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one-boring-person · 3 years

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Hi! I was wondering if you could write more for Dutch from Predator? Lol it's me btw! I was wondering if it could be a hate to love relationship, where Dutch, being the hardass he is, can't live down his pride, and the reader (preferably female), is a strong independent woman who is actually Poncho's little sister, learning from the best. To add on, can the reader be short as Arnie is so tall, and because I am only 5'2" irl?

I kind of combined this with the enemies-to-lovers prompt request, I hope that's ok! I hope you like this!😊💛

Old Habits Die Hard.

Alan "Dutch" Schaefer (Predator 1987) x reader

Warnings: NSFW, smut, swearing, mention of violence, alcohol consumption

Masterlist

"This round's on me, what does everyone want?" Mac announces as we go to sit down at the table, the mercenary remaining standing.

"A beer sounds good." Poncho says, looking at the rest of us.

We give words of agreement, taking our respective places at the table as Mac goes to leave the room and go to the bar.

"Don't forget a soda, I don't think they sell alcohol to underage people here." Dutch chips in, flashing a pointed look in my direction.

"Very funny." I roll my eyes, forcing a smile as the others chuckle, "A beer is fine, Mac. Thanks."

He nods, ducking from the room we rented out for the evening, leaving the five of us alone.

"So what's all this about, Dutch? Got us another job?" Blain questions, the gruff man leaning back in his chair, jaw working languidly at the gunk in his mouth.

"Yeah, but this one's a bit different." The major replies, taking a cigar from his pocket and lighting it.

"Different? How?" Hawkins frowns, cokcing his head to the side.

Dutch takes a deep breath of smoke from the cigar, sitting back in his seat.

"An old friend from the army got in touch. Says he needs us for a rescue op."

"Friend from the army? Who?" I inquire, lifting an eyebrow.

"Old commander of mine." Dutch replies dismissively, barely sparing me a glance.

"Ok, where is the job?" Poncho asks, my brother shooting me a knowing look, his eyes flicking up as Mac walks in again, seven beers cradled in his arms.

"What job?" He asks as he places the bottles down on the table, looking round at us all.

"Dutch got us another op." Blain grunts, reaching out to take his beer, spitting the contents of his mouth out into the ashtray on the table. Hawkins, Poncho and I pull faces at that, but don't say anything.

"Another one? We only just got back!" Mac exclaims, taking a seat across from Hawkins, taking a sip from his beer.

"Perks of the job." Dutch shrugs, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

"Will you at least tell us what it is?" I can't keep the impatience from my voice, finding his vagueness irritating.

"I'm getting to it, (Y/n), calm down." He rolls his eyes, "It's in central America, somewhere in the jungle. Phillips was cagey about where exactly, but he said it's got something to do with guerrillas and hostages. We're supposed to get the hostages out of there."

"Sounds simple enough." Billy muses, rubbing his chin.

"When is it?" Poncho chips in, watching the major closely.

Dutch is quiet for a minute, his eyes flicking over us all, before he finally responds.

"It's tomorrow."

I nearly choke on my beer, spluttering as I sit upright in my chair.

"Tomorrow? Are you insane?!" I burst out, annoyed, "We got back from Afghanistan at the ass-crack of dawn today, and you want us to fly off to the jungle at the same time tomorrow? You trying to kill us or what?"

The others nod in agreement, murmuring their own complaints, only to shut up when Dutch turns a venomous glare on me.

"You know, if you spent half the energy you do on complaining on growing, you wouldn't look like a damn child anymore, (Y/n). Would make taking jobs a lot easier - means I don't have to explain why we've only got six and half mercs with us." He snaps, voice laced with anger, "I'm not insane, just practical. We all need more money, and the work is low at the moment. You'd know that if you weren't off lounging at home all day, letting us do the hard planning and prep work."

Silence descends on us all, my jaw dropping at the vehemence behind his words. No one speaks, letting the two of us stare at each other in hatred, my expression swiftly creasing into fury, every muscle in my body going tense.

Another moment passes, before I suddenly stand from the table, slamming my bottle on the table as I stalk past, heading straight out the door. Poncho tries to stop me, calling out to me, but I ignore him, practically seething as I leave the bar and stride to the car my brother and I came in. Unlocking it, I climb in and slam the door, buckling myself into the driver's seat as I throw the car into drive, pulling out onto the road.

Furious, I drive way over the speed limit, weaving in and out of the traffic with no regard for my own safety as I careen down the highway. Screeching horns and tyres follow me as I go, but I ignore them, focusing instead on getting home, filled with anger now as Dutch's words play over and over in my head.

It doesn't take long for me to pull up in the drive of my house, the car skidding on the loose gravel as I harshly jerk the handbrake into place, unbuckling myself before I climb out, making my way over to the door. Opening it, I go in and head straight to the bathroom, intending to take a shower to cool me down, knowing I need to calm down. I strip down quickly, quickly getting under the cold water with my fists clenched at my sides for a while, until I start to massage myself with my fingers, working out the knots in my muscles. It's pleasant, but I can still feel the anger burning in my system, so I swiftly leave again, wrapping myself in a towel.

As I leave the bathroom, I hear a car pull up in the drive, the tyres crunching loudly on the gravel, announcing the newcomer's arrival. I dismiss it, chalking it up to it being Poncho, come to check up on me as the door downstairs opens, then closes, footsteps sounding in the hall as the person checks for me. The sounds are heavier than I thought they would be, and the identity of the person soon dawns on me.

Immediately, I feel the anger start racing through me again, my face creasing into a scowl until I force myself to calm down, at which point I turn and storm up to my bedroom. Going in, I start to rummage through my wardrobe, looking for some new clothes, trying to bite back the irritation rising in me as I hear the footsteps getting closer, the heavy boots not even halting as they reach the door. Within seconds, the wooden structure has been flung open, an angry mercenary standing in the space behind it.

"Ever learn to knock?" I snap at him as soon as I turn around, glaring at Dutch as he looms in the doorway, "Nevermind, you never learned manners period."

"Says the person who just stormed out of a bar." He scoffs, sneering at me as he steps into the room, "Talk about table manners."

"And whose fault is it I stormed out in the first place?" I glower at him, holding my towel in place as he continues forward, the glint in his eyes sparking a blazing heat inside me.

"Oh, so now it's my fault you can't take a joke?" Dutch jabs his finger at his chest before pointing it at me, brow furrowed in anger.

"You have a pretty poor idea of a joke, asshole." I spit back, lifting my finger up in his face as we step closer together, less than a foot away from each other now.

"You're the only one who thinks so, short-ass." He glares down at me, making me all too aware of how he towers over me.

Swallowing tightly, I shift uncomfortably.

"Sure about that? I can't be the only one who thinks your height jokes are getting old." I reply venomously, jabbing my finger at his chest.

He laughs humorlessly.

"Oh, but we both remember a time when you used to love playing into your shortness." His voice drops an octave, eyes boring into me, "I had you on your knees more than once with only standing over you. Remember?"

A flare of lust goes through me at the reminder, flashes of him looming over me as he pounded his cock harder and harder into my waiting mouth coming, unbidden, to mind. I'd always liked the sight of his muscular body above mine, as well as the feelings of his large hands wrapped around me, even if it was simply to hold my head still whilst he fucked it.

"That was months ago." I hiss back at him, barely able to look up at him - if I do, it'll be too much like the memories in my head and I'll give in to the urges of my body. Already I can feel arousal pooling in my panties, my cheeks flushing as I realise this.

"Old habits die hard." Dutch growls, before swiftly reaching out to tear the towel away, exposing me to him. Before I can protest, however, he's taken hold of me and lifted me against the wall, pinning me roughly in place with his body, my legs wrapping instinctively around his waist. His lips crash into mine, a mess of teeth and tongues ensuing as we kiss like we used to, wet sounds filling the air as we press closer and closer together. Soft sounds of need escape me, but they're swallowed by the ravenous major above me, who licks and nips at my lips, a few grunts leaving him as he does so.

Moving to pull him closer, I moan loudly as Dutch jerks his hips into mine, using them to hold me in place, his arousal pressing at my clit through his trousers. I have to bite back whines at the feeling of the rough fabric against my unprotected clit, my slick soon covering the crotch of his jeans as he rolls his hips into me. One of his hands moves to palm roughly at my breast, pinching and rolling the nipple between two calloused fingers, his other hand grasping my ass, which he squeezes tightly. Whimpering into his mouth, I take my nails down his back, grinding my sensitive clit down onto him, enjoying the waves of pleasure emanating from the stimulation.

Months and months of pent up lust pour through the kiss, only breaking as Dutch pulls back to yank his shirt off, revealing his muscular yet scarred torso to me. Instantly, I go to lick and kiss at the toned muscles, only to yelp indignantly as he takes hold of my hair and jerks my head back, growling as he fastens our lips together again. He presses closer, crushing me against the wall with his huge body, grinding his arousal into me with vigour, only to suddenly pull away, keeping me in his arms. In seconds, Dutch has thrown me on the bed, standing at the end with his hands on his belt.

Biting my lip, I eagerly move to help him, but he pushes me back down roughly, wasting no time in pulling his trousers and underwear down, revealing his leaking cock to the air. I moan at the familiar sight of it, eyeing up the veined length keenly, following it from the base to the reddened tip, watching as precum beads there.

Dutch doesn't give me long to admire him, climbing over me and pressing himself against me as soon as he's exposed, his lips moving to my neck. He leaves wet, open-mouthed kisses in his wake, biting at sensitive points as he goes, licking over them briefly each time to soothe them, every movement extracting a needy whine from me. One of his hands moves down to his cock, which he takes hold of and runs through my slick folds, coating the tip generously as he supplies pleasure to me. With every pass over my clit, I moan and rock up into him, clutching at his back.

"Fuck me, Dutch. Show me how much bigger you are." I moan out, wrapping my legs around his waist.

As he hears my words, however, Dutch growls, leaning back, making my legs fall from where they were. I whine at the lack of contact until he rolls me onto my front, grabbing hold of my ass to knead and grope.

"I'll show you alright." He practically snarls in my ear as he bends back over me, moulding his huge body to my smaller frame, hands jerking my ass into his hips. He grinds himself into me for a moment, building my pleasure further as he bites at the back of my neck, sending bolts of electricity through me, which I respond to by rocking back onto him.

With a final grunt, Dutch lines himself up with my hole, surging forwards into me in one stroke, stretching me out as he goes. A half-scream leaves my throat as I feel his cock slide over every sensitive spot inside me, my walls clenching deliciously around him, every vein rubbing against me. He gives me no time to adjust, pulling out entirely before slamming back into me, setting a hard, fast pace that has me seeing stars in no time. Ecstasy races through me, a knot tightening swiftly in my abdomen at the feeling of his thick cock pounding into me.

Dutch straightens after a moment, taking my hip in one hand whilst he presses my face into the bed with the other, using me as leverage to shove his cock as far into me as he can go, grunting and groaning behind me in pleasure and need. Under his grip, I feel totally immobile, but the thought of him using me to work out his anger sends me reeling, my walls clenching tightly around him, tearing a moan from his lips. His name falls from my own, almost like a mantra as he slams into me, sending bolts of pleasure through me, bringing me closer and closer to what I really want.

"So close, Dutch...keep going, oh fuck, you're so good…" I moan out, my words muffled slightly by the bed, though they are audible enough for him.

A whine of displeasure echoes from my chest as he suddenly pulls out, my pussy throbbing at the loss. He doesn't wait long, though, rolling me back onto my back before he hikes my legs up onto his shoulders, thrusting roughly back into me. With the new angle, whole other waves of pleasure ripple through me, his cock hitting the very spot that brings me crashing towards an orgasm. The sound of skin slapping together fills the room, along with obscenely wet noises and moans from the two of us, both too caught up in the moment to care about what comes after.

"You're getting tighter, (Y/n)...gonna cum for me, are you?" Dutch groans, his thrusts becoming erratic as my pleasure rapidly builds, "Come on, (Y/n), cum for me!"

With a final scream of ecstasy, the tension inside me snaps and I cum, hard, my walls clenching like a vice around him. White light blinds me, everything disappearing around me as the pleasure floods through me in a great torrent, rendering me incapable of moving momentarily.

Vaguely, I feel Dutch pound into me a few more times before he pulls out and cums over my stomach, letting out a roar of satisfaction at the sensation, his hand wrapped around himself, jerking his cock desperately. Breathing heavily, he milks himself dry before he slumps over me, smearing the sticky substance between us, the two of us left breathless in the throes of our pleasure.

"Still as good as I remember." He hums, rolling off of me to lie beside me.

"Could say the same thing." I sigh, trailing a finger through his cooling cum, grimacing at the sight of it.

Groaning, I heave myself up, taking the towel up from the floor.

"Where are you going?" Dutch asks, still lounging on the bed.

"Shower. You should, too." I inform him, moving to leave, only to stop still as the door swings open.

"(Y/n)? Who are you- oh." Poncho blushes a deep red, grimacing as he swiftly ducks back out of the room.

"Oh shit…" I groan, putting my head in my hands, unable to bite back a small smile.

With just grins, leaning back on his hands.

"Oops."

Tag list: @nightime-luna-fairy

#predator 1987 #predator #predator Dutch #Dutch Schaefer #Alan Schaefer #Dutch x reader #Dutch Schaefer x reader #Dutch Schaefer imagine #Arnold Schwarzenegger #break writes

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byulsgrease · 3 years

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for worse ⋆ I promise you

previous || masterlist || next

(~1.3k words, cw angst)

It'd been a while since we'd properly hung out. Adulting, am I right? People told me over the years that college friendships were never really the same after graduation. Didn't really know what they meant until real work began. Truly no other time in life matched college with everyone in the same place, taking advantages of similar opportunities, and living within walking distance of each other. I could go on forever about how the 40-hour workweek solely exists to drain everyone until they're nothing but soulless shells, but I digress.

Regrettably I left my first full-time job after realizing it wasn't for me. It kind of kick-started an existential spiral about what the hell I was doing with my life. I thought I had left that behind in college, having scored a job just before I graduated. I had a sense of security, direction, all that. But actually working led me to realize that I legitimately hated it. I knew I wasn't the first person on earth to hate the job associated with their college field of study, but it certainly felt like it.

What had she been up to at the time? Word floated around that she'd started producing tracks for Yongsun, DJ-ing, and working random gigs to make ends meet. But we usually tried not to talk about work much, we knew better than to waste our time on the pleasantries. Not that I had anything noteworthy to report, admittedly I hadn't been doing much of anything. Sending resumes into the void of online job postings between episodes of whatever new TV series I marathoned. She came over to my place and I made instant ramyun topped with hard-boiled eggs and some kind of green vegetable (despite her protests), slurping up the nostalgic saltiness together.

"So, how's the job hunt going?" she asked between sips of the sodium-filled instant broth fogging her glasses. I'd been unemployed for a couple months, she knew at least that much.

I don't even remember the specifics of my response, maybe I complained about the monotony or not hearing anything back, but I just remember the uncharacteristic edge that came into her voice.

She paused. "Isn't that what you told me the last time I saw you?"

I shrugged.

"No leads at all?"

"There's been a couple, but they didn't pan out. Can we talk about something else?" Please, dear God. Anything else.

"Didn't pan out... because you didn't prepare enough? Or because you didn't want them to?" What got into her?

"I did what I could, okay? It just didn't work out."

"You are actively looking, right?" she probed, glaring decidedly over her black plastic frames.

"Yep."

"Hey. I'm just making sure you don't end up where you were in your last job. Absolutely miserable, if I'm not mistaken," she stared with a knowing look and directed point of her chopsticks, jabbing at the air in front of my face.

"Okay! Thanks. Appreciate the concern." I tried to keep it light but an unmistakable bitterness slipped out alongside, which she countered with a scoff.

"You've always been like this, you know," she lamented. "So quick to point out what's wrong about a situation, but never able to come up with a better alternative. Do you even know what you want?"

"It's been rough, I just don't know where to start," I bumbled defensively, probably tacking on other lackluster excuses pulled straight out of my ass. I quite nearly said you. I want you. In the mess of a life I had lived so far she was kind of the only constant. But that would've been rather stupid, wouldn't it? Using her as another excuse.

"Oh please, everyone loves doing at least one thing. Maybe if you quit watching TV for 5 seconds and thought a little longer about what you actually enjoy, you could be doing more, going places."

She meant well, I knew. But that was the flip side of having known each other for so long— we knew just the stuff that cut the deepest. I asked to change the subject, didn't I?

"Why do you always have to offer advice, be the one to fix everyone around you? Have you ever considered that's not what everyone needs? I wonder sometimes if you're even listening."

"But you need it."

"Says who, did I ask?" I shot back, not caring to hide the annoyance anymore.

"I'm just saying. You're falling into a pattern, you need to get out of it and stop making excuses before you waste away," she replied in a tone far too calm for my liking. How did she stay so collected? She usually never missed the chance to get fired up over an argument.

Tears unconsciously leapt to my eyes, both because she was right but also because she wouldn't match my emotional energy— irrational, I know. Emotion, there's no stopping it before you feel it. Tried to hide them anyway because I'm not usually a crier, breathing deep and turning my chin towards the ceiling, blinking vigorously in hopes that they wouldn't start streaming down my face.

"We're not kids anymore, you're no one's responsibility but your own." She put her hands on her knees to decidedly stand up from her chair, taking our near-empty bowls over to the sink.

The tears stung like her words did, but it's not like she said anything untrue. Just wished she could be a bit better about the delivery, but beating around the bush with her? Never.

I stammered the start of some kind of apology but she cut me off—

"If you're gonna give me another excuse, stop. Just stop," she said curtly, and then immediately paused and sighed. Who knew she had it in her to maturely cool off mid-conversation? "You and I both know talk is cheap. Just... prove it to me, okay? I know you have it in you. But I can't stand idly by and let you waste time like this." Her spiel ended decidedly with the clink of the porcelain inside the sink basin. I dunno if she expected me to reply, not that I could've with the lump in my throat, so I sat in silence while she wordlessly washed the dishes, air filled with the sound of running water and scented soap.

She walked over to her sneakers when she finished and stepped into them without untying the laces, raising one foot at a time and freeing the smashed heel of each shoe with a finger. For someone that liked sneakers so much, she treated them terribly. Maybe that's why she insisted on owning so many pairs.

"I've gotta go, long day in the studio tomorrow," she nearly sighed, hands stuffed meekly in her pockets.

Stay. Help me through this. It'd be so much easier together. Obviously, not at all what I said.

"Understandable, work night." Yet another reminder of my unemployment. "Good to see you, though," I hesitated for a split second before tacking on, "It's been too long. I know you're busy, but don't be a stranger, okay?" The corner of her lip tugged upwards, a suggestion of a smile flashed my way before she grasped the doorknob to let herself out.

"Yeah. Lemme know how the job search goes. I'll buy you a drink," she chuckled to herself, walking out into the night air with a hand raise that she always did instead of a proper wave, shutting the door behind her.

I trudged over to my laptop and opened it with a pitied laugh and resigned shake of my head. Even after a spat Byul could still get me to follow her damn advice. Pretty sure I spent the rest of the night editing my resume.

Was that the beginning of the end? Nah. You can't end what never started.

But like I've said, it all worked out for the better in the end— I never said painlessly, though.

#oof this took a while #angst is so hard to write but satisfying all said and done #I promise you #mamamoo imagines #moonbyul imagines #moonbyul x reader #moon byulyi #mamamoo moonbyul #mamamoo angst #girl group angst #kpop angst #kpop imagines #gg imagines #girl group fic #mamamoo x reader #mamamoo fic

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spxllcxstxr · 3 years

Text

The Seven Potters Plan Part 1 • R.L

(Gif not mine)

Request: Nope, just wanted to torture myself with this idea :)

Summary: Harry Potter needs to be relocated from his house in Surrey to the Burrow, however, because he’s not quite seventeen yet, he still has the Trace. Your father, Mad-Eye Moody, comes up with a Plan B. Here’s how it goes.

Warnings: canon character death, canon Deathly Hallows, cursing, death, grieving, mention of injury and blood, death eaters, Voldemort, just a lot of hurt/angst

Word Count: 2.6k

A.N: So the first like 1k words are taken straight from the book. Why? Because I’m a sucker for that kind of stuff. Implied that you’re Remus’ age, the two of you are married, why do I think of these things? I’m like 99% sure I made this gender neutral? But if I didn’t like let me know. I know this is angsty, but I hope you all enjoy. Love you all ❤️

EDIT: So the full fic exceeded 250 word blocks, which is shit because this is not meant to be split up. Meaning, the ending is abrupt because I had to split the whole thing. This is fucking stupid, but whatever. Please don’t forget to read Part 2 for the whole story

****

“All right, all right, we’ll have time for a cozy catch up later!” Your father roars from beside you, cutting off Harry’s conversation with Tonks.

A silence falls over the kitchen, everyone staring uneasily in his direction. You tinker with the zipper on your jacket, nervous about the next few hours.

“As Dedulus probably told you,” He continues, one eye glaring at Harry, the other rolling around in its restraint. “we had to abandon Plan A. Pius Thicknesse has gone over, which gives us a big problem. He’s made it an imprisonable offense to connect this house to the Floo Network, place a Portkey here, or Apparate in or out.” You watch his knuckles turn white, the grip on his staff tightening in anger. “All done in the name of your protection, to prevent You-Know-Who getting in at you. Absolutely pointless, seeing as your mother’s charm does that already. What he’s really done is to stop you from getting out of here safely.”

Harry’s lips tug into a frown.

“Second problem: you’re underage, which means you’ve still got the Trace on you.”

Harry glances around the room, dark eyebrows knit together in confusion. “I don’t—“

“The Trace, the Trace!” Mad-Eye continues impatiently. “The charm that detects magical activity around under-seventeens, the way the Ministry finds out about underage magic! If you, or anyone around you, casts a spell to get you out of here, Thicknesse is going to know about it, and so will the Death Eaters.”

You swallow roughly at the mere thought of being swarmed by Death Eaters unprepared.

A calloused hand grabs yours, and just by the feel you recognize it at Remus’. His hand is warm and comforting in your grasp.

“We can’t wait for the Trace to break, because the moment you turn seventeen you’ll lose all the protection your mother gave you. In short: Pius Thicknesse thinks he’s got you cornered good and proper.”

“So what are we going to do?” Harry questions, his determined tone hiding fragility behind his words.

“We’re going to use the only means of transport left to us, the only ones the Trace can’t detect, because we don’t need to cast spells to use them: brooms, thestrals, and Hagrid’s motorbike.” You father answers gruffly.

You squeeze your husband’s hand hard as you shift around. You hated this plan. It left you all open and vulnerable, and the pit in your stomach was screaming at you that something bad was going to happen. But it was, in reality, the only way to safely get Harry away from his house.

A skeptical look flashes across Harry’s face as well, though he doesn’t say anything.

“Now, your mother’s charm will only break under two conditions: when you come of age, or“—Mad-Eye makes a head gesture around the kitchen, his pockets jingling.—“you no longer call this place home. You and your aunt and uncle are going your separate ways tonight. In the full understanding that you’re never going to live together again, correct?”

He nods.

“So this time, when you leave, there’ll be no going back, and the charm will break the moment you’re outside it’s range. We’re choosing to break it early, because the alternative is waiting for You-Know-Who to come and grab you the moment you turn seventeen.”

The cool metal zipper is still between your fingers, a distraction from all of the grim looks around the room.

“The one thing we’ve got on our side is that You-Know-Who doesn’t know we’re moving you tonight.” Mad-Eye informs him. “We’ve leaked a fake trail to the Ministry: they think you’re not leaving until the thirtieth. However, this is You-Know-Who we’re dealing with, so we can’t just rely on him getting the date wrong; he’s bound to have a couple of Death Eaters patrolling the skies in this general area, just in case.”

You swallow roughly at the thought.

“So, we’ve given a dozen different houses every protection we can throw at them. They all look like they could be the place we’re going to hide you, they’ve all got some connection with the Order: my house, Kingley’s place, (Y/n) and Lupin’s, Molly’s Auntie Murial’s—you get the idea.”

“Yeah.” Harry responds, nodding once again.

“You’ll be going to Tonk’s parents.” You father goes on to explain. “Once you’re within the boundaries of the protective enchantments we’ve put on their house, you’ll be able to use a Portkey to the Burrow. Any questions?”

“Er—yes.” Harry stutters. “Maybe they won’t know which of the twelve safe houses I’m heading for at first, but won’t it be sort of obvious once”—he starts counting the heads around him—“fifteen of you fly off toward Tonk’s parents’?”

“Ah,” You scoff. “And here’s the kicker.”

Harry looks at you with a frown. Your father lightly jabs you with his staff.

“I forgot to mention the key point.” Mad-Eye scowls. “Fifteen of us won’t be flying to Tonk’s parents’s. There will be seven Harry Potters moving through the skies tonight, each of them with a companion, each pair heading for a different safe house.” He takes out his old flask from the inside pocket of his jacket.

“I hate this plan.” You mutter under your breath. Remus’ fingers trace figure eights between your knuckles.

“No!” Harry loudly protests. “No way!” His hands are balled into fists as he frantically looks at all of you surrounding him.

“I told you he’d take it like this.” Hermione lightly points out.

“If you think I’m going to let six people risk their lives—!“

“—because it’s the first time for all of us.” Ron rolls his eyes at his friend.

“This is different, pretending to be me—“

“Well, none of us really fancy it, Harry.” One of the twins jokes. “Imagine if something went wrong and we were stuck as specky, scrawny, gits forever.”

Harry doesn’t smile but the other twin lets out a snort.

“You can’t do it if I don’t cooperate, you need me to give you some hair.” Harry stubbornly tells you all.

“Well, that’s the plan scuppered.” One twin dramatically sighs. “Obviously there’s no chance at all of us getting a bit of your hair unless you cooperate.”

“Yeah, fourteen of us against one bloke who’s not allowed to use magic; we’ve got no chance!” The other teases.

“Funny.” Harry sarcastically remarks. “Very funny.”

“If it has to come to force, then it will.” Mad-Eye growls.

“Dad!” You yelp, the idea of piling on top of this kid just to get a strand of hair repulsive to you.

Your father glances at you, face softening, though only slightly. You’re probably the only one who notices. The perks of growing up with him, you guess.

“Everyone here’s overage, Potter, and they’re all prepared to take the risk.”

Taking a deep breath, you focus back on your anchor. Remus’ hand is honestly the only thing keeping you from succumbing to a total breakdown.

“Let’s have no more arguments! Time’s wearing on. I want a few of your hairs, boy, now.”

“But this is mad!” Harry laughs humorlessly. “There’s no need—“

“No need!” You dad snarls. “With You-Know-Who out there and half the Ministry on his side? Potter, if we’re lucky, he’ll have swallowed the fake bait and he’ll be planning to ambush you on the thirtieth, but he’d be mad not to have a Death Eater or two keeping an eye out, it’s what I’d do. They might not be able to get at you or this house while your mother’s charm holds, but it’s about to break and they know the rough position of this place. Our only chance is to use decoys. Even You-Know-Who can’t split himself into seven.”

You let out a sigh, watching as he quickly glances at his friends.

“So, Potter—some of your hair, if you please.”

Still, he’s hesitant.

“Now!” Your dad barks, causing Harry to jump ever so slightly.

Silently, Harry brings a hand up to the top of his head and yanks at his hair as hard as he can, effectively pulling tufts of hair out. He barely even winces.

“Good.” Mad-Eye limps over to him, his prosthetic clanging against the white tiles. He waves the flask in front of him. “Straight in here, if you please.”

He drops them in and as the potion bubbles and sizzles, Ron and Hermione take a glance over his shoulders.

“Right then, all the fake Potters line up over here, then.” Mad-Eye grunts.

Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, and Fleur casually line up in the kitchen like they aren’t participating in something that might just kill them.

You also notice someone missing.

“We’re one short.” Remus observes.

“Here.” Hagrid grunts, shoving his way through, practically dragging Mundungus by the collar of his brown and dirty robes. He’s placed next to Fleur, who promptly shifts to stand between the twins. You don’t blame her.

“I told you,” Mundungus complains. “I’d sooner be a protector.”

“Shut it.” Mad-Eye growls. “As I’ve already told you, you spineless worm, any Death Eater we run into will be aiming to capture Potter, not kill him. Dumbledore always said You-Know-Who would want to finish Potter in person. It’ll be the protectors who have got the most to worry about, the Death Eaters’ll want to kill them.”

A cold chill runs down your spine. You were to be paired with another protector, mostly because your dad wanted you to be protected as well as the Potter you were guarding. In any other situation you would’ve argued against it, that you were more than capable of handling it all on your own, but this was different. You were absolutely terrified of being on your own.

It’s quiet as Mad-Eye pours the Polyjuice Potion into separate glasses. When the six of them drink the space is filled with gags and gasps as they morph into Harry Potter.

The Harry’s being to change, but you’re too caught up in your own thoughts to pay attention to any witty remarks. Anxiety courses through your veins and your foot taps against the floor.

When all of them are done, Mad-Eye starts announcing the pairs.

“The pairs will be as follows.” He declares, one eyes trained in the parchment in front of him, the other gazing at everyone. “Mundungus will be traveling with me by broom—“

“Why am I with you?” Demands a Harry in the back.

“Because you’re the one that needs watching!” You shout, glaring at the form that now backs away.

“Arthur and Fred—“

“I’m George!” Laughs one of the Harry’s. “Can’t even tell us apart when we’re Harry!”

“Sorry, George—“

“I’m only yanking your wand, I’m Fred really—“

“Enough messing around!” Mad-Eye growls. “The other one—Fred or George or whoever you are—you’re with Remus.”

You bump shoulders with the man next to you.

“Miss Delacour—“

“I’m taking Fleur on a thestral.” Bill interjects. “She’s not that fond of brooms.”

“Miss Granger with Kingsley and (Y/n), again on a thestral—“

Hermione smiles warmly at you and Kingsley, though it’s actually Harry’s crooked grin.

You aren’t surprised with who your father’s paired you with, Kingsley was honestly the only person he trusted with his life. He felt safest with the two of you together. And Hermione was resourceful as well, making the three of you probably the best team.

“Which leaves you and me, Ron!” Tonk’s cheers, hair fluctuating between pink and orange.

Ron, however, doesn’t look too pleased with the setup.

Harry and Hagrid are of course paired up together on his motorbike.

“I make it three minutes until we’re supposed to leave.” Your father grunts, glancing at his pocket watch. “No point locking the back door, it won’t keep the Death Eaters out when they come looking...come on...”

You turn to Remus, eyes suddenly brimming with tears. The lump in your throat makes it hard to breathe.

“You stay safe, alright?” You whisper, voice cracking.

“Hey, look at me, love.” He utters softly. A finger rests on the bottom of your chin, faces close together. Reluctantly you bring your gaze up to his own honey brown ones, shining with unshed tears. “We’ll be alright, yeah? We’ll be fine.” He tried his best to be convincing, he really does, but it falls flat.

Whatever movement is happening around you fades away.

“I love you, Remus.” You force out almost breathlessly. You might tell him this everyday but he needs to know. He needs to understand it.

“I love you, (Y/n).” He kisses you, lips chapped against your own, but it doesn’t even matter. “I’ll see you soon.”

Hesitantly, the two of you part, him to one of the twins and you to your father.

While everyone else is preparing and saying possibly their final words, your father stands alone, surveying the space.

“Let me have a look at you, yeah?” He grunts, eyes raking over your figure as you approach. “Just like your mother.”

“Mum probably would’ve thought this was a stupid idea too.” You attempt to joke.

You father rests his heavy hands on your shoulders, the weight oddly comforting.

“Yeah well, she thought all my plans were stupid.” He mutters. “She’d be proud, y’know? Fighting for what’s right.”

Your lip trembles which your father notices immediately.

“Oh, c’mere.” He wraps his arms around you, engulfing you in a rare hug.

Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody was the best Auror out there with a tough exterior that frightened most to death, but he was always a soft and caring father when it came to you.

“Don’t cry, (Y/n), hm?” His scruffy chin rests on top of your head. “I love ya, I know I don’t say it too often, but I do. I’m so proud...” His own gruff voice catches at the end.

“I love you too, dad.” You sniff, pulling away and wiping your eyes with your sleeves. “You’ll be alright with Mundungus?”

“Eh, the little bastard’s harmless.” He shrugs, trying to wipe his own eye quickly. “If you don’t come back in one piece, Kingsley’ll never see the light of day, though.”

“Wouldn’t expect anything less from you.” You chuckle.

Mad-Eye glances at his watch. “Damnit.” He mutters. “We’ve got to go. Stay safe, (Y/n).”

“You too, dad.” You reply, making your way to Hermione and Kingsley at your ride.

Your thestral is dark and practically skin and bone like usual. Being in two iterations of the Order of the Phoenix has unfortunately granted you to see threstrals in all their hauntingly beautiful glory.

“Good luck, everyone!” Mad-Eye shouts. “See you all in about an hour at the Burrow! On the count of three. One...two...THREE!”

You hang on tightly to the Harry in front of you, Kingsley guiding the animal to soar into the night sky, the wind almost taking your breath away. You have your wand at the ready, pointing into the void.

Hands shake both from the cold atmosphere and the nerves running through you.

All you do is blink, and five hooded figures have you surrounded, deathly close to you.

“We’ve got company!” You shout over the roaring wind.

You and Hermione fire off spells, Kingsley trying to multitask, but getting away from the cloaked figures was a bit more important.

The two of you try to dodge the best you can, but it’s hard when you’re sitting on the back of a horse.

You don’t know what you cast in the moment, but your body seizes and suddenly one drops like an anvil to the ground below.

The bone chilling feeling of death overtakes you and You-Know-Who, shrouded in a black cloak, quickly rushes past the three of you.

The battle seems like it lasts forever, the back and forth of spells almost unbearable, but eventually you make it to your meeting point, completely exhausted.

•

All Character Taglist: @aspiringsloth20 @amourtentiaa @cherie-draco @mullthingsoverinthehotwater

#Remus Lupin #remus lupin x reader #remus lupin angst #remus lupin fanfiction #remus lupin imagine #the marauders x reader

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talesmaniac89 · 4 years

Text

Choices - The Beginning

Pairing: Dean x Reader OR Sam x Reader

Summary: Choices is an interactive Supernatural choose your own adventure story where your choices determine the outcome. You go on a hunt with the two Winchester brothers, one of whom you love. You decide who your Winchester is and what happens along the way. Each part is a fully independently written section and no parts are copies of others, so the story can be read a full 8 different ways with 15 parts in total and 8 endings!

Total word count: 45k+ words (over 15 parts)

Triggers: Dark, torture, reader death, angst, loss, pain, blood, serious injuries, heartbreak, implied possible major character death, fear of abandonment, loneliness, hostage situation, gore (series levels blood, torture and fatal injuries)

Triggers depend on your choices, so if you are easily upset by any of the above please proceed with caution.

[Your Story Starts Here] - You’ll be asked to make your first choice at the bottom of this chapter.

Y/N = Your Name

---

“(Y/N)! Get a move on!”

Dean’s deep voice echoed down the hallway just as you shouldered your duffle bag with a roll of your eyes. It hadn't even been 10 minutes since the call for help had come in. If it wasn’t for the fact that you’d been busy cleaning your guns when the call came, you would’ve already been out there in the library with them, ready to go. It wasn’t as if you’d been standing around fussing over which ratty t-shirt to pack for an hour.

“On my way!” You shouted back, grimacing as the heightened volume easily erased the annoyance you’d wanted to subtly lace each word with. Throwing another quick look around your room in the Men of Letters bunker you sighed at the mess.

T-shirts and jeans were everywhere, as you’d pulled out everything to quickly stuff a few items in your overnight bag just in case the hunt took longer than planned. Not to mention the cleaning supplies you’d left abandoned on the floor from where you’d been sitting cross-legged polishing your favourite revolver.

It would all have to wait till you got back. Even though you knew you’d regret it once you made it back, bruised and stiff from the fight and the subsequent ride back in the Impala. Having to clean your room before you could fall into your bed feeling sorry for your aching bones was never fun.

Yet, sticking to a decision you knew you’d come to regret; you got a move on before Dean could call out for you again. Swiping up your phone, you hurried out into the hallway and nearly ran straight into Sam as he came barrelling out of his own room.

“Dean?” He asked, his hazel eyes meeting yours with a raised eyebrow a clear sign that your annoyance at being rushed was showing on your features. Though it didn’t matter, since the youngest Winchester clearly shared your irritation as he threw you a glance, underscored by an eye roll that put yours to shame.

“Yeah… Dean,” You said with a sigh as you lifted the straps of the duffle bag off of your shoulder. Attempting to bring some blood flow back into your arm from the heavy load of guns, knives, holy water and other goodies. As well as the clothes thrown in for good measure.

“Let’s not keep our oh so righteous leader waiting then. C’mon (Y/N),” Sam smirked, teasing a small smile out of you as well. Before quickly reaching down and effortlessly snatching your duffle bag from your hands and hurrying down the hallway. If it wasn’t for your relief of having the bag off of your shoulders you would have stopped him. Reminded him that you could easily kick his ass if you went one on one.

But, you knew that there were no hidden meanings in Sam’s gesture. He was just trying to be helpful.

You’d realised quite quickly after getting to know him that one of the things the youngest Winchester feared more than anything else was being abandoned; seen as useless or a burden and left standing in the dust. The shadows of his childhood fears were still clinging to him, little tendrils that he’d never managed to shake. Old fears from a youth spent in constant worry that his father would just drop him off somewhere and drive off without ever coming back. That, coupled with the many lost friends, lovers and hunters that had left him, willingly or unwillingly, made him try twice as hard at being of use to those he loved, every step of the way. From small kind gestures, like carrying your bag, to willingly offering himself up as a sacrifice to the big baddies of the world, in hopes of rescuing Dean, Cas, and now you.

Rolling your shoulders to shake off the rest of the strain from the bag, you pocketed your phone before hurrying after Sam down the hallway. No point in being grumpy when there were bad guys to gank. And neither of the two men in your life deserved your grumbled dissatisfaction. Both the bag and Dean’s insistence of getting on the road as fast as possible were just their own little ways of showing they cared.

Sam was just trying to be helpful and Dean was always worried about losing another civilian by being just a second too late. And you loved them both for it. After all, one was your best friend in the whole world, while the other already secretly had your heart. Though you’d never found the courage to tell him you slipped it into his hands when he wasn’t looking.

“(Y/N)!” Dean’s voice echoed down the hallway, pulling you out of your thoughts and back into your grumbled exasperation aimed at the oldest hunter. Ok… So maybe you’d allow yourself to be a tiny big grumpy until there were baddies in front of you to take it out on.

“I said I’m on my way!” You called back in a huff. Casting a quick glance at your closed bedroom door before quickly running to join the boys. Hopefully the bruises yet to come from the hunt wouldn’t make you regret your decision to leave the mess behind.

---

“So where are we headed, exactly?” You asked after about an hour’s drive and a quick case briefing from Dean. Leaning between the seats from the backseat of the Impala in a way that had Sam throwing worried glances your way for your lax seat-belt etiquette.

“There’s a farmhouse, just 40 clicks away now, shouldn’t take long,” Dean’s voice had taken on that steely hardness it got whenever things got serious. And though the case was nothing out of the ordinary for the Winchesters and you, there had already been two reported deaths.

Which also meant that Dean had already added their names and faces to his list of sins to carry. People he could have saved if he could have somehow seen into the future. The oldest Winchester always etched the names of every lost soul into his big heart, burying them there among the many ‘should haves’ and ‘what ifs’ that weighed his broad shoulders down. He was a good leader, and a great hunter, but sometimes he cared a little too deeply. Leaving him hurt no matter how well a hunt went.

“... And put on your seatbelt (Y/N),”

“Yeah, yeah,”

… And sometimes he treated you like a little kid. The thought teased a wry sigh out of you. Quickly reaching out, you turned up the volume of the Led Zeppelin song that was playing, a small act of rebellion, before leaning back in your seat. Smiling innocently as Dean’s green eyes met yours in the rear-view mirror, his attempt at exasperation softened by the way his eyes crinkled in a smile.

No matter how hard as steel the hunter tried to act, he always had a soft spot for Sam and you. To Dean, his feelings were cracks in his armour. They were the blind spots his father had told him about when teaching him to ‘always watch his back’. Yet, the man was more deserving of a family, of love, than anyone else you knew. And so, Sammy and you watched his back instead. Where he watched yours. Both of you determined for the older hunter to see you as strengths, not weaknesses.

Soldiers, shoulder by shoulder.

And, though Dean would constantly complain... You knew he was secretly happy the two of you stuck around; silently terrified of the loneliness he always tried to force onto himself by pushing others away. No matter how loudly his father’s words echoed in his mind and tried to tell him he was leaving himself vulnerable.

Letting Black Dog be your soundtrack, you watched the two most important people in your world from the backseat of the Impala. The Winchester brothers; both carrying scars from the family business they’d fallen into after their mother’s death. Each fearing abandonment and hurt in their own bruised and broken way. Both forced to give up any dream of apple pie to make the world a better place. Children turned soldiers turned martyrs, shaped into a sacrifice by a world that turned a blind eye to their suffering. Which was why you had promised yourself that you would try your damndest to give them a home, and that you would never run away from your life with them.

Even if a certain hunter sometimes made that a hard promise to keep, as every friendly jab broke your heart at the clearly unrequited love you harboured.

You sighed internally as you cast a careful glance in the direction of the man you’d come to love as more than just a hunting buddy or a friend, more than anything really, over the last year and a half of hunting with him. He’d probably be heartbroken to know he was hurting you, which was why you could never tell him how you felt. How your heart and body reacted, as if by reflex, whenever he was around.

Anything he did, from the smallest smile to the feel of his eyes on you, set your body on fire. In a manner not so different to what Robert Plant was promising he’d do to you as Black Dog blared over the Impala’s speaker system. And fuck if you didn’t want to echo the great artist himself and ask the man in front of you to do some not so innocent things to you whenever your eyes strayed to lips that you’d rather have on you than rambling on as they currently were about the case.

“Right… So, to make sure we’re ready…”

---

Make your choice below to move the story along:

The man you love is speaking - who is he?

[Dean Winchester] or [Sam Winchester]

---

Tags:

Dean Winchester Stories: @ria132love @woodworthti666 @defenderrosetyler @akshi8278

Forever Tags: @deanwanddamons @winchest09 @hobby27 @awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce @sea040561

Choices Tags: @deanwinchesterswitch @maddiepants @adoptdontshoppets @foxyjwls007 @mandalou29 @tiki-tay @inked-poet @leatherwhiskeycoffeeplaid @rhysmybaby @heyyy-hey-babyyy @mellilla-rose @queenoftheunderdark @imaginationisgrowth @almostelegantfire @alwaysdreamingforthebest @mydelusionalworld-7 @fatalcrossbow @backseat-of-deans-67chevy @wearesuchstuff1 @amotleyworld @impala-20 @sandlee44 @ksgeekgirl @cheesewaster @aeo10fan @mrswhozeewhatsis @idabbleincrazy @writingthingsisdifficult @ellewritesfix05 @justanotherwinchester @starks-hero @storiesfromtheimpala @iluvsumbucky @ellen-reincarnated1967 @katehuntington

Tags didn’t work for the following names: @lottieellz101 @lovedrarrypizzasleep @katherineisagubler @m2ello @guesswhosback129 @deepsleepnat I’ve sent you a message to notify you instead! @ireallyhaveaproblem unfortunately I can’t send you a message either.

---

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mavda · 3 years

Text

Beast Tamers

Ch.1 | Ch.2 | Ch.3 | Ch.4(1) | Ch.4(2) | Ch.5(1) | Ch.5(2) | Ch.5(3) | Ch.5(4) | Ch.6(1) | Ch.6(2) | Ch.6(3) | Ch.7(1) | Ch.7(2) | Ch.7(3) |

Ch.7: Of burdens and duties (4)

Naruto tries to look like he is not bored out of his mind. But they sure are testing his patience. To go see a lord he already forgot his name when he’s free, to consider sponsoring a new trade route Naruto had already discarded with the council, to lend his power to suppress an uprising someplace he didn’t care to remember.

His father’s hand touching his shoulder almost made him whine in relief.

“I’m afraid I need Lord Naruto for a while, if you’ll excuse me.” His father actually looks apologetic, and Naruto almost wants to congratulate him for being such a good actor. Do whatever you need to do, just get me out of here, he thinks.

And although the lords and ladies surrounding Naruto complain and whine about his father taking him, Minato takes him away amids excuses and apologetic glances everyone else buys.

They are out of earshot when Naruto sighs and thanks his father for his timing, “I was dying of boredom.”

His father snickers, “Thought it was time for you to get stressed out.”

“Hinata?”

“With Lord Gaara.”

Naruto raises an eyebrow at him, but doesn’t press further. He’s going to her right now to make sure she’s all right anyway.

There are some people who look at him and make as if getting closer, but Naruto raises a hand in apology and keeps on walking. He has already spent a good amount of time with them, let him leave, jeez.

Temari is the first one to notice him, and she gives him a nod before moving her body to give him a clearer view. Sai is looking around, sitting right beside Hinata. She is sitting straight, all poise and elegance, and her attention is on Gaara, who’s talking and moving his fingers as if counting.

He comes closer, keeping his eyes on her. Kankuro turns then, Sai glances over him and Gaara raises his head as he realizes his siblings’ attention is elsewhere. Then Hinata looks away from Gaara, follows his line of sight and looks at him.

Her shoulders drop in relief, her eyes widen and Naruto has to stop himself from gathering her up in his arms and crushing her against him. Sai stands up the moment he’s close enough and Naruto sits beside her. She stays unmoving and Naruto searches for her hands before bringing it to his thigh. Hinata gives him a small smile and as he rubs circles over her skin she squeezes back.

Gaara resumes his talking when Hinata looks back at him.

“So,” he continues, “only in attendance today are the One-Tail, the Five-Tail, Six-Tail and the Nine-Tail.” His fingers come down as he remembers. “The Four-Tail is allegedly dying-”

“Which him not coming today kind of fans the flames of that rumor,” Kankuro shrugs and Temari nods along.

“And reports have been coming in that the Two-Tail has been sealed already but they are giving time to their Beast Tamer to acclimate.”

Hinata frowns, “T-the others… w-where are the o-other B-beasts?”

“In the wild,” chimes in Naruto, “being restrained by the clans who want a claim on them.”

“W-who?”

Naruto shrugs, “We can’t know unless someone comes forward and claims their stake, but so far no one has done so. We don’t know where they are either.” His tone is matter of fact and his stance tells Hinata he doesn’t mind the situation one bit.

She keeps her worries to herself. If it’s not enough to worry a Beast Tamer, then surely they were unfounded. But Naruto presses on her hand, grabbing her attention.

“Anything else?”

“Ah, w-well. Isn’t it d-d-angerous?”

“Oh, well, if the Beasts were roaming freely then sure, and we Beast Tamers would have to step up and contain it. But since they are out there doing nothing, it’s better for us not to waste resources on that. They are being taken care of, and eventually a new Beast Tamer will appear.”

“H-have you h-had to?”

Naruto cocks his head to the side in confusion.

“T-take care of a w-wild B-beast.”

“Oh, no,” he says, “not in our generation. That kind of thing happened like three generations prior, when we were starting to seal them in ourselves.”

Hinata nods, as now everything starts to come together with the knowledge she had of Beast Tamers before becoming the wife of one. Before the Beasts were sealed in humans the clans either drew them off into the wild and far away from them or tried to seal them in places. A mountain, a cave, a forest. Only when they started sealing them within themselves to draw from their power did the Beast Tamers came into reality.

Hinata wonders, steals a glance at Naruto who is starting a conversation with Lord Gaara. Would it be so bad to let the Nine-Tail out into the wild again? Tied to a forest far away from everyone? That way Naruto…

He brings her out of her thoughts as he scoots closer to her and lays their intertwined hands over her thigh now, Hinata feels herself blushing and notices immediately the mischievous smirk on Naruto’s face.

He is enjoying this.

⁂⁂⁂

Hinata spends the rest of the day by Naruto's side. Like his father did before, when people don't accept Naruto's hand wave and leave, he walks to them, away from the group and comes back immediately after.

Lord Gaara and his entourage left a while ago, as soon as the demonstrations started. Each Beast Tamer sits in a specified area around the arena, at the highest part of the structure, in order of the number of tails of their respective Beasts. Lord Naruto sits at one of the edges and Lord Gaara is right in front of his line of sight.

Naruto relaxes the moment the show starts, and it's obvious why. The area the Beast Tamers sit at is off-limits to anyone but the people sanctioned by them, and a quick glance around tells Hinata that the Beast Tamers only keep their guards and a selected handful of other people. Many of the lords Naruto talked with before were not in here and new faces were presented before Hinata with a whole new attitude.

These people he liked, she realized, and by the way they conducted themselves the feeling was mutual.

Most of the lords and ladies that came to Naruto before sit under them, in the next level. Still substantially high up, but incapable of bothering the Beast Tamers. Not that they seem to mind, as they are now enthralled in the fights under them. With their hands intertwined and grabbing their clothes in suspense, Hinata sees some of them groaning in frustration while others clap in glee at the results.

Naruto sits with his hand on her thigh, and he glances back at her every once in a while. Rubs his thumb over her clothes, offers drinks and food Hinata ends up refusing after a while.

Sai sits right beside her, on her other side, and Sakura has come sit next to Naruto instead of Shino. They comment on the fights and some of the lords and ladies they met before and Sakura's laugh fills the room in intervals.

Hinata snickers at some of their comments, harsh and way too honest, and whenever she sits there, confused since she's missing information, either Sakura or Naruto lean to her and add an explanation.

There are few instances in which Hinata had the fortune of visiting a festival before. All of them under the eyes of the Hyuga. The places were beautiful and the people were happy and Hinata could only watch. Her stutter made her keep her mouth quiet and it meant she could never join in anything worth doing.

Naruto presses his hand on her leg, inches closer to the edge of his seat as the fight reaches its climax. One of the fighters uses a flashy fire technique that engulfs half the arena and the people watching hold their breaths as they expect to see the opponent laying on the ground. But he's cocooned inside walls he raised from the ground, and he dashes forward immediately after. His enemy yields the moment he sees him running towards him.

And Naruto laughs in joy. "Did you see that?" He asks, and Hinata can feel his eyes on her. She smiles and can't control the feeling that overcomes her as Naruto looks at her expecting a reaction. Whatever it may be.

She takes her time, as usual, but she doesn't worry, because she knows he will wait. "Went all or n-nothing on that last one, d-didn't he?"

Naruto's energy is contagious, and Hinata can't remember a time in which she was so mesmerized in fighting before. He nods along and shrugs, "You always gotta keep your chakra supply in check."

"Like you've ever had to worry about that," jabs Sakura, and Naruto turns to her with mock hurt on his face.

"I'll let you know I am very conscientious about my own chakra, thank you very much."

Lord Minato rarely comments and spends his time quiet and attentive behind his son, but this time he inches forward, right between Hinata and Naruto, and he says, "You are very welcome, son, thank you very much."

Naruto turns to him and looks as if he's been betrayed in the worst way possible. Sakura keeps on pestering him, now that Lord Minato has joined in, and Naruto waves them away frowning as if he's pissed, but he snickers the second after, and he can't help but laugh as he attempts to defend his position with weak arguments.

Even Sai chimes in, and Hinata can feel herself relishing this ambience, this situation. She is enjoying herself. And she brings her hand to her mouth in an attempt to hide the laugh that threatens to spill forth.

The tremor that rattles their room is enough for the conversation to die out immediately and for everyone to stand alert. Naruto grabs her arm and brings her closer to him.

The sound comes to them from the farthest corner of the arena. The people standing in attention stare at the direction where the sound came from and Hinata can feel Naruto's hand trembling as they realize that it's-

"Gaara," Naruto whispers and he squints his eyes as if that's enough for him to be able to see between the people and the cloud of dirt that stands between them.

"The structure gave away?" Ventures Sakura, and they all remain quiet, still ready for action, aware of their surroundings and everything around them.

The screams are still far away, but it's enough for Naruto to grab Hinata and start walking away from the windows. His eyes still glued to the commotion, glancing around every now and then to make sure that whatever was there was not yet here.

"An attack?" Lord Minato looks dumbfounded, and the lords and ladies inside the room whisper around them with the same tone. Nobody aside from Naruto and Sai have moved and it's clear nobody yet believes there is even a chance for an attack to be happening.

"Everyone, gather your things, your guards and leave this place immediately." Naruto's voice resonates within the room, and he breaks the spell. Everyone begins to stand, looking more and more worried by the second.

And then Gaara's One-Tail comes into view, and Naruto can feel a shiver run down his spine. "What the fuck…"

The Beast roars to the sky. His weight is too much for the wood and metal structure under him, which is why every move he makes make the place collapse. The Beast's body is like a gigantic bear made out of sand, with purple linings running through its body like veins. His yellow eyes are surrounded by black and they lock on the people under him.

Naruto has trouble breathing. He wishes to go and help, make Gaara regain control, but there are so many things yet he doesn't know. He can't put Hinata at risk due to his carelessness.

"I'm going to help," his father states and then runs towards the window.

"Sakura!," Naruto shouts, trying to reign control of the situation and start giving the orders they desperately need. But Sakura is already on his father's heels.

Minato throws a kunai in front of him, breaking the glass before jumping out, with Sakura at his back. They disappear into the sea of people who have already started to leave the premises as fast as they can, making the dire situation even worse. Naruto follows his father’s back for a second before losing them completely. And then he turns around and brings Hinata to his side, his arm around her shoulders.

"We need to leave," he orders. Hinata trembles under him and his brain starts working with one goal in mind: getting her out of here.

"Shino, you guide us out of here. Sai, at my back."

Shino's bugs are already buzzing and flying around them and he starts moving immediately after receiving the instruction. Naruto feels Sai glued to their backs and he allows himself a second of relief before moving.

The people pile upon each other in a desperate attempt to escape, but it only makes it harder to do so. Naruto understands Shino's instructions without the need to voice it. He crouches, places his arm behind Hinata's legs and raises her into his arms.

She brings her arms around him as a reflex, her eyes wide and filled with worry.

"It's gonna be all right," he whispers against her head, "it's going to be all right. I got you."

They jump in between the people. Like many others lords and ladies are doing as well, being carried in the arms of the guards they brought. They keep away from each other, still too worried about the source of the attack.

The One-Tail stops roaring and Naruto feels himself stand straighter. He knows this pattern. He looks at the monster and sees it breathing in.

"Take cover!!" He yells, hoping Shino and Sai hear him. He falls to the floor, covers Hinata with his body and raises his hand in front of him, letting the chakra of the Beast pour out.

The One-Tail shoots out balls of pressured air to the people. In no order. The ground trembles, the arena starts falling apart wherever the attack touches and then it stops.

Naruto lets his chakra die out and looks around. There are people splayed out in ways that no living being could withstand, and he brings Hinata closer to him. The arena still stands, but it's a matter of time before the One-Tail pounds it to the ground.

"Shino! Sai!"

Sai jumps next to him, with his scroll on his hand and a bleeding gash at the side of his head. Shino is nowhere to be found. "He'll find us," he tells Sai, who only nods before following again. Shino specializes in tracking, if anyone will be able to find them after being separated will be him… or so Naruto wants to believe.

The screams and now wails of pain fill the air and Naruto feels his senses heightened due to the danger around them. Which is why he stops before the One-Tail even stops screaming.

The Beast gives out an interrupted yell before disappearing under a flash of light.

His father did it.

He did it.

Gaara is okay.

He doesn't realize he's trembling until Hinata brings her head out of his neck and he puts her on the ground, cups her cheek. His fingers can't stop spasming. "Are you hurt?"

Hinata shakes her head no and hugs him, rubbing her head against his chest. Naruto can't help the sigh of relief that leaves his body.

He has to go check on Gaara.

He reaches the ground with Hinata in his arms first. Whatever happened to Gaara can happen again and it's best for Hinata to get out of here.

Sai will take her. Naruto looks around, hoping to see Shino or Sakura coming to him, but only the people jumping down from the stands are running around. The guards with their clients under their arms, looking around in search of danger while they move as fast as they can. There are whimpers and wails of agony around them, but the thunderous racket from before gave way to a sort of calm that only makes Naruto more nervous.

His father must be with Gaara, tending to him. He will not come back until Gaara is fine, and he’s grateful for it. But that means that Sakura won’t leave his side either and if Shino doesn’t come back soon only Sai will be there to protect Hinata. And taking the current events into consideration, Naruto fails to feel comfortable without sending at least two guards with her.

He takes too much time thinking. It’s the first thing that comes to mind as the tremors come back again and the noise escalates around them. It’s terrifying, the sight before him. Aside from Gaara’s, he has never seen another Beast on the loose. Wouldn’t even think he would ever do so in his lifetime. And yet…

The Five-Tails stands now before him, a horse-like Beast with white fur extending from its face to its five tails. The stands are already in shambles so the moment it appears, his hoofs start stomping in an attempt to stabilize itself.

The wave of dust and air that moves to them leaves Naruto with no time at all, and his only reaction is to cocoon Hinata in his arms and throw himself to the ground, hoping no debris falls to them.

The second the trembling settles they are running away. Naruto coughs as the particles latch to his lungs and he worries whether Hinata is having a hard time breathing as well, but he refuses to stop now. First they need to get out of here.

The dust makes everything harder to see and Sai tries his best to make a way for him to go through, moving people out of their way. They move faster than almost everyone on the ground and yet they are still inside when that distinct trembling happens again.

Naruto knows what’s happening before he even turns around. Somehow, his senses catch onto his surroundings before his brain can have a chance. He puts Hinata on the ground, looks for her face.

There are tears going down her cheeks and he doesn’t know whether it’s because she’s scared or because the dirt around her is irritating her eyes.

It doesn’t really matter.

He raises her head, cups her cheeks with his hands while his thumbs wipe her tears. She locks eyes with him, “Stay close to Sai.”

Hinata frowns at him, confused, but Naruto doesn’t have the time to explain, so he pushes her towards her guard, who is already right behind her.

Naruto smirks, he catches on quick.

Sai, like never before, latches onto Hinata’s wrist and mid-section to keep her from moving, as she tries to reach for him. “My lord-” she calls, but Naruto walks backwards with growing intensity.

He catches her struggling with Sai, who remains still as a statue. And as if on cue, the Six-Tails gurgles to the sky. Slimy and gooey, the slug-like Beast stands behind him too. Naruto can’t find any explanation for what’s happening. He just fears-

“Naruto!!” Hinata cries and Naruto can feel his heart squeezing. He forces himself to keep on walking. Not now. She has to leave and he has to put distance between them.

Whatever is happening, it’s targeting Beast Tamers. And if there is any pattern to this.

-he fears he’s next.

#naruto #naruhina #fanfic #fanfiction #Hinata Hyuga #Naruto Uzumaki #beast tamers #ch.7 #part 4 #I...#(。_。)#you all are entitled to free virtual hugs all right #no questions asked #(. ❛ ᴗ ❛.)#have a great one #and see you all next week <3

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machi-kun · 4 years

Note

For the writing prompts, 48 ‘meeting again at the high school reunion’ :D

👀👀👀👀👀

****

“That’s Steve Rogers.” Tony gasps. “It can’t be. It - That’s Steve Rogers. Oh, my God!”

“Oh, my God.” Pepper says, long-suffering.

“Did you know about this?!”

“Yes, Tony, I keep tabs on every single one of our former classmates - of course not, why would I know this?”

“He’s tall!” Tony exclaims, maybe a little too hysterically, because a few heads turn in his direction, shooting him confused and worried looks. “He used to be shorter than me! And he was skinny, he had asthma, he - what happened to him?!”

Because something must have happened! Something, because people don’t just grow like that out of nowhere! Not that it hasn’t been years, because it has, but Tony thinks has the right to be shocked; He is not one for wet sciences and genetics, but he can’t imagine how much can he assign Steve Roger’s utter and complete transformation to “grow spurt” and not straight up “scientific experiment gone incredibly out of hand”, because that shouldn’t be possible.

Steve used to go up to Tony’s shoulder - look at him now! What the hell.

“Can you calm down for a second, it’s not a big deal.” Rhodey says unimpressed.

“How can it be not a big deal-”

“It really isn’t.” Rhodey insists, sounding maddeningly bored. “People get grow spurts all the time, just because you didn’t doesn’t mean other people can’t either.”

Tony sputters, wildly offended.

“And it’s not like he’s all that different. You can still definitely tell it’s him.” Rhodey muses, taking one long, considering glance at tall, built like a goddamned tank Steve Rogers, and he dares to snort a laugh at the sight of Tony’s utter bafflement. “And don’t act like you didn’t have the most ridiculous crush on him when he was small, because you did, and everyone knew. This is nothing new for you.”

“Not everyone.” Tony rebuffs, which is stupid, because what he meant to say is that he didn’t, he didn’t have a crush on tiny Steve Rogers, except maybe he kinda did, okay, and who is Rhodey to make fun of him for it, when he had a crush on Wilson for an entire year?

“Wow.” Pepper says, blinking slowly, halfway through a laugh. “That was very convincing, I am very impressed.”

“Actually - you know what, I will not stand here and have all these lies about me - I am leaving you both here.”

“Go talk to Steve, then.” Rhodey dares.

“Fine!” Tony says, huffing. “I will!”

He takes two steps forward - and stops.

“I-”

“Tony.” Pepper threatens before he can even turn. “Go.”

Alright. He can do this.

It’s just Steve Rogers. No big deal.

Christ, it’s Steve Rogers.

It should not be a big deal, but it kind of is. It is for Tony, at least. Okay, maybe Rhodey is right and Tony did have a bit of a crush on Steve back then, but - how could he not? Okay? Tony’s pretty sure half the class had been kinda in love with the guy, even if Steve used to be, and Tony’s quoting here, “like that” and “no one wanted to go out with him”. Which was, for starters, not true, because Tony would have definitely gone out with Steve if Steve had asked, and two - Tony knows for a fact that Steve and Sharon dated for a couple of months just after their graduation and Steve had definitely still been tiny when that happened, because they still talked back then.

Tony missed him, when he moved to the West Coast. He didn’t want to stop talking to Steve, it just happened. Steve had always been amazing. And gorgeous. And Tony liked him, a lot. Of course he missed him.

Tony just... He never told him that, because how could he? How could he tell Steve that and not completely give himself away, with that ridiculous crush of his?

But he’s an adult now. He can handle Steve Rogers, as pretty and incredible and freakishly built he might be. He’s fine. He’s got this.

“Steve Rogers!” Tony bellows, with practiced ease and smugness, gesturing to Steve with unabashed appreciation. “Look at our leader, ladies and gentlemen!”

Steve turns to face Tony and - oh.

Oh, Tony doesn’t have this. At all. Nope.

“Tony.” Steve says, and his voice is deeper now, Tony feels like he’s going to combust. “God, it’s so good to see you!”

Tony has to look up to face him now - his absurdly blue eyes, his cheekbones, his lips - oh, Christ, Tony might still be a little bit in love with Steve Rogers.

“Great to see you too.” Tony pats him on the shoulder - all muscle, just like the rest of him now - and pretends he’s not shaking. “How long has it been?”

“Too long.” Steve smiles, and steps back so he can make room for Tony to step forward, and only then Tony realizes that the other people present, meaning the people he just rudely and loudly interrupted in favor of his flawless act of totally not being affected by the sight of Steve, are Wilson and Sharon.

“Tony, hey.” Sharon greets him kindly, and Wilson surprisingly also cracks a smile and raises his drink in a welcoming gesture.

“The whole class rep team together!” Tony exclaims, a little delighted, a little fucking terrified. “Where is our resident troublemaker, then?”

“Standing right next to you?” Sharon laughs, and pays Steve no mind when he shoots her a very unimpressed glare. “C’mon, Steve, we all know between you and Barnes, you are definitely worse.”

“Yeah. And hey, you know just because we ain’t kids anymore doesn’t mean Barnes can’t kick your ass, right, Stark? In fact, he might kick your ass harder, so you watch out for that.” Wilson jokes, his expression full of amusement.

“Barnes loves me too much.” Tony says, and Wilson full-on snorts, the sound echoing in his cup as he takes a sip. “What? He does. We all know that his problem with me was because he secretly loved me and totally not because I broke his arm on PE once.”

“Was it now?” Steve teases, and Tony has to lock all his muscles like they’re made of stone to prevent himself from shivering.

“Sure it was. You should know, Rogers.”

“Yeah.” Wilson laughs, half-hiding his shit-eating grin on his cup. “You should know.”

“You shut up.” Steve says, and when Wilson and Sharon laugh, his ears go adorably pink. “Why don’t you go talk to Rhodes?”

“Oh, yes, please do.” Tony exclaims, jittery with joy at the idea of making Rhodey’s life just a little bit harder. If he can poke fun at Tony, Tony is definitely allowed to poke back. “He’s gonna love seeing you, Wilson. Tell him I sent you.”

“Yeah, yeah, you just tryin’ to get Steve alone, you ain’t subtle.” Wilson jabs, but before Tony can even process the words fully, let alone react to them, Wilson claps a hand on his back and steps out, supposedly, to find Rhodey. “Good seeing you, man.”

And he just leaves. Worse, Sharon leaves too, with a nod and an all-too-knowing look in her eyes, and then, Tony is suddenly left alone with Steve goddamn Rogers, who Tony may or may not still have a ridiculous crush on!

“So.” Tony exhales, harshly. “No Barnes?”

Steve looks at him like he’s amused, smirking at a private joke. “Jerk’s late. I set him an alarm and everything, but you know how he is.”

“I do? I guess I have vague memories of our glorious highschool days but clearly, I missed something.” Tony jokes, trying to be suave, but Steve is smiling like the way he used to smile when Tony fumbled with his words, when Steve made him flustered; and it’s making him flustered all over again like Tony is still fifteen and very very charmed by the tiny class president. “Because I don’t remember you being...”

“This size?” Steve gestures to himself, and Tony is a weak man, because he can’t refuse the excuse to look.

“Guess you could say that.” Tony teases. “I didn’t know art school could do that to you. I would almost guess you joined the army.”

“You knew I went to art school?” Steve asks, delighted, and - shit.

“You always talked about it, when we were younger. And I knew you could do it.” And because Tony’s mouth doesn’t know how to stay shut, he accidentally says, “And I’ve seen a show you did once. A gallery, I mean, an exhibition. The one in Boston?”

“The one for my family.” Steve clarifies, eyes going all gentle and fond.

“Yeah, that one.” Tony clears his throat. “Sarah must have been really proud. How is she, by the way?”

“The same as always. Nothing can stop her from kicking my ass when I need it.” Steve admits, a little embarrassed, and Tony can’t help but give a hearty laugh because yeah, that’s the Sarah Rogers he remembers, and suddenly, he’s overcome with nostalgia for the afternoons he spent at the Rogers’ place, feeling far more comfortable than anywhere else in the world.

“God, I miss Sarah.” Tony confesses.

Steve pauses, and he looks at Tony with such an intense gaze Tony can’t look away. “And she misses you. We still talk about you sometimes.”

Tony blinks. “You do?”

“Tony.” Steve tilts his head, playfully, like he can’t believe Tony’s surprise. “Ma practically adopted you the moment you stepped a foot inside her house. If I hadn’t stopped her, she would have trapped you there and never let you leave.”

“Well, for Sarah Rogers, I wouldn’t have minded that.”

“Neither would I.” Steve says, to Tony’s complete shock, and his face blooms ina flush of heat, mortifyingly. “But I had enough problems on my plate without Jarvis breathing down my neck.”

“Jarvis loves you, he always did.” Tony complains, childishly, in reflex. “I was the one always getting a speech when it was you who was always getting into fights and getting us both bruised!”

“You didn’t have to fight with me.”

“I definitely did.”

“You should come over, sometime.” Steve offers, suddenly, talking fast, as if he’s trying to get the words out all at once. “See Ma again. She would love that.”

“I-” Tony chokes. “Are you sure?”

“Tony. I really missed you. We both did.” Steve gulps down hard, his jaw working almost hypnotically. “I’m sorry I couldn’t keep in touch.”

Tony shakes his head frantically. “That wasn’t your fault. If anything, it was mine. It just - a lot of things happened, and-”

“We both had a rough time.” Steve interrupts, gently, and Tony gives him a silent nod. “I know it. But I think we both could use a win now, couldn’t we?”

Tony pauses. “Is taking me home to meet your mom a win, Rogers?”, he says, feeling daring.

“Definitely.” Steve says, coy, and slowly, he looks Tony up and down, all of him, as if he’s drinking in the sight, and that look, in Steve’s blue, sharp eyes, make Tony tremble where he stands. “And this time, I might not let you leave either.”

What happened to Steve Rogers! Tony wants to scream, mind going a hundred miles an hour, hysterical. I don’t know how to handle this!

“We can do that.” he says instead, nonsensical, short on breath.

“Alright.” Steve says, satisfied. “Give me your number.”

“What?”

“Your number.” He smiles. “I’m not giving you the chance to second guess this, Tony. I know you. I’m calling you, and we’ll go out sometime. Does that sound ok?”

“Sounds awesome.” Tony admits, just a little winded. “I’d love that.”

“Good.” Steve puffs his chest out, just a little, like he’s proud of himself, and when Tony finally gets out a business card from his wallet and awkwardly writes his personal number on the back, it takes all his strength not to react to the brush of Steve’s cold fingers against his when he grabs the paper.

Steve stares at the number like Tony has just given him the greatest of gifts.

And when he looks up at Tony and the sentiment in his eyes does not fade, Tony can’t do anything but exhale slowly, deeply, a ridiculously infatuated sigh.

“It’s great seeing you, Steve.” He says.

“You too.” Steve echoes, just as fond. “Can I call you tonight?”

Fuck.

“Yes.”

“Then I will.” He smiles.

Crap.

Tony definitely still is a little bit in love with Steve Rogers.

#stevetony #stony #steve rogers #tony stark #superhusbands #ask #anon #machi writes #Anonymous #its time for another round of machi sneaks in their other ships into the stevetony fic #this time is samrhodey and staron

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chipper9906 · 3 years

Text

Heal The Cracks Within My Heart - Chapter 6: No More Tricks

<- - - Previous Chapter

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR LOKI SEASON 1 EPISODE 6 ‘FOR ALL TIME. ALWAYS.’

Pairings: Loki/Sylvie

Rating: General Audiences

Chapter Word Count: 8,958

Overall Word Count: 57,236

Status: Multi Chapter Fic - In Progress (6/?)

Chapter Preview:

“Good to meet y’all,” Miss Minutes said with that unnerving smile, walking – but not really – across Mobius’s desk and over to Loki and Sylvie. “I’m sure you can’t wait to get to work protecting the sacred timeline!”

“Oh, simply ecstatic,” Loki said with as much sarcasm as he could fit into one sentence. “Something to finally give my pathetic life some meaning. How about you, Sylvie?”

“Like a dream come true…” Sylvie drawled.

“Great to hear!” This Miss Minutes was, apparently, incapable of picking up sarcasm.

Link To Fic

Click Below To Keep Reading

* * *

One of the (few) good things about the sprawling size of the TVA was that there were often parts of it with no one in sight. It was on one of these floors, where the files hadn’t been disturbed for so long that they were collecting dust, that the Gods of Fate had smiled upon them and opened up the Time-Door into.

Mobius’s head was the first to peek through the Time-Door, looking both left and right down the miniature hallway. Once he had confirmed there was no one that had seen the Time-Door manifesting from nowhere, he waved both Loki and Sylvie through, before stepping fully back into his place of work.

“This feels so wrong,” Sylvie complains as they walk, tugging at the restricting dress shirt around her neck. Loki regards her from the corner of his eye, scanning up and down her body as he takes in her new uniform.

“It is a little weird seeing you without your armor.” Loki reaches out to tug at the lapels of her TVA blazer, grinning unabashedly when she smacks his hand away with a weak glare. “–But for the record, I think you look stunning whatever you choose to wear.”

“Oh dear God,” Mobius groaned dramatically in front of them, forcing Loki and Sylvie’s gaze away from each other and over to him. “Is your plan to just constantly flirt with each other to get me to find these files faster? Coz I’ve gotta say, it’s working.”

“It almost sounds like you’re eager to be rid of us,” Loki said, sounding almost offended. Almost.

“You’re both probably bearable on your own, but the two of you together?” Mobius shook his head. “Nightmares, the both of you. An insane amount of people exist out there in the Universe – now made even bigger with this whole mess you’ve made – countless amounts of variants you could have run into, but no, you had to go and find versions of yourself and hook up with them!”

“First of all, are you telling me you aren't a little bit curious to know what another variant of yourself would be like?” Sylvie asked, bringing Mobius to a grinding halt and turning to face them.

“No, actually. I'm not,” Mobius said in disbelief at her question. “I could have happily gone on with the rest of my life without ever thinking that, thank you. And now I know I won’t be able to stop thinking about it.”

“Give it a try,” Sylvie said, throwing a wink in Loki’s direction that nearly made Mobius groan out loud again. “And secondly… no one understands you better than yourself. We have our similarities – a few Loki traits that seem to stick no matter what form we take – but… we’ve both walked different paths. Genetically different, souls the same; but whilst they were formed the same, they’ve been molded by our experiences. So, whilst we may not see things the same way sometimes, at the end of the day, we just…”

“Understand each other,” Loki finishes for Sylvie with a tender smile.

“God, it really is like puppy love,” Mobius mumbled as he turned back around and continued onwards. “Feels like I’m watching a couple of teens trying to figure out how feelings work…”

“That’s… an apt comparison, actually,” Loki admitted as they both picked up the pace to keep up with Mobius, not wanting to get lost in the maze of TVA corridors. It was only occasionally that they walked through a section with a worker milling about the place, or saw an occasional Minute-Men either patrolling the area or simply passing through to wherever it is they had been ordered to go to.

“Things seem calmer than last time,” Loki noted. He wasn’t sure whether it was good or bad that the TVA wasn’t still freaking out about the whole multi-versal situation they had on their hands. Every now and then, as they passed through different corridors, Loki would see a flash of that horrific statue proudly displaying 'Him' as he stood over all his subjects. At least they knew now that Sylvie’s guess of being able to select a previously opened Time-Door and return them to the same TVA was correct…

“Things seem empty,” Mobius corrected him. “This place is usually bustling with activity -- and now it’s a ghost town. If we’ve dispatched most of our workers out into the field, then…” Mobius sighed deeply. “Things can’t be doing too well…”

Mobius came to a sudden stop as they rounded a corner, nearly walking straight into a TVA worker who had also been rounding the corner. The man blinked in surprise at Mobius, not even registering Loki or Sylvie behind him. The man pushed his glasses back up his nose, frowning at Mobius before looking somewhere behind him.

“Mobius? Where have you been? They’ve been looking everywhere for you, man. Judge Whittle’s about to blow a fuse if you don’t get down to his office stat.”

“Forgot I need to grab these guys,” Mobius lied smoothly, gesturing with a flick of his head back to Sylvie and Loki behind him. “They have some, uh… some research I asked them to collect for me that I think could be of some use.”

The man finally looked over to them, thankfully not looking too suspicious of them as his eyes darted between them both. “Right… Well, you better not keep Judge Whittle waiting. What with everything going on, I think he’s trying to hold onto some sense of time, and being late again might just snap his last thread.”

“That’s why I’m headed there now,” Mobius assured the man with a pat on his shoulder and a friendly smile. The man returned the smile, giving all three a respectful nod before walking past them and disappearing out of sight around another corridor. Mobius released a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding, fixing his already tidy tie as a force of habit.

“I have to say, you’re an excellent liar,” Loki commended Mobius. “Are you sure you’re not a variant of us, too?”

“God, I hope not,” Mobius retorted, continuing to lead them forward once more.

“Wait, hang on-,” Sylvie said, tugging at Mobius’s arm. “Did he say Judge Whittle?”

Mobius looked back to Sylvie with a confused frown. “…Yes?”

“What about Judge Renslayer? What happened to her?”

Mobius stopped outside of a stereotypical-looking office door, pausing with his hand on the door handle. “Judge who?”

Both Sylvie and Loki shared a look of surprise, strangely unsettled by the idea that Renslayer apparently didn't exist in this timeline. Or, at least, hadn't been taken from her life to work in the TVA. What other changes would they have to expect to come across in this timeline? And how much of an effect would each small change have?

"Doesn't matter," Sylvie told Mobius. "Just... someone we know from another timeline."

"And by 'know', do you mean 'have killed', or...?"

"Us personally? No," Loki answered. "But last we saw you — the other you — you were headed back to the TVA to give Renslayer our regards, so... we don't actually know what happened to her."

“Given my fighting skills? Nothing, probably,” Mobius guessed, yanking down on the handle and swinging the door open. It was only once Mobius had stepped inside and out of the way of the door that Loki noticed the little golden plaque attached under the little window, the name ‘M. Mobius’ etched into the metal.

“Come on. I don’t know how much time we have,” Mobius called them into the office. “Considering I’m expected in Whittle’s office, we probably don’t have long until someone comes to fetch me.”

“You have an office?” Loki said in surprise, stepping into the room with Sylvie close behind.

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”

“The you I know never took me to his office,” Loki replied, glancing around the small space that had been allocated to Mobius. It looked… well, like everything else in the TVA, really: neat and organized, drab and boring; painted with soul-sucking colors that, at this point, reminded him of a prison.

“Maybe he didn’t have one.” Mobius dropped down onto a squeaky office chair, fiddling around with the buttons on one of those ridiculously bulky-looking computer monitors until it whirred to life. “I can’t imagine every variant of myself is good enough at their job for—”

“He was just fine at doing his job, actually,” Loki was quick to defend Mobius. Which was quite strange, as he was defending Mobius to… Mobius. “Managed to out-lie me a few times, which I can assure you is a tricky thing to do.”

“He was the only one of your bumbling workforce that was able to keep hot on my tail,” Sylvie joined Loki in defending Mobius, much to Loki’s surprise and… a little bit herself, if she was being honest. “I was able to stay one step ahead of him until he roped this idiot in—” Sylvie jabbed a thumb in Loki's direction. “—And he led you right to me.”

“To try and recruit you.” Loki now had to defend himself. “I wasn’t exactly a volunteer worker; it was work with them or be reset.”

“And here comes the old couple bickering…” Mobius mumbled under his breath. Before either Loki or Sylvie could point out that, whilst technically over a thousand years old, they were still considered young by Asgardian standards, Mobius had opened up some sort of application that brought up some virtual files in a holographic display.

Much to both Sylvie and Loki’s displeasure, these files were also accompanied by the cheery bright orange face of Miss Minutes. Sylvie barely restrained herself from unsheathing her sword hidden beneath her blazer and slicing the southern-speaking mascot in half like she desperately wanted to do back in the Citadel.

“Well, hey there!” Miss Minutes greeted them, sounding as chipper as ever. “Ooo, new faces! Do we have some new recruits, Mobius?”

“You could say that…” Mobius answered, brow pinched in concentration as he swiped through the seemingly endless amount of files in the TVA’s database.

“Oh, simply ecstatic,” Loki said with as much sarcasm as he could fit into one sentence. “Something to finally give my pathetic life some meaning. How about you, Sylvie?”

“Like a dream come true…” Sylvie drawled.

“Great to hear!” This Miss Minutes was, apparently, incapable of picking up sarcasm. “Is there something you needed my help with, Mobius?”

“Yeah, actually.” Mobius scratched across his upper lip, disheveling his neatly combed mustache. “I’m, uh… getting out new recruits up to speed with what they need to know about… about ‘Him’.”

“Have they had the talk yet?”

Loki wasn’t entirely sure why, but something about that question made him want to shiver off this layer of discomfort that seemed to coat him. At the same time, the last time someone had ‘the talk’ with him, he was unable to look his mother in the eyes for a good few days.

Mobius’s eyes flickered up from the monitor to Miss Minutes. “Yeah, they’ve had the talk; they know why they’re here.”

“Well okay then!” Miss Minutes chirped, crossing her arms behind her back with a gleaming smile. “Anything in specific you need me to find?”

“Yeah, any files we have on His TemPad,” Mobius said, wheeling himself back a bit from the desk and yanking open one of the drawers.

“Bit of an odd request,” Miss Minutes commented as she began flipping through the holographic files in front of them. Mobius continued digging through his desk, searching through different folders with a look of concentration. For a moment, Mobius’s hands stilled over something, but Miss Minutes' overexcited voice stole away their attention.

“Alright, here we go!” Miss Minutes flicked the holographic file through the air, and both Loki and Sylvie wore matching frowns as it disappeared from sight. The question of where it had gone was answered as Mobius pulled his TemPad out from his desk drawer with an “Ah-Ha!” of success, proudly waving the TemPad in their direction.

“Anything else you need me to do for you?” Miss Minutes asked, sounding both polite and… terrifying.

“Uh, no -- this’ll do.” Mobius returned Miss Minute's politeness with a smile of his own – even if it did appear quite forced and strained. “Thank you.”

“You’re more than welcome!” Miss Minutes said before disappearing in a weird move where she seemed to fold into herself, all three in the room thankful for her absence.

“I never thought a cartoon clock mascot would make me fear for my life,” Loki said, still staring suspiciously at the space where Miss Minutes had vanished from.

“Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here…” Mobius muttered, fingers dancing across the TemPad as he brought up the files Miss Minutes had just sent him. His eyes scanned rapidly across the screen, skipping to what seemed to be the most important segments of information.

“Interesting…” Mobius leaned forward against his desk, resting his head on his hand and tapping his index finger against his upper lip.

“What’s interesting?” Sylvie asked, not appreciating that she couldn’t see the information she needed, whilst knowing that it was right there in someone else’s hands.

“Oh, just how vastly superior that thing on your hand is to this,” Mobius answered, waving his TemPad around like it was now useless. “For one, the efficiency on that thing? From what I’m seeing, it’s probably… four or five times more so than ours?”

“So, you’re saying that this TemPad can do more before it runs out of battery?” Loki asks, pointing to Sylvie’s hand.

“Not that you even have to worry about that,” Mobius said with a disbelieving chuckle. “You noticed how that thing doesn’t have a port to charge it?”

Sylvie shot Mobius an annoyed look, crossing her arms across her chest. “Just how oblivious do you think I am?”

“Man, you guys really do find a way to turn people’s words into an insult against you,” Mobius noted, sounding almost amused by the revelation. “Is that a self-conscious thing, or…?”

Sylvie, on the other hand, did not look amused. “I’m good on the therapy session, thanks. You were saying about charging it?”

“Oh, au contraire -- I think therapy would be an excellent choice for you guys,” Mobius teased with a grin, which he quickly wiped off his face at the death stares he got in return. “Alright, alright. The thing about charging this TemPad is… well, that you don’t need to.”

“Come again?” Loki asked.

“From the looks of things, His version of the TemPad kind of… recharges itself?” Mobius struggled to find the best way to explain what he had just read. “Well, not entirely from itself. The TemPad makes a connection, if you will, with its owner. Or… master, I think would be a better word.”

Sylvie raised her hand up closer to her face, peering down at the TemPad. Almost on cue did its surface come to life, emitting a soothing hum as power ran through its complicated circuits.

“And… what does the connection do?” Sylvie asked, looking away from the TemPad back to Mobius.

“It uses you as its batteries,” Mobius answers. “It recharges through you. Your life force, your energy, whatever you wanna call it.”

“Uh, should we be worried about that?” Loki asked, just barely resisting the urge to yank the TemPad off Sylvie’s hand and throw it as far as he could at the thought of it draining away her life.

“Considering ‘He’ is still alive after eons of using it? No, I don’t think so,” Mobius assured them – although just barely. “At the end of the day, ‘He’ is human, just like us -- uh, well, me, anyway. Taking into account the fact that you guys are both demigods with access to magical powers, I’m pretty sure the TemPad will barely scratch the surface of your energy.”

“Then… how did it not affect ‘He Who Remains?’” Loki asked. “Something that needs that much energy… it has to take its toll.”

“Maybe you can ask him before you kill him,” Mobius suggests. “My best guess? ‘He’ probably needs to ‘recharge’ himself. You know: sleeping, eating; all that boring mortal stuff?”

“You say that like we don’t need to eat and sleep, too.” Sylvie retorts.

“Uh-huh. Still doesn’t change the fact that you’re gods. I mean, how old are you guys again?”

“Point taken,” Loki conceded on both their behalf. “How long does the TemPad take to charge, then?”

“Depends on how drained it is,” Mobius says, turning his attention back to the displayed file. “It’s charging all the time, so as long as you’re not opening up Time-Doors left, right, and center, it usually has enough power that you don’t even have to think about it. If you somehow do drain the power enough that it’s nearly empty then… from ‘His’ experiments, it seems it takes a day or so to get it back to full power.”

“Experiments?” Sylvie picked up on the word. “What kind of experiments?”

“Well, ‘He’ didn’t always spend his time behind a desk organizing the strands of time. Before he created us, it was just him out there -- jumping from timeline to timeline, trying to bring some semblance of peace and order to the chaos.”

“About that–,” Loki interjected. “–The whole ‘jumping from timeline to timeline’ thing... Did ‘He’ jump between those timelines randomly?”

“Uh…” Mobius turned back to his TemPad, scrolling through the block of information it displayed. “Seems like it, for the most part.”

“So there’s no way to select a specific timeline?” Loki asked, casting Sylvie a down-trodden look. “No way to find a specific timeline?”

“We weren’t exactly designed for that,” Mobius replied, flicking away the information on his TemPad. With a few more presses of his fingers, the screen of his TemPad displayed a diagram of the sacred timeline -- if it could even be called that anymore. What he showed them more closely resembled a plate of spaghetti than the single straight line of the timeline. “See this right here? This is exactly what we were supposed to stop. We weren’t meant to travel between timelines, because the very existence of another timeline outside ours means we failed at our jobs.”

“But that’s what it was like before the TVA was created,” Sylvie pointed out. “Somewhere in there is the timeline we came from. We just need to find it again and travel back to it.”

“What for?” Mobius asks. “Why’s your timeline so important?”

“It’s the sacred timeline,” Sylvie answered, quickly continuing when Mobius opened his mouth to argue. “Yeah, I know, your timeline was also the sacred timeline, but it wasn’t until me killing ‘Him’ created all these different timelines.”

“Okay, sure-,” Mobius said with a nod. “That still doesn’t explain why you want to go back to that timeline. You killed that version of ‘Him’ in that timeline, didn’t you? Why else do you need to go back?”

“Because that timeline contains a few people that could be useful in defeating the other versions of ‘Him’,” Loki answers.

“And… how do you know that?”

“Because they were the only versions of themselves that were able to kill another mad ruler,” Sylvie says, glancing at Loki with her face softened in pity. “The only being who was destined – and able – to kill us…”

“Oh…” Mobius cleared his throat awkwardly, unsure whether to continue scrolling through his TemPad or keep talking. “Uh… I don’t know if this is inconsiderate of me to say, but… maybe it would be worth getting that guy to join your team? Since he was able to kill you, maybe they could-,”

“No.” Loki didn’t even need to give a reason why he was against that idea. The tone behind that one word said more than any explanation he could give.

“Fair enough, scratch that idea-,” Mobius made the smart move and returned his attention to his TemPad. “Selecting certain timelines, selecting certain timelines… Ah, here we go! Seems it’s… huh.”

“What? What’s huh?” Sylvie asked.

“There is a way to select a specific timeline. Kind of,” Mobius answered, standing from his chair and making his way around his desk to them. “Could you hold up the TemPad for me?”

Sylvie did as Mobius asked, holding out her arm in front of her so the TemPad was on display.

“You remember what I said about the TemPad making a connection with the user?” Mobius asked, getting nods from them in return. “Well, the connection goes deeper than that. So much so that… only the person who has been designated as the leader of the TVA can use it.”

“What?” Sylvie splutters. “I’m not the leader of the TVA-,”

“Tell that to the TemPad,” Mobius returned.

“Sylvie… I think he might be right,” Loki said, getting Sylvie to snap her head towards him. “He wanted us to rule the TVA, remember? Someone to take over his job. He offered us the position, took off the TemPad, and then-,”

“But I didn’t accept it!” Sylvie argued, looking more and more horrified with every passing second. “I just-”

“Took the TemPad,” Loki cut her off, filling in what she was about to say.

“Far as the TemPad is concerned, you’re the leader now,” Mobius told her. “You see those gold lines running across the surface?”

“Yes, but what’s that got do with anythi—”

“They’re not just for design,” Mobius answered before Sylvie could finish. “Those lines? They’re actually timelines.”

Sylvie blinked in surprise, glancing first over to Loki, then down to the TemPad.

“You see, ‘He Who Remains’ wanted to make sure he could return to his timeline whenever he needed to,” Mobius continued, nodding to the TemPad. “Mostly to make sure none of the other variants of him were wreaking havoc on his timeline, but also… just to return home, I guess. Do me a favor and run your hand along its surface, would you?”

Sylvie shot Mobius a curious look, but did as he asked anyway. The surface of the TemPad shifted, the squiggly lines running along its surface passing by in a blur of movement. Then, it seemed to settle on a certain design, displaying the usual bright gold line with branches coming off of it.

“That right there?” Mobius began, looking between the two of them, and then down to the TemPad. “That’s your timeline, Sylvie.”

Sylvie’s head shot up at that, feeling her heart clench at his words. It was… it was impossible. Her timeline didn’t exist anymore. Judge Renslayer and her Minute-Men had made sure of that.

“Now see, if I try and select a timeline-,”

Mobius’s hand moved towards the TemPad, and almost on instinct did Sylvie pull it away from him, holding it protectively to her body. Mobius let out an exasperated sigh at the defensive action, dropping his hands back to his sides and shoving them into his pockets. “Really? Isn’t trust supposed to be a two-way system?”

“From what I’ve heard,” Sylvie said as Loki unconsciously tried to move closer to her. He had done this a few times before, and this time, she found herself moving closer to him, too. “Not sure your argument works when you clearly don’t trust us, either.”

“Can you blame me?” Mobius asked, getting you a genuine huff of laughter from Sylvie.

“No. If anything, I respect you for it,” Sylvie said.

“Good form of self-preservation, really,” Loki added.

“Fine. I won’t touch it.” Mobius turned around on the spot, strolling back over to his side of the desk. “Guess you’ll just have to take my word for it.”

“What would have happened?” Even if Sylvie didn’t want Mobius to touch it, that wasn’t to say that she wasn’t curious as to what he was trying to show her.

“Nothing,” Mobius answered with a shrug of his shoulders. “It wouldn’t have responded to me -- because I’m not its owner.”

“But… why would He have just given it up like that?” Sylvie asked. “I hadn’t agreed to anything yet.”

“‘What’s the worst that could happen,’“ Loki mimicked He Who Remains’s words. “Either we took over, or an infinite amount of Him manifests into existence and fights to get back to where He was. No matter what option came to be, he no longer needed that TemPad.”

“Still seems strange to me that he just… gave you the TemPad,” Mobius thought out loud, placing his hands on the desk and resting his weight on it. “That is what I saw, right? He just… took it off and slid it across the desk to you.”

“Yeah… He did,” Sylvie’s face pinched into a frown, slowly looking up to Loki. “Loki, did you ever notice how… he seemed almost excited at the idea of me killing him?”

Loki mirrors her frown, thinking back to what felt like a lifetime ago now. “In what way?”

“He was looking at you guys kinda funny during your big fight,” Mobius said, drumming his fingers across the desk.

“Was he?” Loki asks. “I was a little too distracted at the time to notice.”

“He even looked strangely invested when you guys, uh…” Mobius trailed off awkwardly, hoping they would fill in the blanks for themselves. When Loki and Sylvie only stared blankly back at him, he hung his head with a dejected sigh. “Oh, for the love of… When you kissed, for god's sake…”

“Oh…” Loki was surprised to feel the flush of heat to his face. “Again, a little distracted -- which, I think was your plan.” Loki cast Sylvie an annoyed look at that last part.

“Already said I’m sorry–”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah -- how about we move on from that.” Mobius hurried them past the miniature bickering session that was likely to start. “Or… no wait, let’s go back to that.”

Loki and Sylvie looked to each other at the same time, like they were somehow able to communicate through eye contact alone. “Let’s go back to… us arguing?” Sylvie wanted to clarify.

“Yes! But, no, don’t actually argue—” Mobius somehow made this all the more confusing. “What was it that He said to you guys? Something about trust, or… being unable to trust—”

“He asked me if I could trust Loki.” Sylvie, of course, remembered this. She knew she’d never forget. “And… if I could trust anyone at all."

Mobius nodded to himself, staring down at his feet as he thought. “Why would he say that? If he wanted you to work together, to lead the TVA together, then… why would he plant those doubts in your head?”

“It almost seems like he was trying to get us to fight,” Loki said to Sylvie. “Maybe… he never really wanted us to take over.”

“You think he wanted to die?”

“I think he wanted to be reborn,” Loki corrected Sylvie. “I don’t think he was just tired; I think he was bored. After countless years of writing everyone’s stories – himself included – I think… I think he wanted you to open up the multiverse, to live an infinite amount of lives outside of his own script.”

Sylvie shook her head with a bitter laugh, her lip curling in disgust as she looked down to His former TemPad. “My whole life, I only had the thought of watching His life drain away to get me through the day… And now, it turns out I did what he always wanted, anyway.”

Sylvie reached out a hand towards the TemPad, the glow of its timelines reflecting in her shining eyes. She ran a finger softly across the timeline – her timeline – watching as the TemPad slowly moves with her finger, displaying the different branches that come off of her timeline.

“Is this really my timeline?” Sylvie doesn’t look away from the TemPad.

“It’s what the files say,” Mobius tells her.

“How is that possible?” Sylvie tears her eyes away, looking up to Mobius. “My timeline was pruned.”

“Exactly. It was pruned,” Mobius says. “But now we have this whole mess of branches, forming into a whole mess of timelines.”

“So?”

“So, somewhere out there is a timeline where you were never picked up by us,” said Mobius, looking pointedly to Sylvie’s TemPad. “Oh, right -- it’s that timeline right there.”

“A timeline where the TVA never interfered…” Loki says in wonderment, turning wide eyes towards Sylvie. “Your timeline never would have been pruned…”

“My family…” Sylvie whispers, finding herself frozen in shock. “My home… my life…”

“So… we’re on Sylvie’s timeline now?” Loki asks Mobius. “How would that work when we, apparently, don’t exist…?”

“This isn’t Sylvie’s timeline,” Mobius said, scooping up the TemPad he left laying on his desk and tucking it into his jacket. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. When you grabbed the TemPad and opened a door here, it should have opened up into a TVA on your timeline. But… it didn’t.”

Mobius took a seat on the edge of his desk – despite the perfectly fine chair right there in front of him – crossing his arms against his chest with his back partly turned to them. “What were you doing whilst you were opening the Time-Door? Was there any interference?”

“Oh, um…” Sylvie glanced awkwardly to Loki, whose raised questioning eyebrow quickly dropped into a look of realization at her pointed look.

“Ah…” Loki drawled out slowly, scratching at the back of his head. “Would us, uh… touching be classified as ‘interference?’”

“Oh, you were–” Mobius cut himself off with a burst of laughter, slapping at his knee. “You opened up that Time-Door whilst you were kissing, didn’t you? That explains it…”

“Does it? Feel free to pass on that explanation to us -- you know, if you feel like it.” Sylvie didn’t appreciate being the recipient of Mobius’s ridicule.

“The TemPad was trying to open up the Time-Door to your specific timeline. Problem is… it didn’t know which one of you to focus on. Can’t open one door into two separate timelines, so, it had to compromise. Instead of opening up a Time-Door into either one of your timelines…”

“It opened up into one where we don’t exist.” Loki guessed correctly.

“You both canceled each other out,” Mobius tacked on.

“And what about the others?” Sylvie asked.

“The other… what’s?”

“The Apocalypses we jumped to,” Sylvie clarified. “Were they… were they my timeline?”

“If it was just you touching the TemPad? Then yeah, it would have been your timeline.”

“That must have been why it was different,” Loki said in realization. “Those attackers… they came earlier than they were supposed to, didn’t they?”

“One small change can lead to a whole ton of butterfly effects.” Mobius slowly made his way to the side of the desk, sliding the drawer closed as he went. “Some of those changes can be small, like… like someone speaking one word on one day differently. And then the other changes…”

“Can breed a multi-verse ending conqueror,” Loki finished grimly, getting a shrug of agreement from Mobius.

“So… we know we can get to my timeline. Is that the only way we can select a specific timeline?”

“Right, the uh, the other sacred timeline,” Mobius mumbled, scratching at the back of his head as he thought. “Well… you came from that one, right? You made a connection between that timeline to this timeline when you shoved Loki through that Time-Door.”

“But we’ve moved on since then,” Loki pointed out. “If Sylvie touches the TemPad, it’ll display her timeline, won’t it?”

“If that’s the one you select, sure. But–”

“But the TemPad saves previously opened Time-Doors.” Sylvie already knew where Mobius was going with this. “That’s how we got here in the first place. I opened up a Time-Door I had already opened before, back in the Citadel.”

“Which is the timeline currently on display,” Mobius said. “All you’ve gotta do is follow that timeline back… and it’ll connect to the timeline you came from.”

“Hang on…” Loki turned his attention back to Sylvie, his brow furrowing in thought. “What about my timeline? Would… would that have been re-created too?”

Sylvie placed a comforting hand on his arm, giving his bicep a kind squeeze with an understanding smile. “Guess there’s only one way to find out.”

Loki looked genuinely taken aback as she unwound the TemPad from her hand. For a moment, she simply stood and held this greatly powerful device in her hands. She kept her eyes locked with his, a note of understanding passing between them as she slowly held out the TemPad for him to take.

Loki didn’t take it. Not right away. “It might not work. Not just because my timeline might still remain erased, but… what if the TemPad can’t have two owners?”

“’He Who Remains’ made it clear he wanted both of us to rule.” Sylvie pushed the TemPad into his chest. She grabbed hold of his hand, pulling it up to the TemPad and curling his fingers around it. “Besides… we might be two separate beings, but our souls exist as one and the same. If it works for me? Then I know it’ll work for you, too.”

“You are very confident,” Loki noted with a small smile, his weak grip on the TemPad strengthening as he finally took the TemPad from her.

Loki couldn’t bring himself to look at the TemPad as he slid it onto his hand, experimentally flexing his fingers to get used to the feeling of the cylindrical object sat atop his hand. Sylvie nodded at him in encouragement when his eyes landed on her, letting her hand slip away from his arm to make sure they were no longer touching.

Loki finally dropped his eyes down to the TemPad. Sylvie’s timeline continued to blink up at him, just waiting for its new owner to press his touch into its surface. Loki let his hand hover over the TemPad, a moment of shaky hesitation passing before he swiped his finger across the flat surface of the TemPad.

In the blink of an eye, the surface began to change. Billions upon billions of timelines flashed before his eyes as the TemPad searched for his timeline, and for one heart-stopping moment, Loki wondered if it would simply be searching forever, his timeline removed from all of existence.

And then it stopped. It stopped, and Loki and Sylvie could only stand and stare at the brilliantly gold streak of lightning that stared back at them. Right there was Loki’s timeline. Right there was a universe where none of this had ever happened -- an unlimited expanse of possibilities his life could have taken.

And that’s when Mobius held the pruning stick to Sylvie’s neck.

Loki knew it was foolish of him to let his guard down, even if in the presence of – who he supposed – was a friend. But it wasn’t his friend. This Mobius might have been witness to the events that led to their friendship, but he didn’t experience them. And that was made all the difference, it seemed.

One second, Sylvie was right there next to him, looking at the TemPad just as he was. The next, she was just… gone. Loki’s head snapped up in a daze, taking in the sight of Sylvie struggling vehemently as Mobius wrapped an arm around her neck, keeping her pinned to him as he held the glowing end of the pruning stick much too close to Sylvie for either of their comfort.

Sylvie looked more pissed at herself than she did at Mobius. Just like Loki, she had made the foolish mistake of letting her guard down. The entire time she had been here, she had every possible guard up and alert, just waiting for the moment this all went to shit. And then… and then Mobius had told her that somewhere out there is the family she knows, the family she never got to grow up with, and she had stupidly returned back to the state of that little princess of Asgard who had no reason not to trust anyone.

“Don’t struggle.” Mobius’s words did not come out as a command. Not that he wanted them to sound like it. It was more a word of advice than anything. “I don’t want to accidentally catch you with this thing.”

“Then why are you holding it to my neck?” Sylvie forced out through gritted teeth, continuing to struggle despite Mobius’s warning. She kept her gaze focused on the pruning stick Mobius had snuck out of his desk drawer, her hands dug into the arm around her neck, tugging uselessly at them to get his hold to loosen. Except, every defiant pull to his arm only resulted in the pressure against her neck tightening, coming dangerously close to cutting off her air supply.

“Mobius, what are you doing?” Loki spluttered out, yanking out his dagger from his jacket pocket in a flash of metal.

“What I have to.” Mobius took a cautious step back away from Loki, dragging a very uncooperative Sylvie with him. “And don’t you think about going for that sword, Sylvie. The moment I feel your arms move anywhere down, I’ll prune you before you can even come close to touching it.”

Sylvie laughed mockingly at that. Loki stood in a battle-ready stance, looking very much not amused by Mobius’s words as Sylvie had. “You’re not used to the whole ‘threatening demeanor’ thing, are you?” Sylvie goaded him.

“I’ll admit it’s not my forte.” Mobius carefully maneuvered himself back around the desk, placing it between him and Loki. Loki slowly moved forward with him, coming to a stop just in front of the desk. “Especially when I don’t want to be doing this.”

“Then why are you doing this?” Loki hoped his pleading tone would get through to Mobius in some sort of way.

“Because it’s my job,” Mobius forced out the words with as much authority as he could muster.

“You’ve seen the truth!” Sylvie grunted, still fighting against Mobius’s hold. “You know what He did to you! To all of us!”

“That doesn’t change the importance of my work.” Mobius’s words make the weight in Loki’s chest sink heavier. “Or the importance of His work. I agree with you that this whole thing ends with Him; I just don’t agree with your method. I think… I know that the strands of time are only safe in His hands. Only He can untangle and sort out those strands and ensure the timeline runs through to the end without any problems.”

“Mobius, no–” Loki desperately hoped he could get through to him. “If that was the case, then we wouldn’t be right here, would we? You wouldn’t have existed if that was the case. Sylvie and I wouldn’t exist. But that’s what's happened, whether by His deciding or not. If we just sit back and let him rise to power once more… what’s to stop this from happening all over again?”

“And what if your version of Him isn’t the one that comes out on top?” Sylvie asks Mobius, lessening her struggles now that Mobius held the pruning stick even closer, buzzing away mere inches from her face. “Somewhere out there is a variant of him that isn’t interested in pruning the other timelines. Instead, he only wants to rule over them all.”

“It’s up to Him to decide what we’ll do about that,” Mobius replied, much to Loki’s dismay.

Mobius sighed lightly, ducking his head with his eyes clenched shut. “Please, just… do as I say. I meant it when I said I don’t want to be doing this. I think… I think you guys could be of some help to us–”

“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” Sylvie groaned. “You’re trying to recruit us now?”

“Not right now,” Mobius corrected her. “I know you won't right now in this moment. But… you’ll see. You’ll see that this is the only way. Now, please, if you’d just… hand over the TemPad. I promise we won’t reset you, or put you in a time-loop -- nothing like that.”

“Mobius–” Loki tried again, only to be cut off by the man in question.

“It won't be long before someone comes into this office. I can’t guarantee they won't do something drastic if they come in and see you like that with your weapons. But if you come cooperatively–”

“We’ll be slaves to the TVA, just as you are?” Sylvie asks, voice soaked in disgust. “No thanks -- I’d rather take my chances with the pruning stick.”

“Yeah… yeah, that’s a good point,” Mobius mumbled, much to Loki and Sylvie’s confusion. “You… you voluntarily pruned yourself, didn’t you? The both of you were pruned, and you made it out…”

“We did,” Loki confirmed, taking a single step closer, feeling the wooden panel of Mobius’s desk pressing into his knees. “And we both took down the creature He himself tamed and weaponized to devour timelines whole.”

“In other words… do it,” Sylvie spat at Mobius, giving one last attempt at breaking free that yields no results. “You know as well as we do that that’s not a threat to us. Not really.”

“No, I suppose you’re right,” Mobius agreed. Seeing Mobius deactivate the pruning stick briefly filled Loki with a surge of hope, wondering if maybe, just maybe, they had found a way to deescalate the situation. That hope prompted surged out of him, however, as Mobius flipped the pruning stick around in his hand, now holding the pointed, sharp spear end of the stick against Sylvie’s neck. “You might be able to escape pruning… but can you come back from a blade in your throat?”

No. No, they could not.

“Mobius, please,” Loki begged one more time, holding out a dagger in front of him. “Stop this. You’ve seen reason, I know you have. I don’t want to do this as much as you don’t–”

“Then just hand over the TemPad,” Mobius said like it was a no-brainer decision. Loki felt his muscles coil in anticipation as the very tip of the spear pierced Sylvie’s flesh, clenching his jaw hard when he saw the small trickle of blood slip down her neck. He had to make a decision–

“You know your magic doesn’t work here,” Mobius reminded him with an almost pitiful expression. “This is it, Loki. No more tricks from the trickster.”

Loki decided.

“No. There’s no magic,” Loki agreed, holding out his dagger like he was about to drop it in surrender.

Loki dropped his hand down in a flash, connecting with the surface of the TemPad, just as he had seen He Who Remains do back in the Citadel. Mobius blinked, and then Loki was gone. He startled, not even having time to ponder over what had happened before Loki blinked back into existence behind him – not that he could see – and slid the dagger he held in his hand right in the small of his back. Mobius jolted at the searing pain that erupted from his back, barely able to get out a gasp of pain as his body locked up.

“–But I still have your technology,” Loki completed the rest of his sentence before yanking the dagger out from Mobius’s back.

Sylvie took advantage of the slackening of Mobius’s grip, forcing an elbow back hard into the side of his ribs. Mobius had completely let go at this point, but she still spun around on the spot, bringing up her leg and kicking Mobius hard in the chest. Mobius went down without much resistance, slamming into the wall behind him with a pained grunt. He slid down to the floor, leaving behind a trail of red against the wall as he went.

“Huh…” Mobius’s eyes were unfocused, staring blankly to the ground in front of him. “You know, I… I could have sworn I heard you said to that other me that… that you were done stabbing people in the back.”

Mobius dredged up just enough energy to raise his eyes up, meeting Loki’s agonized ones. There was… nothing in his eyes. No blame, no hatred, no fear. But… there was nothing good there, either. No forgiveness, no kindness he’s seen from Mobius plenty of times before. It was just… blank. He was blank.

One second, Loki's staring at a man whose heart was still pumping, whose blood still circulated around his body. Then, he was actually able to see the moment the life drained away from him, like a candle being blown out. Any semblance of the man he knows disappears from Mobius’s eyes, his head dropping down to his chest before he slowly slumps down to the ground, staring without seeing.

The weight of the dagger in Loki’s hands had never felt as heavy as it had before. His shaking hands lift the dagger up, the buzzing fluorescent lights of Mobius’s office reflecting off the shining surface of the blade. The dagger had served its purpose, had done what it was designed to do. And yet, as Loki stared down at the offending item and took in the sight of Mobius’s blood coating the once perfectly clean metal, he wanted nothing more than to cast it into the eternal flame and watch it melt into nothing.

How many times had he done exactly this? He was far from inexperienced in battle, and far from inexperienced in hurting those he cares about for his own gain. So why, this time, did he feel the burn of bile in the back of his throat? Why, this time, did his hands shake so hard that he let his trusted weapons drop to the ground? Why, this time, did he find himself stumbling down to the ground, breaths coming short and fast as he stared at the corpse of the only friend he’s truly ever known?

“Loki…” Sylvie’s voice sounded far away and muted, as if they were underwater. In the back of his mind, he registers that she’s moved in front of him, blocking him from seeing Mobius’s corpse. Her concerned face fills his vision, blurry as if his eyes were filled with tears. Wait… were they? It would certainly explain the stinging sensation he felt in them, and the wetness he could feel rolling down his face.

Her hands cup his face, desperately trying to bring him back to himself. Just like Mobius, his eyes had gone scarily blank. “Loki, it’s not your fault. It’s not, okay? That’s… that wasn’t him. That wasn’t Mobius -- not really.”

Something flickers back to life in his eyes. They shift around, searching across her face as if he was finally seeing her here, still with him, sat right in front of him. He swallows hard, his gaze drifting to where he knows Mobius’s corpse lies behind her.

“I know.” Simply hearing Loki speak out loud helped to lessen some of the fear that had been constricting her chest. “But… it also is.”

Sylvie didn’t even know what she could say right now that would be of any comfort to him. She had never really had to comfort someone before, or had someone comfort her. Except… well, she supposed that Loki had attempted to comfort her a few times: back on Lamentis when it seemed like the end of the line; or in ‘The Time-Keeper’s chambers when they realized the Time Keepers weren’t real. But then, even if she did know how to go about comforting him, this certainly wasn’t the place to do it. Not with Mobius’s body sat right there behind her, and not in a place where they could be locked up at any moment.

Sylvie turns her head towards the office door, just waiting for the sounds of rushing footsteps to echo down the hall. A part of her thinks it would almost be better than the silence they found themselves in -- apart from the repetitive tick of the clock hung in the top middle section of the wall Mobius was slumped by.

She needed to get Loki out of here. She didn’t care where, or what timeline it was, it just had to be not here. Sylvie brushed her thumb tenderly across Loki’s cheek, wiping away a stubborn tear that clung to his skin. She dropped her hands away from his face, turning to Mobius’s body with a grimace. Avoiding looking the corpse in the eye, she reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the TemPad he had stored in there, trying her best not to disturb his body too much.

“Sorry, Mobius,” Sylvie whispers as she moves away from his body, casting him one last regretful look before straightening herself into a stand. The TemPad in her hands was at least familiar, and yet… it felt wrong to use, now. Shaking her head, she flipped open the screen to the TemPad, letting out a breath of relief that it was fully charged. She entered in the information for the Time-Door without much of a thought, its manifestation enough to force Loki’s gaze away from Mobius’s body.

“We need to go,” Sylvie reaches out a hand towards Loki, grateful that his eyes follow the movement of her hand instead of settling back on Mobius. Loki nods, hesitating for a moment before he picks his dagger back up from the ground. His TemPad clad hand clasps onto Sylvie’s, taking her offered help as she pulls him up to his feet. She doesn’t let go of his hand, even when he’s stood back on his feet, and when Loki squeezes her hand in thanks, she knows she's made the right decision.

“Don’t look.” Sylvie moves in front of him, forcing his eyes onto her. Loki does as she asks, forcing everything in his vision apart from her to go blurry and out of focus. Sylvie slowly starts walking back towards the Time-Door, pulling Loki with her as she goes.

What Loki and Sylvie didn’t know was that, after they stepped through that Time-Door, someone did come into Mobius’s office. But it wasn’t just a group of Minute-Men. Nor was it Judge Whittle.

Deep purple robes brushed against the floor as the figure stepped into the room, calculated dark eyes scanning across the room before falling on Mobius. The man sighed, more in irritation at not having caught the intruders red-handed than in the sadness he should have felt for having lost such a devoted worker.

“They found their way in,” The man calls out to the security detail stood post next to the door. “Get someone to retrieve this body once I’ve looked over it. We need to check for any cross-contamination.”

The man waited until one of the security detail had hurried off to carry out his orders before stepping further into the room. He strode over to Mobius’s body, crouching down onto one knee with his head tilted to the side as he looked him up and down. He reached out, grabbing Mobius’s arm and rolling him over onto his stomach. Immediately, he took sight of the dark patch of red soaked into the back of Mobius’s jacket. With careful hands, he pried the jacket off of the body, followed shortly by the now stained white button-up shirt.

The man clicked his tongue, resting an arm on his knee as he looked to the open wound that had been carved into the center of Mobius’s back. There’s a tentative knock to the office door he had closed behind him, looking over to it as it swings open. The Minute-Men he had requested filed into the room, standing at attention and ready for orders.

“You—” He points to one of the Minute Men in line, who somehow manages to stand straighter now he had been singled out. “—Come here.”

Obediently, the Minute Man hurries over to the man, nervous eyes fixed dead-ahead as he waits for further orders.

“I want you… to take a look at the wound,” The man instructs him, folding his hands behind his back and nodding his head towards Mobius’s body. “Look at the shape of it… the size of it. Do you recognize the weapon that inflicted it?”

“Um….” The Minute Man stammers out, voice trembling with nerves as he kneels down by Mobius’s body to take a closer look at the wound. “It… it seems like a small blade, Sir.”

“Hmm… I’d have to agree with you on that one.” The man places a hand on the Minute Man’s shoulder in what should have been a comforting gesture, but was far from it. “A small blade, expertly wielded, by someone who is… intimately familiar with the weapon in question. And… considering the placement of the wound, I’d have to say familiar with this analyst, wouldn’t you?”

“I… I suppose so, Sir.”

“You suppose? Okay, well, I’ll give you my final theory.” The man’s grip on his shoulder tightens, feeling the trembling of the Minute-Man underneath his hands. “I think… the damage done here was by a dagger. Do you know what that means?”

The Minute Man remained frozen under his hands, wisely letting the man monologue away instead of actually answering.

“It means it’s them. It means that they’re finally starting to make a move… It means that what I saw, and what I heard, was true. It means… it won't be long before they start hunting down me.”

Next Chapter - - - >

#sylki #sylki fanfiction #sylki fanfic #pro sylki #loki/sylvie #lovedagger #enchantricks

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forasecondtherewedwon · 4 years

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Do You Tree What I Tree?

Pairing: Peter Parker x Michelle Jones (Spideychelle) Rating: T Word Count: 8730

For @justmattycakes! Happy holidays!!! Massive thanks to @spiderman-homecomeme for organizing this Spideychelle Secret Santa!

Summary: Home from their various colleges for winter break, MJ and her friends make a day out of going to cut down their own Christmas trees. Being alone in the woods—just her, Peter, and an axe—seems like the perfect opportunity to admit that her feelings for her friend have changed.

“Wine and cider!” Peter announces, jabbing a finger at the car window as they pass a rustic-looking roadside sign.

MJ smirks to herself. His touch will probably leave a smudge on the glass, which Flash will painstakingly wipe clean later. She likes Flash much more now than she did in high school—they all do—but she likes to build up a little vindictiveness towards him in advance, for when he inevitably says or does something douchey.

“Whine inside her, is that what you’d do if you could actually get a girlfriend?” Flash asks immediately. Sweet justification for MJ, though she rolls her eyes.

Flash is driving, but Betty trusts his skill enough to smack his arm from the passenger seat, then turn to smile back at Peter.

“That sounds nice. We should definitely stop on the way back.”

“Yeah,” Ned pipes up. “Maybe they’ll have a fireplace too, where we can thaw our fingers.”

“Babe, I won’t let your fingers get cold.”

“Aw, babe,” he croons, reaching over his girlfriend’s shoulder where she sits in front of him to tangle their fingers together.

“Back to your intense lack of dateability,” Flash persists. MJ swears his original asshole persona comes out so much more whenever he slides behind the wheel of his dad’s Cadillac Escalade. “Are you having a lonely winter, Parker? With only your cold lab bench to keep you warm?”

Next to MJ, Peter sighs and mutters, “Same old Flash.” She thinks he says it only to himself, but he darts a look at her and they share a smile.

“Well, I don’t have your L.A. weather,” he allows, artfully changing topic.

Flash will talk for an hour straight about the numerous perks of attending UCLA, including the constant sunshine, the short-shorts, and the absence of his current listeners. The last they all recognize to be a blatant lie, but they like him enough to let him get away with it. MJ has a special sympathy for Flash in those moments; she’s still growing from the girl she was when they were all at Midtown together, when she found it so much easier to edge away from other people or, when she did interact, to speak defensively, insultingly, and with liberal use of the middle finger. Her communication skills have flourished with not being able to see these people in person every day. She’s actually amazed with how she’s clung to them, certain she’d failed to develop the kind of solid relationships people were supposed to form in high school and that she’d just stagger forward through her fine art degree (PoliSci minor) with a wild hope of connecting to other humans through the doodles that she’s developed into graceful sketches, from sketches to oil paintings with sweep and verve.

The five of them are in their second year at their respective centres of learning now and it feels really nice to gather after living by too-brief text exchanges, missed calls, and videocalls that somebody’s roommate inevitably arrives home in the middle of, loud and invasive. When MJ’s speaking to Ned or Flash, they can push through. They have the boisterousness and, in Ned’s case, natural good nature, to conduct two separate conversations at the same time. Betty prefers to hang up and try at a better time, when they can speak uninterrupted. Peter’s different from all of the above. MJ always sees how he blushes, as though he’s being caught talking to her. It makes her flush in return. There’s no reason for them not to be as close as either of them are with any of the others, but conversations with him make her feel different. Without meaning to, their voices lower and they wander away from whatever topic they start with; on some nights, into the most intimate tracks of their inner lives. She gets why he feels caught to be interrupted because it’s disorienting for her too, being dragged back to the larger world, hearing a voice other than his in her ear. She likes traditional phone calls with him the best because she can lie in bed with her phone pressed to her ear and he doesn’t have to know.

“Are we almost there?” Ned says when Flash pauses in his rhapsodizing of Venice Beach.

MJ, sitting in the middle of the backseat, watches her friend unlock her phone and check the map.

“Yes. Under two miles to go.”

“And we’re super sure about this place?” Ned checks.

“Mhmm. A friend of a friend in my French workshop went last year and got the most spectacular Fraser fir,” Betty assures him. “I saw it at her Christmas party. That’s the one you couldn’t go to because you got the flu, remember?”

“Ugh,” he agrees.

“We passed a tree farm awhile ago,” Peter ventures. “That wasn’t it?”

“Betty told me the owners of that farm own this lot too. It’s cheaper to get your tree here because they don’t tend the lot in the same way,” MJ informs him. She likes the look on his face when he listens. She likes the feel of his leg bumping against hers as they traverse the uneven gravel sideroad.

“Yeah, I think I’ll be making up the cost difference paying for a paint job. I can hear the stone chips!” Flash complains. As if he’s ever paid for so much as a tank of gas.

“It’s an adventure, moron,” she says.

“I wasn’t prepared for stone chips.”

“I told you everything in an email last week, when we were planning this,” Betty calmly reminds him. “We should all be prepared.”

It isn’t visible to her right now, but MJ knows her friend has a shiny, compact saw at her feet, tucked into a neat black case, looking bizarrely like a tennis racket. Her own axe is trapped beneath Peter’s shoe so it doesn’t slide forward under Flash’s seat and slice the soles off his shoes. It’s quite sharp. She made sure.

“Listen,” Flash demands, “I’m the transport. Someone else can take care of the less significant details.”

“That is so fucking dumb,” Peter mumbles.

“What?”

“I said, I hope your feet don’t go numb,” he says more loudly. MJ turns her head, like she’s trying to follow the gentle backwards sweep of falling snow with her eyes when she’s really trying to hide her smile from Flash’s suspicious gaze in the rear-view mirror. “Did you wear waterproof boots and warm socks?”

“Of course. About to make winter my bitch.”

Betty twists to catch MJ’s eye.

“You wanna take this one?”

“Go for it.”

While Betty educates Flash on why that is not an acceptable thing for him to say—not with two of his female friends in the car, or ever—MJ drums her fingers on her knees. Her mittens are piled in her lap for now; despite her natural inclination to insult Flash’s ride, it heats up nicely. Plus, she’s tucked between Peter and Ned. She glances to her right to check on the latter and finds him huffing a warm breath on the window. He traces his finger through the resulting condensation, drawing a heart and writing ‘B+N’ in the middle. MJ glances at Peter and he’s already looking at her.

“So, tree?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I’ve been told to keep it under six feet. A measuring tape and a ladder might’ve been helpful, but there wouldn’t have been anyplace to put the ladder once we got the trees on the roof of this thing.” She smacks the SUV’s ceiling and Flash goes, “HEY!”

“You can just choose a taller one,” Peter suggests, “and then cut it shorter.”

“I feel bad about the waste though. It’s a living thing.”

“I can help you with that.”

“Oh yeah?” MJ’s genuinely curious. She knows May prioritizes Hanukkah customs to keep Peter’s connection to both his ethnoreligious traditions and his lost love ones strong, so she doesn’t know how a Christmas tree fits into that.

“Right before you guys picked me up, May had an idea. She thought it might be nice just to get some pine branches for, like, generic winter decorating and to make the apartment smell good.”

“That’s a really good idea.”

“Yeah. I was gonna grab scraps from where other trees had been cut down, but I can get them off whatever tree you pick instead. Or you can. You have the axe.”

“I’ll give you a turn with it if you help me drag my tree back to the car,” MJ bargains with a smile.

“I can definitely help.”

Of course he can. He could probably carry a dozen trees if he felt like it. Over his head. With all the roots and clumps of frozen earth still attached. But the thought of him hauling the tree back with her rather than for her is something she appreciates. As she nods, she gets the fluttery feeling she’s been experiencing more and more whenever he’s called her this term. Their calls have gotten longer. A younger version of herself would be amazed at the way she can now talk for hours without noticing the time slipping past. And it never feels wasted. Actually, when they aren’t talking, MJ misses Peter. She can’t completely put it into words and so she hasn’t. What she’s done, besides continue to answer every time he calls, is offer him a chance to swing the axe she brought. Romantically, there’s room for improvement.

Their overlapping winter breaks are going to end in another week and she’s scared the calls, as treasured as they’ve become to her, won’t be enough.

“There!” Betty cries. She flings her arm across the dash to point.

“That’s the woods,” Flash says, brushing her off.

“No, that’s the driveway! You’re going to pass it!”

The jarring, inelegant jerk of the wheel as he takes Betty’s directions at the last moment tips Ned into MJ and MJ into Peter. They all groan in discomfort, but Flash seems supremely pleased with himself as he straightens the tires. Off the gravel, their passage between the trees is muffled by the packed snow on the laneway other cars have driven over. There’s a dusting on top as today’s thin flurry continues to fall. As she sits up straight following Flash’s terrible Baby Driver impression, MJ feels Peter’s hand on her back, through her coat, and her face gets hot. Unable to meet his eyes in thanks, she leans towards Ned instead and the two of them stare out at the picturesque scene where low drifts spill over the ground and every pine, spruce, and fir—all dusted in white—looks like the perfect Christmas tree.

“Hats on,” Betty instructs as Flash pulls to a stop next to a pickup truck with a tarp already laid out in its bed, awaiting a tree. “Shoelace check. Gloves and mitts secure.”

“You sound like you’re prepping us to jump out of an airplane,” Flash laughs.

He swings his door open while Betty’s trying to get back into her winterwear checklist with the rest of them, letting in a gust of cold air that disturbs the warmth MJ’s hoarded as well as Betty’s good temper. She reaches across the center console and shoves Flash with both hands, pushing him straight out of the vehicle with a “WHOA!”

Betty’s nonchalant as she flips her mirror down and adjusts the positioning of her pompom hat before stepping out of the SUV herself. Peter and Ned pile out, laughing, and MJ climbs out Peter’s side. Flash is next to the car, brushing himself off.

“I’m going to get sick,” he pouts.

“Say cheese!” Ned encourages, snapping a picture as Betty runs into shot to pose next to her victim, cupping his face between her gloved hands.

“Maybe this’ll make him change his mind about the cider place,” MJ notes to Peter hopefully.

“I feel like we’d be stopping there no matter what,” he muses. “It was either making Flash fear hypothermia or Betty sneaking back to the car first and tampering with his brake line or something.”

“So, which way looks good, babe?” Ned asks his girlfriend.

As she told them, this lot isn’t the manicured family attraction the last place was. There aren’t any employees standing around—easily spotted even as they drove past the tree farm down the road in their orange crossing-guard-style vests—or a map marking which areas are which type of tree. There’s just sort of a main track that’s been tramped down by passing feet leading between trees. It’s easy to see for a ways, but beyond that, the forest grows denser. MJ knows Betty did her homework and can identify tree varieties, and she doesn’t actually care which type she gets. She’s here for the experience, and for the idiot next to her who gives her a thrill every time the nylon sleeves of their winter coats rush against each other.

“Hmm,” Betty says, and strides forward through the narrow entrance. From there, things fan out. She taps her bow saw, now loose, against the side of her leg. “Well, what would everyone like to do?”

“I’m going wherever you are,” Ned vows. She shoots him a soft smile.

“Me too,” Flash decides. “You’ll get us in and out of here fast so we can get warm. Not like Parker, who’ll probably get lost in the first five minutes.”

“What?” Peter asks, insulted. “Will not.”

“Oh yeah? How’s your sense of direction without that robot lady in your head?”

“Karen is not a robot lady, she’s an AI.”

“Same diff.”

“It is not. A robot lady is like what they have on The Jetsons.”

“Whatever. Point is, without your GPS, I don’t trust you.”

“Well,” Peter counters, “we can just look at our phones.”

“Already tried that,” Flash informs him. “I don’t get a signal out here.”

Regardless, the rest of them check.

“That’s alright,” Betty persists, trying to be chipper to maintain group morale, MJ’s sure. “It’s daylight, the snow’s not coming down hard, and nobody’s going off alone. Now, Flash, Ned, and I are going that way.” She points, then glances from MJ to Peter. “Do you guys want to stick with us, or…?”

MJ opens her mouth and looks to Peter, shuffling beside her and doing some sort of best-friend telepathy with Ned, based on the stupid, scrunched up looks on their faces. Is he going to say something? He’ll probably want to stay with Ned. It’ll be weird if she speaks up for both of them. But if she doesn’t, when are they going to talk, just the two of them? Since they’ve all been back in the city, everything’s been done in a group—buying presents for friends and relatives, going skating, getting hot chocolate, attending Flash’s ugly holiday t-shirt party (L.A.-themed, so no sweaters allowed). The woods though. The woods are quiet and friendly and private. Snow muffles sound, fresh air and cold wake her up and fill her lungs until they burn with everything she’d say to Peter if she just had this opportunity. No Ned and Betty hanging back to offer encouraging looks, no Flash to ruin everything with a terribly timed innuendo. MJ just needs Peter. Just her and Peter. Please, dork, she thinks, don’t say Ned.

The words come from her.

“I think Peter and I’ll go that way,” she declares, nodding sharply in a direction that isn’t Betty’s.

“Yeah,” Peter adds.

Oh, thank god, MJ thinks.

“He’s gonna get you lost,” Flash warns. He’s already stamping his feet like he’s freezing to death on the spot, though the cold isn’t that bad with the tree cover. “Then he’ll go nuts in the woods.”

“I have an axe,” MJ reminds him flatly. She glances at Peter. “Bring it.”

Peter snorts a laugh.

“No one will be re-enacting anything that remotely resembles The Shining,” Betty instructs. “Meet back here in, how long, do you think?”

“Depends,” Flash says. “How long should we wait before declaring those two missing and sending out a search party, of which I will not be a member, but will be happy to direct from the comfort of the Escalade with a hot drink in my hand and my feet against the heating vent.”

“Dude, don’t do that,” Ned pleads. “You’ll make the whole car smell like your feet.”

“My ride, my rules.”

“Should we just…?” Peter asks MJ. She nods.

“Let’s go.”

“Ok, um, an hour!” Betty decides.

Peter gives her a thumbs up and the two of them follow the path as it diverges, then cut away again, wading through ankle-deep snow where no other tree-hunter has walked today. The sound of Flash goading the other two fades. MJ stops for a minute and turns to watch them march into the trees. She takes a deep breath in and out.

“You good?” Peter asks.

“Yeah.” She hefts the axe onto her shoulder to look more lumberjack-esque (and so she doesn’t slice it into her calf as she walks). “Come on.”

Despite promises to share, she refuses to surrender the tool any sooner than she must. Soon enough, she’s huffing, face passing through damp clouds of her own breath and chilling her flushed cheeks and frozen nose. Balancing her temperature out here is a tricky thing; as long as they keep moving, as they are, she stays warm, but with Peter crunching along in the snow beside her, she’s too warm. MJ bites her mitt between her teeth and unzips her coat a little to let the brisk air circulate around the back of her sweaty neck.

“You’re not gonna catch cold?” Peter asks solicitously.

She shakes her head.

“Ok,” he says, “but it’d be just like you to get sick and say nothing about it while Flash complains all the way home that he is sick when nothing’s wrong with him.”

“The only thing he’s suffering through is his body’s natural rejection of us. He spent too many years thinking he was better than we are just to end up right here, hacking down Christmas trees together.”

“Probably caroling,” Peter guesses.

“Probably. He claims his favourite holiday song is the instrumental version of ‘Carol of the Bells,’ but that has to be a lie.”

“My money’s on something super cheesy.”

“Mine too,” MJ agrees with a grin.

Gradually, she slows, taking in the pine trees around them. Her guesstimation is that some of these go up to ten or twelve feet, but there are shorter options tucked in between. Younger, or those that maybe didn’t get as much light as they grew. She wipes the back of her mittened hand across her forehead, pushing her slipping fleece headband back where it’s been sliding forward.

“So,” she asks, “any of this look good to you?”

She lowers her gaze to find Peter hastily averting his from her face.

“That one?” he says, pointing to a tree at random.

“Peter, that one’s longer than Flash’s SUV.”

“Oh. Right. Um, ok…”

Focusing now, she watches his upturned face and the serious expression that sinks into it, the way snow’s been sinking into her hair. Maybe Betty was right about wearing a hat, though Betty’s hair is also significantly flatter than hers and thus more conducive to hat-wearing. Well, it’ll be fine. They aren’t stranded or anything and the snow’s not getting to them as much as it was when they had to walk across the clearing to reach this stand of trees. They’re sheltered here. As MJ hoped, it’s quiet.

Instead of asking Peter how much of his remaining holiday he’d like to spend with her, or how he feels when she forces him to hang up the phone first (he must notice), or why, exactly, he was so quick to agree to go off into the woods with her when he could just as easily have insisted they all stay together, she criticizes the first tree he takes genuine interest in.

“Crooked.”

“Too dense.”

“Too sparse.”

“Weird empty area.”

“I swear to god, something moved in there, Peter. I do not want a fucking National Lampoon Christmas, ok? My mom will freak out if I bring a live squirrel into our home.”

He’s laughing at her when they finally spot one that looks pretty good: shorter but not squat, full but with soft, long needles rather than nasty ones bent on treating them both to non-consensual acupuncture if they stand too close. It doesn’t look sickly or as though it’s currently inhabited by birds or rodents.

“So young,” MJ does note, assessing its size in comparison to a taller tree a yard away. “Oh well.” She raises the axe and adjusts her grip.

Peter goes scrambling backwards, almost slipping, then tries to pretend he was only calmly moving out of the way, that he is not afraid of the radius of her swing. When he starts babbling about how quickly his body could probably heal from an axe wound (though, with all the crazy shit he gets up to, that’s actually not something he’s experienced yet), she finally laughs at him.

“Relax,” she says. “You can just hold the branches up at the bottom while I chop through the trunk.”

Fearless—and even more determined to prove it now that she’s given Peter a scare—MJ drops to the snow and wriggles under the tree, as close as she thinks she should be while still being able to swing the axe. Peter’s hand makes her jump. She whips her head around, nearly getting a clump of needles in the eye, but he’s only skimming her coat by accident as he gathers the lowest branches away from her. As she asked. Right, he’s not touching her on purpose and he’s not even doing the not-touching activity on purpose but because she told him to. He’s trying to help. Frustrating.

She props herself up on her elbow and takes an awkward whack at the tree. The blade sinks into the bark like it’s supposed to, but it’s still somehow surprising to feel the give. MJ takes a few more tentative swings and the axe sinks deeper, requiring some force to yank it out again. She grunts and hears Peter crouch down behind her.

“Is it going ok? Can I do anything?”

“Umm, maybe be prepared to pull the top of the tree in the other direction so it doesn’t fall on my head. I think I’m almost halfway.”

“Yes, please don’t make it fall on your head,” he requests.

“It won’t as long as you do your job,” she promises gruffly, hewing in once more.

“Do you think this would be easier with a saw?” Peter’s voice is higher now, coming from the other side of the tree. Though the branches fell when he changed position, she can feel them only resting lightly on her as he holds the top of the tree away. Probably standing on his toes.

“Don’t say anything against my axe.”

“I’m not! I was just thinking out loud!”

“A saw,” MJ informs him with another swing, “is not as badass.”

“Good point.”

But is he just agreeing because the tree’s starting to topple and the final swings to break through it take her blade closer to his shins as he dances out of the way? Maybe.

She clambers out and, with the tree now on an angle, is able to chop from an upright position, down on a diagonal until she buries her axe in the snow, then yanks it free.

“Oh, you can lay it down,” MJ tells Peter when she realizes he’s standing there with his arms full of tree, face hidden as he keeps his head pulled back from the branches.

He does so gently and then they stand there in triumph. MJ hurls her axe into the ground.

“Would you quit that?” Peter requests, jumpy.

She grins.

“Sorry. Just really feeling this.”

“I can tell.”

They took their time making their selection and can do one of two things next: either trim the branches for Peter to take home to May right here or drag the tree back to Flash’s SUV and perform the necessary amputations there. They do neither. MJ shrugs her shoulders and flexes her fingers inside her mittens, exorcising the tension of gripping the axe’s handle. She turns, glancing casually around, but really looking for something invisible—a reason to stay. A rational delay before rejoining the others.

“Hold still,” Peter says, as she’s looking back the way they came. The way she thinks they came. They stomped around this area, circling every tree, for a while, so the footprints are a little confused.

“What? If you try to tell me there’s a squirrel in my hair, I’m not going to believe you.”

He smiles softly.

“No squirrel, just snow.”

She stares at her friend warily as he approaches, then sweeps snow from her headband. That’s when she realizes one side of her coat is soaked from lying on the ground. It can’t get through though, it’s just the outer layer. Still, Peter walks a complete circle around her, wiping snow away.

“There,” he says.

MJ sighs.

“Peter…”

“Yeah?”

His face is so open as he looks at her, flakes flying around and between them. Her heart squeezes almost painfully because there have been so many days of not seeing his face without the assistance of a screen. Now that he’s here, it’s too much.

“Umm… how many branches do you think May wants?”

MJ crouches and puts her back to him, feigning being deep in concentration over the fresh Christmas corpse splayed out in the snow. She feels like a detective at a crime scene. Peter exhales heavily behind her, then drops to her level.

“More is probably better, right? She’ll probably take some in to work or try to give them to the neighbours anyway.”

“True.” They both reach for the axe. “Go ahead,” MJ says, quickly withdrawing her hand.

Peter shaves off what he thinks May might like—plus at least an armload more—in quick slices and snips.

“Jeeze, this thing is sharp.”

“I know,” she says proudly.

“I want one. For the suit, I mean. You think that could work?”

“Well, you already have a bunch of less probable-sounding features, so why not a spider with an axe made of webs?”

“Ned’s gonna be so excited when I tell him.”

“I’m excited,” she says, maybe a little too forcefully. It’s not a competition. She doesn’t think he’s already forgotten about her. There’s just some kind of glitch in her brain-to-mouth connection that no Spidey tech could possibly fix.

“I think we’re ahead of schedule,” Peter tells her.

He pulls out his phone to check the time while MJ cleaves into the fallen tree’s trunk, cutting it down to a size more suited to transport and her family’s apartment.

“We could do this in two trips,” he presses. “Take the tree and come back for the branches? Or vice versa?”

“I think we can manage it in one.”

She glances at him and he looks mildly frantic.

“Or two,” MJ amends. “Two would be better.”

Are they finally going to talk? That has to be the reason for Peter stretching this out, doesn’t it? But he moves quickly to grip the lowest branches of the tree, down where MJ severed it, and she grabs those on the opposite side of the trunk. After a jerk to get it going, they slide the tree smoothly over the snow, leaving a fine trail of needles. It occurs to her, as they walk, that she was worried about this part on the way in here, that the tree might pick up dirt from where others have walked, but the ground looks fresh and sparkling in the sun. That’s not familiar.

“Peter? Are we going the right way?”

“What? Yeah. Aren’t we? We have to be. Because the sun was…”

He gestures very unconvincingly overhead and her heart plummets in her chest. For once, not because she’s scared of saying something about her feelings for him and hearing they aren’t reciprocated, but because what Peter’s not saying directly is that they might be lost. And the worst part of that scenario is Flash being right. No, no, no, Peter will not make Flash right, not today.

“It’s been snowing,” she reviews. Stupid and obvious, but facts are soothing to her. “How much do you think it’s snowed? Not that much, right? It can’t have. We must’ve just started walking the wrong way.”

“Definitely. Ok, let’s turn around.”

So, they swing the tree with them and strike out in the opposite direction, not going very quickly as they navigate the trees. They pass the stump they lately created and MJ plucks her axe from the snow on the way past. It just makes her feel better, having it.

Unfortunately, this way isn’t correct either.

“Alright,” she says slowly. “What the fuck.”

“Let’s leave the tree for a minute.”

They set it down. She realizes she’s sweating.

“How could we be lost? How could you be lost?”

“There aren’t exactly landmarks,” Peter says. “It’s just… trees.”

“Maybe we should’ve gone to a place with signposts and neat little rows.”

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

He wanders over to her, watching her with careful eyes.

“I wasn’t this cold when I called today an adventure.”

“Maybe you should zip your coat back up.”

But she’s too warm and uncomfortable to do that just to challenge how he’s calling her bluff.

“Are you scared?” he asks. “You don’t need to be scared. I think we did a lot of circling. We didn’t walk too far in any one direction. I could climb a tree and look around?”

“Climb a tree? One of these trees? The ones covered in snow with the thin branches and the spiky needles?”

“Hey,” Peter jokes, hitting her arm with his elbow, “you’re supposed to be cheering me on.”

“I…” She closes her mouth. He frowns.

“Is something wrong?”

“We’re lost and Flash is going to gloat.”

“Besides that.”

“You’re trying really hard to get us out of here.” That should be a compliment, a commendation, but it sounds accusing as it leaves her mouth. MJ feels on-edge, heart beating all wrong.

“…Should I not be?”

God, she’s being strange. She can feel herself being strange. Everything’s aligning to buy her more time and she’s panicking trying to work out what to do with it. The snow is falling softly all around and she’s auditioning to play the most awkward protagonist in the history of Hallmark holiday movies.

“Are you looking forward to going back?” MJ asks abruptly.

“To the car?”

“To school. In January.”

“Umm, kinda? I mean, it’s going well. But you know that, we talked about this stuff the other day when you and Ned were over at May’s.”

“Yeah.” She’s thinking, staring down at her cut tree, debating how to mention that there’s one thing they didn’t talk about, that she couldn’t bring up, because she felt strange about doing it with Ned there. She goes to continue, unsure of her phrasing, but ready to push onward, when Peter answers, looking thoughtfully up at the pale-grey snow clouds.

“It’s really nice to be home, but I also don’t like living in the past.”

He glances at her to see what she thinks. She’s noticed that he does that a lot, when they’re on a video call. Sometimes, she teases him about it—the way he makes certain assertions sound like questions because he wants her input, values her opinion, thinks of her as wiser than him (she is) though he’s the genius playing around at the upper end of the grading curve in all of his classes.

“Sorry, what were you gonna say?” he asks, spotting the unfinished thought in her expression, how she holds her eyebrows a little too tightly together.

MJ shakes her head.

“It’s nice to have you home.” As Peter’s beginning to smile, swaying slightly towards her, she rambles on, “It’s nice to have everyone home. I mean, I could go longer between having to see Flash in person, but what can you do, right? It’s worth it to have Ned home. And Betty. And you.”

She swallows.

“There!” he shouts, pointing past her. She squints.

“What is it?”

“Our tracks.”

Trusting his superior eyesight, MJ troops after him. Sure enough, their deep treads from earlier are still faintly present—now gentle indents as the snowfall works to even everything out again.

“But we don’t have to hurry back,” Peter says. She avoids his eyes.

“Except we probably do, now that we’ve wasted time being lost.”

“We were never actually lost.”

“Whatever you need to tell yourself so you can sleep at night, Spider-Man. Help me with the tree.”

He does, then hightails it back to collect May’s branches once MJ’s in the clearing with only the little trail left between her and the makeshift parking lot. She pulls her bounty along and through the gap, suddenly back with the rest of her friends.

“Did you manage to lose Parker out there?” Flash asks immediately. “Nice. Up top.”

She rolls her eyes instead of meeting his hand in a high five.

“He just had to go back for something,” MJ explains, expressly for the benefit of Ned and Betty.

“What’d he do, drop some of you guys’ sexual tension in the woods?”

Flushing with the sting in the air and self-consciousness, she walks past Flash. Just close enough to drag the tree over his feet and make him start whining about getting dirt on his blindingly-white designer snow boots. When his complaints cut off, she knows she’s in trouble. It’s like the sudden silence in a horror movie that you just know means nothing good.

“Never mind,” Flash says loudly. “Sexual tension present and accounted for.”

MJ whirls around to see Peter’s arrived and is staring at her with a pleading look on his face. Or he was, until Flash’s words sunk in. Surely, Peter’s fast enough to snatch his keys, toss them to Betty, and have them all climb into the SUV and wheel outta here, leaving Flash behind? But during the holidays? She’d feel bad. He’s lucky.

“Can we just get the trees loaded?” Peter asks, moving to help MJ pull hers closer to demonstrate that it’s not so much a question for Flash as a demand for him to shut the hell up. Flash probably doesn’t understand. He’d need tact for that.

“Fine. And not a scratch on the Escalade,” Flash commands.

He opens the trunk to reveal a set of carefully folded tarps; they’re too ratty to actually belong to him, so MJ’s betting that they’re Betty’s or Ned’s. Those two went on a big, romantic camping trip together right after high school graduation, so these could be remnants. The first tarp crinkles in Peter’s hands as he pulls it out and unfolds it. Beneath the second—removed by Ned—there’s a Burberry blanket protecting the SUV from the tarps. Honestly. Momentarily forgetting about their awkward moment in the forest, MJ catches Peter’s eye and nods at the blanket. The two of them start laughing and soon, Betty and Ned have spotted them and are laughing too. Flash is perplexed, which, as always, is when he gets grouchy and defensive.

“Can we pick up the pace, people?” he requests. “I need a hot drink and an even hotter fire. I can barely feel my fingers.”

“Wait.” MJ frowns and pauses in assisting Peter with dragging the longest tarp onto the roof of the SUV. “I have a tree, Ned and Betty each have trees… Flash, where’s your tree?”

She turns her head and notices Ned just cutting off a gesture of slicing a hand across his throat to insist on her not finishing that question. Betty sighs and explains.

“Flash’s service came back while we were out there.”

“Dude,” Peter huffs, stretching to reach and finish tugging the tarp into place, “you had service? You could’ve texted us to see if we were, I don’t know, lost.”

“This should come as no surprise to you, Parker,” Flash says snootily, “but I had other priorities.”

“Oh yeah?” MJ questions suspiciously.

“He went online and bought an artificial tree,” Betty says with a roll of her eyes.

“Sacrilege.”

“More like brilliance,” Flash corrects. “It has snow-encrusted branches, pre-strung lights, and the thing isn’t gonna die in a week, so it’s better for the environment.”

“Isn’t it plastic?” MJ checks in a slow voice, waiting for him to catch on.

“Yeah.”

“Then the process used to produce it created harmful emissions and when you find it next year and decide to throw it out because you’re no longer ‘feelin’ it’ or whatever excuse you have, it’ll go straight in the trash and from there to one of the many, many local and international landfills that house our city’s waste.”

“You’re pretty judgy for a girl who just fucking murdered a tree.”

“I did my research,” MJ counters easily. “This is a sustainably managed forest. They maintain the trees, protect new growth and transplant saplings every spring to ensure the health of not only the cash crop, but the forest as a whole. Pre-light that, dickhead.”

Feeling flustered, she goes to give Betty and Ned a hand with positioning their tree on the roof. MJ stands on the ledge offered by the open trunk and stabilizes the tree while the others guide it into position.

“Tension,” she hears Flash diagnose under his breath. He’s smart enough to not meet her eye when she glares down at him.

They encounter a small problem while loading the second tree: both Betty and Ned have selected especially full specimens. Side by side, they take up the entire roof, and MJ’s tree is still on the ground with Peter’s mountain of branches, waiting to be slung onboard.

“I don’t think it’ll fit,” Ned says after jumping into the air twice to take a look at the available space (none).

“Neither do I,” she agrees. “Guess it’s going in the trunk.”

“In the trunk?” Flash is there in a, well, flash. He slipped into the driver’s seat, ostensibly to doublecheck their route home, but really to start his seat-warmer and turn the Christmas radio station back on. His distress is juxtaposed against a jazzy rendition of ‘Winter Wonderland.’

“Yeah. There’s nowhere else.”

“Guys, please. Are you trying to get back at me for the sexual tension comment? It’s forgotten. I lied. No tension here. Cut the act and tell me that thing’s going on the roof with the others.”

“While ‘that thing’ is a capitalist nexus, it’s also a precious symbol of everything I love about Christmas,” MJ says firmly, “and it’s going in the trunk of this SUV.”

“Guys?” Flash glances at the other three, but nobody sides with him.

“Don’t worry, Flash,” Betty says kindly. “We won’t use the second tarp to go on top of the roof trees, we’ll line the trunk with it instead. There won’t be any needles, I promise.”

That is definitely not a promise she can make, and MJ’s sure her friend is aware, but she’s taking a shortcut to winning this standoff and MJ admires that. The placating seems to wash over Flash like the spirit of Christmas over Scrooge McDuck. Suddenly, he’s smiling.

“Yeah. We can do that. Of course. But.” Oh no. The smile’s warping. Flash is about to be an asshole again, MJ can see it coming fast on the horizon. “The tree’s going to take up more space than just the trunk.”

MJ peers into the SUV. Shit. He’s probably right.

“Oh,” says Betty, not getting the issue, “well, we can fold the seats down, right? The tree isn’t that tall. Come on, guys, we’ve had real problems. This is nothing!”

She beams at them and Ned wraps an arm around her, hugging her to his side.

“We’ll lose a seat in the back,” MJ says.

She’s profoundly annoyed by the satisfaction on Flash’s face as she’s the one to say the words, point out the obvious. Isn’t she always? It feels like her role in this friend group and she never minds that, never has until this very situation and its inevitable conclusion.

“Somebody’s gotta sit on somebody else’s lap,” Flash singsongs. “And it’s not me because I’m the driver!”

The other four look at each other.

“Betty,” Ned begins, “you and I could…”

“But she needs to be in the front to navigate,” Flash irritatingly points out, “and before you say it, you shouldn’t double up in the front. It’s not safe.”

Maybe they can back over him when they steal his ride and drive out of here, MJ theorizes. She sighs. Loudly. Vexedly.

“I’ll sit on Peter.”

She proceeds to make eye contact with none of them, just fishes a sloppy coil of rope out of the back and works with Betty to feed it over the trees and through the windows. Some cold air will blow into the SUV, but that won’t matter so much to her, she guesses, since she’ll have the benefit of Peter’s body heat. Who needs a seat-warmer when you can have an actual human lap? Ugh, no, not funny, but she tried to consider it in a way that doesn’t make her want to volunteer to sit in the trunk with her tree.

Finally, they lift her tree and Peter’s branches inside, position them, and shut the trunk. Flash is whistling ‘Carol of the Bells’ as he practically skips to the driver’s seat. Betty, far more compassionate, gives MJ a reassuring look before she gets in. Then Peter climbs into the back, taking the middle seat, and glances at her, lingering in the snow. She groans to herself and folds into the car as Ned gives her an encouraging pat on the back.

Maneuvering is awkward. Peter cranes his neck back like his whole body is leaning to make room for her, but it’s not possible—he’s already pressed back against the seat. She sits. He rustles beneath and behind her. Before she can panic and insist on walking home, Ned gets in and slams the door closed (Flash complains).

“Uh,” Peter starts, “do you wanna shift forward so I can buckle my—”

“Absolutely not. If we’re sharing a seat, we’re sharing a seatbelt. I don’t want to end this excursion by flying through the windshield when Flash swerves the car off the road because he sees a snowdrift that looks like a butt or something.”

“Hey! I’m an excellent driver,” he complains, starting the car.

“I could just, like, hold onto you?” Peter offers.

MJ’s heartbeat rockets. She presses the top of her head to the ceiling to ground herself.

“No. We’re using the seatbelt.”

Peter stretches it away from the seat and holds it for her to grab; she passes it back for him to fasten. The second it clicks into place, Flash throws the SUV into reverse and hits the gas. Peter must move his head away from behind hers because MJ’s genuinely surprised not to feel his nose break against the back of her skull.

“Excellent driver, huh?” she questions flatly.

“There was ice.”

“Sure there was.”

Flash winks at her in the rear-view mirror and instead of siding with her, MJ catches Ned chuckling.

“I’m sorry, but it’s funny. You guys look ridiculous seatbelted together,” he says.

But she doesn’t feel so much ridiculous as confused and on alert, swaying with Flash’s accelerations and decelerations (thankfully minor compared to how he started off). Every time, Peter’s hands jump to grab her: shoulders, waist, legs. Once, he grabs her hands and even though she still has her mittens on, dripping melting snow onto the seat on one side and the tree branch she’s clutching on the other, it’s startling.

“Sit still,” Peter tells her when she jerks out of his hold.

“You sit still.”

He laughs.

“I can’t go anywhere—you’re sitting on me.”

“Then try having less bony legs,” she suggests, though they both know the nerd has more muscle mass in one of his legs than the rest of the SUV’s occupants have in their entire bodies combined.

“Right up here!” Betty directs. “We have to pay.”

MJ sags gratefully into Peter, relaxed for the first moment of the short drive from the lot to the tree farm. She tenses up again when they pull in and Betty offers to be the one to hop out and pay for their trees. There is no reprieve from Peter’s lap. She hands over her cash to her friend with a sigh and listens while the trees are removed from the roof, shaken by a machine to rid them of loose needles, and replaced for transport home. When the trunk opens and the tree farm guy slides MJ’s little tree free, she shivers at the cold air blowing in.

“Take off your mitts and put your hands by the vent,” Peter suggests.

MJ looks around and sees that the only vent she can reach is the one their feet are bracketing, down by the floor. She fights the grip of the seatbelt to bend forward. Ah. Hot air on her freezing fingers, plus, she’s out of the draft coming through the open trunk.

“This is better. Thanks, dork.”

She glances back and spots the stricken look on her friend’s face as he watches her, still seated on his lap, but now bent over. MJ sits swiftly upright.

“I’m actually not that cold,” she says, spine rigid beneath her coat and her sweaters.

Peter sighs and, while Ned’s looking out the window to watch her tree get vibrated and wrapped, tentatively offers MJ his hands. If Ned notices that they’re holding hands when the SUV is completely repacked and they’re on their way to the place with the wine and cider, he doesn’t say a word about it. It’s shared body heat. It’s a survival tactic. That’s what MJ tells herself as she finds her and Peter’s fingers moving gently from a perfunctory clasp to intertwining.

They stay that way until Flash pulls off the road at the cider spot, which turns out to be an apple orchard. Well, more than just the orchard; there’s a whole barn here, but fancy, with a designated lot and possibly a restaurant inside.

“This is so cute!” Betty says.

MJ concentrates on shaking her hands out of Peter’s before Flash puts the SUV in park and turns around to see them.

The two of them are the last out of the car and she’s stiff with the silence, listening to their friends laugh and gripe about the cold (Flash) as they wait with Ned’s door open. Before MJ can push through her thoughts and fears to say anything, Peter’s arm comes around her. Her eyes widen. …And he unbuckles the seatbelt. Probably just because she was taking too long. She slips over into Ned’s vacant seat and is about to scramble out when Peter catches her hand. MJ turns.

“Will you tell them we’ll meet them inside?” he requests.

Heart hammering, she relays the message, then looks on as Ned and Betty hustle Flash through the doors before can make another of his unwelcome comments or otherwise interfere.

“I think we really need to talk,” Peter says, after MJ pulls the door closed to preserve what little heat is left in the vehicle.

“We talk all the time,” she argues. She thinks, Yes, please talk to me.

“About a lot of stuff. You know, most stuff.” He wedges his fingers under the edge of his hat to run them nervously through his hair.

“That’s a generalization, but a fair one.”

“But, you know, lately, I’ve been, uh, wishing that we could talk about…”

“…even more stuff?” MJ guesses, hopes.

“Yeah.”

“Me too.”

“You know, our schools aren’t that far apart,” he says, like it’s the first time he’s realizing this.

She smiles wryly.

“I’m aware. That’s why I came out for Thanksgiving first year when you couldn’t make it back to Queens. Even if we did eat take-out shrimp Pad Thai instead of homecooked turkey.”

“And,” Peter adds, “it’s why I showed up at your dorm to help you study for that midterm you were stressing about in October.”

“And why I picked up when you called me every night,” MJ says, quieter. He smiles softly.

“I was talking about the distance.”

Summoning her courage, she looks him right in the eye and lets her still-uncovered hand sneak back over his.

“What distance?”

“You’re my best friend,” Peter starts. “You and Ned.” MJ frowns. Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit, she’s misjudged this, seriously misjudged this.

“Oh. Well. Great. Cool.”

“No, MJ!” he says quickly, noticing the look on her face. He flips his hand under hers so their palms meet. “I’m definitely in love with you, I just mean… Well, oops, I guess I said it.”

She’s pretty impressed with her own control over her facial features—maintaining a slightly-happier-than-neutral expression—when half of her brain is setting off fireworks that seem to be landing and fizzing around on the other half. He’s in love with her. Definitely.

“For as fast as your mind works, your mouth always manages to get ahead of it,” she observes.

Peter’s expression goes from tortured and fumbling to sharp and decisive.

“That’s good advice.”

“What? That wasn’t advi—”

He darts forward and kisses her, hand emphatically clutching hers. There’s a humorous smack when their mouths separate.

“Oh my god,” Peter says, “I forgot to ask if it was ok to do that.”

MJ smirks.

“My only complaint is that you beat me to it when I’ve been trying to figure out how to do that all day.”

“I did wonder,” he admits with a small smile.

“And you couldn’t have helped me out?” she asks, exasperated.

“A big part of being friends with you is knowing you rarely need help. You’re good, like, ninety percent of the time.”

“What do you do the other ten percent?”

Peter shrugs.

“Kiss you and ask if you have plans for New Year’s? By the way, do you have plans for New Year’s?”

He tries to adopt a casual expression but now that MJ thinks about it, she can’t recall the last time her friend looked at her with anything like mild interest. He can’t pull it off anymore, if he ever could. Apparently, she wasn’t always watching that well, because she clearly didn’t know everything.

Peter loves her. He loves her.

“I have a feeling I’ll probably be available,” she tells him. “I have a bad habit of trying to be where you are.”

“I love that about you.”

MJ kisses him quickly, then shoves him away, nearly into the pine tree resting on his other side. Whoops. It’s just that she can feel how easy it would be to get caught up in this moment, and they’re still in the back of Flash’s SUV. People are waiting for them. She takes a deep breath and gives Peter a searching look.

“If we walk in there like this—” She shakes their clasped hands. “—what do I say?”

“Tell them your hands were cold.”

“I… I don’t want to hide it, I just…”

“I know. It’s ok. It’s new.”

“Yeah.”

Peter nods sympathetically. He’s her friend first; he’s not going to push her to speak before she’s ready. (He probably knows he couldn’t if he wanted to.)

She hauls the door open and they stride through the snowy parking lot together. The sun’s already struggling to come out and flakes whip high into the air, catching in the light. They step inside the building to see brightness streaming through the windows, their trio of friends crowded around a table. Flash seems to be making Ned sprinkle cinnamon into his hot apple cider while he films it—presumably to post for the enjoyment of the Flash Mob. (That’s still going. He has a shocking number of followers.) Betty turns and her gaze slips down to their joined hands. She smiles.

MJ has the excuse ready. When Flash and Ned glance over, she’s prepared to tell them her hands were cold.

She opens her mouth.

“Peter’s my boyfriend now.”

#my writing #spideychelle secret santa #spideychelle #spideychelle fanfiction #peter parker #peter x mj #peter x michelle #peter parker x michelle jones #michelle jones #ned leeds #betty brant #Flash Thompson #nettypot

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derireo · 4 years

Text

a threat to the community! ↦ itaru, tasuku, tsumugi, izumi

what’s wrong with liking boobs and showing interest in your friend’s brother and the other friend’s sister? izumi clearly doesn’t know.

it feels like it’s three against one, and tasuku doesn’t know how much more of this slander and nonsense he can take.

maybe he should just kill one of them.

「 3k words 」

cw: vulgarity, swearing, name-calling, crack treated seriously, a little ooc.

"Do you ever just wish you had a girlfriend with a huge pair of bazoingers." Itaru said one fine evening.

It wasn't even a question, but it had Izumi automatically nodding along to whatever nonsense the man was spouting.

"All the time." She muttered under her breath beside Tsumugi who was forced to pause in marking Taichi and Tenma's practice quiz.

...What.

"Do you ever wish you would just shut the fuck up." Tasuku hissed in annoyance, looking over his script to send a glare to Itaru who was tapping away at his phone.

Itaru rolled his eyes and repeatedly snapped his fingers in Izumi's direction, the woman looking up from the page she was helping Tsumugi mark. "You get me, right?"

The woman nodded and tapped her red pen against the coffee table, leaning to the side to rest her body weight against Tsumugi. "Hell yeah, brother."

Itaru switched his gaze to their blue haired friend and pointed at Tsumugi next, eyebrows raised.

"And you, my good friend."

The part-time tutor swallowed and rubbed the back of his neck, taking a sheepish glance Izumi's way with a little smile. "Uh. I guess?"

Itaru squinted at Tasuku after receiving the answer he was hoping for and smiled, his shoulders doing a little dance when the violet-eyed man groaned. "Tasuku just doesn't know how to appreciate women."

"Dude." Tasuku gritted, dropping his script. The man didn't want to feed into whatever bullshit Itaru wanted to start tonight, but he wasn't going to let the guy slander him like that. How dare he.

"It's true." Izumi said and reached out for the snack bowl that was on Tsumugi's side of the table. She snatched a chip and shoved it into her mouth.

"We were jogging through the park once and I asked him if he thought the girl we were about to run past was cute." Her voice was muffled by the food and it elicited a disgusted reaction from Tasuku while Tsumugi could only sigh.

The snack bowl was meant to be a reward for later.

Itaru was the only one listening. "Okay, and? What did he say?"

Izumi spared Tasuku a glance over Tsumugi's shoulder and blew a raspberry, shaking her head. "He said no."

Itaru snarled. "How could you."

"Wha— come on." Tasuku threw his head back with a deep sigh much to the amusement of his childhood friends. "It was a genuine answer."

"Dude. All girls are cute." Izumi stated as a matter of fact, gently patting Tsumugi's arm. "Right, Tsoogs?"

The man nodded, not willing to get harped on by both Itaru and Izumi who seemed to be looking for a fight tonight. "...Right."

"See?" Izumi and Itaru gave Tasuku a pointed stare. "You're the odd one out."

"Not all girls are cute." Tasuku frowned, pointing an accusing finger at Izumi. "Take a look at yourself if you need an example."

Both Izumi and Itaru gasped, scandalized.

Wow. Just wow! Tasuku really had a pair of balls to be saying that to Izumi. Such blasphemy was not to be taken lightly!

Itaru and Izumi were going to burn him at the stake.

Sitting up from his position on the couch, Itaru threw one of his cushions at Tasuku who caught the pillow with ease. Damn.

"You are so rude, you cheeky piece of shit." Izumi playfully cried as Tsumugi held her back from standing up to throw a punch at Tasuku who was sticking his tongue out.

Bleh bleh.

"Izumi's kind of cute at best." Tasuku continued, eliciting an agonized sob from Izumi who was now burying her face into Tsumugi's neck. Oh, the pain was unbearable. How could her buddy do this to her?

"How did our conversation about boobs end with someone crying..." Tsumugi sighed under his breath and pulled the girl closer to him, resuming his marking so that he wouldn't have to finish it later tonight.

Itaru crossed his arms huffily. "On a good day I'd agree with you Tasuku, but we are talking about Izumi here, you beefy fuck." The blond choked dramatically and glared at Tasuku who was rubbing his face.

"You better apologize to our Queen." He sniffled.

Tasuku cringed. "Queen?"

"Duh. Who else is most fitting to take responsibility?" Itaru rolled his eyes and made a grabby hand motion at Tsumugi. The oldest member of their group grabbed a candy from the bowl and tossed it.

"Uh, me? You fuck." The disbelief was apparent in Tasuku's eyes but Itaru ignored it.

"Oh, sure." Izumi scoffed. "Who's the one who has to deal with all the hearts you've broken?"

"Wow." Itaru chuckled through his candy. "So Tasuku is just a straight up ladykiller? As in, he literally kills people."

"For Chrissake— just shut up." Tasuku groaned, throwing the blond's cushion back at his face.

"I'm pretty sure I had to spend the night in jail once due to your drunken actions." Izumi wagged her finger and harrumphed.

"No." Tsumugi frowned and held the accusing finger that was pointed in Tasuku's direction, pushing it back down onto Izumi's lap. "Tasuku still got jailed for destruction of public property. You got jailed for assault."

Itaru piped up after tossing away the pillow that was so rudely thrown in his direction. "That happened in high school, though."

"I'm pretty sure I was acting in self-defense." Izumi frowned, crossing her arms as she remembered the unfair treatment she was given compared to the person she had punched. "Spitting on someone is considered assault. I was only protecting my pretty face."

"Ooh, Izumi using her basic Law 12 knowledge. Impressive." Itaru whistled, snapping his fingers as to applaud his friend for using her rarely flaunted intellect.

Izumi winked playfully and twirled a strand of hair around her finger, pantomiming that there was chewing gum in her mouth. "84% and never studied, baby."

Tsumugi's gaze scanned the woman's figure with a curled lip; a frown. "But if you studied, you could've gotten an A." His tone was scolding and it made Izumi pout. The woman cuddled into Tsumugi's side to appease him.

Itaru threw his candy wrapper at the tutor. "Hey, as long as she can keep us from fucking up in front of the cops, grades don't matter."

"A-fuckin'-men, broski." Both Itaru and Izumi sent each other a pair of finger guns and winked.

"You're fucked if you think Izumi's gonna keep you from getting incarcerated." Tasuku rolled his eyes. Seriously, was no one seeing the problem here?

Izumi had absolutely no compassion for their friend group. If she could, she'd probably watch Itaru and Tasuku get put in handcuffs. And if she could, she'd probably put Tsumugi in handcuffs.

This girl was off her shits.

"The Izumi slander is off the charts today." Itaru wolf-whistled. "You better shut your mouth, Tasuku, or else karma is gonna bite you in the ass."

"Yeah or else I'm gonna fuck your brother." Izumi threatened, completely derailing the conversation.

Tasuku froze. "What the hell."

"Fuyuki always looks like he's Down To F Izumi so she's probably not even kidding." Itaru pursed his lips, sending Izumi a thumbs up. Tsumugi couldn't protest, because it was probably true.

Izumi simpered. "I'm gonna be your sister-in-law."

"Oh my God." Tasuku cried.

"And hey, don't think your sister is automatically safe from me either, Chigasaki." Izumi's eyes caught Itaru's and the man pressed his lips into a thin line.

"Isn't his sister married?" Tsumugi frowned. He didn't have a problem with same-sex relationships but he was going to have to draw the line at homewrecking.

Luckily enough, Izumi had the same set of morals so the question made her freeze.

She jutted her chin at Itaru. "Is she married?" Izumi asked.

Itaru shrugged. "Dunno."

Izumi clicked her tongue. "Damn. I'll text and ask her later."

"Can't you just get with someone your own age?" Tasuku complained. He was not going to let Izumi near his brother. Absolutely not! Wasn't it a little weird going after your friend's siblings? Gee!

Izumi's lips curled into a frown after the question was asked. "And end up with someone like you guys?" Her tone was full of disdain, but she quickly kissed Tsumugi's cheek to let him know that she wasn't talking about him specifically.

Izumi gagged. "I'd rather kermit."

"That's reasonable." Itaru nodded. "I am quite the disaster of a sentient life form."

"Can you speak normally? And hey." Tasuku jabbed a finger in Izumi's direction. "It's not like I'd want to date someone like you either!"

Tsumugi fell back against the couch, rubbing his face as Izumi huffed and fell back with him, their knees hitting the edge of the coffee table.

"Can you guys please just make up and kiss already." The blue-haired man sobbed in exasperation.

Izumi shook her head and glared at nothing. "Sorry, Tsoogs. The only Takato I'm kissing is Fuyuki and it's gonna happen after we recite our vows at the wedding."

Tasuku threw his hands up in the air. "What wedding? And why does that piss me off?"

"'Cause you're jealous." Izumi poked her tongue out.

Tasuku growled. "Am not."

With a devilish grin, Izumi curled her arm around Tsumugi's shoulder and leaned over the man's lap to slap Tasuku's thigh. "Dude, if you want a nice smooch from me, all you gotta do is ask."

"Oho." Itaru's voice was monotone, but Tsumugi saw the way his eyebrow twitched. "If I ask nicely can I get a smooch too?"

Izumi turned her head and pretended to barf. "No. Maybe in your office suit, but like that?" The woman scoffed, eyes scrutinizing the grease stains on Itaru's shirt. "No fuckin' way."

"You're mean." Itaru frowned. "So you'd still kiss Tsumugi even though he dresses like that?"

The blond pointed at Tsumugi's usual attire and made a gagging noise. Not that there was really a problem with his outfit, but it was just so.... boring.

(Itaru opted to ignore the fact that Izumi was matching with him.)

Noah fence, Itaru mused to himself.

Tsumugi poked his tongue out at the gamer.

"Yeah? He's got a cute face and he always came to my sporting events back in HS." Izumi huffed, cradling the side of Tsumugi's face to squish their cheeks together, affectionately melting into his side. "Unlike you guys, Tsumugi was very supportive of me."

"Yeah." Tasuku rolled his eyes. "Supportive of your nonexistent athletic career."

"Okay, listen here 'hot stuff'—" Izumi grouched and slapped Tasuku's ankle. "I was scouted for the national team just like you."

Not even ten seconds in and Itaru was already tired from hearing them talk about athletics.

"Can we please stop talking about sports. Both of you didn't accept the offer anyway." Itaru cried dramatically and let his phone fall from his hand, slouching in his seat.

"Worst mistake of my life." Izumi sighed. "I've lost the chance to become a ladykiller."

"You say that as if girls would be attracted to you." Tasuku scoffed much to the annoyance of Izumi.

"I've had more girlfriends than you've had sex." The woman griped.

"Tasuku's a virgin, though." Itaru piped up, ignorant. No one seemed to be surprised at the fact that Izumi has had girlfriends before which was a little underwhelming.

Save for Tsumugi who was pouting.

"Exactly." Izumi picked a few candies from the bowl and threw them at the gamer while everyone ignored Tasuku's protest to the previous statements.

"How come we've never heard of you having any girlfriends?" Tsumugi frowned at Izumi and pat her knee, teasingly wiggling his shoulders as if he was a child throwing a tantrum.

The woman laughed and ruffled Tsumugi's hair. "You bastards would've complained had you known I always cancelled our plans for a girl."

"Well, did they have big boobs? If so, then it's fi—" Itaru was justifying Izumi's reason for always standing them up, only to have Tasuku remove his own indoor slipper from his foot to vault it at Itaru's chest.

"Ouch. </3" He pouted.

"Stop with the damn boobs. Izumi probably likes thick thighs." Tasuku frowned much to the amusement of Tsumugi and Izumi.

"Sounds more like a personal preference of yours." Itaru shot back while the pair sitting on the floor faced each other and sighed.

"Men." Izumi rolled her eyes so hard her head started to hurt. "Right, Tsumu?"

She scrunched her nose at the tutor who she was still holding onto and he responded with a nose scrunch of his own. "Right." He agreed confidently this time.

"Aw, I always knew you were an ally." Izumi cooed. "Kithes for you." She said and pressed her lips to his cheek before standing up from the floor, raising her arms above her head to stretch.

Itaru made grabby hands. "I want kithes."

The cutesy act made Izumi gag, and she shook her head. "No way. You've got your own army of wives to ask."

"Aw." Itaru clicked his tongue. "But they aren't as cute as you are." He supplicated.

"Ooh. Touché." The director whistled a pleased tune and waved at Itaru to come over. "You got me. Get over here."

The way Itaru had scrambled off the couch to trot over towards Izumi made the director laugh, and she willingly opened up her arms for Itaru to sink into her embrace.

"Ugh. Warm. Like soup." Itaru sighed. The comparison made Izumi make a noise of disgust.

"Okay, off you get." She groaned and forcefully pushed Itaru away. "I'm not kissing you anymore."

Brushing away the imaginary crumbs Itaru had dropped on her, Izumi turned her body in the direction of Tasuku, who was casually lounging on the sofa. She ignored Itaru's childish cry.

"As for you," she pointed a finger at the meathead. "score me a date with your brother and then maybe I'll give you the privilege to hug me."

Tasuku bristled.

"I am not letting you anywhere near Fuyuki." He squinted. "And I don't even like hugging you."

The whole trio in front of Tasuku scoffed, leaving him puzzled. "What's up with the reaction."

Tsumugi began to collect his unfinished quizzes, putting away his pens and answer sheet with a shake of his head. "Nothing. You're just a really pathetic liar."

"What."

Itaru grinned and trotted towards Tasuku, flopping onto the man's legs with a relaxed sigh.

"You're the lucky bastard who always gets spoiled by Izumi, ya big dumb of straight up ass. I'd punch you right now for being so ungrateful." The blond threatened.

"Aw, I never knew I picked favourites." Izumi frowned, squatting beside Tsumugi who was still cleaning up. "Tsumugi's my new number one."

The man mentioned smiled gratefully and blew a kiss at Izumi who grabbed the invisible thing and shoved it into her pocket.

Tasuku readjusted his legs underneath Itaru to properly distribute his weight. Ugh. He hated when they sat on his legs like this.

"Stop acting all lovey dovey. You two aren't even dating." The grouchy Winter Troupe member grumbled to which Itaru punched at his thigh.

"He's jealous! He wants in on the action." Itaru jested while Tasuku shot up to grab the blond by the front of his greasy shirt. "Oh God, I'm gonna die— IZUMI!" Itaru shrieked, in the middle of being violently shaken by Tasuku.

The director sighed at the commotion, sending a pout Tsumugi's way as the tutor shrugged his shoulders and gave her knee a comforting pat.

"I swear." She muttered under her breath. She stood back up to her full height and turned towards the pair on the sofa, eyes flaring with aggravated heat.

Izumi snatched the front of Tasuku's shirt just like what he did with Itaru and ripped him away from the blond with a wide eyed stare, startling the man out of his gentle bullying.

"You." She removed a hand from his shirt to tap his nose, smile fake as Tasuku blinked and stared at the canine tooth that was snarling at him. "Are being really bratty."

Finally being released from the clutches of the Devil himself, Itaru scrambled off the sofa to huddle against Tsumugi. He started to playfully cry just like Izumi did a little while ago and buried his face in Tsumugi's neck.

"I'm gonna beat your ass if you don't cool it by dinner tonight." She hissed, tightening her grip on Tasuku's shirt to pull him forward. Juuust until their noses were touching. "Got it, baby boy?"

She smiled just a little after uttering the nickname, but Tasuku huffed.

He lightly pressed his palms against her stomach to push her away, snarling. "I'm older than you."

"By a month. Get over yourself, pup." Izumi scoffed and raised her hand to roughly slap-half-pet Tasuku's cheek, using just enough force to push his face away from her.

"I'm going to my room to look at girls online." She sighed and raised her leg to dig her heel into Tasuku's stomach for good measure.

Just to let him know that she's still the boss in their little group. <3

"Text me when Omi finishes cooking tonight." Izumi pulled away from Tasuku before he could wrap his fingers around her ankle and trip her up, giving him the middle finger with a teasing smile as she walked backwards into the hallway.

"That's our Queen." Itaru sighed dreamily.

Man. If Izumi was the only woman left on earth he'd probably kill Tasuku and Tsumugi to keep her all to himself.

....Too much? Too much.

Tasuku was still grumbling to himself, rubbing the spot on his stomach where Izumi put her foot earlier. He winced.

...Hmph.

"I'm gonna pound her into the gr—" Tasuku made a sudden move to jump off the couch, but was stopped.

Tsumugi chuckled and held Tasuku by the back of his shirt to prevent the taller man from chasing Izumi down the hallway. "No you aren't."

"He really is a murderer." Itaru laughed in shock, bracing himself against the couch he was sitting on earlier.

"Yeah." Tasuku scoffed with a smile, turning towards Itaru. "And I'm gonna be sending you to your grave first."

The smile was....eerie. Itaru could feel the hair on his neck stand tall.

He slowly began to shuffle towards the hallway. "...I'mgonnagolookatboobswithIzumi." He said in one breath and then dashed down the direction of the director's room.

Tsumugi took a single glance at Tasuku and shook his head. "You are such a handful sometimes."

Tasuku pointed at himself and gaped.

"ME?"

#originally titled 'idjit' <3 #a3!#a3! act! addict! actors!#itaru chigasaki #tasuku takoto #tsumugi tsukioka #izumi tachibana #a3! scenarios #a3! crack #a3! fic

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bellatrixobsessed1 · 3 years

Text

From Chin To Yon Rah (Part 23)

When Hao-Bai had mentioned that they were nearing the end of the grassland, Azula hadn’t thought that, that would mean entering a forest that seemed just as endless. It is such a stark contrast to the still quietness of the plains. Here in the forest there is movement all around and a noise for every nook and cranny.

It leaves her with a potent sense of yearning. Yearning for another afternoon spent on the bridge with Hajime chucking chunks of bread at turtle-ducks. He always had to remind her to either take smaller chunks or throw them less forcefully. “They are light and I have to make sure that I throw them hard enough to reach the turtle-ducks.”

Hajime would roll his eyes and mutter, “you and Atsu are horrible.”

There is no pond in this forest as far as she can see and there are no turtle-ducks. There are, however, scampering toad-squirrels and lop-eared rabbits. A lively abundance of them. It is rather comforting.

“How much better are you feeling?” Hao-Bai asks.

“Significantly. Why?”

“Min-Ta and I could use some help with something if you are able.”

Azula nods, whatever it is, she supposes it is the least she can do given that they have saved, cared for, cleaned, and fed her. “What do you need help with?”

Hao-Bai brings the ostrich-horses to a halt, slips off of it, and retrieves an axe. He gestures to the second, empty cart. “I’m a lumberjack by trade, an extra hand would be very helpful, if you’re able.”

She takes the axe. “I used to harvest turnips…”

He offers her a gentle smile. “Long as you’ve got some arm strength and pick the right trees, it isn’t so hard.”

Azula shifts the axe in her arm and gives the forest a skeptical scan. None of the tree trunks looks particularly small. This isn’t exactly a beginner friendly forest. “This is going to take hours?”

Hao-Bai chuckles. “My wife and I can down trees in fourteen to fifteen minutes.”

“You’ve been doing this for a long time.” Azula counters. “I did gardening.” Gardening and firebending better than the best of people. Once upon a time she could scale buildings and take down foes twice her height and weight. But, Agni, it has been so long and that vast plain has drained her so thoroughly. She isn’t sure that she still has her shine. She hasn’t exactly retained her toned build.

“You said that your name is Azula, right?” Min-Ta asks.

She nods.

“As in Princess Azula?”

She nods again.

“Then I’m sure that you can handle this.” The woman smiles. “It’s all about knowing when blunt force is required and when it’s time to start sawing.”

Again she tests the weight of the axe in her hands.

“Follow me, I can show you.” Hao-Bai motions. The man has her standing before a massive pine. “A lot of people seem to think that it’s all about the axe. Really the axes is used to give you a start. Give it a good hit, a sixty degree angle ought to do it.” He pauses, presumably to make sure that she is still following. She confirms with a nod and he returns it before continuing. “You are going to make a decent notch at the base of the tree, put the axe down, and start sawing. Your tree will fall in the direction of the notch.” He pauses once more. “I think it’s common sense, but, in case they don’t teach that in your nobility schools, after you make that last strike you run in the opposite direction of the fall. But don’t go straight back, in case the tree decides to fall the wrong way. You go off to the side a bit.”

He creates his first notch, “I anticipate the tree falling that way.” He points. “So when I make the final chop, I wanna be right here.” He comes to stand several feet back and well off to the side.

“I could have figured that out.”

He shakes, “had a young man who couldn’t, I don’t take that chance now.” He holds up the saw and brings it to the trunk. “Watch me first, then you and my wife can get to work.”

She finds herself a spot to sit and observes the man as he sinks his axe into the tree one final time. With a notch created to his liking. He takes to it with a saw. Within minutes there comes a great crack. And with the great crack comes a great toppling. Somehow, she finds it sad to watch such a proud and majestic thing drop. To see it’s vivid green branches meet the ground. She wonder if this is what it was like to watch her fall.

She gets to her feet and makes her way over to the smallest tree that she can find. Mimicking the arc of Hao-Bai’s arms to the best of her ability. And when axe meets three, the force of it vibrates down her arm and to her chest.

Her strike doesn’t deal as much damage as Hao-Bai’s had. She recalls that she has never really been one for powerful hits and jabs but rather subtle and effective ones. She is quick and nimble, she isn’t a tank like Hao-Bai.

Her work isn’t so quick and it takes several blows to create a worthy knotch. She is breathless by the time she begins to make use of the saw. And she breathes heavier still by the time she cuts it all the way through. When it falls it kicks up a satisfying aroma of damp bark and sap.

Every now and then Hao-Bai pauses his work to steal a glance at her. The burly man doesn’t seem to mind that she is only able to fell one tree for every three that he and his wife take down.

Azula find that even when she is through with her work she can hear it in her ears, a steady and rhythmic knocking. Her hands are well and calloused again and her muscles throb. She has to finish one last tree. Just one more.

By the time, Hao-Bai is satisfied with their haul, the crickets are waking and the night chill has begun to set in. She is covered in sap and smells lightly of sweat and heavily of resin. She hasn’t felt so sore since the last time she’d run through the hardest of her katas.

She huffs and has herself a seat on one of their newly chopped stumps. She fans herself with her hand.

“Here you go.” Min-Ta holds out a steaming bowl.

Azula takes it and cradles it in her palms, savoring the way it warms them.

“Thank you for your help. Means a lot.” Hao-Bai pats her shoulder. “Ya did good work.”

Azula nods. She stirs her soup and brings the spoon to her lips. She likes to think that she catches onto things quickly. She furrows her brows into her soup, strangely quickly. She wonders if she is better suited to be a peasant than a princess. Wonders if she had gotten it wrong all along, that she hadn’t been born with the divine right to rule, but rather the divine right to do literally anything but.

“I always heard that the Fire Nation did things differently,” Min-Ta remarks as though reading her mind, “I didn’t realize that royalty was trained to labor.”

“I’m self taught.” Azula shrugs. Though the labors of war must count as well.

“All the better.” Hao-Bai chuckles.

Azula hands her empty bowl back and wanders her way over to the caravan. The lumberjack begins tuning his guitar as she retires for the night. She unbinds her hair and curls herself up.

“You really wore her out.” Ta-Min laughs.

“The woman is a hard worker.” He notes.

She supposes that it is kind to fall asleep to compliments. It has been a while since she has. She falls asleep to a now familiar singing and the delicate strings of a pipa. Atsu and Caihong would have loved the melody. That day she learns to appreciate a day of hard work.

.oOo.

TyLee hands her a glass of water, “how are your crops?”

Azula gestures to them and frowns, “the strawberries have begun growing in the turnip garden.”

She isn’t sure how that could have come to be until she catches Sokka grimacing. “I might have mixed up the seeds, maybe.”

“How?” Azula grumbles. “Turnip seeds are a blackish red and strawberry seeds are more of a yellow-brown.”

“Does it really matter, they’re growing just fine?”

“They are supposed to be growing just fine in neat and separate crops.” Azula folds her arms over her chest.

“Or, they can grow happily together.” He wraps his arms around her torso and rests his chin on her shoulder.

“You can get as cuddly as you want, Sokka, that won’t change that you are a dreadful gardener.”

He kisses her neck. “I don’t need to be a good gardener as long as I am a helpful and supportive one.”

TyLee clasps her hands together, “you guys are so-o cute.” She turns to Mai, “they’re cute, aren’t they.”

Mai shrugs. “Sure.”

Azula wiggles her way out of his grasp, picks up a spade, and closes Sokka’s finger around it. “You are going to help me dig these up and plant them where they belong, with the other strawberries.”

“Is that even possible?”

Azula nods, “I’ve seen Seukhyun do it. As long as you don’t damage the roots…” She pauses. “Actually, I’ll worry about the strawberries, you dig me a few holes to put them in. They should be spaced approximately eighteen inches apart for ample growing room. Use a measuring tape if you must.”

He rubs the back of his head. “Geeze, you’re taking this gardening thing seriously.”

“Sokka, do you know what you get when you don’t take this gardening thing seriously?”

“What?”

“A dead strawberry field and complaining townsfolk.”

“There are no complaining townsfolk in this scenario.”

“I’m the complaining townsfolk, Sokka.”

The man sighs and she gives him a faux-innocent smile, a bat of her lashes. “Alright fine, eighteen inches apart.” He hooks her around the middle again and gives her a gentle shake before taking the shovel. “You better appreciate my hard work.”

“Do a good job and I will.” Azula shrugs.

For a good while she simply observes his work. Only when she is satisfied that he is doing it to her liking does she begin carefully digging the strawberries out of their current places. “We’re going to need more turnip seeds to fill in the spaces left by the strawberries.”

“Then let’s go into town and buy some seeds.”

“We’ll finish here first.” Azula carefully plucks the first strawberry from its place and tucks it into the hole that Sokka has just dug. It is tedious and methodical work, but eventually she has the transplant done.

She stands up and dusts the dirt off of her knees and palms. Regardless she is going to need a bath. “Ready?”

“You’re not going to get all washed up first?”

Azula shrugs. “We’re going to the marketplace, not a prestigious theater.” She brushes a sweep of hair out of her face. The look on Sokka’s tells her that he is still unused to some of her more lax mannerisms. Though she is certain that it relaxes him.

.oOo.

Somehow he still has to get used to seeing her like this. Free and relatively untroubled. Confused and still hurt but able to smile. In one hand she holds her small burlap pouch of seeds, in the other is his hand.

Her touch is warm and somewhat calloused but soft all the same. Her personality seems to have a very similar texture.

He think that she enjoys being out and about, wandering the streets of Caldera city with a breeze in her hair. Especially now that she has grown accustomed to people gawking every now and again. He is under the impression that they like to stare simply because she has only just begun making more intimate public appearances. It might also be that she is holding hands with a waterbender with a light dusting of dirt on her robes.

He listens to her has she explains her exact vision for their garden and how they should approach it, nodding and commending her perfect attention to detail. It is nice to see her being so enthusiastic about something.

Truth be told, he rather hated gardening. He never had to worry about it in the tribes and it always came hard to him. But he finds that he doesn’t have to pretend to be interested, her own delight is rather easy to cling to.

“We could also try planting bananas.” She muses. Though he isn’t sure if she is actually speaking to him anymore or if she is talking to herself. “But I heard that those are more challenging and I would like to--” She stops short and brings her walk to a halt.

“Why are we--”

She seems to study the crowd very intensely and his stomach squirms. Until now it has slipped his mind that there might still be people who harbor resentment towards her. But when she locks eyes, it is with a child. A small girl with ruddy cheeks, long hair, and vivid green, Earth Kingdom eyes.

“Rikka!” She shouts.

Azula’s face pales. Her hand goes stiff in his.

#Avatar The Last Airbender #Azula #Sokka #Sokkla

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turning-dreams-into-chaos · 4 years

Text

The Jimmy Jab Games

Chapter 2: Riding Thestrals

~The Jimmy Jab Games Master~

Paring: Sirius Black x Reader

Word Count: 3.5K

~Master~

“Y/N, wake up!” There wasn’t enough reaction time for you to really awaken before a pillow was chucked at your head. Despite you being completely against it, your eyes opened and you yanked the pillow off you, sending it to the floor with a groan.

“No. I don’t wanna.” You mumbled, snuggling into your blankets more. Lily rolled her eyes, nudging you with her hand but you didn’t move.

“I’m not fighting you, girl. I’ll go get Sirius.” She called out as she left you alone in the room, the morning sun broke through your window enough to tell you it was well into the morning and you should’ve gotten up a couple hours ago. You could hear footsteps coming into your shared room a few minutes later as you let out a sigh and pulled the blanket over your head.

Sirius was sitting in the common room, not admitting he was waiting for you to come down from your room. He tapped his hand against the couch, as he kept glancing back at the stairs and the action caused his friends to chuckle under their breaths.

“Just go wake her up.” James smirked, slapping Sirius’ shoulder. The boy who obviously wasn’t paying attention snapped his head to look at James.

“What are you talking about?” He tried to play it off, closing the potions book on his lap that everyone knew went unread.

James turned to Remus, both holding back their scoffs. “Well its obvious you’re not getting any work done.” Remus said pointing towards Sirius’ discarded book. “and neither is James.”

“Yes I am!” James protested, slamming his book shut. Sirius wrinkled his nose as he looked at his friend, not believing his lie.

“Oh yeah?” Remus asked. “What potion are we learning about?” He quizzed James. James thought for a second, trying to remember anything about the book he really wasn’t at all interested in.

He sighed in defeat. “And neither is James.” He grumbled, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Wait, we’re supposed to go for Sirius, not me.” He reminded Remus who mumbled a quick ‘oh yeah’ before turning to the unimpressed Sirius.

He rolled his eyes. “There’s nothing to go for. I’m not waking up Y/N because I don’t care if she’s awake or sleeping in.”

“Sirius, I need you to go wake up Y/N.” Lily exhaled as she stood in front of Sirius who’s mouth thinned into a straight line.

“Well, duty calls.” James poked his head out from behind Lily as Sirius glared at him but didn’t say a thing as he stood off the couch and headed towards your room, charming the stairs not to disappear under his feet. As soon as he was out of view of his friends, he began skipping up the stairs faster before Lily’s words last night stopped him. He could see in this moment how it could be perceived that he liked you, not in love with you, but liked you. He took slow steps, much slower than normal before he was at your door, priding himself on beating Lily accusations.

“Oh, this is ridiculous.” He grumbled when he realized he was convincing himself, not his friend. Pushing open your door, he saw you bury yourself in your bed and he snickered. “Y/N!” He shouted and lightly jogged across the room, jumping onto your bed. He laid next to you, on top of all your pillows and staring at the ceiling.

You squirmed as Sirius landed half on top of you and tried to remove yourself from under him. “Siri, move! You’re crushing me!”

“Wake up and I won’t crush you.” he pointed out, hearing you sigh as you came out from under the blankets, glaring at him. Sirius let a smile cross his face as he saw you, your bedhead hair brushed over your face as your brows knitted together.

“Fine, I’m up.” You complained, fixing your hair and seeing Sirius still staring at you. You raised a brow at him. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Sirius averted his gaze, opting to look at the ceiling again with a teasing face. “No reason. Just forgot how ugly you were in the morning.”

You snorted, giving Sirius a shove as he was forced out of the bed, landing on his back with a thud. “You deserved that.” You told him with a sweet tone.

“Yeah, yeah. Help me up.” You reached an arm over the side of the bed, Sirius taking your hand and hoisting himself up. He took his spot on your bed back and you scooted over to give him room. He put his left hand behind his head and allowed you to rest your own head on his elbow as a pillow. You both settled into the silence, enjoying the moment before you ran a hand over your face.

“I forgot about the games.” You admitted, turning your head to see Sirius. He looked as well, nodding his head.

“Oh yeah. I guess I did too.” He whispered. You pushed yourself out of the bed and stretched, seeing Sirius watching you carefully. You felt your cheeks heat up as you picked up your pillow, gently slapping him with it as you told him to get up so you can make your bed. “I’ll do it. You just get dressed, everyone’s waiting.”

“Pads, you don’t even make your own bed. Do you even know how?” You bit your lip, seeing Sirius deadpan as you giggled, grabbing your clothes and toiletries and headed to the bathroom. You came back to your bed fully made and Sirius laying across it, waiting for your return. “Okay, lets go.” You told Sirius who stood up, watching you walk towards the door before stopping. He stood in his place as he watched you repeatedly remember to grab your belongings. First a hair tie, then your wand, and finally when you remembered to grab your robes and throw them on, he made a move towards the door, joining you at the right time to walk down together.

“Finally!” Lily yelled when she saw you and Sirius. “Sleeping Beauty awakens with the help of the prince of course.”

“Shove off, Evans.” Sirius blushed, happy you couldn’t see as you tried to hide the small tint of your own.

You looked around at your friends, furrowing your brow at being one short. “Peter still sick?” you asked and looked towards Remus who had taken him to Madam Pomfrey last night.

“Yeah, Madam P said it best he stay in bed for a while.” He told you and you felt a little guilty, the games were your idea. Sirius put a hand on your back, getting you to look at him.

“He’ll be alright Y/N. We all ate the tarts as well and none of us are sick.” He shrugged off the thought, knowing Peter would be fine a few days. You knew he was right or else you’d all be sick, he probably just ate too much. “So what’s the plan for today McKinnon?”

Marlene clapped her hands together. “For that, we go for a walk.” You and Sirius exchanged glances with each other before with the rest of your friends and followed Marlene out of the common room. She didn’t say anything as you began your walk outside, leading you down to the forbidden forest and the Thestrals Paddock, a place that while not ruled off limits, everyone knew to stay away from.

“Thestrals?” You spoke up, glancing to Marlene who wore a proud look. You remembered the gamekeeper at Hogwarts, Hagrid, he’d always talk about the creatures and you’ve done some reading at your teachers request to soothe your curiosities about the magical creatures.

“What? No fair! You know Y/N’s fascinated by these things, she’s got the upper hand!” Sirius complained as you rolled your eyes, shooting him a grin.

“Well, you better get your act together then because it looks like I might be winning.” You heard a few huffs of annoyance from your friends before Lily put her hand on your shoulder and got you to pay attention to Marlene.

“For today’s challenge, you will be riding Thestrals!” She announced and threw her hands out in triumph. No one cheered, instead you all looked at her confused.

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Remus spoke up, voicing your concerns. “We can’t even see them.”

Marlene’s hands fell to her side, her lips thinning as you turned to look at your friends. “It’s not a bad idea.” You tried to reason, aware of how much Marlene was doing for you all and hating making her feel bad. “The Thestrals in there are some of the most trained in the world. I’m sure it won’t be that hard to ride them.” Everyone seemed reluctant, still worried about the repercussions of something not ending well. You sighed as your shoulders dropped.

Sirius was nervous about the aspect of riding a Thestral, but you do your research. If you say they’re fine to fly, then it’s fine. “I’m in.” Sirius declared as you met his eyes, a smile growing on both of your faces. Soon, the rest of your friends were in as well and you were bouncing on the balls of your feet as you waited. You could hear Sirius laugh behind you as you leaned back against him, letting him support you. “You’re way too excited.” He said quietly, aware of how loud his voice would be in your ear.

“Are you kidding? Of course, I’m excited! We should’ve visited here far sooner.” A few heads turned in your direction, not aware you were talking to Sirius. Lily, Remus, and James couldn’t hold their eye rolls back at the sight of you and Sirius not knowing how couple-y you were acting. You carried on with the walk just a little ways more before a clearing appeared, the trees covered it well, the look reminding you of twilight despite being midday. It was beautiful, but what caused you to stopped walking, breathing even, was the sight of 6 horses, their bones showing as they were fleshless and their wings when expanded were the larger than anything you’d ever seen before. “They’re beautiful.” You breathed out, not catching the turn of heads.

Sirius knotted his brows, glancing between you and the spot you were looking. You took a few steady steps forwards as he tried to figure out what was happening. He didn’t know much about Thestrals, just that you couldn’t see them. He did however remember you a few months ago telling him something about only certain people being able to see them.

“Your father.” Sirius mumbled, suddenly realizing the only reason you could see the Thestrals was due to your father dying last spring when you went home to be him and your mum. He’d been sick for years and doctors, even as skilled as the wizard doctors were, couldn’t save him. Sirius remembers how distraught you’d been, he stayed awake with you almost every night for weeks to comfort you.

You nodded your head, turning around to your friends and clearing your throat. “I guess I have more of an upper hand than you thought, Pads.” He offered a small laugh, one clearly for your benefit as you faced the Thestral again. You were careful as you brought a hand up, running it down the Thestrals mane. The horse-like creature took a step back as you paused, but not a moment later it allowed you to brush you hand across its boney face.

And to think, this morning you didn’t even want to leave your bed.

Sirius couldn’t take his eyes off you. The look on your face was one he loved seeing, happiness dripping through every feature. He wasn’t even aware as his friends started whispering behind him, feeling Remus’ hand nudge his shoulder before he was finally knocked out of his trance. He didn’t need to turn around to know his friends were smirking at him, so he chose not to, instead getting your attention. “So uh, how do we ride them?”

You helped your friends onto the Thestrals, Remus and Lily gripping onto their creatures as much as they could while James messed around, having too much fun on riding something he couldn’t see. You had to admit, if you couldn’t see the creatures, floating in the air while feeling it beneath you would be fun. Sirius was next as you walked over to him, pointing in the direction of his Thestral. He watched you pet the mane again like you’d done with the others, only this time you grabbed Sirius’ hand and let him touch the Thestral. You covered his hand with yours and Sirius had no where to look but at the side of your face. You caught him staring, a blush making it’s way on his face as you smiled and moved to the side of the pony.

“Put your foot here.” You told Sirius, pointing to its wing joint. Sirius was hesitant but trusted you, placing his foot where he was told. You giggled as he tried to lift himself up, loosing balance and falling back onto you. “Woah, it’s okay. I got you.”

“You better not drop me, Y/N.” He joked.

“What? Me? Never.” You shared a smile before you helped him the rest of the way, not letting go of his hand you didn’t know you still had until he was seated. You took a few steps back, taking in the sight of Sirius Black perched a top a Thestral before you shook your head, letting out a shaky breath.

Lily watched you and Sirius, very disappointed in your obliviousness as you climbed onto your Thestral. “Okay Marlene, what’s the challenge exactly?” She yelled over to the one friend who wasn’t on a pony.

“Whoever stays on the longest wins! First to fall off is eliminated!” She told you all as nods went around. You told everyone how to ride, trying to remember as much as you could. You demonstrated how to hold on and how to sit properly and soon your friends and you were ready to go.

“Ready?” Marlene asked as you all prepared to take off, you ran a hand over its mane, waiting for Marlene to give the cue. “Go!” Your creature took off, soon leaving the ground as you flew into the air. Your hair flew back, wind rushing across your face as you smiled.

You threw your head back in laughter as you gripped the horse, not wanting to fall off. You turned back to see your friends, thinking they’d be in the air having fun but instead you saw James and Remus almost fighting, while Lily shook her head at their antics. The three of them were still on the ground, Sirius being the only one who managed to get into the air. He followed behind you, struggling a little but getting the hang of it real quick. The other three managed up as well and soon the challenge officially began.

It didn’t take long before Remus fell off, in fact he barely made it off the ground. James and Lily apparently couldn’t hold on either, and ten minutes later Lily fell first and James got distracted, his grip loosening enough to send him to the ground as well. Their creatures returned themselves to the ground, acting like nothing happened.

“Y/N!” Sirius called out as he flew up next to you. He pointed up in the air as you furrowed your brows. “Trust me.” He yelled before flying up past the trees, you chuckled as you followed his lead, soon getting one of the best views of Hogwarts you’d ever seen.

You paused momentarily, both you and Sirius enjoying the view together. It was that moment you forgot you were playing the games again, just being with Sirius and here of all places. It was breathtaking. “Come on, lets go higher.” You told Sirius who nodded and at the same time you both flew up, into the clouds as the wind passed by your faces, the speed of the Thestrals taking you both by surprise as you screamed. The scaredness of your voice disappeared in an instant, a cry of joy breaking free. Sirius let out a holler with you, both of you completely lost in the freedom you felt.

The moment though didn’t last as long as you hoped because Sirius lost his grip, unable to see what to grab onto as he slipped off the Thestral that was still soaring higher in the sky. For a moment he became motionless before he started falling to the ground from way high up.

Suddenly this idea of going higher seemed to be one of the worst things he’s had in a while.

“Y/N!” He screamed in hopes you heard him.

Your head whipped around when you heard Sirius’ voice and your heart felt like it stopped as you watched Sirius free fall to the ground. You turned around faster than you thought possible, reaching your hand out to Sirius. “Siri! Take my hand!” Sirius didn’t need you to tell him, but the sound of your voice was a comfort as you grabbed his hand and pulled him behind you. Sirius hung onto you for dear life, the reassurance there was something underneath him and you next him.

You didn’t breathe until you were sure Sirius was alright behind you, his arms wrapped around your waist as you put your head back onto his shoulder, leaning your head against his. Sirius buried his head in your wind-swept hair, feeling his heart beating practically in his ears.

“That was stupid.” You breathed out, feeling Sirius nod.

“Agreed.”

“We were careless.”

“Agreed.”

“That was-“

“Something we won’t tell the others?”

“Agreed.” You confirmed and heard Sirius laugh behind you. You peaked behind you, looking Sirius in the eyes and grabbing his hand. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

He smiled at you, butterflies filling your stomach as you faced forwards, leading you both to the ground as Sirius tightened his grip on you, resting his chin on your shoulder as you landed. Your friends were very confused to say the least when you and Sirius were together on one Thestral.

“What happened?” Remus called out as Sirius slid off the horse, extending an arm to help you down. You took it graciously, letting him catch you in your arms.

“Uh, Y/N won.” Sirius sort of filled in, not taking his eyes off you as you planted your feet on the ground, feeling your cheeks heat up as you looked towards the ground. Only when Sirius took a step back from you did you glance up, seeing Lily smiling crazy at you. You raised your brow at her, but she waved her hand in front of her face, mouthing that you’ll talk later.

“Well, then.” Marlene spoke up, putting a hand on Remus’ shoulder. “I think it’s time to announce Y/N the Queen of Thestrals. Everyone agree?” Everyone laughed and said yes, Sirius in particular turning to you and mumbling the word Agreed, making you chuckle under your breath. “And Remus, I’m sorry to say, but you’re eliminated from the Jimmy Jab Games.”

“Oh thank god.” He groaned out, putting his hands on his knees and bending over. “I think I hurt my back.”

“You fell like 2 feet mate.” Sirius deadpanned as Remus played offended.

“Says you! You didn’t even fall!” Sirius looked towards you, hiding the need to laugh as you nudged him with your shoulder. Remus pointed between you and Sirius. “Did we miss something?”

“Nope. Don’t know what you’re talking about Moony.” You shrugged. You all shared laughs as you all spoke about what it was like to ride, Marlene conflicted about whether to feel jealous or relieved she wasn’t riding an invisible creature. You felt Lily pull you ahead, glancing back to everyone as you looked at her confused. “Lily, what’s with you? Are you feeling alright?” you asked her, putting a hand to her forehead to pretend to take her temperature.

She swatted it away with an eye roll, locking arms with you. “I was just wondering when you were going to tell Sirius you’re in love with him.” She said, trying to get you in the same conversation she had with Sirius last night. “How long do you plan on just flirting with him?”

Her words took you by surprise as you stared at her, unaware of Sirius’ eyes on you despite not being able to hear the conversation as he smiled. “What on earth are you talking about Lily? Flirting? Sirius and I don’t flirt.”

“Oh, you don’t?”

“Of course not! And I’m not in love with him, we’re just friends!”

“Oh, you’re friends? Then forget I ever mentioned it.” She told you, bumping your shoulder with hers. She didn’t say more, the conversation seemingly ending as you couldn’t think anymore. Lily wasn’t right. You and Sirius were just friends- best friends. He was your rock. You weren’t in love with him.

Right?

A/N: Please leave feedback because I thrive on it!

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lady-divine-writes · 4 years

Text

Ineffable Holiday 2020 - “A Wonderful Christmas Timey-Wimey” (Rated PG13)

Summary: Crowley isn't feeling the holidays this year, which Aziraphale thinks is par for the course, what with him being a demon and all. With only a few days left until Christmas, Crowley runs into a girl who may change that for him.

A girl who mistakes him for The Tenth Doctor. (1945 words)

Notes: Written for the Ineffable Holiday 2020 prompt 'shopping'.

Read on AO3.

“Must you pick out every present for the toy appeal yourself?” Crowley asks, rearranging items on the shelf, replacing a few of the more popular toys with jars of pickled fish, tins of olives, and tubes of fungal foot cream. "This is so dull!"

"It would be less dull if you helped instead of complained."

"Mrr ... ngk ... urgh ..."

"You'd be brightening someone else's day," Aziraphale says to persuade him.

"Not really my department," Crowley replies. "You could always do what other shops do and put a donation bin inside your door.”

“Inside my door?” Aziraphale utters a disgusted noise. “You expect me to invite people into my shop on purpose!?”

“It would be for the good of mankind,” Crowley teases. "Well, child-kind, more accurately."

“I am not going to dignify that heinous suggestion with a remark,” Aziraphale mutters, walking to the opposite side of his trolley to escape his husband’s asinine ideas.

"I still don't see why you need to do this yourself. I don't think braving a crowd of the entitled to buy useless junk for kids is going to earn you brownie points with Heaven."

“Buying presents is fun, Crowley, no matter who they're for! It gets me into the holiday spirit!”

“Not me. I’m not feeling Christmas this year.”

Aziraphale looks up and considers his gloomy husband. He'd thought this mopey affectation was simply per the norm. He didn't realize his husband was honestly feeling blue. “Have you felt the Christmas spirit any other year?”

Crowley shrugs. “Once or twice. It’s become such a vulgar holiday, hasn’t it? The commercialization, the greed, the false charity - such a far cry from the days when generous humans would leave presents anonymously on the steps of their needy neighbors. Nowadays, with social media, everything’s such a show. Look what I gave! Look who I helped! Look how compassionate I am!” Crowley grimaces. “Despicable.”

“I would imagine, as a demon, you would take pride in the change,” Aziraphale says icily.

“’m not that kind of demon, angel.”

“You’ve got a few days yet. Maybe you’ll come across something that will fill you with Christmas joy.”

“Doubt it.” Crowley goes back to the ruination of the shelves, snarling when his husband manages to set things to rights behind his back. He's preparing to remove the word not from the boxes marked batteries not included when he gets the distinct feeling that someone is stalking them. He stands straight and peeks down the aisle, eyes darting left and right behind his glasses so as not to be too obvious. Once he confirms his suspicions, he comes up behind Aziraphale and whispers, “Do you ever get the feeling you’re being watched?”

“All the time,” Aziraphale says nonchalantly. “Because we are. The Almighty sees all, remember?”

Crowley rolls his eyes. What a frickin’ angel thing to say? “We’re not alone.”

“Exactly! Didn’t you hear what I just …?”

Crowley steps in front of his husband, grabs Aziraphale’s head, and tilts it to the side. Aziraphale’s gaze follows. From around the end of the aisle, Aziraphale spots a pair of stunning green eyes, set in a face surrounded by a blonde bob, disappear into the doll aisle.

“What the …? Oh, dear …”

"Wot? Wot's wrong?"

Aziraphale chuckles. "It looks like we have company.”

Crowley turns to see a woman headed their way, spurred on by a girl pushing her in their direction. The woman waves sheepishly. “Hello. I am so sorry to bother you.”

Aziraphale smiles. “It’s quite alright. Is there something we can do for you?”

“Kind of.” The woman glances sternly behind her when the girl gives her a shove. “My name is Sheila. This …” She jabs a thumb over her shoulder at the child they have yet to see completely “… is my little sister Freya.”

“Hello, Freya.” Aziraphale tries to maneuver around Sheila’s body to get a good look at the girl. He catches a glimpse, but Freya moves too quickly out of view for Aziraphale to get more than that. But from what he can see, she isn’t paying attention to him.

She’s focused on Crowley.

“She’s shy,” Sheila says. “But she asked me to come talk to you because she thinks …” Aziraphale hears the girl whisper, something only her sister can understand, and Sheila sighs. “I’m so very sorry, but she thinks that you …” She gestures to Crowley “… are … The Doctor.”

Crowley’s eyes go wide. “Doctor?” he repeats, confounded since, in all his long years on this planet, to his recollection, no one has ever mistaken him for a doctor. An undertaker, definitely. A forensic investigator, once or twice. A rockstar and, on occasion, an actor. But not a doctor.

With a sudden spark, it hits him.

Not a doctor.

The Doctor.

“Wait - Doctor. You mean like … Doctor Who, The Doctor?”

Freya giggles. Sheila’s cheeks turn pink. “The Tenth Doctor specifically, yeah. Again, I’m really sorry about this, but, uh …” Aziraphale reaches into his pocket and produces a handkerchief when Sheila chokes up “… our mum's just passed, and our dad's underway. He’s not going to be home in time for the holidays." She sniffles. "I'm afraid we've been suffering from a severe lack of cheer lately.”

“So it seems,” Aziraphale says sympathetically.

“And I thought that maybe if you didn’t mind … I mean, I know you don’t know us from Adam, but …”

While Sheila talks to Aziraphale, Crowley gets down on one knee to get a better look at Freya. She’s the most erratically dressed child he’s ever seen. But kids can get away with that, can’t they? She’s wearing oversized trousers, a floor-length coat, a shirt with a rainbow across the front, braces …

Oh, gee, he thinks. She’s dressed like The Thirteenth Doctor.

Freya sneaks a peek, lower lip sucked so far between her teeth, he can see every freckle on her chin.

He smiles and gives her a wink.

“Figured me out, did ya?”

Both Aziraphale and Sheila go silent when they hear Freya gasp.

“It is you!” Freya says, eyes so wide they start to compete with every other feature on her face. “My sis said it probably wasn’t you, but I knew it was! I just knew it!”

“It’s me,” Crowley says, not entirely sure where he goes from here. “But you can’t tell anyone you saw me, okay?”

“Oh, don’t worry …” Freya motions zipping her lips together “… I won’t say anything to anyone! I promise!” She leans forward and whispers, “Where’s your TARDIS? I didn’t notice a police box outside.”

“And she looks,” Sheila says. “She really looks. Every time we leave the house.”

“Oh, uh, you know what? I got it fixed,” he says, quickly culling from one of the few pieces of Doctor Who trivia he knows. “The chameleon circuit? It's good as new.”

“It is?” Freya’s eyes light up as if she's hearing the most important news of her young life.

“It looks just like a regular old car now.”

“Really?”

“Yup. A big black car.”

“Wicked!”

Aziraphale doesn’t hear everything Crowley says to Freya, but that doesn’t concern him. Crowley has always been aces at dealing with children. And as Freya’s eyes become wider and her smile spreads, Aziraphale can’t help smiling himself. Crowley is a demon with a vivid imagination, and he’s using it to weave this girl a tale of wondrous, supernatural antics, which includes traveling through time with a man he calls his companion (whom Aziraphale realizes, with a flick of Freya’s eyes upward, is supposed to be him) as they attempt to save Christmas from …

“The Weeping Angels?” Freya looks about her, a mixture of anxiety and excitement turning her cheeks red. “I read that comic! About how you and Thirteen went up against them to save Earth! Are they back?”

“No. Even worse."

Freya's mouth forms a tiny 'o'. "The Master?”

"Yes." Crowley echos her gravitas to make it appear he understands the dangers of being pursued by such a villain. "Hence my disguise, which you saw through brilliantly. Well done!"

“Oh, I could tell it was a disguise from a mile away!” she proclaims with the modesty of a child who has gotten one over on the adults.

“How?”

“The hair! You’re ginger! But, between you and me, I’d tone it down.”

“You would?” Crowley says in a way that makes Aziraphale snicker, falling somewhere between engaging and offended.

“Oh, yes!” she says. “It’s a bit on the bright side. It’s a dead giveaway that it's fake.”

Crowley nods, fighting to keep his cool. It would do him no good to start bickering with a child over whether or not a fictional character should wear their hair his color. “Noted.”

Sheila watches Crowley interact with her sister, sees her smile for the first time in weeks.

Sheds a tear when Freya tells Crowley that he is, without a doubt, her favorite Doctor, and that when she sees him on the telly or reads about him in the comics, it makes her feel less sad and alone.

“Okay, Freya,” Sheila says, wiping her eyes with the cuff of her shirt. “I think it’s time for us to let these gentlemen get back to their business.”

“She means the mission,” Freya corrects for her.

“That’s right,” Crowley says. “But you know what? We’ll bump into each other again. Another time.”

“Yes,” Freya says in awe. “We will. Another time.”

Sheila takes her sister’s hand, but the girl breaks free and throws herself into Crowley’s arms, squeezing him tight. “Thank you, Doctor!”

It takes Crowley a second, but he wraps his arms around Freya’s thin body and squeezes back. “You’re welcome.”

“Come on, Freya,” Sheila says in a wobbly voice. “Let's go home.”

“Goodbye, Doctor! Goodbye, Doctor's Companion!”

"Goodbye, Miss Freya," Aziraphale says, amused to be relegated to the title of Doctor's Companion. His name must not be necessary, he muses, since she never asked it.

Freya takes her sister’s hand and pulls her from the aisle, telling her all the things Crowley had said about his and Aziraphale’s mission to save Christmas.

Crowley watches Freya and Sheila round the corner, the girl pausing a moment to give them one final wave before she skips out of sight.

But Crowley doesn’t look away.

He stares thoughtfully after her, doesn’t snap out of it until Aziraphale puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Are you all right, my dear?”

“Yeah. Yes. Of course,” Crowley says, slowly falling back to Earth.

"Shall we get going, too?"

"No," Crowley says in a distant voice. His eyes travel from the end of the aisle to Aziraphale's hand on his shoulder, down to the trolley half full of toys. With a hiccup, he picks up where they left off before Sheila and Freya stopped by, and Crowley became The Doctor. "No! You're nowhere near done! Wot? Were you only planning on helping five kids? Pfft!" Crowley clears his throat. "Would you mind if I, uh, picked out a few things, too? For the appeal?"

Aziraphale looks at him strangely. "You want to shop for toys?"

"You’ve only chosen the boring ones! The educational slop! No kid is gonna want half this stuff! I think that, maybe, you don’t have the knack.”

Aziraphale crosses his arms over his chest. “I don't have the knack?”

“Yes.”

“For buying toys?”

“Again, yes.”

Aziraphale grins. “Are you asking to help me brighten someone else's day?”

Crowley's cheeks go pale. “No! Maybe. Don’t look at me like that. You’re just buying toys. It’s not astrophysics. Look, turn down the halo, or I’m going home!”

#Ineffable Holiday 2020 #ineffable husbands #good omens #good omens fanfiction #crowley x aziraphale #aziraphale x crowley #aziraphale #crowley

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artificialqueens · 4 years

Text

Everybody Knows You're High, 3/4 (Rajila) - Dartmouth420

Summary: Raja’s attempt at self-awareness uncovers some… feelings. Manila gets paranoid, there’s another party, and a big old miscommunication.

A/N: we now truly enter the idiots portion of this friends-to-idiots-to-lovers tale. this has been fun to write, thank you to everyone for your enthusiasm :)

tw: weed, mild jealousy, alcohol, vomiting

“So, Manila thinks I lack self-awareness,” announced Raja to the kitchen as she stirred a large helping of weed into the pot of melted butter on the stove. She wanted to get a second opinion on the matter, and her roommates were a great place to start.

Delta and Carmen burst out laughing.

“Yeah, no shit,” deadpanned Delta, who was next to her at the counter, chopping vegetables.

“What? Come on… ” complained Raja, turning away from the stove. Apparently the second opinion was mockery.

“You’re one of the least self-aware people I’ve ever met,” added Carmen, who was sitting at the kitchen table with her knees up and drinking tea, “Like, it’s kind of charming but also maybe worth a psychological study, you know?”

“Well you’re a Psych major, write a paper on me or whatever.”

“You know, that’s not a bad idea…”

“So wait, you’re still into her?” said Delta, with exaggerated concerned, “Raja, how long has it been?”

“A while… ” replied Raja vaguely, stirring her concoction with a wooden spoon. The smell of weed infusing into butter permeated the room.

“That’s for real? I thought it was a joke,” said Carmen, putting her tea down, “This isn’t normal for you.”

“I’d even say unprecedented,” added Delta, with a smirk at the edge of her mouth.

“Ugh, stop it,” whined Raja, pouting.

When Raja decided the infusion was sufficient, she took the weed butter mixture and dumped it through a strainer into a large bowl, then turned back to the stove and put several squares of baking chocolate in the same pot, leaving it to melt over low heat.

“I just want to… ” said Raja, trying to gather her thoughts and feelings into one place. She got out the eggs, sugar and flour. What she felt for Manila was a wonderful and frustrating mixture of friendship and attraction. It wasn’t much different from the way she felt about her other friends, but it was stronger and a lot more distracting. There wasn’t any good way to express it. “…I don’t know, make out with her.”

“That much is obvious,” laughed Delta. “So do it already.”

“I’m trying but she thinks I’m joking, she keeps making fun of me! I don’t get it, what am I doing wrong?”

“Well if you want more than a casual hook-up, then maybe tell her that… but like, in a subtle way,” said Carmen, sipping her tea, “You’ll have an opportunity today, I invited her over for a Mario Kart rematch-“

“No!” exclaimed Raja and Delta at the same time. Mario Kart was banned at their house for a reason.

“Also,” continued Carmen as though they hadn’t spoken, motioning at Raja’s bowl, “Are the special brownies just for you, or for everyone?”

“Everyone,” replied Raja, wondering if Carmen was right, maybe she did want a little more than just a casual makeout session with Manila. She mixed the sugar and melted chocolate into the butter with a whisk. But what did more even mean? “They’re for that party at Morgan’s this weekend.”

“Oooh, that’ll be fun.”

Luckily Raja and Delta managed to convince Carmen and Manila to avoid a friendship-shattering Mario Kart rematch and they all played Super Smash Bros as usual while the scent of baking brownies filled the apartment.

Manila seemed more relaxed today, squashed into the couch with the three roommates. Raja had been defeated first, she put her controller down as her character died and tilted her head to rest on Manila’s shoulder.

“Guess what I did last night?” said Manila out of the blue, her quick thumbs jabbing at the controller and building up combinations of moves to strike at Carmen on the screen, to Carmen’s frustrated grumble next to her.

“What?” asked Raja lazily, while on the screen Carmen and Manila teamed up to rip Delta’s character to shreds. Manila smelled like lavender conditioner. Would her neck taste like that too?

“Yara started Snapchatting me, apparently she’s mad at Alexis now,” said Manila, in a self-congratulatory tone, “And it got a little sexy.”

“How sexy are we talking?” asked Delta immediately, her voice full of intrigue.

“Yeah, how sexy?” added Carmen, trying to get her character back up onto the platform as Manila turned on her.

A weird feeling swirled in Raja’s stomach. She frowned, still resting her head on Manila’s shoulder, almost afraid to look at her expression. On the screen, Delta’s character died and Delta dropped her controller, clearly far more interested in the story than she was in the game.

“We might’ve…” drawled Manila, suggestively, “Exchanged a few pictures and videos and uh, you know.”

“Oh my god, you did that with Yara?!” exclaimed Delta, delighted. “While she’s still dating Alexis? Whore.”

“Mmm,” said Manila smugly, nudging Raja’s leg with her own, while on the screen she summoned a thunderbolt and attacked Carmen. “You know what I like about her? She’s incredibly self-aware-”

“I think the brownies are done!” exclaimed Raja, leaping up from the couch and walking furiously out of the room into the kitchen, to the laughter of her three friends.

Raja paced around the kitchen, fuming. The joke had gone too far at this point, and Manila was just rubbing it in and being mean. Raja wasn’t even that jealous of Manila’s interaction with Yara, she just didn’t understand what was so appealing about someone on the other side of a screen, when Raja herself was a warm, living, breathing human and right here!

Raja mourned how incredibly unjust the whole situation was, and took the brownies out of the oven. She waited for them to cool, listening to the conversation and the noise from the TV as Manila once again royally defeated everyone in the room and Carmen complained that she’d win if they were playing Mario Kart…

It hit Raja like a lightning bolt. Maybe she could just tell Manila how she felt, ask her directly what she wanted, and see if it made a difference and would make the stupid joke stop. Raja beamed at her reflection in the window and posed victoriously. She was self-aware as fuck.

But first, weed brownies.

Raja sliced the still-warm tray, taking out four pieces so there was one for everyone if they wanted. Raja’s recipe was potent so it was best to be careful and start small. She put them on a little plate and brought it back out into the living room.

“Who wants to get wrecked?” asked Raja with a big grin, coming back around the corner to where Delta was stretching, Carmen had a competitive look on her face and Manila was gently taunting her.

“Me!”

“Me too.”

“Same.”

“Wicked,” said Raja, and plopped back down in her spot on the couch, offering the plate. Everyone took a piece, and complimented her on the taste. What a lovely way to spend an afternoon.

“It’s not working,” complained Manila, after another few more rounds of Smash Bros, “We’re gonna need more.”

“Yeah, I’m not really feeling it,” added Delta.

“Just give it time, you two are so impatient,” said Raja, rolling her eyes.

An hour later Raja was thoroughly couch-locked, lying on her side, a deep relaxation throughout her body. Her thoughts were slow and gentle, like great blue whales moving in the vast Pacific. Manila sat next to her, slumped back, her expression glazed over. Delta was flat on her back on the floor, staring at the ceiling. Carmen was curled up in the easy chair next to the couch, her caramel hair spilling over the arm.

The Smash Bros theme played over and over from the opening menu on the TV, but the controllers were completely abandoned.

“Do you think they’re spying on us?” whispered Manila, staring straight ahead.

“Who?” asked Raja, squinting at her.

“I dunno, the CIA?”

“I mean, probably.”

“No… ” groaned Manila in response, bringing a hand to her mouth, “I don’t want that.”

“Are you getting paranoid?” asked Raja, slow concern rising in her body.

“No… ” said Manila, and looked around, her expression growing nervous, “But, they could be, right? Anyone could be. Do you think they have cameras like, in our phones?”

“Yeah,” replied Raja, blinking glacially, “There’s cameras in our phones, duh. How else would we take pictures?”

Manila scrunched her eyebrows together and whimpered, anxiously pushing her phone off the couch so it clattered on the floor.

“No,” managed Delta from next to the coffee table, “I don’t think-”

Raja loosely realized that Manila was heading in the direction of a bad time. Raja sat up, shifting her slow, heavy limbs to pull Manila up too so that they sat cross-legged on the couch, looking at each other. Manila’s pupils were huge, and her lips were slightly parted.

“No one’s watching you,” said Raja, attempting confidence, “Uh, no one that matters, anyway.”

“What if I fail all my classes?” whispered Manila.

“You’re not gonna.”

“But what if I do?”

Raja reached forward and took Manila’s face in her hands, and said, “Then we’ll drop out together and become… drag kings. Or entrepreneurs. We’d be good at that.”

Manila let out a tiny laugh, but her eyebrows remained worried. Totally spaced out, Raja just smiled at her and hoped it helped.

Manila reached out and took Raja’s face in her hands as well, stroking her thumbs across Raja’s cheekbones. The action was so oddly intimate and animal that, in a flash, Raja understood exactly why and how human beings were descended from apes, and before that, how fish had first crawled out of the vast, primordial ocean onto land.

“What are you thinking about?” asked Manila, her voice soft, her pupils huge. Her hair was a curly cascade down her shoulders.

“Whales,” murmured Raja in response, and in her minds eye another blue whale of thought rose up, carrying with it the idea that it might be lovely to kiss Manila right now-

“That’s beautiful,” whispered Manila, with rare earnestness.

“Do you wanna make out?” murmured Raja. Manila’s face was warm, and the scent of her lavender conditioner drifted from her hair into Raja’s nose again.

“Yeah, but Delta and Carmen are right here,” said Manila, dropping her hands from Raja’s face to rest on her forearms. Raja let go of Manila’s face as well, resting her hands in her lap as Manila’s positive response slowly registered in her mind. Her fingertips almost tingled.

“They don’t care.”

“We totally don’t,” agreed Carmen from the chair, where she’d shifted, now upside down with her legs draped over the back of it, “That might be kinda hot, actually.”

“We should paint the ceiling…” whispered Delta, awed, from the floor.

“We can make out in the future,” said Manila, patting Raja’s arm in a reassuring way, and reaching for the bag of chips on the table.

“The future?” said Raja, a whale of concern surfacing in her mind, “Like, with global warming and Mars colonies?”

“Yeah, then.”

Later, when Manila had stumbled home and Raja was a bit less high, she remembered that Manila had technically said yes, and considered it to be good progress. In fact, now that she’d truly registered it, excitement was growing in her chest. Finally, her proposition had worked! She couldn’t wait.

Manila awoke the next day to the pure adrenaline and terror that can only be brought on by the violence of a loud alarm clock after too little sleep. Manila slapped at the stop button on her alarm and willed her heart to stop racing. It was just the weed, she reasoned to herself as she stared at the ceiling and still felt high, it was just the weed that had made her say yes. Raja’s fucking weed brownies. Raja wouldn’t even remember the conversation. Hopefully. Not that touching her face and staring into her deep brown eyes hadn’t been nice, really nice.

Raja was a lot more… attentive, lately. Affectionate. Caring. Maybe a little jealous, as proven by Manila’s complete and utter lie about Yara, which she’d strategically employed to test the waters. Raja was acting the way you’d act around someone who was maybe more than just a friend or a casual hookup…

But Manila wasn’t exactly sure what to do with that information.

Manila supposed she could’ve just told Raja how she felt, as she willed herself to get out of bed, but she sensed that once she started talking she wouldn’t be able to stop and it would all come out. All those painful feelings she’d been storing away since they’d met. There was no humanly possible way to be chill about it.

More immediately, there was the matter of getting to her morning class. It was the only other class she shared with Raja, and Manila didn’t believe in skipping class except in the circumstance of dire illness. Manila got dressed, put on some mom jeans and tried to find all her stuff, then hurried outside to find Raja waiting for her on the sidewalk out front, with a big grin, saying, “You’re late.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yeah, you are.”

Raja stared at her for a long time, and Manila stared back and blinked. Even in the morning, with dark circles under her eyes, unbrushed hair, those stupid yellow sunglasses and an ugly, oversized camouflage T-shirt, Raja still looked impossibly sexy. Ugh. Manila hated her, and herself, for a split second.

“You’re still high,” stated Raja, her grin growing like the Cheshire Cat.

“Just a little.”

“I am too.”

“Whoop-de-fucking-do for us.”

“Mm-hmm,” hummed Raja smugly, and they walked down the street towards campus, falling into step.

Manila knew she had readings to do later, but maybe she’d take a break and play Legend of Zelda this afternoon. Zelda always made her feel better, and maybe if she beat the Water Temple she’d feel a little less head over heels in stupid, unrequited love with Raja. Raja slung a lazy arm over her shoulder as they walked and Manila decided that it may as well happen, and wrapped her arm around Raja’s back, because human contact was nice and it made her feel a little less annoyed about everything.

Everyone at the party at Morgan’s house (except Raven) cheered when Raja put the plate of weed brownies down on the kitchen table and announced, “Alright bitches, they’re special and potent, and they take about forty-five minutes to kick in, so start small.”

But Raja hadn’t indulged in her own creations tonight. Instead, she sipped some wine and watched as Manila played an incredibly loud and competitive round of beer pong with Shangela and her dancer friends. Raja had decided to go right back to what Manila had first told her on the day she’d freaked out at the grocery store and had her little realization, which was to ask her when she wasn’t high. And to tell her how she felt. With like, words.

She’d discussed her plan thoroughly with Delta, who thought the whole thing was getting ridiculous and someone should probably just lock Raja and Manila in a room together until they figured it out. Unfortunately it wasn’t up to Delta. Raja laughed as Shangela victoriously sunk the ping pong ball again and Manila grumbled and drank up.

Raja went out on the deck, leaning on the railing and looking out at the yard. It was a warm night with a gentle breeze, and Raja felt the urge to light up a joint but pushed it aside. In the opposite corner of the deck, Manila’s gym buddy, Willam, was talking to somebody. Raja nodded to her, and she nodded back and continued her conversation. Music and light spilled out of the house.

Raja smoothed down her shirt and waited. She’d told Manila she’d be out on the deck for a while and hopefully Manila would come find her after she inevitably lost to Shangela at beer pong. Shangela had the hand-eye coordination of a heart surgeon, even a few drinks in, and while Manila was great at Smash Bros, and liked to run and work out, her depth perception in real life had room for improvement.

So Raja waited, and tried not to sweat nervously. This whole self-awareness thing was challenging, and it was awkward not being high at a party. Perhaps what Manila had said about Raja being kind of an anxious bitch was right…

A couple minutes later Manila stumbled out onto the deck with a red solo cup in her hand, laughing at something happening behind her. Unfortunately, Willam caught Manila’s eye before she noticed Raja lurking in the corner like a gremlin, and she went over and talked to her. Raja glanced over at some antics happening on the lawn, until Manila finally turned around and sauntered the few short steps across the deck to her.

“Ugh, I can’t believe Shangela beat me again,” complained Manila, leaning on the railing next to Raja, “She wins like every time!”

“See how it feels?” teased Raja.

“Whatever bitch, you deserve to be last at something,” replied Manila, nudging her and giving her a tipsy grin.

Raja chuckled and took a moment to gather herself. She’d never had to tell anyone she actually liked them before, and really wasn’t sure where to start. Normally, most people wanted to make out and leave it at that and if they caught feelings then Raja would either go along with it or let them down easy. Raja snuck a glance at Manila. Her hair was up a high ponytail again tonight, brushing the back of her neck, and her little smirk had a knowing edge to it. Her tight black shirt was… low-cut. Raja quickly looked back up at her face.

“You’re not smoking your usual blunt,” observed Manila, bluntly, after a moment of silence.

“Oh yeah, no,” said Raja, twisting her hands together. This would have been way easier high. “I didn’t feel like it.”

“So you had some of your brownies earlier.”

“Nope.”

“Ooh, so you’re drinking tonight,” said Manila with a conspiratorial smile, gesturing at the mostly untouched red solo cup balanced on the ledge of the railing next to Raja, and raising her own.

“Not really.”

“You’re sober?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?” asked Manila, scrunching up her nose, as cute as she was incredulous, “We’re at a party.”

Raja wasn’t entirely sure why she was so mercilessly sober at this party either, but then she remembered the task at hand.

Dodging the question, Raja clutched at her cup and said, “So, I kind of wanted to tell you something.”

“What?” asked Manila, turning around and leaning back against the railing, resting her elbows on the edge.

“Uh,” said Raja, and let out an awkward laugh, “Well.” She took a deep breath and tried her best. “I’ve been thinking about uh, our friendship and about you, like, over the past little while.”

Manila looked confused, but motioned for her to continue.

“I really like you.” There, Raja had said it, but the words kept tumbling out. “You’re pretty and hilarious and smart and you actually look after yourself, which is like, responsible and kinda hot. And we already know we get along, so maybe it’s a good place to, uh, start dating… in a low-key kind of way?”

Manila still looked confused, even borderline distressed, like she was trying to wrestle a very difficult philosophical concept. Raja realized that she hadn’t been very clear.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is, uh,” finished Raja, biting her lip and laughing awkwardly again, “Do you wanna make out?”

Manila’s face was on an emotional journey, which Raja watched with a combination of amusement and nervous anticipation. Maybe Manila would make fun of her for this too, and she’d just have to live with it. Maybe it didn’t matter how Raja felt, it would remain a joke forever. Or maybe, just maybe, Manila would feel the same way…

“Uh,” said Manila, nodding to herself. Her eyes were wide with surprise and disbelief, and she didn’t even tease Raja for being a total dweeb, which Raja had expected. “I mean…”

Raja waited, trying not to fidget and totally failing.

“Yeah,” said Manila, with a heavy, relieved exhale, “Yeah, I think that could be really great.”

A big smile stole over Manila’s face and she straightened up from where she was leaning on the railing and shuffled closer to Raja. Raja stepped forward too, her heart beating fast. She was so happy, so relieved, now that she’d admitted her feelings and Manila seemed to return them, she wanted nothing more than to make out with her, finally.

They leaned towards each other, excited and cautious. Manila touched Raja’s shirt, running her finger over the buttons. They were very close together. Raja could smell the alcohol on her breath and that lavender conditioner as Manila leaned in closer, tilting her head up to meet her, their lips just about to touch-

But at the last second Raja couldn’t resist the urge to mess with Manila, as she had with her before.

“Mmm, you know what?” said Raja, pulling back and flipping her hair over her shoulder, joking, “You missed your chance, I’m not interested anymore.”

Raja grinned. But instead of smiling back and maybe smacking her arm in mock-offence, genuine betrayal and disappointment crossed over Manila’s face. She stepped back, gave Raja an awful, disgusted look, turned on her heel and she stomped off the deck and back into the house.

Raja’s stomach dropped right out her body and through the deck, through the grass and the dirt and the crust of the earth right into the magma underneath.

Oh shit.

Manila had known, she’d just known that it was too good to be true.

And of course, she was right. It was entirely bullshit. Raja was just messing with her but it had gone to too far and it wasn’t funny anymore! Before, when it had just been silly, casual offers to make out it was fine, but Raja lying about having real feelings was cruel. Manila breathed in deeply and pressed back tears.

Manila stalked through the party in to the crowded living room, where there was a folding table covered in bottles of alcohol and mix. Manila took a random half-empty bottle of Absolut™ vodka and put it to her lips, gulping back as much as she could. It stung her throat. Manila should never, ever have let herself admit that she cared, let herself be vulnerable-

“Hey,” said a voice next to her, “That’s my vodka.”

Manila lowered the bottle, which was significantly emptier, and saw Raven with a frown on her face, her blunt bangs just brushing her neat eyebrows.

“Sorry,” muttered Manila and put the bottle back down on the table.

But Raven just took it and poured two hefty shots into two conveniently located shot glasses, and offered Manila one. Fuck it. Manila took the shot glass. With a smirk, Raven raised her glass and Manila clinked them together, then slammed it back. Manila eyed Raven as she lowered the glass, her stomach twisting against the sudden onslaught of alcohol. Raven wasn’t really her type but she was attractive enough, and the betrayal and anger rolling around in Manila’s body needed to go somewhere-

“Let me guess,” said Raven, with a knowing smile, “You were talking to Raja, right? She has a tendency to break hearts.”

Manila nodded bitterly, trying to put the glass down on the table, and momentarily lost her balance. Raven grabbed her arm and steadied her, letting out a low, amused chuckle.

“Do you wanna make out?” asked Manila impulsively, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

Raven blinked with surprise, and laughed, “Sure? I always thought you were cute-“

“Great,” interrupted Manila, stumbling in to Raven and wrapping her arms around her neck. The kiss was sudden and sloppy, the taste of vodka mingling on their mouths.

Raja stood all alone on the deck. She’d fucked up.

Raja hadn’t been thinking, she’d rashly assumed the joke would be harmless, and that Manila could take it. Manila had done practically the same thing to her a few weeks ago…

But maybe it wasn’t quite the same, because that time Raja had just been offering to casually make out, not like… actually attempting to express her feelings and propose that they try to date or whatever. Hmm.

Spurred by her own foolishness and the sudden fear that Manila would never talk to her again, Raja walked quickly off the deck. She re-entered the party, and scanned the kitchen. The plate of brownies was picked over and the music was loud and it was even more crowded than before. But Manila wasn’t in there, and Raja looked round for Delta or Carmen to ask for help. Carmen was nowhere to be seen, and Delta was in the corner, flirting with some guy.

Raja would have to deal with this herself.

Raja moved through the crowd of people towards the living room. She passed Shangela, Morgan and some guys and then entered the crowded room. Raja craned her neck to see over the crowd, and froze.

Manila was by a table covered in bottles, locked in an embrace with Raven of all people!

They were by the edge of the crowd, their bodies flush together, Manila’s arms around Raven’s neck, and Raven’s hands on her waist… betrayal and hurt flooded through Raja’s veins.

“Hey!” exclaimed Raja, hurrying across the room, “What the hell, Manila?! You can’t just make out with my ex!”

Raven and Manila broke away from each other, and both glared at her. Raven’s stupid red lipstick was smeared across Manila’s lips, staining the perfect corner of her mouth.

“I can do what I want!” objected Manila, slurring her words and turning back to Raven, trying to kiss her again, but Raven was still glaring at Raja, her expression annoyed.

“I told you like four times you’re not invited to parties here anymore!” snapped Raven.

“You know I don’t read your texts,” retorted Raja, trying to get Manila to make eye contact with her as Manila pawed at Raven, trying to pull her back in, “Manila, come on-”

“You’re such a bitch,” said Raven, rolling her eyes and batting Manila away from her. “Back off Manila, I don’t want to be involved with whatever this is-”

“Don’t go-” managed Manila, trying to hang on to Raven, but Raven slid out of her grip and quickly escaped across the crowded living room into the hallway.

Raja and Manila stared at each other.

“Look, I didn’t mean it-” began Raja.

“Whatever,” interrupted Manila, shaky, trying to push past her and follow Raven, “I know you didn’t mean it, obviously.”

“No,” said Raja, shifting in front of her, and trying to get her words out properly, “I meant the first part, the part where I said I like you. But not the part where I said, uh, that I didn’t. Like you.”

Even Raja could tell that was basically incoherent. Manila tilted her head to the side and her mouth fell open in annoyed confusion. Raja didn’t know what to say, the hurt and regret swirled inside her. But she desperately wanted Manila to understand that what she meant was, well… not serious, exactly. But important, significant. She should’ve had some weed to take the edge off.

“Wait, what-” began Manila, reaching out to steady herself on the table.

“Can we talk about this somewhere else?” asked Raja, noting that Manila seemed significantly drunker then she’d been a few minutes ago. “Also, are you okay?”

“I had some vodka,” muttered Manila, and then nodded, “Yeah, let’s uh, go outside.”

“Right,” said Raja, and let Manila lead her unsteadily through the room and down the front steps.

Outside, Manila started walking down the familiar sidewalk in the direction of where they both lived. The noise of the party faded behind them. Raja walked next to her, trying to gather her words again.

“I’m sorry I made fun of you at the Halloween party just ‘cause you wanted to make out,” apologized Manila, in a small, tight voice, “But I- I just couldn’t deal with it. I can’t deal with you, you make me feel like I’m going insane.”

“Well… yeah it kind of hurt, but it’s okay,” said Raja, trying to make sense of the second part of what Manila had said, and figure out what to say next. Manila sighed deeply, her expression scrunched up, sad and frustrated, power-walking with unsteady determination down the street. Raja had to hurry to keep up.

“But like I said, uh,” continued Raja, unsure as to why they were practically sprinting, “You’re my friend and I care about you. I don’t want to make you feel like you’re insane or whatever-“

Their hands brushed together. Raja caught her fingers with Manila’s and held her hand, her grip gentle, hoping that maybe this would show how she felt better than words could.

A single tear dripped down Manila’s face, but she kept walking, squeezing Raja’s hand in return.

After a minute or two, Manila stopped abruptly and Raja jerked to halt a couple steps past her, their arms stretched out between them.

“Uh-” said Manila, and paled, her eyes widening.

She turned and threw up in the neighbour’s yard.

Raja rushed over and held her hair back while Manila puked up vodka-tainted bile into a giant hosta plant that Raja recognized as the one Manila had pushed her into a week or two ago. Manila groaned pathetically and straightened back up.

“Are we near my house?” whined Manila, spitting on the ground and wiping her mouth.

“Yeah,” replied Raja, suppressing her laugh and pointing barely fifteen feet away, “You live right here.”

“Oh.”

With that, they walked the few steps down the sidewalk and up the stairs to Manila’s house. Manila unlocked the door and flicked the light on, kicking off her shoes. Raja snuck past her and made for the kitchen, pouring two glasses of water. Admittedly one of them was in a mason jar, because the dishes situation seemed a bit out of control. Manila followed her through and they both sat down at the kitchen table.

Raja handed Manila the water and Manila sipped it. She looked haggard and sad, her lower lip pouting more than normal. Raja reflected in the silence, thinking over what had happened and wondering if they’d ever manage to get involved at this rate. Maybe by graduation. Manila stood up from the table and got some saltines from the cupboard and they ate them, and drank more water. Then Manila stood up again, and paused awkwardly in front of Raja.

“I need to go to bed,” said Manila, biting her lip and not quite making eye contact.

“But I wanna make out,” whined Raja with a joking smile, before realizing with hot embarrassment that it was beyond stupid to make yet another joke about it-

“With my vomit breath?” replied Manila dryly.

Raja laughed, and so did Manila, dimples appearing in her cheeks. Raja stood, relieved, and they surveyed one another awkwardly. Raja darted forward and hugged Manila, pulling her in close for a moment and breathing in the smell of her hair. Manila seemed surprised but hugged her in return.

Raja stepped back and said, “Let’s talk tomorrow?”

Manila nodded, crossing her arms and looking tired and pathetic in lousy yellowish light of her kitchen. Her hair was everywhere, her eyes were puffy, and Raven’s red lipstick still stained the side of her mouth.

Well, thought Raja mildly to herself as she left, this is the woman I’ve chosen to love.

Love. Hmm.

#rpdr fanfiction #rajila #raja gemini #manila luzon #lesbian au #college au #everybody knows you're high #dartmouth420 #tw weed #tw vomiting

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ericsonclan · 4 years

Text

You Done Tattooing That Piano?

Summary: After missing her chance to tell Louis how she really feels, Clementine comes up with another way to reveal her affections.

Read on A03:

Notes: Wrote this after playing Louis' friendship route and being convinced the entire time that those two were just fooling themselves by labelling what they have as "friendship". Those crazy kids... <3

Clementine was in trouble. Here she was, nearly two months into meeting Louis, and all she seemed to be able to think about in every spare moment was him. This shouldn’t be a bad thing. After all, she’d never expected she’d even get a chance to feel like this again. The last time anything even approaching these feelings hit her, she’d been young, alone and too focused on her mission to pursue anything further. Now she had a home, a family, a boy who made her spine tingle every time he smiled at her from across the picnic table... she was finally in a place where she could start a relationship. The only problem? She was pretty sure she’d already turned Louis down.

She hadn’t known what to expect that night she decided to accompany Louis to the piano room. Hearing the music fill the room as Louis sat alone in the candlelight had stirred something within Clementine, a feeling that at that time she couldn’t quite place. Sitting beside Louis at his beloved piano in the dead of night had driven one truth home for Clementine: she cared for this boy, deeply. But when the knife was placed in her hand and she’d finished carving her initial next to Louis’, Clementine had frozen. Everything was happening too quickly. She’d only known Louis a little over two weeks. Were these emotions bubbling up inside her something permanent or a side effect of the nerves she had from waiting for the raiders to attack. Could she really take a leap like this when any second the Delta could tear down their gates and all this could be taken away from her.

She’d handed the knife back to Louis. Then Louis had opened up to her, thanking her for the times she’d listened when no one else had, how she understood him as someone beyond the jokes he told. Clementine hadn’t known what to say to that. How could she encapsulate the admiration she held for Louis, the gratefulness she felt that he’d forgiven her and A.J. after everything had gone so wrong? She went with what she knew. “Friends are all we’ve got, and I’m glad we’ve got each other,” Louis had offered her a fist bump which she’d returned with a bit too much force, the song Louis composed was named “Super Fun Times Friend Song” and they’d shared a few more laughs before Clementine was called away to watch duty. It had been nice, but something in the back of Clementine’s mind left her feeling that things could have gone in a different direction.

The weeks following the attack on the Delta had confirmed this for Clementine. Every step of the way, Louis had been there for her. During the battle to rescue their friends, when he’d circled back to help her and A.J. find their way to the school, and when he’d run breathlessly through the forest with Clementine cradled in his arms, desperate to get her to Ruby before it was too late. He’d sat by her bed for weeks as she recuperated, playing music on the gramophone since he couldn’t bring the piano to her. He’d helped her navigate the school with her crutches, saved her from many a spill, and was always there to cheer her up when she was feeling down.

Every time her eyes met his, Clementine saw something in them, a look that no one else gave her, one that sent her heart tumbling within her in an instant. She knew there was something between them. But Louis went no further than those looks. He never took the next step, never asked or said anything that did more than proclaim their undying friendship for each other. Three weeks out of bed and on her crutches, Clementine was forced to face an uncomfortable fact: that night at the piano room had been Louis’ move. If she ever wanted anything more to happen between them, the ball was in her court.

Considering how spectacularly she’d flubbed a verbal confession to Louis, Clementine doubted she’d have much more luck with a second attempt. Should she write a letter? No, her writings skills and penmanship had basically dried up at a third-grade level. She wouldn’t be able to express all that she wanted to say on paper. Perhaps a gesture then: taking on his chores, offering him some of her stew at dinner, picking flower from the greenhouse. Clementine quickly decided none of those would work. Louis wouldn’t accept her taking on any extra chores or giving up her food so soon after losing her leg and as for the flowers, Clementine could just hear Louis’ voice in her head as he told everyone at the school about the lovely “friendship flowers” Clementine had gotten him. No, it had to be something undeniably romantic.

Clementine was lying on her bed one morning when inspiration finally struck. Of course. She didn’t need to come up with something new at all. What she should do to prove her feelings was the very thing she’d been too afraid to do that night. Grabbing her crutches, Clementine snuck down the hall as quietly as she could, making her way to the music room. On her way there, she spotted Louis standing on watch duty. Good. She didn’t want to risk him walking in on her. She wanted to keep it a surprise. As soon as Clementine reached the piano, she plopped down on the bench, casting her crutches to the side. Pulling out her own knife, she tattooed the piano once more, adding a heart around her and Louis’ initials. Next time Louis sat down to play, he would see the heart and know what it meant: that Clementine was willing to give something beyond friendship a try if he was. Her work done, Clementine pocketed the knife and picked up her crutches, making her way out of the room before anybody could spot her there. Her heart beat excitedly within her. She wondered how long it would be until Louis visited his piano again.

That evening, things seemed to be going normally at Ericson. Omar had ladled out the stew and almost everyone had sat down to eat. Ruby and Aasim were sitting by each other with Willy to their right, Violet sitting across from him. A.J. sat to Clementine’s left while her right side, the spot normally taken by Louis, remained open. Clementine wondered where he was. It wasn’t like him to miss out on their biggest meal of the day.

Suddenly the doors to the admin building burst open. Louis strode out looking angrier than any of them had seen in some time. Making his way over to the picnic table, he stood at the head of it, his hand on his hips. “Alright, whoever thought it would be funny to graffiti my piano better own up right now,”

“What are you talking about, Lou?” Violet asked, placing down her spoon and squinting at him with her good eye. “That piano’s already been graffitied more times than I can count and you never cared before,”

“I’m not talking about the old graffiti. I’m talking about the new addition somebody made today. Now who thought it would be funny to draw a heart around Clem and I’s initials?”

Clementine’s heart dropped into her gut. He’s angry about it? Maybe she’d been misreading things this whole time.

“Louis, this is silly,” Aasim stated dismissively. “Why in the world would any of us want to do that?”

“Bold words from one of my primary suspects!” Louis declared, jabbing a finger in Aasim’s direction. “If you feel the need to get back at me for all the times I’ve teased you, leave Clem out of it. Our friendship isn’t a joking matter. It’s something I take very seriously, and I thought you of all people with all your talk of “privacy” would respect that!"

“It wasn’t me!” Aasim’s eyes narrowed at the accusation.

Ruby tried to place a comforting hand over her boyfriend’s arm. “Now let’s not fight about something so silly-”

“Silly? Don’t act as if you’re not a potential culprit too, Ruby,” Louis interjected.

“Now why in the world would I be a suspect?” Ruby challenged, her lower lip jutting out as she frowned.

Clementine wished she could disappear into the ground right about now. This wasn’t how she’d expected things to go at all.

Louis rolled his eyes. “You’re always complaining about how everyone’s teasing you and Aasim for being so lovey-dovey around each other. Did you think pretending Clementine and I were a thing would get some of the heat off of you two? Clementine is my best friend, that’s all! You can’t go spreading lies to make yourself feel better,”

Ruby gasped, clearly insulted. “You think you can just go around making claims like that? Well, let me tell you-”

“This is all fucking stupid,” Violet grumbled. “Someone just ‘fess up,”

“Was that a deflection, Vi?” Louis challenged, his eyebrow raised. “Did you-”

“Alright, enough!” Clementine shouted, her volume bringing everyone to a standstill. “I was the one who left the heart, OK? It was me,”

“You?” Louis asked, looking utterly lost.

“Yeah,” Clementine looked down at the table, her cheeks burning in embarrassment. “It wasn’t a joke or anything. I thought it’d be an easier way to let you know. Guess I was wrong,”

Everyone at the table was silent. Willy and A.J. were watching in confusion, their faces still covered in leftover stew. All eyes were on either Louis or Clementine, waiting for either of them to speak. Neither did.

Louis was the first to do something. Without a word, he turned around, heading straight back to the admin building.

Shit. I fucked up. Clementine didn’t have to raise her head to feel the heat of the stares upon her. Silently, she picked up her spoon and resumed eating her stew. I don’t get it. Would it be that bad to be with me? There’s not a single other available girl his age anywhere near here. Everything I thought I saw though... I must have made it all up myself.

“Clementine…” Ruby’s voice was soft, almost sad.

She couldn’t stick around for this. Grabbing her crutches, Clementine rose to her feet. “I’m gonna call it a night,” With that she made her way back toward the dorms, unwilling to look back and see the pitying gazes following her. I can’t believe it went down like this. Here I was so confident it was a sure thing, and then…

Clementine paused in her journey, looking toward the admin building. Louis was in there right now, probably trying to figure out a way to scratch out that stupid heart from his piano. Did he hate her now? Clementine couldn’t bear the thought of that. Did she owe him an apology for what she’d done, humiliating him in front of all their friends when he could have turned her down in private if she’d just had the guts to confess? Maybe there wasn’t anyone to blame here. It was all a misunderstanding. Still, she didn’t want to go to bed thinking Louis was angry at her. Steeling her resolve, Clementine switched course and set out for the admin building.

Everything was completely silent as Clementine entered, slowly turning down the hall to the music room. She tried to keep as quiet as possible, her crutches softly tapping the floor and her foot lightly scuffing it each time she took a step. She could feel her gut twisting in dread. She didn’t know what she would say to Louis when she got there. Perhaps he wasn’t even in the music room after all. No sound came from it now. As she neared the ajar doors, Clementine peered through the crack, trying to get an idea of what was happening inside.

Louis was in there after all, sitting at the piano. He wasn’t playing though. Instead he was staring at the carved heart. He reached out to touch it, his other hand coming up to cover his mouth. What was going on? After a minute of reflection, Louis reached inside his coat pocket, pulling out his dagger. He’d decided to scratch the heart out after all. As he dug his knife into the wood of the piano, Clementine looked away. It was a mistake coming here. She should go.

When she turned her crutches to leave though, one ran into one of the empty cans scattered throughout the hallway. Clementine winced as the sound echoed down the hall.

“Who’s there?”

No escaping now. Clementine pressed open the doors, too ashamed to meet Louis’ eyes. “Louis, I just came by to apologize. I never meant to embarrass you like that. Whatever you want to do to get rid of that stupid heart is fine with me,”

Louis looked confused for a moment before a soft smile crossed his face. He patted the spot beside him on the piano bench. “Care to sit with me for a minute, Clemster?”

Clementine was puzzled but complied. Sitting down beside Louis, she leaned her crutches against the piano before turning to face him.

“Guess I shouldn’t have run off like that,” Louis scratched the back of his neck, not making eye contact. “I wasn’t really thinking that clearly after I heard you say you were the one who left the heart. I had to visit again to make sure it was actually real. And it is,” He looked back to where the heart with their initials lay. “Then I wanted to add something of my own,”

Clementine glanced up in surprise, her eyes locking on the carving. It wasn’t scratched out after all. The heart was still there, and their initials, but something new lay between them. Where before there was simply a C and an L, now there was a plus sign connecting the two. Clementine’s eyes shot over to Louis. She saw that same look there that had been making her heart flutter these past few weeks.

“It’s complete now,” A small grin formed on Louis’ face.

“I can see that,” Clementine felt a smile tugging at her own lips, a giddiness bubbling up inside her. “So I guess that means… we’re more than friends now,”

“Definitely,” The grin had widened, covering Louis’ entire face now. “More than best friends too! Man, who would’ve thought after that card game where you denied having feelings for anyone that you were in fact lying. You do have feelings for someone, someone named Louis. Which just so happens to be my name!”

Before Louis could say anything more, Clementine leaned upwards, capturing his lips in a quick kiss. Screw caution, she was going for what she wanted.

Louis met the kiss eagerly, his own lips pressing against hers, causing a small moan to escape Clementine’s lips.

Clementine immediately drew back, her face overheating as she realized the sound she’d just made. She glanced up to see how Louis was taking it, but he seemed to be in some sort of blissful haze, giggling excitedly as he looked over at her.

“God, how lucky am I? I’ve got the coolest best friend in the world and now it turns out she likes me too? That’s the dream,”

Clementine smiled up at Louis, basking in the moment. This was what she’d wanted all along. She’d just been too scared to let herself admit it until now. Thinking of the others, she turned her head to look back, hoping that none of them had thought to come check on them. “Do you think we ought to head back? We did stir up a lot of drama back there,”

“Ah, it can wait till tomorrow,” Louis waved his hand dismissively. “A moment like this calls for celebration. I’ll have you know I did not plan to call the song I played for you that night “Super Fun Times Friend Song”. I hereby retract that title so I can assign it one more befitting,”

“And what exactly did you have in mind?” Clementine asked, her eyes crinkling in amusement at Louis’ excitement.

“’Clementine’. Y’know, because I like fruit. And I like you even more so… there,”

That had Clementine blushing. She felt her face heating up as Louis began to play the song, the beautiful melody filling the room and dancing around them. Clementine let the music seep into her bones, taking in how much this song meant to Louis. It was the first thing he’d ever composed and he’d named it after her. That was the greatest gift she could ever imagine.

Slowly Clementine let her head rest upon Louis’ shoulder. She felt him flinch for an instant, but he didn’t miss a beat, continuing on with his music without dropping a single note. Clementine closed her eyes. She could see why Louis had gone to double check the piano. She didn’t quite believe this was real herself. But it was. She was home, she was happy, and her best friend was now something so much more to her. She felt complete.

#twdg #clouis #twdg louis #twdg clementine #fluff #fanfic

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