#I’ll wax poetic about this eventually but for now all I can do is draw zoros fruitless efforts at reassuring luffy he’s fine | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

just-j-really · 2 months

Text

Unsolumates, part five:

Masterpost

“Have you found your person yet?” Morpheus asks. “Your- not your soulmate?”

It’s been a little over two months, since Hob and Audrey broke up. Somehow ‘getting dinner with Morpheus just after’ had turned into ‘additional drinks’ had turned into ‘brunch, a few days later,’ and now Hob doesn’t think a week has passed since the breakup that he hasn’t seen Morpheus, at least briefly. Morpheus has carefully avoided the subject of soulmates, of romance entirely, for the entire nine weeks, and Hob is a little ashamed and a lot grateful.

They aren’t… whatever they were, before. Hob still isn’t sure if ‘whatever’ was ‘experiment and mad scientist.’ He’s doesn’t really care, though, because whether or not he used to be Morpheus’ monster, he doesn’t think he is anymore. Not after two months of regular, friendly pleasantries and coaxing Morpheus into talking about the play he’s working on and Morpheus listening to him wax poetic about his new flat and its in-unit laundry and actual decent heat.

So it feels perfectly easy to say, “Haven’t really been looking for ‘em,” even if it aches a little. Morpheus looks a little startled by the admission, so Hob adds, “Morpheus. I just spent fifteen minutes explaining what I had for breakfast yesterday, I would have mentioned if I were seeing someone.”

In his defense, it had been a good breakfast. A breakfast worthy of fifteen minutes of conversation. He might have to steal Gwen’s soulmate solely to get her pancake recipe.

Morpheus stares at the table, twisting one cuff of his coat in his opposite hand. “But you’re certain,” he says to the table. If he were anyone else Hob would say he sounds hesitant. “You will look for them. Eventually.”

This means something to him, Hob realizes. Something more than research, or mad science, more than curiosity. Means something on a future-altering bone-deep soul-defining level.

The thought drops into Hob’s mind, like a dead bird dropped into his lap by a pet cat that genuinely thinks it’s being generous, that Morpheus’ soulmate may be dead. It would explain the coat, which he hasn’t taken off even though the White Horse is boilingly warm tonight. Would explain why Hob’s only ever seen him in sleeves that go down to, often past, his wrists. Scarred-over soulmarks don’t look terribly different from ordinary scars, at least not at a quick glance, which means that any suspiciously soulmark-shaped scar tends to draw prying glances and effusive pity, and people with actual soulmark scars do their best to hide them.

It would explain a lot about Morpheus, actually, from the distant intensity with which he’d approached the whole soulmate thing to his complete ignorance of how even normal dating works to the delicate way Will had gone about inviting him to his wedding, asking if Hob thought he was overstepping at least six times in the process.

And oh, god, Hob’s been staring at Morpheus’ arms like an asshole, hasn’t he? He consciously draws his eyes away from Morpheus’ sleeves, which means he ends up looking into his eyes instead. His eyes are so blue, a shade Hob isn’t sure how to describe as anything other than ‘pretty,’ somehow light and intense and warm all at once.

Mesmerizing, maybe. Hypnotic.

The truly off-putting combination of the disarming blue of Morpheus’ eyes and Hob’s own scramble not to think about dead soulmates is, possibly, why he says, “I’ll make you a bet,” before his brain has caught up with his mouth, or even finished trying to come up with synonyms for ‘blue.’

“Hmm?” Morpheus asks. His expression is cool, but there’s a teasing glint in those ultramarine eyes that goads Hob on.

“That you can keep asking me that, as long as you want, and one day the answer will be ‘yes, and we’re very happy together.’” Hob finishes off his drink, sets his glass down with just enough force to punctuate the challenge. “I’ll even stake something on it. You could shave my head.”

“Why would I want to shave your head?” Morpheus asks. His expression is still entirely bland, but his eyes- azure- are dancing.

“That’s not the point,” Hob informs him, leaning in. He might be a bit too enthusiastic about the idea, but he’s a little giddy for no specific reason, just a good day and good company. “The point is that I don’t want you to, and I’m still willing to bet on it because I’m going to win.”

“Fine,” Morpheus says, rolling his eyes, “I’ll take the bet.”

Hob can see right through him, though. More to the point, he can see the way Morpheus is biting at his lower lip, completely ineffectively hiding a smile, and he’s powerless not to smile back.

At first, Hob thinks Morpheus is going to take this bet as seriously as their initial Whatever That Was. The first thing out of his mouth, the next time he and Hob meet for drinks, is so have you met your person yet? And Hob says not yet, and Morpheus asks if that means he’s won, and Hob informs him that a ‘not yet’ is not a ‘no’ and also did Morpheus expect him to find the love of his life within a week? He is not the lead in one of Will’s plays, why would he do that.

For someone who looked so smug when he asked Hob if he’d won the bet, Morpheus looks- almost equally satisfied when he learns Hob hasn’t experienced a whirlwind six day long romance.

But he lets it drop, after that, and they fall back into their new-old pattern, and all is right with the world.

“You know I nearly drowned once?” Hob asks.

In hindsight, it’s not a thing he should have asked while leaning out over a large pond because he swears that’s an ancient, sunken paddleboat in the middle of it and he wants a better look. Morpheus grabs him by the shoulder and yanks him backwards almost as soon as the words are out of his mouth, as though past near-drownings make Hob more susceptible to a watery grave.

“In a wave pool, yes,” Morpheus says, steering Hob away from the water’s edge. They’d been on their way to a museum, but Morpheus, for unknowable and mysterious reasons, had decided they should detour through this park on the way.

“Oh, no, after that,” Hob says, still craning his neck for a look at the sunken maybe-paddleboat. “I was like- sixteen? Got stuck under a boat when it flipped.” They reach the gravel path leading away from the water, and Morpheus lets Hob’s arm drop with noticeable reluctance.

“Just how many times have you nearly drowned?” Morpheus asks, as they trudge back toward the main path through the park.

“Uh. Two?” Hob replies. “The wave pool doesn’t count.”

“The fact that you think that is not reassuring,” Morpheus informs him, and will not budge on the issue no matter how much Hob tried to convince him that it doesn’t count as drowning as long as no one calls an ambulance.

The argument lasts them the rest of the way through the park, on a meandering route that doubles back on itself at least six times, across city streets to the museum, and through the queue for tickets. At that point Hob concedes. Not because he is wrong. He is not wrong, the other times didn’t count, but he has accepted the reality that he cannot possibly convince Morpheus of this fact.

Besides, the lure of keeping up a stupid argument shrivels and dies the moment Morpheus directs them out of the lobby area, past signs for the Theater Through the Ages exhibit, his eyes practically glowing with excitement. Hob doesn’t know what could have withstood the thrall of watching Morpheus stare at an old manuscript, a soft smile on his face. He wants to see Morpheus look this happy every day. He wants to be the reason for it.

He wants to soak in that expression for as long as he can, and that one he manages, trailing Morpheus through the exhibit like a lost puppy, absorbing exactly nothing of the room they’re in or the helpful signage or the contents of the cases. The windows could look out on the surface of Venus and there could be a sea monster in the corner giving directions and Hob would be none the wiser.

It takes Morpheus a while- Hob’s not keeping track of a stupid thing like time- to stop being dazzled by the exhibits and notice that Hob is dazzled for other reasons, but when he does he- crumples, just a little.

“You’re bored of this,” he says, as though this is an established fact Hob’s been politely not mentioning this whole time.

“No!” Hob says, “I’m not bored at all, just-” and then, thankfully, his mouth grinds to a halt before it can say any of the things his brain wants to. “A little lost?” he finally mumbles, once he’s managed to shove aside oh god please smile at me again and or climb me like a tree and actually have a conscious thought.

If nothing else, ‘lost’ has the benefit of being true, if not The Truth.

“Oh,” Morpheus says, somehow crumpling even further. A nauseous wave of self-loathing washes over Hob, for causing the light in Morpheus’ eyes to shrivel in on itself, he should have said all the stuff about oh god please smile at me again because at least that would be better than this-

“What’s that one about?” Hob says, a half step too loud, pointing at the nearest old book in a glass case.

He is, in hindsight, extremely lucky that he managed to point at a display and not a fire extinguisher.

Morpheus looks startled- Hob isn’t sure if that’s due to the words themselves, or just the volume- but turns to the case, Hob mirroring him, and begins to explain that it’s one of the few surviving volumes of a medieval playwright’s work. The explanation is stilted at first, Morpheus glancing over at Hob every few seconds as though expecting him to have turned away in disgust, but the smile slowly creeps back onto his face as Hob nods along, occasionally nudging at him to explain more.

It's Hob’s accomplishment of the year, maybe, coaxing that smile back to life, and he hangs onto Morpheus’ words like they’re oxygen as they meander through the rest of the exhibit.

The why of it all doesn’t phase him for the next several hours, because he doesn’t have time for intense self-examination. Not with Morpheus’ presence turning his mind into a dizzy slush, like his brain is made up of sunshine and honeybees and a persistent, thrumming notice me notice me notice me. Not with Morpheus failing to look aggrieved as they wander through a gallery of paintings, Hob critiquing each of them based on the presence of action and interesting animals.

Not when Morpheus grabs them each a drink at the museum café, giving Hob the chance to sneakily buy him a magnet from the gift shop, not when he looks so surprised when Hob hands him the little gift bag.

It’s only when they part ways that Hob catches himself smiling at his coffee cup, and the name Murphy in scratchy handwriting on the sleeve.

Well, shit, he thinks.

It had been easy, before, to let the tiny crush he’d been nursing wither and die. But now Morpheus is feeding it, refusing to let Hob pay for his own coffee and listening to him make stupid jokes about art history, and it has, accordingly, roared back to life, made itself comfortable in Hob’s heart.

#dreamling #my fic #unsoulmates au #we're back!

63 notes · View notes

luveline · 3 years

Text

in the morning, afternoon and night [Fred Weasley x Reader]

tags: reader-insert, hurt/comfort, self esteem issues, low self esteem, reader has acne, sad reader, insecure reader

pairing: Fred Weasley x Reader

word count: 1.8k

You glared at your reflection.

You'd think with such amazing magical medicine available, some witch or wizard would've invented a cure for acne, or at least a spell that covered it up.

You'd struggled with it since your third year. The muggle doctor you'd seen with your mother had suggested it was hormonal, and would calm down as you got older.

That was years ago.

It shouldn't have been a big deal. It wasn't, really. It wasn't usually very painful, though it was itchy as a stinging nettle and twice as unsightly. A large part of you knew it wasn't your fault, that acne was something that simply affected people at different times in their lives. You'd tried topicals and changing your diet, you'd tried losing weight and exercising and dermaplaning and everything they suggested in your mams fashion magazines.

Nothing worked.

Tears welled in your eyes and you sniffed them back, blinking rapidly.

It might've been silly, but it honestly made you want to hide away. You'd skipped dinner without really thinking, finding your way into the girls bathroom you inhabited now. You straightened your tie and robes, dusting down the sides. You leaned forward again, dabbing under your eyes with your sleeve.

The last thing you wanted was for anyone to know you'd been crying, because then someone might ask why. You didn't want to talk about it, ever.

If Fred saw you like this...

You and Fred Weasley had been almost dating for a few weeks now. Almost, because you hadn't talked about the whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing yet.

It had been years of thinking he was the fittest boy in Gryffindor (besides George) and months of meeting his gaze in the corridors and catching his eye over dinner. Gradually it had become something more; he started carrying your books between classes and opening doors, touching your arms and your hair and your face.

You cringed at the memory. He had been so caring, moving to wipe an eyelash from the skin under your eye. You'd violently flinched from his hand, afraid he might feel the bumpy texture of your skin, feel the acne beneath your makeup. He'd been apologetic and a little confused, filling you with guilt. You hadn't been able to find a way to tell him it wasn't him, it was you. Of course you wanted him to touch you, the thought of him cradling your face had been the subject of many dizzy daydreams, but you just couldn't tell him this one thing.

It was your deepest insecurity.

The stress had only made it worse. Redness was easy to cover with muggle make up and even some wizarding tricks you'd learned over the years, but there wasn't a way to smooth your skin, and the acne was textured.

It was depressing. You didn't want to use that word, it felt ungrateful to compare your skin issues to something so severe, but it made you miserable.

You but down on your quivering lip, pushing away from the mirror unhappily and opening the bathroom door, a frown on your face.

"Y/N!" a familiar voice said.

You jumped, startled but unsurprised. Fred had a talent of always knowing where you were. You'd find it creepy if he wasn't so endearing.

"Fred," you said, plastering a smile over your frown. "I was just coming to find you."

"What a coincidence, ma chérie, I was doing the same."

"Well," you began, easily sidling into his space, "you found me."

"Yes, I did," Fred hummed, wrapping his arms behind your neck, grinning.

He took a long look at your face, his forehead creased. "What's wrong?"

"Nothings wrong, Fred."

He moved his hands to your shoulders, looking down into your face searchingly. "Have you been crying?" he asked.

You shook your head, lying without thinking. "Something in my eye,"

"Both of them?"

You stepped backwards. He let go of your shoulders accordingly.

"Y/N?"

"It's really nothing," you said through a forced laugh.

He frowned at you for a few seconds more and his face cleared. "Alright," he said slowly, rolling the words in his mouth, "if you say so, doll."

You opened like a blooming flower at the pet name, your whole face softening. You smiled, hoping he understood that the smile meant, oh I just so adore you, Fred Weasley.

He threaded his fingers through yours, dragging you down the corridor beside him and waxing poetic about their newest lot of Peruvian darkness powder as you went.

It got so bad you couldn't go to class.

Okay, so you definitely could've gone to class, but the thought of leaving your curtained bed was enough to make you sick with anxiety, so worried that everyone would see you - see your face.

NEWTs were coming fast and hard. Everyone who wanted to be anyone was working hard studying their asses of, on top of Professor Umbridge's million new rules you had to abide by, including her newest life-ruining rule: Boys and girl are not to be within 5 inches of each other.

What a joke. You struggled through classes, wrote essays so long your hand burned at night and now you weren't allowed to sit next to your almost boyfriend at lunch? It was miserable. It was making you miserable, and now you may as well have sharpied on your forehead how equipped your body was to deal with it.

Fucking badly.

You groaned to yourself, rolling on your side to face the wall. You were at your wits end. It felt endlessly unfair that the thing that was stressing you out most was getting worse from stress.

Your stomach growled hungrily.

You threw your arm over your eyes in defeat, eyes finally filling with tears. You felt so hopeless. There was nothing to be done except keep up your routine until the flare up was over, or until your mothers next 'miracle cure' popped into existence.

The tears felt too hot against your sore skin. You couldn't help but sob quietly to yourself in self-pity.

A knock sounded at the door. You gasped, wiping the tears away in panic.

"Y/N?" It was Alicia. "Are you alright? Can I come in?"

"Yes," you managed. "Yes, of course. It's your room too, after all."

The door clicked open. Alicia appeared, tanned skin completely clear and glowing, though each perfect feature was marred with empathy. "Fred's been begging every girl in the common room to come fetch you, but I told him to leave you be."

"Thank you," you said.

You cleared your throat. Alicia moved her weight from foot to foot, twisting her hands.

"I- Y/N. I won't pretend to know how it feels, but I promise you, Fred won't care. He's beside himself worrying that you're bedridden and dying or-" she laughed to herself, "or that you're still mad at him for the itching powder. What I mean is... he's a good guy, and you're upset. Maybe you should tell him what's wrong. He won't care."

You sniffed. "I know," you admitted, feeling the weight of her shifting the bed. "I know he's a great guy. I just wouldn't blame him if he, if he didn't like me anymore. If he found it ugly. I would understand it, and I think that makes it worse," you choked on your words, heat building behind your eyes.

"Oh, Y/N," Alicia said, placing a tentative but comforting hand on your shoulder.

You lay in quiet, listening to your own ragged breathing.

"I'll go talk to him," Alicia said.

"No! I mean, no. Thank you, but no. I... I'll speak to him myself."

Alicia nodded, rubbing your arm kindly.

The sound of the door clicking shut behind her finally spurred you into sitting up. You dressed in a hurry, chucking a wool jumper over last nights pyjamas.

He wouldn't care, would he? You cringed. Yes, he definitely would. Whatever was between you would stop. He'd have the grace to let you down slowly, drawing away his affections. He was a polite guy, he'd probably even say the whole spiel of "it's not you, it's me". But he would, eventually.

Well, you figured. Let it be quick. Like ripping off a bandaid.

You tread lightly down the steps, hoping to see him before he saw you.

Of course, when the slightest groan on the bottom step sounded, his lovely face whipped to meet yours. He smiled in relief, but it was mixed with something else. Disgust, your brain supplied nastily. He was disgusted. He rose to his feet, smiling smiling smiling. But something in his eyes was different, now.

"Y/N," he said.

"Hi," you said.

"Hi yourself, beautiful. Where've you been all day?"

"I'm... sick. Bad cold," you settled on.

He raised an eyebrow. "You sound okay," he said, not unkindly.

"I..." you looked down at your hands.

A siren was sounding in your head. You didn't think Fred had seen you without make up for the last 3 years. Fight or flight was leaning heavily towards flight.

"Well, are you hungry?"

You shook your head.

"Are you sure? You haven't eaten all day. You need something in your system if you're gonna fight this cold."

"I'm not actually sick, Fred," you admitted under your breath.

"I know."

You looked up. He was still smiling kindly. It was infuriating.

"Look," you said finally, rushed and all at once, "if you don't want to- if you're grossed out. Then it's fine, I'll understand if you don't want to see me anymore."

Fred was stricken.

"I know it's - ugly."

"Ugly? Nothing about you is ugly."

"Fred, my face-"

"No, listen to me, Y/N. It's not ugly. It's not gross. You're not any of those things, are you kidding?" he said, grabbing your hands. "You're beautiful. All the time, in the morning, afternoon and night. You're beautiful in charms and transfiguration and care of magical creatures. You were beautiful yesterday and you're beautiful today and you'll be even more so tomorrow." He stopped suddenly, looking down at your joined hands. His cheeks had turned bright red.

"Smooth, Freddie," came George's voice, from the sofa behind them.

"Shove OFF," exclaimed Fred, growing more red by the second. Heat filled your own cheeks.

"It's skin, Y/N. That's all it is."

"Okay," you said tightly, trying not to cry.

Fred breathed out, his hair shifting in response. His corded arms pulled you tight to his chest. You breathed him in. He smelled sweet and rough, like burning caramel.

He thought you were beautiful.

You smiled into his shirt.

<3<3<3

tag list: @msmimimerton

if you’d like to be added to a tag list, please ask ! for in general or for specific characters, i don’t mind

#fred wealsey fic #fred weasly x reader #fred weasley #harry potter imagine #fred Weasley imagine #fred Weasley x reader #reader insert #reader has acne #reader is an unreliable narrator #reader x fred Weasley #fred Weasley fanfic #fred Weasley fluff #hurt/comfort #Fred weasley x reader

574 notes · View notes

mochegato · 3 years

Text

Even the Losers

Chapter 19

Thank you guys for your patience! I took a week of vacation to focus on relaxing and catching up on this fic but I’m a wife and a mom so that’s the exact opposite of what happened. But I’m back now. I still won’t have daily updates, but it shouldn’t be weeks in between anymore.

Chapter 1 Chapter 18

Marinette looked up at the Wayne Enterprises building, craning her neck in an attempt to see all the way up. This was only her second time seeing the building up close and it was no less intimidating the second time around. There was nothing inherently intimidating about the building. It was large and imposing, but that was the only characteristic that would be considered intimidating.

It was more a feeling, an aura, she got from the name, the history, the expectations and obligations that hit her every time she saw the building. Like something was weighing down on her for just being in its presence. Something pushing her away and pulling her in at the same time. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, her eyes never once leaving the building’s façade.

She almost jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder. “You sure you’re okay with this?” Max asked quietly. “We don’t have to do this today.”

Marinette shook her head, her eyes still pinned to the building. “Yes we do. I’ve pushed it off too long already. At this point, I’m getting favoritism by not getting lectured for it.”

Max looked around to make sure nobody was listening. “If it helps, I don’t think M. Wayne is the type to confront you at work.”

Marinette scoffed and gave him a pointed look. “That is exactly the type of man he is. Confront in a public place where it is likely to create a scene if I say ‘no’ and ask me to speak with him in a more private venue.”

Max gave her a small sympathetic smile. “Bad time to mention that you appear to have similar approaches to confronting people who are avoiding you?”

Marinette glowered at him, but only slightly. He wasn’t wrong. She was usually the one doing the avoiding, but if she had to confront someone who was proving elusive, such as when she had approached M. Fox the first time, it was an approach she would take. Didn’t mean she liked it. Either the tactic or the similarity in thinking process… or maybe she did like the similarity. It was a link to him. A subconscious, constant, unchanging connection to her biological father.

“I just mean to point out that if you do think alike, then you can anticipate his next moves and plan accordingly. You can use it to your advantage. You’re Harry Potter to his Voldemort,” Max offered with a supportive smile.

Marinette blinked a few times before turning to him wide eyed. “Did you just compare your boss, my biological father, to Voldemort?”

Max’s eyes widened in realization. “I… no… I… what I meant…”

He was cut off by Marinette’s laughter. It took several minutes for the laughter, loud enough to draw the attention and gawking of employees passing them by as they made their way into work, to die down enough for her to eke out words. “First a snake, now Voldemort. The man cannot get a break.” She wiped away the laughing tears from her eyes. “At least nobody’s compared him to Umbridge yet, so there’s that.”

She finally settled enough to pat Max on the back, her expression still amused, a wide smile on her lips. “Thank you, Max. I’ll consider that.” She turned back to the building and her bright smile dulled until it disappeared.

Max frowned at the change. He was very familiar with Marinette’s anxiety, it was an integral part of who she was. It had been since he first met her. But he had yet to figure out how to get her out of it. Alya and Adrien were always so good at getting her out of her head. What would they do? Max stared at her while he tried to remember how Adrien and Alya responded to Marinette’s anxiety spirals.

They had already reached the front steps before he decided however they would respond that wasn’t him. He pointed out facts then let people make their decisions based on the information. Then they might, or if it were Kim definitely would, make a stupid choice, but at least they had the information beforehand. “If it helps, M. Wayne used to walk through the department twice a day. But the last few days he’s only seen him in the afternoon, so I don’t think he will be there this morning.”

Marinette looked down, tapping her fingers together, avoiding his eyes. She closed her eyes and mentally berated herself. Why was she still such a coward? Avoiding her problems as though that had ever made things better for her. Avoiding Luka after they broke up just made him feel terrible and made her feel like a horrible person. And here she was doing the same thing, like she hadn’t learned a damn thing. She needed to talk to M. Wayne eventually, she knew that, she just didn’t know what to say or how to make it better yet.

She finally looked up guiltily at Max. “I’m sorry. I’m just not ready to see him yet, I haven’t figured out what I want to say, so that does help, knowing I still have time.” She let out a deep breath and squared her shoulders before making her way to the front door.

They slowly made their way to the elevator, focusing on each other and their path to the elevators, pretending like they didn’t see the people staring at her and whispering to each other. Once they were alone on the elevator, nobody to overhear their conversation, Max spoke up. “Maybe,” Max started quietly, “maybe, you don’t need to know what you want to say. Maybe you should let him say what he wants to say and go from there.”

He looked up at Marinette, a slight furrow in his brow. “From what you and Adrien said, it sounds like he may have some questions or may want to apologize. You had the last word, perhaps it would be most appropriate and in spirit of the rules of conversation to allow him the first in the next conversation.”

Marinette nodded at his reasoning. He was right. M. Wayne likely had a lot of questions and she hadn’t exactly let him have a say in their last conversation, perhaps it was only fair to allow him to have his say this time. She gave him a resolute nod and stood up straighter. “You’re right, Max. I should let him decide the next steps. I decided the last ones.”

Max turned and shook his head. “No. That is not what I am saying.” He looked her in the eyes for a moment before looking away and fixing his glasses. “What I meant to insinuate is it doesn’t have to all be on you. You don’t have to take responsibility for everything. There are two people in the conversation, in the relationship. You don’t have to take responsibility for moving either forward. He is responsible as well. You shouldn’t take it all on your shoulders.”

Marinette opened her mouth to say something but closed it quickly, not entirely sure what she wanted to say to that. She was saved from having to respond by the elevator doors opening. She stepped off and turned to Max with a plastered on smile. “Ready?”

Max looked down into his bag and raised his eyebrows at Markov as he stepped off the elevator. Markov displayed down-turned eyes and a frown. “Right, well,” Max started, much too loudly. He stood up tall and adjusted his glasses as Markov flew up next to him. “I promised to show you around the department. Come on, they’ve made some great progress. You should see the plans. You might have insights on the different directions we’ve been considering.”

The tour was short, it wasn’t a large department, but extremely enlightening. They were already making great progress. There was a mountain of failed prototypes with in depth analytic reports on their development and why they failed, ways to change it for the next attempt. There weren’t many employees in the department and they all smiled at Max and Markov as they passed and gave friendly nods. It seemed like nobody was upset that their former head of the department had been ousted and had welcomed Max with open arms.

“Ms. Dupain Cheng,” Lucius called out, making his way off the elevator and toward her and Max. He smiled warmly at Marinette and clasped her hand between his to shake it. “It’s been too long.”

Marinette chuckled and leaned up to kiss his cheek. “It’s been like three days since we talked.”

Lucius grinned. His eyes gleamed with a mischievous glint that reminded her of the sweet older men who would come into the bakery and “flirt” innocently with her maman and her when she was older but then wax poetic about their wives, their entire faces brightening when their wives joined them. “Like I said, too long.” He chuckled along with Marinette and backed up a step. “Thank you for meeting me here. I trust Mr. Kante and Markov showed you around the department and pointed out your office.”

“They have,” Marinette looked at Max and Markov with a smile. “It looks like they’re in good hands. I don’t think I’ve seen Max this giddy since he got a tour of CERN.”

“That is great to hear. And did he run over the different options we’ve been discussing?” Lucius motioned toward the white board and neatly stacked piles of reports on the tables next to the board.

“He did,” Marinette assured him, her face turning serious as she looked at the piles of reports.

“Very briefly,” Max added.

Marinette kept her eyes focused on the whiteboard, looking over the bullet points of their conversations. “They are very ambitious plans. It will certainly be a challenge for designing and a lot to consider.”

“In any way in particular?” Lucius prompted.

Marinette considered his question for a few moments and looked between Max and Lucius. Max nodded to her. She nodded back. “If you're talking about changing the rigidity of the fabric, then I’ll need to consider how that will affect the shape. If I have it molded to a person's body when it's soft, when it gets stiff it won’t bend the same way, so it’ll lose that shape. I’d have to figure out how to make it still work.

“We should really discuss intentions for the clothes so I can design appropriately and we can make sure there is a market for the clothes.” Lucius looked at her curiously. “How large of a difference are you thinking? Because the larger the difference, the more difficult to design, but also to wear. Unless you have some way that you're keeping it in shape regardless of how rigid it is. So you need to figure out if that is an important issue for you or not. Also, thread.”

“Thread?” Max blinked a few times

“Thread,” Marinette repeated with a curt nod. “The thread I use on say silk is a lot more delicate than the thread I use on jeans or leather. Those materials are stiffer and harder and need thicker thread to hold them. But I can't use thicker thread on things like silk because it weighs the fabric down too much and ruins the shape, so you need to think about the thread. It needs to be something that can work with delicate fabric but will still hold without breaking when the fabric changes.

“Also color. If you are going to change the fabric color, then the thread will likely have to change as well.” She looked between the two men. Max was staring toward the white board with the algorithms on it in contemplation. Lucius pursed his lips as he looked at the desk. Marinette rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet. “But that’s just off the top of my head. I can come up with more insightful once I’ve had more time to think.”

“That is quite a lot to consider,” Lucius nodded, finally looking back at her. “Those are important points we hadn’t yet considered but will have to be incorporated immediately. Thank you. I would very much like to discuss this further, but with more of the project involved and give you time to review some materials. Would you be available on Monday? That should give us and you time to prepare to discuss the options.”

Marinette frowned and pulled out her phone to see her calendar. “That should work.” She scoffed and waved her phone helplessly. “I pull this out like I’ve been putting anything in my calendar on it. We’re in Metropolis this weekend. I should be back by Monday.”

“Monday it is,” Lucius agreed. “Now that that is settled, I’d like to talk about logistics, setup, and ask a few questions up in my office.”

Marinette’s smile immediately dropped. She froze, her eyes widening. “Oh… um… That sounds…”

Lucius looked around the room to see who was looking their way and who might be listening in. He lowered his voice until only she and Markov could her and leaned slightly closer. “Mr. Wayne hasn’t been in before noon the last few days. I happen to know he has asked his PA to reschedule his morning appointments for today as well.” He shrugged and leaned back, keeping his voice low. “No real importance to that information just that there’s nobody up there with whom I can drink tea and it is about tea time for me.”

Marinette let out a small breath and gave him a grateful smile. “Thank you. I’d love tea.”

Lucius motioned toward the elevators. “Shall we?” He fell into step beside her. “We assume you won’t spend much time in your office, but it is fully equipped in case you would like to use it or split your time.”

“Thank you,” Marinette nodded lightly. “I haven’t decided what I want to do yet.” She looked up at him uncertainly. “Or what the contract would allow.”

Lucius grinned as he walked off the elevator on the executive floor. “It is a partnership with a designer, not employment. You are working with us, not for us. As long as we can contact you and get the fabric to you, we will allow whatever you need, Ms. Dupain Cheng.” He nodded to Bruce’s PA.

“Mr. Fox,” Bruce’s PA called out. “I wanted to double check that the new time works for your meeting today with Mr. Wayne.”

“Yes, Mr. Cortland. The new time is fine. I’ll be in my office for a bit. Can you send someone to bring in some tea for us please?” Mr. Cortland nodded and sat back down, picking up the phone to make the arrangements. Lucius opened his office door and motioned for Marinette to enter. After she had taken a seat at the small conference room Lucius watched her with a concerned look for a few seconds. “So is the trip to Metropolis for business or pleasure?”

“A bit of both,” she smiled at him. “Metropolis is one of the places we’re considering moving to so we want to look around and see if it’s some place we would like to live. Really, it’s just touring around the city.”

“You’re still deciding on where you want to live then,” he noted.

Marinette started to respond but paused when a man came in with a tray with a tea kettle and cups. She thanked him and waited until he’d left before speaking more about her plans. “We’re still thinking, yes. We’re not extremely excited to live in New York. Honestly, I think if we like Metropolis well enough this weekend, we might make the decision. Assuming Adrien gets offered the position he applied for, which I am.”

Lucius nodded as he took a sip of tea. He quirked his head to the side as he considered her answer. “Metropolis is certainly more manageable than other options, workwise, I mean. We could still have some in person meetings. Getting fabric to you would definitely be easier than say Paris, but we can push off making a decision on the logistics on that. Until then, let’s make sure you have access to the network. We’ll talk to Mr. Cortland about it when we’re done with our tea.”

Marinette smiled at him and took a sip of her tea. Lucius watched her for a moment, drinking more of his tea as well. “You know,” he started slowly, “Metropolis is close enough, you could choose to live between there and Gotham and be close enough for both of you to commute, him to Metropolis and you to Gotham… if you wanted to base your company here.”

Marinette froze momentarily, her lips perched on the edge of her teacup. She set the cup back down without taking a drink. She stared at drink for a few seconds before shaking her head. “I don’t think basing my operation in Gotham is a good idea,” she said quietly. She looked up at him with a smile and immediately looked away. The smile was supposed to be confident, quirky, not shaky. She took a moment to breathe and refocus.

“I’m trying to build my own brand without depending on M. Wayne. I’m going to face enough criticism and skepticism as it is without setting up my company ten feet from his.” She looked back at Lucius with a steely resolve. “I’ll finish my contract to the best of my ability. I’ll work with you in the future, not doing so would be business suicide, but I think a little bit of space might be good… for us both.”

Lucius gave her an understanding look. He knew something had happened. There was a reason Bruce was no longer coming in in the mornings and looked like Tim after a research bender when he finally did come in, like he had been up all night protecting someone. But he had also seen Tim’s reactions to him, the disappointed, frustrated, annoyed looks and passive aggressive comments about communication. All of which means Bruce was brooding and not talking to Marinette about it.

He swirled the tea in his cup. “You know, Bruce takes protecting those around him very seriously. He’s lost so much and is terrified of losing more. He’d give everything he has, everything he is, to protect someone he loves. But he also takes on all the guilt when he failed.”

Marinette sighed deeply and looked away, her eyes suddenly desolate. “He told you about dinner,” she said quietly.

Lucius frowned at the implications of her statement. He’d guessed Bruce had started brooding because of the Riddler incident, but clearly there was something more going on. “No. I didn’t know about dinner, I just know Bruce. I know his guilty brooding. I also know Tim and his disappointed anger at Bruce.” He leaned in closer toward her conspiratorially despite her not looking at him, hoping it would still get a smile out of her. “I’ve seen it a lot.”

He leaned back with a gentle smile. “So I don’t know what happened, but I know Bruce feels like he failed you. Which means he’s afraid of saying or doing something to make it worse, so he’s probably avoiding you, which is probably making it worse.” He faced her with a frown. “Because the worst thing in his mind is hurting you.”

Marinette continued staring at the cityscape outside the window and took a long sip of her tea. “That’s an awfully proper and long winded way to say ‘he had a reason for being an asshole and you should excuse him for it.’”

“Well, I do strive to be proper,” Lucius chuckled mirthlessly. “But I never said you should excuse him for it. I suppose it's something that the rest of us have learned to accept about him. We put up with it, but that doesn't mean you have to.”

“The problem is…” she quirked her lips as she sought the words to properly express her thoughts, “everyone keeps explaining why he acts the way he does as though that makes it okay, as though there’s some obligation on me because of it. Like understanding it means I have to build a great relationship despite it. But… there has to be trust somewhere in there too, doesn’t there? Understanding, compassion, those are supposed to go both ways, aren’t they? Everyone’s asking me to be more understanding, more forgiving, but nobody’s asking the same of him. It isn’t supposed to be the job of the child to do all the work.”

“He does get asked to do that. You don’t see it, but he is getting asked. I assure you his other children are making their positions clear,” Lucius assured her softly. “And I assure you he knows he isn’t doing what he should, but he is trying.”

Marinette scoffed. “He’s shit at it.” She took a long sip and watched some birds flying outside the window.

“I don’t disagree.” Lucius fought keeping the amused tone out of his voice, but it was a hard fight. “This whole situation is filled with everyone trying to do the right thing but failing… constantly, talking past each other, working past each other, sacrificing parts of yourselves thinking it will help, but it really just hurting everyone. It’s a comedy of errors.”

“Except it’s real life, and in real life it isn’t so funny,” Marinette whispered. She stood up and moved to the window, crossing her arms over her chest protectively.

“No, it isn’t,” Lucius agreed softly. He quietly rose up and stood next to her at the window, keeping his gaze focused outside the building. “Real life is work. Real life is hard. Real life hurts. Real life is less than ideal almost always. This situation isn’t ideal, but it doesn’t have to be abysmal either. You can choose to make the best of it.”

“But what’s the best that this situation can be?” Her voice was so quiet Lucius almost didn’t hear it.

“That is up to you and Bruce to decide.”

“It’s not just us though, is it?” she noted quietly.

“This part is,” Lucius assured her. “This part is just between you two. Your relationship with your siblings is separate and you can work that part out with them. One doesn’t have to affect the other.” He chuckled lightly, his eyes unfocusing slightly as he remembered something. “The other children have proved that well enough.”

She looked out to the skyline again, letting his words settle in, considering what they meant and if she believed them. “How do you forget? How do you move on?”

Lucius shook his head gently. “Moving on isn’t about forgetting. It’s about learning and adapting.”

Marinette finally looked over at him, her eyes pleading, looking more lost than he had seen her look before. “But what’s my lesson? What is it I’m supposed to learn here?”

Lucius’ lips turned up into a sympathetic smile. He laid a hand on her shoulder. “I can’t answer that.”

She shook her head and looked out the window again. “Because the only thing I see so far is that I shouldn’t trust M. Wayne. That I’m never going to be…” she sighed heavily and looked down. She took another deep breath and looked back up. “Weren’t there setup issues we had to resolve?”

Lucius stared at her for a few seconds, compassion shining in his eyes. “Yes we do,” he nodded lightly allowing her to change the subject. He patted her on the back and encouraged her toward the door. “Let’s get you in the system so you have access to the building and a secure email. We’ll order a laptop for you too so you can access the documents on the network.”

“Mr. Cortland,” he called out. “Can you get Ms. Dupain Cheng set up with a secure laptop with access to the network and the basic programs installed, please? And request an email for her.”

“Of course, sir,” David nodded to Lucius and started typing.

“Did you say Dupain Cheng,” a new voice spoke up. Marinette picked up on the excitement and interest in his voice with extreme apprehension. Marinette whipped around to the new voice. She looked over to Lucius to see how he responded. Her shoulders relaxed when she saw his easy smile.

“Mr. Dowd,” he held his hand out to him, “it’s good to see you again.”

“Yeah,” Mr. Dowd gave him a bright smile. Marinette stared at him curiously. He was about her age and was too excited and happy to be an employee. Not that the Wayne Enterprises employees she’d come across so far hadn’t seemed happy or excited about their projects, but they had a professional demeanor that Mr. Dowd didn’t seem to share. “It’s always good to see you. How’s Luke?” He looked between the two of them though his eyes lingered on Marinette as if waiting until it was polite to start talking with her.

Lucius chuckled. “He’s doing well. He is supposed to come visit next weekend. I’d like to say it’s because of me, but I believe he has a date or two planned with Ms. Gordon. But let me introduce you to Ms. Dupain Cheng.” He motioned to Marinette. “Mr. Dowd, this is Ms. Dupain Cheng. Ms. Dupain Cheng, this is Mr. Dowd.”

Bernard rolled his eyes. “Please call me Bernard. I’m Tim’s boyfriend. It’s really nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot of great things about you.” He held his hand out to her.

Marinette immediately relaxed and shook it. That explained the excitement and interest. It wasn’t a random person wanting a scoop on the Wayne family, it was someone wanting to get to know his boyfriend’s family. “It’s really nice to meet you. I didn’t even know Tim was dating.” Her eyes widened immediately. “Not that he doesn’t talk about you! I just haven’t had the chance to really talk to him yet.”

Bernard smiled at her for a few seconds. He shifted back and forth on his feet awkwardly. Marinette opened her mouth to tell him she had to get back to work when Bernard spoke up. “Hey, Tim and I were going to get lunch in his office. Want to join us? We were just ordering from the cafeteria because he has a meeting scheduled in like an hour. We can add something for you.”

Marinette looked over to Lucius anxiously. Lucius smiled at her and nodded in understanding. “We don’t have much more to finish, just waiting for the laptop to arrive. There’s no reason for you to sit around and wait. Go ahead.”

Marinette’s eyes widened. That wasn’t what she wanted him to understand! That wasn’t what she was trying to communicate to him. She hadn’t had really talked to Tim and every time they were close he froze up or got so tense she swore he was going to give himself a headache. Spending time with him and his boyfriend while he acted like everything was okay wasn’t going to end well for either one of them. She narrowed her eyes at Lucius. She honestly wasn’t sure if he misunderstood the source of her anxiety or if he knew what it was from the start and decided to ignore it.

Marinette turned to Bernard with a forced smile but it relaxed into a soft smile when she saw how excited he was to spend time with her. “That sounds really nice. Thank you, Bernard. Please call me Marinette.”

“Awesome, Marinette,” Bernard’s grin was a brilliant as Adrien’s and Marinette couldn’t suppress the giggle that came out. He led her toward Tim’s office. “By the end of the day, I’m going to get you to let me call you Mari. That’s the new goal for the day.”

Marinette tried unsuccessfully to suppress a snort. “And what was the old goal?”

“Prove the Miraculous team in France are actually fae,” he answered with conviction. He looked over at her, his face somehow becoming even brighter. “Hey, you’re from Paris, right? Maybe you can help answer some questions for me. This is perfect.”

Marinette stared at him wide eyed, frozen in place until Bernard looped his arm around hers and gently pulled her toward Tim’s office. Marinette chuckled and shook her head. She needed to record this conversation. Alya was going to die laughing.

Chapter 20

Tags:

@maribat-bdbwm @jayjayspixiepop @redscarlet95 @alice-hazelwood @deathssilentapproach-blog @unoriginalmess @alyssadeliv @emotionalsupportginger @frieddonutsweets @when-no-wings-do-broomsticks @toodaloo-kangaroo @colorfulmongerpsychicranch @iloontjeboontje @wolf-for-life @maribatserver @aespades @prettylittlebutterflie @imarivers8 @ certainmuffinbagelcalzone @ritacrow-blog @unoriginalmess @demonicbusiness @kking13 @lady-bee-fechin @blur-of-colours @kittenmywaythrulife @kashlyn @loysydark @nerd-nowandforever

#maribat #bio!dad bruce #bio dad bruce wayne #roynette #mbdbwm2021 #Even the Losers #prompt - Consolation/Advice

148 notes · View notes

ao3bronte · 4 years

Text

To Live Without Loving (is not really to live)

Also on AO3

Et vivre sans aimer n'est pas proprement vivre. - Molière

“Marinette!”

With a start, Marinette shoves her mobile phone beneath her pillow and grabs the novel beside her, opening it at random, “Oui, Maman?”

“It’s nearly 23:00,” Sabine announces, hoisting the apartment's trapdoor open and peeking inside, “Why are your lights still on?”

Marinette grimaces, “I have to finish this book by tomorrow and I’m still not done!”

Raising an eyebrow, Sabine climbs up the steps and gently pads towards Marinette’s bedside, “You’ve been at it for hours and you’re telling me that you’re still not finished?”

Marinette knows a lost cause when she sees one, “I may have gotten…distracted.”

“Hmm,” Sabine crosses her arms across her chest, “You have ten minutes, then it’s lights out.”

“But Maman…”

“Hush. Your brevet is coming up soon and I expect you to excel, as you always do. You need your sleep.”

Marinette groans, “Oui, Maman.”

“Doux rêves, mon coeur.”

Marinette returns the sentiment and watches as Sabine closes the trapdoor behind her. She listens, holding her breath as her mother’s footsteps carry down the stairs, leading into the bedroom. After a moment or two of quiet chatter, her parent’s bedroom door opens and squeaks shut with a click.

“Finally.” Exhaling, Marinette snatches her vibrating phone out from under her pillow and slides her thumb against it, illuminating the screen. An image of the infamous cabaret Le Chat Noir casts a shadow across her bedroom, “Allo?”

“M’Lady! I thought you had fallen asleep on me.”

Marinette rolls her eyes, “I got distracted.”

“Not distracted enough to leave me hanging, are you?”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Until then, mon amour.”

Quickly, Marinette taps the end call button against her fingertips and slips from beneath her covers, eager to sneak out before it gets too late in the evening. She tugs on a pair of pyjama pants and crawls outside, crossing over to the potted plants hanging from the wrought iron railings enclosing her balcony.

“Ready to go?” Tikki asks, rising from the fronds. Marinette nods and fastens the zip of her sweater before allowing Tikki to merge with her Miraculous, bathing the balcony in scarlet light. Mask safely affixed to her skin, she slips out into the evening breeze and leaps across the rooftops, eventually plopping down onto their favourite meeting spot along the city-spanning river, the Seine.

“Bonsoir, ma chérie!”

Ladybug turns towards the source of the racket as Chat Noir drops onto the quai from above, landing in a crouch beside her. The lattice of the bench she’s sitting on trembles as he digs his claws into the metal, steadying his balance, “Hey Chat. How’s my favourite stray?”

Chat spreads his arms dramatically, “La vie est belle!”

“You seem like you’re in a good mood,” Ladybug smiles, relaxing against the backrest.

“My day improves exponentially each time I get to see you.”

“Really?” Ladybug is pretty sure that if she rolled her eyes any harder, they might just get stuck there, “It’s been, what, two days since we last crossed paths?”

“An eternity,” Chat replies, holding his hand over his chest, “It wounds me to be so close, and yet so far.”

Ladybug can’t help but snort, “I can’t say that I’ve missed your melodrama.”

“Forgive me M’Lady, but I’ve been forced into reading Molière for the past week and I feel it may be rubbing off on me.”

Ladybug hesitates before responding, having just left L'École des femmes sitting on her duvet not twenty minutes ago, “Let’s just get down to business, shall we?”

Chat smiles and opens his palm to the horizon, “Après vous.”

“Chat!”

Ladybug screeches to a halt and uses her momentum to launch herself against the buildings lining the boulevard, pulling a hard 180° turn. She flings her yoyo and it wraps around the base of a satellite dish, sending her flying back to Chat’s location, “Are you okay?!”

He’s lying in the base of a crater, the akuma having body slammed him into the concrete, “Never better!”

Ladybug drags her eyes from Chat’s prone body and focuses on the akuma instead. Its body is huge, not unlike the rock monster they encountered on their very first adventure together. However, this particular akuma is far more calculating and intelligent that she had initially assumed.

“Hey! Bonehead!” Ladybug hollers to distract the monster from squashing Chat again. She can tell from his wheezing that whatever the akuma did to him while she wasn’t looking, he would need a minute or two to recuperate, “Look over here!”

Using her yoyo, Ladybug swings back and forth, drawing the hulking mass of a monster towards her. She reaches the other side of the boulevard and runs down the length of it, leaping off of a bench and vaulting back up into the sky. The akuma lumbers towards her, its hands flailing wildly in her general direction, and Ladybug does all that she can to keep one eye on potential tools for a plan and the other on Chat.

“Alright akuma,” she mutters, “Let’s get this over with.”

Ladybug raises her hand above her head with a flourish, summoning her Lucky Charm. It’s a sledge and it doesn’t take long for her to figure out what to do with it. With the help of her yoyo, a cement truck parked up the way, a tandem bicycle and a clothesline, Ladybug effectively smashes the monster to bits and releases the black akuma hiding inside its abdomen. Ladybug reaches up to capture it, purifying its soul, and releases it to the mercy of the winds.

“Bravo!”

Ladybug is already halfway over when Chat starts pulling himself out of his Chat sized crater. He droops over the chunks of concrete, wincing when the hole corrects itself under Ladybug’s restorative magic, and rolls over onto his back instead.

“Are you alright?”

Chat blinks up at Ladybug, “My Lady, il le faut avouer, l'amour est un grand Maître.”

“Ugh,” she groans, running her gloved hand over her face as her Miraculous begins to beep at her, “If you’re well enough to recite love poems to me, then you’re well enough to get up.”

She offers him her hand and he takes it, brushing himself off as she hauls him up easily, “Excuse me for being well versed in the classics, M’Lady. I am a cultured cat.”

“You have a test tomorrow on Molière, don’t you?”

Caught, Chat glares at her sidelong, “It’s an in-class essay, I’ll have you know.”

“Well, don’t let me Horace you any longer.”

Chat gapes at her suddenly, his eyes wide, “Did you…did you just…?”

“Make a pun? Maybe, maybe not,” she smirks, batting him on the nose, “Now, it’s time to get going. You need your beauty sleep.”

“But—”

“Off with you,” she grins, gesturing at him to leave with a flick of her wrist, “À plus!”

It isn’t a particularly long walk to school the next morning, but Marinette spends most of it thinking about her in-class essay. It’s one of the very last assignments that will count towards her brevet at the end of the year; it’s also the third time since the beginning of the semester that Chat has mentioned having to work on a school assignment.

The same school assignment as her.

It’s been niggling at her thoughts for some time now, the fact that Chat may very well be a student in her grade. First, it was the same unit test in maths that had come up in their conversation and between the binomials and trinomials clogging her brain, Marinette hadn’t thought anything of it. But a few months later, it happened again and Chat was waxing poetic about a particular stream of science and the experiment he was completing in class…

...which was the exact same experiment that had blown up in her face that afternoon.

Armed with the sheer determination to ignore any and all comparisons between her life and his, Marinette stuck her head in the proverbial sand and promptly tuned him out whenever school came up in their conversations. That is, until last night.

Marinette tugs at her ponytails and racks her brain for clues. There are only two 3ème classes in Collège Françoise Dupont and she shares her age with only five other blond boys, one of which is shorter than her. There’s the twins in Mlle Mendeleiev’s class, but they both have much bigger noses than Chat. Then there’s Christien, and that would be impossible given his fairly distinctive Belgian accent which leaves the only other option as…

...Adrien Agreste.

She watches him duck into his locker from the other side of the room and wince as he holds his ribs gingerly, grimacing at another one of Nino’s terrible dad jokes. He’s quoting Molière again, favouring his left arm as he waves it around theatrically, making Nino roll his eyes in response.

Oh.

When she sits down, lined paper in hand and essay prompt at the top, she’s never been so sure of something in her life.

She’s going to fail this essay spectacularly.

And, Adrien Agreste is Chat Noir.

#miraculous ladybug #ladynoir #adrinette #ml fanfic #ml fic

195 notes · View notes

livesincerely · 3 years

Note

I’m very sorry for all of the asks Madam Sincerely, but I’ve just recently gone on a binge of all of your fics, and I don’t think there’s any more questions on the ask game, so can I ask here: Do you have any ideas on future works that you haven’t started writing yet? If so, can we hear some? I was scrolling back through your tumblr to cheer myself up yesterday (my country’s gone back into lockdown) and saw you mentioned a few ideas, like the one in the SubDavey ask? Sorry, just curious <3

No need to be sorry, the asks are lovely! I’m sorry to hear that things have shut down where you are, I’m sure that’s incredibly difficult. Sending all the positivity your way 💕💜✨⭐️💕💜

The Domestic au is the QUEEN of inspiring random story ideas and dangling plot threads. There’s several floating around in the domestic au/ideas for later tags but if I was going to narrow it down to a handful of ideas that have a good chance of existing in the near-ish future, then I’d say 1) the Jack and Davey preparing for college fic 2) the Davey picking Race & Charlie up from the elementary school because Jack’s sick fic 3) the Race and Charlie needing a cuddle pile fic and 4) the bedsharing fic where Jack is struggling under the pressure of fighting for custody and needs some comfort.

I’m just in the mood for some stuff set in the high school/college era of that au, probably because ‘it’s beginning to look a lot like...’ has got me in the mindset. All of these would be one shots, just showing more landmarks in the boys’ history since ‘it’s so easy (too easy) to love you’ sort of just drops you right into the ocean as far as circumstances lol. And also, there’s a lot of family building that goes on before Jack and Davey get together that I’m very interested in exploring! I think Race describes it as ‘eight years of waiting for Jack and Davey to get their shit together?’ Yeah. So definitely lots of domestic au in the upcoming year.

I’ve talked the tiniest bit about ‘there’s you and me (and everyone else)’ and ‘a few letters off’ but after doing the first bits & bobs for each of them, I got distracted by other projects as I so often do, 😅 so I’ll talk about them here. Actually, I’m not even sure if these had working title ideas last time I mentioned them here, it’s been that long lol.

Anyway, these two fics are very similar, but just different enough to need separate fics. The first is a modern, high school au that features different examples of Jack and Davey being the accidental co-parents of their friend group while obliviously pining for each other. I’m thinking it will be individual scenes tied together by the theme; I’ll put the original idea post here and the bits & bobs here. Besides what I already talked about, I also think I want to include a scene where Albert and Crutchie are going on a first date (a pairing that is absolutely inspired by @agentsnickers, you’ve converted me) and they both separately approach Jack and Davey for advice on what to do/wear/etc. Like, a total ‘our-kids-on-their-first-date-get-the-camera’ type thing, plus Jack being an overprotective older brother and giving Charlie a curfew because he’s ridiculous.

“Be home by nine,” Jack says, a little surly. “Nine?” Davey asks, incredulous “They’re seventeen not seven. Eleven o’clock.” “I’m supposed to trust Albert with my baby brother at eleven o’clock?” Jack asks, scowling. “That’s just asking for trouble.” He says trouble in the sort of ominous tone other people reserve for imminent nuclear meltdown or battlefield heart surgery. “What do you think Albert’s gonna do, stick his hand down Crutchie’s pants the moment they walk out the door?” Davey says with a scoff. “It’s Albert.” “Ten-thirty,” Jack eventually offers. Davey nods, then looks back at Albert and Crutchie, who have been following this exchange like a tennis match and are both now a little pink in the face, and shrugs, trying to convey something like ‘pick your battles’. “Great!” Crutchie squeaks out, sounding absolutely mortified. “Great, ten-thirty it is, oh my god, Albert let’s go before theykeeptalking—“

Oh! And I want Davey to full name someone in the ultimate you-fucked-up-and-mom-is-pissed move. I even went and made full names for everyone just to be prepared 😊

Then, ‘a few letters off’ is the Jack-and-Davey’s-friends’-perspectives-on-the-nonsense-that-is-Javid fic. I’ve basically finished the Buttons scene, but I’m also hoping to include one each from the povs of Katherine, Crutchie, Racetrack, Spot, and Albert at minimum.

I’m thinking:

Katherine - catching Jack painting/drawing Davey while Jack tries to cover and deny

Spot - The aftermath of him and Jack getting into a fight with the DeLancey’s and him watching Davey fluttered worriedly around Jack, scolding him for being a reckless but still dabbing carefully at his injuries.

Racetrack - comes home to find Jack and Davey watching a movie, except that Jack’s fallen asleep halfway through, head in Davey’s lap, and Davey is adamant that Race doesn’t wake him.

Crutchie - watching Javid eating lunch together and noting how totally domestic it is: stealing food from each other’s plates, Jack gives Davey his extra fruit cup then swipes his milk carton and Davey doesn’t even say anything because it’s so routine, and how they’re able to move in and around each other effortlessly while eating and holding two separate conversations.

Albert - watching Jack and Davey flirt/bicker from the backseat on the drive to school.

And then some sort of culminating/getting together scene at the end.

There’s the infamous quarantine fic, which I waxed poetically about for all of two seconds and then never expanded on. (Here and here) The reason I haven’t done anything with it yet is because it will be a multi-chapter and between tie fic, take a shot fic, and now the domestic au holiday fic, I’m really at my limit for multi chapters at the mo’. But I do still want to do something with this once I finish tie fic and DAUHF, as take a shot knows no bounds and cannot be quantified by earthly means.

Then, as for the idea I mentioned in the sub!Davey post.... I think I’m going to be able to repurpose the general scenario/concept I was imagining for the final, E rated chapter of Tie Fic, so I don’t think the original idea will ever make it to a final cut. (I won’t say never because anything’s possible lol) But, I’m happy to put the bit I have here! Things don’t quite get E rated in this excerpt, but they’re definitely a solid M. This would’ve been an addition to the Tease series and I think this has been sitting in my drafts for almost as long as the letterman fic, and it hasn’t been edited in at least two years, so yeah 😅

00000

“I really wanted to work on my thesis proposal, that’s why I was in the library most of the day,” Davey says suddenly, pushing Jack down against the couch and straddling him, his voice light and conversational. “It was nice of you to check on me so often, though I’m sorry I wasn’t very good company. I was trying to stay focused, you know how it is.”

Davey looks at Jack expectantly, making it clear that he’s waiting for a response. Jack stares up at him, his expression equal parts confused, transfixed, and aroused. He swallows heavily, then nods.

“But I did warn you, didn’t I?” Davey continues, bracing himself with a hand on each of Jack’s shoulders, rolling their hips together as he presses closer. “That I had a lot of work to do? That this paper is really important to me and that I wanted to get a head start? That I really needed to focus and didn’t want to be distracted? I distinctly remember warning you about all of that.”

He nuzzles down the curve of Jack’s jaw, then nips at his neck. “But you didn’t listen,” he says against Jack’s pulse point. Davey smooths his hands down Jack’s chest, then back up to his throat, tugging at his collar. He unbuttons the first few buttons of his shirt.

“In fact, one could argue that you did the exact opposite of what I asked you to do,” Davey says, working his way slowly through the buttons on Jack’s shirt. “Trailing your fingers across my arm, rubbing a thumb across the nape of my neck, sneaking a hand up my shirt… I would call all of that distracting, wouldn’t you?” He finishes unbuttoning Jack’s shirt and pushes it off his shoulders, admiring his muscular chest.

Davey glances up sharply. “Answer me, Jack.”

Jack blinks himself out of his daze. “I-uh, what did you ask me?”

Davey leans forward. They’re so close that he can feel the warmth of Jack’s breath against his face. “I asked you,” he starts, wrapping his arms loosely around Jack’s neck, “whether you thought constantly caressing someone while they were trying to work would distract them.”

It takes Jack a long moment to respond. “Yeah.”

One of Davey’s hands trails up the back of Jack’s neck. “You agree that doing something like that would be impossibly flustering?” Davey asks in that same, unaffected voice—as if clarifying a statement for a news article—threading his fingers through Jack’s hair. “That it would thoroughly divert that person’s focus? That it would leave them feeling unbalanced, frustrated, and downright agitated?

He leans impossibly closer, so close that the barest tilt of his head would press their lips together. “That it would drive them so crazy that all they could think about was how desperately they needed to be fucked,” Davey growls out, and his voice low and rough.

“Christ, Davey,” Jack groans, his pupils blown wide. He leans up to kiss him, but Davey anticipates this and tugs sharply on his hair, holding him in place. “So, we’re in agreement?” Davey continues in his casual voice, letting go of the dark strands and pulling away slightly, ignoring Jack’s groan of disappointment, “that all of those actions would, in fact, be extremely distracting.”

He trails his hands lovingly across Jack’s shoulders and down his chest, his movements unhurried. He licks a hot stripe up Jack’s neck, then sucks hard at a spot just under his jaw.

“Considering both of these facts, I can only conclude that you were distracting me on purpose.” Davey presses a line of kisses along Jack’s collar bone, delighting in the moan that tears its way out of Jack’s throat. He scratches lightly at the tanned skin of Jack’s chest, then sucks a bruise just above his collarbone.

“Were you doing it on purpose, Jack?” he asks, then before Jack can answer, rolls his hips hard and slow against Jack’s, grinding their erections together. Jack’s hands spasm, then tighten, clenching hard against Davey’s sides. Davey continues his ministrations, circling his hips against Jack’s, teasing him with the friction. Then, just as Jack seems to catch on to Davey’s rhythm and starts to move with him, Davey stills. “Were you teasing me on purpose?”

Jack’s mouth opens and closes, his throat working furiously. “I-yeah.”

David hums in acknowledgment, then continues his slow perusal of his boyfriend’s chest. He nibbles lightly across his sternum, then draws the flat of his tongue across one of one Jack’s nipples. Jack arches into him but Davey pushes him back, using his leverage to hold Jack down against the couch cushions. He sits up, admiring the mess he’s made of Jack’s neck and torso.

Jack stares up at him, chest heaving, waiting for Davey’s next move.

....

Davey runs his hands down Jack’s stomach and between his hips, fingers brushing gently against the front of Jack’s jeans.

Jack lets out a guttural noise. “God, Davey, let me—“ he starts, one hand slipping back to kneed at Davey’s ass, the other inching towards Davey’s fly.

“No,” Davey says firmly, moving Jack’s hands back to his waist. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

00000

That’s all that comes to mind at the moment! Oh, and the Brooklyn Davey AU idea, but I got a different ask about that, so I’ll just link it. (Here)

@saysflora

#*editor's note #*ask #ideas for later #*the writing desk #this was a lot but hopefully it was interesting!#thank you for the ask #blessings and good vibes on your house

13 notes · View notes

radiojamming · 4 years

Note

Prompts, you say? How about prompt 48 for Hartving if you feel up for it? :)

48. Life would be way easier if I were easier. (Fact.)

Tom squints at the label, thumb tracing the dosage instructions. “Blasted physicians,” he mutters. “Why do they have to make everything so small?”

John looks up from his book, nestled in the hammock of the blanket draped over his knees. It’s not particularly good—some tropical adventure story Captain Fitzjames recommended—but it’s done him the favour of occupying him during his long recuperation.

“A teaspoon?” he suggests.

Tom shakes his head before pulling out the cork stopper and giving an experimental sniff. He immediately recoils, face comically scrunched. “I can’t make you take this,” he says. “It’s poisonous.”

“All medicine is, to a degree. Give it here.”

Tom walks over to the bedside, gingerly handing over the brown glass bottle. They purchased it yesterday on Doctor Randolph’s suggestion, both of them apprehensive as the local apothecary gave the paper order a bewildered glance. John’s mind is designed to solve sums and give orders, not to make sense of medicine. On that thought, he holds the bottle neck between his thumb and forefinger before giving Tom a wry smile.

“Maybe I ought to send a note along to Goodsir and ask for a second opinion.”

“Good idea.”

For the moment, John puts the bottle on the bedside table before sighing and leaning back into a pile of pillows. His side of the bed is plush and something more like a bird’s nest of comfort. Tom’s side is comparatively spartan—something about being too used to hammocks. With a soft whuff of breath, Tom falls onto his side and sprawls out. Some part of John envies how he can move without groaning from his aches. Of the two of them, Tom recovered from his Arctic ailments with incredible speed, having little to recover from in the first place.

They sit there in half-silence, occupied with the patter of rain on the slate roof, the distant sounds of birds trilling in the trees as spring draws a warm blanket over Crieff. John’s father insisted on them removing to the country (or, rather, he insisted on John doing so, and, “I suppose your friend as well,”) for the duration of John’s recovery. At first, John put up a protest, insisting he’d rather be close to his family in Edinburgh. Now, however, he’s happy for the quiet and Tom’s newfound happiness in the art of gardening. They have more time to talk without interruption, less distraction—much more privacy.

But still. Something aches terribly, like a rotten tooth John can’t stop worrying. It’s stayed unsaid since they moved into the old manse in October.

“Thomas,” he says.

“Hmm?”

John closes his book, not minding that his page isn’t marked. He sets it beside the medicine bottle, taking a moment to stare at the pair of items before looking back down at his hands. “I must ask, and I’m sorry if it’s inconvenient to answer. I’m more inclined to think of the weather and the condition of the roads.”

Tom doesn’t reply, but John can feel him watching.

“I... I must ask if you’re happy here. Truly happy.”

“Sorry?”

“I’ve had it in mind that Crieff is so far from Gillingham, and it’s terribly unfair of me to demand all your attention when you still have family that cares for you,” John says. It feels like unloading all the thoughts he’s dwelled on for the past few months, mentally practising a conversation that would eventually need to be had. “It hasn’t been easy, I understand. I’m not an easy patient.”

“John—”

“Please, Thomas. It’s been...” He can’t look away from his hands, fingers twisting, one finger forever bent slightly out of shape. “It’s been on my mind for some time now.”

He feels one of Tom’s warm, calloused hands rest on his forearm.

“I’m... I’ll never be as I was before we went north. I know this. I cannot keep up with you in speed when we walk. Certain sounds make me feel terribly nauseous. Certain smells, as well. My head sometimes aches without warning. And I know I keep you awake when my dreams turn for the worst.” His fidgeting gets worse, index finger of one hand twisting around the crooked ring finger of the other. It’s a wonder the long walk didn’t cause him to lose his entire hand. “I was a sickly child,” he says, softer now. “I’d recover well enough that my father never thought to keep me at home for all my life as he did with my younger brother, but I was dogged by all manner of illnesses. By now, I’m sure you’ve seen that this follows me into adulthood.”

Tom stays blessedly quiet, although he’s now adjusted himself to lay along John’s side, arm going across his waist in a gesture that’s almost protective.

“I’m not good company,” John continues, voice threatening to crack like overheated pottery. “I ramble on some points until I’d like to close my own ears, and I know I can become argumentative and unrelenting. And—”

The tears come. He can’t stop them any sooner than he can stop the rain tapping the windowpanes. John places his hands over Tom’s arm, feeling that heat that reminds him of those long nights on the top of the world, waiting for rescue.

“What a terrible match I am to you, Thomas,” he finally says, voice thick with sorrow that’s lingered on the back of his tongue for so long. “Were that I were an easier man to love.”

Tom must take this as a signal to speak again, as his hold gains a fierce strength and his face is suddenly very close to John’s. “You are,” he replies. “My only regret is not saying so sooner.”

John means to ask why, but his voice is tampered down by the force of a ferocious kiss. For someone so gentle in many ways, Tom loves like someone dogged by death. Every kiss feels like the last, every embrace lingering as if he fears pulling away. He can kiss chastely and quickly, but something about him gives all affection an extra layer of desperation. As it is now, with John pressed back against his pillow nest, Tom atop him, pinning him as a naturalist pins a butterfly when he assumes it’s too precious.

When Tom pulls back and looks at John, it’s with eyes kindled up from embers. John minds the worried line between Tom’s brows, the sad angle of his eyes that makes him look forever like a penitent. He’s a beautiful thing to behold, burnished in his rawness, lovable for the rough angles of an ungentle upbringing. Even the drawling cadence of his voice is captivating in ways John’s continually failed to express. It’s difficult to wax poetic about the sounds of a murky dockyard in a man’s voice without sounding condescending, so John keeps those thoughts as his own.

But his love for Tom— Oh, he can muse on that until Judgement Day.

“You’re the company I chose,” Tom says, pressing his forehead to John’s as he closes his eyes. “And I’d pick you over all of Kent if given the option.”

John feels himself smile, even as his tears itch along his cheeks.

“And, no, you’re not an easy man,” Tom goes on. One of his hands rises up to cup John’s cheek, rough thumb tracing the old frostbite scar on John’s upper lip. “Neither am I. No one is. If all people were so simple to understand, the world would be a very different place.”

“It would,” John replies softly. Already, he feels warmth rise in him like dawn.

Tom slowly shakes his head in order to nuzzle John with a heartaching gentleness. “And I’ll slow down for you, make you drink every terrible concoction the physician sends along if it means I get to keep you longer.” Then, he gives a short laugh—a rush of warm air against John’s cheek. “You’re in a terrible position to get rid of me. I won’t make it easy for you.”

John’s hands rise on their own accord, wrapping around Tom’s torso to pull him closer. He can feel the insistent thrum of Tom’s pulse, and he delights in every beat.

“I’d like that very much,” he says.

“For me to be difficult?”

John kisses him. Again. And again. He hopes for thousands more just like it before he finally meets his maker. “If it keeps you here, then yes.”

Tom smiles against his lips. “You brilliant, difficult man. I’ll make myself unbearable for your sake.”

#hartving #prompt fill #trying to get back into the rhythm of writing regularly haaaah

20 notes · View notes

raywritesthings · 4 years

Text

Classically Trained

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen (Eventual) Characters: Laurel Lance, Ted Grant, Oliver Queen, Sara Lance, Quentin Lance, Team Arrow, Eobard Thawne Summary: The Dollmaker meets unexpected resistance when enacting his plan to destroy Detective Lance's soul, and Laurel ends up meeting a needed friend. Notes: Older Ted Grant, Metahuman Laurel Lance *Can be read on my AO3 or FFN, links are in my bio*

Laurel had never been more terrified. Not when she’d been attacked by the Triad in her own apartment, not during the staged prison riot at Iron Heights, not when Vanch had taken her hostage to use as bait against the Hood and not even when she’d been trapped under the rubble in the quake. Even though she’d felt for certain she was going to die before Tommy had come to save her.

Any of those instances, she could have died, and died with dignity. This, what the Dollmaker planned to do to her...this was a horror that went beyond death.

“Look at her. She's so lovely,” Mathis said as he leaned in close to her face. Laurel’s breathing picked up, audible with the tube stuck down her throat. God, she could feel his breath and it was sickening. “Maybe a little too much melanin in the skin, but...it's the imperfections that make art sublime.”

She couldn’t really process that backhanded compliment, not over her father’s pleading and the roar in her own ears. This was it. She was dying. No one was saving her this time. Not Tommy, not her father, not the Hood and not even Oliver and his military bodyguard. She’d lost or pushed people away too many times, and a maniac was going to kill her to destroy her father.

“She’s your world, she’s your very soul,” Mathis continued to wax poetic. Her father was shouting at him now. Laurel wanted to join him.

“I will kill you, you son of a bitch!”

She couldn’t do this to him. She couldn’t just die like this! Her chest hurt from the rapid heaves of breath she was taking and the hammering of her heart.

The white liquid started to filter down from Mathis’ contraption and up the tube. She was going to choke, and it would all be over for her in a few moments. Her whole life, reduced to a glassy-eyed doll for other people to look at and pity.

“Laurel, sweetheart...close your eyes,” her father begged, tears leaking from his own.

Laurel’s eyes did squeeze shut, but she wasn’t ready to go out quietly. She was tired of being helpless, tired of just existing as an object for other people to batter and use to their own ends, tired of bottling it all up and burying the pain and the anger deep inside.

So she screamed. Only it wasn’t just a scream.

The tube and the straps holding it to her face ripped away from her, hitting the opposite wall. Glass shattered on the table with his contraption and from the few lightbulbs above, raining down into her hair and stinging her cheek with tiny cuts.

Laurel coughed at the feel of the tube leaving her throat, and that was what ended it. Whatever it had been. She gasped for breath, looking around in wide-eyed shock. Nothing was like it had been.

Her father had slid to the ground, still strapped into place with his arms behind his back while his head hung down. She could make out the sound of him groaning.

Just to her left, Mathis was also sprawled. Red was leaking from his one ear, and it took Laurel a moment to register that meant blood.

Movement to her right near the table caused her to start; the Hood had just stood up. She didn’t even know when he’d gotten there, but he must have been using the table for cover.

Laurel coughed again. “What...what just happened?”

He stared at her, she thought. In the dim light left by Mathis’s Bunsen burner, his eyes were glinting. After a long pause, he finally answered, “I was going to ask you.”

What?

“Laurel,” her father stirred, struggling to rise back onto his feet. “Honey, are you okay?”

“I- I’m fine. I’m alive.” She was shaking, she realized, uncontrollably. No matter what had happened, she was okay. She wasn’t going to die.

The Hood went to her father and undid his bindings. The vigilante hung back as he rushed forward to her, taking the straps off her arms.

“I just don’t understand. I mean, how did you do it?” Her dad asked.

“Do what?”

“You didn’t- you didn’t see? Laurel, you- your voice or something, I don’t know. It nearly knocked me over if I hadn’t been tied to the pole!”

“Dad, that doesn’t make any sense,” she said. Her eyes searched out the Hood again, but this time he looked away. Then he started forward.

“Mathis!”

The serial killer was no longer sprawled on the ground but was crawling on hands and knees towards the nearest exit.

“Damnit, he’s getting away!” Her father yelled, fumbling for some kind of weapon.

“No, he isn’t,” a different distorted voice spoke. Feminine. The blonde woman from the other night jumped down from the rafters in front of Mathis, the staff she carried going under his chin. His neck snapped before any of them could so much as cry out.

Only when Laurel did, she saw it.

The air in front of her seemed to pulse with waves of volume, not far enough to reach the other woman, though her head turned sharply in Laurel’s direction with pure shock etched into the features she could make out. It mirrored Laurel’s own.

She stumbled back and nearly tripped over her own feet, the sound cutting off as she gasped. A hand flew over her mouth. “I don’t- I don’t know how that—” she mumbled behind it.

They were all just staring at her, wary, none of them approaching. Like she was diseased. She’d gotten herself out of danger, and somehow it was so much worse than being rescued.

Laurel turned and ran.

“Laurel!”

She didn’t turn back at her father’s shout and just kept going. When her feet started to hurt, she tore off the stupid heels she was wearing and carried them.

Everything was just so screwed up. The Hood has come to save her and her father, even after she had joined the task force hunting him down. He was a good person, or trying to be. What had happened last spring hadn’t been his fault, easier as it had been to just blame him. No, what had happened to Tommy had been her fault, just like whatever had just happened back at the Dollmaker’s hideout was her fault. What was so wrong with her?

Laurel sagged against a wall, breathing hard and too tired to go on any further. She had no idea where she was, but it looked like some forgotten corner of the Glades.

“Hey, you alright?”

She looked up. There was an older man across the alley standing at the back door of a building he looked to just be locking up.

Laurel shook her head, not sure if she trusted herself to speak. That weird scream could come back any moment for all she knew.

“Someone chasing you? Running away from a bad boyfriend? Need the police?” He checked, getting more shakes of the head from her. “Any reason you don’t want to talk to me? If it’s Stranger Danger, the name’s Ted Grant.”

Laurel swallowed. “I’m not scared of you.” Even if the guy looked ripped enough to be a member of the Queen family’s security detail, he held himself in a way that made him seem much more open. “I’m scared of me.”

He looked her over, and even though she could see him assessing her there wasn’t any kind of predatory edge to it. He turned and inserted his key back into the lock, opening the door again.

“Look, best to get this off the street. Especially these days.” She blinked and had to move fast to catch the keys when he flung them at her face after. “So you know you’re not trapped.”

“Right.” Laurel walked up to the door.

“Not bad reflexes, by the way,” he remarked.

“Thanks?”

When he turned the lights on, she got a better idea of why he might have commented on it. Laurel looked around the gym floor, the bags hanging at various intervals and the ring standing in the middle.

“So, what do I call you? You can pick a name,” he offered.

“Uh, Dinah,” said Laurel, cringing immediately afterward. Brilliant idea, pick her own name! Even if it wasn’t the name people commonly attached to her. But she was still too rattled to really concentrate. She should’ve gone with Sara, she realized, if it had to be a name she was familiar with.

Ted grinned. “Old-fashioned. I like it. Okay, Dinah, the first thing you gotta learn is, you can’t run from yourself. No one can. So what are you really running from?”

“I don’t know,” she answered, hugging her arms to herself. “It just happened.”

“What did?”

“Trust me, you don’t want to find out.”

If anything, his grin got wider. “Try me.”

Something about his brazen confidence was soothing at the same time it was aggravating. She knew he probably thought she was just some helpless, battered woman. Part of her wanted to prove him wrong.

Part of her wanted to know she wasn’t just going crazy.

Laurel turned away from him, trying her best to draw on some of that jumbled panic, fear and adrenaline still coursing through her system. There was a burn at the back of her throat, not painful but present, and somehow she just knew. She opened her mouth and screamed.

The posters on the far wall went flying and the heavy bags hanging at that end of the gym swung as if caught in a storm. Nothing shattered, thankfully.

“Do you see why I’m scared now?” She asked, looking over her shoulder at him.

“I’ll be damned, Dinah.” He was staring at her now, too, but though the shock was there it wasn’t tinged with fear. Not like with her father and the vigilantes. If anything, he looked awed. “What are you gonna do with that?”

—-

He waited too long.

By the time Oliver reacted, Laurel was out the door and far down the street. He hurried into the night, but with no way of knowing which direction she’d fled in, he was hopeless to pursue her.

“Where did she go?” Lance asked, gasping for breath in the doorway. “What just happened?”

Oliver remained silent. In all his years away and everything he had seen, nothing like that had ever been among it.

“It was Mathis. He- he must’ve done something to her while I was out,” Lance was deciding for himself now. “And we can’t ask him, damnit!”

The former detective whirled back around, but the warehouse was empty aside from the Dollmaker’s broken body. The woman in the black mask had taken her leave as well.

“My associate and I will track you daughter,” Oliver promised. Then he fired a grapple arrow to ascend to the roof of the building next door. He hurried into the night, eyes scanning the streets below on his way to the base. He found nothing.

Oliver’s mind was still half on thinking of places Laurel might have run to — her apartment? Her father’s? A police station? — when he entered the base to find Felicity and John waiting for him.

“So, we heard a lot on the comms,” Felicity began. “Could you elaborate on what it all meant?”

“I got there, and Mathis was getting ready to- to turn Laurel into a doll,” Oliver said, covering his wavering voice with a cough. “Something happened before I could intervene.”

“Was it our mysterious blonde? Thought we heard something like that sonic device she had on her the other night,” Digg said.

“She was there, but no. It wasn’t her. It was Laurel. She…” He didn’t even know how to describe it. “She screamed and it, it just was a force, it came from her—”

“What do you mean?” Felicity was wearing a quizzical half-smile, like he was talking nonsense. He felt like he was talking nonsense.

“I mean it forced the tube out of her throat and Mathis to the ground. His ears were bleeding.”

“Laurel did that with a scream?” John crossed his arms, dubious. “Oliver, that’s impossible.”

“It’s not impossible,” Oliver disputed. “I saw things. On the island. Not this, but...people are capable of more than we might think possible.”

John frowned. “How come you never mentioned that before?”

“Because it never meant good things,” he told them.

“So, what, you’re saying Laurel is bad now?” Asked Felicity.

“No,” Oliver answered immediately. He could never think that. It just didn’t make sense. It must have been Mathis’ doing, like Lance had said. Unless…

John had pointed out the similarity between the sound that had come from Laurel and the device the unknown woman carried. Why had she been there at all? Why had she been near Laurel’s office at all?

Now Laurel was out there, alone and terrified. He had to find her before she was hurt. Or worse, hurt someone by mistake.

And he had to find her before anyone else did.

—-

Ted had seen a few things as protector of the streets in his day, but this about took the cake. A woman with a scream to bring the house down. He couldn’t make this stuff up if he tried.

“What do you mean ‘what am I going to do with it’?” She asked, scoffing. “I don’t even know how I got it, and I don’t want it.”

“Don’t be so hasty. Look, I can see the bruises forming there on your wrists. Something happened to you, didn’t it? Or was going to.” She looked down now, ashamed. Ted worked to gentle his tone. “What got you out of it?”

Her chin lifted slightly, trembling. “Don’t you think I’m some kind of freak?”

He shook his head. “Freak’s not in my vocabulary.” There was something curious about her, though. Those fancy clothes and yet she looked like she’d been put through the mill the same as any of them in the Glades. And not just from whatever had nearly happened tonight.

“What I see is someone who was in a tight spot and figured her own way out of it. A way that might come in handy again. You never know.”

“Why do you care?” She was incredibly suspicious for someone her age. He could see the way she kept tensing at each show of goodwill. Who had hurt this girl so badly?

He shrugged. “I get a lot of people in here who feel lost, who need to work something out. Helping them is how I keep giving back to my city.”

“You think you can help me?”

“Depends. Are you looking for help?”

She looked ready to snap at him, maybe with that scream of hers, too. But then her shoulders drooped, and her mouth turned down in a frown so fundamentally unhappy. “I don’t know what I’m looking for. I just know I can’t- I can’t go back right now. There’s people who know, and they’ll be looking for me, and I just cannot deal with that right now.”

He nodded to himself. The truth was, he wasn’t comfortable sending her back out there to walk home, and none of the cabs drove around this area of the city at this time of night anymore. He walked over to the supply closet and picked out a hoodie and pair of sweatpants he thought would be in her size well enough. “You’ll want some of these. You alright with black?”

“Black’s fine. I- you don’t have to help me.”

“Nobody has to help anyone, Dinah. But that’s kind of the point. I keep a couple cots in the back for if people get carried away and knock each other out. Or themselves, sometimes. You can use one of those. Take a few days. Then tell me what you’re thinking.”

He set the clothes on a bench and started to head back to his office.

“Ted?”

He looked back around in time to catch the keys she’d flung back at him. Ted smirked. “Yeah?”

The closest thing to a smile he’d seen her wear all night rose on her lips. “Thank you.”

“Not a problem. Goodnight, Dinah.”

—-

Quentin was ready to rip out his hair. He’d gone back to the precinct, checked Laurel’s apartment and her office. Nothing, except her belongings some of the other beat cops had found along with his in the parking lot when Dollmaker had attacked them. Her phone was among them. He had no way of reaching her.

He’d been so stupid! Laurel was going through enough on top of Mathis’ sick attempt at revenge. She’d needed support, whatever the hell had happened to her. And he’d been too stunned to give it.

The first thing he did the next morning was to call the DA’s office. “Yeah, this is Officer Lance. I’m looking for my daughter.”

“I’m sorry, officer, Laurel called in this morning to say she was taking the week off. She cited personal reasons? In light of the attack on you both last night, we approved the absence.”

“Laurel called?”

“Yes, I spoke to her myself.”

She had access to a phone, then. That was something. Something good? He didn’t know. But she was out there, alive. That alone brought him relief.

“Alright, listen, if she calls back could you please tell her to call me? Thank you.”

He would keep looking in the meantime. If Laurel was hiding because she was scared or thought she’d done something wrong, he was going to be the first person to tell her otherwise. Maybe Mathis should’ve gone to jail again, but he certainly wasn’t mourning the creep after what he’d tried to do. And whatever that scream had been, they’d figure it out. They always had.

He just needed some help finding her was all. So he ducked out of the precinct and put in a call to Smoak.

“Officer Lance. Did you hear from your daughter?”

“No, and I’m guessing you haven’t either. Okay, I found out she called into her office to take off work for the week. They approved it, considering the abduction last night. But that means she’s somewhere with a phone. Can you do anything with that?”

“Not unless I had the number. I’m sorry, Officer Lance.”

He hung his head. He should’ve been expecting that. “No, that’s alright. Was worth a shot.”

“Well, at least we know Laurel is alive? Sorry, that came out worse than in my head.”

“It’s fine. Listen, I’m gonna do a sweep around the warehouse, so I’ll let you go.”

“Okay, but— Officer Lance?”

“Yeah?” He asked, bringing the phone back up to his ear.

Smoak hesitated. “We’re looking at a possible connection to the masked woman who showed up last night. If you see her, let us know right away.”

That was something. He hadn’t even put much thought into the woman who had killed Mathis. What was her deal? “Right, yeah. I’ll let you know.”

He hung up and got into his squad car, driving over to the Glades. He drove around the streets surrounding the warehouse for hours, but didn’t find a thing.

—-

Laurel rubbed at her temples with a groan. It was five o’clock somewhere, and she was stone-cold sober. That was definitely a problem.

In the cold light of day, she wasn’t really sure what she was doing here. Here being the Wildcat Gym, as she’d realized upon looking at the logo on both the hoodie and sweatpants she was borrowing for the moment. The name seemed familiar to her, but she couldn’t remember why. She’d used the landline phone in Ted’s office to place a call into her work, knowing she did not have the energy nor the strength to show her face in there for a while.

Last year at CNRI, she would’ve hated taking even a day off. But the DA’s office was not what she’d hoped it might be. Kate still disliked her, Adam was...decidedly not the most professional. She rarely got to see or speak to the victims or families of the criminals they were putting away. It was all so impersonal. Lonely, like she was now.

The door to Ted’s office opened, and he entered with a sandwich in a takeout bag. “Thought you might need something to eat.”

“More like something to drink,” she grumbled, but took the food anyway. God, she was going to be in so much debt to this man when all was said and done.

When she glanced up, he was frowning at her. “You drink a lot, Dinah?”

“Please don’t start. Not you too,” she replied, starting to stand up. This had been a stupid idea and she needed to just suck it up and go back to work. It was weird being called by her first name all the time, anyway. She kept looking over her shoulder expecting her mother to be there when she knew she shouldn’t expect that ever.

“Look, I’m not judging. I know how it is. Got an injury a while back that ended my fighting career.” He gestured to the sidewall, where for the first time Laurel noticed a number of framed articles and trophies. Starling’s southpaw wins heavyweight title, one headline proclaimed. Another framed article mentioned a family being rescued from a fire by an anonymous stranger.

She didn’t have the time to dwell on it, for Ted spoke again. “I took it hard, at first. Felt like I couldn’t do anything for anybody, much less myself.”

“So you drank?”

“So I drank. It only dulled the pain. It didn’t make it go away.”

Laurel looked down at the ground, her eyes squeezed shut. “Then what does?”

“Finding a way to keep doing what makes you feel alive. Come on, eat and then I want you to join me in the ring.”

“I don’t know how to box.”

“Yeah, that’s why I teach lessons, you know?” He smirked. “Eat first.”

She did, the headache lessening somewhat. She found a water fountain against one wall of the gym and that helped a little too. Laurel walked around various students at the bags or doing stretches, most of them male, and found Ted waiting in the ring. He watched her struggle to climb into it herself.

“Mitts,” he said once she was standing, passing her a set. She watched him put on his own and then mimicked him. “You do much fighting?”

“I took self-defense classes growing up,” she revealed. “And I’ve needed them a few times recently.”

“Alright, that’s not a bad start. But what we’re doing here isn’t some quick takedown maneuver. This is a fight. Let’s see what you got.” And then he took the first swing.

Laurel ducked, stumbling back a bit, then ducked again. He held back after that, watching her. She wasn’t about to let him keep just swinging at her, so she lunged forward. He dodged easily, bumping at her side with his left mitt. It wasn’t hard, but it still winded her a bit.

“Don’t overreach. Keep your fists up and your sides guarded,” he coached. Laurel tried to swallow around the mouth guard and did as instructed. By the time he was talking her through the combinations he’d been using, she abruptly realized her headache had dissipated on its own.

She felt way better, actually. Invigorated. She hadn’t actually known she could still feel alive after everything.

Ted was going easy on her, she could tell. It made her want to try all the harder. Even if she barely knew what she was doing. All she knew was it felt right. She felt wholly in control of her body and mind for the first time in months. Maybe years.

He called a stop after a few minutes when she was panting for breath, grinning broadly. He did that a lot. “Not bad, not bad. We can work on your form. Why don’t I show you the bags, and you can take however much time on each of them to get a feel for it?”

Laurel nodded, and this time he held the ropes up for her to help her out of the ring. They went to one of the speed bags first, as she learned it was called.

Ted was a really good teacher, she had to give him that. A day ago she would have scoffed at the idea of spending hours at a gym.

The one thing he couldn’t fix was that she was so not wearing the right bra for this. But that was a problem she could handle herself.

—-

Sara knew it was risking a lot for her to be seen out in the day, but that was something that couldn’t be helped. After Laurel had run from the warehouse, she’d assumed her father or Oliver would catch up to her and calm her down. But it had been three days, and her sister had yet to return to her apartment or her daily routine. So now she was searching.

After she’d arrived in Starling and ensured her family had made it through the Undertaking, she had found it hard to leave. Now she was glad she hadn’t. Apart from the serial killer who had abducted them, something was wrong with Laurel.

She’d heard the first scream up in the rafters and nearly panicked, thinking one of the League had finally arrived and was trying to draw her out with more of the sonic bombs she had borrowed from their arsenal. But then she’d seen the second scream for herself coming from her own sister’s mouth.

She’d seen things that were hard to believe in her time away and never thought they might come to her home. But someone had done something to her sister, and for that they were going to pay. If it had been the man she’d killed the other night, he already had.

No woman, especially one of her own family, was going to suffer as the result of some man’s experiment. Never again.

She had Sin looking on the streets while she scoured from the rooftops. So far there was no sign of Laurel. No news was good news, maybe, but she wouldn’t trust that her sister was safe until the evidence was before her eyes.

But a flash of red below her caught her eye for the moment. The boy from the other day that Oliver had sent running after her. He was hiding in the shadow of one of the buildings below her. Sara shook her head. Then she leapt to the next rooftop.

The chase continued for several minutes. Whatever she did, she couldn’t seem to shake him. He knew these streets better than her, she was forced to acknowledge. He’d probably grown up on them.

“Fine,” she muttered under her breath, taking a fire escape down into the alley he was watching her from now. Enabling her voice modulator, she thrust her staff out in front of her. “What does the Arrow want now?”

The boy watched her, keeping a good bit of distance between them. “He wants to know what you’ve done to a woman.”

Sara reared back. “What I’ve done?” The nerve Oliver had asking her that! Even if he didn’t know who she was.

“Your sonic stuff,” the boy in the red hoodie added. “He thinks there’s some kind of connection?” She could see some frustration warring on his features; obviously, Oliver hadn’t told him all the details and he wanted to know more.

But Sara had to pause as the question hit her. That scream had been like her devices, only more powerful. Was this the League? Were they punishing her for leaving by turning her sister into some kind of human weapon?

“If there’s a connection, it’s not my doing.” But it could be her fault. “I’m trying to find her the same as he is. And he can look at my record to know I don’t hurt other women.”

Sara jumped onto the lid of a closed dumpster, grabbed the ladder of the fire escape and ascended back to the rooftops.

If the League was here, why hadn’t they reached out to her first? She was sure they would soon, in order to show off what they’d done. She needed to find Laurel before any more harm came to her.

Her sister was never going to forgive her for this.

—-

Oliver paced behind her chair, which Felicity found nearly as distracting as his workouts. It had none of the side benefits, though.

“Do you think we can trust her at her word?” John asked.

“I don’t trust anyone at their word,” was Oliver’s reply, and Felicity nearly rolled her eyes. That explained a lot about his behavior, actually. “We can’t know anything for sure until Laurel is found.”

“Where could she be hiding out for this long, though, Oliver? We ran surveillance on Joanna de la Vega the last two nights and it turned up nothing. Lance has had no luck.”

“There’s something we’re missing,” Oliver said, not for the first time. Felicity largely tuned them both out, as she was in the middle of some very tricky hacking. Seriously, who knew a laboratory would have more advanced cybersecurity than the FBI!

“I have an idea!” She announced loudly, turning back around in her chair just in time to find Oliver and John glowering at each other. “If anyone would like to hear it.”

They both cooled off and looked to her. “Go ahead, Felicity,” said John.

“Well, the only thing we know is that somehow Laurel is able to scream really loud. Like, inhumanly loud. So, I have borrowed some satellites from STAR Laboratories to monitor the city for any high frequencies. If we can catch her using the scream-thing, we’ll know her location.”

“Or that other woman if she uses one of those bombs,” John pointed out.

“Either helps us,” said Oliver. “Good work.” Felicity did her best not to preen at the praise. He turned and left to change right after, then departed the base to start searching manually as he had been the last several nights. Felicity hoped Laurel showed herself soon, so that Oliver might start to focus on something other than finding his ex-girlfriend.

A beep on the computer was the answer to her hopes, and Felicity hurriedly reached for the comms. “Oliver! We have something on the corner of Farina and 7th, in the Glades.” Her fingers flew across the keys for a few seconds. “The only thing of note there is a gym, and it should be closed at this time of night.”

“Got it.”

Felicity turned to look back at John. “So, think it’s her?”

“I hope so. Whatever happened the other night with Dollmaker, we need answers.”

—-

It had taken some convincing, but Ted had gotten Dinah to join him on the roof of the gym. “Do you have a secret boxing ring up here?” She asked as they walked through the access door.

“No. But I figured this is as good a place as any for you to practice your other new skill.”

She tensed. “Ted, I don’t know.”

“Come on, Dinah. You’ve made a lot of progress already, and I don’t want to see you toss that aside because of something you’re scared of.” He really was impressed with her progress. She had a strength those skinny arms belied, even if they were working on that. Part of him wondered if there was more to his new student than her souped-up vocal chords.

“I don’t even know if I could do it again. It hasn’t happened since that night.”

“Because you’re holding back. Look, do you need to get back into some kind of zone? We can throw a few punches, see if that works.” He put up his guard and was proud to see she immediately did likewise. She wasn’t trusting him not to throw the first punch then. Stances ready, they circled each other, in tight to avoid any kind of accidents — it was a big roof, but still, best not to be stupid about it. She threw a jab that he blocked, then met with his own which she ducked under. There was a fire in her eyes that hadn’t been there the night they met, and this was the kind of thing that kept Ted going. Seeing others realize their gifts, their potential—

Someone landed on the roof in a roll, coming up onto her feet and charging straight at him. Ted only just brought up his arm to block a vicious swing of a metal staff, but it connected painfully all the same. Her next swipe took him off his feet.

“Ted!”

“Get downstairs!” He shouted to Dinah. If some crazy mask wanted to come after him, he wasn’t getting her mixed up in it. Ted grabbed onto the staff as it came down again and yanked it to the side, sending his attacker off balance. He followed it with a kick to her chest before scrambling back to his feet. She hadn’t even fallen.

“You’re going to regret holding a woman hostage,” she said.

“Hostage? Hold on, here.”

But she didn’t hold on. She came at him again and again, and Ted was nearing the edge of the roof. She had a killer’s intent, he realized, and that intent was laser-focused on him.

“Leave him alone!” Dinah shouted, and that high-pitched scream followed. The woman in the mask went flying and skidding across the roof’s surface, but Ted was knocked back.

“Whoa!” He flailed and caught the roof’s edge with his left hand, the strain of gravity on his own weight making him grit his teeth.

“Ted!” Dinah ran to him, reaching for his right to help pull him up which he gladly accepted. “God, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

The whoosh of something and the chink of metal and stone was the only warning they both got before a figure in dark green and a hood — the Hood — swooped in on a freaking zip line. He caught Dinah around the waist and pulled her away. Ted only barely leveraged both arms onto the roof and kicked with his legs to pull himself back up the rest of the way.

“Hey!” Even if this new vigilante had changed his mind about killing, he sure as hell didn’t trust the guy with his student!

“Let me go, you’ve got it all wrong!” Dinah was yelling at the same time, pushing against the archer’s chest. Then her eyes widened. “Ted, look out!”

Blondie in the mask was stirring, only he realized her wig had been knocked off her head. She rose to her feet gingerly, shaking her head as if to clear the ringing that had to be in her ears.

Two voices cried out in shock in the same moment, one modulated and one not. But they both said the same thing: “Sara?”

Blondie winced. Ted looked between her and the other pair, who had both turned sharply to stare at each other in an almost comical way.

“Wait, how do you know — Ollie?” Dinah exclaimed.

The Hood or Arrow or whatever the hell he wanted to be called released her, taking a large step back and ducking his head like a boy who’d been caught stealing cookies and hoping nobody had noticed.

“Oh my God.” Dinah pressed the heels of her hands to her temples. “What is going on?”

The windows rattled slightly. She shut her mouth and glared around at both vigilantes instead.

Ted blew out a breath. This was going to be a much longer night than he’d anticipated.

—-

Laurel was going crazy. Had to be. That, or she had actually died that night by Dollmaker’s hand and the afterlife was weirder than any of the holy books claimed. But regardless, nothing seemed to be changing anytime soon and she had no idea where to start.

“You—” she looked at Oliver. Then she whirled to face her sister. “And you- you’re alive.”

Sara was staring at her toes. “I am, yeah.”

“How long have you been back?”

“A few,” Sara started, then cleared her throat as her voice had gone very quiet. “A few months. I heard about the earthquake and I- I had to see you all were okay.”

Laurel absorbed that for a moment. “And before that? Why haven’t you come home? Why haven’t you told mom or dad or me you’re alive?”

“Sisters? Geez,” Ted muttered from a few feet behind her.

“Because I couldn’t,” Sara answered. She took a step forward. “Laurel, I — the people I’ve been with, what I’ve done for them...I’m not the sister you remember. And I can’t come home. It would put you all in danger.”

There was so much she was feeling right now. Anger, joy, confusion, grief, hurt that the grief had been unnecessary. But no matter what Sara said, she had come back for them. She was her sister, and she was alive, and she’d come here to try and save her from Ted. Hilarious as that idea was. Laurel took the remaining steps, closing the gap that was between them.

“Sara, if you were in trouble, you should have come to us.”

“You don’t understand,” Sara said, shaking her head.

“I don’t have to. You’re my sister.” And she pulled her sister into a hug.

“Laurel…” Sara’s arms hung at her sides before suddenly they wrapped around her, as if she’d just remembered the action.

Laurel wasn’t sure deep down if she was totally over everything that had happened those six years ago. For one thing, she’d yet to hear an apology. But she’d forgiven Oliver. She couldn’t keep holding that grudge against her own sister. And sometimes, the only thing to do was to help, like Ted had said. Barely a week, and she was so much the better for it. If Sara could have the same—

A thought came to her, and she let her sister go before turning back to face Oliver. “Did you know?”

“No,” Oliver and Sara said at the same time.

“Actually, he thought I’d done this to you,” Sara added, sounding insulted.

Oliver grit his teeth. “I didn’t know you were her sister. I was working with the information I had at the time.”

“And that information led you both to decide Ted had kidnapped me?” Her teacher was smirking now, clearly taking his amusement from the drama playing out. Well, she did owe him.

“No one had heard from you,” Oliver said, an accusatory note to his tone that she might have yelled at except that she could see the hurt in his eyes.

“Did it occur to you maybe I needed some space? Some time to figure this out?” She asked in a measured voice instead, gesturing at her throat. “How was I supposed to reach out to either of you when I didn’t know you?”

Sara and Oliver both looked down, ashamed.

“I know I should have called dad at least,” she admitted. “I just knew if I talked to him, he’d insist on coming to get me and I- I wasn’t ready to face that. I still don’t know what to do about this.”

“You don’t know how it happened?” Sara asked.

Laurel shook her head. “I was terrified. He was going to kill me and I just- I didn’t want to die. I don’t know if that was it. I was just so tired of feeling helpless and waiting to die.” Her shoulders sagged as a weight seemed to lift off her, admitting that. “After Tommy — I didn’t think anyone cared enough to save me, and I didn’t want them to. It was my fault.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Well it wasn’t yours,” Laurel snapped before Oliver could continue that train of thought. “You were the only one trying to put a stop to the quake, and I blamed you for it when I never should’ve.”

“Maybe the blame is with the man who started the earthquake,” Ted interjected. “Malcolm Merlyn. That’s not an easy answer when he’s too dead to care, but it’s the facts.”

Laurel looked down, then met Oliver’s eyes. He nodded, something in his gaze telling her that the mistakes she’d made with the anti-vigilante task force were forgiven.

“You two gonna kiss and make up already?” Sara asked.

“Sara!”

“What? He swings into save you like Robin Hood and you’re gonna act like nothing’s going on?” She shook her head. “It’s you two, always and forever.”

Laurel’s mouth hung open, looking between her sister and Oliver. “I...am not ready for that conversation.”

“That’s fine,” Oliver said, and she thought there was some red under the greasepaint she could make out smeared over his face. He then turned more serious as he looked to Ted. “We do need to talk about what you know.”

“Hey, you came onto my roof. I didn’t ask for this,” said Ted. “But if you’re worried, no, I’m not running to the cops once you leave. It’d make me a hell of a hypocrite for one thing.”

“Wildcat,” Laurel breathed in realization. “I remember — one of my clients mentioned you the first year I started at CNRI!”

Ted shrugged, the closest to bashful that she’d seen him.

“He was a local vigilante in the Glades a few years ago,” Laurel explained to both Oliver and Sara, who seemed to relax upon hearing that statement.

“Yeah, so your secret’s safe with me. Anyway, a friend of Dinah’s is a friend of mine. Or Laurel’s, I suppose, since that’s your real name,” he added to her.

She smiled sheepishly. “They both are, actually. Dinah Laurel Lance.”

Ted smiled back. “Good to meet you properly, then.”

“Yeah, and I guess this is goodbye. I should really get back home. I need to stop running from myself.”

“You’re not the only one,” Sara said. She looked back to her sister in confusion. “I’ve been staying in one place for too long. The people I left...they’ll come here to try and get me back. And they’ll use you and dad if they can.”

“Sara, we can help you.”

Sara shook her head. “I couldn’t keep living if one of you were hurt or, or killed because of me. I have to do this, Laurel. I couldn’t handle it when I thought they’d already done something to you, your voice or...whatever caused that scream, I’m hoping you can use it to keep yourself and dad safe. At least until I can make my way back here.”

Laurel couldn’t believe she was expected to give up her sister the minute she’d learned she was still alive. It wasn’t fair. Impulsively, she hugged her again. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Sara said, her voice wavering. “Always and forever.” When they stepped back, she looked to Oliver. “I’m trusting you to keep them safe, too.”

Oliver nodded. “Always. I...if there’s anything I can do.”

Her sister shook her head. “Not this time, Ollie.” She took Laurel’s hand and squeezed it tight, then let go. Taking it at a run, she leapt from one roof to the next, eventually disappearing from sight.

Laurel sniffed, trying to hold back tears at her sister’s departure. A hand rested on her shoulder, and she looked back up at Oliver, who had crossed the roof to stand with her. “I can get you home,” he said quietly.

“Thank you. Really, thank you.” She turned and slipped her arms around him, seeming to surprise him nearly as much as Sara had been with the hug. Laurel had to admit, it was strange knowing she was even hugging their city’s vigilante. But he wasn’t just that. He was so much more. “I understand better now, why you had to go.”

He drew in a breath, then put his own arms around her. “I wish I hadn’t.”

Laurel stepped back and offered him a shaky smile. Maybe they couldn’t go back. But in time, they might just be able to go forward. “Give me a minute, then I’ll be ready.”

She walked over to Ted. “So, thanks again.”

“Don’t mention it. Those clothes you showed up in are still downstairs, you know.”

She made a face. “Burn them.” There was no way she could see herself wearing them again without thinking of the Dollmaker at his hot breath on her neck...it was better to just leave that all behind.

“This doesn’t have to be goodbye, you know. You’ve only just started your lessons.”

She found herself smiling. “I’ll pay you for the rest.”

“It’s a deal.” He turned and headed for the access door. “See you around, Dinah.”

She looked at him, an eyebrow raised.

“Hey, I think it fits.”

Laurel shook her head. “If you say so.”

He headed downstairs and she walked back to Oliver’s side. “Lessons?” He asked.

“Yes. Like Sara said, I have to protect my family. And my loved ones.”

“Right,” he agreed, looking confused.

Laurel sighed and nudged him. “That includes you, Ollie.”

“Oh.” His eyes were wide, and she bit her lip to stop a giggle. “I’ll get you home then.”

She stepped into his hold as he fired off another grapple arrow, jumping with him to let it carry them across the city.

Her life was destined never to go the way she ever planned. But as long as she kept getting up to fight another day, Laurel was determined to let nothing keep her down again.

—-

As he recruited more and more of the brightest minds this century had to offer to the labs, it became harder for Eobard to slip away and conduct his daily ritual. But he always managed to do so. He was meticulous about it; the scientific method only worked if it was adhered to, after all. And his plan was grounded in science, not impulses of anger like his last plan had been. That was what had doomed him to be stuck here, after all.

This particular day, he was anxious to reach the Time Vault in order to better organize his thoughts, cast into turmoil by a piece of news out of Starling City. Professor Eobard Thawne cared little for Starling City news, but Dr. Harrison Wells hailed from Starling and as such received a copy of the Starling Gazette every morning. Eobard usually only bothered to skim the contents once a week or so to keep appearances that he was informed about the meaningless day-to-day of the 2010s, but an article from earlier in the week had caught his eye.

A serial killer had been murdered by a vigilante after abducting Dinah Laurel Lance and her father. The autopsy noted a broken neck as the ultimate cause of death, but reporters also noted Barton Mathis’ eardrums had been ruptured. There was no stated cause and, most crucially, no statement on the record from Dinah Laurel Lance.

“Good morning, Dr. Wells,” Gideon greeted him once he entered the Time Vault.

“It’s an interesting one, Gideon. Daily Log, just under fifty days before the particle accelerator is set to erupt and my experiment truly begins at last,” Eobard said, confident Gideon was getting it all down. “There has been a complication. An early sighting of one of the Justice League: Black Canary.”

Not the prototype of her sister, either. That had no consequence; Rip Hunter would remove her from the timeline soon enough. But bleeding ears meant the Black Canary herself, and the presence of her civilian identity only confirmed it.

He had further evidence. Gideon had flagged a security breach the previous night at their location in Starling. Someone had remotely accessed their satellite information to do a localized search encompassing the city limits.

And that someone hadn’t been hacking his labs’ data for just any frequency information. Someone had hacked it specifically to find the Canary’s frequency. A frequency she shouldn’t be able to achieve yet.

Or should she? The little he had read about other heroes besides the Flash from his time had never definitively stated what caused Black Canary’s sonic capabilities. He had assumed like most academics that she was a metahuman like all the rest, created in the particle accelerator explosion. But assumptions truly had no place in academics.

Was she something else? A genetic mutation, perhaps, triggered in the event of extreme stress? Or was this perhaps an anomaly, a time aberration the likes of which he had been dreading?

Eobard had kept a close watch on the timeline since the murders he had committed at the turn of this century. He’d done everything he possibly could to make sure events aligned — but then, they couldn’t align completely, could they? These changes he had made could not be stopped from rippling outward, and he was aware already of some of the effects both large and small. So far, the future had not changed too much; Crisis was still waiting for the heroes and the future waited for him. He was unstoppable, his own aberration.

Perhaps the universe had decided an equal and opposite reaction was required. Black Canary’s early presence meant an established hero for Barry Allen to look to, and Canary was notorious for having a strict moral code. If Barry became too close to her and Green Arrow, he might not be as malleable as Eobard hoped. He might even become the Flash he hated once again.

But then, that could be a gift in and of itself. It would be so much sweeter watching his hated enemy realize Eobard’s betrayal.

He’d have to keep a closer eye on the developments out of Starling City from now on, of course. “Gideon, show me results for the Black Canary.”

“Of course, Dr. Wells.”

His eyes scanned the photos, the articles. Black Canary joining the fight alongside Green Arrow, Hawkgirl and the Flash along with countless heroes. The Birds of Prey teaming up with Wildcat to stop an illegal fight club. Dinah Laurel Lance-Queen running down the courthouse steps with her new husband.

“Until we meet again for the first time, Black Canary,” Eobard murmured under his breath. “End Daily Log.”

#lauriver #laurel x oliver #laurel lance #ted grant #oliver queen #arrow #sara lance #quentin lance #eobard thawne #my writing

13 notes · View notes

victoriousfrankenstein · 5 years

Text

Experiment 1: “Descend in pain, demon!” -- I, FRANKENSTEIN (2014)

You’re probably wondering why I’m kicking off this series with this shlock. Well, I’ll just tell you--it’s free with Hulu and I’m not trying to break the bank here. (Spoilers ahead, not that you care lol)

I, Frankenstein stars blandly chiseled Aaron Eckhart as Frankenstein’s monster, here conveniently named Adam, with assists from Bill Nighy, Miranda Otto, Yvonne Strahovski, and Jai Courtney. The backstory goes like this: in 1795, Victor Frankenstein brought his monster into the world (in an undisclosed place), immediately rejected him (for an undisclosed reason), and tried to kill him (by tossing him off an undisclosed bridge). The monster survived this attempted drowning and came back to kill Dr. F’s wife, then led him up north through the unforgiving arctic, where the good doctor eventually succumbed to the cold. This information is communicated to us visually and via voice over, in case we couldn’t figure it out for ourselves.

The movie truly begins with the Creature burying Frankenstein next to his wife (“It was more than he deserved,” spits a bitter Aaron Eckhart). As he does this, he is attacked by demons and immediately kills one of them. This awakens some nearby gargoyles who fly from their perches on a castle to merc the rest and save the unconscious Creature. They remark that they’ve never seen a human kill a demon before and conclude that “it” must be special; as they loot what they believe is a corpse, they find a pretty sweet journal belonging to one Victor M. Frankenstein and gasp because the rumors are true!!! Then the Creature begins to move!!!!!

The gargoyles take him back to their queen (Otto), who demands to know why the demons wanted him. She explains that the Gargoyle Order has been at war with demons since the fall of Satan, and that they were commanded into being by St. Michael himself. She also gives the Creature a name--Adam--and requests that he stay with them for protection...but he leaves and forges his own way for 200 years, before finally returning to hunt down the demons who want him for some reason.

So it’s now Modern Times, but I couldn’t tell you where this movie is actually set for the life of me. The gargoyles live in some monstrous European cathedral and all the actors are affecting that bland movie British accent, but there are few indications of what the actual, specific setting is. Unless, of course, the cathedral is real, and I just don’t know my landmarks. Sorry.

Anyway, now scientists are hard at work trying to figure out the secret to reanimating dead corpses. Dr. Terra Wade (Strahovksi), working under Bill Nighy (who unsurprisingly turns out to be Prince Naberius, leader of the demon horde), zaps a rat back to life. She weirdly measures the electricity in Joules and not volts; I am not a scientist, but this sounds wrong to me.

She tells Bill Nighy that they aren’t yet ready to reanimate a human corpse yet, and he fires back that hasn’t she heard of Victor Frankenstein? She proclaims that Frankenstein is a myth, made up to “scare children.” For me, this opens up a can of worms I’m not sure the writers thought of when they put this in the script. Just...who is Frankenstein in this universe? Does the Mary Shelley novel exist? Does it exist, but as real documentation and not a work of fiction? Is he more of a legend? She wonders why Frankenstein didn’t share his discovery with the world if the story is true, but he explains that himself in the actual novel, which leads me to believe it was never written in-universe. But then seriously, where did the myth come from?! Terra speaks as if the Brothers Grimm invented the story and it’s very odd.

She does admit, however, that if Frankenstein did reanimate a corpse, it would be helpful to study the creation. So Bill Nighy assembles his troops.

Demons attack the cathedral, where Adam is being kept by the gargoyles. The CG is absolute ass. This movie has big 2004 energy for a lot of reasons, and this is one of them. The only thing I appreciate about the fight scenes is that there isn’t an excess of shaky cam, so it’s easy to see what’s happening; unfortunately, what’s happening isn’t usually very interesting. The fight choreography is stale and repetitive. The music is incredibly generic.

However, this scene particularly has holy waterboarding, so that’s pretty good.

It also has the best worst line in the entire film!

The demons capture the Gargoyle Queen, who is then traded back for Frankenstein’s journal. Now the bad guys have the ability to reanimate dead humans, something a man in the 1790’s figured out and they could not.

Meanwhile, Adam breaks into the lab and finds a room of stashed corpses, which the demons are presumably storing to raise an army of the undead. He jumps through a window into the lab to get the journal back. Everyone knows immediately who he is because Victor Frankenstein was really good at drawing.

Unfortunately, security shows up with Bill Nighy, who chews the scenery as much as he can. He calls Adam “Frankenstein,” as “we are all the sons of our fathers.” Adam cannot accept this. He breaks out of a separate window and lands on a train, where he begins to read his life story, then doubles back to meet up with Terra and tell her all about the gargoyle/demon battle. And that she’s working for a demon prince.

Demons attack them. One of them monologues about how they will summon their brethren to possess the corpses. What does this have to do with Adam? He doesn’t have a soul...and demons can only possess bodies without soul!

Adam is injured. Terra learns that he’s hot. Sexy Wound Dressing commences.

This is probably the most annoying part of this film to me. Adam and everyone waxes poetic about how he was rejected by his creator and humanity, and I have to wonder why. He looks and acts like a dude. A ripped dude, yes, but a dude. He apparently learned how to speak in a single winter, so it’s not like he was ever really a wild animal? His scarring isn’t even raised! He could hide his blemishes with foundation if he really wanted to, yet several people in this movie call him “it” before even learning what exactly he is. It’s about as unnatural as Ben Shapiro purposefully misgendering trans people.

Anyway, Terra tells Adam she’ll make him a companion since Frankenstein didn’t because he was a bad dad. This is a one-off line that amounts to nothing.

At this point there is a third of the movie left, but you can guess exactly how it unfolds from here. It’s hardly worth recounting in detail. Basically everyone is after the journal, but Adam destroys it before anyone can get it. That doesn’t matter. Terra is forced to reanimate the corpse of her murdered colleague without it, which sets into motion the reanimation of the thousands of corpses Bill Nighy has had on ice for….centuries, presumably?

Demons ascend to Earth to prepare to take over their new corporeal forms. Luckily, Adam is here to take them and the gargoyles, who have betrayed him, down.

I didn’t mention the gargoyle betrayal before because it lasts four seconds and amounts to nothing. They’re all fighting demons now. Bill Nighy reveals his true form!

A demon tries to possess Adam, but it doesn’t take. Our king says “my body, my choice!” He has a soul! Yasssss!

The whole laboratory sinks into Hell and the gargoyles save Adam and Terra. The movie ends with Adam vowing to protect humanity. And because I know you’re wondering, yes, the last line is this:

We do not ask for the lives we are given. But each of us has the right to defend that life. I have fought to protect mine. And when the forces of darkness return, you shall know that I am out there, fighting to defend yours. I, descender of the demon horde. I, my father’s son. I, Frankenstein.

Jesus Christ.

So, is this movie worth watching?

That is a resounding no. There are some movies that are a fun kind of bad, and others that are just boring. I, Frankenstein is the latter. Even watching it with a friend wasn’t that fun. The film has about four different colors, and the acting is even less varied. It’s the same performance all around--gravelly, serious, dull, with nary a joke to be found. Only Bill Nighy makes an attempt to do something, but even he doesn’t ascend above the generic Evil Rich Guy mold.

It’s funny because as I watched this, I thought it seemed like an Underworld ripoff. According to IMDb, the franchises were originally envisioned to exist in the same universe, but I, Frankenstein did so poorly that the idea was scrapped.

Is it any wonder? The performances are empty, and so is the world itself. A few extras in the first scenes gawk at Adam’s scarring, but none show up at all in the climax. “This city” is referenced throughout, but can it really be called a city when there is no life to be found? When it isn’t even named?!

Please stay away from this film. Its scarring runs deeper than Adam’s, and it doesn’t even have abs.

#lab notes #frankenstein #i frankenstein #movie review #aaron eckhart #bill nighy #monsters #universal monsters

12 notes · View notes

luxuriouschest · 4 years

Note

Yay hello! It’s Ella. I’m asking anonymously because Tweendeck is just my side blog and there’s no point in showing my main one. Tumblr told me you started following me with your BNHA blog and omg I’m absolutely over the moon with this fact! Thank you so much for still being interested in my art ♥️♥️♥️ But rn I’m struggling with such a huge art block and have no idea how to overcome it. Can you maybe give me some advise or if you ever went through the same shit what helped you?

Ahhhh omggg! Hi, Ella! 🥰 I'm really sorry to hear you're going through art block right now. Tbh, I've been going through a pretty severe creative block myself recently so I perfectly understand how you feel.

Firstly, allow me to shower you in positive feedback and compliments lmao. I wanted to tell you that I spent a good chunk of the morning flailing over your art with my friend @matcha-castella in discord. I linked a few of your pieces to her and she was quickly ass deep in your art tag going ham much like I was the first time I discovered your art lol.

Your art is beautiful. Everything, from the way you draw poses and expressions to the povs to the amount of depth you achieve in your shading is sooooo viscerally stunning that every time I see something you've drawn, I spend at least five or ten minutes zoomed in on the image admiring every minute detail. You achieve a mood with you art that I find incredibly rare, and that's the ability to make me feel like I'm sitting in the room with whatever character you draw. I can feel their mood, read their body language, and be fully immersed in every single piece you've drawn.

I know it sounds like I'm waxing poetic here, but I'm dead serious lol. I wasn't joking at all when I said your art adds ten years to my life every time I see it. I am a big, big fan of you work and first and foremost, I want you to know that. I don't get the chance to leave a whole lot of in depth comments on artists works because I always feel like I'm being weird by doing so lol, but I have so much respect and admiration for not just the skill, but the time and the effort and the emotions artists like you put into your creations.

You are amazing and your art is amazing, and I appreciate you sooooooo much 💕 Thank you for sharing your beautiful art.

As far as climbing the mile high hurdle that is a creative block goes, in order to overcome it, I usually have to force myself to. That sounds a lot more brutal than it is, but that's the gist lol.

I'll usually sit back and begin working on something with absolutely no plan and no foresight whatsoever. I usually don't even plan on posting it anywhere. I'm just creating for the sole purpose of doing so. That's how my icon came to be, actually.

I'll doodle, edit, write drabbles, or just dick around in photoshop and pray that an idea strikes me in the process. Sometimes this works immediately and I end up with something I'm really proud of. Other times, it takes a number of tries before I finally get the creative juices flowing again. It relieves a lot of pressure because regardless of whether or not I'm happy with the end product is irrelevant because I went into it with no idea, no plan, and no sense of 'I must create this thing!' looming over me. If I end up dissatisfied, I can always try again the next day and that sense of whatever I'm making not needing to be perfect or even cohesive really helps me overcome a lot of my creative blocks. It gives me freedom to experiment and explore and fuck up lmao. Which in turn leads me to finding solutions that work and ideas flowing along with said solutions.

If this method fails me, I'll seek inspiration elsewhere. I'll either go over the series pertaining to the content I'm trying to create again, or I'll dabble in something else entirely. I'll do things I enjoy that free up my thinking space and force me to focus like reading fics or playing video games. That way, I can at least go into the creative process with a fresh perspective.

Bouncing ideas off someone else is another thing that really helps me. If I throw an idea out for something, and someone comes at me excited about that idea, I'm suddenly a lot more motivated to try and make the idea a tangible thing.

These methods aren't foolproof by any means, but it's what keeps me in the creative groove. Or forces me back into it at any rate lmao.

As far as advice goes, I feel the best advice I can give is don't be so hard on yourself. All creators go through blocks. It sucks ass, but it's all a part of the process. Try not to stress yourself out by focusing on your art block and turn that focus to other things that make you happy. When you feel up to it, keep creating and take breaks in between as you need them. Try and fail and try again. So long as you keep creating something, anything, even if it's weeks or months in between your attempts, you'll overcome that block eventually.

I'm wishing you the absolute best, Ella and please know my inbox is always open for whatever you may need. Whether it's just to chat, bounce ideas around, vent, etc. I hope this post helps even just a little and that you can kick your art block square in the balls here soon 💕

YALL GO FOLLOW @tweendeck!

#asks #answered #anonymous

4 notes · View notes

teruthecreator · 5 years

Note

Dani!!!

aw it’s Real Lesbian Hours now, folks:

suuuuper bad at styling her hair. she’s got three looks, basically: hair down, hair up, or braid. she rarely deviates from those three.

she’s ambidextrous! i think she sort of picked up the skill from her early artist days (when she couldn’t decide which hand she was better at drawing with), and then it sort of grew into Very Good Hands Syndrome.

even though she’s kinda shy, she looooooves to travel into the nearby towns and go through their little antique/thrift shops. she finds all the little trinkets so fascinating!!

she has like 4 whole shelves dedicated to her finds in her room. she cherishes each and every one, and has a fictional backstory for how every item made it to that particular shop.

she likes to skateboard, and is actually pretty good at it. jake taught her when he was learning how, and she enjoys the days where the two of them can just board around the town.

she’s not very skilled, trick-wise, but the first time she successfully landed an ollie jake burst into tears. He’s A Proud Brother.

i mentioned this on my jake coolice hc post, but the two of them consider themselves siblings, and because of this, they interact much like siblings do. this means there’s an ongoing prank war between jake and dani that was started years ago and will end probably never.

dani managed to drag jake’s bed into the hot springs while he was asleep on it. jake did her one better and put her bed into a nearby lake. things only escalate from there.

she has a poetry journal where she waxes sapphic poetic abt aubrey. It’s Very Gay, Lads.

speaking of aubrey, the two never technically asked each other out, so for a while their relationship was sorta “???? are we dating??? or are we just super close friends??? idk???” dani was nervous to take it any further, in case she was misreading signals, and aubrey didnt wanna say anything in case she made things awkward. eventually, the two were confronted by mama, who said: “are y’all datin’ yet or are you gonna beat around the bush for the rest of yer lives?” and they both just shrugged and were like “i guess???” and That Was That

dani did later plan a super romantic date where they made it Official, and it was very romantic and good.

dani and indrid are friends! she was one of the only sylphs who bothered to keep in touch w him, once he skipped town, and the two would talk for hours about art stuff. indrid managed to convince dani to come to florida for a week to work on a mural project he got commissioned to do (which is related to a different hc i have abt indrid that i can explain if y’all want) and it ended up being a super fun time! so she was delighted to hear that indrid was back in town, once canon events started happening.

generally kind of a mess?? but, like, an organized mess. if someone cleans her room while she’s gone she freaks out bc barclay i’m not gonna be able to find anything now because you moved everything around ding dangit.

this post is getting long so imma stop, but I’m Love Dani so thank you anon!!

Send me a taz:a character and I’ll tell you some of my dumb hcs!!!

#taz amnesty #taz dani #taz #ignorance cloud on

37 notes · View notes

raendown · 5 years

Link

Pairing: IzunaTobirama Word count: 1789 Soulmate au: The one where when your soulmate is injured your skin will grow flowers in the same place

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the header!

Chapter 188: Izuna/Tobirama

“Anija just left home.”

Izuna sighed and opened his eyes, watching the clouds scudding across the sky above them. “How long until he gets here? I doubt he moves as fast as you do.”

“No, he gets distracted on the way no matter where he’s going. I’d give him about fifteen minutes at top speed. Twenty minutes if he ambles a little or stops to poke at one of the trees he’s trying to cultivate.” Despite his young age Tobirama already had quite an impressive eye roll, backed with enough sass for three grown men.

“Can you feel where my brother is?”

“He hasn’t left your compound yet. Probably will soon, though. He seems to be pacing and every turn brings him a little closer in this direction.”

Pursing his lips, Izuna nodded. That sounded like his brother. Like most loudmouths Madara always thought he could pull off the subtle act perfectly. If that was true then Izuna would never have followed him here to the river and he never would have met his soulmate, although a year ago he would have said that was a good thing. A year ago he had been devastated to know that his flowers bloomed for a dirty rotten Senju.

Lots of things had changed in the past twelve months. How Tobirama convinced him not to say anything about their brothers’ secret meeting was still something he couldn’t quite pin down to more than just the shock of discovering what Madara really kept leaving the house for combined with trying to deal with the bond he had found in a most unexpected place. Mostly Izuna thought what had kept him coming back could probably be attributed to the insatiable curiosity that had gotten him in to all kinds of trouble already in his thirteen years of life.

“So we’ve got about fifteen minutes until we have to split then?” he asked, still a little surprised after all this time how sad that made him.

“I mean, if we don’t want them to know we’ve figured them out then yeah.”

“Okay but consider: how fun would it be to spy on them?” Izuna rolled over on to one elbow to grin at his companion but Tobirama only shook his head.

“Did you forget that your brother is a sensor too? As soon as he leaves the compound you and I can’t stay here. His range isn’t as good as mine but he’d still know we were here long before he arrived. And he’d probably think we were fighting so he’d come charging in like a bull.”

He flopped back down to the ground with a disappointed huff. “Yeah, he does like to charge around everywhere.”

A hand touched his shoulder and he looked round to see a tentative expression on Tobirama’s face, a strange sort of hesitance that was unusual for such a confident young man. “I don’t want to leave either,” he admitted. “But, from what I hear of your brother, if he knew we were here then he would act differently and we need those two idiots to stay friends. The closer we let them grow the closer we are to having an easy path to peace once they grow up and take leadership of both clans.”

“Yeah. I guess you’re right. Madara always goes ballistic when he thinks I’m in danger and seeing me this close to you? He’d attack without stopping to ask questions.”

“Exactly. So we have to be patient for now. Let them think they have their secret; you and I have a secret of our own.”

Tobirama’s hand came around from the opposite side holding a well-sharpened kunai but even as he caught sight of it Izuna did nothing more than continue to lie still, utterly relaxed. Of the many things he had learned over the past year the most important one was that he had nothing to fear from the boy at his side. Indeed, Tobirama’s blade went straight to his own skin rather than pierce Izuna’s, drawing a short line down the back of his free hand.

Both of them looked on with rapt expressions as Izuna raised his own arm so they could watch the flowers blossoming on his skin, white and yellow roses for secrecy and friendship. When he was even younger Izuna remembered listening to his mother wax poetic about the grand love story to be found in their soul blooms but he was hardly disappointed to know their flowers came in shades of friendship. He was only thirteen, after all. What did he care for falling in love? No, they were both much too young for that, much too focused on playing the good little soldier and keeping their remaining brothers alive.

“Will you be here next week?” he asked, his eyes tracing the shapes of Tobirama’s fingers while his soulmate stroked the petals between them.

“Always.” Tobirama’s smile was quicksilver and lightning where it flashed across his mouth.

Izuna had always been fascinated by lightning.

By some miracle the two of them managed to keep their friendship a secret over the next few years that passed. Their first excuse was to allow their older brothers time to form a stronger bond between them, redirecting their fathers’ attention so that Hashirama and Madara might build a foundation for the dreams neither of them would shut up about for more than five minutes. As the years passed they eventually had to admit that the friendship between those two had to be pretty solid already and instead told themselves that it was just a great joke. It was the perfect prank, of course, pretending they knew nothing of their brothers’ secret friendship while at the same time maintaining their own.

Nearly ten years passed before they were outed on the day they had both been waiting so long for, a decade fraught with so many near misses it was something of a miracle that no one knew of them still.

As they stood across from each other on the battlefield, swords drawn and eyes locked, the rest of the world fell away from them as it always did when they met like this. Pretty much everyone knew that the new clan heads had been pulling punches since they were little kids but what they didn’t realize – or what Tobirama and Izuna hoped they didn’t realize – was that the second heirs had been doing the same thing with much more subtlety for almost as long.

The fact that their brothers hadn’t even bothered to put up the front of battling today was lost on both of them as they each had eyes only for the way the other parried and blocked, danced and sway, steps they both knew by heart and cues only they knew how to follow. The slightest shift of an arm meant ‘go left’ and the blinking of an eye meant ‘down, quick’. To anyone else their movements were deadly but to them it had long become a game they had mastered – and enjoyed. It never crossed their minds there could be a situation where it was a bad thing for their cover to work so well.

Or at least it didn’t until Tobirama’s sword came down and Izuna cried out, not from pain, but in shock at finding Madara there between them in the blink of an eye, massive gunbai parrying a blow that never wound have connected anyway and returning it with a slash at Tobirama’s torso that he would later insist was only meant as a warning. It felt as though the entirety of both clans were holding their collective breath as Tobirama lifted a hand to his chest, pressing his palm against the armor and blinking down at it like he didn’t understand where the blood was coming from. Like he didn’t understand what had just happened despite years of training sharpening his ability to react to anything on the battlefield. Then he lifted his gaze back up to meet with Izuna’s and released a single huff of ironic laughter before staggering back and falling to one knee.

Stupefied, visibly ashamed of what his own instincts had driven him to doing, Madara turned to look back at his little brother. He found Izuna cupping the petals dripping from a row of gardenias all blossoming in a straight line across his chest.

“Call a medic,” Izuna told him in a cold, steady voice, “or you will have just done something that I will never forgive you for.”

Leaving his stunned brother to process that without bothering to soften the blow in any way, he stepped around Madara's frozen form and knelt down to cup Tobirama’s cheeks between both hands, stroking the marks that he still thought were a ridiculous addition to an already pretty face. His soulmate was still blinking in surprise so Izuna rolled his eyes with as much attitude a he could muster.

“Don’t be so dramatic. He only stabbed you a little.”

“Slashed,” Tobirama corrected him absently. If ever there was a sign that he would be alright it was the continued snark that was, in Izuna’s opinion, entirely uncalled for right at the moment. With a shake of his head Izuna pulled the man down until he face was pressed against the line of gardenias. If their actions didn’t make it obvious to everyone around them that something was going on then surely flowers that stood for secret love were enough to do the trick.

“Whatever you want to call it you are bleeding so just sit still and keep that mouth in check before I end what he started.” In direct contrast to his harsh words Izuna bent to press a soft kiss against the edge of his soulmate’s lips. “Stay alive and I’ll finish what I just started instead.”

Tobirama’s bloody grin was all Izuna cared to concentrate on as Hashirama finally dropped down beside them with both hands already glowing green, shouting back and forth with Madara as he did. Neither of them had ever cared for peace in quite the same way their siblings did. Theirs was a much more selfish desire, the desire to be together without fear, to see their precious people grow old and not worry that they might slaughter each other for something as stupid as clan pride. And if Izuna had been keeping quiet about his desire for a few kisses or the like it seemed that he hadn’t needed to worry about that.

He had everything he wanted right here, bleeding out in his arms and screaming in his ear but that was really the best that any shinobi could ask from life. Everything would turn out fine – a blossoming future, one might say.

#rae writes #soulmate collection #izutobi #izuna #tobirama #fanfiction

29 notes · View notes

abthepoet · 4 years

Text

All my friends are dead.

Something strange is trending in my life.

All my friends die.

At the beginning of my sophmore year in college, my roommate from freshman year died tragically in a single vehicle car crash. Her name was Allison Lynam. We called her Blake. She was sassy and funny and I wish I would've taken more time to know her.

The rain was torrential the night she died. I swear I've never seen it rain that hard ever again in my life. She drove to the store along Highway 36 in Long Branch,NJ. She had off campus housing that year and had to use the highway often. The road was terribly flooded the night she died. Im told she hydroplaned, spun, and T-boned the driver side smack into an electrical pole. Her family still decorates it.

At that very same moment, in my dorm room nearby, I was watching TV when the lights suddenly flickered and dimmed. A brown out.

I had no idea but that was my friend crashing into a pole and dying. She was 19 years old.

I know this because that accident happened near the mall. That accident killed the power to nearby businesses.

I later found out that the road she died on was so badly flooded, the police intended to close it. Why they didnt get to it in time, I'll never know. Maybe that's fate.

Then there was Jessica Blain. Jessica Blain was a firecracker of a human being. She was 100% unmistakable. One of the loudest, funniest, most loyal people and friends I have ever met. She was also an incredibly gifted singer and I was lucky enough to have Chorus with her. We, along with a small group of friends, founded a new greek organization on our campus, Alpha Xi Delta. We were paired up as Twins. (you can't have Bigs & Littles when you're just starting the Family Tree). We named the family we formed Fuck Up Your Shit. Because that's what we'd do for a friend. I miss her laugh most of all. It was loud and unapologetic. She was there for me, supportive, and encouraging without me ever having to ask. The night I officially finished college we all went out to the local gay club, The Colosseum. I got wasted, of course. But Jess was the person who when I shouted 'I have to pee' on the ride home, she stopped and knocked on strangers doors and asked to let me use their bathrooms. Nobody said yes so she held my hand while I peed on a fence instead. I remember the last time we spoke. She was at a concert with a mutual friend. We hadn't spoken much since I graduated, she was still in school.

She died in her dorm room bed on Halloween as a result of asphyxiation during an epileptic seizure. She was 20 years old. The news was broken to me that very same Halloween night as I floated along in NY on a concert cruise. The World/Inferno Friendship Society decided to host Hallowmas, their annual event, on a boat this year. Nothing like being trapped on a musical boat while you grieve. I had messaged her AIM late that night to say hi. She had an away message up. I may have sent a message to a dead person. I miss her friendship more than I realize sometimes.

That brings us to James Padden. James was a warm, snuggly bear of a guy who always tried to do the right thing and let me steal his hoodies. He insantly became my best friend in a Stepbrothers-esque manner. I met James working overnights at Wawa in Leonardo, NJ. I forget how it started now, but we were standing in front of the deli and I think I tossed him a broom or he already had one. . . I cant remember now.. . . but he just took one look at me with that mischievous little twinkle that I quickly returned and we instantly began sword fighting with our brooms. Like two little boys playing pretend and having a ball. He was sweet and silly and kind. I needed a ride, and he loved to drive. Our first winter as friends, we went out doing donuts in the snow. I barely knew him, but I felt safe. We smoked a ton of weed and had so many adventures trying to procure more. One time, we got so high driving to a Dropkick Murphys concert in NY we kept going in circles, missed almost the entire show save for the last 3-5 numbers, and had a blast. I can barely remember the night, but I remember laughing hard in that car. No one could talk to me like James. We were both insecure being chubby kids and adults, but so charismatic and grandiose that I sometimes thought we were the only two who would put up with listening to each others wild ideas and ridiculous banter. We would smoke joints and take adderall and talk about everything and anything. I miss the safety and closeness I felt with him. We were always 100% platonic, but we could nap together, I could walk into his house and jump on him in bed and wake him up. Then we would cook ourselves a breakfast feast and hit the beach. He taught me to always take the back roads. I gave him advice on the ladies. He taught me about fixing cars. I helped shave his back. He called his new pick up truck, a pick'um up truck. We could wax philosophical all damn day and not get sick of each other.

It wasnt just driving he loved, it was going fast. Like so many young white men, he had tendency to be a little reckless. The universe gave him a pass only so many times.

I'll never forget when he got his motorcycle. It was the last time I saw him. It was a bright green crotch rocket. He loved lime green. I was doing yoga in the living room when I heard this obnoxious engine rev down my street. I asked myself, who the hell is making this noise?! And it was James, grinning from ear to ear with a matching helmet on his shiny new toy.

before he left I said, 'you die on that thing, I'll bring you back to life and kill you." I remember giving him this very long and intentional hug and not knowing why I felt compelled to hang on.

When he left and hopped back on the bike, I felt compelled again and took a video of him riding away from my driveway until he was entirely out of sight.

That's my very last memory of him alive. James Padden died on Thanksgiving five days after his 25th birthday. He went out for a joyride on his bike before dinner, opened up to 100mph around a curve where he couldn't see a car pulling out around the bend in time. They called a medevac, but he died on scene. I loved James dearly and I regret drifting apart after we both left Wawa and I started a new relationship. He had stuff too, but in hindsight it never seems important.

Then there's JB. I will always remember JB for his kindness and generosity. The very first time I finally worked up the nerve to go to a poetry slam, I was alone and terrified. I had no idea what to expect. JB was the very first person to turn around, introduce himself, and welcome me. He made me feel like I belonged. Years later, when I won the title of Grand Slam Champion, he immediately offered to help coach me for national competition. Except, I didn't see the messages and left them unanswered, which I deeply regret. When I started hosting my own open mic a few years after that, JB would be one of the only people to consistently come support the show both as an audience member and participant. It was at a pizza joint and he would sometimes buy me food when I had no money. He wrote beautiful poems about his two young daughters and how much they inspired him. JB always tried to make people laugh but you could tell he carried a sadness. I did not get details, but from what I have gathered he made a choice to end his life. I wish I would have gotten closer to him and appreciated him more as a friend and person. I wonder if he felt no one cared about him and I feel like I should've let him know more.

Which brings us to Crys. Crystopher Anthony Diaz was a Scorpio with a big heart and a big personality. I met him on Myspace back in the day and started Web camming. We became friends and eventually fell into this gray area of friends, together, but not. It wasn't long before I was spending days at his place, killing hours at a time downloading music, making Wawa runs, and smoking weed with his roommate at the time, Syd. You know, the whole reason I worked at Wawa was Crys suggesting it. And Wawa is the reason I met James. Crys was unlike anyone I'd ever met. He was poetic and artistic and loved animals, especially pit bulls. He loved to draw and write and had this very out loud style that favored Earth tones. He taught me about fashion and insisted on getting dressed even if it was 1am and we were just going to Wawa because you never know who you might see. We would buy new clothes at Walmart and have photo shoots. That boy drank his weight in coffee daily. If it's one thing I'll always remember him for, it's the dancing. Dancing was a passion of his and always used to talk about wanting to form a dance crew. Eventually, we ended up living together for four years. My first apartment was with him in this piece of shit duplex rented to us by a slumlord in Keansburg,NJ. My relationship with him was always defined by our Aries/Scorpio dynamic and he never let me forget it. His birthday was October 30th, mischief night. One time, after we had moved into a new place, we decided to get revenge on our old downstairs neighbor by taking a finished lobster carcass and throwing it on his lawn. . . . . . . Keansburg had a terrible stray cat problem. 😁

I have so many memories with Crystopher. Unfortunately, towards the end of our relationship things became too tumultuous. We had too much unresolved baggage and trauma to find a healthy place emotionally together. We were so financially strained for a time we hardly ate. And then when he met his new girlfriend Laura, she introduced him to her good friend, Roxy. As in Roxcicet. aka Blues. Neither of us knew what that even was at the time. But he sure learned quick. He started using them pretty frequently as time went on, and things only got more complicated. My mental health took a nose dive. By the time I moved out our relationship was trash. I basically left. At the time, I didnt have a choice. things had gotten so bad between us, the money, the using . . . we didn't act like friends anymore.

I saw him a couple times at his new place but that was years ago. Since then, he went through a lot, including homelessness and more struggles with addiction to opiates. He reached out to me and sent me a message apologizing for everything a couple years back. I never responded. I was afraid I would let him back into my life and let the all the problems back in. I didnt trust where he was at in his life. We lost touch and stopped speaking.

His ex, who used to live with us and became my friend, messaged me and told me he died a few days ago. He was 35. I'm still waiting for information, but it may have been drug related. I'm not even sure where I'm at with how I feel. I know why we stopped talking. It was the right thing to do at the time. But he didnt deserve to die so young, having spent the last god knows how many months homeless. It's fucking with me so hard because we never resolved anything. I loved this person so fucking much and we never made peace. Of everyone I've lost, he was the closest to me. I've had a lot of people die on me but none that I lived with and shared a life with. I have more memories with him than I can handle and while I know we hadn't spoken in years and why, I still wish I would've said something. Done something. Yes, i needed healthy boundaries but he needed somebody. when is being firm too firm? If we would've helped, could it have been different? But we didn't want to help at the time, you try to be tough and draw a line. Be firm. Not let yourself be taken advantage of. But is that a defense? Did that defensiveness leave a human being who's head i used to scratch until he fell asleep out in the cold to get sicker and die?

What am I supposed to learn from all this Universe? Why do you take my friends so young and so tragically? I'm only 35, I'm too young to have this much loss.

Because these are just the major players I've lost. It doesnt include my cousin Jared, who died being reckless on a motorcycle at 21 two years ago. I was 15 when he was born. I loved that baby, he used to bite my nose. But his family lived far, so I rarely saw him growing up. Last time I saw him was at my grandfather's funeral. He didn't remember me and the nose biting.

And then there's Marcos who we used to chill with. He worked delivery for our favorite chinese food place. He was a nice kid who lived with his grandparents. We would get food, smoke weed, hang out a little. Even used to buy it off him for a while. Eventually he got into the opiates too, he even wound up being good friends with Crys and being Blue buddies. But eventually Marcos died from an opiate overdose. He was in his mid twenties.

I didnt want to include Ricky because he was more of an acquaintance for me, he was more my partners childhood friend. But god damn, in the time I knew Ricky that kid was a riot. He was loud and funny and definitely marched to the beat of his own drum. Drugs took him too.

Thanks for reading all this if you've made it this far. It's taken me about two hours to type this out on my phone. but i needed to. Thanks for coming to my TedTalk

#death #story #story prompt #grief #friends #loss #love #dying #grieving #sad #lessons #life lessons #writeblr #writing #compose

1 note · View note

wowunlimited · 5 years

Photo

Frederator Inter(n)view: Spencer Greenberg

Frederator Networks welcomes a robust crop of interns each semester and you may be wondering: since this isn’t a “go pick up the 3pm coffee fix” kind of internship, what exactly do they do all day? Spencer Greenberg’s official title is “Stash Riot Intern,” but he does a little bit of everything in the New York office. He indulged my curiosity last week to dish about his favorite sensitive heroes, catching the animation bug, and kaleidoscope hoaxes.

Andie from WOW! Unlimited Media: What made you want to work at Frederator? Spencer: I had actually been trying to get this job for about five years! I started applying in high school and didn't get it until I graduated college. Adventure Time was really the show that made me say, "Alright! That's it! I'm makin’ cartoons!" So I was determined to make Frederator the first stop on my career journey. I could wax poetic about how much Frederator ‘toons influenced me, but I’ll keep it brief: it was a real no brainer to me, and a challenge that I thankfully accomplished and feel better for having achieved!

Now that you’re through the doors, what are some of the projects you work on? Spencer: So I’m the Stash Riot intern for our e-commerce platform. I create illustrations for products on the site and for social media, and help with graphic design for the website. Beyond that I've been able to do some really exciting stuff like animate for the company website, illustrate for Youtube videos, and a few other projects that I'm excited for people to see. I also tend to be one of the two people lucky enough to pick out snacks for our Game Night, which is one of my favorite tasks.

You mentioned Adventure Time was a pivotal show for you. What about it pushed you toward a career in animation? Spencer: Adventure Time was the show that changed my whole path. I've always loved animation and cartoons (on the verge of obsession), but Adventure Time really broke barriers in my head and woke up the need for me to make them. Finn imprinted on me as a character with confidence but vulnerability. I've always been a really sensitive person, and having a hero who would make me laugh so hard but also showed real moments of self-doubt and confusion was powerful. It made me interested in how the actual show was made, and from there I started learning more about the process of making shows, how animation works, and the rest is history. I caught the bug.

What’s your favorite poster or knick knick in the office? Any hidden gems? Spencer: Oh, it’s the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Award. One hundred percent. I loved watching that award show as a kid, and it just seemed like the coolest trophy to me. It's also a kaleidoscope, which, as a kid, I thought they were just making up for TV. Seeing it in person made it ten times cooler.

What’s your end goal? Where do you want to be in ten years? Spencer: I want to be a character designer or storyboard artist for cartoons. I know it's going to be a long journey and I have a lot to improve, but I'm not really sure what would stop me. After that I'd eventually like to pitch a show! I also definitely want to work a little bit in the games industry, too. At the end of the day, I just want something where I can draw and be challenged as artist.

-- Andie Newell

Get more of Spencer on his website or Instagram. Interview and photo by Andie Newell, illustration by Spencer himself.

#frederator networks #adventure time #stash riot #youtube #kids choice awards #frederator #spencer greenberg #internview #interview #andie newell

1 note · View note

1x20 · 7 years

Note

Yo, what if artist! Stiles couldn't stop drawing a hot stranger in his college class who looks really hot with glasses (aka Derek). And then he gets dared to actually sit next to him in class and then the Hot Stranger, and accidentally leaves his drawings of Hot Stranger behind as he leaves and hot stranger just wants to give them back and ask Stiles out because Stiles is his Hot Stranger.

Hello I am back with another prompt fill!!! This is semi-nerd!Derek, I hope y'all aren’t too disappointed with me…

Thanks to @sterek for looking over this for me!!!

Also on AO3

Title: Picture Us Together

Stiles remembers the start of this year clear as day.He’d been sitting next to Scott, both of them equal parts terrified andexhilarated, and Stiles had just been complaining about how he was goingto focus on his studies instead of finding a significant other — stop laughing,Scott — and that’s when he walked in.

He being Derek Hale: two hundredpounds of muscle wrapped in a package of adorableness, bunny teeth andthick-rimmed glasses. Stiles isn’t ashamed he fell in love at first sight.Well, it was more like lust at first sight. The love came when Stilesdiscovered he and Derek were in the same History class and Derek always,without fault, knew all of the answers to everything and handed his assignmentsin three weeks before the deadline.

Scott, the traitor, had told Kira, who’d told Allison,who’d told Lydia, without letting Stiles know, and Stiles is left trying tofigure out how the hell this situation got so out of hand.

“What the hell are you all doing here?” he hisses,pushing them away from the window.

“I just wanted to see if your new… infatuationlived up to me, and I must say you have an excellent taste in people,” Lydiasays, a smirk on her face as she eyes Derek up and down and honestly? Stilescan’t blame her. He’s done his fair share of ogling himself — maybe more thanfair, actually — and although he feels really creepy doing it, he can’t stop.

He looks over his shoulder, back at Derek — becauseLydia can be subtle, but right now she really, really isn’t — only to findDerek staring back at them, eyebrow raised and shit.

“Get out!” Stiles whisper-screams at them, becauseDerek saw them staring and he’s going to die.

“Aw come on, Stiles, why don’t you introduce us?”Scott asks, eyes pleading. Normally Stiles would agree to anything Scott askswhile he looks like that — something which Scott knows and abuses endlessly —but this is different. This isn’t some stupid prank. This is Derek freakingHale.

“Dude,” Stiles says, leaning back against the windowso they can’t look through it anymore. “I’m not even sure if Derek knows who Iam, and I’m not just going to introduce a bunch of strangers to him.” Lydiapurses her lips, ready to go on the offence, but Stiles continues before shecan even start. “Besides, my class will start again soon. I have to be backlike, right now. So go eat lunch or something and I’ll catch up with you later.Bye!”

He flees back into the classroom, slamming the doorbehind him and resisting the urge to lock it. He wouldn’t be allowed to anyway,but it’d make him feel a hell of a lot better. What he is allowed to do,however, is close the blinds in front of the windows, which he doesimmediately, pretending he doesn’t hear his friends — ex-friends — loudcomplaints.

The professor clears his throat, looking pointedlyfrom Stiles to Stiles’ seat. Stiles blushes, shooting him a sheepish smilebefore sitting down. Class starts as soon as his ass touches the seat. Stilessighs. It’s still as boring as ever: the professor’s monotone voice droning onabout stuff he already knows, the classroom dark and warm.

He opens up his drawing pad and starts sketchingeverything he can see, trying to make it look like he’s actually payingattention and making notes. He sketches the desk, the windows, the clock, theceiling lamp, before he grows bored of inanimate objects and starts to look forother subjects. Most of the students look as bored as he feels, and they’re dullanyway. He’s about to give up when his eyes land on Derek and — and oh.

Derek’s actually focused on the professor, adetermined glint in his eyes as he nods along with the things that are said,occasionally looking down to make some notes. His hair keeps falling into hiseyes, soft curls sliding forward until he pushes them back with his fingers,fingers that mould into broad palms and strong wrists, the tendons moving underthe thin skin —

Stiles sets his pencil against the paper and starts todraw.

—

Like he promised, he does meet up with his friendsafter class for lunch. They’ve already started without him, of course, soStiles is the only one stuffing his face with food and probably making adisgusting mess of himself. Usually he has Scott, who also turns into adisgusting mess when he eats, for Bro Solidarity, but Scott is too busy makingeyes at Kira to notice Stiles’ glare.

“So, Stiles,” Lydia says, her lips curled in a smirkand Stiles feels his stomach drop. Nothing good comes out of Lydia looking likethat, twisting a strand of her hair around her finger. “When are you goingto ask Derek out?”

Stiles chokes on the sandwich, coughing harshly andswallowing water until he can breathe again, tears squeezing from the cornersof his eyes. He glares at Lydia, but he probably doesn’t look all thatintimidating with his face as red as a tomato.

“Excuse you,” he says, voice hoarse, and takes anothersip of his water. “What gave you the impression I’d ask him out, like, ever?”

Lydia rolls her eyes, tilting her body towards him,legs crossed and leaning forward. Stiles swallows. He’s about to get it.

“I don’t know, actually? Maybe it’s the way you lookat him, or the way you wax poetic about his eyes—”

Scott pipes up with a, “Don’t forget his hair, hisglasses, his nose, his mouth, his co—”

“Yes, thank you, Scott,” Lydia continues, cutting himoff. Stiles would be grateful, he really would be, but Lydia’s talking abouthim asking Derek out. Stiles. Asking out Derek Hale. “As I wassaying, there’s plenty of evidence that points to you asking him out somewherein the near future. Also, I might’ve taken a look at your drawing pad while youwere buying lunch.”

Fuck. Today wasn’t even the firsttime Stiles had drawn Derek — he’s about three-quarters through his sketchpadand he’s sure at least half of those pages are devoted to Derek’s, well,everything.

“Lydia!” he yells, hugging his bag to his chest andglaring at her. “That’s invasion of privacy!”

Lydia rolls her eyes and takes a sip of her water,lipstick leaving a small stain on the rim of her glass, long nails clickingimpatiently against the side. Stiles would say he hates her, but that’d be alie. His sketchpad, though, is his. His and no one else’s.

“It’s all for the greater good, I promise.”

Stiles huffs. What greater good, killing him byhumiliation? Just thinking about going up to Derek and introducing himselfmakes him want to jump out a window, let alone asking him out on a date. Yeah,no, Stiles is going to stick to pining from afar and stay alive, thank you verymuch.

“Come on, Stiles,” Kira says, sending him a sweetsmile. Stiles feels himself melt a little — there’s just no way to hate Kira. “Youcan at least sit next to him right? Introduce yourself? It’s not that weird.”

Shit, he thought Kira was supposed to be the rationalone. Is everyone really going to betray him like this? Stiles slumps down intohis own seat, pretending he’s not pouting. “You’re supposed to be on my side!”

“She’s my girlfriend,” Scott says, pulling hertighter against him and shooting Stiles a glare. Again, Stiles wonders wherethe Bro Solidarity has gone.

Stiles shrugs, taking a bite out of his sandwich andsaying, “Well, she’s the most reasonable of all of you.”

“Stiles,” Lydia says, her nose wrinkling indisgust as she stares at his mouth. Stiles promptly shuts it. “Kira’s right.You can just sit next to him during class. You’re making this harder than ithas to be.”

“Something’s hard alright,” he mumbles, swallowing thebite. Lydia kicks him in the shin, and Stiles shoots a betrayed glare at herbecause really, Lydia? Stiles really is going to dump, like, all of themASAP.

“Come on, don’t be a chicken, Stiles,” Lydia saysagain, her eyebrows raised and Stiles feels his heart sink. There’s no way thisis going to end well for him, not if she’s looking at him like that. Heglances over at Scott to see if Scott will help him, but the small smile onScott’s face doesn’t predict anything good either. Fuck.

“Yeah, if you don’t sit next to Derek the next classyou two have together, you’ll,” Scott pauses, quickly trying to think of someincentive. If it was anyone else, Stiles might get away from this bet, but Scotthas always known what he liked and has never once resisted the urge to egg himon. “You’ll owe me three bags of Doritos.”

Fuck, the Doritos. Scott’s serious about thisthen, if he’s bringing Doritos into this. Stiles leans forward, eyes narrowedas he stares at Scott, hoping Scott will back down, but Scott just smiles backat him, innocent like he doesn’t what he’s doing. Bullshit, Stiles knows,because Scott is sometimes smarter than people give him credit for.

“Doritos, huh?” Stiles says, and Scott immediatelynods, smile growing bigger until his dimples come out. Shit, Scott has him.Stiles has taken the bait, he’s gone and done it. “Well, I hope you have 911 onspeed dial just in case I get a heart attack because Derek looks at me.”

“Deal,” Scott says, holding out his hand for Stiles toshake, and Stiles clasps it in his own.

“Boys,” Lydia sighs, shaking her head.

Stiles really, really, really hates hisfriends.

—

The next time he and Derek are in the same classroomturns out to be two days later, on a Thursday, and Stiles is both grateful andpissed off by this little break. Grateful, because it gave him some time tomentally prepare himself for the eventual disaster, and pissed off because hisfriends won’t stop bothering him about it.

But, he thinks, that might be his own fault,considering he won’t stop bothering them about Derek either. It’s not like hedoes it on purpose though, sometimes he’s merrily just going about his day whenBAM, there Derek’s face is in his mind’s eye in all its gorgeous glory. It’srude, that’s what it is.

What’s even more rude is Derek’s actual, real-lifeface. Derek’s not even looking his way, but Stiles already feels hisheartbeat speed up at the sight of that dark hair and those cute little ears.

Stiles is so fucking fucked.

He breathes in, out, again, until the urge to throw uphas left him, and scans the rest of the classroom for an available seat beforehe realizes that oh, yeah, he has to sit next to Derek doesn’t he.

The chair left to Derek’s is empty, and he slowlywalks over to it, trying his best to delay the inevitable.

“Uh, hey?” he says, waving his hand awkwardly. Derekturns around to look at him, his eyes a mishmash of colors beneath his glasses.Stiles doesn’t realize he’s staring until Derek raises his eyebrows. “Is thisseat, uh, free?”

“Yeah,” Derek says, nodding and motioning to seat,looking Stiles over. He’s probably thinking about how inadequate Stiles is incomparison him. “Go ahead.”

Stiles sends him a smile, one he hopes isn’t tooexcited, and tries to calm his racing heart, sitting down in the seat. Dereksmiles back, eyes crinkling at the corners and bunny teeth visible. He quicklyputs his bag on the ground, looking away from Derek and grabbing his notebook.

He doesn’t look up until he has to leave and hopesDerek at least finds him acceptable.

—

“Shit,” he mumbles, running his hands through hishair, throwing his notebooks on the ground, resisting the urge to screambecause he can’t find his fucking drawing pad and everything’s on there, hiscommissions, his projects, his — Derek. “Shit, shit shit… Scott?! Scott,do you know where my drawing pad is?!”

“Nah, I haven’t seen it since this morning,” Scottsays, stretching his arms above his head to wake himself up from his nap.Stiles is this close to murdering him. “You okay?”

“No,” Stiles says, running his hands over his head.“No, Scott. I’m not okay. Do you know why I’m not okay? Because I can’t find myfreaking sketchpad.”

Scott frowns, lying back down on the couch andscratching his head. Stiles doesn’t get how Scott can be so chill about thisbecause nothing is chill, everything’s going wrong, what if Derek hashis drawing pad what if he sees those drawings what if —

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“But I sat next to Derek yesterday because of thatstupid fucking dare and what if he has it, Scott, what if Derek has my drawingpad and sees the drawings I made of him and think I’m a creep, he’ll never goout with me then —”

Scott hand lands on his shoulder, squeezing softly,warm through the fabric of Stiles’ shirt. Stiles clenches his hands into fists,scraping his nails over his scalp until his breathing has calmed down a little.

“Look man,” Scott says softly, carefully. “You can’tdo anything about it now. You can go search for it tomorrow, but right now youneed to focus on something else, okay?”

Stiles can do nothing but nod, his throat dry andfingers shaking. Fuck, he’s so fucking tired and he has a headache. Scott’shand squeezes another time, and then he says, “Should we watch something? StarTrek?”

Stiles nods again, and settles back into the couch asScott goes to the kitchen for a glass of water. He sighs — he may complain alot about his friends, but for all his complaining, he does love them.

—

Stiles has calmed back down again by the time thedoorbell rings through their apartment, but the shrill sound has his heart rateincreasing again. He presses a few buttons on the remote to distract himselffrom the possibility that the person standing at the door might be Derek.

“Stiles!” Scott yells from the hallway. “It might bebetter if you take this one.”

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck, there’s no way that isn’t Derek.Right. Stiles can do this. Maybe Derek just found his sketch pad and didn’tlook inside it. That’s probably what happened. Stiles is going to be fine.

“Right,” Stiles mumbles as he passes Scott. Scottsqueezes his shoulder and mouths talk to him. “Right, I can do this.”

The door takes an eternity to open, every muscle inStiles’ body tensed to get the fuck out of there. He peeks around the corner,only to find Derek on the other side, no glasses on and eyebrows raised. Stilesquickly opens the door and pretends he wasn’t acting weirdly, and Derek shootshim a tight smile. If you love me, God, please kill me, Stiles thinks,but it doesn’t work.

“Uh, hi,” Derek says, hands hanging next to his sides,fingers curled around — oh god — Stiles’ drawing pad. “I think this is yours?”

“Yeah, that’s —” Stiles clears his throat, prayingthat Derek can’t see how red his cheeks are. “That’s mine. Thanks for bringingit back.”

“I just, uh. I wanted to ask you about this?” Dereksays, opening the sketch pad to Stiles’ most frequented page, the one where he drewDerek’s profile and managed to capture the slope of his cheekbone and the curveof his nose perfectly. Fuck. Fuck shit this is totally heading in the wrongdirection.

Derek thumbs through a few drawings, smudging a few ofthe pencil lines and Stiles can’t even be met if he wants his face erased fromStiles’ sketch pad, because he’s such a fucking creep, what was he thinking?

“It’s fine if you want to draw,” Derek says, still notlooking at Stiles. “I think being creative is very cool, but there are a lot ofother good-looking people in class and —”

“Yeah, but they’re not you,” Stiles says, quickly,rushing it because he needs Derek to understand how much Stiles lo — howbig Stiles’ crush on him is, because Derek is so gorgeous and nice and hedeserves so much and oh god.

Derek’s just standing there, blinking at him, eyes wide and eyebrowsraised. Stiles’ heart is fucking pounding out of his chest, oh jeez, he’s goingto throw up, someone get him a trashcan.

“Oh,” Derek says. Stiles doesn’t know what to say tothat, but he should say something because this silence is awkward and somethingneeds to happen. He clenches and unclenches his hands rhythmically, trying todistract himself from the current situation. It doesn’t work. “Oh,”Derek repeats and Stiles is dead, goodbye cruel word.

“I, uh,” Derek continues, his hand folded in the crookof his elbow. There’s a light flush on his cheeks, coloring the skin a softpink and Stiles is torn between wanting to sink into the ground, wanting to hughim and wanting to fuck him into the door. “I was actually wondering if you’dbe willing to get coffee some time? With me?”

Wait. Wait. What? Did Stiles hear thatcorrectly? Did Derek Hale — Derek freaking Hale, Derek nerdy andfucking gorgeous and probably the love of Stiles’ life Hale — ask him out.On, like, a date? Did Stiles die and go to fucking heaven?

“You — you want to have coffee,” Stiles says dumbly,pointing from Derek to himself and back again. His pulse is through the fuckingroof right now. “With me.”

Derek nods, slowly, the tips of his ears red, hairspread around it in little curls, and Stiles is dying oh my god. “Nopressure, I mean, if you don’t want to…”

“I want to!” Stiles says quickly, reflexively taking astep forward and oh, Derek looks even more beautiful up close oh god. “Alot, actually, if the drawings didn’t tip you off…”

“Ah, they did. That’s kind of why I’m here.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Stiles snorts, hand hoveringawkwardly in the space between their chests. Derek looks down at it, then tohis face and back down again, like he can’t believe they’re actually thisclose, that this is actually happening. Stiles almost wants to crybecause he feels the exact same fucking way and so much of this melodramacould’ve just been avoided if Stiles had opened his big mouth like he usuallydoes.

“So… coffee?” Derek asks, clasping Stiles’ hand in hisand shaking it awkwardly. Stiles would laugh at the situation, would probablylaugh if he saw this from someone else’s point of view, but Derek is touchinghis hand, their skin is touching, Derek is voluntarily touching him —

Derek pulls his hand away, blushing and refusing tolook Stiles in the eye. Stiles coughs and scratches the back of his neck.“Coffee, yeah. Just let me grab my stuff?”

“Sure,” Derek says, broad shoulder shrugging. Stilesimmediately runs back into their apartment, grabbing his phone and wallet and acoat and quickly putting them on, his hands trembling with adrenaline andexcitement and good things.

“Scott, cancel the movie ‘cause I have a date!”

Scott whoops from the couch, immediately grabbing hisphone to call Kira and gloat about it probably. Stiles would be mad at it forhim but he also wants to gloat because he’s going on a date with Derekfucking Hale.

Stiles loves his friends.

A/N:

Aaaah thanks for reading this lil thing! I hope you liked it ^^ Please lemme know if you did because I am struggling with writer’s block at the moment so I feel like this might be kindy shitty I don’t know aaah…

My writing tag | My fic page | My AO3

#isaac writes sterek #eternalsterek #eternal sterek #sterek #sterek fic #anon #answered

419 notes · View notes