#...Until you clunk him over the head with a bat and knock him out (thank you Wendy)
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Me when Bill has to spend a dozen or so chapters in a dumb little suit and he can't start experimenting with Lost and Found outfits until later
#Hayley Writes Triangulum#The whole point of him starting out in a little suit is to give off that sort of 'Oh I'm that big intimidating guy who nearly destroyed-#-the entire universe' feeling you'd usually get from other human versions of him#Even if he's stuck as a teenager; imagine Bipper 2.0 getting plopped on your front lawn and the first thing he does when he wakes up-#-is start cackling maniacally#And you knew EXACTLY who he was as a result#Even if he's a kid; that's still intimidating#...Until you clunk him over the head with a bat and knock him out (thank you Wendy)#But STILL!!#The suit is SYMBOLIC to a degree; in that Bill is still trying to be that intimidating figure#Also he needs it for an exhibit he's going to be a part of#It also acts as a double-edged sword; it's just another way he's trapped in a situation#But it's not until later when he can start experimenting with his own style and wear other clothes#And feel a bit more free as he also starts rediscovering himself#(And also being less of a dick hopefully)
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KOT Ficlet #5 (Momoya Natsu/ Yoshinaga Atsumu)
When the lights start flashing like a photo booth (And the stars exploding, we'll be fireproof.)
Warning: Themes of underage drinking and implied sexual content.
Natsu roughly based on this art by @sasukeslove
A small AU on MomoYoshi's first meeting:
...
Natsu is six when he learns about Angels.
He’s perched on mama’s lap, carrying a new storybook with tiny hands and slowly pronouncing all the words. Her proud smile encourages him to read the larger words too, the ones he’d avoid out of embarrassment—something about a pro-fe-cky and a pro-mice that He exists up there somewhere, over the pillowy clouds watching down on them.
Mama tucks him in that night and tells Natsu to close his eyes and pray because Angels only come to good boys.
He’s ten when it all sounds like bullshit to him.
Over the years, Mom’s rosy smile had withered into a fatigued sigh, a cry for help to the God that never answers no matter how much they pray. Dad was more a guest than a resident. He came around once in a while to eat lunch—with a taut smile plastered eerily over his smooth features—and swiftly vanish to not return in that week .
They’ve stopped waiting for him and Natsu stops asking questions.
He’s thirteen when he meets Sei, a child around his age, except so much more charming and calm and composed for someone that carried half the same set of genes Natsu had. He learns of his father’s betrayal and is honestly shocked at his own lack of surprise. Still, he questions his God and why why why would He let mom’s heart shatter like that?
Sei is quick to laugh and tell him that God doesn’t exist and mom is just a victim to their monster of a father.
So he goes home that day to his outraged mother, hair coloured like glittery Christmas tinsel and sapphire lenses replacing his usual shade of honey brown. She snaps at the sight, yelling at him till her throat closes up, till nothing but a harsh sob escapes her and he lets her. They both had to cope somehow.
By the fall of his fourteenth year, he gets pierced four times and stops talking to his mother almost completely.
To hell with dad. To hell with God.
Natsu is fifteen, and he doesn’t care about anything anymore.
He’s fifteen and quickly realising from his daily job as a guitarist in the club that girls aren't attractive no matter how much they flock around him. He still humours them sometimes, a touch here, a kiss there since the pay is good enough for him to add some extra service on his part.
Mom plies herself with work as often as possible, to douse her misery in the decayed scent of piled papers and clunking keyboards. She leaves Natsu to deal with everything else on his own like the obedient son he is, letting him go like dad left her.
Natsu is alright, though. He’s done this far longer than she knows.
He stops reaching out to her, stops talking to someone up in the skies, settling instead to live a tranquil life in the shadows, under the dependable shade of music. He hates people. He hates the world.
Natsu is basking in the warmth of another uneventful day in the club, when in walks a boy out of fucking nowhere and his entire world tips on its axis.
The boy takes shaky, wary steps as if he were balancing on a trapeze. Dark black bangs like thick black rain spill over the side of his face, half covering wide brown eyes. Splotches of pink and porcelain white stick out where his sweater ends and skin begins. He’s small and delicate and beautiful, Natsu’s heart skips a beat. Or two. Or maybe three.
And why should he lie? Natsu has seen beautiful, quite a few varieties of it too. But this…this was different. This was unreal.
The boy looks around nervously before he catches something and there’s a spark in those hazel eyes, sharp and electric, a smile tugging at his lips.
Natsu follows his gaze. On the stage lies his own guitar—a pre-performance habit for people to know he was next. He took great pride because this itself garnered more clusters than anyone in the entire house.
Natsu smiles. So he was a fan.
He downs the customary shot of vodka, waving at the people before hopping on stage and wrapping the sling around his neck. He scours the audience for a familiar face and it doesn’t take a lot, to spot a splatter of ink black in the crowd, batting eager eyelids at him. The smaller boy realises the attention on him and glances behind to confirm his suspicion.
By the time he swings around, eyes blown wide in a stare, Natsu plays the first chord.
In an instant, his expression shifts to a mix of awe and interest, a silent worship and a loud cheer compiled in one small, thin body. He claps more than anyone else in the room, beaming like a floodlight by the time Natsu finishes.
It was nothing strange. He played among cheers every day but none felt as satisfying with this voice hooting and clearly standing out from his regular gang of squealing girls. He throws his head back laughing back stage when no one is there to see.
By the time Natsu gets out on the floor again, a little more thrilled for the night and dressed in something less flashy, he’s gone. He screws his lips in displeasure and asks his friend to make him something stronger than the usual.
This happens more nights than not, and it was frustrating him.
The moment Angel boy—as he’s dubbed him, steps in through the door, Natsu traces his every move and quickly registers a pattern. He only comes around on days the club was the busiest—specifically during Natsu’s performance, talks to no one and leaves before he has the chance to even ask a name.
Not that Natsu was interested in him or anything. He was just curious, is all—why this boy looked like a starved pet every time he saw him on stage and if he really smelled like soft winter blankets and warm fireplaces, all angelic and pure.
Okay, so maybe he was a little interested.
Months pass like that.
The mid-November chill comes with its blistering snowstorms and the club is jam packed—winters were some of their busiest months—and Natsu’s up to perform. Instead of preparing, he watches the door resolutely from the bar, tapping impatiently at the table.
As routine, it barely opens a crack, and he sees a sliver of ebony snaking it’s way through the crowd. The boy stands on his tippy-toes which don’t give him much of a view, so he does these tiny jumps—that are so adorable, for a second Natsu forgets his own name—and scowls when he notices no guitar on stage.
He checks the time, the stage and then scans the crowd. The anticipation throbs through Natsu as he follows his eyes cross the room in slow motion, dragging dragging until they eventually land on him. Everything stills—the thundering music, the singing and all he can hear is the low thump of veins against his skin.
It’s over in a flash.
“That your Angel boy?” The bartender gestures at the figure turning tail and running, drying the pad on his prized work station. He skillfully pours two coloured liquids into an oddly shaped glass and passes it over the counter to him.
Natsu hums, swirling the absinthe stained drink in hand, eyeing the smaller boy gasp as a couple slams against the door, clearly piss drunk with her suspended over his thighs and gyrating her hips into the man.
“Hey, chief.”
“Hm?”
“You think I can get off early tonight?”
The man raises an eyebrow. “Like when?”
“Like now.” Natsu answers, never letting his gaze falter from the head full of black hair slowly receding through the crowd, horrified.
The man guffaws, lifting a glass of water—since he can’t drink on duty—and clinking it with Natsu’s.
“Must be fuckin’ Christmas if you’re taking interest in anyone, so I’ll let this one pass. Don’t scare him off now. He already looks like a trembling lamb.”
Natsu knocks back the contents, swallowing the liquid till it numbs his entire mouth and smirks.
“I’ll try.”
So he follows the boy. Hands are immediately all over him from faces he recognises in passing—a girl he once kissed, someone that made him cake, but he pushes them off.
His boy of interest forces the hood of his shirt up all the way, and glances behind him once before increasing his pace. Maybe the lights are really getting to him and maybe Natsu is a little tipsy when he reaches out to grab his hand.
The boy flips around to lock eyes frantically, as if a ghost had seized him.
“Hey.” Natsu musters his sweetest smile.
“Hi..” The boy replies.
And oh, his voice. It’s sugary sweet and so so soft like—like actual rolls of smooth and silky cotton had woven them. He blushes fiercely under Natsu’s relentless gaze and stares where their hands were connected in a tight grip as if it burned holes through him.
Natsu frowns. “Don’t run.”
The boy’s gaze shoots up, and he’s pulling away.
“I-I’m sorry I really h-have to go—”
“It’s my birthday.” Goddamn, he must be really wasted to admit that. Now that he thinks about it, what did he just drink?
Twentieth November, the day he was born and incidentally also the day he found his father’s tongue down another woman’s throat, holding a child over his shoulder.
“Oh,” The boy stops, pursing his lips and letting the hood go all the way down before flashing easily one of the most ethereal smiles Natsu has ever seen.
“Happy birthday.”
“Thanks,” he replies awkwardly. “It’s not going really well.”
“No?”
Natsu nods. “It’s nothing different.”
“You want it to be special?”
The buzz in his nerves practically screamed a yes to that—he wanted something to remember, to bury the horrible memories he associated with this day, for the days he wished he was never born in the first place. He wanted to fit it all in this one boy in one night, this angel he didn’t even know, to free him from himself.
Natsu tightens his grip. “Dance with me?”
Oh boy, the alcohol was talking.
Angel boy looks at Natsu with wide doe eyes, peers back at their hands and gulps. Natsu frowns and releases his hold. He was drunk, probably a little more than he’d admit to, but he didn’t want to pressurize anyone—not when this boy already looked so out of his element, a beige hoodie and skinny jeans in a club full of scantily clad folk.
But he reverses the roles, grabbing Natsu by the fingers so delicately, he releases a soft hum of satisfaction. He rubs fingers between his own, feeling the brush of calloused fingertips on them. It reminds him of mom’s soft chest rising and falling when she slept beside him because he was her ‘perfect little angel’ and made him feel safe.
He misses it. Misses being safe. Misses being loved.
“Okay,” the boy mumbles, peering from under his natural hood of hair with a light smile. “Okay. Let’s dance.”
Natsu doesn’t really know what he’s doing anymore. The lights blink and they’re suddenly in stop motion. It tricks his brain into thinking of them as pictures trapped some place in his brain forever. So he stares and stares and captures the blush spreading like wildfire across the boy’s face, a smile widening in tandem with the soft beats.
They’re two faces among a thousand on a random winter night. The music isn’t his type nor is his attire anything to be proud of. But this boy. Holy heavens, if he isn’t the prettiest thing ever then the stars should be ashamed because damn, he’d beat them even on a bad day.
His hair sways—a steady swing of left right left right and a pleasant smile sits snug on his features like that’s where they belonged, that’s where they had always belonged and Natsu closes his eyes when their hands meet again.
This is perfect.
It’s when the music stills that they transition to a slower lull of movement, and the blaze of liquor in his blood emboldens him into yanking the boy a little closer. He lets him fall with a small plop on his chest and laughs when he rubs his nose, scowling.
“Why do you never wait back?” He asks, exhaling at the warmth the boy’s presence brings. Natsu puts his hand around his waist and he swears, it was like he wasn’t human, like someone had sculpted him out of clay, moulded to near perfection. And maybe he’s treading into dangerous waters, but his mouth had a mind of its own and there’s nothing he could do to stop it.
“I always look for you after I’m done but you’re never here.”
Pair of hazelnut eyes sheepishly peer at him.
“I’m sorry. I’m just.… not good at socializing.”
“So you say,” Natsu laughs, “But you’re doing better than me.”
“No way!”
“Yes way.”
“You have to be kidding me you’re so cool—and and so beautiful I really cannot—since the beginning I haven’t been able to take my eyes off—”
He squeaks when he's dragged closer by the small of his back. Their eyes meet. Natsu sees flashes of every happy moment of his life mirrored in them; His first recital, mom’s naturally loud laugh, the first time he played the guitar. They reach into Natsu’s soul and drag out his joy like the reel of a kite.
“I thought you were an angel,” he chuckles so close, he feels the boy shiver against his cheek. “I still do. Everyone here calls you Angel boy. Score a drink from them with that name sometime. I’m sure they’ll oblige you.”
“Angel? I—” He breathes a giggle, twisting silver strands with his fingers. “If there’s any angel here, it’s you.”
But this is fake, he wants to say. It’s fake, artificial, made of desperation because he never wants to look into the mirror and see his father’s face staring back at him. He won’t be him. He won’t.
“Atsumu,” he says. “My name is Atsumu.”
“Atsumu.” Natsu repeats in his head till it rolls naturally over his tongue. Like Atsu meaning heat and summer and everything bright and cheery.
Natsu purposefully lingers near his ear, to breathe his name in the air, smiling, content.
“ ‘Tsumu. It’s cute,” he hums. “You’re cute.”
“Are you drunk?”
“Definitely.” He chuckles.
Atsumu whispers, low and uneasy. “C-can I ask you something?”
“Mhmm.” At this point, his voice gave him a greater high than the drink he had downed fifteen minutes ago. Or was it an hour? He couldn’t really tell and decided very quickly he didn’t care, anyway.
“Why don’t you.. come to school?”
Natsu’s eyes open a crack to glimpse at the boy who trembles softly under him, as if he were admitting to a crime.
“I—” he continues in alarm, “I swear I’m not a stalker I just—Oh my god please don’t misunderstand me—”
“Calm down.” Natsu shushes, smiling apologetically at the few people around him that had been torn out of their aggressive make-out session as if they weren’t the ones that needed a room. God, if he sees another dick hanging out, he’ll have to bust out the chainsaw in the basement and go wild.
“So,” he leads them to a quieter corner with very few people and lesser eyes their way. “School,” he waves a hand dismissively, “It’s boring. Lots of people. Annoying questions. You know the drill.”
“Right,” he gulps. “Right so, I’m uhh—in your class I don’t think you noticed and I’m from an instrument club and someone asked us a question. Something about erotic sounds—wait that sounds bad—not erotic erotic but.…Ah, I’m bad at explaining.”
Natsu doesn’t keep back the dreamy giggle that leaves him, swaying lightly to the music. He’s exactly as he imagined—hell, even his name was spot on—all warm and giggly and fluttery.
“I’m still listening,” Natsu smiles. “Go on.”
Atsumu scrunches his nose and continues. “So one of my club seniors—he comes of a little rough but he’s really nice—went to one of my other seniors house who I think he really likes, and her mother told him it’s—I’m sorry am I too confusing?”
“I think I can manage.”
“Okay, so basically, her mother says it’s the pause in between his words and actions. The space that is just…there. And so I was writing about it—because I write everything—and Oka-kun saw my book.”
Natsu scowls. “Oka is annoying like that.”
The boy giggles this time. “Funny. He said you’d say that.”
“It’d be nice if he attempted to change it, then.”
“And so he told me you play music, where you work and that maybe you could do something good for once—I didn’t say that he did—So…” He moves his hand vaguely around them. “Here I am.”
Natsu hums against his head, bringing him to a slower pace as the song changes.
“I’ll have to thank him for that.”
“You’re not..angry?” He says through furrowed brows. “Oka-kun said you would be if you found out.”
He’s certain if Oka showed up here uninvited, Natsu would promptly kick him out. Because Oka is annoying. Atsumu however….
“So? Did you get your answer?” He asks instead.
The smaller boy makes a face, pulling all his features in to make his button nose stand out more than it already does and pout.
Natsu laughs. He’s been doing a lot of that today. Laughing.
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“Don’t get me wrong! Your performances are splendid and I really can’t get enough of them but the answer…I still haven’t reached a conclusion.”
Natsu plays with the fingers in his hand, shuffling to let them sink into the gap between his. Atsumu stares and responds by shyly tucking his fingers in.
“Want me to help you?” He whispers, tapping the side of Atsumu’s waist with his other hand.
“Can you?” He whispers back.
Can he? Yes. Should he? Probably not.
But what use is logic anyway, when a boy the embodiment of a sunny summer day amid a bitter winter stood enclosed in his arms?
Yeah. To hell with logic.
Natsu sways his hips, raking his free hand through Atsumu’s hair. He releases a pleased sigh when the tiny fingers between his tighten as if it were the only thing anchoring him to reality, which was good. Natsu felt the same, like his sanity was slowly slipping through open fingers.
“Spaces…exist everywhere. In words, in voices, in time…” He draws their joined hands to his mouth, dragging wet lips over porcelain skin. Atsumu shudders, breathing in sharp, shallow exhales.
“These hands..there’s a space in between them too if you look carefully. We’re so close,” fingers tighten around his shirt. “But still never close enough.
He runs a palm down the boy’s face that angles and angles till plush, red lips are within kissing distance. They part and blow warm clouds of air that taste mint and chocolate in his mouth. Natsu smiles. “Space is where there is distance. Space is where there is intimacy. Space is where there is friction. And this exciting gap that keeps us wanting to be closer till not even an atom could squeeze in—” he leans in closer, “—is erotic.”
He backs away while he has the physical capacity to do so, before the alcohol overrides every decision in his head and they end up a tangled mess of limbs in some random hotel room, but Atsumu having none of it.
He pulls Natsu to himself, clutching the pleats of his shirt and tugging him down to his lips. Teeth knock loudly against each other and Natsu hisses lightly, parting to lick the tingle in the tip of his incisor away.
“S-sorry!” Atsumu covers his embarrassment behind shaky hands. Natsu wraps thin fingers under his chin, reeling him in slow and steady and closes the distance. It’s soft, like a snowflake on a tree, virgin snow settling on frozen water and ironically, melts him. It boils and freezes, ignites his soul into a firework of bursting flames. He’s touching, feeling, pulling until every inhale feels like fire in his lungs.
“Closer,” Atsumu murmurs, throwing nimble hands over his shoulder and locking their lips together like puzzle pieces on a gameboard. “Make the space go away.”
It’s chaotic, and it’s magical. Like every star in the galaxy twinkled around them tonight, like every blossoming flower settled wherever Atsumu touched him. He’s drunk on vodka, drunk on happiness, drunk on love.
Closer. Natsu pushes a knee in between his thighs. His mouth hangs open in a silent moan, eyes slowly rolling into the back of his head.
Closer. The hands in his air pull him in for another searing kiss, pressing for entry, to delve deeper, deeper into themselves. Atsumu nibbles lightly on his lip and Natsu lets him bruise him for tonight. To wreck him, destroy him.
Closer.
They settle for a slower casual rhythm when they part to breathe. He keeps them moving on the floor, smiling against a pair of swollen lips.
“School suddenly sounds much more interesting.” He says.
Atsumu squints incredulously. “We can’t do this at school.”
“No?”
“No!”
Natsu shrugs, pecking the tip of the boy’s nose. “Shame.”
“Then you’ll come?” Atsumu bumps his forehead against Natsu’s. “I’ll really see you tomorrow?”
“If you can walk home straight after tonight, then sure.”
Atsumu gasps and slaps him across the back, blushing as they leave the club, hand in hand, away into the wintery night.
Natsu turns sixteen—a little drunk, a lot happy—but he’s sixteen and he can pinpoint this as the day he falls in love even years later.
And every other birthday is insignificant but so much better, spent at home, in the arms of the boy that saved him in just one night, all those years ago.
Mom only ever asks where he’s going and who he’s moving in with while he packs his bags to leave. She frowns when he answers with the widest smile on his face, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“An Angel.”
Ignore the sloppy writing haha. I'm writing this while travelling back home after a god awful six hour exam.
It felt too plotless to post on my ao3 kdkcd—
If you look at the colouring of Natsu I based it on (go give @sasukeslove all the real love), I imagine the art as the morning after when Oka's annoying Natsu and Atsumu walks in through the door (≧▽≦)
#kono oto tomare!#kotedit#kot#ao3#dailykot#fanfic#kono oto#ficlet#momoyoshi#momoya natsu#atsumu yoshinaga#Spotify
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At Garden’s Edge Chapter 4- Chapter 4: I know I only buy plants I end up killing from you, but we’re friends right? Delightful. So. I had a terrible awful day and-
( Beta read by Tarek_giverofcookies )
At Garden’s Edge
Chapter 4- I know I only buy plants I end up killing from you, but we’re friends right? Delightful. So. I had a terrible awful day and-
The next time Aziraphale saw him was not because of a dead plant, though the poor thing was looking rather dicey the last time he had checked in on it, but because he’d had a rotten day. Followed by a terrible night, only to wake up even more peeved the next day after being unable to sleep more than fitfully. Memories of that awful day buzzed around in his head incessantly only making his mood curdle even more.
He’d had some more than unpleasant intruders that had barged in, souring a rare book deal he’d spent months setting up, and kicked up a sizable fuss about matters Aziraphale has less than no desire to revisit, and the whole exchange had left him rather vexed.
Tracy, a lovely woman with a quick wit, was away on her honeymoon and as a new (if you count five months as new) resident of Soho and perhaps a bit of a recluse, his only other friend in the city (excluding book dealers of whom he had no wish to talk to as he was currently) was Crowley. Crowley was also possibly the only other person who might be awake at this hour. He did run a flower shop after all.
It's not until Aziraphale is juggling two hot disposable cups into one hand/arm to pull open the door to the flower shop only to be met with locked resistance that he realizes he doesn't actually know what time the flower shop opens at. It had just always been open any time he came by so he assumed... well, hm.
Looking at the unfamiliar door, unfamiliar in that he'd only really ever saw it propped open and never closed, he looked for any sign of hours. There was a window in the middle of the top half of a door with a sign that simply said "closed" without offering anything else.
Aziraphale frowned.
Well. Perhaps he was setting up but not quite open and wouldn't mind a coffee to start his morning. Mind made up, he knocked on the door "Crowley? It's me, Aziraphale."
It was just as his eyes caught sight of the white etched words on the window "closed Mondays and at 6pm" what no opening time? that the door flung open forcing him into a hurried two step side step maneuver to keep from having his nose unbeautifully bashed in.
Still juggling the cups and his balance he was further unprepared to look up and see Crowley in quite the state. For one, his sunglasses were jammed haphazardly onto his face, and for another he looked rather spooked, body language tense as if preparing for something terrible. Being so close Aziraphale could see Crowley’s pulse hammering in his throat and that new information had his gaze snapping back up to his face. It’d been a while but he’d seen that posturing before.
Putting on his most charming smile Aziraphale politely ignored the panic Crowley was shoving down, and the way his body was teetering on the edge of the fight from his fight or flight response. Aziraphale would have taken a step back to give him some breathing room if he hadn’t thought that it would spook the dear even more. Instead, smile still intact even as he took in other details he had overlooked, a small white cord painted to match the door frame it sat against, shoulders squared and braced for impact, arm out of view likely holding some kind of weapon, he said “good morning Crowley. I brought coffee.”
Crowley blinked, adrenaline rushing out of his body evident through the sagging of his shoulders and spine. Something softly clunked against the marble floor out of Aziraphale’s sight, most likely wooden from the sound it made against the ground.
“Ah- I- you- ngk,” Crowley drug a hand down his face, weariness evident in every line of his body. “C’mon in,” he finally settled on, moving out of the way for him to come in.
Aziraphale smiled brightly at that. “Thank you dear. I’m afraid I’ve come before the shop opened, haven’t I?” He politely ignored the baseball bat laying on the floor beside the door instead focusing on other details he failed to notice before and realized Crowley was in a pair of black silk pajama bottoms with a hoodie hastily shoved on. “Oh, oh my, I’m terribly sorry. I’ve interrupted your sleep haven’t I?”
Before Aziraphale could fret too badly about showing up not only unannounced and before the shop opened, but also intruding during when he was clearly sleeping, Crowley waved him off. “Nah- I mean yeah, but I should get up soon anyways for the shop.” He paused after re-locking the front door and peered through the gaps in the shutters over the large windows in the front of the shop and grumbled seemingly to himself, “what time is it anyways?”
“Ah.” Whoops.
Crowley turned rather slowly to face him, the exaggerated movement something like a horror flick would have.
“Well, hm, well it’s probably around,” what wouldn’t be too much of a stretch? He got up around 4 but the cafe didn’t open until 7am and it probably took him about five for the non-existent line and another twenty to get here so, “quarter to eight?”
“Ughhhhhh,” Crowley let both hands drag down his face, knocking his glasses askew until he caught them as they slid off his face.
As cheerfully and encouragingly as he could Aziraphale reminded him, “I brought you coffee!”
“Alright, alright,” Crowley gave in and before opening his eyes he replaced the sunglasses on his face. “Let me just -yawn- get us some chairs. Here, follow me.”
Aziraphale followed him to the back of the shop where the cash register was and waited by the counter on the stool Crowley had pulled from behind it for Aziraphale while the man disappeared into the back room of the shop.
He returned with a wheeled chair he then plopped down into with another yawn but shot Aziraphale a grin before he could apologize. “You said there was coffee?
“Oh, yes. Yes of course, here you go my dear.”
Crowley paused for a moment when taking the coffee from Aziraphale and for a moment he worried that perhaps he should have gotten him tea or something else. But then Crowley gave him a grateful smile and sat back in his seat, cradling the coffee between both hands as he brought it up to his face to take a deep breath.
“Mm.. Smells like... plain black coffee?” He raised his eyebrows in question.
“Yes. Oh, should I have perhaps added cream or sugar? Only I didn’t know how you took it and figured if you liked it sweeter you’d have sugar but mayhaps I should have grabbed some of those packets...”
“Nah, it’s fine.” He took a deep drink, settling back as it warmed him up from the inside out, “s’good. It’ll wake me up.”
After watching him for a moment longer and determining that he did indeed mean that, Aziraphale allowed himself to relax as much as possible on the stool and enjoy his hot tea.
“So how come you brought me coffee?” Crowley asked after a moment before hastily tacking on a “not that I don’t appreciate it! I do. Just, uh, well, why?”
“Oh, well,” suddenly Aziraphale was unsure. It was one thing to come by right at opening and offer coffee with a smile and then ease into a chat about their week and quite another to have woken someone up from their sleep just to complain about your day.
Crowley looked up at him again, long spindly fingers wrapped snugly around his paper cup, looking all for the world like a snake basking in its heat what with the way his whole body curled around it, hoodie and all. One leg was folded up under him entirely while the other was propped up, foot on the cushion, knee nearly to his chin, like a man who clearly didn’t know how to sit properly in a chair.
“Oh?” He looked suddenly more interested and curious, “is it something embarrassing?”
“Ah, well, not exactly,” Aziraphale floundered for a moment, “more of, I wouldn’t have woken you up for it.”
“Pssh, not like I’m going back to sleep now. M’already awake.”
Yes, Aziraphale privately agreed, after the adrenaline kick he had got it would be rather hard to get back to sleep now.
“C’mon, you can tell me.” Crowley grinned and Aziraphale gave in with a sigh as if this wasn’t what he had wanted to do all along anyway.
“Oh, alright. It’s not terribly interesting I was just... most vexed.”
“Oh?” Already Crowley was leaning forward in his chair like he actually cared what Aziraphale was going to say. Well. Who was he to deny him now?
“Yesterday,” he started, resolved to tell the tale now and gain a sympathetic ear to be upset together with, “I had the most rude and inconsiderate guests who didn’t even come by for my services! They came in just to disrupt everything, taking up my time and just generally being a nuisance and worst of all, worst of all, they scared away Mr. Dulaney!”
“Mr. Dulaney?”
“He’s this, well, rather... difficult rare book trader.”
“Difficult,” Crowley repeated with a small smirk growing on his lips before he raised the cup to his lips for a drink.
“Yes, difficult. He’s more than reticent to part with any book and in particular he has this first edition misprint of the bible, they call it the Wicked Bible this particular misprint, and I’ve been wearing him down for-”
“I’m sorry, the what bible!?”
Aziraphale sighed, wanting to get to the good bits of his story already but relented, not all that unwillingly he found, at the sight of Crowley delightedly surprised.
“The Wicked Bible, for it’s misprint, it omitted the word ‘not’ in the commandment ‘thou shalt not commit adultery’.”
“No kidding,” Crowley breathed with fiendish delight.
Aziraphale couldn’t quite fight back the grin as he added, “there’s a fair amount of bibles all with different misprints, some as amusing as that one.” And then, since Crowley looked so interested and curious, Aziraphale launched into a long spiel about the different bible misprints and then on how a rare few misprints were due to mischief. Then that topic wound into how the monks who transcribed things before the printing press came along would often write in the margins revealing just how bored, mischievous, and scandalous some of them were which led into a conversation about the delights of illuminated manuscripts, even the ones without too much of the delightful commentary from monks.
By the time Aziraphale finally got back to his original story, with a not-so-quick detour about various frustrating, yet humorous in hindsight, interactions with the Mr. Dulaney, the sun was hot and bright in the sky.
When Aziraphale finally bid goodbye so Crowley could get changed and open up the shop, nearly the whole shop floor was basking in the bright warmth of the morning sun streaming in through the sky lights. Aziraphale felt lighter than he had in days, and almost as bright as the shop, glowing as he left with a smile on his face. He even found it easier to deal with rude customers that wrongly assumed his shop was a bookshop in the sense that he would ever sell his books.
Perhaps he would bring Crowley a coffee early one morning again. Though this time he’d respectfully wait until Crowley opened up his shop for the morning.
....wait.
When did he open the shop?
Fiddlesticks!
-
Alternatively Titled: I had a bad day, please let me tell you all about it oh no, so sorry, didn’t mean to expose your anxiety and paranoia
#Good Omens#Good Omens Fanfic#Good Omens fic#Ineffable Husbands#Crowley#Aziraphale#Just Ineffable#gomens fic#At Garden's Edge#My writing#Multi Chapter Story#Multi Chapter Fic#Humor#Comedy#also on ao3#Beta read by Tarek_giverofcookies
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LET’S GET THIS PARTY STARTED!!!
It’s @csrolereversal AND @cshalloweek time!!! Roughly one BILLION thanks to @sherlockianwhovian for making sure my words make sense and, of course, @courtorderedcake for her lovely art that inspired this story. Without further ado, I present:
A Fan of Every Part of You
A Captain Swan Halloweek Story in three parts
AO3 if that’s your jam: Ch1 | Ch2 | Ch3
Killian Jones has a really loud, destructive upstairs neighbor, and he's about to lose his patience with them. But when he discovers that it's a beautiful witch with a soft spot for his dangerous familiar, Captain, that complicates things just a bit.
Chapter One:
*BANG*
Killian jumped in the air at the noise, dropping the jar of bearberry he’d been holding.
“Bloody hell. That was expensive,” Killian groaned, leaning down to clean up his mess. It was far from the first time he’d dropped an expensive ingredient for one of his potions, but until recently, it had at least been his own fault. Now, however, he had a new neighbor upstairs.
A very loud neighbor.
He’d never met them, of course, but it seemed like perhaps it was not one, but several hundred people up above his head.
Or perhaps several hundred elephants.
*BANG* *CRASH*
That’s it, Killian thought to himself, grabbing his broom.
*TAP TAP TAP*
He poked the handle of the broom against his ceiling at what he hoped was a loud enough volume that the mysterious, noise-making neighbor would hear it. He didn’t dare poke any harder for fear of breaking the old thing clean in half.
*BANG BANG BANG*
It was the unmistakable sound of a foot being stomped on the ground above his head, at the same rhythm at which he’d just poked the broom.
“Seriously? Is there a six-year-old living above me now?” Killian grumbled at what he thought was an appropriate level for his own living space.
“No, is there a jackass living below me now?” a muffled voice responded from above.
Ah, his new neighbor was a woman then. At least he knew something about her now, although that didn’t make him any less frustrated by her noise level or the fact that she could apparently hear him through the floor of her apartment.
“No, just someone who’s tired of dropping all of his expensive ingredients due to a bunch of surprising noises from above!” Killian yelled back.
“Then maybe you should be more careful!”
“Pot, meet kettle!”
There was silence then.
Followed by a lot of noise on the stairwell, and then a loud banging on Killian’s door.
He groaned.
“Come to show your face then, finally?” he asked as he swung the door open, holding it carefully so that his familiar, Captain, was just out of view. What he saw in front of him was… not what he expected. The woman standing in his doorway, who was so angry there were literal red waves of infuriated energy coming off of her, was beautiful.
Beautiful, and angry, and with a loud, vibrant energy that glowed around her much brighter than anyone he’d seen before.
Of course.
He held the door steady with his right hand, ignoring Captain’s low groan from the couch.
It wasn’t that Killian was ashamed of Captain. Not at all. Killian was quite proud of the large creature taking up residence on his couch. It was just that Captain was… misunderstood.
Growing up, as all of his friends had started showing off their familiars, Killian had been without one. He had waited, and waited, and waited. He wanted to know that companionship so badly. But it wasn’t until his older brother had died that Captain had appeared. Without Liam, Killian was forced to grow up very quickly, and so Captain had been borne of grief, sorrow, and loneliness.
The problem was that Captain wasn’t an ordinary familiar. Most witches had created birds or cats, or even a few dogs. There were a few others -- some large cats among his friends with tendencies toward dark magic.
But Killian’s own familiar was the only hybrid he’d ever seen. Captain was larger than a panther, though he had the look of one. He had a lion’s mane, which would have looked a bit out of place if not for his constant look of regality, and huge bat-like wings. He was quite intimidating to say the least.
At first, before Killian had realized just how out-of-place his familiar was, he’d ventured out as usual, walking down the street to the store at any time of day, Captain steady by his side.
But then the strange looks had begun, and the whispers. It took Killian a month to realize that people were, in fact, scared of him.
“It’s not your fault,” Ruby, the witch who ran the local herb store, told him. Ruby had been the only person to tell Killian to his face that his familiar was… not normal. She was also the only person whose energy didn’t immediately turn to a cold, ice blue whenever they saw Killian with his familiar by his side. “You said his name’s Captain?” Killian nodded. “Well, Captain looks pretty dangerous, you know? Which means… you could be dangerous. So… that’s why people are acting so strangely.”
Killian didn’t ask why she wasn’t afraid of him. The glint in her eye told him he probably didn’t want to know.
Ashamed of himself and whatever danger must lie in his soul, Killian had stopped venturing out during the day. Ruby stayed at work late whenever he needed supplies, and that arrangement had meant that no one new had seen Captain in about five years.
It also meant that Killian hadn’t really spoken to anyone besides Ruby and the grocery delivery boy in that long.
Until right now.
“Can you please stop banging on your ceiling when I’m trying to work?” the angry blonde woman nearly screamed in his face. “It’s very distracting, and I’m working with very sensitive spells.”
“Pardon, milady, but your raucous noises are causing me quite a bit of disturbance as well.” Killian gestured towards the mess of bearberry on the floor of his kitchen. “That was rather expensive, and I can’t get to the store for at least another six hours.”
He winced, realizing belatedly that he’d revealed too much. He was really terrible at the whole personal interaction thing.
Just a bit rusty, he thought to himself.
“Why not?” the woman asked, arching an eyebrow suspiciously.
“I… er… I can’t…” Killian stammered. Finally, after an embarrassing amount of ear scratching (his) and death stares (hers), he decided it might just be easier to show her than to continue this silent battle. “This is Captain,” he said, opening the door wider and revealing the oversized winged panther lying on top of his couch. “If you cross the threshold, I can’t promise he won’t do something stupid. He’s very protective.”
“He’s beautiful,” she said quietly, and the energy around her shifted from dark, angry red to a soft green. “I’m Emma,” she added as an afterthought, holding out her hand.
“Killian,” he said, shaking her hand once. “Killian Jones.”
“Well, Killian, I’m sorry I made you spill your… what exactly was that?”
“Bearberry,” he answered automatically. She looked genuinely apologetic, and Killian wasn’t sure what exactly changed her attitude, but he was certainly thankful for it.
“I’ll try to keep it down, or at least give you some warning.” She smiled softly at him.
“Er… thanks. Thank you,” he responded awkwardly. She nodded once and then turned towards the stairs to go back to her apartment.
An hour later, there was a soft knock at Killian’s door. He looked through the peephole, but no one was there. Cautiously, he opened the door just a tad, and there was a soft thud by his feet.
A bundle of bearberry had fallen over without the door to hold it up. There was a note, and Killian found himself smiling before he had even opened it.
Mr. Jones, I apologize again for making you spill your bearberry. This should be enough to get you through for a bit. I’ve also thrown in a small treat for Captain.
Enjoy,
E. Swan
********
The strange thing about quiet is that it makes you miss the noise. So when two days went by without a single crash, boom, or clunk from upstairs, Killian grew worried. It took him a third day to gather up the courage to knock on her door.
As soon as it opened, he heard a whole plethora of noises. Whirrs and clanks and, of course, crashes.
“Swan, what the hell?”
He wasn’t sure why it came out of his mouth. But when she’d signed the note “E. Swan” he’d pictured her and her beautiful face and well… okay, she wasn’t exactly graceful or swanlike but somehow, still, ‘Swan’ seemed to suit her.
She hesitated a moment, a blush creeping up her neck.
“I charmed the apartment. So you wouldn’t hear… all of this.” She grabbed a loose strand of hair and started twisting it in her hands. “I felt bad. About before.”
It really wasn’t a grand gesture. She had cast a fairly simple charm so that her neighbors wouldn’t be disturbed by all the noise constantly coming from her apartment. A miniscule part of Killian’s brain wondered why she hadn’t done that to begin with, but he ignored it in favor of the more prominent thought in his mind: she’d done this for him.
“You didn’t have to… that’s very kind.”
An awkward silence fell over them before Killian glanced behind her into her apartment. It was nearly identical to his in layout, but where he kept his living space organized and tidy, Emma lived in what looked to be the middle of a biohazard. There were potions and ingredients and empty jars on nearly every surface. A stack of boxes towered far too high for Killian’s comfort just beside the dining room table. And a strange metal contraption right in the middle of the kitchen seemed to be the source of all the noise, whirring away and shaking far more than it looked like it should be.
And there, on the couch, lay a giant white… creature.
He knew, of course, that this must be her familiar. What he couldn’t figure out was what exactly it was. It looked both furry and feathered, and as Killian stared at it, the white color he’d originally seen started morphing into spots. And then stripes. And then back to white.
“What the--”
“Nothing. It’s nothing. I have to go now.”
And then the door was slammed in his face.
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We’ll Meet Again, I Know Where, I Know When
Rating: Teen and Up
Words: 1591
TW: Violence, Vomit
Summary: Samantha Winchester is jumped one night on her way home from a diner, and has the feeling she's going to die, until a mysterious savior comes to her aid. Her name is Gabriel and she's the most mysterious person Sam has ever met.
This was written for @sabrielevents Sabriel Week! Day 4 is a Free Day so I decided to write a Genderbend fic I've been thinking of lately!
Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19465414
So this was it - this was how Sam would die.
It was night time, almost the next morning, and she had been on her merry way back to her dorm. Alone. Her boyfriend was sleeping, exhausted after pulling an all-nighter for a project, but she still had work to do for tomorrow, so she’d left and gone to a nearby 24/7 cafe to avoid disturbing him. An ache in her shoulder reassured her she had forgotten nothing at the table, but she had forgotten something at home. A form of protection other than her fists. Every woman has it drilled into their heads from the day they are old enough to step outside alone, to never really be alone. To take your friends Mace and Knife and Whistle with you. The holy trinity. But Sam had forgotten them completely, more focused on her work than anything else.
She remembered them the moment a hand grabbed her and yanked her into an alleyway.
She gasped, panic flooring through her system, freezing her for a moment. Only her eyes moved, and they noticed she was outnumbered. Four able-bodied, drunk or high, or possibly both, men surrounding her. Snap out of it! Her mother’s voice screamed at her, and of course she obeyed. She pushed her hand through the grip and grabbed the assailants wrist, turning it to the right further than it should naturally go. He yelled in pain, letting go of Sam’s wrist, and she kicked him backwards in the stomach. A choked cry escaped her own throat as six hands grabbed her from behind, clawing at her throat and shoulders before throwing her to the ground. For a moment, her vision went white, as the back of her head slammed against the concrete. The men scrambled at her messenger bag, tossing aside papers in favor of her money, then trying to tug at her laptop. Sam lunged forward, head-butting into one of the men and knocking him back on his ass, but that made more pain shoot across her skull. Bile crept up her throat as the dark world spun and blurred for a moment that felt like forever. In retaliation, another man kicked her in the stomach, and that finally pushed the bile up. That did not deter these hungry scavengers. More kicks were delivered, and that’s when Sam accepted it. She’d die, wind up on the news for a few days or less, and then fade from the memories of everyone.
Then a different kind of light blinded her, because the assaulters reacted too. They looked up, then began shouting frantically at each other to run, tripping over themselves as the rumble of wheels on pavement grew frighteningly close. Dazed, all Sam could do was tuck her head under her arms. All she felt pass by her was air, and the buzzing of a truck engine ended up on the other side of her. She was miraculously fine.
Boots kicked open the drivers door, and the next moment a woman was leaning over Sam, who squinted against the obscenely bright headlights. Her hair was long, practically forming a golden curtain around Sam’s head, as she observed her with whiskey colored eyes, that Sam swore were glowing. “Boy did they rough you up,” she murmured, brushing the back of Sam’s head lightly, and the pain was subtly alleviated. The mysterious woman cast her glowing gaze backwards and snapped. A faint yell of pain went up in the distance, then fell back into the silence. She turned back to Sam. “Let’s get you home.”
“Thank you,” Sam murmured, thinking still cloudy so she didn’t even remember to tell this girl where she lived. The girl looped an arm under Sam’s and helped her into the passenger’s seat of her blue truck, before jumping (literally jumping - she was too short for her own vehicle) into the driver's seat. She didn’t remember doing her own seatbelt, or the woman leaning over to do it, but she was already strapped in and leaned back in the seat, obscuring her vision of the girl. Clunks of shifting signalled they were going in reverse, and the woman backed out, turning onto the mostly quiet road without issue.
“What’s your name?” Sam asked, feeling out of place with the stranger.
“Gabriel.”
Sam’s eyes widened with worry for a moment. Had she been misgendering them this whole time? “Gabriel? What are your pronouns?”
Gabriel grinned, laughing a little. “She/her, well as of right now. It’s what I prefer anyways. Let’s just say my father was a fan of more masculine names. You can call me Gabe for short.”
“Not like...Gabbie?”
“I mean, you could. I hadn’t thought of that nickname. Gabbie…” Gabriel, or Gabe or Gabbie, said thoughtfully.
There was a beat of silence. “Thank you...you saved my life. How could I repay you?” Sam asked.
Gabbie waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about that. I see someone in danger, I help them.”
“I’ll pay you back somehow.”
Her honey gaze glanced back at Sam, and there was a bittersweet look in them. “I’m sure we’ll see each other again one of these days. Maybe then.”
“Do you live around here?”
Gabbie shrugged, oddly pondering the question. “Eh, well, I’m...around. I travel a lot. I don’t really live in one place.”
“Well that’s cryptic. Where’s your mail sent to then?” Sam pressed. She wanted to at least mail a thank you card.
“I don’t get mail.”
“What?”
“It’s a long, long, long story. And I’m sure you’ve heard...something...like it before.”
A decipher code would be handy right about now. But perhaps she was being creepily pushy. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be pushy or anything.”
Gabbie waved her hand dismissively. “I don’t blame you. I’ve been told I’m pretty mysterious. And troublesome.” She smirked back at Sam.
They pulled up to the college campus, and Sam sat up, unbuckling. “Thank you so much for the ride, I promise to make it up to you,” She pledged.
Gabbie’s eyes shot around cautiously. “Actually, why don’t I walk you in? Just in case.”
“I can handle myself.” Although Sam did have to admit she missed having another person watching her back, she could usually keep a good eye out for herself.
“It’d put me a lot more at ease if you let me.”
Sam shrugged. She didn’t see what harm this girl could do. If she tried anything by herself, Sam was sure she could easily overpower her. “Alright then. Come on.” She stepped out and walked around to the other side onto the sidewalk, meeting with Gabbie and finally getting a clear look at her. She was slightly chubby, with a round face framed by wavy, dirty blonde hair. She wore a navy denim jacket with scattered pins, including a halo, bluejay, and a little candy jar, among other things. Suddenly self-conscious of what she was wearing and then realizing it must be covered in vomit, she looked down quickly, only to discover her clothes were crystal clean. Huh. It must have been a lucky break.
They walked up to the door together, and Gabbie opened it, giving a bow as she let Sam walk first. Sam laughed at her antics, and Gabbie grinned as she joined her. Gabbie looked around curiously. “So this is where you bougie law students live huh?”
Sam snorted. “Yeah, we’re super bougie. We have pure gold chandeliers in each room, which are also all suites.”
“Wow, impressive.”
“And the coffee we drink to pull all-nighters every night is shipped fresh from Brazil and ground by hand. Only the best beans for us.”
“That’s sooo cool, tell me more,” Gabbie used a Valley Girl voice, batting her eyelashes and clinging to Sam’s arm. Normally being touched by a stranger like that would feel uncomfortable, but Sam didn’t mind it. Not when it was Gabbie.
Sam went on like this as they walked up the stairs, eventually developing a British accent, and they giggled at each other, forgetting the encounter that had brought them together. In time, Sam came to her doorway, and she found herself feeling sad at the arrival. Gabbie looked the same.
“Again, thank you -”
“Ah, don’t say it one more time,” Gabbie put her hand up. “I have your back.”
Sam smiled softly. She pulled her keys out of her pocket. “I hope you’re right, about us seeing each other again soon.”
That same bittersweet look crossed Gabbie’s face. “Something tells me I am.”
Sam opened the door and stepped inside. “Goodnight Gabbie.”
“Goodnight Sam.” And with that she turned and left.
When Sam walked in she went straight to the bathroom, splashing some water on her face then looking up in the mirror. Again with that lucky break - no bruises marked her up, not on her face or arms or legs, not anywhere she could see. The only mark she was left with was the smile Gabbie gave her. The one that made Sam question this feeling in her chest for the first time. The same kind of feeling that strengthened as she walked into her bedroom and saw her boyfriend passed out, arm draping over the side. She slipped in beside him, arm curling over his side, but as she glanced up at the ceiling a part of her expected her honey-haired rescuer to pop up.
She would never guess, not in a million years, that she’d run into her once again, and they’d both reveal their true selves to each other.
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i’m nobody’s but yours
Chapter 13/25 - Chloe
Summary: Beca is straight as an arrow. 100%, totally, completely straight. Except for one problem that 100%, totally, completely changes everything: Chloe Beale.
Title borrowed from Calum Scott’s “If Our Love Is Wrong.”
Word Count: 5k
Rating: M (for dark themes, homophobia, masturbation, and eventual smut in later chapters)
AO3, FFN, and below.
“Chlo? Where are we going?”
“Shh.”
“Not one hint?”
“Shh.”
“Is it going to be horrible?”
“Do you want me to tape your mouth shut?”
“Can you do that without taking the hood off?”
Chloe takes her eyes off the road momentarily to look to her right, where Beca sits buckled into the passenger seat with a Hood Night hood over her head.
“If you keep complaining, I can always get my handcuffs,” she grins, expecting Beca to dissolve into a mess of awkward sputtering.
Instead, Beca shoots back, “Save those for later.”
The speed of the response is shocking and more than a little arousing. It makes Chloe’s grip on the wheel tighten and her foot press more firmly against the accelerator, sending her car zooming forward through traffic and closer to their date destination.
Chloe supposes she should have known better than to goad Beca; over the past week, Beca has become more comfortable with making quips like that. Chloe’s normally the flirty one, but having Beca flirt back has been enthralling.
It’s been a week since their first date. They haven’t kissed. They haven’t told the Bellas, they haven’t had a lot of alone time, they haven’t labeled their relationship, and they haven’t kissed.
To compensate (because sometimes Chloe feels like she’s going to die if she doesn’t touch Beca), she might brush by Beca closer than strictly necessary so their bodies can touch. Or her hand will find Beca’s thigh under the table at dinner and rest there. Or Beca’s head will fit itself against her shoulder while they cuddle under a blanket at Bella Movie Night. They’ve done that before, but now with the added bonus of linking their hands under the blanket.
Touching Beca is intoxicating. She needs it like she needs air to breathe.
Chloe pulls into the parking lot of their date destination, biting her lip to keep herself from squealing in excitement. It’s somewhere Beca never would have gone by herself, and she hopes Beca won’t totally hate her for this, but she knows that they’ll have fun. Once Beca takes a second to process, anyway.
She finds a parking spot between an SUV and a smaller car, then pats Beca on the knee.
“Don’t take off the hood yet,” she warns.
“But –”
“Let me help you out and we’ll take it off outside so you can get the full effect.”
“Oh, joy,” Beca deadpans, but Chloe knows she’s just putting on a show. By the way Beca’s right knee bounces, she can tell Beca’s excited, too.
With a final smile at Beca, even though she can’t see it through the hood, Chloe jumps out of the driver’s side and hurries around to Beca’s passenger door. She takes a quick look around before opening the door – it would put a bit of a damper on their date if some good Samaritan were to call the police on her for hauling around a person with a hood on their head. After making sure they’re relatively alone, Chloe opens Beca’s door and takes her right hand.
“Okay, just climb out,” Chloe says. “I’ll make sure you don’t trip.”
Beca grumbles but unbuckles her seat belt and allows Chloe to guide her slowly out of the car. Chloe is sure to keep her hand protectively between Beca’s hooded head and the frame of the car – Beca getting a concussion would also put a damper on the date.
Once Beca is completely out of the car, Chloe steers her by the shoulders so that she’s facing the building they’re parked in front of.
“Ready?” she asks.
“This is a kidnapping,” Beca complains, but Chloe can hear curiosity in her tone.
“A sexy date-kidnapping,” replies Chloe, grinning when Beca’s shoulder muscles tense under her hands. “Here we go!”
Smoothly, Chloe lifts the hood from Beca’s head and moves so she can see her face. She watches Beca blink, first at the brightness of the day, then in confusion as she registers the letters on the side of the building, proclaiming Ricky’s Roller Rink and Arcade. A symphony of emotions cross Beca’s face: first recognition, then surprise, then horror, which finally eases into exasperation.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Chloe. No way.”
“Yes!”
“I’ll die!”
“I’ll catch you,” Chloe promises, crossing her heart.
“I’ve done this, like. Twice,” Beca groans.
“I know. I’ll hold your hand.”
Beca rolls her eyes, and Chloe already knows she’s won. “I took you on a nice, stable grounded picnic, and you’re doing this to me? Making me rollerblade?”
“Well…” Chloe hedges, taking mercy on Beca. “It’s really more the pizza and arcade that go with the rollerblading. We’ll only do that part if you want to.”
“Oh!” Beca stops, surprised. She seems to think for a second before shrugging, if reluctantly. “Well. In that case, I guess it’s fine. For the pizza.”
“Aca-awesome,” Chloe smiles, then laughs when Beca rolls her eyes.
She reaches down to link their hands together and, pretending she doesn’t notice Beca’s furtive glance around the lot, leads them inside the building.
They’re greeted at the welcome desk inside the front door by a teenage boy, maybe sixteen or seventeen, dressed in the arcade’s brightly-colored polo and wearing a neon orange hat with the name of the rink splashed across the front of it in black text. He has braces and a smattering of acne across his cheeks, but that doesn’t stop him from grinning at them enthusiastically when they walk in.
“Welcome to Ricky’s!” he greets. “What kind of ticket would you like?”
“Um,” Chloe replies, scanning the display behind him. “Let’s go with the couple’s special. That includes laser tag, right?”
Beca’s hand tightens around her own, but the teenager doesn’t even bat an eye.
“Yep, the couple’s special comes with laser tag, a pizza and drinks, five arcade games, and a set of rollerblades. Is that all?”
“Sounds perfect,” Chloe smiles, digging in her purse for her wallet.
“I can –”
“I’ve got this, babe,” Chloe cuts off Beca’s attempt to chip in on the tickets. This is her treat.
“Uh – thanks,” Beca replies, looking at her a little strangely.
Chloe pays for their arcade passes, then they turn to survey the building. It’s massive, set up in a sprawling design that probably only makes sense to the preteens who frequent it on the weekends. The roller rink is on the far side, taking up almost the entire right half of the building. A dining area with a pizza stand and a pop bar separate the rink from the scores of arcade games placed haphazardly in what might be a rectangular pattern. Beyond that, a doorway with a sign proclaiming “Laser Tag” set up above it seems to branch away from the main arcade area. Thankfully, for a Thursday afternoon, the place is relatively empty, with only a few older-looking teenagers running around.
“So,” Chloe breathes, suddenly nervous. “Is this an acceptable second date?”
Beca looks at her, her expression giving nothing away. “Well…” she starts seriously, before her face splits into a wide grin. “Only if you’re ready to have your ass kicked at air hockey!”
“In your dreams,” Chloe scoffs, and then they’re off.
Chloe knows Beca is a competitive person – you don’t co-lead a world-renowned a cappella group with someone and not realize how competitive they are – but she had no idea that competitive spirit bled over into something as simple as arcade games. She soon learns, though.
Because they have five arcade games to play with their tickets, they first decide on air hockey, foosball, Skee-Ball, and Dance Dance Revolution; Chloe is horrible at foosball, but wins the game of Skee-Ball, and they tie at Dance Dance Revolution. That’s when, instead of choosing a game they haven’t played yet, Beca insists on a second round of air hockey because she lost the first time.
“Alright,” she says seriously, cracking her knuckles and rolling out her shoulders while Chloe tries not to giggle at her. “This game is it. This is everything. Whoever wins this becomes Grandmaster Champion of the Universe.”
“Oh?” Chloe asks, arching an eyebrow. “I noticed that rule didn’t apply when you missed all but two cups during Skee-Ball.”
“Didn’t count then,” Beca insists with as much dignity as she can muster. “This is, like, the tie breaker. Of everything.”
“Okay,” Chloe says, deciding not to point out that even if Beca wins this game, they’re still technically tied evenly in arcade game wins.
Beca waggles her eyebrows grandly and, with all the seasoned confidence of an air hockey pro, drops the puck onto the table and nearly knocks it into her own goal.
“I meant to do that,” she insists when Chloe laughs. “Throw you off guard.”
“Mmm.”
Once Beca does successfully start the game, she plays with an intensity that Chloe has only seen her display on stage of their bigger performances. Her eyes are zeroed in on the puck, tracking its every movement, and she moves her paddle with grace and agility, concentrating so hard on the game that Chloe doesn’t think she’s even aware of the way the tip of her tongue pokes out from her mouth.
It’s kind of hot.
That is, until Beca’s fingers, dangling over the edge of the wall and into the “rink” area, are smashed by a poorly-aimed puck from Chloe.
“Fuck! Ouch, shit, dammit –”
“Are you okay?!” Chloe exclaims, running around the table to get to her. “Here, let me see –”
She pulls Beca’s hand into both of her own, examining it for damage, just in time to register the telltale clunk of the puck dropping into her unattended goal.
She looks up from Beca’s (red and bruised-looking) fingers to see a supremely smug look on Beca’s face.
“Shouldn’t have let your guard down,” Beca grins, nodding at the score. She’d won with the last goal.
Chloe huffs in mock annoyance; if Beca can still get a goal with her uninjured hand and brag about it, she’s not badly hurt.
“Cheap move!” Chloe protests. “You distracted me!”
“You’re the one who smashed my fingers!”
“Shouldn’t have dangled them over the edge like that,” Chloe says, then follows with, “I’m starting to care more and more about your fingers lately.”
The shock and understanding that flash across Beca’s face make losing the game totally worth it. With a wink, Chloe leans in and presses her lips against the more bruised-looking fingers on Beca’s right hand.
“Yeah, well,” Beca huffs, apparently recovering. “That helps.”
“I’m glad,” Chloe grins. “So, Grandmaster Champion of the Universe, you wanna get some pizza?”
As if on cue, Beca’s stomach rumbles loudly.
“Great,” Chloe says, taking that as an answer. “Let’s go order.”
They walk over to the dining area and put in the order for a cheese pizza, and while that’s cooking, Chloe manages to talk Beca into trying a couple laps of rollerblading.
The rink is wide open, apart from a couple of teenagers still zooming around it. Chloe leads Beca to the side of the rink, where they pick out their skates. Chloe tries not to laugh when Beca has to hunt for a size small enough to suit her.
When they have the skates in hand, they go to the little outcropping in the blading area and strap them on. Once they’re both ready, they sit, Chloe waiting for the go-ahead from Beca that doesn’t seem like it’s going to come. Beca’s not saying much, which raises a red flag in Chloe’s mind.
“Hey,” she says, resting her hand over Beca’s for a second. “We don’t have to, if you really don’t want to.”
“Hmpf,” Beca grumbles. “First you smash my hand, now you’re gonna strap wheels to my feet and expect me not to die.”
“I won’t let you fall. I promise,” Chloe reassures her quietly.
Beca’s expression softens. “I know you won’t,” she says. “I trust you.”
Chloe isn’t quite prepared for the warmth that washes over her at that simple phrase. It shouldn’t trigger that much emotion, maybe, but the way Beca says it and the way she looks at her makes Chloe think that when Beca said it, she meant a different three-word phrase.
“Okay, right,” Chloe says, trying to shake that from her mind. “Let’s, uh, try it. We’ll go slow.”
And they do go slow. Beca’s left hand never leaves Chloe’s right as they half-skate, half-wobble around the rink two, three, four times, until Beca’s movements smoothen and she becomes more confident with every stroke. By the fifth lap, though, the man working the pizza stand is waving them down, and Beca looks too relieved at the idea of getting the skates off her feet for Chloe to be able to justify continuing.
They wrap up their final lap, find that same outcropping in the rink, and pull the skates off their feet in favor of their regular shoes before heading over to collect their pizza. Beca grabs them a table, across the dining area from a group of four teenage girls, and they sit to eat.
“See?” Chloe can’t resist asking. “That wasn’t so bad.”
Beca shrugs, pizza in hand. “It could have been worse. Thanks for not letting me fall,” she adds more sincerely.
“Of course,” Chloe answers. “We can’t have any more injuries.”
Beca flexes her hand, checking it for damage. “I think I’ll survive,” she grins, then takes another bite of pizza.
Chloe’s just about to reach for her third slice when one of the teenagers from the larger group across the room arrives at their table.
“Uh, hi,” the girl says a little awkwardly. “It’s my friend’s birthday, and we wanted to play laser tag, but we’re two players short. Would you like to…” she trails off, gesturing toward the laser tag area.
Chloe looks beyond the girl at the three others sitting at the table, all watching them carefully. She waves in their general direction, not sure which is the one with the birthday, before checking with Beca.
“I’m okay with that if you are?” she asks. “We have the ticket for it, anyway.”
Beca glances toward the girls, too, then looks down at the pizza.
“After you’re done eating,” the girl says in a rush, turning a little pink. “You don’t have to –”
“No, it’s okay,” Beca interrupts. “We’ll do it on one condition.”
The girl nods enthusiastically and Chloe waits, not sure what Beca’s going to say.
“Take a picture of us?” Beca asks, extending her phone to the girl, whose eyes widen.
“Sure!” she agrees enthusiastically. “Oh, I’m the best with Instagram and finding filters, I’ll make you two look so good…”
She rambles on, but Chloe’s stopped listening. She’s too focused on Beca moving her chair closer to her, pressing into her side. When Beca wraps an arm around her waist, Chloe sinks into it so naturally that it’s like they’ve been doing this for years rather than barely a week. Beca’s hair tickles her cheek, but Chloe refuses to pull away. She just smiles for the camera, already knowing she’s going to make Beca send that to her so she can make it her new lock screen.
The girl takes multiple pictures from multiple angles, all the while assuring them they look “super cute,” and hands Beca back her phone with a smile.
“Thanks,” Beca says, scrolling through the pictures quickly to check them.
Looking over her shoulder, Chloe has to agree with the girl; they look good together.
“So…” the girl prompts, and Chloe stands to get to-go boxes for their pizza. They could have finished the last two slices, but it’s pretty obvious the girls at the table are impatient.
She and Beca join them, make introductions, and file past the arcade games to get to the laser tag area. There, another teenage employee explains the rules and splits them into teams: two of the girls plus Beca on the Blue team, and the other two plus Chloe on the Red team.
“You’re going down, Beale,” Beca hisses under her breath as the clock times down to start.
“Nope,” is all Chloe says, knowing it’ll only make Beca even more competitive. Sure enough, Beca huffs a laugh and starts bouncing in place, full of energy.
The buzzer goes off and Chloe steps inside the dark maze, blinking so her eyes adjust to the blacklight filling the room; she glances down at herself, the whites in her clothing and shoelaces glowing in the semidarkness. It’s confusing, at first; all she can do is keep moving, hearing the five other people with her shuffling along behind the maze walls. At one point, one of the girls on her team flies past in front of her, and Chloe has to stop the knee-jerk reaction to aim and fire at her own teammate.
But then, rounding a corner, she sees a one of the girls on the Blue team crouched and peering around a wall, her back to Chloe. Grinning to herself, Chloe raises her laser gun and aims. Before she can fire, though, something latches onto the back of her vest and tugs, and she’s sent careening backward with an inelegant squawk of surprise.
“Shh!” Beca laughs, her teeth bright in the black light as she pulls Chloe into a corner of the maze. “You’re gonna get their attention!”
“Is this a plot?” Chloe asks suspiciously. “Are you trying to make my team lose?”
Beca grins and shakes her head, looping her arms around Chloe’s waist to pull her closer. “Nah. I just wanted to say hi and didn’t think it was fair to shoot from behind... like you were about to do.”
“Yeah, I’m not above that,” Chloe admits casually, heart fluttering at the proximity to Beca.
“Clearly,” Beca agrees, then speaks even more softly. “Those photos of us are really nice.”
“They are,” Chloe says, hands landing on Beca’s hips. The thought of where this might be going makes her feel like she needs to steady herself.
“And, earlier,” Beca continues, whispering now, their faces only inches apart. “I liked when you called me ‘babe.’”
“When?”
“At the desk. When we came in.”
“I didn’t even notice,” Chloe breathes honestly, her eyes dropping to Beca’s slightly parted lips.
“I liked it.”
Beca’s leaning in then, until she’s so close that Chloe’s not sure if the pounding pulse she hears is her own or Beca’s. Chloe closes her eyes, shivering when she feels Beca’s breath ghosting over her lips. Their noses nudge together, sending a thrill through Chloe’s body. All it would take is one final tilt in from either of them, and the entire world would shift.
With a shaky breath that Chloe can both hear and feel, Beca closes the distance.
Beca’s lips are soft and warm against hers. They’re both still, lips just touching, until Chloe pulls back to lightly rest her forehead against Beca’s.
“Bec…”
Chloe’s not sure who leans forward this time, but then they’re kissing again and everything else is wiped from her mind. Beca’s lips grow more direct and she changes the angle gently, and Chloe can hardly believe that this is Beca, finally kissing her, but when she reaches forward to rest her hands on Beca’s waist, the solid presence reassures her until she’s giving in completely. Chloe tilts her head more into it, parting her lips to make the kiss softer, warmer, and drawn-out, nestling Beca’s bottom lip between hers.
A sound leaves Beca then, just a little hum in the back of her throat, not quite a whimper but almost, and it makes Chloe’s hands tighten on Beca’s waist. She feels Beca’s hands trace up her arms, dancing over her collarbones to rest lightly on either side of her neck. Leaving tingling, twitching skin in its path, Beca’s left thumb traces under her jaw until Chloe’s certain Beca can feel the fluttering of her pulse.
Beca’s lips turn more insistent, pressing even closer. One of Beca’s hands slides into Chloe’s hair, cradling the back of her head. This time, Chloe’s the one to make a noise, a breathy gasp that makes Beca chuckle against her lips. Chloe’s hands slide around Beca’s hips, tracing up her lower back until they encounter the laser tag vest.
Chloe’s not sure how long they kiss. A few seconds, maybe a minute at most, but when the kiss reaches its natural end and she pulls away, her head is spinning and she can’t stop smiling. Beca’s smiling right back, the flush on her cheeks visible even in the semidarkness.
Chloe steps away carefully, her hands dropping from Beca’s sides. Her lips tingle where Beca had kissed them, and she wants more than anything to continue it, but they are still technically in public with a group of teenagers running around somewhere in the laser tag maze.
She feels like she should say something, but doesn’t know what.
That’s when Beca, grinning cheekily, lifts her laser gun and shoots Chloe point-blank, making her vest buzz and light up.
“Gotcha.”
***************
“Wait, why’d you swipe no on him, he was cute!” Stacie protests, peering over Chloe’s shoulder.
“Eh, not my type,” Chloe dismisses, scrolling through some brunette’s profile next.
“Cute isn’t your type?” Stacie asks sarcastically.
“Guess not,” Chloe snaps back. She’s tired of this stupid app. She swipes no again.
“Ooh, her!” This time, Stacie practically pounces on Chloe to get her to swipe yes on an admittedly very attractive blonde woman.
Chloe swipes no and closes the app. “Look, this is stupid. I’m really not into anyone on here.”
“How?” Stacie asks with wide eyes. “Chloe, you’ve been single for as long as I’ve known you. That’s… like three years. That’s insane.”
“I date,” Chloe replies defensively, crossing her arms.
“Okay, you go on dates. That’s different from dating.”
“I – there’s no one I’ve liked.”
That’s only partially true. Yes, she hasn’t really clicked with anyone, but that has nothing to do with their own shortcomings and everything to do with the fact that they aren’t Beca.
“No one?”
“Nope,” Chloe replies, standing from the couch. “Listen, I’m pretty tired, Stace, I’m gonna head up to bed.”
No matter how hard she tries, no matter how many dates she forces herself to go on, Chloe can’t shake her feelings for Beca in favor of a stranger. It’s just not going to happen.
“But –”
“Good night!” she interrupts, heading for the stairs and hearing a soft, “Night,” thrown at her retreating back.
She deletes the app a few days later, despite the large number of unread messages in her inbox from both guys and girls. It doesn’t matter how many of them she could have tried to date; no stranger can replace the increasingly powerful feelings she has for Beca.
***************
“Bye! Happy birthday!” Beca calls, waving after the group of teenage girls. Chloe smiles goodbye at them, though she’s still not entirely sure which of the girls’ birthdays it is. She carries their leftover pizza in her right hand, her left intertwined with Beca’s. Like the boy at the welcome stand, the girls didn’t give them a second glance for holding hands and acting like a couple.
After the girls are gone, Beca looks at her, eyes alight. “Blue team kicked your team’s ass.”
Chloe grins back and replies, “Only because you distracted me.”
“Excuses.”
Chloe bumps her shoulder into Beca’s, both laughing as they make their way to Chloe’s car. Chloe feels like she’s glowing from the inside out; their second date had been just as wonderful as their first, perhaps even more so, with the kiss.
“Beca! Chloe!”
Chloe stops dead in her tracks, dropping Beca’s hand instantly at the familiar voice. A dense dread settling deep in her stomach, she turns in time to see Beca’s dad, Warren, and his wife Sheila climbing out of their car in the row adjacent to where she and Beca are parked. They’re both smiling, not looking at her with anger or suspicion, so they must not have seen her and Beca holding hands.
“Shit, fuck –” Beca swears softly beside her, then, more loudly, “Dad! What are you guys doing here?”
Chloe winces; she hopes the panic in Beca’s voice is only obvious to her.
Warren and Sheila walk over, weaving between a few parked cars to draw closer to them. Beca shifts her weight, putting distance between her and Chloe; Chloe hears the scuff of pebbles under her feet, acutely aware of every inch newly separating them.
“Don’t sound so pleased to see us,” Warren says with a smile when they’re near enough. “We’re here for a Barden faculty event.”
“At a roller rink?”
“Well, Beca, even us old people can have fun sometimes.”
Chloe glances at the ground, the muscles between her shoulders tensing in response to the strain she feels pouring off of Beca in waves. Chloe’s desperate to reach out and touch her, but she knows she can’t.
“How’re you, Chloe?”
Warren’s question startles her. “Good,” she replies hastily. “Great. You guys?”
Sheila nods, looking around the parking lot. “We’re good, all good. Are the rest of the Bellas still inside?”
Chloe’s blood turns to ice. There’s no way they can lie.
She tries to shift even further from Beca without Sheila or Warren noticing.
“Uh, no,” she replies, thinking quickly. “We figured – that is, Beca and I – figured we could use some, uh, captain bonding time. You know, just prepping things for when Emily takes over,” she finishes, gesturing vaguely.
It doesn’t really make sense – there’s no need to bond as captains now that they’ve graduated, and exactly what “prepping” they could do at a roller rink is beyond Chloe – but Warren and Sheila don’t question it.
“Right,” Warren nods grandly. “I suppose Emily will be taking over, now.”
“Yep,” Beca replies, her voice clipped. “It’s all very… is there anything else, or…?”
Warren’s eyebrows draw together and he looks at Beca quizzically. Chloe wishes a hole would open under her feet and drag her down and out of this situation.
There’s a pause, then out of nowhere, Sheila asks, “Have you heard anything from Jesse?”
Chloe’s stomach jolts.
“What do you mean?” Beca asks quickly.
“Well, you know. I mean, he was always such a nice boy.”
“I…”
“It’s just a shame to let the good ones go, you know. I don’t want you to regret anything,” Sheila says, leaning closer to emphasize her point.
Chloe closes her eyes briefly, hoping it looks like she’s shielding them from the sun.
“It’s for the best, the breakup,” Beca replies firmly. Chloe reopens her eyes; from Beca’s tone, she can tell Beca’s struggling to remain calm. “He’s still my friend, but that’s it.”
Sheila purses her lips. “Well. I’m sure if you asked, maybe he’d be willing to be more than friends again. He’s good for you, Beca.”
“I’m really okay.”
Sheila’s eyes narrow at the icy tone, then turn on Chloe. Chloe swallows, hard.
“And what about you, dear?”
“Sheila…” Warren clears his throat, looking embarrassed, but Chloe can tell Sheila still expects an answer.
Chloe forces her face into what she hopes is a polite smile. “What about me?” she asks, nervous.
“Are there any men in your life?”
Pebbles shift again where Beca stands as she moves another inch away. The anger radiating from her small frame tastes sharp and metallic.
“Oh, no, no men for me…” she tries to answer without placing inflection the “men” part.
“Really?” Sheila’s eyebrows lift. “Honey, with your looks, you should be able to get any cute boy you want.”
From the corner of her eye, Chloe sees Beca look down at the ground.
Chloe doesn’t know what to do but try to laugh it off, panic mounting in her chest by the second.
“I guess… just busy, you know,” she says, fighting to keep her tone even. “With Worlds, and... and I’m applying for internships different places around the country,” she replies, hoping Sheila will take the hint and ask where she’s applied.
“Ah,” Sheila nods. “Right, I’m sure once you move on out of this town, get settled, then the dating will pick up for sure. Between you and me,” her voice drops to a stage-whisper and she grins conspiratorially, “they make them better out there than they do here.”
“They make them okay here,” Chloe replies without thinking, feeling Beca’s wide eyes on the side of her face.
“I’m sure,” Sheila nods amicably.
Warren clears his throat more loudly and makes a show of checking his watch. “Well, I think we should let you girls go. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of – um, bonding activities planned,” he smiles at them.
Chloe hopes her answering laugh doesn’t sound as hysterical as she thinks it might.
“Bye, Beca,” Warren nods at his only child, placing his hand on Sheila’s back to steer her toward the entrance to the roller rink. “Chloe, until next time.”
Beca makes a sort of grunting noise, and Chloe tries for a smile, her cheek muscles feeling stiff. They watch Warren and Sheila go. It’s only until they step inside the roller rink that Chloe realizes she’s holding her breath; she lets it out in a whoosh, the start of a headache mounting in her temples.
She turns to Beca, mouth open, though whether to apologize or ask if she’s okay, Chloe isn’t sure. But the look on Beca’s face, equal parts mournful and exhausted, traps Chloe’s voice in her throat. Beca shakes her head, looks at the ground, and without a word, goes to Chloe’s car and climbs into the passenger seat.
Chloe stares at the car dumbly until her body catches up with her brain. She lurches forward, numb inside, and gets into the driver’s seat, closing the door and muting the world outside.
It’s silent in the car. Chloe doesn’t know what to say.
She risks a glance over. Her chest throbs at the sight; Beca’s leaning her head against the glass of the window, eyes locked on something outside.
Have you heard anything from Jesse?
Well. I’m sure if you asked, maybe he’d be willing to be more than friends again. He’s good for you, Beca.
For the first time, Chloe understands what dating Beca might mean for both of them.
Chloe’s hands grip the wheel so hard her knuckles are white. She can’t bear to look at Beca, scared of what she might see, terrified that their first kiss might be their last.
She starts the car, and, leaving the radio off, backs out of the parking spot, and drives toward the exit.
#bechloe#bechloe fic#my writing#beca mitchell#chloe beale#pitch perfect fanfic#i'm nobody's but yours#chapter thirteen#fluff ahead!#and a little angst#sorry??#except not really
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prompt 14 is still fighting me, so fictober prompt #15: “I thought you had forgotten.”
[this is at least part of the followup to grasp of ice, the one where Damian holds Tim’s hand unironically because cold, that several people have asked for.]
The clunk-drag of Tim Drake’s leg brace was audible coming up the hall, but turned loud when he stepped into the quiet music room, off the carpet.
Damian knew he was obvious against the outdoor floodlamps lighting up the snow. He hadn’t ducked to hide his silhouette because he was fairly certain Drake already knew where he was, and he refused to show weakness. Now that the useless slob had some basic mobility back, it wasn’t entirely a surprise he’d tracked him down. Damian had been avoiding him entirely for three weeks.
He didn’t turn. The snowflakes danced wildly in air currents created by the house, both where it stopped breezes and where flaws in the insulation created plumes of warmer air, and caught in the floodlights they looked impossibly white. Drake had stopped moving somewhere behind him.
Damian set his teeth after seconds had passed and ignoring the situation had not made it go away. “What are you looking at?”
“I’m looking at the kid who melted me out of a block of ice and almost died rather than leave me.”
Damian opened his mouth, then closed it again. “I thought you had forgotten.”
Tim shook his head. “No.”
He came up to join Damian at the window. Clunk, clunk. “I have a good memory—near death experiences only rarely knock it out.”
“You weren’t conscious.”
“It came and went. But every time I woke up, there you were.”
“As if there’s anything special about me doing my duty—”
“To me? There is.”
And Damian wasn’t sure how to read those words, whether Drake meant it’s special to me that you did or doing your duty to me is special, because you usually don’t, or possible both at once.
“I didn’t do it for you,” Damian grumbled. He leaned forward, to keep Drake out of his peripheral vision and his face out of Drake’s line of sight. His breath fogged the glass. “Grayson would be devastated, no accounting for taste. And Father would never forgive me.”
“In the middle of the explosions,” Tim said. “You were holding onto me.” Judging by the way he said it, it was a fragmentary memory, pieced together from a shattered chronology and recollections of pressure. Damian wouldn’t be able to sway him from his certainty that he was right, even so.
This was why Damian hated Red Robin so much.
“Are you mocking me?” Damian hissed, because he’d been standing there screaming at fire, ready to die meaninglessly, completely forgetting about the grapple gun he himself had placed in case of emergency. If he’d remembered, he could have been the one dragging his unwanted adopted brother out of ridiculous lake explosions. He probably wouldn’t have strained his elbow or shoulder nearly as badly, either; he was younger and smaller but he wasn’t weaker, and he had also been fully conscious.
“Damian, you gave me a grapple line. Your grapple line.” Drake’s hands came up—onto the windowsill, he was leaning on it for support. He couldn’t rest much weight on the knee yet, or for long. Recovering from surgery always seemed to take longer than from mere stabbings.
Damian wasn’t going to admit he understood what Drake was trying to say. He hadn’t just swallowed.
“Why is it so important for you to hate me?” Red Robin had tried to ask it calmly, but a thread of emotion came through. Hurt, maybe? Frustration? Damian hated this inscrutable whinging bastard, he really did.
“It’s a matter of pride,” he said.
“What pride? Are you just saying you decided to hate me without knowing me, so now you have to stick by it or admit you might at some point have been wrong?”
Damian turned his head. Drake was standing a little too close—the width of the window and the fact that Damian was standing near the middle of it gave justification. Tim Drake was not a tall man, but he had inches yet on Damian, and was looking down across his own bicep. The sweater he was wearing was too big for him. It was Father’s. “Oh, believe me, I hate you more now that I’ve gotten to know you.”
Drake sighed, and his weight shifted forward a little more on his arms. “Typical. You were there the next time I woke up, too.” Shortly before Father and Grayson had arrived. Damian had left to go fight weapons smugglers directly. “And you kept turning up in my room for the first week. Until I tried to talk to you.”
Ignoring Grayson’s baffled and cooing input had been one thing. Brown had been more of a headache. Pennyworth’s careful lack of comment had been almost worst. Only Father had been reasonable. Of course Damian had wanted to monitor the course of the fever. It was his rescue that might be rendered redundant.
“Tt. If you were well enough to harass me you didn’t need my help.”
Drake opened his mouth, then closed it again, the crease deepening between his eyebrows. “What did you think I was going to say?”
He hadn’t been sure. But he hadn’t wanted to find out. Hostility would have been normal, but forced him to choose between throwing the rescue in Drake’s face and fighting over it, or pretending it had never happened. A lack of hostility had seemed like it would be even worse.
Because what if Drake was respectful and appreciative and only then found out that, at the eleventh hour, Damian had been saved, rather than doing all the saving, and he took it all back? There was nothing more humiliating than enjoying praise that, on reflection or further information, the speaker chose to retract.
At some point, even though Damian still hated him, he’d come to care about this bastard’s opinion.
“Look. You saved my life. And not while we were under fire together, or coming along on a rescue mission with somebody else who likes me better. You came looking for me when you didn’t have to, when you could have focused on the fight. You worked your ass off to keep me from freezing to death, when there was no one there to pressure you. And you didn’t leave me behind, even when for all you knew I was a dead weight holding you down in a death trap. That’s not nothing.
“It doesn’t change everything, either, but…I kind of find myself wanting to forgive you the various murder attempts.”
“That’s your business.”
Drake resettled himself against the windowsill, his hips canted against the wall beneath it now to take even more weight off his feet. Damian should make him go lie down, the idiot. “I guess.”
Damian grimaced at the dancing snowflakes, the long greyscale sweep of the east lawn.
Finally glanced sideways. “You aren’t expecting us to actually get along, are you?”
“Gosh no, you infuriating gremlin. We can argue all the time. Just, since you apparently aren’t so opposed to my existence anymore, I thought it would be nice to make peace.”
“Tt. You just want me to stop taking your supplies out of your locker.”
“…I would like that, yes. But honestly that’s a level of pranking I can live with, I was on a team with Bart Allen for actual years. It’s mostly annoying because it makes extra work for Alfred.”
Ugh. Guilt. “So if you don’t expect me to be kind to you and you don’t require an end to petty harassment, what are you trying to accomplish?”
“…I can’t believe you just called your own behavior petty harassment. Uh. Look. Do you actually want me gone, anymore?”
Drake was annoying. Damian hated him. But there was no war here, anymore; Damian had won it. Robin was his, and Father’s and Grayson’s continued fondness for his predecessor no longer seriously threatened to eclipse their regard for Damian himself. “I suppose I don’t really care.”
“Right. It’s official then. We don’t hate each other. A weight off everyone’s minds.” He sounded unsatisfied.
“Do you want me gone?” Damian asked, and then bit his tongue. He didn’t think he’d sounded young, or vulnerable, but to have asked at all….
“It’s too late for that now,” Drake told the snow.
Damian hissed in through his teeth. “So you just wish I’d never been born,” he bit out. He could say and then who would have saved your skin on that lake, but in a world with no Damian that mission might never have happened, or Drake might have been on it with a partner who never lost track of him to begin with. That was all Damian was in this moron’s eyes, even now: an inconvenient reality to come to terms with.
“…I mean,” Drake said slowly, “no? I guess not. I’d be better off, in most ways, dying in lakes aside, but…I don’t think Dick would be. And it’s good for Bruce to have a kid around, even one who causes as much stress as you do.”
“Excuse me?”
“If anybody can get Bruce to start showing grey hairs, it’ll be you.”
“Tt.” Father was past fifty, now. It was statistically probable he would start to grey soon, regardless of how much stress he was put under, and if worrying were going to be the thing that started it, he would have a full head of white by now.
“But anyway, I…can’t actually wish you out of existence, at this point.”
Damian folded his arms on the wide windowsill and propped his forehead against the glass, fogging it opaque with his breath. “I’m blown away by your magnanimity.”
It sounded like Drake rolled his eyes. “Shut up, all you said was you don’t care whether I exist or not, and I didn’t even do anything to you. It’s not on me to escalate this positivity train all on my own.”
“Hmph.”
Drake shifted his weight against the wall again. “Hey Damian?”
The tone had changed. “Yes?”
“Thanks for not abandoning me to my humiliating naked death.”
“You’re welcome, I suppose.” Damian leaned back and drew a bat-symbol into the fog of his breath with a fingertip. The symmetry was perfect, of course, and all the points were neat and crisp. “So. Truce?”
Drake nodded, the tension seeming to melt out of him. “Truce,” he concluded, that satisfied snapping-shut sound his voice took on when he got his way. When Damian glanced over he was entirely plastered against the window and its sill, looking bleached and greyish again even accounting for the cool shade of the floodlight.
Damian abandoned the dance of the snowflakes, grabbed Drake by the back of Father’s sweater, and began to drag him toward the dustcloth-swathed chaise behind the piano. If he didn’t move his feet in the right direction, he would fall over, because there was no way with that brace he could manage anything complicated, even to spite Damian.
“Come, you idiot. Sit. Stop wasting all of our hard work.”
#fictober 2018#tim drake#damian wayne#batfam#siblings#grasp of ice#fanfic#my fic#hoc est meum#damian is an increasingly good brother#i mean#character growth#tim is trying#they both made extra work for alfred by putting their faces on the window#it's going to have greasy spots now#lmao
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MLSHR Anniversary Appreciation Week
Day Seven - Favorite Exchange of Looks
a modern, comical, and light-hearted take on this exchange of looks
Soo sat at her desk, the office too humid, the drone of the weak air conditioning drilling into her mind and making the words on the screen bleed together. Her focus dwindled and her head bobbed up and down, up and down, in an effort to keep awake.
“I could write you up for sleeping on the job, you know?”
She jerked, her eyes now wide and her surroundings clear. So leaned over her shoulder, his name tag swaying in the air, almost hitting her nose as she turned to look at him. She flushed, telling herself it had everything to do with being caught and nothing to do with his closeness, the heat he emanated. “I-I wasn't sleeping. Sometimes closing my eyes just helps me concentrate.”
His chuckle vibrated. “Sure, okay. Think of this as a warning, then, and try to concentrate with your eyes open.”
He patted her shoulder and she gazed at his retreating figure, hands behind him and back straight. Another came up to him, Yeon Hwa, a trill on her red lips, her hand falling so easily on his bicep. She glanced over her shoulder, catching Soo's gaze. Her nose wrinkled at her while So wasn't looking, like Soo was something disgusting she had stepped in, and, as he looked back, her features resumed their playfulness, their flirtations. Soo pouted and looked back at her screen, her fingers pounding into the keyboard.
Two hours later, and her eyes drooped again, falling into the click-clack of surrounding keyboards, and ruffling of papers, and the hum of the printer shooting out copy after copy. She felt something on her neck, light and tickling, and she brushed it away, but it returned and she, again, batted at it clumsily.
The tickling stayed, unmoving, like a stone on the crook of her neck, and then fell into her lap. She looked down and found a giant cockroach wiggling on her legs and a scream bursted from her lips, echoing through the office. She jumped out of her chain, the roach falling to the ground without fanfare and she swatted at herself, feeling a hundred invisible bugs on her body and blanching.
But the cockroach she had thrown laid on the floor upside down and still. Everyone in the office had stood, peaking over the cubicles, staring at her and then going back to their work as she reddened before them. A snicker caught her attention and there was Wang So, face as red as hers, hand covering his mouth, eyes clenched close in silent laughter, his body shaking with the effort to keep it inside.
“Did... did you just throw a fake bug on me?” Her embarrassment evaporated as the heat of anger boiled in her gut.
He doubled over, clutching his stomach, letting a burst of guffaws leave him before he stood up and tried to cover his amusement with a straight face, his voice lower with the effort. “Don't sleep on the job, Hae Soo-ssi.”
He walked off and she decided that she would pay him back, stomping her foot on the fake cockroach and trying to grind it into the floor.
“Good morning, Hae Soo,” So said, walking up to her desk. He blew on his coffee, taking a sip as he leaned against the cubicle wall.
She smiled at him, sugary sweet but not quite reaching her eyes. “Good morning, Wang So.”
“You're not still mad at me, are you? It was just a small prank.”
“Oh, no, no, no,” she said, brows furrowed and each syllable exaggerated. “You know, I could never stay mad at you for too long.”
“Alright, then.” He bowed his head slightly and walked to his office, glancing back and scratching his head. Her words hadn't that genuineness he came to associate with her.
As he neared his desk, Soo peaked over the cubicle wall. That's right, she thought, just a little bit further. He set his mug on the desk, stretched his arms out in front him, rolled his neck, the usual morning routine. He was going to sit down in three... two... one...
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!
Wang So yelped at the siren, falling forward, knocking his mug off his desk, and then bringing his chair with him. He clattered to the floor, rolled in the spilled coffee, and garnering the attention of his staff. He stood and kicked his chair and, on the underside, was an airhorn duct taped to the base support of it. He growled, already knowing the culprit. “HAE SOO IN MY OFFICE NOW!”
She strolled from her cubicle, to his office, that sugary sweet smile smeared on her face, the picture of innocence. “You called for me, Wang So-ssi?”
“You!” He pointed at her. “You did this! Is this payback?”
She placed her hand on her heart, her mouth dropping open and scoffing. “Me? Are you saying I came in to work hours before anyone else would be here, picked the lock on your office door, duct taped an air horn to the bottom of your chair just for the satisfaction of seeing you fall out of your chair? All because you threw a fake bug on me?”
“Yes!”
She pouted. “I am appalled that you would think so poorly of me, Wang So-ssi.”
So laughed, bitter and stunted. “Okay, okay, if that's how you want to play, then let's play.”
She leaned forward, the innocent act dropped, replaced with a narrowed eyes and a snarl. “Bring it.”
And that's how it began, with pettiness and a competitive edge neither knew they had. Hae Soo came in to find her cubicle plastered with Wang So's face. His attractive face littered across her desk, her chair, her walls, the floor. When she opened up her computer, his face was there, too, with the message, I'm always watching you.
Yeon Hwa stopped at her desk with a smirk. “Clean this up, immediately. Personal effects cannot be distracting to the work atmosphere, Hae Soo-ssi.” And Hae Soo could do nothing but scowl as she peeled face after face off her cubicle with a triumphant Wang So passing by to check on her progress every fifteen minutes.
Wang So paid little attention to the way Hae Soo jittered every time he reached for something in the drawers of his desk, and then deflated. Every time she came in asking for a pen, he would open his drawer and give her one, and she would leave the office slumped and pouting. He thought nothing of it when he caught her in his office, underneath his desk after he had stepped out to get a snack. “Sorry, I thought I dropped something in here earlier,” and she scurried away empty handed. He figured she just didn't it.
It wasn't until the work day was almost over, when he was finishing up a report, that he opened his drawer to get a post-it and glitter exploded in his face. Rainbow glitter, star shaped glitter, fake rhinestones came out of his desk with a crack, sprinkling in his hair, creeping into the folds of his clothes, sticking to skin. He puffed out of his nose, more glitter blowing around him.
He grinded his teeth. “Hae Soo,” he said, which was a mistake because glitter coated his tongue and teeth. He glanced at her desk and she stood, gleeful eyes, an ear-splitting grin, and two thumbs up. He would find glitter in his office for years later.
“Copy, twenty-five,” Soo said to the copier, as the paper had instructed her to do. But the copier remained still. No light sweeping under the scanner, no clicking of paper lining up and pushing through, and no swsh-swsh-swsh of completed copies falling into the tray. There was no hum of a working copier at all. She tried again, this time slightly louder, more pronounced. “Co-py, twent-ty fiiiv-vuh.”
She went around to the back, making sure the copier was plugged in. She checked the toner, still full. She checked the paper tray, low but enough. She lifted the scanner, repositioned her paper. “Copy! Twenty-five!”
Five minutes passed. Then ten. Then fifteen. Yeon Hwa walked in to see Soo shaking the copier, strands of hair falling from her usually neat bun. “Should I report you for destruction of property, Hae Soo-ssi?”
She stopped, slid away. “It wouldn't make copies.”
“So, you're answer is to break something worth thousands of dollars?”
Soo sputtered. “No-no-no. I wasn't going t-”
Yeon Hwa wasn't paying attention, her fingers ripping a paper from a wall. “This copier is now voice activated,” she read, amusement flashing off those pearly white teeth when she smiled. “You didn't believe this, did you?”
“It's not... the copier's no-”
“You're as stupid as you look, Hae Soo-ssi.” She shoved the paper in Soo's chest, knocking the breath out of her. “If that copier breaks, it's coming out of your paycheck.”
Tears welled and the lines on the paper blurred. Only one line at the bottom stirred the storm inside her. Thank you for your patience and we hope this makes your lives easier. She ripped the paper until it was confetti. “You're dead, Wang So.”
She found it by accident, was looking for an adventurous tea for her mom's birthday. The phrases “maniacally spicy” and “infused with habanero”guiding her movements, the mouse clicking “add to cart”, the fingers punching in her credit card information. She cackled at the image of So sputtering for water to cool his tongue.
Her opportunity arose after a meeting. He hadn't had any water, kept coughing and smacking his gums trying to find some moisture as he spoke. “Wang So-ssi, let me make you a cup of tea. ”
He nodded. “Sure, that sounds great.”
She tested the tea, taking the tiniest of sips, balking as heat tingled over her tongue, gripped the back of her throat. “Perfect.”
So took the tea from her with gratitude. A look of such relief and such warmth flittered across his face and she found herself reaching for his cup, ready to take it back, but he already drank it, long sips passing over his tongue. She bit her lip, waiting. His eyes widened, sputtering, the tea falling back into the mug. He grabbed at his throat. “What was in this?”
But she couldn't answered, his skin burst red and pimply, starting at his neck and blossoming over his now-swelling lips and tongue. “Wang So-ssi?”
The mug dropped to the floor at the same speed he did. A clunk and a thud. Yeon Hwa was over in seconds, Hae Soo still standing over paralyzed. “What happened?” she screamed, dragging his head into her lap. “Never mind, call an ambulance. NOW!”
Soo ran to the phone, her fingers shaking as she pressed the numbers. “What's your emergency?”
She lost her voice, it opened and closed, the sounds trying to come out in uh's and um's and stilted syllables. Yeon Hwa yanked it from her, eyes ablaze. “Our manager is having a severe allergic reaction. He has hives, swollen lips and tongue, and he's wheezing. I think his throat closing up.”
She nodded a few times, set the phone back in it's cradle, and slapped Hae Soo across the face.
The sting of her hand rang in her ears, red welts formed on her cheek. “I didn't mean it,” she whispered. “It was supposed to be a joke. I didn't kno-”
“You did this on purpose? You gave him this tea knowing what would happen? As a joke? You thought this would be funny? You're sick.” Soo could only shake her head, her words being twisted and thrown back in her face. “You're fired, Hae Soo. And I'm calling the police. You'll be punished for this.”
As the paramedics put Wang So in the back of the ambulance, as Yeon Hwa climbed in after them, as the doors closed and they hurried to the hospital, Hae Soo was being read her rights, handcuffs were tightening around her wrists, an officer was gently pushing on her head as she slid into the backseat, and she was being driven to the station. A criminal.
So woke up to fingers brushing through his hair, another holding his hand, the sounds of rushed and hushed tones around him. He blinked his eyes open, moving his arm and then hissed as a soreness struck through it.
“You're awake. How are you feeling?'
He rubbed his forehead. “About as good as you can feel after having a severe allergic reaction to tea.”
He looked over, his eyes already searching for Hae Soo, for her bright smile and sparkling eyes, squeezing the hand he held like she was a lifeline. But it wasn't Hae Soo. It was Yeon Hwa. He dropped her hand, sat up and away from her closeness. “What are you doing here?”
Her face fell. “I'm your guardian. I made sure you actually got treated after what Hae Soo did to you.”
“What do mean what Hae Soo did to me?”
“She poisoned you. Gave you tea she knew you would be allergic to. I fired her and had her arrested for assault and malicious wounding.” Yeon Hwa crossed her arms over her chest, smiling with pride, wanting a pat on the back for a job well done.
“You had her arrested?!” So started to pry the IV off his arm and Yeon Hwa rose, trying to keep his hands away. “Nurse! Nurse, someone please get me out of here!”
“Oppa, what are you doing? You're going to hurt yourself if you do this.” She struggled with him, failing to pry him away from. “Stop this!”
He shoved her away and she fell back into the chair. “Yeon Hwa, thank you for bringing me to the hospital but you went too far. Charging Hae Soo with assault? Malicious wounding? What is wrong with you? And now she's in there all alone and it's all my fault. You may have signed forms claiming to be my guardian but I didn't ask for that. So get me discharged and take to the police station. Now!”
Soo curled herself into a ball in the corner of the holding cell, trying hard to hide her tears from those she shared it with and from the police officers roaming outside it. She couldn't forget the sickening thud of So's body hitting the floor, it echoed in her mind. Couldn't forget the way he clutched at his throat and how his beautiful face was marred with red splotches and swollen, expanding skin. Couldn't forget that it was by her hand that he had become that way, that, it was like Yeon Hwa said, it was all her fault.
“Would you stop crying already? I'm trying to sleep,” one of the others growled at her.
She only curled further into herself, trying to find quiet in her pestering guilt.
The station was quieter as night approached. Wang So trudged through it, feeling drowsy from medications, but it was the sight of Hae Soo's small body crumpled in a corner that dragged him to the floor. He heard her sniff and he whispered her name, with tenderness.
She looked up, old tears stained into her cheeks. The tightness in her chest and her muscles loosened and she sagged as she took in the sight of him. Red spots still kissed some parts of his skin, lips still slightly bigger than normal, his skin paler under the florescent lights, but it was him looking conscious and healthier than when she last saw him. She scrambled over to the bars, reached her hands through and cupped his cheeks. “You're okay.”
He held onto her wrists, his thumb caressing the soft and delicate skin. “Look what kind of trouble you got yourself into.”
Her lips trembled and tears threatened to spill again. “I'm sorry. This is all my fault.”
He shushed her. “Don't you dare. It isn't. I'm the one who started this stupid prank war.”
“But the tea. I told them it was an accident, but they wouldn't listen. Yeon Hwa told them I wanted revenge and knew what I was doing. I swear I didn't know.”
He pulled out a small baggie from his pocket, inside Soo recognized the packaging the tea bag was in. “Yeon Hwa had it pulled from the trash for evidence. 'Bitter Winter,'” he read, “'Orange Pekoe black tea paired with clementine, clove, and generously infused with habenero.' And, right here in the corner, it tells me that this has maniac levels of spiciness.”
“I just wanted to burn your tongue a little,” she said, pouting. “I didn't want to send you to the hospital.”
He stroked her hair, and she leaned into the warmth of his hand. “I know, Soo. For the record, I think your prank would've worked perfectly if it wasn't for the minor detail that I'm highly allergic to cloves.”
“Cloves. I'll remember that.”
“What do you say, Hae Soo? Should we call a truce? We'll never be able to top a hospital visit and a trip to jail.”
She chuckled, sticked her hand out for him to shake. “Truce.”
He took her hand and, on a whim, pulled her closer to the bars. He placed a kiss right on her forehead, inhaling the scent of roses and vanilla that clung to her hair. “Let's get you out of here.”
So and Soo rode back to the hospital together on the bus, which she insisted upon when he stumbled while walking out of the station. She stared out the window, watching the scenery change and So leaned his head on her shoulder, resting his body. He gripped her hand in his, keeping it close too his heart. She could feel the steady thump of his heart against her hand and the rhythm helped to calm her mind. “So.”
“Hmm.”
“Yeon Hwa fired me.”
“I know, but none of the paperwork has been filed yet and I can convince her to forget about it.”
She bit the inside of her cheek. “I don't think I want to go back.”
He lifted his head and smiled. “Good. I don't want you to come back.”
She furrowed her brows. “What?”
He leaned forward, eyebrows waggling at her. “Company policy states I can't date my subordinates.”
“I don't understa-” But she was interrupted by So giving her a swift kiss on the lips. She covered them with a gasp, leaning back into the window, and staring at him with questioning eyes.
He only smiled at her and leaned back on her shoulder. As he settled back into her, eyes closing, ignoring the way her heart pounded outside her chest, he said, “Don't worry, I won't do that again without your permission.”
Bitter Winter is a real tea! There’s also milder cayenne and habanero infused teas available.
#shrweek#scarlet heart ryeo#moon lovers#wang so x hae soo#wang so#hae soo#this is a long read#i ddi not proofread this out of pure laziness#so i know there's typos lol#did you ever imagine you needed a prank war between these two?#cuz i didnt until last night
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The Man In The Green Cape - Chapter One
[ Context: This is to do with the superhero universe I write about, specifically the origin of a superhero named “Remo.” I’ve started writing a story about his early days as a superhero, told from the perspective of his ex-girlfriend. This is what I got so far. Still a first draft, but hope you enjoy it nonetheless :D ]
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It was late. The steady humming of the TV helped Loretta to stay awake as she poured herself another cup of coffee. The sky outside was clear, stars shining bright, but the droplets from a rain an hour ago clung to the window. The honk of a car horn. The laughs and cries of friends rushing from nightclub to nightclub. The creaks and bumps of her upstairs neighbour. It was just another night in the city.
She wandered over to the sofa and switched to the television guide. There was nothing on that she wanted to see, but having it on made her feel like her insomnia at least had some purpose. Even if all she did tonight were watch half of a terrible old western, at least she would have done something. From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the flashing number on her answer phone machine. Ten was a lot of missed calls. She turned away, trying not to think of the meeting she had with her client in the morning.
Knock. Knock.
Loretta stopped for a moment, unsure if she had heard it or if her sleep deprived mind was imagining things.
Knock. Knock.
It’s just the upstairs neighbour, she told herself.
Thud.
There was no denying it now; someone was at her door and they wanted to get in… at two in the morning, it was hard not to be paranoid. Loretta quickly hopped off the sofa, reached down beneath it and pulled out a baseball bat. She hurried over to the door and peered through the peephole, but it was too dark to make out who was standing there. She put her hand to the doorknob and stopped, a million thoughts rushing through her head. I should be calling the police. What if they’re armed? What if I’m overreacting? What if I’m not strong enough to beat them?
Tentatively, she called out through the gap between the door and the wall.
“Who is it? What do you want?”
There was no response. Loretta waited a couple more seconds, but still, no response. She grasped her bat firmly and held down the doorknob, praying that whoever was out there wouldn’t try to break in.
“It’s… it’s me.”
Loretta’s heart skipped a beat. She recognised that voice, she was sure of it, but where… no, it couldn’t be.
Loretta flung on her lights and opened the door to her apartment. The bat fell to the floor with a clunk. Standing there, illuminated in her doorway was Matthew Remtoll.
He was older now, unshaved and unkempt, garbed in a bizarre green costume with a cape, but it was definitely Matthew. Loretta would’ve recognised those bright blue eyes anywhere.
“Loretta, I…” he began, before catching his breath, “I didn’t know where else to go.”
The last time Loretta Jones had laid eyes on Matthew Remtoll was seven years ago. They had had a huge fight after Loretta discovered he was cheating on her. Matthew had stormed out and Loretta had told him not to come back. The very next day he went missing. It wasn’t unheard of for Matthew to disappear for a few days, off partying god knows where. This time, however, a few days had turned into a few weeks. A few weeks turned into a few months. After the first few years, the police gave up the investigation presumed Matthew dead. Until tonight Loretta had presumed him dead as well, but now he was here. Standing at her door, staring into her eyes. It was like he was a ghost.
Questions upon questions came swarming into her mind, each one desperate to leave her lips in search of an answer. If he wasn’t dead all those years where was he? Why has he come back now? Why is he wearing those clothes? Why did he leave her? Why did he come here tonight? What had he been doing for the past seven years? But in the end she didn’t ask any questions. She simply said:
“Matty… come in.”
Matthew spent the night on Loretta’s sofa. She had leant him some of her ex-boyfriend’s spare pyjamas to sleep in. As he changed, Loretta couldn’t help but notice some odd scars upon his body. His behaviour was strange too; he was acting more polite, quieter than she remembered him being. She’d decided it was best to leave her questions to the morning though. He was clearly exhausted from something; as soon as he had lain down he fell straight asleep.
Loretta managed to catch a couple hours of sleep too, but the sunrise woke her up at six. On a normal day, she would have tried to go back to bed, but given how far from normal last night had been; Loretta suspected this day wouldn’t be too normal either.
When she walked into the living area, she was surprised to see that Matthew was already awake. She wished him good morning and made them both a coffee. He said good morning too, but other than that he didn’t talk. He appeared very focussed on the fabric of the sofa, as though he was unsure if it was really there. Loretta pulled a stool round to the front of the sofa so she was facing Matthew and put their coffees down on the table between them. Matthew said, “thank you,” before taking a single sip and putting the mug back down. He let out a deep sigh and stared up at her.
“I’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”
“Yeah, no kidding. Why don’t you start with that costume you were wearing last night?”
“Loretta… what I’m about to tell you is pretty unbelievable. So before I begin, I need you to bear with me. How much do you care about that mug?”
He indicated to the spare mug Loretta had been drinking out of last night. She looked at it, confused. It was just a white and blue coffee mug she had gotten from town one day. She couldn’t think of a reason it would be relevant to this conversation.
“It’s just a mug. Why?”
Matthew leaned forward, staring intently at the mug on the table. Loretta’s eyes glided from mug to Matthew, wondering what on Earth this was about. Just when she was thinking this couldn’t get any stranger, Matthew’s eyes began to glow. Loretta had to double take in case it was her imagination, but there was no doubt about it. Matthew’s eyes were glowing red! Before she could react, two beams fired out of them, smashing the mug on the table into smithereens. She stared, wide-eyed, at the burn mark where the mug had stood just moments ago.
“What the hell?” She yelled.
“So,” uttered Matthew, “now what I’m about to tell you might not sound so crazy.”
#personal#writing#my writing#my superhero universe#my superhero characters#superheroes#scifi#writing excerpt#superhero#ocs#my ocs#superhero origin
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