#she started this whole thing off with a three-sentence mini-fic

[appalachianapologies]

okay so I was tagged by @lailuhhh and @rosieblogstuff and I think one other person (i am so sorry i forgor) many days ago and i am finally doing the first sentence of ten works thing. I guess the general consensus is no one knows whether or not this is for WIPs or posted things so like many others I'll just do a combo of both :D

From a wip that is uhhhh 22k and counting long, titled in my google docs as simply "fuck it desi lore," starting off strong with a sentence that I don't think is actually grammatically correct but you know what sometimes the vibes matter more than grammar and you can quote me on that: Later, Desi will feel guilty for it.

From chapter one of Remittent Distress, we have a line that sounds like it's going to be macriley WHICH IT IS NOT- (PS she's just out on a little mini mission she's not dead or anything) During the three days that Riley has been gone, Mac's been coping poorly.

Another chapter one first sentence, we have the first line of what's shaping up to be my next book! Cue the school intercom noise... "Good morning Ravens, happy Tuesday, and happy first day of school!"

Next we have chapter one (not the prologue) of False Dawn, which is a WIP that keeps me up at night and makes me feel far too many emotions at once: Bozer has a strange affinity for sending physical letters.

We have a bit of a secret fic that's up next- set in Tender Mercies universe, except this is set approximately 10 years in the future from Aground, the most recent fic in the series. Mac makes it a single step into the visitation cell before freezing on the spot.

Next up we have the first line of one of my favorite fics of mine, where we get some Sam Cage! (sam my beloved). Get ready for the first sentence of Episteme! Samantha Cage, despite her evergrowing want to be out of the life she threw herself into, isn’t exactly sure how to stay out of it.

Okay so this is the first line at the moment, but might not be if/when I finally get around to writing the vast majority of this fic. After drafting out an entire fic on a plane ride about a year ago, I only actually fully wrote out a few paragraphs. Here's the beginning of it as of right now: “Arriving in forty-five minutes,” comes the eventual answer through Mac’s earpiece. 

Now we have the first line from Past + Fire + Present, purely because I think it's a fabulous addition to the whole point of this post (and also this does happen to be a fic that i am quite happy about how it came out). The first sentence is a little bit lack-luster though... Hands.

Changing things up a bit, this next sentence is from my 95% finished The Martian fic that has been 95% finished for over a year at this point. I really just need to write two more paragraphs and post it at this point, but here's the start! Sneaking out of Beck's quarters as soon as he stepped out to talk to the rest of the crew was probably not the brightest of plans, but I can’t take it back now.

And to end things off, we're going to hop back to Remittent Distress, but this time in the form of the first sentence for chapter three! (Currently working on it, fear not) It’s to be expected.

I'm fairly certain that at this point everyone that I know has been tagged in this (and I'm also like a week or two late at this point), so if you see this, assume you're being tagged! (and also if you write your own please tag me somewhere in it so I can read your sentences :D)

[victorluvsalice]

AU Thursday: That Coffee Shop AU -- So Call Me Maybe

Found myself inspired again regarding the Coffee Shop AU my friend @dont-offend-the-bees came up with! I was curious about how that first phone call post-napkin number might go down, so -- here. Enjoy! (Under the cut because it’s kinda long)

Hmmm. . . .

Alice stood in front of the mirror contemplatively, examining herself in her Siren dress. "You're harder to puzzle out than I first thought," she informed it. "I mean, the jellyfish-like underskirt is just a start. Where am I going to find just the right shades of green and pink? And get them to fade into each other? How am I going to make the scales for the middle? How about the fish head on the back? And just what am I meant to do about the bits that glow?"

"LEDs sewn in should work," her reflection replied, holding up the skirt to examine the shimmering stripes more closely. "And the scales can be done. They'll just take a lot of crimping and sewing. And Angler Yves could be made out of paper mache."

"Hmm – perhaps," Alice agreed, twisting her head around to get a better look at the spiny head. "Though the dangling bit could pose another problem. And I was kind of hoping for a dress that might survive a dip in a pool."

Her reflection chuckled. "We should probably concentrate on completing our final project before getting that ambitious."

"I suppose, but – still. Wouldn't it be nice to have a few underwater shots to wow our costuming teacher?"

"Yes, but waterproof fabrics are likely to be more expensive. And need to be dyed."

"Oh, everything's going to need to be dyed, I don't doubt for a moment no manufacturer on earth is going to be able to match the shades–"

Bzzz bzzz bzzz bzzz bzzz

Alice blinked, and her Siren dress vanished, replaced by the white shirt and jeans she'd thrown on earlier. Her reflection went silent, back to simply mimicking her movements in reverse. Shame, she was often Alice's main source of intelligent conversation. She frowned about her room. "Now what was that?"

It didn't take long to locate the source of the noise – her phone, usually a silent observer of her homework, was vibrating like mad beside the desk lamp. She picked it up and checked the screen. She wasn't expecting any calls, but you never knew when Sunny Brews would demand an extra shift. . .

Unknown Number greeted her curious eyes. Ah. Probably just a telemarketer, she thought, shaking her head. Her thumb went toward the "deny" button. Well, sorry to deny you the chance to hone your pitch, but I have much better things to do than hear how I could win a thousand pounds if I just give you my credit card number.

Purrhaps – but I seem to recall you sent a line out into the great sea of humanity earlier, Cheshire's voice suddenly intruded. Normally anglers are eager to get a nibble, aren't they?

What are you talking about, mang – oh. Oh! Her thumb reversed course, stabbing the "accept" button just before the whole thing went over to voicemail. "Hello?"

"Oh – ah – hi," a familiar voice replied. Alice let out a tiny sigh of relief. "I was just – I thought – a-am I interrupting something? I c-can call back–"

"No, no, nothing important," Alice assured him, as Cheshire's grin hung smugly over her shoulder. "Just homework. Took me a moment to realize it might not be a scam artist calling me." She settled herself back in her chair. "So it wasn't too presumptuous of me to put that number on your napkin."

Her caller laughed softly. It was a nice sound. "No, not at all. You quite surprised me there. I've – I've never had a girl do that before."

"Well, it's the first time I've ever done such a thing," Alice told him. "Most of the male customers who show any interest in me are either interested in free drinks or crude passes." She rolled her eyes. "I'd like to write something a little different on their napkins."

"Oh dear, I'm sure." There was a dull drumming sound, as if he were tapping his fingers on something. "But on that subject – this may sound silly, and I-I know you weren't mad, obviously, but I still feel like I should apologize for making that sketch of you. W-without your permission, I mean. I don't usually draw people. You were a bit – spur of the moment."

Alice twirled her pencil through her fingers, remembering the inked version of her face that had occupied his sketchbook page, every line crisp and clean. "Spur of the moment," she repeated. "I'd love to see what happens when you really put your mind to it."

His blush was almost audible. "Well, I-I've had a lot of practice."

"I can tell." She switched the phone to her other ear. "I suppose you're right that you should have asked me first, but as you're also right that I'm not mad, I think we can skip it. A drawing's rather harmless anyway. I never expected to be anybody's muse."

"Well, you just – you looked so – so pretty."

Alice arched an eyebrow. "Cleaning up garbage?"

"It was something about your face," he explained. "The set of your lips, the fire in your eyes. . .it seemed a crime to just let it pass by without trying to preserve it."

Someone thought she was pretty – worthy of being preserved in paper and ink – when she was dumping old coffee cups and discarded muffin wrappers in the trash. Now Alice had to wonder if he could hear her blushing. "You're a flatterer," she told him, leaning her head back to look at the ceiling.

"I'm an artist," he replied. "I know beauty when I see it."

Coming from anyone else, she would have considered that a bad pick-up line. Coming from her green-tea-and-chocolate-chocolate-chip-muffin man, who'd already proved his skills with a pen, in the most sincere voice she'd ever heard. . .her cheeks had to be glowing by this point. "Well, I'm not available for life modeling just yet," she said, trying to pave over the mushy mess her heart had become.

"What – oh, no, I d-didn't mean–" he started babbling, sounding almost frightened.

"I'm joking," she quickly reassured him. "A bit nervous, are we?"

A sigh echoed down the line. "I've just – never really done this before," he admitted quietly.

"Called up a girl? Well, I haven't either, so we're in the same boat," Alice said, and was rewarded with another laugh. "Never called up a boy, either, come to think of it."

"I'm your first?" he said, surprised.

"Well, I wasn't in a good place for talking to boys–" or anyone "–for quite a while," Alice admitted, white padding slithering down the walls of her room. She shut her eyes and concentrated to clear it away. Not a good idea to hallucinate while talking to the nice young man. "But that's something we should discuss face to face. Possibly in a restaurant? I'm not going to make the list in any place with a dress code, but I could probably deal with cloth napkins."

He giggled. "I should probably get your last name first. I'd like to have you in my contacts as someone other than 'Alice the Waitress.'"

"Oi, I'm a barista," Alice told him, with no real rancor. "It's Liddell. L-i-d-d-e-l-l. Rhymes with fiddle."

"Liddell," he repeated. "All right then. I'm – well, I suppose you know from my credit card, but I'm Victor. Victor Van Dort."

"I do know, but they call them 'niceties' for a reason," Alice said, smiling. "Pleasure to meet you properly, Victor. So – I do know a pizza place not too far from the coffee shop. . ."

[overkill-max]

Wedding mini-fic

A mini-fic of what happens during and after the wedding. From the perspective of Maya’s mom. 

---

Looking back at the wedding pictures, she thinks she looks out of place. She sees herself without makeup, in a plaid shirt. Having left her husband that same day. He was on a rant about Maya and her “lifestyle choices.” Katherine was cowering, just as her daughter described her. Feeling suffocated. She looked at Lane, all the anger directed towards her daughter, that would soon turn to her, and she felt herself turn into the husk she was before she left.

For an instant, she thought about Maya.

“I have to go pick up ice.” Katherine whispered. Lane did not hear her. He never heard her. Or Maya. Or Mason. Or anyone else.

She grabbed her purse and her mask and left.

 //

She did not pick up ice.

Maya’s house was empty.

Katherine didn’t know where to go. The only other place familiar to her was the fire station.

 //

She walked in not knowing her daughter would be admitting she forgot to write her vows. Carina mentioned that it did not matter, that it was sweet and perfect that Maya, someone who was overprepared and had lists and clipboards, had forgotten to write down a list. She was too excited to start their lives together.

“I love you, and I choose you. Forever.” Hearing her daughter say that with such joy, made her cry. Interrupting their vows. She apologized but the way that her daughter and her soon to be bride looked at her, both lighting up, let her know she made the right choice.

//

Maya and Carina were happy for most of their wedding.

Then they realized that another firefighter had taken her job. Or cost her the job. Katherine was still confused about how a person can get fired so casually.

She thought she would need to hold her breath. Whenever Lane was upset, she would walk on eggshells to avoid setting him off.

Maya looked betrayed and sad. But not devastated. She was not angry. Her wife excused them with a polite smile, then took her outside.

Katherine did not know if she was allowed to follow or not. She wanted to comfort her daughter. Yet it had always been hard. Maya was so much like Lane. Hiding everything away until it exploded in unhealthy ways. Lashing out. Wanting to keep everyone from seeing her in pain.

She worried about Carina.

It was a lovely wedding.

She should not have followed them, but she did.

//

“Maya, it’s okay.” It was soft. “Bambina, you are a fighter and so smart and strong. If this captain job is what you want, you can get it back or get another captain.”

Maya said something too soft for her to hear through the door.

“No, you are an amazing good captain. This is just them punishing you for supporting your fire fighters and not the administration… remember what you told me? Why they were afraid to do what you did?”

//

Katherine went back to the party.

//

She does not remember the rest of the party. Only what the pictures tell her.

//

The thing she does remember is how her daughter interrupted her own wedding to ask her friends to help her move in with them.

Even fire fighters from the other shifts helped. Five men stayed outside with Lane. The rest carried things she pointed to from inside the home she used to call hers. Packed her bags. “Mama B, you need your passport.” Carina… her new daughter in-law said.

It made the room feel smaller. Lane controlled that. He had all of that in his gun safe. In the office he kept locked up.

“Maya.” Her daughter nodded.

They were alone in the room where before she had always been too scared to move. Constantly drowning. No wonder her daughter chose to be a fire fighter. She was used to the feeling of having to work hard to breathe.  

Carina talked at her. Katherine did not have the mental capacity to forms sentences or words. Still feeling on edge. Never safe. Never safe in this house.

She appreciated how at ease the other woman was. How kindly she smiled. Not in that ugly way others did. Where they pitied her. Seeing her as both a victim but also deserving of Lane’s anger for not standing up for herself. For going back.

Carina was just as she remembered her at the spaghetti dinner. Genuinely excited to spend time with her.

It made her feel uncomfortable and happy at the same time.

Even Maya’s patience with her ran thin. Often lashing out in anger. Raising her voice. Narrowing her eyes the way her father did. She was so much like him. It broke her heart to see it.

Yet, Katherine understood that. She was comfortable in that. Had lived with that.

Carina was unexpected.

//

Maya returned with a stack of folders and a gun.

Katherine flinched.

“Maya, no.” Her daughter-in-law commanded.

“But…” Maya tried to argue. “No. Bambina, look at your mother… look at this country… Look at what happens when you have so many guns in the house and so many fears… I don’t want that in my house.”

Maya mentioned her father. It struck a new type of fear in Katherine.

“What makes you think he cannot buy another gun if you take this one? How much angrier is he going to be if that happens?”

Katherine swallows. She hated that Lane had a gun. Feared that he would use it against her. Or worse, the kids. Maya knew that. If he was angry, he might.

Carina understood anger. Escalation. Violence. She saw blood and death. The result of things like this.

“You take your papa’s gun and you have to be ready to shoot him with it. This thing, it will not end well. Leave the gun… this is only about your mama… you take that thing into our lives and you make it about something he thinks is his. You make it into a fight.”

Maya leaves in a huff.

“You are not his. You are yours.” Carina tells her. Firm voice. Needing to be heard. Soft hands. Wanting to comfort.

She nods.

They leave.

//

Everyone that helps set up her room stays at their house.

“It’s the after party.” Carina shouts happily. She puts on music and begins making pasta in her wedding dress.

Warren and Bailey come from the fire station with the men and women that stayed behind to clean up.

Cases of alcohol get brought into the house and people keep drinking and dancing. Victoria sings. Maya comes out in a sleeveless shirt and sweatpants. She kisses Carina and takes the knife from her. Telling her to get comfortable.

“Please don’t angry chop my pasta.” Her daughter-in-law begs. Maya shrugs. Pretending she’s not listening. Mimicking angry chopping.

“Mama B, make sure she separates the pasta and hang it to dry.” Carina shouts, laughing as she leaves the kitchen and bumps into Andy.

 //

The whole night was chaotic and filled with laughter and love.

//

Katherine wakes up early the next day. Not knowing what to do without Lane dictating every minute of her life, she lays there. Unsure of what she is allowed here. This place has her things, but it doesn’t feel like hers. It feels borrowed. Like last time.

She gets up and heads for the kitchen. Tip toeing around the place. Unsure of how quiet Maya and Carina need her to be. She is a guest.

“Suocera!” Carina enthusiastically greets her from the stove. Katherine nods. Confused. “Buongiorno.” She tries. It’s the only word she knows in Italian.

Carina laughs as she shakes her head. “Right... It… it is… you are the mother of the wife?” She asks. Not knowing the word.

“Oh. Mother-in-law” Katherine quickly fills in.

“Yes, suocera.” Carina repeats and smiles. Flipping over the French toast in the pan. Katherine stands there and Carina waves the spatula around. “I made espresso, but if it’s not your thing, you can add the water. Cups are there. Explore.”

“Can you grab me the thing?” Carina asks. Pointing vaguely behind her.

Katherine smiles. Uncomfortable. She likes the house. It is lovely. But Lane liked things to be a certain way. To stay there. For cabinets not to be opened unnecessarily.

“Uh.” Katherine stops. Looking at the counter.

“Maya, the thing! You know, the thing.” Carina says louder. Katherine freezes. Carina turns around, smiling and her face drops. She turns pale. Katherine waits for the explosion.

“I’m sorry.” Carina tells her. Voice softer. Hands moving wildly as she tries to find the words. “I’m sorry, suocera. I know when I get excited it seems like I am yelling. But I am not yelling at you. Or at Maya. I… I am not yelling.”

Katherine feels the tension in herself. In the other woman. As Carina wants to comfort her but does not step closer. She waits. Looking torn. “Boundaries.” Her therapist’s voice says inside her.

Katherine tilts her head down. Looking at the floor. She barely nods.

A small invitation is all it takes to be swept up in a tight hug. Carina pats down her hair and kisses it. “I’m sorry, suocera. I’m learning too.” Is all she says.

She cries and she is held.

The French toast burns, and Maya runs in to witness her wife running with a flaming pan, heading outside. Her mother is coughing. The water is on in the sink. Putting nothing out.

“Carina!” Maya shouts as she stares at her mom. Instead of finding the cold, angry blue she is used to, she finds worry. There is no blame. It feels like no time has passed but her daughter is different. This is not the same woman that told her she needed therapy for thinking what they went through together was abuse. For knowing it was wrong.

She runs out and takes command of the situation. Taking the hose from her wife and making sure there are no flames before heading back inside with a waterlogged piece of bread. Black from the flames. The kitchen is filled with smoke but there is no fire or damage.

Maya hugs her mother and Katherine feels like she can breathe. Even with the smoke. She cries. Her daughter had never been soft. But she changed for love. Katherine never felt strong. But she learned from her daughter. For her daughter.

She wonders what will happen if she stays. If this place becomes her home.

//

Katherine thinks she looks out of place. When the pictures come back.

She does not feel out of place.

Not then. Not now.

Carina is laughing beside her. Pointing out all the pictures that make her smile.

Three months feel a world away.

 //

Katherine was worried about Maya. The offer came from Carina.

She did not want to overstay her invitation. But finding a job as a home maker that was scared of men shouting or froze at every loud noise, meant her prospects were limited. Especially in a pandemic.

She wanted to find her own place. Or even a shelter. To let her daughter build a new life without the old once holding her back. But Carina was so nice. So welcoming. She was so soft and safe that it was hard to feel bad about not trying hard enough.

Maya was different too. She was still reserved. But she was brighter. In a way she never thought Maya could be. The last time she visited there was so much anger. Denial. She was closed off and lashed out when people got too close to the core of who she was. So much like Lane that it hurt to look at her and see nothing but steel staring back. Cold. Lifeless.  

Now she was nothing but awe and love.

Katherine liked it. She liked knowing who her daughter had become without all that pain. Without the constant pressure to achieve. To make Lane proud.

 //

She asked, once. When Maya was not home.

Carina was direct. She never made them guess. She never hid her feelings or what she wanted. She was stubborn. And she always answered. Even when she could not find the words. She would answer. Because Carina liked clarity.

Katherine understood.

Walking on eggshells while not knowing what would set Lane off made her appreciate Carina’s openness. Even when it made her uncomfortable. Or mad at herself for not being able to reciprocate. She still liked who Carina was.

“I get to have a family again.” Carina shrugged. Passing the sheet of pasta through the metal press.

Katherine waited. Carina was the daughter that she always imagined other parents had. She giggled easily and gossiped. Filled the silences with laughter and words.

“I did have a family. But it was before. Then mama left and I stayed so Andrea could go. And it was just papa and me. He was so angry, and their marriage was so terrible that I hated the idea of family… but then…” She smiled softly.

“Then Maya became my home and family was something I missed… I… in Italy… you are expected to move with your husband’s family. To have your suocera and their nonna and all these people constantly in your life… I wanted to have that…” Katherine nods.

“I know it’s selfish to want you to stay. Americans, you like your life to be individual and separate and borders and very yourselves. But… I feel like a momma chicken. I like all of the people I love in my house. In my roof. Happy and in each other’s life… it feels… warm. Like a home.” Carina shrugs. Cutting the pasta into small sheets.

Katherine smiles. Liking the idea that family, home, could be something other than what both her and her daughter have known. What her daughter-in-law has known. That it could be built on new traditions. Starting with a wedding she was underdressed for but still belonged in.

[aprilsrant]

When I kissed the teacher | Oliver Wood x Slytherin!Fem!Reader.

SUMMARY: (Y/N) and Oliver finally accept their feelings for each other.

WORD COUNT: 2,065.

WARNINGS: a kiss, (?), a few curse words.

A/N: English is not my first language, if there are any mistakes, let me know! This part wasn’t supposed to be here so soon because I was working on the other fics, but this actually took some of my writer’s block away so here it is. 

This is the final part of the mini series, but I think I’ll do some blurbs about Oliver and this particular reader in the future, like dates, life after Hogwarts, and more.

Please like, reblog or comment if you want!

PREVIOUS PARTS:

Lay all your love on me. (Part 1)

Honey Honey! (Part 2).

MASTERLIST. / WORK IN PROGRESS.

The poor Slytherin girl had been trying to hide her feelings towards Quidditch’s rising star and Gryffindor’s Team Captain, for a little more than a year and a half. It wasn’t necessarily difficult at first since they barely saw or talked to each other, only sharing a few classes and having one friend in common —that was more of an acquaintance to him, which made things easier for a few months—. But then, her friend’s conspiracy to get them together interfered with a plan of her own named “avoiding Oliver Wood for the rest of my school days”. 

Many tutoring sessions followed the first one, Oliver was improving a lot faster than they had expected. “All your work, of course”, he would say with a thick, scottish accent that made (Y/N) nearly faint every time he’d utter a single word. This was actually one of the reasons why she tried to convince him of calling off their meetings, —that and the fact that it was getting harder to conceal her sweaty hands, the fidgeting, the occasional stuttering, the evident stares and, of course, that the girl was unable to look him in the eyes for more than three seconds—. 

Oliver thought differently, he energetically insisted about needing her as tutor more than ever now that he was catching up with Potions and Transfiguration. And once more, incapable of saying no, she agreed, accepting to tutor him for the rest of the year ‘just in case’.

Dorian almost had her head when she talked about the conversation and her desire to stop helping Oliver. He couldn’t comprehend her reasoning, not when his friend was finally getting what she wanted for so long. Ethan and Isla didn’t take his side this time, instead, they supported (Y/N), sympathizing with her logic. 

“If it’s becoming a burden for you, maybe you should tell him,” the Ravenclaw boy advised, concentrating on beating Isla on the game of Exploding Snap in front of him.

“It’s not a burden, it’s just…,” (Y/N) started, the lack of words interrupting her sentence, “I don’t know how to explain it.”

The only Gryffindor in the Multicolour Quartet —horrible name indeed and his idea— kept quiet. He wanted (Y/N) to be happy, so why was she giving up her chance to actually be happy with the boy she liked for more than a year?

No one spoke about Oliver again that Wednesday afternoon on the Courtyard, a pact to keep quiet about the subject forming silently between them. 

By the group’s seventh, and last, year at Hogwarts, Oliver Wood and (Y/N) (Y/L/N) were official friends —something Dorian took full credit of and something no one in the school had foreseen, except for her friends and the Gryffindor Quidditch Team (why was their Captain, Oliver obsessive Wood, postponing practices all of a sudden?)—. Not long after she tried to end their tutoring sessions, Oliver asked her if she minded to spend some time with him outside of their “study dates”. 

Since then, she and Oliver could be seeing together round Hogwarts. Sometimes (Y/N)’s friends joining them because of the boy invitating the Quartet, or rest of it at least, to Hogsmeade, making up silly excuses to leave them alone or telling Oliver all the embarrassing things (Y/N)’d succeeded to do, most of them narrated by Dorian, —how could he know so many stupid stories when he joined the group not that long ago?—, who loved laughing at the angry faces she did until her elbow hit his ribs. 

While (Y/N)’s feelings kept growing without restraint, Oliver’s were blooming slowly, at first unnoticed, but strong. His heart jumping whenever he saw her smiling, or talking about a subject she was passionate about. His body going still momentarily if she was too close to him, showing him how to cut ingredients, or the order they went in, or how to move his hands to perform a spell correctly. 

He realised during the fifth month of the school term. It wasn’t romantic nor beautiful. It felt like taking a Bludger to the head —believe or not, he had experience with that—, you weren’t prepared for the hit and the consequences it would bring. Ruining their friendship was the last thing Oliver wanted, so he kept quiet about his discovery and acted normal, begging no one, especially not (Y/N), would notice.

Reckless, and sometimes irresponsible, they were, but not fools. So of course the experts on the matter of ‘friends being complete idiots and denying their feelings’, Dorian, Isla and Ethan knew exactly what was going on when they noticed Oliver’s change of attitude towards their Slytherin friend. How he seemed more nervous around her; the way would look for her before a Quidditch match; how he would ask easy questions about the assignments, claiming he was going to die without her help, and how he put more effort on his appearance whenever they were going to hang out. 

The three friends couldn’t believe their luck. First, (Y/N), the smartest person they knew and yet, at the same time, the most oblivious and ignorant. Then, Oliver, the boy their friend had a crush on, now seemed to reciprocate her feelings but was trying to push them aside. 

“How can someone be so daft?,” Isla whispered to the boys beside her while watching (Y/N) and Oliver leave Zonko’s and starting to walk slowly towards the Three Broomsticks, “you know, we could make them smell Amortentia and admit their feelings once and for all.”

“You are actually onto something there, Islandic,” Dorian said, beginning to follow the pair in front of them. The Gryffindor snickered after Isla hit him on the head because of the recent nickname he’d given her. 

“Oh no, we’re not doing that,” they heard Ethan from behind them. 

“Why not?”

“Why not?,” Ethan repeated before letting out a scoff, ”because you two are going to make me brew the potion and I’m not brewing Amortentia.” Isla and Dorian gazed at each other, trying to conceal their smiles, knowing their other friend was right. 

They’d started to follow (Y/N) and Oliver in silence when Dorian talked again.

“Why don’t you want to brew Amortentia?” The noise of the village almost drowning the suspicious tone in his voice. “Are you trying to evade something, maybe?”

“Shut up,” he responded, tightening the dark blue coat closer to his body, and unknowingly giving Dorian the answer he hoped for, “and come on, don’t just stand there. We’re going to lose them.”

Their continuing attempts were a failure, nothing they did made the Slytherin or the Gryffindor confess. Fortunately, these thoughts were starting to appear more frequently in the latest’s mind. 

|||

It was the first Saturday after the Easter Holidays and the whole school, including the professors, was waiting impatiently for the last Quidditch match of the season, Slytherin versus Gryffindor for the Inter-House Quidditch Cup. 

With Slytherin leading the championship with more than two hundred points, Oliver’s team needed a massive win if they wanted to get their hands on the Cup.

(Y/N) made her way up to the stands alongside her friends, all of them hoping for Gryffindor to win the match. Even as a Slytherin, she wished for him, and the whole team of course, to crush her House’s Quidditch Team. Marcus Flint was everything but kind and a fair player, his tactics consisted purely of hurting his rivals, not caring about the damage the injuries could cost. (Y/N)’d have supported her own House if they weren’t cheating bastards. 

A few of the students looked at her weirdly before starting to whisper when she sat down on her seat beside Dorian, who went full on Gryffindor pride. Yes, she was wearing a green blouse —she should have accepted Dorian’s offer on using one of his red t-shirts—, but that didn’t mean anything. She was on the Gryffindor stands, so she was supporting Gryffindor, and for a good reason… 

The first ten points went to the lion’s house thanks to Angelina Johnson, but the cries of joy transformed quickly into shoutings and insults directed to the Slytherin Captain for nearly knocking her off her broom after smashing into the Chaser. Fred Weasley reacted by throwing his beater’s bat at the back of Flint’s head. 

The rest of the match followed pretty much the same way. Slytherin played using dirty tactics and attacking the Gryffindors, which resulted in them answering their violence with, well, more violence. 

“Harry spotted the Snitch,” shouted Dorian while raising his arm, pointing towards the third year boy. Before the Gryffindor Seeker could grab the shiny, golden ball, Malfoy grabbed the end of his broom and pulled it back.

“Not the fucking Firebolt, you twat,” (Y/N) thought of hearing her best friend Isla, seating on her right side, said. Everyone started screeching insults at the Slytherin Seeker, even (Y/N) and some of the professors. 

Finally, after more penalties, Harry Potter caught the Snitch, handing his House the Quidditch Cup. 

Students from Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff roared in excitement, quickly leaving the stands and flooding the Pitch, running to congratulate the winning team. 

Three of the four members of the Multicolour Quartet stayed a few feet away from the crowd, Dorian celebrating in the middle with Oliver, who was carrying the Cup, on his shoulders. Isla grabbed her arm and carried her to where the Gryffindor Captain was, a memory of Dorian doing the same thing a year ago entered her mind. 

Looking up at Oliver, (Y/N) noticed his rosy cheeks and some drops of sweat forming on his forehead, but his brown eyes and smile were what captivated her the most, his enthusiasm turning contagious. 

“Congratulations, I guess,” the girl said, a serious expression on her face while rolling her eyes exaggeratedly to show him she was teasing. (Y/N) extended her arm, still acting, but was taken by surprise when Oliver grabbed it and pulled her towards him, engulfing each other in a hug. She giggled near his ear and whispered, “I’m so proud of you.”

The Gryffindor glanced down at her, bodies still close to each other, neither of them wanting to let go, eyes thrilled because of his team’s victory and something more she couldn’t figure out. Slowly, his face approached her’s, staring back to the other’s eyes, asking themselves internally if this was the moment. 

“Fuck it,” Oliver mumbled before closing the distance between them and planting a chaste kiss on her mouth. 

They stood motionless for a couple of seconds, arms still wrapped around each other and the whole school watching them silently, waiting for her reaction. From the corner of her eye, she saw Fred Weasley giving his twin, George, some sickles, a grim look on his face for losing what she assumed was a bet on them.

(Y/N)’s attention went back to the boy in front of her, one with a desperate expression. Standing on her toes, she pulled her hands away from Oliver’s torso, directing one towards the back of his neck and the other to his cheek, caressing the skin tenderly. She smiled, unable to stop another giggle, and pressed their lips together for the second time, hoping it wouldn’t be the last one. 

The crowd around the pair roared again, making them laugh between the kiss, lips separating and then reuniting. Her heart almost jumping out of her chest from how fast it was beating, her necessity to breath becoming more prominent with each second her mouth was against he’s. Ignoring it, (Y/N) continued on kissing Oliver, whose hands were now on either side of her head, trying to bring her impossibly closer. Biting her bottom lip, his tongue rushing through her mouth. The hand on his neck pressuring now with more force, bringing him down so her feet could touch the ground.

A hand on each of Oliver’s shoulders forced them apart. 

“Okay, I’m really happy you two finally stopped the painful yearning for each other, but this is my best friend you’re snogging, Oliver, so try to do that privately,” a voice that could only belong to Dorian came from behind the Gryffindor boy. 

(Y/N) crossed her arms, one of them pressing into Oliver’s side, and looked at her friend before speaking.

“Are you going to tell…”

“Yeah, I am,” he interrupted her mid sentence, “I bloody told you so.”

TAGLIST: @peeves-a-legend​ @weasleybees​ @acontinuationofstuff​ @parkeroffline​ @lilac-wrists​

If you want me to add you to the taglist, ask me! And if you asked but you’re not here, please remind me!

[willow-salix]

TAG MiniBang 2021

Because the combined bad influences of Flyboy and Sonata were at work here we also decided to bend the rules a little and post early...

I was privileged to work with one of my best friends on this project,  @misssquidtracy​ . We went a little rogue (seems to be a theme for us) and shared both parts of the challenge with both of us contributing to the art and the writing. Squiddy provided a beautifully done pallet knife piece as the background for my foreground art and we plotted the story together to ensure that it worked for both of us. We had been looking forward to sharing the writing but unfortunately, due to life constraints on her part she was only able to write a little of the fic but what she did add perfectly compliments the tone and style of my writing. 

Big thanks to @tagminibang ) @godsliltippy​ ) for organising this event.

So, here it is, our offering to the TAG Mini Bang. We hope you enjoy it. 

Ting ting ting

“Not again,” Virgil groaned, hauling himself up the stairs from the kitchen to the lounge. He regretted ever giving Gordon that bell, he really did. Yes his brother had gone through a tough time, yes he had scared the hell out of them when the Chaos Crew had left him at the bottom of the ocean in his mangled craft, yes they were incredibly grateful that he was alive and mostly whole, but if they had to hear that dinging one more time they might possibly murder him themselves. 

“Yes, Gordy, what do you need?” 

“I’m lonely, and I’m hungry, come and sit with me for a bit?”

“Sure-”

“But maybe make me a sandwich first?”

“A sandwich?” 

“Yeah, with extra cheese and a pickle on the side, not too large a pickle but not too small that it’s gone in one bite. I want to taste it, you know, but not be overwhelmed.”

“Sure-”

“And can you get me a drink too? One of my special milkyshakes, you know, with the ice cream and frozen banana in it?”

“Coming right up,” Virgil sighed, heading back down to the kitchen again.

“Gordon still demanding everything and anything?” Scott asked as he jogged in from the poolside. His T-shirt was sticking to his chest and his hair was damp with sweat but he still looked like he could do it all again. Not that they would have time, they were lucky if they got to do any planned exercise at all, usually they were forced to skip it and work out on the job when a call came in.

“Of course he is,” Virgil growled, slapping a slice of cheese on a piece of bread with far more force than necessary.

“What did the cheese do to you?”

“It’s guilty by association.”

“Ah,” Scott said, like that explained things perfectly. 

A few slices of chicken received the same treatment and Scott wondered if the meat had actually been dead when it arrived on the island or if Virgil had simply smacked it into submission so well that the chicken had flown clear into next week and arrived as sandwich filling.

“Can you fix his drink?” Virgil asked.

“Can’t gotta shower this off before Grandma accuses me of stinking up the place again.”

“Any excuse,” Virgil scowled. “It would only take you a second.”

“A second too long, bro, I’m escaping while I can and you’d be wise to do the same,” Scott said, heading for the stairs and freedom.

“How can I escape when Gordon needs help?”

“You’re forgetting one important thing,” Scott told him wisely. 

“I am? And that would be…”

“John’s home.”

Virgil snorted out a laugh. “He’s less likely to do it than you are.”

“No, you're misunderstanding me. If John’s home that means…” Scott let his sentence trail off into silence heavily filled with insinuation.

“Sel’s here,” Virgil finished triumphantly, catching on perfectly.

“Give that Tracy a prize,” Scott grinned, shooting triumphant finger guns his brother’s way as he headed up the stairs. 

And they said that John was the genius in the family, they hadn’t seen Scott at his most devious. Virgil wasted no time in yanking out his phone and texting the witch to come and take over.

“Here’s your sammich, Squidward,” Selene cooed, plonking the plate down on Gordon’s lap while smacking a kiss to his forehead. “Virgil started it but I finished it for you, Brains called him down to his lab with some kind of air filter emergency so I took over. I brought you some of those crisps you like from my private stash too.”

“The cheesy curl ones?” Gordon asked hopefully.

“Yep,” she grinned, waggling a family sized bag of Quavers in his general direction.

“Did you bring my drink?” Gordon asked around a mouthful of chickeny goodness. Say what you wanted about Virgil but he made a damn good sandwich, even if Gordon could taste that this was made with a little less love and a little more impatience than usual.

“No, sorry, did you want one? Virgil didn’t say that. I’ll go get you something, just wait right there.”

"Not like I can leave if the mood takes me," Gordon grumbled as he opened the chip bag. 

She was already gone, only to race back in a few moments later with a can of coke.

“What? What’s wrong, boo?” Selene asked when she saw the pouting look of disappointment on Gordon’s face.

“It was supposed to be one of my special milkyshakes,” he whined.

“Right, got it, my bad!”

She was gone again, taking off to the kitchen where, upon closer inspections, she did indeed find the beginnings of a milkshake. There were two scoops of ice cream already in the blender, melting in the warmth of the room. A half peeled banana sat abandoned on the counter next to a carton of milk. 

“Typical,” she groused as she set about breaking up the banana, pouring the milk and setting it to blend as she tidied the mess away. Once done she poured it into a tall glass, added a straw and a few slices of fresh banana to decorate the edges, just as he liked it, and delivered it to the waiting aquanaut.

“Great, thanks, Sel,” he grinned, handing her his now empty plate and swapping it for the glass. She put the plate on the coffee table and sat on the couch opposite him.

“Anything else I can do for you?”

 “Sit with me and keep me company?” he begged, looking so miserable and pathetic that she couldn’t say no.

“Of course I will.” 

Gordon swung his injured leg up and she moved to sit next to him on the couch, placing a cushion on her lap for him to rest his cast covered foot on.

Gordon settled down with a contented sigh, sucking happily on his straw, the milkshake level in the glass steadily dropping.

“I’m bored,” Gordon bitched five minutes later.

“That peace lasted a long time,” Selene laughed, putting her phone down on the side table to give him her full attention. “What can I do to help? Do you want to watch something or play a game?”

Gordon made a face. “You’re crap at games, Sel.”

One eyebrow rose in disbelief. “I wouldn’t exactly say crap…”

“You tried to play with Alan and died three times in two minutes, lost all your lives and were forced to float along behind him as a ghost for the rest of his turn.”

“Anything is crap when you say it like that,” Selene huffed. 

“Only when it’s true.”

“Tell me then, oh great games master, what do you want to do?”

“Nothing.”

“Then don’t moan you’re bored,” she pointed out.

“I mean there’s nothing to do. No one is around.”

Selene gestured to her chest. “Am I suddenly invisible?”

“No, of course not,” he scoffed. “That would be far too cool, why don’t you have witch powers like that?”

“Because I live in the real world, not a movie?”

“Lame,” he declared, dismissing it.

“Back to the original point that I am, in fact, right here. Therefore your comment that no one is around is redundant.”

“I meant no one I can do anything with.”

“Thin ice, bub, thin ice.”

“I meant like my brothers or someone. Alan is busy revising for his final exams, Virgil’s with Brains and I’ve no idea where Scott is but I think he’s avoiding me, which is just mean if you ask me. I’m a delight.”

“Yeah, you sure are,” she drawled, not sounding too convinced. “You’re also forgetting a brother.”

“Who?”

“John? You know, gorgeous ginger love of my life that’s chilling in his room right this minute? That brother?”

“John? No way.”

“What’s wrong with John?” she squawked indignantly. Her man was the most perfect of people, amazing and fabulous, just all round awesome. Although she might be a tad biased.

Gordon shrugged, scrunching his nose up in a ‘meh’ kinda way that said everything and nothing.

“No, come on, tell me what you meant,” she demanded.

“No offence, Sel, but John’s a bit…”

“A bit what?” she asked, her tone warning him that he was in very dangerous territory.

Gordon, with the grace of an elephant and confidence of a man that knew he was injured and therefore wouldn’t get slapped, plowed on.

“A bit boring.”

“Boring?!” she hollered, her voice travelling to the four corners of the island so effectively that Alan lifted his head, wondering if some distant God was echoing his thoughts as he slogged through his history homework.

“How very dare you!” Selene continued, working up a good glare that Gordon was completely immune to. He simply sipped the last of his milkshake, smacked his lips and raised an eyebrow, daring her to do something about it.

“He is not boring.”

“Matter of opinion,” Gordon shrugged, handing her the glass to put down on the table. 

“Right, that’s it, you can besmirch my fun factor but I will not allow you to do so to my man. That’s a step too far.” She gently, for which he was thankful, shoved his leg off her lap and dragged his hover chair over from its spot beside Virgil’s piano.

“Get the hell in, hoppy, we’re going for a ride.”

-x-

"You deal with him, he's driving me nuts and pissing me off at the same time."

"Me? I'm the very picture of perfection, I could never drive anyone nuts."

John declined to comment on that one for fear of never stopping, he had twenty-four years worth of stories after all. 

“The pissing you off is subjective too,” Gordon finished triumphantly. 

"He's your problem now," Selene announced, shoving Gordon's hover chair further into the room before making her escape, slamming the door shut behind her. 

John closed his eyes, praying for patience. His fiancée was well known for her legendary patience when it came to pampering and mothering his family whenever any of them were sick or injured. She'd spent almost every day with Gordon since his run in with the Chaos Crew and had done so with relentless cheer, for her to have given up now was not a good sign. 

"What did you do?" 

"Nothing!" Gordon protested hotly.

"Are you sure?" 

Gordon averted his gaze, suddenly taking great interest in a dust particle dancing across the shaft of sunlight filtering in through the window, "Yes, I'm sure. I wasn't doing anything. That was part of the problem."

"Ah," there it was. "Is there anything I can do to help?" 

"I'm so bored," Gordon wailed. "And your girlfriend is being mean to me."

"Fiancée," John corrected him, not looking up from his work. 

"It's not my fault I hate sitting around doing nothing all day. I’ve gone from a physically and mentally intensive, fifty plus hour a week job, to sitting on my ass from dawn until dusk. Can you blame a guy for getting twitchy?"

"Unfortunately, you don't have much of a choice at the moment," John reminded him, quite needlessly he thought. 

"Gee, thanks for the reminder," Gordon huffed, trying to cross his arms although the cast and sling he was sporting prevented it. That just seemed to annoy him even more. 

"I can't do anything right now! How do you do it?" 

"Do what?" John asked, squinting through his magnifier at the small window frame he was carving from a piece of polymer clay. 

"Just sit around all day."

John raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "I don't sit around all day."

"OK, float around then. It's not like you're actively running around like the rest of us are."

"I'll pretend I never heard you say that," John scowled, wishing Selene had dumped his brother into the sea instead of into his quiet, peaceful room. 

"You're sitting around right now," Gordon pointed out, gesturing to the desk John was  sitting at, which was currently doing double duty as a work table for his latest project. 

"One day you'll learn to appreciate the benefits of a quiet, occupied mind and a still body," John told him. 

Gordon sighed, propping his good elbow on the desktop, his chin resting in his upturned palm as he watched his brother fiddling with tiny things that seemed utterly useless to him. 

"What are you even doing?" 

"Working on a series of book nooks for Sel's side of the bookcase," John answered, sounding slightly distracted as he measured the finished window against its place in an intricately carved brick wall. 

"Why?" 

"Because she likes them."

"I mean why are you making it? Can't you just buy her one? It's not like you can't afford it."

"Where's the challenge in that? Besides, things are always more special when you make them yourself."

Gordon yawned and leant forward to rest his head on the tabletop. 

"Do you want to help?" John offered, although honestly Gordon's version of helping was always patchy at best. 

Gordon scooted closer to look over John's shoulder, eyes darting over the rectangular box that he was building the nook inside. About the size of two thick books sandwiched together, the nook already had a little cobbled street and two shop fronts in place. The tabletop was scattered with a selection of impossibly tiny screwdrivers, picks, scalpels and other instruments of possible torture that he couldn't hope to name. 

"Pass," he announced decisively, flicking the control of his hoverchair so he spun in a wide circle, pointing to the door. "I'm out."

"Peace at last," John sighed, flicking his magnifier back into place over his right eye as he set aside the window to be baked later and reached for a fresh blob of clay. 

-x-

"What ya dooooooing?" Gordon yodelled, slamming the bedroom door open so hard that it smacked into the wall and shook several picture frames. He scooted his way into the room without even waiting for an invite. 

"Gordon!" John huffed, clutching his heart where it was trying to leap out of his chest from the shock of his brother’s sudden, and very noisy, entrance. 

"Hi, I got bored, thought I'd drop in on my favourite big brother," Gordon grinned as he glided his hoverchair closer. 

"Are Scott and Virgil busy?" John asked, that would be the only reason Gordon would have promoted him to his favourite. 

"Yes," Gordon admitted, "but that's not the reason why I'm here."

John turned his head to shoot him a raised eyebrow of doom, clearly communicating without words that he didn't believe him in the slightest. 

"So, what are you doing?" 

"Working on this book nook," John replied patiently, holding up the small cauldron he was crafting. 

"The same one?" 

"Yes."

Gordon’s eyes nearly fell out of his head, "Still? It’s been four days!"

"Yes," John hissed out, starting to get frustrated by the constant questions. 

"Why?" 

"Because it takes a long time. If you're going to do a project you should do it right."

"At the speed you're going it's gonna take forever," Gordon snorted, casting an assessing eye over the work John had already done. 

"That doesn't matter," John assured him. "It's not really about the time it takes or the end result, it's about the process, the journey to get there."

"Sounds lame to me," Gordon yawned. 

"Obviously," John drawled, rolling his eyes. 

"What do you mean by that?" Gordon demanded to know, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. 

"Because it's you."

"Hey! Rude."

"Accurate," John said, placing the little cauldron down and selecting another piece of clay which he placed on a ceramic tile. 

"Why?"

"Because it requires a calm mind. It's good to slow down sometimes and just be still."

"Says the console jockey." 

Console Jockey? He did not just say that!

"So you don't think my job is stressful? Or as tiring and important as yours?" John snapped, wondering if it was bad form to smack your injured brother around the head with a partially constructed book nook. He glanced at the nook, he had put a lot of work into it… It would be a shame to waste it. That thought alone saved Gordon. 

“Well, yeah I get that it might be a bit stressful, but it’s not like you have to do much that puts you in danger, not like us,” Gordon continued, digging his hole even deeper, a hole that John was looking forward to shoving him into.

“We all have our specialities, you couldn’t do your job without me doing mine,” John retorted, trying very hard not to let Gordon’s comments get to him. Gordon would never understand what it was like for him to be stuck so far away from the action, away from his brothers when things were going wrong. 

Gordon, thankfully for him, had been unconscious from the moment he had activated his emergency code. He hadn’t heard the frantic calls going out over the comms as the family mobilized to help him.  He hadn’t heard the desperate scramble as Thunderbirds took off, racing to the scene. But John had heard it all. 

John had been the one to stay on the line with Gordon, talking to him the entire time, knowing that he probably wouldn’t hear it but feeling that he needed to say it all the same. He wanted to know that if his little brother regained consciousness for even a second he would hear a familiar voice, that he would know that they were coming, that they would rescue him. He would know that he wasn’t alone.

 He knew what it was like for people that were in danger, knew the comfort they got from someone talking to them, listening to their stories, being there for them verbally if not physically. John was often the one that spent the most amount of time with those they rescued, keeping their spirits up as much as possible until his brothers got there. 

His brothers were seen by their rescuees as the real heroes, the ones that leapt in and plucked them out of danger, but John was the one that got them that help, the one that made sure the rescue played out as best it could, liaising and coordinating until the job was done. But Virgil, Scott, Gordon and Alan were the ones that got the thanks , the ones that got the hugs after they dropped their charges off, not John. 

Not that he minded too much, he knew that his job was just as important as theirs, maybe even more so because, when someone put out that call for help, when they sent their desperate plea out into the world, they deserved to know that someone would always be listening out for it, that someone would hear and that help would come.

He knew all of this, and he knew that Gordon did too, it was just the frustration of inactivity that was making him say the things that he was. John just wished that that knowledge made it easier to listen to. 

“I might not be doing the physical rescuing,” John continued, feeling the need to push his point home. “But I work just as hard, when you’re home you’re off duty until a call comes in, you can relax, swim, watch movies and laze around until you’re needed. When I’m up there I’m on duty 24/7 and even when I do manage to catch some sleep it’s not deep or particularly restful. Any little noise, any call that triggers the system's keyword algorithm gets transferred automatically, I have to go from asleep to awake in seconds to take it.”

Gordon was quiet for once, watching him closely. John didn’t like it, it made him feel like an exhibit in a zoo. And here we have the little seen Tracy, see how he stays inside his hide and hardly ever ventures out… he knew how they saw him, why they likely thought he had the easy job. 

“These help, they give me something else to focus on. I need to keep my mind active and challenged while still trying to relax.” John paused, trying to think of a way to explain his thinking that Gordon might understand. 

“These are almost like a meditation,” he started. Gordon understood meditation and finding your zone. “Creating something out of almost nothing. It keeps my mind focused, helps with finger dexterity and hand eye coordination with the added bonus of it relaxing me. It’s good to slow down and take some time to do something creative, you should try it some time.” 

Gordon listened to his brother and he tried to take in all his words, he tried to understand the meaning behind them, he really did, but it just didn’t make any sense to him. He understood about wanting to be lazy, to sit around and do nothing sometimes. He loved to laze on the couch with his snackies and an Into the Unknown marathon playing out on the holoscreen, but that was watching something exciting, interesting, to him that was relaxing. This...whatever it was that John was actually doing, made no sense whatsoever to him. The idea of trying to relax by actually thinking...that was the most alien concept of all. 

Gordon knew, probably better than his family gave him credit for, what it was like to be mislabelled. Within every sibling pool, there were the mandatory roles: the serious one, the caring one, the smart one, the funny one, the calm one, the angry one, the one who sang in the shower, et cetera. He’d proudly embraced the role of ‘the funny one’, and had diligently flown the flag for the humour camp for as long as he could remember. If a brother came home from a rescue in a slump and needed a cheery pick-me-up, it was Gordon who stepped up to the task, irrespective of his own mood. His smile and laugh were infectious, and he had yet to encounter a frown he couldn’t (eventually) turn upside down.

But with every ‘role’ came misconceptions. Scott was serious, therefore people were quick to automatically assume that he was a killjoy.  Similarly, John’s intellect and preference for solitude often went hand in hand with him being branded antisocial, since there was apparently no possible way someone could enjoy their own company so much, yet still pursue and maintain meaningful relationships with actual people.

Gordon was no stranger to this treatment. He liked to laugh and be spontaneous, and consequently, was often regarded as the Tracy who didn’t take his work seriously, the Tracy who had the attention span of a gnat (albeit a very handsome one), and the Tracy who couldn’t be trusted with anything that required delicacy, be it physical or emotional. His affinity for making people laugh, though an exceptional quality, frequently acted as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, his relentless optimism made him the most effective of the bunch when it came to emergencies involving children and young adults. On the other hand, it sentenced him to a fate where the bad jokes he cracked would always be two steps ahead of the secret deep thinker that lay within.

“Let me see it again,” Gordon sighed, trying his best to be a supportive and understanding brother, since he did feel a little bad about the things he had just said. He hadn’t meant to say them, they had just come out. That was the trouble with being laid up from an injury, not only were you out of action but you were in pain, and pain made you grumpy and less likely to monitor the things that came out of your mouth the way you should.

He knew that John worked hard, hell he knew that what his brother had said was right, John was never truly off duty. They were all aware that he didn’t get enough sleep, enough down time, enough time to relax and just be. They knew that if John was on Five he would consider himself on duty, at work, and therefore he’d never allow himself to take time out. Things had changed since Selene had blundered her way into his life, now he spent a lot more time on the Island, which meant that he was finally taking some time out for himself. If one of the ways he chose to do that was by crafting ridiculously tiny things out of clay to stick in a hollowed out box that was his business. Gordon wasn’t there to judge, he was there to spend time with his brother.

John moved aside a little so Gordon could get a closer look, trying to resist the urge to smack his hand away every time Gordon reached for a tiny piece that had taken him hours to perfect. 

“These are really small,” Gordon mused, poking at a window that John had just finished painting, leaving behind a smudged fingerprint. “Woops, sorry, Bro.”

“Maybe you should try making something of your own,“ John suggested, carefully removing the window from his brother's possession and picking up a brush in order to attempt a fix.

Gordon nodded and John passed him a ceramic tile and a miniature rolling pin. 

“How about you try cutting me out a few shop sign bases?” John suggested.

“Do I get one of those scalpel things?” Gordon asked, a little too eagerly for John’s liking.

“Maybe we can work up to that,” John hedged, subtly moving the scalpel out of his brother’s reach and passing him a square cookie cutter. “Use this cutter for now.”

Gordon shrugged and spent a few minutes rolling and squishing the clay trying to get the thickness to the exact measurement that John insisted on. It wasn’t easy or fun.

“Nope!” Gordon announced, giving up and pushing the tile away. “It’s still boring. Pass.”

He swung his hoverchair around and headed in the direction of the door. “Later, Bro.”

“Oh...OK...later, I guess,” John stuttered, wondering just what he had done to deserve such a chaotic family as his.

“Oh, hey, boo, where are you go- WAHH!”

John’s head shot up as Selene’s yelp rang out from the hallway.

“Sorry!” 

“So you should be, you little shit,” she grumbled to his retreating back as she thumped into the room.

“What happened, love?”

“Let’s just say that if his chair had wheels I’d have lost a few toes,” she said, wincing in imagined pain. 

John scooted his desk chair back and patted his lap in offer, one that she happily accepted.

“So, why was Gordy doing his boy racer bit? What did you say to him?”

“Me? What makes you think I said anything to him?”

“Because I know you two?” 

“Fair,” he sighed, sliding his arms around her waist and resting his chin on her shoulder. “I don’t know what to do to help him.”

Selene turned her head to look at him, not liking the helpless look on his face.

“Babe, you are helping him, you’re there to keep him company or talk to him if he needs it, that’s more important than anything. What happened to make you think that you weren’t helping?”

“He was asking me about these again,” John nodded towards his work area on the desktop. “But he didn’t seem to understand, that or he just didn’t want to.”

“He’s Gordon,” she sighed. “You know what he’s like, he’s full on, he’s in your face and he’s not at all subtle. Taking his time with things just doesn’t compute with him.”

“It would do him good though, if he doesn’t learn to embrace it he’ll be exactly the same as he was last time.”

“Was he really that bad?” she asked, concern lacing her voice. 

John nodded. “He doesn’t do inactivity well. When he had his hydrofoil accident his therapist talked him into signing up for a virtual college degree in Environmental Management of Rivers and Wetlands. It was supposed to take him at least a year as a part time course with ANU in Canberra, but he blew through it in the first semester and earned himself a distinction for his insights on the impact of Anthropogenic Noise on Wetland Habitats. His professor was so impressed he offered him a fully funded PhD, citing his time with WASP and the time he spent in the bathyscaphe as practical experience that would make up for his lack of degree. Obviously he turned it down, but he still likes to rub our faces in it now and then.”

“Wow,” Selene breathed. “Forget his professor being impressed, I’m impressed.”

“He has a phenomenal brain,” John said, a small but very proud smile on his face. “When he actually decides to use it to its full potential, that is. There is nothing he can't do when he chooses to focus on something, he’s all in. It really helped him to feel like he was gaining something and moving forward even though he was sitting still.”

Selene nodded, understanding completely. She knew that all of her boys were wicked smart, but Gordon always presented himself as the least academic. He was more of a doer, wanting to be out in the field, learning as he went, diving in head first to every situation. 

But as Selene and John both knew, appearances could be deceiving.

“If that’s what helped him last time, then we need to find a way to convince him to try something new,” Selene insisted. 

“I tried, he’s not interested.”

“That was with your things, babe. We need to find something that’s a little more him, and I think I know just the thing.”

-x-

“I have arrived!” Gordon yodelled, announcing his entrance in his own unique way. He slid his hover chair in through the open door like the boss that he was, bringing his shining presence in to brighten up his middle brother's obviously dull existence. “Didja miss me?”

“Like a hole in the head,” John grumbled, turning to look at the grinning face of his brother. His eyes immediately began to water as they were assaulted by the far too bright colours of the shirt Gordon was wearing, a tie dyed monstrosity that Selene had made for him for his birthday. 

“A little more gratitude, if you please," Gordon huffed. 

“Grandma finally released you?”

“Yep,” Gordon stretched out his injured leg and patted the air cast on his now slingless arm. “Got time off for good behaviour.”

“I find that hard to believe,” John teased, then nodded to Gordon’s arm. “How’s it feeling?”

“Not too bad, my grip still isn't great but Grandma promised me that once the bone has finished knitting I’ll just need to exercise it and build the muscle strength up, then it’ll be as good as new.”

“That’s great, it won't be long before you're able to go back out with Virgil and stop, how did Sel put it, 'haunting the house like the ghost of Christmas future'?"

"Can't come soon enough," Gordon sighed, butting his chair right up close to John's, knocking his arm in the process. "What you do- you're still doing that? Still? It's been a week!" 

"It's not like I get a huge amount of down time," John pointed out. "I'm only here now because Sel said she'd dump me if I didn't make an effort to come down earlier in the evenings so I could actually eat a meal with you all."

"You actually believed that threat?" Gordon laughed. 

"Of course not, she'd never dump me, but I thought I had better humour her and let her feel like she at least had a little sway," John shrugged, pushing aside the little piece of doorstep he had been painting. "Honestly, it's nice to come down for a meal and family time, I hadn't realised how much I'd missed it until it was happening again."

"I guess we all got a bit too caught up in International Rescue after we lost Dad," Gordon admitted. 

"Like we had nothing else in our lives," John nodded, completely understanding. 

"Yep."

Gordon fell silent and John let him, concentrating on mixing the perfect colour acrylic to add a few highlights to his stones. 

"Can I have a go at making something? I bet I could do it quicker than you," Gordon asked, reaching towards what Selene called the sharps tub. John smacked the lid down on it just in time. 

"Actually, we got you a present."

"You did?" Instantly distracted, Gordon sat up straighter, excited by the prospect of a gift. "What did you get me?" 

This," John answered, opening his desk drawer and extracting an interestingly shaped bottle, upright with a thicker, rounded bottom and a thinner neck, ending a cork stopper. 

"Wow, is that an original?" Gordon asked, taking the bottle carefully and turning it to  study it from all angles. He knew exactly what this shaped bottle was, there had been a collection of them in Commander Shore’s office that he would stare at every time he got called in for some reprimand or another.

"19th century," John nodded. "Sel found it in a little shop in Mayfair. They assured her it was a genuine, used on a ship, captain's decanter from around the time of the civil war. They hadn’t fully traced it when Sel bought it but they think it came from one of the ships that fought in one of the smaller skirmishes around 1861.”

“This is really cool, thanks,” Gordon smiled, still turning the bottle over and over.

“It’s to hold this,” John continued, drawing Gordon’s attention back to him.

Grinning, John delved back into his desk drawer and pulled out a rather faded and quite dusty box. He brushed the dirt off the top and slid it over to Gordon. 

"A ship?" Gordon frowned. 

"Yep, Selene and I thought that you needed a little project of your own, so she had the idea to get you a ship in a bottle. You don’t see them a lot these days, but apparently her Grandfather had a couple and they always fascinated her.”

“So you put the ship in the bottle?”

“Yep, instructions are inside, go nuts.”

“Pfft, instructions,” Gordon snorted. “No one needs instructions, they’re a waste of time.”

-x-

“Ouch,” John hissed, hopping in place on one foot as he bent down to pick up what looked to be a tiny piece of mast that had attacked the sole of his foot. “Gordon, why are there bits of ship all over my floor?”

“Because I dropped them,” Gordon replied, his voice muffled due to the tongue of concentration that was peeking out from between his teeth.

Huffing, John gathered all the pieces off the floor, both pieces of ship and bits that they had been cut out of, and deposited them on the desk next to Gordon.

“How’s it coming along?” John asked, settling in his own chair. He’d only been gone a day but Gordon had managed to take over the entire bedroom, spreading his belongings, bottles, snack wrappers, his phone and a discarded hoodie, all over the place, as well as half the contents of the vintage ship box.

“It’s ridiculous. I think it’s missing pieces or something, it’s broken.”

“Well it was an old kit, but we were assured that it was complete,” John frowned, sliding the tray over that Gordon was supposed to be storing all the pieces in. “Have you checked the contents list and matched each piece to make sure they’re all there?”

Gordon looked at him blankly, like he was talking a foreign language.

“Did you check that everything was there before you started?" John elaborated.

“Of course I did,” Gordon promised, crossing his fingers and hoping his brother didn’t see. 

“Against the list?” John clarified.

“I eyeballed it, OK?”

“Not good enough,” John insisted. “That’s not how you go about doing things like this, you can’t just slap them together and hope for the best.”

“Why not?” Gordon whined. It worked for him in almost everything else he did in life. 

“Because this happens," John gestured to the mess surrounding them.

“Fine, I’ll read the damn instructions.”

Leaving Gordon to it John slid his almost completed book nook over and picked up his paintbrush to start adding some finishing touches before he started on the wiring for the lights. He’d barely done more than five minutes when Gordon started huffing.

John waited a little longer, trying his hardest to ignore the ever increasing sounds of frustration and impatience from his brother. In the end he couldn't stand it a moment longer, he had to ask the most loaded question ever.

“What’s the problem?” John asked, pushing his own work aside.

“These instructions don’t make sense,” Gordon bitched, flapping the paper in John’s face. “Look at the little picture here, you have to stick this little pole into that hole in the deck but the deck doesn’t want to stay together and that piece there keeps sliding and the pictures make no sense.”

“That’s because you missed around eight steps in between,” John told him, praying for patience. 

“No I didn't, I followed the pictures exactly,” Gordon insisted. 

“The steps aren’t in the pictures,” John explained. “See right there?” he pointed to the words above the pictures. “The pictures are a diagram of each finished stage, not how to get there. They are for reference only, not instructions.”

“Urghhh, this is going to take forever,” Gordon pouted, crossing his arms. “What’s the point?”

“The point is that by the end of it you’ll have something unique that no one else does, something you can be proud of and know that you built with your own two hands.”

“I’m not sure it’s worth the effort,” Gordon muttered.

“It is,” John promised. “I’ll help. How about I read out the instructions and you follow along? We’ll get through it quicker that way.”

Gordon wasn’t convinced, but John looked so hopeful that he didn’t have the heart to refuse him, especially since he and Selene had gone to so much trouble to get the things for him in the first place. He might be a miserable little sod, but he wasn’t that ungrateful. He knew that they had gone out of their way to get something they thought he’d like, the least he could do was make the thing, even if he knew he wouldn’t enjoy it. Maybe John was right, working together they could get through it quicker, and that could only be a good thing.

“Alright,” Gordon agreed, “let’s give it a go.”

Slowly, methodically, John read out each piece that was needed and Gordon located them, storing them neatly in a wooden box that Selene provided when she popped in to bring them drinks an hour or so later. She stayed just long enough to steal a kiss from John and drop one on the top of Gordon’s head before she beat a hasty retreat, not wanting to get roped into helping. She wasn’t the best at following instructions and didn’t want to get grumped at.

By the time they had all the pieces checked and catalogued they had discovered there were indeed two pieces missing, but thankfully they were easy fixes, just a small , round piece of wood to represent a porthole, which they could easily make a replacement for and a piece of mast. One snipped toothpick later and that was sorted too.

John started with the first set of instructions, reading them out patiently as Gordon found and fitted them together. 

“So, how’s work been?” Gordon asked, like a chatty hairstylist, as he carefully dipped the end of a thin dowel into a small pot of wood glue. 

“Same as ever,” John deadpanned, “a bunch of idiots that got themselves into trouble and needed help, and only half of them related to us.”

Gordon sniggered, glancing at John, seeing the sly smile on his brother’s face. He’d forgotten just how amusing John could be when he delivered something sarcastically witty with such a serious tone. Gordon hadn’t realised how much he’d missed it, wondering just what his more serious brother would come out with next. John was always like that, he seemed so quiet and reserved but, when he was relaxed and in company he was comfortable with he’d take you by surprise by letting loose a zinger that you couldn’t help but laugh at.

“Let’s not talk about work,” Gordon suggested, “we haven’t hung out properly in ages, you’re either up in Five or there are other people around.”

“Is that your way of saying you’ve missed me?” John teased.

“Maybe,” Gordon allowed, “but if you ever tell anyone I said that I’ll deny it and tell Grandma you want her to make your birthday cake this year.”

John held his hands up in surrender, although he couldn’t hold in the laugh that bubbled up as he reached for the instructions again.

“OK, let’s get this done before we stop enjoying each other’s company.”

They worked slowly but steadily over the next few hours, putting together the structure for the first mast. Once it was done they called it quits and abandoned it for another day, the smell of something tasty coming from the kitchen proving to be too much to ignore.

-x-

 “Gordon, that’s my finger.”

“Oh, sorry, can you just like… I don’t know, yank it off?”

“If I wish to leave half my identifying fingerprints behind, yes.”

“Do you really need them?”

John didn’t dignify that with an answer, the look he threw at his brother communicated his thoughts perfectly. 

“OK, OK, I’ll get some dissolver from Virgil’s studio, wait right there,” Gordon instructed him, grabbing his crutches and hobbling his way out of the room. 

John sighed, keeping his hand perfectly still, the hull of the boat dangling from his fingertip. He was still there five minutes later when Gordon clumped his way back in, Selene hot on his heels. She had the glue dissolver under one arm, a large bag of chips under the other and a plate of sandwiches in each hand. 

She dumped the plates on the desk, then the chips, before turning to see the state her fiancé was in.

“Do I even want to know?” 

“Probably not,” Gordon winced, dropping down into his abandoned desk chair and reaching for a plate.

“Can you at least help me before you start stuffing your face?” John asked, waggling his hand, which made the boat sway violently from side to side.

“Can’t, eating,” Gordon mumbled around the massive mouthful he had just taken.

“What did I say?” she demanded to know. “No hurting the hands, you know how I feel about that.” 

John wiggled his fingers again, drawing her attention to his plight. He looked so pathetic with the half built little ship swinging from his hand that Selene took pity on him, intervening when he looked like he was about to grab the thing and yank it off himself, fingerprints be damned.

“Oh for the love of the Gods, let me do it!” Taking his hand she used a paintbrush to smear glue dissolver around the area of skin it was stuck to. She took her time, rewetting and using the brush bristles to push the dissolver under the boat, trying to  ease it free from his skin with minimal pulling.

“Thank you,” he sighed, sitting patiently while she worked. Thankfully it didn’t take her too long, although it took a lot of cursing under her breath and the odd ouch from him to get there. 

“One boat,” she announced, placing it triumphantly on the desk. 

“Fanks,” Gordon said, spraying chip crumbs as he did so.

“Welcome,” she said, brushing at her leg which had unfortunately been in splatter range. Still holding John’s hand she bestowed a kiss to each of his abused digits before releasing him. 

“Right, I’m out of here. Play nicely, you two, I don’t want to have to send Grandma in to babysit you both.”

“It won’t come to that,” John assured her, reaching for his own sandwich. “We’ve not got much left to do now. We just have to attach the rigging to the masts, check that they fold properly then insert th-”

“I’m out, I don’t need to hear anything about insertion, not after you just glued a boat to your hand,” Selene declared, her exit swift and to the point, the door shutting firmly behind her.

“She has a point,” Gordon admitted, swallowing his last bite. He pushed the chip bag in John’s direction, although there was barely more than a handful and a few crumbs left in it. 

“But we’ll never admit it to her face,” John insisted, steadily munching through the large sub she had brought for him. 

“Never,” Gordon agreed. 

-x- 

Gordon sighed dramatically as he crutched his way down the hall from his bedroom. John’s bedroom door was open but his brother wasn’t inside. The ship, now fully rigged, sat beside the bottle on the desk, just waiting to be placed inside once some sand had been poured in as a base. Gordon had chosen all different shades of blue to represent the sea and had even watched a few videos on how to do sand pouring art, something he’d never expected to find even remotely interesting, yet he couldn’t bring himself to go in and make a start on it.

John had barely been home the past week and when he had it had only been for food and enforced sleep. Even then he had been known to sneak out of bed the second Selene was asleep, being discovered on numerous occasions sitting at their father’s desk until the small hours working on this, that or the other. 

Emergencies, and therefore the need for their services, had seemed to increase three fold, something Selene was blaming on the moon phase and mercury going retrograde and, for want of a better explanation, they were all inclined to agree. There was no rhyme or reason for the surge in idiots that were calling in at all hours of the day and night with trucks caught under a too low bridge causing a pile up, hands stuck down toilets, drunks climbing to the top of electricity pylons and repair men getting trapped inside ATM machines they had been fixing.

His brothers had been on the go near constantly, whether it was from rescue call outs or working on their plan to find their father,  but none more so than John. While Selene had always been good at what she liked to call Tracy Wrangling, none more so that when she was dealing with a stressed out Scott, even she had admitted defeat and left them to their own devices. Self preservation was key after all. 

John had been dealing with not only rescue calls and Chaos Crew sightings, but signal tracking, GDF liaising and general hoop jumping, all of which had kept him far too busy.

It had been over a week since they had done anything to their project and Gordon was feeling the loss. Not so much of the project, although that really had helped with his frustrations at his lack of physical ability, not that he would ever admit that to John, but in spending time with his brother.

Much to his surprise he’d found that he was reluctant to work on it alone, it had become their thing to do together. It was a time where they would hang out, shoot the shit, reminisce about childhood memories, times that they had spent together talking about their hope for the future where they would find their father alive and bring him home.

Both of them knew that it wouldn’t be easy, that if they did manage to find him there would be no telling what physical or mental state he would be in. Gordon knew from experience just how tough physical injury, limitations, and recovery could be on the mind and the body,  especially in someone who had been as active and viril as Jeff Tracy. 

They all knew, although no one seemed to want to talk about it, that as hard as it was going to be to actually locate him and hopefully bring him home, that would only be the beginning of what could potentially be an incredibly long and difficult journey of rehabilitation and reintegration into the family and the world as a whole. 

John had been right, taking some time to be quiet, to slow down and think while keeping your mind and hands busy really was a productive way to spend your rest hours and, stupid as it sounded, Gordon didn’t really want that to end. 

He was only a week or two away from potential cast removal and a return to physical activities like his beloved swimming and strength training in their home gym and, while he couldn’t wait to get back to it, he knew he’d feel the loss of his enforced quiet time. 

He glanced again at the abandoned ship on the desk and turned away, clumping down the hall towards the stairs. So it would take them a little longer to get it finished, Gordon was fine with that because for once he wasn’t feeling the need to rush.

-x-

“Remember to pour it slowly,” Gordon instructed as he held the funnel in place, its long pipe reaching right down into the bottom of the jar. “Start with the darkest one, that’s going to be our base colour.”

“I’ve got it,” John assured him, selecting the tub of midnight blue sand and scooping some out into a smaller pot to make things easier. At Gordon’s nod he began to slowly and steadily pour the sand into the open neck of the funnel. As he watched Gordon expertly directed the tube, allowing the sand to pour out to pool in the bottom of the bottle.

At Gordon’s signal John stopped pouring and waited while Gordon carefully removed the tube and used a long metal skewer to poke and prod the sand into something that looked vaguely like waves.

“The next colour up,” Gordon requested and John did as he was asked. They repeated the process four more times with different shades of blue, John pouring in a little at a time, Gordon directing the tube to deposit  more in one place than others, mimicking the movement of sea waves as best they could. In between each layer Gordon used the skewer to poke and mix the colours here and there, blending the layers into a smoother transition.

“That’ll do,” Gordon said confidently, twisting the bottle so John could see the full effect. 

John had to admit that he had been pleasantly surprised when Gordon had announced that he had ordered some coloured sand and looked up how to do sand art on the internet. He hadn’t really known what to expect, although he would admit, if only to himself, that he had thought that Gordon would be a little heavy handed and impatient, but once again he had proved him wrong. He really had done his research and the result was a beautiful mix of colours that really did give a perfect impression of a gently moving sea.

“That’s looking great.”

“I know,” Gordon grinned, modest as always. “Where’s that resin gone?”

“Here,” John answered, pushing it across the desk towards his brother. “Make sure you read the instructions and measure the amounts accurately or it won’t set and you’ll ruin the sand and the bottle.”

“Yeah, yeah I got this,” Gordon assured him as he did indeed read the instructions through properly. Once he had familiarised himself with the ratio of resin to hardener, he measured carefully and poured them into a mixing jug. Once it was fully mixed he slowly, gently, poured the mixture a little at a time into the bottle on top of the sand. With each little pour he waited for the resin to trickle down between the grains, slowly adding to it until all the sand was covered. 

“And now we wait,” John said, carefully placing the bottle in the patch of bright sunlight coming in through the window. 

“Wanna watch a movie?” Gordon offered casually, not really expecting his brother to agree. John hardly ever watched anything with just him, they had vastly different tastes in movies and John usually made some polite excuse to escape.

“Sure, sounds good.”

“Really?” Gordon goggled, his eyes almost falling out of his head. “You don’t have anything more important to do?”

“More important than watching a movie with my little brother? I don’t think so,” John grinned, retrieving Gordon’s crutches from where they were leaning against his bookshelf and tossing them to him one by one. “Come on, last one to the lounge picks the movie.”

“Hey, no fair!” Gordon yelled, scrambling to his feet as he fumbled with his crutches. “You’ve got legs like a giraffe and neither of them are broken!”

“Sucks to be you,” John tossed over his shoulder as he took off down the hall to victory.

-x-

“Careful,” John warned.

“I am being careful,” Gordon snapped. “I got this.”

“Your hand’s shaking.”

“Thanks for that, Captain Obvious.” He steadied his, only slightly shaky, hand by propping his elbow on the desk for stability. “OK, let’s do this.”

They both held their breath as Gordon maneuvered the body of the boat through the opening in the bottle, making sure each sail stayed carefully folded down and the strings remained untangled before he fed it down the neck and into the bottle.

“Phase one, complete,” John intoned in such a serious voice that Gordon couldn’t help the laugh that he snorted out.

“Pass me those long nosed tweezers?” Gordon asked, holding out a hand.

John slapped the requested instrument into his brother's hand like a nurse in an operating theater, provoking another burst of laughter.

“Thanks.” 

“Welcome.”

Making sure the strings of the sails were still dangling outside of the bottle, Gordon carefully moved the body of the boat further down into the bottle with the metal skewer until the stern touched the top of the resin and sand layer. 

“Now the sails,” Gordon whispered, hardly daring to breathe as John moved in to help, taking over the holding of the strings while Gordon reached in with the tweezers.

Gently, working together, they started the delicate process of tugging gently on each string, unfolding the paper sails and locking them in place.

“String one.”

“Got it. Watch number four sail.”

“Yep, thanks...OK… can you just give string five a little pull? Perfect.”

“Sail three is flopping!”

“Gah, hang on, just got to tighten that...yep that’s got it.”

“Maybe if I gather…”

“Yep, that’s good, do that again.”

“This next bit is going to require a delicate touch, maybe I should-”

“Hey! I can be delicate!”

“It’s not coming up...back sail two is stuck, release it...careful!”

“There, saved it.”

John gently pulled the strings a little more and there it was, their ship, sails proudly upright and everything. He kept hold of the strings, while Gordon held on to the boat with the tweezers as they carefully lifted the bottle from its side to its proper upright position.

Using the skewer John maneuvered around Gordon’s hand and nudged the boat into a better position before he carefully released the strings. They both held their breath, hoping and praying that the sails wouldn't collapse the second the strings fell. 

The boat, with its sails, stayed strong.

“Yes!” Gordon cheered, holding up his free hand for a high five, grinning when his brother’s palm smacked against his own.

“Scalpel,” Gordon joked as John handed it to him so they could lop off a little of the trailing strings. Then, using the skewer, they arranged the strings around the edges of the boat. 

With the boat finally upright and in place, they added another layer of light blue coloured sand with a sprinkling of white to mimic the tips of the waves. They finished it off by pouring in a little more resin, both to set the sand and hold the boat in place, using the tweezers to make sure it was correctly positioned.

“Phew,” Gordon breathed, leaning back in his chair and stretching out his cast covered leg. “We did it. Go team.”

“We did,” John smiled. “And it looks damn good.”

“It really does,” Gordon agreed, shifting his head to look at the bottle from all angles. 

“Nothing left to do but let it dry and put the stopper in,” John said. “How do you feel now it’s done? Was it worth the time?”

“I still think we could have done it a lot faster if you’d just let me skip a few steps in the instructions and do it my way, but it wasn’t that bad,” Gordon admitted. “I’m oddly proud of it.”

“You should be, you did good,” John leant back in his chair, crossing his arms as he relaxed. “Are you going to stop teasing me about my book nooks now?”

“Pssh, no,” Gordon snorted. “Ships are cool, yours will always be boring.”

He didn’t see the bottle of water coming until it was too late.

-x-

Gordon walked straight to John’s room from the infirmary,  feeling oddly free without his crutches and casts. Six weeks was a long time, after all.

The bottle with its little ship sat exactly where they had left it in the center of John’s desk next to the abandoned book nook that was still not finished. It took him very little time to insert the cork stopper and pour a little of Selene’s spell bottle sealing wax around the top, a bright, cheery yellow wax that matched his beloved Thunderbird Four.

He smiled as he thought of his little craft, waiting down in her dock for him, ready to be taken out when the next call came in. It had been a long and frustrating time but finally, blessedly, that time was over.

He poked an experimental finger into the wax seal, checking that it had set properly. It had, and he couldn’t help feeling a little sad about it. It had been a project that at first he’d had very little interest in, but slowly it had turned into so much more. Not just something to wile away a few hours but a chance for him to reconnect with the brother he spent the least amount of time with. 

Years ago, back when he had been small, John had been his everything. When Alan had been too tiny to be of any use and Scott and Virgil had been too old to be bothered with him hanging around, it had been John that had been there for him. It was John that had patiently listened as he read aloud from his sealife books, who had watched movies with him, played with him, and spent the most amount of time with him. Back then, their three year age difference had seemed like so little but so much at the same time, an older brother that made him feel wanted and included when the other two saw him as an annoyance.

Gordon couldn’t quite put his finger on when things had changed, when they had slowly drifted apart. John had seemed to grow up so much faster than he had, Alan had welded himself to his side, looking up to Gordon as he had to John  and things had never been the same again. 

It had been too long since they had been able to just hang out, to laugh, to tease each other without things going too far and one of them getting annoyed. It had been nice and Gordon had realised that he didn’t want to go back to nothing but hollocalls to Five when an emergency came in or the odd family dinner and movie night where he had to share with the rest of the family. John was the only brother that Gordon didn’t spend one on one time with as standard and he realised that, no matter how much he might blame it on John being so far away, in reality it was as much his fault as John’s.

Gordon picked up the bottle, leaving a box in its place. The model kit of the Mercury Project space capsule and its launch pad had been hard to find even with his junker contacts. In fact, he had almost given up and  admitted defeat before he'd thought to look at the label on his ship box and sent the shop owner an email.

Smiling to himself, knowing that there was no way John would be able to resist that challenge, he took the finished bottle, with its little ship, to his room where it would take pride of place on his bookshelf, a constant reminder that even in the worst of times, positivity could still be found.

“Thanks, Bro.”

[mostly-marvel-musings]

A Mere Mortal - Chapter One

A/N: This story is based on the prompt : Vampires cannot enter a house without your permission, but what if your landlord’s a vampire? It’s his house, he’s just letting you live there. Part of the Landlord Vampire Fic Frenzy hosted by @just-the-hiddles​. This will be a mini series. I’m super nervous about this one, so feedback’s most welcome!

Tags : @buckybarnesplumwhore​ 

Taglists open! Let me know if you would like to be tagged in the future chapters.

Pairing: Vampire! Bucky Barnes x Vampire! Loki x Human! Reader

Check out the Prologue here 

Word count: 1295

Warnings: Foul language. Blood (Vampires! Kind of a package deal). Smut in future chapters. 18+ content!

...

Chapter 1 

A cold mid-morning breeze welcomed you as you stepped out of the car that dropped you off at Dewsbury town square.

I like the weather already, you thought with a smile.

You had a backpack and a small duffel bag with your essentials, the rest of your luggage would be reaching the new house in the evening. Which meant you could walk around town, get some food, and maybe talk to a few locals.

Welcome to Dewsbury (Y/N). Hope you had a safe journey. – James Barnes.

That is weirdly prompt, you thought as you read the text message on your phone. you thought nothing much of it as you texted back a polite reply and made your way further into the town, looking around for a place to eat and hang out for a few hours.

You reached a place called Ivy Grill and decided to walk in for some lunch. The interiors looked too dark for this time of the day. Polished wooden tables with plush chairs covered in a dark blue velvet fabric, the place was almost empty, you observed. The table in front of the bar looked relatively well lit so you opted to sit there.

Since no one was around you put your bags on the chair beside you and slumped back looking around for someone to bring you a menu.

You texted Sam in the meantime, informing him about your whereabouts.

A short plump woman appeared from your right, poured you a glass of water and asked, “What can I get you dear?”

“Umm what do you recommend? Any dish of the day?”

“Clam chowder sound good? We’re known for it.” she asked with a smile.

“Great I’ll have that. Is it always this windy here?” you asked, looking out the far window at the back where you could see hemlock trees swaying in the breeze.

“Today of all days it is, it looks like it’s only gonna get colder. You know what let me bring you some mulled wine, it’ll keep you warm.” the woman said turning around and walking back to what you assumed was the kitchen.

Before you could say it was too early to be drinking, she was gone. You figured you could needed some warmth in your body since your clothes wouldn’t provide for much. You wore a light cardigan over a thin white T shirt and your favorite pair of faded blue denims.

The middle-aged woman, Jenny you’d learnt, returned with your order and placed it in front of you. It smelled delicious. You couldn’t wait to dig in.

Now that you were fed and wined, you felt better. You could hang out here, but you figured you would ask Jenny for a local library to go visit.

…

The library, you’d found out, was situated right at the beginning of The Old Chapel Street, your house was located at the end of the same street. How convenient.

The rusty old bell rang as you pushed through the door and stepped into the library. The smell of old and new books filled your nostrils as soon as you did. Your favorite scent.

As you made your way to the front desk, you noticed a man, the librarian, sitting in his armchair almost asleep with his head on the table.

You cleared your throat to announce your arrival, which made the man sit up instantly. He looked up at you through his crooked glasses and smiled.

“I wasn’t expecting anyone at this hour, apologies. What can I help you with, my dear?”

“I was wondering if I could look around in here. Perhaps read up a little about the town history?”

“Most certainly. You’ll find Dewsbury history books in aisle three. You can keep your bags over there on the table while you look for them. They’ll be safe don’t worry, we have cameras installed.” The man gestured towards the leather armchairs and tables near the corner of the library.

“Thank you sir.”

“Please call me Frank. And if you need any help at all do not hesitate to ask.”

“Thank you Frank, I will.” You said, giving him a smile.

Balding slightly, a paunch, in his mid-sixties you presumed. He seemed nice.

You walked over to the aisle, picked out Dewsbury: A Brief History and went to settle down in the chair beside the large windows.

You must’ve been reading for an hour or two, engrossed in the book, when the door swung open. You heard footsteps walking across the floor and a velvety smooth baritone fell on your ears.

“I smell something new in here Frank.”

The voice made you look up towards Frank’s desk. Your eyes fell upon a tall man dressed in all black, with raven black hair reaching his shoulders, his back towards you.

“Good to see you too Loki. Did you bring my books back? You were supposed to return them two days ago.”

“I have them right here. You didn’t answer my question Frank, is there someone-” the man named Loki stopped mid-sentence as he turned around and saw you.

You felt the hairs of your neck stand up as you locked eyes. His eyes were piercing blue with hints of green? A sharp jawline that could probably cut glass, and a smile that made you very uncomfortable. Wow those eyes though.

“That’s (Y/N). She’s new to town. Let’s not scare her away on her very first day.” Frank interrupted your staring match. You smiled warily and nodded a bit before returning your attention to the book.

They continued talking for a while and you went back to reading, very aware of the occasional glances you were getting from Loki from the corner of your eye.

Your phone buzzed suddenly startling you, it was the shipping guy. You checked your watch, it was five thirty already. Had it really been that long? Well time flew when you got into reading as always.

The guy informed you that they’d reach your house in ten minutes. You figured you’d take your leave and started walking towards the front with your bags and the book. Loki was still leaning on the desk in conversation with Frank.

“Well I better take off, the shipping guys are here. Thank you for the book Frank. I’ll come back for it.” you gave him a genuine smile and placed the book on the table.

“Loki Laufeyson. Pleasure to meet you (Y/N).” Loki extended his hand towards you. You took it and it felt very cold. Loki noticed your surprise and smiled wider.

“Hello Loki.” you replied shakily as you looked into those eyes again.

“I guess I’ll see you around.” With that you walked out of the library glancing back one last time at Loki who was looking at you this whole time.

Sure, not creepy at all, you thought.

You walked down the street towards your house, the air was definitely colder now. You made a mental note of buying some warm scarves later.

As your new house came into view, you couldn’t help feel the excitement again. It looked better than the pictures for sure. You waited outside for the truck to arrive and noticed that the house overlooked the forest. It wasn’t too dense, but it wasn’t very pleasant either. You were sure there were wolves in that forest, among other things.

The truck arrived shortly and unloaded all your luggage on the front porch.

Phew! This is gonna take a while. You better get to it before it starts getting dark.

Just as you were about to pick up the first box your phone buzzed again. You fished it out of your pocket and opened the text message.

Looks like a lot of luggage. You’ll be exhausted after all that moving. Why don’t I come over with a welcome drink. It’s about time we met (Y/N) – James B.

…

Find Chapter 2 here

[onlydreamofmysoul]

And in today’s episode of three am thoughts

This blog has been giving subtle merthur love and I love that. But it’s also filled with O’Knutzy and then there’s the whole O’Knutzy living in a castle thing. You can already see where this is going.

FinnLo as Knights and Leo is a born sorcerer (are they called warlocks???). And they are already dating at this point and Leo decided they deserve to know he has ✨magic✨But Finn and Logan can’t kill Leo because he is just that cute and they love him so instead they try to “fix” him. But Leo is not having that BS and also if he stopped using magic it could kill him.

But FinnLo still has a lifetime of Uther indoctrination to unlearn and still think that Leo will be corrupted eventually. Now here we add a cup of angst. Make FinnLo give Leo an iron bracelet (iron hurst magical beings and stops people from using magic). But Leo was born with his magic, it’s a part of who he is as a person so the iron is just slowly killing him. FinnLo don’t notice at first because Leo refuses to tell them it hurts like a bitch. By the end of the third day Leo is... how do I put this nicely??? Well he is dying and he won’t survive another day if they don’t take the bracelet off.

Now FinnLo is very worried because they love Leo and how can he be evil if he is letting himself be tortured for their sake. Also they feel like shit because the last thing they want is to hurt Leo.

Anyway they take the bracelet off there’s a lot of tears and angst and hurt/comfort and all that good stuff. In the end Leo ends up showing them his magic (and ‘WOW THIS IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING EVER’ probably FinnLo). And FinnLo is having a mini panic attack because and I quote from my brain at 2 in the morning “we could’ve lost him” -Finn and “how can someone believe this is evil” -Logan. (The line are thoughts not things they actually said). And they realize how close to losing their best friend and love of their life they were and TEARS again.

Now this are the mini details outside of O’Knutzy that I remember. Uther is alive and well 🔪. Arthur is prince and Merlin is his servant. The whole thing starts with a training session and FinnLo wanting to leave to meet up with Leo. Leo lives in a village near Camelot. They like to meet up in the clearing were Kilgarrah always appears after he is banished. Leo is ✨powerful✨ enough to be a high priest. ALL THE TEAMMATES ARE KNIGHTS EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. none belong to the round table tho 🙂. Aithusa does rescue morgana HOWEVER she does not stay with her. Aithusa is Leo’s Dragon. Leo cannot burn he’s powers revolve around fire it’s what he is good at and he cannot burn (it would be funny if Uther sentenced him to the pyre and FinLo is just standing there trying not to laugh because their mans is ✨fireproof✨).

Some O’Knutzy stuff that could happen after the whole bracelet thing is over and FinnLo slowly fall in love with Leo’s magic.

Leo enchanting some crystal necklaces so his boys are always protected and he knows if they are safe

Finn and Logan loving how Leo’s eyes glow gold

Finn and Logan spoiling aithusa when they eventually meet her

(This one could be its own separate fic but I’m not good at writing so I’m putting it here). FinnLo find Leo lying down with his eyes closed and hands buried in the dirt and there’s flowers blooming all around him and he looks beautiful and they fall in love all over again

✨Flower Crowns✨ but they never wilt because ✨magic✨

Arthur and Merlin being nosy and following FinnLo after practice one day and seeing them with Leo (if they see Leo using magic or not is up to your imagination). If Merthur does in fact end up seeing Leo use his magic Merlin has to hold Arthur back from doing something stupid.

For the purpose of this idea Leo doesn’t have a last name. In the time period we are talking about peasant didn’t have last names only noble men and women had them.

Wow this thing is so long... oops. I needed someone to bounce ideas of off not that I’ll ever write it I can’t write dialogue to save my life.

Oh my god that’s such a cool idea wow it’s so detailed!!!! I love it!!!

[anotherbeingsworld]

The Revelation - Part 3 (Final)

(Part 1, Part 2) 

Summary: A revelation for their story. 

Characters: Bryce Lahela, Casey Valentine and Keiki Lahela. 

Warnings: None. 

A/N: I’M BACKKK (well, not literally since I have been reblogging stuff and all! ) I hope all of you are doing amazing/good/fine/well and all the good stuff! My life has been really hectic, and classes above all has been a huge thing. I really miss writing and, with uni; its getting quite tough to write anything. I missed writing Bryce but, I am so happy we got our boy back. This story is the end of the Imagines series, I never planned to expand it, but... maybe in the future. For now, this is the third part (I am being dramatic, sjsjskk but.. this is a mini series that I never thought would happen and seeing it got lots of love from all of you. It made me realize why I kept on writing it.)  Also, I apologize if i am very behind on fics! I havent been able to catch up with anything and, I will try to catch up during this weekend! (Hopefully!) I apologize in advance if they are any grammar mistakes since English was never a first language but, I hope all of you will love it! Sending virtual hugs to all of you, i hope you have a good day/night!! <3 

Thank you @mvalentine , for the major idea for this part! and, to everyone who has been there given me all the hugs and all. Sending love towards ya. <33

Tags:  Tags:  @bitchloveskcbaseball​​ , @storyofmychoices​​ @jaxsmutsuo​​ , @mvalentine​​ , @princess-geek , @lahellacute​​ , @kacie-0156​​ , @simp-for-villains​​ , @annekebbphotography​​ , @brycelahel​​, @mrsbhandari​​ , @dcbbw​​ , @choicessa​​ , @choices-confessions , @aylamwrites​​ , @fantasyoverreality98​​ , @drakewalker04​​ , @baltersome​​ , @thecordoniandiaries​​ , @thundergom​​  @starrystarrytrouble​​, @ohramsey​​ , @kelseaaa​​  , @rookie-ramsey​​ , @bratzlahela​​ , @ohvamsey​ , @choicesficwriterscreations , @soft-for-drake , @lalizah

LINK TO MY MASTERLIST

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

It never occurs to him that one day, his sister will be living with him whilst he tries to survive his life at Edenbrook. But, after that day; it felt like an emotional rollercoaster for both of them. Readjusting, reliving old memories and reconnecting to each other. He never knew that he missed her that much, and Keiki didn't realize that being there felt like she was doing something right once in a while.

It is weeks after their meeting, and things are looking up for both of them. Bryce felt much better knowing that Keiki is safe, as he is learning to be her brother from now on. Or, as Casey would put it; be her best friend that he was once before.

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

Keiki and Casey are at his apartment as they planned on this special day; Bryce's birthday. Casey had already planned an advanced celebration in mind for him but, both herself and Keiki especially Keiki wanted to celebrate something for him. Casey had slept over at the Lahela’s today, as both of them did some huge planning for it.

After long hours of planning and browsing through 8 million pins on Pinterest for the last week. They finally started their journey on making it the best birthday for him.

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

Casey and Keiki are hustling on buying confetti streamers and everything needed for a birthday for Bryce. Both of them were enthusiastic to make it happen as it was Keiki's first celebration with Bryce for years.

'We need a chocolate cake!' Keiki exclaimed as Casey let out a chuckle at her excitement.

Keiki ran forward and reached the bakery aisle where there were various cakes in the display making both of them gasped in awe at the number of delicious delicacies that were in front of them.

‘Let’s get all of em!’ An evil look in Keiki's eyes, as Casey felt her stomach grumble in hunger as she hadn't had breakfast even though she would remind her patients to not forget the most important meal of the day.

‘….I called dibs on the rainbow cake!' Casey leaps forward as she had her hand in the rainbow sponge cake that was calling her name as Keiki ran to the other end of the aisle picking up three different types of cakes varied from vanilla, chocolate, and cheesecake.

They meet up at the center of the aisle, as both of them let out a laugh. The looks on the customers who are shaking their heads in disapproval made Casey a bit nervous, as she gets a bit too overwhelmed by the sudden looks. Keiki remembers small info that Bryce told her about Casey, as she immediately places the cakes in their cart and gives Casey a small squeeze on her hand, the same gesture that Bryce would do. It calmed her nerves before both of them smiled at each other. It somehow was a bonding moment, as at that moment Keiki felt like the sister she never had and little did she know; Keiki felt the same way about her as well. They proceed on getting all the stuff needed for Bryce's surprise party before getting lunch.

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

After a huge number of supplies and food has been brought in their possession, they made it with a lot of time to prepare. There were foods to be served, confetti to be hung, and all the presents needed to be hid as well. Much much later, after three quarters of the home had been covered with confetti, they decided to take a break before a dreaded task was heading their way: blowing balloons. Casey was never a fan of balloons except hot air balloons. Both of them sank themselves on the couch that she knew all too well, and all the memories placed a small smile on her face.

She turns her attention to Keiki, who is relaxing as well. But, Casey figures there is a guarded look in her eyes. Somehow, something there is still bothering her. She doesn't wants to pry on their business, but… it feels like she needs a friend. A sister, or maybe someone who isn’t Bryce.

‘Do you think he will like it?’ She starts the conversation after finally figuring out what to say.

Her eyes falls at the decorations around the house, a small smile appears on her face.

‘I think so, his last birthday party back home was before he left for college… ‘ she pauses a bit, somehow an attempt to recover the memory from the back of her mind.

‘It was his 18th, and I remember he got into a fight the night before with dad. And, I feel bad for him. We ended up having a small celebration of our own, at the kitchen with some of our maids in the house. The maids helped me in surprising him with a chocolate cake, and we did celebrate it with a marathon of cartoons.’ A smile appeared on her face, as she was sucked into the memory of it all.

‘That sounds lovely Keiki.’ She places her hands on her shoulder, giving her an encouraging nod.

‘Thanks, it was years ago… it’s one of those days y’know.’ She shrugged it out but, the environment between them suddenly became tense, as she slowly raise her guard back up once more, somehow a shield was placed in front of her.

There was a silence between them,

‘How do you feel seeing him again?’ Casey constructed her sentence slowly, as the nerves inside of her were screaming loudly.

‘I… don’t know. It was happening so fast, and… I don’t know where to go. I always wanted to see him again, but he had told them about not returning back. I thought he was exaggerating but, I never was ready to not be with him. We faced our whole lives together, and one day… walking down the large hallways, it doesn’t feel right. Coming here wasn't the smartest way to escape but… it felt like I was destined to come.’ Her head dropped, somehow an attempt to hide herself from embarrassment.

‘Hey… it’s okay. You don’t have to feel bad about it.’ Casey reassures her, as they sat in silence once more.

‘I know, I know… I feel helpless at home, and the first thought I have was to see Bryce again. It’s silly honestly…’ She shrugs it off again.

‘It’s not silly to miss your own brother Keiki… I admit, I never even knew about you before our unfortunate meet at the front of the door.. which I am still embarrassed about..’ Her cheeks went red remembering the comment she left before at his front door that was a scarred memory for her. Keiki lets out a small laugh, as she somehow knows what Casey is talking about.

‘Anyways- what I mean to say is… I think he is happy to have you here aswell.’ She stated earning a questionable look from Keiki’s face.

‘Seriously?’

Casey nods, with a huge smile on her face.

‘Yeah, he seems much happier. Somehow, I can sense that both of you are close before.’

Keiki was smiling as she felt much at ease, from the revelation that somehow she didn’t know she was looking for. She stood up, happily with the conversation as they continue on getting the house ready for one Bryce Lahela.

Casey was about to move towards the balloons, before Keiki stops her mid-way earning a surprise look on her face.

‘Keiki, what’s up?’

She was silent, somehow searching for the right words.

‘Thank you.’

‘Happy to help, now all of these balloons ain’t gonna blow themselves!’ She gestures at the balloons that were scattered on the apartment floor.

A laugh escapes from the younger Lahela, as they proceed on the task. A sense of calm overcoming herself. A revelation she didn’t know she needed before.

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

It was finally 6 p.m. as they are finally done putting up the decorations, as the apartment somehow looks homey and fun at the same time! Both Keiki and Casey both threw themselves on the couch as the exhaustion finally caught up to them, it was a long and tiring day for both of them. But, the results were amazing so they didn’t mind at all.

The sound of the door opening caught both of their attention, as Bryce struts in with a surprising look on his face. His eyes gaze around the apartment, as there were confetti and decorations which are in the right amount. Both Keiki and Casey bolt upright from the couch as they were engulfed into one of Bryce's hugs.

After a while of hugging, both of them shouted.

‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRYCE!’

Bryce’s smile was as wide as the moment where she saw him doing what he loves, the smile that came from spending time with his friends and the smile that makes her heart skip a beat as he is always the one who made her smile. Both Keiki and Casey look at each other in satisfaction, as they did it. It was a difficult task but they pulled through together, and it feels amazing.

The small celebration between the three of them went well, as there were thoughts that had crossed his mind. There were somehow like a family, and… honestly, he felt excited about what the future might hold for the three of them.

As Casey lit up the candles on all of the cakes that they bought, he paused thinking of a wish that he wanted for this year. His eyes fall on both of them, Casey Valentine; the person who has been there for him from the very beginning and the person who is still here despite his past, and his estranged sister; Keiki Lahela, who came on his door. The person who was once considered his best friend years ago, as they grew apart. The fear of his parents barging on his front door was visible, as he has a hunch on them coming to bring Keiki back home. But, right now; it was his moment. The moment that he never had as a child, happiness despite being surrounded by an enormous amount of luxury

He blew out all the candles, as he silently makes a wish which earning a double pair of eyebrows raised at him. Bryce lets out a laugh as he proceeds on cutting the cake. The three of them sat on the floor as they enjoyed the refreshments that were set by both Keiki and Casey which consists of a lot of finger food and a huge amount of party snacks that were already made, as the lack of cooking skills by Casey.

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

The day is starting to get darker as Bryce and Keiki are cleaning up the mess as Casey is tidying at the front. They were settling on the dishes, as Keiki paused.

Bryce noticed the sudden movement as he stops working on whatever’s left in the sink.

‘I know that look Keiki, it’s the look when you didn’t get to play your toys years ago.’ Bryce teased her, as she punches his arm lightly, a laugh escapes her lips.

‘Years ago, I hated you for what you did. I hated you for leaving home, and I hated you for leaving….me behind.’

Bryce didn’t say anything, as he understood how she felt. When he left for college before, he promised to come back for her. He didn’t keep his promised, and Keiki is justified to feel that way.

‘Being in school, I realized. Understood, how you felt. I understand why you and dad would always quarrel, the way you hated there. And, honestly… I am so sorry for lashing out for you not being here for me.’ Keiki lets out a sigh as Bryce place his arms on her shoulder.

‘You don’t have to be sorry kiddo, I left you there. Sometimes, I wished our lives were much better than what we have been through.’ Bryce reveals as he felt himself reminiscing old times, the happier times.

‘…I think a happier life might lead us on a different path Bryce.’ She raised her eyebrows knowingly gesturing towards Casey with a smirk on her face who is helping them tidying up the leftovers. Bryce smiles at the sight of her.

‘Yeah, maybe. But, one thing I regret the most is, not being able to beat up the kid who pushed you years ago. Nobody messes with my sister.’ Bryce stated with a rage in his eyes, as Keiki shook her head.

‘You’re funny when you are scary, you know that?’

‘It’s one of my specialties, actually.’ Bryce replies with a hint of cockiness in his voice.

Their conversation was cut short, as Casey calls them out for the gift giving session that they planned for Bryce. Both of the Lahela siblings happily walked back to the living room, as the smiles on their faces stays that way for the rest of the day.

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

After the celebration ended, Bryce and Keiki stood together at the window overlooking the crowded city of Boston where it has become their new home.

She was lost in thought as her eyes stared at the cityscapes beyond her, it wasn't Hawaii anymore. But, the fear of her past creeping up to her was somehow still visible.

Bryce stood there, trying to catch up with past events. Everything was new as somethings were meant to be fixed once more. He pulled her into a brotherly hug, as Keiki tries her best to get out of his grasp. It wasn't a common form of affection for them, but its something new.

The revelation as the past came colliding once more bringing them together after years and years of being apart.

'I am glad to have you here  kid.'

'I am glad to be here aswell.' She smiles as Bryce ruffles her hair a special gesture for the Lahela siblings that made her laugh.

They don’t know what’s gonna happen tomorrow or the next month, but hey. They wouldn’t sweat it much since life has a funny way of making it work and both Bryce and Keiki have lots of moments to look forward to and they wouldn’t have it any other way.

THE END

[angelatmidnight1]

Don’t Romp With Me

This is part 2 to the Outwitted fic with Mirage and Wattson. I liked writing the first part so much that I didn’t want to leave the story there. I’m planning on writing a part three (hopefully) but I hope you all like this continuation!

Summary: Ajay believes that Octane swiped the last donut that was promised to Loba and she's not happy. She chases him throughout the dropship and corners him with her shock sticks in hand. The combat medic may be holding the instrument, but Octane’s the one who’s gonna be making the music.

“SILVA!”

Octane crashed into the side of a table and sent its contents hurtling to the floor. He gasped out an expletive in Spanish but he didn’t stop to check for any damage, he had to run. Death was chasing him and he had to get anywhere but where he was now. He stabbed another stim into his leg and the mechanical gears whirred loudly as he swerved down another corridor of the dropship. He threw himself against the door to his room and fell face first onto the carpet, groaning and kicking the door shut behind him. He was panting, but not from exhaustion. He was still under the effects of the stim and his heart had to pump fast to keep up with it. After a mere ten seconds, maybe even less than that, Octane pushed himself up onto his knees and grabbed a much smaller version of his jump pad from the corner of his room. He’d been working on this thing for exactly seven minutes and eleven seconds, which was long for him, and it was his only chance to keep what was coming for him at bay. But then the door knob turned and Octane hopped to his feet and screamed, shielding himself with the tiny jump pad because his life did depend on it. The door creaked open slowly and the short, pink haired combat medic walked in the room and closed it behind her. Lifeline’s fingers twitched over the shock sticks she carried and slowly approached the daredevil. There were loose strands sticking out of one of her buns and the other one was lopsided on her head. Octane would’ve teased her to the moon and back about it if he wasn’t so damn panicked. 

“Che, listen to me. I--”

Ajay struck the shock sticks together and they buzzed in response. She twirled one of them in her hand and mirrored Octane’s retreating steps with her own. “What did I tell ya would happen, Silva?” She asked in a surprisingly calm voice as she boxed him into a corner and kept walking. Octavio gulped and dropped the useless mini pad and decided his best defense was his own hands. 

“I didn’t take the donut, Che! It was there when I left, I swear!” He argued while backpedaling all the way to the wall behind him. Now he was trapped and Lifeline, pocketing her shock sticks, stood directly in front of him and crushed any hopes of him somehow escaping her. 

“I saw ya running out of the kitchen like the devil himself was behind ya! Ya didn’t think I did, did ya? I told ya that donut was for Loba!” She snapped, suddenly taking her hands and poking both sides of his stomach. Octane’s eyes bugged out and coughed out a laugh before immediately shielding his torso with his arms. He swore the air around him stopped moving; both of them knew what was coming, and Octane would’ve preferred getting whacked with one of those shock sticks. In one desperate motion, the daredevil lurched forward and tried to push her to the side and clear a path. Lifeline smirked and let him push her but caught his leg with her own and sent him tumbling to the floor. She wrestled his arms to his back and made him lie flat so that his own body weight could pin his arms down. Octane put up a good fight but, as a combat medic, Lifeline knew how to pin someone down and keep them wherever she wanted. 

“I’m serious, Ajay! I didn’t take the dahahamn DONONohohut!” Octavio whined and snickered as she poked his belly repeatedly. After a couple more pokes, Lifeline kept her finger on one spot of belly and swirled it in quick, circular motions, causing the man to buck his hips and giggle harder. 

“I dunno, Silva. Feels like ya just ate something to me. And you of all people should know better than to cross me!” Lifeline retorted before using all ten fingers to scratch away Octane’s belly. Octavio sputtered and cursed before laughing loudly. 

“NahahAHAHAHAH AaaJAHAY StahahAHAHAHAHP! WhYHYHY DihIHIHD IIhhiHIHIHT HahahAHAHAHVE TahahaHAHAHAH BEHEHEHEH MEHEHEHE!” Octane shrieked and sucked in his tummy, tossing his body side to side in an attempt to knock her off. Lifeline’s fingers followed his movements easily and she chuckled, shaking her head. “Because I know ya, Silva. This has ya name written all over it.” She smirked as she tweaked his sides before attacking his belly again. “I also know that ya ticklish here and....here!”

Octane’s protests were interrupted by another scream as she suddenly plunged her finger into his navel and scribbled along the curves and dips. He thrashed against the ground and laughed hysterically, his back practically leaving the floor as she tickled faster and faster. Lifeline giggled and blew a sloppy raspberry onto his belly for good measure, prompting another cry of laughter. 

“AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA CHEEHEHEHEH PLEHEHEHEEEHAHAHA!” Octavio shook with laughter and kicked his leg at the floor over and over. Lifeline blew another raspberry, then another, then another, then...well, she lost count after that. She was too busy laughing at Octavio’s pleas and howls of laughter that were embedded with plenty of Spanish expletives. “SAAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAH IHIHIHIHT! IHIHAHAHAH DIHIHIHDN’AHAHA! H-HIHIHJO DEHEHEHEHAHAHAH (Son of a…)!” Octane couldn’t form a word or a sentence as he laughed himself silly, his laughter finally going silent after the umpteenth raspberry blown onto his belly. Lifeline stopped and rested both hands on his tummy with a snicker. “I hope ya had time to think about what ya gonna say next. I want an apology for stealing the donut, and crossing ya best friend in the whole wide world.” She demanded with a small, playful pout as she lightly squeezed his tummy. Octavio breathed heavily and groaned. What was he supposed to say? If he said he didn’t take anything, she’d tickle him. If he said he did take something, which he didn’t, she’d probably tickle him anyway. Octane weighed his options too long for Lifeline’s liking and, after quirking a brow at him, she fluttered her fingers up his tummy and suddenly buried them into his armpits. “Ya hurt me, Silva.” Lifeline tutted as the daredevil let out a strangled yelp and fell into a heavy giggling fit. “Ya really do.”

Octane arched his back and giggled wildly, his giggles becoming full blown laughter as she laid across his chest and picked up the tickling pace. His eyes bugged out when she lightly pinched at his hollows and he laughed harder as he tried to turn onto his side. “IiiiIIIIHIHEHEHEH DOHOHN’T KNOHOhohohw whahahaht toohohohoh SAHAHAHAHYHAHA! IHIHIHT WAHAHASN’T MEHEHEHAHAHAH!” He cried out with desperate laughter and squeezed his arms against his sides. It didn’t stop Lifeline from finding the spot where his upper arm and armpits met and, once she started scribbling her fingers there, he let out a hoarse yelp and laughed almost as hard as he did when she targeted his stomach. “NYAHAHAHAHA BAHAHAHSTAHAH (Stop it!)! POHOHOHOR FAHAHAVOR BAHAHAHSTAHAHAH!” He yelped before giving into the hysterical laughter that overtook him. 

Lifeline, in spite of herself, was actually starting to believe Octavio. She knew that he was extremely ticklish and didn’t think that he would subject himself to so much of it if he didn’t have to. Still, it was fun to tease him, and who said she’d have to stop any time soon? With another slow, pitiful shake of her head, she dropped her hands to his ribcage and swiped her fingers along each rib, paying special attention to the ones that made him squeal. Lifeline didn’t stay on his ribs for long and shoved her hands back under his arms and found the spot that made him cackle. 

“OKAHAHAY! OKAHAHAHY I DIHIHIHIHD ITHAHAHAHA IIHIH SOHOHOHOHOHRRY! SSAHAHAHAHRY  AHAHAHAHJAHAHY!” He yelled all in one breath as he rolled his head side to side. Lifeline smirked and kept on tickling before slowing down just enough to keep him giggling. “Maybe ya didn’t, O. I’m starting to think ya didn’t take anything after all. Still, I forgot how much fun it is to tickle ya!” She winked, walking her fingers down to his sides. Octane squeaked and giggled madly as the combat medic’s fingers tweaked and scribbled at his skin. “It’s NAHAHAHahahaht fuhuhuhuhuhuhn! STAHAHAHahahahahahahah!” He protested, his struggling refueled by her true belief that he did not steal that donut. Lifeline looked down at him incredulously and grinned. “It’s not fun? How can ya say that with a smile that big? Why, ya face’s about to split in half from all that smilin’.” She teased, her grin turning into a mischievous smirk when she walked her fingers closer to his stomach and saw the panic in his eyes. Octane continued to yell out protests in between his giggles and squeals; then, the second Ajay’s fingers found and re-buried themselves back into his tummy and navel, he found himself screaming with laughter.  “AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!”

“See?!” Lifeline had to raise her voice over his heavy howls of laughter as she twisted her finger in circular motions while inside Octavio’s navel. “Ya really smilin’ now! Ya must be havin’ so much fun, aren’t cha?” She grinned and used her nails to gently scratch along his hypersensitive stomach. Octavio shook his head back and forth, barely able to shout out ‘no’ as he flopped against the floor laughter pouring out of him. “PLEHEHEHEHEHEHEASE STAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!” He wailed, his eyes shining with tears as he bucked like crazy. “NOHOHOHOHOOHOH MOHOHOHOHORE! PLEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHAHAHSE!”

“More? Is that what ya said?” Lifeline snickered, not giving him a chance to respond as she knelt down and repeatedly blew raspberries into his navel all over again. At the first one, Octavio let out a hoarse scream and even harder cries of laughter; after the second and third and onward, his laughter became silent and his face was streaked with tears. When she finally stopped, noticing that he hadn’t made many sounds in a minute or two, the daredevil remained in stitches and giggled loudly even though she’d stopped tickling him. Ajay laughed and climbed off of him so that he could curl into a little ball. “Why ya still laughin’, O? I’m not even touching ya!” She giggled, playfully poking his sides to keep him in that giggling fit. Octavio lurched away and snorted, making sure that he was far out of her reach. “Teeheheheheheh oohohohdioohoh… (I hate you)...” He tittered and rubbed his stomach to rub away the lingering ticklish sensations.

Ajay arched a brow and grabbed Octavio’s shoulders to turn him back towards her. “What did ya say?” She snapped with a newfound glint of mischief in her eyes. Octane gasped when he suddenly found himself staring back at the combat medic and he wrenched out of her hold. “N-Nothing! I didn’t say anything.” He stammered, his stamina quickly returning to him as he hopped to his feet. Ajay stood up and lunged towards him but just missed. “I heard ‘odio’! What’s that mean? Odor? Did ya just say I stink?!” Ajay made another grab for the daredevil and he dodged her again, but she kept on coming. After some barely successful evasions, Octavio decided that it was time to run for the hills. He spun around to the door and went to grab a stim from his belt, but Lifeline managed to grab his right arm and pin it against his back. Then, on the same side, she drilled her thumb into the side of his stomach, causing him to stagger and laugh. Octane whipped around in her hold and tried to pull his arm from her grasp. During his struggling, Lifeline smirked and waited for him to pick a side to lean towards, giving him a hard push in the same direction. This caused the daredevil to topple over again with his right arm pinned behind his back, and the left one held to the side by the crazy combat medic. “Are ya gonna tell me what ya said? Or should I assume ya said I stink and torment ya some more?” She asked with a quirked brow, leaning down to his hypersensitive stomach and pausing just above his navel. Octane writhed in her hold the closer her head got to his stomach and shook his head repeatedly. 

“No! NO! Okay, I said---and don’t do anything, I said I hate you, but...NAHAHAHAHAHAH WAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAIT!”

Ajay didn’t wait for the daredevil to try and weasel his way out of that one and dropped her head to blow another sloppy raspberry against his navel. Since he was still sensitive from her previous attack, his laugh was nearly silent by the time she finished. 

“Ya hate me, do ya?” She smirked, blowing another raspberry and chuckling as he bucked and laughed silently. “I can’t have that, Silva. Not after all we’ve been through. So, I’ll just keep tormenting ya and see if ya change ya mind.” 

With that, Lifeline released his arms and pushed her hands into his armpits before he could bring them down. She swiped her nails side to side and even rubbed at the spot where his upper arm and armpits met. Octane shrieked with laughter and grabbed her arms, but she only tickled faster in response. “MEHEHEHEHEHEHEHRCY! CHEHEEHEHEHEHAHAHAHAH!” The daredevil screamed before Ajay decided to torment his stomach with more of those horribly ticklish raspberries. Octavio found himself in hysterics as he thrashed and thrashed, slipping in and out of silent laughter as Ajay put him through more ticklish hell. 

Unbeknownst to Octane and Lifeline, the commotion coming from the daredevil’s room prompted the handsomest bachelor in the Apex Games, Mirage, to go and investigate. It hadn’t been that long since Wattson put him through the same hell that Octavio was in, so he was walking slower than usual. But, in a way, it did give him the opportunity to perfect that strut and flaunt the goods. Mirage approached the door and, throwing privacy out the window, he grabbed the doorknob and twisted so that he could poke his head in the room. “Hey listen, I don’t know what’s going on,” He started, opening the door more so he could step in. “But it sounds like there’s a dying animal in her---oh! Oh jeez, sorry, uh..” 

All Elliott saw was Octavio pinned down by Lifeline, red faced, and laughing his head off. He cleared his throat awkwardly and Lifeline looked towards the sound. 

“Oh, Witt. Didn’t hear ya come in. Looks like ya saved by the bell, Silva.” Ajay snickered as she climbed off of Octane and sat beside him. Octavio panted heavily and rolled onto his side, facing the door. But, as he looked towards the trickster, he found him looking the other way and even retreating into the hallway. 

“Look,” Mirage started, still refusing to look at the pair, “Just pretend I wasn’t here, alright? I mean, I didn’t see anything anyway. Not that I was l-looking, but...ya know…”

Lifeline rolled her eyes and grabbed a pillow to chuck at the trickster. “Calm ya self, Witt.” The combat medic said after Mirage squeaked and dodged the pillow. “None of what ya thinking happened. I was just lookin’ for a donut thief this morning and making sure my bestest friend in the whole wide world wasn’t the culprit.” She continued with a smirk and a playful nudge on Octavio’s shoulder. As daft as the trickster could be, Elliott saw enough to determine how Lifeline most likely went about ‘questioning’ her subject. Poor Octavio was still drawing in as much air as he could.

“Oh, you mean the donut from this morning? Nat ate it. I ran into her maybe an hour or so ago. She said they were good but, ya know, wasn’t able to see for myself.” Mirage added with a chuckle and shrug of his shoulders. 

Lifeline blinked and looked at Octane, who was now sitting up and glaring at her. Well, glaring as much as he could with the smile still stuck on his face. 

“Che..” Octavio started to growl but the combat medic whacked him with a new pillow. 

“What? So ya laughed some and maybe lost some pride. Maybe I woulda eased up if ya didn’t say ya hated me.” Lifeline argued as she put on a little pout and stood up. 

“I could never hate you, hermana. But I’d watch my back if I were you. Because there’s a storm comin’ for you.” Octane responded, feeling his stamina come back faster than the medic walked to the door. 

Lifeline smiled and looked back at the men, pointing a shock stick at Octavio. 

“Ha. I already got ya once. It’d be too easy to do it again~.” 

[etherealwaifgoddess]

Run To You - Chpt.5

Summary: Bucky & Steve’s date has some unintended consequences forcing Bucky to make some hard decisions. Master list is HERE :)

Content Warnings: Attempted child abduction. Emphasis on ATTEMPTED. Becca will be fine ya’ll. 

Word Count: 5.5k

Author’s Note: Hello lovelies! Remember last chapter where I was like “oh hey enjoy this unusually large chapter”? Well, I went to write a normally sized chapter and my hand slipped. Whoops! Enjoy another giant beast chapter lovelies! And don’t hate me for the angst!! I promise this fic has a happy ending, it’s just a long road to get there. XOXO - Ash

Chapter Five

Bucky wakes to bright light streaming in his bedroom window and Becca sitting on top of him. “Wake up sleepy head!” she chirps, shoving his shoulder as hard as she can. 

“Whoa, calm it down little miss.” Bucky grumbles. 

“I’m gonna be late!” 

Bucky looks over at the alarm clock and realizes she’s right. “Shit.” 

“Bad word!!” 

“Becca!” Bucky snaps and instantly regrets it. “Quieter, bug. Please. Come on, let’s get moving.” 

Bucky hurries Becca through her morning routine, grabbing her tiny backpack and breakfast on their way out the door. Bucky knows he’s a mess, hair sloppily thrown up in a bun, sweatpants and a hoodie because he just can’t take the time to find real clothes. He doesn’t even bother to throw on his prosthetic. Becca nibbles at her string cheese and mini muffins as they hustle down the busy city sidewalks to her school, just finishing as they round the last corner. He gives her a quick hug and kiss before she runs into the building screeching hello to the teacher at the door. The teacher gives Bucky an odd look that he chalks up to him looking like a hot mess and he gives her a small wave and terse smile in return. 

It’s early yet and Bucky doesn’t have to worry about work for a few more hours so he decides to splurge and stop for coffee and a breakfast sandwich on his walk home. One treat won’t hurt and he’s still holding on to the warm feeling in his chest from last night’s date with Steve. Waiting in line a few other people give Bucky strange looks and he wonders how rough of shape he’s in. He prays there isn’t a giant rip on his clothes or something but after a discrete check he doesn’t think that’s the case. Just a weird morning then. 

The hoodie actually comes in handy once Bucky realizes he can’t carry both a sandwich and his coffee when he’s down an arm. Tucking the sandwich in his hoodie pouch, he sips the pumpkin spice latte slowly enjoying the sweet fall flavors on his way home. His phone starts chirping at him but with no free hand Bucky is forced to ignore it until he gets back to the apartment. It was going off earlier too and he figures who ever needs him so damn bad can just wait five more minutes. 

Bucky stretches out on the sofa to enjoy his breakfast, throwing on a random movie from his queue, when he finally looks at his phone. He wonders if the world is ending and he missed it somehow. Eight missed calls from Steve, two voicemails, and four texts. Two calls from Natasha, one voicemail, and two texts. Three texts from Clint. 

Natasha wants to know if he’s seen the news, if he’s okay, and what she can do to help. 

Clint also asks if he’s okay and tells him he’s an ass for not sharing the deets. 

Steve asks him repeatedly to call him, frantically apologizing in between. 

Still confused and becoming increasingly worried, Bucky brings up the news on his phone and finds his own face on the front page. The picture is from the night before, he and Steve walking back to his place with Becca on Steve’s shoulders. They look so happy that it tugs at Bucky’s heartstrings before the realization of what this means sinks in. He shoots a quick text to Natasha assuring her that he’s fine and he’ll catch up with her tonight. Clint gets two emojis in response: a thumbs up and the middle finger. Steve, he actually calls back. The blonde had sounded so worried in his voicemails. 

“Bucky, thank god.” Steve blurts out in lieu of hello. 

“Well good morning to you too.” Bucky jokes. 

“Are you okay? Is Becca okay?” 

“Yeah, Steve, we’re good. I just dropped Becca off a preschool. I don’t know what you’re worried about, it was a normal morning outside of a few funny looks. But honestly that was probably me going out looking like a hobo because I overslept.” 

“Buck…” Steve falters, “It won’t be long ‘til they figure out who you are. We can keep the press at bay here in the tower but you’re going to have some serious issues as soon as a reporter gets your name. You and Becca could come stay here for a bit or I can have a security team allocated to you both until the news dies down.” 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down a minute. We don’t need security and I’m not dragging Becca to Manhattan just because some dudes with cameras may or may not come pester us. We’ll be okay.” 

“I’m just worried about you guys. You didn’t sign on for the shit storm that’s blowing up right now. I’m so sorry, Buck.” 

“Actually, I did.” Bucky points out, “I’m not stupid, Steve. I knew what I was signing on for the minute we started talking. It’s gonna be okay, nothing lasts forever and Becca is a resilient kid.” 

Steve is quiet for a long moment, trying to compose himself to say what he knows he needs to say. “If you need to take some time apart until this all dies down…” he chokes up and lets the sentence lie. 

“No.” Bucky’s voice is firm. “I’m not running on you again. We’re gonna deal with this together.” 

“Okay,” Steve sighs heavily in relief, “I’m going to be tied up today doing interviews. Apparently there’s no hiding the fact that I’m bisexual now. It’s funny that I’ve never tried to hide it but the news is claiming I’ve been ‘publicly outed’ by the tabloids. I’m not going to say a whole lot about you, about us. I don’t want to speak for you or anything. But if you’re okay with it, I would like to confirm that I’m in a relationship and that I care about you very much.” 

“Aww, you big sap. Yeah, of course that’s fine.” 

“Can I call you later when I have time?” 

“I’m working tonight but I’ll have a chance for a quick break around 10pm.” 

“I’ll talk to you then. If you need anything, I mean it Buck, anything, just call me. I’ll pick up on national TV if I have to.” 

Bucky rolls his eyes and hopes Steve can feel his exasperation through the phone lines. “Get going, ya punk. You have a country full of conservatives to horrify with your secret homosexual agenda.” 

Steve laughs, the first bit of happiness he’s had since waking up to the news. “Will do.” he says quickly and hangs up before his overly dramatic heart can blurt out something terribly stupid like I love you. He pushes down the tender, fledgling emotion, knowing it’s too fast but feeling the gentle flutters nonetheless. 

Natasha arrives at Bucky’s apartment a full hour early that night so he can get her caught up while making dinner for her and Becca, while Becca watches an episode of Wonder Pets in the living room. Natasha apparently watched a few interview clips of Steve’s and teases Bucky over how completely smitten they both are. It’s nice and normal, the teasing and banter over a new relationship with his best friend. It makes him think Steve really was just being overly concerned with his fears.

It’s a blessedly slow night at the ER and no one seems to recognize Bucky as he hops from one patient to the next, getting people stabilized and ready to be seen by one of the doctors on shift. When Steve calls at ten he sounds better than he had that morning. He’s exhausted from the media circus but pleased that he was able to get the story out in his own words. He asked for privacy for all their sakes but knows it won’t last long. Bucky continues to assure him that they’ll handle things as they come and to not worry. Steve can’t help but feel like it’s the calm before the storm. 

The calm only lasts until 2am. Dr. Strange pulls Bucky out of a patient room, pushing Darcy in to take his place and dragging him down the hall to the staff break room. “What the hell?” Bucky demands once the door is shut. 

Strange’s face is grim, “There are currently fifteen reporters in the lobby all asking if you’re working and if anyone has a statement they’d like to make.” 

Bucky’s stomach drops, “Fuck.” 

“Yes, fuck indeed. I’ve already made some calls and the police are on their way to clear house. We don’t expect that to last however. HR is willing to give you the rest of this week off, paid, while we sort out protocol for this sort of thing. Amanda will call you tomorrow to talk details once the board meets and decides what we can do to protect both you and our patients. We obviously can’t have reporters milling around every time you work.” 

Bucky doesn’t even know what to say. 

“If you want to go gather your things, Paul in security will escort you out the back away from the reporters.” 

“Okay,” Bucky agrees, because really what else can he do?

Darcy catches up with him as he’s packing up his locker, “They’re sending you home?” she cries, pulling him into a hug. 

Bucky nods numbly, “Rest of the week, yeah. They have to, there’s too much going on right now. It’s paid at least.”  

“Well that’s something.” Darcy concedes. “How are you getting home? It’s a madhouse out there.” 

“Paul’s gonna have me go out the back. I’ll be okay.” 

“Call me if you need me.” she insists, giving him another tight hug. 

Bucky promises he will and then follows the kindly old security guard through the maze of hospital halls and outside. 

The air is bitter cold and Bucky’s thankful for his heavy jacket as he hurries down the mostly empty streets home. Natasha is tapping away on her laptop when he arrives. She does cyber security work and swears she gets most of her work done after midnight anyway. It works out well when he needs help on his overnight shift rotations. 

“What happened?” she demands and slams the lid of her laptop down. 

Bucky shucks off his jacket and joins Natasha on the sofa. “Reporters showed up at the hospital, like a lot of them. Strange was on tonight, thank god, he’s a tough son of a bitch and he wasn’t putting up with crap from anyone. They snuck me out the back while the cops got rid of the reporters.” 

“But what about tomorrow? Is this gonna affect your job?” 

Bucky shrugs, trying to ignore the low level fear humming in his veins over that exact concern. “I honestly don’t know. HR is gonna call me tomorrow once they figure out ‘protocol’ for this. Somehow Strange got them to give me the rest of the week off with pay. I don’t even know what I’m going to do with myself for the next six days.” 

Natasha raises an eyebrow, surprised and happy for him. “I vote catching up on your Netflix queue and being a lazy ass. You never take a break, Bucky. And you of all people deserve one. Maybe go spend some more time with that gorgeous boyfriend of yours. Some kid-free time, if you know what I mean.” She wiggles her eyebrows until Bucky throws a pillow at her. She ducks easily, laughing. “I’m just saying! It’s been a long time since he-who-shall-not-be-named.” 

Bucky bristles at the mention of his ex. He should have seen Brock for the piece of shit he was, but he’d missed it at first, too wrapped up in the bliss of a new relationship. In the end, Brock’s true colors had come out and Bucky had ended things before it could become even more toxic than they already become. He sighs, pushing the ugly memories away. “It hasn’t been that long. And you’re forgetting Micah from the hospital cafe.” 

“It’s been four years since him. And Micah doesn’t count. That was a year ago and it didn’t go past a lunch date where he, and I quote, kissed you like a St. Bernard.” 

Bucky shudders at the memory. “Okay, so it’s been a while. Maybe I will go see Steve one day while Becca’s at school.” 

“That’s more like it!” Natasha cheers quietly, cautious to not disturb Becca. “So, do you want company or should I scoot and let you get some rest?” 

“I love you for offering but I just wanna crash. If I can get a few hours now I’ll be able to get back on daytime hours easier.” 

“Love you too.” Natasha leans over to hug him before packing up her stuff and heading out. 

It was a crazy day but as Bucky climbs into bed, he’s still resolved that it’s going to be okay again soon. 

Bucky is groggy when his alarm goes off at 7am but it’s better than he would have been if he hadn’t gotten any sleep. Becca is thrilled that he’s home and even more so when he tells her that he’ll be home the rest of the week. They make plans over breakfast for things they can do after she gets out of school since they have all the time in the world now. Bucky compromises with one quick park trip, which he cringes thinking about but he’ll just have to pack her inhaler and make sure she takes breaks, two trips to the library, and one night they’ll grab dinner at the neighborhood diner for their kids eat free night. 

The week flies by and Bucky gets the all clear on Thursday to return the following Sunday once the hospital is able to put additional security in place. He’s thankful they’re not just letting him go to avoid all the hassle but several nurses and doctors apparently made their opinions loud and clear that he was worth the additional security measures. Bucky is eternally grateful for his coworkers and makes plans to take in a tray of thank you brownies on his first shift back. 

A second round of good news comes in a few hours later; Steve is back early from his latest mission. They make plans for the following day, unwilling to wait any longer to see one another again. Steve will be, in theory, just hanging around the tower wrapping up some post-mission paperwork from earlier in the week so he’ll be able to take most of the day to show Bucky around the tower and spend time with him. He also offered to take them all to The Met after Becca gets out of school and Bucky said he’ll consider it. It’s a little extravagant, but something about picking her up together and going on an outing tugs at his heartstrings. It’s so perfectly domestic, like a real family would do. Bucky tries to ignore the longing he feels for something he’s never let himself consider before. 

There’s a lone reporter lingering outside his apartment when Bucky heads out to pick up Becca from school. There were a lot the first two days but their numbers dropped off drastically when they realized he really wasn’t all that interesting. “Hey man.” Bucky gives the reporter a little wave. He has to give the guy credit for determination. “Still not going to do anything interesting, sorry.” 

The reporter huffs a laugh, “Ya never know!” 

Bucky laughs in return and heads off, trying to ignore the fact that the man is following him a few steps back. He gives the guy a few more days before he gives up too. Bucky is a single parent with a full time job, he doesn’t have the time to do anything interesting. 

Rounding the corner to Becca’s school he spies the little girl talking to a man in a long beige wool coat. The man is tall and thin with greying hair and wire framed glasses. His appearance screams of wealth in a way that would make him fit right in as a parent of someone at the school, but something is off and Bucky steps up his pace. Becca hasn’t spotted him yet but he hears the man ask “Your daddy is friends with Captain America isn’t he?” 

Becca, all proud smiles, informs him, “He’s my brother, not my daddy. And Captain America is his boyfriend.” 

“Isn’t that nice. Hey, I have something you can give your brother for me, okay? Can you be a big helper? It’s right over here.” Becca looks unsure so the man smiles brightly and takes her hand, leading her down the sidewalk away from the school. A black van pulls up at the end of the block, a door swinging open and the man hurries her along. 

Bucky screams Becca’s name and breaks out into a full run. Icy fear consumes him, driving him to move faster than he ever has before. Please God no, please, don’t let them take my baby girl. 

The reporter realizes what’s going on and sprints right along with Bucky. They collide with the man and Becca at the same time. The reporter tackles the man, pinning him to the ground, leaving Bucky to grab Becca and roll to the ground shielding her in his arms. A teacher runs over with her phone out yelling “The police are on their way!” to them. 

The man writhes underneath the reporter, trying to free himself while looking panickedly at the van. The van door slides shut and then the vehicle flies off with screeching tires. Once it’s out of sight the man lays his head back on the pavement in defeat.

“Just stay put buddy.” the reporter grumbles. 

Now that Becca is safe Bucky is filled with a depth of rage he didn’t even realize he was capable of. Somebody tried to snatch his baby girl right in broad daylight. Bucky checks her over one more time before passing her off to the teacher who’s still holding on the line for 911. 

Bucky stalks over to where the reporter still has the man pinned. His movements are predatory, his voice low, practically a grow, when he demands, “Who the fuck do you think you are?” 

The reporter just stares at the man, also waiting for an answer. 

“I am one of many.”

Bucky shakes his head. God, he just wants to punch this guy in his smug face. “Fine. Who do you work for?” 

“Cut off one head and two more take its place.” 

“I’m getting real sick of riddles and I still got at least two minutes before the cops show. Last time, asshole. Who the fuck do you work for and why do you want my kid?”

“The child, or you, it matters not. Either will get us the captain. We are everywhere. We will come again, and we will succeed. Hail Hydra.” The man crunches down on something and within seconds he’s foaming at the mouth, his eyes rolling lifeless back in his head.

Bucky looks to Becca, thankful the teacher is shielding her away from what took place. Ice cold fear runs in his veins. He knew there could potentially be a risk dating Steve, but it was an abstract sort of knowledge. Up until minutes ago he’d thought the only real concern was pesky reporters. Most of which, he has to admit, are actually good people just trying to make a living. A real threat, a fucking terrorist threat, is something he’d never really put much thought into. That name too: Hydra. Everyone knows of the Nazi group who Captain America has been trying to destroy since the 40s. A threat from them is very, very real. 

The cops arrive and start dispersing the crowd that’s formed. It seems like forever until they’ve taken statements from everyone and the body is removed. Becca holds up as well as a four year old can trying to answer the police man’s questions, and Bucky fills in gaps as he can. They take his statement too and let him know they can provide a security detail if he wants. The officer looks sheepish but also recommends he call Steve because Shield and the Avengers can likely provide better security than the NYPD can. Bucky thanks the officer and agrees to call Steve as soon as possible. 

Becca is shaking so hard by the time they head home that Bucky scoops the little girl up to carry her the whole way. Two uniformed officers follow them back and do a full sweep of the apartment just to err on the side of caution. Buck appreciates the security but as he stands in his too quiet apartment he realizes he can’t do this every day. He adopted Becca to give her a better life and now he’s put her in more danger than she ever would have been in being raised by their parents. All because some small part of him still held on to the hope that there was someone out there that he could love and would love him back wholeheartedly and forever. That despite his upbringing, he could have a perfect family of his own one day. Bucky feels painfully childish that his pathetic longing for a partner had almost cost him his sister. 

Ever the responsible parent, Bucky stifles the emotions whirling in his chest and puts on a good front for Becca’s sake. She falls asleep halfway through Frozen II and Bucky doesn’t even bother trying to wake her. He knows there’s no fighting the adrenaline crash she’s feeling. His own crash will be equally brutal when it comes, but for now it’s still nowhere in sight. Bucky is too keyed up, restless and desperately trying to find a solution that keeps all of them safe and happy. He drags a cup of coffee and a blanket out onto the fire escape where he sits to watch the sun drop lower and lower among the roof tops. He’s almost finished his drink when a knock sounds on the door. 

The security detail is supposed to be vetting anyone going near his apartment so the odds are good it’s someone he knows, but it doesn’t stop him from slipping a kitchen knife into his hand on the way to the door. Peering through the peephole Bucky sees red hair, black leather, and a very pissed off Natasha. “Let me in.” she says, it sounds like a warning. 

Bucky opens the door and stands out of the way. It’s not worth arguing with Natasha when she gets like this. 

“You turned off your phone.” She comments without emotion. 

Bucky nods. “I don’t want to deal with it right now.” 

Natasha follows him as he heads to the kitchen to return the knife, seemingly pleased by his caution. “By it, you mean Steve.” 

“Amongst other things.” 

“You know I’m here for you. Whatever you need, just name it.” 

“That’s just it, I don’t know. I keep coming to the same answer and I hate it, Nat. I just… I can’t do this to Becs.” Bucky’s voice cracks on the little girl’s name and Natasha wraps her best friend into a tight hug. 

“You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.” 

“I don’t even know how to do what I want to do. I’m sure it’s not nearly as easy as movies make it out to be.”

“Let me help. You and Becca mean the world to me. Whatever it is we’ll figure it out together.” 

Bucky sighs heavily, still leaning on Natasha. “We need to disappear.” 

Natasha goes still, “Are you sure?” 

“No. Yes. I don’t know. I can’t think of any other way to keep her safe. Even if I break up with Steve, Hydra can still use us as leverage. Feelings don’t just disappear... But people can.” 

“Okay. Give me four hours.” Natasha pulls back and starts texting rapidly on a small cell phone Bucky has never seen before. 

“What the fuck, Nat.” 

“Working in cyber security has some perks.” She shrugs. 

“I don’t think it’s normally supposed to have those kinds of perks.” 

“Well, it depends on who you’re keeping secure.” Nastaha’s smile is cheshire. 

“Damn. Okay, then. What do you need me to do?” 

“Stay put. I’d say try to get some sleep but I know you won’t. Pack a duffel bag for each of you. No more than that, I mean it. Think in terms of what you absolutely can’t leave behind, this is not packing for vacation. You can buy basic stupid shit when you get where you’re going. Two outfits and whatever else you can’t leave that fits in two duffels. Got it?” 

“Okay, got it.” 

“Oh, and your phone. You won’t be needing that anymore.” 

Bucky holds the phone out but doesn’t let go. “I have all of Becs’ baby pictures on there.” 

Natasha gives him an understanding smile. “I’ll move them all to an online cloud storage site. You won’t lose a single one.” 

Bucky releases the phone. “Thanks, Nat.” 

Natasha hugs him tightly again. “Four hours. Be ready.” 

And with that Bucky is left alone in his living room in shock. He supposes he shouldn’t be all that surprised. Natasha has always been a badass. He used to joke she was really a Russian spy and their friendship was just a cover for her real identity. Bucky now wonders now how close to the truth he might have been. 

Four hours later, down to the minute, Natasha is striding through his door once again, a large envelope tucked under her arm. There’s no warm welcome or pleasantries, Natasha has her game face on and Bucky is still too rattled to try for levity. Spreading the papers out on the coffee table Natasha organizes everything quickly. “Birth certificates, immigration paperwork, social security cards, school records, medical records, a resume with work history and references, and a quick life history fact sheet for both of you.” She places a wallet from her pocket onto the table as well, flipping it open quickly to show him it’s fully filled with cards, cash, and an ID card.

Bucky scans over the documents, unable to believe she had pulled this off so quickly and how real everything looked. “Sebastian Stan?” he asks, nose wrinkling. 

Natasha nods, “Yep, you’re Romanian. You moved here with your daughter Elena when she was two months old. Your wife died in childbirth and so you brought her here to start over.” 

He spies the address on the drivers license. “Rochester? Is that where we’re actually going?” 

“No, of course not. You and your daughter have recently moved to Cape Elizabeth, Maine. That’s where you’re headed. You’ll be happy to know their local urgent care center is looking for a new triage nurse. The pay is pretty good and it’ll be enough to cover rent for the cute little apartment that you just put a down payment on.” Natasha pulls something from her pocket, it’s flesh colored and rolled up tightly. She hands it over with a simple, “Here, you’ll need this too. Don’t want that guy drawing too much attention to you.” 

Bucky stares at the silicone sleeve, realizing it’s a perfect fit for his prosthetic. The details are down to an art, from light arm hairs and tiny freckles. It’s soft enough too that as long as you don’t grasp it very hard, it’ll feel shockingly similar to his right arm. “Damn. You don’t miss a thing, do you?”

“Of course not. Who do you think you’re dealing with?” Natasha glares at him affectionately.

Bucky chuckles, of course she’s the best at this. She’s been the best at everything since the day they met. “What happens to Bucky and Becca Barnes then?” he’s afraid to ask but he needs to know.

“They got on a flight to Moscow two hours ago. There’s a few nice security officers and cab drivers who will all verify they were sighted leaving the airport about eight hours from now.” 

“That works for the rest of the world, but what happens if Steve goes looking? He has an awful lot of friends in high places.” 

“Steve isn’t going to go looking right now. And even if he did, the alibi will hold up. Trust me.” 

A tiny piece of Bucky’s heart shatters that Steve would just let him go so easily. 

Natasha recognizes the look on his face and quickly adds, “He called you non stop after the news broke. Sent you dozens of texts too. You very nearly had the full force of SHIELD and the Avengers on your doorstep if it wasn’t for Tony Stark.” 

“What happened?” 

“Tony convinced Steve that if you weren’t calling or responding that he was as good as dumped. The rumor mill always hinted their relationship was strained but Tony really is good at kicking Steve when he’s down and Tony played his cards right on this one. Steve has been holed up in his apartment all night, he’s not doing too great.” 

It kills Bucky to know he’s putting Steve through this pain, but he’s firm in his decision. He’d be more disappointed in himself but he’s too tired. Things got tough and he’s doing exactly what he’s been doing since he was a kid to protect himself: he’s running. “How do you even know all this?” Bucky asks, realizing Natasha shouldn’t have this level of detail on the goings on at the tower. 

“I hacked into the security feed at Avengers Tower. Jarivs was a handful but not more than I could handle. Tony Stark is brilliant but he’s also arrogant, and that’s his downfall.” 

“You are, without a doubt, the scariest person I’ve ever met. I’m gonna miss you.” Bucky can’t hold back the tears at the thought of leaving Natasha behind. 

“What do you mean, miss me? You went to college with Natalie Rushman, you’re even Instagram friends. You haven’t seen me in a few years but we still keep in touch regularly.” Natasha brings out yet another little black phone he’s never seen and shows him Natalie’s Instagram account. 

“How many of those little phones do you have tucked up your sleeve?” he teases.

“The world will never know.” she quips in return. “I do need to go though.” she adds in a more serious tone.

Bucky nods, he knew this was coming. He can’t get words past the lump in his throat.

“You have a train to catch in about forty minutes. That one will take you as far as Boston and there’s more tickets from there. Try and get some rest, you’ll be getting into town in Maine around eight in the morning.” 

“I’ve gone longer without sleep pulling doubles at the hospital, this won’t be nearly as bad.” 

Natasha gives him a half hearted smile, “You’re all set then.” 

Bucky pulls her in for one last hug. “I’ll message Natalie when we arrive.” 

“Mmm, yes. Sebastian would definitely snap a pic of his new hometown when he arrives. I’ve heard it’s very Insta-worthy.” Tears shine in Natasha’s eyes but they don’t fall. She swallows thickly. “Be safe.” 

“You too.” Bucky manages to croak out through the overwhelming tide of emotions. He holds her for one last heartbeat before she slips out the door like a ghost. 

Bucky goes through all the documents Natasha left behind and finds a thin red iPhone in the stack. There’s a post-it note stuck on top warning “do not activate until after you are on the second train”. So much for keeping himself occupied while he waits. In the end he spends most of the time pacing around the apartment and double checking his bags. He checks the time again, making sure he’s down to the final few minutes when he finally goes to get a sleeping Becca from her bed. She barely stirs as he carefully slides her into her warm purple jacket and slips socks and shoes on her feet. He slings her over his shoulder and collects the two duffels with his free hand. It’s a little jarring to see tan skin where he’s used to seeing shiny steel but he appreciates that Natasha thought of everything. 

He worries momentarily about the security detail outside his apartment but quickly realizes they’re distracted helping an elderly woman catch her escaped pomeranian who’s barking up a storm. It’s a good diversion, one clearly planned out. Bucky holds on tightly to Becca and all but runs down the hall to the stairwell. He doesn’t slow down until he’s two blocks away and he realizes he really did escape without being sighted. Slowing his pace to a normal New York hustle, he heads towards the train station and to their new lives.

[thorongil82]

Three sentence/mini fic prompt: Peter finding MJ drunk off her ass, and she starts ugly crying to him “I’M LITERALLY IN LOVE WITH YOU SO WHY WON’T YOU LOVE ME BACK?!?💔💔”, and Peter is shook because um he actually DOES he just hasn’t confessed 😂😅

(I’m so sorry this took so long. I’ve been taking care of some stuff. As it is, I will also work on this being a mini fic too!)

The last thing Peter expected when Liz rang and asked if he could come pick MJ up from her party was to find her extremely drunk and snivelling; especially as Peter had never seen her shed so much as a single tear in his entire life. 

Though, that expectation was then utterly trumped when he got her to her house and she threw herself onto him, despite brushing him off the entire trip when he gently asked if anything was wrong, sobbing into his chest how his – and he quotes - “loser dork dumb-ass” was her whole world and crying why he didn’t love her back. 

And no matter how much he felt the same, no matter how much he cursed his own cowardice for not telling her how he truly felt sooner, no matter how much he wished he could just kiss her and make things all better, he knew he couldn’t do it right now – not when she wouldn’t remember it tomorrow.

[thejollyroger-writer]

What Happens in Berkshire {{1/2}}

SUMMARY: When Emma’s boyfriend leaves her for the woman he’s been cheating with, she accepts an offer from her hospital to move to England. While she is out celebrating her thirtieth birthday with her friends before they head back to America, she drunkenly kisses the statue of Captain Hook in front of Eton College, and he comes to life. Together, he and Emma try to figure out what this curse means for them by searching for the witch that cursed him in the first place — are they really True Love, as he wants to believe they are, or did Emma’s magic go awry?

a/n: IT’S HEEEEERE! IT’S STATUE FIC TIME!  it all started with this post (via @write-it-motherfuckers and it’s grown into this beautiful, monstrous two-shot about magic and True Love and tight pants and magic. Thanks to the always-lovely @cssns mods AGAIN for hosting events like this one, that allow us to roll with all the weirdness that comes to us – without you, we certainly wouldn’t have this story, to @shireness-says for constantly talking me out of overthinking, and to @profdanglaisstuff and @thisonesatellite for helping me make this story into what is appears before you as. Seriously, it wouldn’t be the same without you.  Also, check out Meredith’s ( @captainsjedi ) amazing art for this story and many others! Somehow she is always able to capture the ideas floating around in my head and pin them down long enough to make aesthetics.

RATED G // CURRENTLY 12 K AND COUNTING // ALSO ON AO3

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Emma Swan does not get stupid drunk. 

Usually. 

Most of the time, she can down a few beers, a mixed drink or three, and even after adding a few shots in there, she can still have full memory in the morning. Besides, getting that drunk usually means losing control of her magic, and while the time she made it snow in August in their sweltering apartment or when she procured a mini fireworks display in the palm of her hand were both fun, it’s never been something she felt comfortable doing, always waking the next morning with a pounding headache and the harsh warnings of Ingrid, the woman that helped her hone her powers, howling at the forefront of her memory: only use your magic when necessary, and never for fun. She’s almost never lost her head, and even fewer times than that has she lost her memory. Sure, there was that one time in college with the jungle juice, and Ruby’s 25th birthday when all they did was shots, but both of those times, she was already in her apartment. 

But today was her thirtieth birthday, and her goal was to get drunk — especially after everything else that led her here. They are out not only to celebrate her birthday, but also her move to England after her decision to accept the position offered to her by the Princess Margaret Hospital, which just happens to be in the same town Belle’s university is in. The move that she decided to take because she wanted something new — and because Neal decided after four years that he wanted something new, as well. 

Only for him, it was breaking up with her and dating one of the women from his office, telling her that she “wasn’t good enough” for him anymore, even though she was at least a hundred times better than he was in the first place. 

Ruby’s pretty sure he was cheating on her anyway, but she was always too blind to see it. 

So she accepted the position from the hospital headhunters and packed up everything she owned, using Belle to do apartment walkthroughs, though she decided just to take the apartment next to the one Belle shares with her colleague. Two weeks later, she was on a plane all by herself, wishing she didn’t have to wait a month for Ruby and Mary Margaret to help her — but that month has passed, her apartment now filled with her things and fully furnished, and now they’re all out to celebrate before Ruby and Mary Margaret fly back home.

But it’s her birthday, god damn it, and she is going to celebrate. She’s already been here for a few weeks, but she’s already loving Windsor, loving England, how different it is from Boston, from New England, but still a little reminiscent of home. She’ll be just fine here on her own. 

Neal would have hated it here anyway, if he would have decided that he cared enough to come with her. If he actually loved her. Emma doesn’t need him, doesn’t need anyone, just needs to take some time and take care of herself. 

Neal can go fuck himself. Or fuck that woman from his office that he was already fucking. 

Alright, she might already be pretty drunk. But she wants more. She wants to forget, forget him enough to celebrate even more, and she’s maybe almost there. 

But it’s two in the morning, last call at the only bar Belle had ever been to in this part of town, and she’s run out of time. 

So Ruby buys them another round of shots, of whatever the strongest alcohol that would affect Emma the most — and, even wincing as much externally as she is on the inside, she knows the answer is tequila. One more, a double after Ruby insists, a small orange juice chaser, and they’re out, the smiling, greying bartender locking the door behind them. 

The weather in Berkshire is far from perfect, though perhaps better than it could have been at the end of October. Instead of the regular downpour that Belle told them to expect, it’s simply drizzling, the air around them wet instead of drenching. So, of course, they decide to go for a walk. 

Which just gives Ruby another reason to gripe. 

“You can’t even, just, make us a protective bubble? Or a big umbrella?” 

Emma rolls her eyes. 

“You already know that I can’t,” she says, though she feels the way her magic hums through her, just itching to be used. 

Ruby groans, loud enough to be heard by the whole group. “What good is it to be best friends with a witch, if she can’t even use her magic to keep us dry?” 

Emma rolls her eyes. Again. 

“I’m not going through this with you again,” she snaps. “I can’t just use my magic. It doesn’t work like that.” Of course, she always wished she could, but this is a thought that she chooses to keep to herself. 

What’s the purpose of having magic if she’s not allowed to use it? 

Thankfully, Belle changes the subject. “Did you know that Berkshire is where — where the original Captain Hook was from?” Belle asks, her words coming slowly and slurred. 

“Really?” Mary Margaret seems genuinely interested, the only one of them that has stayed fully away from alcohol on their trip, mainly because of the ever-growing baby bump, though she never was one to get anywhere beyond tipsy since that first margarita experience during her sophomore year of college, where Emma had to talk her out of streaking across campus. 

“Yeah, there’s a statue of him and everything.” 

“Let’s go see it!” Ruby suggests, arm wrapped around Emma’s shoulders, though she seems to miss the fact that Emma seems to currently be having trouble standing on her own as it is. 

The walk is only a few blocks, all of them thankfully sporting waterproof coats that Belle insisted they all bring with, even though Ruby had to sit on her suitcase to close it before the jacket was added. How that woman seemed to wear so little clothing but still have trouble fitting everything into a suitcase was beyond all of them. Their walk is quiet, all of them trying their hardest not to let the drizzle get to them any deeper than their coats. 

But then they see it, lit up by a light recessed into the sidewalk before him, and he’s… well, he’s perfect. The most incredible-looking man Emma has ever seen, and he’s made out of damned stone. Just her luck. 

Of course, it’s not the first time Emma has seen the statue – in fact, she’s gone the past month eating her lunch on a nearby bench without even knowing it was supposed to be Captain Hook. 

In hindsight, the hook that he has in place of his left hand probably would have been a good clue. 

She remembers the first time she walked past this statue, meeting Belle for lunch in her office in the library. She had been taken aback by its perfection from that very first moment, the world seeming to slow around her as she stared at him. Something about him seemed to comfort her, bring the chaos of her life to a pause, just long enough for her to catch her breath and focus on something else for a little while at a time.

So she kept coming back. Eating lunch on the bench beside him has been a regular occurrence for her, and she’s spent a few days a week just sitting there, looking up at his anguished face. Sometimes she even talks to him, as long as no one is around to hear — which isn’t very often, given it’s the middle of a college campus in the beginning of the fall. 

He’s become… a friend, of sorts. Someone she can talk to without using her international minutes to call Mary Margaret. A confidant, who she knows won’t go around spewing her secrets. 

Because, you know, he’s a statue. 

Belle is saying something in the background, explaining to them the history of the statue, of the story of Peter Pan and how the town believes that Barrie’s villain is based off of this statue that has been here for as long as anyone can remember. Emma is trying to listen to the story, she really is, but there is just something about the statue standing in front of her that steals her attention, just as it has every other time she’s found herself near it. Every time she tries to focus on his features, it’s as if the rest of the world around them goes silent. 

It’s just a weird side effect from the tequila, she tells herself, but even the voice in her head is muffled as she stares at him.

He’s gorgeous, even for a damned statue. 

“I thought he was an old, skinny guy with a handlebar mustache?” Emma asks, realizing halfway through her sentence that she cut Belle off in the middle of a thought. 

“Why, because of that animated movie?” Belle asks, turning her attention to Emma, but Emma’s eyes are still glued to the statue. 

“Well, yeah.” 

“The version of him in that movie is nothing like the Hook that Barrie described. People have given him a black perm and bushy eyebrows, but Barrie himself described our villain as ‘in a word, the handsomest man I have ever seen, and he was a magnificent pirate and not wholly unheroic.’ He had black hair, yes, but it didn’t have to be a perm, and there is nothing in Barrie’s description to say that he is a tall, thin old man.”

Ruby comes to stand beside Emma, her eyes trained on the statue in the same way. “This is a perfect specimen of a man, and he’s made from a slab of marble.”

“Do we know the artist who made it?” Mary Margaret asks from the back of the group, always interested in artists. 

Belle is silent for a moment, then turns to face the group, her eyebrows forming a low ‘v’ on her forehead. “Actually, I’m not sure about that. From what I know, the statue has been here for longer than the college has.”

“So no one knows where it came from?”

“Well, there’s an old wives’ tale that he used to be a sailor, a pirate, who watched the woman he loved die in his arms and was cursed for not doing anything to save her, cursed to stand here and wait for his True Love to save him.”

“But obviously that’s not true,” Mary Margaret comments, perhaps not sounding quite as convincing as she was hoping to. 

“No,” Emma replies, and Belle shakes her head. “No, of course not.”

A beat of silence passes between the four of them, each of them staring at the statue from a different angle, overcome by the spell he has them under. 

And then, suddenly, Ruby starts laughing. Cackling, almost, unable to stand up straight until she takes a wheezing deep breath, clapping her hand against Emma’s shoulder. 

“It’s your birthday, Swan!” she barely gets out, cackling again. “Go up and give him a kiss!” 

“Ruby!” Mary Margaret scolds from the other side of the statue, leaning to the side to stare at her around the man’s perfectly sculpted legs, so realistic that they can actually see the curves of muscles beneath the marble britches. 

But Belle and Emma are just drunk enough to join in with the laughter, also thinking it’s a good idea. 

“What the hell,” Emma says, shrugging. “I’m thirty years old and my boyfriend just broke up with me. It’s probably safer than a one-night stand.” 

Belle thinks this is particularly funny, and her laughter, echoing around the courtyard around them, drives Ruby into another fit of laughter herself. 

“Come on, guys, help me up!” Emma yells, hooking her arm around the leg of the statue, trying to use it to hoist herself up on the pedestal. Mary Margaret, the only one of them sober enough to give her any actual assistance, walks over to her, understanding that it would do more harm to try to talk her out of this than to just help her. 

One foot up on the pedestal, then the other, grasping her free hand around the curve of his arm, the hand of which is wrapped around the hilt of his sword. She almost loses her footing as she tries to move her grasp from his leg to his other arm, finding a hold on his hook. Finally, she has reached the platform, standing almost face to face with the statue, though it stands a few inches taller than she does. He really is a magnificent piece of art, from the individual strands of hair on his head to the stubble covering his chin to the embroidery work on his vest — amazing detail, she realizes even in her drunken haze, for a statue that has been standing for longer than the college around it, details surviving the wind and the rain that she has already discovered are regular for England. For a moment, Emma is overcome with compassion for the man standing before her, for the sadness visible not only in his eyes, but that’s written across his whole face. 

Christ, she thinks, I must have had more to drink than I thought. 

“Just kiss him, damn it!” Ruby yells, laughing at her some more, and Emma stares back at him for another moment before pulling her face to his, pressing her lips hard against the cold, wet stone. 

For a moment, nothing happens.

Then, suddenly, a flash of lightning strikes on the other side of the building beside them, startling Emma enough to almost lose her footing, so focused on keeping her balance that she does not notice the spark of magic that erupts from her fingertips at the same time another flash of lightning hits just a few feet from where they are, the thunder from both of them rolling almost simultaneously in the charged air around them. 

“Emma, get down from there!” Mary Margaret yells, just as Emma feels the stone beneath her fingers start to change, and when she looks up, the statue has turned into a man. A real-life, living, breathing man with twinkling eyes and a bright smile.

“Hello, love,” he says, his voice dark and deep. 

Taken aback, she moves to take a step back, forgetting for a moment where she is, and the edge of her boot slips off the edge of the pedestal. For the briefest moment, she believes this is how she dies — falling to her death after kissing a statue and hallucinating. But when she feels a warm, hard arm wrap around her waist, she automatically moves her arms around his neck. 

He smiles. 

Everyone is quiet for a moment, still trying to piece together what has happened in front of them. While the rest of the girls share glances, though, Emma finds herself only able to focus on the man in front of her, the very real man who has come to life under her fingertips. Or, to be more specific, she can only focus on his eyes. They are unlike any color she has ever seen, lit up only by the streetlights around them and the few recessed into the pavement, specifically there to light up the statue, a bright blue that reminds her of the brightest, clearest sky, but at the same time somehow also the dark blue of the depths of the ocean. 

“How did—” she starts, somehow more sober than moments before, but the words get lodged in her throat even further when he smiles at her. Swallowing her nerves, she takes a breath and tries again. “What happened? How are you… not a statue?” 

His smile grows, somehow, overtaking his eyes as the brightest feature on his face, since it seems to radiate its own light. 

“I have my suspicions, love, but I do know that I am forever grateful for it.” 

“I’m not your love,” she mumbles, the words coming out much less defiant than they sounded in her head. 

But what if… Belle’s comment from earlier suddenly comes rushing back to her:  ‘cursed to stand here and wait for his True Love to save him.’

That’s insane. 

This whole situation is insane. 

“Emma,” Ruby says from below them, and both Emma and the statue-man turn their heads towards her. “What in the hell just happened?” 

“He's…” Belle tries, then shakes her head. “That’s damn impossible, that is.” 

“You must have done it with your magic, Emma,” Mary Margaret says matter-of-factly, the obviousness of it all washing away any memory of what Belle may have said earlier. 

“Is it really…” Belle starts again, snapping her eyes to the man still standing against Emma, holding her against his hard, sculpted chest, the ridges of his muscles almost as prominent as when they were made of stone. 

Not that she really notices that. Of course not. 

“Are you really Captain Hook?” Belle asks, and Emma thinks it’s a joke at first, until she looks down at the seriousness painted across her friend’s face. 

“Captain Killian Jones, at your service,” he says, nodding down towards Belle, then quickly flitting his eyes from her to Mary Margaret, to Ruby, and back to Emma, a sparkle in his gaze that was not there before. “In every way imaginable,” he mutters, pressing his lips closer to her ear so only she can hear it before leaning back again and quickly winking at her. “Though, yes, you seem to have heard of me by my more colorful moniker, Hook.” Finally, he unwraps his hands from her waist and moves to step off the pedestal, which he accomplishes with the help of Mary Margaret before reaching his own hand up to assist Emma. When she reaches the ground beside him, he leans in towards her again, his breath warm against her cheek, and he whispers, “I was hoping it would be you,” before turning his attention back to the half-circle of women now gathered around him. 

“What are we going to do with him?” Mary Margaret asks. 

Ruby is the first to respond, failing to even attempt to hide the way her eyes take in his whole body. “I have a few ideas.” 

For some reason, Ruby’s comment makes Emma’s stomach sink, but she ignores the feeling, just as she chooses to ignore the quickening rain falling all around them. “We can’t just leave him here.”

“I appreciate that, love, truly,” the man says. Killian. The statue that has come to life has a name.  

“The couch in my apartment is still unclaimed,” Emma suggests quickly, before Ruby can add another of her comments. “As long as it’s okay with the rest of you, he can stay there for the night. And we can figure out what to do in the morning when we’re all in a better shape.” 

They all silently agree, and when Emma turns to face Killian, to see if he has anything to say about their plan, he simply smiles at her, his hook resting in the guard of his sword and his other hand propped on his hip.

“Can I at least have the name of my savior and her lovely acquaintances?” he asks, reaching his arm out in hopes of shaking their hands, starting with Mary Margaret. While Mary Margaret and Belle remain casual, Ruby sways into his body, pressing her free hand against his chest.  

Though she cannot figure out why, this causes heat to rise to Emma’s cheeks, but it is nothing compared to the rush of warmth that Emma feels over her body when, instead of simply shaking her hand, Killian raises it to his lips, pressing a soft kiss against her knuckles. His lips are soft, warm, welcoming �� though she has no reason to notice that. 

What the actual fuck? 

“I thank you, again, Swan,” he says, choosing her last name for some reason, his eyes still shining bright, and she has to turn her gaze down to the sidewalk to stop herself from getting lost in them. 

“We should head back,” Belle says, and Emma has never been more thankful for the quickening rain before in her life. “The rain will probably just get worse.” 

“Can you tell us what happened to you, Killian?” Mary Margaret asks as they all begin to follow Belle back down the road and to Emma’s apartment.

“I would really rather not go into detail as of yet,” he says softly, his eyes turned down to the ground. “But the much-shortened version of it is that I fell in love with another man’s wife and she chose to run away with me, though her husband came after us and—” Emma hears his voice falter, can see the bobbing of his Adam’s apple as he struggles for a moment, the rise and fall of his shoulders as he takes a deep breath. “He killed her,” he says finally, though he has not completely pulled himself back together. “And then convinced a witch to cast a curse to turn me into a statue until my True Love came and broke it.”

“And, uh, how long ago was this?” Emma asks, filling the silence that settled at the end of his story. 

“What year is it now?” 

Emma’s eyes grow wide, and when she doesn’t respond right away, Ruby fills in with the answer: “2019.” 

She hears him take a sharp breath, rubbing his hand over his mouth and his scruff before pushing his fingers through his hair. “Bloody hell,” he mumbles, though Emma is fairly sure she is the only one that heard him. “It was just upwards of four hundred years ago.”

Silence settles around them again as they all think about this statement. Emma has so much more she wants to ask him, questions about his love and this witch and how the hell she broke the spell the witch cast on him. 

But half-drunk and surrounded by her friends, all three of whom will overthink her growing interest in him, is not the right time to bring up these questions. So, instead of voicing the concerns that cloud her already-clouded mind, she reaches out and finds his hand with her own, turning to him just in time to see the soft smile that spreads across his features, so different in contrast with the rest of the persona he has shown them over the past few minutes. 

By the time they make it back across the small town and to their apartment, the drizzle that was in the air when they left the bar has turned into a torrential downpour, which isn’t as much of a problem for the girls as it is for Killian, who has been wearing the same outfit for four hundred years — that very outfit which now is dripping puddles in the entryway as the girls dig through their suitcases for clothing for him to wear until they can go out the next morning and get him something more modern. 

“I have a pair of sweatpants?” Emma offers, running from her room with them and another towel to where he is waiting. “Though I do have to apologize, you’ll have to… uh…” She is useless against the blush that rises to her cheeks, even more so when she raises her eyes to find a knowing smirk on his face. “I have nothing for you to, uh, wear under them.” 

He leans in towards her, adding a smile to his smirk as his lips almost graze her ear. “No different than usual, love,” he murmurs, pulling away to watch Emma’s eyes widen in realization before he says, “Now, where should I go to change, unless you would like to offer your assistance?” 

“Take off your boots,” she responds, trying not to let the effect he has on her show on her face. “The bathroom is on the other side of the fridge.” 

His smirk disappears in a second. “The what now?”

“Oh, shit. Right, four hundred years,” she says, then points to the appliance in question, waiting for him to step out of his boots to follow her. “That large silver thing is the fridge. It’s where we keep cold food.” 

“Ah.” 

“I guess the world has changed a lot over the last four hundred years, huh?” she asks, trying to fill the silence again. 

“Aye, love, it seems it did,” he says softly, swaying into her space again. “Though I will say, I am thankful for the assistance you and your acquaintances have to offer. And incredibly indebted to you for breaking my curse. Even if you’re a tad wary of believing what that means about you and I.” 

Crossing her arms over her chest, she takes a step back from him, needing to put more space between them. “I’m not wary of anything, Jones.” 

“I beg to differ, love. You’re a bit of an open book.” 

I’m not your love, she moves to snap back at him, the words on the tip of her tongue, but they don’t come once she turns her gaze up to his, once she sees the sincerity in his sky blue gaze. Her next breath doesn’t come, either, lodged with the words halfway down her throat and unable to budge.

“I found a shirt that might fit him!” Mary Margaret yells, running into the hallway before Emma can step away from him again, her friend’s eyes widen for a moment before she takes hold of herself. 

“Good,” Emma says quickly, shoving the sweatpants into his arms as she backs away from him, her hands finding the hallway wall behind her. Her breath is still stuck in her lungs, though, and she’s not sure if she’ll ever be able to dislodge it if he keeps looking at her like that. Turning to Mary Margaret, she points to the bathroom as he reaches out to take the shirt from Mary Margaret. “Now he can go get changed, and we can all go to bed.” 

Not even waiting for a response, she turns and rushes down the hallway into her bedroom, practically slamming the door behind her. 

▫️▪️▫️▪️⭐▪️▫️▪️▫️

It takes her much longer to fall asleep than it should after all the alcohol she consumed. Usually, her body is ready to pass out, barely having the energy to scroll through social media before sleep overtakes her; but tonight, she does not even worry about trying to use her phone. Instead, she lays still, her eyes set on the ceiling but her mind set on anything but, small sparks of magic tingling between her fingers. 

What the fuck even happened today? ‘True Love’s kiss’ is absolutely insane, and there’s no way that was what happened with Killian. It must have been her magic, gone awry with her drunken stupor, mixed with the weird weather and that story Belle put in her head. 

Except… 

Except his story wasn’t that far off from the one Belle told them. Cursed by a witch. That’s impossible. Or, there was a point in her life where she would have believed it was impossible. But then she turned twenty and learned that she was a magic-wielder. And if she was a magic-wielder — a witch, by all senses of the word — then why was it so hard for her to believe Killian’s story? 

She already knows the answer to that. It’s because of what it would mean if it’s true. What it would mean about her. About them. 

Maybe if she hadn’t just gotten out of a relationship, especially the relationship she believed was never going to end, it would be a little easier to comprehend. Maybe. She seriously doubts it, she can’t even kid herself with that. But maybe if she hadn’t been so blind and put everything she had into her relationship with Neal, she would not have been as destroyed. And maybe — maybe — if her heart hadn’t been that destroyed just a few days before she moved across a damned ocean, she may have been more open to letting someone else in. Instead, she had decided to bar her heart from more hurt, had decided not to let anyone else in. 

And then Killian came back to life. 

It would be a completely different story if she didn’t feel so drawn to him, if she didn’t actually enjoy his company so much after so short a time. (And, who is she kidding, if he wasn’t so gorgeous.) 

There’s far too much to unpack there, so she tries to close her eyes —  only to see his shining blue ones staring right back at her, sparkling with mischief when he is not being terribly forward. 

What is happening to her? 

She tries to quiet her mind, and when sleep finally does overtake her, all of her dreams are filled with tight leather pants and shining ocean blue eyes. 

▫️▪️▫️▪️⭐▪️▫️▪️▫️

“This is the most terrible swill I have ever tasted,” he comments, setting the mug of coffee back on the saucer in front of him, his face contorted into an expression of pure disgust. He’s tasted a lot of things in his time, especially over all the years he’s spent on ships — hard bread, half-purified saltwater, more kinds of fish than a man should have to endure, but this — it’s all nothing compared to whatever the infernal black liquid in the mug before him is. 

“Alright then,” Mary Margaret says, and Emma rolls her eyes as she pulls the mug back in front of her. “Mark it down, Killian does not like coffee.” 

“For a man who hasn’t eaten for four hundred years, you sure are pretty picky, Jones,” Emma comments, and when she turns to jeer at him, he narrows his eyes, and points the end of his now-hookless brace in her direction. 

He’s still not quite sure why he had to leave his hook behind this morning. Belle tried to tell him that he wouldn’t need it, though he barely agreed with her; it had always proven useful to him in the past, and there was no way for him to know if he was going to need it in this new world. Emma had just told him that it would draw attention to him, which was probably slightly more valid, though it took him years to get past the insecurity of having a hook in the first place. 

And then Mary Margaret, apparently their voice of reason, pointed out just how much easier it would be to try on new clothing without the hook, and he saw the sense behind this and agreed. 

“A man knows what he likes.” 

“Or, more appropriately, what he doesn’t,” she jokes. 

He is already enthralled with her. She’s utterly brilliant in every way that entices him the most: her smarts, the way she is not afraid to speak her mind, how she does not hold back from putting him in his place, not to mention the way he is drawn towards her. Beyond the fact that she has broken his curse, he is thankful for her, to say the very least, though she does not yet seem ready to feel the same about him.  

The waitress drops a plate in front of him and a glass of orange liquid in front of Ruby. He does not miss the way the woman’s eyes scan him, or the half-smile that she offers before turning away — but he also does not miss the flash of anger that crosses Emma’s face at the woman’s attention. He has never had trouble winning affections of women, but the last thing he wants to do is lose what little affection the blonde goddess before him has for him. So, after she takes another sip from the mug, apparently liking the brown liquid — coffee — much more than he does, he smiles warmly at her, picking up the pastry on the plate before him, trying to work the cogs of thought rolling through his head into that one expression before he takes a bite. 

“Oh!” he exclaims, his momentarily-closed eyes missing the way Emma’s eyes go wide at the sound. “This, however, is a confectionery delight.” He takes another bite, closing his eyes again as he quickly chews the mouthful he has just taken. “What do you call this again?” 

“A muffin.” 

“Muffin,” he repeats, liking the way it feels on his tongue, though before he has a chance to say anything else, a loud rumble from his stomach takes the place of any words he may say. “I did order more food than this, aye?” 

Emma smiles at him. “I ordered you waffles. If you think your muffin is good, wait until you get to those.” 

“Thank you, love,” he says, then turns his attention back towards his muffin, though it takes everything in him not to focus on the bright smile that is still spread across Emma’s face. 

▫️▪️▫️▪️

“What is the next thing on our to-do list, Emma?” Mary Margaret asks, signing the bill from their breakfast as everyone gathers their things to leave. 

“Well, Killian needs some clothing that isn’t leather and sopping wet, or scraps from some suitcases.”

While Emma assumed this wasn’t going to be the easiest feat for a man who had never even heard of denim (and who admitted to her the night before he never wore any sort of undergarment), she didn’t expect it to be fun. 

It started when she was standing beside him surrounded by packages of boxers and briefs (after, of course, winning the argument against Ruby of who should help him make this decision), trying to keep her cool and not let the heat she feels rushing through her body show on her cheeks.  

“Why do we need to start with these again, love?” he asks, reading over the words on the back of the boxer-brief package as she does the same with the boxers, if only to avoid his eyes. 

She sighs, wondering how in the world she found herself in this situation. “Because you’re going to need to wear these when you try on pants, so we need to buy them first so you can take them out of the package.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she watches him nod as he turns his attention towards the package in her hands. 

“And, uh, what —” he tries, then takes a moment to cough before starting again, trying to hide his own embarrassment. “What seems to be the difference between these again?” 

Wetting her bottom lip, Emma shakes her head and closes her eyes, still not entirely sure this isn’t just a big, embarrassing dream. “The ones you’re holding are tighter, so they… hold you in place better.”

“Aha.” A beat passes, and he gestures the end of the brace towards her. “So those…?”

“They’re looser, yes.”

“What if, uh���” he starts, darting his eyes towards Emma, but the moment she meets them, he turns his gaze back down to the package in his hand. “What if I choose one of these and decide I do not like them?” 

Emma reaches over and pulls the package from his hand, holding them both at her side as she turns to look at him. “We’ll just buy both and I’ll keep the ones you don’t want, okay?” 

At this, his eyes go wide, his cheeks even redder than they were before, and he fails to hide the way his eyes snap down to her hips before returning to the package in his hand, seemingly needing to avert his gaze. “You wear these, as well?” 

“As pajamas, Killian. I wear them as pajamas,” she replies, rolling her eyes, but she can’t help but smile at him. “Let’s go buy these so we can move on to pants.” 

As they turn away from the aisle and head towards the cash registers, Killian bumps his arm into hers, and when she turns to him, he wags his eyebrows across his forehead. “Are you going to help me with those, too, love?” he asks, his voice deep, embarrassment completely melted away as if they hadn’t been discussing the benefits of boxers versus boxer-briefs just moments ago. 

“Uh, no,” she replies cooly, watching his face fall. “You can handle pants on your own, though I will help you with the fun part, if you need it.” His face lights up in an instant, an almost-inappropriate response on his lips, but when she adds, “The shirts,” it almost disappears again.

“Putting clothing back on is hardly the fun part, wouldn’t you say, love?”

“Jesus, Killian,” Emma breathes, rolling her eyes. “We’re here to buy you clothing.” 

He shrugs, swaying away from her again, and she immediately misses the warmth where his skin pressed against her own, though she tries her hardest to ignore it, even as a chill passes through her body. “Your loss.”

But watching him come out of the dressing room in the first pair of jeans he deems to fit him reasonably enough is definitely not her loss. 

Though the fact that Ruby is sitting beside her when he comes out wearing the first pair takes some of the excitement away. 

“What do you think, Swan?” he asks, coming back around the corner, and before he sees them sitting there, he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror and gets distracted. “I could get used to this denim,” he comments, his eyes going wide as he admires his reflection from multiple angles. 

Ruby lets out a low whistle, and Killian’s eyes snap towards her, his face reddening a few shades when he realizes she’s there. “So could I,” she comments, and Emma elbows her hard.  

“They look great,” she comments, trying her hardest to not make it obvious that she is most definitely amazed with how the dark denim moulds to the curves of his ass. Emma is fairly sure that she’s never stared at a man’s ass with the severity she’s trying to avoid staring at his. “Do they fit you? Are they comfortable?” 

“Well, not as comfortable as my leathers, I will say, but I see why they’ve become more popular.” 

“Did you try the other sizes?”

“The first was definitely too small, since I struggled to even squeeze my thighs into them. But I’m so used to the tightness of my old breeches that I think any looser would make me uncomfortable.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Ruby mumbles, and though Emma tries to ignore her, she fears the anger she feels still shows on her face. Still, though, she tries to push it down. 

“Ready for the next part of the adventure?” she asks, needing to change the subject.

Killian’s face lights up, smiling at her as he slips his hand into his back pocket. “The fun part, aye,” he says, winking at her, and she avoids Ruby’s glare as she follows him back into the dressing room. 

▫️▪️▫️▪️

“Holy shit,” she breathes, the words slipping past her tongue without her permission, and once Killian has tossed the long-sleeved shirt Mary Margaret loaned him on the bench of the dressing room, he turns to her. His eyes have darkened to a stormy blue-grey, his brows low on his face. 

“What?” he asks, a hard bite to the word that Emma feels in her stomach.

“Your tattoos,” she says quickly, trying to alleviate the tension between them, at the same time Killian angrily asks, “My scars?”

“What?”

“What?”

“Your tattoos,” she says again, reaching out to gently run her finger along the one furthest down his forearm, a heart with a dagger through it, all behind a ribbon that reads “Milah” in elegant letters, though she finds herself unable to contain the sparks that shoot from her fingertips at the contact and pulls her hand away quickly, clutching it to her chest. 

When she turns her eyes up to his, they are slowly turning back to a less angry shade of blue. “You have… you have so many,” she whispers, moving just a touch closer to him so she can take a better look at the art that covers his body, for some reason feeling the need to touch them all, though the way her magic responded to his touch simultaneously makes her want to recoil and lean into him all at once.

“Aye, love,” he answers, and she takes the chance to reach her fingers out once more, only a few sparks this time as she begins tracing the circle of the compass on his right bicep that has Greek letters at the compass points and is surrounded with lettering in a different language beside flowers that turn into intricate, swirling linework leading to a skull and crossbones on the front of his right shoulder. “That’s what years spent on the seas will do to a man.” 

“What do they all mean?” she asks, her eyes falling to the very top edge of an anchor in a sea of swirling blue that peeks out over the top of his newly-acquired jeans. 

“They don’t all have to mean things, you know?” 

Her fingers ghost across his chest, both emitting and filling her with a warmth she has never felt before even though she is barely touching the dark chest hair that covers him as her fingers move towards his left shoulder, where the corner of the intricate piece that covers his back comes around with a kraken’s tentacle, tangled with the leather straps that hold his brace on his arm. 

“But some of them do?” 

“Aye,” he breathes, her fingers reaching over his shoulder. Here, he reaches up to hold her wrist, stopping her fingers from moving any further. Pulling her hand away from him, he moves it back to his right shoulder, to the compass. “This one is my first, for my brother. His initials are the north, and the most important lesson he taught me before he was taken is what it says around it.” 

“What language is it in?” 

“You can’t read Gaeilge?” he asks, a touch of humor to his voice, as if he’s joking; but when he looks down at her, at the confused expression on her face, she knows he’s serious. “It’s in Irish, since that’s where my brother and I were born. It says ‘a man unwilling to fight for what he wants, deserves what he gets.’ And the flowers are for my mother, Alyce, since lilies and daisies were her favorite.” 

“How old were you when she passed?” she asks, her voice barely a whisper as she traces the outline of the compass with her index finger. 

“Six. And Liam was ten. We only stayed in Ireland long enough to bury her before father found us passage to England on a ship.”

“Where you joined the Navy?” 

“Obviously not right away, but yes. England was…” his eyes fall to the ground, rubbing his hand against the side of his face. “Let’s just say Liam and I did not have the nicest childhoods, but we — we don’t have to get into that today.” When he looks back up at her, he tries to pull the corners of his lips up into a smile. “The skull and crossbones explains itself, though,” he continues, as if he weren’t talking about the death of his mother and his rough childhood. “Handsome British Naval Lieutenant turned pirate captain. The Jolly Roger became my life. The ship became the only home I ever had.” 

A beat of silence passes between them, Emma’s eyes still set on the intricate flowers around his compass, her fingers lightly tracing the lines and trying to ignore the soft warmth that continues to slowly fill her body, the soft hum of her magic more intense than it has ever been before. 

“Can I see the one on your back?” she says, her voice barely above a whisper, but when she raises her eyes to try to gauge his response, she realizes that he has been watching her intently. It is not until she meets his eyes, almost losing herself in the oceans she finds there, that he slowly nods. 

“Just, don’t… don’t touch it, please,” he mumbles, as if he is ashamed of it — and when he turns around, Emma sees why. 

The artwork is incredible, of course: a ship, bright yellow and brown, caught in the middle of a dark storm, with the tentacles of a kraken coming up out of the sea, some wrapped around the ship and others wrapping around his body. 

But that’s not what Emma’s focus is on. 

If Killian had said nothing, she probably would not have noticed them, but with his whispered words on her mind as she looks at the colors covering the muscles there, she can also see the mangled lines of scars running in every direction, casting small shadows over his back from the harsh fluorescent lights off the dressing room. 

She has nothing to say. There is nothing she can say that would do anything except thicken the tension that lies between them. She watches the rise and fall off his shoulders as he takes a deep breath, then meets his eyes in the mirror. His face is set, hardened, the muscles of his jaw ticking as he grinds them together. 

“Let’s try on one of these t-shirts, yeah?” she asks, smiling softly at him. Of course she wants to know what happened to him, was interested in the story behind his scars, but he is obviously ashamed of them. She has scars of her own, both physical and mental, so she understands the fear that he’s trying his best to hide. If he ever decides that he does want to tell her, then she will be thankful for that day. Maybe someday, she’ll do the same thing for him, let him in enough to learn of her past, her parents that left her on the side of the road, the foster families that never liked her enough to keep her. Getting the hell out of Maine as soon as she was able. 

Maybe someday. 

For now, she just reaches behind her and picks up one of the folded t-shirts that he picked out, a soft blue color that reminded her of his eyes as soon as she ran her hand against the soft fabric. 

“Thanks,” he mumbles, taking the shirt from her hand but avoiding her eyes. “This is the part you said you’d help me with, aye?“ The sadness in his eyes is completely gone, every trace of the past conversation replaced with a single wink.

Emma can’t help but let out the soft chuckle that rises through her chest as she reaches out to bunch up the material so she can help guide it over his head. He gets his right arm through on his own, but seems to be struggling with the left, not sure exactly how to guide the brace through the hole, so Emma reaches out to help. 

But when she wraps her fingers around the edge of the leather strap between his skin and the cool metal, he tears it out of her grasp, his eyes wide and angry when she snaps her eyes to meet his. 

“I can only help you if you let me, Killian,” she says softly, and the longest moment she has ever felt passes before the angry lines on his face smooth away, and he nods. She reaches out again, purposefully trying to avoid contact with the brace. 

“Sorry, love,” he mumbles as they work together to get the tip of his brace through the arm hole, but smiles at her as she helps him smooth down the front of the material. “What do you think?” 

She takes a step back to let him look in the mirror, joining him to look at his reflection. “I mean, it fits. And I like the color. But what I think doesn’t really matter as much as what you think.” 

He smooths the material over his stomach before reaching down to pick up the next t-shirt on the bench. “Is this one smaller?” 

“Yeah, we started with the bigger one.” 

“Can we try the smaller?” 

Emma nods, reaching out to help him take off the large, not even meaning to brush her fingers along his ribcage, but suddenly becoming very aware of the hitch of his breath when her fingers run along the rigid muscles of his chest. And then she makes the mistake of looking up at his face, meeting his eyes in time to watch them darken for just a flash, turning from the bright midday sky to the deep depths of the dark ocean.

“Sorry,” she whispers, her voice much weaker than she anticipated, and she finds herself wondering if his lips are as warm as his skin, as soft and gentle and welcoming as she originally thought they might be.

So she takes a step back, pulling away from him and letting his shirt fall back into place. 

“No, love,” he says gently, reaching down to pull the fabric up as far as he’s able, only needing her help to slide the brace out. “It is I who should be sorry. It’s not your fault I’ve been without a woman’s touch for four hundred years.” She helps him pull the fabric up over his head, taking it from him to refold it but continuing to avoid his eyes. 

Until he reaches out and places his index finger under her chin, pulling her gaze back up to meet his. “I’m truly thankful for all your assistance.  I missed four hundred years, I would be lost here without you.”

The faintest beginning of a smile passes across her face, but that seems to be enough for him, and he holds the next t-shirt out between them. He helps as much as he’s able with this one, though it proves itself to be much more difficult than removing it on his own. The medium is much tighter across his chest, clinging closer to the ridges of his muscles and the sleeves cropped short enough to reveal all but the very top of the compass on his bicep. 

This time when he looks at himself in the mirror, he smiles. “I like this much better, do you agree?” 

She rolls his eyes at him again, but when a smile begins to grow across her features this time, she lets it. She’s faced again with the absurdity of it all, the fact that he’s real, that he’s here beside her — that he’s so absolutely full of himself — but also because damn does she agree. She keeps her mouth shut as he tries on some other colors, keeps her jealousy to herself when every single color he puts on compliments him somehow — the black bringing out the brightness of his eyes, the red his light complexion, the white v-neck a stark contrast to the dark chest hair that peeks out from below the collar while barely doing anything to hide the muscles it is hiding. 

But when he slides a charcoal grey button-down shirt over the crisp white t-shirt, leaving the top three buttons undone as he turns to face the mirror, Emma loses her ability to keep her mouth shut any longer. 

“Is there anything you don’t look good in?” She tries to pull the words back, clamping her hand over her mouth, but it is too late — and when he turns to her, eyes wide with surprise as he runs his tongue over his smiling bottom lip, there is nothing she can do to hide the embarrassment that rises up her cheeks. 

“No, darling,” he replies, which just makes her redden more. “I would like to believe not.” 

They leave the store with three pairs of pants, a handful of t-shirts, a few long-sleeved Henleys (that are, in her opinion, the most unfair-looking on him, though she manages to keep it to herself this time), two button-downs, and a pair of black leather boots. 

As she swipes her debit card through the machine, Mary Margaret leans closer to her, mumbling in her ear, “I thought that money was for emergencies?” 

Sliding the card back into her wallet, she turns to Mary Margaret. “Are you saying that randomly bringing some man to life and being responsible for him isn’t what you would classify as an emergency?” 

Mary Margaret has no response to this. 

▫️▪️▫️▪️

Belle signs them into a study room in the library of Eton College before leading them to the section in one of the back corners where their special “Captain Hook” collection resides — because researching Killian is the next thing they need to do. There are books on J. M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan ; carefully-bound original versions of Barrie’s play and of the original novel form. There are books on what has been learned about Hook, collections of papers written on him, on the fables about the statue, about what can be proven about these fables — which begins, and ends, at the existence of a British Naval Captain, Killian Jones, born in the 1580’s and whose love was killed in front of him and his left hand chopped off on the deck of his ship a few years prior to his disappearance in 1618, according to his discovered Captain’s Logs. 

But that’s it. They spend the next few hours mulling over a few shelves’ worth of materials to discover anything they can about Killian, and all they get is a speculation about his birth and death. 

Though, after Belle reads the last of these findings out loud, Emma rests her forehead against the table in front of her, Mary Margaret and Ruby turn to her, waiting for a response. 

Emma pushes herself to her feet, her breath heavy in her chest. “I’m sorry,” she tries, coming out barely a breath. “I need — I need some air.” 

Before anyone can respond, she is out of their study room and around the corner. 

Thankfully, no one follows her for a few minutes. She finds a bench, her eyes closed as she focuses on the slowly-slowing beat of her heart, on the measured draw of her breath. This is all so much, too much, far too much to handle on top of everything else happening to her recently, and she pushes herself away from the bench, beginning to pace back and forth in front of the shelf, her head flooding with too many thoughts. The break up, the move — all the way across a fucking ocean — and now stories of True Love, corroborated by academic papers and things from this… shelf. 

She turns on her heel, turns back towards the shelf, slowly running her finger along the spines, one shelf and then the next, top to bottom, until she is sitting on the floor beside the shelf. 

Except the bottom shelf is empty, so she can see behind it, where the shelf meets the wall — and there, she sees it: a small, leather-bound book behind the shelf, stuck between the metal and the wall. She reaches back, curling her fingers around the leather binding, and when she finally frees it, she feels the air leave her lungs, suddenly lightheaded and simultaneously weighed down in ways that she has never felt before. 

Jones

Etched into the cover, surrounded by the same intricate, swirling linework around Killian’s Jolly Roger tattoo, is his last name. She opens to the first page, covered in perfect calligraphic penmanship, and reading her slow translation of the old-fashioned spelling certainly doesn’t make it any easier to breathe. 

22 June 1604

Todaye, as the first day of my posytion as captain of His Majestie’s Jewel of the Realm , I, Liam Jones, do begyn here the Captain’s Logs for saide vessyl, where I will hence-forth keep reckord of alle pertinent informatyon. Here, I shal keep track of the dailie happenyngs withe and around the ship, begyning todaye with my taking over as Captain. 

There are more pages of the same, of Captain Jones recording the journeys and missions of the Jewel of the Realm. Until, one day, it changes to a less-perfect script, fewer loops and curls and more ink splattered across the pages. 

04 March 1607

Todaye, our greate captain was takyn from us, kylled on a mission comissyoned by our kinge. As per his last entrie, the kinge sent us to fynd a flower on a smal northern islande under the gyse as a medicinal herbe that would help overcome a great syckness that has spread through the lande. In hopes of provieng me wrong,  Liam  Captain Jones cut his own arme wyth this plante and was quicklie kiled by this herbe, which turns out to be not medicyn, but poisyn. In his deathe, I, Lieutenant Killian Jones, have taken up his posytione as captain of this vessle.

Because of the coruptyn of the kinge, the kynd of man that would send his naval officyr to collect this poisyn for him, I have decyded to sail this ship not in the name of the kinge, but insted now in the name of pyracy. This shyp is no longer the Jewel of the Realm , but wyll hence-forthe sayl under the name of the Jolly Roger , flying pirate colors. 

She continues to flip through the pages, reading clips here and there as Killian describes the workings of a pirate ship. 

Slowly paging through it, Emma can’t believe what she is seeing before her very eyes. “This is… impossible,” she whispers, running her index finger down one of the pages that catches her eye.

12 April 1610

Milah’s husband founde his waie to the JR todae. The whole crewe tryed to fight him offe, but were useles agynst whatever forms of Blacke magyk he has at his dysposal, and as I was dueling with him, I tooke a particularle bad blow to my left hande, cleaved clean offe, whych the Crocidyle tooke with him when he disapeard. We could not act in tyme to save Milah from his Evil, either, and there was nothyng I could do as he crushed her hearte before mye very eyes and she crumpld to the deck, pledging her love to me wyth her last breathe as the vyle man dysapearred into a cloud of ashe and smoke. I vowed to her that I would avenge the wrong that her wycked husband did againste her, and even as her bodie now lay on the bottom of the Sea, it is a vow that I feare wyll follow me to the grayve. 

“Impossible,” she breathes again, knowing that the words corroborate the story he recalled to her with more detail than she could have imagined. So she turns to the end, and though the last few pages are blank, there are a few covered in a script other than Killian’s, she assumes after he is cursed and his First Mate takes over. 

18 Jan. 1618. 

Captain Jones was todaie deceivd by a member of hys own crewe, believed now to be working undere the orders of Rumpelstiltskin, the Dark Magicyan marryd to the Captain’s love Milah. Folowyng the directione of this man, he and Jones, along with meself and Lt Humphrey, ventured into the foreyst northe of the English towne Berkshyre to fynd a wytch said to have a spelle to lead him to his enemie and help defeat hym once and for alle. Instead, folowing the wytch’s instruction, we watchd helples-ly as his bodie instead transformyd into stone before our eyes. Instead of transcrybing, I have included it in the backe of this booke in hopes that one daye we may fynd a way to sayv our goode Captain from the wytch’s kurse. 

Quickly finishing the end of the page, which turns out to be the last written page in the book, Emma turns through the remaining pages until she finds what the First Mate said he left in the book, though it seems to be by some sort of miracle that it is still attached. 

Stuck between two of the last few pages, Emma finds a small piece of paper, no more than two inches wide, which was probably rolled up at one point, though it has since then folded flat; when she unrolls it, she finds it to be around a foot long. The writing on it is more calligraphic than the script from the Captain’s Log, parts of it more difficult to read with age and part of the bottom corner torn off, but at she reads it, she feels the breath leave her lungs. 

Captain Killian Jones, cursed synce the d———s brother’s lyfe-less body into the Sea, now fynds himselfe cursed for alle eternity to watche the World move around hym, use-less agaynst the kurse of time that will ——— of the villainous blakness that filles hys heart after —————— untile the daie his One True Love saves hym with True Love’s Kyss. 

Using the shelf behind her to help her back to her feet, she rushes back around the corner to the study room, the leather-bound book clutched between her hands. She wants to just reveal what she has found, but she has another plan, one that would allow her to corroborate this story of Killian’s.

“Killian!” she yells, pulling open the door, and every eye in the room is wide as they turn towards her. 

“Yes, love?” 

“When — when was Milah killed? What day?” 

“Emma, you can’t really expect— “ Mary Margaret says, but Killian holds up his hand, silencing her as he speaks. 

“The twelfth of April, sixteen hundred and ten.” His answer comes immediately, not even needing a moment to pull the answer from the back of his mind. 

“And what about — what about the day Liam died?” 

“The fourth of March, four years prior. Swan, what is this about?” 

In response, Emma tosses the book down on the table, where it slides across the surface and lands in front of him. 

Killian’s eyes go wide, a smile spreading across his face as he runs his thumb over the embossed leather cover — but everyone else in the room is utterly confused. 

“What is this?” Ruby asks as Killian flips open the cover and begins to read over the pages in front of them. 

“This is the Captain’s Log from my ship, though how this library managed to get their hands on it is a bloody miracle. It has — it has everything in it. It starts during Liam’s time as a Captain, the mission the king sent us on that got him killed. The turn to piracy. Milah. It’s all there.”

Mary Margaret and Belle turn towards Emma at his words, Ruby’s eyes set on the script from across the table. 

Emma nods. “I read through it, and it’s all there. It has Milah’s death, Killian losing his hand, getting deceived and visiting the witch.”

“Where did you find this?” Belle asks, turning to look at the pages over Killian’s shoulder. 

“It must have fallen behind the shelf at some point, it was wedged between it and the wall all the way at the bottom.“ 

"Brilliant,” Belle whispers, and when Emma turns to Killian, he is brightly beaming at her, as if he can tell that this find brought her so much closer to actually believing all the madness that is happening around them. 

“And,” she says, holding up the slip of paper that she has kept between her fingers. “I think I know what to do next." 

They make a plan — and not one that the rest of the girls like. Killian still has the map in his satchel that he used to find the witch’s cabin the first time around, and even though the town has changed a lot over the past few hundred years, they can get a general idea from natural landmarks and as soon as they are out of the town, Emma will cast a locator spell on the witch’s parchment from the journal to take them the rest of the way there. 

"I just don’t understand why just the two of you are going,” Mary Margaret argues, and not for the first time. “You don’t have to go alone, so I don’t see why you’re insisting on doing just that." 

"Admit it, darling,” Killian says, leaning closer to bump his shoulder against hers. “You just want to get me alone." 

Emma rolls her eyes at him, hoping that it is enough to hide the blush that rises to her cheeks when she realizes that he’s actually right — he’s growing on her, damn it, and she is actually beginning to like spending time with him.

Though neither of these reasons are the ones behind her insistence that they go alone. "This is a journey that Killian and I should take together, just the two of us,” Emma says quickly, trying not to wince at how hopeful that sounds. “Besides, he’s an excellent swordsman and I’m a magic-wielder. I’m sure we’re more than capable of taking care of anything that we come across on this journey." 

Finally, Mary Margaret smiles in response to this, and again Emma tries not to wince at how hopeful she looks.

"We should get home and prepare for this adventure, though,” Belle says, always the voice of reason. “Plus then the two of you can get ready to fly back home tomorrow." 

“Can I ask you a favor first, ladies?” Killian asks, pushing away from the table, and Emma turns her attention towards him. “This is one of the places where one would go to procure new information, right?” 

Emma nods, and he nods in return. 

“What do I have to do to borrow a few books? To help me learn about the four hundred years of updated technological advancements that I have missed.”

Emma turns to Belle, who is already digging through her purse to find her employee ID. “Of course,” she says. “Whatever I can do to help.” 

“I’d like to spend some time to peruse what’s available,” he says, making his way out of the room. “I’ll be back before too long.”

In what Emma realizes immediately is an out-of-character goodbye for him, he leaves the room without another word. She watches as he walks away from their room, heading away from their corner of the library, and by the time he has turned the corner and exited her line of sight, she realizes Ruby is trying to talk to her, though she heard none of it. 

“What?” 

“I said, what do you think you’re going to do?” 

“What do you mean ‘what am I going to do’? I’m going to see what we can learn about him and this — this witch that cursed him to try to get him back where he needs to be.”

“What does that mean?” Mary Margaret asks, dropping the pen from her hand onto the notebook in front of her. 

“You know,” she tries, twirling the end of her ponytail around her pointer finger. “He has to have something…” She shakes her head, not even sure exactly what she is trying to say. Not even sure what the excuse she is trying to make is. “… Somewhere he can… somewhere…” It’s still too much to try to take in, too much to try to take as seriously as her friends want her to. 

When she looks up at Belle, she is also shaking her head. “If the stories are true, and if what he’s been telling us is true, he’s been a statue since the 1600s. That means he has nowhere, no one, no home. Nothing except us, the people that were there when the curse was broken.” 

Emma shrugs, trying to avoid anyone else’s gaze. She supposes it could be worse; she at least has friends that are willing to help her figure out whatever the hell her life has become. If she was alone, just her and Killian, it would be a completely different story. 

One where she never kissed a damned statue in the first place. Never broke a True Love curse on a drunken dare. Never brought an incredibly attractive man back to life to follow a prophecy, apparently. 

“I just…” she tries, holding her head in her hands, and then repositions herself to lean back in the uncomfortable wooden chair, focusing her eyes on the ceiling. “I have no idea what any of this means. What am I supposed to do with him? How do I explain to customs that he has no passport because he was born in 1580-whatever and has been a statue for four hundred years when I want to go back to America? I barely make enough money to sustain myself, nonetheless this new person, who has none of the skills or knowledge he needs to get a job. Is he going to live in the spare bedroom for the rest of my life?” 

Mary Margaret reaches over to gently run her hand across Emma’s back. “But he’s your True Love. That has to mean something.”

Emma grinds her jaw together, squeezing her eyes shut before snapping her head to the side to look at her friend. “Not at the moment it doesn’t. My relationship literally just fell apart. I wasn’t — I wasn’t even ready to find some gorgeous Berkshire guy to have a quick fling with and never speak to again, so I definitely wasn’t ready to break some bullshit one True Love curse on a drunk dare. You can’t just — love doesn’t just work like that.”

Ruby leans across the table towards Emma, worry painted across her face. “So what do you think you’re going to do?” she asks, her voice soft. 

Emma crosses her arms on the table in front of her, resting her forehead on top of them. “At least I don’t have to leave for America in the morning,” she reminds them, simultaneously changing the subject. She really doesn’t know what to say. Thankfully, none of her friends push her any further.

"Besides,” Belle adds. “We don’t want to keep you two from travelling back home any longer than we need to." 

Mary Margaret smiles, no doubt thinking of David and their two-year-old son back at home, but Ruby just waves her hand, dismissing the thought. 

"All I have to look forward to back at home is going back to work, and even saying that I'm looking forward to it is a stretch." 

"Ruby,” Emma groans, not wanting to have this argument again, but there’s no need once Mary Margaret speaks again. 

“Whether you like it or not, Ruby Lucas, you’re getting on that plane with me tomorrow and going back to Boston." 

Huffing, she crosses her arms over her chest, looking even more like a teenager when she adds a roll of her eyes. "Ugh, fine." 

▫️▪️▫️▪️⭐▪️▫️▪️▫️ ▫️▪️▫️▪️⭐▪️▫️▪️▫️

tagging the crew:  @let-it-raines @kmomof4 @welllpthisishappening @wellhellotragic @teamhook @gingerchangeling @ultraluckycatnd @resident-of-storybrooke @jonirobinson64 @nikkiemms @bmbbcs4evr @spartanguard @stahlop @jennjenn615 @xrandomdreamx @kday426 @courtorderedcake @kingofmyheart14 @aprilqueen84 @pirateherokillian @capswantrue @socmono @superchocovian @darkcolinodonorgasm 

(it you’re not here and want to be, let me know!! – there will be a part two!)

[jmeelee]

@vibranivmheart tumblr ate your fic request ask but here is:

#40: things you interrupted me to say

Derek and Stiles meet, of all places, in the supermarket when they are five and six years old, respectively. Their moms, Talia and Claudia, stop to chat at the end of the refrigerated food isle, and the two boys size each other up over the sides of metal shopping carts brimming with fruit snacks and frozen broccoli.

It’s Stiles who breaks first, overcome with excitement at finally meeting the infamous Derek Hale, whom his mother has mentioned to him. Now that the world knows about and accepts supernatural beings, the Hale family can finally be themselves. Stiles has stars in his eyes as he says, “Wow, you’re—“

“A werewolf! I know! Isn’t it cool?” Derek interrupts.

And so it begins.

*****

“He’s coming, Scotty. How do I look?” Stiles smooths a hand needlessly over his shaved head.

Scott grimaces and zips up his backpack. “A little sweaty, to be honest.”

Stiles rolls his eyes, shoves his hands into his pockets and then pulls them out again. He grabs his hoodie string and starts chewing the end. “Thanks for nothing. Now scram.”

“Good luck!” Scott calls over his shoulder as he heads down the crowded hallway to third period. Stiles puffs out his chest as Derek walks up.

“Hey… Hi,” Stiles sputters, letting the string fall from his mouth, fingers twisting in the front of his sweatshirt. Derek raises one eyebrow. “So I was thinking. There’s a dance on Friday and—“

“Stiles, no way.” Derek shakes his head.

“No?” He squeaks. In his brain’s obsessive computing of how this would go, being shot down so quickly didn’t factor in.

“You can’t go to a middle school dance.” Derek spins the dial on his lock, and it clicks open. “They’re social suicide. Laura told me so; she’s in eleventh grade and knows everything.” He swings his locker open and grabs his history textbook. “And besides, only couples go to those kinds of things.”

“Well, see, that’s the thing. I was thinking maybe—“

“Stiles,” Derek sighs. “Lydia Martin won’t even give you the time of day. She definitely won’t go to the dance with you.” He stands on tip-toes, scrounging for his spiral notebook.

“It’s on the bottom,” Stiles reminds him, “where you always throw it at the end of the day.”

“Oh yeah! Thanks. Anyway, I heard from someone on the basketball team that she likes Jackson Whittemore, and is hoping he asks her to go.” The locker slams shut with a foreboding sense of finality.

“Yeah. Okay, geez. I guess you’re right.” Stiles slips the straps of his backpack over his shoulder, and clutches his books to his chest. “Want to come over and play video games with Scott and I instead?”

“Sounds good!” Derek smacks him on the shoulder. Stiles winces, but not from the force.

*****

“I’m going to fail this final,” Stiles proclaims over the buzz of the cafeteria. “I’m going to fail and Lydia’s GPA will surpass mine and I’ll never become—”

“Valedictorian,” Derek finishes, the word muffled around a huge bite of peanut butter and jelly. “But you will. You’ll ace this test, Stiles. Come on. You always think you’ll fail and you never do. You’ve got this in the bag.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, buddy. Now, are you going to eat the rest of those fries?” Derek slides over the flimsy recycled cardboard holder, leaving a smear of grease on the speckled laminate tabletop.

Erica smirks, a lock of blonde hair curled around her finger. “Where’s the honeymoon going to be? You guys are like a married couple, sharing your food and finishing each other’s sentences.”

Derek’s hackles rise, and he opens his mouth to refute her ridiculous claim when Stiles’ laugh rings out like a bell. Derek never fails to be amazed at how easily jabs seem to roll off his back. “Maybe we would be married if he’d actually let me finish one.” Stiles winks at him, and something foreign flutters behind his ribs.

Derek sits in his hard plastic seat, shell shocked. Stiles throws a fry at his furrowed forehead.

*****

Derek’s never seen Stiles this angry before. He’s the supernatural being, he could kill a man with his bare hands, but right now Stiles—all 147 pounds of him— is the force to be reckoned with. “You think you know what’s best for everyone! But you don’t!” A long finger is stabbed into the center of his chest.

Derek bristles. After all this time, after all they’ve been through, all the people they’ve lost, how dare Stiles think Derek isn’t acting in his best interest? “I do! I’m the—“

“Alpha!” Stiles’ scream rips across the clearing like a needle scratching a record, silence descending in its wake, and all the wolves pause and stare. Derek’s mouth finally snaps shut. “I know,” Stiles seethes. “We all know. Now why don’t you start acting like one?”

There’s three other people out here with him, all he has left in the world to call family. But as Stiles turns and walks away, Derek’s never felt more alone.

*****

“Come on, Stiles!” Derek calls through the front door. “Let me in!”

“Not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin!” Stiles shouts back.

“Cut the crap and open up!” He pounds on the fiberglass with a meaty fist. “And you know you can’t grow facial hair for shit!”

The door swings open so fast Derek face-plants in the entryway. “You take that back, asshole!” Stiles’ face is livid.

Derek rolls over onto his back, exposing his belly. Stiles narrows his eyes at the submissive position. “I know you’re mad, but I can’t apologize for trying to keep you safe. It’s what I’ve always done. It’s what I’ll always do.”

“That’s just it, Derek.” Stiles grabs fistfuls of hair at his temples and pulls. “I’ve been running with you since I was a kid, but you never see me. You never hear—“

Derek scoffs. “What are you talking about? You’re all I see.”

Stiles drops the hands from his hair and squares his shoulders. He puts one hand on the doorknob. “I wish I believed that, but I don’t. I’m tired of being one more thing you need to take care of. I think you should go.”

Stiles isn’t looking at him, gaze fixed on a spot on the wall. Derek sits up, eyes imploring, and wraps a hand around Stiles’ leg. “I’ll go, if you want me to, but I’d rather stay, and fix this. Fix us. I’ll do anything. Just name it.”

Stiles glances down at him. “You have to let me talk. You have to let me say what I need to say, and don’t interrupt.”

Derek mines zipping his lips. The tiny smile he earns in return bolsters his resolve.

Stiles reaches down and grasps Derek’s outstretched hand, pulling him up. He takes a deep breath, and says, “The truth is, I love you, and I’ve been trying to tell you that for a very long time.”

*****

“And do you, Derek, take Stiles to be your—“

“I do.”

Stiles smacks Derek upside the head. “Let the man finish!”

Derek turns to the officiant—who looks five seconds away from wetting his pant—with a sharp smile. “Are you finished?”

“Yeah, sure.” He leans over the podium, signs his name on the marriage license. “Just kiss him already.”

“My pleasure.”

“You’re such—“

“An idiot? An asshole? You signed up for a whole lifetime of this.”

“I did.” Stiles smiles, leaning in for a kiss. “I think I got a pretty good deal.”

Send me a pairing and prompt and I will write you a mini fic

[cost-of-chaos]

All You Need Is Love (Chapter One)

Roger Taylor x OC

Summary: Ronnie is an art student who’s friendship with Freddie Mercury has turned her life into one of fun and constant adventure. Life with a famous drummer boyfriend has been amazing so far but what will happen when backs are turned?

Note: This is my first Queen fic, so uh please be nice?

Words: 1.6K+

“Don’t go! Come with me on tour love, I’m gonna miss you so much!” The words echoed into the room from what must be our small kitchen down the hall. I was currently wedged between the bed and a small suitcase which was resting against our set of drawers in the fruitless endeavour of packing. I was surrounded by my whole wardrobe, and some of Rogers, as I attempted to pack clothes which wouldn’t add to the already mounting disappoint from my parents. The packing, however, was stalling as I tried to negotiate a clingy cat sitting I my lap nuzzling my arm for more chin scratches. I leant back against the wooden bed, groaning in frustration.

“Rog, you know I don’t want to go, but it’s Beatrice’s wedding, I need to go to it, I have no choice. You know I’d prefer to go on tour with you guys”

Roger appeared in the doorway cradling two steaming hand-painted mugs. After battling the messy room, he wedged himself beside me in the cramped space.

“I brought you a cuppa, that’s another thing they don’t have in lousy America, there’ll be no good tea over there!” He says, only half seriously, handing me a mug. I leant into his chest and the intoxicating scent of his expensive cologne combined with Marlboros filled my nose and a wave of sadness washed over me.

Taking a sip, I took up at him, he was looking rather adorable with messy bed hair and a three-day growth of stubble, and it made it even harder to go.

“Babe... Do you think they’d disown me if I abandoned my maid of honour duties to follow my rockstar boyfriend on tour to Japan?”

“How about we forget about the stupid wedding, we have...” he quickly glanced down at his black leather wrist watch, “ 6 hours until we need to leave for Heathrow, let’s make some fun memories for you to remember me by” he said with a wink, a cheeky grin rapidly growing across his face.

“ Hun, I’m only going for a wee-“ I was cut off mid-sentence by Rogers lips colliding with mine with such force and passion that a spark of heat instantly lit inside of me.

After a moment, I pulled myself away from his lips once I felt him start to deepen the kiss and unbutton my shirt. “I’m gonna miss you soo much, promise me you’ll miss me too?” I ask hating how whiny I was sounding. It was the first time I wasn’t accompanying the boys on tour and I knew how flirty he got after a good show, I mean that’s how we got together for god's sake!

-Flashback 1969-

“Alright love?” Roger flashed me the first of many cheesy grins, his eyes sparkled in a way that drew me in. He was pretty fit behind the drums during the show but now he’s standing in front of me his beauty shone.

His eyes slowly trailed over my body and I suddenly felt very subconscious in the short mini skirt and sheer blouse Freddie encouraged me to borrow from my roommate. “So Fred, care to introduce me to your friend?” He said, leaving his mouth slightly open in a way which made me wonder what they felt like.

Freddie turned back from the group of people he was talking to, bringing his attention back to the two strangers undressing each other with their eyes. “That’s just the most talented artist you’ve ever met! She’s making all of my work look like absolute shit in all my classes, her name is Veronica”

“You can call me Ronnie” I correct him, “and I’m not that amazing at art, really!” I force out a laugh, feeling awkward.

“I’d love to see your stuff sometime… Ronnie”

We were interrupted by Brian and John also wanting introductions to Freddie's new friend. The topic of the conversation quickly changed to one revolving the things which went wrong in the gig and new song ideas. Although I tried to keep up with the technical jargon I was hopelessly distracted by the gorgeous specimen in front of me enthusiastically talking about a new drum beat he’d made up the previous day. He was wearing an open vest and had necklaces adorning his neck. It was the type of outfit that would look ridiculous on anyone else but on him he oozed sex appeal. I couldn’t help but picture what it would be like to kiss that chest, to pull that soft looking hair as he did whatever he wanted to me. As he was standing there listening to the other guys, with his mouth hung open and his eyelids partially closed, I thought he was the prettiest man I’d ever seen before. It was while I was imagining kissing him that he finally looked up, noticing I was staring at him.

‘Fuck. Smooth Ronnie’, I mentally kicked myself. He gave me a cocky smile and I could have sworn he winked, but I started backing out of the little circle. “I’m just gonna get a drink!” I said quickly before running away to the bar.

Standing at the bar, I berated myself, 'how do I always embarrass myself like this? He’s going to think you’re pathetic'.

I turned around, leaning my back on the bar and watched as two beautiful women walked up either side of him. They were all over him, like cats in heat and I felt silly for even being interested in him. Of course, he's not going to be interested in me.

“Miss what will it be?” I tore my eyes off of the scene that was beginning to make me feel nauseous.

"A large Gin and Tonic please!" As I took a handful of nuts to occupy myself with as my drink was prepared, the couple next to me started bickering. Great! Even though I'm single I still get to listen to couple fights. What fun! I tried listening in to pick a side but my attention was drawn from them as I felt someone touch my bottom.

"How are you doin' love?" I heard a raspy voice in my ear.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" I yelled, slapping the handsy offender.

I felt my jaw drop as I turned around to see who it was, "Oh Roger, sorry I hit you!"

"Are you saying you want to be touched by me, Ronnie?" The sound of my name coming from him was intoxicating.

"Well, let’s just say you're a lot better than some of the guys who've hit on me recently." His face lit up with this, “Whatcha drinking Ronnie?”

“Just ordered a G and T”

“Make that two mate!” Roger yelled over the crowd to the barman.

"I thought you were talking to those two leggy blondes," I said, not being able to keep the judgement from seeping into my tone.

"Nah, I don't think either of them could even keep a conversation going... you, on the other hand, you seem interesting". I couldn't help but smile at his comment, "Why do you think that?"

"Well there is the obvious reason that you're a total fox, but I've also heard Freddie talk about how you're always reading, so you must be pretty smart, and on top of that, you have a bit of a personality, you actually stand up for yourself. You're different, and I like different."

He looked at you, his blue eyes twinkling, he looked so innocent and sincere. So different from the man with the groupies draped off his half-naked body a few moments ago.

"Well, you know how you wanted to see my artwork... do you want to come and see them now?" I asked in a moment of boldness.

"You know what? I'd love that Ronnie." He finished his drink in one gulp and took my hand in his, leading me through the crowd to the front door.

With the vinyl playing Fleetwood Mac softly in the corner of the room. Laying on our now unmade white linen in post-coital bliss, our legs intertwined and my head was resting on Rogers' chest as his breathing slowed down, this was the best goodbye I could’ve asked for. He looked boyishly handsome with his hair a mess and a rather large hickey now adorning his neck as my goodbye present to him. As he took a long drag of his cigarette, the sun came out of hiding behind the clouds and the sunflowers I’d painted on the window reflected on him making him look almost transcendent in the soft yellow light. He passed me the cigarette and I took a drag, blowing a smoke ring up in the air. I climbed off the bed and started to walk back to the packing pile but was pulled back onto the bed before I even made it halfway. I couldn't help but let out a squeal as Roger pinned me down onto the bed by my wrists, stealing back the cigarette and placing it in his mouth.

"Rog! I need to pack!" I argued, wanting nothing more but to stay in bed with him all day.

He put the cigarette out on the ashtray on the bedside table, "Just pack everything love" He said, nuzzling into my neck as he trailed kisses down my chest. "They won't like any of our clothes, we're too rock n roll for them" His kisses had now made their way past my belly button. He pulled my legs apart and kept going further down until he reached my wetness.

"Good idea" I stuttered out. It was going to be a miracle if I didn't miss this flight, but boy were we going to have a fun time being late.

[ibitchytimemachine]

I haven't been reading fanfic as much lately due to some real life BS and I have been working extra hard on a piece for the @vegebulocracy mini bang! If you don't know what it is, you can check out my review of the Big Bang fics by clicking here, or you can check out the FAQ for the VBO Mini Bang by Clicking here. (once the fics drop, I will voraciously consume them and write up an overview for y'all!)

Now, with that out of the way, ON TO THE REVIEW. There will, as always, be Spoilers below the cut! 

The first thing that stands out to me is the world building of this story. The palace feels like a real place. It is huge and even though (through POV) we are only privy to a small slice of the space, it feels vast. The exploration of the races is really interesting to me. I really am nerdy when it comes to this type of thing, and the variety of humanoid races in the piece is fantastic. There isn't just one or two races that are explored, and the writer is really smart how they introduce and develop the important characters. Also interesting are the dynamics between Vegeta and his Father, and the Saiyan race and the Colds/other races (Im not gonna get into this in the review, but its an interesting dynamic set up that I want to see explored more). 

So diving in a little deeper. Humans are practically extinct, but Saiyan males are like uber attracted to the women AND the Human-Saiyan hybrids are good match. The Saiyans like humans so much, that most of the human men are killed and one of the only ones left, Yamcha is being forced to impregnate as many of the female left as many time as possible. The way that the writer treats Yamcha is fantastic. I am granted not a huge Yamcha fan, but through the story events, you just can not hate him. He is being molded by his circumstances, and boy howdy Yamcha’s circumstances are pretty fucking terrible. Can I say how much I love the fact that in this society a hybrid is not looked down upon? Like whoa racial acceptance and diversity FTW! Now there have definitely been hints at the fate of acceptance of our Prince Trunks, but that is a problem for pretty far off.. maybe.  

God I hate how much of a hoe Vegeta is. He fucks so many different women, and there is legit a plot bunny that literally explores the palace brothel and its treatment of the whores the Prince is down with/what he likes and doesn't (random tangent - like whoa, this flashback with his father and the princess who kisses him, damn - I thin I would be fucked up too Veggie, but I still have issue with who you have turned out to be). I think that you are supposed to have a love hate relationship with him, because one second he is acting incredibly out of character (for him) and lovey dovey and the next he is verbally/physically or emotionally abusing poor Bulma. While I understand WHY Vegeta is written this way, I low-key hate him. Two instances where I LOATHE him stick out to me, the first being when he fucks a chick while he forces Bulma to lay in bed with them and watch him (the subtext of him not being able to enjoy himself without watching/being near Bulma is interesting though) and then the next morning when he sexually assaults her for a little hand-gooing is just yuck. I will say that I think that if/when Bulma gets her head out of her ass SHE will be the link Veggie needs to finally stand up to and defeat his asshole father. 

He does end up having to save and protect her a whole hell of a lot. Bulma is take from her home really kind of young, so she doesn't have the technological genius going for her in this story (and can I say I think this is an interesting exploration of how she would have developed away from her planet and in this hostile environment) and in fact she is dumb as shit. Like teasing the princess of a warrior race, who is supposed to be getting pregnant by Vegeta due to a treaty the two planets have set up, hello Bulma, WAR is in the races name - leave the crazy royal alone. Also wandering around LOOKING FOR THE DUNGEONS?! Whiskey Tango Foxtrot woman! You legit brought that shit upon yourself. Also what kind of terrible servant mother fucking FALLS ASLEEP in their masters beds? Like before he starts making her do it (a trope that I gotta say I hate to love) this stupid woman is CONSTANTLY FALLING ASLEEP IN VEGETAS BED. and then she is all like “no, I know I am being super disrespectful to you, and I know that you really want to do stuff with me, but I am gonna give you the worst bluebells of your life” like thank you @lightphyre for not having his outright rape her, which I unfortunately think would be very much in character for him in this story. anyway can we talk about the moment that made me think “imma write a review for this story?” So Bulma had just saved ChiChi from Yamcha (OMG Goku is a teacher to little kids? like this is him as the good dad to Gohan I know he can be - its far enough off but I just see all the fluffy moments in my head- love the treatment of Goku here) and Vegeta sees the danger IMMEDIATELY and has to drag Bulma away (come on Queen B, you are WAY smarter than you are being in this story, even without living with your parents and getting all the expensive education) then Vegeta, without prompting or even explaining what he is doing JUST MOTHER FUCKING TEACHES HER HOW TO GET OUT OF BASIC HOLDS. This was the moment that I was like... ok so maybe I only 90 percent hate him. He is mean as hell to her here, but like, she's a fucking idiot and needs him to be straight to the point, this also is the turning point for their relationship dynamic (he's still an ass, but what are you gonna do?) and leads to a mother fucking confusing, but kind of (in its own way) sweet moment between the two. This happens in Chapter 9, so if you don't read anything else, go read that shit... here Imma link the chapter for you... RIGHT HERE.

This shit is a low burn... Like Damn. I thought that Drought was killing me getting to the point (another great read I have linked the title for you), but like... even with all the kissing and the sexual assault and the consensual jacking off, its still leaving you just utterly frustrated. Like remember when I said Bulma was a fucking moron? She won't fuck Vegeta (even though she REALLY FUCKING WANTS TO) because she is a virgin (I get that part) but she wants to “be with” the father of her kids. But she mother fucking knows that she is about to be raped in front of like the whole Planet’s Elite forces to make more Human ladies for them to pound. She knows that literally no one she could be with will be faithful to her (although, I gotta be honest, I legit think if she would put out to Veggie, he would put the breaks on the Whores quite a bit - if not all together) She knows that she is in the best position she can be in, she knows her fate completely, and she is still not taking what she wants by the reins and saying, hey I am in this shitty situation, Why not do something that I want to for once and take a little control of my life? Like she's scared and weak here and I am not a fan of this particular characterization of her. I think she is too flawed. Do I still love her? Well yeah. I mean I hate Vegeta here too, but I think that it is nice that these characters have been made so flawed (and lets be real, the reasons behind their flaws are explained nicely) and they don't get together and instantly all their flaws are gone. It makes to story so much more real feeling. Its authentic how fucked up these two people are, and it keeps the reader reading. Shit I started this story last night around 10pm, and couldn't sleep until I ran out of story to read. Then I let for two hours and HAD to vomit all my feeling out on this blog. So that should say something about the quality of this story. 

Two quick criticisms. The first is I am not sure if there is a beta, and if there is, he or she is not doing their job very well. There are a lot of spelling errors, and it is obvious where the writer had issues figuring out exactly what they wanted to say, because a string of thought will begin, and then the writer will double back and try again. so you will have one sentence with two beginnings. Its just really raw, almost like reading one of my reviews - where I type the way I would talk or how I am thinking. There is quite a bit of refined writing, and the world is amazing, but there are plenty of spots that need a polish that comes with a careful beta. It’s really easy to miss these types of issues without one, which makes me think that the writer is indeed without one. The second is that the story starts with this exposition dump that is entirely necessary for the story, but is just freaking painful to read. Like I almost didn't read the story at all because I began reading the first chapter three or four times and it is just boring. You don't care at the beginning of the story, and it is hard to read this kind of thing without giving a fuck about what is happening. I will say that it is all plot relevant and important, HOWEVER I do think that the writer has peppered this information throughout the story really well, and the information would have been more easily digested AND interesting to the reader if we had gotten into the story instantly. I might go as far to say that all of the information in the exposition MIGHT be unneeded as we get so much of the information from the exposition throughout the characters thoughts, reactions and actions. 

Anyway - this story is fantastic. If you are looking for a really richly planned UNIVERSE and a dark AU that explores characters in a really interesting way, then you should give this story a shot. There are some pretty big triggers in it, if you couldn't guess from the discussion above, so if some of these things bother you, maybe stay clear of the story. I do indeed recommend this story though. Its well written (problems aside), well planned, full of plot bunnies that hopefully get resolved (Im looking at you War princess) and authentic. It has all the elements you need for a long running and successful story, and if my caffeine IV is anything to go by - it is completely binge-worthy! 

If you liked this review, after you check out this fic, head over to my A03 and check my stuff out too!

[fanficparker]

Ocean Eyes | Haz mini series | Part 2

Pairing: (Strangers to Friends to Lovers!) (Imaginary Love Triangle!) (Accidental Adultery!) Harrison Osterfield x Reader

A/n: It was my first ever fanfic, I earlier posted it on instagram and so thought of posting it here too. It’s trash. Check my masterlist for other fics, one-shots & more parts. IT’S A MINI SERIES, SO THERE ARE A LITTLE MORE THAN USUAL TIME SKIPS. I HOPE IT ISN’T THAT ANNOYING *prays*.

Word count: 2.98K

Warning: Physical insecurities, Angst, Drinking, refererence to menstrual phrase.

Description: Y/n Y/l/n, a doctor by profession, loner by destiny, having just a little celebrity crush on a British actor Tom Holland. Her whole life changes when she accidentally bumped into a blue-eyed man on a rainy dark night, who was supposed to be Tom’s best friend Harrison Osterfield. What will happen when Harrison starts to fall for her? This celebrity crush on Tom is intended to create some drama ;)

Part 2…

You were astonished to see your life-long favourite actor in front of your eyes. Thomas Stanley Holland a.k.a Tom Holland, the British actor best known for playing Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. God knows how many times you tried to apply for the Brother trust competition or planned to visit the comic cons when he was there. But because of your bad luck, everything failed. But it looks like you’re having a great day, getting introduced amongst 5 thousand fans is not as fun as being introduced personally. All thanks to Harrison. Tom and Harrison walked towards me chattering with each other. And your life-long celebrity crush is standing just 1 foot from me.

“Hi, there pretty lady. I am Tom… ” You didn’t let him complete his sentence and freaked out.

“Hoolllannndddd..of course, I know you, I am your big fan” Your freaking made both the Brits chuckle. 

After a while, Harrison introduces you to his best mate.

“Tom she’s Y/n, she’s a great doctor and even works for charity.” Tom lets out his hand for a shake. You shook his hand and commented more of asked.

“That’s even more than a brother’s trust thing, by the way, when did you guys meet?” Harrison opened his mouth to answer.

“We met…… Wait! What?!…. I just met you a couple of hours ago, and it seems like I know you from years” he exclaimed with shock.

“Yeah cause you are extremely kind to let me stay here,” you replied smiling through your eyes.

“So if you guys are done appreciating each other, then what are we about to play?” Tom interrupt both of you from staring into each other’s eyes. You noticed that Harrison and you were both were having their gaze fixed on each other. He shook his head, breaking his gaze and rushed to grab a packet of playing cards and UNO.

Why did I feel so good looking into Harrison’s eyes?

All three of you played cards for like 3 hours, talking and giggling to your heart. They told you that they will be leaving on Thursday for London and would love if you joined them, to which you agree only if you pay for your own tickets. It felt so good to have friends. After a while, you finally yawned, and as per the yawning rule or rather magic, they both repeated your actions. All 3 of you dropped the games and got inside the rooms. You were given a really decent guest room to stay.

You went to the bathroom, and uggghhh you realized that you got your periods. You weren’t carrying any pads or tampons with yourself and this wasn’t your house. And of course, you don’t want Harrison’s trousers getting stained with your vaginal blood. Finally, you decided to ask Harrison for the sanitary stuff. Being a doctor, and seeing boys freaking out at the mention of ‘periods’ made you really frustrated. All you wished was that Harrison wasn’t that type of boy. You knocked at his door, but it was already open, so you peeped in, observing that he was asleep, you walked closer to him. You didn’t want to disturb him but there’s no choice.

You started to whisper “Hazzzzzzzzz” by the name Tom was calling him, slightly shaking his body.

He murmured “Okay so now I started dreaming about you y/n.” smiling like an idiot.

“What?!” you blurted out, making him jerked off and wake up.

“Oh sorry I thought I was dreaming of y..” he stops before completing the sentence, he appeared kind of embarrassed

“D-do you need anything, any problem?”

“Umm. Yeah… I just got ummm.. a period and don’t have pads or tampons, so if you have any here?.” He listened to you and rubbed his eyes to elevate the sleepiness.

“Only I live here only, and the only person occasionally coming here is Tom and we both are guys so……..but don’t worry there’s a 24-hour open store in the street, I will bring it from there”. You nodded and he rushed out of the house and in 5 mins came back, handling you a packet of sanitary pads.

“Thank you so much Haz-Harrison”

“It’s fine and you call me Haz” You both shared a smile and greeted each other good night. And you left to your room. You can’t stop thinking about how nice he is with that gorgeous looks. How can anyone not fall for him? What the hell are you thinking about?! You shrugged off these weird thoughts arising in your mind, getting into sleep, only to dream about him, the blue-eyed boy you bumped into today, having no idea that the boy too reciprocated your feelings and felt the same way. Harrison couldn’t stop thinking how sweet and polite you were. How you looked extremely pretty with or without glasses. How his clothes looked so cute on you. And slept with his unconscious mind thinking about you the whole night. Co-incidence? Is it?

•••

The next day the blue-eyed blond boy woke up at 9. He went down to grab some breakfast and to see if you were awake. But he couldn’t find you anywhere rather he found two plates kept covered on the breakfast nook. He removed the cover to see a delicious looking omelette and some bacon on each plate. Then he noticed a note lying near the plates saying:

“Hey Haz,

I need to leave early to check out last night’s patient, and my car too is fine now, so I thought of completing some work and then go to my hotel and start packing up for our Thursday’s flight to London back. Thank you for making me stay last night and for letting me stay in future in your house in London. By the way, I made you and Tom some breakfast. I hope you guys like it. Also, sorry for using the kitchen without your permission, but I didn’t want to wake you up, as you already got to wake up for me in the middle of the night. Once again thank you and I can’t wait to meet you guys again on Thursday in the airport. See you guys…

Love, Y/n…💕 ”

This letter brought an instant smile to his face, but he was kind of sad too cause you left and it’s still 4 days for him to see you again. While he was thinking about the previous night with you, he felt a punch on his shoulder.

“So, what’s up mate?” Tom said removing his hand.

“Nothing, Y/n made breakfast for us.”

“That’s great, where’s she? ”

“She will meet us on Thursday in the airport”

“Oh great, By the way, she’s a great cook” Tom appreciated while munching a big piece of pancake.

•••

It was a long week for you. Of course, it feels longer when you are waiting for something eagerly. You were eager to meet him, not your favourite celebrity but his blue-eyed friend whom you bumped into. It was finally the day to meet him again. You reached the airport eagerly waiting for Haz and Tom to arrive. Just 30 minutes were left for the flight to take off… You were basically not too fashionable, but you couldn’t stop dressing nicely trying to put an 'impression’ in front of Harrison. You were tapping your feet eagerly waiting for the boys to arrive and finally, you saw them.

Harrison saw you standing there waiting. He was seeing you again after almost a week, unable to take his eyes off from you. Tom notices him staring at you. He playfully pokes his elbow into the blond boy’s arm.

“Ouch Tom, what was this for? ”

“Someone’s in love, did the cupid hit yours on your choke hold” he teased him.

“Stop it, Tom, it’s not like what you are talking,” Harrison said softly as he reached you. He knew that you had a celebrity crush on Tom which bothered him in ways he never expected. He instantly wore a fake smile which actually converted into a real smile as soon as you hugged him and greeted. You all greeted each other and headed to the boarding. And soon you boarded the plane. You all had a great time together, it was obvious you are gonna end up being great friends.

After reaching London after that really long journey, we headed to a restaurant as per both of those Brit’s recommendation. Luckily, that place was really nice… It was a great pleasure to travel with these amazing people. We talked a lot, watched some stupid YouTube videos, and even slept. Finally, the flight reached the destination. We head outside the hotel. It was still afternoon in London, and we were quite hungry. So, they took me to one of the restaurants to eat.

“So basically I am thinking as my and Haz’s parents, and Paddy is in France and they are on an exploration trip to see whole of Europe so I guess I, Haz and you shall live in Haz’s house till your place is fully constructed. We all can have a lot of fun.” Tom suggested.

“Yeah yeah, I love this idea,” Haz said fidgeting his fingers. Listening to Harrison’s approval, a slight reddish tint covered your cheeks.

“Yeah, also I guess my house is under construction and Haz-Harrison’s place is near to my hospital, so it really is the best of best options,” you said trying hard not to sound exciting.

“We are friends, you can call me Haz” he smiled, making you smile too. You really felt 100% safe with Tom and Haz. You were really excited to spend time with Harrison ’especially’.

•••

Harrison showed you his home, it was absolutely cosy and felt homy. Haz felt so good to have you at his place, every time you appreciated him, smiled or giggled, he felt his heart-beat increase to dangerous levels.

Time passed away so quickly with Harrison’s company. You and Harrison have already spent three weeks together becoming really close friends. You even be-friended Tom’s brothers Sam and Harry. You can say that you were a part of their gang. Harrison often goes out for shoots, ad films or modelling dropping you to your hospital. You both hung out with Tom and his brothers in the evening most of the times, playing stupid games or doing weird Instagram lives. This weekend you were invited to a pool party at Zendaya’s resort. And it was finally the time to attend this party…

•••

You wore a swimsuit, knowing that almost every girl joining the party would be wearing a hot 2 piece bikini. They all were big actresses or models with a perfect figure, but you were a doctor, so showing too much skin can make you feel embarrassed as what you thought. The little insecurity was travelling your brain. Finally, you dressed up in a pretty floral halter swimsuit. You covered your suit with a cotton shrug so that it would easy to remove it and enjoy the pool party. Haz and Tom were also ready, they must be wearing their swimming pants inside their clothes. You all went to Zendaya’s house. Zendaya warmly welcomed you all. Before going into the pool, you all changed into your swimming outfit. Luckily, you just have to remove you shrug. You prayed that you didn’t look bad in front of other hot celebrities. The decoration around the pool was on fleak. There were barbecues and loads of cocktails. You eagerly waited for everyone at the cocktail counter and soon people started coming out in their swimwear. They all looked even more beautiful in real life than in pictures. You saw Tom, who was looking great like always, but your eyes weren’t searching for him. Your gaze stopped at the blue-eyed blonde. He looked so hot..! An instant, involuntary smile formed on your face, but in the next moment you observed other girls around you, they all looked so perfect with their Godesss like figure.

Constantly seeing celebrities and models with smooth, clear skin and flawless curves walking around you, made you wish desperately for a different body. You looked at your waist, easily spotting some stretch marks, your hands they looked so ugly.

“Why would Haz ever like me?” This question wandered your brain, making you feel weak. You felt like your brain was attacked with tons of insecurities. You felt too weak to face Harrison. Your vision started to get blurry due to the tears forming in your eyes. Your little physical insecurities reached new levels when you saw Harrison talking to another woman, who was absolutely stunning. You also need a dance partner, and the only person you want to hold your waist or look into your eyes was Harrison Osterfield. You couldn’t hold back your tears. You didn’t like anyone seeing you weak, and you felt extremely weak right now. You decided to go inside Zendaya’s house. You weren’t sure if you heard any voice calling your name as you ran inside the house. The kitchen was vacant, so you went inside it, resting your hands on the kitchen counter and your head low, you started pouring down tears. After a few seconds, you heard footsteps approaching towards you, you instantly wiped off your tears, and stood straight facing the wall, your heart still felt heavy and your eyes still wanted to shed more tears. You felt a soft tap on your shoulder. You took a deep sigh turning around, only to see Harrison standing in front of you.

“Y/n, why did your (run?)… ” the blonde couldn’t complete his sentence as he noticed tears marks all over your cheeks. He softly placed his hand on your cheeks, caressing it with his thumb and with a deeply concerned voice he asked “Hey, why are you crying? Tell me if someone misbehaved! I will kill him”

“No it’s not… ” your voice was trembling, your throat felt dry, unable to hold back more tears, you again burst out crying. Unexpectedly the blonde boy hugged you tightly, making your head rest on his bare chest. He brushed your hairs using his fingers while rubbing your back to calm you down. You could hear his heart-beat. Both his actions and heart-beat made you feel safe and calm.

“Y/n why are you crying? Please tell me?” he asked softly breaking the hug as he tucked some lose hair-strands behind your ear.

“Haz….” you wanted to tell him, but your throat was extremely dry making you unable to speak. Seeing you like this, Harrison instantly grabbed a glass of water, handing it to you. You slowly drenched your throat, feeling a lot better.

“Y/n, you can tell me, I was just about to ask for the dance, and you came here running and crying. You are really making me worried” You were shocked to hear that he wanted you for dance.

“Y-you want me for the dance..?”

“Oh yes of course, why don’t I?”

“But I am ugly, and nothing in front of all these beautiful girls who are successful models and have a goddess like figures, what if everyone makes fun of you because of me, what if… ” The blonde boy was extremely shocked to hear all this. He never thought you were any less beautiful than anyother person in the world. After all since, the day he met you, he was unable to stop thinking about you. He interrupted you in the middle.

“What if I tell you that you are the most beautiful person out here, not even out here, actually you are the most beautiful person I have ever met. Not only by your looks but also by our soul. Why would anyone make fun of me because of you? To be honest, if anyone even does that, then it would only because they are jealous of you. Y/n you’re amazing, you look perfect. I really love you for what you are. You can’t just underestimate yourself. You’re perfect.” Listening to his words made your heart flutter. Tears again fell out of your eyes, but they were tears of relief. You hugged him again, his cologne felt so good. After a while, Haz realized that Tom was calling his name.

“Y/n you sniffed on me, I am not even wearing a shirt,” he said sarcastically, giggling at the last, make you giggle too, as you broke the hug. Harrison felt like his whole world lit up, as he saw you smile again. Your laugh was music to his ears. You both didn’t even realize when your gazed got fixed on each other. Your eyes were locked with his and so with him. Harrison flickered his gaze from your eyes to your lips and back to your eyes. He was leaning in towards you, you slowly closed your eyes in response. Both of your faces were just one inch apart when you heard Tom’s voice screaming his best friend’s name.

“Haz Hazzzz. ” You both were stopped in the tracks, as your body jolted and moved back. Tom walked into the kitchen, destroying your moment which actually never happened.

“What are you both doing here? The dance is about to start” he informed.

“Oh yeah, yeah, I was just getting some water” Harrison answered walking away with Tom, giving you a small smile.

(TBC) (IT’S A MINI SERIES, SO THERE ARE A LITTLE MORE THAN USUAL TIME SKIPS. I HOPE IT ISN’T THAT ANNOYING, THX FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT, LOVE YOU) (PART 3 COMING TOMORROW)