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emospritelet · 3 years

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Heatstroke - chapter 21/23

This fic is next on my list to complete, so wish me luck! Last time, Gold and Lacey danced, and Lacey got Gold to agree to be interviewed. Here's what happened next :)

[AO3]

Lacey smoothed her dress over her hips, turning this way and that before the mirror. She was wearing a white summer dress with a flared skirt, her feet in white strappy wedges and her hair tied up. It wasn’t the sort of outfit she usually wore to conduct interviews, but there again this wasn’t one of her usual interviews. She was not about to ask one of Storybrooke’s elderly residents about her success in growing pumpkins or making preserves. She was going to be asking Mr Gold about his life, interests and passions. And with any luck, she’d be able to experience a few of those passions for herself.

She hadn’t seen Gold since the dance, but she could still remember the way he had felt pressed against her and the scent of his cologne in her nose. She had been excited about the interview ever since, and the possibility of getting even closer to him once it was done. Ruby had teased her only a little before telling her to remember to take condoms. Just in case.

She took a final glance at her reflection, nodded decisively, and snatched up the bag with her recording equipment and notebook, throwing the strap over her shoulder. Let’s do this.

The walk to Gold’s house from her own took less than a minute, which gave her no time to be nervous, and she stomped up onto the porch and knocked on the door. He answered promptly, a tiny smile on his face, and she felt her heart thump at the gleam in his eyes.

“Miss French,” he said pleasantly. “Do come in.”

He was wearing one of his suits, black with a dark blue silk shirt and a burgundy silk tie. The shirt had a faint damask pattern, and she found that her eyes were scouring it, running over the lean lines of his body. She hurriedly raised her eyes to his to find him gazing at her steadily. Lacey bit her lip, hoping she wouldn’t blush.

“Hey,” she said quickly. “Uh - thanks for agreeing to do this.”

“You were rather persuasive, as I recall.”

“I’ve been called worse,” she said, and he chuckled, stepping aside to let her in.

“I thought we could use the study for this,” he said. “It’s down the hallway and to your left, but you’re welcome to look around.”

She sent him a smile, stepping past him and hearing him close the door behind her with a soft click as she moved left.

“I was just making some tea,” he said. “May I offer you some?”

“Uh - yeah, thanks.”

He nodded and turned away, and she heard the click of his cane as he headed for the kitchen. An open door led to the lounge, and she couldn’t resist taking a look inside, trying to imagine him relaxing there, with a book and a glass of whisky, and Darcy curled on the rug at his feet. The house was as she imagined, clean and neat, filled with beautiful things, and somehow out of its time. It smelled of beeswax and leather and some woody, earthy scent that she couldn’t quite place. The furniture seemed to be entirely antique, gleaming wood and polished brass and silk brocade, shelves set with porcelain figurines and delicate glass vases.

Lacey stepped back from peering inside the lounge, and headed slowly down the hall, heels clicking on the wooden floor. She let her eyes flick left to right, taking in the surroundings as she went, and her mouth curved upwards in a smile as she turned into what he had called the study. Bookshelves covered two of the walls, a bay window looking out over neat gardens and double glass doors which opened out onto a porch. A heavy desk sat on the wall opposite, a brass lamp to one side and a vase of deep red roses on the other.

She could hear him clattering around in the kitchen, and walked slowly around the room, eyes scanning the shelves. He had books on a wide range of subjects: volumes on antiques, art and ceramics took up one shelf, and there were books on history, law and politics. Novels made up the bulk of his collection, from what she could see, a mixture of classics and modern authors. He had three copies of Pride and Prejudice with different covers. There again, so did she. There were even some children’s books on one shelf, and she remembered that he had a young grandson. The thought of him choosing books so that his grandson might one day enjoy them made her smile.

“Here we are, then.”

Gold’s voice and the clink of china made her look around, and he entered the room with a tray balanced in one arm, shaking his head as she hurried forward.

“I’m used to getting around on my own, don’t concern yourself,” he said, and bent to slide the tray onto the small table in the bay window. The teapot, cups and saucers wobbled a little, but nothing spilled. Relieved, Lacey turned back to the bookshelves, eyeing a carved wooden bookend in the shape of an owl.

“You have some nice things,” she said. “Stock or personal?”

“Most of it’s personal,” he said from behind her. “I do rotate a few pieces between my home and the shop, but I find that if I like something enough to bring it into my home, it tends to stay there.”

Lacey turned on her toes to face him. He was standing by the window, both hands on the handle of his cane, watching her.

“Well,” she said. “I guess we should make a start.”

She spent a couple of minutes setting up her recording equipment and taking out her notebook and pencil. There were two chairs in the bay window, wing back armchairs in oxblood leather that creaked as she sat down. The chair was surprisingly comfortable, and she shifted position, tugging at the skirt of her dress and arranging it over her thighs. Gold lowered himself into the chair opposite, and Lacey pressed play on the recording equipment.

“Interview with Mr Gold, Sunday, July eighteenth at”—Lacey checked her watch—”four-oh-nine.”

She sat back and crossed her legs, meeting Gold’s eyes.

“Thank you for agreeing to this interview, Mr Gold,” she said.

“My pleasure, Miss French.”

His voice was a low rumble, and Lacey squeezed her thighs together, clearing her throat as she did so. She wondered if he knew the effect his voice had on her.

“I thought we’d start with some of your personal history,” she said. “If that’s okay with you.”

“Ask your questions,” he said.

“You promised to answer all of them, right?” she said, and he lifted one shoulder and let it fall in a lazy shrug.

“A deal’s a deal.”

“Right.”

Lacey glanced down at her notebook, where she had scribbled some of things she wanted to raise.

“So, Logan Gold, born in Glasgow, moved to the US in 1993,” she said. “Studied first at Oxford, then at Harvard, and became a lawyer. Got married, had a son and eventually obtained full custody following a pretty vicious divorce. Worked in New York for several large legal firms before settling down in the sleepy small town of Storybrooke in Maine to run a pawn shop. Quite a change of pace.”

A flick of Gold’s eyebrow was the only indication of surprise.

“You’ve done your homework,” he observed, and she shrugged.

“That’s my job.”

Gold raised a finger.

“You forgot to mention my extensive property empire,” he said, and she raised an eyebrow.

“You want me to stroke your ego, is that it?”

He showed his teeth.

“I wouldn’t want you to be accused of being anything but thorough.”

“Fine,” she sighed. “You run a pawn shop and own most of the property in town, yadda yadda yadda.”

“Well, we seem to have concluded the whistle-stop tour of my life,” he remarked. “Perhaps the interview is over.”

“Hey, not so fast!” she said immediately, making him grin. “I was just getting the dull stuff out of the way.”

Gold inclined his head.

“Ask your questions, Miss French.”

“Okay.” Lacey glanced down at her notes, her heart thudding a little. “Uh - what made you move to the US?”

“Work, mostly,” he said. “As you have already mentioned, I studied law at Oxford, and knew I wanted to pursue it as a career. I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship to study at Harvard, and I’ve been in the US ever since.”

“How easy did you find it to adjust to living in a new country?”

He pulled a face.

“It wasn’t so bad,” he said. “Perhaps because I was so busy with my studies, and then work. I didn’t have a lot of time for anything else. I think maybe it was harder to adjust when I moved out of the city. Being in New York is nothing like being in Storybrooke.”

“In what way?”

“Every way,” he said. “The pace of life is far slower, which is mostly a relief, but irritating when you want something done quickly. People are friendly, and want to get to know you. They stop to talk to you in the street, and greet you with some sort of sincerity.”

“The horror,” she remarked, and he grinned.

“Let’s just say I never did get used to that side of things.”

“Never tempted to move back?”

“No,” he said immediately. “No, I’m content to stay here.”

“And what about going back to Scotland?”

“I’ve been back a few times,” he said. “It’s changed a lot over the years. I still like to visit, but my home is here now. I’d only go back if my family decided to.”

“Your son, right?” she said. “And you have a grandson.”

“Yes. Henry.” Gold smiled faintly. “My son and his wife have spent their entire lives in the US. They’re very settled here, so I can’t see them wanting to leave, and I would never leave without them. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me, Miss French.”

Good.

Aloud she said: “Family’s important to you, then.”

“The most important thing in my life,” he said, with a sincerity that touched her. “I know I’ve made a lot of money, and when you consider where I came from, I imagine I’ve made a success of my life. But my family is what matters.”

Lacey tapped her pencil against her lips.

“You never remarried,” she said. “Why not?”

Gold didn’t answer immediately. He sat forward, reaching for the teapot. Lacey watched tea pour in a thin, amber stream, and he pushed a cup and saucer towards her before adding a little milk to his own tea and stirring.

“I believe you used the words ‘vicious divorce’,” he said. “I have to say that is something of an understatement. I’m afraid it rather put me off the idea of relationships.”

Lacey felt something inside her turn to stone and fall into the pit of her stomach.

“Oh,” she said. “Completely?”

Gold pulled a face, taking a sip of tea.

“Let’s just say that my son and daughter-in-law have been pestering me about dating for years and I have only recently started to entertain the idea.”

He held her gaze for a moment, and Lacey felt her heart lighten.

“Sounds as though they care about you a lot,” she observed, and he smiled.

“Yes. As I tell myself when I find their interference particularly irritating.”

She chuckled a little, and decided to change the subject.

“So why antiques?” she said, and Gold smiled, setting his cup in its saucer.

“Antiques give you a taste of other people’s lives,” he said. “Each piece in my shop has a story behind it. Someone owned it before it came to me. Perhaps it was a cherished object, set on a shelf of a display cabinet and taken out and admired. Perhaps it was wrapped in newspaper and shoved into a packing crate and ignored. Either way it’s all history, all a part of other people’s existences.”

Lacey smiled, somewhat entranced by the sound of his voice.

“It’s strange,” she said. “I didn’t think you liked people all that much.”

That tiny smile again.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t find them interesting.”

“But to go from being a top lawyer to running a shop,” she said. “It must have been a hell of a change of pace.”

“The shop’s just a hobby, really,” he said. “I enjoy it, but it’s not where I make my money. The rental business is my chief source of income, and what takes up most of my time. Scheduling repairs, arranging for renovation, that sort of thing.”

“So, no plans to expand outside Storybrooke?” she asked, and he let out a short laugh.

“No no, I’m trying to concentrate on the town itself,” he said. “You may be aware of the local entrepreneur fund that the Mayor set up last year. I’ve donated to that and provide business advice to some of those that signed up. I’ve also been involved in refurbishing some of the old warehouse buildings near the harbour. Looking to attract some local businesses there, revitalise the area.”

Lacey nodded, reaching for her tea and taking a drink.

“Very generous of you.”

“If the town prospers, so do I,” he said. “It’s good business sense, that’s all.”

“Right.” She took another drink of tea. “So we’ve covered your family, your work. I'm interested in going back to your early years, but let's deal with the present for now. What do you do in your spare time?”

Gold sat back a little, pursing his lips.

“I’m afraid it’s nothing very exciting,” he said. “I read a lot.”

“So I’ve seen.”

“I like to cook,” he added.

“Even when you’re on your own?” she asked. “I don’t know, I’ve been living alone for years, and sometimes it’s all I can do to throw a pizza in the oven.”

His mouth twitched.

“Well, food is a sensual pleasure,” he said, the tone of his voice lowering again. “It’s important to take your time. To savour it. Sometimes the most enjoyment comes from the time and care taken in its preparation.”

She was almost certain he was flirting with her.

“Time and care’s all very well, but if the execution sucks it’s wasted effort,” she said bluntly, and Gold grinned.

“Practice makes perfect.”

“True enough.”

He was still grinning, and she felt as though she was about two minutes away from launching herself at his crotch. She looked down at her notes to refocus.

“Okay, quick fire round,” she said. “Ten questions, don’t think too hard about the answers. Ready?”

He blinked at her, but nodded.

“Go ahead.”

“Sweet or savoury?”

“Sweet.”

“Coffee or tea?”

“Tea.”

“Cats or dogs?”

“I have to choose?”

Lacey nodded in acknowledgement.

“Okay, that’s fair. Cats and dogs both rule,” she said. “Winter or summer?”

“Winter.”

“Okay…” Lacey pretended to be checking her notes. “Legs or boobs?”

“What?”

“I told you, don’t think too much!”

“Uh - legs.”

“Favourite alcoholic drink?”

“Single malt whisky.”

“Favourite thing to eat?”

The flick of an eyebrow.

“Are we talking food?” he asked, his voice a low purr, and Lacey squeezed her legs together.

“You have a dirty mind, Gold.”

“You could only consider that comment dirty if your mind was also dirty.”

“Just answer the question!”

“Lamb slow-roasted with rosemary and lots of garlic.”

Lacey felt her mouth water.

“Ugh, that sounds delicious!”

“It is.”

“Okay, focus!” She rolled her eyes, more at herself than him. “Boxers or briefs?”

He grinned at that, eyebrows twitching.

“Boxers.”

“Favourite place to visit?”

“Scotland.”

“Who do you miss right now?”

“My son.”

“Do you want to have sex with me?”

“Yes.”

There was a pause. Gold was wide-eyed and looking a little shell-shocked, as though he couldn’t believe that she had asked the question and that he had answered it. Lacey smirked, tapping her pencil on the notepad.

“Well,” she said. “That’s out of the way, then.”

Gold was silent for a moment.

“I’m going to have to insist that that question and its answer don’t make it into the Storybrooke Mirror,” he said evenly, and Lacey grinned, uncrossing and recrossing her legs, and noting the way his eyes followed the movement.

“Believe me, that’s just between us,” she said, and he looked amused.

“Thank goodness for that.”

“You’re a pretty private person, huh?” she observed.

“Extremely.”

“Don’t want anyone in town knowing your business.”

“Takes the mystery out,” he quipped.

“Uh-huh.” She sat back. “So why did you agree to do this interview?”

A tiny smile made his eyes gleam.

“Perhaps I enjoyed our time together the other night.”

“Did you?”

“Yes.” He raised an eyebrow. “Does that surprise you?”

“It would have surprised me a few weeks ago,” she admitted. “Our first meetings weren’t all that promising, remember?”

“First impressions can be misleading,” he said.

“I guess so.”

There was a moment of silence, and Lacey looked him up and down very deliberately.

“If it makes you feel any better,” she said. “I want to have sex with you, too.”

Gold stared at her for a moment, and then barked a laugh.

“That wasn’t a joke,” she said, and he shook his head, waving a hand.

“No, it’s just that Emma—my daughter-in-law—she said you liked me. And she knew I had feelings for you. She knew before I did.”

“She probably knew I liked you before I did, too,” remarked Lacey. “Are we both wilfully blind, or just dumb?”

Gold laughed at that, his eyes twinkling.

“Perhaps a little of both,” he said. “Although in our defence we didn’t have the most auspicious start, did we?”

“I don’t know, I got to see you naked,” she said. “Got that out of the way.”

Gold laughed again, and Lacey put her head to the side.

“So when did your opinion change?” she asked. “Pretty sure you found me annoying as hell to start with.”

“Oh, I did,” he said, grinning. “I’m not sure when it changed.”

“How did you know it had?”

Gold sucked his teeth, raising his eyes to the ceiling for a moment before looking back.

“I had a very vivid dream about you one night that caused me to reevaluate how I felt.”

Lacey sat forward, feeling her mouth drop open.

“A dream?”

“Very. Vivid,” he said, enunciating each word, and she felt curiosity surge in her.

“What happened?”

Gold chuckled deeply.

“Oh, I’m not telling you that.”

Lacey gave him a flat look.

“Do I need to remind you about the deal we made?” she asked. “You said I could ask you anything, and you’d give me an answer.”

Gold sat back, running his hands over his face with a grumbling sigh before looking through his fingers at her.

“I didn’t mean sex dreams,” he said, his tone muffled.

“Then you should have made that an explicit term, Mr Hot-Shot Lawyer,” she countered. “And you can’t drop ‘sex dreams’ on me and then say nothing, no fair.”

He sighed again, and let his hands drop to his lap, his expression one of rueful amusement.

“Fine,” he said. “But turn off the tape.”

Lacey reached for the recording equipment, smirking at him.

“What’s the matter, don’t you trust me?”

“Yes,” he said. “It’s more the unintended consequences of having this conversation recorded that’s bothering me. Fate has a twisted sense of humour, after all. With my luck it would accidentally end up being broadcast on Radio FTL’s Good Morning Storybrooke in place of the weather forecast, or something.”

“True enough,” she agreed, and switched off the recording before setting her notepad aside and turning to face him. “So. About this dream.”

Gold grumbled again.

“God, this is excruciating,” he muttered, and Lacey smirked.

“Well, you know what they say,” she said. “If you’re uncomfortable, just picture your audience naked.”

Gold stared at her, and burst out laughing again. Lacey grinned.

“Good, I can make you laugh,” she said. “Come on, tell me how we got our sexy on.”

“God, that makes it sound even worse,” he sighed.

“I’m waiting.”

Another sigh, and he ran a hand over his mouth, shaking his hair back.

“Alright,” he said eventually. “I dreamt that you came to the shop while I was going through my ledgers. You were dressed in a - uh - very tight black dress and very high heels, and you took my hand, led me into the back room, and - and went down on me.”

He seemed uncomfortable, his eyes looking everywhere but at hers, as though he were ashamed. Lacey pursed her lips.

“Huh,” she said. “I think I’ve had that same dream.”

Gold laughed out loud, shaking his head and grinning.

“You constantly surprise me, Miss French,” he said.

“Good.” Lacey pushed slowly to her feet. “Let me see if I can keep doing that.”

She took a step towards him, then another, and sank down on her knees on the rug, sitting on her heels and putting her hands on his thighs. Gold’s breathing had quickened, his nostrils flaring a little, his eyes dark and deep.

“So,” said Lacey softly. “I got on my knees, hmm?”

“Yes,” he breathed.

She slid her hands slowly up his thighs, rising up on her knees and gently pushing his legs apart.

“Like this?”

Gold swallowed hard. His hands were resting on his thighs, the fingers twitching a little, as though they ached to touch her.

“A - a little.”

“Hmm.” She shifted forward, pushing between his legs, hands sliding further up until her fingertips brushed along the edge of his waistcoat. “And then what happened?”

Gold licked his lips, his breathing unsteady.

“To my great regret,” he said. “I woke up.”

Lacey let out a soft laugh, catching his eyes with hers.

“Well then,” she said. “I guess we’ll have to improvise.”

She had shifted forward, her body pressed up against his groin, her fingers stroking his sides, and her mouth was almost close enough to touch his. His breath was cool against her lips, the tip of his nose just brushing against hers, and her heart was thumping hard in her chest.

“Improvise,” he whispered. “Yes.”

His hands slid up her sides, fingers trailing over the curves of her hips, her waist, her shoulders. Her own breathing had quickened, the throb of her pulse heavy in her lips, her throat, her groin. She gently brushed her lips against his, pulling his breath into her lungs, tasting his scent on her tongue, and when she opened her eyes his gaze was dark enough to make her shiver.

“Take me to bed,” she said, and his breath seemed to catch in his throat, his mouth twitching.

“Yes, Lacey,” he breathed. “Yes.”

#fic: heatstroke #golden lace fic #rumbelle fic #my fic #golden lace #rumbelle

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toriwakes · 3 years

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Problem [Spender Reid x Reader]

summary: the daughter of a famous chef becomes a target, and it’s spencer’s job to protect her.

content warnings: female!reader, cursing

a/n: hello!!! first spencer reid post!! so excited to share, sorry if it’s bad </3. this is obviously inspired by s1 ep18. hope u all enjoy, lmk if you have any requests!

dad was a famous chef. he was known world wide, liked by some and hated by some. that’s how it worked. she had gotten used to the spotlight. it was his, anyway. no one payed much attention to her. or so she thought. when the incident happened she had noticed a pattern. someone was watching her and she didn’t know who. why her? her dad, a hot head, wasn’t going to let this fly easily. and that was a problem.

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“davy plattel, 57. heard of him?” jennifer asked, clearly joking. “he’s an australian chef and has been on 5 different tv shows. all of which he rates food and has a tendency for being cold do this employees.” reid spat out the facts like he’s been waiting to be asked this question since he was born. the team just stared at him before jennifer spoke. “i was kidding.” spencer pressed his lips together as his cheeks flushed pink. “remind me why we’re looking into this guy?” morgan said, flicking through the files. “people going to his restaurants are getting poisoned, press says he’s snapped and is making them pay for making him look like a bad guy for all these years.” derek’s brows furrowed together. “and this is a b.a.u case because?” asked aaron. “right when the poisoning started-“ jj dropped a new file into his lap. “-his daughter (y/n) became a target.”

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“you lot are supposed to be the best in the game. figure out who’s hurting my business and find who’s hurting my daughter!” hot head was right. platell was taken into a separate room by gideon and morgan, which left aaron and reid to scout for you. davy told them you’d be in your room. “(y/n) platell? i’m special agent aaron hotchner with the fbi. we’re here to ask you a couple of questions if that’s okay with you?” your eyes lifted from the floor and to the stern man sitting on the edge of your bed. whilst nodding you noticed the taller man in your doorway. “special agent doctor spencer reid. we’re here to help.” hotch and reid walked you to the backyard, a perfect place to interrogate you. “tell me about your relationship with your dad.” spencer spoke first. you gulped. “i love him. he’s my best friend. he’s all i have, okay? he’s overprotective, but whose dad isn’t? he’s going crazy now that the person doing this wants me.” “what about the person who’s after you? any idea who it could be? think of someone who felt invisible to you, inferior.” as hard as you thought, nothing clicked. you shook your head and hotch let out a sigh. “i’m scared.” you admitted. “nothing like this has ever happened before?” spencer asked, almost surprised. “no, everyone focused on him, never on me.” spencer looked like he put pieces together. aaron thanked you for your time and led you back inside, spencer following. you knew the feeling in your stomach. butterflies.

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things got worse at the end of the day. you got a voicemail, an unsettling voice whose gender wasn’t identifiable called, talking about how they didn’t like how much time you were spending with the fbi. not only did this enrage your dad, it caused him to take matters into his own hands and search the bushes around your house. he didn’t find anything. “did the caller say anything else?” gideon asked. you quivered. “they..” you couldn’t catch your breath. “they said they were going to come get me at midnight.” everyone in the room shared a look of panic. “we need to get her out of here.” aaron instructed. “what? no, she is staying with me.” for what felt like the hundredth time today, the agents had to calm down your dad. “we have a safe house to take you to. an agent will stay with you for the night.” jennifer told you. your mind immediately went to reid. “anyone in particular you’d like?” she said, one hand on your shoulder. you leaned into her ear, whispering the name that made you cheeks flush. “spencer.”

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the car ride was mostly silent. spencer was playing with his fingers, something you did as well. “are you nervous?” you said finally. he stopped at once, putting his hands into his pockets. “wha? oh, no, i’m fine.” you knew he wasn’t, but you didn’t press. “um- when did you leave australia?” he asked. you giggled. “when my dad started to get recognition, so when i was maybe eight. i didn’t leave much behind, the kids at school didn’t like me. i made my first friend here. gina.” he nodded. “was she nice to you?” “always. never anything but. i get a hot head sometimes- just like my dad. on occasion i would lash out on her, but she always forgave me. i always regretted it, she was really good to me.” spencer furrowed his eyebrows. “what did she act like when you would get mad?” you gave him a look, as if to say “why is this important?”. “well, she would look sad at first. like she didn’t understand why i was mad. she made herself smaller and blamed herself for making me mad. i thought it was weird that she never tried to defend herself.” reid shuffled into his pocket and took out his phone, dialing a number and speaking quickly. “hotch, why have we not considered looking at people close to her? it’s just like the case with that government official and the twin sisters- it was someone close to him. her friend- gina you said?” you nodded quickly. “fits the profile, and is close to her.” voices spoke on the other line before reid asked another question. “what’s her full name?” “gina carmen torres.” spencer retreated the name and you could hear hotch say he’d alert garcia. “it’s not her, i know it’s not.” reid looked at you like you were wrong. you shivered.

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when you got to the house spencer advised that you showered and got ready for bed, spreaking since it was so close to midnight. he stayed outside the shower door and handed you your close when you were done. “cold?” he asked, taking notice of you shaky frame. you nodded. he handed you the sweater he was going to wear to bed tonight, not minding at all. there go the butterflies. you sat one the bed and slid under the covers. “you should get some rest, i’m gonna stay up and make sure nothing happens.” he said. you didn’t fall asleep. “is something wrong? other than the fact that you’re being stalked?” you couldn’t help but laugh. “yes, actually. i don’t wanna admit this, but..i cant fall asleep unless i’m hugging something. and i..don’t have any stuffed animals with me.” spencer raised his eyebrows. “(y/n) if you’re asking me to sleep next to you i-“ “please spence? i’m not gonna be able to sleep anyway, it’ll help at least.” you pleaded, showing off your puppy dog eyes. “okay. fine.”

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spencer stayed up all night. sure he was required to stay awake, but he was only staying up because he didn’t want to miss out on how beautiful you looked when you were asleep. you looked so calm, so peaceful. spencer had no idea what he was feeling, but he didn’t want it to stop. he liked you, and a lot. “fuck.” he whispered to himself. the small noise made you stir, but not enough to wake you up. suddenly, a ring came from spencer’s phone. he picked it up before it could wake you. “hello?” he whispered. “reid, we got em bud. found her in the girl’s bedroom of platell’s house. is she safe?” morgan’s voice spoke. spencer looked down at you, petting your head gently. “yea, she’s safe.” “alright man. i’m guessing she’s asleep?” “correct.” “okay. just stay with her, we’ll be there soon anyway.” morgan hung up. soon? damnit, he didn’t have much time left with you. he checked the clock, reading 5am. he wanted to talk to you, but he wasn’t going to wake you up for that. what were you doing to him?

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧

spencer woke you up at 7:30. “they’ll be here at 10, and i don’t really know your schedule so.. i hope that enough time to get ready.” you rubbed your eyes and examined spencer. he was wearing his sweats and found a white shirt that was a bit too tight on him. he looked cute. “yes, that’s fine. i’ll..i’ll be right back.” you left the room to brush your teeth and get changed, finding reid inspecting some books you had lying around. “i have two copies of that. one at home and one here. just in case.” you said, sitting down right next to him and peering over. “it’s a classic. you like to read?” he inquired. “love it. although i cant stick to a book unless there’s some type of romance.” spencer raised his eyebrows. “call me a dork, whatever. what’s wrong with being into a little bit of love?” you chuckled. “no, in fact i figured you’d be that way.” you rolled your eyes playfully. “profilers. well, tell me what you think of me.” spencer paused before speaking. “i think you’re smart, you know how to pick your relationships-“ “what do you mean by that?” he stopped and pursed his lips, finding what words to say. “you know what you want in friends and boyfriends.” you raised your eyebrows. he couldn’t possibly know. “are you saying you know my type?” he shrugged. “yeah probably.” “try me.” “you like smart guys. guys who are confident, but not full of themselves. you like it when they’re sweet, but demanding. though i don’t know what you find physically attractive.” he said, going back to the book. you pulled it out of his hands. “i can tell you that one. i like guys named spencer reid.” almost instantly his face flushed red and he stopped speaking. you took the liberty of leaning in, your lips ghosting his. “(y/n)-“ “kiss me spence.”

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧

his lips were as soft as they looked. the way he kissed was new to you, but you adapted and matched his energy. due to this, he whimpered as he kissed you. you pulled back to look at him, his face was bright red. “i’m sorry, i shouldn’t have-“ “spencer!” he cut himself off and looked at you with those full eyes of his. “don’t apologize. i liked it. a lot.” seeing that as his green light he cupped your chin and pulled you in for another quick kiss before getting up and getting ready himself.

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧

“(y/n)? (y/n)!” your dad showed up at the door a few hours later. “i was worried.” he whispered while you hugged. “i’m fine, dad. we’re fine.” when your dad let go of you and saw spencer lingering a bit too close, he connected the dots. “this boy didn’t try anything did he?” derek was listening now. you opened your mouth while turning to reid, whose eyes were wide with fear. “uh- no. he didn’t do anything but protect me, dad.” that didn’t let up his death stare on him. your dad wandered off to his car, everyone splitting up to leave home. “i’ll see you around.” spencer began to split up as well, but you caught his wrist. “check your pocket. see you.” with that you were gone. reaching into his back pocket, he felt something. a small piece of paper, you number etched on it with a small heart. you’re nothing like he’s used to. and thats a problem.

#spencer reid #spencer reid smut #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid imagine #criminal minds #mgg imagine #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid fic #spencer reid funny

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chuuulip · 4 years

Text

The First Kiss of Love

Pairing: Hannibal Lecter x Female Reader

Warning: Fluff with a smidges of angst

Words: 3262

Prompt: hey i was wondering id you could do a hannibal lecter one where the reader doesnt realize that hannibal likes her and she gets jealous when hes talking to another woman. when she calls him out on it he cant help but laugh. the reader is basically a oblivious dummy type and way too much of a klutz .

Summary: “Dr. Bloom is really beautiful.” your small, joyless voice continues its sentence. “Ah...yes indeed.” Hannibal replies casually.

A.N: This is for an anon that request some Hannibal fanfic. I’m sorry that it takes me so long xD I hope you like it! whoever you are ❤️ Thank you for @jewels2876 for helping me with this piece, love you ❤️ Also tagging fellow Hannibal fans 😉 @venusdemonroe and @detectivehannibal thanks for feeding me Hannibal content and discuss him with me ❤️

It’s been a couple of months since you’ve worked with Dr. Lecter. You were once a librarian; due to an accident, you lost your job as a consequence of a long time recovery. Hannibal Lecter literally was an angel or your angel to be precise. Vividly, you remember the time you met him. By chance, Hannibal is in the clinic when you do your physiotherapy. He catches a small stack of books that you buy that day. He manages to balance the books in his left hand while his right-hand catches you before your face kisses the floor.

Long story short, both of you have some sort of conversation that leads to you applying for a job to be Hannibal’s secretary. You are excited but also nervous when you do your interview. You have no idea that Hannibal is a well-known psychiatrist not only just in Baltimore but also in Maryland. There is a fear that Hannibal will not choose you because of your clumsy tendencies. You are naturally what people will call a klutz. Physical activity somewhat hinders your ability to shine among others. You are either too slow or too weak. Not to mention lucky stars seem to distance themself from you. But not that day, the day when you get an email of your employment. Hannibal is pretty impressed with your CV and how good your skills on scheduling and data management,

“Good morning.” the soft, accented voice of Hannibal greets you. Today, he wears a dark blue windowpane pattern jacket suit. He chooses a somewhat dark metallic floral pattern adorning the red-brown tie. His white buttoned-up shirt makes the color of his suit and ties pop. Hannibal always dresses elegantly, something that you always look forward to seeing.

“Good morning, Dr. Lecter.” You stand up and follow Hannibal inside his office. He takes a seat on his brown leather chair. Everything looks immaculate as always.

“Schedule for today?” he unbuttons his suit jacket and you quickly help him hang the suit. “Thank you, my dear, you didn’t need to do that.”

“It’s alright Dr. Lecter.”

Sometimes when it’s only you and Hannibal in the office, he accidentally calls you my dear. You aren’t sure if it's because that’s the way he usually addresses someone he is in contact on a daily basis, or it means something more? Oh, you wish.

“Dr. Lecter…, for this morning you will have two appointments. Mrs. Potter and Ms. Randall. Also-- Mr. Franklin said he might need to reschedule.” Your slightly breathy voice points out other appointments Hannibal has outside the office. Your work had become kind of a blend between his secretary and personal assistant, to be honest. It was actually Hannibal's idea to engage you more into work that’s not strictly his office related. Not that you are complaining because it let you take a peek on Hannibal’s other persona. Not to mention that the payment is pretty generous.

Not once does Hannibal ask your input on what type of thing should be added in his office, and by that, you are pretty proud of yourself. Not a lot of people give any thought about your opinion. Although Hannibal, like when his office has this sleek look and somewhat minimalist style, he always mixes something that you could say was classic inside his office. You have been inside his office quite a lot, but sometimes you help him tidy up his books and document. He’s somewhat more of a hard copy type of person than a soft copy one. Like you. You like the smells of an old book although some of Hannibal’s books smell too clinical for you. Like the smells of a hospital or a place with a lot of disinfectants.

Pretty proud of your experience as a librarian in the past, and knowing Hannibal is a perfectionist himself, you practically turned the side of his office into a perfect mini library. The medical record shorts are alphabetically arranged while his other books are listed by genre, then in an alphabetical manner as well. When Hannibal stays longer in the office, sometimes you catch him drawing. A hobby that he said he has since childhood. One day he told you, “Growing up, I found my hobby really useful when I decided to be a medical doctor.” and you can’t help but agree. After he finishes with what he sketches at that time, he specifically calls you into his office and shows you the final product. That action simply makes your heart flutter in excitement.

“Thank you, you can leave for now.” He gives you his subtle yet beautiful smile. Those eyes of his when he smiles always send some sort of quick rush to your brain.

Giving Hannibal a short nod, you quickly excuse yourself. You stumble upon your own shoe and almost fall, face first. Luckily you can prevent that from happening, hoping Hannibal doesn’t notice, although you think he did. Scurrying from his office, you station yourself on your spot. Continue typing and archiving what Hannibal asks you.

Sipping your now cold latte, your eyes shift to the books next to your PC. It’s a book called Les Fleurs du mal renaissance, a volume about French poetry that Hannibal had lent you after you finish some short of psychology 101. You have read a few pages of it, and since it’s in French, it takes you some time to understand it.

Sometimes Hannibal invites you to his office to let you read his book while he draws things. Trying not to get caught red-handed, you glance at him from the corner of your eyes, savoring the scene in front of you. Wondering what Hannibal actually does on his day off, is there anything he can’t do? Your brain likes to take a detour on what Hannibal does at home when he’s not seeing other people’s minds.

A soft clink of steps on the mahogany floor wood, momentary pauses your fingers on the keyboard.

“Good morning Mrs. Potter.” you stand up immediately. Greet her with a polite, shy smile. One of the things you are still learning from working with Hannibal is being confident. Since the secretary is usually portrayed as bold and beautiful, while you on the other hand are quite the opposite, Hannibal makes sure you take your time to adapt from ‘less contact with people at work’ to ‘in contact with different people almost every day.’

“I’m here for my appointment.” her British accent tickles your ear. It’s rare for you to meet a Brit, especially as posh as Mrs. Potter. Although you never glance at a patient’s medical record, you do actually google them. When you find out Hannibal’s reputation, you know that most of his patients are a somewhat well-known person. Mrs. Potter is an owner of exquisite but limited jewelry store on the east coast. From several articles that you read, she has had quite a lot of scandal. Despite that, you will not deny her beauty. She may be quite older than you, but the way her cheekbones stay supple and very few wrinkles decorating her face sometimes makes you jealous.

“Yes, sure. Please wait a moment,” immediately, you walk to Hannibal's office door that's just a foot away from your desk. Giving a soft knock, you open the door and inform Hannibal that Mrs. Potter is already here. He gives you a quick nod, and you open the door wider, to let Mrs. Potter start her session.

Hannibal isn’t a strict boss. Or that’s actually what you thought about him. Of course, you are a professional employee as you can be, but sometimes you spend time reading the book you borrow from Hannibal between your desk job. Mostly because you already do whatever Hannibal tasks you with. On some occasions, you join Hannibal when he attends some appointments, such as when he needs to be a keynote speaker in a well-known conference around Maryland and DC. An experience that you guess is his way to widen your social ability.

“Thank you Mrs. Potter. I’ll see you in the next session.” Hannibal’s accent cues you to stand up and bid your goodbye to Mrs. Potter. The rest of the day comes out like it usually is. Typing and arranging schedules for Hannibal while also scrolling on another book to read. Even though you were a librarian before, there’s just so many books and so little time to read.

When it’s time for you to go home, you knock on Hannibal’s office door and open it slightly when he answers you with a soft, “come on in”. You excuse yourself while also giving Hannibal’s friend a smile. Although Hannibal doesn’t have a lot of appointments today, his friend, Jack Crawford visits the office and you know that means Hannibal will stay late until dinner time.

***

The next day your work finished earlier than you thought so you spend some time at work to continue reading the poetry book. Some people may find it weird that you like to stay a little bit longer at work than going back home. There’s always this thought of knowing there is someone close to you, without the need to do conversations in every millisecond, calming. When your eyes shift to your gold bronze table clock, you haven’t realized that you are pretty late, as the sky already turns dark.

You know Hannibal is still in the office and you plan to excuse yourself before it’s getting really late. You don’t want Hannibal to drive you back home since you feel embarrassed about it. He always makes sure you arrive at home safely when you spend more time at the office or going home pretty late since Baltimore isn’t the safest place on earth. However, there is always a thought in your head that Hannibal being a little bit protective towards you, his employee because you are just a much of a klutz and he feels responsible.

You aren’t sure what possessed you to move too quickly and it just messes up your footing. The point of your left oxford shoes hit the castor office chair. Ungracefully you trip to the floor and bring the chair with you. The falling chair let out a loud bang while you landed on your hands and knees, grimacing in pain.

You aren’t sure when but your brain kind of mid freeze for a second. When you look up, you see Hannibal crouching down and calling your name, worried, “-- are you ok? Can you stand up?”

“I--I’m ok Dr. Lecter,” you try to stand up but you hold up your right hand in a sign of I need a minute.

Hannibal takes care of the office chair first, putting it back in its original position. He carefully lifts you up, supporting you and letting you sit back on your office chair. “I’m sorry my dear, but I need to check?” He asks you for your permission and you quickly give him your approval. With an expert examination of his hands, Hannibal checks your knees for any swelling or visual deformity. Since your past accident, you are prone to any joint and soreness on the knees. Delicately, he gives a little pat on both your knees. “I think everything is ok, you may need to have some pain killers.”

“Thank you Hannibal.” you blurt it out. Sometimes you call him by his first name when you aren’t in office hours, although rarely.

He graces you with that smile of his, subtle yet it always makes your heart quiver, the kind of smile you infrequently see. You notice that sometimes he has his professional smile, it is short and kind of cold. The smile you always notice when he meets his colleague. You don’t know a lot of Hannibal’s friends, but when he has some impromptu meeting with Jack, you slightly witness more smirk and sometimes there’s this naughty element like he is planning something evil, although humorously.

“Wait a minute, I will drive you home.” Hannibal left you to go inside his office.

There’s a guilt in your stomach that you feel you are being a burden to your boss. When your concentration dispersed like vivid smoke, the corner of your eyes caught the beautiful woman you have seen a couple of times visiting the office. Unlike other women who mostly visit Hannibal for a session, this woman is indeed different.

“Ms. Bloom.” You greet her. Your smile may look blankly courteous even, but you definitely are not in the mood to give her your big smile this evening.

“You look unwell, are you ok?”

“I-- I’m ok.” you try to answer her, less tense.

“Alana?” your eyes shift to Hannibal as he opens his door.

“Hey, Hannibal. I try to call you but I thought I might as well just drop by.”

Hannibal’s eyes divert from you to Alana, and he gives Alana a quick nod, letting her quickly enter the office. “It will be quick. Can you wait for a while?” you give him a nod and smile at him nervously.

At first you aren’t sure why you are nervous but something finally clear on your head. Maybe you are jealous. You know a lot of women near Hannibal are not only beautiful, or rich, they are also acutely intelligent. Although you aren’t rich, you aren’t that bad looking and you will not say you aren’t intelligent but when you compare yourself to someone like Alana, there will always be inferiority engraved in your mind. Not to mention that she has known Hannibal longer and better than you.

Hannibal's office door opens and Alana exits the door with Hannibal following her. “I heard what happened to you from Hannibal.” Alana stops in front of your desk and gives you her sympathetic smile. “Get well soon.” She gives you a pat on your shoulder and says her goodbye to you and Hannibal.

“Shall we?” Hannibal changes his focus towards you and you nod in agreement. Let him help you out of the office.

***

“So…,”

“So?” Hannibal glances at you momentarily while driving, asking you to continue what you have in mind.

“Dr. Bloom is really beautiful.” your small, joyless voice continues its sentence.

“Ah...yes indeed,” Hannibal replies casually.

Your eyes glance at the dark street. Hannibal’s office is located in a quite busy place and it’s nice to see less traffic when you get out of the area.

“Did both of you date?” you blurt it out. Your eyes widen in horrors as you blatantly just spill out something unprofessional. “Hanni-- Dr. Lecter, I-- I-- didn’t mean to pry on your personal life.”

Hannibal looks at you and lets out a laugh. Something really rare, something that you even have witnessed. The crinkle on his eyes when he laughs lets his somewhat cool and calm demeanor melted. It takes you sometimes to register on what just happens.

“I’m sorry my dear, that’s just quite funny.” Hannibal stops laughing and sends you a quick smile.

“Also that might not answer your question but the answer is no, Alana and I, we aren’t dating. I’m her mentor and our relationship is more of colleagues and friends.”

You aren’t sure why you hold your breath, but after listening to Hannibal's answer, you let out a long exhale, feeling that something heavy has been lifted up from your shoulders.

Hannibal’s Bentley stops in front of your apartment complex. Ever the gentleman that he is, Hannibal asks you if you need help. You decline his help as if you can’t embarrass yourself enough in one day.

“Before you go, I have something to tell you.” Like a deer caught in a headlight, you look at Hannibal. He switches on the light inside the car and pulls his bag from the backseat. He handed you several papers that looked likely to be a job application. Your eyes widen, vision blurry as a sudden tears drop from your eyes. This is it, maybe Hannibal has enough of your clumsiness. He doesn’t find you worthy as he sometimes needs to ‘babysit you’ when you do something you don’t intend to do.

Feeling that he may be approaching this the wrong way, Hannibal tries to comfort you. You put both of your hands in front of your chest, like a shield in a defensive manner. Try to accommodate his tall frame, awkwardly Hannibal turns his body to the passenger seat and embraces you. He shushing you and pat your heads

When your silent cry turns into a hiccup but more calmer, Hannibal pulls away from you. With a stutter, you explain to Hannibal that you understand if he doesn’t want you to work with him again and you are thankful that he’s been a very great employer to you.

“Hey,” Hannibal swipes the tears that rolls down on your cheeks with his thumbs, “--it’s not that. Look, my dear, the reason I handed this paper to you is not that I want to fire you, but I have been pretty impatient lately.”

You look at him, eyes full of question on what the fuck he means by that? Although you don’t let it out loud because you don’t want to make any rude comment. Because Hannibal doesn’t like that.

“I’m one of those people who do not agree with office romance.”

Office? Romance? What the hell? No one has any romance in the office, you thought.

“I have been pretty much intent to court you,” his eyes flicker to your lips and back to your reddish eyes. “Alana came today because she wants to give me the application personally, there’s a librarian vacancy in her University and I pretty much just want to hand it to you.” Your brain wiring, try to connect the words as if you forgot how to speak English.

“Apologize if I’m being rude my dear, but I have observed you for some time and I encourage myself to just lay it all here so I didn’t make you upset. Of course, if I am proven wrong, you can stay and still work as my secretary. No harm, the position will always be yours.”

“Hanni-- Hannibal, does this mean that you like ‘like’ me?”

He answers you with a quick nod and the smile that always makes your heart flutter. You try to reach Hannibal but your knee prevents you from doing such a thing. Hannibal let out a small chuckle as he finds your difficulty quite amusing.

You eye him in disbelief but your anger melts right away as his face gets closer to yours. His right hand's cup at the side of your face as his lips inches closer towards you. With eyes close, you feel the brushes of Hannibal’s lips. The kiss is soft and delicate as if he is just testing the water.

You let your hands sneak at the back of his collar as you seek more contact. Both of your lips slide and glide against each other. Letting out a whimper, you grant Hannibal’s tongue to slip past your lips. Teasing and flicking languidly, exploring something that makes you shudders in want.

After some time, Hannibal withdraws his lips from yours. Eyes fluttering open, you can see Hannibal’s pupils expand. He let his foreheads rest at yours while his hand still cups on your face. “So...I believe it is a 'yes''?” There's humor in his voice.

With a broad smile and less reddish eyes, you answer Hannibal with a confident nod and grant him another kiss on the lips.

As always, like, comment and reblog are really appreciated ❤️. Let me know what you think about this xo

#hannibal lecter #hannibal nbc #hannibal lecter x reader #hannibal imagine #hannibal lecter x you #hannibal lecter request #mads mikkelsen #chuuulip post

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goldenhemmings · 4 years

Text

In Your Atmosphere

Shawn Mendes x reader | 9,005 words

Whew. Hi guys. It’s been a while, I know, but actually having freetime again has made me realize just how much I miss writing. This piece is sort of a rollercoaster and I didn’t really edit it or anything, so please excuse any errors or if it just sucks in general. It’s based on In Your Atmosphere by John Mayer, and I’m pretty sure it’s also the first and only thing I’ve written that isn’t an AU. I hope you enjoy it, and I always love hearing what you guys think!!

There was a reason why the majority of Shawn’s songwriting and recording happened in Los Angeles. The city had always possessed a certain spark that inspired him, and the only way he knew how to describe the feeling it gave him was through the music that he wrote there. Its atmosphere was incomparable to that of any other city in the world, even his hometown. Toronto would always be special to Shawn, but Los Angeles was a different kind of special. It was magic.

It was no surprise, then, to find Shawn once again back in L.A. making music even though it had only been a few months since he’d released an entire album. He had a love affair with the city, and he just couldn’t seem to stay away from the beckoning of the lights, the sunsets, the ocean. To him it was all music waiting to be created, and he wouldn’t dare deny himself the opportunity.

Since his first visit, he’d always described the city as being full of magic; so full to the point where he didn’t think it possible to get any better. That, however, was before Y/N walked--well, tripped--into his life; once she happened, L.A. came to mean something else to Shawn entirely. Something more.

He remembered it clearly, the first time he met her. Cliché as it was, he wouldn’t change a thing about it. He was sitting on the beach, facing the ocean as he hummed melodies in his head and scribbled lyric after potential lyric into the leather-bound notebook that rested on his outstretched legs. She was walking through the sand, a tattered copy of The Catcher in the Rye clutched between her delicate fingertips as her eyes were glued to the yellowed pages. Neither person was aware of their surroundings, and it was inevitable, really, that she would trip and fall over his legs, belly-flopping into the sand as her book went flying.

Shawn was up immediately, his music disregarded as he offered a hand to help her back on her feet. “I’m so sorry,” he gushed, gently lifting her to sit up. He handed her book back to her. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she sighed, brushing the sand off of her faded t-shirt. “Don’t apologize. I’m the one who apparently never learned to watch where I’m going.”

He laughed lightly, and it was a sound she could get used to hearing. “Must be some book you’re reading.”

“The Catcher in the Rye,” she stated, smiling as she flashed him the cover. “It’s not exactly a typical beach-read, but it’s one of my favorites. I’ve probably read it, like, seven times by now.”

“Never heard of it,” he admitted, and her eyes blew wide. Shawn was immediately taken with her, physically evidenced by the fact that he couldn’t seem to wipe the stupid smile off of his mouth though he’d yet to even learn her name.

“Never?” she quipped, sitting down in the sand across from him as though she were preparing to recite the entire plot of the book.

He grinned, shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders. “I’m not a big book-reader, I guess.”

“Well what do you like, then?” she pressed, absentmindedly shaking the sand out from between the worn pages of her beloved novel. “If it’s not books?”

“Music,” he admitted, leaning back onto his hands as a wave reached shore. The tide had been steadily creeping closer to him as his hours spent on the beach increased. He’d figured that he’d have to move soon, but as this girl’s expectant eyes bore into his he found himself wishing that a wave would come swallow him whole and carry him out to sea. He almost couldn’t bear to be in the vicinity of the aura she was casting over him; she was overwhelming in a way he’d never known before.

“Everyone likes music, though,” she answered, studying his face carefully.

Shawn laughed, staring down at the sand underneath him. “True, but not everyone plays music for a living.”

“A musician,” she drawled, in a tone that made it hard for Shawn to tell if she was intrigued or mocking. He quite quickly learned it was the former.

He talked with her until well after the sun had disappeared behind the horizon, the impending darkness and creeping tide the only forces strong enough to tear him away from her. She’d recently graduated college and moved to L.A. upon receiving the internship of a lifetime, and though she’d only been living in the city for a year, she seemed to be just as enraptured with it as Shawn was. He let her scribble her phone number on a page of his notebook after a promise to call her the next day, and the two went their separate ways as they tried to race home before the moon could reach its peak in the sky.

The thought of someone else's writing in his precious music journal would usually make Shawn’s skin crawl; his team was constantly teasing him about how protective he was over it. But Y/N, however, could have up and run off with the thing and he’d have been powerless to stop it. It wouldn’t have been the only piece of him she’d run off with that night, anyways.

Since that day, whether Shawn consciously recognized it or not, Los Angeles was no longer his city, with its entire atmosphere at his disposal. It was her atmosphere now. She was city lights and sunsets and the ocean and music all rolled into one; every bit of inspiration he’d ever needed. She was a million songs waiting to be written, all for him to discover and create.

Any time he went to L.A. after that, Y/N was the first thing on his mind. It was almost routine; his plane would land, he’d collect his things, and he’d race to her door. She’d greet him with the same brilliant smile and mind-numbing kiss as always, and they’d spend every waking second in each others’ presence. Even doing nothing at all meant everything to them; each was intoxicated by the other in the best, most addicting way.

It stayed like this for a while: effortless, constant. Shawn always made sure to clear time in his schedule at least once a month to go see her, and she was in Toronto any chance she got. But then a cloud began looming over the two of them, casting a fast-approaching shadow that would soon coat them in darkness: tour. A nearly nine month long tour, the weight of which pressed down on the couple more intensely with each passing day until, finally, Shawn couldn’t stand to live in a state of denial anymore. Tour was happening, which meant he would have to leave Y/N for longer than he ever had before.

It was a lazy Sunday morning lying in bed when he decided to bring up the subject for real--no more dancing around it. They needed to talk about it. Y/N had her head on his bare chest and one of her legs slotted between both of his, gently toying with the pendant that seemed to never leave its home around his neck. Shawn sighed, and Y/N immediately knew he had something to say.

“What’s up, love?”

Shawn shook his head, prepared to back out of the conversation and continue living in his state of blissful ignorance for a little while longer. “Nothing.”

But Y/N knew him better than that. She lifted her head and tilted her jaw back to look at him, immediately met with worried brown eyes staring up at the ceiling. “Hey,” she coaxed, reaching a gentle hand up to turn his face towards hers. “There’s something on your mind.”

Shawn laughed halfheartedly. “There’s always something on my mind.” Y/N was silent, beginning to gently trace light patterns on his chest as she awaited his inevitable continuation. “It’s just...tour.”

Y/N frowned. “What about it?”

He looked at her, hesitating, nervousness clear in his eyes. “Come with me.”

“On tour?” she queried with a small smile, convinced he was just beginning to make up some whimsical daydream for the two of them to live in until reality eventually hit.

His eyes searched her face for any sign of what she might be thinking. “Yes.”

She let out a breathy laugh. “You’re not serious.”

“I’m completely serious,” he defended, and when Y/N looked up at him, she knew he was.

“I can’t just up and leave my job,” she answered, but the look on Shawn’s face seemed to insist that she could. “I can’t,” she repeated, more firmly this time. But how was she supposed to adequately explain that to someone whose job was quite literally packing up and leaving a million times over?

“But you’re my inspiration,” he whined, teasingly, and she smiled softly as she reached up to lightly scratch her fingers along his scalp. “I need you there.”

“Everything inspires you, Shawn. You’ll be fine.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” he admitted quietly, the true vulnerability he’d been feeling about the situation finally coming to the surface. Y/N sighed, burying her head into the warmth of his neck.

“We’ve made the distance work so far,” she reassured, but she was mostly trying to convince herself. “It’ll be okay. I’ll come see you when you play here.”

He groaned. “But that’s so far from the start of tour.” He looked at her once again, melancholy brown eyes half-lidded. “Come with me,” he repeated once more, but it was a weak plea; he knew the answer was no.

“I want to,” she breathed out, and Shawn’s grip on her tightened like he was worried she’d be stolen away from him right in that moment. “But I can’t. It isn’t practical for me.”

“I know,” he sighed, reluctance evident even in the way the breath left his chest. “I just wish you could.”

“Stop doing that,” she responded sternly. “It’s not fair to me. You know I’d go with you in a heartbeat if the circumstances were right.”

He let out a heavy exhale. “I know,” he repeated. “‘M sorry.”

“You love touring,” she continued. “The time will fly and it’ll be over before you know it.”

“And the second it is, I’ll get on a plane to LAX and race to your door like I always do. You just have to promise me you’ll be here.”

“I’ll always be here,” she affirmed, her voice not above a whisper. “It’s up to you to come back.” And in that moment, she was certain that he would.

--------------------

The day of the first show, Y/N was physically unable to focus on anything other than Shawn. Her rockstar boyfriend was about to play to thousands of screaming people in a city so far away from her that it made her heart ache, and as much as she wanted to hear his voice, she knew he was too busy to spare the time to talk to her. So she didn’t call, because she knew he’d answer regardless of whether or not he had time, and she waited with painful anticipation to hear from him later that afternoon.

When her phone finally lit up with a FaceTime call just after 1 p.m. (around 11 at night in Amsterdam, she’d memorized the time difference), Y/N surged to pick it up with cat-like reflexes.

“Hey,” she beamed, taking in the way Shawn’s cheeks were still red from the high of his performance. “How was the show?”

He stared back at her with a goofy, love-drunk smile on his face. “Amazing. Best way to start the tour.” At this she smiled, but Shawn’s lingering pause caused her upturned lips to waver. “Would be even better if you were here.”

Y/N’s sighed. “You’re still the Shawn Mendes people are dying to see whether I’m there or not. You’ll be okay.”

“I know,” he mumbled. “Still want you here, though.”

“I want to be there, too,” she admitted. “But--”

“But you can’t be, I know,” he interjected. “It’s okay, sweetheart.”

Desperate to change the subject, Y/N went fumbling for something lighter to bring up. “So where do you play tomorrow?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer.

“Another night in Amsterdam, then Belgium in a few days.”

She smiled. She’d never even been out of the United States until she went to visit Shawn in Toronto, and here he was getting to experience all of Europe in the most amazing way. “That sounds incredible,” she answered, and she meant it. Her eyes lit up at the thought of getting to hear about all of Shawn’s adventures around the world.

“I miss you like crazy, Y/N.”

“You’d better toughen up,” she teased, ignoring the way his words made her heart twist. “You haven’t even been gone a week.”

“So?” he laughed. “I already can’t wait for the L.A. show.”

“I’ll be here,” she smiled. “It’s on you to come back to me.”

“I’ll always come back to you, sweetheart.”

And Y/N believed him, as she always did. But as Shawn got further into his tour and time began to pass, her certainty started to fade. At first, things were fine. They spoke every single night without fail, and usually more during the day. He’d share stories and make her guess what he’d bought her that day, promising to bring back a souvenir from every city he stopped in despite her insistence that she didn’t want him to bring her anything except himself and stories of the things he’d done and seen.

But as days faded into weeks and weeks into months, Y/N and Shawn’s consistency began to fade as well. With increasing frequency, she saw videos on his friends’ social media accounts of him out partying in seemingly every major city in the world. It wasn’t that she was opposed to him having fun, but nights that he had sworn to call were now being spent having drunken adventures without her while she sat at home finding any excuse to absolve him from all of his broken promises. But it only got harder, because he eventually stopped making time to call her altogether. The perspective Y/N lacked, however, was that the less Shawn heard her voice, the easier it was for him to be apart from her.

It was stupid, he knew. But it was a temporary fix, and it worked for him.

But Y/N didn’t want easy; she never had. She didn’t want someone who would avoid the challenge when it came to distance. She wanted Shawn to fight for her, and after all they’d been through together, she didn’t think that was too much to ask. Shawn’s lack of communication led Y/N to an immense confusion and worry as to why he was suddenly being so distant. It didn’t make sense. Does he not miss me?

The one thing Y/N had to look forward to through all of the tumult was Shawn’s fast-approaching tour stop in Los Angeles; when she would finally get to see her rockstar after months of being apart. She bought a new outfit specifically for the concert and had her best friend come to do her hair on the night of the show, not caring that she was acting like an over-excited teenager getting ready for prom. Her mind was clouded with thoughts of Shawn and all of the memories they had made under countless cotton-candy L.A. sunsets, ready to begin adding to the collection in only a few hours. Y/N thanked her friend for the help and hugged her goodbye before ducking into her small car, ready to begin the drive to the venue. Before pulling out of the driveway she fired off a quick text to Shawn: Leaving home now. I can’t wait to see you.

As she drove she had to constantly remind herself to slow down, that there was no need to race to the arena; Shawn wasn’t going anywhere. But as much as Y/N was excited, she was equally as nervous. She hadn’t really had a solid conversation with Shawn in weeks, and even then he had seemed detached and preoccupied. She pushed the thoughts from her head as the miles went by. Relax. Everything will be fine.

She eventually pulled into the closest parking lot she could find, and she rolled her car into a spot and made her way up to the arena, shooting Shawn a quick, excited text. I’m here!! See you soon. She quickly found the side door of the venue, met with a burly security guard. She smiled, but the guard didn’t seem to warm up to her. “Main entrances are around the front.”

“Oh, I...This is actually the door I’m looking for. Shawn or someone from his team should have given you my name, I think.”

He raised his eyebrows at her, and Y/N couldn’t tell whether he was amused or frustrated. “Yeah, I’m sure he did, sweetheart. You can’t get in this way.”

Y/N stumbled over her words a bit, taken aback by the trouble she was being given. “I-I’m serious. I’m his girlfriend, I have pictures I can show you.” She flashed her lockscreen at him, a photo clearly depicting Shawn and Y/N lighting up the display. “Don’t you have a boss, or something?” she pleaded. “A person you can call that can get ahold of someone from Shawn’s team? I promise they’ll recognize me. I don’t mean to inconvenience you, and I’m sorry for being pushy, it’s just that I’m really looking forward to this and they’re expecting me and I don’t have another way into the arena.” She knew she was rambling, as she often did when she could sense that something was wrong, and she was powerless to stop the slight shake in her hands as she waited for the security guard to respond.

The guard sighed, and Y/N felt her heart drop as she realized the answer would still be no. “Look, kid. As convincing as that all is, and as much as I personally would like to open this door for you, I can’t. I have a job to do. I wasn’t given your name, which means I can’t let you in unless someone comes to get you. I’m sorry.”

Heartbroken, she backed away, fighting the weight that came with knowing that Shawn had forgotten about her, had forgotten to tell security she was coming. Had he really not remembered? She shook the thoughts out of her head, convincing herself that maybe he’d just gotten distracted. She reached for her phone to dial Shawn’s number, but her shoulders fell when the call went straight to voicemail. She tried Andrew this time, but again...nothing. After frantic calls to Cez, Josiah, Mike, anyone whose number was saved in Y/N’s phone, all went to voicemail, Y/N finally gave up. By now, it was surely too close to showtime for her to reach anyone.

With no ticket, no security clearance, and no way of reaching anyone inside the stadium, the only thing for Y/N to do was go home. She felt pathetic as she walked down the sidewalk in her new outfit, mascara-stained tears streaming down the face she’d spent hours putting makeup on. Hundreds of fans passed her as they walked in the opposite direction towards the venue, and with each smiling girl she saw, Y/N’s distress heightened. How could he forget about me?

As she ducked into her car she hoped with all the strength she had that her phone would ring before she got home. She’d accept the rushed apologies and speed back to the arena, caring about nothing except finally seeing Shawn. He’d smile so brightly upon seeing her again that it’d make her heart skip a beat, and she’d bounce along to the songs she loved so much from the side of the stage, counting down the seconds until she could hug him again. She wished for that; willed it to happen.

But she was sorely disappointed.

It wasn’t until nearly 11 p.m. that her phone finally rang, and despite her current state, Y/N’s heart still jumped upon seeing Shawn’s name lighting up the display. She lunged for it, taking a deep, steadying breath before tapping the button to answer the call. “Hey,” she mumbled, reaching up to wipe a stray tear from her cheek.

“Hey,” came Shawn’s breathy voice through the speaker. “Where are you?”

She scoffed, pressing a hand to the forehead that ached from crying. “I’m at home.”

A pause. She could easily visualize the furrow in his brow. “Why?”

“Because I couldn’t get into the venue.”

“What? What do you mean?”

She laughed, but she wasn’t amused. “You really don’t know?”

“I…”

“No one gave my name to security, Shawn,” she snapped. “I drove all the way there and I couldn’t get in, so I left.”

The other line was silent as Shawn realized his mistake. “I--Fuck. Oh my God, baby, I’m so sorry. I was so distracted, and the Q&A went over time, and--”

“I don’t want to hear it,” she cut in, surprising even herself. “The bottom line is that you forgot, and it took you this long to call me. Your show has been over for more than an hour.”

“Why didn’t you call someone else to let you in?” he demanded, accusation lacing his words.

“I did!” Y/N cried out, fresh tears rolling down her cheeks. “God, do you really think I didn’t try that?”

He sighed, and Y/N could picture his defeated expression in her head. “I don’t know what to say.”

“There’s nothing you can do to fix it now. I just--.” She sighed. It wasn’t worth it. “Nevermind.”

“You just what?”

“Nothing. You should go to sleep, you’re probably tired.”

“Y/N,” he pressed, and it was clear that he was frustrated.

“Okay, fine,” she burst, all of her frustration bubbling right back up to the surface. “I was going to say that I was so excited to see you tonight, but I don’t even know why.”

Shawn sucked in a breath. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Y/N tried to relax, knowing that she’d reached the point of no return; she was finally going to confront him. “I just can’t help but wonder if you ever actually cared that I was coming. I’ve hardly heard from you in months, but I still got all dressed up and was so happy I couldn’t breathe just to see someone who won’t even talk to me. I’m done making excuses to justify why you never call anymore.” She laughed dryly, realizing how pathetic that sounded; he wouldn’t even speak to her to make the excuses for himself. “You act like I don’t even exist half the time. I don’t know why I thought tonight would be different.”

There was some shuffling from the other end of the phone, and Y/N heard a voice--probably Brian’s--asking Shawn where he was going. A few more seconds passed and suddenly the background noise was gone. “Look, I’m with the whole team right now. Can we please talk about this later?”

Y/N’s jaw dropped. “Are you serious right now, Shawn? I’m sick of being avoided. I deserve to know what’s going on.”

“I’ll call you later, alright?”

“No, you won’t,” she burst, sadness quickly dissolving into anger. “If you hang up the phone right now you will never talk to me again.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Y/N.”

“Don’t even try to make me feel like it’s ridiculous that all I want is an explanation.”

She could hear him exhale into the receiver, and her heart pounded with anticipation as she waited for him to finally speak. “I’m sorry. It’s just hard.”

“What’s hard?”

“Finding time for this, I don’t know. It sucks being away from you. Hearing your voice--I just can’t do it.”

While she appreciated that Shawn was finally beginning to open up to her, Y/N didn’t fully buy what he was saying. “It wasn’t too hard when you first left,” she rebutted. “You didn’t seem to find it hard when you were forcing yourself to stay awake at night just because you wanted to talk to me.”

“It’s not that easy, alright? You don’t know what it’s like. You aren’t here.”

A bitter laugh escaped her lips. “Wow.”

“What?” Shawn asked, but it was flat.

“I just hope you’re not insinuating what I think you are.” She was not about to put up with him spitting her absence back in her face as though her staying behind was unreasonable.

“It’s just that—” he stumbled, trying to keep his frustration in check. “I tried countless times to get you to come with me. You know you could’ve.”

“So now the way you’ve been treating me is my own fault?”

“No, it’s just that if you were here--”

“Well I’m not, Shawn, and you need to get over it. You aren’t the only important thing in my life. I wasn’t about to give up my job—the job that I love—to have some nine-month, fairy tale vacation across the world. Don’t you dare put this on me.”

“I’m not trying to--” His voice stopped as someone talking to him became clear through the line. He was quickly back on the receiver, but it wasn’t to pick up where he left off. “I have to go.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“I have to.”

“Shawn.”

“I don’t have a choice.”

“I’m not doing this with you. If you hang up right now, this is over.”

There was a pause long enough to give Y/N the slightest bit of hope, but as quickly as it had come, it was shattered. “I’m sorry,” Shawn said. Then the line went dead.

--------------------

March. It had been three months since the end of Shawn’s tour, and nearly six since things had ended with Y/N. Not a day went by in those six months, though, that he hadn’t fallen asleep thinking of her and woken up wishing she were there. It was excruciating, and worsened in knowing that it was entirely his fault.

Shawn was nursing a small glass of whiskey and staring blankly into a television screen when he felt his phone buzz from the arm of the couch beside him. He figured it was just Brian wondering where he’d been; he hadn’t been in the mood to go out with his friends even though he was home in Toronto, and he knew they were wondering about him. He set his cup on the coffee table and reached for the device, sighing when he instead saw a message from Andrew.

I need you to verify that you’re good with the dates for LA so that I can confirm our jet.

While tour had only been over for three months, it was time for Shawn, unwaveringly hardworking as he was, to get back to the studio and begin working on new music. But, for once in his life, Shawn wanted nothing less than to go to L.A. and pretend like it hadn’t been six months since he’d last spoken to Y/N. The text from his manager sent a sinking feeling reverberating through his chest, and he was instantly averse to the idea of following through with the plans he’d made months before.

He immediately dialed Andrew’s number, who answered after the first ring. “Shawn?”

“I don’t think I want to go to L.A. anymore,” he blurted, and he could envision the way his poor manager’s eyes had probably gone wide in confusion.

“What are you talking about?”

“I just don’t,” he said flatly, staring blankly at the wall in front of him.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” he lied, but his manager knew better.

“You love Los Angeles. I know you do.”

“I don’t,” he mumbled.

“Be honest with me, man. What’s wrong?”

Shawn groaned, tugging tired hands through tufts of unruly brown hair. “I don’t know what it’s like to land at the airport and not go right to her. I can’t be in the same city as her. I’d die if I saw her.”

“Y/N, you mean,” Andrew mused, but of course he knew that was exactly who Shawn was talking about. “So don’t see her.”

“But I’d die if I didn’t see her, either,” Shawn admitted. “Especially knowing I was only a car ride away. So I just don’t want to go.”

His manager sighed. “We already booked the house, Shawn. The whole team is coming.”

“So tell them not to.”

Andrew laughed lightly at this, and as much as Shawn was frustrated by it, it also grounded him in the realization that he was being a bit ridiculous. “The way you feel right now will make for some incredible music, Shawn. I know you, and I know that you'll kick yourself for not taking advantage of that.”

“The last thing I want to do right now is write music.”

“How many times have you said you can’t wait to have your heart broken so that you can write an album about it?”

“I didn’t know it would feel like this.”

“Use that.”

“I can’t. It fuckin’ hurts.”

“Then go see her.”

Shawn paused to ponder whether or not he’d heard Andrew correctly. “I already told you, I can’t do that.”

“I’m serious,” Andrew replied, his tone still as even as it always was. “I think you clearly need to have a conversation with her. You haven’t seen each other in person since you left for tour.”

“She won’t want to see me,” Shawn mumbled.

Andrew let out a heavy breath. “You’re right, she probably won’t. But I think that for both of your sakes, you need to talk face-to-face. You need closure, and I’m sure she does too.”

“God, I’m such an idiot,” Shawn mumbled, and Andrew did well not to comment on it.

“Just relax. You’re going to Los Angeles and we will all be there with you to support you like always. Whether or not you see Y/N is up to you, but I think you need to go.”

Shawn let out a heavy breath, but it didn’t relieve the tension in his shoulders. “Fine,” he groaned. “I’ll go.”

“The original dates still work for you? Two weeks from now?”

“Yeah,” Shawn assented, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. “I’ll see you there.”

--------------------

The first thing Shawn did after dropping his bags off at the house his team would be staying at in Los Angeles was take the keys to one of the rental cars and drive straight to Y/N’s house.

He had a box filled with souvenirs he’d bought for her at various tour cities tucked into the passenger seat--a box that he’d been dying to give to her. It drove him crazy to see it lying around his condo, and he jumped at the opportunity to finally hand it off to her.

As he drove, every bone in his body screamed at him to stop. Even the world around him seemed to be mocking him. The sunset laughed at his foolishness for thinking that his relationship was different from the thousands of others it had seen come to an end under its golden touch. The streetlights, beginning to flicker on as the sun set further, told him to never mind, forget her. Even the mountains ridiculed him, their deep-set lines seeming to smirk back at him as they awaited a surely inevitable disaster.

He stared at his hands, clenched at ten and two on the steering wheel. It made him feel lonelier, if possible, knowing the hand that usually rested in Y/N’s as he drove was now forced to join its companion on the wheel. Her voice wasn’t coming from beside him directing him where to go because, no matter how many times he swore he knew his way around the city, he was lost without her guidance. He felt empty being in her city without her. It was wrong.

He finally managed to find his way to her quaint house, parking on the street parallel to it. He immediately felt his heart jump into his throat upon realizing that he actually had no plan for what to say or do. He was worried she didn’t love him anymore the way he still loved her, even though she had every reason not to. But he didn’t care; he still needed to see her. If it meant that he could hear her voice, he’d let her tell him every day that she didn’t love him. He craved her that badly.

Shawn hesitated as he raised his knuckles to the front door, eyeing the broken doorbell and wondering if she’d gotten it fixed in the time he was gone. He finally decided to just knock as he’d always done, and it wasn’t long before the familiar beige door was opening in front of him. His breath caught in his throat at the sight of her after nine excruciating months. Her hair was longer and she was clad in one of the shirts he’d left behind for her, but he couldn’t ignore how tired she looked.

Y/N’s face fell the second she saw him, and her immediate instinct was to slam the door in his face. But her mind and her body were at a disconnect--her thoughts racing, but her limbs frozen. She didn’t know what to do, so she just stood there, wide-eyed, staring back at him.

“Nice shirt,” was the first thing he could say, and Y/N looked down at herself like she’d forgotten what she was wearing.

“Sorry, I, um, I need to do laundry really badly,” she answered sheepishly, folding her arms over her chest and knowing that it was a blatant lie. She was surprised she remembered how to talk. “You can have it back.”

He cleared his throat, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Don’t apologize. Looks right on you. You look beautiful.”

Y/N’s expression remained stiff and cold. “I didn’t apologize.”

“Yes, you did,” he pushed back, a semblance of a smile playing on his mouth.

Y/N leaned against the doorframe, eyeing the box under his arm and already feeling drained of energy. “What did you come here for, Shawn?”

“I, uh--” he stammered, searching for words that wouldn’t sound as childish as he felt right then. Hearing her say his name didn’t feel as right as it always had. “I wanted to give you this.” He thrust the box out at her, but she didn’t take it.

“What is it?”

“I got you something from all the cities we stopped at on tour up until, uh, you know,” he trailed off, reaching a hand up to scrub sheepishly at the back of his neck. “I don’t really have any use for this stuff and I was in town so I figured I should just give it all to you.”

She skeptically took the box, reaching inside and gingerly pulling out a small metal cactus that sprouted from a base that read Arizona, the Grand Canyon State. She sighed and dropped it back inside the box, turning behind her to set it on the floor of her entryway.

“There’s no way that you came all the way here just to give me this stuff. What is it really?”

Shawn let out a huff of breath, running a hand down his face. She knew him so well that it drove him crazy. “I don’t know,” he answered, and it was the truth. “Just missed you, I guess.”

“Bullshit,” she scoffed, looking to the side so as to avoid eye contact. She never swore, and it tugged at a separate piece of Shawn’s heart knowing that he was the one to make her.

“I did,” he pressed, floored at the accusation that he hadn’t when, in reality, he’d missed her so intensely that even his bones ached.

“You cut me off and then gave me six months of radio silence,” she bit back, her words accusatory. “So I don’t believe you.”

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut as he concentrated on finding any words that could possibly make this better. He finally looked up, coming to terms with the fact that the damage he’d inflicted was certainly irrevocable. “I messed up, okay? And there will never be enough words to tell you how sorry I am.”

“It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing you could say to make me forgive you, anyway.”

He swallowed, hard. He had no plan for what to say to her, and the longer she stared at him the more his body felt like it was on fire. “Will you at least let me apologize? Even if you don’t forgive me.”

Y/N was quiet, her incriminating stare unwavering. “Fine,” she reluctantly assented, not missing the way Shawn let out a heavy breath of relief.

“Can I come in?”

“No. You can apologize just the same out here.”

“It’s just that--,” he paused, sighing. “Okay.” He’d wanted to remind Y/N that she’d probably start yelling at him at some point, because he knew her and he knew how she was sometimes unable to fight back her emotions, but he refrained. He was lucky she hadn’t slammed the door in his face by now.

He took a deep breath, and Y/N tapped her foot in impatience. On the inside, however, her heart had begun to beat just a tiny bit faster. She wasn’t happy to see Shawn, but, much to her dismay, she wasn’t exactly mad about it either. She was mad at him, that much was clear, but he was still Shawn. Seeing him here, in front of her, made her realize that her feelings weren’t as far-gone as she’d convinced herself they were.

A nervous laugh slipped from his mouth. “I wasn’t expecting you to let me get this far, I don’t really have much of a plan.” But Y/N was silent, and Shawn cleared his throat. “I’m, uh, I’m sorry I ghosted you. I’m sorry I forgot to get you into the stadium when we planned for you to come. And I’m sorry that I wasn’t stronger, just in general.”

“Me too.”

He took a deep breath. She wasn’t going to make this easy for him. “It just...it got to a point where I couldn’t stand to listen to you say you missed me anymore. I know my lifestyle isn’t necessarily conducive to a good relationship and it was just hard knowing what I was putting you through. Hearing your voice was hard for me, too. I thought distancing myself from you would make it easier to cope with being away from you, I never--,” he broke off, running an anguished hand through his hair. “I never wanted this to happen to us. I just needed space. There were times when I was completely ready to just up and fly to L.A. not caring what the consequences would be, and that terrified me. I wasn’t focusing on my shows because all I could think about was you.”

She frowned, her face clearly expressing disbelief. “You were willing to abandon your tour to get on a plane to come see me, but then you didn’t have it in you to talk to me on the phone? On nights you knew I was waiting up for you to call?” She shook her head, and Shawn wished he could unsee the tears brimming in her eyes. “How am I supposed to believe that?”

“I know that it probably doesn’t make sense,” he admitted. He clenched his hands together as he physically fought the urge to reach over and wipe the tears from her cheeks. “I wasn’t strong enough to be away from you, so I did everything I could to get rid of the thought of missing you. Worse, of you sitting here missing me.”

“If you loved me as much as you said you did, you shouldn’t have been able to just ignore me like that. I went crazy trying to convince myself that there was a time where I even mattered to you at all.”

“You do matter to me!” Shawn insisted, his words jumping in volume until he remembered he was still standing outside on the porch. “You always have. You’re everything.”

“Then why didn’t you act like it?” she demanded, pretending like her voice hadn’t just broken. “I just--None of this makes any sense to me! We’re here because you couldn’t even make it through the first half of your tour without abandoning all the promises you made to me before you left. You swore you would come back.”

“I did come back,” he replied, weakly. “I’m here now.”

“No,” she spat, pressing her wrists over her eyes as though it would hold in the tears. “You showing up at my door after all this time and blindsiding me like this is not the promise you made to me to come back. Do you have any idea what it feels like to spend months waiting for someone to come home to you, knowing deep inside yourself the entire time that he isn’t actually coming home? Do you have a single fucking clue what you put me through?” He was silent. “I stayed awake night after night for hours waiting for calls that weren’t coming. I started to actually feel guilty for not putting my life on hold to follow you around the world, which is fucking ridiculous, Shawn! I hate that you made me feel that way.”

“I do too,” he responded, tugging an agitated hand through curls that were already messy from his five-hour flight earlier that day. “And it’s clear that you’re not going to forgive me, and I don’t blame you for that. I just--I don’t know what to do. I have never loved someone the way I love you.”

“Neither have I,” she admitted meekly, pretending to be less affected by his words than she actually was. “But that doesn’t change what you did.”

“I know.”

They were silent for a few moments, Y/N’s eyes looking at the floor even though she could feel Shawn’s stare glued to her face. The quiet eventually came to be too much for Shawn to take, and he was the first to speak again. “So now what?”

Y/N finally looked up at him. “I don’t know. I guess you leave.”

“Leave?” he interrogated, taken aback.

She arched a brow. “What?”

“There’s just so much else to talk about.”

“I don’t have anything left to say to you,” she sassed, folding her arms over her chest.

“Tell me you actually want me to leave,” Shawn demanded. At this point, he was grasping for straws to keep her talking to him. Y/N blinked, her mouth falling open but no words coming out. “Tell me you want me to leave,” he repeated, “and I will.”

“I--”

“I know you want me to stay.”

“You have no idea what I want, you arrogant asshole.”

Shawn huffed, rubbing a hand over his face. “I’ve said I’m sorry, okay? I want to start over.”

But Y/N wasn’t willing to give in. “Is that what you think?” she scoffed. “You come here uninvited and give me some spur-of-the-moment apology and then suddenly everything is normal again?” She stepped forward, so furious that steam may as well have been radiating off of her skin. “I am so sorry that you’re frustrated,” she continued, sarcasm practically stinging her lips as the words came out, “but I don’t care what you want, Shawn. You are not going to show up at my doorstep and start feeding me all this crap about how you missed me and how beautiful I am and how sorry you are!” She jabbed a finger into his chest, hot tears betraying her as they finally began to roll down her cheeks. “I waited for you. I knew you weren’t going to call, I knew you weren’t coming, and I still waited for you like an idiot.”

“Please don’t cry,” he whispered. It took everything in him to resist the urge to wipe her tears away, or hug her, or to touch her at all and offer any small form of comfort that he could.

“It’s a little late for that,” she bit back, wiping her cheeks with the heel of her left hand. “I’ve spent the past six months crying over you. You don’t get to make me all worked up like this and then tell me to stop crying like you’re not the reason why I’m like this in the first place.”

“Then we don’t have to talk about this right now, let’s find something else.” Y/N looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes, her mind equally as confused as her heart. “We can go get coffee, or--”

“I really don’t think--”

“Just trust me,” he said softly, finally finding the courage to gingerly place his hands on her shoulders. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I have coffee here,” Y/N answered after a silence long enough to make Shawn even more nervous, and he wasn’t sure what she meant until she moved aside to allow him room to come through the doorway.

She stepped over to the kitchen and reached for her Keurig, Shawn hot on her heels. “Let me do it,” he said, gently reaching to take the supplies from her hands.

“Fine,” she sighed. She didn’t have the energy left to fight him. “The mugs are in the same place as always.”

He nodded as Y/N made her way over to the couch, her brain screaming what are you doing at her as though it would weaken its disconnect from the rest of her body. Logic reminded Y/N that she didn’t owe Shawn her kindness, her time, or her forgiveness for what he had done to her. Logic told her Shawn shouldn’t be there. Her heart didn’t care.

“How’s your internship?” he asked with an outstretched arm, offering Y/N a coffee cup and effectively tearing her from her thoughts. She eyed him carefully as he moved to sit clear on the other side of the couch, an awkward distance between the two.

Y/N pretended to ignore the almost palpable awkwardness in the room. Am I really about to sit here and make small talk with him? “It ended a few months ago. The company gave me a full-time job, though.”

“That’s amazing,” he said, and he meant it. “How is it?”

There was a slight upturn in her lips. “I love it. It’s exactly what I wanted and my coworkers are all awesome.”

He smiled. “I’m happy for you, Y/N. Seriously.”

“Thanks,” she mumbled, taking a sip of her coffee and fighting off the voice in her head reminding her of how painfully uncomfortable this all was. “Um, how was the rest of tour?”

He shrugged, knowingly avoiding a rerun of the conversation they’d already had. “It was really great. I’m lucky.”

“Good,” she replied. It took everything she had to keep her voice level and dry of emotion. “I’m glad you had fun.”

“Are you, like, seeing anyone?” he blurted, no longer able to refrain from asking it.

She looked up, a smile nudging at her lips as she found herself suddenly amused. “Why do you ask that?”

“I dunno,” he responded sheepishly, shrugging his shoulders as he did so. “I’ve just, y’know, seen pictures and stuff.”

“So you’re stalking me on social media now?” she asked, but it didn’t sound like a question--more like an observation.

“No,” he rushed out, wide-eyed. “Not at all stalking you, no. Your photos just come up in my feed sometimes and I see...things.”

She hummed, deciding not to dwell on the motivation behind his question any longer. “If you really want to know, I’ve tried,” she admitted bitterly. “But no one that I meet really compares to you, so it’s sort of hard.”

“I get it.”

She looked at him, her expression perplexed but challenging. “You’re constantly surrounded by celebrities and girls from all over the world. It’s different for you.”

“So what? None of them compare to you, either. I thought about you all the time on tour. No one else.”

She quirked an eyebrow, silently prompting him to continue, which he did after a deep breath. “Being in a different time zone almost every night starts to make me feel like I’m kind of just floating. Having the routine of playing shows helps, don’t get me wrong, and I love touring. You know that. But the only thing that anchored me through all that was knowing what time it was in L.A. and imagining what you were doing.”

Y/N was silent, her lips slightly parted as she tried to digest his words, but the discomfort that came with the silence caused Shawn to begin rambling. “I didn’t really care what time it was where I was, because that changed constantly. It didn’t matter. I only cared what time it was in relation to where you were because it was steadying, or something, I don’t know. Basically, no matter where I was or what I was doing, I always had you in the back of my mind.”

“Did you still do that even after we…?”

“Yes,” he answered without hesitation. “I mean...no matter what happens, I’ll always care about you and think about what you’re doing. We’ll always be tied to each other somehow.”

“I wish I could’ve gone with you,” Y/N blurted out suddenly, surprising even herself. They stared at each other, the wide-eyed expression plastered on Shawn’s face essentially a reflection of Y/N’s. “Things would be so different now if I could’ve gone.”

“Different how?” Shawn stammered, though he already knew the answer. He was just desperate to hear her next words.

“Don’t know,” she muttered, absentmindedly picking at a loose thread on one of the couch cushions. “Like it was before you left and all this happened.”

“It doesn’t mean we can’t get back to that point, though.”

“No, but it’s certainly gonna be a hell of a lot more difficult if I even…” She trailed off, and Shawn swallowed hard. If I even want this. “Nevermind. I just wish I could’ve gone on tour with you because then I wouldn’t have to be dealing with this right now.” It was a harsher-sounding reality than was the truth of her feelings, but she couldn’t take the words back. And, to be fair, Shawn deserved nothing but harsh words from her, though it wasn’t what she wanted to give him. The more time she spent with him, the harder it was for her to fight the feelings that she’d known were still very much there for the past six months.

“But then you wouldn’t have had your internship.”

“Yeah, I know, Shawn,” she snapped. “That’s why I didn’t go and that’s why we’re here. God forbid I choose my career.”

“That’s not what I--”

“I’m sorry,” she blurted. “I’m just--I don’t even know. That was unnecessary.”

“It’s okay,” Shawn answered, but only because he didn’t know what else to say. She was in no position to be apologizing to him, and he knew that. He deserved every harsh thing she had to say to him.

“Can I be honest with you?” he continued, suddenly more nervous than he had been the entire time. Y/N nodded.

“The real reason I came here is because I can’t lose you forever. Six months was hard enough. I just wanted to apologize and tell you how I feel. How I still feel.”

She scrubbed a hand over her forehead, her eyes squeezed shut as she tried to process the whirlwind of thoughts littering her brain. “You never lost me, Shawn,” she whispered, eyes still closed because she was too nervous to look at him. “Just distanced yourself.”

“And I’m sorry for that, truly,” he said quietly. “I wish I could take it all back.”

Y/N looked at him, trying to decipher her own feelings. “I’m glad you came,” she finally admitted. “I needed this. Even though I yelled at you, like, basically the entire time.”

He let out a quiet laugh, not taking his eyes off of her. “I deserved it,” he admitted. “I probably deserved worse, if anything.”

She grinned. She knew how she could be when her emotions took over. “How long are you here for?”

“We’ve got a house booked for a few weeks to work on new music, but my schedule’s free for a bit after that. No reason why I couldn’t stay here a little longer if, you know...”

“It depends,” she cut in. She wasn’t one to sugar coat things. “If these first few weeks go okay, then I’d like that. But it depends on that.”

Shawn nodded and became painfully aware of his heart suddenly pounding out of his chest, grateful to be given any chance at all to win Y/N back, though he’d be lying if he didn’t admit how anxious the thought of messing up again made him.

“Can we just take things one day at a time?” she continued, looking up at him with an almost nervous expression. “Is that okay? I’m gonna need a little more time than you, probably.”

He smiled. Anything she’d give him, he would gladly take. “Of course,” he echoed, moving next to her and carefully wrapping an arm around her shoulders. He swore he’d faint when he felt her head softly lean to rest on his shoulder. “One day at a time, sweetheart. Whatever you need.”

Thank you for reading!! Feedback is always appreciated :)

permanent taglist: @nedthegay @wronglanemendes @the-fandom-ness

#shawn mendes imagine #shawn mendes one shot #shawn mendes #shawn mendes fic #shawn mendes fanfiction #shawn mendes fanfic #shawn mendes imagines #shawn mendes one shots #shawn mendes fanfictions #shawn mendes fluff #shawn mendes angst #shawn mendes blurb #shawn mendes writing #fanfiction

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miraculous786 · 5 years

Text

A Miniature Meeting With Multimouse > One

(This is based off of a Criminal!Multimouse idea that I posted on my account)

Masterlist

"Nightwing, do you have a visual on the entrance?"

"Yep, it's in clear sight," he answered, "They haven't appeared yet."

Sighing, Red Hood sat down beside Richard, on the edge of a building overlooking the Museum. His brother payed him no mind, as he pulled out his phone.

Meanwhile, Robin perched on a gargoyle situated in the shadows, awaiting any orders. The communication piece in his ear, however, didn't sound, allowing his tense posture to relax slightly.

In the corner of his vision, he spotted a shadow moving, making his head swivel in suspicion. Narrowing his eyes, he shuffled in the direction as to where it had passed, and soon managed to make out the sight of a female strolling down the street.

Sighing, he spoke, "There's a civilian out walking, I'm going to go ask her to leave in case something happens."

Red Robin answered, "Just make it quick, we don't want to miss the thief."

Even though his brother couldn't see him, he faintly nodded, readying himself to land behind her.

The moon showered the girl in a faint light, letting him see her clothing. A grey blazer was worn atop a white shirt, which displayed an intricate flower pattern starting from just below the waist.

The woman's pink jeans reached her ankles, showing pale freckled skin between the cuffs of the clothing and black flats.

Before he could call out to her, a male loudly whispered, "The guard has just passed the McGuffin. I repeat, the guard has just passed the McGuffin."

Nightwing chuckled. "Really, Red Robin? 'McGuffin'?"

"Yeah, it's not as if this woman will show up anytime soon," Jason scoffed, rolling his eyes beneath the helmet.

Distracted by the bickering in his ear, Robin grumpily mumbled under his breath, before looking back down the street, only to see the female gone.

His eyes widened, but he didn't have time to contemplate her disappearance, as Red Robin informed, "The Mouse has sights on the cheese."

Nightwing suddenly stood up straight, with Red Hood lazily copying the movement beside him. Damian grappled towards the apartment Red Robin was on, noting how the man fixated his gaze on the Museum roof.

Sure enough, a short figure clad mostly in grey emerged from the shadows, the lamps overhead lighting up her figure.

Her raven hair sat in two buns atop her head, tied with pink ribbons. A mask with black peeking on the borders of it covered a large portion of her face, while also protecting her identity. The upper half was a bright pink, that made her bluebell eyes shimmer and stand out in the night.

Now with a closer look at the woman, the males noticed how around her waist was what appeared to be a skipping rope, dangling idly at her side. Her hands, reaching up to her elbows, were covered in a jet black material, along with her legs from the knees downward.

More pink highlighted her extremities, the rest of her suit a pale grey.

Raising his eyebrow at the attire, Damian watched as the Mouse, as they had dubbed her, pulled off the rope from her body, and held it in her hands. Suddenly, a hot pink glow radiated from it in her grip, as she began to spin it in circles beneath her feet.

After ten rotations of jumping over it, she threw it over her head, the rope spinning vigorously whilst a white glow enveloped it.

"Multitude!" Robin heard the clearly French girl say, as it wrapped around her body several times before all that was visible was a blinding pink light surrounding her.

Nightwing recoiled in surprise, with Red Hood spluttering, "What the f-"

They were all stunned into silence when the glow dissipated, revealing the same woman with a white energy coiling around the charcoal black of her boots.

Before they could utter another word, she walked behind a nearby extractor fan, blocking their view of her movements.

Immediately, they grappled to a roof where it was possible to see where she went, but when they got there, she was nowhere in sight.

"I've never seen technology like that before," Tim breathed, still shocked from the display.

"You sure that was technology?" Jason asked, "Looked more like something from a 'magical girl' show if you ask me."

"We need to stop her from taking the artifact," Damian stated, already annoyed with Red Hood, "It shouldn't take her too long to get it."

Nightwing quickly picked up on his implication. "Good idea, Baby Bird! We'll wait until she comes out with it, then confront her."

The males all agreed, with Red Robin jumping onto the Museum roof, so that his eyes could focus on the hatch through which she had entered. He stayed put in the shadows, his brothers waiting in trepidation.

However, when the hatch finally opened, Tim raised his eyebrow at the fact that no one seemed to have pushed it in the first place.

Before he could question it, he spotted a mop of dark hair just barely poking out of the hatch, the hairstyle in two buns.

"See her, yet?" Red Hood quizzed, all of a sudden beside Tim.

Startled, the latter turned in surprise, only to look back to where he was previously gazing as a pink flash, suddenly followed by a red one, shone. Jason focused his attention on the hatch, as him and his brother noticed how the hairstyle on the woman had miraculously changed.

Now, as Marinette clambered up the rest of the ladder's steps, her braided bun on the back of her head shifted as she searched her surroundings with her eyes.

Confirming that it was empty, she pulled out the yo-yo sat at her hip, and slid her finger across it. Opening up, the weapon showed a glowing white abyss, that Marinette dropped the Cat Emerald into.

She let out a small smile, before closing it up, and spinning it to warm up her dominant arm. Throwing it at a chimney, she tugged on the line, before leaping off the Museum.

Red Robin was the first to break out of his stupor, grappling in the same direction that she had headed. As he neared to where she was, his eyes caught sight of her swinging with the yo-yo, the end latching on to different poles without a problem.

Maybe she really is using magic.

Robin kept to the shadows, as he jumped in sync in an alley below the Mouse. Her line latched onto another lamppost, small body following behind.

All of a sudden, a Batarang came into contact with the yo-yo, knocking it off of the pole. Yelping, Marinette caught herself in midair with the wings stretched across her back.

As she landed on the ground with barely a whisper of noise, a male caught the weapon he had just thrown, his expression carefully monotone despite the fact that he was shocked at the display of her wings.

Marinette noticed Robin inching closer to her, as she spun her yo-yo in a vigorous circle. All it appeared to be was red blur, held out in a way for protection.

Three figures gracefully stood beside Robin now, Ladybug realised. Her eyes darted between the quartet, noting how Red Robin was staring intently at the wings that slowly folded back on their own accord.

Nightwing held his hands out in a placating manner, walking forwards in measured steps. Though his movement seemed casual, she still kept the yo-yo turning, as she saw his eyes wander from the weapon to her mask.

"Listen, Mouse. We don't want a fight," he said, glancing at the object in her grip, "Just hand over the Cat Emerald, and this won't have to get violent."

Red Hood gazed at Ladybug thoughtfully, wondering why her appearance seemed to confuse him, in some way. Whenever he guessed about who she could be behind the mask, a fuzzy feeling settled in his head, muddling up his train of thought.

"And have you take me to jail?" she smoothly replied, "No thanks."

Nightwing tensed, pulling out one escrima stick, as Ladybug lunged forward. He attempted to hit the yo-yo out of her hand, but the constant spinning allowed her to whack his staff out of the way when it came close.

Red Robin charged into the scuffle, Marinette easily evading the incoming staff. Dick suddenly grabbed his other stick, eyes narrowed at Ladybug.

The trio began to battle again, metal slamming repeatedly against each other with every swipe. Ladybug was slowly being led backwards, the two clanging their weapons against hers in an attempt to knock her out.

Jason watched nearby, but soon landed quietly behind Marinette with guns at the ready. Unfortunately, her wings twitched as he made his presence known, as she twisted round and kicked him in the gut.

He flew a far distance, leaving everyone shocked because of her sheer strength. Using their frozen states to her advantage, Ladybug tossed the yo-yo upwards, unaware of Robin an arm's distance away from the pole it wrapped around.

She ran into the wall it was at, running upwards as the yo-yo held her upright. However, just as she made it to the top, a leg swiped beneath hers, making her stumble.

In surprise, she fell back down onto the ground, where the males stood waiting. Her back made a harsh impact with the cement, making her groan in discomfort.

They stood in a semicircle, cornering her against a wall behind her. Marinette picked up the clattered yo-yo, noticing the males tense in anticipation for an oncoming move.

She instead placed it back on her hip and held her right hand out at her side. "Tikki-" she stated, the symbol of the Ladybug miraculous appearing at her fingertips.

"Longg." Holding out her other hand in the same way, the symbol of the Dragon miraculous materialised out of thin air.

She brought both hands together, intertwining her fingers in front of her chest, saying, "Unify!"

Nightwing stepped backwards, watching as black slithered it's way up her suit, and a symbol containing containing three shapes in a circle appeared at the centre of her chest.

She thew them all one last smirk, before her arms moved upwards in the shape of a 'T'.

"Wind Dragon!"

One shape on the symbol glowed, as a white mist swirled around Dragonbug.

Wait, is she turning into the mist?

The gas flew up, colour changing so that it was invisible to the naked eye. Dick authoritatively commanded, "Split up, and try and find her!"

They all obeyed, prying eyes searching any allies in the vicinity. Red Hood looked about the farthest, intent on finding her the most.

Why does she seem so familiar?

He was broken out of his thoughts not by the strange aura of the woman, but her herself, standing confidently on a neighbouring rooftop.

Jason ran after her quickly retreating figure, as he was able to spot a sword strapped to her back. For some reason, the blade of it didn't look particularly sharp, however, he didn't want to test if it was.

He followed her silhouette into another alley, jumping down when she did too. When he landed, he searched the place, wondering where she had disappeared to.

From behind, a shadow walked to him, making his head swivel to it. Up close, he could see the smallest of hexagons making up the material of her suit in the reflective light, which now had no sword on the back as she pulled it out.

"I've got the Bug," he stated into his comm, before readying himself for an onslaught of attacks.

Sure enough, she swiped at him in all directions, the only thing keeping him safe the years of experience he had in physical combat. However, it seemed as if she was more of an expert as him, when he soon found himself pinned onto the concrete.

Squirming, he inwardly marvelled at the fact that she didn't even flinch when he moved, but soon his eyes widened when a hand came to take off his helmet.

He was facing upwards, arms tied with the yo-yo string, meaning that she would see his face straight away. Jason tried to face towards the ground, but she simply kept him still as the helmet was now within her grasp.

There were a few seconds of silence, as Jason squeezed his eyes tight. The clatter of his helmet made him open them, where he saw Dragonbug, mouth wide open and eyes glistening.

Her fingers came to touch his face, making him shift away in anger from the hand, but he soon calmed when she quietly whispered, "Jay-Jay?"

She cupped his cheek, teeth biting her lip as she pushed his white-streaked bangs out of his face. His eyes widened, taking in the sight of her locks.

The lamp made the strands appear an unnatural navy blue, and highlighted the red ribbons sticking out from her bun.

"Nettie?" he awed, voice just as quiet as hers.

"Jay-Jay!" Marinette cried, clutching him to her chest. The yo-yo around his wrists slackened, allowing his hands to move.

Before he could return the embrace, a sudden noise made the duo jump, as smoke invaded both of their visions.

Jason intertwined their fingers, squeezing for reassurance, but he soon found himself cold as a kick against her back pushed her away from him.

As the fog cleared, Nightwing and Red Robin stood with their weapons held offensively, aimed at Dragonbug. She glanced around disoriented, before her eyes caught sight of the men.

Inching backwards, she pulled out her sword, holding it defensively as they came forward. As they attacked, Marinette parried and dodged, intent on getting closer to Jason.

The sight of his terrified yet angry face kept flashing in her mind again, making it difficult to concentrate on fighting the trained combatants.

While she fought, Robin held a hand out for Jason, which the latter took in a daze, and stood up. He caught a snatch of Marinette being hit hard on the stomach in his vision, and her clutching the organ in pain.

Red Robin spun his baton in a fast circle, pushing Dragonbug onto the ground. She huffed, pain shooting through her front.

Only Jason saw the glance she gave to him, her eyes wanting to tell a hundred stories and hear more from him, but his brothers unfortunately stood tall and on-guard in front of her, preventing their long-awaited reunion.

Before he knew what he was doing, he stepped forward, just as Tim was about to knock her out.

"Stop!"

He froze, as did Nightwing, whilst Marinette's bluebell eyes glistened with an emotion he couldn't quite decipher. It was grateful, happy, and sad all at the same time.

All that she managed to do, with thoughts shooting through her mind a million miles an hour, was send him a small smile, before shouting, "Lightning Dragon!"

Yellow crackles surrounded her body, as a bolt of lightning shot upwards and out of view, leaving not even her weapons behind.

Immediately, the boys turned to him after watching her leave, with Tim stressing, "She knows what you look like, and you let her get away?!"

Robin seemed to be wanting to say something snarky at the same time as Tim's rambling, while Nightwing stepped forward and tentatively asked, "Jason?"

Only, he didn't give him a glance.

He just stared longingly after the girl that was practically his younger sister until years ago.

"Tim?" Jason called in a dazed voice.

Said person only went silent, taking in how Red Hood looked almost in a trance.

"I need you to research Marinette Dupain-Cheng."

@kittyanonymity @kceedraws @2sunchild2 @you-will-never-know-how-i-feel @calliemaricats @desygner @northernbluetongue @shamefullove @octoberscorn @thecaptainthunder @nerdy-anime-trash-27 @themcclan

#marinette x damian #miraculous #multimouse #daminette #maribat #ml ladybug #dragonbug #jasonette #big brother jason #mlb x dc #ml x dc

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highfunctioningflailgirl · 4 years

Text

Whumptober No.20

“Ow! Are you fucking kidding me?!”

Rios hissed through clenched teeth, staring at his shoulder in disbelief. An arrow was protruding from it, its head deeply buried in his flesh.

“Cris!”

Agnes dropped to one knee beside him, blue eyes anxious.

“Stay down!”

That was Elnor, his phaser spitting fire at the handful of natives they definitely shouldn’t have underestimated. More arrows clattered against the pile of boulders they were sheltering behind.

“Ow, dios, fucking hell!”

Rios was writhing on the ground like one of those idiots in an old cowboy movie, too stupid to take cover when the shit hit the fan.

“Don’t move! Stay still! Cris!”

Agnes had her hands on his chest and hip, trying to keep him from rolling. She looked afraid but determined in that shaky, fierce way she had when things went out of control. And keeping still was probably a good idea when you had an arrow stuck in you, so Rios made an effort at complying, hissing another curse to channel his pain and fury.

This was not how a first contact was supposed to go down.

“That’s it. Hold still.”

Rios rolled his head as much as the pain allowed to see what Agnes was doing. She took one look, then ripped his shirt open around the arrow shaft and inspected what they were dealing with. A little nauseous, Cris saw the arrow sticking out of his skin below his collarbone, shuddering with each breath he took, blood oozing up around the shaft and smearing his chest.

“Shit.”

Agnes tore her bandana from her neck and pressed it down around the wound. Rios bit back a scream.

“Picard!” She shouted into her comm badge. “We’re under attack! The captain’s been hit! Beam us up immediately!”

The reply was quick and disheartening: “Negative. Their defense system is blocking our transporter signal. I can’t get a lock.”

Oh, come on! They were shooting arrows, but their technology outsmarted La Sirena’s?!

Cris groaned.

Over Agnes’ shoulder, he saw Elnor rise cautiously and sweep the sight of his phaser across the landscape. But he’d stopped shooting, and the shower of arrows had ceased.

“Cris is hurt,” he heard Agnes shout urgently. “He needs medical assistance, and he needs it now!”

“I’m sorry, doctor Jurati,” the Emergency Engineering Hologram’s voice responded in Picard’s stead. “We’re tryna find a work-around, but I dinna ken how long that’ll take.”

“And Emil?” Agnes sounded anxious. “Can you send him down at least?”

“Negative.” That was the clean British accent of the EMH. “Holographic patterns are blocked as well. I will have to assist you from here. At least the bioscanners are working. Captain Rios’ vitals are indicating a traumatic injury including blood loss. What exactly is the nature of his medical emergency?”

Agnes groaned, tipping her head back to close her eyes for a second of endless frustration. Rios fought down a surge of fear. They were stranded, he was wounded with no help available, and if Agnes fell apart now…

But she didn’t. Rios saw her pull herself together. She took a deep breath, murmured a quick “okay”, and when she opened her eyes again, they were filled with new determination.

“He has an arrow stuck in his left shoulder, below his collarbone, close to the joint,” she reported. “There’s bleeding, but it doesn’t look arterial.”

“Copy that,” Emil’s voice came back. “Your observations concur with my readings. Do you see an exit wound?”

The bastard sounded intrigued.

Agnes touched Rios’ face. “Can you roll a little? I need to check your back.”

Cris nodded back and did as told. Gingerly, he shifted his body weight to his right side and lifted his left to turn on his side.

Ow. Ow. Ow.

He felt Agnes slide her hand behind his back and run it across his shoulder blade.

“Okay. It didn’t go through.” She exhaled. “No exit wound.”

Gently, she helped him back into his flat position.

“Meaning the head’s embedded inside,” said a matter-of-fact voice. “It will be all the more difficult to get it out.”

Elnor had joined them, apparently finished with their attackers. Judging by his usual efficiency, they were all lying stunned in the grass, out for the next hour or so. He’d had orders from Picard not to shoot to kill, and he mostly took orders seriously.

“Thanks for your candor,” Cris gritted out. “As usual, it’s very refreshing.”

The Romulan squatted down beside him, unperturbed, but he rested one hand on Rios’ arm in a comforting gesture. His honesty had nothing to do with unkindness.

“We’re not taking the arrow out here, Elnor,” Agnes informed them both. “We’ll leave that to Emil once we have Cris back on board.”

“Good idea,” Rios rasped. Agnes was still pressing the bandana down on his wound, and every time her fingers only so much as brushed against the arrow shaft, pain flared up sickeningly, burrowing along a fiery path through his shoulder. He couldn’t even imagine the agony of pulling the damn thing out without anesthesia.

“I’m afraid we can’t wait that long,” the EMH chimed in. “The scans tell me that Captain Rios’ system is being compromised by a class B biotoxin. I assume the arrowhead was coated with it.”

Chesumadre.

At least it explained the curious pins-and-needles feeling that had sprung up in Cris’ hands and feet. Unless that was related to shock, and Cris was pretty sure that shock was an item on the getting-shot-by-an-arrow checklist.

He craned his neck to look at Agnes. She looked… spooked.

“What’s a… class B biotoxin?” Elnor asked, sounding both curious and worried.

“It’s a type of poisonous agent that affects the central nervous system,” she explained, reverting to professionalism while Cris could see the worry in her eyes. “It paralyzes the muscles. Type B means it’s slower-acting, which is good, because it gives us a little time, otherwise…”

She put one hand against Cris’ neck, feeling his pulse, and bent lower to check his eyes.

“Do you feel any symptoms? Any numbness or weakness?”

Cris swallowed. “I have pins and needles in my hands and feet.”

Admittedly, the pain and the fear were slowly getting to him. He was used to the EMH materializing by his side in any case of emergency, wielding his tricorder and hyposprays and generally getting on his nerves while fixing him up. He was also used to stoically waving the hologram away and dealing with minor injuries on his own. But this wasn’t minor, and he could feel it.

Agnes’ cheeks flushed with worry.

“Can you squeeze my hand?”

She’d placed hers into his right, good one. Rios closed his fingers around hers and squeezed, but his grip felt odd, tingly, and from the way Agnes’ forehead creased he could tell something was wrong.

“Weakness in his right hand,” she spoke loudly into her comm unit. “I can’t check his left because of the injury.”

“Noted.” There was a moment of silence before the EMH spoke again, his voice sounding uncommonly grave. “Doctor Jurati, you have to remove the arrow, and you have to do it quickly.”

Oh fuck.

To Rios’ surprise, Agnes nodded without hesitation. She looked shaken, but like someone who had seen this coming. Her hand still held Cris’, and it was dry and warm.

“Affirmative,” she said. “How do I do it?”

“There is a small med kit in your backpack,” the EMH replied.

Elnor grabbed the backpack that she’d shucked off during the attack and pulled a silver case out from its bottom.

“I have it!”

“Open it,” Emil instructed. “It should hold disinfectant, bandages, a laser scalpel, a dermal regenerator and a hypospray with several loading vials.”

While Rios watched Agnes rifle through the kit, her lips moving as she read the medication labels to herself, he noticed a certain detachment overcoming him. Pain was still fanning out across his shoulder, reaching into his back and chest, but he somehow seemed to care less. The tingling sensation was creeping up his arms and legs. Was this shock or the poison?

“Agnes,” he rasped. “I… I feel strange.”

She stopped rummaging and stared at him. Her eyes were intense.

“What do you mean, ‘strange’?”

“I don’t… numb. Weird.”

It was true. His body felt heavy, and the tingling sensation had reached his stomach and neck. His thoughts as well felt… shrouded.

Agnes tore her eyes away from him and looked up, into the sky. “Emil? Did you hear this?”

“I did. We need to hurry, Doctor Jurati.”

Rios listened with increasing difficulty as the EMH listed instructions. Something about cutting wide enough to evacuate the arrowhead in one piece and about using the dermal regenerator to help get the bleeding under control. Something else about not cutting the axillary artery and staying clear of the radial nerve. Sadly, he didn’t catch anything about anesthetics, and he felt too sluggish to ask.

Agnes’ face reappeared in his line of vision. She brushed her blond curls out of her face and gave him a shaky smile.

“Okay, Cris. I’m going to be as quick as I can, but it’s going to hurt. Elnor will help you keep still.”

She blinked, blue eyes braver than anyone could have guessed she could be, and he met her gaze in silent trust. Elnor’s face hovered into view next to hers as he got into position, giving Cris a firm, wordless nod.

The EMH’s voice returned: “Ready, doctor Jurati?”

“Ready.”

Agnes pressed a hypospray to his neck that made him feel lightheaded. Elnor’s arms came down across his chest and hips, and Cris saw white-blue light flash as Agnes lifted the laser scalpel. Then the pain came. It bit into him, the smell of blood mixing with that of cauterized flesh, and he gasped. But the pain didn’t let up, and Agnes didn’t stop. He felt the laser cutting deep into his shoulder, relentless, and Cris arched his head back and released a scream. Elnor held him down, murmuring strings of Romulan - prayers? And Cris screamed, and Agnes cut, and the disembodied voice of the EMH drifted from the sky, and then Cris thought he would lose his mind as Agnes grabbed the arrow tight and pulled it up, pulled it through muscle and tissue and skin with a sick, slurping sound, and then, gracias a dios- darkness.

The pain wasn’t gone when he came to, an indefinite amount of lost time later, on La Sirena’s transporter pad, cradled in Elnor’s and Agnes’ arms, but the EMH was already bearing down on him with a hypospray. A hiss. A cool sensation, and then the pain ebbed away, and so did his fear at seeing his own chest splattered with blood and smeared all over Agnes. Cris heard voices, saw faces, but he couldn’t move, didn’t want to move. He only wanted to know if it was over and if he could go to sleep without worrying if he would ever wake up again.

He felt himself being lifted onto something soft, and, on his back, stared at the ceiling of the transporter room, then at Agnes leaning over him as they moved.

Her cheeks were wet, but she was smiling as she placed her hand on his forehead.

“It’s over. You’re okay.”

Cris closed his eyes and went to sleep.

#whumptober2020 #whumptober #star trek picard #aramis in space #fanfic #fan fiction #cristobal rios #agnes jurati #elnor #EMH #field medicine

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blucmoon · 3 years

Photo

━ ☾ ⊹ ( lee sung kyung, cis female , she/her ) say hello to KWON INNA, the THIRTY ONE YEAR OLD that seems to have a lot in HER hands with HER job as a TRADITIONAL TEAHOUSE OWNER! beyond that, they seemed CONSIDERATE AND HARDWORKING upon first glance. i heard someone say they’re sort of GULLIBLE AND IMPATIENT though. SHE seems to live in a FOUR BEDROOM HOUSE in YUNHWA, SOUTH KOREA. anything else to add? oh, yeah! she also USED TO BE AN EDITOR AT A PROMINENT PUBLISHING COMPANY IN SEOUL!

about

name: inna kwon

birthday: september 10, 1989

age: 31

gender and pronouns: cis female, she / her.

orientation: bisexual,

birthplace: busan, south korea

hometown: seoul, south korea.

current location: yunhwa, south korea. (house #4013, hwesakgu)

level of education: b.a in korean language and literature & journalism (double major)

occupation: owner of the teahouse at yeyun inn

past occupations: editor at a prominent publishing company in seoul.

appearance

height: 176cm / 5’7ft

weight: 54kg / 119lbs

piercings: left ear; daith, flat, double helix, anti-tragus, upper lobe and lobe. right ear; helix, upper lobe and lobe. likes to wear cuff earrings often.

fashion style: used to stick to seoul’s fashion, always wearing luxury brands as expected from the daughter of a socialite family. suits, skirts, dresses, purses… she didn’t spare any expense when it came to her wardrobe. now that she’s in yunhwa, inna completely changed her style… and finally found one that allows her to feel comfortable in her own skin and stop pretending to be something she isn’t and never was. tight clothing was exchanged for dresses and skirts that dance with the breeze while she takes walks on the beach. sweaters, blazers and blouses that are two sizes too big on her, often making her to roll up the sleeves for comfort. pants, shorts and skirts of all shapes and lengths in a variety of patterns, mostly plaid, pinstripes, herringbone and every so often she’d opt for more striking, eye catching patterns (it has a lot to do with her emotional state). as for shoes, she changed the expensive stilettos for flats, boots and sneakers. for accessorizing, she likes to decorate her wrists with dainty bracelets and her hands with several rings in gold and silver, usually three in the left hand and five in the right one, sometimes stacked, sometimes one on each finger. depending on the season, she either wears delicate necklaces or fashionable scarves that cover both, style and function. her favorite way to dress is with pants, mostly cuffed jeans, a blouse or a shirt that she loosely tucks in and long coats, big cardigans or blazers on top.

eyes: a light shade of brown, almost reminiscent of melted caramel: equally as warm and sweet but doesn’t necessarily catering to everyone.

hair color and style: it’s been far too long since she’s last seen her natural hair color, which she vaguely remembers as a dark brown, so dark that she sometimes thought was just black. as she grew up and gained a little more of liberty to make her own decisions, her hair changed to a variety of colors: from red to black to light brown to blonde with pastel strikes. now, it’s dyed auburn brown, reaching the middle of her back and with bangs. she has naturally wavy hair, but only slightly, enough to not be considered straight. she likes it and would rarely ever go out of her way to do anything different like straightening or curling it, much preferring to let it cascade down her shoulders. halfway through the day though she can be seen pulling it up in messy buns or ponytails, or even braiding it whenever she has some free time.

personality

positive personality traits: disciplined, honest, considerate

negative personality traits: impatient, stubborn, gullible

bad habits or vices: stressing over things she can’t control, smoking once or twice a day (more when she’s anxious or stressed), late night snacking, drums her fingers everywhere.

birth chart: virgo sun, capricorn moon, leo rising

mbti: isfp

enneagram: 4w3

hobbies/interests: reading under the sun, journaling, listening to music directly from vinyl, playing chess and jigsaw puzzles, riding her bike to and from work and around town, nightly drives and two in the morning street food, online shopping, sales hunting, cooking.

background (tldr)

inked words in a piece of parchment were all it took to turn her life around.

one day, she held a crown over her head, titles of excellence under her arm and an engagement ring around her finger. inna was the oldest daughter, the next in line, the one that was meant to achieve greatness first between the three siblings and set the example for them.

having the kwon surname was a synonym of high expectations and never did she fall short of any of them. inna was an exemplary woman, hard working and, most importantly, one that rarely voiced her opinions.

nonetheless, the day she came across a letter addressed directly to her was the day she started questioning who she really was.

sometimes, the protection that comes within hiding the truth is much needed to keep someone blissfully unaware of the reality; to keep them from unnecessary pain. inna doesn’t blame her parents for sheltering her, but she does hold it against them for underestimating her and not telling her she was adopted sooner.

the letter was short and the sender’s penmanship was gorgeous, clear, easy to read… and one that was completely strange to her. yet, she claimed to be her biological mother and promises of some answers came within a will, one that conceded her the ownership of a property and a teahouse, both allocated in yunhwa.

after several days of contemplation, arguments between her and her mother and research about a town she’s never heard of before, inna made a decision. one motivated by the final straw that came in the shape of a selfish partner whose only real interest was to have the perfect trophy wife. packing her whole life into cardboard boxes and several suitcases isn’t nearly as difficult as she first expected and so she leaves without looking back.

saying goodbye to seoul leaves a bittersweet taste as she drives five hours to yunhwa, only stopping when arriving at the address on the will. the woman spent almost an hour observing the front of the rather old house and it was clear that no one had habited it for months; overgrown plants on the small garden at the front, dust collecting on the windows… and the unknown behind its closed door.

she had no idea of what to expect, of what she going to find. it’s deeply scares her, the truth has never been an easy thing to swallow and she second guesses her plans when someone, apparently her mother’s acquaintance, stops by and the first thing they tell her is “you have her eyes.”

that’s all it takes for inna to make up her mind.

background (full)

inna is the oldest daughter of the kwon family, who were not famous per se, but well-positioned in the high society of seoul. her father had a couple of restaurants and her mother was the director of a publishing company she built from the ground. other than that, they’re your average rich family with parents having great expectations on their children to either follow their steps or achieve greatness on their own. inna was the ‘firstborn’, older than her brother for seven years and nine years older than her sister.

an absolute sweetheart as a kid, easily charming everyone with her dimpled smiles and lighter-colored eyes, a striking feature that didn’t resemble neither her mother’s or father’s very own eyes. however, it was never questioned neither was it unwelcomed. instead, it was appraised and even something her mother often showed off.

almost always been a well behaved daughter; charming, polite, obedient. the classic oldest daughter schtick and her mother constantly reminding her to set the example for her siblings only added to it. sure, she got into her fair share of trouble; a broken heart more than once, underage drinking (not too often), maybe cheating in an exam once or twice or copying someone else’s homework, but she made sure nothing would suffice to tarnish her or her family’s reputation permanently.

it’s in high school, after taking a literature class and discovering her love for reading and writing, that she decided to study something along those lines. not so surprisingly, her decision was fully supported by her mother which, admittedly, made her hesitate. inna had the gut feeling that the moment she shared her plans, her mother had already further paved the path of her future.

trying to look past this, college wasn’t nearly half as bad. actually, the years spent studying korean language and literature as well as journalism (double major nerd over here) were her favorites. between her junior and senior years, though, she took a sabbatical year (it was her 21st birthday wish and her father easily caved in despite her mother’s disapproval) to travel and her first destination was paris followed by london, tokyo and lastly california.

graduating at twenty two, inna immediately got a job in her mother’s company and slowly worked her way up until achieving the position of editor-in-chief at twenty seven. inna was really good at her job and she knew what it took for the company’s publications to become best-sellers, but she never shone whatsoever.

all her achievements never seemed to be hers for the spotlight always landed on her mother and rumor had it that inna got where she was thanks to her mother, which is partly true. sure, getting the job was a given, but everyone failed to see how exigent her mother- her boss was, or the amount of criticism she got without anyone noticing, or the late nights at the office, or the weekends without a break. still, inna never went out of her way to discredit the rumors, already knowing that changing people’s minds was 1. difficult and 2. pointless. every word, jab and snide comment directed her way fell on deaf ears.

inna wasn’t particularly discontented about her job, but she didn’t feel fulfilled either.

something felt constantly amiss and the sensation of being utterly lost was nothing new to her either. her dreams, goals and ambitions were all stored away, collecting dust and spiderwebs, just like her unfinished manuscripts safely kept in a box at home. being an author was her biggest dream, not reviewing, editing and telling other authors what to do to become a hit. inna wanted, longed to be on the other side.

however, there always seemed to be excuses for her not to: endless work, new publications, new clients and projects, then promotion after promotion and, lastly, a new partner that asks her hand in marriage by the time she turns thirty.

he was sweet, caring and always supported her professional growth. idealistically, the perfect partner. the kind that she introduced to her parents without hesitation or having to tell him to keep something a secret to avoid their disapproval. none of that happened this time compared to previous partners of hers. inna should’ve known something wasn’t right about someone so flawless, so selfless. maybe a part of her felt it from the get go, but in her position, the next “natural” step after having a stable career, was getting married and forming a family of her own. so when he asked (nothing too out of the world, just a family dinner), she couldn’t say no.

life was seemingly perfect.

the wedding planning midway through and one of the books the company published and she personally supervised became a huge success in the country, even getting a contract for a drama adaptation, thus the remuneration she got was big. rumors of a new office opening overseas where often heard across the building as well as inna being in charge of it. she couldn’t be happier.

it was the calm before the storm.

one afternoon at her parent’s house everything went downhill.

her mother asked inna to bring her a manuscript from her office. unsuspecting, inna was looking for it through the drawers when accidentally coming across an envelope with her name beautifully written on it. curiosity had always been her best and worst trait, and this time she couldn’t help but reading the contents.

she had no idea of what to expect, of what she was going to find. it’s deeply scares her, the truth has never been an easy thing to swallow and she second guesses her plans when someone, apparently her mother’s acquaintance, stops by and the first thing they tell her is “you have her eyes.”

that’s all it takes for inna to make up her mind.

still, everything feels strange to her as she steps into a house that’s now hers, but has never visited before or even had an idea of its existence. it’s overwhelming, to say the least, to encounter what inna assumes was her mother’s way of living. the further she stepped into the house, she noticed that nothing really matched and every piece of furniture seemed to have been purposely selected to differ from the rest. every chair in the dining room was different, some looked older than the rest and traces of restoration were clear on the mismatched filler between the cracks. a homemade project is what inna assumes. it was a mess, but somehow, a beautiful one.

that’s the first thing she learns about her mother: she liked to give things a second chance.

sleeping in that house wasn’t plausible for several reasons, mostly because she didn’t like the idea of reside there in its current state; the cracking floor, the thick layer of dust that caused her to sneeze repeatedly and she swears a rat had made that place its home. inna immediately planned to do some renovations and reparations and, until the bedroom and kitchen were fully functional, she’d make do by finding another place to stay.

her next stop was yeyun inn, the second location indicated in the will where he was to take over her mother’s business: the teahouse. this was something that absolutely dumbfounded inna, not knowing anything about running a place like that for her core occupation was a stark contrast from it. still, she was aware that the savings she had, despite being a respectable amount, would only last for so long and most of them would be invested in the house anyway.

troubled, she presented the will to the innkeeper as well as her living arrangements problems, which were easily solved by temporarily moving into one of the inn’s rooms. however, the teahouse was different and inna has been struggling a little to learn all there is to learn about it. four months later, inna is still in yunhwa, still learning all she can about her mother and only recently moved into her new house after some renovations were over.

it’s conflicting to be there and be constantly compared to a woman that was a complete stranger to her. somedays, inna feels flattered, especially when they mention their eyes, but most days, she’s angry. she’s resentful. she’s annoyed that the chance of meeting this seemingly wonderful woman that the whole town loved was taken away from her.

some things to note

inna has been in yunhwa for 4 months, never heard of the town before or anything about her mother. she doesn’t know if she’s here to stay permanently or what, but meanwhile, she plans to make this place her home and this is why she considers herself a citizen.

has not been in touch with her family (except her dad) since she moved into yunhwa. leaving seoul meant leaving everything behind: her job, her engagement, her family, her friends.

it’s nice to not be compared to her adoptive mother and siblings here because whenever this happened in seoul, it was all backhanded compliments… but here in yunhwa, she often has to put up with the same thing, only that nicer and because of her biological mom. sometimes she’s polite, but some days, inna immediately shuts down anyone who even tries to tell her anything (as politely as possible… or not)

actually inna’s biological and adoptive mothers knew each other. her mother adopted her because her biological mother was in a really bad stage in her life and knew she couldn’t provide her daughter the life she deserved. her adoptive mom hadn’t been able to have kids as much as she tried, so at the moment it sounded like a good idea. they made a promise to not tell inna until her mom was in a better place where she could meet her daughter without any shame.

after the adoption, both kept in touch every couple of months for her adoptive mom to update on inna’s life, achievements and everything. this is exactly why some townspeople are prone to know about inna: her mother used to show her off a lot, even showing some photos she got.

her adoptive mother wasn’t supposed to be able to have kids, but seven years after adopting inna, she got news of pregnancy… and again 2 years after that. the dynamic didn’t change much, but her mom has always been extra exigent when it comes to inna and a little more lenient with her siblings.

her biological mom got her life together after struggling for a while and became a really important part of yunhwa’s community. she helped anyone who needed it and tried to find ways to improve the town just to make life a little better. so yeah, inna’s mom was well-known, especially after she got the teahouse (approximately 20 years ago), where she welcomed anyone to share their woes or joys over a cup of tea.

the process of cleaning the house was a long process because of all the things her mother had. she kept some furniture like the table and chairs from the dining room and a beautiful desk, but the rest had been mostly ruined due to the rats. yes, rats. (its okay, the house has been fumigated.)

while going through and selecting her mom’s belongings for donations and stuff, inna found several things that she was able to keep like a box of letters her mother wrote her but never sent, tons and tons of journals she used to write short stories in and that never saw the light and her mom’s vinyls collection. (inna drove all the way to busan to get a new player because hers didn’t work anymore).

the house is still undergoing renovations, but she’s able to live there despite it since they’re done through the day while she’s at the teahouse. she’s slowly becoming a plant mom because of the beautiful lighting the house has and now that she’s not as busy as she was in seoul, she has more time and patience to take care of them properly.

is still struggling to learn the business, but doing a whole lot better than her first month running the teahouse. she also became absurdly fascinated by tea and is absolutely surprised there’s no boba tea in yunhwa yet so she’s made this resolution to learn how to make bubble tea and sell it. (looking for guinea pigs that can taste her delicious creations.)

(cw: smoking) she smokes, an awful habit she got from her working days in the city. has been trying to quit even before she moved into the town but its been to not avail. she’s managed to reduce her intake to one or two a day, but in those days that she’s more stressed, it doubles.

don’t come @ her but she has rich girl hobbies: knows how to play chess and actually enjoys it a lot, she even brought with her a board her father gave her when she was younger and is keen to find someone that plays with her, even if she has to teach them herself.

is shopping a hobby? yes, and she does it quite often though she’s found a secret joy in hunting sales. every so often she likes to splurge and label it as self-care.

enjoys a good wine anytime and if she has a craving in the middle of the night for a good bottle, she’d drive all the way to busan in order to satisfy this. maybe treat herself a dinner or perhaps clubbing? who knows.

has a car but has rarely used it since she moved into yunhwa because the town is so accessible by walking or bike that she decided to buy a bike instead. it’s her favorite method of transportation and uses it everyday to get to work.

#INFO.TXT #INNA.EXE #LOC.YUNHWA

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sky-blaze · 4 years

Text

Restart And Try Again

Summary:

Sam has found Rinzler, and is trying to turn him back into Tron, but thirty-year-old code requires an expert touch. Enter Alan Bradley, who ends up unexpectedly attached to his creation.

---

“I need your help.”

Alan turned to see Sam in the doorway of his office at ENCOM. His godson looked unusually agitated, despite the faux-casual pose he had assumed, leaning against the doorframe, the way his leg jiggled with barely-suppressed nervous energy gave the game away.

“Hello Sam,” Alan greeted with exaggerated formality, “Nice to see you.”

There was the barest twitch of guilt that he was abandoning politeness, but even Alan’s subtle admonishment didn’t deter him, “It’s… Dad’s… uh… project. I need your help with something.” Sam blurted, the words coming all in a rush, making him sound like the awkward teenager Alan remembered with a mixed amount of fondness. The words, however, made Alan raise an eyebrow.

“I was under the impression,” Alan said slowly, “That you and Quorra were handling that.”

“We are… mostly. But there’s one thing that needs your...uh...personal touch.” Sam said, his eyes darted around warily, and Alan understood that this was not something Sam was comfortable discussing in the ENCOM officers, where just anyone could listen in.

After only a moment of hesitation, Alan grabbed his keys of his desk, “Lead on, then. I can’t promise anything, but I can take a look.”

Sam’s answering smile was full of relief.

Neither Kevin nor Sam had revealed the full details on Kevin Flynn’s ‘project’. The closed system hidden in the basement of the arcade was still largely a mystery to him, Lora and Roy, but Sam had at least told him about Kevin’s ultimate fate; saving the system, The Grid, by reintegrating himself with his rogue program, CLU. Alan was torn between being impressed at what his old friend had accomplished and wanting to raise him from the dead so he could strangle him for being so reckless.

A prickle of apprehension crawled up Alan’s spine when he saw the digitising laser; so familiar from those early days at ENCOM. It looked so incredibly incongruous sat there in front of a workstation terminal. Alan took a deep breath of the dry, stale basement air and looked at Sam, who shuffled uncomfortably.

“Would you care to explain?” Alan asked carefully.

Sam looked at his shoes for a moment, taking his own deep, fortifying breath, “You gave a copy of your security program to Dad for his project, right?” Sam began.

Alan frowned, “Tron. Yes, I did. What does this have…” Alan’s eyes widened, “Is he still..?” Alan had often found it difficult to reconcile the work he did every day - coding, compiling and upgrading software - with the ideas that Kevin had espoused about programs being like real people, living within the machine, but Tron had always been… different. Special. There was a connection there that Alan had never been able to explain. Thinking Tron was… gone had been unexpectedly and inexplicably painful.

Sam looked uncomfortable again, “Sort of. CLU got to him. He… repurposed him. Turned him into an attack dog, renamed him Rinzler. I don’t know how, but something in him must have… fought back. Towards then end, before the reintegration, Rinzler turned on CLU - tried to attack him.”

Alan frowned, his brows drawing tightly together as apprehension congealed into worry, “But you found him?”

Sam nodded, “Yeah but… his code is a total mess. I’ve tried to help him, but some of his core kernal is… well, its beyond me.”

Alan blinked, “And you think I can help?”

“He’s your program.” Sam said softly.

“Sam, in case you forgot, I wrote it – him – in the eighties. Its been a while.” Alan replied, anxiety rising in his chest, tension making his shoulders ache as he stared at the laser and the darkened terminal.

“You’re his best shot,” Sam insisted, “You’re his user. He’s… well, he’s been asking for you.”

Alan couldn’t help but stare, “Asking for me?”

Sam sighed, “He’s not completely conscious, but whenever I try to work on his code, he pushes me away and says ‘Alan1’ over and over.”

“My old username at ENCOM.” Alan said faintly. He sighed, pushing his glasses up his nose, “All right. You’ve convinced me. I’ll give it a shot. What do I need to do?”

Sam nodded at the seat in front of the terminal – the one with the laser pointed ominously at it, “Sit right there. I’ll handle the rest. Oh, and don’t worry when you get there, I’ll be right behind you.”

For the first time since Sam had arrived at Alan’s office, Sam flashed one of his bright smiles. Alan wasn’t sure if it was meant to be reassuring, but since that same smile was often on the face of both father and son right before some of their more outrageous stunts, Alan decided he was correct to be concerned.

–

Arriving in the Grid was just as disorienting as Alan had feared. He materialised – for lack of a better term – to almost total blackness. The only faint white light in the small, closed-off room was… himself. His shirt glowed with a faint white radiance, while his suit pants and jacket had gone from dark grey to jet black. His face felt… odd. He reached up to touch his glasses, but once his fingers made contact with the frames, there was a spark of white across the lenses and his vision suddenly came alive with a host of information, scrolling across like a military-style heads-up display.

“Huh.” He said.

A column of light coalesced beside him, and in moments Sam had arrived, wearing some of sort of… armoured black suit covered in glowing white circuitry patterns.

“Nice outfit.” Alan commented dryly when Sam had fully materialised.

Sam grinned back, “Nice glasses.”

“I appear to have come equipped with an augmented reality display.” Alan said, “I can’t say I don’t appreciate the upgrade.”

“Advantages of being a User in a computer, I guess.” Sam shrugged.

“Apparently.” Alan’s gaze sharpened as it fixed on Sam, trying to ignore the little pop-ups of information on the heads-up display, which described Sams’s clock speed, code integrity and power level, “Where is he?” Alan asked softly.

“This way.” Sam said, leading Alan out of the darkened room and into the city streets.

The city was something of a revelation for Alan, who was almost mesmerised by the colour, the angles, the beauty of it all, especially with his glasses providing him with helpful information on each point of interest, right down to its code composition, if he so chose. Getting control of the flow of information was a challenge; Alan was a programmer, and the beauty of this place, not just on a physical level, but on the level of pure code, was almost too much to resist. Only the knowledge that someone – that Tron – needed his help, let him keep his focus.

Sam led him through the neon-laced streets, up into a glowing tower. Quorra greeted them at the door, the usually perky ISO oddly subdued. The room Alan was guided into was comfortable, decorated in muted shades of white and pale blue. It almost like a high-end hotel, except with more glowing parts.

A figure lay motionless on the plush-looking bed. Dressed entirely in black, an opaque helmet covering his face, the glowing circuitry lines were strangely truncated, pulsing an ominous dark orange. The most distinctive marking was the set of small squares near his throat, set in a T shape.

“Tron.” Alan breathed. The figure on the bed twitched, and made a rattling moan. It was a ragged, pained sound, like a fan with a worn bearing, or a failing hard drive. Either way, the noise worried him.

“Here.” Sam said, handing him… a disk? It looked like a hollow Frisbee, its edges its edges pulsing the same malevolent, fiery orange as Tron’s circuitry. Alan’s glasses promptly displayed information telling him how to bring up a code overview from the disk. Helpful. He was starting to wish he had something like it in the real world.

He sat down on a sinfully comfortable chair and watched as the code spiralled up from the disk, appearing in a splay of holographic light. He examined it for a few long moments, turning it this way and that, marvelling at the 3-D representation that revealed data structures, variable arrays and other things that Alan usually had to keep track of in his head, all presented clearly but… something wasn’t right. He dug further, finally finding something familiar. He wasn’t usually one to blow his own trumpet about his programming prowess, but the core of the original code he had written looked remarkably elegant next to what appeared to be hastily hacked-in patches with more recent timestamps.

After further investigation, Alan sat back with a scowl, “Who wrote this additional code?”

Sam looked up from where he had sprawled on a sofa, “Uh...why?” he asked.

Alan scowled harder, “Because I’d like to punch them in the mouth.”

“It was probably CLU,” Quorra said, almost making Alan jump. She’d been so still and quiet he’d almost forgotten she was there, “Well, either CLU or Dyson.” She continued, “They’re both… gone now.”

“Hmph.” Was Alan’s only reply. He spent another few moments staring at the butchery that had been made of his creation, trying to fight down anger on Tron’s behalf at what had been done to him. The new blocks of code emphasised obedience, and violence. To have this done to Tron, who was created to be self-sufficient, to protect, not attack, it felt like nothing so much as torture and brainwashing.

“I think I can fix this.” He said finally, “But it’s not going to be quick. I’ll need time, and access to my usual suite of programming tools.” He gestured to the swirling holographic code, “This is lovely, but its not what I’m used to. It’ll be quicker and easier for me to use a normal workstation.”

Sam nodded, “Yeah, I get it. Programming in the Grid is… different.”

A thought occurred to Alan, “Is it even possible to transfer data to this system? I didn’t see any ports, except the I/O and display port, and the operating system is bound to be completely unique.”

Sam nodded again, more slowly this time, and Alan heard Quorra take a sudden, sharp breath, “It… is…”

“I hear a ‘but’ at the end of this sentence.” Alan said.

Sam gave a slightly forced chuckle, “Yeah, okay. It is possible, but you kinda need to use yourself as the data storage medium.”

Alan blinked, “What?”

Sam chuckled, sounding far more natural this time, “It’s okay. I’ll show you when we get back.”

Alan’s gaze went back to the figure lying so still on the bed, seeming almost lifeless if not for the dull pulsing of the circuitry, and the scrolling information on Alan’s heads-up display. “Will he be all right?” he asked.

“Quorra’s staying with him.” Sam replied. Alan caught the look that flickered between Quorra and Sam, suddenly understanding that it wasn't just a case of keeping Tron company; it was making sure that that awful ‘Rinzler’ code-butchery didn’t cause him to hurt himself or anyone else. Quorra was more guard than nurse. The thought made his stomach knot up.

Without thinking, Alan reached over to pat Tron on the arm, “I’ll be back, and I promise I’ll help you.”

Tron made a noise, that odd grinding sound, but softer this time, sounding almost like a purr, and then, a barely audible rasp, “Aaalaan onnneee…”

“I’ll be back.” Alan reassured again, feeling a lump in his throat. He forced himself to let go, ignoring the odd look Sam gave him as he marched out of the room and heading back towards where the laser had dropped them, not really knowing why he felt like crying.

–

Less than a week later, Alan found himself back in the basement beneath Flynn’s Arcade. True to his word, Sam had taught him how to port code to and from the Grid. It was something of an involved process, and needed one of the obscure ‘floptical’ storage systems to interface with Flynn’s ageing, custom-built computer system. It had taken almost as long to find the right storage system as it had to actually rebuild Tron’s code.

Now, he loaded the disk caddy into the semi-hidden drive slot and loaded his own ‘profile’ on the workstation and hit ‘import’. Sam then took over and loaded the laser digitisation program.

“Ready?” Sam asked.

Alan shifted, feeling both impatient and anxious, “Yeah, let’s go.”

The dizzying sensation overtook him and he once again found himself in that darkened room inside the Grid. This time, however, there was significantly more light – still coming from himself. The sensible suit he had worn before was replaced by a long black overcoat, decorated with glowing white circuitry lines. His shirt was still softly glowing white, but he could feel the weight of an ID disk on his back.

“That’s new.” Sam said, frowning, “You okay Alan?”

“Yeah,” Alan smiled, “I think it’s due to the extra data I had to import into my profile so I could help Tron.”

Sam chuckled, “Looks good on you. No fair you get a cooler outfit than mine, though.”

Alan couldn’t help but smirk, “And the cool glasses.”

“Yeah, rub it in why don’t ya?” Sam lightly smacked his godfather on the arm, and once again led Alan through the twisting streets to where Tron lay.

It looked like Tron had barely moved, but when Alan stepped through the door, Tron made that painful-sounding grinding noise, his arms twitching. “How has he been?” Alan asked Quorra.

Quarra shrugged, “About the same. He twitches sometimes, and calls out for you. If anyone else tries to touch him, though, he tries to get away, despite how damaged he is.”

The bluntly spoken assessment chilled Alan, and he took a deep breath, reaching over to the program laying motionless against the plush blue bedcovers, “Tron? It’s me, Alan. I’m here to help you, but I need your ID disk. Is that okay?”

The grinding noise grew louder, and Tron’s body twitched almost violently, “aaaa...aaaa.” Tron rasped, trying again to move. It took Alan a few moments to realise that Tron was trying to roll over, to expose his ID disk at his User’s request. The display of trust made something in Alan’s chest twist.

Reaching down, Alan helped his program to roll onto his side, noting almost absently as he did so that where he touched Tron’s circuits, the orange faded into bright blue, just for a second, before it bled back to orange.

As gently as he could, Alan disengaged Tron’s disk from the port, and reached to his own back to pull off his own disk. Praying silently to whatever gods looked after programmers, he slowly brought the two disks into contact.

Holding his breath, Alan watched as the white light of his disk slowly melted into the orange, and wherever it touched, the light changed, transforming from deep orange into blue. When the process finally completed, Alan felt like he could breathe again, but the knot in his stomach still remained, a reminder that it wasn’t quite over.

Carefully pulling the two disks apart, Alan clicked his own back into place before leaning down and carefully, almost reverentially, placing Tron’s disk back in its port.

The change was immediate. The blue light flowed like water from the disk port, spreading across the circuitry lines. When it reached Tron’s neck, the mask dissolved, revealing a face that looked precisely like Alan himself had thirty years ago. Tron’s eyelids fluttered and he blinked open his eyes, looking unerringly at his User, eyes full of wonder and joy.

“Alan1.” Tron said, his voice almost...worshipful, which was deeply embarrassing, but at least it was at last free of the awful grinding growl.

Alan felt tears in his eyes, “Welcome back, Tron.” he said, reaching out to take his creation’s hand.

Tron frowned, “I… so much has happened.” Sorrow filled the program’s face, “I...I failed. I did terrible things. I’m so sorry, Alan1.”

“Shhh,” Alan soothed, perching next to Tron on the edge of the bed, unable to tear his gaze away from his creation, “It’s all right. You did everything you could. You fought back against CLU. I couldn’t be any prouder of you.”

The awestruck wonder was back in Tron’s face, his fingers curling tightly around Alan’s own, apparently totally unwilling to let go. Alan gently touched the circuitry on Tron’s arm, marvelling at the colour – it wasn’t quite the electric blue of Quorra’s lines, it was paler - closer to ice blue, and Alan wondered at the reason for that difference, if it had any particular significance.

The sound of someone clearing their throat startled them both, both Tron and Alan apparently forgetting that Sam and Quorra were in the room. Sam looked somewhat embarrassed, “Uh, so yeah. Me and Quorra have… stuff to take care of. We’re gonna head out, okay?”

Alan rubbed at the back of his neck with his free hand, feeling his own embarrassment climb up his cheeks, “Uh, sure.”

Tron tugged on his hand, “You’ll stay with me, Alan1?” his face and voice full of hope.

Alan couldn’t help but smile, “Of course, Tron.” he said, and Tron shuffled over on the bed to make room, not once letting go of his User’s hand.

Alan lay down next to his creation, the security program he had coded with his own hands, trying not to melt under said program’s adoring gaze. Without really thinking about it, Alan brought Tron’s hand up to kiss his knuckles, wondering exactly how this had become his life.

Once he turned to see the joy shining in Tron’s face, free of the pain he had suffered, Alan couldn’t bring himself to mind.

End of Line.

#Alan/Tron #tron: legacy #Tron #fanfic

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missnxthingg · 4 years

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hello sweetheart, I hope you and your loved ones are safe 💛 So an idea: becoming a choreographer/dancer in dancing with the stars and being selected as Tom's partner. Since it's your first time, you're quite nervous at first but you two soon become friends and all the rehearsals being fun and cute! And idk, maybe once the show's over, one of you asking the other out 💚 thank you for your imagines, they're sweet!

Summary: You finally got chose to be on Dancing With The Stars and you’re paired with the pretty cute British actor, Tom Holland.

A/N: Hey love, we’re all fine, I hope yours are safe as well. Your request was so sweet, thank you for the support! It’s Valentines Day in Brazil today and even though I don’t really care about this date, I thought about doing something sweet today. I actually never watched Dancing With The Stars, but I know it’s pretty similar to one program we have here in Brazil, so I just took that as a base. Hope everything is okay with it.

Words: 3.7 K

Pairing: Tom Holland x Dancer!Reader

Warnings: Some swearing and PURE FLUFF. Like really, it’s so cute, I can’t.

masterlist | main blog | gif source (i made the gif out of this video) | fic playlist | song title

TINY DANCER

“I got it!” You shouted once you opened an email from Dancing With The Stars. You were sitting in your friend’s apartment while you got one of the most important emails in the world.

“The Dancing With The Stars spot?” She asked excitedly and you nodded, making you both jump to celebrate.

You’ve been dancing around every room since you were little and it didn’t go away with the years, making you major in dance in college and now you were a professional dancer. You worked in many places over the years, in concerts, in theatres, even movies, but you always wanted to do silly things like Dancing With The Stars because you loved to watch it growing up.

“God, I can’t believe I got the spot! I’ve been dreaming about this since season one.”

“You’re gonna be fantastic! I can’t wait to see which celebrity you’re getting.”

“I hope it’s not one of those that no one really knows what they are famous for.”

Your first day was one of the most terrifying ones. It was mostly to meet your partners and to be introduced to the people, but still, it meant that the very next day you were going to have your ass off to get the prize. You didn’t know what to expect, celebrities can be super mean and maybe you got a pretty horrible one, but you were going to make everything to be perfect. By the end of the first airing show, you knew you were partnered up with Tom Holland. The Tom Holland you’ve been watching on movies through so many years and one of the prettiest boys in the world. To add it up, he was the sweetest guy in the universe and just with a few seconds into meeting him, you noticed it.

“Hey, I’m Tom. Nice to meet you.” He stood his hand in the air, which you took it.

“I’m (Y/N), nice to meet you too.” He smiled softly at you and you smiled back, with a tiny bit of shyness.

“So, this is all pretty cool right?” You nodded, clearly nervous to be around here. “Yeah, I’ve never done something like this before. I mean, I know how to dance, but I bet you’re gonna make me ten thousand times better.”

“I hope.” You blushed and he smiled. “You’re not one of those mean celebrities who’s gonna show up really late for rehearsals, right?”

“God, I hope not. If I’m being one of them, give me a heads up.” He winked and you nodded. “It was really nice to meet you, darling. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“See you there.”

You couldn’t believe you were set up with Tom Holland and you lied awake all night thinking about this. You were so nervous about screwing everything up and being eliminated on the first day. You didn’t doubt your dancing skills, because you knew you could be amazing if you wanted to, but maybe your nervousness could get in your way of work.

The next day you woke up feeling very anxious. You even had a small dose of Whiskey for breakfast, maybe it would help to make you feel better. You didn’t look as glamorous as you did the previous night when you were live on television. Of course, you dressed up nicely and even did a natural makeup because there were gonna be cameras and a lot of people looking at you, but you couldn’t just show up wearing a long dress and full makeup. You stook to simple, black leggings, sports bra and a grey hoodie. You packed normal clothes and a pair of heels for rehearsing. Tom arrived earlier to rehearsal and was drinking something out of a mug while waiting for you. He wasn’t much different from you, with sports pants and a simple grey shirt. Just him, no cameras around.

“Hey, am I late?” You asked when you entered the room and he shook his head.

“I’m early, don’t worry about it.” He smiled and stood his mug in the air. “Tea?”

“No, thank you. Not actually into tea.”

“Sooo American.” He hummed and you frowned.

“You English and your goddamn tea.” You tied your hair and removed your hoodie. Tom blushed when he got to stare at your body and quickly looked away in respect.

“Tea is amazing. Coffee is only for when you’re tired.” You sat next to him and both fell into an uncomfortable silence. “You don’t talk much right?”

“I’m just a little nervous, that’s all.” You didn’t look into his eyes and he smirked.

“Okay, look at me.” You looked up to him and he chuckled. “It’s just me, Tom. There’s nothing to be afraid about me, I’m an ordinary guy. If it helps, we can have a farting contest to bond.” You laughed with him and shook your head.

“I don’t think we need that.”

“We’re gonna be really close for the next weeks, so we need to talk a little, or it will be weird.”

“Yeah, I totally agree with you.” He shot up and turned up the music, playing the first song on his shuffled playlist, which was Madonna’s Vogue. “What are you doing?”

“You’re a professional dancer, so I guess you love to dance? I don’t know, maybe we could dance once together before we start our work and this room is full of cameras. What do you think?”

“I think it’s really weird that the first song on your playlist is Vogue.” You laughed and he rolled his eyes with a grin.

“It was on shuf- Oh shut up and get over here.” He pulled you to the centre of the room and you started to laugh with the sloppy and weird movements he was doing. “Come on, you’re not even trying to dance.”

“This is too weird, I can’t.” He grinned and gripped on your hips, swaying you awkwardly around the room. “This is the worst choreography for this song I’ve ever seen before.”

“No, it’s the most awesome.” He rocked your arms with a grip of your hands and turned you around slowly.

Eventually, you gave in, moving around the room with him and actually doing a pretty good choreography. Tom wasn’t so bad at dancing as he presented himself a few seconds ago, he was actually pretty good on his dance moves, he just wanted to make you laugh a little. By the time the song ended, you were scattered across the floor, hands of your bellies and laughing so hard it hurt.

“Okay, that was a pretty good ice breaker.”

“You don’t have to be nervous around me. I’m just… me.” Tom seemed genuinely nice and he was really trying to make you comfortable, the least you could do is be nice to him and come up with good choreography.

“Okay, so what do you know about dancing?” You sat on the floor and started to stretch, signing with your head for him to do the same.

“I danced for a play back home, Billy Elliot.”

“Oh, I helped choreograph it once in college. Obviously not in London, but in New York.”

“You went to Julliard?” He asked stretching his arm and copying your every move. You nodded with a small grin. “That’s awesome. You must be pretty good.”

“I’ve been dancing since I was a little girl.” You started to stretch your neck and Tom was always copying your movements. “I think I’ve been attending ballet classes since I was three and I’ve always loved to do it, so much that I followed my dream to be a professional dancer.”

“I know what that’s like. I feel the same about acting and I’m really glad that I got to do what I love. Not everyone gets lucky in art.”

“Only the really good ones, like you.”

“For what I just saw, you are pretty awesome when it comes to dancing.”

“Thank you.” You blushed and were interrupted by a full team coming inside to record every step you take during the rehearsals. You were kind of bummed out by it because it was so good to be around him so far, and cameras will probably get in your way to connect.

But Tom still was a sweetheart when the camera was on and it was really fun to work with him. He got the choreography easily and you worked along like two pieces and it was so easy to move around the room with him catching up every step you could. It was a long week of rehearsals, and they all followed a pattern. You two arriving earlier, doing a dance to break the ice and stretching while making conversations. Soon, the day of the presentation arrived and you were waiting for your turn backstage and that you were freaking out was an understatement. What if you’re not good enough and you got eliminated on the first day?

“I know what you’re doing and you should stop.” Tom called from behind you and he could see the uneasy rise and fall of your chest, and uneven breathing caused by anxiety.

“I’m really nervous.” You blushed and he took your hands, pulling you to a private corner. “Tom, what are you doing.”

“Come on, breath with me. It’s a little thing my mom used to do with me before I went on stage when I was Billy Elliot.” He used two fingers to gently close your eyelids. “Okay, take one hand in my chest and try to sync our breaths.” He started to slowly breathe deeply and you trusted him, syncing your breaths and slowly calming down. “Feeling better?”

“Much better.”

“We can do this okay? We were awesome during rehearsals and everyone’s gonna love it. Just pretend it’s only you and me out there, no one around and judging us. And even if we don’t get through today, it would have already been worth the experience because you’re awesome and I loved meeting you.”

“Yeah, me too.” You smiled at him and he pulled you to wait for your names.

When they finally called you onto the stage, you were pretty sure you were going to faint. You looked at Tom and boy, he knew how to send a message with his eyes, a comforting one. You nodded and the music started to play. Everything went according to rehearsals and the presentation was absolutely flawless. You were really nervous, but you did what he said, pretended it was only you and him up there and it just worked. By the end of the night, you had the highest score.

“Told you we would be awesome.” He winked and you chuckled. “I’ll see you Monday for rehearsal.”

“See ya’ Tom. Get some rest for another long hard-work week.”

“Will do, ma’am.” He removed an invisible hat and gestured to you.

“Idiot.” You laughed and walked away to get your car to go home.

You crushed it in the following weeks, always scoring high and taking everyone’s breath away with your dances. While you kicked some as with your moves, you got much closer to each other. You knew every movie he was going to be in and swore some secrecy, you knew a lot about his family and how much he cared about them, and you knew his favourite foods and tea flavours, even if you don’t like tea. Tom knew every project you were or was going to be involved, he knew that it was your dream to have a dance academy someday and that you loved musicals more than anything. You were really starting to be fond of each other and week after week made it clear that it was going to be hard to let it go once it was over.

“Morning.” You said mouth stuffed with a donut and your free hand having trouble to hold everything in place.

“Morning.” He chuckled to see you having trouble to carry your stuff and rushed to help you with your things. “Clumsy.”

“I am late.” You said and he frowned.

“There’s still half an hour before we schedule our rehearsals.”

“I know, but we agreed to always arrive earlier to do our little thing.” He nodded with a grin and glanced down to your donut.

“That smells really good.”

“Do you want a piece? I didn’t have another one, I got is as a gift from my friend.” You offered putting your donut ahead of you.

“Maybe just a bit.” He leaned forward and took a big bit at it, making you chocked.

“You said just a bit.” He laughed and shrugged.

“My mouth is just too big. Come on, we’re still doing our little dance before we start rehearsing. You still need to teach me how to dance the tango.”

“Yeah, there’s a pretty good chance we get eliminated this week because I suck with tango.”

But you still made until the next week, and the one after that, you managed to go all the way to the finals. By that time you were already really close, you spent so many weeks together and rehearsing non-stop, doing your little bonding before the cameras were recording you. It was so clear how your chemistry was so good and you were absolutely loving it and you might even be falling for him, which in your head was stupid, because Tom was a celebrity, maybe after all of this is over he won’t even remember you. Though there were some small things that always made you think otherwise and your heart would beat faster. On the last day of rehearsing, you arrived early like always, except that this time it was a little bit earlier than usual because Tom asked you to. You were surprised to find the boy with a full box of donuts, your usual coffee order and his tea.

“Tom, what’s this about?”

“A little thank you to the best dancer in the world.” He shrugged and you opened a wide smile.

“Thank you, this is amazing.” You hugged him truly thankful for what he did to you.

“Also, it’s my way to say I’m sorry for the big bite on that donut once.” He said in your ear and it made you blush, thank God he couldn’t see your face.

“Come on, let’s eat.”

You finished the whole box together and had a lot of fun talking about random things such as the many experiences you had in life, during high school, college or any part to be honest. It was always nice to get to know him a little better, it felt like you got closer with every word said.

“We still have one last dance before rehearsing.” He reminded and you nodded.

“You choose the song today.” He nodded and started to go through his playlist.

“What about this one?” A song started to play and you could swear your heart skipped a beat when you noticed it was a slow song and a pretty romantic one.

“I don’t know man. Can’t help falling in love is a pretty cliché love song.” You started and he chuckled.

“But I like this one. It’s really pretty.”

“Yeah, it is.” You smiled when you saw him approaching. “C’mere Holland, one last song.”

You pulled him closer, taking his hand with yours and the other one resting on his shoulder. He rested the other remaining one in your waist. He started to slowly sway you side to side and you both couldn’t get the stupid smiles off your face. Also, you didn’t dare to say a word, afraid it would ruin the moment. You prefered to just get lost in those pretty lyrics and each other eyes. Along the weeks you danced to all sorts of songs, but this one was definitely different, much more intimate. Eventually, he let go of your hand and joined his other hand on your waist. You rested your head on his chest, taking him much into a hug. Another slow song started to play, and another after that one and you just danced to every one of them, because it would be too painful to let each other go. By the end of the third song, you were interrupted by the shooting team, making you blush hard and just skip your stretching and go-ahead to work together. It was one of your best days of rehearsing so far because you were extremely connected and it all worked out just fine.

Well, you were always nervous about going on stage and presenting your dance, but today was even worse. You woke up feeling anxious and it didn’t go away. You made it really far and you were afraid that you were gonna lose it on finals. Tom didn’t like to admit it, but he was nervous as well, the kind of nervous that he didn’t even want to eat anything. You notice it on each other eyes the moment you got to the studio to get ready.

“We’re gonna be fine.” He said and you nodded. “But I’m also a little nervous. I wanna win this so bad!”

“Me too!” You admitted and he looked at you with concern. “At least it’s gonna be you and me together out there dancing one last time.”

“You’re terribly mistaken if you think that’s the last time we’re gonna dance together.” He laughed and you frowned. “Come on, you’re the best dance partner I’ve ever had, I’m not letting you go this easily.”

“I’m always gonna be here to dance with you.” He hugged you and kissed the top of your head, something he had never done before and it got you surprised.

“I’m gonna get ready. I’ll see you soon.” He waved and rushed to his dressing room.

By the time you got to the side of the stage, you were trembling and you could just vomit right there. You wanted to run and don’t do this, but as soon as you felt hands holding your arm and pulling you softly to your corner, you already relaxed a little, at least you didn’t think about running away right now.

“Hey.” He smiled and fixed one stray of your hair. “You look so beautiful today. I really loved this dress.”

“Thank you.” You blushed and slightly lowered your head. “I think I want to throw up.”

“You’re still too nervous.” You nodded and Tom chuckled, taking your hands. “Remember the exercise we did on the first day? It really helped, right?” You nodded again and he pulled off your hands into his chest, resting his on top of yours. “Darling, close your eyes and try to focus on my breathing.” You did as he told but for a second it wasn’t helping. He leaned in and glued your foreheads together. You relaxed instantly and your breathing started to even out. When he noticed you were less nervous, he pulled you into his chest and hugged you again.

“Thank you.” You mumbled against his chest and he pulled you onto the stage.

The stage was dark at first and you positioned yourself right next to him. You searched for his eyes in the dark and he comforted you in the best way possible, even searching for your hand to give it a squeeze, making you feel much more confident. Your performance was flawless, like every other one you have done. But this one was extremely special because you got to do it the way you wanted it to be and you totally killed it, getting the highest score of the season and making you both win. When they announced your names, you and Tom were thrilled. He looked so amazing under those lights and a big smile on his face, you could just kiss him right there. After a long time commemorating it on stage, you both got out of there together, he hugged you and started to spin you around.

“I can’t believe we did it.” You mumbled and he nodded excitedly.

“We’re fucking amazing. Just wait a minute.” He said and rushed away to get something on his dressing room, coming back with a huge bouquet of red roses, hiding his pretty face. You eyes watered to see it and your mouth fell into a perfect O.

“Oh my God.” You mouthed, still a little shocked about it. He gave it for you to hold it and you were now fully crying about it. You got many flowers all over the years after your presentations, but this was the biggest bouquet you ever got and it was so beautiful.

“Did you like it?” He asked, a little nervous about your response.

“I loved it so much. Thank you, Tom.” You hugged him with one of your arms, truly happy about it. “This is the most beautiful bouquet anyone ever got me.”

“I remembered one conversation we had and you said you loved to get bouquets after presentations. I thought I could make this one very special.”

“You just made my whole day.” Your eyes were still watering, but you were so happy you could explode.

“(Y/N), can I kiss you?” He asked and you wiped your tears from your eyes.

“Of course, you idiot.” He took you into his arms and closed the gap between you too, giving you the sweetest kiss of all time. You were so happy about everything that happened that night and that kiss was enough to settle it with one of the best nights of your life.

“I want to be around to see every new conquest you achieve, and I want to be there with a big bouquet in the end. Any flower you want to. I wanna be there for your musicals, for every single one of your presentations, for when you open that academy you dream of.” He said it with such adoration in his eyes that your heart melted. “I really like you, (Y/N). Please let me take you on a date.”

“Yes! It’s everything I’ve wanted for a while.” He kissed you again and even lifted you slightly off the ground, having a little hard time because of the bouquet.

“Come on, let’s go celebrate our victory with our family and friends.”

“And then dinner.”

“Anything you want. I’m all yours.”

“And I’m yours.”

…………………

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lovelylogans · 5 years

Text

cohabit

or: five times someone has mentioned that virgil has, effectively, moved in with patton, one time virgil notices, and what virgil does about that.

part of the wyliwf verse.

the sideshire files | read my other fics | coffee?

warnings: food mentions, mentions of something that could be a panic attack, allusions to sex (lying in a bed together partially unclothed, that’s as graphic as it gets), miscommunication, deceit mention, let me know if i’ve missed any!

pairings: moxiety, logince

words: 10,869

notes: me, looking at the tentative, private schedule i made for this series and then at the date i’m posting this: whoops. whoops. wHOOPS—

virgil’s facing a dilemma.

see, he’s got a tray in his hands. and usually, he’s pretty good at carrying a tray one-handed, but this one’s different than the one he’s used to, so the way the weight distributes is strange, and he really doesn’t wanna risk swapping to one handed. but, if he doesn’t swap to one-handed, he’s going to have to get pretty creative right now, and—oh, wait, he can get creative. that’s pretty easy.

virgil shuffles a little, to be sure he doesn’t accidentally knock anything over, and bends over slowly to press a kiss to patton’s curls, just barely visible over the covers.

“good morning,” he murmurs, and patton makes a grumbling noise, looking close to hiding under the blankets until the sun actually rises. virgil kisses him again, on the forehead, this time, and patton peeks out from under the blankets, squinting at virgil blearily.

“morning, sunshine,” virgil teases. “um—happy anniversary.”

patton visibly softens, some of the inherent “awake ugh why” grouchiness fading from his eyes. “honey,” he says softly, and squirms a little so he can sit up some.

“here, let me—hold your hands out, just in case?” virgil says, and patton does, obligingly. virgil does keep his hands on the tray until he knows patton’s got it steady, though—over the past seventeen years generally, and the past year especially he’s seen how clumsy a just-woken-up, pre-caffeinated patton can be.

patton settles the tray on his lap, and smiles up at virgil—even now, it’s still kind of weird to see patton without his glasses on, but virgil still loves that smile, that face, glasses or no glasses.

“you made me breakfast in bed?” patton asks, grinning.

“yeah,” virgil says. “i mean—i wanted to do something since we’re both working up until dinner tonight, so, i mean—”

patton’s peering at the plate—the pancakes, the bacon, the fresh fruit, the mug of hot cocoa/coffee with a carafe for refilling beside it—and virgil keeps going, because, well.

“—so i just figured i could, you know. make you breakfast. like usual. it’s, um, i know it’s not a huge thing, i just—“

“virgil,” patton says, beaming, and virgil ducks his head. “thank you.”

“it’s—well, you’re welcome,” virgil says, “but i, um, i know it’s not a lot, and—”

“i love it,” patton says, and, as if to prove his point, he picks up his mug of hot cocoa/coffee and takes a sip.

“i—well, i mean, thanks, but, um, it’s—i mean, it’s only a little outside of the ordinary, it’s not really anything special—”

“the pancakes are in the shape of hearts,” patton says—the same mushy, sappy tone he uses whenever he sees a really cute kitten or a baby or something.

“i—well, i mean, yeah, it’s not really hard, you just put the batter in a bottle and—”

“virge?”

“yeah?”

“i know we don’t usually kiss when one of us has got death breath,” patton says. “but i really wanna kiss you right now.”

virgil considers this. he says, “take a drink of hot cocoa/coffee?”

patton, grinning, takes a big gulp, before setting the mug aside and puckering his lips in a blatant invitation for a kiss. virgil smiles at him, unable to help himself, and leans forward to press his lips against patton’s.

by now, kissing patton is familiar—something that a year, a week, and a day ago would have been a secret daydream of his, something that couldn’t have possibly been real—he’d always thought that he’d be pining from afar, that he’d always be waiting, that this would never actually happen.

and now—a year, a week, and a day later—it’s familiar, true, but it’s no less exciting, kissing patton. virgil’s always been a fan of routine, of things being normal, and honestly, just the fact that kissing patton is normal now is still enough to make his heart race.

patton’s lips curve up—virgil can feel it—and patton flops back against the pillows again, smiling up at him.

“i’ve never really had breakfast in bed before, you know,” patton says cheerfully, as virgil goes over to the closet, digging out one of his purple flannels from where they’re nestled between patton’s sweaters, and tossing it on over his black t-shirt. “i mean, logan did for father’s day, when he was about five or six, but he made me two slices of toast and then brought an entire jar of crofter’s and mostly used it as an excuse to try and eat the whole thing.”

“well, i’m happy i did this, then,” virgil says decisively, crosses back to the bed, and pushes some of patton’s sleep-mussed hair out of his face. he kisses him on the forehead again. “do you need anything else?”

“nope,” patton says, popping the p.

“all right,” virgil says. “i’m going to work, then. i know you’ve got that meeting with the people from that writer convention thing, so it’ll probably be sookie’s for lunch, but—”

“dinner,” patton says, smiling.

“meet back at home at six, yeah?” virgil says absently, straightening his collar.

patton’s smile grows even bigger—virgil isn’t really sure why, but he sure isn’t complaining.

“yeah,” patton says, soft, and almost shy, and virgil can’t resist going back for another kiss before he goes to work.

“looking forward to it,” he murmurs against patton’s lips, and patton splays his hand on virgil’s cheek, moving back enough so that virgil can see his eyes—bright, excited, happy.

“me too.”

...

“which one?”

virgil and logan both glance up—virgil, from tying his shoes, logan, from his latest copies of the courant and the franklin that he’s marking up with a red pen—and virgil’s jaw drops, just a little.

patton looks spectacular. he’s in a tailored black suit, in a crisp white shirt, with an open waistcoat, as he’s holding up two ties for inspection—a tie, in that sky blue color that’s always been his favorite, and a navy-and-pink patterned bowtie.

“patton,” virgil begins, voice soft.

“do not get mushy around me, it’s bad enough that i had to deal with him going all lovesick over breakfast,” logan says without looking up, and patton makes a face at logan. virgil presses his lips together to hide his smile.

there’s a stretch of silence. logan sighs loudly, as if truly impressing upon them how much of his time they’re taking up, and patton helpfully clears his throat.

“so?” he says, and logan sighs again. he gives the options a cursory glance.

“tie.”

patton grins, setting the bowtie on the table before he flips up his collar and slides the tie into place, carefully measuring the ends before he starts to tie it.

“okay, so,” patton says, distracted slightly by his tie. virgil’s only a little disappointed that he’s talking while he does, because sometimes when patton ties a tie he pokes his tongue out a little in concentration, and it’s very adorable. “i put a magnet over a twenty on the fridge, and i want evidence that you spent it on food, and that you took a break to eat that food. i know finals are coming up, but that doesn’t mean you have to power through dinner, you can take forty-five minutes to let your brain breathe a little. um, takeout menus are in the drawer, we’ll be home arooound... virgil, what time are we gonna be back?”

“i dunno, nine, maybe?” virgil guesses. “ten at latest?”

“right, yeah,” patton says, straightening the tie and tweaking the knot, one last time. “do you want anything from the restaurant, too? we can bring home dessert.”

“sure,” logan says absently, attention already reabsorbed by the papers—his english books and a stack of post-its looking like the next in line for his studying focus.

“remember to take that break,” patton says, semi-sternly, before making sure that he’s got his wallet and the keys.

“right,” logan says, frowning thoughtfully at a page before digging out his battered, post-it-noted, scrawled-over copy of the ap style guide.

“logan, what did i say?” patton says.

“remember to take a break,” logan grumbles.

“good,” patton says, and crosses the room to kiss logan on the head. logan makes a noise of complaint. “we’ll be back later.”

“no sneak coffee,” virgil adds, as patton crosses the room. virgil automatically offers patton his arm, and patton, grinning, takes it. “and try to get one vegetable with dinner, okay?”

logan hums and waves a hand at them dismissively. virgil takes that as their cue to go—patton darts ahead to open the door for virgil with a little flourish.

“bye, logan!” patton calls. “eight!”

“sixteen,” floats in from the living room, and patton shuts the door, locking it behind them, before taking virgil’s arm again.

"he’s gonna study through dinner, isn’t he?” patton says.

"probably,” virgil says. “i mean, we can text him a reminder, or something.”

patton sighs a little, before opening the car door for virgil, too. virgil slides into the driver’s seat, immediately turning the car on—the sooner they can get the heat going, the better—and patton hops into the passenger’s seat, slamming the car door and shivering exaggeratedly.

“it’s not as snowy as last winter,” patton says, “but jeez, is it cold.”

“i know,” virgil agrees. “here, gimme your hands.”

"i’ll hand ‘em over,” patton jokes, and virgil laughs.

patton and virgil swap off on the whole ‘who-has-cold-appendages-because-of-our-terrible-circulation’ thing. on any given night, one of them, if not both of them, will attempt to press their icy feet into each other’s calves to try and warm up, or slip frigid fingers under shirts. it gets even worse in the winter—the pair of them always wrapped up in blankets and snuggled all night, like a burrito that would leave at least one of them sweaty and overheated at some point—so this is routine by now, too.

virgil wraps up patton’s hands in both of his, and patton sighs softly, wiggling his fingers just a little. patton’s hands aren’t the coldest they’ve ever been, but they sure aren’t a normal temperature, either—and virgil will happily let patton leech his body heat if it makes him feel more comfortable.

“so,” virgil says. “how was work?”

patton makes a face. “i got called in for a ‘can-i-speak-to-your-manager’ today.”

virgil groans sympathetically—ugh, the worst. the people of sideshire tend to recognize the patterns of pricing and accept them (well, except for taylor) but the main problem was when visitors came to town, and since it was so close to the holidays, it meant more and more talk-to-the-manager moments.

“something about a discount, i guess?” patton says, and the corner of his mouth turns down. “even though we’d already offered him the one we’ve got, and he kept going on and on and on about price matching, or something—”

“even though you don’t do that?”

“right,” patton says emphatically. “i mean, as far as the only inn in town goes, and even then, we’re pretty cheap considering the relative area, it was just. ugh. ya know?”

“i know,” virgil says, and squeezes his hands. “sorry about that.”

“oh, it turned out okay,” patton says. “eventually i asked him to pull up the price he wanted us to match and proved my point, but it was just... ugh. seeing his face when he realized our price was lower in the first place was pretty funny, though. enough to make up for it. he left without a word after that.”

“good,” virgil murmurs, and kisses the tips of patton’s fingers. “warmed up?”

“uh-huh,” patton says, and grins at him. “thanks.”

virgil smiles back, regretfully releases patton’s hands, and starts to drive.

patton keeps talking as they drive, and park, and walk out of the car and into the restaurant, about the lull between the two influxes of holiday visitors, and about sookie, and michel.

it’s a fancy, richard-and-emily-recommended place. when he and patton had mentioned it was part of their plans in the coming couple of weeks to go out to dinner for their anniversary, emily and richard had both fallen over themselves trying to recommend somewhere, even though they hadn’t really asked for a place to go. virgil figures it’s a good sign that they want virgil and patton’s anniversary to go well, so they’ve taken their advice, and made a reservation, and promised to tell emily and richard what they thought of the place the next time they’re all at dinner.

virgil’s still chuckling to himself a little, about a story about sookie going moony-eyed over some good persimmons, when they walk into the restaurant, and he immediately cuts himself off.

well, he isn’t really sure what he’d expected when this place is endorsed by the elder sanders’. it’s a place that’s low-lit, each table offered a smidgen more illumination by a candle atop the pristine white tablecloths. the customers are all in finery that makes virgil a bit grateful that he’d decided to bust out his suit for this. waiters sweep along at a coordinated speed that virgil, practiced in the profession, envies a little bit. it’s all a bit eerily quiet under the live piano music.

“hi,” patton says to the host, polite and soft, “reservation for sanders?”

he checks the guestbook, nods, and says, “table or two?”

“yes,” and the host gathers up menus in his arms.

“right this way, gentlemen.”

they sit at the table. patton shifts, just a little bit, and they both thank the waiter when he drops off menus.

menus that are, um.... well. well, virgil’s in the food industry, so it’s not like he’s the world’s biggest expert on food, but he knows a pretty fair amount, really.

what he does not know, however, is french. after a few minutes, during which a patton-selected (virgil wouldn’t be shocked if it was also, somehow, an emily-selected) bottle of wine arrives at the table, he doesn’t magically absorb the language, either.

he leans across the table, and, in a whisper, asks, “what the fuck is poitevin?”

patton giggles, attracting Looks from the rest of the near-silent diners around them, and immediately quiets down. virgil glowers in their direction.

“no idea,” patton whispers, and consults the menu. “i mean, it’s paired with a baguette, right? baguettes are good.”

“you went to fancy rich people school, do you know french?” virgil asks in the same whisper.

“not a bit,” patton says in a cheerful undertone.

virgil grimaces, just a little. “great. how many dirty looks am i gonna get if i get out my phone and try to translate this?”

“if you don’t, i will,” patton says, and so they dig out their phones together.

virgil pulls a face when he manages to translate the first item on the menu.

“you’ll hate the, um... rouille de seiche? it’s got squid.”

“oh, ick, thanks for the heads up,” patton murmurs back. “um, the ratatouille’s gotta be good, right? disney wouldn’t lie to us.”

virgil snorts, and then hunches his shoulders when he sees someone swivel in his direction, as if to ask who would dare make such an undignified noise in a place of such high repute.

patton scowls fiercely in their direction, until they turn away from their table, and then looks around the restaurant and lowers his voice.

“virge?”

“yeah?”

“i’ll leave enough money on the table plus a tip if you can figure out the fastest and least noticeable way for us to escape right now.”

virgil grins, a little. “enough money?”

“well, even if this place full of people who seem to hate the sound of happiness, the wine’s pretty good,” patton admits, and virgil’s grin widens.

“yeah, all right,” he says. “we’ll finish off these glasses and while we’re doing that—” he leans forward to whisper. “i’ll figure out a way for us ditch.”

patton beams at him.

a few minutes spent observing the waiters, looking covertly around the room, and two hastily-gulped glasses of wine later, patton dug out his wallet and casually set enough money to cover the wine on his plate, visible to their waiter. virgil stands, buttoning his jacket, and patton snatches the bottle of wine, hiding it, before blinking up at virgil with big, innocent eyes, as if the very obvious shape of a wine bottle wasn’t bulging from under his jacket.

virgil’s lip twitches, and patton’s grin grows bigger, which makes virgil smile, and patton grabs virgil’s hand with his free one and virgil tugs him along and they both start giggling before they’re even halfway close to the door that virgil’s spied in the corner, virgil snickering and pulling patton along behind him as they basically end up giving up any semblance of being proper, rigid adults they’ve got and make a run for it.

they securely lock themselves in the car, patton wheezing out “drive drive drive!” between his laughs as he fumblingly stashes the wine somewhere safe. virgil, snickering all the while, manages it—they end up a block away before he pulls into a mostly empty parking lot for some pharmacy.

"oh, my god, i can’t believe we did that,” patton says, and bursts into giggles. “oh, my god, imelda morton was there, she’s gonna tattle to mom so fast, and—”

patton can’t keep talking from all the sniggering, and virgil laughs with him.

“disney wouldn’t lie to us!” virgil mimicks patton, who shrieks with delight even as he swats teasingly at virgil’s arm.

“you went to fancy rich people school, do you know french?” patton teases right back. “you know full well i’m a high school dropout!”

“oh my god, i can’t believe we actually thought somewhere with a name neither of us could really pronounce would be somewhere we’d actually like,” virgil says.

patton flops back against his seat, still grinning, and turns his head to look at virgil, eyes twinkling and smiling brightly and curls tousled up, even though he’d tried to get them in order in anticipation of going somewhere fancy, and virgil—

virgil catches patton’s hand, and presses his lips to it, smiling. god, he’s so stupidly in love, he’s so thankful, he’s so—

“what’s that face?” patton asks softly.

“m’happy, is all,” virgil mumbles against patton’s hand. patton wiggles his fingers, and virgil lets go of it. patton’s palm rests against his cheek, and virgil leans into it—it feels like his heart will explode from how absurdly besotted he is. “i’m just—i’m just really happy.”

patton’s face softens, and he smiles at virgil—a gentle, soft, smile that’s so emotionally expressive that it kind of makes virgil want to cry, a little—and leans forward a little. the distant lights of the street lamps and the glow of the dashboard play prettily off the curves of his face, catching a curl here, lighting up his eyes there. he’s so beautiful, so wonderful, and virgil is so lucky.

“me too,” patton whispers. “i’m happy, too. and i’m happy that you’re happy, and i’m happy that we’re happy, and can i just kiss you now?”

virgil nods so energetically that his hair flops into his eyes, and patton giggles—virgil loves his laugh, he loves it—before patton pushes his hair back into place, and leans forward.

patton tastes like wine, tart and fruity, and his lips are warm and soft and a little bit wet, like he’d just snuck a swig of wine, or licked his lips. patton exhales softly, and virgil’s lips part easily. he shivers, just slightly, just a little, when patton’s tongue makes a very welcome appearance.

“love you,” patton sighs, “love you, love you—”

“love you too,” virgil murmurs, and kisses him once more, almost chaste, before he pulls back. even as close as they are, and how dark their surroundings are, he can still see that patton pouts, just a little.

“so,” virgil says. “now that we’ve run away from our main plan from our anniversary, do we have any other ideas?”

“other than making out in the back of the car like teenagers?” patton quips.

“i’ve never made out with someone in the back of a car,” virgil admits.

“you what,” patton says, incredulous. “that’s, like, a formative romantic experience!”

“i just—!” virgil says. “i never really—i mean, i didn’t really date much when i was a teenager, so by the time i started, you know, dating-dating, i had my own apartment, and—”

“unbelievable,” patton says. “next you’re going to tell me that you’ve never played spin-the-bottle.”

“nope,” virgil says.

“what?!” patton demands.

“sorry my life isn’t a corny teen movie,” virgil says.

“but you had a briefly rebellious phase, i know you did!” patton says. “you never made out in the back of the car?! never drunkenly played spin the bottle?!”

“my teenage rebellious phase was nothing like your teenage rebellious phase,” virgil says. “we, you know. spray painted walls and listened to loud emo music and threw rocks at cars, stuff like that.”

“well, i know the later half of your teenage years weren’t like mine,” patton jokes. “no baby, after all.”

“nah, no kid,” virgil says. “other than the two i’ve somehow managed to adopt.”

patton beams at him, before he claps his hands, once. “okay, so, new plan. i see there’s a pizza place over there. we’ll go and get a carryout order, plus two plastic glasses, and park at the car somewhere close to home so we won’t be drinking and driving, and then we eat and drink our fancy french wine and i introduce you to the rite of passage that is making out in the back of a car. sound good?”

honestly, patton could have said anything—we’re going to find the nearest river and jump in, even though it’s below freezing, or we’re going to go back and deep-clean the whole house, actually—and virgil would have been absolutely down to do it, as long as he was with patton.

“sounds perfect,” virgil says honestly.

so they go in and order a pizza for them to split, and another pizza, a dozen cupcakes (”we said we’d bring back stuff for logan!” patton says, as if he thinks virgil doesn’t know full well that patton will probably eat the majority of the cupcakes) and they lift a couple plastic cups that they hand out for water, for their wine. patton makes some small-talk with the cashier, who now knows that it’s their anniversary, and patton now knows that he’s a nursing student who works nights to save up for his degree.

“you two might have a lot of leftovers,” the cashier cautions, as virgil wins out the rock-paper-scissors battle of who pays this time. “these come pretty big, so i hope you’ve cleared out your fridge.”

“we’ll make enough space for it,” virgil says, handing over his card.

“he’s good at fridge management,” patton adds. virgil grins, as if this is an incredibly high comment that patton’s paid him—honestly, from his tone, it seems like it is.

“well, have a nice meal, and have a nice anniversary,” the cashier says, handing over their various boxes. “and get home safe!”

“thanks, we will!” patton says brightly.

they do—they park the car in one of the parking lots for one of sideshire’s parks that’s easily walking distance from the house. virgil leaves on the car enough to keep the heat on, and patton turns on the radio at a low level, on a station that’s playing classic christmas music in anticipation for the holiday, so virgil tries to negotiate the best way to balance the pizza box on the center console to operate as a table for their slices and their plastic cups of wine as bing crosby croons about being home for christmas in the background.

at last, virgil manages it, and patton proffers the wine bottle with a flourish.

“and now,” virgil says, equally dramatic, “we partake in our recommended pairing of—” he squints at the label, “domaine de cristia grenache with a lovely pepperoni pizza—or margherita, i don’t know which one you’re trying first—just watch how the flavor of the wine develops when introduced to the plastic—”

patton rolls his eyes, smiling sweetly, and says “bad jokes are my thing” as he passes over virgil’s plastic cup of wine before pouring his own.

“your jokes aren’t bad,” virgil says. “they’re...”

“like a pun-ishment?” patton quips.

“i take it back,” virgil says, chuckling despite himself. “that one was bad.”

“cheers, then,” patton says, and smiles wider. “to a whole year of you being romantic with me, even with all my bad jokes. happy anniversary.”

“and here’s to many more,” virgil murmurs, and taps the rim of his cup against patton’s, before he takes a sip. “happy anniversary.”

patton beams at him.

(when virgil and patton sneak back into the house, ties a little askew from the time patton’s spent initiating virgil in the arts of spin the bottle and making out in the backseat of a car, after having finished the whole bottle of their fancy wine, the pair of them shushing each other and giggling, logan rolls his eyes from where he sits in his room at the top of the stairs. he’ll go down for his dessert and a sneak cup of coffee later.)

(no, he’s not smiling and a little sappy and just generally happy that his parents dad and virgil are happy. he isn’t.)

(well. maybe he is, a little. but he isn’t about to tell anyone.)

...

"hey, man, merry christmas,” christopher says, and goes in for a hug. virgil, a little confused, just kind of weathers it. they’ve met once. but then again, this man was once patton’s best friend. maybe he’s a hugger, too.

this is also just kind of a weird situation. since patton is stuck at work, and logan is busy at the courant mostly out of stubbornness, it means virgil’s the only person who’s available to pick christopher up at the airport and drive him back to sideshire in anticipation of the christmas celebration. so. hugs it is, virgil guesses. why not.

christopher draws back, with a few strong thumps to virgil’s back, and virgil coughs a little.

“merry christmas,” virgil says. “uh, how was your flight?”

“bit bumpy, but all right,” he says. “how’re our boys?”

virgil smiles, a little, unable to help himself. “logan’s driving rudy crazy at the courant now that he’s free of Finals Prep Time, and patton’s—well, patton’s patton. he’s, um. he’s great.”

“good, good,” christopher says, and points. “that your car?”

“yeah, can i, um—d’you have any luggage?”

christopher shakes his head, jerks his thumb toward his backpack. “traveling light,” he quips.

“right, then,” virgil says, and they both go to the car. virgil mentally runs through the lists he’s prepared of Okay conversation topics, Maybe Let’s Not Go There conversation topics, and I’m Desperately Curious But Under Threat Of Death I Will Not Ask You About It conversation topics.

the last topic, admittedly, has mostly to do with young, rebellious patton, which he’s heard a few stories about and feels like he half wants to know more, half knows he’ll want to go and give patton a really long hug after hearing anything about it, so.

“so, how’s california?” is virgil’s first relatively safe conversational softball.

“sunny,” christopher says. “dry. you know, the usual.”

some more silence.

“how’d you mean, finals prep time?” christopher says.

“oh, you know,” virgil says. “smart kid like logan, he always goes a bit, um, study-crazy at the end of the semester. wants to keep his grades up, that kind of thing.”

“‘course he will,” christopher says breezily. “he’ll have his pick of colleges, just you wait.”

“i agree, but that’s a conversational landmine, just so you know,” virgil says.

“yeah?”

“logan’s trying to pick what he wants to do, and getting all his applications in order even though it’s months before he has to apply,” virgil says. “and patton’s happy for him, he is, but he’s also gearing up for the emotions that’ll happen when logan leaves, and emily and richard—“

“oh, god, say no more,” christopher grimaces. “if they’re anything like they were back then—let me guess, they’re pushing yale all the way?”

“they’re pushing yale all the way,” virgil confirms. “so. bring up college at your own risk.”

“noted,” christopher says, making a little ticking motion in the air with his finger like he’s actually writing it down, which reminds virgil, strangely, of logan.

“anyway,” virgil says. “he’s pretty sure he’s done well, and he’s, you know, logan. so.”

christopher nods. virgil moves on to the next topic.

“got any plans while you’re here, other than the sanders christmas extravaganza?” virgil says.

christopher hesitates, just for a moment, but it’s long enough that something in virgil’s brain seizes on it. he’s about to ask, before christopher says, “this is your first sanders family christmas, isn’t it?”

virgil lets it go. “yeah,” virgil says. “i mean, we did new year’s and we split thanksgiving between my family and his, and we did patton’s birthday there and something for logan’s, but—first christmas.”

“so you know how the holiday thing goes there,” christopher says, and he sounds distracted. “cool. good. picked out a present?”

“logan and patton did.”

“probably the best choice,” christopher says. “last year, they got me baccarat candlesticks. i mean, sure, they’re fancy, but what am i gonna do with golden candlesticks, you know?”

“yeah,” virgil says, and thinks about patton’s kitschy decor and how fancy things would clash with its coziness and—oh, god, they’re not gonna try and get him something fancy, are they? is he expected to get them an individual gift? he’ll have to ask patton about it. if he’s supposed to get them something, what on earth should he get—?!

“what did you end up doing with them?” virgil asks, instead of thinking about all that.

“traded ‘em,” christopher admits. “which i can get away with because they’re probably never going to come out to visit me in california. you two have got to worry about emily and richard coming to visit, so you’ve got less of a chance of getting away with that.”

“true,” virgil says grudgingly. even though the majority of the time, they meet at the elder sanders’ house, they still come to sideshire sometimes, so they can’t really risk selling it or something. maybe they could put it somewhere out of the way? table in the front hall, maybe. evident enough that they saw it when they walked into the house, but out of sight the rest of the time.

“so,” virgil says, doubling back, “any advice on how to handle a very sanders christmas?”

...

no advice could have really prepared him for this.

granted, virgil’s been coming over to sanders dinners on and off for a year now—once or twice a month, usually, with work and everything—but every time he still feels... well, he just feels out of place, that’s all. the most fancy dressing-up stuff virgil would do when he was growing up was when his family would go to church on christmas and easter, and never really dressed up much outside that. his family was firmly a pajamas-early-morning-christmas kind of family—they’d all thunder down the stairs as soon as his parents had checked that santa had come, and make cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and spend the rest of the day making dinner and playing with their toys and listening to christmas music and just having general family time.

true, the sanders household in sideshire was very much a pajamas-christmas kind of household. logan was too old to really run around in his pajamas and jump on their bed to wake them up at five in the morning, for which virgil was grateful, but they still got up early and exchanged presents and drank coffee and ate cinnamon rolls. ms. prince and roman had even stopped by sometime in the afternoon, between celebrating christmas themselves and the showing of the nutcracker that happens on christmas day. christopher and ms. prince had kind of seemed like they were at an eternal impasse, conversation-wise, but it went mostly okay. virgil’s still kind of in shock that patton’s allowed to call her ‘isadora,’ now that their sons are dating.

the elder sanders household, on the other hand...

“your tie is fine,” patton scolds him gently as they get out of the car. virgil grimaces, and drops his hands from where he’d been adjusting it for the five millionth time.

“you’re sure i shouldn’t have gotten them something?” virgil checks.

“positive,” patton says firmly. "take a deep breath, okay?”

virgil does as he says. granted, they’re here a bit earlier than normal, because virgil ended up volunteering to make dinner, somehow, so he has the safe haven of the kitchen to duck into if he needs space.

however, this also means they’ll be here for longer than normal. so.

christopher volunteers to carry presents, so virgil offers patton his arm and they fall into step behind logan and chris, approaching their imposing front door.

emily has started therapy, in a move that was, frankly, shocking to virgil. she and patton fight less, which is good in virgil’s book.

however, emily wouldn’t be emily if she wasn’t so... well. emily.

“logan, christopher!” emily says warmly, and logan tolerates her hug with his usual stiffness. “merry christmas, come in, come in... hello, patton. virgil.”

“merry christmas, mom,” patton says, accepting her hug with enthusiasm.

“emily,” virgil says. “merry christmas.”

emily doesn’t move to hug him, and he doesn’t move to hug her. they have a mutual understanding, really.

“ah, virgil, christopher!” richard says merrily. “logan, patton, hello—come in, come in, the both of you, christopher, would you like a martini, old boy...?”

the conversation fades as the rest of them file into the living room, and virgil hangs back.

“i’ll come find you soon, yeah?” patton says, and leans up to kiss him on the cheek.

“get them out of the awkward small talk discussion zone for me,” virgil says in an undertone, tilting his cheek a little so patton has better access. patton kisses it, and squeezes his arm, and heads for the door—which his mother is holding open.

“virgil,” emily says, then, “you know where the kitchen is.”

“i do,” virgil says, and she gives him a little nod before stepping more fully into the living room, and virgil goes to the kitchen.

it’s a well-stocked kitchen, with top-of-the-line appliances and cookware. virgil’s been in kitchens for as long as he can remember, so it’s not as overwhelming as the rest of the house can be, sometimes, but it’s still, well. it’s still aggressively elder-sanders-ian, in that upper-society, best-of-everything way, not quite like his utilitarian, cook-for-the-masses kitchen in the diner, or the cozy confines of patton’s, or even the familiarity of the kitchen in the house he’d grown up in or the apartment.

but, well. it’s a kitchen. and virgil knows his way around a kitchen, no matter how high-class. even if it’s williams sonoma and alessi and le creuset, a spatula’s a spatula, and a pot’s a pot, and a pan’s a pan. the knives are sharp, the ingredients fresh, and the recipes long-since memorized, so virgil settles into a rhythm of letting dough rise and preheating ovens and chopping up vegetables and cracking eggs and making sure the stove is warm and—

a soft couple knocks at the door, and virgil looks up, fully expecting patton, or maybe logan, but—

“virgil, old boy,” richard says. “would you like some punch?”

“oh,” virgil says, a little startled, and wipes his hands on the dish towel he’s slung over his shoulder to accept the cut-crystal glass. “um, sure. thank you, richard.”

“it smells delightful,” richard says. “what are we having?”

virgil quickly swallows the tentative sip he’d taken—some kind of cherry soda, some champagne, maybe, the aftertaste leaving a bite that probably meant vodka—and gestures.

“well, i thought,” he began, and cleared his throat. “it’s—well, emily didn’t recommend anything in particular, so i figured i may as well—” virgil shakes himself and gets himself on the right track. “it’s tradition, my family’s, i mean, to have breakfast for dinner, on christmas.”

“oh, how endearing!”

endearing. well, that’s just about a seal of approval, virgil guesses.

“so,” virgil says. “biscuits, there. eggs and bacon are about to be made. i was going to ask if there were any particular votes on how many waffles would be wanted, i noticed you had an iron, but—”

“as many as you’d think best would work nicely, i’m sure,” richard says. “how’s the diner, these days?”

richard, since his declaration of his blessing a year ago, has dropped in on both the inn and the diner a handful of times since. each time, he seems to delight in the small town charm of it in a way that was only a little snobbish—the way he’d exclaimed over a slice of mud pie was a prime example, things like “what a funny idea!” and “is this very... popular?” and “ah, the kids, of course, of course”—but in a mostly well-meaning kind of way.

virgil hopes so, anyway.

but he talks about the diner with richard as he mixes up the batter, things like menu changes and insurance policies and really, mostly the parts of business that would be boring to almost anyone else. well. mostly.

until, that is, richard starts asking about how to properly make an egg over-easy, and then, somehow, virgil is sipping at his punch as he carefully coaches richard through the art of how to fry an egg.

“...right, then, jiggle the pan a little to be sure it isn’t sticking,” virgil’s saying, as the kitchen door opens once again and a familiar face peeks in.

“like this?—oh, this is looking a lot better than the last one, isn’t it?” richard says, entirely too cheered.

“it is,” virgil says, conscious that the scent of burnt egg is still hovering in the air.

"have you gotten grandpa to try cooking?” logan asks, wandering into the kitchen and sitting at the counter.

“more like i’ve barged into the process,” richard says. “should i plate it now?”

“yep,” virgil says, and examines it. well, it’s an egg, certainly. maybe not quite as cohesive as an over-easy egg that virgil might make, but... not a bad egg.

“i’m afraid i’ve never really cooked before,” richard says thoughtfully. “it was always a bit of a passing interest, i suppose, but that was always more about food itself than it was the cooking. perhaps i should try it.”

“it’s a skill everyone needs to learn at some point,” virgil says with a shrug.

“do you cook often, at home?” richard asks. “or do you bring things back from the diner?”

it’s logan who answers. “usually, he’s still working at the diner when it’s dinnertime, but if he isn’t, he’ll usually cook.”

"i get to sneak you more vegetables that way,” virgil says, only a little bit joking.

gradually, people bleed into the kitchen, bit by bit—patton’s next, and he tries to sneak chocolate chips into the waffle batter, as if virgil won’t prepare him his own chocolate-chip waffle—and then christopher, ferrying refills for everyone, and at last emily deigns to enter her own kitchen with a slightly world-weary sigh as she opens the door, only to come to a stop at the sight before her.

“emily!” richard says excitedly. “i’m frying bacon!”

the sight before her is her husband, son, grandson, grandson’s father, and son’s partner all working in the kitchen, each with their own job—richard with the bacon, logan with the eggs, patton keeping an eye on the timer for the waffle iron, christopher with the mimosas he’d decided were absolutely necessary for breakfast for dinner—and virgil overseeing it all, trying his best to make sure no one would burn themselves or the food.

“delightful,” emily says, a smidge disdainfully.

“dinner should be ready soon,” virgil says, disregarding her tone.

emily sighs. then, utterly surprising virgil, she rolls up her sleeves, and says, “i’ll set the table, shall i?”

the breakfast-for-dinner thing goes over surprisingly well, and virgil isn’t sure if he should thank his assistants’ good cooking or the whole “good will of christmas” thing, or maybe emily’s had her own three ghosts of christmas past, present, and future visit and she’s about to pull a scrooge, but virgil isn’t about to ask which option it is.

they’re at the last part of the evening—christmas presents, then coffee, and then he and patton and logan will be heading back to the house as christopher stays at emily and richard’s. apparently they’re all going to some mutual friend’s party tomorrow, or something. christopher seems a little twitchy about it, whenever he or patton ask him for details—virgil would be too, really. he’s so far managed to escape the realm of sanders parties, but it’s only a matter of time.

emily and richard get books from logan, bottles of californian wine from chirstopher, and home-knitted scarves, a fancy bracelet, and a new set of cufflinks from patton and virgil.

logan gets books, books, and more books, in addition to the stuff he’s gotten from virgil and patton at home this morning—the journalist and the murderer, the latest ap style guide, the new new journalism, the corpse had a familiar face, a biography of agatha christie, a couple young adult series that are the latest on his reading list—plus a fancy pen, all the better to report with, virgil guesses.

patton gets new knitting needles, some high-quality yarn, ties, a couple books, and—

“what’s this?” patton says, unearthing three stuffed animals—a quokka, a capybara, and—virgil squints at the tag—a fennec fox.

“it’s through the world wildlife fund,” emily says briskly. “we made donations—in your name, of course—and this was an option for it. so there’s a thank you note and a photo of the animal you helped adopt in there somewhere.”

“i hope we correctly selected the animals,” richard says. “i remember you liked those, when you were young.”

patton looks up, startled but smiling.

“thank you,” he says softly, touched. virgil reaches over automatically and squeezes his hand. patton squeezes back. “i—you chose exactly right.”

virgil has a feeling patton would have said that with any animal they could’ve picked for him, but he can’t deny that those are good options, as far as patton’s concerned—all of them are small, cuddly, and cute, and all of them are prey animals that need protection.

“and for you, virgil,” richard says, and virgil braces himself with his best thank you, it’s a great gift smile that he might have practiced in the mirror. it starts off pretty good.

virgil gets a couple cookbooks, some new measuring cups, . some fall a little flat, like, virgil doesn’t think that he and patton are going to have much use for a cheeseboard, but who knows, but some, like the immersion blender that he’s been considering for a while, make up for it.

“i’d guess it’s been a while since there was some new cookware in that house,” emily says archly.

“i’ve mostly been bringing over stuff from mine, yeah,” virgil says neutrally, but he’s really too focused on the soups he can start to make now that he’s got an immersion blender in his home kitchen.

“and one more thing,” richard says, and hands over a small, relatively flat box. emily looks slightly sour, like she’s sucked on a lemon. she huffs, a little, crossing her legs primly and taking a drink, which bodes well for... whatever this is.

virgil takes the box, and unwraps it, revealing, well. another box—leather, well-made.

“what is it?” logan asks after virgil’s staring at it for a few moments, setting aside his ap style guide.

“it’s a pocket watch,” virgil says, not quite sure how to react to this. it’s a pretty neat looking pocket watch, actually—all silver, roman numerals, the gears exposed, steampunk-adjacent but not so steampunk that emily and richard would disapprove of it—but, well. virgil wears t-shirts and hoodies and jeans on a daily basis. so he isn’t sure exactly when he’s going to wear a—

“dad,” patton says softly, and virgil glances over at him, and back at the watch, and back at patton.

richard explains, almost kindly, “emily’s father got me a pocket watch, the first christmas we spent together as a family.”

virgil’s mouth goes dry, and he looks back at the watch.

“oh,” he says, and swallows hard. “it’s—it’s lovely. thank you.”

he fumbles with the catch, for a few moments, closing it again, before he runs his fingers along the sleek, silvery chain, the latch.

patton kisses him on the cheek, and rests his cheek briefly against his shoulder, like an excuse to stare at the watch.

the first christmas we spent together as a family rings in his ears. virgil leans his head against patton’s head, feeling his hair against his cheek, before virgil. clears his throat and looks up at the two elder sanders’.

“seriously,” he says, quiet and serious. “thank you.”

emily lets out a put-upon sigh, but she smiles flatly all the same.

“you’re welcome,” she says.

and that’s close enough to christmas peace and good will between men, women, and people outside of the gender spectrum for virgil.

...

“two dozen?”

“absolutely not.”

“fine, one dozen.”

“roman,” virgil says, on the edge of a sigh.

roman grins at him, huge and unapologetic.

“you are out of your mind if you think you can negotiate your way into me giving you a dozen donuts for breakfast,” virgil informs him. “c’mon, pick something on the menu that’s got some kind of nutritional value, and i might give you a donut on the side.”

“fiiiiine,” roman sighs. “waffles?”

“i said nutritional value,” virgil says.

“cheat! meal!” roman says, slamming his fists against the counter to emphasize each word.

“roman—”

“virgil, i have been eating nothing but chicken and quinoa and vegetables,” roman informs him. “i’m dying of a lack of sugar, dying, let me have this. waffles and a donut and hot cocoa/coffee.”

“your mom’s going to kill me,” virgil says.

“she knows i’m here for a cheat meal, she isn’t expecting me to eat something healthy,” roman says brightly, because he knows when he’s won.

“fine,” virgil says. “fine. what kind of donut do you want, and any toppings on the waffle?”

“chocolate icing for the donut, and chocolate chip waffles,” roman says. “i’m going all-out here.”

“i hope you know how much pain you cause me on a daily basis, i seriously do,” virgil informs him.

roman laughs after him as virgil goes to put in his order, and gets him a mug of hot cocoa/coffee and his donut.

“oh!” roman says, when he gets back. “i nearly forgot—” and he starts digging through his bag.

“if it’s some kind of new shirt in your latest attempt for a makeover, i don’t want it,” virgil says, hovering enough of a distance away that roman would have to lunge to try and shove a shirt into his arms.

roman rolls his eyes. “please,” he scoffs. “you wish i would bless you with my sense of style—oh, here it is!”

he pulls a book out of his backpack, and sets it on the counter.

"could you give this to logan? he left it at the apartment last night. i’d give it to him, except i have to get back to the studio right after this—mom wants to rearrange the barres or something, so i’m going to be hauling around furniture all day. it’s probably her way of sneaking a strength workout in during a rest day, honestly,” he muses, and virgil picks up the book, flipping it to examine the spine.

“siddhartha?” he says, trying to sound it out.

“yeah, you’d have to ask him about it,” roman says. “some kind of religious studies unit for his english class, i guess? anyway, you can give it to him when you go home today.”

roman takes a bite of his donut.

“if i’m going to patton’s today, you mean,” virgil corrects absently, and roman blinks at him.

“um,” roman says, “you mean, if you’re going home today.”

“i—no?” virgil says. “i mean, i—i live here. and i go over to patton’s a lot, sure, but i don’t live there, that’s not—”

but even as he’s saying it, his brain is tossing up images as if to specifically contradict him. his and patton’s socks jumbled together in the drawer. the christmas cards from his siblings on the fridge. virgil’s spot on the couch, if they’re all talking, his spot in the armchair if they’re all having quiet time. his default chair at the dinner table. his hairbrush in the bathroom. his lotion in the nightstand cabinet because the weather’s so cold, which means his hands get as dry as anything. his cookbooks, which have somehow nestled their way into the empty nooks and crannies in patton’s kitchen that can fit them even though he can hardly remember bringing them over. making coffee for logan and patton in the morning, enough caffeine to provide them with one or maybe two cups each, before he starts transitioning into half-caf. some of the little decorative things that his siblings have given him from the various cities they’ve lived in over the years. virgil’s handwriting dominating the grocery list. logan and virgil and patton splitting up chores. virgil’s flannels and patton’s sweaters in the closet, all hanging side-by-side.

everything he’s carted over there, over the past year—bit by bit, piece by piece. item by item. things he’d think he’d need if he was staying over, and then, well, never bringing them back. never returning things to his apartment. and that begged a question—

when was the last time he’d slept in his apartment???

“oh my god,” virgil says. he couldn’t identify his own tone if he had been recording this conversation and could play it back three hundred times.

“what?” roman says.

“oh, my god, i’m living with patton,” virgil realizes, with a long, noisy exhale, and he sucks in another breath. “we’re living together.”

roman stared at him, slightly slackjawed, before he sets aside the donut.

“please don’t tell me you just now realized this.”

“shut up,” virgil says, his face heating up.

“you just now,” roman says, slightly gleefully, “like, just now. you just now realized that you and patton are—”

“shut up!” virgil hisses, conscious of the other diners starting to eavesdrop, and roman snickers, holding up his hands in surrender, and virgil figures the only way he can really salvage this is if he goes to hide in the kitchen and has his crisis there.

so he does.

...

"well, it’s nice to see you, virgil, but it’s been a while since i’ve seen you here,” emile picani says, adjusting his glasses and clicking his pen.

virgil clears his throat, wipes his sweaty hands on his jeans. “yeah. i, uh—yeah, i guess.”

“so,” emile says, big doe eyes wide and sympathetic. “what’s up, doc?”

“it’s, um,” virgil says, and clears his throat. “it’s been pointed out to me recently that i’ve... essentially... moved in with patton and logan.”

“is that good?” emile says, and virgil chews at his lip.

“i—i mean, i think so,” virgil says. “i want it to be, anyway. i mean, i’m—i’m excited about patton, i love him, logan’s—well, logan’s basically my kid too—and i definitely figured moving in would be a someday, but when i realized i basically had already, i—well, i kinda... i’m not the best at change, so i kinda freaked out, a little.”

to be precise, virgil had mentioned that he’d probably stay at his apartment just to be there to open the diner and maybe make an ingredient run beforehand, and patton had pouted a little but agreed and hadn’t seemed too upset, or cotton on to the whole “virgil’s-taking-some-space-because-he’s-anxious-about-the-future” thing that virgil was trying to do, which almost made it worse, and then virgil couldn’t sleep because the bed was too big and too cold and too uncomfortable and he spent most of the night pacing and trying to untangle all the thoughts in his head and hadn’t quite succeeded, so. an appointment with emile it was.

which he explains, and emile hums thoughtfully, tapping his pen on his notepad.

“so, what’s your goal for this session?” emile says. “or sessions, if you like, other than untangling your thoughts.”

virgil considers it, and says, “the last time a change to our relationship happened, i didn’t... well, i didn’t really handle it very well. i ended up basically shutting everyone out for nearly a week so that i could figure myself out. and i mean, i’d like—i want to live with patton. i was happy when i was basically living with patton, so i don’t know why the change being pointed out to me made me freak out, and i don’t want—i don’t want to shut him out again. so. to get... to get accustomed to the idea, maybe, and to—to communicate a bit more clearly about making it official, i guess, and then maybe to figure out how to deal with becoming a landlord or whatever else i might do with the apartment. those are my goals.”

emile smiles, nods, and clicks his pen. “let’s see what i can do to help you achieve that, then.”

...

“how much salsa, again?”

“maybe just bring me the jar?” virgil suggests, from where he’s transporting chicken breasts from the pan to a bowl. “i’ll eyeball it.”

logan nods, and fetches the salsa from the fridge, before he leans his hip against the counter, tilting his head to survey the way that virgil’s begun shredding the chicken.

it’s a quiet evening at home for the pair of them—patton’s staying late at work—so virgil’s decided to make enchiladas for dinner, which he hasn’t made in a while.

virgil takes in a breath, remembering one of emile’s suggestions, and clears his throat, keeping his stare fixed on the chicken. “can i ask you something?”

“sure,” logan says.

virgil swallows, and says, casually, “i was wondering what you thought about—um. well, you’re a smart kid, i’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice that i’ve been... here... more. so i was wondering if you were, um. comfortable. with me—” say it, virgil, just say it, “living here.”

the reaction isn’t what virgil’s expecting. logan, without breaking facial expression (he rarely does, virgil doesn’t know why he’d expected that) digs around in his pocket and pulls out his phone, putting it on speaker.

“hello, my love, the light of my life,” roman says pleasantly, and logan smiles a little, a sort of teenage-puppy-love expression that he’d ardently deny if patton or virgil teased him about it later.

“you’re on speaker and you owe me lucy’s,” logan says smugly.

“what?! dammit!” roman says.

“he what,” virgil says.

“i told you so,” logan says.

“yeah, yeah, yeah,” roman grumbles. “god, virgil, i won out the last time we bet on your love life—”

“you—" virgil begins, before he shakes himself and decides to leave any parental lecturing about gambling for later, and maybe to patton and ms. prince.

“you just had to ruin my streak,” roman continues in a grumble. “fine, then. if i have to. lucy’s date tomorrow after you’re done with the franklin?”

“we’ll text about it,” logan informs him.

“okay. love you, even if you are at an unfair advantage!”

“love you too,” logan says, hangs up, and tells whatever expression on virgil’s face, “shut up.”

“didn’t say anything,” virgil says.

“anyway,” logan says. “i have been slowly transitioning from phrases like ‘i’ll see you back at the house’ to ‘when we’re at home’ for months now, i can’t believe you just now noticed.”

“you—what,” virgil says blankly.

“i’ve been slowly bringing over your cookbooks to see if you’d ever notice, but you never really did—”

“that’s how they got here?” virgil says, thrown off.

"—and i’ve been bringing your possessions more and more to the forefront, too, look,” logan says, going into the living room and holding up—

“is that my throw blanket?”

“it is,” logan says, setting it back on the couch. “and the photo of your family on the mantle, and the christmas cards from your siblings on the fridge, and the plant you and dad picked out when you went shopping last week.”

“you—you put those all there?” virgil says. “i thought patton did.”

logan shrugs, non-commital, and suddenly something clicks for virgil. sometimes, non-verbal methods are the way that logan communicates he cares, which virgil gets—he’s been making the kid eat healthy for as long as he was capable of it, after all.

“so,” virgil says slowly, because he needs verbal assent, here. “you’re okay with it?”

logan stares at him, a look that combines the essence of i can’t believe you’re so dense sometimes and fondness. his lip quirks up, soft, and a little like he wasn’t intending to smile at all.

“yeah,” logan says, a little softer than his usual brisk, abrasive tone, but virgil’s fully willing to let this emotional moment happen without commenting on that. “yeah. i’m okay with it.”

virgil clears his throat from where it’s suddenly a little clogged up, and messes up his hair, and, fleetingly, logan grins at him with the same kind of smile he’d used when he was six and lost his first tooth in the diner, when he was nine and won in the school-wide spelling bee, when he was sixteen and he and patton told him they’d gotten together.

“good,” virgil says. if his voice a bit rougher than usual, logan has the strategic grace to not mention it.

...

“so,” roman says, “you wouldn’t be my neighbor anymore, i guess.”

virgil shrugs. “diner’s still there, and you’re over at the house often enough.”

“you are,” logan confirms.

listen, virgil isn’t sure how he got signed up for the “carpool-the-kids-to-their-date” thing, but he somehow has, so now he’s driving them to a roller rink because roman won out on deciding where date night would be after the milkshakes at lucy’s they’re both sipping on.

“have you talked to dad about it?” logan says.

virgil tries not to squirm. “not yet. i will tomorrow, probably.”

logan scowls, visible enough in the rearview mirror. “while i’m working a weekend shift at the franklin.”

“got it in one,” virgil says. “are you still sure that you’re going to dee’s after?”

“i could totally still kill him for you,” roman adds.

“we have an understanding,” logan says, giving roman a Look. “an alliance, so to speak.”

“you can say that he’s your friend now, it’s okay,” virgil prompts, and feels someone kick at the back of his seat.

“someone who initiated a duel is not a friend!” roman says, aghast.

“louise is the one who did that, it’s just,” logan says, and then, “well, you know. he’s...”

logan trails off. roman scowls out of the window, and logan pauses, before he leans over enough to kiss roman on the cheek.

he mumbles something that sounds like “you’re still my favorite,” and virgil tries not to comment, he really does, but—

“no making out in the back of my car.”

“we weren’t!” roman squawks. “god, virgil, you’re not my dad—”

“thank god—“

“—you’re so embarrassing, maybe it’s good that you’re moving,” roman huffs, flopping back against the seat.

“you’re just bitter you lost the bet,” logan informs him.

“yeah, we’re gonna talk about the gambling thing,” virgil says. “you know that can be addictive, right, even if it just starts with lucy’s?”

instead of answering, roman says thoughtfully, “when you move, can i have that nightmare before christmas hill scene cross-stitch you’ve got framed?”

“absolutely not,” virgil says.

"i’ll steal it for you,” logan says.

“or i can steal it while i’m helping move out boxes,” roman says.

“none of this has distracted me from the gambling lecture i’m about to give you both,” virgil says, and both boys groan.

...

for someone so invested in sleeping for as long as he possibly can, virgil really shouldn’t be so surprised that patton’s bed is so comfortable, but it is. so much more comfortable than his own, back in his apartment.

patton’s sheets are soft and they always smell clean. he’s got a soft, fuzzy blanket, and a quilt, and then a thick, quilt-stitched duvet to top it all off, decorated in soft blues and whites. patton’s mattress is soft, but not too soft, and his pillows are at the exact perfect degree of fluffiness.

of course, being in patton’s bed with patton might be what makes it the best, in virgil’s mind, but he’s pretty biased.

virgil lets out a soft, content sigh as he adjusts himself, just a little—his head on patton’s chest, patton’s arm wrapped around his shoulders and with his lips pressed against his hair, virgil’s hand on patton’s chest. virgil absentmindedly follows nonsense paths with his fingertips, feeling the old, white scar from patton’s top surgery under his fingertips.

he’s content. he’s happy. he really, truly is.

so he shouldn’t be so anxious right now. they’ve been together for a little over a year, now, and things have been going well, they’ve been going great, it’s just—well. he supposes it’s a step that most people get nervous about regardless. but he shouldn’t be nervous right now, when patton’s humming, soft and tuneless, and it’s late at night, a lazy saturday morning that’s turned into a lazy saturday day and then night, and the day’s been great. it’s been amazing.

he’s talked to logan about it. he’s talked to roman about it. he’s talked to emile about it, for god’s sakes. he just needs to... well. talk to patton about it.

patton’s lips move, pressing against his head again, and he squeezes virgil a little closer.

“i can hear you thinking, darling,” patton murmurs. “penny for your thoughts?”

virgil hesitates. well, now’s as good a time as any, he supposes. he adjusts himself, so that he’s leaning on one arm, hand still on patton’s chest, but now he can look at patton’s face.

“so, um,” virgil says, and swallows, mouth suddenly dry. “i just—i’m gonna say something, and you don’t have to say anything right now, it’s not an immediate yes or no, but just—just so you know. okay?”

patton blinks at him—it’s strange, even now, to see him without his glasses on—and nods.

“okay,” he says apprehensively.

virgil adds, “i mean, it isn’t—it isn’t bad, or anything, just something you should know.”

patton relaxes minutely. he runs his hand up and down virgil’s bare back, and virgil shivers, just a little.

“okay,” patton repeats, soft and soothing. “okay, honey, go ahead.”

virgil holds his breath, before he says tentatively, “i was thinking about renting out the apartment.”

virgil does own the diner—which means he owns the apartment above the diner, too, which is where he’s been living for the past seventeen years, he’d moved in once his parents had moved out of sideshire and sold the house he’d grown up in. it used to just be an office, but after he’d taken over the diner he’d made it into a living space. but now, well...

patton’s smiling—a slow, soft smile that’s spreading across his face.

“or—or, um, making it an office plus a break room or something, i’m not sure how i’d go about renting out something, i guess i’d technically be a landlord, but—”

“love,” patton says softly. “you wanna move in?”

virgil ducks his head, cheeks burning.

“you don’t have to answer right now,” he mumbles. “i just—you can think about it, and i know i’m kinda inviting myself in, here, but—”

and very suddenly, virgil is on his back, and patton’s lips are on his, and virgil can’t really think of anything else right now, and when patton’s lips part from his with a truly embarrassing smacking noise, patton is absolutely beaming.

“i don’t have to think about it at all,” he declares.

...

“did you stuff this thing with bricks,” roman wheezes as he carts down yet another box from virgil’s apartment. virgil isn’t really a material person, he thinks, but it turns out that given seventeen or so years he can accumulate a lot of stuff. who knew?

“no, the bricks are the next load,” virgil says, accepting the box and settling it in the trunk of his car, surveying it. “how much is left?”

“next one should be the last one,” logan reports, handing over his own box for virgil to place in his car.

“perfect,” virgil says. “i think i might drive this to patton’s after that, then, it’s nearly full. we can deal with furniture and stuff later today, or maybe next week.”

“if it gets me a break,” roman huffs, and stomps back up the stairs—virgil watches him go, and then logan, before he digs out his phone and sends a text.

virgil: one more load and then i’m gonna be dropping off the last of boxes soon

patton: okay, sounds good!!! patton: i’m so excited for you to come home, darling <3 <3 <3

virgil grins a bit stupidly down at his phone. he’s excited to go home, too.

#my post #text #my fic #the sideshire files

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courage-a-word-of-justice · 4 years

Text

Deca-Dence 5

“…cannon won’t ignite in time!” The subbers spell cannon as “canon” later as well.

Off to the cliffside, where Kaburagi goes to die…

Deca-Dence 6

“Maybe someone intervened.” – I think Minato did, somehow.

This Death Dive reminds me of Wipeout.

Moriarty 3

I once made up a quote that goes, “When life detests you, fight back.” I think it’s also roughly along the lines of advice Albert needs.

I remembered an odd line from Macbeth: “Brother, he has killed me!” Seriously, Moriarty is scarier than some actual horror anime, I swear…Update: It’s actually “he has killed me, Mother!”, but same impact.

I had my hands over my mouth from the moment the fire began. That’s how intense this is.

This ED…doesn’t sound like an ED. It sounds like the OP for a different anime, like Joker Game or something. Also, having Saito Soma as Gentaro and Moriarty…is a bit unsettling because they have a lot of overlap but one’s basically the evil twin of the other.

Yashahime 4

“…was raised here…”

“…we can…”

I felt a heart twinge when I saw Towa tear up…man, it’s been years since I last dealt with Inuyasha properly.

“…nights where I can’t fall asleep.” – So…you’ll play it a lot then, Setsuna.

Oh, so Kirara is a nekomata? I never knew until now.

Kikyo!

According to the mythology, the kirin rules over the middle…so why is Kirinmaru the monster in the east?

Is “s***” unwarranted here? I didn’t have the volume on, so I don’t know…Going back, I think Moroha said “kuso”, but it’s still kinda weird to have a swear word in a mostly family-friendly series in a slot near Detective Conan. (Then again, Detective Conan is where I learnt “kuso” from…so my standards are probably not as up-to-scratch as they should be.)

Rin! People keep saying Rin is the mother of the girls and it’s basically the only conclusion that could be done, considering the relationship the two had…but it’s still kind of squick…(Says a person who has no problem with SGRS s2’s ending.)

Update: Someone on ANN said the teacher’s name (Osamu Kirin) being similar to Kirinmaru is sketchy and I agree.

Maou-jou 4

There’s no pun for Rocket Turtle…that’s kinda startling, actually.

I’m not going to translate the eyecatches anymore. Seems they were actually translated in the manga and someone just copies them over or something.

I’ve seen some characters use wa when they really aren’t that feminine. However, the voice Suwabe uses for the Sorceror leads me to believe this guy really is trying to be feminine, even if in just a vocal capacity.

…aw, no puns here too.

Oh no, the seal…!

…hmm? The Scissors Sorceror’s info is…we’re not allowed to look at it. That’s what the red text says.

…my brain exploded for a second when I suddenly heard jazz music. It’s a Detective Conan parody! *screams*

Iina! doesn’t really mean “Lucky!” It means more like “cool!” or “It’s good, isn’t it?”

I7 s2 5

I missed these boys!

I like the Kinako transition. It’s cute.

I don’t really like it when Tenn looks at the screen…it gives me 1st person cam vibes.

Why is Tsunashi being called “this”, anyway?

Oh yeah…mensore = youkoso = welcome.

Uh oh…is Yuki actually evil???

Riku (earth) vs. Tenn (heaven). Hmm.

I still can’t believe they don’t believe Gaku is the soba guy. It’s so obvious!

Chikuzen-ni.

Someone on staff ships Gaku and Tsumugi together…hmm…

Oh! So this is DESTINY, huh? I’ve probably heard it on Spotify before, but I don’t recognise it by sheer sound like I do HypMic. (Then again, the half-year off the airwaves probably really hurt I7, man…)

Akudama 4

Say what you will about how bad Funi translations can get…they’re definitely entertaining!

Geesh, Doctor gets all the sexy shots, but Brawler gets all the ab shots. Can I get a sexy Courier shot…?

“…she’s right.” – There’s a lot of dialogue here, so…uh, who’s “she” in this case?

What’s a “bro fro”?

Wow, Brawler, talk about being punched into next Tuesday…(partially joking)

Swindler’s face, LOL. (I know she’s an ordinary gal, but calling her “Swindler” is shorter to type.)

I remember reading around and people agree Swindler works at the Seal Centre.

The shark and bunny’s shirts say things like “Kanto/Kansai”, “earth, air/water” and “pollution/clean” during their montage.

“feminist” – Uh, ex-squeeze me?! Feminism does not equal “ladies first” or “going easy on ladies”. Update: I went and listenend to it and although one of my ears is mysteriously almost constantly plugged these days, I’m fairly sure Doctor did not say “feminist” (in katakana). Update 2: Then I listened to it again and…I’m not sure anymore.

LOL, Hoodlum hit the in-series camera. With his face.

Oh, vault = garage or storage. Right, how did I not know that?

Cat, nooooooooooooooooo! Don’t die!

HypMic 5

After the two “darker” divisions, it seems almost strange to not have a “dark” introduction about the seedy underbelly of alt. future Japan…

Oh, my gosh. That’s Ichijiku on the phone.

The studio has the word “drops” on it.

Lemme guess: Neither hand!...Yup.

The only spoiler I know for this ep. is it’s a Halloween episode, and “Ramuda ruins Halloween”. That quote is way too subjective to mean anything, though…

…hmm, Gentaro doesn’t say “shousei” in that sentence involving “this humble bard” (not that I heard, but one of my ears is mysteriously plugged after I stayed up late browsing Twitter on my phone – don’t tell anyone that, though! They’re not meant to know!). Gentaro is not a humble bard (although that would translate “shousei” quite correctly in the Shakespearean), he’s an author.

LOL, that “ding!”

Gentaro actually says “ghostbusters” in katakana, LOL.

I almost thought this Shinjuku man was Doppo…but no, this Aoyama Cemetery exists. It has nice cherry blossoms.

The “dun dun dun” soundtrack is great. It really sets the atmosphere.

Gentaro really is an idiots’ minder, just as I used to characterise him. (Then the FP and M manga and developments regarding Ramuda being evil changed my mind.)

I-Is this just gonna be an episode of FP being scared and Ramuda yelling? It’s fun for a bit, but when you’re stopping to analyse every few seconds, Ramuda’s voice is gonna get annoying eventually…

Kurosu seems to be a cross between Jyushi and Doppo.

This ep…makes FP look money-crazy. Dice is only money-crazy when he’s broke…because of course you would be…but the others aren’t.

That rock track that plays when FP hand out flyers is cool!

Are they…eating squid?...Welp, squid jerky. I’d say I’m correct.

Oh, so they’re all street photographers? Not just Tom?

I was wondering…how would the “tie to a different division” occur in episode 5, considering episode 6 is where the plot really kicks in? Turns out…they tie back to BB, which is not a thing I was expecting at all.

BB have a BB tablet…makes sense, because I think Hypster have iPhone cases for each division.

Oh, they’re planting the seeds of Ramuda’s ability here, so to speak. By knowing what Hypnosis Mics are capable of doing, you can see the building blocks of Rap Abilities as well.

Okonbanwa! The extra O is meant to make things formal, but only in front of nouns (sometimes it’s “go”, e.g. goshujin), so it’s Ramuda being overly formal to be cutesy and unconventional.

*lightbulb goes off in head* It makes sense that the group affiliated with illusions and randomness does the Halloween episode, actually.

…Yargh! Of course all these onee-sans are FP stans!...*lightly touches temple, as if to get rid of a headache* I should’ve known.

The new song is “Shibuya Ghost Night” by Tokyo Health Club, Yuki “T-Groove” Takahashi and Yuma Hara.

*stops video before the darn airhorn sounds* Thank goodness…hey, isn’t this quote from Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka…?

This episode is very seasonal, but doesn’t really make sense outside of airing on Halloween. C’mon, couldn’t you have given us a Sasara appearance instead of having Ramuda yell down the house…? I knew the FP episode was going to be either lighthearted with a dark undercurrent, like the BB ep (considering we haven’t gotten to Ramuda dying yet), or full-on lighthearted, but…I somehow wonder if the staff had an empty spot labelled “Fling Posse episode” due to COVID and went, “Okay, it airs on Halloween this year, let’s make it Halloween-inspired”…or something. Also, I feel Gentaro got the short end of the stick here.

Update: As for yakuwarigo, Ramuda trends towards the feminine side, which is not something I noticed until my groupwork partner pointed it out to me. The message in this episode has a “yone”, which proves that point even further. “Dayo~n” is a variant of the gender-neutral “yo” ending. Meanwhile, I have game samples that prove Dice uses “ze” like BB/MTC, while Gentaro uses “yo” and desu/masu like Jakurai, so it was really Ramuda anyone wanted to pay attention to since his speech patterns are the most feminine-leaning, possibly due to his extensive hanging out with ladies. (I once read a Tofugu post on how non-binary people deal with language that said if you hang out with ladies a lot, you take on feminine yakuwarigo and if you hang out with guys a lot, you do the same in that direction, but I clearly remember Ramuda using “sa”, which is a slightly male-leaning ending.)

Taiso Samurai 4

There’s something in the background which stops me from listening to it and one of my ears is blocked, but I gotta find out what Tackey was saying about the NHK Cup (the joke, I mean). Update: So I think it’s ninja/nukihara/kekkou, but I may have heard that wrong due to my blocked ear…I should get someone to clean it out properly.

Here’s the YoI monologue about competitions again. <- (neutral on it) Also, NHK is in English letters/romaji in the term “NHK Cup”, but the “Cup” isn’t (it’s in kanji).

Sekigahara had a huge historical battle.

Huh? This episode’s called “Samurai Musume (daughter)”, so…where did “Battling Samurai” come from? That’s one of the previous episodes, right?

Selfies, before they were cool.

I was wondering if Leo actually calls Rei “Rachel” like he calls Jotaro “Joe”…and he does. I just haven’t paid much attention to the audio, that’s all.

The Battle of Chibi? Never heard of it until now, but the Battle of Red Cliffs is the same thing.

Leo Naruto runs…LOL.

If Rei was in 4th grade in 2002…are we going to see the characters in the present in the end? She would be 28 in 2020.

I guess I should’ve guessed from “hat trick”, but a Bergkamp trap is related to soccer.

There’s a random Japanese-sounding track in the background…didn’t expect that.

A cemetery…on the day after Halloween.

“Grandma’s place” = the bar…Ohhhhhhhhhh. I was wondering, didn’t the grandma and Rei live together? Then it all came together.

Jim Beeam (sic), LOL.

I wonder, are Tackey and Ayu dating like he asks?

Gotta love a man in a suit! *chef’s kiss*

Yashahime 5

Who’s this Tokotsu guy again…? Also, the “ja” in Jakotsumaru means “young”.

Oh, Myoga. It’s been a while.

Can there be 4 Perils when there’s only 3 of them…?

Well, it makes sense that a dog demon would have demon fleas…in a sense.

Why is “trying to swallow up this world and turn it into a degenerate age” (or whatever Kirinmaru’s aim is) so vague? You could say the present is already an age of mass degeneracy…

Maybe the Dream Butterfly took Moroha’s memories…?

Wait, why is Myoga only allowed to drink Moroha’s blood when she puts on the rouge?

So this is an arhat. Also, aren’t morals an Anglophone ideal imported into Japan and the rest of Asia? That’s what separates Towa from Setsuna.

Akudama 5

This drone definitely won’t come in handy at all…(sarcastic)

There’s an Evangelion feel to these “masks”…

That box is like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs! It’s great!

I like how the kids jump to the potential fact (?) this is a Swindler trick.

You can see Courier’s bike in the background when the bunny says “…and I mean everything.”

*Knights of Sidonia music starts playing* Search! And! Destroy! *record scratch as music stops*

I think this little discussion between Courier and Swindler will go down in Akudama Drive history as one of my favourite moments because it’s the little conversations that count. Also…does Courier have a mechanical hand, or is that just me thinking weird things…? Is that a glove?

Ooh, scars. Sexy. (On the Executioner Master, at least.)…Now I get why the guy wears that mouth covering.

HypMic 6

Halfway through the season already…? Yikes, how time flies. By the way, my assignment’s come and gone so I don’t need to focus on it anymore.

Hmm? Why did the subbers put “Prime Minister” when Ichijiku merely says “yes”…?

Wait, 1st question: how does one sign up for a rap battle? I don’t think that’s ever been answered. 2nd question (well, not a question): Dice is paying attention to Otome now…

I’m fairly sure that red brick warehouse was just that…as in the Red Brick Warehouse in Yokohama, which was also featured in Bungou Stray Dogs. Update: Oh, it’s (partially) a shopping mall…? I didn’t know that until now.

See, I told you they’re (Tom, Iris and Rex) probably foreigners…

That one shot of Jakurai? *chef’s kiss* Beautiful. Give me a million of ‘em. (Okay, I’m kidding to some degree, but I can’t help staring at it. Jakurai’s just too pretty…)

“Tweet-like lyrics”? Eh? When was Twitter a collective pessimist?

Oh, that’s basically the scene from the drama track. Where the heck is Jakurai fishing though…? I always imagined it to be at a river or a pier, not some concrete complex. Update: According to a user on Twitter, the fishing place is called “Ichigaya Fishing Centre”. It is, as you would expect, found in Shinjuku. Apparently, even Osomatsu-san featured the place...which would explain why it looks vaguely familiar to me.

Wow, I can’t believe how upfront they’re being about Ramuda breaking up TDD.

Ramuda thought in his deep voice…I almost didn’t recognise it for a second. It doesn’t even sound like Shirai. It sounds more like…Hayami, in fact.

“F*** yeah!” - …and they’re still going with the F bomb. Keep being you, subbers, keep being you.

That shot of Saburo in a dimly-lit room almost looks like the SR card in ARB, except in that one he has his headphones on (and might be outside, to my memory).

Oh, so the round thing really is Ichiro’s ring. It’s got an “I” on it too, i.e. the Roman numeral for one.

*Ichiro explains what happened to TDD from his and Samatoki’s side* - I don’t think we’ve ever seen the story from Ichiro’s or Samatoki’s perspective enough to know either thought this (or this way).

“Jiro! Saburo! Let’s go!” - …and Tom’s just taking photos as they leave, LOL.

I didn’t expect the TsudaKen guy to be back again, really.

Well, if this Google route is to be believed, “Sadamezuka’s soul” only lasts about 30 minutes by car crossing from one point to the other, hence Jiro’s remark.

Googling “Toyotama” and “Toyotama Line” gets you…Ghost of Tsushima links…?

…hmm. I’m not listening to it on a hugely loud volume, so I can’t quite tell what the pun is, but I think the word for “monk” in this case is “bouzu”. Then what’s the word for “electric dynamo”…? Update: The pun, according to Takahisa Maeyama, is Erekiteruteru Bouzu.

That ticking thing was really effective in terms of the song…but sasuga HypMic. Things went ka-blammo again.

So we’re probably going to see BB’s first DRB round next ep…or Matenrou doing another takedown similar to ep. 3. Or both. Both is good. (Or it could be the FP/M side of things, much like we got the BB/MTC side of things here.)

...Uh, shouldn’t that be “dawn”? The anime’s generally been very good about this (aside from the obvious typo in the BB logo), but…welp, they’ve done it now.

Update: The LOVE you see Hifumi and Doppo near is this one.

Update 2: As for the yakuwarigo, it…turns out, to no one’s surprise, it stays oddly consistent across all media, although individual treatment of the characters can differ depending on the author.

HGPC 4

Ooh, is this Element of Light?

Fate/Stay PreCure! Here we come!

Moriarty 4

Why is the “to” capitalised? (Is that even capitalised?)

Quinine.

I kind of knew the grapefruit and the heart condition and/or quinine would be relevant somehow…and boy howdy, was I right! I just didn’t really know what it was going to do, that’s all.

I thought the ED didn’t match very well, but looking at the translated lyrics…now it kind of makes sense.

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