#admittedly there will probably be at least one more page added before I wake up tomorrow but oh well | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

e-milieeee · 4 years

Text

four ways to say i love you

Summary: It’s the little things—such as waking up at five in the morning to cook for him or lending her a coat when she’s cold—that mean the world.

Because Marinette loves her partner very, very much, and she’s so lucky that he feels the same.

Notes: I was initially going to do one side of the lovesquare, but all sides are equal and therefore have all four sides in this oneshot :) Post reveal, established relationship. A commissioned piece for @mlbforblm—there’s plenty of talented artists and writers who still have slots, so make sure to commission!

Or read on AO3

Adrien is brushing his teeth when Ladybug comes crashing through his window.

He’s a little later than usual today, still decked in his Ladybug pajamas that he’s so unashamedly proud of. He has tied his bangs back with an elastic band, and it sits like a little tree on top of his head, water still dripping from his face.

“And here I was, thinking you’d be ready to eat breakfast,” she tsks playfully.

He grins back. “Sorry, M’lady. Plagg turned my alarm off.”

His smile is, as usual, contagious and in a way that can’t help but to smile back. Ladybug returns to his room and takes out the box from her bag, where she’d painstakingly prepared breakfast for him at the expense of a shattered bowl and spilled jug of milk. It’s still warm to the touch, thankfully, and her slightly rough landing in his room hadn’t messed it up too much.

Adrien joins her a couple minutes later. He has taken the hair tie out, but his bangs fall softly over his eyes like it does when he’s Chat Noir, and Ladybug wants to run her hands over it so to feel just how soft it is. She refrains herself, though, as they both settle cross-legged on the ground where she has laid their breakfast out.

His mouth drops open. “Wow,” Adrien marvels. “When you said you were going to make a feast, I thought you’d fry an egg or two and slap it between some bread and that would’ve been it. This is… can you describe food as gorgeous? Because this is gorgeous.”

“Just because that’s the only thing you can cook doesn’t mean it’s all I’m capable of,” she sniffs, but underneath, Ladybug preens at the compliment.

It’d taken a lot of effort, and Ladybug had collected the ingredients the day before and planned every single detail before going to bed. Then, at five in the morning, she dragged herself out of bed looking and feeling like a zombie just to prepare it.

There are four egg rolls drizzled with homemade sauce, then sprinkled with dried seaweed and sesame. Next to that are neat cuts of green onion cake, made from absolute scratch (she burned herself in the process of deep-frying them). Inside the longest container are fried fish, the ones her mother had prepared the night before. Finally, the leftover mooncakes from the Lunar Festival are in the little box, tied with a red bow. Marinette had spent careful care on that one.

“Miso soup,” Ladybug tells him as she hands him the thermos. “Uh… I think I added too much paste and it’s too salty, so you might not want to drink that one. And…” She opens the last box, where a variety of fresh-cut fruit awaits. “For health reasons, there are fruits. Oh! Also a cheese platter for Plagg, but he’s still asleep, so he can have it later.”

Adrien is positively beaming when she unpacks everything. “You’re the absolute best,” he gushes.

“Couldn’t have you starving on your diet, right?” The nonchalant act can only go so far when she’s grinning so wide. “I’m just hoping it tastes as good as it looks.”

“It’ll taste good just because you made it.” He throws her an exaggerated wink, then immediately reaches for his chopsticks to dig in.

Ladybug watches him take a bite out of green onion cake. He chews, swallows, eyes lighting up. “This is amazing, and I promise I’m not just saying that because my diet’s forced me to eat boiled chicken breasts with no seasoning of the past week.”

She giggles. “Just let me know when you want me to bring you breakfast.”

He places a hand on his chest. “I can’t believe Ladybug’s my personal delivery girl. Do you offer lunch services as well?”

“Only for you, kitty.”

His grin is worth getting up for at 5am.

***

Marinette is freezing at lunch break, but they’ve agreed to eat outside, so she sucks it up. At least the lunch she’d packed for her and Adrien is warm.

It’s late autumn now, and the last couple of leaves cling to otherwise bare trees. She regrets the outfit she picked—cute, but not practical. Especially not in this weather. Looking at Alya bundled up in a hoodie and combat boots, Marinette really regrets the dress.

The noodles in the thermoses are slightly soggy, but the flavour is still there. They chat for a while—about upcoming tests, about projects and the end-of-the-year field trip that is still months away, and everything is lovely. Lovely, but cold.

Halfway through, her noodles emptied, Adrien notices her shivering. “Are you cold?” he asks, eyes growing wide in concern.

Alya halts her conversation with Nino as well. “Wait, Adrien’s right, you’re wearing a dress. I’m chilly and I have a sweater on.”

Marinette, who has refrained from speaking for the past couple of minutes in fear of her teeth chattering too loudly, manages to shake her head.

She gets a scrutinizing look-over by Adrien before he makes his verdict. “This isn’t going to do,” he declares firmly. Then, with one fluid movement, he shrugs his own sweater off and drapes it over her shoulders.

“Oh, he’s smooth,” Alya remarks with a wicked grin.

Smooth, indeed. The jacket is wonderfully warm, and, with a content sigh, Marinette slides her arms through the sleeves. There’s also the faint smell of his cologne and it’s so very him that she can’t help the smile that crosses her face.

He opens an arm in a beckoning gesture and Marinette happily settles into his embrace.

***

Because of his father’s strict rules, it’s much easier for Adrien to come by as Chat Noir after school, which he does almost everyday. Sometimes it’s between his schedules, sometimes it’s after, late into the night when both his father and Nathalie believe he’s asleep. Marinette always listens for the thump on the skylight, an indication that he’s there. The trap door is always left unlocked for him, so she only needs to wait as he climbs down the ladder.

It’s nearing nine when he comes this time. She sits at her desk finishing up the rest of the notes when the door creaks open and Chat Noir climbs down.

“Evening,” he greets. “What—ooh, you brought croissants for me.”

He zeroes in immediately on the food that Marinette had, admittedly, prepared for him. Between Adrien’s schedule and that godawful diet his father insisted putting him on and his time sprinting across rooftops and fighting akumas, it’s a miracle that he hasn’t fainted from lack of nutrition. Marinette has made it her personal goal to make sure he’s properly fed, and she ensures there’s a snack waiting for him every time he drops by.

Half a minute later, he’s munching enthusiastically on the food and Marinette can no longer focus on the rest of her notes. She sorts them out—there’s at least four pages that she’d copied in her neatest handwriting—and then hands them to Chat.

“Here,” she tells him. “You missed both physics and mathematics today because of the photoshoot, so I copied the notes from class and re-organized them. I also added a review section from last class so it’s easier to figure out just where we are since the two lessons are connected. And…” She shuffles through her desk once more, producing the textbook. “It’s on page one hundred and twenty seven to one hundred and twenty nine, if my notes don’t make sense. You can study here, if you’d like. My parents won’t be coming back up anyway, so we should be left alone for now.”

The last time her mother had walked in on her and Chat doing homework together, she’d been understanding. Understanding, but skeptical. It had been awfully hard to explain why Paris’ superhero was lounging in her room like he lived there—and much harder more awkward to explain that Adrien was one hundred supportive of her friendship with Chat after her father had become defensive that he had ulterior motives.

Chat takes the papers from her. “You’re absolutely unbelievable,” he tells her, eyes shining in a way only his can. “Seriously, Marinette, have I ever told you?”

She pretends to count on her fingers. “Let’s see… only about six times today. Why? He shakes his head, a grin pulling at the corner of his lips. In one fluid movement, he leans down to pluck the textbook from her hands and plants a quick kiss against her cheek in the process. “What would I do without you?”

“Go hungry, probably? Start lagging behind in all of your classes?” Marinette tsks at him. “God, you’re right. What would you do without me?”

Chat’s laugh is wonderful and full and happy. “Then aren’t I lucky to have you.”

***

The akuma strikes at midnight.

Marinette, about to change into her pajamas after just sending off Chat Noir, curses to herself. She’s tired and not in the mood to transform, but when Chat comes crashing back down from the skylight urgently, she knows she has no choice.

“Akuma!” he informs her, as if the tremors outside could be caused by anything else. “It’s close to here. We should be able to take this one quickly.”

“Why is Hawkmoth even awake?” Marinette grumbles, but transforms nonetheless. Chat waits patiently on the side, though he’s drawn taut, prepared to scramble into action the moment she’s ready. Then they’re climbing out of the skylight, into the light, where the akuma has begun its rampage. The once-quiet night is ripped apart with panic and terror.

The akuma is relatively easy to deal with: a little girl, apparently inspired by Frozen, is decked in full Elsa, wielding similar powers. She covers the streets in ice, a snowstorm whirling around her, as spirals of icy sculptures rise and fall.

Both she and Chat have icicles hanging off them by the time Ladybug purifies the akuma. Even after she releases the Miraculous Ladybug, the cold from the girl’s powers haven’t seeped out of her bones. Judging from Chat’s chattering teeth, he feels the same.

Despite her watch reading 12:32 and the next day hailing as a school day , they stop by at a 24-hour-cafe for hot chocolate. A couple minutes later, seated on the rooftops warming their chilled hands, they’re huddled against each other and staring out at the gleaming cityscape.

“Another successful take-down, m’lady?”

Ladybug laughs as he raises his cup for a toast, and she obliges and bumps her own against him. Hot chocolate sloshes over the lid, splashing onto her suit. She flicks it off. “What a team we make, huh? Now, if only Hawkmoth would get the memo and stop creating his akumas so late. Why is he even up now? Say, do you think he has a life outside of being Hawkmoth?”

“He probably wants to catch us off guard in the middle of the night. Remember that one time we got woken up at three because there was an akuma attack? Plagg wanted to tape my mouth shut so I couldn’t transform.”

Ladybug groans. “I did really bad on a test the next day because I got three and a half hours of sleep—I fell asleep halfway through the test! It’s— ugh. He’s so annoying.”

“There’s one good thing about midnight akumas, though,” Chat points out.

She takes a sip from the hot chocolate, which, during their conversation, has cooled down to just below scalding. “A good thing?” Ladybug echoes. “Name one good thing, chaton.”

He nudges her shoulder. “You, m’lady. It’s nice just being alone like this without anyone else, right?”

Then, like he’s said nothing out of the ordinary, Chat goes back to drinking his hot chocolate with infuriating nonchalance.

Ladybug finds herself smiling. “You know,” she tells Chat Noir. “You’re ridiculously good at this. Where do you even get the inspiration to say these things?”

“You.”

“You are completely overdoing it.”

“You love me, admit that.”

“No.”

“So you would get up at five in the morning to make breakfast for just anyone, Bugaboo?”

Ladybug relents. “Okay, maybe a little.”

Chat Noir’s laugh rings crystal clear throughout the night, loud against the crisp air. Ladybug wants to trap that laugh and hold it close to herself. She can’t help but treasure it, after all: it’s a sound that chases away worries, soothes fears, and she thinks she's so, so lucky to hear it everyday.

“I love you,” he tells her when his laughter dies down. “Don’t forget that, m’lady.”

Ladybug leans her head on her shoulder. “I love you too,” she replies quietly. “You better not forget it, either.”

Notes: Here’s my fics masterlist!

#miraculous ladybug #ladybug #chat noir #adrien agreste #marinette #marichat #ladrien #ladynoir #adrinette #fluff #post reveal #established relationship #mlbforblm #my writing #mlb fic

288 notes · View notes

lov3nerdstuff · 4 years

Text

Voluptas Noctis Aeternae {Part 5.3}

*Severus Snape x OC*

Summary: It is the year 1983 when the ordinary life of Robin Mitchell takes a drastic turn: she is accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Despite the struggles of being a muggle-born in Slytherin, she soon discovers her passion for Potions, and even manages the impossible: gaining the favor of Severus Snape. Throughout the years, Robin finds that the not quite so ordinary Potions Professor goes from being a brooding stranger to being more than she had ever deemed possible. An ally, a mentor, a friend... and eventually, the person she loves the most. Through adventure, prophecies and the little struggles of daily life in a castle full of mysteries, Robin chooses a path for herself, an unlikely friendship blossoms into something more, and two people abandoned by the world can finally find a home.

General warnings: professor x student, blood, violence, trauma, neglectful families, bullying, cursing

Words: 4.8k

Read Part 1.1 here! All Parts can be found on the Masterlist!

______________________________

Robin woke up to her alarm the next morning, bright and early as usual. Or so she thought, at least, until she saw the brightly grinning faces of her two roommates right above her. With a groan, she closed her eyes for another second.

"What time is it?" She managed to mumble into her pillow, and finally blinked up at the two girls who had now taken residence on the far end of her bed.

"Six thirty." Cas replied happily, and Robin groaned again.

"You've officially stolen half an hour of my sleep." She sighed as she turned onto her back and then sat up with a very much tired face and an even more tired mind. "Half an hour might not sound like a lot to you, but it is when one's up with Snape all night." The two girls merely giggled at Robin's admittedly thoughtless statement, and thus made her groan again as she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. "You know perfectly well what I mean! Working until god knows when is bloody exhausting…"

When her mind finally was somewhere near awake and her eyes also able to actually see beyond a blurry sheen, she noticed that both girls were still sitting at the end of her bed with grinning faces. "What's even going on that you actually dare to wake me up?"

Both girls exchanged a mysterious look, then Jorien placed a small, neatly wrapped present in Robin's lap. "Happy birthday!!!" Cas said at the same time and both girls started grinning again like they had won the lottery.

For a moment, Robin felt shocked, then confused, and finally very much overwhelmed. "It's… it's the twentieth already?"

"Obviously." Jorien shrugged with a smile, and Robin was determined that the girl had picked up that habit from her and not from Snape. It might still originate from him, but she took too much pride in being a role model to blame it all on him.

"Wow…" Robin finally breathed with a smile, looking first at the present, then at the two girls. "Thank you, both of you. It's been quite a while since anyone has congratulated me on my birthday."

"What?!" Cas replied immediately, with a deep frown on her face. "You mean besides your family and friends, right?"

"No, I mean in general." Robin shrugged, but her smile stayed. This was actually making her happier than she had expected, and there was nothing that could take that from her now. "My parents don't celebrate birthdays, and I don't have any other family or friends who would have thought of it."

"That's cruel of them." Jorien said quietly and her smile turned into a smaller, sadder one. "I'm very sorry that they don't appreciate you like we do. Because we really do. Appreciate you, I mean. As a roommate, and a tutor and a friend."

"Yeah, I absolutely agree!" Cas added with an almost exasperated face. "Does that mean you also didn't get any presents in the last years?!"

Jorien rolled her eyes at her friend and shoved her to the side, which made Robin chuckle. They were so different in the way they were similar and yet they were best friends. It was truly admirable.

"No, I haven't gotten a present in a while." Robin admitted, and immediately had to think of the piece of the book page Snape had given to her a few Christmases ago. It hadn't really been a present, but she still carried it in her locket and treated it as such. She wouldn't tell her roommates that though. "But I'm very excited to see what you have gotten me. May I open it, or do you want me to wait?"

"Open it up already! I wanna see if you like it." Cas grinned immediately and both girls watched attentively as Robin untied the green bow and unwrapped the paper to reveal a small box. Gosh, she hadn't unwrapped a present in ages… the excitement of it was actually quite delightful.

"You've gotten me a box?" Robin teased them with a feigned frown, and both girls rolled their eyes as they laughed nonetheless. With an equally excited smile, Robin opened the lid and her gaze fell onto a seemingly tangled pile of different materials. Upon a closer inspection, she discovered that it actually was three bracelets which she picked up out of the box one by one. The first was made of dark green and black fabric, like a friendship bracelet, but with a more intricate pattern.

"I made it myself. We thought that black and green are the house colors, but you also wear them a lot, so… you must like them too." Cas grinned happily a second later, giving an explanation for the piece.

"It's perfect. Thank you." Robin replied and tied it around her wrist with a smile.

The second bracelet she went to inspect was made out of black string as well, but it wasn't knotted and instead held together tiny, round shells in a row.

"I… made that one." Jorien said once Robin went to put it on as well. "The shells come from the black lake. They're the smallest ones Professor Sprout could think of that I could gather without going for a dive."

"That's amazing, I cannot believe you guys went through so much effort just for me." Robin smiled at both of them in as much gratitude as she could consciously come up with, but she also still felt quite overwhelmed. If it wasn't for her wish to let the girls know just how thankful she felt for their present, she probably just would've shut off her outside display of emotions entirely to focus on the joy on the inside. It was an odd situation to be given a present like that after all, especially one that actually had thought in it.

"You haven't looked at the third one yet!" Cas smirked mischievously, and that sufficed to make Robin smile in all honesty despite the overflow of emotions already running through her brain.

The third bracelet in the box wasn't self-made like the other two, but consisted of a rather sturdy chain with something that upon first sight looked like a metal coin in the middle. Yet, once Robin took the piece of jewelry out of the box, she realized that it wasn't actually a coin, but an ornamented emblem. The very same one as on her locket, and obviously just as ancient. Robin's lips parted as she stared at the delicate piece of jewelry in her hand, then at the two girls on her bed.

"Where did you find this? How?" She asked in surprise, and a hint of wonder. "I mean… I didn't even know you knew of my locket."

"What locket?" Cas asked in mild confusion that immediately got Robin to frown as well. Jorien however shoved Cas in the side once more and gave her a pointed glare.

"This locket." Robin pulled her necklace over her Queen t-shirt, and both girls leaned forward to take a look at it. "You didn't even know I had this?"

"Uh…" Cas gave Jorien an insecure look, who rolled her eyes in return but mentioned for her friend to just go ahead already, which the blond girl did in an instant. "No, we uh… we actually didn't know that you had a locket with the same emblem."

"Either this is the biggest coincidence in the history of coincidences then, or you're not telling me everything." Robin gave them a pointed look, but it was accompanied by a smile. They hadn't done anything wrong after all, but she knew that they weren't telling her the whole story. And Robin was desperately curious.

"You see, this-..." Cas started, but she didn't get far at all.

"We're not supposed to tell her!" Jorien sighed even though she seemed rather unhappy about it herself.

"It's her birthday, I don't care that we're not supposed to tell her!" Cas complained and rolled her eyes at her friend. "With whom does your loyalty lie?!"

"With Robin, obviously!" Jorien frowned in return, and sighed. "Alright… do tell her then."

"I am listening." Robin replied in amusement, and went to clasp the third bracelet around her wrist as well. She had never been one to wear a lot of jewelry, but she had the feeling that she would keep wearing these three pieces just like she had done with the locket. They all were meaningful, even if she still had to unveil the meaning of this last band.

"As I was saying, this third bracelet just… appeared one day. I mean, Jorien found it on her bed a few weeks ago, wrapped in a piece of parchment with a note on it." Cas shrugged. "We have no idea who it's from; we've been trying to guess for weeks now, but with no result. It must've been one of the Slytherins though, if they got in here."

"That's interesting indeed… What made you decide to give it to me instead of keeping it for yourself?" Robin inquired and placed the now empty box and the wrapping paper on her nightstand to cross her legs under the covers like the two others did on top.

"The note was very precise about it being for you and for nobody else." Jorien replied with an equally clueless look. "It actually was what made us aware of when your birthday is in the first place."

"Ah, I was wondering how you knew that it was today anyway. I can't remember telling you about it." Robin smiled. "Do you still have the note? Maybe I can shed some light on your mystery."

Cas jumped off the bed immediately, even before Jorien could, and dug through the drawer of the nightstand next to the only empty bed. It had turned into somewhat of a common ground, but more so for the two younger girls than for Robin. She was quite content with the space she had to herself. Half a minute later, Cas returned and dropped down on the bed again, causing the mattress to bounce up and down while she handed Robin the note.

"Well, let's see…" She mused, and unfolded the paper with a very prominent idea about its origin in mind already that she only hoped to confirm now. And she could, without any doubt, as her eyes scanned the uncharacteristically neat but still very much familiar scrawled handwriting. Her lips curled into the widest smile as she read.

Robin's birthday is on the 20th of October. Make sure that she feels cared for on this day, you certainly will agree with me that she deserves that much at the very least. Ensure that she receives the object accompanying this note, it is meant for her alone. Please do not tell her about my involvement, it isn't of importance.

That was all it said. Robin looked up from the note towards her roommates, who were now looking both hopeful and a little nervous. Her smile dimmed down at their mixed expressions. "Why are you two looking so worried?"

"I don't want you to feel less appreciated just because someone else told us they care for you too and want you to have a nice day." Jorien shrugged, and Cas nodded. "We didn't give you a present because we felt like we had to, but because we honestly do care for you a lot! You know that, right?"

"Of course I know!" Robin smiled at them encouragingly, and hopefully somewhat reassuringly too. "And I'm very grateful for the gesture, VERY happy about your amazing present and I do feel very much cared for. This already is the best birthday ever, thanks to my three favorite people."

"Even though our presents can't keep up with the fancy one?" Cas asked with a doubtful frown, and Robin wanted to sigh at their worry. If only they could understand how much she appreciated them indeed, not for their presents but for their effort.

"They all hold a different meaning to me, but I adore all three of them just the same." She replied truthfully. "You know I never lie, so you might as well believe me."

"True…" Cas' frown turned into a small smile. "And after all, they actually look pretty great together!"

Robin looked at her newly decorated wrist and smiled as she traced each of her three gifts with her fingers. "I have to agree, they do fit together rather lovely."

"I'm really glad you think so, Jorien was being very annoying about it all fitting together." Cas teased, and earned herself another shove from her friend and a chuckle from Robin.

"So, do you have any idea who the note and the bracelet might be from?" Jorien asked while Cas still tried to shove her back, but seeing as she failed to do so she also chose to listen instead.

"I believe I know who they are from indeed." The wide smile returned to Robin's face, and the flutter to her heart.

"And?!" Both girls asked at once, while their curiosity was tangible in the entire room.

"It's from my best friend." Robin's smile turned into a sheepish grin, which she directed down at her hands in her lap though. Saying this felt both very much right and yet wrong at the same time. He was her best friend, undeniably and undoubtedly, but also the person she had been crushing on for well over a year now. If crushing even was still the appropriate term for it. And to him, she was neither of that. Which was absolutely fine, really, she wasn't complaining, not even to herself. It just made her feel a little bit weird to consider someone her best friend who maybe, if she was lucky, barely even considered her bearable in return at all. Not nearly weird enough to let it tone down her smile however.

"And… your best friend couldn't just give you a birthday present in person?" Cas inquired in her usual doubtful tone, giving Robin a questioning look along with it.

"Not this one, no." Robin chuckled. "His present isn't that bracelet, that's another issue entirely. It's getting you two idiots to make my birthday the happiest in years."

"Hey!" Cas protested with a laugh. "We're not idiots!"

"To him, pretty much everyone is an idiot." Robin shrugged with a smirk. "Even me."

"Sounds like he would get along really well with Professor Snape."

Robin couldn't help laughing at that. "Actually, I believe they don't like each other all that much." That was only true, really. The many faces of that man didn't always go hand in hand with each other, and Robin had seen them in conflict often enough. Over time it had gotten significantly less frequent however, especially around her, and especially when they were alone.

"Well, let's do what your friend wants us to do then!" Jorien declared, and finally shoved Cas off the bed entirely, with a smirk on her face. "Let's make your birthday the happiest in years."

… … …

Instead of going to the great hall for breakfast as always, Jorien and Cas led Robin to the kitchens with those same mischievous smiles that made Robin shake her head but follow them anyway. As it seemed, Robin enjoyed an impeccable reputation among the house elves ever since she had given Buttercup the Twirl and the 'order' to share it with her fellows, and thus the kitchen staff had been more than happy to comply to the two young girls' request to make Robin a special breakfast for the occasion. She ate by herself though, as Cas and Jorien wanted her to enjoy her alone time before the school day and retreated to the great hall themselves, leaving Robin sitting at a small table in the kitchens. In all honesty, Robin dearly appreciated eating without a couple hundred people in a noisy hall for once, and made sure the girls knew that she was very thankful for the lovely morning before she was left alone at last.

The day of classes went by like any other from that point on: her housemates as well as most of her classmates ignored her, the professors on the other hand were as usual very nice (with the exception of Professor Morgan, who had been trying to find reasons to mock or scold Robin throughout the entire last year already and obviously continued to do so this term as well) and Robin hurried even more to finish all homework and assignments before the evening. She wanted to focus on getting the Plangentine tonight, hopefully while Snape was still doing his paperwork, so that they could maybe get started on the potion tonight already instead of tomorrow. It really was a happy birthday she was having, and from time to time throughout the day she peered down at the three bracelets around her wrist and smiled to herself with a soaring heart and the knowledge that at least three people in this world cared about her. In some way or the other. That was the best present she had ever received, immaterial and invaluable.

The next surprise of the day came shortly before dinner. It was still a little while until the meal would actually be served, but Robin had arrived early to do some homework beforehand, and thus she found herself sitting at the very end of the Slytherin table when she heard a not so quiet 'psst' from the head table, followed by Hagrid waving her over once she looked up.

With a half smile and a frown, Robin left her things at her own table and walked up to the head table rather awkwardly. A few professors were there already, others still absent, but it made Robin feel a little weird to walk up front like this, even if Hagrid wasn't a professor, technically. Quickly, Robin moved around to the side of the table where he was sitting, so that at least she didn't have to stand in between the head table and the students' tables in the open space but rather between the teachers' chairs and the large window.

"Ey! 'appy birthday to ya, Robin!" Hagrid cheered once she stood in front of him, and Robin let out a quiet laugh in return as he wrapped her into a bear hug. Hugs were a rare thing, and she appreciated them whenever she could.

"Thank you, that's very kind of you." She replied with a happy smile and just a subtle heat creeping up her neck once she was released from his grasp. She could only guess how he had come to know about her birthday…

"Couldn't very well forget me best helper I ever had, eh?" He grinned, and pulled a large black feather out of the depths of his heavy coat. "Got somethin' for ya… Isn't the prettiest thing, a feather of a hippogriff, but the most ridiculous prices on the black market these things have! Must be good for somethin' then, I guess… You will know what to do with it, with all ya book smarts."

Robin carefully took the large feather out of his equally large hand, and brushed over the delicate object with gentle fingers in a moment of awe. "Wow, this is absolutely amazing. Thank you! These are hard to come by, because almost no hippogriff wants to part from them willingly and they only lose them very rarely… But they have a very wide range of uses indeed! It's a very valuable gift, are you certain you want me to have it?"

"Aye! Got me an entire box of these, hardly ever had much use for them though… Don't tell anyone I said that, will ya?" He gave Robin one of those funny regretful expressions, and she had to chuckle at the sight.

"I won't tell anyone about your stash, I promise." She replied with a wide smile, and held the feather to her chest in a protective gesture. It would soon join her other precious items inside her locket.

"Ah, Miss Mitchell!" Now it was Professor Sprout's voice that made Robin turn around, just as the herbology professor came walking over to take the seat next to the gamekeeper. "Happy birthday, I hope you had a pleasant day, dear."

"Thank you, professor. I had a lovely day, actually." Robin replied with a smile, and moved out of the way so the woman could take her seat. Honestly, who else knew that it was her birthday?! Throughout the day, neither Flitwick nor Trelawney nor Morgan had known, or simply not cared, and the students obviously shared either of those sentiments as well. Maybe she should just ask them? Would it be rude? But then again… both persons in front of her already knew that she was direct sometimes.

"If I may ask, how come you two are even aware that it's my birthday?" She asked curiously, keeping her tone polite and respectful though.

Hagrid nodded his head towards the herbology professor with a smile directed at Robin, and she understood where his information had come from. That still left her wondering how Professor Sprout had learned of it though.

"I believe Professor Dumbledore himself mentioned it to me this morning." The woman shrugged with a smile, and then frowned at Robin. "Usually I notice things like this when students talk about it in class… However I believe I wasn't aware of your birthday before today."

"My birthday wasn't an actual event until today." Robin shrugged as well, and realized that her statement probably didn't make all too much sense to them without context, but she also didn't feel like providing any. "Anyway, I'm very happy that you two thought of me. It really means a lot. But perhaps I better get back to my table, I wouldn't want to bother you. And dinner should start any moment now."

With another few polite words, Robin said goodbye to Sprout and Hagrid, wishing them a nice evening, and then made her way back towards her own place. Just as she rounded the side of the head table however, the small side door flew open and Robin almost ran into the headmaster himself.

"Oh, my apologies, sir!" She brought out immediately, the surprise making her voice a bit more shallow than normal. "I… should've looked where I'm going."

"All is well, Miss Mitchell." He smiled that small, kind smile again and Robin couldn't help wondering if it was honest or not. If it was a facade, it was a brilliant one. "I see you received a new feather for your birthday, yes?"

Oh bloody hell, he knew too?! Right. Sprout had said he'd told her in the first place. "Yes, Hagrid was very gracious and gifted me the feather of a hippogriff. It's not a feather for writing, but… you probably knew that already. Sorry."

"If you allow me the question, what do you plan to do with it? I'm curious."

"I will store it where I keep all things of value to me, until the time comes when I need it. Hidden away in a locket." She replied honestly, and wondered where this was going. It didn't sound like mere curiosity to her.

"A feather in a locket?" The old man raised his eyebrows at Robin in genuine interest, which made her wonder even more what the actual intention behind his questioning was.

Unlike the last time she had meant to show someone the piece of jewelry, which she still had a very vivid memory of, she actually unclasped the necklace first and then held it out to the professor in front of her. "It's charmed. There's a lot of space in there, and it's the safest place I know."

Dumbledore took the piece of jewelry out of her hand, but his gaze also flickered to the bracelets on her wrist for a broken second before returning to the locket. After a moment of carefully studying the object, he returned it to Robin with a smile. "A beautiful piece. But you see, I wasn't quite frank with you in my questions' intention."

"I realized." She replied rather flatly before she could stop herself, but also refused to apologise.

"Did you? I should have known." His smile changed into a slightly more honest one. "I see you also possess the bracelet to match."

"It was gifted to me today, but I've had the locket for far longer."

"Ever since… Professor Snape came to me with the request to remove the bracelet from the room of hidden things, I have been wondering why he had an interest in taking it. I assume he knew you possessed the matching piece, then?"

"I wear it every day, it's no secret, really." Robin shrugged, and tried to push the images of Snape and herself in the close proximity of him inspecting the emblem on her locket back in the room of hidden things out of her mind. "May I ask, why did he come to you before removing something from the room though?"

"The objects in the room of hidden things are, ultimately, school property. As such, it is for the headmaster to decide whether they may change hands if their provenance can no longer be ascertained."

"Interesting." Robin mused and frowned to herself for a moment. "So you cannot determine who the owner of the bracelet is?"

"I could not, which is why I left it to Severus. And seeing as he gave it to you, that would make you the rightful owner now." Dumbledore smiled again so very mildly, but his eyes were almost uncomfortably probing. He obviously didn't understand.

"You might be interested to know that… Professor Snape didn't actually give it to me as a gift, but rather ensured that I received it without being aware of his involvement." Robin stated then, in an attempt to make this entire thing sound more appropriate than it probably looked. She didn't want Snape to get into trouble… especially not for something that nobody but them could possibly understand correctly. "Most likely seems that he was merely trying to assist my roommates in finding a present for me, seeing as they couldn't acquire one elsewhere." That would have been a straight out lie, had it been phrased any differently. But it really did seem most likely, even if Robin knew that it wasn't the truth.

"I must admit I was under the impression that Severus had given it to you as a gift indeed." Dumbledore mused as he frowned to himself, and Robin felt the heat rising to her face at his disappointed tone. In the end, Snape had given it to her as a gift, even if indirectly… even if he didn't want her to know, and even if she didn't want anyone else to know in return.

Before Robin could give a reply she was yet to think of anyway, the door behind Dumbledore was opened once again, and the very man in question almost ran into the headmaster's back. With an irritated scowl, Snape moved around them though, and his frown only deepened when he saw Robin as well.

"Ah, Severus, just in time for dinner!" Dumbledore smiled at him like he had smiled at Robin moments before, and every trace of his previous frown or surprise was gone for good. His facades really were impeccable. "I was just wishing Miss Mitchell the happiest of birthdays, actually. You are aware that it's her birthday today, aren't you, Severus?"

"Yes." Snape replied tersely, and Robin couldn't help wondering why Dumbledore was messing with him like this now. Were these two something like friends? Or did he have another motive? Oh well… who could fathom what the headmaster was up to at any point anyway?

"I, uh… I better sit back down for dinner now." Robin stated a little awkwardly, clasping the locket in one hand and the feather in the other. "If you would excuse me, headmaster…" She gave a courteous little nod to Dumbledore, then turned to Snape with an attempt at a half smile. "I'll see you after dinner?"

"Obviously."

Without spending another second in this awkward situation, Robin skipped down the few steps in front of the head table and sat back down where her things had been pushed together by some other students who had taken their places by now. Geez, that had been surprisingly uncomfortable; Snape wasn't an issue she wanted to discuss with anyone at all, and especially not with Professor Dumbledore. Even if he had reacted surprisingly bemused by the entire ordeal. Robin shook her head to herself as she put the feather into the locket at last, then tied it back around her neck just as dinner was served.

______________________________

Tags:

@ayamenimthiriel @chibi-lioness @t-sunnyside @alex4555 @purpledragonturtles

General Tags:

@its-remy-not-ratatouille @wegingerangelica @dreary-skies-stuff @wiczer @lotus-eyedindiangoddess @theweirdlunatic @caretheunicorn @kthemarsian @lady-of-lies @strawberrysandcream @noplacelikehome77 @theoneanna @mishaandthebrits @i-am-a-mes @nonsensicalobsessions @exygon @hiddles-lobotomy @rjohnson1280 @annwhojumps @spookycatqueen @salempoe @headoverhiddleston @fanfiction-and-stress @createdfromblue @halszka-potter @thecreatiivecorner @themusingsofmany @kinghiddlestonanddixon @scorpionchild81 @crystal-28 @adefectivedetective @lokis-girl-in-mischief @booklover2929 @iamverity @lovesmesomehiddles @akk4rin @whitewolfandthefox @stuckupstucky @kassablanca13 @delightfulheartdream

64 notes · View notes

lokidiabolus · 3 years

Text

Last Resort - Chapter 2

Fandom: The Maze Runner

Pairing: Thomas x Newt

Warnings: ex boyfriends, AU

Summary: Three years after breaking up with Thomas, Newt finally thought the past of hating each other was behind them, until Thomas asked him for a favour - pretend they got back together for a week while staying at his parents’ home. Because it was an absolutely dumb idea, Newt was inclined to refuse, but then found himself in the house he used to visit when he was in love and happy and the bitter reality of only pretending for people he always liked made him miserable. But it was nothing against dealing with Thomas himself for a week straight and trying not to fall back in love that hurt them both.

Or: Prompt ch. 192 with added spice. Or something. I just needed to write for a while :’)

Can be found on Ao3.

Notes: I think I never did so much rewriting like I did with this chapter. I'm still not satisfied with it, but I swear my brain just can't come up with anything else. Scrapped like 6 pages asdfjslfjslfjsdl. Now it's short :c

Anyway, guess I just wanted a bit of Thomas' insight for it. He's complicated lol. Or maybe not really, just trying to keep up. Don't we all though lol.

Oh and @izzymultifan (actually remembered)

Unbetad!

EDIT: (17. 5. 2021) I edited the ending with a lil continuation of the scene I previously deleted, because I thought it was unnecessary, but then I returned to it after few days and thought it should stay. It's not very long but I guess it's kinda important.

***

Thomas woke up disoriented, thirsty and definitely not rested enough, like when his alarm goes off on a workday and he only slept for four hours. But here was no alarm, no work, just him waking up with a flinch and realizing he wasn’t in his flat, and he wasn’t alone either.

The blond hair right in his face immediately pushed him into realization he was holding onto Newt like he was his lifeline, one hand under the shirt on his belly, other on his chest clutching the fabric, and an unmistakable morning hello tenting his pants, digging right into Newt’s backside. In retrospect there wasn’t much worse Thomas could have done to him, except maybe having a hand down his pants (which admittedly he used to do sometimes when they were together, but then again, that situation definitely didn’t scream murder like it would now).

In a sleepy confusion that hazed his just-woken-up-brain he searched the foggy memory on how this situation came to be, no matter how familiar it felt to him. Newt made himself pretty clear about sleeping together, so the sudden closeness – well, more like an absolute merge, unless he’d slip in – no, no dirty thoughts, bad Thomas, bad – didn’t make much sense.

The night came back to him embarrassingly slow – he got drunk because for some reason his dad decided to decimate his super precious whiskey, even though normally he hoarded it like a dragon his gold. He could only think of Newt being the incentive, drinking the whiskey so fast in his dad’s eyes, while Thomas downed it all to save him from barfing (Newt’s alcohol tolerance never existed in the first place, he disliked about any kind of it, and as far as Thomas remembered he got drunk only once with vodka mixed with orange juice on Aris’ wedding, because he could barely taste the vodka in it until it was too late). Then the world started spinning, Newt dragged him to his room somehow… which sounded farfetched, so maybe dad helped, he drew blank around that area honestly, probably because he stood up and all the alcohol began circulating faster. Then they talked… probably, and then Thomas fell asleep, since that’s all he could recall.

And now his hard-on was trying to get some, and he held Newt against himself with sheer ferocity of an obsessive hugger off his meds and the realization dawned on him like tons of bricks. Was he going to wake him up if he let go? Newt always woke up at the slightest noise before, there was no way of going to pee at night without getting back to the blond blinking owlishly at him, asking what happened. Was this Newt he barely knew anymore still the same? Still twitchy and light sleeper and grumpy and slow to rise when getting up?

Thomas didn’t have much choice anyway, did he. He just had to let go either way, and preferably remove his hips from Newt’s back and act like it was no biggie to be hard when in bed with his ex. He slowly untangled his hand from the front of Newt’s shirt and retreated from under the shirt as well with the other hand and managed to roll onto his back without Newt visibly stirring, which was a success. Unless he pretended to be asleep to avoid talking to Thomas about pushing into him like a horny teenager, which also worked.

Not like he hadn’t been doing that in the last month of their relationship anyway, just... ignoring the problem until it went away (a problem named Thomas) and well, ultimately it succeeded. It would work now too, and Thomas refused to poke the wasp nest this early in the morning – judging from the clock at 8:04 – and just went with the flow.

Need coffee, he thought unhappily when the headache set in. And water. Maybe some alone time in a bathroom first.

Newt didn’t stir until Thomas slinked out of the bedroom, which was a complete lie.

***

“Dad, just drop it,” Thomas repeated for fourth time when his dad couldn’t stop haggling him about his childlike alcohol tolerance the moment he appeared in the kitchen, asking for black coffee. He couldn’t tell him he drank Newt’s portions and without that argument nothing would sound plausible anyway, so he just dodged it with an increasing headache. Newt got up about half an hour later and didn’t speak a word to him – Thomas would even say he avoided his eyes several times, which meant he was absolutely awake in the morning to witness all of Thomas’ struggle to even exist around him peacefully. Which he couldn’t for years, really, so this only proved it.

It was fine. Thomas learned how to deal with it, despite taking him two years to come in terms of being hated by a person he loved since he was 17. Well, everything around the breakup took a lot from him, but he dealt with all eventually, right? He could finally look Newt in the eye without having all the incoherent anger and frustration pile up and he could talk to him fine as well unless they breached one of the thousand forbidden topics. Like them. Like family. Like love. Like sleeping. Like breathing, existing and fucking just trying to live.

Anyway. All dealt with, of course. No hard feelings.

(Lots of them.)

“You dealt with the drunkard just fine, right Newt?” his dad chattered towards the blond, patting him on his back and Newt forced a smile and a nod. Thomas saw this particular expression too often to not recognize it and huffed while sitting down at the counter with his own coffee.

He was used to being a bad guy anyway, no matter how much of the blame he genuinely deserved. They both knew he didn’t get drunk because he wanted to get wasted enough to drop unconscious on a spot and Newt would be a hypocrite to badmouth him when he was pouring all his whiskey to Thomas’ glass with thankful expression yesterday. But then again, not even he could tell Thomas’ dad about it, so they just had to have this unspoken oh yes, Thomas is a real piece of work as always.

Which sort of sucked. But Thomas couldn’t care less what his dad thought about his alcohol tolerance, it wasn’t like he threw up everywhere or broke mum’s precious bowls set (again). Not that he expected Newt to defend him anyhow, but he could at least say nooo, he was fine, he just fell asleep or something. Not that it surprised him he didn’t, but…

“He used to drink majority of guys from my work under the table and now look at him,” his dad delivered his fifth Thomas can’t drink for shit jab. He sure loved to milk that. “At least he has you to look after him, huh.”

Thomas stared at Newt’s back with mild annoyance the more the blond refused to elaborate on anything, just smiling at his dad while making himself a cup of coffee, and then Thomas’s eyes suddenly fell on the nape of Newt’s neck with a vicious, red mark near the hairline, and his whole body seized up like he got paralyzed.

A hickey? Since when? From who? What? Wait, was Newt already dating somebody else?

Saying already like three years were short amount of time… Thomas mentally scolded himself and his body raised up on its own volition, like being pulled in by some invisible force towards the blond. He had no clue if it were a twisted need for revenge or vindication or just him being unable to come in terms of not being told or warned, or maybe all of it together, he just couldn’t stop and plastered himself all over Newt’s back, trapping him between his body and the counter, circling his thin waist like a vine (he got thinner for sure).

“Of course I have you, don’t I,” he purred into Newt’s ear, loud enough for his dad to hear perfectly, and felt how Newt’s whole body froze, his hand mid-stir of the coffee. Thomas could see how his Adam’s apple bobbed when he gulped. “Looking after me when I get hammered into unconsciousness.”

“Yeah.” Newt’s voice sounded small, and Thomas wanted to bite down at that red, angry place on his nape like an animal. His dad probably wouldn’t appreciate it, but his ego sure would. He let his hands slide lower, to Newt’s hips, grabbing a handful, and the habitual movement made him restless. He did it zillion times during the time they were together. He did less, he did more, naked, clothed, lying, standing up, in whatever situation, touching Newt was his privilege.

And some fucking horny prick just took it?

Just marked his boyfriend – ex-boyfriend, Thomas, ex-boyfriend for three years, pull yourself together, you’re not 17 anymore – like a property and he didn’t even fucking notice?

Newt’s breath hitched and the spoon he was holding dropped into the coffee, splashing the black liquid around it, dribbling down the drawers under, making the blond curse under his breath.

“Sorry,” he immediately said towards Thomas’ dad who was handing him a cloth to wipe it with, and started squirming. “Thomas, leggo. Can’t reach.”

“Don’t wanna,” Thomas refused, squeezing Newt even tighter. “I’m hangover and miserable and you’re supposed to take care of me.”

Thomas’ dad snorted but took the hint and retreated while calling at his wife the boys are being rowdy again, Anna! And the kitchen fell back into silence, except of their breathing, with Thomas plastered against Newt’s back like he wanted to topple him over (he sort of did).

“Do you enjoy being a bloody prick?” Newt finally broke the spell, pawing at Thomas’ hands to get them off, his voice an angry whisper. “What’s your deal, for fuck’s sake!”

“Hangover,” Thomas huffed, not letting go and to be completely honest, Newt wasn’t really trying as much, just slapping his hands half-heartedly. “Could’ve at least said I didn’t give you any trouble, I covered for you the whole night.”

“You gave me loads of it!” Newt started wiggling, and Thomas had to fight the urge to just bite down, mark any piece of skin available, to make the restlessness go away. “You were heavy as fuck, I had to carry you all the way to your room!”

“Yeah, and?” Thomas grabbed him lower, and Newt pinched his hand in revenge, which finally made him let go with sharp breath.

“Fuck you,” the blond barked at him with fiery eyes. “I don’t know what you are trying to prove but groping me is not on the bloody table, get it?!”

“Mhm,” Thomas rubbed the place Newt pinched him at. “Sure. No fun allowed, got it.”

“Fuck off!”

Thomas hated how Newt turned away and the hickey was so visible it made his insides churn. He used to talk about his problems a lot these past few years, so he could finally let go of whatever was holding him in place, unable to forget, and he thought he reached that point, that he was free.

Looking at Newt marked by another man… no. He was not. Still stuck, still the same.

Still angry and miserable.

Still… there.

***

The fact Newt refused to talk to him completely was an understatement. Thomas blamed his unsteady approach on the alcohol, because what else he could blame it on – his own feelings? He sodealt with those already, there was nothing that would make him see red.

Except of a hickey on his ex-boyfriend’s neck, that would do it. Apparently.

But still – it was the hangover that made him stupid, right. If he’d be completely sober and not aching anywhere and his mind clear, he would just… shrug at it. It was Newt’s business who he slept with or not, or who he let bite his nape like a dog (some young fucking idiot who thought hickeys are still sexy? Stupid shit).

Not Thomas’. Not anymore.

The more he tried to push it away from his mind, the more his mind pushed back, just pointing it out loudly every time he glanced towards the blond sitting on the couch in the living room, bundled in a fluffy blanket, fiddling with his phone.

He was fiddling with his phone a lot actually. Texting somebody?

The guy who left the mark?

Thomas felt the irrational anger seep into his consciousness again and he forced it back down with a frown. He knew asking Newt to help him to get his parents off his back wasn’t exactly a great idea (asking ex to be your bf again for a show just screamed trouble), but at the same time asking anybody else just felt… wrong.

Thomas had to admit he’d be able to go along with this only with Minho, probably. Because Minho was a born actor, he’d be able to breeze though this with ease and Thomas’ parents would like him for sure, because, well, everybody liked Minho, honestly.

Asking Teresa or Brenda was just… desperate. Because other than them it would be Newt and getting back together with Newt… well. Thomas could tell from the moment he saw him getting into his car in front of Newt’s workplace it was going to be tough for both of them.

Not much of a surprise so far climbing Mt. Everest would be easier than keeping his chaotic feelings under control.

“You need some fresh air,” his vision of Newt got obstructed by his mum in a frilly apron she wore unironically and he looked up to her with half-lidded eyes.

“I think I need chicken soup, actually,” he offered in response, because dragging himself through the snow outside now sounded like a death penalty.

“Air first,” she insisted, adamant, and turned towards Newt like an executioner. “Right, Newt? A walk would do him good.”

Newt looked at Thomas and Thomas just knew. He was doomed. Newt was going to betray him like Scar did with Mufasa and he’d enjoy it, he could see the glint in his eyes, just shining there, spelling revenge in big, neon letters.

Please, he mouthed at the blond in desperation and Newt tilted his head to the side and then his mouth curled up.

“Sure, that’s a great idea, Anna,” he signed the death certificate without an ounce of shame and relished in it.

Fuck you, Thomas mouthed again, and Newt sent him a condescending smile. Fuck him especially.

***

“You’re unusually quiet,” his mum casually pointed out like she didn’t just drag him out to cold ass weather while holding a knife (butter one, but that’s what made it scarier), despite his very vocal (or vocal sort of, too loud and his brain wanted out of his skull) protests.

“Hungover,” he reminded her bitterly. The snow under their feet crunched sharply and the noise was tearing his brain to pieces, like walking on a broken glass and he had no idea how much longer he’d be able to act like it wasn’t killing him.

“Well, it was nice of you to cover for him,” Anna shrugged like she didn’t just blew their cover with a killer one liner and Thomas probably shouldn’t have been as surprised. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen him drink.”

“That’s cuz he can’t drink for shit,” he mumbled with a frown. “Did dad notice?”

“No,” she shook her head. “He was too busy boasting about the partnership. It’s been some time since I’ve seen him so happy, you know how he hoards the whiskey otherwise.”

“Yeah, cheapskate,” Thomas snorted, and the noise sliced his brain painfully, like an instant karma.

“Think he was happy about Newt being back too,” she hit the nail on the head a bit too close to home and Thomas hated how his stomach lurched at it. “Well, you know him.”

“Sure is happy for not getting any grandkids,” he just grumbled and Anna patted him on his back.

“We still have Hannah,” she reminded him sweetly. “Maybe one day she’ll feel like having kids and force you to babysit for her two times a week.”

“Me? You’re going to be the grandparents, it’s your obligation to babysit!” The idea of taking care of Hannah’s kids made him scared for life, and they didn’t even exist yet.

“Pretty sure Newt wouldn’t mind,” she chirped happily, and Thomas loathed how right she probably was. Newt never really showed any kind of real interest in having kids or anything, but he never minded babysit for his own sister, and generally all the kids liked him.

Not that thinking about that had any merit anyway, since they split up with a point of no return. Maybe Newt already planned kids with the new person who left the distasteful hickey on his nape, or the person who he kept texting, and the more Thomas thought about it, the more his chest burned.

“Cherish him a bit more, would you,” she poked his arm. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you have some beef between you. Had an argument before coming here?”

Why the fuck is she so perceptive?

“A bit,” he answered quietly. “No biggie.”

“Set things right,” she plainly ordered him like he was ten again and had do her bidding. “I don’t want another sad Christmas.”

There isn’t going to be any Christmas for us, he wanted to tell her, but kept his mouth shut. At this rate, there wasn’t going to be anything for them, at all.

I really need some sleep.

***

Not very often did the morning come so peacefully, like a gentle spring washing over tired soul, leaving it invigorated. Thomas basked in the pleasantness of it, a quiet, warm and relaxed moment where he slowly woke up from a dream into reality still welcoming and soft like he never left the fantasy realm.

He took a deep breath, stretching, slowly coming to realize of contours of another body pressed into him, and under his hands and around his legs and under his chin. The soft blond hair came to view when he opened his eyes, with Newt draped around him needily, and his heart melted.

The first night in their flat. Their home. A place that only belonged to them, these walls and floors, and small kitchen and big windows, for them together. It came true, finally, inevitably, for Thomas to have Newt all for himself, to share his mornings, his evenings, his life with him. Nothing else could make him happier.

“You already up?” came a sleepy rumble from Newt’s chest, the hands holding Thomas’ waist slowly moved up, to his back, pushing them even closer together.

“Just woke up,” Thomas kissed the top of the blond strands, his own hands traveling over Newt’s back, right onto his butt, kneading it.

“Mmmm.” Approving sound doubled his endeavour and then Newt was slowly grinding to him, lazily, his lips stretched in a smile, reaching to pamper Thomas’ neck with small kisses. “This sure is nice, huh.”

“Love it,” Thomas agreed with the sentiment while grabbing Newt’s thigh and hiking it up over his hip. The blond softly moaned at the contact and Thomas pushed more into it, completely awake and needy and allowed. There was nobody that could hear them, scold them or gasp in shock like a puritan at them making out – just them, two lovers in their home, free to make love any time they wanted.

And Thomas wanted too much.

***

He never stopped wanting.

He woke to his room bathing in shadows, with the blanket twisted between his legs, his headache still present, even though in weaker state than in the morning, and his body wasn’t any less sluggish. The walk with his mum didn’t help him much, just added to his misery with freezing cold and nagging reality he couldn’t play this game any longer, which made him feel empty and unhappy.

He didn’t feel this unhappy in a while, it usually only came back when he heard of Newt about a year after the breakup. Every time his ex came back to his life, even when somebody only mentioned him in a passing conversation, Thomas’ chest set off that painful pang in it, like a trigger just waiting to be pressed, and he fell back into hollow kind of depression.

He got rid of it, somehow. He built walls around himself, he locked all of his twisted personality traits and pushiness and hateful behaviour away, he spent years searching for more he could fix, for all that made Newt unhappy with him, what made him leave Thomas after seven years without really talking about it.

He thought he managed to become a better person. He believed he could change the way he acted. He hoped if he ever talked to Newt again, at any point of their lives, he would be at least able to show him he wasn’t that ungrateful, lousy boyfriend anymore, that they could at least be friends. Somehow. Just talk normally. Just… exist in the same room without… Newt making that anguished face, like it hurt him still.

Thomas tried. But failed. Maybe it was just recurring theme of his life – to touch something wonderful, to taste true happiness, just to fuck it all up and lose it.

Maybe he was just obsessive. Suffocating.

Maybe making mistakes were rooted too deep in him to get rid of.

Maybe… it was simply impossible.

***

Newt was playing games with Hannah in the living room when Thomas came back down. Hannah made fun of him for sleeping all day like an old guy and his mum said something about hoping he didn’t catch a cold and gave him a bowl of chicken soup.

The strange, unattached feeling stayed with him since he woke up, and only doubled when he saw Newt’s neck marked by some fucker on display. His stomach churned at the implication there was this unknown guy waiting for Newt to come back home, who kept impatiently sending him texts that made Newt frown and smile in turns, like he just slowly sunk back into the problem they never resolved. Thomas felt disgusted with himself, and angry, and, when it came to it, immensely tired.

“Oh, you have the whole week free?” his mum asked suddenly, breaking Thomas’ bubble of trying to eat the soup like a mental case of lobotomy, and he realized there had been a conversation going in meantime and he didn’t catch any of it. Newt wasn’t playing the game anymore, though Hannah still furiously pressed buttons on her controller, and instead of it sat on the couch, turned towards Thomas’ mum at the table.

“Yeah, thought getting out of the city might do me good,” he answered her with a soft smile and the idea of another week like this sent Thomas into desperate mode. Even though it was him who forced Newt to take whole week off, because… he only had bad ideas, obviously.

“But there’s bit of a rush now, right?” he entered the conversation impulsively and Newt glanced at him with a raised eyebrow. “At work. Christmas and all that being close.”

“Yeah, it’s… a bit hectic,” the blond admitted, making Thomas’ mum go aww. “There’s lots of people taking vacations they didn’t spend yet, so we usually work crunch time.”

“Yeah, kind of same,” Thomas added. It wasn’t really a lie. But not the truth either. “And I know I said a week, but I’ve got some texts from work already, thought of going back tomorrow instead.”

Newt stared at him with an evident confusion, but Thomas knew at this rate they were going to crash and burn again if they stayed, and he didn’t want that. He couldn’t even trust himself to keep it civil when his blood boiled like in a bull taunted with red flag.

Except the red flag was an unknown nobody on the other side of the line of Newt’s phone.

And bed.

“Uh,” came from the blond. “No, wait. What? You…”

“We can visit again during Christmas,” Thomas offered a big fat lie, he almost bit his tongue at it. Christmas were a taboo, he knew mentioning it were already risky, but it gave him an out with his mum, so that worked at least. “When it’s calmer.”

“When is what calmer?” Newt still stared, Thomas said almost disbelieving, and he just prayed for him to play along and not act like he knew nothing about it.

“Work,” he answered stiffly. Too stiffly, he realized, since Newt’s eyes narrowed.

“Uh oh,” he heard Hannah interject, which meant he already failed in the mission to make this believable. Fuck.

“I need a smoke,” the blond announced instead of reacting and stood up sharply. Then shot Thomas a badly masked glare. “Keep me company?”

He wanted to say no but couldn’t when his whole family watched them like during tennis match. So he just nodded and followed Newt outside of the house while feeling like slapping himself.

***

“Care to explain or am I supposed to guess.”

The cigarette was lit, its fiery tip shone bright in the darkness of the porch once the automatic light shut itself because they weren’t moving like they rooted in the wooden floor. Newt was wearing his coat and Thomas only stood there in the long-sleeved shirt, which in retrospect was probably a mistake.

“I did explain,” Thomas said. “Just thought about work-,”

“No, you didn’t,” Newt stopped him immediately while crossing one of his arms on his chest while other held the cigarette like a weapon. “You said a week, so I took a week off. I’m not bloody leaving now. It’s my vacation.”

“I also said three days would probably be enough,” Thomas asserted. “And they are. I thought you’d appreciate it.”

“Why?” the blond demanded. “It’s not like I suffer here. I like this place. What’s your problem?”

That kind of question had no easy answer and Thomas held Newt’s eyes only for few seconds, before looking away.

“Am I the problem?” came another question, even sharper. “You just can’t stand me anymore, so you want to leave?”

“You know that’s bullshit,” Thomas scoffed. “Since when did I ever-,”

“No, I don’t know!” Newt interrupted him with raised voice and Thomas flinched. “I don’t bloody know anything about you anymore! You brought me here and expected what? War? Did you want us to fail?”

“Why would I want us to fail?” Thomas’ eyes widened in a shock. “What kind of fucked up logic would that be?!”

“I don’t know!” Newt barked. The cigarette he was holding was slowly fading away, the ash falling everywhere how he moved his hand. “But something’s up since this morning, so obviously you’re lying about work and I want to know why!”

Well, finding out his ex-boyfriend had a lover, or a sex friend or whatever the other person was definitely served as a wake-up call. Thomas couldn’t overlook it – he thought he’d be fine with anything, it had been years, but one fucking hickey and some fleeting texts and he just had the rising urge to tear the walls he built down and get angry and make Newt inevitably miserable, which he despised.

He fucking loathed it. And himself. And everything around him.

“Why did you even agree to come here?” he couldn’t help but demand. “Why did you even bother playing this stupid game when you have somebody home? You trying to make him jealous or it’s just your thing?”

Accusing – stupid Thomas, fucking idiot, just talk normally, what’s wrong with you – as always.

“What?” Newt’s eyes shot up, wide in honest surprise. His cheeks were red from the cold, or maybe embarrassment, Thomas didn’t know. “What are you talking about?”

“About that hickey on your neck?” Thomas pointed towards the incriminated spot and Newt’s whole body went rigid.

“A hickey…?” Newt’s free hand was touching the place now, his voice shocked. “You… ugh.”

“Look, it’s not my business, clearly,” Thomas rubbed his eyes tiredly, desperately trying to make an excuse for his own consciousness why he couldn’t look at Newt. “But obviously it’s causing you trouble with him, so. As I said. Three days are fine, we can leave now. Go back home. Forget about this.”

And forget about me trying to corner you, and me getting hard in the bed with you this morning, and me sounding jealous and lame, and me… just for being me.

“Are you fucking with me?” Newt’s voice sounded disbelieving. “Are you bloody serious right now? A hickey from some random guy appeared over night here? That’s what you’re saying?”

Overnight…?

“Overnight?” he asked a little dumbly, which forced him to look Newt in the eyes, where he saw hell unleashed. It made his throat squeeze almost hard enough to suffocate him.

“You think I just popped back home for a quickie, then back to your bed in the morning like a bloody Cinderella?” the blond seethed, the cigarette in his hand morphing into a protentional weapon of choice. “Where did that even came for, for fuck’s sake? You’d been seeing me for two days, never noticed anything, and then suddenly your Esmeralda syndrome got cured or what?”

“But-,”

“You bloody drunk fucker,” Newt took a step towards him and Thomas found himself hitting the entrance door with his back, when he automatically tried to back out. “Should have known your bird brain won’t remember anything.”

The realization hit Thomas like tons of bricks right in his face, able to cause heavy concussion if it were real.

“I did this?!”

“No, the bloody sucker behind you, who the fuck do you think?!” Newt’s voice was harsh, but Thomas could only hear the bare fact he made a hickey of size of Texas on his ex-boyfriend’s nape while spending the next day being jealous… of himself.

“What the fuck,” he breathed out with an ugly relief flooding his veins, which was all sorts of wrong. Being relieved over attacking his ex at night definitely did not count as a good point in anybody’s book. “What the fuck.”

“Calmer now?” Newt sighed in exasperation and Thomas couldn’t say he was. It just opened door to another set of bad he had to deal with.

“I attacked you when drunk?” he asked quietly, and Newt blinked in surprise.

“Attacked?” he repeated and then barked out a laugh. “No, you really didn’t. You were drunk out of your mind, for fuck’s sake.”

“I see.”

“Didn’t think it left anything,” the blond sighed, rubbing the back of his neck as if in memory, which was kind of hot – no Thomas, it was not hot, but embarrassing, shut up -. “I mean you just munched on me a little, then fell back asleep. No harm done.”

“You made a fuss about us sleeping in one bed but it’s no biggie when I leave a hickey?” Thomas couldn’t help but laugh a little and Newt’s face showed signs of hesitation.

“Look…” he tried after a moment, the cigarette in his hand nearly gone. “I… don’t know, you were just sleeping while holding me, it doesn’t mean anything-,”

“And that’s fine with you?” It was Thomas’ turn to interrupt him, and Newt looked a little lost for a moment.

“I suppose that’s fine with me, yeah,” he admitted slowly.

Thomas looked at his shoes, taking in a deep breath. He couldn’t deny the knot forming in his belly over the day already started easing off, for purely selfish reasons he had, but at the same time his head became even a bigger mess than before.

“So what does it mean?” he asked after a while. “I’m trying to do the right thing here, I thought… you’d rather leave than stay with me longer, after today, but…”

“I want to stay,” Newt answered immediately. “Unless you really don’t want me here. Then no, of course. I had the same problem the first day, feeling all kinds of weird and jumpy. I guess I just sort of dealt with it. Stepped out of my comfort zone and all that.”

“Sorry you had to.”

It wasn’t like Thomas wanted Newt to change anyhow by doing this favour for him. But he’d also be a hypocrite if he didn’t admit he wished Newt to feel good here. With him. Selfishly, hopelessly. Like before, like they were okay. Like they still… liked each other. At least a little.

He knew that kind of hope was self-destructive and harmful, but he didn’t stop loving this man three years ago, after going through an immensely rough patch, so he wouldn’t stop loving him now for no reason either.

“No need to be sorry,” Newt interrupted his thoughts with much softer tone than Thomas expected. “I mean even despite it’s you, you didn’t really do anything bad yet.”

“Wow,” Thomas snorted. “Way to ruin the mood, boyfriend.”

“I try,” Newt grinned, and it seemed like the tense mood dissipated and they both relaxed enough to breathe easier. Thomas possibly wouldn’t even notice he had been so strung up until now, if the huge boulder of irrational fear of fucking up didn’t fall off his shoulders with a bang.

“And just for the record,” Newt added while finally inhaling the last puff from the already burned-out cigarette before stubbing it out in the ashtray. “I noticed you digging into me in the morning.”

“Of course you did…” Thomas banged the back of his head against door in utter shame. “Because universe hates me, and you had to fucking wake up.”

“Yeah, well,” Newt let out a small shrug. “I got hard at night, if it makes you feel any better. Let’s call it even.”

“What.”

“Had a real nice dream,” the blond casually announced like he was ordering pie with no filling and Thomas was a stupefied cashier at Costa Cafe. “Woke up with you being handsy with me. Tried to scramble away, cue for you to make the hickey and fall back asleep.”

“Uh.”

“1:1, right?” The sly smile Newt’s mouth produced did things to Thomas’ underbelly and before he even caught himself, he automatically reached out and grabbed Newt’s side.

Fuck.

“Pretty lousy score,” he just said – bad Thomas, stop making a pass at your ex -, “That’s no match whatsoever.”

Newt glanced at his hand resting on his waist and then back to Thomas with a thoughtful hum.

“I’m not that good at sports,” he just said, looking back into Thomas’ eyes. “But you might be onto something.”

Thomas took a deep breath and risked the second hand grabbing other side of Newt’s waist, pulling him closer. The layers of clothing made him dissatisfied, no matter how cold it was and how his skin already felt like ice, he just wanted to get under the coat and the sweater and the shirt and make Newt react somehow. The blond just silently watched him, let him do whatever he wanted, and somehow it felt like a test and Thomas was scared of failing it.

“That’s it?” Newt broke the tense silence around them when Thomas just stood there, holding him.

“Thinking,” the brunet mumbled with a frown.

“About?”

“How to touch you without it being classified as groping,” he moved his hands a little lower as an experiment, getting no reaction. “Since it’s off the table.”

“Pfff.”

He hesitated, then gingerly let go of one side and reached for the zipper lodged under Newt’s chin, keeping the coat closed like a fortress. His hand barely cooperated with how frozen it was, but Newt still didn’t stop him and that encouraged him unfairly.

“Newt.”

“Yeah?” the blond’s voice was quiet and close to his face.

“What’s with all the texting?” He kept holding the zippier between his fingers like he couldn’t decide, and Newt made a soft huh? noise in the back of his throat.

“You were on your phone the whole day,” Thomas lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “Is there somebody…?”

A sigh. Thomas let go of the zipper.

“That’s Alby,” came a reply and if Thomas wasn’t already propped against the door, he’d take a step back. There was nowhere to run now, so he just let go of the blond completely, nodding.

“He’s my partner,” another string of words Thomas comprehended but wished he didn’t. “A bit demanding one.”

“Sounds like it,” he just commented, staring at his feet until Newt’s shoes came into view as well when he stepped closer.

Seriously testing me. That’s-

“A bit cruel,” he breathed out with a puff of white smoke and Newt pushed further and pressed his mouth against Thomas’. His cold lips lingered for a moment before parting, their breaths mingling, and Thomas’ heart fought really hard to get out of his chest and run away. The proximity was non-existent, Newt stood so close their chests were touching, and his eyes were so dark, and pupils blown wide Thomas got easily lost in them.

He always did. Nothing had changed.

“You look cold,” Newt whispered to his lips, hovering so close their mouths gently touched when they took a breath.

“Freezing,” Thomas answered in daze, holding back only by a miracle. He wanted to reach out and pull the blond man flush against him, to grind into him, to kiss him so deep his toes would curl, and he’d buck up, he just wanted so much it made him suffer.

“Alby’s my colleague,” Newt dropped quietly. “Funnily… you weren’t wrong about work being in a rush now. He’s struggling a little. Wanted to know my opinion.”

A colleague. And nothing else?

“Nothing else,” Newt answered like he could read his mind and then sagged against Thomas’ body like the energy just left him, resting his head on Thomas’ shoulder.

“I thought I can handle being this close to you,” he heard him mumbling into his shirt. “But the more I am, the less I can fight it.”

“I thought I can handle you dating somebody else,” Thomas added to it while letting his head fall back against the door with a dull thud. “But obviously not. It’s scary. I don’t want to fuck it up again.”

“Yeah,” Newt agreed with him. “Me neither.”

He wasn’t sure if this had been some sort of consensus they reached, or just a fling that happened because they were both lonely, but Thomas didn’t want to let go – even though he should have, logically, to protect them both. The pain they caused to each other three years ago was still there and festering under their skins, but the more Newt was pressed into him, breathing softly, the more Thomas noticed his reason slowly creeped away, like a thief in the night disappearing with loot.

But he wanted. For fuck’s sake how he wanted to just hold him close and promise him love and eternal happiness, and the scary part was he couldn’t promise shit. His love was real, but not unconditional, happiness was fleeting and simply relying on both of them and the rest of the world deciding whatever to fuck them up or not.

But…

“I give up,” he mumbled, weary to the bone. At Newt’s soft hm? he just sighed. “It’s fucking cold.”

The blond barked out a laugh, but nodded and let go of him, immediately taking all the warmth away.

“Then shall we assure them we’re not breaking up again?” he nodded towards the door and without waiting for Thomas’ reply he already reached for the handle. “Or not leaving tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” the brunet conceded. “Hannah’s going to be milking this for the rest of the week…”

“Serves you right,” Newt laughed quietly while opening the door and Thomas kept the answer to himself.

We’re not breaking up again rang in his head like a bell, deafening his reason even further. Newt didn’t protest when he reached for his hand on their way inside, and he wondered if his heart was ready for another trial.

He ignored the uncertainty and took a leap of faith.

#newtmas #tmr #the last resort series #the maze runner #izzymultifan #edit 17. 5. 2021

9 notes · View notes

skygirl5 · 3 years

Text

12 Prompts of Christmas - #9 Eggnog

This is a continuation of the previous chapter’s universe (behind the jump due to length)

NINE - Eggnog

On his first morning waking up in the isolated cabin, Rick wished to sleep late, but he couldn’t because he woke up before dawn absolutely, positively freezing. His normal sleeping attire for winter was boxers and a t-shirt because he generally kept his apartment fairly warm. He’d thought the blankets on the cabin’s bed would keep him warm enough, but evidently that was not the case; all his extremities felt like ice. Rick shivered so bad he could hardly pull on his jeans and button-down from the prior day before hobbling to the potbelly stove in the main room of the cabin and fiddling with it for ten minutes before he could figure out how to get a fire going inside of it once more.

Knowing warmth would soon come, Rick grabbed a blanket and tried to lay on the couch, which was the closest place to the stove on which to lay, but he was too miserably cold to fall back to sleep. Figuring maybe an afternoon nap would be more productive, he made coffee and sat with it cradled in his hand while wearing a blanket as a cape as he tried to warm up.

Though it took an hour, the cabin soon almost became too warm, but given how cold he had been Rick chose not to mind that too much and did his best to get some writing done. He wrote a few pages, but soon found it difficult to focus, and decided to go on a walk around the lake for a distraction. He also thought perhaps he might run into Kate, the intriguing woman whose mitten he found the day before, but he sadly did not. He did bump into an older couple who had a very friendly yellow lab and chatted with them for about ten minutes, but that was all the human interaction he had.

Back in his cabin, he called Alexis once it was a reasonable hour on the west coast. Unfortunately, their conversation was quite jumbled due to very poor reception, but he was at least able to confirm that Meredith had picked her up from the airport and was taking her shopping that day.

Since speaking with his daughter reminded him once again that she was not going to be with him for Christmas, Rick distracted himself by eating the pre-made salad he’d purchased for lunch and turned back to his writing, which was actually successful that round. He found himself so “in the zone” that he didn’t even notice how late it was getting until he got out of his chair to go to the bathroom and realized most of the cabin was completely dark.

Satisfied with the amount of work he’d done, Rick decided it was time to make himself dinner. He’d purchased some chicken cutlets which he planned on stir-frying and with some vegetables he purchased and so he began rummaging in the kitchen cabinets for the tools he’d need. He found a cast iron skillet and cutting board to use to prep his food. He’d purchased oil just in case the cabin didn’t have any, which ended up being a good call because he didn’t find any in the small pantry.

After pouring the oil into the skillet, he set it on the two burner stove so that it could heat up, but when he turned the knob to ignite the burner, he heard a click, but no flames appeared. Twisting his lips to the side in concentration, he crouched down and proceeded to fiddle with the knobs and burner for several more minutes to no avail; he could not get the stove to turn on.

Not too worried at that point, Rick decided that the best thing to do would be to call the cabin’s owner, Chip. He was a friendly older gentleman who had talked to Rick for nearly an hour when the cabin booking was made. Evidently the cabin belonged to Chip’s father, who was an avid fisherman. After his father passed, Chip inherited the place, but didn’t enjoy fishing as much, so he mostly rented it out. He’d told Rick not to hesitate to call if an issue arose, and Rick decided to do just that—even though it was technically Christmas Eve.

Rick walked over to where he’d left his laptop at the table. There, he’d left his phone as well as the contact information for Chip. Before he’d even begun to dial, Rick frustratingly realized his phone displayed a “No Signal” error. It hadn’t been that long since he’d spoken to Alexis, though admittedly the call had been cutting in and out at that time.

Figuring the reception had to be better outside, he put on his heavy coat and then dialed Chips number on the phone but didn’t hit the “send” button. Then, he stepped outside the cabin and was immediately knocked back by a wall of bone-chilling cold. The stinging temperature of the air was so great that he actually yelped, but then tried to recover as quickly as he could so he could get his phone call over with. Rick wandered around the area in front of the cabin for several minutes with his phone above his head waiting for the “No Signal” to vanish and bars to appear, but they never did.

Frustrated, Rick stomped out further into the yard, chasing an elusive signal. Just one bar!! He only needed one bar!!

He was about fifteen feet away from the house when he realized that small snowflakes had begun to fall from the sky above. He glanced up briefly, but that far after dusk it was almost pitch black outside. He was stumbling around only from the ambient light of the cabin’s exterior lighting, which at that distance was minimal at best. Yet, Rick remained determined to get a cell signal.

“Uhh Rick? Are you okay?” Rick heard after about seven minutes of wanting around in the freezing cold darkness.

“Wha—huh?” Startled he spun around until he saw the beam of a flashlight approaching, though due to the darkness he could not see the face of the person speaking to him.

“Are you okay?”

“I—who are you?”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” The woman moved the flashlight beam from the ground to point straight upwards. It barely illuminated her face, but he recognized her immediately. “You found my glove yesterday; I’m-”

“Kate,” he breathed, still a bit shocked to have met up with her by the lake near his cabin. “Yeah, I remember.”

“So…are you alright? You don’t have a flashlight…”

He grumbled. “I didn’t mean to walk this far from my cabin I just—I’m trying to get some cell reception.”

She hummed. “Well, you might not have too much luck with that, especially with this snowstorm coming in.”

Rick frowned. “Oh…I…hmm…sorry,” he added quickly when he could see Kate’s brow tightening in confusion. “The stove in the cabin stopped working and I tried to fix it, but, frankly, I have no idea what could be wrong, so I thought I’d call the cabin’s owner but…”

“Right.” Kate nodded. Then, after a beat added, “I can take a look if you want. I was just taking a little walk so it’s not big deal.”

“Oh—oh!” his tone elevated with surprise when he realized she was offering to help him, a total stranger, without being asked. Then again, he had found her glove earlier, so they weren’t total strangers, just mostly strangers. “Sure. That would be—that’d be great, thank you. Thank you so much.”

She shrugged and the followed him across the crisp ground towards the cabin. “It’s not a problem. The stove my parents had for years was…something. Probably a terrible fire hazard, to be honest. I finally made my father replace it a few years ago, because I was convinced one of the times he tried to fry up one of the fish he caught the whole place would go up in smoke.”

“Fair enough,” Rick chuckled as they reached the cabin’s porch.

He led the way inside where Kate scuffed her boots against the welcome mat and unzipped her coat as she slipped through the narrow doorway. She gazed around for a moment, but then immediately walked into the kitchen on the left. “Oh, yeah, this one is just like ours—only smaller,” she proclaimed upon looking at the stove.

“So you know all its secrets,” he concluded, hopeful.

“Let’s hope so,” she said, smiling at him over her shoulder before setting to work. Rick tried to ignore the tingles that smile sent down his spine as he leaned against the kitchen table, wanting to stay out of her way and feeling a bit awkward that he was unable to assist.

Rick watched as Kate checked dials and plugs and arched her body over the top of the range unit so she could presumably check the wall connection. Then with a quick, “Be right back,” she walked outside the cabin once more and he could see her walking around the house through the small window above the kitchen sink. She was outside about five minutes before she returned with a frown.

“Well, I have good news and bad news.”

Suspecting he knew the bad news, Rick concluded, “You know what’s wrong, but can’t fix it.”

Giving him a sad smile, she said, “No, I can’t. For whatever reason this stove uses a different fuel tank than the one hooked up to the water heater and furnace and that fuel tank is very empty. The owner must have forgotten to have it refilled; I’m sorry.”

Rick huffed out a breath. “Well considering its Christmas Eve I don’t think I’m going to get a fuel delivery

“No, I don’t think so.” After a moment she suggested, “You could make a fire?”

His immediate reaction was to cringe. “Ah… at the risk of sounding unmanly: I don’t know that I could successfully cook chicken that way without either burning it or giving myself food poisoning.”

She laughed and nodded, “Yeah, I guess I couldn’t either.”

They stood side by side in the tight kitchen silently for a moment before Rick said, “Well, that’s okay. I’ll just cut my trip a little short and go home first thing tomorrow morning, but I really appreciate your help, Kate.”

She stared at him for a few seconds before trapping her bottom lip between her teeth and glancing over to the kitchen counter, where his packet of chicken and vegetables were sitting beside the stove, waiting patiently for him to finish prepping them. After nearly twenty seconds of silence she finally concluded, “C’mon—grab your food; you can use my stove.”

Now taken completely aback, he held his one hand up defensively and stammered, “Oh—I—I wasn’t-”

“I know, but it’s Christmas, right? C’mon.”

Nodding, he hurried to the counter and began gathering what he could and shoving it back into the shopping bag it came from. “Thanks—thanks so much. Should we drive to your place, or…?”

She nodded. “Might as well. It’s only going to snow harder as the night goes on.”

Ten minutes later, after grabbing his food, other necessary cooking items, and his coat, Rick was following Kate’s directions to navigate his Mercedes towards her family’s cabin. The journey was short and she soon was leading the way into the warm, rustic space. Her cabin was significantly larger than the one he was renting. The living space was more expansive and from the length of the hall he could see in the rear, he guessed it had three bedrooms not just two. Unlike his cabin, which was decorated with mostly generic fishing or rustic décor, this was clearly a family cabin with knickknacks and family photos adding to the warmth.

“Oh, wow this is really nice.”

Kate shrugged as she took off her coat, “It isn’t much…mostly just a little escape.”

“Yeah, but it’s still great—homey.” He smiled at her for a few seconds then put his grocery bags down while he took off his coat, too. “Well, uh, I won’t take up too much of your time. Can I make you something, too? As a thank you.”

“Oh, um…” she hesitated for a moment then threw her hands out to the side in a ‘giving up’ gesture. “Sure, why not. I saw you had chicken and vegetables…”

“Yeah, I was going to put them all together in a stir fry.”

“I have some rice to make.”

“Perfect!”

For the next few minutes they both busied themselves in the tight kitchen. It was a delicate dance as there was not too much counter space around the stove, even though it did seem, as Kate had implied, that the space had been renovated recently. They managed it well enough, and after Kate started the rice, Rick chopped the vegetables and dumped them into the skillet before turning to the chicken cutlets and slicing them as well.

“So, tell me Kate, what is it that you do?”

“I’m a police officer.”

His brow arched as he pushed the chicken off the cutting board and into the pan. “Really? So you’re used to saving people in distress?”

She laughed airily. “Something like that.”

He washed his hands at the kitchen sink and then, after turning off the water, he told her. “I’m an author.”

“I know.”

Startled by her words, he did a double-take in her direction and nearly dropped the towel he was using to dry his hands. “You…do you read my books?”

Kate’s cheeks turned slightly pink as she confessed, “I might have skimmed through one or two.”

Assuming her dismissive comment was just meant to be a way to avoid some embarrassment, Rick smiled as he turned to their skillet meal, picked up a spatula, and began pushing around chicken and vegetable pieces so nothing burned.

So, Kate was, presumably, a fan of his books. How else would she have recognized him from just his first name? That also made sense. Since she was saving him from going hungry that evening he hadn’t wanted to question it, but he did find it slightly odd that a young woman such as herself would invite a strange man back to her cabin, which was isolated in the middle of nowhere. Maybe that was just his writer’s mind used to spinning dark scenarios but…well, thinking about his daughter, he hoped that she would not make the same decision in a similar circumstance for the sake of her safety. Finding out she was a police officer made a bit more sense; her training presumably made her feel more comfortable with self-defense, but if she knew him as a public figure, she would have been more likely to feel safe around him—not that he would have ever thought of hurting a woman, but sadly he knew that was not always the case with others.

Feeling in the mood to tease her a little bit more, he said, “So that’s why you wanted to have dinner with me? Because I’m one of your favorite authors?”

When he glanced over his shoulder, he saw that she eyed him skeptically. “I’m not sure that’s what I said.”

“It was implied.”

She laughed. “I see.”

Silence hung in the air for several moments before he changed the subject with, “So you live around here?”

“No, Manhattan.”

Now even more pleasantly surprised he proclaimed, “Oh! You’re NYPD?” After she confirmed with a nod, he said, “That’s amazing. How long have you been on the force?”

“Oh, not long. I graduated the academy in August.”

“Ahh well if you’re willing, I’d be all too happy to hear all your rookie stories as we eat.”

Ignoring his question, she instead offered, “Do you need help with anything? I feel bad I’m just standing here.”

“Nonsense,” he said casually. There really wouldn’t have been room for her to join him at the stove; the space was too tight. Besides, he didn’t mind. “I really enjoy cooking; it helps me think and plan my writing usually.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, because it keeps my hands busy, but my mind free to wander.”

“Hmm…makes sense.”

A few minutes later their meal was complete. Rick divided the stir fry and rice between two plates and then carried them over to the small dining table tucked in the corner of the room. As he set the plates down, he noticed a photo hung on the wall of a family: a man and a woman with a young girl about seven or eight standing in between them. The photo was clearly older and faded, and both adults wore sunglasses, but the woman had long dark hair and distinctive jawline and the man lighter brown hair and a soft smile. All three wore lifejackets and the lake—presumably the one located just a few feet away—could be seen behind them.

“This is you and your parents, I assume?” he asked, thumbing towards the photo.

“Yeah.”

“Where are they at? Don’t tell me they took a tropical vacation without you?”

She gave a soft smile as she picked up her fork and began to eat. “No, nothing like that.”

“You’re lucky, though—getting Christmas off,” Rick said in between bites. He didn’t imagine that was common for a rookie officer.

“I have to work Christmas day in the evening. And…I’ll be in Times’ Square on New Year’s Eve,” she explained.

“Oh! And you’re…not excited about that?” he guessed based on her tone. She gave him a look and he let out a small laugh. “Ah, right, I suppose not.”

“It’s only supposed to be fifteen degrees out!”

He nodded, sympathetic. “I know, I know; I don’t envy you at all. I’ve done it a few times as a spectator and it was never too bad as long as I’d had plenty of alcohol to warm me up.”

“I’m sure.”

They ate quietly for several minutes before Rick asked, “Did you spend your Christmases up here when you were little?”

“Mmm no. This place was usually my dad’s escape. His father and uncles purchased it when they were all young men. Now, they’ve all passed, and the cabin became my father’s, so he’s the one with the most connection to it. We used to come up here at least one week every summer to do things with the lake and just get out of the city, but almost never in the winter.”

Rick considered her comments as he slowly chewed his meal. He wondered why, if Kate’s father was so connected to the cabin, the elder man hadn’t joined her for the holiday? Furthermore, why hadn’t her mother? Sensing the question may have been a bit too personal to ask with that moment, he decided on a slight change of subject.

“I, um, I think I need to come up with some good holiday traditions for my daughter. I used to make sure I got her picture sitting on Santa’s lap every year, but this year she outright refused because she’s figured out that Santa isn’t real, so she’s a little salty about the whole ritual and refused to humor me. That’s literally what she said to—‘Dad, don’t expect me to humor you.’”

Kate laughed. “How old is she?”

“Six.”

Kate laughed again, harder that time. “Six?!”

“Yeah: six going on twenty. I think she’s already too smart for me and I fear that will soon be a pretty big problem.”

Kate nodded. “Yeah, it might be. Where is she spending Christmas?”

Sighing, Rick set down his fork and said, “With her mother. Last year, we’d just separated, so we tried to have a joint Christmas and it…didn’t go so well.” He involuntarily shivered at the memory of the wildly inappropriate phone conversation Meredith had with her new lover during their shared meal and their fight thereafter. “So, this year we decided to split the winter holidays: I got Thanksgiving and Meredith got Christmas.”

She nodded and said, “That must be hard.”

Unable to verbalize just how much his heart was breaking, Rick tried to stay positive. “I suppose it’s unfair of me to complain. I have primary custody, so I have Alexis nearly all the time, but Christmas…it’s my favorite holiday. My favorite time of the year. What’s worse is I had to send her to California by herself. I did get to take her through security to the gate and the assigned chaperone was extremely nice and gave her a candy cane but… it was still really hard to walk away.”

“I can’t imagine,” Kate said. When he met her sympathetic gaze, Rick did have to admit to feeling slightly better. Still, his heart was heavy.

“Sorry to bring the mood down.”

She waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t even worry about it.”

Finishing his glass of water, Rick continued with, “It’s, ah, why I came out here. Being in my apartment without her just felt like something that was too sad to bear.”

“I get that. It’s one of the reasons I’m not doing Christmas in the city this year.”

Surprised, his brow rose sharply. “You have a child?”

“What? No—sorry. Sorry. My mother…died.”

His eyes widened and his chest constricted with sorrow. Though he knew he didn’t do it directly, Rick did feel bad about bringing up a subject that was sensitive. “Oh—oh Kate I’m so sorry.”

One corner of her lip tugged upwards in a sad half-smile in acknowledgement of his comment. “This is the fourth Christmas without her. She, ah, died in January. Just after the holidays and…and my dad and I haven’t really celebrated since. He…we don’t even talk about it. We just don’t celebrate, which is…well, it is what it is, but being in the city makes it harder—walking past all the places where we made memories together as a family. And then this year…” She paused for a moment and took a deep breath, almost as though she needed to reset herself. “The reason I even got to take off work at all was because I had to take him to rehab.”

“Oh god,” Rick sighed, now feeling even worse. There he was complaining about not getting to spend a few days with his kid, who would be back before New Years’, and poor Kate had lost one parent forever and the other was struggling to the point where he was unavailable to her as well. “I’m so sorry to hear that, Kate.”

She gave him an appreciative smile. “It’s been bad for a while. I knew it. We both knew it. He’s been trying to get a handle on it on his own and been insisting he didn’t need an in-patient program, but it just wasn’t working, you know? Finally, I got him to agree to go as a Christmas present to me. Some present,” she added wryly.

“It will be if it helps him,” Rick pointed out in a soft tone.

“Yeah. Yeah, I know that. It’s just…hard.” She sat for another moment before pushing herself up out of her chair suddenly, walking over to the refrigerator and pulling out a cardboard carton, which she held up to him. “Want some?”

Even from that distance, Rick could clearly read the word “Eggnog” printed on the side and said, “Sure. Why not? It’s Christmas Eve.”

Kate poured two small glasses and handed him one. At the first sip he choked, his palate shocked by the alcohol, which he hadn’t expected since she poured it from a store-bought container and to his knowledge the store-bought kind was alcohol free. “Wow,” he croaked. “Your recipe could give my mother’s a run for her money.”

“Sorry—I should have warned you. I, uh, got a little heavy handed last night when I poured the whisky in the container.”

He shook his head in as an indication he didn’t mind, but he did make sure to take a more delicate sip the next time.

“So, your mother—will you see her for Christmas?” Kate asked.

“Ah, no, actually. She’s an actress and she’s touring with a holiday production. Their shows run through January second and she’ll come back home after that.”

“And your father?”

“Never met him,” Rick replied casually, taking another sip of eggnog.

Kate’s eyes widened. “Really? Never?”

Rick bobbed his head, knowing his untraditional backstory was a bit hard to process for most people. “Yeah; I don’t even know who he is. I was the, ah, product of a one-night stand.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

Rick shook his head. “’s okay. I’ve had over thirty years to process it.”

“Still…to never know a parent…I can’t imagine.”

He nodded. “Most can’t—and I’m glad. It’s certainly not something I would wish on anyone, but yet it’s also something that made me who I am.”

She nodded approvingly. “That’s a very healthy attitude, Rick.”

He raised his glass in salute. “Well, thank you.”

For the next three hours they drank the remainder of the quart of eggnog and chatted about an amalgamation of subjects: their jobs, the holiday season, life. Though he didn’t exactly acknowledge it at the time, looking back Rick was almost stunned how easy it seemed to talk to her about anything. Over the course of his life, he’d found himself having quick and easy connections to people he met several times, but each one was unique in its own way. With Kate, their conversation flowed effortlessly. They bounced around to a variety of topics and then back again without feeling like the conversation was too disjointed or nonsensical. It was all smooth and connected, like she was one of his oldest friends in the world instead of a woman he’d met by pure chance the day before.

Once the eggnog was finished, Kate offered Rick some water since he was driving, but he declined when he realized how long they’d been talking. By traditional standards it wasn’t that late, but he felt as though a holiday such as Christmas Eve had an exception. He didn’t want to displace whatever existing holiday plans she had for herself that night, particularly since she was returning to work the following day.

“I appreciate it, but I really should get out of your hair.”

“Ahh, yeah okay. I…I don’t think I realized what time it was,” she said with a light laugh.

“Yeah me neither. I, um, I really appreciate you letting me use your stove.”

She nodded. “Of course. Thanks for making dinner. It was…nice to have someone to eat with.”

Smiling, he agreed with, “Same,” and then stared at her for a moment, unsure of the proper way to say goodbye. A handshake seemed far too impersonal, but would a hug be too much? Deciding he shouldn’t over think it and that it was probably okay considering the intimacy of their conversation, he stepped up and gave her a brief one-armed hug, which she thankfully reciprocated. “Merry Christmas,” he said as he backed his way to the door, where he’d left his coat.

“Yes, Merry Christmas.”

Now zipping his coat, he reached for the door handle and smiled back over his shoulder at her, “Goodnight Kate.”

“Goodnight, Rick,” she echoed. Then, with a nod of his head, he disappeared out into the freezing snow-covered night.

#castle #caskett #castle fanfiction #castleficathonwinter2020 #12PromptsofChristmas #my fic: 12 Prompts of Christmas

23 notes · View notes

spaceskam · 4 years

Text

i got a little time

a slightly last minute day 4 of @malexweek: free day! companion piece to my story in some other life! It’s not necessary to read that one first to understand this one since it takes place in the same time frame

warnings: mentions of torture, mentions of death, ptsd, childhood trauma, basically just proceed with caution

ao3

Alex knew a lot of things.

He was admittedly smart and open-minded. He tried his best to be logical and kind and fair. Granted, that kindness hadn’t really been extended to Michael Guerin lately, but he deserved it. Alex had no regrets pushing him away because he deserved it.

However, as his phone went off and he read the text Michael had sent out, his stomach dropped to the floor.

From: Michael

Hi. Sorry for the group message. Basically I'm leaving tonight. You probably won't see me again and if you do then I've failed. I didn't want to go without saying goodbye, but I also didn't want to freak you all out today when I came to see you. I know I've let you all down and I hope what I'm doing makes up for it. Thank you for being around me even though you don't like me. I'm sorry for all my fuck ups and for hurting you and for generally being a bad person. I hope it's better in another life. Love, Michael

Alex read over the message at least ten times, trying to make sense of it. His mind immediately jumped to the worst case scenario, but he couldn’t tell if he was just projecting or not. Either way, he couldn’t bring himself to ignore it under a good conscience. Especially when other people in the groupchat were asking what he meant and receiving no response.

“Hey, I gotta go,” Alex said to his date, the name of whom escaped him in favor of trying to make sense of what was going on with Michael. He didn’t wait for acknowledgement before he went to his car.

Alex threw caution to the wind, speeding to the junkyard. The more he thought, the faster he drove. He was buzzing with worry. What if Michael was leaving the planet in that stupid spaceship? Or, worse, what if Michael was leaving in a much more permanent way? Gone. Full stop.

He pulled up to the airstream at the same time as Isobel, both of them haphazardly parking and getting out of their respective cars as quickly as possible. The trailer was moved and exposing the manhole in the ground and all that did was make it more nerve-wracking. They shared a look and immediately went to pry it open.

Everything around them seemed eerily quiet. All the sounds that came with being outside seemed to be gone. No creaking, no wind, no nothing. All dead.

“I can’t feel him,” Isobel told him, her words soft and desperate. He spared her a look for a couple seconds before he just pried open the hole with all the strength he could muster.

It opened and, again, more eerie silence. Alex went down the ladder first, moving faster than he should. Working a ladder with one leg was still difficult, but this was Michael. Michael, the love of his life and who had been torturing. What if he went too far?

Alex hit the ground and Isobel did within the next second, having chosen to jump down. They both immediately noticed the giant arch that hadn’t been there the last time they were down there.

“Michael?” Isobel called softly as they slowly made their way around the bench. The arch was humming with electricity still and the place around them looked like it’d been ransacked. Michael was always messy minded, but this was a different level.

Which is when they spotted him laying on the ground unconscious.

“Michael!” Isobel said, immediately dropping to his side and tapping his cheeks. Something was stopping Alex from doing the same. It took him a second to realize what exactly kept him from doing that, but, once he noticed, he couldn’t not notice.

His hair was noticeably shorter, the curls tighter and only seeming to be disturbed by him falling to the ground. His clothes were different, a button-up shirt that was buttoned up all the way up and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows along with tighter jeans than the man he knew would ever wear. His body was even different, much slimmer in every way including his shoulders being at least a couple inches less broad. He looked like Michael, but he… wasn’t.

“Isobel,” Alex said cautiously, his eyes staying on the unconscious body, “That’s not Michael.”

“What?” she scoffed.

“Just look at it,” Alex whispered, “That’s not Michael.”

A terrified little gasp racked through her body and she covered her hand over her mouth as it seemed to click that it really wasn’t Michael. Alex started to look around, looking for something that might give him a clue for what the hell was going on.

The whole table was covered in nonsensical math and writing, everything disjointed. He had lined paper, but it seemed he disregarded them completely. Alex started to gather them in one stack so he could bring it all back with him so he could study it when he spotted one page in particular. It had ‘ALEX’ written across the top in unmistakable letters.

ALEX

If you’re reading this, then I’m probably gone. Which is good, I think. Good for you, good because you deserve not to have me ruining all the good things in your life. I’m only writing this because I needed to get some things off my chest and it didn’t really suffice in a text. So here it is.

I love you. More than anything in the world. All of the bullshit I’ve done and the mistakes I’ve made, I never stopped loving you. You’re the reason I made it this far in the first place I think. Every time I got too sad or things felt like too much or getting out of bed seemed impossible, thinking of you always made it a little easier. You’re my home and you give me hope and that scares the shit out of me, but it’s true. And it’s okay that I’m not the same to you. I don’t need to be.

I could sit here and write a whole five pages on how beautiful you are, but you know that I think that. You know that I’m convinced you could stop traffic. It seems a little unimportant to mention something as small as physical beauty, but you’re gorgeous. Every single little thing about you. Name something about you and I worship it.

Every song on the radio is about you. The sky rains for you and the sun shines for you. The world turns for you.

I think I might be insane.

I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I LOVE YOU. Today, yesterday, tomorrow, always. I’ll treat you better in a different lifetime.

Love, Michael

Alex took a deep breath as he looked over it a couple more times. His stomach was churning and he felt sick. What the hell did he do?

The not-quite Michael on the ground groaned, stealing Alex’s attention and reminding him what was going on. He folded up the note and shoved it in his pocket as he turned to help Isobel with whoever this was.

He slowly lifted his head and looked around. He was dazed and trying to piece it together. However, he seemed to wake up and he sat up straight, panic evident on his face.

“Did I do it? Where am I? There’s people here,” the Other Michael murmured to himself, checking himself for wounds. His chin was bowed to his chest and he kept talking to himself, kept asking himself questions, kept ignoring that he could ask the other people in the room. “Black boots, they didn’t have black boots. Jeans, they didn’t wear jeans. I’m not there, where am I?”

“Michael?” Isobel said. Alex wanted to reach out to her and pull her back so they could have this conversation in a more efficient way after they figured out what was going on, but that didn’t seem plausible.

The Other Michael froze at the sound of her voice and he slowly lifted his head. His eyes were bulging out of his head as he looked up at Isobel. He looked over her a few times.

“You’re Isobel?” he asked cautiously. She nodded slowly. Then he lunged forward to hug her, clinging onto her desperately. Isobel’s eyes drifted up to Alex’s, trying to figure out what to do. But, honestly, he didn’t know. He was way out of his fucking depth. “I could do it, I knew I could do it.”

“Do what?” Isobel whispered, eyes still locked on Alex in her fear and confusion.

“Fix it, save you,” he said, pulling away slightly, “Where’s Max?”

“Uh,” she said. Alex decided it was time to step in and figure out what to do.

“What exactly do you mean by save?” Alex asked. Michael turned his head to face him as if just remembering he was there and he looked Alex up and down. His entire face flushed a shade of red his Michael never did.

“I know him?” he whispered to himself before adding an “I know you?” a little louder. Alex nodded and his face got an even darker shade of red.

“Can you explain what you mean by save?” Alex repeated. Michael blinked a few times before he nodded.

“Right. So,” he said, looking around and taking every detail in. Alex could see the gears in his mind turning as he catalogued things in his mind. He was actually thinking before he spoke. That was new. “Okay, I think I must’ve miscalculated because of your ages. I didn’t go back in time. Or, if I did, I don’t remember it, but I would’ve remembered it, so I think I’m elsewhere. Are those notes?” He got to his feet easily and Alex noticed that he was at least an inch or two shorter than his Michael. He was clearly a grown man, but he was so small.

Michael sorted through the pages, his head moving slightly with his eyes as he read them impossibly fast. Isobel stood up and went to Alex’s side, taking ahold of his arm as a way to steady herself. Michael stopped his reading by tapping the table.

“Right. So, I know what happened. I was working on creating a time machine and so was he. I don’t think either of us were actually that wrong. By the looks of it, it should’ve worked quite well. I think the problem lies in the fact that we happened to do it at the exact same time in our respective timelines and it created a weird twist and we swapped places instead. The only way to fix it is to, again, do it at the same exact time. It’ll be a little hard to do on purpose, but I think we can manage,” Michael rambled, looking up at them, “I know he’ll want to come back. Here seems much better.”

“Better?” Isobel asked, eying him, “What’s it like where you’re from?”

Alex wasn’t actually sure he wanted to know. Michael had asked if he knew him here. He couldn’t imagine a lifetime where he didn’t know Michael. As much as he was an asshole, that seemed impossible.

“Um, well, you’re not there,” he said simply, still tapping against the counter, “Neither is Max. Where is Max?”

“He’s,” Isobel said cautiously, looking to Alex before looking back to Michael, “He’s dead.”

Michael stopped tapping.

“Oh,” he said, tilting his head, “What happened? Was it the doctors?”

“The doctors?” Alex prodded. Michael went back to tapping. He seemed to be twisting in his skin. Alex had the undeniable urge to get him alone and learn all of his secrets. Apparently that needed didn’t go away no matter which version of Michael he was talking about.

“The doctors, the ones who found us after the crash? Kept us, trained us, pushed us. Pushed until… Well, doesn’t matter, I got out. Did we all get out here? You know, both of you are very accepting of the alternate universe thing, I’m surprised,” Michael rambled, refusing to let them fully comprehend what he was saying about anything.

“Things are weird here,” Isobel said, stepping closer, “Go back to the doctors.”

“And you, how do I know you? Are you still called Alex? You dress different here and you walk different,” Michael quizzed. Alex raised an eyebrow. So he didn’t know him where he was from, but he knew how he dressed and how he walked? Michael’s face turned red again and he looked away. Not like he was making eye contact in the first place.

Before they could make any sense of the rest of it‒or even make sense of what he’d already said‒there was more noise. Liz and Kyle and Maria appeared on the ladder, all rushing in response to that goddamn text.

But this Michael, smaller and different, immediately changed gears as more people appeared. Alex spotted the way he shrunk in on himself as Liz ran to hug him. He didn’t hug back or respond. His panic visibly grew before something went off behind his eyes and they unfocused. Alex clocked that immediately.

“Liz,” Alex said, putting a hand on her shoulder and gently pulled her off him. She looked confused as he did so, but she noticed Michael’s discomfort. “Isobel, take Michael to the airstream so he can calm down and fill him in on what it’s like here. I’ll tell them.”

Which would’ve worked, but the moment Isobel tried to pull him that way, he freaked out.

“No!” Michael said when she tried to pull him to the ladder, “No, no, I can’t, no.”

Isobel let go of his arm and he pulled away completely, backing himself into a wall. He put his hands on his head and he instantly started whispering to himself, counting and breathing as he sunk in on himself. It probably wasn’t helping that everyone was staring at him like he didn’t belong.

“Okay, new plan,” Alex sighed, “Everyone else up, Isobel stay with him here.”

“What do I do?” Isobel whisper-yelled at him as everyone started heading back up the ladder without argument.

“Just sit with him. I’ll get an air mattress down here, maybe we can get him to sleep and we’ll figure it out,” Alex told her softly, his eyes going to the boyish, terrified version of the man he loved despite it all, “We’re gonna figure it out.”

“Okay,” Isobel agreed. Alex squeezed her arm and headed up the ladder to fill Liz, Kyle, and Maria in on the little bit they knew.

That letter burned in his back pocket.

It took less than 24-hours (for Alex, at least) that, as charismatic as this Michael had seemed when he first woke up, that wasn’t actually who he was.

He was quiet, reserved, and anxious. He talked to himself more than he talked to other people and he shied away from basically all of them as soon as the initial adrenaline wore off. He seemed to need isolation and familiarity and this… Well, this was a lot of change. All of which would’ve been, but Alex had heard him mention he needed his medication. It was concerning to say the least.

Alex and Isobel had been taking shifts to check on him which was hell on his leg, but Alex was determined to watch over him if only because he needed the real Michael back for his own peace of mind. However, the only way they were going to get his Michael back, was if this one was working out the kinks in the machine. Something he couldn’t do if they sent him into a mental break by making him stop all his medication without weaning off of them.

“Do you know all the medication you take?” Alex asked as he came down the ladder. Michael looked up at him from the air mattress. His eyes were tired and he was curled up in a ball.

“Yes,” Michael said softly, “35mg of paroxetine, 25mg of lamotrigine, 2mg of clonzaepam, 50mg of‒”

“Write it down for me,” Alex said instead, “I’ll get it for you.”

“You will?” Michael asked, almost like he was surprised. Alex nodded and gave him one of Michael’s notebooks and pens to write it down. This Michael took it graciously.

His handwriting was noticeably different from the scratchy handwriting of his Michael. It was boxy and childlike despite the words being spelled perfectly. Alex wanted to pry so bad. He wanted to know everything.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly do you take all that for?” Alex wondered. He was no stranger to a long list of medications, but the Michael he knew would never. He was sure he’d rather pout over a vat of acetone than follow anything a doctor prescribed.

“You name it, I’ve been diagnosed with it at least once by someone,” he said, glancing up at Alex before diverting his eyes again. He did that with everyone. “Right now, I’ve got PTSD, anxiety, depression, and a couple other things, but it all seems to boil down to those three things, so.”

“Me too,” Alex said. Michael furrowed his eyebrows. “Air Force Captain. PTSD basically comes with the job.”

“Air Force,” Michael said to himself, “What led to Air Force?”

“And your anxiety, is it primarily when it comes to people or were you just generally overwhelmed last night?” Alex wondered as he took the list. He planned to shop through his own medicine cabinet before taking it to Kyle to see what he could get his hands on.

“Um,” Michael said, rubbing over his face, “I-I guess all of the above? Humans are too much. They think so loud and there’s too much with them, you know?”

Alex did not know.

“It’s easier to stay by myself. That’s what I do at home, I stay by myself. I get coffee, I go to therapy, I go home. I work from home. I do things from home.”

“You said we think too loud,” Alex said cautiously, “Does that mean you’re strong enough to hear my thoughts?”

Michael looked up at him, making eye contact for the very first time and it hit Alex a little too hard. There was something so distinctly off about him and something told him it had nothing to do with all the things he’d just admitted.

“I am not strong. I’m weak. That’s the only reason I’m alive.”

Alex stared at him for a long while, trying to make sense of what exactly he meant by that. He had a feeling it was one hell of a story. His whole life was probably one hell of a story. That’s typically how one ends up with a medication list that long.

“Right. I’ll be back soon and I’ll pick up some food.”

Michael pulled the blanket back over his head.

“What are we supposed to do with him exactly?”

“Take care of him.”

“This is so fucking weird.”

Alex rubbed his eyes as everyone spoke around him. It’d been four days of still just rotating shifts of checking on the not-Michael, slowly watching as he got stabilized and adjusted. It was taking longer than he wanted, but he knew he was just being impatient.

Not-Michael was still being tight-lipped about what his life was actually like, but, considering the context clues, Alex was stressing that his Michael was in a very bad place. A place where they pick up little kids and spend their whole life torturing them to the point that they try to build a time machine.

But, then again, his Michael tried to build a time machine too.

“Well, I was talking with him last night,” Isobel said. She was handling it better than everyone and it had everything to do with Michael being completely obsessed with her existence. Every time Alex saw them, he was staring at her like she was made of diamonds. “He said he works as an technical engineering supervisor from home, like he works for the government and stuff. The guy is smart. Like, makes our Micheal look stupid, smart.”

“He talks to himself, though,” Liz pointed out, voice a little hushed, “Like more than normal. Shouldn’t we be a little concerned that he’s just a ticking time bomb?”

“I don’t know, there’s people at Sunset Mesa that talk to themselves like that and they’re not crazy. I think it just comes from isolation,” Maria suggested.

“It also could be a side effect of his heightened anxiety,” Kyle said.

“But don’t smart people talk to themselves? Maybe he’s just smart,” Isobel said, shrugging her shoulders.

“Or maybe he had a shitty childhood, worse than we can even imagine, and it’s a coping mechanism,” Alex said sternly, causing all of them to give him their attention, “Or it could be any number of things all mixed together, but it doesn’t matter. We aren’t going to sit here and speculate and gossip about him. We’re going to give him time to adjust to his medications, adjust to the new setting. We just have to be patient and not treat him like he’s weird or crazy. He’s still Michael, just… extremely different.”

“But shouldn’t we know what we’re dealing with?” Liz said.

“Listen, I’ve read over Michael’s notes over and over and they don’t make sense. I understand some of it and I’ve researched some of the math that was past my understanding, but some of it is nonsensical at best. This Michael is our only shot at getting ours back, so we’re going to be nice to him and we’re going to help him,” Alex explained simply.

“You know, for someone who was pretty anti-Michael before all of this, you sure seem really eager to get him back,” Isobel said. Alex didn’t give her any kind of reaction to that.

They slowly but surely shifted their conversation back onto other topics and Alex eventually announced that he would see them later before excusing himself for the night. Like he had been for the last few nights, he made his way to the airstream. Other Michael had no idea that the airstream even existed since he refused to leave the bunker and his Michael probably wouldn’t mind him taking over the space, so that’s what he did. It made him feel safer, closer.

He changed into his night clothes and sat on the edge of the bed to take off his prosthetic. He needed to wash his leg and the liner, but Alex felt frozen in place. His head was heavy and his heart was aching and he found himself doubling over with a pillow in his lap, inhaling Michael’s scent and trying not to start crying.

It was more than a little difficult to process everything. Although Michael had only been gone for a few days, it felt like a goddamn lifetime. Alex had been overwhelmed with guilt and, any moment he wasn’t purposely distracting himself, he felt sick with it. The moment his mind relaxed, he’d just be drowning in self-hatred and anger and he had to distract himself again. He was fucking miserable and he just wanted Michael back. The right one.

Again, he played over the months leading up to this disaster. Michael had hooked up with Maria and was painfully mean to Alex all the while to the point that, when it crashed and burned, Alex felt no guilt being mean back. He pushed and he pushed and, when he saw Michael self-isolating and punishing himself, he pushed harder. Hell, that night, he’d purposely rubbed his date in his face, purposely told him to fuck off when he tried to say goodbye. It felt like it was all his fault.

The worst part was this was beyond his expertise. When normal people left, they usually just left the city or the state, not the goddamn dimension. This wasn’t something Alex could just follow him and apologize. This wasn’t even like he was dead and forcing him to mourn. This was hell. Did Michael know what this would do to him?

Alex kept the pillow under his nose as he grabbed the note again that Michael had left for him. He basically had it memorized by now, but he liked looking at it. He liked knowing that Michael didn’t hate him for being a dick. He loved him.

His eyes scanned over the words once again before he couldn’t take the tightness in his chest, so he quickly double checked that he hadn’t yet detached his leg before he stood up and went to go down to the bunker. He needed something and this was the closest thing he was going to get.

The Other Michael was sitting at the big table, looking between Michael’s work and a fresh notebook as he transcribed everything in a more cohesive manner. That alone gave Alex a little bit of comfort. Just… not enough.

“Hey,” he said, his voice a little breathy and obviously stressed. The Other Michael looked up at him, but he avoided eye contact by focusing his eyes on Alex’s shoulder instead of his face. Which, fine, fair enough. “So, I hate to be so pushy, but can you tell me how you live over there? It’s driving me insane not knowing what he entered on his own and, no offense, but you being so heavily medicated just makes me nervous about how he’s doing. I just need to know he’s not, like, being tortured.”

The Other Michael was uncharacteristically silent for a moment and Alex forced himself to be patient. He didn’t want to push, but he just needed to know. Eventually, Michael swiveled in his little chair to show that he was giving him his full attention.

“I live in an apartment in Manhattan and I work from home. As long as he’s figured out what my job is and is keeping up my work, then he should be fine,” he said. Alex swallowed harshly and looked around the bunker to try to think of something.

“Then what’s so bad about being over there? Because you seemed pretty sure he’d want to come back,” Alex said. Michael started tapping against the table again, murmuring to himself softer than Alex could hear. He decided it wasn’t even his place to hear those thoughts.

“Um, here, there’s Isobel and you and… others,” Michael said, his face turning that deep shade of red it seemed to always be when he had to talk to him, “Over there, it’s very lonely.”

Alex nodded, swallowing as he looked around again to find something to say. It was weird being here without Michael, without him showing off. Everything was wrong without him here.

“I have another question,” Alex said, which was an understatement, really, because he had a million, “How do you know me if you don’t know Liz or Maria or Kyle? If you live in Manhattan and you’re alone all the time, how do you know me?”

Michael’s face flushed an even deeper shade of red and he looked down at the table. Alex didn’t know what he was expecting him to say, but a part of him was assuming the worst. Were those “doctors” he mentioned actually military people? Did he know Alex because he was the son of one of them? But, honestly, that didn’t make sense because, if he was, he probably wouldn’t trust to be alone with any version of him.

“Um,” Michael said, still tapping away, “You live up in Manhattan too. And, I mean, I don’t know you over there. You’re a barista that I see sometimes and I follow you on Instagram, but we’ve never had a conversation.”

Well that was certainly not what Alex was expecting.

“I’m a barista?” Alex asked, suddenly more interested in this weird other version of him than anything else. Michael smiled for the first time and it was nice to see that he was getting more comfortable.

“And, um,” he said, breathing out a soft breath of air as his cheeks continued to darken, “A go-go dancer.”

Alex huffed a disbelieving laugh, shaking his head. He couldn’t picture himself like that. The whole idea was laughable at best. He wondered if his Michael had discovered that yet. Did he find it funny?

“That’s…” Alex said, huffing a laugh as he leaned against the wall, “Insane. But I guess that could be fun in another life.”

“Yeah,” Michael agreed, still tapping. They were quiet for a moment again as Alex tried to picture it. “What, uh, what am I to you here? There you… Well, he would never give me the time of day if I tried.”

Alex smiled sadly to himself. He only had disappointing things to share. Somehow, that story of what could be sounded a lot more hopeful than Alex’s story of what could’ve been. They’d slaughtered their past, burned any chance of a future.

But, still, there was no point in lying.

“We’re in love,” Alex admitted and Michael nearly fell out of his chair. Alex snorted a laugh and crossed his arms over his chest. “We’ve been on and off since we were 17, he’s the love of my life.”

“I-I’m so sorry,” this Michael said, guilt on his face. But it wasn’t his fault. Well, not really, anyway.

“It’s okay,” he promised, “We weren’t together when all this happened. Kind of in a fight, I guess.”

“Well, I assumed. Not even a fool would leave you willingly,” he asked. It was Alex’s turn to feel his blood run a little hot and he raised an eyebrow.

“You should definitely try when you get home,” he said, “‘Cause you probably have a better shot than you think.”

Michael shook his head and looked back down to his notebook. Alex instantly started wondering if they were any closer to fixing that thing and getting back to normal, but he knew they probably weren’t. That’d be too easy, too quick. Alex was never lucky enough to get what he wanted in a timely manner.

“But, basically, he’s alone over there,” Alex said, shifting the subject back to the one that was important, “Is he safe from those doctors you mentioned?”

“Yes,” Michael said instantly, tone clipped, “They’re all dead.”

“Dead?”

Michael whispered to himself, knee bouncing and finger tapping. He was closing in on himself and it was clearly a touchy subject. But, the thing was, curiosity aside, he needed to know. He needed to know what kind of universe his Michael was going into. He needed to know if he was alone and facing a threat that Alex couldn’t protect him from. He didn’t know why exactly he needed to know that, but… he did.

“You don’t need to tell me all the details,” Alex said, stepping closer, “But I would really appreciate a little bit of a rundown of what happened to you over there. I know you’re not exactly like him, but he’s curious. He’s going to look into things.”

Michael kept tapping and he looked up to Alex before looking back down. Alex wasn’t sure if he was like his Michael or not, but he had to assume he had some things in common. So, in an attempt to comfort him like he would comfort his Michael, he reached out and touched his shoulder. His head snapped in his direction, but he didn’t pull away. So Alex squeezed and rubbed his hand over his shoulder.

“Tell me.”

“Isobel, Max, and I were found in the desert of Roswell, New Mexico after waking up out of our pods. Found by people camping, I think, I don’t remember. The next day, though, we were selected to be a part of a study that was publicized as a study for kids who had escaped from cults at young ages,” Michael said, letting out a little laugh. Alex rubbed over his back, all bones beneath his shirt. “We were the only subjects. I-I don’t really know all the details, they obviously wouldn’t tell us what they were doing or why, but they said we were aliens and they were there to train us. And train us they did.”

“But it was torture,” Alex guessed. Michael shrugged.

“Wasn’t all bad,” he admitted, “They just pushed so hard. It was too easy to break, fight back as we got stronger.”

“What happened when you fought back?” Alex asked quietly, his fingers reaching up into his hair. Michael’s eyes closed and he leaned into his touch. It was too familiar.

“Depends,” Michael said, “How violent you were equalled how bad it was. I threw a bowl of oatmeal at a nurse and got six weeks in solitary.”

“Jesus.”

“Isobel threw a doctor off the roof, killed him. She didn’t tell me what happened, but she had scars everywhere.”

“And Max?”

“Max,” Michael said, smiling sadly to himself as he seemed to think back, “Max let it fester.”

“Oh?”

Michael’s head was tilted almost all the way back into his palm, completely unraveling in his touch. It was strange and new all at once. Alex felt more powerful than he could articulate and he couldn’t let go. So he didn’t.

Still, Michael shook his head a little bit and his eyes opened.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Then tell me this,” Alex whispered, tilting his head so that all this small, intelligent, deceivingly powerful version of man he loved could see was him, “What are you capable of?”

“You really wanna know?” Michael asked.

“Yes.”

In the blink of an eye, any wall in Alex’s mind that protected him from psychic evaluation was destroyed, a whirlwind of chaos entering his mind, grabbing him by the metaphorical collar, and yanking him into some place else. Once he got settled into that some place else, Alex realized it was the desert.

Except, not just any place in the desert.

Alex found himself standing in the middle of the crash site, the sand around his feet ever changing. He seemed to be reliving every moment of history that happened in that spot. Flashes of a shattered spaceship, of violence, of military conspiracies, of angered voices, of cold rain on his skin after getting high, of making love in the bed of a truck on hot summer nights, of feeling alone, of future moments that he wasn’t allowed to fully understand. It was overwhelming and Alex felt obscenely overstimulated, every nerve in his body screaming, but his mind, his mind told him he was at peace no matter how much his body disagreed.

In front of him stood Michael, not his Michael, but Michael nonetheless.

“This is only a little bit,” he said, his voice in his head and outside of it and everywhere and nowhere, “I’m not a psychic, I’m not an explosive, but I was trained to be both.”

“You’re a telekinetic,” Alex said and Michael nodded.

“I can use my mind to separate muscles from bones and white blood cells from red without moving,” he said, “And I hate it. I was trained and built to be a weapon. I refuse to be a weapon.”

“I don’t think you’re a weapon,” Alex assured him despite the fear he felt. It was hard to not feel fear when he wasn’t in control. But he would survive.

“You’re scared of me,” Michael accused.

“No, not of you,” Alex told him and he was being honest, “Thank you for showing me this.”

“I hate what I can do,” Michael said, “I hate this. I hate being a weapon.”

Alex, despite his fear, stepped closer to him. He walked better here than in reality. He put his hand on his shoulder and slid it up into his hair. Was this manipulation? If it was, Michael knew and he didn’t mind, so Alex continued until he was holding him.

“Let me teach you not to hate it. Let’s use it for good. Let’s get my Michael back, okay?” he said. And this Michael nodded.

Soon, Alex was carefully put back into his own mind and they both unintentionally fell into each other, the mindscape draining them both for extremely different reasons. But Alex hugged him and he hugged him back.

They were much closer after that.

A few weeks later, things were agonizingly getting back to normal.

Liz went back to focusing on Max, Maria went back to focusing on the bar, Kyle went back to focusing on the hospital, Isobel went back to splitting her time with Max and Michael is allegedly even amounts. Alex was the only one that seemed to still be trying to fix this.

Well, Alex and Michael.

They spent most of the time in the bunker, considering Michael still refused to leave, and Alex was learning a lot about what could’ve been his Michael if things went different. He fluctuated between being completely silent to being really talkative and there seemed to be nothing that indicated which he would be. He’d be excited and loud one second and then, without warning, he’d shut down. Alex didn’t mind it.

They were rebuilding the portal from scratch basically. Other Michael’s theory was that his Michael fucked up the coding and accidentally created an alternate universe portal instead of a time machine and Other Michael created one that was applicable for both, so when they went in at the same time, it swapped them instead of going back in time. Alex could barely wrap his head around it, so he just took it as fact.

It was just slow and Alex only was getting a little bit of information at a time and he was becoming more and more interested in Other Michael’s past. He didn’t even want to know because of his Michael anymore, he was now just really fucking curious.

Context clues told him both Isobel and Max died before they were able to escape and Max died first, but he never told him how. Alex didn’t know how old he was when he got out or how he got out, just that they were cruel and he had to rely on Isobel and Max to stay sane. Alex didn’t know how all those doctors died, only that he went to therapy with the only doctor in the country who knew all of the details because he had been employed but left when he decided it was inhumane. He didn’t know how he got to Manhattan with a list of impressive credentials, only that he had a medicine cabinet that was obscene. He knew so little and he wanted to know everything.

“You know, if you ever want to leave the bunker for any reason, we can,” Alex said, “I know all the places in the town that people don’t go.”

Other Michael shrugged, tugging the blankets around him tighter as he whispered to himself. He did that on bad days. Alex had brought him more blankets when he asked for them and he cocooned himself in blankets and his own sweat. He said it put his mind at ease. To Alex, it seemed like some veiled attempt at replicating contact with another human. He was too awkward to actually offer despite their trip to his mindscape.

Isobel had shown him hers as a comparison and it was only when that happened that he realized just how much of a show off what Michael did was. She struggled even getting into his mind in the first place even when he was being open to her and, whenever she did get inside, she said it was literally impossible to coax him out. He was basically chained inside his brain. Michael was strong enough to break those shackles without any extra effort. It was impressive to say the least.

“Actually…” Michael said, voice small, “Tomorrow night, do you think you could bring me to see Max?”

“You want to see him?” Alex asked, perking up at the idea of getting him out and about. Michael nodded.

“I want to see the pod too. I haven’t seen one of them since, well, I came out of it,” he said, “Just not today.”

“Yeah, absolutely, we can go. You want me to ask Isobel to be there too?”

“If you could.”

“I can.”

By the time the next night rolled around, Alex gave him a little reassuring pep talk that they wouldn’t run into anyone. It was the middle of the night and he would be fine. A shoulder squeeze solidified their understanding and soon they were climbing up the ladder.

“Oh,” Michael said, “I… I didn’t realize we were beneath a junkyard.”

“Yeah, my Michael lives in that trailer,” Alex said. Michael nodded and took a deep breath. “Feel good to breathe fresh air?”

“Something like that.”

The drive out to the desert to get to where Max was was spent with nothing but the sound of his tires on the road and Michael murmuring to himself. Alex couldn’t tell if he talked to himself quieter when he took his medication or if Alex had just been so on edge when they first met that he seemed to be louder. It didn’t really matter, honestly.

They pulled up next to Isobel’s car. She was already standing outside of it, looking gorgeous for no reason as she waited for them and gave them that charming smile. She was doing good for a woman who had one dead brother and another brother who was stuck in an alternate dimension. Still, she hugged Other Michael like he was the real thing and Alex didn’t know who it benefited more.

Alex hung back for a moment as the kind of siblings walked in to see Max. Isobel had filled Other Michael in more on the logistics of his death before and how they were working on bringing him back to life. While Michael never offered to help, Alex had a suspicion that he probably could be extremely helpful. The problem was that he was scared of himself, of what he could do. All that did was cause Alex to have more questions.

He wanted to help Michael get more comfortable using his powers‒though maybe not as comfortable as his Michael was‒but it was easier said than done. He couldn’t be his therapist, but he could be his friend. So he just had to treat him nicely and hope he realized he wasn’t scary.

Alex leaned against the car and thought about his Michael for the billionth time. He was always on his mind, it was nothing new. Every day that past, it got a little more normal for him to be there and it hurt Alex each time. He was utterly terrified that he would never get him back. And, if he didn’t, what did that mean?

More importantly, if he did, what did that mean?

He missed him and regularly found himself dreaming about him, about them, only to wake up alone. Part of him was wondering if he should get used to this and try to find someone interesting to love. Another part wondered if he should settle for the version of Michael right in front of him who willingly melted into his hands.

Was that wrong?

Eventually, Alex pushed off the car and walked into the cave. Michael and Isobel were both zoned out as they stared at the pod Max was in from their spot sitting on the ground. He was pretty sure they were trying to reach Max in his mindscape to see if there was anything to salvage.

So Alex sat back and waited and wondered if this was the new normal.

“So, I know you’ve been rationing your meds.”

It’d been well over a month and Alex was ready to explode. Other Michael had apparently fixed the fucking portal, but he said they couldn’t try it yet because it wasn’t the right time. Alex was slowly beginning to think it never would be.

When he wasn’t in the bunker, he was with Max. He was still in the pod, but apparently his brain was working well enough that they could bring him into the mindscape. He was getting to know him that way and it seemed to make him feel better. Did it make Alex feel better? Absolutely not, but he was used to that by now.

Now, however, he was ready to be a little selfish and do something that was specifically to benefit him. And that meant learning more.

Michael looked up from the notebook he was always scribbling into and stood up a little straighter. Alex would never get over how strange his thin body looked in clothes that were baggy on even his Michael.

“So I got you something,” Alex said.

“Another prescription?” Michael asked. Alex huffed a laugh.

“Sorry, no, but,” Alex said, fishing the joint he’d taken off of Maria out of his pocket, “Maybe this will help?” Michael stared at it blankly, not a single ounce of recognition on his face. Alex laughed. “It’s a joint, you dork. Weed? Marijana? Satan’s gateway to your soul?”

A small smile formed on his face and it was infinitely more innocent than anything his Michael had ever done. Alex was charmed as always. There was just something about him that didn’t make sense. He was both horrifically tortured in his mind in ways no one could imagine while also being relentlessly innocent. It was fascinating.

“Can’t that make me worse?” Michael asked, focusing back on his notebook.

“I mean, possibly,” Alex said, taking a few steps closer, “But it helps a lot of people. Might help you.”

“What happens if I do react badly?” Michael wondered softly, almost like he could tell how close Alex had gotten to him. And, knowing him, he probably could. Alex bumped his shoulder into his.

“Then I’ll be right there,” Alex said. A deep blush rose to his cheeks like it always did and Alex couldn’t help the smile that took over his face.

Michael eventually dropped his pen and he followed him to the air mattress. They both sat down and Michael curled in on himself like always. Alex put the rolled joint between his lips and pulled a lighter out of his pocket.

“Wait!” Mciahel said. Alex looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Is it safe to do it in an enclosed space?”

“What, you’ve never heard of hotboxing?” Alex asked. Other Michael stared at him until he laughed. “Yes, it’s safe.”

He lit the joint and took a deep breath, trying to force it to calm him faster than he knew was logical. Michael watched him before taking it and trying to copy him. He coughed a few times and Alex laughed before showing him again. Eventually, he was able to take a hit without choking and they relaxed. It was strange to smoke with a different version of his Michael, but, then again, wasn’t everything strange with him?

“You doing okay?” Alex asked him. He nodded his head and Alex reminded himself to take the questions slow. He couldn’t jump right in with the prodding. “Good. My Michael thought he was so cool when we were young ‘cause he smoked.”

“From all the stories you’ve told, I can believe that.”

“Yeah,” Alex sighed, “I miss him.”

“I’m sorry,” Michael said. Alex shook his head and took another hit.

“Don’t be,” he insisted, “But, uh, do you know exactly when it’ll be ready to go?”

“No,” Michael said. His guilt was obvious in his voice and on his face, but Alex still didn’t understand why. What were they fucking waiting for?

“You sure you’ll know when it’ll be time?” Alex asked as nicely as he could, “Like, what goes into the timing?”

Michael shrugged, “It’s a psychic feeling. I felt it when I came over the first time. It’s like things click because we’re mirroring each other. It’s like, uh, like Deja Vu, I guess, but a little different. I’ll just know because it’ll feel right.”

“Okay,” Alex sighed, “I trust you.”

“I’m sorry.”

Alex shook his head again. He did trust him. Granted, he didn’t really have a choice. Not trusting him meant not accepting his help. Alex took a deep breath as he tried to find a way to lead into the topic of his trauma.

“I just, I don’t know. He was with me through so much. So much bad shit has happened and I’ve had him through all of it, it’s hard to go through things without him, you know?” Alex said, tilting his head in Other Michael’s direction. His face got a little serious and he nodded, taking the world’s saddest hit from the joint.

“I know,” he whispered, resting his head against the wall, “I think about my Max and Isobel all the time. I wish I had them here with me.”

“Why didn’t they make it out with you anyway?” Alex asked casually. He knew why.

“Like I said, I’m weak,” Michael said, huffing a sad little laugh. Alex watched him, waiting for him to elaborate without being pushed. Eventually, he did. “Max was ridiculously strong and his specialty was electricity. We were almost 16 when he got in trouble again, he always got in trouble, and they, well, I don’t know what they did. I wasn’t there when they did it, but whatever it was set him off. He shut down the whole building we were in and I remember just hearing people screaming. One of the head doctors ran into the room I was in and grabbed me and we went into the panic room. We were in there for, like, three hours at least. When we came out, half the staff had been scorched to death, nothing left but ashes, and Max’s system had given out because of over use.”

“Jesus,” Alex breathed. Michael looked up, blinking away tears from his eyes and he swallowed hard.

“Isobel and I made a deal after that. We’d stick together. Be on our best behavior and wait for a way out,” Michael said definitively, nodding his head, “And we were. We kept getting stronger which they liked. Then they started letting us in on what the plans were. We were going to be military weapons. Who needs nuclear bombs when you can just introduce a pretty white girl to a foreign city and then have her single handedly annihilate all of them.” Michael shook his head and scoffed. “Neither of us bought into it, but it hurt to hear. Isobel got upset when we were 18 and said she refused which meant she got punished. But she fought back. I remember they dragged her away kicking and screaming and I just sat there and let them. I just… sat there and let them. I didn’t even try to help. She didn’t come back.”

“What do you mean she didn’t come back? What did they tell you happened to her?” Alex asked. Michael smiled sadly.

“They didn’t. If I asked, I got in trouble. If I said her name, I got punished. So I stopped saying her name,” Michael said. Alex started to feel really bad about trying to learn about this. “They started being really hard on me after that ‘cause I was the only one left.”

“How did you get away?” Alex asked softly.

“Told you, I’m weak,” he said, sighing and graciously taking the joint from Alex’s fingers, “I did what they said until someone else came in to help me. Dr. Wyatt snuck in to help me escape, but I was too scared. But he promised he’d help me, I just had to help him. He told me what to do. I just did the dirty work.” Michael moved his finger in a circle and tilted his head to the side as if to insinuate that he killed them all.

“Oh my God,” Alex breathed.

“But Dr. Wyatt put me through school and therapy and helped me get a job, got me out of New Mexico, made me a citizen because I wasn’t documented before,” Michael said, shrugging his shoulder, “So I deal. Even if I can’t talk to the gorgeous barista that has my order memorized.”

Alex tried to force a soft laugh even though his heart felt heavy with his admissions. It felt even heavier whenever Alex immediately started wondering what kind of testing they did on him. He was pretty sure he could keep those to himself, though.

On a happy note, though, this was more than Other Michael ever talked. Maybe he should get him high more often.

“Well, you’re talking to someone like him now,” Alex pointed out. Michael lulled his head to face him and, for the first time, made eye contact.

“I missed out on so much, though,” Michael said, “A childhood, social interaction, everything. I can’t go anywhere without thinking about it for days first or already knowing how it works. I eat the same things, I go to the same places, I do the same things. I got out of a prison, but I’m still so stuck in a routine that I can’t shake. You know I’m almost 29 and I’ve never even been kissed?”

Alex looked at every inch of his face, taking in every similarity and every difference from his Michael. He was so distinctly different. There was no confusing them for one another no matter how hard he tried.

“I can be your first kiss,” Alex offered. Michael’s face turned bright red and he looked away. “Seriously, I can. It’s not like it’d be weird. It would be more to, you know, get it out of the way with someone who has pretty much already kissed you.”

Michael swallowed and looked everywhere except Alex. Until he did.

“Okay.”

“And you’re sure?”

“Yeah.

Michael’s face was still red. Alex just grinned at him. This he could do. It wouldn’t fix all the bad things he dragged up, but it would be a happy little release at the end of the conversation. They both took one last hit off the joint before Alex stubbed it out and turned to the man in question. He reached up and put his hand on his cheek, feeling how he felt so hot it damn near burned his skin.

When Alex tried to press a kiss to his lips, he just met tense, overly puckered lips. He tried not to laugh as he sat there, hoping Michael would stop having his mouth like that. However, that didn’t happen and they both pulled away with a laugh.

“You need to relax,” Alex told him, laughing easily and using his thumb to rub all the tension out of his lips. Michael was so red he was probably about to pass out from lightheadedness.

“I wasn’t ready,” he laughed, lying through his teeth before he told the truth, “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Don’t think about it too hard, just channel your inner Drew Barrymore and be kissable,” Alex told him. Michael’s eyes went comically wide.

“What does that even mean?”

“Oh my god, you’re so uncultured, we’re watching Never Been Kissed after this,” Alex said, scooting closer. Michael laughed genuinely for probably the first time ever and Alex took that as his sign. He closed the space between them again and it went a lot smoother that time since he was relaxed.

Alex led the way, but he took it slow and Michael followed at the same pace. Michael lifted his hand and gently gripped his arm, pulling him close. It definitely didn’t feel like his Michael. There was no big spark, no mind-numbing perfection, no desire to keep him there or his life would fall apart in his wake. But it wasn’t bad. It was like kissing a friend.

The kiss slowly ended and they stayed close. Alex was about to make a joke again, but Michael, surprising him for another time that night, spoke first.

“Can you help me with something?” Michael asked.

“You know I will.”

“Can you get me a dead car battery?”

Alex raised an eyebrow as he pulled away, but he couldn’t say no to his eager face so just said yes.

Within the next 24 hours, Alex found himself watching an impressive act. Michael used his hands as defibrillators. He didn’t scream like Max, he just focused and did it. When Max breathed his first breath of life again, Michael quickly turned his attention to the car battery. All of the negative energy that came from that was then transferred into something meant to hold electricity instead of letting it fester.

Alex didn’t have the words for how proud he was.

“Are you going to miss him when he’s gone?”

“Yeah, but I want the real Michael back.”

Alex dipped his fry into his milkshake, feeling extra tired. He’d been a little too okay recently. He and Other Michael were good friends and they talked a lot. Alex ended up telling him his life story out of guilt for prying out his and they bonded over their trauma. It was nice to have someone to talk to and who talked back and there was no pity.

But then it hit him that he was still very lonely and that note that was just a ton of I love yous still was beneath the pillow where he still slept in his ex-boyfriend’s bed after two goddamn months. So now he was sad and longing for Michael to be back even though he felt guilty for wanting to send Other Michael back to a place where he would be alone.

“What are you going to do when he comes back? Just act like you guys weren’t fighting before he left?” Isobel asked. Alex sighed slowly and shrugged his shoulders.

“No, we’re gonna talk. I’ve really learned how to talk recently,” Alex admitted. Isobel raised an eyebrow and he rolled his eyes. “I have.”

“With the Other Michael?”

“Yeah, with him,” he said, “Maybe that’s what he’s here for.”

“To teach you how to talk to another person?”

“Yes.”

Isobel just laughed to herself, but she didn’t argue. They both finished up their meal and started to head back to the bunker where Max already was. However, they were shocked when they got into the bunker and Michael looked at them with wild eyes.

“It’s time,” he said, “I can feel it, it’s time.”

And things moved too fast. Michael started turning knobs and Max and Isobel called Liz and Maria. It was all too fast, so fast Alex barely found time to grab Other Michael’s arm and stop him so they could talk.

“Are you gonna stop long enough to say goodbye?” Alex asked. Michael looked at him with wide eyes.

“But it’s time,” he said, “Aren’t you ready to get him back?”

“Yes,” Alex said honestly, “But you still have to say goodbye. I mean, we’ve spent two months together. Are you even ready to go home? Are you going to be okay?”

Michael gave a small smile and he nodded, eyes not quite on Alex’s but close enough.

“I’ll be okay,” he told him, “All I wanted was to see Max and Isobel again and I have. And this version of them is happier than the ones I would’ve met if I went back in my own timeline. So I think it was fate.”

“But aren’t you going to be lonely?” Alex asked. He didn’t know why he was asking. He didn’t know why it sounded like he didn’t want him to go. Michael just pulled him into a hug that Alex reciprocated easily.

“I think I’m finally gonna talk to that barista,” Michael said softly. Alex huffed a laugh and squeezed him.

“I hope it works out.”

“I know it will,” Michael insisted, “I’m meant for him like your Michael’s meant for you. I can feel it.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I’m a lot of things, but wrong is rarely one of them.”

With a laugh, Alex pulled away and did his best not to cry. He still wasn’t sure why he was so upset. It was just… so fast. And yet not fast enough.

Michael said his goodbyes and then, in the most unceremonious of fashions, stepped through the portal.

And another stepped back out.

Alex lunged forward to catch him, checking over his body for any sign that he was hurt and they clung to each other. It was unreal how much he could feel that it was his man just by the way his body felt against his. He missed him more than he had words for.

Very reluctantly Alex let everyone hug him too and, for the next few hours, just hovered close as they all caught up with him after only a few minutes alone. It wasn’t enough. He needed hours alone with him. Days. Weeks.

There was so much lost time and he was okay. He wasn’t taking this for granted again. He refused.

That night, they found themselves in the airstream and Michael immediately noticed that Alex had been staying there.

“That is weirdly romantic,” Michael, his Michael, said as he sat on the bed. Alex laughed and just reached out to touch his face. Michael leaned into it just like the Other Michael, but it felt different. It was different. This… this was cosmic.

“I love you,” Alex admitted.

“And I love you,” he said, tugging his hips down to his lap. Alex immediately kissed him and it felt like breathing again at the feeling of his lips. When they laid back, though, it was impossible to miss the crinkling of that note.

Michael reached for it and an embarrassed expression fell over his features as he realized what it was. Alex just took it and leaned in for another kiss. That note had kept him going for the last two months and he was going to treasure it. It was nothing to be embarrassed about.

“I’ve learned a thing or two since you left,” Alex said, “And one of them was all about talking through shit. Saw the other version of you do a lot of extraordinary things after talking through shit. So we’re going to do that, okay?”

“Okay,” Michael said, his tone telling him to continue.

“And in this note you said you’d treat me better in another life. Can’t it be this one?”

Michael stared up at him, something in his eyes that Alex couldn’t quite place. He hoped that he one day would be able to place it.

But, for right now, he was happy that he was home.

“It will be this one. But it’s you, Alex, it’s always been you.”

And, between him and the Other Michael, Alex knew it was the truth.

#malexweek20 #malex20 #malex fic #malex #michael guerin #alex manes #roswell new mexico #my fic

72 notes · View notes

hysterialevi · 4 years

Text

His Name Was Isaac - Ch. 4

Fanfic summary: During a mission to avenge his mother’s death, Isaac hunts down the men responsible for her murder and kills them off one-by-one, only to discover that his last target is taking refuge among the Van der Linde gang. In an attempt to kill them, Isaac attacks the gang and unknowingly becomes enemies with his own father, who is in the process of fighting his own battle for redemption.

Point of view: third-person

Author’s note: Thank you guys for all the support you’ve given so far! The messages and comments I’ve received have all been so kind and caring. It really means the world to me. Hope you enjoy this part :)

Previous chapter | Next chapter

This story is also on AO3

LATER THAT DAY

AURORA BASIN

“You ever wonder about eternity?” Mrs. Downes’ voice echoed in Arthur’s head, ringing like a distant bell.

“...You should.”

These days, it felt like that was all he could think about. With Hosea dead, Marston gone, and Dutch’s life hanging by a thread, Arthur often found himself pondering what awaited them in the near-future.

Their gang was pretty much done, despite how much Dutch tried to deny it. He may have acted as if they were still in their prime and running around like in the good ol’ days, but with both the Pinkertons and Skinner Brothers crying out for blood on the horizon, Arthur didn’t see much of a future for them at all. If anything, the only thing he saw coming for the Van der Lindes... was an end.

They were already living on borrowed time as it was. Their gang had experienced so many close calls and damned so many lives, that Arthur figured they were due to pay for their crimes sooner or later.

He had lived long enough to see that there was no such thing as getting away with a sin, and considering how things had been going for them lately, he assumed that their time would run out before they even realized it.

Civilization was the new foundation for America... and without anywhere else to run to anymore, Arthur only hoped he’d be able to wake Dutch up before it was too late.

Otherwise... he didn’t know what they would do.

Scribbling down a few more lines into his journal, Arthur threw together a simple portrait of Dutch as he quietly relaxed by the campfire, allowing his mind to drift away with the soft crackling that emitted from the flames.

He had just finished his heated conversation with the old man and left him to rest in the cabin, but even after calming him down, Arthur couldn’t deny that he was still on edge.

The way he acted back there... it was nothing like the Dutch he knew. In Arthur’s head, he still pictured the outlaw as a paternal figure. He saw Dutch as someone who cared for others and dared to question what everyone else accepted as their perpetual reality.

He was a guardian. A father. A dreamer. A lost soul trying to find his way back home.

But the man in the cabin? ...He was nothing but a stranger to Arthur. His mind and mannerisms both remained a mystery, and the added layer of insanity on top of all that did nothing except further his paranoia.

His life revolved solely around greed and pride these days, and if Arthur didn’t know any better, he would’ve said that Dutch himself didn’t even care anymore.

They both knew their life as outlaws was done for. That much was obvious. But the difference was -- only one of them was willing to accept it.

“Spoke with Dutch about the robbery today,” Arthur wrote next to his drawing. “...It didn’t go so well. His illness keeps getting worse, and his mind ain’t doing much better neither. He’s deranged. Lost. Nothing but a memory of his true self.”

“It just makes me wonder how life is gonna be after he passes. I didn’t say it to Dutch’s face back at the cabin... but one of my biggest fears in life is the idea of being left alone. Family’s pretty much the only thing I live for nowadays, and without anyone else to stand by my side, part of me wonders if the world is just gonna stop turning when Dutch dies.”

“I don’t even know if I’ll want to stay with the gang at that point. I suppose I could try to make contact with John and the others once again. Try to live a normal life. But knowing Abigail, she’d probably want nothing to do with me. They have Jack to take care of, after all, and it’s no secret that Abigail despises anything to do with criminals. Not that I blame her.”

“I guess I’ll just have to wait and see where this goes. I ain’t got that many options left in life, that’s true. But that don’t mean I’m not gonna try to do the right thing. We was born to be outlaws. And it’s clear to me now that that’s how we’ll die too. But I may as well try to make amends while I still have the opportunity.”

“It’s the only thing I can do at this point.”

Setting his pencil down with a conflicted sigh, Arthur stuck it in between the pages and shut his journal closed, shoving the thing back into his satchel. He figured he had wasted enough time skulking around in his head for one day, and decided it would be best if he just focused on preparing for the bank robbery ahead.

There were weapons to load, guns to clean, plans to lay out... and judging by how Dutch was doing just a few minutes ago, Arthur assumed most of the work would fall on him and Micah. That was usually how things went.

Before he could return to the task at hand however, a pair of men approached him.

“Morgan!” Shay called out as Bill Williamson walked alongside him.

Arthur mentally groaned to himself, admittedly not in the mood for socializing. “Shay. Bill.”

Mackintosh had a seat at the campfire, making himself comfortable on a crate. “Heard you had a talk with Dutch. How’d it go?”

Arthur took his hat off, combing a tired hand through his hair. “About as well as you’d expect.”

Bill joined in. “So, we’re robbin’ the bank then?”

He put his hat back on. “Yep. Looks like it.”

Shay was obviously disappointed by the news and shook his head in disapproval, glancing at the cabin. “...He’s gonna get everyone killed, Arthur.”

Arthur sighed in a defeated tone. “Look, I tried to get through to him, but his mind’s been set. It’s clear that he ain’t leavin’ Blackwater anytime soon, and if we try to push any harder, I’m worried he’ll kill someone. Dutch already pulled a gun on me when I talked to him. We’ll just have to do our best during this robbery.”

Shay stared at Arthur for a moment, evidently not reassured.

“...We have seven people, Arthur. Seven. And two are staying behind to guard the camp. That’s four outlaws and a dying man against what, a dozen lawmen? Pinkertons, too? This robbery is gonna be a suicide mission.”

Arthur rested a hand on his knee. “Well, we don’t have a choice. Alright? I don’t like it either, but no matter how unstable he might be, Dutch is still the boss. If he says we’re gonna rob the bank, then...” his eyes fell to the ground, “...that’s what we’ll do. You don’t wanna do it, you can always sit it out.”

“No, I’ll come.” Shay confirmed. “But you can’t deny that this is a stupid idea. We should be movin’ away from the Pinkertons. Not straight towards them. That was kinda the whole reason we even bothered travelin’ this far west.”

Mackintosh let out a breath and backed down for a moment, dragging a hand down his face. “Ah... I’m sorry, Arthur. I dunno why I’m puttin’ all this on you. I know it ain’t your fault. You tried your best to talk to Dutch, so, really... I should be thanking you. I just wish he would’ve listened.”

Arthur nodded in agreement, standing up from the campfire. “...Yeah. Me too. Sadly, my words seem to always fall on deaf ears these days. Feels like no one’s listenin’ to us. Not even ourselves.”

Strolling away from the fire, Arthur suddenly stopped in his tracks when he noticed that someone was missing from the vicinity. He assumed that everyone was at camp and getting ready for their upcoming job in the next few days, but upon further observation, the gang appeared to be one man short.

Arthur turned back to Shay and Bill, quirking a brow at them.

“Hey, have either of you boys seen Micah?”

~~~~~~~~~~

MEANWHILE

BLACKWATER SALOON

Laying the weathered piece of paper down on the desk, Micah presented his roughly-drawn map of Aurora Basin to Isaac as the young man relaxed in a wooden chair, studying the map with one hand and holding onto his rifle with the other. He and Micah may have been partners for the time being, but that didn’t mean he trusted the outlaw for one second.

“...Aurora Basin.” Isaac read aloud, his eyes skimming over the text. “So this is your camp?”

Micah nodded, crossing his arms. “Sure is, cowpoke. You ever heard of it?”

The young man shook his head. “No.”

“Good. Then that means I chose a good spot. Or not, depending on how you approach it.”

Isaac pulled his chair closer, taking a better look at the map. “Well, what’s the best way in? Is it well-defended?”

Micah rested a hand on the desk. “Overall, I’d say yes. There ain’t nothin’ but mountains on the west side of the camp, and the region of Tall Trees completely envelopes the other. If you wanna attack the gang, you’re gonna have to get real close. Unfortunately for you though, there’s only one way in.”

“I thought so. Is it this path here?” He pointed to the road on the eastern side of the map.

“Yep. That’s where we post our guards. We’ve always got two men standing there just in case anyone... unfriendly shows up.”

Isaac leaned back, contemplating his next move. “So... there’s no way in from the east or the west. What about the north and south? Is it possible I could sneak in from there?”

Micah rejected the idea. “Surrounded by mountains too, I’m afraid.”

The young man furrowed his brow. “Well, shit. Looks like this is gonna more difficult than I thought. What about the guards who are posted at the entrance? When do they switch out? That might be the only opening I can seize.”

“Every couple hours or so. But they don’t switch at the same time, so there’s always gonna be at least one person there who can see you.”

The outlaw offered an alternative. “Though... it might interest you to know that the gang’s headed out for a robbery in two days.”

Isaac perked his head up. “It is? Where?”

Micah chuckled. “That information’s irrelevant to you. The part you should care about is the fact that everyone’ll be gone for a while. The only people who’ll be left are the two guards at the entrance. But I’m sure a tough boy such as yourself can handle them just fine. Can’t you?”

Isaac rubbed his chin in thought. “I should be able to sneak in, but I need to know more about the camp itself first. Where do you keep your supplies?”

Micah pointed to a group of wagons stationed near the hitching posts. “Here. That’s where we store most of our food, weapons, medicine, ammo... you name it.”

The young man diverted his gaze to another location. “And what about this cabin here?”

The outlaw followed his line of sight. “Oh, that? That’s where our leader lives.”

“You mean Dutch van der Linde?” Isaac clarified. “I’ve heard he’s quite the unpredictable man.”

Micah sighed. “Unpredictable, paranoid, and dying. The deadliest combination. I’d suggest leavin’ him alone for now.”

“...I’ll keep that in mind. But tell me more about this robbery. When are you boys setting out? How long d’you reckon you’ll be gone?”

The outlaw took a moment to think. “Oh, I dunno... about an hour, I’d guess? Not a lotta time for you to find the camp and do what you need to do, but it’s the only chance you’ll get. As for when we’re leaving, we usually start robberies early in the morning. We don’t wanna give the law a chance to wake up properly before the chaos ensues.”

Isaac stood up from the desk. “That works for me.”

Micah eyed the young man with a cautionary glare. “...Just remember who helped you get this done, princess. You may be payin’ me, but I still got guns of my own. I won’t hesitate to use ‘em if you leave me no other choice. Understand?”

Isaac took the map and folded it in his hand, casually assuring the outlaw. “Of course, Micah. I won’t forget.”

“Good. Then I think I’ve given you your eighteen dollars’ worth of information. You wanna know more, you’ll have to pay more. For now, though...” Micah made his way to the exit, resting a hand on the doorknob, “...all I can say is good luck.”

“Wait.” Isaac said, stopping the other man before he could leave.

Micah lazily glanced over his shoulder, clearly eager to get out of here. “What is it?”

Isaac took a seat on the edge of the bed, placing his rifle on his lap. He seemed a little too calm for Micah’s liking, and the next words that came out of his mouth did nothing to ease the man.

“...Don’t eat the food after you return from the robbery.” He warned plainly, obviously thinking of something.

“Otherwise, it won’t be pretty.”

#red dead redemption #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 #arthur morgan #isaac morgan #dutch van der linde #Micah Bell #Bill Williamson #rdr2 fanfic #rdr2 oc

25 notes · View notes

welllpthisishappening · 4 years

Text

singersdd

replied to your video

“washingtonburakovsky: i love how tylers shamelessly watching the caps...”

It's Killian and Peggy while she's home with a cold & happy at the moment.

Listen, I am only human. Albeit a human who really is very concerned about how much hummus I’m going to consume while social-distancing. But the point remains. And when I see solid ideas, I feel compelled to write about them. We’re going to go the teething route, though. So, sorry other anon, that Blue Line masterlist has another thing on it now. Here’s like 1.5 K of total fluff.

-----

They had tried everything.

Anything. All of it. And then some.

They were bordering on desperate now, a growing frustration over the last few days that had not happened when Matt was this age. Nothing helped.

Peggy twisted and turned and tossed and whined, which didn’t follow the alliterative rule that Killian had apparently come up wth, but he was more than willing to blame that on his absolute and complete exhaustion.

Sleeping, it seemed, was a luxury neither he nor Emma could afford anymore.

Not when they were so busy reading lists and searching for some kind of an answer, typing word combinations that Killian wasn’t even aware existed in the English language until some time in the realm of four that morning. That was after the pacing. But before the bobbing — moving through a variety of rooms in their apartment because some website on the third page of the Google results promised it would work.

It didn’t.

He hadn’t expected it to.

Nothing good ever came from the third page of Google.

“Ah, no, no, nah—c’mon,” Killian mumbled, reaching out a hand that he didn’t think should feel quite that heavy in an attempt to tug Peggy’s fingers away from her mouth.

Every inch of him ached, and that might have also been a byproduct of the only-recent end to the season, an admittedly not great end either, a second-round loss that would probably grate on his nerves even more than Peggy’s tooth-related screeching, but none of those words were particularly positive to begin with.

So.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever had so many opinions on words.

Matt was going to stay with the Vankalds for the rest of the weekend.

“We’re not doing that,” Killian continued. Peggy made a noise. Not words. Figured. She was a baby. “I know it hurts, but you can’t start sticking your fingers in your mouth. Did the medicine wear off?”

Still no response.

It really had not been this bad for Matt.

That seemed unfair.

For all parties involved.

“Alright, we’ll get the ring thing and that’ll probably help and you won’t mention how that rhymed, right?”

That got him a gurgle and a wobbling lower lip.

Killian’s head dropped — whether from exhaustion or the overwhelming obstacle of a teething six-month-old, he wasn’t entirely sure. “We’ve just got to make sure the ring thing isn’t frozen, ok, Pegs? And then you can have that and maybe some more medicine. Where do you think Mom put the medicine box?” Killian swayed on the spot, trying to look in the kitchen without walking, rocking his head to a rhythm that didn’t exist when the TV was playing a game in the background.

The Capitals and Penguins.

In the Eastern Conference Finals.

So, maybe Killian was just a masochist.

It was the first time he’d watched a game since his ended.

Peggy squirmed again, tears welling in the corner of her eyes while her unoccupied fingers curled forward to reach for something. There wasn’t a shirt there anymore — a product of lunch and mashed bananas were disgusting anyway, and Emma had postseason stuff to do at the Garden.

Killian needed to pick his shirt off their bedroom floor at some point.

“I know, I know, I know,” he chanted, leaning back like meeting his daughter’s gaze would help the situation. It did not. Version, four-hundred and sixty-two.

He was admittedly less worried about numbers than words.

The tears spilled over, and he honestly wasn’t sure where all the moisture on her face was coming from — her eyes or her mouth or a mixture of both and someone on the myriad of websites he and Emma had spent all night clicking on should have made it more obvious that parenting was like this.

Difficult. Exhausting.

Possibly impossible.

Killian huffed, teeth digging into his lower lip. He kept moving, ignoring the state of his calves and the force Peggy got into her kicks when she flailed her legs into his ribs.

“Ok, ok, ok,” he said. Apparently he could only repeat things in triplicate now. That was at least on brand for hockey and—

Killian let out another breath, ruffling the ends of Peggy’s barely-there hair. “Alright, we’re going to try something new.”

The medicine was on top of the refrigerator, which wasn’t the first place Killian thought to look, but it hadn't been at the bottom of his metaphorical list and he was going to take his victories where he could get them.

Plus, the ring-thing, plastic monstrosity, whatever, was not frozen.

“Only one more away from a parenting hat trick, huh?” he muttered, mostly into the top of Peggy’s head. She’d stopped crying eventually, more than a few hiccups and noises that ebbed as soon as Killian started drawing circles on her back.

“That was actually really funny,” Killian added. “You’ll appreciate that eventually, I know it.” He dropped back into the corner of the couch, careful not to jostle the kid in his arms and it wasn’t the most comfortable he’d ever been, but it was certainly a step in the right direction.

Where stepping wasn’t involved at all.

More like, staring. Directly at the hockey game in front of them.

Killian was fairly certain Peggy’s eyes didn’t actually widen, but he was willing to blame the exhaustion again and they definitely should have thought of this before. He’d admittedly been avoiding most things hockey-related though, and that was also a little childish.

They only had room for so many children in that apartment.

He let Peggy turn, her back to his chest and tiny legs stretched out in front of her. Her head rested just under his collarbone, those same few tufts of hair tickling his skin.

Killian smiled.

Even if it was the Capitals and the Penguins.

And, so it went — for the next two periods, part medicine, part ring-thing, part analyzing the game, a running stream of commentary from Killian and baby-type sounds from Peggy and neither one of them tried to sleep, which might not have been the best decision, but he did get her to giggle several times and he assumed that was a wash.

Maybe some kind of zamboni joke. Fresh start or clear ice or something.

“See, that right winger on the Pens can’t get the puck in the zone,” Killian mumbled, almost halfway through the third period, and he’d stretched out at some point.

His feet hung over the side of the couch, toes threatening to rest on the arm of the closest chair, with one arm twisted behind his head. He still hadn’t put his shirt back on, Peggy resting on his chest on hands and knees, making it only too easy to press absent-minded kisses to her chin and her cheek and the bridge of her nose when she started to babble again.

“I know,” Killian nodded. “I don’t think he’s good either. You’re a genius, you know that?”

More babbling. A few da’s sprinkled in for good measure.

Killian’s heart felt like it was going to burst.

It was a much better feeling than that lingering ache in his calves.

Someone on the TV smacked the puck into the boards, earning another noise from Peggy and a grin from Killian and he was almost genuinely disappointed that they missed the final few minutes of the game.

Exhaustion appeared to be the winner anyway.

His eyelids fluttered when he heard the lock in the door, soft footsteps and the telltale sounds of shoes kicked off, and Peggy didn’t move when Emma did.

She scrunched her nose as soon as she stopped in front of the couch.

“I probably should feel bad waking you up, huh?” she asked softly, a quick hiss when one her knees cracked. She’d crouched down.

Killian clicked his tongue. “I’m sure it’s painfully adorable.” “Something like that, for sure. What worked?” “Who won the game?”

“Oh my God, did hockey do this?” “You could probably argue that hockey did all of this,” Killian said, doing his best not to laugh for fear of shifting Peggy too much. Emma rolled her eyes. “Go on, admit you’re into that.” “I’m delirious from sleep deprivation.” “I can’t believe we didn’t think of this before. Sounds of the rink as a lullaby.” “God,” Emma groaned, but it didn’t sound particularly frustrated. “If I go sleep in bed like a normal person, you going to be annoyed?” “Not at all.” “Do you also want to go sleep in bed?”

Emma lifted her eyebrows when she pressed her lips together and Killian got the very real impression she already knew the answer. “Nah,” he whispered. “I’m good here.” She nodded once, a kiss to the side of his mouth and the top of Peggy’s head and Killian fell asleep to the sounds of post-game press conferences and in-studio analysis.

#singersdd #cs ff #captain swan #blue line one shots #i'm sorry anon!#can't stop won't stop #killian watching hockey with his kids is one of my favorite things

33 notes · View notes

meat-husband · 5 years

Note

How would Brahms, Jason and Michael deal with a stalker who keeps following their s/o, calling or sending them messages and trying to break into the s/o's house? (I know that michael is THE stalker but yk)

Step one on how to get yourself brutally murdered - stalk a slasher’s s/o

Brahms

He listens in to every call you get and reads all your mail and messages, so he knows the moment it starts to happen. Pissed doesn’t even begin to describe how angry he is, but not at you - he’s very much not okay with competition, and he’s the only one allowed to rifle through your things!

Clinginess turned up to 11. You don’t go anywhere in the house without him attached to you, and anything that can get messages is turned off, no matter how much you need to use your phone for other things. He’s very, very jealous, even though you’ve made it clear that you’re not interested in this other person.

Once he realizes that someone is creeping around at night, he knows he can finally take care of the problem. You may or may not find out about it, depending on the situation, but they’re definitely gonna die the next time they come sneaking around.

You’re a little suspicious when you realize just how long Brahms has been gone. The past few weeks he’s been practically glued to you, draped over your shoulders or trailing after you no matter what you were doing. He tended to want to stay close anyways, never very far behind even if you couldn’t see him, but he had taken it to the extreme lately. You knew why that was, hearing him huffing with jealousy every time your phone rang or another message came in, still upset despite your reassurances.

“Brahms?”

You listen for a reply, but the house stays silent, no sound except the light rain from outside against the windows. You frown, getting up from the couch and peeking down the hall, but the rest of the house is dark and there’s no sign of him. Wherever he is, you can’t imagine he’s doing anything good, not after how frustrated and upset he’s been lately. You don’t hear the sounds of a tantrum, though, and nothing looks out of place as you wander through the rooms. If he was getting into trouble, you would have found some proof of it by now.

You head back to the couch, pulling a knitted blanket over your lap and looking back down at your book. Reading wasn’t your first choice of entertainment, but Brahms loved it, so you were steadily working your way through a pile of material that he had demanded you read. This particular story was very dull, in your opinion, but you slogged through it anyways. It was long and wordy, and you couldn’t pronounce half the names, so you didn’t expect to retain much from it.

“Have you gotten to the part where he stabs her yet?”

The question makes you jump, book and blanket falling from your lap. Two hands on either arm keep you from falling off the couch yourself, and you look up at him with a glare, clutching the armrest.

“Where have you been? And don’t spoil things, it’s already a boring enough book without you telling me all the good bits.”

Brahms slides easily over the back of the couch, scooting over the cushions until he’s pressed against you. His clothes are damp, droplets of water sticking to his curls, and you push at him to keep from getting wet yourself, but he only leans closer. You make a face, feeling the water soaking into your own clothes, but he’s already here so you allow him to half crawl into your lap, legs dangling over the couch.

“Well,” he says slowly, porcelain cheek on your shoulder. “He doesn’t really stab her. He stabs the soldier.”

“Brahms!” You snap, tugging off his wet cardigan and dropping it to the floor. “I said no more spoilers! Now, where have you been and why are you wet?”

He huffs, arms circling your waist as he pulls you closer. He gives you enough leeway that you can bend down to pick up your things, throwing the blanket over him and rustling through the pages of your book, but quickly settles himself over you in an inescapable grip.

“It’s not a spoiler, the book is over 150 years old,” he complains. “You should have read it by now.”

He’s being unusually talkative, which isn’t uncommon when the subject is something he likes, even more so when it’s something you know nothing about. But he’s avoiding your questions, and you know there’s got to be something going on if he’s trying to steer you away from the topic.

“Where did you go?” You say firmly. “You’re wet, have you been outside? You’ll get sick in the rain, Brahms.”

He’s silent, arms tense around you, and you wait for the answer patiently. You can’t imagine why he would go outside in the rain, he had always hated your suggestions of quick walks in the garden or even sitting next to the big library windows.

“There was a rat,” he says finally. “A big one. Trying to get in. I killed it.”

You relax a little, sighing in relief. It was better than whatever trouble you could have imagined him getting into, though you wondered why he bothered when the traps outside seemed to work just fine.

“Did you wash your hands after? I don’t want rat germs.”

Michael

He can tell immediately when someone starts following you, mainly because he’s already following you. The messages and notes wouldn’t concern him too much, but actually stalking you would push him over the edge - that’s his thing.

He’s not really the possessive type, at least not in an overbearing way, but he’s very much not okay with anyone else making a move on you, whether you reciprocate or not. Even if this stalker doesn’t have romantic intentions, he’s going to take it that way. After all, that’s how he started out.

If they last long enough that they’re snooping around your house, that’s the last straw. He’s not going to put up with someone else following you around in the first place, coming to your home is just the thing that gives him the perfect opportunity to kill them.

You wake up to loud, ringing bangs. Still half asleep, you raise your head, trying to process what’s happening. The noise is loud and rumbling, reverberating through the walls from somewhere nearby but you can’t place the sound. Opening your eyes, you can see that it’s still pitch dark, maybe only a few hours after you had gotten into bed. Michael isn’t in the room, but that’s not unusual and you assume he’s either roaming the streets or lurking elsewhere in the dark house, unable to sleep as easily as you.

Another series of bangs rattle the walls and you sigh, throwing the covers away to slide out of bed. You grimace at the cold air, wanting nothing more than to ignore the strange sounds and keep sleeping, but you know you can’t. Whatever is going on, you’re sure Michael’s involved, and he’s probably breaking something valuable.

“You better not be getting into trouble!”

You shout the warning as you clumsily slip on some shorts, but the noises don’t stop. Coming out of the hall, you enter the living room and switch on the lights with an angry flick, but two steps into the room you stop. Glass is spread over the floor, and you narrowly avoid stepping in it at the last second, jerking back and stumbling into the wall. Scattered amongst the glass is the shattered frame of a coffee table in pieces, large pieces of wood splintered off. A loud bang from just on the other side of the wall startles you, and you turn to glare at it.

“What did you do to the table?!”

The noises stop suddenly, mid thud, and you wait in silence for Michael to show himself. It doesn’t take long, the familiar dark shape of him slowly stepping out from the kitchen doorway.

“Michael,” you say irritability. “What’s going on? You-“

You stop, finally getting a good look at him as he comes towards you. His clothes are stained, which is their normal condition, but the big, wet splotches are fresh, and a rough smear of red over the jaw and neck of his mask is still dripping into his chest. Taking a few steps back, you’re only annoyed at first - you’ll have to make him clean up so he doesn’t track blood everywhere, but you quickly notice a bigger problem.

A man, Michael’s hand on his throat keeping him in place even as he struggles, face turning purple and still clawing violently at Michael’s shoulders. Your eyes go wide, mouth open in shock, and you’re about to say something - or scream, you’re not sure which - when you realize that you recognize the man he’s holding. You didn’t know him, but you had seen him before, hanging around your work and the places you went with your friends. He had spoken to you once or twice, but you couldn’t recall about what or for how long, only that you knew his face. Looking at him now, eyes rolling back and limbs already going weak, you know there’s no saving him, even if Michael didn’t have a death grip on his throat. His clothes are dark, but you know the blood had to have come from somewhere, and it wasn’t Michael’s.

Michael doesn’t seem to struggle at all to keep the man under control, one hand on his neck and the other limp at his side. He doesn’t look down as a hand slaps weakly at his chest, and the only tension in him at all seems to be in the grip of his hand. With a slow, calm movement he raises his free hand, pointing across the room. You keep still, but turn your head slightly, almost afraid to look away from him.

The curtains sway gently, the wind ruffling them through the broken panes of glass in your window. You pause for a moment, looking at the broken in window and the mess of glass it had left on the floor. Michael wasn’t above breaking in to your house if you somehow locked him out, but you could tell this wasn’t him, it was obvious and clumsy, and whoever had come in that way had cut themselves and left red streaks on the walls.

“Oh,” you say quietly, looking back at the now limp man. “Well.”

Admittedly, you’d always felt safe from break ins and similar crimes, and Michael’s presence was just an added bonus, but you had never expected him to actually catch someone trying to break in.

“I guess… I probably shouldn’t call the police, then, huh?”

Jason

He’s got a sixth sense for trespassers, especially ones that get too close to the cabin. Anyone that tries to follow you home is going to get caught well before they make it to the house.

Letters aren’t exactly going to make it to the cabin, and phone reception is spotty at best, so you might not even realize there’s someone trying to harass you at first. And if they try to follow you home, that’s the last anyone will see of them, so there’s a good chance you’ll never know you had a stalker in the first place.

So, it’s going to be difficult for anyone to actually stalk you effectively, you’ve pretty much got a personal guard dog 24/7. Unless something is obviously unusual about them, neither of you will probably realize they’re anything but a normal hiker or explorer.

Jason is already waiting for you when you return home from work, the couch piled with blankets, coffee ready and the low hum of the TV providing quiet, droning white noise. Kicking off your shoes, you collapse gratefully into the soft blankets and bury yourself into them. The weather hasn’t gotten as bad as it will be, but the cold wind and rain is unpleasant nonetheless and you’re ready to warm up and fall asleep on the couch. The soft noise and blankets has already half lulled you to sleep before you’re nudged awake by a big hand, opening bleary eyes to see a large, warm cup of coffee held out for you.

“Thanks,” you rasp, leaning up just enough to take a few sips of the hot drink. “I’m awake, just give me a second.”

You know there’s no rush, Jason would be just as happy to sit with you while you were dead asleep, but you wanted to enjoy at least a few minutes of cuddling before you drifted off. With only a little bit of a struggle, you pull yourself up, making enough room on the couch that he can nestle into the blankets beside you, and take the cup from him. It’s much hotter than you usually like, and with enough creamer that all you can taste is sugar, but you drink it as quickly as you can manage. Jason hasn’t quite gotten down the process of making any kind of food, but coffee is simple enough that you can generally still drink it when he’s done.

“Alright, what’s the movie for tonight?”

He hands you a battered cardboard case, the sleeve of an old VHS tape that had once belonged to a library judging from the stickers on the sides. It’s torn and ripped, but you can still see the cover clearly enough.

“We watched this last night, though, didn’t we?”

He taps the cover insistently, and you roll your eyes and sigh, but you don’t mind really. It’s an old black and white movie, title written in big loopy letters and the woman on the front gazing off into the distance with big, dark eyes. It’s obvious from the cover alone that it’s a sappy romance movie, but you expect to be out cold within the first thirty minutes anyways. You barely remembered anything about it from last night, but you don’t expect to get invested enough to stay up for it.

You grab the remote, starting the movie and listening to the old VCR player whir to life, and press yourself as close to his side as you can get. You don’t bother to pretend to be interested in the movie, closing your eyes and burying your face into his shirt, feeling the curve of his arm cradling your back. The overbearingly sweet music that plays over the opening credits is already fading away and you’re two seconds away from a comfortable, contented sleep, when you feel Jason tense under you. It’s a small enough change that it wouldn’t have woken you normally, but you know what it means. Eyes fluttering open with a groan, you hold onto him tighter.

“Noooo,” you whine. “C’mon, I just got comfy!”

Jason whines back, tilting his head in an apologetic way. You frown, clinging to him stubbornly, and give him the best puppy dog eyes you can manage with sleep ruffled hair and half open eyes.

“Just this once,” you beg, feeling him try to get up only to sink back into the couch when you don’t let go. “Please, they’ll probably leave on their own anyways, it’s like two in the morning.”

There’s no way for him to communicate the details, but you can see from his tensed shoulders and narrowed eyes that something about this particular trespasser is bothering him. They all bothered him really, but something had to be different this time. Maybe it was a large group, or someone drifting closer to the cabin than he liked, but whatever it was had him on edge. No one was stupid enough to sneak around much this time of year, let alone at night, so it wasn’t often now that he had to leave suddenly. You had gotten used to having him here whenever you wanted, but you knew it was unfair to try and stop him from going. Reluctantly, you took your hands away, sitting back with a pout.

“Well, hurry up then, I don’t want to have to watch this lame movie by myself.”

#Slashers #Brahms Heelshire #Michael Myers #Jason Voorhees #Slasher x Reader #honestly you dont even realize youve got a stalker half the time #before they get offed so #k the little blurb things arent edited #so there are probs mistakes somewhere #Anonymous

413 notes · View notes

megamanxfanfics · 5 years

Text

Thank Goodness for Deviant Art

It’s come to my attention that people might not be able to read my chapters after the [Read More] button any more. (At least not on mobile phones, I dunno). I don’t know why this is the case. It works fine for me, even when using Tumblr as a guest, but that might be an IP Address thing. I don’t really know how it works. Either way, from now on, I’m gonna put a link to my chapters on DA, just in case this is a problem you’re experiencing.

But either way, that’s not what I came here to talk about. Instead, I’d like to tell you about the unusually long process it took to write 9 & 10 and where I’m currently at with 11 right now!

(If you can’t read below, a link to this journal is available on DA!)

There’s not too much to say here. Work got the better of me for sure during these sessions for 9 & 10... Since the Fall of 2018, I fell into a routine pattern where my only window for writing became sometimes on Saturdays and Sundays. And if I wasn’t beaten down enough from the work week, I’d probably be working on music instead of this. It took extra ounces of inspiration to get X & Zero through their next steps. I definitely went through the motions, this go around, admittedly, but it all came together by the end. And I do like what became of it.

--------------------------------Ep. 9-------------------------------------------------

This one starts with a much anticipated Dynamo fight, against X this time. I was glad to have Zero stuck in England trying to get home. It allowed breathing room for X to take however long he wanted, without any interference from Zero, who would’ve absolutely wanted a rematch.

At first, I was very stoked about this chapter, and couldn’t wait to write the next sequence in X’s fight against Dynamo. There were a few play-through sessions, where I figured out, how X would attack him. Continuity wise, it was ballsy to have him start this fight with Standard Armor. I liked making the Falcon Armor more of a reflex maneuver than anything else. I was also a fan of the Giga Attack being the equalizer here that gets Dynamo to stop. Showing him sober up from his sociopathic ways, was interesting too. X can’t help but feel bad for him once that battle is over.

And then I was done, lol. The rest of this chapter is unfortunately a long transition to get to the next place, which was X’s stage in the jungle and Zero’s stage with Burn Dino-Rex.

This is what took forever... Going through the World Building and further Seed Planting from there, as we followed up on Gate & Isoc. I wanted to do this earlier, but it didn’t fit. I wanted to do it during the news broadcast of the Enigma firing, but that scene was better suited for Dynamo, who was recovering from his wounds at the time. [It’s fun to put that in perspective. It feels like that was months ago!!]

The Gate & Isoc scene was fun to write. I liked showing that Gate’s been busy trying to rebuild his old reploids. It was more fun to have a follow-up on our villains with a secretive phone call. But then I needed to focus on what was next, and I fell into sort of a trap. Getting Zero home...

I can honestly say it took about 3 weeks to come up with/write out the hacking trick to get Zero home quicker. And even that, I used a writing technique to fast forward that whole process from X’s perspective. This was a risk. It would’ve been neat to see Zero go in hyper warp speed, and add some hilarity to the middle of the chapter, before getting home, but it would’ve taken away from the drama of Lifesaver forcing X to go to sleep. That's where the risk lied in. What was Lifesaver’s motive? This got dark, for a minute. Lifesaver stuck a sedative needle into X’s neck to ensure he’d rest for at least an hour so that he’d be ready for his next mission. Kind of unethical, but it worked. So I explored that, with Zero questioning, while X wakes up in a confused state.

I didn’t want to get lost in this, so I had them leave right away. Then I took a 2nd risk. X was kind of an asshole to Zero as he was waking up, since he never believed in The Repliforce War to begin with. I liked this though. We built up and added towards the already existing animosity between them. They had unresolved business regarding their past actions, that were most likely buried in the past 3 years.

I did my very best to get X & Zero to their designated missions ASAP, but in the end, I think I had like 7 pages to explore their stages before hitting my usual cut-off point.

So I decided, the best road to take was to go down memory lane, on Zero’s part. Maybe we could explain some of his motives and see where he’s coming from. And I’m glad I got to do that. We got to review what Zero remembers of The Repliforce War, and how everything got off track once Dragoon originally investigated Dino-Rex. As far as Zero’s concerned, he’s just tying up the last loose end, here. Finishing what Dragoon failed to do in the first place. But also, he needed that Booster Engine, and one way or another, he was gonna get it.

----------------------------------Ep. 10----------------------------------------------

This takes me back to what I said before. The writing process of this isn’t worth talking about. For a good month, I honestly went through the motions every Saturday. Here and there. Bit by bit, just getting X through the next bit of the stage. Or Zero. Then X. Then Zero.

This got way boring. [This happened during Xtreme 2, too.]

But then I finally caught up to the bosses and it got super exciting again!! I suppose I could say that Zero’s sequences were way better than X’s due to the nature of the stage and what he’s going through. I liked showing Zero experience fear and vulnerability a little bit, while Alia proved her worth with her genius tactics. [Hiding in the shadows of the rocks, through the lava waves]

But then, the fights were interesting. I didn’t wait for Saturdays any more, and definitely finished out Axle the Red’s fight on a weeknight. Sacrificing sleep or together time if need be. One thing I will say about that fight, I really didn’t expect to name Axle’s twin Spike - the appropriate name for the character. That was a neat compromise of an Easter egg that I threw in there at the last minute during the fight, but I really enjoyed that.

Zero didn’t exaaaaactly need an assist from X, but he was very worn out from their battle. And nothing like a good juxtaposition to really show growth, right? I felt like X swooping in and saving the day really solidified their bond and brought their friendship back right where it needs to be, before the next climactic thing.

And that would be where I am right now. Episode 11!! I can’t believe it, but the catch up point to the Battle of Two Fates is finally here. And it was years in the making. I got my blessing from the lady this past Thursday to work on it while her new shows were on, and my Goodness! One thing lead to another, and I started to cook something up pretty sweet out of all the canon dialogue.

Now keep in mind, it is technically in game dialogue, but there's still so much unexplained, like what the characters are actually doing while they’re saying this stuff. Or what they’re exactly feeling. Re-envisioning this makes me see it in a whole new light. But it’s far from done. Just.. in a good spot, right now. That’s all I’ll say.

I can’t wait to work on it more, but this is what I chose to do this Saturday. So maybe I’ll get some time on it tomorrow or during the week. I don't know.

Season V has been a balancing act of making new interesting things out of a game I can’t stand. So inevitably there will be some awesome within the mundane. This happened with Season II as well, but that one was surprisingly solid throughout.

If I can make one prediction, it is that Episode 11 will be Ultra Hyped, and then I’ll probably go through the motions during the Eurasia stages once again. I’m figuring it out though. We’ll see. Until then, folks. I can’t wait to see how Ep. 11 turns out.

#Season V Diaries #Thank Goodness for Deviant Art #Writing Process #Ep. 9 #Ep. 10 #Ep. 11 #new update

1 note · View note

bastardnev · 6 years

Text

That Guy Next Door Ch. 16 (Final)

HHHHHHHHHHHooooookay i honestly can’t believe that we’re up to the Last Chapter Of This Fic. like i deadass cannot believe how quickly this all went

before i get into my usual Spiel i just wanted to say thanks real quick to everyone that’s read the fic up till this point. it means so much to me that ppl have been enjoyin it ❤️❤️❤️ (and i also wanna thank the ppl on mobile that are Not interested who’ve scrolled past each chapter on the off chance that the read more didn’t work dkjfgfjk)

WITH ALL THAT BEIN SAID:

tagging: @tylerblacks @joonhobi @rivela @aliciasfox @sailor-slam-dunk@kidvoodoo @smolsammichu @simulated-heat @douglas-leon-michael@1dluver13xx (lemme know if you wanna be added to my tag list!!)

Prev.: Ch. 1 ♡ Ch. 2 ♡ Ch. 3 ♡ Ch. 4 ♡ Ch. 5 ♡ Ch. 6 ♡ Ch. 7 ♡ Ch. 8 ♡ Ch. 9 ♡ Ch. 10 ♡ Ch. 11 ♡ Ch. 12 ♡ Ch. 13 ♡ Ch. 14 ♡ Ch. 15 ♡

Neville and Mustafa had been discussing their anniversary plans for a little while now, but that didn’t mean that the former was any less nervous when the big day finally arrived.

If anything, his knowledge of the conversation that they would be having was making him even more nervous. Far more than he probably should be, considering that this was supposed to be a fun day. Where he didn’t have to worry about anything.

Least of all inadvertently scaring Mustafa away, or freaking him out.

All that he needed to do was stick to his little plan, and everything should be fine. He’d been going over it in his mind for what felt like ages now. He knew what he was going to say, and he’d practiced it so many times that he’d lost count. It was fine. Everything was going to be fine.

He hoped.

The day was set to go according to the following itinerary: First, Neville would spend a good part of his morning making proper preparations. Everything needed to be just right, straight down to his outfit. (Wade had made a comment the other day about Neville most likely dressing as a dork on his anniversary. The spiteful side of Neville was determined to prove him wrong.) Then, later that evening, Mustafa would meet up with Neville at his house and have dinner with him and the rest of the family -- something that he admittedly was unsure about. Their initial plan had been to go out someplace to eat (Neville was far more fond of fancy restaurants when it wasn’t a tacky, love-centered national holiday), but it turned out that Jen and Daisy had different plans for the two of them.

After having planned it out for weeks -- apparently that was what they had been talking about during the nights when they’d stayed up way past their bedtimes -- they insisted that, seeing as it was such a big day, they wanted to do all the cooking. It was their anniversary, so why should they have to pay their hard-earned money to eat out someplace? (Neville wanted to say something about how he was the one that paid for the ingredients that they would be using to cook, but he kept that part to himself.)

And besides, Jen was on a mission to prove that she was almost an adult (“I’m almost eleven. Eleven! That’s two ones! Not one, two!”) and could handle such a lofty task. Neville knew damn well that when she got in one of these “grown-up” modes, it was difficult to get her out of it. It was better to just let her do as she pleased. Daisy, on the other hand, was primarily going along with it just so that Jen wouldn’t be the only one getting all the attention. All-in-all, it was business as usual with them.

Neville had at first been skeptical of their idea, as leaving a couple of children in charge of cooking an entire meal was risky for many reasons -- the main one being that he wasn’t in the mood to put out any fires that evening. That, and he was in a way looking forward to going out with Mustafa so they could have some time to themselves. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to spend time with his family -- he just believed that a couple should be able to have some private time on a night that was so important to them.

They managed to wear him down enough with their begging, however, and he figured that if he could convince Wade to lend them a hand then there was nothing to worry about. There would be some form of adult supervision -- much to Jen’s annoyance, but to Neville’s relief. And, he had to admit, he was curious to see what they would come up with. Their cooking skills were very limited, and as such so was the menu. Though he was predicting disaster, part of Neville wanted to see how this would all play out.

As such, one conversation with Mustafa later, it was officially decided that their anniversary would be spent at home with those closest to them. “Let’s hope we don’t end up getting food poisoning from this, though,” Neville added.

“If we do, then it’ll definitely be a night we don’t forget, right?” Mustafa replied with a little chuckle -- a nervous one, Neville had noted.

Of course, because nothing in Neville’s life could ever be simple, there was plenty of discourse over what exactly would be made. Neither he nor Mustafa really minded and had no real preference, but it had become a big argument starter with the children -- much like everything these days, now that he gave it some thought. Neville had received far more phone calls from home while he was at work than he’d have liked to, each one giving him a mini-heart attack and leading him to think that there was an emergency going on that required his attention.

But no, it was usually just Jen, insisting that Daisy was ‘abusing her power’ that she supposedly had by being the younger sibling, and she was trying to dictate what was cooked.

The truth was, she’d just said that she didn’t like green beans, and Jen took this as a personal attack.

From the moment that he’d woken up on the morning of the anniversary, Neville had had an odd feeling in his stomach. For the last couple of days he had been planning out exactly what he was going to say and when he would say it, so as to avoid being interrupted like he always seemed to be. Be it by adults, children, or birds, someone or something always took issue with him trying to have serious conversations.

Not this time.

Not when it’s this important.

Checking his phone after he’d rolled out of bed, Neville saw that Mustafa had already sent him a few texts, and he smiled at the sheer amount of heart emojis that were sent along as the final message.

Resident Bear Fanatic: Happy anniversary!!

Resident Bear Fanatic: I love youuuuu

Me: Someone’s excited :)

Me: Happy anniversary to you too, Moose. I love you + I’ll see you later xx

Taking a page out of Mustafa’s book, Neville also sent an entirely heart filled message, sending it off while a little voice in the back of his mind chastised him for it. He’d never been one to overuse emojis and preferred to use his words to communicate what he wanted to say, but Mustafa was a huge fan of the little things. Every conversation they had ended with some kind of emoji, even if it didn’t exactly fit what they were talking about. Mustafa was the only one who could get Neville to start over-sending them.

Man, Wade was right.

I really am head over heels for him.

Any hopes Neville had had for a quiet morning were dashed when he exited his bedroom and immediately heard the sounds of an argument brewing down in the kitchen. He didn’t think that the little chefs would be awake this early. Letting out a sigh, he made his way over the the stairs, Jen’s voice growing louder with every step he took. He could have easily just turned around and gone back into his room, but he knew he couldn’t leave Wade to deal with this fight all by himself. They’ll maul him. Again.

“She doesn’t like anything I wanna make!” He heard Jen yell, and he stopped to listen for a moment, sitting on the bottom-most step. “She’s only here to spite me!”

“Jen, be reasonable.” The next voice he heard was Wade’s. “Just because she doesn’t like something, that doesn’t mean she’s out to spite you.”

Wade clearly doesn’t know Daisy as well as he thinks he does. Neville mused to himself before going back to listening.

“But she conveniently hates everything that I suggest. I bet you could say the same thing as me, and she’d like it.”

“How do you know that?”

“When she wakes up, ask her if she wants to make a salad. Go ahead, I dare you.”

When she wakes up? Neville could have sworn she was already awake. Then again, if she had been awake, she’d probably be defending herself right about now. Neville had to wonder if Jen was up this early to make some sort of secret preparations so that her sister didn’t try to intervene for once.

“Alright, enough of the dares,” Neville finally spoke up, standing and entering the kitchen. “There’s no need to be fighting this much over dinner. There has to be something that you and Daisy can agree on.”

“I’m trying to find out what that is, but she’s being so difficult!” Jen insisted, crossing her arms and pouting. “She just says no to everything. She’s so immature. She’s almost an adult now.”

“Jen, she’s seven.” Her birthday had only passed a few weeks ago. She’d made almost as big of a deal about it as Jen did when she turned ten -- she’d even told Mustafa that she was ‘everyone’s lucky charm’. “I get that it can be frustrating, but you gotta remember that she’s still a kid. Be patient with her.”

“She needs to grow up already! I wasn’t like that when I was her age.”

Neville couldn’t help but give her a look that said, “Really?” at that little comment. Neville could recall many instances of her being intentionally difficult when she was Daisy’s age, but he kept that to himself, instead saying, “Try to work something out with her, please? Fighting solves nothing.”

“I’ll try…”

“Good.” He gave her a kiss on top of her head. “And I don’t want youse fighting when Mustafa comes over later.”

“Tell that to her.”

“I’ll tell her, and I’ll tell you again, too. We all need to be clear on that.” He pointed to Wade. “You, too.”

“What?” Wade was aghast. “What did I do to deserve a talking to? I’m just standin’ here.”

“Gee, I dunno, Mr. Interrogator. What did you do?”

As he finished saying this, Daisy came down the stairs and entered the room, looking groggy, still in her star-studded pajamas. “Mornin’, kiddo,” Neville greeted, ruffling her already messy hair. “You’re up early. Sleep well?”

“Mm…” She replied, leaning up against him.

“Got a big day ahead of you, don’t you? You all ready for tonight?”

“Hmm…” She nuzzled her face into his side, and he gave her a pat on the shoulder.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Neville said this while keeping an eye on Wade, who now had a look on his face. Like he was just dying to ask something.

“So, kid…” He started. “I was just wondering -- did you and Jen decide on what you were gonna make tonight?” At her lazy shrug, he continued, “Have you considered… salad?”

Suddenly, her eyes lit up, and she looked more awake. “That’s a great idea!!”

Neville didn’t say anything to this. Instead, upon hearing Jen’s sharp inhale, he braced himself for round two of the morning fight. And he wonders why he needs to be spoken to about being on his best behavior…

Throughout the day, Neville couldn’t help but get a sense of deja vu.

As he went through the motions of the day, he got the feeling that he’d done all of this before -- not in the sense that this was his typical weekend routine and he was used to it, but that every single thing he did was something he’d done one other time before.

Specifically, the first time that Mustafa came over to dinner.

Just as he’d done the first time and as he’d promised to do that morning, he’d spoken to the everyone about how they should be conducting themselves that evening. Jen and Daisy were still fighting literally right up until they’d been sat down on the couch. And likewise, everyone had also given the same response that they had last time -- they swore they’d be on their best behavior, and they promised that there wouldn’t be any arguments (or, in Wade’s case, impromptu interrogations) while Mustafa was visiting. They all wanted this night to go smoothly, and they wanted to make sure Neville and Mustafa had the best night possible.

And of course, just like before, they hadn’t stayed true to their word.

Neville wasn’t sure what he was expected.

Mustafa had barely been in the house for a few moments before Wade led him over to the couch, making casual conversation about this and that before launching into his latest cross-examination. Previously, he had been asking him about if he were truly fit to be dating Neville, but since the two had been together for quite literally a year at this point he had to come up with new questions, each one increasing in terms of ridiculousness.

“Is ‘Mustafa’ really your name?”

“It’s you guys’ one year anniversary? Are you positive it’s only been a year? Because I’m suspicious of that.”

“How old am I?” (“Wade, that has nothing to do with him! Why are you even asking that?” Neville protested.)

All Neville was able to do while this ridiculous questioning was going on was stand back and watch, growing more and more humiliated with each passing moment. Mustafa didn’t seem to mind -- in fact, he was joking around with Wade, apparently enjoying it and even firing back with a few questions of his own -- but that didn’t make Neville feel any better. Why is it that whenever I tell Wade to do something, he does the exact opposite? Once again, Neville was reminded of Wade’s reaction upon being told to act appropriately. He truly was genuinely shocked.

Neville had actually gotten the feeling that the girls were trying to keep their promise to him, but that was proving to be too difficult. In the end, they’d decided on an entirely vegetarian dinner (secretly to Neville’s relief, as he would admittedly be a little afraid to eat any meat they may have cooked -- or undercooked, for that matter). This didn’t appear like it would cause any controversy, and for awhile it didn’t. There was good food, good conversation, and it looked like it would be a good night as well.

That is, until Jen decided to bring up how difficult Daisy had been throughout the whole process.

“It was fun, but… I ended up doing most of the work,” she’d said, shooting a glaring her sister’s way. “Since someone didn’t want to be a team player.”

“Jen…” Neville said as a warning, but he knew it was already too late. Nothing he said was going to work. At least he tried.

“I was a team player!” Daisy insisted, forking clanging on the table as she tossed it down, causing everyone to jump. “Daddy, wasn’t I a team player?”

“Please just stop fighting…” As futile as it was, he was still trying to diffuse the situation. On a day as important to him and Mustafa as this, were they really about to see an all-out war? He looked at Mustafa apologetically, as he was about to witness his first real fight between the siblings.

“It took Wade suggesting that we make something just to get you to agree!”

“Woah, don’t bring my name into this,” Wade said in his own defense. “I’m just an innocent bystander!”

“But I’m not wrong! I told you that she’s always trying to go against me, and I proved it! I don’t get why no one will believe me!”

“Because you are wrong!” Daisy yelled. “I’m good!”

“You are not! If you’re so good, then why didn’t you help? You mostly just sat back and made me do all the work.”

“Because you wanted me to. You never asked me for help because you wanted to show you’re a grown-up!”

“Ladies, we had this discussion earlier, can we please drop it?” Neville rose his voice and attempted to speak over their yelling, but that didn’t work, and the fight continued.

Suddenly, he felt a light tap on his shoulder, and he looked at Mustafa. “You want me to help you out?” He asked. “I can take care of this.”

“Can you?”

“You’re forgetting that I’m breaking up fights between little kids on an almost daily basis whenever I’m at work. Trust me, I got this.”

Neville frowned, but he shrugged, figuring that he may as well give him a shot. He was desperate to get this fight to end, he’d try anything. “Go ahead.”

“I’m so sick of you!” Jen yelled, her face now red with anger. “You’re so lazy, it’s unreal! You’re borderline useless--”

“Jennifer.”

The next voice to enter the phrase was Mustafa’s, and both Neville and Wade looked at each other, stunned that the first thing he’d chosen to say was her full first name. She hadn’t been in this much trouble in ages, and the fact that Mustafa of all people was the one that said it made everything even more startling.

Jen stammered, finally now realizing that she was in big trouble for causing such a scene. “But I-- She-- It’s her fault-- You!!”

“What about me?”

“You!! Stay out of this! Don’t butt in!”

Now Neville had to say something. “Jennifer, don’t talk to him like that. That’s disrespectful.”

“He--”

“Jen,” Mustafa started. “Drop the subject.”

“But--”

“Drop. The. Subject.”

Jen had clearly had enough, and she stood up, chair nearly falling over from the force. She stormed out of the room, angry footsteps dissipating as she went up to her room. Neville sighed when he heard the door slam. “Jesus…”

Daisy hadn’t said anything since Mustafa joined the conversation, and she looked torn on whether to be upset at what happened or gleeful that Jen had been told off. Eventually, she settled on the latter, but this didn’t sit well with Mustafa either -- though he was far calmer now. “Daisy, you should’ve ignored her,” he said.

“Why’m I getting yelled at? She started it…” She moped.

“You’re not getting yelled at. I know she started it. You’re not in any trouble. But from now on, just ignore her when she tries to pick a fight over something like that, okay?”

She was still unhappy that she was spoken to, but she nodded, slumping back in her chair and going back to eating. Mustafa let out a breath, and he looked to Neville, giving him a nod of his own. “It’s handled,” he said.

“I…” Neville was still in awe. “I didn’t think you’d actually step in there like that. I’m impressed.”

“Got it down to a science.” With that, Mustafa went back to eating as well -- but it was obvious that his enthusiasm wasn’t there anymore. Neville figured that it was safe to assume he’d had enough of this family for one evening.

Suddenly, he’d lost his appetite.

“I’m just… so fucking sorry.” Neville said when he and Mustafa escaped outside to the porch following dinner -- he hadn’t even meant to swear, but he was so frustrated with how the night turned out. “I tried to talk to them before you came over, and they said they’d behave, but… God, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, you had no way of knowing that was gonna happen,” Mustafa replied, sounding disappointed. Neville’s heart sank. Everything that he’d been planning to do that night, what he’d been planning on asking Mustafa when all was said and done -- could he even do that anymore? The mood was sour, and when they looked back on their first anniversary all they would remember was the fight that interrupted dinner.

Fuck. Me.

“I should’ve known,” Neville argued. “They’d been fighting for the last couple of days over what to make, and they were even fighting this morning. I should’ve known that they were gonna get into another argument. All they do is fight nowadays…”

“Well… If I were you, I still wouldn’t blame yourself. You did everything right. In the end, they’re two young girls who spend a lot of time together. Too much togetherness is bound to cause problems like this. It happens. It’s no biggie.”

“I still feel so bad. Why didn’t we agree to go out someplace instead… That’s what you wanted to do, right?”

“I… Well, yeah, I kinda did.” Mustafa shrugged. “I didn’t say anything before, but I was hoping that’s what we’d end up doing. I didn’t wanna hurt the girls’ feelings, though. But, there’s nothing we can do about it now. Can’t change the past.”

“God… Again, I’m sorry.” Neville sat down on the front step, propping his elbows on his knees and holding his face in his hands.

Mustafa sat down next to him. “Hey, chin up. Technically there isn’t any law that says we can’t still go out somewhere to celebrate. Not everyone goes out for anniversary dinner the day of -- sometimes they have to wait until they have time.”

“That’s true.” Neville recalled not only his parents, but also him and Marina doing the same thing in the past. “So you’re saying we should go out sometime soon?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” He smooched Neville’s cheek. “We’ve earned it. Especially after tonight. Take two, next weekend. Just us.”

“I like the sound of that.”

A cool September evening breeze blew, and Neville scooted closer to Mustafa, the latter resting his head on Neville’s shoulder. Though the night had been hectic, at least they had this moment to themselves. So long as it stayed like this, then maybe Neville might have a chance…

“I mean, hey,” Mustafa started with a small chuckle, interrupting the silence, “sooner or later we can look back and laugh at all of this. And by the time our second anniversary rolls around, this’ll just be a distant memory, ya feel? Something we can all joke about.”

“Second?” Neville grinned. “You’re already thinking that far ahead?”

“Would you rather I said ‘tenth’ instead?” He winked. “Because I can easily see us having a tenth.”

“Damn, and here I was worried that you were pissed at me after what happened.”

“Never!” Mustafa waved his hand. “Your family is… something, but I love them. And I love you. It’s gonna take a hell of a lot more than a sibling rivalry to get me to leave you, Nev.”

Neville felt warm inside. “I’m glad. And I love you too.”

Mustafa took Neville’s hand, gently rubbing his thumb along the back of it. “Man, it really has been a whole year, huh? It honestly doesn’t feel like it..”

“Right? I still remember when Jen threw that ball over your fence.”

“And you came over to come get it. You got all tongue tied.”

“I was a mess. I wasn’t expecting this to answer the door.” He gestured in Mustafa’s direction, making him laugh. “I thought some angry old man had moved in.”

“I’m not angry, but I am old, so you’re not exactly far off there.”

“You are not old.” Neville shoved him. “We’re the same age -- if you’re old, what’s that make me?”

“You’re younger than me! You’re a spring chicken. I’m ancient.”

“I’m younger than you by, what, five months? That’s nothing. Neither of us are old.”

“...Man, you were so cute on that day, though. And when I found out that you were single, I instantly knew I had to ask you out.”

“Even though I never actually told you I was into guys before you asked.”

At that Mustafa, put a hand on Neville’s shoulder. “Nev. Trust me on this one. I knew.”

Neville snorted. “Alright. But then Wade interrupted you right as you were about to ask…” Neville grumbled. Wade’s poor timing would be the death of him -- he was surprised he hadn’t come out to join them yet. There was still time.

“That sucked, but I did get to ask you eventually. And you did say yes.”

“And thank the Lord I did.” Neville squeezed his hand. “I know I told you all this before, Moose, but you’re the first guy I’ve really… dated since my split. The date we went on was the first time I’d gone out with someone in years. You truly did help me to rediscover how amazing it feels to love someone.”

Mustafa smiled. “I’m so glad I could do that for you.”

“I really wasn’t sure if I’d ever love anyone again after getting divorced. Not many people want to date a single parent -- they don’t want to have to deal with the children. And I was so sure I’d already met The One, I didn’t think I’d ever feel so strongly for another person. You make me so happy.”

“Aww, Nev, you’re such a softie.”

“I really am, aren’t I?” He swallowed. “And you’ve made the girls so much happier, too. I know what happened tonight was bad, but I’ve seen the way they both interact with you. I remember being so concerned after the split that they’d start to resent me for it -- they were young, but not young enough to have no idea what had happened.”

“Do you still think that way?”

“Not really. Even if I didn’t think that they resented me, things had definitely changed. Especially after Marina moved and she couldn’t come to visit them anymore, or take them out on little day trips. But ever since I’ve gotten with you and you’ve started to hang out with them, they’ve changed. Fighting notwithstanding, they’re so much happier. I really can’t thank you enough for that, Mustafa. Thank you for making my girls so happy.”

“Geez, Nev, you’re turning me into a softie now…” Mustafa laughed. “You have too much power.”

This is it. Just do it.

“...Moose, I… I gotta ask you something.” Neville started, tone more serious. “And you don’t have to answer right now if you don’t want to, that’s totally fine, but I have to ask.”

Mustafa’s eyebrows rose, and it looked like there were a million different thoughts running through his mind. His boyfriend wanted to ask him a question on their anniversary? Right after they’d had a discussion like that? It was cute watching him try to figure out what Neville was going to ask. “W-What’s up, Nev?”

“Moose, would you…” He took a deep breath. “Would you… be interested in maybe moving in with us?”

The smile on Mustafa’s face grew even wider. “You want me to move in with you?”

“It doesn’t have to be tonight or anything. It can literally be whenever you want -- or, if you don’t want to at all, then that’s okay, too. Whatever you’re most comfortable with.”

Mustafa didn’t say anything for a moment. He was thinking again, licking his lower lip and letting out an awed chuckle. “Wow,” he finally said. “That’s… not what I expected to hear this evening.”

“Caught you off guard, didn’t I?”

“Would I be able to ask you a question of my own, Nev?”

“And now you’ve caught me off guard,” Neville joked. What was this about? “Go ahead.”

“Well… This is just from what I’ve heard, but… typically, when couples start talking about moving in with one another, that usually means that… y’know, marriage is on their minds.”

“...Oh?”

“Hence why I’m now wondering… Have you been thinking about it?”

Neville looked up at the sky, watching an airplane fly overhead. “I won’t lie, it’s definitely crossed my mind once or twice. Maybe three times. Or, four times. I think you catch my drift here.” He quirked his eyebrows up at him. “I guess you could say that I wanna marry you.”

“...And I guess you could say that I wanna marry you.”

Neville hadn’t done anything even remotely athletic in ages, but he truly did feel like he could start doing backflips after hearing Mustafa say that.

“But… maybe not any time soon, though?” Mustafa continued. “Weddings are super expensive. Not sure if I’m ready to put myself through all that planning just yet.”

“Neither am I,” Neville agreed.

“And besides, I want there to be a real engagement.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Moose. I’ll surprise you good.”

“...Who said that you’ll be doing the proposing?” He narrowed his gaze at Neville, who mirrored his expression.

“I see how it’s gonna be…” Neither one of them could keep this staredown up for any longer than a few more seconds before they both went back to grinning. “We can put that off for now. So… about that moving in thing that I mentioned before…”

Mustafa giggled. “I didn’t forget, don’t worry.” He took both of Neville’s hands. “The answer to that question is ‘yes’. Of course I’ll move in with you guys.”

Neville didn’t reply to that. Instead, he leaned in to kiss Mustafa, feeling more love for him in that moment than he ever had up until that point. After so much doubt, so much worrying, and so many nights of laying awake telling himself that no one would want to date him because ‘no one wants a single dad’ -- he could put all of that to rest.

Finally.

It was when they heard the sound of the front door cracking open that they pulled away, and they spotted Daisy peeking at them. Her eyes were wide, mouth agape, like she’d just witnessed something that she wasn’t meant to see. “You good, kiddo?” Neville asked as she opened the door a little wider.

“Ah… Ah?” She breathed out, looking between the two of them. “You?”

“Is… everything alright?” Mustafa asked.

“He…” She looked to Neville, pointing at Mustafa. “He said yes? You asked him, and he said yes?”

“Wha?” Neville was confused -- did she not hear the part where he said that he’d move in? What did she think Mustafa agreed to?

“He said yes…” After muttering this, she suddenly spun on her heel, bursting back into the house. “He said yes!! They’re getting married!! It’s happening!!”

“Oh my God…” Neville put his face in his hands, the next thing he heard being Mustafa’s laugh. “It’s like she conveniently ignored what the question I asked you was.”

“All she needed to hear was me saying yes.” Mustafa patted Neville on the arm. Neville looked up, seeing the happy expression on his face. When Mustafa was reacting like that, how could he possibly be embarrassed?

And he looked over towards the open door, staring off in the direction that Daisy had run in. Faintly, he could hear her trying to explain to Wade that this was for real this time -- not a false alarm, but the real deal! It was totally a proposal! They really were getting married!

Maybe we are, Daze.

Maybe we are.

#mustafa ali #neville #adrian neville #mustafa x neville #long post #SUUUUPER long post #wwe fanfiction #hhhhhhh #jess.txt

8 notes · View notes

falseroar · 6 years

Text

Broken Pieces

((Back when Can You Wake Up? was going on, I mentioned doing something a little different for Valentine’s Day since the story was getting a little dark around the time, but wound up going on with it instead. This is the one shot I mentioned, which I realized I wouldn't be able to fit into the story and have cleaned up a bit since then. So same versions of the characters, just consider it as taking place after one possible ending.

Warnings: I might have mentioned Valentine’s Day, but there’s not really any romance here. Sorry?))

Dark paused in his paperwork and sat back in his chair with a sigh, taking in the empty conference room. Well, nearly empty. Everyone else had immediately left after the last meeting, all except for the Host, who continued to narrate in a quick, even pace to himself. It had become routine after the meeting for both to stay behind for hours at a time, even though neither commented on it.

Although Dark would not admit it, he did not mind the constant murmur as he worked. In fact, it made a nice change of pace from his office, where the constantly crackling fire in the fireplace was the only noise. He found that he could keep one ear on the Host’s narration to know what the others were doing in the house with much less effort than his usual methods, useful in the event he needed to intervene.

And it filled the silence. Something the fire was failing to do more and more often it seemed.

Dark bent over to start reviewing another sheet, to make sense of the budget for Bim’s latest show. Admittedly, most of it was to cover the lawsuits.

“—flips the table, ending the card game early. A storm picks up speed on its way to the house to arrive earlier than expected. Bim Trimmer—”

Dark paused. The Host did not normally comment on the weather. More importantly, he had found that the Host seemed to have a knack for saying something just at the moment Dark was most likely to be listening.

That meant this was probably going to be a bad one.

“Where is Wilford now?” Dark asked, still looking at the lines of numbers.

“Outside, Wilford is asking a question of the King of Squirrels.”

Outside?

“The King of the Squirrels directs Wilford Warfstache back toward the house.”

Dark breathed out, trying not to sound too relieved.

“Wilford stops to speak to Chef Iplier and then continues on to the living room where Bim Trimmer, Google, Ed Edgar, and Silver Shepherd are arguing over who should have to clean up the cards. They stop long enough to answer Wilford’s question, and then Ed Edgar calls Google a derisive term involving his motherboard which does not make any logical sense.”

Dark listened as he made a note on the page and then stood up, shuffling the papers as if he had finished his work even though he knew that he was not fooling the Host. By the time he finished, Wilford had been around the entire first floor speaking to seemingly everyone he found and was now on his way upstairs.

“Which staircase?” Dark asked as he stood.

“The farthest. Wilford sees the darkening sky outside and picks up his pace toward the third floor.”

Dark nodded and left his papers where they were. He was just about to walk out the door when the Host spoke again.

“The room is not empty.”

Dark glanced back to ask what that was supposed to mean, but a rumble of distant thunder just made him curse and take off toward the stairs. He couldn’t risk his usual method of travel, not when Wilford was on edge. He’d learned that lesson after one of the first storms in this place.

He knew all the ways Wilford had to cope with storms, he’d seen them all over the years. The odd brush of lightning or thunder might only send him into a quiet, contemplative mood, while the real storms could bring out his more destructive side. When that happened, Wilford was a danger to himself and everyone around him, more so than usual. The worst times were when he remembered why. Recently, he had taken to finding some excuse to hang out in the Host’s soundproof recording room, “helping” with the Host’s broadcasts. Maybe that was where he was going now? But then why go outside, why stop and talk to the others when it meant risking the storm?

Dark heard another roll of thunder and sped up, reaching the top of the stairs before it finished. There he stopped short and stared when he saw Wilford back into the hall, out of one of the bedrooms.

Your bedroom.

“What are you doing, Wilford?” Dark asked carefully as he approached. The door was open, of course. Wilford didn’t bother much when it came to knocking. Or locks.

“Oh, I was just…” Wilford trailed off and Dark saw his lost, confused expression. “Looking for…something…”

Dark looked at the open door and felt a sense of unease. It wasn’t a feeling that he was familiar with, which made it that much worse as it dawned on him what Wilford had already realized: this was your first thunderstorm here in the house. While Dark had been focused on Wilford, Wilford had been looking for you.

Dark reached out and knocked, even though he could clearly see through the gap in the door. “Y/N? Are you in there?”

There was no response, and after a minute Dark went in. Of course you weren’t there, but he had to see it for himself.

“Y/N may have gone downstairs,” Dark suggested, but the unease was still there. He saw the lightning through the window, how Wilford flinched and grabbed his arm out of reflex, his eyes shut tight against the sound that would inevitably follow. Worse, he saw the flicker of pink around the man’s shoulders, the last thing they needed right now. “Come along, Wil, we’ll—”

The room is not empty.

Dark was already looking to the closet door as the thunder shook the house, so loud that it almost drowned out the other sound in the room. He would have missed it if he hadn’t been listening for it.

He opened the closet door to find you sitting in the corner, eyes clenched shut with your hands over your ears in a desperate attempt to block out the noise.

Dark stared down at you, the words stopping short in his throat, feeling his shell crack and let the thoughts he normally suppressed with ease come flooding in. How long had you been here, like this? No, how long had you been alone, in that house? How many storms did you have to go through by yourself, each flash of lightning a reminder of the house’s curse that kept you trapped, each roll of thunder another gunshot in your ears?

Without speaking, Wilford slipped past Dark and sat down next to you, whispering something in your ear that made you smile before the next flash of lightning. Even though Wilford was shaking, he put an arm around your shoulders, holding you close as you took hold of one of his suspenders and leaned your head on his shoulder.

He shouldn’t be seeing this, you wouldn’t want him of all people here. This would just hurt his plans for you in the long run. With that excuse, Dark was about to leave you two alone when Wilford reached up and pulled him into the closet and onto the floor next to him with a strength that would have surprised those who didn’t know the man. You had so few clothes, so few belongings to call your own still between here and Mark’s home, that there was room enough for the three of you to sit together once Dark gave in and shut the door to help block out the lightning. He sat at enough of an angle that he could see your faces, how you clung to each other and Wilford to him in the darkness.

Dark wanted to stretch out, to envelop you both in his aura and take you…somewhere else. Away from the storm. He could end this so quickly, if you would just let him. But there was no guarantee whether Wilford would go, or if this would be one of those terrible times where he resisted, where his own aura showed itself. As for you, Dark knew how you reacted to even a small taste of what he could do. No, he needed more time to work on you, to build trust before he could take you there. Before he could get you to cling to him like you clung so easily to Wilford now.

While Dark considered this, he watched you mutter something that made Wilford give a grimace of a smile, watched as you two joked back and forth to keep your minds occupied, away from the house that called for you with each lightning strike.

By the time the storm was finally over, you two had fallen asleep leaning on each other, Wilford occasionally snoring lightly. Two broken pieces, not really adding up to a whole even on the best days. But it was enough to get through this storm, at least.

The more cynical part of Dark bitterly wondered what that was like, but the other half leaned back and rested his head against the wall, listening to the rain continue to fall outside, to the sound of you and Wilford breathing quietly, to the silence. Although Dark would not admit it, this was…nice.

((Tagging the people who asked to be tagged for Can You Wake Up? Sorry if this isn’t something you’re interested in!

Tagging: @silver-owl413 @determinedrevolutionary @cherrybomb-jaguar @blackaquokat @catgirlwarrior @neverisadork @luna1350 @oh-so-creepy @oceanicfangirl @purpstraw ))

#markiplier #who killed markiplier #fan fiction #wkm y/n #darkiplier #wilford warfstache #the host #can you wake up #one shot #broken pieces

78 notes · View notes

cloudbatcave · 6 years

Text

Firestar’s Quest - REMIXED (10.2)

and we’re back on the bullshit.

“I promise you,” he added, “we’ll do everything we can to make sure it doesn’t settle in our territory.”

brah it was already there. you’re going to have to kill it. or just wish really hard that it goes elsewhere. you can’t be patrolling for it always, that’d be a waste of time and manpower. catpower?

“Ferncloud didn’t look convinced”

Yeah I wouldn’t be either, what with the whole “let’s not kill the badger now and just follow it for some reason despite it being a very clear threat that already murdered one of us.”

“They’re badly shaken,” Graystripe commented

I for one always sleep better at night knowing that my leader makes well-informed, decisive choices.

“This is a bad time for them to lose their mother.”

Is there ever a good time to lose your mother? Sandstorm’s logic either operates on a level I don’t understand, or more likely, it doesn’t exist.

Firestar nodded sadly. “It’s the first cat we’ve lost since the battle with BloodClan. I think it’s hard for all of us to understand that even if we’re at peace with the other Clans, the forest isn’t completely safe.”

That makes perfect se - oh, no, wait, all of these cats know full well what Clan life is like and know it’s often dangerous and harsh because they were raised this way.

No, Firestar, it’s because death is a sad and traumatic thing as your narration has told me repeatedly and yet you put forth THIS bullshit reasoning instead.

It’s the inconsistency that bothers me more than anything! I’m used to Firestar being an idiot, but usually what he says and does at least matches up with his internal monologue. Not so in this chapter, apparently.

“She was much loved.” Dappletail rasped, smoothing the gray warrior’s fur with one forepaw. “And far too young to die. She had much more to give her Clan.”

“I know,” Firestar agreed, feeling hollow with grief.

See? Dappletail the minor character gets decent dialogue that shows her emotions. Firestar does not, for some inscrutable fucking reason, even though he’s the protagonist and thus the one we’re supposed to sympathize with. Spoiler alert, but I sympathize more with Sootpaw in this one chapter than I will with him during the whole damn book.

That’s four hundred more pages in which I will feel flickers of sympathy that are always rapidly extinguished by whatever massively stupid thing he does next.

“He had been with Willowpelt when the badger attacked Sootpaw, but he had been unable to save her. Call yourself a leader? He asked himself savagely.”

Oh, would you look at that, finally some internal narration that isn’t as cardboard as a rice krispies box! Tragically it won’t last.

Shame, because if Firestar’s self-doubt, guilt, and helplessness over his limitations as leader were ever explored in any depth he might actually be sympathetic. He’s young! Practically the only reason he’s in charge is because everyone more qualified conveniently died off! It’s very reasonable for him to be feeling this way.

But they’re never lingered on, just touched on in throwaway lines that get passed over because status quo is god and Firestar must forever remain a blank slate for me to scream at.

He decides he can’t leave his Clan to look for SkyClan, because even if he can’t protect them from everything, they need him. Sensible!

“Firestar looked up at Silverpelt, wondering if the starry warriors approved of his decision. But the glittering specks of light seemed very far away, and they gave no answer.”

It’s actually something of a sad moment to see Firestar looking to StarClan for validation, as is his habit, despite knowing they’ve lied to him, and it makes sense because he’s desperate right now.

but naturally by the end of the book his faith will be totally restored and nothing changes, because god forbid someone be negatively changed by a crisis and also remain a titular good guy.

Willowpelt gets buried. Firestar goes to sleep and, not unusually, is dreaming. For some reason instead of Spottedleaf, his former lust, we get Silverstream, Graystripe’s dead lust and baby mama.

She catches him a fish, and tells him that the life she gave him for loyalty is for what he knows to be right.

“I always knew it was right for me and Graystripe to be together, even though we came from different Clans. There are some things that are too big to be contained in the warrior code.”

...right, that romance that essentially killed you because you wound up having your children on your own to hide them being half-Clan and bleeding out. I’m glad that felt right, Silverstream.

I’m not going to comment on whether she’s right or not, the morality of the warrior code is its own big discussion I don’t feel like having right now, but the validity of this advice is...low, at best, because it doesn’t really mean much.

You could argue Firestar should go help SkyClan, or what’s left of it, because it’s the right thing to do regardless of his other obligations. However, as he points out earlier, his first duty is to his Clan. Not that SkyClan is less worthy of help, but going to help them is a gamble; while he has lives to use up, leaving his Clan would immediately make them more vulnerable to attack by other Clans.

But Silverstream addresses none of this and basically tells him to be a Disney princess and follow his heart.

Not useful advice for a guy who, as we just got a very graphic reminder of, is responsible for several lives.

Firestar wakes up and ponders this sage wisdom from beyond the grave.

“The warrior code did not account for everything that happened beneath the stars, and now he had to make amends for what the other four Clans had done so long ago. Since a StarClan cat had come to tell him this, was it the will of his warrior ancestors that the lost clan be restored? Perhaps StarClan even felt guilty for what they had allowed to happen.”

There’s a lot to unpack here.

While this is true - naturally, there are other morality systems and ways of life out there - Firestar is, as Clan leader, expected to both obey and enforce the code. There’s literally a tenet in it saying that the word of the Clan leader is the warrior code. He’s slightly important, both as a symbol and in genuine power given his nine lives and authority.

So it’s not really optional for him, just sayin’.

Also, I don’t buy this turnaround from StarClan for a second, mostly for reasons I’ve detailed in past blogs (namely Bluestar’s attitude toward the whole thing, but admittedly Bluestar is terrible and I probably shouldn’t judge everyone just because she behaved badly) and while I wouldn’t cite guilt as a reason, I would say that StarClan wants Firestar to do the dirty work because they know they can easily influence him by using people he trusts to whisper in his ear (Spottedleaf, Silverstream).

I wind up being basically proven right later, but that’s a ways off.

Additionally, this raises the question of - just how united is StarClan? We’ve seen them disagree before, and Bluestar said the complete opposite when Firestar visited the Moonstone. Does Silverstream speak for them all now, or just herself? Is this genuine remorse from her, all of them, or just manipulation agreed on by her and them? Is she being coerced?

We never know, because StarClan is always assumed to be morally in the right; even during this book, the idea that they can make mistakes doesn’t stick, because the characters still rely on them wholeheartedly. It’s annoying and it prevents a lot of exploration that would actually make them interesting.

StarClan’s approval itself is fairly worthless in-universe in regards to their poor judgment and general impotency, but I’m treating it as meaningful in the context of Firestar’s belief and how they’re using it to push him one way or the other.

doing actual in-depth analysis makes these posts longer (who could’ve known??) so I’m once again stopping here and I’ll hopefully finish in the third part.

#cloud blogs #firestar's quest #warrior cats

2 notes · View notes

altonajitzu · 6 years

Text

What I Cannot Say (Pt. 1)

It started innocently enough.

It was when TWICE was attending a fansign event. and a reporter asked them a question.

“Who would you guys choose to stay with if you were stuck on an island?”

As the other members nonchalantly gave their answers, Tzuyu started to panic. Having spent quite some time in the industry, she knew by instinct that this was the kind of question that added fuel to the fire known as shipping.She also knew, not by instinct but by experience, that she had to use utmost caution on responding to such questions. Reckless answers that favored one particular member would bring down the delicate equilibrium between ships, and depressed shippers- followers of couples with hardly any interaction- were likely to stop being fans of TWICE, something they all tried desperately to avoid.

That did not stop Tzuyu from blurting out the first and only name that came to her mind.

“Jihyo-unnie.”

She realized her blunder one split second too late, and before the interviewers had any time to react, she hurriedly added.

“And Momo-unnie. Um, if I go with Momo-unnie, I can eat as much food as I want.” That was completely nonsense, seeing as Momo probably ate more than her and could not cook to save her life. Still, anything to distract them was better than nothing. “And if I go with Jihyo-unnie, I can, um…”

Share all private things with her. Shower her with hugs and kisses all day. Cuddle with her at night.Play in the sea with her. Protect her from danger. All kinds of things Tzuyu wanted to do with her leader ran through her mind, from chaste to kinky, from playful to serious, yet none of them seemed appropriate.

“… have her take my photos for free.”

Tzuyu only dared to sneak one quick glance at Jihyo’s confused stare before visibly shrinking in her seat.

Real smooth, Chou Tzuyu. What the fuck.

_____

When Dahyun and Chaeyoung got back to their maknae line room, they found Tzuyu lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling lifelessly.

“Hey Tzuyu, what are you thinking about? You haven’t even changed yet.” Dahyun asked, noticing her friend’s attire. The other two had been enjoying a girl’s night out with several unnies, while Tzuyu and Mina had excused themselves as soon as they reached the dorm. Mina because she wanted to finish her game, and Tzuyu… well, she was too down in the dumps and too pissed at herself to enjoy spending time with others.

“Hush Dahyun, maybe she’s sleeping with her eyes open.” Seeing as the

“Oh, in that case I should just slap her senseless to wake her up.” That elicited an involuntary laugh from Tzuyu. She was still embarrassed from the dance studio incident, where she in a panic had done just that to Nayeon- who was actually napping with her eyes wide open. To this day she still could not understand how it was possible, but that panicked act of hers had already became a standing joke.

“Give me a break guys, it was really terrifying.” Tzuyu said getting up. There was little point wallowing in her misery now that her roommates were back. They would be able to give her some good advice, thought Tzuyu.

“Not in the long run Tzuyu, but okay for now.” Dahyun conceded, dropping the subject. “You want to talk about something? We’re all ears.” The Taiwanese smiled appreciatively. Air-headed and goofy as she seemed to be, Tofu was actually really a great listener should the need arise. Admittedly, she was second to Jihyo in this department, but Tzuyu couldn’t very well come to her leader about how she became worse than a bumbling baffoon whenever it concerned that very girl.

Of course, she could also consult Nayeon or Jeongyeon, seeing as they were older and therefore likely to be more experienced with such problems. Tzuyu had doubts however, that whatever she said would reach Jihyo’s pretty ears faster than how Momo could switch back and forth between a complete idiot and a lusty seductress. The unnie line had been close together since the very first days after all.

With that in mind, Dahyun was obviously the next best choice to be subject to Tzuyu’s predicament.

“It’s about Jihyo-unnie.” Tzuyu sighed dejectedly when she saw Chaeyoung already looking away. “Yes I know Chaeng, again.”

“I’ll also take a guess that it has something to do with that interview just then.” The short rapper was already climbing to her upper bunk, getting ready for another of Tzuyu’s distressed talk.

“Yes… well not really. I managed to have a decent answer this time.” Said the Taiwanese proudly. Last time put under pressure, she had fumbled with her Korean and called the show she was in ‘boring’.

“Thing is, if things keep going this way, Jihyo-unnie will have an impression that she’s nothing to me than some kind of employee. Today I literally called her my personal photographer.”

“Oh, let’s not forget the time in Japan. You basically called her your interpreter.” Tzuyu heaved a heavy sigh at this, recalling said event. Eight members of TWICE, excluding Jihyo, were being interviewed for an article celebrating Jihyo’s birthday. The leader’s glamorous pictures were printed on the first few pages of the magazine, surrounded by trivias, Q&A, and – last but not least – other member’s comments. The others cheerily recounted their private experiences, altogether painting a picture of Jihyo for exactly who she was- optimistic, cheerful, caring, and understanding.

“Jihyo has big round sparkling eyes. She has really interesting personality, and she’s our main vocalist too. She is TWICE’s indispensible piece of puzzle that connects us all together. The other day she was wearing her pyjamas, a pair of high-heels with the towel wrapped around her head, and just like that, she started one hilarious fashion show. Not only that, she is always confident and responsible, always happy and exerts a positive aura.”

“Just as you guys think, Jihyo works really hard as the group leader. She listens to everyone, and has a strong consciousness about her own responsibility. Everyone trusts her. Still, she is shy and reserved at heart. The other day she dropped her chopsticks onto the floor and dared not ask for a new pair. I had to do it for her. Being together since we’re kids, I know many more sides of her personality than she lets out.

Tzuyu’s mind, on the other hand, only got more and more blank until she blurted out something completely impertinent.

“Since I’m a foreigner, I sometimes can’t understand the complex details in our company’s business debrief sessions. Jihyo-unnie is the one who compiles everything and explains to me in an easier way. I really appreciate her for it. She is, um, also very active and can enjoy everything wholly. When I see her enjoy herself during concerts, I keep thinking she’s the most amazing leader ever.”

It was your most run-of-the-mill positive comment ever on someone, mostly employed for people not that close to one another. Tzuyu was still chastising herself for that, with no little help from the J-Trinity for being so formal and estranged.

“I just… can’t understand why it’s so hard for me to show my appreciation for everything she’s done to me.” Tzuyu said depressed.

“Aw… it’s okay Chewy-ah.” Dahyun said softly, using Tzuyu’s Korean name for additional effect. “I’m sure Jihyo knows how much you love her…”

“Dahyun-unnie.” She was interrupted by Chaeyoung’s deadpan. The two shared a meaningful look, and Dahyun knew it was her cue to leave the stage for the younger rapper.

“Tzuyu-ah, know that I say this not to make you feel better, and believe me you won’t, but to help you out.” Tzuyu nodded, bracing herself for what was to come. “Think about it Tzuyu. It’s not just about how you guys appear in public, but all the time you are together, you kind of act as if you didn’t want Jihyo-unnie to be there. At best you pretend she was not there, and at worst you tell her off with your savage jokes.”

Tzuyu’s head hung low.

“Like, it’s just joking if it happens every now and then, but I’ve never seen you act anything different than that.”

All Chaeng said was true, every single word.

“I sometimes wonder what Jihyo-unnie feels. I mean, she might or might not like you back, that I don’t know, since she takes great care of us all. She’s a god already, but if she really doesn’t mind, she must be a real one.”

Chaeyoung rarely acted serious, but when she did, her words cut deeper than any knife.

“I think she gets it now Chaeng, well said.” Dahyun intervened, signaling Chaeyoung to stop. She wrapped her arm around the pile of self-loathing known as Tzuyu. “There, there. You know she means well.” Seeing the gesture did not work well, she pulled Tzuyu in a hug.

Taking comfort in Dahyun’s embrace, Tzuyu was determined to do something to salvage the situation.

____

Said determination had all but vaporized when she stood rigidly in front of Jihyo’s door the next day.

It had taken all she had to cross the corridor from the maknae room to the largest room, where Jihyo, Jeongyeon, Sana and Mina currently resided. All possible scenarios played in her mind, and it was more distracting than reassuring, seeing as her depraved self somehow managed to end all said scenarios with them being naked and kissing in bed.

It was quite clear that Tzuyu, overwhelmed with guilt and eager to make a move, did not quite think it through before she decided to ask Jihyo out on a date.

She just never noticed how empty her head was until she opened the door, and it was already too late to back out.

Around the room, TWICE members were going about their normal business. Nayeon was in the middle of a phone conversation, while Mina had her head buried in her game. Tzuyu decided not to be a bother, redirecting her attention to Jihyo. She was noisily rolling around on the bed with Sana in front of a phone screen; they were most likely in a Vlive session, Tzuyu deduced. That managed to suppress her sudden jealousy from flaring up too much.

She was about to sneak out and close the door quietly, but Jihyo noticed the new presence in the room.

“Tzuyu-ah! Do you need anything?”

“… Um, no I don’t. I just come to hang out.” She quickly lied.

“Come join us then, some fans are calling for you. Well they always are, but still.” Jihyo said, making Sana giggle. Tzuyu hesitantly complied, climbing on to the small bed. There was not enough space, so she- in a random stroke of cheekiness- opted to half-lie on top of Jihyo, her head resting upon the older girl’s right shoulder. She smiled at the front camera and whispered ‘Hello’, all the while adjusting her position so that she would not put too much weight on the girl beneath her. She was suddenly conscious of how closely her and Jihyo’s body were touching, only separated by their clothes and a thin layer of blanket. To Tzuyu’s infinite relief, her leader did not seem to mind.

They stayed like that for a while, animatedly replying to fans’ queries. Every now and then, Tzuyu had to fend off Sana’s mischievous attempts to sneak kisses on Jihyo’s squishy cheeks, half of which she did not succeed.

After the seventeenth failure, she cried out frustratedly.

“Stop it already Sana-unnie!” For reasons unknown, Jihyo had been blissfully ignorant to the duo’s silent battle. She only looked up after Tzuyu’s irritated complaint.

“Huh? What’s Sana doing?” She did not get a reply. Sana was too busy smiling triumphantly and deviously at Tzuyu’s outburst, and Tzuyu was too busy beating herself up yet again.

“Someone is jealous~~~” Sana said in a sing-song voice, and Tzuyu got even more flustered. She was by no means ready to publicize her feelings, especially when Jihyo herself wasn’t even aware of them yet.

“If you really need to kiss someone, just kiss me.” Desperately trying for a way to get out of the situation, Tzuyu blurted out.

“Don’t mind if I do~” Sana took no time leaning over and planting kisses upon Tzuyu’s resigned cheek. She did not plan the night to go this way, but if it could distract Sana from letting the cat out of the bag, then so be it.

Too preoccupied with their antics, neither Sana nor Tzuyu noticed the ever-present smile disappearing from Jihyo’s face, as well as the slight narrowing of her eyes. If they had paid even the slightest attention, they would also have seen the Vlive chat column exploding with comments.

“DAEBAKKKKK SANA SO FLIRTY LOLOL”

“DID TZUYU JUST CONFESS LKQEJTLEITUWFL”

“YES SHE DID DON’T YOU SEE HOW SHE TRIED TO STOP SANA FROM KISSING JIHYO”

“OMG LOVE TRIANGLEEEE”

“GODJIHYO IS JELLYYYYYY SHE IS FROWNING”

“LOL JEALOUS JIHYO IS SO CUTEEEE”

Jihyo read everything, and this only served to dampen her mood even more.

_____

After the tumultuous Vlive session, Jihyo went out to the common room to watch her evening drama. Tzuyu hastily followed, fidgeting all the way. Only now did she realize the extent of her failings; she had practically asked Sana to kiss her, in front of Jihyo no less. Whatever she meant to say now would sound no better than gibberish. Well, it’s not like she could come up with anything better than gibberish itself, but still it would have sounded better had it not for the unexpected incident.

“Tzuyu-ah, you still there?” Jihyo’s curious voice pulled her back to reality. “You’re spacing out on me.”

“Oh, um… Sorry unnie, I was just thinking about something.”

“You look weird just standing there. Come, let’s watch the show together.” Jihyo lightly tugged on Tzuyu’s hand, pulling her towards the couch. Tzuyu was never one to watch movies; she found it hard to sit still and just passively watch on as the scenes played by, preferring to read instead since it gave her chances to stop and contemplate about what she had just absorbed. Still, it had surely been a while since they last enjoyed something together, so the Taiwanese happily agreed.

They spent the remainder of the evening laughing and fangirling at the admittedly hilarious romance comedy. As the ending credit roll started, Tzuyu could not hold a disappointed sigh. It had been pure bliss, having Jihyo lean her head on her own shoulder for the entirety of the movie, occasionally sneaking in a hug around the waist when both of them were laughing off their asses. Taking into account how horrible Tzuyu had been feeling these couple of days, their time together had done more than enough to lift her spirits.

“Nee, Jihyo-unnie.” She asked as they were heading towards their respective bedrooms.

“Yeah?”

“Are you, um, free tomorrow?”

“I actually have something to do… Got a call from our manager just now.” Tzuyu’s heart wilted a little at that. “I should be done by noon though.” She perked up again. How easy it was for Jihyo to manipulate her emotions with just innocent, honest-to-God comments, realized Tzuyu.

“It’s okay unnie, I have classes in the morning too. Um…” Looking at Jihyo’s expectant face, Tzuyu smiled and was about to continue, until she realized she had no freaking idea how she could ask her leader on a normal outing. She could not very well say “let’s go on a date”, could she? It was often so natural when she was invited by other members, but somehow she felt like she had been building this up too much for a ‘let’s have lunch together tomorrow’.

Sensing Tzuyu’s discomfort, Jihyo helpfully reached out and stroked her arms gently.

“… I found this really cute coffee shop, and I was wondering if you wanted to check it out with me. Also we can take some pictures, if you bring your camera.”

The hand caressing Tzuyu’s arm stilled. Jihyo raised an eyebrow quizzically at her.

“That was… a weird invitation to a date Tzuyu-ah.” Jihyo joked smiling, but the smile never reached her eyes. Tzuyu was too elated and flustered to notice it though.

“I-It’s not a date! I just really want to share some good memories with you.” She was also too busy digging a deeper hole for herself. Again, Jihyo acted like she did not hear what she said.

“Well alright then Tzuyu-ah, let’s enjoy ourselves tomorrow!” I’ll pick you up at school. Now go to bed.” Jihyo tip-toed to give Tzuyu an affectionate pat on her head. The maknae grinned, enjoying the sensation.

“Good night Jihyo-unnie, see you tomorrow.” She practically skipped back to her room. She did not do great today, but she scored herself a private date with her Jihyo-unnie the next day, and she could not be happier.

The door to the maknae opened and closed, leaving Jihyo standing alone in the common room.

Her fake smile long disppeared, Jihyo stood motionless, glaring at the door behind which Tzuyu just entered. She eventually shook her head and trudged back to the unnie line room, her long shadow cast over the floor not one bit darker than the one above her eyes.

_____

I planned this to be a simple oneshot, but the story just grew and grew. I’ll update the second chapter as soon as I can. Don’t worry, it does not grow any longer than that :D

#fanfiction #twice #jitzu #jihyo #tzuyu #dahyun #sana #chaeyoung #nayeon #mina #momo #jeongyeon

13 notes · View notes

iluvtv · 3 years

Text

Still Watching: A Love Letter to my Mom

The content below has not been censored for your consideration as neither the Real Housewives nor my mother would have approved of such blasphemy.

The decline in blogging was conveniently intentional.

There were other projects.

My career as a TV critic wasn’t exactly gaining steam.

My readership technically wasn’t booming.

For a time there had been an unmistakable fulfillment in my blogging habits.

Full disclosure: this work held undeniable titillation, provoked as it were by the vain echoes of my own subconscious. It was too enticing not to indulge the ego, booming, unselfconsciously through the page as I “eloquently” deciphered probable intentions of a writer’s room.

But was this self-aggrandizing, albeit surely intellectually stimulating task truly worthwhile?

I kept falling back on this tricky notion of time management. Was taking copious amounts of notes regarding my viewing habits (a laborious task which required endless rewinds and thusly an inability to watch TV with others) coupled with the studious investment of actually researching and writing a cohesive piece which included a clear argument for television as a medium and thereby proving a consistent thesis, truly a valuable use of my time?

Not to mention, of course, the added effort of finagling my mother to invest her energies toward a strong copy-edit.

It was an investment, sure. But then again none of it was necessarily difficult at least in the classical sense of the word.

Actually, the engaging my mother bit was sort of easy. Not only was I skilled at the subtle art of stroking of her ego; “Your attention to detail is just so much better than mine. You are so smart…” I also possessed a valuable trump card which, admittedly, brought as much pleasure as my own voice: she actually liked my writing!

To have known my mother is to know what a huge compliment this fan-dom truly was.

My mother was proudly authentic. She had no shame over her inability to “fake it”.

This personality trait demanded a certain dedication on her part. She was famous for telling my girlfriends they looked like sluts at our eighth-grade dance and embarrassing fits at the market while her younger children tried to disappear into the kid’s seat of the shopping cart. Patronizing eye rolls were par for the course. When a third grade Hebrew School teacher lauded my literary skills my loving, supportive mother made it abundantly clear she didn’t think I was a bad writer but maybe just too… precious?

Admittedly, poetry about attempted genocide from an eight-year-old may hold some tonal issues.

No matter, after 30 years of practice I had found my niche. I was everything she seemed to be looking for in a writer: I would rather drink turpentine than emote and I like really “got” satire. Finally, my words were funny and thusly, the woman who had helped foster this cynical humor had little trouble understanding my intentions.

We fell into lockstep. Her killer, critical eye and unparalleled editing skills were a welcomed privilege. I was no longer precious. A trait which carried over in my ability to “take a note.” I fully understood the value of a critical red pen from a grammar die-hard. Particularly one, who not only had a deep ceded appreciation for my style (she helped cultivate it, after all) but also a keen understanding of the objective, which only a mother could boast.

I was fully aware what a priceless service this was.

And so, I kept watching. My notetaking became obsessive. Whenever I pondered this expense of time, I considered the reality: rewriting dialogue was improving my own. I was becoming a better writer.

Since both my mother and I were committing countless hours to the free and underappreciated service of my viewing recommendations, it didn’t take long for the shows and topics I bothered dissecting to be unequivocally dictated by her unapologetic tastes. Or better stated, my own experience of such.

As an aside, I’d be remiss not to note that in losing both my parents it has become abundantly clear that one’s guardians (especially good ones) mostly exist in relation to ourselves and our already noted inflated egos.

Basically, the television I studied, the theories I pondered, the conclusions I drew had to appeal in large part to Dale Allen Boland. This was a nuanced role. An honest woman of remarkable talent she also happened to be the strict television gatekeeper of my childhood. Back in the 90’s a desire for this blue light pulsed through my veins like an addict in search of her next hit. I hadn’t been picky at all back then. This was a time in my life when even Jerry Springer reruns in black and white, streamed through bunny ears in my Jr. High weight room took the edge off.

To be frank, while at first her editing felt crucial so as not to embarrass myself on the interwebs it soon became clear that the bigger part of my ask was just any sort of consistent audience. In time it became obvious that my mother hadn’t only become a fan, but she was, in fact, my blog’s only fan.

And as any good writer knows, you gotta’ appeal to your base.

It helped, of course, that my mother had been my earliest educator (dictator) of media. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Datebook and the New Yorker were mainstays next to the can, meaning my earliest poos were made all the more pleasurable by the accompaniment of Adair Lara and John Carrol. By 34 I was not only well versed in what she found tolerable, but also possessed a keen understanding of how to stylize this appeal.

Simpsons? Yes. Danielle Steele? Not so much. Had she given Danielle an opportunity? Of course not! But I was willing to play her game.

We both were expending a lot of energies at this point and since any real readership was in the slim to none margins it was crucial that we at least reward ourselves.

In retrospect I understand that this was actually how we enjoyed time together.

After she died my father noted that my mother and I had always shared a very special intellectual connection. A greater compliment than sharing a literary bond with Dale had never been given. In fact, in my father’s wake it is easy to see that this final gift from him may have been the most important. In saying so, he finally acknowledged what I’d always longed to hear. He respected, perhaps even envied not only my intelligence, but my mother’s too.

While I had given up on blogging years before their deaths, my diligent notetaking continued up until them. I accepted that my time critiquing television for free to a marginal audience had not been without purpose (though I missed the motive of the maternal connection it fostered until just now). I am well aware that through my efforts I had gained the confidence to write a novel. I understood that to maintain this skill set a continued attention to television’s minutia was critical.

But then, she died. Suddenly, grief allowed me space to achieve an entirely different and antithetical goal I’d set years earlier and had made no real efforts to achieve: to do less.

Finally I was able to let thoughts wave over me. I allowed flashes of “brilliance” to be fleeting. I relaxed into a space of agitated ease. I exclusively sought joy. In doing so I concurrently and without coincidence leaned into a brand of watching which had always been considered “just desserts.”

Bravo TV became a life raft. I watched Real Housewives and Summerhouse with a certain amused stillness I hadn’t exhibited since my complacent years as a co-ed.

The day following my mother’s memorial I listened to “Radio Andy” on Siris XM in a monotonous loop throughout the entire 6-hour drive home. I slept to Bravo podcasts. I read tweets from Bravo fan accounts during session breaks.

I noticed Bravo was keeping me smiling. The network and commentary was rewarding me with a source to which I could focus. I appreciated the humor.

Two months later my father died. Mind blank I leaned in harder to the quiet blankness this watching served.

But then, I noticed something.

Watching Kathryn Dennis of Southern Charm open a coke can with her teeth in a loudly expensive living room, next to her foam roller it occurred to me that these women were the antithesis of my own mother.

Vicky Gunvalson whooping it up at a classy resort represented everything my mother had no tolerance for.

To see these women as satirical requires a certain level of empathy for their antics that would have eluded Dale.

Their bad behavior was just too black and white. For my mom there would have been nothing charmingly relatable about a woman like Lisa Barlow of Salt Lake City, placatingly sipping a constant stream of fountain soda through a plastic straw while proudly bragging she wasn’t “like a regular mom,” proving this factoid by feeding her children drive through fast-food for every meal and ignoring their calls when she was at a party.

These are women that bat fake eyelashes and scream at each other through plastic pumped lips. They float effortlessly in azul pools in Mexico boosted by the silicone in their tits.

My mom also wasn’t a regular mom but she wouldn’t have found this indulgent brand of opulence at all inspirational, aspirational or relatable. She did not identify as a “powerhouse” or a woman who needed to tell other women that she “lifted up other women” over an expensive cocktail brunch with “40 of her closest girlfriends” all of whom wielded designer purses like coats of armor.

This trope, repeated often throughout every Housewives franchise for the past 20 years would have just pissed my mother off.

It’s not that she didn’t relate to women behaving badly this just wasn’t her brand of bad behavior. She maybe could have sympathized if they’d been wearing Walmart rather than Prada.

Lorelai Gilmore? Sure, why not? Emily Gilmore? Definitely not.

It’s funny because in a certain sense my mother’s proud authenticity and lack of shame in her outbursts would have made her an ideal housewife. But the weight these women put on things and beauty would have been too damn distracting to her.

In spite of being a woman whose love language was often a good screaming match she would have found any and all of the dramatic fights on Housewives absolutely insufferable.

And in spite of my deep love for the genre, convincing Dale that any of this was actually satire worth watching would have been an exercise in futility.

I embraced this factoid quietly and with little work on my end (other than setting the DVR to catch up on back seasons of Atlanta) I leaned into a space which never would have been tolerated.

It felt good.

It was my own.

In doing so, I came up with a million things about Bravo to share. Perhaps one day I will. God knows I need to create a new fan base.

But before I could even consider either changing the channel or sitting down to a blog analyzing how one housewife’s ludicrous and racist notion that eating chicken feet was somehow any different than eating chicken nuggets, I got this text from my mom’s best friend: “have you seen Derry Girls.”

Maybe an audience was asking for a resurrection, after all.

But as I flipped to Netflix and started a new note labeled “Derry Girls” it occurred to me that I first must come to terms with how much things have changed.

There is a certain level of self-actualization left amidst the cluttered grief of losing my parents. As I write this, I am continuously tempted to take a break for “Mom’s consideration”. Her feedback would have supplied an unrequited serotonin boost, like a gentle promise to my oh so evasive ego that there was purpose in my efforts, that the writing I was doing was valuable. When my mom was alive I always knew that someone would appreciate my continued efforts, making it tolerable to finish, and tidy, and publish. My mother was like a promise that not only my words but also I myself was worthwhile.

This chore of loving, maternal reassurance is, of course, now my own. A truth my mother, who never needed to brag about lifting up other women, would have celebrated.

Nothing would have made my mom happier than me making my own choices, editing my own words and being my own cheerleader Perhaps she died just to prove it. To know Dale Allen Boland is to suspend belief that she maybe could have made her last stubborn point through such dramatic means.

And to be totally frank; that is a storyline not even a housewife could pull off.

Thank you for being my greatest cheerleader. I love you Mom.

1 note · View note