#fevvor

Doug sneezed an embarrassingly tiny kitten's sneeze into his elbow at the sudden pleasant but strong scent perfume, and then he laughed, both out of embarrassment and relief. He had always felt like Amara kept herself at a slight distance from the rest of the team, and he had--perhaps, it seemed, incorrectly--always assumed she didn't want that distance to be broached. He thought he would annoy her, to put it succinctly. He always seemed to annoy everyone else.

But maybe that was exactly why he should have reached out to Amara a long time ago. Was it possible she didn't feel like she belonged, either?

"It's beautiful," he said. He could feel the tips of his ears turning red. Her hand felt warm on his cheek. He wasn't bold enough to do anything but nuzzle his cheek into her palm, his hand folding over hers. "You're beautiful. I have eyes. I've just... I always felt like I would bother you..."

Doug hesitated. Was it wrong to be blunt? Doug had never been good at talking around the issue.

Being the leader of a team of superheroes wasn't easy. It took guts. Over the years, Anna Marie had seen many people take up positions of leadership. Some of them thrived, some of them cracked under the pressure. It taught her a lot about how she wanted to lead others. She couldn't be coldly logical like Scott but also couldn't let her emotions rule the roost. There was a balance that, over time, she learned.

When it came to this group in Louisiana, Rogue hadn't wanted to lead. But, if no one else would step up to take the X, keeping the hope of the X-Men alive, she didn't have much of a choice.

As she watched them train, it became clear that, for the Outliers, the one who had to lead was Ransom. He was a good fighter, but despite his lack of a physical heart, he cared for his team. They trusted him. And that would go a long way in working together and keeping each other alive.

Her sisters hate her.

It is not an assumption, but a simple fact. Something she can FEEL. Esme keeps her mind mostly closed to them these days, locking them out; but often enough to be extremely annoying the four of them work together to get in her head and let her know just how much they hate her. They call her pathetic, disgusting, they laugh about how nobody likes her, about how she is nothing without them and nobody likes a loner.

She wants to prove them wrong, but everyone in this damn school is so, so stupid!

Everyone knows that she and Nathan broke up last year and everyone knows that her sisters aren't talking to her, they don't even know which one she is, more than once she has caught people wondering if she's Phoebe, Sophie, Mindee, Esme or Celeste, and many others just settle for thinking about her as the one that got kicked out of the quintet. Nobody wants to deal with all that drama and so that leaves Esme alone or hanging out with her "mom", which is pathetic regardless of how influential Emma Frost might be.

But she WILL prove them wrong.

Going to the party that Miss Grey allowed them to have in the yard all on her own is a feat in itself. She's catching looks as soon as she gets there, some pitying her, some hungry for some gossip, others simply staring because it's rare to see any of the "cuckoos" dressed differently from the other four. And yet there she is, low cut years and form fitting blouse, hair loose and worn longer than her sisters dare. For now, it's extensions, but she plans to actually grow it out that long.

She's been studying the menagerie of the Xavier Institute during classes and her free time.

Up until he got here, she hadn't really found anyone befitting of her tastes.

Tall, sportsy, with just enough parental issues to understand why she would rather not talk about her own "parents", only child, so no siblings on his side for her to worry about, and his mind... Esme enjoys venturing into people's minds. It is what she was created to do. His mind, even the shallow surface of it, betrays a lot of what he's trying to hide behind that sour and focused expression he carries, standing to the side— GROUCHING while everyone else is having fun, with a look that says 'Don't come near me'.

Esme does.

She walks over with curiosity shining in her eyes, standing right in front of him with a plastic red cup in each hand. Soda, because the grownups get really pressed about the idea of them and alcohol, as if half the kids here aren't powerful enough to get alcohol anyway if they want.

"You're Valentin, right?" she asks. "I'm Esme. Do you have a girlfriend?"

"Richard, are you going to mope around all day, or are you going to come outside? You know what Seneca said: dum differtur, vita transcurrit. While we delay, life passes us by. So therefore, you should come out onto the lake with me. I can't stand looking at that pretty face of yours moping."

@fevvor said:

The din of afternoon clogs Dick’s mouth with syllables, his inarticulate body breaks through the evening. The daylight burns his eyes. Still, he recognises the wrong the moment he steps into the threshold. Nothing is out of place, but still the room feels disturbed. He’s itching out of his skin, an instant dark congealing behind his eyes. Then he’s calling for Haley, a slot of relief threading behind his lungs when her paws click through the hall. Roy’s voice rolls through him next and he slumps in on himself. Dick is happy to let bygones be bygones. They don’t talk about anything, don’t talk about Dick’s knuckles cracking against his head, Roy’s thumbs pressed into his windpipe. Only Dick’s frustrated today, clammy and calloused. He loiters at the kitchen table, blinks at the sandwich. When had he eaten last? His diet is poor at best, worse on these days and he tries to ignore the tightening in his chest at the casual care. It’s fisted in his hand when he trudges through the door to his bedroom, leans against the frame. He’s licking mayonnaise off his thumb, drawing his eyes over the hard notch of his deltoid, the sun bleached freckles sweeping over his cheekbones. He follows a scar along his pec,down to the tracks cruxing his forearm. The frustration bleeds out of him, and his eyes linger, unabashed and without shame the way they always do. It is a relief to have another breathing body in the room with him, even if he’d spent the day thwarting company. Maybe it’s just a relief that it’s Roy. But something’s changed. He feels tired, and Roy looks….. at home in his bed. Or comfortable, at the least, like he trusts him still, like Dick’s apartment is reprieve. He’s shrugging out of his own shirt, the pulse and pull of his ribs as it’s tugged over his head. He kicks out of his shoes next, his jeans follow, his underwear even despite Roy’s politeness and it’s a step too far perhaps, before he’s dragging the heavy duvet back to shuffle in beside him. He feels ancient. A heavy arm is tossed over his waist, Roy’s body dragged bruisingly close and he buries his face against the nape of his neck, breathes in his warmth until he’s heavy with the sand of exhaustion. Defeat lodges inside him, fingers knotting in the sheets to drown them closer. Roy seems lucid, intact, and it’s not quite a kiss, they don’t do that, but his mouth is lax at his hairline. It’s strange, the way enough days makes crossing the line into intimacy easy, but he supposes that was never what he was worried about. “Yeah well, you broke into my apartment, used my fancy soaps by the smell of it, insulted my mattress and you didn’t even cut the crust off my sandwich.”

Roy watches him. Out of habit, his eyes scan over Dick's body, searching for any signs of distress. Any bleeding wounds, any nasty bruises, any lumps that might indicate something under the skin is sprained or broken. He tells himself that's all there is to his slow, methodic visual inspection of the man's toned body, because friends take care of each other and what kind of friend would he be if he doesn't make sure Grayson is not dying?

"Oh, you poor, poor baby," Roy coos as Dick complains about the crust on the sandwich of all things. "You gotta eat the crust, you're a growing boy."

And he knows for a fact that sandwich was probably the first half decent meal Dick has had in a while, because again they're friends and he knows his friend well.

Too damn well, some would say. Not just because Dick is currently naked in front of him and getting in bed with him, cuddling up close like someone who craves touch, is desperate for it, and will take it from anyone who is willing to give it to him —surely, that is what makes him seek it from Roy—; but also because they've been friends for so long, Roy has had the privilege of seeing sides of Dick that most others don't ever get to witness because the golden boy of the Bats family goes out of his way to keep the 'ugly' bits out if sight and out of mind.

But not from Roy.

It's quite the ego boost, knowing that he is one of the very selective few that gets to see both sides. Many would think it isn't something he should be proud of, but all things considered, Roy has always had odd priorities.

His tongue comes out to wet his lips, feeling the scar that was left behind by their last big disagreement, where Roy's lip ended up busted and Dick's ribs neck had ended up with a few nicely fingertip shaped bruises while choice words were exchanged.

And here they were now, CUDDLING.

The speed force is full of contradictions.

Wally is using it, and yet he's fleeing from it. Wally's got all the time in the world, and yet he's got his days numbered.

Days, hours, minutes, seconds, and so on. All of it, numbered.

The world around him moves slowly. So much so that it barely moves at all. But life goes on for everyone else as it always does. Some car narrowly misses a kid that tried to run across the street without looking both ways, a thief trips 'over his own feet' as he's running away with a old lady's purse; even when he's being the damsel in distress, Wally can't stop playing the hero.

It's been twenty four hours since he managed to break free of the speed force, twenty four hours spent on the move. Running, the one thing he's always been good at. He learned pretty quick that he cannot stop. If he stops, it will suck him back into its endless vacuum. If he stops, he might not find the way out again. It already took him so long to find it once.

The sense of dread sinks into him with every steps he takes. His muscles burn. He's thirsty, hungry, and while he can sate those on the move, exhaustion can only be ignored for so long.

24 hours that feel like 24 thousand years, and he still can't come up with a way to fix this. But he has to.

Running into Dick is a complete accident.

He's made it past the Bludhaven docks more times than be can count now, each time there is nothing out of the ordinary, at least from a distance. Until there is. An explosion, an expanding ball of fire that starts within a building and slowly swallows everything in its path— the way Wally sees it, millimeter by millimeter. It's nighttime, but he can't go on his way without making sure that there is nobody there that he could save from certain death.

A bunch of stereotypically dressed goons, the penguin– all of who Wally is more than happy to throw in the water unceremoniously.

And then there's Nightwing.

He should just drop him in the water too. He can't bring Dick into this, can't pull him into his mess when he doesn't feel anywhere near close to finding a solution. Can't do that to his best friend.

And yet, he is selfish.

He wraps his arms around the former boy wonder, one around his back, the other under his knees, and keeps running.

finally confessing their love, only to realize the other has fallen asleep right next to them - Miguel/Xi early on? young?

Xina's bedroom window stays open.

It doesn't matter if it's raining, hailing, the biggest heat wave known to man or snowing like God wants to bury them all in ice, the window stays open. Her parents give her grief about it sometimes, when the heat bill comes in and they see just how much her open window shenanigans cost. But they never make her close it. They know there is method to their daughter's madness.

They know, just like Xina does, that Miguel is awful at asking for help, and so the window stays open. So he doesn't have to go through the self-perceived humiliation ritual of knocking on her front door, asking her mother if Xina is home, having it pointed out that it's the middle of the night, or raining, or freezing outside.

So the window stays open, because Miguel is better at climbing than he is at communicating with people he has known nearly his entire life.

And her parents pretend they don't hear the bumping of feet on their wall, and Xina feigns surprise every time his body pokes into her room through that window, because things work out nicely for them this way. She doesn't ask what made him come, simply provides the distractions he seeks by telling him about whatever vintage show she's watching, or random facts about mechanical engineering and pop culture that she thinks he might like, like the earthquake of 2030 that leveled Disneyland and led to the theft of a lot of their animatronics. Miguel either just listens to her or, sometimes, eventually, gets comfortable enough to tell her what made him come.

This time around, he looks exhausted as he tells her about how his father wants to send him to military school to ´man him up'. Xina doesn't like Mr. O'Hara, never has and probably never will. But in that moment, as she stares at her ceiling and thinks about how the man is actively trying to send her best friend away, she hates him more than she ever has before.

"Well, I probably wouldn't have such a crush on you if they made you get a buzzcut, you have a bit of a flat head from the back." the jab is delivered with a smile that fades as she realizes what slipped out beforehand.

Her eyes widen and she half sits, looking towards Miguel. His eyes are closed, hands resting on his chest which rises and falls steadily, lips parted with a soft snore.

Bastard fell asleep on her.

Xina's shoulders sag in relief, while she also huffs because he fell asleep mid conversation. But she can't really blame him with how shocking exhausting his family can be. So she tucks him in as best she can and lies down beside him, watching him for a minute before she feels like a weirdo and turns around to play with her phone until sleep decides to bless her.