#never mind that my eighty year old grandparents will be there and they wanted to do it via zoom

[pinkfey]

the alienation of showing up to an event as the only person masked is like. the absolute worst.

[dragoneyes618]

Thoughts Upon Reading The Wish Novelization

I still haven't watched Wish yet, but I've read the novelization, and here's my thoughts about it. Because I am the kind of person who wonders about random background unimportant details and asks way too many questions about how things work. I've noticed that I'm not a very good companion to watch a movie with. ;)

Asha's grandfather is one hundred. She is seventeen, meaning he was eighty-three when she was born (give or take a year).

To compare, take the Madrigals from Encanto. Isabela and Dolores are 21; their grandmother is 75.

So wouldn't Sabino be kind of too old? Wouldn't it make more sense for him to be Asha's great-grandfather instead? Or did Asha's parents and/or grandparents get married late or something?

Also is Sabino her mother's father or father's father?

Never mind, it says on the wiki that he's Asha's father's father. So that answers that. Also that Asha's father's name was Tomas.

And now the wishes! Okay, so everybody gives up their wish when they turn eighteen. Why eighteen? In the medieval period in Spain the age of adulthood was not eighteen. The medieval period anywhere, really. I read that in Spain people were considered under their parents' jurisdiction until the age of twenty-three for men and twenty-five for women, unless married (which applied to both men and women). Most certainly not eighteen. Then again they weren't going to make the main characters in their twenties. But then they might as well have just had the age be sixteen or whatever.

And then you just...forget your wish? What's the point of that, then? Why would you want it to be granted? If you don't remember it anymore you have no desire for it anymore.

And the wish ceremony is only once in a lifetime, but what if your wish changes? What you wish for at eighteen is probably a lot different from what you wish for at forty.

What if by the time your wish is granted you don't want it anymore? After all, you moved on because you had no memory of wanting it!

Like that lady who wanted to create the best dresses. Why would she want to create them? Presumably that was her job. Maybe she's a seamstress from a family of seamstresses. Or something. But then her wish to create the best dresses is taken from her and she has no memory of ever wanting to make them. She has no desire or drive to at all. So she becomes something else. She does a different job. Maybe she becomes a baker or something. Then all of a sudden she's granted the ability to make the best dresses, after years and years of doing something else because she had no desire to create dresses anymore. Now what?

And there was that one wish of someone holding a baby. Presumably the wisher wished for a child. Does that mean the wisher will remain infertile until and unless Magnifico grants the wish? And how would that work anyway? Would a baby just appear out of nothing onstage?

And Sabino's wish. It seems that his wish was to create music with his lute. It would've been a lot simpler if his wish had been worded that way instead of "create something to inspire future generations." Magnifico was actually right that ideas can be dangerous. Of course, Sabino would never hurt anyone, but the people he inspires might, or the people they inspire might, and so on and so forth. For all Magnifico knows, Sabino's inspiration is a rebellion or something, instead of simply music.

And now Magnifico. A name like Magnifico is a bit on the nose, no? I assume that was not his original name. Maybe he renamed himself after gaining magic. A magnificent name for a magnificent sorcerer king! 

He was not born a magician. It says that when he was young his family was attacked and he didn't have magic then. Where did he get magic from then?

And I'd like to know a bit more about this "great loss" he suffered, wouldn't you?

He founded Rosas. Why did he pick the name Rosas then? Isn't the way these things usually work is naming the kingdom or city or whatever after some derivative of his name?

And what exactly does the king's apprentice do? Apprentice to a sorcerer, but there weren't any other sorcerer's around in Rosas, were there? What happened to the other apprentices, and if you've ever read the Wings of Fire series I'm worrying that the same thing that happened to the dragonmancer apprentices in that series happens here. (Spoiler: They died.)

And Amaya, the queen, knows exactly who Asha is. Alright so it makes sense that she'd know the name of whoever was applying to be the next apprentice. Also I thought it was so sweet that she was giving Asha advice.

But apparently she's been watching Asha and knows how she acts and feels and so on. She's the queen and Asha is a random person in Rosas. I get the feeling it's a pretty small kingdom. It must be, though, for everybody to be able to gather once a month. Probably that one town is basically the whole kingdom.

Also I wonder whatever happened with that poor guy who had the interview right before Asha.

And Magnifico seemed to trust Asha very quickly and then revealed his true motives to her also very quickly. Did he think she would agree with him but drastically misread her intentions?

You know a lot of the wishes could have been fulfilled on their own. Like Simon's wish was to be a loyal guard. He could have fulfilled that wish by.....joining up with the king's guards and training with them and becoming one of them. Obviously he's already loyal if he wants to become a guard in the first place.

And I want to know how Amaya and Magnifico met! I want to know more about them in general!

My guess is that they met and married only after Magnifico became king because she constantly calls him mi rey.

Although on the other hand maybe they were married before that and she calls him that because she's so proud that he became king.

Also you'd think Amaya would have had some questions after Asha's interview. Like "if Asha isn't being your next apprentice why did you want her to sit with me then." 

And it seems that that weird green forbidden magic changed Magnifico. He could be reasoned with, before. But afterwards he threatened Amaya. I thought he truly loved her, but he was willing to hurt her with magic. I think the magic changed him, made him worse. And once you embrace it, there's no going back....

But Amaya seems to accept evil Magnifico with surprising ease. Once she sees that apparently it's impossible to undo the magic's influence she just...accepts it. Like you'd think she'd try to talk to him or something. Like even after he's in the mirror you'd think that she'd try to talk to him and ask him what he was thinking and see if he knows of any way to undo the forbidden magic now that he can't harm anyone else. But nope.

I did think that part was kind of funny, though. She's like "Well you do love mirrors!" She's seen quite enough of him staring into mirrors and preening over how handsome he is.....

But also Asha figured out that the queen was on her side and would go against her own husband just from seeing how changed she looked after realizing what Maginifco was doing? Aren't queens, like, trained never to let their true emotions show in public?

Also random but Magnifico says he granted fourteen wishes last year but he grants wishes once a month. What are the extra wishes?

Maybe, in addition to the monthly granting, sometimes he grants an extra wish on notable occasions, like the anniversary of the kingdom’s founding and holidays and so on. Which might be why everyone expected Sabino's wish to be granted - he was surely the oldest one there, and a 100th birthday is indeed an occasion.

And also why is sixteen year old Dahlia working in the palace kitchen? Is she apprenticing to someone? Do her parents work there?

Also I think it's funny how half the kingdom has a crush on Magnifico despite him already being married. Like Amaya is literally right there.

And then the ending with Asha being a fairy godmother. Crossovers aside, I don’t care about that, and I want an answer that is not bashing the movie, please, why did they word it that way? Why did Asha's friends say she should be their fairy godmother as opposed to "You'll help us all fulfill our wishes" or "you'll grant everyone their wishes" or so on? Asha is very much a human, not a fairy at all. and it's not her magic, it's the star’s magic.

So the fact that they specify fairy godmother implies that fairy godmothers already exist in the universe of Rosas. Which is maybe a clue as to where Magnifico got his magic from.

Back to Magnifico I wondered why he didn't immediately suspect that the light was Asha.

Although I thought it was funny how everybody was cheering the light and he was like "No, it wasn't me, it's a traitor!"

Like somebody figures out his true colors, he reveals his true motives (didn't he worry she would do something or tell people?) and then literally that night somebody's meddling with magic. He didn't suspect her?

When Magnifico and his guards showed up at her house I thought he'd finally come to that conclusion. But then it turned out Simon told him.

Also how did they escape on the king's horses? They're unfamiliar to the horses and likely have less experience riding. Shouldn't the horses reject them in favor of their own riders, or at least be slower and confused? Like it should have taken them longer to get the horses to trust them and let them ride them.

And Magnifico kind of doomed himself in the end. Overnight he went from a beloved wishgranting king to one trying to destroy all of them and blot out the stars. Made it pretty easy for the population to celebrate his defeat. As opposed to what he had until then, which was the word of one random teenager against him.

Especially considering his wife was against him! That definitely convinced a lot of people. Amaya seems pretty popular.

I wonder what the everyday people were thinking. One day out of the blue there's a traitor, who seemed like a nice ordinary girl but she meddled with magic which the king says is illegal and he's the king so his word goes. Then the king starts doing creepy magic and people's wishes start being destroyed and he tries to kill Asha.

Also does Bazeema have a crush on Gabo or something? She kept popping up right next to him.

And I wonder what Asha's mother's wish was.

Also Magnico states that he doesn't even charge his people rent. But how does that even work? Every kingdom and country in history has charged taxes. You need money for a kingdom to function. Basic. How does Magnifico pay his guards, then? Pay his servants?

Maybe he uses wishes as payment. Like with his guards, maybe they have to work for X amount of years and then he grants their wishes. Plus while they’re working for him they get food and a place to live and so on. Magnifico using wishes as payment wouldn’t completely solve the money question, but it would go some way to.

Also, the fact that Magnifico didn’t charge rent, nor presumably any other form of taxes, suggests that he really really wanted people to live there, to the point of forgoing any money he could make from them, so he could have their wishes….

Also say what you will about the ending but I think it could actually make sense for Magnifico in the mirror to be the Evil Queen's mirror. So they didn't destroy this mirror, right? It stayed in the palace. It's still there for the next generation of rulers, and the next. It gets handed down throughout the centuries and eventually they forgot the story behind it; they just know that their family has a magic mirror that can tell them anything. Because he has magic and can use it to find out anything. Now Rosas is in Spain and I think Snow White is in Germany but this could work. Back in the day royal families from different countries married each other all the time to create alliances. So somebody from the royal family of Rosas married Snow White's ancestor and brought the mirror along. And the mirror was passed down through a few more generations until it came to the Evil Queen. The Evil Queen was royalty by marriage, so the mirror could have belonged to her husband. It could have already been in the palace when she came. 

Also I was thinking! Magnifico's changed green magic that turned Simon evil! Isn't that sort of like what happened to Magnifico in the first place?

And I also want to know how long ago Magnifico founded Rosas. It must be pretty recent; it's still a very small kingdom. This is probably why he's so eager for people to visit and move there.

Sabino is 100 years old; presumably he moved to Rosas in his lifetime and wasn't born there? Maybe he knows about how it was founded and so on.

Imagine being older than the kingdom you live in! Quite an accomplishment! (Most kingdoms aren't new, so....)

So Magnifico can grant literally any wish, which he uses to encourage people to live there. Okay but this is literally any wish. Maybe this is another reason why people are coming to Rosas! They want their wishes granted! Literally any wish! Never mind the wishes to fly or swim or whatever! Where are the wishes for things like endless wealth or to be king, things which people have most certainly wished for over the centuries? Where are the desperate people traveling to move to Rosas to get their wish fulfilled? Where are the wishes like "I wish my dead brother was alive" and "I wish my fatally ill wife was cured of her illness" and "I wish my son who got run over by a cart last month was completely healed?"

[greatwyrmgold]

The elderly antiquarian looked through the trailer I brought, full of my late great-aunt's furniture. "Looks nice, decent condition. I might be able to give you a couple hundred bucks for that."

"Just a couple hundred? That's it?"

He nodded. "Antiques don't sell like they used to."

"Well, why not?"

The antiquarian looked back at his store. "Generations of consuerism and wage stagnation, I think."

"Huh?"

"Back when the baby boomers were babies, anything fifty or sixty or seventy years old was made in the nineteenth century. There was probably some cheap factory-made furniture back then, but most of it was still handmade, and most of that was assembled by someone who wanted their work to outlive them. Or someone who barely knew what he was doing.

"Point is, in the old old days, furniture was either shoddy or robust. Any table that survived two World Wars, the Great Depression, and generations of kids hitting it with hammers or whatever was a good damn table."

"Hammers?"

"Was that just my kids? Anyhow, most people with a table like that weren't gonna sell it. It was probably a family heirloom, after all, and it was hard to accumulate more tables than you needed. So antiques were rare, and they were tough, and they probably looked nice. They sold for a lot.

"Nowadays, anything that's fifty or seventy years old was made in the seventies or fifties. They'd figured out how to make decent chairs in a factory, and consumerism was taking off, so us boomers could buy all the furniture we wanted for our new homes. More than our parents and grandparents, I'd bet. Some of it was crap that fell apart in the eighties and nineties, but a lot of it is still around. Like this stuff. I'm guessing it's from an older relative?"

I nodded.

"We boomers bought a house of furniture, and so did our kids. When I die, my family won't need any of the stuff I've got at home, never mind all the stuff in my store. Maybe Generation X has some room for their parents' stuff, but you millennials don't have enough space for your own stuff.

"Which brings me to another problem. When I bought furniture, I could afford to splurge on a nice old clock. When you buy furniture, you don't care about history or aesthetics. Your generation just wants to keep enough cash in the bank to pay rent, yeah?

"With less people looking to buy old furniture because it's nice, and more people looking to sell old furniture because they've got too much, most antiques don't sell unless you sell 'em cheap. If something's really nice you might be able to sell it to one of the few people who can afford nice old furniture...but normal old furniture only sells if it's cheaper than new stuff."

[lottienatyellowjackets]

i love your maiko headcanons and i need to know your takes on elderly, retirement era maiko. i just know they're thriving on ember island, being badass grandparents, and constantly bickering in that cute old couple way.

eep my first ask this is so exciting!! i love elderly maiko so much the idea of them growing old and being happy and just in love makes my heart so happy. i honestly hadn’t really thought of many before now but here are some i find so <3:

•when zuko abdicates and izumi becomes fire lord, mai and zuko stay in the palace for a few years. i don’t know the exact age he abdicates at, but in my head, he’s eighty four when he abdicates the throne for a forty six izumi. they stay because while their beloved grandson(who they were very hands on with in terms of raising) iroh is thirty, mizuki is thirteen and they want to be there for her teen years.

•they are still ridiculously so in love in their old age!! they’re that elderly couple who have that whole “if lost return to jan” and “i’m jan” way about them. they still kiss and hold hands and all that much to the chagrin of their family (who pretends to hate it but secretly loves how happy they still are)

•a few years into izumi’s reign, they decided its time to leave the palace for sometime(for izumi’s sake, she’s had nearly fifty years of their hovering) and head to ember island.

•on ember island, zuko finally relaxes (except when he’s traveling as an ambassador for peace, which mai sometimes accompanies him with) and writes and directs all the plays he’s ever wanted to.

•mai paints!! she’s always loved art, even as a little girl and her mother deemed it her talent to hone to perfect, and while she always loved it, often it was put on the back burner for Fire Lady, her family and other forms of self care

•she is reminded of how even at republic city university (oops <3 another hc <3) how every student studying art came from money. and she begins to realize of all the galleries in the fire nation, artists were always from prominent families. and zuko realizes almost all the directors/theatre critics too come from families where that kind of career is okay, because you always have family money to fall back on.

•it does not sit right with them that the nobility dominates even the arts in the Fire Nation. so they cut their retirement short and return home to their family and open a center of the arts school for all the children of the fire nation to attend if they so desire. shortly, they open more schools in different provinces of the nation so that way no child would be left out. and they visit the schools often to see what the children of their nation have created and they’re so proud, because this is their country’s future.

•but back to their couple dynamics!! zuko is the guy who embraces his age because he never thought he’d make it to sixteen, never mind late eighties. mai however, does not. she’s the one to round down her age and always make sure everyone knows she is a year younger than her husband. zuko finds it funny how upset she was that she got wrinkles and grey hair like every other elder, much to mai’s chagrin. but he finds her to be the most beautiful, graceful, intelligent and stylish woman even after all their years together and tells her everyday.

•but they bicker!! by the age of eighty nine and eighty eight, they have been married for sixty nine years, which is a long time to be married. they know everything about the other and are happiest together, but they also know what irks the other. zuko claims it “keeps them young and on their toes” to bicker and mai always rolls her eyes fondly.

•out of all their accomplishments as fire lord and fire lady, peace ambassadors, artists, etc, they are most proud that they are parents. they’re the parents who stop people in the street to still brag about their girl, even though she’s a grown adult with children of her own. in fact, even though izumi is in her fifties, zuko (and mai) still get emotional on the regular that they have her (and neither will admit it).

•if they love anything more than being parents, it’s being grandparents. izumi was seventeen when she had iroh and the father was never in the picture, which meant she was trying to handle her role as studying to be fire lord and be a mother, so mai and zuko spent a lot of time with their grandson. and they spoil him rotten!! even as a grown man, iroh knows he’s always going to be given hugs and snuck fruit tarts by his grandparents. and mizuki (i saw a fic once where she had that name and!! i love it!!) who was born many years after iroh, is very much adored by them as well. she emulated mai’s childhood hairstyle her whole youth because she loves her so much. and both mizuki and iroh will say when asked without hesitation the biggest influences on their lives are them.

•also mai dies first, but not for many years after lok, she was off writing poems with mizuki (:

[errthel]

Route Two Deux

Welcome to part two of which may become a discontinued fantasy, but tis is life I guess. Pulled from the ever fantastic Second Wife AU of the Draconia Family Series by @tri3tri if you didn't know, and if you didn't, how?????? So without further ado I guess, this is the second part.

Tired eyes wandered off to the lush green lawn surrounding the outside of the building. From the barstool in the kitchen, he could see the green grass with tidy flower beds, a small pond off to the side giving a sense of serenity to whoever walked in there. The silence of the large house would have accented the loneliness of the boy, but the music that boomed from the speakers in the other room did well to hide it.

Lucien's damp mood was brought to him by an acceptance letter from a school he never applied to. He remembered that day a week ago when a dove brought it to him during breakfast, and the horror that ensued from his grandparents prompted them to eplain that the school, Royal Sword Academy, was in the same world as his wretched father.

He was familiar with the concept of his mother and sisters held captive in a world separate from his own. He was also aware of the existence of magic in that world, and to some extent, his own. The teen remembered distant memories of the past, when he would uncontrollably make objects float and with the unlocking of a special power when he was ten, it seemed that he should have expected something to happen to him.

Lucien expected dying to the hands of the government or being killed in a lab or just being exiled from society and be forced into becoming a laborer. But he stupidly didn't expect an acceptance letter to a magic school, that was a big oh right moment he thought.

His pale hand brought up the juice box to his delicate lips, which were rather plump and pink. Dispite his seemingly feminine lips, his face is anything but female or male. To everyone around him, Lucien is the epitome of androgynous beauty, and if it wasn't for his rather deep and masculine voice, he would have passed off as a female, a rather tall one at that

To his surprise the only one who really physically changed was him, he grew up to a hulking one hundred and eighty cm. While his grandparents, who were having a date in town, maintained their semi-youthful appearance, no matter how much Lucien tried to find a difference from photos of the past to now, he couldn't find any. Are they perhaps immortal? Or have magic unconsciously?

He wasn't sure about that, they smelled as normal as everybody else so he never questioned it.

The ringing of his phone caught his attention as he brought the hunk of metal to his ear.

"Lucien here."

"Ahh! Lucien-sama!" Ah... another girl

Lucien sighed a silent sigh before he quickly asked, "Um... may I ask who this is?"

"Mhm! I'm Mari-chan! From Class 1-B!" the female voice from the other end said in a cheery manner

"Oh okay... sorry, but I have something to do..."

...

"Do I have to get another number? I just got this one a month ago."

"Another one?" Albert's gruff voice evaded the silence of the home making Lucien sigh once more

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure she's a high schooler, no one's named Mari in the middle school department."

"Gosh. Our grandson's soooooo popular!"

"This is not a laughing matter Hanna!"

"Why? I'm plenty proud of Lucien! Aren't you? He's like the middle schooler you never were."

"What do you mean by that!"

"Hey, gramps, when I go to Royal Sword Academy, what should I do... you know. I wanna see mother, but I don't want to risk getting her in trouble, same for my sisters." a sad tone took over the fifteen year old's speech

"So that's what you've been thinking of kid..." Albert trailed off as he examined the younger boy

Over the years the boy's grandparents received visions, where they came from, they didn't know. Each and every vision they had, they dictated to Lucien, the visions consisted of the life his mother had living with his so called father, father my foot Lucien thought. But the visions never showed what happened after that tall woman took his mother and sisters, and any knowledge about it was something Lucien heavily desired.

Hanna walked over to the barstool Lucien sat at and sat on the one next to it, she held a sympathetic look whilst a sad disposition overtook her.

"Lucien, you are a smart child, when you are there, I implore you to make decisions that will help you towards your goal." her cold frigid tone showcased the woman's serious side as she pat her grandson's back.

"Kid, when you're there, there will be a time where you will have to show your other form. Whether that time be the first time you step into that school, or at graduation, I hope you don't regret it." Albert added as he walked to the pair

"Mhm..."

~

The rest of the day was somber as the fated day drew closer and closer, whatever day that may be. Lucien thought back to what might have went through his mother's mind when she woke up at Night Raven College. Was she scared? He thinks she was.

His mother... Lucien no longer remembers what she looked like or what his sisters looked like. He can only remember the warmth they gave him years ago, before that day.

He remembers sobbing uncontrollably when he and his grandparents watched 'Sleeping Beauty' one day in the past. His small hands took what ever they could and threw it to the television when the villainess, Maleficent, first appeared on the screen. The hands of his grandmother held him back as his grandfather, in sheer panic, unplugged the television cord.

That 'episode' of his left him trembling and wary of all Disney movies for a long time.

~

The heaviness of the plastic bag he was carrying made the boy cringe. He had only planned to buy a few cups of coffee jelly to share with his friends at the club, but the amount of girls that stopped him to give him some more made him uncomfortable.

The plastic bag was at its witts end as it held at least twenty cups of coffee jelly, storebought and homemade.

Once he had reached his destination, his other hand found the handle of the door that was labeled 'music club' and slid it open. The slight laughter inside the room made Lucien warm up as he ducked a bit to get in.

"Oh! Lucien-senpai! What are you doing here!" a shorter boy with blond tresses sitting by the shiney drum set called out

"Just visiting." Lucien smiled lightly to the boy

"O! There it is! Lucien-senpai's mysterious smile!"

"Hush, hush, Kei-chan." a brown haired girl said to Kei

"Lucien-senpai, I also feel the same as Kei-chan. What brings you here? I thought he graduating class was given a week off." she said looking at the taller male

"There's no harm in visiting my dear underclassmen isn't there, Haru? I thought I would say something before going off to my new school." Lucien said, grimacing a bit in the inside at the thought of leaving this wonderful world of his in pursuit of a world he has no idea about

"So the rumor of Lucien-san leaving for another school was true after all..." a flamboyant voice evaded the club room followed by the shutting of the door

Lucien looked behind to see a head of dyed light pink hair, styled into a very stylish hair style. He chuckled before confirming the rumor.

"Yeah, I have been forced to attend a new school. Also, nice hair Takashi."

"Huuhh! I thought your grandparents were the chillest grandparents! I never knew they would force you to attend a different school." Kei's loud voice made Lucien answer with a sigh

"It wasn't my grandparents really, intact they were against the idea of me changing schools."

"Eh? Then who forced you?" Takashi asked as Haru looked at the oldest male with questioning eyes

"...it's a secret..." Lucien said as he gave a discreet smile with hooded eyes

"Is that so? Actually, I don't think we know anything about your parents Lucien-san." Takashi questioned

"Actually Takashi-senpai is right, we don't know anything about your parents. Are they perhaps the one who're forcing you to change schools Lucien-senpai?" Haru said voicing out her worries

A lump appeared in Lucien's throat, he wasn't at all sensitive to the absence of his parents. He just mildly disliked the concept of parents, considering his own parents weren't a golden example. His 'father' could be summed up to just being a sperm donor and he wouldn't bat an eye. But his mother, oh his poor mother, tortured to do things against her own volition. He hated it, hated that parents meant a pair, a pair that is supposedly bounded by mutual love, but his own parents were just a disgrace to that. He doesn't even know if his mother is still alive at the hands of his father's family.

"I, don't know anything about them." sweetly smiling, hiding his malice to that word so that his underclassmen would stop concerning themselves with talk about his parents

The room plummeted to a chilling atmosphere, their upperclassman wasn't in a good mood, they could tell. They could also tell that any talk about his parents put him in an silently aggressive mood, so they took care to shut their mouths.

"Right! I have coffee jelly with me. I was supposed to get four, but it seems that with my parting with the school, the amount of people giving me coffee jelly has increased. I'm starting to think that I'm getting sick of it." Lucien said in his usual voice, which helped immensely in warming up the room, and in time the whole club was enjoying the desserts with some lovely music

~

Tbh, I have no idea what is happening with Lucien. I just imagine him as someone who decides based on his goal, which is to get out of Twisted Wonderland with minimal drama, plus points on getting his family back, and that would definitely be something his grandparents repeat everytime he thinks of his mother.

When he gets upset, he tends to not outwardly show it at all, he knows better than to throw tantrums.

Lucien surprisingly is also someone who goes with the flow, but he still doesn't blindly let everything to fate. He makes decisions in situations on the spot, and they always worked out for him, so why change?

[keanureevesisbae]

The Tran-Cavill Grandkids

Henry = 79 / Olivia = 70 / Vanessa = 47 / Elodie = 40 / Heather and Chloe are 36

Olivia: We have 8 grandchildren. It has been sixteen years since I first became a grandmother, but I still have to get used to it.

Henry: I love being a granddad. I love everything about it, especially when they all come over and we have seventeen people over.

Oliver (16)

Olivia: Oliver is Chloe’s and Joon Ki’s first son and our oldest grandson. Chloe was still in college and scared out of her mind when she found out she was pregnant. I stayed over in her dorm from her twenty fifth week of pregnancy to the thirtieth, since poor thing was suffering from a lot of panic attacks and because of their different schedules, Joon Ki and her friends couldn’t be there for her. I forgot how disgusting those dorms were. After that, she took online classes, because she was really fatigued and uncomfortable. She stayed at our place again up until the birth.

Henry: When Oliver was born, my life stopped for a moment. I was officially a granddad. I mean, I always knew I wanted to become a father, but a granddad… I never really thought that far into the future. But Oliver is such a wonderful young man. Takes his job as the oldest grandchild very seriously.

Olivia: He comes over a lot, since our house is on the route when he goes home after school. He helps us with some chores or just comes over to drink some tea with us. Oliver even offers to do groceries for us every Saturday.

Dylan (14)

Henry: Dylan is Vanessa’s and Trey’s first son. We were delighted that we were going to be grandparents of two boys. However, it was pretty hard for Vanessa and that absolutely broke my heart. My poor girl was in a lot of pain and discomfort and there was nothing I could do about it.

Olivia: Vanessa became dehydrated pretty early on in her pregnancy, forcing her to quit her job. I actually quit my job too, because I realized that I needed to be there for her. 

Henry: Finally, after all those years of her saying that just because I am rich, doesn’t mean she should stop working. 

Olivia: Anyways, my poor baby was really out of it and I moved in with her and Trey for a while, because they obviously needed to prepare a lot for the arrival of their little boy. So Henry and Trey decorated the entire nursery, while Vanessa and I tried to come up with a birth plan, me telling her about the whole giving birth thing and how scary it can be. We even went to a few therapy sessions, simply to put her mind at ease.

Henry: However, Dylan was born ten weeks too early and it was a trying time for all of us. We spend so much time in the NICU. Thankfully the entire family stepped in to help Vanessa and Trey out. Dylan was a pretty weak baby, also really tiny and had troubles eating. Though he was sick and tired pretty often, he grew out to be such an amazing kid, who understands the limits he has and despite that, still manages to participate in certain sports. We are so proud of him. 

Megan (9)

Olivia: It took five years before Vanessa got pregnant again and thankfully this pregnancy was easier on her. We were so excited when we found out she was pregnant with a little girl! Our first granddaughter. Megan is such a bright young lady. When she was four, she saw a picture of Henry having a tea parties with her aunts when they were around her age. The next time she came over, she brought a dress and her cups and saucers and forced Henry to partake. 

Henry: I thought those days were over, but I’m a push over and I couldn’t say no to her. Megan is such a happy go lucky kid, with the most infectious giggle. I remember when she was a baby, she started to giggle and didn’t stop. Nowadays, she can just stare at you, before bursting out in a fit of giggles. She also forces me to dance with her, but thankfully every Tran-Cavill girl tells her that it’s for the best that I don’t dance.

Jake (8)

Henry: Jake is Chloe’s second second and that is one special kid. He was already dancing in the womb, according to the sonographer. I think he was only two months when I was playing some music in the background and Jake was in his seat. He started to move his arms right on the beat!

Olivia: He is now going to dance classes and I have to say: that kid knows how dance. He can appear to be a bit more introverted, isn’t really in your face when they come over to visit. All in all, he is a pretty timid kid, but the second he hears music or is on a stage, he dances his heart out. So amazingly talented! When he visits, he always gives us little previews of the dances he taught in class. 

Kiki (4)

Henry: Heather was never the type of woman that dated. She was always more focused on her own career. It did shock me when she told us that she got pregnant and that she had to tell her boyfriend about it, since we all had no clue that she was even dating someone. Not even her own twin sister knew! 

Olivia: What a fucking doorknob that guy was. Heather wanted me to join her, when she would tell this Tom dude she was pregnant. Turns out she really is a daughter of mine, because she found herself a man that is the spitting image of Wesley, appearance wise and personality wise. He got so mad when she told him and even had the audacity to tell Heather that she got knocked up by someone else. He really wasn’t hiding the fact that he was an idiot, because he told my sweet Heather all that, when I was right next to her! Long story short, I broke them up, slapped Tom in the face and threatened to kill him if he ever sought out to her or the baby.

Henry: That’s my girl.

Olivia: But Heather is a real trooper and manages to take care of Kiki just fine. Thankfully we love her dearly and didn’t kick her out, because she got pregnant out of wedlock (like my parents and brothers did). We are the go to baby sitter for Kiki and it’s so much fun to pick her up from school. It reminds me of the times that we would pick up our own girls from school.

Henry: Kiki is such a happy go lucky little girl. She is a ray of sunshine and we are so lucky and grateful that she is in our lives and that that idiot Tom is not. I fear the day that I run into him, because I will throw him in front of a bus. Accidentally of course.

Olivia: Henry, honey, remember: you’re nearing the ripe age of eighty. What if you break a hip or your wrist?

Lewis (14)

Olivia: So, Katie, Elodie’s wife, used to teach English in Secondary school, but after she lost her job, since her school had to close, she became a substitute for three months at another school. That’s where she met nine year old Lewis. According to her, he was a shy kid, but every day after school, he’d linger around the classroom and talked to Katie. He would help her out with cleaning up, make his homework and often they would walk out of the school together.

Henry: Unfortunately she had to leave after three months and according to her, it was pretty hard leaving Lewis. Two weeks after she left the school, she got a call in the middle of the night. The principal of that school informed her that Lewis was removed from his home by the police. The neighbors called it in, since they heard the abuse going on. Later on, it turned out that Lewis was the victim of abuse on a daily basis. He lingered in Katie’s class room to postpone the moment of going home to his father. He was in desperate need of someone who would take him into emergency foster care.

Olivia: However the only person he wanted to stay with, was Katie, so she and Elodie took him in. It was supposed to be for a week, but a week turned into a month and after a nasty trial, they officially adopted Lewis on his tenth birthday!

Henry: I remember him coming over for the first time. Maybe it was a bit mean to let him meet everyone at once, but despite his nerves, he managed quite well. Now we know Lewis as such a hardworking young man, who desperately tries to help others and makes sure that they can reach their full potential.  

Stella (8)

Olivia: Elodie and Katie got into foster care a whole lot more seriously after they adopted Lewis and three years ago, they had to foster Stella, who had lost both of her parents in a tragic accident and there wasn’t anyone that could care for her. I remember Elodie and Katie having a bit of trouble with Stella, because she would lock herself up in her room and not talk to anyone.

Henry: It was hard, but Lewis swooped right in and the two of them had such long conversations. I think it was because of him that Stella opened up to her moms, but also to the rest of the family. She and Lewis are definitely partners in crime. She is quite something. Very mischievous and sneaky. She loves to scare people, hiding behind doors, but she doesn’t do it to us (thankfully), because she is afraid will scare ourselves a heart attack. So considerate. 

Olivia: In a lot of ways she reminds me of Vanessa. She is very eloquent and uses fancy words to throw you off guard. I love taking her out with me, because, just like Vanessa, she “whispers" something to you (most likely she’s gossiping), but the people she is talking about, can always hear it. I know I shouldn’t condone this, but I love the faces of the people when they hear Stella say: ‘Grandma, why is that woman wearing those shoes? The straps are too tight. She looks like a ham.’

Henry: You allow that? You should discipline her.

Olivia: I have been raising kids since I was twenty three and I always made sure to discipline them. Now that I’m a grandma, I can let it slide for a few times.

Charlotte (2)

Henry: And last but not least, little Charlotte. They fostered her since she was a year and officially adopted her six months ago. We don’t know exactly what happened to her, since she was abandoned at around nine months. No one actually knows what her exact age is, let alone her birthday. 

Olivia: It’s such a shame that something this horrendous could happen to such a precious little bean. She is, despite the things that happened to her, a lovely young girl, who kind of reminds me a lot of Elodie. A bit shy, a bit quiet and not a smiler.

Henry: Definitely not a smiler to strangers at all, but when she does… She’s so precious. Lewis and Stella are really good with her as well. These two were made to be older siblings. I can’t wait to see what kind of girl Charlotte becomes!

◎◎◎

Olivia: We are so blessed with our beautiful grandchildren and it’s my goal to become at least a hundred years old, so I can see every single one of them at least graduate!

Henry: And I want to hold my great-grandchild, so yeah, I agree, my love. We should become at least a hundred years old.

Taglist: @thelastsock​ // @flhorah​ // @sausagefest1996​ // @laufeysodinson​ // @xxxkatxo​ // @memoriesat30​ // @henrythickcavill​ // @crimsonrae​ // @henryobsessed // @madbaddic7ed​ // @summersong69​ // @lyrafraiser​ // @peakygroupie​ // @coldmuffinbanditshoe​ // @mary-ann84​ // @thereisa8ella​ //@crazyandanonymous4u // @xuxszx​ // @emmaofgreengabbles​ // @jimmypagesandbrianmayshair​ // @onlyhenrys // @omgkatinka​ // @oddsnendsfanfics​ // @speakerforthedead0 // @agniavateira // @gearhead66 // @chamomilebottom // @diegos-butt // @yoyoanaria // 

[thephantomofthe-internet]

Chapter 6: A Room with a View

Steve Harrington x Reader

CATCH UP ON THE SERIES HERE

Words: 3,359

Warnings: Swearing, slut shaming, death mention, crying

Author’s Note: So, I already answered this, but just in case anyone missed it: I update this series weekly and I am still editing the vast majority of chapters! Sorry if it’s coming out slower than expected!

Tags: @divinity-deos @wolfish-willow​ @scoopsohboi​ @thecaptainsgingersnap​ @herre-gud-nej​ @clockworkballerina​ @maddie1504​ @i-am-trash-so-much-its-scary​ @buckysarge​ @wildcvltre​ @stanleyyelnatsiii​ @n3wtscaseofniffler5​ @peterparxour @linkispink1995​ @a-big-ball-of-idk​ @used-avocado​ @mochminnie​ @sledgy14​ @the-creative-lie​ @yall-wildin-like-siriusly​ @ggclarissa​ @voidnarnia​ @anonymousonion23 

Steve had no idea what he’d done wrong. Not a clue. But you were ignoring him. You sat farther away from him in English the past two days, and you’d been blowing off plans with him. You’d say that you had other plans, but he’d see you sat on the bleachers after school, watching the girls soccer practise or drawing in that book again. He still didn’t know what you were doing in that book and he was irritated by the fact that he could see you sat in your room some days, caught in a lie without knowing it, your nose caught in the pages in front of you, pencil in between your teeth, focused but unaware of an audience. Steve could see right into your room from his when your curtains were open and you often sat at your desk, working in your pads.

On the day that Mr. Lawrence announced the start for the final essay, Steve had had enough. It had been a week of this behaviour and he felt as though he deserved an answer. And he was sick of watching through the window. Tommy and Carol were busy every damn day chasing Billy Hargrove, Vicki had gone back after him too after their awful date, and Tina wasn’t his friend. Sure, he could bug Dustin, but that made him feel like such a loser. His only friends were a rag tag group of preteens and a weird girl who wouldn’t even talk to him! This was getting pathetic.

The bell rang before Steve could make his move and you were out the door before he could even open his mouth. Tina rolled her eyes as she passed him by, grabbing Tina’s arm to whisper loudly “God, how tragic.” making Vicki cackle loudly.

Steve booked it out the door, scanning the halls for you, but you’d already disappeared from sight. He spotted Samantha, but she was on the retreat. He chose not to chase her down, they’d never even had a conversation before and using her to try to get her to spill on her friend felt a bit shitty. So he decided to just take a walk, no harm in a walk, it was a nice day anyway, out by the field. He wandered out the gym doors by the car park. He shoved his hands into his blue workman’s jacket. The weather was still a bit too chilly to go without a coat, but the sunshine made it easier.

He spotted you and Samantha at the top of the bleachers. You had your hair up that day and your lavender bomber jacket draped around your shoulders. Carol had something similar, or maybe it was Tina, he couldn’t remember which one the pair blurred into one being in his mind.

Samantha caught Steve’s eye before you did. She leaned over to you with a smirk “Lover boy’s watching.” She whispered cheekily, pointing slyly at him.

You turned immediately. Steve was standing in the car park, a few smattering of folks on car hoods, eating packed lunches and watching the scene go down. He waved, taking a step towards you. You turned your attention away.

Samantha was baffled. A week ago, you were telling her all about the weird fun you were having with him, all smiles and laughter, and now you wouldn’t even look at him for more than a second. You wouldn’t admit it, but Samantha knew that he was something more than a friend to you. Nobody was this upset when someone cancelled plans.

Steve turned away without a word. He wanted to scream at you, his mind demanding to know what he had done wrong. He made a plan that afternoon, one he was certain might ruin everything for him.  

As soon as the three o’clock bell rang, Steve made a mad dash for his car. He didn’t leave immediately; instead he waited to see an expected sight. Once he saw you huddled and headed for the bleachers, he was sure that the girl’s team was practising. Then he drove off towards home, parking in his own driveway. His mother was home, a shock to him, but he still headed upstairs. The next part was tricky. He’d time out that practise ended at four thirty, but that you usually left at four since the walk was so long. At four twenty, he headed across the street. As always, the yellow Volkswagen sat in the driveway. He’d rarely ever seen it leave the driveway, but it gave him hope that someone was inside the house. You couldn’t be living alone as a senior. He bounded up the front steps, knocking on the door twice. He was nervous, switching his weight from his toes to his heels in a rocking motion forward and back, forward and back.

An older man opened the door. He had to be in his eighties, with age spots speckling him around his eyes like a second pair of wide frames behind his tortoise shell glasses.  He seemed suspicious of Steve, although that was probably because he was staring.

“Hello,” he stuck out his hand for the man to shake “I’m Steve Harrington, I’m a friend of Y/N.” the man didn’t take his hand, staying silent as he looked him over.

Steve pressed on “I was wondering if she was home, we were supposed to study together today and she said that she’d call when she got home but I haven’t heard from her.” He chuckled awkwardly.

From behind the old man, a woman’s voice called “Harold, who’s there?”

“One of Y/N’s friends, she home yet?” he called back, opening the door wider. Steve could see the pale yellow walls, sun stained from the large three panel window at the front of their house.

Steve watched as an older woman hobbled into the scene, back hunched and skin thin. She looked frail, her hair dyed to what Steve assumed was its original shade, her grey roots visible from the top of her head. She greeted Steve with a warm smile. Steve was quick to offer his hand to shake, which she took carefully. “Hi, Steve Harrington, it’s nice to meet you both.” He said quickly, smiling brightly at the pair.

“Well hello there, I’m Maude and this is Y/N’s grandfather Harold, it’s lovely to meet you.” She said sweetly. “Why don’t you come inside, Y/N should be home any minute.”

Maude hit Harold’s arm roughly and he let go of the door, letting Steve into the house. He quickly kicked off his shoes, noting the pair’s socked feet. He looked around the house. Every house on the street was one of three standard box deals, with specified details. His parents hadn’t paid for the window seat like your family had, but you didn’t have the open kitchen that his did; an extra yellow wall separated the space. He looked to the fireplace, an exact copy of his family’s before their renovation last august. He missed the grey brick they used to have. You had a large family portrait on the mantle. You were sat in the centre in your Sunday best, your grandparents flanking the outside, two other adults stood closest to you. Steve assumed they were your parents. You looked like your father.

“You have a lovely home,” he said, turning his attention to the pair who were watching him intently.

“Thank you.” Maude smiled “Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Sure.” Steve wasn’t much for tea, but he was taught not to refuse something offered by his host. Maude hurried off, leaving him and grumpy old Harold alone.

“Y/N doesn’t bring boys around.” Harold announced when his wife was out of the room. Steve didn’t really know what to say to that, luckily he continued “So what’re you trying to do with my girl?”

“Study,” Steve said with a shrug. The man scoffed, but Steve pressed on. “She’s my partner for our English final, we’re supposed to be working on it today, it’s due soon.”

Harold nodded gruffly “Alright…” he took a seat on the couch, turning the volume back on. The Love Boat was on, a rerun of the episode with guest stars the Captain and Tennille, and Steve was certain that they’d both seen it before.

Maude came in with a tray, handing her husband a mug. It was hand painted, thick script reading ‘Happy Father’s Day’ on the front, the year 1974 written in smaller script underneath in blue paint. She handed him a plain white mug.

“Well, Steve, you’re free to go and wait for Y/N upstairs, her room is two doors to the right of the stairs, you can’t miss it.” She said, gesturing to the stairwell. Steve bid his thanks and headed up the wide carpeted stairwell.

Harold mumbled something to his wife that Steve couldn’t hear, only catching her response. “He’s young, he doesn’t want to sit with us old folks.” She laughed at her own joke and Steve smiled at their friendly banter. They reminded him of his aunt and uncle, they always joked in that sort of way, laughing at themselves before anyone else. It made him feel as if he were at home in the house; he was comforted by the casualness of existence.

Maude was right that the room was impossible to miss. The door was covered in childlike butterflies painted in purple puffy paint. When he opened the bedroom door, he was transported into a small, private art gallery. The room was covered wall to wall in fabric canvases, canvas boards, and paper sketches. Your desk was covered in paint splotches and doodles carved into the wood, there were glow in the dark stars and moons on the blades of your ceiling fan. You’d painted your ceiling into a buttery sunset. It was as if for the first time, Steve was seeing all of you. And you were absolutely incandescent.

His hands went to roam your shelves, filled with sketchbooks and art books and worn copies of the classics. Greedily, he grabbed the first black sketchbook he found its pages heavy and curled. A piece of masking tape on the cover read ‘Still Life, 1980’ in black Sharpie. He flipped over the cover. Every page was the same bowl of fruit, some plain sketches, some painted in acrylics or water colours, but the fruit changed in shape and structure with every flip, rotting more with each sketch until the image switched to a vase of sunflowers, a prim and proper version of the Van Gogh he’d seen a print of in his freshman year art class. He wondered if you’d been there, silently making your own master pieces. He wondered how many masterpieces you had hidden away in your big black book.

The door opened behind him before he could put the sketch book away. “What the fuck are you doing in my house?” you snapped, bounding towards him. When your grandmother told you that your friend from school was upstairs waiting for you, you had a sinking feeling that you knew who it was. And seeing him rifling through your things made your blood boil.

Steve turned slowly, unsure what to say. You snatched the pad out of his hands “And who the fuck gave you permission to look at my stuff, you pervert!” You knew that he hadn’t done anything actually perverted, but you still felt violated.

“I can’t get you to talk to me, I figured coming here would at least make you see me.” Steve laughed a bit, unable to even process what was happening. In the back of his mind, he thought that this would be an effortlessly cool way to go about a solution. Like you’d see him in your room and think ‘wow…what an effort that was…’ Instead, you were furious.

“So, you thought that coming into my house without telling me, lying to my grandparents, and touching my stuff would make it better.” You raised an eyebrow, shoving your sketchbook onto the shelf.

“What was I supposed to do? You won’t answer my calls, you won’t talk to me, I can’t get you to look at me for more than a second and all I want to know is what I did wrong so I can fix it!” Steve cried, words tumbling out of his mouth. You both stared at each other for a moment, surprised by each other, your mouth hanging silently ajar.

You closed it fast, swallowing before speaking “You…you hurt my feelings.” You said softly, pushing past him to put distance between you, standing next to your desk and the window.

“How did I hurt your feelings?” Steve asked quietly, watching you carefully even as you stared defiantly out the window.

You crossed your arms tightly over your chest “You cancelled our plans. For Vicki.”

“So?” Steve asked.

“So, I don’t cancel on you. I never cancel on you, especially not the day of. It hurt my feelings.” You explained, picking at a bit of lint on your sweater.

“Yeah, but I…” he tried to catch himself before he said something terrible, but you already knew what filled in the blank.

“What? You have more friends than me? Is that it?” you snapped. It was Steve’s turn to look away, but you pressed on. “You’re right, you do have more friends than me. But don’t act like I don’t have a social life without you. I do. Do you know how many games of Samantha’s I’ve skipped out on to help you study? How many practises she’s asked me to come and watch that I’ve said no to because I already had plans with you?”

“I don’t know…” Steve muttered. Embarrassment crept up his face. He felt like such a dick. In truth he had forgotten about your plans that day in the excitement of a date with Vicki. With hindsight in full effect he could see that he would’ve had twice as much fun with you eating greasy burgers then he did with Vicki driving around Hawkins.

“Well, it’s been a lot. And it’s not the fact that you went out with Vicki that upset me, you are free to date whoever you want. But can you please at least tell me if you’re cancelling a little sooner than mere minutes before?” you asked, your voice cracking on the end.

“Sure, yeah of course. I should’ve been doing that before.” Steve stumbled over his words to apologize.

“Okay.” You nodded “Now, why are you going through my shit?”

“I wanted to see more. This whole room is incredible.” Steve breathed, plopping down on your mattress.

“You think?” you asked quietly. In truth, you didn’t think that you were that good of an artist. You loved art, but you didn’t think you were exactly talented.

“It’s so cool!” you couldn’t help but laugh, or else you’d cry. Nobody ever talked about your art with such enthusiasm. Teachers only criticized mistakes and your mother and grandparents saw it as clutter. Samantha liked some stuff but she didn’t talk about it much. Even a simple compliment from Steve made you want to cry. You covered your mouth to avoid the tears.

Steve didn’t seem to notice, wandering the room to point out pieces he thought were interesting. He pointed to a canvas depicting the quarry. You’d camped out there one night in the summer; drawing until the sun fades out of the sky and then painting it out once you had it exactly right. “This one is just insane I mean it looks like it’s going to eat you whole, like it has teeth or something.” He exclaimed.

“You can have it.” You replied quickly.

Steve shook his head “No, I couldn’t I mean don’t you want it? For college apps or something?” he couldn’t take it, he’d feel too guilty.

You shrugged “I have enough stuff for at least three portfolios, you should have that one if you like it so much. It’ll make your room cooler.”

“Hey, my room is cool.” Steve pouted, making you laugh harder. He liked your laugh, it split your whole face open into a smile. And your smile looked as if it sat on a bed of clouds. He wanted to float along with it forever.

“Oh yeah, your pee wee t-ball participation trophy is real slick, it gets you all the chicks.” You drawling, bouncing on your mattress.

“Hey, you didn’t run when you saw it.” Steve shrugged, sitting down next to you.

“Eh, your baby sports escapades don’t frighten me. It adds character to know that you suck at something.” You replied. Steve thought briefly of the bat in his trunk and the weight of it mid-swing, connecting with a heavy skull. Better with a bat now then he was as an elementary schooler.

You both lay back on the mattress, staring up at the slowly turning fan. Steve turned to you “What’d you think of Vicki anyway?” he asked.

“Honestly?” Steve nodded “I think she’s a bitch.” Steve laughed loudly but you pressed on “She is! She’s so mean for no reason!”

“Yeah, she’s not cool. She spent our whole date bitching about people, saying a lot of shit about you.” Steve murmured.

“What’d you…” you didn’t know if you could ask how he responded. You bit your tongue before finishing the sentence.

Steve understood anyway “I told her the truth. That you’re a really cool chick and that she shouldn’t be such a bitch about people she doesn’t know.” He said simply, turning his attention back to the slowly moving stars.

You didn’t necessarily believe that he actually defended you. Still, you didn’t feel like arguing. Steve continued on in your silence. “So, do you live with your grandparents’ full time? Or do your parents just work?” he asked.

“Both,” you sighed softly “My mom’s not home very much so they take care of me. She’s a fashion photographer, travels all over the world for different magazines.”

“What about your dad?” Steve asked. He’d seen a younger man in the photo; he assumed that it was some kind of father figure.

“He died.” You muttered.

“Oh…” Steve didn’t know how to react to that. He wasn’t sure if he should apologize.

“She killed him.” You couldn’t help yourself from saying that. Anger still stewed into your bones whenever you thought about your parents.

“What?” Steve to fully look at you, flabbergasted.

“She worked him to death. She always wanted more and farther away from us. Trips to Europe, designer things, this stupid house. She killed him.” You wiped hard at your face, trying to keep the hot tears from streaming down your face. Steve didn’t say anything, he simply pulled you into his chest, holding you tightly into him and letting you cry. He patted your hair gently, trying to soothe you as best he could. He didn’t think he was very good at helping people in their pain. But you grabbed onto his middle and clung to him like a life raft.

“My parents aren’t that great either.” He muttered, unsure if he was helping at all. “They ignore me.”

“I-I’m sorry they do that…” you muttered, looking up at him with wide, wet eyes. Steve melted. He absolutely melted. He was filled with the sudden urge to kiss you, which surprised him. He didn’t follow through with the urge; he didn’t know how you’d take it.

“I’m sorry he’s not here for you…” he replied, petting your hair softly. He stayed with you like that for what felt like hours, letting you cling to him and ruin his shirt with tears. He didn’t care. He needed to be there for you. He promised himself that he wouldn’t hurt you again. That he’d be more careful and pay more attention. He couldn’t bear to see you in this much pain again. He knew that you weren’t crying because of him, but if he could keep you from feeling even an ounce of this sort of pain again, he would.

He cared about you too much to ever let you suffer alone again.

[cassnottiel]

(i hope im not sending too many prompts, i have so many deke feels after tonight so im throwing them at you, if its too much ignore me!!) maybe something where deke accidently talks about his childhood a bit to fitzsimmons? like, an expansion of what we know in canon and how horrible it was. like (forgive me if im wrong my s5 memory isnt perfect lol) but im pretty sure he was a slave for a huge part of his life and that isnt spoken about much

Jemma Simmons was having as good of a day she could, having just time traveled and being a fugitive of the law, hiding in a huge underground bunker nobody knew about.

Her day got immensely worse when she entered the Lighthouse lab and saw the teams newest member, and her grandson from the future, digging a knife into his own arm.

"Deke!"  Jemma rushed forward, grabbing a towel and going to take the knife away from him.

Deke Shaw looked up, breaking his concentrated grimace with a slightly curious look.  "What?"

"What are you doing?"  Jemma wrapped his bloody wrist with the towel.

"I'm taking my metric out."  Deke set his knife down.  "Is that supposed to be a big deal?"

Jemma furrowed her brow, carefully pulled the bloody towel away and inspected the cut.  Sure enough, the circular metric was gone.  The work was careful and delicate, and there wasn't as much blood as there should have been for an inexperienced cut.

"I thought you were hurting yourself."  She said quietly.  "I'm sorry."

Deke awkwardly wiped his bloody left hand on his pants.  "It's fine, don't worry."

"Where did you learn to do this with such precision?" Jemma leaned down to look at the cut more carefully.  It looked like it was made by an experienced surgeon.

Deke shrugged and grabbed a roll of bandages from the table next to him.  "I picked it up as a kid.  My mom was kind of like the doctor of the Lighthouse."

"This is amazing work."  Jemma complimented.  "But, doesn't it hurt?"

"Not really, no."  Deke shook his head and started unrolling the bandages.  "I have a high pain tolerance."

Jemma quickly grabbed the bandages and started wrapping his wrist for him.  "Really?"  She looked at him with concern.  "Since when?"

Deke carelessly wiped the blood off the blade of his version of Fitzs multi tool with a small smile.  "Oh, you know.  The Kree weren't exactly benevolent leaders."  He retracted the blade and put the knife in his pocket, smiling like he just made a hilarious joke.

Jemmas hands froze as she thought about the implications behind that statement.  Deke took the opportunity to finish wrapping his wrist and start walking out.  

"Bye, Nana!"  He called cheerfully over his shoulder as he crossed the threshold of the door.

- - -

Fitz sighed and slammed his fist on the door.  Locked.  All the system updates that locked down the Lighthouse were getting very annoying.

"What's wrong?"  Deke Shaw, Fitzs overeager grandson from the future, was leaning against the concrete wall.

"Bloody door's locked again."  Fitzs frustration was abundant in his voice.  "I need to get to the other end of the level."  He held up a satchel full of papers he needed to get to the lab.

Deke smiled.  "I can help."  He walked over to the vent on the floor, slid his fingers between the grates and pulled.  He set it against the wall and gestured to the new hole in the wall.  "Do you have a problem with small spaces?"

Fitz stared.  "You want me to crawl through the vent?"

"I know my way through the whole vent system, I can get you anywhere you need to go."  Deke crouched down and looked through the dark tunnel, then up at his grandfather.  "Unless you want to wait?"

Fitz sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, then gestured to the vent.  "Lead the way."

The vent shafts were larger than Fitz thought they would be, not quite wide enough for the two men to sit side by side, but tall enough for them to sit comfortably.  But, they did not sit.  Fitz could barely keep up with Deke, despite only being a few years older.

"Deke, slow down."  Fitz called ahead, leaning back on his heals.  

Deke stopped and turned around.  "Sorry."  He said sheepishly and crawled back to Fitz.  

"Why are you in such a rush?"  Fitz cracked his stiff neck.

"Force of habit, sorry."  Deke apologized again.  "I'm usually running when I'm in here."

That set off an alarm bell in Fitzs mind.  "Running?"

"Yeah," Deke said like he wasn't talking about something important, "the Blues had some sort of vendetta against me or something.  I think people made bets on how far I could go without getting caught."  Fitz stared in shock.  "My record is four levels."

"Were you okay when that happened?"  Fitz asked carefully.

"No, of course not."  Deke turned his head away.  "Let's get going, you said you have something important, right?"

He did not wait for an answer, just started off in the direction that would lead to the lab.  Fitz sighed, filed away that information to talk to his wife about later, and followed his grandson

- - -

"Ta-da!"  Deke kicked the grate of the vent out and climbed out.  He stood up and spread his arms out to show off his feat of navigation.

"Thank you, Deke."  Fitz tossed his satchel to his grandson before climbing out and fixing the vent cover over the gaping hole.  "I think I'll just wait next time."

Deke shrugged and handed the satchel over.  "I get that.  I usually only used the vents if I was in real danger."

"But you . . ." Fitz frowned, "you memorized the whole layout?"

"You've seen this place in eighty years."  Deke started casually walking to the lab.  "You know how often 'real danger' is."

Fitz stood frozen for a few seconds, staring at the back of his grandsons head.  Then, he practically ran to the lab.

"Jemma," Fitz ran a hand through his hair and leaned against the open door, "has Deke said anything that's made you concerned in the time you've known him?"

Jemma looked up from what she was doing, worry flitting across her face.  "What did he tell you?"

"Did you know that our grandson has the ventilation schematics memorized?"  Fitz walked forward and lowered his voice.  "Just in case he needed to run from the Kree."  

Jemmas eyes widened.  "Oh, my God."

"What did he tell you?"  Fitz sat on one of the cots, the papers of research all but forgotten at his side.

"I found him digging his own metric out of his arm with a knife."  Jemma leaned in, like this conversation was a secret to keep from the rest of the base.  "But it didn't seem to hurt him, he told me he has a high pain tolerance."  She sighed.  "He implied the Kree would hurt him regularly, and he said it like it was no big deal."

Fitz sighed and scratched his neck. "What should we do?"  He looked up his wife.  "He shouldn't live in this world and expect it to be just like his."

Jemma nodded.  "None of us are really qualified to act as therapists, but we should talk to him."

"I know this isn't the place I grew up in."  

Both Fitz and Simmons spun around to look at the source of the voice.  Deke was standing in the door.

"Deke!"  Jemma stepped forward, as if to act like she wasn't just talking about him.

"I'm not naive."  Deke continued.  "I know this isn't the Lighthouse I'm used to."

Fitz put his hands up in a placating manor.  "We never m--"

"I don't make a big deal out of my past because I don't want you guys to make a big deal out of it."  Deke cut Fitz off.  "I know my childhood was messed up.  Believe me, I know."

"Why don't you want us to make a big deal about it?"  Jemma asked.  "You went through Hell."

"Yeah."  Deke nodded.  "I did.  But this isn't the same place, and I want to move on with my life."

"Deke," Fitz started calmly, "it's not that easy."

"You can't just bottle everything away and expect to be fine."  Jemma added.  

"I'm very good at compartmentalizing."  Deke crossed his arms.

"Compartmentalization isn't good for you."  Fitz said.  "Trust me, it's not."

Deke sighed.  "If you knew what it was like to grow up in this place, you wouldn't want to think about it either."

Jemma walked over and placed her hand on her grandsons shoulder.  "There are some things in life you have to face to move past."

"I am moving past things."  Deke said stubbornly.  "I'm making new, better memories where all the bad things in my life happened."

"Trauma doesn't work like that, Deke."  Fitz said as gently as he could.

Deke ran both his hands through his hair with a deep sigh.  "I shouldn't have said anything."  He stood up and turned to the door.

"Deke, wait."  Jemma grabbed his left arm.  "You don't have to forget everything about your past or reinvent yourself."

"But I want to."  Deke said very clearly.  "Kasius owned me, and I don't want to feel like his property anymore."

Jemma made sure keep her voice calm, she didn't want to escalate this.  "We've seen what he did, we know--"

"No, you don't know."  Deke snapped.  "He literally owned me.  After my dad was sent to the surface, Kasius and Sinara wanted to groom me into one of their deaf servants."

Jemma and Fitz looked at each other, then back at their grandson.

"You know what it's like."  He looked to Jemma.  "Having that-- that-- that thing in my ear is one of the worst things that's ever happened to me."

"You've had it?"  Jemmas voice went quiet.  "How old were you?"

"I was fourteen."  The fire in Dekes eyes never dampened.  "So, forgive me if I want to forget that part of my life."

"Deke," Fitz said slowly, reaching out, "you don't need to keep going, we understand."

Deke sighed again, more aggressively, showing the frustration he was feeling.  "Do you?"  He asked.  "You all were there for a few weeks, maybe.  I was born there, raised there.  I spent the first twenty-eight years of my life in that apocalyptic hellscape!"  He gestured wildly around the room.  "And I'm still here!  Even when there's a rest of the world out there, I'm here, in the place I watched my whole family die."

"Deke . . ." neither grandparent knew how to handle this.  It seemed that this was the first time he got to really talk about his past traumas in a serious way.

Deke sat down on one of the cots tiredly.  "I watched you both die."  He whispered, his eyes glassy with unshed tears.

"What?!"  Jemma was at his side in seconds, Fitz not far behind.

"When I was nine, Kasius got rid of everyone who believed in the prophecy.  All the smart people."  Deke forced himself to steady his breath and closed his eyes.  "They killed everyone in the middle of the Exchange, to make an example."  He looked up at Jemma, then Fitz, then at the concrete floor.  "They took my mom, and my moms parents."

"I--" Fitz clenched his fists at his side.  "I'm sorry, Deke."  He said quietly.  He lifted his hand and carefully, comfortingly, rubbed Dekes back between the shoulder blades.

"We're going to make sure that world will never exist."  Jemma promised.  "So the next version of you to exist will never go through that."

Suddenly, Deke threw his arms around Jemma and Fitz.  He pulled them into a tight hug and finally let the tears he had been holding in for God knows how long fall.  Deke buried his face in the soft fabric of Fitz shirt as his shuddering breaths shook his whole frame.  Both grandparents immediately returned the hug.  It was a hug from a child who had lost his family too young, had been alone for too long.

As unconventional as this new family was, they loved each other.  And this family kept their promises, no matter how far they need to go.

[morningfears]

Back Home

Rating: PG-13 (Blink and you’ll miss it homophobia, some swearing)

Summary: Calum and Elizabeth are going to Hangout with Michael and Crystal in Gulf Shores, Alabama. However, they’ve decided to make a stop in Elizabeth’s hometown, first. Calum gets to see firsthand what growing up in the middle of nowhere was like and, while he’s at it, ask her parents for her hand in marriage.

Word Count: 7k

Calum watched as sunlight filtered through the thick growth of trees lining the road and into the car, illuminating Elizabeth’s face as they drove along a seemingly deserted back road in some tiny Alabama town he didn’t remember the name of. Her eyes, a beautiful green that he hoped their children would someday inherit, were hidden beneath a pair of sunglasses she’d stolen from him but he could clearly see how she was feeling from the smile on her lips and the way that she relaxed in the driver’s seat.

They were on their way to her parents’ house, located in an even tinier Alabama town, where they planned to spend a few days before joining Michael and Crystal in Gulf Shores for the Hangout Festival. It was a new experience for him, he’d never been to either her hometown or Hangout, but he found himself looking forward to it. He found himself looking forward to the blistering heat (“It’s actually not that bad yet,” she’d told him as they packed their bags, “it’s only hit ninety once this week.”) and the solitude she’d described when telling him about growing up in the middle of the woods. But his excitement was nothing compared to hers.

Elizabeth had always been vocal about her dislike of southern politics, southern hypocrisy, southern weather (“It can’t make up it’s damn mind! One day, it’s eighty degrees and sunshine. The next, it’s thirty and you’ve got snow flurries. But maybe that’s just April,” she’d once said, and Calum had never forgotten it), and her own accent - one that Calum could hear but just barely - but he knew she missed certain things. She missed the food - her mother’s, specifically - and some of the people. She missed being able to smile at someone as she walked down the sidewalk and not get a funny look in return. She missed manners, being expected to say hello and ask how someone was doing when she walked into a shop, and not getting a dirty look if she called someone over the age of thirty ma’am. 

But, more than anything, she missed her family.

Though Calum and Elizabeth had been together for nearly three years, he’d only met her parents once. It was at her college graduation, less than a year into their relationship, and the meeting was fine. Her parents, while polite, didn’t exactly love him right off the bat. They hadn’t cared how well the band was doing, that he’d made a career out of music and that it was going well, nor did they care about how much he already loved their daughter. He was different, a musician that didn’t look anything like the sweet southern boy her mother had always imagined she’d marry, and that was enough for them to write him off as a novelty.

They imagined that Elizabeth would grow tired of Calum after a while, that she’d get tired of the long, lonely nights while he was away on tour, and that she would begin to see things from their point of view. They imagined that she would tire of California, that her southern roots were planted just deep enough, and that she would tire of Calum and return home to them. But, so far, she hadn’t.

And Calum desperately hoped that she never would.

While her parents had accepted her desire to stay in California and to keep Calum in her life - her mother even liked him, enough to bake him a loaf of bread that apparently no one else in her family liked - there was a bit of a rift. Calum’s parents traveled to see him every so often (and he packed up to see them when he could) but Elizabeth’s parents didn’t like to travel. She told him once that her mother was so afraid of flying that even a Xanax couldn’t calm her enough to get on a flight and that she was such an awful car passenger that a twenty-nine hour drive, even. with regular stops, might actually kill her. They’d only been to California once, to see her graduate, and that had been such an ordeal that Elizabeth never asked again.

Her schedule, while freer now that she’d finished school, was less flexible than his own. She had work, a job that required her to stay in Los Angeles most of the time, and that made going home (as well as joining him on tour) next to impossible. She went home for big holidays, Christmas and Thanksgiving, but even that was starting to become difficult as she and Calum began to intertwine their lives.

She hadn’t been home since November - they’d spent Christmas with his family in Australia - and was beyond homesick. Most of the meals she made were recipes her mother talked her through over FaceTime so when Michael and Crystal asked him if they would want to join them for a week in Gulf Shores, Calum jumped at the opportunity to surprise his homesick girlfriend. He worked with her boss - a lovely woman from, coincidentally, Georgia, who had become more like a mentor than a boss - to get her a week of vacation. He called her mom and asked her if it would be alright for them to stay for a weekend before they headed to the beach (of course, she was so excited that she cried and Calum didn’t quite understand half of her words through her accent but he felt the love). And he managed to keep their final destination a secret until they landed in Mobile.

Just before they landed in Mobile, when the pilot announced their destination, the look on Elizabeth’s face was more than enough to make Calum’s year. He took a picture of it, just to remember the look of awe and love she’d given him, before he kissed her and confirmed that they were headed to see her parents. He told her, as they navigated the airport and headed toward the car rental, that they would be spending the weekend with them before heading down to Gulf Shores to spend a few days exploring and experiencing Hangout.

He was certain the smile hadn’t disappeared since.

Although he’d offered to drive, Elizabeth refused to let him behind the wheel. Calum normally drove on their outings - mostly because he was a much calmer driver than her and knew how to handle Los Angeles traffic without having a minor panic attack - but she’d been insistent. The closest airport to her parents’ house was in Mobile and the quickest route took them through a maze of backroads that, according to her and Michael (who had gotten lost on more than one occasion during his trips down south), didn’t appear on either Apple or Google Maps. Elizabeth, however, knew the route like the back of her hand and was comfortable navigating the winding curves and deserted country roads.

“Did you go to Mobile a lot as a kid?” Calum asked, his voice breaking the silence for the first time since they’d left the city limits. He’d been content to just look, to soak it all in, and apparently, so had she. It was like she was recommitting the entire route to memory and he didn’t want to disturb her. However, he was curious and, with her, he never let his questions go unasked.

“Not really,” she hummed, glancing over at him for a moment before returning her gaze to the road beyond the windshield. “It’s almost a three hour drive. It wasn’t a big deal to make the trip but it was more special occasion, you know? We came down here to get dresses for formals and, like, my prom dress. I came with my grandparents some because my paw-paw went to the doctor down here. He took me to Hot Topic for the first time and my mom swears I haven’t been normal since.”

Calum grinned at that, both at the casual use of ‘paw-paw’ (something he knew she hated saying because of the obviousness of it’s origin and the way it seemed to draw out her accent) and the mental image of a pre-teen Elizabeth exploring Hot Topic for the first time. There were pieces of her, bits of her past, that he had never seen. They were never intentionally hidden, it wasn’t as if she locked them away and refused to show them to him, but they were just things that didn’t really come up in the course of their daily lives. Memories of childhood, old habits that had long since been forgotten, seemed to return to her as they drove through the curved roads and he was looking forward to getting know who she was before she moved to LA.

The drive passed far quicker than either imagined it would. Calum watched Elizabeth’s face more often than he watched the scenery pass them by but both were equally captivating. She pointed out certain buildings, little shops or restaurants, that she’d visited as a child. She informed him when they left one town and entered another. She made him promise they could stop by a diner, a little building that looked like it could only fit about five people at a time, on their way back to Gulf Shores (they would make the return trip, the same way they’d just come, and drive through Mobile to get there), as well as made him promise they could stop and get ice cream at a farmer’s market that would apparently ruin his desire to eat any other ice cream ever again.

It was endearing, seeing her so excited for such small things, and Calum decided that he would do whatever she wanted, stop wherever she wanted, just to see the carefree smile she’d been sporting since they stepped out of the airport remain on her lips.

The closer they got to her hometown, the more relaxed she grew in the driver’s seat. She smiled as she pointed out her high school (“It sucked. I hated every moment of it, but it still feels nice seeing the building, you know?”) and the one gas station in her hometown. Calum smiled as he imagined her driving these very roads as a teenager, singing along to All Time Low and wholeheartedly agreeing with the pop punk standard of needing to leave her hometown. He marveled at the lack of traffic lights, at the lack of buildings, and grew more and more astonished the farther they got from her high school. She’d told him she grew up in the middle of nowhere, far away from civilization, but he thought she was joking. However, as he realized that he could count on one hand the number of buildings they’d seen since leaving the city limits of the town closest to her home, he realized that that wasn’t the case at all. 

But it was nice, in an odd sort of way. It felt serene, like a quiet place where you could disconnect from the world, and Calum wondered what it was like to grow up here.

“It was miserable,” Elizabeth answered candidly when he asked. “The nearest grocery store is twenty minutes away, if you’re speeding, and they don’t even have half of what you need. It’s just the essentials, really, like milk and bread and stuff. If you wanted anything good, like ice cream or candy or snacks, you’d have to go to Walmart. The closest Walmart, the only place where you can get stuff like dish soap and good shampoo - well, as good as Dove is, I guess - and toothpaste that doesn’t cost six bucks a tube is forty-five minutes away. The nearest hospital is an hour away. Same with the nearest mall, movie theater, bowling alley… The list goes on. There wasn’t much to do here as a kid. You just kind of exist, you know? I played outside al to as a kid. Shocking, I know,” she added, grinning in Calum’s direction as she caught the surprised look on his face.

He couldn’t imagine Elizabeth, the girl who hated her hands being dirty more than anything else, playing outside in the southern heat. He almost asked what her neighbors were like, what the other kids in her neighborhood were like, when she added, “I didn’t have neighbors so I just kind of had to entertain myself. It was lonely and boring.”

Calum watched as she focused on a turn she was making, down a road just off the main highway, and he imagined that they were getting closer to her parents’ house. “Do you miss anything about it?” he asked, his voice soft as he watched her bring one hand up to play with the butterfly pendant laying against her skin. “Other than your family and the dogs, of course.”

“Of course,” she laughed as she glanced at him and smiled. She paused for a moment, as if to think about it, before she shrugged. “Not really,” she hummed as she returned her gaze to the road ahead. “I mean, I miss the food but if I really want it, I can make most things myself. The only thing I haven’t mastered yet is collards and I think that’s just because I can’t get good ones in LA. I miss the quiet sometimes, mostly when I’m trying to sleep, and being able to see the stars but I love living in an actual city with things to do and places to go. Yeah, some stores are still twenty minutes from our house but if I really need something, I can get it from somewhere else. And, I mean, I love the diversity of the city. I didn’t know anything about other cultures, about other people, when I moved to LA and it’s been amazing to see it all and to see how open everyone is to new things. I mean, yeah, I hate some things about LA and it’s a different world for me, for sure, but, at the end of the day, it’s home now.”

Calum nodded his understanding at that. He realized that she loved being surrounded by options. She loved having the ability to get in the car and go get coffee or just go to Target if she felt like it and her hometown wasn’t exactly the most stimulating place he’d ever found himself. Everything looked as if it had seen better days, decades ago, and he didn’t begrudge her not wanting to return for good. However, he was glad that he was getting the opportunity to at least spend a weekend in the middle of nowhere with her and that joy was only magnified as they approached a small dirt road that he quickly realized housed her parents’ home.

“Am I going to get to hear your southern accent?” he asked, an excited lilt to his voice as they drove down a tree lined dirt road, careful not to hit the rocks and tree limbs that cluttered it. “It’s so faint now,” he reminded her. She, like him, had adapted to Los Angeles and he accent had faded. It was still there, more so than his own, but it only truly appeared when she was angry or excited or exceptionally tired and unable to control her speech pattern. It was faint and Calum missed it. He thought it was cute, he liked the way it sounded when she said his name, but he knew it had been a source of annoyance for her when she first arrived in the city. He also knew that she herself wasn’t very fond of it so she didn’t lament its loss at all.

“Probably. At least, it’ll be thicker here than it is in LA,” she confirmed with a sigh, not at all pleased by the thought. “I try not to control my voice so much around my family. I just talk, I guess. But I still don’t get why you like it so much. It’s gross. And, besides, you’ll get tired of the southern twang real quick with my family. I’ll provide translation services if necessary.”

Calum laughed at the deadpan comment and nodded his appreciation. She knew how much trouble he had understanding her mother sometimes (usually when she was angry and ranting during a phone call) and had warned him that the rest of her family - with the exception of her brother - was worse. The accents grew thicker and thicker, harder and harder to understand, and she herself sometimes found it difficult to navigate a conversation. But Calum was looking forward to seeing her at ease among members of her family and grew excited as he spotted a comfortable white house looming in the distance.

“Here we are,” she informed him with a smile, her cheeks round and pink (from the heat or excitement, he couldn’t tell) and her teeth on display, as she caught sight of the cars parked out front. “Holy shit, everyone is here.”

Everyone seemed to be an understatement. There were several cars, all parked in front of her parents’ home, and Calum couldn’t even begin to guess who had appeared to greet her. Her mother had told him that her brother, his wife, and their children would be there to greet them. He also imagined that her nana would be there. However, he couldn’t fathom who else her mother could have invited. But, as Elizabeth put the car in park, a horde of teenagers, all in their mid to late teens, rushed out of the front door, down the steps, and swarmed the car.

“Lizzie, you’re home,” one girl with blonde hair and braces cheered as Elizabeth climbed out of the car. Though she looked to be about sixteen, she stood several inches taller than Elizabeth and dwarfed her as she pulled her into a hug. “I missed you! I have so much to tell you. I got a car! I can drive now. And a boyfriend! You went to high school with his brother, Austin.”

“Let her go, May,” another of the girls, this one shorter than Elizabeth and decidedly the oldest of the group, urged as she shoved her arms between the pair, “I want to hug her.” She wrapped her arms around Elizabeth’s waist and pouted up at her as she said, “Lizzie, I start college in August. I’m going to LSU and I don’t know what to do. Help me!”

“She’s my aunt!” A high pitched voice squeaked as a short girl with glasses and braces that bore a clear family resemblance to Elizabeth shoved through the others. “Aunt Lizzie!”

“Hey, guys,” she laughed, clearly overwhelmed by the affection as she struggled to fully climb out of the car. “It’s good to see you all, too. What are y’all doing here?”

“We waited to have maw maw’s birthday party today so we could celebrate that, you being home, and me graduating high school all at once. Oh my god, is that a boy? Lizzie has a boyfriend!” the second girl, whose name Calum still didn’t know, yelled as she caught sight of him climbing out of the car. He offered her a smile, amused by the apparent novelty of Elizabeth bringing someone home, and waved at her before he reached back into the car to grab his bag. “Lizzie’s never brought anyone home before,” she told Calum as he walked around the car to stand at Elizabeth’s side. “We thought she was a lesbian but just didn’t want to tell us.”

“Oh my god, Haley,” Elizabeth groaned as she reached out and nudged the shorter girl away from her. “Go away. All of you, go inside. I’ll be there in a second.” When the girls turned and began running back toward the house, Elizabeth groaned and turned to bury her face in the crook of Calum’s neck. “Jesus, fuck. This is why I never brought anyone home,” she deadpanned as she glanced up at him from the corner of her eye. “I’m going to go ahead and apologize for everything that’s about to happen.”

Calum, who was struggling to hold back his laughter, shook his head at her statement. “Don’t worry about it,” he assured her with a smile as he leaned in to press a kiss to the crown of her head.  “Family can be embarrassing but, at the end of the day, they love you and want to see you happy.” He paused for a moment, thinking about the comment the girl had made, before he asked, “Before we go in, they don’t know you’re bi, do they?”

“No,” she sighed as she removed herself from his grasp and opened the back door to grab her own bag from the seat. “They… I don’t know. I can’t tell them and, I mean, right now, it doesn’t matter. But, no. There are a lot of things they don’t know about me. I didn’t realize you’d be thrown to the wolves on the very first night so I’m going to apologize again for anything they say that’s offensive. I’ve tried so many times to educate them but it’s so tiring when they don’t want to learn, you know? My mom tries, sometimes, but it’s easier to just pretend for a few days than keep pounding my head against a brick wall.”

Calum wasn’t sure what he could say to that statement and he knew that, sometimes, all she needed was a hand to hold. So, instead of putting his foot in his mouth, he gripped her hand in his and brought it to his mouth to place a gentle kiss against the back. When she shot him a halfhearted smile, he squeezed it a little tighter and said, “Lead the way, love.”

Though Calum had been overwhelmed by the barrage of teenage girls that bombarded the car, they were nothing compared to the barrage of adults that swarmed them as they entered the house. He held Elizabeth’s bag and watched as, one by one, adult after adult wrapped Elizabeth in hugs and shouted variations of, “Lizzie Belle!” He stood off to the side, a small smile on his face, as he watched them tell her how proud they were of her for finding a life in Los Angeles or how beautiful she looked. It was sweet, an onslaught of love, but he imagined that she was incredibly uncomfortable with the outpouring of compliments as she thanked everyone. She didn’t like to be the center of attention, not when there were so many sets of eyes on her, but he could tell that she was glad to be at home as she hugged her nana and held on tight.

“Here, let me help you with that,” a voice called over the din of the living room and Calum glanced over to meet the eyes of a man he recognized as her older brother. The family resemblance wasn’t very strong - likely due to their different fathers - but he could see bits and pieces of Elizabeth in him. They had the same dark, wavy hair (though her brothers had started graying) and kind smile but that was where the similarity ended. Her brother, slightly taller than Calum and significantly bigger, looked as if he spent a good deal of his time outdoors and was covered with tattoos.

“Thanks,” Calum said as he handed the bag to Elizabeth’s brother and followed him through the small path he’d carved behind the crowd of relatives. “Calum,” he introduced, holding his hand out as they entered a long hallway, “nice to meet you.”

“Josh,” he returned as he shook Calum’s hand before gesturing to a room with a closed door, “this is Lizzie’s room. Y’all’ll be in here.” Josh dropped the bag onto Elizabeth’s bed and Calum followed suit before he paused to glance around the room.

The room was exactly what he’d imagined it would be. The curtains were black and red with a light blocking curtain behind them. The queen sized bed was tall, so tall that Elizabeth needed a step-stool to climb onto it, and covered with a black duvet with white polka dots and nearly a million pillows at the head. Posters covered every inch of the walls and Calum spotted All Time Low, Green Day, and even a few One Direction posters thrown into the mix. A bookshelf rested in one corner and was filled to the brim with books, CDs, DVDs, and old trinkets. He spotted a stack of yearbooks on the top shelf and decided that his night was going to spent combing through her memories.

As Calum lost himself in exploring her bedroom, he didn’t realize that a small velvet box had fallen out of his bag. He’d tucked it into the pocket for safety but it jostled loose when he tossed the bag onto the bed and hit the floor with a thud. As he ran his fingers along the CDs littering her bookshelf, stopping and grinning when he came across their self-titled album - something he was absolutely going to tease Elizabeth about having later - Josh bent down to pick it up.

“You know, Lizzie’s never really been a jewelry person but, from the way she talks about you, I can see her being alright with wearing this.”

Calum turned, surprised as he had forgotten that Josh was still in the room, and blinked as he stared at the box in his hand. He didn’t know what to say. He’d been planning on asking her parents for permission, something he knew she thought was old-fashioned but a sweet gesture, and was mildly terrified of the response he was going to get. However, as Josh smiled at him and held the box out to him, Calum felt a small bit of ease wash over him.

“You think?” he asked as he shoved the box back into his bag and ensured that it wouldn’t fall out again. “I don’t - I know we’ve just met but I…” He paused, unsure of what he should say to him, before he simply stated, “I really love her.”

“I figured,” he nodded as he took a seat on the edge of her bed and jerked his head in the direction of the living room. “Anyone willing to put up with all this has to be in love. Momma said you were the one who called and asked if y’all could come down,” Josh said as he glanced toward the door of the room. “Lizzie doesn’t get to come home much so it meant a lot that you called and set this up for her. Momma’s hard to get through to sometimes. She doesn’t think anyone’s good enough for her kids, especially when they keep them so far away from home, but that made her happy. That gave her a reason to like you. I don’t think they’ll say no, if that’s what you’re after. But, you do know that Lizzie won’t care what they say, right?”

Calum was floored to hear Josh speak so candidly about their mother. Elizabeth was never so open about it. She rarely spoke about the bad with her family - only when she really needed to convey the importance of something - but he knew that there was a tension that he would need to overcome where her family was concerned. He was more of afraid of their denial than hers but to hear Josh predict that they would approve made his heartbeat calm and the tension in his shoulders ease.

“I know,” he laughed as he imagined Elizabeth raging against a denial from her parents. She was an adult, she was free to do as she pleased, and if she wanted to marry Calum, she would. However, having that approval was more of a symbolic gesture that Calum hoped would extend an olive branch to her parents and assure them that he wasn’t trying to steal their daughter or keep her from seeing them. He opened his mouth to thank Josh when footsteps interrupted him.

He glanced up to see Elizabeth step into the room with a small child in her arms, no older than two, and Calum felt his heart skip a beat at the sight. “There you are,” she hummed as she glanced at Calum and gave him a smile before she turned her attention to her brother. “Dad’s looking for you. They’re getting the crawfish ready to put out. They need some more hands.”

“Alright,” he sighed as he stood from the bed and clapped Calum on the shoulder. “Nice meeting you, man. We’ll have a beer later, talk some more. Lizzie says you’re in a band. I wanna know about your music,” he said before he leaned in and wrapped an arm around Elizabeth’s waist and pressed a kiss to the baby’s head. “Hey, girl. Good to see you. Don’t drop my child, please.”

“Like I would,” Elizabeth huffed as she nudged her brother away from her. “You literally threw me across a room as a baby. I’m clearly not the one anyone needs to be concerned about. Isn’t that right, Sawyer?” The baby in her arms cooed, grinning up at her, and Josh rolled his eyes as he let go. 

“Keep bringing up the past, damn. Can’t let anyone make any mistakes around here,” he grumbled playfully as he left the room and left Calum, Elizabeth, and Sawyer alone.

“Sorry for letting him steal you,” she apologized as she stepped closer to him and smiled when he reached out to offer the baby his finger. “I try desperately hard to keep anyone I like away from him. When I was twelve, he called out this guy I had a crush on on Facebook and the guy never spoke to me again. He was, uh, a little… overprotective?” She paused, glancing down at the baby in her arms, before she cooed at her. “You’re gonna have such tough time dating, honey. He’s gonna give your dates the ultimate interrogation and it’s not going to end well for anyone involved.”

Calum laughed as Elizabeth pouted at the baby and felt his heart melt as he watched them interact. He’d been thinking a lot lately, about children and marriage and the future, and every image of the future he got, Elizabeth was in it. He wanted her to be the one walking down the aisle to meet him. He wanted her to be the one to carry his children. He wanted her to be the one he grew old with. He wanted her, then and forever, and it made his heart ache in the best way to see her look so happy holding a small child.

“You look beautiful like that,” Calum breathed before he could stop himself. When Elizabeth rolled her eyes, brushing him off with a comment about how much she’d been sweating from the sweltering heat, he shook his head. “You always look beautiful but you look even more so holding the baby,” he elaborated, smiling as she glanced down at the giggling girl in her arms. “It looks natural.”

“It’s taken us a few times to get this right,” she hummed as she tickled Sawyer and grinned at her. “She threw up on me the first few times I held her. But we’re good now, right, honey?” When Sawyer cooed at her, reaching out to tug at her hair, Elizabeth smiled and glanced at Calum. When she met his amused glance, she grinned and shook her head. “I know what you meant, bub. It’s nice. I’ve thought about it and I want it - children, a family - with you. I’m sure there are other things we need to work on before that but I want that.”

“I do, too,” Calum confirmed with a grin as he leaned over to press a soft kiss to her cheek. When the baby slapped at his chest, he laughed and pulled away from Elizabeth with a grin, “But maybe now isn’t the best time to talk about our family plans, huh?”

“Nope,” she agreed with a smile,  “not when there’s a cranky little lady that needs her mom and two adults that need beer and crawfish.”

Calum quickly found himself in the backyard, passed around by relatives as Elizabeth introduced him to each one. Her mother, who had been finishing frosting a red velvet cake, grinned when she spotted him and nudged an uncle that Calum had already forgotten the name of out of the way. He was almost surprised at the hug he received, the affection was a little startling, but he decided not to question it as Elizabeth’s mother wrapped her arms around him and squeezed.

“Thank you,” she said as the others around them dispersed to give them a moment to talk. “My Belle doesn’t get to come home much and she’s always so worried about taking off so I’m so glad you convinced her to come home for a little bit. I’ve missed my baby. And it’s good to see you again. I haven’t seen you in nearly two years. I miss your hair,” she laughed as she pointed out the buzz cut he’d gotten recently.

“Lizzie does, too,” he laughed as he rubbed a hand over the bleached hair on top of his head. “She liked playing with it while we were watching TV,” he added quickly, afraid of how the first part of his sentence sounded. “I’m glad that everyone was able to come. She’s missed everyone.”

“She has,” her mom nodded as she glanced around the backyard and smiled as she caught sight of Elizabeth sitting with the girls and chatting animatedly about whatever topic they’d gotten started on. “Everyone’s missed her. It’s not the same without her here but she’s happy in LA. You make her happy. I’m glad that y’all have each other,” her mother told him with a smile and Calum breathed a quiet sigh of relief at the sincerity in her tone. He was afraid that Josh had misread the situation, that he wasn’t nearly as favored as he imagined he was, but to hear her say that eased the nerves he felt in the pit of his stomach. However, they quickly returned as she turned to face him and said, “Josh said you had something you wanted to ask us?”

Calum blinked, surprised he was being put on the spot so quickly, and nodded slowly. “I, uh, yeah. But it can wait. It’s fine.”

Her mother smiled at him and Calum could see the understanding on her face. “If it’s what I think you want to ask, I’d prefer you didn’t. The answer is yes, by the way, from both of us.  But we still want to hear your proposal.”

Calum laughed as he found himself being dragged into the house by Elizabeth’s parents. Her brother and grandmother — whose opinion really, truly mattered — followed them into the laundry room (the only room that seemed to be empty) and listened carefully as Calum asked for permission and detailed the proposal he had planned in Gulf Shores.

The rest of the weekend seemed to pass in a blur. Elizabeth taught Calum how to eat crawfish - her brother showed him how to suck the head, though he didn’t imagine he would be giving that a try - and her maw maw taught him how to shell butterbeans and peas as they sat in the shade of a pecan tree and worked on seven five-gallon buckets of peas and beans. They took him to a fish camp, an old cabin-like building in the middle of nowhere that made the best friend fish he’d ever had, and showed him the river where they went tubing when Elizabeth and Josh were young. And on their last night, he and Elizabeth sat on her parent’s front porch with a bucket of peas a piece and watched as the dusty afternoon turned to night.

“I’m really glad you did this,” she hummed as she glanced away from the bucket in front of her and over at Calum. “I never thought I’d say this but maybe all I needed was to come home and shell peas for a few days.”

Calum, whose fingers were sore and stained from the hulls, couldn’t imagine having spent every summer in this fashion but it was a nice glimpse into her world and he agreed. It had been restful, something of a recharge, and he found himself grateful for the experience. “It’s been nice,” Calum agreed with a smile as he watched her work for a moment. “It’s been good to see you in your element. I know that this isn’t your life anymore but it was nice to see where you come from.”

“I’m glad it didn’t send you running for the hills,” she teased as she tossed a hull into the bucket and shook her head. “You know, if you’d told me as a kid that I would move to LA, I wouldn’t have believed you. But if you’d have said that I’d move to LA, find someone as amazing as you, fall in love, and then bring you home someday to show you what my life was like before? I would’ve called you insane. But it felt right. Letting you in, letting you see this part of my life. It felt… it felt like it was time, you know?”

Calum reached out to squeeze Elizabeth’s hand but said nothing as they continued to shell their peas. If he’d spoken, he would’ve poured his heart out to her. He would’ve confessed just how much he loved her, just how much she meant to him, and would’ve ended up proposing on her parents’ front porch. Instead, he let his touch convey everything he wanted to say and hoped that would last them until they made it to the beach. 

Saying goodbye was a rough affair. Elizabeth’s mother and nana cried. Her father held onto her for so long that her mother had to pull them apart. They all made her promise to visit again soon and sent them on their way with enough food to feed an army. Elizabeth let Calum drive on the return trip and watched as he navigated the streets she regarded with a fondness that she never imagined she would feel. She felt bittersweet, glad to have gone home but sad to be leaving, and hoped that the festival would cheer her mood.

However, what she was met with was something far greater than she expected.

As they arrived at the beach house she, Calum, Michael, and Crystal would share for the weekend, she was under the impression that they’d arrived before Michael and Crystal. However, as they entered the house to find it decorated with photos from her and Calum’s relationship as well as flowers, she realized that she was wrong. They’d been in, long enough to help Calum set up his surprise, and were waiting somewhere in the city for Calum to make his move. It didn’t click, not at first, what the point of the set up was. But as she dropped her bag and began to look at each of the photos, it soon dawned on her.

“Calum,” she began, her voice quiet as she turned to him, only to see him on one knee behind her. “Oh, fuck.”

At her exclamation, Calum laughed and held his hand out for her to grab. “Come here,” he laughed, smiling as she stepped closer to him and allowed him to hold her hand in his. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while and even spending a weekend shelling peas can’t deter me,” Calum teased as he glanced up at her. Her hand rested over her mouth, her fingers shaking as she watched him open the small velvet box to reveal a beautiful ring. “I love you, so much. Whenever I imagine the future, I imagine you in it. I want it all with you. I want to have a family with you, I want to grow old with you. I want to marry you and spend the rest of my life by your side. I love you, Lizzie. Will you marry me?”

Elizabeth, though she imagined the proposal was coming, couldn’t speak. Instead, she nodded her agreement and kneeled onto the floor to wrap her arms around Calum’s neck. He laughed, relief and joy bubbling in his chest, as he wrapped his own arms around her waist and held her tight against his chest. He held her there for a moment, relishing in the moment, before he pulled away just enough to press a kiss to her lips. “I love you,” he breathed against them, his eyes shining with joy as he moved to place the ring on her finger, “I can’t wait for forever with you.”

“Forever isn’t long enough when I’m with you, Hood,” she quipped, her smile bright and her eyes glittering with unshed tears as she pressed her lips to his once more. “I love you, Cal. Thank you for being the most amazing man and for loving me the way you do.”

Calum knew that the future was rapidly approaching. He knew that, no matter how far away it seemed, everything would change in the blink of an eye. But with Elizabeth by his side, with her hand in his, he imagined that he could tackle whatever the universe threw at him.

And as they sat on the back patio, curled up together on a lounge chair and looking out at the water with Michael and Crystal to their left and the sound of pre-Hangout revelry to their right, Calum couldn’t think of any other place he’d rather be.

____________________________________________________

Author’s Note: This is literally just seven thousand words of self-indulgent bullshit. I don’t know. I felt it and I’ve wanted to do this for a while. It wouldn’t leave me alone so I spent my day alternating between this and Rose Tattoo. Also, with tag lists I lowkey feel like I’m annoying people if I tag them (which is the point, I know) but tell me if you don’t want to be tagged in everything. Anyway. I need to write something for Ash now. I’m, like, in an Ash mood.

Tag List (like this post or message me if you want to be added! If you don’t want to be tagged in everything, just let me know): @toolazymyguy , @irwinkitten , @jamieebabiee , @glittersluke , @spicycal , @lusbaby , @everyscarisahealingplace, @brokenvirtualheartcollector , @if-it-rains-it-pours, @blisshemmings , @calumscalm , @lovemenowseemenever , @ijutreallylovezebras , @rhiannonmichelle , @p0laroidpictures​ , @tomscuddles , @loverofmineluke​ , @harrytreatspeoplewithkindnesss​ , @blueviiolence​ , @loveroflrh​ , @empathycth​ , @luckyduckydoo​ , @tobefalling​ , @bandsandbooksaremykink​ , @watch-how-she-burns , @megz1985​ , @wokeupinaustralia​ , @lucidlrh​ , @canterburyfiction​ , @cal-is-not-on-branding​ , @jaacknaano​ , @findingliam-o​ , @idk-who-i-am-anymore1​ , @sammyrenae68​ , @flowerthug​ , 

[princesssarcastia]

aos!star trek sense8 au

okay so. i had a thought as I was watching star trek 2009.  mainly, i was pissed that we got jim being a fucked up troublemaker and spock being an ostracized genius, but we didn’t get:

uhura growing up with her huge family devouring information about alien cultures, or bby!sulu learning how to fence or bby!checkov doing spiraling math equations on the wall of his bedroom or little scotty running around with an outrageous brogue and a penchant for taking apart the replicator, or bones being adorably, earnestly caring

fuck that noise.  I want baby-faced versions of the whole bridge crew.

thus, the sense8 AU. I’ve never watched sense8 but I’m 90% sure they’re all supposed to be the same age, which is alright.  i can do that.  it just means that they know each other a little differently; some things happen earlier or different, but that’s fine.

oh my god this is going to be ridiculous.  okay. again, never seen sense8, never will, so i’m pulling this out of thin air

                                                          —

clusters are so rare no one knows about them at this point; there are myths and legends from the eugenics wars—the very wars which essentially wiped them out, actually—but for the most part, everyone has forgotten.

very rarely will someone from a cluster speak about their experiences, but whenever they do, it’s written off as part and parcel of mingling with telepathic alien races.

(little do they know it’s the one form of telepathy completely indigenous to Earth)

—

Spock is the most powerful telepath of his generation because of his uniquely human experience fielding the emotions of six other people.

—

nyota is five when she decides she wants to learn to speak all the other languages, because then she can talk to pavel and spock with their words.  she learns to speak swahili with her mother and father and aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents at home, and standard at school.  having to translate things in her mind because people don’t know her language, her words, is hard.  and if she can keep pavel and spock from having to do that, she will.

—

nyota is the reason they all join starfleet, in the end.  she meets a recruiter at school when they’re seven years old.  when the woman starts to talk about experiencing alien cultures and first contacts and languages she excitedly pulls everyone to her.  they all sit bunched up at this woman’s feet and learn about starfleet for the first time, together.  maybe they don’t all know what they want to do yet, or even that this is what they want.

but nyota wins out, in the end.  she always does.

—

when Jim breaks the security on Frank’s car, ribs still aching from the night before, Hikaru slips into the passenger seat.  they don’t—none of them really know how to respond when things like this happen to jim, when jim pulls these stunts

(sometimes, Spock can get through to him, speak to his anger.  but spock is...having his own problems today)

but when Jim frantically pulls out of their driveway and down the dusty half-road, only thinking awayawayaway Hikaru grins at him and whoops as they push sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety

then the cop pulls up alongside them and he gets nervous.  jim throws him a wild grin and yanks the wheel to the side, crashing through the gates and heading straight for a ravine.

“Jim,” Hikaru says in a panic.  “Jim, jim ,jim stop the car!  Stop the car!  JIM!”

they’re 20 feet away from the edge when sulu makes a desperate, useless grab for the wheel and Jim finally gives in.  everyone steps onto the edge of the cliff as he frantically grabs at sand and dust, living only because his friends family cluster are screaming at him.

they huddle around him in shock as he pushes to his feet and mouths off to the police officer; scotty giggles at his nonchalance and nyota thwaps him on the back of his head and leo wraps him in a hug, careful of his ribs.

—

everyone piles into pavel’s room the nights his uncle tells stories.  exciting adventures with spies and snipers and assassins.

—

nyota spends quiet afternoons with spock on his balcony under the hot vulcan sun, pouring over whatever data has drawn Spock’s attention this week.  he helps her with her pronunciation and lets her practice golic scripture on his pads.  vulcan is her third language she ever learns.

—

Hikaru goes on hikes with Scotty through the still-preserved highlands, stopping every five minutes to pester him for the names of the plants.  when they first start out, there are a lot of “i don’t knows,” or asking of scotty’s mother, but eventually Scotty starts learning them ahead of time, just to see Hikaru’s grin as they discuss foliage patterns and pollination.

—

Jim, Spock and Pavel will spend hours debating mathematical theories, wearing out the wrist of whoever’s room they’re in.  every once in a while pavel will say something that gets and eyebrow raise out of spock and a look of utter shock from Jim, because he proven them completely wrong in an effortless manner

—

Tarsus—

when Jim understands what’s happening, what Governor Kodos means, it’s—fuck.  he just.  he just shuts down, starts grabbing as many people as he can, other kids, mainly.

and everyone else freezes right where they are.  in the middle of class and fencing practice and church and after bolting upright in the middle of the night.

Spock initiates an emergency shutdown of his pod and rushes up the stairs, politely requesting (demanding) that the instructor contact his father immediately.

Pavel jumps out of bed and bangs on his Uncle’s door, begging him to open up, please open up, you still have friends on the federation council, yes?

Nyota pulls the...enhanced radio transmitter Scotty helped her build out and immediately breaks into contacts starfleet command’s private frequency to begin relaying everything she has so far, as Jim gets it, and Scotty sits right next to her, helping find new ways to break in every time starfleet shuts them out until they have to listen, please listen, this is not a joke!

Leo and Hikaru...they stay with Jim, as he scrambles through the facility where Kodos penned them in to be slaughtered; grabbing a phaser off of a corpse and shooting the guards who chase after them; kicking the legs out from under one who gets too close; keeping track of little Kevin who’s screaming and crying for his mother.

(instead of waiting six months until their scheduled check-in to find the remains of the Tarsus IV colony, Starfleet finds out about the massacre of 4,000 federation citizens almost as it’s happening; finds out from, oddly enough, the Vulcan ambassador to Earth, a former incredibly classified russian special ops agent for the United Earth, and one very persistent child in the African Confederacy with a souped-up radio communicator.

it still take three weeks for the nearest ship to warp to Tarsus, near the edge of uncharted space, and rescue the remaining colonists)

Hikaru advises Jim on whether they can eat what few plants they find; Leo uses his rudimentary medical knowledge to help patch up the injured children.  Nyota and Spock take turns helping Jim translate for the young Vulcan among them, young enough that her Standard is not yet perfected.

Spock demands that his father demand information on the rescue mission, so that he may coordinate with Jim on how long they have and where to meet the survivors that Jim is slowly, carefully, gathering.

—

the minute Jim is settled in the med-bay of the starfleet vessel carrying him and the other 73 survivors of Kodos’ condemned colonists, he breaks.  break in half, breaks down sobbing, curls up into a ball and just lets himself feel, again.

all six of the others pile around him on the biobed, surrounding him, until all he can see are other parts of himself.

—

Jim is fourteen years old.  There are six other people living in his head.  He has survived a massacre and a genocide and his mother is—

His mother is—

Not coming.  She’s not coming.  She’s sending him back to Frank, who chased Sam away and let Jim go to Tarsus.  She barely even looks at him when she sentences him to another six years of terror.

Before, he might have panicked.  Now he just...shuts down again, steals a datapad, and hacks into starfleet’s communications with his mother and frank.  Jim-as-Frank says he’s beaming to Risa to pick Jim up as soon as possible, and Jim-as-Winona signs off on it.

With Leo yelling at him and Nyota reminding him he can just come stay with her family and Pavel saying my uncle would be happy to—, Jim steps onto the transporter pad and beams down to Risa, hastily making his way out of the starfleet outpost and into the crushing crowds of the pleasure planet, and disappears.

—

They all worry about Jim, and keep tabs on him, but they have their own lives to live, too.  Even if they never give up on pulling him to one of them before he gets himself killed.

—

Pavel gets admitted to starfleet academy when they’re fifteen and Nyota is not jealous!  No, no, she’s not jealous, shut up, Hikaru.  And it’s fine, anyway, because they all know the reason half of them are planning on joining starfleet (at least, right then) is because of her. So there.

And when he gets homesick his second week there, Nyota plops herself down on his bed and babbles with him in Russian (her fourth language) until the ache in his chest recedes.

—

Hikaru and Pavel are the first of them to meet in person, because Hikaru lives in San Francisco.  Whenever Pavel is granted leave from the Academy, Hikaru shows up to drag him surfing, or to his favorite restaurant, or to meet his parents.

—

Six months after Pavel starts at Starfleet, Leo is needling Spock about the Kohlinar so much that he actually seeks out his mother to ensure Leo is wrong, that he is not needlessly repressing his “humanity” at the expense of a real part of himself.

Leo stands there in shock, glee and utter disbelief as Spock tells the old racist bastards at the Vulcan Science Academy where to put it; just claps him on the shoulder on his way out.

(Jim quietly grins to himself as he listens in)

(Nyota high-fives Pavel, Hikaru and Scotty; five down, two to go)

—

Given the nature of Vulcan secondary education and Spock’s desire to be a science officer, he tests out of basically the first two years of classes.  Then he does such an exemplary job that he earns an officer’s commission right after graduation under fucking Pike, are you kidding me?? Nyota screeches and jumps up and down and generally makes an emotional scene while Spock suffers. 

—

When they are seventeen, Leo gets his girlfriend Jocelyn pregnant. 

What.

—

After Tarsus, the times that they all get together are few and far between; but when Joanna is born they all stop what they’re doing to gather around Jocelyn’s biobed and coo, or congratulate, or tease Leo for being the one to have a kid, come on, I really had money on Jim.

He smiles at Jocelyn and stares in awe at Joanna and feels how much they all love him, how much they already love his daughter (not their daughter; not yet).

—

When they’re eighteen, Scotty and Hikaru and Nyota are finally (!!!! Nyota is so excited) going to Starfleet Academy, to join Pavel in his third year and catch Spock in passing whenever he’s on leave.

Before they leave, Nyota stands in the center of her sisters and cousins and aunts and nieces and sobs, happy to be one step closer to starfleet but unashamedly grieving for the stage of her life that she’s leaving behind.  And she decides then that she’s going to start going by Uhura, her family name, so that she can take them with her into the stars.

—

Jim is, oddly enough, the one to sit up with Leo on those long nights when Joanna just. won’t. sleep.  He quietly chats him up and stares in awe at this baby girl who came into the world peacefully and wanted, if not fully expected.  This baby girl whose parents will never raise a hand to her and has a dozen people willing to lay down their lives for her and, more importantly, take her in if god forbid it becomes necessary.

He whispers sweet nothings she can’t hear to her and Leo throws an arm over his shoulders, grateful and missing him even though he right there.

—

His feet hit the ground on Earth for the first time in four years two weeks later, after doing a few things he shut the others out for (he and spock are the only ones who bothered to learn how to do that) to get onto a shuttle headed straight back...home.

Not home because he lived there Before, but home because that’s where all the other pieces of him are living.

Because he a masochist (shut up, Leo) he acquires a hover bike and zips over to Iowa, and starts haunting Riverside, Iowa.  He lets the corn and small-town bullshit crawl under his skin and takes it out on anyone stupid enough to provoke him when he’s drunk.

He’s completely smashed when Leo finally admits he’s going to be a doctor and tries to call him sawbones; only, the first part doesn’t quite make it out of his mouth.

Leo—Bones—groans because the others are never gonna let this go.

(he is correct on that front)

—

The others are trying to give him space, he knows, but they’re also not at all subtle about their excitement at his being so close for the first time.

Hikaru, Scotty, Pavel, and Uhura orbit each other in San Fran, with Spock the occasional comet passing through their system, together in person, for real, and so eager to share that with the last two of them who’ve never met any of them in person.

They descend on they newly-christened Bones for winter break that first semester (well, actually, it’s Pavel’s seventh semester—i swear to god Chekov i’m gonna knock that smirk off your face) to meet Jocelyn and Joanna. 

And god, they spoil that girl.  Almost a year old, toddling around and bumping into everything and so curious about everything.

Spock couldn’t quite swing leave time to go with them, but they video comm him a few times so Joanna can see him, too.

Jocelyn is quietly unnerved by these people her partner is so close with, who he talks about all the time but has apparently never...met in person before?  Who call him Bones, of all things. And they all take the time to talk to her, get to know her and try and connect, but it’s overwhelming.

And then Uhura sits Bones down in person and lays out all the reasons he should transfer to the Starfleet Academy to finish out his med degree; they have a track laid out to get your doctorate and become an officer, you’re majoring in xenobiology anyway and there’s no better place for that, the opportunities for residencies will be so much better, the trauma surgeons at the academy are unmatched, and—

and we’ll be there.  Joanna can grow up with all of us around to help.

Six down, one to go.

—

The first time Hikaru sits at the helm of a shuttle, he doesn’t stop grinning the rest of the day.  Botany is his first and best love, but by god he’s going to qualify to be a pilot, too.  Maybe someday he’ll get to fly something like the Enterprise.

—

Scotty has taken engineering by storm.  All his professors have an opinion on him, and it’s always love ‘em or hate ‘em.  He’s absolutely brilliant or completely mad, should be given the flagship at the earliest opportunity or marooned somewhere he can’t do any real damage.

—

Uhura comes in knowing eight languages: Swahili, Standard, Vulcan, Russian, French, one of the Rhiannsu (Romulan) dialects, Tellaran, and rudimentary Andoran.  She knows exactly what she’s going to do and has been preparing for it her whole life.

The rest of them grin to each other when they start hearing about Uhura’s exploits in astounding the communications track time and time again.

—

Spock lets them know before anyone else that Captain Pike has been re-assigned to Starfleet Academy for a round of teaching...and that Spock himself will also finally be accepting the Science track’s increasingly desperate demands that he teach.

He’ll also be offering courses in communications; ones Uhura will have to take before graduation.  A clear conflict of interest.

(Uhura is ecstatic; Spock is concerned, but will only volunteer the incredibly personal information when it becomes relevant)

—

When Uhura sees the sign-up for a summer tour of the shipyards in Riverside, she smirks to herself and signs the fuck up, then goes directly to Jim to needle him about it.

Jim sighs and orders another drink, but...finally getting to see one of them in person after all these years...something settles in his chest that hasn’t sat right since he was just a kid.

—

Uhura is practically vibrating as she bursts into the club.  Practically half their class is stuffed around chair and in booths, and she makes a brief stop by some of her friends, but she’s on a mission now.

She can feel a subtle itch under her skin that means Jim is so close.  So close, after so long. After being so alone for so long.

He doesn’t quite understand how unwilling she’s going to be to let him go, once she has him in her clutches.

They practically run into each other next to the stools by the bar and she fights the urge to throw her arms around him.  He looks breathless and a little disbelieving, even though he knew this was coming for months, until a bright and easy smile breaks out on his face.  The one she hasn’t seen since they were still kids.

“Jim,” she laughs, giddy, and he laughs back at her, leaning onto the bar.  She sidles up next to him, as close as his current general aura of “don’t touch me” will allow, and just...breathes, for a second. 

He’s definitely drunk (although, when isn’t he, these days) but still lucid.  “I’m glad you’re here,” he says softly, so low she almost can’t hear it over the throbbing music.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she shoots back, still unable to let go of her smile.

They’re still just basking in each other’s physical presence (after all these years, she still sometimes has no idea what to do with Jim Kirk, except be there with him), when asshole security track cadet Hendorff and his pals make their way up to the bar behind the pair of them.

She can feel the way Jim perks up at the tension in their figures and sighs internally.

“This townie isn’t bothering you, right?” He asks with a smirk, like, what, he has the authority to protect her?

“Oh, beyond belief, but it’s nothing I can’t handle,”  Uhura turns toward Jim and tries to make it clear that he has no business interrupting their conversation, but Jim...

“You can handle me, that’s an invitation,” He smirks at her and knows exactly what he’s doing.

And she has half a mind to let him do it; if he wants to get his ass beat that’s his business.

“Hey, farmboy,” but then Hendorff lays his hands on Jim.  “Maybe you can’t count, but there are four of us and one of you.”

He lays his hands on Jim.  He’s interrupted their first meeting in person after nineteen years living in each other’s minds, and laid his hands on her cluster-mate.

Jim lets his gaze flit to her for half a second and then steps into Hendorff’s space, clapping him on the cheek.  “So go get some more guys and then it’ll be an even fight.”

Uhura rolls her eyes and her shoulders and knows from Jim’s experience the exact moment the tension will spill over into violence.

Hendorff draws back and decks Jim, who falls into the bar; as he makes his next move, before Jim can fully turn around, Uhura draws her heeled boot up and buries it in Hendorff’s stomach, flinging him back into the crowd.

The other three look at her in shock before Jim draws their attention again and they start—god, brawling is the only word for it.  Flinging wild punches and bottles and chairs.

When one of them gets Jim in a lock Uhura swings behind him and pinches the nerve on his shoulder, just like Spock taught them, and he goes down like a light.

But the other two still get four good hits in while she’s doing it, and between the alcohol and the concussion one of them manages to fling him onto a table while Uhura goes for the other one.

Unfortunately a whistle pierces the din before she can kick his ass.

Captain Pike is standing at the entrance to the club, staring in disbelief at the mess they’ve made of the place, and of Jim.  “Outside, all of you,” he orders.

Uhura seethes at the lost time; she didn’t even have the chance to make her annual pitch for him to join starfleet.  But she also doesn’t make her way out with the others, instead grabbing some napkins from a nearby table and hurrying over to Jim, who’s in that fun in-between state between conscious and unconscious he’s so very familiar with.

“I can feel you judging me from over here,” he mumbles, then lolls his head back to say something about whistling to Captain Pike.

She dunks one of the napkins in a glass of water and starts wiping at his face automatically, until Captain Pike clears his throat.

“Cadet, you know this man?”  He asks pointedly.  God, she’s going to get court-martialed for this, but she looks down at Jim before she answers.  He’s been off Starfleet’s radar since he was fourteen, and has never been keen to get back on it.

But he sort of shrugs at her, so she looks back up.  Pike is giving her a bemused eyebrow raise she’s pretty sure he got from Spock as she says, “Yes, sir.  This is Jim Kirk, my...” she doesn’t even know the word for it.  Cluster-mate?  Bonded?  There’s no true word for it in Standard, or even Vulcan.

“Boyfriend?” Captain Pike finishes dryly, but then watches as they both gag.  Uh, no.

“No, sir, Jim is one of my...bond-mates.”  She grimaces.  “I don’t know the exact term for it, but that’s close enough, sir.”

“Well, Cadet Uhura, if you don’t know the word than it the word must not exist,” Captain Pike says, and she fights the urge to flush. 

Decides to raise her chin instead.  “Thank you, sir.”  Deeming his face clean enough for now, she hauls Jim off the table and hands him the rest of the napkins.  She draws the line at stuffing things up his nose for him. 

“Why don’t we all sit down for a minute and discuss what the hell just happened here,” he suggest-orders.

—

Spock has a very interesting comm message from Captain Pike the next morning, and fights the very human urge to rub his temples in exasperation.  Uhura is supposed to be his partner in sensibility, not Jim's back-up in bar fights.

Perhaps they all bring out different sides of one another.

—

Uhura screeches at Jim when he shows up at the shipyard the next morning.

“Are you kidding me?  All I had to do, all this time, was dare you to join Starfleet?  Are you six fucking years old?!?”

Jim grins at her, and is incredibly lucky they’re lifting off so she can’t get up and strangle him.

—

Of course Jim joined for Them.  But it’s funnier to let Uhura think Pike could just dare him into it.

[hlupdate]

So what does a young superstar spend his time thinking about? Classic rock, mostly, along with the occasional movie or TV show. Harry Styles has always been a voracious scholar of pop history — the kind of guy who obsesses over John and Yoko album covers and Fleetwood Mac deep cuts. “We’re all just fans,” he says. “I’m just a music fan who happens to make some.” These are just a few of Harry’s favorite things — some influences, some inspirations, some heroes.

Listen along to our Harry Styles playlist here.

Van Morrison The Irish blues bard was down and out in Boston when he wrote his brooding 1968 song cycle Astral Weeks. “It’s my favorite album ever,” Harry says. “Completely perfect.” Harry recently posed with his idol for a backstage photo — inspiring Van to smile, which doesn’t happen too often. The grin is so out of character for Van, Harry jokes, “I was tickling him behind his back.” (He’s kidding, obviously.) On his first tour, before going onstage, he played “Madame George” over the speakers — the epic ballad of a Belfast drag queen. “‘Madame George’ is one of my favorites — nine minutes. I’ve got some long songs but not my nine-minute one — it hasn’t quite come through yet.”

Joni Mitchell Harry got so obsessed with her 1971 classic Blue, he went on a quest. “I was in a big Joni hole,” he says. “I kept hearing the dulcimer all over Blue. So I tracked down the lady who built Joni’s dulcimers in the Sixties. She still lives around here.” He not only found her, she invited him over. “I went to her house and she gave me a little lesson — we sat around and played dulcimers.” She built the dulcimer Harry plays on his new album. “Blue and Astral Weeks, that’s just the ultimate in terms of songwriting. Melody-wise, they’re in their own lane. Joni and Van, their freedom with melodies — it’s never quite what you thought was coming, yet it’s always so great.”

Etta James The hard-living R&B legend could do it all, from raw Chess blues to pop-soul torch ballads. Harry is a devotee of her 1960 debut album At Last! “This whole album is perfect. On that record you have ‘I Just Want to Make Love to You’ going right into ‘At Last,’ which has to be one of the greatest one-twos ever. Her ad libs are so intense. It’s like, ‘Come on, Etta — tell us how you really feel.’”

Wings Paul McCartney’s 1970s band left behind a slew of shaggy art-pop oddities. Harry swears by London Town and Back to the Egg. “While I was in Tokyo I used to go to a vinyl bar, but the bartender didn’t have Wings records. So I brought him Back to the Egg. ‘Arrow Through Me,’ that was the song I had to hear every day when I was in Japan.” The 1971 suite Ram was divisive for Beatles fans at the time, but for Harry it was a psychedelic experience: while making the album, he and his band enjoyed it while lying out in the sunshine on mushrooms. “I love Ram so much — I used to think it was a mixed bag, but that’s part of its beauty. And the one that’s just called McCartney, with the cherries on the cover and ‘The Lovely Linda’ on it.”

John & Yoko: Above Us Only Sky Documentary A deep dive into the world of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, during the making of Imagine. “I watched Above Us Only Sky on Netflix,” Harry says. “Seeing him play ‘Imagine’ on piano made me want to take piano lessons.” One of his favorite Lennon songs: “Jealous Guy,” especially the Donnie Hathaway cover. “Have you ever heard the original version of ‘Jealous Guy’? It was called ‘Child of Nature.’ Every time I play ‘Jealous Guy,’ I can’t help singing ‘Child of Nature.’ I really like Mind Games too. My favorite-ever album cover is the John and Yoko Live Peace in Toronto. So beautiful: it’s blue sky with one cloud, and that’s it.”

Carole King For a playback of his new music, Harry arranges to listen at Henson Studios in Hollywood, which used to be the old A&M Studios, in Studio B. Why? “It’s the room where Carole King recorded Tapestry.” Obsessive pop scholar that he is, Harry reveres King as both a singer and songwriter. His favorite: “So Far Away.” “How do people make shit like this?”

Crosby, Stills and Nash These three hippie balladeers summed up the mellow West Coast soft-rock vibe, despite their chemical wreckage. (For the full story, see the great new band bio by Rolling Stone’s David Browne.) “Those harmonies, man,” Harry says. “‘Helplessly Hoping’ is the song I would play if I had three minutes to live. It’s one of my ‘one more time before I go’–type songs.”

The Other Two TV Series He’s a big fan of the Comedy Central series. “It’s a brother and a sister — they’re the Two — and their younger brother becomes a viral YouTube sensation. He’s a Justin Bieber–type thing. He’s 13, and it’s basically those two dealing with that. It’s really funny.” (He’s got a thing for absurdist pop scenes like this — he also recommends the documentary When the Screaming Stops, about a bizarre reunion gig from the Eighties twin-brother duo Bros.)

Paul Simon “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,’ that’s the greatest verse melody ever written, in my opinion,” Harry says. “So minimal, but so good — that drum roll. ‘The Boxer’ is a perfect lyric, especially that first verse.” Paul Simon was one of his childhood soundtracks, with or without Art Garfunkel. “I grew up in a pub for a few years when I was a kid and Simon and Garfunkel were just constantly playing, always. Every time ‘Cecilia’ started, I’d be like, ‘I think I’ve heard this a hundred times today.’”

Hall and Oates “For my 21st birthday, I had a big party, and I convinced myself I really wanted Hall and Oates to play. I knew it wasn’t going to happen — I just had to ask. But just a few months before, they went into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so whatever it was, it was now three times as much as it used to be. Their rate just tripled — ah, fuck.”

Peter Gabriel, “Sledgehammer” Video “The greatest music video ever. I also love that Eighties synth pan-whistle sound — it basically just exists in this song and ‘My Heart Will Go On.’”

Elvis Presley “The first music I ever heard was Elvis Presley. When I was little, we got a karaoke machine and I sang Elvis, because that’s what my grandparents listened to. I made my grandfather a tape of me doing Elvis songs on one side and all Eminem on the other side. Unfortunately, I accidentally played him the wrong side.”

Harry Nilsson The legendary L.A. eccentric could croon middle-of-the-road hit ballads like “Without You,” but also a crazed weirdo who caroused with John Lennon and pursued his own lunatic pop fantasies. In other words, Harry Styles’ type of guy. “I think of all the great songwriters I love — but they all had their pop songs. Joni Mitchell with ‘Help Me,’ Paul Simon with ‘You Can Call Me Al,’ Harry Nilsson with ‘Coconut.’ You have to conquer the fear of pop.”

Stevie Nicks The Gold Dust Woman and her “little muse” are everybody’s favorite rock friendship. At the Hall of Fame ceremony in March, the sight of Harry dropping to one knee as he hands the award to a radiant Stevie — one of the iconic cross-generational images of our time. They first sang together in L.A. two years ago, when she made a surprise guest appearance at one of his first solo shows. “One of my favorite-ever musical memories. We sang ‘Landslide’ as a soundcheck, and that was even cooler for me than the show — just me and her, in an empty Troubadour.”

They just sang “Landslide” at a Gucci event in Rome, with Harry hitting impossible high notes on the final “snooooow-covered hills.” “We practiced in the dressing room,” he says. He’s got the rehearsal footage on his phone — when he hits that note, guitarist Waddy Wachtel is too stunned to keep playing. “That’s my favorite bit,” Harry says. “Practicing the song together. Just the two of us.”

[phantoms-lair]

MSAxBNHA AU

After stopping the slime monster All Might doesn't go after Izuku. The kid has the heart and the mindset, but All Might was the strongest hero in the world and now he's condemned a to slow painful death as his body deteriorates. Being a hero is a dance with death and he wasn't to see that brave and kind soul snuffed out so young.

 What he doesn't realize is his words about Izuku not being able to be a hero without a quirk did what over a decade of bullying failed to. He broke Izuku's spirit. And Inko doesn't know what to do. She doesn't know how to help her son, feels like she never knew how to help him, so she tried for a Hail Mary. There’s a trinket said to belong to a great spirit that once swore to help her family. A small metal tag with a hole on the top and a stylized question mark. She lights incense and prays for the spirit to help her son. The lights flicker and she sees the silhouette of a massive nine tailed form that vanishes, leaving behind a small white dog where yellow tinted pince-nez. "Hello Inko,  daughter of Vivi, daughter of Mushi. What can I do for you?"

The logical part of her brain wants to deny whats in front of her is a spirit. Animals with quirks were rare but not unheard of. But this is the only thing she can think of, her last hope, so she forges ahead. She tells the dog about her son's love of heroes. Of how 80% or the worlds population, almost 100% of the younger generation has some kind of superpower. Of how her son doesn't. How he strived to be a hero, studied every hero no matter how big or small. How he was bulled for not having a quirk and the teachers would look the other way. How he never gave up until the man he looked up to above all others told him he couldn't be a hero, confirmed in his mind the years of being told he was worthless. And she begged this being that looked like a dog but wasn't to help her son, that's she'd pay any cost- 

"Never say that," The creature said sharply. "There are those who would take you up on it." 

Inko frowned stubbornly So much like Vivi "For my son, I'd give anything." 

 "And if they asked for his life or soul? You'd already said anything, you'd have to comply." 

Inko's hands flew to her mouth as the color drained from her skin. 

"I would never ask that of you," The creature said, a warm kindness in his voice, though his tone was still firm. "But others would. I merely want you to not make such risky statements where another might take advantage. Tell me Inko, do you have a box that's been passed down from your family? A metal box with English writing a little over a meter in length?" 

Inko knew the box he meant. She had inherited along with the tag that summoned him. "It's in the attic." 

"Let's get it then. What's in the box should help your son more than I could.". 

Inko shakily gets to her feet and leads the way. She dusts the box off so the letters are visible. 'Yukino' is written in kanji on the top.  There's two words in English too, she'd translated them on a lark while she was studying for her degree in library science. Pepper on the right and Kingsmen of the left.  What 'From Snow' had to do with a fruit or a King's guard she didn't know; no one had ever been able to open the box. 

The thing that certainly wasn't a dog lightly touched it with his paw and it sprang open. Inside was what seemed to be an old metal baseball bat covered in ofuda. Beneath it was a star pin, a set of violet tinted glasses, and a golden heart shaped locket. The beast blew lightly on the three objects on the bottom. "Vivi, Lewis, Arthur. It's time to wake up, Your great-great granddaughter and great-great-great grandson need you."

At first it seems nothing happens. Then the items being to spark. The golden locket is the first to rise in the air, purple fire forming a massive skeletal figure. Then a powder of delicate blue ice pushes up the glasses and form a more petite one. The star takes a few tries, false starts before the electricity forms into a much more lanky skeleton, one arm glowing unnaturally. And for the first time Inko fears she's made a mistake. She doesn't know what these powers she's courted are. What if they're dangerous? What if they hurt her Izuku? 

"Look at you!" The blue themed skeleton hovered over her in glee. "You have to tell me about yourself. What's your favorite color? Is it green? What do you do for fun? Wait, Mystery implied you had a son? What's he like? Do you have a husband? A Wife? Both?" 

"Vivi, chill. You might want to put on your face. You're scaring our granddaughter." True to his word the lanky one shimmered and suddenly seemed much more human. A Caucasian man with blonde spiked hair. 

He approached Inko much more slowly. "My name is Kingsman Arthur. You may not have heard of me, but I'm your couple of times great grandfather. This is my wife, Vivi, and our husband, Lewis." The last skeleton, who'd taken on the appearance of a dark skinned man bowed.

Inko bowed back, still a little shakily. 

"None of that." The exuberance had left Vivi's voice, instead leaving a soft gentle tone. "You're family, Inko-chan. You have nothing to fear from any of us. We're here to help, whatever you need."  

"Shouldn't you not offer open ended things?" 

 "You learn quickly." The not-dog commended. "Obviously not a trait you picked up from any of these three." 

"Shut it furball," Vivi said, albeit with a note of teasing in her voice. "And technically you're correct, but Mystery wouldn't have awoken us if you had less than pure intentions. So what do you need that he couldn't help with?" 

"My son's dream was shattered yesterday and it feels like his spirit died with it. I don't know how to help and people have a history of not taking him seriously." She'd lost track of how many times she'd been told 'quirkless people are just a little more fragile' along with a shrug when she'd brought him in with an injury.  Of being told 'he has to learn to accept facts' when she confronted the teachers over the bullying he received for being quirkless. As if to society her son was worth less for his lack of quirk when he meant the world to her. Her hands balled angrily. "Izuku is selfless, brave, and intelligent. He risked his life to save someone who had bullied him, when the authorities were frozen in fear. Only for him to be berated by the professional heroes while his childhood bully is praised for his bravery and told he had what it takes to be a professional hero when all he did was get captured and destroy half the shopping district with the same quirk he's used to hurt my boy." 

 She looked at them with fierce determination, tears streaming from her eyes.  "I want my son to be happy. I want him to thrive. He's the best thing that's ever happened to me and he deserves better than to believe not having a quirk means he has no worth." 

"Let's introduce ourselves to him then." Arthur said casually. "What? We have to talk to him if we're going to help. Remember how well not talking to each other about important things went? It went bad is how it went."

“Bad is an understatment,” Lewis agreed.

"Mom, are you okay? I thought I heard voices..." Izuku's voice trailed off as he saw two strange men in his attic along with a floaty skull lady. He felt himself tense. If these were villain trying to rob his house- 

"Oh my gosh, he's got freckles just like you did at that age Artie!" The skull lady flew over to him “Remember Lew?"

"How could I forget, he was adorable." Lewis said shaking his head. "But you really need to put on your face dear." 

"Who are you people, what do you want?" Izuku was scanning the rooms, trying to find the best way to get his Mom to safety. If only he knew their quirks. 

"They're, well, they're you grandparents Izuku.” Inko explained. “Grandmother Vivi, and Grandfathers Arthur and Lewis." 

"A few greats need to be thrown in there, but yeah." Arthur sheepishly put one hand behind his head. "I guess you can say we're family guardians. Your mother summoned us to help you." 

"Help me, with what?" 

 "That's what we were finding you to discuss." The blue skull lady now had a face. "Tell us what happened, Izuku-kun." 

Izuku looked at his Mom. "This is about yesterday isn't it. I just got a wake up call to reality, that's all." 

 "Bullshit." Vivi said brightly. "Try the whole story."

Izuku was taken aback.  "Well, I mean, we live in a superhuman society. Eighty percent or more of the world has some kind of super power." 

 "Really?" he heard who he took to be Grandfather Arthur whisper to a dog he hadn't noticed before, The dog nodded. 

"And with that came the rise of heroes on villains. And when I was a child, I wanted more than anything else to be a hero. Especially a Hero like All Might. He's amazing! His sheer power is incredible. He saves so many people and no matter hope bad the situation is, he always smiles. He brings hope to everyone. I wanted to be just like him. But...I didn't have the power. Since I was four everyone told me becoming a hero was a pipe dream, but I thought if I worked hard enough, studied hard enough, I could do it. I even sent in an application for UA, the best Hero school in the world but-" Like his mother, tears were beginning to stream down Izuku's cheeks. "Yesterday I met All Might. He saved me from a villain. And I asked him if I could be a hero how I was and he-he said no." Izuku swiped his arm across his eyes. "I shouldn't be surprised, right? It was obvious. And I caused even more trouble when I tried to save Kaachan from that villain." 

"And again I say Bullshit." Vivi cut in. "From what your mother told us, you were the only one who was willing to help while the so-called heroes sat on their collective asses. That makes you more of a hero than they'll ever be."

Izuku wasn't sure how that made him feel. The reassurance was nice, but it still felt a bit empty. So he had the spirit of a hero, but not the body? What good would that do?

"You mentioned a school. Is that the only method of becoming a hero?" Grandfather Lewis asked. 

"Well, technically you only need to pass the licensing exam, but it's almost impossible to get through on self-study. There are other schools, but UA is the best with the highest pass rate. You need to do a written and a practical to get into the hero course, and no one knows what the practical is." 

"So we need to get you into the school first. What's your power kiddo? Need to know what we're working with." 

Izuku stiffened at Grandmother Vivi's question. He'd thought they'd known.  "I don't have any power. I'm quirkless." He braced himself, Waited for the 'what are you wasting our time for' that every guidance councilor had given him. 

"Oh that's what that means." Arthur nodded. "So you're gonna Batman it."

"Batman it?" Izuku was as baffled by the phrase as the fact that hearing he was quirkless hadn't dissuaded them in the least 

"You don't know who Batman is?" Arthur sounded aghast. 

"It's been decades if not centuries, Art." Lewis reminded him 

"Batman is forever." Arthur grumbled. 

"Was that the movie with the nipples on the costume?" Vivi asked with a grin.

"Anyway"  Lewis turned the attention back to Izuku. "In our time, before superpowers were apparently a real thing, we had comic book characters and one of the most famous was a hero named Batman. There were multiple comic books, cartoon series, and movies abut him. One of the biggest debates was if Batman would win against Superman, a being so powerful he was night invulnerable and strong enough to change the planet's rotation. And do you know what Batman's superpower was?" 

Something Bat themed, huh. "Maybe echolocation? One at a frequencey that could disorient even the Superman guy?" 

"This Superman guy?!" Arthur explained in disbelief. 

 Lewis grinned. “Nope. He was, as you would put it, quirkless. Not a single superpower to him. Just cunning, creativity, a bunch of gadgets, and an indomitable will." 

"And martial arts training." Vivi reminded. 

"And a really cool car," Arthur added. 

Lewis rolled his eyes. "The point is, superpowers aren't what being a hero is really about. Batman didn't need them. Neither did Ironman, Black Widow, or Hawkeye. So if you want to be a hero, we're going to help." 

"Right." Vivi nodded. "Lewis can handle physical training, he was in the best shape of all of us in life.  I can teach you melee combat with fists or a baseball bat. I know a little sword work, but you'd probably be better off with actual lessons. Arthur can do free running and strategy.  I don't know how much we can help with the written test though, our knowledge is too out of date. Inko-chan could you help him study for that?" 

Inko was taken aback for a moment. She didn't know what she expected the spirits to do, besides possibly give her son a quirk of some kind. But they didn't need him to have a quirk to believe his dream  and supported him without questions. The way she wished she had done when he was four. "I...of course I can! I'm a librarian. I can find whatever books Izuku needs to help." 

"Speaking of books, we have another option on the table." Mystery said with a smirk. "Quirks have been all the rage for a century and a half. Magic is all but forgotten. It would be something almost no one would have access to. Between Vivi and myself there is a fair amount of occult knowledge we could impart." 

"Magic is real? You're offering to teach me magic?" This was a dream, it had to be. There was no way this was real. 

"Yes. But we have a mere ten months before your exam.  Your schedule will be packed to the gills with little time for levity. It won't be easy. I may not be able to guarantee  you'll get in on the first try. But I promise you this. With all of us helping, you will be a hero."

All his life Izuku had craved hearing that he could be a hero. The sheer assurance that he would be one was almost more than he could take. "Thank you! I won't let you guys down." 

 The three ghosts and kitsune smiled. "Of that we have no doubt."

[takaraphoenix]

When it comes to goodbyes, there’s only one person I’ve ever known who had her own personal take on that. Whenever I’d say “Mach’s gut” - “take care”, though literally it means “do well” - she would counter with “Mach’s besser”. Do it better.

I always thought that was a funny little thing, I always found that adorable, because she’d say it with mischief in her eyes and in a playful way but still like she absolutely meant it, like she wanted me to do better than her.

And it absolutely wrecks me to think that I’ll never hear her say that to me again.

When I was a kid, I used to spend at least one day a week at my grandma’s. It was always just my grandma; my grandpa had died when I was barely a couple months old. But I still had my grandma and grandpa on my mom’s side of the family. The two grandmas thing was always very confusing as a child - and I mean, too young to realize relatives have names beyond their familiar relation title - so in my family, we solved that rather easily.

My dad’s grandma, she was my Gartenomi. My garden granny. Well, not just mine, I have three older cousins on that side of the family and she was all of our Gartenoma. Because, as the title implies, she had a garden. Back then, that was something I assumed everybody had, you know. Everybody had a mom, everybody had a dad, everybody had a regular Omi and everybody had a Gartenoma.

She had berries in her garden, among other things. And my older cousins and I, we used to always go and gather them with her. I hated that, I always hated being out in the sun and well, manual labor was also never a thing I was a fan of. But I was a fan of the berries, so that evened out.

She used to make jam out of them. We had like a whole deal with that, my dad and his two older sisters would always keep score on who gets to take how many jars of what jam home. And her jam was the best, leagues above any store-bought jam, clearly the most superior jam, truly.

She also used to have veggies in her garden and she she would make that broccoli/cauliflower soup for me. About, I don’t know, between five and ten years ago, she had to give up the garden because they tore all the gardens down there to even the field to build houses there. And even though I haven’t had home-made broccoli/cauliflower soup in a long, long time, it still gives me that homey feel and reminds me of when I was little, even if it’s packaged soup.

We’d also always play games. Well, I suppose that’s normal, isn’t it? Playing games with grandparents. Though she was always rather bad at it and always lost. Around my teens, I started to suspect she may be losing on purpose to let her grandkids win, but to this day I am not a hundred percent sure. Especially Mensch, ärgere dich nicht (I think it’s called Sorry! in English?) and she had these particular little wooden figures for the board-game. Particular, because they were a deep, dark magenta - and normally this game comes with yellow-red-blue-green figures only.

When my grandma moved to the retirement home two years ago and gave up her apartment and we - the whole family - came to... salvage among the things she wanted to throw out, I picked those four wooden magenta figures. I still got them standing on my desk, you know, right next to my screen.

I also took a shell. My grandma had this big shell collection - she, grandpa, dad and my aunts used to go to Italy a lot to camp when dad was a child. The shells were always laid out next to her TV on two long shelves. There were a lot of pretty ones there, but I had always liked one in particular, it’s huge and a pretty curled one, the kind crabs live in. My cousin and I, we used to play with them, with this one and another one similar in size. We pretended they were our shell-phones. I got to keep mine and she took hers.

The two of us, we also had these... school notebooks. But like, old school notebooks. From the 70s, back when our parents still went to school. We used to write and draw out our adventures and stories in them together. Those, we also took and kept.

December two years ago, my mom bemoaned that she didn’t save any of my grandma’s cookie-boxes, because until she had to give up her apartment, my grandma used to provide all Christmas cookies to the entire family. She made... so, so many cookies - do keep in mind, my dad and his two sisters, each with kids of their own. Each family usually got two to three boxes of cookies. And they weren’t just any old cookies. She made ones that I have never before or after seen anywhere else and she used to make them with her home-made jam too, of course.

When I was a late teen, she started talking about the war. She’d never done that before, I don’t know if she deemed me old enough to hear about it then, or if she was already slowly slipping into dementia, because it were... the ever same stories that she’d repeat with a haunted look on her face.

Of the food they couldn’t afford, of how lucky she had been that her mother ran a grocery store and that they were doing better than most other families thanks to that. Of French soldiers living in their apartment with them during the war. Of how nightmarish our beautiful city had looked back then, bombed and destroyed. Of going to school as a little girl, while the bomb sirens were going off, past dead bodies on the street.

It was also when I was pretty much out and proud as a lesbian to... nearly everyone I knew. Aside from my grandparents, who all have... unfavorable opinions on the gay.

That was when I started visiting less. Not never, still about once a month. I also justified it a lot with being busy with college, you know. I was still visiting her regularly, after all.

Two years ago, she slipped in the stairway in her apartment building and while she made it upstairs, she collapsed there. My aunt only found her two days later. That was when we knew something had to change.

With her broken bones, she had to stay in a care home for a couple months anyway, which was enough time for my dad and his sisters to thoroughly debate what to do. It’s hard to consider that your own mother won’t be able to take care of herself anymore, but with that fall it became apparent that she couldn’t and that living on the first floor wasn’t exactly safe anymore either. That was when she sold her apartment and went to a retirement home.

The home’s just down the street from her old apartment. It’s... nice, I guess. The same where my great-grandma used to be in, I even still faintly remember that.

But she wasn’t the same anymore after the fall. I don’t know if dementia can be kickstarted by a fall on the head, but she slipped so fast in the following year.

We’d come and get her for Christmas or Easter or birthdays and when we’d drive her back to the home, she would get disappointed and sad that we were abandoning her, that we’d just trick her into leaving her at a retirement home, having completely forgotten that she was living there for months now.

When visiting her, she’d get her hopes up that we had come to pick her up and bring her back home again.

Then, in the past year, it started to get even worse. She’d forget where she was, completely. Looking out the window of her room, the one pointing directly at the elementary school she used to go to as a little girl - as she had told me very proudly when first moving into that room - and she wouldn’t recognize the building, wouldn’t recognize the neighborhood she had spent all her life in.

She had to rely heavily on her walker too, which was so terrifying to see, because I’ve only ever seen my grandma as, honestly, more fit than myself. She used to ski, she used to hike, she used to climb, she had and took care of that garden until she was eighty years old. To see her so... fragile... was terrifying in its own right, but to have her mind and memory slip like that too?

She started repeating whatever others told her, mixing up memories, not recognizing people anymore, staring blankly through you when you were directly in her line of sight.

Last Christmas,we got her to go to my aunt who hosted Christmas (it used to always be at my grandma’s). And she was... really just... physically present. She slept most of the time, even fell asleep in the middle of conversations. She looked through you, nodded along but didn’t quite listen. She could barely get up with help, but not more around on her own anymore.

About... four weeks ago or so, she was permanently put in a wheelchair because she couldn’t walk anymore at all.

Three weeks ago, the home called to inform us that visiting hours were cancelled due to the corona virus.

This morning, the home called because grandma had a fever.

Seven hours ago, my grandma died at ninety-one years old.

We don’t know if she had corona, or if it was something else. We couldn’t go visit to say goodbye due to the risk of it being corona. We don’t know how things with the funeral will play out thanks to corona.

And I spent the last seven hours doing the dumbest, most time-wasting tasks I could think of to not think about the fact that she’s now gone for good, or the way that makes me feel, because I don’t know how I feel because she’s been slipping away for two years now and she hasn’t been the grandma I grew up with in two years but the thought that she’s now really, truly gone still hurt so much and the only thing I can think about is how I couldn’t say goodbye to her and that she will never say do it better to me again, ever.

[immawritethat]

Missed Connections

(Somewhat connected to this piece I half-wrote last year and have been thinking about since) Anyhow, this the workshop draft of a short story I wrote for class, and I just think it’s v neat and wanted to share!

----

Dolores Lopez spent much of her free time inside museums, but today she was here with a purpose. The building was much younger than many of its contents—an oblong Art Deco styled building, trimmed with golds and chevron and all those other lovely elegant things. The atrium stretched to the full height of the building, dwarfing all patrons as if to say “You are inferior in the grand scheme of history; there may be no one to tell your tale lest ye gain the wealth and notoriety seen here!”

Or perhaps Dolores was simply projecting.

The first time she’d visited this particular museum was in the second grade, back when she wore her dark brown hair in two simple plaits—well, until two of the boys in class decided a few months later it was a stroke of comic genius to cut one off with a pair of scissors during class—back when her complexion still held a rich, golden undertone to it instead of a sickly yellow tinge, and back before she had to squint through thick, round glasses that later had her teased for looking far too much like an owl. It was so long ago she couldn’t remember exactly what they had been there to study—maybe something about the Native Americans or Columbus or vaqueros, but that wasn’t what made an impact.

She remembered, once they had been given time to look about the museum freely, taking one glance at an old World War II nurse’s uniform from the travelling exhibit and bursting into tears. A grief she had never been introduced to flooded forth, having seen no death in her lifetime, and pulled her underneath its tide. Something had been sitting inside her, buried deep underneath everything she knew of herself. The chaperone overseeing her had ended up taking her outside to calm down, asking what had happened. She had never quite been able to explain it, and lied that her stomach hurt when pressed for an answer.

As she aged, Dolores noticed more and more of her life out of the ordinary.

There were the vivid dreams, showing flashes of lives both mundane and horrific. They varied in topic, but often continued on at some point or another, as though a new episode had finally aired. Sometimes there were flickering shadows of a cobblestone hearth, and other times the sparking battlefields on the edge of the Euphrates. The most common ones brought Dolores into a living room decorated with floral wallpaper, a gramophone playing a song she later discovered was Vera Lynn’s “We’ll Meet Again.” In some dreams, she sat with another girl, a few years older, playing with rag dolls whose threads unraveled and only just remained stitched together so they wouldn’t have to hear the wailing of an upset child. In others, they were older, seated beside the radio, listening to whatever the statesman had to say on the state of drought and war and the economy.

Sometimes she sat alone, patching up old skirts and trousers, with little more than the hum of the wind to bring her company.

Only now was she beginning to understand what those dreams meant.

“Dolly Lopez?” The silvery voice came from behind Dolores, along with a gentle tap on the shoulder, pulling her focus back to the present. She turned, and an aged tension lifted from her body. Remington Siegel stood half a foot taller than her, dressed in a rather interesting combination of neon prints which stood out even more against his dark skin, looking nothing like the person that she had missed, but feeling every bit the same.

Dolores swiped the tears from her face, clearing her throat to compose herself. “You kept me waiting,” she said.

“I never meant to.” Remy put his arms across her shoulders, pulling her into an awkward side-hug. “Should we sit somewhere? Or is there an exhibit you’re fond of?” He paused for a moment, face screwed up with thought. “You weren’t the one with a stamp collection, were you?”

Dolores scrunched her nose. “I don’t remember much, but I definitely don’t remember that.”

Remy only shrugged. “Another lifetime, then. It’s tough to keep them all separated, you know.”

Dolores’s gaze fell down to the messenger bag hanging from his shoulder, stuffed with loose, crumpled papers on the verge of falling out. The weight of the binder in her arms seemed to double.

“Maybe the café?” He suggested, in hopes of breaking the silence. “It was a long flight from Newcastle, and I haven’t eaten much since—too busy trying to get a hold of myself.”

“Of course! Sorry, I got lost in my own head.” Dolores stepped to the side, gesturing forward. “Honestly, I’m just still a bit shocked you’re really here—five months of Twitter DMs and now? Bam! You’re just…here.”

“Well, that’s one of the many plusses of being the only grandchild of wealthy grandparents—they’re willing to spoil me at the drop of a hat. Well, that and I have spent far more time doing this.” He gestured his bag forward. “Maybe I’m not half as organized, but I’ve got it mostly-kinda-sorta figured out. Seeing me in action should help you out a lot.”

Dolores nodded, offering a soft mm-hm, but her eyes were clouded and far off. He hadn’t brought it up. She knew they had talked about it plenty through their messages, but it felt strange to not mention it. Wrong, even. But this was the third time he’d done this—he’d even approached her about it all. Maybe there was some taboo about it she was unaware of.

Maybe it didn’t mean as much to him.

She listened to Remy ramble on about his research methods preferred databases through the halls, around the line of the café, and even for the first few minutes seated at the table. She asked questions from time to time, but ones which were only half engaged—Oh really? How long did that take? How did you come up with that? She spent far more time shouting in her own head to get over her worries and ask something with more meaning.

“You’re dying to ask something.” It was a statement, rather than a question, delivered between a mouthful of muffin and a sip of tea. “The hesitant look in your eyes—go on, don’t be shy. I didn’t come all the way out here to buy five dollar muffins and be half-listened to.”

Dolores averted her gaze, focusing on the instead on a photo of an aged Victorian doctor, apparently one of Remy’s most notable memories, who looked up at her with a stern warning to mind her words carefully. She wiggled the straw in her tea aimlessly. “No, no, I’m alright!” She forced out a laugh, the way she had practiced on plenty of bad dates throughout plenty of lifetimes. “I’m just a little—”

“Look, Dolly—If you tell me you’re star-struck again, I’ll just have to ask you what’s wrong and that’s never a fun conversation.”

Dolores took in a short breath and sighed, deflating in her chair. “I was just…hoping maybe we could talk a little more about…” She pressed her lips together, failing to hold back her true thoughts. “Us? What we were, what we went through. I mean, God, it’s hard enough to find someone who remembers at all, let alone someone you shared that history with! Let’s talk about the fact that you were Betty and I was Judith and that we’re only seeing each other again now nearly eighty-goddamned-years later in two totally different bodies and from two totally different places!”

Ceramic clinked against the table. Dolores pulled her fist back towards her chest, face flushed from her outburst. She hadn’t meant to get that worked up, hadn’t meant to hit the table.

Remy leaned back in his chair, stretching out his long legs, and drew out a sigh. He stared up at the ceiling for a moment, frowned, and then fixed his gaze back on Dolores. “You know that fun little saying War is hell? It’s not too far off.”

Dolores scooted her chair closer to the table, so that her belly pressed against the cool laminate. She hunched forward, so that he wouldn’t have to speak any louder than was required between the two of them.

“I try not to remember being Betty. I know you remember a lot of the good things, but you were the little sister. It was my job to make things seem fun and happy for you, even when Dad lost his job during the Depression and when the neighbors started getting shipped off left and right when the war started.” Remy paused. He suddenly found the particular soda stains on the floor particularly interesting, and focused his gaze there. “I know I signed up to be an Army Nurse because I was exhausted playing nanny for you. You were thirteen, I figured you’d be fine if I was gone for a bit. I could see the world, and meet some boys.”

He let out a whistle, low and long, like the groan of a dropped bomb. “Boy, oh boy did I meet plenty. You see things you couldn’t imagine happen to a human body treating a warzone. They kept me with diseases, mostly, not trauma.”

Dolores nodded. She knew how the story ended—Betty had contracted TB, died before the war even ended, and left her sister—had left her—without so much as a final goodbye.

Remy shrugged his shoulders, and returned to his previous position. “I’d love to say I remembered the good things, Dolly, but I’ve got all the ugly. Well, mostly.” He pulled an envelope from his bag, yellowed with time and creased with deep wrinkles. “I barely remember writing it, but I guess it was never posted. It was found in a box with some other nurse’s stuff, some old friend of mine—er, Betty’s—who’d passed, apparently.”

Dolores’s hands shook. It was so worn it had become soft, and the half-finished address was hardly legible at this point. “And it was definitely from…?”

Remy nodded. “It’s yours. Sorry it took so long to get here. But, hey, look at it this way: we got to say hello again instead of goodbye.”

Dolores’s lips quirked up into a smile. She left the envelope closed, and placed it inside her binder for later. She’d waited for it this long, anyway. “Hello is much nicer than goodbye, isn’t it?”

[feelingsdusk-writes]

Every revolution begins with a spark

Chapter 1

For a moment, Stiles can't breathe. There's a deafening ring in his ears, he can't move and darkness begins to creep in from the edges of his vision. Then he starts shaking, a wet and cold sensation filling him, and his legs give out on him, but he barely registers the pain in his knees when they impact with the ground. After a moment, he finally manages to make his body cooperate and he crawls forward, gulping air like a man would water after going way too long without it.

Then he screams.

"DAD!!!"

Everything slows down. Blake is saying something and Deucalion is speaking too, no longer blind. Melissa rushes towards his dad with Scott and Isaac in tow, but Stiles already knows there's nothing to be done. Something dark and twisted surges inside him so abruptly that he chokes on thin air.

Everything fades away suddenly.

It's the frantic screaming of his name what brings Stiles back to himself. His breath is coming in short gasps and his muscles are spasming uncontrollably. He looks around himself, trying to will his eyes into focus, and is greeted by the sight of carnage. Blood is splattered everywhere and Jennifer Blake lies on the ground dismembered, with vacant eyes and features locked in a terrified expression. Deucalion is choking on his own blood, one arm and both legs detached from his body and he's trying to crawl away.

It takes Stiles a moment to notice that everyone is looking at him horrified. Then, details start trickling into his mind: they're giving him a wide berth, Chris is pointing his gun at him, Deucalion is trying to crawl away from him, there's blood on his hands, under his nails, inside his mouth.

(Everything goes to hell quickly after that.)

---

His room is bare save for a cot, a small table and a chair, all of them bolted to the ground. He's not tied to the railings now, but he was when he first woke up. He didn't take that very well, but he learned quickly that either he calmed down or the bindings would stay. Four days ago they finally took them off.

"Mr. Stilinski, this kind of attitude won't help your case," the woman says after giving a pointed look at the tray still full of untouched food.

She's been coming here since he woke up and apart from the doctor that gave him a check up on the first day, he hasn't seen anyone else the whole week. There's not one but two guns strapped to her waist right in plain view and who knows what else she has hidden on her person. She says her name is Sarah Stratford and that she's a representative of the Tribunal.

Apparently that's a thing.

An organization to control that hunters and supernaturals alike don't get out of line. An organization that somehow missed Gerard Argent killing Deucalion's pack during a peace talk, Kate Argent burning the Hales alive, the alpha pack killing entire packs over the course of at least six years and all around the country... But they come now.

Now!

If they had intervened when Gerard Argent killed Deucalion's pack, the alpha pack wouldn't have happened to begin with, Jennifer Blake wouldn't have become a darach and thus, Stiles' dad wouldn't have been used as a human sacrifice. If they had also intervened when Kate Argent burned the Hales alive, Peter wouldn't have been left packless and then gone on a crazy rampage, Scott wouldn't have been bitten and Stiles would have never been involved with the supernatural world.

But. They. Come. Now.

"Oh," Stiles answers sweetly, giving her a smile so sugary that it can't be anything but fake. He turns on his bed from his stubborn staring at the wall to look at her fully. "So eating will help my case, hmm? Everything will be better if I eat then? Eating will get me out of this cell?"

"It's not a cell, Mr. Stilinski," she cajoles calmly. "The moment-"

"Will it make me human again?" Stiles barrels on, ignoring her completely. "WILL IT GIVE ME MY DAD BACK?" he finally shouts, grabbing the tray and throwing it at her. She deftly dodges it, seemingly unfazed by his outburst and he wants to scream in frustration. There are claws in his balled hands, biting into his own skin, and his canines feel a little sharper in his mouth. He forces them to disappear ruthlessly. "WILL IT?!"

"Of course not," she answers matter-of-factly and Stiles lets out a choking noise, his whole frame shaking. "At this point, since we've already established that you can control your shift in strenuous situations, eating, Mr. Stilinski, will simply let us ensure you're healthy enough to be able to attend your father's funeral."

Stiles hates her.

He hates everything, everyone, himself.

(He eats.)

---

"Don't touch me," he snarls quietly when any of them tries to approach him at the funeral.

He doesn't own a suit. Stratford said that the Tribunal could get him one but just the thought of accepting any help from them makes his stomach turn, so he glared at her until she stopped bringing it up. She brought from his house an all black outfit from his own clothes instead and Stiles had to force down a snarl. He had to remind himself that he wouldn't forgive himself if he missed his dad's funeral so he could swallow down his anger at the thought of her or anyone else going through his home, his things, and just put them on.

Stiles hates, he hates so damn much. He hates the Tribunal for their incompetence when it counted and for their competence now that it doesn't. He hates Scott and Allison for concentrating on their own parents and not on everyone, leaving his dad to die. He hates Isaac for being there doing nothing but save his own skin. He hates Melissa and Chris for, each in their own way, having the skills to help his dad and not using them. He hates Derek for being an idiot that let himself be fooled again. He hates himself for not being enough, for being too slow and too weak, for his horrible luck. He hates his dad for not sticking to his damn diet, which caused his heart to be unable to stand what Jennifer Blake piled on him. He hates, hates and hates and hates. And so, hatred burns and burns inside of him like red hot lava to the point that nausea has lodged firmly at the back of his throat and he feels physically sick constantly.

And so, as they lower his father's coffin, Stiles just... hates.

(Somehow it feels as if they're burying Stiles along with his dad in that grave.)

---

As far as he can remember, Stiles has never met any of his relatives on his mother's side. He had always assumed that they were all dead like on his father's side, especially since no one but his mother's friends showed at her funeral, but it turns out they weren't. The Tribunal tracks them down easily to Modesto, of all places, and then gets in contact with his grandparents.

They come to the center where they're keeping Stiles, Eichen House, with sour expressions that only turn darker the more time they spend inside. It doesn't take Stiles more than two minutes with them to start suspecting why his parents may have cut all ties with them and that's even before Stratford starts testing the waters about his new special needs without outright revealing everything. After the third time they cross themselves she desists and just tells them they will keep an eye on Stiles for a while to make sure the transition is smooth, but he knows it's too late when his grandfather promises to straighten him out with good old fashioned discipline.

Then, his uncle and two cousins, all of them lawyers, show up and things get even worse, if that was even possible.

"You're not selling my house," Stiles states, tone flat because he's so angry that he can't shout. "You have no right."

"Listen, kid, family or not, we're neither rich nor a charity. If we're going to be saddled with you, you're going to have to help..."

"Then leave."

"Now you listen-"

"No, you listen to me. I know what my dad's will says and you can't touch the house or the money. Everything gets frozen until I become an adult in the eyes of the law-"

"Such a stupid little kid. You think there will be anything left to be frozen after settling all the debts?"

"Debts? If you think you can fool-"

"Your house has a double mortgage and Claudia's hospital debts haven't been fully paid yet. You're lucky your friend here," he nods towards Stratford, whom remains emotionless and seemingly unaffected by the proceedings, "took care of the costs of your father's funeral or it would have been even worse. Doing things right, the best we can do is settle about eighty percent of it, ninety if the house sells well. The rest of it will have to come out of our own pockets so you better start being more grateful, brat."

They sell the house.

They sell everything.

They camp in his house (he doesn't have the heart to call it his home anymore) for a week while they manage everything. Stiles has to bite his tongue as his grandparents sleep in his dad's room, as his uncle takes his own room and his cousins the guest room, leaving him to sleep on the couch. Part of him wants to scream when they eat everything in the fridge, including the healthy veggie lasagne he had prepared for his dad.

Then what little that was left alive inside himself after the funeral dies as they go through everything in the house as if it's garbage. They even go so far as to organize a yard sale to get rid of all of it and what cannot be sold, they don't even bother donating and throw it to the trash. Stiles' possessions get reduced to two changes of clothes and an ugly ten thousand piece puzzle they let him keep to entertain himself. He hides his dad's wallet and badge, three family pictures he managed to secret away when they weren't looking and a memory stick with the Argent' bestiary inside its box.

He tries to save his childhood teddy bear and quilt (both of which had been crocheted by his mom when she was pregnant) too but fails. They tell him that he needs to grow up, that he isn't a child anymore, as they take them from him. They're already sold and gone when he finds a window to try again.

In the end, the remnants of Stiles' life up until now fit inside a backpack.

(He doesn't hate anymore, he just feels numb.)

---

The trip back to Modesto is as miserable as his newly found family is turning out to be.

It turns out they drove here from Modesto together and, for a moment, Stiles feels panic clawing at his throat at the prospect of six people squeezed for more than three hours in a tiny old car whose bumper has been kept in place with tape -Stiles saw it by chance when his wallet fell underneath and he really wishes that he didn't know about it right now-. It sounds rich coming from him with the state his (no longer his, Stiles, do keep up) jeep was in, but the car really looks like it could be broken by sneezing too hard at it. He swallows nervously, hands trembling and hurriedly mutters something about the restroom. There, he forces himself to breathe and count until he wrestles himself back in control.

The whole ride is an exercise in self-control. For starters, the combined smell of their cheap colognes and deodorants keeps him nauseated for the entire duration of it, burning his sensitive nose. More over, they only stop for gas once and they don't even let him out of the car. They refuse to buy a bottle of water when he asks for it, mouth parched and almost dizzy from the heat because the air conditioning of the deathtrap they call a car is broken and they won't let him open the windows because one of his cousins is starting to come down with something and he should be in bed instead of having to traipse down to a podunk town in the middle of nowhere. They also scoff and answer his request contemptuously, as if they find absurd to an insulting degree the thought of paying for water and what a comfortable life he must have led if he could waste money like that, but then again, maybe that's why he has nothing now.

Needless to say, he doesn't ask for anything again.

It was late when they left Beacon Hills because they refused to disturb their lives any more than the strictly necessary (which Stiles thought was complete bullshit, they just didn't want to pay for a hotel room now that they couldn't stay for free at Stiles' former house), so it's completely dark when they pull into the drive of a very nice looking house, in an equally nice and very green neighbourhood. Parting from what he has found about his family, Stiles is momentarily surprised, but it only lasts until they usher him in as if he's a dirty little secret they want to keep hidden. Then he's faced with the house version of the car, which means old, shabby and patched everywhere to look nicer than it really is.

He learns eight people live in the house (his grandparents, two uncles, an aunt (by marriage) and three cousins) on the way towards his bedroom. His uncle points towards a door and then leaves unceremoniously. Inside there's a tiny room with a mattress directly on the wooden floor and right against a wall, with a blanket folded on top of it. And that's it. However, it's not like anything else would fit inside anyways, because there's about two feet of free space at the left of the mattress and three feet at the end of it.

Stiles breathes and counts, hugging his backpack to himself. When no one comes looking for him after a while, he forces himself to let go of it and search for them, even though he wants nothing less than to see them. He's not hungry, but he's really thirsty. He finds out that everyone has gone to bed already from his pajama clad aunt, who ushers him back to his room without letting him get a word out.

He sits on his bed and looks around, feeling empty in so many ways.

He breathes and counts, again and again.

(He doesn't sleep that night.)

(He shoves everything that remains of himself deep, deep down and then locks it away.)

---

Over the first two weeks, he learns even more about his family even though they ignore him unless it's absolutely necessary. They say first impressions can be deceiving and that's a truth as big as the universe. He thought that maybe they were that way because poverty molds people and leaves scars that will never go away, but he was wrong. They're not poor, they don't lack resources, they're just greedy, selfish and tightfisted. They're also petty, narrow minded, snobbish, egotistical and just plain mean. And the funniest of it all? They go to extreme lengths to make it look like they aren't.

Their car looks like a vintage lover's wet dream and they go as far as to clean it behind closed doors to make it appear as if they have hired someone to do it. Their lawn is perfectly taken care off and looks as if a professional had designed it. Outwardly, the house looks as if it has been completely renovated, but inside, excepting the entrance or anything that can be seen from the outside, is shabby and patched everywhere.

They gossip about everyone but make it look like it's beneath them. They act as if they're liberal and accepting but then, for example, they insult their trans neighbour and call her everything under the sun and subtly try to edge everyone in the neighbourhood against her to force her to leave. Stiles saw them give a pittance to a homeless man and then note the exact amount to deduct it from their budget.

Everyone around loves them.

(Stiles would be impressed in a disgusted kind of way, but he's too tired and unable to feel anything, not even revulsion.)

---

From the very first day, his family piles a lot of rules and chores on him because he has to earn his upkeep, and then proceeds to generally ignore his presence in the house unless absolutely necessary. Apart from keeping good grades and being well behaved at the public school they've enrolled him in, he's to clean, do the laundry, cook and buy the groceries. Even though they are nitpicky as hell and nothing can be thrown out (it has to be reused until it falls apart and can't be put together again), he has no problems with the first five, to be honest, because it's not like it's any different from what he used to do back when he had a home in Beacon Hills. The last though? It's horrible and it gives him nightmares when he actually gets any sleep.

(The halfway completed puzzle under his mattress is enough testament of that.)

For some reason the grocery shopping has to be an almost daily thing, even though the store is quite far away and it just doesn't make any sense to waste the time and resources to go there every day. With how obsessed they are with being frugal in everything they do, he's really surprised by this, but maybe it's a new thing now that Stiles is there to do it for them. Who knows? In any case, from Monday to Friday he has to walk to the store and then back carrying the bags.

Up to that point it would only be annoying and time consuming, which Stiles could bear with easily because it's not like he has anything better to do or as if he likes staying in the house, but the problem is the budget. They give him a whopping two hundred dollars a week to shop for nine people. And again, Stiles is resourceful and a really good cook, he could make it work somehow, but they give him a list. They give him a damn list of the things he needs to buy apart from the actual food and Stiles has to manage to get it all with the ridiculous budget he has.

The first time he goes to the store he does his best to find sales and cheapen his shopping to the bare minimum, well aware that with less than thirty dollars for each day of the week he's not going to go too far, but in the end he can't buy two of the things on the list. His grandfather is silently furious and sends him to bed without dinner. Stiles learns quickly that that's going to be a thing and debates whether he should carry some of the money he has secreted in his dad's wallet or not, but decides that it wouldn't help him in the long run. In the end, he does take some money, but it is to buy himself some power bars that he hides in his backpack along a bottle of water that he refills every day at school.

After that he learns quickly. He doesn't always have a list, so he saves every cent he can for the days he does. Hearty vegetarian stews and soups become his friends, along with a lot of tricks that he learns as he goes, such as buying food that is about to expire because it has the best prices and secretly making his own detergent to fill the box and tricking his family into believing he's still buying it. There's no escaping fasting on Fridays though, because no matter how much he's able to save throughout out the week, it's impossible to shop enough for three days with what remains and to complete the list too. So he makes it as far as he can with what he has (because if he doesn't it will only be piled on the next list), not touching what he may had saved throughout the week and leaving it for Monday when he knows he will need it.

It's a nightmare and after those two weeks, Stiles is horrified to discover that he's becoming as miserable as they are when he battles ruthlessly with an old lady for the last of the peppers on sale and he's just relieved when she almost falls and she has to let go.

(He needs to leave.)

---

Over the next two weeks, he prepares to escape and thinks about how to leave the house with his things without anyone noticing. His best idea is to simply leave for the groceries and not come back, because his grandfather is a very light sleeper who will notice him sneaking out at night and that would be a disaster. Besides that, he has to be careful about the Tribunal. No one has come to check on him and he hasn't noticed anyone keeping an eye on him, but that doesn't mean there's really no one, so it's better to be safe than sorry.

There's only two things he can do for now, though. The first is to start using his backpack to carry the groceries back so that seeing him taking it with him isn't such a strange sight, and the second thing he can do is to somehow learn the bus' schedule to time it so that when he leaves, he doesn't have to risk waiting at the station. He downright hates leaving the puzzle box behind right in plain view and can't breathe easily until he comes back to the house, but there's no going around it.

All in all, it's nerve wracking and he wishes he had more control over the situation, but he'll take what he can at this point and be grateful.

Or maybe that's not so true... All things considered, there is a third thing he can do actually, and he's going to make it epic, especially since he knows that they will call the police and claim he has stolen something from them or something like that.

When he finally leaves, they do call the police. Stiles knows it because it makes the news the very next day after his disappearance. As the week progresses, Stiles goes from being a problem teenager to a possibly mistreated one when the police finally put the puzzle under his mattress back together and find the message he had left behind along with the two hundred dollar bills he had cut to fit and glued to the back of the puzzle pieces. They try to cajole him into letting himself be found but, no matter the reassurances, nothing will make him do that.

(He's never letting anyone have that kind of power over him ever again.)

---

The first days are the worst. He can't find a secure enough place to sleep on the streets and he can't afford to pay for a room because he has to save everything he has for food. And he has to be frugal in that aspect too, because he can't get a job in his circumstances. He jumps at every noise, he's suspicious of everyone and, to get as far as he can from Modesto, he's constantly on the move, keeping out of sight as much as possible. So, all in all, he's tired, hungry, paranoid, afraid and disheartened too, because it looks like that's not going to ever change and he'll be like this always.

(Or at least until he becomes eighteen and he can finally stop hiding in any case. And that's way too far away in time to be of any consolation at the moment.)

Also, now that he has to actively use everything he has at hand to keep himself safe, Stiles can't ignore what absorbing a nogitsune did to him and part of him hates it, even if he sees its usefulness at the same time.

Apart from the improved sense of smell and the ability to grow fangs and claws, he's stronger than he used to be and he heals faster. Not extremely so on both counts, but more than enough to notice a difference if he needs to engage in a fight, which he can't help but be grateful for. He's also much faster and his reflexes are better, which do wonders to avoid said fights, which is even better than being stronger, in his very humble opinion. Finally, there are the things he can modulate at will and that he still has to get the hang of: his hearing and his night vision. Again, really useful, but there are drawbacks to those, because with the control he has of his hearing now, it's all or nothing, so if someone makes a really loud noise when he's tuning in, it really hurts him and leaves him momentarily disoriented. Similarly, if he uses his night vision his eyes glow green, which is not inconspicuous at all.

And so he learns as he goes, using everything at his disposal to keep himself safe, and before he notices, he's regained his footing and making do with what life deals him. And sometimes even coming on top.

(It has been a long time since that happened.)

---

Grief comes back to punch Stiles in the gut unexpectedly and leaves him reeling.

When his dad died he went through the stages so ridiculously fast that it was laughable. At the cellar, he went through denial, anger and bargaining in one swift move before going back to the anger and settling comfortably there for a little while. Then he went numb just as he moved to Modesto, which he supposes accounts for depression, and at one point, he simply accepted at the back of his mind and moved on to concentrate on being safe.

Except something must have gone wrong.

Stiles is in a convenience store in the middle of the night when an armed idiot tries to rob it... and him because he's there, so why the hell not? He doesn't care about the money, but the family pictures are inside his backpack and the robber takes his dad's wallet and badge from his pocket too. Before he can even make it out of the store Stiles has reduced him unconscious with a well aimed coke can to the head that bursts upon impact, spraying everywhere. He slips out just as the clerk is calling the police, hightailing the hell out of there as fast as he can. Then he proceeds to sob his heart out clutching his dad's badge to his chest in a dark alley and somehow goes through the first four stages again in an hour before finally embracing that acceptance will take some time to fully and truly set in.

(And that's totally fine.)

---

Apparently, the security video of a blurry him nearly braining that robber with the exploding can of coke has gone viral after making it to the news and put the Tribunal back on his tail. Or that's Stiles' best guess, in any case, because suddenly he can't seem to stop running into them.

The first time, in Bakersfield, one of them corners him at night, when he's trying to find some place secluded to sleep. She's really nice about it, he supposes, because she never points a gun at him, even if she keeps a respectable distance and a sensibly wary attitude, which he reluctantly approves of. Nevertheless, he gives her (Loren Anderson, she says her name is) the slip the moment a window opens and leaves Bakersfield that very same night.

The second time, about a week later in Lancaster, Anderson has company but they're equally nice about it. Stiles refuses to go and they try to cajole him (isn't he tired of running, of having to hide?) but he's having none of it. He loses them at the mall and leaves Lancaster ten minutes later by bus.

The third time, in Victorville and again at a park at night, he runs before they can even reach him. The first two times he was very cautious about not showing his supernatural abilities, but this time the two women accompanying Anderson do have guns even if she herself doesn't, so he's not willing to risk it and he pushes himself to leave them behind. Again, he leaves Victorville as fast as his legs can carry him.

After nearly getting caught three times in less than three weeks, Stiles decides it's time to get out of California. He's more than fed up with having to look over his shoulder constantly when he had finally found his footing, so it's time to put more distance between them even if the thought of moving out of his comfort zone is a little terrifying.

However, he only makes it as far as Hesperia before they catch up with him again. They hold him at gun point, which makes him not care one bit about Anderson's reassurances or how kind she's trying to be about the whole thing. No, he isn't tired of running or hiding; No, he doesn't want a family or a place to stay. Thanks so much for offering but he wants to leave, like right now. And leave he does, but only by a hair's breadth and because they're trying to avoid hurting him.

He manages to lay low for a week before he gets caught again, officially the fifth time, when they corner him near a Walgreens with their guns out, but hidden enough to be missed. Stiles regrets so damn much not having thought of leaving by the second time this happened.

"Can it," he finally snaps to the reassurances Anderson keeps spewing. "I'm being held at gun point by two people right now, including yourself, so don't you tell me you're making things better for me when you've already made them ten times worse."

"I tried to do things right, kid, and you didn't-"

Stiles will never know what she would have said because he does the stupidest thing he's ever done and just turns to sprint into the store, counting on the fact that they don't want to hurt him or draw attention to themselves. He breathes relieved when he finds the store packed with people and he can blend in.

There are two hunters after him but Stiles would bet his ass that one of them is waiting outside in case he slips out, which means that he has to go for the oldest trick in the book and get everyone to leave en masse so he can escape.

He tries to locate the fire alarm as he goes through one of the aisles, cap firmly in place to cover his face. He grabs a pair of scissors and a pen, and then goes to the kids section, trying to find plastic balls that he can use instead of the ping pong balls he would really need to make his smoke bombs. What he finds is table tennis balls (which he had never heard of but whatever) that will suit him just fine. Now he only needs tin foil and he's set.

He spies Anderson turning at the corner and he hurries to hide and go right in the opposite direction. As he passes one of the aisles, he finds an unattended shopping cart with a hoodie perched on the handle. With a mental apology, he snatches it and puts it on to throw Anderson off. As he hurries he tries to find a corner where he can prepare the smoke bomb without being noticed. All the while, he also tries to walk on the blind spots he guesses the cameras to have when he does something suspicious, so he won't have the police after him when this whole ordeal is over.

Finally, he manages to open holes on three of the balls and to stuff them with the pieces of the other three. He hides them as a family passes him, feigning looking at some cologne bottles and then hurries towards another aisle when he spies Anderson again. It takes him another nerve wracking five minutes to prepare the tin foil tube with the help of the pen. He chooses one of the areas that he's really sure is a blind spot but is also decently filled with people to light it up. And just in time too, because Anderson sneaks up on him and grabs his arm in a vice grip.

Then the smoke starts coming from where he's hidden the bomb under the shelves and someone pulls on the fire alarm screaming. In the confusion, Anderson gets pushed to the ground, the contents of her pockets spilling out and the gun she has in the holster left in plain view. People scream even more and two men throw themselves at her to restrain her. Stiles grabs her car keys and wallet from the ground as he rushes by and hides himself in a big group that is trying to get outside. Then he runs towards the SUV, the other woman nowhere in sight, and drives the hell out of there.

He reaches Baker an hour and a half later and, after parking, he searches the car thoroughly for anything that can be useful. He finds two bags full of clothes that are way too small for him, another bag filled with quite the amount of non perishable food (obviously an emergency stash) that he grabs greedily and some first aid supplies that he stashes inside his own backpack. And most importantly, he finds money hidden under the driver's seat to add to what's in Anderson's wallet. More than three hundred glorious dollars that couldn't come at a better time because his funds are almost gone with all the buses he's been forced to take as of late.

He considers driving to Las Vegas in the SUV but decides against it because by now the problem he created at Walgreens is probably solved if the Tribunal has the pull he thinks it has, and they probably have reported it stolen. Or if any of that hasn't happened yet, it will soon and he can't risk it despite how tempting it is. So he ditches the car and grabs a bus to Las Vegas instead. And when he gets there another hour and a half later, he doesn't even wait and gets another to Phoenix.

(And he doesn't stop moving again for a long while.)

---

When Stiles was a kid, he used to stay at Scott's house when his dad had to go out of Beacon Hills for more than a day. They would make forts in the living room and then imagine epic battles against invincible enemies that looked doomed to be lost but that they managed to win by a hair's breadth in the end every single time. Whenever they played this game, Scott would insist on calling their headquarters Fort Scott (located also in Scott city), and Stiles would argue it was lame, that they should call it something cool like the Infinite Bastion, the Defense Alliance Headquarters, the Justice Assembly or the Commanding Forces Fort, for example, but to no avail.

It turns out that in Kansas there's a Scott County... with its Scott city, of course. His face when he saw the sign after passing through Wichita must have been a sight, that's for sure, but not as epic as when he learned that there's an actual Fort Scott in Bourbon County, also in Kansas but almost at the other end of the state. And never mind the Scott County in Minnesota that he finds in the map after a very nice old lady gives him one.

(He should have know something was going to go wrong, that it was some kind of sign of impeding doom or something. Shame on him.)

Stiles has left the river he was following but is still going through the countryside, trying to avoid being spotted because even if he hasn't had any encounters with the Tribunal since the Walgreens stunt, he still wants to put more land between them before he dares more populated areas. It's dark but clear, the moon full in the sky, and he's crossing a field when he hears it. At first he thinks it's his imagination playing tricks on him after so much time alone, because there's no way a baby is in the middle of nowhere, Kansas, crying at night. It's impossible.

But then he hears it again, loud and clear. And Stiles is an asshole and he almost can't take care of himself nowadays, but it's a baby, a distressed baby crying in the middle of nowhere and it's really cold outside today, so he runs forward towards where he thinks the noise is coming from.

Except what he finds is most certainly not a baby.

"WHAT THE F-" he can't help but shout at the sight of a scarecrow-like creature mounted in a cart pulled by black cats. The image is too strange for his brain to process.

It turns to look at him and Stiles feels rooted in place, terror invading him. Then he hears the cries of the actual children the creature was targeting, shakes himself out of the trance and springs into action. He runs forward, feeling the chill that was seeping into his bones disappear the further he moves from the creature, grabs the two kids as he passes them and just runs. The screams the creature emits are terrifying but just push him to go faster and faster instead of paralyzing him like it probably intends.

"TO THE LEFT!" one of the kids in his arms shouts and Stiles ducks thinking an attack is coming that way. "NO! OUR HOUSE IS TO THE LEFT!"

And so Stiles goes that way, praying that it isn't too far, because he may be stronger and faster now, but he's carrying two kids in his arms and he can't last forever. Thankfully, the house comes into view not long after and he pushes himself to go faster, still hearing the creature screaming shrilly right behind him.

"MAMA, MAMA, MAMA!" the same kid screams again at the top of his lungs. "MAMA!!!"

With his nocturnal vision Stiles can see the front door open not long after and people spill out the house, obviously searching for the threat, which is the worst thing they can do right now, even if they are supernaturals like he suspects.

"GET INSIDE!!" he screams panicky. "GOGOGO!!! INSIDE NOW!!! NOW!!!"

"MAMA!!!" the kid cries terrified when she looks behind and sees the creature gaining ground as Stiles tires out.

"INSIDE!" Stiles screams again.

After a slight hesitation they obey and Stiles wants to cry in relief. He puts another burst of speed, feeling his lungs and his muscles burn in protest but ignoring them, and eats the distance to the house rapidly. He almost trips as he climbs the front steps but a woman grabs him with surprising strength and pulls him towards the safety of the house.

"CLOSE THE DOOR!" he shouts as they all cross the threshold. "NOWNOWNOW!"

Stiles falls to the wooden floor, clutching at the kids as he stares at the rattling door. He's shaking violently and letting out a stream of oh my god and what the fuck in between his gasps for air and one of the kids is crying and trembling as she holds onto him equally tight. The rest of the family have their guns out and they are in between Stiles and the door, but time passes and nothing comes in. Then the same sound of a baby crying starts again and he shivers in horror.

"NO! DON'T!" Stiles exclaims when they seem to be about to go outside in search for it. "It's that thing, it makes that sound to lure you to it," he explains when they look at him outraged.

"It's true, mom," the kid hiccups in between her sobs. "We heard it and went looking and now Emily..."

"Something happened to Emily?!"

It turns out Emily is the other girl in Stiles' arms. The girl that hasn't even uttered a sound or moved since Stiles picked her up and ran. He turns her around carefully, feeling dread pooling in his stomach, and the little girl, who is starting vacantly ahead, doesn't even react.

"Emily? EMILY!!!" the woman screams as she takes the girl into her arms, caressing her cheeks and her hair, trying to make her respond. She turns enraged towards Stiles when it fails. "What did you do to her?!"

"No, mom! He saved us from that thing!" the kid protests.

"What thing?!"

"The scarecrow!"

"Scarec- Anna, please, your sister-"

"Do you have a computer?" Stiles interrupts hastily.

"What?"

"A computer," he repeats ignoring the incredulous looks of everyone present. "I have a bestiary but I need a computer to access it. Give me a computer so we can see what we can do to help her."

"Jonathan, bring your laptop," an older woman orders to a frightened looking teenager and he runs out, presumably in search of it.

The kid has already turned it on by the time he comes back and only has to input his password. The moment he can, Stiles plugs in his memory stick and simply types scarecrow as the keyword to find in the document. Luckily only one creature matches the description (the cart pulled by black cats is a dead on descriptor) and in no time he has it identified. It's a bubak, and he has precisely until the sun comes out to get Emily's soul back from it or she'll be an empty shell for the rest of her life. Apart from that, there's nothing there about how to actually accomplish that, so he quickly searches the Internet for more information, his fingers typing impossibly fast. He finds none but doesn't let that dishearten him and reads everything he finds about the equivalents to a bubak in all the cultures around the world.

"Did you find anything?" the older woman asks grimly but calmly. In the background the mother is almost silently crying as the dad holds onto Emily too. The teen and an older man are holding Anna as she cries, trying to calm her down, and a pale looking middle-aged man is holding a whimpering baby between his arms. "Can we do anything to help?"

"What are you?" Stiles asks bluntly, a ridiculous and very risky plan already forming in his head.

"Werewolves," she answers simply, to everyone's surprise.

"So you are fast too. Ok, cool." Stiles nods. "I think we need to lure it into the river and drown it, but I'm not sure if it will work at all. There's almost no information at all, sorry. I just-"

"We'll take any chance we have at this point," the dad points out, making a visible effort to calm himself as he incorporates. "How do we do this?"

"I-I," Stiles stutters for a moment, thrown off because he always has to fight to be heard. Then he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "Ok. Ok, this is how we do this."

The kids stay behind with the middle aged man and the mom. She will keep her phone with her in case Emily has to be brought to the river for her soul to go back into her body or something like that and he will take care of the kids. The rest slip outside the house from the back door and then run.

(Stiles almost drowns that night.)

They stealthily approach the little clearing where the thing has settled and Stiles can see the wolves' horrified expressions at the sight. He makes a signal and they nod grimly. The dad steps into the clearing, drawing the attention of the bubak as he does so, and then runs as fast as he can out of there. It follows him and Stiles and the rest go right behind, struggling to keep up.

Something is wrong, Stiles thinks as it rapidly gains ground no matter how much the dad pushes himself. With a sprint, he pushes himself forward shouting at the bubak to get it to come after himself instead. As it turns towards Stiles, he spies the dad slipping away with a grateful look. Stiles takes off again, pushing himself as far as he can and trying to look past his exhaustion at this point. When it looks like it will get him, the wolves intervene to let him get a respite and gain some distance between them.

It's soon very clear to him, though, that the bubak seems to prefer his soul over any others because presented with the option of pursuing Stiles or one of the wolves, it always goes after him in the end. So with that in mind, when the time comes and they can't seem to find a way to drown it, Stiles does the most sensible (and stupid at the same time) thing and jumps into the river, shouting at the others to stay hidden. Sure enough, the bubak can't resist the temptation and follows him in.

Stiles tries to swim to the other riverbank but by now he's exhausted, which makes him slow enough for it to grab him as it gets pulled under by the currents. He can't shake the bubak off no matter how hard he tries. He squirms and hits it as darkness starts to close on him but it won't let go.

The next thing he knows it that he's coughing water onto the ground, shaken by full body tremors, as the old man helps him to not choke on his own tongue. There are also countless incorporeal beings around them, whose only clear features are the clothes they are wearing. Stiles has the clear impression that they are being grounded by them.

"Bring her here," he coughs out after a moment. "Quick, it's almost sunrise."

When the mom finally arrives with Emily in her arms, Stiles starts helping the incorporeal beings take off the clothes the bubak wove for them, to the werewolves' astonishment, because they can't see them at all. All of the souls disappear except for one and suddenly the mom has a wailing toddler in her arms.

"I'm Thomas," the dad says after they all have calmed down. "This is my wife, Linda, my father David and my mother in law, Margaret."

"Stiles," he sighs as he waves from where he has let himself fall unceremoniously to the ground. "Er, nice to meet you, I guess?"

"Very nice to meet you," Margaret assures him warmly, coming near to give him an awkward half-hug, and the rest nod tiredly. "Although you could use a shower, kid."

He really, really could.

(It's telling that the prospect of a long hot shower after all this time makes him tear up.)

---

He ends up staying for a while.

His initial plan was to take that shower and then find somewhere to sleep, because he was veritably dead on his feet. Linda insisted on him staying at least the night and he point-blank refused, but then Margaret pointed out that he was so exhausted that he wouldn't notice any threat that approached him and he had to reluctantly relent. Then, the next day Margaret convinced him again to stay just in case Emily's health took a turn for the worse, because he had been the only one to be able to see the souls (or whatever it was that the bubak took) when they were out of the bodies. Then it was Emily, Anna and Jonathan who begged him to not leave (just for a day, please?) and he didn't have the heart to refuse the puppy eyes, and the next day Charles wanted to know if he would share some knowledge about this or that creature and could he hold the baby for a moment, please? And the next day David and Thomas...

At that point, because Stiles wasn't stupid, he was already suspecting something was going on and his bet was on the Tribunal having made the Collinses stall him so that they could catch him. So, after almost a week in the house, he picked up his things and just left at the very first opportunity that presented itself. David and Thomas caught him just as he was about to reach the edge of the property and Stiles snapped at them angrily. What followed was a very enlightening conversation that cleared up a lot of things.

Apparently, they just liked Stiles. As in a lot.

(What.)

They didn't know the Tribunal was searching for him, but they did suspect he was in some kind of trouble because of the way he acted. And they wanted to help him because they weren't stupid either and they knew he could have run the other way instead of saving the kids from the bubak or left afterwards, when they found out something was wrong with Emily. Instead, he nearly died both times for complete strangers. They would have helped him just out of obligation in any case, but the thing is that they actually liked Stiles a lot. They liked how he carefully held baby Daniel, how he played with the shy Emily, how he listened patiently to the hyperactive Anna, how he treated the insecure Jonathan, how he helped Charles when he was overwhelmed, how he cooked with Linda and made her laugh, how he bantered with Margaret, how he accompanied David when he went fishing and no one else wanted to, how he assisted Thomas when he needed it and many more reasons. They wanted him to stay because they liked Stiles a lot.

(Just.)

(What.)

To make a long story short, it's been nearly four weeks now and he has stopped sleeping on the couch because he has his own room and he's been somehow integrated in the chore rooster and, more generally, their lives.

(Stiles is almost completely sure it's Margaret's fault because she got everyone into the plan of making him stay. That woman is way too smart and sneaky for Stiles' own good, but he can't help but like her for it.)

"Stiles?" Emily murmurs from the top of his left shoulder, her arms tightening minutely where they are holding onto his neck when he hitches her up to a more secure position on his back.

"Mmm?" he hums softly and when she doesn't seem to get the courage to speak he continues on, vaguely remembering that she's been eyeing one particular store. "The colouring book?"

"I finished the other already," she nods shyly and he nods back.

"Ok. We still have time before we have to pick up Anna and Jonathan from practice, so let's go take a look and see if you find anything you like."

After all that's happened, Stiles feels a little trapped inside stores and it's no different this time. If anything, it's made worse by Emily's presence, because it means that if he gets cornered he can't just beat it, because that would mean leaving the nearly six year old alone. He's not about to pressure the poor girl though, so he bears it with as much grace as he can, his eyes darting around looking for threats when she's not looking.

But, as he's come to find over the last few weeks, Emily is a very perceptive child, so after a couple of minutes staring indecisively at the picture books, she nervously looks at him, grabs the first at hand and shows it to Stiles with a nod.

It takes everything he has to not laugh out utterly charmed, because it's obvious she hasn't looked at it at all and she'll be horrified when she does. There are clowns in its cover and she positively hates them. The thing though, is that she'll force herself to finish it because she won't want to hurt Stiles' feelings.

Stiles bites his inner cheek to contain his mirth and then reaches to take one that has all sorts of animals depicted on it. It's bigger and more expensive, but he figures that she deserves the treat for being such an adorable cutie.

"What about this one?" he asks as he takes the one in her hands and replaces it with the bigger one. Her eyes widen comically when she catches sight of the clowns and Stiles has to bite his cheek again. "It even has koalas, look."

"But mama said..." she reluctantly starts to protest, her eyes going back nervously to the clowns.

"My treat," he smiles. "It's a present."

"But it's not my birthday?"

"It's an unbirthday present. Just because I like you a lot." She blushes like a tomato and hugs his legs tightly. Stiles finally laughs and, after leaving the clown picture book back in the rack, he hoists her up onto his hip and turns her to look at the other picture books. "So, this one? Because that one has kittens too."

"This one," she answers without even looking, hugging him tight, and he smiles fondly.

Stiles does breathe easier when they leave the store, but decides it was totally worth it when Emily happily shows the picture book to Anna as if Stiles has given her the greatest thing in the word. For a moment he thinks that he should have gotten something for Anna too, because she might feel left out, but she only grins and hugs Stiles before launching into an explanation (physical demonstrations included) of what she has done in ballet practice today.

(She loves ballet but wanted to learn karate too. Since she can't control her strength yet she can't, but apparently it's ok because she already knows how to punch idiots and with ballet she can learn to do it looking like a princess at the same time.)

(She's going to grow up terrifying.)

The only hitch of the day comes when they pick up Jonathan and find him being harassed by some jocks. They end up having to run back to the car, fleeing the scene of the crime, so to speak. Anna is cackling delighted, Emily is giggling (even though she doesn't understand exactly what happened) and Jonathan is looking awestruck. Stiles sighs, gets ice cream for all of them and proceeds to give them his 101 of dealing with bullies.

When Jonathan comes back from school the next day, he hugs Stiles and doesn't let go for several minutes, to the general confusion of the adults. Anna squeals happily when she sees it and starts doing pirouettes around the kitchen table before joining in the hug and Emily, after blinking confused for a moment, joins in too. Stiles can't stop laughing.

(Stiles hasn't felt this happy for a long time.)

---

Life with the Collinses, Stiles has come to find out, is peaceful and uncomplicated and it's nice to be able to relax for a change.

He helps around the house with the chores (though it took a lot for Linda to let him) and babysits the kids, including Charles' baby, which he's extremely grateful for because now he has actual time to work from home at normal hours while before he had to squeeze it in whenever he could. Also, more importantly, he also trains with them, which has helped him heaps to control the abilities the nogitsune left him.

"Stileeeesss," Anna whines, "I wanna play."

"But you still haven't finished your homework. You know the rules, hun," he counters.

"But I wanna play," she whines again and pouts. "Math sucks."

"I wanna play too," Emily pleads in, turning the puppy eyes on him, and Stiles inwardly groans. Jonathan coughs suspiciously and he throws a dirty look at him. "Please?"

"Here's the deal, ok?" Stiles starts. "How about you finish colouring the picture you were doing for your mom? I'm sure she'll love receiving it when she comes home tired from work! Don't you think so?" Emily nods after a brief moment of consideration and picks up the crayon again. Stiles sighs inwardly in relief and turns towards Anna as he hastily stops Daniel from crawling under the table. He bounces the giggling baby as he talks. "And how about I help you with Math? That way you'll finish faster. Then we can play and your mom and dad won't ground you for not finishing homework. Mmm? How about that?"

"Ok," she pouts adorably and brings her Math assignment near Stiles.

"Nice save," Jonathan snickers softly and when Stiles flips him the bird covertly, he guffaws. "You can help me with Math too, if you want?"

Stiles rolls his eyes and points out the way to resolve the problem the teen is working on. Jonathan blinks surprised and then grins, bringing his own assignment near too. Half an hour later, all of them have finished and they are pouring out of the house to play by the front door.

Yes, peaceful and uncomplicated, he thinks as he helps Daniel keep upright to toddle around at the same time he and Jonathan follow the convoluted game of princesses and dragons Emily and Anna have concocted. Emily and Anna are the warrior princesses that have to fight the bad wizard, Jonathan, to liberate mama dragon, Stiles, and the baby dragon, Daniel, and that's exactly how Thomas finds them when he gets home.

"What do we have here?" he asks amused at the sight.

"We are warrior princesses, dad!" Anna exclaims and Emily nods seriously. They both wave their swords (sticks) in the air.

"And I'm an evil wizard!" Jonathan roars as he comes at them from behind, making them shriek and run around trying to avoid getting caught.

"And who are you?" Thomas asks Stiles smiling.

"He's mama dragon," Charles answers helpfully from inside through his opened window and Stiles feels himself blush.

"Well, I can see the logic in that," Thomas says after he stops laughing and Stiles scowls, which only makes him laugh harder. "Well, mama dragon, I need to speak to you for a moment."

"Sure?" Stiles answers warily.

"Don't look so worried, kid. I just could use your help, if you don't mind?"

When he nods unsurely, Thomas asks Charles to come outside to keep an eye on the kids for a bit. He leads Stiles towards his office and closes the door behind him, motioning to him to take a seat, which Stiles does.

"Ok, first, here," he says passing him a box.

"A phone?" Stiles asks surprised.

"Ah, yes," Thomas answers, suddenly looking a little awkward. "After what happened when we met, I'd feel better if we had a way to communicate with you in case of an emergency. I know it's been almost a month, I didn't know how to bring it up. I've already put everyone's number inside," he explains, his mouth quirking a bit at the dumbfounded expression on Stiles' face. "If that's ok?"

"Ah, yes. Yes!" Stiles finally replies, shaking himself out of his daze. "That's awesome. But you said you wanted my help?"

"Yes, about that. You need to understand this first: it's completely your choice and if you say no there will be no problem at all, ok?"

"Ok?" Stiles answers warily.

"Remember the lake where you went fishing with dad?"

"The one in Swallow Water?"

"That's the one," Thomas nods. "Well, something nearly pulled him underwater today and-"

"Wha- Is he ok?!"

"Yes, yes, he is! Sorry I wasn't clear about that," he apologizes chagrined. "The thing is that we could use knowing what the hell that thing is when we go to take care of it before anything else happens."

"Oh, you want me to go and identify it with the bestiary?"

"In all honesty, I'd rather not put you in danger again, but I also know that you can take care of yourself so... it's your choice."

Stiles is shocked again. Never in his life has someone said something like that to him. He finds himself smiling without meaning to and Thomas looks confused by his reaction, but he mimics him unconsciously.

"I'll go check it out."

It turns out to be a kelpie of all things and it wasn't trying to kill grandpa David but to ask for his help in a entirely wrong way. In her defense (because that kelpie is a she), she's really young, a six year old by human standards, and she didn't know not everyone can breathe underwater. She was terrified and in dire need of help, so when she recognized David as a supernatural, she tried to bring him with her because she doesn't speak a word of English and she didn't know how to explain except by showing him what was wrong. This is what her mom explains after Thomas calls the local werejaguar pack for help and they come with diving equipment, which allows them to help the kelpies that had been trapped by hunters six days ago and left to die out of starvation.

(It doesn't escape Stiles' notice that they trapped them together, so clearly they were hoping they resorted to cannibalism out of desperation, because otherwise they wouldn't have taken the risk of leaving them in a group that could somehow force their way out by working together.)

(A bitter and vindictive part of him wonders where the hell is the Tribunal now.)

Three days later, Stiles has to sneak out a second floor window when the Tribunal comes knocking at the door as if summoned by his thoughts. He doesn't even have time to pick up his backpack and leaves with what he has on. Thankfully he never separates from his dad's wallet and badge, so at least he has that, but he mourns the loss of the family pictures, even though he hasn't looked at them since he hid them back in Beacon Hills. His only consolation is that he knows that the Collinses won't let the Tribunal have them.

When he's nearly at the county's border, he finally allows himself to slow down a bit and call them. He adores Jonathan so much, he thinks when he tells Stiles that they couldn't stop them from taking his backpack, but that he took the pictures out while Margaret stalled them. He loves baby Daniel, he thinks too when Charles gleefully tells him that the poor thing got so stressed by the hunter's presence that he puked his dinner on two of them just as they passed.

"Will you be ok?" Thomas finally asks with a sigh after Stiles explains and he finally understands he won't be persuaded to come back.

"I'll try my best? The werejaguars must have told them I was there, so now I have them on my tail again and I'll have to keep moving for a while," he admits chagrined.

"I'm so sorry, Stiles, I didn't think they'd..."

"It's not your fault, Thomas. Please don't think that," Stiles assures him earnestly. "You've given me the best time I've had in a very long while. You can't know how much that means to me."

"You keep in touch, you hear me?" Linda says firmly, apparently wrestling the phone out of his husband's hand. "Don't you dare lose that phone. Promise me."

"I promise."

"Good," she replies. "Just know that you'll always have a place here and that you can call us if you need help and we're good. Now there are several someones that want to talk to you, hold on."

"Wha-"

"Stileeees," Anna whines tearfully through the speaker. "How am I gonna make you fall in love with me and marry me if you aren't even here?! I had a plan! A ten year long plan!"

Stiles laughs his heart out at the irony. Suddenly tears are rolling down his face and he finally notices that maybe he was ready to tentatively call this place home, after all.

"I'll be back," he promises, trying to keep his voice from wavering so that they don't notice he's crying.

"We'll hold you to that," David answers warmly.

(Not much later, right at the edge of the county, he gets caught and tranquilized as if he's an animal. He doesn't even feel the impact when he crumbles to the ground as a puppet whose strings have been cut off.)

[romchomp]

Gilmore Girls: The Love Interests

This post might get a little lengthy.

In Gilmore Girls, there are four girls we get to see coarse through different relationships throughout the seasons of the show. As someone who recently finished marathoning Gilmore Girls and has a blog based on romance shows and anime, I figured why not talk about all these relationships the characters went through.

Rory, as our main character, will go first. Talking about the different boyfriends she’s had will be fun because her taste is uhhh pretty questionable.

Dean is Rory’s first boyfriend and hence, the first love interest. I think we can all agree he was the worst. He actually started off pretty good, if not a little boring. However, it doesn’t take that long for him come off as dramatic with some sort of anger issue. He almost always put his feelings before Rory’s. When his marriage fell apart he got upset with Rory and made it out to be as if everything was her fault despite him being the one who cheated. He generally became less and less pleasant as the show went on and even at his best he was just generic and boring and while nice, still not that good of a boyfriend.

The next boy Rory dates is Jess. Jess is a tricky one to talk to about because while I love his character and find him to be one of the more interesting ones in the series, I really don’t like him as a boyfriend. All throughout their relationship Jess treated Rory horribly. He was moody, never talked to her about anything, and never even seemed like he actually wanted to be in the relationship. They were constantly arguing and most of the sweet moments between them were Jess’s attempt to make up for some shitty thing he did earlier. I liked him a lot more when he wasn’t dating Rory. Season 6 Jess was great, and maybe if the show took the route of Rory dating him once again things would be different and I could say I liked him better the second go around but that’s not what happened. Bottom line is, he’s a better character than Dean, also probably had more respect for Rory and I’d say he understood Rory better than Logan did too, but god he was a really bad boyfriend.

Last but not least, there’s Logan. Who has the opposite problem Jess did. Despite him being a complete douchebag and a personality I found to be quite unlikable, he was a surprisingly pretty decent boyfriend. My opinion of Logan moved around quite a bit through the course of the show. At first, I hated him. The way he teased Marty and talked to Rory immediately put a sour taste in my mouth. However after Dean broke up with Rory (for the third time?) at her grandparents' party I realized that huh, I like the way he’s treating Rory. The way he tried to cheer her up felt very platonic. Was he already pining for her? Probably. But Logan never came across as more than friendly until he started very obviously teasing her when she was showing that one Chilton student around. Then there’s when Rory asked him why he never asked her out (because it was pretty evident they both liked each other at this point), and Logan’s reasoning was that he didn’t know how to be a boyfriend. By this point I like Logan. He respects Rory and wants her around even if only platonically because she’s special to him. However, cracks start to show. Rory changes a lot over the period of dating Logan. She changes a lot of things that were always a big part of her character like...not cooking and not exercising. Okay while those things were small, these changes in Rory made it a lot easier to realize that Rory and Logan don’t have a lot in common. They don’t even have common interests, not really. This made me start backtracking how much I actually like Logan and before I noticed Rory changing, I would’ve told you I think he made a better boyfriend than Jess. However, if there is one thing Jess has over Dean and Logan, it’s that he understands Rory better. Rory and Jess also just kind of clicked more. Rory and Logan followed the basic steps of being a good couple, but there wasn’t much that kept me wanting them to stay together or even like them together. They were just...there.

Lane

The only love interests you really need to remember for Lane would be Dave and her eventual endgame, Zach ( Zack? The internet can’t seem to make up its mind).  From my knowledge, the actor who played Dave ended up taking a role in another show thus bailing on Gilmore Girls. Which would explain the very weak “he got a scholarship in California” reasoning for why his character was suddenly disappeared. A lot of people seemed to like Dave more than Zach and I was certainly on that boat for a while myself but I gotta say, I started finding Lane and Zach a really fun couple to watch once Lane got pregnant. I really liked the scene where they bonded over not wanting to have the baby (in a mostly comedic fashion) and it was around that point it became clearer how much the two actually have in common. Somehow the two became more compatible after having twins. Go figure.

Paris

On to Paris...can we just forget that Tristan and Fleming ever happened? Joking, joking (mostly). Paris and Tristan never dated (thank god) and therefore were never love interests, but Paris’s hard to believe crush on him was enough to be sigh-worthy. There was That College Guy She Dated During Chilton That I Can’t Remember the Name Of who didn’t really do anything noteworthy. Then there’s...eighty years old Asher Fleming. Look, I could go on about how Fleming was way too old for Paris and how problematic their age gap is, but it’s 2019 now and I’m sure every Gilmore Girls fan has both, ranted about and heard ranting of it so I’ll move on. If there is one good thing I can say about Fleming, he gives us more of an idea of what Paris cares about when considering a romantic partner: intelligence. That’s about it, which also means she doesn’t really care if her relationship would otherwise be seen as weird. She probably wouldn’t even care if the person themself was deemed weird either. Which leads me to Doyle, in my opinion, the best boyfriend out of any of the boyfriends in the series. I love Doyle. He’s strange but charming, squeamish but also capable of being a leader, and genuinely cares for Paris. While it took a few tries, in the end, Paris found someone she made a perfectly odd pairing with. I mean hey, that’s how life usually works out I guess.

Lorelai

Now we get to Lorelai, who I think had the more interesting love interests. Despite that, I won’t be getting into Max and Jason because frankly, I don’t think anyone really cares about them that much. By around halfway through the show, it becomes increasingly obvious that the only two true possible endgames for Lorelai would be Luke or Christopher.

There’s a bit of a parallel between Luke and Christopher in the sense of how big of opposites they are. Where Christopher comes and goes throughout the show, always leaving an impact after leaving; Luke is a constant throughout the show, with some major moments but often just peacefully going along with the plot. While Chris is impulsive and rushes into things, Luke over thinks himself out of things. Lorelai’s parents hate Luke but they’ve always loved Chris. Christopher is immature while Luke is arguably the most mature character in Gilmore Girls.

I was impressed when I noticed just how lined up their differences were. I wasn’t something I expected from Gilmore Girls in all honesty.

I think most of us can agree that Luke was better for Lorelai. They balance each other out a lot better than Lorelai and Chris ever could. Luke and Lorelai’s differences were also manageable so long as they had good communication. Which they didn’t while they were dating and is why they ultimately broke up in season 6. Which brings me to another parallel: the marriages. Luke and Lorelai broke up because of postponing their wedding. Chris and Lorelai on the other hand, broke up because they had rushed into getting married. I could go on and say how Chris proposed to Lorelai in Paris, the city of love, while Lorelai proposed to Luke in his diner as well. The comparisons are all over the place.

The reasoning the show gives for Lorelai and Chris not working out is because “the timing was never right”  which I personally find to be bullshit. They were always too much alike to work out. I want to say I always expected and knew Luke would be who Lorelai ended up with but I’ll be honest, season 7 gave me a good scare. I still think their ending together was weak though.

If I had to rank who had the best love interests it would probably go:

Lorelai (she had the most common sense)

Lane (went from a nice, but slightly boring bf to an asshole who became surprisingly decent once they had kids)

Paris (two duds and a real winner)

Rory (her taste was very questionable)

You know, that is considering the canon love interests.

Rory had three boyfriends, but what if there was another possible love interest in between the lines? Someone who has been by her side the whole time.

Well.

Then there’s Paris.

Paris...Again

Paris who had big, definitive goals for herself just like Rory. Who was hardworking and had a strong work ethic that Rory (arguably) had as well. Paris also has the qualities I liked the best in Jess. Paris could understand Rory’s studiousness and later on her personality in general. This also works vice versa. Pretty much every character has a hard time understanding Paris or simply downright disliking her but Rory always had a decent understanding of her even if the reasoning was something like “Oh, she’s just being Paris.”. She also makes up for my biggest problem with Jess, being moody and never communicating with Rory. Paris, on the other hand, is always quick to tell Rory exactly what she’s feeling and why.

Granted, Rory and Paris were never written to be love interests and even their friendship had some blemishes. I think the potential for Gellmore becoming a likable couple was at its highest in season three and four and slowly diminished as the show went on. In the end, Rory and Paris is a good concept that sadly works best in fanon.

Their relationship in canon was for the most part one-sided. Rory never seemed to want or need or even consider Paris’s help. I also don’t think the show drew out how the two have many similarities as well many differences (you know, the whole “you two have more in common than you might expect” schtick). I know it’s already in the show, but I would’ve liked to see them build on it more.

However, even though they would still have issues in canon, I think Paris could’ve been an improvement or just an interesting addition to the canon love interests even if she didn’t end up as endgame or had a short-lived relationship with Rory. But hey, what are you gonna do when a show was made in the earlier 2000′s.

All in all the love interests in Gilmore Girls were...okay. For the most part. Even the ones I liked had some baffling moments that I could rant about. The romantic relationships were never the part of Gilmore Girls that I think people enjoyed though. We watched for the familial relationships and dynamics that gave the show its charm.