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hoodoo12 · 3 years

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Elegy (1/6)

What follows is a story of Miss Argentina and Beetlejuice and how their own personal issues keep them locked in their own private hells. Contains smut and angst. It was done as a rp between @clairjohnson and myself. NSFW. Beetlejuice/Miss Argentina. Beej is a combination of movie and musical; Miss Argentina has contains hcs (such as her name and circumstances). Also contains minor mentions of OC Dante’s Inferno employees. (Tagging people who have asked in the past. If you’d like to be tagged, hmu. If you’d like to be untagged, hmu. @turtlepated @thewolfisapartofmysoul @beetlewise-and-pennyjuice @janitor-boy @beejiesbitch @angelicspaceprince) Enjoy!

He’d married, been murdered, vanquished the evil that was Juno – he wasn’t looking forward to seeing her again anytime soon – said some weird heartfelt goodbyes to people he just terrorized, and was carried off by his clones in the smallest, most subdued mosh pit style ever, for an exit that was worthy of some kind of award, just for the theatrics of it.

The second he was through the swirling mists of the doorway that separated the living from the Netherworld, he turned on his own clones and attacked them remorselessly, using claws and teeth to tear them apart, growling like he’d lost his mind and spitting like he was rabid.

None of the clones attempted to fight back or escape. They were part of him, and he was so fucking angry – it made him angrier that they just took their destruction passively, his destruction, a destruction of self that made his hands drip with gore, his mouth taste like clotted blood, and his clothing, the tuxedo conjured specifically for something positive in his fucking waste of a life, a deeper color.

He hated this fucking suit.

He was too exhausted by the end of his rampage to flick it away, however. Stepping over the piles of meat that had been clones, he wiped his hands down his front and winced as they brushed over the new ventilation that goddamn teenager graced him with. He kicked the door to the waiting room hard enough that it bounced off the interior wall of purgatory, startling the assholes sitting around waiting for their stupid numbers to be called.

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It had been another slow day in the waiting room. Not that Miss Argentina had any way to count “days” – time had little meaning in death – but her job was as uneventful now as it had been several hundred new arrivals ago. Staring down at her clipboard Maria crossed out the name of the last soul she’d sent back to meet their case worker. Juno was surprisingly absent at the moment, but the receptionist wasn’t too concerned. Her boss was a work-alcoholic and honestly, what else did Juno have to do? She’d be back soon.

In a practiced motion, one she’d done a million times, Maria stood and slid open the dividing screen to the waiting room.

“Number 5,678 Mr. Hen – “

The rest of the name caught in her throat when the door to the left of her was blown open, rattling on hinges that threatened to give. A split second of panic washed over her, an emotion really only needed for the living, before she saw who it was.

Betelgeuse.

“Mr. Hendrix,” she finished, moving her gaze from the fuming poltergeist to the sorry looking dead man standing up from his seat. “Your caseworker is waiting for you – please step through those doors.”

Maria placed her clipboard back on the desk then leaned out the window a little further, giving the older, bloodied man a deeper once over. “Back so soon, Mr. Betelgeuse? Should I pull you a number?”

"Fuck this place and fuck the numbers!" he spit, literally spit, making the ghost sitting nearest in his line of fire wipe his face as he hoisted himself up – some kind of heart attack took him, no doubt, from the lack of obvious trauma and the effort he took to get out of the molded plastic chair – and hurried as fast as he could out of range.

He could take that chair and beat down every wall in this place. He could tear apart every single soul in this forsaken pit. He could bypass the eons of fucking waiting and just march right down the hall to the Lost Souls' Room –

– scary thing was, that option held some real fucking appeal at the moment.

Beetlejuice glared at each and every dead person cowering in place. Fucking losers. Just like the fucking Maitlands, but worse, because they followed the goddamn directions in the fucking Handbook and were now stuck here.

But what did that say about him? the voice in the crate in the back of his mind whispered. You tried, and you still ended up right.here.with.them.

Beetlejuice grabbed the side of his head, mindless of the residual tackiness on his hand, and gave his hair a yank. Sometimes that dislodged the voice enough to make it shut up.

His gaze fell on the beauty queen behind the partition. He couldn't tell if she was politely waiting for his tantrum to subside, or if she was being indifferently patient, having seen it all before.

Maria wondered, absently, where all the blood had come from. She noticed the gaping hole in his chest and assumed it might all be his – but it was always hard to tell with Betelgeuse. His brand of “bio-exorcising” wasn’t the cleanest. However, based on his outfit, she doubted his day job was what sent him back here. The fool had tried to get married again.

Fixing him with a cool, pleasant smile, Maria yanked a number from the ticket dispenser and held it up. “I’ll just pull one for you, then. You know the rules – no number, no getting to see Juno.”

The beauty queen leaned further out of the window and rested her chin in the palm of her hand – her clipboard and list forgotten for the moment. Red tuxedo – a classic for him. How many times had she seen him in it? She could remember at least four, and she guessed he’d worn it twice as many times before she’d crossed over. Betelgeuse never told her how old he was, but after working with him for over three decades, it was clear he had a few hundred years under his belt.

When was he going to stop pulling this stunt? It never worked. Always ended up with him down in the waiting room – back here with her. Maria bristled, both angry and jealous that he got to leave this hell and go gallivanting top side as he pleased. Her smile tightened and she narrowed her eyes at him.

“You never invite me to your weddings,” Maria said casually, lifting the hand from her chin to examine the ruby manicure. “Any good plans for your honeymoon?”

She flicked her gaze up to catch his reaction.

The bitterness and pure rage inside him managed to ratchet up another notch with the receptionist's detached apathy to his situation as she offered the ticket out to him.

Anyone else, and he'd have taken that hand off at the wrist; he could feel his teeth lengthen in anticipation of it. As it were, he snatched the paper away with enough force to tear it. He crumpled it in his fist and shoved it into a pocket without looking at it, casting his glance around the room again at all the lesser assholes who were pointedly trying not to look at him and become the focus of his ire.

Maria's words, her barbed little query spoken in her light accent, just poured salt into the gaping hole in his chest.

"Fuck you," he roared. His voice cracked.

Maria was used to seeing Betelgeuse angry. She was also used to seeing him happy – manically so. The man had a way of taking emotions to the extreme. She was not, however, used to hearing the crack in his voice. The next biting remark died on her tongue and she peered up from her nails, her brow furrowing.

“Oh, don’t look so upset.” She tutted, but there was less sarcasm behind it. “You have all the time in the world to try again, don’t you? It’s not like you’re stuck here (like she was). Not for long, anyway.”

Had this time been different from his other attempts? The pain in his expression suggested so. If he kept this up she may just bring him around back to avoid disturbing the waiting ghosts. Maria didn’t like bending the rules, but for the good of her job she’d bend them. That’s what she told herself at least. For the job.

try again

not like you're stuck here

Her words meant to comfort stung, jamming themselves like smaller spears into his chest. She was partially right. It wasn't like he was stuck here, so long as he could convince some dumb sucker to fulfill the terms of the contract. Finding the right dumb sucker was what took the time and energy.

That led to the whole "try again" debacle. What was the point? He'd never succeed; despite the seemingly impressive power he had in the upper world, it was useless. He was useless, like everything was smoke and mirrors and the one being fooled was him.

He realized he had his fists clenched so hard he was shaking. The ghosts surrounding him in the mismatched furniture, patiently waiting their turn, still did their damnedest to pretend they heard and saw nothing.

"No one is like me!" he'd shrieked in the Maitlands' faces.

The stupid deads sitting here proved it. He had half a mind to grab the nearest one and rip him apart like he'd treated his clones, just to continue to give his rage an outlet, but on top of everything else he didn't want to deal with the consequences of that. Maria was still watching him, as if she expected him to do something of the sort, like she was steeling herself to have to intervene and de-escalate him, even though he knew it wasn't anywhere near part of her job.

The shaking of his fists drew her gaze down – would he really be so brash as to tear through the souls waiting? Not that he could actually kill anyone, but it would make them have to get a new place in line . . . and the paperwork involved would be a headache.

Maria lifted her Miss Argentina sash over her head and draped it on the back of her chair. Quietly, but quickly, she moved around her desk and out the side door that led to the waiting room. Like approaching a wild animal you didn’t want to startle, Maria crept forward. Delicately, she placed her fingers on the side of his arm to get his attention, keeping her back straight and her expression calm.

“How about you come wait in the back, Mr. Betelgeuse.”

Her voice was smooth. She had started adding in the “Mr.” when he’d gone rogue and stopped working for Juno. The days of familiarity, of her calling him “Beej”, were long gone. Maria still kept a certain level of fondness for the poltergeist, though she’d never admit it aloud.

The roots of his hair were probably the color of this fucking suit.

When Maria physically approached and laid a manicured hand on his arm, he almost spun on her. When the pressure on his arm increased, aided by her nails digging in so hard he could feel them through the layers of fabric, he forced himself to relent.

"Fine," he agreed bitterly.

She’d felt him tense at her touch, and Maria briefly considered she’d made a grave mistake approaching him, until his muscles relaxed – slightly – under her fingers. Thank goodness.

Keeping her hand on his arm the receptionist guided him to the office door. She peered out to catch the relief on the newly dead faces before shutting it behind her.

“Take a seat.” She gestured to the chair next to her desk and sat back down on her own. She wanted to stay disinterested, wanted to keep things professional, but she couldn’t.

“So.” Maria pulled some papers together and tapped them on her desk until they were even. “Is most of that blood yours? I haven’t seen you looking so . . . out of sorts in quite some time.”

The beauty queen looked at him from the corner of her eye, pretending to keep most of her attention on the work in front of her.

He sat where indicated, in the hard straight back chair beside her desk. If he wanted, he could look up and see the filing cabinets, the paths in the rug worn through to the subfloor underneath, the endless stacks of paper, and the hallway where the caseworker's offices were.

He didn't want to. He could walk through the place blindfolded. Nothing changed in the Netherworld; it was all slog and dismay. And they thought he was crazy for wanting back out?!

A cigarette appeared in his hand. Sticking it between his lips he glanced up at her question and statement.

"Yeah. The blood's mine. First from that goddamn teenager and second – " He broke off there and used lighting the cigarette as an excuse not to finish and admit he'd torn apart his own clones in a fit of rage. " – never mind. Nothing matters. It's the same shit for eternity."

Maria watched, with pointed interest, as he brought the cigarette up to his mouth. Well, at least the blood was his. Less mess for Juno to clean up later.

“Thanks.” She drawled sardonically, bringing her own cigarette into existence. “I’d love one.”

As she took a drag, Maria let his remark sit in silence for a few moments, unsure of how to respond. Most of the dead seemed to be having an on-going crisis – and if Beej had been feeling the same, he’d never let on.

“You’ve always been one for the dramatics. But never nihilism.” She paused, “ – also, did you just say teenager? You know what – I don’t want to know.”

She threw her hand up at that, waving the question off. He was a scumbag, to be sure, but the thought of him being that scummy was not an idea she wanted to entertain.

He'd have felt bad about not offering her a smoke if he was in a different state of mind. As it were, it didn't even register until she pointed it out. Even then he couldn't quite bring himself to care. It was easy, however, to fill in the blanks she left out.

"It was a fuckin' green card thing," he growled. "Most teens – especially gothy ones who think their existence is the worst of anyone, ever – are dumb as shit. Easy to manipulate. Except this one was too damn clever for her own good. She used – "

It was on the tip of his tongue to admit his naked, desperate desire to be accepted was used effectively against him, but that made sour bile rise in the back of his throat and he had to swallow it down again.

" – ugly art to impale me," he corrected after only a brief hesitation. He took a deep drag, and was dismayed to see that some smoke drifted out the hole in his chest. That kid must've punctured a lung. He sighed as he pulled at his shirt to try and cover it.

From the corner of his eye he watched her watch him. He didn't want her pity. He didn't know what he wanted, but he knew he didn't want her pity.

Maria felt herself relax at his growled response – pleased to hear he was still a normal scumbag of the con-man variety. She couldn’t hide the twitch of her lips into a smile when he admitted how he kicked the bucket this time around. She’d seen a lot of dumb ways to die, but ugly art was a first. Chuckling through a drag, she eyed the smoke coming out of his chest, causing her lips to curl even further upward.

As good as it was to have him talking, the anger radiating off him was still obvious. She could practically feel it on her skin. Whenever he got out of hand Juno was usually around to deal with him – but not this time. She was still surprisingly absent. Fortunately, Maria had worked here long enough to know what her boss’s trump card was.

“Juno’s been away from the office today.” she started, putting out her cigarette in the glass tray on her desk. “And you look like you’re in the need of a distraction after . . . your little accident.”

The receptionist spun her chair to face him, one slender bare leg crossed over the other, and raised a brow at the bloodied ghost.

“How does a drink or two at Dante’s sound? On Juno’s tab, of course.”

She smiled, scarlet lips parting to show off her straight white smile. In many ways the two were opposites. Beej was unapologetically himself, moss and all, while Miss Argentina went to great lengths to appear perfect. Even though she had let some of that anxiety go in death, bad habits were hard to break.

“I’ll join you – if you don’t mind. I could use some time out of the office.”

In an effort to appear disinterested in the state of both his clothing and the new hole he was going to have to figure out how to close, Beetlejuice kept his eyes on the paperwork she'd straightened. A kid's profile, from the looks of it. One perk about working as Juno's assistant way back when was helping the kids when they came through –

He glanced up sharply when Maria mentioned Dante's. Actually suggesting it, and accompanying him to it. He would've thought that the beauty queen would pretend that place never existed, although he knew she must have been both scouted and offered a job there.

"On Juno's tab? A drink or five sounds great."

Some time that old hag was going to show up again, slathered in Sandworm spit and gastric juices, and he'd much rather not be found here if possible. He stood up abruptly, making the wooden chair squeal against the floor.

"Fine. I'll let you take me out."

“Only drinks, Mr. Betelgeuse. I’m not paying for any other services.”

Miss Argentina hadn’t had a chance to be out in quite some time. With an eternity stretching out in front of you, there was little rush to do much of anything other than your assigned job. Peering down at her burgundy gown, she also realized she hadn’t changed her outfit in years – wearing the same dress to two different parties used to be a mortifying thought when she was alive.

How things change. The beauty queen stood, and with a few moments of concentration, changed into a red cocktail dress. Her French curled hair now in tight waves around her shoulders. It felt nice. A little like being alive, even. Even if it was just to go out and watch this man get drunk off his ass. But she understood his desire to live again – didn’t all ghosts wish they could be top side? He was certainly the most tenacious about getting there.

“All right, ready when you are,” she said while smoothing down her new outfit. She turned from the older man and started towards the office exit, throwing a ‘are you coming?’ glance over her shoulder at him.

He couldn't tear his eyes away from her hands smoothing down the fabric of her choice of dress. With his cigarette still caught between two fingers, he ran his thumb over his lower lip, thinking about the differences between the dead and the breathers changing clothing – the breathers had to take it off and put it back on, versus simply willing a new outfit into existence.

Of course the dead could be titillatingly mundane, if they chose. It was too bad this was the never-closed office, and there was a waiting room full of ghosts on the other side of the glass partition –

At her invitation and with a sigh, Beetlejuice stepped off the road that daydream was headed. He'd lost the chance with her a long time ago.

He flicked his still lit cigarette into the ether and decided if she was going to be dolled up, it wouldn't be right for him to accompany her in what he was wearing. Between one step towards the door and the next, his blood-soaked tux became his favorite striped suit. He left the hole in his torso under his shirt.

"Lead the way, muñeca." tbc . . .

#writing #role-play #BeetleTina #Beetlejuice #Miss Argentina #Beetlejuice x Miss Argentina #Movie Beetlejuice #musical Beetlejuice #fanfiction #rp

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omgrachwrites · 4 years

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The Book of Love - Chapter One

Pairing: Remus Lupin x Ravenclaw!Reader

Summary: After a breakup leaves you heartbroken and miserable, things start to change for the better when you begin exchanging notes in a library book with a mystery boy.

Warnings: lil bit of angst, fluff, lil bit of swearing, Sirius being the best friend ever, Remus being adorable

Words: 2362

Disclaimer: This gif doesn’t belong to me!

A/N: This is for @hp-imagines-07 writing challenge so I hope you all enjoy! I wanted to add more friendship in this to go along with the romance which is why the first part of this chapter focuses on Sirius’ and Y/N’s friendship so I hope that’s okay! Please let me know what you think and if you would like to be tagged, I love you all! xxx

Chapter One

The beautiful summer’s day had started out perfectly, you and your family were staying at your grandmother’s estate over the summer holiday. Your grandmother owned a good few acres of land, meaning that you could have your space if you needed it. That morning you had been mesmerized by the way that the sun rose in the sky, all pink and beautiful, casting a blush of magic over all the land, as far as the eye could see.

Though, that beauty and wonder all seemed to be distant memories now as you stared at the front page of The Daily Prophet like you had been doing for the last few hours. Rage and sadness filled your chest like an inferno. What had you done to deserve this? Blinking away angry tears, you ripped off the front page of the newspaper that read, ‘Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa Black announce their surprise engagement,’ and you crumpled it up into a ball as you stalked across the lush green lawn.

You finally let out a deep breath, one that you hadn’t realised you had been holding in as you leaned against the white marquee and you tried to concentrate on the sweet smell of the honeysuckle and the cheerful song of the lark. You were startled when you heard a loud crack from across the lawn and you glanced up to see it was your childhood best friend and he was walking towards you with a look of sympathy on his face. Sighing you quickly wiped your eyes, you didn’t want or need his sympathy and you certainly didn’t want him to see you cry.

��What the hell are you doing here Sirius?” you asked, your tone was sharp and defensive as you wrapped your arms around yourself.

An expression of polite surprise flitted its way across his features before his face was transformed with a smirk, “well, you see, I knew you were staying here so I apparated, took my test early you know,” you gave him a sharp look and he sighed, holding his hands up in defence, “I came to see if you were okay. Considering my cousin is now engaged to your ex-boyfriend,” he wrapped his arm around your shoulders.

You sighed as you smiled at him gratefully and you rested your head against his chest, “at least I know why he dumped me at the start of summer,” you shrugged, you had been staring at that front page for hours and you now felt quite numb, “I should have known something was wrong but I guess he wanted to know what it was like to go out with someone who was never good enough for him.”

Sirius tutted at your words and he shook his head incredously at you, “how can you think that way Y/N? You were way too good for that slime ball.”

You giggled at your friend’s words and smiled at him before you closed your eyes and basked in the warm sunshine, “honestly, I’m more annoyed that Narcissa would do this to me, I mean, I know that we weren’t best friends but we were at least friends.”

Sirius’ fingers toyed with the ends of your hair, “you know that you can hang around with me and my friends anytime you want don’t you? Lily and Alice really like you and I know they would love it if another girl joined our group. My friends like you for some crazy unknown reason,” he joked and you pushed at his shoulder, shooting him a death glare.

“Shut it! Otherwise, I’ll hex you and damage that pretty face; I’m a delight to be around,” you smirked, “but really, thank you Sirius. I really do appreciate it but I don’t want to impose.”

Sirius frowned at your words before he shook his head, “Y/N, you’re my best friend, don’t tell James that I just said that,” he chuckled, “you could never impose.”

You felt a sudden wash of affection for Sirius as you beamed and gave him a quick hug, “thank you,” you mumbled against his chest before pulling away, “so how are you?”

Sirius grinned as he shrugged, stuffing his hands into his pockets, “I’m good, really I am now that I don’t live with my mum and dad anymore.”

You nodded understandingly, you knew just how much heartache and torture that he’d endured in that dark house, “you never have to go back there Sirius. Now,” you smiled, clapping your hands, “do you want to stay for dinner?” you asked as you walked up towards the house.

“Ah yes, my ulterior motive for coming to see you,” he smirked, throwing his arm around your shoulders, “as long as your grandmother doesn’t try and set us up again.”

You made a face at his words and you gagged, it was true enough that Sirius had devastatingly good looks but there had only ever been friendship between the two of you and you both liked it that way, “no offense but you’re like my brother.”

“I completely agree and besides if I made a move on you, Remus would never forgive me.”

You weren’t looking at Sirius but you could just hear the smirk in his voice. You frowned and cocked your head to the side as you thought of the handsome boy with the tousled hair and the stars in his eyes. Remus was one of Sirius’ best friends but you had never seen him as anything more than that, he was an absolute sweetheart though. Besides, after Lucius you didn’t really want to jump into anything with anyone just yet, it wouldn’t be fair to anyone. Though, you did crave the romance.

“You’re so full of shit!” you laughed loudly and pushed him so hard that he stumbled. It was a relief when you walked into the cool house that was alive with so many amazing smells. Sirius sniffed the air with a look of appreciation, “we have a guest over for dinner guys!” you grinned as you pulled Sirius into the kitchen.

He hung back sheepishly, looking uncharacteristically shy but your mother beamed when she saw him, “it’s so lovely to see you Sirius!” she enveloped him into a warm hug and you noticed that Sirius returned the hug just as tight. You all knew that he hadn’t had a lot of motherly hugs.

“Good to see you again son,” your father smiled, the edges of his eyes crinkling as he shook Sirius’ hand.

“Thank you so much for having me,” Sirius grinned.

Your grandmother had been watching this whole interaction with a wicked smirk on her face, “yes welcome Sirius, and please make yourself at home. Who knows, you two might be coming up here alone in years to come.”

Groaning internally, you rolled your eyes and exchanged an amused look with Sirius, “we’re just friends Grandma.”

Your grandmother shrugged, “you can’t crush an old woman’s dream my dear,” she smiled at the both of you before she resume cooking.

Dinner that evening was a joyful occasion; it always was when you were staying with your grandmother. There was lots of laughter and beaming smiles, the only downside was the fact that your parents wouldn’t let you or Sirius try any of the Fire Whiskey. But you were sure that when you got back to school, Sirius would work his charm on the barmaid in The Three Broomsticks and you were be able to procure some.

Ever since you and Sirius were children your parents always treated Sirius with warmth and they had always made him feel like part of the family, and for that you were very grateful. After dessert you gave Sirius a hug as he stood on the doorstep, “I’ll see you at school, thank you for coming to see if I was okay.”

Sirius grinned as he smoothed your hair down, “you’re very welcome, I know that you’d do the same for me, thank you for having me around for dinner,” he hesitated, “think about what I said about Remus, not for me but for yourself. You deserve happiness Y/N and Remus is a great guy.”

You smiled lightly at him, “goodnight Sirius.”

Sirius nodded in understanding but you couldn’t miss the look of disappointment on his face as he turned to leave. You didn’t want to tell Sirius that you weren’t looking to get caught up with anyone. You had always been hopeless in love, perhaps that was why you craved the romance, you craved every part of it like something out of a fairy tale. Though, unbeknownst to you, fate worked in mysterious ways.

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Remus had sorely missed this, he had missed the hustle and bustle of the magical world, there were hundreds of magical children filling up the platform and he noticed that most of them seemed to be in little huddled groups. There were all whispering about something and they were all looking in the same direction. With a raised eyebrow Remus’ hazel eyes followed their gaze but he didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. He finally found his friends and greeted them with a grin as they began to walk the length of the platform.

“I think that Y/N is going to be hanging round with us more this year,” Sirius said and almost instantly Remus felt heat travel up from his toes and settled on his cheeks, his whole body felt hot and his insides had turned to mush. He had had a crush on Y/N since their third year but he’d never really worked up the courage to talk to her properly.

Lily let out a sigh of relief as she combed her fingers through her long red hair, “that’s great, I really like Y/N. Don’t you Remus?” Lily smirked over at him and he glared back at her, his cheeks felt like they were on fire.

“Yeah o-of course I like her. How come she’ll be spending more time with us?”

James raised an eyebrow as he leaned over Sirius to look at Remus, “you did see the newspaper right?”

Remus sighed as he nodded, “yeah I saw it,” the guy she had been dating last term was now engaged to someone who used to be her friend. He couldn’t imagine how sad and angry she felt.

“You’re so full of shit Malfoy; I can’t believe you’d do this!” Remus glanced up as he heard the angry voice and he saw Y/N talking to Lucius Malfoy.

She looked beautiful – but so sad – as she shook her head, turning away from Lucius, still looking over her shoulder at him. She walked right into Remus’ chest and she gasped as she dropped her book on the tarmac. Remus smiled and reached out his hands to steady her.

“Remus, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going, and I should have been,” she flushed and looked up at him with a small smile.

Remus grinned as he shook his head, “honestly, don’t worry about it Y/N,” he bent down to pick her book up and he smiled when he saw the front cover, “The Fellowship of the Ring? The Lord of the Rings is my favourite book series,” he chuckled as he held out her book.

“Thank you,” Y/N smiled as she took the book from him, “it was difficult to get into but I really like it so far,” she smiled with a nod. Her smile was so beautiful that for once, Remus was lost for words and all he could do was smile back.

“So, Y/N. Do you want to sit with us?” Y/N’s eyes tore away from Remus’ face as she looked at Lily who looked very excited. She looked like Christmas had come early.

“That would be amazing, thank you Lily,” she flushed and Lily took her hand in hers, smiling at her.

“You’re welcome; Alice and I could really use another girl in our group. We are overrun by testosterone,” Lily smirked over at her boyfriend who gasped and looked scandalized.

“How dare you?” Frank, Alice’s boyfriend gasped playfully, making everyone laugh as they boarded the train.

Peter groaned quietly as he folded his arms, “please don’t spend hours talking about shopping and boys or whatever. I don’t think that I could take it.”

Remus sighed and closed his eyes, massaging his temples as he took in Peter’s clumsy words. He knew that Peter had the tendency to word vomit when he was nervous but it didn’t make this any less embarrassing.

All three girls gave Peter a hard look before Alice spoke up, “is that seriously what you think girls talk about?”

“Jeez, Pete,” Sirius chuckled, trying to relieve some of the tension as they all found an empty compartment.

For the first couple of hours the compartment was impossibly noisy as the friends played Exploding Snap. Y/N’s fingers brushed against Remus’ as they both reached for a card at the same time. At her touch, goose bumps erupted on Remus’ arms, when Y/N smiled at him gently he had to wonder if she felt it too.

Soon enough, the game grew boring and the compartment grew quiet as the train started to travel through wilder parts of the country. Sirius, James and Peter were concocting a new prank while Lily and Alice were talking about their next Hogsmeade trip and Frank was snoring loudly in the corner. Y/N seemed to be engrossed in her book and Remus took this time to watch her, he watched the shadows that her thick eyelashes made on her cheeks and he watched the way her lips moved silently as she read the words on the page.

Almost as if she could feel Remus’ eyes on her, she glanced up to meet his eyes and raised her eyebrow with the ghost of a smirk on her face. Remus’ heart plummeted in his chest, feeling caught out, all he could do was manage a small smile. Y/N smiled back before going back to her book and Remus let out a slow breath. It was then that he made the decision to be brave and try to get to know her this year.

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@smiithys @hp-imagines-07 @pregnant-piggy @reylo-hope @unexpectedurl @siriusblackspam

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simplyclockwork · 4 years

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Simplyclockwork Fic Recs

Alternate Universe/Crossovers

I am breaking my massive fic rec into pieces by genres.

Performance in a Leading Role - @madlori

Explicit. 156,714 words. 21 chapters.

Sherlock Holmes is an Oscar winner in the midst of a career slump. John Watson is an Everyman actor trapped in the rom-com ghetto. When they are cast as a gay couple in a new independent drama, will they surprise each other? Will their on-screen romance make its way into the real world?

A Moment’s Surrender - anchors

Mature. 64,272 words. 10 chapters.

Sherlock tours worldwide with the English National Ballet. John dances the Lindy Hop competitively all across the globe. That they would meet, then, by the slimmest of chances in one lonely city, is pure coincidence. The whole 'dancing together' bit is a little more planned. Dancer!AU.

Love or What You Will - @miss-frankenstein

Teen and Up. 31,987 words. 11 chapters.

John is an English professor who specializes in War and Post-War Literature and Sherlock is the brilliant yet impossible Ph.D. student assigned to be his TA because no one in the Chemistry Department is willing to put up with him. And - somewhere between Waugh and Plath, e-mails and takeaway, novels and villanelles - they fall in love.

Two Two One Bravo Baker - abudantlyqueer

Explicit. 114,574 words. 27 chapters.

Captain John Watson of 40 Commando, the Royal Marines, is assigned to protect and assist Sherlock Holmes as he investigates what appears to be a simple war atrocity in Afghanistan. An intense attraction ignites between the two men as they uncover a conspiracy that threatens everything they’ve ever known, but Sherlock is as much hunted as hunter, and everyone close to him is in deadly danger. Can he solve the case in time to save himself and John?

The Jewel in the Tower - PoppyAlexander (@fuckyeahfightlock)

Explicit. 207,079 words. 39 chapters.

"Xie [...] had invented an entire pleasure-industry by combining superior visual aesthetics with impeccable personal attention. Drasha salons were by that time a feature of any even half-decent house of repose in every pleasure district in the British Isles, but once upon a time, when Xie debuted, there had been only one, and Xie had named it: the Icehouse."

* In a contemporary dystopia, Unity is peace--despite the fact unsanctioned information, illicit currency, and every sort of danger flows unchecked in the world's pleasure districts.

John Watson, a weary hired gun, is assigned by the mysterious Mentor to investigate a subversive element lurking in the Icehouse, the world's most famous House of Repose. As accustomed as he is to dealing with the unexpected, John is nevertheless woefully unprepared to meet the gem of the Ice house, Xie, the world renowned "drashaskaya," the living work of art after which all other drashas are modeled.

In sumptuous suites, amid trailing puddles of silk and fervent whispers in the night, John soon learns that nothing is as it seems in the floating world of London's pleasure district. *

Modern-day dystopian/one-world government/espionage/geisha!lock AU

The Loss of Flesh and Soul - deuxexmycroft

Explicit. 60,000+ words. Unfinished.

Five years after John Watson puts the murderous Sherlock Holmes behind bars, a vicious copycat killer emerges. A reluctant John is pulled out of retirement to seek the expertise of the only man who can help, a man who has developed an unsettling obsession with John himself.

Crossover with Red Dragon/Silence of the Lambs

Simplyclockwork note: Not fully finished, but an alternative ending was posted. Still worth reading without a full ending.

I wake up and I wake up and you’re still dead - thisprettywren (memento/Sherlock crossover)

Mature. 24,226 words. One-shot.

Sherlock isn't the only one who's lost.

The Sinking of the Titanic: Sixty Years Later - flawedamythyst

Teen and Up. 15,340 words. One-shot.

John Watson is interviewed for a documentary being made for the sixtieth anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. The story he tells is not the one the interviewer was expecting.

The Bachelors’ Handfasting - Jberry

Explicit. 30,624 words. 20 chapters.

After her son is caught in a compromising position, Victoria Holmes must make arrangements for a quick marriage between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.

Simplyclockwork note: Kilt!Lock and Soft Bab Sherlock (but of age)

Just to Hold You Close - @sussexbound

Explicit. 70,841 words. 18 chapters.

When a woman is murdered and the last person to see her alive is recently invalided army vet turned reluctant (and prickly) professional cuddler, John Watson, Sherlock Holmes is pulled into a world of intimacy and intrigue he never could have imagined. John is a conundrum and mystery: frank yet reserved, tender yet angry, open yet afraid. Sherlock is instantly drawn into his orbit, and begins to feel and desire things he never has before.

Summit Fever - @jbaillier

Mature. 78,867 words. 18 chapters.

After graduating from medical school, John Watson followed his heart to the Himalayas. Ten years later, he's a haunted cynic working for his ex-lover's trekking and mountaineering company. Will leading an expedition to Annapurna I — the most lethal of all the world's highest mountains — shake John out of his reverie, and who is the mystery client added to the group at the last minute?

The Last Companion - standbygo (@blogstandbygo)

Explicit. 34,101 words. 14 chapters.

Thirty years after the Miranda Wars, there is peace, both on the Rim and the Core planets. There are a number of old social mores still in place, such as the Order of Companions, but there is a sense that even such respected practices are coming to an end…

Sherlock is a Companion - the best Companion on Persephone. With a bit of detective work on the side, of course. Then he meets a man named John Watson, encounters a series of bizarre cases, and finds his world is getting turned upside down.

Simplyclockwork note: Sherlock/Firefly AU!

Out There - @discordantwords

Teen and up. 131,695 words. 10 chapters.

FBI Special Agent John Watson, medical doctor and army veteran, is assigned to assist eccentric genius Sherlock Holmes with paranormal investigations on the X-Files project.

This is a fusion with The X-Files, written for the Fall TV Season Challenge.

Say You’ll Stay With Me - justacookieofacumberbatch (buffyholic)

Explicit. 63,349 words. 21 chapters.

It was just supposed to be an ordinary business trip, but when John's car stalls out on Hollywood Boulevard, he meets someone who just might change his life.

Simplyclockwork note: Pretty Woman/Sherlock AU.

Gimme Shelter - @sincewhendoyoucallme-john

Explicit. 159,368 words. 21 chapters.

All John Watson wants is the feeling of a freshly waxed surfboard under his feet and the hot California sun baking down onto his back. To finally go pro in the newly formed world of professional surfing and leave the dark memories of his past behind him as he rips across the face of a towering blue barrel. To lounge beside the beach bonfire every evening with an ice cold beer tucked into the cool sand beside him and listen to Pink Floyd and the Doors while the saltwater dries in his sun bleached hair.

That's all he wants, that is, until the hot young phenom taking Oahu and the Hawaiian shores by storm steps up next to him in the sand in the second round of the 1976 International Surf Competition.

Apokalypsis - songlin

Mature. 12,125 words. 4 chapters.

There were things I never told you because I thought we had time. There is no time left in the world anymore.

Sensory Science - @sussexbound

Explicit. 80,017 words. 24 chapters.

John Watson has been invalided home from Afghanistan and is struggling with anxiety, depression, PTSD and insomnia, when an old friend from med school recommends something that might help: An ASMR YouTube Channel run by a friend.

One session in and John is hooked, not only by the way the ASMR seems to calm him after nightmares, and help him sleep, but also by the mysterious man who runs it.

Comparative Literature is for Idiots - lookupkate

Explicit. 8,173 words. 4 chapters.

Sherlock thinks he's very bohemian, smoking cigarettes and wearing patchouli oil and writing poetry in the attic. In truth he's just your average seventeen year old, not showering enough and being hit particularly hard by his continued path through puberty.

John is getting his masters in literature. He's the TA for comparative literature and yearns for romance. Romance has other plans, plans that require him to go without for at least ten more years. Plans that put in front of him the exact man he'll finally fall in love with, but in boy form.

When Sherlock happens to see John reading poetry at a coffee shop he is immediately smitten. John holds him at arm's length because he's a bloody child.

How will ten years and miles apart change that view, and will John be able to understand how he's fallen in love with someone he doesn't ever get to see?

Stay tuned for puberty hi jinx and the passing of time to find out. And yes, there will be love.

An Everlasting Inferno - thatawkwardfriend

Explicit. 108,389 words. 15 chapters.

Sherlock and John are both men who operate outside the law. John works for Mary and her hitmen in order to keep a roof over his head. Sherlock does anything his drug dealer asks of him in exchange for free drugs and housing.

They meet one night in a darkened garage to negotiate a deal. But they soon find out that neither of their bosses are being entirely honest with them about their goals or motives. With a little poking around, they stumble upon something much bigger than themselves and discover that perhaps, it might be in their best interests to work together.

(Loosely inspired by StartUp and Little Favour)

Only To Be With You - @sincewhendoyoucallme-john

Mature. 40,768 words. 4 chapters.

I tell myself that next time I’ll come near this same place again. Wait around for the mysterious stranger in his coat to dash past me, hot on the heels of a new criminal in black.

I think this all the way back to my Exit, planning where I’ll wait and what I’ll say when I see him. Scheming on how to get his name. It’s only once I reach the Exit Point door that I realize two hours and forty-five minutes have passed, and I realize that this won’t be the last time I Visit. It won’t be the last time at all.

You Give Me Fever - michi_thekiller

Explicit. 16,122 words. One-shot.

Thou givest fever when we kisseth, fever with thy flaming youth Fever I'm afire; fever, yea, I burn forsooth "He's the kind of boy you want to take apart."

Gratuitous Greaserlock. It's essentially 16k of mostly-porn. Warnings for underage sex between teens.

If you’re one of the authors listed here and have a Tumblr, and would like me to link it (if I haven’t already), please let me know!

#simplyclockwork fic rec #fic rec #alternate universe #au #Sherlock #Sherlock bbc #BBC Sherlock #Sherlock Holmes #John Watson #Johnlock #fixing my fic rec list #please stand by #fan fiction

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aforrestofstuff · 4 years

Note

Okay! I have a burning question for you, my dude. Music is my life, and I wanna know what kind of music the OPM casts listen to. Thanks, my guy!

I had a feeling this would be inevitable lol. I don’t really know a whole lot about music or genres or anything like that so I’m just gonna give you a rundown of each character individually and some song recs along with that just to smooth things out a little. Thanks for your ask, by the way! ❤️ Now my playlists will be put to good use.

A Brief Rundown of the Major OPM Characters’ Music Tastes:

Blast: hc that he doesn’t even have ears since he never fucking LISTENS

Terrible Tornado: Stuff that makes her feel powerful. Loud vocals and good instrumentals. Also, she’s a little angsty since she’s saltier than the gotdamn Pacific almost all of the time. (Recs: Florence and the Machine - How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, Susanne Sundfør - Delirious, Florence and the Machine - What Kind of Man, Kali Uchis - Dead to Me, Let’s Eat Grandma - Falling Into Me)

Fubuki: some of that real classy shit. Slow songs that are nice to just have a cup of tea with. Nothing too meaty or fast-paced, she enjoys taking a moment to breathe every once and a while since life gets pretty hectic when you’re managing a gang of some 30 hooligans. (Recs: Wes - Midnight Low, any song from Lana Del Rey’s entire discography lol, Florence and the Machine - Grace, The Marìas - I Don’t Know You, Yellow House - Ain’t Gonna Call, Feng Suave - Toking, Dozing)

Silverfang: Stuff from his time. I hc that he was a bit of a party animal back in his prime so he’s gotta have those grooves. Disco to the extremo. Also, another hc: Garou absolutely hates his music. He would play it during training and Garou would contemplate homicide. (Recs: Frankie Valli - Grease, The Edgar Winter Group - Free Ride, KC and the Sunshine Band - I’m Your Boogie Man, Matthew Wilder - Break My Stride, The Main Ingredient - Everybody Plays the Fool, Andrea True Connection - More, More, More)

Bomb: save as Silverfang, although I hc that Bomb was a little more of a nerd growing up. Still, he never missed out on a good party. (Additional Recs: KC and the Sunshine Band - Get Down Tonight, The Trammps - Disco Inferno, Tierra - Together, Cornelius Bros and Sister Rose - Too Late to Turn Back Now)

Atomic Samurai: Old shit. Shit older than Silverfang. He’s really not that old, but his soul is fucking ancient and he’s got that classic “grrr music these days sucks” kind of shithead attitude. (Recs: Jim Croce - Time in a Bottle, Dion - Runaround Sue, The Carpenters - The End of the World, The Band - The Weight)

Child Emperor: Upbeat synth. Stuff to listen to while he’s working on his machines and whatnot. Probably has meaty beats to keep him in tune with what he’s doing, like working around a clock. Probably some groovy citypop in there too. (Recs: Taeko Ohnuki - 4:00 AM, Junko Ohashi - Telephone Number, Tatsuro Yamashita - Magic Ways, Hiroyuki Sawano - NEXUS, Superfly - Kakusei, Mariya Takeuchi - Plastic Love)

Metal Knight: Intrumentals that Disney villains listen to. Deep, dark shit that makes you feel sad. He probably feeds off of negative emotion. What a toolbag. (Recs: Lucas King - Sociopath, Abel Korzeniowski- Table for Two, Max Richter - Never Goodbye, Max Richter - She Remembers, Evelyn Stein - Quiet Resource, Mac Quayle - Adagio in G Minor)

King: video game soundtracks, obviously. Might be some electro funk in there too, as a treat. (Recs: Metal Gear Solid 3 OST - Snake Eater, Mick Gordon - Rip and Tear, Xenoblade Chronicles OST - Main Theme, Persona 5 OST - Last Surprise, Daft Punk - Verdis Quo, Toby Fox - Hopes and Dreams, Disasterpeace - Prologue, iamthekidyouknowwhatimean - Run, Darren Korb - Old Friends)

Zombieman: Dad Music. Old rock that makes you wanna rail some lines of white thunder and dance on top of a car. He’d be reluctant to try out new stuff but does so nevertheless. Just a little bit of weird alternative here and there. (Recs: Poison - Unskinny Bop, Mötley Crüe - Dr. Feelgood, Black Sabbath - War Pigs, Def Leppard - Animal, CRX - Walls, MGMT - Little Dark Age, Pink Floyd - Money, Queens of the Stone Age - Villains of Circumstance)

Drive Knight: Dark synth, obviously. Need I say more? (Recs: El Tigr3 - She Swallowed Burning Coals, Trevor Something - Enjoy the Silence, Greg Drombrowski - Devour, GUNSHIP - Woken Furies, GUNSHIP - Thrasher, Carpenter Brut - Invasion A.D., Kavinsky - Nightcall)

Pig God: this guy probably just listens to ASMR of people eating food lol.

Superalloy Darkshine: Upbeat stuff that’s good for exercise; loving those new jams along with some of the old. He’s got a pretty groovy style. (Diane Ross - Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, Saint Motel - Puzzle Pieces, CRUISR - All Over, Barry White - Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up, Sade - Kiss of Life)

Watchdog Man: 10 hour loop of wolves howling on a summer night.

Flashy Flash: classical. Some nice instrumentals to listen to while training. Stuff that preferably doesn’t have any or very little lyrics so it’s not too busy on his ears while he’s fantasizing about killing someone. (Recs: Vaughn Williams - The Lark Ascending, Debussy - Rêverie, Grieg - Peace of the Woods, André Laplante - Une Barque sur L’Ocean)

Metal Bat: Modern alternative. A little bit harder than say, Mumen and Kama, but not as hard as Zombieman or Death Gatling. He’s that middle ground where he’s still got some real bangers, but Zenko can listen as well. He’ll play this stuff loudly as he’s doing chores and working out, no headphones ever. It gets pretty annoying. (Recs: Foals - Exits, The Blue Stones - Black Holes, Solid Ground, CRX - Broken Bones, Jungle - Happy Man, The Strokes - Reptilia, We Are Trees - Girlfriend)

Genos: synth. But not just any synth, some heavy, fast-paced synth that’s just like him: speedy, relentless, and powerful. He listens to shit that’ll make you wanna get up and start killing Terminators. Probably. There’s some other synths in the mix too because we love a three-dimensional king. (Recs: Carpenter Brut - Division Ruine, The Protomen - I Still Believe, Carpenter Brut - Leather Teeth, Gunship - Tech Noir, TWRP - Phantom Racer, Le Castle Vania - Red Circle)

Tanktop Master: Dad music but the type of dad music that makes you think your dad was a sappy nerd back in the day. Long tracks that are good for workouts. (Tears for Fears - Woman in Chains, Pink Floyd - Us and Them, Duran Duran - Ordinary World, Billy Idol - Eyes without a Face, A Flock of Seagulls - I Ran, The Alan Parsons Project - Eye in the Sky, Tears for Fears - Sowing the Seeds of Love)

Puri-Puri Prisoner: Pop. Dance music. He doesn’t really get to listen to a lot of music in prison, so he holds on to whatever he can and savors every second of it. (Coldplay - Talk, Bruno Mars - Runaway Baby, Lady Gaga - Bad Romance, Flo Milli - Beef Flomix, Doja Cat - Say So)

Mumen Rider: Hes a lighthearted, soft boy. Likes some fluffy indie tunes. It helps to motivate him when working out or doing hero stuff. He might need to cry every once in a while though, so there’s some sad songs in the mix too. (Recs: Varsity - The Dogs Only Listen to Him, The The - This is the Day, Amarante - Don’t Look Back, Alvvays - Saved by a Waif, The Monkees - As We Go Along, Acid Ghost - Hide my Face, Mogwai - Take Me Somewhere Nice)

Sonic: same as Flash. He’s a little more hip with the times however, so he’s got some more groovy, electronic instrumentals to listen to in addition to some elegant stuff and isn’t opposed to having a little bit of lyrics sprinkled in there as well. In fact, he’s not opposed to uppity pop either. He thinks dancing is frivolous but he secretly does it when he thinks nobody is looking. (Additional Recs: Odesza - Bloom, Pretty Lights - One Day They’ll Know [Odesza Remix], BØRNS - Electric Love, Hembree - Culture, The Cinematic Orchestra - Arrival of the Birds)

Garou: same as Metal Bat. Bang let him have a little MP3 player during his time at the dojo and has since collected a few songs on there. They’re very near and dear to his heart since it’s one of the few good things that came from his absolute disaster of a childhood. (Additional Recs: Foals - Inhaler, CRX - Slow Down, Deep Sea Arcade - Close to Me, Gorillaz - Empire Ants, The Fratellis - Chelsea Dagger, Glass Animals - Take A Slice)

Death Gatling: Shit your old Vietnam-vet grandpa would blast on the back of his F150. He gives me self-righteous asshole vibes, if I’m honest. Like, don’t get me wrong, I like Death Gatling, but he seems like the type of trailer park-dwelling sewer rat to carry a revolver into a Walmart for “self defense” and that’s probably the type of music he listens to, too. (Recs: Megadeth - Trust, Megadeth - Angry Again, Creedence Clearwater Revival - Fortunate Son, Glen Campbell - Southern Nights, Mötley Crüe - Kickstart My Heart, Quiet Riot - Cum on Feel the Noize)

One-Shotter: I hard hc that he had an emo phase he never quite grew out of. He doesn’t quite listen to emo anymore but he’s still into that alternative shit. Homeboy also likes some slow tunes every once and a while because he’s an emotional dude who’s not afraid of a good cry. (Recs: Anything from Blink-182, Arctic Monkeys - Do I Wanna Know?, MGMT - When You Die, Mazzy Star - Fade Into You, Cigarettes After Sex - Dreaming of You, Yon Ort - Other Matter)

Lightning Max: Same as Genos but without the terminator-killing. Fast-paced stuff because he’s a fast lightning dude. A little more upbeat because he’s not as much as an edgelord as Genos, however. (Additional Recs: Carpenter Brut - Hang’em All, The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize, Worn Tin - Sensitivity, B.E.R. - The Night Begins to Shine, Martin Hall - Different Kind of Love)

Stinger: he’s all about that FUNK! Stuff that gets him moving! Stuff that makes him wanna dance! (Recs: Daft Punk - Doin’ it Right, TWRP - Body Image, Wild Cherry - Play that Funky Music, Chemise - She Can’t Love You, Saga - Wind Him Up, Saga - On the Loose, TWRP - All Night Forever)

Okamaitachi: they give me electro vibes! New, modern shit that’s good to dance to or to just sit down and have a listen! Also, some shit that’ll probably play in a coming-of-age teen movie or something. They don’t really vibe with heavy music and that’s alright, babey! Keeping it light and bouncy. (Recs: Tei Shi - Bassically, Varsity - Must Be Nice, Class Actress - Weekend, CHVRCHES - Richard Pryor, Alvvays - Marry Me, Archie, Sobs - Telltale Signs, Goth Babe - Sometimes, ALASKALASKA - Meateater)

Iaian: Nice, low tunes that are good for meditation and to be used for background noise during training sessions. He never really sits down to listen to music, it’s always in the background of something else he’s doing so he prefers to have some soft beats that don’t really interfere with his senses. Tunes so quiet, he sometimes uses them as lullabies; especially since the trauma of losing his arm has since made it hard to sleep. (Recs: Boy Scouts - Saddest Boy, Susanne Sundfør - Mantra, Vashiti Bunyan - If I Were the Same but Different, Starman Jr. - Blue Fairy, Patrick Watson - Je te Laisserai des Mots, Sibylle Baier - I Lost Something in the Hills)

Bushidrill: same as Atomic Samurai just without the shitty attitude. He’s happy to listen to some newer stuff, he just doesn’t like it and that’s okay, baby! Probably some classy shit your wise old grandpa would listen to. (Recs: Dean Martin - Volare, Dion - The Wanderer, Peppino Gagliardi - Che Vuole Questra Musica Stasera, anything from Luis Miguel lol, Franco Micalizzi - Sadness Theme)

Amai Mask: probably just listens to his own music like a putz. If not, he’s listening to the sound equivalent of glittering diamonds. He’s probably got this shit playing at the end of a long day while he’s chilling in a hot bath or something. (Recs: Fergie - Glamorous, Rita Ora - Hot Right Now, Lana Del Rey - Freak, Lana Del Rey - Art Deco, Tame Impala - Feels Like We Only Go Backwards)

Saitama: He doesn’t listen to music much anymore, sadly. He did, however, have a killer motivational mix to get him through his vigorous training prior to becoming a hero. (Recs: Paul Engemann - Push it to the Limit, Journey - Don’t Stop Believin’, College & Electric Youth - A Real Hero, Joe Esposito - You’re the Best Around, Survivor - Eye of the Tiger, The Bee Gees - Nights on Broadway)

Here’s the playlist with all of these songs in order (mostly):

It’s on YouTube because I’m allergic to Spotify. I’ve got a doctor’s note. Also, all of my other playlists are on my little profile thingy so if you want to listen to my pile then go right ahead.

Thanks for your ask, my dude! ❤️ this took up ALL of my energy lol but it was fun.

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dantesinfcrno · 4 years

Photo

𝑯𝑬𝑨𝑹𝑻 𝑨 𝑮𝑨𝑷𝑰𝑵𝑮 𝑯𝑶𝑳𝑬.

His shoulders carried lives that did not belong to him. As he cried, birthing storms as his heart sung war cries, a crown of thorns bit his skin –– sweet child, unborn, interrupted. Bleed, was the command bestowed by the skies as they parted in rage. Graceless infant, you will be torn. The body he inhabits is merely a vessel –– and he finds himself capable of shapeshifting, ravenous beast devouring the world. Mother dearest, unforgiving: handed him the sun, allowed his hands to burn. Embers are piling over his ribs, dust filling his lungs. Hold this until you're seething –– open your greedy mouth and swallow the flames, were the words barked down at him. Carnivore, eat yourself alive. He dared survive, and now it would haunt him. Take a dying breath, and you shall be free –– but he chooses to remain alive, a bearer of an entire inferno, for heavens would grant him neither absolution nor mercy. Revenants were the spirits he bore, penumbra enclosing his irises: the undead, wailing, firm grasp on his shoulder –– and they pushed until his head was underwater, until he drowned, until despondent pleas drenched his very core. An heirloom held to his heart by callous hands, a prayer pleading for his destruction. Matriarch sweetest, bellowing: I could not sacrifice you in my altar, but it remains your birthright. Holy water tastes of salt –– he drags his tongue over his wounds, gaping fissures in the urn he was molded into being. Lilith comes to him once constellations have created a path in his skin, a snake tightening around his neck. Child, stripped of purity, gifted with a blade. Sink this dagger onto your chest, and become a god–– sunk a dagger onto himself, became a corpse, rotten–– became a dead boy, walking. His nerves are bullets, pressed inside his flesh with refined cruelty. Pain is an opulent currency he exudes, gilded chains branding his neck as an offering. Is he a target or a threat? The wolves prostrate before him, regardless of the answer. He is not a son, but a weapon. He is ruins before he could ever be whole: he counts bodies as one would count sheep. Sunlight does not bless him with delight –– trembling hands are intimate with survival, his only silver lining a dying breath that never comes (he dreams of it once exhaustion covers his limbs, but it remains unreachable). Dante –– unknown, unnamed, unloved –– embraces the Devil; sutures his skin; poisons himself. Blade against aorta, war raging on his pulse, ownerless. He is running through thorns, barefooted, sempiternal cycle. You won't be a lamb to the slaughter if they do not catch you –– if you butcher them first.

Boy, stolen, abducted. Hunters look at him and see golden: human converted into money –– no longer breathing as he is dragged across the woods. The birds remain quiet: a death sentence. His family won't search for him–– won't even begin to miss him as he shudders his last words. He isn't Midas, but a wicked curse –– these men will howl his name, and the forest will hear it. Eight days pass him by; seven nights consume his flesh. Frustration grows as a thick fog, soaking his captors in anger. Glass shards are raised to his jugular –– as if he did not know this pain before, as if Death was not a looming threat, as if Thanatos did not inhabit the vultures chained to his heart. They spit on the grave that is his body and offer no clemency. Unfortunate pick he was for a ransom, as nobody is waiting for him outside this clearing –– and he pays for this, agonizing hours of torture as he supplicates to be remembered. These are wounds that never heal, scars shaped of humiliation, scarlet drawn on his skin with blunt knives –– the only permanence he knows of: this throbbing ache, this parasite spreading through his roots. His tongue was ripped out of his mouth: a ghost undeserving of a voice, throat consumed by worms. He is but an unholy burial ground: the moon rises, demanding blood. It spills from Dante's mouth; oozes from the words he dares not to speak. Cloaked, glorious Reaper presses cadaverous claws on his shoulder. Dante bites them off, spits them out –– he becomes acquainted with Ares, war drums crushing the festering hummingbird, corrupting his center. Lucifer a phoenix, rising above his ashes. Who could you become but yourself? An ouroboros; lethal–– silver arrows, an eclipse. Mother, I brutalized myself. Mother, I am born again. Mother, I have grown wings –– they have lacerated me open, my back is shattered porcelain, every edge a hazardous peril. Mother, I have murdered to find my way back to you –– do you love me yet? Has my blood become ichor, have I become a god?

No. Sinful beast touched Heaven, poisoned it –– punishment is an endless flogging. There is no skin to be tainted: necromancer, undressed, prophecy an apsis high in limpid skylines.

Boy, body, turns his back on the living.

Boy, dead; blasphemy sizzling on his lips.

Boy, mausoleum; cryptic hemorrhage standing on trembling knees.

Dante /ˈdan.te/ proper noun. ¹an oath made upon gore, stained by carnage. ²midnight sun, simmering. ³a case study in fractured oceans, a corpse hidden in abyssal depths.

–––––––– It is not a definition he has written himself. Mercutio traced it over his body, held it over his head. A feral child turned into fodder for sadistic tasks. The pain is no longer his, as news articles pile upon his predecessor's desk –– he has to share it all, rotten abrasions slashed anew to entertain bejeweled eyes. Each scar exposed elicits a firestorm within his chest –– outnumbered, thrown to the wolves once more. Endure, retaliate. It's all he has ever known. He settles –– vile, resentful, roots shifting into thorns. He desired one sweet embrace, and this is what he received. Misery, as he laid on the opulent manor. Hell, not vermilion flames, but gilded cages –– it scorches him, nevertheless, as he spews out a pandemonium at these false rulers. They hold him by thick chains, freedom mutilated, but the beast remains unowned. –––– I do not need your hounds at my feet. –––– he howls, hostility a downpour, talons threatening to come alive at Mercutio's neck. A survivor that knows no fortresses, only relentless fists –– survival demands annihilation. –––– I do not wish to be your chosen one. –––– the love offered to him now felt like a bargain: feed me your secrets; show me the python that has devoured you; let me take the glory of beheading it. –––– Fuck you. –––– as tears refuse to drop from his eyes, another broken crown now confining his head as he is laid on Mercutio's bed once again. Angel: fallen, dismembered, enslaved. Love is trauma; Venus is Lucifer –– spirit broken for the first time as he finds a home. Eros has graceless hands, fingernails arrows against his trachea, taunting him to breathe. They can't purify a demon of its crimes; each shudder a threat against humanity. Tenderness seeks him out, takes a mouthful of his muscles, leaves him for dead. This is what you deserve for daring to remain alive. Dead fucking boy, heartbeat echoing–– he doesn't ask for help, no hands are guiding him to his sepulture. Act out, bite the hand that has never fed you, let a supernova burst at your fingertips, lace this world in your wrath. Unquiet dragon, make yourself known, make yourself feared. Lustful and avaricious deities imprint dirt upon your pulse, and you let them. Ophelia is a beast, he learns. Numb sacrifice, tasteless offering, a cataclysm. Powerless, derangement collapses over his skull as he wails, knees sunk to the ground. Meet your end: mute and forgetful, like everything you are. A funeral lead by merciless judges, no sobs to be heard but his own. Quivering lungs, smashed halos –– lamb turned wolf, unforgiven. Hold Death in your arms and make it your beloved –– a kiss laid for the crowns that bicker at his eyes: ravished resurrection.

#𝑽 : DEVELOPMENT .#𝑿𝑰𝑰 : REFLECTIONS .#uh.#yeah #body horror tw #to be safe?#violence tw #THANKS TO THE LOVE OF MY LIFE J #WHO HAS MADE THOSE BEAUTIFUL GRAPHICS #to alleviate my ugly ass writing

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writersdump-wp · 3 years

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I Missed You Smut (MxM)

I’m sorry that this is shit lmao, i wanted to write for some smut scenes for my other oc’s.

Warnings: riding, sex - unprotected.

Word count: 1985

Oc’s: Aidan Whittaker and Alex Stevenson

Aidan had come back from a mission which seemed to have drained him more than what he cared to admit. He was tired, in need of sleep, they had kept him on scene for three hours before they let him go. Plus all he wanted at that moment – aside from sleep – was Alex wrapping his arms around him, god he missed Alex a lot, he just wanted to Alex more than anything. A small smile made its way onto Aidan’s lips at the thought of Alex, a part of him just not only wanted sleep but also Alex. All his mind went to was his boyfriend.

He’d opened the door to his apartment, he lived with Alex not that far from the Avengers compound. Nathan – his best friend and former roommate – still lived in his apartment with his now partner, which meant that Aidan didn’t have to worry about Nathan being alone. However, what had caught Aidan’s attention was the way which most of the lights were off, which made Aidan cuss knowing that Alex was asleep and he had missed seeing Alex all day.

Aidan slung off his bag, shoving it near the door. He’d made his way to their room only to find Aidan asleep on top of the covers, it looked as if he had attempted to stay up and wait. The TV was on with the news report, which made Aidan believe that Alex was keeping track of him and the mission, the volume was low, the slight chatter of the Reporter giving some details about the mission Aidan just came back from. Aidan turned it off, quickly before turning his attention to the sleeping man who shifted slightly in his sleep. Aidan had grabbed a blanket and placed it over him, he thought that it would be easier than trying to put Alex under the quilt.

He lightly touched Alex’s face, moving his hair out of his eyes. Alex let out a small groan which made Aidan move his hand away, he didn’t want to wake Alex up. He couldn’t help but smile at Alex, he was always cute when he slept – actually he was cute even when he was awake. He went to walk away to have a quick shower before crashing for the night.

Though as he turned towards the bathroom, he felt something grab his wrist. Aidan looked down to see the way that Alex had griped his wrist. Alex had rubbed his eyes before he then looked up at Aidan with a smile.

“Your back,” Alex mumbled. “I was waiting up for you, making sure that nothing bad happened but I must’ve fallen asleep.” He then stretched letting out a small yawn.

“Yeah, I noticed. I didn’t want to wake you, you seemed peaceful.” Aidan spoke. “I was gonna take a shower.”

“Don’t bother,” Alex said as he then opened his arms. “Please, I’ve been dying to hug you all day.”

Aidan couldn’t help but smile before he then found himself laying on top of Alex, hugging him. “I missed you so much,” his head nuzzled into Alex’s neck. “I hate that we don’t see each other that much.”

Alex had his arms tightly around Aidan, his cheek resting against Aidan’s head. “I missed you too. And I do too, just work gets in the way.” He didn’t mind Aidan laying on him, as long as he could hug and feel his boyfriend then its fine.

They stayed like that for a while before Aidan began to kiss Alex’s neck. Alex hummed; his eyes closed just as Aidan began to suck at his neck. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t want to, he loved when Aidan got like this. Though after a moment, Alex moved Aidan’s head for them to kiss. Aidan had deepened the kiss between them as his hands worked to get Alex’s shirt off.

A light smirk worked its way onto Alex’s lips as he ripped Aidan’s clothes off of him. The only time that Aidan moved was when he got up to take his boxers off and for Alex to take his joggers off. Aidan eventually sat on Alex’s lap, leaving a trail of kisses and hickeys across his neck, his knees placed either side of the man he loved.

“Aidan,” Alex breathed. “Ride me.”

Aidan grinned as he knelt up a little before slowly lowering himself onto Alex’s dick. They both moaned, Alex forgot how wonderful it felt to have Aidan around him, and Aidan loved having Alex in him. Aidan had lowered himself to the base, Alex’s dick fully in him, he couldn’t help but moan. Aidan could feel Alex’s hands at his ass, gently massaging his cheeks, Aidan ended up kissing Alex harsh.

The Inferno had started to bounce up and down, Alex had met Aidan halfway with a grunt. Alex had thrusted up any time that Aidan bounced down. The bed had moved under them, Aidan moaned every time their hips met yet that hadn’t stopped him from riding Alex. He looked down at Alex who seemed to be biting his lip and staring at Aidan’s dick which had been hitting against both of their stomachs.

Alex forced himself in Aidan, pounding the inferno any time he came down. Aidan kept moaning his full name – Alexander – which had made him bite his lip more. A part of him couldn’t help but think of how this hero could easily turn into a bottom moaning mess. Alex ended up moving a little, wrapping an arm around Aidan while the other cradled Aidan’s head, he felt the way which Aidan’s legs wrapped around him.

“Good boy,” Alex murmured down Aidan’s ear. “Keep bouncing, you feel so good.”

Aidan moaned, bouncing up and down, feeling the way which Alex’s dick moved in him. “Alexander, your dick is so–” he cut himself off with another moan, feeling how Alex’s hips hit his ass halfway.

Alex ended up forcing Aidan on his back, wanting to take control over how hard he was with Aidan. “God your moan is hot.”

“Alexander,” Aidan begged, “more.”

Alex leaned down, hips moving into Aidan harshly. Aidan moaned down Alex’s ear, purposely to make him fuck Adrian harder. Alex forced Aidan’s legs up, forcing them to touch the headboard of their bed before he fucked Aidan.

“Baby, I’ve missed you, now moan.” Alex lowly spoke before pounding his way into Aidan. He grunted every time he pounded into Aidan, making the inferno moan.

Aidan moaned Alex’s name repeatedly, feeling how harsh he went in him. A part of him grinned, loving how he was throughout sex. He felt a knot within his stomach, felt the way which Alex’s hips slapped against him, felt the way which his dick filled him. Alex had glided his hands down Aidan’s legs to Aidan’s dick, rubbing his thumbs into it.

Aidan bit his lip, his eyes rolled back slightly. Being like this felt overly exposed, yet the way which Alex pounded into him made him shudder slightly. He couldn’t control his moans, he had Alex fucking him and playing with him, and if he had to be honest; he loved it.

Alex ended up wrapping his hand around Aidan’s dick, moving his hand up and down quickly. He watched as Aidan squirmed under him at that – and the continued harsh and hard thrusts into him. Aidan had struggled to keep his legs above him, he looked towards Alex, watching his expressions grow as he thrusted into him and his hand moving up and down. Aidan’s mouth hung open, his moans growing louder, unable to control them in any way.

Alex grunted as he moved Aidan’s legs back down, spreading them open enough for him to pound into Aidan’s ass. “Aidan, fuck, I’m gonna-”

“Let. . . me. . . ride,” Aidan moaned, trying to contain what came out of his mouth.

Alex gave him a somewhat sloppy grin. “Please do, my baby.” Alex had removed himself from Aidan, laying on his back, his legs open slightly. Aidan hadn’t hesitated to climb onto Alex, lowering himself instantly on his dick.

Aidan rocked himself back and forth, feeling the way which Alex’s dick twitched inside of him, though it was then that he moved to bounce up and down. He made Alex stay down, his hands pressed against Alex’s chest, his movement up and down Alex’s dick grew harsher – moaning in the process.

He could tell that Alex wanted the control again, yet he forced him to stay where he was. Though Alex had grasped at Aidan’s neck, forcing him to come down, yet Aidan never stopped rocking his hips, feeling the way that Alex moved inside of him. Alex had wrapped his arms around Aidan lightly, allowing and overly enjoying the feel of Aidan moving on top of him.

Aidan harshly kissed Alex, biting his bottom lip every so often. His hand had grasped at one side of Alex’s head, his hips rolling up and down. He moaned every so often, feeling the way which Alex’s hands rested on his back.

He could feel the knot in his stomach growing every time he moved Alex more into him. He moaned just Alex started to move. Alex had placed a gentle kiss on Aidan’s neck, grunting every so often.

“Aidan, fuck,” Alex grunted. “You’re getting tight. . .”

Aidan moaned at that. “Yet you still feel amazing.”

Alex moved his hands towards Aidan’s ass, gripping each cheek, spreading them as Aidan rolled his hips and ass back and forth. “Let me take control, please, I’m almost there.”

Aidan sat up, moving from rolling his hips to slamming himself up and down on Alex’s dick. Alex gasped at that though let out a small chuckle, leaning up, wrapping his arms around Aidan as their hips joined halfway. Aidan had moaned every time that their hips slapped against each other, his arms round Alex, his nails digging into his back, yet even so that hadn’t stopped him from bouncing.

Aidan came across them both with a harsh moan, he placed his cheek against Alex’s shoulder, feeling the way that Alex pounded into him still before he too came inside Aidan’s hole. They stayed like that for a moment, wrapped around each other, panting.

“If I knew that not seeing you all day would get me laid, then we should do it more often,” Aidan joked through his panting.

“Please don’t, I wanna see you more often,” Alex spoke, running his hands up and down Aidan’s back. “Plus if it’s sex you want then we could always arrange it.”

Aidan hummed. “Visit you at work? Distract you from what you’re doing just for a quick round? Hmm, sounds ideal.”

“Could get into trouble,” Alex pouted.

“Could get sucked off whenever you want if I’m there.” Aidan pointed out. “Could fuck me any time you felt like it.”

“You’re such a bad influence,” Alex grunted. “I wouldn’t mind you coming to my work just for that, baby, just for research purposes.”

“Research in how long you can last with me turning you on,” Aidan grinned.

Alex groaned. “You shouldn’t be saying that with my dick in your ass, Whittaker, could fuck you up real fine. How would you explain that to Stark when he asks why you’re limping?”

Aidan moved his hips slightly. “Who says that Stark needs me tomorrow? Maybe I want you fuck me up.”

Alex then forced Aidan on his back, again, pinning his wrists above his head. “Don’t test me, Aidan, I will.”

The inferno rose slightly. “Maybe I will. Maybe I’ll go on a ‘no-sex’ strike just to annoy you.” He smirked slightly.

Alex had thrusted back into Alex’s hole. “Fuck you, Whittaker.

“You already are, Alexander,” Aidan spoke, moaning when Alex thrusted into him more. “Sexy fuck.”

Aidan grinned as small moans left his mouth every time that Alex pounded into him.

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roonil-wazlib-at-221b · 4 years

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Inferno: Part 5 (final)

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Your father drops what he’s holding when you literally rip the front door of the compound off its hinges and toss it a few feet away. “Were you ever going to tell me?” you yell, stomping into the room. You know your face is too hot and so are your hands but you can’t be bothered.

To his credit, Tony doesn’t pretend to not know what you’re talking about. He sighs and crosses his arms. “Y/N, calm down—”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” you bellow, your eyes stinging with anger. “Don’t you dare tell me to calm down!”

“I was worried about you—”

“So you sent the one person I hate most to spy on me? To completely invade my privacy? The one person I knew I could trust—”

“Okay,” Tony admits, “so it wasn’t the best idea. And I realized that soon after. But Y/N, what was I supposed to tell you? How was I supposed to tell you?”

“Um, by telling me?” You scoff angrily. “Instead of me going through my former best friend’s texts and figuring it out for myself?”

“Wait,” Tony interrupts. “Peter didn’t tell you himself?”

“Why the hell would he? He’s too busy making fun of me with you!”

“No, Y/N, you don’t understand—” Tony shakes his head. “Peter was supposed to tell you in person. I told him to. We figured you’d at least take it better, but no wonder you’re so upset—”

“It wouldn’t matter if he told me in person, in text, or over a goddamn email!” you yell. “You still spied on me—”

“Can we please talk about this?” he pleads. “Y/N, you’re traumatized. You were imprisoned for a crime you didn’t commit. You wouldn’t talk to me and I knew that you and Peter would get along, but after the first meeting it was obvious he needed to wear the mask!”

“I don’t want to talk to you about anything,” you say, disgusted, shaking your head. “I don’t want your excuses. What you did sucked, okay?”

“I know, baby, and I’m sorry—”

“I don’t want to hear it!” you bark. “I don’t want to hear anything from you for a while. Just leave me the hell alone!”

You stomp away in the direction of your room and the fire alarm starts to beep.

“Miss Y/N, please cool yourself,” FRIDAY says calmly. “You are reaching dangerous temperatures.”

You scoff. “I can’t hurt myself with fire.”

“No, but you could hurt those around you,” the AI responds. “Including myself.”

“Did you know what they did?” you demand up to the ceiling.

There is a pregnant pause before the AI confirms it.

“Wow.” You shake your head. “Just wow.”

“I was under strict orders not to inform you—”

“Whatever, FRIDAY. I don’t want to hear from you either.” Scowling, you slam your door shut but stop short at the sight of a figure upside-down outside your window.

Spider-man—Peter Parker—taps frantically on the glass, waving to get your attention. You close your blinds and turn your back on the window, but a buzzing in your pocket catches your attention. It’s the boy outside your window. You decline the call. He’s already tried to call fifteen times and sent you 13 text messages.

For good measure, you block his number. Not a second later is he messaging you on Instagram, so you take the next logical step in your mind. You throw your phone out the window so hard it shatters the glass and hopefully hits that lying bastard, too.

You’re out of the room before Spider-man can stick his head out the window, locking the door from the outside using a special program you’d installed in FRIDAY, and decide to sleep in a guest room.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thankfully your new phone has a new number that Parker doesn’t know, and you’re pretty sure Tony knows better than to give it to him. You blocked him on every social media platform you have for good measure, although that hasn’t stopped you from noticing him. In fact, you’re probably noticing him more than usual because your two fanbases have come together in a major panic over why Inferno and Spider-man aren’t hanging out, following each other, or even talking anymore.

All your mentions in the past two weeks have looked exactly like this:

just-a-dumbass: @Y/N_Stark plz respond!!!! why are you and Spider-man fighting? he won’t talk about it at all when we asked on his livestream he hung up and hasn’t done another since!!!!

that-one-asian: @Y/N_Stark and @The-Official-Spiderman you guys really need to make up you were my #1 celebrity ship and i dont understand why you broke up

spideyismydaddy: guys you can tell @The-Official-Spiderman is really cut up about this, he hasn’t livestreamed in days or even uploaded a story. @Y/N_Stark you’re a real bitch for breaking his heart

newyorkhoe: guys we don’t even know if @Y/N_Stark and @The-Official_Spiderman were dating. maybe they’re just really good friends that are fighting. either way, you can tell that both are having a rough time. lay off the negativity!!!

wyoming_isnt_real: @Y/N_Stark why are you and spidey fighting? if he hurt you i’ll beat him up :(

spideyinferno: @Y/N_Stark @The-Official-Spiderman

That tweet has a link attached. You click on it out of curiosity only to realize that actual news websites are writing articles about the ‘Feud Between New York’s Hottest Heroes’. You scroll down to the bottom where there are previews of other articles written about this. Is this really the biggest deal ever? Are people really freaking out over the fact that you’re not hanging out with a spying liar anymore?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You should have known. Even at night, civilians are still out and about, and they love to do nothing other than gossip. You’re in Brooklyn, for God’s sake, and they’re still chasing after you with cameras, screaming and asking questions about your relationship with Spider-man. These people have probably never even seen him before. He operates in Queens!

It’s no use. You have to change out of your suit. You’re too noticeable.

You duck into a tourist shop and melt the door handle so the screaming hordes can’t follow you in. “I’m so sorry,” you say breathlessly to the shopkeeper and dig around in your pockets for an empty check. You’ve learned to always keep one on hand. You have one, but you don’t know exactly how much replacing a door costs. “Do you have a pen?” Just to be safe, you write down $15,000 and grab a hoodie and sweatpants while the shopkeeper stares at the check you’d shoved into his hands. You can hear people pounding on the back entrance of the store, too, and you look around wildly for an escape.

Unwelcome, a thought pops into your head: What would Spidey do? How would he get out of this situation?

You look up and smile. You may not have webs but you can jump pretty high.

“Sorry about this,” you say to the shopkeeper again. He gapes as you leap straight up into his ceiling. You take a running leap off the roof and land on the sidewalk a couple hundred feet away. Some New Yorkers spare you glances as they step around and over you, but you don’t mind them as you pull your hood up and start walking.

A familiar thwip, though, has you stop. People start to yell Spider-man’s name and you look up, one hand keeping your hood in place. You duck behind a taller man and peek at your former friend from behind the stranger’s arm.

“Where is she?” he yells, wheezing a little bit. He must have sprinted over. A little part of your chest warms at the thought of him being frantic to see you, but then you realize that his voice really doesn’t change at all when he’s got the mask on. You were just too stupid to notice it.

The civilians start to all shout different things, mostly pointing to the store, but Spider-man waves his hands to get everyone to be quiet. “One at a time!”

“She went into that store but got out through the roof and now we don’t know where she is!” someone shouts.

“What happened between you two?”

You lean forward, holding your breath. Surely Spider-man will say that you overreacted and were the bitch most people on the internet seem to think you are. It’ll cement your belief that he’s a giant jerk and you’ll be able to go about your day feeling a little better about this whole situation.

“I messed up,” Spider-man explains, sounding sadder than he has a right to. “And I don’t blame her for being mad at me. I’d be pretty mad at me, too.”

“What did you do?” someone else shouts.

For a moment, you think Spider-man meets your eyes and you jerk back, accidentally falling into somebody else. It cuts off Spider-man, who was saying, “It doesn’t really matter what I did. I’m just really sorry and I want her to know, even if she doesn’t forgive me—”

“Watch it!” the person snaps, yanking your sweatshirt in anger. The hood slips off your head and their eyes widen. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry—”

“She’s right here!” another person who’d watched the commotion shouts. “Look, Spider-man, you can apologize to her—”

The crowd starts to scream, looking for you, and you shove your hood back up and keep up with the commotion.

“Y/N!” Spider-man shouts, his voice cracking. “Please just talk to me?”

Pull yourself together, you think viciously. You’re acting like a total idiot in public.

And you don’t look back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Y/N, come on.”

“I’m not doing it. You can’t make me.”

“We need you.”

“You have him.”

“Yeah, but we also need you.”

“I have plans for today.”

“Really?” your dad crosses his arms and raises his eyebrows. “And what are those?”

You cross your arms right back and don’t respond. You both know you don’t have any plans for today, but you’d rather do nothing than go on a mission with half of the team including Spider-man.

“I’m sure he asked you to include me?”

Tony scuffs his foot on the ground.

“Not a chance.” You shake your head.

“Look, is now really the best time to be arguing about this?” Natasha puts in, tapping her foot impatiently. “Parker and Cap are handling this mutant fine at the moment but his friend is coming. They can’t handle two of them.”

You roll your eyes. “You two can go. You’re highly skilled and experienced—”

“And one of them is a lava monster,” your dad interrupts.

“Exactly, so my powers will be useless on it.” You shrug.

“But you also won’t get hurt if you draw its fire. Plus, Nat doesn’t have powers at all. Dealing with human criminals is one thing but mutants are a bit much for even her to handle. No offense, Nat.”

The assassin in question raises one eyebrow and doesn’t agree or disagree with your father’s statement. Privately, you think that Nat really could handle at least one of the monsters on her own, depending on the tools she has to work with. But you digress.

“I hate you,” you try.

“Love you too, honey.” Your dad kisses your forehead for the first time in a month. “Your suit is in the jet. Can we get going, please?”

Okay, you will admit that maybe you underestimated these two mutants. One has heat-based powers, just like you, and flickers between a human form and a human-shaped pile of lava. The other seems merely to have super strength and is trading blows with Captain America like it’s a friendly sparring session.

You narrow your eyes and assess the battlefield from your perch in the jet. “Okay, so we obviously need to get the civilians out of here. Nat, you can handle that, right?”

The red-haired assassin nods her head.

“And I can distract the fire thing,” you decide. Anticipation curdles your stomach though it’s less at the fight and more at the thought of seeing Spider-man again—he is the one fighting that monster, after all, and dodging its streams of fire quite spectacularly, though you’d never tell him so. “We just need to knock it out when it’s in its human form. Dad, you can help Steve, right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he salutes you and you roll your eyes. “Everybody ready?”

Butterflies flutter in your stomach as the jet lowers just enough for you to leap out of it, Tony in his suit with Nat clinging onto his back just behind you.

You slam into the lava monster, knocking it off its feet and tumbling a few feet away, your teeth clanking at the impact. Through your earpiece, you hear Cap greeting Nat and Tony, before a significantly higher male voice pierces your eardrums.

“Y/N?”

You wince and look up. Peter’s staring at you, and though his mask is on, you can tell that his mouth is open with shock. Though his exclamation was loud, it was also comforting. You’d missed him more than you care to admit.

“Underoos, pay attention!” your father barks and Peter looks at the lava monster and shrieks (you make a mental note to tease him about that later) before leaping into the air and avoiding a stream of lava that would have melted him instantly.

“Inferno,” the lava mutant hisses, eyes flickering between gaping black rock pits and dark human eyes. Both appearances convey her hatred for you clearly. “You can’t hurt me.”

“Yeah, well, ditto,” you respond. “And, for your information, fire isn’t my only power, thank you very much.”

The mutant holds up her hand and a stream of lava flies toward you, hitting your skin and sliding to the ground before it hardens instantly. “You’re a mutant against your will just like me,” the lava mutant hisses. “Join us. Help us take revenge against those who wronged us.”

Peter shoots a web that disintegrates a foot in front of the mutant. The air around her is so hot it’s wavering like a mirage. Powerless against the mutant, he looks at you.

“Look, I get getting revenge,” you say. You press a hand to your ear and mutter, “Shock web when she’s human.” You continue louder, “I got my own revenge. But I didn’t do it by hurting innocent civilians. In fact, my father did it so Killian wouldn’t hurt anybody else.”

“They don’t understand our pain,” the mutant hisses. She flickers and Spider-man twitches but he was too slow and continues to creep out of the mutant’s line of vision. With her eyes fixed on you, she doesn’t seem to care. “Only we do.”

“I know,” you say soothingly. You hold your palm up to the sky and let a little flame dance over your palm. “I know it hurts. I was in pain for days straight when Killian gave me the serum. But this isn’t the way to get your revenge.”

This time, when the mutant flickers, she remains in her human form for a second longer. You smile smugly.

“We’re the same,” you say soothingly. “I know just how it feels.”

“I can’t stop now,” the mutant hisses. “They’ll lock me up.”

“They locked me up too, and I didn’t even do anything,” you point out. “But when you get out, I can help you.”

She drops the lava monster guise and looks at you wondrously.

You wince when Peter’s shock web hits her in the back. She makes a sort of choked noise before keeling over. Something fragile inside you fractures as you see what you could have been. There’s a little too much of you inside that mutant.

The other mutant roars with anger and you turn, ready to burn it. But its anger is aimed at Spider-man, who landed the final blow, and he sweeps Cap and Tony away, throwing them into nearby rubble.

You dart in front of the monster and ready your fists, even if his biceps are bigger than your waist. He shoves you away and the breath leaves your lungs but you still manage to cling onto his arm like a koala and summon the anger to the surface. Your body goes white-hot in seconds and the second mutant roars with pain and slams his arm into the ground.

You feel your spine crack in multiple places as well as your tailbone—and your neck.

“Y/N!” Peter bellows when you don’t move. “NO!”

Something wet trickles down your neck as the bones arrange themselves back into place and you sit up, tears slipping from your eyes as you do so. Now you’re pissed off.

The mutant’s arm, you can see, has a nasty-looking burn on it in the shape of your body. You relish the sight of it as you take a running start at the mutant, plowing into his back and sending him flying, landing on the ground and skidding a few feet. Since you’re half his height, it must have been a comical sight.

Peter lands in front of you and holds out his hand, which you notice is shaking. “Are you okay?”

You don’t nod your head. You’re scared that just moving it will break your back again. You might have broken your arm and ankle before, but never your neck and back. You’re going to have nightmares about it for weeks to come, you already know.

“You can cool down now,” he says softly. You realize you’re still glowing white-hot.

With a strangled sob, you let go of the anger-heat and fall into his arms, squeezing him so hard you’re sure he would have a few broken ribs if he wasn’t enhanced.

“How bad did he hurt you?” Peter asks, one hand rubbing up and down your back.

“It would have killed anyone except me,” you whisper back. And that’s all you have to say on the subject. You move to step back from him and gasp. The mutant is up and angrier than ever. He’s picking up a chunk of plaster with a few copper wires protruding from its multiple sides. He’s hoisting it above his head. And he’s throwing it at you two.

You hear multiple screams as you shove Peter out of the way, but the ginormous rock hits you in the stomach. As if in slow motion, you flip backwards, the plaster rolling with you, and hit the ground, skidding a bit. The plaster still sits on your stomach, making it nearly impossible to breathe, which means you don’t have the strength to push it off of you.

Oh God. Asphyxiation is one thing the serum can’t help you with. For the first time in your life, you might actually die from an injury.

You weakly wiggle, trying to get the plaster to tip off of you, but that causes a stinging sensation in your sternum that’s almost unbearable. Your back is getting wet. One of the copper wires must have entered your stomach.

You try to suck in a breath but barely get more than a gasp. The effort makes you cough, your throat tasting metallic.

The serum can’t work if I can’t breathe, you distantly realize. It’s a part of my bodily functions now, but my body can’t function at all without oxygen.

So you’re going to die. It’s as simple as that.

This time, when you suck in a breath, you cough on a liquid in your throat, choking as you can’t get any air in and becoming more panicked as your vision becomes more blurry. You try to blow the liquid out of your throat but you don’t have enough strength to blow hard, so all that happens is that you’re completely out of air now. You thrash on the ground but the plaster refuses to move.

Your vision goes dark. Your stomach drops. Is this it? Are you going to die now? You never even got to make up with Peter, which you now realize you’d wanted to do all along.

Then the weight on your stomach lifts and you suck in a shuddering breath that just makes you cough and choke more. The darkness lifts from your vision, making you squint and realize that someone had been standing over you and lifted the plaster from your stomach.

The person turns you over onto your side and you spit blood out of your mouth as the pain in your stomach begins to abate. When you finally suck in a shuddering breath that clears your vision, hands cradle your face and you look up into Peter’s face. It’s a bit screwed up because he’s crying.

You blink slowly at him.

“Oh, my God,” he says as though from a long way away. “I thought you were going to die. Are you still bleeding? Can you breathe? Are you all right? Do you have brain damage? Wait, are you dead? Y/N, can you hear me?” He shakes you. His voice gets higher. “Y/N, you gotta respond to me or I’m gonna think you’re dead! Are you dead?”

You cough, splattering his face with more blood and mucus, and his lips thin as he wipes it off.

“Are you still mad at me?”

“Your mask,” you croak weakly. Your eyes widen with realization. “Oh, God, your mask, Peter, people are gonna see you—”

“Thank God you’re all right,” he breathes, gathering you into a tight hug that has you gasping for air. His splayed hands on your back move up and down, probing for holes. “I think you’re okay.” He begins to rock back and forth, still holding you in his arms. “I thought you were going to die.”

Weakly, you wrap your arms around him and squeeze as hard as you can. You’re already feeling better. “Peter Parker, did you just save my life?”

“Does that mean you forgive me?” He pulls back, beaming at you even though he’s still crying.

“I guess,” you say mock-reluctantly.

“Thank God,” he breathes. “Y/N, I like you.”

“What?” You blink.

“It’s all right if you don’t say it back,” he says, rushed. “Or if you don’t feel the same way at all. I just thought you should know.”

“No, I—”

“Y/N!”

Tony sweeps you off your feet, twirling you in a circle. “Oh my God, baby, are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Dad,” you reply but don’t push him away. “Peter saved me.”

Tony picks up Peter’s discarded mask and shoves it into his favorite intern’s hands before sweeping him into the group hug too. “Does this mean you don’t hate him anymore?” he asks, beaming.

Peter pulls his mask on and turns away. You glance after him, frowning.

“What?” Tony asks, deflating. “Do you really still hate him?”

You tap Spider-man on the shoulder. Peter shrugs and says without looking back, “It’s fine, Y/N. I shouldn’t have expected anything else, considering what I did to you—”

You spin him around, lift his mask up to his nose, and fit your mouth against his.

When you pull back, his mouth stays open as he gapes at you.

“I never said I didn’t feel the same way,” you say, feeling shy all of a sudden.

“Seriously?” he squeals. Then he coughs and lowers his voice. “I mean, uh—seriously?”

You shake your head and smile before planting your lips on his again. And that’s how the media finds you two. And the internet kind of explodes for the next two hours. It turns out a lot of people have been shipping you two for a while now.

Inferno Taglist:

@paullrud @eridanuswave @loveissupernatural @moistpotatobear @oh-annaa

Peter Parker x Reader Taglist:

@iconicbabesss

Forever Taglist:

@lemirabitur @annymcervantes @queenmissfit @quiet-because-it-is-a-secret @iksey @thehyperactiveteen @luxmoonlight

23 notes · View notes

spookyspaghettisundae · 4 years

Text

Things Below

Voices. Voices, everywhere. Emily peered out the window from the backseat of the patrol car. Locked in, but free to hear all these confusing voices. She could hear the thoughts of the people the car drove past, picking up fallout from the minds of people on the sidewalk.

“He gave me too much change. Tough shit, sucker. I’m not telling and I’m keeping it. Those stores are insured against this kind of—”

“I’m late, I’m late, I’m late; oh my god, I’m gonna lose my job. What about—”

“I forgot to lock the front door. To hell with whatever he’s saying, I’m sure as hell that I forgot—”

“Stop staring, dumbass. Jeeze, I think I need to jack off in a bathroom stall, otherwise she'll—”

Emily didn’t even care about reading the thoughts themselves. She used to figure people to be thinking drivel like this just by looking at them. No, the reporter wanted to see how well she could focus this ability—how well she could control it. As far as she was concerned, she had developed a superpower. With it, she could change the world.

Only one thing gave her reason for pause; gave her a reason to worry. If she wasn’t dreaming—if this all was real—then it meant the demon she had met at the delicate age of 21 had been real, too.

The edges of her vision turned into streaks, stretching into infinity, blending together in a wild blur of colors and shapes. She only caught glimpse of their faces, all unimportant and forgotten within seconds, but their thoughts reached her mind in fragments, like a rain of glass shards falling into a bottomless pit. Clipped, ripped out of context—like switching rapidly through radio stations and never hearing anything out.

Officer Stanton glanced back at Emily through the rearview mirror. Judging by his furrowed brow, he was concerned about her mental well-being. That was when she realized that her head kept bobbing erratically, moving on a constant swivel. She must have looked like a crazy person to this cop.

“Your nose,” he said after clearing his throat and training his eyes on the road again.

Confounded, Emily dabbed her nose, only to find blood on her fingers.

The splitting headache set in. Or it had been there all along, except that it now cranked the dial to eleven in the very second she stopped tuning in to the thoughts of all the passers-by. She muttered a short curse and a emitted a soft, nervous chuckle.

Looked like the superpower came with a little price tag.

But it had already paid off. Under other circumstances, she would have had to go out on a limb in trusting this “Officer Stanton.” Letting him lock her into the backseat like a common suspect or criminal. But what choice did she have? A bomb turned her apartment block into a blazing inferno, she woke up naked in a dumpster, and she had no phone, no money, and was now wearing the borrowed clothes of her friend Maria—who probably had her pegged as crazy and she should never talk to again.

Scanning Stanton’s thoughts had revealed a certain level of surprising purity. Blue-eyed, this shmuck hadn’t seen anywhere near the amount of horrid things Emily had seen in her time as an investigative reporter, looking into human trafficking and pedophile rings. He was as concerned as she was about Detective Tanner, her single only trustworthy contact in the police—who had gone missing.

Reading Stanton’s mind, Emily knew that this cop had his heart in the right place and was going out on a limb himself. She looked and sounded like a crazy person, had no identification, and lied to him first thing upon their meeting. He had a lot to lose himself.

And she couldn’t tell him everything she had witnessed.

“I was drugged and abducted,” she had admitted to him in that first encounter. Only part of the truth she could speak without sounding like she had lost every last marble.

The other part involved what she could only describe as a trip into hell, where she was hounded by an antagonistic demon she dubbed “Stinky Jim.”

Eight years ago, Emily met Stinky Jim for the first time, though she did not have such a name for the demon yet. Had she known it was real, she would have lost her mind. She would have been the Other Emily, the Lost Emily—the one sitting in a padded cell, rocking back and forth, gibbering, and disconnected from reality.

If her recent awakening—the event since when she could read minds and bend space itself—had taught her anything, then it was that reality itself was a strained, malleable concept.

Even human identity crumbled in the face of enlightened scrutiny.

Back when she was 21, working the sixth McJob in a row before she got smart, got her GED, and got into studying to become a reporter; she still hung out in a basement with the rest of the “gang.”

She remembered that night with stunning clarity. The edges on everything remained sharp. The dive in the basement of the home of Rodney’s parents had burned itself into the pages of her memory.

Her birthday—the night Emily turned 21.

Both on the surface and in all things below, she was a different person. Dyed her hair pink, piercings in her ears and on her brow, royal blue lipstick, torn heavy metal T-shirts. Loved ranting about politics, economy, and social justice; but never lifted a finger to do a damned thing about it.

Just like then. They were sitting in Rodney’s parents’ basement, sprawled out over ratty old couches and chairs with the TV set and old video game consoles, smoking weed, and the four boys listening to one of her many unnumbered tirades on LGBTQ+ rights.

“Shut the fuck up if you ain’t gonna do anything ‘bout it,” Chris told her. “Gay Chris,” as he was nicknamed, which didn’t bother him at all once they grew older—he wore the name like a badge of pride.

His voice cracked as he kept the smoke from the bong in his lungs and passed it on to Carlos, and Chris added, “The fuck do you know about any of that, straightie?”

That stunned Emily. That’s when everything clicked for her. When it all changed. Speechless, she silently agreed with him. Everything she knew about the gay experience was theoretical or secondhand, drawing from Chris’ experiences.

But that’s when she found her true calling.

She wouldn’t “shut the fuck up about it.” She refused to, because it would have been against her nature. She would do the legwork, and tell the world. She would relay the truth, even when it hurt, or when it got her and others into hot water. That would be her strength. Her destiny.

It would take till the end of that week and some feverish reading until she figured out that journalism was the way for her to go, but that was the same night when Emily really took the reins of her life into her own hands, and forged the path she now followed with furious determination.

Carlos chortled, then took a long toke from the bong before passing it on to Rodney. Emily remained silent.

With her most recent rant dead in the water, and the only active water being the one making the bubbling and churning sounds whenever anybody inhaled another hit from the bong, her thoughts drifted. The night of her birthday dragged on like many others in this very place, the matter of her birthday only standing out by the amount of weed they would have burned through by the end of the night.

She loved these boys like her brothers. Loved the countless nights they spent together, shooting the shit about their work, their messes of what could barely be described as love lives, playing video games together on the couch in this same basement and getting into swearing matches more heated than the actual gameplay, going to metal concerts together, or talking about philosophy and spirituality into the ungodliest hours of the morning.

Some time around 2 AM, Carlos had already passed out. He snored in the corner with a pile of empty potato chip bags and plastic bottles piled onto him like a work of art. Chris had gone home to get some sleep because of an early shift the next day. Only Jimmy, Rodney, and Emily remained. Stabbing Westward’s Ungod was playing back from the old iPod in a soft volume.

Rodney climbed back onto the couch and slid onto the cushions between Jimmy and Emily. His eyes were bloodshot from all the beer and weed they had been kicking back and he gave her a stupid grin.

“Got something special for this special occasion,” he said in a conspiratorial tone.

He unfolded his fingers and presented three little things. To Emily, they looked like stamps or pieces of perforated cardboard just resting on his palm, each of them marked with a pastel yellow smiley face.

Before either Emily or Jimmy could ask, Rodney said, “LSD, hoes. Lucy seeing diamonds—in the sky—or something. So, uh, anyway, how about we go on a real trip?”

Jimmy’s brow furrowed and Emily snickered at him. Buff Jimmy over there, the racing car enthusiast who loved tuning cars and speeding in them, accustomed to acting like the biggest badass of their little gang, was now all skeptical and intimidated by this harmless-looking drug resting in Rodney’s hand.

“Fuck it, why not?” Emily asked.

“Nah, I’ll pass,” Jimmy predictably said. “Y'know what, you should too. Also, I should get back home and get some sleep.”

Jimmy scrambled to leave, looking half asleep already, and muttered a goodbye to Carlos who continued to snore away, oblivious to everything going on now.

“Pussy,” Emily called out after Jimmy just before he flipped her off and closed the basement door behind himself.

Rodney and Emily got a good laugh out of Jimmy’s departure. Then Rodney turned his head and waggled his eyebrows at her, holding out the three slips of LSD still.

“I could put one back, or one of us takes two of ‘em,” he said, letting his voice rise sharply towards the end in challenge.

Emily squinted and then snatched two of them out of his palm.

“Happy fuckin’ birthday to me, I guess,” she said, grinning with him in challenge, wondering if he wasn’t going to chicken out himself.

She stuck her tongue out at him like she was about to lick Rodney’s face, then placed the two pieces of LSD on her tongue and retracted it. Swallowed.

“How long?” she asked.

“My dick?”

“Fuck you.”

Rodney cackled and told her it would take two hours. They settled on re-watching Scream—one of Emily’s favorite horror movies. They talked over the flick, as usual. Laughed as Carlos turned over in his sleep at one point, knocking over the pyramid of junk piled onto him without even waking up, and they both wondered loudly if they weren’t going to have a horror trip if they watched a horror movie while tripping on LSD, like the idiots they were.

The movie ended and Emily still couldn’t tell if the drug was having any effect on her system.

“Get me another beer, beer bitch,” she told Rodney, softly kicking him in his thigh while she drooped lazily over the other half of the couch.

He got up and went to the small fridge in the corner of the room. She blinked and wondered why he did that without giving her any lip. Even on her birthday, Rodney wasn’t wont to do what she told him to. Returning to her, he uncapped the bottle of beer and held it out to her.

She took it and looked at him in disbelief. Rodney himself looked befuddled. He blinked and looked around. Was the LSD finally kicking in for him? If so, why was it taking so long for her?

If him tripping balls meant he was a compliant little sheep, she was going to have some fun with this. She pulled out her flip phone and started recording a grainy video on the device.

“Hey, Rodney, why don’t you stand on one foot and spin around in a circle for the audience,” she told him, biting her lip and sensing that he would do exactly as told.

And he did. Almost stumbling over the coffee table and falling onto his ass in the process, he did exactly that. Emily covered her mouth to stifle a giggle. She stared at him through the display of her phone, making sure to capture his dumbfounded facial expressions.

“Rodney, tell the world how much of a little skanky whore you are,” she said, mouth agape with a grin so wide that it almost hurt her cheeks.

“I’m such a little skanky whore that I’d eat Paris Hilton’s ass with whipped cream and a cherry on top,” he said, slurring it out as if his consciousness slipped farther away into a trance or delirium with each additional word.

Emily burst out laughing, “You will never live this one down when the others see the video, dipshit.”

Yet something crept up behind Emily. A dark, foreboding sense of something alien and sinister. It only reached the back of her mind with a delay: she heard Rodney’s thoughts before he did or said anything that she told him to. Or rather, she projected her self into him and he complied, pliable like a piece of wet cardboard.

These thoughts made more sense now, in the present, when she knew she could read minds. But back then, she had chalked it up to the acid trip. The day after, she would go back to her normal life, letting the details fade away into oblivion, dismissing them as nightmarish nonsense.

Except for the knock on the door.

Not the door leading in and out of the basement, but the door to the boiler room. A room where nobody should have been inside.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and she stared at it, wide-eyed and terrified. Rodney followed her gaze because she willed him to pay just as much attention to it.

Knock knock. Again.

Or rather: THUMP THUMP. Deep, bass. Menacing.

“Rodney, go check on the clown hiding in there,” Emily told Rodney, not even thinking things through. She couldn’t even chalk it up to the booze and drugs.

All she knew was that she feared whatever awaited behind that door.

Like sleepwalking, Rodney approached the boiler room door. Twisted the knob. Opened it.

A soft red light glowed, engulfing him. A light out of this world. It flickered, danced—like flames. But no heat or fire awaited beyond the door. Only madness.

Emily walked there herself, intrigued by the mysterious light. Her whole body tingled with dread, yet she could not help but approach. She knew deep down, lurking beneath the surface of her thoughts, that something evil awaited there. Something that would drive her insane. She didn’t need to approach, should have turned and fled from Rodney’s basement. But curiosity won out over common sense.

She stood next to him and peered into the place beyond the door.

There was no boiler room there. Instead of the dingy little room with the big cylindrical something, some old plastic crates, and a bunch of pipes and valves—a flight of stairs stretched down, winding around a curve. The fiery red light flickered from the depths, beckoning her.

“Rodney, go lie down and sleep.”

He acknowledged her order, not speaking the affirmation out loud but just thinking it. Emily, however, didn’t even register how the thought had reached her like a spoken word. She could taste his dread riding on the back of those thoughts—salty, smooth, bitter, clamping his throat shut and cutting his breath short.

But her eyes fixated on these stairs. Made of obsidian, covered in strange, indecipherable symbols, bearing names on each step. Names of the lost and the damned. The forgotten and the famous. She could not read them, but she knew the names were important. She would read them again one day, but that was not this day.

Rodney laid down onto the couch and fell asleep within an instant. His thoughts turned into a soup of drugged dreaming and Emily shut them out, probing for any presence at the bottom of those stairs. To see if anything dwelt there, any things below.

“Come on down and find out,” something replied. Not in words, but thoughts. Smoky, crackling like wood in a fireplace, with embers rising into a dark and starry night.

Emily took her first step down those stairs in this other-space. Then another. And another. She tread down this path, and the stairwell narrowed as it twisted and turned on her way downward. She burned with curiosity to find what things lay hidden in the depths.

The door slammed shut behind her and something laughed. Something in a deep, bellowing baritone, like a monster straight out of some horror movie. The laughter died down into a chortle, egging her on to turn around and see for herself.

Fear overtook her and prevented her from turning to behold this demon. This madness. She knew it was there, right behind her. Fetid breath rhythmically struck the exposed skin of the back of her neck. The thing was huge, like a man two heads taller than her.

“If you don’t have the balls to look at me, then you better keep movin’, little girl,” the demon spoke to her, cackling some more. The words carried the air of a threat. “What are you afraid of finding down here, anyway?”

More laughter. Sinister. Knowing. Knowing her deepest, darkest desires, and secrets she would learn in the future

Her heart thumped against her chest, pounding so hard that it threatened to explode out of her rib cage any minute now. And whether she was tripping on the LSD, having an overly vivid nightmare, or this was indeed real, she dreaded turning around and instead continued on her descent.

“Welcome to the maze, Emily,” the thing’s voice crackled. Flames licked from its voice and the biting smells of charcoal smoke and sulfur filled her nostrils, stuck to her tongue. Way too real to be imagined, yet even now, she struggled to explain how this experience or even this memory could be real.

Because right now, she sat on the backseat of Officer Stanton’s car. But the vivid recollection of this memory sliced through time and space, reaching her in the now. The demonic presence still lingered, lurking behind her, occupying the space in her mind.

The unwanted guest renting one of the rooms in the mindscape of Motel Emily. The neon sign of vacancy flickered unsteadily.

Where the stairs wound down further, she reached a door branching out to the side. Or rather, the word “door” didn’t really cut it. It was a stone portal, covered in more symbols or otherworldly runes.

Without thinking, she pushed it open, hoping to find escape from this place, praying to reach Rodney’s basement again, or appear back in Stanton’s patrol car. The past and the present started bleeding together. Had she really experienced all this, back then? Was this the madness, overtaking her mind, surfacing now, tainting the present and overwriting reality?

“This is as real as it gets, bitch,” the demon said, cackling yet more.

The pink-haired Emily celebrating her 21st birthday and tripping on LSD didn’t understand what she saw beyond the portal once she strained herself, putting her legs and back into pushing it open, her nerves fraying with each inch accompanied by the sounds of stone grinding against stone.

Beyond that portal, she saw another Emily, stripped half-naked, handcuffed to a curtain rack, with some man with a painted face sliding a knife into her exposed back. Bodies of the dead and the dying littered the dark and ruined room of some derelict house in that place and Helpless Emily screamed in agony.

Younger Emily gasped and backed away from this scene of carnage and despair, recalling a memory of something yet to come, which Present Emily knew already and remembered as the time the Grinning Man came close to killing her.

The man with the knife, with the face painted to display a horrid grin over a face of cold and sociopathic indifference, turned to look at Younger Emily. She pulled, tugged at the portal with all her might, desperate to close it before something worse happened.

The Grinning Man, that serial killer, turned from Tortured Emily. He tilted his head, staring into the stone portal in disbelief, studying its frame. Before Younger Emily succeeded in fully shutting the portal, he approached with swift steps, ready to pass from one place into another.

But she slammed it shut just in time, just before she could decipher shouts from beyond the portal.

Worse, the demon remained. Right behind her.

She dared not turn around completely to look upon its horrid visage, but glimpsed it from the corner of her eye. Red like a devil, covered in spikes and horns and smiling at her with a maw lined with rows and rows of jagged, shark-like teeth. Blackened, knife-shaped claws opening and closing in anticipation, ready to rip her to shreds if she looked at it for too long.

It cackled again and Emily continued down the stairs.

“That was you,” it said. “That’ll be you, in the future. You fuck-up. Nobody’s proud of you, Emily. Accomplishing nothing of value. Only watching people die in squalor and misery. You are nothing but a worthless witness. A voyeur in a voyeuristic world.”

Hearing the demon speak in such a modern vernacular and imagining to be such a clichéd presence clashed in her mind, and she almost turned to confront the creature. But she read its thoughts and they mirrored her own.

The first time she realized that turning only meant embracing the madness, and ending up in that padded little room, all alone, locked inside her head with drugs—and not the sort that Younger Emily found fun.

Picking up the pace, she continued down the winding, hellish stairs. The walls drew closer together with each step, never moving, but converging in angles that made her descent more claustrophobic with each passing moment.

Present Emily knew she had to break free of this memory, because it was bleeding into reality. The demon was taking hold. She dabbed more blood from her nose and barely perceived the world outside the patrol car, rolling by. This memory was real, made even more real through recent realizations, and recalling it now was rendering it even more visceral than ever before. The knowledge of Present Emily collided with the memories of Younger Emily and they coalesced. They coagulated.

She passed by another stone portal, almost screaming at what she felt from behind it. Younger Emily did not know what awaited there, but Present Emily did not want to see it, and the two of them refused to push it open and look inside.

“Yeah, you keep walkin’, you hypocritical asshole. Eager to discover the truth, but just another chickenshit,” the demon said.

Instead of the inevitable laughter she expected to ensue, the demon growled with anger, reflecting a rage welling in her bowels, only overshadowed by the terror and fear now gripping her heart and driving her down the stairs, faster and faster.

“He’s dead, Emily. Julian’s dead, and it’s all your fault,” the thing snarled.

Its hoofed feet thundered down the steps behind her, keeping pace with ease, the hulking presence chasing her down deeper into this pit of insanity.

“No,” she finally dared to reply, but the demon mimicked her word, mocking her. Then she repeated herself, “No, that’s not my fault. Not like with the others. Not everything is my fault.”

“Maybe not directly, but what if you never entered his life? What if he hadn’t been on that parking lot, that day? He might not have had some crazy stalker cave his skull in with a two-by-four. So maybe it’s still your fault,” the demon growled.

“Shut up,” she said. Then screamed it. “Shut the fuck up!”

“Yeah, shut the fuck up if you’re not going to do anything about it, right, Emily?”

The demon’s voice reached a fever pitch and now chased her. She ran, taking multiple steps down the well in strides, pushing through the narrow pathways, wasting no time to wonder how the demon’s sheer mass could fit through here behind her. The stink of fear erupted from her pores in a sheen of sweat, the heat of this hell engulfing her, and the stench of burning flesh rising from the depths.

The stone walls wriggled. They were not made of obsidian anymore, but worms. Millions and millions of pitch-black worms, things that did not belong in reality but were all too real. Slippery, alive. Writhing, as the mass reached out to her like walls of tiny fingers covered in myriads of chomping little mouths, provoking a shriek of terror to escape Emily’s throat, and the demon to laugh its sadistic laugh at her.

“Run, Emily! Run away, you disgusting fucking coward!” The demon spoke in many voices, those of Chris, her father when he slapped her cheek, the monster on her heels, and even herself. They all blended together. One of many, many in one.

There it was again: rocking back and forth, drool dripping from the corner of her mouth. White, padded walls all around.

Was she truly there? Was this even real? Was her entire life just a lie? Figments of her imagination, trying to make sense where none was to be made?

The stairs split into different pathways and Emily knew what to do. Present Emily wiped more blood from her nose and stared at her bloodied fingers in disbelief. Younger Emily had discovered her destiny, was glimpsing horrors from her future. Of the three possible ways to go, she squeezed into the narrowest one, screaming silently as she felt the wriggling mass of worms engulf her with the heat of a thousand fires, causing her skin to blister and painfully peel back. She clenched her teeth shut and feared the things entering through any orifices but pushed forward.

She had to live. She had to fulfill her destiny. She remembered all the people who died, or rather, those who would die.

She could change the world, but only if she didn’t give in now.

“Shit, I’ll give you a tissue once we reach the precinct,” Stanton said. His offer; his words helped, centering her in the now. The words he spoke bled through into that dark place where Younger Emily found herself, an unknown voice from a stranger from another world, or another time, piercing the veils of different realities, and guiding her through this horrid darkness.

The demon grunted and cackled and choked on the worms entering its maw as it squeezed itself through the narrow, suffocating passageway, following Emily without fail. It clawed its way forth, causing a cacophony of disgusting squelching noises, and sensations that reminded her of bones snapping to the point of sharp edges bursting through skin and protruding from human flesh, and teeth gnashing on exposed innards with blood spurting out, gushing, and the reek of feces in the air.

Her eyes long clamped shut, she dared not breathe but had to, and felt first worms trying to wriggle their way into her mouth. She sputtered and spat them out with an angry scream, controlling the rage that drove her, clawing her own way forth, mimicking the demon’s motions. Or it mimicked hers.

The stairs went upwards and she ascended, pulling her way through the narrowest spot of these walls of worms, fleeing up the stairs. The demon tumbled, but then continued giving chase on all fours, like the beast that it truly was. Like the beast in the back of her head, the madness always just a few steps behind her.

“You can’t get away from me,” Stinky Jim cackled, only to abruptly choke on his words, gagging and coughing up more worms. Through rows of bloodied, gritted teeth, he said, “I am always with you, Emily.”

She tripped, fell, scraped her hands on the jagged edges of the obsidian steps, right in front of one of the names inscribed upon the stairs: Xerxes. Younger Emily blinked, did not quite register what it meant until years later, first dismissing this memory and experience as a bad trip, induced by popping too much acid and being tired out of her mind.

Screams echoed through the infinite, infernal stairwell, bouncing off the walls and curdling her blood until she realized: the screams were her own. The demon’s growling matched them, blended in with them, and she screamed in pain as claws dug into her back, lifting her onto her feet and pushing her up a few steps until she ran on yet farther, stumbling forth and upwards, ever away from the madness that followed her wherever she went, ever away from the things below.

The things below the surface of her mind. The horrid things she pushed deep down to still her mind; the darkness she drowned in whiskey and cigarettes even as she grew older.

This could have been her awakening but she skidded right past it. It wouldn’t be for years until she had her world turned upside down. Never realizing the power she held. The demon followed closely, keeping her blood pumping and the adrenaline flowing like fire in her veins.

She reached a stone portal at the top of the stairs and pushed it open. Instead of meeting resistance and stone grinding upon stone once more, it swung open with ease. She burst right through it and stumbled again.

Catching her breath, wheezing, lungs screaming but only pained sounds emerging from her lips, she looked around. There was no demon behind her. Younger Emily, with her pink hair, and her piercings, and completely stoned, stood in Rodney’s basement. Behind her was only the door to the boiler room.

Rodney slept on the couch, curled up into a fetal position. Carlos slept on the chair, sprawled out, still blanketed by some empty plastic wrappers. Static on the TV screen.

Emily ripped the door to the boiler room open, needing to know if that had been real, but there was no hellish stairwell behind it. Just the regular old boiler room that it should have been, reeking of oil.

The demon’s laughter echoed in her mind. She checked the time, noting how many hours had passed and chalking this whole experience up to a bad acid trip after all. She didn’t go home, afraid to be followed or stalked out there in the dark and cold and wet autumn streets, all alone.

Even though she found blood when she wiped her nose, Younger Emily figured it fit. Demons and hell weren’t real. She didn’t have the power to control minds or enter strange otherworlds.

She curled up on the end of the couch, wrapping herself in a smelly old blanket that Rodney should have washed weeks ago. Although she thought the nightmarish imagery and things she had just witnessed would keep her up until the other two boys woke up, exhaustion dragged her into the realm of sleep within minutes.

Emily sat in the back of Stanton’s car, finally escaping from this memory. She looked out the window, at the people in the streets of New Haven. Instead of reading their minds, scanning their thoughts, and testing the limitations of her newfound powers, she decided against any of that.

“I’m still here,” the demon said—Stinky Jim. He sat right next to her, just out of sight.

The fear welled up again, churning in her guts as if the monster gripped her stomach with a claw and twisted.

“I’ll always be with you, Emily. Just one step behind. You ever want the security of that little padded room—to surrender all responsibility, let the world sort itself out and sink into darkness while you drool in the corner—you just turn back. Let me take the wheel,” Stinky Jim said. He cackled again, showing no hint of mercy.

“Or you keep going deeper down, scratchin’ at those wriggling walls, and dive into those lakes of blood and shit and fire. Find out what’s beneath the surface. Drown in the secrets of those things below, or spit ‘em out and curse the world with your wretched knowledge.”

More cackling.

Emily clamped her eyes shut. She willed Stinky Jim to shut up.

She centered herself. Pushed away every thought. Blocked it all out—she had gained that much control over it now. Focused.

Breathed.

Pushed the demon deep down, where it would lurk. And wait.

With the things below.

—Submitted by Wratts

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eleanor-writes-stuff · 5 years

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i just called to say [one-shot]

Rey's world comes crashing down on a Wednesday afternoon, and if Ben could just answer one of her twenty calls so that she knows the secret love of her life is not trapped in his burning office building, that'd be great.

This is the fic I was supposed to write and post today. This is the fic I wrote instead. What was meant to be a quick ficlet has somehow ballooned into 2600+ words of Rey freaking out, but if you enjoy the good old friends-to-lovers trope, here you go.

Also available on AO3.

“Rey!”

“What is it?” Rey hollers out her open door, craning her neck from her spot on the bed to see if she can catch a glimpse of Finn and pinpoint the cause of his summons.

The urgent call comes again, and this time Rey is able to determine that Finn is nowhere near her. He and Poe take turns calling out for her as she wanders into the living room, and a heavy knot of concern and fear begins to form low in her stomach as the two of them come into view, each more pale and stricken than Rey has ever seen them.

Finn is waiting for her, reaches out as soon as he spots her, but by then Rey has caught sight of the TV beyond Poe’s shoulder and the big, bold letters spelling out BREAKING NEWS! and fire, so much fire, consuming an all-too-familiar building.

“Oh god,” Rey whispers, knees buckling as the flashy breaking news banner gives way to Inferno in Downtown Coruscant and below that, in smaller letters as if it’s any less significant, as if her world hasn’t just come to a grinding halt: Amidala House consumed by sudden blaze.

“Shit!” Finn gasps, lunging forward to catch her before she can hit the ground, but Rey can’t find the words to thank him, can’t find the will to look away from the nightmare unfolding on the TV screen.

She vaguely registers him and Poe helping her to the couch, keeps her eyes glued to the sight of Amidala House being reduced to ash and rubble until Poe presses something into her hand.

“Call him,” he suggests gently, closing Rey’s fingers around her phone.

Ben. She needs to call Ben, because sometimes good things happen in this world and Ben was one of them and she needs another good thing now, she needs him to not be in that building and part of the 13 people trapped in rapidly destabilizing structure but oh god, what if he is? What if he’s somewhere inside that burning building on her screen and his lungs are filling up with smoke as Rey does nothing but watch on and he dies on live TV, right in front of her very eyes?

“Hey!”

Rey snaps out of it with a slight jump, turns to her left to find Finn’s nails digging crescents into her free palm and his wide, panicked eyes steady on hers. “Breathe, Rey. Just breathe. C’mon, with me. In, out, in–”

She follows his lead without further prompting, well used to this routine even if it takes her a while to connect it with her short, shallow breaths and panic attacks.

When she finally gets some air into her lungs and manages to keep it there for more than two seconds, Poe carefully plucks her phone from her hand, enters the passcode he’s not supposed to know, and brings up Ben’s number.

“Here we go,” he says softly, handing Rey the phone with shaking hands. “Call him, Rey. We need to know. You need to know.”

The corner of her screen tells her it’s 1:22 in the afternoon, just eighty-two minutes after Ben’s last message to her – Ben who brings lunch to work, Ben who once spent thirty straight minutes ranting about a shovel, Rey! Who the fuck serves food in a shovel, I’m not eating off fucking gardening tools–

Ben, who is almost definitely inside that building, the same way he always is at this time of the day, eating lunch in his office.

Before she can spiral back into a panic attack, Finn wraps an arm around her shoulder and holds her close while Poe takes her free hand and gives it a comforting squeeze.

“It’s going to be okay, Rey,” he promises her and she wants, so badly, to believe that it will.

So Rey hits the call button.

She leaves a message, begging him to call her back through a voice thick with tears.

Ten minutes pass while the fire rages on.

Twenty minutes, and a handful of people manage to make their way out of the building before all exits are completely blocked.

Thirty minutes, and firefighters announce that they’re well on their way to putting out the blaze.

Forty minutes, and they start heading into the building to see who’s left.

“We’ll be right back with more information for loved ones,” the on-site reporter tells the camera gravely, and Rey chokes on a sob as she jumps off the couch and runs into her room.

Finn gives her five minutes to cry her heart out before he tentatively pokes his head in and asks, “Anything yet?”

Rey wipes her tears away and doesn’t tell him that she’s called close to twenty times now, that Ben’s inbox filled up a while ago and there’s so much she didn’t say, so much she might never get to say–

“He’ll call back,” she declares with borrowed confidence, leaning heavily on his and Poe’s comforting support and endless assurances. “Any minute now, he’ll call back.”

“I’m sure he will, Peanut,” Finn tells her, because what else is there to say when the reality of the situation hangs heavy in the air, filling every silent second between spoken words with fear unlike anything she’s ever known before?

He gives her one last smile, turns to leave–

“Finn?” she whispers, half-expecting, half-hoping for him to miss it.

“Yeah?”

With her knees drawn to her chest, Rey squeezes her eyes shut as she asks, “Have they released any names yet?”

She can hear Finn cross the threshold into her room, but she can’t bring herself to open her eyes when he curls a heavy hand around her shoulder. “No,” Finn finally says. “No names yet.”

Rey lets out a shaky breath and acknowledges him with a nod, waits until Finn closes the door behind him to collapse back into bed.

No news is good news, she tells herself even as she holds her phone in a white-knuckled grip.

The funny thing is, three years ago this wouldn’t have bothered her at all.

Well, okay, it would have bothered her a little, hearing that the boy who lived down the street from her had passed away at such a young age. But that’s all Ben was to her, for the longest time: the boy from down the street, then the weird kid Maz’s friends brought to dinner sometimes, then the guy she’d sometimes catch a glimpse of in the hallways when she was a freshman and he was a senior.

They didn’t even have their first proper conversation until five years after their first meeting, when Rey unexpectedly ran into him in college and found out that he’d been going to the University of Theed for the past three years. Ben had changed by then, traded in the perpetual black cloud she remembered so well from high school and dinner parties for a teasing smile and a confident walk, and somewhere along the way they finally managed to form the kind of friendship everyone expected from two kids whose parents were close friends.

And now – now he’s one of her closest friends, her first good morning and last good night, the only person who knows her better than even Finn, better than herself. They speak nearly every day even when weeks go by without them meeting because of college and work commitments, and everyone else in her life knows that whenever she smiles at her phone he’s most likely the cause–

God, Rey can’t bear the thought of it: of never getting a random text from him again, of never hearing the smile in his voice while he listens to her rant about classes, of never getting the chance to tell him that… that she…

Her phone rings.

It’s been an hour. It’s been an hour, and Rey nearly falls off her bed as she dives for her phone, drops it twice before she finally picks up the call.

“Hey, is everything okay? I just saw your missed calls–”

A sob rips past her throat at the sound of his voice, and the immediate shift in his tone makes her heart feel like it’s going to burst.

“What’s wrong? What happened? Where are you, sweetheart, I’ll come get you right now–”

“Ben,” Rey manages to say despite her confusion. “Ben, the building burned down, I thought… I thought you…”

He’s still not making sense. “Which building? Are you hurt? Where are you, Rey, just tell me where you are–”

If he could stop worrying about her for one second and just realize– “Ben!” she finally snaps, interrupting his panicked stream of words. “Ben, your building. Amidala House. It burned down–”

“What?”

“It burned down and I thought… oh god, Ben, I thought… you always have lunch in your office, and I called and called but I didn’t hear back from you, and it’s been an hour and there are names, Ben, names on the news of people who didn’t… of people who…” She’s breathing hard, shaking so badly it feels like her lungs are rattling too much to catch her breath, and Rey can’t do anything about it, paralyzed all over again by the thought that he could have… that she almost…

“Fuck,” Ben mutters to himself. “Fuck, I’m so sorry, sweetheart. It’s Wednesday. I have lunch with my mom on Wednesdays, remember? We go to the French place near her office and put our phones away?”

It’s Wednesday. Of course it’s Wednesday, how could she not have– “I didn’t… I couldn’t… God, Ben, I was so scared, I couldn’t think straight, I saw the building on TV and all that fire and I just…”

There are people dead. Four, at last count, and Ben could’ve been one of them, and she would’ve found out by seeing his name on the screen, by hearing it from a stranger putting on her best we’re so sorry for your loss voice. Rey whimpers at the thought.

“I’m coming over, okay?” Ben says, and in the background she hears the familiar beep of his car. His car over in North Coruscant where Leia’s office is, a twenty-minute drive from Amidala House, a world away from all that fire and destruction and loss.

Rey finally gets a grip, clears her throat and wipes away her tears as she tells him, “No, it’s okay, you don’t have to–” Her protests sound weak even to her own ears, but Ben has bigger things to worry about, better things to do than comfort his panicked mess of a friend while clouds of smoke still darken the sky over his office and his employees line the streets with tears on their faces and shock blankets wrapped around them.

“I’m on my way,” Ben insists. “If I just spent an hour thinking I’d lost you, the only thing I’d want would be to see you. Does that sound like it’ll help?”

Yes. Yes, it would, and she can’t help but tell him as much.

“Then sit tight, I’ll be there soon. I doubt anyone will have a problem with me taking the rest of the day off, anyway,” he says wryly, trying to lighten the mood. Rey appreciates the effort, she really does, but there’ll be no relief until he’s here, until the sight of him replaces the image of him dead and gone that’s still imprinted on the back of her eyelids like a nightmare–

“I’ll see you soon, okay?”

Soon, he’ll be here soon, she can tell him soon, but they’ve already wasted so much time and that’s what she always told herself anyway, that she’d tell him soon, and today she nearly lost that chance for good–

“Ben,” Rey whispers as her heart begins to pound.

“Yes?”

She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath. “I love you.”

There’s a terrible, awful pause after that, one that threatens to fill her eyes with tears once more. “I love you too, sweetheart,” Ben says probably just seconds later, even if it feels like a lifetime, and she can hear the smile in his voice as he does but that’s not it, that’s not what she means–

“No, Ben, listen. I love you,” Rey says again, and suddenly the words come pouring out of her. “I love-love you. The kind of love that makes me feel like all the books and movies talk about. The kind of love that makes you the most important person in my life. The kind of love that made me feel like a part of me died when I thought I’d lost you.”

Her heart is racing and her lungs are burning by the time she’s done, and it’s ridiculous, completely ridiculous, but she still can’t breathe until he says, “You’re not losing me that easily, sweetheart.”

And then: “I love-love you too,” Ben tells her, a slight chuckle in his voice, and she allows it to wash over her like the relief that fills her bones. “Have for a long time now,” he adds, and Rey falls back against her pillows, too surprised to hold it together.

“Really?”

“Really,” he assures her. “We can talk about it when I get there, okay? I’m about to start driving.”

“Okay,” Rey says. And then, just because she can now, she ends the call with, “I love you.”

“Love you too,” Ben replies without pause, without thought, and Rey stares at her phone for the longest time after he hangs up until she realizes–

“Finn!” she calls out as she jumps up from her bed and tears out of her room. “Poe! He’s fine, Ben’s fine–”

Because Finn truly is the best friend a girl can ask for, he drags Poe out of the apartment under the guise of getting groceries for dinner just minutes later.

Rey splashes more cold water on her face than she probably needs to, and then busies herself with the dishes from lunch as she tries to process the last ten minutes. The last hour, really, because going from thinking she’d lost Ben for good to hearing him say he loves her back has been quite the whirlwind. She’s so caught up in processing it that she doesn’t even realize twenty minutes have passed until she hears a knock.

“Rey?” Ben calls out, voice muffled by the door, and she barely takes the time to dry her hands before she runs out of the kitchen.

There are a dozen ways she could greet him, a hundred ways their first conversation as two people openly in love with each other could go.

None of them involve Rey throwing the door open and promptly bursting into tears, but that’s how it unfolds anyway.

Ben holds her through it all, rubbing soothing circles into her back while she destroys his nice shirt with her blubbering. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it just… it didn’t really hit me until right now, I think, because I thought I’d never get to see you again and here you are–”

“Shh,” Ben comforts her as he guides her into the apartment and closes the door behind him. “I’m okay, sweetheart, I’m right here. Not going anywhere, I promise.”

When she finally gets her first good look at him, Rey wonders how the hell she could’ve been so blind. God, the way Ben looks at her.

“I love you,” she tells him, overcome by the need to say it again and see his reaction in person. His smile coaxes a matching expression out of her as her tears subside. “I love you so much, and I thought I’d never get to tell you–”

“But you did,” Ben reminds her before she can let her fears take hold of her again. “You did, and I love you too, Rey, more than you could possibly imagine–”

Rey pulls him down for a kiss, the first of many.

A lifetime’s worth, even.

This is not the fic I was meant to write and post today, but I was struggling with that one and thought a quick little ficlet might help me work through the block.

"Quick little ficlet," I said. Look at this monster. If you made it through the whole thing without just skimming large chunks of it, I am in awe of you. As always, thanks for reading, hope you guys liked at least some of it, and please don't hesitate to like/reblog/comment!

#reylo #rey x ben #kylo ren/rey #rey/ben solo #rey/kylo ren #star wars #rey #ben solo #kylo ren #ficlet: just called to say #series: ao3 reblog #my fics #fic archive

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crickey-itsjake · 4 years

Text

BDRP Questionnaire

1. Characters:

Jake Rogers, Monica "Mocha" Chino, Arista Triton, Haley Long, Megara Creon

2. Pick one of your characters and talk about their growth (we recommend choosing an older character, but it’s up to you!) What about their story has surprised you? What are you proud of? How have they changed from their original inception to now?

I’d be truly missing out if I didn’t discuss my oldest current character (since from before my triumphant return): Arista. Now Ris began as a twin to an old Adella. She was the sunshine to her moodiness and truly was naïve and entirely bubbleheaded. She grew into herself though, and that's what I'm most proud of. She went from being someone so enamored with love and going from one hook up to the next, but now I'm perfectly content with her being single. She had her heart broken a few times and then left and when I got her back I knew I wanted to mature her a bit. I wanted to make her a little more grounded and reason out the way her mind worked. The old Arista had her classic word mix ups ("Self-decapitating) and random bouts of train derailing, but I'd never truly dove into that. Writing her now, there's a certain way I've figure out how she talks, almost in a dreamy sort of way, when before she sort of had a bit of an airheaded valley girl-esque way of talking. This is partly due to the fc change (Allie Gonino the American vs Lily James the Brit) and partly to do with me remembering how British the Tritons are while watching Love Island. I think overall Ris has gone from an everywhere, energetic, hyper and sporadic party girl, to someone who floats from one place to another and sometimes that floating happens a little too fast and it looks like too much of a stretch to people who aren't paying too close attention. I'll always love my bubblehead beginnings, but she's developed into a character I can be extremely proud of and count on to bring the feels.

3. Pick another character and talk a little about where you WANT them to go. What are your plans for them going into the new year?

So going into the new year, I think Haley's gotta solidify her clique. She's still floating a little bit and eventually she'll have to choose a solid crew. I really want to get these current paras done so that follow up ones can occur in the new year and really develop her relationships with her friends. (Also I wouldn't mind a little teen romance as I have no idea which way the wind blows this fire). More Dragon things definitely. A lot more magical occurances and powers coming out at inopportune times. How will people knowing about her Dragon form affect her life? Will she be able to handle all her commitments and jobs? Who knows?

4. Pick a thread or a plot that you’re proud of and talk about why you loved it.

Sorry ya'll but I really gotta go for my HP plot. It had drama. It had comedy. It had socioeconomic talks with elves. It had chaos, secrets, intregue and poison. It had just everything. I'm pretty proud of it. It honestly remained an Alex plot through and through and is kind of the epitome of how I plan things and it was all from my glorious brain. (MK and Lauryl can tell everybody that I literally spammed them with my ideas for most of the week while the tournament was going on). In any case, really the pinnacle of my creation was Cappy the Elf. RIP Queen. You yeeted out of there Lord Farquaad style in a crispy blaze of glory, your ambition, revenge, and lack of education on ironic names was your downfall.

5. In terms of your own writing, identify 1-3 strengths and talk about why you think it’s one of your strengths.

1) Comedic timing. I've always kind of had a knack for timing things in a sitcom laugh track sort of way. I don't know if it was just growing up and watching Gilmore Girls and every other witty comedy under the sun, but ironic timing and strange turns of events that all somehow loop back together seamlessly just kind of happen. 2) Witty rapport (which leads to dialogue because that's my shit man, people talking). I mean, if anyone's ever seen me say anything on discord they know I've got it (even when no one wants it). Honestly voices always come to me before anything else. Whenever I get a reply I have an immediate knee jerk response in dialogue and then I build everything else after it. 3). Extended metaphors. I've said this time and time again but yanno, I love me a metaphor. Music or the sea for Ris. Animals for Jake. Really anything at all for Mocha. I just go on a symbolic tangent and I think it just enhances things.

6. In terms of your own writing, identify 1-3 areas of improvement.

1) Body movement and words for it. Most of the time I can see what I want them to do, but I can't figure out how to say what I mean without seeming basic. 2) Body positioning/facial expressions when talking. I get so focused on the words that I think I get a little repetative with the ways I describe facial features or like what they're doing with their hands while they talk. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQwJyE77ets 3) Smut descriptions. I'm real rusty fam.

7. Pick one of your plots, or even just a character, and come up with a list of 3-5 “mentor texts” where you can look for inspiration or research, then write a short (2-4 sentences) why you picked those texts.

Megara Creon

Medea by Euripides

A play about Ancient Greece which could provide inspiration for the relationship of Megara to her father. Medea involves King Creon as well as Megara as a minor character before she's married off to Hercules.

"Divine Comedy" by Dante

Provides inspiration about the circles of hell and the demons and creatures that can reside within them. This could be used for future adventures in dealing with other tiers of demons and contracts

Inferno by Niven and Pournelle

I loved this book as a high school student. Inspiration in the same vein of the divine comedy but its twisted into present day and modern examples of each circle and filled with all sorts of symbolism as you follow Carpentier. It's a way of interpretting hell as not just the big red fiery place

Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter by Jackie Kessler

This story is about a Vampire Hunter who becomes a succubus throughout the novel. Badass lady who becomes a succubus? Provides some inspo in the development of all that comes with the title as well as balancing life in the pursuit of a supernatural career. This series was based out of a gender inequality for women in detective and monster hunting positions in novels

8. And now, a wishlist! Jot down a few themes or stories or genres etc that you want to maybe pursue in the upcoming year! (i.e. a good ol’ fashion forbidden romance, maybe you want to dig deep into racial identity etc) This doesn’t have to necessarily be attached to any characters or stories you have now– it’s just meant to help you see for yourself what kind of stories call to your heart.

Teen dating/crushes/romance with Haley

Meg having to do research and going to various sorcerers and people who have ties to the darker demon sides of magic to figure out how to get her soul back/get rid of demon boi

Do some gigs with Ris and figure out how exactly I'm gonna convey her sound

9. OPTIONAL: Why do you RP?

I've always wanted to do more creative writing. I'm in a STEM profession which doesn't allow for much in that field. I've got so many random ideas for puns and jokes and things but no outlet for it. I wrote Fan fiction back in the day and when I came to rp for the first time like seven and a half years ago, I found a community of people who felt the same as me and who had the same interests and who supported me in a lot of ways. BDRP came into my life when I was feeling real low. I was disconnected from all my friends and forced to move back home where no one was. I was working long nights and honestly just felt really down and depressed. Then one day, I was talking to Pet and she was like JOIN US. And so I did. And honestly, it gave me some real great people and some real great moments where I've truly felt like I wasn't alone and I was still good at something. I left because of school and I truly missed it and had some serious creativity overload without putting it to any use so I came back to my rp family. I RP because it lets me focus on something other than the worlds impending doom, or my own future. I RP because it lets me explore sides of my personality in slivers that I put into every character. I RP because it lets me I RP because I let me I melt because RP An absolute RP melt, that's me.

#bdrptask

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cyb-by-lang · 6 years

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Shell Game (17/?)

Kei tries to stay within the bounds of baseline human capabilities and considers the efficiency of explosion-based propulsion.

This is probably the last daily update for a while. Need to build a buffer again.

There were more than two hundred kids on the field. There were about fifty with Quirks useful for destroying the robots from the Hero course entrance examination, concentrated heavily in 1-A and 1-B for good reason. Between Todoroki’s initial AOE ice attack and the robot roadblock, most of them were crowded together and hesitating in the face of opposition. Shinsō was one of them, but mainly because he couldn’t guarantee his or his mind-controlled “allies”’ safety without someone else acting first.

Kei strode to the front of the crowd, hands in her pockets.

There were also only about three dozen robots, in whatever configurations were left over from the school’s clearly ridiculous budget.

“Those things are considered obstacles?!” demanded whoever the hell was the fifteenth seat in 1-C. Some guy whose name Kei hadn’t learned.

Which was about when Todoroki, first on the field and still the closest to the homicidal hunks of steel, swept his arm out and turned the robot trying to crush him into the metal heart of a brand-new ice cube. Ice crystals the size of people gleamed all across the robot’s surface, icicles making the angle of Todoroki’s attack and looking like the result of a hideous midwinter storm. The robotic victim was already teetering as Todoroki ran through the gap between its legs.

Present Mic screamed, “And 1-A’s Todoroki puts the villains on ice with one cool move! He’s taken the lead!”

…Oh, that will be an actual, genuine problem. Kei’s “Quirk” stopped where Todoroki’s began, it seemed. Despite her many abilities, Kei wasn’t a waterbender and couldn’t control it in solid form. She didn’t have Ice Release as a bloodline limit, even if she’d fought someone who did during training. That wasn’t going to be a fun match.

And Todoroki, it seemed, was capable of about the same one-attack output Kei was, at least within the bounds of Quirks.

Knowing this does not change the nature of the task in front of us.

Does change how close we’ll go to him, though.

The frozen robot toppled forward, collapsing hard enough to make the ground quake and ripple beneath everyone’s feet. Kei fended off the billowing dust with her sleeve, not missing a beat as she continued to walk toward the mess.

“Excuse me, Midoriya-san,” Kei said as she passed him, the dust barely beginning to settle. “May I?”

Midoriya relaxed his defensive posture once he recognized her voice, though his expression was still pinched from stress. “Oh, Gekkō-san… Um, you don’t need to ask? What are you going to do?”

“Who fucking cares, Deku!” Bakugō snapped, his palms already shooting nitroglycerin-fueled sparks.

Kei ignored him and squared her stance as the other robots loomed. Two boys from the Hero course burst from the guts of the one destroyed robot, but that was fine. If they were busy getting out of the zero-point robot, then they were effectively clear.

Ready, Isobu?

Oh, yes.

Kei brought her hands together. Water Release: Great Waterfall Technique.

The air cracked as the vapor in the air was ripped from it, water swirling up and around Kei’s feet in a brief warning before the force of her chakra asserted itself on reality. What started as a trickle became a geyser, became a storm, and that formed a waterspout at least twice the height of the stadium. At its base, it was hardly wider than the span of Kei’s now-outstretched arms, but that didn’t matter.

And while the children behind her stared as though she was the next natural disaster looming over them, Kei turned the vortex on its side with willpower and a gesture identical to swinging a baseball bat.

Or, in her case, a sword.

The immediate cacophony was a combination of rushing water, the howl of a tornado, and hundreds of thousands of kilos of metal crashing horribly against itself and anything else it touched. Water blotted out the entire view ahead of the crowd as Kei’s ninjutsu ripped the robots to pieces exactly as she’d done in her entrance exam a few months beforehand. The debris stirred up made it impossible to tell exactly what was happening as the targets were pulverized.

“Wh-wh-what the hell is that Quirk?”

“Isn’t she supposed to be a General Studies student?!”

Kei snapped her fingers, and then it was over.

Water lapped at the ground as Kei cut her control, forming soft beach waves as it went back to being inert. The track directly where the robots had stood was noticeably scoured, leaving a half-meter-deep trench twenty meters across. The leftover water flowed off in places, into specialized drainage ditches.

Todoroki, unless Kei missed her mark, was also looking back. She’d been careful not to hurt anyone, including him, by twisting the vortex almost in on itself like an ouroboros, though it did reduce the effectiveness of her attack. Even the boys who ripped their way up through the robot were staring at her in shock.

Every zero-point robot lay shredded, but piled high in the center of the course as though shaped by massive, invisible hands. As the silence reigned, the Jenga pile of robot bits toppled exactly like the iced robot had, flattening into something more stable.

Ta-fucking-dah.

“Class 1-C’s Gekkō sweeps all the frontliners in the Robo Inferno away! That’s a wash for the robots!” Present Mic’s grin was nearly audible over the airwaves.

A ringing endorsement, really.

Kei broke into what was, for her, a sustainable run. When the one-, two-, and three-point robots came after her, in the way only truly fearless opponents did, she ducked and weaved through their grasping claws. Water trailed off her fingers more for effect than effectiveness, and she likewise kicked up spray as she dashed across the half-flooded track.

Her work here was done. The kids could take care of the rest. They’d had to in order to qualify to be hero-wannabes, after all.

Shortly thereafter, manufactured metal started to lose to vicious teenagers. Horribly.

The sound of a cannon shot told Kei the students were having fun, even before other robots behind her were torn limb from limb by enthusiastic students. Kei supposed most of the other kids were, if nothing else, practiced masters at using their Quirks. Even if Invisible Girl couldn’t punch a giant robot to death, there weren’t more robots than there were students to happily dismantle them.

It was kind of heartening, actually. Nobody with robot minions would last long against these kids.

Speaking of whom, Kei spotted the tape kid, bird-headed kid, and Bakugō careening overhead before any of them noticed her. Well, again. It was hard not to notice someone who flooded the track and tossed robots around like matchsticks once the destruction phase got underway.

“Move your ass!” Bakugō snarled as he landed near her. He threw himself into a run, explosions boosting his speed in much the same way they’d allowed him to leap over obstacles. “You’re in my way!”

Kei considered this suggestion on its merits, then decided to ignore it. Instead, she let chakra move freely through her limbs like it did during training, dug her heels solidly into the track as her feet fell, and ran.

Even if Kei hadn’t been on a team taught and operated by Namikaze Minato, she would have known how to reach supernatural speed. She wasn’t Iida with his biological engines, but she didn’t need to be. She’d been running her whole life, and one explosive brat wasn’t enough to keep up.

Kei heard, “GET BACK HERE, SEAWEED HEAD!”

Kei flipped him off as she pulled ahead, leaving him swearing furiously in her wake. And it was nearly a literal wake—kicking up water out of nowhere was one of the many ways she could subtly hint that her Quirk was responsible for her speed and strength.

The next immediate stretch of track was mundane. Between the robots and other kids, whoever organized these events clearly thought some good old-fashioned running could help people work up a sweat. For some people, like Shinsō before his training, this might’ve been the most difficult part of the race in some respects.

And then they reached what Present Mic gleefully called, “The Fall.”

“Oh, that’s pretty impressive.” Kei said aloud, eying it critically. It wasn’t like she didn’t have a hell of a jump distance, but somehow the event organizers had managed to basically stick a miniature version of the Chinese stone forest mountains in a single location. That kind of handiwork was really rather impressive. Even without the trees.

Of course, she also wanted to know what UA thought would save them from lawsuit hell if any kid actually plummeted to the bottom of the crevasse, but that was apparently one of those things she wasn’t supposed to think too hard about. Maybe Power Loader had just worked overtime to get this done?

“GOT YOU NOW, YOU ICY-HOT BASTARD!”

Bakugō didn’t even stop to land. Instead, more explosions sent him rocketing over the obstacle while Kei admired it, shouting threats both at her and at Todoroki. Mostly Todoroki, now that he thought she was out of the race. Without even being punched?

That was definitely a kid who didn’t stop to smell the roses much.

Present Mic cackled. “And class 1-A’s Bakugō surges ahead to take second place! How are the other competitors going to keep up? How’s Todoroki going to keep his lead?!”

“Do you even need me here?” Aizawa-sensei’s dry voice countered.

Kei could see Todoroki’s retreating back and the crumbling remnants of the ice he’d left all over the ropes to cross. It would’ve made for an unfortunate fall if Kei took that route. She did, however, have a plan that did not involve putting herself at risk quite like that.

On a good day, this particular obstacle also reminded her of a certain nasty, spike-filled crevasse in Konoha. And on a good day, Kei would have avoided the problem or flown over it with Tsuruya’s help. But, well…

Isobu chuckled in the depths of her mind. Desperate times?

Desperate measures, Kei joked back.

Chakra flooded into her limbs and, once she’d made the correct hand seals, she thought, Water Dragon Bullet. And then she leapt onto the nearest intact rope and hurled herself into the air.

Once again, the force of her power slapped water vapor from the air in a massive burst, drenching everyone within twenty meters in a sudden rainstorm, Bakugō and his explosively-propelled self included. Directly behind her, a miniature waterspout twisted out of the air and formed a gaping dragon’s maw. As it threw itself between her and Bakugō, shoving him aside with the mass concentrated in its swirling coils, Kei stuck her arm directly into the side of its head.

Liquid fangs bit deep into her gym uniform sleeve, jerked her off her feet, and surged over the massive pitfall at more than forty kilometers per hour. She and her construct—which she called “Haku” on a whim—practically flew across each gap in the ground, pausing only so Kei could land for a split second and gather more water without having to split her attention. It wasn’t gliding in the least—instead, the sheer force of the water she was keeping in the air were tugging her along like a banner ad behind an airplane.

You hardly seem to need the crane, now.

Say that again when we’re actually trying to travel somewhere!

“WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING!” shrieked Bakugō, having to redouble his efforts to stay in the air.

Kei didn’t so much as spare him a glance, with her dragon hauling her by her collar toward Todoroki.

“What’s this? Gekkō from 1-C and Bakugō from 1-A are neck and neck, neither giving up second place! Todoroki better watch his back with these two destructive competitors gunning for him!”

I can’t decide if Present Mic makes it worse. The Chūnin Exams didn’t have announcers.

He makes it worse.

Another lazy curve emerged from the other side of the horrible drop-off, and both Kei and Bakugō landed within seconds of each other. While Bakugō stumbled for a second longer as Kei’s Water Dragon Bullet clipped him on its way to dispersal, Kei dashed after Todoroki with…somewhat less energy than the other competitors were showing off.

It had nothing to do with the spirit of competition. Kei just didn’t want to get her feet iced to the ground this close to the endgame. Especially while her clothes were still wet.

Dirt and rock gave way to cement as Kei ran onward, following the curving track around the bend even as Bakugō trailed her, screaming constantly about something and exploding so much she couldn’t really hear him. Nonetheless, she kept just far enough ahead of him to avoid either backlash or a silly comment from Present Mic.

It was about that point where Todoroki must’ve reached the third obstacle, because Present Mic’s voice blared loud and clear: “And now, we’re finally approaching the last obstacle!”

Great.

It had better be interesting—

“Everyone had better tread carefully!” Present Mic went on, while Kei kept pace with Bakugō. “You’re stepping onto a minefield!”

Are you shitting me right now?

It appears not. Look.

Stretching out for another long dirt stretch about as wide as the rope-lined Fall had been was, of course, a literal minefield. The ground was dotted with raised lumps Kei presumed were the mines, badly disguised and clearly designed for a high school competition.

Kei knew better than most what an actual minefield looked like: Nothing, until the first explosions started tearing the earth apart.

“If you look carefully, you can see where those little bombs are buried, so keep your eyes on the ground, folks! By the way, those landmines were specially designed for our competition, so while they’re loud and flashy…they’re not very powerful.”

Kei totally understood the disappointment in Mic’s voice.

“JUST ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU WET YOUR PANTS!”

She understood that a little less.

“Get a hold of yourself,” Aizawa-sensei said, truly embodying the spirit of the times.

What do people even do if there is no one with a running commentary of events? Let them pass in confusion?

Hell if I know. Kei ducked an explosion from Bakugō and slapped his hand away as he tried to pass her by force, and nearly got a second blast to the face before she made half a hand seal and spat a gob of water the size of his head to engulf it.

It didn’t last, but sputtering meant Bakugō had to let her go on ahead, just for a little. Certainly it made him stumble far enough away that she could think.

Minefield, minefield… It wouldn’t make it that much better if she just flooded the area, would it? Besides, the mines themselves were relatively harmless. And obvious.

Bakugō chose that moment to rocket past, apparently trusting that being able to make explosions basically made him immune to those caused by others. That wasn’t an assumption Kei was willing to make, for reasons mainly pertaining to how many limbs one could lose that way. But, hell, Bakugō was already yelling at Todoroki as though Kei didn’t exist, so what did she know?

Other students started to trickle in, and by that point Kei just shrugged to herself and darted into explosion hell. Another Water Dragon Bullet had her shooting through the air above the competition, one arm locked in its jaws and her other hand balanced against the curve above its eye. At the same time, the end of the dragon’s coils slammed down on the course, triggering extra mines and swamping anyone caught in the blast.

Bakugō and Todoroki, meanwhile, were trying to get each other killed. Explosions and ice flew, and Kei commanded her construct to curve wide around their little conflict.

“Just like that, a new student takes the lead! The media here is going wild! There’s nothing they love more than an upset!”

Sounded about right.

Iida raced forward, trusting his sheer speed to get him past the mines. Other students were avoiding mines, detonating them under their opponents, or what-have-you. Kei didn’t much care.

Right up until the moment a massive pink explosion went off at the start of the minefield, disrupting Haku-chan’s liquid tail. Todoroki and Bakugō looked up, spotting Kei—which annoyed her, because she’d been planning on using the sun’s position better than that—and a rapidly arcing Midoriya, surfing the blast wave with a piece of robot as his woefully inadequate vehicle.

Kei probably could have reached out to help him land. But he did have a plan, right? He had to.

Midoriya fell past her, toppling slowly forward.

Um.

He does not have a plan.

Below, and now behind, Todoroki and Bakugō set aside their differences to chase the two students now in the lead. Bakugō, at least, had a plan. It was explosions.

And Todoroki iced the fucking minefield.

Ordinarily, this wouldn’t have been a problem. Kei wasn’t on the ground or technically in Todoroki’s line of sight. At most, he should have created a safe walkway against being launched skyward by landmines. However, he’d seen her and his frost wave arced upward, trapping Haku-chan’s tail and crawling directly up its back.

Kei ripped her arm free just as the ice reached her and coated her body from fingertip to waist on the same side. It even leapt to her leg, locking her right knee in a bent position as though in a cuff of some kind.

And she was still about ten meters above the ground.

Fuck you too, Freezer Burn.

While Bakugō and Todoroki chased Midoriya, Kei used her free left hand to make hand seals against her frost-coated right.

Water Release: Water Trumpet. Turning her head, Kei blasted her frosted arm with water before moving it out of the line of fire, and aimed all the rest at the minefield below as soon as she could move her fingers again.

She didn’t bother being cute about it. When she hit the water feet-first, the ice coating her knee burst under the force. Kei’s water blast had dampened the field to little effect, but Todoroki’s ice path was still there. And since water was the only thing that made ice slippery at all, Kei tore after the three new pack leaders without hesitation.

Ahead, she saw Midoriya plummeting to earth to land head first and started to wince. That wouldn’t be pretty.

At which point there was another massive pink explosion, because Midoriya took his metal surfboard and slammed it down like a fucking sledgehammer into the nearest mines, using Todoroki and Bakugō as stepping stones for leverage.

Kei bit back a laugh. Someone had definitely turned their self-preservation instincts off.

I knew I liked that kid.

I can see why.

Kei got third place out of the pack of four that entered the stadium in those first few seconds, edging out Splodey by a nose. She spent the cooldown period laughing too hard at the irony of beating him only to lose to rocket-propelled Midoriya to even listen to Bakugō’s threats. In the end, explosions really had made the difference. Just not the way she’d thought.

While the other competitors trickled in—scorched, muddy, and various levels of exhausted—Kei congratulated Midoriya with as much enthusiasm as his classmates couldn’t muster. Todoroki and Bakugō went ignored. She didn’t stop chatting with him until Iida and Uraraka had both arrived, looking happy to see friends around.

And when Shinsō made it, in twenty-seventh place, Kei gave him a fist-bump. Checking the leaderboards over her shoulder, he reciprocated.

“I almost didn’t believe your Quirk was that strong,” Shinsō remarked, shaking his head slowly. “Shows me, I guess.”

“And now you know how I got in.” Kei said. “Robot-killing powers and nothing else.”

“Sure you did.” Shinsō rolled his eyes. In a comically threatening tone, he added, “I will get the literature unit through your head if it kills me.”

Kei laughed.

#Shell Game #Keisuke Gekko #todoroki shouto #bakugou katsuki #Midoriya Izuku #shinsou hitoshi #my hero academia #crossover

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nightglider124 · 6 years

Note

(Sry) #34 100 prompts Robstar

It’s ite! Now, I’m sorry bc… I had to take the angst route. I just had to.

‘Wake up, please.’

Her head felt heavy and her eyes flickered as her nervous system restarted. She sucked in a deep breath as she bolted upright.

She immediately regretted her decision as the world seemed to spin on its axis. Her mind felt fuzzy and there was a pounding behind her eyes. Her stomach felt queasy but she was fairly certain that was due to the fear and anxiety coursing through her body.

Her green eyes widened to the size of saucers and she turned her head from side to side, frantically scanning her surroundings for her friends. Her neck protested as a sharp spike shot through the bones and she wondered how much damage she had actually received.

Slowly, Starfire pushed herself to her feet. Her legs felt like jelly so she wobbled at first, taking a long moment before she trusted her balance. She gulped and looked at the blood red sky.

This villain they faced was like any other; her memory was clouded with their fight against Trigon but this was much, much worse. A universal demon who had traveled through the seams of time and space to arrive on Earth.

He came and took exactly what he wanted. The Titans were still there and still fighting even though half the population of the city had been completely wiped out, fire and ashes taking up the streets now instead of people laughing in peace and harmony.

But, now… it had been quiet for so long. There were no more sounds of her friends powers; no more yelling encouragement to each other.

The world around her was eerily silent and she felt fear clawing at her chest, right where her heart was. She didn’t even know where the aptly named demon god, Asmodeus was anymore.

Icy laughter was the last thing she heard before she was thrown across the city and knocked unconscious.

All she could hear around her now was roaring infernos around the city and the loud claps of thunder, shaking the earth every now and then.

She just hoped her friends were all unscathed.

As she began to limp, she scanned the wreckage of what once was Jump City. The downtown area was completely obliterated; no one would have known anything had been there prior to this fateful day. There was a lot of debris and chunks of concrete where buildings had been torn down. Charred bodies were dotted around and Starfire felt her heart ache.

She’d probably known a few of those civilians.

The sidewalk had cracks running along every inch of it and she briefly wondered how stable it was to walk upon. Dust coated her face and clothing as well as dark ash from the fires spawning all around her.

She prayed to X’hal that her friends were alright.

The derelict remains of what used to be the park caught her eye as she continued to hobble through the catastrophe before her. The trees were bare; no leaves of signs of life. The ground lacked it’s usual green florescence and instead, it was barren like one of the hostile planets in the universe.

No signs of life seemed to be around anymore and Starfire felt her optimism slipping away.

Lava flowed through the streets and despite the intense heat surrounding her, she felt cold and isolated. She wrapped her arms around herself and sniffled, fighting the tears that threatened to fall from her eyes.

Starfire continued to step around the city, looking for help or anyone who needed help. She just wanted to find a familiar face or a person who was alive.

As she neared the main area of the town, she eyed all the glass and debris that had mounted up around. Her eyes fixated on every piece, hoping to see something; anything that gave her hope.

Suddenly, she froze and her eyes focused on something she knew all to well.

A green gloved hand that peeked from beneath a large rock fall had her undivided attention. She’d know that anywhere.

“Robin…” She whispered, her heart thudding in her chest.

She sprinted over, stumbling a little on the way but she forced herself to reach him. Dropping to her knees, her eyes rapidly looked over the wreckage on top of him.

Ripping them off of him, she chucked them all aside, desperate to see the boy beneath.

“Robin! Robin? Can you hear me?” She choked, already fearing the worst,

There was no response and her hands shook as she removed the last piece of debris.

She sucked in a startled breath. His mask was missing and blood covered his uniform and specks of it peppered his face. Scratches adorned his features and she bit her lip to try and stem the worry bubbling up in her chest.

“R-Robin?” She whispered, reaching and brushing her fingertips against his cheek.

His skin was cold, icy to the touch and she knew he had been here for a long time, hidden and covered up by rubble.

She hiccuped, tears pricking her eyes and she fought the trembling of her bottom lip. Starfire was trying so hard to keep herself together but deep down, she already knew it was too late.

Her fingers slipped from his cheek to his neck and using her index and middle finger, she felt around for any kind of pulse. She needed something. Even if it was faint, she would take that over nothing.

But the more she moved her fingers around on his throat, the more real the situation became to her.

There was no pulse.

She swallowed the lump in her throat as the tears spilled over and rolled down her cheeks. Starfire’s shoulders slumped and her breaths came quicker as she stared at her best friend. Her heart was racing rapidly and she shook her head minutely.

Her hand slid down from his neck to his chest, resting just over where his heart would be. She whimpered and bowed her head, fingers clutching at the material of his shirt as she felt no thumps.

“No...” She sobbed, “P-Please Robin...”

Red hair fell around her face like a curtain, shielding her from the truth for only a short time.

“P-Please... wake up... please...” She murmured,

Her hurt felt like had been ripped out of her chest as reality came crashing down around her. These wasn’t any hope. If this had happened to Robin, she didn’t want to know if her other friends had suffered the same fate.

She didn’t think she could take it if they were in the same state.

Starfire’s tears splashed against his shirt as she refused to let go of him.

“Please... do not leave me here... R-Robin...” She cried,

Her chest ached as she realized they would never talk again, that she would never hear his laugh or see him smile again and she would never get to see him in the heat of battle again, always so agile and skilled.

She sniffled and squeezed her eyes shut tighter.

Never would she get to tell him how she had always felt about him.

Starfire continued to cry and wallow in her own misery.

Only when she heard slow, thundering steps coming closer to her did she lift her head. Her face was stained with some of her friend’s blood as well as trails of dried tears. Red rimmed eyes stared up at the giant shadow looming closer.

She calmly closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath as she waited for whatever came next.

#teen titans #robin #starfire #robstar #im only like half sorry #bc this was fun to write #requests #asks #oneshot #fanfiction #i mean #if it eases your heart #you can imagine he's just unconscious #but #yknow #he ded #soz #nightglider124

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theadorablespderman · 6 years

Text

Hair: Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Ash

Description: After a fire the ashes remain, alone and deserted. And Peter always hated being alone.

Spideychelle

F/M

Notes: CHAPTER 3 IS UP! My gosh, everyone has been so amazing and supportive of this story! I do want to apologize for how long this chapter took to complete, so thank you all for sticking it out! This chapter is gonna be a long one so I hope you guys enjoy! You guys can also read the fic here on AO3.

Big shout out to my amazing beta @literalprincess for being amazing and being such an awesome help this chapter! Seriously, look this girl up because she’s fabulous! Also another shoutout to @you-guys--are-losers who was a great friend and help during this chapter as well.

Enjoy guys! :)

Peter had never been the type of person who enjoyed being alone. After he’d come to live with May and Ben when he was little, May had said he’d barely ever left their side. They’d cleared Ben’s office out to make a room just for Peter. He never slept in it. He’d slept with them for a year until they started prodding him to his own bed. He’d hated it. The night always was far to silent, too easy to disrupt. Without his Aunt May’s steady breaths brushing his neck or Uncle Ben’s snores right in his ear, he couldn’t know that they were safe. Bad things happened to people, and if he wasn’t there to stop the bad things, how could they be safe?

Maybe he thought he was stronger than he was, but every car-ride, every place they went, he needed to be right there beside them. Peter made himself sick with worry when they’d leave him with a babysitter. He’d sit on the couch, waiting for the phone to ring or a knock on the door. The sounds that changed his life so easily, so suddenly, before May and Ben.

As he grew older—wiser—the anxieties faded, but never left. He spent more time with Ned, but not once did he sleep over like other kids did. Peter couldn’t be away from May and Ben for that long. He was convinced something would happen to them. He needed to make sure that, whatever that thing was, it could never hurt them.

Once he hit his teenage years, Peter was able to function normally. He did his school work while Ben tinkered with old computers. Sometimes, Ben would let Peter help once he got all of his work done. They’d watch movies as a family nearly every night, half the time with Ned included. When the nights came to a close, Peter slept in his own bed, rarely worrying about a faceless threat to Aunt May or Uncle Ben.

After the spider-bite, Peter found his anxieties nearly quelled. Ned and him had sleepovers. He went to parties. He lived the life of a teenage boy.

Peter had been at a party the night Uncle Ben died. His uncle had gone out to the nearest store for milk and never come back. The police had quickly caught the man responsible. He’d still had blood on his shirt when they found him, and yet he never confessed to the crime. When asked, he wouldn’t give information. Nobody really knew how everything had progressed, or how the confrontation ended so tragically. All they knew was that Ben been stabbed in the chest, and when the police had found his body an hour later, his wallet had been missing.

Peter knew damn well that if he’d been there, the way he would have been any other night, he would have been able to stop it. It wasn’t a what if question. He knew that if he’d been there, his uncle would still be alive.

Spider-Man was born of the loss and loneliness that came following Ben’s death. If Peter could save people, put criminals behind bars, he could make sure nobody had to suffer the losses he’d suffered in his life. If he could just be like Iron Man or any of the Avengers, he could keep the bad things from happening. He never felt isolated again; he threw himself into Spiderman instead. Alone wasn’t something he could feel when he was helping old ladies with directions, stopping arms dealers, or trying to prove himself to Mr. Stark. He couldn’t possibly feel the void when he was helping to keep others from experiencing it.

So, when it happened, he couldn’t cope. Turning to ash—dying—it had been all too real, too much.

He had never experienced a pain so intense that it felt like he was being ripped apart by a fire. Fire that consumed organs and bones. It charred his skin until there was nothing left but ash, carried away in a breath of wind.

The pain wasn’t the worst part of it. Begging Mr. Stark to save him wasn’t what gave Peter nightmares—it was the loneliness that followed.

Others had described the Soul Stone as comforting. They said it was harmonious, that they never really missed home while they were there. Peter didn’t know what that was like. He’d spent hours, months, decades alone. Completely and utterly alone. He was confined to his room, just beyond his windows an endless plane of water the same golden color as the sky.

The people that were still alive, the people that needed him were unprotected. He couldn’t leave his damn room, and everyone he loved was either gone, or unreachable. Not knowing anything about how, or where, they were destroyed him.

Confined to the four falls of his room, an island on the water in total isolation, Peter spent days, years, or maybe even minutes—he’d never know—waiting for Iron Man to save him. He waited because he was scared, and a kid, and sometimes he needed to be saved instead of vice versa. Over what felt like an eon he tried every possible way out of the room. Nothing would budge: the window stayed intact, the walls survived his beatings, and the door remained unmovable. Eventually he spiraled into despair. The inferno urging him on turned to nothing more than ash as he spend more unmeasurable time in silence, utterly desolate.

When his soul was pulled back, the first thing Peter saw was the warm, swimming eyes of Tony Stark, and he knew he was home. Peter had cried, sobbed, because he wouldn’t spend eternity rotting away, wondering if the people he loved were safe and if he could have ever saved them.

Peter had come back, back to where he could feel the heat of the sun on his face, and the chill whisper of rain as it rolled down his neck. There was warmth when he heard MJ laugh, and calm when Aunt May sang. There was passion when he saved civilians, and happiness from joking with Ned.

The memories were ones he repressed, and Peter never talked about his time in the Soul Stone. Peter actively forced down the panic when he found himself alone in his room as it glowed gold when the sun set in the sky. He forced down the anxiety when May left for the store and Ned canceled plans. Forcing it all away was better. It was selfish of him to dwell on the ash or the island—the pain and the isolation—when so many others had suffered worse fates at the hands of Thanos. Others would give up the earth and sun to have a miracle like his.

For the past twenty-four hours, however, the welling panic of desertion continually forced its way into Peter’s thoughts. He knew why the anxiety was slowly building, tangling knots and snarls in his chest. It wasn’t a mystery to him why he felt the singe of desolation coiling in his abdomen.

One day—a total of eleven and a half hours—ago, MJ had stormed out of his apartment, after confirming that she and Ned were romantically involved. He hadn’t heard from Michelle since. Which may not sound unusual, if it weren’t for the fact that she had made a habit of texting him in the middle of the night, just to wake him up with random memes. He’d slept through the night, much to his concern. Her lack of communication had only served to water the seed of Peter’s anxiety. The loneliness spread far beyond just that. His two best friends had been a couple for god knows how long and had seemingly kept it a secret behind his back.

Peter ignored a fleeting moment of scathing bitterness when he saw Ned leaning against his locker waiting for him. Strolling up and throwing a strained pleasantry to the shorter boy, Peter worked on opening his locker, stalling so as not to have meet Ned’s eyes. The blue paint around the lock was chipping, showing muted metal underneath.

“Hey.” Ned began, a weary tremor in his voice. “So, uh—do you know if MJ is ok?”

Peter yanked his physics textbook from his locker, his eyes fixated on the cover, still unwilling to look at Ned. “I was going to ask you the same question.” The malice in his voice was nothing like his usual tone. Guilt panged in his stomach, but he said nothing to rectify the statement. He only turned, finally looking at his best friend, the same best friend who had shared every secret with him since elementary school. It felt like he was staring at a stranger. How many times had he kissed MJ? Peter blinked the abrupt thought away. It didn’t matter. At least that was what he told himself.

He and Ned started navigating through the hordes of students. Peter wouldn’t admit it, but he was still attempting to avoid looking at Ned. “I figured you’d know if she’s ok.” It was his lame attempt at diffusing the tension, even if there was still a small bite to his statement.

Ned shuffled between a few cheerleaders before catching back up with Peter’s brisk stride. “Why would—Oh right. Um, yeah. She hasn’t talked to me.”

“So how long has, uh—you know, it been going on?” The words stumbled off his lips, half of him not wanting to know, while the other really did. The question had been burning the corners of Peter’s brain since MJ had said yes to his question last night. When he’d asked if she and Ned were an item.

Ned slipped next to him. Peter threw his arm out, steadying him. “W-What?” Taking the opportunity to meet his eyes for the first time, Peter silently asked what he couldn’t bear to aloud. Why had they never told him? Why had they kept it a secret? Just, why?

Peter smiled reassuringly, trying to be genuine and focus on being happy for them, if only shortly. “I’m just curious, Ned. I had no idea.” His head gestured for them to continue.

“Um, not long. It’s a, well—um—It’s’a still a’pretty new.” Ned’s voice turned into a horrible Mario impression, obviously trying to lighten to mood.

“Seriously? I’a know you can’a do a’better than that.” Peter glanced back at Ned while they walked through the door to first period. The ghost of his smile was still on his face. For a moment they fell back into their usual rhythm, until Peter’s nagging brain grew unsatisfied, wanting answers that weren't vague deflections hidden in the guise of the Italian plumber.

“Anyways, it’s new then?” Peter once again prodded, hoping for an actual answer. His carefree, happy friend instead looked like he had hidden a body. “Hey, you ok?”

Ned answered while they took their seats at the front corner of the classroom. “Yeah. No, I’m cool. I’m fresh. It’s all good.” His smile was wobbling, strained.

Seeing Ned flustered wasn’t unusual. He rambled more times than Peter could count. This time was different though. If Peter knew any better, he would have thought that Ned was hiding something.

“Did you just say that you’re fresh?” Peter’s smile broke through for just a moment. Ned’s vernacular never ceased to amuse Peter. “But seriously, what’s going—”

The warning bell cut through the air, effectively cutting off Peter’s conversation with Ned. People who hadn’t already filed into class began pouring in. Flash was among them, he smacked into Peter’s shoulder on his way to the back of the class. “‘Sup, Penis Parker?” Ignoring Flash had become habit, but it didn’t stop Peter’s temper from rising particularly quickly.

“You’d think someone that’s as smart as you claim to be would be able to come up with a better insult.” It was neither Ned or Peter who had spoken. MJ had come through the doors, slipping through people like silk. She walked directly past Peter and Ned, not even acknowledging their existence.

“Shut up, MJ.” Flash snarled.

“Wow, another stellar response from the resident dip-shit.” Her voice was her usual cool melody.

MJ had wrangled her hair into a ponytail, a drastic contrast to the bouncing mess of tangles she’d sported the day before. Her face was composed and her eyes their normal, critical selves. She looked the opposite of the rolling anger Peter experienced just the night before as she’d stormed out his apartment. The rays of the morning sun bounced off of her cheeks and nose. Her deadly eyes turned copper in the sun, glaring down at Flash, MJ was as indifferent as always. Instead of turning around and sitting next to Peter—on his left side as always—she slouched into the unclaimed corner seat in the back of the room.

The seat was broken, which was why no one sat in it. Peter knew she was pissed, but he didn’t think she was that pissed.

He turned in his seat. She’d taken her sketchbook out; her hand was already flitting around the page. “MJ,” Peter couldn’t say anything else before the final bell rang and the physics teacher came bounding into class, already shouting out the page numbers to open their books to.

Throughout class, Peter desperately tried to get MJ’s attention. He had absolutely no idea what he would do once he got it, but he wanted to see her steely gaze just to verify that he wasn’t invisible. Never once did she look up.

Half-way through the lecture on nuclear fusion, Peter turned to Ned, who was busy scrawling notes over the page. “Dude, how can you read that?” It was all a jumbled mess of ink and maybe hieroglyphics. How the obscure text translated into something, Peter had no idea. Ned opened his mouth, ready to reply, but Peter didn’t bother waiting for it. That wasn’t what he cared about anyway. “Why isn’t MJ sitting with us?”

Ned’s head remained down, his hand furiously producing more notes. “Maybe she wants space?” He glanced up to the whiteboard. Peter found it odd that Ned wasn’t even gracing him with a sidelong glance.

“Shouldn’t you know, though?” Catching another glimpse of MJ over his shoulder—her head bent down with her bangs shielding her face from view—Peter felt his breath catch somewhere behind his sternum. Her hair was a haloed brunette-copper, a realization of celestial beauty. Why was her hair so perfect?

“Know what?” Ned’s response brought Peter’s attention careening back to reality. The reality in which he had just been making googly eyes for his best friend, who happened to be dating his other best friend.

Clearing the knot that was forming into a stone in his chest, Peter distracted himself with copying down the notes he had abandoned while he had been focusing on MJ. “I’d think that since you guys are, well, you know—” The stone was impeding the word from taking shape. He deserted the words all together, clearing his throat. “I just thought you’d know why she would decide to sit in the Broke-Back-Mountain chair instead of by us.” The way in which the desk had acquired that name was too long, and too graphic, of a story to tell.

Ned snuck a look over to MJ, as did Peter. She was shifting in the cracked seat, looking uncomfortable. Her eyes momentarily flitted from her notebook up to Ned. She completely ignored Peter. Peter didn’t even have enough time to form her name on his lips before her eyes flitted away, latching attention onto her notebook. Her gaze never wavered back their way.

“I’m sure she’s fine. She’s probably just having an ‘MJ’ day.” On some days, rarely, and out of the blue, MJ would barely talk to Peter and Ned. Peter always felt like she’d gotten trapped in that brain of hers and couldn’t find her way out. There was always a dazed, introspective look to her. But she never actively ignored them.

Peter turned back, clenching his jaw. “No, I don’t think that’s it.”

When the bell rang Peter fought against the rush of students stampeding toward the door, wanting to catch MJ before she left. However, her newly found spot was empty, much to Peter’s surprise. Broke-Back-Mountain stood alone. Peter whipped his head toward the door, at a loss for words. How had she managed to sneak to the front without him noticing? Yet, there she was. The shoulder of her leather jacket was peeking through the crowd, her hair floating like a cloud over her head.

“MJ, wait up.” Peter was hurtling desks to close the distance. He needed her to see him, to listen to him. She needed to understand how badly he felt about the previous night. “MJ! Hey, come on, wait up!” When she ignored him yet again, Peter groaned, following her out the door. “MJ?” She wasn’t in the hall when he emerged from the classroom. Her mess of waves and curls had completely vanished.

Ned appeared next to Peter holding the boy’s forgotten backpack out to him. Aimlessly, Peter accepted the strap of his bag, swinging it onto his back.

It felt like a small part of his chest had fluttered away into ash.

…………………………………………………

Decathlon practice had yet to be canceled. Peter took this as a good sign, seeing as MJ was the captain of the team. Both Ned and Peter headed to sixth period in silence. Ned had been acting odd all day, and Peter was still trying to understand why MJ was upset enough to not even be talking to him, much less Ned, her boyfriend. No matter how many times that word rolled around in Peter’s head regarding Michelle and Ned, it never felt right.

There was no conversation between the two as they weaved through the hallway. Peter braced his hands on the straps of his backpack, trying to gently approach the topic that he so desperately wanted more answers to. Answers about the one and only Michelle Jones, who, over the course of twenty-four hours, had become a complete enigma. “So, why do you think MJ’s so mad?”

“Seriously, Peter?” The exasperation in Ned’s voice wasn’t unearned. Peter had been subtly prodding all day. Not so subtly.

Peter responded with a shrug of his shoulders, flashing a quick closed-mouth smile, feigning innocence. “I’m just wondering.” Ned looked completely unconvinced. Peter dropped the act, his face shattering into an anxiousness that was slowly spiraling out of control. “I mean, I get why she’s upset. I didn’t think she’d be this mad though.”

Ned pushed open the doors to the library, turning to head into the private study rooms where they met for decathlon practices. “We all kept digging into her love life after she told us not to. She got mad at me for pushing during lunch, and then you and Gwen kept asking her questions. Can you blame her?”

Peter stopped short outside of the study room. Through the windows he could see Flash leaning back in his chair and Cindy going over notes with Abe. MJ was nowhere to be seen.

Right before Ned closed his hand over the door knob, Peter’s full attention latched to the boy. “Wait, why were you poking around at lunch yesterday?”

There were more than a few things Peter knew about Ned. One of the defining things about his best friend was that he was not good under pressure. “What do you mean? What makes you think I was poking around?”

“Stop answering my questions with more questions, Dude!” The librarian a few bookcases over leaned her head into the open to shush them. Peter lowered his voice to a strained whisper. “You’ve been doing that all day.”

Ned’s eyes blinked rapidly. “Why are you so interested, anyways?”

“Why are you not? She’s your—” The word still wouldn’t crest past the stone. “Well, you know.”

“I am worried about her. But she probably wants space. As she explained to me yesterday, sometimes girls just need time to think.”

“When did she say that?”

“After she stormed out of the lunchroom.” Ned said.

“And why did she storm out of the lunchroom?” Peter set the bait.

Ned took it. “Because I was digging into her love life, at lunch, just like you and Gwen did last night!” Another shush from the librarian. Ned’s ears turned minutely darker, blushing.

“My question is, why would you be digging into MJ’s love life.”

Checkmate. Peter could feel it, something was going to happen. Ned looked on the verge of cracking when a voice sliced through Peter’s mind and body. “Can you move?” It was authoritative with none of the usual malice.

When Peter flipped around, there, in her shining glory, was MJ. Three academic decathlon study guides were hooked by her left arm against her chest. Hanging from her opposite shoulder was her bag, riddled with patched holes and broken zippers. Her face was cold, the depth of her eyes closed off, housing emotion so controlled Peter couldn’t tell if there was any left. Maybe she’d used them all up the night before.

MJ elbowed past Peter and Ned, throwing open the doors to the study room. Peter and Ned stumbled in after her. “MJ—”

“Alright! It looks like everyone’s here—”

“Mr. Harrington’s not here.” Flash interjected.

“Flash, I swear to God.” The animosity in her voice was enough to shut Flash up. It was enough to scare Peter.

MJ situated herself at the table in the center of the room, right in between Cindy and newcomer Alexa. “Anyways,” MJ continued, controlling her voice, yet again, into her usual aloof tone. “We have the first qualifying meet for Nationals this weekend. We need to hit this one hard if we want any chance of defending our National title this October. I’ve printed up the quiz sheets. They’re color coded by subject. Answer sheets are stapled on the back.” She slapped a stack of papers on the table and continued. Her devotion to organized study guides was something the team was used to at this point. “Okay,” She clapped her hands. “Let’s run some drills.”

There was literally no opportunity for Peter to get a word in. She kept the meeting packed with non-stop questions and drills. She never picked Peter to do any. She called Flash in every time. Flash. Peter could tell everyone thought it was odd, but no one was willing to call her out on it. She looked like she had just killed twenty people and buried the bodies.

Sixth period eventually came to an end. Peter tried yet again to get a word in with MJ. She was just as elusive as he was persistent and managed to slip away yet again.

Peter elbowed Ned. “Maybe she’ll listen to you.”

Ned rolled his eyes, muttering something about ‘stupid love’ before following her nonetheless.

“Wait, did you say ‘love’?” The stone in Peter’s chest exploded to the size of a boulder. Ned never responded, already taking off after MJ, not hearing Peters quiet whisper.

Peter stood, a feeling of desolation creeping along his skin.

//////////////////////////////////////////

Ned plopped down next to where Peter was sitting against the wall of the hallway. Two days of MJ avoiding Peter had passed, and today was the decathlon meet.

Ned handed Peter a breakfast sandwich still wrapped in paper. Peter blindly accepted it, his eyes still glued to the study guide in his lap. “Thanks.” He deftly unwrapped the sandwich and took a large bite.

“What happened to your face?” Ned tucked into his own sandwich, eyeing the bruise that had bloomed across Peter’s eye. “Don’t you have like, healing powers or something?”

Peter quickly shushed Ned. “It’s not ‘healing powers’, it’s enhanced healing.” Again, concentrating on the study guide, his lips pressed into a thin line. “A mugger punched me.” The smirk in his friend’s voice caused Peter’s shoulders to sag.

“You swung into a building, didn’t you?”

“Maybe just a little.” Peter replied

The snicker shielded behind Ned’s hand was the only response.

“It’ll hopefully be gone in a few hours.” Peter stated.

“Must’ve hit pretty hard.”

Peter folded up his study guide and tucked it into his bag. “So, have you talked to MJ?” For the past two days Peter had been asking the same question, with the same result. Each time Ned replied, Peter’s chest constricted farther. He found asking somewhat doused the blistering fire ravaging the cage of his ribs. Each day, he snuck more questions about MJ and Ned into conversation, hoping Ned would take the bait. Peter told himself he was only being inquisitive, told himself that the flame licking his interior was nothing more than curiosity.

“Actually, yeah,” Peter’s eyes zipped over to Ned’s, searching to find any extra information. “She answered the phone last night.”

Peter’s entire body pivoted towards Ned. He was up on his haunches now, ready to pounce. Grabbing Ned’s shoulders, Peter pulled him the smallest bit closer. “Well, what did she say?”

The natural almond shape of Ned’s eyes rounded. The shoulders beneath Peter’s increasing grip, stiffened. “Uh, nothing much. We just talked.” From the pitch of his voice, Peter found Ned’s statement unconvincing.

“Dude, you know I can tell when you’re lying right?”

Ned shrugged himself out of Peter’s hold. “Well, we did. We talked. That’s what people do on the phone.”

“What did you talk about?” Peter’s felt like all heat in his chest was aimed into lasers cutting Ned open.

Ned scrapped his teeth along his lip. His eyes broke away from Peter, all cylinders firing. “I, uh—I can’t tell you.”

“Why?” And then, the most horrific reasoning shot into Peter’s brain, as violently as possible. Maybe they’d not talked about the fight at all. Maybe, they’d talked about intimate things. Oh god. “Were you guys talking about—” His tongue suffered some type of temporary paralysis. He muddled through, forcing out the next words. “—like, sexual stuff?”

It was the first time Peter had seen Ned turn totally red. It wasn’t just a slight coloration under his dark skin. No, he was confident saying there was a full blush taking hold of his friend’s entire face. “No! Oh my god, no. That’s just—ugh,” His body managed a quiet shiver. “That’s so not what happened. That’s just gross.” He was still shaking his head, face blown into utter shell-shock.

Peter recoiled. “What did you say then?”

Ned, still reeling from Peters question, took a large chunk out of the breakfast sandwich dangling in his hand. “No. I mean, MJ’s great and all, don’t get me wrong. Super pretty, nice when she wants to be. But no, I’m just not into her that way and—” He froze in the middle of his sentence, mid chew on his sandwich. Peter could see the sense of doom crawling over his friend’s face. Something horrific was playing behind his eyes.

“Hold on, what?” Peter managed. There was a concoction of dangerous emotions welling up around his lungs, causing the air suck in. He hated to feel so relieved, Ned had sounded so dismissive to MJ, she didn’t deserve that. But then again, Peter had never known Ned to be so heartless with other’s feelings. It was like a frenzy. The fire was lighting in so many places across Peter’s body. Electricity felt like it was crackling in the air.

On the other hand, Ned looked completely shell-shocked. War veterans may have thought the poor kid had gone through some gruesome battle with the empty, terrified expression he wore. When his breathing picked up after it’s momentary pause, two small words wheezed out of his lips, “Oh shit.”

“What do you mean, Ned? What’s going on?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing.”

Peter tried again, not willing to let this opportunity slip him by. Ned had been acting weird ever since the secret came out about MJ and him. “What’s going on, dude? Seriously, you can tell me. Just what’s going on with you and MJ? Why aren’t you talking to me about it? You haven’t told me anything.”

Ned stood up, clearing his throat, searching for a way to escape. Peter could see the flight response in his eyes. “MJ has been all we’ve been talking about for the past two days.”

“No, you’ve been avoiding all of my questions. What aren’t you telling me?”

Ned glanced down the hall, chuckling. “You know, I think I dropped my study guide down the hall.” He tried to slip past Peter. Peter caught him by the arm, the momentum swinging them around. Somewhere behind them Flash made some lame joke about them dancing together.

Peter, hand clasped around Ned’s arm, begged him silently to talk to him. “Look, it sucks that you and MJ didn’t tell me about your relationship. I thought we were friends and you guys have totally shut me out and it’s seriously freaking me out. I just want to know what’s going on. Please, just, don’t shut me out.” Peter let his hand drop from Ned’s arm, too tired to fight the crush of desertion as he spoke what had been boiling under the surface for days.

There was a moment of silence, of understanding between the two. Ned was the first to break it, a sharp breath sucked in before he spoke. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” A smile stretched across Ned’s lips. Not the reaction Peter was expecting. “You’re totally digging MJ.”

“What? No. That’s not what’s—No. I’m not into—She’s your girlfriend. That’s just—” It just wasn’t true. MJ was his friend, just a friend. So, what if she had incredible hair, or soothing eyes? And, yeah, maybe he loved it when she watched Star Wars with him and her arm touched his just slightly, but Peter definitely didn’t love her. Peter didn’t love how when she looked into his eyes it was like he had never known loneliness. He, for sure, didn’t love that when she sang under her breath she captured the world’s attention with her melody. He didn’t think it was amazing that her hard exterior could handle anything the world threw at her, and it definitely wasn’t his favorite thing about her. Peter didn’t love Michelle, didn’t like her in any way beyond a platonic kinship. There was no way he had feelings for his sharp, sarcastic, and intelligently annoying friend. No way that he secretly loved that her style was a kaleidoscope of weirdness, or when her hair was secured to her head or floated around in natural coils. There was just no possible way that Peter felt that way about Michelle Jones.

“Peter, you’re awesome and all, but sometimes you’re actually really stupid.” Ned’s words broke Peter from his stupor. Ned was only smirking at him, no signs of betrayal that his best friend liked his girlfriend. Suddenly the anxiety, the fire in Peter’s chest, made so much more sense. The light bulb flickered on. Peter felt the realization crash into him. The circuitry in his brain fired and sparked. “Oh, dear god.” He tried to gauge Ned’s response. “I’m—I think... What am I gonna tell Gwen? Oh god, Ned, I’m so sorry.” He was frantically gesturing, as though to show just how sorry he was.

Ned reassured him with a calming smile. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal? You’re dating MJ. How is this not a big deal to you?”

Sighing, Ned rolled his eyes. “Dude, did it ever occur to you that maybe MJ and I aren’t dating?”

Peter stopped. “No, Ned. That was not something that crossed my mind.” Peter kept his voice level, but his brain was raging. “Wha—why would she say you guys are a couple then?”

Ned waved down the hallway, a smile breaking on his face. “Hey, MJ.” Peter jerked his head over to look. Walking down the hall, the light from the windows dancing across one side of her face, was MJ. Her teeth bit aggressively into the apple in her hand, and she raised her brows in greeting. “Maybe, she just wanted people to stop asking so many questions.” Ned answered under his breath as she approached.

“Alright Losers,” MJ said as she pulled open the door to the practice room. “Let’s hit the drills one last time. We’ve got three hours before we need to check in.”

Mr. Harrington, who had been awaiting MJ outside the practice room with everyone else, sighed. “Michelle, how many times do I have to tell you not to address the team as ‘Losers’.”

Ned pushed the still miffed Peter into the room after the rest of the team. Peter glimpsed MJ moving the table around and setting up the chairs on one side. “It’s just a simple team motivation strategy, Mr. Harrington. Makes them work harder.” She shot him an innocent smile and Peter thought maybe the room had exploded. There was no excuse as to why it took him so long to notice how his fingers and toes seemed to tingle around MJ, or how her smile caused his chest to swell.

“Bro, pull yourself together. Stop staring before it gets weird.” Ned hissed in his ear.

Peter blinked a few times, effectively cutting off his wandering thoughts. “MJ, do you think—”

“Alexa, you’re going to be put in for the competition. Justin can’t make it.” MJ’s eyes were focused on the study sheet in her hands. She marked something on the paper before shoving the pen behind her ear.

Flash scoffed. “Are you serious, Michelle? She’s brand new. I’ve been on the team for a year.”

Scowling, MJ turned to look at Flash. “Maybe it's because I don’t want to screw this up. You’ve never answered a single question during competition. And what you do answer during practice is wrong half the time.”

Flash started complaining to Mr. Harrington.

Peter turned to Ned. “Why is she still so pissed at me? You said she talked to you.”

“I told you, I can’t tell you.” Ned shrugged off his bag. “Just try talking to her yourself.”

Laughing quietly, Peter dropped his own bag to the floor. “Right, I never thought about that. How silly of me.” His eyes were murderous. Ned only shrugged before taking his seat at the table.

“The next person to talk is going to end up with a leather boot up their ass.” MJ wasn’t looking at Peter, but he snapped his jaw shut nevertheless. Peter plopped in next to Ned, shooting daggers his way.

From his chair behind MJ, Mr. Harrington let out a long, tired sigh. “Michelle, no threatening the team, and please watch your language.”

“Sorry,” She cleared her throat, readying her papers. “Alright. Economics. If the money multiplier equals eight, the reserve ratio equals?”

……………………………………………………………………..

Quarter to one o’clock, the team started to get ready to head backstage. Everyone was placing their cell phones and study guides into their bags, some of them sliding back into their bright yellow coats. Peter slid past Ned and dropped his sheet and phone into his bag.

MJ was marking something else on her study guide in the spot she’d been standing throughout the practice. When she placed the pen between her teeth, folding the paper neatly, Peter lightly pushed her by the small of her back out of the room.

“What the hell?” When they were in the hallway, tucked away in a classroom doorway, she elbowed his hand off her back.

Her glare was piercing, but Peter’s was growing with intensity too. The burning anxiousness that had been creating hopeless ash over the past two days burst into anger. “I could ask you the same thing.” His voice hissed, his words a snake, leaking the venom that had been shut inside him for days. He stepped closer, eyes just barely having to glare up at her. If she were barefoot she’d be the same height as him, but her clunky boots always gave her the advantage. “You’ve been ignoring me for days. I’ve tried to talk to you and you didn’t listen. I’ve been worried. You can’t—” Peter managed a strangled breath, pushing back down the words he couldn’t say. The words that showed Peter Parker couldn’t handle three days of being ignored by her because he felt abandoned. Instead, he averted his eyes, trying to come up with the right words. “I’m sorry about the movie night. Gwen pushed and so did I, and you’re right, it’s nobody’s business. I was just curious who you liked, and when Gwen started asking about you and Ned. I thought you guys were a couple and didn’t tell me. I never wanted to make you so upset, but I just—I can’t keep wondering if you hate me over this. If you want to flush a year long friendship down the toilet because of one mistake that’s your decision, but I don’t agree with you on that. You just mean—”

“Peter, calm down.” Her voice, smooth, with just enough edge, brought him back. He realized he hadn’t really been seeing anything at all until her eyes enveloped his vision. The steady, unwavering, gaze that he’d been striving to connect with for days was now focused solely on him. Her hand reached over and gently squeezed his wrist, spreading a cool warmth up his arm. The feeling of desolation—of being the boy stuck forever in the prison of a room—was fading, floating away into the wind. “I’m not angry.” She still wore her dissociation from the world like a mask on her face, but it was just a mask. Peter could see the emotion brimming in her eyes. The guilt. “I was embarrassed. Really embarrassed, about letting everything boil over like that, and then yelling at you. I feel so bad about it.” She was fiddling with the paper still clutched in her hands.

This was one of the few times Peter saw MJ lacking her hardened exterior. He could see the uncertainty washing over her face. There was even the slightest blush kissing her nose and cheeks.

Peter crushed her into an embrace, his chin resting perfectly on the curve of her shoulder. Her body froze. In all the time Peter knew MJ, he couldn’t remember a time when they’d ever hugged. “I was so worried you’d never talk to me again.” MJ’s heart was beating against his chest and it was the most wonderful thing he’d experienced in his life. It was home. “Next time,” He spoke into her hair, which smelled like lavender, “I’d rather you yell at me for three days than ignore me.” She laughed against his shoulder, just a chuckle, but he felt it soothing the barbed knot that had been tightening in his throat.

“Fair enough, Loser.” When her slender arms wound around his shoulders, he was no longer grounded to the earth. He was grounded to her.

“Peter?” He knew the voice. He broke away from MJ, and if there had been a sound of their embrace breaking, it would’ve been a booming crack.

There Gwen stood, dressed in her Student Council sweater and a flowing tulle skirt that was the same cream color as her hair. Her eyes shot between Peter and MJ, calculating. “Gwen, hey. Uhm, MJ and I were just having a friendship moment there.” Guilt was clawing his stomach to shreds. He wasn’t planning on breaking up with her until after Prom. He wasn’t going to be the heartless dick who broke up with her a week before the biggest dance of the year.

Gwen smiled, her teeth perfectly straight and white against the peach coloring of her lips. Peter sensed no malice behind her smile. “I’m glad you guys made up.” She motioned her head down the hall, her fingers folding into both her pockets. “But the decathlon is about to start, and I’ve been tasked to come find you. So, you might want to book it in there.”

MJ stuffed the paper in her pocket. She glanced at the clock above the lockers on the opposite wall. It was five to one. “Oh, Shit!” MJ was already sprinting down the hall.

Gwen, with her hands hidden in her sweater, her smile turned into a sweet grin. The smallest drop of sadness in her eyes. Peter stepped toward her, reaching out. He wanted to explain, tell her that he didn’t know this would happen, that he didn’t want to hurt her. “Gwen—”

“It’s ok, Peter. We’ll talk later.” She bumped her shoulder against his, that same wonderfully kind smile was still on her lips. In a way, he wished she’d just be angry with him, her kindness was making him feel worse. “Now go. You’ve got a competition to win.”

…………………….

“We are now entering sudden death. The next team to answer this question correctly will win the District Competition and advance to Regionals this June.” The host of the decathlon presented a showy smile to each side, gesturing with a manicured hand to the small trophy the winning team would receive as a physical prize.

Peter shifted in his seat, setting his elbows on the table. There were bells placed in front of each of the twelve participants. Six on each team. Everyone was gearing up for the question. “Alright, here is our final question of the night!” Each person on both tables leaned forward just the slightest bit. “This is an Economics question. The question is: If the money multiplier equals eight, the reserve ratio equals?”

MJ’s hand slammed down on the buzzer. “Midtown Tech?”

Peter couldn’t believe their luck. The question was exactly how they’d studied it during practice. Mr. Harrington had even mentioned that the money multiplier wasn’t mentioned in depth in the practice guides and studying it wasn’t crucial.

MJ shrugged, turned her head towards the official, and Peter could see the slightest twitch of her lip. There was the glimmer of pride in her eye. He could see how much this meant to her. “Twelve-point-five percent.”

There was a drawn-out silence. The entire team knew they’d won, they were all trying to keep their excitement to a minimum until it was officially announced. Peter clasped Ned and MJ’s hands under the table. “Midtown Tech has won the District Division!” The team immediately ruptured into shouts and chants. Peter swept MJ out of her seat and hugged her. The entire team joining in. He could feel her quiet laughter bubbling over everyone’s happy shouts. Her beaming smile was pressed against Peter’s neck. Out in the crowd somewhere, Peter could distinctly hear May screaming over the applause.

The group-hug lasted only a few seconds more before the team broke off. They all collectively walked over to shake the other team’s hands. A particularly greasy looking kid gave MJ more of a sneer than a polite smile. Her face remained cold as ever, but it didn’t stop Peter from glowering at the kid when he shook his hand.

Before Peter could even reach the next person, the kid called over the official. The crowd was still cheering, Ned was pushing at Peter to move, but something bad was about to happen. He could feel the tingle rushing over his arms, up his neck. When the official arrived at the boy, Peter perked his ears up. Pushing away Ned’s jabbing hands, Peter shushed Ned as the official leaned his ear to the boy’s mouth.

Peter picked up the conversation easily, it was second nature by this point. “Sir, I don’t mean to be a poor loser. But, I’m only concerned about Midtown Tech’s captain.” Peter’s eyes shot over to MJ, she was shaking the last person’s hand, starting to move toward the edge of the stage. “Sir, I only noticed that she has a paper sticking out of her pocket, I was concerned that it was possibly a guide or quiz answers. I found it suspicious she knew so quickly the final question after my team had only begun working it out.” Peter’s heart stopped. As the kid had said, there was a folded sheet of paper barely sticking out of MJ’s back pocket. It had been hidden up until this point by her decathlon jacket. When they’d all hugged her, it must have pushed her jacket behind the paper. Peter knew with absolute certainty MJ had no idea it was still there.

With a few words into a walkie-talkie, the official called for MJ to be taken aside. Peter had managed five swift steps towards her, but she was already to the edge of the stage, just out of his reach, when a security guard pulled her off to the side. Mr. Harrington arrived beside her just before Peter did. “Miss, we’re going to have to ask to see your pockets.”

Mr. Harrington interjected, “What’s this all about?” He shoved the glasses back up his nose, his eyes carrying over the officer.

“Sir, your student has been accused of cheating—”

“What?” MJ’s arms swung out, nearly elbowing Peter’s gut, before she folded them firmly across her chest. Peter attempted to slip his hand into her pocket, just enough to grab the paper and store it in his own jacket.

“Sir,” The officer’s tone was unyielding, and Peter’s head snapped up. His fingers were inches from the paper, but the officer was right there, his eyes clearly staring at the little corner of white peeking out of MJ’s forest-green jeans. “I see what you’re trying to do, and you need to back away.”

MJ twisted her head around, her glare finding Peter’s fingers inches from her bottom, and inches from the paper in her pocket. Her indifference broke so thoroughly, so quickly, Peter felt like he’d been gut punched. Stoic and unbreakable as MJ was, it was like crushing diamonds when her eyes burned out. The flicker of fire in them giving way to dread.

“It’s mine!” The confession was easy. He needed to save MJ from that look plastered on her face, from the thing inside her that was causing her eyes to dim so drastically. He could save her from it. Peter knew he could. He stepped in front of her. Looking the officer dead in the eye and lied. “It’s mine, I was planting it on her.” Four pointed knuckles jabbed into Peter’s back, He shot MJ a hard glare over his shoulder, urging her not to intervene.

The officer crossed his arms, unconvinced. “Why would you sabotage your own team member?”

The entire team was starting to circle around. Mr. Harrington was trying his best to push them back, as well as get a word in with the officer. Peter spoke over him. “I, uh—hate her. I’d rather see the whole team go down than have her win for us.”

The officer swept Peter out of the way. “Look, kid, I really don’t have time for heroics. Come on, Miss.” MJ stepped up to the officer, oozing broken confidence, and pulled out the paper in her back pocket. Her fingers dropped it into the officer’s hand.

An official showed up, talking over the radio. Midtown’s principal trailed behind. “Is this her?” The official asked. The officer nodded, and before Peter could get another word in, they were taking MJ away with Mr. Harrington in tow.

The entire team converged on Peter. Flash was grasping their newly won trophy like an idiot. “Parker. What just happened?”

The anger was tinting his world red, he wanted to punch that sniveling kid who’d ratted on MJ. He looked over. The kid was gone. Flash was the only asshole available. “Put down the trophy, Flash. You didn’t even compete, you look like an idiot.”

Flash’s chest puffed out, his nostrils flared, and Peter was ready to aim his fist right at them. “Say that again, Penis. I dare you.” Flash growled.

All Peter needed to do was cock his fist back and let it fly. He got as far as snapping his back his fist before two small hands were pulling his arm down. Two more arms were holding him back. Ned was yelling in his ear to leave Flash alone, that he wasn’t worth it.

“You’re so fucking full of yourself!” Years of pent up anger, of swallowed pride, was bursting from Peter at the seams. Ned was dragging him back with the help of the mystery hands. Abe was grasping with all his might to keep Flash from launching at Peter.

When the stage door closed and there was nothing but the silence of the hallway and the shimmering light of the evening sun filtering through the glass, Peter finally shrugged Ned off.

“Dude, what was that?” Peter turned to Ned and could only stare at the scrape on the peak of Ned’s cheekbone.

“Where did—? Ned, did I do that?” A rush of shame hit him. He’d hit his best friend. He’d lost his temper.

Ned touched his cheek lightly, checking for blood. “It’s not a big deal, Peter. You just bumped me.” He smiled, as if that would fix Peter’s impending guilt.

“Peter, what’s going on? What was that?” Gwen stepped out of nowhere, Peter assumed she’d been the other set of hands pulling him back. He rapidly checked her for any bruises, but she seemed fine. Her ponytail was now slightly askew.

The hum in Peter’s bones, the memory of MJ’s face, crippled him. His back smacked against the wall and he sunk. The ground smacked his bottom hard, his head fell between his hands. “They think MJ cheated. When I talked to her before we went in, I’d grabbed her before she put her study guide away. We had to run to get in the gym on time and she must’ve put it in her pocket without thinking.” He sighed. “They could expel her.”

“I don’t think they’d expel her. She’s an amazing captain and she’s got amazing grades. There’s no way they’ll expel her for cheating. She didn’t even cheat, we both sat by her, there’s no way she cheated.”

Peter knocked his head back against the bricks of the wall. “May’s probably wondering what’s going on. Why she hasn’t seen us yet.” Peter stood, ready to go seek her out and explain what’s been going on.

Gwen helped him up, worry etched into her brows. “Ned, maybe you could go get Peter’s aunt and then meet us by the principal's office? That’s probably where they took MJ. Is that ok, Peter?”

Peter could only stare for a long moment. Gwen was a gorgeous and wonderful person. He could only hope that she found a guy that deserved her. “Yeah, that works.” Ned headed off down the hallway, leaving Gwen and Peter alone.

Peter risked a glance at Gwen. He knew the conversation was coming, and he had no idea how to broach it.

The subject was addressed by Gwen right away. “You love her, don’t you?” There was a long spell where she gave Peter the time to find his words. None of the words or sentences he could think of would do. He didn’t even know if he loved MJ, but he sure knew that he liked her a lot. After a reasonable amount of Peter’s floundering jaw, Gwen cut in again, her voice sweet and calm. Her hands were tucked into her yellow student council sweater yet again. “You do, even if you don’t want to admit it. I have a good eye for these types of things, always have.” Her smile was small, understanding, and he ducked her head down. The fine hairs on her ponytail hovered in the minuscule breeze walking created. “I know this isn’t the time to bring this up, but were you going to tell me?”

Peter finally swallowed his tongue and managed to find some words. “Yes. I mean, I only figured it out today—that I like her. I was going to tell you as soon as I could, though. But I didn’t want to tell you before Prom and ruin it for you. I asked you and I still want you to have a good time, it’s just—”

“I’m just not the person you want to be with the most.” She shrugged. “I’m not going to say I’m not upset. I do like you, Peter. You’re very kind and funny, but I’m sure that this won’t hurt for too long.” Peter cocked an eyebrow. She laughed. “You know what I mean. We’ve barely started this,” She motioned between the two of them. “Thing.”

Peter laughed this time. “I really am sorry. I didn’t want you not to have a date for Prom.”

“Oh, I’ll have a date. You can’t get out that easy, Parker. I’d love to go as friends, if you’re not set on dumping me completely, that is.” She bumped her shoulder into his, stopping outside of the darkened front office. Peter could see a sliver of light under the door.

He took a glance away from the door and smiled at Gwen. Her eyes were soft, if a little sad, but in all she looked okay. “Nope. I’d be honored to take you out.” Gwen smiled back at him. She wrapped an arm around Peter’s bicep. It was comfortably platonic and did well to help calm the anxieties rearing their ugly heads.

There was a door between MJ and himself. He could be doing so much more to help her, but he was stuck on the wrong side of the door.

When Aunt May and Ned showed up, they had half the team in tow. They’d ended up camped outside of the office, waiting. The afternoon light turned into the blue ashy color of twilight. May had been trying to get ahold of MJ’s mom, but it repeatedly went to voicemail every time. Peter mentioned that MJ had said last week that her mom was going to be out of the country on business. May left multiple voicemails and text messages just to be safe.

By the time the lights flicked on in the hallway, Cindy’s head was on Alexa’s lap and her feet in Abe’s. Ned had placed both MJ’s and his bag beside him against the wall. He was going through his phone to pass the time. Gwen had also stayed, her head resting against Peter’s shoulder as she to scrolled through her phone. Seeing how she switched her position every ten or so minutes, Peter realized he was nothing more than a more comfortable cushion than the wall.

May checked her watch. “They’ve been in there for a while.” She eyed Peter with a sly smile. “You think she’s putting up a fight?”

“If she didn’t I’d be worried.” Peter said. The light under the office door flickered. Flickered again.

May’s smile turned into a retrospective, prideful one. “That’s my girl.”

Then Peter could see people through the glass. He bolted up, Gwen and Ned following soon after. The decathlon official, with her curly red hair and snug high-waisted khakis, emerged first, casting a curious look towards the group of kids sprawled on the floor. The officer then emerged, followed by Mr. Harrington. May shot over to Mr. Harrington instantly. They began talking in hushed whispers, as was common with adults in situations like this.

MJ snuck around Mr. Harrington, her eyes never rising from the floor. Peter couldn’t see the brown of them beyond her bangs. He took a small step forward, before Gwen grabbed his wrist. So lightly that only he could hear, Gwen whispered. “I don’t know her like you do, but she doesn’t look like she wants to talk right now.”

Peter was just about to discount what Gwen had said until MJ’s eyes finally, painfully slowly, dragged up to meet Peter’s. The blood in his veins came to a complete halt, he felt the impact deep in his chest, piercing the place where everyone he cared about was kept.

Michelle Jones was crying.

Her eyes were puffy, red, and even as she looked at him a tear skidded down her cheek, crashing into her lips. Her throat visibly contracted. Her eyes bounced between Ned and Peter, Peter and Gwen.

Peter had no idea what had happened, what had gone so wrong as to cause MJ to cry. He never thought God himself could make MJ cry. It just wasn’t possible.

“MJ—” He reached out, ready to catch her, wanting desperately to heal her. “What happened?”

His only answer was the quiet shake of her eye as she averted her eyes once more and walked down the hallway. Everything was silent. May had halted her conversation, eyes raking over MJ, just as shocked as the others.

Ned called after her so did Peter, neither one knowing if they should run after her or not. She disappeared around the corner, looking like a specter floating aimlessly away. “What do we do?” Ned asked the question, Peter needed the answer. He was so close to running after her, he would have if the shock of what just happened hadn’t immobilized him.

May stepped between the boys, her eyes never leaving the corner MJ had disappeared behind. “You don’t do anything right now. I’ll go talk to her, see what I can do.”

Neither boys argued, they merely watched as May disappeared around the corner after MJ.

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