i will have nothing in this life

Illicit Affairs

CHAPTER ONE. Welcome Back

A Hope Mikaelson x Penelope Park (Henelope) Fic "Don't call me kid, don't call me baby."

Word Count: 2k words

Summary. Inspired by an old tweet I saw just after the second season of Legacies aired. In which Penelope had returned to Mystic Falls after all, only to realise Josie had moved on. Her so-called romance with a forgotten friend is only a ploy to make her ex-girlfriend jealous, never intending to go as far as it does.

A/N. Honestly this is a fic I've wanted to write for a while now. I actually haven't checked, but I imagine Henelope doesn't get a lot of love since they literally interacted twice the entire show lmao. Also please forgive me if some of this is a little inaccurate to the show, it's been a while since my last rewatch of Legacies!

Penelope wasn’t sure whether it was the circumstances that made her irritated by seemingly everything or if it was just Mystic Falls High. The school receptionist typing away at a computer likely older than Penelope herself, the ticking of a clock prehistoric in appearance.

8:55am, it read. Penelope frowned, it was far too early to be awake, especially while her body was still combating a severe case of jet lag. How long had she been waiting now? The email she’d gotten after enrolling last night had asked her to arrive at the reception at 8:30, it wouldn’t surprise her if they’d just forgotten about her. She contemplated asking the receptionist, who Penelope was about seventy percent certain was playing a flash game instead of actually doing any work.

She didn’t want to be here, pulling at a loose thread on her chair, trying hard to ignore the oddly stale scent in the air that threatened to make her nauseous. Still, this had been the agreement she’d decided on with her parents, she could come back to Mystic Falls without them, but she had to continue going to school - they just hadn’t specified what school.

Never in a million years would she have imagined she’d be going to a public school of all places, but anywhere sounded better than the Salvatore School right now. She couldn’t go back there, not after what had happened last night.

The plan had been to surprise Josie with her return. After the way their goodbye had gone, Penelope had assumed Josie would be thrilled to have her back. Sure, maybe they wouldn’t have gotten back together, but she’d just been excited at the idea of seeing her again.

But seeing her with someone else? With Landon Kirby of all people?

At least they hadn’t seen her, that Penelope had spotted them first. She’d managed to preserve her pride so far, but she wouldn’t have stood a chance if they’d known she’d seen them. That was the only silver lining she could see for now, but she didn’t feel optimistic enough to try and think of any others. It was a shitty situation, nothing could fix it.

Josie had been the only reason Penelope had even returned, wanting to warn her about the Merge, wanting to love her in spite of all her flaws and in spite of Lizzie. Her new school in Belgium hadn’t been so bad after all, designed completely for witches, the only downside it had was that there was no Josie. She was too late, Josie had moved on and there was no way Penelope could go back to the boarding school, she couldn’t stand seeing her and Landon together again.

The worst part was that she had no real place to be angry or hurt; Penelope had already broken up with Josie, long before she’d even left for Belgium, she’d broken her heart first - so this was what it felt like, karma stung more than Penelope would’ve liked. 

She’d never actually been broken up with before, or rejected, but she got the feeling her situation with Josie was more painful than any other kind of heartbreak could be. It wasn’t that neither of them cared, Penelope had just messed up and it was too late to fix it.

It was her own fault, she’d caused this.

Penelope had hardly had the time to give much thought to the other girl she’d seen near the mill that night, right after she’d left Josie and Landon. The girl was a student - maybe? - but not one that Penelope recognised, she’d simply chalked her down to being a new transfer, she didn’t look young enough to be a freshman, probably around Penelope’s age.

The girl was the last of her worries though, just as she had been last night. Besides, Penelope doubted that she’d even see her again, she didn’t intend on going anywhere near the boarding school.

“The principal will see you now, Miss Park.” The school receptionist mercifully tore Penelope from her thoughts before she could wallow in any more self-pity. 

Penelope nodded, standing up from her seat in the waiting room, boots squeaking as they made contact with the rubber floors. She grimaced at the harsh sound, approaching the door to the headmaster’s office, reading over the newly placed name plate.

‘Principal A. Saltzman’

It didn’t come as a complete surprise to Penelope, she’d known Alaric had taken a job in Mystic Falls High. Perhaps she hadn’t known it was the job of principal, but it made sense, considering he’d been the headmaster at the Salvatore school. Still, that didn’t take away the dreadful awkwardness that she knew would come with having to talk to her ex-girlfriend’s father.

With a near inaudible sigh, Penelope knocked on the door, waiting for permission from the man inside before she entered the office, unsure of what to expect.

“Take a seat, Penelope.” Alaric gestured towards the empty seat across from his side of the desk, hitting the witch with an odd sense of deja vu from her first day at the Salvatore Boarding School. It felt like forever ago now, since she’d first convinced her parents to allow her to move from her home in New Orleans to a small town in Virginia.

Sitting down, Penelope wouldn’t even dare to look Alaric in the eye, out of.. What? Embarrassment? Guilt? She couldn’t pinpoint it exactly, but both seemed to apply. Embarrassed she’d believed Josie would just take her back, guilty they’d even broken up in the first place. Penelope wondered if Alaric knew about Josie and Landon, if the kiss she’d witnessed the night before had been the first of many to come or if they’d been together since Penelope had left for Belgium.

The silence in the room was deafening, as Alaric quietly flicked through his computer screen, likely looking through Penelope’s files from her last two schools. 

She wondered if Alaric resented her, for everything that had happened. She’d never had to worry about that when she first broke up with Josie. While he’d been the headmaster at Salvatore’s, there’d been no room for him to take sides and if anything, Penelope wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him take Josie’s side - it was obvious he struggled to balance being a father and a headmaster all at once.

But now, they were in a different school, where maybe he could allow his love towards his daughters to take the forefront more often. Despite her silent disagreements Penelope had towards Alaric, mainly ones that involved him not telling Lizzie and Josie about the merge, she actually liked him. Surprisingly - even to her - she’d actually be quite disheartened if he treated her differently.

Eventually, Penelope cleared her throat, “Why did you leave the boarding school?” She asked, leaning back in her seat. In a way, she was relieved Alaric was her headmaster again, she didn’t feel like trying to suss out a brand new person.

Alaric was too occupied with the computer to look up, although Penelope didn’t take offence, she knew what he was like and it was just nice to have some sense of familiarity after everything that had happened since she’d come back.

“I thought the school would be more suited to a headmaster that can help better than I can.” He explained vaguely after a pause, looking up from the screen in front of him.

She let out a quiet burst of laughter, it had never been a secret that Alaric was ill-equipped when it came to running a school of supernatural teenagers. “You mean someone who’s not a human, right?” Penelope asked, earning a glare from Alaric.

“Penelope.” He began in a hiss, “You don’t know who could be listening.”

Penelope only shrugged in response, although she knew he was right, so she decided not to press any further. Even if she was hurting more than she’d care to admit, she knew throwing the rest of her former classmates under the bus would be unfair. Perhaps the council had stopped vampire hunting years ago, but there was no use in risking it.

“You applied for your enrollment quite late.” Alaric noted, looking up from his screen to shoot her a knowing glance. Maybe this Josie and Landon thing had been going on for a while. “Last night, to be exact. You’re lucky I recognised your name.”

Penelope could only pray that Alaric wouldn’t mention Josie. She wasn’t sure she could handle even the mention of her former girlfriend’s name right now.

She chose not to offer an explanation, to be safe, “So can I still enrol?” Penelope asked nonchalantly, like she had other options. Technically, she could go back to Belgium, but how would she even explain what had happened to her parents? They’d had no idea about her and Josie and for good reason, they never would have approved of the relationship.

Alaric nodded, “You can, but I don’t understand, Penelope.” He answered, finally tearing his full attention away from the computer, resting his arms on the desk he sat at, “You fit in well at the boarding school, you were well liked.. I just don’t see what you gain from coming here instead.”

Shifting uncomfortably in her seat, Penelope sat up straight. “Maybe I want a different experience.” She shot back, just about managing to hold back her sarcasm. She made a point of lowering her voice as she continued, “Besides, it’s not like I need help controlling my magic, I grew up around witches in the French Quarter.”

“And you’re sure there’s not another reason?” Alaric asked, as though he already knew but was just waiting for Penelope to confess the truth.

Penelope nodded in response; a lie that Alaric appeared to see right now.

He paused uncertainly, “Have you spoken to Josie since you got back? I know she missed having you around school.” Alaric commented, a statement that caused Penelope’s heart to sink.

She didn’t want to think about how Josie must’ve felt after she left, their tearful goodbye had been painful enough. She wondered how long it had taken after that for her to grow close with Landon, if he was just a rebound or if Josie really loved him - neither option was preferable.

“No, I broke up with her, remember?” Penelope clarified, feigning disinterest. She almost immediately dropped the act, more so out of shame rather than the fact that she was talking to Josie’s father. He probably didn’t think very highly of her after she broke his daughter’s heart the first time around. “If I see her, I’ll say hi..”

Seemingly satisfied with the answer he’d been given, Alaric momentarily returned his attention back towards the computer, clicking and typing a few times before he spoke, “Then congratulations, Penelope, you’re officially a student at Mystic Falls High.” He announced, not bothering to lace his tone with enthusiasm, he knew it was the last thing Penelope wanted.

With another click at the computer, a sheet of paper appeared from the printer behind Alaric’s desk, the machinery making a soft buzz. He turned around in his chair to grab the paper, handing it to Penelope. “This has your timetable and your locker number.” He stated, pointing towards each area where the necessary information was located.

Taking the paper in her hands, Penelope quickly skimmed over the information, enough to know that her first lesson of the day was History. She nodded, “Thanks, Alaric.” Penelope acknowledged.

“That’s Mr Saltzman to you.” Alaric corrected her half-heartedly. He shook his head, knowing that she wouldn’t listen, Penelope had been too close to Josie and the rest of the Saltzman family - excluding Lizzie, of course - to even consider Alaric an authority figure. “Just be careful what you call me around the other students.”

Penelope nodded again, humming in amusement as she stood up from her seat. “Yeah, sure.” She mumbled, gathering her things and folding up the sheet Alaric had given her, “I guess I’ll see you around then."

For the first time during the entire exchange, Alaric offered Penelope a smile. Strangely enough, Penelope found it reassuring, easing nerves she didn’t know she had about her first day, “Good luck today.” He said, “And welcome back to Mystic Falls.”

hate(d) | nishimura riki x reader

requested by @onionhaseyeo i’m so sorry if this isn’t what you wanted but for some reason i got super excited

a/n: this is my first time writing a fic(?) i guess it could be considered.. i just had an idea i liked for the request and it felt more like a fic than a headcanon :] i hope it’s not too bad !

word count: 2.1k

warnings: probably some grammatical errors, other than that none. (lowercase intended)

tags: e2l, slight angst, slight fluff

you hate nishimura riki. when you tell others how you feel about him they always have the same unoriginal response, “hate is such a strong word.” and that, is exactly why you chose it. 

now, in order to really understand why your hatred runs so deep, let’s get into the Three W’s! WHY do you hate him so much? he stole your best friend, she ended up developing feelings for him and ghosting you, she moved away, he never apologized for it. WHEN did you realize nishimura riki was the worst thing to ever happen to you? 7th grade, it’s always 7th grade. WHERE did the beginning of the end commence? the cafeteria, your friend decided to spill her guts out in front of the whole lunch table, only to be humiliated not long after. 

there you sat, glaring at the back of riki’s head. anyone from a mile away could sense your distaste when it came to him. truth be told, no one could understand why, and you never cared to explain. you figured the situation between the two of you or - just you and an unknowing boy -  was personal and should be kept private. you were really good at keeping it a secret too, so good that riki himself couldn’t pinpoint the issue you had with him. 

for the most part you did your best to avoid him, whether it be physically or when he was brought up in conversation between classmates. ni-ki, as people on good terms with him would address him, was a really friendly student. he didn’t pick fights, kept his teasing to a minimum, and somehow got good grades despite sleeping in and skipping classes. 

going to school knowing his sweet, smiling face would be one of the first things you would see in the morning was what kept you in bed during first period. just the idea of him was revolting, and you simply weren’t strong enough to hold your ground right after waking up.

that was until your first period teacher emailed you letting you know a group project was coming up and it counted as 60% of your overall grade. all you could do was send a friendly reply, close the laptop, and scream into your pillow. you were going to be seeing nishimura riki for the first time in almost a month. which you considered to be the best month of your life.

you were alert all morning, barely getting any sleep the night before from how nervous you were. it actually wasn’t as bad as you thought. you were late, which meant everyone already picked who they were going to group with. and, to your luck, riki was nowhere to be foun-

*bump*

“oh my gosh, i am so sorry. . . y/n?” sigh, of course it had to be him. you flashed a limp smile and hurried over to an empty seat. you noticed his hand go forward then drop down to his side, almost like he was trying to bring you back. “oh! ni-ki,” even the teacher knows his nickname? how wonderful. “what perfect timing, you and y/n will be partners for the project, i’ll send the rubric out this afternoon. class dismissed!”

your legs were like jelly, since when did you become this way? sure, you hate him but. . . not being able to move? it was different, it was new. riki noticed the look of confusion on your face and cautiously made his way over to you once all the other students cleared the classroom. “hey, y/n. i haven’t seen you in a while, have you been doing alright?” why on earth was he concerned about you? so shameless.

“yeah, i’m fine, thanks,” you glared at him while standing up and purposefully bumping into his shoulder. bad move. your knees gave out right then, luckily, riki held onto you before you could hit the cold floor. you sighed in defeat, today just wasn’t your day, and mister nishimura just wasn’t the person you wanted to be this close to.

“do you need something? or is there another reason you won’t let go of my arm,” every word had a hint of poison mixed in it. riki muttered a small apology and quickly released you. “i just wanted to let you know that we can work on the project at my place, only if you want,” he gave a boxy closed-mouth smile, almost as if he was trying to act cute. disgusting.

“whatever, give me your address and i’ll come by at 4.” and with that, you two went your separate ways.

after school

as you made your way to riki’s house, you were running over every possible scenario that could occur. you wanted to avoid arguing, only because you took your grades very seriously. but does he? you couldn’t help but feel nervous and slightly jittery as you got closer to his front steps. oh! the door is open. but. . . no riki?

you called out for him a couple times until hearing laughter and the crunching of chips coming down from the second floor. of course, he’s playing the game. trudging up the stairs you wiped off your sweaty palms, mentally preparing yourself before inviting yourself into his room.

“sunghoon, shut up! it’s not even like that, you’re so weird,” he was so loud. “jake, you too! as if you haven’t been trying to swoon that girl in your third period for the past two months now. haha!” well, boys will be boys.

you open the door and riki notices immediately. he throws his headset and controller down to the floor. “y/n, you scared me,” he was almost out of breath. “oh my bad, i called out for you but you didn’t hear me so. . .” you fiddled with your fingers awkwardly. riki muttered a quick, “it’s okay” and gestured for you to take a seat on his bed.

picking up his headset, he told the cheeky upper-class boys that he would talk to them later. grabbing his supplies and computer, he took a seat next to you. you shifted away from him a little, not comfortable with the closeness between the two of you. he didn’t seem to notice, that or he just didn’t care.

“okay, so, have you already looked over the rubric?” crickets. “helloo, earth to y/n! have you checked the rubric yet?” “OH! yes, i have, ha,” you gave a quick reply, trying to pretend the awkward moment of you staring at him never happened.

ha? are you insane? you were nervous yes, and you thought it was because of the bad terms you two were on but. . . this nervousness felt a bit different.

“i also wrote up a quick outline during lunch,” you took the paper out of your bag and moved to hand it to him. “ooh nice, you’re such a scholar,” you gave him a lighthearted “shut up” before looking back at your laptop.

did he feel that? your fingers touched. they did touch, right? you can’t be imagining all of this. Y/N. WHAT ARE YOU DOING? YOU HATE HIM, REMEMBER?

“uh, y/n? why do you look like you’ve been holding in a wet fart for the past three minutes?” he was being playful while also holding genuine concern because of your recent actions. your jaw drops, you were always bad at keeping a poker face. but you knew you had to go back to your cold state, there was no way you were going to finish the project by gawking at him. he has such pretty lips by the way, how did you not notice sooner?

it had been a few hours since you guys started working on the project. you checked the time, 8:00 pm. “hey, riki,” you began with a small yawn. “y/n, you know you can call me ni-ki, right? that’s what all my friends call me,” his eyes suddenly widened noticing your discomfort. “wait, i mean. . . only if you want to!”

you cleared your throat and just asked for the bathroom. once inside and closing the door behind you, you felt the need to cry. sob, even. what is going on? why do you feel so bad for being around him? are you a traitor? is it wrong to be laughing and giggling like the two of you are besties?

you turned the water on, hoping it would drown out the sound of your muffled cries. unfortunately, you have some awfully loud sniffles. riki came running to where you were and knocked on the door. he spoke softly, “y/n? are you okay? can i come in?” what was the point in saying no? it is his house, and maybe if you told him. . . you’d feel better.

as you opened the door and looked up at him, the look of worry on his face made your heart ache. gosh, why do you care about him so much? he looked at your tear stained face and slowly reached out his hand, giving you a look that pleaded for your approval. you pass a small nod, and almost sank into the warmth of his hand on your cheek. he pulled you in for a hug as you cried for a little while longer. “do you wanna talk about it?”

here it was, here was the chance to let him know what you’ve been wanting to since 7th grade. you took a moment to steady your breathing and gather courage to look him in the eyes. you told him everything, from the beginning of 7th grade, to the day it all happened, all the way to where the two of you stood now.

he just sat there, probably trying to process everything you had randomly dumped on him. you were about to apologize and pack your things, but for some odd reason, he smiled? “ni-ki? what’s so funny? i was being serious,” his smile only grew bigger, “no i know, i just find it so funny how you had so much agaisnt me meanwhile i just wanted you to like me.”

he?? wanted you to like him??? hmmm. “what do you mean. . . wanted me to like you?” you were really curious, “i’ve had a crush on you since 7th grade, that’s why i rejected your friend later on. i never knew it would hurt you in the process, and for that i am sorry. very sorry.” you let out a small chuckle, “it’s not your fault, really. now that i’m older i think i was only mad that you two didn’t end up together because i liked you too. i just couldn’t live with myself for liking the same boy my best friend liked. it’s stupid, i know.”

riki reached out for your hand, which you obviously let him have. “you’re a good friend.” he flashed you a sweet and caring smile. you let out a sigh of relief, it felt like a weight had been lifted off your shoulders. all this time you had been pushing for yourself to hate him, while it was all just a plot to get rid of your feelings for him. crazy.

it was 11:00 pm.

you and riki had already finished the project and were laying on his floor. the both of you just staring at the ceiling and stealing glances at each other. what lovesick little kids.

after noticing the time, you hopped up and told him you really needed to go. he gave you a small pout with puppy eyes trying to get you to stay, and of course, it was hard but you’d rather leave now and see him later than get grounded and not see him for another month. “i can just text you, don’t make that face.”

he escorted you down the stairs, both of you moving discreetly, careful not to wake the boy’s parents. he opened the door for you and you turned around, gazing at him. “what are you thinking?” he asked with a tired smile on his face and small pieces of fluffy hair sticking up in every direction. you gave a shy smile and pecked his lips. he was very surprised, but also very happy.

“nothing.” you said, holding a cheeky grin in an attempt to hide your shyness. “wow, just to think that you hate my guts,” riki poked fun at you.

“hm, hate is such a strong word.”

“what would you call it then?”

“i would say. . . i hate(d) you. past tense.”

the two of you just laughed, both of you yawning shortly after.

“goodnight, mr. ni-ki.”

“goodnight, y/n.”

and with that, the two of you went your separate ways. but this time, with mutual feelings.

oh and btw, the project got you guys an A+ ;).

This is kind of a crack idea, but I don't really care and I'm throwing it out anyway

Curt and Owen have to go undercover in a show for a mission(keeping an eye on one of the members of the cast maybe?). The show? Either Spies are Forever or a Hatchetfield show, take your pick -S

S anon... you have been waiting a while for this, and I apologize. With Headless, I needed a moment to recharge. So this is going to be a Modern! SAF fic. And as a treat, we're going original cast in an AU. That's right folks. Extra meta content. You asked for crack, you're gonna get crack. Please note: Most of the stories pertaining to the real people involved in this oneshot are made up based on what facts I know about them/ what I’m able to pick up on personalities. I don’t know any of these people personally, though. This is going to be such a ride, so buckle up.

Genre: Comedy/ Action/ Fluff

Words: 5639

TL;DR: Curt and Owen take the stage in order to monitor Chimera and one of their operatives. The thing is, they only have a vague clue as to who they're going after: he was one of the writers.

TW: Swearing, Guns, Fighting- But not much, this is mostly just gonna be a joke.

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"Next we have... Curt Mega?" The longer-haired one read off, looking at Curt. "Cool name! We might have to use that- if, of course, that's okay with you."

"Oh... yeah, that's fine." Curt chuckled softly.

What, precisely, was Curt doing? Only the thing he'd vowed to Owen that he would never do (other than, of course, leave him): auditioning for a musical. Owen was a total theatre kid, and he'd done his share of musicals. Curt was always in the audience, but he'd jokingly told Owen that he would never be joining him up there. But... here he was. In an audition room. Curt never broke promises, not even joke ones. But these were... extenuating circumstances. In other words, this was for a mission and he had no doubt that Cynthia would actually kill him if he didn't follow through with his orders. Owen gave him a sly, triumphant smirk from across the room, where he was waiting for his audition. Curt got up, following the guy back further into the studio where they were holding auditions.

This mission was an odd one. It was monitoring a potential operative with Chimera Worldwide. Sure, they had the world by storm now- but A.S.S. was getting intel telling them that they might be breaching the privacy rights of people all over the world. In fact, Chimera may be a lot more criminal than they would seem to the naked eye. There was evidence coming to light of plots that could very well end in world domination. The worst part: apparently they were pretty plausible. One world government, puppeted by Chimera. That's why MI6 had sent Owen, and A.S.S. had sent Curt. They were their best agents, and a duo that had proven to work well together.

What did all of that have to do with a musical? To the average joe, nothing. Oh, Chimera had done well. They'd even declined to offer these guys a production grant so as to not seem shady. But... the A.S.S. had reason to believe that one of the writers and producers for the show that they were about to audition for was an operative for Chimera. Now, this play in and of itself may be an independent project. It may have nothing to do with Chimera. But... it was looking like the easiest way to monitor this operative, and so here Curt and Owen were. Owen was thrilled! He loved doing shows. He usually had to slot them into his schedule carefully, though. He couldn't do them during missions. So a mission where he was doing theatre was basically a dream come true for him.

Curt and Owen had chosen roles according to their experience with theatre. Curt had chosen to keep his name as his theatrical stage name, and Owen already did keep his name as a stage name. It was risky, but it also provided their names with a solid cover in the world outside of espionage. Owen had a legitimate resume built. That was why he was going for the lead, currently named 'JB' for 'James Bond' (subject to change). Curt, on the other hand, had stolen his resume from another actor named Curt Mega (who had fully agreed to that and signed an NDA and luckily enough happened to look like Curt). He had literally no acting experience, so he was going for a smaller role: The Informant and Ensemble. Both would likely have eyes on different parts of the production process and the cast. Hopefully they'd get a good idea of what was going on and who their target was. Maybe they'd even get to eliminate the threat! That was Curt's favourite part of missions.

"So, Curt... you did Glee?" The guy who had initially called him asked as they walked.

"Yep!" Curt lied.

"I recognize you! You were one of the Warblers- nice job on that solo in Uptown Girl, by the way." The man chuckled. Oh good. He was passable as the other Curt Mega. "I did Glee too. I was only there for, like, an episode though. But my buddy Darren... well, you probably know him."

"Yeah. He did a phenomenal job as Blaine." Curt smirked. Darren was also on an NDA. The government was being extremely careful.

"I'm Joey Richter. Me and my friends Brian and Corey wrote this show." The man introduced himself, extending his hand. Curt took it, giving him a firm shake. Joey smirked. "Damn... you've got a good shake."

"Thanks." Curt chuckled. He liked this guy. It was hard to imagine right now that he could be talking to an agent for one of the greatest evils known to man since... probably the Nazis. "I'm Curt... I mean, you know that, I just..."

"Yeah, I get it." Joey chuckled along with him. They walked into a room. Inside there were four other men. Two sat behind a table, Curt's supposed 'resume' and headshots laid out in front of them, a stack of papers on the side. Two other men shared a piano bench stationed by a keyboard. None of them were dressed particularly formally. Actually, they were all dressed pretty similarly to Curt. Short-sleeved patterned button-ups were about as formal as it got. So Curt and his black, white and gold striped short-sleeved button-up were in good company. "Hey, guys! This is Curt!"

"Hey! Welcome to the auditions for Spies are Forever!" One of the men behind the table smiled brightly. God, all of these men looked... so innocent. Curt couldn't see any of them being traitors to their country, much less mankind.

"Okay, so that's Brian. The guy beside him is Corey." Joey introduced. Corey waved. "The two guys at the piano bench are Clark and Pierce, our composers and band."

"Hey, Curt." Clark smirked.

"You brought your sixteen bars?" Pierce checked.

"Yep." Curt nodded, popping his 'p' and passing him the binder with his sheet music in it.

He'd brought Being Alive from Company, which Owen said was "such a cliche" and "a terrible choice for a comic show", but it was the song Curt felt most comfortable singing. So he was singing it anyways. Owen was very adamant that Curt had to be careful to actually be cast in the show, but Curt held that that song was his best chance. Curt had always thought he was an okay singer. He had his range that he shined in, and he used that. He never performed though. He wasn't that good. That's why he was going for a mostly non-singing role. He went over his cut with Clark, who was actually the one who would be playing for him. Then he cleared his throat, took a deep breath and gave it the old college try.

The odd thing, Curt thought, was that they seemed very into it. Either they were being very nice to him or they were genuinely enjoying the performance. Curt was a bit surprised by that. Owen was the performer among the two of them. Curt supposed it could just be the song. But then... something else unexpected happened. They asked Curt to do his cold read as 'JB'... and change the name to his own. 'Agent Curt Mega'. It was all getting a bit real for Curt. They liked him. And they liked his cold read. They were laughing during his cold read- and at all the right times! Curt was very confused. This wasn't where he was supposed to shine. He walked out of the audition room, and Owen was called in.

Owen really could not have come out sooner. Curt was anxious. What had he just done? He had given it his best because he thought that the best that could get him was ensemble. Was it going to get him more? Was he ready for more? He was past the point of no return, but... God, what had he just done? Owen came out of his audition, smug and content with himself. Apparently they'd asked him to read multiple sides. Curt hadn't the heart to tell him they'd asked him to read for the lead. A few days passed. Curt almost forgot that he'd even auditioned. That it had been so successful. Basking in the California sun could do that to you. But three days later, it all came back to him all too vividly.

"Curt, I got the email!" Owen announced from where he was lazing on the couch across from Curt in their hotel room. He sat up quickly, eager.

"What does it say?" Curt asked eagerly, sitting up with him. Owen scrolled down on his phone.

"Well... I'm in the show..." Owen furrowed his brows. "But... not in the role I thought. I got Deadliest Man Alive."

"Oh." Curt frowned. "I'm sorry. I know you really wanted the lead."

"It seemed like a juicy part." Owen hummed, still a bit dazed by the rejection. "I was looking forward to it."

"I know, babe." Curt sighed, getting up and wrapping his partner in a hug. "Maybe this one will be even juicier!"

"Maybe..." Owen nodded. "Thank you, love. For trying to make me feel better."

"Yeah, no problem!" Curt smiled softly.

"Did you get your email?" Owen asked.

"I... haven't checked." Curt admitted.

"Well go on, then! Sit! We'll check together!" Owen urged him. Curt sighed, sitting beside him and opening his email. Owen peered over his shoulder. The email from the Tin Can Bros was the first one that popped up right at the top. "Open it, Curt!"

"Okay..." Curt chuckled nervously, pressing the email to open it. He scrolled down, sighing in relief. "I got in, O."

"Congratulations!" Owen cheered, grinning. he was genuinely happy for Curt, and excited to be in the same show. "What role?"

"Let me scroll down..." Curt chuckled, before his heart stopped. Naturally, his laughter stopped with it, and his face fell.

"Love, what is it?" Owen furrowed his brows, concerned by the sudden mood shift. Immediately, his mind went to the worst-case scenario. "Curt, is there anything in there indicating that we might be compromised?"

"No..." Curt shook his head, staring at the role.

"Then... darling, what's wrong?" Owen blinked, before looking over his shoulder. His face fell to a state of shock almost equal to Curt's when he read the words, bolded on the screen: We would like to offer you the role of 'JB', renamed Agent Curt Mega. "Oh..."

_________________________________________________

Rehearsals for Spies Are Forever were potentially one of the best times Curt had ever had. Everyone loved him! Apparently, his voice was much better than he'd given himself credit for, as was his acting. Even Owen admitted it. It turned out Curt was perfect for the role. The songs fit right for him, the personality was spot on... the spy was even gay! It was as though it was written specifically for him to perform. Curt truly was having the time of his life. And Owen was loving the role of Deadliest Man Alive. It turned out it was a significantly juicier role than Curt's- funny, dark. And he even had a minor side comedic role to take on, Dick Big. So he could flex his chops in different area. There was a bit of a minor complication with the characters, though.

It turned out Curt's was not the only name that they'd liked. The Tin Can Bros had thought Owen's name was absolutely perfect... for Curt's partner turned villain. Romantic partner turned villain, to boot. They liked the ship name Curtwen. Ironically, both Owen and Joey were playing versions of Agent Owen Carvour- Owen playing him when he was in disguise as Deadliest Man Alive, Joey playing him out of disguise. Owen didn't make a fuss- he couldn't in the position he was in. But he didn't like being portrayed that way, or his name being used that way. The truth was, Owen had used to be morally grey. He'd had a phase where he'd almost betrayed his country and Curt. He'd very nearly done some terrible things. He wouldn't way who for, but Owen had implied it might have been Chimera. But he and Curt had worked through that, and he saw the error of his ways. It hurt seeing his name associated with villainy again. But for the sake of the mission, he literally could not complain.

As for the mission, they weren't really getting too far yet- and that wasn’t for lack of effort. As hard as finding a balance between rehearsal and espionage was, they’d managed to find a routine and stick to it. The work they were doing really should have been productive for them. They'd bugged all three writers and the two composers, but HQ (who was monitoring those so that the boys could focus on rehearsing so that they didn’t become too suspicious) was saying that they'd not gotten any suspicious activity from those except for Joey constantly being with an unidentified girl. But it seemed like that was his girlfriend and not another operative. So either this operative was smart and onto them or taking a hiatus from their work. Background checks were pretty clean. They were going purely off their interactions with these writers, which wasn’t really helping. All five of them were lovely. All five of them were also extremely smart. And all five of them had acting experience. Right now, though... Joey, Clark and Pierce weren't their main suspects. Joey was just too genuine to be bad, as were Pierce and Clark. Plus, if we're looking at technicalities (as Owen tended to), Clark and Pierce were composers, not writers. It was between Brian and Corey- unless something changed. Truly, it was anyone's game.

Owen and Curt were on break. It had been a hard day of rehearsal so far. Curt had just had to rehearse his pseudo-love-song with Mary Kate (who was lovely, but he was a bit jealous of- Owen had called her 'gorgeous' on multiple occasions now), and though it wasn't physically or musically demanding it was hard not to just start laughing. Especially with Curt, a gay man who had experienced this before. And Lauren played his meddling mother during the song, which only made it harder not to laugh. His own mother had no idea what he did or who he was seeing, and it was better that way. She just thought he was a single banker. He liked Lauren’s version of his mom better. She was way funnier. It had taken a bit of time just to get a run in where Curt wasn't giggling the entire time. The song was just so well written! He knew it was so unprofessional (and Owen had certainly reminded him of that) but he couldn't help it! And the Bros were laughing with him, so it was all good. He was glad to be on break, because his sides were killing him. He scrolled through his phone, checking for anything from HQ, before he felt a hand on his back.

"You know, Curt, I don't know if I've told you this lately but you're really, really great!" Joey told him.

"Thanks, man." Curt chuckled. "Thanks for the opportunity!"

"Thank you for coming out for our show!" Joey smirked. His voice dropped to a lower volume. “Listen... you and Owen are dating, right?”

"Yeah..." Curt furrowed his brows. He and Owen had chosen to be open about that. They were all pretty supportive of the LGBTQ+ community. The actor playing Susan and The Informant had even confessed to him that they thought they might be nonbinary- maybe even female leaning. 

"Okay, so for the whole anniversary thing..." Joey fidgeted a bit nervously. "I mean... I've got an anniversary coming up, and, like, it's not my first, but... I think I’ve used every trick in the dating book at this point, and-"

"Wait, you're dating?" Curt blinked.

"Oh! Right, you're new!" Joey started to laugh. "Um... yeah! It's me and Lo."

"You and Lauren?" Curt smirked. He chuckled. "I knew it!"

"We're not public about the relationship yet, though, so... keep it quiet?" Joey pleaded.

"Oh yeah, you're safe." Curt assured him.

"So... any ideas?" Joey asked. “I really want this to be special for her.”

"Have you guys done the beach yet?" Curt offered. "Like, just a picnic- something you both love to eat- out on the beach."

"Yeah, did that two years ago." Joey sighed.

"Alright... how about a museum?" Curt offered. "It can be any museum that has something the two of you could bond over. But... I mean, Owen is super into experiencing art together."

"That we haven't done... not by ourselves on a date." Joey considered. "It doesn't even really have to be art, does it?"

"Nah, that's the beauty of museums! There are museums out there for everything." Curt smirked. “Maybe you two could go to a movie museum.”

"That’s probably more our speed.” Joey chuckled. “Thanks, man!”

"No problem.” Curt winked playfully. Then, he got an idea. He trusted Joey, so hopefully this worked. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

"I mean, I kinda owe you one." Joey chuckled. “Ask away!”

"Have you noticed anyone... acting a bit weird? Like... different from the way they usually do." Curt whispered.

"I... think I know who you mean." Joey nodded. "With Mary Kate... I think she honestly just misses Sean, you know? The rehearsals are a long time for her to be away from him. Those two are so close."

"Yeah... yeah, that must be hard on her." Curt hummed sympathetically. That... wasn't what he'd been going for.

"But I don't know what's going on with Brian." Joey confided in him. "I mean, it's not like he's been acting weird, per se, but... I mean, he always used to be down to just hang after work. But recently, he's been too busy to do that? I honestly thought it was just me who was picking up on that, but like... you're noticing it too?"

"Yeah. Yeah I am." Curt lied, all the sympathy he could muster in his tone. Bingo. He'd just gotten some really, really good intel there. If there was anyone who would be able to know when one of the writers was acting shady, it was Joey. They were his best friends. And Curt tended to agree with Joey anyways. Corey just didn’t give off villain vibes. Neither did Brian, but out of the two of them, Brian gave off more. “Glad it’s not just me.”

"What's he saying about me?" Brian rolled his eyes playfully, approaching his bag from behind them to grab something. Shit. He must have heard his name. 

"Uh..." Joey blushed.

"Oh, he was just telling me about how you two met." Curt lied. Joey gave him a questioning look. But Curt remembered him mentioning it in another one of his longwinded vents. "U of Michigan, Freshmen year. You two got into a lot of trouble."

"He's not telling you any of the bad stuff, is he?" Brian teased.

"Nah, man- I respect the bro code!" Joey scoffed playfully. Curt gave Joey a wink, and Joey gave him a grateful look in return. The wink hadn't gone unnoticed by Brian though.

"Oh god, he is telling you the bad stuff, isn't he?" Brian groaned playfully. "Listen, if Lauren asks, none of it was us."

"Oh don't worry... I'm great with secrets." Curt chuckled. He kinda wanted context now. Knowing those two, it was nothing serious- Joey had a heart of gold. He wouldn't be involved in anything bad. Especially not with his soon-to-be-girlfriend. So probably pranks, or other such shenanigans.

"Guys... I already knew it was you." Lauren rolled her eyes. None of them had noticed her by her own rehearsal bag picking up her water bottle. "It was so obvious... I may have believed you when you blamed Holden like... once? Twice? But you literally signed off half of the time."

"We did?" Joey blinked, looking at Brian.

"Okay, look, some of the time... I was pretty proud of our work." Brian defended himself.

"Dude!" Joey started to snicker. "And here I was keeping secrets from my girlfriend for you!"

"Sorry, Joey." Brian winced. 

“Eh, I guess I have to forgive you.” Joey rolled his eyes, chuckling. “You’re my best friend.”

“Hey, what’s that?” Lauren asked, noticing a pink piece of paper sticking out of Curt’s rehearsal bag. Curt blushed profusely. That was the letter Owen had written to pick him up. he took it everywhere with him in case he panicked so that he could read it, remember those days and calm down. It helped. He’d meant to keep it hidden. 

“Oh... it’s nothing.” Curt lied. 

“It’s not nothing, is it?” Lauren smirked. She gave him a genuine look. “Is it personal?”

“Oh, it’s nothing too bad.” Owen chuckled. Curt blushed further, feeling Owen wrap his arms around his waist. When had he gotten there?”

“What’s going on over here?” Corey asked, joining them. It seemed they had formed a rather large clump. 

“I think Lauren might be about to read the first letter I ever wrote to Curtis.” Owen smirked triumphantly, clearly not embarrassed by that prospect. 

“Ooooo romantic!” Tessa teased Curt. When had she shown up? God, for a spy, Curt was not very observant. He took a brief look at his surroundings. Ah. Everyone was there. Fantastic. 

“Oh hell yeah I am!” Lauren smirked. She plucked the paper out of Curt’s bag. 

“Oh god...” Curt groaned. 

“You okay with this?” Corey checked with Curt. Curt nodded reluctantly. 

“I mean, as long as O is.” Curt sighed, relenting.

With that, Lauren used the rest of their break to overdramatically read out Owen’s letter. Curt was a blushing mess, and Owen was grinning like an idiot. Evidently he was proud of himself- as he should have been. It was a good letter. At least Curt and Owen now had an idea of who to look into: Brian Rosenthal. It was a bit odd to think that Brosenthal might be a Chimera operative. He was a funny, quirky... he didn’t seem ruthless enough. Maybe they were wrong. But this was literally all the intel they could get at the moment. Mind you, they needed concrete evidence before they could actually do anything, but... at least they had a lead. Even if it was a weird one. The thing about espionage was that leads were usually weird. So they... well, they managed to bug all of the writers’ houses a bit more to give HQ more to work with, but especially Brian’s. That way the minute they had solid evidence, they could act. Well... not the minute. More like within about twenty minutes. But same difference. There was nothing else they could do. 

________________________________________________

Nothing happened through the rest of the rehearsal process. Literally nothing. No one did anything suspicious. Honestly, Curt and Owen were starting to think that their superiors were wrong. They were performing their shows- with excellent reception, might they add. People were loving Curt. The real Curt Mega was getting huge acclaim on Curt’s behalf. And the fans... well they were going mad. It was looking like the show would be a huge success- which meant two things. One, Curt was going to have to do more theatre. Cleary he was good at it. Two, his life as a spy was about to get more... complicated. IT turned out these guys had a bit of a cult following because they had been involved with a theatre group called Team Starkid? Curt knew about them from his mission briefing, but honestly he’d never thought that they were that big of a deal. When he’d confessed that to Owen he’d gotten a long lecture. Apparently Owen was also a fan, and that was half of why he was so excited to be doing this show. But that was a topic for another time. 

It was about the third show in when they finally got the evidence they had been looking for. It... was not when they’d planned to find anything. Actually, it was at the least convenient time. Between acts. It was also in the least expected way. Curt had to get his props for the top of Act Two. Owen decided to go with him, mostly to make sure he wasn’t a total and utter child. Honestly, they just meant to get their props before places. They were the only ones in that area backstage- the stagehands were resetting the stage and helping with costume changes/ tech issues. Well, they thought they were the only ones backstage. They should have been. But it turns out that someone else had anticipated the lack of people, and was using that to his advantage. At first, all Curt and Owen could hear were murmurs- not distinguishable in the slightest. Bey both gave each other a look before pulling out their real guns (which they hid on their costumes just in case) and following the sound. And that was when they saw him. The culprit behind all of this: Bri- Corey Lubowich? They lowered their guns a bit, staying dead quiet. That wasn’t what they’d been expecting. {erhaps this was a false alarm. 

“I am in the middle of a- no, I get that my work with you is important! Believe me, I know!” Corey hissed. “I just... tonight is one of my shows! I’m going on as the Prince! I- well can it wait half an hour? I mean I’d prefer two hours, but if I have to whip out my laptop backstage, I- well I’m kinda insisting on- come on, you guys know my theatre is important to me!”

“Okay... so we were wrong...” Owen whispered. 

“We don’t know that...” Curt reasoned. “It could be his family.”

“Of course I’m loyal! When have I not done what you said? I have sacrificed so much for you!” Corey fumed quietly. “Chimera is my life now! Not theatre, not my family or friends. Chimera! Do you know how fucking weird that is for someone my age?! I’m too young for all this corporate shit! No! No, of course that’s not what I’m saying just- can I have my night? Come on, this is really important.”

“Okay, I take that back.” Curt blinked, stunned. He was just a bit too loud. Corey’s head snapped in their direction, and both men raised their guns. Corey’s eyes fumbled, and he pulled out a gun of his own, haphazardly aiming it at them. 

“Okay... shit, guys, I’m going to have to call you back... we’ve got a situation.” Corey muttered. His face fell and he rolled his eyes, unimpressed. “No, not a theatre situation. An us situation. I’ll fill you in- look, they have guns. Just- I really don’t have the time for this anymore- NOT MY JOB WITH YOU! This conversation! Jesus, I’ve got two guns pointed at me! Let me go! Okay, fine! Bye!”

“You...” Curt spat, glaring at Corey. 

“You guys finally figured it out...” Corey sighed, raising his gun fully at them. 

“You know who we are?” Curt blinked. 

“How?” Owen asked him coldly. 

“Chimera has eyes and ears everywhere.” Corey rolled his eyes. “Just like in the show. I knew you were coming, and I knew you were looking for me. I just didn’t think you’d actually find me.”

“Are you insulting our intelligence?” Owen scoffed. 

“No. I just thought I set up Brian pretty well.” Corey admitted. “It was pretty easy, too... all I had to do was point out to Joey that Brian wasn’t coming to as many of our hangouts as he used to. You trusted Joey. Joey relayed that to you. Threw you completely off my scent.”

“Yeah, aren’t you just the friend of the year.” Curt rolled his eyes. “You threw your bro under the bus.”

“You’re lucky we didn’t get a false tip-off and eliminate him.” Owen hummed in agreement. “You’ve no clue the kinds of things that could set our superiors off.”

“Well... It’s Brian. The chances of him doing anything sketchy are slim to none.” Corey reasoned. 

“Corey, I’m going to need you to put that gun down and put your hands behind your head.” Curt sighed. 

“Alright, guys, places!” Joey called out to them. Everyone was backstage- except, oddly, Lauren (who was usually pretty punctual on cues). Shit. Their timing was awful. “You can play with the... are those our prop guns?”

“No... those are too modern.” Brian furrowed his brows, approaching them to get a closer look. He blinked before stumbling back. “Holy shit, guys... are those real guns?”

“Yes, they are... and you’re going to need to stay back.” Curt told them levelly. “Lubowich, gun down, hands behind your head.”

“We outgun and outman you.” Owen reminded him. The fact that Corey was so reluctant was astounding. “And we have a license to kill if you don’t cooperate.”

“Okay, guys, what the fuck?!” Joey exclaimed. 

“Can we just... put the guns down and talk this out?” Tessa pleaded. 

“No... we can’t.” Curt shook his head. “My name is Agent Curt Mega, American Secret Service. My partner is Owen Carvour, MI6.”

“Our credentials...” Owen muttered, pulling them out with one hand and holding them out to Brian, who was closest. He hesitantly took them. Corey shot Owen while he wasn’t in peak position to shoot him. Curt shot Corey back with no hesitation. Neither shot was fatal, Corey’s hitting Owen in the arm and Curt’s hitting Corey in the shoulder. The impact was enough to make both men stumble back. Owen stayed on his feet, but Corey fell. Curt kept his gun trained on Corey. 

“Holy shit, they’re not lying...” Brian mumbled. 

“Okay, Corey... what the actual fuck, man?!” Joey fumed, definitely feeling a bit betrayed. 

“Corey... why are you fighting the secret service?” Mary Kate asked coolly, trying to be the level-headed one. 

“He works for Chimera.” Curt told them, knowing they might not get a clear response from Corey for a bit. 

“The assholes who wouldn’t fund us?” Brian groaned. Corey grunted in admittance. “Come on, man! This just keeps getting worse and worse!”

“Okay, guys, I’m here. Sorry I took so-” Lauren started, rushing out. She saw the scene playing out and blinked. “Holy fuck! What’s going on?!”

“They’re actual fucking spies, Lo.” Joey hissed. “All three of them.”

“Pretty sure Curt and Owen are the good guys.” Brian added in a whisper. 

“Oh yeah, Curt and Owen are definitely the good guys.” Tessa gulped. 

“Corey is an agent for Chimera.” Curt explained. 

“Please tell me this is an elaborate prank.” Lauren chuckled nervously. 

“No, Lo... this time it’s real.” Joey sighed. 

“Okay, but... Chimera’s just a huge global corporation, right?” Mary Kate reasoned. 

“Not really.” Corey croaked out. 

“They’re plotting world domination.” Owen grunted. 

“Corey...” Joey breathed. 

“World domination makes it sound bad.” Corey grimaced. “We more just want control over every world government... and then maybe to take all of them out and form one Chimera government.”

“That doesn’t make it sound any better.” Tessa winced. 

“Why?” Brian asked Corey, hurt. “Why are you doing this?”

“Honestly, I just needed a bit of extra money in college.” Corey muttered, trying and failing to find his footing. Clearly he wasn’t a field agent too often. 

“So you turned to espionage?!” Lauren scoffed incredulously. 

“Honestly I started as a delivery boy and then I found out some shit I should never have known...” Corey sighed. “It escalated really quickly.”

“God, this is a mess.” Joey groaned. 

“Curt, love, can you give our superiors a ring?” Owen prompted him. “I’ll deal with our former friend here.”

“On it.” Curt nodded, pulling out his phone. 

“So... do we stop the show?” Brian asked Owen as he pulled out a zip-tie- another essential item Owen always kept on him, even in costumes.

“Oh no... the A.S.S. is the epitome of discretion. Believe me, you’ll have no clue what’s going on. Just see if you can find a friend in the audience to go on for The Prince.” Owen told them, tying up Corey and forcing him onto his feet. “Owen will take him outside and... he should honestly be ready to go on after We Love The Prince.”

“Holy shit... okay...” Lauren sighed. 

“I’ll make an announcement that we’re having technical difficulties...” Joey planned. “Let’s, um... just take a moment to breathe and get back into the right headspace.”

“We’ll be back in a moment.” Curt told them as he and Owen took Corey outside. 

“Rot in hell, you asshole!” Brian called after him, sniffing. Was he... crying? You know what, it was completely fair. That was one hell of a betrayal. 

So Curt and Owen passed Corey onto their superiors, and Spies Are Forever was able to go on. They got Nick Lang to play The Prince, which only made the fans more excited. Curt and Owen were allowed the opportunity to finish their run with the show- which Curt was so, so grateful for. He loved theatre. he never thought he would, but he loved it. And Owen loved that he loved it. Spies are Forever was the first of many shows for Curt. He got into the habit, like Owen, of doing shows between missions. In fact, he actually got to make Owen a little jealous later on- he got into a Starkid show. Mind you, they knew who he was. Fully this time. They even supported him- helped him build a public backstory. The real Curt Mega’s wife even played wife to him publicly when she needed to. It was a new start in Curt’s life and one that he hadn’t even known he needed. Finally, everything seemed like it was okay.

The Marrow of the Story

Written by: @hutchhitched​ 

Prompt 17: Everlark enemies to lovers, a long-standing grudge (could be anything, even simple) but somehow it is discovered that Katniss is a bone marrow match for Peeta. If she doesn’t donate he will die. [submitted by @lovely-tothe-bone​]

Ratings/Warnings: E

A/N: I’m continuing to post the nine @everlarkficexchange prompts I took and then sat on throughout the early months of the pandemic and the world slowly ground to a halt. This is the eighth of the nine. Thanks for your patience, and I hope you enjoy. Huge thanks to @javistg for understanding the delays. I wrote most of this a few months ago before getting stuck on some transitions. Since then, the teenage daughter of one of my closest friends has been diagnosed with B-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and must undergo a bone marrow transplant this spring. As such, this story became much more personal than a prompt. I’m sure I’ve taken some liberties with the medical aspects and ethics of this story. They are intended for story-telling purposes only. K, I hope you enjoy my take on your prompt.

  “Ms. Everdeen, I need your signature,” my administrative assistant says briskly as she enters my office.

 “What’s this for?” I ask as I scribble my signature on the form.

 She takes the manila folder and hands me another, indicating that I need to sign it, too. “Maintenance orders. The library and those lockers in the freshman wing that don’t lock properly.”

 “Got it. Thanks.”

 “Oh, and you have a call waiting on line three. I told him you were busy, but…” She shrugs as she walks out of the room, and I sigh and drop down in my desk chair. It’s been a really long day.

 “Ms. Everdeen, Panem North. How can I help you?”

 A rumbly, entirely masculine voice reverberates through the line, and I wrap the phone cord around my left index finger. Even before he’s spoken three words, I’m already impatient for the call to end.

 “Ms. Everdeen. It’s Peeta Mellark. How are you today?”

 I narrow my eyes and resist the urge to slam the phone down in the receiver. Mr. Mellark is not my favorite person. He’s the principal at Panem South, my high school’s cross-town rival, and he and I have always clashed. It might be his smug arrogance when he explains his educational philosophy, or it could be the way he surveys me and then turns away in dismissal every time I see him. Whatever it is, I’ve never been able to stand him, and it’s obvious he feels the same if our interactions at every systemwide meeting and educational conference is any indication. My greatest fantasy consists of him being fired in disgrace. A close second is his forced transfer to another school—any school, so long as it’s out of state and I never have to see him again.

 “What do you want, Mellark?” I snap. I have so little patience today I’m afraid I might actually use profanity if he doesn’t hang up within ten seconds.

 “Doing that well, huh? Always good to hear a friendly voice when I have to contact you.”

 “I thought you were on medical leave,” I say with little compassion. It’s not my finest moment, I know that, but I really loathe this man.

 “I am,” he admits. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I really need your help. I know we’re not exactly friends, but—”

 “Friends?” I laugh. “Are you kidding me? I don’t even like you. There’s no way I’d be your friend. Not even if you were dying, and I had the cure.”

 Silence stretches across the line, and I cover my face at what I’ve said. The words are rather unforgivable, and I open my mouth to apologize when he says something I don’t expect to hear.

 “Well, I guess that answers my question. I’m sorry for wasting your time.”

 “What question? You didn’t ask me anything,” I say, exasperated.

 He sighs heavily, and I almost throw the phone across the room. “Katniss—sorry, Ms. Everdeen—I don’t really know how to tell you this, so I’ll just ask you to check your email. I think you’ll find something there from me. It’s from my personal account, so you might have to look in your spam folder. It’ll explain everything. Have a good day.”

 And then he hangs up without even bothering to say goodbye. That complete and utter bastard hung up on me. I mean, I wanted him to leave me alone, but he could have at least had the courtesy to say goodbye before cutting off the conversation.

 I know I’m being unreasonable, but I don’t have time to deal with it at the moment. The last bell of the day is about to ring, and I hurry from my office to oversee students loading onto buses and wandering the parking lot as cars zip in and out of traffic. It’s one of the most nerve-wracking parts of my days, and I’ve almost forgotten Mr. Mellark’s phone call by the time I make it back to my office. If I’m lucky, I can finish within the hour and get home before dark. I hate it when the sunlight hours are so short the day quits before I do.

 I’m just about to shut down my computer when I remember the aggravating phone call. I consider forgetting about it and walking away, but something tells me to open my junk folder and see what that twit’s request is. And then I see it, and I want to throw up.

 Dear Ms. Everdeen,

I know we aren’t exactly friends, but I’ve always admired your ferocity and willingness to give everything you have for your students. Compassion in education isn’t hard to find, but the way you fight for your school, faculty, staff, and students has been inspiring to watch over the past few years.

I mean that. It’s not a ploy to win you over, even though I have a gigantic favor to ask of you.

You might remember that I’ve been on medical leave several times over the past few years. It’s difficult doing my job when I’m ill, so I’ve tried to hide the significance of my condition. The truth is I have a rare bone marrow disease that, without a transplant, is terminal.

Since this is not official business, I’m writing from my personal email, but the favor I’m asking does require your professional approval. With the upcoming blood drive in our district, health clinics have volunteered to be on hand to administer tests for the bone marrow registry. That would streamline the process and allow potentially myself and countless others in need of a transplant a match from someone who might not otherwise volunteer to be tested.

Please consider allowing your school to be part of this. It might save a life.

With admiration, Peeta Mellark

 ****

 Of course I end up giving approval. I’m not a monster, no matter what Mr. Mellark thinks. In good faith, I’m tested as well, and two weeks later, I get a phone call telling me I’m a match for someone in need. By a dramatic, ironic twist of fate, it’s Peeta Mellark who needs my marrow. Thankfully, I’m able to take some time to process, and it’s torture as I weigh the pros and cons.

 A few days pass before I work up the courage to call him. I haven’t heard from him since the phone call letting me know about the email. I’m sure his health takes up much of his energy, but I’m oddly saddened by his absence. I’m also angry with him, but that’s not fair. It’s not his fault that the favor he asked of me will result in me giving up a part of my body and DNA.

 “Hello?”

 “So, what is it you have exactly?” I ask and wince at how detached and unfeeling I sound. I’m anything but that. My squeezing heart is more than enough evidence to prove otherwise. Still, I’m barely holding it together. I can’t let go of the control or I might collapse, and then what?

 “Ms. Everdeen?”

 “Katniss. If you can ask me to consider donating bone marrow, then you can call me by my first name.”

 “Okay, Katniss.” There’s a long pause before he continues. He’s tentative when he finally says, “So, you decided to participate on top of allowing the clinic access to your school?”

 “I did, and I’ll repeat. What is it you have exactly?”

 The words sound just as cold the second time, and I hold my breath until he finally answers.

“I have something called aplastic anemia. I’ve had it since college. Been treating it with blood transfusions for the past decade or so,” he explains with no trace of self-pity or false bravado. His tone is pragmatic, which is almost heart-breaking considering what he’s facing. “There aren’t too many of us with AB- blood in the world, so, I don’t know. When I saw the option of getting more involvement, I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask for help. Directly, I mean. Instead of waiting for the system to work. The worst you could say was no, right?”

 “I’ve already said no to you several times,” I remind him, and he chuckles in response.

 “Yeah. You’ve fought me on every philosophical disagreement we’ve ever had.”

 “That’s because you have really stupid ideas about what works sometimes.”

 His chuckle morphs into a full-fledged laugh, and it makes my lips twitch. “You reject me with aplomb, too. Thanks for not holding back.”

 A grin quirks at the corner of my mouth. He’s funny, I realize. I guess I probably could have figured that out earlier if I’d ever bothered to listen to his words instead of merely hating him.

 “Well, you know. I’m not very good at making friends.”

 The words catch in my throat as I say them. It’s a true statement, but I hadn’t comprehended how much it bothered me until I heard them out loud. I don’t sound matter-of-fact like he does. Loneliness and sadness echo in my voice. I could take some lessons on self-pity from Peeta Mellark, apparently.

 “I’d like to be your friend,” he says softly.

 I blink away tears because my insides have melted into a very unprofessional puddle of goo. It’s a good thing we’re not interacting about anything regarding our jobs.

 “You just want my bone marrow,” I mumble, and my heart jumps at his soft chuckle.

 “Your bone marrow?”

 I inhale shakily and bite my lip. Finally, when I’ve regained a semblance of control, I answer in a quiet admission, “I’m a match.”

 “You’re my match?” His disbelief echoes across the line, and it breaks my heart to hear the trepidatious undercurrent in his tone.

 “I am.”

 “Oh…”

 “So, you want my bone marrow.”

 Silence stretches between us, and I hear rustling before he responds carefully. “I’ll start with that. We can talk about what else I’d like to have later.”

 His voice is warm and soothing, and I feel myself softening. I’ve known that I’m going to be his donor since I knew he needed me, but it feels more personal now. More like he’s my responsibility, my ally, and not my enemy.

 “Okay.”

 There’s a beat of silence, and then he asks tentatively, “Okay?”

 “Yeah. I’ll do it.”

 There’s almost no sound from his end of the line, just his breath in my ear. I can’t imagine what he’s thinking or feeling. It must be a massive amount of relief mixed with a hundred other emotions. Like me, I’m sure he hates asking for help, and to have to request it from me must have been terrible for him. I don’t want him to feel beholden. He doesn’t deserve to have to be grateful for the rest of his life just because he needs something I can willingly give.

 “Thank you,” he finally says, and the simplicity of it takes my breath away.

 I wonder exactly what it is he’s thanking me for—his life? For being willing to grant him a favor? For not being a complete bitch to him like I have been for the past three years? It’s the least I can do for someone who’s dying. I can’t be responsible for hitting him when he’s down.

 “Sure. Yeah, let me know the specifics. Or the hospital can or whatever. I’ll talk to you later.”

 I end the call before he can answer, or maybe he does and I just don’t hear it. I can’t bear to listen to his voice anymore. I don’t know how much I’m going to have to actually see him to complete this process, but I’m suddenly nervous. He’s melted me with just an email and a few phone conversations. If I’m in the same room with him, I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep up the façade of hating him, and I need to. I can’t afford to care about him.

 The next few weeks pass in a flurry of meetings with medical professionals and preparing for the surgery. I don’t see Peeta, and he doesn’t contact me. Maybe he’s afraid I’ll change my mind, or maybe he doesn’t have any interest in actually being my friend, after all. I don’t allow myself to think about why that disappoints me. Instead, I tell myself that he’s likely dealing with his own illness and concentrating on getting as healthy as possible so he can recover quicker following the procedure. Maybe I’m just making excuses for him, but I remind myself that making a friend isn’t why I’m doing this. He doesn’t owe me anything.

 Suddenly, it’s the day of the surgery, and I’m terrified. I haven’t ever been on anesthesia before, barely been sick, and never had an IV. Now, I’m about to go under the knife for my mortal enemy. Okay, that’s overdramatic and hyperbolic, but I’m allowed that on the morning of a procedure that will result in me being cut open and part of my hip scraped away. I comfort myself by imagining the simple pleasures I’ll indulge in afterward—an overly sugared hot chocolate with extra marshmallows, some of those cheese buns I never allow myself to buy, highlights from a hairdresser instead of a box. Surely, I deserve those after opening myself up to…

 I shut down that mode of thinking and concentrate on getting to the hospital. As nervous as I am, I manage to stop thinking and let the medical professionals do their jobs. Before I can worry about anything else, I’m on a bed and being wheeled to surgery. When I count backwards, all I see are Peeta Mellark’s deep blue eyes shining at me.

 ****

 I blink awake to a concerned gaze. My sister’s next to my bed when I wake up and greets me with a smile.

 “Hello, sleepyhead. Welcome back to the world.”

 “Little Duck,” I slur with a lazy smile. “Hiiiii!”

 “How do you feel?”

 “Very fuzzy,” I admit after a sporadic inventory of myself. “And my ass hurts.”

 “I hear that happens when somebody cuts you open. I could be wrong.”

 My bubble of laughter is almost giddy, clearly an aftereffect of the anesthesia, but I still manage to ask the really important question. “When can I go home?”

 “A few hours, I think. Outpatient surgery, for the win!”

 “I’m already thinking about how long I have to sponge bathe instead of showering. An incision on my rear end is a new one for me.”

 “I bet the guy you’re giving your marrow to would be happy to help you. He must be pretty grateful,” Prim said slyly, and I roll my eyes.

 “I’m guessing he’s more concerned about not dying, but I’ll keep that in mind.”

 “I looked him up, you know. He’s very pretty.”

 “He’s also an arrogant ass.”

 “Speaking of arrogant asses…”

 “Hey! I thought I’d gotten past being maligned by the Everdeen girls.” Gale Hawthorne’s deep bass booms from the hospital room door. “Hey, Catnip.”

 “Gale! ’S so good to see you.”

 “Well, Prim called. I thought maybe I should cut my business trip short and pay you a visit.”

 I reach for him, and he crosses to me quickly. His hand wraps around mine, and the warmth grounds me. It’s been way too long since I’ve seen my childhood best friend, and his familiarity makes me feel like I might be able to handle anything. They both keep me occupied until I’m released and then help me get settled at home. Gale and I sit on the couch and catch up while Prim makes a run for takeout.

 “I couldn’t believe it when Prim called to tell me you were doing this,” he says. “Especially not for the guy you’ve been bitching to me about for the past few years.”

 “I haven’t been—”

 “I’m going to stop you right there. You have, and we both know nobody takes up that much space in your brain unless there’s something there.”

 “There’s nothing between us,” I insist and grunt when he nudges my shoulder.

 “Then maybe you should figure out if there could be. I mean, you have a vested interest in the man. You have a lot in common professionally. He’s going to live a long life because of you. Maybe it wouldn’t be the end of the world if you were part of it.”

 “He’s in a bubble for a few months. Recovery. No germs. All that.” I’m making excuses, and he knows it. He looks at me with pity, and I want to smack him.

 “Katniss, give the guy a chance. From what you’ve told me, he’s into you. On top of the fact that he made arrangements for that massive bouquet of lilies and wildflowers over there.” He motions to the vase we brought home from the hospital. The note provides thanks for saving his life and an apology for flowers being inadequate as repayment.

 “He’s not—”

 “Give him a chance.”

 Gale’s words wash over me, and it’s like all the painful moments and deep bouts of loneliness resurface at once. No matter what’s happened between Peeta and me, I have a connection to him now that’s deeper than our usual snipping and snark. Being forced to think about him as someone with real hopes and dreams and challenges has softened me to him, but I barely know him. Why does everyone assume he wants anything more than he’s already received?

 Prim returns with food, and I’m grateful for the distraction. I promise Gale I’ll think about what he’s said as I recover, but that’s only to get him off my back. Yet, as the days pass, I can’t get Peeta Mellark out of my head. Now that I’ve saved his life, he’s got a hold on me.

 ****

 I don’t know why I’m so nervous. It’s not like I expect anything from him. I’m just stopping by to see how he is, and that’s it. No expectations, no nothing. Just an attempt to make sure he’s feeling better after the transplant. I shouldn’t even be able to see him, but I called the hospital, explained the situation, and found out I’ve been approved for visiting for the past couple of weeks. Peeta must have added me to his approved list, which makes me remarkably happy. It’s been a month since the bone marrow transplant, and Peeta’s body seems to be accepting it with no problem.

 Besides, no one can fault me for checking in on a sick colleague. It’s practically expected as part of my job. Except, that’s a lie. I’m not checking on anyone else who calls into work sick, but, then again, no one else called in because they had a disease that resulted in some of my own body inserted into them.

 Which sounds dirty and definitely not what I should be thinking as I knock on his hospital door and peer into the room.

 “Katniss!” he says as his beautiful blue eyes light up. “Please, come in.”

 “I, uh… I just thought I’d check on you. Make sure my bone marrow is behaving. Not giving you any trouble.”

 Oh, hell. I sound like an idiot.

 “Doing beautifully. It’s almost like it knows it’ll be in trouble if it acts up. Must be the principal coming out in us.”

 “Behavior issues are the least favorite part of my job.”

 “Same,” he chuckles and waves me to the chair. “Sit, if you have a minute. I’d like to thank you—”

 “No,” I insist. “No, you don’t have to do that.”

 “Katniss, you saved my life,” he sighs. “The least you can do is let me thank you properly. Let me take you dinner sometime or something. In fact, yes. I need to do that. No expectations, no nothing. Just dinner.”

 I feel an uncomfortable pang in my stomach as I hear my own thoughts repeated back to me. It’s almost like he can see inside my brain, and that’s terrifying.

 “Fine,” I concede. “Dinner, but not until you’re completely recovered. I don’t want to be cause for a setback.”

 “I can handle that,” he agrees and then gives me a soft, beautiful smile so incredibly shy that it feels like he’s only ever shown it to me.

 I don’t even want to think about why I’m floating as I leave the hospital.

 ****

 It’s another few months before Peeta finally insists he’s well enough and calls and invites me to the dinner I agreed to when he was in the hospital. His recovery has been rapid, and I hear through the grapevine he’s back at work and seemingly cured. I don’t know enough about his disease to know if he’s healing faster than normal or not, but I breathe easier when I hear the news. That is, until the phone rings.

 “Katniss Everdeen. My savior,” he says when I answer.

 “Oh, please don’t,” I gulp. “I’m no savior.”

 He chuckles at my discomfort but it’s clear it’s not with any sort of malice. “Sorry. That might have been hyperbole.”

 “You think?”

 “Maybe. Maybe not. I would like to see when you’re free for dinner. You’ve put me off long enough. I demand satisfaction. I mean, my belly does. In other words, I need food, and now that I feel well enough to consume copious amounts of it, I’d really love some company as I do that. Who better than the woman who made it happen?”

 He’s so charming it makes my toes curl, which is not at all what I want. Because how am I supposed to resist that adorable smirk I know is plastered across his face when he’s sitting across the table from me and plying me with delicious food? He’s supposed to be my nemesis, and I’m not strong enough to deny him when he’s not only good and kind but also a survivor of a rare disease. I mean, that’s not even playing fair.

 “You don’t have to buy me dinner,” I start, but he interrupts before I can get any farther.

 “If I remember correctly, you agreed to this back in the hospital, and I know you always keep your word. I wore you down, and you said you’d go with me. Don’t go backing out on me now,” he chides. His tone remains light-hearted as he speaks, but I detect a hint of hurt below the surface. My willingness to concur seems important to him. Why, I’m not sure, but the last thing I want to do is break the fragile truce that had somehow emerged between us.

 “I’ve got some back to school things coming up, so my nights are pretty full,” I protest feebly, but he just waits patiently until I relent. “Fine. Next Thursday. Does that work?”

 “Of course.”

 “Don’t you have meetings, too? You haven’t resigned, and I haven’t heard about it, have you?”

 “No, nothing like that,” he laughs. “I’ve just been given stringent orders from Superintendent Crane to take it easy. My assistant principal is covering anything at night until October.”

 “Lucky you.”

 “I have a good staff,” he deflects. “Next Thursday. I’ll pick you up.”

 “No! I can meet—”

 But he’s already disconnected the call. I don’t even bother to wonder how he’ll figure out my address. I don’t put anything past him anymore. Other than the life-threatening illness, he seems to have beaten, Peeta Mellark has the best luck of anyone I’ve ever known.

 ****

 “And then I lowered my hand and answered him in the most serious tone possible. I could hardly keep a straight face because I had fake buck teeth in. The poor kid looked at me like I was insane, but he didn’t ever wear the vampire teeth in class again.”

 I can’t help myself as I giggle at Peeta’s story. I never giggle. It isn’t like me at all, but Peeta’s so funny and disarming over dinner, regaling me with story after story of strange behavior modifications he’d tried when he was an assistant principal and mostly in charge of discipline issues.

 “I’ve gotta admit,” he says ruefully, “I don’t really miss that part of the job now that I’m head principal.”

 “No, I can imagine you wouldn’t,” I agree with a smile.

 Lifting my wine glass, I look at him over the rim and take a sip of the pinot. I dreaded this dinner all week, but it’s been the highlight of a pretty rough few days. I certainly wasn’t expecting to enjoy his company so much, not even after getting to know him a little bit better during his recovery. I thought his charm might wear off at some point, but he just gets more and more disarming the longer we talk. If I didn’t know better, I might think I actually like him, but that’s ridiculous. I’m just glad to have company over dinner. That’s all this is.

 My cheeks flush when Peeta grins at me and sits back in his chair. He’s kept up a steady stream of witty repartee throughout the evening, but now he merely surveys me as the soft sounds of the dining room echo around us. It’s almost intimate.

 “I can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying this,” he finally says. “And how grateful I am for what you did for me. I know it wasn’t an easy choice, but you… You’re an amazing woman, Katniss Everdeen. I’m in your debt forever.”

 I don’t know how to answer him because I can tell he’s completely sincere. He’s not gushing or trying to butter me up. He’s genuine in his words and actions, and I’m stuck feeling guilty for treating him so poorly before his illness threw us together.

 “You really don’t have to thank me anymore,” I insist. “It’s not necessary at all. I mean, what kind of an asshole would I be if I hadn’t agreed to help you? Besides, you’re a fellow principal. Administrators unite and all that.”

 “Stop deflecting,” he said. “You did something really great, and it’s okay for you to take credit for it.”

 Flustered, I fiddle with my napkin because I don’t want to say something stupid. He has a way of making me tongue-tied that I haven’t felt since I was a teenager. “Thanks,” I manage to mumble.

 “Thank you.”

 I hesitate but finally manage to choke, “You’re welcome.”

 “I’d like to do this again. If you’re willing.”

 His voice feels like a caress, and I lift my eyes to look at him. He’s studying me, unsmiling but not frowning, and I’m struck by how handsome he is in the dimmed light. He reaches across the table and holds his hand out to me. I stare at it for several seconds before I’m willing to reach out and accept it. He gives it a squeeze.

 “How about next week? Is that too soon?”

 “I— I need to check my calendar.”

 “I already did. No school activities.”

 “Are you—”

 “I’m sure,” he insists. “Please.”

 I don’t have a good excuse for saying no, so I agree. I’m still in a daze when he pulls the car to a stop in front of my house and gets out to walk me to the door. He leans in to kiss my check, but I turn my head at just the wrong time. His lips hover millimeters from my skin, and I struggle to breathe. After what feels like an eternity, he tilts his head and brushes his mouth over mine.

 The earth skews off its axis. There’s no other way to describe what happens because my entire world rearranges itself in that brief moment. Much too soon, he’s backed down the sidewalk and waves goodbye to me from his car before pulling away.

 ****

 I’m a mess by the next Friday when Peeta picks me up again for our second dinner together. I don’t know whether to call it a date or not, but the kiss the previous week indicates it could be. The night passes much the same as the previous week. He’s charming and funny and wearing the most stunning shade of green that makes his eyes sparkle turquoise. They do things to my insides. He’s a perfect gentleman as he drives me home again, walks me to the door, and kisses me softly. The situation repeats on the third and fourth and fifth time until I’m so wound up, I’m about to lose my mind. I don’t mean to complain, but my body wants more than what he’s offering.

 I can’t tell if it’s deliberate or just really bad luck that our schedules don’t align for another few weeks. The days pass slowly without seeing him, although we do talk often. Some of his messages and emails make me smile when I read them, while others make me wonder if he’s flirting with me or simply being his usual friendly self.

 I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out what’s happening between us. The conversation I had with Gale after my surgery flits in and out of my conscious thoughts. I don’t want to open myself up. I’ve been hurt too many times in the past, but Peeta’s wonderful—smart, compassionate, funny, respectful, and supportive. He’s also got a backbone and knows how to advocate for himself and others around him. In short, he’s exactly what I’ve always desired in a partner. It scares me to death to acknowledge that I want him to be a bigger part of my life. It terrifies me to realize I can also picture him in my bed.

 Finally, we both have an evening without a work responsibility, and he asks if he can come over and make dinner when I tell him I’m simply too tired to dress up and go out to a restaurant. By the time he shows up on my doorstep with bags of groceries, my stomach’s in knots. It’s been so long since I’ve seen him, it feels like we’re starting all over again.

 He looks insanely good after having filled out a little since the transplant. His broad shoulders are strong underneath the soft cotton of his salmon colored sweater, and the jeans he’s wearing hug his thighs and hips like a second skin. When he turns around so I can inadvertently check out his ass, I swoon at the sight. I want my hands on that peach so badly my fingertips tingle.

 He leans in to kiss me hello, and time stands still. He pauses once he’s broken the kiss, and we stare at each other for what feels like ages. Something’s changed. We’ve evolved. Our relationship’s grown while we’ve been apart. The air crackles with anticipation, and I’m beyond ready. Finally, he recovers and surveys me, taking in my black leggings, forest green tunic, and braid with a whistle. I flush scarlet at the flattery.

 “Good thing I have these bags to occupy my hands,” he teases, but I swallow down disappointment. He doesn’t seem that interested in touching me, and that makes me feel like howling my disapproval.

 “Maybe I should help. Give your hands a chance to…uh…stray.”

 He whips his head around to stare at me, uncertainty mixing with something I can’t quite decipher. When I don’t drop my gaze, he gulps before heading into the kitchen and tossing the food on the counter. He makes himself busy while I flit around him, unsure what to do. When he finally turns his megawatt smile on me and asks me if I’d be okay cutting vegetables, I nod eagerly. If it puts me closer to him, I’m completely game. He positions me in front of a stack of carrots, potatoes, and mushrooms and turns to his own work.

 We keep up a steady stream of chatter that grows increasingly flirtatious as the minutes pass. He brushes against me several times, and I can feel the electricity sparking between us. When he reaches over to take some of the diced potatoes, our hands brush, and we both jump.

 “Peeta,” I sigh a second before he’s pressed against me, his chest hard against mine as he cups my jaw and kisses me.

 I growl in the back of my throat at the feel of his tongue tangling with mine, and he hauls me tighter against him. He wraps my braid around his hand and tugs my head back so he can lick deeper into me. I’m shaking with desire, frantic for his hands on me. We’ve been circling each other for four years. The months since I agreed to donate my bone marrow have all been foreplay. I’m ready to give into the craving I’ve denied for far too long.

 I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him closer. My hands tangle in his hair, and I can’t stop the wanting whimpers that fall from me. He’s just as frantic, his hands caressing everything he can reach, until they both cup my behind and squeeze.

 I realize I want to climb him like a tree. There’s no shame in admitting it. His body’s hard under his clothing, and he’s rigid as iron against my hip. When he thrusts his right hand under the waistband of my leggings, I don’t even try to stop him. Instead, I moan when his fingers stroke the patch of hair between my legs.

 “Fuck,” he gasps. “Katniss, tell me to stop if this isn’t okay. This is— You’re… You have to stop me now if you’re going to.”

 I don’t stop him. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. My limbs aren’t working other than to cling to him. My eyes roll back into my head when he breaches me. His mouth works magic while his fingers plunder and stroke. I’m begging him, my voice hoarse and broken. It’s been so very long, and I don’t have the patience to wait anymore.

 I’m pressed against the counter, my back bent as he fingers me. I don’t care about dinner or anything else except the feel of his calloused palm cupping me while he dips in and out in an uneven rhythm designed to stop me from falling over the edge too soon. His breaths are ragged, and I wrap my left leg around him to pull him closer. It also gives him better access, which he uses to his advantage.

 I’m sopping wet, squelching as he thrusts in and out, his thumb circling my clit and forcing wrecked squeals I’ve never made until experiencing the glory of Peeta Mellark finger fucking me in my own kitchen. My whole body trembles as the tension builds. I just need a release. That’s all I care about in the moment. The entire world could be exploding outside, and I wouldn’t care. He’s driving me crazy, and I don’t want to be sane. I just need him.

 “I’ve wanted this for so long, sweetheart,” he groans in my ear. “Wanted to feel you on me, hot and wet and sweet. I’ve dreamed about making you come. Imagined it so many times. Wanted to feel you fall apart because of me. You’re almost there, aren’t you, honey? I can tell you’re trying so hard not to let go. I’ve got you. I won’t hurt you.”

 I’ve abandoned all sense of propriety. I’m moaning and rutting against him. I don’t know who I am anymore, but then everything makes sense in a rush of euphoria. I come with a scream that Peeta swallows with his kiss. He holds me close, rocking me through the spasms, grounding me, and cheering me on as I quake and shudder.

 I blink as I come back to myself, but he’s there. His face comes into focus, and I give him a dopey grin that makes him chuckle. He welcomes me back with a kiss as he frees his hand. My pants are moist, and I wiggle at how uncomfortable it is. Still, I think it’s worth the discomfort. I feel like walking liquid.

 “I think we burned dinner.”

 “Don’t care,” I tell him through a kiss. “We can order pizza. Not hungry anyway.”

 “Well, I am,” he jokes as he proceeds to devour me.

 We haven’t talked. I have no idea where we stand, but that doesn’t matter. Right now, Peeta’s here, alive and well, and with me. We make sure the burners are off and then I lead him to the bedroom. I don’t ever want to let go. If I could freeze this moment, I would, but I also want to see about all the others he has left simply because fate threw us together. We’ll get to the deep stuff. For now, I’ll settle for him deep inside me.

𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐯𝐚𝐬 - keigo takami x reader

this is a birthday gift for my crackhead wine aunt, @waddle-yee​. katie i love u so much it’s unreal! i hope you enjoy the crumbs m’lady!

reblogs are appreciated bc i worked really hard on this, heart eyes.

pairing - keigo takami (hawks) x reader.

word count - 2.3k.

warnings - very vague manga spoilers for pro hero arc, possibly ooc hawks, swearing, and just. a lot of fluff.

summary - hawks needed to gain the public’s hearts once again, and attending a charity event seemed like the way to go, but falling for the cute artist in charge of him wasn’t something he planned on. 

★ - requests are open

“your ratings are falling, hawks”

being bothered during his lunch break wasn’t something keigo was particularly fond of. the one time of the day he could let loose in his office, ruined.

“is that so?” he could only hope his agent would understand his words in the midst of his chewing, making a point he was only half-interested in the newsletter.

“the hero public safety commission reached out, you need to get your approval up again before they intervene.”

keigo gulped.

what a mouthful. they were never good news - the last time keigo met with them he was deployed as a spy, for crying out loud. needless to say, he was still their subordinate, and rejecting their demands was nothing more than a heavenly reverie.

“so, got any ideas?” keigo put down his plastic plate, lamenting the unfinished state of lunch.

“well, there’s this charity event coming up, and they’re calling for - ”

“i’m in! send me the time and place and i’ll be there,” sadly. it’s not like he had any personal vendettas with charity events or the public per se, but the simple fact he had to be shoved into one to please his superiors was enough to leave a bitter taste in his mouth.

next time he’d attend to one of his own accords.

“i’ll send it to you by email.”

keigo gave the poor intern a frown, his eyebrows drawn. “just send me a text, sheesh.”

-

maybe if he had paid more attention to the text then maybe he wouldn’t be stuck in this quandary of graphite and stillness

“you do this to every guy you meet?”

you scoffed, eyes never once leaving the canvas before you. “yes, every model i work with is required to stand still, if that’s what you were wondering.”

keigo was glad he put on a smile from the start, or else you would’ve chewed him out for moving too much.

the event was still a couple weeks away, but portraits don’t grow on trees. in all fairness, keigo was a killer model - every magazine featuring him sells out within the hour, and the photographers he’s worked with never fail to shower him in compliments and praise.

his charm didn’t seem to carry on to drawings, apparently. as you’d put it before, he was but ‘an over-energetic city pigeon that would chase around little kids for fun at every given opportunity’.

oddly specific, but it got a chuckle out of him.

“i’m almost done, so just stand still for a little longer.”

“won’t be a problem, dove, i’m already a pro,” keigo had to suppress another snicker as you hid behind the canvas, your face growing warm at the dumb pet name. another tally for hawks in his imaginary scoreboard. although standing still for longer than ten minutes wasn’t something he could see himself doing ever again, teasing you would definitely be a must in the near future.

anything for your flushed, annoyed expression.

“your wing did the thing again.”

of course it did. keigo wailed silently, dreading the sound of your pencil meeting the cotton before you, scratching and imposing.

the passing of time seemed like a foreign concept the longer he posed in front of you, amber eyes preying on you. every movement, every speck of graphite staining your hands, forever engraved in his mind. you didn’t question his sudden quietness, too engrossed in finishing the first of many portraits you’d have to make for the event.

would every other hero be as jittery and energetic as the man standing before you? 

would every other hero grow uneasy at the idea of standing still for no longer than fifty minutes?

“alright, you’re good to go.”

startled, keigo nearly fell off the small stool. “oh, was that all?”

you felt your eye twitch, choosing to ignore his wit, “it’s weird to think your portrait will probably go beyond five digits, someone’s gonna willingly pay to have those bushy eyebrows in their living room.”

keigo choked on his spit, coughs laced with laughter overruling the silence of the studio. “where did that come from?”

with a shrug and a triumphant smirk, you start to usher him out of your studio, “it had to be said, but you’re still cute, so i wouldn’t count it as a loss!” there were projects that needed your undivided attention and care, some with scary deadlines, and a birdman wasn’t exactly someone you needed to prioritize now. “see you at the event, yeah?”

“wait, hey, i wanna see what it looks like - ”

“no can do, have a great afternoon!”

before he could protest, he was already out and gone from your studio, the door nearly slamming on his wings. without much thinking, he turned around, his knuckles grazing against the door repeatedly. “c’mon, not even a sneak peak? i promise i won’t tell!”

someone clearing their throat behind him tore keigo away from the piece of wood in a heartbeat.

“endeavor-san, nice meeting you here! y’see, i left something inside, and i was just knocking so - “

“i don’t want to know.”

what was it with today and everyone interrupting him?

keigo snapped his fingers, “copy that.” from the corner of his eyes he spotted a neat pile of presentation cards, almost begging to be noticed and put to use.

fine, if you didn’t feel like letting him into your heart he’d just have to irk you over text.

knowing better than to bother endeavor again, keigo simply stepped out of the room, his fingers eagerly keying in the digits into his cellphone.

spoiler alert, it wasn’t you who texted him back, but your assistant was a delight, and set him up for another session after the event.

-

keigo has a strong, abhorrent opinion on wearing suits. they’re stuffy, constricting, and make his wings itch more than normal. despite having a custom-made, tailored suit, the sentiment of being under lock and key only ever went away as soon as he lost the jacket and shirt. something he couldn’t quite do in an event like this.

“what do you mean they’re running late?”

your second in command sighed, eyes still glued on their phone. from the brief texts they had shared, keigo would be proud to admit they’d found a friend in your friend, if that made any sense. “there were some supplies left in the studio, had to run back to get ‘em.”

keigo sighed. just what he needed in this trying time.

“but the portraits are already up if you want to check them out.”

oh.

among the sea of bidders inspecting the canvases on display, keigo’s feeble attempts to get a closer look were fruitless. his wings usually gave leverage when his height failed to do so, but flapping in such a close environment would bring more trouble than it’s worth.

with a defeated sigh (admitting to lacking in height was… disheartening) two of his feathers flew down to his feet, giving him the small boost he needed.

he most certainly didn’t expect to come face-to-face with himself.

minutes passed, and keigo remained under a trance. it was simplistic, the graphite morphing to cast an umbra on portrait-hawks. he could picture almost perfectly the light and shadow dancing together in both the canvas up for bidding and your skilled hands, the same ones that had left a nasty smudge on the back of his coat.

lo and behold, you were right, his unruly eyebrows were rather prominent.

“sorry for the delay, the traffic was horrible and the cab - don’t get me started on the cab,” you ranted as you walked through the busy hall, chanting apologies left and right. “the auction hasn’t started yet, right?”

“no, but there’s someone waiting for you.”

you furrowed your eyebrows. the people attending were either eager to see their favorite heroes in ritzy clothing or aching to take one of them home - in a canvas, of course. “don’t get me wrong, i love getting the work going, but i swear these deadlines are gonna be the death of me.”

“no need to fret,” keigo stepped down from his feathers, and you couldn’t quite read the expression on his face. happy? tired? finally becoming the paragon of tenderhearted? “i’m part of your schedule already, booked a sesh and all.”

“... you mean the one I just cancelled?”

his wings drooped almost comically, “the one you just what?”

teasingly, you pushed him back, consequently making him bump into someone else. “i’m just messing around, i’m actually looking forward to it.” you could only watch as he gave the person a brief apology, posing for a selfie milliseconds after. heroes.

“is that so? i thought i was a bad subject,” keigo tugged at his collar, making a mental note to burn the shit out of the suit once home.

“the worst, actually,” more people began migrating to the opposite side of the room before the auction started. “but you’re fun to be around, so i’ll manage.”

keigo couldn’t contain his smile this time. it wasn’t his signature snigger you’d have flooding your timeline after his photo sessions, rather just a simple, genuine tug of his lips.

“and maybe you’re kinda pretty, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

and just like that, the warm smile contorted into a smug smirk. “you got me there, dove! wasn’t expecting that to come out of your pretty mouth.”

you huffed, diving to give his cheek a good pinch before dragging him to follow the rest of the guests. “that’s one creepy way to phrase it. now take a seat, i’ve got to hand out a couple of endeavors and edgeshots.”

keigo, still savoring the compliment like a kid would with a sweet, took an extra second to process those words. “they got more than one?”

-

cut to his second private session. five minutes after your scheduled lunch break, some leftover fries and ice cream exiled to your desk.

“alright, something’s on your mind.”

keigo remained stationary. this time it was just a mere pencil in your hand, waltzing on the canvas without a worry on its nonexistent mind. calculated. precise. free. “i don’t know what you’re talking about.”

you sighed, tucking the pencil behind your ear, sparing the finished sketch a last glance before walking to the brooding bird before you. “your wings, they’re not doing the thing.”

“and what about it?”

“well, for one, it was much easier to jot them down, i can assure you they’ll look great once i paint them,” keigo shuddered as you stood closer, how did you even get a lead stain on your cheek? “but i think i know you well enough to deduce something’s up. you’re not even being a cocky cockatiel.”

keigo let out a long, long sigh. “i’m not a cockatiel.”

“and you’re not being yourself. c’mon, why’d you even come here if you’re just gonna be grumpy?”

a brief flash of cold, burning blue clouded his mind. “work’s getting to me, i guess.”

you weren’t a pro hero of any sorts, the only context you had regarding that chaotic world would come from whatever hashtag was trending, and the occasional hero dropping by your studio to talk business. nevertheless, you knew how to spot and comfort a gloomy friend.

“you wanna paint yourself?”

“what?”

that seemed to get his attention, and it brought a smile to your face. you bit your lip eagerly, “i need to go get some paints, but you look like you need some cheering up, so you’re not leaving this room without painting your own portrait”

keigo’s lip trembled involuntarily, your words tugging at his already-soft heart. “i’ve never - i’ve never touched a paintbrush in my life.”

“woah, not even at school?”

“homeschooled.”

your hand moved on its own, ruffling his naturally messy hair. “i’ll get you acrylic paint.”

he could only tap his foot anxiously in your absence, running a hand across his face. the commission, as per usual, found great joy to bother him through day and night, almost as if his suffering tickled their ribs. keigo wouldn’t mind playing the part of the asshole kid who took tickling way too far when it came to them, hero regulations and spy work be damned.

not to mention the dust-up he had with a certain cremated acquaintance a couple days back, leaving him featherless and vulnerable for a whole day.

but as you approached him once again, a number of paints cradled in your arms and pockets, keigo could feel the weight in his shoulders slowly mitigating.

“okay, what do you think feels like the way to go?”

thankfully, his wings could twitch to their content while wearing your apron. he would’ve been just fine painting without any safety measures, but your flabbergasted expression urged him to realize clothes are expensive.

keigo gripped the paintbrush with one hand, the other holding a red paint tube, “this can’t be rocket science, i got this.”

your boisterous laughter as he squeezed some paint straight into the paintbrush told him that maybe it was rocket science after all.

“it’s not a toothbrush, keigo!” god, he loved his name rolling off your tongue.

“oh my god, next time try cleaning the paintbrush before you start to paint with another color.” he was certain your giggles could keep him going through endless crimes and stacks of paperwork.

“hey, that’s cute, you’re using different colors for your suit.”

keigo chuckled, “can’t have the piss color scheme spicing up my living room.”

that was the final straw, and you both rightfully lost it. leaning into each other to prevent falling to the floor as a result of raw elation. even your snorts were adorable, your babbling a melody to his ears, and shrieks of amusement making his heart thump faster.

at the end of the day, keigo left the studio with a gorgeous painting, as you’d generously put it. the first time he’d truly felt unbound to everything to be forever remembered with a mess of colors and sloppy strokes hanging proudly atop his bed.

the first time keigo ever felt truly free on canvas.

★ - check out the rest of my works!

★ - wanna get tagged in my stuff?

general: @brattyquirks​ @quirkless-fics​ @tooloudarts​ @bringingpinkbac-k​ @thewaterlily​ @kittyatemytaco​ @nyantodamax145​ @iachan03​ @imconfusedanditsok​ @nishigo​ @torrpe​ @bakugo-baby​ @lovingshoto​ @yuueimagines​ @shigarakis-fifth-hand​ @uwus-for-bnha​

hawks: @witchy-anna​

Hockey Shawn Part III

A/N: Lol this took forever. Exams really are the worst. Pls, as always, let me know what you thought of this! Feedback is the best motivator. 

Trigger Warning: Talk of Drug Addiction/Usage

Part I

Part II

If you were more confident, you would say you and Shawn are dating. 

You aren’t, not really. He just sleeps over at your place every night, texts you at random times to tell you things that reminded him of you, and brings you your favorite restaurant’s takeout on nights he knows you are working too hard to remember to eat, grading papers and emailing parents. 

This has been going on for too many months. 

One night, while your head rested on his chest, you tapped out the rhythm of his heart on your mattress. It sounded too familiar to be comforting. You knew him better than you knew your roommates. You loved him more than you loved that college boyfriend. You---

“Are you okay?” 

You tensed in his arms. Part of you wondered whether your feelings for him were so deep that they melted through you and into him, like sap trailing down a broken branch and into the grass. It seemed impossible for him to not at least be hinted towards your love for him-- it was so obvious to you. A bit too obvious. 

“Hmm?” you asked, though you both knew you heard him. 

He lightly pinched the skin of your upper arm, playfully scolding you but he asked the question again, this time his lips closer to your ear. “I said, ‘are you okay?’” 

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

Shawn laughed lightly. “You fall asleep in two seconds flat on every other night, but it’s been an hour and you’re still awake.” 

You sighed out your exhale. You could’ve told him then. You could’ve said actually, I'm not okay because you don’t love me like I love you and you could’ve gone from there, could’ve made him tell you what he really thinks of you, but instead you told him that “school’s been crazy.” 

He didn't believe it. You could tell by the way he didn’t immediately kiss away the fold between your brows or rub his thumb up and down your shoulder. He just mussed up his hair and swallowed like he was keeping something from leaving his lips. 

Okay, you thought. He doesn't wanna talk about it either, then. 

Since then, although you both act the same way you always have, there’s some kind of unspoken tension between you. When he comes over it seems like he’s biding his time, waiting for you to blurt out what he knows you’re waiting to say. When he hugs you hello, his arms are stiffer. When he kisses you goodbye, his lips are colder. But he still texts you every night with random, seemingly insignificant things that happened that day. You know it’s because he finds some comfort in hearing you interact with these quips of his. You tell him oh, that’s interesting or really, he said that? like you are together. Like you’re dating. Like he loves you.

Shawn’s flying back to New York from Toronto today. Yesterday was the first day in almost three months that he didn’t text you to tell you what he was up to. You checked your phone between each class period, your heart getting lower and lower until it was just about in your stomach. You know why he was there. You knew who he was with. 

And you knew you didn’t stand a chance against her.

After school yesterday, you finished up grading and tugged your winter coat closer around your shivering shoulders as you walked from the school to your car. Your mind refused to let you forget the disappointment that now was associated with Shawn’s pretty face, the betrayal that has now settled deep into your bones. How could he love Maddy? How could he be with her while you’re tidying up the bed you two have shared for months on end? How could he hold her while you’re still shivering in his absence? 

You rest your head on your steering wheel as tears start to fall down your rosy cheeks. Your car is freezing cold but you barely notice, frustrated sobs ripping from your throat. There’s some kind of rabid, angry energy bouncing around in your chest, and your hands itch to grip your phone and dial his number and scream at him until that feeling goes away. 

And why shouldn’t you? Why shouldn’t you scream at him? Does he not deserve it? 

Once you compose yourself, you decide that, no. You won’t call him. You’ll wait for his slow slither back to your apartment. You’ll wait until he pretends like nothing happened. 

Then. Then you’ll confront him.

🍁⚡️🍁⚡️

“What?”

Shawn has pizza sauce at the corner of his mouth. Your eyes narrow in on it. “Nothing,” you say, finally tearing your gaze away. 

Everything he does annoys you. It’s like the knowledge of what he did last week is choking you from the inside out. His hands on her hips, his lips on hers, his clothes in her closet, his clothes on her floor... 

“Seriously,” Shawn says, louder than before. “What’s up?”

You shake your head, fiddling your thumbs. The food in front of you has gone cold. Your appetite is gone. The idea of confronting him sounded a lot easier before he was in front of you, all innocent looking and warm. His hair has gotten longer so it falls in his eyes now when he looks down, and you fight the adoration in your chest as he, annoyed, pushes the stray hair from his face. His eyebrows raise, waiting for you to answer him. 

When you do, he wishes you hadn’t. “You were with Maddy.” You say it not as a question, but as a one-off statement, something not up for debate. 

Shawn finishes up the pizza he was chewing before sliding his empty plate further into the table, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands over his sweatshirt pocket. He takes a deep breath, pushes his hair back again, and answers with a simple “yes.” 

“Why.”

“She asked to see me.”

You bite down hard on your bottom lip to keep yourself from crying angry tears. You can already feel them crawling their way up your throat. “That doesn’t mean you need to see her.” 

Shawn has a tick in his jaw and you wonder if he has the audacity to be mad at you, if he thinks you’re being ridiculous. As if he hasn’t spent all his time with you, hasn’t told you things under bed sheets and under streetlights as the New York chill frosted up his car windows. You let one stray tear fall. The rest you manage to hold back, but the damage is done. You’ve broken the facade. 

At the sight of your sadness, he seems to lighten just a bit. The tick in his jaw is gone and his arms uncross. But still, he says “we’re not dating” like someone would say ‘today is Tuesday’ or ‘the weather is nice’. “I love spending time with you, Y/N, but we’re not dating.” 

“Then what the fuck is this?” you say, your voice rising above its normal volume. “What the fuck are you doing when you spend weeks on end here? What do you tell Maddy you’re doing?” Incredulous, you throw your hands in the air as you exclaim “and I’m crazy?! To think that I had some kind of claim on you?” You wrap your arms around yourself as you suddenly cold and exposed. You’re crying a lot now, and you use the back of your sweatshirt sleeve to wipe at your running nose. “Fuck you Shawn, honestly. You spend your time pretending that you love me for what? For something to do?” 

“No, of course not.”

“Then what? What do I offer you that you can’t get from Maddy?”

Shawn just drops his head as he shakes it, rejecting everything you’re throwing at him. “It’s not like that.” 

At a loss, you drop your face in your palms. Tears slide through your fingers. You say, sadly, “I can’t keep seeing you if you can’t commit anything to me.” 

Shawn stays silent, twisting the ring on his left middle finger around and around. 

Quietly, you say, “get out, please.” When he doesn’t move, you say, louder, “I said, get out.” 

“I don’t think I should leave--”

“Well I think you should’ve left three fucking months ago,” you bite back, poison in each syllable. 

“Stop being so mean: I just wanna talk this through.”

“Then talk!” You yell, throwing your hands to the sides. “Talk! All you’re doing is deflecting! I fucking wish you’d talk to me.” 

Angry again, Shawn stands and you feel your confidence shrinking as he dwarfs you in his height. He takes a few cautious steps forward and you can see that he wants to yell, wants to match your volume, but he doesn’t want to scare you. So, instead, he puts his hands out in the same way you do to a wild animal-- cautious, yet imposing, as he walks closer and closer to you. You’re nose to nose now and you're in a cloud of his cologne. 

His hands come up to your shoulders and you notice that you’re shaking with all the pent up anger and love and whatever the fuck else you’ve been feeling for the past few weeks. He places a careful kiss on your forehead. You let your eyes close as tears slip out from under your eyelashes. 

He handles you like some kind of fine china as he guides you to sit again in the dining chair, him taking the place beside you, his hand gripping your knee lightly. He starts with, “Maddy was my first friend after I got signed.” His thumb rubs over your leggings once before wiping his sweaty palms on his own thighs. “I moved to the city and had no one besides my teammates, but even they weren’t super welcoming. Went to this party and Maddy was there, dancing on a table. She was really drunk and I heard some guys talking about how they could see up her dress so...” he shrugs. “So I helped her down and the rest is history I guess.”

“You started dating?”

Shawn nods. “Yeah. She was a model. She was just getting started, then, but after a year or so she made a good name for herself.”

“And you did too,” you add.

“Yeah, I did alright,” he says, smiling a bit. “But then... um.” He pauses, gathering his thoughts. “I got hurt. I think you said you saw the video. I couldn’t play so I ended up spending a lot of time with Maddy. Stayed at her apartment most of the time, actually. And when you move in with someone, you start to see their... mannerisms, and the way they are when they don’t think anyone is looking.” He leans back in his chair again, faking nonchalance. “I broke up with her and she reacted badly. I think I was the thing keeping her sober, since I was there all the time and she had someone to hang out with besides her friends who all used.”

Things started to click for you, then. “Oh.”

“Yeah. So when we broke up, she went back to hanging out with the wrong group of people. She’s always had addiction problems, to drugs, alcohol, cigarettes. But I had no idea that me living with her was keeping her on the right track.” He clears his throat and you can see his eyes getting red rimmed with tears. “I just want to make it clear that I care for her a lot, but we were never meant to be together. I apologize for keeping this whole situation guarded but it’s... tough. It’s tough for me to talk about.”

“I understand,” you whisper, guilt lacing your words.

“I can see how you’d be angry with me. I really can see it. But I can’t cut Maddy off. I’m afraid that the one time she reaches out and I say no... I don’t know. I just recognize that she’s fragile.”

You nod.

Shawn rubs at his watery eyes. “I care for you, too, though,” he says in quietly. “I just don’t know if I can commit right now.”

You fight the frustration in your chest. Calmly, you ask him, “what is the difference between what we’re doing now and a relationship?”

He’s silent.

You continue. “In my eyes, a relationship is exactly what we are. The label is the only difference.”

“And the publicity.”

“What?”

“The public thinks I’m with Maddy. She likes it that way.”

Your heart sinks. “Okay.”

“It’s not that I don’t care for you—”

“I get it,” you interrupt him.

The two of you sit in silence and it feels like an 80 lb. weight was placed on your shoulders. He moves forward to kiss you and you let him, though your brain is screaming at you to cut him off for good. He doesn’t feel for you the way you do for him. You’re wasting your time. 

But as he jokes around with you and tries to stuff pizza in your mouth and tells you that he’ll be around tomorrow you just can’t shake the feeling that maybe, just maybe, this will work out. 

🍁⚡️🍁⚡️

You get home from work the next day and Shawn is waiting for you outside your apartment complex, car running and headlights on. 

You recognize his car because it’s much too nice to be in your parking lot that’s riddled with pot holes and fading painted lines. The lot is almost always empty, since most city-dwellers choose to take public transportation over their own vehicles. Plus, he’s easy to spot because when he sees you with your coat pulled around your shoulders and your school bag slipping down to the crook of your elbow, he rolls down his window and shouts “Hey, miss? You’re very beautiful and I’d love to take you to dinner.” 

You smile and walk over to the driver’s side, close enough now to see the familiar scar on his cheek. “Hmm,” you tease, “what’s in it for me?”

“A lovely dining experience at the finest restaurant in New York City with the most handsome bachelor on the East Coast.” 

The cold wind whipping your hair around, you give him a quick peck on the lips and walk around to the passenger side door, shoving your bag in the back. His cold palms rest on your cheeks as he pulls you in for a deeper kiss this time, his tongue darting in your mouth for only a second before he pulls away. You ask, “what did you do today” in the normal way that you do, unable to stop the wide smile from crossing your face. 

“Went to a few meetings,” he says casually. “Then I had a doctor’s appointment...” 

The way he trails off makes your ears perk up. “Oh? And what did they say?” You watch as a wide grin takes over his features and your heart leaps for him. “Can you play again?”

Shawn nods and you just about jump out of your seat, wrapping your arms around his neck as his arms meet behind your back, your body leaning over the center console. You can see people walking by your parked car and you know you should be worried about them looking in, but you can’t care about any of that right now. You can feel Shawn’s smile against your shoulder and you can’t remember the last time you’ve felt such joy for someone else’s successes. “They said my hip has healed a lot more than they thought it ever would, so I can maybe get back to practicing in the next few months.” 

“Wow, that’s so fantastic, Shawn, really.” 

“Thank you, baby.” 

“I’m so happy for you.”

“Thank you, thank you,” he says again. “I thought I’d pick you up for a celebration dinner.”

You kiss him on the cheek and pull away for him to put the car in reverse, turning on to the bustling New York streets. “Where are we going?” you ask. Your mind is racing through all the nicest places, places he surely would fit in like the true celebrity he is. A feeling of dread washes over you as you look down at your outfit. “Oh my god, I need to change. I’m still wearing my work clothes.” 

Without missing a beat, Shawn says “oh, don’t worry. I was thinking we could just pick something up.”

You swallow back your disappointment. Of course he can’t take you out in public. You’re stupid for thinking otherwise. You dig your fingernails into your pants to keep yourself from showing any signs of let-down. “Okay, yep. Sounds good.”

He looks over to you like he knows something is wrong, but he doesn’t say anything. 

The two of you chat for a bit about where you want to go. He talks about his meetings of the day and how he felt like his life was getting back to normal, like old times. 

He speaks and you stare at his ruby red lips as they form each word, and you’re trying your hardest to pay attention, but all you can do is wonder where exactly you fit in his new world. 

Deep down, you know you’re on borrowed time, because his new world doesn’t have any room to spare. 

Chapter 6 – So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish [TST 1/2]

The chapter title comes from the wonderful Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book series – drop this meta and read them immediately.

No, no he [Moriarty] would never be that disappointing. He’s planned something, something long-term. Something that would take effect if he never made it off that rooftop alive. Posthumous revenge – no, better than that. Posthumous game.

This is what Sherlock says about Moriarty in the very first scene of TST, and on rewatch the application to Mofftiss is startling. Trust the writers – a short-term disappointment for a long-term excitement, if you will. The reference to the rooftop is a way of pointing out just how far back this has been planned – in other words, the seeming randomness of the series is not in fact random. But let’s see how that plays out in TST.

This episode opens, as so many have pointed out, with doctored footage, as though deliberately showing us how stories can be rewritten. However, we only get glimpses of the footage at the start of the episode – the extensive old footage is not security camera footage, but recap footage from s3, and specifically the end of HLV. The idea that there is something classified, hidden, that we don’t have the full story, is meant to be associated with the actual show Sherlock, not just the camera footage – it would have been very easy to give us most of the same footage in security camera style, but they deliberately reused shots from the show to make us doubt their own authenticity. So far, so good.

The first thing that I (and most of my friends) noticed about this scene, however, is that it’s not good. The writing is questionable, to say the least. The serious resolution to the problem of Magnussen’s murder is interrupted by Sherlock tweeting, brotherly bickering, hyperactive and possibly high Sherlock being played for comedy (complete with mock opera). And then, perhaps the worst lines of the show so far:

SHERLOCK: I always know when the game is on. Do you know why?

SMALLWOOD: Why?

SHERLOCK: Because I love it.

Like a lot of this show, think about those lines for more than a nanosecond and they really don’t make sense. You’ve got to think about them for a lot longer before they start to again. This, I think, is where BBC Sherlock’s self-parody really starts. TAB focuses on parodying, critiquing and rewriting historical adaptations, but it’s easy to see the merging of all of the undeniably Sherlock elements into one parodically awful scene. The quick quips that are supposed to be clever and that are so common in Moffat’s dialogue are seen in that moment of dialogue – but the quip isn’t clever anymore, it’s empty. The same catchphrase of ‘the game is on’ comes back, and the quintessential use of technology is referenced in Sherlock’s Twitter account, where again his #OhWhatABeautifulMorning is unfathomably glib. Our Sherlock is also better known than previous adaptations for his drug abuse, and this also gets referenced, but here it gets played for comedy, which is incongruous with the rest of the show – in fact, THoB, HLV and TAB all take it pretty seriously, so to see it played off as a joke is tonally questionable. In other words, here we have Sherlock caricatured as a programme, in one scene – and it’s horrible.

(We should also notice that the use of Twitter is important – it underlies a lot of the glib comedy in this episode, with Sherlock later Tweeting #221BringIt (which is so unbelievably queer?). In Sherlock, Moffat use Twitter rather than Tumblr to comment on fan reaction to Sherlock, probably because their older audience will have no idea what Tumblr is, but also because Twitter is much more mainstream in its appreciation. Twitter takes centre stage in TEH, with #SherlockLives and the scene with the support group. The joke there is about the sheer level of how-did-he-do-it mania that gripped the public – so when we see Twitter again, we should be thinking about an extratextual as well as a textual response to Sherlock, and how Sherlock’s behaviour on Twitter in this episode might caricature the way that he is seen from the outside.)

I don’t truly buy that (in this scene, at least) Mofftiss are critiquing their own show in a straightforward sense, because they have dealt with technology better than this (words on screen, technology as useful within mysteries), drugs better than this (John’s, Mycroft’s and Molly’s reactions to Sherlock’s behaviour as well as Sherlock’s own difficulties) and clever quips far better (pick any episode). But in deconstructing this show to its instantly recognisable elements, and making them worse to hyperbolise the point, that scene strips the show of its heart. Interestingly, it’s also stripped of John, who will be the metaphorical heart of Sherlock through the EMP, but is also the part of the show that is missing when it is caricatured as the Benedict-Cumberbatch-being-clever show. This is also a critique of most people’s perception of Sherlock Holmes as a character through history in the sense of the reductive cleverness – Mofftiss are showing us that this is completely empty.

What does this mean for Sherlock himself, bearing in mind that this is taking place in his Mind Palace? The answer is pretty grim – remember that Sherlock is metatextually grappling with his own identity at this point; he needs to discover the man he is, rather than is portrayed as, in order to get out of this alive. In a psychological sense, then, the opening of TST sees Sherlock deconstruct himself as seen from the outside, and as his psyche has traditionally perceived himself, and realise that that version of himself is hollow. This scene, then, is a rejection of the Sherlock of the public eye, as well as Sherlock’s own eyes.

There is a non-explanation for how the Secret Service doctored the footage of Sherlock shooting Magnussen, the response simply being that they have the tech. If the answer is going to be that vague, there is little reason to bring up the question – except to raise it in the viewers’ minds. Making the audience question their belief in the s4 universe is something that happens very frequently, and this is the start of it. A later chapter goes into the parallels that Sherlock and Doctor Who have, but there’s an important bit from Last Christmas (DW Christmas Special 2014) that is relevant here – the main characters, all dreaming, whenever they are asked any questions that can’t be explained in the dream universe, simply reply ‘it’s a long story’. This is a ‘long story’ moment – where no explanation is given, so questions about reality are raised and unanswered.

Another similar moment comes when Sherlock says he knows exactly what Moriarty is going to do next – how? And, more to the point, it becomes hugely obvious that he doesn’t. Yet, for the first time in history, he feels happy to sit back and wait on Moriarty, because he knows that what will come will come. This insistence that the future will take its course as it needs to might draw our minds ahead to the frankly ridiculous reliance on predictions that we see in TLD – however, it should also draw our minds across to Doctor Who, and to Amy’s Choice, a series five episode I’m going to delve deeper into later, but where because it’s a dream, the Doctor is able to predict every word the monsters say.

Notice that ‘glad to be alive’ is followed by Vivian saying her name – we’ll come back to this later.

Cue opening credits!

Before going anywhere else with TST, required reading is this meta by LSiT (X). I can’t make these points better than she has, nor can I take credit for them. I’m particularly invested in her description of the aquarium and the Samarra story, as well as the client cases that appear and aren’t updated on John’s blog. Our reading will diverge later on – I think this series is a lot more metaphorical than it is hypothesis-testing, although the latter is a notable feature of ACD canon (see the original THotB) that definitely does happen here as well. I’m going to leave the Samarra story, the aquarium and the cases for LSiT to explain, however, and move on.

When we move into 221B, the fuckiness is instantly apparent from the mirror. You can go here (X) to navigate the whole inside of 221B, and I suggest you do; it’s a fantastic resource. The mirror showing the green wall is simply wrong – the angle that this is shot from suggests that we should see the black and white wallpaper, complete with skull etc. Instead, we see the green wall – and the door. We can tell this is wrong because in the ‘wrong thumb’ case about thirty seconds later, the right wallpaper is reflected in the mirror. Another note of fuckiness that we should spot is that Sherlock seems to be taking his cases from letters, in the mail he has knifed into the mantelpiece – this show has been really keen on emphasising that he uses email for the last three series, so the implication that people are sending him letters is even odder than it would be in a modern show anyway.

(Everybody in the world has commented on the ‘it’s never twins’ line – but to reiterate its importance. Firstly, it’s almost identical to the line in TAB, just with ‘it’s’ instead of ‘it is’. TAB repeats lots of things though, because it’s a dream – well yes, but dreams can’t tell the future. So material from TAB being recycled doesn’t point to TAB being a dream, it points to TST being a continuation of the dream in TAB. The fact that they saw fit to reiterate this line in a series about secret siblings also puts paid to the theory that s4 was plotted in a rush and not in line with previous series – there is a theme here, and they’re pushing it.)

And so we move to Sherlock relentlessly texting through the birth, through the christening – horrible, ooc behaviour for him if we think back to how emotional he was at the wedding. Importantly, this behaviour is all tied up with his obsessive Tweeting, which in turn links in to how the outside world (i.e. us) perceive Sherlock – is this the Sherlock that people want to see on screen? Doesn’t he feel wrong? Sure, there’s an element of self-critique in there from Mofftiss, but the incorporation of the phone obsession leaves the blame squarely with the audience. In case we couldn’t already feel that Sherlock’s character is way off, we have his Siri loudly say that she can’t understand him.

We remember from TAB that Sherlock sees himself as cleverer through John’s eyes, and the reasonably sympathetic portrayal we get in TAB we can probably put down to this attempt at understanding himself from the outside. The water in TST is showing us that we’re going in, and the sad thing is that this is almost definitely how Sherlock has come to perceive himself, but just like Siri he doesn’t truly recognise it. It’s also worth noting here the emphasis placed on God in godfather and later the deliberate mentions of Christianity at the Christening – there is also a tuning out of a culture he can’t really align himself with here, which is more important when we think about the fact that this character has been around since the 19th century.

Water tells us we’re sinking deep into Sherlock’s mind, as discussed in a previous chapter. Water imagery is going to be hugely prevalent in TST, but I want to talk quickly about the subtle hints at water even when we’re not in a giant fuck-off aquarium. Take a look at the rattle scene (which always sparks joy). When we get a side angle that shows both Sherlock and Rosie, there’s a black chest of some description behind Rosie – the top is glowing slightly blue, for reasons I can’t fathom. Then we’re going to cut to a shot of Rosie – despite seeing only a second before that there is nothing on her head, there is a glow of blue on it that looks almost like a skullcap. Cut back to Sherlock getting a rattle in the face, and the mirror is glowing the same blue colour behind him. This is all fucky, and it’s a fuckiness which is aesthetically tied to the waters of Sherlock’s mind perfectly. It suggests that Rosie isn’t real, but more important is the mirror. Earlier on I pointed out how the mirror was showing the wrong reflection; here, the mirror is glowing blue, linking it thematically to Sherlock’s subconsciousness. Visually, we’re being hinted at the process of self-reflection that’s going on in Sherlock’s brain – and the opening of TST is showing him getting it terribly wrong. Note that when the mirror jolted right earlier, Sherlock was proclaiming that it had been the wrong thumb – god knows what thumbs have to do with this, but there’s a question of shifting perception on his person, like he’s trying to locate himself.

The glowing blue light sticks around, and seems particularly associated with Rosie, like she’s the focus of much of Sherlock’s thought at the moment. LSiT’s meta linked above has already picked up on the many dangers in Rosie’s cradle decoration, from the Moriarty linked images to the killer whale mobile. Due purely to a lucky pause, I caught the killer whale’s eyes glowing blue, just like the blue from the rattle scene. He’s thinking about her in terms of the key villains of the show as well as the villains in his mind.

I’m not going to comment on the bus scene because I have a chapter dedicated to Eurus moments before TFP – jumping straight ahead.

We then find our first Thatcher case – others have been pretty quick to point out the significance of the blue power ranger in gay tv history (X), and infer that Charlie is queer coded – much like David Yost, who played the blue power ranger, he is not able to come out without being treated badly. This is undoubtedly important, as is the fact that this is the second time in 12 minutes of this show that they’ve shown us how easily film footage can be faked, and someone can be lied to – you don’t need to have Mycroft Holmes levels of clearance, just a Zoom background. This is important too. But the other thing I want to focus on is that he says he’s in Tibet.

Sherlock comes pretty high on my list of top TV shows, but currently Twin Peaks holds the top spot – it’s an unashamedly cryptic show all about solving mysteries through dreams, so no wonder I like it. It’s made by David Lynch, and in the TAB chapter I talk about how TAB takes a lot of structural inspiration from his most famous film, Mulholland Drive, which has similar themes. I don’t think this is anything particularly interesting beyond an attempt to reference the defining work in the field of it-was-all-a-dream film and tv – David Lynch and Mofftiss and Victor Fleming are the only people I can think of who can actually make that plot look good. But this Tibet moment, particularly as we’re going to be hit by another reference to Tibet later, underlining its importance, I think is a reference to this scene (X) where the protagonist, Cooper, outlines a dream in which the Dalai Lama spoke to him and gave him the power to use magic to solve mysteries. Fans of Twin Peaks will know that the magic doesn’t last long – it’s pretty much an introductory way in, and most of the rest of his important deductions will all be made in dreams. This is one of the most famous scenes in the whole programme, because it introduced the world to the weirdness of what had been set up as a straightforward cop show, and despite Cooper rarely (possibly never?) mentioning Tibet again, it’s still highly quoted and recognisable. As a watershed moment in bringing dream worlds into normal detective dramas (something highly frowned upon according to any theory of storytelling!) this is a gamechanging moment, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to point to Sherlock’s several references to Tibet as a link back to this moment.

We then cut back to Sherlock thinking whilst Lestrade tells him more about the case – what is bizarre here, is that John and Lestrade are clearly visible through what can only be described as a rearview mirror attached to the side of Sherlock’s head. If anyone can tell me what that is, I would love to know. I’m going to assume it’s a fucky mirror, because it’s in keeping with the other fucky mirrors so far. The visibility of John and Lestrade in the mirror is even more odd because it doesn’t match the colour palette of 221B at all. Sherlock is lit largely in warm, brown colours, as is Charlie’s father in the previous scene we’re transitioning from – Lestrade and John are lit in dark blue, to the point where they’re barely visible. This looks like a rearview mirror, but not like the one on the power ranger car – it’s a much older car, out of a different time, like so much in this dream world. The only colour palette they seem to match is the one from the s4 promotion photos – you know, when Baker Street is completely underwater.

Drowning in the Mind Palace. Here we are, back where we started. Sherlock might be thinking about the case of Charlie, but he’s actually reflecting on that world we saw in the promo photos, where he’s struggling to stay alive in his brain. Notice that this isn’t just a split shot, it’s specifically a mirror, so we’re meant to focus on this episode as an act of reflection. There are great parallels between Sherlock and the Charlie case which you can find here (X) – essentially, Charlie and Carl Powers from TGG are mirrors for one another both in their names and in the manner they die (a fit in a tight place, basically). Carl Powers is already a mirror for Sherlock – obsessively targeted by Jim for being the best at what he does. Charlie mirrors Sherlock through their shared trip to Tibet (dreamscape alert) and, we think, through the metatextual link of the blue power ranger. In case you hadn’t spotted it, Powers links back to that too – probably coincidence, but a nice one nevertheless. Carl Powers’s death is by drowning, which we shouldn’t ignore in an episode as loaded with ideas about drowning in the mind palace. The fact that the mirror reflects drowning Baker Street aesthetics should make us think that Charlie is asking us to reflect on Carl Powers’s death, but also on Sherlock’s own – already fatally injured (by a fit or by Mary), he is going to die smothered, unable to cry for help (in a swimming pool/carseat costume (?!)/mind palace). The idea that none of these people could cry for help is particularly poignant because so much of series 4 is about Sherlock being unable to voice his own identity, and as we’ll see once he’s able to do that, that may give him the impetus to escape his death. Think of ‘John Watson is definitely in danger’ back in HLV.

Now. Why is Sherlock so keen for Lestrade to take the credit? It’s another reason to bring up the fact that John’s blog is constantly updating – it’s dropped in a lot in this series as opposed to others – and to make us think about why nothing is happening in real life. But, given that this episode is about Sherlock trying to find who he is, is it a rejection of the persona that goes along with being Sherlock Holmes? Possibly, but he’s going to have to go to a lot more effort than that. John’s blog is the real problem here, making not just Sherlock but Lestrade out to be like they’re not. John’s blog is a stand in for the original stories, which were supposed to be written by John Watson, but TAB has already (drawing on TPLoSH) laid the groundwork for the idea that John’s blog/those stories really do not tell the whole story. So this is coming back with a vengeance here, even though for the first time Sherlock is properly moving against the persona in there, not just bitching about John’s writing style, which is a theme more common to Sherlock Holmes across the ages. John then says that it’s obvious, and when pressed just laughs and says that it’s normally what Sherlock says at this point – so again, when Sherlock stops filling the intense caricature of arrogance and bravado, John the storyteller steps in to put him back in line, even though that means pulling him back to being a much more unpleasant character.

A note here: most of the time in EMP theory, I think John represents Sherlock’s heart, and I try to refer to John as heart!John as much as possible when that’s the case. There are a few cases which are different, but most notable are when the blog comes up – then John becomes John the blogger, and our symbolism shifts over to the repressive features of the original stories and how that’s playing out in the modern world. Although a pain to analyse sometimes, I find it incredibly neat that the two of them are bound up in John as source of both love and pain, which fits our story beautifully.

John as blogger continues in the baby joke that he and Lestrade have going down the stairs – they continue with their caricature of Sherlock, but he doesn’t recognise himself in it. Or rather, there’s a moment when he seems to, but he can’t quite grasp onto it. This is typical of the way he recognises himself in the programme. It’s also worth noting that the image of John as a father is particularly tied into ACD, as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, so tying together blogger and father in this scene cements our theme.

Going into the Welsborough house, we get a slip of the tongue from Sherlock which is fantastic. He tells them that he is really sorry about their daughter, which at an earlier point in the show might just be a classic Sherlock slip-up. But mixing up genders is actually something which happens quite a lot in this show, and it’s something drawn attention to as significant in TAB.

Sherlock asks John “How did he survive?” of Emelia Ricoletti, when of course he’s thinking about Moriarty, and John corrects him quickly, much like here. A coincidental callback? Maybe not. What’s the first mistake that Sherlock ever makes? Thinking that Harry Watson is a man. What’s the big trick they pull at the end of S4? Sherlock has a secret sister – and Eurus points out that her gender is the surprise at the end of TLD. Eurus is also an opposite-sex mirror for John and for Sherlock at various points and this allows Sherlock to approach their relations from a heterosexual standpoint and thus interrogate them – more on that later. So gender-swapping is a theme that runs through the show a lot. But the similarity to TAB in particular is important here, because in TAB that was our first obvious declaration that this wasn’t just a mirror to be analysed by the tumblr crowd, this was a mirror on the superficial level that had to be broken through. This callback to TAB is a callback to the mirrored dreamscape. Don’t believe me? Look at what happens next. The second Sherlock sees Thatcher the whole room not only goes underwater, but actually starts to shake – another throwback to recognising that Emelia was Moriarty, when the whole room shakes and the elephant in the room smashes. So, again, we’re being told that this isn’t about this case – it’s about something else, and that something is the elephant in the room. Just like the shaking smashes the elephant in the room, the shaking is what tells us about the smashed bust of Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher, whose laws on “promoting homosexuality” were infamous. Smashing the elephant in the room and Thatcher simultaneously between 2015, the 1980s and 1895 is hitting the history of British homophobia for the last hundred years summed up as quickly as possible, and tearing it down through Sherlock’s self-exploration. This is a good fucking show.

You’ll also notice that Sherlock is alone in the room, just for a second, when he has his Thatcher revelation – everybody else vanishes. Again, we’re seeing that the rest of the case is an illusion, providing just enough storytime to keep the audience believing in the dream, and possibly Sherlock too.

[There’s a fantastic framing of Sherlock here between two portraits, a man and a woman, seemingly ancestral – I would love to know more about these, because if I know Arwel they’re significant, and the way they hang over Sherlock is really metaphorically suggestive. If anyone has any info on that, it looks like a really good avenue to explore.]

Blue. Blue is the colour of Sherlock’s mind palace, but this scene ties it firmly to the Conservative party. The dark blue of Sherlock’s scarf nearly matches Welsborough’s jumper, which is in fact a better match for the mind palace aesthetic generally. Thatcher unsurprisingly wears blue as well. If blue is the water that Sherlock is drowning in, how interesting that it’s being tied to the most homophobic prime minister of the last 50 years. There was absolutely no need to make this guy a cabinet minister, dress him in blue, even make Thatcher replace Napoleon – I would actually argue that Churchill is a figure who matches Napoleon’s distance and stature much better for our time. Thatcher is an odd choice, and therefore significant. To tie this to the mind palace further, we then get a shot of Sherlock reflected in the picture of Thatcher as he analyses it – a reflection of him reflecting. In case we forgot what this was actually about.

Sherlock not knowing who Thatcher is – perfectly feasible and actually quite important, although something that I’m not going to resolve until my meta on TFP, because that’s where it comes together for me. But Sherlock playing for time with his further jokes about being oblivious (‘female?’) – that, again, is Sherlock actively playing a caricature of himself. He’s not doing it for fun – he’s doing it to cover up his concern about the smashed elephant in the room Thatcher bust.

The weird thing about the reveal of how Charlie died is that we see what should have happened, if everything had gone right, before we see how he died. I can’t recall this happening in another episode of Sherlock, although I could be wrong. It’s marked by the really noticeable scene transition of crackling television static, as though the signal is cutting out. This is possibly a bit of a reach, but there’s one obvious place where we’ve seen a lot of static before.

Moriarty coming back isn’t what’s supposed to happen. It doesn’t happen in the books. We’re telling the wrong story here. (Bear in mind, from previous chapters, that Jim represents Sherlock’s fear that John’s life is in danger.) Just like Jim returning isn’t the right story, but it’s the one that happened, Charlie’s story isn’t the right story but it’s the one that happened – and indeed, Sherlock needing to save John from a dangerous marriage + suicide is not what is supposed to happen – John and Mary are supposed to be married for good (until she dies) in canon. A whole load of false endings – new stories superseding old ones. Mofftiss has an idea that there’s a new story that’s going to be told, and our strongest canon divergence is the end of s3, when we get into the EMP – and from thereon in to TAB it’s off the deep end, and the same is seen here. That TV static is talking about a new medium for a new age and their refusal to deal with established canon norms. Just in case we didn’t remember, outside in the porch we even get a visual reminder of the TV static with a second’s flashback to ‘Miss Me?’ Bad news is, that means Sherlock Holmes rejecting the norms he’s been given (feasibly represented by the hyperbolic nuclear family here) and instead… dying in his mind palace. Less fun. Carl Powers died too. Sherlock still hasn’t got there quite yet – let’s hope he doesn’t.

The next scene is, I think, very important. We come across Mycroft in a dark room with a tiny bit of light – this is really odd, as the obvious place to put Mycroft would be the Diogenes Club. Yet, although clearly more modern, this reminds me most of all of the room we meet Mycroft in in TAB.

The colour palette is the same as the top photo, and the similar chunks of light falling through suggest that we’re in the same place. I’ve brought in a photo from the aeroplane in TAB to show how the light is designed to mirror that of the Diogenes Club in TAB as well – there is a unity in all these Mycroft’s that we shouldn’t miss. Here I can’t imagine I’m the first one to notice that the light in Mycroft’s office is designed to look like a chessboard, which was an important motif in the promotional pictures for s4. Chess is associated with Sherlock’s brain through Mycroft, most notably in THE where it is contrasted with Operation which represents their emotional (in)capacities. So here we are – Mycroft is the brain, if we didn’t already know, and Sherlock has gone to speak to his brain alone much like he did in TAB. Mycroft has already been associated with the queen a lot; they meet in Buckingham Palace in ASiB, where there is a jibe about Mycroft being the queen of England – we can see here in Sherlock’s head that the brain’s power is vastly reduced by comparing these two episodes. The first time we see Mycroft in connection to the Queen we go to the most famous building in the UK. The second time, Sherlock says he’s going to the Mall, which is the street that Buckingham Palace is on, so we are led to expect a reprisal – and instead come here. There is still a picture of the queen on the wall, but apart from that we are in the darkest room of the show so far, whose grating makes it look under siege. Mycroft’s power in Sherlock’s head is vastly reduced, and indeed the brain’s influence (represented by the queen) over Sherlock’s character is waning as Sherlock struggles to come to terms with his emotional identity.

[Crack/tenuous theory: when Sherlock asks John if he is the king of England in s3, in the drunk knee grope scene, this shows that his brain’s control over his emotions have slipped; references to the queen in relation to Mycroft before have shown that Sherlock does know about the royal family, so this has to metaphorically refer to his own psyche and letting go of his brain’s anti-emotion side. Like I say, crack. But I believe it.]

Again, if we weren’t sure about Mycroft representing the brain without the heart, his rejection of the baby photos is sending out a clear message of juxtaposition with John, who represents the heart. We also shouldn’t fail to notice the water coming over Sherlock’s face again as he struggles to recognise what is important about this. This comes as he is trying to recognise what is important about the Thatchers case. I’m going to try to lay it out as best I can here.

We’ve been through what Thatcher represents to queer people of Sherlock’s age, so there’s already a strong metaphor for homophobia being smashed there. However, let’s look at the AGRA memory stick being uncovered. We know (X) that Sherlock deduced his feelings for John as he was marrying Mary, and so having the smashing of the Thatcher bust at the AGRA memory stick reveal is pretty devastating metaphorically. Why does Sherlock constantly think Moriarty is involved? Well, HLV tells us that the Jim in Sherlock’s mind is his darkest fear – and he’s originally tied up in Sherlock’s mind when he’s first shot, but he pretty quickly gets loose. That darkest fear is exactly what Jim says in that episode: ‘John Watson is definitely in danger’. The reason we bring Jim in to represent this is part of deconstructing the myth of Sherlock Holmes. The whole concept of an arch enemy is made fun of in the show, and rightly so; Moriarty himself tells the Sir Boastalot story which lines Sherlock up with that ridiculous heroic tradition that he’s set himself into, which isn’t what Sherlock Holmes is really about at all. Holmes has never really been particularly invested in individual criminals (although there are exceptions –  Irene Adler, for example) – the time he gets most het up is The Three Garridebs, as we all know, when he thinks Watson is dying. It’s his greatest fear, and it’s also what Jim threatens, so Jim has become a proxy for that – and to understand that Sherlock Holmes is not the great Sherlock Holmes of the last hundred years, we have to get under and beyond Jim. Hence what we’re about to see. It’s not Jim, it’s Mary – and this is in very real terms, because Mary’s assassination attempt on Sherlock has left John in danger – but Sherlock won’t put the pieces together until the end of this episode, as we will see.

We should also pause over Mycroft asking Sherlock whether he’s having a premonition – Mycroft is laughing at the concept of Sherlock being able to envisage the future here, which we should remember when it comes to the frankly ludicrous plot of the next episode. Much like the much commented upon “it’s not like it is in the movies” which is there to undermine TST, this line is here to undermine TLD and point out the fact that it can’t possibly be real.

Sherlock describes predestination as like a spider’s web and like mathematics – both of these are to do with Moriarty. In the original stories, Moriarty is a mathematician, and one of the most famous lines from both the stories and the show describes Moriarty as a spider. This predestined future is one that Sherlock doesn’t like – Mycroft points out that predestination ends in death, which is what Sherlock is trying to avoid in this episode, and although Moriarty is never mentioned explicitly, his inflection here suggests that Sherlock is thinking about John subconsciously, without even understanding it. The Samarra discussion brings us back to the question of Sherlock’s death, and links it in with the deep waters of the mind he’s currently drowning in – the pirate imagery becomes really important here, because a pirate is someone who stays alive on the high seas and fights against them. The merchant of Samarra becoming a pirate is not merely a joke about a little boy, it’s a point about fighting for survival – and how will Sherlock later fight for survival? We’ll see him battle Eurus (his trauma, more on that later) head on, literally describing himself as a pirate. Fantastic stuff.

The scene transition where all of the glass breaks and then we cut to a background of what looks like blue water is a motif that runs through this entire episode – we’re smashing down walls in Sherlock’s mind, most particularly the Thatcher wall of 1980s homophobia, and indeed the first picture we see is that of the smashed bust.

Moving on – before we go back to Baker Street, there’s a shot of the outside – that features a mirror, reflecting back on 221B in a distorted, twisted way. Another mirror that is wrong – we’re reflecting in an alternate reality. These images keep popping up. It’s echoed in Sherlock’s deduction a few seconds later – by the side of his chair is what looks like either a car mirror or a magnifying glass, possibly the one from the Charlie scene, distorting his arm. It’s placed to look like a magnifying glass, whether it is or not, which ties in with the classic image of Holmes – but that image is distorted, remember.

Others have pointed out that when Sherlock falsely deduces that the client’s wife is a spy working for Moriarty, he should really be talking to John – and, in fact, this is another proof that this isn’t really, because otherwise this is pretty touchy stuff to be making light of in front of John. Instead, let’s remember this is Sherlock’s Mind Palace – John isn’t John here. What Sherlock does a lot in s4 – and nowhere more than the finale of TST – is displace a lot of his real world problems onto other people because he cannot handle the emotional impact of them, and that’s what he’s doing here. He’s trying to come to terms with the danger that Mary poses, but he can’t do it with John – hence why this scene has a John substitute, because that’s what the client is.

Note that the red balloon is over the Union Jack cushion, reminding us that this scene is about John in danger (see this post X). However, what’s important here is that Sherlock has got it wrong. He’s currently trying to work out why what has just happened with Mary poses so much danger, and he’s imagining Mary as the worst threat he possibly could – in a word, this Mary is a supervillain. But Mary is not a supervillain; he’s got this all wrong, and even as he says it, it’s completely ridiculous. This is not the danger Mary poses – and so out the door the client goes, and we’re back to square one, trying to work out exactly why John is in so much danger.

I’m not going to pause over the next moment of importance for too long because many have covered it – let’s just notice that Sherlock’s face is overlaid with a smashed Thatcher bust, and remind ourselves that these are the walls of homophobia in Sherlock’s brain. Also note that this matches the half-face overlay of the water in the previous scene, linking the two (although the scene with Ajay later will cement that anyway).

Next up: Craig and his dog. Nothing can be said about dogs that hasn’t be said in these wonderful metas by @sagestreet (X). Nevertheless, let’s note that this dog is coloured the same as Redbeard, and Mary (a Sherlock mirror in this episode, and in this scene – their clothing matches, and their joining of skillsets to exclude John is the link that has always united them as mirrors) compares John to the dog. We know from the metas linked above that dogs are linked to queerness in the show, but let’s remember that John here is not John – John represents Sherlock’s own heart. It’s going to take longer than this for Sherlock to acknowledge John’s queerness. I don’t think Toby the dog is that important – instead, this is foreshadowing for the more significant dog to come in TFP. The dog also allows for another bit of self-parody in the show – the close-up on the dog running through chemical symbols and the map link directly back to the chase scene in ASiP, but this time everything is different. We have no clue really what Toby is chasing or what the crime that has been committed is – they’re not even running, they’re walking! All we have are cool, if ridiculous, graphics – and, brought down to style without substance, it’s nothing but comic parody. This is important because the opening of TST is so parodic – we’re back to questioning whether the things that people associate with Sherlock and think they like about Sherlock are the right things. The fact that Toby reaches a dead end here is important – he’s a weird loose end to have hanging through the episode. When things in Sherlock normally tie together so nicely, this is a section which has absolutely no bearing on the rest of the plot other than to look a bit silly. But fundamentally, we’re talking about the superfluity of style and image here; we’ve been talking about it for a long time in relation to previous adaptations, but TST brings it in in relation to Sherlock itself.

Skipping past more bust breakages, the next scene is John and Mary in bed together – and the first thing we see is them, once again, in a mirror. There’s nothing wrong with this mirror (as far as I can tell) – everything seems to be in order! But it doesn’t break the theme of mirrors misreflecting, because this is the scene that introduces unreliable narration on a big level – this is the scene which deliberately excludes John’s texts to E. John and Eurus are gone into in another chapter so we’ll move on again.

Craig’s quote about people being weird for missing the olden days is, of course, crucial to this reading of Sherlock. It’s pretty on the nose for a show whose protagonist is idealised in the Victorian age – and sums up Mofftiss’s feelings towards the Vincent Starrett 221B poem that I elaborated on in the TAB chapter of this meta: essentially, that it always being 1895 is a very bad thing! Craig’s mockery of this nostalgia puts it into more comprehensible modern terms for us, but it also links Thatcher and 1895 again as pasts to be broken with. It’s also important that Craig says that Thatcher is like Napoleon now – although the titles of most episodes are taken from ACD stories, it’s rare that an explicit reference is made to the link between the titles (nobody mentions scarlet vs. pink in ASiP, for example). This is the first time that I can find that Sherlock shows self-awareness from within the narrative that there are extranarrative stories being played out. I’ve said before that I don’t think Thatcher and Napoleon are a good comparison; whether it is or not, Craig’s reference is actively pulling a metatextual part of Sherlock’s history into his story and forcing him to reckon with it. This is important, because he develops expectations of how this story is going to play out (black pearl of the Borgias) which are wrong – because they’re based on what he has learned to expect of himself as fictional character. We could only have such a reference within the Mind Palace.

For the sake of splitting this meta up to make it readable, I’m going to call time on this half of TST, and we’ll pick it up tomorrow at Jack Sandiford’s house. (Also I don’t know how much text tumblr allows and this is a long document.) Until then!

The Love of My Life When... (Part 5)

Ao3: The Love of My Life When... Tumblr: The Love of My Life When... Summary: Part 5 of The Love of My Life When… a Zoyalai fic. | The call that neither of them wanted to make reminds them of their favourite moments together. And maybe, just maybe, they begin to realize what they want. A/N: Here’s part 5! It’s been a while since the last chapter, so thank you for keeping up with it! All your comments and feedback are amazing and I love reading them ❤️❤️

Audrey said she saw you out past twelve o'clock Just because you're hurting doesn't mean I'm not If it doesn't go away by the time I turn thirty I made a mistake and I'll tell you I'm sorry "Sorry"

        “Ugh,” Zoya groaned, peeling off her shiny silver heels, collapsing in her favourite armchair. It had been an exhausting night, they had been putting together some of the final details for Tamar and Nadia’s wedding, as it was in two weeks. Of course, that had only been the first half of the night, the second had involved going to the club. Zoya threw a blanket over herself, considering sleeping in the chair, that was how tired she was.

        Before she could nod off however, there was one last thing she had to do. Calling Nikolai after the disaster in the park, seemed like the worst idea she could fathom. She knew Genya was the one who’d orchestrated the whole thing. Setting her and Nikolai up to be partners for the whole wedding weekend. She would have to share her duties with him, walk down the aisle with him at the end of the wedding, be his partner for the ridiculous flashmob Tamar had planned as a surprise to Nadia and the even more ridiculous flashmob Nadia had planned as a surprise to Tamar. Because that totally wasn’t going to end in flames. She didn’t want to do this, but she had to. It wasn’t for her, it was for her friends, and she would do this, even if she would much rather do anything else in the world. At least the drinks at the bar had lowered her inhibitions to the point that she could do this without wanting to cry. That’s how she usually felt when Nikolai was mentioned these days.

        “Come on Koja,” she called, smiling softly at the grey cat who jumped into her lap, curling contentedly under Zoya’s loving stroke of her soft head. Koja had been yet another gift from Nikolai’s birthday week celebrations for her. Zoya let out a small laugh, remembering how excited he’d been to give her the cat, how infectious his joy was. He was amiable with everyone, but he never let anyone see his true goofiness but her. She missed a lot of things that she tried to pretend she didn’t, but most of all she missed him. Some days she missed him so much she felt like it was breaking her from the inside out. She knew she would be fine without him, but as each day passed, she had to wonder, ‘did she want to be without him?’

        No. Her decision was final. She was Zoya Nazyalensky and she would not change her mind, no matter what her traitorous heart said. She would not back away from her duties, especially not after Genya had spammed her with 21 texts and 12 calls all telling her to, “Nazyalensky up and just call Nikolai already.”

        “Well Koja, time to call Nikolai,” she murmured, feeling a pang in her chest as the cat’s ears perked up at the sound of her favourite person’s name. “I can do this.”

                                                   ***

        “Ugh,” Nikolai groaned, collapsing into the hammock in front of his bedroom’s window, overlooking the city and the edges of the bay. He usually slept in his bed, but on nights where he particularly missed the sea, he would sleep in the hammock, the gentle rocking and distant view of the water helping him fall asleep. A soft whine sounded from the floor and Nikolai saw his puppy, Sobachka pouting up at him, clearly wanting to sleep on top of his owner, as usual. He was lucky he was still a puppy, if he were any bigger he would’ve crushed Nikolai in his sleep or tumbled out of his hanging bed. He sighed, knowing he didn’t have it in him to reject the dog’s pleas tonight. He settled back into a comfortable position, Sobachka’s floppy gold ears resting beneath his chin. Nikolai wanted nothing more than to go to sleep after an exhausting day of gathering things for the wedding. Unfortunately, he had one more thing to take care of tonight. He opened his phone, gathering his courage to call before he saw a slew of notifications for his Instagram dms, all from someone named Audrey who he vaguely remembered going to uni with.

        ‘Nikolai! It’s Audrey.’

        ‘I think I saw Zoya at the club tonight’

        ‘She was wearing silver and black’

        ‘You guys aren’t still together, right?’

        ‘Anyways she was there with some guy? look at this pic, it was 1:30 am.’

        Attached to the last message was an image that Nikolai clicked and when he zoomed in, he saw that it was taken at a club, Zoya wearing a slinky silver dress, her hand on the shoulder of a tall guy in a suit, trailing him out of the club. He let out a sigh. He hadn’t thought Zoya would move on from them so quickly, but regardless of that, he knew he ought to be happy that she was happy. No matter what, he wanted that for her. Although… as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t. He wasn’t jealous, there was nothing to be jealous about, she wasn’t his and he wasn’t hers, but he just wanted… he wanted what he could never have. And he was a fool for that.

        Sobachka barked at the ringing of the phone, and Nikolai frowned, had she read his mind? “Hi.”

        “Lantsov, Genya says we need to go over our duties for the wedding.”

        “And you want to do that now? At almost 3 AM? How did you even know if I would be awake?”

        “Oh please, you and David were helping Nadia with something sciencey tonight, and you never sleep well, not without—” she stopped mid sentence, realizing that this time she was the one who’d let something slip.

        He had trouble sleeping, he always had, and for some reason, he’d found that if he played piano before bed, it almost always helped him sleep. He had his own piano room at his place, but Zoya had bought him a keyboard for when he stayed at her’s.

        “How do you know I haven’t played tonight?” he asked, attempting to gloss over the awkward pause.

        “Please, Nadia texted me when she dropped you both off home, and if you played the piano at 3 AM your stupid neighbour would’ve called ME complaining and telling you to shut up.”

        “That’s fair,” he sighed. “So… what were you up to before this? Out at the club?” Oh, he hadn’t meant to blurt that out. Maybe his lack of sleep was affecting him.

        “Tamar actually— wait how did you know that?”

        He hesitated, “I saw you walking out of the club with some guy in a suit.”

        “Some guy?”

        “Some guy,” he confirmed.

        “You IDIOT that was TOLYA.”

        Nikolai let out a dry laugh, “and that’s what I get for paying attention to Audrey.”

        “Audrey? I think she tried to get me to join her pyramid scheme… she only stopped when I pretended to be a part of another one and tried to recruit her.”

        “Intriguing! And what were the results?”

        “She blocked me on all social media, tried to convince Genya that I was going to steal David and that I stole Adrik from her.”

        “Huh.”

        “Yeah.”

        “So about the rehearsal dinner—”

        “Lantsov,” he heard her take in a deep breath, “I know this might be hard for you… but don’t you think it was hard for me too?”

        “You cut things off so easily, I didn't think that it was,” he said slowly. He didn’t know what had brought on Zoya’s forthcoming mood but he wasn’t about to ruin it.

        “It’s not easy for me! Seeing you out with other people… I’m hurting too,” she finished sharply, and Nikolai felt his throat tighten, his careful attitude flying out the window.

        “What if this was a mistake? What if the reason you’re unhappy is because this isn’t what you wanted?”

        After a long pause, Zoya spoke up again, “No. It was the right thing to do. I’m not changing my mind. If, by the time I’m 30, I somehow regret it, I’ll tell you I’m sorry. But it won’t matter then, Nikolai, because you’ll be married and happy and living the life you were supposed to have before you met me.”                               He didn’t have anything to say to that.

        Zoya waited for Nikolai to say something, and was surprised when all he said was, “okay, Zoya. So for the rehearsal dinner, I was thinking I could set up my stuff at 5, and you can start at 6, since I’m driving up first. That leaves us enough time to double check everything before the dinner. Then for the ceremony, you’re walking in with Nadia, we just have to practice walking out, and how we’re setting up the reception. Genya said she’s going to email all that to us in the morning.”

        “That sounds good,” she said.

        “Good. Well, I guess that’s it then. I should—”

        “Wait. Nikolai…” she didn’t know what to say… she just wanted to say something to him, something to let him know how she felt, but she couldn’t find the right words.

        “I know, Zoya,” and she could imagine him smiling softly, despite how she continued to step on his heart. “I know. Goodnight.”

        “Goodnight,” she echoed faintly, waiting until the line clicked on his end to bring the phone back to her face and whisper, “sorry,” a quiet sob shaking her body.

                                                   ***

        Nikolai pulled a hand through his hair, even more confused than before. Everything Zoya said was what he expected her to say— but her behaviour confused him, and if he didn’t know any better he would think that she didn’t want to still be broken up. But if there was anything he could rely on, it was that she was Zoya Nazyalensky, and she wouldn’t change her mind. Still, that didn’t stop him from remembering what it had been like before all this.

        The way she used to put her head on his chest as the hammock rocked. How he used to tell her stories about the sea and the year he’d spent on a boat with Tolya and Tamar before he’d met her. She always wanted to know more about the lives he’d lived, and in return for his stories, she would whisper secrets in his ear, not even trusting the wind as much as she trusted him. Some nights, curled in the hammock, Zoya would point out the constellations, teaching him what her aunt had taught her, while other nights, she would clear out the furniture in her living room and demand, with her hands on her hips, that Nikolai teach her how to dance--she refused to let him excel in something she knew she could best him in. And so he’d taught her. And in return, she’d taught him how to ice skate, the one thing he had never tried, holding his hands the entire time, regardless of how much she’d teased him. He had been terrible, utterly terrible, but as he’d watched Zoya skate perfectly backwards, all while helping him, he had realized that he would never find this again. This was it for him. She was it for him.

        His hopeless heart had only gotten ensnared worse when he’d made her a traditional dish he’d learned about in Russia, the only thing he knew how to cook well, and she had looked at him with so much ferocity, wanting to know how to cook it for herself. She was a worse cook than him, and had never quite managed it, despite his teachings. So she would call him whenever she was stressed and wanted her comfort food, although she never said that, he could always tell. She’d come to rely on him, trust him, in the same way he had relied on her, trusted her. He’d given her his heart-- but in the end he had been mistaken. His heart was closely guarded and despite Zoya’s warnings not to, he’d given himself to her completely. The pain he felt now was his own fault, and he didn’t know if it would ever truly go away.

                                                       ***

        Zoya couldn’t sleep either, and no piano melody would help bring her closer to it either. On the nights she could sleep, she found herself in the same situation, she dreamed of him, and only him. The press of his fingers against her arms when he steadied her after she’d drank too much. Warm kisses to her head when she was sick and couldn’t leave the bed, or protest his soft actions. His calloused fingers brushing back her hair in the moments after she shared her frustrations. The distance he stumbled back— as if he’d been struck in the chest when she had said she couldn’t do it anymore. The distance from his apartment, where she’d stayed each night to her own, cold and alone on the other side of town. The hurt in his eyes when she’d twisted the knife further, saying that she would have never been able to care for him— love him in the way he did for her. The pain that passed over his otherwise neutral features when he’d realized that she was yet another person who he’d let himself love, only for his love to never be reciprocated. The boy he’d shown her, who collected scars he didn’t deserve, retreated back into a man who had a collection of scars whose stories she would spend a lifetime forgetting. Whose hands she would spend a lifetime trying to forget. Whose love she would spend forever mourning. For all that she’d said to Nikolai to make him forget her, she was beginning to realize that if Nikolai would have her back, she would gladly go.

        “Sorry,” she repeated softly, even though he couldn’t hear her, she vowed that she would make things right, even if he didn’t want her again, she knew she owed him that much. She was Zoya Nazyalensky and she wanted to change her mind, to listen to what her traitorous heart said, but only if that’s what he wanted too.

Keep Calm and Go to London chapter 13

Synopsis: This is the story of (y/n), a successful actress, musician, musical producer and songwriter. After battling depression and breaking up a long relationship, she seeks for a change of air, escaping LA for a while going to visit some friends in London and there she meets Henry. -Disclaimer: some chapters are mostly smut.

Previous Chapters:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Triggers:  not triggers for this chapter (I think so 😁 )

Tag list: Here’s the incredible people who showed me support (thank  you   so much for that) and people who asked me to tag them too  ☺️   (I   think I will write a few chapters of this story, if you want me to  tag   you, tell me ☺️   ) @cavillanche @mary-ann84 @henry-owns-these-tatas @yespolkadotkitty @dancingwendigo   constip8merm8   penwieldingdreamer iloveyouyen  littlefreya  wondersofdreaming  alyxkbrl solariumss  sweetybuzz25 @thethirstyarchive @agniavateira   @honeyloverogers @hell1129-blog   @lunedelorient​  @michelle-1185​

How nice was to be able to wake without the noise of cars and drivers screaming at each other. It was so calm there. Henry was still asleep, with his arms wrap around you. Gosh, he looked like an angel. You wanted to prepare breakfast for him, so you moved slowly, putting his arm on the bed carefully so he wouldn't wake up. You grabbed a pair of red pants, a white hoodie and a shirt to wear underneath. You made a big effort not to made any noise. When you left the room, Kal surprised you running towards you, excited to see you. You petted him and rushed him to the kitchen, so he wouldn't bark in front of the bedroom door and wake Henry up. You were studying his Instagram Stories and tried to replicate some of his previous breakfast and made some tea and toast for you. You couldn't contain the chills and tingles in your body when you felt his body pressed against your back, while he hugged you and kissed you on the neck and the cheek. You laughed as a reflex of the tingles and then turned around to kiss him. - I made you breakfast- you told him as you ran your fingers through his hair. - I see and smells delicious, I must say - he replied and kissed your forehead - It could smell delicious but taste horrible- you joked and he grinned - I'm sure it's pretty tasty. You spend part of the morning talking about all the smaller things than you hadn't talked during your time apart. Things that you did while you were on LA, funny things that Kal did, etc. Later, he decided to train with the machine that he had on the house while you use the time to check houses in London. You wanted a house as close to Henry's as you could, but the house had to be big. You needed to have enough rooms so you could have room to store your instruments and you also wanted a room that you could turn into a small recording studio. After some time researching, you found the perfect one. It had three small floors. It was white on the outside and luxurious on the inside. It had the main room and two guest bedrooms, a gym, a small cinema and a pool room. It had a gorgeous patio and a terrace that was also great. Your emailed the link to the sale to Brian and asked him if he could contact the people for you to see if the house was still available to purchase. You realized that once that you moved to London, you'll need to get yourself an assistant because you would no longer rely on your agent to do everything for you. You offered to prepare lunch and make risotto. Henry took a shower after training and joined you in the kitchen and helped you with the cooking. - I don't have to work tomorrow either, you know- he told you - I know, that means that we'll have another day to spend together, right?- you asked, excited - Yes. And there's another thing... - What? - Tonight I'm going to a friend's house to watch a Rugby game. - That's great! You deserved to spend time with your friends -you encouraged him- we can hang out tomorrow. - Actually, I wanted to know if you wanted to come with me?- he asked - Really? You want me to meet your friends? - you questioned surprised - Absolutely! - he assured you - Do you think that your friends will be ok with me going too? - I've already asked and yes. Besides, is not like is just men in there, all my friends always bring their girlfriends and wives. - Oh, so great, I will not be the only lady in there. - No.- he said grinning- plus, one of my friends in that group is a girl. - Oh, yeah? - you asked, raising an eyebrow- Is she pretty? - She's like a little sister- he answered, making sure that you wouldn't be jealous and you laughed. - That's ok. I'm not going to tell you not to be friends with a girl. You can be around a woman and doesn't have to mean anything more than a friendship. I have male friends I'm close to. They have been there for me for better and for worst so yeah, you can be friends without anything else going on. - you said and smiled at him and he smiled back.- Oh, by the way, I need to give you a heads up. - What? - I don't know shit about Rugby.-you admitted and Henry laughed. - That's ok. I'll explain to you later if you want or you could watch the game and try if you can understand something or go to talk with the other ladies that don't care much for the game.

You put on a black short skirt dress with a black vegan leather jacket on top; a nice pair of black short stiletto boots with long black socks underneath. For makeup, this time you went with a different approach a did a black smokey eye. As for your lips, you only put gloss, so it wouldn't be too much. You looked like if you were going to a fashion show instead of a house of Henry's friend to watch Rugby, but you wanted to cause a good impression. He was one hell of a man, you didn't want his friends to think that he could do better. More than all, you wanted to believe it yourself, that there was no one better out there for him than you. Henry was waiting for you in the living room. He had a light grey Royal Marines hoddie, a pair of blue jeans and a beanie of England's Rugby team. He stood up as soon as you showed up and looked at you astonished. - You look alluring. Like...I cannot tell you how much I wish to cancel the plans right now and run to the bedroom with you. That's how beautiful you look. I mean, you always look beautiful, but right now, you look "you're going to give me a heart attack" kind of beautiful. - you rolled your eyes and called him exaggerated and then kissed him, leaving a little gloss on his lips, which made both of you burst into laughter. His friend's house was lovely. Homie. You recognized him and a few faces from a picture that Henry had on his place. His friend introduced you to his wife and said: "This is Henry's girlfriend, y/n". Everyone knew who you were, you were famous around the globe, your face was easy to recognize, but he still introduced you to everyone as "Henry's girlfriend". Henry was greeting his friends and chatting with them, as his friend handed him a cold Guinness and offered you one as well, but you rejected it and decided to go for soda instead. You sat next to Henry and while he was talking with the group, you were lost in one thought "Henry's girlfriend". - Babe?- Henry spoke to you, touching your knee to call your attention. - Yeah, sorry, I got a little distracted. I sucked with names and I was trying to memorize all before I forget them.- you lied and smile. - They asked me how we met and I was telling them that we ran into each other at Simon's party.- he explained to you - Yeah. I wasn't even invited. Not really. Was more like "ok, you can bring your friend, now leave me alone" kind of case I'm sure.- you joked and the rest joined you. - So you met at the party and started to date? Who made the first move? -asked one girl curiously. - Well, that depends. Technically, both. He asked me out as a friend and then I visited him to thank him for the date and after a lovely chat and, thanks to said friend, already knowing that he liked me, I told him that I liked him too, and the rest is history. - you said and look at him and smiled and he smiled back at you and kissed you. That caught you off guard. You have never been kissed in front of other people before. It felt weird but nice. A bit uncomfortable, but like a warm hug at the same time. He put his arm around your shoulders and watch the game with his friends. You didn't pay attention at all to what was happening, all you did was stared at his face as if it was the most perfect painting that you've ever seen. He caught you looking at him a couple of times, smiled and kissed you and gave his attention back to the game. You love how passionate he was about his favourite things. After the game, he and the rest of the group spend some time discussing the game results and then just talk. You liked his friends a lot. They were funny, nice and real. For those hours that you've been there, you weren't "y/n, the superstar, the legend", you were " "Henry's girlfriend, y/n". It was nice for once to feel like a normal person. After you left, you picked up Kal from his assistant's place and then headed home. Once there, you decided that was time to address the elephant in the room. - You know, your friend introduced me tonight as your girlfriend. Did you told him that I was "your girlfriend"?- you asked, trying hard not to blush. Henry sit on the couch of the living room and looked at you, a bit nervous. - Yes and no.- he answered and that confused you- I didn't call you "my girlfriend", I called you "my girl".- dammit! you could feel the warmness of your cheeks. - Oh... - I should have consulted with you first before I told my friend.-he apologized - No, that's ok. It took me by surprise, that's all. - So, you want to make this official then? - he questioned - Hu? - you asked speechlessly - Do you want to be my girlfriend? I totally understand if it's too soon for you for a formal relationship, but for me, I already know that I want to be with you, so was the point of a wait when I already have what I want, except for the right to call you my girl. - Yes. - Yes, what? -he asked raising an eyebrow - Yes, I want to be your girlfriend, silly. - You said and he looked at you with a big smile. He was still sitting on the couch, petting Kal who was sitting next to him- Henry William Dalgliesh Cavill, if you don't stand up and come and kiss me right now I swear...- you didn't have the chance to finish the speech. He was already grabbing your face and kissing you. Then, as you put your arms around his neck, he put his around your hips, pulling you closer to him.

Survey #357

“your magic white rabbit has left its writing on the wall  /  we follow like alice, and just keep diving down the hole”

Are you better at telling stories or writing them? Writing, by a long shot. What’s one song you hate, but know every word to? i'm a barbie girl in a fckn barbie woooooorld What’s your favorite magazine? I don’t read magazines. If you could be an animal for one day, which animal would you choose? Probably a house cat. Be indoors and safe, able to just nap... lol. But I'd want another cat as a friend, too! Do you prefer outdoor or indoor concerts/events? Indoors, by a mile. I get hot outside way too easily. Do you know if you were a planned child? I don't know. What’s your favorite gem? Dragon's breath opal. As an adult, do you want to live in an apartment or a house? I'd like to live in a house, especially with the pets I want. I doubt many apartment complexes would allow multiple reptiles and inverts. Do you like the stem or leafy part of the broccoli? It doesn't matter much to me, but I prefer the stem. The texture is more likeable to me. Do bats frighten you? No, I adore bats! Does Paris appeal to you? Yeah, it's a pretty place. Are you a KPOP fan? No, I've never really checked it out. How long was your longest relationship? Over three and a half years. First time you kissed the last person you kissed? We were outside roasting marshmallows one night. Do you have to really know someone to kiss them? Absolutely. I don't dish 'em out for nothing. Were you anyone’s first kiss? No. If you had to be named after one of the 50 states of America, what state would you WANT to be named after? I actually think "Nevada" would be kinda pretty as a name? Do you think morals are universal or relative to the beliefs, traditions, or practices of individuals or groups? I've wondered this for a long while, really. I lean towards it being a mix, maybe? But more towards universal, I think... with some exceptions. This answer is all over the place, I honestly don't know. Is torture ever a good option? If no, why not? If yes, when? No? I think the "why not" is obvious... You just don't. What do you think is one one of the most undervalued professions right now? Teachers, garbagemen, retail and food workers... There's a lot. Have you ever seen anyone have a heart attack? Thank Christ no. Have you personalized your answering machine/voicemail? No. Have you ever had Fiji brand water? I actually don't believe I have, though it's always looked appealing to me, haha. What’s your favorite horror movie? The Crazies and the first Silent Hill, as well as both Blair Witch Projects. What was the worst thing a friend has either done or said to you? I'd rather not even think about things the bitch said to me. Are you biracial? No. When was the last time you got mad and broke something? I've never broken something when mad. What color dress did you wear to prom? My first was maroon, second one was black. Who is the cutest baby you know? My friend has a daughter named Scarlett who is absolutely gorgeous. Have you ever thrown a rock at a window? No, because I respect people's fucking property. Has anyone ever thrown a rock at your window? No. Does your hair react well to dye, or does it damage it? It likes to not take dye at all. >.> I have only had one instance where a friend dyed it red and it stuck for months and months, but we kept it in for a couple hours, I think. My normal hairdresser says it's because my hair is really healthy and I guess rejects it. What kind of pet do you wish you had? I ramble plenty about how I want tarantulas and more reptiles, haha. I also DESPERATELY want to rescue or foster an opossum. When was the last time you were diagnosed with something? Are you concerned about anything regarding your physical or mental health at the moment? I haven't been diagnosed with anything in quite some time, I believe, but as I'm going through the process of being approved for TMS therapy for my depression, my bipolar diagnosis is being questioned, which is... strange to me. It's been acknowledged by many a doctor that I have bipolar 2, but if insurance recognizes my primary diagnosis as bipolar, they won't cover TMS because it can massively excite the mania portion of bipolarity, and therefore I can't do it because we can't manually afford it. I'm willing to take the risk by far, as I've never had issues with mania, but I can't without insurance. I'm just waiting to hear back from them... What is one blanket judgment you tend to make about people (like, you judge all people who live at home, all people who drink, etc)? Does this judgment come from a particular personal experience? I really don't know. How do you react to other people yelling or slamming doors? Is this something you ever do too? I get very scared if it's a man. I don't like anyone doing it, and my anxiety will spike regardless, I'm just terrified of angry men. Have you ever lost your cool at work or somewhere else important? What happened as a result? No. Who has the power to break you? Jason still might. I don't know. Is anyone in your family blind? My sister is legally blind in one eye. Do you believe in evolution? Yeah. I do find the concept odd, that ALL LIFE originated from one thing, but I sure ain't got a better explanation, so. What job do you think people should be paid the most for? Surgeons, maybe? I dunno, that's a big question. Were you ever held back a year in school? Did you ever skip a grade? No. Have you ever been given a hickey? Have you given one? Yeah to both. What is your least favourite thing about your full name? I have the most basic white bitch middle name in the world, lol. Do you like the age you are? Eh, I don't mind it much, but I think it'd be better to be in my early 20s versus mid 20s. I'm just always so tired now. I can't believe I used to refuse to go to sleep before 10:30. What’s your favourite kind of poptart? The chocolate sundae one. If you had to eat one type (Chinese, etc.) of food which would it be? American bc I'm not very adventurous with food at all. When did your family immigrate to wherever you live now? *shrug* Are your fingers long, or short? Long. Mom's always said I have "piano fingers." Do you play Pokemon Go? If so, what level are you and who’s your buddy? Yeah, I love it, but don't play it nearly as much as I want because I don't exactly go anywhere, lol. My bud's Charmeleon, and I'm probably like five EXP from level 28. Do you ever sit indoors and wear sunglasses or a hat? I don't own either, so. Do you know how to read animals’ behavior? I honestly think I'm very good at it. Do you like playing video games? If so, what do you usually play? Yes, but not as much as I used to. All I really play nowadays is World of Warcraft. The only working console I have is a PS2, and I haven't bought a new game in probably a couple years, but there are definitely ones I want to play, mainly on PS4. Just can't afford it right now. Have you ever viewed the moon through a telescope? No. Do you know how to properly eat food with chopsticks? No. There's no way I could, given my tremors. Do you prefer reading books, comic books, manga/graphic novels, magazines, or the newspaper? Books. When is the last time you ate donuts? It's been months, man. I've seriously been craving a glazed one, though. Krispy Kreme sounds amaaaaaziiiiiing. Has anyone ever called you sexy? Somehow. Do you like raisins? NO NO NO NO NO. Have you ever overheard a conversation you weren’t supposed to? More than once. Do you like ants? They're genuinely extremely fascinating animals, but they're seriously annoying nevertheless. Did you like the movie Antz? I loved it as a kid. What was your favorite ice cream flavor when you were little? Chocolate. Is it still your favorite? Eh, depends on the day. By the way, what is your name? Brittany. What time zone do you live in? EST. Do you like cats? I love cats. What’s the most creepy experience you’ve ever had? One night when my mom and sister were at the beach for a dance competition, I was having trouble sleeping, and it only got worse when my dog Teddy started freaking the fuck out, barking loudly and staring intently at the foot of the bed. I was so scared that I tried to force his head to lie down, but he fought against me. I was terrified, but got up out of the bed and went into the living room to call my mom at like 3 in the damn morning, and she had to have our neighbor come over to sleep in the house with me (I was in a different room that night). You can't convince me that there wasn't paranormal shit going on. I think the house was haunted honestly, for multiple reasons. What’s the most boring game to exist? Why do you dislike it so much? Hm, I dunno. What’s the coolest place that you've ever been to? What’d you do there? Disney World was very memorable as a kid. We just went around collecting signatures, going on rides, all that fun stuff. I'll never forget fireworks at the castle. If you’re interested in having a long-term relationship with someone, do you think that waiting a certain amount of time before you first have sex is a good idea? Or does it not matter? I think it's a good idea, personally, mostly for the sake of reducing the spread of STDs. Just because you think you'll be long-term, doesn't mean you will be. Besides that, isn't there a science that sex and feelings of love are connected? Like, sex is impossible without at least some underlying emotions? I might be entirely wrong, in which case forgive me for spreading misinformation, but if that's so and things don't go as planned, you've gotten emotionally invested in someone too early and wind up getting hurt. You do you, I just don't think it's smart. Have you ever discovered something big by looking through someone’s phone, Facebook, email, etc.? No. Have you kept anything from your past relationships? (Things they left at your house, gifts, notes, etc) Do you think that’s a big deal for future relationships or not? Yeah, like plushies and little stuff like that. When it's tiny things like I just mentioned, I really don't think it matters. I think some things might be questionable to keep, but at the same time, I don't think it's really wrong to keep memories of a happy time, if the thing still brings you joy and has been emotionally disconnected from the ex? Idk. Do you have any financial regrets? Either way, what’s an example of a GOOD financial decision you’ve made? Going to and dropping out of college three fucking times. I don't know about a good financial decision seeing as I'm not even in charge of my own finances, nor really have any to begin with. Are you a believer in “signs” from the Universe about things in your life? If you are, can you think of a particular example? No. Name some things that one or both of your parents are really good at or really interested in. Mom LOVES medical stuff, like watching surgeries and stuff like that. She is also absolutely incredible with children. Dad likes sports a lot, hockey and football especially. Think of a good friend of the opposite sex (currently or in the past). Have you ever had any sort of “more than a friend” or sexual thoughts about them? If not, can you explain why? Well, we dated briefly, so... It was awkward to, but I let myself imagine sexual situations a few times to help myself understand if I really did like-like him, or if he was truly just a brother to me. Turns out, he's a bro. If someone told you that you would never achieve something and you ended up doing it, would you have any interest in finding that person and showing them? I'ma be honest, yes. I wouldn't actively seek them out, but rather just hope they somehow find out or I run into them or something. What is the most jealousy-induced thing you’ve ever done? Apparently, be the girl Juan liked instead of this girl that literally threatened to deck me. Guess what? We're friends now lmaoooo.

Love, Rhodey

A “Love, Simon” AU

Rated G 

Tony Stark/James Rhodes

Summary: After being outed at school, Rhodey takes his life and potential relationship with his anonymous pen pal, Blue, into his own hands. He tells Blue and the world that he loves him and to meet him on the Ferris Wheel at the winter carnival if he feels the same.

OR

A Love, Simon AU - Where Rhodey is Simon and Tony is Blue.

Read it on AO3

—

The smell of corn dogs, popcorn and funnel cake continued permeating the cool February night air. 

Rhodey sat waiting on the ferris wheel, going around the giant loop for what felt like the hundredth time. Up and down the ferris wheel went, Rhodey’s friends cheering and clapping with every rotation. Their little crowd grew larger as more people probably saw his impulsive tumblr post, declaring his love for someone he had probably never even met before. Most probably came out to gawk and see if he was going to get his heartbroken in public or at the very least get the scoop on who the other gay kid was. 

God. The other gay kid. 

He was still getting used to being out. He had been hiding this part of himself for so long, constantly fearing that he would say something or do something that would give himself away. He didn’t know what that could be, he was still Rhodey afterall and his sexuality didn’t change that. 

He still wanted to go to MIT and eventually join the Air Force. He still put “Africa” by Toto on repeat in the mornings when he picked up his friends to annoy them, drank more coffee than any teenager should and secretly loved trashy daytime talk shows. 

It was like his mother had told him. He could breath now. He was finally able to be more of himself than he had been able to be in the last four years, and he would continue being this way whether Blue showed up tonight or not. But he really, really hoped that he did. 

What could he say? He was in love. 

“He’ll show up,” his little sister Thea told him that morning as she forced him to try her special Blueberry pancakes that he knew were not a coincidence. 

“Yeah, how do you know that?”

She smiled at him and added a couple extra blueberries on top. “Cause you’re the nicest, coolest person around. He’d be an idiot not to show and you wouldn’t love him if he were an idiot.”

Rhodey wished he held her same optimism but he couldn’t deny the warmth that flowed through his body at his sister’s absolute certainty.

So, here he sat, going around for the nth time, the anxiety in his stomach building with every loop that Blue didn’t show. 

Carol, Sam and Natasha still cheered whenever they saw him but even Rhodey could tell that their enthusiasm was waning, their faces growing more concerned as they spoke in harsh whispers as the ride made its way back up. 

The crowd around them had grown more quiet too. The hooting and teasing tapering off until they all looked at him with outright pity.

Maybe Blue didn’t see his post. He had deleted his gmail account, maybe he deleted all of his social media in an effort to continue hiding away, removing all possible traces that could link them back to each other somehow. But EVERYONE had read that blog post. 

When he walked into school this morning, backpack slung across his shoulder he knew there were people looking at him and whispering. He caught snatches of conversation. 

“Do you think he will show up?”

“That was so brave…”

“I wish someone talked about me the way Jim does about Blue.”

So, even if he had willingly ignored all social media, there was no way that he had been able to ignore the entire school talking about it. But what if that had frightened him off further?

Blue was very nervous. He had finally come out to his father over the holidays and he said it went well but Rhodey knew that coming out privately and coming out in a major social setting is an entirely different can of worms. Maybe the attention still was freaking him out and making him hide?

Or worse yet. What if Blue, having found out who he was, was no longer interested in him like that? What if he was disappointed in the guy he had been trading emails with the last six months? 

It was real easy to come up with all kinds of preconceived notions and dispositions over email. Rhodey was even guilty of imagining Blue as some larger than life personalities at the school, anytime someone so much as shared a similar interest or taste as Blue had. He had done it with Tony when he mentioned how much he loved Halloween Oreos, he had done it with Steve when he found out he was going out of town for christmas to “the middle of nowhere,” and he even had done it to poor, quiet Bruce for being interested in showtunes. 

So, what if Blue himself had hyped Rhodey up in his mind and couldn’t stand to reconcile that image with the truth? 

That would hurt more than anything.

Not being good enough.

With everything that they had shared with each other, Rhodey didn’t want to go through that kind of rejection, especially from Blue. He wouldn’t be able to take it. 

Rhodey flinched as the ferris wheel came to a halting stop, his basket rocking back and forth in front of the platform.

“Sorry, kid, that’s the end of the ride. You’re out of tickets.”  The ride operator actually looked at him with pity as he made his way forward to unlock the basket.

The crowd made various disappointing sounds and murmurs, cell phones being put down, no longer recording the spectacle because it was just too pathetic to watch someone get rejected so publicly. 

“WAIT!” A voice shouted and the crowd began to part.

Rhodey felt his heartbeat pick up, pounding in his chest, hoping that this was finally it. That Blue had finally shown up. He was taken aback when he saw Clint push his way through and leaping onto the platform, bent over and panting from the exertion.

“It’s me, Jim. I am Blue and I love you so very much.”

The crowd gasped looking back and forth between each other in shock. Had Clint’s disastrous Homecoming proposal to Natasha all been some kind of weird and twisted front to hide his sexuality?

Rhodey rolled his eyes and sighed. 

“No, you’re not Clint.”

Clint’s face squinted up in pain and he sighed as well. “You’re right, I’m not, but this is just so brutal it makes what I did look like a roaring success.”

“‘Is there a point to this?”

“Oh yeah! Yes! Look, let me pay for one last go. I owe you this at least.”

“The very least,” Rhodey mumbled as Clint turned toward the carnie and handed him a wad of bills.

“That’s enough right? For one last go?” The man nodded his head and Clint turned back to Rhodey and tapped him lightly on the shoulder with his fist. “Go get ‘em tiger!” 

He actually had the audacity to wink at him.

“Don’t touch me, Clint.”

“Oh right,” he laughed sheepishly and faded back into the waiting crowd.

The ride operator rolled his eyes and turned to the group of young people. “Last call for the ferris wheel….”

The crowd had gone deadly silent. In the distance Rhodey could hear the sound of the screams of people on the rollercoaster as it went around a loop. Music was playing somewhere and game masters called out to passerby’s that this might be their lucky night.  

“I can’t watch this. This is too awful,” Sam murmured and hid his face behind his hand.

Natasha shoved his shoulder in annoyance but even she glanced over at Carol with a grimace, wondering what they were going to do if this really was it and Blue didn’t show.

Rhodey huffed and laid his head down on the safety bar. He couldn’t watch this anymore. He should just get up and go home, hide under his blankets and not come out until graduation. Even then he might not. Maybe not until it was time to pack up and move it to Boston in the fall. This will have blown over by then right?

Images flooded his mind of all the memes and sad gifs that would be generated from this night, going viral, following him to Boston, following him to the Air Force. He would never make officer, never be able to pilot a plane without someone taping a picture of his sad face, sitting alone on this stupid carnival ride in the freezing cold. 

“I’d like a ride, if it’s not too late.”

Rhodey’s head shot up and the crowd gasped again, but it was different from when Clint had come bursting his way through in desperation. No, Rhodey knew this voice, and it held the same nervous trepidation to it that always came through whenever he would hide and read his emails. 

Blue.

“Oh my god, it’s Tony!” Rhodey heard Carol gasp to Natasha with a sense of wonderment.

And there he stood at the edge of the platform, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet in nervous anticipation. His hair was mussed where it looked like he had been running his hands through it constantly, his hands shoved into the front pocket of his dark blue hoodie. 

It took a minute for Rhodey’s mouth to catch up with his mind, sitting up fully and scooting over a little bit.

“Um. You know I’m waiting for someone right?”

Tony offered him a small smiled and cocked his head to the side, “Yeah, I know.”

Stunned Rhodey scooted over completely and Tony came and sat in the basket beside him. They were both not very tall or big people but still their thighs brushed against each other in the confined space and Rhodey felt a rush of warmth from where they touched. 

He hazarded a glance back at his friends and they were all wide eyed and smiling.  Carol shooting him a thumbs up and blowing a kiss. Rhodey could feel his cheeks start to burn and turned back to Tony beside him. 

Tony was watching him with a shy intensity from underneath those long lashes. Rhodey met his gaze and they both smiled again as the carnival operator finished locking the basket and moved to start the ride one last time. 

“It’s you,” Rhodey said wondrously. 

“It’s me,” Tony replied softly, a nervous huff of laughter coming out with his confirmation.

Rhodey couldn’t believe that one of his hunches had actually been right. This whole time it had been Tony that he had been baring his soul to.The same Tony that stole french fries off his plate at lunch, and helped everyone with their homework because he was taking all of the advanced placement classes and probably should have been skipped ahead to college long ago, and liked to build robots and gadgets. The same Tony that loved Halloween Oreos and threw big Halloween parties  at his house when his parents were out of town.

The same Tony that had teamed up with him to crush everyone at beer pong that night and sing karaoke with. That he had worked up the courage in the mirror to ask if he was Blue, to come out to him so that he could finally kiss him senseless like he had wanted to the entire party, until he had walked in on him half naked with Pepper that is. 

“But that night at the party?”

Tony ducked his head and Rhodey could see the blush spreading across his face as he smiled and scrunched up his face. God he was adorable.

“Yeah, I was drunk, and confused. I still thought that this was something that I could change but I can’t force myself to be something that I’m not. Pepper is my best friend and honestly it ended like a few minutes after you saw us.” He shook his head to clear his mind, remembering that evening with some embarrassment. “I couldn’t do it.  It’s not who I am.”

Rhodey understood what Tony was saying. There had been a time when he too thought that he could just will himself to behave and think a certain way so that he could be “normal.” 

“And you’re Jewish too?” Rhodey asked with a grin, remembering his unorthodox Hanukkah excursion with his father when he had come out.

Tony laughed. “Half-Jewish. And barely even that. I think my dad is afraid that Grandma will come back from the grave for him if we don’t at least try to honor tradition during the holidays.”

“And you’re white,” Rhodey joked this time dispelling any of the remaining awkward tension.

“I am,” Tony grinned again and it was contagious. Rhodey found himself wanting nothing more than to press those soft lips to his own.

“Guess you can’t have everything.”

And god there it was that same laugh from that night at the party when they cackled their whole way through “I Got You Babe” by Sonny and Cher. Rhodey’s heart was pounding with anticipation as they reached the top of the ferris wheel and came to a stop.

“I didn’t think you were coming,” Rhodey said softly and brushed the tips of his fingers against where Tony’s rested on his thigh. Tony reciprocated the touch.

“‘I didn’t either. I didn’t know what I was going to do until I started walking towards you. This whole time I finally realized that I have been worrying and focusing so much on how everyone else would react and what everyone else expected of me. I was denying myself the opportunity be who I really am and to have what I really want.”

Tony senses that he has been rambling and tucks his chin in a bit again. Rhodey doesn’t say anything, just takes in everything he can about this amazing guy beside him.

Tony’s voice comes out in a quiet whisper, his dark eyes darting to look anywhere but directly at Rhodey. 

“Are you disappointed that it’s me?”

Rhodey would have laughed in his face if he thought that Tony wouldn’t have immediately taken it the wrong way. How could this perfect man sit here beside him after Rhodey had spilled his guts online and to everyone he knew about how much he was in love with him? And that had been before he knew it was Tony. Knowing who he was now…his heart was close to bursting.

He couldn’t believe that just a few minutes before, Rhodey had been the one worrying that he himself was not good enough.

Rhodey reached his hand out to catch Tony’s cheek. His thumb gently brushed against his jawline where patchy attempt at a beard was trying to come through, Tony’s eyelids fluttering involuntarily beneath the touch.

“How could you ever disappoint me?”

The sincerity in Rhodey’s voice had Tony’s lower lip trembling as he turned his head to the side and started to clear the distance between them. Rhodey’s lips met his halfway and they both smiled into the kiss as the crowd down below let out a whooping cheer. 

Tony pulled back first, his eyes still halfway shut, unable to keep the absolute bliss off of his face.

“I steal clothing. You laugh but I’m serious. Hoodies, shirts, hats. They will all become mine. I drink a ridiculous amount of coffee, I can stay awake for days when I have an idea I want to work on. I only watch cheesy 90’s action movies and B science fiction. There is no in between. AC/DC is my idea of relaxing music. I am entirely over affectionate once you get to know me and I am prone to hyperverbality.” 

Rhodey chuckled lightly to himself at the last one, as if he couldn’t see that here and now for himself but he thought Tony’s ramblings were precious. 

Tony continued to rattle off all of these things, watching Rhodey’s face for any sign of disapproval but all that he seemed to find was careful amusement that grew with each potential flaw he listed.

“Is that supposed to scare me away? If anything it’s honestly making me love you even more.” Rhodey said, cutting off his flow of words.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Rhodey said and cupped Tony’s face in his hands again and brought him back to his lips again. 

The kiss this time was longer, their lips pressed together and Rhodey knew that he would never get over how soft Tony’s lips felt against his. Rhodey moved a hand from Tony’s cheek to curl around the hair at the nape of his neck, soft curls sliding through his fingertips as Tony gripped the front of his t-shirt. He moaned softly against him, pulling back for a breath and then diving in for more, tongue brushing against Rhodey, begging for entrance.

They broke apart when the ferris wheel lurched back to life, grabbing each other’s shoulders in support as the basket rocked with motion. 

The ride operator looked a little red in the face as they made their descent and they both busted out with laughter having almost entirely forgotten where they were and who all could see them.

Rhodey stole one more kiss before the ride reached the bottom and wrapped an arm around Tony’s small shoulders to bring in close to his side. 

Coming out had been incredibly difficult and oftentimes painful, especially having been outed against his will. He didn’t think that he would ever forgive Clint for stealing his voice like that, but after mourning what was and trying to navigate this new world where now everyone knew that he was gay, Rhodey took the control back.

He laid waste to everyone’s gossip and preconceived notions as to who he ought to be and instead, fully embraced who he really was. 

All of that led him to this moment. 

To this night, on this ferris wheel with this man.

Tonight was the first night that Rhodey could say that he was finally  able to sit back and let himself breathe like his mother told him he could.

He ran a hand through Tony’s hair and pressed a soft kiss to the top of his head and felt him sigh against his chest.

This was where he was meant to be and who he was meant to be with, and he couldn’t wait to finally start living the next part of his life without the old fear that had always held him back.

They would navigate this new world together. 

Security Check (3)

Security Check Masterlist

Pairing: Bucky X Reader

Words: 1637

Warnings: None yet. Some swearing. Awkwardness.

A/N: so, thank god I never asked him out you guys! Sorry to disappoint so many of yall, but he’s been avoiding me and super dismissive when we talk so I guess he’s not interested. Oh well, it was fun and games and gave me the idea for this lovely fic. NO TAGLISTS.

Previous Part | Next Part

Four times. You’ve spoken with him four times since that day in the cafe, refusing to realize how pathetic it was that you were counting how many interactions you’ve had with the man. You’ve definitely seen him more than that though but he never once approached you the other times. It wasn’t like you were busy doing something else or anything, and from the looks of it, he wasn’t busy either.

So you tried to extend the conversation during those four times. Your mind thought back to each on of them as you graded exams and you were thankful you were just doing the multiple choice ones now because you couldn’t think straight at the moment.

He approached you the first time, asking if you had a few minutes to go over the entrance and different exits so he knew where to place the other security. You walked around the museum with him and made eye contact every once in a while. He never once wrote down anything and you were close to asking him if he could remember any of what you said, but then you remembered what he used to do for a living before and knew this was probably nothing to him. When you finished, Bucky lightly tapped your elbow to thank you before walking away, leaving you as confused as a day-old puppy in the middle of the exhibit.

The second time you spoke, it was you that knocked on his office door. You thought he was probably out for lunch and were about to walk away when he opened the door and smiled at you, asking you if there was anything you needed. You told him about the two new staff members you just hired for the Assyrian department and introduced them to him to make sure he didn’t get on the defensive with them as he did with you. Bucky undid the button of his jacket and stretched out his hand to greet them when you’d noticed the gun holster he was wearing and you averted your eyes quickly before excusing yourself. You pretty much ran back to your office and attempted to calm yourself. But something about seeing the gun and how tight his shirt was made you flush all over again. You’d never admit it to anyone, not even to yourself, but imagining him taking the guns out of their position and placing them down in front of him made your stomach flip.

The third, and probably worst, of the interactions had you apologizing for hours even after you’d parted ways. You were busy looking at an email when you ran into him and spilled the strawberry drink all over his beige shirt. Bucky swore under his breath and you wanted to hear the expletive again, whispered in your ear, but shook the thought aside. You continued to apologize until he took his jacket and took the napkins from your hand, dabbing the wet spot and laughing when he realized this was not the solution. He’d looked up and saw you staring at the gun on one side and smiled, following your gaze when it moved to the knife on the other side. He’d asked if he should get you another drink since he made you spill this one and you cleared your throat louder than intended and told him to not worry about it before, once again, sprinting to your office.

The fourth time, which surprisingly made more of an impression on you than the last one, was probably what filled your daydreams. You were in the lounge struggling to grab one of the books from the highest shelf when you suddenly felt someone come up right against you and take the book with ease. Your breath hitched, turning and looking at the man and getting lost in his eyes for a moment. They were so fucking blue! You had no idea anyone’s eyes could be this blue. But there was something else about them, something that screamed danger and possessiveness, and wow you could stare at him forever. You hummed a quick question when you noticed he was speaking to you and he’d laughed. God the sound was so innocent you wanted him to do it again. But you snapped out of it, taking the book from his hand and thanking him before walking away.

This was not good. It was actually as far away from good as it could possibly get.

You turned your attention to the computer screen when you heard your email ring, swearing when you saw who it was from and knowing you’d need to deal with him as soon as possible. You read the email and silently cursed the man. He genuinely thought he was in charge of this exhibit and you wanted nothing more than to tell him to fuck off but you couldn’t. Why the fuck did he need to call for a meeting with everyone? Hovering over the list of recipients, you noticed Bucky wasn’t on it. Someone would need to tell him. Part of you was glad he wasn’t because that meant you could use this as an excuse to talk to him, but the other part of you kept on replaying the awkward encounters in your mind and knew you couldn’t trust to keep your shit together if you approached him.

Taking a giant sip from your coffee, you headed out to go tell him about the afternoon meeting. Walking through the hallways, you wished your heals didn’t announce your presence everywhere you went but brushed the thought aside. Calm down. You could do this.

You stood in front of his office and were about to knock when you saw it was slightly open. Looking through, you noticed he was standing in the middle of the room, his jacket off and his shirt sleeves rolled up.

And then you noticed his left arm and gasped.

Bucky turned around when he heard you at the door, his mind going blank in an instant because this was not how he wanted you to find out.

He walked to the door and pushed it open for you, smiling awkwardly before asking you to come in. You thanked him and silently entered the office, trying to find anything to say without making this any worse than it was.

“I wanted t-” Bucky began but you cut him off immediately.

“I am so sorry to intrude. I didn’t mean to- shit, I should’ve just knocked and waited, or just left when I saw you were busy. God this is so embarrassing, I’m not normally this disrespectful of people’s privacy and I just…”

“Y/N please, it’s nothing.” Bucky was surprised when you apologized. He thought he was going to be rejected like all the other times. But here you were, saying you’re sorry because you thought you were being rude, and not running away from him.

You shifted in your place before looking up at him.

“Does it hurt?” You didn’t know what came over you all of a sudden and you attempted to mask your own surprise. Bucky laughed at the honest question and lifted his arm forward. “From time to time. That’s why I was stretching, it helps the tendons and ligaments in my shoulder.” You stepped closed and looked at him, silently asking if you could touch it. Bucky shrugged and rolled up his sleeves past his elbows.

Your hands slid around the fingers to his wrist, turning his arm so you could take a better look at the inner side.

“It’s amazing.” You whispered, fingers ascending to his shoulders to see how far the metal went. Bucky didn’t look away once, watching every expression and reaction to his arm to make sure you weren’t about to run for the hills. When he felt the palm of your hand on his chest, he laughed and told you he was ticklish.

“S-sorry.” You looked up at him and gently placed his arm down before taking a step back.

“Is this why you always wear long sleeves and gloves?”

“Yeah. And it’s not because I’m ashamed or anything believe me. It’s just, people feel uncomfortable when they see the reality of the world we live in.”

“Fuck them!” His eyes widened when he heard your exclamation and he couldn’t help but chuckle.

“If they can’t handle this, then they don’t deserve what you did for them.” You continued, pointing to his arm again before crossing your arms.

“You just keep surprising me doll.”

“Is that a bad thing?” You asked, hoping your little outburst wasn’t misunderstood.

“Not at all.” Bucky replied immediately before walking to his jacket. “So did you need anything?” He swung it around and fixed the collar before clasping the middle button.

“Umm, yeah. There’s a meeting today with everyone working on the project and I noticed you weren’t on the email chain so I came by to tell you. It’s at two in the faculty lounge upstairs.” You ringed your fingers nervously, looking everywhere else but him because of course you weren’t thinking of anything else but how smooth and cool his arm was.

“Oh okay, thanks for letting me know. You could’ve just emailed me you know.” Bucky said, fighting back the tempting smile when he saw you look at him like a doe caught in headlights. You stammered through a whispered reply before clearing your throat and walking out, telling him you’d see him later.

Bucky felt a little bad for making you stutter and he was close to calling you back and apologizing. But this was just the beginning, and he was nowhere done with playing with you. He relied on you being hard to get because it just meant it’ll be worth it in the end.

You’d be worth it in the end.

Do you mind sharing more your road to medical school? Only if you’re comfortable of course?

yeah sure anon! I’ve actually never written my full story on here or anywhere so I’m glad I get the chance to do it now and hopefully this encourages someone else to keep pursuing their goals or dreams. 

Warning this is a long story . 

so I graduated with a degree is biology back in 2012, it took me 5 years to finish that degree. I was initially a biochemistry major and I changed halfway thru, which put me behind a semester. The semester I was supposed to graduate my depression, something I had struggled with since childhood but never quite acknowledged, had worsened to the point that I could barely function as a student, so I ended up failing every class I took that semester which meant I had to comeback for another semester. 

My final semester in undergrad I prayed everyday for just Cs, that’s what I needed to graduate and that’s all I really wanted because I had zero energy to invest anymore. God heard my prayers and I finished the semester with straight Cs. 

this is the face of a depressed girl who had finished an academic journey well below where she’s used to being but who is grateful she even got to finish at all.

It’s safe to sat that after my terrible academic performance my medical school chances were shot to hell and my confidence in my ability to actually be a doctor what almost zero. I was an amazing student in HS, won every award imaginable, was student of the year, etc but undergrad just didn’t go that way for me. I started off strong and gradually declined as my mental health problems became worse and worse. So to finish the next part of my academic journey at such a low place academically was a blow to me. After graduation I had to make a decision about what I would do next. I thought about doing a post bac program but I couldn’t mentally handle more school and I had zero desire to get a masters in biology when I was so miserable as a biology major.

I ended up deciding to take a year off after graduation. I have amazing parents who support me so they were okay with my decision. I didn’t work or attend school and at times I felt like I was just wasting my life but I did do a lot of soul searching and I discovered what I was really passionate about it life. That time off gave me a chance to mentally rest and recover from a very hard phase of my life. It gave me the freedom to get to know myself better without the pressures and responsibilities of life. I was always aware that this was a privilege that a lot of people don’t get which made me extremely grateful for it. During this time period I was introduced to the field of public health. My best friend had left some months before to pursue a Masters degree in public health and she mentioned she felt I would like it. During my break I looked into it and I learned that it was the perfect combination of all that things I was passionate about at that time: medicine, community, service, and advocacy. The more I explored the field and myself the more I became sure that this was the next step in my path, that this would be the place that I could fine fulfillment while also doing something that could potentially made me a better medical school candidate. while I researched school I started a community health initiative through my church, volunteered in my community, and did small things that made me feel like I had purpose and was making some sort of difference in the world. 

One night when I was up at 3am binge watching the early seasons of game of thrones I saw an email about a school in California that offered a Masters of Public Health degree via their School of Community and Global health. I had always wanted to live in California and the school was perfect for what I was looking for so despite knowing that my grades technically weren’t what they needed to be for a graduate program (yes my undergrad GPA that THAT low) I applied to the school. I even took a huge risk and applied to ONLY that school because that’s how much faith I had about this being the next step for me. It was stressful waiting to hear back from the school and I had many moments of doubting if it was the right decision. I applied to the school in early 2013. The end of July early august approaches and I still haven’t heard anything back even though school starts the first week of September. All of my friends and family knew I would get in but I was seriously doubting. They believed in me so strongly they even gave me a surprise going away party before I even got accepted. 

My dad later encourages me to call the school so I call, fully expecting to hear that I was rejected. At the end of that phone call I learn that I had gotten into the school but I never received my acceptance letter because there was a mix up in their office with the reporting of my GRE scores. I cried as soon as I was told I was granted a conditional acceptance so I barely even processed that it was conditional and not full right away. Either way I was just happy that my faith had paid off, I was going to be attending a school in my dream area and studying something I was passionate about. 

I had less than 1 month to move halfway across the country which was hectic but my family was amazing and made the quick transition a breeze. In August 2013 I moved and once  I got there I now had to finally force myself to deal with the fact that I had a conditional acceptance looming over my head and if I didn’t perform up to par I would be dismissed.  This was also a very  expensive private school that is a part of a very prestigious consortium of colleges that based on stats I shouldn’t have even been accepted into. So  I couldn’t afford to fail at this.  This was stressful at first because my confidence in myself academically still wasn’t great after my experience in undergrad. Long story short tho, I needed to maintain at-least a 3.3 my first semester in order to be granted full acceptance and continue in the program…. I ended up with a 4.0 that first semester. I shocked myself with my performance and doing that well really gave me a much needed boost of confidence. After this first semester I slowly started to allow myself to really dream of medical school again and believe it was possible.

My Graduate experience ended up being exactly what I needed. I met amazing people while in my program, got to experience an amazing city like Los Angeles, and I started to really understand what kind of physician I wanted to be going forward. It was during this program that I realized that there was more to medicine than the science and that It should take more than just perfect grades to call yourself an MD.  I learned that I needed to be a doctor that their patients could trust, that could see the bigger picture outside of just their disease, that could advocate for them, that could treat them with respect and understand everything that affects their quality of life like income status, race, educational background, access to affordable transportation, food and healthcare, and health policy. This is where I decided that I wanted to be a primary care provider instead of a neurologist, where I finally found what my purpose truly was. It wasn’t to just be a doctor for the sake of being a doctor, it was to be a true servant of the people on a community level and global level. 

Despite all this amazing growth and the amazing experience, during my final year my depression and anxiety started to rear it’s ugly head again. It was even more dejecting this time around because I was so happy, so content, living such an amazing life but no matter what I seemed like I couldn’t escape. At the end of 2014 I had health issues that made my mother fly out to California for a week to take care of me and I had huge mental breakdown in February of 2015 (I wrote about it on here before). I remember crying to my friend in the UK about how I was tired of the up and down and how I felt like it was just hopeless for me at this point. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t leave my house, couldn’t make myself eat. Even a small task like combing my hair, brushing my teeth, or putting on proper clothes felt like a chore that I couldn’t do. It was the worst I had ever been.

Once again my academic performance started to suffer again. The only thing that really saved me was the fact that I was pretty much done in the classroom at this point.  I was mostly working on my internship with the exception of one elective class . That’s the only reason my GPA didn’t take a huge hit but my internship was threatened every week. I worked for an amazing organization in LA county that was dedicated to serving the health needs of the incarcerated population. My preceptor was so flexible and amazing that when I told him I had issues with anxiety that were preventing me from coming to the office he helped me arrange working from home. He did all he could to help me finish even when I missed deadlines, appointments, etc because I couldn’t leave my house. More than once he had to be firm and tell my that If I didn’t do better I wouldn’t be able to continue but he always managed to find some grace to extend to me. His final act of grace was granting me an extension on my internship year. 

Basically what happened was by the time the beginning of May 2015 rolled around I did not have the hours to complete my internship. This was okay from a school perspective because it meant that I could still walk, but from an internship perspective I was very behind, well behind my initial contract and they didn’t have to extend it to allow me to finish. My preceptor sat me down and wrote out a plan that would require me to put in very strict hours until October of that year and if I finished by that deadline then they would sign my paperwork that would allow my degree to officially be conferred by the university. I was so grateful for the grace that I cried in his office.

I walked for graduation in the May 2015 ceremony got the summer off, then returned to california to complete my internship and my capstone. 

this was me on graduation day, 3 months after a major mental breakdown

Nothing but the grace of God got me through those months after my breakdown and the next few months. I mustered up every piece of energy and courage I could find and finished my Internship by my deadline in October and my preceptor signed off. My final project was designing an in custody Hepatitis eduction program to add on to their existing HIV education program, something that I am extremely proud of doing since LA county has one of the largest prison populations in the entire world and the vast majority of those incarcerated are black people. 

Immediately after my internship was done I went through a very trying family issue that once again sent me into a spiral. I had initially planned on staying in LA to work in public health until I decided to apply to medical school but after talking to my family I ended up deciding that moving back home near my family would be the better option so I left a city I loved and returned to my parents house. While home I decided that I was tired of not getting help for my mental health issues so I made the decision of finally get into therapy. I made the decision because I knew I could never be a doctor unless I got help. I also made the decision because I was tired of being held back in life because of it, because I was tired of having every good moment tainted my illness, because I knew I couldn’t keep living the way I was living. 

The beginning of 2016 was so hard because therapy, though helpful, opened up so many old wounds. I was often drained after my session (I would walk around whole foods for an hour buying random stuff after each session just to get some of the weight off my shoulders before returning home) but the experience was so freeing that I kept going and I could see the improvement. I learned so much about myself and why certain things have repeated itself at every stage of my life. I learned so many valuable skills and unlearned so many harmful thought processes and behaviors.For the first time since I was a child I finally felt like a free person, not like a walking pit of achievements and expectations, not like a sick person, not like a person just going thru the motions. This helped me finally decide that I was ready to purse medicine again.

My initial plan was to apply to medical school while I was in my graduate program so that I could stark right after graduation but I was so paralyzed with depression and anxiety I would stare at my MCAT book and just cry for hours because I didn’t feel good enough, I didn’t feel smart enough, I didn’t feel worthy enough, and I didn’t feel strong enough to even take that exam let alone actually be a real doctor. So I put it off. I remember being in my therapist office crying because I wanted to be a doctor so badly but It felt out of reach with my grades and history. The day I finally found the courage to schedule my MCAT exam I actually cried as I pressed the process button. I remember sitting in my therapist’s office crying as she smiled and encouraged my for having the bravery to face something that brings me so much anxiety and for having the courage to keep going forward despite the uncertainty. 

If this was a Disney movie I would have scored super high on my MCAT and then been accepted into my first choice school but life isn’t a Disney movie. 

I was scored barely high enough to be competitive but not high enough to offset my academic history so I was rejected in my first round of medical school applications. Prior to therapy I would have completely crumbled and given up, but because I was so much better at that point, so much stronger and braver I cried my initial tears and sat down to restudy for the MCAT again two days later. I was determined to do better, to cope better, and manage my life better. I started yoga, kept going to therapy, and spent time with myself and my friends and family and really finally healed and grew as a person

During this time I prepared my second round of applications for medical school, I applied to over 16 schools with the full knowledge that my application wasn’t as competitive as it needed to be but knowing I had what it took to be a good doctor and somehow it would work out for me. I retook the MCAT and got literally the exact same score as before lol I took that as a sign that I didn’t need to put my faith in an arbitrary measure of intelligence that actually had no bearing on whether or not I would actually make a good doctor or do well on the boards (research backs this up) and instead that needed to put my faith in myself and In God. 

During my previous round of applications I heard about IMG medical schools and I started an application for one school but never finished it because I remembered the stereotypes about IMG students and how they weren’t respected in the states or didn’t make it. During my second round of applications I ended up talking to an associate that was at a small Caribbean school. She told me about her experience and really made me open minded about pursing this alternative path. After doing lots of research I learned that the school I almost applied to at first is one of the most respected IMG schools out there and has given thousands of students the chance to be physicians. 

I decided to apply just before my US medical school rejection letters started coming it. There were a few times that I started to feel like I would never get in or if I did I would be making a huge mistake by going. shortly after sending my application I started a job in a hospital emergency department and while there I learned that 2 of our main ED doctors were actually IMG graduates. I also learned that the hospital had two residents from the school I applied to. This was so encouraging to me because it showed my that I wasn’t wrong. IMG grads can make it, and they aren’t any different from any other grad. They have MD behind their names and perform their jobs just as well as anyone else. The IMG docs were getting the same respect and salary as the Stanford grad on staff. None of that truly mattered, what mattered was can you do your job and do it well. 

What a lot of people don’t tell you about IMG schools is that yes a lot of people attend because they have a rocky academic history, but many attend because they were excellent students but US schools just didn’t have the space for them (google how much of a physical shortage US hospitals have because US schools can’t meet the demand with their low acceptance rates). Many attend because they decided to be doctors later in life and had huge gaps between degrees that US schools found unattractive. Many of them are good enough to be excellent doctors, they just needed the opportunity to do so, I was one of those students. 

After getting rejected by all 16 schools I applied to I ended getting into my current medical program BUT it once again it wasn’t a complete acceptance. I was granted conditional acceptance into the school of medicine, the condition being I had to pass a strenuous hard sciences program with a 3.5 GPA (well above the GPA requirement actual first year medical students need to pass into the next term) AND I had to pass a comprehensive exam at the end of the program with at least a 75. This brought on so much anxiety because if I failed to meet this high standard I would not be allowed to continue and my medical journey would truly be over. Most of the students who get placed in this program don’t pass because it’s that hard. I had 6 different classes, the most credit hours I have ever taken at one time in my life, each with their own exams and class requirements. This was truly the test that would show how much I had grown because this was the most pressure I had ever faced. I was walking into a program thousands of miles away from my family and friends on a secluded island and being placed into a situation that could trigger every single one of my issues. Instead of quitting before I even started I decided I was going to do it, I was going to mass no matter what, I wasn’t gonna let anything stand in my way. I felt like this was what all my suffering had prepared me for, this was what all the delays was for. It was to get to a place where I felt strong enough to give this my all and perform as well as I knew I could. 

My time in the first program was hard. I missed my family, I never felt like I could take breaks, I cried so many times because there was so much doubt and pressure at times. I cried before my first round of exams in the program thinking I would do terribly and I ended up getting As on every exam except one. This helped my confidence tremendously and I finally started to believe deep down inside that I could do this. By the time my program had ended I had lost friends because grades made them withdraw or because of petty reasons and I had a relapse with anxiety that sent me to the department of psychological services once a week for 2 months. But through it all I made it though a program where 150 people started, only 90 made it to finals, and only 50 of those 90 passed (many on appeals) with All As and 1 B and an A on the comprehensive exam. 

I did that, I worked my ass off in a foreign place and I performed at a level that I didn’t think I was even capable of for a long time. I passed with flying colors, I passed with no doubt that I was capable, that I was strong enough to endure this process, that I could achieve every dream that felt our of reach for so long. 

This is the face of a person who worked so hard for so long, who battled so much and finally got to wear the coat that she felt so unworthy of for a long time. This is the face of someone who earned her place at the table that no one can ever take from her. 

and this is the face of the girl who based on undergraduate grades and probably every statistic out there shouldn’t have gotten into medical school but who just finished her first official term as a medical student with an A average and  in the top 10% of her class. This is the face of a person who is as happy as she’s ever been and as whole as she’s ever been. 

–––[reasons wretched and divine], part 1

pairing: quentin beck x reader; canon-divergent/soulmate au (but with a twist)

warnings: quentin being creepy and (future) minor violence 

word count: 2.7k+

a/n: i’m an absolute fool and fell in love with a man i’ve yet to watch on the screen :// so not everything will be canon to the official movie and quentin and peter will be ooc. chapter one is going to be really dense and so will the next chapters. thank you for reading! i’m also tagging @emma-frxst, if you want to be on the tag list please inbox me<3

prologue chapter: x

people say that life is unfair. only the lucky few can get what they want while the rest slave away for years and years. your thumb hovers over the delete button to the rejection email. it was long past due for you to mull over just where did you go wrong. was it your resume? your cover letter? your portfolio of ideas you wanted to build but cannot because you lacked the funding? the impudent part of you wanted to put the blame on the people that sent you this rejection. but another, a dominant part of you that is still tethered to reality, forbids it. there isn’t anything you could do anymore but move on. 

and so you become the sole volunteer non-parent chaperone to midtown high school’s summer field trip to venice, italy. you tuck in your phone and watch as ned and peter talk about the sights they want to see and listen to mj, who’s sitting next to you, pop bubblegum. you have half a mind to remind her that chewing gum isn’t allowed on the school bus, but your mind is constantly drifting off elsewhere. you heave a sigh as you lean down, one hand propping your chin up on your lap.

you catch yourself looking around again as the chatter of the students become white noise. you see peter attempting to catch mj’s interest by his command of european knowledge. ned seems to be acting as a backup in case peter stumbles. you brush a hand against your forehead, silently hoping mj could at least understand why peter is taking all the effort to talk to her. the scene reminds you of your high school days:  you had such a stupid crush on a senior who every other person likes. 

“peter hey.” you catch up to him just as everyone is exiting the bus. “look, i know you like mj and–” 

“wait no, it’s not like that [name], i swear–” he cuts himself off as a deep red blush coats his cheeks. he’s sputtering out nonsense and waving his arms in front of him. a part of you wants to laugh and you do, barely holding it back as you press the back of your hand to your mouth. peter notices and manages to collect himself to stare at you as if you’re about to uncover more of his secrets. finally, he says, “don’t tell her, please?” he’s practically begging, eyes briefly scanning his surroundings as he clasps his hands together. 

“nah i won’t, but you have to do your best and work harder-for her okay?” you said, rubbing a thumb against the corner of your mouth. “you got the romantic backdrop of venice so maybe confess before it’s too late.” you both stare at mj, who’s already taking pictures of every scenic building she sees alongside ned. you never thought she’s interested in doing this, but then again no one here had ever visited italy before. 

peter certainly thinks about it, as he swings his arm back and forth and turns his gaze off to the ground. “yeah, right, i suppose i should soon, huh?” he glances at mj briefly before looking at you again. “wish me luck.” he mouths the last three words and you give him two thumbs up. the last time you see peter, he’s running to his friends with an animated strut. 

after everyone’s settled, and hopefully peter said something, you decide to take some time off and walk around venice for yourself. there’s something serene and even magical about walking through a city all on your own. it’s a good time to think about what to do later when you get home and find more companies where you can apply to. you take your phone out and open the photos app, before scrolling to a picture of the recent invention you made. it’s not complete, nor does it work, but the idea is there. 

except wherein others want to make a name for themselves, you want to create works that can support heroes in their fight against extraterrestrial enemies. the only brainchild that you came up was for a single person to navigate time and space. the only problem was the lack of funding and interested investors. which wasn’t a problem actually, because you want to refine your own work more before you move to stage two. it’s going to be a tremendous project, but you’ll be damned if you don’t try. 

a sudden explosion snaps you out of your thoughts and off your feet’s balance. you topple down onto your back and a broken scream escapes. debris and ash fall down onto you as you reach for your phone. thinking at first it’s an accident, you look around for people who can help. instead, you see yourself and the instigator of the explosion: a humanoid shape that is zigzagging among the thick smoke. something titanous is moving within and that individual is trying to take it down. green smoke unfurls around the man; it’s both beautiful and unearthly–you feel a sudden pang of nostalgia. 

pain flares through your chest, forcing you to flip onto your stomach. did you hurt something there when you fell? that’s impossible because you fell backward and nothing pierced into it either. but as time passes, the pain begins to intensify, the worst of it erupting through your very heart. you couldn’t stand up now and your mind is hazy. somewhere in the distance, a monstrous roar echoes, shaking the ground and the surrounding. you want to collapse and let everything fade away, but it’s easier to wish than to see it happen. 

distant footsteps are coming towards you and maybe it’s the person who was fighting the monster or someone else. they gently turn you over and you see him, you really see him; he’s not alien-looking or does he look anything special. but something about him makes your heartbeat and another resurgence of pain courses through. a voice is trying to talk to you, but it’s not yours, no, it’s a voice deep within your mind that doesn’t belong to you in the slightest. 

“i’m here, you’re going to be alright now,” the man says, placing one hand underneath your head. he holds you and you’re reminded of the heroes you see in television. except none of them looks tender with the civilians, not even captain america. then, it suddenly occurs to you that the voice inside your head is the same as his own. you remember your childhood, playing with an imaginary friend when no one else is looking. they had the same voice as his. 

you must be going insane from this pain. 

when you wake, you’re in an infirmary that doesn’t look right. instead of white sterile walls, you think you see what looks to be the insides of a cave. it’s dark save for the lights that keep it from getting any darker. a shape is hovering over you as you come to before you notice peter’s worried gaze staring at you. there’s a deep-set frown on his face when you lock eyes with him before his face falls. 

“[name] i can explain, i’m–”

“you’re spiderman?” you cut him off with a calm response. your gaze travels down his body, where he’s still in his full suit minus the mask that’s clutched in his hand. peter is saying things again, trying to tell you not to tell anyone and that others know too, like ned and mj. but instead of listening, you look around, trying to look for someone else. so without hesitation, you stand up, body briefly struggling to hold itself together until peter comes to your side and supports you. 

peter quickly explains what happened after you fell unconscious. apparently, the blip caused several holes to open in various parts of the world. strange creatures called elementals were able to cross over to earth and wreak havoc. 

“-oh and, i made a new friend.” he gently tries to usher you to a chair, but you remain standing as the familiar caped man you saw appears in your vision. you gape, not knowing what else to do besides look. he doesn’t have his helmet on so you can see his facial features clearly. he���s handsome, that you will give him, but he looks familiar. nevermind that his voice is the same as the voice you came up for your imaginary friend as a child. but his face is identical to the dream encounters you once had as a child too-of a tall man with broad shoulders. 

“this is mr. beck,” peter says, trying his hardest not to sound excited. he steps aside for the man to walk forward. you don’t respond at the moment because the familiar hum of pain is making your heartbeat harshly. you should have told peter off for allowing beck the room to come forward but it’s useless now. fortunately, the pain isn’t as bad as before, but you still place a hand over your chest. the attempt is in vain, but it gives you some semblance of peace. 

“a pleasure to meet you, [name]–call me quentin,” comes his answer, before reaching a handout. you look down at it and you slowly take it. quentin doesn’t shake it, instead, he leaves his hand wrapped around yours, the entirety of it swallowing your hand. you want to pull away, but you couldn’t. maybe it’s because you’ve never felt such warmth before or maybe it’s…

“am i that strange to look at?” quentin says, chuckling. there’s a hint of amusement dancing in his eyes. immediately, you retract your hand and offer a feeble apology. the pain is dulling now, but the fact that it still exists disturbs you. 

“...you remind me of someone,” you tell him, eyes carefully roaming over his costume. now that’s different, you think. when you dreamed and saw him, he was wearing civilian clothing. you could remember them clearly, just a dirty plaid shirt and cargo pants too worn out to be considered functional. your mind’s no longer telling you the person in your dreams was someone else. they had to be quentin; they had to be. 

this response from you elicits a reaction from quentin, as he lifts one eyebrow and leans forward slightly. your eyes dart to peter, who looks unsure of what to do with his presence. from the looks of it, even peter cannot help you out this time. 

then, you chance a look back to quentin and notice the little things. you try to tell yourself that you’re judging too harshly–appearance doesn’t mean anything and all–but you still feel troubled. you recall the way people look at you, strangers and those who really know you. and it’s not just anyone for the latter, but someone who manages to find their way into your life by all means–yeah, quentin reminds you of that. there’s a dry lump in your throat that you force yourself to swallow. 

“uh, should-should i do something?” peter’s jittery voice cuts through the silence. his interruption was much needed, for it opened a chance for you to slowly stand up and put some distance between quentin and yourself. 

“i believe fury wants me to fully introduce myself to you actually,” quentin says. he moves and out of the corner of your eyes, you watch him position himself so his back is turned towards you. you hold your breath for a moment, hands clenching into loose fists before you relax, telling yourself you’re overthinking. “i’m here to tie up some loose ends and help get rid of the elementals. so if my presence discomforts anyone, please feel free to ignore me.” 

he doesn’t look over his shoulder or make any other move. quentin’s talking to peter but you know he means you as well. but it’s not like you’re going to see him after this. whatever this is that you’re caught up in must be something too important for a mere civilian to get caught up in. maybe they’ll find a way to wipe your mind of this or...or–

you notice the space where peter situated is empty and quentin himself has turned towards you. “don’t be scared of me, i’m here to help.” his voice is soft, but you think it feels deceptive. you know better but you still look into his eyes, the whites of it a touch too much for you to feel pacified by his words. you’re uncomfortable now, especially with the lingering pain and a tired mind. 

“i’ve also seen some of your inventions-the ones you’ve sketched i mean.” 

quentin’s words snap you out of your thoughts. for a moment you feel stunned, unsure of how to react. your mind is searching for words to respond to, something like a quick thanks. even the easy things are hard to come by, especially since you never expected him to say this. 

his lips form into a small smile. to you, it looks more like a smug grin. 

“thanks, i guess,” is your response, though slow and soft, “they’re funny to laugh at.” you look at the floor before you feel quentin’s hand lightly touching yours, just a carefully brush of his fingers against your knuckles. you immediately pull away, sure that this is verging on inappropriate. 

“i would love to find out more about your inventions and yourself, if you don’t mind.” 

you suck in a deep breath and find what little courage you still have. “sorry, i have to think this through.” 

you don’t look at him, but you know he’s still watching you with that sense of knowing on his face. so you head back to your room for the time being. 

eventually you realize things are not as simple or easy. someone–and you know who–manages to convince the ones in charge to keep you here for the time being. gradually, despite your best efforts to leave, you are asked to stay with the promise of an internship in the future. peter even says this could be an internship too, although it’s unconventional. 

and because you stayed, you need to acclimate to your environment and those around you. peter’s not always present and when he is, he’s quick to be sent off to work. you’re not sure what midtown is told about your situations but you’re sure that’s unimportant right now, especially when the safety of earth is at stake again. 

fury and maria, two agents you were just acquainted with, were better companions than quentin. you learned about the man, dubbed mysterio by peers, was from another earth similar to yours. he lost his own family, which you are honestly sympathetic for, and came here to seek vengeance. 

he’s always close physically, sometimes trailing behind you just to talk to you. before long, you forced yourself to get used to his presence. with that, a certain reckless boldness. 

“why do you always insist on following me?” you ask, hoping it doesn’t sound biting. but it did because you’re gritting your teeth and your mind’s on edge. “we just met, mr. beck, and believe me i really want to know so please tell me as it is.” 

there’s that same blank look on his face. but you see the set of his jaw and the way his fingers twitch. “you remind me of someone close to me.” for a second, you hear his voice crack and his facade break. his mouth is pressed into a thin line, as if he’s trying to hold back more words. “the way you like building things, your demeanor, and even your voice–they are just like you.” then, as if trying to touch something sacred, he brings a hand up and brushes it along your cheek. immediately a sliver of pain follows his trail of touch. you wince, hand raising to grip at his wrist. 

“i’m not, sorry,” you say in a shaky voice. then, you gently push his hand down and the pain slowly subsides. still, a dull throb persists in your heart’s core but you’ve learned to manage it. then you turn your gaze away, eyes keeping to the way his hands dropping to his side. “but i hope you find them in this timeline.” 

you think back to quentin’s words: feel free to ignore me. that’s what you should do from now on. ignore him and let all the negative feelings trail away. 

you run before quentin can catch you just as the pain bursts from your heart. 

you cannot stand being here anymore. 

Our Thing

Happy Valentine’s Day, guys. Here’s one of the two things I plan on writing. I consider all of you my Valentine’s since I never have one, so here’s something before the clock strikes 12. 

Work Count: 2k

Warnings: Not yet proofread

“I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“What? Of course, it’s a good idea! I’m the king of good ideas!”

Voices bounced off of the walls of the Brooklyn apartment building as Chad and CoCo walked side by side to the apartment at the end of the hallway.

The snow lining the sidewalks outside were typical of mid-February, giving Tasha more of a reason to stay inside on the cold Friday. But her friend insisted she leave the dark cocoon she had created for herself in her apartment just across the water in New Jersey.

Valentine’s Day was the designated time of the year to celebrate love. Chadwick had a reason to celebrate, but CoCo could no longer say the same. After months of turmoil and emotional abuse, she was a single woman again and dreading the mere thought of loving someone else. So, she planned to avoid all mentions of love and relationships for the foreseeable future. Even if that meant neglecting tradition.

“Look, Chad, we can celebrate on the 15th! This feels so...weird.”

“We celebrate Valentine’s Day together every year. We can’t skip out this year.”

“I feel like having a girlfriend is the perfect reason to miss a year,” CoCo deadpanned as they reached their intended destination. She could practically feel the excitement buzzing from the other side of the door in the form of Toni Braxton’s greatest hits so far, and started to feel bad for the woman she’d come face to face with for the first time.

“Why miss a year when we can celebrate together? And you get to meet my lady for the first time. It’ll be fun.”

“Fun my ass,” Tasha mumbled into the thick scarf around her neck, earning a look from Chadwick.

“Wanna share that with the class, Miss Greene?”

“Knock on the damn door!”

A muffled feminine voice announced that she was gearing up to answer the door adding to the uneasiness in the pit of CoCo’s belly. She knew that if she was on the other side of this encounter, seeing a woman with her boyfriend on date night would insight a riot.

When the door opened to reveal the woman she only knew as Jay, she was more than shocked at what met her. Jay was beautiful. Her slim figure came with a few curves to compliment her height. She was graceful beyond compare and impeccably dressed, making Tasha feel incredibly bland in comparison.

“Hi, baby,” Jay sang as she wrapped her arms around Chadwick and went in for a kiss. If Tasha had rolled her eyes any harder, they would’ve fallen from her skull and rolled all the way back to New Jersey to beat her home. Catching wind of another presence, Jay offered a courteous smile.

“Oh, hi! Did he forget to give you a tip downstairs?”

“A tip,” CoCo asked, obviously offended and a bit confused.

“A tip for the cab ride. I know it was hell driving in this snow. Just let me grab my purse.”

Chadwick could see Tasha’s struggle to maintain her composure, her mouth opening and closing with words she couldn’t produce.

“You know what? I’m going home. Call me to let me know you got back to your place safely.”

“No, wait,” he exclaimed before grabbing Tasha’s elbow and pulling her back to her original spot despite her struggle to pull away. Noticing the commotion, Jay turned back to Chadwick and Tasha with her brows quirked in confusion.

“Am I missing something.”

“Nope. I’ll just take my tip and be on my w-”

“Jay, this is my best friend Tasha that I’ve been telling you about. Co, this is Jayme Dubois, my girlfriend.”

A brief and unpleasant stare off preceded a chipper energy shift as Jayme went in for a hug. “CoCo, how are you! I have heard so much about you.”

“Yeah well, don’t believe any of it,” CoCo forced out between fake laughter while she made faces at Chadwick over Jayme’s shoulder.

“I’ll keep that in mind. So, what brings you over? Do you have a date in this complex? I always knew white boy Rick liked Black women.”

“Actually, Muffin, I was thinking she could spend Valentine’s Day with us. It’s been tradition for us to spend the holiday together and we don’t wanna break it.”

“So you want Tasia -”

“It’s Tasha,” CoCo interrupted in the most obnoxious tone she could muster.

“Right...Tasha. You want Tasha to spend Valentine’s Day with us? Tonight? Even though this is a couple’s holiday? Couple as in two, mind you.”

“Yes, Jay. It would really mean a lot to me.”

Jayme looked between a visibly annoyed Tasha and the pleading eyes of her boyfriend before letting go of a long sigh and stepping aside to usher her companions for the night inside.

Tasha took in her surroundings and quietly marveled. Though small because what seemed to be standard in New York, Jayme’s dwelling was equal parts colorful and classic. Had she not started the interaction on such a bad note, Tasha would’ve complimented her on the statement couch that matched her ornate rug, but she kept it to herself out of spite.

“So since we have one more, what are our plans for the night, honey bear?”

Chadwick caught the slight scrunch in CoCo’s face and ignored it to refrain from explaining the embarrassing nickname. “Well, we can still go see Definitely, Maybe like you wanted, but instead of dinner in the park, Tasha got us a reservation at this really nice Italian spot in the city.”

“I called in a favor from work. It was no big deal.”

Jayme disregarded CoCo’s smile as she took a sip from her water bottle and sat on the arm of the chair Chadwick occupied. Her hands rubbed patronizing circles around his shoulders and back, forcing Tasha to look away to save the awkward moment.

“Well, it seems like you too already have this figured out, so I’ll just grab my coat. Do you have any more suggestions, CoCo?”

“Nooope.” Tasha sang the word through gritted teeth forced into a smile. Chadwick gave her a sympathetic look before helping Jayme into her coat and ushering each woman safely out of the building.

Tasha remained the front wheel of the tricycle, preferring to stay in front of the couple to refrain from looking like the unwanted third party. With every audible kiss and nauseatingly affectionate gesture, CoCo felt her heart tighten. It wasn’t seeing Chadwick with another woman that had her fighting back tears in the theatre. She needed the sight to push her feelings for him to the furthest corner of her mind. It was the pain of knowing that she had just detached from one of the worst situations in her life, yet wanted to be with him to cure the loneliness she felt.

If she had it her way, she’d cry it out until the work week resumed on Monday in the comfort of her own home, but continued to engage in the conversation when the moment presented itself to appease Chadwick.

In a restaurant full of couples, Jayme, Chadwick, and Tasha were the only threesome in the center of the establishment. Nervous energy characterized the silence left behind when Chadwick excused himself to the restroom, leaving the women in his life to avoid eye contact.

Relief came in the form of a stout waiter visiting the table to collect dinner orders. Without realizing that the order would be incomplete without the third member of the group, the women ordered traditional dishes and wine for the table.

“And the young man? What will he have?”

“Oh! Ummm, I’m not sure,” Jayme responded as she fumbled through the menu. “Maybe you could come back in a few minutes?”

“He’ll have the Parmigiana w/ Pasta, but please be light on the sauce. He gets heartburn from all the tomatoes.”

The waiter took heed of Tasha’s warning before walking away, leaving Jayme to burn a hole in the top of Tasha’s head while she sorted through emails on her cell phone.

“How long did you say you and Chadwick have been friends?”

“Since Fall 1996. So coming up on 13 years,” Tasha answered, looking up to find an indecipherable look on Jayme’s face. “What’s wrong?”

“I just - you know him so well. His favorite candy, where he likes to sit in the theatre, what he eats at certain restaurants. I don’t know if I can keep up.”

The process of finding the right words to assure Jayme, Chadwick returned to the table and unknowingly ended the conversation before it could truly begin.

“Never in my life did I think I’d have to stand in line to use the men’s restroom. I applaud y’all for doing that,” he complained as he took his seat. “Has the waiter come back for orders yet?”

“He did actually. Tasha got you Parmigiana w/ Pasta.” Jayme secretly hoped that Chadwick would reject the choice and ask for a second go at the ordering process. She was met with the complete opposite.

“Hell yeah!” His fist met Tasha’s across the table in his childlike excitement. “I love that shit.”

“Language, honey bear.”

“Sorry, Muffin.”

“Wow,” Tasha whispered to herself, unaware that the others around the table could hear her.

“Did you want to say something, Tasha?”

“Noooope.”

The table fell silent to give way to the idle chatter in the area around them. Chadwick looked between his girlfriend and best friend trying to find a way to get them to interact with each other cordially.

“So, Co, Jayme has been trying to get into basketball lately.”

“Oh really.” Tasha was clearly uninterested as she continued to read emails on her phone from weeks ago. A subtle kick underneath her table made her look up and noticed Chadwick’s non-verbal urging for her to at least pretend to care. “Which team are you interested in, Jayme?”

“I really like the Nets! Trenton Hassell to be exact.”

“Do you? Because he averages less than two points a game. There’s not much to like.”

“Trenton is your friend’s boyfriend right, Jay?”

“Does it matter now? Tasha basically called him a bad player.”

“Not bad, per se. He’s terrible. That’s a better adjective.”

“Oh-kay,” Chadwick interjected to end the escalating conversation. “Jay, how’s work at the fashion house going?”

“Ugh, it is amazing! We got some new pieces last night and they are beautiful. Maybe you could come browse one day, Tasha. Style can always use an update.”

“I consider myself more Maxine than Regine. Thanks though. I’m sure the pieces are nice.”

Tasha successfully contained her laughter at Jayme’s expression, feeling her first surge of happiness for the day.

Chadwick felt helpless as the night continued and each attempt at joining two of his favorite women ended in a snarky comment or shady look. Dinner provided a welcome activity that didn’t require group conversation, giving him the opportunity to cater to each woman. The longer they sat and contemplated grabbing cheesecake inside the restaurant or settling for ice cream on the way home, the more he could feel Jayme disconnecting.

“Muffin, do you want the strawberry cheesecake for here or to go,” he asked as she slid her coat from the back of her chair and collected her purse.

“Actually, I don’t feel so well, honey bear. I’m gonna head home.”

“What? So soon? We didn’t even get to dessert.”

Tasha watched Jayme put on her best “sick” face and gagged internally at Chadwick falling for the charade. Jayme was far from physically sick. If she was feeling anything, it was annoyance at the fact that her boyfriend’s best friend had spent the most romantic night of the year taking the attention from her.

“Well, let me walk you outside and wait for the cab to come.”

“Thank you, honey bear.” Jayme accepted Chadwick’s help into her coat, purposely ignoring Tasha until the last second. “Good night, Tasha. Maybe we’ll see each other for another occasion. Hopefully in a less...crowded environment.”

Tasha released a short chuckle before plastering on a fake smile, “Right. I’ll pencil you into my calendar.”

Jayme offered another fake smile and nod before leading the way out of the restaurant into the Brooklyn streets.

“I’ll pencil you in and the erase that shit. Fuck her.”

Time started to drag as she sat at the table alone, looking more foolish with three plates crowding her space than playing seat warmer for the world’s cutest couple. A glance out of the window gave her access to the tail end of Jayme’s departure. Her inability to peel her eyes away from the private moment showed her two things: Chadwick was far more interested in Jayme than she was in him, and she was clearly upset despite the kiss and hug she provided before disappearing into the backseat of her taxi.

Moments later, Chadwick took the seat directly across from Tasha and sighed.

“Go ahead. Tell me that you told me so.”

“I’m not gonna say that friend,” Tasha smiled. “All I’ll say is you’re gonna need one of these cheesecakes to go because mama is PISSED.”

“You think so?”

“Oh, I know so. But, I’m here to help with gift ideas to make up for this dumbass idea. And I ordered us dessert.”

Chadwick’s ear perked at the sound of a sugar rush to end a night full of terrible decisions. “Did you get the cookie thing with the-”

“The vanilla bean ice cream on top? C’mon now! You know me!” Without hesitation, the pair completed their signature handshake before sitting back in their seats.  “Sorry for ruining your date, Aaron. I’ll pay the tab as a peace offering.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it. I’ll make it up to her. You know there’s a reason she calls me honey bear.”

“Gross. Please, don’t finish that sentence. And what the fuck is Muffin? Are you a white TV dad now?”

Chadwick’s deep belly laugh at CoCo’s expense continued until their shared dessert was placed between them. Instructing Tasha to pick up her spoon, Chadwick began a pseudo-toast.

“To another Valentine’s Day spend together and many more to come!”

Their spoons clinked together in solidarity before the argument of who would get which portion of the cookie began, ending the most romantic day of the year the only way they knew how: together.

                                  _______________

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