#red stole her red and green pens for this and was lucky to find blue pens

[aqqleshiqqing-archive]

nahh jil red came over and told me to give you this to you, he was very flustered but it's the intention that counts <3

STOP I STARTED COUGHING AND SQUEAKING SO HARD AISJSKAKEHSHISJEBSBWHSHWB 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

POOKIE BEAR WROTE A LOVE LETTER AND DREW PIPINO LIKE A KINDERGARTENER IM STICKING THIS ON OUR FRIDGE DOOR ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

[luvdsc]

let’s play pretend.

what if we’re in love? haha, just kidding... unless?

pairing :: na jaemin x reader genre :: fluff / best friend + college au word count :: 1,552 words warnings :: none playlist :: talk too much (coin) ⋆ face (woosung) ⋆ pretend (bad suns) ⋆ la belle femme (hunny) ⋆ love you like crazy (taeyeon) author’s note :: best f2l is the ultimate trope sorry i don’t make the rules

Persistent fratboys at parties are the absolute worst. Already early into the night, you find yourself unable to shake off the latest leech in all his snapback and rayban glory. Why is it that they never back off until you’re forced to lie about a significant other? If you’re lucky, they’ll stop there. It’s quite stupid how they’ll let you go only if you suddenly have a boyfriend, rather than simply understanding that you aren’t interested. Perhaps, they’re too scared to confront how undesirable they actually are.

Literally, nobody wants someone who owns salmon shorts and more button up shirts with palm trees than necessary. Never mind the fact that you’ve seen this guy participate in more forties at four than actually attend his classes sober if he even makes it to your shared A.I. ethics lecture at eight in the morning. And he’s wearing those god awful sperry boat shoes with no socks. Inwardly, you shiver.

Eyes flitting around, you desperately try to see if you can find any one of your friends nearby who can take you out of your misery, but Yeji and Yerim are already mixed in the drunken dancing crowd, and you can’t find Donghyuck or Jeno anywhere. Renjun had been standing with you prior, but he already went home a few minutes ago because he had midterms early tomorrow morning. However, perhaps Lady Luck understands your woes because you spot your best friend coming out of the kitchen.

You quickly grab his arm, pulling Jaemin over. “Sorry, I’m here with him already.”

“This is your boyfriend?” the guy asks skeptically, unabashedly staring at your friend in question.

“Yep. Yes, that’s him. My boyfriend. Love of my life. My other half. His name is Jaemin.”

Jaemin turns to look at you, somewhat confused. You try to send some sort of telepathic message to him, and to your relief, it seems that he understands when you shoot him a look of mixed panic and desperation.

“Yeah, that’s me. I’m the boyfriend. The super significant other.” He reconfirms your answer and returns the male’s stare, giving him an enthusiastic thumbs up.

Great. Nothing says “I love you” more than a common hand signal found on YouTube videos. Maybe you should tell fratboy to hit the subscribe button, too. Subscribe to see more daily mishaps in the life of Y/N and watch as she digs an even deeper hole for herself.

The boy scoffs, crossing his arms across his chest, as he shakes his head in disbelief. You are temporarily distracted, almost impressed even, at how his styled hair doesn’t even move. You really need to know where he gets his hair products.

“Really? It doesn’t seem like it.”

 Slipping his arm around your waist smoothly, Jaemin tugs you closer, and you freeze, pressed up snugly against his side. You really didn’t think this one through. Swallowing hard, you force your body to relax. It’s no big deal, it’s not like you’ve been harboring a crush on your best friend for months and have been trying to get over him for the sake of friendship.

“I don’t know what to tell you, but I’ve been in love with her ever since she fell asleep on me in our macroeconomics class.”

You smile sheepishly as you remember your first meeting, pretending that his words didn’t affect your heart as much as it actually did whilst simultaneously thanking the stars that he was always a quick thinker. His lips quirk up in the corners into that sweet smile you always adore before he presses a tender kiss to your temple that has you going dizzy. Your cheeks warm up as you duck your head, attempting to hide the bashful expression on your face.

“She had on this pale blue fluffy sweater, and she reminded me of a cute baby blue jay. She had a green notebook decorated with corgi stickers and always took really neat notes with this pen that had a flower chain attached to the top and had the prettiest handwriting. I remember thinking to myself, I better take good notes even though I never took notes before, just so I could give them to her as an excuse to talk to her afterwards.”

He absentmindedly draws circles on your hip, making you even more flustered not only from his actions, but also shocked that he remembers all of that even down to the outfit you were wearing. Heck, you didn’t even remember what you wore that day. He gazes at you, smiling fondly, and your breath hitches in your throat. His eyes look so sincere, sparkling under the harsh strobe lights, and if you didn’t know any better, you really thought he may have loved you back. A dull ache starts to form in your chest at that silly daydream. “She looked really cute, leaning against my shoulder like that, and even her snoring was adorable.”

You gasp at that, looking at him indignantly. “I don’t snore!”

“You’re right, I’m sorry, angel. Forgive me?”

He pauses and leans down, his lips millimeters away from yours, before hesitating and lingering there, so close yet so far away. Your heart nearly skips a beat from how naturally the sweet term of endearment slips from his lips and from the close proximity between you and him. From the corner of your eye, you can still see that fratboy standing there. You had almost forgotten he even existed: the sole, annoying cause of your current predicament. To seal the deal and perhaps for a little bit of a selfish reason, you lean forward, closing the distance and grazing your lips against his.

Your hands are on his chest, nervously tugging on the lapels of his jacket, and his are placed on your waist, gently tugging you impossibly closer. You’re quite certain Jaemin can feel how fast your heart is beating with how tight your bodies are now pressed together, but that’s the least of your worries right now. The only thoughts that pop up in your mind is that one, his lips are slightly chapped, yet incredibly soft; two, he’s a very good kisser; and three, mission: “how to get over having a crush on your best friend” is a complete and utter failure.

When you reluctantly pull away from him, his nose nudges yours softly, and your eyes flutter open. He is looking at you with parted lips, hazy eyes, and an indiscernible gaze that causes you to feel a whole colony of butterflies in your stomach. Any words that had come to mind have now flown out the window, and you can’t tear your eyes away from the radiant boy in front of you.

“Maybe we should do that again. Just in case, you know? To really send a message to that douche,” he mutters quietly, his eyes searching yours for confirmation. You give him an almost imperceptible nod, relenting to your heart this time instead of your mind.

It feels as if it’s simply the two of you standing there, the rest of your surroundings fading away and the music slowing down in the background. You look up at him from under your lashes, eyes fluttering close once more. Jaemin presses his mouth against yours firmly this time, with certainty, almost as if he meant it, as if his lips are made solely for kissing yours. And in that moment, you truly believe that he’s in love with you. 

You are dazed, absolutely starstruck, until the two of you break apart, until you remember why this all came to be, and your heart comes crashing back to earth. Those seven minutes in heaven were utterly heavenly in your little bubble of make-believe universe with only you and him. You almost don’t want to open your eyes, but you do, and you find yourself staring back at him.

And just as you’ve always known, Jaemin looks absolutely breath taking, impossibly ethereal, and one hundred percent devastatingly heart wrenching: a modern day Adonis in the flesh. He gives you a shy smile, pretty eyes glimmering as if he stole from the night sky himself. You’re so close that you can count every single long dark lash framing his starry eyes and feel the warmth radiating from his blushing cheeks. His lips are red and slightly swollen, and you feel as if you had just ruined a masterpiece from the Louvre.

Your cherry lip gloss has been smudged onto his lips, and you reach out to carefully wipe it off. He gently catches your hand when you move it away and intertwines his fingers with yours. Your breath hitches in your throat once more, and you admire the way your hand fits perfectly in his for a few stolen moments until the dream is shattered once more and you’re pulled back to reality.

“Thanks, Jaemin. He’s gone now, so you don’t have to pretend to be in love with me anymore,” you mumble softly, slowly pulling your hand away and giving him an apologetic smile.

He reaches out to gently brush his finger tips against the apples of your cheeks before delicately tucking a stray strand of your hair behind your ear. When you finally dare to meet his eyes, Jaemin is gazing at you with the most tender expression imaginable.

“Who says I was pretending?”

[luckbeabugaboo]

Prompt 68 w/ adrienette ❤️❤️

Hey, @emergencybitch​ thank you so much for the request! I hope you like it!I’m SO sorry for being so slow! work ate me alive. So! I have this prompt in my inbox twice, actually, so I decided to write two different takes. This is the first one and the next one will be rolling out soon!

October 9th(running late) entry in my “kiss a day” challenge (requests open). 

68. A Hoarse Whisper “Kiss Me” (Adrienette) 

It was weird having her on the set, sitting in her designated chair beside the photographer. He could feel her eyes on him at all times, scrutinizing the fabric, the lighting, the posing. She must have had a vision, like any artist, and wasn’t quite satisfied with the way it was panning out. Being who she was, she didn’t speak up and express just how frustrated she was. It was beginning to make him feel more than a little bit guilty. 

“Good, good. Lean against the counter. You own this place, you own this moment, you own everyone looking at this photograph. Sexy. Domineering. Yes! Yes!” Vincent seemed plenty pleased with the direction of the shoot. “Tilt the chin up, no. Up, up, up! Yes!”

Resting his elbows against the counter, Adrien let his eyes steal Marinette’s way. She was chewing at the end of a pen, her eyebrows knit together. Blue eyes widened when they caught his glance and she immediately tried to soften the hard edges of her expression. Her focus didn’t stay on his eyes, it dipped down to study his outfit again. He could see her picking it apart in a way that seemed odd after how proud she had been when Gabriel signed her on for a contract. She had poured so much love into these pieces, so why did she look so unhappy to see them come alive?

Adrien pushed himself from the counter and shook his head. Immediately getting a verbal reprevanding from Vincent. “We are not done!”

“Hold on just a minute.” He put up a hand, watching his photographer deflate like a balloon and huff some frustrated words in Italian. “Sorry, Vincent. I promise we can pick back up in just a moment.”

The cameraman waved his hand in an irritated kind of defeat and then moved to plug his camera into his laptop for editing of the shots they’d already taken. This shoot was supposed to have six looks and they were currently only on the second. 

“Is… Is everything okay, Adrien?” Marinette shifted in her chair. “Is the sizing wrong? Are you uncomfortable?”

His hand extended to her and he tried to give her a soothing sort of smile. “Come with me?”

There wasn’t too much hesitancy in her movements as she placed her hand into his, but her eyes were more honest. He hated to see her so out of her element in a place where she had every right to be the most brilliant smile in the room. 

Vincent mumbled something about timing and professionalism, but Adrien ignored the jab and tugged Marinette with him towards his dressing room. Out of the bright lighting and fancy set pieces, out of the place that she couldn’t handle and into a controlled environment where she could recharge and express her thoughts without fear of push back. He was trying to take the scary feeling of something new and replace it with the familiarity and warmth she had designed these outfits in.

This was her crowning moment. Her designs were being featured in the September issue of Vogue, splashed across three pages with an in depth interview on her process and vision. She deserved to feel accomplished and in control of her art. He knew a thing or two about feeling stifled by the fashion industry and she was far too incredible for him to watch her be squandered by the pressures of loud photographers and busy sets. 

The door clicked shut and her eyes turned to him, pleading and petrified. It didn’t take more than a second after the latch sounded before she began to pour her troubles onto him. “I-I… I can’t do this, Adrien. Everything’s so much. It’s all so…” Her hand pulled from his so she could tangle her fingers into her hair, holding her head like it might burst at any given second. “The lighting is washing out all the intricate color work. He isn’t zooming the shots to compliment the detail stitching. This is only the second outfit and I’m already convinced he doesn’t understand the purpose of this collection. And the woman who interviewed me, Adrien. You know the first thing she asked me? ‘You’re Adrien Agreste’s girlfriend, right? How does it feel networking so well that you find yourself at the top of your game at such a young age?’ What… What kind of piece are they even trying to write?” 

Tears were welling up in her eyes and a whole day of trying to hold them in meant the dam stood no chance. Squeezing them shut, she caused plenty of smears to her carefully applied liner and shadow. He could see her crumbling and his instinct guided him to provide her with a sturdy pillar to lean on. His arms wrapped around her tightly and he settled his chin atop her head. The way she trembled as sobs finally broke free did nothing to deter him and he didn’t care if tears dampened the fabric of his shirt. 

“Marinette, if you don’t like the lighting, tell him. If you don’t like the photos, reject them. You are the focal point. You are the visionary. I’m so proud of you. Of everything you’ve accomplished, and done so because of your skill, nothing else.” Adrien felt a smile forming as she wrapped her arms around him, fingers hooking around the back of his suspenders. “You came here looking incredible in a one of a kind suit, designed for you, by you, sewn by hand, and you stole everyone’s focus. As you should, you look stunning in red. Any ugly prying question is asked out of envy and will only make the interviewer look cruel. It won’t make the final cut, Anna Wintour is no fool.”

“I’m just so afraid to ruin it. I’ve dreamed of this moment since I was small and now that I’m here I’m terrified that my clumsy and scatterbrained personality are going to be my own ruining. I came in here and sobbed and now my hair and makeup are ruined. If I go out there and demand a reshoot then over and hour of work is ruined…” Marinette’s voice cracked. “Ohmygodyourshirtisprobablyruined!”

“Sssssssh, it’s going to be just fine.” Scooping her up in his arms, Adrien set Marinette down on the vanity counter. “Any reshoots were inevitable. If you weren’t happy with the result then it’s no doubt that the editors also wouldn’t be.”

He took a single step back to assess the damages without having to cause her to let go of him. There was a small wet spot on the pastel green organza covering his shoulder, but it would dry and be just fine. Her makeup was smeared and running, but that was nothing he couldn’t fix. Her hair just needed a little more spray to set in place. Nothing was irreversible. She was still breathtaking, she was still going to make a historic fashion debut, and he was still so happy to be lucky enough to be a part of it.

Marinette’s hold moved to the front of his sparkly suspenders, holding with the same intensity but giving him the room to collect some things from the vanity and begin cleaning up the smoky edges of her eye liner. Some micellar water and cotton pads were the first step. A few brush strokes saved her eye shadow, and some Marc Jacobs waterproof was all she needed to reinvigorate the wings liner she had before. 

“Adrien.” She whispered through slightly parted lips as he finished reapplying her mascara. 

“Yes?” He set down the mascara tube and turned his focus entirely to her. 

Her grasp on his suspenders tightened. “Kiss me.”

“Anything for you, Bugaboo.” Leaning in, he let his lips brush over hers. It was going to mean more makeup removing because well, her lipstick was definitely not kiss proof, but he was okay with that. They were about to make history, they could afford a little extra time in the dressing room.

[thegiddyowl]

Diagnosis: Lovesick

Here it is! My May the 4th Rebelcaptain fic for @cats-and-metersticks! Got it done just under the wire too.

The prompt was “hurt/comfort” but I know what she likes lol. This is set in the same universe as the Highschool AU. Read it on AO3!

May the 4th be with you!

It wasn’t until she reached the second flight of stairs when Jyn realized that she had been dating Cassian for a little over two months and had never been inside his apartment before. She had driven by it only once when Papa dropped Cassian off back when he finished his second swimming lesson with her. Of course, he had never been in her house either. It wasn’t like their relationship was secret, but they didn’t announce it 24/7 by making out in the hallway or grabbing each other’s butt randomly.

Why did her train of thought always end in butts lately?

Jyn reached the third flight of stairs and slowly made her way down the hall to find apartment 305. When she reached the red door with flecks of white paint near the peephole, she checked her backpack to make sure that yes, Cassian’s homework was in there. Bringing weekend English homework to a sick boyfriend was the perfect excuse to visit his home, maybe even get to know his grandmother a bit better. After inhaling a calming breath, Jyn knocked three times.

Nothing.

She knocked again before pressing her ear against the door and maybe hearing some movement inside.

“Hello? This is Jyn, and I have something for Cassian.”

Was that a cat crying inside? Cassian never said anything about owning a cat. The sound of the door unlocking made her jump and hold herself up straight with a smile on her face.

Cassian opened the door, and he looked like death. He held a pale blue blanket tightly over his hunched shoulders with one hand while he clung to the door knob with the other. The bright pink around his watery eyes and running nose made the rest of him look like a dull sort of pale. She knew he was sick, but not one step away from the grave sick.

“Holy shit,” she said.

He drew up a half-smile. “You have my homework?”

“Yeah, it’s right here,” she said as she handed it to him. “Where’s your grandma?”

“Texas.”

“Texas?”

“Yeah, for the weekend. Visiting my great aunt for her birthday. I would’ve invited you over, but then…” He turned away from her to cough behind the door. “Sorry.”

She shook her head and leaned towards the threshold.

“Do you need anything, or do you want me to stay?”

“I can…,” he stopped to hack his lungs out again. “I can take care of myself. Thank you, though.”

“Well, okay. Text me if you need anything.”

Jyn slowly walked back to the staircase, racking her brain of anything else she could do to help him. It honestly hurt seeing him so sick, and to top it off with his grandma being away too. What happened if he ran out of medicine? Just before he had closed the door, he looked like he might collapse. If she had to guess, he probably had the flu, and she remembered how hard it was to even be able to crawl to the bathroom and not pass out from dizziness.

Not knowing what else to do, Jyn pulled out her phone to text him that, seriously, she’ll do whatever she can to help him, but saw that he beat her to the punch:

Cassian

4:30 pm

Jyn wait

I went back to bed and left the door unlocked

I’m sorry can you lock it plz

4:31 pm

OMW

She jumped back up the stairs two at a time and rushed back to his apartment. The door opened up easily for her when she twisted the knob. She reached around and flicked the lock, but before she closed the door, she called out, “Ok, I locked it.”

No answer. Probably dead asleep already. She opened the door wider and stole a glimpse of the small apartment.

“Cassian? Anyone?”

She stepped inside to take just a peek of the living room that fed into the kitchen, a half wall separating the tile from the white carpet. The cozy living room was stuffed with an old green couch and a matching chair, their wood edgings chipped and scarred from age, a T.V. stacked on top of stand fit to bursting with DVDs, and a rectangular coffee table at the center of it all. Doilies draped over the backs and armrests of the furniture, a doily hung half over the T.V., and a wide square doily served as a table runner for the coffee table. What caught Jyn’s eye was the small alter tucked in the corner of the room. She closed the door quietly before she approached it. A hand-painted statue of the Virgin Mary stood at the very center of the table, high above the short candles, a small vase of white flowers, rosaries, beaded crosses, and a framed black and white photograph of an elderly man on her right and a color photo of a younger couple on her left. His grandfather, she assumed, and his parents.

Jyn shoved her hands in her pockets to squash the urge to touch anything on the alter. It was bad enough she was breaking and entering, and she didn’t need to make it worse by disturbing something so obviously sacred.

Jyn nearly jumped out of her skin when Cassian groaned from the back of the apartment,.

“Cassian? Are you ok?” she asked as she followed his voice down the hall.

“Jyn? Jyn, ’sthat you?”

She went into his room, the only room with the door wide open, and saw Cassian trying to grab a blanket he had managed to kick off but his bed was up too high for him to reach it. Jyn picked it up and tucked it over him and the three blankets he shivered under while trying not to knock over the small trash can overflowing with tissues.

“Yeah. I said that I locked the door, but I didn’t hear you answer so I got worried. Cassian?”

“Hm?” he grunted.

“When is your grandma coming back?”

“Sunday night,” he croaked.

Jyn surveyed his spare room, and felt a little jealous that even on his death bed his room was cleaner than hers, save for the few used tissues that fell out of the trash can and the pile of empty tissue boxes on his night stand table. She looked back at him, saw how weak and exhausted he was from that small walk to the front door and back.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay over?” she murmured.

“I don’t want you to get sick.”

“I’ve got the flu shot, so I’m good. I’ll just tell my dad that I’m staying over at Leia’s and she’ll cover for me so I can stay the night.”

He unglued his eyes and stared at her, and she could almost see the internal war going in his head until he pulled up a half-grin.

“I look that bad, huh?”

“You look like shit.”

He didn’t respond to that, his eyes drifting shut again. Jyn touched his burning forehead, and he spilled out crackling whimpers. Maybe she could get him a cold compress in the meantime, help him sleep easier.

“Stay, please?” he whimpered when she removed her hand.

“Yeah,” she whispered, eyeing the thermometer on his nightstand. “Have you taken your temperature?”

“I can’t remember.”

While he took his temperature, she found the washcloths and chilled one under cold water from the bathroom tap. She returned to his room with the cold compress and at tall glass of water. Even though he looked like he had been sweating, his forehead felt a little dryer than she expected. He let the thermometer fall out of his mouth, but picked it up with trembling fingers to put back on the table.

“What’s the verdict?” she asked, then read the digital number, “Oh my god--102.4.”

Cassian said nothing, since he fell asleep again. He stirred with a relieved groan when Jyn pressed the washcloth on his forehead.

“Your fever is way high. Too high. Maybe we should take you to the hospital.”

“No,” he grunted, then winced when he swallowed. He pawed at knob on his table drawer. “I have medicine.”

Jyn opened the drawer expecting to have to dig through a mound of crap like she did with her own drawers, but there was only a comb, a pair of nail clippers, a couple of pens, and a bottle of ibuprofen. Needing to have something to eat with the medicine or risk throwing up everything, Jyn made him some toast and sat on the edge of his bed making notes of what he needed between bites and sips of water: cough drops, throat drops, soup (there was a Chinese place nearby that made really good egg drop soup that Cassian was willing to try), and probably some more tissues. There was money in a coffee can on top of the fridge she could take, but to leave the receipt on his table so he could explain to his grandma later. After refreshing his compress, she left him to sleep and called Leia to pick her up.

Fifteen minutes later, Jyn and Leia were on their way to Jyn’s place in Leia’s silver Prius.

“Yeah, I’m gonna stay the night at Leia’s.  I’m heading home now to get my stuff for practice. I won’t be late, I promise. Okay, Papa. See you tomorrow night,” Jyn said crisply before hanging up. “Thanks again, Leia.”

“Well, it’s lucky that my parents are out of town this weekend, so your alibi is airtight.”

Jyn let out a sigh of relief that twisted in to a groan. “Just say it.”

Leia grinned. “Say what?”

“You know what.”

“That this wasn’t how you imagined spending the night at Cassian’s?”

Jyn groaned again as Leia laughed all the rest of the way to Jyn’s house.

*

When Jyn returned to the apartment, she heard Cassian speaking low and soft. After shrugging off her backpack, setting her small suitcase down, and taking off her shoes, she carried her shopping bags to his room. She hung back when Cassian laid on his side, his eyes closed as he spoke into the phone. Her nose twitched from the sharp smell of Vicks Vapor rub.

“Sí, estoy tomando agua,” he his breathing hitched and he hacked out a cough until he sat up to sip some more water. Cassian smiled at her as she sat down, then frowned when he continued, “Abuela…n-no, Abuela, no soy a levantarme de la cama.”

She texted Leia on her phone while she waited, enjoying listening to him speak in Spanish. She didn’t hear him speak it often, but when he did she liked how playful he sounded as he stretched out his vowels and rolled his r’s and spoke at nearly a mile a minute. In English he spoke much more carefully and seriously, even when he was messing around with her. The only language she knew was level 3 French, and she sounded like a toddler during oral exercises.

“Adiós, Abuela,” Cassian said sweetly before hanging up the phone. “Thank God you came back, Jyn.”

She grinned. “Was that your grandma?”

“Yeah. She was checking up on me.”

“These were the cough drops you wanted, yeah?” she said as she handed the bright yellow bag to him.

“Yes, thank you. Sorry, I know the rub smells awful.”

She shrugged it off. “How about you take your temperature again?”

He stuck the thermometer back in his mouth and struggled to open the bag until Jyn tore the perforated plastic edge off. He slowly unwrapped one of the menthol candies until the thermometer beeped with a new temperature of 101.9.

“That’s good, at least. Hopefully it keeps going down. Would you like some soup now, or some water?”

“Water, please.”

Before she’d forget, she put the receipt on his table and stashed the change back into the coffee can when she went to refill is glass. When she returned, he was already breathing deeper as he sucked on the cough drop.

“So what did you tell your grandma?” she asked him, sitting by his knees on the edge of his bed.

“I said that I would call Kay or Bodhi if I needed anything. You?”

“My dad’s out of town, so I told him I was sleeping over at Leia’s.”

“That was lucky.”

An awkward silence settled over them as the gravity of Jyn staying over at Cassian’s apartment finally made its impact. Jyn teased the fringed edge of one of his blankets drawn over him, a dark blue wool blanket with bands of black and white breaking the color like crests on a wave. Cassian’s hand peeked out from under the covers and grasped her hand.

“Thank you for helping me,” he said, his dark eyes shining in the dim light.

She leaned over and kissed his hot, greasy forehead, tasting the sweat in his stringy bangs. Something unexpectedly light fluttered in her ribcage.

“Hope you get better soon,” she said as she sat up. “I’ll be in the living room if you need anything.”

He squeezed her hand once more, letting it drag as she pulled herself away from his bedside. He fell back asleep with half a grin. Jyn left a crack open in the door as she closed it in case he yelled out for something, then scrubbed her hands and arms in the bathroom before going to the kitchen to pound down some orange chicken and rice. She moved the stack sales ads off the small kitchen table pushed up against the wall before sitting down to eat, the tangy sweet of the orange chicken already masking the new scents of the cozy apartment. Cassian didn’t make a peep while she ate and watched videos on her phone to crowd out the relative silence. Someone upstairs was vacuuming and a bus chugged down the street.

Eventually Jyn moved to doing on her homework, which was just a final draft for an essay on Jane Eyre they had been working for the last few weeks. After an hour of struggling with it she moved on to math and science, completing just as the clock hanging next to the kitchen cabinet struck ten. Christ, how did it get so late so fast without her realizing? Jyn shoved her stuff back in her backpack before getting her pajamas and toothbrush out of her suitcase and checking on the still sleeping Cassian before going into the bathroom to change.

One wouldn’t expect to get flustered in a locked bathroom, but Jyn couldn’t shake the feeling as she shucked off her day clothes and threw on her night ones as quickly as possible, like he was going to burst in the room before she finished buttoning her gray night shirt. She kept the door locked as she brushed her teeth, but when she finished she mechanically opened medicine cabinet and saw the razor, the stout green and black can of shaving cream, the chunky gray roll on--and shut the door, feeling guilty about trespassing. Sure, she’d seen the similar sort of hygiene products in her father’s medicine cabinet, but it was weird seeing it Cassian’s. It reminded her all over again that she was staying by herself at his home, and if he wasn’t sick…

She spat out her toothpaste and rinsed her mouth out. They had only dated for a couple of months, and both silently agreed to take these slow, to not rush into being intimate. Jyn took down her ponytail and brushed her hair out, her eyes roving over the small bathroom. She was making a big deal out of nothing! He shared the bathroom with his grandmother, for Christ’s sake, even though she felt like she was trapped in this tile room with his overwhelming scent of musk and grass and--

And she needed to get out.

Jyn stumbled out, Cassian’s door still closed thank God, and headed back into the living room. Still she felt cloistered by his scent, so she cracked open the window and wafted the fresh air in until her thrumming heart calmed down. When she sank down on the couch, she heard a door down the hall squeaked open, a couple of thudding footsteps, and another door opened and closed. The walls were thinner than she realized when she could hear Cassian pee just a few feet away from her. He flushed and, instead of going back to bed, shuffled down the hall in slow, groaning steps.

Cassian emerged still flush in the face and wearing a thin sheen of sick sweat on his cheeks. He cinched the blue wool blanket hanging over his shoulders with one hand while the other leaned against the wall and skated over to the back of the chair for balance.

“Hey,” he croaked.

“Hey.”

He plopped next to her on couch, his head lolling from exhaustion. Jyn scooted closer to him

“I brought soup back if you want it. Or do you want tea?”

“I want to die.”

“You can’t die on me yet. You still have to take me to prom.”

He smiled and snorted a laugh. “Soup, then. Please.”

After he directed her to the mugs, Jyn heated up the egg drop soup in one and poked him awake before giving it to him. She sat right next to him, keeping an eye on his grip.

“This is actually pretty good.”

“Yeah, and it’s good if you have a sore throat.”

He leaned into her. “It’s freezing in here. Why is the window open?”

Now it was her turn to flush.

“Because it’s stuffy and you’re sick. I can close it.”

“No, leave it open. I don’t want you to get sick. It sucks and everything hurts.” He sipped more of the soup, and grumbled, “Everything fucking hurts.”

His hand started to shake, so she held the bottom of the mug until he let go. At least he drank most of his soup. If he kept it down and slept some more, he’d probably feel better in the morning.

“Last time I got really sick, I couldn’t even walk. I had to crawl to the bathroom,” Jyn said as she rubbed his back. “My mom would get me egg drop soup and we’d watch movies when I was awake. Do you want to watch a movie?”

They ended up watching Warm Bodies, probably because Cassian related with the walking dead at that point, but also because it was a funny movie. Jyn turned off the lights, closed the window, and sat right next to him. He sagged against her shoulder, then she nudged him into resting his head in her lap. She sat straight up, combing his hair with her fingers until her shoulders slumped against the couch.

“This is better,” he mumbled. “Do you think in fifty years we’ll be like this?”

“That’d be nice,” she answered, feeling the light flutter in her chest again.

Cassian’s eyes flitted to the alter before he nuzzled against her knees. “It would.”

Exhaustion does funny things to a person.

Jyn woke up on the couch, the red and white menu screen playing quietly in the background. Cassian’s head rested on her abdomen, and his body slept between her legs. She breathed slowly, his head rising a little with every breath, but he didn’t seem to notice that she was awake. He just continued to snooze on, one hand curled around her waist. It was so adorable she couldn’t help but kiss him on the top of his head. She could smell the vapor rub, the cough drop, the shaving cream, the deodorant, and beneath all of that, his scent that belonged to no one else.

She kissed his head until she drifted off again, waking only when Cassian whispered her name while he played with the ends of her hair. Feeling his forehead, his fever was still there but not as hellish as the night before.

Jyn, however, felt a little scratchiness in her throat.

[kinghoranshit]

This is Love (LT) Ch 1

Word Count: 1,402

I didn't usually swear, but I found myself repeating the words 'Shit. Fuckity fuck. Dammit.' in my head. Over and over again as the pink plus sign burned into my retinas.

I gently set the test down on the bathroom counter and looked into the mirror. My red curls were in an unruly mass at the moment and my pale skin was flushed on the cheeks, showing my freckles a bit more. I sighed as I grabbed my brush and tried to defy them. I pulled a few curls back and clipped them with a white bow. Next, I put mascara on to frame and bring out my blue-green eyes. I had to look somewhat presentable for work.

I trudged into my bedroom, which was the only other room besides the open concept living room and kitchen. It was the basic flat you'd find anywhere.

I ruffled through my oversized sweaters; some of them more like cardigans and others like pullovers. I decided on my soft grey with a few white stripes cardigan. Before putting it on, I yanked on a white cami, then I put on my favorite (lucky) dark denim skinnies; I felt like I was going to need to luck today. Lastly, I tugged on my black rider boots.

I looked into the full body length mirror, adjusting the cardigan a bit. Nothing seemed to fit my body perfectly, but not for the same reason as some other girls. I was too skinny, which didn't make sense cause I ate and ate and ate and I didn't exercise. Some girls would kill to have this body at our age, I knew that. But, it was going to change.

I sighed in contentment. This outfit and how I looked would have to do. I didn't have time to waste anymore as I noticed it was seven-thirty. I had to be at the school in fifteen minutes.

I snatched my black satchel messenger, which had an owl covered journal, black ballpoint pen, and the most recent literature I was reading in it. And my students' papers, of course. But I believed in more discussing the reading, rather than writing it. Anyone could write.

I chowed down on a chocolate chip granola bar as I walked briskly down a sidewalk of Doncaster. My tan, red, and black plaid scarf kept flapping into my face and the apricot colored, elegant, trench coat my love insisted on buying me for this chilly winter. I didn't necessarily fight against it; It suited me and he rarely bought me anything. Though, he wanted to.

I stuffed the granola bar wrapper into my satchel as I slowed down to walk calmly into the school courtyard. I readjusted the black gloves and red beanie as I entered into the building, the warm air brushing against my cheeks.

"Good morning, Ms. Lewis," one of two Norwegian teachers, Mr. Engest, greeted with his prominent Norwegian accent. He ran a hand through his newly cut, blond hair. He was the heartthrob for all the girls. I didn't blame them, but I had a heartthrob of my own, who could've had any other girl's heart.

"Morning, Mr. Engest." I smiled with a small wave and continued down the navy blue tiled and tan walled hallway. The classroom I started in was the one next to his. Here, the teachers are the ones who moved from classroom to classroom, rather than the students.

I walked into the classroom as if I was on air and waved to the familiar, young faces. "Hello, everyone! Have good weekends? Did you make good choices?"

I set my bag, gloves, and hat on the desk provided, then unraveled my scar and unbuttoned my coat, setting them on the back of the chair.

Frankie, who sat at one of the front pair tables, started to snicker.

I gave him the best motherly look I could. "What did you do?"

"Nothing," he remarked, his British accent thick, and he ruffled his black hair.

The blonde girl next to him giggled. "He stole his pap's car and took it for a spin."

I shook my head. "Frankie, next time, just ask your father for permission." I turned to the chalkboard behind me and picked up a piece of white chalk to write today's lesson.

***

I sighed for what felt like the millionth time today. I  was ready for a hot tea and crumpet. That's all I wanted for lunch right now.

I taught four classes. All in the morning and I was out by noon. Technically, I worked part time, but the school still paid me what any other teacher would get full time. I would like to think it's for my great skills and how well I got on with the students and staff, but I was sure there's another aspect involved.

I settled myself at the small, circle table in the corner of the coffee shop, it was by the real fireplace, which had yellow-orange flames flicking and sparking. I sipped on my tea as I pulled out a piece of my old fashioned stationery and my pen.

I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to start it yet. I observed the place as I thought. The walls were a matte black and the wooden floor boards were a deep, rich mahogony. The stone bricks that formed the fireplace were white. Not much was placed around the walls of the open square room; a few paintings and song lyrics in frames. It was a cute, quaint shop; it didn't need a lot.

I, finally, decided to start my letter off with 'Dearest Louis,' and went on to write to tell him about how I was doing and explained the situation. When he found out, I didn't want it to be through media, a text, during a phone call, or even a skype call. I wanted it to be plain and clear, on paper, in my hand writing.

"Why hello loyal customer." My best friend with straight, chest length, blonde hair smiled as she sat down in the chair beside me. Her green eyes danced with amusement and her smile was natural.

Though, I had been feeling sick to my stomach all morning, my smile grew toward her. "Hi, Katie, how's the shop? I presume good?"

She laughed. "Always. Classes, okay? Did that Frankie kid get into trouble again?"

"Almost. He stole his father's car for a drive, but he doesn't know."

"Of course." She rolled her eyes, laughing some more under her breath. Her eyes peered down at the letter. "What're you writing?"

"Another letter to Louis." I took a sip of my tea.

A smirk crossed her lips. "Your relationship is so cute. I love that you, two, write letters back and forth."

"You know," I prompted as I signed the letter with my name and a heart, "You and Niall could do this."

She shook her head. "Nah, he's not one for that. But he still sends me lyrics on paper in the mail."

I looked up at her. "Do you still send him stories you've handwritten?"

"Yeah." She looked down at her hands sheepishly, her cheeks going red; it wasn't a look that I saw often on her.

"You'll get published one day," I encouraged, knowing that the thought had cross her mind in the past minute.

Katie nodded. "I know, I just don't want it to be because I'm with Niall. I want it to be for my writing. For now, though, I'm living another dream of mine. Owning a coffee shop called 'La Lee Cafe'."

"I, seriously, can't believe you named it that," I remarked, tucking the letter and pen into my bag.

"After Niall asked me out, and both of us moved here to be closer to the boys, I'm having a hard time believing anything," she shot back.

I felt my heart drop deep into my chest, causing my smile to fail. I couldn't believe anything either.

Katie noticed my change in mood and her eyebrows furrowed. "Is everything okay?"

I looked down at the table, my bag, and finally, back at her, and I shook my head.

"I'm gonna close the shop up early today. We'll grab a pizza, go back to the apartment, and have a writing night, and if you want, you can tell me what's going on. Sound good?"

I made a small laugh. "Sounds good."

Next: Ch 2

[Masterlist]

[crossroadsdimension]

Lucky!Ford ch 2

So, uh...you guys remember that drabble I posted a while back for the start of Forduary? I’ve decided to keep going with it. Just...gonna pick up right where we left off with Ford getting dropped into the attic right in front of Dipper. Heh heh.

@howtotrainyournana, I know you’re gonna want to read this. @leukaraii, @blankrslate07, and @happy-fazzbear-ponies2 might be interested in it, too.

Here we go!

Dipper’s wordless shriek quickly turned into mile-a-minute questions and excited babble -- mostly the latter. Ford was only able to catch “Are you the Author of the Journal??” out of the excited, stumbled-over mess.

“Y-you know about my journals?” Ford asked in surprise, looking down at the boy who was looking up with bright, eager eyes at him. He heard footsteps slam down on the stairs below them -- someone else was coming up.

“Yeah!” Dipper scrambled over to his bed and pulled a familiar red and gold book out from underneath it. “I-I found it in the woods on my first day -- wait, did you say journals? I’ve only got the one! Does that mean that there are more hidden around Grav--”

“Ford?!”

Ford turned his head sharply at the gravely voice, for a second expecting to see a one-eyed mirror with a golden fish embroidered on an eyepatch. He blinked in surprise when he saw that the fish was on a fez, and two normal eyes were staring back at him, wide with shock.

Dipper trailed off and looked at the old man, blinking in confusion. “Y-you...you know him, Grunkle Stan?”

Ford and Stan -- for it was Stan -- stared at each other for a moment. Stan in Filbrick’s suit -- something that Ford was sure he had buried in the back of a closet somewhere -- and Ford in his survival gear, black from head to toe, and still carrying his weapons.

A moment later, Ford found himself trapped in a bear hug from his brother.

“You’re okay!” Stan let out a laugh that carried and released so much all at once. “You’re okay….”

Ford blinked a couple times out of surprise at Stan’s show of affection, and he saw three figures standing in the doorway -- a little girl who appeared to be Dipper’s age wearing a sparkle-covered sweater, a red-headed teenage girl, and what looked like a hairless gopher (how one happened to have come to be here, Ford had no idea).

“Uh...Grunkle Stan?” Dipper asked.

“What’s going on?” the girl asked in confusion. “Who’s this guy? And why does he look like Grunkle Stan?”

“I don’t know, he just dropped into our room from out of nowhere -- literally! Some kind of...portal, I guess, opened up in the ceiling and he just dropped right through it! There was this teenager with him too, and he was wearing some kind of armor and he knew who I was without me having to say anything!” Dipper waved his hands about. “It was so weird and awesome at that same time!”

“Portal?” Stan repeated. He let Ford go and looked at him with an odd expression, eyebrows furrowing together into a confused frown. “I’ve been working on your damn machine for thirty years and you find someone who can get ya home?”

“Machine?” Dipper repeated. He frowned and put his hands on his hips. “Grunkle Stan, what’s going on?”

“Yeah!” the girl spoke up in agreement.

“Come on, Mr. Pines, you’re not going to leave us hanging, are you?” asked the redhead in typical teenage fashion.

Stan snorted and looked around the room. “Yeah, yeah. Well, cat’s out of the bag now, I guess.” He clapped a hand on Ford’s shoulder, a wide grin appearing on his face while Ford still stood as stiff as a board. “This is my twin brother. The real Stanford.”

The hairless gopher gasped. “Another Mr. Pines?!”

“Wait, what?” the teenager blinked in confusion as Ford’s eyes widened -- partially because what he had thought of as a hairless gopher was actually human, and partially because of something else.

“You stole my name?!” he hissed at Stan. “Stanley, why did you--”

“Did you really expect that this house would still be standing after 30 years if you weren’t around to pay the bills for it?” Stan shot back. “I had ta find a way to get you back, and I wasn’t about ta just let this place fall apart and find a new spot in town.” Stan’s brow was furrowed in a frowning glare of sorts. “Besides, there was that monster machine in the basement, and I had ta work on it.” His face relaxed, and he shrugged. “So, I faked my death, basically became you, and that’s the end of that.”

“Stanley, that machine is extremely dangerous -- don’t tell me you turned it on--”

“It’s not working yet!” Stan shot back. “I should know -- I know the ins and outs of that thing, and I’ve been working on it for the last 30 years! All the stupid thing does is throw sparks. And now, all that work’s been for nothing because you got to go and find a way back here on your own! Couldn’t you have done that sooner?!”

“Like it’s possible to meet a World Jumper on purpose!” Ford snapped in reply. “I’ve been relying on natural rifts between dimensions to go from one to the next; I wasn’t ever expecting that I would ever be given a route home, much less one from someone who travels across dimensions as a job!”

Stan jerked back at that.

“Was that who the guy in the armor was?” Dipper frowned, then pulled a pen out from somewhere and started chewing on the end. He pulled out a notepad and started writing, as though he was taking notes on the conversation. “I wonder how he knew who I was, though….”

“What guy?” Stan demanded.

“A-a teenager in this blue and green armor who dropped through the portal with -- Dipper cut himself off as his eyes widened. “Oh my gosh, the Author of the Journals is my Great-Uncle!” He squealed loudly again and started writing in his notepad more vigorously.

“Wait, this guy’s the Author?” the girl asked as Stan looked between the two of them sharply.

“Great-Uncle?” Ford repeated, blinking in surprise.

“Oh, yeah. Right.” Stan motioned to the two kids. “They’re Shermie’s grandkids. Dipper and Mabel. Twins, too -- like us.”

“Sh-shermie...Shermie has grandkids?” Ford looked down at the two of them with wide eyes.

“And Dipper, what was that about a journal?” Stan turned to look at Dipper and frowned disapprovingly, hands on his hips.

Dipper ducked his head, hands gripping the notepad and journal underneath it a little more tightly. “I found it at the beginning of summer.”

“Hand it over, kiddo. It’s too dangerous for you to be carrying that around.” Stan motioned for Dipper to hand the journal over.

The boy held it tightly to his chest for a moment, reluctant, but when he saw the look Ford was sending him over Stan’s shoulder he reluctantly handed the journal over to Stan, who handed it to Ford.

“How was it that you didn’t know he had this?” Ford frowned at Stan as he hid the journal away in his coat.

“I wanted to keep the kids away from that junk; they went behind my back!” Stan motioned to Dipper. “What number was that one, three?”

“What does it matter?” Ford replied tersely.

“Because number two might have been found too, dum-dum.” Stan poked Ford in the chest. “Did you really think that hiding them was a good idea, you idiot?”

“Hid them?” Dipper frowned. “Why did you hide them, Great-Uncle Stanford?”

Ford’s eyes narrowed at the question. “I had my reasons.”

“Uh huh.” Stan folded his arms across his chest. “Considering how you were acting thirty years ago, I wonder how much of that was because you’d gone nuts.”

“Hey!” Mabel suddenly popped up between the two of them. She looked up at Ford and smiled sweetly. “Hi, I’m Mabel.” The smile faltered a little. “And I’m really confused. Could you fill us in a little on what’s going on? I mean, Grandpa never said we had another grunkle.”

Ford looked down at the girl -- his niece! -- for a moment, his mouth pressed thin and his brow furrowed. After a moment he sighed. “Oh, all right.”

“Can we start with what happened between you guys?” the human/hairless gopher asked. “Because it sounds like you’ve had a lot of drama.”

Stan snorted. “That’s one way to put it, Soos.” He went over and sat down on Dipper’s bed; Ford moved to stand with his back to the window, hands behind his back as Dipper sat down next to Stan and the other three sat down on what Ford guessed was Mabel’s bed. “If you really want to know the full story, it started back in 1960-something, when we were kids.”

Ford rolled his eyes, but Stan kept going, ignoring his brother...mostly. The mention of the Stan o’ War caused his mouth to tighten up a little at the memory, but he managed to keep his emotions in check -- especially when it came to the incident with the science project later.

“West Coast Tech?” Dipper frowned. “Dad said that they were a hoax school that just wanted to be known for getting really, really smart people in. A lot of the people who have graduated from there are really stuck up -- he has to work with a few of them.”

Ford jolted a little in surprise at that, losing his composure rather quickly. “Wh-what?”

“Oh yeah, that’s right.” Mabel put a finger to her chin and cocked her head to one side slightly. “Didn’t he tell us one time that he was just about ready to deck a guy over something that he’d said that turned out to be completely wrong, only for some other guy to end up getting the blame?”

“Yeah.” Dipper nodded. “The boss didn’t want to get sued by the guy’s parents for firing him or something like that.”

Ford couldn’t believe what it was that he was hearing. He shook his head slowly as Stan snorted and the teenage girl and Soos rolled their eyes.

“Sounds like someone needs to grow up,” the teenager commented.

“You said it, Wendy,” Stan agreed. “Maybe I oughta find this guy and deck him myself.” A sneering grin crossed his face. “Or, y’know, lighten him of a few bucks. That place is majorly expensive -- I bet he uses hundred dollar bills for tissues.”

“Grunkle Stan!” Dipper and Mabel both yelped at once.

“You could get our dad fired if you do that!” Dipper yelped.

Stan snorted and waved Dipper off. “Yeah, yeah. Anyway, Ford didn’t get to go to his nerd school and he thought I was the one who broke his machine when I hadn’t, so Pa kicked me out.”

“That’s horrible,” Wendy muttered. “I’d like to find your old man and deck him one for that -- you don’t do that to kids!”

“You can deck his tombstone back in Jersey -- the old man died a couple years back. Could’a gone to the funeral, but…” Stan shrugged. “Ma’s still around, though -- she’s living in one of those old folks’ homes somewhere. I’ve got the address somewhere in the house. Anyway, I roved the country for a bit after that, met some people, picked up a few skills, that kinda thing. Then Ford contacted me, and I came up here.”

Ford got the feeling that Stan was glossing over a few points.

“What about you, Great-Uncle Stanford?” Dipper looked over at Ford.

Ford shook his head. “Ford is fine, Dipper.” His expression soured. “Well, after I wasn’t able to get into what was at the time my dream school, I was forced to fall back on the last option that I had.” He was going to have to look into West Coast Tech and see if what Dipper was saying was true, obviously; for now, he let the comments about WCT slide to the back of his mind. “Backupsmore. In a place like that, I had to work twice as hard. I got my Ph.D a year ahead of schedule and received a grant for any future research I could undertake.”

From there, Ford launched into a rather dramatic retelling of events: how he had decided that, since he was an anomaly himself, he would study anomalies -- and that Gravity Falls was a hotspot for them. He described how he had hit a roadblock, decided that building a portal to another dimension was the best way to solve it, and called up his old college friend Fiddleford McGucket in order to get his help.

He saw looks exchanged between the others at the mention of Fiddleford; Ford decided he’d look into that later as well and filed it into the back of his mind next to WCT.

Then came the day they’d tested the machine, and Fiddleford’s running out on him. Ford left Cipher out of the tale, simply saying that something had gone wrong and he needed to shut down the project and hide his research materials.

“It was at that point that I managed to locate Stanley and request he come up here,” Ford said. “I had been planning on giving him a portion of my research so that he could take it and hide it somewhere I would never know about it, but he apparently had other plans.”

“Well of course I did!” Stan snapped back. “Ten years without contact from anybody and you suddenly show up out of the blue with ‘Please Come’ and nothing else?! I wasn’t expecting you to just push me away again, that’s for sure!”

“So...why the portal thing?” Mabel asked. “And how come we didn’t know that the Shack has a basement, Grunkle Stan? I haven’t seen any stairs to the basement!”

Stan muttered something about a vending machine, causing Ford to look at him sharply.

“I hid the entrance behind a bookcase, Stanley,” Ford said pointedly.

“Well, not anymore. Did you really expect me to be able to keep the house without paying the bills?” Stan frowned back at his brother.

“You mean, the Mystery Shack is--”

“A cover so that you could get Mr. Pines 2 home?” Wendy finished Dipper’s question.

Soos hid his face in his hands as he started bawling. “That’s so beautiful, Mr. Pines!”

“Mystery Shack?!” Ford repeated. “Stanley, what have you done?!”

“I did what I had to do, okay?!” Stan snapped back. “Conning people is the only gig I know -- you try living out of the backseat of a car for ten years, Poindexter! You try to find a living, jumping from job to job and never knowing if you’re gonna find a place to call home again!”

The attic fell silent at that. Even Soos stopped bawling as they all stared at Stan with wide eyes. Well, everyone except for Ford, who frowned grimly instead.

“Try that for thirty years,” Ford said shortly.

Stan’s angered face fell in an instant, eyes widening at Ford’s words.

“After the fight that led you to push me into the portal, I have been traveling from dimension to dimension, never staying in one place for too long because there are bounty hunters after every single version of me from here to the Nightmare Realm. There are people out there who would be more than willing to find my head and bring it to--” Ford cut himself off and shook his head; they didn’t need to know about Cipher; this was his burden, not theirs. “The point is that my life hasn’t been easy, either. If you think that you can one-up me on how bad each other’s lives has been, think again.”

The others all stared at him with wide-eyed expressions; Soos seemed to be gnawing on his fingernails as Dipper gripped his pen tightly.

“Whoa,” Wendy said.

Mabel looked at Ford with a concerned, furrowed brow, then slipped off her bed and came over and hugged him about his waist. “Well, you’re home now. So you shouldn’t have to think about it anymore, right?”

Ford looked down at his niece with an uncertain expression, then nodded a little. “No, I...suppose not.” His eyes flicked up towards the door of the attic, and his expression hardened. “Which reminds me.”

“Reminds you of what?” Dipper asked.

“I have a portal to dismantle.” Ford slipped out of Mabel’s hug and strode out of the room and downstairs, nose crinkling up in disgust when he saw how much Stan had changed what had once been his place of research.

Stan moved down the stairs after him and went through a swinging door that was on the other side of what had started as a lab and had been repurposed into a living room. Ford frowned at the dinosaur skull that was being used as a table as he passed it…

...and stepped into a gift shop.

This was the last thing that Ford had wanted to see.

“Stanley, what the he--”

“Watch it.” Stan sent a pointed look at the door Ford had just came through. “Those kids are twelve, you know.”

Ford gritted his teeth as Stan hit the buttons on the vending machine where his bookcase had been, opening the hidden door to his basement lab. “What the heck have you done to my house?!”

“Did what I had to.” Stan shrugged. “And hey -- I’ve got some good money coming in anyway, and people like the place. So I’m not planning on putting a stop to it anytime soon.”

Ford brushed past Stan as the door to the basement opened up, and he flew down the stairs and into his basement lab. Of all the things that Stanley could have done, turning his house into a -- a tourist trap had to be the worst thing possible. He had chosen this location because he wanted to be alone, not because he had wanted to be bothered!

At least Stanley had had enough sense to keep the portal away from the children, if their confusion about the mention of the machine was any indication. Although, that hadn’t kept Stan from tinkering with it.

Ford felt a chill run down his spine as he entered the one room that he had hoped never to see again. He moved passed the security cameras and other controls and paused at the door leading into the larger part of the laboratory.

The dark, dead, triangular portal rose up over everything.

“You know, I questioned your design choices for that thing after a while.”

Ford jumped and whirled, only to see Stanley standing back by the entrance into the lab. He frowned.

“I mean, if ya had come through it, you’d have landed flat on yer face because of that drop,” Stanley added. “You have a thing for triangles now, Ford?”

Ford’s shoulders stiffened at that, eyes narrowing. “Had.” He turned and walked into the main portal room, Stanley trailing behind him. “Go back upstairs, Stanley. I can handle this myself.”

“Yeah, no. You’re just going to throw all this out when it can be reused, like that old science project.”

Ford paused at that, turned and looked back. “What?”

“Yeah, see, there’s this thing that people are going on about called recycling now and--”

“No, no, not that!” Ford retraced his steps and frowned at Stan. “You saw me throw it out?”

Stan scratched his neck, averting his gaze from Ford’s. “Well, yeah. I didn’t leave Glass Shard Beach right away. Did ya really think that I’d hoof it as soon as Pa kicked me out?”

Ford hesitated at that, looking at Stan with an expression that was mixed.

Stan noticed, then snorted and moved around Ford. “Well, we’ve gotta demolish this thing, right? I can think of a few parts I could use to make sure my car still runs, and I bet that Soos can find a way to use some of the other bits. Could get a pretty penny for recycling the metal, too.” He pulled off his suit jacket and shirt, revealing a sweaty undershirt and a pot belly that Ford hadn’t expected to see on his brother.

“Stanley, a lot of this technology wouldn’t work well with Earth--”

Stan grabbed a part of what looked like metal and yanked off a strip of silvery material.

“...is that duct tape?”

“Well, yeah. Best thing to hold stuff together when it’s falling apart, y’know?” Stan grinned at Ford. “Come over here and give me a hand, huh?”

Ford’s fists clenched. “You attempted work on my portal and used duct tape?!”

Stan finished pulling off a strip from the base of the lever and looked over at his brother, grin fading. “Come on, Ford, did you really expect that I would have been able to afford ta get this thing looking like new when I’ve only got a third of the instructions?”

“You didn’t hide the Journal?!”

“Course not! I wanted to get you back! Why would I hide the damn thing that would help me get you back, huh?” Stan waved his arms about, the length of duct tape flapping in the air and following his hand’s movement.

“Because I told you that this was dangerous!” Ford motioned to the portal wildly. “You saw what happened! This machine could have very well ended the world!”

“Then why’d you build it in the first place?!”

“Because I didn’t know any better!”

The basement echoed with Ford’s yell; Stan stared at him with wide eyes.

Ford took a moment to collect himself, breathing in deeply for a moment before relaxing. “If you want to help me, then fine.” He reached into his coat and pulled out a short baton before flicking his wrist; the baton expanded into a large staff before what looked like the large head of a sledge hammer expanded out from one end.

“Whoa.” Stan stared with wide eyes.

Ford hefted the hammer over his shoulder and stalked over to the main part of the portal, muttering math calculations and scientific compounds under his breath as old memories resurfaced. Stan turned and watched him as Ford gripped the hammer’s handle tightly in both hands.

He stopped in front of the thin tip of the portal that was buried into the ground, lifted the hammer off his shoulder, and swung.

The metal crumpled under the head of the hammer, and the entire portal groaned as Ford jumped back, bringing the hammer with him. The entire triangle listed to one side, then collapsed slowly, colliding with the rocky floor and causing the entire room to shake.

“Hot Belgian Waffles!” Stan yelped, trying to find his footing as the shaking subsided. “You got beefy, Poindexter!”

Ford grunted, letting the hammer head hit the ground and leaned against the handle for a moment, looking the toppled portal over. Then he picked up the hammer again and started towards the toppled triangle.

There came the sound of running feet as Ford slammed the hammer against the triangle again.

“Grunkle Stan, what -- whoa!”

Ford let the hammer down and looked back sharply at Dipper’s cry. Upon seeing the boy standing a short distant away from the entrance into the basement lab -- along with Mabel, Soos, and Wendy -- he glared at the group of four and pointed back towards the entrance. “Back upstairs, now! This is no place for children!”

Dipper backed up a couple steps at Ford’s barking tone.

“Go back up, Dipper,” Stan replied. “We’ll be up later. Stay in the house, don’t let anybody in, and don’t go runnin’ out in the woods for no reason. You got me?”

Dipper hesitated, then nodded a little.

“It’s cold down here,” Mabel commented. “I’ll make hot chocolate for you when you’re done!” She turned and disappeared from sight.

“So that portal thing was real,” Wendy commented. “Sweet. Why are you taking it apart?”

“Because it is dangerous and highly unstable.” Ford hefted the hammer again, then swung it at the portal again, denting the metal. “Now, I would appreciate it if you left.”

“All right, all right. Mr. Pines, mind if I crash here for a while?”

“Do what you want, Wendy,” Stan called back.

“Thanks. Come on, Soos.”

“S-sure.” As the larger man left, Ford could have sworn that he heard him mutter, “This is nothing like what I had written in my fanfictions….”

Ford looked over at Stan with a pointed look and raised an eyebrow. Stan shrugged.

“They’re curious kids who don’t know any better, what do you expect?”

Ford sighed irritably. “I expect them to have sense. Now are you going to help me or not?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna help, Poindexter. Don’t give me that look.”

Time Break

Stan and Ford tore the portal to pieces in a matter of hours, but there was still tension in the air even as Ford gave the remains of the portal one last slam with his hammer.

“So, uh….” Stan looked over at Ford as he leaned against his hammer again for a breather. “What now?”

“Now?” Ford replied crisply. “Now I recover my second journal and reclaim my house. What month is it?”

“June. The kids are staying here for the summer.” Stan’s shoulders sagged. “So...yer gonna kick me out, huh?”

Ford was about to respond, but then the World Jumper’s voice echoed in his head again.

“And get to know your great-niece and nephew while you’re here? It wouldn’t do if they simply knew you as the strange man who lives in their basement and plans to kick out their other great-uncle at the end of the summer.”

Ford paused, looking away from his brother for a moment. During the time that it had taken them to tear the portal apart, he had seen the work that Stan had done in order to keep the portal together. It had looked shoddy, to be sure, but it had done its job of holding everything together.

If he was completely honest with himself, he would have admitted that there were times when he had done something similar on his travels with whatever materials he could find.

Still, he was angry that Stan would attempt to do this, but...if he was open to revealing his feelings….

“First, I need to find my second journal,” Ford replied. “Then I’ll consider any possible future actions.”

Stan relaxed and let out a sigh of relief, even though he didn’t seem to register the fact that it was relief. “Okay. Good. The kids are gonna want to get ta know ya now, anyway. Wouldn’t want ta keep ‘em in the dark, right?”

“I...suppose not.” A smile flickered across Ford’s face. He had a niece and nephew. He hadn’t expected to return home and discover that he had more family than when he had left.

“We’ll have to see about cleaning up this garbage later.” Stan kicked one of the dented metal plates that used to cover the inner workings of the portal. “Man, thirty years of work, down the drain. Doesn’t exactly seem right that it never got used ta bring ya back.”

Ford’s smile disappeared abruptly as he frowned at the comment. “If it had been used, it would have created a rift in space and time and who knows what kinds of monsters would have followed me through. Gravity Falls would have been placed in the hands of a Weirdmageddon.”

Stan snorted, but he looked serious. “I would have still gotten you back. And you and that nerd brain of yours would have still thought of a way to fix it.”

Ford tapped the bottom of his hammer’s handle, and the staff shortened as the hammer head folded in on itself. Snatching the short baton out of the air before it could fall to the floor, he hid it away in his coat again. “Maybe. But even I have my limits, Stanley.”

“Really? Considerin’ how we were as kids, I’d have thought you didn’t think you had any. Especially with how ragged you looked when--” Stan cut himself off, appearing suddenly uncertain. “How did ya end up like that, anyway? Was there someone already houndin’ ya fer your research or somethin’?”

“...something like that.” Ford took one look around the large room, nodding in satisfaction at the large pile of metal and other materials that were scattered around the room and bludgeoned to the point that it was hard to tell what they could have been used for in the first place. Then he turned and started back upstairs, leaving the rest of the machinery intact.

For now, anyway.

“Yer not gonna tell me everythin’ about what happened back then, are ya?” Stan came up behind his brother as they started up to the main floor.

“Some things are best left buried where they were,” Ford replied grimly, not looking back.

There came a grunt from behind him. “Got it.”

The tone in Stan’s voice almost made Ford stop on the stairs...almost like there was something about Stan that hinted at how he might know more than he let on.

Ford shook his head and kept going up, back into that abomination of a room that Stan had turned part of his home into.

He was going to figure out something to do with that abomination after he’d gotten his own affairs in order. There had to be something that he could do about Stanley….