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fluentmoviequoter · 18 days

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Only Choice

Pairing: Tim Bradford x fem!cop!reader

Summary: You and Tim go undercover to catch a serial killer because you're the only choice.

Warnings: angst?, fluff, r wears a two-piece bathing suit and like halfway wears Tim's shirt, Tim and r makeout on the job (again)

Word Count: 2.4k+ words

Inspired by T-Shirt by Thomas Rhett.

Masterlist Directory | Tim Bradford Masterlist | Request Info

“Hey, gorgeous,” Angela greets as she enters the bullpen. “We need to talk.”

Tim sighs as he squeezes his eyes closed. “Lopez, I’m not in the mood today.”

“Who says I was talking to you?”

Tim looks up, his brows pinched. When he sees Angela smiling at something to his right, he turns his head to follow her eyeline.

“Me?” you ask, pointing to yourself as your eyes widen.

“Yep,” Angela answers. “Wade and I need to see you in his office. You, too, Tim.”

“You said you weren’t talking to me,” Tim argues as he stands.

“I wasn’t. Now I am. So, Tim…” She looks at you and enunciates, “Gorgeous, you’re both with me.”

“Okay,” you agree slowly. “But Lucy owes me $50. Don’t let me forget that.”

“For what?” Tim inquires.

“I bet her 50 that Lopez doesn’t know my name. The gorgeous thing feels like conformation.”

Tim grunts under his breath, but inside, he’s not entirely convinced that’s the reason. Angela is incredibly kind and funny, but she doesn’t usually say stuff like that just because she forgot someone’s name. Officer, sure, but gorgeous has to have more behind it.

“I thought you were friends,” Tim points out as he opens the door to Grey’s office for you.

You shake your head and murmur, “Not yet.”

“What do you know?” Wade asks as the door closes behind Tim.

“Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell,” you joke.

Tim sighs, lays his hands on his belt, and counters, “Know about what?”

“The serial killer,” Angela answers. “Targeting attractive couples in LA county.”

Tim shakes his head, so Angela turns toward you.

“Uh, just that he’s killing couples who are supposed to be traveling and then dumping them in Angeles Forest. Right?”

“Precisely. He’s nearly impossible to find, though.”

“Meaning we have no idea where to look,” Grey fills in. “Without knowing when or how he works, we’re steps behind him.”

“So, you want to set a trap,” Tim guesses. “Use UCs to lure him in for another kill.”

“You’re so smart, Timothy,” Angela applauds sarcastically.

“Lopez.”

“You in?” Wade interjects.

“Wait, what?” you reply. “You want to send us in as the UCs?”

Tim shakes his head as you point between the two of you. Angela nods, and you purse your lips to consider it.

“Why not?” you decide with a smile. “I’m in.”

“Does it have to be us?” Tim inquires.

“Uh…” Wade pauses to look out of his office and around the station before he says, “Yeah.”

“Only choice,” Angela agrees.

“Gorgeous,” you whisper.

“And smart,” Angela applauds. “He’s got a type. Pretty couples. And… you fit.”

“Tim, she called you pretty, say thank you,” Grey teases.

“I didn’t say yes,” Tim argues.

“Is Aaron still here?” you ask.

“I didn’t say no either,” Tim interrupts, raising a hand to stop you.

You press your lips together and lift your hands in apology. Angela is trying to contain a laugh at Tim’s offended reaction to you asking about another man who could pretend to be your significant other. You’re not a couple, but Angela was right when she said you’re the only choice. If the killer is planning to kill again, he won’t be able to resist you and Tim together.

“Where are we going?” Tim asks with a dramatic sigh.

“Santa Monica,” Angela answers with a smile. “Pack your swimsuit.”

“Is it going to be this awkward the whole time?” you ask as Tim drives to the luxury hotel.

“No,” he answers shortly. “Just…”

“You’d rather be anywhere else?”

“Tell me your cover story,” Tim instructs, changing the subject. “Stop talking like a cop.”

You sit back in your seat and look out the window, catching glimpses of the ocean between the beachfront buildings as you recite the information Angela created for you.

“And we’ve been together for just over a year,” you continue. “I even got my nails done because I think you’re proposing this weekend, but I’m not supposed to tell you that.”

“Good,” Tim murmurs.

“Tim,” you begin again, your tone more serious as you look at his profile. “I’m sorry for pushing. I know this is weird.”

Tim shrugs. “Anticipated my next proposal would look a little different.”

“Ow,” you hiss, playfully rubbing your chest over your heart. “Oh well, at least Angela thinks I’m gorgeous.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, but I like messing with you.”

Tim rolls his eyes, but you see the tiny smile he tries to hide. You’re here for work, but at least the view is nice. Oh, yeah, the ocean’s pretty too.

After adjusting the straps over your shoulders, you step out of the bathroom and back into your oversized luxury suite (courtesy of the LAPD and a need to get a serial killer behind bars).

“You’re in a bathing suit,” Tim says as he enters the bedroom, slowing as he looks at you.

“Great observation, Bradford,” you reply. “Did you forget why we’re here?”

Tim shakes his head and turns away from you. “I’m just saying… you could’ve worn a one piece,” he murmurs.

“Spoken like a man,” you tease as you pull a coverup over your head. “Try using the bathroom in one of those and then tell me that again, Tim.”

“Guy at the bar has been staring at us since we walked in,” you inform Tim over the rim of your glass.

“Us or you?” he asks, discreetly glancing over your shoulder.

“What’s the difference?”

“It’s a simple question. Men stare at beautiful women, especially at the beach. If he’s interested in you, just because, he’s not our guy.”

You try to ignore how your heart rate speeds when Tim calls you beautiful, but it affects you.

By the end of the day, you’ve noticed two men who checked in after you seem to be hanging around wherever you and Tim are. It could be a lead, or it could be a coincidence. You can only hope you learn which before it’s too late.

“I’m surprised you’re making progress so quickly,” Angela says over the phone the following morning.

“I told you,” Wade says in the background.

“Anyway,” Angela begins again. “How’s Tim? Tolerable?”

Tim is looking directly at you, and though he can’t hear Angela, you still feel like he’s caught you talking about him.

“The usual,” you answer.

“Remember why you’re there, okay? Keep us updated. We’ve got officers everywhere.”

“Thanks, Angela.”

You end the call and sit down on the couch beside Tim. It’s more exhausting than you thought, the hustle and bustle of pretending to be an in-love couple that does everything together. You’ve already been to the pool, the beach, three restaurants, and the hotel lounge and cruised down the PCH.

Leaning your head against Tim’s shoulder, you look over the balcony railing and to the water, reflecting the first rays of sunlight peeking over the beachfront high-rises.

“Are they running the men from yesterday?” Tim inquires, making no move to create space between you.

“One of them checked out this morning. The other came back clean and his reservation was booked weeks ago,” you respond. “Back to square one.”

“You sound surprised that catching a serial killer in a place this big didn’t happen overnight.”

“Because it’s us!” you point out. “I thought we’d break some sort of record and have the cuffs on him, be back in our own beds already.”

Tim smiles and stretches his arm out behind your head. Another full day awaits you, but you’d be content to spend it here.

“Don’t turn around,” Tim instructs as you prepare to leave the upscale diner he found for breakfast.

You nod, complying as he leans forward to wave for the check. He looks across the restaurant as he sits back in the booth.

“I saw a guy by the pool last night. He looked over a few times, but that didn’t stand out then. He was still at the pool when we left the lounge,” Tim explains.

“And now he’s here?”

Tim nods. “He fits the profile. White, mid-30s, completely unimposing.”

“What do you want to do?”

Tim smiles and takes your hand as he answers, “I want to catch him.”

You both know that two sightings aren’t enough to arrest him, so take a good look at him as you walk to the bathroom and then leave to continue your plans for the day. Everywhere you go, you and Tim are on high alert, noting where he is or isn’t, what he’s doing, what he’s wearing, and anything else you may need to know if this is the killer you’re searching for.

“Wait, Tim,” you call, pulling him to a stop in the hotel lobby. “He’s never been in the hotel. He wasn’t inside last night, and we’ve been back three times. I don’t think he’s staying here.”

“Or he just thinks we’re coming right back out. He can’t lose us if he doesn’t leave the door,” Tim points out.

“Maybe,” you murmur.

“We should test it, though. He watched us from the pool last night. If he was staying here, why didn’t he just come in where he could see better, hear us?”

“How do you want to do this?”

“We could try to lure him in.”

You smile as another idea strikes. “Or we ask Angela to get us a room at a crappy motel.”

“Why?”

“Because no one thinks twice about who’s walking around. The rooms are practically public, he could follow us straight to the door.”

Tim smiles as he pulls you closer, playing the part of the perfect boyfriend. He makes it seem effortless.

“Let’s get out of here, baby,” he murmurs against your ear.

“He’s following us,” you whisper as you walk down the beach, nearing your new, faded-aqua motel.

“Metro’s waiting in the employee parking lot. Your call,” Tim replies, pulling you closer.

You stop, keeping Tim close before you loop your arms over his shoulders. Leaning up, you brush your lips over Tim’s jawline.

“We’re gonna have to put on a show,” you murmur against his skin.

Tim drops his head toward your shoulder and whispers, “Then let’s make it memorable.”

“Keep it down!” someone calls from a doorway.

You laugh against Tim’s mouth as he lifts you onto the next step. He holds you against his chest while he steers you backward toward the door. When you reach your room, you lean against the door, and Tim drops his head to kiss you.

“We really need to stop doing this,” you whisper.

“Absolutely,” Tim agrees, leaning in for another kiss.

He scrapes the key across the door, trying to unlock it while keeping his attention on you. You reach down, steadying his wrist as you kiss down to his jaw. The lock clicks and Tim bends to hook his arm under your hips before he pushes the door open. Kicking it closed behind him, Tim takes you inside and leaves the door unlocked.

“Take your shirt off,” you instruct as you pull your coverup over your head.

“Why?” Tim asks, already unbuttoning the linen button-down as you wait in your bathing suit.

You shake your head and turn on the outdated TV set before you walk to Tim’s side. Once his shirt is off, you slide it onto your shoulders and haphazardly button it.

“Lopez, get ready,” you say into your wire, still attached to the inside seam of your coverup.

Flipping your hair, you mess it up before raking your fingers through Tim’s. He watches you, unable to decide what he wants to see more: your hair messed up, how you move in front of the TV light, or how you look in his shirt. Before he can decide, someone knocks on the door.

You pull your gun from under the bed and ready it on the door as Tim stands against the wall, prepared to cut the shooter off before he gets all the way into the room.

“LAPD!” the Metro team outside yells. “Put your hands up!”

Three minutes and one gunshot later, the motel is quiet. The door opens, and Wade follows Angela inside, their eyes drifting between you, Tim and the suspicious outfit changes that have occurred.

“Ready to go?” Angela asks.

Tim looks at you, hesitating, before you answer, “Yeah.”

Standing behind a police car, still clad in your bathing suit and Tim’s shirt, you wait for Angela to join you.

“Anything you want to tell me?” she asks. “Friend to friend?”

“Do you even know my name?” you argue.

She says your name in answer, then leans against the back of the shop.

You exhale as you prepare to ask, “Why me and Tim? You could’ve picked anyone.”

“The truth? You were the obvious choice. We needed an attractive couple. But… you were also making the rest of us tired.”

“Tired?”

“The constant pining. The longing looks. It got kind of sickening. So, when the case popped up, I thought maybe it would give you a reason to deal with those feelings, however you wanted to do that.”

“It was a good plan,” you admit softly. “Except now I’m even more confused than before.”

“You want a ride?” Tim asks you, approaching the side of the shop you’re behind.

You look at Angela, and she nods enthusiastically. After you agree, you follow Tim to a car and wonder if this is the best or worst night of your life.

“I thought you said we needed to stop doing this,” you say against Tim’s lips.

He chuckles as he pulls back. “Then why are you leaning in for one more?”

You roll your eyes and hit the light switch beside you. At least he waited until we got inside this time.

“It really was the only choice, you know.”

“I do,” Tim agrees. “But I will make Lopez pay for meddling.”

“Sure. I for one am just glad we’re finally acknowledging that we have feelings for each other.”

Tim smiles as he takes your hand. “Maybe I can forgive her for tonight.”

“Maybe you can also cook dinner tonight.” You lead Tim to your kitchen, release his hand, and walk down your hall to change.

Not that an outfit change will erase the vision of you wearing Tim’s shirt from his head anytime soon. No matter what, you’re both thankful for Angela’s meddling, because it took you exactly where you wanted to be.

#tim bradford x reader #tim bradford the rookie #tim bradford imagine #tim bradford fic #tim bradford #tim bradford x you #tim bradford x y/n #fem!reader #hanna writes✯#the rookie x reader #the rookie abc

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qcomicsy · 2 years

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Phrases I bet were said on the Wayne Manor without context Part ll

Tim: You know, everytime we have to say "technically it's not murder" it doesn't sound as great as we hope it so.

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Dick, on the living room:

Duke, first time alone with him: So... Discowing, huh.

Dick: Alright-

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Alfred, very tired: I suppose I shouldn't ask about the 6'0 orange lady flying of your window this morning?

17 year old Dick Grayson: I'd really hope you not.

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Steph: I'm JUST SAYING, that IF "hypothetically" WE both showed up on patrol wearing my cape, hood down and then lifted up the hood just to show matching RedHood™ helmets behind it we could both have the joy to see penguin's henchmen pissing on their pants.

Jason putting his book down: I'm listening.

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Dick: Just- Just be nice about it, for once in your life okay?

Bruce: Hn. (lying)

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Bruce: I'd like to remind all of you that Diana has international political immunity.

Dick: The fuck you mean by that????

Bruce: No reason. Just saying. In case we all forgot.

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Alfred: We are all aware that Master Bruce isn't fond of violence *loads glock*.

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Bruce: Be nice to your brother

Jason: I'm not even nice to you.

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Jason, 10 years old talking about Dick to his school friend: Yeah, he just comes here, eat all our food, screams at Bruce for 45 minutes and goes away.

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Tim, 15 years old, also talking about Dick to his school friend: He just comes here-

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Bruce, very, very tired: So... a boat.

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Tim: Do it.

Jason, cleaning his gun: Dude what the fuck.

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Tim, 7 nights awake in a roll: Do you think if I just scream loud enough Clark will come here and put me out of my misery.

Dick as Batman, 12 nights awake in a roll: He won't.

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Dick putting Batman's suit: He couldn't at least had the DECENCY of cleaning- muffled cursing noises*

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Harley Quinn at 3 am: I'll pay you fifty bucks if you pretend you never saw me here

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Dick, 17 years old: The fuck are you doing here.

Talia, with a shitty ass grin showing the engagement ring on her finger: I live here.

Dick:

Bruce: Listen-

#batfamily shenaningans #batfamily incorrect quotes #batfam incorrect quotes #incorrect quotes #dick grayson #jason todd #duke thomas #tim drake #bruce wayne #alfred pennyworth #talia al ghul #this turned a lot more dick centric than I intended #but hey I love the boy #let's hear for the boy #what can I do #phrases I bet were said

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froggibus · 2 years

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Valentine's Day HCs - Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, Cassandra Cain, Duke Thomas, platonic! Damian Wayne

Includes: Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, Cassandra Cain, Duke Thomas and platonic! Damian Wayne

Summary: how your fave batfam member would treat you on valentine's day

CW: gn! reader, some are a little ooc cause its my first time writing them, fluff and sweetness all around, dames is strictly platonic!!!

another part to my valentine's hcs!! if you guys enjoyed this, consider checking out some of the other ones!

Valentine's 2023 Masterlist

————

Bruce Wayne:

probably one of the only nights you can actually convince him to take a break and pay attention to you

(read: Alfred would ground him for weeks if he forgot to do something nice for you)

leaves you a big gift box on your bed stuffed with fancy tissue paper and a little card

it just says ‘wear me’ and when you unwrap it it’s a super formal outfit

Bruce doesn’t tell you where he’s taking you until he shows up at your house in one of his cars, holding a dozen roses

he ends up taking you to his private airstrip in Gotham

he flies you to Monaco and takes you to a restaurant you always wanted to try!!

and since you’re away from Gotham, the press isn’t even bothering you

after dinner, he takes you to a nice speakeasy for drinks and dessert

he even turns his phone off so that he can focus on you 100%

you guys stay the night in a penthouse suite above Monaco

“I know I don’t always have a lot of time for you, but I hope you know that I do really love you.”

Dick Grayson:

this man is CHEESY I’m sorry

like he goes all out and he’s not even embarrassed about it

probably asks you to be his Valentine in like a cute promposal-esque way

he’s somewhere between between Bruce and Jason on Valentine’s plans

like he doesn’t want to go all out to all these fancy places, but he doesn’t want to just do a date at home

so he ends up taking you ice skating!!

(unrelated but I HC him as a really good figure skater)

holds your hands the whole time and does like some cutesy couples skate

also he definitely shows off what a good skater he is and does some cool gymnastics moves

after skating, you guys go through a walk through the park

he takes you to get some yummy street food and hot chocolate too

“Thanks for always sticking out the good and the bad with me, y/n. Whenever you’re with me, I feel like there’s nothing I can’t do.”

Jason Todd:

I feel like this man is secretly super romantic

he doesn’t really like big crowds and don’t even get him started at fancy restaurants where the portion is way too small

also he’s a big softie so he probably plans something super intimate for you guys

picks up a copy of his favourite book and annotates his favorite passages

and writes little stories and things he loves about you in the margins

he invites you over to his place to cook dinner for you

has a playlist of your favorite music playing while he cooks

definitely something super yummy and comforting!!

he gives you the book after dinner while he waits for dessert to be done

you guys eat dessert and cuddle on the couch and talk about books and movies

he would definitely dance with you in the living room too!

like cute dorky dancing where you stand on his feet and just kinda sway around the room

“I’m pretty sure you know how I feel about people, but y/n? You make me think not everyone is so bad.”

Tim Drake:

he is definitely the type to not care about Valentine’s Day

anytime someone brings it up he has to go on this tangent about how it’s not a real holiday

however, if his partner cares about it, he can put his own feelings behind him and suck it up for the day

definitely stays up for several days trying to plan out a perfect for you guys

but since he’s so tired he ends up sleeping in past when he’s supposed to pick you up :((

you don’t mind tho because Tim sleeping is a gift in itself lmfao

he scrambles to get ready and picks you up not much later than he was supposed to

he takes you to a super cute video game cafe

you guys get some yummy drinks and cute little heart shaped cookies and snacks

and then you guys hop on the computers to play some games!!

he probably plays some fun little coop games with you so that you can actually spend quality time together

takes you home and you guys just relax on the couch and watch tv

(Tim definitely watches Criminal Minds and relates a little too much to Spencer Reid)

“I know I said I don’t really care about Valentines and honestly I don’t but I know you do and I know it’s not a lot but I just really wanted to give you the date you deserve.”

Stephanie Brown:

this is HER holiday

like it might as well be St Steph Day

she has MAJOR plans for the two of you

and she definitely asks you to her Valentine with this cute little homemade Valentine she made just for you

she brings her camera with new film because she’s going to take so many pictures!!

probably coordinates her outfit to yours just so you guys look all cute and matching

she takes you to a light dinner first, probably like sushi or ramen or something

and then you guys go to a special Valentines concert in the park!!

of course Steph knows all the songs and all the choreography

she dances all goofy and tries to get you to dance with her too!

sends you copies of all the pictures she takes after and posts them on her Instagram with a cute caption like

“Best Valentine’s Date Ever!! y/n truly is the loml !”

Cassandra Cain:

she’s probably never celebrated Valentines before

just never did as a kid and then never had any interest as an adult

but you seem so excited about it that she wants to try

she definitely goes to Steph and Barbara for advice on what to do for you

and of course her girls have her back!!

she’s really shy when she asks you, but she decides to go the simple route and straight up asks

she’s so relieved when you say yes!!

she gets you a potted plant instead of flowers cause she doesn’t really get the point of getting you something that’ll die soon

she packs you guys a really nice picnic and the two of you go for a hike by her favorite spot

there’s a really nice waterfall up there and some dry rocks where she spreads out a picnic blanket

the two of you snack on the food she brought and just chat

you’re honestly really touched that she was thinking about you this Valentine’s Day and wanted to do something special for you

“I know it’s not much, but it’s my first time celebrating and I really wanted to do something nice for you.”

Duke Thomas:

he’s super nervous to be celebrating your first valentines together

and knowing him he just has to make it perfect

he’s probably had his dinner reservation for like a month at least

picks up a bouquet of your favourite flowers too (bonus points cause he gets them from a local florist instead of a supermarket)

spends hours and hours picking out the perfect outfit too

probably calls Steph and asks for her advice on his outfit, cologne, his gift for you etc.

is at your house ready to pick you up super early

waits as long as you need to get ready and his jaw DROPS when he sees you

all flustered and shy and stumbles over his words while he tries to compliment you!!

he definitely relaxes a little on the way to the restaurant

by the time you’re eating, you guys are making easy conversation and by dessert he’s holding your hands across the table <3

insists you guys go for a walk after dinner to look at the stars !!

“so, how did I do? did I nail it?”

Damian Wayne:

he is a complete stranger to the concept of Valentines

And much like Tim he simply does not care

however his teacher makes them make little mail boxes in school and teaches them about the history of the holiday

and he gets a bit of a heavy heart realizing this is something normal kids do and he just really wants to fit in even if he’ll never admit

which is what leads him to you the day before Valentine’s Day

and of course you can’t say no to him because he’s being vulnerable with you and he’s just so fragile :((

that’s how you end up taking him to the craft store to pick up foam and ribbons and glitter glue and stickers

the two of you sit down at the table and get to work making cute little heart shaped valentines for all of his classmates

he probably handwrites a message on each of them individually

things like “I tolerate you” and “you’re not the stupidest person in our class”

the spirit is there lol

Steph and Dick definitely join in and help you guys make them at some point

and Alfred makes sure you guys have snacks and drinks the whole time

at school the next day he’s so nervous to give them out but when he gets his first ever Valentine he’s so happy !!

and when he gets home you’re waiting there with the rest of the family with more Valentine’s for him!!

pretends he doesn’t care but he’s smiling and blushing and hides them in a shoebox in his closet

he looks at them whenever he’s sad :((

“As stupid as Valentines are, thank you, y/n, for helping me join in this year”

pretends he doesn’t care but he’s smiling and blushing and hides them in a shoebox in his closet

#batfam #batfam x reader #batfam hcs #batfam x you #dick grayson x reader #bruce wayne x reader #jason todd x reader #tim drake x reader #stephanie brown x reader #cassandra cain x reader #duke thomas x reader #damian wayne #damian wayne x batsis #red hood x you #batman x you #nightwing x you #red robin x you #robin x you #batgirl x you

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studentfilmyoulying · 18 days

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can u feed me another brim fanfic😭 I love brim too much

It took a while, but absolutely :3 bc same tbh

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Ship: Brim (Brian Thomas x Tim Wright

Length: ~700 Words

Trigger warnings: none

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Brian pulled up to the Blockbuster, Tim in the passenger seat; the sun was starting to set and warm colors washed over everything. He starts to get out of the car and realizes Tim isn't following suit.

"C'mon Tim, you gotta help pick out a movie for tonight," he reached over and casually brushed Tim's hair out of his eyes, doing his best to ignore how this made the other man blush.

"Brian, I told you, I'm not going in with all this makeup on my face. I don't know why Kralie even bothers; his camera is too shitty to pick it up anyways," Tim huffed.

"Oh, please, you can barely tell, and plus, it looks good on you. It highlights your masculine features and those sexy as fuck sideburns," Brian comments sarcastically before bursting into laughter as his friend flipped him off and rolled his eyes.

"You know you love them, Bri. Alright, fine, I'll go in, but if I get hate-crimed for being a man wearing makeup in Alabama, it's on you."

Brian stifled his laughter as they both got out and went into the Blockbuster. They walked straight to the VHS section as neither of them had a DVD player yet, and Tim claims it "looks more authentic," whatever that means. He immediately picks up some 80s dark fantasy film with barely clothed women on the front and shows it to Tim, waggling his brows at him suggestively. He responds by smacking him on the back of his head (on him tippy toes) and keeps looking.

"What're you in the mood for tonight?"

Tim scans the shelves before picking one up, "How about My Little Pony—A Very Minty Christmas, eh? Seems like a real thriller."

"I hate you," Brian says as he tries not to draw too much attention to them with his raucous laughter. He picks up one they haven't seen before and suggests it. "How about this one? Looks interesting,"

"I'm down; let's go pick out some snacks." Tim then heads over to the snack area, where he grabs a box of Muddy Bears, Snowcaps, and Cookie Dough Bites. Brian grabs a box of popcorn, and they go checkout. Once they finish, they pile back into Brian's car and head over to his place for a movie night.

They get to Brian's place as the sky tints the front lawn purple with the setting sun. After getting inside, the two men easily slip into their usual roles. Tim prepares the popcorn and snacks; Brian sets up the movie and makes the living room cozy. It just became routine to them after awhile, and it was easier this way.

Popcorn popped, and movie started, they cuddled up together on the couch with a blanket thrown over their laps. As if knowing the movie was about to begin, the sun finished it's descent to the horizon and it was now dark outside, setting the mood perfectly.

The title screen came up; "The Forgotten" appeared on screen as Tim leans in to rest his head against Brian. The taller man returns the gesture by grabbing Tim's hand under the blanket and giving it a gentle squeeze.

As quickly as it began, it was over. Brian disentangled himself from Tim, much to the others disappointment, and turned the lights on.

"I'm still not sure if that was supposed to be God or aliens in the sky."

""I'm gonna go with Aliens; why would God do experiments on people?" Brian responds as he sits back down.

"I mean, why wouldn't he?" Almost as soon as Brian was situated on the couch, Tim got all over him again.

He rolled his eyes at the sassy remark and kissed the top of Tim's head, making the other man wriggle in place like an overly-excited puppy.

Tim continues, "I think it was God, and if God ever took away my memories of you, fuck, I'd challenge God to give you back too. Julianne Moore had the right idea. I'd be so lost and empty if I ever forgot you."

"Well, thankfully," Brian begins, "that will never. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. Happen," and with each "ever," Brian peppered Tim's face with kisses, ending with a big smooch right on his lips.

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AAAAA I had such a good time writing this!! It's so nostalgic and cozy! pls send more requests/asks :3

#brim #marble hornets #mh brian #mh tim #mh brim #fanfiction #fanfic #marble hornets fanfic

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bluejay-the-geek · 5 months

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DC characters/moments as Tortured Poets Department songs/lyrics bc i have a light concussion and am very bored (in the album's chronological order)

(disclaimer before someone is triggered- some of the lyrics are taken out of context or interpreted differently than what they actually mean. this is just for fun don't come for me. also this gets pretty angsty towards the end so proceed with caution)

"I was supposed to be sent away, But they forgot to come and get me"- tim drake very obviously bc neglecting parents/boarding school

"I love you, it's ruining my life"- early harleen quinzel about joker

"My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys"- the whole song is just harley quinn idc (pre-harlivy of course)

"Now I'm down bad, cryin' at the gym"- nightwing def cried at the gym at some point

"I stopped tryna make him laugh, stopped tryna drill the safe"- dick grayson about bruce after moving out of wayne manor

"You swore that you loved me, but where were the clues? I died on the altar waitin' for the proof, You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days"- remember the whole selena leaving bruce at the alter thing? yeah

"I'd rather burn my whole life down, Than listen to one more second of all this bitchin' and moanin', I'll tell you something 'bout my good name, It's mine alone to disgrace"- I'm just getting red hood vibes from this no specific reason

"Now, pretty baby, I'm runnin' back home to you, Fresh out the slammer, I know who my first call will be to"- almost every gotham rouge to batman right after escaping arkham/prison. especially joker, catwoman and riddler lol

"At the park where we used to sit on children's swings, Wearing imaginary rings"- this one specific panel of tim and steph

"And this city reeks of driving myself crazy"- everyone who's ever been to gotham

"All my girls got their lace and their crimes, And your cheating husband disappeared, well, No one asks any questions here"- it's giving gotham city sirens

"Am I allowed to cry?"- maybe it's just me but i thought about clark kent discovering he had different biological parents and grieving about them even though the parents that actually raised him are alive and well

"So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street, Crash the party like a record scratch as I scream, "Who's afraid of little old me?", You should be" red hood's debut

"The scandal was contained, The bullet had just grazed, At all costs, keep your good name, You don't get to tell me you feel bad"- jason todd about the whole making batman choose between him and joker at the end of under the red hood

"You wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me"- this is 100% Bane bc he was born and grew up in prison for a crime he didn't even do!! also cassandra cain and damian wayne

(^this is actually the lyric that inspired this entire post lol)

"You caged me and then you called me crazy, I am what I am 'cause you trained me, So who's afraid of me? Who's afraid of little old me?"- kind of a stretch but remember that time they put jason in arkham?

I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)- again the whole song is harley about joker

"Your arson's match, your somber eyes, And I'll still see it until I die, You're the loss of my life"- bruce about jason. out of all the robins that died, jason's death hit him the hardest. even now when bruce sees red hood, he still sees that happy little kid that he lost

"I can read your mind, "She's having the time of her life", There in her glittering prime, The lights refract sequin stars off her silhouette every night, I can show you lies"- bc we all know Nightwing is always dying on the inside, and it was very true in the discowing era bc it was right after he left the manor

"'Cause I'm a real tough kid, I can handle my shit"- jason pre-bruce

"I'm so obsessed with him, but he avoids me like the plague"- ok so we got joker about batman, cupid about green arrow, hush about bruce wayne... and a bunch of others but it's too many to write lol

"And you deserve prison, but you won't get time"- fucking tarantula that bitch

"The smallest man who ever lived"- the atom! not any of the messages in the song tho ofc he's just very small

"What if I told you I'm back? The hospital was a drag, Worst sleep that I ever had, I circled you on a map ,I haven't come around in so long, But I'm coming back so strong"- joker to batman after escaping arkham again

"I haven't come around in so long, But I'm making a comeback to where I belong"- jason coming back to protect crime alley after being away from gotham for years after his resurrection

"Even if it's handcuffed, I'm leavin' here with you"- batman and catwoman<3

I Hate It Here- imagine the whole song as homeless jason todd taking shelter in the library💔

"I built a legacy that you can't undo, But when I count the scars, there's a moment of truth, That there wouldn't be this if there hadn't been you"- bruce built a legacy as batman, and created a huge family he loves, and it hurts to think about but he wouldn't have any of it if joe chill hadn't murdered his parents

"Please, I've been on my knees, Change the prophecy, Don't want money, Just someone who wants my company"- kid bruce grew up all alone in a huge mansion, but he'd give all his billions away in a heartbeat if he could change his parent's fate

"So, they killed Cassandra first 'cause she feared the worst"- ok so you might think i chose cassandra cain for this only bc of the name, BUT- cass notices things others don't (like cassandra the prophet...), bc of her skills and abilities she is feared the most (Ik the song said "she feared" not "she is feared" but idc lol). like if someone knew so much about you just by looking you'd think she's some kind of a witch too

Peter- picture this: jason had a childhood friend back at crime alley. he left to live in wayne manor and become robin, and said goodbye to his old friend, promising they'd reunite again in the future. 3 years pass and his friend reads an article about jason's death. now listen to the song and try not to cry (if someone writes that fic send me the link IMMEDIATELY this has been haunting me) here's the link to the song with lyrics bc ik you're too lazy to look it up. also jason's middle name is peter:)

"Splendidly selfish, charmingly helpless, Excellent fun 'til you get to know her"- brucie wayne vs batman

"Started with a kiss, "Oh, we must stop meeting like this" But it always ends up with a town car speeding, Out the drive one evening"- catwoman and batman of course<3 the town car is the batmobile speeding out the batcave to catch catwoman (to arrest her or make out with her? probs both)

Robin- ofc we have to go robins for robin! imo that's bruce to dick and jason's robins, and dick to damian when he was his robin. dick and jason- despite the hard times they went through that led to them becoming robins, they were still mostly happy curious kids that run around covered in mud while bruce tried (unsuccessfully) to maintain the innocence they had left. as for damian- it's more of a stretch than the other 2 bc he had no childlike innocence before robin, but dick tried his hardest to extract the child that was hidden inside the ruthless assassin the league created, finally allowing him to experience normal kid things. idk

"He said, "I'm not a donor but, I'd give you my heart if you needed it", She rolled her eyes and said, "You're a professional""-to me this is clark kent completely in love and lois with her sass

"And at last, She knew what the agony had been for"- almost every hero. they suffer, they sacrifice, they fight, and sometimes they want to give up- but at the end of the day, they save lives, so it's all worth it

and that's it folks! feel free to add more/share your insights!!

sorry for any spelling/grammer mistakes, English isn't my first language plus like the title said i had a minor head injury a few days ago and I'm tired soI'm not proofreading this bc I'm going to sleep rn goodnight to all✌️

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malestransforming · 2 years

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Cold Water

Tim and Daniel are sitting watching the sunrise over the ocean. They want to go spearfishing but Tim forgot to bring their gear, so Daniel decides to improvise...

This is an inanimate TF story.

The sky was heavy with dawn and a looming mist draped over the water in front of us. Tim and I sat together on a rocky outcrop, listening to the gentle lapping of the ocean waves collapsing onto the shore below us. He sat beside me, wearing an oversized hoodie, a bright red beanie hat and black pants, watching the darkness of the sky melt away with the first lights of the morning sun appeared in the distance. A breeze blew off of the water and we both shivered while watching the inky black waves crash and foam below.

“I’m so sorry,” Tim repeated. “I thought I had all our gear.”

Tim had been in charge of bringing our spearfishing gear on this trip. He had packed our bags, prepared our wetsuits, fins, masks and snorkels. I was in charge of the spearguns, spears and floats, and they were all lying on the damp ground behind us.

I smiled at Tim, “It’s fine. Really. I’m happy to finally spend some time with you, that’s all I wanted.”

Tim didn’t return my gaze. He looked down at the soggy rocks and rubbed at them with his thumb.

“I know,” he finally said. “Me too. I was just really looking forward to diving the bay. The fishing here is supposed to be amazing!”

We both paused, letting the moment rest. I suddenly realised something. “Y’know... I might be able to sort something out.” I said, climbing to my feet. “Really? How?” Tim said, looking up at me.

I began to take off my own hoodie and pants, bracing for the cold sea air to wrap around my bare skin. I tossed my clothing at Tim, who playfully tossed it away from me. When I was just standing in my underwear, I took those off too and threw them at Tim’s head. He caught them and tossed them with the rest of my clothing. I stood in front him, shivering and cold, and naked as the day I came.

“Just wait. You’ll like this, I promise.”

I sat down next to Tim and stretched my legs out in front of me. The cold rock against my bare backside was only slightly colder than the air around me. But not to worry, I thought, soon I will be a thick neoprene wetsuit, ready for the cold water.

After a few minutes of deep breathing and concentrating, I felt the changes begin. It started with my toes growing numb and lifeless, flattening and stretching out into rubber flipper fins.

“What the fuck?” Tim exclaimed. “What are you doing?”

“Quiet. Just watch. You’ll be able to go spearfishing soon,” I grinned at Tim. If he asked any follow up questions, I didn’t hear them. Contorting my face slightly, I concentrated on making the changes happen.

My feet flattened and widened before they grew and stretched out to almost a metre in length. A red graphic sketched itself on the top flat part of my foot. I tried to bend and wiggle my toes but found I couldn’t as there were no bones or nerve endings anymore. I managed a brief shake with my leg and found that the flipper part was very flexible, perfect for diving down deep in the ocean. A plastic ridge formed at the edge of the fin that tapered all the way to the very tip of it, allowing for more flexibility and sturdiness. Sitting with the flippers straight up in the air quickly became taxing on my ankles, and made me long for the changes to the rest of my feet to hurry.

The top part of my foot bulged out and hollowed enough for Tim to slide his own foot inside. Parts of my bone and muscle transformed into a neoprene bootie so Tim’s own feet would not get cold in the freezing waters. With my feet now completely transformed into long spearfishing fins, and no longer able to support themselves, they both collapsed to the side with only a black neoprene bootie peeking from inside. I now sat, footless, on the rocks with a ring of black rubber forming at my ankles and creeping up my legs. The changes continued with the black neoprene ring climbing up my calves towards my knees. As it went, my legs hollowed and flattened. It felt like pins and needles were inching their way up my legs; my skin thickened and then turned numb as the rubbery texture grew larger and larger.

The black glideskin neoprene was rubbery and smooth. Reaching down to feel, it felt very odd under my skin, as my internal bones and blood faded away and my body transformed into thick, spongey neoprene. A 7mm thick wetsuit would be just enough for Tim. I pulled at the material and felt how elastic and stretchy I had become.

As the changes approached my crotch, I lay my top half down on the ground as I would soon lose any ability to keep myself sitting upright. The neoprene at my crotch was not the shiny rubbery glideskin that my legs had become, it was the nylon-covered closed cell style that would allow for more flexibility in Tim’s sensitive areas. I angled my arms and elbows beneath my back and lifted my upper neck and shoulders so I could still watch the changes.

Parts of my hip bone popped and groaned and slipped from my waist, thunking onto the floor as a diving weight belt. A piece of stretchy silicon and rubber snaked through each weight and a plastic clip snapped onto the end. My neoprene body was very buoyant and would make Tim float unless he wore a weight belt to help him dive to the bottom of the sea.

My penis became deflated and flat, but still maintained it’s cylindrical shape and definition. As it deflated and emptied, the neoprene material stretched a little longer, becoming a pee hole for the trouser section of the wetsuit. The trouser part continued to just above my belly button, covering over the place where the weight belt had just appeared. Once above my waist, an entirely new section of wetsuit formed. The jacket section forged itself towards my armpits, but it also continued down to my crotch and legs, overlapping the material from my legs. A white seam wrapped around my waist separating the open cell material from the closed cell. The shiny neoprene rubber went up my body towards my head. A beaver tail enclosure formed at my back and slid in between my legs and two plastic clips popped out from my stomach.

My arms suddenly buckled and gave away, forcing my top half down and making me unable to watch my chest and stomach change. My arms and elbows were next to be transformed into slick rubbery neoprene and hollowed out; without bones to support my neck and head, I couldn’t keep them up.

The shiny rubbery neoprene continued along my arms and shoulders. My hands formed into thick neoprene gloves, with thick material like the rest of my body and velcro adjustment straps that snaked around my wrists. My palms bubbled into a grippy rubber and waterproof seals and seams stitched down the sides of my fingers. Once finished they lay on the ground, lifeless and empty. I instinctively tried to move my phantom hand but was obviously unable to move an inanimate neoprene diving glove.

At my neck, the neoprene completely engulfed my throat and back of my head. The material stopped just short of my face, forming a tight rubber seal that enveloped my ears. It climbed around the top of my head, claiming every strand of hair and inch of skin as stretchy rubber neoprene now. A warm and dull feeling crossed over my head and everything inside the neoprene hood melted into rubber and nylon. A new purpose, as a spearfishing wetsuit, overtook my mind. My lips involuntarily formed an O-shape and every organic part of my mouth melted into back plastic and pushed its way out into a long tubular snorkel. The final change was my eyes which popped out into a glass diving mask, a thick rubber strap snapping around the back of my head and a silicon seal suctioning off of the last remnants of my face.

The mask, snorkel and hood flopped on the ground. I was done changing. I couldn’t breathe or move, but I knew I didn’t need to. I was a wetsuit now and awaited the icy depths of the ocean; my neoprene shell ready to disperse heat and wick away moisture. I was ready for a dive!

My mouth was still hanging open. One minute we had been talking, watching the sunrise and listening to the waves, the next Daniel was naked, sitting on the rocks in the cold morning air and asking me to be quiet so he could concentrate. He told me to watch his foot and I watched the very tips of his feet compress and flatten and stretch out really far. His pink fleshy skin turned into a black rubber and plastic, and when I reached and touched it, I was able to bend it slightly. His feet looked a lot like spearfishing fins.

“What the fuck?” I yelled. “What are you doing?”

Daniel told me to be quiet.

I watched as his feet continued to stretch and grow longer. The rest of his feet swelled and emptied out. I repositioned where I was sitting and looked closer to see the changes more fully. The inside of the flipper was void except for a black neoprene bootie: his entire foot was gone!

The changes kept going. Daniel’s ankles turned black and shiny, resembling the same smooth skin open-cell neoprene material that our wetsuits at home were made from. The material travelled up his legs to his crotch. Waterproof seams and seals appeared on the sides of his legs. I touched the trousers. They were vibrating slightly, and felt spongey and rubbery. Pushing down on the material, it felt exactly the same as any other wetsuit I had owned, except this one was growing from where Daniel was lying. There was no denying that Daniel’s legs had changed into a wetsuit.

As the changes reached Daniel’s penis I suddenly became aware that my own penis was erect. I pulled down my shorts and began stroking to what I was watching. Daniel didn’t notice as he had laid down on the ground fully. His own penis flattened and disappeared into the black neoprene.

He really was changing into a wetsuit! But not changing into in the way you put one on, I mean he was becoming the wetsuit!

A weight belt thudded to the ground beside him — I guess he thought of everything I would need down in there.

Once the changes got to his chest, I was able to nudge Daniel’s legs and see they were completely empty and hollow. His entire body was changing.

The shininess of the rubbery, black neoprene travelled under his armpits and down his arms. Any body hair was instantly absorbed and changed. His hands switched into thick neoprene gloves, and just as well as the water was going to be freezing!

Once the neoprene got to Daniel’s neck, it moved around the back to form the wetsuit hood. His facial hair and head hair melted and became neoprene, rubber and nylon. His eyes popped out into a diving mask, and a snorkel pushed out of his mouth. With that last change, everything flopped and fell to the ground; empty and cold and without a wearer. There was no sign of Daniel, just a black wetsuit, mask, snorkel and fins.

I came over the rocks and quickly rushed to take offmy clothing. The sea air ripped at my skin but it would soon be covered by Daniel’s new neoprene body and the ice cold of the sea water.

I slipped my feet and legs into the wetsuit trousers, careful to not tear the material. The inside was already lubed and slid across my skin with ease. I put on the booties and tucked the upper part of the boot under the ankle material of the trousers, so as to limit any water getting to my bare skin. Grabbing the jacket, I first put my left arm into the arm hole and threaded it through to the wrist. As I slid the rest of the jacket over my head and down my torso, I felt another vibration wrap around my entire body. My head popped out of the other side and I attached the beaver tail under my crotch. Grabbing the gloves, I slipped them on my hands and bent down for the mask, fins and snorkel. The weight belt was the last thing I needed and was fastened around my waist.

There was a rocky outcrop just beside where we had been sitting that lead down to a secluded beach. I picked up the speargun and floats and carefully treaded down the slick steps. Once at the shore, I took a deep breath and prepared to step into the water. Using a rock for balance, I put on my fins (Daniel’s feet) and slipped the wetsuit hood (Daniel’s head) over my head. I quickly used the sea water to clean out the mask (Daniel’s eyes and nose) before donning it over my face. I stuck the snorkel (Daniel’s lips and mouth) into my mouth and gripped the speargun. The sun was up now and the ocean was flat and calm. The only sound came from the gentle rush of the waves hitting the beach. It was still cold, but the thick neoprene that Daniel had become was going to be more than enough to keep me warm for a few hours.

“I don’t know what just happened,” I said out loud. “But I liked it. I wonder what else you can become.”

And with that, I took a giant plunge into the icy waters.

#inanimate tf #wetsuit #male tf #rubber #neoprene

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cdyssey · 2 years

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One Bed

Summary: When Barbara and Melissa get to their conference hotel room, they're unduly shocked that there is only one bed. [Post-2.16]

CW: Alcohol, Drunkenness, Emotional Infidelity/Infidelity, Sexual Innuendo/References

AO3

—

It’s a mistake, of course.

A clerical error most likely.

Perfectly reasonable given all the administrative duress that the hotel must be under since it’s hosting PECSA.

When Barbara and Melissa get to their shared room, huffing and puffing and ready to park their tired asses down—having lugged their suitcases all the way down a long hallway that looks like it could have come straight from The Shining—they quickly realize that instead of two queens, there’s only one king-sized bed that’s clearly made for two.

Barbara reacts as she’s supposed to, as is to be expected of her, a zealous woman of God—scandalized and righteously bewildered, stopping dead in the middle of the doorway, clenching the handle of her makeup bag far too tightly…

(… battling unsolicited images of Melissa’s beautiful hair splayed across a white pillow.)

(And she isn’t wearing a shirt in this vision for some inexplicable reason either, the contours of a black lace bra doing absolutely nothing to contain those creamy, voluptuous—)

“Oh, almighty God in Heaven,” she exhales with shuttered breath, blinking rapidly. Melissa nearly runs into her, the tip of her shoe clipping her heel as she also tries to teeter to an abrupt standstill with all her luggage.

It’s almost funny.

The way that Barbara barely feels the ensuing sting.

“What?” The younger woman grunts as she peers over her shoulder. “Is the room not clean yet or somethin’ because I swear to God, I ain’t carrying all this crap down aga—“

But she stops short, clearly sees the dilemma.

That one bed.

“Ah,” she only says, temporarily rendered speechless, which is a damn near feat for Melissa Schemmenti, who has strong opinions on pretty much everything, from the starting lineup of the Flyers to which Wawa hoagie is the best.

(The Gobbler obviously.)

“We should call downstairs,” Barbara suggests weakly, her throat strangely dry. Maybe it’s just the Allentown weather, and her sinuses are acting up, as they’re wont to do in strange environments.

Because surely, it’s not the prospect of sharing the same bed with her dearest friend in the entire world.

That would be ludicrous to be bothered about.

Absurd even.

It’s merely a bed, and she’s a grown-ass woman who is perfectly capable of cohabiting a bed with another grown-ass woman.

If it has to come to that.

(She doesn’t think it would be a particularly good idea for it to come to that.)

“See if we can get it changed,” she continues, attempting a smile that stretches across her lips like rusted wire.

“What?” Melissa teases, having regained her composure far more quickly than Barbara. Her chin is nearly touching her shoulder, and that makes the kindergarten teacher feel some kind of way too, as though there’s a tightness coiled just behind her navel. She also blames this on her incredibly sensitive allergies, inwardly lamenting that she forgot to pack her Sudafed.

“You scared to sleep in the same bed with me? ‘Fraid I have cooties?”

She receives an accompanying smirk and an elbow nudge at this, pinned down by twinkling eyes that remind her of both hearth and home, and Barbara can’t help it; she laughs in spite of herself.

Because it never really matters in the end.

Not with Melissa Schemmenti.

Whether she’s irritated about paperwork, stressed after a long few weeks of fearing that her husband has prostate cancer, or experiencing inconvenient sinus symptoms, the younger woman always knows how to tease a smile out of her. She’s a menace and one hell of a saint; she absolutely delights in doing so.

Barbara used to hate that when she was a younger woman, loathed that there was apparently one person who could sneak past her well-constructed defenses and disarm them all with a sly wink and a shit-eating grin. She used to nag at Melissa all the time for being facetious.

It was utterly inappropriate.

All the jokes and games and innuendos that would make a preacher blush.

They were supposed to be adults.

But now, nearly three decades down the line, she’s forever grateful to Melissa for continually reminding her of how to play.

“No, of course not,” she insists vigorously. “I just know that you and I would both be more comfortable if we had our own beds. Our backs are more twisted than those kids who won at the end of Footloose.”

“Pssh, that’s the moral you took at the end of Footloose, Barb?” Melissa snorts incredulously, shaking her fiery head.

“Yes!”

No, it absolutely was not, but she isn’t going to admit to spending an inordinate amount of time admiring Lori Singer’s toned arms.

As inspiration for her own exercise regiment, naturally.

“God bless ya,” her friend chortles fondly, “but hell yeah, sure. We can grab our swag bags from the ballroom and swing by the front desk afterwards. And then it’s—“

“—pool time, baby,” Barbara finishes with delicious zeal, unable to contain herself, affecting a theatrical, little shoulder shimmy.

She’s been looking forward to PECSA for at least a month now, anticipating all the best parts in advance: the long car ride with Melissa and the inevitable hours in the pool with her too, luxuriating in the sauna with Melissa, boozing it up with Melissa, staggering back to the room gloriously drunk at 2AM with Melissa, (wondering why life isn’t always as lovely as this in a tequila-soaked daze).

Waking up to Melissa as the first sight she sees in the morning.

Nursing a nasty hangover.

Thinking it’s an appropriate and welcome punishment for ever daring to be so perfectly happy.

(With Melissa.)

These are the traditions that they’ve threaded for themselves in all these years upon years—their rituals of unbecoming, of leaving school and family chaos and the consummate professionals that they always have to be behind. And, of course, what happens at the conference stays at the conference. That’s their maxim anyway—maybe even their chosen excuse—for the ways they tend to act when they’re alone.

“Well, I was gonna say booze time,” the younger woman grins, “but I guess the two aren’t mutually exclusive the way we do it.”

“No,” Barbara easily returns the smile, affectionately knocking her hip against Melissa’s own. “Not at all.”

—

An hour later, they’re stretched out side-by-side on lounge chairs by the pool—pre-gaming for PECSA-geddon with piña coladas—when Melissa gets a call from the concierge; they’d stopped by the lobby before heading upstairs to change into their swimsuits and made the manager aware of the error, leaving with a promise that he’d look for another room and get back to them as soon as check-in rush was over.

But to no avail.

There are no doubles left in the inn.

“He said they’ll send us a complimentary bottle of champagne for the trouble, though,” the second-grade teacher shrugs as she tosses her phone into her beach bag again. “So that’s a plus. I’mma need copious amounts of alcohol to cope with seein’ my sister’s ugly mug.”

Barbara, who had been stuck on the fact that she is in fact going to have to share a bed with Melissa tonight—(again, not that it discomfits her at all! she’s a grown-ass woman!)—is a little late registering what she just said, but when it hits her, when she remembers that they’d run into Kristin Marie before leaving the vendor ballroom, she sharply recalls the way the two sisters had so viscerally sparred.

As they always do when they encounter each other in the wild—claws out, hackles raised, their words like sharp teeth at the edge of the other’s exposed throat.

Barbara frankly thinks that their estrangement has gone on for too damn long. She’s seen enough of their fights to know that beneath all the name calling and cooking-based insults, they clearly love and miss each other, even if they’re both too stubborn to ever admit it. But all the same, she hadn’t appreciated Kristin Marie’s remarkably low blow about Joseph.

Hell, she may have even said something herself had Melissa not gotten there first.

“About that…” She begins, biting her plump lower lip. It tastes like pineapple. She briefly prays—perhaps inappropriately—that the rum will give her liquid courage.

Barbara is well-aware that they have an implicit but long-established rule not to bring their personal lives with them to conferences. Last year, for instance, they did an exceptionally fine job of not talking about the fact that the Howards had been in unhappy straits, their marriage strained by Gerald’s recent promotion. His long hours exacted a toll from them; his frequent out-of-town trips caused an abyss that neither of them knew how to functionally bridge.

They didn’t argue necessarily—they just constantly disagreed with each other in their normal tones of voice—but that was somehow the exact same thing and possibly even worse.

(Maybe they were too apathetic to even muster themselves to fight.)

They persevered and made it through that dark time, though.

(Mostly.)

They tentatively reconciled.

(They never directly spoke about the thousands of tensions between them, steamrolling over and through them instead, affecting a normality that neither of them looked like they could wholly feel.)

Of course they did. There was no other option. Divorce was synonymous with quitting, and quitting was in neither of their vocabularies.

But things had been complicated there for a while.

Life had been.

And this time last year, Melissa didn’t have to ask if something was wrong. Attentive to every microgesture, she just capably knew and didn’t press Barbara about any of it.

Just kept plying drinks into her open hand.

And Barbara Howard had loved her for that—for her discretion, for her clear sensitivity to the delicate situation, for all her innumerable and wordless acts of care—the drinks, her purposefully inane chatter, the way she would sometimes rub circles into the side of the kindergarten teacher’s wrist when they sat at the bar, and every tall man with a sad smile unfailingly reminded her of Gerald.

She’s too something or another—(Involved? Hypocritical? Christian?)—to ever extend her the same courtesy.

“Don’t,” Melissa warns, sucking on the straw of her drink rather petulantly. “I don’t wanna hear it. I ain’t makin’ up with her.”

“I wasn’t going to suggest that,” she replies patiently. (Well, she is. Eventually. If the two of them keep it up this weekend. Both for Melissa’s sake and her own. She’s not willing to play referee to the Schemmenti sisters’ knock-down-drag-out fights again. She’s been there, done that, and every attempt has unfailingly ended with her needing to imbibe copious amounts of wine for doing so.) “I was just going to ensure that you’re okay—see if you wanted to talk about it.”

It isn’t entirely lost on her that Melissa had said the exact same thing to her just two weeks ago when she’d nearly set the school on fire, distracted and undone by the stress of Gerald’s health scare. It isn’t beyond her grasp of irony that they’d concluded that same conversation on a laughing agreement that neither of them believe in the necessity of advertising their stressors.

But still.

It’s them, and they talk through these things when they’re ready or just on the verge of being so. It’s them, and they both implicitly know when the other needs a little push off the terrifying ledge. In fact, it probably wouldn’t be them if they didn’t—push each other and need to occasionally be pushed, that is—always challenging each other in their relationship in some way or another, more than willing to be what the other lacks.

Melissa immediately averts her eyes, staring at the water mere feet away from them, how it rhythmically laps against the side of the pool, and Barbara stares at her, intransigent and yet so gentle, knowing it is a form of love to not let the moment go.

“What’s there to talk about?” She eventually shrugs. Her green cover-up slips at the gesture and the magenta strap of her swimsuit briefly becomes visible, her slightly freckled shoulder exposed.

Barbara blinks rapidly, forcing herself to concentrate, briefly unspooled by a sudden desire to kiss the creamy skin there, to sample the anatomy of her all the way down…

She coughs into her free hand, briefly choked.

Damn sinuses.

“Kristin Marie’s a little shit,” Melissa goes on, oblivious, still looking away, now idly swirling the colorful umbrella in her cocktail glass. “End of the story. Same old, same old.”

“A little shit who is also your sister,” Barbara parries back with a knowing smile as her friend just as deliberately scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest. “Which is what makes it so complicated, sweetheart—the people we love know how to wound us far more effectively than any knife.”

“Did ya get that off a Snapple lid, Barb?” Melissa retorts. Melissa jokes. Melissa capably deflects. Always, always, always. It’s one of her less aggressive defenses against unwanted vulnerability, the one she tends to wield most in conversations with Barbara.

(With other people—outsiders—she’d just bark and perhaps even bite.)

But Barbara solemnly shakes her head, unwilling to let her get away with it, thinking of her best friend’s kindness in these last few weeks—how, ever since the fire, not a day has gone by that she hasn’t made sure that she’s okay. Gerald even told her the other night—as they laid in their sheets after yet another round of celebratory relief sex—that he was glad that she’d finally told Mel.

Mel.

He called her that because he loves her too.

Not in the same way Barbara does, of course…

… whatever way that happens to be.

That’s too complicated for her to ever fully—or at least, audibly—define.

Messy even.

And she despises mess, especially within the immaculate temple of herself; she scrubs it clean at the altar every Sunday, asking God’s forgiveness for a sin that she can’t even name.

She thrilled at her husband bringing Melissa’s pervasive specter into their shared bed, relieved that she didn’t have to be the one to do so; and yet, her hand splayed against his bare chest, she could not bring herself to interrogate the root cause of her own pleasure.

“I was worried about you,” he went on gently, his warm knuckles skimming her forearm as he held her in the dark, “keeping it all on the inside.”

“It was the only thing I could do,” Barbara returned, perhaps a little too quickly, echoing the same sentiment that she had said to Melissa. She could only pray and not talk about it; she had desperately wanted to talk about it, had almost dared to—several times, in fact—as she and Melissa sat at the same table that she’d later burned, as was their habit, as was their decades long norm. But the words remained lacquered on her tongue; the weight of them rendered her incapable of speech; she was convinced that speaking her fears to Melissa would make them all real.

I’m afraid my husband is sick, she could not bring herself to say.

And if he is—if this is our lived reality—then I am devastated, Melissa.

I am so, so guilty.

Our marriage is not what it once was.

She loves Gerald Howard; she always will—he has been her best friend for thirty-seven beautiful years—but she secretly wonders if their renewed closeness in these last few weeks is just mutual and desperate apology, a last-ditch attempt to mend what has certainly been disrupted between them.

They’ve been distant from each other for a long time now.

And it hasn’t been anyone’s fault, really.

All their polite disagreements aside, Barbara is more than aware that Gerald’s promotion was not the fundamental breaking point in their marriage; it was just the easiest grievance to turn into an excuse, the tangible obstacle that they could both offload their hundreds of insecurities into without delving further into any single one of them. They could blame the promotion because it was there. It kept them from having to confront each other, which was far more complicated than having an impartial something to unite against. This lack of introspection allowed their middling reconciliation to be easier to swallow than it probably should have been, and yet, conversely, it made Gerald’s irregular prostate exam results all that much harder to bear three weeks ago. After the fact, they both became alive to the reality that their marriage has long been broken, and they’ve done everything since then to try and bandage the festering wounds.

The sex has been passionate.

Has been sensational even—(they’re both overachievers)—and yet, strangely controlled, as though both of them are seeking atonement from the other’s satisfaction. Barbara appreciates the intimacy; she deeply fears that it is compensating for something that they can never, ever get back.

“You’re happier now that you’ve told her, though,” Gerald continued, and his voice was so kind as it wound its way down to her in the quietness of their room, and yet, she could distinguish that his eyes were shrewd… and perhaps even a little sad.

That had scared her a little.

And maybe a whole lot.

What was there to be shrewd (and perhaps a little sad) about when it came to her relationship with Melissa?

What did he know?

Was it something that she didn’t? Was it the unspoken thing that she could not force herself to articulate—the twinges in her gut that she sometimes experienced when she looked at Melissa, the recurring visions of the woman in her underwear, the thrill that she just experienced when he had only said her name? Was Melissa the unnamable sin that she kept committing—over and over again—without ever fully acknowledging that she was doing so?

“Gerald—” She started, the slightest plea in her voice. She curled her manicured fingers into the dividing line of his sternum and wished that he had said something that she could truthfully deny.

But he cut across her; he enveloped her hand with his own and lightly squeezed.

“—I like it when you’re happy, Barb.”

And somehow, in their nearly four decades long marriage, that was the cruelest thing he had ever said to her because of what it indirectly and yet so clearly implied.

She was not happy with him.

She found, even in the rawness and the immediacy of that moment, that she could not wipe her hands free of blood and cleanly refute this assertion either, and so, only one ruinous fact remained.

She and Gerald love each other deeply and so much.

They’re hurting each other all the same.

“Be serious, girlfriend,” she tells Melissa, frowning firmly, her mind full of her husband, her chest aching because of her best friend. “I’m not talking about Snapple lids and you know it. I’m talking about lived experience.”

I’m talking about your sister.

I’m talking about Gerald Howard.

I’m talking about us.

(She always is in some way or another.)

We both know what it’s like to be hurt by loved ones.

And equally, what it means to hurt them back.

Maybe she and Melissa—without ever really realizing it—hurt each other every blessed day, just by inhabiting the same spaces and fooling themselves into believing that they are careful about never crossing any of its dutifully articulated lines.

“And I don’t wanna be serious, Barb,” Melissa huffs, the playful smile slipping sideways from her mouth. “I want to drink my piña colada and inhale so much chlorinated water that I accidentally get high. Is that so much to ask for PECSA weekend?”

The answer, of course, is no—it’s not a demanding request at all, and if Barbara is any sort of friend, she’d drop the conversation right here and right now, and allow them to return to their various attempts at self-medication… but she can't entirely help herself, a little reckless under the influence, freer here in Allentown from the facade which circumscribes her in every other given context.

PECSA Barbara has a lot in common with Sea Barbara.

They’re both almost truthful.

“Perhaps not,” she admits grudgingly, watching as Melissa places her drink down on the table between them and starts to take her cover-up off, clearly about to make a run from her feelings by diving into the pool. This is yet another one of her friend’s go-to diversionary tactics, the one she commonly resorts to when joking about her pain doesn’t work.

(It never really works on Barbara.)

“But you miss her, Melissa, and she’s here,” she continues, now dry-mouthed and overwhelmed at the sight of the younger woman in just her bathing suit: the ample exposure of her cleavage, the powerful silhouette of her thighs, the thin pink fabric that stretches tightly over her belly. “Perhaps God is trying to tell you something.”

Her chest bruises even as she utters the words.

She probably shouldn’t be invoking God when she can’t keep her eyes off of Melissa Schemmenti’s ass.

“And maybe it’s just a coincidence,” her friend says bluntly, suddenly standing up and kicking her sandals off. One nearly flies into the water.

Barbara winces at the tone, knows that she provoked it and hates that she did—(why can’t she ever leave well enough alone?)—which Melissa immediately catches, her green eyes softening, her entire expression, a conciliatory smile rising to her lips. It’s as crooked as the necklace of saints nigh perpetually strung around her neck.

“But, uh, enough chit-chat,” she says, jerking her head towards the pool, her messy ponytail violently swinging from side-to-side. “You comin’, hon?”

Barbara quickly decides that she’s pushed her luck far enough in this conversation and nods emphatically, slowly tugging her own cover up above her head, revealing her sky blue bathing suit underneath. It doesn’t escape her notice that Melissa’s cheeks have slightly reddened at the sight, that her pupils have dilated, that she’s rubbing at the hollow of her throat with three fingers. Indeed, thoroughly aware of all these reactions, she swallows thickly, suddenly self-conscious. She makes a meal out of neatly folding the garment and placing it in her bag, giving both of them time to recompose themselves.

“After you,” she eventually says in a voice that’s not her own.

And so, when Melissa wades into the water, Barbara dutifully follows, drawn siren-like by the fiery undulations of the other’s hair.

—

Barbara showers first, and Melissa follows.

Afterwards, of course.

Separately.

That’s probably the one thing that they’ve never shared—well, besides a bed, but even that’s about to change in the course of a few hours.

The entire time that she’s getting dressed, blow-drying her hair, smartening up in a green dress and turquoise blazer, meticulously applying her mascara, she’s thinking about that damn bed. She can’t escape it no matter where she moves in the room. It’s too big. It invades the entire space and all her rational senses. Even as she was showering, rinsing off the sharp stench of the pool, she could not escape the inexorable pull it had on her, the sensual thoughts that it engendered…

Red hair on a pillow.

Lace bras that don’t do their one and only job.

Hands touching hands.

Verdant eyes peering out of the darkness, pulling her inwards into the jungle of the night, a beautiful kaleidoscope of revolving bodies… scarlet curls, plum-colored lips, thighs like creamy taffy, skin like smoky quartz.

She can’t remotely blame any of this on her sinuses, so she rationally concludes that she should stop drinking for the evening—

—a resolution she almost immediately gives up on when a bellhop knocks on the door and delivers the hotel’s apology champagne.

She pours herself a glass in one of the red solo cups she and Melissa had brought with them for the trip and unslowly drinks it, sitting on the edge of the bed that she and Melissa will eventually share. Some paint-by-the-numbers procedural show is playing on the television. She stares at it without really comprehending it and idly wonders if Melissa is the big spoon or the little spoon.

But then that particular line of thought makes her remember that her best friend has a boyfriend, and her stomach unpleasantly lurches at the thought of Gary the Vending Machine putting his hairy arms around her waist, pulling her in to his chest, working his undeserving fingers beneath the elastic band of her undergarments…

She’s never entirely liked the man.

(Yes, she absolutely pushed Melissa to date him in the first place.)

He’s good, he’s fine, he’s perfectly okay—but those are the same sorts of adjectives that one might apply to a functional kitchen appliance, not a romantic partner.

She takes another distracted swill of her drink and doesn’t clock the precise moment when Melissa apparently steps out of the en-suite bathroom in a white robe, her vivid hair wrapped in a towel. But when she looks over and apprehends this dizzying sight, Barbara can only stare.

“Forgot my bra in here,” she chuckles, which is precisely the worst thing she can possibly say because Barbara’s eyes immediately roam upwards to the v-shaped divot of the robe, where little is visible except for curving shadows, the tantalizing suggestion of something more. “Kinda need that.”

“Yes,” she hears herself agree in a pathetically small voice, squeezing her plastic cup as Melissa saunters past to her suitcase, which is resting on top of the armchair in the corner of the room. It’s all very hypnotic, the pendulum-like swing of her hips, the graceful coordination of all her white-clothed limbs.

Barbara wonders if this effect is intentional, if Melissa knows exactly what she’s doing to her.

But she doesn’t give the thought too much air lest she accidentally name the animal of an emotion prowling around her gut for what she thinks it might be.

(It’s certainly nothing her fellow brothers and sisters in Christ would sanction, that’s for sure.)

(Happiness, her own husband might call it in the dead of night, in the sanctum of their shared bed.)

Melissa bends down to rummage through her suitcase, which doesn’t help matters much either, and Barbara tugs at her layered necklace, thinks she may have clasped it on a little too tightly.

“Listen, Barb, I’ve been thinkin’ about what you said earlier,”' Melissa starts falteringly, clear reluctance in her low voice. “About Kristin Marie. Y’know, at the pool.”

After Melissa had so firmly put a stop to that conversation, Barbara hadn’t brought it up again, and within minutes, they had returned to their jovial selves again—or, perhaps more specifically, the selves who they were at PECSA—hedonists, only thinking about the next physical pleasure. They laughed. They played. They were both experts at compartmentalizing, well-versed in the art of drowning out the noise with a facsimile of a smile. They dried off, finished their piña coladas, and enthused about the party tonight like it was the only pressing matter in their two-person world.

“Oh, do allow me to apologize for that, Melissa,” she frowns deeply as the other teacher finally straightens up with something in her hands. “I know your sister is a sensitive subject for you, and I… I shouldn’t have brought her up… we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

But Melissa vehemently shakes her head, a few damp curls falling from her towel, and finally turns to face Barbara again, a sad smile crooked at the corner of her mouth, a silky black bra dangling from her fingertips.

One hand still gripping her solo cup, Barbara buries the fingers of the other into her right thigh.

“Good, yeah,” her friend laughs, though the gesture doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She shifts uncomfortably, rolling her weight from foot to foot. “That works for me… but, uh, I also just wanted to say thanks, Barb.”

Barbara can’t pry her gaze away from that damn brassiere; Melissa’s own is darting anywhere but her: the ceiling, the carpeted floor, the empty space just over her shoulder. What a pair the two of them make.

“For what?” She asks in a constricted voice, and the oddness of it must draw the other’s attention because suddenly, they're finally looking at each other in the face again. They’re staring, mutually constituting each other in the wordless interaction.

Seeing and being seen.

It is all that they have ever done.

It is all that they seem to want to do.

“For bein’ there for me,” comes an equally charged reply, freighted by that which neither of them can openly name. “I know you were just trying to help out, and I appreciate that.”

“Always,” Barbara breathes immediately, so glad that there is space between them—some six feet and something even more intangible than that. The elaborate ring on her fourth finger digs into her thigh too. “You’d do the same for me.”

A slight beat; she smiles so widely that it almost hurts.

“You have done the same for me,” she adds passionately. “I don’t know who or where or what I’d ever be without you, Melissa Schemmenti.”

But she does in fact know—maybe they both do. Maybe even her sweet husband does too. Maybe it's the most horribly kept secret in the whole wide world.

“God, you’re such a sap,” Melissa laughs because it's easier than actually engaging, and Barbara allows her the indiscretion this time, even joining along.

“Girl, you’re one to talk!”

“Hey!”

She is more than dimly aware that it’s probably better for them both if they continue to treat their relationship like it’s some huge joke.

Because isn't it, though?

They love each other, and they can never actually say it aloud.

Isn’t that the funniest punchline in God’s almighty world?

They love each other, and they can never act upon this reality in any meaningful way.

They live with this crucial fact every single day and spend so many of their waking hours dangerously straddling the borders that they've so carefully articulated to keep themselves apart.

But, of course, that's only when they're sober.

—

With each math-a-rita that they guzzle at PECSA-geddon, the more liberal with their affection that they get, all of their studious inhibitions subsumed beneath the ministrations of tequila.

One drink in, they start with little gestures.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

Innocuous even.

Forgivable.

Barbara places a guiding hand on the small of Melissa’s back as they weave their way through the throng of nicely dressed people, looking for a table with room enough for two. The younger woman is wearing a leopard-print dress.

And she never wears a dress.

And she thinks about this, much longer and more sinfully than she probably should.

Melissa curls her fingers into Barbara’s wrist when they realize that they’re sitting with the Dawn Nichols, whose school supplies are legendary amongst educators. The second grade teacher gives her a knowing look, the kind that clearly says, Holy shit, there’s an opportunity here.

We can make something happen.

And Barbara shivers with quiet delight as their ankles accidentally glance beneath the table, as the expression in those green eyes does something to her, unloosing her at her tightly knotted core.

Two drinks into the night, they’ve run into Kristin Marie by this point, and Melissa’s entire body is wound so tightly that Barbara thinks that to touch her is to break her.

But she does it anyway—touches her, that is—a little reckless with her head buzzing so pleasantly, the sermonizing voice who often tells her no locked outside her personal church for the night. She interlinks their arms together as they revolve around the ballroom, and Melissa vents about her younger sister being a total puttana—whatever that means—and a shithead—which is perfectly comprehensible.

She gets a little tired of this after a couple of revelations, though, her feet aching in her heels, and she doubles back on her initial resolve to not interfere with the Schemmenti sisters, suggesting the impossible in the same breath—that they try to make up with each other.

And she touches Melissa’s arm when she says as much.

She presses her thumb into the crook of her soft elbow.

And when they look at each other—really look at each other—less than two feet between them, an island unto themselves in the middle of this crowded room, Barbara somehow knows that they’re both thinking about their conversation in the hotel room earlier—about the fact that they’re always there for each other, and it's not just a trite thing that either of them have unthinkingly said.

It's the truth.

Trust me, Barbara tries to say with just her eyes. I’m here for you.

If it doesn’t work out, I’ll be there to catch you if you fall.

Fuck you, Melissa all but communicates with her own, though with the deep sigh that comes shortly afterward, she just as immediately intimates, Okay.

Yeah.

Sure.

I believe you.

Trust has been hard won between them in over twenty years of companionship.

(It is a part of the love that they can never fully say.)

Two plus one math-a-ritas in, they’re back at the round table with Dawn Nichols and Kristin Marie—the Schemmenti sisters have finally made up!—and they’re all tipsily laughing about a story that Melissa is telling. Something inappropriate, of course. Something crass. Something about a wild escapade that she’d had when she went to France with a few of her friends for her college graduation trip, where she somehow became very close friends with a young Parisian couple she met at a bar.

“So we go back to their place and I’m thinkin’ that we’re just gonna throw back some shitty European wine,” Melissa carries on, simply exuberant, her cheeks suffused with a rosy glow, “and the guy, God bless him, he was flippin’ hot, but he didn’t have a thought in his head.”

“Just your type,” Kristin Marie snorts, but the quip doesn’t have any real bite to it anymore. She grins at her older sister lopsidedly, with a reluctant tenderness that makes the striking resemblance between them all the more apparent.

“Yeah,” Melissa acknowledges cheerfully, nodding once, and Barbara is just happy to see her friend so happy, even though she’s not exactly sure where this adventurous story is going. “So his girlfriend’s in the bathroom, and he starts jabberin’ away at me, askin’ if I wanted to take my jacket off." Her eyes twinkling with mischief, she affects a spectacularly bad French accent. “Do you need to use ze restroom? Would you like some… lotion, mon chéri?”

She switches back to her normal voice, snickering at herself.

“Only he didn’t say lotion, y'know."

Dawn Nichols and Kristin Marie must arrive at similar conclusions at the exact same time because the former claps an amused hand over her mouth, while the younger Schemmenti sibling goes, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph."

“What?” Barbara purses her lips, pouting a little, feeling left out, as she stares between the three women. She’d gotten sidetracked by the leg brushed up against hers beneath the table and perhaps lost the nuance in the conversation as her companions laugh raucously. “What am I missing?”

“It was lube,” Melissa proffers without the slightest modicum of reserve, shrugging her nearest shoulder. “They wanted to fuck me, Barb.”

Barbara can't recover her face fast enough; her mouth falls open where she sits, and she can only blush and suddenly be assaulted with a thousand new images pirouetting through her head—all of which have to do with Melissa and none of which are remotely acceptable to God.

“And did they?” Dawn asks in a hushed voice, her own features delicately feathered with pink, as she leans forward in anticipation of an answer.

“Oh, hell yeah,” her best friend smirks as Kristin Marie guffaws at Barbara, who is now currently choking on air.

Melissa, unshaken and unfazed, takes it in stride, though, rhythmically patting her on the back.

“Oh, shit, ya’ve broken a woman of God,” Kristin Marie snorts, wiping at her eyes.

“Nothing new,” Melissa says charmingly and she leans over to press a kiss against Barbara’s cheek as though to prove a point.

Barbara cradles her burning face in her hands.

“Lord,” she exhales into her palms, fully incapable of looking at the woman next to her, “I don’t know why I’m even still friends with you.”

Melissa just laughs and laughs, and she continues to massage the spot between her shoulder blades, and she laughs.

Four drinks in, and they’re having a math-a-rita drinking contest with Derek, a bellhop whom they’ve become friendly with over the years.

Well, Melissa has a drinking contest with him, while Barbara uses the barest sliver of common sense and sobriety that she has left to cajole Dawn Nichols into working with Abbott for at least a year.

“Thank you,” she enthuses, briefly squeezing the other woman’s arm where it rests on the table. “You don’t know how much this will mean for our students.”

“Of course,” Dawn says, warmly observing the drinking game happening a few feet away. Melissa has nearly polished off another glass to Derek’s growing chagrin and Kristin Marie’s violently loud delight. “It’s clear to me that you and your partner are excellent educators; I know you’ll put the resources to good use…”

In her unadulterated surprise at the word used to describe hers and Melissa’s relationship, she nearly forgets to be gracious.

“Oh, we aren’t—“ She suddenly starts and then stops herself, reevaluating mid-sentence.

Partner isn’t necessarily a romantic term. Partner simply implies companionship and association with another, inseparability and togetherness. And they have absolutely been those things.

Inseparable.

Together.

A united front.

Partners.

Yes, of course they are and have always been.

“I mean, thank you,” she amends herself politely. “Melissa is truly one of a kind.”

The second grade teacher’s ears must be burning because she apparently hears this and turns back to face them with a radiant smile on her lips, as red as the blush that enlivens her soft cheeks.

“Damn straight I am,” she jests, comfortably resting her chin on Barbara’s shoulder. “What are we talkin’ about again?”

Barbara naturally leans into the touch as Dawn briefly turns away, now engaged by Kristin Marie asking a question about supply packages.

“Oh, nothing, sweetheart,” she muses in a low voice, suddenly feeling herself pulled into the other’s mischief, even wanting to play along; she's simultaneously breathless, intoxicated, by her intimate proximity and the scent of her orange blossom perfume. “Just about how you and I are partners. It’s a rather lofty descriptor for the shenanigans we get up to, isn't it?”

“Yeah, it’d be far easier to just say gay.”

“Melissa Schemmenti!” She nearly chokes.

Again.

“I kid, I kid! Jesus, Barb! Get a sip of water!”

But there’s not one ounce of water to be found on their table, and so Barbara has to compromise with another hearty swill of margarita.

Tragic.

But she'll cope.

An ungodly amount of alcohol later—(Barbara has lost track of how much either of them have consumed)—they finally stumble into their room around 2AM, supporting one another as best as they can with their altered equilibriums, giggly and utterly euphoric, triumphant in their respective conquests.

Melissa has outdrunk Derek for the fifth year in a row, and Barbara has secured a contract with Dawn Nichols.

And they are both so drunk and so exhilarated and so unbelievably alive in the moment, that they don’t entirely know how to extricate themselves from each other in the come down from such an exquisite high; they fall into bed—that one, singular bed—in a tangle of loving limbs, still in their dresses, only just capable of kicking their shoes off into the semi-darkness of the room. They didn’t close the curtains all the way before they left for PECSA-geddon, so moonlight intrudes upon the moment, silver and stunningly bright, catching both of them in the simple act of being happy.

Frankly, though, at this current junction of time, as compromised as they are, it’s beyond either of them to fully care.

“Shit, fuck,” Melissa laughs so hard that she shakes the mattress beneath them. “Your ring’s caught in my hair, Barb.”

“Oh, sorry, girlfriend,” Barbara apologizes and attempts to unravel her fingers from that mass of scarlet waves, but her ring is caught in the wilderness of it, snarled and apprehended. Somehow, in the incredible dysfunction of her mind, she thinks that raising herself above Melissa as she lies vulnerable on the mattress is the best way to set herself free, but all this does is give her a proper aerial view of her prone best friend.

All this does is nearly place her on top of her, their heaving chests inches apart, threatening to collide every so often by the force and desperation of their breathing. Barbara’s slender hands are splayed on either side of Melissa’s head.

Her face.

She can see every pronounced lineament in the younger woman’s face. Its dramatic height and angular proportions. The complicated expression in her eyes: the profound tenderness of them and something else too. Hunger. Reverence. Melancholy. She can trace the crow’s feet that gather beneath them and at the very edges of them. The redness of her slightly parted lips and the parentheses which enclose them. The slope and the playful upturn of her sharp nose.

She is beautiful, so unspeakably gorgeous.

Melissa Schemmenti.

Her very best friend.

Her partner.

Maybe even the love of her life, the opportunity who has always eluded her, the what if? just beyond her reach. But, at long last, there is no barrier between them, no insurmountable wall. There is only them and their bodies and the chemistry that electrifies them both whenever they so much as look each other. There is this feeling in her stomach that has been building all day, a tension that she cannot swallow, a queerness that she cannot properly digest. It erects itself in her like a monument, scaffolding its way up the column of her spine.

It will reach her tongue finally.

Those three glorious words.

Fuck me, Melissa.

(Because I love you is something she still won't be able to say.)

(I love you would make all of this so very real.)

(And precisely none of it can be real; these are the fantasies; these are the fairy tales.)

(The delusions.)

“Ouch,” Melissa murmurs as her hair is pulled.

By Barbara Howard’s diamond encrusted wedding ring.

It shines in the irradiated light of the moon, glinting harshly, in clear and damning reprimand, and Barbara flinches viscerally, as though stricken. The ring becomes a token again, symbolizing something else besides its own beauty.

Gerald is a good man.

She loves him so much.

She isn’t in love with him, though.

But even still, what gives her the right to ever hurt him?

She straightens up into the air so fast that her head spins, that her stomach lurches, that all the booze she has consumed in the past few hours nearly crests within her and outside of her. She frees her hand; she undoubtedly tugs some more of Melissa's hair. She almost reels backwards into the TV, unable to recapture her balance. She covers her mouth with the hand that always reminds her that she is a married woman, a taken one; the silver band firmly scolds her lips.

“Shit, Barb,” Melissa breathes, abruptly sitting up in the bed, concern in her eyes, such tender and evocative care. “You okay?”

She nods mutely, incapable of trusting herself to speak without expelling all of the accumulated pollution inside of her. Tears form in her eyes and leak over her lower lashes anyway.

“No, you’re flippin’ not,” her friend readily supplies, standing up herself on rather wobbly feet, but she takes a step towards Barbara anyway, as though to bridge the gap between them, the untenable, omnipresent distance.

And Barbara equally takes a step back, her lower hip hitting the wardrobe that the TV sits upon.

“Don’t,” she hisses painfully, finally uncovering her mouth.

“Why not?” Melissa challenges, at once defiant and wounded, her brow furrowed over her eyes. The recognition of this makes the kindergarten teacher want to scream. In not hurting Gerald, she’s surely plunging a knife into Melissa. She’s proving her own point from earlier.

Love is a weapon.

It maims and occasionally destroys.

“Because I would kiss you,” she admits, and it feels good to finally say it aloud, to give shape and dimension to these feelings that have seethed inside of her for so long, for so many of the years upon aching years that they've taught at Abbott Elementary side-by-side.

“… and that would make a monster out of me,” she quickly adds because this is also true, and it needs to be said aloud.

It needs to injure, push away, and deter; she doesn't want to do it; necessity drives her on.

“Oh, yeah?” Comes a reply gentler than it has any right to be. Kind. It Is far less than what she deserves. “And what would that make me then, huh?”

One too.

Complicit.

Just like me.

She could say any of these three things but doesn’t; it was clearly a rhetorical question; she can see in Melissa’s darkly lashed eyes that she is willing to accept every wayward epithet if this is the price, if this is the blood sacrifice of their communion.

They can be monsters with each other; they can be so totally in love.

Barbara swallows; thoroughly inebriated though she is, she is not insensible to the magnitude of this offer, the knowledge that all she has to do is say the word and down they’ll descend into hell, hand in monstrous hand.

Alone.

Together.

“I can’t,” she rasps anyway. She swipes angrily at the tears still slipping down her face. She sniffs noisily and loathes herself for it.

“I know,” Melissa returns, her own eyes suddenly overbright.

But then Barbara Howard leans down and almost does it anyway, gathering the silky hair at the back of Melissa’s neck in her fist, her knuckles softly scraping the skin there. And their noses brush. Their boozy breaths gather in hot pockets in the barest space between them.

Their lips never touch, though.

Sacrilege remains uncommitted.

“You can’t,” Melissa echoes as a singular tear spirals from the corner of her eye and down the tall plane of her cheek. It collects calmly on the vertex of her chin and remains there.

Barbara brushes it away with her thumb before completely letting go.

“No,” she agrees hoarsely, stepping back for good, and there is a finality to the act that saves and devastates them both.

—

They take turns showering, rinsing the night off them, the copious amounts of booze. Melissa goes first this time, and Barbara follows.

Afterwards, of course.

Separately.

And when Barbara eventually stumbles back into the bedroom, wearing pajamas that she’s pretty sure are inside out, she sees that Melissa is already in bed, covers pulled up to her face, clearly asleep, lightly snoring.

She’s erected a pillow wall between the two halves of the one bed.

It’s a smart move.

And an incredibly isolating one.

But smart moves usually are.

Barbara accepts this for what it is and staggers to her side, slipping beneath the sheets as quietly as she can, briefly tossing and turning to get comfortable, which eventually means facing the two feet tall chastity belt, staring at it as her eyelids begin to droop.

Loving it.

Hating it.

Eternally grateful to it.

Disappointed at its necessity, disappointed with herself.

She is so weak in a thousand myriad ways; maybe that, too, is love…

… she doesn’t exactly know what compels her to in the end—(weakness, loneliness, monstrosity, love)—but before she entirely drifts away, she reaches underneath the pillows and is relieved to find a hand waiting for her there.

A concession.

A forgivable compromise.

And so, Barbara allows herself this one pittance too. She intertwines their fingers beneath this latest boundary that divides them, understanding that this—yes, this—is the sole degree of happiness that she can afford without too high of a moral cost.

She falls asleep haunted by the way that the striations of their fingers so perfectly align.

#work wives #melissa schemmenti #barbara howard #s: abbott elementary #reginianwrites #THIS FLIPPING THING IS 8K WORDS #AND FOR WHAT REASON MAGGIE?!#HDIOHFIHI

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headakeinatincan · 4 months

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Had a thought it is NOW a NEED-

So, Bruce has got a meeting one morning right? Video call from home, in the living room and he's forgotten all about it. So the people he's supposed to be talking to call him, but obviously he's still in bed, so instead I'm seeing Alfred The Cat just climbing on the keyboard and somehow answering the call, hitting mute, the screen is black on Bruce's side but fine on the other.

An other option is some meta or magic user that thinks the Wayne's need to be ' exposed ', because no family is so happy all the time, or are really that good of people. Maybe some goddess who is trying to help. I don't really care HOW, just that there is a way to see in without anyone knowing.

Right, now the part I'm obsessing over for no apparent reason.

I need a very tired and stressed out oldest sister / mom / second dad / big brother, Dick Grayson to be the first person anyone sees. I need him in an over sized t-shirt and shorts or sweats it can be anything just make it look like he didn't have energy to wear anything else.

Then we have him doing chores, dirty clothes basket on his hip, picking up things left on the floor. And I love Alfred, but I would like him to be wearing down a bit, more tired and it just being harder on him to do things then it used to be, so we have Dick taking up the work around the place.

And this little bit were Alfred is asleep in a chair with a cup of tea next to him, and Dick has that moment were he checks that Alfred is still breathing, (ya know what I mean?) And lets out a breath of relief and he pulls up the blanket over Alfreds shoulder and takes his cup to the sink.

I want a Dick Grayson being so obviously ADHD it's painful, sweeping the floor and not being able to remember he already did that, so he's checking a list of chores and it has a date on it, but he can't remember what day it is so he's looking at the calender but he forgot what he just read, so he goes back and forth between the calender and the list before he remembers to bring the list with him and-

I need it witnessed. I need everyone to see he is the caretaker for everyone, the one who wakes them up because they just wrapped up a case and they've been up three days without sleep ( Dick included ) and are still dead on their feet. I need him carrying Damien to the kitchen, and handing Tim and Bruce coffee and feeding them and reminding them of things they have to do that day, I want Jason and Tim and Damien to playfully call him mom, but on some part actually mean it.

I want sweet moments of care and laughing and hugs, I want him to be the one the kids come to when they need help or are sad or injured and them knowing he'll make everything better because he's big brother and that's what he does.

I want forehead kisses everyone waits in line for, I want I love yous' being as easily said as the next heartbeat, I want unspoken hurts between Bruce and Dick that aren't acknowledged because it's to painful,and the kids don't need to know, and it was so long ago they really didn't mean anything that was said so isn't it better to just forgive and pretend?

I need acknowledgement of all that is given to a family that does not know the weight of being the favorite and the role model and the good child,( but did he get a choice in being those things?) I want the horror and relief of being SEEN for the first time in so long, I want him to be told it's ok not to be strong all the time, that he can rest for a while and that he is already everything he needs to be.

I can't write for nothing or I would do it myself but I CAN'T please tell me someone else wants this kind of thing

#dick grayson #dick grayson has eldest daughter syndrome

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canonicallyalive · 6 months

Text

Left Unanswered // Ooc!(?)Alastor x Reader

[ Author's Note: This is my first short and random fanfic, please expect that there will be some errors in this.. shit i made- anyway, i hope u enjoy it! ]

Warning: Out of context and character (?), deep kissing, blood sucking, swearing ( do tell me if i forgot something! )

Characters: Ooc!Alastorxreader , Husk, Angel Dust

MDNI!! >:((

I slammed the trapdoor shut after climbing up inside his radio station as he looks at me, his eye twitched when i barged in without his consent.

“My dear, you seem to forget what 'doors' are made of.” He breaks the silence, still wearing his signature smile as usual while tapping his fingers on his cane rhythmically. “Why are you doing this to me?” I asked while gritting my teeth. “I beg your pardon?” he replied, as he turned his back towards me and continues doing his work while talking, it made me furious yet i tried staying calm as i take some deep breaths.

He continues talking about other things to not get things awkward around us, then he asked. “What made your presence in my radio station, my dear? Are you here to listen to my broadcasts once more? Because i'm sure would be delighted to have you here! it's been a quite a tim-”

“Are you playing dumb right now, or are you actually stupid?” What i said made his eyes narrow, the sounds of static came out from him as he stopped what he's doing. “Ah, you wounded me, though i'm certain that i'm not aware on what's in your mind right now.” He turned back to face me, we're both glaring at each other. “How you act towards me.. It's different from how you treat others!” Alastor stood silent, was it that obvious? No, he has to find a word against her belief. It's not Love, Its not Love, It's not Love.

“And what about it, my dear? Surely it's because you are just much more entertaining than them Haha!” He replied, now walking towards me as he reached his hand to pinch my cheek. I immediately slapped his hand away, why is his touch making my heart race? I thought to myself as i looked up at him, his eyes in bewilderment, he did it once more and i slapped it away again, he chuckles in annoyance.

“Darling, do convey what's your problem against me.” he demanded.

“Will you stop it? Do you like me, Alastor?” I moved my hand up to my forehead as my fingers held both of my temples, still no answer but the sounds of static kept coming out of him. I sighed, “It's not that i care that you're treating me like this for your own amusement, but Alastor..” I looked back at him again, now with tears flowing on my eyes, i'm not supposed to cry but.. “I beg you to stop this act, and leave me alone. Before i completely fall for it, not only for your dark schemes..” I paused, hesitant to say it but i want him to know how badly it affects me. “....But also for you.” I heard a louder static coming from him as his eyes widened, he must be suprised by what i just said.

“Y/N.” He finally spoke, but only called my name. I was starting to feel embarrassment within me, is it too early? was i just assuming that he likes me? thoughts kept swirling inside my mind. “My dear, why would i? Love is a waste of time, it's a weakness.” Right, he dosen't feel love, i remember. But why is my heart hurting? Don't tell me..

“Did you got your answer, My dear? If you do, then i will now begin to my work, our conversation took minutes of my broadcast hours.” He patted my head yet i slapped it again, he didn't mind it this time as he went back to his work to get ready, took a sip of the coffee that is sitting on his desk. “You didn't tell me when you'll stop, nor say if you will.” I muttered, enough for him to hear it “I'm thinking about it.” His smile grew a bit wider this time, he is clearly testing my patience as he let out a giggle.

What is wrong with this man? Is he not taking me seriously? I turned my back against him and walked towards the trapdoor to leave, i suddenly felt some arms wrapping around my waist while a breathing on the side of my neck that stopped me for a few seconds. I turned my head towards him, he was already starting his broadcast, it's not him, then who was it? That's weird.

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

I walked down the stairs and on the hallways to my room, leaning against the door after shutting it. Sighing, i slid and sat on the floor, arms and legs folded as my mind replayed what i just did in his radio tower. “Maybe i shouldn't have done that..” you thought to yourself, i've been in the same position for half an hour. I heard a knock on the door “Y/n? It's me, Husk. Charlie told me to check up on you since you haven't shown up in the main hall since this afternoon.” He spoke, i got up to open the door for him, now wearing a smile on my face as i look at husk. “Oh im fine! i got alot of things going on right now, i need a drink!” I replied to him, he gave a smile back “I'll take you there.” He added and took my hand to lead me to the bar.

After a few hours, Me, Angel and Husk are chatting in the bar. I've told everything about my confession with Alastor due to drunkness which putted off the heavy weight in my heart for now, then Angel and Husk reassured me about it and helped me get him off my mind for tonight and have fun.

----------

Alastor was done and teleported back to his room after his broadcast and took a break, he thought about my confession hours ago. “It seems like I've got something to handle immediately.” He thought to himself, as he went out from his room and headed towards mine, knocked on the door and says “My dear, It's me.” No response, he didn't felt my presence inside either. “She must be in the main hall.”

He teleported from my room to the main hall using his shadow magic, looked around and found me at the bar with Husk and Angel. Alastor's smile grew in annoyance, his eye twitching in the sight of me already drunk. “Ugh, this woman..” He said in his thoughts as the sounds of static, not loud enough but came out from him. All the noise of laughter they're making is irritating him. He began walking towards us. “I apologize for interrupting the fun, My Fellows! But my dear seems intoxicated enough.” He stopped behind me, placing a hand on my left shoulder, i turned my head to look at him. “It's late” He paused to look at Angel who's glaring at him, he knew what was going on between Me and Alastor. “She needs some rest.” He added, now looking down at me.

Angel let out a huff “Let her go.” he demanded. Alastor looked back at him, his other eye turned black and appeared as radio dials. The room slightly flickered which made Husk start to worry. “Angel.” Husk called him out to tell him to leave us alone. “Come on now, My Dear.”

“This bitch-” Angel swears with fury in his eyes, as he puts down the glass he's holding on the counter and stood up. A shadow came from behind him and wrapped around Angel's neck , threatening him if he gets any closer.

Alastor reached my hand and i stood up, still drunk and quiet as i walked close to him. I leaned my head against his chest for support, i can smell his scent, reminding me of a forest. His touch is reassuring, an arm wrapped around my waist as he makes himself warm for me, and it made me hug him tightly.

He started teleporting us back to my room. As we arrived back, he didn't move. He didn't let go of me, i wanted to lay down to my bed but he pulled me back. Our bodies touching as his arm locked me against his, still warm. “Al?” I slowly tilted my head up to look at him.

It made him flinch, he tries holding it back when he saw my eyes looking back. “Alastor?” I called his full name with a soft voice, thats it. He pushed me on the bed, suprised by his actions as i try to get up. My elbow lifted me slightly, but he was already on top of me. “Darling, say it again.” He was not asking for it, it sounded more of an order. I raised an eyebrow, I didn't get what he said nor what he wants me to say. “Tsk.” He leaned down and started placing his lips into mine.

“A-Al.” I gasped. He was making me feel dizzier that i already am. I tried pushing him away yet his large hands held a grip against my wrist and pinned it on my side, now making it a deep kiss. His tounge swirling with mine, i let out a moan. “W-Wait, Alastor.”

“Quiet.” He hissed between kisses. He continues what hes doing, it's making my heart race and my body tremble. I immediately bit his tounge that was inside my mouth as he groaned in pain and pulled off. “Enough! W-what are you doing?!” I began catching my breath, wiping off the saliva that was dripping off my mouth. “I may be drunk but you can't take advantage of it!” I whined. He didn't let me speak any further and leaned down again, immediately targeting my neck. He slid down my jacket to the side,he started biting above my collarbone, drinking my sweet blood. The feeling rushed to my veins as i started screaming in pain. He pulled away then started licking the blood that was coming out from the wound, it made me whimper even more.

“Alastor!” He trailed back to my mouth, did the same as earlier. This is too much, he didn't even answer my question. “Ma Chèrie.” He let out a moan. Alastor lifted my head by holding the back of my neck to deepened it more. Was he this desperate for me?

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

I ran out of ideas cri.

#hazbin alastor #alastor × reader #alastor #hazbin hotel #hazbin fanfic #hazbin fandom #alastor radio demon #the radio demon #alastor fanfiction

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limetameta · 1 year

Text

thinking about this fic idea set in my yes and universe where batjokes is established between bruce and joker, but bruce just hasn't bothered to tell his family yet because he's kind of procrastinating on it. he's afraid. but the joker is just, progressively becoming a more permanent fixture in his life outside of the cowl and cape that it's not fair not to tell them. he's been dating the clown for a year now. the clown's been coming over to wayne manor, for god's sake. they've consistently been spending time together and the joker is holding true to his word and not really killing as many people as he did before. a murder happens here or there. bruce is aware he can't change the guy overnight, okay. but he's trying and bruce should try, too.

he really should.

he's going to tell his family. he is. no, he is.

yes. yes, he will.

******

bruce does not tell his family. the family in question just happens upon the joker at various times in wayne manor and begins piecing the puzzle together.

dick: i saw the joker in wayne manor and to be honest with you he wasn't even doing anything.

tim: why didn't you kick him out?

dick: well, tbh, i wasn't even supposed to be home then so i figured i was the one intruding. i had to drive home real quick because i forgot something and i happened upon him in the coziest robe in existence. the man was wearing slippers. listen. listen i'm not even sure what i saw. it could've been a hallucination.

tim: did you ask bruce?

dick: i did. bruce just told me he comes over sometimes.

tim: what does that mean????

dick: i don't know, tim, i was too afraid to ask follow up questions.

*******

cassandra, writing on her phone: so you finally saw joker, too?

dick: oh god, when?? where was he???

cassandra, typing: i saw him seven months ago for the first time. it didn't look like it was my business to ask. bruce knows. :)

dick: ??????? cass, cass, the fuck cass, i saw him a month ago, cass you saw the guy almost a year ago??? cass?????

cassandra, typing: we chat sometimes. he knows sign language.

dick: ??????? CASS WHAT DID THE GUY SAY, WHY IS HE COMING OVER

cassandra: *frowning* *doesn't know the expression in sign language* *begins typing in her phone*

dick moves over so he sees what she's typing in her notes app, becomes bright red immediately

cassandra shows him the text message: he said he comes over to get dicked down by bruce :)

dick: oh my fucking god

*******

alfred, with the gang: master bruce, how long have you been involved with the joker? the children would like to know

bruce, sighing in relief that he doesn't have to be the one to start this conversation: over a year now

dick: BRUCE, BRUCE WHAT THE FUCK MAN

bruce: could you tell jason and barbara, dick?

dick: D: NO!!!

bruce: :( ah, well at least you know

#batman #yes and #batjokes #batfam

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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 1 year

Text

Save fae-ce

Part 2/3

Summary: Tim gets used to his future faerie family.

Pt 1

Hey, in all technicality, Tim kept his word.

He had said that he wouldn’t disappear like that. And he wasn’t intending on spending another two weeks passed out in the arms of a nameless faerie. He just wanted food. He had tried to eat something, if only for Bernard’s sake, and he could, but the food had settled strangely in his stomach and he’d been very tempted to throw it all up by the time he had cleared his plate. So, yeah, the faerie were right in that he would need to eat fae food for the rest of his life. Not starving to death was very important to him. And, honestly, he was pretty sure that if he waited another day he wouldn’t even have the energy to go to the clearing.

So, he crawled under the hole in the fence and made his way into the forest.

Once again, it didn’t take long to get where he wanted to go. He wasn’t sure whether the forest was responding to his wishes now that he was fair folk, or if one of his new powers as a fae was the ability to always know where he was going, but he supposed that it didn’t really matter. All that mattered was that his goal was achieved:

He found Orphan sitting on the swing, just barely swaying back and forth, apparently just wanting something to do while she waited. This time, she was wearing a mask over the bottom half of her face. It… didn’t do much to hide the thoughts playing plainly across her features. She was worried, the tiny furrowing of her brows made that more than obvious, though he couldn’t imagine why.

The moment her eyes landed on him, though, she relaxed.

“I forgot time works differently here,” the faerie said, and their voice was one he didn’t recognize. Deeper, ringing with something that wasn’t quite right. “Your world moves much faster than ours. You will have to eat more often to make up for it.”

Okay, he had definitely made the right decision in agreeing to take food from them. He was probably selling himself off to the fae accidentally, but he would have definitely starved if he hadn’t.

She motioned to a basket at her feet. He hadn’t noticed it before, but that was quite possibly because he wasn’t all that observant. “You should eat some, here, before you go. For energy.”

Tim hesitated, glancing up even though he knew he wouldn’t be able to gauge the time. He didn’t want Bernard to get suspicious, but he didn’t have that many options.

He was weirdly tired.

“Sure, we can have a picnic or whatever.”

Their eyes lit up and they clapped their hands twice. A red and white checkered blanket appeared on the grass, looking like a picturesque scene worthy of being on the cover of a book. The changeling took a seat, and Tim hesitated for just a moment. He wasn’t really sure why, the faerie had been nothing but kind to him since he’d accidentally thrust himself into their lives via a very unfortunate snack, but he still eyed her with a kind of wariness that should be reserved only for known criminals – and, even then, should be used sparingly, for people can change.

But then she, either unconcerned about or simply unaware of his distrust, opened up the flaps of the basket without a care in the world. And the smell wafted over to him.

He decided that, if she was going to go through the effort of bringing him food all the time, then he could at least place a tentative amount of trust in them.

Not smart, perhaps, but he was hungry, okay?

So, he took a seat next to them and started digging through the basket for things to eat. The selection was wide, enough so that he suspected that the basket had some kind of enchantment that allowed it to hold more things.

If he had magic now, he was totally going to make it his main priority to learn that spell specifically.

It wasn’t until he heard a strange laugh beside him that he thought to look up, a slice of buttered bread half hanging from his lips, to see Orphan holding a hand to her mouth as if attempting to hide her amusement. Which wasn’t necessary. They were wearing a mask.

A flush spreading over his cheeks, he sheepishly offered them the bundle of grapes he had been about to scarf down.

“Thank you,” she said politely.

He grimaced a little at the use of his own voice. It was… weird. He didn’t think he had a particularly unpleasant voice or anything, but it was strange. It didn’t sound like how he thought he sounded, and yet he registered that the voice they were using was his own, and this made him scrunch his nose in distaste.

He hesitated, glancing to the side. “So… you mimic the last voice you heard?”

She nodded, and some of the glee bled out of her expression. “You don’t like it.”

Tim opened his mouth to argue otherwise, but his voice died in his throat. He couldn’t lie. Damn it. He took another bite, giving himself time to chew on his thoughts while he also chewed on the bread. “I… think it’s strange,” he admitted after a while, lamely. But he was quick to tack on the words: “I’ll get used to it.”

She hesitated, before flashing a slightly unsure thumbs up.

He nodded back, unsure if there was anything else he could really do.

They pulled their mask down, and he watched as she popped a grape in her mouth. He half expected them to swallow it like a pill, or perhaps for her mouth to unhinge while they ate, but this wasn’t the case. It was… normal. She was normal.

Or, at least, made to seem like she was.

He wasn’t sure whether he was asking because he wanted to remind himself that they were not normal despite their appearances, or because he just wanted to know what to expect when he got to their realm, or some strange mix of the two, but he found himself asking before he could really stop himself:

“You’re a Changeling, right?”

They gave him a raised eyebrow, but nodded.

No going back now.

“How does that all… work? Like, what else is there?”

She blinked once, and then laughed.

“Well, there are these things called ‘True Fae’. These people are born fae. They’re pretty rare, since two faerie have to decide to create and take care of a child together. And it’s really draining, and takes a whole formal thing, and requires two True Fae to even make one, so no one ever bothers.”

Tim frowned.

“Don’t worry, though, no one cares,” she was quick to soothe him, and so accurate that he wondered if they could read minds. “It’s a formality thing. Only matters if you’re super important, and even then not really. Our family doesn’t have any True Fae outside of Dad and – I think – Grandpa.”

He nodded slowly, trying not to let his relief show.

“Changelings are born fae but also made. We’re… humans, but not.”

His eyebrows knit together. “How does that work?”

All he got was a shrug of their shoulders. “In between. We’re mostly faeries, I guess, but we’re also made to live with humans, so we have some human stuff, too. It’s weird.”

“I think all of this stuff is weird,” he blurted, only to cringe.

Thankfully, she only laughed and nodded her agreement.

“There are also Stolen Children, which is what you are, technically. Basically, it’s the humans we fae stumble across and decide to steal away.” Their eyebrows tugged upwards in the middle in a kind of pitying look. “Or the ones that eat our food on accident.”

He hummed his understanding, his eyes falling to the food that sat in his hand, looking oh-so-innocent.

She leaned back on one hand, the other waving vaguely as she explained, “Those are the three main types. There are a bunch of different powers and stuff like that. It’s all fake, though. No two fae are even close to each other.”

He hesitated.

“Tell me about it?”

They lit up.

And, by the time he had finished eating and they had finished explaining, he didn’t find the use of his voice quite as weird.

Bernard was bleeding.

It was a tiny cut on his hand, made while he was chopping vegetables for a stew Tim wouldn’t actually enjoy. It would be easy to bandage up again, and yet the blood spilling from the wound made his skin crawl.

Leaving, for a second, just to get something to tie around the cut, was more relieving than it should have been. It was like that moment after you come out of the water, breaching the surface and finally allowing air into your lungs again once more.

Which didn’t make sense. He had never been squeamish around blood before. He didn’t like it, mind you, he would much rather avoid the stuff. He would say that he could live without it, but he couldn’t, really… you get the point. Blood is gross, but he had never felt so tense around it before. Especially not for something as small as a simple flesh wound.

And he remembered that blood had iron in it.

He paused.

He gripped the strip of fabric more tightly in his hand.

Well, screw the fae magic and its dumb rules. His friend was hurt, however fractionally, and he was going to fix this.

He would just be careful about it. Because he wasn’t sure how he would explain away flinching away from blood as if it had burned him (which it would). But he was going to help Bernard.

And, if Bernard noticed that Tim went more carefully than he usually did as he tied the small bit of cloth around his finger, then he didn’t say a word. Just smiled and thanked him for helping.

“You forgot water,” Tim pointed out, flatly.

Robin’s face didn’t redden, but his wings fluffed up and that gave him away instantly. “I didn’t think of it! I was thinking about food, not drinks! Anyone could make that mistake!”

“Orphan didn’t,” he pointed out. Mostly just to be annoying. To be honest, Tim probably wouldn’t have thought of it either if Orphan hadn’t.

Maybe Tim should have been more wary of pissing off the faerie, but it was hard to be scared of someone that was pouting up a storm.

As if to prove his point, Robin groaned and flopped onto the ground in a heap. “Dad,” they complained to no one. “Come here, will you? The new kid needs water.”

There was no indication that this ‘Dad’ figure even heard, but Robin brightened up like he had gotten a response.

They hopped to their feet and pointed to the chessboard. “I don’t think Lil Wing will mind too too much, so, do you want to play a game while we wait?”

Tim wasn’t sure why this ‘Lil Wing’ person would care about an abandoned chess set, but he was quickly learning not to question anything.

He nodded.

And, so, they played a couple of rounds of chess. Tim had a strong suspicion that Robin was letting him win. Mostly because Robin was acting like he didn’t know how any of the pieces worked, constantly asking for refreshers on the rules, but had noticed instantly when Tim had accidentally moved his knight just one square too far forward.

But, hey, he liked winning.

Besides, though he would never admit it aloud, Robin was fun to hang around. He didn’t seem to take anything all that seriously, and that was a balm for the constantly anxious Tim’s jittery soul.

This was probably why, when a large man with even larger bat wings appeared in the faerie circle in the middle of the clearing, Tim had instantly moved to hide behind Robin.

Robin didn’t even hesitate to throw their wings out, wrapping one around him and tucking him into their side, completely shielding Tim from view.

“Dad,” he said and, despite the fact that he was currently ‘protecting’ him from the ��threat’, he seemed perfectly happy to talk to his father. “Do you have the water?”

Tim peeked around some of the feathers to see.

The man nodded slightly, his eyes wide. Clearly, he was just as shocked as Tim was that Robin was doing this. Or, maybe, he was shocked about something Tim had done, though he couldn’t imagine why.

And then a soft smile came over his face. “Of course,” it said, and Tim recognized the voice despite the fact that he had never before met this faerie. Had heard the tone that rang with something just a little bit more than ‘normal’.

He had heard it on Orphan, every time they came to the clearing. The last person she talked to before coming to this world with food.

Going by that and the fact that Robin was calling for the faerie’s help with the water issue, it was safe to assume that this was the person who was getting the food for Tim, even if it was done through more familiar faces.

Something in him relaxed, if only slightly. The faerie could have easily poisoned him by now if he wished for Tim to come to any harm, Tim was probably safe.

Probably. He was going to remain in hiding, though, just in case. He pressed a little bit closer to Robin, and a chin came to rest atop his head.

“Here,” it said, setting a rather large jug of water on the ground. They sent Tim a tiny wave. “Enjoy.”

“Thanks, Dad!”

As quickly as it had appeared, the dim light of the clearing warped and the faerie was gone.

Leaving Tim clinging to Robin, his face flushed. He appreciated the protection quite a lot. Tim had had nothing to fear, Robin knew that, and it would have been all-too-easy to simply push Tim out and force him to learn this for himself, like a bird being flung out of a nest to learn to fly… but he hadn’t. He had simply tucked him into his side, because he was scared, and let him find out from the safety of his wings.

It was sweet. A little embarrassing for Tim, but sweet nonetheless.

Robin smiled and pulled back. A finger remained, loosely, curled in the fae’s shirt, and he didn’t want to let go quite yet. Robin was warm, and had been nice to him, and Tim was quite possibly still a little rattled by the sudden introduction of someone he hadn’t known in the slightest.

For a brief moment, Robin eyed the hand still touching him. Not wary or annoyed, simply curious. Slowly, his gaze trailed up to the horns on Tim’s head, not hidden by his beanie while he was in the safety of the clearing. Something like recognition sparkled in their eyes, and they made a quiet sound in the back of their throat that Tim couldn’t quite interpret.

It must have been a good sound, though, because Robin was quick to rest his arm over Tim’s shoulder, tugging him into his side.

“I can help you carry all this to the edge of the trees, if you want.”

Tim nodded wordlessly.

Tim and Bernard stumbled through the streets, their arms loaded with books, giggling and trying to trip each other as their feet scrabbled over the cobblestone beneath them. The town was having a festival today – though, perhaps, calling it a ‘festival’ was a bit of an overstatement. Some traveling merchants had decided to set up a couple of stalls in the town square.

Of course, this meant that Bernard needed new tales. More books on the fae.

And some books on werewolves, on vampires, on shifters, and dragons, and sprites and –.

Tim was going to fall, the books were heavy and he was running and if he slowed down at all the carefully constructed pile in his arms was going to come crashing down.

And then he tripped. He toppled over, the books already spilling out of his arms.

But he didn’t trip at all.

Instead, for just a second, he hovered. The air that should have been wooshing past him went unnervingly still, and gravity released its hold on him. He was able to fix his footing, even if his next steps were a bit rougher than usual. The books still went crashing over the stones, there was nothing he could do about that, but he didn’t fall.

It didn’t last much longer than a second. But it was still unmistakable what had happened. That… had been magic.

He had thought it would be something more… weighty. Flashy. Maybe it could be. Maybe it would be, once he had eaten enough fae food to fully change.

It was still enough to make him pause.

For a second.

Then Bernard whirled around, trying to look over, either to laugh at him or to pout over the bends and scuff marks that might decorate the pages now, only to trip himself. And he didn’t have any magic of his own, so he went up in a flurry of papers.

There is a long pause as the two boys stared at each other with wide eyes.

And then they both burst into fits of laughter.

Tim laughed so hard that he ended up falling to the ground beside his friend anyways. It wasn’t that funny, not really, but who cares? They were enjoying themselves, they were kids, and that was enough.

Eventually, they got back to their feet and gathered their things.

They sprinted back, not learning a single lesson from their earlier mistake.

Bernard faceplanted in a patch of grass. Tim wanted to capture the moment, keep it forever. He wanted nothing more than for every day to be like this, the two of them just having fun and enjoying each other’s company.

Also because the look on Bernard’s face when he realized he was going to fall had been hilarious.

“You don’t have to keep me, you know,” Tim said, his voice quiet, his eyes trained on the basket in his hands. “I know this is all really inconvenient for you guys – making you come here all the time to bring me food and stuff – and I think I could survive on my own once I figure out how to get in and out of the fae realm without help. I’ll be fine, you don’t have to do all this.”

B looked shell-shocked. Not unlike the first day that Tim had seen him. Tim had gotten better at dealing with the fae’s unsettling appearance (it was beautiful, in a strange way, but that didn’t stop it from being creepy, too), but it seemed like it was less used to him and his quirks.

There was a moment where the being hesitated.

And then a hand came to rest upon his shoulder, pressing until Tim looked them in the eyes.

“Just because I didn’t ‘choose’ you like I did the others, does not mean I am less happy about you being in my life. I will happily take you in, once all of us are ready.”

And he can’t lie, Tim knows that better than anyone. But he also knows just how easy it is to omit things.

“You want me?” Tim asked, trying to smother all of the hope threatening to bubble out of him.

The fae’s face softens. “Of course.”

Tim didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t sure he would have been able to get any words out, anyways.

So, he just nodded and brought his hands up to wipe at teary eyes.

It was nice to be wanted.

Bernard poked his head in through the window, and something in Tim made him almost physically recoil at the intrusion. It was normal, it was Bernard, but there was something about his friend entering the house without his permission, even marginally, that rattled something in the back of his brain.

He brushed it off, though. Because Bernard was smiling at him, his arms resting on the sill and his chin atop those, and he was always welcome.

“Hi,” Bernard said. His hair gleamed like gold in the sunlight.

“You look like you’re up to no good,” Tim commented mildly.

He ate an apple slice, trying not to cringe at how it tasted like ash in his mouth. The rest of the apple lay hidden in a cupboard, to be thrown into the woods to become compost sometime late that night but, for now, he had to make Bernard think that he was eating human food regularly.

“I’ve never been up to ‘no good’ in my life.”

“That sentence is wrong in so many ways, but especially grammatically.”

“I disagree.”

“You can’t just –.” Tim started, only to decide that he didn’t really want to finish it. This was fine. Maybe he was wrong, and even if he wasn’t this really wasn’t the hill he cared enough to die on. “Whatever. What are we doing today?”

“I was thinking we could go shopping,” Bernard said. “I think my pants are getting too short.”

And why would Tim ever deny him?

So, they went out looking for new clothes. The town got almost all of its clothes from a local tailor, who, surprise surprise, tailor-made everything for them. Bernard really didn’t need Tim to come, and Tim wasn’t all that interested in watching an old lady mess with a tape measure and rattle off numbers. But they went together regardless.

Tim browsed while he waited. Most of the things left out were samples, and he liked running his fingers over the rough textures (it wasn’t worth using actually good fabric just to show off styles), but his eyes were trained on the few things that were actually for sale. They were all things that could be a little large without much problem, like coats, cloaks, scarves, and hats.

He hummed as he looked over the coats. He’d been getting cold more often than usual, he had noticed, so it would probably be a good idea to grab one…

He pulled one out and nodded to himself. He could already tell, even without trying it on, that it was going to be big on him, but this was fine. He would grow into it. Probably.

That problem definitely solved, he continued on to the hat section. The beanie Orphan had given him was working just fine, but he should probably get something else. If his horns ever grew – which didn’t seem likely, considering they hadn’t since they had appeared, but he wasn’t sure he should bank on that – the beanie wouldn’t be able to hide their shape, and he’d be screwed.

And yet…

“Getting a new hat?” Bernard asked, his chin coming to rest on Tim’s shoulder.

“I was thinking about it,” Tim said quietly, picking up a hat, peering down at it thoughtfully. The one Orphan had given him looked less… real, with too perfect stitches in the fabric and not a single loose thread to be seen. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find out it had popped into existence simply because that was what Orphan had wanted. The one in his hands looked more cared for, as if someone had slaved over it for days, with little imperfections to match. He, objectively, liked the one he had picked up more… but he didn’t want to give up the hat he had been given. It was his. So, he twisted to shove the new hat atop his friend’s head, instead. “I think it’ll look better on you, though.”

Bernard laughed as the hat slipped a little, just slightly too large, and brought his hands up to push the brim up so he could see. He grinned at Tim, batting his eyelashes. “Well, everything looks better on me.”

“True,” Tim hummed.

Bernard’s face flushed a pretty shade of red. He dragged the hat back down to try and cover it, but Tim had already seen.

“I guess I might as well get a hat,” Bernard mumbled. “Since I’m here and all.”

Tim beamed.

Tim stared at the door to Bernard’s house. Bernard’s hands were full, carrying the food he wanted to cook that night. Tim had tried to hold it, but Bernard was selfless, a good friend, and so he hadn’t allowed Tim to carry any of it. Tim had tried saying that Bernard was the one to cook, so he should at least carry the ingredients, but Bernard had said that Tim never ate much of it, anyway.

He was… a lot more observant than Tim had ever given him credit for.

To be fair, though, Tim had never had anything to hide until now.

Which was why this was particularly difficult. Bernard would notice if Tim didn’t go striding through the door, it had never bothered him before this. But he couldn’t do that anymore.

He needed to either get verbal consent or get Bernard to hold the door open for him. Either would count. Unfortunately, Bernard’s hands were full and Tim’s were not, so he would be expected to

He thought hard, his feet trudging their way forward, hoping to come to a solution

But what could he say? Bernard’s parents weren’t home, they should be at work until late into the night, so it wasn’t as if Tim could pass it off as him being polite – why would he worry about barging in on his friend’s parents when he knew they wouldn’t be there?

He was at the door.

Damn. He still didn’t have anything.

“Can I come in?” Tim asked, awkward and entirely too formal, his hand on the knob.

Bernard’s eyebrows knit together. “What?”

Tim fought for a winning smile. He wasn’t sure how convincing it was. “Your house? Can I go in?”

“What are you even talking about? Obviously?”

He still couldn’t turn the knob. He felt… sick at the very idea. It wasn’t like lying, where his tongue lay there in his mouth, heavy and useless. It was a revulsion to the idea of walking into someone else’s home uninvited. Technically, he could, but then what kind of person would he be? A terrible one, he thought.

“That’s a yes, then?”

Bernard looked at him for a moment more.

Before huffing a laugh.

“Yes, Tim, you’re always welcome.”

Tim had been half awake, shifting under his blankets, wondering whether he cared enough to get out of bed that day. He needed to do some studying before his parents got back in a couple of weeks, but he could procrastinate for a little longer.

All coherent thoughts left his mind when he felt something cold touch his leg.

He tumbled out of bed, thrashing in his blankets, trying to get away from the strange feeling.

But, when he threw off his blanket, he realized that it wasn’t going to be that simple.

Because this is when his eyes landed on a tail.

His tail.

It wasn’t particularly terrible. A deep red flecked with the occasional golden scale, smooth to the touch, not too large – it was a little bit thinner than his leg, and only reached just past his knees. He was, suddenly, vividly reminded of the pictures in that book about dragons Bernard had bought.

A drake.

He wasn’t quite sure whether he found it funny or not.

Maybe he’d find it funnier when he wasn’t freaking out over the fact that he had a TAIL of all things!

How was he supposed to hide this?

He ran a hand through his hair, and his fingers brushed against his horns. His fingertips scraped against the bone, and he grimaced at both the sound and the feeling. Imagine nails on a chalkboard, but you get to feel both scratches, and it's louder than it should be because it’s happening right next to your ears, and you might get some idea of how it felt.

Tim shook his head to himself, trying to ignore the chalk-y feeling under his nails, and instead started trying to hide his tail. He had an overlarge jacket, but he wasn’t confident that that was enough. Have you ever held your arm out for a while? It doesn’t weigh much, and you move your arms all the time so you think it won’t be uncomfortable, but it doesn’t take much longer than a minute before it starts straining your muscles. He would need something to support his tail…

He stole one of his father’s belts from his dusty cabinet, and tied his tail up. The band around his chest was uncomfortable, and kind of hard to breathe around, but he just needed to maintain his disguise until he was safely under the cover of the forest.

Which shouldn’t have been long, but life hated him, and when he went to where the gap in the fence usually was, he found it to be gone.

He had known that life hated him, but seriously? That thing had looked years old, if not centuries. But now that he really needed a way out, now, it was suddenly gone.

Nerves clawed at him as he knelt where the hole in the fence had once been. The wires had been bent sometime over the past half a week, warping it back into place.

He gave a quiet groan. How was he supposed to fix this? If the people that had fixed it came back and saw that the hole had been remade (though Tim had yet to come up with a plan for how to do that), they would get suspicious. Tim knew that the townsfolk had seen him sneaking out a few times before, but he had never paid it much mind, and they, in turn, had pretended not to notice. Tim didn’t believe in the fae, and his parents were explorers so it was only natural that he, too, took an interest in going beyond the fence. But it was also assumed that the reason Tim always went looking for the hole was ease, rather than necessity. If he opened it back up, they would wonder why he would use up all that effort to do it, when he could just climb the fence instead.

He gritted his teeth, glaring up at the fence that had offended him so. Gloves wouldn’t help him, he had a few burn scars littering his back and shoulders from times he had ducked under the gap too hastily. Iron was still iron, even through clothes.

Should he just power through it? Autumn was almost upon them, and no one would think twice about him wearing gloves from now on to hide burn scars. As for spring… he had a strong suspicion that he wouldn’t last that long in the village, anyways.

The ground crunched behind him, and he jolted, tugging his jacket tighter around himself.

He was only somewhat relieved to find a familiar face when he turned around.

“Tim, what’re you –?”

Bernard stopped still, his eyes landing on the fence. The wires were in place, but there were still noticeable dents where it had once curved inwards, allowing people to sneak in and out. His eyes narrowed, briefly, beneath his hat. He seemed to think for a moment.

And then he sighed and shook his head. “If… if you want to sneak out to see if your parents come home early, the people at the entrances will probably understand.”

And Tim hesitated.

He, desperately, wanted to ask whether Bernard knew.

He could ask – should ask. It was almost undeniable that his friend knew, but was that something they wanted to do? It was one thing to know something, another entirely to bring it out into the open. Because then you have to acknowledge it. Acknowledge that there is a change.

Tim would rather not. There had been too many changes lately.

Not least of all the tail he was currently hiding.

“Thanks,” he breathed.

Bernard nodded just slightly, smiling weakly. “I should get away from the fence.”

Tim nodded numbly.

This felt, terribly, like a goodbye.

Arms wrapped around him, and that combined with the belt binding his tail close made it hard to breathe. He hugged back, hiding his face in Bernard’s shoulder for just a moment.

“I’ll be back.”

It was a bad idea, coming back. There was no guarantee he would be able to escape again. But he needed to say goodbye to his parents one last time. He could last two weeks on the food he was given if he rationed it all properly. It was risky, but he needed this, at least.

“Yeah?” said Bernard, sounding like he didn’t quite believe him.

“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” he promised.

They split off soon after, and Tim brushed past the guards at the gate. Careful words spilled from his mouth, about how his parents would be coming home soon without mentions of a time frame, faking glee he didn’t feel – excitement wasn’t all that different from fear, anyways.

Clumsy feet stumbled gracelessly into the clearing. There’s someone already there, someone with pitch black, feathered wings, fluffing up in surprise at the sudden entrance. Tim could assume that this is the ‘Little Wing’ he had been hearing of, but he was not at all interested in introducing himself to him at the moment. Nor is he interested in peeking into the basket at the faerie’s feet. No, he was stressed, and so he yelled for the person who he thought would be the most helpful:

“Oracle!”

It doesn’t take much longer than a second before the faerie appears in a nearby tree, her eyebrows furrowed in obvious confusion and concern.

Tim doesn’t even give her the time to open her mouth. Instead, he tears off his jacket to show her the offending, extra limb.

She made a sucking sound through her teeth, wincing sympathetically. “Ah.”

He freed his tail, and it instantly fell to wrap around his leg. Honestly, it was kind of comfortable. Like a hug but for his leg. This did not change the fact that he was having a Bad Time because of it.

“What do I do?”

Oracle gave him a sympathetic look, but all that did was make Tim bristle.

“I’m not going yet. I can’t go without saying goodbye to my parents.”

She grimaced. “That’s really…”

“They need to know,” Tim said, shaking his head.

“If the village finds out, they won’t be kind to you,” Oracle said, reaching a hand out, clearly intending to rest it upon his shoulder.

He dodged it.

“They deserve to know.”

And it was true.

But it wasn’t, at the same time. Words hung on the tip of his tongue, unable to be spoken. Not because they were lies – he, a teenager who was in over his head, simply couldn’t quite articulate it beyond words that sounded much more bitter than they actually were: it was only fair.

His parents left often, but they always made sure to tell him before they went, they always had one good night beforehand, enjoying each other’s company over food. Tim always stayed behind, watching his parents disappear among the trees, ready for their next adventure. And he was happy for them, and he loved the trinkets and tales they would bring back for him. It was tradition, though he had never been on the other side. It felt wrong to not tell them, to not have that one day before he left.

Oracle looked like she wanted to argue further, but she was stopped, a hand coming to quite literally slice the tension between them.

The pair of reptilians jumped, wide eyes finding their way to the somewhat forgotten third member of their party.

Little Wing sighed, pushing a streak of white hair out of his eyes. “If… go home, and if things go wrong, you can call for me, okay? I’ll come to get you.”

Tim jolted, his eyes finding their way over. “Why?”

He got a mildly confused expression.

“Why’re you… helping me?” Tim said. Not quite wary, not really. Just unsure. “We haven’t even properly introduced ourselves or anything…”

He snickered. “Trust me, it’s not necessary. The others talk about you so much, I basically already know you.”

His face flushed. “Oh. Cool.”

There was a beat of hesitation.

He held his hand out to shake. “Jason Todd.”

Energy crackled between them, and Tim’s eyes flicked up to meet Jason’s, shock painting his face.

“It’s better for summoning. Calling code names works fine when we’re all around a Ring, but the town is too far away.”

Tim nodded slowly. Their hands were still clasped around each other.

His heart hammered in his chest.

“Tim Drake.”

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

Pt 3

All fae-n and games masterlist

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pimento-playing-hopscotch · 8 months

Text

911 Lone Star Rewatch Season 2!!

I watched the season 2 premiere of Lone Star and I had ALL THE THOUGHTS!

It is season 2, and we are at a museum!

How awesome are museums….

More shows should feature scenes at museums.

Anyway-

The “I can’t hear with the masks” is REAL — like I know that was supposed to be oh they’re bitching about masks but I have customers at work wearing a mask and talking in the softest voice; I’m like project. Yell at me. I beg of you. I am standing over a bread slicer and I cannot fucking hear you.

A tank literally breaking free of its exhibit would be a crazy thing to see though—

Okay I know (or assume I should say) this isn’t what they were going for, but the little boy who says “they have rides?” looks like a baby TK.

Amazing Grace in action!

They really did it — with their military tank they did the action movie cliché of it out of control destruction takes out a watermelon cart for no reason. Never change, Lone Star.

You tell em Carlos! Love seeing him in action—

“And if he decides to shoot at us with the cannon?” “Duck”.

Also yay we see Carlos’s partner! He needs some coworkers who don’t suck—

Well, it was nice for him not to crush all the police cars.

Paul’s doing a thing — he figures it out.

Although for reasons to steal a tank — that is a really good reason.

This part is so good; although I am briefly distracted that the captions switched from “solemn music” to “somber music” (do those not mean the same thing?)

Everyone coming to stand beside Owen — (why is this making me think of Mulan during the battle scene)

The 126 would be so bad at social distancing — those fuckers love to hug so much.

TOMMY!!!

TOMMY IS LACING UP!!!

WE MISSED YOU DURING SEASON ONE, TOMMY!!!

(Can you tell I love her so much).

Okay, I might have forgot how fucking cute Tommy and her husband are together.

(And I lowkey feeling killing him off helped her character arc — but damn are they adorable together).

“Oh, so many stir sticks”. Charles Vega you are a PRINCE.

They really are the cutest couple.

They have no right being this adorable for him to randomly die.

“Hey, doesn’t your mama look like a boss?” “Mama IS the boss!” THE AUDACITY. The gall of making this family so adorable.

They have two minutes of screen time and I ALREADY LOVE THEM!!

And then there’s Tim—

I kind of feel bad for that guy, like they brought him back for HIM to die…

That really could have been the tag line for season 2; we got a second year. So people are just going to start dying. Randomly. When we feel like it.

So you have that to look forward to…

Like I do not miss Michelle, like at all — And Tim, I feel bad I will not miss you.

Cause then we get paramedic TK!

And Tim is whiny!

But Nancy!

We see Nancy sassmaster!

She has LINES!

Paul has a giant ass book!

THIS ENTIRE CONVERSATION —

“I remember 2013”.

“Live concerts”.

“Nightclubs”.

“Hugs”. Oh Mateo…

Tommy and Owen!

I know this is just the beginning but their friendship is the cutest thing —

Like I feel like they never really figured out what to do with Michelle and Owen, it was like power trippy and weirdly flirty…

Like they did a lot with those ten episodes in most other aspects of the show but I feel that’s where it fell flat.

“I don’t know who you’ve been talking to—” Enter Judd, who is in AWE of Tommy and her badassery.

Like Tommy — you are Tommy MOTHERFUCKING Vega!! Don’t you forget that!

Judd is seriously the cutest that he’s so proud of her and so stoked to have her there.

Okay has anyone done roller derby? What is it like? Were you terribly injured?

It intrigues me so much and looks fun but I’ve never met anyone in life who has done it and I’m curious…

Also the captions identified the song as “Barracuda” by Heart and then labeled it “intense 80’s rock music”.

The Joan Jett song is captioned as “brash punk rock”.

Oh that is horrifying — my irrational fear of splinters feel much more rational now.

I do love they follow up with this and Marjan does join their roller derby team.

I do agree though that Kitten Crusher does sound like she is crushing kittens not the kitten who crushes.

Tim I’m sorry but you are annoying; you don’t tell YOUR CAPTAIN but you haven’t been in the field!

It’s okay Tommy! You can do it!

And she does! She saved her arm!

The furniture store in my area is running commercials for presidents day — they are so, so lame.

And I’m watching this on Hulu but I had to share that with ya;ll.

TK! Great shirt alert!

I love that TK has a whole speech with so much exposition for us prepared before he adds, “and I forgot”.

I’m chuckling at the idea of my store being arranged where everything orange… is with everything else… that is orange.

(Though I was making cookies this morning at work — SO MANY orange M and Ms. I was like why are there not more colors in this box lol).

Sorry, back to the show — how did these hangs start!

Cause did Carlos even know their names before they started doing these? (Like he knew Paul; did he know anyone else??)

Like his back is turned he’s busy at the counter when he comes in, and he’s more introverted anyway — does Carlos participate like out loud in group hangs at this point if TK isn’t in the room??

So many things to think about with this scene, and then—

AND THEN. WE FINALLY MEET HER.

GWYNETH MORGAN IS IN THE BUILDING.

I seriously cannot get over how good this casting is — like even from a physical standpoint.

Like how do people who are not related resemble each other so goddamn much??

Like if you put Ronen next to Rob’s actual sons, and said okay pick which one he’s biologically related to, you would not pick either of them (no offense, Rob’s real sons).

Lisa Edelstein is just so good — she made me want to try and watch House (I’m sorry I couldn’t make it past a few episodes. I understand this was a thing in the early 2000’s; the guy is a narcissistic abusive dick to everyone BUT HE’S RIGHT and they could get away with it then but it’s like if he wasn’t on it it would be compelling)

Sorry, back to this. Owen, if you hadn’t mentioned it, she might not have moved your hand towel.

Another topic for discussion; the lone star timeline, and how it is basically swiss cheese.

Why does Owen throw out the timeline of four months? She has to have been there for so much longer than four months. They establish (in the episode where they show Nancy they put Tim’s name on the ambulance) that it’s January 2021 like when it aired.

And like Owen says they’ve been sleeping together since before July.

And the thing that makes the most sense is that Gwyn came to see TK after he’d been shot, then the shutdown happened and she stayed (this was so a thing; like I remember this so vividly. My brother couldn’t come home for Christmas for 2019 so he came in March and just happened to come that second week of March and ended up staying with my mom for three months. He tried so hard to get me to like cooking. I’m just terrible at it; but I had really good leftovers those months cause he went to culinary school).

But the biggest thing with the lone star timeline. It makes no goddamn sense. It will turn you into Mr. Krabs from that episode of Spongebob where he is so despondent after losing his one millionth dollar he pulls his eyes out of his head and starts skipping rope with them.

Also — we were so robbed of TK introduces Carlos to his mom scene!

There’s a lot of good fic of it out there (@carlos-in-glasses has a particularly good one) but we were still robbed.

The fact that Owen and Gwyn really think TK doesn’t know what they’re doing; you beautiful, ocean-eyed dum-dums.

I just love Tommy so much — Charles is right. Woman is perfect.

Like this is the first episode we have Tommy and she just has so much life and drive and it’s like where were you the last ten episodes Tommy!

I’m sorry I don’t want to keep complaining about Michelle but just… Tommy.

She is just the best.

Do I sound completely stupid if I point out how call-heavy these early episodes are?

Like I swear season four they cap it at like two calls and then there are adventures.

I hate to be that person, but if she was last on the job in 2013, Gilmore Girls would have ended six years before that (@sznofthesticks why am I this person. I annoy myself actually lol).

Owen was almost hit by an arrow!

How could Owen possibly identify where it had come from? Is this a thing? Do people just… know directions?

I’m like the meme of GPS saying go north and I think what am I, a ship captain?

(Or a dumbass. I’m definitely that lol).

Paul’s doing a thing again!

Seriously imagine if Paul and Carlos and Grace all worked together to solve something — that would be amazing!

I love that TK’s reaction to his dad being trouble is “I NEED AN AXE!” Baby boy, I love you so much.

Judd and TK with the hose — the only thing that could make this better…

Is if CARLOS SHOWS UP!

Gone are the days where he has the one scene an episode!

“Maybe don’t make us do your job for you next time” In case anyone was wondering if Brat TK would be making an appearance.

Judd is the best hype man it’s the cutest.

Seriously Tommy and Owen just have such a mutual respect for each other and their friendship is so sweet.

The dreaded zoom freeze!!

But yay! Cancer has gone down!

And Owen is definitely freaking out and pretending he’s not.

TK is so precious, he’s so excited.

Can I just say how unnecessary the pregnancy storyline was?

Or, more specifically, why they actually had her have the baby—

Like she was planning to leave for New York when TK was still there; she could’ve done that if it had been a false alarm pregnancy, or if something had happened because it was a geriatric pregnancy which is very risky which they pointed out;

(I know that’s several episodes away but if she was ready to leave when they were both still there she could’ve done that without having another kid, especially since said kid was not mentioned AT ALL when TK got married)

Oh, Charles Vega. I’ll miss you much more than I will miss Tim.

I COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT THIS.

JUDD AND GRACE!!!!

The cutest, most awkward cock block.

Tommy’s shirt is so, so very open.

It takes them way too long to realize what they walked in on.

But also, Tommy and Grace’s friendship.

Why would you go to a bridge with a million bats??

I need an answer to this — why are we past it already!

Ahh Rob and Lisa have such good chemistry together I can’t—

Also, real talk. Like I know they have to try because he’s technically the star of the show, but I don’t see them ever landing a successful Owen relationship.

No one beats this (again, just my opinion).

But no Owen relationship we’ve seen have they been as connected and just…

(wow. I am so good at coming up with words. Good thing writing isn’t my main hobby/source of joy. Oh wait…)

TK WITH THE SUCKER!!! ICONIC.

“Who else knows?”

“Everybody”. And off he skips.

“Well, he’s a wise ass”. Yes Gwyn, yes he is. And there are two really good reasons why.

This girl with the bandanna is so cute!

She is massaging the kale and podcasting it up while there is a LITERAL inferno outside.

I do remember the next one though, and am happy no fate befalls cute bandanna girl…

Thank you for reading my unhinged thoughts! There was a lot I forgot in this episode- it's so good-

And TOMMY. She is HERE. YAYYYYYYY

#911 lone star #911 lone star rewatch 2024 #season two #back in the saddle again

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