the door handle, trying (and failing) to turn it. They groaned again. “Fuck.”

“Language.” Patton said automatically as Drew pushed their glasses onto their face for them, Patton blinking a few times as they stopped needing to squint at everything. “What is it?”

Remy ran a hand through their hair as they moved to the only window in the room, attempting to open it for a moment before deeming it a lost cause. They sighed and turned back towards the bed. “We’ve been locked in.”

This got both Patton and Drew to sit up, both looking more awake as they frowned at them. “What do you mean, we’ve been locked in?”

“Exactly what I said,” Remy replied, leaning back against the wall behind them. “Our most lovely friends have locked us all in a room together and apparently won’t let us out until we ‘confess’ or some bullsh- bullcrap, because this is 2012 and we’re a story on fanfic-dot-net.”

“Confess?” Patton repeated before realization dawned on their face. “Oh. I- Virgil was talking about that yesterday, but I didn’t think he actually- well I didn’t think he really meant anything by it.”

“Same with Emile,” Drew said. “They talk about it so often I just figured it was some sort of joke for them.”

“Roman was talking about it too,” Remy added unhappily. “He pointedly ignored all my advances as well, which was rude. I like to think my distractions are at least worth one returned flirt.”

A moment of silence stretched out between them before Drew sighed and said, “So they did this, huh.”

“That’s why I’m disowning them, yeah,” Remy informed him. “Also on the list of disownments is my cousin, because apparently he’s the one who gave them the key they used to break in here and set this whole mess up.”

“Logan’s not usually the type to go for this sort of thing,” Drew pointed out.

“He isn’t, but I think he’s still annoyed about that one time I stole all his Crofter’s.” Remy said. “Though now he’s indirectly keeping me from my coffee, so who’s the real monster here?”

“At least you’ve got us,” Drew offered.

Remy smiled at that, annoyed expression softening. “Yeah, that I do,” they agreed, pushing off of the wall and padding back over to the bed, joining the semi-circle and leaning against Patton’s side. Drew wrapped an arm around both Patton’s and Remy’s backs as soon as they were settled, holding the three of them together.

“So now what?” Patton asked after a moment of comfortable silence. “Should we call in to work sick?”

“The note said they’d cover it,” Remy answered with a scoff. “No clue how they plan to do that, but they’ve made it into a them-problem.”

“And when are they going to let us out?” Drew followed up. “Because we’re going to have to eat soon.”

“I have a bag of emergency cookies in the closet, if worse comes to worst,” Patton added.

“Of course you do,” Drew said, though he sounded only fond.

“They said they’ll swing by around lunch to free us and, I quote, ‘congratulate us on the proposals,’” Remy laughed. “Roman’s words, if you couldn’t guess.”

Drew chuckled. “And if we try to break out of our makeshift prison?”

“They’ve stolen our phones and tapped them to the door, so if we break it down, we risk breaking our phones.” Remy explained. “Logan also reminded us that glass is sharp and dangerous when broken so we shouldn’t even think about shattering the window.”

“So no breaking out,” Drew summed up. “Guess we really are stuck here ‘til they return.”

“Yep,” Remy agreed. They turned their head so that they could plant a kiss against the side of Patton’s head. “At least I’m stuck with y’all. Better be trapped with angels than free with demons.” Remy smiled when Patton blushed a shade of red that Remy thought just made them look even prettier.

“Well someone’s getting awfully poetic,” Drew quipped, though he was also blushing.

“It’s what happens when I don’t have my coffee,” Remy said offhandedly. “Deal with it.”

“Only if you accept that you yourself are also an angel.”

“Oh, rude, babe, real rude to ‘u-too’ my own compliment back at me.”

“If you want to make this easier on yourself, just accept it, my dear,” Drew advised. “I can wax just as poetic as you can, and will if I think I must.”

Remy sighed, holding out the sound for a moment before they folded. “Fiiiine, I’m an angel.” They leaned around Patton, getting close enough that they could press a kiss to Drew’s forehead. “But you’re still the prettier one.”

Drew gasped dramatically at that, but before he could respond, Patton sighed, sounding fond and vaguely melancholy. Remy pulled back from Drew just enough to look at Patton.

“Aw, our sunshine feeling left out?” Remy asked teasingly, kissing Patton’s forehead as well and wrapping their arms around Patton’s waist. “Don’t worry sweetheart, you’re just as pretty as Dee.”

“Oh, no, it’s not that, I promise!” Patton reassured them with a laugh. “You two are just so cute together, that’s all.”

“We’re all cute together,” Remy said, pressing a quick peck of a kiss to Patton’s chin. “Helps that we’re all cute.”

Patton laughed again. “No, I mean- together-together, you know? You’re a good couple.”

Remy and Drew reacted to that, both glancing at each other in confusion and uncertainty. “Couple as in two people, or…?” Drew asked.

Patton raised an eyebrow, now looking confused themself. “I mean, I guess that too, but I mean- well, I mean romantically.”

Another uncertain glance between the supposed ‘couple.’ Remy laughed awkwardly. “Hate to break it to ya, hun, but I think I’d know if I was dating such a cutie.”

“Same here,” Dee echoed.

“Oh. Oh!” Patton said, blushing red now in embarrassment. “I’m so sorry, you just- the way you act together, I- you’re so comfortable together-”

“We’re all comfortable together,” Drew pointed out, albeit quieter than he had been speaking a moment ago.

“I know, you just- I- oh, I’m so sorry!” Patton repeated, hiding their face in Drew’s shoulder. “I feel so silly,” they added, their voice now muffled.

Remy chuckled, reaching forward to card their fingers through Patton’s hair. They scooted a little closer to them as they scratched at their scalp as well. “Don’t worry about it, honey-love. Everybody makes mistakes.”

“No, it’s not that, I just…” Patton cut themself off before actually getting to their point, shaking their head a bit before they pressed their face even further into Drew’s shoulder.

“Oh, come now, beloved,” Drew coaxed, rolling his shoulders and trying to convince Patton to lift their head. “You don’t have to hide anything from us, much less your beautiful face or heavenly voice.”

“It’s silly,” Patton whined, just loud enough to be understood. Remy laughed gently, brushing their hair to the side so they could kiss the back of their neck.

“That’s okay. We’re not going to make fun of you or anything,” Remy assured them.

Drew leaned over and kissed the top of Patton’s head, pulling back only a little. “What’d you say, love? Can I see those pretty, pretty eyes?”

It took another moment of Remy playing with their hair and Drew sweet talking Patton before they were convinced, slowly lifting their head up just enough so that Drew could see their eyes. Drew smiled at them. “There you go. Isn’t this nicer?”

A little smile slipped onto Patton’s face. “Your eyes are much, much more gorgeous than the fabric of your shirt, yes.”

“I should hope so,” Drew replied, leaning his forehead against Patton’s. “Now, I’m sure both me and our lovely moonbeam are very curious as to what’s got you trying to hide from us.”

“Yeah, sugar, you’re not usually like this,” Remy added, though they didn’t sound worried, just sweet. “What’s got you feeling so silly and shy?”

Patton rested their cheek on Drew’s shoulder, looking between their roommates. “Promise you won’t hate me?”

“We could never,” Drew and Remy said at the same time.

Patton nodded, took a breath, squirmed a little in place, and finally said, “Y’know how I’ve never really said that you guys are together, even if I had no reason not to say it?”

“Uh… yes?” Remy answered, sounding slightly baffled by the question.

“Yeah, well… there was a reason for that.”

“...Okay?” Drew said, tone matching Remy’s.

“It’s because I didn’t really want to accept the fact that you two were together.”

Twin silence from Drew and Remy. Patton let out a little sigh, sounding more amused than annoyed.

“I didn’t like acknowledging the fact that you were both taken,” A pause to give their roommates a chance to finish for them; when neither of them spoke, Patton continued, “because I didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that you were both taken but neither of you were taken with me.”

Another pause, another stretch of silence as Drew and Remy each processed Patton’s words, the confessor themself once more hiding against Drew’s shoulder. Then- dawning understanding.

“Oh,” Remy said first, looking at Drew with wide eyes. “Oh. Patton, I-”

“It’s really okay if neither of you feel the same, really, I don’t even expect you too, we’re friends, and that’s what we’ve always said we were and always been, and that doesn’t need to change I just-” Patton laughed, slightly breathless as they tried to fit everything they wanted to say in only the space of a few seconds, “I just feel silly that I never even bothered to tell you guys because I thought you were dating, that’s all.”

It was quiet as Drew and Remy processed that, Drew looking at the bed as he thought while Remy looked off at the wall, clearly lost in their thoughts. It only took a moment for them to sort them, however.

“Hey, Patton?” Remy said, getting Patton to lift their head once more from Drew’s shoulder and look at them, Patton’s expression a mix of pained and hopeful. Remy reached forwards, cupping one of Patton’s cheeks with one of their hands, smiling a little stupidly as they did so. “Wanna hear a silly little secret of my own?”

Patton's eyes widened, suggesting that they knew exactly what the secret was, but they still said, in a quiet, almost awed voice, “What?”

Remy giggled, just a little, reaching out with their other hand as well and holding Patton’s face in both their hands as they answered, “I have a crush on both my roommates too,” they said in a mock-whisper, as if they were at a sleepover and they were all twelve. “I never told them because I thought they weren’t interested in me like that, but recently I’m starting to think I might be wro-”

Remy’s confession was cut off by Patton letting out a little squeal of excitement, pushing themself forward so that they could wrap their arms around Remy’s midsection, knocking them over and ending up with them both sprawled across the bed. Remy had just barely recovered from the action when Patton started peppering kisses across their face, going over their forehead and both their cheeks before they ended with a kiss on their lips, one that was brief but still sweet and loving and warm and undeniably Patton.

“You jerk.” Patton said, though there wasn’t a hint of heat in their tone as they laughed. “Why didn’t you tell me this three months ago?!”

“I had this whole friendship thing going on that I didn’t want to ruin!” Remy defended with a laugh of their own. “Though, if I had known that’d be your reaction, I’d have gone off and ruined our friendship long ago, sweetness.”

Patton’s smile broke into a grin and they kissed the tip of Remy’s nose, eliciting a quick but joyful giggle from them. “You’re forgiven for your slowness in telling me for how utterly perfect you are.”

“Why thank you, angel,” Remy said, pushing themself up just enough to give Patton a fast nose kiss as well. “But don’t you think we’re missing something- or, better put, someone- from this ‘perfect’?”

Patton’s eyes widened at the reminder. “Oh my gosh, you’re right!” they said before turning around to look at Drew. He was still sitting in the same spot he had been. It was clear he had been watching Patton and Remy, but upon them turning their attention to him, he seemed to suddenly find the entire rest of the room much more interesting to look at.

“Dee?” Patton said, forcing the aforementioned to turn his attention back to them or risk being rude to one of the people he was currently locked in a room with.

“Yes?” Drew asked, trying to sound aloof and neutral. He failed horribly, however, his voice coming out as something closer to mock-formal.

“Me and Remy have both made our confessions… do you have one of your own?” Patton asked, once more sounding hesitant.

When Drew didn’t respond instantly, Remy rushed to add, “It’s completely alright if you don’t, of course. No pressure whatsoever, we can still be friends, it’s just- well, not to sound like the people who locked us up in here in the first place, but I kinda feel like that’s not really what we should be.”

“I-” Drew started before cutting himself off, looking down as he fiddled with the hem of his shirt. “I do love you guys, really; I mean, who couldn’t after living with you for so long, you’re too incredible not to love, but… I don’t know how I love you.”

“...Care to elaborate?” Remy pushed after a minute stretched in silence.

Drew shifted in place. “I guess… we’ve spent our entire friendship doing everything a couple might do- spending time together, learning each other’s favorite things, getting stupidly domestic, literally sleeping together, cuddling, sharing little kisses, and I just… don’t know if I love you romantically or not.”

“Alright,” Patton said slowly, nodding their head before frowning. “I’m… not sure how to figure that out.”

“Me neither,” Remy admitted. “There must be something romantic we haven’t done with you, right?

Drew shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ve covered all of the bases, as far as I can tell. No wonder everyone thought we were dating…”

“Not all of them,” Patton said, pulling Drew out of his barely started musings. They smiled at him, softly and sweetly and just a bit shyly. “Dee?”

“...Yes?”

“Do you want to kiss us?”

“Kiss you- I already have kissed you, what do you…” Drew cut himself off as he realized what Patton meant, his cheeks quickly turning a crimson red.

Remy chuckled as they sat up, Patton shifting a bit to their side so that they could properly sit up. “Hate to put words in your mouth, sweetheart, but I’mma guess that means yes?”

“I… yeah, yeah it does,” Drew conceded, chuckling a little awkwardly. “That sounded awfully charming.”

“Everything you say is charming when you’re a charmer,” Patton responded, and Drew’s cheeks turned a shade darker as the awkwardness in his expression relaxed into something more akin to soft adoration.

Patton patted the bed directly in front of them and Remy. “Come over here, lovely.”

Drew did so willingly, pulling himself over so that he was once more part of the group. Patton smiled tenderly at him as he settled himself before reaching out and gently taking his face in their hands.

“Stop me if you need to, okay?” Patton said. Drew half-laughed, half-scoffed.

“I doubt I’ll want you to stop, much less need you to,” he told them, and Patton smiled wider at him before leaning in, their careful and loving hold on Drew’s face holding him still until their lips were connected.

The kiss was longer than Patton and Remy’s had been, more planned, but it was still just as welcoming and comfortable, as if this wasn’t their first kiss but instead their hundredth; somehow both oddly familiar and excitingly new.

Without even realizing it, Drew found himself leaning it, placing his hands on Patton’s waist to hold steady as he did so, more than happy to drown in the kiss as much as he could.

Patton pulled away when he was reaching the edge of breathlessness, smiling brightly at Drew even as they moved back, still holding his face. “How was that?”

“I love you,” Drew said as an answer, letting out a laugh in the form of a huff as he went on, “Oh, god be damned, Patton, I love you.”

“Language,” Patton chided lightly, though they both knew it meant nothing.

“Hey now,” Remy spoke up, drawing Drew and Patton’s attention. They were pouting, though amusement flashed in their eyes. “I’m feeling a little forgotten over here.”

“Forget you?” Drew asked, normally suave tone now simply breathless and incredulous. “I could never.”

“Then prove it,” Remy demanded, reaching out and making grabby hands at Drew despite the fact that he was barely two feet from them. Drew didn’t mind it, however, simply laughing at the display of affection. He gently took Patton’s hands off his cheeks, kissing the back of both of them (to the delight of Patton) before releasing them and closing the small gap between him and Remy.

“There you are,” Remy said, as if Drew had been hiding somewhere far off and not simply kissing their partner (their partner, not just his partner but Remy’s too) instead of Remy. “Do I get kisses now?”

Drew laughed. “Yes,” he said, not bothering to drag the moment out as he reached forwards, cupping one of Remy’s cheeks in his hand and pulling them closer. “You get kisses now.”

He kept to his promise as he kissed Remy, not holding it out for one long kiss like he and Patton had done but instead kissing them over and over and over again, quick little kisses that lasted seconds but still meant worlds to the both of them, that were still caring and inviting and loving even if they were brief. It worked better that way, Drew decided, especially when Remy evidently grew bored of just kissing his lips and moved on to covering the rest of his face with kisses instead.

“I’m starting to think I really am a jerk for not confessing anything sooner,” Remy said when they had, apparently, deemed Drew’s face properly kissed, now pulled back so that they could look Drew in the eyes as they grinned lopsidedly. “I’ve been severely neglecting giving you- and Patton- all the kisses you two deserve.”

“Not that that ever stopped you when we were friends,” Patton pointed out, leaning against Remy’s side and reaching out to hold one of Drew’s hands as well.

“That’s because even then I knew I was making a mistake,” Remy said, happily taking advantage of the fact that Patton was once more close to them to kiss their forehead.

“I just can’t believe the people who locked us up had it right,” Drew said, squeezing Patton’s hand as the hand he had been using to cup Remy’s cheek moved to hold one of Remy’s hands. “We really have been horribly oblivious, huh?”

Remy laughed. “I’d say that’s pretty accurate, yeah,” they agreed before smiling mischievously. “We’re not going to let them know that though, right?”

“Oh, goodness, of course not,” Drew responded. “Otherwise they might start thinking locking people up will always work, or, even worse, they might get an ego boost.”

“I think Roman will explode if that happens- his ego’s already big enough as is,” Patton added. Drew’s and Remy’s attention immediately turned to them, both looking shocked, to which Patton defended, “What? I can be petty towards our friends too!”

Drew chuckled as he quickly kissed Patton’s cheek. “That you can, dearheart, that you can.”

“It’s not like you’re wrong either,” Remy pointed out. “Really, letting Roman know this planned work might kill him. We’re just going to have to pretend it didn’t, for his sake.”

Patton and Drew both nodded as solemnly as they could given the circumstances. “I vote that we tell them this experience has really brought us closer together in our friendship instead,” Drew offered. “That way we can still be horribly obnoxious-” Drew paused to peck quick kisses to each of his partners’ noses to prove his point before continuing “-and also keep Roman and his ego safe.”

“A perfect plan,” Patton agreed. “Though… what do we do if they catch us calling each other partners?”

“We tell them how we decided we really felt like ‘friends’ no longer properly described how close our friendship was, so we decided to start using partners,” Remy answered immediately with a grin. “Really, we can turn anything into just another extent of our ‘friendship’ is we try hard enough. The real question is for how long do we do that? When do we give them their satisfaction?”

Drew hummed in thought for a moment before he said, a wicked smile racing his face as he spoke, “I’d say we’ll have to wait them out at least until we get married. We can tell them it’s for tax benefits.”

“We’re going to get married?!” Patton exclaimed, eyes shining at the thought.

“Well, I mean-” Drew floundered for a moment, clearly having gotten so caught up in how to best taunt their friends that he hadn’t even considered the implications of what he had said “-we’ve only just got together, but- if this lasts and we don’t regret anything, well-”

“We’re going to get married!” Patton repeated, this time with no question in their tone, tugging Drew closer to themself and pulling Remy closer as well so that they were all squished against each other. “We’re going to get married and we’re going to move out and find a better apartment with one huge bed- oh, or we could get a house with one big bed, and we’re going to adopt a dog- no, two dogs- no, ten dogs!- and-”

Drew gently stopped Patton’s rant by kissing them until they were breathless, resting his forehead against theirs when he finished. “And we’ll drive our friends absolutely insane with what a lovely life we’ll be living,” he added softly.

Remy moved to press their forehead against both of their partners’. “And we’ll be in love forever,” they added, which was an extraordinarily cheesy thing to say, but in the moment, it also felt like the right thing to say.

In fact, pressed against the two most important people in the world to them, still feeling giddy at everything that had happened in the span of barely fifteen minutes, Remy felt as if, for the first time in a long time, absolutely everything was just as it should be.

They were looking forward to getting used to that feeling.

[porkbuttsandtaters]

From a very young age I was obsessed with sex. I was like this years before I could even get hard. I have some additional theories that won’t be mentioned here as to why this might be, all based on the same foggy timeline, but I’m not comfortable sharing them. Either way, I was fascinated by the act, but in a completely non-sexual way. In some ways, I still am, and in the same fashion. I probably have an average sex drive, but I still find myself thinking about sex pretty frequently without a bit of arousal. It’s like there’s sex the act, and then sex in the abstract, and I find the latter so much more interesting.

The first time I saw two people fucking was in The Fly, during that scene where Geena Davis is riding Jeff Goldblum’s dick, or pretending to ride it, I’m not sure. I asked my older brother what they were doing and he said “They’re having sex”, and I didn’t ask any more questions. Television softcore was my only experience for the longest time, and it mostly made me uncomfortable. I watched a James Bond film in a hotel room with my older brother and older cousin some time after that, and it was my first experience with locker room talk. I had never heard people who weren’t adults use so many curse words and talk about the things that they talked about that night as I sat there mostly silent. James Bond began to make love to whatever Bond Girl was in that movie and the 13 year old child my uncle had raised said “I don’t know why they edit out all the good parts on TV when they know we just want to see some titties.” I inferred what titties were.

The first time I saw a woman naked was when my divorced dad was cleaning out his apartment, getting ready to move into a house in the suburbs. He was cleaning out under the sink, and pulled out a solved puzzle board featuring a brunette woman with nothing covering her skin but a long illustrious fur coat and a very full 70s bush. The juxtaposition of these two features was what got me. Dad threw it in the trashcan outside, but I kept sneaking out into the light drizzle, opening the lid slightly, and taking another peek at this woman. Suddenly it seemed to me like I had uncovered some animalistic facet of human nature that I had no clue of before. I couldn’t stop looking and I didn’t know why. 

From there, I began to seek out every piece of analog pornography I could get my small hands on. I’d sneak into my mom and stepdad’s room when they were gone and go through his Playboys he had in the closet, and their mail order catalogs full of lingerie and sex toys and graphic demonstrations. I would rent Friday the 13th films on VHS and study the sex scenes that were still softcore but definitely harder than anything on television. When I was at my dad’s house, my brother would often be at his girlfriend’s house, and I would stay down in his room playing on that beige desktop computer he had sitting on the floor. 

I would tiptoe around used condoms he left laying on the floor and open the drawers in his room to find his porno mags. One time, I saw a photoshopped picture of Eminem in one of the magazines, sitting with his legs slightly splayed and a sad, 4 inch erect penis sticking out of him. The caption read “No wonder he’s so angry!”. As far as I was concerned, the editor of this magazine had actually convinced Eminem to ignore any probable insecurities, remove his pants, and show his tiny little cock off to God and everyone. I didn’t want to listen to Eminem as much anymore after this.

The first time I saw internet porn was at a friend’s house, maybe around 2006. We had been playing Pokémon, and he got up and turned on the family desktop and motioned for me to come over. He went on a website called google.com and pulled up a picture of a fit man with an enormous 8 or 9 inch dick having sex with a waifish looking woman. I didn’t understand why my prepubescent dick was so tiny in comparison to this man. I’m not sure if this still bothers me or not. I found out later that, despite him clearing his browser history, his father eventually discovered this habit. His father was a balding Lutheran pastor, so I wondered what the conversation must have been like.

The first time I had a girlfriend was when I was 13. I was at a middle school dance and her friends came to me and told me that she wanted me to be her boyfriend. I had never even seen or heard of this girl before. Nonetheless, I went along with it because it seemed like what I should be doing. Plus, I didn’t want people to think I was gay. We all got off for Christmas break the next week and I managed to call her one time for about 5 minutes. I didn’t want my parents to know I had a girlfriend because it seemed dirty and embarrassing to me, so I went out into the backyard with the cordless phone in 35 degrees Fahrenheit. After that, I forgot that I technically had a girlfriend, and spent the rest of my break on YouTube. She broke up with me on Myspace a couple weeks of silence later and on the charge of emotional neglect, in spite of my last minute appeals that I could do better. Later that night, I cried for some reason.

The first time I actually fucked someone was in college, like most autistic males who do eventually manage to have sex. If you miss that window it’s a no-go usually. I don’t like talking about real exploits in too much detail because it feels like weird macho bullshit. I do wish there was a way I could talk about sex more without having to actually talk about specific people and what we’ve done, though. It was with a friend of my roommate’s. She was sort of cute, but I thought she was sort of off-putting too. She was like a “where’s my hug” type of guy, but was a girl. In general, you can get away with that kind of thing much easier when you’re a girl, but not with me. I’m a genuine touch-me-not. I don’t like to hug anyone I’m not in love with. 

I’m not sure if I even wanted to have sex with this girl, but I went along with it because it seemed like what I should be doing. So we did. It felt good to finally get it over with. Afterwards, I heard through the grapevine that she said something to the effect of “All Joes are hot”, referring to my deadname, and presumably every other Joe she had ever met. I had just watched Goodfellas for the first time a month before having sex for the first time, and these two memories mixed poorly. From then on, whenever I thought back to losing my virginity, I would vividly imagine myself fucking her in her dorm room again, except I was 6 inches shorter, had a suit on, my black dress pants were laying on the floor around my ankles, and I looked and sounded exactly like Joe Pesci. I imagined I was Joe Pesci.

[randomoranges]

a bit nsfw for discussions about sex - or lack thereof haha

rock band au part 30

It was the start of the third week of lockdown and Edward, somehow, was slowly getting used to Étienne’s presence around the house. He was surprisingly easy to get along with and they were learning to navigate around each other. It was still – a little too polite and awkward for Edward’s liking, but he supposed it was better than being at wits end with Étienne and regretting having him over.

 At the time being, Étienne had gone out for a walk of his own and so Edward had the house to himself for a rare moment. It was almost weird to think that this no longer was his norm and with so much time at home, he seriously needed to make himself a list of things to do, before he became completely bored.

 The list was put off for a while longer, when his phone rang, and he saw that it was his sister calling. He settled on his couch and accepted the call, glad for the distraction.

 “So, have you gone completely bat shit insane yet?” Edith asked as a form of greeting.

 Edward rolled his eyes, not even surprised, “Not exactly – keeping – busy,” He said, even if it was a different kind of it.

 “Decided to remodel the kitchen after all?”

 “No – I might just if this goes on, but – well, I may have found myself with a roommate.” He said, cautious, not wanting to make a big deal out of it.

 Edith was silent for a moment, “How the hell did you manage a roommate during a Global Pandemic?”

 “Well – he’s a friend – he needed a place to stay – and I wasn’t going to let him live on the streets!” He could just imagine the headlines now; famous Canadian musician – darling prince of music of Québec, found homeless on the streets of Edmonton. No. He couldn’t let that happen.

 “That’s – awfully generous of you. Anyone I know?” She sounded skeptical and he couldn’t say he blamed her.

 Edward was very glad his sister hadn’t yet hopped on the whole Zoom bandwagon and hadn’t asked for a video chat. She would have never let him live the sudden tomato-soup look of his face.

 “Sort of?”

 “Tell. Edward tell!” She demanded, suddenly excited at the prospect of hot gossip.

 Edward looked at his ceiling and wondered why he’d even told his sister any of this. She didn’t need to know, but – then again, part of him had been itching to share the fact that Étienne M Maisonneuve was rooming with him. This wasn’t an everyday thing, after all.

 “Remember Les Maisonneuves?”

 Edith was silent for a moment, “Who?”

 “The band I really like,” He said, exasperated.

 “Oh – yeah, your merry group of nobodies. Yeah, what about them?”

 For her information, they were not a merry group of nobodies. They were gaining traction and had even been nominated for a few awards after their last album had come out – thank you very much.

 “Well – one of the members – he was in town and got stuck – so – yeah, he’s here.”

 “Oh, I see.” Edith told him flatly and for one brief, glorious moment, Edward dared to hope that it was the end of this conversation. “Wait – is it the one you fucked?”

 “Edith!” He near shouted, sputtering, appalled, and embarrassed all at once.

 “Oh my God, it IS!” She sounded way too gleeful about this.

 Edward tried to form an answer, but the only things that came out of his mouth were series of incomprehensible sounds that did nothing to convince his sister otherwise.

 “So that’s why you haven’t gone off the deep end with cabin fever – you’re having the gay sex.”

 “Good Christ, Edith! Don’t be crass.” He could feel his face heat up even more. It was one thing discussing sex with a partner, another when his sister made a joke of it. Or reminded him that he was not, in fact, “having the gay sex” and that he would have very much liked to have “the gay sex.”

 “Well – you’re both guys. You’ve fucked each other. Call a boot a boot.”

 “I’m going to hang up.”

 “Oh – hang on – wow, so do you realise that if I hadn’t insisted and threatened you to go to the stupid concert and live a little you would not even be in this situation at the moment. Like you wouldn’t even be getting pandemic laid. You better fucking thank me.”

 “For the love of – we’re not fucking! There is no pandemic gay sex!” He yelled, unable to handle anymore of this. It was a really good thing Étienne was out at the current moment. It would have been even more mortifying otherwise.

 “Wait – you’re telling me you’re actually living some shitty porno plotline and somehow or other you’re not taking advantage of it? How much do you actually hate your life, Edward?”

 “It’s not that!” He defended. “I’m very much well aware of the situation and the – opportunity – but, I’m not just gonna pounce on the guy either. I have class. I’m not that desperate. Plus – I don’t want him to think I’m some weird fetish groupie or something. It’s strange enough we even slept together once – let alone on multiple occasions. Like – the fact that we met because I had a VIP ticket sounds fucking strange on itself. I don’t want to make it weirder.”

 “But you want to.” She stated simply and obviously. “Have the gay sex with him,” She clarified, as if it was really necessary.

 “I’m not stupid, Edith. Sure, it would be great. Yes, I would like to. But – he hasn’t – exactly – made a move either!”

 “What is this? The eighteenth century? You don’t have to court or wait for him to drop his hanky for you. Just talk to him, good God – it’s a miracle you even got each other naked once.”

 “Please stop talking.” He bemoaned.

 “Edward – do me a favour; stop living like an ostrich and live a little.”

 “It’s a Global Pandemic, or did you forget?”

 “I have not, thanks – but please stop being a sad mop.”

 “Fine, but keep out of my business and my sex life!”

 “Fine – but you’re missing an opportunity.” She practically sing-songed and Edward had heard enough. Had been put through the ringer enough. He didn’t need his younger sister to give him “relationship advice.” He was a grown assed man. He would – figure it out on his own.

 “If I tell you I’ll talk it over with Étienne, will you leave me alone?”

 “Only until I remember to bug you about it next time.”

 “How bored are you if you’re that invested in my life, all of a sudden?”

 “For your information, I am living my best quarantine life, thank you very much. You’re the one who brought your boy toy up.”

 “I did not!” He yelled, “And he is not my boy toy!”

 “Maybe we should have a little family Zoom next time – you could introduce me to him.”

 “I swear, I will hang up for real this time!” He said, even though they both knew he most likely wouldn’t.

 “Well, lucky for you, you won’t have to – I gotta run anyways – bye!” She cheerfully hung up and Edward flopped back on his couch, winded and exhausted. He really did need to talk with Étienne. If anything he could – let him know that – if ever he had an itch he needed to scratch – no, that sounded lame. How the hell was he even supposed to tell his celebrity-crush-turned-pseudo-friend-and-roommate that he very much wanted to sleep with him again? And then – how awkward would it be if Étienne had moved on? Obviously, Edward would respect that, but – he didn’t want things to be weird, considering they were living together and had nowhere else to really go to.

 This would be a problem for a different day – his head hurt and he’d given it enough thought for the day.

--

PREVIOUS: XXIX

CURRENT: XXX

NEXT: XXXI

[hotpodsummer]

REVEALS ARE HERE

Hello! Now that reveals are over, a masterpost of all of the gorgeous new fic! Thank you to everyone who posted in this exchange, commented, left kudos. You really made this exchange come alive! 

And By a Sleep, to Say We End the Heartache by laceblade for Srw 

No summary. (Ronan/Tommy)

And they were roommates?! by catpennies for bigpunktapes (biggayghost) 

Lovett was not supoosed to have roommates. This was not the plan. (Jon F/Tommy, Jon F/Jon L/Tommy)

Are You Writing Your Vows? We Don't Even Have A Date Yet. by Srw for Moreanswers24 

Ronan thinks that he's going to get a head start on writing his vows. (Ronan/Jon L)

But maybe we're the same by thetimesinbetween for swishandflick 

"One sec," Lovett says, already tapping at his phone. "Let me ask Ronan if he’s all right with me offering to let you drink from the source, or if he aiming for us to be, like, super super exclusive to the point where no other man can touch me."

Tommy opens his mouth, but Lovett is already hitting send.

Tommy's phone buzzes. Lovett has renamed their groupchat “bloodbag?” (Ronan/Jon L, Ronan/Jon L/Tommy)

close enough to touch by somehowunbroken for HereWeAreAtTheEnd 

They come together naturally, and when it all finally clicks—well, Tommy's pretty sure it's going to be amazing.(Jon L/Jon F/Tommy)

come do a friendly thing by kenopsia (indie) for catpennies 

Lovett shrugged. “I think it probably would have been a lot of fun to see Tommy’s face if he walked in on us in a four way post coital cuddle instead of coming back to change early enough to spook us sober. But it’s not like I still… think about it.”

“Clearly,” Emily said. She pulled her legs up to sit on her feet, feeling chilly suddenly. “Since neither of us are here thinking about it.”

(Ronan/Jon L/Emily/Jon F)

Despite the heat it'll be alright by okaystop for fizzy_smile 

It was hot. (Jon L/Tommy)

A Fitting Room for Changing by SelfRescuingPrincess for laceblade 

He's been holding onto these more-than-a-best-friend feelings for over a decade and a half but it always seems not quite right to verbalize anything specific. He second guesses himself and makes “Dear Diary” jokes instead because self-deprecation is safer. Or he straight up talks himself out of it because at this point it's been so long, and what would he even say? And what would Tommy say? What if he ruined everything? Realistically, Lovett should probably say something before he self-combusts, except the thought of losing Tommy- and the potential professional fallout- is ultimately unfathomable. Unbearable. Unimaginable. So, he’ll forget it. Bury it. (Jon L/Tommy)

Hallmark Moments by Moreanswers24 for celli 

Hallmark and Lifetime wish that they could write a relationship as captivating as the one between Jon Favreau and Emily Black.

But if Emily has her way, Hallmark and Lifetime are going to want to write about another relationship instead.

College AU. Pre-JonJon (Emily & Jon F, pre Jon F/Jon L)

here i am, rock you like a hurricane by fizzy_smile for ruthvsreality 

What is with that devilish glint in Dan's blue eyes? (Jon L/Dan)

home is wherever i'm with you by moonlitelupines for Laliandra 

He turns to Tommy and suddenly it’s the easiest thing in the world to lean in and place a kiss on his lips. Lovett hasn’t let himself think about kissing Tommy, a fact true even before he met Ronan. It felt like he was tempting fate by indulging in the fantasy. Because Lovett was sure that’s all it was ever going to be.

But, this isn’t fantasy. This is real.

~ Or, how an earthquake and a questionably functional elevator help Lovett, Ronan, and Tommy see what's been in front of them all along. (Ronan/Jon L, Ronan/Jon L/Tommy)

i want you to love me/i have everything i wanted by tealwall for waronchairs 

“I want to. Even if we don’t hit it off romantically, it would still be nice to third-wheel with you on the boys’ date.” (Jon F/Tommy, Emily/Hanna, Hanna/Tommy, Emily/Jon F)

No before, you are all I can see by swishandflick for kenopsia (indie) 

As fall rapidly swallows the last vestiges of summer, Lovett prepares to leave, and Tommy desperately tries to hold on. (Jon L/Tommy)

No One Knows Where They Belong by celli for whenlifehandsyou 

Jon and Emily are in love with someone else.

Lovett's going to figure out who it is. (Emily/Jon F/Jon L)

perfect use of an imperfect medium by earnestbros (departureboard) for hopefor46 

Human sexuality is complex! Lovett pleads with himself as he adds chips and guacamole to his order. There’s an entire universe between what you find theoretically hot and what you actually want to happen to your physical body.

OR

Lovett stumbles across Jon's porn search history, and he can't help but notice how much of it is Lovett-and-Tommy-adjacent. (Jon F/Jon L/Tommy)

Reach out and touch someone by hopefor46 for moonlitelupines 

Sometimes, middle school math teacher Jon Lovett's teachable moments are best suited for himself. (Jon L/Tommy)

Save Up All the Days by Laliandra for thetimesinbetween 

What you’re supposed to do is let your marker touch it, spend some time in each other’s company and let whatever strange energy that has connected you settle, find out what kind of mark effects you have, if it feels like something that could become a bond.

What Lovett does is dig out his one long sleeved henley and go to bed. (Jon L/Jon F/Tommy)

Shine a little light on me by whenlifehandsyou for tealwall 

It's been a real long pandemic. The foursome is finally alone together again after over a year apart. There's a lot of sex and feelings to catch up on. (Ronan/Emily/Jon F/Jon L)

Take Me Out to the Ball Game by HereWeAreAtTheEnd for okaystop 

When Lovett was growing up, he had always dreamed of playing professional baseball for the New York Yankees. Who knew a 5’7 jewish kid from Long Island would end up an MLB catcher? In spite of the antisemitism he faced and keeping his sexuality hidden, Lovett found dear friends in the Major Leagues, including Boston Red Sox catcher Tommy Vietor.

When the Yankees and Mets face off at a 3 game series at Fenway Park, Lovett is introduced to team captain and star pitcher Jon Favreau. Can Lovett look past Favereau's polished all-American persona or will his initial distrust and the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry keep him from finding something that could change everything? (Jon F/Jon L, Past Ronan/Jon L, Past Tommy/Jon F)

there's a spark in you by somehowunbroken for alotofthingsdifferent 

As it turns out, finding out you have a soulmate is nothing like it is in the movies. (Jon L/Dan)

this is our place, we make the rules by Sonni89 for earnestbros (departureboard) 

Sometimes it takes a truly ridiculous game to realize you’re all in love. Or, life’s fundamental question: can you gay chicken the gay one? (Jon L/Tommy/Jon F)

with the assist by bitterbeets (ginnydear), ginnydear for SelfRescuingPrincess 

Lovett loses a bet and has to wear a Lakers jersey all day. It causes quite the response. (Jon L/Tommy/Jon F)

You Matter to Me by waronchairs for ginnydear 

Five times Tommy and Lovett engage in non-sexual intimacy, and one time they don't. (Tommy/Jon L)

[bigskydreaming]

thehollowprince said: And I also stand by the opinion that they could have just done a solo run of the O5 X-Men starting a new timeline with the information they got from the future.

thehollowprince said: Its not like Marvel doesn’t constantly do AUs and retcons

OMG Josh you have no idea how bad I wanted this. They could’ve done SO MUCH with that concept. Letting the 05 keep their foreknowledge and the world they could have created with that?

They could’ve averted the initial Krakoan mission and saved Darwin, Gabe, Petra and Sway in the first place. They could have all been X-Men from their Day One, Scott and Alex would have actually gotten to KNOW their brother and Gabe quite possibly would never have gone full Dark Side despite the writers apparently now seeming obsessed with the idea there’s just something innately bad within Gabe that’s always destined to bear fruit at some point, ugh, whatever, like who do you think you are, Kant?

They could’ve recruited the Giant Size X-Men lineup earlier, and saved John Proudstar, who side by side with his brother Jamie, are a force to be reckoned with. 

They could have convinced Pietro and Wanda to join them instead of the Avengers and been like no but seriously that way lies nothing but shitty storylines and bad decisions that will be blamed on you by your teammates despite the fact that any and all of the bad decisions that were ACTUALLY yours could have been averted if any of your teammates were capable of functioning as an actual support system. Come join us. We have actual support systems, except for the times when we don’t, but we recruited Deadpool to break the fourth wall and he and Logan are currently cutting through the ranks of every writer who would write as hating and fighting each other instead of being a loving fucking family goddammit.

Jean could have faced the Phoenix head-on when the time for that came, using her knowledge of the future not to fear an inevitable death, but rather to know she had nothing TO fear, that the power to not control this force, but just be ONE with it, with no NEED to control it or be controlled by it, a symbiotic union, two beings in harmony deciding on courses of action together. The Phoenix’s innate powers and prerogative of rebirth and destruction tempered by Jean’s mercy, aimed and focused by Jean’s reason, the double-edged sword that is fire capable of warming homes or destroying them completely combined with Jean’s conscience guiding it to use its power for the former rather than the latter.

They could have stopped the Legacy Virus from getting out and killing millions as well as spared us from migraines induced by an AIDS metaphor so shitty at being a metaphor most people forget it was literally written to be an AIDS metaphor.

The body swap would never have happened and Kwannon could have joined the X-Men as a full member from the time she was introduced, rather than dragged along in the wake of Betsy’s tangled storylines for a couple decades.

They could have stopped Fitzroy from killing the Hellions. Hell, if they train Illyana early enough and have her mentored by Wanda who is perfectly fucking competent when left to her own devices, then like, maybe they can even take a jaunt to the future to save Fitzroy from dying in the first place and being resurrected with no soul. Not gonna lie, ever since then I’ve kinda been seriously interested in what the hell would a hero version of Trevor freaking Fitzroy even BE like, y’know? Call it morbid fascination, but like. I kinda want it, guys. LOL.

Add to that note, they could have taken another jaunt to the future and rescued Rachel from being made into a Hound by Ahab. Through the power of some convoluted plot tangle I just made up for convenience, Scott still ends up in a relationship with Maddy briefly, in one of those self-fulfilling prophecy type things where he went into it with the full intention of just averting the future and saving Maddy from her fate as the Goblyn Queen, but somehow ended up in a love triangle with a very alive Jean and Maddy who is fully informed of Sinister’s shenanigans and quite displeased with that asshole, and look, I don’t know how all of this goes exactly, but let’s cut to the chase, my only real endgame with this is making sure that Nate’s born properly, saved from Apocalypse and the techno-virus by the combined efforts of Scott, Maddy and Jean as well as Uncles Warren, Bobby and Hank, and Jean calls up the Phoenix through some psychic bond or whatever and is like hey girl, can I hit you up for a loan real quick? Got some losers that need toasting. 

And in this AU the Phoenix totally has her back, and one brief cosmic power-up and gratuitous Sailor Moon transformation later, Jean glows and intones some epic one-liners with appropriate gravitas, and then just punts both Apocalypse and Sinister to the far side of the universe, never to be seen or heard from again. They like, hit a black hole on the way there I guess. It was very sad. Violin strings may commence with the requiem. Okay that’s enough, they can stop now.

So then through the plot contrivances of fuck you, I said so, Scott and Maddy ultimately part amicably and Scott and Jean get back together and the three of them civilly co-parent both baby Nate and Rachel, as Maddy keeps the healing powers she gained as Anodine and stays with the X-Men for her own reasons.

The telepaths are all better trained by the expertise Jean gained in her powers while in the future, so the next time the Shadow King comes bumming around looking to cause chaos, Betsy, Emma and Jean just look at each other and laugh and say nuh-uh before psychically squishing him into a marble.

Warren never becomes Archangel. Onslaught isn’t a thing. They make nice with Magneto and say okay you may have a couple points, let’s discuss. Bishop arrives in the past for reasons totally unrelated to his original story, has no traitor to seek out among the X-Men, and thus he and Gambit end up besties in complete defiance of that stupid fucking story and because I just think they’re neat together. Yes I said neat. Gambit and Bishop are just neat. Deal with it. 

Bishop still hates that Fitzroy guy though, he’s like, I don’t even know what it is about that guy, he just rubs me the wrong way, even though Fitzroy is not evil here and has always done good with his powers, which are channeled through a device Forge made him that lets him just absorb life force from a wide range around him, spread out and diluted enough that its like, the grass feels weird for a second, like whoa what even was that, and then its over. Actually, y’know what, scratch that. Fitzroy’s powers are stupid and unnecessary the way they are now anyway, so fuck it, this Fitzroy doesn’t need life force or whatever, he’s just a dude who makes time portals. He’s like Illyana with green hair and that ugly goatee. Hey I said this Fitzroy was non-evil, not that he was perfect.

Bobby’s out and proud since he was sixteen, and with actual competence and proficiency with his powers, which make him a Literal Unkillable Gay Icon, he’s an inspiration to LGBTQ+ teens everywhere and inspires other gay, bi and trans heroes to come out. He’s a big brother figure to all the baby gays that later join the X-Men, like, Rictor comes to him for advice back during the time equivalent to early X-Factor, when Rictor’s a trying-too-hard sixteen year old who thought college age Bobby was like the coolest, which is valid, because X-Factor Bobby was like A+ Bobby characterization and deserves more reads. 

So Rictor comes out earlier as well, and by the time they even meet Shatterstar, instead of a slow burn friends to roommates to lovers scenario, Rictor takes one look at the love of his life and wastes no time coming out swinging with an absolutely terrible pick up line. Look, I said his big brother figure Bobby was out and proud in this AU, not that he magically had a better sense of humor. Some things just don’t change, y’know? Luckily, Shatterstar is a weirdo, and thus he finds terrible pick-up lines charming. At least when its Rictor saying them. They walk off for a first date, already practically hand in hand, voices fading into the distance as Rictor asks “By the way, have you met Dazzler yet? According to Bobby, apparently she’s your mom. That Longshot dude with the mullet over there is your dad I guess. We should go say hi.”

Hank gets an assistant hand-picked by the rest of the original X-Men, and who has one job and one job only. To follow him around and observe all his experiments, and he has veto power over experiments that People With IQs As High As Yours Should Know Better But I Guess You’ve Got Reed Richards Syndrome.

Hank’s like, “Hmm, if I built a time machine I could go back to the Jurassic Period and observe whether my theory of - “

Hank’s assistant: “Veto.”

“Damn. Okay I was also thinking of making a deep space communicator that can reach into the farthest reaches of space beyond any known civilization and just say hi, y’know? See if anyone’s out there.”

“Veto.”

“If I combine these genetically modified antibodies here with this strain of of DNA from - “

“Veto.”

“Well Forge built this device that does this to mutant powers but I think I can make it do - “

“Veto.”

“These nanobots I - “

“VETO,”

“Honestly, at this point I think you’re just saying that just because you like saying it.”

“Dr. McCoy, I promise you, I’m really, really not.”

Logan finds out about his future clan of stabby children, and seeks them out. He rescues Daken from Romulus, somebody stabs that loser with the immortal-killing sword, I don’t even care who, and after a few tense months of Logan trying too hard, he and Daken eventually bond over how hockey just isn’t violent enough. If you’re going to make a sport all about hitting each other, just really go for it or don’t even bother, y’know? Logan claps him on the shoulder and sniffs. That’s my boy. Then they find and rescue Laura and Gabby and take a road trip to Earth 1610 to pick up Jimmy. They have a house on campus, and new students walking by it are used to hearing loud growling and even howls. They were assured during orientation that that’s nothing to worry about, it just means the House of Snikt are watching a game and are rooting for opposing sides. 

Emma’s recruited practically the day they get back. She’s only just started at the Hellfire Club and has only done a tiny bit of Evil when Warren schedules an appointment with her, and then he, Scott and Jean make a better pitch than Shaw and his ilk could ever match. They’ve been to the future. Come join with us and we’ll give you an all access pass to memories detailing exactly what’s going to happen in these particular areas and many more. All you have to do is ask. Oh and also please don’t seduce any married teammates. Its bad form. To be honest, I don’t think it’ll be an issue because Deadpool assures us Morrison has been taken care of, and don’t worry if that makes no sense to you, its a head-scratcher for us to. Just roll with it. 

Nate ages normally here so its not like he ends up besties with forty year old Wade, but the latter having his own plot-contrived knowledge of the future because He’s Just Like That, decides that he won’t be denied at least SOME kind of bond with The Bestie That Wasn’t. He becomes Nate’s official babysitter. Well, not official, seeing as how Scott, Jean and Maddy don’t hire him and are very clear that their son is not to be left alone with this man at any time, he is a terrible influence and he keeps giving our kid guns. But then Wade just shows up anytime they’re out because he just has a sixth sense for Making Trouble, and he terrifies away whatever babysitter’s there and greets the returning and exasperated parents with a cheery wave. 

“I know what you’re going to say, but don’t worry, we didn’t do anything dangerous or against the law. All we did today was I taught him to make bombs, but we were very careful, we wore safety goggles and really, they were very little bombs. Not even anything atomic. I honestly don’t think any of them could have even blown up this whole house, and I’ve been meaning to say, I’m not impressed with the structural integrity of this place. Couldn’t you have picked something with a sturdier foundation? Its like you don’t even expect random space mercenaries to attack your place out of the blue every other month. Have any of you even read a single issue of your own comics?”

Scott’s jaw twitches Ominously. Wade starts gathering up his things. Jean rubs her forehead wearily.

“Wade, what do you even think ‘dangerous’ means?”

Wade pauses and cocks his head. Gives it a solid twenty seconds of thought. Then he shrugs. 

“I don’t know actually. Don’t think I’ve ever really thought about it. I always figured it was just one of those things people just say. Like, ‘oh, it looks like rain today,’ even if they’re not a forecaster and have no real meteorological credentials to speak of. ‘Oh, this mission will be dangerous,’ and I don’t even have to use up all my ammo and I only get shot twice. Y’know?”

“Leave,” Scott says. More like intones. House shakes a little bit but that might just be Wade’s imagination. Its very active.

“Leaving!” He says hastily. He jumps through the closed window and then teleports away amid the falling shower of broken glass. Why didn’t he do that while he was still inside the room? No one knows. Not even Wade knows. Why did the chicken cross the road? Who the fuck cares, now is it Original Recipe or Crispy?

Scott, Jean and Maddy search the house while Nate angelically claims they won’t find anything, Wade doesn’t even bring him cool stuff anymore cuz he knows you’ll just take it.

Maddy finds a high-tech laser space gun under a floorboard in the closet. She holds it up with one eyebrow raised pointedly. Scott and Jean flank her and their own eyebrows raise in solidarity. Well Jean’s does. Scott’s probably does but its hard to tell sometimes. Depends on what glasses or visor he’s wearing.

“That was already there,” Nate tries. Most powerful telepath and telekinetic in the world, but the kid can’t lie for shit. There’s not much point in trying when one of your moms is the freaking Phoenix, and that’s a skill that takes practice he just doesn’t have. 

The three sets of parental eyebrows make a V, judgingly.

“One month of no video games or TV?” Okay, so terrible liar but quick on his feet. At least he knows when he’s beat and jumps straight to trying to shape his own punishment proactively.

“Two months. And no flying lessons either,” Jean says. “And don’t pout at me, young man. You know the rules. No weapons inside the house unless your grandpa Corsair is visitng and we’re too tired to fight him on keeping knives under his pillow. This is a Do As We Say, Not As We Do house. Deal with it. Now, this is going with the others and you can have it back when you’re eighteen.”

It would have been three months, but Jean and Maddy caught a telepathic sniff from Scott. He’s just so proud of his kid thinking so tactically. He’s growing up so fast. Both women mentally roll their eyes. Why is he like this.

“I don’t see what the big deal is anyway,” Nate sulks. “Its just a stupid laser gun. I mean, Uncle Gabe blew up our last house with his brain.” 

“Yes and it was an accident and he feels absolutely terrible about that which is why we’re not going to bring it up when he and Armando come visit this weekend, right?”

“You can have my full compliance for two weeks off my sentence.”

“Or we can have your full compliance or two weeks will be added to your sentence,” Maddy says.

“You guys suck,” declares the ten year old vessel of near unlimited psychic might. He goes to his room, stomping all the way up the stairs so his grievances can be heard even by the House of Snikt next door. Course, they’ve already been listening to the whole thing with their enhanced hearing. There was nothing good on TV. Jimmy made popcorn and chewed with his mouth open just to piss off Daken. 

‘The second Father leaves the room, I am going to stab you in such a slow healing place you’ll still be bleeding at bed time.’ Daken mouths at his little brother from another universe. Jimmy scrunches his face in confusion. 

‘What?’ He mouths back. He’s terrible at reading lips. Or anything that isn’t skateboarding, really. And yet Father’s so happy that ‘at least one of my kids is content with stupid normal stuff and doesn’t go around drawing cover fire just because a mission is going so well its boring and they haven’t even gotten to pop their claws out yet.’

“That’s only because you’ve coddled him. He’s barely ever even been shot at. Just the one time on vacation in Majipoor and he wasn’t even the target, the assassin was aiming for me. If you would just let me take him on a proper outing to gain some real experience - “

“Not gonna happen.” Logan shuts that down real quick.

“Really Father, just look at him. He has zero situational awareness. I’ve been glaring a hole in the back of his head for a full minute now and he has no idea. That could just as easily be an actual laser scope, you know. He’s a disgrace to the whole family.”

“Daken, we’ve been over this,” Logan says firmly. “You have your sisters to bond with over gratuitous violence. Leave your brother alone. I don’t want anyone traumatizing him until trauma finds him all on its own. It’ll happen sooner or later, he’s as much a part of this family as anyone and that means its as good as done already, so there’s no need to hurry it along. If later on he decides he’s got a taste for it, you can take him on all the outings to get shot at that you want. But he’s gotta figure it out for himself first, and he doesn’t need his big brother being the one who introduces him to all that. He idolizes you, you know.”

Daken scoffs. He can’t even get the brat to chew with his mouth closed.

“He cut his hair from that style he liked so much, just because you hated it so much,” Logan says obliviously. Daken nods like he’s conceding the argument and hastens from the room while he can still keep his mouth shut. It won’t benefit anyone at this point to tell their father that Jimmy really only cut his hair because Daken told him he would set it on fire if he didn’t. 

Ugh, families are the worst. Don’t even get him started on Laura stealing some of his clothes to wear without asking. And then has the gall to yell back at him when he yells “Silk! Its the finest cut of silk! Does that mean nothing to you?” at her.

“Oh get over it. Its not like I asked for killer robots to interrupt my date.”

“Of course they were going to interrupt your date with that Julian boy. I keep telling you, he’s a magnet for trouble. I can tell. I’m one too, remember?”

“Fine, whatever, you’re right and I should just expect every date with Julian from now until the end of time to end with fire and disaster.”

“Well now you’re being melodramatic. There’s no way that boy makes it past twenty five. He doesn’t even have a healing factor.”

“Why do you hate him so much anyway? If you’d just give him a chance - “

“What are you talking about? I give him a chance every single time he’s here and I don’t kill him.”

“Ugh, I can’t even talk to you when you’re like this. You always do this, you just decide on something and then you commit to that like the fate of the world depends on you standing firm on what’s usually a completely arbitrary decision in the first place!”

Daken sniffs. “I can assure you, there’s absolutely nothing arbitrary about my disdain for the Keller boy.”

“His name is Julian,” Laura enunciates with a glare.

“I don’t care,” Daken enunciates with an expression of lofty superiority.

“You two are so dumb,” Gabby says from the end of the hallway. They both turn identical glares on her. They’d noticed her arrive several minutes ago but they weren’t about to be distracted from their battle of wills. “Laura, you know Daken isn’t actually going to kill Julian. He doesn’t do that anymore except for really bad people sometimes and he just talks about stabbing people or killing them cuz he thinks he’s funny and then he gets all pissy because nobody ever gets that he doesn’t really mean it. He doesn’t even hate Julian and he used to be fine with him before he started dating you, its just he doesn’t think he’s good enough for you.”

Daken frowns at the petite would-be peacemaker. Meddlesome toddler. “What are you even babbling about? None of that is remotely true.”

Gabby rolls her eyes up at her brother from her much lower height. She taps the side of her nose with emphasis. “You do know we all have the same abilities to smell and analyze scents as you do, right? And you know everything you can tell from peoples’ scent, right? Of course I’m right, I can smell it as clear as anything and so can Jimmy and Dad and we actually all know this and talk about it all the time, and its why Dad never actually gets mad at you for talking about killing people because he can smell you’re saying it just cuz you’re used to saying it but really you’re too marshmallowy on the inside now to do half the stuff you claim you’re gonna do. Hate to break it to you bro, but you’re a closet softie and you’ve been made. The nose doesn’t lie. Only reason Laura doesn’t know it is because you piss her off like its your favorite hobby and its probably impossible for her to smell anything beyond her own scent of Royally Pissed Off.”

Ugh. Meddlesome insightful toddler. Who asked for her intervention anyway? Daken crosses his arms in a way that’s decidedly aloof and not at all sulking.

Laura’s staring at their sister assessingly. “That’s really what you think is going on? And Jimmy and Dad think so too? You’re not just saying all that?”

Gabby bats her eyes up at them. “Would I lie to you?”

“Yes,” Laura says without missing a beat.

“Without a shadow of a doubt,” Daken says dryly, right on her heels.

“For the sake of a candy bar,” Laura adds, because that really did happen.

“Or just boredom, because god forbid you pick up another hobby that isn’t just Chaos.”

“This from the guy who only has fun when there’s blood and bullets flying about,” Gabby fires back from a position of petite petulance.

Daken smirks down at her. “Didn’t you just say I don’t really mean it when I say all of that?”

Gabby narrows her eyes. “Touché. My own words thrown back at me. I am undone.”

“Yes, well - “

Daken’s cut off as Jimmy chooses that moment to walk past them down the hallway to the bathroom. He’s laughing and shaking his head.

“You guys are both so dumb. She plays you like this all the time, and you never see it.”

“Silence, mortal!” Gabby thunders at their brother menacingly. The effect is somewhat diminished by the fact that she can’t hit a baritone note to save her life.

“No, I’m interested in hearing what he has to say,” Daken says coolly. “For once. This is a moment without precedent and one unlikely to occur again, so let’s explore it a bit.”

Jimmy sighs and shakes his head without ever losing that amused smirk. “Had to tack on that last part, didn’t you. Just couldn’t help yourself.”

“I am a faithful student of the Truth,” Daken says, matching his brother smirk for smirk.

“The point, Jimmy?” Laura prods aggressively before that can erupt into a wholly separate thing she wants no part of.

“Oh, right.” He shrugs nonchalantly. “Its kinda her thing with you two when you get like this. You pick a fight with Laura, Laura gets pissed off and succumbs to the family curse of Tunnel Vision at the Worst Possible Time, and you both go back and forth endlessly and like you have all the time in the world for your stupid tete a tete, because on account of you both being practically unkillable and immortal, you kinda do and you know it. And then whenever she gets bored of listening to you two, Gabby swoops in and draws both of your attention until you’re both so focused on being annoyed with her you don’t even realize you’re actually side by side agreeing with each other, and she keeps it up just long enough til she’s sure she can just say she’s bored now and just leave the room, leaving you both annoyed and frustrated by a fight you can’t even claim to have won because she really just kinda...left, in the middle of it, and you’re so focused on that, you’ve totally forgotten to be pissed at each other. And by the time you do remember, like, the moment has passed and peace has been returned to the kingdom. Or at least as peaceful as this place ever gets.”

Daken stares at his mistake of a brother in the hopes that if he stalled long enough, his senses would arrive at a different conclusion. But nope. Scents don’t lie, unlike baby sis, apparently. He’s telling the truth. And Daken really does not....care for that conclusion.

Gabby stamps her foot and glares up at their brother.

“You are such a tattletale. I am providing a service, by keeping this family free of these two constantly at each others throats, and how is that service repaid? With betrayal! I hate you, you’re dead to me. Never speak to me again or at least not until I’ve stopped being mad at you, but that could be like ten years or something, I don’t even know right now.”

She draws up to her full height and squares her shoulders as she thunders this Mighty Mouse style at the still laughing Jimmy. Then, seeing she’d yet to make a dent in his armor of amusement and he was failing to take her pronouncement seriously, she punctuated her declaration by spitting on their brother’s shoe. Daken’s eyebrows shoot up again, this time in amusement of his own. Gabby then spins around on her heel and stalks off down the hallway, muttering more dire threats under her breath as she goes, the sound of them nonetheless carrying clearly to three siblings with enhanced hearing of their own. And apparently, little sis could be quite creative. Who knew she’d been hiding such talent?

Jimmy barely even notices; he’s still staring down at his shoe.

“Dude, you spit on me! That’s so not cool.”

“Some things need to be expressed so strongly, mere words will not suffice,” Daken says loftily, savoring a slightly renewed sense of superiority.

One quickly dashed, of course, because apparently he just can’t have anything.

“Bold words from the seventy year old who needed the sixteen year old to clue him in he’s being regularly manipulated by the twelve year old,” Jimmy fires back. As a return volley, its obnoxiously effective, and Daken’s still grinding his teeth and searching for an adequate rejoinder as Jimmy just grins even wider and then strolls off down the hallway as well. Whistling either an absolutely hideous song or else proof that he’s absolutely hideous at whistling. Tough call. With him it could be either.

Daken and Laura both stare after him in silence as he rounds the corner and disappears, leaving only the lingering scent of smugness in his wake. Daken hates the scent of smugness. It has a particularly....cloying feel to it. Well not his of course. But everyone else’s, especially little brothers? Acrid is the only word adequate for that.

“Sometimes I really do want to stab him. Just a little bit. And I’m not even lying,” Daken says. Laura just nods, her own nose scrunched up in distaste as well.

“Honestly? Me too.”

Brother and sister enjoy the rare moment of solidarity.

“You know what’s really bugging me?” Laura says suddenly, still staring off down the hallway. Daken turns an inquiring eye on her, prompting elucidation. She frowns.

“Where the hell did he learn a phrase like tete a tete? I mean. Its Jimmy.”

Daken does know what she means, and frowns as the nagging awareness of that leaps from his sister to himself like memetic chain lightning.

“And he used it correctly. That’s....unexpected.”

“Sometimes I wonder if maybe he’s not as completely airheaded as he pretends, and the fact that he’s got everyone so convinced of that actually means he’s running circles around the rest of us,” Laura says. She shrugs. “Of course, then I have to question everything and who has that kind of time and also the very idea of genius mastermind Jimmy disturbs me on a deeply visceral level. So then I just. Stop doing that.”

Daken nods and sighs. “Sometimes, that’s all you can do.”

“Okay, this is annoying. I kinda still want to fight, but now fighting with you feels kinda anticlimactic. Ugh, siblings are the worst,” Laura declares with a glower. “They ruin everything.”

“On that, we can agree. With allowances for temporary occasions of some of them being bearable,” Daken says. “Some.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve never said to me, big brother,” Laura says lightly. Daken swiftly scowls but she holds up a hand to forestall any rebuttal. “Sorry, don’t mean to ruin the moment. I’m thinking about how else we can put all that frustrated energy to good use. Wanna go pick a fight with the Summers’ kids?”

A slow smile spreads across Daken’s face. “Well now. Finally, a family outing I can get behind. I believe that’s precisely what we need right now. Care to lead the way?”

He still hates her boyfriend, of course, but he supposes he can let that be. 

For now, at least.