I am thinking about Oliver & Kaz getting fire and ice powers, and I know it's the classic matched set of superpowers, but it's not intertwined enough for me. I want them to be more the same but different, and I have to come to the conclusion that what I really want is for their powers to be more like Emma and Rikki from H2O (just add water).
Oliver cools things down, a little bit, or to the point that he can conjure ice from the water in the air, and Kaz heats things up, from a slight rise up to the point of spontaneous combustion. The mechanics are similar enough but with extra appeal to me in that it gives them a bunch of benign uses of their powers, too. Oliver can stop their ice cream cones from melting when Kaz talks too much and his starts dripping. Oliver tries to eat chicken noodle soup when he's sick but he's too slow and it gets cold, but he doesn't have to get up because Kaz can just reheat it without even letting go of Ollie's hand. There are also medical applications but I might put those in a fic.
They could control the weather if they realize what they've got. Air currents bending to their will via temperature control is how they fly but they don't know that yet. Maybe they shouldn't ever know because I would not trust them with the power of Instant Tornado. Nobody should trust them with Instant Tornado.
Before the show canon, some time around fifth grade, Oliver gets the idea that maybe if he prompts Kaz to lie to him on purpose, then Kaz won't lie so much about other things.
Oliver couldn't stop noticing that Kaz had been lying a lot more this year. He didn't understand why. He asked Kaz about it, but he only ever shrugged it off. Oliver would be more angry about it, but he'd seen the confusion on Kaz's face after lying to his mom about what he'd eaten for lunch, so Oliver was pretty sure that Kaz didn't know why he was lying so much anymore than Oliver did. He was more concerned about it than anything, since he was pretty sure it was going to get him and Kaz in trouble.
Kaz's parents never called him out, and neither did their teachers, so eventually Oliver's worry lessened enough to start being annoyed again. Kaz said things that weren't true right to Oliver's face! Even about things that didn't make sense to lie about, like he was just allergic to honesty all of a sudden.
It just kept happening.
They move classrooms from social studies to math, and Oliver can't find his math pencil, so he asks Kaz, "Did you take my purple pencil?"
Kaz says, "No," perfectly casual, and then he hands Oliver's purple pencil back to him.
--
The language arts teacher asks Kaz to answer a question about the book they're reading, and Kaz pretends to faint out of his chair. Mrs. Russell rolls her eyes and tells Oliver to take him to the nurse after class. Kaz gets an earful for that one, since Oliver is mad at him and at Mrs. Russell for ignoring him.
--
After school, Kaz asks if Oliver's read the newest Tecton comic yet, and Oliver hasn't, so he says, "Not yet."
Kaz says, "Yeah, me neither."
Later, while they read it together on Oliver's bed, he gets distracted by the background details in the panel, and Kaz pokes him in the shoulder impatiently. "The next page is the best part, Ollie."
--
Oliver knew that just telling Kaz to stop doing something made him want to do it more. He needed to approach the problem differently, but he didn't know how; he asked his mom and the internet how to get a liar to stop, but neither were very helpful.
Eventually, he came up with an idea. Kaz was more likely to do things if someone told him not to, so maybe the opposite would be true. Maybe if Oliver encouraged him to lie, Kaz would stop doing it.
"Tell me a lie."
Kaz's eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hair. "What? Why?"
"Why not?" Oliver shrugged as carelessly as he could, which meant he was still very stiff, but it was the thought that counted.
"You don't like it when people lie to you. It doesn't make any sense."
"Does it need to make sense? Tell me a lie, Kaz."
Kaz's shock was pretty funny. Oliver waited him out, biting his smile down as Kaz floundered. "Um, there's a secret fastest animal called the double cheetah. It has eight legs and its fur is red, but scientists are paid by Big Cheetah to hide it."
"That's so dumb."
"You didn't say it had to be believable."
"No, I guess I didn't." Oliver laughed. "This is better, crazy unbelievable lies are more fun."
--
"Tell me a lie."
"The pirate king is rapidly approaching your location."
"My location in the middle of the city? Is he on foot?"
"Get with the times, Oli-pop, modern pirate ships have wheels."
--
"Tell me a lie, Kaz." He felt awful this morning. Oliver's mom had missed dinner the night before and he'd had a hard time falling asleep. Nonsense sounded nice compared to his scattered, anxious thoughts.
Kaz spun a more elaborate yarn than normal, like he'd understood Oliver was asking for a distraction. "Umbrellas were invented by Charlotte Umbra, the most famous actress to ever play Cinderella, and she cobbled together the first umbrella when it rained before an outdoor show. The show must go on, you know? So she makes an umbrella. Everyone thought it was awesome, and she started carrying one every show even when they were inside. She called it Charlotte's rain cane, but that was stupid and no one liked it, so after she died they renamed it the umbrella."
Oliver stopped walking for a second. Kaz stopped with him. "I did not get enough sleep to make sense of that," he decided.
"Sleep in math."
"I can't sleep in class!"
"We've been doing the same thing all week and you've already figured it out."
"What if we start something new today?"
"On a Friday?"
"Kaz!"
"What?!"
--
"Tell me a lie."
Kaz was moping. He'd say he wasn't, but he hadn't even touched his lunch yet, and they only had ten minutes left.
"Tell yourself a lie," Kaz muttered. Oliver rolled his eyes.
Oliver's plan to reverse psychology Kaz out of lying didn't work. Kaz still lied about stuff he didn't need to pretty much every week, so Oliver had privately admitted defeat. It had sort of become a game, though, one they both thought was fun. Chances to be outlandish made Kaz happy. He must've felt worse than Oliver realized if he didn't want to play.
"Did you know Skylar Storm is getting a new backstory soon?" Oliver asked. "They're gonna retcon her being an alien and make her a time traveling ninja."
It took a second, but Kaz turned toward him, and he was totally trying not to smile. "That is not true," Kaz declared. "You made that up, Ollie."
Au where Marcus is still alive and elite force exists and the Davenports+Dooley+storm+Nolastnames form an improv comedy group together and perform plays in their free time because it's a fun bonding experience
Kaz and Oliver always end up becoming a couple in the plays because they're the most comfortable with each other (romantic tension motherfuckers) (and the davenport-dooleys are siblings so ✝️ NO WAY THEY'RE DOING THAT TOGETHER), but later on Bree and Skylar start doing the same thing (bi awakening for Bree right there)
Adam always somehow manages to end up acting on his knees as a 4 year old child with high pitched voices, and his characters quickly become fan favourites
Leo has the best dance moves but Marcus has the best stagecraft (he's able to visualize where everything would go and sometimes gets confused when improv changes an object, eg. He believes he's petting a cat and someone interrupts by asking what on earth he's doing with that giant spider and he has to quickly recompute everything)
Skylar wasn't that good at improv at first but eventually managed to find her footing, and she just enjoys being around her friends on a stage
Sometimes Douglas joins them as a guest and the audience loves him (even tho it pisses some of the actors off)
Kaz is one of the best actors there cause he's a pathological liar, and Oliver's expressive face and ability to cry quickly has made for some pretty emotional scenes
The dare premise was cute, so here is my spin on it!
Jordan notices the weirdos are acting weirder than normal, and tries to help without looking like she's helping. Oliver and Kaz end up getting more out of the experience than they bargained for.
“Ten bucks says you won’t go on a date.”
Oliver stares at her. "What?"
“You and Kaz, a date. I’ll make it twenty bucks if you can go a whole two hours without arguing.”
"That's impossible," Oliver says before thinking. After a second to process, he looks even more bewildered. "Jordan, have you been replaced by an android pretending to be you?"
If Jordan's honest with herself, it is a bit unlike her to propose this exact kind of dare, but she has to do something before the two most tolerable weirdos in this school hurt themselves from all the tension they're carrying. Jordan isn't sure what's up with them, but they're clinging more than normal. Even now, Oliver keeps checking his periphery; Kaz got held back after class, so it's obvious Ollie's watching for him, but she doesn't know why.
Normally, Oliver would care more about getting to class on time. Kaz always shows back up eventually. For the last few days, though, they both seem to have lost basic object permanence, convinced that losing sight of the other one means they're gone forever.
Jordan is confused, frustrated, and sick of seeing her friends acquaintances in real distress. The time has come for manufactured distress. A dare, easy enough for them to accomplish since they spend all day moonstruck anyway, and strange enough to keep their attention off of whatever's wrong for a while. Hopefully.
Or maybe they'll psyche themselves out and be extra weird in a different way for another week. In that case, Jordan has money in her pocket for her trouble, so she wins either way.
There's shuffling from the classroom and Kaz joins them. He immediately sidles up to Oliver in vague unease instead of the usual immediate griping. She snatches the first word before Oliver gets his brain back in order.
"Kaz, I'm curious about something and there's money on the line."
That perks him right up. "Oh? How much?"
She almost snorts. "Take Oliver on a date somewhere nice and find out."
Kaz narrows his eyes, less immediately taken aback and more looking for the catch. Jordan adds, "You get twenty if you can last two hours without chickening out," she smirks at him. "..or starting an argument."
"Okay, first part's easy but the rest is impossible."
Oliver asks, "You think the first part is easy? The d-date part?"
"Why wouldn't it be? Dates are just hanging out but more awkward. I can do an awkward hangout with you any day."
The bell rings. She's late for seventh bell. "If you're so confident you should take the bet. You in or out?"
"In," Kaz declares.
"Kaz," Oliver grouses.
Jordan doesn't stick around for the ensuing argument. They'll go through with it, Oliver is terrible at saying no without Kaz backing him up.
———
"Why did I agree to this?" Oliver mutters to himself. "This is so stupid."
Jordan had proposed her stupid bet yesterday. They'd had work yesterday, so Oliver has had forty-eight hours to overthink it, and he wishes Kaz would hurry up and meet him at the bus stop already.
"Yo."
"Agh!"
Of course Kaz would sneak up on him. Jerk. Oliver's heart starts racing, but then he remembers the secondary objective of this stupid date, and takes a deep breath. He eyes Kaz, who isn't laughing at Oliver but only barely.
He's also combed his hair. Kaz combed his hair. Some sort of feeling is trying to happen regarding that information, but Oliver does not have time to puzzle out what it is, and he's not sure he wants to, anyway. Luckily, the bus comes before he has to.
They sit in the same seat, pressed together. “Ollie,” Kaz says, too loudly for how close they are. Oliver turns toward him anyway, asking with his eyebrows what Kaz wants.
“I brought you this.” He produces a single flower from seemingly nowhere. Was he holding it behind his back the whole time? Why was he pressing it into Oliver’s hand?
Kaz playfully rolls his eyes. “I gotta make sure Jordan gets her money’s worth, Olí-pop. Besides, it’s pretty.”
It is pretty. It’s probably dirty, which makes Oliver want to reach for his hand sanitizer, until he idly spins the flower around and notices the petals are slightly damp.
“You washed it off for me?”
“Yeah, who knows what the neighbor lady puts in her dirt, you know?”
“You picked this out of your neighbors garden?”
“Her zinnias are doing really well this year, she won’t even notice. Now if I’d picked her allium that would be another thing. They usually do fine, but only like, two of them look right this year. I think something might be eating them.”
“I don’t even know what an allium is.”
“It’s a flower.”
Oliver wants the bus seat to consume him. He spins the flower—the zinnia—around again instead, then bops Kaz on the cheek. Whatever, Oliver doesn’t care that much that Kaz stole one flower. He plays along instead.
“A flower that looks like…?”
“Round! They’re spheres that look like a crazy big flower but it’s just a bunch of little flowers crowded together in a ball.”
“Are you some secret gardening expert, now?”
Kaz flicks Oliver’s forehead and ignores his ensuing click of the tongue. “Nah, plants are way too needy. You gotta water them every day, who has time for that?”
“Your neighbor, clearly.”
“Yeah, ‘cuz she’s old. Old people have nothing better to do than water flowers anyway.”
“That’s rude, Kaz.”
“How is that rude?”
Oliver just shakes his head. He contemplates the zinnia. “I don’t know what to do with this. Am I supposed to hold it the whole time?”
“Put in your hair,” Kaz suggests, but he’s already rummaging through his pocket for something. He procures a straight pin and gestures for the zinnia. Confused, Oliver hands it over.
Kaz holds it to Oliver’s chest and pins it there. Oliver leans around him to try and look at himself in the bus window. The flower looks nice. Oliver…is having emotions he will need to sort out later again.
“What brought this on?”
“Kyle’s going through a boutonniere phase after getting into Kali’s old prom stuff. He’s been pinning dandelions and stuff on his shirts every day—we’ve got a zillion pins lying around. I’m just glad we didn’t hit a pothole while I was trying to get it because those things are surprisingly sharp.”
“Yeah that would have been unfortunate,” Oliver says lightly. He tries to settle down by slumping into Kaz, who braces himself against the seat to steady them both. “I would’a had to stab you back. We’d get kicked off the bus and arrested for assault with a deadly weapon.”
Kaz smiles at him, and Oliver puts his head on Kaz’s chest. The bus hits a pot hole big enough that people will start planting flowers in it soon, and Oliver wonders if they’ll buy zinnias.
———
Going through the motions of a date with Ollie is fun, and that sort of worries Kaz. There’s a nervous, fizzy feeling in his veins that he can’t shake out no matter what he does with his hands or how much he bounces his legs. It’s worse than any test day jitters he’s ever had, but it doesn’t feel bad, is the weird part. Kaz might fall out of his own skin, but in a nice way?
They’ve been doing every little thing they can think of to play up their pretend date. Kaz likes swinging their held hands between them as they walk. Oliver suggests they get one milkshake with two straws, and Kaz wants to swipe both straws so bad, but he’s committed to winning so he lets Ollie sip the milkshake without incident.
They’d specifically gotten out of the neighborhood so they wouldn’t wimp out and escape to The Domain the moment they ran out of ideas, but they’d already run out of ideas and Kaz really wants to be at The Domain.
“What about…a movie?” Oliver doesn’t sound sold on the idea, but Kaz jumps.
“Yeah, let’s see what’s playing!” Maybe they’ll get lucky and nobody will be there so Kaz can talk through the movie without bothering anyone.
There is absolutely nothing good playing. They almost leave, but decide to see Room Temperature Torsos, a movie about a zombie and a normo girl falling in love. “We’re trying to be cliche, right? What’s more cliche than a romcom?”
There are other people there, unlucky for Kaz, but it’s really not that many people. If they sit on the left and toward the back there’s a solid four rows between them and any other theater goer. There are at least two real couples there, and one of them starts kissing before the previews end.
Kaz lifts the armrest between him and Ollie so they can sit closer. Kaz isn’t worried or anything, he just…he feels better when his friend is easy grabbing distance. Easy shielding distance. It doesn’t have anything to do with last week, and if anyone at the hospital brings it up Kaz will commandeer the intercom for nefarious purposes.
Kaz and Ollie munch on popcorn and half watch the movie. It’s really not bad. Kaz starts getting a little invested when Ollie moves. Kaz turns to see what he’s looking at, but it’s just the pda couple again. When he turns to Ollie, his friend is staring. Intently.
Kaz elbows him. “Quit staring at them.”
Ollie bats his hands away, then answers, “I wasn’t staring. It’s fine.”
“Oliver. You were totally creeping on their makeout.”
He puffs up like he’s gonna yell, then remembers where he is and whispers, impressively quiet and impressively intense despite that, “I have not been creeping on their makeouts.”
Something about that hits Kaz’s ear wrong. He realizes what and says, “I only acused you of creeping on this one. Have you been watching them kiss the whole movie?”
“No!” Still quiet, now absolutely mortified. He was totally watching.
Kaz gets in his space to whisper right in his ear. “How dastardly of you,” he teases. “Taking advantage of strangers in the dark.”
There’s a biting pressure on his ear. Literally, he’s pretty sure Ollie just bit him, and Kaz’s brain short circuits.
“Bite?”
“Hmm?” Ollie nuzzles him like he didn’t just bite Kaz.
“You seriously bit me just now. I can’t believe it.”
“I think you made that up,” Ollie says. “Why would I bite you, Kaz?”
“Because you’re too chicken to kiss me.” Ollie freezes, and so does Kaz. That was not what he meant to say. Words fall out of him all the time but he doesn’t know where that even came from, what is he talking about—why would Kaz say that?
Kaz’s veins have been carbonated while he wasn’t paying attention, that’s the only explanation for how unbearably bubbly he feels.
He comes back to attention when Ollie puts a hand on Kaz chest. He is looking down at Kaz’s lap when he says, “I’m not.”
Kaz swallows. He plays along. “Oh yeah?”
Ollie looks up, then. Determined and braver than Kaz ever will be, he looks Kaz right in the eye and whispers, “I would kiss you right now. I’m not scared.”
Kaz is. Kaz has been scared since Ollie let him pin a flower to his shirt like Kaz had a dream about once. It’s still there, hard to see in the low light so far from the movie screen. Kaz deliberately leans into Ollie’s hand and whispers, “I’m not sure I believe you.”
For a second Ollie just looks at him, and Kaz hopes he won’t make Kaz ask for it. He doesn’t think he can. Ollie spares him from knowing for sure by kissing him without another word.
Oliver kisses him. Holy shit. It’s short and sweet and too dry from the popcorn. Kaz licks his lips and dazedly challenges Ollie to do better. Kaz is kissed again. Again. By the third one his brain has rebooted enough to push back, to do his best to match Ollie clumsy step for clumsy step. The girl in the movie convinces her dad to stop trying to kill her zombie boyfriend.
“We have to talk about this,” Ollie warns.
“We have ten minutes still before we’re allowed to argue.”
“Okay, ten minutes.”
“Maybe fifteen. It’s so hard to keep track of time, maybe there’s still half an hour left.”
“Kaz,” Ollie grouses.
Kaz kisses him again. Oliver kisses him back without a split second of resistance. Maybe he’ll buy Oliver a real bouquet with Jordan’s money.
———
(I wrote a kind of similar fic to this in this post, except they figure it out by picturing a hypothetical date instead of going on a real one lol. If you check this blog the last few posts are Them <3)
I've seen a couple of fics kick around the idea of a college au and it makes me want to see Oliver talk Kaz into applying for med school. Not a fight, necessarily, but what on Earth is Kaz no last name's motivation to do more school. Several years of more school, since he'd have to get an undergraduate degree first, and then take the mcat, before even factoring in medical school itself. What is the incentive for that? He could legally put doctor on his government paperwork? Fr it would take so much prodding to get him on board for college and even then I feel like it only happens if the school offers something similar to BGSU's popular culture degree.
I feel like they would be at least three years into their bachelor programs before Ollie is successful on the medical school front. The whole time Kaz is just like "you should definitely go you'll do great" and Oliver lowkey tearing his hair out trying to mindgame Kaz into agreeing to go with him. He succeeds of course, but it takes a lot longer than he anticipated, and it kind of only works bc Kaz did end up enjoying college a lot more than he thought he would. Med school is a nightmare but it's a nightmare for everybody so they both make it to the end with doctorates in hand. Kaz goes from ninth to second most bragged about child by his parents.
Oliver has a bad day. Could come after this post but could be any nebulously sour mood befallen upon Oliver.
"Why aren't you at work, Kaz?"
"Because you're not there."
"You can't just skip because I'm sad! There are still people to help."
Yeah, you, cuz you're sad. You deserves help too."
"No, I don't!"
Kaz blinks at him. Then , instead of arguing the point, he says, "Let's go to the park!"
Kaz starts herding him along, and Oliver plants his feet to stall him. "I don't want to go anywhere."
"Sure you do. It's quiet there but not too quiet, and nobody will try to talk to you and we can stop for snacks."
They go to the park.
Oliver still doesn't want to be here, so once they sit at a picnic table away from the dogs walking and playing children, Oliver stares off into the middle distance. Kaz will get bored and give up eventually, and then Oliver can mope by himself like he wants.
It doesn't matter that the sun feels nice, or that the breeze is perfect. It doesn't matter that the background noise of happy people does make him feel a little better about the world.
Kaz shifts in the corner of his eye, and he waits for chatter that he can pointedly ignore, but it doesn't come. Oliver tries to look without looking like he's looking and sees a notebook. Kaz draws an umbrella. Then another one. Then another one, but this one is caught in a tree that looks like the oak trees in the park.
Oliver can't believe that Kaz is trying to wait him out. He's outraged that it might work, since the sunshine really is getting to him. After a while, Kaz starts humming. Oliver huffs an almost laugh. He listens for a minute before realizing he's humming lollipop.
"Why?"
"Kaz looks up, confused. "Why what?"
"Why would you have lollipop of all songs in your head?"
"Because sometimes it gets stuck in my head when I think about you." He's so nonchalant, like it should be obvious. He gets a silly fifties song stuck in his head sometimes when he thinks about Oliver, who he's thinking about right now. Like it should be obvious. Like it should be obvious that Kaz would sit here doodling quietly instead of helping actual superheroes because Oliver is having a bad day. "That's so...you are so...I hate you." He does. Oliver hates Kaz so bad. "Never leave me."
A fic where the boys have been sent on an easy mission to help them figure out and get used to their new powers, and things go worse than expected, but it's Not the fight scene, it's the scene before the fight scene.
The mission had gone to hell an hour in, so better than Oliver expected. The villain, Juice Lord, is one of those guys who causes lighthearted mayhem instead of death and destruction. It should have been no problem to follow him back to his new hidey-hole and arrest him. Oliver had hoped to find his figure out freezing his feet to the floor.
Unfortunately, they were all caught in the middle of a different villain attack. One of the very destructive variety. Kaz is insisting they run. His first instinct is always flight over fight, to Oliver's absolute bafflement, but they can't just run away.
Oliver corners him, boxing him in against a brick wall stable enough to shelter them from debris for at least a few minutes.
"Look, you can follow the trail of destruction if you want to, but I'm out of here."
Oliver crowds him, way too far into his space if it were anyone else. "I know you're scared, but I need you to be brave for me right now."
Kaz stares at him, reluctance leaking out of him like water from his house's kitchen faucet. "That is not fair."
"Neither was dumping paint in my hair in third grade just because the teacher liked my art project more than yours," Oliver informs him sunnily.
Defeatedly, Kaz answers, "We are going to die."
We. That's all Oliver needed to hear. "Not necessarily," Oliver says, then stops practically pushing Kaz into the wall.
Kaz shakes his head. "I think I might genuinely hate you."
Movement in the corner of his eye catches Oliver's attention. "They're heading North, let's go!" Oliver grabs Kaz's hand. "Stay close to me," he orders. Kaz pulls Oliver's face to look him in the eye just to give him a very unimpressed, "Duh."
Another mm fic this time set after a speculative season three arc where they’ve captured Bridget and the heroes have decided to erase her memory of the last twenty years. Oliver obviously has some big feelings about it.
Oliver has been given the chance to say goodbye, which is more mercy than he deserves, yet he still can’t bring himself to be grateful.
His mother is awaiting oblivion in the next room. All Oliver has to do is walk in. Terror locks him in place instead, and he wonders if she would find it amusing. Maybe she would tell him again that all of her evil schemes were for him and that he needn’t be afraid of her. Maybe Oliver will walk in there and she won’t say a word to him at all and he’ll never get closure and the weight of it will be what turns him evil. He should leave before he hurts someone. He should have never come at all, he shouldn’t even care about this, not after Bridget has hurt so many people.
He still loves her, of course he has to go in there. If only he could make his feet move. If only he’d ever learned how to give up on someone he cares about.
He jumps when arms circle around him, but settles just as fast when he realizes it’s just Kaz, then stiffens again because he doesn’t want to hear whatever admonition or joke or whatever that Kaz has to say.
“I’m sorry this sucks for you,” Kaz murmurs into Oliver’s hair. “I know it’s hard.”
Oliver is furious and he just knows he’s going to cry soon. “It shouldn’t be hard,” he seethes. “She’s totally evil, I shouldn’t even want to be here. It wouldn’t be hard if I was a better person.”
“You love your mom, that’s not evil, man.”
“It is if my mom is evil!” Oliver wants to pull away, reject Kaz’s closeness before something terrible happens and it’s all Oliver’s fault. Oliver is a terrible, selfish person, though, so he doesn’t move away. Kaz puts his head on Oliver’s shoulder. Oliver can feel him turn to look at him but he won’t let Kaz catch his eyes.
“It shouldn’t feel like this,” Oliver insists. “They’re sparing her. She’s not going to die.”
“They’re not killing Bridget, but they are killing your mom. That sucks.”
“You never even liked her.” He feels like his limbs are trying to detach from him, like if Kaz wasn’t physically holding him together he would fall apart at the seams. Oliver wants to fall apart, he wants to scream, he wants to pick a fight. “You can’t pretend to care about any of this when she hated you. Stop trying to act like you understand anything, idiot, because you don’t and you never do.”
Kaz should bite him, maybe. Kaz doesn’t, doesn’t even defend himself like he’s supposed to. He takes a very deliberate deep breath that he hold for so long Oliver starts to worry, and then he lets it go and squeezes Oliver tighter.
“It’s not evil to be mean to me just because you feel bad, but it is a dick move, dick.”
Oliver looks away from the door and down to the clean tile floor.
“I may not have liked her," Kaz says slowly. "but I liked that she paid attention to you. It was annoying, but like, a normal kind of annoying. I liked that you had that."
Oliver is the worst. Kaz is here for him despite how evil his mother is, how evil Oliver is going to turn out to be, and here Oliver is trying to make him feel bad because he craves company in his misery.
He truly is miserable. He misses going home at the end of the day and seeing his mom there. He misses when loving her didn't feel like a betrayal of everything she'd ever tried to teach him. He misses when his catastrophizing wasn't realistic.
"I'm so sick of feeling like this, Kazzy."
Kaz doesn't say anything, but Oliver doesn't need him to, and keeps going. "I'm scared, Kaz. I'm scared of losing her. Once I say goodbye, she'll be gone forever, which is so dumb because I've already lost her."
"Oliver—" Kaz cuts himself off. He loosens his hold, and Oliver panics for a second before he feels Kaz's hands on his shoulders turning him around. He meets Kaz's eyes before he remembers not to.
Oliver says, "I want..." but he doesn't know what he wants anymore. He thinks he wants this to be over already.
"I'm sorry it's hard," Kaz says. "You have to go in there, and it will be hard, and then you have to leave and that'll be hard, and no one here is gonna understand." Kaz's eyes unfocus, caught in a thought. "I'll find you a support group."
Oliver rolls his eyes. "They don't have support groups for this."
"There are definitely support groups for kids of serial killers. It might not be the exact same, but it's pretty close. I'll find you one of those when this is over."
That was actually a pretty good idea. If anyone would understand missing someone who loved him even though he shouldn't, it would be kids who's parents were also killers. What did it matter, really, if they were normo murderers? It probably would be close enough.
"You gonna drop me off, too?"
"Sure."
Oliver hides his face in Kaz's shirt. "Why?"
"...You realize I'm not going anywhere, right?"
Yes. No. Kaz should walk away from anything to do with Oliver, but hearing the possibility of it happening out loud makes it sound ridiculous.
He turns back toward the door to the room holding his mother. Kaz squeezes his shoulder.
"I don't want to talk to her," Oliver mutters.
"You'll never forgive yourself if you don't." Kaz steps away for real. For all that he's barely two feet away, Oliver feels desolately lonely for the loss. Oliver looks rapidly between the door and Kaz.
"I'll be here when you're done, Oli-pop. Go."
He can do this. It's hard and it sucks and he doesn't want to, but Kaz is right, Oliver needs the closure. He can muster up the bravery to talk to his mom one last time.
He used to picture Skylar Storm facing down a villain when he needed to be brave. What were his problems, really, compared to how unshakeable she was in front of villains? He's seen Sky get overwhelmed by normo high school, though, and his mother is a real life villain, so that doesn't exactly work anymore. There's only himself here doing something scary.
Oliver taps his foot five times, considers throwing himself into the sea instead, then marches himself through the door.
Hello what I understand to be between 2 and 12 people
I have learned very recently that mighty med exists, and is cute. Have a Kaziver oneshot.
"Why are you jealous?"
"I don't know! I don't want to be jealous!" Kaz really doesn't know what's gotten into him lately, but Oliver's starry-eyed fawning over Skylar makes his heart beat too loudly in his ears and he feels like he's going to explode.
Kaz of all people knows how much Skylar Storm being a real person he can talk to means to him, how awesome it is that his favorite character ever is real and willing to hang out with such a dork, and at first he was really excited for Oliver! "I was happy for you! I should still be happy for you! UGHG" He feels like he needs to run away into the woods and mysteriously vanish.
"Hmmm. Yeah, this is pretty new." Oli gets that thoughtful look on his face that he gets doing his history homework, like he knows he should know the answer but can't quite remember. "Do you think I'm replacing you?"
"With Skylar? No way." Like anyone would ever know him better than Kaz. Ha. "Even if you marry her I'll still be your best friend. She can be your second best friend."
"Marry?! Don't tease me when I'm trying to help you, jerk." Oliver's face is so red that Kaz can't help but actually tease him, even if he'd meant his last statement as a fact.
"I'm not teasing, Oli. It could happen! Probably not, but if superheroes are on the table, then so are miracles, right?"
"You're so mean to me," he huffs. Then, he puts his thinking face back on and asks, "Why else do people even get jealous?"
"I don't know man, maybe I like you or something."
"...do you?"
"Do I what?"
"Like me. Um. Romantically."
"No offense, but I'm pretty sure that's not iiiiit... huh."
"HUH?"
"I was trying to picture what dating you would look like because I expected it to be weird, but it wasn't weird at all, really. It looks nice in my head."
"Well now I wanna know. What do you think it would be like?"
It's Kaz's turn to blush. "You have your own imagination, Oli-pop," Kaz hisses.
"Yeah, but I'm not a mind-reader, and I wanna know what you're picturing. Just tell me."
Just tell me, like it isn't weird to be picturing them on dates in the first place. Like this is a crossover comic Kaz is pitching instead of...
"Saying it out loud is definitely going to make it weird," he mutters. "Okay, so I started with a stock date, right, and the first one I thought of was walking around a park holding hands."
"Like in a movie."
"Exactly, but I like holding hands sometimes, and I like spending time with my best friend, so that's not weird. Then I thought, I gotta use a different angle, so I pictured a restaurant, but like one of the fancy ones that your mom probably takes business lunches at, and it was weirder, but only because I imagined combing my hair just to meet up with you. The rest of it is just being alone together, though. Practically the same thing as the first imaginary date. So it needs something romantic. Flowers.
"Flowers?"
"I pictured flowers on the table. Maybe I got them for you. Maybe you got them for me. It seems like the kind of sweetly awkward gesture you might make."
"You really know how to flatter a guy, Kaz." Oliver fails to bite down his smile, though, so Kaz knows he's not mad.
"You are awkward, that's a fact of life. It's endearing, don't worry about it."
"So I've endeared myself to you."
"What?"
"I've won your affections." He says it like it's some kind of answer, a riddle he's successfully solved, and Kaz doesn't get it.
"You already know I love you, man."
"The other kind of love, Kaz. Do you feel that too?"
Kaz groans. "I've never been in love, Oli, how would I know?"
"Well, picture something else. Something that we wouldn't ever do unless you did, uh, like me like that."
Was he listening at all? Kaz doesn't know where to go from here. "Such as?"
"Um. Hmm." Kaz nearly smiles. Clearly his best friend didn't have any clue either. "You could picture us...kissing?" He doesn't sound convinced of his own idea.
"That's...not the worst idea, I guess." Kissing is definitely romantic, and if he didn't like Oliver like that, it would be an ugly scene. He stops and stares at the ground between his feet. Oliver watches him frown thoughtfully, Kaz's head tilting a little like it does when he's grabbed by a plot twist.
"Oliver."
"Yeah? How weird did it look?"
"I think maybe I do like like you."
"For real?" Oliver squeaks.
"It was weird at first, but then it...wasn't. I think I would wanna know how it feels."
"Oh, wow, and you didn't realize?"
"Nah. I mean, I already like almost everything about you. Why would I think my feelings had changed?"
Oliver shuffles closer to Kaz. He pictures it for himself, leaning over his friend, offering his mouth. It would be light at first, he thinks. Kaz isn't a careful person, but he would never hurt Oliver on purpose, so Oli thinks he would take it easy to test the waters. He'd try to pull away, leave the whole thing as some bizarre impulse to be ignored, so Oliver would have to surge forward and kiss him again. To kiss him harder, feeling every groove on Kaz's lips from his inconsistent use of chapstick and bad habit of biting the skin away. Maybe Kaz would make a noise.
Oliver is gripped very suddenly by the need to know exactly what noise his best friend would make. "I think we should kiss for real."
Kaz whirls on him, startled. "HUH?"
"I pictured it. I need to know if I'm right about something."
"That's such a you move oh my god." He turns and he grabs Oliver's face with his hands. The pads of his fingertips are calloused, and Oliver barely has time to swallow his nerves before Kaz kisses him. Just like that. He is careful, though he lingers longer than Oli thought he would, sliding his lips across Oliver's in a dry press. Their rough edges catch each other, forcing Kaz to back up and reposition, but he's never gone for more than half a second. Their first kiss ends up being more like a dozen rapid fire kisses in a row, and Oliver finds it cute how even like this Kaz can't stay still.
He does eventually start pulling away for real, though, and he hadn't pressed more deeply than the first feather soft touch, so Oliver got to chase him like he'd pictured. Oliver had forgotten people are supposed to close their eyes when they kiss, preoccupied with hitting his target, so he sees when Kaz's eyes shoot open in surprise. Not quite what Oliver wants. He brings his own hand up to cover Kaz's, still on his cheek. Cradle the hand that cradles you, maybe. Oliver presses hard. In a rash improvisation he licks Kaz's bottom lip, and there is when he wins a noise from his friend. Kaz pulls away to breathe and Oli has to let him, since his own vision is getting a bit spotty.
"Oliver?" There are a lot of questions in the way Kaz says his name.
"I think I might like you, too, Kaz."
"Oh. Cool." He sounds kind of dazed, and it's the only thing either of them say for a while.
Her arm was all gooseflesh, clammy and chilled, but she was strong, and gentler than he would have thought. Gentler than Cersei, he thought as she helped him from the tub...
Diagrams from The Barber's Manual, A. B. Moler (1931)
#jaime can't conceive of a relationship with anyone but cersei in asos #he knows brienne is more willing to perform caregiving tasks in his illness to fulfill an oath to catelyn #than cersei would be willing to perform out of love #that conversation with cersei fascinates me bc they both know he can't shave himself anymore #he /has/ to order someone to do it for him but refuses to do so #it's about power and submission *and* disability via @fortunate-hal
So easy, he remembered thinking. A king should die harder than this. Rossart at least had tried to make a fight of it, though if truth be told he fought like an alchemist. Queer that they never ask who killed Rossart ... but of course, he was no one, lowborn, Hand for a fortnight, just another mad fancy of the Mad King.
everyone's favourite sheep-stealing plucky dragonrider, the wonderful nettles, by the even more wonderful @ellemnopie!!! she's gone from our screens but not from our hearts <3
