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yukinojou · 3 years

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I already squeed quite a bit on Twitter, but turns out my Shadow and Bone thoughts demand longform. So that was a 40+ tweet thread or using my Tumblr for an original post for once.

I was wary about the Shadow and Bone adaptation the way I'm usually wary about good books being adapted onscreen. It was amplified because my actual favourites are the Six of Crows books, and because the American-based movie complex has a bad track record of doing anything based on Eastern Europe. 8 episodes in 3 days should tell you how much I loved it - the moment I finished, I wanted more.

First, the technical praise:

Damn but the plotting is tight. It took me a while to realised it's based on heist movie bones, where every little thing (The Freaking Bullet!) is important. The story fulfills its promises and manages not to bore at the same time - it delights by the way they're fulfilled. I called out a few plot developments moments before they happened, and I was happy about it. Such a joy after so many series where "not doing what viewers expect" led to plot holes and lack of sense. It might be an upside to the streaming model after all.

From a dramatic point of view I can tell all the reasons for all the changes, especially providing additional outsider points of view on Ravka (Crows) and letting viewers see Mal for themselves the way he only comes across in later books.

Speaking of which, this is a masterclass in rewriting a story draft. SaB was Bardugo's first, and having read later books you can really see where she didn't quite dare to break the YA rules yet, especially Single POV that necessitated a tight focus on Alina's often negative feelings rather than the big picture and a triangle that felt a bit forced. The world in the series is so much bigger, the way Bardugo could finally paint it when SaB success gave her more creative freedom, and some structural choices feel familiar too. It's a combination of various choices by crew and cast, but the end result meshes together so tightly and naturally.

Visuals! Especially the war parts because Every Soviet Movie Ever, but also the clothes (I would kill for Nina's blouse in the bar), the jewelry, the interiors. The stag was so very beautiful. And a deep commitment to a coherent aesthetic for each character and setting.

Look, you can do a serious fantasy series with colours! Both skin colours and bright sets and clothing! And all scenes were well lit enough to know what's going on, even in the Fold!

Representation (aka I Am Emotion)

To start with: I was born behind the Iron Curtain, in the last years of the Cold War. The Curtain was always permeable to some extent, and we have always been aware that while we have talented artists of our own, we never had the budgets and polish of the Anglosphere Entertainment Machine. So we watched a hell of a lot of American visual storytelling especially because yeah, you can tell we don't have the budgets. 90s and 2000s especially, it's getting better now.

In American stories, the BEST case scenario for Eastern European representation is the Big Dumb Pole, the ethnic stereotype Americans don't even notice they use, where the punchline is that his English is bad or that he grew up outside Anglo culture. Other than that, it's criminals, beggars, sex trafficking victims, refugees. Sure, we may look similar (except we really really don't, not if you're raised here and see the distinct lack of all those long-jawed Anglo faces), but we are not and have never been the West, never mind America. It's probably better for younger people now, but I was raised under rationing and passport bans. Star Trek and Beverly Hills 90210 were exactly as foreign to me.

The first ever character I really identified with was Susan Ivanova in Babylon 5 (written by J. Michael Straczynski, yay behind-camera representation). This was a Russian Jewish woman very much in charge, in the way of strong women I know so well, not taking any bullshit, not repressing her feminity. I recognised her bones, she could be my cousin. The sheer relief of it. There have been few such occasions since.

The reason I picked up Shadow and Bone in the first place was recommendations from other Polish people. I've had no problems finding representation in Eastern European books because wow our scene is strong in SFF especially, but it's always a treat to find a book in English that gets it. And Leigh gets it, the bones of our culture, and I could even look past the grammar issue (dear gods and Americans, Starkova for a woman, Morozov for a guy) that really irked me because of the love for the setting and the characters, the weaving in of religion/mysticism (we never laicisized the same way as the West, natch), the understanding of how deep are the scars left in a nation at war for centuries. The books are precious to me, they and Arden's Winternight and Novik's Spinning Silver.

To sum up: Shadow and Bone the Netflix series gets it. You can tell just how much they've immersed themselves in Eastern European culture and media, it comes across so well in visuals and writing and characters. Not just the obvious bits (though the WWII propaganda posters gave me a giggle), but the palaces, the additional plotlines and characters, the costumes, the attitudes. About the only thing missing in the soldier scenes was someone singing and/or quoting poetry.

I will blame the Apparat's lack of beard on filming in a non-Orthodox country. Poland's Catholic too, but I very much imagined him as an Orthodox patriarch, possibly because I read the books shortly after a visit to Pecherska Lavra in Kiev and the labyrinthine holy catacombs there. Small quibble, not my religion, not my place to speak.

(I've seen discussion on the issues with biracial representation in the show, which is visceral and apparently based on bad experiences of one of the show writers in a way that's caused pain to other Asian and biracial people. I'm not qualified to speak on those parts, other that Eastern Europe is... yeah. Racist in subtly different ways. If anything, the treatment of the Suli as explained in Six of Crows always read so very true of the way Roma are treated, and even sanitised.)

And now for the spoiler-filled bits:

Kaz and Inej. I mean... just THEM. So many props to the actors, the writers, the bloody goat.

I adore the fact the only people who get to have sex in the show are Jesper and a very lucky stablehand.

Ben Barnes needs either an award or a kick. The man's acting choices and puppy eyes are as epic as his hair.

So Much Love for Alina initiating the kiss. Her book characterisation makes sense, she's so trapped in her own head because she has no time to process everything that's happening, but grabbing life by the lapels is a much more active choice. Still not making the relationship equal, but closer to it.

Speaking of, Kaz's constant awareness of how unequal his relationship with Inej is, and attempts to give her agency. I'm really curious how his touch issues come across to someone who doesn't know the backstory there.

Feodor and his actor. He looks exactly like the pre-war heartthrob Adolf Dymsza, a specific upper-class Polish ethnic type that's much rarer now that, well, Nazis killed millions of Polish intellectuals in their attempt to reduce us to unskilled labour only. The faces he makes are the Best.

Nina!! Nina is perfect, those cheekbones, that cheek, I was giggling myself silly half the time. I cannot wait to see Danielle Galligan take on the challenge of Nina's plotline in Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, she'll kill us dead.

I already mentioned that the writers fixed Mal's absence from the first book, but Mal in general! The haircut gives him a kind of rugby charm, and Archie Renaux is outstanding at emoting without talking. Honestly, all the casting in this series is inspired, but him in particular.

Extra bonus: Howard Charles and Luke Pasqualino playing so very much against the type of the swaggering Musketeers I saw them play last. Arken dropping the mask at the end... Howard Charles is love.

I can't believe not only was Milo's bullet a plot point, but the fact Alina was wearing a particularly sparkly hair ornament in a long series of beautiful hair ornaments was a plot point.

In conclusion: so much love, and next three season NOW please. Okay, give me a week to reread the books, and an extra day because new Murderbot drops tomorrow...

#shadow and bone #six of crows #shadow and bone meta

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sophies-earbuds · 3 years

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spoiler alert please dont ruin your reading experience trust me you dont want this one spoiled for you

i just finished the guide since my book finally came and i am so unbelievably impressed

say what you will about laura but when im reading this book i put aside everything else and focus only on the book, and i really really loved the art. the ones i definitely liked most are the fosters, the songs, and the council. something about the huge full spread rendering of the councillors just enthralled me.

and yeah. tam’s old haircut. not saying i dont like the bangs but wow he can really pull anything off

i really enjoyed reading the registry files. 1: keefe’s was absolutely hilarious. there was nothing in that file that was left untouched, and that leads to so many hilarious comments.

dex’s file was amazing, mostly because of that one section we all know, the one he redacted hardcore. it’s amazing

the amount of people who have spyballs is almost scary. what’s scarier is who was denied. how did alden manage that? i would imagine that it was a result of bronte not exactly being his biggest fan

the adults have some interesting files. sounds like edaline was working on something huuuuuge, as was grady, and they probably have no clue what either of them was working on. i really hope we get to know what those assignments were

kenric’s memorial page had me tearing up so bad. not gonna lie, i still think he’s a black man because that’s what i thought for like. the first four years of me reading this series, and my mental picture isn’t gonna be able to be replaced just because of these pictures. im incapable of changing my mind

i just wanna say. seeing dex in The Twin just. really emphasized the crush i have on him. it’s getting worse. i have to constantly remind myself that he’s not real. he just looks so huggable.

dont even get me started on keefe’s memory narration. that just... that gave me so many fic ideas it’s not even funny. and the way he cut off his sentence of “I’d better take a break, before I write something really embarrassing. Like how I’m pretty sure I’m-”

WHAT WAS HE GOING TO SAY

i just need to know. i need to know all of the things.

this memory log was obviously written after he woke up because he drew the memory of his mom’s weird ritual at the end of legacy, so he already knows what his power is. but i have a feeling this isn’t about that.

also the way all of his little entries always became about sophie is a little hilarious and SUPER adorable. he’s so whipped that she is a part of his regular thought process about literally everything.

“If I hadn’t already known I liked her-”

“That was the first time it felt like... maybe I had a tiny shot at making this brave, beautiful, blushing girl like me.”

“I almost lost her.”

IM TRYING MY BEST TO FOCUS ON MORE IMPORTANT THINGS BUT I CANT BE EXPECTED TO NOT FREAK OUT OVER THIS ENTIRE SECTION

anyway. that’s all i got rn. maybe ill have more in depth opinions on my reread.

sophies-earbuds -> out

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sailorfailures · 5 years

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October 22nd is Minako Aino/Sailor Venus’s birthday!

So how can you celebrate?

♀ Rewatch or reread your favourite Venus-centric chapter, episode, or musical! She might’ve been the last of the Sailor Team to be introduced, but she was actually the first Sailor Soldier ever - Sailor V. Prominent 90s anime episodes include episode 036, one of the earliest Venus-centric episodes, where she take Usagi out for a haircut to cheer her up; episode 042, where we finally learn of Minako’s (anime-canon) past working in London as Sailor V with her mentor, Katarina; episode 078, where the rest of the Sailor Team falls ill with a mysterious flu and it’s up to Minako to “help” nurse them to health; episode 100, where an old unrequited flame gets Minako rethinking her life goals and considers quitting her duty as a Sailor Soldier; episode 114, where Minako gets a shot at becoming a real idol, but has to compete with the villain Mimete; episode 141, where Minako goes on two dates at the same time and reaps the reward of her own hubris; and episodes 175 and 192, where Minako gets even closer to realising her idol dreams with some industry experience.

Did you know Minako has her very own manga series? In fact, it was written before the Sailor Moon manga even existed! Codename: Sailor V is much shorter, more comedic, and action-oriented than PGSM, and elaborates not only on Minako’s character and role before meeting the other Guardians but also the history of the Silver Millennium and the Dark Kingdom. If you were disappointed with Minako’s under-utilised role in the 90s anime, now is the perfect time to give the 2003 live-action a shot, where she has a much more prominent and plot-heavy role.

♀ Sailor Venus has several official image songs across different canons you can play for her big day, particularly in the live action, where she is a professional idol:

90s anime: Anata no Yume wo Mita Wa [“I’ve Seen Your Dream”]; Setsunakute Ii [“It’s Fine Even if it Pains Me”]; ROUTE VENUS; Ai no Megami no HOW TO LOVE [”How To Love per the Goddess of Love”] Live Action: C'EST LA VIE ~ Watashi no Naka no Koi Suru Bubun [“C’est la Vie ~ The Loving Side Within Me”]; Katagoshi ni Kinsei [“Venus Over My Shoulder”]; ROMANCE; Kiss!² Bang!² [“Kiss! Kiss! Bang! Bang!”]; Sayonara ~ SWEET DAYS [“Farewell ~ Sweet Days”]; HAPPY TIME, HAPPY LIFE; I’M HERE Crystal: HEART ga Tonjau Sora Dakara [“As It’s the Sky My Heart Soared Through”] Musicals: TRADITIONAL THE GRACE ~Ai no Arashi~ [“Traditional the Grace ~Storm of Love~”] Her voice actress Rika Fukami also recorded a cover of Shocking Blue’s hit song, Venus, inspired by the Bananarama cover that popularized the song in Japan. The opening bars of their version were also referenced in many of Minako’s official video game themes.

Here’s a playlist of all these songs and other Sailor Venus BGM cues!

♀ Indulge in some of Minako’s favourite foods! Minako is living that carb life, as her faves are ramen, gyoza (potsticker dumplings), and curry rice. Order out or challenge yourself to cooking them from scratch - just don’t include any mushrooms, which are Minako’s least favourite food.

♀ Minako is a very goal-oriented person, even if she’s not always the most focused, and many of her hobbies revolve around her dream of becoming an idol. Topmost, of course, is singing! She’s loved to sing and dance ever since she was a child. Learn a new dance routine - YouTube is a great start - or go clubbing with some friends. Minako is also particularly relevant to karaoke in the live action; why not gather a group and hit a karaoke bar?

Minako’s pride and joy is her long, silky hair, which she takes great care of. If yours is in need of some TLC, treat it to a fancy hair mask, or make your own from simple ingredients. Alternatively, if you’ve been looking for a sign to make a drastic hairstyle change, chop, or colour, this might be that sign, as Minako is a huge advocate for how changing your hairstyle can change your outlook.

She might not seem the type, but Minako has also been shown to enjoy knitting. Maybe she uses these skills to contribute to her massive collection of stuffed toys? Pick up those needles and finish that project you’ve been putting off or learn how to start from some videos or a local meet-up. If you’re an expert, you could even try a Sailor Moon pattern.

Minako is a video game junkie, which makes sense, considering her alter-ego stars in one. She seems particularly fond of racing games, but also side-scrollers and fighting games; why not give a new indie title a try, or play as Minako herself in one of the many retro Sailor Moon games for the Super Nintendo and other systems? (Personally, my favourite is this arcade brawler.)

After being an idol, and (maybe) her duty as a Guardian, Minako’s highest priority is volleyball. She had an incredible talent for the game even before discovering her super-human abilities as Sailor V. Why not hire some equipment for a casual game with some friends on the beach? (Though Minako wouldn’t judge you if you just played virtual volleyball instead.)

♀ Dress like Minako for a day! She had the widest variation in fashion styles amongst the show’s characters, ranging from sporty, to preppy, to “cool”, to girlish, to eccentric high fashion. In colder weather she loved scarves and oversized jackets, but in warmer weather she opted for simple, breezy, minimalist looks. She favoured vests, and shorts/flowy, non-restrictive skirts so she was always ready to leap into action. The consistent element linking her different styles is her tendency to layer, layering jackets over vests over turtlenecks, layering necklaces over sun-dresses over summery blouses, etc.

Her one mainstay accessory was her iconic red hair-bow, though she actually did swap it out to coordinate it with her outfit at times, and it was a pale yellow when she was a Princess. She started wearing the ribbon to impress a boy, but after he turned out to be a monster - uh, literally - she decided to keep wearing it because she liked it; so if something you used to love wearing has been tainted by a toxic relationship, you can Love and Beauty Shock it into something you wear for yourself. (By the way, before she wore the bow, she used a simple red scrunchie.)

(Manga scan credits: sailormusic.net, MissDream.org)

As Sailor Venus, she started with simple yellow/orange studs that later became red and wore orange flats (often styled as d’orsays) with ankle-straps. Her nail polish was a fresh tangerine, and in her attack Love and Beauty Shock we can see she wears a pale orange/coral/peach lipgloss. Her image colours are orange, yellow, and a navy blue accent.

... And of course, Minako never missed an opportunity to go big or go home; so if you have an over-the-top campy stage costume just lying around...

♀ Match with your BFF twin for the day!

♀ Take up the sword!

♀ Line up a date. Or two. On the same day. (But don’t complain if you get caught!)

♀ Fav and read some Sailor Venus fanart and fanfic on sites like Pixiv, Twitter, and AO3 - or contribute your own new content! Don’t forget to tag!

Feel free to reply and reblog with your own ideas of how you’re going to celebrate Mina’s day!

Happy Birthday, Minako!

#Sailor Moon #Sailor Venus #birthday #long post #is this the longest one yet? I think so #makes sense though seeing as she has the most lore after Usagi #also I finally finished one of these posts before the day-of #so this is an advance notice!#at last!

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danjaley · 3 years

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Story Process Challenge

Tagged by @nocturnalazure in the text, but I hope this counts :)

1. Your writing process - show us a part of your script or explain how you write your scenes. Do you write in screenplay format or novel format? Etc, etc.

Sims-stories I write in digital format almost exclusively and usually in dialogue form. Here’s the first page of “Wild Hunt”. It all started out with Lavinia’s character description and stayed there a very long time. Then it also has a stock of Gothic names, which is copied from another document, hence the German headline. Being me, I sometimes leave some silliness, like the extra-characters. (The thing about the blacksmith was that when these ‘barbarians’ caught an artisan, they sometimes crippled them so they couldn’t run away, but had to work for them. Unfortunately I couldn’t fit such a character into the story. He’s still there from brainstorming days)

This is the market scene from Chevalry, along with a lot of cut scenes. I always quote this as an example why some of the best scenes aren’t even there in my writing. The text is green because I used this to mark it as the story-in-the-story. (The expression ‘shock-blanket’ is a reference to an episode of Sherlock. Some expressions (”slain” “daughter to”) are also borrowed from Shakespeare-plays)

2. Scene building - show us you in the middle of scene building through pictures, gifs, or a video. Explain what is the best thing about scene building and what is the worst!

I rarely take pictures of half-built sets. Wherever possible, I prefer using places built by experienced builders. I have zero sense of architecture. A square small place is the most I can be trusted to do myself. Generally I prefer to work with decor and plants. This travelling cart was a different kind of challenge. I built it on a 10x10 lot and it had to be placed first, before I constructed a new set around it. On the second picture you also see the cleverly camouflaged mailbox :)

3. CC/Pose Making - do you make your own cc/poses for your scene? If so, what is your process like to create? Do you just go off the top of your head? Do you use reference photos?

I think it’s safe to say that I’m a pose-maker. Although I make a lot less poses than I used to. Partly because of time, partly because I don’t like the washed-out Blender under Windows 10 :/ In the heyday of Chevalry, I would quit the game and pose the scene myself, if I wasn’t 100% satisfied. Though the only scene I ever posed start-to finish was the haircutting-kiss. Nowadays, I rather try to work with existing poses. Back when I took requests, I sometimes worked with reference pictures, and they do give the scene some extra depth. The scene modelled after a still from “Anastasia” really taught me how much detail the artists had put into their characters’ expressions, and this translated back to the resulting poses.

4. Getting in the zone - What do you do to get in the zone to work on a scene? Examples include: show us your playlist you use when working on a scene, what’s your go-to scene snack/drink, etc.

I kinda miss living on my own, when I could dedicate a whole day to shooting a battle-scene for Chevalry. But in fact I decided to tell this story then and there because I knew it was the perfect time of my life for doing so. I’m super shy with music, and I have a limited music-library (by modern standards), which I listen to over and over again. Many of these songs have influenced characters, but can’t even bring myself to hunt them up on the internet.

5. Screenshot folder - give us a look into your screenshot folder to show us just how much goes into ONE scene for your story. (Scrapped pictures encouraged!!!)

Here is Of Chevalry, end of Chapter 6. The green ones are reference shots for depth of field blur (I don’t use Reshade). The ones with Sarmanna in a bath-suit are for editing her hands back into the picture, when they clipped through the dress.

MCarric Scenes, most recent: You’ll notice there’s a lot less greenscreen blur nowadays. I usually draw it with the blur-tool now. I still need to find a good occasion for this lovely rainbow I captured...

6. Captions - are you a caption on the picture kind of storyteller or captions in text box type of storyteller? Why? Do you do both?

Although I am more of a visual storyteller, I very much prefer the text in the post. I’m very given to typos and spelling errors and I’d hate having them baked into my pictures. Also I find the text easier to read in the post.

7. Editing!!!!! - explain and show us your process editing a scene through a video, gif, or picture. A Before and after will suffice if you aren’t in the middle of editing a scene as you answer this.

I like editing my pictures in a way that makes them look like they had been like this in game all along. Here’s Sarmanna in a bath-suit again. In cases like this one, you can even bring out the feeling a bit more. I could have dug her left arm out of the skirt. But as she’s feeling very shy and vulnerable in the scene, I made it look like her arm was close to her body. I also have a photoshop action which gives this slightly desaturated old-painting look to the images.

8. Throwback- show us an ANCIENT story scene you did in the past and explain how you would do the scene differently today!

In 2014 I tried to tell the backstory of Anja Tilney, a Maplethorpe Island inhabitant. It was the first time I tried messing around with poses, and I remember I included this shot because Simmagmeg had just released these poses which meant much to her. This scene I still think turned out cute, but on the whole I wasn’t feeling the story any more, after a while. It was rather simply constructed, but still I felt I couldn’t do it justice with my skills back then.

I just reread it for the first time since (here...), and it isn’t quite as bad as I remembered, but back then I scrapped the project and decided to stay well away from Sims storytelling in the future...

tagging @arielovessims, @thethingshesaidthesims3, @windermeresimblr, @unsimspirational

#tagged

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frywen-bumbles · 3 years

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The Way to a Man’s Heart Goes Through His... Cat? Ch3

AO3

As much as Jaskier adores the fact Roach seems to warm up to him, there's one thing he can't stand.

<why>

Jaskier snaps a picture where all that's visible are glowing eyes in the dark, staring down at him and sends it.

<yeah, i'm with Essi, you're on your own>

�� <think of it as a free haircut>

<don't remind me I'm trying to sleep!!!>

<zzz>

The morning routine is something Jaskier has learned to both love and hate. His alarm rings at 8 like every morning and like possessed Roach jumps on top of him and screams.

"Mmmm yeah, I'm awake, Roach..." Jaskier mumbles and tries to sleep just one more minute. Roach is having none of it. She runs over him, to the door and screams bloody murder and jumps on top of him again.

"Please... Roach... just two... minutes..." Jaskier tries to bury his head under the blankets but Roach walks on top of him and screams again.

"Ugh... you're heavy... Okay, okay, I'm getting up. See Roach, I'm getting up..."

He walks downstairs to feed Roach who keeps screaming and thrilling until her bowl is full and walks back up to brush his teeth.

Roach doesn't take long until she demands to be let in the bathroom, scratching and meowing making her demands known.

"One of these mornings I will get to brush my teeth in peace," Jaskier sighs as Roach curls herself into the sink. This is not one of those mornings.

He checks his phone over morning coffee and is surprised to find a message from Fiona so early.

<Sure, swallow. What do you need?>

Fiona sends him a picture of her math assignment.

Jaskier looks at the math over and starts to explain it in detail. It's somehow endearing how much trust Fiona puts in him and he does not want to ruin it for her. Not that third-grade mathematics is hard, he suspects 'uncle L' just isn't that good at explaining things.

He can't help but venture to reread a different conversation entirely while he waits for Fiona to finish.

A picture of Cat Dad and Fiona. And actual texts after it.

<She's very fine! Quite vocal about what she wants but still lovely!>

And on another day:

Then another selfie with Cat Dad and Fiona, this time taken by Cat Dad. He is very bad at taking selfies, but somehow even that is endearing, despite the man looking like he's a member of a biker gang with the beard and all of the black leather. When he got the first picture, he hadn't even noticed. He had been too distracted by... other things. Jaskier really shouldn't feel this giddy just looking at a picture. Just rereading the texts. But he can't help himself.

The man is clearly crazy about his cat. And what's hotter than a person who loves their pets to the moon and back. Nothing, if you ask Jaskier.

<I'm glad you like the pictures! Like I told you, I'll send one or two every day!>

What Jaskier doesn't tell is feeding the cat cheese every single day to get her brushed. Little treats never hurt anyone.

Fiona sends him a picture of finished assignments.

Jaskier thinks he will melt. While being a tutor wasn't in his job description he doesn't really mind. To him, it's evident what Fiona wants most of all is company and support and he's happy to provide. The family she's staying with is trying their best, Jaskier is sure of it. But from what Jaskier gathers through Fiona's texts, they don't seem to have enough time to look through her school work as much as she wishes they would.

How can two people he's never even met manage to occupy most of he's thoughts?

***

Jaskier has barely put the first forkful of instant ramen in his mouth when he hears the door open.

"Geralt, it's me!"

Jaskier scrambles to meet whoever just walked through the locked door using their own key, what the fuck.

"H-hello...?" he manages to greet through a mouth full of food before he even sees who it is.

Jaskier is not one to be intimidated nor is he one to be at loss for words.

Somehow, the woman in front of him manages to do both. She's gorgeous, her raven hair falling in curls over her shoulders, violet eyes staring straight at him like he's a piece of cheap meat and suddenly Jaskier is keenly aware of wearing nothing but pants and an undershirt, his hair a ruffled mess, hands covered in ink, pencil and pen marks.

"You're one of those... trainees. Melitele forbid, what sort of trash does Geralt drag in here, why aren't you with the old wolf?"

Jaskier opens his mouth to answer but is immediately interrupted.

"No, don't answer that. Where is Geralt, I need to talk to him."

"I... um..." Jaskier gets the feeling this is a person who gets what she wants. She quirks an eyebrow at him expecting an answer and when none come she sighs, a dramatic gesture Jaskier is not sure he could perform better even if he tried.

"Where. Is. Geralt?" she asks like he's an idiot and Jaskier things at this moment he really is.

"He, um... is not here?" Jaskier tries his best. He does. But something about the woman, no matter how beautiful she is, radiates power, like she could crush him without even blinking an eye.

The woman eyes him, up and down and glances behind him to the kitchen. And smiles. It's a small amused quirk of her lips, one that makes Jaskier spin around immediately only to spot Roach sitting on top of his papers, meticulously dropping every single pen to the floor.

"Roach, no!"

Roach meows and jumps down from the table with a mrrrp. She trots to the woman and rubs herself against her legs before she jumps up to her scratching post to stare at them.

Jaskier kneels to collect his pens, muttering curses under his breath.

"You know Roach."

"Um, yeah?" Jaskier mutters as he crawls deeper under the table to reach the pens.

"Soooo, witchers, huh? Interesting topic of research."

Jaskier hits his head on the table.

"Yeah... yeah I. I know it's not the most conventional one but I do find it quite fascinating especially when you look at all of the historical songs..." Jaskier crawls from underneath the table and is met with the woman standing next to him and suddenly he's keenly aware of being in his underwear on his knees on the floor in front of one of the most beautiful women he's ever seen.

He blushes.

He's sure he's never blushed as much as he is right at this moment and he honestly wishes the ground would open up and swallow him whole.

"You're not one of the trainees," the woman says eyeing him, amusement still lingering on her lips.

"No, I'm not," Jaskier admits and tries to get to his feet in a somewhat dignified way. He fails and all of his pens scatter to the floor again. "Fuck..."

"And who are you then?"

"I'm the cat-sitter. Julian." Jaskier gives himself a mental slap. He is an adult person why does he introduce himself like a toddler? "Can I please go put my trousers on?" he pleads. Maybe clothed he'll have a chance to be on equal grounds with the woman.

"Sure."

A few minutes later he comes back down, fully clothed this time, to find the woman sitting by the table and reading his scribbles.

"Um, hello?" Jaskier greets the woman again. She looks up but does nothing to stand up to greet him in return. "Julian Pancratz, the cat-sitter." Jaskier extends his hand to her and she takes it.

"I'm Yen. Geralt is my-... we're... friends. Now, where has that grumpy bastard gone?" The woman - Yen answers and looks at him expecting an answer immediately.

"I honestly don't know, he only told me it's work-related. I've never even met him. I was recommended by a friend of his who is also a client of mine. He occasionally answers the texts I send him, maybe you could try to reach him by phone?"

"He answers your texts? What did you do, enchant him?" Yen sounds honestly baffled and it makes Jaskier feel bad. She obviously has some sort of history with the Cat Dad so the least he could do is answer her.

"He only answers every now and then. I don't think it was even his idea to reply."

Yen smiles, a true smile this time, not just an amused quirk of lips, "You're probably right." She picks up one of the papers again and taps it, "Ever met a real witcher?"

"No, I haven't. I've just always found the stories interesting... I have plans for real research for my doctoral thesis as soon as I manage to finish my master's degree, I just need to get around to figuring out... well pretty much everything outside of the basic structure. I already know all of the material by heart, it's just... just look at this, how can someone write something so vile about people who work to keep us safe from monsters? And this here..." Jaskier rummages through the piles of papers and pushes the ones he meant on Yen's hands, not waiting for her to answer. "And look, I even came up with this account of someone killing a witcher after he had finished a job for them, just the audacity of it all!" He glances up at Yen, suddenly keenly aware he is probably either boring her or making her uncomfortable with all of this talk about monsters and monster hunters. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't bore you with this..." He reaches to take the papers from Yen's hands but she holds them out of his reach.

"No, you're not boring me at all. Please, tell me more about your current paper?"

Yen proves to be a far better company than Jaskier first thought. At the end of their discussion and a few cups of tea later, Yen turns the conversation back to him.

"Why do you live here? Wouldn't it be easier to write in your own place?"

"Oh, you know, roommates..." Jaskier mumbles, avoiding Yen's eyes. No way in hell is he going to tell a complete stranger he sleeps in his friends' sofas and in the musicology society's guild room at the uni when he can't find anyone to room him between jobs. His parents already think him a failure, no need to add a complete stranger to the mix.

"Hmm," Yen agrees and stands up. "I feel I have held you long enough. Good luck with your thesis. Here is my number, call me if you get into any trouble while you're staying here." Yen scribbles a phone number on the edge of one paper with a bright red pen she picks up from the floor.

"Um... what trouble?" Jaskier asks, suddenly wary. "I have only told one person the address like was the deal? I haven't told them anything else, I'm not in danger, right? This isn't some mob bosses hideout or something? I'm in trouble, aren't I? Melitele's tits, Essi will kill me..."

"Calm down, no trouble. Just... if anything comes up, like bills or something and you can't reach Geralt. He can be unreachable for days." Yen smiles at him, an uneasy smile, not quite reaching her eyes.

"Oh, okay, yeah, that's. That's good..." Jaskier feels so stupid. Not only has he managed to be half-naked while Yen walked in, but now he has also made a complete ass out of himself.

"Take care of Roach," Yen says as a goodbye and walks out of the door. Jaskier rushes to say goodbye but when he reaches the door, she's already gone.

Come night Jaskier is surprised how much he has managed to work on his thesis. Talking about it with someone made writing so much easier, even when most of the talk was him ranting about the unfair treatment of witchers which will never end up in the final paper.

He grabs something to eat before bed and spots Roach. She sits facing the front door, waiting for someone to walk through it.

It breaks Jaskier's heart.

Roach has done it every night, giving up only after Jaskier has gone to bed to crawl on the other side of the bed to stare at him.

Jaskier snaps a picture of Roach and sends it despite the late hour.

Jaskier doesn't expect an answer.

That. That is too cute. Jaskier can't handle it, he just can't.

"Roach, your owner is a big old sap and he wanted me to tell you he's sorry and he loves you, okay?" Jaskier tells her from a respectable distance away. Roach looks at him and meows pitifully.

"I know, girl. I'm sure he misses you as much as you miss him. Come on now, I'm going to bed, you can come and stare at me until I fall asleep."

#the witcher #the witcher fanfic #geralt of rivia #Jaskier #geraskier #geralt x jaskier #jaskier x geralt #cirilla fiona elen riannon #Yennefer of Vengerberg #frywen writes

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tinysutton · 3 years

Text

A Trip Home || Sutton Bonavitz Self Para #003

When Papa emailed Sutton a ticket back to New York, they were not looking forward to going. But they knew they had no choice but to go. On the plane ride back to New York, all they could think about was Leo and if he was okay when they were worrying about why Papa only wanted to see them. Well, it seemed a little obvious to Sutton why it was only them coming back and not Brownwynn as well. But they thought that that had all been taken care of. And usually Wynnie was part of it. After all, everything that happened with one twin usually involved the other. Flying without their twin by their side was strange. No inside jokes or games to play with their other half. No shoulder to sleep on it anybody to hold on to during turbulence.

The last hour of the plane ride they were convinced that this was the end. The intricate web of lies that Papa had crafted over a year ago had finally collapsed and they were going to have to face the music. Or worse, Eliza didn’t want Papa living the lie anymore and convinced him to give it up. It didn’t seem to be the first time she had convinced Papa of something that wasn’t in the best interest of his family or children. After all, it was because of Eliza—the one person Sutton had trusted, since she was the woman that raised them—who had told Papa that she didn’t want the twins living with them once the new baby had been born.

Landing at JFK Airport, Sutton was dreading seeing their father and step mother. They took their time wandering through the airport to baggage claim. But sure enough, it wasn’t their parents waiting for them. The only person who stood at the baggage claim for them was a sharply dressed chauffeur holding a sign with Sutton Bonavitz printed across in boring black letters. With a sigh, they dragged their feet over to the man, dropping their bags at his feet, more than prepared to act like the spoiled brat he no doubt already thought them to be. They barely waited for him to pick up their bags before heading for the exit of the airport, ready to be done with this trip already.

For the most part, the trip was what Sutton expected. Lectures from Papa about what had happened last September. What the new arrangement was. What lie they needed to uphold. The reminder that they weren’t to tell anybody the truth. He told them that so many times, as if they really thought about telling somebody the truth that they were keeping hidden. Only Fane and Win knew some of the truth and that was because of Mama. While the lecture went on, Sutton wondered if Papa was going to give this new information to anybody else in the family or if it really did only pertain to them. After all, not even their three older siblings knew the real truth.

These lectures easily could have been done over the phone. Seeing as Papa was at the office most of the visit and Eliza seemed to want to keep the child away from Sutton at all costs, they were alone in the mansion for most of the week. So they did what any sixteen year old would do. They snooped. Through everything they could get their hands on.

In the attic they found trunks of all the things they and their siblings had done over the years. Accomplishments and achievements. Boxes inside with lost baby teeth and baggies with their first haircut inside. Baby books with all kinds of pictures. First outfits and other special outfits. Suttons first competition swimsuit. Yuriy’s first football. Vira’s first set of ballet slippers. For a few moments, Sutton’s heart swelled with a feeling of love, thinking that at least at one point Mama and Papa cared. Until they saw that the handwritting on the keep sakes varied from trunk to trunk. It took them a moment to realize that everything in their own truck and Brownwynn’s was labeled in a curly script that looked vary familiar. All of these trucks were put together by their nannies. After that they left the attic, realizing that their parents never truly cared about them.

In their old bedroom they found toys they had forgotten about but none of them worked anymore. Practically everything had been emptied out of their older sibling’s rooms when they all moved out on their own. Although they found Dariya’s secret food hiding place behind a trap door in her closet, empty snack wrappers and unhealthy junk food still tucked away.

Knowing that Papa’s office might hold some juicy secrets, they left it for last, slowly taking their time sifting through everything. Recipts from his affair with Eliza, vacations with the nanny he had written off as business trips to the letter she had written him with the first sonogram of the child. It was heartbreaking to see that Papa cared more about the affair he had with the nanny than he seemed to care about his own children. The more they sifted through things, the more stuff the found.

The most interesting file they found was from an affair Papa had with a woman named Alice. Pictures of a beautiful woman with flowing brown hair were tucked away in the file. Her covered strategically by bubbles in a bathtub at a fancy hotel, on the beach with the sun beaming down on her, making her look like an angel. It was clear where Sutton got their obsession of photography from. But just as quickly as the affair seemed to start, it ended. Maybe it was a one time thing they thought as they sifted through documentation of hospital visits in the same file. Papa had been sending this Alice woman money. Scandalous. Then they stumbled across the new photograph of a new born boy on a scale in the hospital, crying loudly. The name of the boy was written on the top of the page. Elliot.

At that monent, Sutton became even more invested. They had a half brother?! Why didn’t Papa fight for him like he did for the child? When they came across a copy of his birth certificate a couple pages later, they saw why. The child’s birthday was only a few months before Sutton and Brownynn’s. Carefully, they read over the birth certificate. The name listed under father wasnt Papa’s name. It was Nathaniel Mills. A strange sensation filled Sutton as they read and reread the name of the child that was Papa’s bastard son. Elliot Mills. It couldn’t be. But the more they flipped through the thick folder the more it became obvious that it was. Hospital bills for eye surgeries and copies of doctors reports as the boy slowy went blind. Eventually they found a picture of Elliot on one of his birthdays, seemingly requested by their father. Even without the sunglasses, Sutton recognized their friend. This was the first time that they ever got a look at his eyes. Those were without a doubt Papa’s eyes.

Once they finished reading through the thick folder, they went over to Papa’s scanner and made copies of every single thing in the manilla folder. There was no way anybody would believe them if they didn’t have proof. Tucking their copied file deep into their suitcase, they thought of what they were supposed to do as they packed up to fly back to New Zealand. Eliot had the right to know that the man he called dad shared no genetics with him. Right? They had to tell him. But how were they supposed to? They had heard the rumors that Elliot’s mom had died the year before. Which meant all the poor boy had was the man he thought was his father. It would shake his entire world if he knew that his dad wasn’t his dad. But wouldn’t it be wrong for them not to tell him?

On the plane ride back, they flipped through the folder again. Papa really had been taking care of Elliot for years without anybody’s knowledge. Hospitals stays and doctors visits. For both Elliot and Alice from the looks of it. Child support checks with far more money than needed to be sent. Even receipts for the Luxor tuition. How Papa had manage to keep this under wraps for so long was impressive. But also completely messed up. Especially when everything seemed to stop abruptly with a large payment for a hospital stay for Alice and an anonymous check sent to The Mills Family.

When the plane landed in New Zealand, Sutton still hadn’t come up with a plan of what to do. All they had decided was they needed to talk to their twin. It was killing them not to tell anybody what they knew. Maybe their twin sister would have an idea of what to do. If it was even right to tell Elliot the truth.

#para: self #a trip home #surprisingly no trigger warnings #but DRAMA #this is what Sutton did while they were gone

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getalittleclosey · 4 years

Text

under 100k larry fic recs

hi! i’m becca and i read...so much fic. these rec lists are an accumulation of fic that i’ve read or reread and extra loved from 2016-now. there’s a wide range of stuff here and i think there’s definitely something for everyone!! i divided them up by length so you can check out all those categories below!

please make sure to read tags and warnings on all these fics!! the only things i think i can guarantee is that these are all larry, there’s no non-con, no age play, no eating disorders, no mentions of bg, they end happy, and they’re mostly aus. oh and they’re all on ao3 and some are locked so you’ll need an account! anyway i hope y’all enjoy!!!

under 5k

under 10k

under 25k

under 50k

100k+

☆ somethin’ bout you by missandrogyny 60k

Of all the government agents in the world, Louis had to go and land the most charming one.

☆ tug-of-war by cherrystreet 63k

Louis' husband dies suddenly and he is left with nothing. Well, not really nothing. He has Harry. And a St. Bernard puppy named Link, whom his late husband left behind for him. Louis takes care of Link and Harry takes care of Louis. Everything is okay until suddenly, it isn't.

☆ cameras flashing by juliusschmidt 82k

With his breakout single platinum three times over and his second album still selling out in stores around the world, Louis Tomlinson has made it to the top. However, his position as Pop Heartthrob of the Decade is threatened by the edgier, more artistic Zayn, who happens to be releasing an album a week after Louis’ upcoming third. Louis needs something groundbreaking- scandalous, even- to push past him in the charts. Much to Louis’ dismay, his PR team calls in The Sexpert.

Consulting with PR firm Shady, Lane and Associates pays the bills so that Harry Styles can spend his down time doing what he really loves: poring over data. On weekends and late into the evenings, he researches gender, presentation, and sexual orientation, analysing the longitudinal study that is his father’s life’s work. That is, until his newest client, the popstar with the fascinating secret, drags him off his couch and frighteningly close to the spotlight.

As the album’s release date approaches, will Tomlinson and Styles be able to pull off the most risky PR scheme of the millennium and beat Zayn in sales or will the heat of their feelings for each other compromise everything?

☆ home to you by crowsonthewire 54k

“If someone wrote that for me I’d probably be a crying mess before it was even over. I’m crying a little right now actually.”

It’s about you, Harry’s brain screamed. I wrote it about you.

Gemma appeared in the doorway then and dragged Louis away. With one winking smile he was gone. Harry curled up and stuffed his face into his duvet so he could cry with no one hearing.

**** At fifteen, Harry wrote his first song for an oblivious seventeen year old Louis Tomlinson. Ten years later he’s a singer/songwriter who cant find any words for his second album and Louis is a closeted actor tired of LA.

They both try to run from the things weighing them down and in the process, they find each other.

☆ fate don’t know you by sincewewereeighteen 99k

“Just. How bad is it?”

Zayn sighs. Shit.

“Not that bad, really,” he says quickly as he scans Louis’ face. “It depends, really. The freshmen are all right and I think you’ll manage just fine with the sophomores.”

“But?”

“Seniors are always shit because they think they rule the school, and this specific class of juniors… Well, let’s say you’ll find a real troublemaker there. Some say he used to be a soft kid, but- I don’t know. Most teachers just leave him alone.” Zayn shrugs. “He walks around with a tough crowd. Guess no one wants to take their chances with him. This is Chicago after all.”

“D’you know the name of the kid?” Louis asks, already very curious to meet said person.

“His name is Harry Styles.” The other man responds. “You’re in for a treat with this one.”

[Or: The one in which Louis always hears thunder when Harry speaks and sees lightning when he glances at him.]

note: this is student/teacher so if that makes you uncomfortable please skip! harry’s 17 but he is still a student so power unbalance and all that but from what i remember it was tastefully done. just like....don’t do that irl obv jfkdaj

☆ like an endless summer by objectlesson 87k

“You just wanna go fawn over Styles as soon as possible,” Zayn grumbles.

“I do not. Plus, he probably got ugly this year. Eighteen is an awkward time...I bet he’s got acne and one of those terrible fuckboy haircuts all the hipsters are getting these days, with the shaved sides? Just watch, the first year we’re gonna get any time together is gonna be the first year I don’t have a stupid crush on him.”

---

Or, Louis is a riding instructor at a summer camp, and Harry is a fellow counselor who he’s been successfully managing his crush on for the last two summers. That is, until Harry shows up this year leveled up and lethal, and all Louis’s formerly perfected veneer of nonchalance melts like a popsicle in the sun.

note: there’s a second part to this that’s 6k of pwp

☆ back to how it was by lululawrence 53k

Harry carefully stood up and was on his way to the window to look outside when he ran his hand through his hair, and it stopped entirely too soon.

He froze then began fervently patting all over his head. Where was his hair? He’d been growing it out for a couple of years now and it was finally almost to the length he’d had as a goal the entire time. How could it have gotten cut off overnight?

Harry rushed over to the mirror hung on the wall adjacent to the window.

Oh shit. What the hell was happening? Harry leaned closer and saw that not only was his hair cropped shorter than he’d ever wanted to go again, but it looked like he had the beginning of crow’s feet by his eyes. Those definitely weren’t there yesterday! And what happened to his tattoos? He still had some of them, like the star and the letters he’d gotten for his mum and Gemma, but most of the rest were missing and there were a few he’d never seen before instead.

What. The. Fuck.

Or the one where Harry goes to bed angry with his bandmates and wakes up in a universe where One Direction was never formed and he has to find a way back home. Home definitely has nothing to do with his best friend and bandmate, Louis. That would be ridiculous.

note: there’s a second part to this that’s 24k!

☆ when we were younger by dinosaursmate 76k

About a week after Harry started visiting this particular chat room, he was watching some kid argue with the whole room about football, personally disinterested as he tipped a bag of crisps into his mouth. He happily chomped on the crumbs, taking a swig from a glass of Ribena to wash them down, glancing at the screen and very nearly spat the squash back out again. His heart was pounding wildly. The display icon of the argumentative newcomer had caught his eye, and not in a good way. He gulped as he clicked the picture, and when it popped up in full resolution, his heart nearly fell right out of his arse. - Sixteen year old Harry Styles’ world turns upside down when he logs on to gay teen chat to discover somebody has stolen his photos and used them as their own.

note: there’s a second part that’s 3k ziam centric

extra note: you don’t want to know how many episodes of catfish i’ve seen

☆ like cabbages and kings by you_explode 61k

When Louis was a kid, he had a series of very vivid dreams about a place called Wonderland. There were rabbits wearing waistcoats and talking cats and ridiculous tea parties, and amidst all the absurdity, there was a boy. A boy with dimples, big green eyes and the sweetest soul Louis has ever known. Louis has always kept a place in his heart for that boy and for his funny dreamworld, and when he’s twenty-five and his life falls apart, it turns out Wonderland might not be so imaginary after all.

☆ knives don’t have your back by turnyourankle 51k

The lone survivor of an on campus massacre that claimed the lives of his four housemates, Harry is urged to take a sabbatical or transfer. Instead, he chooses to stay in school, move into the dorms, and overcome his fears.

He finds comfort in a budding friendship with Louis, an upperclassman who lives on his floor, not realizing that their relationship will bring him closer to his traumatizing past rather than further from it.

☆ loving you is free by littlelouishiccups 68k

Louis is a workaholic record label CEO who hasn't been on a date in nearly a year. Niall and Liam make an account for him on a sugar dating website as a joke. And then Louis meets Harry.

note: there are two other parts to this that are pretty much pwp. they’re 24k and 4k

☆ dance to the distortion by lis (domesticharry) 93k

Louis accidentally breaks Harry's camera lens and in order to get it fixed, they decide to participate in a romantic couples study. The only issue is that they are not actually couple. Well that and the fact they cannot stand each other.

☆ waiting on you by emma1234 77k

“Vampires,” Louis says with disgust, glaring over at the vampire who is noisily slurping from the woman’s neck nearby.

Zayn gives the neat fang marks on Louis’ neck a meaningful look.

“Can’t live with them, can’t live without them,” Louis finishes, ignoring Zayn when he rolls his eyes.

Louis takes a long sip of his milkshake, presses his fingers against the marks on his neck, and definitely doesn’t think about the vampire who left them there.

note: there’s a second part to this that’s 5k

☆ this wicked game by cherrystreet 70k

An AU in which The Bachelor is gay, Louis is a contestant, Harry is the bachelor, everyone drinks a lot of champagne, the entire world gets to watch them fall in love, and no one plays by the rules.

note: i’ve seen maybe five episodes of the bachelor in my life and hated it but i have read every larry bachelor fic

☆ coax the cold by mediawhore 86k

England, 1897.

English Professor Louis Tomlinson’s passion for the occult has been a source of mockery and derision for most of his life. When he hears whispers of a travelling freak show newly established in London claiming the existence of a monstrous sea hybrid, half-man, half-fish, Louis sees it as his ticket to credibility amongst his peers. The summer he spends undercover working on the show, however, gives him much more than that.

☆ this feeling by orphan_account 59k

"Gonna play it back for you now." Louis clicked play and the song flooded through Harry’s headphones.

The sound of each others voices united into one, and the rhythm of the music carried their voices effortlessly. Harry’s insides tingled and a wave of shivers rolled down his spine.

Before the clip cut off, Harry turned to raise an eyebrow at Louis, and failed miserably at disguising his smile. Louis stared back at him in shock.

Or A Larry Duet AU

☆ love’s on the line, is that your final answer? by pearlydewdrops 53k

Harry can’t believe it when Louis, the boy he’s always had a tempestuous rivalry with, asks him to be his boyfriend. Well, pose as his boyfriend, that is—for a new television game show in which young couples are quizzed on how well they know each other for a jackpot of thirty grand.

Reluctantly, Harry agrees—because he's got student loans to pay off, hasn't he? What's the harm? And he can totally deal with keeping his secret thing for Louis under wraps too. This is all just to win some money. It's fine. No big deal. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, everything. Obviously.

☆ say your prayers by nothing_but 59k

Louis was left wondering what the fuck this encounter had been. Coming to this camp - especially after learning that it was a religious one - he had never expected to find himself in a bathroom with the attractive, strictly Catholic, not-gay-or-anything head counsellor making flirty remarks. Quite the opposite, to be honest.

Or the one where Harry, head counsellor at a Catholic summer camp, dedicates his time to what he loves most, year after year. It’s mostly the same every summer; the place, the topics, the games. This year, however, there’s a new assistant counsellor stumbling into his camp, and possibly his heart.

☆ i’ll crash until you notice me by stylinsoncity 61k

Louis sets off to Barbados to oversee the massive resort his family owns known as Sandy Hill. For years, he's been looking for a change in the monotony of his life, seeking adventure and perhaps love too. What he doesn't expect is the bright eyed boy who spills a milkshake on his shoes.

Cue the summer loving.

note: zendaya is listed as a character in this which desperately makes me want to reread it because i don’t remember that!!!

☆ nothing but you on my mind by nonsensedarling 84k

Louis Tomlinson is a PR manager hired to improve the image of royal bad-boy Prince Harry Styles. Unfortunately for him, that means being faced with the Prince's constant innuendos, incessant dirty jokes, and relentless flirting. Louis just wants to make it to Princess Gemma's coronation; once she's crowned Queen, his contract is up and he never has to see the Prince again.

☆ ghost note symphony by whoknows 96k

Louis is on tour when he first hears about it. It’s all over the news – Harry Styles Attacked By Fan runs in headlines for days. It’s not even just the gossip rags, either. Actual journalists are covering the story. It would have been impossible to avoid hearing about it. Technically, Oli is the one who tells Louis about it, but it’s not exactly being covered up. Harry doesn’t answer Louis’ text asking if he’s alright, but that’s not really surprising. They haven’t spoken for months, and it’s been a lot longer than that since they’ve had a real conversation. The sting of the text going unanswered is still there, less painful than it might have been a few years ago.

It’s not that it’s easy to forget about, exactly. Louis has a whole life outside of One Direction now, though. So Louis goes on with his life, figuring that if Harry was seriously hurt he would have heard about it by now. He might currently be in the same country as Harry, but being on opposite sides of it puts enough distance between them that putting it in the back of his mind is easy. There’s nothing Louis could do, even if he thought Harry might want him to.

That’s why everything that happens next comes as a complete shock to him.

☆ thinking about the t-shirt you sleep in by nonsense_darling 52k

Harry's alpha fraternity donates to a local thrift shop (because of Liam's latent crush on a cute beta in his lecture). Louis' financial situation (and confusing omega instincts) lead him to make some interesting fashion purchases. Lots of pizza, feelings, and not-really-lying.

☆ here in the afterglow by fondleeds 89k

“If you hadn’t noticed, I don’t have many friends,” Louis whispers, the blossom of insecurity in his stomach unfurling and clawing its way into his throat.

Harry is silent for a long time, and then he speaks; a soft, slow uncurl that makes Louis’ stomach shake. “I’ll be your friend.”

1970’s AU. In a tiny town in Idaho, Louis’ life is changed forever by the arrival of a curious stranger.

note: i can’t believe i waited until 2020 to read this...it was life changing tbh and i cried

☆ just call me inspiration by hereforlou 52k

The truth is Louis knows he’s going to hell, if there is such a thing, but it isn’t because he writes erotic fiction for a living. If anything, it’s because his muse, the reason he’s inspired to write about people shagging in increasingly creative ways everyday, is the sweetest, loveliest, most genuine (and completely oblivious) future children-book illustrator in the world.

(Or, the one where Louis is a writer, Harry is an art student, and they inspire each other in very different ways.)

☆ truly, madly, deeply (10 things i hate about you) by sunsetmog 54k

The first Louis had heard of Harry auditioning for X Factor was the night he'd turned up on Louis' doorstep the day before leaving for Boot Camp, with a DVD and an illicit bottle of vodka.

Thing was, Louis hated secrets, and he really hated being made a fool of, and he really, really hated Harry Styles.

or: the one in which they're all in sixth form together, and Harry auditions for X Factor without them.

note: this has always been a fav

☆ the impossible now by stylinsoncity 65k

A wish on Christmas Eve sends Louis to an alternate dimension where Harry is a member of One Direction.

☆ swallow the knife by whoknows 76k

“You came,” Louis says, still breathless, clinging to Harry, uncaring that his sweat is getting all over Harry’s presumably clean dad shirt, or that he’s making Harry hold up all of his weight.

“Of course I came,” Harry says. He shifts, one arm curled underneath Louis’ arse, the other spreading wide in the middle of Louis’ back. “If I ignored you every time you pissed me off we would have stopped being friends a long time ago.”

Louis already knows that, of course. It doesn’t do anything to stop the pleased squirm in his belly every time Harry proves it, though. They fight like nobody’s business, both of them too stubborn to pull their punches when they’re arguing, and it used to get them in trouble, but they always make up.

Adrenaline makes Louis loose-lipped, and they both know it. He tightens his arms around Harry’s neck, buries his face in his hair. “I missed you,” he confesses, quiet. “Doesn’t feel the same up there by myself.”

note: i don’t even normally like non-aus but i have read this fic five times in the last nine months so. there’s that.

extra note: there’s an 11k alternate sex scene here

☆ perfect storm by cherrystreet 80k

What do you do when your best friend asks you and your (now) ex to be the best men at his destination wedding? You can either tell him the truth, tell him you’re not together anymore, and deal with the consequences, or you can pretend you’re still together and roll with it, just pray you don’t spiral. Fake it ‘til you make it. You know, for the sake of the wedding.

Harry and Louis choose the latter.

☆ anyplace, anyhow, anytime by aimmyarrowshigh, colazitron 81k

Harry's going to audition for The X-Factor in a few days, he really can't use this persistent tickle in his throat. What's even worse is when the tickle turns into a full blown cough, and the cough makes him pass out only for Harry to wake up in a different world. And then another one, and another one, and another one. The only other person who seems to be as affected as he is, is a boy with blue eyes who keeps showing up in every single one of these worlds.

note: i reread all of aimmyarrowhigh’s larry fics this year including the 500k or whatever sheylinson verse and i thought about putting them all in here but like...felt excessive & i figured i’d give attention to a less well known one, plus this way we get colazitron too!

☆ the second hand unwinds by kingsofeverything (fullonlarry) 52k

Louis Tomlinson is one of the first members of NASA's top secret Chrono Exploration Program. When things go wrong and he's sent further back in time than planned, he has no other option than to show up on his ex-boyfriend's doorstep.

☆ waiting for the tides to meet by nauticalleeds (metamorphosis) 60k

Louis lets out a deep breath, thinking about Harry’s soulmate. Thinking about how Harry’s soulmate is probably as beautiful as Harry, some person that Louis cannot compare to, and how the universe has chosen them to be Harry’s. Fuck the universe. “Fuck you,” he calls out to the universe. He’s aware of how crazy he sounds.

Maybe he is crazy, with how he’s falling for Harry. And fuck that, too.

Soulmate AU. Everyone is born with heterochromia — one eye is their own eye colour, while the other is the colour of their soulmate's. It's only when they meet their soulmate for the first time that their own eyes match properly. After a hazy night at a frat party, Louis wakes up to blue eyes and the shocking realization that he had met his soulmate, without any sober recollection. Seven years pass where Louis comes to terms with the fact that he'll never know who his soulmate is. Then one fated summer, a beautiful green-eyed photographer arrives at Louis' workplace, with promises of endless laughter and a familiar feeling in Louis' heart.

Featuring a lovely cup of OT5, a road trip down the coast, and a scene where Harry eats a whole head of lettuce. Don't ask why.

☆ keep my candle bright by whisperdlullaby 79k

louis returns to his hometown after four years to find that the reverend’s son has done some growing up of his own.

☆ strawberries & cigarettes by dimpled_halo 77k

Harry looks up and immediately freezes. Next to Ms. Archie stands the boy from just the other day. The boy with the leather jacket and chipped black nails, that might or might not be sketched in the very book Harry has just placed on the table in front of him. The leather jacket is missing today, probably because they aren’t allowed as part of their required uniform attire, but Harry can still see the fading black nail polish on his nails, and eyeliner around his eyes. Harry’s mouth goes a little dry. This boy is so intriguing to him.

“Ye-yes, Ms. Archie?” Harry tries to play it cool, but he’s almost positive that his cheeks are burning red, and he’s relieved neither of them can tell how fast his heart is beating in his chest.

The boy seems to also recognize Harry, because his lips curve into a knowing smirk.

“Harry is at the top of his class. He’s your best bet at getting familiar with things around here.” She explains.

Louis nods, his smirk still very prominent on his face. “Thank you Ms. Archie. I’ll be sure to take advantage of young Harold here.”

Summary: Two stories, eleven years, and the two boys that never stopped loving each other.

#one direction #larry stylinson #fic rec #mine #getting those longer fics!!#33 of these wowie #fic masterpost

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magicmanias · 5 years

Text

American Sweethearts

Pairing: Steve Rogers × Reader

Summary: The Avengers take road trip. Meanwhile, Steve tries his hardest to convince himself that he’s only friends with you.

Warnings: Fluff, Slight Angst, Smut!

Word Count: 4.5k (Wow)

A/N: This is my first time doing smut, so let’s hope it’s not shitty...

Post Age of Ultron (Steve, Tony, Natasha, Clint, Sam, Vision, Wanda, Rhodey, Bucky, Peter, Thor, Bruce, Y/N)

“Ok ok... Do we have everything?” You placed your backpack on the bed and carefully sifted through it. Hunting knife, rope, water, matches, food, first aid kit, towels, batteries, charger...

Everything is in there. You looked in your duffel bag; shoes, clothes, brush, earbuds, contacts, toothbrush, jackets, soap, shampoo, and conditioner.

You grabbed your things and went downstairs.

The Avengers had planned a camping trip in the woods in upstate Montana. Everyone was going: Tony, Steve, Natasha, Thor, Bruce, Sam, Vision, Bucky, Wanda, and Peter was tagging along.

“Roll call!” Tony yelled, putting an emphasis on ‘call.’ As he called each person, they went and placed their things in the large van Tony had bought specially for this occasion. When Tony called your name, you went ahead and put your things in and closed the trunk.

“Hey, squirt!” Clint messed with your hair and gave you a big bear hug. “I’ve missed you.”

“Aw, I miss you too, chicken-hawk,” you hugged him back. Clint had been away with his family for a while and you didn’t get much of a chance to formally greet him when Ultron attacked.

“Where’s Steve?” you asked. You looked around but saw him nowhere.

“Relax, sweetheart. He’s just finishing taking a shower. He went on a run. You don’t need to miss him that much,” Nat winked at you. You rolled your eyes, though your cheeks slightly flushed pink.

Tony slipped into the driver’s seat and despite everyone’s protest, he let Peter sit shotgun.

“This is BS, Stark!” Sam yelled as he took his seat in the third row of the van. “The kid gets the front with all the room and we gotta sit back here all cooped up?”

Tony shot up and placed his hands on Peter’s ears. “Relax, Big Bird. I just don’t want to lose the kid. His aunt’ll kill me,” he muttered. Peter gave his trademark look of confusion.

After the driver’s seat, there were four rows. Clint, Sam, and Nat sat in the back. Rhodey, Bruce, Thor sat in the third row. Wanda and Vision sat in the middle. And you, Steve, and Bucky sat in the front. Bucky went in the car first, followed by Steve, who insisted on taking the middle seat, and finally you.

“All aboard? Let’s go!” Tony put his foot on the gas and began to drive away from the compound.

—

Steve couldn’t stay still. As a soldier, he was used to staying completely motionless in cramped places for long periods of time. But that wasn’t the case now. His right leg bounced up and down, a nervous tick which Steve always had, ever since he was a scrawny little kid in Brooklyn. Bucky seemed to notice Steve bouncing his leg, but didn’t question it. He already knew it was because of the woman sitting across from him. Steve wasn’t nervous, however. He wasn’t scared either. No, scared was moments before the big fight to save the world. But this? This was terror. True, utter, horrifying terror. Though you couldn’t see it on his face, his heart rate soared and the butterflies in his stomach might as well have exploded. All because he was in the closest proximity he had ever been with Y/N. With the woman he could never stop thinking about. The woman he lived for. The woman he’d give up everything for.

The woman he loved so much that it hurt him in the cruellest ways possible.

Bucky watched as Steve gushed over at you. Your gaze was directed at the scene laid out behind the car’s windows. You plugged your earbuds in and played your Oldies playlist. Bucky rolled his eyes and elbowed Steve.

Steve gripped his arm and frowned at Bucky, mainly because he had been caught.

“Just talk to her,” Bucky whispered, not wanting the attention of the whole car.

“She’s listening to music,” Steve defended. He needed to find every excuse not to talk to you. Or more specifically, not to humiliate himself in front of you.

“She’d rather talk to you,” Bucky raised an eyebrow at Steve. He changed his seating to turn to Steve. “Look, punk. You’re not good with women. We know. But she likes you. A lot. So it doesn’t matter if you screw up. She’ll like you anyway. Just ask her out.”

“What? In the car? With Tony here? I don’t think so.” Steve chuckled lightly.

“I heard my name,” Tony called out behind him. “It better be about how great I look in these hiking boots.”

Bucky ignored Tony. ”I'll give you until the end of this trip. If you don't ask her out by then, I'm going to tell her myself and I'm going to pound you like the little punk you are.”

“Hey, I'm just as strong as you now.”

“Maybe, but I'm older.”

“Buck, we're both over a hundred years old by now. Age doesn't really matter at this point.”

“That's coming from the younger one.” Bucky winked at Steve.

Steve just rolled his eyes, ending his conversation with Bucky. He looked out of the window to his left—the window on your side. He tried to look at the forests of upstate New York, but found that his focus always returned to the girl leaning the car door, probably listening to Sinatra or Bennet.

You placed your chin in your hand and started to softly sing the next song.

“Daisy is darling, Iris is sweet, Lily is lovely, Blossom’s a treat…” you mumbled along to the song.

“Of all the sweethearts, a guy could meet… Well I finally chose an American Beauty Rose…” You popped your head up to look at Steve. You had instantly recognized Steve’s voice. It was almost as if your very being could detect his present actions. He hadn’t even realized that he continued to sing along with you.

You took your earbuds out and grinned at him. “You know that song?”

“I’m from the forties, doll,” Steve shrugged. “I know every Sinatra song. And American Beauty Rose just happens to be one of them.”

“Well, that is coming from ‘America’s Sweetheart Hero,’” you made quotations with your hands, finished with a cheesy salute. “I mean, the whole country is practically in love with you.”

Steve chuckled and shook his head. “I’m not perfect, Y/N.”

“No one is,” you agreed. “You’re less flawed than others, but you do still have flaws.”

“Oh? And what might those be?” He lifted an eyebrow at you as if he were challenging you. And you wouldn’t say no to a challenge against Captain America.

“Well to start, you’re incredibly handsome,” you teased. Steve looked down and blushed. “I mean, come on, now Clint has low self-esteem.”

“Hey!” Clint yelled from the back of the car. “I am perfectly fine with how I look.”

“Yeah, whatever Barton. Remember when you had that mohawk?” you shot back, turning your back to face the back of the car.

“That happened like seven years ago, man! And you’re still bringing it up?”

“Hey, you’re the one who had the awful haircut,” you shrugged, smirking. Steve felt a small pang of jealousy over the friendship you had with Clint. You always joked around with him and you were the closest with him. He watched at your eyes crinkled at Clint. You never looked at him the way you did with Clint.

She’s never going to look at me the way she does with him. I’m just her friend… Steve, you’re just her friend, he thought.

You turned back to him. “Don’t think I’m done with you, Steven Grant Rogers.”

“How do you know my middle name?”

“That’s beside the point. I have more flaws to point out. Like for one, you run too fast.” You looked at your hands in fake frustration. “I mean, what are you, the Flash?”

“That’s not really a flaw, doll,” Steve said. “And the handsome thing isn’t either.”

“Ok… fine. Um… You haven’t watched Star Wars yet,” you pointed out. “Everyone’s watched Star Wars.”

“Alright, fine. I’ll give that to you. I haven’t yet.”

“What’s Star Wars?” Bucky asked. Sam’s eyes widened.

“You don’t know what Star Wars is?”

—

Five hours and one Bucky vs. Sam fight later (Natasha intervened and won), it was getting pretty late, and you had finished rereading your book. So, you decided to try and get some sleep. Most of the Avengers were already knocked out; even Tony, who was now letting FRIDAY take the wheel.

You leaned against the side of the car, but it was uncomfortable. You shifted to try and find a better position but didn't work. You glanced over at the others to see what position they were in for inspiration but found that they were all sprawled over each other. Of course, you couldn't copy them—Steve was next to you.

Steve. He looked so peaceful when he slept. You knew he was a light sleeper and you didn't want to wake him up, you went back to trying to sleep on the door.

Steve stirred. He heard shifting. He cracked his eyes open slightly and peeked over at you. You were trying to sleep in the car. It was probably the cutest thing Steve had ever seen. The pout on your face was prominent at you tried to move the seat belt away from your cheek.

“Hey.” You jumped at the sound of his quiet, raspy voice.

“Oh, sorry. Did I wake you up? I didn't mean to. I know you're a light sleeper and—”

“It's ok, doll,” Steve interrupted, a smile on his face.” Can't sleep?”

“Uh, yeah. This damn car is uncomfortable. You'd think Tony would have invented a car you can sleep in by now.”

“You can sleep on my shoulder,” he said quickly. He bit his bottom lip in embarrassment. You brought your hand up to your face to cover your hot cheeks.

“Or—you don't have to. I was just offering if you wanted—”

“Can I?” It was your turn to interrupt. You gave him a meek smile to encourage him.

“Yeah,” he breathed out. The smile you gave him nearly knocked him out. He swallowed. If he could barely handle a smile, how could he survive a whole weekend with you?

Slowly, you turned to place your head on Steve's shoulder. You could feel Steve tense at your touch. You muttered a small ‘thank you’ before closing your eyes.

Steve had always believed in a heaven, but now he knew what it felt like. It was you by his side. He couldn't sleep anymore. All he could do was watch your even breaths and soft mewls you made in your sleep.

Steve snapped out of his thoughts. What was he doing? You’re just her friend, Steve. Just a friend.

—

You woke up to yelling the next morning.

“Tony! Just park the damn car!” Sam yelled.

“No, I don’t want to.”

“Come on, Stark,” Thor continued. “We want to stop at the strawberry farm!”

“The strawberry farm?” You rubbed the sleep from your eyes. Hesitantly, you lifted your head from Steve’s shoulder.

“Hey sleepy,” Steve said softly. “We were just uh… debating on whether or not to stop by a strawberry farm.”

“Why are we debating about it? It’s a strawberry farm.” You immediately forgot about your interrupted sleep. “Let’s go!”

“We would, but Stark here refuses,” Natasha said.

“Look, Pepper is allergic to strawberries and if I bring home strawberries to her one more time, she’ll probably leave me,” Tony defended.

“Tony! Park. The damn. Car,” you practically growled.

Tony parked the car and everyone got out. You ran out to the farm and quickly got a basket to pick some strawberries.

Steve laughed at you as you ran through the field. Everyone was excited, but no one was as excited as you. He imagined himself running with you and feeding you strawberries. Friends can do that, right?

“Fuck it, I’m getting some strawberries. I’ll just eat ‘em by myself,” Tony said as he handed the farmer twenty dollars. “We can eat them on the ride.”

Everyone picked a basket of strawberries and already began to sit down and eat them. Peter and Wanda played with the farmer’s puppies.

“Hey, we should probably get back on the road. Can someone get Y/N?” Wanda asked.

“I got it,” Steve volunteered, a little too quickly. The rest of the Avengers went back to the car and waited. Steve began to go back into the field to chase you down.

“Y/N! Y/N, we’re leaving now.”

“Oh, ok. I’m coming,” you called over. You pick a couple more strawberries before starting to run over to Steve.

“Ah!” You tripped over a rock and fell. Before you hit the ground, you felt an arm swing around your waist.

Steve stayed quiet as he lifted you up and placed you back on your feet. He handed you back your basket. You bit your lip in embarrassment.

“I’m sorry. I’m such a clutz,” you gave him a weak laugh.

“It’s ok. I um… We should get back.”

What was he about to say?

—

One more day and a lot of pee breaks later, you were finally at the campsite in Montana. You all trudged into the forest and finally, you found a good spot to set up.

“Ok, now we can fit two people in each tent. Everyone partner up!” Tony yelled.

Wanda partnered with Vision, Nat went with Bruce, Thor went with Clint, Rhodey went with Tony (they let Peter join them because Tony brought a really big tent for himself). Steve was about to go up to Bucky and ask if wanted to bunk together, but before he could, Sam snatched him up.

“Buck? I thought you hated Sam,” Steve asked, confused.

“Nah, it’s fine. We just bicker. Plus, guess who you’re stuck with now.” Bucky winked at him before picking up his tent and leaving with Sam.

Steve’s eyes widened in realization. He quickly turned around to see you, smiling awkwardly and nervously at him. You felt anxious. You didn’t want to ask him to share a tent with you! Would he even want to?

Steve approached you. “Hey, doll. Guess we’re stuck together, huh?”

“Uh, yeah. Sorry about that. I guess all the couples kind of stuck together and I’m surprised Bucky and Sam are together. You don’t have to share with me if you don’t want to bu—”

“Woah, doll. Slow down,” he chuckled. “I’m happy to share with you.” You blushed heavily at him and just hoped he didn’t notice.

Steve tried to ignore the blush on your cheeks but it made his heart clench. He could get through this. He could get through this.

A few camp songs and a ton of s’mores later, it was getting late once again. The Avengers retired to their tents to get some sleep.

Steve walked into his tent to find you there.

“Um, where should I change?” you squeaked.

“Oh, uh. You can change here. I’ll just walk out.” Steve’s voice almost cracked at your question. He avoided thinking about it and walked out of the tent.

When you were done, he walked back in and he tried to quell his reaction. You were wearing tiny pajama shorts with an almost see-through white tank top. He could see your nipples poke through your shirt, even though you tried to cover it with your hair. It didn’t work. He swallowed and averted his gaze.

“Er, are you going to change too?” you asked. You shifted your feet awkwardly.

“Oh, yeah. But you can stay. I don’t want you to have to put your shoes on to go outside,” Steve answered.

“Ok,” you managed to answer. It came out merely above a whisper. You turned around to face the wall of the tent so Steve could change. You were in the same area of confined space with the person you had a massive crush on while he changed. Great.

Eventually, you turned back around to see Steve in loose sweatpants and no shirt. You had to bite your lip again just to keep yourself from letting out a moan. He looked so good. You imagined what it would be like if he took you right in the forest.

“Sorry, I usually sleep without a shirt. But I can put one on,” Steve blurted out, snapping you out of your dirty thoughts.

“Huh? Oh no, it’s ok!” you said quickly. “If that’s how you normally sleep, then feel free. It’s perfectly fine.”

Suddenly, you shivered as you realized just how cold it was without your sweatshirt.

“I should have brought warmer pajamas,” you muttered.

“If you’re cold, you can um...you can share my sleeping bag with me. It can fit both of us. You don’t have to. Only if you’re comfortable.” Steve realized how dumb that sounded and began to suggest another option. “Or maybe Tony has some more blankets.”

“Could I sleep with you?” you asked him quietly. You played with the hem of your shirt. A nervous habit which Steve had noticed a while ago. He loved your little nervous habits.

“Yeah,” he breathed out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. He sat back down into his sleeping bag and you climbed in with him. He scooted as far away from you as possible to avoid making you uncomfortable. But much to his disbelief, you snuggled up into his chest, making contact with him as much as possible.

You were so cold, you tried to take all of Steve’s heat. You just hoped he was ok with it.

Steve almost sighed at the feeling of having you so close to him. Sure, he’d hugged you before, but having you close like this, was something completely different. He felt himself harden at the feeling of you rubbing up against him to gain friction to heat yourself up. In the process, you had accidentally rubbed your leg against him and he had to suppress a moan.

Soon, you fell asleep in Steve's arms and he fell asleep with his face covered in your hair.

—

“Up and at ‘em crew!”

You jumped at Sam's voice. Everyone got up from their tents. Nat, Clint, Bucky, Vision, Thor and Rhodey were out in a couple of seconds. The others took a little longer, including you and Steve.

You were hesitant to leave his arms, but you would have to get up at some point.

You didn't really know what to say to him, so you remained silent while you both changed, your backs turned.

You walked out of the tent with Steve to see the group standing around.

“You took a long time to get ready,” Wanda whispered to you. “Any reason?”

“Um no?” you mumbled, playing with the buttons on your flannel.

Wanda didn't say anything in response but you saw the suspicion is her eyes. She gave you a light pat on your shoulder and turned her attention to Vision.

“Everybody got everything?” Bucky asked.

“Alright let's go!” Clint yelled.

They decided to go on a hike through the forest, walk up part of the mountain nearby, and finally end up at a waterfall that dumped into a lake.

After a couple of hours, you made it to the cliffside pathway of the mountain.

You took your camera out to take pictures of the group. Your favourite one was of Steve and Bucky looking at the view.

“I see the lake waterfall!” Bruce said. Peter, Thor, and Clint ran ahead of the group to see the large lake.

Finally, the Avengers arrived to the large lake. They set up the things they brought and sat to enjoy the view.

Bruce and Clint taught Thor and Peter how to fish, Rhodey tried to pry Tony’s tech away from him, Bucky, Steve, and Vision began to make a fire, and you, Wanda, and Nat started to take a walk around the lake.

“So, Steve huh?” Nat asked you, raising an eyebrow.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” you asked, trying to keep your composure.

“We know you like him,” Wanda explained.

“Well I— I don't… I mean I…” you sighed. “Was it that obvious?”

“Only to us,” Nat reassured. “Steve, on the other hand, is totally blowing his cover?”

“What do you mean?”

“He likes you too. He's so bad at covering it up,” Wanda laughed.

“You should tell him you like him,” Nat urged, giving you a slight nudge.

“What? No! I can't tell him. He-He doesn't like me like that. We're friends.”

“Are you kidding? Rogers is practically in love with you, Y/N,” Nat scoffed.

“The way he looks at you… isn't the way someone looks at a friend,” Wanda stopped walking to look at you. She looked serious. “Believe me, Y/N. He loves you.”

—

The sun started to set and the Avengers began to settle down by the fire. But you couldn't sit down. You were filled with anxiety.

Did Steve really love you? Did he really look at you the way Wanda said he did?

You needed to clear your head. You decided to go for a swim. It was dark, so you stripped out of your clothes, leaving just your bra and panties on, behind a rock near the waterfall and jumped into the cold water.

You swam underneath the waterfall to have some time to yourself and think things over. There was a large opening made of stone in the cliff behind the waterfall.

You sat down facing the waterfall and placed your head in your hands.

“Y/N.” You heard someone moan your name.

You yelped and stood up. It was Steve. Bare naked. And masturbating. To you. You gasped and turned around. You blushed profusely.

“Oh my God! I'm so sorry. I didn't know anyone was in here,” you apologized. You suddenly realized how little you were wearing as well and your blush grew.

“Oh God, I'm so sorry Y/N. I didn't mean for you to see… Um. You can turn around now. I put some pants on,” Steve said nervously. You slowly turned around with your hands trying to cover yourself. He gave you a weak smile.

“Sorry,” he said again.

“I-It's ok. I mean I just heard my name so I looked behind me and… ” you stuttered.

“I'm so sorry. This is really embarrassing. I didn't um…”

“Steve?”

“Yeah?” He placed his hand on the back of his neck, avoiding eye contact with you.

“Do you like me?” You walked closer to him. You felt yourself grow wet.

“I-I uh…” He sighed in defeat. “Y/N, I'm in love with you.”

“You-You are?” You felt your breath hitch.

He nodded slightly in reply, still avoiding your gaze.

You closed the space in between the two of you and he looked down at you.

“I love you too, Steve,” you breathed.

He met your eyes with his in surprise. “You do?”

You nodded and smiled.

Steve couldn’t believe it. You loved him? You were in love with him… Before thinking, Steve grabbed your face and kissed you. It was hungry—like he had been starved of you. His hands grabbed both sides of your face. It grew more and more heated. His hands lowered to your hips and he began moving you to the wall of the stone cliff. Your back hit the wall and you broke off the kiss.

“I want you,” you cooed. You rubbed your hips against him to gain some friction. He moaned, nut held your hips firm and closed his eyes shut.

He opened his eyes and looked deep into yours. “Are you sure you want this?”

“Yes, God yes. Steve, I want you.” You started to unbuckle his pants and pulled them down, releasing his hard cock. You moaned at the sight. You started to lower yourself to have a taste, but Steve stopped you.

“You first, princess.” He unclasped your bra and moved your panties to the side. He stuck a finger into your dripping pussy.

“You’re so wet.” You whimpered at his touch, but you craved more. “Steve please,” you begged. “I need you so much.”

“I’ve wanted you for so long,” Steve whispered. “Now that I have you, I’m taking my time.” He took his finger out of you and you sighed at the loss. You gasped when you left his tongue lick a stripe along your clit.

“Oh God, Steve,” you moaned. He continued to lick your clit. He stuck two fingers in your cunt and began to move them in and out. You were a moaning mess. “Oh… Yes. Oh my god, Steve. Steve!”

You felt yourself reaching your high when Steve removed his fingers once again and stood up. You were about to protest when Steve crashed his lips onto yours. You moaned his mouth. He tugged at your panties and ripped them off of you before tossing them to the side. You felt the tip of his cock poke into your opening.

“Are you ready for me, doll?”

“Yes, Steve. I need you so bad,” you moaned against his mouth.

Slowly, he sheathed himself inside of you. He grunted and suppressed a moan. “God, you’re so tight.”

Eventually, you moved your hips to tell him you were ready for him to start moving. He began to slowly thrust into you, pushing you further into the wall. “Y/N, God, I love you so much,” he grunted. You shifted your hips slightly, which caused him to let out a moan.

He started to thrust into you faster. You continued to moan and buried your nose into his shoulder. You felt your high coming again. “Steve,” you whimpered. “I-I gonna cum!”

“Me too, doll,” he grunted. He brought his hand to your clit and began to rub it quickly. You let out a loud moan. “Come on, doll. Cum for me.”

“Oh, oh Steve! Oh God! Steve,” you moaned as your pussy throbbed and you came over his cock. Steve was close behind as he let go inside your pussy, his cum filling you up.

“That was so much better than I ever imagined it,” you breathed as you came down from your high.

“You imagined it?” Steve asked, smiling at you.

“Maybe…” you mumbled, hiding your face in his chest.

“Y/N?” Steve said softly, brushing a hand through your hair.

You hummed in response.

“I meant what I said,” he continued. “I love you.”

“I did too,” you said, looking up at his bright blue eyes. “I love you.”

Steve kissed you again, softer and more affectionate this time.

“Maybe we should get back to the group. We’re probably leaving now,” Steve said. You began to pick up your clothes.

“Maybe we can have a round two in the tent,” you suggested, putting your bra on.

“If you can stay quiet while I fill you up again,” Steve said. You bit your lip to hide your moan.

“Come on. The sooner we get back, the sooner we can get to it. We do share a tent after all.”

Tag List: @crist1216 @mylittlefandomfanfictions @winenighthoe @denzmallows

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the-last-airbadger · 4 years

Text

My 2019

Hello pals. It's time for my annual end of the year post. The end of the decade means time for reflection and seeing how well I did with my resolutions haha (not that well I fear)

The Beginning of 2019 vs Now

The beginning of this year was amazing! I started off the year with a three week break, and after that, the second semester of my first year at uni started. This semester was honestly probably the happiest I've been in my life. I love attending university and I have the greatest group of friends there and every day there was a treat that semester (the current one is a bit of a drag sadly). My mother also moved in februari, which was something I wasn't really looking forward to at the time, but in hindsight, that was really great too. I was excited to go into the new year and felt sure it was going to be a good one!

I also had the best sleeping schedule back then. I slept from 12 til 9 literally every night, was on top of all of my schoolwork, and basucally I really had my life in order while also having a lot of time left to read and do other fun things, which was a great feeling.

The Best Things about 2019

The first best thing that happened this year was the DAY6 concert! I've been wanting to see a kpop group live ever since I got into kpop, so this was literally a dream come true. Not only was the concert the best concert I've ever been to, I also got the chance to give all the members a high five, which was a surreal feeling. One of the best evenings of my life.

Then, like I said, my mom moved into a new house, and it's such a chill house! I love beeing there! So that was great too

I also fell into a booktube hole around that time, which I'm really happy about! A Clockwork Reader's videos have entertained me for hours and Jessethereader is one of my favourite youtubers right now. I'm so thankful I found his videos! They are both entertaining and has really given me more motivation to read, as well as introduced me to many many books I'd never heard of before. My tbr has grown considerably since then haha. I also read so much since then! I have never read this much in a year!

I turned 20, scored a 10 in one of my courses (very proud of that), and I went to Alec Benjamin's concert with my sister which was amazing!

But I don't really remember many other special things that happened 😅. OH WAIT YEAH AVENGERS ENDGAME AND THE NEW SPIDERMAN MOVIE. And a lot of kpop releases! But I feel like it was mostly a year of school, books, and chilling than one of specific exciting events.

My Resolutions for 2019?

Oof, I haven't really looked at these resolutions at all this year, and I'm realising that I probably should have, because I don't think I accomplished many of these 😂

Dye my hair (let’s give that another go shall we) - My hair is still very brown 😔

Get a good haircut - I've had a couple of really good haircuts this year, so that's a win! This makes me wonder what my hair looked like last year though🤔 (I looked it up, it wasn't that bad XD)

Get a tattoo - Didn't do that :(

Move out of my parent’s house (that’s a bold one) - Didn't do that either! I could have, but then I realised I was actually quite happy living at home so I decided to stay for a while. I guess that's still a win because I'm happy about where I live 🤔. I do still wanna move out at some point though, but there's no need to rush.

Accomplish my reading challenge on Goodreads (I really want to accomplish that 35 books goal, it’s starting to haunt me) - YES. I DID THAT. FINALLY. AFTER 3 YEARS. and not just a little bit either, I read 49 BOOKS this year and more than double the amount of pages I've ever read in a year. 2019 really was the year of reading. Discovering booktube was really a gift.

Get tickets for A.C.E.’s concert - Did that! The concert was cool

Get swol - yeeeaaah nooooppee

Communicate more with the people around me - I don't know if I did that, I guess I didn't really pay attention to whether I did this or not soooo🤷‍♂️

Don’t let other people’s opinions shape my actions - Still working on that

Pass my first year at uni - Yeehaw

Go swimming (I haven’t done that in 3 years) - HOW HAVE I NOT DONE THIS YET?? I NEED TO SWIM IT'S BEEN 4 YEARS

Grow a beard (plz universe) - 😔

Learn how to make flipbooks (it looks really cool) - yeah I kinda lost interest in this

Learn how to knit (I really wanna make my own sweaters) - still want to try this 🤔

Read books on storytelling and learn more about how to tell a story - I did not read books on storytelling, but I did watch a couple of Hello Future Me videos which were helpful so tiny mini win

Develop my story more - This is a very vague resolution... like I have no Idea what "more" is when I don't know how much I wrote in 2018 😂. If this means just continuing to develop my story then I think I succeeded, but if it means I consistenly and conciously spent more time on developing my story then I did not.

Write at least 100 pages - I have no idea how much I wrote this year honestly. I wrote a bit but 🤷‍♂️

Spend more time with my friends, both new friends and old friends - sadly, I kinda feel like I failed this one. Last semester I only really saw my best friends twice. My other friendgroup I saw every day (because school) but I only saw them about 3-4 times outside of school which I would have liked to be more...

Expectations for 2020

I don't really have that many expectations for this year. I know I will start my third year at university (time is going TO FAST) and will have to start working on my thesis which I'm not really looking forward to.

Another thing that I know will happen is that my dad will move, meaning I'll move into my mom's house permanently. I am actually quite looking forward to the stability of living in one house again instead of switching every week, but I will miss my room.

And yeah apart from that I don't really know. I have a feeling this will be a year of personal development, writing, reading and creativity, but I have no idea.

I'm also looking forward to the release of the new Hunger Games Prequel, and I'm also hOPING that SHINee will come back at the end of the year but only time will tell 👀

2020 Resolutions

I'm feeling ambitious right know so I might end up doing none of these things BUT that's okay let's do this

Express my feelings more (as in I get really awkward in any sappy or mushy situation but I would like to be able to tell people I appreciate them without cringeing)

Again, learn to depend less on other people's opinions and trust my own

Get my sleeping schedule back on track

Become better at summarizing (no more 4 page summaries of 4 page texts 😂)

WRITE MORE. This time I'll make some concrete goals: Either I'll get my story's first draft done, or I'll write 100 pages on a single project

I want to try NaNoWriMo (not nessicarily in November, but at some point)

I want to read a lot again but maybe not as much as this year because I want to focus on writing too. 40 books?

Read all my current unread books (Aru Shah 2, Skullduggery Pleasant 9, Gemina, The Mistborn Trilogy and Call Down The Hawk) and finish my reread of Heroes of Olympus and the Raven Cycle

Finally read a book by V.E. Schwab (I've been wanting to try one of her books for ages)

Finish Playing Twilight Princess (I promised my brother)

Finally start spelling "definitely" correctly because I've been spelling it as "definately" for years and I really need to stop 😂.

Go. Swimming. Seriously. It's scandalous that I still haven't done that after waiting so long to be able to😂

Try to worry less about school and not overwork myself

Maybe try another drawing challenge somewhere this summer? I haven't done any of those in a while and I feel like my art needs more attention

I want to try a 24 hour readathon

I kinda want to learn a piano piece as well, but I already have so many hobbies I want to focus on so I don't know if I'll have the time :(

So, that was it for this year! Thanks for reading and happy 2020!

@the-official-pentacorn @asiandutchgirl

Last year’s post (x)

#new year's eve #2020 #2019 #end of the DECADE #personal #the post was made on mobile this year so the layout is bad I fear

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spidermecc · 5 years

Text

Unintentional love (Elu fake dating AU) Ch. 3 - Never again

Elu fake dating AU chapter 3 is up. As always, comments and feedback is very welcome. I hope you enjoy, let me know what you think. Find it on AO3 here.

”Oh my God Lucas, just pick a fucking shirt, they all look the same” Basile grunted.

The boys had spent the last hour in the same mens-wear shop, trying to find a new shirt for Lucas to wear to the party tomorrow.

”Honestly Lucas, you’re already dating the guy, why are you so stressed out?” Arthur asked sympathetically, while Yann picked up two shirts and headed for the dressing room.

”Fuck off, I just thought it would be nice to look good for once, it has nothing to do with him” Lucas said, not completely being able to hide his blush.

He had never been the type to care about what he was wearing, but even though he’d rather eat dirt than admit it, he was probably trying harder because he wanted to impress Eliott. He knew he didn’t stand a chance anyway, and Eliott was just helping him out to be friendly, probably because he didn’t have many friends at his new school, but he couldn’t help but want to look a bit different at the party, and maybe, just maybe impress Eliott a little bit.

“Fuck it, I’ll just wear the same shit I usually wear, let’s go get something to eat, I’m starving” he said, giving up on trying to find anything nice. Everything he’d tried on was either way too expensive or way too .. not him.

“FINALLY, I was beginning to think I’d have to eat the granola bar that’s been in my bag for four years” Basille exclaimed, almost running out of the shop.

“Yeah, let me just pay for this and we can get out” Yann said, fishing for his wallet in his bag.

After they exited the shop, they found a nice little café with cheap pizzas and beers to hang out at. It was nice to chill with the boys, they didn’t do this kind of stuff often, but when they did, Lucas always enjoyed it, even though they drove him mad half the time. This time was no exception. They’d all been grilling him about Eliott all week, and Lucas had successfully avoided the topic every time.

“So tell us something about this mystery guy” Yan said, while cutting his pizza with the shitty plastic knife and fork the café had given them.

“I already told you guys a thousand times, there’s not much to say. We’ve just hung out a few times and well, yeah we’re seeing each other I guess” Lucas answered, trying to avoid the topic yet again.

“Nu-uh” Basile said taking a sip of his beer, “you’re not getting off the hook so easy this time. Tell us something about him, I mean how did you manage to hook up with him? He looks like an actual model, if I was gay or bi or whatever, he’d be on my TO-DO list” he said laughing at his own joke.

Lucas couldn’t argue with that. Eliott did look like a model. His perfectly messy hair, his signature brown jacket, and those eyes.. those eyes that Lucas saw every time he closed his eyes, were out of this world. But what did Lucas actually know about Eliott? He knew that he was absolutely stunning, that he apparently was interested in the foyer, he had no social media (none that Lucas could find anyway) and that he drew weird looking rats in the library alone. It wasn’t much to go on, and if this whole pretending to date thing was going to work, he needed more. He pulled out his phone and found his newly added contact: Mon mec <3

Lucas: Tell me three things I should know about you

As soon as he hit the send button, he started worrying. That was a weird text to send out of the blue right? Shit Eliott didn’t even have his number, he should probably tell him who’s texting.

Lucas: This is Lucas btw. Lucas: Your pretend mec, haha

Read

Putain, what the hell was that mess? He’d sent three incoherent messages and not surprisingly Eliott left him on read. Fuck, was he even going to show up to the party tomorrow after Lucas sent him weird ass shit like that?

“Are you texting your boyfriend?” Arthur asked, mouth full of peperoni pizza, oil dripping down his chin.

“Nah, it’s Mika, he forgot his keys, so I have to head back, see you guys tomorrow” he said, desperate to get out of there, go home and bang his head against the wall until brain cells, that he obviously didn’t have, magically started to appear.

“Okay, see you tomorrow man, can’t wait to meet Eliott” Yann said, with such an honest smile that it broke Lucas’ heart. He really hated lying to his friends, especially Yann.

“Yeah, he can’t wait to meet you guys either” he answered, putting on his scarf, feeling like an absolutely horrible friend.

____

When he finally got home he threw himself on the bed and yanked his phone out of his pocket. Still no answer from Eliott. Of course not, why would he answer such silly messages from a complete stranger? While Lucas was contemplating how to tell the boys that Eliott would not attend the party tomorrow, without letting them know that he’d been lying he heard a pling.

Eliott: Phew, you just go straight to the personal questions, huh Lucas?

Shit, he’d offended Eliott. Of course he had. He could have at least started off with a ‘hey’ or a ‘thanks for agreeing to be my pretend boyfriend and going to a party with a bunch of people you don’t know’.

Lucas: I’m so sorry, I know that was totally out of the blue and weird

Eliott: Hahah, I’m kidding Lucas.

Lucas felt a weight lift off his chest. So Eliott wasn’t upset with him?

Eliott: I’ve actually just spent the last hour thinking of a good answer and I think I have it, are you ready?

Lucas: I’m ready, hit me

His heart starting racing out of nowhere. The prospect of getting to know Eliott, even if it was just three facts, had him sitting on the edge of his bed, tapping his foot on the floor in pure anticipation.

Eliott: 1. My spirit animal is a raccoon. 2. My favorite music is dubstep. 3. You’ll have to earn the third.

Lucas read and reread the message for what might have been ten times. Dubstep? Really? How was this mystery guy, who looked and talked like an actual angel, into freaking dubstep? Also, a spirit animal? Lucas had never even considered what his might be, but God, Eliott was an actual dork.

Lucas: How do I earn the third?

Eliott: I’m sure you’ll figure something out.

Shit, was Eliott flirting with him, or was Lucas just imagining things? He decided not to dwell on it and continued tapping on his phone, forming a response quickly, so Eliott didn’t think he’d left him on read.

Lucas: So those rats with masks on them that you were drawing in the library were actually raccoons?

Eliott: RATS?! Wow Lucas, you’re already breaking my heart and we’ve only been dating for a week.

His heart started racing. He felt kind of sorry for teasing Eliott about his drawings, but he couldn’t help himself. He wondered if Eliott also had a huge grin plastered on his face right now, because Lucas sure as shit did.

Lucas: I’m a real heartbreaker, sorry

Eliott: Yeah, I noticed at the bus stop, no mercy huh? Eliott: So it’s your turn now, no?

The grin that had been dominating his face during the entire conversation fell as soon as he saw the message. Eliott had probably, maybe, meant it as a joke, but the prospect of Eliott thinking he was cold hearted, made him want to cry.

Lucas: Actually, I’ve got to go, I have a ton of homework. See you tomorrow at the party.

Eliott: Okay, see you tomorrow.

He threw his phone on the other side of the bed and buried his face in his pillows. He definitely wasn’t ready for tomorrow.

______

Lucas was standing in front of the bathroom mirror trying to tame his hair. He’d been in need of a haircut for a while now, but he barely had money to pay the rent, so spending money on a haircut was the furthest from his mind, when Mika barged in. “Looking good kitten, meeting up with your new man?” he said, toying with Lucas’ hair. “Yeah, we’re going to a party tonight” he answered, swatting away Mikas hands. “Bring him over to the apartment some time, I have to approve before you take the next step you know” he said, still playing with Lucas’ hair, not getting the hint. “Need to see what his intentions are with our little kitten” he continued, laughing. “Gosh, can you please fuck off Mika, the last thing I need is you scaring him away with your sex talk” Lucas answered, starting to get slightly annoyed. “Gee always so touchy, you know you have to loosen up a bit, or you’ll never get any dick” he exclaimed, finally pulling his hands away in defeat. “Have fun, remember to use a condom” he finished with a wink, leaving Lucas’ hair in a worse state than it was to begin with.

As soon as Lucas left the apartment he regretted not bringing his scarf. The cool night air was already starting to sting, and he could feel his ears starting to cramp from the cold. He’d agreed to meet Eliott halfway, so they could arrive together, making the whole thing seem more believable.

“Salut” he heard a voice from behind. There he was, Eliott Demaury in all his glory. He looked stunning as always, wearing a white t-shirt, a skin tight leather jacket and skinny denim jeans, showing off his perfect figure. Lucas was pretty sure his mouth was starting to water, but he tried not to dwell too much on it. “Salut” he answered, trying to sound nonchalant, and probably failing miserably. “Let’s go” Eliott said as he started walking. Lucas was struggling to keep up, seeing as Eliott’s legs were much longer than his, almost jogging next to the taller boy.

As they walked, it almost felt like they’d known each other for ages. Lucas kept joking about the raccoon drawings, while Eliott dramatically clutched his chest, as if Lucas was breaking his heart all over again. They talked about music, which subjects they liked and disliked, which movies they liked (Eliott’s favorite was Titanic, how cliché), until they finally circled back to the drawings. “You know for someone who looks so innocent, you sure can be a sarcastic little shit” Eliott laughed, after Lucas, once again, had made fun of the drawings. “I’m sorry. And I don’t look innocent” he said, another laugh escaping him. “Yeah you do. You’re short but spikey” Eliott said continuing “you know what you remind me of?” “What?” Lucas said, looking up at the taller boy, clinging on to every word he said. “A hedgehog” he said, bursting into giggles. “A what?! I do NOT look like a hedgehog” Lucas exclaimed, trying to look upset, but he was pretty sure the huge ass grin on his face gave him away. “Whatever you say, but I’m pretty sure that a hedgehog is your spirit animal” Eliott said, lightly puffing Lucas shoulder. Lucas couldn’t help but smile at how cute Eliott looked when he was smiling and joking and he wished that they could just keep walking for hours, talking and laughing.

As they reached the apartment, Eliott swung his arm around Lucas, who involuntarily flinched. “Calm down, it’s just for show right?” Eliott said, seemingly amused by the expression on Lucas’ face. “Yeah, sorry” he answered, staring down at the ground. As soon as they entered the smoke filled apartment, they were greeted with his loud friends. “LUCAAAAAAS” Basille screamed, trying to drown out the music. Yann shook Eliott’s hand, introducing himself as Lucas’ best friend, and Lucas felt a pang of guilt wash over him again. He really hated lying to his friends.

After the boys had introduced themselves, they all went out onto the balcony, where Arthur was trying to roll a joint, but failing miserably, having drunken one beer too many. “Here, let me” Eliott said, reaching out and taking the paper and weed from Arthurs trembling hands. “Damn, good looking and good with his hands, what a catch Lucas” Basile exclaimed, and Lucas had a sudden urge to throw him over the balcony. “I’m the one who got lucky” Eliott said with a wink, not taking his eyes off Lucas. He couldn’t help think of, how in another universe, they were actually dating, and he was happy and contempt with his friends and his gorgeous boyfriend getting along. But right here, right now, it all felt a little bit too much, and Eliott’s gaze made him feel sad about all the things he wished he could have but didn’t.

“It’s getting pretty cold, I think I’m going to head inside” Lucas said, grabbing his beer from the balcony floor. “I’ll go with you, here you go” Eliott said handing over the joint to Arthur, “nice to meet you guys, we’ll catch up later” he continued as he swung his arm around Lucas, and opened the balcony door for him. They had only been doing this for an hour or so, but it was already proving very difficult for Lucas to handle it. Every move Eliott made, seemed effortless and natural, he almost let himself believe for a second that they weren’t pretending.

They headed inside, and got comfortable on a couch in the corner. “Your friends are cool” Eliott said, taking a sip of his beer. “Yeah they’re great, they can be a pain in the ass, but they’re really the best friends a guy could wish for” Lucas answered honestly. “I’m jealous of you, you know” Eliott said, staring intensely at Lucas. “Huh?” “You have these great friends, and I can tell how much they care about you just by the way they were trying to impress me, it’s adorable” Eliott said, his smile dropping faintly. “I’m sure your friends are great as well” he answered, trying to cheer Eliott up, desperate to see him smile again. “Yeah, something like that” he said, putting the beer bottle to his mouth, almost finishing it in one sip. “I’m gonna get another one, can I get you anything mon mec?” he asked a playful smile lingering on his lips. “No I’m good, thanks” Lucas said, a faint blush appearing.

Eliott had been gone for almost twenty minutes and Lucas was starting to get worried. As he was getting up to look for him, a guy came over and sat down next to him. Lucas looked at him, and got the feeling he’d seen the guy before, but he couldn’t quite make him out. He had long blond hair, tied up in a tight bun, wearing a navy blue shirt and a silver necklace around his neck. “Salut, I’m Curtis” he said, handing Lucas a new beer. “Salut, Lucas” he answered, still scanning the room for Eliott. “Why do I get the feeling that I’ve seen you before?” he asked, confirming Lucas’ suspicion that he looked familiar. “I’m not sure, but I think I’ve seen you before as well” he answered, not fully committing to the conversation, still concerned about Eliott’s whereabouts. “I’m friends with Idriss, maybe you know Imane?” the guy said, scanning Lucas’ face, trying to catch his eye. “Are you looking for someone?” he finally asked. “Yeah sorry, I’m looking for my uh.. my-my boyfriend, Eliott” Lucas said, feeling awkward saying the lie out loud to a stranger. “Eliott is your boyfriend?” the guy asked, looking surprised. “Yeah, uhm why- do you know him?” Lucas answered, nervous that he’d overstepped, by calling Eliott his boyfriend to someone who might actually know him. “I don’t know him personally, but Idriss mentioned him a few times” he said, continuing “but uhm I saw Eliott on my way over here. He went into a room with Lucille, his ex-girlfriend” he said, looking slightly uncomfortable. “His what?” Lucas asked, his heart stopping for a few seconds. Eliott had an ex-girlfriend? Here at the party? Why hadn’t he told him? “Yeah, I recognized her from some photos Idriss showed me of them a while back” Curtis continued. Lucas could feel the heat rising to his face. He felt like he’d been completely fucked over. If Eliott wanted to hang out with his ex, which probably wasn’t an ex anymore if they’d spent such a long time alone in a room, he could have just told him.

“Hey, come on, I’m sure they’re just talking” Curtis said, trying to cheer Lucas up, who was now busy fiddling with the sticker on his beer, trying to hold the tears at bay. Why was he so upset? Eliott had upheld his part of the deal, he’d met his friends as Lucas had asked, so he probably thought it was done and over with. “I have an idea, let’s get some shots huh?” the blonde said, getting up and pulling Lucas up with him, dragging him into the kitchen.

Ten minutes and five shots later, Lucas was absolutely fucked. His vision was blury and he could feel himself babbling, not sure what words were coming out of his mouth, but apparently Curtis, who hadn’t stopped laughing for two whole minutes, found it very entertaining. “Can I tell you a secret” Lucas said leaning into Curtis, almost whispering in his ear. “Yeah, shoot” “Eliott and I aren’t actually dating” he said bursting out on laughter. It all seemed so funny and stupid right now. They hadn’t even been able to keep up the act for one night before Eliott was off with his ex and Lucas was spilling the secret to strange guys. “Come again?” Curtis said, seemingly confused. “Yeah, we’re just pretending, it’s aaaaaall fun and games” Lucas continued, still laughing like a maniac. “But why?” “Was trying” he was literally struggling for air, it all seemed so silly right now, he couldn’t stop laughing, “to get rid of a girl” he finally managed, taking another shot, almost spitting it out in the process, not being able to contain his laughter. “Wow, that’s.. that’s a relief” Curtis finally said. “Huh?” Lucas had finally stopped laughing and looked at Curtis, for the first time tonight he noticed how he was actually quite handsome. Not Lucas’ type at all, blondes just weren’t his thing, but he was definitely good-looking. “That means that I get to ask you out, what do you say” Curtis said, flashing a smile at Lucas. Lucas wasn’t sure what was happening, but he found himself giggling “suuuuure thing” he managed, between giggles. He was definitely too drunk, because this guy couldn’t actually just have asked him out right? And what had he answered? He suddenly couldn’t remember anything. But before he had time to process what just happened, and what he’d said, he felt his stomach turning. Without a word, he ran to the bathroom, knocking over some girl in the process, desperate to reach the toilet before he spilled his insides all over the floor.

After five minutes, Lucas had thrown up everything he’d drank all night and probably all of his meals the past five days. He managed to get up and wash his mouth and face, and got out of the bathroom, desperately looking for his jacket. He needed air, he needed to get out of here, when a hand touched his shoulders. “Eliott?” he said turning around, not able to hide his disappointment when he saw the blonde guy before him. “Hey are you okay? You just ran away, and locked yourself inside the bathroom, I was getting worried” “Yeah I’m f-fine” he managed “have you seen Eliott?” “He left with Lucille, I think” Curtis said, not meeting Lucas’ eyes. “Oh.. of-c-of course.. I should go as well” “Want me to walk you home?” Curtis asked, hand still on Lucas’ shoulder. “No, no, I’m good, I’ll see you later yeah?” he said, grabbing his coat from the couch and practically sprinting out of the apartment.

He wasn’t sure how or when he got home, but he finally managed to get to the apartment and throw himself on the bed, not bothering to take off his clothes. ‘Never drinking again’, he thought to himself, closing his eyes, trying to will the room not to spin, never again.

#elu fic #skamfr #skam france #elu #eliott x lucas #eliott demaury #lucas lallemant #fanfic

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thelittleredheadedmusician · 5 years

Text

To Roast or Not to Roast

It’s been a hot sec since I wrote a DC fic but I got an idea about the batkids being asked to participate in a schwanky roast of Bruce and it turned into this! Some light internal angst with a happy ending. Gen Rating: PG Words: 1856 AO3

Dick frowned down at the invitation. The thick envelope made of paper that cost more than most kids in Gotham paid for their notebooks had fallen out of the pile of bills and magazines and postcards when he’d grabbed his mail. It was heavier than anything else in the stack with the cardstock it contained and slipped right out when he’d grabbed everything. He had carried it as though it were likely to explode at any moment or contained deadly poison or was a carrier of smallpox and living in Blüdhaven and having a return address of Gotham those weren’t wholly out of the realm of possibility.

When he’d finally reached his kitchen Dick dumped the rest on the counter and just held the cream envelope in his hands, studying it with narrowed eyed suspicion that only increased as he read and reread “Gotham City Chamber of Commerce” in the upper left corner.

Finally, Dick opened a drawer, pulling a steak knife from within it and tore through the top of the paper. He slipped the invitation out and carefully read the script.

You are cordially invited to a night honoring Gotham’s great businessman and philanthropist Bruce Wayne

The night will feature a four-course meal and conclude with a roast of our guest of honor.

Please RSVP with the card enclosed.

Dick felt his eyebrows raise as he read the invitation again. A roast. Bruce was getting a roast. Bruce agreed to a roast. Bruce agreed to a roast after Alfred pressuring him into it and making the Chamber of Commerce agree to donate a rather large sum of money was more likely. And running his own investigation to make sure he wouldn’t wind up literally on a spit Dick was sure.

He chuckled and shifted the cards to find the RSVP and hope they hadn’t skimped on return postage when he noticed something odd. There was another piece of paper, nicer still than anything he had in his printer but not the same thick cardstock of the invitation. He unfolded it curiously and frowned as he read.

Dear Mr. Grayson,

We hope that you are well and hope to see you in attendance. We are writing to ask if you might consider being one of our special guest speakers for the night. As Mr. Wayne’s eldest son we thought that you might bring a unique and entertaining perspective to the stage. We have also reached out to Mr. Drake-Wayne and Miss Cain-Wayne and greatly hope the three of you would consider speaking.

We await your reply on the matter.

The Gotham City Chamber of Commerce Lucy Plumber Events Chair

As he finished reading Dick let the paper fall onto the counter. He went to collapse on his couch, fishing his phone out of his pocket. They wanted him to speak at Bruce’s roast. They wanted him to roast Bruce. Not that he couldn’t, he did all the time it was quiet easy after all these years and well brooding in a dark cave while dressed as a bat kind of made you an easy target. The question was did he want to roast Bruce in front of these people?

It was one thing to tease Bruce and make fun of him when they were in their masks because that wasn’t Bruce, that was Batman. Batman deserved it more often than not and had bigger things to worry about than Nightwing making fun of him in front of a gang of would be arsonists. Batman was used to having his protegee complain about him with various members of the Justice League and Titans, most of them had just about as much right to complain.

It was another thing to tease Bruce to his friends and family. They got it. They either grew up with the guy too or had been sidekicks themselves. There was a something that came from growing up in the shadow of heroes and really only people who had done that understood it. So yeah, him and Babs or Tim or Cass ragging on Bruce in the cave was allowed. They’d earned that right. Bitching about him with Wally or Roy or even Jason and Steph – when they were on speaking terms – was allowed too.

Standing up in front of a room full of Gotham’s elite and making fun of the man that, to them, saved Dick? Yeah, no. Ok, yeah he did save Dick that was true but he didn’t need a bunch of rich snobs thinking he was some ungrateful circus brat, he’d dealt with enough of that those first couple years after high school thanks. Besides, they didn’t deserve to hear Dick’s jokes. Not the ones about Bruce. They wouldn’t understand. He didn’t want them to understand. Those were personal.

Besides, what was he going to say? “You know how you grow up and people tell you you’re ‘one of a kind!’ and all? Yeah, Bruce never said that and for proof please let me point to the three others who are apparently just like me and even with changes to the costume some still think we’re a singular person!” Or, “People always tell me ‘you’re so well adjusted!’ and yeah I am for a kid who watched their parents die. For a kid who was raised and trained to fight crime by a man in a Kevlar furry suit? Well the verdict’s still out.”

Dick could just say no, he wouldn’t do it. Hell, Dick should just say no. It just… He didn’t know. It bothered him. Everything about being asked bothered him.

He kept playing with his phone, spinning it around in his hand, as he thought when he finally remembered why he’d gotten it out in the first place. He checked the time as he unlocked it and yup, Tim should definitely be awake by now. He hit the call button, lifted it to his ear, and waited.

“Nnngh. Whu?” Tim’s voice was muffled when he picked up and maybe Dick underestimated how late the kid could sleep in on a weekend.

“Good afternoon Timbers,” he couldn’t keep the tease out of his voice, not that Dick tried.

“’M on the west coast. ‘S still mornin’,” he protested. Dick winced a bit, he hadn’t realized it was a Titans weekend so yeah maybe Tim got some slack.

“Sorry.”

“’S fine. What’s up?”

“Well I was going to ask you about something interesting I got in the mail-”

“If Steph sent you a live bat it you should blame Jason,” Tim interrupted quickly and Dick paused.

“Um. No. What?”

The younger boy sighed and Dick could just see him scrubbing his hand down his face before pushing it back up to push his long hair back. It was a movement he did often and one that often prompted a remark about haircuts from Alfred. “I dunno. Harper got her and Cass really into Les Mis and then she and Jason ran into each other on patrol the other night and he caught her belting out One Day More or something? I really don’t know. She was talking really fast, you know how Steph gets. Anyways, they started talking and Jason told her something about how Victor Hugo sent his fiancée a live bat in the mail and she thought it was hilarious and well we all remember what happened when she found those websites were you could send people glitter and gummy dicks and poop.”

Dick had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. He did remember that, vividly. Tim and Cass both had a fine coating of glitter over their apartments for weeks after that, though with all the pranks and Cass being Cass there was normally glitter coating their apartments. Dick had gotten the gummy dicks sent to him and work and truth be told they’d been pretty good. Bruce had received the elephant poop. At the office. And Tim had seen and told Kon who’d told Clark and then there was an article in The Daily Planet and Bruce had been forced to give an interview to a very amused Viki Vale about the whole thing when she made a very compelling argument about the failings of a Gotham paper not being able to report on Gotham news and the importance of the press and well there’s a reason she and Lois go toe-to-toe on scoops.

“There was no live animals, though that would have been preferable,” Dick admitted once he was sure he wouldn’t burst out laughing if he opened his mouth.

“What did you get then? A dead bat?”

Dick snorted. “No. At least not today. I got an invitation to a roast for Bruce. And to roast Bruce.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Apparently, you did too.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know how I feel about that.”

“Neither do I,” Dick admitted. “I don’t know what I’d say. I don’t know what I’d want to say.”

“You could say no,” Tim said levelly. “I haven’t even seen it yet but I’m probably going to. Too bad they can’t ask Jason since he’s legally dead and all, he’d love this. Or Barbara. Let her roast him, she’s good at that.”

Dick smiled and shook his head, imagining those two tag-teaming. It wasn’t hard, they did it on the comms some nights and it was some of the most vicious and scathing remarks he’d ever heard. Thankfully, it was rare they were levelled at him. There had been times though and those had been rough.

“I don’t think any of what they’d say is fit for the general public,” he said dryly.

Tim gave a noncommittal hum. “Steph and Harper. They’d just rip into him for being a rich white guy.”

Dick sat up straight. “That’s not a bad idea Tim.”

“What? Have Harper and Steph do it? Um, I still haven’t seen this thing but I’m fairly certain they asked us cause we’re his kids but not like an actual child like Damian.”

“No, I know exactly who it should be. Thanks. Have fun with your friends this weekend, I’ll come to the Manor for dinner sometime this week.”

“Um ok? Bye?”

“Bye!” Dick hung up with a smile.

He pushed himself up over the back of the couch and grabbed the letter off the counter. There was an office number under the signature and while there was a chance she wasn’t in today Dick figured that being Events Chair meant you worked weekends. Besides, it’s not like he couldn’t just leave a message.

She picked up on the second ring and Dick’s smile grew. “Hi Lucy,” he pushed as much charm as he could muster into his voice, “this is Dick Grayson. I just got your invitation to Bruce’s roast and while I’m honored that you invited me to speak I just don’t think I’m the right person for the job. However, I do think I could put you in contact with someone who is. Have you reached out to Bruce’s cousin? Kate Kane? She’s a delight and if her barbs at holidays are anything to go by I think she would be perfect.”

#dc comics #dick grayson #bruce wayne #tim drake #batman #nightwing #fanfiction #my fic #writing #own writing #batbros #the batgirls are better than you

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sabrinaprotectionsquad-blog · 6 years

Text

AU Yea August 5 - Is it too late for apologies?

@auyeahaugust

Day 5 - Laundromat

Sabrina left Chloé's side awhile ago, but the wounds both on herself and others still linger. One night when Sabrina's writing some poetry at a laundromat she runs into Juleka. The shame of having locked the poor girl in a bathroom so many years ago wells up in her, but how do you apologize for something that happened so long ago?

The familiar rumbling of the washer kicking into gear filled the small Laundromat. Sabrina smiled as her boots pounded together on top of the powerful machine, sending echoes of leather thumbs out into the empty room.

She loved coming to clean her clothes in the middle of the night, there was something calming about having a large wide space all to herself. It was vastly better than sitting at home feeling like a loser.

She twirled her pen between her fingers, contemplating how if she spend as much time learning how to spin her pen like a baton, as she did on actually writing, she’d have finished a novel and a half by now.

She reread the paragraph she was stuck on for the hundredth time, she knew where she was going but every time she tried getting to it she ended up regretting ever thinking that she could become an author.

She sighed, realizing she wasn’t going to make any headway on her main work, opting instead to get at least some writing done. Her pen bled out onto the page with useless prose.

Washing Machine washing Mechanical servant My slave without judging No life, no dreams

A life full of service The life of worker-bees Slave to your mercy No life, no dreams

Sabrina groaned, mentally filing the poem under useless Chloé angst. At least it felt nice to see words flow onto the page, even if it was existential, repetitive angst.

She smiled to herself, wondering how she managed to follow around someone like Chloé so blindly for so long. Breaking away had been hard, but ultimately she’d learned that it was better to be alone than to be with someone toxic.

Toxic Addictive to me Impossible To ever break free

Toxic Your words to me Hatred Will you set me free

Toxic You leave only me Lonely But finally free

She wondered if there was an audience for “a thousand salty poems about how Chloé f*ing sucks”. Possibly, especially with how Chloé managed to be the sole reason for at least half of Paris’ akumatizations.

Still, she didn’t want to be known for hatred and regret, she wanted to move on and make something that felt bright and hopeful. Not petty and repetitive.

Sabrina almost fell down from her vantage point on the machines as the door opened to her oasis. What kind of loser needed to wash their clothes at 2 am aside from her!?

Sabrina gasped as she locked eyes with the new patron, clad in black and much shorter haired than when last Sabrina saw her, Juleka looked amazing as she entered the Laundromat with a trash bag full of clothes.

Juleka was sporting a buzzed haircut with a fairly small purple patch of long flowing hair rolling down to frame her face similarly to before. She wore a semi large black dress with purple details, see-through leggings and army boots.

The look was super gothy but as always Juleka looked killer in it. Sabrina became intimately aware of her once white t-shirt over her braless top, her loose pajama pants with red patches still dotting the crotch, her messy red hair barely tamed in a bun, her large and ugly brown boots.

She didn’t want anyone to see her looking like this, but especially not Juleka, the only girl whose akumatization was wholly Sabrina’s fault. The way she locked Juleka in the bathroom so she’d miss getting her picture taken was so awful that she still got a knot in her stomach just remembering it.

She swallowed hard as Juleka and her locked eyes for a moment, Juleka looking through her, clearly recognizing her, but choosing to ignore her existence. The beautiful Goth walked past her and started working the machines.

It was evident from the two machines she chose to use, that her and Rose were still going strong. One machine was filled with colorful frilly clothes with mostly pinks, while the other was filled with only black.

Sabrina Couldn’t help but smile to herself, Chloé never believed in their relationship, saying they were only together for attention. Sabrina was glad that she’d been wrong, the two were so amazing together, and the way they supported one another in spite of, or perhaps because of their differences was so inspiring. If Sabrina could find love even half as sweet as theirs she’d be happy.

Still, the awkwardness of seeing Juleka after all these years was slowly creeping into every corner of Sabrina’s being. She slid her feet back, her knees meeting her chest, curling up into a tiny ball, hoping she could just disappear from the little Laundromat.

She shivered, remembering the time she actually did disappear, the pain of being akumatized still stung into her soul whenever she wanted to be invisible. That was what she’d done to Juleka. She bit her lip, she wanted to cry.

Sabrina looked at the door, maybe she could leave until her clothes were done; wander the streets like a hobo in the hopes of meeting no one. Looking outside into the cold dark November night she realized she’d freeze to death if she ran around out there for longer than a few minutes. She cursed herself for deciding to wash her jacket as well.

When Sabrina’s gaze returned to Juleka, she found herself locking eyes with the purple haired woman. Juleka looked away, pretending not to have been staring at her. She didn’t look happy, she must be as unhappy to see Sabrina as she’d expected her to be. It cut a dagger into her stomach to know how hated she was by a person who was so kind and understanding.

Sabrina felt her thoughts twist, wondering if she could be forgiven if it was possible to even begin to redeem herself. She felt the pen burning in her grasp.

There are a thousand ways to say it But is there a way to be heard? I can only hope you’ll forgive me I know I’ve caused you such hurt

I know I can never make up for it The things that I’ve done But I’d like to try if you’ll let me I understand if you just want me gone

I have to try and say it The thing that can be said a thousand ways I know you don’t need to forgive me But I’ll be sorry for all my days

Sabrina looked down at the page in frustration, there was no way she’d ever be able to make it up to Juleka, but this kind of vapid self indulgent semi artistic circlejerk was beyond the worst way to do it.

She hated herself for even trying to do it this way, but more so for failing so badly at making something that meaningfully at least conveyed how she felt. It was stupid, even given a hundredth pages she’d never be able to express a sentiment that made her worthy of forgiveness.

Sabrina felt like she was going to start crying if she didn’t collect herself. Looking down at the page one last time she couldn’t remember the last time she’d made something she hated more. She felt the paper under her palm, ripping it out of the book.

She took a deep breath, it felt nice destroying it, it helped her stop the feeling of self loathing a little bit. She threw the barely crumbled paper towards the trash can, freezing in place as her poor throw caught wind and landed against Juleka’s boot.

Sabrina’s ears rang with silent alarm, her senses overwhelmed with panic. Juleka reached down curiously and picked up the paper, beginning to unwrap it.

“It’s uh… Trash, don’t… Read…” Sabrina tried sheepishly, but it was too late. Juleka’s eyes quickly scanned the short page.

Sabrina swallowed as Juleka’s eyes found hers, and Sabrina felt like she truly understood what they meant when they described feeling like a deer in headlights.

Sabrina didn’t remember exiting the Laundromat, but she remembered feeling extremely cold as she walked through the streets. She remembered having needed to escape from the Laundromat and then nothing, then cold.

She remembered swallowing her pride and walking into a snoozing dive bar where she was happy to find almost no people, and certainly no one who knew her. She remembered drinking a little bit, then a little bit more.

She remembered looking at the time and knowing Juleka had to have left by now, returning to her once peaceful oasis, knowing she’d likely have to find another place where her mind could be still, since this place was now tainted by awfulness.

She remembered a note on her machine.

There’s no perfect apology But it seems to me that it’s less than a great move To try one, then flee

It’s been a long time since everything happened I can see you’re different now I’d like to know the new you Maybe Sunday for some chow?

- Juleka

PS. I’m not a poet

PPS. Sunday, dinner at 18, bring flowers for Rose (not roses).

#au yeah august #miraculous fanfiction #sabrina raincomprix #Juleka couffaine #Miraculous ladybug #Laundromat au #fluff #just a cute thing #with angsty poetry #SPS Writes

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halloweennut · 6 years

Text

I fic’d for my DuckTales ocs. I, personally, blame @musekicker and @raidenraccoon , but it's mostly myself and the godforsaken heat. So I wrote some exploratory stuff. I'm not really all that pleased with the bit for Felicity, so I'm gonna reread it later and tack on here, but here's the one for Penelope I like under a read more. Granted, I have no clue how to write Scrooge and it McFreakin’ shows

His former secretary had retired, citing being too old to handle any and all shenanigans that happened in the Money Bin or in connection to McDuck Enterprises, LLCs, and etc. So unfortunately, Scrooge had been forced to hire a new secretary, Fortunately, there were always plenty in Duckburg, and businesses new and old were always hiring, so finding one that was available at a reasonable hourly wage was easy enough.

The new one was a young hen with brown feathers and a sharp, short bob that made her face look severe and older. Scrooge was glad she was young, and with a business degree to boot - it meant that she could work there as indefinitely like his former one, and at the same price but she wouldn’t need that much training. She was efficient, quick, and followed orders similarly, if not a bit aloof and cold at times, but at least she smiled at the triplets and Webby when they came to visit.

Granted her eyes were a little unsettling. Sharp like her haircut and constantly calculating, never resting for more than a minute unless she had to. It made him think of Gyro to the point he asked if they were related - he would have to insure the Money Bank twice as much if he had two Gearloose’s under his employ. But no, she only knew of him through her employer. It was like anyone in Duckburg with some brand of aspiration to reach ever higher and higher.

But she was quick and efficient and took a low pay, remembered how he liked his tea and smiled at his nephews and niece. And strangely enough, she never acted on the look in her eyes. She took to antics from unleashed magickal items and Gyro easily, tiptoeing over incidents and spills without taking her eyes off of her schedule and paperwork. Gyro liked her because she was prompt, Fenton liked her because she would sometimes listen to him infodump when she had a moment to delay, the Board liked her because she was cheap, and the kids liked her because she snuck them treats with a smile and a raised finger that said “our secret.” Scrooge liked her for those reasons as well and after a while some worries dispelled.

Until, that is, one day when his schedule was empty between 2pm and 3.

The secretary walked into his office at 2:05, tea, schedule and paperwork in hand, bob sharp, shirt and skirt pressed, and heels polished and pointed with sharp clicks on polished marble floors. Perfectly timed to when he would have wanted tea and updated paperwork and schedule for the rest of the day.

“Ah, Penelope, right on time,” Scrooge said, barely looking up from his paperwork consolidating his properties up north, glancing to the side with the familiar click of china on his desk. “Thank you, Penelope.”

Usually she left after that unless there was something that required his attention. But she stood in front of his desk, calculating and hungry eyes staring at him. Scrooge paused, hand stilled in the middle of his signature. He shifted to look behind her.

“Is there someone here to see me?” he asked. She shook her head.

“No, Mr. McDuck. Your schedule is free until 3,” Penelope said, tapping the appointment on the schedule with a finger.

“Then...well? What is it?”

“I wish to speak with you, sir. May I sit?”

He stared at her and nodded. The secretary sat on the edge of one of the stools in front of his desk, ankles crossed and paperwork carefully and almost purposefully arranged on her lap.

“If this is about a raise, as stated in your contract, you can’t ask for one until you’ve worked here for ten years,” Scrooge warned, ready to pull out his copy of it, along with magnifying glass, as it was in the fine print, but she shook her head.

“No,” Penelope said. “I’ve come to make you an offer.”

“Oh blazes, not this again.” Scrooge groaned, slapping a hand over his eyes. “Listen, you are very lovely, and a very fine secretary, but I really don’t need-”

“Oh god, no I am not offering that. I have morals, Mr. McDuck,” she interrupted. “Well they’re loose in some regards but not like...that. I’m offering something different that will actually interest you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You have one minute to either impress me or go back to your desk and we both pretend none of this happened.”

She smiled thinly with a matter of fact kind of look. “You see Mr. McDuck, companies like yours are always looking for secretaries. There are plenty, you know, some with dreams of climbing a corporate ladder to the top, or into a lap of some wealthy mogul.”

Penelope pulled a small file from the paperstack on her lap.

“I’m not interested in doing either. I’m just a very, very good secretary.”

The folder slid onto his desk, and she flipped open, revealing the Glomgold logo.

“Compiled here is all Glomgold attacks on your life and all attempts to out-do, copy and what have you,” she continued.”In chronological order, for convenience.”

Scrooge flipped through them absentmindedly, remembering all quite clearly until the he reached the last three forms. He didn’t recognize the events listed at all - following him on a lumber mill survey, splashy charity gala, an uncomfortable red wedding scenario in potentia -, so unless he had been drugged, knocked out, or he repressed the memories, she was wrong.

“I think you mixed up some files, Ms. Glider,” Scrooge deadpanned, pushing the stack nearly over the edge. “I don’t think these have happened at all.”

Penelope caught them with a slap, which made him tense for a moment, and pushed them back.

“Not yet.”

Scrooge raised an eyebrow, and her mouth raised into a light, rare smile.

“May I suggest, sir, looking at the dates of those three?”

He flipped back open to the last forms. They were dated from three months from then up to two years. Scrooge squinted and reread them. He repeated the lines again, this time with an added frown. Before he could even ask, she continued.

“Secretaries compile schedules, take notes, organize files and paperwork. Contact contractors. Set up appointments and meetings. Take care of their employer’s agenda,” she said. “But they go wildly unnoticed, don’t they, Mr. McDuck? As such, no one really notices or questions them, making it very easy to compile data. And when you’re good with computers to boot - well, it just makes you a very good secretary.”

He blinked. “That’s how you got these three?”

Penelope nodded. “Glomgold is a monologuer, but he is also strangely very meticulous with his agenda involving beating you. He has plenty more if you’re interested.”

“And if I was, why should I believe you don’t work for him?”

“Oh, I do. He needs a night secretary after 5pm. How do you think I got most of my data on him?”

“Then how should I believe that you aren’t spying on me for him?” Scrooge stood, voice starting to raise, and half-ready to end this nonsense and fire her. After confiscating any and all information on him, of course.

“I don’t use the word spy. I prefer…,” she paused for a moment. “Corporate espionage. And I only do it for myself. I like the challenge. And McDuck Enterprises? The most challenging company I’ve ever come across. That’s why I’m offering to spy for you. On Glomgold. Beaks. Rockerduck. Whoever. They are always hiring.”

“So you jump from secretary position to secretary position, for the challenge?” he said with a raised brow.

“Usually.” Penelope shrugged. “But you know? I like working here. There’s the challenge, of course, but I’m not treated like an idiot here either. No one has ever called me sweetheart.”

“So exactly why,” Scrooge asked, sitting back down and steepling his fingers. “Would keeping you be beneficial, other than being a competent secretary?”

“By keeping me as a secretary and corporate espionage associate-”

“Just say spy.”

“Fine. And spy,” she deadpanned, “you’ll not only have a better competitive edge on some of your rivals but you’ll have something they never had or will have.”

“And what could that be, Penelope?”

“My loyalty to you and the company, and keeping other corporate espionage associates- ahem, spies, out of your business.”

“Before I answer, how much do you have on me?” Scrooge asked, wary.

“A dossier twice the size of this one compiled from both public and private records. I make one of all my employers. Like I said, I’m very good at my work.”

“Why does this keep happening,” Scrooge muttered under his breath, pinching the bridge of his beak. First his spy housekeeper, now his spy secretary. He looked up at her again. “Your contract stays the same, Penelope.”

She smiled another rare smile and nodded, slipping back to her normal seriousness and slipping the Glomgold dossier off his desk, replacing it with another. “Thank you, Mr. McDuck. Here is the information on your three o’clock appointment along with your notes from the previous meeting. Do you require anything else?”

He shook his head. Penelope nodded and stood, heading back to the door. Before she exited and faced him again with a finger to her beak. Their secret. Scrooge shook his head once the door clicked, and finished his half-scrawled signature. Maybe he would have to get more insurance after all.

But he had to wonder: why tell him any of this at all?

#ducktales oc #penelope glider #fic #im dumb and still on my bullshit #hell even the title of my doc for this is 'bullshit'#the one with felicity is one where she almost bites gladstone

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duckybeth99 · 6 years

Text

Choice (Past Fic)

hullo this fic is backstory for Marianna, Johnny, and Jared here we go. very long tho be warned

——

She knew him since they were kids. Primary school, to be exact.

She remembered when he was introduced to the class, the teacher asking him to say something about himself. Of course, he went by a different name back then and looked different. He identified differently. He told everyone how it was his first time in school. He told that his dad was a teacher, too. He said he liked baseball and video games.

She didn’t really pay too much attention to him back then. She already had her own circle of friends. But Marianna felt bad a few times, in those early weeks, when he ate lunch alone. Mariana introduced herself first.

Johnny eventually found friends on his own, but he thought about Mariana on occasion. The first one to talk to him.

He had plenty of guy friends in middle school. A small ring of them, and Mariana had her friends, a small ring of girls. The two groups hung out and made trouble on occasion.

High school was when things started to become different.

She visited him over the summer, and that’s when he told her he was a boy. He was now Jonathan Bosteau, Jr., and Mariana instantly started doing her own research to find things to help him. Bought him nice binders for his birthday. They looked at style magazines for new haircuts for Johnny, looking at different ways he could do his hair. He seemed to like the experimentation.

That whole summer, though, Johnny had a suspicion about Marianna Wilson.

Why was she suddenly spending more time with him, one on one?

“Hey, Johnny? You there, man?”

Johnny blinked, shutting his locker. He looked to two of his friends, standing beside his locker. Johnny flashed one of his signature big grins.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Just thinking about later today.”

“Baseball tryouts!” the first guy cheered. “Dude, this school has like, the best sports, man. You get in, everybody’s gonna notice you.”

“I heard talent scouts came last year in the spring and recruited some guys,” the second boy thought. “I think they recruited Jones and Callaghan.”

“They’ve got school records,” Johnny shrugged casually, walking with the boys to class, “I’m not surprised.”

“They won’t have those records for much longer.”

Johnny and his friends stopped, looking to another boy. He was older than them, a little bit taller than Johnny’s friends—but about equal height to Johnny himself.

His growth spurt was nice for trying to look older.

“Jared Morrison,” the older held his hand out with a coy, confident smile. “Although, I’m sure you’ve already heard of me. Junior class president. Number four on the field, best pitcher and batter on the school’s team. And, ahha—“ Jared checked his nails, puffing air onto them then brushing it coolly on his shirt, “assistant coach and team captain.”

“Wow,” Johnny smiled. “That’s—that’s awesome. I’m Johnny. My friends and I are going to try out later today.”

“Good luck, guys,” Jared smirked, turning away. “We don’t normally take freshmen on the team, but maybe you’ll change that.” He left the boys in the hall, walking with his own group of boys, presumably the other baseball players.

“I have to get on that team,” Johnny grinned, determination on his face. “And I’m gonna.”

Later that day, at the end of school and plenty of time for the boys to change into their gym clothes, Johnny stood tall and proud, stretching out his arms. His two friends sat beside him, stretching their legs. Johnny watched the coach and Jared talking further away.

“I’m gonna blow all these guys away,” Johnny smirked, “you guys just watch.”

“Hey, I think Jared wasn’t kidding about no freshman on the team,” one of the boys murmured, squinting and looking around at all the other boys trying out. “The only people in our grade are us.”

“Well then,” Johnny stretched his legs, shrugging calmly, “just easier for us to break that record, huh?”

“What if it’s a school rule or something?” the other boy piped up. Johnny rolled his eyes.

“You’re too paranoid about that shit,” he mumbled. “Besides, it’s a stupid rule if it is one. I doubt it.”

Johnny glanced over to the hill beside the field, seeing a group of students taking pictures. He assumed it was the photography class. He saw Marianna among them.

She spotted Johnny and gave him a friendly wave and a thumbs up for good luck.

The coach blew his whistle, sunglasses and baseball cap on, the sun shining on them, “Alright boys, line up.”

As the boys were told what to do for their tryouts, each boy got a chance to prove their skill (or lack thereof) to the coaches. Johnny rooted loudly for his friends, enough to warrant sideways glances from the coach and Jared.

“He’s, uh... spirited,” the coach mumbled. Jared nodded.

“He’s just a freshie, though,” he whispered. “Don’t have too high hopes for him.”

Shortly after, Johnny himself was called up. The coach noted his speed, his accuracy with catching, and his sheer strength and skill at pitching and batting. The coach wrote down on his clipboard what he noted.

As Johnny finished his tryout, he glanced over his shoulder and caught wind of Jared glaring at him. His mouth twitched.

Johnny blinked at it initially. Then, feeling his pride rise, he gave a smirk, stuck out his tongue and winked at him with a cocky wave. He saw Jared’s pale face turn a deep red and his frown turn more apparent.

——

“Did you hear?! He broke the record!”

“What? No way!”

“Go look!”

“He’s the first freshman on the team!!”

Johnny pushed open the door to the freshman building, on his way to get his books from his locker, when everyone stopped and stared at him. He looked a little confused for a moment, then everyone started cheering and clapping.

“What’s all this about?” Johnny blinked, as his friends and Marianna ran up to him.

“Haven’t you seen the results for the team yet?!” Marianna asked. Johnny shook his head.

“I came in late so I couldn’t stop by the—“

“You made the team!!” his friends exclaimed. “You’re a Wolf!” Johnny beamed.

“I told you I would!” he laughed. As his friends continued to congratulate him, Johnny noticed a boy watching him as they all walked away to class.

They passed by the senior building, and there, leaning against his locker with a glare, was Jared watching Johnny. The younger boy stopped and let his friends continue on their walk.

“Hey,” Johnny jogged up to Jared, “I wanna say thanks for putting me on the team, and talking to us earlier that day. Challenging us like that was really great, and—“

“I didn’t put you on the team,” Jared spat. “Coach did. But listen to me, kid, you’re on thin ice. We added one more extra person on the team by putting you in. So if you screw up enough, if you get enough of a bad rep, or you’re nothing but a benchwarmer, you’re out the minute I can get you out.” Johnny felt his hands ball up into fists.

“What’re you gonna do if I stay? You’re just assistant coach.”

“Trust me,” Jared turned to walk away, “I’ll find something on you.”

“I’ll tell coach—!”

“He won’t believe you, freshie. Best advice is to stay in your lane.” Before Johnny could say anything else, before he could pick his fight, the bell rang. He knew his dad would be mad at him if he started a fight and missed class. Again.

————

“I need something on him,” Jared vented in the back of class, under hushed voices to his friends. “He’s gotta have some dirty secret, some shit I can expose him for.”

“Y’know, I heard a rumor from my little cousin,” one of the guys began. “He’s in the same grade as Johnny. He said that when they change for P.E., he always goes into the stalls to change. He never does it in front of anyone else.”

“Gee, maybe he’s takin’ a piss or a shit at the same time,” Jared sarcastically groaned. “C’mon, that means nothing!”

“No, no, no, listen,” the friend continued. “He told me that he talked to at least his gym teacher before they started anything, and pretty much all his other teachers about something. Always in private.”

“Maybe he’s shit in class.”

“Maybe he’s a trouble maker?”

“No, man,” the first friend shook his head, and in an even lower voice, a more quiet whisper, “Someone says his name isn’t right on his papers. First day, he stopped all his teachers before they called his name. After that, was when he talked to them.”

Jared thought for a moment. “I want dirt on him,” he decided. “Anything and everything. I stop by the office all the time for leadership stuff. One of you guys just distract the front desk lady and I’ll go snooping.”

“Why not us?”

“You’ll fuck it up. Best way to get this done is to do it yourself.”

“Mr. Morrison,” the teacher spoke up, his voice high and strained in annoyance. “Is there anything you’d like to share with the class?” Jared smirked.

“Sure,” he shrugged. “Wanted to tell everyone to come to our opening game in a few weeks. You can see that new freshie there. He’s really great.”

“Please leave your extracurriculars outside of class,” the teacher sniffed. He turned back to the board and proceeded with his lecture. Jared glanced over his shoulder at his friends with a mischievous smirk. His friends looked at him with intrigue and gave him a thumbs up on his plan.

In his leadership class, Jared did exactly as he planned. He headed down to the office, texted his friends as he delivered papers, and as he started heading towards there, his friends distracted the secretary. Jared snuck into the back office and looked at the cabinets, labeled by first two letter of last names.

B, b, b...

Bosteau.

Jared pulled out the record file and crouched to the floor as he read it.

Bosteau, Johanna. NOTE: Legal name change in progress. Refer to as Johnathan Bosteau, Jr. in future paperwork. Permission granted to use private restrooms and private space in locker rooms.

Jared reread the name and the note.

Slowly, he grinned.

He quickly pulled out a camera borrowed from the photography class, and snapped pictures of the record. As fast as he could, he tucked the camera away, put the file back as he found it, and slipped out of the office casually. His friends waited before following him out of the office to deter suspicion.

“So? What’d you find?” one asked. Jared smirked and showed them the preview of the photo. “No way. What’re you gonna do with that?”

“I got one more piece of evidence I want to find before I pin the creep. You guys are gonna help me. Then, I’ll send this to Marcy in the journalism class.”

“What if she doesn’t post it?”

“Then I’ll make someone else do it. I got plenty of things to bribe ‘em with.”

———

With Marcy out sick, Jared had to resort to another plan. When he called her, she told him what to do: put in the password on her computer in the lab, upload the photos to it. When he asked about deletion, she told him that with everyone in that class constantly needing photo and video files for projects, they manually deleted everything, not the school. She warned him that there was another student she shared the computer with and to make sure she didn’t see the files. Hide it, if you have to, just make the file name something stupid, she said. She warned, If we get caught, we’re in huge trouble.

So as his friends found out the ‘special space’ Johnny changed in every P.E., they snuck into the area during their gym class, and hid a video camera. Jared uploaded the photos quickly during lunch period.

As he left the lab, he passed by Marianna.

Making up for missing the other day, she came in to catch up on her photography project. She booted up the computer and got set to editing, when she noticed a new, odd folder on the desktop. It had a weird name.

Just numbers. 12345678.

Normally, people put in their last name, first initial, then the project name. At least, in the photography class.

Marianna clicked the folder.

As Jared met up with his friends at lunch, they handed him the video camera. He played back the footage, looking at it intensely.

“Hey, man, I’m... I’m not totally sure about having video on him,” one friend piped up, arms crossed, though he didn’t look confident in his words. “I mean, how old is he even? This could be considered porn, Jared. Of a kid. He’s undressing—”

“Will you stop calling her a boy?” Jared glared. “Besides, we just need the evidence of the chest.”

Right as Jared expected, Johnny had a binder on. He grinned a wicked, cruel smile.

“I’m gonna put this on Marcy’s computer,” he said. “She can take a screenshot of this for the paper. We got the tranny.” Jared started to leave the lunchroom.

“You’re just gonna dip?!”

“I got bigger fish to fry, boys. I’ll catch up.”

Jared jogged back to the lab, as the clock was ticking for lunch to end. He knew video always took a while to upload. Cheep ass computers.

He sprinted inside and pushed the door open, and was relieved to see no one there. That was, until Marianna’s head poked out from behind one of the large computers. Jared felt his smile drop.

“Um,” Marianna piped up, “the other computer lab is for everyone else. This is for photography, video, and the journalism classes—“

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Jared replied, waving his hand irritatedly. “I just have to upload something. I’m helping out Marcy.”

“Well, this is her computer,” Marianna blinked. “Uh, I could move aside. I’m pretty much done with all I can do.”

“Thanks,” Jared forced a smile and slid to the chair next to Marianna. He grabbed a cable and connected it to the computer. Marianna still sat there, waiting. He glanced over his shoulder at her, “Uh. What’re you still doing here? Don’t you have to get a head start to class?”

“Well, I have to shut down the computer after you.”

“I can do that, don’t worry.”

“It’s the rules that kids in the classes have to be the ones to—“

Jared felt himself growing more annoyed by this brat. He took a quiet, slow, deep breath. Just do what his dad did. Charming smile. Just do what his mom did. Butter up people.

He flashed his charming smile, and shrugged coolly at Marianna, “Aw, I admire you for trying to do the right thing. It’s rare to see, especially in freshmen. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders. But really, I’ve got this. I’m a junior. Don’t you think I’m experienced in this sort of stuff? I help Marcy all the time!” Jared saw Marianna blush when he smiled and complimented her. Perfect.

“W-well, I guess—“

The computer let out a quick beep to let Jared know the file was finished. A preview played of the video. Marianna glanced at it then gasped.

“Th-that’s Johnny changing!” She looked to Jared, now a glare on her face. “What are you doing?!” Jared smoothed his light brown hair and flashed another calm, cool smile.

“This isn’t what it looks like,” he chuckled. “I really am helping Marcy with something. Biggest story she’ll have in the paper.”

“Y-you’re going to out him,” Marianna looked disgusted and enraged at Jared. “Y-you’re awful! Some team captain you are! I’ll tell the teacher, everyone that you did this!”

Jared quickly swooped to Marianna, holding her back and kissing her deeply. Marianna’s face turned red. Jared slowly released the kiss and looked at her.

“There can be more of that,” he murmured, “if you don’t tell anyone about this.”

“But Marcy... sh-she’s your girlfriend,” Marianna began to argue, but was stopped as Jared held her hand.

“What she doesn’t know won’t kill her. Besides, she’s done the same thing. Just keep this all between us.”

“But—“

“What do you want, me? Any other boy? Cash? Popularity? Drugs? I can get you anything, Marianna. Any single thing.”

The bell for lunch rang. Marianna glanced up at the clock. Jared quickly ejected the camera and signed off of the computer.

He kissed Marianna’s cheek, whispering in her ear, “I’ll let you think about it.”

———

Another day went by, and Marianna didn’t say anything to Johnny about the article. She wasn’t sure how to. Besides, she would rather take care of it herself and not get him hurt or worry about it.

Then came the text.

[txt] hey mari. it’s jared. soooo marcy is out sick again n i can’t figure out how the fuck her newspaper software works. but she said u helped her figure it out so meet me after school b4 practice. xoxo

So, she did. And in one more attempt, she tried to convince him to do the right thing.

He didn’t.

Making her tell him what to do, he formatted and wrote the entire article himself. He saved it to the week’s edition of the school paper. Again, he kissed Marianna for her help and promised to pay her back with more than just kisses.

With the lab empty, Marianna felt her heart pound. This wasn’t right. But the article was already saved and it was going to be printed and seen by everyone that Friday. Tomorrow.

There wasn’t another article written to replace it, to get it deleted and off the paper.

Or was there?

Marianna looked through the newspaper, passing by the ads for the school dance that Saturday. She looked through the student images for the yearbook and grabbed hers. With shaking hands, she image searched for a flag with three colors.

She typed up the story as fast as she could, and replaced Johnny’s story with hers.

Jared would hate her. Make her life a living hell. What would Johnny think? Her dad? Both her parents, her family, the whole school when they found out?

She didn’t care. It was better than Johnny being exposed without his consent.

At least this was her choice.

The next day found Johnny walking into the freshman building, giving high fives, and flashing a smile to the boy who watched him weeks ago when he first made the team. His name was Harry. He was part of the drama club.

He was... kinda cute.

He turned his gaze away from him, and stopped dead in his tracks at what he saw next.

There, stood Marianna in the hallway, staring at her locker. Her hands were balled into fists. People were laughing at her. Johnny slowly walked over to her locker, and saw what happened.

All over the blue lockers, in bright red spray paint, were the words sprayed all over it. Dyke. Homo. Greedy bitch. Whore. Johnny looked at his friend’s face. It was red and she held back crying. Johnny whipped his head to the people laughing.

“Which one of you did this?!” He shouted so loud, it rattled the hall. The laughing stopped immediately. “Who?! You got no fuckin’ right to call her that shit, and I’m going to beat the ass of whoever did it!!” Marianna felt her hair stand on end and static crackle from the lockers.

“Does it really matter, Johnny?”

The young boy glared at Jared and his friends, including Marcy. Jared shrugged with a cocky, proud smile, “I mean, all that shit’s true. Didn’t you see the school paper? She’s a fuckin’ lesbian.”

“I’m not,” Marianna whispered, voice tight with tears. “I said I’m bi.”

“She’s a greedy little slut,” Marcy’s nasally voice whined. “Jared told me she made moves on him! Oh girls, watch out, or she’ll take your man! Or you! Kiss you when you don’t want, force you—!”

Johnny grabbed Marcy by the shoulders and slammed her into the lockers.

“Take that shit back right now,” Johnny growled. Marcy nervously pushed up her glasses, blonde curls bouncing as she tried to break free from Johnny’s grip.

“Whoa, you can’t hit a girl,” Jared peeled Johnny off of Marcy. “I mean... I guess for you, it doesn’t matter.”

“What the fuck are you talking about.”

“I mean, since you are a—“

“What is going on here?!” a teacher rushed to the scene. Harry was behind her. “Jared, Johnny, Marcy, and Marianna, to the principle’s office, now!” She looked to the students, “And all of you with those newspapers, throw them out! That’s an order from the vice principle!”

Johnny was used to this part. His dad driving in from work, begging for the principle to overlook his son’s aggressive tendencies. He’s a good kid, really, he does well, he means well, really, I swear.

This time, Marcy’s dad, Jared’s mom, and Marianna’s dad were joined in the meeting. It was easy to get Mr. Wilson since he worked there anyway.

“The school paper is not to be used for this sort of content,” the principle lectured. “Student’s identities is a private matter, and frankly, it’s a sensitive topic for a lot of students and parents. Now what I want to know is this: who published the article?”

“Wasn’t me,” Jared crossed his arms and relaxed. “I’m telling the truth.”

“I didn’t,” Marcy mumbled. “I was out sick.”

“You think I’m the kind of person to do that sh—“ Johnny glanced up at his dad. John shook his head. Johnny went into an annoyed silence, pressing his cheek against his hand, glaring away, annoyed.

“It was me,” Marianna whispered. “I... I outed myself.”

“While I’m glad this isn’t a matter of someone else publishing this,” the principle began, “this still is a misuse of the paper. Marianna, I’m going to have to suspend you from using those computers outside of your photography class and you’ll have to be monitored while you do it now. As for the locker situation,” and she cleared her throat, “who did that?” Silence fell. “Jared? Do you know who?”

“Probably Wyatt,” he shrugged. Johnny glared at him. The rat didn’t even try to protect his friends. “He’s bought spray paint before.”

“My son hangs out with the wrong kind of people,” Helen Morrison began, “but his father and I have been trying to work on that.”

“Mhm,” the principle looked with clear doubt on her face. “Then there’s the matter of Johnny’s threat and physical attack. Mr. Bosteau, I’ve talked to you plenty of times about Johnny already, and so has his middle and elementary school teachers. We’ve given him a lot of leeway, but if this continues, I’m going to have no choice but pull him from the baseball team, and suspend him. You’re lucky we haven’t done any of that already. And you’ll be lucky if he doesn’t get expelled.” John nodded and looked at his son with worry. Johnny sunk in his chair and glared at the floor, away from his father’s gaze.

“I demand some sort of punishment now for Johnny for attacking my daughter!” Marcy’s father frowned. “She could be bruised, and that bully did it.”

“If you want to accuse Johnny of bullying, I can accuse your daughter of the same thing,” the principle looked seriously at the father. “We have records of it since day one of her freshman year, all the way to now as a junior. Now what Johnny may have done wasn’t right, he was defending Marianna from her verbal attacks.”

“Is there anything else or do we have permission to leave?” Helen glanced at her phone. “I have things to attend to.”

“Of course, Mrs. Morrison,” the principle nodded. “One more thing to note: why this happened.” She pulled out the school newspaper and flipped to Marianna’s article. “If you haven’t read this to the end, you’ll not know why this was published. But here it is.” She cleared her throat and read from the page, “‘The reason I’m sharing this is for one reason and one reason only. Jared Morrison. He’s threatened to reveal secrets of one of my friends, he’s manipulated me and who knows how many others for this. To protect my friend, I’m doing this. I wasn’t ready to say I’m bisexual, but I had to be to protect them.’ Now, I don’t know about you, but the person who deserves the most punishment is Jared Morrison.”

“Whoa, this is a he-said, she-said thing now!” Jared shouted. Helen frowned at her son’s outburst.

“What were you going to do, Jared?”

“You can’t make me tell anything.”

“I can, and I will,” the principle folded her hands on her desk. “I’ll stay here until you say what was going on, and so will everyone else.” Helen placed her hand on Jared’s shoulder. John saw her clench it tightly.

“Johnny’s a girl,” Jared scoffed. “I was gonna prove it.” Johnny’s face dropped. It quickly turned back to rage, and John quickly grabbed his son’s shoulders to hold him back before he did anything.

“Jared, that is a private matter,” the principle scolded, “and he is not a girl. He is a young man, just as you are. For your involvement in this, you are no longer on the baseball team for this year.”

“What?! That’s not fair!! I was telling the truth!!”

“This school promotes tolerance and acceptance,” the principle sat straight and tall. “I will not allow this sort of bullying at Riverview High. Understand?”

Jared felt his face grow hot. He glared at Johnny, and Johnny glared back. John kept the hold of his son’s shoulders. With the principle dismissing the parents and children, Marianna gave her father a quick hug. He spoke to her gently for a moment, before releasing her. He saw her mom come into the office, taking her home for the day.

“I’m sorry all that happened to you, Johnny,” John held his son’s shoulder. Johnny shook his head.

“Nothing happened to me,” he murmured. “‘Cuz of Marianna.”

———

That Saturday, everyone knew Jared was kicked off the baseball team. Another boy, Brennan, a senior, was promoted to be the team captain. People congratulated him at the dance. Jared stood in the corner brooding.

Johnny walked around the gym, music and lights showing off for the back to school dance, and he looked around for her. For Marianna. He hadn’t talked to her since yesterday.

He spotted her leaning against the wall in the corner, talking to Harry. Johnny grabbed three sodas and walked over to them.

“Hey,” Johnny spoke up. Marianna blushed and gently played with a strand of her hair.

“Hey.”

“I, uh, brought some sodas. You guys want some?”

“Sure,” Harry piped up. Johnny smiled and handed him one. He held out another for Marianna. She shyly took it.

“Hey, uh,” Johnny looked at Harry, “you don’t mind if I borrow Marianna for a minute, yeah?”

“No problem,” Harry smiled shyly a Johnny. The taller looked at Marianna and nudged his head towards the dance floor.

“I’m sorry for everything that happened,” Johnny murmured. Marianna shook her head.

“I... asked for it when I published the paper,” she said. Johnny shook his head.

“No, you didn’t,” he spoke gently. “And, look, maybe some people at the school aren’t ready for people like us. But... there’s plenty of others who are. That Harry guy’s nice to you.”

“He’s... yeah,” Marianna gave a small smile and nodded. “He is. Well, part of it was because he knows what it’s like. He lived in a different town last year. Came out there and had the same problems. Lot more people were against him than were for him. But... he says people are a lot nicer here. I just got involved with really bad people I guess.”

“Hey,” Johnny smirked, “so did I. At least I had you to defend me.”

“I can say the same thing about you,” Marianna giggled. A slow song came on. Marianna looked shy, almost embarrassed as it came on. Johnny only shrugged and went ahead with placing his hands on Marianna’s hips. She slowly placed hers over his shoulders.

“But if I’m being real for a minute,” Johnny began, “you really didn’t have to do that. I could have handled it.”

“Even if you could have,” Marianna sighed, “you shouldn’t have. But... thanks.”

“Thanks to you, too,” Johnny smiled. “For, uh... I don’t wanna say keeping a secret, but keeping my stuff safe. At this point, though, I have a feeling Jared’s verbally blabbed about it.”

“I’m sorry,” Marianna murmured. Johnny shook his head.

“You know what?” he smirked. “I’ve never felt happier until I’ve started being the way I feel. There’s gonna be shit people who don’t like it, but guess what? I don’t give a fuck.” Marianna laughed.

“I wish I had that confidence,” she said. Johnny shrugged.

“Best way to get that kind of confidence is to just go in, full throttle.” Marianna felt her face flush. “I mean, that’s just me.”

“I think you’re right,” Marianna slowly nodded. She glanced at a girl standing in the corner, a wallflower.

“Can I ask you something, though?” Johnny asked. Marianna nodded. “You... do you have a thing for me?” Marianna held back a snort.

“Don’t get a bigger ego than you have,” she giggled. Johnny rolled his eyes with a smirk. “Okay, okay, here’s the truth. I did, for a while. I liked you a lot. Before you came out, too. But... I realized I was more into the friendship than being a couple. Especially when I picked up that you were eyeing somebody else. And, uh, I was, too.”

“You’re into Lily, huh?”

“You’re eyeing Harry, aren’t you?”

The two friends laughed.

“Let’s be real with ourselves,” Johnny smiled. “Alright?” Marianna grinned.

“Alright,” she said. “And then we tell each other how it went.” Johnny nodded. The two left each other in the middle of the song. Johnny crossed back to Harry and held out a hand to him. Marianna shyly approached Lily and asked her to dance.

Jared glared at the couples on the floor, and some people whispered to each other. But others smiled. Johnny’s words were right. Some people wouldn’t like them. Some people would.

But what mattered was their own happiness.

#Beth writing #Johnny Bosteau #Marianna Wilson #Jared Morrison #welcome to Riverview #ask bloge

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