#should probably make him some gift art for when he gets to be online again... screaming bc he loves this one character SO much and its | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jihyuncompass · 3 years

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A Birthday Visit

Well well well would you look at that. My very first Tears of Themis fic is for Marius’s birthday who could have guessed (anyone who knows me) Happy Birthday Marius, I can’t wait to see you again <3

For future reference, this fic was written for Marius’s 2021 birthday. As of yet Tears of Themis has not been released for the English audiences. I have played the beta but there is a chance Marius will be a little out of character as a result of the timing.

Summary: You visit Marius’s work to celebrate his birthday with him, even if he’s a little busy

Marius x MC

Word count: 2.1k

Warnings: N/A

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The PAX building was an intimidating one. That thought always came into your mind when you approached it. While the Law Firm was also one of the large skyscrapers that made up the Stellis skyline, the PAX building was taller, and quite the intimidating addition to said skyline.

It wasn’t the first time you’d been here, far from it, but it was rare for you to go into PAX for a non professional reason, or without being explicitly invited by Marius. You looked up at the building, even without meaning to your eyes focused on the window you knew belonged to Marius’s office. There was a good chance he was in there right now.

Adjusting your bag over your shoulder you walked through the doors and into the bustling first floor.

You walked through the groups of professionally dressed employees standing to chat idly, or summarize the recent meetings they had. Or stop to enjoy their coffee for a little while before getting back to work.

“Welcome to the PAX group.” One of the receptionists started as you walked to the desk. “How can I help you today?” You cleared your throat, speaking as eloquently as you can.

“Hello, I’m here to see Mr. Von Hagen? I’m a friend.” You said to the receptionist. She raised an eyebrow and looked up at you. Scrutinizing your appearance.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Von Hagen doesn’t see anyone without a meeting.” You pressed your lips together,

“I can promise you he’s a good friend of mine, it’s his birthday and-”

“I’m sorry I have no way to verify that you are who you say you are.” The receptionist said. You reviewed your options in your head, clearly she wasn't going to let you go up there on the promise of being a friend.

After a moment of brainstorming an idea came to you, digging through your bag you showed the receptionist your work ID badge, listing you as a lawyer for the Themis Law Firm.

“I’m also Mr. Von Hagen’s personal lawyer, he knows who I am.” The receptionist squinted at the ID, hesitant of it’s quality and authenticity. After typing at her computer briefly she sighed and relented.

“Aright, I do see your name here. I’ll let you up there and I’ll give a call to Mr. Von Hagen’s assistant to let them know you’re here.” You thanked her and hurried to the elevator. The first challenge was dealt with, now it was just time to go through with the rest of the plan.

You piled into the elevator with a group of suited men heading to what you assumed were their own desks and offices throughout the building, but you’d be one of the only people going as far up, to nearly the top floor where Marius’s office would be found.

The elevator was nearly empty by the time you made it up, only a few people exiting with you.

One of Marius’s assistants was waiting for you on the other side of the elevator. They greeted you as you approached them.

“Good afternoon.” They said. “I’m afraid to say that Mr. Von Hagen has been stuck in meetings all day so I’m not sure if he’ll be able to see you.”

You pressed your lips together, you should have asked him in advance, he was usually busier than he always let on.

“Well I just have a couple things I want to show him, I’m happy to wait for when he has a spare moment.” The assistant seemed unsure but shrugged.

“Very well, I’ll take you to his office, you can wait there. I’ll let him know that you’re there.” You followed the assistant down the long hallway to the office at the end, the largest by far, belonging to Marius.

The assistant closed the door behind you, the office was neat and tidy as it always was. Although it was Marius’s office, you were always a little disappointed by just how little of Marius seemed to be in the office. The sleek professional furniture, the carefully organized files, cup full of standard ballpoint pens didn’t seem like Marius. The rebellious, creative and playful Marius you knew well and had grown to adore.

Sitting on the couch in his office you decided to make use of your time by setting the present you’d gotten him out on the table, along with the small cake box. With your job and caseload you hadn’t had the time to make a particularly fancy or intricate cake. But something small the two of you could easily share.

You hummed to yourself gently as you got everything set up. Your eyes focused on the work in front of you. So much so you didn’t even notice as the office doors opened while your back was turned.

“So.” A voice said from behind you. The sudden noise startled you, making you jump. Quickly turning around you were face to face with Marius. Dressed with a full suit, although he had that playful gaze he kept around you. Seeing him, your shoulders relaxed, and a smile crossed your face. “I heard you wanted to see me.”

“I hoped I could catch you for a minute for your birthday.” You explained to him. “I should have asked about your schedule, I wouldn’t have come if I knew you were so busy.” Marius shook his head.

“Nah I’m glad you’re here. It’s a perfect surprise.” Marius looked past you and to the table behind you where everything was set up. His eyes lighting up with that almost childlike excitement he got. However that excitement was quickly clouded.

You frowned. “You don’t have a lot of time huh?”

Marius hesitated to answer you. “I don’t have a lot of time, I have a meeting in a half hour.”

As you looked from Marius to the table you straighten your back and beamed at him. “Well then let’s make this a fun half hour! Enjoy the time we have.” With this the playfulness returned. The Marius you loved to see.

Sitting beside one another, you made quick work of slicing the cake into two even slices for the two of you.

“I’m afraid it’s nothing fancy.” You said. “But I have no doubt it tastes good and that’s what matters, doesn't it?”

“Did you make it?” Marius asked, a brow raised curiously.

“I did, I’m not a baker though so be warned.” Marius picked up the fork, picking up the perfect bite of cake to get both the cake and the frosting on top. Watching him closely you made note of his reaction. “What do you think?”

Marius nodded. “It’s good, I think I would even say I’m impressed.” You relaxed against the couch.

“I’m glad you like it.” You said. “I was worried it wasn’t going to be very good.” You took a bite to taste it yourself, the sweetness of the cake hitting your tongue immediately. You’d had better cakes, but still you couldn’t deny the little part of you that was proud of what you’d made.

Not wanting to waste your time you quickly leaned forward to push some presents closer. This seemed to grab Marius’s attention away from the cake in his hand. He set it down to pick up one of the gifts, looking over the basic wrapping paper.

“Go ahead.” You encouraged. “Open it up! Take a look.” Marius stared with the smallest one, quickly tearing off the paper without much thought. He pulled out two tickets, reading the tiny text on them. “They’re for an upcoming art exhibition I read about online, I thought it’d be fun to go together. I don’t know nearly as much about art as you do but maybe you could teach me some stuff.”

Marius smirked. “I guess I could spare some of my expansive art knowledge to impart some on you.”

Holding back from rolling your eyes instead you gave him your best genuine smile. “I would love that. I’d love to learn from you.” Marius seemed pleased by this, as evidenced by the redness that quickly started growing on his face. Looking back at the gift he tried to get himself back under control.

Similar to the first gift Marius tore the wrapping paper off the second one. This one, a hand held sketchbook, bound nicely with a leather cover, his initials MVH put onto the front. A small note you’d written scribbled onto the first page.

“This is-”

“Well, you’re always working so hard here, or studying hard at university, and I know you would probably much prefer to be in your studio painting. So, that’s a little sketchbook, one you can carry anywhere.” Flipping through the pages, Marius’s expression turned soft, warm, happy, not holding that playful spark. “I know you probably could afford any notebook in the world, but this one is customized just for you, not another one of these exists just like it.”

The softness in his face stayed even when he looked up at you, even when he looked down again.

“Thank you, for this.” He held it carefully in his hands, as if he was afraid of damaging it too soon. Before he could even put pencil to paper for the first time. There were still a couple gifts left, but you let him linger on that one. Trying to memorize every single second in your mind.

The rest of the gifts were more basic things, special sweets, some art supplies you’d seen when you passed by the art store on your way home. Despite how basic many of these smaller gifts were, he never seemed ungrateful, and equally happy to see each one.

All the presents unwrapped, and cake nearly finished you both sat together happily. Looking at Marius with the initial excitement wearing off you started to see the exhaustion peeking through. The heaviness in his eyes, the way his shoulders were stiff yet slumped. He looked tired, worn out already.

“Your assistant said you’ve been in meetings all day?”

Marius rubbed his eyes. “Yeah, PAX has a big thing coming up. I’ve been in meetings since eight. This is the first break I’ve had all day.” As he spoke he loosened his tie, letting it release some of the tension in his shoulders and neck.

“You look exhausted.” You said. He sighed and closed his eyes for a few seconds. “Have you been resting?”

Marius’s eyes opened again. “I was at my studio late last night. But I’m fine.”

You looked more concerned, you doubted he was really resting enough. With everything he did, there was no possible way he was letting himself take breaks. Even on his birthday he seemed to be working full steam ahead.

“Marius, why don’t you lay down for a bit? Let yourself rest?” Marius looked over at you, as if he was trying to think through it, crunching the numbers in his head. Gently touching his shoulder you turned him to face you, his eyes raised to look at your face. You loosened up his tie some more and unbuttoned the top button on his dress shirt to let him relax.

“Come on.” You said in a soft voice. “Rest for a little bit.”

He considered this for a little while longer. Then let long a long sigh, he let himself lean forward enough to rest his forehead against your shoulder. Reaching up you rubbed his back, gently massaging to let him relax against you.

“I can’t rest for long.” Marius muttered. “There’s that meeting-”

“Something is better than nothing.” You reminded him. “How about you lie down? You can rest with me until your meeting.” He was still for a little while longer, then lifted his head long enough to move.

Marius’s head was laying in your lap. You gently played with his hair, running your fingers through the strands. Marius’s eyes slipped closed, his breaths long and even.

“My meeting-”

“I’ll get you up when it’s time. Rest right now.” You told him. He sighed and let himself fully rest.

“Thank you.” He muttered.

“Happy birthday Marius.” You whispered to him. Watching him rest, you couldn’t help but smile. This moment was going to be over sooner than later, soon he’d have to get up and get himself cleaned up, he’d go to that meeting, and then the next one and the next one until he could call it a day. He’ll probably go to his studio again, even if he’s exhausted. He’ll try and get some rest, but eventually he’ll get up and start it all again.

But right now he’s with you and resting. Enjoying the short break he could afford. Maybe not the best birthday one could have, but one that was more than happy.

#tears of themis #tot #marius von hagen #lu jinghe #marius x reader #lu jinghe x reader #wrote this in one day with a wrist brace how's everyone else doin

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harryspet · 4 years

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welcome to eden | steve rogers

[Warnings] dark!steve rogers x reader, stepford wives au, wife!reader, marriage au, institutional misogyny, wealthy!steve, housewives au, stepfordization, mind control/brainwashing, forced gender roles, breeding kink, oral sex (male recieving), vaginal sex (wear a condom, kids!), bad editing :)

A/N: i just love the concept of this! i was told this was done before but I hope you all like my interpretation!

THIS STORY CONTAINS TRIGGERING CONTENT

In which the neighborhood you and your husband Steve move into isn’t like anywhere else on earth. The women are flawless and the men are way too happy.

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taglist: @lovelynerdytraveler @buckysbunny @hollandsdream @micki-smiles @buckybarnesplumwhore @arts-ismything @saharzek @lovemassivelybeautifulbouquet @what-is-your-wish @marvelslut-musicalnerd @brattypeony @hermayone @buckysugar @cherienymphe @peterztinglez @darkficsyouneveraskedfor @charmed-asylum @fishwaterr @marvelsswansong @nsfwsebbie

word count: 4.8k

“Now that we actually own this place it feels different. You still don’t think this is all a little much?”

Steve lifted the cardboard box you were holding from your hands, starting to make his way into the house, “It’s perfect, pumpkin.”

Eden.

You were now homeowners in the most luxurious and exclusive neighborhood in upstate New York. Howard Stark created this safe haven in the sixties and people now knew it as “heaven on earth”.

You followed him inside the fortress of a house, knowing he was smiling wide. Even in your wildest dreams you never imagined that you would live in a place like this. There were so many rooms that you’d run out of ideas for what to do with them. The massive foyer was twice as big as the home you grew up in.

Perfect marble floors, a winding staircase that reminded you of a castle, and a ginormous chandelier that was no doubt made of real diamonds. You followed Steve as he made his way into the kitchen which was, again, made for the Gods. You’d never been good at cooking but now you felt you had to start giving it a try just because of how nice it was.

It had three ovens! Who in the world needs three ovens? “I don’t think we even have enough stuff to fill the house, Steve.”

He set the box onto the counter and you were reminded of the small number of things inside compared to the amount of cabinet space, “We’ll buy more things. Lots of things! You have my card, you can order whatever you want online,” You took a deep breath, feeling overwhelmed even by the thought of decorating this place, “Hey now, c’ mere. This is supposed to be a happy day.”

You walked into his embrace, letting his strong arms wrap around you as you leaned your head against his hard chest, “I am happy,” You made sure to say though you weren’t convinced this house would ever feel normal, “And I’m grateful. I really am, Steve.”

Steve’s big promotion in security at Stark Industries was unexpected but of course, you were happy for him. You just didn’t expect he’d suddenly be making millions and, since the two of you were married now, that you’d have to make the move with him and start looking for new jobs in the city. He’d do the same for you so you felt it was your duty to suck it up and try to make things work.

You looked up at him and a soft smile was on his kind face. He leaned down to press a comforting kiss to your forehead. You tilted up to kiss him. He deepened it and, like you always liked, the passion you’d felt with him escalated the situation.

Suddenly, Steven lifted you onto the kitchen counter, his hands on your waist and started to explore beneath your shirt, “This is going to be so good for us,” He spoke huskily against your lips, “What do you say we christen the new place?”

You nodded eagerly as he began to kiss your neck, “One good thing is we’ll probably never run out of places to have sex in a house this big,” Steve chuckled at your words. For a moment, his kisses took away the anxiety you were feeling. Change is only a part of life and it was something you’d just have to get used to. Luckily, you had Steve by your side to get through it all.

“Plenty of space for kids as well,” He said and you assumed it was an attempt to turn you on. You gripped his muscular arms tightly as he

“Mhm, put a baby in me, Steve,” You played along, knowing that you were on birth control and that was unlikely to happen anytime soon. Steve was dying to be a father but you agreed before you got married that you would enjoy your marriage to each other before you considered having kids, “Please, Steve.”

You knew that would send him over the edge and only seconds later he was pulling down your bottoms and pushing himself between your legs. Before you two could get really hot and heavy, the doorbell rang and left you both frozen.

Steve helped you off the counter and you were quickly trying to pull up your yoga pants as Steve zipped up his jeans, “Edith, who’s at the door?” Steve asked which caught you off guard. The mansion was also a smart house, equipped with artificial intelligence that Mr. Stark had developed.

“James and Natasha Barnes, sir. Would you like me to let them in?” There were small monitors throughout the house including the kitchen. It lit up when the door rang with a picture of the couple standing at the front door.

“Yes, Edith. Thank you,” Steve turned back to you, not with frustration that their moment had been interrupted, but with a mischievous smile, “We’ll finish what we started later.”

You nodded, forcing a smile as he grabbed your hand. The two of you walked to the foyer which was a trip within itself due to the size of the house.

Bucky was one of Steve’s friends that you were never quite sure of. He’d known Steve for way longer than you so you never thought it was your place to ask questions about their relationship. Bucky just seemed to bring out Steve’s impulsive side and you preferred Steve when he was cool and level headed.

Nat, on the other hand, you loved her.

“Welcome to Eden, Rogers family,” Bucky announced, his voice booming through the foyer as they came into view. Already, something was off and it wasn’t because of the new environment. Bucky was clad in his suburban husband get-up, like he’d been golfing all day and Natasha looked like she was preparing to go to some old-fashioned garden party. You’d never seen her wear a sundress and never seen her smile so wide.

“Thanks, Buck,” You heard Steve say, going to hug his best friend.

As you walked up to embrace Natasha, she even felt different. As you pulled back, you searched her face for something missing, “Wow, your eyes are beautiful,” She said, still beaming. Her red hair was now blonde and reached down past her shoulders. Her skin was bright and her makeup, which she didn’t normally wear, was done to perfection.

“Thank you,” You spoke, unsure of why she was just now noticing. Besides that, you didn’t think they were anything special, “You look great … so new.” You laughed awkwardly as you took a step back. Bucky placed a hand on the small of her back and she gazed back at him lovingly.

“Honey, you act like you haven’t met Y/N a million times,” Bucky grinned towards you, trying to ease the awkwardness.

“Of course,” Natasha agreed immediately. You couldn’t help but think her tone was lacking a certain emotion, “I love spending time with Y/N. It’s so nice to have girl friends, isn’t it?”

Suddenly, appearing from basically nowhere, she pulled out a dish. It was a pound cake and she presented it to you with a smile that was now starting to make you uncomfortable, “A house warming gift,” Bucky added as you accepted it, “Natasha has been taking up baking.”

“That’s very sweet,” You said and Steve added a thanks.

“You two should stay. Let us give you a tour!” Steve clapped his hands together in excitement.

“Sure,” You agreed, “Stay for dinner. We can order pizza.”

“Order? Pizza?” Natasha was smiling but her head cocked to the side in confusion. Bucky responded by grabbing her hand and, again, she looked up at him with loving eyes.

“That sounds delicious, Y/N,” Bucky said, ignoring his wife.

You rubbed moisturizer on your face as you looked back into your bathroom mirror. The room was the size of a regular room and the closet was basically an apartment within itself. Steve came from behind you, his hands on your waist as he pressed himself into you.

“Should we continue where we left off?” He asked as you grabbed a hold of your toothbrush.

His hands were still roaming over your body as you began to brush your teeth before bed. You didn’t answer his question, your mind far away, “You don’t think Nat was acting super off today?” You asked after spitting toothpaste into the sink, “I mean, quitting her job. Suddenly wanting to be a stay at home Mom? She just got a promotion a few months ago.”

Through the mirror, Steve gave you a look that told you he was about to play devil’s advocate, “She didn’t seem that different to me. I think she realized what she actually wanted after the move.”

Your eyes narrowed at him as you rinsed off your toothbrush, “Are you being serious, Steve?”

“Hey, don’t get mad at me,” Realizing he was not getting anything tonight, he stepped back with his hands in the air, “You never know about these things. People change. Who knows, maybe our priorities will change too.”

You scoffed, turning off the water, “My only priority right now is landing the Cosmopolitan contract. I can think about priorities once I’m working again,” You walked past Steve, standing on the tip of your toes to kiss his cheek, but he still had a defeated look on his face, “Let’s go to bed, it’s been a long day.”

You barely had time to enjoy your bowl of cereal milk before there was another ring at the doorbell. Without looking up from his bowl, Steve explained that he made plans for you and Natasha to spend the day together. You knew he was working on convincing you that this entire move was a great idea. Of course, you didn’t have time to protest because the new blonde was now impatiently honking the horn of the golf cart in your driveway.

As soon as you stepped out of the house, you realized you were underdressed once again. Her attire today was a sundress full of blue flowers and beautiful pearls to go around her neck, “Good morning, sunshine!” She beamed as you climbed into the passenger seat. She looked over your regular t-shirt and jeans with a smile but you could tell she didn’t understand the way you were dressing, “It’s such a lovely day, isn’t it?”

“Yeah-”

“I know! I love gardening on days like this,” She suddenly pressed the gas and you were on your way. You were still figuring out what exactly happened to your friend since the last time she saw you but she could only seem to talk about gardening, “Bucky loves the flowers I plant. I put them in this gorgeous vase so he can look at them while he’s eating his favorite breakfast. It’s nice to have nice things to look at.”

Natasha showed you every house in the neighborhood, explaining what nuclear family lived in each house, “How come you know everyone who lives here? You never seemed like the type to ... “

“Oh, we all know each other in Eden. It’s like a family! Isn’t that sweet?”

You couldn’t even bring yourself to nod this time. You were starting to notice that every person we passed seemed … flawless. All the wives were perfectly dressed, wearing heels, and had neatly pinned hair. All the husbands looked way too happy.

You passed a golf course and soon arrived at the clubhouse where you’d be attending a book club meeting. You were a reader yourself so the idea of that gave you some hope that you wouldn’t feel totally out of place today.

That hope dissipated quickly when you stepped into the room. On a landing overlooking a pool, a group of flawless looking women sat in a circle like they were having a tea party rather than a book club meeting.

They were all happy to meet you and Natash introduced you to everyone. Instead of their names, she started with their husband’s. There was Sam’s wife Sharon, Vision’s wife Wanda, Thor’s wife Val, Clint’s wife Laura and most importantly-

“Pepper!” The group of women erupted with cheers as the matriarch entered the room. You’d recognize Tony Wife’s anywhere just from the tabloids. She was pretty much America’s favorite wife, writing self-help books, and posing on the cover of home decor magazines.

“Good morning, ladies,” She moved like a cloud, floating through the room as she commanded everyone’s attention. She took a second look at you as she made her way to her chair, “Steve’s wife Y/N, it’s lovely to meet you and, wow, you have such beautiful eyes. Welcome to the book club!”

The room erupted in giggles and clapping once again. You felt you were in some sort of simulation, like a social prank and you were waiting for some tv show host to come out and reveal that all these people were paid actors.

Pepper continued, crossing her ankles as she flattened out the skirt of her purple colored dress, “I hope you are all feeling like I am. My husband is happy, the kids are happy, my friends are happy and that. Makes. Me. Overjoyed,” Her words put them in a trance and they seemed even more robot-like than they already were, “I only want to add to that feeling so today we are discussing a highly anticipated book.”

You weren’t sure what you were expecting but you clearly weren’t on the same page as everyone else. Natasha nudged your side, giddy as ever, “I present to you ladies, Melanie Winkle’s Christmas Baking Book!” Now you were positive that you were in a simulation, “Christmas is a few months away but the season is so busy that I think we should get an early start this year. Who knows how many dance recitals, charity fundraisers, and Christmas parties we will all attend this winter? Too many to count! This book is going to change all of our lives.”

Natasha leaned into your ear, “I love Christmas, don’t you?”

“Nat?” Her eyes widened with curiosity, “Blink twice if someone is holding you hostage.”

She didn’t blink at all, “You’re silly, Y/N. You always make me laugh, don’t you?”

The next week passed in a blur. You had no idea how many brain dead women you had met or how many times Steve had told you that you were crazy for stressing over the Natasha situation. Tomorrow, you had an interview and you could finally leave the neighborhood and be around people who didn’t only care about knitting and Christmas decorations.

Before you could have your sweet escape, your limit was met.

You were attending a yoga class led by Pepper that Natasha had brought you to. It was an otherwise normal experience despite Pepper chanting about how true peace is reached when your “home is happy”.

The class was in a cat’s pose when Wanda suddenly fell down to her stomach. The class froze and you rushed to her side. Your heart racing, you placed a hand on her back to check to see what was wrong. You brushed her hair from her facing, seeing that her eyes were wide open and she was saying, “I love my husband. I love my family. I love my husband. I love my family,” She kept repeating those two phrases over and over, her gaze completely empty.

You felt Natasha’s hand on your arm, trying to guide you away.

“She’s going to be just fine, girls,” Pepper said calmly like the woman wasn’t having a nervous breakdown, “Us women are so delicate, with the yoga and the hot weather outside, she must be overheating. Natasha, will you lead the girls into the other room?”

“I think she needs medical attention,” You interjected, staring around the room to find a like mind.

“Tony can help her,” Pepper smiled.

“She needs a doctor!” The room went silent before the wives began to whisper.

“I love my husband. I love my husband. I love- I love- It’s a lovely day outside, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”

“We will get her the help she needs, do not worry,” Piper continued, folding her arms in front of her.

Natasha pulled your arm harder this time, “Y/N, let me walk you home. It’s a lovely day for a walk.”

You left the room with a feeling of complete uncertainty and as soon as Natasha was out of your site, you stormed up the spiral stairs to find Steve’s office, “Steve!” You shouted his name as you speedily walked through the long hallway. You pushed open the two, large, oak doors that led into the study and stormed inside, “Steve Rogers, I am done!”

Steve looked up from his desk and Tony turned to face you from his place in the chair in front of his desk.

“Y/N, what’s wrong?” Steve stood from his chair, concerned.

You stared at Tony Stark, not with awe because he was the most famous engineer in the world, but with anger, “I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you, Y/N,” Tony stood next, fixing the buttons on his suit jacket, “Steve tells me you’re a photographer. Quite a talented one.”

You eyed him carefully, somehow knowing that he was the source of all that was wrong here, “I need to talk to my husband, alone, if you don’t mind.”

Steve’s eyes darkened as he looked at you, “Y/N,” He said with a warning, trying to tell you not to be rude, “This is my boss-” “It’s quite alright, I know an angry wife when I see one. I enjoyed our conversation, Mr. Rogers, and I think we’re on the same page now,” Tony approached you, a smug look on his face, “I hope to see you around, sweetheart. Oh, and again, welcome to Eden.”

As he left the room, you became even more frustrated, “You can’t talk to me like that in front of my boss, Y/N.”

“Steve,” You walked closer to his desk, “Listen to me. It’s only been a week and I am losing my mind. The people here are … are robots! They’re old-fashioned and daft, especially the wives. Nat used to be smart and cunning and now all she can talk about are gardening magazines!”

“Gardening is a very relaxing hobby-”

“Oh, please,” You crossed your arms, “That woman was on her way to being a CEO and now she’s … she’s a shell.”

Steve walked around the desk to you, grabbing your hands while they shook with anger. The look in his eyes was sincere, loving, and brought you back to a simpler time. When you were first dating, living in a tiny apartment in the city, the two of you were so in love.

“I know this move has been hard on you and I don’t want you to see this all as a mistake. I’m trying hard, I really am,” You nodded, trying to let his words soothe you. You pressed your head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat, “Everything here is new to me too. They do things here differently than any other place I’ve been.”

“Yeah, it’s like a cult,” You felt his chest rumble as he chuckled.

“I’m not sure about that. I do know that things are simpler here,” You felt his heartbeat quicken, “I always wanted the white picket fence, the two kids, a boy and girl, and a doting wife. She wouldn’t be bogged down by the stresses of modern life, I would take care of her … we’d be happy-”

You pushed away from him, tears pricking your eyes, “Steve, you can’t be serious,” You took a few more steps back.

Steve sighed, “I wasn’t sure before. Bucky made it sound like a crazy fantasy but now that I’ve seen Nat and … now that I’ve talked to Tony…”

You kept walking backward, your heart was now racing, “You kept saying she and her. Not me … I’m not the wife you want, am I?”

Steve stepped forward now. There was pain in his eyes like he didn’t want to hurt me but he had to keep pushing himself further, “You could be, pumpkin,” He tried to be endearing but his voice was weak.

As soon as your back touched the door, you turned and yanked it open. You took off down the hallway and you cursed the fact that you let Steve by this crazy house. You looked back to see Steve standing at the top of the stairs as you hurried down them, “Y/N, please don’t make this hard!” Steve tried to plead.

“Fuck you, Steve!” You shouted back, practically throwing yourself at the door. As you turned the lock, it didn’t budge, “Edith, open the door!”

“Only Mr. Rogers has command of my controls, Mrs. Rogers.”

Your face fell completely as tears streamed down your cheeks.

You felt him behind as you continued to pull at the doorknob, “Steve, I’m begging you …” He placed his hands on your hips, leaning down to whisper into your ear.

“I promise it won’t hurt one bit, pumpkin.”

When Steve awoke a week later, he was dreading the day. It had been a week since Tony started working on you and Steve was nervous to see the final product of the reprogramming. He’d spent the week emailing your friends, family, and associates, making excuses about your whereabouts and your new change of career.

Whatever problems he ran into, there was nothing that money couldn’t solve.

As he made his way down the stairs that morning, he smelt something unusual. Steve had never woken to the smell of bacon and he had certainly never heard you humming sweet songs before. He saw the back of you first as he walked into the kitchen, knowing you were whisking away at some mixture in a bowl.

Steve moved cautiously but you easily picked up on his movements. Part of Steve was surprised to see that you were still you. He hadn’t seen such a happy look on your face since the two of you had been engaged, “Hey, honey bear,” You greeted him and Steve could now see you were whisking pancakes, “Did you sleep well?”

Steve moved closer and you heard yourself say, “Don’t be shy, I’m making those pancakes you like from our favorite brunch spot.”

“I didn’t think … how did you …”

You guessed what he was thinking easily, “I did a bunch of research and I found the recipe online. I hope I can make them just like you like them,” You set down the bowl, walking over to peck his lips. Your lips still felt the same which comforted Steve, “Why don’t you sit down at the table? I’ll bring them to you!”

“Oh,” Steve perked up, “I can help you. Where’s the recipe?”

“No need. Let me take care of you, please,” You searched his eyes for permission, “It’s the first day of our new life together and I just want to show you how much I love you.”

Steve nodded and you pecked his lips again. You smiled, knowing how much telling him that you loved him had please him.

In the little breakfast nook, there was already a table full of food, the sunlight streaming in from the tall windows and illuminating the feast. Steve estimated that you had probably been cooking for hours at that point. A glass of orange juice as well, a cup of hot coffee was and today’s newspaper was waiting for him at the head of the table.

You were completely focused on following the recipe, having measured everything precisely and you were now making perfect circles of batter in the frying pan.

Steve watched your dress swing from side to side as you moved your hips, humming to some classical song. He had just realized that you’d chosen a blue dress, his favorite color, and you were wearing your hair just like he preferred. When you brought the tray of pancakes over to the table, you had an excited but expectant look on your face. You were probably as nervous as Steve was earlier.

As you placed them in front of Steve, you stepped back and folded your hands over your apron,

“You aren’t going to sit down?” Steve asked, grabbing his fork.

“Would you like me to sit down?” You asked, a pleasant look on your face.

“Yes, please,” Steve emphasized the seat beside him. He had a look of surprise on his face as if he hadn’t expected you to ask that. You maneuvered into the seat, neatly flattening your dress as you made yourself comfortable.

You looked back at Steve, still expectant, “You don’t want to eat?”

“Of course, if that’s what you’d like, my love,” You started to fill your plate with scrambled eggs and pieces of fruit from the bowl you prepared. Even as you spooned the food into your mouth, the taste not registering in your mouth, you watched him. You made sure to push the syrup closer to him as you waited.

When his fork finally picked up the food, your eyes were wide.

“It takes just like the pancakes at Orla’s,” Steve complimented and you felt your heart race. You touched your chest, your cheeks feeling warm, as happiness flooded you, “They’re delicious, Y/N.”

“I’m so glad,” You beamed, “Eat more, please. Would you like a muffin? Sausage? I can blend you up a fresh smoothie.”

Steve placed a hand over yours, trying to stop you from ranting, “No, everything is perfect.”

And Steve meant it.

When Steve finished his plate, you brought it to the sink despite his wishes to help you with dishes. When you came back to the table, you leaned in for what Steve thought was another peck on the lips. He was surprised when you deepened the kiss, resting your hands on the armrest as you leaned into him.

When you pulled away, you weren’t even breathless, “You look very handsome this morning, Steve,” You told him, adoration in your eyes as you memorized every feature of his strong face, “Would you let me have the honor of pleasing you?”

“I’m already feeling pleased,” Steve grinned not expecting your hand to run down his chest and then over his boxers, “.... oh.”

“Please?” You pouted, feeling him through the fabric. He grew harder against your grasp and, by his pupils, you could tell he liked it, “Just let me touch it. Please, Steve?”

Steve cleared his throat awkwardly, nodding as he was left speechless. You reached into his boxers, grabbing his member which made Steve melt back into his chair. You freed it from its confinement, leaning down to let a trail of your spit coat the sensitive tip, “Just like that, Y/N,” You up and down his shaft, twisting and rubbing your thumb over the tip.

You moved down to kneel in front of him, “I wanna taste it, Steve. I wanna taste you so bad,” You moaned, moving your mouth closer to him.

“Put my cock in your mouth, baby,” You smiled before tasting the tip with your tongue, “Good girl. Oh, you’re an angel.”

You took him all the way into his mouth, your tongue trailing down his shaft as you went deeper. You bobbed your head up and down, your tongue creating a swirling motion. Despite your eyes watering, you kept perfect eye contact, trying to show him how much you were enjoying the privilege.

When your mouth tired, you used your hand to continue the work though Steve didn’t seem to mind at all. When you felt he was close, you slowed your motions, “Steve, please cum inside of me?” You begged, your hand still stroking his cock.

He nodded eagerly, knowing you hadn’t taken your birth control for an entire week. You got up from the ground, lifting your dress skirt as you climbed on top of him. Your eyes were locked on each other as you slid your panties to the side, sliding down on his cock. He was already close, you knew that, and you were desperate to feel his warmth.

“You want me to put a baby in you?” Steve grunted as you began to ride him. He grabbed a hold of the back of your neck, pulling you further into him. Your forehead pressed to his, your moans and pants began to mold together.

“Please!” You moaned.

“You want me to make you a Mommy, huh?”

“Please! Yes, please! I want you to make me a Mommy, Steve,” You smiled, the idea only filling your virtually empty mind with happiness. You'd try your best to be a wonderful mother and wife. “Oh, thank you-”

As you felt his warmth fill your insides, it was confirmation that you had pleased your husband properly. He slowly let you go so you could feel every inch that you just took.

“Jesus Christ,” He swore, panting as he leaned back in the chair, “This was the heaven on earth they were talking about.”

Steve could only imagine what came with lunch and dinner.

Suddenly the sun outside caught your attention, “It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?”

hope you enjoyed!

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shtern-and-art · 3 years

Note

"Skeppy will probably cry" "Bad will probably cry". Bish, screw, that I am crying!!!

This whole thing was bloody gorgeous and I wasn't expecting that ending. I had no clue what ending to expect but that was definitely better than any I could have hoped for. Forest spirit to soulmate your honour!

I was terrified that you were gonna leave it at the point where he loses the spirit and becomes mortal again. If you had I would be actively sobbing!!!! And oh my god, the art!!! I still can't get over how wonderful your style is.

Imma ask fun things because if I don't I'll sit in a puddle of emotion all night:

What's the first tech thing Bad will buy and how annoying will he be about it? Poor Skeppy trying to answer 101 questions about something he doesn't really use XD.

Is no one concerned that the odd couple from a town they never name has a pet wolf??

Do they immediately go over to a different town or do they wander for a while. Find hidden creeks and befriend bears?

Does Bad still have a connection to nature and animals, like are creatures naturally more trusting of him?

Do they ever visit the og town again?

Does Skeppy still cause absolute chaos in other towns or has he learnt his lesson and only causes minor trouble now?

Does Bad ever try and study again? If he did what would he study and would Skeppy try to study as well?

Does Skeppy steal? I dunno, he just give off the vibe of a naughty lil trickster who'll pocket something if the owner refuses to sell it him.

Immediately after leaving the forest what the first 'argument' they have (not including the car one)?

Would they ever ride horse? If yes, how terrified would Skeppy be?

Skeppy falls outta tree. I don't know why but my mind keeps telling me that this man has great balance until he climbs trees. They are his mortal enemy and Bad finds this both hilarious and terrifying because he is going to hurt himself.

I had waaaaay more questions than I intended to have. My bad '^_^ but this story was way too much fun to read and you are entirely to blame for making it so engaging!

Make sure to take care of yourself and do stretches after and during drawing. You don't wanna hurt yourself <3

AaaaI’m so glad you liked it! :D And, dang, man, I cried while writing that part too :D

And I promised a nice ending for the main story, I did, and this one also makes the most sense narratively! For the story I wanted to tell, at least. Bad can’t really become human again, he’s changed to much. He can only move on, and do something with what he is, and has. And he did! :D That’s really nice and inspiring, this story will always have a place in my heart, heheh <3

Being a guardian spirit connected to a person and all, Bad may be not as strong as before, but he can’t die unless Skeppy dies first. And Skeppy can do that, but he’s pretty sturdy, and his lifespan operates on a whole other scale than human ones. And Bad knowing Skeppy’s real name balances it all out, makes them equal in the power and influence they have over each other.

So hellyeah, soulmates for the win :DDD

I’ll answer all questions under the cut, and this close up from one of the pages!

1) What's the first tech thing Bad will buy and how annoying will he be about it?

Probably a pager! Because it’s a more feasible thing to get than a wholeass computer Bad actually wanted :D An it means Skeppy will have to get one too, and that Bad will be having the time of his life texting him and everyone he can get a number from, even if they’re still in the room with him.

Poor Skeppy indeed, he can learn to appreciate the pagers, and later phones, too, and computers, but he really has 0 idea on how it all works and why Bad is so fascinated by it all.

2) Rat and regular people

Oh, she can shapeshift, just like Bad! If they’re out with people around, she takes form of a puppy, and Bad can pass her off as a weird mix breed rescue doggo.

3) Do they immediately go over to a different town or do they wander for a while?

Oh, since they have no end destination in mind, they can ride around for a bit, go visit some cool places and roadside attractions. Sadly, Skeppy is probably not spiritually or morally ready to full on befriend wild bears yet, and they do need money for gas and snacks. So, at some point they will have to stop somewhere and find work – at least for a bit, to save up. Life’s gonna be a bit complicated with all that, until Skeppy figures out his treasure-finding abilities :DD

4) Bad and nature and animals

He is definitely still in tune with all wildlife! Even more – Bad could become a proper guardian spirit for Skeppy in part because, in a way, Skeppy himself is part of the nature.

So yeah, Bad can understand animals (and plants) and communicate with them; they’re just more free to not take his shit, and Bad’s emotions do not “possess” them unless he makes an effort to do so.

He doesn’t like doing it, tho.

5) Do they ever visit the og town again?

Hm, I think they will completely forget about it for a while, until, like, 30+ years later they will be going somewhere, and find themselves around those parts. And they try to not appear too often in the areas they’ve spent a lot of time in already (they can be pretty recognizable, and also barely show signs of aging). But it’s been a long time, and the town’s really different now… So they make a stop, and spend a day there. They walk the unfamiliar streets between the new buildings, check out the popular hiking trail, the advertisements for hot springs and winter activities. The old cinema is still there, and is hosting an all-night marathon of classic horror movies of the last century.

Bad and Skeppy leave the town after sunset – the day was nice, but they have nothing more to do there. They ride through the forest on a well paved road, with radio playing something barely above the whisper. And in the dark of hot summer night, Bad can see the white stag running between the trees alongside their car. Shadows dance over the shimmering light of it’s fur.

Somewhere after the towns border, the stag disappears back in the forest. But the air in the car stays light and fresh, saving the smell of old pines and dry leaves all though the night.

6) Skeppy and chaos

Well, after the whole mess in the main story, Skeppy definitely learned some lessons, especially about not being a dick :D

But the thing is – he can’t really help the fact that things tend to stir up around him a lot. He naturally brings in chaos into everything, because he is, in part, a personification, or an outlet for it in the world. And so, to feel, well and good, and himself Skeppy gotta do stuff that disrupts balance, and creates some mayhem. And in gave him a lot of trouble in early life, but in the course of the main story he learned that he can chose were he lets that chaos to take hold, learned what can come of that chaos, apart from utter misery.

Like, where it can help dismantle something destructive, and where – bring in the more positive change, that was already brewing, possible, but is stagnant for some reason.

Soooo, I can’t say Skeppy causes only minor chaos in his life, but he sure learns even more about not being a dick :DDDD

7) The studying

I think Bad will want to get a higher education at some point, because he wanted to, and because it’s already new millennia and all that. Bet he’ll go for something very technical and/or literature. Maybe he’ll start by piking up some classes in small time colleges, when they stop in one place for a while, and later get into an online program, because why not.

Skeppy is not a college guy at all. He’ll listen to Bad talk about it, read textbooks if he wants to, can research stuff, buuut going to classes and doing homework is definitely not his thing.

8) Stealing

Well, you’re right, Skeppy can and will steal stuff out of spite! And will be scolded by Bad for it, and will not feel (that) sorry about it. But real stealer between them will be Bad himself :D

It’s just… he has the corvid tendencies, and a hoard (a box) of sentimental mementos from different people and events, and the thrill of stealing something small and harmless is very exciting. Bad is very proud of his little collection. Skeppy finds it very adorable, a bit hypocritical, and kinda creepy. Like, that pretty box he gifted Bad at some point is now full of stuff like:

- pressed flower from the clearing they had a picnic at on their anniversary

- the button the waitress lost that one day the storm caused a black out in the whole town

- some small animal bones

- couple pretty rocks Bad stole from Skeppy’s pockets

- penny that was once glued to the ground

- a handful of teeth people (and not people) lost in fights with Bad

- pen from some fancy hotel

- rainbow dash keychain that belonged to a child

- the list goes on

9) Argument

Oh, that same day they’ll fight over whether they should stay at the really crappy and suspicious looking motel, or go sleep in a perfectly fine forest near the road. Ironically, Bad wanted to try out the motel (because, yay, first time spending the night back in civilization), and Skeppy was the one insisting on sleeping in nature (because the motel looks like it could give you 10 diseases if you even stand near it, and sleeping in the forest is kind of nice, and means they can cuddle).

10) Horses

The guys will probably ride them at some point. Well, Bad will ride, and Skeppy will sit on his horse and hope it knows what to do and where to go, because trying to make this giant thing do something seems dangerous. If they’ll have to actually go somewhere fast, Skeppy will not survive that day, his butt (and legs) will be dead for days to come.

And riding with Bad on one horse may sound romantic and nice, but all romance dies when the gallop starts.

11) Skeppy and climbing

Skeppy is more down to earth kind of guy, more of a “rocks and caves” kind of creature, real-life lizard person or something. Up on the trees and in the air – not really his element, yeah. But it doesn’t mean that Skeppy will accept this fact easy. The embarrassment of never managing to safely make it down a tree is too strong, he just has to do it all over again, and again. And again. Because, clearly, he was distracted this time. And the time before that Bad was teasing him, and it “disrupted his flow”. And, really, maybe these trees here just do not like Skeppy much, and make him slip a lot. Yeah.

So, more often than not, if Skeppy climbs a tree, he will not stop climbing it until he falls, or the tree ends. Bad had to take him off high branches couple times, forcefully, because, of course, Skeppy was sitting there for 2 hours just to properly enjoy the sunset. He can climb down at any point, he just Choses not to. The view is amazing. The bark is literally part of his skin now, not because he holds on tight, no, he’s just Than Much one with the nature )<

---

Don’t apologize for the questions! It’s always so fun to answer them, and it makes me think more about stuff I may have skipped, or didn’t think about before. It’s really nice :3c

Again, thank you for the ask, and for being here for this story! <3

(And I’ll try setting timers for rest breaks while I draw, mb that will help)

---

In The Dark - masterpost

#mcyt #mcyt fanart #badboyhalo #skeppy #skephalo #In The Dark #it's so hot here #my laptop's keyboard is like a stove #=c=#shtern talks

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alternativemiraculous · 3 years

Text

Tbh I'd love it if Miraculous did something similar to the Tales of Ba Sing Se episode in ATLA (or even something like Zuko alone), which was an episode containing various short stories of every character. This could let us see more bonding or characters alone.

Idk, imagine seeing Alya's regular life; dealing with the twins, talking to her big sister, cooking (I mean, her mom is a cook so I bet Alya knows something too). Or just a glimpse of her inmer thoughts —what she thinks about the world, her current life, etc. Maybe we can see her think about her current status as Rena. She's aware of the danger. What does she think? Is she sometimes afraid anything can go wrong? Maybe this motivates her to train. Or we could see her chill writing for her blog and answering fans, or explaining her routine and ways of documenting Ladybug and Chat Noir's adventures.

Maybe we could have Adrien and Nino hanging out as real friends and have Adrien help Nino similar to how Nino helps him a lot. Them just having fun as teenagers. But we could also have Carapace adventures too. He's not that used as a hero so I'd love to see him more. Maybe have him interact with the duo, with just LB, with just CN or even have him alone doing some mission. This guy is the perfect balance between those two and he's very wise so I'm sure we'd see very good conversations.

Kagami doing something that isn't Adrien or fencing would be nice too. Like, imagine her going on a walk home and thinking. Maybe she's listening to music and she suddenly finds someone, probably Marinette. Anyone but Adrien. And we get to see her process social interactions again, which I found very relatable in Ikari Gozen. Oh and I'd love to see her be conflicted because she wants to obey her mother but at the same time she has this rebellious wishes.

Alix and Chloé should be a must ahsjjdksmsmw. I'd LOVE seeing them interact. Maybe one day Chloé goes to the Art Club alone because Sabrina is busy and surprisingly, she only finds Alix, because the others went to search for something. And we just have this moment of them silently dissing each other until one starts talking about the past. It's been slightly hinted Chloé and Alix may have been friends at slme point, and they probably fell out. So I'd love some kind of comfrontation.

Maybe we could see something of Mylène? The daily things she does. Maybe her sending important things to her friends, organising manifestations, posting resources, researching... And she practising her speech abilities because she wants to inform people and be helpful. This show is only politically affiliated with ecologism so we'd probably see her daily routine caring for the planet and getting her friends into it too.

You know what I'd love? A heart-to-heart between Luka and Ivan. They must be close, and we know Ivan isn't the best at expressing his feelings with music but Luka is the total opposite. Maybe them writing music together and talking about their days or their instruments or their hobbies. Maybe Luka has some problem and Ivan is one of the only people he trusts to put down his chill, mature, front (I headcanon he tries to appear as having not many problems to better support Juleka and the people around him), and we could see Ivan advising him. What kind of adviser is Ivan?

Sabrina alone. Let's see her hobbies! Maybe she's secretly an Art Kid? We know she likes roleplaying. Maybe she likes writing too? Does she have pets? Is she a cat person? Maybe we could see her researching. She's an amazing researcher in my headcanon. What if we see she's actually investigating about Hawk Moth and secretly collaborating anonymously with Alya thru the LadyBlog? Oh and I bet Sabrina loves creating outfits, not really designing, just combining clothes. Idk she just gives me that vibe.

Max! What does Max do in his free time? He's surely gaming. Does he have gamer friends, online friends? Oh, better. Imagine him programming his own game as a personal project because he wants to test his own abilities. He going out to get inspired and walking down the streets. We could see him appreciating the world in a fun way —he probably knows a shit ton of random facts. And when he finishes his game, after testing a lot, he probably uses it to spend a fun evening with his friends too. Idk he seems like a very fun person to he around.

A short story on Kim going to a competition is something I'd love to see. He's been training a lot and he is super confident but his rivals are amazing too. Maybe he has some rival we're yet to meet? Maybe Ondine herself is not only his friend but his rival too? We could see Kim getting second and see how he reacts. Is he a bad loser, disappointed on himself or is he the supportive type who goes all "omg look at how fast you were!!!! Are you a merfolk???? Do you breath underwater???? You were so fast ahwjwkdjw"?

Juleka and Nath moments? Some time ago people loved the thought of them together but I think a friendship between them is better. They're both kind of shy (I'm thinking of Evillustrator!Nath, not Reverser!Nath tbh). What if they were each other's first friend? Maybe Nath got Juleka into modeling because he practised with her? "Jules please let me draw you I need a human" and Juleka answering y an ominous way "I'm not a human but ok", and eventually trying new clothes. Oh and we can see them talk about how they're kind of distanced right now but they still trust each other a lot and have this special connection.

Rose writing her songs. Where does she get the inspiration? Maybe we could see her in her room, a very pink room where she has an unicorn collection. Maybe she loves writing lyrical things. Does she write poemas? Rose gifting poemas to her friends would be so in character. Maybe see her writing a song about herself and her life? She is happy but we could hear her sing about her struggles (her disease, trying to help people but being unable, maybe she sometimes doubts her positivity thing and needs to give it some thought, etc but in the end she's sure she wants to make the day as bright as possible).

LILA'S DAY. WE NEED TO SEE LILA'S DAY. She's probably alone most of the day, as we've been hinted her mother is so busy. What does she do? Maybe she posts some happy, bright foto to Instagram and then we see her irl being bored as fuck. She just eats a bit and stays in her room. Does she keep track of her lies? She has to have a diary, for that I'm sure. Maybe we can see her writing in her diary? Her future plans or just her opinions on the people of her class. Does she like someone or is everyone boring to her? Maybe she sometimes feels bad about what she's doing? Please let us have sympathetic moments with Lila. Fucking Gabriel has them!!!!!

So yeah I think I covered everyone in the class + Luka and Kagami – Adrien and Marinette because they're the protagonists. I just want to see the secondary characters develop a little!!! We need to see more of them. Season 1 was fun because it showed us their individual personalities a lot.

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atlafan · 4 years

Text

Burning Love - Part Three

a/n: the third and final part of this little series is here! I hope you enjoy! Feedback and reblogs are helpful! Support me here if you’re able! (not proofread)

Warnings: cocky!Harry flirting, a tiny bit of angst, fluff, and smut!

Words: 8K

Pairing: Harry x OC (kindergarten teacher Danielle Robinson)

Masterpost

Having a firefighter as a boyfriend was anything but boring. Sometimes Harry was called away in the middle of the night for backup, sometimes he had to straight up sleep at the fire house if someone was on vacation, and sometimes he was cooking up a storm so the guys coming back from a fire had plenty to eat. Danielle would sometimes help cook as well. The guys really liked her turkey chili.

Danielle’s classroom knew who her boyfriend was too, and they loved it when Harry would come by for a visit. He’d bring them little coloring books, or sometimes he’d get Doodle to come for an even better surprise visit.

When they were together three months, Harry made sure no one was in the fire house so she could come to his office, and he gave her a little strip tease. She had practically been begging him to play the part of the sexy fire fighter and he was finally doing it for her. The only condition was that he got to bend her over his desk and fuck her. She even let him hit it raw, it was the greatest mutual gift in the world. Also hearing her moan out, “You’re hitting it so good, don’t stop, Harry!” over and over was pretty nice too.

Yup, things had been going pretty well for the new couple. Even though they were still in the puppy-love phase, it wasn’t all sex all the time. Harry would sometimes come over and help her late into the night as she was crafting activities for her class the next day, or he’d go to the art supply store with her because Danielle never made a list and she would often forget at least one thing she needed for class. Harry always remembered what she’d forget. Danielle was also a big help with the fire department’s fundraising efforts. She made the best hash browns anyone had ever had at the monthly pancake breakfasts. The deputy fire chief even got them a matching set of aprons. Things were going so well that she even started to let him call her Dani.

One Sunday afternoon they were walking through the grocery store together. Harry liked pushing the cart for Danielle as she mumbled to herself about what she needed for the week. She liked that he joined her because he could pick out the snacks he wanted to leave at her place, and vice versa. They were walking down the coffee aisle, Harry liked Hazelnut and Danielle liked French Vanilla.

“Dani?”

Danielle looks over in the direction of the deep voice that said her name. Her eyes widen when she realizes it’s her ex, Oliver.

“O-Oliver?”

“Oh my god, it’s so good to see you!” He exclaims, throwing his arms around her. She doesn’t reciprocate. “It’s been what, three years?”

“Something like that.” She swallows, and hooks her arm around Harry’s waist. “This is my boyfriend, Harry.”

“Hi.” Oliver shakes Harry’s hand. “You shop here a lot?”

“Yeah…this is the grocery store closest to my apartment, why?”

“This is my first time as this specific store. My fiancé lives in the area, and we’re choosing to buy a house here so her son won’t have to switch elementary schools.”

“Her…her son?” Danielle wanted to smack him.

“Yeah, guess he’s like my son now too.”

“Olly? Did you find the decaf tea?” A woman long blond hair, and a slightly swollen belly comes rolling her cart down the aisle with a little boy sitting in it. “Oh…Danielle…hi.”

“Hi, Rory.”

“Miss Robinson!” The boy exclaims.

“Hello, Joey.” She tries to say with a smile. Danielle wasn’t sure how she could have been so stupid. Joey took the bus to and from school, and she had only ever spoken with his father. She also didn’t make a second glance at his mother’s name on his contact list since it was under Lorelei.

“Joey raves about you all the time.” Rory says, trying to cut some of the tension.

“Mumma, it’s Chief Harry!”

“Aw, nice of you to remember me, buddy.” Harry says. “Um, we’ve got frozen stuff in the cart, so we should probably get going, right, darling?” He says, looking at Danielle, and she feels thankful for him finding a way out of all this.

“He’s right, we should really get going.”

“Guess we’ll be seeing more of each other, huh, Dani?” Oliver says with a soft smile.

“So it would seem.” She looks at Joey. “See you tomorrow morning in class, Joey.”

Harry pushes the cart as they walk away. She was beyond mortified. They get in line and pay for their things. She had driven there, but she has Harry drive back to her place. She was quiet until they got inside her apartment to put the food away.

“He, uh, seemed a little delusional there, no?” Harry says.

“He’s always lived with his head in the sand.” She scoffs. “Rose colored glasses, you know?”

“Did you not know that-“

“No, I didn’t realize that Rory, the person he cheated on me with, had a son. I knew that she was a married woman. They got divorced because of Oliver.” She shakes her head. “Joey’s father is such a sweet man, I can’t believe I never put the pieces together.”

“How exactly did they meet?”

“The first school I worked at was a K-5 a few towns over. Rory was the principal’s secretary, she still is, I think. I brought Oliver with me to a holiday party, and they got to talking. She’s a couple of years older than he and I are. I don’t exactly know how things progressed from there, but apparently she’s pregnant with his kid, they’re engaged, and they’ve bought a house! Isn’t that just kick you in the crotch, spit on your neck fantastic?”

“Remind me to never watch Friends reruns with you again.” He chuckles. “I can’t believe he had the nerve to hug you like that?”

“He hugged me like that because he’s still in love with me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Until I blocked him on literally every platform that I could, he would send me these messages about how he fucked up and that he’d do anything to win me back. He’s in a loveless relationship. He’s made his bed and now he has to lay in it.”

“Does Rory know it’s a loveless relationship?”

“I doubt it. If I had to guess they probably got engaged after they found out she was pregnant. It was probably her way of trapping him.” Danielle rolls her eyes. “You know what they say, once a cheater, always a cheater.”

“Well,” he comes around her to hold her from behind, kissing her cheek, “you don’t have to worry about that or pay it any more thoughts, alright?”

“Yeah.” She smiles and turns to kiss him. “I just hope I don’t start running into them all the time now.”

“We could always go to the market near my place, or we could do the online order thing.” He shrugs. “Whatever you wanna do. I just don’t want that idiot making my baby upset.” He pouts at her and she pouts back.

“I love that I get to be your baby.” She sighs as she nuzzles into his chest.

“Me too…I…I love you, Dani.” He kisses her forehead before she looks up at him.

“You do?”

“Mhm.” He smiles. “Guess there’s no perfect time to really say it, but that’s how I feel.”

“Oh, Harry, I love you too.” She kisses him, and blinks some tears away. “Like, a lot.”

“Let’s get these groceries put away, hm? Then I’ll fuck you on the counter. Would you like that, sweetheart?”

“I would, very much so.” She chuckles.

It was the last day of school, so Danielle had both of her groups in the morning. There was a small ceremony for the kindergarteners to commemorate them being able to move on to the first grade. They each got a personalized certificate with some type of achievement they earned in Miss Robinson’s class. She spent two weeks working on them. Once it was over, Danielle had to clean up her classroom for the summer.

“Happy last day of school, babe.” Harry says as he walks in, holding a small bouquet of flowers.

“I think you should ask for a separate office here with how often you come to visit.” She jokes as she takes the flowers. “Not that I’m upset, but what are these for?” She smiles.

“You made it through another year with a group of five-year-olds, thought you should have something nice for it.”

“Well, that’s very thoughtful, thank you.” She kisses his cheek. “I’m just finishing up here and then we can grab lunch.”

Harry nods as he waits for her, helping her take a few boxes out to her car. He thought she looked gorgeous today in her light blue sundress. They enjoy their lunch together before Harry has to go back to work.

“Wanna come to my place tonight?” She asks before they part ways.

“Sure.” He pecks her lips. “Want me to bring dinner?”

“No, I can cook. I’ve got stuff to make a taco salad.”

“Okay, I’ll see you later.” They kiss again and off they go.

Things had gotten quite domestic with one another, and Harry was really starting to like it. He also really liked that she was about to be off for the entire summer. Sure, Harry had bonfires, lawn mowers, grills, and other things of that nature to worry about, but his group of volunteer fire fighters would be coming on once again, so it freed up a little more time for himself. He’d be able to take a vacation with Danielle if she wanted. Or he could just take a ton of long weekends so he could spend some time with her. He wasn’t exactly sure what she did over the summer, but he figures they’ll talk about it soon.

When Harry gets to her apartment later that night, he realizes soon means tonight. Danielle was running around her apartment in a tank top and shorts boxing things up and packing.

“Hey, uh, what are you doing?” He says, startling her.

“Oh! I didn’t even hear you come in!” She gasps and clutches at her chest. “Sorry, I’m just trying to get my shit together. I always save this stuff for the last minute.”

“Are you moving?” He asks, almost frantic.

“What? No.” She chuckles. “But I do need a lot of my things with me for when I go up to Seabrook.”

“Seabrook?”

“To my parents’ summer house. I told you they had one, they’re snowbirds, remember?”

“Yeah, you mentioned that…” He swallows. “Are you going for a long weekend?”

“No, I’m going for the majority of the summer. I was actually sort of hoping you’d be able to water some of my plants, but if you can’t I can ask the neighbor again.” She goes over to him and gives him a kiss. “Come on, I set dinner up in the kitchen for us.”

They both go into the kitchen and sit down with their taco salads.

“You’re sort of blindsiding me a bit, babe. I mean, you’ve known you were going to New Hampshire all this time and didn’t think to tell me?”

“I figured I’d come back on weekends.” She shrugs. “You’re going to be working all day, so I figured you wouldn’t really mind if I wasn’t around as much.” She takes a bite of her food. “I also thought maybe you could come up and visit…you know, meet my family.”

“It’s gonna be torturing not being able to come over and see you after work.” He pouts. “But of course I’d love to meet your family.”

“I know…that’s sort of why I was keeping it to myself. I’ll miss you just the same, I hope you know that. This is just really precious family time that I wait all year for.”

“I get it.” He sighs. “What weekend would you want me to come meet them?”

“I’ll have to ask my parents what weekend would work best for them. The first couple of weeks are spent catching up with their friends, and whatnot. The house is in a fifty-five and over community.”

“And you won’t mind driving back on weekends?”

“Not at all.” She shakes her head. “All of the traffic will be going the other way, and the beaches are always so crowded on the weekends. It’ll be perfect.” She smiles at him and leans in a bit. “Plus, I’ll be coming back to you with sun kissed skin. I’ll have lots of tan lines to show you.” She winks and it makes him chuckle.

“Alright, alright. I get to use more time off in the summer, so I’ll be able to take lots of long weekends. We have more of a crew because a lot of our volunteers are teachers, so they have more time to help out.”

“That’s good! I’m so happy the school year is over with. Did you see I put the flowers you got me in a vase?” She points over to the vase in her kitchen window.

“I did.” He nods, a smile growing on his lips. “M’glad you liked them.”

“I loved them.” She kisses his cheek. “You’re so sweet to me, Harry.”

“You’ve turned me into a total mush ball.” He sighs. “But I suppose that’s not a bad thing.”

“You were a mush ball the second you walked into my classroom for the first time.” She smirks.

“And you were a flustered little thing.” He smirks as her face falls. “Ah, she can dish it out, but she can’t take it.” He kisses her temple and takes their now empty plates to the sink. “When are you heading up?”

“A couple of days.” She sighs. “I hate packing so much, it’s the worst.” She groans. “I just keep telling myself I’ll be relaxing on a screened in porch soaking in the ocean breeze with a book in my hand before I know it.” She flops down onto her sofa and Harry sits next to her, rubbing her back. “At least I’ll see my niece and nephew soon too. I love getting to spend so much time with them.”

“Tell me about them, I wanna know as much about your family as I can before I meet them.”

“Really?” She sits up to look at them.

“Mhm.” He puts a pillow on his lap. “Come lay one me. I’ll play with your hair while you talk.”

“If I didn’t love you before.” She giggles, and rests her head in his lap. He starts scratching at her scalp and she sighs. “Okay, so, my dad…”

They both fell asleep on the couch that night talking. Harry told Danielle a lot about his family as well. In the wee hours of the morning, Harry carried her to the bed, and they both snuggled up while they got a few more hours of sleep.

“Danielle, it’s the middle of the night! Where are you going?!” Her brother Clark asks her in a panic. “Shit, are you crying?”

“I…I just got a call.” She sniffles as she throws her hoody on. “I have to get home.”

“Why, what’s happening.”

“H-Harry’s deputy chief called me…there was a really big fire a few hours ago, and a wall collapsed on him, and now he’s in the hospital.” Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “I have to get home to him, Clark, I need to be there when he wakes up.”

“You’re in no condition to drive, especially not for two hours. I’ll go with you. Let me just go to Isabelle.”

“You don’t have to do that, I’m fine.” She wipes her eyes. “I’ll let you know when I get there. I’ll be back in a few days, I’m sure of it.”

She rushes out of the house and gets into the car. She had the radio practically silent, and she was sucking down an iced coffee. Caffeine put her anxiety into hyper drive, but she needed to stay awake somehow. Harry wasn’t even supposed to be at that fire. He got called in as backup, but he wasn’t supposed to go inside. He went in looking for the family’s new puppy.

Once she gets to the hospital, probably looking like a mad woman in her pajama pants and oversized hoody, she checks in and asks where Harry’s being kept.

“Please, I’m his girlfriend, I need to-“

“Dani!” The deputy chief, Ralph, comes rushing towards her. “He just woke up, come with me.” He yanks her by the wrist before the nurse at the desk can say anything.

“Is he okay?”

“He will be.” Ralph nods. “Here we are, go ahead in. Take your time with him.” Ralph smiles, and Danielle returns it.

“Harry?” She says just above a whisper.

“Hey, baby.” He gives her a soft smile. “What are you doing here?”

“I hopped in my car a second after Ralph called me. I was so worried.” She sits on the edge of his hospital bed.

“I’m okay, sweetheart, just a few scrapes and bruises.”

“Harry…your arm’s in a sling.”

“Just a sprained wrist, it’ll heal up real soon.”

“How can you be so calm about this?” She asks as she curls up next to him. He throws his arm around her and sighs.

“Because if I let every little accident scare me, I wouldn’t be able to do my job properly. This is what I signed up for, babe.”

“Did you at least find the puppy?”

“I did, shielded the poor thing from the wall that collapsed on me. M’gonna have to go on light duty for a while.”

“Which means what exactly?”

“Lots of administrative work…that I can do remotely. So, I was thinking…maybe I could come up to Seabrook with you for a little longer than a weekend.”

“I’d love that! We can drive back up together. Everyone’s excited to meet you.”

“I’m excited to meet them too.”

After Harry rested up for a few days at home, with Danielle doting on him even though he told her she didn’t need to, the two drive up north together.

“Auntie Dani’s back!” Sarah exclaims as she bursts out of the porch.

“Sarah!” Isabelle yells after her. “We don’t run out of the house, no matter how excited we are to see Auntie.” She picks her daughter up. “Sorry, Dani.” Isabelle chuckles.

“No worries.” Danielle laughs. “This is my boyfriend, Harry. Harry, this is my sister-in-law Isabelle.”

“Hi.” Harry says, and Isabelle gasps when she sees his arm in a sling. “Just a sprained wrist, m’fine.” “It’s nice to meet you. This must be Sarah, yeah?”

“Hello.” The little girl smiles.

“Come on, everyone’s inside getting ready to head down to the beach.” Isabelle says.

Harry and Danielle follow inside. She takes him into the kitchen where her parents, Robert and Donna were finishing up their coffee.

“Dani!” Donna smiles. “How was the ride back up?”

“Fine, not a lot of traffic once we were out of the city.” She smiles. “This is Harry.”

“The hero that saved the puppy!” Robert says.

“I’m no hero, just did my job. It’s nice to meet you both. Thank you for inviting me to your home.” He shakes both of their hands.

“Are you kidding? We were over the moon when Dani said she’d be bringing a boyfriend with her.” Donna says. “Honey, why don’t you help Harry get settled and then meet us down at the beach?”

“Okay.” Danielle nods.

The two bring their things inside while everyone else makes their way to the beach. Danielle helps Harry put his clothes away in the dresser.

“So…are we alone right now?” Harry asks casually after putting his things away in the bathroom.

“Um, yeah. Everyone went down to set up at the beach, why?”

“Well…” He sits down on the bed and tugs her to sit on his lap, straddling her. “I haven’t been able to do much the last few days, and I’d like to make up for it.”

“Harry.” Her face flushes. “I can’t just fuck you here.”

“In the privacy of a bedroom? Here I was thinking this would be the perfect place.” He rolls his eyes.

“I just…” She bites her bottom lip. Before she can say anything when she opens her mouth again, he’s kissing her. “Fuck, okay, but we have to be quick. And no leaving marks, I don’t need to feel like a teenager at the age of twenty-seven.”

“How about no marks in any visible places?”

“Harry, I’m gonna be wearing a two piece, a lot is going to be visible.”

“Your ass?”

She whimpers softly and kisses him again. They both fall back on the bed, careful not to hurt his wrist. Danielle ended up riding his dick since he couldn’t really prop himself up with hands at the moment, but neither of them minded. It was a much-needed release for the both of them. Once they’re both cleaned up, they change into their bathing suits and go down to the beach to join her family.

“Auntie Dani, do you wanna dig a moat with me?” Ryan asks her the second she sets her things down.

“Sure! Just let me get some sunscreen on, okay?”

“You’re already looking a little red.” Clark remarks, and she glares at him. “Nice to meet you, Harry.”

“Same to you.” Harry says as he sits down in his beach chair.

Danielle peels her coverup off, and lathers up in sunscreen before grabbing a sand toy to help Ryan dig a moat. Isabelle was down by the water with Sarah.

“Harry, do you like seafood?” Donna asks him.

“I do.” He nods.

“Wonderful, I thought it would be nice to go out to eat since you’re here with us now. Celebrate having a full house and whatnot.”

“Oh, well…that sounds nice, thanks.” Harry smiles at her.

“I hope you won’t be too miserable working from inside the house…there’s no central air or anything.” Robert says.

“Oh, it’s not a problem. Heat doesn’t exactly bother me.” He smirks, and Danielle flicks some sand at him. “Oi, what was that for?!”

“No fire fighter jokes or puns.” She points a finger at him warningly. “We’re on vacation.”

“Come on, that was a good one, admit it.”

“I will do no such thing.” She looks at her parents who were chuckling at the exchange. “Don’t encourage him, it’ll only make it worse.”

“Anyways,” he side eyes her and then looks back at her parents, “I’ll probably just set up on the porch when I need to hop onto email. My deputy chief is taking on a bit more for me for the next couple of weeks.”

Harry never really saw himself being a dad someday, but as the day went on, and he watched Danielle interact with Sarah and Ryan, he suddenly understood why women would get baby fever seeing a man hold a baby. He may have only been with Danielle for five months, but fuck…he wanted to be the father of her kids. Yes, he got to spend an entire week with her and her classroom, but it’s not like he got to witness her loving on any of the kids. The way she cradled four-year-old Sarah to her chest as she napped, or splashed around in the water with Ryan, well, if he had ovaries they’d be bursting.

Seeing her help them at dinner was just as cute too. Sarah insisted that her booster chair be places next to Danielle, and Danielle ended up helping cut up Sarah’s chicken fingers. Then Harry got to witness Danielle tucking Sarah and Ryan in for the night to give Clark and Isabelle a break.

The two decide to turn in a bit early since it had been a long day. Danielle was sitting up in bed reading her romance novel. Harry was reading the same one. They had formed a little book club with another once they found out they liked the same genre of fiction.

“Dani?” He says to her.

“Hm?” She says without looking at him.

“Do you think you wanna have kids of your own one day? Or are your kindergartners enough kids for you?”

She immediately closes her book and looks at him. She was a little shocked.

“I…I always thought if I met the right person then I’d want to have kids. Like, turning that love into something physical, you know? What’s got you asking me about kids all of a sudden?”

“In all honesty…watching you with Ryan and Sarah today sort of sparked my interest. You’re so good with them in so many different ways. I…I mean I never really thought twice about having kids, but if you and I decide this is a long term thing…I’d love to be the person you have kids with.”

“Thought you didn’t like playing the what if game.” She leans in and pecks his lips.

“I don’t.”

“Okay, so, it’s not an if with us, Harry, it’s a when.”

He smiles and kisses her tenderly.

“You’re the love of my life, you know that?” He says against her lips before kissing her again.

The school year was just about to start again. Classes would begin just after Labor Day. How were Harry and Danielle spending their long weekend? Well, she was currently bouncing up and down on his dick reverse-cowgirl on her couch while he sucked a nasty bruise into her neck, rubbing her clit with one hand, and kneading one of her breasts with the other. She felt like she was drooling from how good everything felt. The two of them had both tanned nicely over the summer, and now they Danielle was fully back in her apartment, Harry was taking full advantage.

“Fuck, fuck!” She pants. Harry was thrusting up into her, pounding against her g-spot.

It was how she liked it, she didn’t care if she was sore later, and he was happy to give it to her like this. She turns her head slightly and she licks into his mouth to suck on his tongue. He replaces his tongue in her mouth with two of his fingers, which she was happy to suck on while his fingers continued to work her clit. They had been together for a while now, and sometimes when you were a little older, time didn’t make much of a difference when you were trying to check off certain boxes with the person you loved most. So, Harry just blurts out what he’s thinking.

“I think we should move in together.” He grunts, and she gasps around his fingers.

“Wh-what?” She says, whining because she’s so very close. This wasn’t the type of talk she enjoyed during sex. “Harry, please, I’m almost there, can we talk about this after?” She tugs at his hair, making him groan.

He grips her hips, helping her rock faster on him, and she goes to rub her own clit. He was fucking so hard and deep that she thought her spine was going to crack in half, but she didn’t fucking care. She wanted it. He hits it just right again, and her eyes roll into the back of her head as her back arches, her body molding into his as she rides it out. His come shoots up inside her a moment after, and he presses his lips to her temple. She tries to move off him, but he wraps his arms around her tummy to keep here there.

“Can we talk now?” He breathes, his breath hot on the shell of her ear and she whimpers. “I really think we should live together.”

“And whose place do you want to live at, hm? We’re both pack rats, Har. We both need home offices, we both-“

“Just answer the question: do you want to live together?”

“Yes.” She looks over her shoulder at him. “I do.”

“Okay, then.” He smiles and gently lifts her off of him. “Right when we started dating, I got pre-approved for a home loan.” He wraps her up in the blanket she has on the couch and carries her into the bedroom so they can both lay down before cleaning themselves up. “I put the house hunting on hold, obviously…I’d need to get pre-approved again since the three-month window they gave me lapsed, but…I can afford a pretty decent house.” He smiles fondly at Danielle. She had that after sex glow to her, and it always made him melt.

“You…you can afford a house?”

“I can.” He nods. “Been saving up for a while. I was sort of hoping…well…we could look at houses together. I could buy it, and then we could split the mortgage payments, or I could just pay the mortgage and you could take care of the utilities and other bills. Whatever makes more sense.” He shrugs. She blinks a few times and then licks her lips.

“I just…wow, I can’t believe you wanna do something so huge with me. Buying a house with someone is a pretty big deal.”

“I feel like it makes more sense to buy the house first, and then save back up for a wedding later, but that’s just me.” He gives her a smug look and her eyes widen. “I think that’s why the divorce rate is too high, not enough people live together before they get married.” A grin starts to form on her lips. “Don’t look at me like that, we’ve talked about long-term stuff before.”

“We’ve talked about hypothetical babies, not buying a house. Do you already have a realtor?”

“No, and we don’t really need one. We can just look up the houses we wanna see and contact the realtor that’s selling the home. A friend of mine did that and they said it was a way better experience.”

“I can’t believe this.” She shakes her and then giggles, throwing her arms around his neck. “You wanna be us a house! I wish I could help with the down payment, but my student loans have prevented me from putting a lot into my savings…”

“It’s no problem. You’re able to afford this place on your own, so I figured you’d be able to help with bills and stuff.”

“I definitely will be able to.” She kisses his cheek. “Let’s go take a shower and then we can start looking on realtor.”

“Eager.” He smirks as she tugs him up from the bed.

“Now’s the time to buy! All of the snowbirds who are looking to make the big plunge to warm weather full time will be looking to get rid of their houses, and with the school year starting we don’t really have to worry about competing with families. It’s perfect, Harry!”

It was, it really was.

By the beginning of October, the two were moved into a stunning home with four bedrooms, and four baths. They got just about everything on their wish list, and anything they didn’t, Harry said he could make happen. Danielle was able to pass out candy for Halloween to the kids in the neighborhood, which delighted her to no end because a few of her new and previous students stopped by. And when it came time for Thanksgiving, even though they weren’t full unpacked, Danielle was able to host a fabulous dinner for her family.

It wasn’t always perfect, they disagreed on paint colors, furniture, curtains, and rugs. They usually found some way to compromise, though. Sometimes Danielle had trouble checking her attitude at the door. There was one evening she got home a little later than usual, so Harry got dinner started. A nice gesture on his part, which she thanked him for. However, when it came time to clean up, she wouldn’t stop huffing while she loaded the dishwasher.

“Alright, what’s wrong?” He finally asks. “Why are you reorganizing everything?”

“Because you never put anything in here right.” She snaps. “Bowls and cups go on the top rack. Look at this! You put one of the little plates up here, how the fuck is that supposed to get cleaned properly?” She says as she moves the small plate to the bottom rack. “You also don’t load the silverware correctly. Did you want me to stab myself?! I’m usually the one that has to unload it.” She huffs again after throwing a pod in and turning the dishwasher on. She crosses her arms and looks at him. “I’m your girlfriend, not your mother.”

“I never said you were.” He crosses his arms as well, astonished at her tone.

“Yeah? So, did you think that your dirty socks and underwear just magically picked themselves up and put themselves into your hamper? Did you think that the bed magically gets made? Did you think that the broom and dustpan do a little fucking dance and that’s how the shmutz on the floor gets cleaned up?!”

“You’re making it seem like I don’t do anything to help out around here. I’m the one that rakes the leaves and mows the lawn, I’m the one that has to stop what I’m doing to come kill a bug every time you yelp, I’m the one that takes care of all the trash in the house-“

“Only when I say something about it overflowing. I have to tell you to do everything!”

“Look, I’m sorry I don’t load the dishwasher in the way that you’d prefer, but the dishes get clean, so-“

“No, they don’t. I either have to run it again, or I wash the stuff by hand. We’re gonna have kids someday, Harry, I don’t want them picking up on your bad habits.”

“My bad habits?!” Okay, now he was getting angry. “I have to ask you to clean your hair out of the shower drain. In fact, your hair is fucking everywhere! You never wipe off the mirror after you pop a pimple, which you know you shouldn’t be doing anyway.” He rolls his eyes. Her face falls into a deep frown. “Not so much fun when someone’s pointing out your flaws, is it?”

“Fuck off.” She turns on her heel and makes her way out of the kitchen.

“Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be. You’re going to start an argument with me, but you’re not going to finish it?” He says as he follows her out to the staircase.

“You asked me what was wrong, and I told you.” She states.

“Yeah, but you didn’t have to be such a bitch about it.” Her eyes widen with anger at that, and her nails press into her palms. She starts stomping her way upstairs. “Dani.” He sighs. “Shit, I didn’t mean to say that.” He follows her up the stairs.

“But you did.” She goes into the bedroom and almost shuts the door in his face, but he catches it, making his way in. “You men are all the same, you know that? Any time a woman calls you out on some crap, she’s a bitch.”

“You got upset over something as insignificant as loading a dishwasher. You know we’re lucky to even have one? There are people who don’t have the luxury.”

“Yeah, I know! And I’d probably be the one to always be washing the dishes.”

“If it bothered you that much, then why didn’t you say something to me before?”

“Because I didn’t want to come off as naggy! I don’t want to be one of those women that’s always telling their partner what to do and how to do it, but holy fuck, who actually raised you?! I mean, some of the things you do, I just don’t understand.” She shakes her head.

“We were obviously raised differently.” He sighs. “You know if you just told me-“

“But I don’t want to have to tell you! I don’t want to have to ask because I shouldn’t have to.”

“I’m not a mind reader, Dani!”

“I’m not asking you to be! But when the sink is full of dishes, do you think you could take care of it without me having to mention it? Do you think that when the trash is full you could just bag it up and take it and put a new bag in? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve accidentally thrown something out without a bag being in the barrel. It drives me bananas!”

“Okay, I’ll…I’ll try to be better about those things. I don’t want you to feel like you’re having to pick up after me.” He runs a hand through his hair.

“And…I’ll try to not just explode on you when something’s been bothering me.” She sits on the bed and lays back. “Ugh, I just had a long day. Kids are starting to get colds, and the meeting I had after school just wouldn’t end, I’m supposed to get my period in a couple of days so I feel bloated and gross.” Harry sits down next to her and rubs her thigh. He looks down at her with a soft smile. “Listen to me.” She sighs. “Here I am complaining about stupid things when you literally put your life at risk every time you go to work.”

“Don’t compare us, babe. You’re allowed to feel annoyed and stressed.”

“How do you always stay so calm?” She tugs him down to lay with her.

“I don’t know. It’s hard to stay upset when I have such a cute girlfriend.” He kisses her cheek and she giggles.

“I’m sorry I got so mad.”

“It’s okay, baby.” He kisses her cheek again. “We’re bound to have an argument once in a while. The most important thing is that we always make up afterwards.” He starts kissing on her neck and she bites her bottom lip.

“Harry, I just told you that I feel bloated and gross, and-“

“So, let me make you feel not gross.” He says as he moves on top of her. “Let me love on you, darling, it’ll help you destress.” He moves her up the bed until he’s situated between her legs. He undoes her pants and drags them down her legs. “Are you wearing boxer-briefs?” He questions.

“Y-yeah? I started buying them a little while ago. They’re more comfortable, and they breathe better. Plus, no panty lines.”

“How did I not notice this?” He blinks.

“Because I usually change when I get home into something a little sexier.” She chuckles.

“Actually…” He tugs on the band and lets it snap back against her skin. “You look pretty sexy in these.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He tugs them off of her and kisses on her tummy. He parts he legs and licks around her folds. She sighs and lets her body rest into the mattress.

“I really feel like I don’t deserve this since I was so nasty to you.” She says as she cards her finger through his hair.

“You can make it up to me by letting me fuck your mouth afterwards. Seems like you could use a break from running it, hm?” He sucks on her clit, making her groan, and she nods.

“Yeah, seems fair to me.” She gasps as he licks into her warm center, and uses his thumb on her clit. “Would you make me come a few times, though, at least?”

Her gives her a devilish smirk, which she takes as a yes while he continues to work his tongue in and out of her. He gave her four orgasms before crawling up her body and stuffing his throbbing down her throat. Feeling her nails dig into his hips as he thrusted in and out of her was everything he needed. They didn’t do stuff like this often. He didn’t want to be one of those couples where certain types of sex or positions were used as punishments. But he knew Danielle genuinely enjoyed feeling a little bit of pain, not that they’d ever talked about it. He didn’t want to embarrass her by bringing up one of her very obvious kinks. Whenever he did fuck her throat, though, she always moaned around him, and she’d end up drenched between her legs all over again, so he knew she enjoyed it. He also made sure to love on her right afterwards, praising her, telling her how good she did for him, and he’d get a glass of water for her to sip on while he cleaned her up. They had good, healthy relationship in many aspects. He loved her, he really fucking loved her, and he never wanted to be without her.

“Dani, fuck, I love you, I love you so much, shit!” He cries out as he comes down her throat. He pulls away from her carefully and she smiles up at him after swallowing. He wipes a few stray tears away from her cheek.

“I love you too.” She says, voice hoarse, but still there.

“Do you feel like taking a bath tonight? I could rub your shoulders for you.”

“I’d like that, yeah, thanks.”

A couple of months later, and it was fire safety week once again. They made it through their first holiday season together, and his thirty-third birthday. Now they had been together an entire year, owned a home together, and were looking into potentially getting a dog. Harry had told her all about the senior dogs at the shelter, and Danielle sort of liked the idea of not having to train a puppy, even if they were undeniably cute.

All of the kids in both of Danielle’s groups knew that Chief Styles was Miss Robinson’s very special friend because she had a picture of the two of them on her desk, and one of him as her desktop wallpaper. It was no surprise that some of the kids teased them a bit, and asked some personal questions, but other than that the week was going well as it usually did. When Friday rolled around, it was time for the kids to put on their performance for the fire department. It was an assembly all of the grades came to, along with the other teachers. Once the four songs, and a skit, are over, Harry goes up to give his thanks just as he did last year.

“Thank you all so much for another fantastic week. Fire safety is extremely important to learn at a young age. I know we had a lot of fun together, but remember, when you’re missing Chief Styles, don’t call 911 to talk to him. Have your parent or guardian come down to the fire house, and we can say hello there, alright?” That was usually where the assembly would end, but today things were going to go a little differently. “If I could have all of the kids back up on stage for a moment? Parents, I promise this won’t take more than a couple of minutes.”

Danielle was visibly confused because she hadn’t planned anything else with the students, and Harry hadn’t mentioned adding anything special today. So, she sat in her seat in the front row and watched. She leaned over next to one of her colleagues.

“Do you know what’s going on?” She asks.

“Just watch, Dani.” Her colleague says, and Danielle sits up straight in her seat again.

All of the kids were holding a piece of paper in their hands. It was facing blank towards the audience. Some of them were giggling as Harry and the other fire fighters placed them in certain spots. Ralph gives Harry a thumbs up, and he starts speaking into the microphone again.

“Not a lot of people know this, or maybe they do, I don’t really know, but last year was my first year getting to host fire safety week with the lovely Miss Robinson, and over this last year she’s managed to steal my heart, giving me the great privilege of calling her my girlfriend.” The kids behind him snicker and giggle. “You said you’d all be cool, come on.” He looks over at Danielle, who still really had no idea what the fuck was going on. “Miss Robinson, could you come here for a moment?”

She nods, and gets up slowly, walking over to him. He takes one of his hands in hers.

“What are you doing?” She whispers.

“You’ll see.” He winks. “Miss Robinson has taught her kids how to spell lots of interesting words already this year. She teaches them how to sound things out, and all that good stuff. I had a chance to teach them something this week and they’ve been dying to show you.” He tugs her to the side so the whole audience will be able to see. “Alright, kids, flip your papers over to show Miss Robinson.”

She gasps when she sees it, cupping a hand over her mouth as her eyes start to well up. All of the papers spelled out: M I S S – R O B I N S O N – W I L L – Y O U – M A R R Y – M E ? She looks at Harry, who was now down on one knee, holding up a gorgeous ring in a little black, velvet box.

“It says, Miss Robinson, will you marry me?” He says to her with a beaming smile.

“I can see that.” She says, wiping some tears from her cheeks.

“Will you?”

“Yes! Oh my god, yes.” Everyone in the room cheers as Harry slips the ring on her finger. He stands up, and kisses her, not to vulgarly because there were kids around, but enough to show how happy he was that she said yes. “When did you have the time to plan all of this with them?”

“Got their parents’ emails from one of the other teachers.” He smirks. “Are you surprised?”

“I’m shocked!” She turns to her students. “You all kept such a big secret from me!” They crowd around her to hug her as she opens her arms for them.

A ton of the teachers, parents, and fire fighters all come up to the congratulate the pair. Once all of the fuss is over, and the cafeteria is cleared, Harry and Danielle go back to her classroom so she can pack up her things for the day.

“Do you like the ring?” He asks nervously.

“Are you kidding, I love it! It’s so beautiful, baby.” She pecks his lips. “I can’t wait to call my parents, I’m buzzing! Think of how cute Sarah’s going to be as a flower girl. Oh, and they’ll start calling you Uncle Harry, how sweet!”

“Gonna have to let Ryan be a groomsman, or I think he’ll try to kill me.” Harry chuckles. “He’s quite protective over his Auntie Dani.”

“And don’t you forget it.” She presses her finger to his chest. He leans in and kisses her tenderly. Normally, Danielle didn’t like getting so lovey dovey in her classroom, but she figured she had a good excuse in case anyone walked in. “I still can’t believe you planned all of that and pulled it off. Those kids usually can’t keep a secret.”

“I promised them all a ride in one of the fire trucks if they kept their mouths shut.”

“Damn, that was really smart.” She chuckles.

“I’d say so.” He smirks. “Do you feel like going out to eat tonight to celebrate? Ralph and his husband were hoping to treat us.”

“Sure.” She nods. “I’ll just need to cancel my yoga classes really quick.”

“You can still teach your classes if you want. I can just tell him we won’t be ready until later.”

“No, see, I wanna go home, and stay there for a bit.” She tugs on the suspenders that were keeping his fire pants up. “I’d like to celebrate with you privately first, Chief Styles.” She takes his hat off and puts it on her own head before catching his bottom lip between her teeth and sucking on it. He groans into the kiss, and she lets his lip snap back. He had inadvertently put her into one of her ‘Chief Styles/Miss Robinson’ moods, which he wasn’t upset about in the least. “How’s that sound?”

“Well, Miss Robinson, I’d say it sounds like you’re trying to seduce me.” He smirks, and she rolls her eyes. It was her least favorite joke.

“I can’t wait to be Danielle Robinson Styles so that you can’t make that stupid fucking joke anymore. I’m not a forty-year-old woman seducing a recent college grad!” His face softens immensely. “What?”

“Nothing.” He puts his hands on her hips and gives her a squeeze. “I just…I didn’t think you’d want to change your name, is all.”

“Harry, I’d be proud to be called Mrs. Styles. Think of how cute it’ll be after we get married and I have a new class, and then when you come in for fire safety week, I’ll be able to say my husband, Chief Styles.” She pouts at him.

“Alright, it’s time we get you home before my stiffy pops through my pants.”

She giggles as she grabs her bag, and they both rush out of her classroom, and out to the car. They held hands the while way home, not wanting to be apart from one another’s touch for even a second.

#burning love #harry styles #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fic #harry styles imagine #harry styles au #harry styles series #harry styles x oc #harry styles smut #harry styles fluff #harry styles angst #firefighter!harry #firefighterry

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lilothrowbacks · 3 years

Link

Louis Tomlinson went on a Twitter reply stream on Monday (if you saw any of The Honey POP fam trying to get noticed… no you didn’t bestie), and amongst talk of his wisdom teeth, napping, and his nan, his answer to one question, in particular, left our brains melting. HE HASN’T WRITTEN HIS BEST SONG YET! Louis Tomlinson’s songwriting is supreme, but watch this space, the best is yet to come…

Yes, according to our Donny King, when asked what the best song he has written in his lifetime is, Louis answered “Haven’t written it yet”. Considering the quality of music Louis has already put out to brighten our world, plus the other songs that never made it to Walls (he wrote over 100 songs!), we’re not sure how we’ll survive when he does write it!

Contenders For The Title

Louis may not think he has written his best song yet, but we’re pretty sure there are some strong contenders for the title! Here is our ranking of the 6 best songs Louis Tomlinson has ever written! We had to stop ourselves from doing 28… what can we say? We’re simps.

6. ‘Don’t Let It Break Your Heart’

Louis shared that this is one of the songs he is really proud of, for its lyrics and music. During his exclusive chat with LA On Air for 96.5 TDY last year, Lou said while chatting about ‘DLIBYH’: “… across the whole song, that’s something I’m proud of musically in particular. The lyrics are really strong, I mean, that’s always me thing anyway, but I’m really happy with the music…” You’re right Louis, the lyrics really are your thing. Talking about the inspiration for the song, Lou explained “It’s about trying to find hope wherever you can”, and for so many of us, we found hope in that song, and of course, just in Louis. Life really does get hard and get messed up, but for many of us Louie’s, this song makes us feel stronger.

It is beautiful, hopeful, and honest lyricism, and that’s why ‘DLIBYH’ has to be in THP HQ’s list of Louis’ best songwriting!

5. ‘Two Of Us’

I mean, it’s pretty obvious. Do we even need to explain this one? ‘Two Of Us’ is one of the most moving, raw, and emotional songs we have ever heard. In honor and loving memory of Louis’ beautiful Mum Jay, this song and its lyrics feel like seeing into Louis’ heart, and Louis’ ability to do that through music, is unprecedented in our opinion. It has such vulnerable strength and honesty, and Lou’s songwriting here, allowed him to vocalize his pain, but also, it allowed us as fans to mourn in our own way too, and this is a truly special gift that Louis gave to the world. He promised her he’d do this, so all of this is all for Jay; and as fans, we will never forget that. Sleep tight Johannah.

Of course, we had to put ‘Two Of Us’ on our list of times that Louis Tomlinson has absolutely floored us with his songwriting talent.

4. ‘Home’

We can’t even verbalise to you, how much we struggled to pick which One Direction song to include here… he wrote so many! We went back and forth on 9 different songs, because as Louis Tomlinson said on Twitter in 2018, “if it’s by One Direction and it’s a banger I probably wrote on it”. In the end, our hearts belong to ‘Home’, because, putting it bluntly, it is the epitome of how we feel about 1D – they made it feel like home. ‘Home’ is a firm fan favorite because it connected with so many of us in so many ways. That was evident when the song won a Teen Choice Award in 2016, despite never being a single! Fans further celebrated the song, through a month-long fan project in 2016, which led to the song being added to 1D’s official Spotify playlist a month later!

Any song that can connect with us to that level, and make us feel so deeply that we still cry about it after 5+ years, absolutely demands a spot on our list of the best songs Louis has written.

3. ‘Only The Brave’

Say it with us: “It should have been longer!” The closing track of Louis’ debut album, is in our opinion, an absolute lyrical masterpiece. “It’s a church of burnt romances and I’m too far gone to pray”…. Excuse me? Too many feelings. Nobody touch us. What an exquisite visual? Louis Tomlinson doesn’t just write songs, he is a storyteller. We will never understand how Louis managed to pack so much emotion, truth, and vulnerability, into a song of only 1 minute and 44 seconds; but we’ll also never stop thanking him for it. ‘Only The Brave’ has made such a giant footprint in this fandom, with a special mention going to so many LGBTQIA+ Louie’s (this writer included), for the comfort so many of us have found in this song. So many fans feel seen through this song regardless of the meaning or intention, because the honesty of an incredible song, is that people can take what they need from it. That, in our opinion, is Louis’ specialty, and it’s just really bloody important to us!

‘Only the Brave’ felt like a gift to fans, and its lyrics paint such vivid colors and visuals for so many fans. Of course, it’s on our list!

2. ‘Copy of a Copy of a Copy’

‘COACOAC’ is special. Yes, it’s the newest song we’ve heard, but we think it’s one of the best too! Once again, this song paints a picture so beautifully. In fact, we think if we gave Louie’s a canvas and a paintbrush, we could all draw what ‘COACOAC’ looks like! Debuted during Louis’ live stream concert in December 2020 (which we still haven’t recovered from by the way), this song casts shadows and shines light. “I can hear you, howling ’til your lungs hurt, so let this be your comfort, you’re not the only one.” It’s dark, yet hopeful, and experienced yet vulnerable. We think it’s one of the most thought-provoking songs Louis has shared with us, and in seconds, it became a fan favorite. ‘COACOAC’ is a testament to Louis’ insightful songwriting, and stylistically, its alternative vibe makes us weak with anticipation for the future of Louis’ journey with song-writing. We at THP HQ, can’t wait to scream it with you all at a Louis concert, once life makes sense again.

‘COACOAC’ has cemented its place as one of Louis Tomlinson’s best songwriting masterpieces; and has launched itself to number 2 on our list!

1. ‘Defenceless’

Oh, ‘Defenceless’, what can we say about you? You’re our number one. There is one lyric in particular, that just cannot be competed with, and which has confirmed ‘Defenceless’ as our pick for the best song Louis has ever written. “We’re sleeping on our problems like we’ll solve them in our dreams. Wake up early morning and they’re still under the sheets”. Like, seriously? Come on, that isn’t just songwriting, that is poetry, it’s art. We dare to say, it may be one of the best lyrics in music. Ever. The brainpower of this man! ‘Defenceless’ stole the hearts and minds of Louie’s across the world, as it should. The ‘Defenceless’ project, which started online in February 2021, confirmed the magnitude of this song. It brought fans together from across the globe (much like the ‘No Control’ Project back in 2015). We saw #LouiesOnOmegle spread the word of this monumental song to strangers, and Louie’s storm global radio stations to play the track. Not only is ‘Defenceless’ lyrically, melodically, and sonically world-class, but the way it united fans; was magnificent.

This song affirms Louis Tomlinson, as one of the best songwriters of a generation, and it’s going smack-bang at the top of our list, of the best songs Louis has ever written.

25.3.2021

#louis tomlinson #the honey pop #articles #louis update #250321

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starsfic · 3 years

Text

Family Dinner

Summary: Xiaotian is invited to be a buffer at Red’s family dinner.

Notes: So Family Dinner won the Art School poll so...enjoy!

-_-

“I need your help.”

The tone, barely audible over his music, was enough to make Xiaotian stop his music and look up from his tablet. Red looked nervous, bouncing from foot to foot, and it didn’t help that his hair was down in a poofy mess and he looked like he hadn’t slept for three days. “Sure.” he said, hoping that would help that look fade. “What do you need?”

The look didn’t ease. “Just so we’re clear, you can say no, but my family dinner is coming up and I don’t want to be alone with them but-” Realization came to life. He hadn’t heard much about Red’s parents, but enough had been heard that Xiaotian could get a picture.

“Sure.”

Red came to a stop, eyes widening. “Really?”

Xiaotian nodded, saving his work and then turning off his tablet. “Yeah! If you don’t want to be alone with them, I get it. This hasn’t been the first time I’ve been a buffer.” The other blinked, opened his mouth, and then closed it, clearly confused. “Xiaojiao’s parents love me.” he said, shrugging.

Red blinked again. “...okay.” he finally managed out, clearly moving past it. “Dress up nice and I’ll pick you up on Friday. Thanks.” And just like that, he was walking away.

“You’re welcome!” he called after him, unsure of what else to do.

-_-

Thankfully, Xiaotian had two nice outfits. Unfortunately, he also had a complete unawareness if they were nice enough. A quick text to Red, asking where they were going, fixed that. Thankfully, the outfits he had looked nice enough for the place which meant he didn’t need to go shopping.

Thirty minutes before he was supposed to be picked up, Xiaotian smoothed down his shirt. He had decided to go with the dress shirt and black slacks inside of the pretty orange dress, which still left him the question of what to do with his hair. He considered his reflection, humming in thought. He could leave it like it was, with his red headband making it spike up, but that felt too casual. Maybe down? He tried it, considering it. Xiaojiao was at a race in the next town over and was probably asleep at this hour, so he couldn’t call her for her opinion.

A knock on the door made him pull his eyes away. “It’s open!”

The door creaked open, revealing Red. He was dressed similarly, what looked like a fancy jacket slung over his arm, golden earrings in, and eye bags still visible. “I was wondering if you were-” He paused, staring at Xiaotian. It might’ve been the light, but for a moment, he had thought Red had been looking him over in a... boyfriend way, for lack of a better word. “You… have your hair down.” He sounded flustered, at least.

“Yeah, I wasn’t sure if it was nice enough or I should put it into a ponytail…”

“Keep it down.” Red said, scanning him over again with a much more technical look. “But it is missing something.” He looked around before landing on Xiaotian and Xiaojiao’s shared jewelry box. “Mind if I-?” Xiaotian nodded his approval, so Red hurried over. After a moment of rustling around, he pulled something out. “Here we go.”

He had pulled out a pair of golden monkey earrings, a gift from Tripitaka when he returned from visiting New York one time. Xiaotian took it with a word of thanks and slid them in. “You ready?” he asked when he finished, stopping to grab the flowers he had ordered just in case. Red shook his head but gestured to him to go first, closing the door behind them.

Outside, the night was cool. Red led Xiaotian to a small red car and once, they were buckled in, drove silently away from the dorms.

After a few minutes of tense silence, Xiaotian glanced over at his… he wasn’t sure what they were. In any case, Red was as tense as a board, glaring straight ahead, and looking ready to pass out. “Hey,” he finally said. The other blinked. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“It’s just… it’s the first time I’ve brought a guest to these dinners and my mother wasn’t exactly pleased when I told her you were coming after I asked you.” His knuckles went white on the wheel. “And I’m just freaked out you’re going to hate me after this is done.”

He reached out, holding Red’s shoulder. “Hey. Nothing your parents can do will make me hate you.” Xiaotian tried his best to pour every inch of sincerity into his voice. “You’re great. And there is nothing- RED LIGHT!” At his cry, Red slammed on the brakes, an inch from crossing the red light.

The car once again went silent, except for their frantic breaths and furiously pumping hearts. Ahead of them, traffic furiously drove and drove, busy, busy, busy. The two finally managed to catch their breaths, glancing at each other. When they met eyes, they lost their breath again- this time to relieved laughter. Finally, their light turned green and Red started again.

The brush with life and death had seemed to calm him a bit. He started smiling when Xiaotian turned on the radio and started to bop his head to the music.

But, soon enough, they were pulling into a parking lot. Red went stiff again the minute they had parked. Following his gaze, Xiaotian watched as a black limo dropped off two people at the front. When it passed, he finally got a good glance at Red’s parents.

The small woman in the front must’ve been Iron Fan. She was dressed in an elegant red and gold dress. Her long dark hair was pulled away in a complex hairstyle to reveal a beautiful face with red-painted lips and sharp eyeliner. Behind her was DBK. Sharing his son’s liking of colored hair, his purple hair was pulled back into a short bun. He was dressed in a dark suit that failed to hide the fact that he was built like a tank, amber eyes scanning the parking lot. Looking for them.

Red took a deep breath before pulling on his coat. “Okay.” he breathed out, readjudting his ponytail one last time. “Let’s do this.”

“Are you ready?”

“Nope. Let’s go.”

The two bundled out of the car, Xiaotian gripping his bouquet tight. Together they headed towards Red’s parents. In a walk that both felt too long and too short, they were at the sidewalk. The two elders turned and he felt a shiver run down his spine. DBK looked… not pleased. But Iron Fan had the same look on Xiaojiao’s face whenever she was mentally planning to gut someone. Red came to a stop and Xiaotian mirrored him.

“Mother. Father. My apologies for being late.” Red’s tone was formal, apologetic.

His mother stepped forward, the gutting look replaced by some kind of look that was too cold to be maternal. “We were wondering where you were,” Iron Fan said, cupping Red’s face. And then she was squishing his cheeks. “My sweet useless boy.” Before Xiaotian could say something, she was turning to him. The look was back. “And this must be Qi Xiaotian.”

“Yes!” Xiaotian said, trying to not be cowed. He held out his hand. “Red’s told me so much about you.” A lie, but one he hoped worked. Iron Fan considered his hand before shaking it. Her red-nailed grip was ridiculously strong. “I… hope you like flowers?” he managed out, holding out the bouquet.

Iron Fan took it, considering the flowers. “How sweet.” she said. Without another word, she turned. “Come on, let’s go before our table is given away.” The boys followed, not sure what else to do.

When their backs were turned, Xiaotian slid his hand into Red’s hand and squeezed it in a hopeful attempt at comfort.

Red squeezed it back.

Inside, the decor was elegant- one of the fanciest places Xiaotian had ever been in. Their hostess led them up a grand staircase, overlooking the rest of the restaurant, and to a round table with a lazy Susan tray in the center. “We hope you enjoy it.” she said, promising their waiter would be by soon. Xiaotian thanked her before looking down to realize Red had pulled out his chair. Across the table, DBK had done the same to Iron Fan, pushing her in.

Together, they opened their menus. “I think we will get our usual,” DBK said, his voice rough. Xiaotian nearly jumped at it, since the man hadn’t said a word. “Do you have any thoughts, Xiaotian?”

He glanced at the menu, trying to figure out what would be best to say. The menu had been online and he had given it a quick scan ahead, but Red’s parents were leaving him floundering. “Do you have any recommendations?” he finally managed out.

Iron Fan’s grin, cold and cruel, showed he had mistepped.

In the end, it felt like they had ordered the spiciest things on the menu for their main courses. Xiaotian resisted a scream and the waiter had a pitying look on his face. So did DBK, much to his surprise. Now, all that was left to do was wait for the first course.

“So, Xiaotian,” Iron Fan said, all her attention on him. “What do you study?”

School. He could do school. “I’m doing a painting and graphic design major.” Xiaotian said, trying to sound confident. “I’m working on a webcomic idea. But if that doesn’t work out, I’m planning to go into museum work.” He had worked with his dads to figure out this backup plan, just in case.

“Oh, really.” The waiter returned to pour dark red wine into their wine glasses. Iron Fan took a sip. “What is your webcomic about?” Next to him, Red stiffened. Xiaotian stiffened as well.

“It’s… about my dad.” he finally squeaked out.

Iron Fan stiffened but this time DBK leaned forward in interest. “How is Wukong?” he said. “I haven’t heard much since my… return.” And there was another fact- they used to be friends. If things had been different, Xiaotian probably would’ve grown up with Red. “I only heard he adopted a son.”

“He’s married.” Xiaotian squeaked.

The dinner did not get better from there.

When the food arrived, there was a glass of water that came with it for Xiaotian (which seemed to be the only mercy), and Iron Fan and DBK seemed to laser-focus on Red. It didn’t seem to matter that he was there, their words were cold, casual, and cruel as they picked at things here and there, no matter how trivial.

Finally, the dessert course was done, the check arrived, and DBK paid. “Remember your grades.” Iron Fan said when DBK’s credit card was returned. Without another word or an actual goodbye, she was standing and she and her husband were leaving. Red shuddered the minute they were out of view.

“That went well.” he finally managed out.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t much help.” Xiaotian said, not sure what else to say. At least Xiaojiao’s parents tried, or at least didn’t have their issues in front of him. “I didn’t expect…”

“Nobody expects my parents, Noodle Boy. Let’s go home.”

The ride back was in exhausted silence. “I have mochi.” Xiaotian mumbled out when they parked. “Want some?” He needed something to eat after trying to not burn his tongue off and he really didn’t want to leave Red alone.

“...yeah.”

#Art School AU #my writing #Spicynoodleshipping #Monkie Kid #Lego Monkie Kid #Red Son #Qi Xiaotian #MK #Princess Iron Fan #Demon Bull King #au

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gravedangerahead · 4 years

Text

Sydney Sage + surely books can solve any problem

Rated for efficiency

The spellbooks Ms. T had Sydney unknowingly learn from for "research"

3/5, the fire amulet didn't stop the Strigoi, but it may have kept Adrian alive long enough for the calvary to arrive

The Amberwood Yearbook she threw at Lee so she and Adrian could make a run for it

For solving the mystery: 2/5, she solved it the second it didn't matter anymore

For throwing at a serial killer: 2.5/5, it did distract him, the Strigoi arrival was terrible timing

The books on kissing and dating she got when she went out with Brayden

"I’d feared dating for years but was again pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to talk to him. It was a lot like the Shakespearean outing: an endless source of topics that we both knew lots about. It was the rest of the experience that still left me unsettled—the “date” stuff. The dating books I’d read since our last outing mostly advised on when to have sex, which was completely useless since I had yet to figure out holding hands."

"None of the advice I’d gotten from the books or my friends really prepared me for how to handle discussions about alternative energy sources. One of the books—one I’d chosen not to finish—had a decidedly male-centric view that said women should always make men feel important on dates."

1/5, not very useful. (Maybe if she'd gotten a book on the asexuality spectrum and demisexuality)

The HR department book for teachers

For claiming Ms. T making her research spellbooks counts as inappropriate behavior: 0/5

For getting Angeline out of being expelled after she punched a motivational speaker who tried to physically pull her up to the stage and throwing a speaker at another: 4/5

The Invisible Dagger: Practical Spells for Offense and Defense

For self-defense: 5/5, heavily used to escape the vampire hunters

For Ms. T's goal of using Sydney's curiosity and interest in self-defense to tempt her into willingly study magic on her own: 83/5

"“We’re here for you if you do,” I said. I technically meant it, but if Jill came sobbing to me afterward, I wasn’t entirely sure what I should say. Maybe I could find a book on appropriate breakup counseling techniques before she did the deed."

?/5, unclear if bought or helpful

Elements of Battle

For distracting her from Adrian in a plane: 0/5, became the topic of conversation, got them to make up

For battling Alicia: 4/5, knocked herself out using spells that were too advanced, but won

Bad Boys and the Women Who Love Them

"My preferred theory was that I’d simply been caught up in how serious Adrian had been about his art, how the emotion and passion had seized hold of him. Girls liked artists just as much as bad boys, right? Even now, something stirred in my chest when I thought about the enraptured look on his face. I loved that he possessed something so powerful in him.

But, as I told myself constantly, that was no excuse for climbing all over him and letting him kiss me—on my neck. I’d bought and downloaded the “bad boy” book online, but it had been completely useless in advising me. I finally decided the best way—if not the healthiest one—was to act like the moment had never happened."

"My body doesn’t know any better. I’m as susceptible to lust as anyone else.” There was probably a book about that or at least an article in Cosmopolitan."

"Some part of me—nearly as snarky as Adrian—suggested I pick up a book on denial the next time I was in the self-help section."

-97/5, absolutely useless, irrelevant topic

Summonings and Conjurations

100/5, excellent for becoming the co-parent of a tiny protective dragon with the boy you're totally not in love with, very cute. HOPPER!!!

The baby name book

For stopping Adrian's heart: 5/5

For picking her new witchy coven name: 4/5, very reasonable, not sure if she actually chose from it

Inez's mechanics of charm making books

5/5, Sydney successfully broke and sealed Alchemist tattoos

Unspecified number of sex how-to books

12/5, got an impressed “Where did you learn that, Sage?” from Adrian Ivashkov, can't argue with results

An embellished book with metal corners used to unscrew a ventilation panel in her room in re-education

4/5, not as good as a screwdriver but did the job, successfully turned off the knock-out gas

Unnamed book of spells gifted by Ms. T after Sydney's rescue

5/5, aided their escape, terrified some Alchemists, should've killed them painfully but you can't have everything

"some parenting book she read about kids learning a second language"

4/5, Declan seems to be learning Spanish well

Happy birthday to my darling Sydney Sage Ivashkov, I may have gone overboard on this one

#Sydney Sage #sydrian #adrian ivashkov #bloodlines series #bloodlines #long post #if there's a least one post by somebody else in between my posts that means I'm not clogging up a tiny fandom's tags with my nonsense right #Angeline dawes #jill mastrano dragomir #sydney ivashkov #Sydney Sage Ivashkov #adrian x sydney #sydney sage x adrian ivashkov #Rapha's Bloodlines Tag #vampire academy

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crushforty · 4 years

Text

persona 2 but modern

because it’s funny to imagine maya being verified on tiktok

social media

all of them except baofu have tiktok. lisa, eikichi jun, maya and ulala probably have instagram or snapchat too,, maybe twitter

tatsuya has a twitter. its completely empty except for a motorcycle compilation video he retweeted in like 2014

he also has a tiktok. he posts videos of him holding his swords and nothing else, doesn’t even use audios or music or even talk, you just hear his breathing

he has thousands of followers because people like swords

jun posts those aesthetic tea making and flower watering videos with pretty music and filters. surprisingly he has a lot of followers! he tries to get tatsuya to make those cottagecore couple vids with him but hes too awkward for it

maya is a huge activist and posts all sorts of lifestyle stuff and occasional videos of ulala boxing which people love. she’s verified with a huge following

katsuya doesnt post anything but he likes watching baking and cat videos. maya taught him how to make posts and stuff and he tries to do those satisfying icing videos

eikichi and lisa make dancing and makeup tiktoks and their instagrams are very much full of the same thing, yet they have less followers combined than tatsuya. who literally just. makes sword videos

baofu claims not to have social media and thinks its stupid but he definitely watches everyone’s content and laughs at them

video games

lisa is totally a console gamer. she thinks the pc gamer set up with multiple monitors and light up keyboard is stupid and makes fun of eikichi for having it.

she definitely plays with tatsuya and eikichi tho. the three of them get really into it

jun, not so much, because he doesnt own any consoles but if you invite him over to play, he does pretty damn good

why? no one knows

maya and ulala share a switch. maya is more of an animal crossing person while ulala will play splatoon for hours and swear at people

katsuya thinks gaming incites violence in children and complains about tatsuya playing them, even tho he doesnt even play that often (“why do you need a playstation AND an xbox?? aren’t they the same thing?”)

baofu once again pretends to think its stupid but he definitely indulges in some online pvp when he feels like it

hobbies

i feel like maya would grow an online shopping addiction.. she sees the most arbitrary things she thinks are cute and orders them and ulala is exhausted by it. maya’s room is full of junk she dug up on random shopping websites

juns intelligence gives him a real gift for pc tech. he would be interested in that sort of thing tbh hes the kid who always has to help the teacher turn on the projector in class

lisa seems like one of those netflix bitches.. somehow she always knows what the latest season of riverdale and outer banks has going on. yknow all the white people shows

she’s seen the office like 4 times

baofu would never leave his computer if he had access to modern day tech. he’d be exactly like futaba

katsuya will see tatsuya on his phone for more than 2 seconds and lecture him about how he grew up with just a flip phone and kids these days need their phones to survive smh this and that

katsuya however is guilty of watching youtube baking tutorials a lot.

a lot.

imagine if eikichi had a digital art program,, he could make little featherman comics

tech

lisa has airpods change my mind

she also always has the latest iphone and puts stickers on the case

maya still has a fucking iphone 4. it works. how ?? who knows

ulala and eikichi seem like they would have android phones and i don’t know why.. apple supremacy but for some reason i get that vibe from them

the suous are apple loyalists. tatsuyas phone has a dozen cracks and scratches, hes dropped in it snow and cereal, and the speakers hardly work, and doesn’t use a case despite katsuyas insistence that he should

jun has a newish iphone model, he has a clear case with little pressed flowers inside

he does also have a reallyyyy nice desktop computer

baofu has a flip phone still, despite also having a really nice computer

eikichi has that nerdy gamer headset with cat ears that light up because he thinks its cool

i cant think of much else i just needed to write this down because imagine p2 kids in 2021

#just. imagine #persona #persona 2 #tatsuya suou #lisa silverman #eikichi mishina #jun kurosu #maya amano #ulala serizawa #katsuya suou #baofu

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pickalilywrites · 3 years

Text

it’s my first fic since i started my job ❤ i hope you enjoy ^^

..........

You and Me at the End of the World

Falbi. SF8 AU.

11194 words.

Read on Ao3!

»»————- April 3, 2026 ————-««

Falco wakes, a sigh escaping his lips. He feels an incredible weariness in his bones as if he had run a marathon yesterday even though he hasn’t really had PE in a month. He hasn’t had PE since his teacher had run off just like everyone else did when they heard that an asteroid was hurtling towards the earth and set to destroy life as everyone knew it. Everyone Falco knew just up and left their jobs and homes to pursue their dreams: his classmates dropped out of school to become idols or viral TikTokers, the mailman stopped delivering mail to Falco’s house and decided to fly to every place in the world he had always wanted to visit, and even the principal of Falco’s school had resigned but not before advising all of the students to drop out of school because it was useless now that they were all about to die.

Many people had taken the principal’s advice, but not Falco. He still goes to school on the weekdays and spends the weekend completing homework assignments that will never be graded. A few students had visited the school even after the principal had closed the school down, but they had stopped coming after they saw how many of their peers had dropped out and saw how even the teachers didn’t bother coming back.

It doesn’t bother Falco that he goes to school every morning and studies in an empty classroom all day or that he has to fish out study plans from the notebooks his teachers left behind just to give himself something to do. His parents have asked him why he bothers going to school when all of his classmates have pretty much given up, but Falco really doesn’t have an answer. If he had to say anything, it’s probably that he doesn’t have anything in particular that he wants to do.

Falco acknowledges that he’s never been incredibly ambitious like some of his classmates have been. His talents are unspectacular. He knows that he’s neither athletic nor smart. He’s always been average. He never studied too hard because he knew he’d never get the highest score in the class and he never exerted himself too much in PE because there was always someone stronger or faster than him. It isn’t something that ever bothered him, and he’s grown to accept that part of himself.

He doesn’t have any special interests either. Sure, Falco enjoys playing video games and playing sports like any kid his age, but he can’t see himself wasting the rest of his days on them. Some of his classmates even asked him to join them. Falco has had multiple offers: join a band as a bassist even though he’s never touched a bass guitar in his life, become a part of a dance crew despite his coordination being awful at best, start a video channel pulling off different stunts and tricks to gain a little bit of spotlight before they all died, among others. He declined all of them in the end, preferring to be alone, and even now Falco doesn’t regret his decision. He’s content being a normal kid living out the rest of his tedious life as monotonously as he always did.

His parents live quite normally too except for the fact that they quit their jobs like everybody else did when news of the asteroid came out. Rather than return to their jobs every morning, his parents go out on long walks together, often visiting places from their younger days. They usually leave long before Falco wakes, but his mother is always sure to leave out a freshly made breakfast for Falco and his older brother Colt.

Colt hasn’t made any drastic changes to his lifestyle, not like some other people his age. He, too, dropped out of school like many of his peers and Falco’s classmates, but he usually spends his time visiting internet cafés or playing baseball with his friends. The elder brother once curiously asked Falco why he bothered going to school and the younger just simply shrugged. Colt never bothered to ask again, and Falco was fine with that.

Falco rolls out of bed and heads to the bathroom to brush his teeth as he normally does. His hair looks like a mess. Since news of the upcoming apocalypse, people either care excessively about their appearance or they don’t care about it at all. Considering his circumstances, Falco should probably fall in the latter category, but he fixes his bed head all the same, patting down the cowlicks and running a comb through his hair to get rid of all the tangles.

After washing his face and getting dressed in his school uniform, Falco wanders into the kitchen where his breakfast is waiting for him. On the stove sits a pan with fluffy scrambled eggs mixed with little bits of crispy, dark spinach leaves, and sweet gruyère. Falco twists the knob on the stove with a sharp click before popping bread into the toaster. As he waits for the eggs to warm up, he fixes himself a glass of orange juice.

Falco ends up splitting the eggs in half, leaving a portion for Colt whenever he decides to roll out of bed. He sits at the kitchen island by himself, munching on some generously buttered toast in between bites of egg. It’s a much fancier breakfast than his mother used to make. Scrambled eggs were usually plain except for a dash of salt and pepper, but his mother has become more experimental with her cooking now that the end of the world is evident. It’s a good change, Falco thinks as the blend of savory bacon and salted eggs melt onto his tongue. It probably would have been nice if his mother had decided to be more adventurous with her cooking beforehand, but it’s not as if having regrets about this can change the past so Falco just eats the rest of his breakfast before dumping his plate in the sink and calling out to his brother that he’ll be heading to school. He doesn’t even wait for a response from Colt before heading out the door.

Ever since news of the asteroid, Falco has begun seeing very interesting people on his way to school. Some of them are familiar to him. Others he’s never seen before in his life. They’re not all strange, of course. Sometimes there are just kids running up and down the road kicking a soccer ball or couples holding hands as they take a morning stroll. But there are more than a few eccentrics on Falco’s way to school.

Lately, there have been people claiming to be superheroes. They have superpowers, they insist. Some will rush up to strangers on the street and show off their powers, but Falco has never seen any proof of their alleged superhuman talents.

Some people post videos online demonstrating their special gifts. Falco has seen a handful of them, mostly because his friend Zofia keeps sending them to him every few days when she finds them particularly funny. He finds them mildly intriguing, although he’s fairly certain that most (if not all) of the videos are either staged or edited to look real. He’s never been fully convinced by any of them.

On this particular walk to school, Falco passes by a person who claims to be able to create seismic shifts and another person who she can talk to animals. Neither person is particularly believable. Falco only gives a passing glance when the first person begins to demonstrate their powers by spinning in a circle and letting out a low groan that begins to grow into a loud shriek. The earth, Falco notices, does not shake. He’s even less interested when the animal girl starts shouting post-apocalyptic prophecies about how giant bugs will inherit the earth once the dust has settled on the earth after the asteroid impact.

Falco reaches the school gate and pulls it open himself because there isn’t a teacher there to welcome him like there used to be. He leaves it open to save trouble for anyone who ends up coming after him, although he highly doubts anyone will be joining him. He walks across the courtyard where some of his former schoolmates play soccer, looking at them briefly but not bothering to bid them good morning. When he gets to the building, he pulls open the door and steps inside. The sound of his shoes against the speckled tile echo across the empty hallways as he makes his way to his classroom.

As usual, it’s empty. Falco could probably sit anywhere he wants, but he ends up at his old desk, the second seat in the third row from the right. He sits down with a thud and lets his backpack fall off his shoulder. He pulls out his notebook and looks at today’s lesson that he copied from his homeroom teacher’s planner earlier last month: geometry, English, social studies, art, and science.

Falco dutifully completes his assignments for the day. He even double-checks his answers once he’s done. Maybe he’ll look over the answer key after school if he feels like it. He spends his break staring at the window at the kids playing ball in the field or playing pranks on each other in the quad. He doesn’t make any attempt to join them.

At 2:15, Falco packs his things. He puts away his pens and pencils neatly in his case, zips up his backpack, and slings his bag over his shoulder. As he walks to the door of the classroom, he thinks he imagines footsteps running down the hall. It makes him wonder if the impending apocalypse is making him go mad because he can’t imagine why anyone would be here when the world is going to end in a week. When he pulls open the door, he sees his friend Zofia about to reach for the door.

“Oh, good,” Zofia pants. She bends over, hands on her knees as she tries to catch her breath. Ashy blonde locks are falling out of her ponytail. “I was afraid I missed you. You weren’t replying to any of my texts.”

“We’re not allowed to use our phones in school,” Falco says as he looks down at her.

Zofia looks up, an expression of mild disbelief on her face. “Geez, I can’t believe you’re still doing this.” She straightens up and sighs. “Our teachers probably appreciated what a goody-two-shoes you were back when they actually cared about their jobs, but I assure you that they don’t care at all now that the world is about to end.”

Falco rolls his eyes and walks past Zofia. He can hear her following him from the extra footsteps that accompany his. “What do you need? I thought you were busy trying to pet ‘every dog in the world’ or whatever before the asteroid strikes.”

Zofia’s arm links with Falco’s and she flashes a cheesy smile at him. “I realized it was impossible so I settled for petting ‘as many dogs as possible.’ I’m pretty satisfied with my work, so I’ve decided on pursuing something else.” She doesn’t immediately follow up with what it is she’s working on, and Falco knows she’s absolutely itching for him to ask.

“... What is it?” Falco asks.

“I’m glad you asked!” Zofia says, tugging him closer to her. She pulls her phone out of her pocket and flips through it for a bit before finding what she wants to show Falco. On her screen is a long post on one of the message boards their classmates post on. “There’s this girl. She’s totally crazy.”

A glance at the phone screen confirms Zofia’s words. It’s a post that looks like it’s been circulating through message boards of different middle schools in their area. The original poster is someone named Gabi Braun, aged 14, and she attends Liberio Middle School across the city. Her post is a call for all people with superpowers to contact her so that they can save the world together.

Falco looks at Zofia and wrinkles his nose. “And you’re showing me this because …?”

“Because she’s absolutely crazy, but she’s interesting,” Zofia replies as she pockets her phone. She smiles at Falco. “Let’s go visit her.”

“What? No!” Falco says. He yanks his arm away from Zofia. “You said she was nuts! Why would we look for her?”

“Because the world is ending in a few days, so we might as well do something stupid,” Zofia replies. She links her arm around Falco’s again and pouts, batting her eyelashes up at him. “Come on, aren’t you the least bit curious? There’s a girl our age who thinks she can save the world if she gathers enough nutjobs who think they have superpowers.”

Falco isn’t curious at all. “I have homework,” he says to Zofia, which he knows is the wrong answer. Although Zofia hasn’t tried to convince Falco to stop going to school like the rest of their peers, she has been pretty vocal about how stupid she thinks Falco is for living the end of his life so mundanely.

“You also have a friend,” Zofia says. She begins to tug at him after every other word, trying to get him to follow her. “A friend you care about deeply and don’t want to see hurt if she ends up walking into some creep’s trap.”

“Then why are you going at all if you know it might be dangerous?” Falco mutters, but he knows Zofia’s right. His normal school life consists of him going straight home after classes and doing his homework, but it occasionally includes him reluctantly following Zofia sometimes to make sure she doesn’t get into too much trouble. He’s not too surprised when he ends up walking with Zofia to the meeting place the poster mentioned in their message.

Normally, Falco and Zofia would have taken the bus into the city, but it’s difficult to flag down a bus. The schedules are erratic at best and oftentimes buses don’t show up on schedule at all. It is the end of the world, after all.

It’s a curious thing, seeing the city at the end of the world. It’s a little bit like how the movies portray it, but not at all like the movies at the same time. Cars fill the street while drivers honk their horns and shout at each other to hurry up because they don’t want to spend their last days on earth stuck in traffic. The doors and windows of so many shops and buildings are smashed in and their contents gone. If people aren’t running around and screaming at each other on the street, they’re walking around like it’s a normal day save for the fact that they’re all looking for the next thing they want to do before they die.

“I’d suggest going to the mall downtown or something later, but it’s probably ransacked like everywhere else,” Zofia says with a wistful sigh.

“We could have just gone to the arcade in our town,” Falco mutters. The internet café and the arcade in their town is a mess because none of the gamers there bother to clean up their trash anymore, but at least there are still computers there and nobody has hauled off the arcade machines.

The two wander about the city and linger near the subway station entrance the message board poster had mentioned. There are people going up and down the stairs to the subways and some kids skating around and doing tricks on their skateboards. Adults pass by hurriedly with their phone stuck to one ear, rushing to make plans with someone on the other end because they have limited time left. It feels like Zofia and Falco are just standing frozen in time while the world rushes around them.

“Who do you think it is?” Zofia whispers in Falco’s ear.

Falco scans the scene, his eyes quickly flitting over anyone that didn’t look like a middle schooler. He doesn’t think it would be any of the skateboarders, so he glances over them too. Whoever this Gabi Braun is, she doesn’t have any interest in anything aside from saving the world with her impossible idea. She must be looking for people just like he and Zofia are looking for her.

Finally, his eyes land on a girl their age with a stern expression on her face. Her dark eyebrows are knitted together and she turns her head from side to side every few seconds as she scans the subway station, her brown hair whipping from side to side. She leans against the railing near the subway entrance, her arms folded across her chest. Somehow, she looks familiar, but Falco doesn’t know why.

“Her,” Falco says. He raises his hand and points to her only to realize it’s rude and quickly lets his hand fall to his side. He’s about to jerk his head over in the girl’s direction, but Zofia has already seen who he was pointing to and starts dragging him over.

“Excuse me,” Zofia says, catching the girl’s attention. The girl’s gaze is intense, her brown eyes scrutinizing the two of them, but Zofia doesn’t shrink away from the girl like Falco does. Instead, Zofia holds out a hand cordially and gives the girl a friendly smile. “You’re Gabi Braun, right? I’m Zofia, and this is my friend Falco. We saw your message reposted on our school forum and wanted to help you.”

The girl looks at them suspiciously but takes Zofia’s hand, shaking it reluctantly. “You really want to help?” Her eyes flit towards Falco, who looks down immediately. “Why do you want to help me?”

“Hmm,” Zofia hums and tilts her head to the side. “Because the end of the world isn’t something I’m particularly looking forward to.” She looks over at Falco and, with a grin, elbows him playfully in the ribs. “And this guy doesn’t have anything better to do, so I had him come along.”

“What were you doing before?” Gabi asks curiously.

Falco purses his lips. It’s not that he’s ashamed about how he’s spending his last days. Living plainly is a far better choice than some people have made. Apparently, some people decided that murder was something they needed to check off their bucket list. If you ask Falco, he thinks being a normal student is far better than being a last-minute murderer. Still, it’s not something he wants to say out loud to a stranger.

He kicks at the sidewalk and mumbles, “Just … homework and stuff.”

To his surprise, Gabi doesn’t ridicule him or ask why. She simply nods as if this is a perfectly normal way for someone to spend their last days. She doesn’t ask them any more questions, somehow satisfied with Falco’s answer. She’s already digging around in her back for something and pulls a laptop out of her bag.

“I’m still waiting for people to show up, but I wouldn’t be surprised if nobody ends up showing,” Gabi says, gesturing for the two of them to sit beside her. Her tone doesn’t sound disappointed at all. In fact, she sounds rather like she expected this to happen.

Zofia sits on one side of Gabi, peering curiously over the brunette’s shoulder as she types away. Falco wants to sit beside Zofia. It would be more comfortable than sitting next to a stranger, but he would have difficulty seeing the screen. Reluctantly, he takes a seat next to Gabi.

“I’ve been looking at videos,” Gabi tells them. “People have been submitting them after seeing my message on the school forums.”

“Is there anyone particularly interesting to you?” Zofia asks.

“Not really,” Gabi says. She opens up a folder on her screen and a video file pops up. She presses Play. “Technology lets you edit anything into videos now. Some of these powers look super fake, but I still have to take a chance in case they do have powers and are interested in saving the world, right?”

The three watch the video play out. There’s a man on the screen claiming to have pyrokinesis. He’s wide-eyed and staring at the camera, holding out his hands with his palms to the ceiling. His explanation of his powers is similar to everyone else who has posted these kinds of videos on social media: he was just born with them and never bothered to reveal them until now for fear of being ostracized.

The flame doesn’t ignite right away. It’s a flicker — a spark, really — that grows into the smallest flame. The fire is hardly the size of the man’s fingertip, but he looks delighted just the same. The three children watching are not as thrilled.

“You really think this guy can save the world?” Zofia asks, raising her eyebrow.

“I don’t think this guy can save anyone,” Gabi replies. She’s so brutally honest that it would be funny if they weren’t discussing the fate of the world. “But I’m taking whatever help I can get at this point.”

They spend the rest of that afternoon looking through applications. Most of them are just internet trolls and Gabi has to roll her eyes more than once before closing out the applicant’s video. There are a few promising candidates Gabi moves to a separate folder but only when Falco and Zofia also agree that the person might be worth looking into. They go through written applications too, often filtering out any CVs that aren’t descriptive enough and sometimes those that are too descriptive and more fitted to some sci-fi character description than an actual person. Gabi calls a few numbers from the short list of people that the three all agreed on, but nobody ever picks up. Nobody shows up either. Still, Gabi doesn’t seem to be discouraged.

“Why are you doing this?” Falco asks at one point while they’re watching a video of a man who claims he can read people’s thoughts.

“Hm?” Gabi says, looking away from the video.

“Just … this whole thing,” Falco says and vaguely waves at the screen. “You know it too. This might not work, so why even bother trying to save the world?”

Gabi frowns and her eyebrows knit together like she doesn’t quite understand Falco’s question. “Well, what else would I be doing?”

Falco doesn’t respond because, well, he doesn’t have an answer. It’s not like he knows what to do with the rest of his life either. If Zofia hadn’t convinced him to come here, he’d just be at home with his head stuck in a textbook. Even if it’s useless, whatever Gabi is doing is far more interesting.

»»————- April 4, 2026 ————-««

Falco’s parents drop him off at the edge of the city. His mother had wanted to drop him off closer to his destination point, but Falco assured her that it wasn’t necessary. Besides, there were a lot of weirdos in the city, he reasoned, especially now that the apocalypse was coming. She reluctantly allowed him to be dropped off at the edge of the city, but not before giving him a can of pepper spray and a baseball bat in case he ran into anybody cruel enough to mug a middle schooler.

He doesn’t have any trouble meeting Gabi at the library they agreed to meet at. Zofia isn’t there with him after deciding this morning that saving the world wasn’t what she wanted to spend her last moments doing. She did, however, request that Falco send Gabi her best wishes, which Falco promised to pass along.

The two of them sit on the tenth floor of the library at a table by the window. The library isn’t exactly empty, but it’s not exactly filled up either. There are a few other visitors in the library with them. Some are seated at tables or couches, but others choose to sit between bookshelves, folding up their legs so that people can walk around if they need to get through. Hardly anyone pays attention to Falco and Gabi. They’re too busy flipping furiously through their books, eyes scanning the pages in seconds, as they try to finish their reading list before the world ends.

While Gabi watches more videos of superpowered applicants while Falco gathers books on powers that interest them: pyrokinesis, psychokinesis, time travel, to name a few. As he gathers research articles, he also stumbles across the section of the library dedicated to outer space and celestial bodies and decides to grab a few books on asteroids and meteors as well. There’s a slim chance that they might help, but Falco might as well try.

Gabi doesn’t talk much to Falco, too engrossed in her research to hold a conversation with him. He doesn’t talk much to her either. He does, on occasion, glance up at her to observe her progress, but she always seems to be staring at the screen with the same dissatisfied frown on her face. Every once in a while Gabi will lean over and ask Falco about whether or not a certain candidate looks promising, but his answer is almost always no and she goes back to staring at her screen.

At noon, the two take their lunch break. Gabi hadn’t brought anything. She tells Falco she was planning on just grabbing something from the snack machine near the elevators. The library remains one of the few places that was relatively untouched by thieves and vandals because not many people think “let’s rob the library” when they hear that the world is ending. Because Falco’s mother has a tendency to overpack his lunches, Falco decides to split his meal with Gabi. He figures that a sandwich is far better than whatever half-filled bag of chips Gabi would end up grabbing from the vending machine.

Falco munches on his katsu sandwich. It’s a favorite of his: two slices of pillowy milk bread with a thick cut of juicy pork cutlet covered in crispy bread crumbs wedged in between. A little butter and mustard give the sandwich a little bitterness that makes the tip of his tongue tingle and savory tonkatsu sauce drizzled over the thinly sliced cabbage underneath the katsu complete the simple but scrumptious sandwich.

He looks over to see if Gabi is enjoying her food as much as he is, but she’s scarfing it down so quickly that he isn’t sure she’s even taking the time to taste it. In between bites, she’s scrolling through her laptop with greasy fingers, frowning. A glance at the notebook beside her tells Falco that Gabi hasn’t found many promising candidates.

“Do you really think this is going to work?” Falco asks. He’s halfway done with his lunch but Gabi is a bite away from finishing hers.

Gabi shrugs. She doesn’t look up as she answers. “I don’t know. It’s worth a shot, right?” She scrolls a bit more before she pauses, her fingers hovering above the touchpad. Her eyes flicker over to Falco so suddenly that he nearly drops his sandwich. Gabi narrows her eyes at him suspiciously, her attention entirely on the boy. Her gaze is intense and she scoots to the edge of her seat, leaning in towards Falco. “You’re awfully skeptical about this plan for someone who’s trying to save the world.”

Falco gulps, trying not to shy away from her intense gaze. If he were a turtle, he’d be curled back in his shell right now. “I just want to make sure we’re not wasting our time,” he mumbles.

“Falco, do you not believe that people can have superpowers?” Gabi asks.

Falco is about to shake his head and say that that’s not the case but before he can Gabi settles back into her seat, arms folded across her chest, and announces, “I have a superpower.” She says it quite loudly, loudly enough for her voice to be heard across the entire floor, but people are too preoccupied with their reading to pay much attention to her although a few readers do shoot her a dirty look for being so loud.

Falco is not quite sure what he expected Gabi to say, but it wasn’t that. He sits there awkwardly, sandwich still half-finished in his hands. After a moment, he asks, “Er, what is it?”

Gabi pops the last bit of her sandwich in her mouth and wipes her fingers on her jeans. After she chews and swallows, she leans towards Falco once more and gives him an impish grin. “I can read people’s minds. Telepathy,” she tells him. She doesn’t wait for him to ask for a demonstration.

Gabi puts one hand on Falco’s chest and stares deeply into his eyes. Falco’s heart is beating wildly in his chest. If by some miracle Gabi doesn’t hear it, Falco’s certain that she’ll be able to feel it underneath her fingertips. She doesn’t say anything about it, though, just continues to stare at him with those intense brown eyes of hers as she reads every single thought racing through his mind right now, like how he’s never been quite this close to anyone, how he’s never had his heart beat quite this fast, or how he thinks he might just die right here right now before the asteroid even hits.

Suddenly, Gabi’s face breaks into a smile and she pulls her hand away, Falco’s chest feeling achingly empty now. Gabi is laughing now, but Falco doesn’t have any idea why.

“God, I didn’t think you’d believe me,” she laughs. She’s laughing so hard that it’s difficult to make out what she’s saying. “I didn’t think you’d believe me, but you really did. You’re really gullible, aren’t you?”

Falco blinks, confused for a minute as he tries to process what just happened. “You … can’t read minds?” he says a beat too late.

“No, god, but you thought I did,” Gabi laughs.

“Then what’s your power?”

Gabi’s still giggling as she answers. “Something else. It’s not important. I’ll tell you if it ends up being useful.”

She’s laughing. She’s still laughing. It’s a laugh that comes from her stomach and has her clutching her sides. People are glaring because it’s disrupting the peace, and Falco feels like he should tell her to stop but he finds that he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t even mind that she’s laughing at him. He just likes the sound of it.

»»————- April 5, 2026 ————-««

They sit with a pack of chocolate-covered biscuits shaped like little bamboo shoots between them. While Falco eats them one at a time, usually popping one in his mouth after he’s read a few pages of whatever book he’s reading, Gabi shovels them into her mouth by the handful without even looking. They’ve gone through their fifth pack of the little chocolate biscuits and it’s not even noon yet.

“Do you think you can do it?” Falco asks at some point.

“Save the world?” Gabi asks. She sucks her thumb, trying to get the chocolate off. Falco nods and Gabi says, “Well, who else if not me?”

“Literally anyone else,” Falco replies because, well, they’re only kids.

“Right, and just die young, dumb, and stupid like every other kid our age,” Gabi says with a roll of her eyes. “No thanks. I’d rather have died trying to do something. Besides, it’s not as if the adults are having that much luck either.”

Gabi slides her laptop over so that Falco can see the screen. On it, a video plays of a rocket shooting into space. The caption on the bottom reads “NASA Space Missile Failure.” Falco vaguely recalls hearing about the missile launch earlier this morning. The scientists were excited about it, hoping that the missile would collide with the oncoming asteroid and shatter it into smaller pieces that would burn up in the atmosphere, but it seems like they had been excited for nothing. Apparently, they had miscalculated the trajectory of the missile and it would miss the asteroid completely.

“That sucks,” Falco says finally. He’s not exactly sure how he feels about the news. He should probably feel disappointed, but he feels the same way he did a month ago when he heard the world was ending: perfectly indifferent.

Gabi shrugs. “Armin said it wouldn’t work. He said their calculations were off,” she says. She glances at Falco and adds, “Armin’s a genius. He’s my mentor’s husband.”

“A genius? Is that his superpower?” Falco asks. If Gabi knows someone who’s a literal genius, he doesn’t see why they’re doing all this work. Shouldn’t this genius, whoever he is, have all the answers?

Gabi thinks for a minute, her lips pressed into a thin line. “I’m not sure. My mentor just says Armin’s a genius, but he’s way too humble to admit it,” Gabi finally answers. She frowns, leaning forward with her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand. “He can’t help us though. He’s busy tending to his fish.”

Falco isn’t certain he’s heard her right. “His fish?” he repeats.

“Yeah. He’s a marine biologist. He likes to have some fish at home,” Gabi explains like it’s the most normal thing in the world to take care of your fish when the world is about to end. “He says it calms him down to see them swim around.”

Falco is still trying to wrap his head around all of this — Gabi and her willingness to save the world, the genius she just spoke of who just wants to take care of his fish, and the asteroid hurtling towards the earth. He doesn’t understand any of it. “So it’s okay for you, a kid, to try and save the world while a literal genius is taking care of fish at his house instead of trying to prevent the apocalypse?”

Gabi blinks. “Yes,” she replies as if there could be no other answer. “Because it’s what I want to do. And it’s what he wants to do. Why should we be doing anything different?”

“But shouldn’t you be doing, I don’t know, kid things?” Falco asks. He’s starting to feel a little frustrated talking to her. This isn’t what she should be doing at all. This isn’t what they should be doing. They should be enjoying the last few days they have together. They should be playing games at the arcade, or wandering around the empty mall, or eating snacks at the park, not … whatever this is.

“Maybe. Probably. But I don’t want to,” Gabi says. She turns the laptop back and starts typing away. “I don’t like the idea of doing something just because the world is ending. I’ve always done what I wanted, so I don’t have any regrets. This is the only thing I want to do now.”

It’s more than Falco can say. Like Gabi, he doesn’t have anything he wants to do, but then he’s never really ever wanted to do anything. All his life he’s been floating from place to place and participating in whatever was expected of kids his age: attending school, joining a sports team, learning an instrument. He didn’t care about any of it. He doesn’t have any regrets about it, but he does feel a sudden wave of admiration for Gabi. She’s saving the world now because she feels like it, but she could just as easily leave this task for another if something else strikes her fancy. Falco wants to know what it feels like to pursue something so impulsively.

He wants to want things. He wants to be with Gabi. He wants to help her save the world.

“Is there something you want to do before the world ends?” Gabi asks. She’s just asking to be polite. Her eyes are already glued to the screen of her laptop, her face turned away from him. “You don’t seem to be as into the whole ‘save the world’ thing as I am.”

Falco shrugs even though she’s not watching. “I don’t mind it.” Falco could leave it at that. He doesn’t have to say anything else, but he does. “There isn’t really else I want to do anyway,” he tells her, but it’s a lie.

He wants to hold her hand.

»»————- April 6, 2026 ————-««

Falco has never looked forward to anything as much as the researching sessions he has with Gabi. He’s never really looked forward to anything before, actually, and he’s not sure why being surrounded by books and looking at (mostly) fake superhero videos with Gabi appeals to him so much.

He likes a lot of things about the way Gabi works. She’s quiet and focused, eyebrows knitted as she decides whether or not to call another applicant that probably won’t pick up. She never gets discouraged even though things don’t look promising. They’ve probably called dozens of people and only a third have actually responded. Most of them turned out to be trolls, which isn’t surprising considering they were taking submissions from strangers on the internet, but Gabi still carries on. Maybe it’s Gabi’s passion and stubbornness that has drawn Falco to her, but it feels like it’s more than that too.

He feels, in a way, like Gabi completes him. Before he met her, he was wandering aimlessly. Now he doesn’t know what he’d do without her. Staying at home and studying seems unbearable when the option of being with Gabi exists.

Falco isn’t sure how Gabi feels about him. He doesn’t even know if she has any feelings towards him — if she likes him, hates him, or just feels completely indifferent. At any rate, she doesn’t seem to mind spending her last few days on earth with him, and that makes him feel a little better about the world ending. Occasionally, he thinks about how Gabi probably wouldn’t notice if he stopped coming to help her. Well, she might notice, but Falco doesn’t think Gabi would change her routine. She’d just continue saving the world with or without his help.

“Don’t you think it’s weird?” Falco asks at one point. Gabi looks at him with a raised eyebrow and he elaborates “We hardly know each other and we’re just here … saving the world together.”

Gabi frowns, a thoughtful look on her face. “I don’t think it’s weird,” she says to Falco, and he feels his heart flutter in his chest. “A lot of weird stuff has happened because it’s the end of the world and we just happened to meet each other. If a total weirdo had showed up instead of you, then maybe I would be saving the world with them and we never would have met.” She doesn’t seem to mind the thought of working with a total weirdo in place of Falco.

Falco slumps in his seat, deflated, but Gabi doesn’t seem to notice.

“I’m glad it was you though,” Gabi continues.

Falco lifts his head. “Really?” He scoots closer in his seat, curious. “Why?”

Gabi twirls her pen between her fingers, looking upward as she thinks. After a moment, she shrugs. “I don’t know,” she answers. “It just feels better knowing I’m working with someone. It’s better than working alone, I guess. I might feel the same way even if it were someone else, but I also might not. Still, I’m glad it’s you.”

It doesn’t really mean anything. Like she said, it could have been some other kid who ended up answering Gabi’s post and helping her with her impossible quest to save the world. It could have been some other person sitting with her and looking up useless articles on asteroids and meteorites. It could have been someone else having this conversation with her. But, Falco reminds himself, it wasn’t. It’s him sitting beside her, eating snacks and discussing the end of the world. It probably isn’t fate that they met, but it kind of feels like it is.

»»————- April 7, 2026 ————-««

Tired of the same snacks from his pantry, Falco decides to try the café on the first-floor of the library for some new things to eat. He had asked Gabi what she wanted and she told him to just get her anything.

The first floor café is relatively well-stocked for the end of the world, but maybe it’s because bookworms prefer literature to satiate their appetites rather than food.

The display case, usually filled with dessert sandwiches with slices of strawberries and kiwi and slathered with whipped cream, is cleaned out, but the shelves behind the cash register are still stocked with different kinds of chips and candies. Falco scans the shelves, looking for his favorites: baked potato chips covered in rich butter, little rice crackers flavored with soy sauce and red pepper flakes, and chocolate cookies in the shape of tiny hamburgers.

Falco stares, for the longest time, at the other snacks and wonders what Gabi would like, if she has a preference for anything. Maybe he should have paid more attention when they were eating together to see if she ever seemed to gravitate to certain foods he brought or commented on any of the snacks they ate together, but he can’t recall anything. He feels stupid for not noticing, but he also doesn’t want to keep Gabi waiting and ends up grabbing whatever grabs his attention.

He arrives at their designated research table, huffing from the flights of stairs he had to climb. Falco deposits the snacks rather ungracefully in front of Gabi, letting them fall out of his hands and onto the table. Gabi looks up from the noise, her eyebrows raised, but she smiles when she sees that it’s him and Falco’s heart flutters almost painfully in his chest.

“These are yours,” Falco says, shoving Gabi’s share of the snacks towards her.

“Thanks.” Gabi picks up a snack with a gray cartoon cat on the wrapper. It’s a puffed corn stick. Pizza-flavored, the wrapper says. She opens it with a grin. “How did you know these were my favorite?” she asks.

“I … I don’t know,” Falco says. “Must have been a lucky guess.”

But it doesn’t feel like it.

It feels like he knew, from the beginning, what she had wanted. It’s like he had let his instincts take over when he had randomly chosen snacks for Gabi and somehow selected her favorite ones. It was as easy as picking food for someone he had known for his whole life, which is impossible because he hadn’t even known Gabi a week ago. Maybe, then, he had known Gabi in a past life and that’s how he happened to pick her favorites. Or maybe they really are fated to be together and knowing things like her favorite food are just second nature to him. The latter two explanations are almost impossible and yet so much more likely than the first explanation. He doesn’t know how to explain it though, not without seeming crazy, so he doesn’t say anything.

»»————- April 8, 2026 ————-««

Tomorrow is the end of the world and they are no closer to saving everyone from the asteroid hurtling towards the earth than they were yesterday. In fact, they are no closer to saving the world than they were a week ago when this effort began or even a month ago when they had first found out the world was going to be destroyed. Their attempt to prevent the world’s end was futile and their effort today will probably be equally useless. Still, here they are on the tenth floor of the library doing the same thing they did yesterday.

The sun is about to set and it’s almost time for them to head home. Falco wonders if they’ll be here tomorrow spending their last moments at the library when the world ends or if Gabi will call it quits and suggest they spend their last day without each other. He’s too afraid to ask.

They pack up silently, Gabi slipping her notebooks and laptop into her bag as Falco arranges the books into neat stacks on the slim chance that they’ll return tomorrow. Falco notices that Gabi packs the same way she always does — quickly, dumping everything into her backpack as if she doesn’t care if they get damaged — and it stings a little bit that she doesn’t pack a little slower this time like he does just so that he can spend a few seconds more with her. Maybe he shouldn’t be so disappointed because it’s obvious she doesn’t care for him more than she would care for a coworker or a classmate she was randomly paired with to complete an assignment.

Falco is silently pining when Gabi speaks, startling him.

“So, the world ends tomorrow,” she says easily. It’s like she’s talking about the weather. “Are you satisfied with how you spent your last days? No regrets?”

They’re two questions that seem related, but Falco’s answers for them are very different.

He is satisfied with how he spent his last days. The past week perhaps isn’t as spectacular by other people’s standards. Falco didn’t go bungee jumping or skydiving or deepsea divings like some of his peers. Some people would argue that the way he spent his last few days was as boring as the way he spent the past month, although Falco would argue that it was infinitely better because he had Gabi. He’s convinced that however he chose to spend his last days, as long as they were with Gabi, he would be happy. He could even watch the grass grow with Gabi and he’d be completely content. So, yes, he’s completely satisfied with how he spent his last few days, but he has many regrets.

He regrets not meeting Gabi earlier. He regrets not being able to spend more than a week with her. He regrets not doing things with her that kids their age should be doing: playing soccer in the field, catching butterflies by the river and letting them go, and hanging out at the arcade and beating their high scores. But most of all, he regrets feeling this way about Gabi and not being able to tell her.

Falco doesn’t answer her question. Instead, he asks, “Do you?”

“No,” Gabi replies with a smile and it makes Falco feel a little better about the ache in his chest.

»»————- April 9, 2026 ————-««

Falco doesn’t expect Gabi to call him the next day. Before bidding each other goodbye yesterday, Gabi suggested they not see each other again.

“You should spend the day with your family or something,” Gabi said to him. “Your parents probably want to spend their last day with their kids. I’ll just do this by myself. And, you know, thanks for everything.”

He had wanted to tell her that it was fine if they spent their last day together. He spent his whole life with his parents. He should at least spend one more day with Gabi if this is his last one, but he bit his tongue and said goodbye to her with the fakest smile before turning on his heel and walking as quickly as he could to where his mom would pick him up.

Falco was lying on his bed staring at the ceiling when Gabi called and told him to meet him at the bottom of the hill near the outskirts of his town. She said her mentor was coming back today and that they could visit her to see if there was still a possibility of saving the world. Falco didn’t even question her or ask if they really have any hope after their days of research lead to nothing. He just leapt out of bed, told his parents he would be out and that he loved them, and biked up to the hills where Gabi asked to meet him.

When he gets there, Gabi is already waiting for him, bundled in a navy peacoat and a gray scarf tied loosely around her neck. Her face breaks out in a grin when she sees him and she waves a gloved hand to greet him.

“How did you get here so fast?” Falco huffs once he finally reaches her. The hill gets too steep for him to bike, so he gets off his bicycle and walks with Gabi beside him.

“My uncle Reiner drove me here,” Gabi replies, shoving her hands in her pockets. She rolls her eyes, but her mouth twitches with a smile. “He says he wanted to spend a little more time with his favorite niece before she becomes famous for saving the world.”

“You really think we’re gonna do it?” Falco asks.

Gabi shrugs. “I think if my mentor thinks so, we probably have a good chance.”

They arrive at the mentor’s house at the top of the hill. It’s small, more like a tiny cabin than an actual house. When Gabi knocks, they’re greeted by a blond man with big blue eyes. The man smiles when he sees Gabi, pushing his tortoiseshell glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“Hello, Gabi. I guess Mikasa told you she’d be coming back today,” the man says. He looks over Falco. “Hello. You must be Gabi’s friend Falco. I’m Armin.” The man offers a hand for Falco to shake.

Falco nods, wondering why the man’s name sounds so familiar. It’s only when he’s shaken the man’s hand that he remembers Gabi had mentioned Armin a few days ago when they were researching in the library. He’s the genius that likes to spend his days taking care of fish.

Falco follows Gabi when the man invites them into the cabin. Falco’s a little taken aback at how simple the interior is. The living room is small and the kitchen is smaller with only the essentials. There isn’t even a microwave.

“Sit down,” Armin says, gesturing at the dining table in the middle of the room. He heads towards the kitchen cabinets where he takes out three mugs. “I’ll make tea for us while we wait for Mikasa.”

“Can we see your fish later, Armin?” Gabi asks. She’s already settled down in a chair, kicking her legs back and forth. It’s clear that she feels at home here. When she notices that Falco hasn’t taken a seat yet, she gestures for him to sit down at the seat closest to her. To Armin, she continues, “I was telling Falco about you and he was curious about what a genius would be up to at the end of the world if he wasn’t trying to prevent the apocalypse.”

Armin chuckles. “Do you like fish, Falco?” he asks. He smiles when Falco makes a surprised noise, an answer stuck in his throat. “Sure, we can take a look a little later.”

Over apple tarts and tea, Gabi and Armin fill Falco in on Mikasa. She’s Armin’s wife, Gabi’s mentor, and the key to saving the world. Mikasa has a superpower, Gabi explains, that allows her to identify other people with superpowers and what those powers are. She helps people utilize their powers, but she took off for a month when the end of the world was announced to gather people with powers that might prevent the asteroid from crashing into the earth.

“Did Mikasa tell you if she met any promising people?” Gabi asks. She’s licked her plate clean and cinnamon sticks to her lips.

Armin shakes his head, a resigned smile on his face. “Unfortunately, no. She said all the candidates she met didn’t have any sort of useful power, but who knows? Maybe she’ll meet someone on the way here that can stop the meteor.”

“Ah, it’s a meteor now?” Falco asks, sitting up in his seat.

“It’s been one for a while,” Armin says. He glances out the window for a second. It’s not blue like it was when Falco woke up this morning. It’s orange now., not like a sunrise but more like someone has set the sky on fire. “We should be able to see it soon. The estimated time of impact is soon if I recall correctly. Hopefully, we get to see Mikasa soon.” His eyebrows are knitted together in concern, but Gabi looks just as unbothered as ever.

“I’m sure she’ll be back soon,” Gabi says. She collects her empty plate as well as Falco and Armin’s before depositing them in the sink. It’s an awfully normal thing to do considering the fact that the dirty dishes won’t matter when the earth is destroyed. She lets them soak in the sink and then turns to Armin. “Can we go see your fish now? Falco hasn’t seen them yet.”

“Sure,” Armin says with a smile. He gets up from the table and gestures for Falco to follow him. “Let’s go see the fish.”

Armin leads the children to a side room. Inside is a large glass fish tank with so many plants, shells, and rocks that Falco doesn’t see the fish at first. He and Gabi crouch beside the tank, their faces not quite touching the glass. Falco can see neon fish the size of his pinky darting back and forth between plants. He spots a miniature catfish the size of his thumb hiding behind a rock while a school of ten or so black and white striped fish zips around the 50-gallon tank. There are many more fish that Falco spots, lots of which he doesn’t know the name of but Armin patiently points them all out and tells Falco both the scientific and the common names of each fish and their habits. It’s clear that he loves it, taking care of the fish and looking after them, and Falco thinks he understands a little bit why Armin has chosen to spend the rest of the world like this. Occasionally, Gabi pipes in with whatever she remembers about each fish, usually their behavioral patterns she’s noticed when she’s visited, and Armin always grins whenever she speaks.

The three don’t notice when Mikasa arrives. They’re too busy staring at the fish swimming back and forth in the tank without a care in the world. The fish can’t grasp the fact that the world is ending. After all, their world only consists of the four glass walls that encase them and anything outside doesn’t concern them. It’s only when the door to the room opens and Mikasa steps in that the three realize that she’s returned. The fish, however, just keep swimming.

“That’s a nice way to spend the end of the world,” Mikasa comments. She has a tired smile on her face. She wears a soft cream-colored turtleneck, a long black coat hanging over her arm. “I see Gabi has joined us. As has her friend.” The woman nods at Falco.

“H-hello,” Falco stammers. He’s not sure what he was expecting Mikasa to look like. Perhaps like a woman with all the answers, someone who looked like she had seen the world, but she doesn’t. She just looks like any other woman, maybe a little more tired than other women, but still just a normal person. She doesn’t look like she has an amazing superpower, but then again neither does Gabi nor any of the potential candidates that claimed to have powers. “I’m Falco.”

“Ah, yes,” Mikasa says with a nod. “Gabi mentioned you before. I’m Mikasa, her mentor.” She drapes her coat over a nearby chair and walks over to join the three of them beside the fish tank.

“Did you find anyone?” Gabi asks. She looks out towards the living room, craning her neck to see if Mikasa had brought someone they didn’t notice.

“No, nobody that could save the world, if that’s what you’re asking,” Mikasa sighs, shoulder slumped. “Although, I did run into a guy who was convinced that the only way to save the world was to destroy it. I got away from him as quickly as possible.”

“Probably a smart decision,” Armin says with a nod, and Mikasa smiles in reply.

“Well, shall we go watch the end of the world together?” Mikasa asks, putting an arm around Gabi. She looks around at the others. “I heard it was going to be quite spectacular. Like a meteor show in the middle of the day.” Her eyes settle on Falco and her smile begins to falter. Her brows knit together and she opens her mouth as if she’s about to say something.

Armin notices the change in her demeanor and looks back and forth between Falco and Mikasa. “What’s wrong? Are you …?” It seems like something clicks in his head and he quickly turns to Falco. With a hand on the boy’s shoulder, Armin asks quickly, “Falco, do you have a power you haven’t told us about?”

The question startles Falco and he jerks away from Armin’s hand in surprise. “I … I don’t know,” he says, stumbling over his words. He’s never felt like he had any kind of superpower. He’s never shown any sign of being special. He’s always just been … normal.

“You … do you not know?” Mikasa asks, her eyebrows raised. She looks at Gabi. “Falco can save the world.”

It’s too much for Falco to take in when the world is about to end so soon. He has too many questions like: What power is he supposed to have? How come he didn’t know about it before? Is there still time to save everyone or is it too late? He opens his mouth to ask, not knowing which one will come out of his mouth first, when he feels a comforting hand on his elbow. Falco looks over to see Gabi standing beside him, somehow calm despite this revelation.

“What’s his power, Mikasa?”

“He can travel back in time,” Mikasa says, still staring at Falco with her intense gaze. “Under the event of an unexpected death like, say, getting hit by an asteroid, he can go back in time and prevent it from happening. But only if he remembers that it will happen in the first place.” Her eyes flicker towards Gabi for some reason.

“What … what does that mean ‘only if I remember’?” Falco asks Gabi.

Gabi’s biting down on her lip, expression contemplative. Finally, she tells Falco, “My power is that I’m unforgettable. If you reset your time after the meteor hits, usually you won't remember what happened, but you will if I use my power. You’d be able to remember me and everything we’ve done together. If you go back in time, maybe you can find a way to save the world because you’ll know what to expect.”

“Then … then that’s good news!” He doesn’t know why everyone around him isn’t jumping up and down in excitement right now. They’ve found a way to save the world. If not this time, then the next time or the time after that. “Isn’t this good news?”

“I mean, it is,” Gabi says. She doesn’t sound as confident as she usually does. Instead, she’s hesitant, almost shy. Falco doesn’t think he’s ever seen Gabi shy before. She’s looking at the floor now, kicking at the hardwood floor with her sock-clad feet. “It’s just that … I have to make you fall in love with me to make you remember me.”

Falco’s mouth falls open and no words come out.

“It’s not like it’s hard,” Gabi says almost hurriedly, more because she’s embarrassed than in a rush to save the world. She’s shed off her embarrassment and assumed her usual confident demeanor. “I’m very lovable, you know. It’s just …” Her voice trails off again.

“She has to seal it with a kiss,” Mikasa finishes, and Falco can see why Gabi was so embarrassed. His cheeks redden just from the thought of kissing Gabi. Mikasa adds rather apologetically, “It’s just the way it works, her power. She needs to kiss you.”

“Only if you’re okay with it, of course,” Gabi adds. She’s still avoiding his gaze, her eyes on the floor. “I’m fine if you’d rather not. You might just be stuck in the loop all by yourself. It’d be a little less painful since you won’t remember each time but still -”

“I’m okay with it,” Falco says.

Gabi looks up, surprised. “You are?”

“Yeah,” Falco says. “I’m … I’m fine with it. Let’s save the world. Together. That’s what our entire plan was, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah,” Gabi repeats and she smiles. It’s different from how she’s smiled at him before. It’s a little bit bashful, a little bit excited. It looks nice on her, Falco thinks, and he’s so distracted that he’s surprised when he realizes she’s holding his hand.

Mikasa tugs at the elbow of Armin’s cardigan and the blond man nods. Taking Mikasa’s hand, he turns to the kids and says, “We’ll be out there just to give you two some privacy. Hopefully, we’ll see each other again soon.”

The door shuts softly behind the two adults. Falco doesn’t know if they wait in the living room or if they’ve gone outside to admire the sky. From the window, Falco can see that the sky has changed from a burnt orange to an explosion of different colors: shades of violet, pink, blue, and yellow all together almost like a watercolor painting. There are streaks of white in the sky. It’s like a meteor shower in the middle of the day just as Mikasa had said.

When he turns to Gabi, she’s looking at him with her hand still holding his. She’s chewing on the inside of her cheek, but she smiles when she sees he’s looking at her.

“Are you still up for it?” Gabi asks.

“Y-yeah,” Falco says, his voice cracking. He feels his face flush, but he likes the sound of Gabi’s giggle even if he’s the one she’s laughing at. He licks his lips nervously and leans in just the tiniest bit. “Is … is it okay if I kiss you?”

Gabi bites her lip and nods. She leans in too and Falco takes it as his cue to close his eyes and close the gap.

He doesn’t know what to expect from this kiss. Maybe warm lips pressing against his while his heart threatens to beat out of his chest. Maybe Gabi’s hands gripping his arms while his hands hover awkwardly around his waist. Maybe the world ending and, when his eyes open, Falco waking to thoughts of Gabi and how to find her next. But none of this happens. Instead, Gabi puts her hands on his shoulder and pushes him gently but firmly away.

“I can’t do it,” Gabi says.

“Wha-?”

“I can’t do it,” Gabi repeats with a shake of her head. She looks upset, but Falco doesn’t know why. He wonders what it is he did to offend her. Maybe she doesn’t want to kiss him. Maybe she finds him repulsive and doesn’t want to kiss him even if it means saving the world. Falco thinks this would be the case if Gabi didn’t look so apologetic. “I can’t kiss you. Not like this.”

“What do you mean?” Falco asks, panicked. He takes a glance at the window. Outside, the meteors in the sky look brighter. It’s like a million stars are falling to the earth. It’s only a matter of time before the world ends. He doesn’t know why Gabi is doing this.

“I don’t want to kiss you just to save the world and I don’t want you to kiss me for the same reason,” Gabi says, taking a step away from him. She shakes her head, tears pricking her eyes. “I want you to kiss me because you like me, not because you have some responsibility to save the earth so … so find me again and kiss me. Find me again and tell me you like me and kiss me hard. And then … and then we can save the world.”

But he wants to kiss her now. He wants to kiss her because he likes her. He wants to kiss her because the world is ending. He wants to kiss her even if the world isn’t ending. He wants to tell her that, but he doesn’t have the words.

Ever since Mikasa had revealed Falco’s power, everything has suddenly made sense to him. Falco understands now why his life felt so empty before he met Gabi and why he never felt the desire to do anything. He knows why he was so drawn to her when they first met that day in the city and why he felt like she completed him. It’s because they were meant to meet each other, meant to be together, meant to save the world.

Falco wants to kiss her so badly. He wants to hold Gabi’s face in his hands and put his lips on hers and kiss her until the world ends and when he wakes up again he’ll find her and kiss her again and again and again. He wants to tell her he likes her now and that he’ll like her again. He wants to tell her that he’d like her even if the world weren’t about to end, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t get to tell her anything.

A bright light flashes from the window. All Falco sees is Gabi and then white, and then nothing.

»»————- March 9, 2026 ————-««

Falco wakes up and rolls out of bed. He brushes his teeth in the bathroom and brushes out his hair before blearily heading down the stairs where his mom is making breakfast. His father hasn’t left for work yet, he notices, which is rather strange. His mother hasn’t finished making breakfast yet and his brother isn’t dressed for school. He stares at them, wondering why they’re acting so odd. It takes them a moment to realize he’s there.

“The world is ending next month,” his mother tells him. She points at the TV screen that Falco’s father is staring at. On it flashes a picture of an asteroid hurtling towards the earth. The little banner underneath the picture says it’s far too big to burn up in the atmosphere. Scientists have no hope of human survival.

“If I knew, I would have slept in,” Colt mumbles.

His family looks shocked by the news, but Falco doesn’t feel anything. He grabs a banana from the fruit bowl in the kitchen and starts to head out the door.

“Wait, where are you going?” Colt asks him.

Falco pauses by the door. “I don’t know,” he says after a moment. He’s not sure what to do now that the world is ending. There isn’t anything in particular that he wants to do. “I’ll go to school, I guess.”

He leaves after assuring his parents that it’s fine, that he really doesn’t mind going to school because he isn’t sure what else to do. He stops by his mailbox and looks up at the sky. It’s clear and blue, no asteroid in sight.

He takes a deep breath and then releases it. It sounds like a sigh.

#falbi #snk #sf8 au #falco grice #gabi braun

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mittensmorgul · 4 years

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(re: trad authors vs fanfic authors and the “nine levels of removal") Yes. This. Story time! I went to a book event for a well known, critically acclaimed, best selling author once about 20 years ago. He'd never done a proper "book tour" before and as a fan I was excited. Myself and other fans from a Yahoo Group (RIP) met up at the event and gave Mr Popular Author a fan art book we'd put together. He later wrote that he’d had to go off to a corner of the bookstore to hide and cry for a few minutes because he'd always thought he was writing into a void. Then BOOM, there we were, a big group of us, right in front of him, loving his work and giving him feedback (and gifts!) He’d never so much as read a review of any of his books before. The sudden realization that actual humans had read (and liked!) his work was apparently very emotional for him. Fanfic authors don’t have the luxury of that distance. And I don’t envy them for it. The feedback they get is immediate and devastating. Trad authors often won’t even get told how many copies their book has sold for the first six months after publication. Fanfic authors see every single view and kudos and comment in real time.

Yep. This.

I mean, it’s shifted a bit in the last 20 years. A lot of traditionally published authors have websites, or twitter, or other social media. Before I ever came to fandom, I was trying to go the traditional publishing route, too. Heck, a decade later I’m still on author twitter (most of my twitter is authors/publishers/agents/editors because those are the people I befriended when I first started seriously writing). But there is a sense of removall still there between authors and readers. And twitter followers and interactions don’t always equate to readers.

I mean, look at any author’s twitter, and a lot of it is just... like anyone else’s twitter.

Authors can also go look at their reviews on Amazon or Goodreads or wherever else online, and see their book’s daily ranking in sales if they really want to, but trust me on this, everyone involved in the publication of their books has probably told them not to do this. It’s not helpful in any way, unless they’ve shot to the top of the bestseller lists. Learning their new release ranks 32502905 in their genre... isn’t worth bothering, you know? And there’s nothing to do by obsessing over it.

When your agent is sending you all the good reviews, all the positive feedback, and encouraging you to finish the draft of your next book or your next round of edits, you don’t HAVE to think about responding to every comment anyone makes on your work. You’re encouraged NOT to respond. Because those reviews are NOT FOR YOU. They’re for other readers, to help them decide whether or not to make a financial investment in your already published book.

Fanfic comments ARE NOT THAT. Fanfic comments are written directly TO the author. Sure, other readers might see them, and I’ve had conversations start in comments on my fic before so I know it happens. But when a reader writes a comment on a fic, it’s generally to thank the author for the story, for having entertained them for a while.

Not all fanfic authors reply to comments, but I think the vast majority of us TRY to at the very least. Thanking the reader for reading, expressing the happiness we feel that our work has brought someone else a bit of joy (or angst, or whatever feeling we’ve inspired with our words). Or else answering questions the commenter has asked, or otherwise expressing gratitude.

It’s a DIRECT CONVERSATION, the likes of which most people will never have with a traditionally published author. The absolute ridiculousness that anyone expects the works we publish on AO3, for free, can be compared in any way to a traditionally published novel is beyond belief. The conceit that works we write-- again, for free, in our spare time, out of love for doing it-- should be as polished and free of any sort of errors as works that have spent more than a year and often more than two years going through multiple rounds of editing, proofreading, line editing, typesetting, etc. where MANY PEOPLE have scoured it for errors and yet still a few slip by here and there... I mean, HOW can anyone hold writers working on our own, in our spare time, for zero pay, purely for our own enjoyment to the same level of exactitude that we hold commercial novels? It’s laughable.

And honestly, it reaches a point where we’d rather just post the thing and move on to the next thing. I have gone back and done minor edits to some of my older works. If I’m rereading and notice a typo, I’ll fix it, for example. I once switched a character and wrote it as a different character because I felt bad about how the original character was portrayed. But for the vast majority of them I have zero intent of going back and making major edits on anything I’ve written, because I have moved on. I’m writing something else now, and maybe that will be more polished for having written the previous things with the wonky sentence structure or the awkward choice of words.

Mostly I write because I want to tell the stories that are stuck in my head. I need to get them out or they wedge in there like a big old log jam. Enough words build up that if I don’t start lining them up and pushing them out, the pressure builds up and bursts out in really inconvenient and messy ways. I’m personally not writing fanfic as “practice.” Or because I hope to some day be “good enough” to publish original works for money. I came to fandom to write fanfic so I wouldn’t have to deal with the rest of the publishing industry lol. I don’t need encouragement or approval or advice on how to improve. I just need an outlet. And if other people enjoy anything I write, that’s just a bonus to me.

(I had a publishing contract in my hands, stared at it for three days and then cried as I tore it up... I didn’t want to put myself through the publishing mill... I was already burnt out just getting to that point, and couldn’t imagine it becoming my life for years to come. It wasn’t worth it to me, and then I found fandom and AO3 and fanfic, and got all the benefit from writing with none of the angst of commercial publishing. This is where I WANT to be, this is not a stepping stone or training ground for someday becoming a “real author.” Sure, it is for some folks, but for a lot of us, this is just what makes us happy.)

Can you imagine going to a craft show where everyone has spent their time making beautiful handmade things and walking directly up to each artist and critiquing their work? Going up to a knitter and complaining that you saw a nicer hat in Macy’s the other day and pointing out everything about her hat that you don’t like? Or going to a jewelry designer and saying you prefer gold to silver, and demanding to know why they chose to inlay green stones when clearly they should’ve used blue ones?

Same vibe on critiquing fanfic in the comments. Or at the author in general. It’s just rude.

#writing is hard #fandom problems #and granted i don't tend to get negative comments or critical comments #so this dosn't really apply to my wonderful readers <3 #but just in general... I know other authors who have stopped writing entirely #after being deluged with negativity or 'helpful advice' that is in no way actually helpful #Anonymous

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emmerrr · 4 years

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Jordeclan going to an amusement park or a fair? They both just honestly need a break and some fun!!

anon i’m so sorry this took so long but hey i made it valentine’s day and there’s lynch bros content and i hope you like it (also on ao3)

Declan wakes up on the morning of Valentine’s Day not really aware that it’s Valentine’s Day.

It’s Saturday, so he doesn’t need to go into work, and he trundles down the stairs into the kitchen and makes himself a coffee. Matthew and Ronan are still asleep, the latter of whom spent the night after driving up the previous day to go to an art show with his brothers. (Ronan had been less than subtle about his disdain for the ‘art’ in question; Declan had dragged them out early to go to a diner for some burgers. Brotherly bonding at its finest.)

He sits at the breakfast bar with his coffee and checks his emails on his phone like he’s reading the news. There’s a few work things, but not too much, all things considered. He sends a good morning text to Jordan, knowing in all likelihood she won’t read it until at least noon. The thought of her brings a smile to his face, and he wonders if he’ll get to see her later. They don’t have any solid plans in place, but their relationship has never been one that follows a rigid structure anyway. She’s been a breath of fresh air in every possible way.

An hour or so later, Declan hears Ronan moving around in the guest bedroom upstairs, probably throwing his stuff together before he drives back to Singer’s Falls. Not long after that, Matthew comes down the stairs, golden curls matted to his head on one side from where he’s slept on them.

“Mornin’,” he says through a yawn, and takes a seat. “What’s for breakfast?”

“Whatever you want.”

Matthew hums. “I want eggs.”

Declan nods at the fridge. “Go on then.”

Matthew sighs but gets up again and opens the refrigerator, standing solemnly in front of it before slowly removing a carton of eggs.

He puts them down and makes a good show of looking lost as he meanders around the kitchen finding everything he needs. Declan knows he’s doing it on purpose, but goddamn if it doesn’t work. “For crying out loud, how do you want them?”

Matthew grins; he’s won this round. “Scrambled, please. You’re the best.”

“Yeah, yeah. You can make your own toast, though. And go and ask Ronan if he wants any.”

“Yes, sir!” Matthew salutes, and runs off to the hallway to yell up the stairs at Ronan.

A mountain of breakfast later, Ronan disappears again to have a shower, and Declan makes Matthew wash the dishes. He sits in the living room and turns on some nature documentary just for background noise, but only a minute or two passes before Matthew comes in and sits down.

“You cannot possibly have finished the dishes yet,” Declan says.

“They need to soak,” Matthew insists, eyes skating guiltily from Declan’s face to the TV screen. “Oh, is this the one with the penguins?” He sits down, and Declan resolves himself to finishing the singular chore he asked Matthew to do later.

“Yes, half a job Bob, it’s the one with the penguins.”

Matthew smiles indulgently and settles in to watch, but they both get distracted a moment later when they spot Ronan walking past, carrying a lot more than he originally had with him.

“Why do you have a big teddy bear?” Matthew asks.

“Is that a boom-box?” Declan asks.

“Is that a heart-shaped balloon with Adam’s face on it?” Matthew asks.

“What are you doing?” Declan asks.

Ronan leaves everything in the hall by the door and comes to stand just inside the living room, hands in his pockets. He shrugs. “Just gonna make a pit-stop at Cambridge, that’s all.”

Declan sighs. “It’s not exactly on your way. Does Adam even know you’re coming?”

“No, it’s a surprise. It’s a funny inside joke Valentine’s surprise.”

“What do you mean, Valentine’s surprise, it’s not Val—oh my god.” Declan puts his head in his hands. “Oh my god, it’s Valentine’s Day.”

“Oh, Declan,” Ronan says, the smile evident in his voice. “Forget, did you?”

Declan lifts his head. “It was a busy week at work.”

“Don’t worry, bro, I must have got all the romantic genes, it’s not your fault.”

Declan scowls but there’s little heat in it. He checks his phone and Jordan is yet to reply, which could mean nothing, but doubt now niggles in Declan’s mind. What if Jordan was expecting some kind of gesture and is now massively disappointed that Declan is so useless?

“What do I do? It’s too late to make any reservations.”

“Reservations are for chumps anyway, just go and do something fun,” Ronan says.

“Like what?” Declan snaps. All that’s running through his head is that he got Jordan some tyrian purple at great cost and at very short notice for their very first date. If her expectations for Valentine’s Day are high, he has no one to blame but himself.

“I’ll leave that up to you to figure out,” Ronan says. “I have to hit the road.”

Matthew laughs and elbows Declan playfully. “Ronan is a better boyfriend than you.”

“No he isn’t, shut up,” Declan says, which just makes Matthew laugh harder.

After Ronan hugs Matthew goodbye, Declan helps him carry the ridiculous gifts he has obviously dreamt up out to the car.

“Text me when you’re with Adam,” he says when he’s closed the trunk, “so I know you got there okay.”

Ronan opens the driver’s side door and levels Declan with a put-upon look. “Fine, I will try my very best to remember to text you when I arrive.”

Declan manages a smile. “Appreciate it. Drive safe.”

Ronan moves to get in the car, but hesitates, and turns back to his brother. “You’re not really worried that you forgot about today, right?” At Declan’s shrug, he continues, “Come on, Jordan’s cool, she’s not gonna care. Everyone knows Valentine’s Day is bullshit.”

“Says the guy who’s driving several hours out of his way in honour of said bullshit day,” Declan says pointedly.

Ronan shakes his head. “Look, the day’s irrelevant; I’m driving several hours out of my way because I miss my fucking boyfriend and this is as good an excuse as any to go see him.”

“Yes, but—”

“But nothing. Jordan likes you, for some unfathomable reason. She’s not gonna dump you because you didn’t remember to plan some posh, soulless valentine’s date.”

Abrasive as he is, Declan can’t deny that Ronan’s right. “When did you get so wise?” he grumbles, and Ronan smirks.

“Hey, statistically I’ve gotta be right about some things.”

“Once in a blue moon.”

“Asshole.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get out of here.” Ronan gets into the car, but Declan stops him before he shuts it. “You really think Jordan is cool?”

Ronan laughs. “Way too cool for you.”

Declan’s unwarranted fears about Jordan ignoring him fade as soon as she texts him back an hour or so later. She doesn’t mention the dreaded V-word, but she says there’s a fair in town, and asks if he wants to go.

A fair date sounds pretty perfect actually, and when he agrees, Jordan tells him she’ll pick him up at seven. She always does like to drive.

“I still haven’t got her a gift, though,” Declan tells Matthew. “Is it bad that I don’t have a gift?”

“You’re going to a fair,” Matthew points out. “Plenty of opportunities to be all manly and shit and win her something.”

“Language,” Declan says, and Matthew rolls his eyes.

“You should get her a card, at least.”

“Valentine’s Day cards are always so terrible, though,” Declan complains.

“So make her one. Jordan’s arty, she’d probably like that better anyway.”

Declan doesn’t like that both of his younger brothers are being smarter than him today, but nevertheless, Matthew is right, and Declan ransacks his office supplies to see what he can come up with.

He uses some high-quality photo paper to print out a picture of a pretty flower that he found online, then carefully cuts it out and glues it to the middle of the front of some card he’s folded in half. He frames it by cutting out strips of purple card and sticking them around the flower. Then he gets irritated with how shit it looks and considers throwing the whole fucking thing away and starting from scratch, when Matthew peers over his shoulder and says, “Aw, that looks really nice.”

So Declan keeps it, writes his message inside, and finds an envelope that is only a little bit too big to put it in.

Time’s getting on, so he goes to get ready. He has no idea what to wear for a date at a fair, and takes two tie options out to the living room to get Matthew’s opinion.

“Which tie is more appropriate?”

“Neither.”

“You didn’t even look.”

“I don’t need to. Don’t wear a tie. You’re not going on a job interview. Plus it’s February and you’ll be outside, put a sweater on.” Matthew does finally look at him now, and he sighs at Declan’s blue button-down and grey slacks. “This is what you wear for work, put some jeans on. You’ve like, met Jordan, right?”

“Alright, smartass, point taken.”

When Declan’s changed again, Matthew decrees his outfit of jeans and a fairisle sweater in navy tones boring but ultimately acceptable, which Declan figures is the best he’s going to get. He also thinks he’s going mad if he’s asking Matthew of all people for fashion advice.

He just has time to slip his coat on and put the card in the inside pocket before there’s a knock at the door, and Matthew runs to open it.

“Hiya, squirt,” Jordan says to him, which is funny because Matthew is taller than her.

“Hey. Declan tried to wear a tie.”

Jordan laughs, throwing her head back, and Declan finds there’s a dopey grin on his face even though his girlfriend and his brother are bonding over making fun of him. “Of course he did. Never fully dressed without a tie.” She meets Declan’s gaze over Matthew’s shoulder and winks at him.

“Hey, I’m right here,” he says, faux-wounded, and makes his way over to the door as Matthew heads back to the living room.

He kisses Jordan. “Hi.”

“Hi yourself. You ready to go?”

“Yes.”

“Have fun, guys!” Matthew yells, and Declan hesitates, poking his head in to look at his brother.

“What are you doing tonight? You can come with us if you want?”

“No way, man, I’m not third-wheeling on your date. Also it’s cute how you think I don’t already have plans, I’m extremely popular.”

“Uh huh,” Declan says, worries evaporating. “Modest, too.”

They leave, finally, and Jordan drives them to where the fair is set up, filling Declan in on any little anecdotes he’s missed since they last spoke. He’s happy just to listen to her talk; sitting in her presence is like recharging a battery, and he feels lighter than he has all week.

Parking is easy to find, and they huddle together as they walk towards the entrance, the lights from all the rides and the heat lamps looking bright and inviting beyond. Jordan slips her hand into Declan’s, and he tucks them both into his pocket as Jordan leans her head against his shoulder.

“I missed you this week,” she says.

“Did you?” Declan smiles. He likes being missed by Jordan. “I missed you too. I always miss you.”

“Well you say that now, but I’m going to destroy you at fairground games, so you might change your mind.”

Declan’s doubtful, but he grins at her amenably.

She holds up a finger. “But first, we need to go on a couple of super fast, spinny rides, because if we go on them after I’ve had something to eat I might just throw up all over you.”

“Yeah, let’s avoid that,” Declan says. “Lead the way.”

Jordan, practically vibrating with excitement, drags Declan straight to the ride she keeps calling ‘the whirligig’, because it takes you round and round, faster and faster, while the carriage you sit in is also spinning. So it’s double the amount of spinning, and when they get off, Declan has to stop for a minute with his hands on his knees while Jordan lovingly laughs at him.

She takes pity on him and they go on the ferris wheel next. They kiss when it stops when they’re at the top, which Declan knows is cliché as hell, but he’s certainly not complaining. He pulls back a little, his thumb gently brushing along her cheekbone.

“I made you a card,” he says, a little embarrassed. Jordan’s warm brown eyes go wide and pleased.

“Oh yeah?”

He pulls it out of his pocket and starts to hand it to her nervously. “It’s not very good.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” she says, taking it from him. She opens it and smiles when she sees the flower. “So pretty.”

“It’s called a Middlemist red camellia. It’s like the rarest flower in the world. Or so Google tells me.” He knows that Jordan will know why he specifically chose this flower. He’s telling her something about who she is to him. She won’t miss the significance of that.

She brings Declan’s hand to her lips and kisses it gently, before letting it go and looking at the card again. “I love camellia’s,” Jordan says, “but I’ve never seen this one before.” She opens the card and reads the message Declan wrote inside, a soft smile growing the more she reads.

Jordan sighs and holds the card to her chest with her eyes closed. When she opens them again, she says, “I made you a card, too.”

She pulls it out of her own coat pocket, and Declan opens it. On the front is a colour pencil drawing of him, perfect hair, non-smiling, boring suit, but with the fanciest shoes he has ever seen; a more exaggerated version of the ones he was wearing when he and Jordan first met.

Declan laughs in joyous surprise. “Your card is better than mine.”

“My card is funnier than yours,” she says. “It’s not better.”

“Thank you,” he says, earnestly, looking at the portrait and cracking up again. “I think...I think I’m gonna frame this.”

“You should. It’ll be worth a fortune some day.”

Of that, Declan has no doubt. “You wanna know a secret?”

“Absolutely.”

“I forgot it was Valentine’s Day.”

It’s Jordan’s turn to laugh, and she leans in to kiss Declan’s cheek. “I forgot, too. I didn’t realise until I went to grab a coffee and there were Valentine’s specials going on all over the place.”

“Ronan of all people reminded me. He drove up to surprise Adam at Cambridge.”

“Bless him, Ronan really is a gigantic softie.”

Declan grins. “Well he told me he thinks you’re cool. Too cool for me.”

“Aw, babe, he’s right!” Jordan says, laughing at his sad pout. “Unfortunately for me, I love you anyway.”

Declan shakes his head, smiling. “You’re a dick,” he says. “But I love you, too.”

The ferris wheel starts moving again, and when it stops, they go and try their hand at some games. Jordan comes out on top at ring tossing, duck hooking, the coconut shy, and the buzzwire, but Declan does pretty well at the mini laser quest and a balloon-popping darts game.

They end up at the shooting game stall, where you have to try and knock the cans over to win prizes. There’s a cute stuffed stegosaurus that Jordan has her eye on, and Declan pays for them both to have a go to try and win it.

They each manage to knock a couple of cans over, but there’s some that are way more stubborn and don’t seem to budge even when clearly hit.

“Another round,” Declan says when his go is finished. He sighs in frustration when the results are the same.

Jordan puts his hand on his arm. “You know these things are rigged, right? They’re weighted, it’s almost impossible to win the good prizes.”

The rational part of his brain understands this to be true. The monkey part wants the prize. “Yes, but it’s Valentine’s Day and I have to win you this stupid stegosaurus. My manly pride is at stake.”

Jordan snorts. “Well how about we take your manly pride to that stall over there and I’ll let you buy me a churro, I’m starving.”

“...Churros sound good.”

Jordan links her arm through Declans as they follow their noses over to the churro stall.

“I really would’ve won it with one more go,” Declan feels the need to say.

“Sure you would,” Jordan says easily. “Maybe later.”

“Fuck later, it’s freezing. You wanna come back to mine? I’ll make you a latte.”

Jordan grins up at him. “I thought you’d never ask. Churros first though.”

“Oh, that’s a given.”

#the raven cycle #jordeclan #lynch bros #dreamertrilogy #anon #emma answers

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