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mochideleche · 5 years ago

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maybe draco malfoy isn’t all that bad...

pairing : draco malfoy x female ravenclaw reader

summary : when one fateful day your new potions seating plan ends up with you sitting next to draco, but from that springs a little friendship with little library sessions and astronomy tower rendezvous that leaves you constantly in internal conflict

A/N it starts in third year but it isn't a full-blown fanfic if u get me just the important parts. i tried my best to follow the harry potter plot to make it seem canon as possible but there might be some bits that don't overlap because my memory is a bit fuzzy, hope you enjoy! ;) (also my requests are open)

warnings: fluff, lil bit angsty, no smut because that’s cringe

It started in third year when you were made to sit next to him. Of course you were scared, you were being made to sit next to the draco malfoy, the son of a supposed death eater. Yes, you had heard all the horrible things he had done, seen the way he had treated those he deemed unworthy and witnessed as he bullied countless people for his own entertainment. You despised him for it. Thankfully, you had never been at the end of his wretched tormenting but that didn’t change the way you felt towards him.

But for Draco on the other hand, he was over the moon when he saw you sitting next to the desk he was assigned to. He stared at you, eyes focused on your textbook, hair falling in your face and your hand tapping the table as you read. He loved it when you did that, he noticed how you hands seemed to have a mind of their own when he first laid eyes on you in transfiguration, 1st year. He loved the way your eyes sparkled when you laughed, he loved how nonchalant you were when you answered a difficult question with ease and he loved the way your smile made him feel. Although, that smile was never directed at him. He would never admit it, but you were the prettiest girl he had ever seen and let’s say, he developed a soft spot for you. Making sure that none of his cronies made you their victim and always steering clear of your path when crabbe and goyle where looking to attack anything with a pulse. But he’d never let anyone know, he could never let anyone know that the cold slytherin pureblood had fallen in love with a ravenclaw sweetheart.

You refused to acknowledge his presence, letting him drop his books on the desk and slouch in his chair, resting his chin in his hand and he looked at the front, boredom evident on his face. You sat stiff in your chair, trying all the best to concentrate on the instructions snape was setting. Not only did you have to take a dreaded class with Hogwarts’ most hated teacher, but you were now made to take the class next to Hogwarts’ most hated student.

But to your surprise, it wasn’t as bad as you thought.

Through out the year you and Draco became- well, close-closer than you were ever expecting, but you wouldn’t call yourself friends.

It started when you just couldn’t seem to get your fire going and were falling behind as your classmates took the best pick of the ingredients, you rolled your eyes at your sudden inability to produce a fire and knew immediately you would be left with scraps of herbs and powders and a low grade.

But before you could drag yourself to the store cupboard to collect what was left of the ingredients, you noticed a neat pile of the ingredients next to your cauldron. Your eyes whipped up to Draco who was staring into to his pot, already mixing the concoction with a lazy hand. He looked up to you gave you a small smile and went back to stirring.

So he had done it. You couldn’t believe that draco malfoy had just done something nice. Maybe he wasn't all bad...

The rest of the year went on like that, little things in potions such as you starting both yours and his fires as he got the ingredients, him chopping up things you didn’t like the smell of and you tidying up his desk when he went to present his final potion to snape.

And not in just potions too, he also sent small smiles to you in the hallways, gave you little waves across the great hall when nobody was looking and sometimes making small talk as you two approached your next lesson.

And throughout the months, you began to realise, Draco wasn’t all he seemed to be. Of course, you said nothing of it - not to anyone, not because you were scared what people may think if they found out you didn’t totally despise the muggle born hater but because you knew that Draco didn’t want anyone to know that he didn’t totally hate his ravenclaw potions partner.

Then came fourth year, you weren’t seated next to draco, but hermionie granger who you absolutely loved. Now the two smartest girls in the year were partners in potions.

That year you had sat next to her in the majority of your lessons and the two of you became rather close. This was one of the reasons you weren’t so upset that you weren’t sitting next to Draco anymore. Hermionie was a great reminder of all the dreadful things Draco was responsible for doing.

Over the summer you found yourself thinking of a certain someone. You didn’t want to admit it but maybe coming to not hate Draco was an understatement, but you didn’t want to say that maybe you had fallen for him.

You shook the thoughts out of your head on the first day of school. Maybe it was because the attention Draco gave you made you feel special and caused you to think that you were in love with him, no- not in love- you couldn’t be in love, it was only a small crush which was entirely unreasonable and would go away soon...right?

Besides, think of all the horrible things he’s done, they didn’t just go away because he was nice to you? He’s an arrogant pureblood supremacist, bullies other houses and freely uses the term mudblood. You could not let yourself fall in love with someone like him.

Not to mention his father, but you couldn’t set that as a reasonable excuse, children are not their parents choices. But you still deemed Draco as a bad idea. And just looking at hermionie, an avid victim of Draco’s terror, made you guilty that you even considered being civil towards him.

But despite all that, nothing stopped your heart from pounding when the same blonde hair boy tapped you on the shoulder one night in the library.

“Y/N, can I ask you a favour?” he had asked, scratching the back of his head, as his stormy grey eyes looked everywhere but you.

“yes?” you answered, looking up at the boy who seemed, for some reason, nervous.

“Is it alright, if you help me with this? please” he said, placing down he herbology essay that was due the next morning.

You stared at him as if he was joking, draco malfoy, asking for help?

“You’re one of the smartest people in our year” he reasoned, pursing his lips and trying to avoid eye contact, “ so I thought maybe you knew how to-”

“I can help,” You said softly, wanting to stop Draco from trying to persuade you, it just made you all the more flustered.

His eyes lit up and he hurriedly sat down in the chair next to you as you took your quill with a shaky hand and began explaining.

You scribbled away at the piece of parchment in front of you as you tried to explain the various uses for different types of herbs and plants but out of the corner of your eye you could see that Draco wasn’t looking at your detailed diagrams or flowcharts, but at you.

You hoped you weren’t as red as you thought you were.

the two of you sat there for what seemed hours but thankfully draco had got the answers he had came for and had began on his essay. After you had explained, you had hoped he would go to another desk or back to his common room

but he stayed there with you.

You could not concentrate on a single word you tried to read whilst he was there. You glanced over at him, his back hunched over the desk, his eyes, narrowed, following his quill as he wrote away.

You were surprised he took in that much, you were never a good teacher. In a weird way, it felt like the old days, when you two would get on with your work not giving each other any attention but fully aware that the other was there next to them.

You did your best to read, your hand tapping away at the desk as it always did, when a large hand enveloped your own.

“Do you always have to do that?” Draco asked, a small smirk on his lips and a raised eyebrow cocked towards you.

“Sorry, I can’t help it” you replied. Your heart pounding even louder, since when did Draco take in that little detail?

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to give your hand something to do then” and he moved his hand from on top of yours and settled his long slender fingers in between your own. Holding your hand gently.

you were definitely as red as you thought you were now. So you turned away, not wanting him to see you blush, your face facing straight down at you book but your eyes were not reading the words on the pages.

you heard him chuckle and that made your heart explode.

And the night went on like that, you, trying awfully hard to read the textbook and Draco scribbling away and all the while your hands settled on the desk between you, holding on to each other. You were estatic.

However, as much as you dreaded it, the night had to come to an end,

Draco walked you out of the library and you came to notice that you two were the only ones left in there.

“Thank you, by the way” he said, his eyes scanning your face as if he was looking for something.

“It’s alright,” you said and with fear of being left in awkward silence you began to walk away slowly.

Draco seemed to get the message and began retracting too, towards the stairs that led down to the dungeons, “Goodnight Y/N” and he turned around, a large smile painted on his face.

“Goodnight Draco,” you said quietly, not sure that he heard but a small laugh escape his lips as he walked further away leaving you with an equally large grin plastered on your face.

Maybe Draco Malfoy wasn’t all that bad.

The rest of fourth year went on like that, little visits from Draco now and then when you were in the library. He’d sit next to you and you’d both get on with your work until curfew.

He’d even break into small hushed chats with you and through those you got to know him more. He’d go on forever about how he wanted to travel the world, learn all kinds of magic and how he’d get himself a pet dragon. How he adored flying, how he loved his mother, how hard his father was on him.

It surprised you, that the Draco you grew up to know was nothing like the blonde haired boy sitting next to you. He was simply- misunderstood, so to say. But you knew it was more than that.

and at the end of every session, he’d walk you out the library and wish you a goodnight.

But you thought nothing of it.

At least you tried to, but you heart thought otherwise.

You kept on having to remind yourself of all the horrible things he had said and done- and it wasn’t hard either, not when he was tormenting people on the daily. Word spread and you heard it. And it kept you grounded.

Not to mention your growing friendship with hermionie, through her you heard of all the rivalry between harry and draco, finding yourself favouring harry despite not knowing him very well. But deep down, you kept thinking, what if I could be the one to change Draco?

As far as you knew, Draco was only ever sweet, gentle and well- pleasant around you. To everyone else he was cold, pompous and malicious. If everyone saw him how you did, they would see that draco wasn’t all that bad.

But the guilt came flooding in when you heard hermionie was crying from being bullied and being called, yet again, a mudblood by draco. He’d gone too far.

That night when you saw him walking down the aisles of the library towards you, you scooped up your books and walked away from him.

And of course he followed you.

“Y/N!” he shouted after you as you stalked down the hallway, away from him.

He grabbed you by the wrist, you turned around and unleashed your fury.

“Why do you do it?” you asked, doing your best to stay relatively calm.

“What-” he began, confusion washed across his face, but you weren’t finished.

“Why do you act the way you do? Thinking that anyone who isn't pureblood is less than you are, thinking that it’s alright to call people disgusting names, thinking that you can just bully anyone for your own entertainment?” You rambled, obviously shocking Malfoy greatly, he had never seen you angry before.

“You act so-so-so different towards me!” you exclaimed, trying to find the right words to explain how you felt, “not arrogant, not egotistical, not haughty at all, so why draco malfoy, do you chose to torment the rest of the school? What makes me so different that you show me someone nobody else knows? why can’t show who you really are to the rest of the world, show them how I see you? or is the person you are when you’re with me all an act?” you said, your eyes brimming with tears.

It was so difficult, having this constant internal conflict of wether you should give draco a chance or not. It was difficult feeling so guilty whenever you heard another evil deed he had carried out yet you still let your heart loose control when you saw him.

Then he did something unexpected.

He hugged you.

You felt his arms engulf you before you were aware of what he was doing. He pressed you against his chest, arms wrapped tightly around you as if he was scared to letting go.

You breathed in his minty scent, the smell of his freshly washed uniform, you felt his heart beating incredibly hard against his chest.

Then you were crying.

You two stood there, holding each other like your lives depended on it, what an odd sight to see. For anyone who would stumble into the third floor hallway, they would be completely baffled to see Draco Malfoy hugging a crying Y/N Y/L/N.

Because, nobody knew.

Nobody knew how Draco and you became aquatinted, nobody noticed the smiles or waves draco sent your way, nobody saw how your eyes lit up when you saw him, nobody walked up to you two when you were together in the back of the library, nobody knew how much you cared for draco, and nobody knew how hard draco had fallen for you.

“It’s because I’m not ready for the world to see yet” Draco whispered into your hair as you clutched at his sweater vest.

The next few weeks, you were beginning to see how wonderful life could be.

Draco no longer sneered at everyone, but kept to himself and was rarely starting fights anymore. He didn't even try to start a row with harry every time he saw him but just ignored him and walked on. And ever since that night, you had never heard him call anyone mudblood again.

Hogwarts was relieved that they were free from Dracos torments but that didn’t mean they weren’t all still scared shitless by him.

And you were also very thankful that hermionie kept harry and ron civil too, so life at hogwarts was pretty great, you were sure everyone would see that Draco Malfoy wasn’t so bad...

Then fifth year started.

Umbridge, made your life a living hell. not to mention, Voldemorts return. but you couldn’t let that get in your way. As a newly chosen prefect, you found yourself comforting people more than ever, telling them how things would work out, how dumbledore would come back and how they shouldn’t give up hope so easily.

Easier said than done.

You saw less of Draco these days. With Umbridge’s stupid rules keeping you apart.

Although his visits always made your week no matter how infrequent they were.

He even made an effort to sneak up to the astronomy tower where he’d bring you food from the kitchen and you’d spend all night lying next to each other and looking up at the stars.

“Do you see it?” he asked one night, pointing up to the sky as you two stood shoulder to shoulder by the railing, “sirius, the brightest star”

“Where?” you asked, leaning in closer to his to see his point of view, the top of your head resting just next to his chin.

“There” and he moved his hand to wrap around behind you and pointed up to the sky, his long, slim fingers coming out from the corner of your view.

“Oh, I see it” you giggled, turning your face towards his which was much closer than before causing you to hold your breath.

“Oh really?” he smirked, bending his head down towards yours, looking down at your lips for a quick second, then back up to your eyes.

“mhmm” you replied as you felt his arm now making its way to your waist as you turned your body to face his.

And before you knew it his soft lips were pressed against yours.

You couldn’t stop yourself from smiling.

Sooner or later, you thought nervously, as you walked to transfiguration.

Sooner or later, people will find out that i’ve been fooling around with Draco Malfoy.

These days, your never saw Draco. After your kiss, his visits began to gradually stop which made your heart ache.

You knew it was because he had his stupid inquisitorial squad to lead but on the other hand you were rather relived.

It took a lot of convincing but hermionie had got you to tag along to the dumbledore’s army meetings. Of course you wanted to go and thought it was brilliant that harry was teaching defence against the dark arts: You absolutely despised the new system umbridge was forcing onto you and you weren’t going to fail your exam.

But, you knew very well that umbridge was breathing down your necks trying to spot rebels who disobeyed her rules,

and one way she did that was through draco.

Through out your little rendezvous you never mentioned what draco was doing for umbridge and neither did draco. Things were simpler like that.

You didn’t want what you had to be ruined. One of the only things that kept you sane throughout your painful days of rigid education.

But that very same thing kept you apart.

And oh did that barrier cause so much inconvenience when one fateful night in the room of requirement, where the walls being bashed down from the outside.

Harry told you all to run off first, and so you did. You, dean, seamus and Angelina all running down the seventh corridor like your lives depended on it.

But not before you saw a tuft of blonde hair out of the corner of your eye when you raced down the stairs.

There was no hope now.

You knew draco had seen your name on that list. And it had been a week and he still hadn’t talked to you.

Not to mention his father being thrown into azakaban.

You knew he was suffering because of it, and you wanted to comfort him, but how? How on earth were you meant to comfort draco when you thought that lucius malfoy had every right to be locked up?

And after what draco did to your friends? After all of fourth year getting him to change? Suddenly going back on his word and becoming horrible again and helping umbridge terrorise hogwarts, the place you though of as a second home?

No, you had been too kind for long enough.

Maybe Draco Malfoy was a bad idea.

But what about all those times you spent in the library? on the astronomy tower? When he kissed you?

No, Draco Malfoy was a bad idea and you needed to stop denying it.

Sixth year - the first year you weren’t excited to be back.

The return of voldemort had finally settled within the community and it made everything so dreadful.

As a prefect, people came to you for advice and comfort surrounding school and homework,

now people came to you scared and overflowing with anxiety wether their families would be okay or whether they would make it to another year of hogwarts.

Then there was draco.

You first saw him get off the train when you arrived, taller than last year, paler than ever, and with a permanent frown on his face.

You had to admit, his black suit made him look extremely dashing but, no

You had to stop thinking of him like that.

But he always caught your attention, the almost white blonde hair was hard not to miss.

You tried not to notice but you couldn’t help it, you couldn’t help noticing how he looked sadder these days, picked at his food, never seen around the castle if it wasn’t in class.

Heck you even changed your prefect duty so that it would be on the same night as his, but he never seemed to show up for it.

You couldn’t help but worry about draco.

But he acted as if you didn’t even exist

The stolen glances, the small smiles, little waves thrown across the hall, all gone. But you didn’t care...did you?

Then you started hearing things, how draco malfoy was a death eater, how he was seen with death eaters during the summer and how he was the one to curse katie bell.

You tried to not let it bother you, you shouldn’t care.

But you did care when you heard what happened in the bathroom.

Without a second thought you ran to the hospital wing, in the early hours of the morning when you were sure nobody would be around.

You saw draco, his torso wrapped with bandages and your heart broke.

Collapsing on the side of his bed you cried. Oh God how hard it was to see him like this, how hard it was to pretend that you didn’t give a damn about what happened to him, how hard it was to pretend that you didn’t love draco malfoy.

You left as soon as you could, not wanting draco to see you at his side, not wanting to face an awkward argument and not letting him know that you still cared.

But as draco woke up and found the side on his blanket wet and smelling vaguely of a certain perfume, he knew exactly what you’d done.

And it made his heart break.

The astronomy tower was where you used to go when you couldn’t sleep, which was very often but now, you avoided that place like the plague.

It had now become yours and dracos place, where you’d spent nights together, where you’d wish on stars together, where you’d had your first kiss with him...

you hadn’t stepped near that place at all when you started the year and now you stood there, and it felt so wrong.

You wanted some time to think, sitting down in your pyjamas, knees tucked up to your chest and staring at the sky.

You looked at all the constellations trying to make out the ones that draco had pointed out to you-

Nope, for fucks sake.

But before you could get angry at yourself you realised you weren’t alone.

Someone had come to the top of the stairs, their footsteps echoing down the empty stairwell, stopping once they saw you.

You stayed put, you didn’t want to turn around, maybe if you stayed still for long enough, they won't even realise you're there.

Oh, but they did.

He stood next to you, his glossy black dress shoes right next to your legs.

Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

He sat down, crossed his legs but kept his gaze up at the sky.

“Do you see it?” He asked softly, you hadn’t heard his voice in months.

You shook your head not knowing what else to say.

“Sirius, the brightest star”

Your heart pumped against your ribcage, as if wanting to escape, tears began welling up in your eyes and your voice choked as you spoke, “where?”

He leaned in closer, pointing up to the sky and tilting his head so it brushed against yours, “There”

“Oh I see it” you said quietly, without emotion or bounce to your voice like you had said it before. what was he doing?

“Oh really” he said sadly and you forced yourself to look at him.

He was staring right at you with sad grey eyes.

“I’ve missed you” he croaked out, and you couldn’t help yourself.

You flung yourself on him, almost causing him to lose his balance and fall back, but you felt his arms encase you around your waist and he held on tight.

Oh how you cried.

You were sobbing, getting his jumper all wet, but he didn’t seem to care.

He began mumbling softly, his voice cracking as he choked back tears, “Y/N Im so sorry, im so so sorry, the things I did...”

He stroked your hair, rocking the two of you back and forth, “I had to- I don’t want to do it. I-I-I have no choice. he’s making me do these things, I can’t do it, but he’ll kill my family, he’ll kill you”

You stopped breathing at that point, so it is true.

Draco was a death eater.

But you couldn’t bring yourself to rip away from him and interrogate him, you decided it was best if you let him let it all out.

So that was why he was avoiding you, Voldemort was threatening to kill you if draco didn't obey him.

Oh God, what had draco got himself into?

“It’ll be okay,” You said, you didn’t think it would be but what else could you have said?

“I’ll be here for you, no matter what happens” You stated, wrapping your hands tighter around his neck, “Promise”

“I’m so sorry” he shuddered against you, heaving greatly and crying into your shoulder, “I can’t let him hurt you...”

And from that moment you knew Draco Malfoy wasn’t all that bad.

his words ringed through your ears “Please promise me, you’ll stay in your dorm tomorrow night, please I beg you”

You couldn’t say no.

He had held your hand in between his, grey eyes pleading with you, to not lay a foot outside your common room until morning.

And so you did.

But as soon as you heard the commotion, fellow housemates running around and the sounds of mass of students leaving the common room, you had to leave.

I’m sorry draco.

But as soon as you got out of the castle you wanted nothing but to go back inside.

Seeing you headmaster, crumpled on the floor caused your heart to drop 10 feet.

And knowing who had done it made your heart stop beating all together.

At the funeral you felt so guilty, knowing that the act was going to take place but you hadn’t said anything about it to protect draco.

Of course you didn’t question him on what he was asked to do, you didn’t want to force him to speak about something he so highly detested.

You were so conflicted, you loved a murderer.

But you knew that he only acted to protect his family, to protect you.

You spent the next few days locked up in your dorm, crying.

Draco had disappeared and you had a very good idea why.

The day before you were due to leave school, a knock came on your door. You thought it was just another one of your friends bringing you the dinner you had always decided to skip but this time it was hermionie.

You didn’t even question how she had got in, she sat on your bed and took a hand to comfortingly pet you.

“ Draco didn’t do it” Hermionie said suddenly, and you sat up.

“He didn’t?” was the first of many questions you wanted to bombard her with, your heart rate picked up speed, how did she know about you and draco?

“It was snape, draco couldn’t do it”

Relief spread over you, but it quickly disappeared, if draco couldn’t complete his task, what was going to happen to him now ?

“I saw you together once” Hermionie started, looking at you with kind eyes, “in the library- and I couldn’t believe it, but then when i noticed how behaved he was being and i had a good guess that it was because of you”

you nodded your head and let her to continue.

“then when you declined to join dumbledores army, well it all clicked then, but it was so strange i didn’t know why you’d wanted to date draco, no offence “

“none taken” you sniffled, she had every right to think that but you wondering, how could hermionie be so calm about the subject?

You felt so bad about keeping it from her that you immediately broke out into a ramble,

“hermionie, i want you to know how awful i felt at the start when i had even had the slightest feelings for draco, but then i started to see it was all an act, to please his family, he’s not all that bad, he’s sweet, caring and-”

your voice faltered, but hermionie understood.

“he said-” you continued, tears falling out of your eyes again, “that voldemort had threatened to kill his family- to kill me if he didn’t do it”

Although hermionie was incredibly smart, and smart enough to figure out what was going on between you and draco, this seemed to surprise her.

“And now he’s failed to do it, i don’t know what’s going to happen to him” you cried, and hermionie rushed to hug you.

But it brought no comfort at all.

Seventh year, you didn’t want to return at all.

Hogwarts was no longer your second home, but a prison.

You didn’t care about your education anymore, all you cared about was surviving. You spent countless nights planning and sneaking around the castle, trying to evacuate as many people as possible without getting yourself killed.

You hated life.

But you had to keep going. Classes were down to about 10 people per class- mostly slytherins, and your common room now only consisted of a couple of younger years and the older students who were insisting to stay to take back hogwarts one bit at a time. You were one of them.

Then there was draco.

When you fist saw him in the great hall you were thankful that he was alive.

unfortunately, the good news ended there.

he’d ignored you, like the beginning of sixth year but now you hoped it was for good reason, because he was protecting you. besides, he had a lot of his own reasons to worry about.

But seeing him and not being able to talk to him made you even more depressed, it just made the whole thing a lot more worse.

As a person from dumbledores army, you were taken in, questioned about harry’s whereabouts, where the missing students had left to and how they were leaving.

The carrows and slytherins were horrible, forcing you to drink veritaserum, locking you up until you agreed to talk and using crucio on you once or twice.

the pain was unbearable but you didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of seeing you crumble.

So when you were finally kicked out of their office, you strode away with your nose held high but as you were out of sight, you allowed yourself to slump. You held back your tears though, crying wasn't going to solve anything.

Then you were pulled aside into an alcove which once held a statue but now remained empty.

Draco’s grey eyes were looking down at you with the upmost concert, scanning your face and gripping the sides of your arms tightly.

It broke draco to see you like this, he knew exactly what the carrows had done to you and everything you had to go through. He hated that he couldn’t stop it.

You were thinner, paler and you had a fresh scar on the side of your left cheek where a 7th year slytherin had hit you during one of your questionings.

Tears where welling up in dracos eyes as he cupped your face in his shaking hands, “leave, please,”

“Draco i can’t-”

“I know you know where they are, please leave, for your own sake, I can’t bare to see them hurt you anymore”

You knew that draco wanted to stop them but he couldn’t do it without making it obvious he had someone to care for on the enemy side.

it wouldn’t do any of you good.

But you couldn’t reply as the moment was cut short by the sound of blaise and pansy’s voices echoing down the corridor.

draco left you with one last pleading look as you stood deep within the alcove.

“draco!” pansy squealed and the sounds of their footsteps leading away faded down the stairs.

the battle of hogwarts had started.

It was a blur, you tried your best to keep everyone calm as you helped usher the students through the portrait hole and out of hogwarts wondering if you’d live to see them again.

you were assigned to kingsley’s team but you evidently got separated from them as you battled for your life.

Deatheaters were screaming avada kedavra, luckily none of them hit you.

You could never imagine saying it, so you stuck with your ‘stupefy’s but at one point you found yourself standing at the body of one of your friends, so you resulted to spells that your victims couldn’t ever heal from.

It hurt seeing your friends attacked, outnumbered and hit. You faught with a constant panic within you, narrowly missing and blocking spells which would had definitely killed you.

But you saw it through.

It pained you to see draco’s family screaming for him, no longer occupied with the war but only for finding their son.

No doubt you too felt the same but you couldn’t see the tuft of blonde hair anywhere throughout the night or the early morning as ran through the castle.

Once the whole thing was over, you made your way around the hall, helping to heal the wounded, comforting the mourning. But you had have enough, you couldn’t take it.

And somehow you found yourself back at the astronomy tower.

In ruins now, yes, half of the end wall had been broken down so it opened to a 100ft drop to the bottom of the mountains, asphalt and bricks laid everywhere and half the railing had been torn off, now hanging lonely over the edge.

staring down at the castle grounds you hoped that perhaps it could be rebuilt, even stronger for the next generation to come. How far you had come, how lucky you were to have survived, it was all over.

then like a miracle you heard foot steps walking up of what was left of the stairs, you turned and standing there in his white dress shirt, ash stained trousers and missing his blazer, was draco.

You couldn’t believe it. At the end of the battle you didn’t know what to think but when you couldn’t spot any of the malfoys, you assumed- you had hoped, that they escaped-along with draco, to safety. But you couldn’t help but think, what if he didn’t make it out safely?

Now he stood there, in front of you- all in one piece, when you had braced yourself for the worst.

“you’re alive” he smiled, and you ran to him, jumping on him and encasing him in the tightest hug you could muster.

Tears that you had been holding back fell from your eyes as you rammed out your ‘i’m so glad your safe’s and ‘i’ve missed you so much’s and ‘where were you?’s

a small laugh escaped dracos lips and that reply was all you needed.

“I love you” he whispered against your hair as you sobbed never ending tears of pure happiness and relief.

“I love you too,” you croaked out between your intakes of breaths with a smile appearing on your face.

you forced yourself to step back a bit so that you could look up to the face you so dearly missed.

“your family, are they alright?” you asked genuinely concerned.

“Yes, they’re fine. they’ve had to come to face a lot though, and I don’t think my father would be happy if he found out i had fought for your side” he sighed, looking down at you with a tired face and a lazy smile.

your eyes widened, “you fought for our side?!”

your heart leapt for him even more.

“Of course i did!” he smiled, leaning down so that your foreheads touched, “I couldn’t see you at all, i tried to find you as soon as the fighting started but-”

“well im here now” you interrupted, seeing the anxiety creeping back on his face. you decided it was best to remind him that the two of you were there together and that was all that mattered.

“and so you are” he grinned and with that he placed his lips on yours, just like he did that one night two years ago.

#draco malfoy #draco malfoy fanfiction #draco malfoy imagine #draco x reader #draco malfoy x reader #harry potter #harry potter fanfiction #ravenclaw #hufflepuff #slytherin #griffindor #slytherclaw #ravenclaw reader

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echo-three-one · 4 years ago

Text

A Forgotten Memory

An Alex x OC fic

First chapter (here)

Prev (II - Samantha)

Next (IV - Samantha)

Comments and Reviews appreciated as I would like to grow as a writer.

III - Alex

Alex glanced at the orange building across the park one more time. 'There hasn't been any person or car that stayed in front of it for the past hour' he mentally noted as he circled another lap across the small park oval. Ever since he lost Samantha yesterday, he couldn't help but worry, especially that the morning news just revealed another set of missing persons. He silently hopes the two of them aren't part of it.

He snapped back to reality as a soccer ball rolled infront of him. He gently kicked it back to the players as his phone vibrates. As soon as he realized only Maxine has his number, he quickly pulled his phone from his arms, evidenced by the loud sound of the velcro being detached.

From : Unknown Number

Hey, sorry if we got off the wrong foot yesterday. You were a complete stranger after all. But if you're still willing to discuss things to me, I'm okay with it. Under one condition, it must be a place filled with people wherever I look.

-Samantha

A wave of relief filled Alex as his suspicions were immediately crossed out. And it also made her want to meet him, all the better for the good of the mission. He'll have to thank Maxine if ever she talked her out of it.

Sure. I'm fine with that. But where to? I just moved here and I have no idea which places are crowded enough for your liking.

Alex's thumbs typed and sent the message as soon as he's done. He quickly sat on a park bench as he await her response, grabbing a towel from his back pocket as he wiped off the beads of sweat around his face.

There's a certain spot by the sea that's filled with people by sun down. I'm sure you won't find a chance to abduct me there, if ever you're behind the missing people case.

She replied. He couldn't help but laugh, if only she knew what circumstances brought them together.

You got yourself a deal.

P.S.

You don't really have to worry about me. I'm not a threat.

He pressed send as he made his way back to his apartment. If he's going out around a lot of people, plain shirts aren't going to be enough. He arranged one last call using his encrypted phone to make one more arrangement.

***

"What do you think about this one?" Alex pointed his camera to the dressing room mirror.

"You know none of these matter right, Alex?" the voice over the other side of the call questioned over the speakerphone.

"You're just playing with her. If you're too invested in this little meet up you have tonight, I'm telling you to drop the act and just do your job. What would you do to her when this is all over? Send postcards from your next assignment? Promise her you'll be back after who knows when this shit war will end?"

"Look man, I know you actually mean well and speak from experience, but this girl's different. Straightforward isn't gonna work. You should've seen how fast she bolted once she saw my face."

Alex calmed his friend, who happened to start rambling about his personal mistakes.

The other end of the line fell silent, all while Alex shifts between the last two outfits on his basket. Quickly taking off his shirt, he tries on his last outfit idea. He isn't really all for fashion but as soon as he straightened his outfit and looked at the mirror, he knew he'd look decent enough for tonight. A small chuckle escapes his lips as he throws finger guns on his reflection.

"I'm taking this one." He announced as he puts his regular clothing back and proceeded to the counter.

"Look, if you're still worried about her remember this. I won't be making any such advances toward her. Sure, she's pretty but I'm in an assignment. Have I ever failed you professionally?" Alex assured his colleague.

"Fine. Whatever, Alex. I'm just concerned at the persons involved with us. That's all." the voice said and cut off a few seconds after that.

"You could say goodbye you know?" Alex complained over the already disconnected line, mocking the phone and shoved it back in his pocket. His outfit is finally ready, he sighed in relief as he checks of the hardest thing to prepare on his list. Now all he has to do is create a flow chart of questions for Samantha and this mission will be as easy as pie.

***

Index cards scribbled with questions sprawled over his messy bed, mapped out to fit an appropriate follow up question that could slowly lead to different key questions. He hoped she'd follow this path, and he isn't actually confident enough she'll even answer seriously.

He tossed another index card to the trash and sighed deeply. He couldn't insert jokes or remarks anywhere as it would create a different impression. So much for acting professionally, he thought to himself remembering what they had talked about earlier. Everything would actually depend on how she reacts to everything he says, so he scrapped the whole flowchart idea and went rogue.

"Fuck professionally." he muttered as he stood up and started putting on his clothes.

It's finally time to formally meet her and he actually felt nervous. Staring at his get up one last time, he took a deep breath and made his way to their rendezvous point.

The unending babbling of different crowds of people mixed with the sloshing evening waves surround Alex's ears. So much for publicity, he has a feeling they won't be able to understand each other under this noisy environment. But he had to learn something, that's the whole point afterall.

She texted her landmark and Alex quickly located the pink plastic palm tree that glows sparkly neon lights, and below it was Samantha, wearing a lovely floral printed dress. He couldn't help but stare at the view, gulped a little and slowly make his way toward her.

"When you said public, I was really expecting a restaurant or a mall. Not whatever this is..." Alex said looking around.

"Don't worry. They'll all be quiet soon. That's when we'll start talking. For now, let's look for something to eat." She smiled softly as she guides him across the small food stalls by the baywalk, with the intention of letting him try everything until his stomach can't take anymore. Alex completely went with the flow, forgetting about how not to create deeper relations. But in his defense, he couldn't help it... He believes whatever that's going on between them right now, is the only possible way to succeed in this mission.

#alex x oc #codmw #horRAYfic #chapter 3 #guys Alex wants to not call it a date professionally

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riversofmars · 5 years ago

Photo

December 1st December 2nd December 3rd

December 4th December 5th December 6th

“Doctor, how is she here? We literally just saw her in the Library and…“ Donna stared at River, struggling to comprehend.

“Younger version? Surely. She said she was a time traveller from my future, remember?“ The young Doctor said slowly, trying to get to grips with it as well. The older Doctors looked on with a sense of sorrow, remember what he - they - had just been through.

“No… older actually… Hello, Doctor.“ River smiled softly. This time, she kept a reserved distance, knowing full well this Doctor didn’t know her in the way the others did.

“Seriously?“ Yaz shook her head in disbelief. “Another one of you?!“

“This is getting really unnerving…“ The Doctor huffed and pulled them along to take cover behind a large bauble display so they could listen in without being noticed.

“You don’t have to tell us…“ Graham shook his head.

“But you just, we just…“ Sandshoes looked at River, he didn't understand what was going on.

“You’ve just been to the Library.“ River deduced from their shocked expressions. River couldn’t deny how much the knowledge that the Doctor had always known how she would die pained her. Not for herself. He had given her the maddest adventures, his heartfelt devotion and the most incredible life… but for him. He had done all those things, loved her so much, despite all the while knowing how things would end, unable to stop it.

“I feel like I’m missing a trick here, what happened at the Library?“ Amy asked, looking around, everybody else seemed to know apart from her and Rory, who looked just as confused. River took a deep breath trying to keep her emotions at bay. Amy looked around at everyone else. Eyebrows and Bowtie shared a sorrowful glance. Bill, despite not knowing much about them, found herself at a lack for words. Donna and Sandshoes picked up on the uneasiness of the others and, having the least knowledge of future events, chose to remain quiet. “River?“ Amy placed her hand on her daughter’s shoulder, needing an explanation.

“The Library is where I die.“ River answered turning to face her at last.

“What?“ Amy and Rory looked back at their daughter in shock. “The day the Doctor first meets me in the day I die, our timelines run in opposite directions for the most part, remember…“ She gave them a sad smile.

“But she managed to get out.“ Eyebrows interjected quickly, he couldn’t bare the devastation on the Ponds’ faces. “She’s alive now.“

“I saved her, her consciousness, to the Library’s data base.“ Sandshoes spoke up, hoping to give them some assurance. He didn’t know who these people were but it was obvious they had a strong connection to River.

“I’m okay, I’m here.“ River assured her parents, hoping to ease the shock of it all, she pulled Amy close, wrapping her arms around her mother.

“Well, you better be, Melody, else I would have been very cross!“ Amy tried to blink away her tears but didn’t quite manage it. River kissed the top of her head and caught Rory’s eyes, full of heartbreak. She grabbed his hand while still holding on to Amy.

“Was this it then?“ Rory asked slowly, trying not to get chocked up. “That terrible day you were talking about…“

“And I made it through.“ River gave him a reassuring smile and squeezed his hand.

“And you, you knew this whole time and never said anything?!“ Rory turned to Bowtie, anger sweeping through him like he hadn’t known before. “You knew, this whole time, how and when my daughter - your wife - was going to die and you never said? Didn’t even try to save her?!“

“Rory, I…“ Bowtie didn’t know what to say, taken aback by gentle Rory’s fierce reaction.

“It had already happened, it was fixed time, there was nothing any of us could do, and believe me, in the thousands of years since, not a day has gone by that I didn’t try and work out that impossible problem.“ Eyebrows interrupted.

“And apparently, at some point we will work it out.“ Bowtie added gently.

“What makes you think it was you, you can’t even remember, I wouldn't take credit just yet.“ River chuckled, trying to lighten the atmosphere and succeeding.

“You. Count your blessings that she’s alive now, else you would have been in big trouble!“ Amy let go of her daughter and jabbed her finger at Bowtie who held his hands up defensively.

“I am, actually... counting my blessings.“ Bowtie smiled looking to River with nothing but relief and love in his eyes.

“Right, sorry to interrupt.“ Sandshoes spoke up, now that the situation seemed to be less volatile. He felt a weird sort of jealousy at he couldn’t quite explain, seeing how the other men were looking at River. “Who are you people.“ He looked around the group utterly bewildered. From what he had heard he had some suspicions, but they couldn’t possibly be true could they.

“Well, Doctor, you never mentioned you used to be so handsome…“ Amy looked from her Doctor to Sandshoes, giving him a once over, distracted from her emotional upheaval, by a handsome young man.

“No, no, that’s enough, one is enough to compete with, thank you.“ Rory pulled his wife back.

“Doctor?“ Sandshoes looked to Bowtie in disbelief.

“Well, that is going to be a bit more complicated to explain…“ River scratched the back of her head.

“You can say that again…“ Bill looked in between the three Doctors utterly confused. It was hard to believe that they were all the same person, but somehow, oddly, it was obvious that they were.

“Okay, now, that’s one coincidence too many.“ Eyebrows interrupted.

“Coincidence?“ Sandshoes retorted. “Never ignore coincidence.“

“Unless you’re busy, we know.“ Eyebrows huffed.

“Right okay… struggling with this but just going with it…“ Sandshoes shook his head to himself before looking to River, who appeared the more immediate concern. “How did you manage to escape?“

“Well, that seems to be a pivotal question, does it not.“ River huffed, annoyed that she didn't have an answer. “I don’t remember anything… and you’re sure you don’t remember either?“ She looked to Eyebrows who shook his head.

“I should remember if it was me, I’m the oldest here…“

“That you certainly are…“ Bowtie chuckled. “And I don’t know what happened either, the last time I saw her was on…“

“Shhh spoilers!“ Sandshoes interrupted and Eyebrows rolled his eyes at him.

“We’re not going to remember this anyway.“ He pointed out.

“What if there is another one?“ Amy asked suddenly.

“What?“ The three Doctors retorted in unison.

“Another Doctor?“ River asked to confirm and Amy nodded.

In their hiding place, the Doctor winced. Clever Amy. But she did't have those answers about River either.

“If none of them remember how they saved you, maybe it hasn’t happened for them yet?“ Amy suggested. “Maybe there is another, older version.“

“Older than me?“ Eyebrows frowned.

“Hardly seems possible but yeah…“ Bowtie had to agree.

“If you don’t stop the age jokes already…“

“Stop bickering, you two.“ River interrupted her husbands.

“So she really is your wife then, is she?“ Donna grinned to her Doctor as she watched the others interact with great amusement. Sandshoes just gave her a huff and diverted attention back to the facts:

“Well, if there is another Doctor, there should be another TARDIS?“

“Or another person with two hearts?“ Eyebrows agreed.

“Let’s have a scan.“ Bowtie suggested and all three Doctors pulled their sonic screwdrivers out simultaneously.

“Trying really hard to not see this as a euphemism.“ Amy mumbled to her daughter who smirked in turn:

“The mind races, does it not.“

“No, nope, nooo. He’s still my son-in-law… all of them are… sort of takes the fun out of it.“ Amy looked to Sandshoes in disappointment.

“I’m really going to need a flowchart for this…“ Sandshoes huffed shaking his head, trying to wrap his head around what was going on. “Hang on… that can’t be possible…“ He looked up to the other Doctors, all of them with the same shocked expression at their findings.

“Fourteen?!“ They chanted in unison and the Doctor went very pale behind the bauble display.

“Oh no, that’s even worse than I thought.“ She whispered, pulling out her own sonic to confirm.

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gfwatch · 6 years ago

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sigma headcanons

yes i know, it’s a shock to see dude headcanons on a girl-only blog but listen. i love this dutch astrophysicist. don’t look at me ok. just lmk in replies if u like this i guess?

under the cut because there are probably people who don’t wanna read these lolol

Sigma and Reader Headcanons

Siebren de Kuiper is incredibly bright. His laugh is a bit foreign, but not completely unfamiliar to those around him, especially if someone special gets his attention. He gets rather nervous at times, worried that you might not reciprocate his feelings, which leads him to a plethora of overthinking. He practically has flowcharts written out about every single way a conversation you two might have will go. It’s embarrassing, but it makes him feel more confident for when he does talk to you.

He sometimes goes on and on about things he’s passionate about, which he will sometimes feel bad about. I’m sorry, I’ve been going on for too long. You were saying? He’s trying his best, but he’s not very good at building strong relationships with others. He’s great at getting acquaintances, but it’s difficult for him to confront a crush or someone he really admires.

He’s definitely not the type to ask you out immediately, instead hesitating for a while, trying to figure you out before you get the chance to explain yourself. He admires passion in a partner, and will often suggest you two try new things, in case the tedium becomes, well, tedious. You’ll never forget that first karaoke night, where he sang so happily, winking at you and grinning every time he made you laugh with a cheesy line or his various vocalizations. He loves making you smile or laugh. It makes his heart swell like nothing else.

He’s the type to mutter to himself sometimes, often apologizing to others that he’s not talking to them. It’s just easier for him to organize his thoughts that way. Something he might suggest is you visiting him for dinner, eating in his office for his break. You casually ask him about what he’s been doing today, and he goes through the motions. I was working on this particular equation... It seems that if x is equal to the entire... But then... While listening to his explanation, you ask a simple question, and his eyes light up. That’s it! He runs out of the office.

You get up to leave, but he runs back in, embracing you tightly. You’re brilliant. Thank you so much! He lets you go, grinning brightly. He soon realizes just what he’s done on adrenaline, and blushes. I-I apologize if I’ve made you uncomfortable... He’s a gentleman, but sometimes gets a bit overexcited about things, especially when he recognizes patterns that should have been more obvious to him.

He buys you gifts fairly often to see what sorts of things you’re interested in, smiling whenever he gets something right. If you don’t like gifts, however, no need to fear! He also likes to cuddle quite a lot, burying his face into your hair and picking you up in his arms to move you somewhere more comfortable. He loves carrying you, even with his gravitational pull, which he’ll sometimes use when he misses you too much. It’s absolutely cheesy, but he finds it incredibly amusing. Even gravity itself believes we belong together. He chuckles.

He dances gracefully with you, and hopes you don’t mind it if he turns off gravity for a little while as you two step through the air. If you get nervous about having nowhere to step, he’ll bring a few pieces of the ground to you so you can walk on something solid. He looks at you with such a soft smile, though you can tell that he’s hiding something. Secretly, he worries that Talon, or anyone else, will get their hands on you. If that happens, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. Still, his stolen moments with you remind him that he should be happy anytime you’re near. Luckily for him, he is.

#Overwatch #overwatch x reader #sigma x reader #is this in character. who knows

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ahatintimestorybook · 5 years ago

Text

A Royal Problem Chap. 6- Dead Bird Studios

So another long fanfic for you all. However, this time I ended up cutting this chapter into two parts. I thought I was going to end up taking a long time for this chapter since I never wrote the bird directors before, but after playing around with an idea, it seemed easy. I did come up with a lot for this chapter, so much so that this chapter could have ended up being over 10 pages. Now I don’t mind writing over 10 page fanfics, but this was probably going to be almost 20 if I did all the ideas for it.

Just for comfort, I decided to split this chapter into two parts. One because I wasn’t going to write an extremely long fanfic, and two since we’re focusing on the bird director’s it makes a lot of sense to have the first part focusing on one of them and the next one on the other director.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy the chapter!!

It was a brand new day and the kids were all enjoying breakfast. As they ate, Hat Kid was thinking of what they can do today besides heading on over to Subcon. She wasn’t sure if the royal kids wanted to do something fun, but after what happened the kids definitely needed some cheering up. Where to go, however, was a problem.

From her knowledge, Hat Kid for sure wasn’t going to take them to the Metro.

Not in a million years!

Hat Kid could take them to Mafia Town, she could introduce them to Mustache Girl, or Mu as she liked to be called and they can spend time together. Though from what she heard from C.C, Mafia has been hunting down Mu, and some still aren’t too pleased with Hat Kid. She didn’t want to bring the royal kids over there as they would get involved with what the Mafia has in store for them.

She could take them to Alpine Skyline, but Hat Kid wasn’t sure if she could deal with Vanessa’s behavior if they went hiking on the mountains.

That only left Dead Bird Studios. Hat Kid didn’t mind the studio. In fact she had a lot of fun working on the movies with DJ Grooves and Conductor, despite the rivalry between the two. Even though she made DJ win the Bird Movie Awards this year, and Conductor attacked her because of it. After everything, the three finally got along, sort of. Conductor and DJ still have their rivalry, but they still cared for Hat Kid when they found out she lived alone and her family wasn’t around.

Though, there was this one problem. What did Conductor and DJ Grooves do after the Bird Movie Awards we’re done? Do they go on break? Or, did they make another movie for next year’s Bird Movie Awards?

With that in her mind, she now had to decide between Mafia Town or Dead Bird Studios.

Snatcher paused in the middle of eating and saw Hat Kid thinking, not touching the rest of her breakfast. “Hey kiddo?” Hat Kid snapped out of her thoughts and looked up at Snatcher. “You okay? You barely touched breakfast.” He asked.

Hat Kid looked down at her plate and saw she only ate half of her breakfast. “Y-yeah. I’m fine.” She told them. “I’m just thinking about what we should do today.”

Snatcher and Vanessa looked at one another and back at Hat Kid. “What is our plan today? More Time Piece shard finding?” Snatcher asked.

Hat Kid gave them a smile. “Not really. I figured today let’s do something fun! I can hold off Time Piece shard hunting for one day!” She told them. This gave Snatcher and Vanessa a smile as they wouldn’t run into Moonjumper again.

“What are we doing today?” Vanessa asked.

“Visiting a few friends of mine.” Hat Kid replied.

Snatcher smiled and crossed his arms. “Which friends? I know everyone on the planet is your friend.” Snatcher said, rolling his eyes.

Hat Kid chuckled, rubbing the back of her head. “Not sure, haven’t thought about where yet.” She went back to thinking between visiting Mafia Town or Dead Bird Studios. Hat Kid had to make a flowchart in her head to think where she and the royal kids could go for the day.

It took a minute, and Hat Kid made a good choice on where to go. It was the only place where the kids wouldn’t have to face danger, plus the friends she’ll meet wouldn’t kill her now and also love kids! “Never mind, I know where we’re going, but first finish breakfast and we’ll get going!”

“Done!” Hat Kid looked at the royal kids who finished their meal quickly so they could spend time with Hat. She was surprised by the kids, as they were raised royal and proper and this wasn’t royal and proper. Hat Kid giggled and smiled seeing the kids were ready to go for the day.

Hat Kid did the dishes and took the royal kids to the machine room. She pointed the telescope towards the entrance of the studio and smiled. “You two ready?” She asked. Snatcher and Vanessa nodded as Hat Kid teleported the three of them to Dead Bird Studios.

The three made it to the studio, with Hat Kid and Vanessa landing on their feet, despite the latter almost losing balance, but Hat Kid made sure she didn’t fall. Snatcher however, still didn’t know how to land and ended up landing on the girls. Hat Kid chuckled, but Vanessa glared at the former ghost.

“Thanks for breaking my fall girls!” Snatcher beamed.

“Don’t mention it.” Vanessa grumbled. She pushed Snatcher off her and Hat Kid and slowly got up. Hat Kid helped Snatcher and Vanessa up and dusted them off. Vanessa looked around the place and was impressed by all the bright lights. “Where are we?”

“My job!” Hat Kid replied with a smile.

Snatcher turned to Hat Kid, surprised. “Wait, you had a job? Before me, your BFF?” He asked, acting hurt.

Hat Kid nodded. “Yep,.”

Snatcher snickered, “So what was your job, a janitor? Assistant to bring the directors food?”

“An actress!?”

Vanessa smiled joyfully hearing Hat Kid was a star, while Snatcher was flabbergasted over what Hat Kid just told them. “You were a movie star?” Snatcher asked. Hat Kid smiled and went on to explain how she got to do movies for Dead Bird Studios, before heading over to Subcon and meeting Snatcher. She went on to explain the kinds of movies she did, the directors, and who won. Though she did leave out how one of the director’s tried to kill her after the awards. Snatcher chuckled and crossed his arms impressed that Hat Kid had a career before being the hero of the planet.

Just before they were about to go inside a penguin with an afro came out stunned seeing Hat Kid and the royal kids.”Darling!” He shouted.

“DJ!” Hat Kid shouted back. She and DJ Grooves gave a high five, or high flipper in DJ’s case with each other, and it ended up with the two creating a secret handshake.

“I’m so glad you're back! I’ve been wondering where you've been since you said you were continuing your mission!” He said in his loud upbeat voice.

Hat Kid chuckled. “I have, but,” she paused to rub her arm, “got into a bit of a delay.” DJ then turned towards Snatcher and Vanessa realizing what the delay was. The royal kids gave a nervous wave towards the DJ director.

“Why, Darling?” DJ spoke peeking out of his shades. “Who are these little darlings?”

Hat Kid smiled, “DJ these are my siblings; Vanessa and Luke. They’ve been staying on my ship for a couple of days now, hence why I haven’t come to visit.” She lied. However, like she practiced she kept a straight face, hoping DJ will believe her.

She was relieved when DJ did believe her and ruffled the kids heads. “Well, I see the resemblance! Both have that smile like you have, darling!” He commented. Vanessa smiled blushing a bit at the compliment, while Snatcher smiled nervously.

Hat Kid chuckled. “They sure do.” She said smiling nervously. It surprised Hat Kid, DJ didn’t know that she was acting and Snatcher and Vanessa weren’t really her siblings. However, if DJ believed it, that was fine though she did want to tell someone the truth about them.

“Well, why don’t you three come on and we can continue talking there.” DJ said. Hat, Snatcher and Vanessa followed the moon penguin director inside the studio.

The inside of Dead Bird Studios was relaxing then it was when Hat Kid arrived. Many of the Moon Penguins and Express Owls were talking and getting along like there was no feud between them. Hat Kid rubbed her eyes to make sure she was at the right to studio or if the Time Piece that broke caused some weird Time fixation.

“Everyone is so peaceful.” Hat Kid noted. “Last time I was here, you and Conductor were arguing over who was going to win the award.”

DJ laughed. “Well something you don’t know darling, after the awards are over is when the studio is at peace. Until next year’s award ceremony and then it's back to square one!” He explained.

“Which is when?” Vanessa asked, curious but interested in the feud.

DJ shrugged. “Whenever, sometimes in a month or two. The longest we had was 6 months.” DJ Grooves replied.

“That’s interesting.” Snatcher noted.

“So you and Conductor don’t fight?” Hat Kid asked.

DJ laughed. “Oh darling, Conductor and I have always fought even when the rest of the cast and crew are on break.” He replied.

Hat Kid sighed. “Of course.” She added. She knew of Conductor’s personality and even if someone tried to force them or ask peacefully Conductor would not make peace with DJ Grooves. Heck even Hat Kid tried after her battle with Conductor. Though she shouldn’t blame it all on Conductor, Hat Kid wasn’t even sure if DJ would also accept the peace treaty as well.

Speaking of Conductor, Hat Kid didn’t see him anywhere in the studio. “Where’s Conductor anyways?” Hat Kid asked.

“Traveling, he does it every time we go on break. He uses his train and travels all over, stays in one place for a month and leaves again till the announcement of the next awards and then comes back here and we end up feuding again.” DJ Grooves explained.

Hat Kid nodded, believing everything DJ said. “So Conductor left for a bit?” Hat Kid asked.

“Not yet, he’s leaving soon.” DJ reminded her. Hat Kid nodded, she wished to see Conductor as well before he left. Vanessa and Snatcher saw Hat Kid’s expression and looked at each other both giving a smile as they both had a plan. “Well we can talk more in my quarters darling.” DJ yelled as he left for his part of the studio.

Hat Kid was just about to follow DJ, but she saw Vanessa and Snatcher sneaking away from her. Glaring, she grabbed the two and started to drag them to DJ’s office. “Oh no you two. You're not sneaking off on my watch!” She scolded. Vanessa and Snatcher groaned as Hat Kid dragged them to DJ Grooves’s quarters.

Once they got there, Hat Kid and the royal kids sat down at a desk as DJ sat on his own chair facing the three kids. “So what brings you and your family here?” DJ asked.

“It's just me and my siblings here.” Hat Kid told him. “I just thought of taking them around the planet to meet up with my friends.” She explained. As she Snatcher and Vanessa smiled and nodded to agree with Hat Kid’s statement.

DJ chuckled and smiled. “Well I hope they’ve been enjoying their stay here.”

“Oh, they have!” Hat Kid replied. “A few bumps here and there, but so far so good.”

“Yep!” Vanessa added.

“So what about your parents?” DJ asked.

Hat Kid’s eyes widen. She never told anyone about the fate of her parents. Quickly, she had to think of something, something that DJ would believe in and hoped he didn’t ask anymore questions. “Well, my parents had to be called on an important mission, and since no one was around to watch my little brother and sister. My parents had to find me in space to teleport them over here.” She lied. Hat Kid hoped DJ believed it, and it wasn’t helping as Snatcher and Vanessa nodded smiling like her.

“Well, why couldn’t the kids use their spaceship to fly over and find you?” DJ asked again.

“Knew it.” Hat Kid thought. More questions and more “answers” to give. “Well, my siblings haven’t gotten their license to pilot the ship yet. They're still in training.”

DJ then turned to the royal kids. “It's true!” Snatcher replied, adding on to the lie. “Flying those things are hard.”

DJ smiled and ruffled Snatcher’s head. “Well don’t worry darling’s little brother, you’ll be flying those ships in no time!” He reassured Snatcher..

Snatcher chuckled. “T-thanks.” He replied.

“Well.” DJ started as he clapped his flippers. “Since you're here darling, why don’t we talk about future movie ideas that will help me win next year’s award!” He beamed.

This surprised Hat Kid and the royal kids. “Aren’t you guys on break?” Hat Kid asked.

“Of course we are!” DJ answered. “That doesn’t mean we can talk about the ideas I have.” He then placed a stack of scripts and movie ideas on the table. The pile was so big, the kids couldn’t see DJ anymore.

“This is more than the books I have back home!” Snatcher commented.

Hat Kid was in shock that the Moon Penguin of a director came up with so many movie ideas. “DJ, did you come up with all this before the Bird Movie Awards or after?” Hat Kid asked.

“Which Bird Movie Award?” DJ asked, peaking out of his shades.

Hat Kid’s expression dropped. “You mean to tell me you had these ideas since you became a director?” She questioned.

“Why darling!” DJ beamed putting his hands together. “You're so smart! I’ve had these ideas for a while, some I used, some I haven’t, and some well I came up with in between!” He explained.

“So.” Vanessa started grabbing a script. “We’re going through all of this?”

DJ chuckled. “Not really, I just need to know which idea sounds better so it can be a winner for next year!”

Vanessa and Snatcher glared turning to Hat Kid, who chuckled nervously. “I made the wrong mistake coming here.” She thought to herself.

For the next hour or so, DJ went through all of his movie ideas, explaining the plot and such. All Hat Kid, Vanessa and Snatcher had to do was give their opinion if it would sound good or not. It was hard for Vanessa and Snatcher, mainly Vanessa to come up with an opinion due to the fact that movies were rare in Subcon during their time. Snatcher was able to come up with an opinion on some movies, thanks to once being an active soul stealing ghost, so he was able to come up with his opinions on some.

However, the two royals started to get bored, and Hat Kid was ready to fall asleep. Since DJ Grooves kept on talking, Snatcher and Vanessa smirked ready to ditch this place and look around the studio. Slowly, they got out of their seat and quietly left the office. DJ or Hat Kid didn’t notice and soon Snatcher and Vanessa left DJ’s part of the studio.

Vanessa sighed in relief. “Finally we got out of there!” She shouted.

“I thought the more time we were there, we would eventually become ghosts again!” Snatcher agreed in response.

“Now what do we do as we wait?” Vanessa asked.

“Easy, we find this Conductor and tell him kiddo wants to see him before he leaves.” Snatcher explained.

“How do we find him? He could have left at this point!” Vanessa reminded him.

Snatcher thought about it for a bit and went to look around for someone who had answers about Conductor’s wearabouts. Out of all the birds who were busy talking and being buddy, buddy with one another, he found one in the front desk reading a magazine. “Excuse me, sir?” Snatcher asked. The bird looked at the young kids, peeking from the magazine. “Um, where exactly is the station to where Conductor’s train is?”

The bird put the magazine down and faced the two kids. “Why do you ask?” The bird asked getting close to the former ghost.

“Well, um…” Snatcher stuttered. He wished he was a ghost again, so it would be easier to take his soul, but being a kid again he forgot how nervous he got when answering questions.

Luckily for him, Vanessa was able to answer. “We just have a question for him. We’re family towards Hat Kid, the star with the hat?” She told the bird.

The bird thought for a second and remembered. “Oh the lassie! Well, the train station isn’t too far from the studio, but you better hurry, Conductor leaves in 5 minutes.” He explained to the kids.

“Thank you.” Vanessa replied, giving a smile. She grabbed Snatcher’s hand and dragged him outside of the studio. They looked around and smiled seeing a train station nearby. Still holding Snatcher’s hand, she ran towards the station, but stopped seeing so many people and birds boarding the train. “Great, how do we find him now!” Complained Vanessa.

Snatcher looked around, and came up with an idea. “Stay quiet and follow me.” He whispered. Now it was his turn to grab Vanessa’s hand, and while they didn’t run, they slowly and quietly went inside the train to look for Conductor.

Inside the train was more crowded than it was outside, with that it was easier to sneak by without trying to get caught. “Alright, now how are we going to find the Conductor and what he looks like?” Vanessa asked.

“Don’t worry I know what he looks like.” Snatcher reminded her. The two walked towards the back of the train hoping to find the director there. However, they couldn’t find the director in the first wagon of the train..

Vanessa gulped and held on to Snatcher tight. “Luke, where are we now?” Vanessa asked.

“On the train.” Snatcher answered.

Vanessa glared. “I know we’re on a train, but what part of the train!?” She questioned. Soon, a luggage fell in front of them making the young princess yelp and jumped on Snatcher’s back. The former ghost grunted as the young girl climbed on him, which made both kids fall.

Out from the luggage were three black cats, in masks. Snatcher recognized them and glared. These cats were from an organization called the Nyakuza. They’ve dropped by Subcon a few times, mostly just to fool around or look for some riches from the manor, but Snatcher was able to scare them off or take a few souls from them if any of Nyakuza got a bit wordy at him.

“Next time, we sneak on board we’re wearing disguises.” One Nyakuza cat said, dizzy from the fall.

The other Nyakuza cat with an eye patch glared and shook the smaller member. “Oh relax, Sumi. We didn’t get hit that hard!” He shouted.

Sumi mewled and looked down. “Well it did hurt.”

The third member, who was much smaller than the two got up and froze seeing Snatcher and Vanessa. “Uh guys.” The third member said.

The two cats turned to their smallest member, “What Coal?” They both asked. Coal gulped and pointed at the royal kids.

“Uh hello there.” Vanessa said, waving to the cats.

The three Nyakuza members faced the young kids and soon Sumi got nervous. “Oh great, what do we do now Meowjima?” Sumi whispered to the cat with the eye patch.

“Act natural. If we don’t say much they won’t expect a thing.” Meowjima whispered back. Sumi and Coal nodded and faced the royal kids with a smile. “Why hello there little princess.”

Vanessa giggled at the nickname, but Snatcher glared. He knew these cats are nothing but trouble and were planning something. He could smell it. “Hello adorable little kitties.” Vanessa replied.

“Vanessa.” Snatcher whispered. “Be careful, these cats are dangerous.”

Vanessa glared at Snatcher and turned back towards the cats. “What brings you here on the train?” Vanessa asked the Nyakuza cats and ignored Snatcher’s warning. Snatcher groaned, shaking his head.

“Oh you know a vacation, we need a break from our boss.” Sumi told the young girl.

Coal turned to Sumi, “Wait, aren’t we here to steal from the passengers?” Coal asked.

Meowjima kicked the smaller cat. “Shut up.” He growled.

“Aha!” Snatcher shouted. “I knew it! I know all about your little gang, Nyakuza!”

The three cats smirked and pulled out their bats. “So you do know about us.” Sumi said.

Vanessa whimpered, as Snatcher put his arm in front of her to protect her. “I do.”

“Luke, who are they?” Vanessa asked, scared over what she thought were cute little cats.

The three cats then jumped, as Vanessa cried in fear, but Snatcher hugged her to protect her. However, he didn’t feel a claw on them. Instead the cats jumped towards the door and closed it, locking it from the other side.

“Hey!” Snatcher shouted. He tried going to the door, but couldn’t open it. “H-help! Someone! Were locked in here!” Snatcher yelled hoping any of the passengers would hear them. Things got worse when the train started to move and left the station with three evil cats and two kids locked inside a wagon.

Meanwhile, back at Dead Bird Studios. DJ finally got done with the first pile of movie scripts. He would have gone through more, but he was hungry and needed to relax his voice for a bit. “Well I guess that’s enough for the day! Thanks for the help darling!” DJ beamed. He didn’t hear Hat Kid’s reply and when he went to check he saw the young girl was asleep. Taking a deep breath, DJ decided to wake up the child. “KID!” DJ shouted. Hat Kid jolted awake falling from her seat. She groaned and rubbed her head. “Oops, sorry darling.” He apologized.

“Don’t worry DJ. Your fine.” Hat Kid reassured him. She gave a yawn as she got back up, putting on her signature hat. “We should get going. Come on…” Hat Kid paused when she looked to see the seats Vanessa and Snatcher were sitting on we're now empty. “Uh DJ? Did you see where the kids went?”

DJ looked up from the stack of papers and saw the empty seats. “Nope, I was busy talking about my ideas.” He replied.

Hat Kid started to panic, she didn’t know why, but she got this feeling in her stomach that something happened to Snatcher and Vanessa. “Oh peck.” She whispered.

#ahit #ahit au #a hat in time #A Hat in Time AU #A Royal Problem #A Royal Problem AU #Hat Kid #Snatcher #ahit the prince #Queen Vanessa #DJ Grooves #ahit nyakuza #Meowjima

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fardell24b · 6 years ago

Text

Quinn’s Code - The Esteemsters Code - Part 8

Thursday, September 23. 2005

Daria and Jennifer entered Jane's room with takeaway breakfast. Jane was watching a tabloid show on the TV.

“This is just astounding! Here you are, blind, deaf, and barely able to walk, yet you conducted simultaneous affairs with three members of the Royal Family! The question on all of America's mind is: how did you do it?”

“What?”

“You don't get it. It's the Royal Family. You'd have to be blind,” Jane said as commentary.

“Hi Jane, is that Sick Sad World? I was wondering when it was on here,” Daria said.

“Hey Amigos,” Jane said. “Yeah, its on in the morning, although I have heard that they are going to change it to the afternoon,” Jane said.

“Quite an interesting show,” Jennifer said.

“Definitely,” Daria said. She and Jennifer sat down next to Jane. The scene on the TV had changed to a UFO convention that was being held close to Lawndale.

“Hi! I'm Artie.”

“Artie, hello. Tell me, what brought you here, Artie.”

“It was a cone-shaped craft about 15 feet long, with an air speed of, oh, I'd estimate mach 12. They kidnapped and stripped me, examined me briefly, returned my clothes, and dropped me here.”

“I see.”

“They pressed my pants. Did a nice job.”

Daria turned down the TV. “You both know all the answers to the questions on the release test, right?”

“I've got them in my notebook,” Jane said.

“I do too,” Jennifer said.

“Well, why don't we just take the test this afternoon and get out of the class once and for all?” Daria asked.

“How would I spend my afternoons?” Jane asked. 'I would have more time to paint, that is for sure!' she thought.

“UFO conventions,” Daria said. 'I can think of many activities. Not the least of which is exploring what this town has to offer that I would like,' she thought.

“Now you're talking,” Jane said.

“Yes!” Jennifer said.

“And so, for tomorrow, I want you to make a list of ten ways the world would be a sadder place if you weren't in it,�� Mr. O'Niell said as conclusion for that day's session of the Esteem-a-Teen class.

“Oh, Mr. O'Neill, Mr. O'Neill?!” 'The Head' asked, waving his hands, trying to get the teacher's attention.

“Yes, um... you.”

“Is that if we'd never been born, or if we died suddenly and unexpectedly?”

“'Oh no!' Mr. O'Neill thought. 'I didn't expect that!' he thought for a moment, trying to salvage the situation. “Never been born,” he said.

The class started filing out, except for Daria, Jane and Jennifer.

“Yes?” Mr. O'Neill asked.

“We want to take the test,” Daria said.

“We all want to take the graduation test,” Jane said.

Jennifer gave a small smile.

“Well! I'm glad your self-image meter is on the uptick! But there's still three more weeks of class left,” Mr O'Neill said. 'They need to stay in the class for the whole time to get everything out of it,' he thought.

“This first week has been a real eye-opener. It must be the way you teach,” Daria said.

Mr. O'Neill was flattered. “Oh, well... thank you very much,” he said. “You look familiar somehow,” he said to Jane and Jennifer.

“So can we take the test?” Jennifer asked.

Mr. O'Neill gave in and gave them the test.

“I don't think we have to go any farther. I am really pleased! I think the whole school needs to hear about this at assembly!” Mr. O'Neill said a few minutes later.

The three teens looked at each other. Their expressions said the same thing. 'Uh, oh!'

Andrea looked at the VBScript code on the screen.

Option Explicit

Set oWMI = GetObject("winmgmts:" & _

"\\.\root\cimv2")

Set myObj = oWMI.ExecQuery _

("select IPAddress from" & _

"Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration" & _

" where IPEnabled=True")

…

“That is rather good, Quinn,” she said. It looked exactly as the flowchart and the pseudocode had laid out. “You can run it now,” she said. 'I am certain that there are no errors. I think she corrected them all in that proofreading,' she thought.

Quinn minimised the IDE screen and double clicked the .vbs file. The script ran without error and a drive letter on Quinn's XP system was mapped to one of Andrea's network shares.

“Cool!” Quinn said.

Andrea smiled. 'If she is this good at VBScript...'

“So I delete it now?” Quinn asked, about the connection to the network share.

“No, keep it. All the members of the Programming Club have the connection. Its a common file repository. As long as you are on my network. It's accessable,” Andrea said.

“So, if I use a VPN to connect to it, the share is available?” Quinn asked, wondering why Andrea had a share that all of the Programming Club members could access...

“Yes,” Andrea said.

'She is up to something. It may be worth joining the Anime Club, afterall,' Quinn thought, as she started closing the programs on the laptop.

Friday, September 24, 2005

Quinn entered homeroom carrying the information sheet on the Anime Club. As she had expected the person whom had invited her to join was the President. 'Jenna Schwartz, she's a sophomore. I'll talk to her at recess.'

Jenna Schwartz was surprised when Quinn Morgendorffer walked up to her in the corridor.

“Hi, Jenna. I would like to take up your offer to join the Anime Club,” Quinn said.

“That would be cool, Quinn. But why did it take so long to decide?” Jenna asked.

“I wasn't sure if I wanted to be in a third club, but I do like Anime so the Anime Club is a good choice. Also, that Andrea is so weird,” Quinn said.

Jenna chuckled. “She definitely is. Come with me and I will give you a form. Once its filled out, you're in,” she said.

“Cool,” she said.

Unknown to Quinn and Jenna, Stacy Rowe had overheard them from her locker. 'The Anime Club. If Sandi wasn't such a hardcase about things, I would have joined a few weeks ago,' she thought. She closed her locker and headed to the bathroom where Sandi and Tiffany were waiting for her.

The end of week school assembly was in progress.

“And once again, the bake sale was a tremendous success. We raised more than $400, which was subsequently stolen from the office, but I am confident we will get that money back. In a related note, the school nurse will be visiting homerooms on Monday to collect DNA samples. Now, Mr. O'Neill has exciting news about our after-school self-esteem class,” Principal Angela Li said.

Mr. O'Neill stood and approached the podium.

“This is really going to help me gradually ease into student life,” Daria said, sarcastically.

“Usually when I have this dream I'm wearing pink taffeta,” Jane commented.

“I always wanted to be on assembly. Not!” Jennifer said.

“Thank you. You know, self-esteem is a little like your car's brake fluid. You may not even know you're low on it until, one day, you go to shift gears and nothing happens,” Mr. O'Neill said.

“That's transmission fluid!” One of the students in the audience yelled.

“That's... what I said,” Mr. O'Neill said, trying to cover his mistake. “Anyway, I'd like you to meet three students who have completed our self-esteem course faster than anyone ever before! Please join me in congratulations as I present these certificates of self-esteem to... Daria Morgendorffer, Jane Lane and Jennifer Burns.”

There was some applause from the audience, but not much.

“Oh, what the hell,” Jane muttered as she stepped up to the podium. “I just want to say how proud I am today. Knowing that I have self-esteem gives me even more self-esteem.” She paused, looked at Daria and Jennifer and smirked. “On the other hand, having all of you know that I had low self-esteem makes me feel... kind of bad... like a big failure or something...” she said histronically.

Most of the audience began to laugh at Jane's behaviour.

“I, uh, I want to go home!” Jane said, as she let out an exaggerated sob and ran off the stage.

“Jennifer, wait!” Mr. O'Neill called out as he ran after Jane.

'That's Ms. Lane, not Ms. Burns!' Ms. Li thought, she knew that Jane was faking it even if her head Language Arts teacher didn't!

Jennifer stepped up to the podium with trepidation. There was a reason why Jodie always read the reports for the Computer Club at assemblies.

“Thank you. I am happy to have high self-esteem rather than low self-esteem. I feel I can better contribute. Thanks again,” she said. She walked away from the podium and breathed a sigh of relief. She glanced at the audience.

She could see Jodie, Mack, Quinn, Kristen, Cindy, a few other friends, members of the Computer Club and a few others clapping. She smiled as she went back to her seat.

Daria stepped up to the podium. “No one can battle a terrible problem like low self-esteem on their own. It takes good coaching... “

In the audience, Sandi was sitting boredly between two boys. 'This is stupid!' she thought.

“Who cares about these losers?” one of them said.

“Hey, beats algebra, though, doesn't it?” the other, Corey Bateman said. He then high-fived his friend over the top of Sandi's head.

“Hey!” she snapped.

“Oops,” the other said.

“Did you hear what I said, Sandi? I said, like, who cares how bad this is - it's still better than algebra!” Corey said.

“I, like, heard you the first time, Corey. I't's not funny!” Sandi said forcefully. 'Of course its better than algebra!' she thought.

“Ok,” Corey said, leaning slightly away from Sandi.

#andrea hecuba #angela li #daria #daria morgendorffer #esteemsters #fanfic #jane lane #quinn morgendorffer #sandi griffin #stacy rowe #timothy o'neill

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orangeoctopi7 · 7 years ago

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Stanswap AU Part 28

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12

Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16

Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20

Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24

Part 25 Part 26 Part 27

Fanfiction.net

And a couple of comics that inspired some things in this chapter.

Chapter 28: A Day on the Town

In the day or so since the government guys had left, things had settled down into what Dipper supposed would be the new normal, now that Stanley was here. Ford mostly stayed down in the portal lab, only coming up occasionally for food. That had actually become the norm over the past month or so. Stan was just exploring the house, although he seemed antsy. He didn’t seem ready to make himself at home just yet, like he was expecting he’d need to bolt any minute now.

Everyone could sense the tension in the house, even Mabel. Dipper had seen her plotting upstairs, with a flowchart and illustrations and everything. And she called him obsessed with planning; this was going to be even worse than what she’d done with Robbie, he could tell. Unfortunately, the boy thought, this was something not even Mabel could fix.

Speaking of Mabel, she came jumping down the stairs with a smile on her face and a notebook in her hand. On that notebook was a list of tv shows and movies, and at the very top, underlined twice, was Ducktective. She screeched to a halt in front of her brother.

“Hey bro, guess what? I figured out what Grunkle Stan needs!” She handed the notebook to Dipper, “I was just thinking how freaked out I’d be if I came back home after spending 30 years in space or wherever and everything was way different, I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on repairing broken family relationships either! So I asked myself, ‘what’s the best way to teach Stan about how the world has changed?’ And at first I was like, ‘The internet!’ but then I remembered that most old people have a hard time with the internet even if they weren’t gone for 30 years, so then I was like ‘TV!’

“So I made a list of all the TV shows that would teach Stan about the present, and I think Ducktective is the best show for the job. The London setting is old-fashioned enough for him to be comfortable with while still using digital-age language and technology. Also, with the themes of family and friendship that run through the whole show, it might subconsciously persuade Stan to make up with Ford! Also also, the season two finale is tonight and they’re marathoning the whole series today so that’ll make it easy to watch and Grenda’s coming over to watch it with us.”

“Uh… ok.” Dipper said simply as his brain processed the word-dump Mabel had just babbled at him. When he actually thought about it, he realized it was a pretty good idea. Stan obviously didn’t want anything to do with Ford right now, but maybe if they took the old conman’s mind off things for a while his emotions would settle down. And watching a show all about unlikely friendships and family couldn’t hurt. “That’s a pretty good idea. Nice job, Mabel!”

They found Stan rummaging around in the kitchen again, which was no surprise, really. Since he’d arrived, he’d spent about 70% of his time in there. A room full of food seemed to be a bit of a novelty for him.

“Hey kids.” Stan greeted them without even taking his head out of the fridge. “Is this peach soda a new fad, or is it some sorta local thing?”

“You mean Pitt Cola?” Dipper asked. “It’s a local thing.”

“Huh. ‘S good.” He guzzled a can of the stuff. The young twins noticed a small pile of empty and crushed cans next to the garbage. “Any other good local foods I should try?”

“Oooh! We should take you to Greasy’s Diner!” Mabel suggested.

Their discussion was interrupted by the arrival of Ford, which was so surprising that they all actually gasped. It wasn’t meal time; they hadn’t been expecting him to emerge from the lab for another few hours.

“Oh, good, you’re all here.” The old scientist said, a cheerful tone failing to mask his nervous posture, like he was psyching himself up to speak in front of a large crowd.

“Are you having an early lunch?” Dipper asked, confused.

“No, I… I was hoping… I was thinking…” He stammered, “it’s about time we got back to our weekly game of Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons.”

“Does this mean you found a way to keep the rift contained?” Dipper asked hopefully.

Ford flinched. “Well, no, not… not yet. I think I’ve made all the progress I can at the moment though. I… I thought it might be good for me to take a break.”

Mabel gasped again. She’d had to nag her Grunkle about taking a break constantly over the summer, and now he was deciding to take a break on his own!? This made her so happy, she didn’t even care that it got in the way of her earlier plan.

The younger twins seemed ecstatic to hear Ford’s proposal, but Stan still hadn’t pulled his head out of the fridge. He was pretending to ignore his brother, until Ford called on him directly.

“Stan, I… I was hoping we could all play together. You know, as a family.”

Stan was quiet for a long time. For a while it looked like he was going to go right on ignoring Ford, until he finally turned away from the fridge, slowly and deliberately. “You want me to play Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons?”

“Yes.” Ford replied, trying very hard to sound confident.

“That ‘game’ that’s more math and statistics than actual gameplay?” Stan continued dryly.

“Er, yes.” The old scientist confirmed, surprised that Stan knew of it. “Have you played before?” He was pretty sure the game had been invented after Stanley’d left home, and he had a hard time imagining his brother playing it on his own.

“Yeah, I was forced to play by some actual Nerd-Lords in Dimension 26*^.” Stan said bitterly. “And I’d rather eat one of those flap-drassin’ 38-sided dice than play it again.”

“O-oh.” Ford stammered. He was momentarily crestfallen, but pulled himself back together quickly. “Well, we don’t have to play that, I’ve got plenty more games in--”

“Nope.” Stan cut him of.

“Bu-wh… you don’t even know what I was going to suggest!” Ford protested.

“Yeah, but I know I don’t wanna play with you, jitata.” Stan glowered as he stomped out of the room.

Ford glared after his brother for a moment before heaving a frustrated sigh and leaving out the opposite door.

“Dipper, go after him!” Mabel pushed her brother towards the door Ford had left through.

“What?”

“This is the first voluntary break he’s taken in over a month! He needs this!” Mabel pleaded. “You go play DDMD with him or whatever it takes to keep him out of the lab for a while, I’ll take care of Grunkle Stan.”

“Narfin Ford, wantin’ to play his narfin games…” Stan grumbled under his breath. He didn’t want to play with his brother. Nope. Not one bit.

He paced around the living room, trying to think of what he could do to blow off some steam. It was weird. He’d been longing for home all these years, but now that he was here, he didn’t know what to do with himself. He hadn’t stayed in one place for more than a month in well over forty years. Of course, he reminded himself forcefully, he wasn’t planning on staying in Ford’s house for more than a few weeks anyway. But after that… the idea that he wasn’t going to leave this world was almost completely foreign to him now.

He should be learning more about this world, about what had changed, about what hadn’t… but he didn’t really know where to start. That and the fear that he wouldn’t like what he saw kept him from leaving the house and exploring the town. Or really do much of anything other than mope restlessly from room to room.

“Hey Grunkle Stan!” Mabel popped up from behind the couch, startling him out of his funk. He instinctively swung his staff at her. Luckily he realized who it was just in time.

“Yeesh kid, don't sneak up on me like that!” he barked. “That's a good way to get whacked upside the head!”

“It's ok.” She waved it off like a near concussion was nothing. “Hey, do you wanna watch the Ducktective marathon with me?” She didn't wait for an answer and immediately pulled him onto the couch.

“Uh, what?” Stan asked blankly.

“It's my favorite TV show!” She said, as if that explained everything. “I can tell you've been major-leauge stressed since you got here. You should sit down and relax for a while.” She sat down on his lap to close the deal.

“Look, uh, Muriel…”

“It's Mabel.” She corrected him cheerfully.

“Sure. Mabel.” Stan repeated, trying to remember her name for later. “I haven't really felt safe sittin’ down and relaxin’ in a long time.”

“But you are safe now.” Mabel assured him.

Stan chuckled wryly. “Yeah, but try telling my brain that.”

He sat there for a beat, waiting for her to get up and let him go. She just stared back up at him.

“You're not gonna move, are ya?” He groaned.

“Nope!” She grinned back.

Stan knew he could easily just stand up and send the girl toppling to the floor, but there was a glint of determination in her eye that told him it would be better not to try.

“Alright, so what's this 'Ducktrucker’ show about?”

Stan was surprised how quickly he was taken in by a cartoon about a duck that solves mysteries, but really, weirder things had caught his attention before. He felt like he'd just started when the doorbell rang, and Mabel got up to invite her friend Grenda in. The big guy from the other day, Soos, also joined them for the premiere of the season finale.

The incredible thing was that Stan was actually enjoying this! He was actually loosening up and joining the conversation with these kids, talking about theories of what would happen, favorite characters and how they’d developed over the course of the show, and jokes that had made him laugh sincerely for the first time in years. Maybe Mabel had known what she was doing, getting him to sit down and relax for a bit.

The finale itself was pretty fun, but listening to everyone's reactions afterwards was even better.

“He had a twin brother all along? That's the big reveal we've all been waiting for?” Mabel asked incredulously.

“What a rip-off!” Grenda yelled.

“The fandom came up with that theory over a year ago.” Soos said.

“Eh, I dunno if I buy it.” Stan said. “Speaking as an actual evil twin here, I wouldn't shoot my brother, I'd just go around disguised as him and make trouble. Y'know, just to mess with him.”

Mabel scoffed and punched Stan in the shoulder playfully. “Pfft, you're not an evil twin!”

Stan put on his best evil grin. “You sure about that, sweet-heart?” The others all laughed.

“Still, it was nice to watch the finale without any distractions or games or family getting in the way.” Soos said. “Can you imagine if like, some paranormal thingum showed up right before the show started?”

Everyone laughed again, relieved that, for once, it had just been a normal, adventure-free day.

Ford came up from the lab the next morning, not even attempting to stifle an enormous yawn. He was exhausted. After an admittedly much needed break playing DDMD with Dipper yesterday, he'd spent the whole night working. Now at long last, the portal was dismantled. After all these years, he could finally sleep without the dread of knowing that monstrosity of a machine was waiting below to swallow the world whole.

No, now he just had to worry about the rift. Which was really just as bad, if not worse. After all these years of working on it, the portal was a danger that Ford knew well. The rift was something he knew very little about. Could it be contained permanently, or would he constantly be working to keep the rift out of Bill’s clutches for the rest of his life?

Oh well, another morning had come, and the world had yet to end. He'd better grab some breakfast, or Mabel would be on his case. Ford wondered idly who he’d find in the kitchen this morning. Stanley emptying to fridge, giving him a contemptuous glare before ignoring him entirely? The kids, planning some sort of workaholic intervention?

It was Stan, idly sipping a cup of coffee and wearing a painfully bright red and gold Hawaiian shirt.

“Stanley, where did you get that?!” Ford asked. Surely he didn't get such an outfit beyond the portal.

“Found it.” Stan replied coolly.

“Just because you're hanging around the house all day doesn't mean you can dress like a street light.”

“I'm not hanging around the house, I'm going into town with Mabel. Think I'll tell her I found this in your closet, too.”

“You're going out?!”

“Yeah, can't stay cooped up in this shack all the time.”

“O-of course not… I just… got the impression you didn't feel ready for such a big step yet.”

“And what makes you think you're an expert on what I feel suddenly!?” Stan snapped.

Ford recoiled, like his brother’s words had physically stung him. “Sorry. I’m actually happy to hear you’re going to get a bit of fresh air, meet some new people.

“What do you care?” Stan grunted sullenly.

“Why is it so hard for you to believe I actually care about you!?” Ford asked in exasperation.

“Aw, gee, could it be the fact that you left me stranded for thirty krutacking years!?”

“Well, I wouldn’t have exactly been saving you if I brought you home just in time for the end of the world!”

“Or maybe it’s the fact that as soon as I got back you recreated one of the worst days of my life and told me to take the kids and go!”

Stanford felt his temper flare. “I will do whatever it takes to protect this family! That may not always match up with what you want, Stanley! Don’t go guilting me for trying to protect you and the kids!”

Stan didn’t seem to have a retort for that. He just left in a huff. Ford found some grim satisfaction in getting the last word, but it was a very hollow victory. The old researcher spent all day cooped up in his lab, wishing he could talk to his brother, and then the moment Ford actually worked up the courage to talk to Stan, it quickly devolved into a shouting match.

“What is wrong with me?” He sighed forlornly, and smacked his head against the kitchen table.

Stan had wanted to leave rather quickly that morning, but Mabel wasn’t bothered. She liked to get an early start on the day. They began their walk into town talking about Stan’s bold fashion choices. Apparently he’d rummaged through Ford’s old clothes and found the brightest, loudest, most over-the-top apparel he could. Mabel assured her Grunkle that it was very chic and fashion-forward. The conversation drifted to Mabel’s love of sweaters and where she got her design ideas from. The young girl found that Stan was a very good listener, always chiming in at the right moment with his own joke or opinion. Their humor and personalities meshed together well.

Once they got into town, Mabel started the grand tour of Gravity Falls, Oregon, hitting all the places where she and Dipper had adventures over the summer.

“Here’s the arcade! Dipper brought one of the games to life with a magic cheat-code!” Mabel said as they entered the darkened building.

“Uh Mabel, I’m pretty sure we had these when I left.” Stans squinted, waiting for his eyes to adjust.

“Yeah, but that was back in the 80’s, when arcades were struggling to maintain relevance in the face of the increasing popularity of home consoles. These days arcades have found a niche market that brings together both oldschool nerdcore gamers and casual nostalgic gamers, both classic standing cabinets and cutting-edge AR.” A voice said to their right.

“Soos!” Mabel exclaimed when she turned and saw her friend holding a plastic toy guitar.

“‘Sup dudes.” Soos greeted them. “I’m here playing Power Chords of Death, how ‘bout you?”

“I’m showing Grunkle Stan around Gravity Falls, so he can see what it’s like living in 2012!” Mabel told him.

“Sweet! You wanna play a modern-day videogame?” Soos asked Stan.

Stan gave him a surprised look. “Really?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“Well I’ve only got one arm, for starters.” Stan said dryly.

“No problem, dude.” Soos assured him. “We got a left-handed controller over here. All you really have to do with your other hand is hit the strummer in time with the beat, so if I just…” He got down on his hands and knees and started messing with the wiring, “...switch this bit from that doohickey… and move this here… oop, almost electrocuted myself! ...There!” he stood back up. “I rigged it so now you can use the foot-pedal from the drum instead of the strummer!”

Stan hadn’t actually been interested in playing (he’d never really cared for video games that weren’t gambling-related) but now that the guy had gone through all this trouble, he felt obligated to play. He was pleasantly surprised anyone would go to such lengths just to include him. He didn't want to seem ungrateful.

“Alright, let’s give it a shot.”

“Oooh, Grunkle Stan, you should play Danger-Lane to Highway Town!” Mabel suggested. “It’s the only song on this game I know all the words to!”

“What? I’ve never even heard of that song!”

“That’s cuz it’s from a movie that came out in ‘86. It’s ok if you don’t know the song, you just have to hit the same colored button as the one on the screen when it reaches the picture of the guitar at the bottom.” Soos explained. “This is a co-op game, so I’ll be playing the notes on the right side of the screen. This game has a thing where if your partner chokes, you can save them.”

“Uh… good?” Choke? What was he talking about? What was there to choke on?

The music started up, and Stan saw the colored buttons start scrolling down the screen. He pressed the corresponding button on the neck of the guitar as it reached the bottom, but nothing seemed to happen.

“You gotta tap your foot in time with the music!” Soos reminded him.

Stan started tapping the pedal Soos had rigged up for him, then looked back at the screen and watched the colored buttons scroll by again. This time, as he pressed the buttons, the toy guitar he was holding started to play music! The same music that was coming out of Soos’s guitar and the game console! Well, almost the same. Stan’s sounded a little distorted, and cut out whenever he missed a button. But he got better as the song went on. All those years of honing his hand-eye coordination with that paddle-ball were finally paying off! Mabel joined in singing once they reached the lyrics.

As they played, arcade-goers began to gather around and watch. It started with just a few, but news that an old, one-armed guy with a scraggly beard and crazy clothes was playing Power Chords of Death spread quickly.

“Whoa, he’s actually not terrible!”

“Look at him go!”

“His adequacy is amazing!”

“I am impressed because he is both old and disabled. But mostly because he’s old.”

“Soos, did you rewire one of my games again!?”

“This is gonna get so many views online.”

They had quite the crowd going by the time the manager threw them out.

They continued on with their tour to the library and the museum and the pool and the local newspaper. In each place Mabel told a story, sometimes assisted by Soos. Stories like putting together an epic sock-puppet show that was crashed by Bill, or the 8 ½ president lost to time, or her first kiss with a merman, or meeting a creepy reporter. In each place Mabel went out of her way to introduce Stan to everyone. And while she was doing this, Stan noticed a few things.

Everyone knew Mabel. A lot of people knew Soos, but they had yet to come across a single person who didn’t know Mabel. And she greeted each and every person like they were an old friend, even if as they walked away Mabel occasionally said something like “That’s Toby Determined. He’s messed up.” or “That’s Bud Gleeful! His son tried to kill us!”

“You kids come here every summer?” Stan asked.

“Nope! This summer is our first time coming here to Gravity Falls!” Mabel replied.

It was incredible how quickly Mabel had endeared herself (or at least introduced herself) to the whole town. Sure, Gravity Falls wasn’t exactly an overpopulated urban center, but it wasn’t the sticks either. They had a mall and a mini golf place, which didn’t really scream rural. The way she seemed to know everyone was an impressive feat.

The other thing Stan noticed was really driven home when they reached the police station.

“This is where me and Dipper broke Grunkle Ford out of jail from the government guys! You remember them! That was the day you got here!” Mabel pointed to the jail excitedly.

“Oh yeah, that was the day I had to throw down those agent dudes!” Soos remembered.

“Wait wait wait, lemme get this straight. You an’ your brother busted Ford outta there while it was crawlin’ with feds single-handed?” Stan asked incredulously.

“Well, we did get some help from Tyler and all the other guys at the bar to keep them from following us while we escaped,” the girl clarified, “But other than that, yeah!”

The look on Stan’s face was not just one of shock, but of a growing dread. This was lost on Mabel.

“One more stop to go!” She led them to Greasy's Diner. That lifted Stan’s spirits immediately. Mabel pointed out some local delicacies on the menu: Lumberflapjacks, beavertail steaks, roadkill ravioli, and of course, the waitress’ special: coffee omelette. Stan ordered the special out of morbid curiosity.

“Hmmm…” He chewed the rubbery omelette thoughtfully, “s’not terrible, once you get past the burnt coffee taste. Woulda killed for one of these when I was lost in the Hailfire Peaks on Raretania 2.”

“If you like it, you should go tell Lazy Susan yourself!” Mabel suggested. “Maybe if you two start talking you’ll get to know each other better! You could even ask her for her number!”

“What, the classy lady over by the cabinet? She seems way out of my league…” Stan trailed off, “Waaaaait a sec, you didn’t bring me here just to try and set me up with some stranger, did you?”

“What? No.” Mabel denied, “I just knew since you like weird local food so much you’d love the diner. And when I saw Susan I remembered she had a crush on Grunkle Ford earlier this summer, but he didn’t reciprocate. So I thought, since you guys look just alike, she might like you too.”

Stan nearly choked on what was left of his omelette.

“Are you ok?” Mabel asked in alarm, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything! I should have just left it alone! Dipper’s right, I do get too involved in other people’s romance!”

Stan thumped his chest with his remaining hand a couple of times and finally swallowed the food down the right tube. “Ha-hack, s’fine, just… just the first time I’ve ever heard of somebody havin’ a crush on Ford. Caught me off-guard.”

Mabel sighed with relief. “Good. So you’ll go talk to her?”

“Nope.” Stan grunted.

“Aw, come on Grunkle Stan!” the girl complained. “I’ve introduced you to half the town, and so far the only person you’ve hit it off with is Soos!”

“Don’t take it personally kid, I don’t plan on gettin’ emotionally attached to anyone in this town. ‘Cept you kids, course.” The old con man said.

“Grunkle Stan, maybe if you just give some of these people a chance, you’d want to stay here in Gravity Falls.”

“Mabel, this whole town is quelfed!” Stan exclaimed.

“What do you mean?” Mabel asked in confusion.

Her uncle sighed wearily, and took it from the top. “My brother may not think so, but I do realize what a big risk it was to open the portal and bring me back. I know what kind of consequences we’re dealin’ with here. I know Ford’s workin’ on sealin’ that rift, but Bill’s comin’. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. And when he does… well, I’m not so worried about you an’ your brother, from what you’ve told me, it sounds like you two are survivors. You’ll find a way to make it together.

“But these townspeople? They barely know up from down! They don’t realize they got monsters running around in the woods, they line up around the block just to get a look at a party thrown by shazbots who won’t even let them in when a ghost is threatenin’ them, and they couldn’t keep my stupid brother locked up for more than a few hours! I thought my only hope was gonna be to fight Bill when I got the chance, but now… now it looks like we’re gonna have to settle for survive.”

“We can still fight Bill!” Mabel insisted. “We’ve beat him before!”

“Yeah, but he keeps on comin’ back. I’ve been lookin’ for a way to beat Bill for good the last twelve years.” Stan paused a moment, debating whether or not he should tell this story. “You remember that story I told you ‘bout the time I invited Bill an’ my brother into my dream at the same time, and I found out Ford’s portal was operational, but he wasn’t gonna open it? Well, after that, things got weird. Well, weirder. I’d let Bill into my mind, and he wasn’t about to let me forget it. He couldn’t take control of me like a lot of other idiots who’d made a deal with him, but he was in my head day and night, messin’ with me, makin’ me see things. I was already in bad shape, I couldn’t take care of my stump properly by myself, I was still on the run from the royals I’d stolen the star rubies from, and Bill messin’ with my head on top of that wasn’t makin’ things any easier. I would’ve been a goner if it hadn’t been for her.”

“Her?” Mabel asked.

“Some giant space chick called Jheselbraum.” While Stan’s words weren’t exactly reverent, his voice certainly was. His tone softened considerably, and he lowered his gaze as if momentarily lost in a memory. “She’s the nicest person I’ve ever met, if not the nicest person in the multiverse. She swooped in an’ took me to her super-secret lair in the mountains, fixed me up, set me straight about Bill and what the jerk wanted with me an’ my brother, never expectin’ a single thing in return. She even gave me a way to keep Bill outta my head, even if it meant I wouldn’t be able to talk with Ford in my dreams anymore. Honestly, that seemed more like an extra perk at the time.” He leaned over the table towards Mabel and parted the hair at the back of his head, revealing an irregular patch of white. “Put a frellin’ metal plate in my head. See where the hair’s gone weird? That’s from the scar. I started growin’ my hair out to cover it up.

“Anyway, where was I… oh yeah. Once Jheselbraum explained what Bill’s deal was to me, I figured out he was the reason my brother wouldn’t open the portal. It was pretty obvious I’d have to get rid of that monster if I wanted to get home. No Bill, no reason Ford shouldn’t open the portal. So Jheselbraum set me up with a robo-arm, gave me a few pointers on Bill, and sent me on my way.

“Right before I left, she told me I’d see my family again. It took so long, I started wonderin’ if she was messin’ with me the whole time, but… here I am. Never should’ve doubted her.”

“So wait, if you spent all that time looking for a way to beat Bill, you must’ve found some stuff that can help us, right?” Mabel asked hopefully.

The old con man sighed. “It’s hard to learn anything about someone like Bill. Anyone who ever did know anything about him is either on his side, driven insane, or dead. For all those years of searchin’, it seemed like all I ever found was dead ends… until…” He looked around surreptitiously. “Hey, is that cute waitress watchin’ us?”

“No.”

“Anybody else?”

“I don’t think so.”

“That’ll have to do. There a bathroom in this place?”

“Yeah, follow me!” Mabel led her uncle to the restroom. He gave another fruitive glance to make sure no one and nothing was watching, grabbed Mabel by the wrist, and darted through the door.

“Hey! This is the boy’s bathroom! I can’t be in here!” Mabel protested.

“Hey, keep it down!” Stan shushed her as he carefully inspected the bathroom graffiti. He found one that was vaguely triangle-shaped and slapped a square of wet toilet paper over it.

“And I thought Grunkle Ford was paranoid…” Mabel muttered under her breath.

“Ok.” The old man nodded, satisfied that there was no way they were being watched. He twisted the round end of his staff, revealing a hidden compartment. “Feast your eyes on this!”

The end of the staff glowed blue, until Mabel looked directly at it. Then, there was just a plain old chunk of rock. “Uh, this is just a pebble.”

“Not exactly. It’s like some sorta quantum thingy. Like Schrodinger’s Cat or whatever.” Stan explained. Mabel looked at him blankly.

“Uh, when you look at it, it’s normal. When you look away, it’s radioactive and junk..” He tried again.

“Oooooookaaaaaay.” Mabel said slowly. That made slightly more sense.

“So not too long ago, maybe second-to-last dimension I was in before I got back here, I ran into a parallel universe version of Ford, where he somehow managed to fix the portal so it wouldn’t work for Bill with some help from his friend/assistant guy. But Bill still had control of Ford. It was my brother’s dream come true, but he couldn’t even be on the same floor as the portal without that jerk monster taking hold of him. Obviously, they were pretty invested in gettin’ rid of Bill too. So assistant guy and I use the good portal to go lookin’ for some theoretical elements or whatever that could ‘disrupt Bill’s extradimenstional form’ or somethin’ like that. Honestly, a lot of what they were sayin’ went over my head. What I got out of it was we were gonna make a gun to blow up Bill.

“Anyway, me an’ the assistant guy went to some super-bizarro-paradox world where we found this.” He gestured with his stump to the plain looking rock sitting in the hidden compartment of his staff. “We were in the middle of arguing over what to call it when his parallel/bizarro version showed up an’ he had to split. The jerk left me behind! Luckily I already had my own resources for dimension-hopping by then, but still! I’d wanted to talk to them about what they’d done to fix the portal and pass it on to my Ford somehow, but I never got the chance. So I had a piece of quantum junk that might be the key to beatin’ Bill, and no idea what to do with it.

“But in the end, none of it mattered. I showed up here maybe a week later. Turns out I didn’t have to fight Bill to get home. I’ll just have to fight him if I want it to stay home. And so far, I’m not likin’ the looks of my allies.” He said gravely as he closed the compartment in his staff.

“Hmm…” Mabel was deep in thought. “This assistant guy… did he have a really big nose, talk like a crazy robot-obsessed Colonel Sanders, and play the banjo?”

“Uh, yes to the first two, not sure about the last one.”

“That must have been parallel McGucket! Maybe he and Grunkle Ford can figure out what their parallel versions were gonna do with it!” Mabel suggested.

Stan grumbled. “I was afraid you were gonna say somethin’ like that.”

Mabel took his hand gently. “Grunkle Stan, I know you’re really mad at your brother right now, but you both wanna stop Bill and protect your family, right?”

“...Yeah.” Stan huffed.

“And the best way to do that is to work together, right?”

“Alright, I get it! That doesn’t mean I gotta like it. Now come on, let’s get outta here.” He climbed on top of the toilet and opened the window.

“Why are you trying to climb out the window?” Mabel asked.

“I don’t have any money to pay for lunch, do you?”

It was nice and cool in the shade of the forest as they walked home that afternoon.

“Thanks for today, kiddo. I feel a lot better gettin’ that all off my chest.” Stan thanked the young girl skipping beside him. “Sorry to dump all that on you, though.”

“Pch, that’s what family’s for, dum-dum!” Mabel pushed him playfully.

“Eh…” the old man shrugged. “Oh, hey, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t repeat any of that to Ford or your brother. It’s kinda… personal.”

Mabel made an exaggerated face of thinking it over. “Ok, but only if you promise you’ll tell them yourself!”

“Yeah, sure, I promise. Whatever.”

Stanley had to be going soft. He actually felt bad for lying to her like that.

#Gravity Falls #Fanfiction #Stanswap AU #Reverse Portal AU #Stanley Pines #Mabel Pines #My Writing

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haroldslovekitten · 8 years ago

Text

Carolina - Pink Series pt. 2

Hey loves! I hope you like this part, I finished it just in time! I think it’s fun and cute and angsty as hell and I hope you love Harry and Y/N’s relationship as much as I do! Let me know, feedback is always appreciated! .xx - M

Word Count: ~5k

Harry is on his way to New York, the flight to JFK seeming longer than it used to now that he’s got a specific someone he’s not used to leaving. Well, he doesn’t necessarily have you, per say, but over the past few weeks, he’s grown attached. After the initial coffee date reunion, and the night spent at yours drinking and playing truth or dare, Harry and Y/N began spending more and more time together, meeting up after work, spending all day on saturdays together going to the park and exploring some of the best shopping streets in London but rarely buying anything. Life felt simpler with you around, and he wanted to spend every waking minute with you. Some days, you’d meet up at your favorite cafe, you would bring your journal and laptop, Harry would bring his, and you’d both would just sit there, you working on your scripts, him his songs, and have a practically silent day together. Every once in awhile you’d turn to him, eyes focused on his face as he worked and waited until he looked like he was at a good stopping point, not right in the middle of pure genius gifted by god before she’d interrupt.

“Hey, Harry, can you tell me how this sounds?”

You’d go on to explain the scene you were writing and read him a bit of dialogue, doing voices to represent different characters and you wouldn’t look at him, not out of embarrassment, he thinks, but out of concentration - your mind was truly somewhere else, even in those moments. And he’d listen patiently, nodding as you spoke, trying to keep the most endeared smile off his face even though you made his heart thunder in his chest, and then he’d give honest feedback. Usually it was good, because you were phenomenal, but sometimes he’d remind you that no, real people do not speak like that, and no, no one says “bee’s knees” anymore, to which you’d pout, but know he was right.

Alternatively, Harry would often find his mind drifting from his writing, the lyrics just not coming to him in the moment, so he’d let it wander to you. He’d watch you write, scribble notes in your notebook, then go back to typing. You’d hold your pencil between your teeth as you typed, knowing full-well you’d need to edit your notebook flowchart soon enough. Your hair would fall in your eyes every once in a while and you’d tuck it away in a frustrated way before going back to your work. Your eyes would constantly flit over the screen, always self-editing, and when you’d find something good, you’d nod vigorously, though Harry doesn’t think you realize you do it.

He finds himself wondering what kind of things go on in your head. What do you spend your time thinking about when you’re not writing masterful scripts or dealing with pretentious creatives (a thing you always insist Harry is not - you know enough of them to know who is and isn’t)? What do you do in your free time that’s not with Harry? Do you think about him ever...as more than a friend? It’s when these thoughts make their way into his mind that he has to shake himself and go back to reality, which really is just him writing songs not so loosely based off of you and hating himself for it. It would make your friendship so strange if you found out that you’re always on his mind, but at the same time, he feels like you have to know, he can’t keep pining like this, if that is what he’s doing. He still can’t quite tell if his feelings for you are romantic or not. When you spend time together, he finds there’s nothing he’d rather be doing, even if that something else was fucking your brains out. He just thoroughly enjoys your company. You make him feel real, feel human, feel good, feel things that he’s had a hard time feeling, ever since he joined One Direction to be honest.

And now, he’s on a plane headed far away from you, far away from the perfect little bubble you’d built together. He sits on the jet, journal in front of him - he’d given up on sleeping ages ago - and lets his mind wander to you. He imagines your face, your laugh - the shy little giggle you’d give and the obnoxious cackle you’d let out when you found something surprisingly funny - your eyes are yet another thing that mesmerize him. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen more expressive eyes and he loves the way he can see what you’re feeling the moment you’re feeling it, though it often drives you crazy when he can figure out your emotions faster than you can. The one thing he can’t decipher though, is how you feel about him. He doesn’t even realize it, but his hand is scribbling away as he thinks about you. When he pulls himself out of his self-induced trance, he glances down.

She’s a good girl, She feels so good, she feels so good.

With a huff, he closes his journal, knowing that he’s beginning to get into some dangerous territory.

He tries sleeping again, but has no luck, but fortunately the fight is almost over anyway. He reminds himself that this is going to be a short trip and he’ll be back with your soon. Tells himself to just push you from his mind while he’s here, then he’ll be fine. When he lands, he has to run straight to meetings with PR companies and Jeff. Usually they meet in LA, but Harry has a photo shoot scheduled here in New York, so they moved the meetings here. He only plans to be here for a week, but right now, a week seems like an eternity as he goes through his entire day without any interaction with Y/N. The meetings all go well and he’s stoked about his album and his solo career in general, and all he wants to do is talk to you, tell you about his day, about his plans, and to hear about yours.

As he lays in the huge bed of his fancy hotel room, the TV playing some show he’s not paying attention to, he scrolls through his phone, pulling you up on his contacts and his thumb hovering over the call button. To call or not to call, that is the question. And as badly as he wants to hear your voice, to see your face, he doesn’t want to overstep any boundaries or make you uncomfortable. Plus, you’ve only been apart for two days and it’s not like you could be missing him yet. You’re probably busy, he tells himself, setting his phone down and attempting to focus on the TV. His resolution to spend the night lonely did not prepare him for his phone to begin buzzing almost immediately after setting it down. To his surprise, it was your contact photo, a picture of you shovelling a scone into your mouth that he had snapped a couple of weeks ago without your knowledge that made him chuckle before answering your video call.

“Harry!” you shrieked excitedly.

He almost didn’t recognize you for a couple of reasons. First, the image was a bit blurry and pixelated, video chatting from another continent giving his phone a run for its money. The second reason though was that you had your hair tied up tightly in a messy bun, and a green face mask all over your face. Harry struggled to contain his laughter at the image in front of him, overwhelmed by how ridiculously adorable you were.

“Hey, Y/N, looking good,” he teased.

“I know, I’m flawless!” you giggled. “Lucky for you, you get to look just like me!”

“What are you talking about, weirdo?” he asks, a grin still on his face.

“Look in the small pocket on your bag. I snuck a bottle of this facemask in there the other day. Thought we could put them on and chat as if you were still here and not a world away,” you say sheepishly, obviously missing him much more than he gave you credit for.

“You miss me, bug?” he asks, as fondly as possible.

“Yes, now shut up and go put on the mask. I’ll wait,” you demand.

“Alright, bossy!” he groans before rummaging through his bag and finding the facemask, obediently smearing it over his face in the bathroom before returning to your call.

“Good, now we both look gorgeous!” you say.

“Mmhmm, some of us more than others,” he jokes.

“Hey! I’ll have you know that I look absolutely stunning right now,” you joke right back.

He decides against clarifying that he was implying that you were the one who looked more gorgeous and lets the compliment slide. He notices that you’re sat up in bed, Rufus, your grey tabby cat in your lap, and a glass of wine in the and that’s not stroking the cat’s head.

“Hey, no one said anything about drinking!” he says, rolling his eyes.

“I’m sure you’ve got something in that fancy hotel room.”

And sure enough, when he looks in the mini fridge, there’s an assortment of alcohol. He grabs the first one he sees, whiskey - not his favorite, but it’ll do - and sits back down with you. He props up his phone so he can see you without holding it, and smiles at you making faces at your cat while you pet him.

“I’m so glad you were alone in your hotel room when I called - would have been very embarrassing if you were at a fancy party or summat and I showed up on your phone looking like this,” you smile, “but I didn’t care if you were, I wanted to see you.”

“I’ve only been gone two days, love,” he laughs, but the thought that you’d been planning to call him so soon makes his heart swell.

“I know, but I got used to having you around. Last night wasn’t too hard, there was a cool work party I went to, but I’ve missed you all day sitting at home by myself,” you huff and pout a bit, really playing the guilt trip on him.

“Work party, huh?” he asks, curious.

He won’t deny that his ears automatically pricked up at that statement, instantly wondering if there were any cute guys at the party, anyone expressing interest in you while he wasn’t there to fend them off.

“Yeah, actually not really. It wasn’t for my work, per say...but a friend of a friend is working on a film I really wish I could be a part of and well, I just told the bouncer guy that I knew the main actor. He didn’t seem to mind letting me in…” you say, a mischievous grin gracing your features.

“Wow, I thought you didn’t like parties? And you lied!? Naughty!” Harry laughs, imagining the quiet, introverted you sneaking your way into a party.

“Okay okay, hear me out. I hate parties, you know this, but some of my favorite filmmakers were at that party! I couldn’t miss the chance to network, it was worth the little white lie and the hoards of drunken men. I’m good okay, as good as they come,” you say definitively, not letting Harry’s faux judgement make you feel bad about your actions.

His heart stops for a moment as he remembers the lyrics he jotted down earlier on the plane - she’s a good girl. He gulps before speaking again, pretending nothing of consequence is going through his mind.

“Alright, yeah, whatever,” he laughs awkwardly. “None of these drunken men treated you badly, did they?”

“Ugh, no!” you say, almost sounding disappointed.

“Why do you sound upset that they didn’t!?” he asks, shocked at your reaction.

“I’m not upset, I just...well, ugh,” you fumble over your words, making him more and more nervous by the second. “Well, there’s this guy.”

Harry’s heart sank immediately, but he plastered on an interested smile and encouraged you to continue.

“We’ve worked on a few little projects before, but he’s starting to become more and more into the industry, making all these connections, and I guess I’ve always had a bit of a crush on him, but like, he never notices me and I hoped he would at the party last night, but he was all wrapped up in some skinny actress and ugh, I don’t know what to do.”

Harry tried to ignore the sickening feeling he was getting in his stomach.

“Have you tried talking to him about it?”

“What am I supposed to say? Hey, I think you’re really hot and talented. Let’s bone!”

Harry laughs through his pain, assuring you that ‘let’s bone’ is yet another phrase that absolutely no one uses anymore. He puts on his purely friendly face and prepares himself to give you advice on how to win this guy over. Conflicting emotions are running through him at the moment. The first, and infinitely more prominent is jealousy - why are you interested in this random dude who pays you no attention. You think he’s hot? Hotter than Harry? And more talented? Does he have any fucking hope in getting with you? Why the fuck is he even worried about getting with you, dammit? The second thought is simply confusion - how could anyone in their right mind be around you for any length of time and not want to give you their complete and undivided attention always? He pushes those thoughts down, ignoring the things he’s feeling and goes back to comforting and advising you.

“Okay, so maybe don’t say that. Maybe just like make sure you’re around him a lot? And dress a little, you know, when you are? A lot of guys are purely visual and physical, so like dressing sexy and being extra touchy should get his attention…” he says, trying to hide the sad twinge in his voice.

“Harry Edward Styles! I am not going to run around in some skimpy outfit groping a man in public just to get his attention!” you say sternly. “I’m a good girl, you know that!”

He looks away from the camera at that, struggling to maintain his composure before responding.

“You’re right, you don’t need to do that shit. You’ve got much more to offer, but you have to let him know that that’s on the table, otherwise he’ll just look at you as a friend, or worse, a work colleague and nothing more,” Harry says, cringing at the fact that he can’t seem to follow his own damn advice.

“Okay, but like how, H? I really like this guy...he’s like the man of my dreams and he looked so fucking good last night and all I did was stand in a corner away from everyone gawking at him from afar,” you whine.

Harry nods as he takes another sip from the whiskey, marvelling at how much of it is already gone - he hasn’t been drinking that quickly, has he? He notices your glass is also empty and you refill it with the cutest pout on your face, the mask making your frown lines stand out even more.

“Hey, why don’t you go take that mask off and we can talk about this properly after? It’s making my face itch,” Harry says, using any excuse he can to be alone for a moment.

You simply nod and crawl off of your bed, and as you do so, he notices that you’re wearing a pair of purple short shorts beneath where Rufus was sat and your ass looks incredible as you move. He shakes himself, surprised at the thought...okay, so maybe he does want you in a more than platonic way. He goes to the bathroom, splashing cold water over his face, rinsing the mask and cooling off a little of his frustration (both sexual and sincere) as he does so. He stares at himself in the mirror, marveling at the way just this little conversation and facemask has brightened his skin, but he doesn’t miss the extra blue around his eyes, as if his pain is having a physical effect on him. He shakes himself, trying to fight off the negative feelings threatening to invade his body. Being with you has never brought him anything but joy, and he doesn’t see why he should let this conversation change that. So, he decides, he won’t. He’s going to be the perfect friend for you tonight, and give you exactly what he should: support.

When he returns to his phone, you’re sitting there, fresh-faced and beautiful, Rufus cuddling up to you and he curses himself for thinking he was ever anything but undeniably and completely in love with you. Never before has he sat across from someone, virtually or in real life, as they cuddled their cat and looked completely bare and comfortable, no extra airs or facades about them, and completely adored everything he’s seen. Sure, he’s been with people who were crazy beautiful, and wonderfully talented, but no one has ever been this open and comfortable around him. Honestly, he’s never been this open or comfortable around anyone else either. You bring out a side of him he was beginning to doubt existed - a side ready and capable of real, genuine love. Of course it took you claiming you were crushing hard on some random guy for him to realize he loved you. Of course…

“Okay,” he says. “Tell me everything about this guy. Wanna know how long you’ve known him, what he likes, about any important conversations you’ve had, all that,” he says, acting as much like a long-time girlfriend at a sleepover as he can, because that’s obviously what he is to you - a friend, and nothing more.

You go on and on then, taking his encouragement as a go-ahead, and vent to him about your entire relationship with Connor, he comes to find out is his name. You tell him how you actually met in college, and how you used to be study buddies, as cliche as that is. You never confessed feelings, because you didn’t know you’d had them, but you guys worked together on a project (before he got all uppity) and you realized how compatible you both were. Then you’d see him at events like last night and only fall for him harder. But he’d made it clear that you were old friends, you were a part of his old life, and never once expressed interest. Though it was all extremely difficult to hear, Harry listened carefully, trying his best to shut his feelings for you down.

“Well, you’re obviously beautiful,” he comments, words slurring slightly (he hadn’t realized he’s made it through three more bottles of alcohol).

“Thanks, Harry,” you say shyly and he fucking loves the way your cheeks blush when he says that.

“I mean, come on, how could he be so blind and not see how perfect you are?” he continues, almost unable to stop himself at this point.

“I’m not perfect,” you refute.

“Yeah, yeh are,” he continues, but catches himself just in time.

“But yeah,” you say, changing the subject slightly, “What do you think I should do?”

“Honestly, at this point you’ve known him for long enough. If he doesn’t think about you that way, it’s time you make him. And if he still doesn’t then it’s own damn fault. You’ve always got me anyways,” he stammers, not thinking before he speaks - it’s the whiskey talking.

“So like, just ask him out?”

“Hell yeah! I mean, I don’t know, sure,” he says, his brain muddy and confused - does he want her to ask that guy out or is he just encouraging her to be happy? He doesn’t even know anymore.

“That’s just so hard for me though, Harry. Like, admitting I’m feeling something? Being vulnerable and opening myself up to rejection? I’m not open or hardened like that. I’d fall apart if he said no. I’ve been reading this book, by the way, I think you should read it. It’s called Quiet by Susan Cain. It’s all about being introverted and using that to your advantage in this world that idealizes extroverts. It talks about understanding what you like, who you are, and doing things that are within your boundaries as an introvert. I’m not an extrovert, Harry, I’m shy and sensitive and quiet and him turning me down would kill me,” you say, exasperated and fearful.

“Listen to me. You’re perfect, sweet, kind. thoughtful, everything any man could wish for, including myself, so if he turns you down - like a complete idiot might I add - I’ll always be here, lov-supporting you,” he says, catching himself at the last minute before he reveals something too personal, too intimate even though he may or may not have gone a bit overboard already. Maybe you’re right, maybe he should read that book. Being an introvert, especially as a pop star, he’s had to adapt and grow in ways he’s not necessarily comfortable with. Maybe that book will help him figure it out, figure you out too. He smiles when he thinks about you sitting on your couch with that book, getting overly excited about the fact that yes, someone finally does get it - they get you - and for once you don’t feel so alone. He imagines you’ve bookmarked pages, highlighted your favorite passages. He’d never thought about you reading before, always about you writing. At this point, he’d kill to get a glimpse at your copy of that book - to get a glimpse at your mind.

“Thank you, Harry. That means the world to me,” you say, completely sober and serious.

Harry just nods, realizing how much the alcohol is affecting him and desperately trying to keep his feelings in check. How are you so sober and alert right now? At this point, if he did slip up and reveal something, there’s no way he could even pretend that you’d been so drunk you’d forgotten and that’s completely frustrating.

“I guess I just doubt it sometimes, you know? Like all of my relationships have been with such mediocre guys...and when I finally find someone I’m into because I can actually respect and admire them, they are just like completely not interested,” you vent to him, feeling a bit down.

Harry’s heart almost broke in half hearing you say that, hearing you struggle with self-love and recognizing your worth because of some stupid guy who couldn’t get his ass out of his own probably pretentious head long enough to realize how incredible you were. Despite his maybe better instincts, and his almost carnal need to be the one who is there for you and makes you happy, Harry makes the decision to do everything he can to get you and this guy together. If he means that much to you and if being with him will make you realize how unfathomably amazing you are, Harry is all down for it, even if it means he doesn’t have you to himself.

“Alright,” he slurs. “Here’s my idea, yeah? I know how much you hate playing hard to get and all that, but I promise you it’ll work. Just like, pretend you’re on the phone with me around him or something yeah, and talk about how much you’re excited to see me and just be overly affectionate and excited, so it seems like any interest you’ve shown in him is minor compared to what you actually give to those you’re genuinely into, you know? And just do that everyday for the rest of the week while being a little standoffish to him, but also like making sure you’re butt and boobs look amazing, which let’s be honest, they always do -”

“Harry!” you protest.

“And I can almost guarantee you that by the time I come home, he will be wanting to take you out,” Harry steamrolls right through your offense at his comments, knowing that this advice will work and he doesn’t really want to say it but has to.

“You really think that would work?” you ask, actually toying with the idea.

The fact that you’re actually willing to play hard to get to get this guy’s attention pisses Harry off more than he’d care to admit. As long as he’s known you, you’ve always hated the idea.

...

“Why in the hell would you pretend not to like someone you really like? Shouldn’t that be a turn on for them? Like shouldn’t ‘hey, I like you a lot and would love to hang out’ be flattering? I just don’t understand not asking for you want, it’s silly,” you’d argued one evening when the two of you had been at a bar with Niall and he’d been eyes some random girl who wasn’t giving him the time of day.

“I agree, I agree,” Harry had said, “But if you want to be realistic about it, men love the chase - I’m far more interested in someone who has more going on for them than their desire for me, you know?”

“Just because you really want to be with someone doesn’t mean that you don’t have other stuff going on!” you’d huffed and he remembers now just how adorable he’d found it.

“I know, you’re right, but that’s just the way it is. Make them chase, it works almost every time.”

“Boys are idiots,” you’d said with a roll of your eyes and then, just as now, he couldn’t agree more.

...

“Okay, if you think it’ll work, I’ll try it I guess…” you’d trailed off, still unsure.

“It will,” Harry spat, the statement coming out a bit sharper than he’d meant, but the idea that you’re actually willing to go back on some of your principles, even silly ones like not playing hard to get in order to woo this guy has immediately put Harry in an awful mood.

“Okay,” you replied, eyeing him curiously. “What about you? Any hot models in New York?”

“Loads,” he’d said and to your surprise, he didn’t sound sarcastic.

“Oh? Well then why aren’t you with them?” you ask, a little shocked by his bluntness.

“Don’t know, maybe I should be,” he replied getting visibly pissy and you weren’t quite sure what was going on.

“I was joking, Harry,” you say slowly, hoping the tension will dissipate.

“I wasn’t.”

Nope, the tension is definitely not dissipating.

“Well fine, it’s still early in the life of a rockstar, why don’t you go?” you ask, your voice raising a pitch in confusion and anger. How the hell was this turning into a fight?

“Maybe I will, it’s not like I’m getting anything from you anyways,” he spits, taking another drink of whiskey.

“What the fuck, Harry? ‘Getting anything’ from me? What the fuck are you expecting to get?” you ask, completely shocked by the entire conversation. “Am I supposed to be ready to have cam sex or something ridiculous just to be friends with you? Seriously, what is going on, Harry!?” you ask, your voice turning to a shout and tears beginning to sting your eyes.

“No, oh my god, no. I’m sorry,” he starts, finally stepping outside of his moment of self absorption and pity. “I don’t know, just frustrated is all.”

“About what, exactly?” you ask, still not completely happy with his reaction.

“I don’t know, I just love you so much, you know?” he begins, panicking mid-sentence and desperately needing a way out of this. Why the hell does alcohol make him so fucking honest? “You’re such an amazing friend and person,” he continues, saving himself a bit, “and it kills me to see you pining over someone who doesn’t appreciate you and putting so much stock into what they think. I think you’re incredible, and yeah, we’re just friends, but isn’t that enough to know that you’re great and worthy of love? I don’t know, I just thought I was enough…” he trails off, once again sticking his foot in it.

“Harry, babe,” you say, ‘babe’ being a term of endearment you reserve for when he needs to be comforted. “You’re amazing and I love you and love that you think I’m amazing. I think I’m pretty amazing too, if I’m honest! I have no worries about what I’m worth. It’s just nice to have someone who’s more than friends...you know, someone who thinks you’re amazing, but also thinks you’re crazy sexy and wants you...why doesn’t anyone want me, Harry?” you ask, once again sinking into a pit of sadness...you should have known you’d do this, too much wine always makes you sappy.

“Y/N…” Harry sighs. “I really can’t answer that question,” he responds in true media-trained fashion - while you may think he can’t answer because he doesn’t know, he knows very well that the real answer is that he wants you, wants you more than he’s ever wanted anyone in his life, but he can’t exactly drop that bomb on you. Not when you’re drunk on a video chat an ocean away and definitely not when you’re pining after some random dude who is definitely not him.

“I’m sorry, I’m being such a bummer,” you laugh, trying to change the subject before it gets really bad and you start crying. “Maybe I should just go to bed. It’s about bedtime here, and crazy late there, you think we can call it a night?”

“Yeah,” Harry said, disappointment only slightly obvious in his voice. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. I’ve got a busy day tomorrow. I’ll talk to you then though, okay? And I’ll see you soon, love,” he says before flashing you a sad smile and hanging up after you say a quick ‘Bye!’.

He stares at the computer screen for a few moments after your picture disappears. He literally almost admitted his love for you multiple times during that conversation. Before he really even came back to consciousness or at least awareness, he picked up his journal from the bedside table and began scribbling, imagining the possibility of ever really telling you how he feels.

How would I tell her she’s all I think about?

Well I guess she just found out.

When the base for the song is finished, he reads it over, singing it aloud and realizes just how fucking obvious it is that he’s written a song about you. The lyrics are obvious, the tone is somber, and there is no doubt in his mind that were you to listen to his song, you’d immediately know just how intense his feelings are about you. He was able to get away with Sweet Creature because he pretended it was about Gemma, but this was glaringly obvious. Quickly he thinks, and he can’t help but fixate on what would have happened had he tried to get with you the night you met, rather than it turning into a group hang out with nothing remotely romantic happening. He lets himself imagine you’re a woman he’s only meeting once, now, just as you are, just without knowing him. He imagines that you’re the most enticing and interesting person he’s ever met (which you are), and that he’s falling for you (which he is), but just for tonight (which it’s definitely not). With those thoughts he realizes that writing a song about a wild, crazy night with an incredible woman who he’ll never see again is much more rock n’ roll than ‘I’m madly and desperately in love with my best friend and she doesn’t love me back and I hate my life’, so he tweaks the song accordingly, creating an entirely new person to write about, making the melody much more upbeat, hoping to God that you won’t see right through his second half-assed fictional story. He’s not quite ready for you to know how he feels. Not yet.

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sutterbabe · 8 years ago

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#8 Auston Matthews

Hi!! I love your writing!! Can you do an Auston imagine where you guys are babysitting a teammate's kid and he kinda drops hints about how he wants kids?

I sorta changed it a little bit

I babysit this gorgeous little kid called owen and I love him so much he is the purest being on this planet.

Song suggestion of the day: Boo by shortstraw

Song i was thinking about when writing this: Whatta man by Salt-n-pepa esp the line: ‘I think i wanna have your baby’ lmao

If you were being honest, the best part about getting to know the wags of some of the older guys on the leafs roster was the fact that you’d get to babysit their kids. You and Auston had been together for almost five years, which simultaneously felt like forever as well as no time at all. When you’d first gotten together, you guys went out a lot more but now you weren’t so interested in the bar/party/club scene and more interested in hanging out at home with each other and doing weird adult things you never thought you’d want to do (okay, you’d gone to one winery for a wedding but still). Obviously, seeing as you guys didn’t have kids and weren’t sleeping off big nights out, you found you had a lot more free time than Auston’s teammates. Given that, you guys were happy to give families like the Bozaks a break and babysit for them. Kanon was nearing eight and the biggest ball of energy you had ever seen. So at first, when it came to babysitters, Zach had ALWAYS been favoured above you. You get it, the guy writes children's books and he’s like the nicest dude ever. Heck, if you had kids, you’d definitely want him looking after them. Then slowly but surely, Zach was high in demand and you guys got a shot at kid-watching duty. Look at you now, regulars!

To be honest, you didn’t blame most of the parents for wanting to get out every once in a while. Kids are full on. But totally worth it. You could not wait for the day you got to welcome your own baby into the world. You knew Auston loved kids, but if he wanted them.. well you assumed he wanted them eventually. With you? hopefully. In the next few years? yeah, no. Which was sad but you totally got that he wanted to figure himself out first. He’d been in the NHL for seven years and hockey was a big deal for him. You didn’t really know if he’d even thought that much about having kids.

“What are you thinking about?” Auston asked, glancing over at you.

You glanced over at him from looking out the window as you drove and smiled softly. “Nothing.”

He smiled at that, reaching over to hold your hand as he drove. “Okay.”

You giggled at that. “You’re really cute.” you told him and you caught him flush gently at that.

“Thanks, gorgeous.” he mumbled, unable to wipe the massive smile off his face that occurred every time you complimented him. You smiled and leaned across to kiss his cheek.

“I don’t think i told you this enough, but you looked really good the other night.” you added.

“Well, I know I definitely looked like nothing compared to you.” he replied. “Did my best to clean up nicely though, didn’t want to kill your aesthetic.”

You laughed. “What aesthetic? My ‘try-not-to-fall-down-the-stairs-in-those-heels’ aesthetic?”

“No your ‘I-am-literally-the-hottest-person-on-the-planet.’ aesthetic.” Auston replied replied with a chuckle. “Besides, those shoes have me convinced that people who wear heels would survive the apocalypse.”

You laughed. “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing but I’ll take it anyway.” you informed him as he pulled into the Bozak’s driveway. You were there a little early to help keep Kanon busy while Tyler and Molly cleaned up the house before people started arriving.

Yeah so apparently adult things also included ‘casual drinks’ at people’s houses. Which was fine but like a lot of small talk so you and Auston either ended up hanging out with people’s kids (or dogs if they didn’t have kids), which you had no complaints about. Everyone didn’t seem to mind, as it at least kept the littlies occupied.

Kanon was waiting outside the front door for you, bouncing excitedly on his heels.

“Hey, bud.” Auston grinned, crouching down to greet him with their customary fist bump before Kanon was ushering you through the house to the kitchen where Tyler and Molly were getting everything ready.

“Mooomm, Auston and Y/n are here!’ Kanon announced as he dashed into the kitchen.

“Careful, buddy, no running in the kitchen remember.” Tyler said, catching his son round the chest before he could barrel into his mother.

“Okay.” Kanon replied, but all four of you knew that he’d be doing the exact same thing again within the next half an hour.

Tyler shook his head with a chuckle as Kanon raced off to his room to get who-knows-what. “Hey,” He greeted, reaching forward to clap Auston on the back in greeting as you hugged Molly ‘hello’ and handed over the salad you’d made.

Kanon was actually pretty quiet compared to normal. He’d been at a sleepover last night so he was still pretty exhausted.

“Wanna go see how, Kanon’s doing?” Auston suggested, after growing tired of all the small talk he was making.

“Bit eager tonight?’ you chuckled.

“Well, just want to get in as much practice as possible.” He reasoned.

“Practice?” you questioned, but Auston avoided the question, branching off from the adults and going to hang out with Kanon.

“They’re boring. All they talk about boring things.” Kanon noted when you joined him. “I don’t ever want to be an adult.”

“Well.. we’re adults...” You started.

“But you’re cool. You’re not boring.”

“So if, you have to be an adult... you’d be a cool adult, like us?”

“I’d be a cool adult, but I wouldn’t be you.” Kanon told you pointedly.

“Who would you be? Connor McDavid?” Auston chuckled. “I wouldn’t be him, ‘cause he’s a boring adult too.”

you elbowed Auston in the ribs gently as you hid a chuckled, rolling your eyes.

“I’d be me, but old.” Kanon told-you a matter of factly.

You nodded in agreement. “Good plan.”

“So what makes us cool? Because I don’t wanna get boring like all the adults.” Auston said, dropping his voice to a whisper like he was being let into some big secret.

Five minutes later Kanon had make you a whole flowchart for avoiding ‘boring adult status’.

“Okay. Number one!” Kanon announced. “Are you an adult?”

“yes.” you and auston both answered simultaneously before chuckling lightly.

“Okay.” Kanon said, circling ‘addalt’ in a different coloured pen.

“Do you have children?”

‘No,” you replied as Auston said “pretend we do.”

You glanced at him and he shrugged casually. “Well, we don’t want to be boring for our kids do we? Gotta start preparing so we don’t become boring parents.”

Kanon eyed you both suspiciously. “...okay. Step one if you have children is... No Embarrassing them!”

“Okay.” you said. “Auston, you got that one?”

“Are you ready for number two?” Kanon questioned.

You both nodded.

“No having parties without other kids there. Otherwise your kids will get bored!” Kanon told Auston sternly. “And last. No talking about boring things. So don’t talk about bills or roadworks or the weather!”

“What about... work?” you asked.

“No work! You can talk about hockey and toys and movies but no work!” Kanon warned, making you nod rigourously.

“yes, of course not.”

He narrowed his eyes at you both. “But you guys don’t have a kid!”

Auston nodded. “I know. But do reckon we should? Would we be good at being cool parents?”

Kanon thought for a moment. “Yeah. Then I wouldn’t be lonely everytime all the adults come to our house. But I don’t think you would be boring adults.”

“Well, thats very important to not be boring. That’s why we wanted to ask you lots of questions, since you’re the cool expert.” Auston explained.

Kanon nodded. “That was a good idea.”

After the guests had returned home, you stayed back for a bit to help clean up.

“you alright, Y/n? Looks like there’s something on your mind.” molly noted as she glanced across from where she was picking up glasses to take inside.

You sighed. “I think Auston wants kids.”

“Why the sigh? Isn’t that a good thing?” Molly questioned with a hint of confusion.

“Well he hasn’t like... outright ever told me he wants kids but.. some of the things he’s been saying these past few weeks... I don’t want to interpret it all wrong and get my hopes up when he isn’t ready.”

“Y/n,” Molly smiled. “Theres no harm in talking to him. “Besides, guys are weird. He’s not going to come straight out and ask you to have his baby.”

you laughed at that. “They are definitely weird.” you agreed.

“Kiddo in bed,” Auston announced as he walked into the kitchen with a grin, Tyler following by his side. “Let’s hope I have the same magic touch with our kids, huh?”

You and Molly exchanged a glance. “Subtlety is definitely not his forte.” Molly murmured, making you laugh gently.

“Well, we better head off. You ready to go, Y/n?” Auston asked.

You nodded, turning to Molly and giving her a hug goodbye. “Thank you so much for having us!”

“Oh you’re very welcome. We’ll see you at the game!”

“I can’t wait till we have that.”

“Have what?” you questioned, glancing over at Auston as you dropped your bag on the kitchen bench.

“A family.” he shrugged.

“Is that what tonight was all about?” you asked, raising an eyebrow.

He sighed defeatedly, caught in the act. He ran a hand through his hair before glancing up at you. “I really want to start a family with you, Y/n.”

you giggled. “Well you could’ve just said so.” you replied with a grin, throwing your arms round his neck and placing a gentle kiss to his nose.

#auston matthews #writing #team North America #Team USA #Toronto Maple Leafs #hey mtv im emma welcome to my queue

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