#(pretend renee went easy on him)

[aurorangen]

So how did we end up here? Vincent had a meeting to attend which left some time to kill with Renee and Isaac. When they came across a chess table, Isaac challenged Renee to a game. Who will capture all the pieces and checkmate the king?

In the end Isaac won! Renee went easy on him as she could see he wasn't that good at his strategy. She pretended not to notice his sly tactics but took that as an opportunity to observe her future brother-in-law. Next time she'll win for sure!

[nobodysdaydreams]

I STARTED WOLF359 SEASON 2 AND FOUND SOMEONE I HATE MORE THAN HILBERT! (Or: my reaction to episodes 14-20 of WOLF359).

Gonna keep my intro for this one short and just dive right into it.

Tagging the mutuals who got me invested in this, and if you want to be tagged or untagged from these posts, lmk, or you can follow my blog or simply follow the tag "#bods wolf359 reactions". Anyone who has followed me for a while knows my updates are inconsistent, so I apologize in advance for that. And for any spelling/grammar mistakes in my posts.

@sophieswundergarten @oflightningandstars @acollectionofcuriousreblogs

Episode 14: The Kambaya Approach

Um… keyboard clicks and music?? WHO IS THIS? Goddard Futuristics? Who is David? Who is Saul? Rachel? WHY ARE YOU THREATENING TO THROW RACHEL OFF A BUILDING?

Ah a telephone! Could it be our crew?

Oh so THIS is Cutter. Who seems to be Hilbert’s boss. Don’t like him. Oh no did Hilbert find a way to contact him?

Oh now THERE is the telephone sound I heard at the end of last episode.

Renee? Oh so that’s her name. It’s a nice name. But I would prefer you called her “Commander Mincowski” Cutter. Give her respect, and stop acting so chipper. It’s easy to be that confident when you’re not the one in space.

And what kind of boss makes his employees work on Christmas or the day after?

Oh cool Hilbert’s name is Alexander? Wow, so cool, ✨I don’t care✨.

Cutter really seems to love the supervillain monologue. Yeah Doug, good call don’t tell them about the signal…

OH HE’S TRYING TO TEAR THEM APART. SHUT IT CUTTER. WHATEVER SECRETS MINCOWSKI AND HERA HAVE ARE NOTHING ON YOUR TOMFOOLERY.

Incredible. I did not think it was possible for me to hate someone as much as Hilbert so quickly, but he did it! Less than six minutes into season 2, and by golly Mr. Cutter did it! Round of applause for him ladies and gentlemen, truly despicable, I hope he gets his karma.

A complete waste of space. Horrible loser man.

Why do I not believe they’re actually on hold? Mincowski, please listen to him. But Doug get to the point: HILBERT WAS TRYING TO CONTACT CUTTER. HE LITERALLY SAID THAT.

Just pretend like Hilbert went insane.

YES! Taking my advice, smart play, smart play, act like you know nothing, tell them info they’d already know or could easily deduce anyway.

…Cutter. Stop calling her Renee! And stop being like this! What in the supervillain nonsense?

Oh money, of course it’s about money. And the backhanded compliments. OF COURSE DOUG IS THE BEST MAN FOR THE JOB HE’S THE ONLY OTHER MAN ABOARD.

Cutter man, your laugh… I picture him in a high school uniform kicking his feet in the air on his bed as he giggles to himself like an evil little schoolboy. “Hee hee hee I’m killing people in space 🤩” … shut up Cutter.

Okay. So. I know I wanted Hilbert to die earlier. But um… I think I might want Cutter to die more. Yeah… I’d be careful with what you transmit to Cutter. VERY careful.

Oh he knows. Doug he knows. You’re screwed. You’re… you’re completely done for.

Aw, Renee has a cute laugh. She’s nice. At least she and Doug are getting along.

But… will it be easy to get Hera back online? It’d better be. They better save her.

“No I’m not.” GOOD FOR YOU RENEE! Get something out of Hilbert. And yeah, watch the programming. Make sure if you DO get her back online that Hilbert can’t influence her.

Cutter’s instructions are BS… or wait! Is that Hera? Please be Hera.

Oh it’s the voices! It sounds like the echo in an indoor swimming pool.

“I don’t know who you are. I know you have no reason to believe anything that I’m about to say, and I know there’s nothing I can do to prove to you that this isn’t some kind of trick. But please believe me for your own sake”.

Solid start.

CAPTAIN ISABEL LOVELACE! I KNEW IT! Wait is it Lovelace or loveless??? Guess I’ll find out.

Oh the Hephaestus… but… WAIT. Are they in a time vortex? Are they getting signals from the past? Because Lovelace’s mission is over, her lab is sealed off. 955 days ago, okay, so longer than their mission, and a bigger crew too, 5 people plus Lovelace. And yeah, we got the lying thing down. and… yeah the “never make it back to earth” was also quite clear and VERY unethical. They played Hilbert like a fiddle. For a smart man, he’s far too trusting. Cutter was probably planning to shoot him the second he landed.

Communications and science officer got sick? Uh… sick from what? The astrophysicist just VANISHED? Okay… that doesn’t happen. It’s space! Where exactly could he go?

One thing is clear. These aren’t missions. They’re trials. The crew are lab rats. Though I must say, this is a very poorly designed experiment. What on earth are they even testing?

Oh right, Dr. Selburg. Wait. No. The spiders!

…but why would they be experimenting with that? If my crew was dead, and I found out I was sent to die, and I was in that situation, my first thought would not be “bummer. Oh well. Guess it’s time to make some poison spiders grow 🥰”. I honestly don’t know WHAT I’d do in that situation, but I can promise you, it wouldn’t be that.

And who is “THEY”? Command? And what something else??? THE EMPTY MAN?

Are… are the crews connected across time and space? Are they each other’s empty man? No, that wouldn’t match the messages’ warnings. Would be cool though.

“You’re not the first. We were here. Get out before it’s too late for you too.”

Poor Lovelace. And we never do find out what happens. Also Hilbert talked about a lot of other missions, implying that there were more AND that he was on them and somehow made it out alive.

Was he the astrophysicist that vanished?

Also the empty man messages: “There’s no way out…but there is a way in.” In where? Where are they supposed to go if they can’t get out?

Yikes. I guess that’s it then.

Episode 15: What’s Up Doc?

I like the title. Let’s see how the dear old doctor is doing. Perhaps he’ll be more cooperative when he finds out that his boss ordered his demise. But I doubt it.

Ah. Doug’s logs. Might want to be careful with what you say. Day 583.

Red menace’s damage to our autopilot 😂 Good to see Doug has his sense of humor. I think he’s gonna need it.

51 systems with glitches? You need Hera.

He’s playing chess? Well, looks like Doug and I have procrastination in common.

I’d hate playing any game with Hilbert. Chess or otherwise.

Huh. They don’t even have a record of Isabel Lovelace in the air force. Unless… wait crazy theory time: if time warping is a part of this, maybe Isabel is from a FUTURE crew of the Hephaestus not the past. It’s a possibility.

Also side note, but anytime I share literally any of my theories from this show, I get tons of comments that say things like “grinning like the Cheshire Cat right now”. Which is funny, because I do that when I read comments on my fanfics, and that grin usually means one thing: you found the pieces. You have all the pieces. But you won’t put them together and you won’t realize what they mean until it’s too late. I hope that’s not the case here. And if you’re Sophie please disregard this. And to the other TMBS mutuals, if you’re still reading my stuff, please disregard this.

Mincowski knows about Lovelace! Oh she doesn’t remember hearing the name in the lab. Wait… can they not remember the lab?

Yeah, we might want to isolate Hilbert a bit more. Maybe a few more days.

Oh dear. “Don’t get distracted”. Doug, please tell me you brought some adderall on board.

YOU DID MURDER HERA HILBERT. HOW DARE YOU CALL HER A PROGRAM? AND YOU ATTEMPTED TO MURDER YOUR OTHER CREW MATES FOR A MAN WHO JUST ORDERED YOUR EXECUTION.

APPLIANCE?? He’s calling her an APPLIANCE? Hilbert. You better start coughing up some info.

Haha… her imitation of his accent 😂

Apple! 😋 I love apples. 🍎 Just the thing for my hypoglycemia. Nature’s instant sugar. You might want to consider the offer Hilbert. After going days without food, you should be craving something sugary right about now.

NOW HE’S CALLING DOUG A PET MONKEY? THAT IS IT. EAT THE APPLE IN FRONT OF HIM MINCOWSKI. HE DOESN’T DESERVE IT.

On that note, I just remembered I sliced myself up an apple earlier in the fridge. Bods’ snack time! 🥰

Don’t like how confident Hilbert is about the airlock. … oh Hilbert using it as leverage.

You can still be tortured Hilbert. Slowly and painfully tortured.

“You break me? You have no idea who I am what I have done what I have endured”.

Well, we know you’re a murderous loser and pawn Hilbert. Perhaps you shouldn’t overestimate yourself.

HOW DARE YOU CALL MINCOWSKI A COWARD? HE’S IMPLYING THE WHOLE REASON SHE’D JOIN THE ARMY IS TO KNOW WHAT IT IS LIKE TO KILL BUT DOESN’T HAVE THE GUTS?

Uh Hilbert man wtf is up with your world view?

“No one who matters ends up in a place like this one”

Self-esteem issues doctor?

Also what was THAT? Doug? Empty man? Blessie?

No. Doug do not. Do not. He’s running experiments on you. He’s probably been waiting for this.

He’s annoying him to death. I love it 😂.

The good times? When you tried to kill each other?

Afraid of folks back home? Now that might actually be something. And yeah, they have been lying to you.

The truth about how you ended up here? Oh was I right? Did he do crimes?

Hilbert, I think that she’d respect Doug more than you. I certainly do.

Okay good, he didn’t murder anyone. Nice to know.

Hard drive? Oh right his secret experiments.

And he probably has more backups somewhere. But for the ones we have…

✨It’s Hammer Time ✨

He’s a geneticist? Why just question this now?

Radioactively charged microbes make more soap products… is soap products a code for something.

Renee. RENEE. You are on point, but… Doug is a friend.

Mission on the ship? Wolf359 unique energy signal different from other stars. Properties used for mutations… viruses?

Doug, Hilbert doesn’t strike me as the cancer curing type.

Man made retrovirus? Reverse cellular damage? That’s huge. Theoretically… it could reverse aging… and death.

Decima is “unmanageable”?? “Active environment??” HIS BLOOD STREAM?

That is VERY illegal. You used your colleague as incubator for your pet virus? And no. No apples for you doctor. You don’t deserve apples. Apples are for people who don't do unethical science on their friends!

Episode 16: Painfully Ever After

This one is not going to be as detailed because I'm also half doing work, but I have no self control and need to know more.

...My goodness I really AM like Eiffel. I think it's the ADHD. Let's blame that.

Also..."navigation off by a few clicks...probably not important".

Um...not critical maybe, but why is navigation off? Don't think you can just slip little details like that in there and not expect me to notice. Don't think you can use my own schemes against me.

Remember when Mincowski nearly shot Hilbert over ice cream? Those were the days...

Man this apple is delicious 😋🍎.

And yeah. No painfully ever after. We still have several seasons left. We need Hera!

I agree about the math Eiffel. I got a test coming up. I should be studying, but this is clearly more important.

Ugh. Don't give Hilbert food. Not a lot at least and not the good stuff. Just enough to keep him alive. Barely anything. I want him to be nothing but skin and bones.

Don't like the ominous music.

Everyone has their limits...oh good point! Hilbert needed a fail safe plan. DO NOT SHUT THE DOOR. DO NOT TALK TO HIM.

DON'T LET HIM FIX HERA HE'S GOING TO HURT HER CODE. EXACTLY! HE IS GOING TO TRY SOMETHING! AND I'D BE A LITTLE PARANOID TOO IF EVERYONE AROUND ME HAD SO MANY SECRETS!

"I'd do anything to help get her back online again, but I'm not letting him mess around in her mind again. She deserves better" / "Yes she does" 🥺

Hera! You need to come back! You need to know that your friends care about you!

...and...and I really hope Cutter isn't already doing anything to her to make her betray them. I really hope so.

Cranial reconstruction surgery? Wow, they really did model her after a human brain. Dangerous move.

And Hilbert. Dude. Lack of trust? You. Tried. To. Murder. Everyone. On. Board.

Why would they trust you?

"Tell me you're not still obsessing over your experimental exposure, as long as I maintain it's dormancy, you have nothing to worry about." Oh great. I can't tell you how many times I've read or heard in fiction that as long as X doesn't happen, then Y won't happen, and X is such a low probability it probably isn't even worth worrying about.

Sure, what could possibly go wrong? It's just a teeny tiny itty bitty baby killer virus 🦠🥺 all it wants to do is swim around in Doug's blood stream and not make any trouble I'm sure.

Improve the lives of millions? Uh, Hilbert. What exactly is your definition of improvement?

Yeah...how was command aware of alien life? What made them want to look for that?

"Survival depends on never ever keeping information from Mr. Cutter"

...

Oh dear.

And what does Mr. Cutter want with aliens? Probably to kill them, that seems to be a hobby of his. I guess he got bored of killing members of his own species and animals from his own planet so he decided to set his sights farther afield.

CHANGES IN PROGRAM? But...what about Hera? The Hera that's our friend? ...don't like that noise... REALLY don't like that noise.

HILBERT WHAT DID YOU DO?

HILBERT WHAT DID YOU DO?

HILBERT. YOU IDIOT. YOU BUFFOON. YOU USELESS DUM-DUM.

Wait.

HERA!!!!!!!!

She's alive 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

YIPPIE!!!!!! 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳

Hm. Looks likes Hera's back. A bit more sarcastic, but she's back. And yeah, get Hilbert away.

Hera saved them! I knew she could do it! 🥰

Glad alpha victor is deleted. But we should keep the gag on. He could have more code.

Good job captain. Use those direct orders!

Something to write with? Oh boy...what on earth has Hilbert been doing?

“I missed you.” Aw. “ I wanna hang out with you and talk”. Aw. See Hera. They do care. 🥺 Aw he's sleeping. 😴 Goodnight Doug. Hopefully there will be answers in the morning.

Episode 17: Bach to the Future

I like the title. Does this mean the music is coming back?

Yeah Hilbert. Have a good long think about what you've done.

Wait are they...bored? Bored because there is no crisis? But there's like a thousand mysteries on board on the ship.

"It's like someone moved everything off just a tiny bit...so small that you don't even notice anything's off until you try to find something, and then you can't find anything".

Why do I think that's not just a metaphor for Hera's brain?

Star charts? Why do I think those might not be harmless?

Rock climbing and trail hiking are good hobbies. And... yeah a bit odd she has a husband she hasn't seen in over a year and hasn't told any of them about.

HERA 😂. "I though that was a typo".

Mr. Kodeleka? (I think that's the spelling). Foreign correspondent for the globe?

Oh dear. Oh Mincowski. This is so sad. She needs to get home now. 💔

More music! 🎶📻

Aw, Hera. 🥰 I love watching them become better friends.

Why DID they send you up here? Something to keep him occupied? Keep him from being bored? What IS his job? Dying, but what else?

...not all superintelligences are created equal. And who made you randomized? Wait you did psych evals and behavioral tests? That's a lot emotionally for the first six months of your existence. Even if you have adult superintelligence auto-established, you still don't have experience using it. Or practice controlling your emotions. In a lot of ways, you’re still just a kid. A baby even.

Hera...Hera what happened to you? No, Hera you and Doug matter so much. Wait was Hera crying?

Oh yeah the music? Bach...and yeah Doug she has recording capabilities. She could play that back easily. You lost.

Only one star? Glessee 163? 46 light years away from current position? Red dwarf, similar to Wolf359? Interesting...

Did they send a different crew to 163?

555? Oh finally one she doesn't know! "Good communication habits. Be in touch with other crewmembers."

Bet over. Wow. Doug has really been holding that in.

Haha...oh dear. 59 mins 29 sec. Poor Doug. Close but no cigar. Ha, exactly.

Oh dear. Doug has broken. Hilbert ugh why is he still on the line?

Episode 18: Happy To Be Of Assistance

"Why was it that easy to kill everyone! I never thought it would be that easy!"

...uh Hera? Why were you thinking about it at all? Did Cutter do something to you? Are you trying to kill them and like...dragging your...hypothetical feet about it?

Oh good the hidden lab.

...hopefully the spiders are dead...

And hopefully this is where they FINALLY remember who Lovelace is.

Alien Mothership? Advanced scout? Back of head and under tentacles? Is this a joke? Oh it is. I like her.

Lambert? Who is this?

Day 97, early in the mission then. So who is the crew? Dr. Selburg. Dr. Who and Who? Officer Fischer? Okay so Lambert is communications? Reya? Oh so that's their AI. But it looks like she just beeps.

Ha their reactions to Lovelace😂

Yeah they have a lot of crew. Gen0 AI? Hm.

Day 383. Wait WHOSE PROJECTIONS WERE OFF? (Hilbert?)

Day 435. Selburg again. Oh Fischer is dead. Oh dear. Weird that Hilbert isn't mentioned when he had other missions. I wonder what name he was using.

Yeah...Day 944...so they left them? Weird that the timelines don't match up.

Oh wow...when they are in the room Hera can't even tell who she's speaking too. Unless...yeah something's up.

More Lovelace: At night when alone? Noise in the walls? Um...Blessie? Empty man? Anyone?

Another crew member died. Oh dear. It seems Dr. Selburg survived a good while. I hope that's not Hilbert's alias.

Oh. The crew member who died. He had a family too. 🥺.

Cutter needs to be ended.

Lovelace, I don't think Goddard Futuristics ever cared to begin with. Sam Lambert. So that's his name.

Run and hide? Dr. Selburg and Lovelace have a way off? Um...maybe don't tell them that. But I love the attitude.

Eiffel, this seems like a bit of a happy attitude, if they got away, then um... where are they now?

A message for who?

I KNEW IT. I KNEW IT. OH I KNEW IT I KNEW IT I KNEW IT IT'S SELBURG BUT ALSO HILBERT ISN'T IT AND HE TOTALLY MURDERED LOVELACE OH HE IS SO GETTING TOSSED OUT THE AIRLOCK NOW!

Oh I do not have time for one more episode...but... dang it I just saw the title. I have to know. First I'm gonna listen to Goodbye Earl by the Dixie Chicks to pump myself up.

One moment please.

Episode 19: Let's Kill Hilbert

And...we're back! Now it's time to say goodbye to our crazy science friend. Adios Hilbert you will not be missed! 👋 First we toss you out the airlock, and then it's back to earth to finish off Mr. Cutter and company!

Does Hilbert know enough to justify keeping him on board? The real question is: will he share enough?

And listen to Hera. She might have things she's trying to tell you as best she can.

Hera...oh Hera has PTSD. Oh dear Hera.

Um... is she trying to kill them? In comedically obvious ways so that they notice? No wonder she needs Hilbert dead, what if he gave her bad code again? Or maybe she’s just experiencing trauma.

Mincowski! No! She's trying to save you! Please just throw Hilbert out the airlock, I listened to Dixie Chicks for this! I hyped myself up!

Did Hera just say "I'm dead?"

Hera. Hera are you trying to kill Doug? Doug, I trust Hera too, but I do not trust Hilbert! Okay...looks like we're good...

Never mind.

Eiffel. What is happening? Are you on laughing gas? Are you being drugged? Oh dear. Hera what did you do?

Wait. Why is HE losing air? Hera...were you trying to kill Hilbert?

Do machines dream electric sheep? Was that Hilbert? What happened to Hilbert? OH NO.

"You're going to unplug me anyway at least I can do this for the two of you" oh Hera 🥺

I love it. Save our moron!

And everyone's okay.

Doug knows Hera's there. Aw, he's making her feel better. And she's back! 🥰

Wait. What about Hilbert? What about interrogating him about being the other doctor guy? What about killing him? Man, what a bummer.

Oh well. we can always hope. Maybe next time he can finally die. Or at least give us some information.

Episode 20: The Paranoia Game

I really should not be listening to more, but I have an exam tomorrow, and nothing gets me motivated like good old procrastination. Besides, it's not like I had much of a chance on that thing anyway. Oh, I mean, um: Don't listen to me kids, studying is important. But you'll understand if you get to certain level of school at a certain age. You discover that some things that you thought were bad and confusing are actually much more bad and confusing than you could have ever imagined.

Anyway, let's get into it.

Oh good some info on Hilbert's past missions. Hilbert it is ABSOLUTELY relevant. You were experimenting on humans without their consent!

Lovelace was incinerated? Hilbert, for your sake, you better hope that's not true.

Who is listening to this?

Oh dear Hilbert is out of his cage. And YES the handcuffs are necessary. Hilbert has some nerve asking these questions.

"Why am I in cuffs. Seriously all I did was try to kill you. So dramatic🙄"

Irregularity in backup life support? What was that?

Screwdriver is missing. Huh. I wonder where it could have gone...check his pockets.

But then there is the empty man...and Blessie...

Shut up Hilbert. You had someone else help you get the screwdriver. The invisible empty man or someone else. Your promises mean NOTHING Hilbert.

✨ Nooooooooooooo... ✨

Oh you know who took it do you Hilbert? BLAMING THE ROBOT? She has a NAME Hilbert. And if she wanted you dead, she could do that in much worse ways than stealing the screw driver.

"Everything is always Hilbert's fault"

IT KIND OF IS HILBERT WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO GET ON YOUR HIGH "I WOULD NEVER STEAL A SCREW DRIVER HORSE" YOU TRIED TO MURDER EVERYONE.

And do you REALLY think even IF Hera did this, that her whole plan is gonna go like this: "Well we were cool with Hilbert being on board earlier, but GASP! a stolen screwdriver? I can deal with multiple counts of attempted murder and unethical experimentation, but this is simply a bridge too far. TO THE AIRLOCK!"

Yeah. And also. How does she steal the screw driver?

Oh goodness. She is the brains you are...not brains.😂

Hilbert. YOU are the one involved in a conspiracy. You're seeing plots where there aren't any. I guess the old saying is true. The wicked run from no one.

"How do you like that" "I like it just fine"

...no comment.

Oh poor commander. I hope they didn't...

...oh they did.

Good heavens. Have you all forgotten about Blessie? Have you all forgotten about the empty man?

"Mistake Eiffel was going to make"..."Evil plan Hilbert was cooking up" PLEASE 😂😂😂

I love that these are the same voice actor. It makes in 20x funnier too.

The perfect crime? Do you know how crazy you sound?

Poor Mincowski. She needs to go back home and be with her husband. After all this she deserves it.

Hilbert. It involves Large powerful magnet. 😂😂🧲

Yes PLEASE put your clothes back on. Good heavens.

Ah yes. Those sounds. PLEASE question them.

What if we are not the only ones here? FINALLY. Hilbert, I don't like you but at least we're getting to...wait Hera I thought you did detect something moving about earlier.

WHAT IS GOING FOR THE TOOL BOX?

Tentacle with a flower? Of course, Percival B. Eternal, you silly goof!

But uh...why would it want a screw driver? EXACTLY! It is a bad thing! Why has no one been asking more questions about this?

Well hopefully we'll FINALLY get more of dear Blessie. Thank you for listening to my reactions my friends. I'm enjoying season 2, and hope to have more for you soon. Bye-bye.

[futuremrsdrcullen]

Aren't We Just Terrified - Part Two

Part Two of the New Moon reader insert fic that I've been promising for FAR far too long.

Summery- The idea of facing mortal danger just to see a ghost of him almost sounded rational here.

I watched as Bella hugged her chest to keep herself whole. I stood by as she chased adrenaline for the smallest glimpse of Edward.

I didn’t feel perfect- standing there didn’t heal me. I let out a small humorless laugh and shook my head accepting that I couldn’t keep pretending that there was never a wound in the first place.

Word Count- 8,284

Warnings- This is New Moon, so it's a lot darker than the first. IF YOU HAVEN'T READ I'm Always in This Twilight READ THAT FIRST!! Depression, abandonment, misunderstandings, break ups, Age gaps because of vampires, angst! It's very angsty, but it gets better! I promise it has a very happy ending.

Notes from me- My name is Claire and this is my second love child. I have finally finished my version of New Moon and I could not be more excited for you guys to see it.

This is book 2 of probably 5 so stayed tuned for the rest of them.

I DO NOT own The Twilight Saga. All rights go directly to S. Meyer.

Read on AO3 <3

Part one <3 Masterlist <3

Thank you for being here, I Love you <3

Aren't We Just Terrified - Part Two

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

JANUARY

Funny thing, Time is.

If I think about what day it is, it feels like time is flying past, just a blur of motion surrounding me.

But all of the things that happened before September, the good things, the things that killed me to think about, those all feel like a lifetime away.

Funny, that even though I wish it would all stop, time keeps moving on.

~~

Dad and Bella were fighting in the kitchen. He finally had the courage to bring up Renee's idea. I knew she wouldn’t go. It probably would only make her worse anyhow. 

“I have to get to school.” I heard her chair scrape across the kitchen floor as I descended the stairs. “I’ll make plans with Jessica… Maybe I won’t be home for dinner. We’ll go see a movie.” I doubted Jessica would even give her the time of day anymore.

Dad didn’t say anything else. I watched as Bella rushed out the front door. She didn’t say anything to me, if she even saw me standing there.

I sighed and went into the kitchen. Dad was still sitting at the table, face in his hands. My heart broke for him. Well, what was left of my heart that could break, broke for him then. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for him to watch her suffering day in, day out. I sat next to him in the chair that Bella had left open. 

“I hate seeing her like this… It can't be normal.”

“None of this is normal.” I said quietly. He choked out a laugh.

“I worry about you too, you know?” He grabbed my hand, I shivered at his touch reflexively, but nodded. “You quit your job-” 

“Technically I was fired…” I was handling the separation… better than Bella, at least. Dad was right, I had gotten fired, because I just stopped going. It was too painful to be there most days. My boss told me I could come back when I was ready. I didn’t think I ever would be.

“Because you never went in. You cut your hair, and now you barely leave the house. You don’t even write anymore.” I read in a magazine that a ‘post-breakup’ haircut gives some people clarity, or gives them back some kind of control of their own lives. It helped marginally, I felt more in control, I just hadn’t decided if I wanted to be or not. I didn’t write anymore, that was true, I just couldn't bring myself to ‘express myself’.

“I’m trying…”

“I know, I see that.” He squeezed my hand. “Both of you are doing better. I just wish I could make it better for you somehow.”

“If only it were that easy.” I found any excuse to not have to leave. Bella went to school, though her grades definitely took a hit, but she woke up everyday, got dressed, and went to school. I did not fare as well, but I wanted to try and now was as good a time as any to start anew.

 Silently cursing that I’d had him pick up the few groceries we’d needed yesterday; I sighed and tried to think of what I could do. I could get dressed, I could leave the house, at least. That would ease his mind a bit. “I was thinking of going out today, anyway. I need a few new books to read and maybe a new notebook for writing. I’ll go to a couple stores.”

He smiled softly and nodded, “Good. That’s good. I’ve got to get to work, but you’ll call if you need anything?” 

“Sure.”

He kissed my head “Love you kid.” 

“You too Dad.” He shuffled out the front door. 

I laid my forehead on the table in front of me, trying to brainstorm an actual idea of where I could go. 

~~

It took a few hours, but once I was in my car it felt like a force was pulling me to their old driveway. I had to chase the urge to find even the smallest trace of him. Something, anything , to prove that it was real at all. I spent more time there than in my own home last summer. Driving there felt like second nature. 

I got lost in my thoughts on the drive over and before I knew it, I was pulling into their driveway. It took me a second to recognize the house. The grass has started to grow up around the edges of everything. Ivy was everywhere. It didn’t take long before nature moved to reclaim what had once belonged to it.

It was still beautiful, still took my breath away. Except now, it looked like no one had ever been here at all. There was no life left here. Just what remains after a bunch of dusty, old vampires left with no regard for the lives they destroyed in their wake.

Maybe I was still a little bitter, but there was this insistent screaming in the back of my head. What if this was it? What if this is all I get? Every woman who had loved my Dad left him, Bella’s first love ended the same way. All of my relationships ended in my own heartbreak. What if we were cursed and I wasn’t going to get anything more then what this was and it’s already over? How could I not be at least a little bitter? I wanted this to make me feel normal again.

I turned my car off and found the key to my house on the key chain. ‘ It’s yours- as long as you want it.’ I could hear the words in my head, but before now, I'd never been past this point. I hadn’t thought about going in.

I held the key to the house in my hand and squeezed it til I felt the teeth press against my palm. It didn’t hurt. I just held tightly on to it, like if I tried hard enough, I could crumble it to dust. Without the key, I would have no way of getting inside. Still it didn’t bend.

The day he left, he’d ask me to take care of his plants. I didn’t know why, considering I’d never successfully taken care of a plant in my life, nor had I ever seen a live plant in their house and yet, in a moment of pure heartbreak, he asked me to water his fucking plants. I didn’t. I think it was safe to assume those plants were very, very, dead by now. 

This was only the second time I had made it to their house at all, and the first was just days after they left, but I never actually made it out of my car. I just sat there crying into my hands until the sun went down, until I was sure Dad and Bella were in bed, then I drove straight home and didn’t think to come back.

Until today.

Today, I got out of the car. My lip trembled, and tears welling in my eyes. But as I tried to blink them away; I wished I didn’t miss him so much. I wanted to be stronger.

I built up my courage like a fire in my chest. Each sharp, shaky breath moved me closer to the door. I put one foot on the porch and the whole thing froze over. I half expected him to swing the door open. I clenched my eyes close, but I could still picture it. Him swinging the door open, his golden eyes finding mine. I could feel his hand on my cheek, his lips on mine. Everything felt better, for just a moment.

When I opened my eyes, the door was still closed and everything still ached.

Another deep breath got me to the door and I got it unlocked and open on the exhale. As shaky as it was, it was my last solid breath before I fell to pieces again.

Everything was there. Absolutely everything. Besides the dust cloths, it looked the exact same. I flipped the light switch expecting nothing to happen, but the room still flooded with light. They had left everything behind here too. Nothing mattered enough for them to take it with them. The trash can I used to empty the dustpan after sweeping up was still in the middle of the room, now missing a trash bag.

Everything here had just been discarded so they could start over.

Including Bella and me.

I walked further into the room. I pulled the dust cover off of the closet chair, and fell into it. I didn’t notice that it was the chair, the same chair I'd fallen apart in when he’d first told me he was a vampire. I could see the dining room from here. My tea set from Rosalie and Emmett on the table. 

It all felt hopeless, he still wasn’t here. I just wanted to feel him again. The chair was here, the teapot was here, but he wasn't. I had started to feel so comfortable here. I was in love with the idea of forever with them; with him.

The fact that all of this was still here, covered up, discarded…

Was all just bullshit.

I started really crying at some point. I noticed I wasn’t really breathing and all I could make were these horrible gasping sounds. Even here, a place I had once felt so safe, I couldn’t keep the demons away. 

I didn’t make it past the living room.

By the time I could stand again, the sun had started to set.

I just drove back home.

~~

I often dreamt of him.

My dreams were the only place I could still find happiness with him.

We would be watching Buffy, or sitting across from each other while I wrote and he did paper work. Domestic dreams that brought me comfort in a world of pain and chaos.

The dream I had after the first time I’d gone back to their house felt new and, like the rest of them, felt real. I hadn’t been hiking with him in months, it was too cold. When the snow finally started to melt and we headed up the mountain. It wasn’t raining and I was so in awe of him. We passed through patches of sunlight and I couldn’t help but watch the light dance along his skin. 

We could have hiked for the usual hour, or many more. It all felt the same. I really only paid attention to his face. Once we reached the top, he plucked a lupine flower from the patch near the treeline and handed it to me. We sat on the ground, near the edge of the cliff and watched the water below. I played with the petals in my hand.

“I wish… I wish it didn’t hurt so much. When you’re gone.” I whispered to him.

His smile didn’t falter. “Why would I leave?” The question caught me off guard. I didn’t have any anwer. We were so happy. Everything was so right. Why would he leave? Why did I feel like there was a hole in my chest? I didn’t have to explain my confusion. “I’m right here, Cara. My heart will always be yours.”

He leaned in and I let him kiss me. I felt his cool touch on my cheek and leaned into it. I let his comfort wash over me. I pulled back just to look at him again. I smiled as his eyes met mine. 

My voice never rose above a whisper, “I love you.”

“I love you, Y/n”

There was something beeping as he said my name. I blinked a few times and the dream faded. I was still in my room. It was raining and everything was gray and my alarm clock was going off. I could barely see the button through my tears. Once I got it off, reality set in.

Nothing was golden and soft like it had been. He had still left. He was still gone. 

I’d grown numb to the pain in my chest, although I once thought I never would. I still laid there shaking and sobbing, but I’d always managed to keep the noise down. Dad would have run in at the first sign of me crying, like he did with Bella, but I didn’t want him to. 

I needed to do this alone. It was better that way.

The only person who could really comfort me, never would again.

~~

It took me a few weeks to pull back out of the darkness I had fallen back into. 

Bella started spending most of her time down on the reservation. She was almost showing improvement. Some days she actually smiled again. Usually when she was talking about Jacob. 

Dumped by one supernatural and jumped right into the arms of another.

Probably.

Though I guess I didn’t know for a fact that Jacob was a werewolf yet. There were whispers about the other boys around town. They’d all gone from regular boys to full grown men in a matter of days. First with Sam, then Jared, who I’d only heard of, but didn’t know personally, two others, names I didn’t recognize. It all started the same way. 

“They must live at the gym”

“I want some of what they’re having.”

“Wow, how are they all so hot?”

That last one always felt icky. Considering most of them, besides Sam, were under-age. Even Sam was only 19, maybe 20 now. Do werewolves even age? Like the transformation into a vampire freezes your mental state. Edward would always be 17 and Emmett would always be 20. Did they age until they became werewolves? Then what?

It didn’t matter. I avoided them like the plague. I no longer had any interest in the supernatural. Dad had made reference to me joining Bella on her trips down there, I was friends with Sam and Leah once. I could go and try to catch up with them, but I always found a few excuses. He never pressed. Maybe Bella was ready to dive head first into werewolf territory, but I simply refused. 

Then Bella smashed her head ‘hiking’ and had to get stitches; which felt like normal Bella stuff, but I still didn’t know how I felt about her monster replacement, especially now since she was doing dangerous things with him. 

Now she was hiking with him while there were murderous ‘bears’- probably just the wolves- running around. If I had to guess, I’d say she was looking for the meadow Edward used to take her, but that was just a guess. On today's agenda though, the very daunting task of seeing a movie with friends, where one Mike Newton was not supposed to get the wrong idea.

Neither was Jake, who was 16 and flirted with her non-stop, and possibly a werewolf.

Bella really was a danger magnet.

And I was a hypocrite.

I had just spent literal hours climbing around the forest trying to find the place Carlisle took me. At least she had the possible werewolf to protect her. I was alone. And having no luck The ‘path’ was completely overgrown, not even a trace of it left.

I had to blame the dream for the recent influx of dangerous activity. I hadn’t thought of the cliff side since before they left. But now there was a voice in my head I couldn’t tune out, screaming that mabe, just maybe, I could find some trace of him there. 

Though at this point, I figured I'd never find it.

Edward told Bella it would be as if they never existed and standing here, out of breath, alone in the woods I understood why. By the time we thought to check somewhere, Forks had already begun to reclaim it.

I walked for 15 minutes in a straight line before giving up and returned to their front porch. Between the rain, the brush, and the weeks I’d spent doing practically nothing, I couldn’t do it. I would come back the next day, and every day after that until I found it. 

Or, I guess until the wolves ate me.

I did actually start writing again. Usually from my car in their driveway, or on the front porch. I really wanted to write from the top of the cliff, but I had to find it first.

And not the short stories of magical worlds like before. Just really existential poetry. I took a poetry class where I learned basically nothing. It didn’t make my poetry better, but I did, however, take one thing from it. 

At one point, the guy teaching rolled up his sleeve and had a bunch of seemingly random words written on his arms. The words were just things he saw, like ‘Cow print shoes’ or ‘empty shampoo bottle’. He would then take these things and somehow turn it into some of the most beautiful poetry. 

I was working with ‘ magic words ’ and ‘ small town gossip ’ while sitting on the edge of their porch. Twisting and turning those words, trying to find more meaning in them then there was; I tapped my pen against the wood beneath me and stared at the empty page, hoping something, anything would just magically come to me. Even if it was bad, it would be something .

After too many hours and a poem I only kinda half liked. I decided to call it a night. I wanted to believe finding the cliff would give me…I dunno, closure? No… Clarity, maybe? Or I hoped for at least some inspiration while I was there.

~~

It took me a few solid tries to find the stupid cliff, but when I reached the top I felt like I could actually breathe. It was a breath of relief, only because finding it meant I didn’t have to hike anymore. It didn’t even match the dream. I had worked for months on end just for this disappointing conclusion. It was misty and cold and the flowers hadn’t bloomed yet. 

 And he wasn’t here. I knew he wouldn’t be, but I had hoped he would be up here, waiting for me to figure it out. I felt like I could scream, but I didn’t want the attention that that might bring and I no longer had it in me to cry the way I needed. I hardly had anything left at all. 

I stood there, staring out at the open water, wishing he’d walk through the tree line. As angry as I was pretending to be, I desperately wanted this to come true. I wanted to yell at him and cry while he held me. I wanted him to apologize and promise to never do it again. I wanted to forgive him. Or I at least wanted the choice.

Bella had told me about her dances with danger when I pressed for answers about her head wound. She told me about the bar bikers, and the bikes her and Jake fixed. She even told me about her cliff diving intentions; which I tried to talk her out of it but she assured me it was mostly safe. 

The idea of facing mortal danger just to see a ghost of him almost sounded rational here.

I watched as Bella hugged her chest to keep herself whole. I stood by as she chased adrenaline for the smallest glimpse of Edward.

I didn’t feel perfect- standing there didn’t heal me. I let out a small humorless laugh and shook my head accepting that I couldn’t keep pretending that there was never a wound in the first place.

I let myself fall apart yet again.

~~

Bella was getting bad again. Jacob had cut her out of his life because he was turning into a werewolf, probably. No one could confirm that of course, but I’d started to hear the small small town gossip.

Dad and I had just started to clean up after dinner when Bella threw open the front door. She came into view and Dad started to question her.

“Where have you been?” He must have called the Stanleys, Bella had never been good at covering her tracks.

Wisely she stuck to the truth, I started on the dishes. “I was hiking.”

“What happened to going to Jessica’s?” 

“I didn’t feel like Calculus today.”

Dad crossed his arms, “I thought I told you to stay out of the forest?” I knew he would say that, which is why I hadn’t told him I had started hiking as well.

Maybe I was also a danger mangent, and probably a hypocrite.

“Yeah I know, don’t worry. I won’t do it again.” her voice shook a little as she spoke which made both me and Dad look at her. She was a mess; She looked like she had seen a ghost, and not the kind she had been trying to see. There were leaves and twigs in her hair.

“What happened?” Dad demanded.

Her hesitation spoke volumes, “I saw the bear.” There was a fake calmness behind her already shaky voice. “It’s not a bear though- It’s some kind of wolf. And there are five of them. A big black one, and gray, and reddish-brown…” I snorted a laugh and quickly covered my mouth with my hand. 

“Sorry. Wolves… in Forks, how strange.” I took a sip of my coffee and looked back at the sink. 

Dad’s eyes were wide as he looked at me with bewilderment, before he crossed the room to her and grabbed the tops of her arms. “Are you okay?”

She nodded weakly. Her calm facade had gone right out the window. I crossed the room as well to show support, but I let Dad do the comforting.

“Tell me what happened.”

“They didn’t pay any attention to me. But after they were gone, I ran away and I fell down a lot.”

Dad let go of her shoulders and hugged her tightly instead. I was glad she was okay, but of course they didn’t go after her. She was friends with them. 

Though I did wonder what they were after, if not her. Or why didn’t they just tell her it was them and save her the panic. Maybe they couldn’t talk as wolves and when they’d shifted back they were completely naked, then I guess I got it. I wondered how much of this story she was leaving out for Dad’s sake and I tried not to laugh again.

After a few moments Dad spoke again. “ Wolves?” Duh, Dad… He was completely unaware of all the supernatural in his small town. I was just surprised Bella hadn’t pieced it together already. 

“What?”

“The ranger said the tracks were wrong for a bear- but wolves just don’t get that big…”

“These were huge .” I laughed again.

“How many did you say you saw?” he glared at me over her shoulder, I put my hands up and mouthed a sorry.

“Five” I didn’t know who that accounted for, but the numbers added up.

Dad shook his head, frowning with anxiety, before he put on his stern cop voice. “No more hiking.”

“No problem.” She promised.

Dad called the station to report the wolves. Bella sat down at the table and placed her forehead on the cool surface. I sat next to her, nudging her with my foot. “Of course it’s wolves, right?” I grinned at her, half expecting her to get it, but she just looked confused.

“I just hope they can catch them before they hurt anyone else.” She shuttered. She really didn’t know who the wolves were. I guess there was the possibility that she did know, and I was wrong, but that seemed highly implausible. 

“Are you hungry? I made salmon patties.”

She shook her head. “Just tired.” She got up from the table and made for the stairs.

“Hey,” Dad caught her before she could get away. His voice sounded oddly suspicious. “Didn’t you say Jacob was gone for the day?”

“That’s what Billy said .” She seemed confused that he was in detective mode now, but I could tell he believed her.

“Huh.”

“Why?” She was clearly annoyed with his doubt, but to be fair, she did lie to him about where she was going today. 

“Well, it's just when I went to pick up Harry, I saw Jacob out in front of the store down there with some of his friends. He looked strange, like he was upset about something. And… different. It’s like you can watch that kid growing! He gets bigger every time I see him.”

Yup, definitely werewolves. And he wasn’t being suspicious of her, he was being suspicious for her. Which was a nice change.

“Billy said Jake and his friends were going to Port Angeles to see some movies-”

I added, “They were probably just waiting for someone to meet them.” I didn’t know why I felt the need to defend them. I think, mostly, I just didn’t want dad to go down there and check it out. 

“Oh” He seemed convinced and sat back down at the table, before going back to his fishing magazine. Bella checked the locks again before going upstairs. I felt my heart give out a little, as much as I couldn’t believe she didn’t know who the wolves were, I hated to see her so scared. 

I finished the dishes as Dad went up to his room for the night. Bella’s bedroom light was off, but I could faint shuffling, like she was tossing and turning. There was no way she was going to get a goodnight sleep if she was this restless, so I knocked softly on her door. 

“Uhm…” more shuffling “Yeah? Come in.”

I peeked into the room. Only her bedside light was on. “It’s just me. Still shaken up?”

She breathed a sigh of relief and nodded. “They were huge, Y/n. Like monsters from movies, huge.”

I held back a laugh, “We would know, right?” She cringed, clearly I was just humoring myself. “Look, let's get your mind off of it.  We can go to Port Angeles, and make bad decisions. Ya know, ‘sisterly bonding’.” I put extra emphasis on the sisterly bonding part.

“What did you have in mind?” She gave me the same look Dad gives me when he knows I’m up to something.

I grinned, “Come on, Bells~ the worst decisions are never planned. I have a feeling we’ll know what it is when we see it.” I quirked an eyebrow up at her, still grinning. “You in?”

She only hesitated for a second.

“Hell yeah.”

~~

Bella and I got dressed in some casual clothes and headed to Port Angeles. The drive was long and slow and I had no idea where we were going, but I knew we’d find something. Probably…

“Bella…” I tried to get her attention. “This is supposed to be fun. To take your mind off of all the crazy from today.”

“I know it’s just…” her grip didn’t loosen around her chest. “Do you remember last year, when James decided to track me?”

“Of course.” It’d been a nightmare. The first time I thought I’d lose her, though then I didn’t know what I was losing her to exactly.

“Well, there were three vampires in James’ coven. James was killed. Laurent went to Denali; he wanted to change, to be like them . That just leaves Victoria.” I’d hear them talk about her in passing. She didn’t seem like a threat, I wondered why Bella was bringing this up. “She was in love with James, they were mates. And now that he’s dead, she wants revenge.” 

I rolled my eyes. “Of fucking course she does.” This supernatural stuff just never ends… “So what? She's back and you’re her revenge?”

“I think- at least that’s what Laurent said.”

I sharply turned to look at her, “When did you talk to him?”

“Focus on the road! Jeez…” I almost rolled my eyes again, but I did look back at the road. I hadn’t even swerved. “He was in the meadow. Jacob ditched me, so I went to find it myself and I found it. But Laurent was there looking for… them.” I held back a sigh. She still couldn’t even say their name. Not that I judged her, I couldn’t say his name either. “Apparently I caught him at a bad time. He was going to eat me-”

“Christ Bells”

“I know… I know. But apparently Victoria has way worse plans for me and he was ‘sparing me’  by just killing me then and there. Then the wolves showed up and he was scared of them, like he actually ran from them. And I ran the other way and I fell down a lot and I was certain he was gonna catch up to me, but he never did.”

“Of course it's wolves, and of course the vampires are still after you… This is exhausting, you know?”

She pulled her knees to her chest and nodded. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to hold herself together. I knew what it felt like. I knew the pain she was feeling because I felt it too.

Even after all this time she was hardly a person. She was just a shell of who she used to be, an 18 year old girl who was thrown into a world that was way too big for her, despite how stubborn she is. 

And seeing her like this made me think about myself. What did I look like? If I carried the same pain, was I just a shell of who I was? I wanted to be past this; I did pretend that I was over it, maybe I looked a bit more like my old self.

I was still broken. She was too. Making bad and reckless decisions wouldn’t put us back together, but it sure did sound like fun. 

Then I saw it. The open light blinked on a street of mostly dark stores. I pulled into the parking lot and into a spot close to the front door. I grinned deviously at Bella who’s wide eyes had locked on to the store in front of us.

“Tattoos? Y/n, really?” She almost seemed reluctant.

“You don’t have to get anything, but I am and I need you to hold my hand.” I started to see a faint smile. 

“No, No… I’ll get one. I’m just surprised.” Her faint smile turned into genuine excitement. “Dad’s gonna kill you.”

I laughed and shrugged  “Probably.”

We got out of the car and headed inside. The place was fairly decent, for a late night tattoo shop in Port Angeles. It was on the upper scale of things. They were having a slow night so they gladly fit us in, and I let Bella go first.

As spontaneous as this was, we both knew what we wanted fairly quickly. Bella got a really simple I.XVII.MMV, her first day at FHS. I knew there was more to it, but I didn’t press.

I got a bundle of lupine flowers tied together with a blue ribbon on my forearm. Like the flowers from the cliff; the same kind he’d handed to me in my dream. She didn't press either.

I held her hand while the tattoo artist worked even though she didn’t seem bothered by the pain.  She’d watch him work for a second before turning away, never really letting her eyes linger. I guessed because of her aversion to blood. It didn’t take long at all and then it was my turn. I understood why Bella didn’t react to the pain, it didn’t feel like he was doing much of anything, just a numb kind of buzzing. I made Bella hold my hand anyway. 

I wondered if it was an easy spot or if it just didn’t feel like much of anything because of all we’d been through. I decided I would test that theory in a few months with a few more tattoos.

A couple of hundred dollars and a large tip later, we had new tattoos and were on our way home. Unsurprisingly, I almost cried when I saw the finished product. I had grown up surrounded by these flowers. When I first saw them on the cliff, I didn’t even think twice about them. But now, these flowers meant the world to me. 

For a moment, we felt normal. We laughed and planned the next tattoos we were going to get. When we got home my note was still by the door and I had no messages from dad. If he had stirred at all, he hadn’t noticed we’d snuck out. 

I crumbled the note and threw it away. “It’s better to not leave any evidence.” We both giggled as we headed upstairs. His soft snoring only confirmed my suspicions. I stopped at my door and turned to her. 

“Goodnight Bells.”

“Night… Hey, thanks for tonight. It was nice to feel like a normal 18 year old girl.”

“Anytime.” I smiled softly at her as she went into her room. I hoped she had a much easier time falling asleep after that.

~~

Dad had just left for work by the time I heard Bella shuffling around in her room. Then she came stomping down the stairs. She was frantic as she put on her jacket and laced up her shoes.

“Bella? Are you alright?” I called from the couch, quickly using the closest thing as a bookmark, in this case the tv remote, and going to the doorway.

She pulled the door open and was clearly in a rush to go but she still called back to me. “Wolves! Of course it’s fucking werewolves!”

I couldn’t stop the laughter that erupted from my chest. I was kinda surprised it took her this long to figure it out, but I was happy to be on this side of the discovery this time.

Werewolf or not, Rest in Peace Jacob Black I guess.

Maybe an hour later, I’d just barely got further in my book when my phone rang. I wasn’t expecting it to be Bella, but I answered it right away, assuming she needed me to help her hide his body. She didn’t even sound mad, though.

“Can you meet us at La Push, just past First Beach?”

“Who is us, and why?”

“Me and Jake and… the others.” Wolves, I guessed. “It’s about Victoria… They could use our help.”

“Bella…” I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. 

“Please, Y/n. I need you.”

So I agreed. She gave me some directions that, if followed correctly, led me to some house on the reservation where I would meet with a bunch of werewolves to discuss a murdery vampire bitch. In the rain. Why? 

Because Bella said she needed me and I’d do anything to help her.

Once I saw the house I knew It was the Young’s. I got there just as Bella and two boys were getting out of Bella's truck. Bella looked like she was going to pass out at any second but she lightened up a bit when she saw me. She hugged me when I got out of the car.

“Both of you? Sam just might kill Jake himself…” I didn’t know his name. He jumped out of the bed of Bella’s truck. Bella paled.

I put my hands up, “I wasn’t told anything. It’s not my fault it’s the perfect cliche...”

He rolled his eyes, but before I could say anything else Emily came out onto the porch. We had grown up distant friends. Dad would go fishing and the Clearwaters and I would go to Leah’s house and Emily was visiting all of the time. It had been years since I’d been out this way, at least since Dad decided I could be left to my own devices. I had heard the whispers of her ‘accident’ that left her nearly dead and brutally scarred. I’d never considered it could have been a wolf.

It hadn’t changed much about her at all. She was still stunningly gorgeous, despite how gruesome the town gossip had been. She smiled at me and my heart skipped a beat. 

“Boys, play nice.” She smiled at me then her eyes drifted to Bella, “ Oh, who’s this?”

“You remember Y/n, and this is Bella Swan.” She nodded looking from me to Bella.

“Leave it to Jacob to find a way around.” She suddenly seemed a bit more unfriendly, though I didn’t know why. Of all of us, Emily had always been the nice one. “So, you’re the vampire girl.”

Instinctively I grabbed Bella’s hand “I guess we both are…” though I didn’t want to be. I was already very annoyed that I found myself surrounded by more supernaturals. I had hoped it was over.

“Yes. And you’re the wolf girl.”  Everyone chuckled softly at Bella’s comeback. Emily smiled and nodded.

“I guess I am.” Her face was much warmer. “Though I have to say, I never expected anyone to tell you.” She turned to me, still smiling. 

“No one told me. I figured it out a long time ago. I’m only here because Bella ask-”

“Did your bloodsucker tell you what we are?” one of the other boys interjected. 

I tried very hard not to roll my eyes, but the irony got the best of me. I placed my hand on my forehead in an attempt to hide it. “Again, no. No one told me anything but it wasn’t hard to piece it together. You guys hate them and who hates Vampires more than Werewolves. Again, perfect cliche.”

“Where’s Sam?” Emily thankfully changed the subject.

“Bella, er, surprised Paul this morning.” One of the boys said. So, by deductive reasoning, neither of them were Paul, or obviously Sam or Jacob. I didn’t know who that left. I wondered how old the tall boy was. I thought he was around Jacobs age. How old do you have to be to get your wolfy powers? Maybe the Ateara boy, but I hadn’t heard anything about him.

I got distracted counting in my head. The rumors started with Sam then moved to Jared. Was Jared 16 yet? Then Paul and Embry then Jacob. So these boys must be Jared and Embry, probably, I just didn’t know who was who.

I almost missed them starting to drift inside. Bella held the door for me. 

“Bella, are you hungry? Y/n? You guys can help yourselves.” I stood by the table next to Bella, who grabbed a muffin. It seemed to help calm her nerves if nothing else. 

Emily tried to get the boys to save some for their brothers. I still debated who they were. Not that I was going to ask. And then Sam was there, lovingly calling for Emily, then kissing her like he’d never get the chance to again. I looked at the table, hoping my sadness didn’t show.

“Hey, none of that, I’m eating.”

“Then shut up and eat.”  Sam suggested before returning his attention to Emily. The other boy sighed and took another bite of his muffin. Bella and I looked away. I’m sure Bella felt the same pain I did at that moment.

“Y/n” My head snapped back to Sam, who locked eyes with me. “Jake warned Paul about you too.”

“Oh, cool.” I nodded. I wondered what that meant. Why would he have to warn anyone about me ?

“Though I have to say, I was pretty surprised myself. I had no idea you were involved with the Cullens- before today that is.” I didn’t know what to say. I was confused by his implications. I just stared with my mouth open trying to find words. “If… If  they hurt you at any point, either of you-” His eyes drifted to Bella.

“They didn’t.” I interrupted, before he could make Bella more uncomfortable. “I can promise, they never did anything they weren’t supposed to.” He almost laughed sarcastically. I wanted to keep going, but I wouldn’t in front of Emily.

My focus went back to Bella who had brightened up, now that Jacob had come inside. He smiled at Bella and grabbed two muffins before standing next to her and me, though he didn’t seem to notice me at all. I didn’t mind.

“Sorry about before.” he muttered under his breath. “How are you holding up?”

She assured him she was fine. It sounded convincing enough. She was probably much better knowing he was okay. I didn’t know what happened ‘before’, but I figured it was in part why Bella called me. Also when Paul came in the others settled a bet and they had mentioned that Bella ‘surprised Paul’. Jacob and Paul must have gotten into a fight about Bella and I knowing. 

I smiled at myself, I’d gotten pretty good at context clues stuff. Maybe I should be a detective. It’d make dad happy and-

Sam spoke loudly, interrupting my thoughts. “Hey, guys.” All the noise stopped, everyone turned to face him. Even mine and Bella’s attention shifted to him. He must be their leader. Which is kind of confusing, considering Jacob’s father is the chief. Maybe it was deeper than that. He continued, “Jacob has information for us. We’re hoping Bella and Y/n can help with that.”

“ I know what the redhead wants.”  his face got serious as he looked at the other boys who were here before. “That's what I was trying to tell you before. She is trying to avenge her mate- only it’s not the black-haired leech we killed. The cullens got her mate last year and she’s after Bella now.”

I swore under my breath. Everyone seemed to be a bit shocked by the news. I was shocked they managed to kill a vampire, and appeared to be unscathed. I figured Bella had been right, but it was still hard to hear the confirmation.

“She’s just a girl.” 

“I didn't say it made sense. But that’s why the bloodsuckers been trying to get past us-”

“She's been trying to get to Forks…” I added, pulling their open mouth stares from Bella to me.

“Excellent.” someone said, a smile forming on his lips,  “We’ve got bait. “

 Jacob threw what looked like a can opener at the boy, and it probably would have hit him in the jaw, but he caught it with ease, because he’s a werewolf.

At the same time, Jacob and I both said “Bella’s not bait.” For once I sided with Jacob Black. 

“You know what I mean,”

“So we’ll be changing our patterns,” Sam said, ignoring their squabble.  “We’ll try leaving a few holes, and see if she falls for it. We’ll have to split up, and I don’t like that. But if she’s really after Bella, she probably wants to try to take advantage of our divided numbers.”

“Quil’s got to be close to joining us,” So I was right the first time. The boys had to be Jared and Embry and I guessed Jared was the one Jacob threw a can opener at.

They planned this like it was a battle strategy. It kinda was for them. Emily looked nervous about the plans, and to be fair, all of this was nerve racking. I place my arms around Bella’s shoulders in an attempt to comfort her. 

I think that’s why she wanted me here in the first place. I couldn’t contribute much other than moral support. The only vampires I had met were the Cullens. Rogue vampires were not my specialty. Unless you count my endless Buffy the Vampire Slayer knowledge, which had proven mostly useless in the face of real life vampires.

“What about Charlie?”  Of course Bella was still worried about others before herself.

“March Madness is still going,” Jacob said. “I think Billy and Harry can manage to keep Charlie down here when he’s not at work.”

“And you?” Bella looked up at me. I started to object, to remind her that I would be fine. I wasn’t the one she was after. 

Sam held up a hand and cut me off. “Wait, that’s what Jacob thinks is best, but you need to decide for yourselves…” He kept going but I stopped listening. This was for Bella. Of course it would be safer here for Bella, and probably even dad. I didn’t think I could say the same for myself. I had never been one to attract unwanted attention. The Cullens were here for months before they noticed me. Honestly, if the bitch wanted to come after me I’d just let her, but that was easy to say, since she didn’t want me, just Bella. I don’t think she would have looked twice at me.

I had nothing to worry about and everything to lose. If she got to Dad or Bella, it would destroy me. 

Bella must have something really funny because the boys started laughing. I tried to pick up where the conversation had led as their laughter shook the walls. Emily and Bella shared a look that made me believe the boys were just being cocky. I could tell how worried Emily was for Sam, and Bella for Jacob. 

I understood Embry and Jared's disgust.

Bella’s arms wrapped tightly around her chest again. 

“The rest of the food is ready.” Emily announced. I pretended to munch on whatever Bella set in front of me and thanked Emily graciously. At times Sam would try to pull me aside. I think because we had once been friends he felt some obligation to protect me and I avoided him like the plague. Once Dad met us down there avoiding him was very easy.

I knew he just wanted to keep me, Bella, and Dad safe, but also a part of me screamed that this was just werewolves wanting to kill a vampire.

Either way, I couldn’t find it in me to care. 

~~

It was spring break in Forks again and Bella would usually wake up and go straight to La Push. Dad woke up, went to work, then went to La Push for March Madness.

I went ‘job hunting’. Dad was happy I was trying to function again. Bella was content with the knowledge I wasn’t at the house, if Victoria came there.

Truthfully, I usually went hiking. I always went to their house, even though I couldn’t go into the house. Anytime I tried I just fell apart, not once had I even made it past the living room.

I would just sit in my car in the driveway and listen to the rain or, if the weather was nice I’d sit on the porch and read. This particular day, like so many others, I hiked up the mountain. I sat on the edge letting my feet dangle over, and just watched the water bellow. Occasionally picking up a rock and counting the seconds before it hit the water. It was oddly therapeutic.

I pulled a pen from my shirt pocket and wrote ‘delayed splash’ on my arm.

Bella left early that morning to go to the beach with Jake. I wondered if today was the day they planned for cliff jumping, though I hoped they wouldn’t. There was an awful storm brewing in the distance and I could just barely see the clouds already coming this way. Not to mention Bella and I still had relatively fresh tattoos, which might be fine by now, but a few more days of healing couldn’t be a bad thing. 

I also wanted to be out of the woods before the storm. Dad had messaged me not too long after I had made it out there. Harry Clearwater had a heart attack and they didn't think he would make it. The elders weren’t werewolves, and he wasn’t going to heal. I didn’t want to make everything worse by being lost in the woods during a storm. 

I wanted to be there for Dad, but I would wait til he got home. I thought about Sue. I wanted to say something, but I didn’t even know where to begin. What do you say to someone who’d lost the love of their life. I knew that tonight, everyone would be feeling this loss.

Though I knew better, I hoped Harry would pull through. I hoped for Sue, Leah and Seth. For Dad too. 

I took a deep cleansing breath as a few raindrops hit my face. I tried to catch them in my hands. When they picked up speed I headed back down. I was soaked to the bone by the time I got back to my car.

I received the text from my Dad that Harry was gone.

I let myself cry for some time.

I lost track of time sitting there. My hair had started to dry. I figured there was nothing I could do but be home when Dad got there. I wanted to be the moral support I knew he needed. I wondered if anyone had told Bella. 

I went straight home the second I had cleared my eyes enough to see the road. I didn’t think Dad had made it home yet. Bella was there but her truck was still running in the driveway, both doors were wide open. 

Then I saw the shiny black Mercedes sitting by the road and I completely forgot how to breathe. I barely managed to pull into my spot in the driveway before I was shaking too much to move. I kept blinking and staring at it, half expecting it to disappear, half hoping it wouldn’t.

Part Three <3

Taglist

@jakanddexter67 @a-not-so-poetic-poet @bridge597 @cestlavie03 @gaymazinglula

[himynameisobed]

mid-may.

i've been having a pleasant string of almost-summer days that make me grateful. last saturday, amber and i went to cirque du soleil and had what seemed to be a life-changing and eye-opening experience - at least in the immediate aftermath, when we talked about leaving our boring, everyday lives to join the circus. (my toxic trait is believing that i can develop the capabilities necessary to be a cirque du soleil performance if i wanted to, even now, in my close to middle age) the human body is an absolute marvel. we saw mesmerizing contortionists, a man stacking chairs to an unbelievable height while also performing acrobatics, a man whose feet were strapped to one long stilt, who was launched into the air and did several flips before landing in perfect balance - it was insane and thrilling and now i truly believe every one should see one of these performances at least once in their life. after the circus, we went to my friend beth's 30th birthday party and it was cute. i'm trying to live more of an alcohol-free life, but it's difficult when i say i'll only drink on special occasions and every occasion seems special. got a bit tipsy, played with a dog, stood outside smoking a cigarette and talking about the upcoming movie, "killers of the flower moon." and when a friend of mine gets tipsy too, sometimes we get closer than we probably should. easy affection, a strange pull, some yearning for a deeper intimacy that might not be wholly appropriate given the context of everything. or maybe just a little bit of a harmless flirtation. the next day is sunday and i'm too hungover to go to church. i meet my sister at my parents' house later though, and we head to bang bang to stand in line for 20 minutes and get ice cream. we walked all the way there, which was impressive, but maybe a bit unnecessary. i'd invited conor out for ice cream, but he flipped it over on me and instead invited me over to a little party he and his friends were having at Tommy and Ronan's place. i wanted to go just to properly meet one of their friends, Shane, who had just immigrated to Toronto a couple of days before and has maybe the coolest natural hair colour i've ever seen. my sister and i get to their party, which is happening on the shared patio space on their building, so there's a bunch of random people there, and we find everyone talking to a group of australian girls. i play it cool with shane, pretending to be just noticing him, and strike up a nice conversation. he seems sweet, and a bit shy and sensitive, but also like he can have a good time. a nice addition to the group, in any case, but i guess they've all been friends forever. later we go to stackt market, and shane confides in me that he thinks it's overrated and he's bored, so i suggest going to crews. to my delight, he seems excited about the idea, but conor and i had been texting renee and she said she was at karaoke, so we went to meet her there instead. it might've been the wrong move since we ended up having to get a separate room anyway and barely seeing renee, and crews honestly probably would've been more fun, but it is what it is. shane leaves early saying he's tired. he leaves without letting most people know, and i feel bad he didn't have more fun, but there's always next time. the next day i meet my david, amber, and michael (+ michael's wife) at the beach. it's a nice day out and we walk along the board walk for a stretch before heading to a barbecue restaurant for lunch. my friend liam, his friend william and william's room mate meet us there. i feel kind of bad because i think liam thought we were going to have an actual beach day - a day of casual drinks on the shore, playing beach volleyball or some other sport - but really we just wanted to be outside in the nice weather and go get food. i think i accuse him of misunderstanding what i said when i invited him, but really i should've just apologized. in any case, he said he'd be ready for next time - that he would get some sort of ball himself and we'd all be able to play. he lives in the beaches but apparently rarely goes to the beach, but next time we'll make a day of it. our waitress at the restaurant is unnecessarily rude, making mistakes and accusing us of them and refusing to answer questions in any helpful way. it's honestly astounding, and i make a loud remark about how she needs to learn how to just do her fucking job that i hope she hears while she's walking downstairs. at one point she'd brought us what she says is a pork sandwich, which none of us ordered. she goes, "well, it's someone's, i wrote it down," and we say none of us ordered it so she goes back to the kitchen and comes back saying it's a brisket sandwich. our friend asks to confirm if it's pork or beef (since he can't eat pork), and she dismissively says something along the lines of, "i can't tell just by looking at it." so we ask her to go to the kitchen and check. and it was on her way back to the kitchen that i make a loud remark, and honestly after that she was quite a bit nicer to us so i think it worked. it's crazy how service can truly make or break a dining experience. we were 9 customers who were just trying to have a good time and enjoy the long weekend, and it seemed like this waitress with a stank ass attitude was making it her personal mission to ruin everything. to be honest, i think she was also a little bit racist or ignorant. maybe she was just a basic white blonde girl whose spent all her life in the beaches ever only with other white people, so she has no grasp of any possible experience beyond that. two of the people we were with were from cameroon and were asking her very reasonable questions that she was treating as stupid. i want her to try going to cameroon and ordering in french off of a menu that she doesn't understand. she literally had no patience or empathy, but i'm hoping she's just young and will grow out of that. after lunch, we walked along the beach some more and when we parted ways, i went home and took a nap until 9pm. all in all, it was a nice weekend with nice weather, and now i'm going to go back to trying to finally finish my portfolio.

[hannahsmusings]

Renee

*I thought by him ignoring my obvious petulance that it would make me feel better, like I was leveling the playing field again and I was coming up the winner, but instead if just left me more annoyed, I knew he was the type to hold his ground since he just showed me he wasn’t going to let me walk all over him, but now he was doing the opposite and it bothered me, I wanted him to argue with me for some reason, it has been so long since someone gave me the time of day in that way, everyone around me always just saying yes and nodding their head at my every request and I felt let down that Anthony was apparently just like the rest of them* I just went for a run, I won’t be going to the gym. I’ll wait until it’s ready. *he wasn’t going to just send me off and get off that easy, if he wasn’t going to argue or defend himself, he had to deal with my presence just like everyone else here did* *my heart physically clenched in my chest as he just gave me a simple smile, it not reaching his eyes and there being no underlying playfulness behind it, hating that I clearly pushed him away like I did everyone, having a total internal war over how I should be feeling about this man and how I was actually feeling* *I sit at the island, back completely straight, clearly looking pretty uncomfortable but I wasn’t going to leave until I had my smoothie, not even pretending to be busy on my phone, giving off every ‘fuck you’ vibe I could, tapping my fingers impatiently on the granite countertop before he slides the smoothie over, taking it eagerly* Thank you. Maddy will be here soon to get you caught up on my expectations and scheduling, yet again. *I hop off the stool, not giving him another look before I was stalking out of the room, feeling like a child throwing a proper temper tantrum but I couldn’t stop, pounding up each step and all but running into my room, not meaning to slam the door behind me but it does, knowing that Anthony would hear it from the kitchen since the house was so quiet*

_________________________________________

*god damn it my head was spinning, I was so confused at how quickly you’d got under my skin, part of me seething and itching to yell back and forth with you because I knew you were up to the challenge but then another part of me knowing you wanted me to do that to test me, so you had a reason to get rid of me and I wasn’t going to give you the satisfaction* *clenches my jaw as you said you’d wait for the smoothie, seeing you were going to torture me and knowing I should have expected nothing less as I just focus on the task at hand, trying to regulate my breathing and not looking at you as I couldn’t tell whether I wanted to yell at you or admire you, you infuriating me beyond belief* *when I was done I slide the smoothie over, eyes flicking up to yours with a blank stare and clearly unimpressed as you take it before you lecture me once more, rolling my eyes clearly as I turn back to the sink* Sounds good. *says sarcastically but you’d already started to leave, the slamming door being confirmation of your mood as I relax and let out a heavy sigh of frustration* Fucking hell. *mutters under my breath, feeling the tension seep out of the room and wondering whether I should take a walk to rid myself of this anger and irritation, never liking to cook when I was in a mood* *throws down the dish cloth in frustration before I grab my phone and leave your flat, needing to get out in the air for a moment before I did something stupid like follow you to fight it out*

[omg-im-such-a-masochist]

ONE BOTTLE TO BLAME

Prompt: Requested, by the lovely @jazzy-bella02 (I’m sorry this took me so long to post it, but I hope you’ll like it and thank you so much for being patient with me, honey 😘)

Word Count: Long-ish

Pairings: Jon Moxley x Reader

Warnings: +18, smut, dom x sub dynamic, oral sex (male and female receiving / 69), dirty talk, name calling (aka degradation), kinda fluff (at the end), slight angst, breath play (asphyxiation kink)

Editor: @thenightmareismyreality

Tag: @marlananicole , @bellalutionn , @sassymox , @yungbludjazz360

Notes: I just want to put this out there (before it turns into a fucking commotion): I have NOTHING against Renee , ok? I think she’s pretty awesome tbh and this is for plot purposes only! Please be reminded that this is a FICTIONAL STORY, not real life!(*This is only addressed to those who aren’t mature enough to understand that difference). If you’d like to check out my previous works, you can find them on my Masterlist 😉

“Alright, Y/N it’s your turn” Darby said

“Again?” I whined

“C’mon, don’t be such a party pooper! Pretty please?” He begged, dramatically batting his lashes

I spun the bottle and to my surprise it landed on landed on Jon Moxley, the man I desperately had a crush on, but refused to admit it out loud

“I don’t want to play this anymore, thanks” I mumbled

“Don’t be so childish, Y/N. What’s the worst thing he can do?” Darby laughed, looking at Mox who smiled back

“She said she doesn't want to” Renee stated bitterly

“Leave her alone, she will play” Mox said to her as he looked at me

“That’s my man!” Darby patted his back “So, Y/N, what do you choose: the kiss or the question?” He asked

“The question” *I’ll be damned if I ever choose the first option* I thought bitterly

“Mox, go ahead” Darby grinned

“Hmm” Jon pretended to debate what to ask “Who in this circle would you really want to kiss, and why?” He smirked

*How does he know?* I thought to myself- and then while looking at Darby, realization hit me. I could see the fucker trying to hide a smile behind his cup. *Darby told him! Ooh I’m gonna kill you Darby!*

“I - ummm...Darby” I said quickly

“Darby?” Mox looked at me in disbelief, and I nodded

“Why?” He teased

“Because...I think he’s cute” I lied, oh so poorly

“Right” He chuckled “Of course you do”

“Alright Mox, it’s your turn” Darby cackled

Jon spun the bottle and to our surprise it landed on me, again!

*Oh God, this must be a joke* I thought

“What’s your choice: question or kiss?” The blonde man asked him

“Kiss” Those piercing blue eyes stared at me

“I don’t think this is fair, she just answered your question! Jon, spin the bottle again, please” Renee said

“He can’t do that! It stopped on Y/N, so she and Jon will play. It’s their turn” Darby spat

“It’s not fair-”

“Why? Because it didn’t stop on you?” Mox scoffed

She shot him a look that well, if looks could kill, he’d be a pile of ash, before saying “You’re not going to kiss her”

“Oh really?” He chuckled “And who’s gonna stop me? You? Please, Renee, don’t make me laugh”

“You have no right-” She began

“YOU have no right! We’re not together anymore, I can do whatever I want with whoever I want and that’s none of your damn business! What the fuck are you even doing here anyways? I didn’t invite you, Y/N didn’t invite you, nobody on this roster invited you. Just fuck off!”

“Don’t talk to me like that” She pretended to be upset

“Don’t fucking try me then!” He replied, almost screaming at this point

Renee stood up and quickly made her exit out the front door, with a heavy silence settling in as she left.

“So, where were we?” Jon suddenly asked “Oh yeah! My kiss” He looked at me and grinned

Darby laughed “C’mon Y/N, you know the rules”

Rolling my eyes I crawled towards him, and when I was close enough, he whispered quietly so only I could hear

“Yes baby, crawl to me”

Noticing my nervousness, he pointed to his cheek and I felt so relieved that I wouldn’t have to kiss him in front of everyone

I leaned forward to his cheek, and once I was close enough, he turned his head around and connected our lips in a loud smooch

I had never felt a greater urge to bury my face in the sand like I did in that moment.

“Hmmm, vanilla?” He asked, clearly referring to my chapstick flavor

“I like the taste, kitten” He said, licking his lips

And so the game went on, every time the cursed bottle landed on Jon and I he asked me questions that got more personal (or invasive) each time: ‘What was my favorite sex position?’, ‘The craziest place I’ve ever had sex?’, ‘Did I own a vibrator?’, ‘How often did I use it?’, ‘Did I like it rough?’, ‘Have I ever tried BDSM?’, ‘Was I a sub?’.

And before he could ask me any more questions, I leaned towards Darby and said I was going to one of his guest bedrooms. When he asked why, I simply lied, saying I wasn’t feeling very well. He nodded and I finally left that damned room and stupid game, leaving Jon Moxley behind me…

Or at least I thought so!

When I opened the guest bedroom door, there he was, sitting down at the foot of the bed, smirking at me

“Thought you could run away from me, little mouse?” He chuckled at my surprised face

“Unfortunately for you, it’s not that easy to fool me, sweetheart” He took slow, predatory steps towards me “You didn’t answer my last question, doll” He pushed my body against the door, making it close, he then proceeded to lock it as well

“What question?”

“Are you a sub?” He whispered to me

I gulped “I-I enjoy power play”

Jon smiled widely “I thought so” He leaned forward, deeply inhaling the bamboo scent of my conditioner “Everything about you screams submissive, the essence practically radiates from your soul” He looked into my eyes

“Do you have a boyfriend?” I shook my head

“Sex partner?” I shook my head once more

“Do you have a Dom, kitty kat?” He asked, softly running his fingers through my hair

“No” I panted

“Do you want one?” He smirked

“Yes, please, sir?”

Jon grinned, and the soft motions from his fingers were quickly replaced by a forceful grip

“You wanna have some fun, Y/N?”

“Yes, sir”

“You gonna be my good little slut?”

“Yes, sir”

“Gonna make my cock feel real good?”

“Yes, sir”

“Is that pussy going to belong to me when we’re done?”

“All yours, sir”

He smiled “Are you going to be my favorite whore of all time?”

“I hope so, sir”

One of his hands quickly wrapped around my neck, applying just enough pressure to make me feel slightly lightheaded

“Does this pretty little slut know how to suck a cock?”

I nodded

“Let’s see about that” He smirked “Take your clothes off”

When we were both naked, Jon laid down on the bed

“Come here, kitten” He cooed “Sit on my face and show me how good that mouth of yours can be”

I obliged and as soon as my core was close enough to his face, he wasted no time in devouring me

It all felt so good that I needed something in my mouth, to muffle my loud moans, so I leaned forward and began to suck him off. Thanks to the position I was in, I had the advantage of sliding him further down, without having to worry about my gag reflex.

Jon moaned around my clit, as he put two fingers in. The vibrations his humming was causing me were heavenly

“Fuck, feels so fucking good!” He said and slapped my ass “Y/N, I’m going to need you to cum right now” He said, slightly out of breath

“Yes, sir” I answered, with a string of spit still connecting me to his cock’s head

His sucking became harder and the pace of his fingers became rougher, and before I could realize it, my walls were pulsing around his fingers.

When I was down from my high, Jon quickly pinned me down on the mattress and placed himself behind me

“You sure can suck a dick” He chuckled on my ear “But how well can you take a cock, kitty cat?”

“Very well, sir”

“Oh” He laughed “That’s bold! I have high expectations now! You’re not going to disappoint me, are you Y/N?”

“No, sir”

“You better not” He teased, as he slowly entered me

“So fucking wet” He said, and I could hear the smile in his voice

“Who made you this wet, baby?”

“You did, sir. You always do” I confessed

“Always? So you had thought about this before?”

“Every night, sir”

“And what do you do when those thoughts come to your mind, Y/N?” He increased his pace

“I touch myself and think about you, sir”

Jon growled “I would like to see that! Do you use your vibrator?”

“Yes, sir”

“Does it make you feel good, kitten?” He whispered

“Not as good as you do, sir”

“Great answer, sweetheart” He cackled

Placing his forearm on the back of my neck to keep me in place, Jon’s thrusting pace became almost too rough, but I was loving every second of it

“My good little whore loves cock, doesn’t she?”

I answered a muffled ‘yes, sir’

“Of course she does! Look how well she’s taking me”

“Am I stretching you good enough, baby?”

“Yes, sir”

“You’re gonna cum for me?” He asked, when he felt my walls my walls clenching tighter around him

I only moaned in response

“Cum, Y/N. Right now!”

My body followed his order, releasing it all over his length

Jon quickly pulled out, and his hot cum landed on my ass

He cleaned both of us up with a warm damp towel. Laying down by my side, he pulled me up until my head rested on his chest. That was when he placed one finger underneath my chin and tilted my head up, so he could kiss my lips in such a sweet and delicate way that made me giggle softly

“What?” He asked, with a sweet smile on his lips

“I’m sorry, the switch in you made me giggle” I laughed softly

“What change?”

“You just kissed me so softly, but were fucking me mercilessly and calling me a good little slut mere minutes before that”

“I can be soft too, you know?” He blushed a little

“Awww, you’re so sweet” I pecked his lips “But I love the rough you as well, don’t worry” I winked

“Good, because I’m a man of my word and” He shifted on the bed so he could lay down on his side “That pussy is now mine...all mine!” He growled, in a teasing way

“Yes, sir” I joked

“Wanna grab some burgers when we wake up?” He asked, pulling me closer to him and resting his forehead on mine

“I’d love to”

I smiled, falling asleep minutes after Jon’s soft snoring sounds filled up the bedroom...

Please, if you’re comfortable with it, let me know your thoughts on this? Feedbacks are always appreciated 🥰😘

[kevindayscrown]

The one where Kevin Day falls in love with an ice hockey player.

Part 2 All for the (wrong) game

Anything included in this head canon takes place the semester after the Foxes won the championship against the Ravens.

Disclaimer: I know next to nothing about varsity teams in the United States so excuse any false information. Don’t try to read this without having read the Introduction and Part 1 or you won’t understand shit.

As expected, it was a disaster.

Well, not for everyone, but certainly for Kevin.

Bryce tried to briefly explain the rules of the game. Despite looking quite similar to Exy, it turned out that it wasn’t. Not in the slightest.

Positions were different but seeing as Kevin is an offensive, he remained one in that case too. Allison and Dan joined him. Matt and Aaron, of course, went on defense and Renee guarded their goal.

Admittedly, Allison did most of the job, considering Kevin could barely balance himself on skates. At every body check, he would fall either on his ass or flat on his stomach. He doubted he got possession of the puck for even ten seconds.

It was infuriating. All the other foxes seemed to be getting the hang of it, even managing a few goals thanks to Allison. Of course, the ice hockey players went easy on them, but even then, Kevin could hardly manage to move fast enough to get the puck or to shoot it.

He was sure that by the next day, he would have several bruises, either from all the falling or from the rough body checks.

“This is ridiculous,” he finally said after Eric stopped his only attempt at scoring.

“Why? Because you aren’t good at it? Life’s like that sometimes, Day. Not that you would know.”

This wasn’t unexpected, but it still took Kevin by surprise. He narrowed his eyes at the goaltender.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“You live in your own bubble. Exy above everything else. It’s probably the only thing you are good at. Anything outside of that bubble is beyond you. Guess what, though. Apparently, you are not the god you think you are.”

Everyone around them tried to pretend as if they weren’t hearing, but of course they were.

“What would you know, Jiang? You have barely managed to get the attention of the people. Hell, I don’t even know that much about you to begin with. However, you seem to have already made up your mind about me. Is it because you are jealous?”

Whatever Eric’s teammates said to hold him back did not work. He slid across the rink to get to Kevin, who wasn’t even fast enough to attempt to turn around and slide away.

This body check was meant to hurt, Kevin could tell.

He was suddenly pinned against the boards, feeling Eric’s weight trapping him. It was also the only thing keeping him from slipping yet again.

“Do not assume you know anything about me, Day. Perhaps today will serve as a nice lesson for you. You are not as untouchable as you think you are.”

Kevin ended up pushing Eric hard enough that both of them stumbled and fell on the ice. Or rather, Eric’s body served as pillow. Kevin grunted, his annoyance only growing as he pushed himself up, only to slip again. He wanted nothing more but to remove the skates and leave the rink.

Eric managed to get himself up first. Despite Kevin’s protests and their semi violent fight, he helped him up too. Kevin knew better than to try pushing him away again and simply managed to glide across the ice and get off the rink.

Kevin felt Neil’s eyes on him even before he looked up and saw the redhead standing there, ready to take his turn on the ice.

Neil said nothing, though the hint of a grin on his lips was enough for Kevin to send a glare his way.

Didn’t help that Neil proved to be a natural.

It took him a bit at first, sure. But when he got the hang of it?

He moved on ice as if he had been practicing all day.

It was unusual to see such a small player among the other bears but Neil was almost perfectly elusive on his skates. He even managed to score a couple of times against Eric.

Kevin turned away and sat on a bench, trying to untie the laces and all the straps of his skates. His annoyance and frustration did nothing to help him.

The teams changed their lineups and Andrew along with Nicky, replaced Renee and Aaron. The ice hockey players also took turns.

Eric wasn’t sure why, but he felt bad.

It wasn’t the first time he had said something harsh to Kevin, with the difference that now, it felt as if he had crossed some sort of line.

He noticed Kevin attempting to remove his skates still and pulled off his helmet. He sat on the bench and patted his knee.

“Let me help you.”

Kevin stared at him for a moment, but his pride had been wounded enough that he gave in more easily than usual.

Eric pulled Kevin’s leg up on his thigh and started the process of untying the laces and undoing the straps.

“Look, I think we both got out of line.”

The first skate slipped off his foot and a cold wave made Kevin shiver.

“Was that not the point? To make fools out of the Exy team?”

“You know what I mean, Day.”

Kevin had to straddle the bench so that Eric could pick up his other foot.

“No. I don’t. You’ve never apologized before. You’ve never held your punches. I don’t know why you are doing it now, but I don’t fucking care. You told me to not make assumptions about you when you’d done exactly that.”

Eric could had guessed he had crossed some line before, but this seemed way more personal.

“I didn’t make an assumption. It was more of a guess. And from the way you reacted, it seems that I stroke a nerve. So what is it Day? Are you really on a high horse or are you your own worst critic?”

Kevin stared at the rink and at the foxes, his foxes, laughing as they fell on their asses, seemingly having the best time of their lives.

Instead of answering the question, he said:

“Teach me.”

It was the first time Kevin saw Eric being taken aback.

“Teach you what?”

“How to skate.”

There was a small silence as Eric slipped the last skate off and put it down next to the other.

Kevin waited either to be told to fuck off or for Eric to ask for something in return.

Instead, the goaltender smiled – a genuine smile – and said:

“When do we start?”

[for-fucks-sake-h]

LIGHTHOUSE - part four

WORD COUNT: 3.2k || STORY PAGE || INSPO

You slowly released the final breath of your morning meditation exercise just as the sun was peeking up over the city.  You were lucky to have a very quiet building, knowing that wasn’t always the case with apartment complexes. But you were thankful for your neighbors and how thick the walls of your place were. It was easy to lock yourself away in your apartment and forget about the world around you, especially first thing on a Friday morning.

You had a relatively light day -- a meeting with Renee, a few calls with inspectors regarding permits and such, loads and loads of paperwork, but that was typical every day, and just one showing at 3pm.  

It had been a few weeks of house searching with your mysterious author of a client, and still no luck. Although he had liked a few places out of the dozen you had shown him, nothing got him to actually put in an offer. There was one house that you were convinced would be the one, and he almost seemed like he was going to go for it, but something held him back and before you knew it, it was already sold. The market was getting tougher, which meant more competition, higher bids, and faster sales. If Harry decided he wanted a house, you would need to move quickly.

The only good thing was that he assured you, over and over again, that he would know when he saw it. You still weren’t sure what that meant, how exactly he would know, what exactly that entailed. But he seemed so sure, so you chose to believe him. You couldn’t lie though, you were a tiny bit apprehensive. You had shown him a lot of houses and felt no closer to finding “the one” then when you first agreed to help him. You so badly wanted to help him though.  

You forced your tormenting thoughts away as you showered, and ignored them while you made coffee and breakfast, and pretended they didn’t exist as you went about your day. Everytime they crept into your mind as the clock crept closer to 3pm, you swatted them away like an insistent fly. And then all of a sudden it was 1:45pm and your calendar was chiming with a reminder to get on the road.  

It was a house a bit farther out, but you were really hoping it was going to be worth the drive. It sat on a huge piece of acreage that backed up to miles and miles of woods. One of the things you learned was that Harry liked the idea of not having neighbors, you had shown him enough variety to know that at least.

So you headed to your car with optimistically high hopes. Until you went to press the start button and all you got in return was a sputtering sound that came directly from the hood. You tried again, and again, but too no avail.

“Shit,” you huffed, trying the start button once more even though you already knew it would make no difference. “Shit.”  

Fuck. Okay, it’s fine, you thought. You would just call an Uber and whatever the cost was just a part of doing business. You knew if you didn’t get to this showing it would probably be gone before you could reschedule. You were definitely going to be late now that you had to wait for a ride though, so you clicked into your contacts and tapped on Harry’s name before putting it on speaker.  

“Hello?” His deep voice came through the speaker, low and husky.  

“Hey, Harry.”

“Hello?”

“Hello?” you asked, confused.  

“Yeah, you sound really far away. Can you hear me?”

You tapped the speaker button off and brought the phone up to your ear. “How about now?”  

“Yeah, much better,” he confirmed.

“Um, yeah, my car won’t start. I just wanted to give you a heads up that I’ll be late to the showing, but I’ll still be there.”  

“How are you getting there?” he asked, his voice dry and monotoned.  

“I have an Uber coming.”  

“That’s stupid, we’re going to the same place. I’ll come get you.”  

Your heart dropped a bit at his words. Being in a car with Harry for that long would be difficult. What would you even talk about? It was bad enough that you had to try to make small talk at showings. “Oh, you don’t have to do that.”  

“It’s a waste for you to get an Uber,” he argued. “Just send me your address, I’m leaving now.”  

You hesitated, your voice catching in your throat. You knew he was right. It was a waste for you to spend the money on a Uber for that long of a drive just to avoid being in a car with him.

“I don’t bite,” he spoke up when you didn’t respond.  

You let out a soft chuckle. He didn’t sound aggravated or annoyed. If anything, his tone became lighter, reassuring. “Alright, thank you. I really appreciate it.”

“I mean, you’re the one helping me. It’s the least I can do.” You smiled at the sincerity in his voice, easing a bit. “Send me the address,” he added.  

“Okay, sending it now,” you replied, but didn’t hang up.

“Okay,” he laughed after a second, causing a small giggle to escape your throat. You would have thought this was the first time you’d ever spoken to each other.

“Okay, bye.” You hung up before it could get any weirder, quickly sending him your address.

And in practically no time at all, you spotted the little yellow clown car turning the corner to pull up in front of your complex.  

“Hey,” he greeted as you basically fell into the two seater.

The smell of his sweet cologne hit you just as you took in his appearance. A black hoodie with some design on the center, and light wash jeans. Well, that’s different. In the time you’d known Harry you’d only ever seen him in athletic clothes. You weren’t expecting him to be in jeans, and you definitely weren’t expecting the change to catch you so off guard.  

“How do you even fit in here?” you chuckled as you turned to grab your seatbelt. You felt like you were on top of him, invading his space in a way. The car was even tinier inside then you thought it would be.  He was so close you banged his elbow with your own where it rested on his center console. You pulled your hands into your lap, glancing at his legs; spread wide with his farthest knee pulled up next to the steering wheel. That’s how low the car was, his long legs reaching higher then his waist in the cramped space.  

“What do you mean?” His eyebrows pulled in as he looked past you to check for oncoming traffic before pulling on onto the main road.  

“This thing is tiny,” you laughed.  

His profile was stoic, but you could see the smallest shadow of a dimple creasing into his cheek. The sun was shining across his face, making the green of his eyes nearly see through from the side, long eye lashes blinking softly as he checked his mirrors.  

“You get used to it,” was all he said, his hand relaxing down at the bottom of the steering wheel.  

It was quiet for a bit as the wind whipped past once you picked up speed on the highway.

“You can put the radio on if you want,” he spoke through the silence that you surprisingly hadn’t minded.  

“Isn’t that one of the first rules of being in someone else's car?” you laughed softly as you looked over at him.  

A genuine confusion crossed his face. “What?”

“You know, like passenger seat etiquette. The driver controls the radio.”  

He licked his lips before pushing them out into the smallest pout, his bottom lip sparkling against the afternoon sun. “I don’t mind.”  

His response was so simple and easy that it had your eyebrows raising slightly. How could someone so particular in some ways be so laid back in others?

So you flicked the radio on and skimmed through the channels until you came across your favorite 80’s rock station.

“You like 80’s music?” He asked over a Duran Duran song.

You chuckled softly. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“They should,” Harry deadpanned. You couldn’t help the smile pulling at your lips as you looked out the window at the passing cars. “What else do you like?” he added after a moment.  

That was all it really took, just one simple question to get an easy conversation started between the two of you. It was funny, and sort of sad, that after weeks of showing him houses, your time spent in a tiny car would prove to be the opening of some actual dialogue.

You learned things like his music taste, that he liked romantic comedies and documentaries alike, that he had a dog! How did it take that long to find out he had a pet? It was a bit abnormal when you thought about it. You didn’t learn anything groundbreaking; just the tiniest peek into some of his quirks and interests.

“Have you been doing it for a while?” He asked as you cruised down the nearly empty street.  

“Oh yeah,” you nodded as his GPS announced that you were only a few miles from your destination. “I was really young when I started. My mom kinda just wanted to give me something to do instead of watching TV all the time. Literally grabbed a paint set from the dollar store and that was it.”

“I’ve been told it can be pretty cathartic.” His body language was the most relaxed you’d ever seen. He was lounging in his seat as he casually turned right, following the robotic voiced directions, readjusting the sunglasses that were pushed up into his hair.  

“Oh, it is. I was gonna say you should try it but writing is probably pretty cathartic too…” You trailed off the tiniest bit, unsure what he would say. The memory of how quickly he shut down any talk of his work flashed through your mind, making your pulse increase slightly in anticipation of his reaction.

He was quiet for a moment, eyes flicking down to his phone as it announced an upcoming turn. “It can be. I’m always looking for new self care, though.”

You relaxed at his easy response but perked up at his casual use of the term self care. He said it so mindlessly that it surprised you.  

“I could send you some links to beginners sets if you want. I know there’s a lot out there in terms of products.”  

“I’d really appreciate that,” he smiled, looking over at you briefly before taking his eyes back to the road.  

You felt the tiniest twinge of a flutter in your stomach. All you had really seen of Harry up until that point was skepticism and stoicism. There was something refreshing about his smile when there was lightness in his eyes. You had to willingly pull your gaze from him, somehow drawn in by the energy he was exuding. It was different, even if you couldn’t pinpoint it.  

He made the left onto a long rock drive once the GPS announced your arrival, taking the discreet road at least a mile back until you were pulling up in front of the house. It was a large, traditional, two story brick house -- which was interesting in regards to the location. It looked like someone just picked up a house from an established neighborhood and plopped it in the woods without a second thought. But there was something charming about it, with the ivy growing up the one side and the beat up driveway, secluded would be an understatement, though. If it was any later in the day, it may have freaked you out a little bit.  

“Shall we?” he asked once he parked, unclicking his seatbelt.  

“Eager?” you laughed as you followed his lead.  

He snorted softly, the dimple appearing on his cheek just as he opened his car door to slide out.  

“It’s different than the picture,” he remarked as you followed him to the door.  

“Yeah,” you squeezed past him to punch in the lockbox code. “I don’t remember it seeming so…”

“Creepy?”  His light tone had you chuckling as you opened the door to step into the entryway.  

Harry stood beside you, and you both quietly took in the old home -- which somehow also did not look that old in the photos.  

“This is different.” You looked over at him, catching his wide eyes and raised brows just before he reigned his reaction back in.  

“Uh, a little,” he agreed, both of you unmoving.  

The place was definitely creepy and that definitely didn’t come across in the pictures.  If anything, it had looked a bit outdated, maybe required some TLC. But now standing in the space, something just felt off. Maybe that was what Harry had meant when he said he would know once he saw the place.

You already knew that this place wasn’t going to be it.  

“I think they did something to the pictures. Enhanced them or something,” you spoke as you started to walk further into the home.  

Harry stayed close beside you. The floor creaked with every one of your steps, and there was a cold draft coming from somewhere unseen that sent a chill down your spine.  

“They must have,” he agreed. “Pretty amazing photoshop skills.”  

You breathed a laugh just before you gasped, a high pitched yelp escaping your mouth as you jumped towards Harry.

“Holy shit!” Harry exclaimed, one of his arms snaked around you instantly as he yanked you roughly just as the floor started to cave in, both of you stumbling back as a few wooden planks broke through with a bang as they clattered below into the basement.  

“Oh my god,” you breathed, looking down at the gaping hole in the floor.  

“You okay?” Harry checked from beside you.  

You didn’t register how close you were until that moment, looking up at him as your body pressed against his. One of his arms was still wrapped around your waist and his other gripped your bicep. It was like one of those moments that people talk about where everything around you stills -- too hyper focused on the green of his eyes and the warmth exuding from his chest before you realized how close your faces were.  

The floor cracked again, pulling you from your revere as Harry yanked you back once more.  

“Come on,” you urged as you pulled him by the sleeve of his soft hoodie toward the front door, quickly making your way outside, not letting go of his arm until you were in the stone driveway.  You let go of him in favor of laying a hand over your chest, feeling the ridiculously fast pace of your heartbeat as you tried to catch your breath. “What the fuck?”    

“Are you okay?” He took a step towards you, his footstep causing the rocks beneath his sneakers to crunch loudly.  

“I literally almost fell in that thing,” you pointed back towards the front door behind him. “That’s not normal! Or legal!” You could feel your heart racing still as you spoke. “They’re supposed to give warning if there are structural issues! I’m literally gonna report them and their asshole realtor,” you spewed as you started to dig through your bag for your phone. “Shit,” you breathed as you looked back up at him. “I’m sorry, Harry. I really didn’t know it was like this. I wouldn’t have wasted your time if I did.”    

“Alright,” he chuckled. “Relax. It’s fine, don’t worry about me.”  His voice was melodic and calm as he took the final two steps towards you. “Just breathe for a minute, yeah?”

You met his eyes, watching as he demonstrated taking a deep breath to encourage you to do the same. And you did, inhaling deeply as you kept your eyes on his, your shoulders raising as your chest expanded before releasing it slowly through your nose.  

“Good?”

You nodded in response.  

“Good. You can report them in the car. Let’s just get out of here, yeah? It’s giving me the creeps. Waiting for Freddy Krueger to come up behind me or something.”  

He was smiling softly by the end of it, pulling a small smile from your lips in return. “Yeah, okay.”  

“Okay.” He nodded in the direction of the car. “I’ll lock the door.”

You stood in your spot as he walked back to the front door to pull it closed and close up the lock box, having seen you do it enough times by now to know how it worked. You watched the way he walked back to you, hips first with his hands stuffed back in his hoodie pocket. You noticed the bottom of his jeans were cuffed, some kind of endeared twinge running through you.  

“I’m starving,” he spoke once he was close enough, slowing down so you could turn and walk back to the car beside him. “Came straight from a meeting.”

“This is your meeting attire?” You blurted the question without thinking, looking down at your feet, cringing a bit the moment it left your mouth. But when he barked a loud laugh, your head whipped up to see the dimple in his cheek and the crinkles around his eye. And you couldn’t help but laugh with him, like when something isn’t even that funny but you laugh because someone else is laughing, when their laugh is just contagious.  

“Yeah,” he finally spoke once he composed himself, an air of humor still present in his voice. “My meetings are really laid back and always with the same person.”  

“Does that person also enjoy the Spice Girls?” You raised a brown in reference to his hoodie, finally realizing what the design in the center of his chest was.  

He looked down at his hoodie dramatically, a deep frown forming on his lips that you could still tell was playful despite what he may have been trying to put forth. “Oh, yes. Doesn’t everyone?” He raised a brow in your direction, making you as you walked to the passengers side of his car.  

He spoke up again just as you opened the car door, looking at you over the top of the hood from where he stood on the drivers side. “Wanna grab something to eat?”

You were surprised by his invitation, even if you didn’t show it. He was looking at you so casually, but he was unmoving, waiting for a response. You almost said no, like a typical factory response. But you hesitated, because the truth was... you were enjoying his company. For the first time, it didn’t feel like you were pulling teeth with him and there wasn’t that awkward silence that hung in the air like it typically did. You wanted to build off that. At the very least, it would make working together easier in the long run.

That’s how you reasoned with yourself. You just wanted to get to know him... for work. As a client.    

“Yeah, I know a place nearby.”  

A/N: Happy friday babes! Thank you so much for reading! I appreciate every single one of you for taking the time to read my writing. I would love to hear your thoughts and theories! Don’t forget to reblog if you enjoyed it!

Thank you to my loves @oh-honey-styles @andwhenshesays @idk-who-she-is​ @yougotthathandledrightquan​ @haute-romance-quotidienne​ @real-work-of-art​ for all the hyping and hand holding. 

talk to me || masterlist

[  p a r t   f i v e  ]

[anyberry]

Domestic Andreil

It was agreed that Aaron and Kaitlyn would get to live in the house after they got married during their last year of university.

Neil and Andrew decided to rent an apartment near the stadium of the team that they played for.

They could not find a place that was furnished, close to the stadium, has parking near the building, and that did not look like it was crumbling.

When they were about to call quits, they found an apartment for really cheap. The apartment had a large living room leading to a wide balcony, wooden floors, a kitchen with a gas stove and a hidden washing machine, a renovated bathroom, and a completely silent bedroom.

The only catch was that it was completely furniture free.

Neil did not see it as an issue while Andrew was against it. He just said he did not want the hassle of getting new furniture when they might move away.

But when they were offered long term contracts, the excuse did not work anymore. 

Andrew was still against, but he agreed when they agreed that they would keep the place pretty bare and would get things as they would begin to really need them.

That is how when a hoard of Foxes showed up for a house warming party, they found it comedically empty. 

They had one mattress (no bed frame), two monoblock chairs, and a ridiculously bright lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.

The kitchen had counters and cabinets, which is where they hid everything owned. All their clothes were still in unpacked suitcases since they didn't have hangers in their closet.

Kevin: Seriously?

Andrew: It is called minimalism. Look it up.

Allison straight up turned to leave, but Renee grabbed her hand before she could.

Neil said that he did not mind since he lived out of a bag most of his life. Andrew pretended like he did not understand what everyone had a problem with.

They ultimately had a fun evening, eating pizza out of a cardboard box and drinking booze out of plastic cups.

The clean up was easy.

As time went on, living like that was increasingly more difficult.

There were certain basic comforts that they didn't have.

Like having a table to put food on.

Or not having space to put away anything.

Or having nowhere comfortable to sit on except a mattress on the floor.

Soon they began fighting over little things.

"Why can't we get a strainer?"

"We don't need one."

One evening very late evening, Neil sat down next to Andrew on the balcony. Nice cream and booze in hand.

When finally confronting him, Neil picked Andrew until he understood him.

For Andrew, it was hard to face the fact that he moved in with a long-term partner to build a life together. 

Because it was not something that should have ever happened to him.

If something went wrong, it was just one packed suitcase.

"What if I want to plan a life with you?"

"I am losing count already."

"No, you are not."

"1089..."

They decided to take a long weekend and buy some things to start off.

Coincidentally, there was a flea market over that weekend that promised to have large furniture pieces.

They went in with the goal of getting some basic things.

That is how they left with a large dresser, a kitchen table, several mismatched chairs, several baskets, a massive carpet, and a sugar bowl that is shaped like a naked dwarf with a toadstool for a dick.

"Why?!"

"Sparks joy."

Next week was a trip to IKEA. Again the plan was to get a few basics.

Lol

They left with an armchair, a couch, baking tins, soft pillows, curtains, a coffee table, several candles, and various other small things. Including a strainer.

Life got a lot more comfortable and the space became more homely. 

Soon, they visited several thrift shops. 

Neil was still building a wardrobe that had more than five things in total.

Andrew did not say anything when Neil tried on a worn-out band shirt with roll-up jeans. 

He soon acquired several t-shirts, flannel shirts, sweaters, shorts, jeans, and hoodies.

Soon they acquired little personal things.

Posters. Collected tickets. Printed photographs. Rocks, shells, and pine cones from trips. Postcards. Books. 

The Foxes came for Neil's birthday several months after their first visit.

Nicky: I think we got the wrong apartment. These people have hooks to keep house keys.

They were also very surprised two find two of the most battered and scary cats they have ever seen.

[twilightfansofcolor]

Black!Bella (New Moon edition)

wc: 1.7k

So the summer is here and Bella is on cloud 9

Without a doubt one of the best summers ever

When her leg healed up, Charlie took her hiking just like when she was little, or they’d go to La Push to look at the tidepools or they’d just go to Seattle to visit the aquarium

Sleepovers with Jessica and Angela where they’d stay up watching Studio Ghibli movies, binge watching the Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar YouTube channels, giving each other makeovers and giving each other recommendations about skin care products

Long conversations with Renee about college

Renee thinks Bella should try a school in New York

Charlie wants her to go an HBCU

She never told Charlie that she filled out applications for NYU and a school in Louisiana that she liked, and that she was expecting to hear back from them soon

Bella and Edward would spend hours at their favorite bookstore chain in Port Angeles looking through the summer releases

They went there so much they were offered membership cards where they’d get 15% off every purchase

Sleepovers with Alice where Bella would constantly ask her what she saw in that C*nfederate 

Bella’s first few weeks of school fall around the same time as her birthday

She doesn’t have that many classes with Edward or Alice which she finds odd since Forks High is a small school

 Bella’s birthday is pretty much canon

Renee gave her a gift box of her favorite Godiva chocolate, makeup and skincare products while Charlie got her a Nintendo Switch with a few games so they could play against each other on Mario Kart.

The birthday party is still the same and ends in disaster 

Edward starts distancing himself from her, and so does Alice

Alice doesn’t wait for her outside her art class so they could walk to physics 

Something is wrong, Bella can feel it in her bones even though Angela and Jessica tell her that it’s probably nothing

Bella is bracing for whatever is coming. Could it be Victoria seeking revenge and Edward doesn’t know how to tell her?

Something worse, much worse

Bella listens to him tell her that they have to leave Forks and it takes her a minute to realize that the Cullens have to leave town without her

“In the hospital, you said you’d stay!”

“As long as it was safe for you, and after what happened at the party, it’s clearly not safe for me to be around you, Bella.”

Edward kisses her on the forehead one last time before he leaves, probably forever 

Charlie isn’t home from work so she just works on dinner in a daze with the television volume up as loud as she can stand it, NCIS blaring from the living room

Charlie confronts her when he finds out that the Cullens left town and that’s when she just cries, acknowledging it for the first time in hours

The following weeks after his departure are touch and go. 

She goes weeks without getting her hair braided, and just keeps it in a bun/poof 

Bella doesn’t wear makeup no matter how many times Charlie tries to entice her with the Vogue YouTube channel

“C’mon Bella, you love Saweetie,” Charlie said as if she were a toddler again, trying to get her to eat Cauliflower 

It isn’t until Charlie calls her mom that she snaps out of it and Renee tells her what she needs to know

“Bella, I know you’re going through a hard time, but you have other things you need to be worrying about. It hurts, I know, but moping around ain’t gonna bring him back, and you’re not the first person to be dumped. You’re getting ready to graduate high school in less than a year, and you need to start thinking about your future.”

Renee had never spoken to her like that before but she realized her mom was right, she did need to start thinking about her plans for the future

After giving herself two more days to cry it out, Bella gets right back to business

She’s blasting Flo Milli while she gets ready for school, gets a new wardrobe and is now tutoring kids in school and La Push for some extra cash

Which is how she runs into Jacob again

She helps him with biology which turns into Charlie coming home and finding the two of them watching Guy's Grocery Games and arguing about which contestant they think is getting the boot next

Not that he’s complaining. He’s secretly hoping they’d get together

One Friday night in February, Bella invites him to the movies with a few friends from school

And it starts to go downhill when Jacob threatens Mike, who got sick halfway through the movie

Jacob reveals his feelings for Bella but she has to reject his advances

She loves Jacob, he’s been so sweet to her, but she cannot handle another relationship when she’s barely over the first one

When Bella calls him on Saturday morning to apologize, he doesn’t pick up the phone or answer any of her texts but she thinks nothing of it, chalking it up to him being sick

The next time she calls, she calls the house and Billy tells her Jacob is feeling better but that he’s not up for visitors, so she takes matters into her own hands

She spends the entire morning parked outside his house waiting for him

Bella doesn’t recognize him, he’s a lot bigger, his hair is shorter and his usually warm brown eyes look cold

Jacob tells her to go home and not to come back and Bella knows that Sam finally got him like he did Embry and he proceeds to tell her how he’s not good enough for her like the Cullens and alludes to the fact that he knows the Cullens’ secret

“You’ve been lying to everyone. Charlie… but you can’t lie to me, Bella. Go home. Or you’re gonna get hurt.”

She just stands there in the cold rain, getting soaked from head to toe, and she can’t tell if she’s crying or if it’s just the rain hitting her face

She has a strange dream involving a brown wolf the size of a horse, Jacob, and surprisingly, Edward

Bella confronts Jacob again, this time almost getting into it with Paul who turns into a wolf right in front her

Embry and Jared take her back to Sam’s house where she meets Emily

Bella and Emily get along well, and she finds out Emily is from the Makah tribe in Neah Bay, but she’s an elementary school math teacher’s assistant at the tribal school

She’s relieved when Jacob comes back to the house, safe and free of scratches and they walk along the beach and catch up

Bella is just happy that her friend is back and she vents about what’s really been bothering her: the encounter with Laurent, saying that Victoria is still looking for him

“You don’t have to worry about them. We took down the one with the locs easy enough.”

It doesn’t register for a minute so she just stands there, trying to make sense of it. “Y-you… killed Laurent?”

At this point, Bella is crying with tears of joy, her mascara smearing with tears and Jacob just holding her

Their friendship is back to normal in no time and pick up right where they left off

Bella has to remind Charlie, Angela and Jessica several times that she’s not dating Jacob 

Not that she hasn’t thought about it

It would be so easy, and both of their dads would be happy, and she wouldn’t have to lie like she does with Charlie and any of her friends

One day they’re just driving around, goofing off when she sees a group of kids jumping from the cliff

She’s getting her phone out to dial 911 before Jake stops her and tells her that they’re just cliff diving

Jacob offers to take her sometime, maybe when it’s warmer out, promising they’ll start at the lower level

It’s dark when they pull up to her house and Bella starts to invite him in for dinner when she notices a familiar car parked down the street

Bella remembers everything about that car, the quiet engine as she sat in the back seat while his C*nfederate brother drove them to Phoenix, the feel of the leather seats as she slept.

They go in anyway, and Bella is surprised to see Alice sitting on the couch reading a magazine, but she needs Bella’s help because Edward is in trouble

The audacity. The sheer fucking audacity

“I haven’t heard from you in almost a year. You avoided me in the halls, you blocked my number and my email, but now when you reappear from thin air I’m supposed to help you? What do I get out of this?”

Alice insists that Edward needs Bella’s help, that she can’t do this without her

At this point Bella knows that Charlie put a tracking device on her phone, and she’s not going to risk it

Jacob begging her not to go, and she really doesn’t want to go either

Instead she writes a quick letter telling Edward not to do what he’s thinking of doing just because they’re not together, saying that she’s happy with how her life is and she gives it to Alice to pass along

Despite EVERYTHING that happened, she wants him to be safe, so Bella gives Alice the letter

“What does this mean? Would they come back?” Jacob asked after Alice had left.

Bella knows what would happen if all of the Cullens came back: more young Quileute kids turning into wolves, and she doesn’t want that to happen, but she can’t stop it from happening either

“I really have no clue, but that’s their decision, and I have no hand in that game.”

It takes three days before the Cullens return to Forks, and she’s facing Edward again one day in the woods behind her house

Bella just tells him everything she’s been feeling since he left and more

“There isn’t any hope for us, there probably never was, and we can’t pretend any of this never happened, Edward. You know that. We can’t go back to normal, because it wasn’t normal in the first place. You were right the first time, and I should’ve listened.”

It goes without saying that Bella is going to keep the secret, but she’s also going to move on with her life, and wants Edward to do the same

Alexa, play “Clean” by Taylor Swift

[ceruleanmusings]

settle the score

Direct followup to Place Your Bets because i need more cute, bantering, flirty Melisaac in my life and there should have been more downtime moments in Teen Wolf where they get to be actual teens. Though this is set in their college years, the thought still applies.

Tag: @princessofdarkness12​ @ocfairygodmother​ @mystic-scripture​ @thegoodmogadorian​ @foxesandmagic​ @lareiism​ @witchofinterest​ @zadien​ @sgtbuckyybarnes​ @ben-bcrnes​

Isaac was ready for her before she even attempted to tiptoe behind him.

He couldn’t help allowing his wolf hearing to kick in; he wanted to know where she was at any given moment. They didn’t have much time together, after all. Plus, being in Vermont where there was a decidedly nonexistent werewolf population running around, he didn’t have to look over his shoulder every time he attended class waiting for death to inconvenience him so he was admittedly a little rusty and needed the practice—though he had a sneaking suspicion selkies were something he’d need to keep his eye on if whispers around the lake dwellers were anything to be taken seriously. (He made a mental note to bring that up later).

Still, when Mel launched herself at him, colliding with his back, hooking her arms and legs around his neck and waist, he reacted accordingly: he nearly dropped her.

“Isaac!” she all but squealed in his ear, clinging tighter.

Chuckling, he curled his arms around her knees, hoisting her higher on his back. “Sheesh, if that’s all I have to do to make you sound like that...”

Her knees squeezed around his waist, pressing into him. “Dropping me on my head isn’t the best way to go.” Her words vibrated off his neck; she buried her face into the crook of it much like she did when they lay down together. Damn, it’d been too long. “Don’t be a sore loser.”

He scoffed. “I’m not. Only because you just barely managed to beat us...”

“Barely nothing! I got that last goal in fair and square! Your goalie left me a mile-wide space! Remind me to thank him. I’ll bake him some cookies.” He didn’t have to see her face to know she had a big grin adorning her lips, a teasing glint in her eye. He’d become attuned to hearing her facial expressions through the phone. It was a blessing and a curse. Not quite like seeing the same thing in person.

And he wanted to see her.

He knelt, allowing her to slide off his back. Turning, a beaming smile burst onto his face at the sight of her, at the slightly faded maroon sweatshirt hanging to her thighs, the long arms danging over her hands, the black socks up to her knees sticking out her trusty paint-splattered docs. Somehow she looked smaller beneath the sports building looming behind her. Licking his lips, his eyes roamed her from head to toe and he took a step forward, pinching the sleeve of the hoodie. “I’ve been looking for that,”

“Seriously?” Her eyebrow crinkled. “You should have known I had it. I couldn’t go off to college without taking you with me. And since I couldn’t take you with me, I went for the next best thing.” She brought the sleeves up to her face and inhaled, lifting up on the tips of her toes. “Still smells like you too. I always wear it after a game.”

He moved his hands down to where the hem of his old Beacon Hills lacrosse sweatshirt brushed against her skin. “Hmm. Does your campus have a rule against public indecency?” he asked, rubbing his thumbs against her legs, pressing his forehead against hers.

“As much as I would love to find that out the fun way, you owe me a date.” Pressing her finger into his chest, she pushed him away. He grasped her hand before she put too much space between them, lacing their fingers together beneath the large sleeve. “So let’s go! I’m starving.” She marched forwards, pulling him behind her. He fell into an easy pace behind her.

Isaac let out a long sigh. “You have to tell me where to go.”

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Hey, that wasn’t part of the bet.”

“I don’t know my way around here, Mels,” he pointed out, “you do.”

Isaac nearly collided with her when she stopped abruptly. “Nuh-uh, no way. I won the bet fair and square and you’re renee...reene...rine...you’re taking it back!” A pout briefly settled on her face and then her eyes lit up and she gave a little hop. He really missed her. “Ooh! Actually, I know the perfect bar we can go to.”

“You know I can’t get drunk, right?”

“I’m counting on it. I want you entirely sober for later,” she explain, her words and intentions so blunt, his brain shut down and he was left blinking at her. “But for now, we’re going to have another bet to settle this. It’s a barcade so they have a bunch of games we can play. Loser pays for dinner and we shall see, once and for all, who the real winner is. ...Even though my team kicked your team’s ass.”

“Okay.” Isaac rubbed his chin, pretending to think her offer over. “But what if I say that I let you win?”

She began to walk backwards, lifting her chin, looking him in the eye. He felt it all the way down to his toes. “Then you better prepare to get on your knees and beg for my forgiveness.”

He smirked. “I’ll get on my knees for a different reason; I’m sure either outcome will please you.” Their arms extended as she kept walking backwards; he caught up to her, lifting his arm to spin her around once like a ballerina before draping his arm around her shoulder, right above the large white letters of LAHEY on the back of the sweatshirt, pulling her into his side.

Honestly, he didn’t care where they went or what they did so long as he could shove as much time with her as possible in the next sixteen hours. He had to catch an early flight back to Vermont after being knocked out of the tournament. Besides, he had something important he wanted to ask her.

[brywrites]

Partners in Crime

A/N: This is one of the earliest Reid x Reader stories I wrote and never published, and I figured, why not? Reid and the Reader often go undercover as a couple to bait an unsub, and this time things don’t quite go as planned.  CW: for non-consensual behavior, mild physical abuse, reference to rape

-

It’s always the two of them. She figures it’s because they’re so close in age, and such good friends. After months of working together, and plenty of free time spent hanging out, the chemistry comes naturally. Whenever there’s a case involving couples, and the profile alone isn’t enough, she and Reid end up masquerading as boyfriend and girlfriend, husband and wife, all varieties of people madly in love with each other. Sometimes it’s enough to just lure out an unsub, twice they’ve been kidnapped, but never for long. They do good work together. Garcia has even taking to calling them Partners in Crime, or The Dream Team.

Deep down she knows it’s not just her profiling abilities or friendship with Spencer that allows her to play the part so well. That chemistry has become absolutely natural, too much so. Long after the game is done, she finds herself stealing glances at him, staying up late at night wondering what it would be like to really be in love with him. It’s an impossible dream. Reid is brilliant, handsome, and her co-worker. Strictly off limits. And yet those fantasies continue with every smile he gives her, and a part of her hopes that maybe, maybe…

“Baltimore PD have requested our help with a serial killer,” Hotch announces in the conference room. “Over the last six months, six people have kidnapped and murdered. There’s evidence of torture and sexual sadism, though preliminary ME reports don’t indicate any sign of rape.”

“Why would they think it’s consensual?” JJ asks, skeptical. They’ve encountered incompetent medical examiners before.

“Because of the victims he chooses,” the unit chief says, nodding at Garcia to move to the next slide. Six photos pop up on screen, in groups of two. “Jeremy and Renee Lagher, Tyrone and Nina Davenport, and Louisa and Ryan Sheffield.”

From across the room, Y/N catches Reid’s eye, the two of them realizing where this is likely headed. “He’s using married couples,” Rossi observes. “Is there any indication to how he finds his victims?”

“Social networking,” Garcia chimes in. The internet has made it all too easy for predators to hunt. Oversharing can be fatal. “The couples all used Instagram, had no privacy settings, and shared photos that made it clear they were married. Their last posts were just before they went missing, and all of them used the location feature to check-in at a local restaurant.” The team throws out ideas and questions, possibilities about how he finds them and why he chooses them. It seems to be the general consensus that he must stake out the restaurant, and wait for the couple to leave after dinner.

Y/N is distracted through the discussion, unable to ignore the feeling that there’s something Hotch is keeping from them. Sure enough, the chief has one last thing to add before they get ready to head out. “Given the lack of evidence and how this unsub targets his victims, I’ve spoken with the Baltimore PD and we’ve come to the conclusion that the best way to find him is bait him. Reid, Y/L/N, are you up for this?”

The question is less of a request, more rhetorical in nature. What choice do they have? It’s their job to hunt down criminals, no matter what it takes to find them. And so they agree. On the plane, once the briefing is complete, the go about preparing for the undercover work. Garcia has worked some Photoshop magic, pulling stock photos and personal pictures alike to create two different accounts for Spencer and Y/N Fitzgerald. Over time they’ve gotten into the habit of choosing last names inspired by famous literary and scientific couples. Scrolling through the one created for her, she tries to memorize the details. They’ve been married for two years, they live just west of Baltimore in a studio apartment, they have a cat. She is a librarian, he’s a high school chemistry teacher.

Since no other couples have been reported missing, the police want them to get to work as soon as possible. That evening, she slips on a black dress and a pair of heels, her hair and makeup done much nicer than she would typically take the time for. If this is going to work, she needs to look the part. Reid is waiting for her in the lobby of their hotel, wearing a simple suit and a smile that widens at the sight of her. “You look beautiful,” he tells her.

“Thanks.” She can feel herself blushing, and reminds herself that this is all a part of the game, of the job. None of this is real. Still, when he holds out his hand for her to take, she can’t push back the happiness that bursts in her chest. They walk the few blocks to the restaurant that way, close enough that their shoulders touch. Once he’s put in a reservation, they stand in the dim light of the waiting area to take a photo. Reid wraps his arm around her, holding her close to his side. At the last second, he presses a kiss to her temple just as she snaps a photo on her phone.

“How was that?” he asks. Too good, she thinks. In the picture they look just like a couple, very much in love. It’s soon posted to Instagram, documented along with the rest of their fake relationship. She adds their location just as a waiter comes to whisk them away to a table. Dinner is wonderful, filled with long gazes and laughter and moments where his knee will bump hers, or her fingers will rest over his hand just a little too long. This is just a show, just in case the unsub is lying in wait somewhere inside. It’s a damn good performance, more convincing than it needs to be. Does she really need to look at him that way? Does he really need to give her that devastating grin? They steal all these small moments for themselves, lingering in a soft state of bliss.

It’s only temporary, and soon enough they’re on their way out the door once more. “I’m surprised you weren’t able to meet with your friend,” he says, trying to sound casual. Every so often his eyes dart along the sidewalk, trying to check their surroundings without making it obvious he’s looking.

“Me too, but I suppose plans can always change.”

Reid starts to respond, but the words never come. Instead, a hand clamps over her mouth, and something cold presses hard against her head. Metal, round. The barrel of a gun. “Do what I say,” a voice growls. “Or she dies.” Neither of them are armed, and he has no choice but to comply. A man in a ski mask leads them to a dark colored sedan, yanking open the door of the backseat. Before shoving them inside, he reaches into the pocket of Reid’s suit jacket to extract his cell phone. The device, along with her purse, is tossed onto the sidewalk, leaving them no way to contact the team as the car speeds away.

-

It’s hard to say for sure how much time has passed since they’ve arrived in the dingy cellar. Hours at least, though not a whole day. The room is dirty and cold, and Reid insists on giving her his jacket. He holds her hand still, and that small amount of physical contact is a silent promise between them that everything is going to be okay. They haven’t heard from their captor since the abduction. Does the team know they’re missing? Is Garcia trying to track them down? What’s going to happen to them?

The metal door swings open, and the man enters. His mask is gone, revealing a middle-aged white man. He is balding with a cruel sneer and empty eyes. One hand holds a gun, the other a bag surely full of the tools he tortures his victims with. Their profile was spot on. “Here’s how this is going to go,” he says. “I’m going to give you instructions. You will comply exactly. If you refuse, or mess up, I’ll kill you. If you try to escape, I’ll kill you. Do you understand?” They both nod. “Good. Kiss your husband, Mrs. Fitzgerald.”

“How do you know our name?” Reid demands, though they already know the answer. It’s like chess, all about making the right moves.

“No questions,” the man growls. “Do as I say.” Tentatively, Y/N stands on her toes to close the distance between them, kissing him gently. Chaste, soft, nothing that requires too much of either of them. But that isn’t good enough for their abductor. “Do it like you mean it.”

So she kisses him harder, deeper. If she closes her eyes, it’s easy to pretend that they aren’t here at gunpoint, that it’s just the two of them, that this kiss really does mean something. That this is the moment she’s been imagining a thousand times. He returns it, his hands settling on the small of her back in order to pull her closer. “Now, hit her.” At the sound of the bald man’s voice, Reid freezes, then pulls away. An apology is written on his face, and she braces herself for the slap that stings her cheek and sends her stumbling backwards a few steps. This isn’t going to be a romantic fantasy, apparently.

“Take off her dress, Mr. Fitzgerald.” On his tongue, their names are taunts and not identifiers.

Reid hesitates, but she gives him the slightest of nods. If they’re going to get out of this, they have to play along. It’s their only hope of staying alive long enough for the team to find them. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. His hands reach up her back, unzipping her dress in one fluid motion before easing it down her body. The black fabric falls in a pile at her feet, and she shivers. Standing in only her bra and underwear, the air is colder on her skin now, but it’s terribly unnerving for him to see her so exposed like this.

It isn’t supposed to be like this. This isn’t supposed to be the first time he kisses her or sees her undress. This isn’t the fantasy she replays on the jet each time they close a case and stop pretending to be a couple.

“Touch her,” the man commands, pointing at her chest. This is easily the most humiliating experience they’ve been put through since Hotch first started pairing them up for assignments like this, and it’s quickly devolving into the most humiliating thing they’ve been through, period. Any chance she has hoped for at some future relationship is dashed away. After something like this, how will they ever be able to look at each other the same way?

She sends a silent prayer to the team to find them soon, then meets Reid’s eyes. “It’s okay,” she says quietly. “Spencer, it’s okay.”

The pained look on his face cuts her deep. Is he repulsed by the situation? Or by her? She tries to keep as still as she can, tense under the scrutiny of the bald man. Reid’s hand covers her breast and she oscillates between trying to pretend she’s not in this body, and trying to pretend that she is but it’s just the two of them here. Every so often they are directed in new ways, as if this is just a play and they’ve become actors in some sort of twisted production. It’s quite possible this is reminiscent of an event that occurred in the unsub’s life at some point. Reid is instructed to nibble her ear, she to grope at his backside. Every so often an interruption demanding a hit or a punch. His commands become increasingly more rough, Y/N receiving most of the abuse while Reid tries to be as careful as he can with her, touching her gently, trying to make it look like a slap is harder than it is.

“Remove her bra, then take off your pants.” No no no no no. She knows where this is going. She knows how this scene is supposed to end. They both balk for a brief moment, until the click of the gun cocking jolts them back to their senses.

Reid is shaking his head, but she squeezes his hand. He can feel how badly she’s trembling. This isn’t pleasant for either of them, but her voice is firm. “Do what he says. Just do what he says Spencer. We’re going to get out of here.”

Just as he reaches towards her, there’s a loud bang from somewhere beyond the open door. “Ronald Horton, FBI!” Morgan’s voice echoes down to them. As the man – Horton – turns away to see what’s happening, Y/N bends down to pull her dress back on, Reid pulling his jacket back over her shoulders so she won’t have to waste time fiddling with the zipper. She’s grateful that he’s looking out for her, trying to save her any embarrassment. It’s hard to recall if she has ever been more relieved to see her team storming down a flight of stairs.

Hotch and Morgan drag Horton away in handcuffs, and Rossi turns to the couple who stand together, visibly shaken by the turn of events. “Everything okay?” he asks.

“It is now,” Y/N sighs.

-

Ronald Horton is violent sociopath whose marriage broke apart two months before the killings began. Oddly enough, his ex-wife was the more dominant one in the relationship. To keep up appearances, he relented to her physicality, though didn’t spare her the emotional abuse he was so apt at causing. The murders were a fantasy of his, using surrogates the enact the revenge he never had the chance to. He is booked downtown, and after a long day all of the agents are relieved when Hotch informs them they’ll be staying in Baltimore one more night to catch up on sleep.

She tosses and turns in her bed. Her mind races through everything that happened, and everything that could’ve. If the team hadn’t arrived then, what was he going to force them to do? How far would they have to go? She tries to untangle the violation, the awfulness of it, from the fact that the romantic actions were things she had wanted from Reid. But not like that. Never like that.

Her skin doesn’t feel like her own. She still feels exposed, wrapped under two blankets. She wants to forget it, but she doesn’t want to forget him.  

There is a knock on the door late that night. At this hotel, sets of two rooms are connected by a door in the wall, and she knows who is on the other side before she opens it. “Hi,” Reid says softly. “Did I wake you up?”

“Not at all,” she replies. “I couldn’t sleep.” She motions for him to come in, and he does so somewhat reluctantly.

“Um, listen, Y/L/N, I just wanted to apologize for everything that happened before. That must’ve been… uncomfortable for you, and I’m really sorry.” His pause makes it clear that uncomfortable is an understatement, but neither of them knows what word to place there.

She tries to brush it off. “It’s fine, Reid. Really, it is. This isn’t the first time we’ve done something like this.” It is however, the first time they’ve had to be quite so physical with each other. There’s no reason for him to come apologizing though, it wasn’t his fault. The blame belongs solely to Ronald Horton.

“It’s not fine, though. What happened wasn’t okay. And I am so sorry for hurting you.”

“I had to hurt you too,” she says. Not as much. But neither of them were able to consent to what was done to them.

“I just… I feel bad.” He sighs and looks down at the floor. Conversation between them has never felt so strained. “Doing this, it’s embarrassing,” Reid mumbles.

The awkwardness she feels turns to anger, to hurt. Perhaps it was her that he had a problem with before, not the situation itself. After months of friendship, the idea of being with her is somehow abhorrent to him, and when she likes him so much, that knowledge is like a punch to the face. “If you’re so embarrassed by me, maybe you should stop agreeing to go undercover with me,” she retorts, starting to storm away from him. She’s too tired to deal with this.

“Y/L/N!” he cries. When she doesn’t stop, a strong hand grabs her wrist, pulling her back. “Y/N. Please, wait. That’s not what I meant. There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s me. You always have to pair up with me, and I don’t want to embarrass you. I’m sorry I-” He’s cut off by her mouth on his, kissing him hard. Like she means it. Because she does.

“That’s how you think I feel about you?” she gasps, when he pulls away. “Why do you think it’s so easy for me to pretend? Why do you think I never complain about the assignment? I like being with you. And I really like you.”

“You do?” Positively astonished, he is.

“Spencer, I love you. God, I love you so much. How can you not see that? If anything, you should be the one embarrassed by me.” He’s so smart, so good-looking.

“That would be impossible,” he says. Reid takes her hands in his, taking half a step towards her. He’s so tall, looming over practically, but his eyes are kind. Then he leans down to kiss her again. The depth of it surprises her, when he slips his tongue into her mouth. In response she bites his bottom lip gently, enticing a sigh from him.

“Is this okay?” he asks.

“I want to feel like I have a choice again in who touches me and how,” she answers. “And I want it to be you.”

It occurs to her they could be moving too fast, but when he moves his hands to her hips and she tangles her fingers in his hair, she decides she doesn’t care. After all, they’ve been dating for months. Fake-dating albeit, but every lie has a bit of the truth in it. And besides, it just feels too good to stop.

“I don’t think it’s quite fair,” she manages to find the air to say, “that you’ve seen me undress, but I haven’t seen you.” Her words give him pause, and Y/N reaches up to loosen his tie, pulling it away before starting on his shirt. The row of buttons is slowly undone, slower than is necessary. She wants to savor this, steadily revealing more of him as she goes. Reid shrugs out of his shirt, and she trails a hand down his torso, his skin warm beneath her fingertips. Feeling a little bolder, she places her lips on his neck, working her way down to his collarbone. Every soft moan spurs her on, until he captures her lips once more. It’s so good to finally touch him this way, to be touched by him. No instructions or unsubs or commands here. There’s only a warm room, dim light, and movements making up for lost time.

He’s pressed so close to her, close enough that she can feel him, hard against her. This has been so long in the making, she’s not surprised it doesn’t take long before he’s aroused. Especially not after all of the early physical stimulation between them. She’s feeling quite excited herself, the room too warm, her heart beating too fast, falling faster than she can keep up with. This man before her is like no one she’s ever met before, and she can’t remember loving someone as much as him. Needing someone as much as him. Reid’s hands slide up her sides until they find hold on the zipper of her dress. “Let’s get you out of that dress,” he murmurs.

This is how it was always supposed to be. Nothing about this is rough or difficult. In this hotel room, he is incredibly gentle with her, though his previous hesitation is gone. He knows what he wants now, they both do, and they’ve both given permission for it to happen. In a way, it’s like they are reclaiming every gesture they were forced to perform. These touches, theses feelings don’t belong to Ronald Horton. They belong to the two of them, tangled up together as they slowly explore the geography of the body. The fear is gone, wholly absent from their frantic exchanges. Love, desire, need, fills the place of that uncertainty and awkwardness.

He hurries to undo his belt, step out of his trousers. Taking full advantage of the opportunity, she teases the bulge in his boxers as he continues to find new places on her skin to place his lips, his tongue, his teeth. She tries to bite back a groan, knowing that walls are never quite as thick as they appear. Eventually she pulls him down the bed with her, and it takes only seconds before there’s no layers left between them. Just him, just her, just now.

It is even better than she’d imagined it would be. Spencer proves that he excels in every endeavor, this being no exception to the rule. It’s beautiful, the way he looks at her. How she wishes she had his eidetic memory, so as not to forget a single sensation. And when she calls out his name, when he answers with her own, nothing in the world has ever sounded so right. It seems over too soon, but they find themselves both breathless between the sheets, utterly delirious with joy. His hair is messier than usual, her face is flushed, but neither can stop staring at the other. Like stars in the night sky, it’s so hard to look away from something so wonderful.

“I think I’m in love with you,” he tells her. “I have been since the day it snowed in October, and you started a snowball fight with me on our way out of the office.”

“You lost horribly,” she says, laughing at the memory. Reid had been stunned by the unseasonably cold weather, and after hearing that he’d never had snow days growing up in Vegas, she promptly lobbed a snowball at his back. The ensuing war had been short, marked by short ceasefires so she could attempt to demonstrate proper snow packing techniques. As a term of surrender, he’d bought her hot chocolate, and the day was among her favorite memories of their friendship. This night would certainly have its own place in the rankings.

Spencer simply brushes her hair back, smiling at her. “I think I won, in the end.”

“Isn’t this technically against the rules?” she asks, thinking she should’ve read those fraternization policies a bit more closely.

“Mmm, probably. I suppose that makes us… what is it Garcia always calls us?”

“Partners in crime,” Y/N laughs. “I never thought that would be so true.” It’s absolutely worth it, she decides, because, “I love you, too.”

-

At breakfast the next day, Spencer seems visibly happier, and she can’t help but feel delighted at well. Once or twice she swears she catches Morgan looking at them funny, but she brushes it off. The older agent walks over to Reid and whispers something to him that makes their resident genius turn as pink as a pair of Garcia’s heels. Y/N is hoping things are still okay, until Morgan catches her on her way out the SUVs.

“Congratulations on finally breaking all that sexual tension. I thought you two were never going to get a clue. But hey, I guess life imitates art?” She’s tempted to slap the smirk off his face, but then Derek adds, “Thin walls, Y/L/N. But don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.”

[hannahsmusings]

Renee

*I get comfy on the bed as she starts chugging the water, not going to stop her since I was happy that she was drinking it, hoping to get her through two or three bottles before she went to bed* *I frown a bit when she said she doesn’t often have fun anymore, knowing she and Michael didn’t go out much unless it was with his friends or his coworkers, Jen often coming to the bar with us girls for dinner but always leaving before 10pm usually, hating that she was so sheltered by her fiancé but she seemed happy enough so none of us were going to question her, especially once they got engaged, we knew there was no hope for her to change and we all just accepted it* You deserve to have fun more often, cutie. *I furrow my brows as her phone rings, thinking it may of been one of the girls checking on her, my heart sinking and eyes rolling behind her back as she answers the phone the way she did, a wave of jealousy washing over me yet again as she called him ‘baby’, remembering that she used to call me that and I didn’t feel like he deserved it, really disliking him* *I roll my eyes again when he says she sounded drunk, the two of us never getting along and I was too drunk to pretend right now* *my eyes widen as she blames me, letting out a quiet scoff as she totally throws me under the bus, Michael already disliking me and this wasn’t going to make it any better* Hey. *I say shortly, shaking my head, leaning closer to the phone so he could hear me* It’s her bachelorette party, we all bought her drinks but she’s back at the hotel now and we’re going to eat and she’s going to go right to bed. Don’t worry, I’m taking care of her. Like always. *I tried to keep my tone neutral for Jen’s sake but I wanted him to know that I knew what I was doing with my best friend, I could handle her and care for her better than he ever could, not wanting him to argue my ability and act like I didn’t know what Jen needed before she even did, being so insync with her that it genuinely scared me sometimes, like I was in her head or something* 

__________________________________

*cocks a brow when she says that you bought her lots of drinks, it just reaffirming my dislike for you, always feeling like you were trying to take advantage of her, especially when I found out you were gay* Oh did she now? *asks before she says you were there, scoffing quietly as you greet me and grateful she was back at the hotel but not appreciating what you were insinuating, not thanking you and practically ignoring the words you had said* Who else is there? *asks, wanting to know if it was just you two together, having a bad feeling* -Michael

*completely oblivious to the tension, grinning happily at you and giggling* We drank and danced loads, and Renee took me home and we’re gonna have nachos!! *claps a little* - Jen

*raises a brow as she mentions food, frowning a little* Go easy, honey. Remember you still want to fit in your dress. Don’t go overboard. *chuckles a little, only half joking as it was important for me that Jen stayed in shape, ignoring the fact Renee was there as I wanted a moment alone with you* Make sure you get lots of sleep, Jenny and I’ll speak to you in the morning okay? Love you, sweetheart. -Michael

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Eccentricity [Chapter 5: I’ve Lived The Life And Paid For Every Crime]

Series Summary: Joe Mazzello is a nice guy with a weird family. A VERY weird family. They have a secret, and you have a choice to make. Potentially a better love story than Twilight.

Chapter Title Is A Lyric From: Some Kind Of Disaster by All Time Low.

Chapter Warnings: Language, references to drugs and violence.

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

Tagging: @queen-turtle-boiii​​​​ @bramblesforbreakfast​​​​​ @writerxinthedark​ @maggieroseevans​​​​​ @culturefiendtrashqueen​​​​​ @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark​​​​​ @escabell​​​​​ @im-an-adult-ish​​​​​ @someforeigntragedy​​​​​ @imtheinvisiblequeen​​​​​​​​​ @deacyblues​​​​​ ​ @tensecondvacation​​​​​​ @brianssixpence​​​​​ @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhye​ @some-major-ishues​ @haileymorelikestupid​ @loveandbeloved29​

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Easy Questions, Evasive Answers

“So it was nothing,” Archer said, glancing up from where he was tinkering around beneath the hood of my 1999 Honda Accord, checking hoses and belts and dipsticks. “This is pathetic, by the way. That you can’t change your own windshield wiper fluid. Dishonor on you. Dishonor on your cow.”

“I never had my own car in Phoenix!” I objected around a mouthful of a Starbucks pumpkin muffin, my first of the season. And that was true: Renee and I couldn’t afford one. “I didn’t have to learn about car things!”

“No, it’s great, I love it, I have a customer for life.”

“It was totally nothing,” I told him. Meaning the photograph in the newspaper article from 1979. Meaning my paranoia surrounding beautiful, brooding, certifiably lethal Benjamin Lee.

Not Lee, I reminded myself. Benjamin August Hardy, born November 3rd 1893.

“Was it really?” Archer asked, skeptical.

“Uhhh, you were the one who was making fun of me for thinking he might be a time traveler. Or a bigfoot.” Or a vampire.

“Yeah, okay, true...” He let the hood of the Honda fall shut with a bang, then wiped the muddy streaks of motor oil from his hands with a stained rag. “But you were freaked out. Like super freaked out.”

“I was, yeah. But it wasn’t him in the photo. I took another look, there were freckles and, uh, like, uh, some other things that didn’t match up.”

“Huh.” Archer watched me with an expression I couldn’t read. “I didn’t notice that.”

“Ben laughed about it. Probably thinks I’m an idiot. A stalker and an idiot.”

Archer smirked slyly. “He must not have held it against you too much. I’ve never seen that guy laugh in my life.”

I took a moody bite of my muffin, rolled my eyes, feigned shallow schoolgirl angst. “Trust me, he’s not my biggest fan.”

“Ohhhh, and this bothers you?” Archer sauntered over and stole a crumbling hunk out of the pumpkin muffin. “Does someone have a little crush on the gorgeous, grouchiest Lee?”

“Definitely not.” I sipped my chai latte, contemplative, debating telling him more.

“Uh oh. There’s something else, I can see it. Spill the tea, you walking college-chick-who’s-obsessed-with-fall stereotype.”

“I’m so excited! I’m going to get to see changing leaves this year!” Cacti are majestic, ancient, intrepid, and they remind me of home; but they never change. They’re like desert earth that way, like the ocean. Like vampires, actually.

“We’ll have to do all the Instagram-worthy stuff. Pumpkin patches. Hay mazes. Apple picking...you can even bring that Ben guy if you want to. If he promises not to murder me with his mysterious time-travelling demon powers.”

Oh, kid, you have no idea. “So...I am kind of into a Lee guy. But it’s not Ben.”

Archer gasped, inhaled pumpkin muffin morsels, bent over as he hacked them out of his lungs. “Who?!” he rasped, scandalized, and then coughed again.

I couldn’t help but smile as his name spilled out: “Joe.”

“Which one is that? The Middle Eastern Men’s Vogue model one?”

I laughed, shaking my head. “No, not Rami. He has a girlfriend, by the way.” And has for the past half a century.

Archer wiggled his eyebrows. “Just because there’s a goalie doesn’t mean you can’t score.”

“Oh my god, please never say that phrase again.”

“Joe is the...” He closed his eyes as he drummed his fingers against the metal workbench, trying to remember.

“The Italian one,” I finished for him.

“Ahhh. The annoying one.”

“He is not annoying! Why do people keep saying he’s annoying?! He’s hilarious, and sweet, and lowkey wicked smart, and, and, and...”

Archer whistled, grinning, his dark eyes sparkling. “Damn, girl. You do like him. You really like him.”

I sighed in defeat. “Okay. I really, really like him.”

“Like him as in would swipe right on Tinder, or like him as in you want to get married and honeymoon in Hawaii and have twelve pasty, angular babies?”

“Oh wow.” And for the first time, I was confronted with the singular enigma that was a future with Joe. Vampires had relationships with other vampires, obviously, even marriages; but that didn’t mean the same rules applied to humans. Did he like me? Could he like me? What would that even look like? How would it end? And it would have to end, of course, eventually. Unless somehow I stopped aging too. “More than just a right swipe. We’ll see about the twelve kids.”

“Just make sure he wraps it before he taps it. I’m too young to be an uncle.”

“Stop,” I pleaded, gulping down my latte, averting my gaze across Archer’s small garage filled with customers’ vehicles, pretending not to be intrigued and yearning and petrified. I couldn’t imagine hooking up with someone as faultless and—presumably—experienced as Joe and being anything but a disappointment. I’ve never hooked up with anyone. At all. Ever.

“What?” he asked, concerned, thieving another piece of my pumpkin muffin. Powdered sugar dusted his fingers like the snow I’ve only seen two or three times in my life.

“Nothing. I just really wish you went to Calawah too.”

“And give up all this easy money from clueless suburbs people like you?” Archer beamed, wily and proud and affectionate. “Not a fucking chance.”

No More Sad Spaghetti

Joe gawked in horror, chomping noisily on his Big League Chew bubblegum, as I unwrapped the peanut butter sandwich I’d packed for lunch. It was mostly cloudy in the early September sky overhead, but he was still wearing sunglasses. He had traded in his ubiquitous U Chicago apparel for a Cubs t-shirt. Squirrels scurried through the bigleaf maple trees that dotted the campus, snatching up acorns with tiny clawed paws, wriggling whiskered noses in our direction.

“What’s your problem?” I asked, taking a bite. “It’s not sad spaghetti.”

He blew a small pink bubble, then popped it with his teeth. “Yeah, but it’s...like...mangled.”

“It got trapped between my textbooks!” I protested. Admittedly, the accordion-shaped peanut butter sandwich—my vegetarian alternative to fishstick Thursday—kind of sucked.

“You can’t eat that. Oh my god. It’s making me so sad. Give it to the squirrels.” Joe pulled out his iPhone. “What’s your preferred pizza topping?”

“I can’t tell you,” I replied, tossing my sandwich towards the nearest tree. A hoard of squirrels immediately descended upon it and proceeded to battle for dominance, emitting shrill, peanut-butter-crazed shrieks.

His brow furrowed. “Why can’t you tell me?”

“Because you might not like me anymore.”

“Why would I not like you because of pizza...?” And then he knew. “Oh no, oh god, please don’t say pineapple.”

“I’m a pineapple pizza person.”

“Baby Swan,” Joe said, deadly serious, pressing his palms together. “That is straight up sacrilegious. You can’t put tropical fruit on a pizza. You realize I’m Italian, like an actual Italian. I’m so Italian I’ve killed other Italians for being the wrong kind of Italian. That’s how Italian I am.”

“I feel like maybe I shouldn’t socialize with literal mobsters. It’s unsavory.”

“Settle down, I’m ordering the half-pineapple pizza, you freaking barbarian.”

I watched Joe as he tapped his thumbs against the screen, humming to himself, amused, perpetually buoyant. And I couldn’t picture him as a monster, as a killer: pulling triggers, slitting throats, digging blades into soft vulnerable love handles, feeling for the mortal puncture of a lung or kidney. I asked him, my voice quiet, hesitant, almost lost in the autumn wind: “Did you actually hurt people?”

“Nah. I didn’t have the stomach for it, even back then. I was on the deal-making side of things. The business side. I was a people person, a smooth talker, astronomically charming.”

I smiled, mischievous. “That’s difficult to imagine.”

“Okay, so no cheesy breadsticks for you.”

“I’m sorry, mob guy. Please order the breadsticks. You’re so charming I can’t stand it. My jeans are unzipping all by themselves.”

He raised an eyebrow and grinned. “So you’ll sacrifice your dignity for breadsticks. Good to know.” He finished typing and laid his iPhone on the grass. “Alright, next question.”

“Does your hair grow?” Joe’s hair—I couldn’t help but notice—seemed longer than it was the day I met him a week and a half ago, disorderly and auburn-tinted, ruffling in the breeze.

“It does, yeah. Hair and nails still grow. So you have to shave, but you can’t get razor burn. And any nicks close right up.”

“Very cool. How often do you need to eat? You know...actually eat.”

“It varies, but generally twice a week.”

“And what kind of animal has the tastiest blood? Besides...well...” I gestured towards myself. “The upright two-legged kind with opposable thumbs and a partiality for pineapple pizza.”

He blew another bubble, then leaned in towards me. And I realized, for the first time, that he had his own inherent, exclusive, totally Bath-And-Body-Works-worthy scent as well; Dr. Gwilym Lee was sandalwood and campfires and log cabins, Mercy was roses and vanilla...and Joe was pine trees, peppermint, cold night air, like all of that eternally youthful magic of Christmas Eve sieved into a bottle. I popped the sheer pink bubble with the cap of my blue pen. Joe asked: “Do humans like chocolate or vanilla ice cream? Coffee or tea? Baseball or something hella lame?”

“Depends on the human.”

“Exactly. Same deal for vampires. I prefer bears, especially grizzlies. Lucy and Mercy like deer, elk, moose, animals like that. Ones with hooves. Weirdly, Rami’s favorite is crocodile, I think because it was the first thing he ever tried in Egypt. He doesn’t get it very often, but has been known to buy them on the black market on occasion. Scarlett likes mountain lions. Also domestic cats, but you didn’t hear that from me. Gwil is a wolf guy, but he won’t kill the endangered kinds. Such a gentleman.”

“How about Ben?”

“Ben’s still coming around to the whole eating animals thing. I don’t think he has a favorite yet.”

Joe isn’t a killer, and he never was; I could believe that. But Ben... “Why is he so different than the rest of you?”

“That’s...kind of a long story,” Joe replied carefully.

“It wouldn’t be such a long story if people stopped talking about how it’s a long story and actually told it to me.”

He flashed a grin, revealing white canine teeth filed into points; they were subtle, yes, but they were there. Fangs. I envisioned pressing a fingerprint against them and feeling the flesh split in two, the blood dripping down onto his tongue like Washington rain. And unlike Joe’s skin, mine wouldn’t knit back together on its own. “But then I wouldn’t have the pleasure of tormenting you with the prospect of incredibly juicy yet confidential information!”

I rolled my eyes, sipped my can of Diet Coke, returned my attention to our lunch plans. “So garlic doesn’t repel you. That part of the lore is completely made up.”

“Yup. Thank god. Eternal life would be worthless without pizza.”

“Can you do drugs? Get drunk?”

“We can’t overdose, but we can get the effects of anything we consume. It’s not a good habit to get into though. If you’re nodding on heroin for like four days at a time, it’s pretty easy for some other vampire to find and murder you.”

“So a vampire can be killed by another vampire.”

“Absolutely. Next question.”

I consulted my mental list. “Do you sleep?”

“Yeah. Well, kind of. We nap for a few hours a day.”

“What happens if you don’t?”

“We get bitchy. Really bitchy. We essentially turn into Ben.”

I laughed, chewing absentmindedly on the end of my pen. “So that’s his problem. He hasn’t napped in a century. Now it all makes sense.”

“Something like that,” Joe said. “You gonna come over tonight?”

“I don’t know. I’m supposed to present The Walruses And Me tomorrow and I still haven’t started the book.”

“What do you know, I can tell you all about The Walruses And Me!”

“Seriously? You’ve read it?”

“No, but I can enthusiastically narrate the Wikipedia article to you while you pet Mercy’s alpacas.”

“That sounds like a terrible idea.”

“Terrible for your grade in Marine Mammals. Good for your development as an interesting and happy human.”

“Nice try, but I’m already both of those things.”

Joe reached out suddenly, jarringly, and ran the back of his hand across my cheek. My favorite Lee, I thought, thoroughly transfixed but trying to hide it. Oh no. “Interesting, definitely. But I have this gnawing, distressing suspicion that you’re still working on the happy part.”

“I miss the desert,” I confessed. That wasn’t quite all of the problem, but it was accurate: I missed the heat, the sun, the parched prehistoric air I had always called home. Although I was beginning to find reasons to like Forks, Charlie and Archer and the promise of a Pacific Northwestern autumn; and then one big reason in particular. A very old, pale, chatty, Italian reason.

“A bit of a quandary for a future marine biologist,” he replied gently, perhaps apprehensively.

“I always figured I’d live somewhere like San Diego or Los Angeles or Galveston. Someplace on the ocean, but also sunny and hot and with palm trees. The best of both worlds. But you couldn’t go there with me, could you?”

Oh no.

Oh NO.

Oh fuck, this is definitely a crushing-on-Lee-boys zone.

Joe stared at me through his sunglasses, chomping on his Big League Chew, the corners of his mouth turned up and etching lines like parentheses into his face, pleased and nodding slowly and triumphant somehow. Then he struck out his hand again, this time with his pinky raised like a flagpole. “No more pathetic depressing lunches.”

“You got it. No more sad spaghetti. No more sad peanut butter sandwiches. You have my solemn, human vow.”

He smiled as his pinky entwined with mine. “No more sad anything.”

“So this vampire thing sounds like a pretty sweet gig. No dying, no consequences for a hellacious diet or wild condomless orgies, literal superpowers, perfect hair...why doesn’t everyone get to live that way?”

He shrugged; and there was an unfamiliar, meditative tension in his face. Almost sorrow. “It’s not all pizza and orgies and heroin. We have weaknesses too.”

“Like what?”

“Hey, look!” Joe piped cheerfully, twisting around towards the parking lot. “I think our GrubHub guy is here.”

Bad Blood

I was definitely regretting that fourth slice of pineapple pizza as I waddled into Chemistry, navigating sluggishly around the hulking frat boys and giggling sorority girls and mousy bookish types who lugged around colossal backpacks that were always threatening to knock an unsuspecting passerby off their feet at each unthinking turn. But while I was arriving in the classroom—physically, anyway; emotionally I was standing in an empty field somewhere screaming I cannot be falling in love with a hundred-year-old mobster vampire!! into the void—Ben was a countercurrent darting through the crowds and towards the hallway door.

“Where are you rushing off to, old guy?” I asked him. “Bingo? To renew your AARP membership? To walk vigorously around the inside of a mall?”

Ben responded in that deep, low, humorless voice. “They’re doing some kind of blood typing experiment today. I probably shouldn’t be around for that.”

“Oh.” I glanced over at Professor Belvin, who was indeed hunched over the table at the front of the classroom and laying out rows of Q-tips and rectangular paper cards and alcohol swabs and bottles of clear liquid, whistling what sounded like Time Of The Season.

Ben sighed irritably, rubbing his crinkled forehead. “I already used up all my absences. I’m gonna have to make up a compelling last-minute tragedy. Tell Professor Belvin my grandma died or something.”

“I mean, technically, she did at some point.”

“Ugh,” Ben replied, not consoled at all.

“Wait, I got this.”

I gripped my belly, sank into the nearest chair, and groaned dramatically. It really didn’t require all that much acting. Ben watched with huge green eyes, confounded.

“Miss Swan!” Professor Belvin cried, rushing over. He was wearing khaki pants, a white shirt, and suspenders and a matching bowtie patterned with bubbling multicolored test tubes. Belvin had been Charlie’s classmate from kindergarten through high school, and still palled around with him over Bud Lights and low-quality nachos on bowling league nights. Bowling was, evidently, the sport of choice for middle-aged Forks dads. Also for Welsh vampire pseudo-dads born in the 1400s.

I whimpered in reply.

“Are you alright, Miss Swan?” Professor Belvin asked worriedly. A few students had begun to congregate around the scene. I felt a pang of genuine nausea as perspiration beaded at my temples. You better appreciate this, Mr. Hardy.

“I’m okay,” I said, in my most pained and martyrish voice. “I don’t want to miss...today’s lesson...it looks so fascinating...but I didn’t wash my kale thoroughly last night and then I had a salad for dinner and now I might have food poisoning.”

“You poor thing!” Belvin exclaimed, shaking his head. “Don’t worry about class. You can just answer some textbook questions or something, no problem. Please go get checked out to make sure you’re alright.”

“Could someone...maybe...help me get to the campus clinic...?” My eyes listed towards Ben. “Maybe...my lab partner?”

“That’s a good idea.” Professor Belvin turned to Ben. “Mr. Lee, would you be willing to escort Miss Swan to the clinic? You can do an alternative assignment as well. If you don’t mind missing the blood typing lab.”

“I’d be delighted to help,” Ben responded, still puzzled. I offered him my hand, and Ben took it, grimacing as he led me out into the hallway. As soon as we were alone, he dropped my hand and opened up several feet of space between us.

“Thanks so much, Miss Swan, you are a lifesaver,” I said, imitating his morose, rumbling British accent. “Oh, you’re very welcome, Ben. You can repay me in basic courteous conversation and Starbucks gift cards and by maybe not killing me.”

“So you’re totally fine?” Ben asked flatly.                

“Of course. Nobody with taste eats raw kale.”

Frowning, frustrated, he started puffing on his vape pen. “You need to stop doing nice things for me. It’s extremely disorienting.”

“This may be difficult for you to come to terms with, but you, Ben Hardy, are worth being the recipient of nice things.”                          

“No, you still don’t get it,” he snapped, grabbing my wrist, spinning me around to face him in the empty hallway. “That’s all I’ve ever done. Kill people like you.”

The Fire

“Who is the cutest little alpaca I’ve ever seen?!” I cooed in a squeaky falsetto, scratching her wooly brown chin. “Who’s going to come home and live with me and Charlie forever?!”

“That’s illegal, ma’am.” Joe was watching me, arms crossed over his Chicago Cubs t-shirt, smiling wistfully.

“It is not!”

“It actually is,” Rami added. He was lying on the grass and gazing up into the roiling, grey, late-afternoon clouds with his fingers laced behind his black hair. None of the Lees were wearing sunglasses now. “A house has to be zoned as farmland to have alpacas, which ours is. Yours, tragically, is not.”

“What are you, a lawyer?” I shot back.

Rami grinned. “I was once. And I will be again, in approximately...let me count...five years.”

“That’s what you want to do with your boundless time and energy? Be a corporate shill?”

Joe cackled. “He tried that already. It lasted about five minutes.”

“Manhattan in the 1980s,” Rami reminisced dreamily. “Hundred-hour workweeks. Cocaine everywhere. What a time to be alive. And I hardly ever left the office, so the sunlight thing wasn’t a problem.”

“Okay, so you’re not in it for the Maseratis or the drugs...”

“I’m going to be an immigration attorney,” Rami told me. “Help refugees apply for asylum to come to the United States. Arabic-speaking refugees, in particular.”

“Wow. I stand corrected. That’s wonderful, Rami. I now feel like a total tool for only aspiring to save sea turtles.” But it made sense, of course. What would any good person spend eternity doing? Making the world just a tiny bit better. I glanced at Joe, teasing him. “And you just study how to get rich, huh?”

“I’m a venture capitalist,” he said brightly. “I invest in small businesses, counsel them, encourage them, connect them with other people in the industry, help them grow. And I don’t need the money, so I take a practically microscopic equity stake. I’m basically a professional charitable donor.”

“And you get to put all of those charming mob-guy skills to use.”

Joe winked. “Exactly.”

“Doesn’t it get old?” I asked both of them. “Being college students?”

Rami shrugged. “No really. The world changes, schools of thought evolve, our own interests fluctuate. Every few decades we circle back and go for another round, fresh degrees, maybe new professions entirely. You learn something new every time.”  

“And I’ve been waiting for all my old professors to die so I could go back to U Chicago for fifty years!” Joe shouted. “I’m fucking pumped!”

“But...don’t you already know everything...?”

Joe chuckled. “We’re vampires, Baby Swan, we’re not prodigies. We’re sharper than the average person, sure. But it still takes effort to learn. And we all have things we suck at.”

“Like not being obnoxious,” Rami said, nodding to Joe.

“Like not minding our own fucking business,” Joe hurled back.

“I cannot control the fact that I’m a literal mind reader—”

“You boys behave yourselves,” Mercy called in her relaxed, drawling Southern accent, swinging a basket of carrots and zucchinis and cabbages that she’d dug out of her garden, wearing a long flowing yellow dress and her hair tied up in a scarf. She plodded over in her bare feet, handed me a few carrots, then pointed to the chocolate-colored alpaca I was petting. “That lady there is Athens. And the black and white one by Joe is Augusta. Then there’s Norcross, and Alpharetta, and Savannah...and that real chubby grey one heading into the barn is Marietta.”

“I adore them,” I replied, beaming. Mercy had sheep and pigs and a couple of cows too, all ambling contently around the emerald green field as the first threads of fiery, rust-hued sunset were lighting up the horizon.

“We used to have ducks, too,” Mercy mused. “But they disappeared recently...”

Rami passed Joe a knowing smirk. Joe mouthed back menacingly: Do not.

“Hey mom,” Rami piped.

Joe jabbed an index finger at him. “No, don’t you dare, don’t you fucking dare—”

“Joe ate the ducks.”

“You bitch!” Joe cried.

“Oh, Joseph,” Mercy sighed mournfully, lifting a brush out of her basket and dragging it down Athens’ fuzzy back.

“I’m sorry! It was one time! I was weak!”

“I’m not angry, sweetheart,” Mercy said. “I’m just disappointed.”

“Mom, that’s worse!”

Rami climbed to his feet and swatted grass and leaves off his cardigan sweater. “Alright folks. My work here is done. Peace out.”

“Oh no, you don’t get to do a hit and run like that, hey, Rami, hey, hey, come back here!”

Joe trotted after him, shouting a litany of insults, as Rami laughed hysterically and careened into the house. Lucy and Gwil were in the kitchen baking chocolate chip cookies; Scarlett was in the garage changing the brakes on Ben’s Vantage; Ben was noticeably absent from the Lee household and presumably out hunting. It was remarkably easy to picture his fingers closing around bloodied flesh, a wolf’s or a bear’s or an elk’s, lowering his fangs to a pulsing jugular.

“So you’re really into this whole farming thing,” I said to Mercy, looking out over the field rimmed by towering western hemlock trees. I didn’t know exactly how many acres of land the Lees owned, but it was a lot. Mercy adopted rescue animals, donated vegetables from the garden to local food pantries, and occasionally rented out the barn as a wedding venue.

“I’ve always loved it. I had a farm, you know. Before I met Gwil.”

Before she died.

“I didn’t know that,” I murmured, wanting to learn more, afraid to ask, never meaning to pry or offend. “I remember you mentioned the Civil War, and a barn...being...well...being trapped in it. When it burned down.”

Mercy nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, that’s the polite version of the story, isn’t it?” She set down her basket in the tall grass, tugged distractedly at a dark strand of hair that had escaped her scarf, stared glassily out into the sunset muted with cloud cover as Athens moseyed away. “Do you want to know what happened? I’ll tell you if you do. But I don’t want to upset you, dear.”

My voice was barely a whisper. “I’d like to know.”

“We had a little farm out in the middle of nowhere,” Mercy explained. “My husband Arthur and I.”

And it felt so outlandish to hear her say those words. Husband. She had a husband before Gwil. She had a whole life before this one.

“He had a bullet in one leg and a limp from a hunting accident when he was a boy, so he was never called up to enlist. It was a rich man’s war, but it was the poor men they sent to die in it. That’s how it always goes, I expect. And how it always will. We had two daughters, twelve and fifteen. I won’t tell you their names. Don’t take that personally, dear. I haven’t spoken their names in a hundred and fifty years.”

She turned her murky eyes—like homemade bread crust or coffee or the wood walls of a log cabin—to me.

“When the Union Army came through, they were beasts. Men like that...men who have been killing and looting and burning their way across hundreds of miles...all they want to do is get blood on their hands. That’s all they remember how to do. So that’s exactly what they did. They slaughtered our cattle for meat. They burned the house down. And then they took me and my girls, and they...they...well, you know what they did. What men do when they’re monsters. And when Arthur tried to stop them, they shot him in the chest and spit mouthfuls of chewing tobacco on him as he bled out in the dirt. Called him a coward and a deserter. Told him everything they were planning to do to me and my girls. And when they were done doing all of those things, they locked the three of us in the barn and set it ablaze. I was the only one still alive when Gwilym got there. And believe me, I didn’t want to be.”

“I’m so sorry,” I breathed, my throat burning for Mercy, for her family, for this divinely kind and benign and tender woman.

She patted my cheek fondly. “It’s alright, sweetheart. It’s not your fault. I got a second chance. Gwilym gave me a second chance. That’s what he does, you know. He finds broken people, fixes them, loves them fiercely. He gave me forever. Two more daughters. And three sons.”

Three sons, I thought. Rami and Joe and Ben. She counted Ben.

“Does someone have to be dying?” I asked her softly. “You know. To become like you.”

“No, honey. That’s just how Gwil does things.”

“But...why? What’s the possible downside? Why not change anyone who wants it?” Why not change someone like me?

And Mercy peered over at me, contemplative, curious, like tiptoeing gingerly over rotted floorboards, like weaving through a minefield. Like she was trying to figure out what I’d already been told.

“Hey Baby Swan,” Joe said, startling me. I whirled to see him waiting with a patient smile and his hands buried in his pockets. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

He led me upstairs to Gwil’s 1960s-style office, where Dr. Lee had cleaned and stitched the tiny gash in my forehead after my misadventure with Ben in the woods outside Calawah University, where the wall above the sturdy oak desk was adorned with a massive painting filled with gorgeous, unfamiliar, inhuman faces. Joe took a deep breath, and then he began.

“This,” he announced, introducing the painting, “is the vampire version of the mob. They can trace their existence back to before the Roman Empire. They find people who they think have potential, have talents. They turn them. And then they offer them a hundred-year contract. You sign it, or they murder you. When your term is up, you get to decide whether to renew or leave. But almost no one ever leaves. After a century of taking orders and guarding and killing, what else do you know how to do?” He pointed to the terrifying woman with long white hair and red eyes. “That’s Liesl. She’s literally Satan, only blonder. The chick with the tattoos is Akari. She can meet a human and tell what powers they’ll have once they’re changed. Very useful, obviously. The dude who looks like Idris Elba is Cato, and he’s actually an okay guy, he’s the one currently assigned to keep tabs on Gwil’s coven...”

I soaked the names in like rain into dark, lush Washington earth as Joe relayed them to me, strange and beautiful names: Aruna, Phelan, Morana, Adair, Zora, Araminta, Honora, Victorien, Rigel, Sahel.

“Who’s that?” I asked, gesturing to the young man standing at the center of the painting, the one with black hair and eyes so light and luminous a brown they were almost gold and a sinister, unmistakable magnetism.

“Very good question,” Joe complimented. “That’s their Al Capone. That’s Larkin.”

“And what’s his vampire superpower?” He has to have one. I know he does.

“How do I even put that into words? It’s more than charisma. It’s slightly less than mind reading. He can see through people, what they want most, what they fear. And he can make them do things.”

I gazed into those omniscient glowing eyes, feeling myself getting caught there, feeling some primal dread swelling in the capillary beds of my heart and lungs and bone marrow. “Joe, I’m thoroughly enjoying this captivating backstory, really, but...why are you telling me all of this now?”

“Because you asked why Ben is so different than the rest of us. This is why.” Joe waved broadly at the painting, at the closest thing his world had to a mafia, to unrepentant killers, to actual demons. “This is where he came from.”

[knight-ingale]

Chapter 1, Leaving the Sun

A/N: hey, it's Knightingale! This is the first chapter of my Twilight fanfiction I started writing this year. I edited this after I posted on my laptop so hopefully it looks better. 2020 is a mess and I just wanted to write some garbage fanfiction. Let me know what you think of it!

---------------- 

You looked out the open car window into the wide expanse of Arizona’s cloudless open sky, a backdrop of perfect blue against the tall buildings placed in the desert of your home state. Soon, your new home would be in Forks, Washington, which differed very much from here. The open sky in Phoenix was ever-present, only gracing the dusty ground and perpetually dying lawns a few times each year with rain an average of 33 times. Yes, you had checked. In Forks, the sky was framed by tall trees when you looked up into the shaded clouds that were nearly always hanging in the air. The rain was just as present as the greenery that covered the trees, raining nearly every day. Phoenix was where you had lived with your sister and mother for all your life. Forks is the home of your father, Charlie. You call him “Dad” to his face, of course, but you had fallen into the same habit as your older sister Bella when addressing him to others as “Charlie”.  Last you had been to Forks was three summers ago when you had made your month-long summer visit to his little home in the rainy forests. Bella, your elder sister, who detested Forks, had put up enough of a fight to convince both your parents to let the two of you stay in Phoenix for the summer, bringing Charlie up instead for a mere two weeks in Cali. Now you and your sister were moving to live with him there!

You were much more excited about your leaving compared to your sister. You hadn’t been to Forks since you were 12 years old. You had often enjoyed your trips every summer, living with your dad for a month felt like a fairy tale. The large forests covered in green was like an alien world compared to Phoenix, as if you had stepped through a faery gate and was transported to another dimension. One filled with trees that held up the clouds, a place full of desaturated buildings full of cozy warmth and forgotten smiles.

You’re mother, Renne, broke you out of her daydreams with her voice, 

“Bella,” she sighs to your older sister, “You don’t have to do this.” She glances at you through the rear-view mirror, “Neither of you do.” she looks back to Bella, her main concern, with her sweet, childish eyes. You can see Bella’s face tighten with nervous anxiety in the car doors outside mirror. You knew why she was anxious. As much as you loved her, Renne could be a little… absent-minded sometimes. She wasn’t dumb or dull-minded, quite the opposite, actually. Her mind was always in so many places at once; like a box of little bunny rabbits, hopping energetically from place to place. Unfortunately, this caused her to forget things sometimes. Like having a bag of marbles, but the bottom seam of the bag is ripped and marbles keep spilling out. You can catch them and try to open the pouch and put them in, but you’d still keep dropping marbles. That’s why you and Bella were around, you caught all of the marbles and put them back in the bag before she ran off to a new idea, leaving her little thoughts behind. Bella sighs herself before finally speaking, 

“I want to go.” she lied. Everyone in the car knew that was a blatant lie, but she had said it so often lately, someone who didn’t know her would have believed it. Luckily for you, you had spent the last 15 years with her, you knew your sister and her habits better than she probably did. Your mom looks up to the rear-view again, but you just smile, 

“I’m actually excited to go to Forks, mom!” You playfully glare at Bella as you lean towards her shoulder of the seat, “Besides, I’ll consider this making up for Bells throwing a tantrum and keeping me from Charlie’s place for three years.” Bella scoffs as she rolls her eyes, but she can’t keep the smile off her face, 

“You say that like I’ve forgiven you for pretending to be ‘Bloody Mary’” she jokes. You laugh. You lean back in your seat, letting the relative silence continue, the only hearing the quiet melodies on the radio and the rushing of wind as you neared your first destination, the airport.

When you had reached the airport and gotten your suitcases out of the back. Even between the two of you, there wasn’t much, only a few bags per person. Due to the near-polar-opposites of your parent’s climates, not much of your wardrobe was suitable for Forks’ usual weather forecasts. You and Bella actually had to go out and buy the warmest clothing possible manufactured in Phoenix, which wasn’t much, due to the near insufferable heat of the summer and mild heat that still hung around in the dead of winter months. Once you both had your bags out of the car, Renne turned to you both, looking equal parts loving and anxious.

“Tell Charlie I said ‘hi’” You smile, 

“We will,” You both answer. Your mom grabs one of your and Bella’s hands, 

“I’ll see you soon,” she insists, worry burning in her eyes, “You girls can come home whenever you want- I’ll come right back as soon as you need me!” Bella almost noticeably winces, she knows your mom really loved you both, but she was in love and wanted to spend time with your traveling step-father, Phil.

“Don’t worry about us,” She urges, “It’ll be great. I love you, Mom.” You smile and pull your mom into a hug, entrapping Bella into your cocoon of love with you.

“I love you, Mom.” you murmur into her ear. 

With that, you and Bella set off into the airport’s main building, taking the path familiar to you, one that you had taken with your sister every summer until three years ago.

Going through customs was easy, the only three carry on items being a pair of cheap earbuds, an iPod mini, and a parka. The parka for the predictable forecast of rainy weather, and the iPod to keep yourself entertained during the 4-hour flight. You were delighted when no one was sitting in the third seat in your row, but it was only to be expected. There weren’t many people coming from the blistering heat of Phoenix willingly leaving for the downcast rain puddle that is Forks, Washington.

Once the plane had landed, you and Bella stepped out into the rainy sky of Port Angeles. Charlie, your father was waiting for you both in the police cruiser, like he had every year you visited before. Charlie, being the Chief of Police in town, only drove the cruiser, instead of getting his own car. It made sense to you, why buy another of something you already have that works perfectly? Bella however did not like the idea of being driven around in it. Something Bella had adamantly refused to endure was riding to school in the cop car, “Nothing slows down traffic like a cop,” she complained. Because of this, she was hellbent on buying her own vehicle to drive to school in, regardless of her smaller-than-desired budget.

Charlie welcomed you both as you boarded off of the plane, well, Bella more stumbled. That’s why you had come off first, grabbing her arm to keep her from having a personal encounter with the asphalt landing beneath you. Charlie awkwardly hugged you both.

“It’s good to see you girls,” he says smiling at you both as he pulls away. “You haven’t changed much, Bells. Y/n, you’ve grown taller, kiddo!” he laughs, “How’s Renee?” 

“Mom’s fine, It’s good to see you too, Dad.” Bella answers. Of course, she doesn’t call him Charlie to his face. You smile, 

“Mom says ‘Hi’” Charlie nods and helps you both with your luggage. All of Bella’s things fit into the trunk, as well as most of your own, you only needed to put your biggest case of clothing with you in the back. As soon as you all strap into the cruiser, Charlie makes an announcement,

“I found a good car for the two of you, really cheap.” A car? 

“What kind of car?” Bella asks suspiciously.

“Well, it’s a truck actually, a Chevy.” Oh, a truck. Maybe then it’d be more durable. God knows you’d need it. You didn’t have your license yet, so Bella was the only option to get you to school. If you didn’t want to be brought to school behind the separation grate of a cop car, that is.

“Where did you find it?” Bella asks.

“Do you remember Billy Black down at La Push?” La Push was the little Native-American reservation down at the coast if you remembered right. Billy, Billy… You let out a little “oh!” before Bella can respond.

“He was that guy we’d go fishing with, right?” You remembered him faintly. He lived on the reservation with two, no, three kids. You remembered two sisters, twins, and a little boy. Man, you hadn’t thought about them in years! Of course, that couldn’t be helped, since Bella treated Forks liked it was cursed with the plague for years, enough to stop your summerly visits.

“Yup, that’s him,” your dad confirms, “He’s in a wheelchair now, so he can’t drive anymore, and he offered to sell me his truck cheap.” Bella, ever suspicious of this vehicle, prods further, 

“What year is it?”  You can see Charlie make a slight face at Bella’s question, 

“Well… Billy’s done some work to the engine- it’s only a few years old really,” he tries vainly. 

“When did he buy it?” Bella continues. 

“He bought it in 1984, I think.”

“Did he buy it new?” Charlie sighs at the question, 

“Well, no. I think it was new in the early sixties- or late fifties, at the earliest,” he admits. Bella sigh herself, 

“Ch- Dad,” she starts, “Neither Y/N or I know anything about cars! We wouldn’t be able to fix it if anything went wrong, and I can’t really afford a mechanic-” she rambles anxiously before Charlie stops her, 

“Really, Bella, the thing runs great. They don’t build them like that anymore.” Bella stews in her thoughts for a moment, you break the silence, 

“I mean, if anything, I’m more than happy to get to school in something other than the back of a cop car,” you laugh easily, “I mean, can you imagine, coming to school on the first day in the back of the Chief’s cruiser like a criminal? Talk about a first impression!” Charlie is able to laugh at your light humor with you before Bella asks another question, 

“How cheap is… cheap?” she asks, quieting your laughter quickly. 

“Well, girls, I kind of already bought it for you. As a homecoming gift.” you can see Charlie peek over at Bella before glancing at you through the rear-view hopefully. Already… wow, was the truck free?

“You didn’t have to do that, Dad, I was going to buy us a car myself,” Bella says. Charlie looks straight ahead at the road before answering, obviously trying to get his emotions out without his usual awkwardness.

“I don’t mind. I want you to be happy here.” His last sentence was obviously more pointed at your sister than you. She had never really hidden her… distaste for Forks. Charlie seemed rather pleased the two of you had willingly decided to come live with him for a more permanent amount of time.

“That’s really nice Dad,” Bella says, looking straight out the front window, just like your dad. “Thanks, I really appreciate it.” You smile at the two in front of you, 

“Thanks, Dad!” He makes a gruff sound of affirmation, slightly awkward, but mostly pleased at your positive reaction,

“Well, now, you’re welcome.” You settled against the window and car door and pop your earbuds in their place as you press play on your iPod. You look out through a rain covered window, alternating between watching the terrain run behind you and focusing on the water droplets streaking across the glass, seeing which ones met the bottom first.

Eventually, you made it home. You recognized the curve of the road, seeing a peek of the washed-out color of the white house and dark roof through the brilliant green of the trees. What was the most eye-catching about the scene was the contrasting red truck in the driveway. Bella hopped out of the front with almost excited energy. 

“Wow Dad,” she exclaims slightly louder than her usual, quiet volume, “I love it! Thanks!” You climbed out of the back, pausing your music and stuffing the earbuds into your pocket as you made your way beside your sister. Despite being the complementary color of green, the washed-out fade of the red paint made the truck look perfect in the surrounding environment. It was big and old, but it was sturdy looking, like a little tank. This was definitely one of the trucks that could get in a collision and crush the opposing vehicle like an empty soda can. At least if Bella managed to crash the two of you, you’d probably live!

Charlie calls you both to the back of the truck after accepting your thanks and words of appreciation as best as he could, helping you both unpack your luggage from the cruiser. It only took one trip. Bella carried her luggage upstairs with your dad’s help, and you dragged your own into your room on the main floor of the house. 

Originally, you and Bella had shared the nursery, but around 11 years old, the two of you convinced (or complained, depends on who you ask)  your dad to let you and Bella have separate rooms. Your little room was wedged between the stairs and the living room, the smallest room in the house. It wasn’t bad though. The walls were painted navy blue with old glow in the dark stars stuck all over the popcorn ceiling and tops of the walls. You still had the white garlands of Christmas lights tacked up the to corners of your ceilings, and the lace curtains still hung over the window. Your window faced the back of the house directly into the forest behind. There was enough room for your twin-sized bed and a small desk and bookshelf shoved into one corner, your dresser snug in a corner on one side of your bed, and nightstand on the other. There was an old computer upstairs in Bella’s room, the nursery. Your mom had all but demanded it be there for easy communication. You missed her already.

You didn’t set to really putting your room together, other than putting clothes in drawers and hanging what little you had in the closet. You decided you’d unpack all personal items later, but dug out your backpack. A white canvas backpack with two bottle pockets on the sides and a smaller, extra on the front. You had doodled on it with markers last year, but it hadn’t fallen apart yet so you had been using it this year too. Your now emptied folders and binders took up space in the main pocket; your pencil case and an extra pencil case full of period products housed in the smaller one. Your backpack was set. You decide on what to wear for tomorrow, familiarizing yourself with your new set up in the process. By the time you had busied yourself with the small tasks you could, the sun had fully set behind the cover of clouds.

You made your way upstairs to your sister’s room, peaking your head through the door. Bella had put on her pajamas and was sitting in bed, gazing out into the night. In the low light of the lamp she had on, you could see she wasn’t feeling great about tomorrow.

“Hey Bells,” you call softly. She looks over to you, not bothering to change her expression. She already learned she couldn’t hide how she felt around you, so she stopped trying quite a while ago. “Not excited for tomorrow, huh?” You slide into the room fully, gently closing the door behind you. She sighs as you set down across from her.

“Not really.” She admits. “Forks Highs-school only has three hundred and fifty-seven students,”

“Now fifty-eight,” you interject. She nods and closes her eyes, 

“Exactly. Everyone around here has grown up together- their grandparents were toddlers together! We’re the new girls from the big city-”

“A curiosity,” you agree tiredly, 

“A freak,” she grumbles pessimistically. “I mean, we don’t look how girls from Phoenix should, I know I don’t. I should be tan, sporty, blonde- a volleyball player, or a cheerleader, perhaps- everything people think about when they think of living in the valley of the sun!”

“You know neither of us should ever be let in a quarter-mile vicinity of a volleyball, first of all-” you joke, “and second, I don’t think being sporty or tan would really help anyway. If Phoenix is the ‘valley of the sun’, then Forks in “the valley of rain clouds’. I don’t think a lot of the other white people here are going to be very tan.” Bella manages a genuine, albeit small, laugh. “I don’t think we’d fit in anywhere, Bells, not unless we find people like us.” She sighs, 

“Other people with glitches in their brains.” You shrug, 

“I don’t think its a glitch. We’re just wired differently. Besides, our brains are literally meat-jello full of electricity, some of them are bound to work a little strange, right?” She laughs, louder this time. You give her a side hug before standing up. “Alright, I’m heading to bed. See you in the morning.”

“Goodnight,”’ Bella says un-enthusiastically. You exit the room and call down the short hallway to Charlie’s room, 

“Night, Dad!” He pokes his head out of the door a moment after, 

“Night honey, see you in the morning.” He goes back to his room and closes the door. You trail your way down the stairs and to your room before crawling under the blankets. You were going to need your sleep for tomorrow. After all, you were starting your first day at a new school. Forks High, now at a population of 359.

[talatomaz]

present tense | dinah drake x fem!reader

a/n: this takes place during 8x04 where ta & fta meet. this is shit, i know but i couldn’t get this idea out of my head. i practically used the same intro from my other fic for this one, don’t @ me but i just had no other way to start it. this also has references to dinahsiren in honour of dinahsiren week

warnings: mentions of blood

word count: 3.6k

masterlist | request list | request rules

i do not give you permission to repost or translate my fics on any platform - likes/reblogs are okay and are much appreciated

“Can we stop with the sob fest and get back to what we came here to do?”

You joked, interrupting Mia and Zoe as they reconciled over the argument they had earlier.

Just before Zoe could respond with a witty remark, the three of you became distracted when JJ arrived and proceeded to stab Mia in the neck.

Then, before you could even make a sound, he drove a sword through Zoe’s back. You screamed your canary cry, making him stumble back before you ran towards Zoe who had now crumbled to the ground, blood seeping from her body.

Holding back your tears, you gathered her into your arms and put pressure on the wound.

You barely took any notice as Connor went hand-to-hand with his brother, instead, you and Mia were holding Zoe.

As the three of you were huddled together, you felt a flash of bright lights surround you and with a blink of an eye, you were back in the bunker. Except this time, it looked...cleaner and technologically old.

You found yourself standing beside Mia, William and Connor; with you and Mia coated in Zoe’s blood and Mia’s neck still bleeding.

“Dad?”

You glanced over your shoulder at Mia then looked ahead where four adults stood in front of you. Your eyes widened as you recognised who they were. Oliver Queen, John Diggle, Rene Ramirez and...Dinah Drake, your mother.

All of you stood there, as if your shock had frozen you all in place. Time seem to begin again when William walked up to Oliver and hugged him in a tight embrace.

“Dad?”

“T-Those are my kids.” Oliver asked, tears falling down his face as he looked between William and Mia.

Then you watched Connor’s interaction with John and then everyone looked over at you.

“Hi...Mum.”

Everyone stared at Dinah as her mouth dropped.

“M-Mum? I-I don’t. I’ve not got a daughter.”

“Because you haven’t yet.” William stated and you glanced back at him in question.

“I think we’re in the past.”

Mia and Connor had a look of disbelief on their face whilst you agreed with William. You were one of the few people in the future to have ever experienced time travel; your Aunt Sara having taken you on a few missions on the waverider.

“He’s right. This place is new and our parents. Look at them. No gray hair, no wrinkles. What year is this?”

You asked, looking back at the group of parents.

“2019. What year is it supposed to be?”

Oliver asked when you and the rest of your friends let out a gasp.

“2040.” You answered.

“Okay, guys, we need to talk.” Oliver said, going into leader mode as he walked to a corner of the bunker, the rest of the parents following.

You and FTA followed suit and found an empty corner beside some weapons.

“How the Hell did this happen and why do you seem so okay with this?” Mia asked.

You were currently stitching her wound, as the bleeding had steadied, when you pulled on the last thread harshly as you answered.

“Because I’ve time travelled before. My Aunt Sara let me go on some missions with her when I was growing up. I got to see different time periods and she got to teach me how to fight. Win-Win situation.” You answered coldly.

Now that everything had relatively calmed down, you allowed yourself to run over the events that had just passed and suffice it to say, you were pissed at Mia because Zoe wouldn’t have been there in the first place had it not been for Mia’s stubbornness.

“Y/N-“

“I don’t want to hear it, Mia.” You replied coldly, closing the first aid box.

Connor then interrupted and explained how he was unsuccessful in killing JJ due to the fact that you guys had ended up here the moment he was about to kill him.

Mia then began to allude to killing a young JJ to prevent his reign of terror in the future before you, Connor and William disregarded her plan.

“We can’t tell our parents about the future or what just happened.” Mia stated, tenderly touching the bandage that now covered her wound. “Thank you, y/n.”

You merely nodded your head and listened as William began to argue.

“As much as I hate to say it, I agree with Mia. How are we meant to tell Rene his daughter is dead and John’s son is the one who did it? We can’t, William. It will have repercussions that we cannot control.”

You all then looked over as Oliver cleared his throat to get your attention. He, your Mum, John and Rene were stood in the centre of the bunker, quietly watching how the four of you were arguing.

“How about we all get some rest? We’ve all had quite a big shock tonight.” Dinah said to everytime, but maintained eye contact with you.

Since having revealed that you were her daughter from the future, she, understandably so, hadn’t said a word to you. But it still hurt.

“We have nowhere to stay. If you want, we could stay here?” You asked before your Mum interrupted you.

“No, that’s silly. You can come stay with me.”

***

“Home sweet home.”

Dinah said, closing the door behind her as she dumped her keys on the table.

“Where’s Laurel?”

“Oh, she wanted to be alone because she’s still grieving.” Dinah answered, confused as to why you were wondering why she wasn’t here.

“I’m sorry. Will she be okay?”

“I hope so. She knows she has us all, so there’s something at least. How about you? Are you okay? Are we okay? In the future, I mean.”

Dinah asked as you both sat on the sofa. Now that you were alone, for the first time ever, you found yourself in an awkward environment with your mother. Conversation usually came so easy to you two but finding out you have a daughter when you’ve not even been born yet kind of throws a wrench into that.

“Yeah, we’re good. We’re more than good. You’re the best part of my life, Mum. Dinah. I’m sorry. This is awkward and I don’t know how to handle this.”

“It’s okay. You can continue calling me Mum, if you want. I kinda like it.” She shrugged as she ran her hand over your arm in comfort.

The gentle embrace had you tearing up, as you hadn’t fully processed Zoe’s death and you knew you couldn’t even mention it to your Mum in fear of the rest finding out.

“Y/N, are you okay?”

“God, I’m just so exhausted, Mum. Like so exhausted.”

“What do you mean? I thought the future was a good place?”

“I-It is. I’m just so tired. My personal life is kind of a mess back home.” You said, lying through your teeth.

“Oh honey, it’s okay.”

Your Mum said soothingly, not even hesitating before wrapping her arms around you in a motherly embrace. You relaxed in her arms, and just like every time you hugged her, you felt your problems wash away and your mind ease, if only for a few moments.

***

“One of these days, I’m gonna slap Rene upside his head.”

You looked up at your Mum in question.

After your mini breakdown last night, you and your Mum had spent almost the entire night talking, just like you used to in your time. It made you feel better about this entire situation and you were grateful for your mother in any time period.

“What’d he do, Mum?”

“He just messaged me saying that William told him he becomes Mayor and now he’s acting as if he’s my boss.” She said, reading the text from her phone and rolling her eyes.

“I told William not to say anything about the future.” You added, rolling your eyes too.

“You really are your mother’s daughter.”

You and Dinah looked up to find John and Connor standing in front of you, grinning at you both.

“Oh, I didn’t know it was ‘bring your kid to work’ day.” Dinah said sarcastically making you smirk and fight to hide a laugh.

“Right back at you, Dinah. Connor thought he could help. He was an agent at an organization called Knightwatch.”

“It makes A.R.G.U.S. look like a kindergarten class. The Canaries are comparable, though.” He said, grinning once more at you as you rolled your eyes again.

“Canaries?” You glanced back at your mother and then widened your eyes at Connor. You guys weren’t doing a great job at not revealing things about the future.

“Haha, uh, he-forget it.” You waved your hand as if you were literally dismissing something real.

When Dinah and John raised their brows in question at each other, you smacked Connor‘s arm and scolded him.

“Ow, jeez, y/n.” He whispered and when your parents looked at you, the two of you suddenly smiled and pretended to act nonchalantly.

Dinah then changed the subject and showed you both something that was left at the crime scene of a bombing at Starling General. Connor then revealed the hidden message using a black light. You watched as he frowned and then excused himself to check his phone when it rang.

“This is Mia, I should probably go. Y/N?” He said, widening his eyes slightly to let you know he found out something he didn’t want your parents to know about.

“Yeah, I’ll come too. We’ll catch up later?”

“Yeah, of course. Be safe.” Your Mum said, kissing your cheek and quickly hugging you.

As you and Connor walked out SCPD and made your way to Oliver’s apartment, you started to speak.

“I’m sorry that you and John aren’t as close at the moment.”

Though you were glad that you and your mother were on good terms, you did feel bad that the rest of your team’s relationships with their parents had gotten off to a rocky start since you guys came back.

“It’s okay. It’s to be expected. I’m glad for you and your Mom. I know how close you two are. Time has no impact on that.”

“Thank you,” you smiled, “so, what did you see?”

He then began to explain the phrase he saw and the relevance it had to JJ.

“Shit, what are we going to do?”

***

After having relayed the information Connor had told you to William and Mia, you were all divided on how to handle the situation. You and William wanted to tell your parents but Connor and Mia wanted to handle this themselves.

You found yourself starting to get even more annoyed at Mia’s stubbornness but relented when Mia said that they could avenge Zoe by going after JJ themselves.

You all then went to an abandoned building that would later become Galaxy One’s home base. You decided to split up, with Mia and Connor in one direction and you and William in another.

As you and William started to look through the empty space, you heard Mia and Connor yell, “JJ” and before you could run up to join them, you found yourself surrounded by a handful of Deathstrokes.

Just by looking at them, anger coursed through your body as the image of JJ ramming a sword through Zoe’s chest came to the forefront of your mind.

“This is gonna be fun. Don’t move, William.”

You ran straight for the Deathstroke soldiers and began fighting them. You narrowly missed the swipe of their swords and you ducked under one of their arms before putting your full force into your kick to one of their chests. They fell to the floor, the sword clattering down beside them. Quickly picking it up, you stabbed the soldier on the floor and got ready to fight the other two remaining.

Just as you were about to strike, they fell to the floor in front of you, revealing John and Rene with their guns raised. You all jumped when you heard an explosion and ran out the building to find Connor and Mia, now joined by Dinah, Laurel and Oliver.

“You guys have got some explaining to do.” Laurel said, coughing as the smoke filled the air.

***

After the explosion at Galaxy One, which was sure to have consequences, you all went back to the bunker where you were scolded by your parents.

You all explained the significance of the building and that the Deathstroke’s leader was Grant Wilson, Slade’s other son.

“So if you knew it was Grant, then why did you call him JJ?”

You all stilled at the mention of JJ and looked at each other as if mentally asking whether or not to reveal the truth.

“Connor, what’s going on?” John shouted causing you all to flinch.

Connor then explained that JJ was the Deathstroke during your time and that you all thought he had come back alongside you. William then revealed the true nature of Star City in the future and how it’s overrun with crime and corrupt cops and politicians.

Then when William began to refer to Zoe’s death, he was harshly quietened by Mia.

“No, Mia. They have a right to know.”

William continued to explain how JJ had killed Zoe causing Rene to storm out with John and Connor following him.

“Now look what happened. We shouldn’t have told them.” Mia said, shouting at the both of you.

“You know what, Mia? I’ve had enough of you. This is your fault. JJ may have killed Zoe but it would never have happened if you hadn’t been insistent in us going in the first place! She told you that it was a bad idea. We both did.” You started to raise your voice then willed yourself to calm down and speak with a steady tone.

“There’s a reason why we were left in charge. For God’s sake, Mia. You jump into situations without thinking it through. Learn something from your goddamn father, for once.”

You watched as the blonde opened her mouth then closed it, unable to think of a retort. You hoped that, this time, she’d finally take your words into consideration.

Just now realising that you and Mia were still in the bunker, surrounded by Dinah, Laurel, Oliver and William, your cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Realising that, William attempted to change the subject.

“Zoe was fighting to fix exactly what her dad helped cause. That's why she was a Canary like both of you.

“You guys had a whole network of them in the City.” You added, smiling.

“And that's what Connor was talking about earlier?” You nodded at your mother. “And yet, we still failed to save the city.”

“Mum, you and Laurel helped us try and make it a better place. You trained Zoe and I and countless other women. We saved so many people, all because of you both.”

“Thank you, honey. I’m gonna go check on Rene.” She sighed.

“C-Can I come with you?” You asked with uncertainty but relaxed when she nodded.

***

“Aunt Dinah! I didn’t know you were gonna be here.”

You were currently outside Rene and Zoe’s apartment building in the Glades that looked a hell of a lot different than it did in the future. You watched your mother and Zoe hug when they pulled away and the latter looked you confused.

“Hi, I’m Zoe. Nice to meet you.” You shook her hand.

It was extremely weird and heartbreaking to see Zoe so young and happy.

For as long as you’d known her, she’d been so worried about the city and was later broken by Rene’s betrayal. The only time she was ever truly happy was when she was with you.

“I’m Tina. Dinah’s...cousin.” You lied, using the name your mother used when she went undercover.

Rene then ushered Zoe inside leaving you, Dinah and Rene alone. Rene expressed his fears of the numbered days with Zoe when Dinah offered some advice.

“Mum’s right. Just because she’s gone now doesn’t mean she will be. The future isn’t cemented. We can change it. It’s not all that hard to change honestly.” You explained, shrugging your shoulders.

“What? How do you know so much about time travel?”

“Aunt Sara used to take me on the waverider growing up. You and Laurel are great fighters but she wanted me to learn some League skills so she took me to Nanda Parbat where she, Nyssa and Talia taught me how to fight.”

You laughed when Rene and Dinah’s mouth dropped but was soon interrupted when your phone pinged with a message. It was Connor explaining that Mia had stormed out with Laurel and Grant had given a warning.

“We should get back, Mum. Rene, I’m sorry about Zoe. But I promise I’ll do everything I can to make sure she’s alive. I can’t lose her again.”

***

After arriving back at the bunker and discussing the next steps, you watched Connor storm away and put on boxing gloves. You approached him just before he threw the first punch.

“What do you want, y/n?”

“I get that you’re angry. I am too.”

“Oh really? Your relationship with your Mum is fine. Mine with my dad is not.” He said snidely making you push him.

“For fuck’s sake, Connor. I’m pissed about Zoe. Your brother killed my best friend. I’m not just going to forget about that!” You whispered harshly, keeping your voice low to prevent your parents from hearing.

You then tied your hair up and discarded your top, leaving you in your sports bra.

“Come on, a moving target’s better.” You sighed, picking up two sets of bamboo sticks, throwing one to Connor.

The two of you began sparring, aware of your parents watching you both.

***

“I need 3 units at the docks and another 2 in Pennytown, okay?” Dinah ordered one of her officers.

After your sparring session, Curtis had explained that the drive that they had found had revealed that Grant was planning another siege. Everyone, with the exemption of you, Dinah and Rene, had left to take care of the bombs.

You then watched as another officer brought in a handcuffed male and sat him in a chair. You and your Mum looked in confusion when you saw the male place something under the chair.

Then all Hell broke loose. The individual put on a Deathstroke mask and began fighting officers. You and your Mum ran over to the chair when you were grabbed by the Deathstroke soldier.

You grabbed his arm and flipped yourself to get out of his grasp before ducking to miss one of his punches. He pulled a gun from one of the officers but before he could shoot anyone, you screamed your Canary Cry, effectively flinging him through a window where he slumped unconscious against a wall.

“BOMB!”

You ran back to your mother and kneeled on the ground beside her.

“Bomb squad’s not gonna get here in time.” Your mother said.

“I got this.”

You had been taught how to disable bombs from different people over the years. They were skills that definitely came in handy.

Removing the device from the chair, you gently placed it against the ground.

“It looks like an IED but there’s something different. The way it’s pulsating makes me think that it’s linked to an intervalometer meaning that there should be a transfer switch in the original device. Luckily if I disable this, it shouldn’t trigger anything. I just hope the intervalometer is with the rest of the team because Connor will be able to disable that.”

You started to inspect the device. You gently removed the plastic cap, revealing two wires. Pulling a switch knife out of your pocket, you grabbed the red wire and cut it, rendering the device harmless.

You sat back against your heels and let out a breath. When you looked up at Dinah, you saw a mixture of shock, surprise and pride on her face.

“God, you’re brilliant.” She said, hugging you close to her.

“Well, I am my Mother’s daughter.”

***

After defusing the bomb, Connor was able to do the same, leading to Grant’s capture and imprisonment in Blackgate. Everyone then went their separate ways to spend more time with their parents so you, Dinah and Laurel ended up going back to SCPD after getting some Big Belly Burger.

The three of you were laughing like you did back home and it made you smile as you thought back to some of your happier memories.

“That sounds gross, Laurel.”

“Just try it.”

Laurel pushed her milkshake towards you and Dinah so you both grabbed a fry and dipped it into the drink. Surprisingly, it tasted quite nice.

“Not bad, Laurel.” Your Mum said as they both smiled at each other.

Though you had revealed a lot about the future, there were a few things you had omitted from mentioning.

“So, here’s a question, y/n. Why do you call John, Rene and Oliver by their names but Sara by Aunt?” Laurel asked you, going full DA mode.

“Ummm, because she is?” You said, unable to think of a lie. “These fries are yum.” You said, swiftly changing the topic causing Dinah and Laurel to share a look.

“Okay, that was weird. I need to run a quick errand but I’ll be back in a bit to work out the logistics of the Canary network. See you, Dinah. Bye, y/n.”

“Bye, Mum.”

The words were out of your mouth before you could stop them. You covered your mouth with your hands, as if trying to will the words back in your mouth, but the damage was already done.

“I’m sorry, Mum?”

Your Mums looked at each other in shock and then at you.

“Oops.”