#And I can leave it alone instead of constantly tweaking it

[mrbexwrites]

Making a small accountability post to make myself actually do what I have been aiming to do for 2024. Mainly because I've managed to weaponise my own procrastination into avoidance behaviour. Which isn't great.

I started this blog a couple of years ago to work up the courage to share my WIPs rather than having them languishing in my google drive. Last year, I took a massive step (for me) and shared my work with some beta readers, and had really helpful & constructive criticism. Based on that feedback, I've been working on my editing skills and rewriting parts of my WIP to get it to the place where I want it to be.

I'd set myself an arbitrary goal of when I get x number of followers, then I'd make an account on Wattpad and actually upload part I of Memento Mori. I'm now quite close to that random, arbitrary number of followers, and this is where the avoidance behaviour has set in.

So yeah, my making my intentions public, I'm hoping that this will spur me on to meet my own goal, because I feel that if I don't make the next leap soon, I'm never going to move forward as a writer.

[pedrilcvr]

Domestic!Pedri Head cannons ۶ৎ

I cannot contain myself. I’m actually about to tweak thinking about these. 😭 Thank you Enny for helping me come up with these smooch smooch. Sorry I got so carried away with these…

feel free to request head canons about anyone !

⌗ Domestic Pedri who, you catch talking to Nilo all the time. Pedri will walk around the house with the little black pup in his arms, pointing things out to him.

“And that’s a picture of me and your uncle Fer.. And that’s my new shoes, those you better not touch.” or he’ll scroll through his camera roll, showing pictures of many different things, mostly pictures he’d taken of you. “Look at her, isn’t she just perfect?” It’s genuinely the most adorable thing in the world.

⌗ Domestic Pedri who, after a rough day of practice just wants to lay in between your legs while you thread your fingers through his freshly dried hair. After he adopted Nilo, every time he tries to enjoy your cuddles, the pup will jump and scratch at your legs till Pedri picks him up and lays him on his chest. A small smile takes over your lips at the sight, your boyfriend was just too adorable and so was your new addition.

⌗ Domestic Pedri who, likes to cook with you. It had become a common routine for the two of you after you moved in together. Now, with a dog running around the house, you two found yourselves tripping over him often. When you do so, you both erupt into a light of laughter, spewing out apologies and kissing Nilo’s head even though he wasn’t hurt.

⌗ Domestic Pedri who, after a long day at practice begs you to wait to shower until he gets home. He always insists that, “it’s saving water.” But you know he just wants an excuse to be close to you, and of course you always agree. You loved the way he peppered your shoulders with soft kisses and the way his hands felt massaging the shampoo into your scalp. Showers with Pedri were when you were your most relaxed, and he felt the same way.

⌗ Domestic Pedri who, never leaves you alone. On your days off you like to make meals and snacks for each other instead of going out, knowing Pedri was on a strict diet, it helped save cost anyways. Whenever you are making something, Pedri will sneak up on you, snaking his arms around your waist and resting his chin on your shoulder. Despite knowing what you were making, he’ll ask anyways, “What’re you making, amor?” He just loved to hear your sweet voice reply.

⌗ Domestic Pedri who, always, and I mean always gives you three kisses whenever he’s about to leave or whenever he is grateful or even if he just is passing by. It’s never on the same spot, he kisses your lips, shoulders, cheek, temple, jaw, neck, anywhere. And he’ll rotate them every time. His own little way of saying, “I love you.” without actually saying it, not that he has a problem saying those three words, but he just liked the simplicity and intimacy of kissing you.

⌗ Domestic Pedri who, loves to cuddle with you whenever he can. On his days off he likes to sleep in, groaning and complaining any time you try to cut it short to do your morning duties. Once you’re done (after prying yourself from his grip), you climb back into bed, this time spooning him, intertwining your legs together. Pedri loves to feel your soft breaths against his neck, half of the time it will lull him back to sleep.

⌗ Domestic Pedri who, paces around the house constantly. Being an athlete, he is used to moving around constantly, which causes him to feel antsy when he’s sitting alone for too long. After coming home from work, you often find him walking around the living room, staring at his phone. He only settles down when he spots you, pulling you in for a welcoming hug.

⌗ Domestic Pedri who, doesn’t care much for TV shows, but will watch anything with you as long as you’re cuddling. He tries to pretend he isn’t completely enthralled in whatever you’re watching, but his random outbursts when something stupid happens says all you need to know.

“He did WHAT?” , “Is this a joke?”

⌗ Domestic Pedri who, prefers staying in instead of going out for dates. With him constantly in the public eye, he feels uncomfortable with the invasion of privacy. When he’s having intimate moments with you, he prefers not to have to hide or mellow it down. In the safety of your home, he can kiss you anywhere he pleases without wondering how the media will react. He also just likes to have you all to himself, so being at home gives you all the privacy in the world with no interruptions.

⌗ Domestic Pedri who, will do anything for you. If you’re having a bad day, he will pamper you senseless. If you are sick, he will disappear for half an hour and come back with your favorite foods or things to cheer you up. He loves to take care of you. He hates to see you hurting and would do anything to make you feel better.

⌗ Domestic Pedri who, is the biggest baby when he’s sick. At first, he’ll act like it doesn’t bother him, but the second you make a concerned face, he’s suddenly so much sicker. He’ll pout and pretend he’s on his death bed till you call out of work to nurse him back to health.

⌗ Domestic Pedri who, loves to do anything as long as it’s with you. You want to play board games? He’s already on the way to grab them. You want to go shopping? He’s grabbing the keys. You want to go to the movies? He’s putting on a hoodie. You want to go for a walk? He’s grabbing his sneakers. Anything you want, he will do.

⌗ Domestic Pedri who, doesn’t hesitate to clean the dishes after meal times. He’d rather take care of it right away so you don’t have to worry about it later. He’s always on top of things around the house, too. If something needs repaired, he’ll make the calls for you. Your family loves to tease him about how good of a husband he’ll be one day, and you can’t help but agree.

(DT): @halfwayhearted ^_^

[yanderes-galore]

Hi would it be alright to request romantic yandere Anakin hcs who’s Jedi darling asked him to leave the Jedi order/council with her, cause she doesn’t want to be part of the war any more please 🙏

This request is very similar to one I did here, just that one was platonic and for Clone Wars. I will take a more general approach with this one :) Excited to write more Anakin. I used the plot/backstory of the platonic request but tweaked so please enjoy!

Yandere! Anakin has so much potential....

Yandere! Anakin with Jedi! Darling asking him to leave the order

Pairing: Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Female Darling, Obsession, Overprotective behavior, Manipulation, Violence, Mutual relationship turned forced, Implied intimacy, Paranoia, Dark themes, Imprisonment mentioned, Threats, Implied kidnapping/coercion, Kissing.

In terms of backstory, you and Anakin are both Jedi working for the order.

In fact this can be the same backstory as the Clone Wars Anakin concept I did except romantic.

Which would be you both knew each other from your Padawan days and grew up alongside each other.

So this is essentially an AU where you become Anakin's romantic interest.

Jedi shouldn't have such strong personal connections but he can't help but fall for the young Padawan woman he's grown up with.

You two are inseparable, often training with each other or speaking with one another.

Perhaps your relationship starts mutual.

Anakin has fallen for you and you fall for him over time.

Your relationship has to be secret yet you make do.

Having an already established relationship may just make Anakin's obsession worse.

It's seen in the prequels that Anakin is someone driven by emotion.

He's scared to lose those he loves.

Anakin would also be the first to sense you not liking the war going on.

By the time you wish to leave, Anakin knows you inside and out.

He often meets you in private for "training", when in reality you both share intimacy.

Anakin is addicted to every kiss you give him and he loves your warmth and soft skin.

You're his girl, his woman, and he loves you with all his heart.

He's a man willing to do anything to keep you happy and safe.

In fact part of him constantly worries you'll be in danger due to being a Jedi Knight like him.

If anything his fear skyrockets at the idea of you being killed... especially later on.

When you tell Anakin you wish to leave The Order, he's on edge about it.

He stresses out and he's worried you're trying to leave him.

By this point you're either his girlfriend or wife, depends on if this is around Clone Wars or the third prequel.

He vents these worries to you in private.

He worries he's doing something wrong.

But that just isn't true, you hate all the fighting.

You don't know which side tells the truth and wish to leave... maybe even have your own family.

The idea of having a family with you make Anakin's heart flutter.

The idea of protecting you as his cute little house wife is an idea that pleases him.

Yet he hates the idea of leaving you alone.

Then you drop a bomb.

You want him to leave The Order with you.

Deep down, Anakin really does want to abandon everything and run off with you.

He wants to have a family, he wants to have kids, he wants to keep you safe as his wife and your husband.

At the same time he's still dedicated to The Order.

At first he ignores your offer, instead distracting you with a kiss and tight hug.

He can't ignore it for long unfortunately.

You echo the question back to him, a frown on your face.

One way or another you may leave The Order without Anakin.

He just can't abandon things right now.

The relationship/love for Anakin dies down for you as you make your case and leave for somewhere private.

To make this more yandere and dramatic let's say Anakin comes back to find you after he's joined the Dark Side but before he fought Obi-Wan.

Anakin would've convinced Palpatine to spare you from Order 66 as you will no longer be a problem.

I also have a feeling you left The Order and Anakin for a reason greater than just the war.

Perhaps you had visions of what he'd do in the future.

As a result you tried to change things, but to no avail.

However, Anakin was never ready to just let you go.

You most likely sense his presence, it's darker from the last time you saw him.

His desire for you is darker, he did what he could to prevent your death due to Order 66.

He chose darker power to protect you and now he's finally returned to you.

It was a trial to find where you went but he guessed it was so no one found you.

But Anakin would always find you... he knows how to sense you.

His presence frightens you when he makes his way to your planet with Clone Troopers at his side.

You ask him if he'll kill you, you ask him why he couldn't just forget you after he left.

He made his decision... you made yours... what does he want?

Anakin reassures you he isn't going to kill you, in fact he made you an exception to the Order 66 rule.

No... Anakin came to collect you.

If you had kids then he'll take them too.

Their fate is unknown, however....

Anakin has just missed you so much and regrets not following you back then.

Maybe you had a point to leave....

Yet, Anakin is here now to love and adore you just like before.

You're stiff in his arms when he embraces you, kissing near your neck and cheek while whispering how much he missed you.

Things can be different now, he'll make it different.

He threatens you to not fight him on this.

If you fight him then he'll have to call for your imprisonment.

He's worked hard to make things perfect for the both of you.

Sure, he's given into the Dark Side, but you'll still love him, right?

Of course you will....

There's no need to be hiding from anyone now... he'll protect you as he did before.

Even if you're imprisoned due to no longer loving him and he's cast into lava... he'll probably still care for you somewhere in his heart until you die.

[jacksgreysays]

ooooh glad to see your requests are open again!! how about- "things you said that i wasn't meant to hear" for shikako and kakashi?

Oooh, anon, the first thing that came to my mind with this prompt was pretty mean. Like… I’m going to explain what it was after, but I think it might be TOO mean to actually write in full:

---

Naruto is the one to go through the pictures, of course, the colors faded with age; but the bright blue of his father’s eyes and deep red of his mother’s hair still visible. He presses uncharacteristically gentle hands against the worn fabric of a light pink kitchen apron, a jacket with bold patterns around the red Uzumaki spiral, an unused baby blanket with his name embroidered on it. The soft sentimental things, remnants of a family that should have been, this is what Naruto focuses on as he finally, belatedly, goes through the inheritance that should have been his all along.

Kakashi says nothing, turns away so as to give his student a small amount of privacy, but does not leave him. Not this time.

Down the hall, his other students are focused instead on the more practical items: Weapons and armor. Storage scrolls—some of which are labeled, but the majority of which are not. Fuinjutsu research notes both in Minato-sensei’s slanted chicken scratch and Kushina-san’s looping, cresting hand.

“This is fine,” he hears Sasuke say, no doubt using his Sharingan to pick up any hidden, lingering security techniques. “Something’s weird about that shelf, we should skip it for now.”

“Look at all of this,” Shikako’s words are followed by the rapid rustling of paper. “This is beyond ingenious, this is… this is impossible.”

The part of Kakashi that isn’t constantly grieving feels second hand pride on behalf of his mentor.

“You do the impossible all the time,” Sasuke’s response is somehow flat yet still conveys exasperation.

“Not like this,” she says, her tone absolutely certain, not just the usual flavor of humility and self-doubt. “I can’t even imagine… to have been able to learn from either of them—from both of them?—I would have been able to do so much.”

Sasuke says something after that, but the words don’t make it through to Kakashi. The constantly grieving part of him rises swiftly as guilt, flooding his ears with white noise. Because he knows Shikako would never imply it, but he can hear it anyway:

Had she been Minato-sensei’s student, had she been the child practically adopted by Kushina-san through force of will alone, had she been there, then, if it had been her…

She would have been able to do so much better than Kakashi did.

—

Okay, it’s pretty short and I took a lot of the sting out of it, but the original idea was basically going to JUST be Shikako and Kakashi going through some of Minato’s old fuinjutsu notes and then Shikako kind of accidentally implying that had Kakashi bothered to learn under Konoha’s, perhaps, greatest fuinjutsu master (I think Minato apparently perfected a lot of things Tobirama only had protoypes for?) then a lot of tragedies, both personal and public, wouldn’t have happened or been as bad. I think the meanest one that came to me was that Rin wouldn’t have died since Minato had been working on a way to temporarily transfer a jinchuuriki seal from a person onto an item—probably in preparation for Naruto’s birth—such that they both could have made it home to Konoha where then the actual sealing masters could fix the seal on Rin which, uhhhhh, so sorry Kakashi T_T

There were other things like—a student of a sealing master (especially one that had Sharingan) would have noticed and been able to tweak or remove ROOT seals or find Orochimaru’s fucked up laboratories, etc. etc.

Just me bullying Kakashi, the saddest string bean in the world.

But at least I made it a little nicer? Oof, soooo sorry, anon, I can’t really think of anything else that is as meanly compelling as this.

[gunkreads]

I did end up finishing Baptism of Fire this week. I kinda... don't have much to say about it (future gunk here: don't believe his lies). I've gotten to the point with the Witcher series where it's very reliant on reader buy-in. I'd almost say this is a natural consequence of the concept of "a series", but this feels different.

The following phrasing tends toward the negative a lot. That tone doesn't reflect my feelings on the book; I liked it quite a bit. I just think the negative tone kind of illustrates my point better. Also I'm kind of a hater so it's my natural writing voice.

I think a lot of book series tend to evolve and come into their own, so to speak, as they progress (that feels inane to even say). The Witcher is, on the surface, no different--it really does continue to move along the tracks it sets for itself in the short stories and earlier books. It starts to add curves and bumps to those tracks, though, in that it starts to feel like the author (slash translator, for me) is kind of side-eyeing you for a reaction to any given story beat, then seeing that it didn't make you quit reading and tweaking the gears behind the curtain a little.

It's like it's a subtle satire of the concept of reader investment. Instead of using buy-in as a tool to facilitate progressively moving toward a unique ideal of the author's, as I find most stories do, it seems to use buy-in as a go-ahead to redefine that "unique ideal". This is a bad explanation. I'm trying really hard to put it into words. It's not that the series is wishy-washy or disrespectful of your time--it's both clear and concise--but it definitely seems like it's constantly asking you to reassess its structure from top to bottom.

If I had to really reach for a solid explanation, I'd say this is best represented by the traveling sequences. In Baptism of Fire, the story that Geralt lives is completely stagnant in relation to his goals as a person. He's trying to find Ciri. He makes, and I cannot stress this enough, literally zero progress. He's just fuckin' walkin' places. He makes some friends, loses some friends, makes more friends, finds the ones he lost... etc. The parts of the book focused on him are about assessing who he is as a character and how his goals are misaligned with the methods he believes he has to use to achieve them--namely, that he can't find Ciri alone. He has to go through like a hundred revelations and a couple quasi-apotheoses before actually getting the guts to ask his incredibly loyal friends and companions for help. It's almost funny, and it's a very fun example of how deep emotional change could happen in an old and very, very, deeply sad guy, but it necessarily takes a long fucking time!

This constant feeling of stumbling forward on a treadmill really leaves me feeling like Sapkowski & translator are asking me to put the book down and write an essay about Geralt's character. Which I guess I'm doing, so... Andrzej, one point for you, I fucking guess.

For real though, this book series feels like it's toeing the line of what can be called "pretension". Is it pretentious to insert tone into your book that makes the reader feel like they're being asked to deeply analyze a character? I'd say yeah, it probably is, and I love that shit, but... there is a lot to say about Geralt! He's not devoid of meaning! He just doesn't have THAT much meat to him.

I can still wholeheartedly recommend the Witcher books to anyone who loves gritty low fantasy--it's pretty close to being a paragon of the genre--and I do think Baptism of Fire was probably the most fun book in the series so far, but I really wanted to talk about this weird feeling I had the whole time while reading it.

I also might be hallucinating.

[lily-orchard-gossip-blog]

Analysis/Edit of Two Loving Mothers By Lily Orchard Part 1

Alright Gang here it is! My breakdown of Lily's fic: Two Loving Mothers. 

I’m going to be breaking it down into parts, because... well it really needs a good editing pass. But hey, more content for you guys! So, without further ado, what is this fic about?

The basic premise is that Rey comforts her daughter while reflecting on the past. It's a good idea for a one shot, though the execution leaves a lot to be desired. But that’s enough of me being vague. Let’s get into the meat and bones of this thing.

Rey is woken up by a loud scream, and we are informed that this have been a frequent occurrence since they adopted their daughter.

And the paragraph's... Not that great. This is supposed to be our intro, and it's pretty weak.

I'm going to break down the paragraph, but I want you to keep in mind that this reads like a first draft. I can't say wether or not Lily had edited this, or if she just rushed it out, but just bear that in mind when I start suggesting edits for her story.

Here are the first three lines of the starting paragraph:

Rey stirred at the sound of screaming coming from the other room. A high pitched, desperate shriek that she was convinced was amplified through the Force. It shook her out of a comfortable dream that involved Aliana, a field of wildflowers and no clothes between them and back into the chilly, dark reality of a Naboo Autumn night.

So firstly, the second sentence is fragmented. That wouldn’t be a problem if it added a stylistic flair to the story, or even gave it a certain punch, but it doesn’t. It just serves as a distraction as it doesn’t read quite right for the moment at hand. 

Secondly, us knowing the specifics of Rey’s dream is... Well, it’s irrelevant. Why do we need to know that Rey was having a naked dream, in a story that suppose to focus on her comforting her child?

As a reader, I don’t want to have that image in my head. Especially when I’m reading a fluff fic about caring for a, frightened small child. 

Thirdly: It bloated. You can take these three sentences and shorten them to about one or two. Don’t believe me? Let me give you my version: 

Rey jolted awake to the sound of screaming.

I prefer snappy sentences that jump right into the action, but if your more into a flowery style of prose, something like this could work just as well: 

Ripped away from peaceful dreams into cold reality, it took Rey a moment to realize that the harrowing screams ringing in her ears where all to real.

The next leg of the paragraph is this:

Star was awake again. Another nightmare. This was the fifth time this week. The little girl was constantly waking up screaming in the middle of the night, and doctors could only assume it post traumatic stress disorder. For a four year old. That fact alone broke Rey’s heart.

I don’t know what it is about this part, but it feels off. 

While I’m usually all for short sentences used strung together to convey a certain tone or feeling, this just doesn’t hit right. I think it’s because this reads less as concern and more just as stating the facts. 

It really just feels like this:

Star is awake. It’s a nightmare. Fifth time this week. Doctors think it’s PTSD. She’s four. That makes Rey sad.

And that shouldn’t be how I feel about this piece of information, because it is sad that a four-year-old is suffering so much. This young girl is clearly traumatised to the point she can’t sleep at night. 

I think I would tweak it a little more, so it reads more like this: 

Star was awake again. Another nightmare, the fifth this week. The little girl was constantly waking up screaming in the middle of the night, and the only explanation doctors could give them was post traumatic stress disorder. That a four-year-old could develop something so severe broke Rey’s heart.

I don’t actually think this is better, just that it flows nicer. Actually, I think the addition of a simple coma fixes a lot of the flow issues. As if Rey is contemplating this, instead of just listing it. It really goes to show you how important punctuation is.

Fixing the doctor line also helps with the general vibe of the paragraph.

Aaaaand I’m going to stop it here, because this post is going on to long and I have a crippling fear of writing novels in my blog posts.

See you next time!

[solarwonux]

Needy || Joshua Hong 

fratboy!joshua x f!reader

w.c: 3.5k

warnings: angst a little, smut, car sex, unprotected sex, dirty talking, friends with benefits to lovers, breeding kink if you squint, fluff

note: Happy Birthday Joshua hehe. I hope you guys like this one let me know :)

masterlist

You awake?

The bright light of your phone made you squint as you read over Joshua’s text, a suppressed yawn falling out of your mouth.

I am now.

You sat up on your bed, blinking rapidly trying to regain your vision while attempting to read the time. Three in the morning. You sighed, the cold air conditioning hitting your naked arms making you shiver.

Joshua rarely texted you, if it wasn’t to meet his needs. Sexual and all. And in turn you did the same. It was part of the arrangement the two of you had concocted one Friday night over a half-finished research project, a few drinks and a one-night stand.

It worked.

That was until your feelings for him grew into something more than sexual. You wanted him—no you needed him in every way possible. You wished he would cave into you instead of keeping you at arm’s length. Scared of how his frat brothers would view him if they were to ever find out he was fucking around with a girl in his Women in Literature class. He ignored you. Acted as if you didn’t exist, flirted with other people in front of you, jabbing knives into your heart repeatedly. It hurt you, but you always had to remind yourself that your feeling’s weren’t part of the deal.

You hated him and yourself for letting him treat you in such a disgusting way. For feeling desperate and insecure enough to let him use you in every possible. Until, he showed up at your doorstep with a lustful glint sparkling behind his soft eyes. And you’d fall on your knees worshipping the ground he walked on as if he were Aphrodite’s son.

Every time he came and left you swore that it would be the last time, knowing very well you were lying to yourself. Your feelings for him haunted you, they stayed at the back of your mind as you tried everything in your power to keep them locked away in a wooden box.

Joshua Hong was addicting.

An addiction you never wanted to recover from not matter how much it hurt you. He was like sweet poison running through your veins and you’d bust your lip on the venom he dispensed over and over again in order to keep him close. Your need to feel his body close to you was far greater than your unwanted feelings and another failed love affair.

Let’s go for a drive.

Joshua tapped his fingers on his steering wheel. The chill driving playlist he had put on sounding through his car speakers, while he waited for you outside of your apartment. His impatience getting the best of him, contemplating on whether he should honk his horn or not. But seeing at it was nearing four in the morning he decided against it.

He sighed and rested his head against his window. He was exhausted, but every time he would close his eyes to welcome sleep, his thoughts would start up again. He hated thinking because every time he thought his doubts would seep in. They surrounded his entire body and made him want to scream out into the void. He was frustrated that he had feelings for someone. Feelings that were so strong that occasionally would threaten to break the surface. He wanted to confess but he couldn’t bring himself to confess because he was scared that they would see him for who he was.

A coward who was too scared to admit he was in love because he feared it.

“You’re gonna open the door for me or leave me stranded out here?” Joshua jumped, your forehead pressed up against the glass of his car window. He could tell you were tired, the bags underneath your eyes were prominent, and your face was flushed and little bloated. He felt bad for waking you up, but he needed to see you. He needed to feel your calming presence by his side because despite the relationship the two of you had. You were the only person that could make him feel at ease.

He unlocked his car door, watching you yank it open and get it. “What’s up?” You grabbed his jacket from the floor and put it on top of you as if it were a blanket. It was useless but it kept the cold air at bay.

“Nothing, put on your seatbelt.” He took his car of park and backed out of your driveway. You rolled your eyes reaching over for the seat belt and put it on. “Something’s wrong but you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” You shrugged leaning back in his passenger seat and rested your head against the black leather.

“Just couldn’t sleep.”

“Reasonable.” You yawned, bringing the jacket up to your neck. “You can go to sleep if you want, I just didn’t want to be alone.” Joshua retreated his hand from the steering wheel and placed it on your thigh giving it a squeeze. You gazed over at him, taking him in just like you did whenever the two of you were together. The dark blue of his bangs tickling his eyelashes keeping his eyes hidden from yours.

Joshua tightened his grip on his steering wheel, his thumb caressing the outside of your clothed thigh. He knew you could tell something was bothering and he wanted to tell you, to open up and finally let you in. To give you a free pass to break his heart. To let you walk all over him while he succumbed to your touch, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t let you see what he kept hidden inside because he couldn’t lose you. At least not yet.

“Don’t do that you’re going to draw blood.” Your thumb ran over his chin, tapping on his bottom lip that he had been chewing on since he started driving. He smiled and placed a gentle kiss against the pad of your thumb. Your body felt hot and you retrieved your hand, hiding it again with his jacket. He moved his hand from your thigh and put it back on his steering wheel. The heat of his touch going missing making you feel cold again.

You yawned; your eyes felt heavy. The soft melodies that played from his car radio getting louder than before and you only assumed that was Joshua’s way of silently telling you to stop talking. You turned your eyes away from him settling on the view of the open road. The stillness of the early morning heightening your feelings for him or maybe it was the lack of sleep. Either way you found yourself wishing you had never fallen for him.

“F-Fuck,” Joshua gasped running his length over your wet slit. “You’re always so wet for me.” He mumbled pressing his head against your clit making you shudder against him. The cool air of the ocean breeze hitting your needy bodies making the two of you more desperate than before.

You knew that when you agreed to go on this drive with Joshua, he would end up driving to the spot on the beach the two of you frequently visited on sleepless nights. You knew he would ask you to help him remove the sunrider roof then sweet talk you into accompanying him to the bed of his Jeep. Where he had a plethora of blankets set up, creating a makeshift bed, claiming he wanted to watch the sunrise with you. And you knew you’d end up underneath him begging for him to give you what you wanted. What you needed.

Tonight, was no different.

Joshua had lured you into his love shack with his charming looks and soft smile. He had let sinful words escape his lips. A knowing look etched on his face, while he watched you wither next to him, untouched. He had worked you up slowly, kissed your neck gently instead of marking you up like he usually did. He had taken your clothes off showered your body with kisses, lingering on the parts of your body you hated the most, showing them love. Showing you, he was present with you and in tune with your body.

The soft waves crashing against the beach shore were forgotten, along with the rising sun against the horizon and the morning dew film that had started to stick on to your flushed-out bodies. Nothing else in the world mattered but the pressure you felt in between your legs and your delicious heat wrapping around him, engulfing him in until he bottomed out. His head falling into the crock of your neck, whispering sweet nothings against it while he started to fuck you slowly.

“Y-You feel so good, so w-warm.” Joshua kissed you, feverishly, swallowing your moans. His soft lips whimpering against yours. “I want to be inside you forever.” His hips moving against yours slowly, making sure you could feel all of him inside you. His hands found your back and pushed you against him, chests heaving against one another’s. You arched your back, gripping the blankets underneath you. Your moans bouncing off the windows of his cars, mixing with the sound of ocean waves.

This was a sight you were all too familiar with. A sight that played in your head whenever the two of you were apart. A sight you craved for constantly wondering when he would call you up again to use you for his selfish needs. This sight however felt and was different. He had taken his time, showed you that he knew how your body worked. Joshua had prioritized your pleasure over his and it sent warning flares through your body, because it felt like a goodbye.

“I want you to cum with me.” Joshua grunted his hand snaking in between your bodies searching for the little bud of pleasure. His thumb hoovering over it, the suspense had you withering, begging for him to touch you the only way he knew how. You whimpered feeling the ghost of his touch, your fingers tweaking at your nipple, sending a rush of pleasure through your body. “J-Joshua, mmm, I-I need to cum.” You pressed your chest into you hands, watching as his face contorted into pure bliss, his thrusts getting sloppier, his thumb finally connecting with your clit and rubbing slow figure eight, constrasting the speed of his thrusts. You gasped raising your hips rocking against his hips and hand, feeling the sweet coil start to build up.

“Go on angel, cum around my cock. Let me feel you.” He groaned finding your free hand and interlocking your fingers with his. You clenched around him. Your orgasm getting nearer, until it wasn’t. Until Joshua evilly slowed down his thrusts, pressing his thumb forcefully onto your clit, sending a jolt through your body. “J-Joshua please.” You choked out digging your finger nails into the back of his hand. He smirked pulling himself out of you fully, the head of his cock teasing your entrance.

“Gonna let me cum in you baby, fill you up until it’s spilling out of you.”

“F-Fuck, yes Joshua…whatever just fuck me.” You said the desperation lingering in your voice. Joshua hummed in response before ramming himself into you a broken whine falling from your lips. His thumb on your clit again, your body convulsing with pleasure as you felt yourself come undone around him. Choked out moans leaving your lips as he continued to thrust himself into you, helping you ride out your orgasm while chasing your high.

Joshua panted wrapping your leg around his waist, the head of his cock pressing into the soft velvety spot making you cry out. “J-Joshua t-too much.”

“It’s okay baby I got you…always.” He leaned his body over you, his warm chest resting against your flushed one. He brought his free hand moving the falling strands of hair away from your face. His eyes boring into yours, whispering silent praises until he finally spilled his seed inside you, filling you up to the brim. He hid his head into your neck biting down, your heat continuing to clench around him, milking him out.

The remnants of your orgasms overwhelming the two of you. Pants echoing against the roar of the ocean waves, your chests rising against one another’s while you tried to recover from your highs.

Joshua raised his head, a satisfied smile playing against his lips. “Thought this was just a drive.” You said moving his sweaty bangs away from his eyes. He shook his head chuckling, sitting back on his knees pulling himself out of you. “You should know by now that I can’t hold back when it comes to you,” His hands holding your legs open as he watched his cum fall out of you, a pleased groan slipping past his bruised lips.

“So sexy.” His palm landing against your thigh making you yelp out in pain. “You’re such a guy Joshua.” You rolled your eyes trying to close your legs, fighting against his grip. He reached behind finding the t-shirt he had been wearing and cleaned you up. His grip faltering once he was finished. You sat up on your elbows watching him clean himself up. The sun had now started to fully rise casting a golden hue against his body, accentuating all the parts he hated but you loved about him. You felt your heart tense up, a simple reminder of your unrequited feelings for him. You let out a frustrated sigh falling on your back, taking in the bright hues of the morning sun.

Joshua moved and laid down next to you, wrapping an arm around your waist resting his chin against your shoulder. “You alright?” Worry lingering in the back of his voice and you wanted to push him away but keep him close at the same time.

“I’m all sweaty and sticky.” You lied, protruding your bottom lip out and turned to face him. He smirked pulling you closer to his body, wrapping your thigh around his hip. His growing length toying against your swollen folds. “We have an ocean right in front of us.” He whispered his lips finding your neck making you sigh. “Let’s use it to our advantage.” Joshua smirked against the shell of your collar bones. The ringing in your ear from your last orgasm still lingered, but you found yourself needing him once again.

“What if a morning jogger walks by?” You pressed your chest closer to his, his lips nipping on your skin. His hands moving down to your ass and kneading it, the growing beads of his precum falling onto the skin of your mound.

“Then we’ll give them a show.” He bit down, a whimper running past your lips. And you found yourself hating the effect he had on you for the third time that morning. But just like you needed him he also needed you and that terrified him beyond belief.

Joshua wrapped a towel around your wet naked body and placed a kiss against your forehead, lingering there for a few seconds before pulling away. “How are you feeling?” His index finger ran down the side of your cheek taking the water droplets that had fallen from your hair with it. The morning sun had finally finished rising, waking up all life on Earth reminding the two of you that soon it wouldn’t be just the two of you anymore.

Joshua’s heart hadn’t stopped palpitating since you got into his car that morning. His stomach erupted into butterflies whenever he had held you close throughout the immoral escapades the two of you had engaged in all morning. He never wanted to let you go and now as he looked down into your glittering eyes with the heat of the golden sun rays hitting your sensitive bodies, he found that he couldn’t picture a life without you in it. You were a light in a world filled with darkness, where his demons would get the best of him.

When he was with you, he felt like he could let himself go and stop hiding behind an unrealistic image he thought he needed to keep up. An image that had girls and boys at his feet until he got what he wanted. He had used this to his advantage and for the most part it worked, until he met you.

To him you were a free spirit, who found comfort in the stillness of the night underneath the glimmering stars. You never took no for an answer and despite your insecurities–ones he wished he could make disappear forever, you always confidently kept your head held high. From the moment his eyes landed on you a spark of electricity erupted inside of him, warning sirens sounding at loud volumes in his head because from that moment on he knew he was fucked. You had ignited a fire inside of him, one he never wanted to blow out. And even though he wasn’t sure if your feelings for him held the same weight as the ones he had for you. He didn’t care because if anyone was going to break his heart, he was glad it would be you.

“Joshua Hong are you there?” You waved a hand in front of his face. His eyes blinking rapidly as he saw the ghost of images appear in his line of sight due to looking into the sunlight for longer than usual. “Sorry, what did you say again?” He grabbed a pair of khaki pants from the gym bag he kept in the back of his car.

“I asked if you wanted me to be honest with you?” You joked sitting down on the bed of his car, holding the towel tightly against your body. You watched as he stumbled back and forth while trying to put on his pants, a low laugh escaping your lips. No matter what it was Joshua always had a habit of making things harder for himself. An observation you had discovered early on in your friendship and somehow you found it incredibly endearing.

“Always…I always want you to be honest with me.” He smiled leaving his pants unbuttoned then reaching over to grab a colorful button-down shirt, eyeing you closely as he slipped it on. “I’m sleepy, hungry and a little sore.” You crossed your legs, a cool breeze blowing making you shiver slightly.

“If that’s the case then I have a proposition for you?” He smirked closing the gap between the two of you and wrapped his arms around your waist. “Get dressed, I’ll buy you breakfast at the diner by your place and then we can sleep for the rest of the day.” Joshua leaned his face forward and placed a chaste kiss against your cheek. He pulled away, retreating his hands from your body, watching smugly as the heat rushed through your body.

“Wait…together, sleep all day together. Like you and me at my place on my bed…sleeping?” You moved your head to the side raising a curious brow. “Mhm, I mean I could just drop you off and go home, but it’d rather be with you. I can sleep on the couch if it makes you uncomfortable.” He shrugged leaving the last three buttons of his shirt undone, his toned chest peeking through and if you weren’t so sore, tired and confused you would’ve initiated a fourth round.

“No, it’s fine you’ve been in my bed in more ways than one it’s just that you’ve never wanted to do anything other than have sex.” You removed your towel and reached over to grab your t-shirt that had been hanging off the headrest Joshua’s eyes following your every movement, taking in your glowing body, proudly eyeing the marks he had made on you before they disappeared underneath your shirt.

“I have another proposition for you then.” He stuffed his shaking hands in the pocket of his jeans, keeping them away from your line of sight. His nerves getting the best off him and his doubts came crashing down like a wave, making him overthink once again, until he felt your hands against your cheeks. “You’re filled with a lot of propositions, today aren’t you?” Your smile shinning brighter than the sun, making his heart skip a few beats.

He swallowed thickly basking in your afterglow taking his hands out of his pockets. “Be my girlfriend?” He whispered your eyes growing wide and your breath sped up. You blinked rapidly trying to determine whether you were dreaming or not. But the hopeful look behind his soft eyes brought you back down to Earth and you let out a nervous laugh. A pout forming on his face, his hands settling against your waist, while you hid your face in his chest laughing.

“This isn’t funny I’m dead serious.”

“I’m it’s just I’ve only dreamt about this, never expected it to come true.” You whispered your hold on him getting tired and you felt his body shake with low laughter. “Glad to know I’m not the only one who had fantasized this.” He spoke his arms snaking around your body, burying his face into your hair taking in the salty smell of the ocean.

“Yes.” You mumbled after minutes of silence. “I’ll happily be your girlfriend.”

[nugnthopkns]

dance me to the end of love (i)

word count: 4.3k

warnings: fem!oc, cursing, potential spoilers for the west wing if you've never seen the show

series masterpost: here

a/n: hi!! i am so incredibly happy to finally be putting this fic out into the world. it means an awful lot to me and i can't wait to share the little world i've created :)) x

Magdalene is content with where she’s ended up.

Denver is wonderful. Her friends are there, her cat is there, and it’s the perfect place for a fresh start. She arrived in the city nearly six years ago – a wide-eyed University of Denver freshman and has stayed put ever since. Her hometown of Aspen holds a few too many bad memories, but is close enough that she can return if an emergency calls for it. So far she hasn’t left, too engrossed in finishing her degree and moving on. There’s a job offer lined up with the university’s library upon graduation that Magdalene is ecstatic about. It means she gets to stay right where she is – where she’s comfortable.

☼☼☼☼

The sun might be shining as she exits her apartment building, but it’s cold for March. Magdalene pulls the thick scarf her best friend Bette got her for Christmas higher up her face and walks as quickly as possible to campus. There’s a brief meeting to attend with her advisor before grabbing lunch with Bette, and then her plan is to spend the rest of the day holed up in the library working on her thesis. It’s due in two weeks, with the defence in just over a month, and Magdalene is incredibly nervous. Though she’d gone through submitting her undergraduate thesis two years ago, presenting her master’s research was going to be a lot harder. She’s heard through the grapevine that the committees are being tough this year and she doesn’t want to fail.

Dr. Williams is waiting for her in his office with a smile on his face. He’s a tall man, with thin facial features and wire glasses that box him perfectly into the intimidating professor stereotype. “Miss Stevenson, please sit,” he gestures to the chair across from him.

“Gerald,” she sighs, “You can call me Magdalene, I don’t mind. Besides, it makes you quite the hypocrite if you insist I call you by your first name but you won’t use mine.” There’s no malice in her voice, just a decent amount of teasing.

The older man scoffs but concedes. “I suppose you’re right. Well then Magdalene, tell me, how are your final edits coming along?”

Magdalene spends nearly twenty minutes detailing all the elements she has tweaked since their last meeting, from the title to the citation style. She’s out of breath by the time she’s done, rambling at an impressive speed, and takes a big gasp of air while the professor mulls over her words. Dr. Williams doesn’t say anything, causing Magdalene to shift anxiously in her seat. “Sir, is there something wrong?”

He shakes his head. “Absolutely nothing,” he beams, “Everything is perfect. It’s a shame you don’t want to continue researching. You’d make a fabulous academic.”

The compliment makes Magdalene’s heart soar. It means a lot, especially coming from the person who has seen her cry over the oxford comma. “Thank you sir, but I belong in the practical realm. Someone has to file all the documents you obsessively scan.”

She leaves the building soon after, promising to stop by after she drops off the final draft in a few weeks. It’s a bit later than she expected and hopes Bette won’t be mad. There’s nothing the blonde hates more than poor time management, but Magdalene prays she’ll understand. It wasn’t that long ago and Bette was scheduling her own appointments with advisors on how to graduate. Barn Owl Book Company is located halfway between the school and her apartment, making it the perfect spot to meet. In addition to being a used book store, Barn Owl sports one of the best cafés in downtown Denver. Bette is perched delicately at her friend’s favourite seat, a bay window converted into a small nook, and typing furiously on her phone.

“Sorry I’m late,” Magdalene apologizes, “Williams talked a lot more than I expected him to.”

Bette looks up and smiles, shoving a cup in the other girl’s direction. “As always. How is he?”

Sliding into the booth, Magdalene fills her friend in on what’s been going on in their former professor’s life. Bette graduated with a minor in Classics, and it was Magdalene's major, but the former decided not to further her education and is instead doing full time charity work for the Colorado Avalanche. Her boyfriend Tyson is one of their star players, and the two of them are so smitten it makes Magdalene sick. Conversation quickly turns from school to life, which she’s grateful for.

“So,” Bette says, “Are you in for the trip this summer? I’ve got to confirm the reservation in a week or something.”

“I don’t know Bee, I'm going to be the new girl. Asking for time off like two months into the job would be rude.”

“Linny,” the blonde whines, “Please? I want you to come.”

Magdalene scowls. Bette knows just how much the nickname sours her mood but she chose to use it anyway. “Don’t call me that,” she snaps with quite a bite. “Can someone else take my spot if I decide not to go a little closer to the date?”

“Of course! Gravy said he’d fill an extra spot if one comes up so we don’t lose the deposit,” Bette blabs before trying to switch gears entirely. Magdalene cuts her off.

“Who’s Gravy?”

If her friend is exasperated by Magdalene’s lack of knowledge surrounding hockey, she doesn’t show it. Bette calmly explains that Gravy, who’s real name is Ryan, is a defenceman with the Avalanche and a good friend of Tyson’s. She also makes a point of mentioning that he’s single, to which Magdalene rolls her eyes. Bette has a masterplan for her life – which includes her best friend becoming romantically involved with an Avalanche player so the two of them can live the better half life together. As the best friend, Magdalene is constantly barraged with potential players who are looking to date. Once she went on a few dates with Mikko, but that ended fairly quickly when the two realized they were better as friends. Every time since she’s turned Bette down as gently as possible, not wanting to get involved with anyone. Her life is just starting, and Magdalene wants to be secure before settling down.

The conversation eventually shifts to what Magdalene plans to wear for both her thesis defence and graduation. Bette is fashion savvy, while Magdalene is decidedly not. Her everyday wardrobe consists of collared button-downs and sweater vests, which is supposedly never going to back a comeback, according to Bette at least. The blonde eventually wears Magdalene down, and secures a position as stylist for the graduation ceremony. There was an attempt at the thesis defence, but the other girl insists she needs to be as comfortable as possible on such a stressful occasion.

A glance to the clock on the opposite wall has Magdalene stretching her arms and giving an apologetic glance to her friend on the other side of the table. “I should go,” she says. “I’ve got to put in some serious work on my citations today, and you know Caligula doesn’t like it when I’m gone all day.”

Bette rolls her eyes, but there isn’t any frustration behind the gesture. “I swear to god Mags, your cat has more separation anxiety than I do. Speaking of, I’m supposed to pick Tyson up at the airport and I’m running behind.”

“Tell him I say hi,” Magdalene says as she wraps her arms around Bette for a quick hug.

The two girls part ways on the sidewalk, with Magdalene heading back to campus and Bette sliding into the sleek Audi she shares with her boyfriend. Headphones find their way into her ears, and Magdalene listens to a random comedy podcast. Once tucked safely inside the library she’ll put on her favourite lo-fi playlist and concentrate, but for now she just enjoys the funny anecdotes of stories past.

It’s quiet in the library for a Tuesday, though Magdalene isn’t complaining. Her favourite table, the one she swears up and down is the only reason she ever gets anything done, is open, and she all but sprints to place her bag on the worn leather chair. While setting up her work station a few of the librarians come over to offer their congratulations for her upcoming job. News certainly travels fast around here, Magdalene thinks, but accepts their generosity with a smile on her face. They leave her alone soon enough and the tedious work of double checking the formatting of every single citation in the sixty-five page paper begins.

Hours pass, and Magdalene stays working in the library until as late as she possibly can. Caligula is going to start to worry about the length of her absence soon and his anxiety response of knocking over plants is not a mess she feels like cleaning up. She packs up her laptop and walks the short distance home as fast as possible.

“Little boots, I’m home,” Magdalene parrots in a sing-song voice as she slips her jacket off her shoulders and onto the hanger. At the sound of his nickname, the small cat bounds into the entryway. “Hi darling, did you miss me?” Magdalene gets an obnoxiously loud purr in response that she takes it as a yes. She reaches down to pick up the tiny animal before continuing further into the apartment, scratching behind his ears as she does so. The two of them settle into the respectably sized couch, where they stay for the rest of the night watching reruns of The West Wing before Magdalene falls asleep.

☼☼☼☼

“You fucking did it!” Bette shrieks as she bounds towards her best friend. Magdalene braces herself for the oncoming assault, and manages to keep them both upright after Bette jumps into her arms.

Her thesis defence had just finished, and the committee found Magdalene a worthy candidate for the Master of Information Science qualification. The presentation itself was open to the public, so Bette and Tyson sat in the front row to support Magdalene, but were escorted out for the conversation that followed. The two girls had developed a code so the news could be shared in a subtle way, though Bette threw the original plan out the window as soon as she saw her friend give a sneaky thumbs up when the conference room door opened.

“Congrats Mags,” Tyson says sincerely, doing his best not to add to the growing spectacle, but Magdalene can tell he wants to give her a bone crushing hug.

“Thank you,” she smiles softly, “And thank you guys for coming. It means a lot.” As two of her closest friends, both Bette and Tyson know that her family situation is rocky at best, and having them act as her support system means more than she’ll ever be able to articulate.

The couple shares a knowing look before engulfing their friend in a hug. “We’re always going to be here for you,” Bette whispers, “No matter what.”

Magdalene’s smile is so genuine it crinkles her eyes as she wraps her arms around Bette and Tyson’s shoulders and leads them out the door and into the sunshine. The group continues to the parking lot, where they climb into Tyson’s car and drive off campus in the direction of Magdalene’s favourite restaurant. Though she had tried to convince her friends they didn’t need to celebrate, she failed, and Magdalene soon finds herself laughing hysterically over a plate of carbonara as Tyson tells a story about the shenanigans the team got up to on their last road trip.

There’s a game tonight, and Bette has somehow convinced her into attending. Magdalene knows she should go, expand her social horizons a little, but all she wants to do is curl up in bed and sleep for three weeks. Her one condition is that she can go home straight after the game without being guilted into following the group to whatever nightclub they’ll celebrate the win or drink away the loss in. Tyson has to get ready so he drops the two girls off at Magdalene's apartment complex. She’s in charge of getting Bette to the rink, and she’ll leave with her boyfriend after the game.

Once inside the confines of her home, Magdalene promptly lies on the floor. “Holy shit,” she sighs, “I did it. I fucking did it.”

“You did!” Bette says as she lies down beside her best friend. “I’m so fucking proud of you, and Tyson is too. Even if he won’t tackle you in public to prove it.”

The comment garners a laugh from Magdalene, which alerts Caligula to the presence of others in the apartment. He pads over the rug currently being occupied by two adults, and snuggles into the small space between them. Bette and Magdalene continue to lay there, petting the cat and looking back fondly on all the times Magdalene called her friend in tears because she didn’t think she could push herself any farther. Bette was always there to pick up the slack, editing whatever section Magdalene was working on or to bring over a hot meal. Her support earned her the top spot in the acknowledgements section of the thesis.

Ball Arena is already crawling with people when Magdalene pulls into the small lot for player’s and their families. Normally she parks with the general public, but Bette insists they watch this game from the better halves box, and these spaces are closer to that entrance.

“Stop dragging your feet,” the blonde chastises as Magdalene takes her time cutting the engine. “I want to get a glass of rosé before they sell out.”

Sighing, Magdalene follows her orders. “Don’t you have a special bar in the box?” she asks while locking the car.

“Yeah, but the other girls are absolute fiends. They’ll drink it all before we get there with no remorse.”

The girls climb the stairs to the better halves box, Bette chatting excitedly about the game, but Magdalene stops just before the entrance. She’s met most of the others on multiple occasions and has nothing to worry about, but she can’t help but feel anxious. Her life is so different than everyone else’s in the space, and it feels like cheating when she’s there because she isn’t romantically involved with anyone on the roster. Bette likes to joke that she’s her better half, but Magdalene knows it’s said just to calm her nerves.

“It’ll be fine,” Bette whispers while squeezing her hand, “And if you get too uncomfortable we can find some seats in the nosebleeds.”

Once inside Magdalene’s nerves dissipate. Most of the other wives and girlfriends pay her no mind, but the ones that are especially close to Bette congratulate her on passing her defence. It warms her heart a little, and the small group Magdalene finds herself in settles down to watch the game unfold.

It’s a fairly intense one between Colorado’s division rival St. Louis. Both teams are fighting for first place in the conference, and a win for the Avalanche would put them three points ahead of the Blues instead of one. Players from both sides are amped up, and more than once a scrum at the net has turned into a dog-pile. Colorado is outplaying the other team, but have still managed to find themselves a goal short heading into the final period. At the buzzer Tyson takes the face-off and is immediately shoved by a member of the opposite team. He goes down hard, and Bette squeezes Magdalene’s hand so tightly she fears it will lose blood flow. Silence falls over the arena as Tyson doesn’t immediately get up. The inside of lip finds its way between her teeth and Magdalene bites down hard, worried about her friend. She’s so focussed on Tyson that she doesn’t notice a fight breaking out.

“Holy shit, Gravy is going to town!”

The remark is made by someone Magdalene recognizes as Gabe Landeskog’s wife, and it makes her peel her eyes off of Bette’s worried features and scan the ice for some action. Sure enough, a very tall man is laying right hooks to someone who looks significantly smaller than him on the Avalanche blue line. The referees let the fight continue until Tyson drags himself off the ice and onto the bench before separating the men and throwing them in the penalty box. Magdalene can tell words are still being exchanged from both sides of the glass, but she’s more focussed on the fact Tyson doesn’t make his way to the dressing room – a good sign that allows Bette to drop her hand and let out a shaky breath.

Nothing of great importance happens until MacKinnon ties the game with seven minutes left. It happens while the Avalanche are short handed, and the goal seems to light a fire beneath the team. Magdalene may not know much about hockey, but she’s smart enough to notice the insane amount of energy all the players suddenly have. Time ticks by slowly and before she realizes it, the final face-off is taking place. Luckily it’s in the St. Louis zone and won by Colorado. The puck is tipped back to the same player who got in the fight for Tyson, Gravy, and he one times it right into the back of the net. The buzzer goes off not a second later, and the entire team piles on top of the player who just won them the game.

Bette and Magdalene join in the shrieks of the other partners, jumping from their seats in excitement. Eventually they make their way down to the hallway outside the locker room and lean against the brick while they wait for Tyson.

“You don’t have to stay,” Bette insists, “I can wait by myself.”

Magdalene shakes her head. “No way. I want to make sure he’s okay too. What good is a friend with a black eye?”

The other girl laughs at her friend’s stubbornness but doesn’t shoo her away. Once Magdalene has made a decision it’s hard to get her to sway from it, and Bette knows better than to push. Besides, who is she to deny her friend a bit more social interaction? Magdalene has spent the past six years practically holed up in the library and deserves to stand in a crowded hallway.

The friends chat idly while they wait, with Magdalene sharing some of the most ridiculous questions she got asked in her defence interview that morning. She’s mid story when Tyson exits the dressing flanked by a man dressed sharply in all black.

“Hey guys,” Tyson greets, dipping his head to place a kiss to Bette’s cheek before doing an elaborately goofy handshake with Magdalene.

“Good game baby,” Bette compliments sweetly. She then turns her attention to the boy standing awkwardly on the fringes. “You too Graves.”

He smiles shyly, muttering out a small thanks. It’s then he seems to notice the final member of the group, and offers his hand in greeting. “Hi, I’m Ryan.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Magdalene.”

She puts two and two together on the walk to her car. The Ryan Magdalene just met is the same who will take her spot on the trip, fought someone in Tyson’s defence, and scored the game winning goal. Though they’ve only said a few words, she likes him. He seems genuine, and those people are the rarest to find.

☼☼☼☼

Magdalene is walking across a graduation stage for the final time in two days. However, she can’t find anyone to take the third ticket. The University of Denver has a stupid rule where all graduates must have three guests attend the ceremony. Bette and Tyson are obviously occupying two of Magdalene’s seats, but she’s having trouble filling the third.

“I can ask Tys if one of the guys is free,” Bette shrugs. The two girls are sitting in the window of Barn Owl drinking iced lattes and discussing what Magdalene should wear to the ceremony.

“It’s okay,” Magdalene says, “I don’t want to bother anyone. Maybe I’ll just ask June.”

Her friend’s eye roll so far back into her head Magdalene isn’t sure they won’t stay there. “You can’t ask your boss to watch you graduate Mags! Besides, Gravy owes Tyson a favour and was already looking for something to do. I’m sure he won’t mind wasting a few hours as long as he gets drinks out of it.”

There isn’t a better option, so even though she barely knows the guy, Magdalene agrees. “Make sure he gets this?" she sighs, handing her friend an envelope with a single ticket in it. "I have to go. Caligula should be done at the vet soon.”

“Say hello to little boots for me,” Bette giggles as she waves goodbye.

Hours later, tucked into her couch with a glass of wine in one hand and Caligula playing with the fingers on the other, Magdalene realizes she invited a complete stranger to her graduation and how that could be a terrible idea. Sure, Ryan sounds like a great guy from the way Bette and Tyson talk about him, but he’s only ever spoken three words to her. Since that game she’s gone out with the team a few times, but the man with the piercing stare is yet to make an appearance. Magdalene considers that perhaps he’s more like her than his profession gives him credit for, and she feels a twinge of guilt about being worried he’d cause a scene at the ceremony.

There isn’t any more time for her to fret over the third and final guest on the list. At the last minute Bette decides there’s nothing in Magdalene’s closet that’s suitable for her to wear, so a trip to a local second-hand store ensues. While it’s nice that her friend has taken their carbon footprints into consideration, Magdalene wishes it didn’t have to happen an hour and a half before the ceremony is supposed to start.

“We have to be there in twenty minutes Bette,” she frets, tapping her foot nervously against the tile flooring.

If they can’t find whatever it is Bette’s looking for, Magdalene will have to walk across the stage in denim cutoffs and a faded t-shirt with Neil Young’s face on it, which is something she’s hoping to avoid at all costs.

“Have no fear, Mags,” she says with a knowing glint in her eye, “For I have found it.” Bette holds up a hanger that is holding a beautiful long sleeve dress adorned with a whimsical floral print.

Magdalene can’t help the gasp that escapes from her. “It’s beautiful,” she breathes, “But let’s hope it fits.”

The dress does in fact fit, and the workers are kind enough to let her wear it out of the store. Bette drives at a speed that might not be the safest to travel at in downtown Denver, but she gets to the school with minutes to spare. She shoos her friends out of the car so she can go pick up Tyson and Ryan, and Magdalene checks in with little hassle. The pool of graduates is fairly small, so she chats with a few classmates while they wait for the call to put their gowns on. Time passes quicker than expected, and soon Magdalene is being directed to her seat. She zones out while the dean gives a congratulatory speech and they go through the first few names. At one point she looks backwards into the crowd to find Bette, Tyson, and Ryan all giving her a thumbs up. The nerves she didn’t even know she had settle.

A faculty member signals for Magdalene’s row to stand up, and she smoothes her dress before dutifully following the person in front of her. Giddiness bubbles in her stomach at the thought of being done school forever. A hand from the stage crew give a cue, and Magdalene appears on the stage as her accomplishment is broadcast through the microphone.

“Magdalene Stevenson is being awarded a Masters in Information Science in Archival Studies and Records Management.” It feels so good to finally be finished that she lets a tear slip as she shakes the hand of the staff member handing her the package with her diploma in it.

The rest of the ceremony passes in a blur, and before Magdalene knows it her friends are approaching to congratulate her. Bette and Tyson wrap her in a tight hug, murmuring praise in her ears. Ryan stands awkwardly to the side before Bette drags him into the celebration. The four of them stand in the courtyard where the ceremony was for much longer than needed. Bette is crying enough to refill Sloan Lake if there is ever a drought and is yet to let go of Magdalene’s figure.

It’s only when the event staff ask them to leave so they can tear down the stage does Magdalene turn to leave campus for the last time as a student. She’ll be back in a few weeks as an employee, but deep down she knows this is the last time she’ll ever feel such a deep connection to the place.

“Victory is mine, victory is mine! Great day in the morning people, victory is mine!” Magdalene yells, quoting Josh Lyman as she skips down the path towards Bette’s car.

Both Bette and Tyson are confused at the sudden outburst, not knowing what she’s talking about, but Ryan responds without missing a beat. “Should I bring you all the muffins and bagels in the land?” His response doesn’t clear anything up, but it elicits a giant smile from Magdalene, who laughs and nods in confirmation.

Sitting in the back of Bette’s Audi, on the way to a graduation party she’s supposed to know nothing about, Magdalene decides that she wants to get to know Ryan Graves better. From what she’s garnered from Bette and Tyson he’s a class act, standing up for friends and giving good advice. He likes The West Wing and showed up to a stranger’s graduation, so how bad can he be?

☼☼☼☼

additional notes: see what magdalene's graduation dress looks like here // the quote from the west wing is from 1.02 if you were curious!

☼☼☼☼

taglist: @scrunchmakar @marcoscandellas @toplinetommy (add yourself to the taglist!)

[onechicago-upsteadrhekker]

the trouble with wanting (is i want you) - part two

Friends!!!!! I’m here! I’m back! 

I can’t apologize enough for the long wait! It certainly wasn’t intentional, but alas that is the life of a college student and unfortunately school comes before upstead as much as I wish it didn’t!

I hope part two gives you all the feels and makes up for the long absence, however, I do have something to share with you that may make you want to kill.

Part two turned into part three...

So, SURPRISE! This isn’t a two-shot; it will definitely be a three part story and I am happy to say that part three is written (mostly, I have to tweak a few things) so that will be up sometime next week depending on my school schedule.

Thank you again for your patience and I sincerely hope that you enjoy this chapter that contains no real plot, a lot of fluff and mutual pining!

As always, let me know what you think in the comments!

Tagging: @imjustwritingg, @anniesardors, @thetwit, @angelsjedi, @chichichicken, @carissalizz, @maya-asturias

Let me know if you want to be added to this list for part three!

Read on AO3

The next few days are filled with mandatory walking sessions, pain meds every four to six hours and Jay’s smiling face. He was the only reason why she wasn’t absolutely losing it because while she despised hospital stays in general, hospital stays in another city filled with people she didn’t know were downright insufferable.

But he’d made it go from something akin to glorified torture to slightly tolerable.

The bullet wound was starting to heal and the incision from where they’d had to remove her spleen was looking great according to the nurses and everything seemed to be on the right track healing wise, but anything regarding this thing that she and Jay had going on? She had no idea.

One would think getting shot in a different city, causing one partner to literally drop everything and come rushing to the other partner’s side would end in heartfelt confessions and relationships born at hospital bedsides.

But that’s not what happened, and Hailey was seriously starting to wonder if she and Jay were ever going to be on the same page. Or at least read the page aloud because she was fairly certain he felt the same way about her that she felt about him.

Because just partners don’t fly eight-hundred miles to be by your side even if you are hurt.

Right?

And it didn’t help that he was there with her almost twenty-four seven, giving her no time alone to process what he was telling her without words because before this, it had just been subtle glances and warm smiles, teasing words and affectionate eyes.

But this. Flying eight-hundred miles. It was tangible and real, and she couldn’t quite believe it was really actually happening, but then he was there, bringing her her favorite foods from restaurants she’d found during her time in New York and barely going back to her hotel room for sleep, staying by her side to keep her company and catch her up on five weeks’ worth of Intelligence news.

He was there for every lap around the hospital floor and every dressing change. He was there to shoo out the nurses when they were starting to get on her nerves and he was there, rubbing her hand softly when the pain of her bruised ribs made it hard to breathe.

And then there was the way she was constantly being referred to as ‘Jay’s wife’ instead of her own name much like when she was back in grade school and her teachers would call her ‘Sam’s little sister’.

He’d made quite the impression on the nurses and for some reason neither she nor Jay had set the record straight on the actual status of their relationship since that first day when he was mistaken as her husband.

(It was probably the same reason that they hadn’t talked about what Jay flying to New York meant. And to be honest, Hailey was sort of hoping that Jay would set the record straight on their relationship, if only to let her know where they stood.)

And she definitely wasn’t going to acknowledge the dangerous little thrill she got from hearing herself referenced that way or think about what it would be like for real. Nope, not a chance or she might never come back down to reality after having narcotic-induced dreams of three little words, ‘I do’s’, freckled little faces and laughing green eyes.

But then it’s so close, she can almost taste it and it should scare her, but it doesn’t.

Because she can feel it in the way he grins at her and in the way he tells her goodnight at the end of a long day of keeping her company. It’s in the way his arm brushes hers when he’s helping her sit or stand and it’s in the way his eyes hold hers for far longer than he should; his green eyes swimming with hints of the things she dreams.

But until she hears it. Until one of them gathers the courage to actually say the words and put a name to what they already know and feel, then she’s going to wait and guard those dreams carefully because she knows deep in her heart that when they return to Chicago, it will have either worked out or it won’t at all.

She’s not sure exactly when the pieces will fall into place or if they’ll even fit together but she knows they are at the point of no return. And honestly, that scares her the most because no matter what happens, it will always be Jay for her.

Because he was her home, and he had a place in her heart no one else could ever have and that terrified her because she knows that she’ll never get over him if for some reason it doesn’t work out between them.

She tries not to think like that because she’s pretty sure what she’s seen in his eyes is something that looks a lot like love, but it’s hard to be totally optimistic when it seems like the universe is always keeping them not necessarily apart, but not really together. At least not in the way she’s pretty sure both of them want.

So, she sits in her hospital bed, watching him laugh at her attempts to renegotiate her discharge date with the nurses and listens to him chatter about what Will’s been up to and how much he hated being tossed between Kevin, Kim, Adam and Vanessa while she’d been gone even if he liked working with each of them.

They’d been flying crooked he told her and that her not being there threw them all off so he’d be happy when he could take her back home and so would everyone else. In fact, they’d told her as much when Kim had facetimed Jay the day after he’d arrived in New York to get proof of life and see for themselves that she was truly going to be okay.

It was sweet and nice, and it made her realize how much she really did miss her team turned family even if she already felt like she was home just because Jay was beside her.

He was beside her and he was there with her and every time he looked at her over the beeping of the heart monitor she was hooked up to, everything else faded from view. The facetime calls with their friends, the friendly nurses checking up on her every few hours, the general hustle and bustle of hospital life happening outside her room.

It was just them and she’d be lying if she wasn’t looking forward to her discharge date for reasons other than just being out of the hospital because she knew then, she and Jay would truly be alone stuck in a hotel room in a city that neither one of them knew.

And that, she knew, would be the true test.

*

On the morning of the third day she’d been in the hospital, Hailey was given the news that she’d be released by that afternoon. If she was physically capable, she’d be jumping for joy but because of the dozen stitches in her side, she’d had to settle for celebrating internally.

Moving was still slow-going and she still felt overly tired far too early in the day, but she was confident that a night in her own bed (or at least the bed she’d been sleeping in for the past several weeks) would do her a world of good.

And she wasn’t going to think about how Jay being potentially next to her would probably make her sleep better than she’d ever had.

She didn’t know exactly where Jay had been disappearing to when he’d left the hospital at night, but she’d given him the key to her hotel room and he always came back looking well-rested so she felt safe assuming he was sleeping in the same queen bed she’d been occupying for the past five weeks.

Hailey wasn’t quite sure what would happen tonight when it was time for him to go to bed, but she wondered if this was the day they were going to finally get it right, nestled under the bed covers, whispering dreams and promises, her side aching but her heart so full.

“Here, let me help you with that,” Her gaze flicked up to Jay who had entered the room and was walking towards her, his hands already reaching out to help her pull on her coat. Hailey looked up at him as he focused his gaze on putting her left arm carefully through the sleeve of her jacket.

She wasn’t sure if a person could have reversed déjà vu, but the action brought her right back to another hospital room in a different city when she was still reeling from the panic she’d felt surrounding Jay’s terrifying brush with death.

When she’d helped him pull his familiar, worn black jacket over his sling right before she almost told him she loved him.

And now here they were again, except this time it was him helping her and this time she knew they weren’t going home without having the conversation they should have had then.

“Thanks,” She murmured softly, trying to ignore the way her heart raced when he briefly squeezed her hand.

Hailey gingerly sat down on the side of the bed, already worn out and sore from the morning’s activities of getting ready to leave.

“I called a taxi. It should be here any minute,” He grabbed her duffle and sat it beside her, “You sign the discharge papers?”

“Yes, thank God,” She muttered accepting the pair of Sperry’s Jay was handing her.

He chuckled softly, “You are so impatient.”

She shot him a look, “I’m sorry. And who was the one practically begging me to spring him from the hospital the minute he was awake and talking?”

He had the wisdom to look sheepish, but he couldn’t hide the wide smile threatening to take over. Clearly, they were both happy to be leaving the hospital room behind.

As Jay busied himself with packing the last few items into the duffle he’d brought Hailey the day he’d arrived in New York, he can’t help but watch her. She’s moving slowly, but she seems pretty alert for someone who got shot and had relatively serious surgery only four days ago.

Her eyes are bright if not tired and her hair is haphazardly thrown up in her signature high pony, but Jay still thinks she’s the most beautiful girl in the world and he almost tells her just that.

His mouth is open, forming the words when she turns to him after sliding on her shoes, catching his gaze with eyes narrowed in suspicion, “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

And he thinks this is why he can never tell her how he feels. She’s always taking the words away with a flash of blue and a dash of blonde because he wants his future to look like her so badly, it terrifies him. And even when he does finally find the words, he knows he will never be able to tell her with words just how much she means to him.

His lips quirk and he shakes his head, turning his attention back to the duffle to zip it up before nodding towards the open door of her hospital room, “No reason. You ready to go?”

For a second, he thinks she’s going to push, and they are going to have the conversation they need to have right here and now, but then she doesn’t and some part of him feels disappointed that they are making themselves wait once again.

He’s not even entirely sure why because nothing is holding them back now. Not really. They are finally both in the same city with no kidnappings, rigged elections or anything else threatening to tear them apart and yet, they are still walking that very fine line of partners and best friends to something openly affectionate and loving and real.

It’s almost too perfect because while he rushed here in a state of panic, not knowing what he would find, Hailey, for the most part was okay and now they were stuck here with basically nothing to do but wait till she could fly without risk of infection or complications from surgery.

He’s not sure if he should be worried, waiting for the other shoe to drop or thrilled that the universe seems to be giving them a hint that it was finally time to take that leap of faith from partners and best friends to something more.

*

“Hailey, you are clearly in pain.”

After the short taxi ride from the hospital, they were finally in the hotel room and now firmly engaged in a battle of wills.

Hailey was currently giving him a glare that reminded him of the way she would silently warn him from across the bullpen to not do something he might regret or when they were down to the last couple of fries during a long stakeout and he was reaching for them.

Generally, he didn’t win the fights when she wore that look but today, he was determined to stand his ground.

“Jay,” It was practically whined and while he understood her reluctance to take the pain meds she’d been prescribed, he couldn’t stand watching her in pain.

In the few times that Hailey’s been injured during their partnership, it hadn’t been too serious, and she usually had a good attitude about doing what she needed to do to recover. So, seeing her like this, pale and tired and just not her normal, spunky self, broke his heart and he wanted to do everything in his power to fix it.

Starting with the meds she’s determined not to take.

He was happy to at least see the trait that was so undeniably Hailey in her eyes because otherwise, she looked like a lifeless shell of the badass detective he knows she is. The oversized pillows she was propped against makes her seem so tiny and she almost blended in with the sheets she was so white.

If he was being honest, she was starting to look worse than she did when she was in the hospital and that definitely concerned him enough to possibly make him take her right back there or at least call Will for his opinion.

Sighing, he uncrosses his arms to move from where he’s been standing a few feet away from the end of the bed holding the prescription bag in a clenched fist.

Her eyes track his movements as he comes to gingerly sit down at the edge of the bed, leaning over on his forearm to look at her closely, “Hailey,” He shakes his head, “Please just take them. At least so you can get some sleep. You look exhausted.”

For a second, he thinks that she’s going to keep fighting him, but then he sees the weak mask she’d had in place slip, the dull look of pain and exhaustion becoming clearly present in her eyes.

“Okay, fine,” She sighs out wearily, and he’s a little surprised that she conceded that quickly even if he knew he’d already won, but then she cocks her head slightly, “What do I get in return?”

Yeah, he didn’t think he’d won that easily.

Jay pushes the flirty and slightly suggestive response that instantly pops into his head to the back of his mind. There would be plenty of time for that later, or at least he desperately hopes so because he knows that now is not the time to start anything of that nature.

When he tells Hailey what she deserves to hear, he wants her feeling halfway decent and looking healthier than she does right now.

If they were in Chicago, he would bribe her with Bartoli’s, but they weren’t. They are in New York and she’s already made it quite clear that the pizza here is a tragedy, so he doesn’t think she’d want that particular food even if he could find a copy-cat deep-dish place.

So, he goes for the next best thing, “What about some Greek? It probably won’t be anything like Greek Islands, but I’m sure I can find a decent place. I could grab you some Pastichio. What do you say?”

The way her eyebrows furrow and her bottom lip sticks out adorably makes him want to kiss the pout away, but he doesn’t.

She shakes her head, “I don’t want Greek.”

Jay bites his lip briefly and refrains from making a comment on the childish tone of her voice as he regards her carefully for a quiet second.

He would never admit it, but he knows he’s a much worse patient when their positions are reversed so he’s more than willing to put up with her stubbornness because he knows it’s just a way to cope with the pain.

And besides, he loves her. He would do whatever he could to make her feel better.

“I’ll get you whatever you want as long as you take your medicine, so why don’t you tell me what it is you’d like to have,” He pushes himself up off his forearm to sit upright, but he still holds her gaze.

She sighs carefully, picking at the covers before answering him, “A Snickers bar.”

Jay raises his brows.

In the years he has known her, he doesn’t think he’s ever seen her eat a candy bar. She could down a piece of chocolate cake at an event, or the random chip bag she’d found during a stakeout, but he doesn’t think he’s ever seen her eat the overly processed candy bar before.

“You like Snickers bars?” He can’t help the slightly disgusted tone of his words.

Hailey’s expression instantly morphs into a defensive one, “A girl can have guilty pleasures, and this just so happens to be mine. Now, you said you’ll get me anything if I take my medicine, so you’re lucky it’s not something like a new gun. Or a car.”

Jay rolls his eyes and Hailey desperately wants to swat him but she’s already in a significant amount of pain so she doesn’t think that would be the wisest decision.

“Relax, I will get you your Snickers bar. I promised, didn’t I?” He smirks a little as he moves off the bed to grab his coat that’s thrown over the back of the desk chair, “I just can’t believe I didn’t know you liked candy bars.”

Shrugging a little, she tries not to wince at the pain that small movement caused her, “I don’t indulge in them much; only when I’m not feeling good or if there’s literally nothing else to eat.”

After gathering up his wallet and phone, Jay stops in the middle of the room to regard her for another moment. He shakes his head, “What else don’t I know about you, Hailey Upton?”

She gives him a little smirk of her own, “Lots of things, I’m sure. I was once told I was aloof about my personal life.”

“And just when I thought I was getting to know the person under that tough exterior,” He feels the smile creep over his face, and he doesn’t care that he probably looks like a man hopelessly in love because he is.

He watches as her own expression softens and for just a moment, their eyes meet. A thousand words of unspoken love pass between them and he can see his entire universe in those captivating, blue orbs just as she can see a million promises in his.

Hailey shifts and winces at the sharp pain it causes her, cursing herself for ruining the moment. Those pain pills she’d tried refusing were looking pretty good right about now as the throbbing intensified around her still tender ribs.

Jay noticed her discomfort. He always does, and she could see the concern so clearly on his face it made her heart swell in love. He’s the most caring man she’s ever met, and it’s one of the things she loves most about him.

“As soon as I get back, you’re taking your meds,” Jay frowns, rubbing his thumb briefly along his hairline before dropping his arm, “I’d give them to you now, but I’m not sure I should leave you alone with narcotics in your system just in case. And besides, you need to take the antibiotics with food, so I’ll pick up something while I’m out.”

She just nods, picking up the remote for the television, “Sounds good. I’ll be here watching whatever trash I can find on TV, so hurry back.”

Jay gives her one last smile that warms her from head to toe before he opens the door and walks out.

*

When Jay walks through the hotel door about an hour later, he has the overwhelming urge to call out a ‘Honey, I’m home’, but he doesn’t want to wake Hailey if she’s sleeping and he’s not sure how she would respond to the term of endearment even if it is said teasingly.

It’s funny how that is the thing he feels would be crossing the practically non-existent line they have towing for the past several days. Or weeks really if he’s honest with himself.

As it turns out, she’s not sleeping but still in very much the same position he’d left her in. The TV was on, a rerun of ‘Happy Days’ playing quietly but she doesn’t seem to be paying much attention. Instead, she’s looking down at the phone in her hand, clearly scrolling through something before glancing up at him.

Her eyebrows rise as she takes in the various Target bags he’s carrying in both hands. Hailey let her phone drop in her lap, more interested in what Jay had bought because all she’d sent him out for were Snickers Bars, “Did you buy the whole store?”

He frowns at her as he finds the bag of take-out Chinese he’d ended up getting for their late lunch-early supper to set on the nightstand, “No, I did not, but I did get real food and,” He holds up the other bags he was carrying, “I got you your Snickers.”

Whatever else he’d bought was forgotten as she beamed up at him, already reaching for the candy bar he was digging for throughout his purchases. When he finally found what he was looking for, he tossed it to her, and she immediately ripped open the wrapper.

He makes a face as she bites into the sugary chocolate, “I still don’t know how you eat that crap.”

She responds with an eyeroll because her mouth was too full to make a witty comeback.

“You could at least wait till you ate actual food first,” Jay arched a disapproving eyebrow, his nose wrinkling as he watched her make an obvious display of enjoying her treat. He shakes his head and deposits the Target bags on the lower end of the bed to pull out the bottles of vitamin water he’d bought for her.

“Here, I got your favorite and a couple of new ones for you to try,” He handed her the blackberry flavored one before retrieving the pill bottles that were sitting on the nightstand beside their bag of food.

He read the instructions on each bottle then opened the oxycodone to dump one out, “Okay, you can have one right now and,” He checked his watch, “One at around seven then another at eleven.”

Hailey frowns, but takes the pill out of his outstretched palm anyway, “I hate the way these make me feel. My head feels fuzzy, and I can’t think clearly.”

Jay gives her a sympathetic smile and offers a simple, “I know” because he does know, but he also knows that if she has any hope of getting rest tonight, she needed to be well medicated.

“Maybe tomorrow we’ll try going all day without pain meds, okay? I just want to make sure you have a good night’s rest tonight since it’s your first night out of the hospital,” He tells her as he shakes out an antibiotic pill and then the iron supplement the doctor had prescribed her with for the next few days to hand to her.

Nodding, she knocks the three pills back and takes a swig of her vitamin water. Meeting his gaze, she reaches out to grab his hand and gives it a tight squeeze, “Thank you, Jay.”

The heavy tension that settles over them is now a familiar one and it’s almost comforting in a way as she tells him with her eyes how grateful she is for him.

After a few moments of silence, she clears her throat and withdraws her hand, turning her attention to the bags of stuff piled on the bed, “So, what’d you get?”

Jay blinks, shaking himself out of the trance they’d just been in as he rifled through the things he’d bought, pulling them out to show Hailey, “Well, I did some research and according to WebMD which was confirmed by my brother, weighted blankets can help with muscle soreness and speed up the recovery process.”

“I also got some ice packs,” He dumps out about a dozen before reaching in yet another bag, “And I picked up some of your favorite movies as well as a couple of pairs of fuzzy socks because I know you didn’t pack any and the hospital socks are terrible.”

The tears that spring to her eyes aren’t unexpected because the fact that he knows and remembers how much she loves wearing fuzzy socks when she’s at home decompressing tells her how much he cares even if he hasn’t really said it out loud yet.

The research, the weighted blanket, the movies, the treats, the socks; it’s slightly overbearing, but it’s sweet and it’s so undeniably him that it makes her heart hurt with the love she has for him.

She gives him a soft smile, “For someone who claims to not know me, he sure does take care of me and brings me all of my favorite things.”

“Well, after four years I would hope to know some things,” Jay smirks at her before moving to put the ice packs in the small fridge/freezer combo they had in the room.

He looks back at her over his shoulder, “But, I somehow missed your Snickers habit and it makes me wonder what else I should probably know, but don’t.”

Rolling her eyes, she watches as Jay moves back over to the bed, going for the food he’d sat on the nightstand.

“You know you’re not exactly an open book,” She points out with a wry smile.

He’s not an open book, it’s true, and even though she’s teasing him about it, she knows him better than anyone. Maybe better than even Will knows him. Maybe better than he even knows himself, and it’s ironic because the way she knows him better than anyone is more so through his actions and not his words.

She knows his heart through his acts of compassion. She knows his mind through his steady emotions. And she knows him because he lets her see the deepest parts of himself, unspoken secrets swimming in his eyes and dark memories whispered over drinks.

She knows the things that matter and the same could be said about the things he knows about her, but now that it’s being brought up, she does wonder if there are any meaningless habits she hasn’t bared witness to.

If her mind goes straight to those of a personal nature such as nighttime routines and shower preferences, then she’d never admit it.

“Well,” He handed her a container of Shrimp Lo Mein, “We’re stuck in this hotel room with basically nothing to do so,” Jay sat down on the bed, facing her with his own container of Chinese, “Let’s play a game.”

Hailey arches a skeptical eyebrow, “A game?”

“Yeah,” Jay nods as he takes a bite of his own Lo Mein, “Like one of those ‘get to know you’ games since we apparently don’t know much about each other.”

She frowns, a little unconvinced at this plan and what it could entail, but she’s curious and the slight woozy feeling she feels from the pain meds makes her ask, “What kind of ‘get to know you’ game? Like truth or dare?”

Smirking, he shakes his head, “No. Although, that could be extremely entertaining.”

“Uh-uh. No way am I drinking a bottle of hot sauce or jumping off the balcony or some other insanely difficult thing that you would think was easy,” She takes a bite of her food, trying to shake back the loose hair that keeps falling into her face, “I just had surgery.”

He’s full-on grinning now, chuckling at her impassioned response, “Nothing like that. I was thinking more along the lines of 21 Questions.”

Hailey tries to take another bite of her food, but her hair gets in the way again. She’s starting to get frustrated at the locks that keep falling into her eyes and mouth, making it hard to eat.

Sticking her chopsticks into the take-out container, she uses the now free hand to push her hair behind her ears as she shrugs, “Alright then. We don’t really have anything better to do other than watch movies and eat takeout anyways.”

The way his eyes sparkle at her answer is worth all the cheesy questions she’s sure he’s going to ask.

He stands up, shoving a used napkin into his now empty takeout container and she’s always amazed at how quickly he can down food when he wants to, “We can alternate asking questions and we don’t have to ask exactly 21 questions. It can be more, or it can be less.”

He throws his trash away and starts cleaning up the bed, moving all of the empty Target bags and the stuff he bought off to one side, “Is there anything off limits?”

She hesitates before saying no, shaking her head because while her natural inclination is to keep everything close to the vest, she knows there is nothing that she wouldn’t share with Jay if he asked her.

He makes her feel safe, and she’s constantly finding herself telling him things that she’d never said out loud before anyway, so she already knows that he will guard her secrets and feelings and thoughts deep in his own heart as if they were his own.

It’s like he knows what she’s thinking because the way he smiles at her is so gentle and the secretive sparkle in his eyes is what tells her that the same goes for him.

“You wanna go first or do you want me to?” Jay cocks his head, looking at her as he tears into the weighted blanket.

“You can go first,” She goes to take another bite of food when her hair falls into her face for what feels like the hundredth time.

She sighs internally, her frustration going unnoticed by Jay who had turned back towards the movies he’d bought, opening each of them as he tells her he has to make this first question a good one.

Pretty quickly after waking up from surgery, Hailey had found putting her hair up in its typical ponytail an almost impossible task because every time she raised her arms to gather her hair up, her stitches would pull, and her ribs protested loudly.

After several failed attempts that left her eyes watering, she ended up having a nurse put it up for her and she continued to ask for it done in the mornings before Jay arrived at the hospital to keep her company.

But now, there was no nurse to gather up her long, annoying hair when it keeps falling in her face and even though she’s stubborn enough to try it, Hailey knows if she pulls on her stitches or possibly breaks one, then she’s going to be paying for it tomorrow all because she wanted to put her hair up herself.

She sighs again, this one audible as she sets her Chinese container on the nightstand, “Jay?”

“Yeah?” He turns to look at her, his brows furrowed in concern.

Hailey bites her lip sheepishly as she snaps the elastic band around her wrist against her skin, “Can you put my hair up?”

He looks surprised for a moment before he smirks at the slight blush dusting her cheeks at having to ask for help with a task this simple, “Of course I can, Hailey.”

She hands him the ponytail holder as he walks over to the side of the bed, “But I will warn you. I’ve never done this before.”

She wants to tease him. Maybe tell him he’d better start practicing now if he ever hopes for a daughter one day, but it feels too on the nose when she wants that daughter to be hers too.

So instead, she smirks at him as he moves behind her to start gathering her hair up in awkward chunks. Hailey glances at him out of the corner of her eye, fake gasping, “Don’t tell me that the brave and noble Detective Jay Halstead, the man who jumps over moving cars and shoots sniper rifles doesn’t know how to put hair up in a ponytail.”

“Oh, shut up,” He grumbles good-naturedly, still trying to smooth her blonde hair into his loosely closed fist on top of her head, “It’s not like I’ve really had the opportunity or need to practice.”

Chuckling, she lets him concentrate on pulling her hair through the elastic and tries not to get lost in the feeling of his fingers in her hair and the warmth radiating off him. Her eyes flutter close and she marvels at how gentle he is even with the strength of his hands, well-conditioned in the act of squeezing a trigger.

And just like when making those shots, the precision in which he does everything is still there as he carefully tightens the elastic, securing her hair into place.

Hot breath hit the back of her now exposed neck and she can’t help but shiver. Before he’s stepping away, she swears she feels his hands brush her skin and she wonders if he’s equally as affected as she was by his closeness.

But before it can turn into anything, he’s smiling and settling back into his spot at the foot of the bed, gesturing to the ponytail he’d just completed, “It’s not as good as you do it, but I think it’ll pass.”

“I’m sure it’s fine, Jay. It’s out of my face and it’s not like anyone will see it,” She grins at him as she picks up her food, intending to finish it off now that her hair won’t get in her way.

Jay frowns teasingly, “Hey, and what about me? Am I not someone?”

She smiles softly in amusement, “You’ve seen me in worse states and you’re not just anyone, you know that. You’re my best friend, Jay,” She hesitates because she knows that’s not strictly true. He is her best friend and he’s her partner but he’s also the man she loves, and it would be so easy to let the truth slip out.

Looking at him, she sees something in his eyes that looks like hope or maybe anticipation and she wonders if he thinks she’s going to tell him the one secrete she just can’t seem to get out. Maybe she would have told him if they sat there for a few seconds longer, but his phone buzzes and the moment is gone before it really even began.

Hailey wonders if phones are going to be their downfall.

She thinks she sees disappointment flash across his face, but she blinks and he’s looking at his phone with a serious expression.

“Is everything okay?” Her brow furrows as she watches him type out a quick response and put the device back into his pocket.

He shakes his head, sighing, “That was Kev. The Latin Players are on the verge of waging war against a new up and coming gang called The Jets.”

Interjecting, Hailey raises a brow, “As in West Side Story?”

“Yep,” Jay lets out a wry chuckle, “Anyway, the team flipped someone on The Jets’ side, and it looks like they are possibly willing to play ball so Kev was asking for some background info on my Latin Player connect because Intelligence is going to attempt to negotiate a truce before it can escalate to a full-blown gang war.”

She groans quietly, all too aware of the potential complications and ramifications that come from this type of violence, “That’s just what the city needs. A gang war.”

He huffs in agreement, dropping his head in disgust and she can see the tension in his shoulders. Even eight-hundred miles away, the crime and the innocent people that inevitably gets tangled up in it affects him.

Hailey frowns, her eyebrows furrowing in concern. She reaches out a hand to lightly touch his bent knee, “Jay.”

He looks up at her and the empathy she sees in his eyes makes her heart swell in what’s becoming a familiar sensation. Love and pride and admiration and respect for this man she has the privilege to know.

Her eyes soften and she smiles gently at him, an earnest look on her face, “If you need to go home, go home Jay. I’ll be alright here by myself. I don’t need you to take care of me.”

If the situation wasn’t so serious, she might have laughed at the way his eyebrows shoot up in surprise, clearly not expecting those words to come out of her mouth.

Recovering, his eyebrows furrow and he shakes his head adamantly, “No way. They can get along without me. I’m not leaving here without you and I don’t care if you think you can take care of yourself because who’s going to help you change your bandages or make you take your medicine or keep you company?”

He challenges in a slightly playful manner, but the eyebrow he raises dares her to contradict him and she knows he is serious, “Besides, I need to be here if I want to keep my own peace of mind. I don’t work well without you, so I’m not sure how much help I’d be anyway.”

She knows that no matter the circumstance, Jay would always perform above and beyond the call of duty, but she also knows that this is his way of telling her that he needs her and the way he was willing to stay with her in New York makes her heart stutter in yet another way.

Before she can dwell on the feeling any further, he’s smiling again, his eyes crinkling with mischief, “Now back to the game. I think I have the perfect question for you.”

Sorry it ended in a bit of an awkward spot, but I decided to split it into two parts when I hit 10,000 words and I still wasn’t done yet lol so I didn’t know this was going to be the ending of a chapter.

I’d love to hear what you thought and stay tuned for part three!

[collarious]

lessons that i’ve learnt so far

I haven’t been on this space for a couple of years. Revisiting this space is like a step back into a part of my past self - the part that’s most anxious and depressed. When life got too difficult, I would leave traces of struggle in the form of words. Punching the ‘post’ button always felt so strange — it wasn’t cathartic, it never truly encapsulated what i felt, it didn’t exactly make things feel better — but at least those thoughts were out of the mind and contained in a space. 

Recently, I’ve rediscovered this space, reread my entries and realised how far I’ve come through the years. I guess I want to summarise the things that I’ve learnt so far, in this journey of life and hope to continue practising. Excuse the shabbily typed out brain dump. 1. Be humble, learn about yourself + the world

The brain is extremely tricky and stubborn. More often or not, we probably don’t know ourselves as much as we think we do. We tell ourselves narratives of who we are, especially when life is hard and we’re not feeling good.

Know yourself, in and out, through objective means. Cross-reference like crazy using personality tests (Attachment styles, MBTI, enneagram etc), horoscopes, ask your friends what they think of you. Constantly question: who am I really? 

Read and research repeatedly — read self-help + non fiction books / listen to talks + podcasts by renowned professionals that debunk your understanding of you and the world. I personally love watching Youtube vlogs of people I look up to - especially when I’m feeling down. The change in perspective is almost always refreshing.

From there, you can break the narratives that you tell yourself everyday. Knowledge is powerful, it keeps us humble and open. 

This journey of self-discovery has no end. But that’s the fun of it, because we are always changing as time goes. We’ve got to understand ourselves because no one else will do it for us. Truly understanding ourselves really is the first step to knowing what works for our lives.

2. Acknowledge your shortcomings, but celebrate everything As we learn about our strengths and weaknesses, there comes a point when we have to accept our shortcomings. Accept, then take action to improve on the things that we can. There’s going to be so much inertia at times - some days feel fine while others make you feel like you’re back to zero. 

Track your progress, celebrate the small wins. Encourage yourself constantly, be your biggest cheerleader. 

3. Your feelings are not you. Feelings come and they go.

Feel. Do not push away your feelings, even though they are so intense & you feel like you want to disappear. 

I find solace when I think of them as: 1) The sky. Yes, the weather changes, there are seasons. Rainy days, sunny days. But the blue sky can be there, at the core we are that beautiful calm sky. 2) The ocean. The waters are always different. Waves roll in as they roll out. Despite how the ocean behaves, you can’t help but think how beautiful and vast it is.

It’s so easy to attach yourself to intense feelings as they come, because you feel every ounce of it so deeply. The brain naturally attaches to painful feelings much easier than the good ones - its really our job to try to rewire its preference against negativity.

Fear, anxiety, sadness - they are real. But so is love, grit, resilience and all the wonderful emotions we have the pleasure to feel. 

4. Take good care of yourself. Find healthy coping mechanisms.

You are your biggest asset – believe it with all your heart. 

It can be really difficult — sometimes life feels so intense, there’s so much destructive energy, and a lot of times we take it out on ourselves if not on others. My question is — will you ever want the people you love to do the same thing, to suffer? No.

Instead of doing things that simply distract you, replace them with things that uplift you. There are things that are proven to work if you stick to them — journalling, working on what you love, exercising, meditating, hanging out with people who support you. Healthy coping mechanisms look different to everyone and they change over time - so find the things that help you feel better and hopeful about the future.

Taking care of yourself; no one is going to take that job and frankly, do we really want to pass that responsibility on to someone else? When we take care of ourselves, we then have the strength to tend towards those we love. 

5. Set boundaries

Boundaries. If only they taught that in school. 

Know your triggers. Set boundaries that protect you from your triggers. Communicate your boundaries, make sure to uphold them. Find people who respect your boundaries. 

Yes, there are some people who will shit on your boundaries, gaslight you blabla. Do not give them the power to affect your reality. Distance yourself if you can. Cut toxic people out of your life. If you can’t, try to do what’s within your means to not let them take away your energy.

We have a limited amount of energy in a day. More when we are having a good day, less when we wake up to a bad one. Where you place this energy, is where you choose your focus. Focus on the good, always.

6. Learn to plan

Some people are natural planners, but others are not due to their personality or the environment that they grew up in. It took me so many years to understand the power of planning, even more to learn how to do it. I’m still learning every day.

When you’re someone with emotions that come so intensely, planning takes a whole lot of stress off for your future self. Having a plan can also feel like hope. When the mind is depressed, at least there’s a routine to follow. Learn to plan the way that works for you + your life. Kickstart this by learning how other people plan (Youtube, I love you so much) & tweak it to your liking.

So many days when I felt like doing absolutely nothing. But doing absolutely nothing will only make you feel even more shit and its just a downward spiral.

Do the easy shit first, feel good about the easy shit, then do a slightly harder task and another and another. Remember to congratulate yourself always, even if that task is ‘eating a proper meal’. 

Oh yes, there are gonna be days when you can’t do anything even after planning .. when you absolutely can’t, don’t beat yourself up for it. Rest, recharge, try again.

7. Get up and learn

There’s going to be many bad days + failures. It’s life, we just got to accept that. But really what matters is getting up and learning from them. There’s always something positive to be learnt. A mistake not to be repeated. If your failures look similar, its life giving you the same lesson.

Getting up and learning is resilience, grit and humility. There’s nothing more romantic than this. 

8. You are not alone. Seek help.

We can do a lot, but sometimes there comes a point when we are just struggling way too hard. Ask for help. Reach out. A friend. A lover. A therapist.

You’ll find love and support in ways that you can’t imagine, plus the strength to live again, fuller + brighter.

9. The Breathe

It truly blew my mind when I learnt about the power of breath through yoga and meditation. When the mind is going absolutely batshit insane, don’t think - just breathe. There’s no point adding fuel to the fire. Breathing and being present in the moment - it recentres, grounds and resets.

Learn about the breath and how it affects you + the world around you. Sometimes — when I stop to properly breathe, I feel connected to the universe again. It’s simple but endlessly interesting.

That’s all I can remember for now. May peace and joy be part of your every day.

[miss-bvnny]

Yet another fan tweaks up TLK 2 and TLG: The Squeakel.

Im bored and in a lil pain. time to jot down all my personal ideas/headcanons for how I'd polish up TLK 2 and TLG to fit with the first movie a bit better, and create something more cohesive since like only about 3 people on the TLK2 and TLG teams paid attention to the first movie. I've seen a lot of hedcanons and AUS and whatnot in my day so I've kinda got a good idea of what i like and what I think might work better. Veteran TLK creators please interact with me and gib feedeback on my sick tricks

Uhhh TW for abuse and cub death

So...while there's TECHNICALLY nothing I'd change about the first movie, as it's pretty much done and solid, I wanted to play with my ideas for Zira's backstory.

YES in my version it'd be a one-sided love, kinda like how DemiiDee on dA and Silver-Wolf-17/@mask-of-prime see it, Scar knew she was obsessed with him since the day she met him as a cub, and took advantage of that. After he became king, he wanted loyal lionesses just in case Sarabi, Nala, Sarafina and the others got wise and rebelled. Zira and her pride sisters were all starving, and he knew that. He welcomed them in, promising food and comfort in return for their loyalty. Zira didn't hesitate to agree, and Scar loved her blind adoration of him. He WOULD have liked it if someone like Sarafina was so blindly in love with him (Scar had a gross unrequited obsessive crush on Sarafina growing up, and he constantly held it against her after she chose to be with Nala's father Mega instead. This is another reason why he was so hard on the hunting parties. He used his position as king to get petty revenge on childhood bullies and the like). Scar decided Zira would be his queen but like...ONLY because Sarafina had already made her choice. Zira didn't care, and knew she'd make Scar proud and produce a lot of wonderful heirs for him, in order to repay him for ''all he'd done for her'' (A very thin and insincere ''all'' if you ask me). So, Zira gets pregnant with who will eventually be Nuka, but...Rafiki takes a look at her and sees she's very weak and will probably only have one cub. Oh well. Let's just hope this one son is a suitable heir in Scar's eyes.

....Well-

Nuka's born. Weak, unfocused, and not at all what Scar wanted or was hoping for. He TRIES to teach Nuka and raise him as an Heir, but...it just doesn't work. Scar believes he was destined for greatness and for a prosperous, strong lineage. Nuka is none of those things, and it seems Zira will never be able to give him another heir (I KNOW the ''This woman can't have kids'' trope is icky but HOLD ON wait until you see where I'm going with this) Scar disowns Nuka and scolds Zira for disappointing him. Zira begs for his forgiveness, and swears on her life she'll find a way to make things worth Scar's while.

During this time, several of the male cubs who were born around the same time as Simba are being exiled. Scar doesn't want any males around to threaten overtaking him, and nips the problem in the bud before it ever becomes an issue. Many pride sister saw him doing this, and while they disagreed with it...it DID offer one bonus: Trustworthy males were leaving for better lands. They could take the new young cubs with them, since none of the sisters wanted their children to be raised in Scar's Pridelands.

Surprisingly, one of these lionesses trying to save her cubs...was Zira. Within the last few months, she'd...began to realize perhaps she was looking at Scar with rose-colored glasses. She was beginning to wonder if perhaps she was wrong to worship him the way she did. The thoughts were still kinda...new, and she wasn't sure what to do. But, during all her confusion, she DID happen to meet another male lion. Mpendwa, (Swahili for ''Honey'') was an old friend from her teenage years who was a wanderer by nature. Zira was VERY happy to see him again, after all these years. She met with him in secret, when Scar and the Hyenas weren't looking, and began to fall in love with him. REAL love. Mutual good love, where he loved her for who she was, and NOT what she could give him. Even Nuka seemed to like him, too! And...by some miracle, Zira and Mpendwa had a secret litter together! Four beautiful, healthy little cubs! It was perfect. SO perfect. Perhaps the problem had lain not in Zira, but in Scar the entire time. It served as more confirmation to Zira that...perhaps she was in the wrong to love him. Mpendwa asked her if she and their four cubs would come with him. Somewhere far and somewhere safe, where they could be happy together. Zira...was hesitant, afraid of disappointing Scar further, and even more afraid to leave her pride sisters behind. They were in this because of her, and...there were so many of them that it'd be impossible to get all of them out without Scar seeing something was up. Nevertheless, she knew she had to think about the future of her cubs, and NOT about Scar. She agreed, and plans were made for Zira and Nuka to meet Mpendwa at the border with her four cubs. In the dead of night, they'd leave using the rest of the evacuating males as a cover so they could make a clean getaway.

....Well...to make a very heartbreaking and gruesome story short...Scar knew about Mpendwa the entire time. And of course he saw Zira was pregnant. He overheard their plains to escape, and prepared accordingly. Mpendwa and three of Zira's cubs were killed as punishment for her disloyalty and attempt at mutiny. He lets her keep the youngest one alive as a reminder of her shortcomings, but ONLY if she'll swear her loyalty to him once more. With nothing else left to do, she swore her allegiance to him, and returned to the Pridelands with only Vitani and Nuka left of her family. In the coming days and months, Scar turns up the charm to further entice Zira, making sure she and Vitani are given the best of everything and taken care of, to ensure she feels terrible about what she did and she never acts out again. Sadly, it works, and Zira falls back in love with him, realizing SHE was the one in the wrong, and was an utter fool to betray Scar. Things are....steady for a while. Not bad, not good, but...steady for Zira and Scar. He of course ignores both cubs, and Zira has to reach out to him pleadingly if she wants to connect with him. Zira works as a willing mouthpiece to spout propaganda tot he rest of the pride, assuring then Scar is a GREAT king, their ONLY king, and that he will usher in a new golden age for them all. It pleases Scar and he is sure to...ever so slightly reciprocate his gratitude to her. If only to keep her totally convinced to stay with him. Zira can see he's...flaky and not too sure about her, and decides she MUST act fast to show him she is worthy.

She MUST somehow produce him a viable heir. And quickly. But with all the other males gone, there's not a whole lot of cubs being born. And her beloved Mpendwa is long dead. So...she has to figure something else out. One day, while hunting for Vitani and Nuka on her own, she runs across a skinny dark brown lone lioness taking a dead zebra somewhere. She tells Nuke and Vitani to wait, and begins to stalk this female, named Jibu (''Answer'') Jibu takes her kill to a secluded spot, and Zira notices she's having trouble catching her breath. It doesn't take Zira long to see...Jibu is pregnant. VERY pregnant, and close to giving birth. GIVING birth, actually! She's going into labor. Jibu cries out for mercy, knowing she is alone and there is no one around to help her. Zira, in a moment of maternal instinct and compassion, helps her. She, along with Nuka and Vitani, stay by Jubi's side as she gives birth to one little brown cub. Then, Zira gets...a really really REALLY terrible idea, just looking at the little cub. Calmly, she tells Vitani and Nuka that Jibu will need some water, and that they need to bring some back for her in some fresh moss. It's a big job, and the cubs are BOTH very willing to help. Vitani and Nuka leave on their big mission, and then Zira, Jibu, and the new cub are left alone.

Zira is quick about it. Merciful, even. By the time Nuka and Vitani get back, Jibu is dead. Zira sorrowfully tells the cubs that...the birthing process was simply too much for a weak and skinny loner like her, and that there was nothing at all that could have been done. Nuka asks what they're going to do with the cub, and Zira says she SUPPOSES they could take it back to the pride, as well as the zebra Jibu just killed. They return to the pridelands with food, and...Zira presents the cub to Scar. She tells him that his mother gave birth on the edge of the territory, before succumbing to her dehydration and fatigue. Scar looks the cub over, and is overjoyed. He declares THIS cub, this Kovu, WILL be his heir.

So, time passes, and before you know it, Simba returns. The TRUE Pridelanders rise up and reclaim their land. In the wake of his return, Zira's pride sisters see the error of their ways, and oppose the hyenas in battle. Scar is overthrown, and Simba takes his place as King. Zira is of course horrified, outraged, and...filled with a turmoil of emotions about it. Some part of her feels...free that Scar is gone, but the rest of her was so twisted by his words that she doesn't want to admit she's happy he's dead. She chokes those feelings down, trying to sit still and look pretty for Simba as he moves in. Nuka, Vitani, and little Kovu are doing well, and...as a mother that's all she should care about, really. But...deep down inside, there's a growing, growling, burning need for revenge in her soul.

As Kovu grows a little bigger and the pridelands heal more, Simba and Nala announce the birth of their OWN heir.....Kopa. Yep. Yes. That's right, I'm a Kopa theorist. Upsetting, I know. But like....it makes sense. Look at how overprotective and suffocating Simba was to Kiara in TLK 2. Almost like he'd dealt with tragedy in relation to a cub before, and vowed to never let it happen again. Huh. If YOU'RE reading this and you have no idea who Kopa is and the drama behind his very existence, first of all God I wish I was you, secondly, go here to learn what then entire TLK fandom is divided over:

https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Kopa

Anyway, Kopa is begins to grow and learn as the next king of Pride Rock, good friends with Nuka and Vitani, and even their cute little brother Kovu. He's not...VERY old right now, but he'll grow and be able to play with them one day! Their mom, Zira, seems....a little upset about stuff. She always watches them from afar, never engages with the rest of the Pride, and doesn't seem to like Simba. Kopa, as a young kid determined to be a great king, takes a note to keep an eye on this. She might be really old, but she's part of his father's kingdom. Everyone else is happy and healthy, she should be too, right? Simba and Nala seem...worried about her as well. For different reasons, but yeah.

Ever the hunter and woman scorned, Zira has been...studying Kopa. He's young and naive, but...eager to learn and take over for his father. He's studious and intuitive, often finding trouble without meaning to, because he was trying to solve a problem or get involved in pride politics. Of course, all the other lions and creatures love him, and are eager to see him grow into a fine future king. There s NO doubt he's a jewel in his family's crown. But...he is still a cub. Zira remembers how devastated she was to lose Vitani's three siblings, and knows that Simba and Nala will be equally devastated if....something happens to Kopa. She knows exactly how she's going to avenge Scar now.

Simba and Nala were out on a little moonlight hunt together one night, like they enjoyed to do together. They were coming back to Pride Rock afterwards, only to hear a terrible commotion. Zazu rushed to meet them, telling of something terrible that had just happened: Zira tried to assassinate the young prince. Her pride sisters were now in arms against Sarabi and her pride sisters, trying to stop an attempted uprising. Simba and Nala quickly joined in to fight, Simba finding Zira with Kopa in her jaws. He stops her, and Timon and Pumbaa are quick to get Kopa to Rafiki for healing. Simba and Nala face off against Zira while she gives her side of the story. telling about how she's tired of being docile and pretending her heart isn't broken after Simba and Nala both took everything from her. Simba and Nala both see she's still...terribly twisted by Scar's words, trying to be patient but firm with her as they attempt to talk her down. She won't have it, and leaps at Simba, Nala gets involved, and they fight her off. Simba calls for her banishment, and she is thrown out of the Pridelands with the rest of her followers, and her three cubs.

During all of this, Rafiki is attending to Kopa and his injuries. They're...bad, but not fatal. With time, he'll be just fine. Zira left him blind in one eye, gave him a terribly ripped ear, nearly tore his tail off, and he's got a deep throat scar that will alter his voice quite a bit. With time he'll be alright physically, but...I'm not so sure about mentally. Kopa has...a LOT of PTSD over it. blaming himself for how he thought Zira was a friend he could help, wondering if he was stupid for never seeing her anger sooner. He begins to question his abilities as a future king. Yes, he's still young, and accidents happen, but...this event has left him a bit jaded all the same. Simba and Nala see it, and...want to do the best for their son. They can see the enthusiasm in his eyes to one day be king fading. It's devastating. And...while Simba isn't about to give up on him, he doesn't want to force Kopa into something he...clearly doesn't want to do anymore. On top of that...Simba fears Kopa may not be safe in the Pridelands anymore. Zira and her followers ARE in the Outlands, but...Zira is bold and full of hate. There's no telling what she could do next. After a lot of deliberation, meeting with Zazu, Nala, and Kopa...the king comes to a conclusion. He strips Kopa of his title as an heir, and sends him to live in the Oasis with Ma, Uncle Max, and the rest of Timon's family. He'll be safe and well-fed there, far away from Zira. It'll only be for a while, until the trouble with the outlanders settles down, and until Kopa is ready to return home. Kopa agrees to the idea whole-heartledy, and departs for the Oasis as soon as he's fit to travel. It's...painful and hard, but it's the best option for their son's mental health. Simba and Nala do visit often, and are glad to see it DOES seem to be working.

Okay. So Zira tried to kill Kopa in the name of Scar, got herself booted, and the origins of her three cubs have been dealt with. That's all the Zira/Scar and Kopa backstory stuff done and dealt with. I'm gonna cut it right here since this is gettin awful lengthy, and continue with TLK 2 and The Lion Guard in a part 2. Keep an eye out for that one.

[silyabeeodess]

So... Last night, I read the Balan Wonderworld novel.  It’s... something.  It's not bad--I did enjoy it and it does have its moments--but there’s bits that don’t really seem to work as well as they could’ve and they can add up.  To avoid major spoilers, like last time, I’ll put my thoughts below the cut, so be warned:

Most of my concerns are issues with the individual characters, but I’ll start by talking about the book itself first.  Because there are so many people and themes in it to discuss, with the plot covering every stage and each of the residents’ backstories, you have to move through events quickly: We don’t really spend enough time with any of the characters to know them beyond some basic traits and what they need.  Fine for a game and with visuals, sure, but not so much for a story.  Things can feel like they’re moving a bit too fast, which I can excuse because of the large cast number; however, the writing only amplifies the problem and makes it feel like the book is being padded with wasted, repetitive dialogue that takes away from the story. I want you to imagine taking the 12 Days of Christmas and turning it into a novel--not with the things divided up into each individual day, but each chapter repeating all of the other days that came before it.  It’s stale, it’s droning, and you as a reader will just end up skipping through material after a while.  The book does this through the visions the characters share of Balan and Fighter/Emma, with Streetbeat/Leo and the residents each having them with slight differences in-between.  As you meet each individual resident, one by one, they repeat a lot of the same things over and over.  Not only that, but then you have to loop back through them and their stages a second time as Leo saves everyone.  It’s not quite as bad as my 12 Days of Christmas example, but it does get to the point where you’re ready to say, “I get it! Your lover gave you calling birds, hens, doves, and a partridge--please, just move on already!” There are such easy fixes to this issue too, like having characters already meeting in each other’s stages to cover them together, maybe summarizing the differences in their stages to set up Leo’s expectations before he sees how distorted they become later on since he’s going to have to visit each one anyway.  Instead, time is wasted that could’ve been spent on descriptions or building the characters in other ways.      

I think the one character that suffers the most because of this Fighter/Emma.  Because she’s placed in the story with the same mystery as Balan and viewed as a villain by the rest of the cast up until the end, she’s constantly being sidelined even though she’s a main character.  She’s used more-so as a plot device for Leo, running off to do her own thing when she’s no longer needed, and then gets no conclusion where all of the other characters do.  It’s like that meme where a person asks, “What about Emma?” and everyone just repeats the question dismissively as an answer. Again, I get it, we’re following Leo’s story here just as we would only be following one of them in the game, but it’s bad to keep dismissing her all while using her as a necessary key to saving everyone else.  I guess it’s implied at the end that the Wonderworld gang might seek her out too, as they did with each other, but she’s barely a footnote.  Balan and Lance suffer a little bit too, but do make enough satisfying reappearances that it’s not as much of an issue.  

I kind of want to avoid talking about the writing style further, as I can’t help but wonder how much might be more of something like a translation issue; however, I will say that if you plan on reading this with a young reader, be ready to explain some extensive vocabulary to them.  The style itself isn’t very flowery, the book isn’t a heavy text, but there are some words they won’t understand that can’t be deciphered by using the surrounding text.  Like I said, the book doesn’t have a strong focus on description: Moreover though, there’s not as many illustrations paced through the book as you would imagine based on the preview.  You end have having to rely on what you already know going off those first images at the start of the book introducing the characters or if you’ve played the game. It’s not a big thing, but I can see it being a small problem if you chose to read the novel alone.  I tend to lean toward styles with heavier description in both my reading and writing though, so that might be a bit of my personal bias as well.  Some of you may prefer it as it is.

Now getting on to the individual characters... Oh boy, is there some stuff to go through.  Let me start with the one I’m actually a little uncomfortable with, as her actions affect some of the other characters as well in major ways: The Clocktower Kid/Cass Milligan.  Throughout the story, we’re given clues that she has a big crush on Pensive Perriot/Attilio Caccini--who, as most of you likely already know--is in love with a woman who works with him at his theme park as a princess.  By the end of the book, it’s revealed that there’s a near decade-long gap between when the two stepped into Wonderworld and that Cass is the princess...  Thankfully, Attilio showed no interest in Cass as her child-self and this means that they’re actually close to the same age, but let’s unpack the assortment of other problems this brings up.  1.)  This goes beyond a childhood crush with someone older that most people get over: The girl devoted a decade of her life to getting the princess role so she could be with the guy.  If it was a year or two between teenagers, that would be one thing: This borderlines obsession.  2.) She knows who Attilio is from the beginning and waits for him to confess his love to her before revealing her identity.  She says it’s because she didn’t want to risk messing up the timeline, but her own actions could’ve done exactly that had the princess role been meant for literally any other girl on the entire planet.  She didn’t know that she was meant to be the princess: All she knew was that she wanted to be with Attilio.  3.)  Either Attilio just kind of accepts all of this or, again, the pacing won’t give us some much-needed details, because the next thing we know we’re getting to their engagement and honeymoon months later.  Keep in mind: While she waits a decade for him, his confession takes place barely a few hours after he leaves Wonderworld.  I think the guy would need at least a little time to process everything.  4.)  While the book seems to stay close to the game’s canon from what I’ve seen, this particular relationship is handled even weirder in its cutscenes.  For one thing, it’s not revealed that Cass is the princess.  For another, despite this, we see her with Attilio anyway as her young, childhood self--granted, without any big hints to a romance between them. I’ll let you dissect what you will from that.

Let me get to The Checkered King/Cal Suresh next.  In the novel, a couple of the characters had their backstories tweaked.  These changes don’t interfere with what we see from the game’s cutscenes, but they do add more context to them that changes what particular issues the characters are suffering through.  In Cal’s case, his obsession with his champion title in chess led him to ignore his dying wife, adding an extreme sense of guilt and longing that wasn’t there when we believed this was just a matter of his pride and sense of identity alone.  Enter Cass, who reappears in her timeline before this death takes place, finds out who Cal is... and apparently does nothing to warn him. We can use her timeline excuse, but this is someone’s dying wife we’re talking about--she even sees him grieving over her in an illusion as they’re all leaving Wonderworld.  Even if no one could do anything for Mrs. Suresh, even if Cal didn’t listen to Cass and dismissed everything she had to say about wasting precious hours better spent with the people you love, I think an attempt at talking to him would at least be necessary.  No though, the book just ignores that while the two of them and Attilio eat snacks together.            

Cal isn’t the only one who had the added trauma of death: They did it to The Watcher/Sana Hudson too.  In her case, she was trying to protect some endangered birds that were killed--both directly and indirectly--by the construction workers in her area, leading her to despise humanity for its “greed and selfishness.”  Now, her situation/feelings is/are perfectly understandable, especially given how the construction workers in the story are portrayed.  What doesn’t really work is the context surrounding the issue and her actions involving the event. Now, I admit this first point is a bit weak as I can’t speak for the regulations across every country and we don’t know exactly where Sana is from, but a lot of places have heavy regulations and work with big organizations to protect endangered species.  Not to mention this is a bit of a heavy topic with much-needed context for a book like this to properly cover.  This fact isn’t even glossed over though and the workers have no problem cutting down the birds’ tree despite how this would likely cause massive legal trouble for them and be a major deterrent as a result.  As to the “greed and selfishness of man,” this doesn’t really work well considering that the workers are trying to build a residential area.  A cost to the environment?  Yes.  However, it was likely ordered for the benefit of the community.  We see this debated a little more evenly in the conclusion to Sana’s story; however, we’re also pretty much told “Yeah, humans are terrible and can never change. Pick birds over them,” beforehand.  Lastly, Sana’s own actions--or rather, lackthereof.  When the birds lose their tree, their eggs are destroyed and the parents stay behind out of their love for their deceased offspring rather than leave for winter later on, resulting in their deaths.  To try to prevent this, Sana begs the birds to leave... Let me repeat that: She begs the birds to leave.  The problem?  They’re birds.  They’re animals.  And, outside of the theatre, this is supposedly a world just like ours.  You can’t reason with a bird like a person.  She could’ve just as easily tried to capture the birds and brought them somewhere safer herself or called someone who would.  If that didn’t work, at least those actions would make a lot more sense for the hatred she feels towards other humans: Instead, this decision makes their deaths kinda her fault too for leaving them there despite knowing what would happen is she did. 

I don’t know how I feel about the added issues involving death.  Yes, there’s a lot surrounding that theme alone to cover, but part of Balan Wonderworld’s charm is confronting all these people with extremely diverse problems, some stemming from issues beyond their control and some their own, internal struggles. The inclusion of death might have made the consequences of events more traumatic, but I think to a detriment.  It doesn’t affect Sana as much, but Cal’s case is the worst, as his wife’s passing echoes the regret and mourning we already get from The Lady/Iben Bia’s story when it could’ve been it’s own, independent thing focusing on pride, identity, and a sense of fulfillment that we see more in his game counterpart.  I can’t help but feel that we miss out on a wider range of messages by emphasizing on the aspect of death so much.         

Lastly, let’s get to Balan and Lance.  Overall, I greatly enjoyed the twist at the end with the connection between their characters.  The problems I have with them, honestly, I debate whether or not are even problems at all as they do address real concerns that perfectly fit what individuals in their circumstances would go through.  First Lance, then Balan, they’ve spent a millennia helping others repair the imbalance in their hearts.  People come, people go, and they’re left behind, forever alone in that that theatre.  It would be crushing.  Lance already broke under the weight of that pain, which is why Balan exists--and now he’s likely doomed to continue the cycle as he suffers this same degree of loneliness.  My main issue is that there’s so much to cover about this that we’re barely given a teaspoon of.  The author couldn’t really give us much, as this book’s main focus was on Wonderworld’s inhabitants.  It feels though that there’s something being built-up that we might not ever get to see completed depending on how successful the franchise it, which is sad if that’s the case.  (Hey though: That’s where we fans usually step in, right?)          

Secondary to that is that there’s a level of hypocrisy to Balan, Lance, and how they engage with the inhabitants.  I kind of love it, but this is where I’m a little conflicted since Balan is supposed to be the one helping people fix their hearts.  Two general themes that carry over greatly among all of the inhabitants is the importance of love and friendship, how we rely on others to grow and save us from the worst of ourselves.  Balan, however, is required to stay detached from others no matter how much it hurts or what it will inevitably lead to, as everyone must leave Wonderworld eventually.  It’s a conflict of interest.  Ironically enough, it’s Lance’s decision to trap Leo in a stage and his overwhelming longing for true connections that allow the inhabitants to find and help each other.  It’s bad that Balan and Lance couldn’t take the lessons they gave others and apply it to themselves, because their situation is so extreme. 

Furthermore, there’s a hypocrisy between Balan and Lance in their decision to wipe the inhabitants memories.  It’s revealed not to be a magical phenomena caused by the theatre itself once people leave it as many of us thought, but rather a conscious choice Balan makes--just like Lance.  However, while Lance does it to keep the inhabitants contently trapped inside their hearts, we’re not really given a reason for Balan’s actions. Memories, good and bad, are a vital piece of us: We reflect on them as we grow to maintain the lessons we learned in those moments that make us who we are.  We see the danger of lost memories not just with Lance, but with Balan as well as part of Sana’s conclusion alludes to a potential relapse.  It was her connection to the people she met in Wonderworld that allowed her to recognize one of them--Eis Glover--back home and keep her grounded in another, potentially shattering instant of her life. Similarly, Leo only managed to restore his imbalance because of his friendships with the other inhabitants--friendships he was destined to lose the moment he walked out of the theatre had Balan taken everyone’s memories.  This too, I feel, could’ve caused Leo to relapse.  If so, Balan’s choice to let them keep their memories of Wonderworld likely prevented them from needing to come back to the theatre--at least not as often as they may have needed to otherwise.  Let’s get to the question Lance brings up at the end: “Honestly, enough with the self-deception.  You normally take everyone’s memories when they leave, so why this time did you make an exception?” It could be that Balan simply didn’t want to be forgotten anymore.  It could also be that he loved them enough that he didn’t want them to suffer to the extent where they had to return to the theatre even if it meant there was a chance he wouldn’t see them again.  That idea would beg a second question though: Why did Balan erase the memories of every inhabitant who came before them?   (If it isn’t obvious by now, this scene was my favorite bit in the whole book.)    

I know this whole post seems to be mostly a series of complaints, but I did enjoy the book overall: I just have a tendency to look at every detail and, when things don’t work, they stay in my mind for a long while.  Like I said at the start, the novel isn’t a bad read, it just has some bad points.  If you’re already a fan of the game, you’ll probably enjoy it too.  If not, I’d recommend checking out some of the other content available--like the video previews/cutscenes introducing the characters--before stepping into this.   

[step-on-me-khun]

Can I request a scenario where Khun’s s/o went to get revenge on Rachel because of what she did to Khun and ended up getting pretty injured but tried to continue chasing her even after Khun woke up, and Khun telling his s/o not to carry all the burden alone because he won’t leave them or let Rachel be the reason they get hurt. Sorry if that’s a little confusing feel free to tweak as needed❤️

It had been a while since Khun woke up, about three days, and in all that time, you were nowhere to be found. He was upset at not seeing you, not having you there to hold onto at night.

Where were you? What were you doing?

He would check his pocket constantly, hoping for a word from you, just something to let him know that you were alright. It was stressing him.

---

You wanted to kill that bitch, wanted to make her feel the pain that she inflicted on Khun. It was something you didn't really tell anyone about, not Shibisu, and definitely not Baam. Telling Baam anything would be a big mistake. He'd probably drag you away and have you promise him.

Your skills at fighting weren't as good as the others, but you would help out whenever possible. Not like Rachel knew you're skill level or your position. You wanted to sneak up behind her and beat the living shit out of her, to teach her a listen.

You followed behind her as walked down the corridor, trying hard not to be seen by her.

Getting to the end of the corridor, where it met up with another, you slowly turned to look in both directions.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw her, a hand holding something sharp came towards you. Dodging quickly, your quick movements preventing the object from penetrating your eye, it instead found your face, cutting deeply into your cheek.

You closed your eyes and clutched your face, distracting yourself from another attack, straight to your stomach, you moved your hand from your face to your stomach, hoping to quickly push the object away, only to be stabbed there.

---

You were like a dog with their tail between their legs, ashamed of the fact that you were literally unable to do a thing against her. You wanted to get revenge, to let karma get her where it really hurt.

Khun was asleep for a hell of a long time, it made you sadder and sadder to the point of being desperate, you just wanted to kill her, to make her see what she had done to your mentality.

You were still bleeding profusely as you got back to the are where the group was. Your eyes watched around you, making sure you didn't bump into anyone, you didn't want to explain how you got like this, and you weren't really in the mood for it either.

Luckily, no one was around, your cover wasn't blown. Recognising the corridor, you reached your room, your hand on the handle opening the door lightly.

"(Y/N)?" Khun's voice asks, softer than it normally was.

"Shit," you said under your breath as you entered the room, your injured hand still clutching your face.

"What've you been doing?" He says, ushering you closer to him. He wanted to hold onto you and never let you go, but he also wanted to lecture you as well.

"It's nothing, I'm fine," You say.

He tuts, "did your face attack your hand?"

You glared at him, removing your hand away from your bloodied face.

"Oh, (Y/N). What were you doing? You're a mess,"

His arms wrap around you.

"No, let me go, you'll get covered in my blood," you protest.

"Shut up," he says, holding you tightly, "it's not like it's hurting me, I can always wash this, you're more important. What happened to you?"

You were hesitant, the feeling of shame returned.

His hand lifted up your chin, "Come on, you can't hide anything from me, you should know that by now,"

You avoided eye contact, his blue orbs staring down into yours, a smug smile lit up his face.

"I tried to get Rachel back for what she did to you," you say, looking away from him, his hand still on your chin.

"Why would do something like that?"

"B-because I love you, and I didn't want to lose you, I wanted her to hurt as much as possible,"

"You're an idiot," Khun says softly, a loving peck was planted in your head, "don't try to do something  like that again, I don't want you to lose you either,"

"I know, I'm stupid for even trying,"

"Okay, stop right there," his hands cupped your face, his forehead press against yours, forcing your eyes to stare into his, "I never said anything about you being stupid, did I?"

"No, but-"

"You're not stupid, you're a caring person who wanted to do something that was dangerous, there are others who want to give her hell too, so don’t think this is a burden you have to carry all by yourself,"

You were pulled into his arms again, his hand brushing softly against your hair. You sobbed as you clung to his chest.

Your injuries would be sorted out soon enough, you just wanted to hold onto Khun, the one person who made you feel like the most important person in the world.

[ri-ahhh]

bad day

MJ has a bad day dealing with her snotty coworker, who wants MJ’s promotion and her boyfriend.

4.8k

warnings: potentially triggering BD thoughts/language; smut; obnoxious amount of fluff cuz idk about you but I need some softness

“Hi sweetheart,” Grayson says with a smile as MJ stalks into the living room with a scowl. She plops next to him on the couch and hurls her heels off with a flourished kick, glaring at where they land a few feet away on the shaggy rug. His grin falls when he notices her pinched face and lack of returned greeting. “Rough day?”

MJ nods and curls into his side, silently pleading for him to wrap her in his arms. Grayson obliges immediately and pulls her into his lap, tucking her as close to his chest as he can. When MJ asks for physical affection as comfort, which isn’t as often as you might think considering that’s one of the best ways she shows love, Grayson knows she really needs it.

“’S the matter, Peach?” he asks gently with a kiss to her forehead. He smooths her long hair down and scratches his nails lightly on her thigh as she snakes her arms around his waist. “Chanel again?”

Chanel Marten is MJ’s coworker and a petty, idiotic thorn in her side; every bit the LA bimbo with the stereotypical Barbie looks and meanness to match. When she isn’t calling MJ fat behind her back or constantly trying to undercut her to their bosses in light of an upcoming promotion they’re both up for, she’s actively hinting at how much she disapproves of MJ and Grayson together. She’s been a fan of the twins for years, and doesn’t make it a secret that she is very much attracted to Grayson, which MJ finds partly amusing and wholly fucking annoying.

“God, how do you let him go to those influencer parties alone?” Was what she asked earlier today at their office. She was scrolling through the series of photos on Grayson’s latest Instagram post from the night before, looking his sexiest in that half-open linen button-down and his Louis pants. “I wouldn't let him out of my sight in public if I were you.”

MJ glanced over at her blonde coworker and couldn’t believe the audacity of this woman to go through her man’s Instagram right in front of her. She didn’t acknowledge it, answering her question instead. “I trust him. And he’s not alone, he’s always with Ethan.”

Chanel twirled her hair and sighed, clicking her tongue disapprovingly. It was the end of the day on a Friday, and she probably could have gone home already, but had instead chosen to wheel her desk chair into MJ’s office across the hall from her own. For what, exactly, MJ didn’t know; they were far from friends, barely amicable coworkers at best. Antagonizing MJ was probably the start of a good weekend for Chanel.

Her suspicions were answered a moment later with Chanel’s next choice of words, her irritating vocal fry even more prominent than usual. “Yeah, but all of those IG models in one room, and you guys aren’t, like, super public. What if he wants a taste of what he doesn’t have?”

MJ squeezed her mouse in a death grip, but didn’t divert her gaze from her screen. “What are you implying, Chanel?” she asked irritatedly, her patience running at the thickness of a piece of paper for the bitch by then. She had already thrown MJ under the bus in their morning meeting with their bosses for something MJ’s intern had screwed up in their presentation, and MJ had caught her making snide comments in the break room about her ‘birthing hips’ and ‘thunder thighs’ to Annie the Asshole from Accounting. Annie was another coworker who, upon learning that MJ wouldn't invite Grayson along to after-work drinks simply so she could meet him, had immediately put MJ in her hypothetical burn book.

Right then, she finally had a moment to go back into their projections and fix what her intern Alessia had mistyped in the final presentation copy, and Chanel was only serving as both a reminder of her actions in the meeting and a distraction from her getting her work done.

MJ wanted nothing more than to be at home with Grayson by then, a tension headache creeping steadily up the back of her neck and into her temples. She had been the lead on this client presentation, so staying at the office until nine or ten at night hadn’t been an unusual occurrence lately; she was only glad by then that this was the end of a rough few weeks of work as soon as she was done fixing Alessia’s errors.

Chanel smirked but hid it as a simper of sympathy, clearly thrilled she was visibly getting under MJ’s skin. “I’m just saying, MJ, you’re super pretty, but, like, you don’t work out that much, right?I never see you in the gym here, or hear you mention going to one after work. I mean, Grayson being surrounded by girls who do fitness for a living would have to be like being in a candy store for him. We both know how much he cares about living a healthy lifestyle.”

She double-tapped the post, her too-long nails that were clearly trying to emulate Kylie Jenner’s or the like clicking obnoxiously against the screen, and sat back in her office chair. “I think if I were you, I’d quit this place and concentrate on building a following. Maybe try the fitness influencer route, yourself. It’s a pretty good trade-off, if you think about it; Grayson gives you clout, and you get snatched for him. And, you’d be able to keep a close eye on him. Boys will be boys, after all.”

That did it. Chanel Marten didn’t know her life, and she sure as hell didn’t know Grayson’s character. MJ finally took her attention off her iMac to give Chanel a glare that rivaled Lily’s ‘you’re dead to me’ look in How I Met Your Mother. It took every ounce of self control she possessed to hold herself back from acting on the overwhelming urge to punch Chanel’s newly-doctored nose.

Upon realizing MJ was done fucking around, Chanel’s smug smile slowly faded, until all pretenses were dropped, and the two women just stared at one another. No more fronts — not cordial coworkers anymore, but rival ones.

MJ knew what this girl was doing. Trying to make her insecure in her relationship with Grayson, and question her position in the firm so she wouldn’t go for the promotion. Chanel was as dumb as she looked if she thought either of these would work, but MJ had had enough of both her intelligence and her appearance being so blatantly insulted. She swiveled back to her computer and started doing the last couple of tweaks to the report that she had started before Chanel so rudely barged in.

“You know, next time you wanna pull a fast one and make me take the fall for an intern error, I’ll be happy to let Lacey know you’ve made us all rush this presentation by turning your last three sections of analytics in late, which is why I didn’t have time to review Alessia’s portion since I had to work your shit in last minute. I have time stamps on my email to prove it. Not to mention, the screen recordings of Snapchat stories of you at Saddle Ranch that someone showed me from the same nights you sent them. Should be pretty beneficial for my interview for Executive VP next month, don’t you think?”

MJ smiled and emailed the altered report back to her boss, Lacey, and made sure her computer was completely locked down before reaching into a cabinet for her purse and lunchbox. She stood and looked down at Chanel, who had her arms crossed tightly and her overfilled lips pursed so they were unusually pale and thin. MJ was going to leave it at that, but she was very much done being the bigger person, and a brief moment of pettiness came over her.

“And I hope you do find a man as good as Gray one day; maybe having someone as kind and real as him will make you less of a cold-hearted bitch.” MJ dug her keys out of her purse, motioning with her eyes from Chanel to the open door. “Now, please get out of my office. I’m ready to go home to my amazing, faithful, sexy boyfriend.”

Chanel scoffed and rolled her eyes but did as she was told, rolling back to her desk and giving MJ the cold shoulder as she breezed past her office.

“I didn’t fucking do anything to her,” MJ whines into Grayson’s neck after relaying all of this to him. Her bravado and smugness towards Chanel had dropped almost as soon as she reached her car in the parking garage of her downtown office building. Her insecurities had crept into her brain to join her full-fledged migraine and made driving home in traffic an even bigger nightmare than usual. “She’s hated me since the day I started there, no matter how nice I’ve tried to be.”

“She’s jealous, baby,” Grayson murmurs at once, like it’s the most obvious answer in the world. “You’ve come in and been there half the time she has, done the same job way better than her, and got recognized for it. Nobody likes to be outshone.”

MJ sighs and squeezes him reflexively as she moves on to the other half of Chanel’s dislike for her. “And it’s like getting bullied by the head cheerleader in high school. She basically told me I was too fat for you and that I don’t work out enough to ‘keep up with your healthy lifestyle.’” She lets out a little mirthless huff of laughter. “I mean, usually she says it behind my back to Annie the Asshole from Accounting, so I guess I should be appreciative that she at least had the decency to say it in so many words to my face tonight.”

Grayson sits in silence for a moment, seething internally at the thought that some dumb bitch who doesn’t know him in the slightest could have the nerve to talk to and about his girlfriend like that. He reaches for his phone on the couch next to them. “First of all, you're not fat, and I’d love you just the same even if you were. Second, give me all her at’s. I’m blocking this girl on everything.”

God, could the man get any more perfect? MJ sits up some and cups his face, shaking her head with a small smile. “No, no, it’s okay, Bear. I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing she got to me. If anything, I’d want you to post a thirst trap just so she can see what’s not her’s. What’s mine.”

“I think that could be arranged tonight,” he smirks, giving her a chaste kiss.

She attempts to smile back, but it turns into a grimace as her head gives a massive throb out of nowhere. “Shit,” she mumbles, pressing her fingertips against her temples. Grayson gives her a concerned look before she explains, “Headache.”

It takes all of three seconds for Grayson to secure one arm around her back and hook the other under her knees, standing and holding her bridal style. “Come on,” he says, like she really has a choice in the matter, and starts carrying her to their room. MJ wraps her arms around his neck and nuzzles her head into his shoulder with her eyes closed to block out the evening sun. “We’re taking a bath, then I’ll order dinner to eat in bed while we have a movie night.”

MJ nods gratefully. As usual, he knows exactly what she needs. “Ratatouille?”

Grayson chuckles at the hopeful tone in her voice. Ratatouille is one of MJ’s ‘sick’ movies; something quiet and nostalgic that offers that weird feeling of peace that you need when you just don’t feel good. “Of course, Ratatouille.”

He sits her on the counter once they reach the ensuite bathroom and pinches her chin gently between his thumb and forefinger, planting a warm, lingering kiss on her lips; not heated, but comforting. Just what she needs in that moment.

“Stay put,” he commands quietly. MJ agrees and starts to unbutton her blouse as she watches Grayson step into the closet, pulling out one of her favorite t-shirts of his and a pair of his boxers. He puts the folded items next to her on the counter and helps her untuck the shirt from her cigarette trousers, tossing it in the dry-cleaning pile before reaching into one of her drawers and retrieving her makeup wipes.

MJ sighs and closes her eyes as she lets him gently drag the fresh-smelling cloth against the skin of her face. They aren't part of her usual skincare regimen, but Grayson has been exposed to her routine long enough and is perceptive enough to know that they’re for late nights, or ones like tonight, when she just doesn't have the energy to do more.

It feels better than if she had been able to get herself to use face wash and toner and such, anyways. The coolness of it and pressure of his fingers feel wonderful against her eyes and cheeks, alleviating some of the pain there momentarily.

MJ flutters her eyes open when he’s done. “Thank you, Bear,” she sighs, which he replies to with a kiss before walking over to the soaking tub. She hops off the counter and unbuckles her belt and pants, then unhooks her bra and steps out of her underwear.

Her reflection in the mirror glares back at her, Grayson in the background fiddling with the knobs on the tub to get the temperature of the water just right. She watches his muscles ripple with the slightest movements, his abs outlined through the fabric of his t-shirt, and can’t help but focus back in on herself. There’s some extra squish around her upper thighs and arms that no amount of training would get rid of; a softness to her tummy that probably comes from her undying love of Oreos, which are her nighttime vice. When she compares the two of them in this intimate space, maybe Chanel was right…

“Stop that.”

MJ startles a little and looks up in the mirror from where she had unconsciously started pinching and picking at what were really the bits of healthy pudginess under her skin, to find Grayson standing directly behind her. The harshness in his tone makes her withdraw and blush some, embarrassed that he had caught her at such an insecure moment.

He wraps his arms around her middle, his open palms brushing against the skin of her belly. His touch both warms her insides and causes them to erupt in nervous tingles. For some reason, MJ has a hard time seeing the two of them like this, with her completely naked and him fully clothed. She isn't afraid, never with Grayson, but she feels incredibly vulnerable in a way she isn't used to with him.

Grayson presses a kiss to the back of her head and makes sure they have eye contact through the mirror before he continues. “I’ll be damned if I let some idiot girl who doesn't matter to either of us make you feel like you’re not enough, MJ. You’re perfect, you hear me? You’re perfect, and I wouldn't change one inch of you, inside or out. Please don’t pick yourself apart like that.”

His voice holds a mixture of conviction and sadness, and MJ bites her lip as she sinks her back into his chest, her arms folding around his at her waist. She brushes her palm across the crisp, dark hairs covering one of his forearms.

“I could work out a little harder, though,” she murmurs after a few seconds of silence. “And cut back on a few carbs.”

Grayson looks at her incredulously. She’s lean and athletic, but it’s impossible to have the juicy, natural perfection of her ass and those breasts without a little extra, which he actually adores; she’s the very definition of slim-thick, a beautiful personification of the word.

He isn’t sure what kills him more inside: to think he hasn’t made it abundantly clear to her that he loves every square inch of her body; or if girls, society, whoever it is, make her think that the hard work she puts into her physique isn’t enough simply because she has a body type that isn’t what Instagram or people like Chanel deem ‘perfect’.

Either way, he’s going to rectify things right this instant.

“First of all, MJ, I know exactly how hard you work out; I’m doing it every morning with you, five days a week at 6 AM, remember? I’m the last person to lie to anyone about how much effort they give in their fitness. I know how hard you push yourself.”

He spins her around and cups her cheeks in his big hands. His stomach withers and his heart hurts when he sees the faint glitter of tears illuminating her emerald green eyes, making him want to be extra sure his next words are heard loud and clear. “Second, if I ever see that family sized box of double-stuffed Oreos in the trash, not empty, I’ll have a meltdown wondering where the hell my girlfriend went. Please, MJ. Those girls at your work are miserable cunts who only want what they can’t have. Don’t bring that energy back here, on us. I love you, exactly as you are.”

MJ takes a moment and considers his words before relenting with a nod. He’s right. Chanel and Annie should be the last things she’s thinking about when she’s got the man of her dreams right in front of her, saying all the right things and bringing her back to reality with his sweet, supportive words.

“I’m sorry,” she sighs, leaning in for a tight hug from him. “I love you, too.”

“Don’t apologize,” Gray assures, rubbing her back soothingly. “Let’s have a nice, relaxing night now, okay?”

MJ nods, pulling away enough from his body to grasp the hem of his t-shirt. He wags his brows playfully as he lifts his arms so she can pull the garment over his head, and gives her a quick smile before ducking down to kiss her.

She seems to be feeling slightly better, and a weight lifts from his chest at the realization. “Don’t distract me,” he mumbles against her lips after they make out lazily for a few moments. “Or our bath will overflow.”

“Don’t be so perfect, then,” she says back with a smirk, giving his ass a little swat as he returns to the tub and drops a Lush bath bomb and a chunk of bubble bar into the water.

While he does that, MJ opens one of the medicine cabinets. She isn’t big on taking pills, but she relents today and pops an Excedrin as her head pounded again. Once she swallows it with a handful of water from the sink, she starts to pile her hair into a bun, but is stopped by Gray’s grip on her forearm.

Her eyes had zoned out on a random spot on the counter, but at the pressure of his hand she looks up in the mirror to see him as naked as she is. “Don’t be silly,” he chides lightly, a smile toying at the corners of his lips. “You’re getting the full treatment tonight, Peach. I’ve got your shampoo and conditioner ready to go over there.”

He pulls gently down on her arm, and her hair tumbles back down over her shoulders and back as she lets him tug her to the warm, foamy water.

Ten minutes later, the Excedrin has kicked in, soft music from their ‘chill’ playlist plays through Grayson’s phone on the edge of the tub, and his strong fingers are creating heavenly relief for her as they scrub at her scalp. She’s totally relaxed in front of him, letting his broad chest and shoulders cocoon her smaller frame as her eyes droop and she moans lightly.

“I’m sorry you had a bad day, sweetheart,” he whispers in her ear, making her shiver despite the steaming water they sit in. She snuggles closer to his warmth. “And I’m sorry you have to deal with those assholes every day.”

It takes a moment for her brain to form the words, but she hums contentedly in reply. “It’s okay. Don’t know what I’d do without you, though, Gray.”

It’s so true. She has never been the girl to be codependent on anyone, let alone the man she’s in a relationship with, but Gray has achieved that honor in a matter of a year and a half. Probably earlier, if she were being honest with herself, but her adult life before him was a blur. She’s forgotten what it was like to not have him by her side, and she doesn’t want to imagine a scenario in the future where he isn’t.

He finishes washing her hair, lulling her into an even deeper trance when he moves her dark, wet locks over one shoulder so he can massage her neck with deep presses of his thumbs into her tight muscles. His fingers are nimble and dexterous, strengthened by his renewed passion for rock climbing, and are perfect for loosening the tension under her skin.

“Mmm, fuck,” she moans, not meaning for it to come out quite so pornographic, but she feels nearly orgasmic in the relief his hands are bringing her. Speaking of… “You’re gonna get the best head tomorrow, I promise.”

Grayson chuckles, squeezing her shoulders now, too. MJ feels him twitch against her lower back, but he says in her ear, “I’m not doing this for you to return the favor. I just want to be the one to make you feel better. Because I love you, and you’re mine, and you deserve it.”

“I know you’re not,” MJ smiles. “That only makes me want to do it even more.”

He grins and moves his hands further down her back beneath the water, massaging his knuckles into the soft skin there as well before coasting up her sides. He cups her breasts as MJ sinks back against him, her breathing picking up the slightest bit as his hands work magic there, too.

“Is this okay?” he asks, his hot breath flowing straight into her ear and sending goosebumps flaring over her skin.

More than okay, she thinks. MJ nods, and gasps when his hands pinch her nipples gently between his ring and middle fingers, tugging slightly. She takes his large hand off her right breast and sinks it into the water, straight to her center, her legs already parting to welcome him.

“Just rub me,” she whispers, eyes closed as he doesn’t hesitate to obey. “Circles, like this.”

MJ guides his fingers over her clit for a moment to show him exactly what she wants, but this isn’t their first rodeo and Gray knows perfectly well what he’s doing. She lets him take over and simply lies back against him as he expertly brings her higher and higher, until she’s falling over the edge, twitching in his arms and moaning sweetly.

Grayson tilts her head back to kiss him, sighing into her mouth as she twists in his arms to straddle him. He’s completely hard now, and she takes him in her hand instinctively. Twenty minutes ago, sex was the last thing on her mind, but she feels so good and relaxed now that she doesn’t hesitate to line him up and sink down slowly on his dick.

She grins smugly when his eyes fly open and he lets out an embarrassingly loud moan, completely surprised by a warm wetness that is vastly different from that of the bathwater. When she had stroked him in her hand he thought she might jerk him off, but her pussy, still deliciously tight from her orgasm, isn’t what he’s prepared for as he becomes slowly encased in it.

It’s a good thing she doesn’t meant for it to last long, because he’s so overwhelmed and caught off-guard it only takes a couple of minutes max of her grinding up and down on him while she whispers hot, dirty things in his ear, for him to shoot deep inside her.

“Shit,” he huffs out with a little laugh as she raises herself up enough for him to slip out of her pussy. “Did you just give me the equivalent of a hand job with your vagina? I know that wasn’t for you.”

She giggles and sits back in his lap, shrugging as she nuzzles his nose with hers. “What can I say, I’m feeling lazy tonight and that seemed like the faster option. Are you complaining?”

Grayson shakes his head vehemently. “Of course not, but I didn't want you to do any work tonight.” His brows pinch a bit and his lips turn down into a pout. “Are you okay? How’s your head?”

MJ smiles softly and brushes his cheek with pruned fingertips. Even post-orgasm, he’s still concerned only about her. “Better, Gray-bear. Thank you.”

God, she loves him so much. She can’t resist wiping her hands on the towel and reaching behind him to grab his phone to capture him in that moment. His hair has gone curly in the humidity of the bathroom; the light from the window shines perfectly on his chiseled face, making his sex-eyes nearly pure green and illuminating his full lips that have curled into a small, crooked smile as he realizes her intention. She laughs when he takes it upon himself after a few serious snaps to play up to the camera, scooping up some of the bubbles and blowing them off his palm while giving her a joking, coquettish expression. Finally, she puts her back against his chest once again and they take a couple of goofy, up-angle shots, close-ups of their faces.

Photoshoot over, Grayson sighs and hugs her tight to him as he sucks kisses up and down the sides of her neck while she goes through the pictures. He’s making her head swim, but she manages to determine three of her favorites and doesn’t even bother editing them before adding a simple heart emoji in the caption and posting them to his Instagram once she earns his approval.

She turns around to put the phone back on the ledge before leaning in to plant her lips on his, slipping her tongue between them sensually. She could kiss this man forever, but eventually they start slowing down. MJ moves her kisses to his sharp jawline, trailing her mouth across and down until she gets to his neck freckle. She gives it a peck before pulling back, meeting his hooded gaze with warm eyes. It feels so good to just give each other these little bouts of physical affection with no real end goal. Just enjoying each other’s company, in their own space, caressed by the comforting warmth and scents of the bath.

Eventually, MJ peels herself away from him and stands up. Grayson stares up at her adoringly, admiring the way the water cascades over her body and rains down back into the tub. “C’mon, I’m hungry.”

She looks like a naiad with her long, dark hair covering her tits and dripping sensual trails of warm water down the dips and curves of her body. As if she doesn’t look delectable enough to him right now, her pussy is inadvertently right in his face, and his hand instantly reaches up to touch her. “Me too,” he growls, his fingertips tracing her lower lips and parting them so her clit is exposed. His mouth literally starts to water as he thinks about her earthy taste and her slippery arousal coating his tongue.

Just as he’s ducking in to swipe his tongue over her slit, MJ grips a handful of his hair and stops him, tilting his head back with that grip to make him look up at her questioningly. “Not now,” she says, taking her turn to scratch her nails along his scalp for a moment. “Still sensitive. And actually starving; I had to spend my entire lunch break fixing part of that report.”

Grayson nods understandingly and lifts the plug in the drain before standing up as well. “Then let’s get some Monty’s in you, hm?”

“That sounds amazing,” she agrees, her stomach growling right on cue.

They both chuckle and Grayson helps her step out of the tub before wrapping her up in a big, fluffy towel. He kisses her nose, then her lips, and retreats into the closet with his own towel to find fresh PJs for himself.

An hour later, they’re chowing down on some burgers and shoestring fries together in the fresh blankets of their bed while Ratatouille plays through the projector. And Chanel’s stupid username hasn’t popped up once in his likes or comments.

[palimpsessed]

So @captain-aralias​ did one of these and invited other writers to do the same. And I wasn't really going to because it feels a bit late now and also I've done quite a few other year in review posts for 2020. But then I got to thinking that it would be really nice to have one of these for each year to look back on and compare, which convinced me. So, here we go!

If you’re a writer, I’d also encourage you to steal this. Tag me on your post so I can see your thoughts! 🥰

List of Complete Fics for 2020 1. At the Top of a Tower, With You- General, 900 words 2. Use Your Words- Teen, 16k 3. A Man of Letters, or Five Times Baz Retreats and the One Time He Doesn’t- Teen, 54k 4. To the Manor Borne- Teen, 43k

Total: 4 fics, 113k words

Every one of these fics was written for an event, which, realistically, is the only reason they got finished. I have so many ideas I'm working on all at once, and I came into fandom with a focus on making art, so to actually find the motivation to sit down and write/finish/post a fic was entirely deadline based. And it's a technique I'm sure I will also employ in 2021.

Best/Worst Title?

Well, I've mentioned a few times before that I usually have a title before I have much in the way of a fic concept. I don't really dislike any of the my titles, because they all did exactly what I needed them to do, which was help me focus on what I wanted to accomplish in the fic. Comparatively speaking, though, I can answer this.

Best: Use Your Words - succinct, idiomatic, a book quote/motif that also has the potential to be a spell, does what it says on the tin, is probably what all of us are constantly yelling at Baz and Simon to do throughout the books and the fic itself

(Honorable mention to A Man of Letters because that title forms a perfect heart shape when viewed on mobile on AO3. ❤️)

Worst: At the Top of a Tower, With You - this is also a quote and it fits the fic perfectly, but it is a bit of a mouthful and it has a comma in the middle of it, which, while I love commas, feels a bit off-putting in terms of a title - also, it's always kind of bothered me that it's a Baz WS quote used for a CO-era Lucy POV

Best/worst summary?

Again, I don't really dislike any of my summaries.

Best:

To the Manor Borne: The gang decides to spend Christmas together at Pitch Manor. Romance, hijinks, and holiday cheer ensue.

Anything that lets me use the word hijinks is always good! - it's short and sweet - it does a fair job of setting up the premise for the fic and giving highlights, without giving anything away

Worst: A Man of Letters

I'm not going to include this one because it's so long, I had to cut down the version I posted on tumblr to fit in the AO3 field, which is really why I rank it below my others - it effectively sets up the world of Simon and Baz in Regency England prior to where the story starts, but it is prohibitively long - and it's set up, not summary, so it also loses points for not doing what it purports to do - I could have said exactly what this fic was in one sentence: "Simon and Baz meet at several Regency-appropriate venues over the course of a London season and reflect on their acquaintance in letters", but instead I did the full book jacket version because it was more interesting to me.

Best/Worst First Line?

Oh, this is interesting. I can honestly say that I have no idea where this will go. Going to pull up my docs and find out! Okay, since I only have four fics to consider, and I'm feeling split, I'm going to do two for each. I feel good about my words, but I will say that half of my first lines actually provide information, and the other half are incomplete thoughts. Those were stylistic decisions I made, but when taken alone, it does somewhat limit the effectivness of a sentence when it can't stand without the rest of the paragraph. Perhaps that decision will lure readers in for more?

Best:

In the end, we wind up at Pitch Manor. (To the Manor Borne)

I know that you won't be surprised when I tell you that I do not like writing letters. (A Man of Letters)

Kind of interesting that these both contain key words from the titles 🤔

Worst:

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to do this. (Use Your Words)

I love how the title seems to be answering Baz's question when the two are put together like this 😂

Strange that it should end here, where it all started. (At the Top of a Tower, With You)

The title also seems to complete the first line in this one, too. I'm learning about my writing as this goes on, so that's cool!

Best/Worst Last Line?

Hmm. Okay, again, no idea. Also, a little leery of including last lines for anyone who hasn't read the fics they're from yet. (Tho I guess it's unlikely those people would be reading this😆) But let's see what we've got.

Use Your Words and A Man of Letters have very similar final lines, and both are somewhat spoilery.

Best: The ending of A Man of Letters felt risky to me, in the way that it is formatted and changes tone from the rest of the story. It was something that happened as I wrote it and I loved it. I had no idea if readers would like it, if they would feel like it worked as an ending, but I felt strongly enough about it to let the entire fic hinge on that and I think it really paid off. So, without giving you the actual last line, which is only one word, I'm going to say that one is my best ending.

Worst:

To the Manor Borne: "Carry on, Simon."

It's not bad, it's just not mine.

Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, fewer than you thought, or about what you predicted?

I did not set out to write any fics in 2020. I was supposed to be taking a break from writing. I've been an aspiring novelist for half my life now, and have been going through major ups and downs with my writing. I decided I needed to re-evaluate and figure out if writing was something that was even going to be able to make me happy anymore. The answer is: YES! Just…not original fiction. At the moment. I'm happiest when I can write for the sake of writing and not have to DO something with that writing. Which is why discovering fan fiction was AMAZING!!!! 🥰🥰🥰

To actually answer the question, yes, I wrote more than I thought I would. I also wrote exactly as much as I thought I would, simply because these were all things I signed up for (with the exception of my Countdown fic, but I committed to it as if it were something that required a sign up).

I have a lot more ideas for 2021, but I don't know how many of them will come to fruition. I'm not putting pressure on myself to have to do anything beyond what I sign up for again, because it did work out so well for me starting off.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?

I mean, the pairing and the fandom were in no way a surprise. 😆 They're my only ones, so those were both a given. The genre is also not surprising.

What's your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest?

A Man of Letters, without any hesitation. I adore it so much. It's the kind of fic I know I will unabashedly sit down to read over and over, even if I'm the one who wrote it. I had one reader to please and it was ME. By far, my most self-indulgent fic.

Okay, NOW your most popular story?

That depends on the metric.

To the Manor Borne leads in Comments (107), Kudos (153), and Hits (1992), and Use Your Words leads in Bookmarks (26).

But since To the Manor Borne is top in 3 out of 4 metrics, I'll say that one.

Story most upderappreciated by the universe?

I mean, the least popular by a wide margin is At the Top of a Tower, With You, but I don't know if I'd call it underappreciated. It's short, it's angsty, it's got a very unusual style, it's Lucy POV, it's the first fic I wrote and posted. I didn't really go into it with high performance expectations. I'm proud of it, I just didn't expect it to be popular. It would be nice if more people read it, but I'm not broken up over it.

Story that could have been better?

I'm not even going to touch this one. Everything can always be improved upon, but if I go down that route, nothing will ever be done. This is one of the things I have come to appreciate about traditional art versus digital. With traditional, there is only so much you can do before something is permanent and you have to live with it. It's an exercise in letting go and acceptance. Digital is flashier and more flexible, but I could (and have) spend months on a single piece and never feel satisfied, never stop tweaking. I think that's also the reason I started to hate my novels.

Sexiest story?

Based purely on overall vibes, I find the understated tension of the Regency the most appealing, so I'm going to say A Man of Letters. I didn't actually stray into sex territory in any of my fics (though Simon and Baz have had sex by the time To the Manor Borne starts, and refer to it, and probably do it "offscreen"), but A Man of Letters is the one that feels sexiest to me. Lots of thirsting!Baz and feral!Simon and sensual hand touching (how risqué!) - and YEARNING. That, to me, is the sexiest vibe of all. So. Much. Yearning.

Saddest story?

At the Top of a Tower, With You - for this one, I tagged "angst without plot" and I stand by that. It's Lucy losing her connection to Simon at the end of CO and trying to find a way to reconcile herself to leaving him alone again. I gave it as much of a hopeful bent as I could, with the refrain of Baz's spoken "love" to cling to, but it's very sad.

Most fun?

To the Manor Borne - All of my fics have their fair share of angst, but this one also has some good, silly, holiday fluff thrown in. Since I wrote it for the Countdown, each chapter was based on a different prompt, which led to this one going in all sorts of directions no single fic probably ever should. Plus, it has the most Shepard, and Shepard always makes things more fun.

Story with the single sweetest moment?

Oh my god. I don't know. No, never mind. I do. It's To the Manor Borne, but it's split between the two gift giving scenes, the Constellations and Secret Santa/Gift Giving prompts. These were private moments between Simon and Baz, sharing themselves with each other, being vulnerable, and communicating. It's the gifts they give each other, yes, but it's more so the reasons they chose those gifts, and how they show part of themselves and share their love for each other, through those gifts, that had me in tears writing those two scenes. I'm super proud of them.

Hardest story to write?

Use Your Words - it was written for an exchange and that made it really hard to write it knowing there was this pressure of making my gift-ee happy with the fic. I'm proud of it, and they really liked it, but the anxiety was too much for me.

Easiest/most fun story to write?

A Man of Letters - if there is a fic better suited to me as a writer, I haven't met it. I started writing after reading Pride and Prejudice in high school, so I started out writing Regency and I spent years and years and years of my life obsessed. When I transferred into college, an administrator I had never met before heard my name during orientation and said, "Oh, you're the Austen scholar." (It is a small, private college, and I was a transfer, so the pool of students was even smaller. But still. Many years later, I'm clearly not over it.) I also did my senior thesis on an epistolary novel (Frances Burney’s Evelina), and my English Lit emphasis was for that time period. So, I felt like I had been preparing for this fic my entire adult life. 😂

Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?

I don't think so. I tend to let my writing be dictated by the characters, so I'm always following their lead. Sometimes they'll do or say something that surprises me and takes me down a route I didn't necessarily foresee, but I don't think there was ever a point where one of them did something that made me rethink who they are as a character.

Most overdue story?

I will say A Man of Letters, since that one felt like a culmination of my seventeen-year-old self's wildest writing dreams. But I should probably say the Scooby Doo AU I still haven't managed to finish, because that one has been a WIP since I joined the fandom. Oops. (I'm hoping when I look over this in a year, I can feel smug that it's finally done.)

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

Writing at all was a risk for me! And writing fan fic for the very first time! Writing an entire fic told only through letters. And then ending it in a completely different style from the rest of the fic. Doing a multi-chaptered fic for the Countdown, using a different prompt for each chapter, and publishing a chapter every single day for thirty days (with the exception of two days that had art). Signing up for fandom events in the first place!

What I learned from taking risks in my writing is the same thing I learned when I took risks in my art this year. I have a much better appreciation for what I've done when I push myself, I feel better about the end product, and I like it longer. I think it's really good for me to challenge myself creatively.

This year's theme and the story that demonstrates it most?

Oh boy. Um. Therapy! Both Use Your Words and To the Manor Borne had their big HEA moments built around sending Simon and Baz to therapy. I don't think that's likely to change for future fics, either. I feel like therapy as the theme for 2020 seems very fitting. (Also, I think I keep sending the boys to therapy because I'm trying to get myself there…)

What are your fic writing goals for next year?

Just to write what I want to write, have fun, not put any pressure on myself, and to take risks in my writing and my art because it will help me to grow.

[alirhi]

jfc FINALLY

Ugh. I have been fighting with my muse to get this done for two months. And I was actually going to stretch it to line up more or less with the movie's timeline, but honestly... I'm just so burnt 😂 So this is what you get.

Title: Monday Chapter: Oneshot Fandom: Monday Rating: R/NC17 (I mean, have you seenthe movie?) Pairing: Mickey/OC Summary: What if, instead of Chloe, Mickey met a woman that night who was actually good for him and whom he was compatible with? WARNINGS: swearing, sex (not explicit; I rarely if ever write smut, but still) Notes: I hate Chloe. Omfg I hate her so much. So I fixed it XD Yes, I literally rewrote the entire movie with a different love interest. Well... most of it lol. I get bored, okay? Lol. Oh, and the girl is actually a character I yanked from one of my original stories lol. I didn't make her up on the spot for this (I'm too lazy for that XD). Tweaking her to fit the setting was kind of a bitch, as she's from a fantasy series, so if she seems kind of Mary Sue-ish...sorry.

“You have a nose for American cheese!”

Mickey rolled his eyes. “Come on, that girl looks insane!”

“What?” Looking surprised, Argyris turned and looked where his friend was pointing, and then laughed. “Not her, you idiot! The ginger-snap over there!”

The girl in question, a lithe, pretty thing with a wild mass of red hair that she constantly shoved impatiently out of her face was dancing alone a few feet away from the angry-looking blonde Mickey had thought he'd been talking about. She was gorgeous, he had to admit.

“Go and talk to her, man!”

He pointed to the turntables in front of him, impatiently reminding Argyris, “No, I'm working!”

“Come on,” the other man taunted, “I know your playlist inside-out! It's the same R&B shit, and then a little bit of disco!”

“It's not R&B, and it's not disco!”

“This song is twenty fuckin' minutes long! Come on!”

“Hey!” Mickey grimaced, hastily yanking his headphones off and setting them down as he was dragged off toward the redhead. “Fuck!”

All puffed up with pride – and way too much to drink – Argyris pushed Mickey when they drew close to the girl, so that he slammed right into her. Laughing, he patted her shoulder, but his mirth was short-lived. She grabbed his hand and twisted his arm up behind his back.

“Put your hands on a girl you don't know again. I dare you.”

Mickey covered his mouth with one hand to hide his laughter as his friend writhed in the deceptively delicate-looking girl's grip.

“Alright, alright! I'm sorry!” Laughing as he was released, Argyris went to put a hand on each of their shoulders, took one look at the girl, and just hung off of Mickey's shoulder, instead. “You're an American... You're an American! You're a man, you're a woman! There you go!”

“Yeah, crazy kismet,” she snapped, rolling her eyes. “Two Americans out of their natural deep-fried, flag-waving habitat at the same time! Imagine!”

Undaunted, the drunk Greek simply shrugged and flounced off with a flippant, “Whatever. Have fun!”

“Sorry about him,” Mickey said immediately, smiling when she turned and smiled at him. At least she didn't seem to be judging him by the company he kept.

“Friend of yours?”

“Argyris? Yeah.” He grinned. “He's kind of an idiot, but he's a good guy.”

She laughed. “I'll take your word for it. Aren't you the DJ? Should you be over here?”

“No,” he admitted with a laugh, “but I'm fine for a few minutes. You wanna dance?”

“I'd love to.”

She was tall, he realized as he spun her around; in the little barely-there heels she was wearing, they stood eye to eye. Clearly drunk, though, she lost her balance every few seconds and crashed into him with a laugh, occasionally giving up on righting herself and just resting her head on his shoulder.

Mickey grimaced as he heard the song beginning to wind down, but the girl hanging off of him only smiled and patted his chest. “Go on! Get back to work. I'll be here when you're done.”

“Any chance I could convince you to come around the other side?” He gave her his most charming grin, and felt a little warm inside when she laughed.

“Why, so you can stare down my top the whole time?”

With a shrug, he admitted, “I've been doing that anyway, so why not?”

“Honesty!” She grinned and kissed his cheek. “I like it. Alright, you gorgeous lech! Get back up there. We'll see what I can do about your view.”

He only made it another hour or so, with the girl coming up to him every few minutes with another drink, and occasionally flashing him from the spot she'd found in front of him. Queuing up enough songs to play through the end of the party, he hopped down off the podium and ran over to her, tugging her close for the kiss he'd been dying for since Argyris had first pulled him over to her. “You wanna get out of here?”

“You sure? What about-”

Mickey shook his head, smiling. “It'll run til they all pass out. No one'll touch my stuff, not here. Come on!”

“Okay, yeah.” She shrugged and laughed, allowing him to pull her through the throng of dancing people and away from the party. “Fuck it. Let's go!”

The next morning, naked, hungover, and covered in sand, they were nudged awake by a police officer while an angry lady yelled about their indecency. The officer waited for them to scramble back into their clothes and then cuffed them both, ushering them into the back of a cruiser.

Despite the situation, Mickey couldn't keep the silly smile off of his face. At least the cops had been kind enough to cuff their hands in front of them, allowing him to hold his out to the girl beside him. “Hi. I'm Mickey.”

She laughed, the realization that they'd never introduced themselves clearly dawning in her bright green eyes. “Beck.”

“Nice to meet you.” He shook her hand, but couldn't hide his slight confusion. “That a first name or a last name?”

“It's short for my first name.” She was still smiling, but there was a dangerous glint in her eyes as she added, “Call me 'Becky' once and I'll be facing real prison time at the end of this ride, and you'll be missing body parts.”

With a slightly nervous laugh, he nodded. “Alright, noted. Beck it is!”

“And, nice to meet you, too.”

There was the briefest of conversations at the police station, the sandy couple signed themselves out, and then Mickey persuaded one of the officers to give them a lift back to the beach.

“You want a ride?”

Beck grinned, one ruddy eyebrow arching up. “I still need to clean up from the 'ride' last night.”

Laughing, Mickey shook his head. “I'll never say 'no' to more of that, but that's not what I meant.”

“I know.” She shrugged, snarky grin turning into an almost bashful smile. “And yeah, I'd love a ride. Thanks.”

He loaned her his helmet and, after getting directions from her, drove her to her hotel. It seemed like that would be the end of it... and he hated that thought. “So, what're you doing tonight?”

“Packing and sleeping,” she told him with a laugh, leaning against the building. “I gotta be on a plane Monday morning, and I hate leaving things to the last minute.”

“You're leaving?”

With a grin and a snarky air kiss, she teased, “Missing me already, lover boy?”

Mickey shrugged, grinning. “Maybe I am. I like you, is that so bad?” He beckoned, and was somewhat surprised when she walked right over to him. Still smiling like a fool, he grabbed her by the waistband of her shorts and pulled her close for a kiss. “Come with me tonight, for a proper sendoff.”

“Come with you where?”

“I'm DJing on an island.” Thumb sliding under her clothes to slide over her hip, he wheedled, “Come on. Come with me.”

“I need to shower. I'm all sandy and sticky from last night.” Beck gave him just long enough to deflate, and then she smirked and nipped his jaw. “Care to join me?”

“Fuck yes!” He was off his moped in a flash, following the laughing redhead as she took his hand and tugged him into the hotel. Giggling like hyenas, the pair made their way up to Beck's room, stopping every few steps for one to yank the other close for another kiss. Mickey was on cloud nine. This girl was fun, she was sassy and wild, and he couldn't get enough.

It seemed she couldn't get enough, either. They'd barely stepped into the shower before Beck was on her knees in front of him, her hand on his ass and his hand tangled in her hair as she sucked him off. He leaned back against the wall, tugging lightly on her hair and shuddering as he felt her moan around him.

“Fuck... oh, fuck, you're good at that! Holy shit... Stop. Stopstopstop!” With a little half-smile at her look of confusion, he tugged her back to her feet and kissed her. “You're fucking amazing. God damn, you are good with that mouth! But that's not what I want.”

Beck grinned, a playful glint in her bright green eyes that made him weak in the knees. “That's not a good idea.”

“Oh, no?” He backed her up against the wall, nuzzling her neck as his hand drifted down between her legs. “Funny... You don't seem to really believe that.”

“I definitely want you to fuck me til I can't move,” she assured him, shaking as she tried desperately not to laugh. “But it's not a good idea-” Her words turned into a startled whimper as Mickey hoisted her up by her thighs and slid into her to the hilt.

“I think it's a great idea,” he purred, biting her shoulder. Then he almost dropped her, and they both cracked up.

“The wall's slippery! This isn't smart.”

“No, it's definitely not smart,” he agreed, turning so that he was holding her up in mid-air instead of bracing her against the wall. “But that doesn't make it not a good idea.”

Beck laughed, clinging to him for dear life. “You're just gonna hold me up?”

“Yep.”

“The whole time?”

“You don't think I can do it?” Mickey grinned, bouncing her a few times just to prove her wrong. “You weight nothing, baby girl. I got this.” She was surprisingly light... but she was also a grown woman almost the same height as him. His pride would never let him admit it aloud, but there was no way he was going to be able to fuck her like this for long.

Just as he was wracking his somewhat foggy brain for a solution, he saw light dawning in Beck's eyes and waited. “Counter!” She nodded toward the sink, and only then did he realize they hadn't even closed the shower curtain, and the bathroom floor was getting soaked. “Put me on the counter.”

“I thought we were supposed to be getting cleaned up.” Even as he teased her, he was carefully stepping out of the tub, blessing her foresight when she grabbed a towel and threw it down just before he set his foot down, and carrying her across the bathroom.

Beck snickered and kissed him. “No point getting clean until we're done getting dirty. Shut up and fuck me.”

“Yes, ma'am!”

A little while later, they stumbled across another logistical issue Mickey hadn't considered.

“You are not putting dirty clothes on a clean body!” Beck insisted, prying his – pretty nasty at this point, he had to admit – clothes from his hands. “That's disgusting!”

“Well, what the fuck else am I supposed to wear? Clearly, I can't just run around naked. We got arrested for that this morning!”

“Pity,” she teased, eyeing him in a way that made him wonder if they were ever actually going to leave her hotel room. “You're the best view in Athens.”

“Maybe they arrested us out of jealousy, then.” Mickey shook his head, though he couldn't help chuckling a little, despite his frustration. “Either way, I'm kinda stuck. It's either be gross, or don't go anywhere.”

“As much as the thought of keeping you trapped here as my sex slave appeals to me...” With another mocking grin, Beck turned and started going through her dresser drawers. “I think I can help you out.”

“I'm not wearing your clothes.”

“They're less flamboyant than what you do wear.”

“They won't fit!”

She tossed him a tee shirt and a pair of cargo shorts that proved him very wrong. They were huge. At his questioning stare, she shrugged.

“I always pack a couple of cute outfits when I travel, and the rest is super baggy; at least three sizes too big. I like to be comfortable.”

“Convenient.” He stared at the shorts in his hands, and then at the belt she handed him a few seconds later. “Am I supposed to wear your underwear, too?”

Beck snorted and walked away, patting his shoulder as she passed him. “I don't wear underwear.”

“Then I guess I kind of am wearing yours.” Even as the joke was tumbling out of his mouth, he knew it was lame, but they still both laughed. Then he glanced at his watch and winced. “Shit, we gotta go.”

“What?”

He waited for the dress she was pulling on to settle into place and then wrapped his arms around her, tugging her back against his chest. “We gotta go. If we don't catch the next ferry, we're gonna be late.”

She flinched. “Okay, two seconds.” The girl moved like lightning. Mystified, Mickey watched as she yanked on a pair of canvas sneakers, grabbed her wallet and cell phone – which she then stuffed in the pockets of the shorts he was wearing – grabbed a hair tie, and ran for the door. In no time, she'd strangled her wild red curls into submission in a low ponytail. They hadn't even reached the elevator yet.

“How did you do that?”

“Do what?”

Handing her his helmet, Mickey shook his head. “I think you got dressed faster than I did! I thought girls always take forever to get ready.”

Laughing, Beck rolled her eyes. As she settled on the back of the moped and tucked her skirt around her legs for decency, she told him, “I spent two years in the jungle with nothing but what I could fit in a backpack. Low maintenance is kinda my thing. The fewer steps to getting ready, the less time it takes.”

“That explains so much.” He stared at her for a moment, and then shook his head and grumbled as he slid into place in front of her and started the moped, “And raises so many more questions!”

“Full disclosure: I will probably answer none of them, as I'm very likely never going to see you again after tonight.”

Well, that was a depressing dose of reality he wasn't ready for. Not one to dwell on things, though, Mickey simply decided to have as much fun as he could with this girl while she was around, and treasure the steamy memories.

They made it to the ferry just in time. Making sure there was no one else around, Mickey smirked and tugged Beck into his lap, one hand sliding up her thigh. He moved slowly, giving her plenty of time to push him away if she wanted; she simply arched an eyebrow at his questioning look and grabbed his wrist, tugging his hand closer.

“Why do you think I'm wearing a dress?”

Fuck, he loved this girl!

They were pretty much attached at the hip the whole day – literally, when they could steal a few minutes alone. While he was DJing, she was dancing like a lunatic, front and center. Those piercing green eyes never strayed from him; he knew, because he couldn't look away from her, either. Once he was free, they danced together for a little while, but it didn't take long for Beck to grow bored and yank him down the beach, away from the party. They found a dark, hidden nook to be alone, spent the night hopelessly wrapped up in each other, and then cuddled as they watched the sun come up.

“Gods, this place is so beautiful!”

Mickey chuckled at the plural, but didn't ask about it. He had a more important question for her: “You really gonna leave all this behind?”

“I have to.” She didn't sound any happier about leaving than he was about letting her leave. “I gotta get home.”

“Where's home?”

“Boston. You?”

He grinned and nudged her. “Athens, baby. Been here seven years!”

“Okay, but where before here?” she prodded with a laugh. “You're obviously not Greek; you don't even speak it!”

“Do you?”

Beck sat up a little straighter, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. “Nai.”

“Showoff.”

“One word is being a showoff?” Beck laughed, shaking her head. “You've been here seven years, and you don't know a single word of the language?”

Mickey scowled, feeling defensive. “Everybody speaks English!”

“Wow.” She wasn't smiling anymore. She actually looked and sounded pretty pissed off. “That is astoundingly arrogant. And completely American, so clearly your obnoxious friend with no boundaries was right; it's not just a funny accent, you actually are American.”

“You're an American, too!”

“By birth,” she snapped, “not by choice. And I fucking hope not by attitude. I don't go stomping around foreign countries with absolutely no respect for their language or customs, expecting everyone around me to cater to my laziness.”

He rolled his eyes, scooting away from her. “Give me a break! Learning another language is hard!”

“Impossible, if you don't even try.”

“Yeah? How many languages do you speak?”

“Fluently?” She held up her hands, ticking each one off on her fingers as she listed them. “English, obviously. Korean, Irish Gaelic, Italian, and German. Passably? Japanese – I can speak it fluently, but I have trouble reading it; the kanji is a nightmare – Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, and Swedish. I can read Latin and Old Norse, and I'm learning Mandarin, but I admit I'm struggling with that one. Mostly for the same reason I can't read Japanese; the writing system.”

Gaping at her, Mickey couldn't formulate a response for a long moment. When his brain finally started working again, all he could think to say was, “Jesus, what the fuck are you, a robot?!”

“I'm an archaeologist,” she told him flatly, still looking irritated. “And I've been traveling since I was seventeen. Been studying at least one language other than English since I was ten. I definitely had an advantage, starting when I still had a little kid's spongy brain, but it's not impossible to learn at any age, if you actually care enough to try.”

“You sound like my ex.” Hoping to distract her from that comment he hadn't meant to make, he hastily asked, “If you love to travel so much, why're you in such a rush to get home?”

Beck sighed, turning to stare out over the water. “I promised my daughter I'd be home in time for her birthday.”

Huh. They had more in common that he'd thought. “You have a kid?”

She nodded. “Two. Two girls.”

“How old?”

“Alice is five,” she murmured, pulling her knees up to her chest and crossing her arms over them. Head pillowed on her arms, she added, “And Madeline's about to turn fourteen.”

“How the hell old are you?!” He hadn't meant to ask so bluntly, but he was so stunned by her daughters' ages that the question just kind of blurted itself out.

Mercifully, Beck laughed a little. “I'm thirty-three. I'll spare you some math – I was nineteen when I had Maddie.”

Mickey shook his head, not sure how to react. In all honesty, she didn't look much older than that now. There was a shadow behind her eyes that he was dying to ask about, but even as thoughtless as he could be, he knew when to just not go there. Instead, he told her softly, “My son is six.”

“What's his name?”

He smiled. As much as the situation with his ex sucked, he loved his son, and thinking about him always brought a little smile to Mickey's face. “Hector.”

The look on Beck's pretty face as she watched him like a hawk made him blush, though he wasn't sure why. There was just something about that direct green gaze that made him feel like she could read his mind. “He's the real reason you don't want to leave Greece, isn't he?” A spot-on guess like that certainly did nothing to dispel the notion.

He nodded. “Yeah. Yep. His mom hates my guts, but I don't care. There's nothing I wouldn't do to stay in his life. I actually, um... I have a room for him, at my place. If she'll ever let me take him, you know, just for a weekend or whatever... His room is ready and waiting for him.”

“All you can do is keep trying. Put in the work, be the best dad you can be, and hope for the best.”

Unsure what to say to that, Mickey changed the subject with an awkward smile. “So... Alice? She blonde, like Alice in Wonderland?”

Beck snorted, shaking her head. “No, she has black hair, like her dad.” She paused and then shook her head again with a bemused smirk on her face. “Actually, both of my girls look like their dads – dark hair, big blue eyes.” Smirk turning into a grin, she nudged him. “Guess I've got a type.”

“'Dads,' huh?” He grinned, too, and nudged her right back. “Plural?”

“You gonna get all judgy on me, now?” Her tone was light and teasing, but her eyes promised a whole lot of pain if he answered wrong.

Mickey just laughed. “Nope, no judgment. I think you've seen enough of what I'm like this weekend to know I wouldn't have the right.”

“Good answer.”

“I don't want you to leave.” He watched her go rigid and sighed, shaking his head. “I'm not gonna try to stop you. If you were leaving for literally any other reason, I might, but I'd never dream of trying to keep a mom away from her kid. I just... I really like you, and I wish you didn't have to go.”

She shrugged a little, staring out over the water again. “To be honest, I don't wanna go, either. I mean, I'm dying to see my girls again, being away from them is always painful, but... This place is so beautiful. I would love to stay a little longer.”

Not a single word about whether or not she liked him. That stung, but he did his best to ignore it. “Why don't you bring them with you when you travel?”

“I used to,” she admitted. “When it was just Maddie, I brought her everywhere with me and tutored her myself. I tried to keep it going after Alice was born, but it was rough. They got tired of always being on the road and not having kids their age to play with, so now I leave them with my sister when I'm away.”

“Wait, you taught her yourself?” He laughed, shaking his head in dismay. “Are you sure you're not a robot?”

Beck laughed, too, rolling her eyes. “I'm sure. There's more down time than you think in archaeology; plenty of time to keep an already smart girl from falling behind in her schooling.”

“They must take after their mom. I mean, you speak a zillion languages, so you gotta be pretty damn smart.” She was so reckless and carefree, it was hard to picture this woman digging in the dirt for broken clay pots, or wrangling two children to teach them math. From what he'd seen, it felt like Beck was describing a completely different person. He didn't want to offend her, so he refrained from pointing out that she came across less brilliant, multilingual career woman in her thirties and more Girls Gone Wild: Athens.

“Cheapann tú gur leathcheann mé.” He had no idea what the hell she'd just said, but he could tell from the look on her face that he hadn't been as good at keeping his thoughts to himself as he'd hoped. She looked both offended and darkly amused. “Pensi che una ragazza non possa essere intelligente e libera? Eísai vlákas, Mickey.”

He didn't bother asking for a translation; her tone told him he didn't want to know. “How many languages was that?”

Beck grinned. “Three. Gaelic, Italian, and Greek. I sometimes mix a few in the same sentence – I constantly mix Japanese and Korean at home; it makes my girls laugh – but I figured I'd be nice.”

Mickey opened his mouth to say he wouldn't have noticed the difference, and then stopped. He had noticed the difference; the lilt of her voice changed dramatically with each language. That was how he'd realized that she'd been speaking more than one in the first place. “I kinda wanna hear that mix, now. Are the languages that similar?”

“No.” She laughed. “Not at all. They share some slang thanks to pop culture, and both borrowed a lot from China, but they're structured differently, and the way they're spoken is different.”

“Then how do you mix them?”

“I speak them both,” she said with a shrug and another laugh. “If you speak more than one language well enough, they don't have to be similar to still flow. Like...” She smirked, leaning against him and batting her eyes. “Kimi wa baboya, demo... mada jowayo.”

“Showoff.”

“Yes.” Cracking up, she pulled him back to lie on the warm sand with her and cuddled close. “That time, absolutely.”

“Do you think you'll ever come back?” He'd been trying so hard to avoid the subject, but he just couldn't get his mind to budge from the fact that he didn't want her to leave.

With a fond smile, she kissed him before teasing lightly, “You gonna miss me, honey?”

Mickey grinned, hoping she couldn't see that he was feeling more melancholy than amused. “I think mostly I'll miss the sex. It's hard to find a woman who can keep up with me.”

“Oh, is that so?” She laughed and tickled him, making him squirm. Then she stopped, a warm, almost wistful smile on her face. “I'm gonna miss you, too, you know.”

Forced playful grin turning into a soft, genuine smile, he pulled her closer and kissed her. “I was beginning to worry you didn't like me.”

Beck grinned and nuzzled his neck. “The past twenty-four hours wouldn't have happened if I didn't like you.”

Feigning shock, Mickey gasped. “You mean you don't fuck strange men all over Greece indiscriminately?”

“No, that I do all the time,” she joked, hand sliding up one leg of his borrowed shorts. “But I only let the really special ones wear my clothes.”

He laughed, glancing down at himself; he'd forgotten for a second that they were hers. “Right. We should stop at my place so I can change and give these back before I take you back to your hotel.”

Beck sighed, snatching her hand back as if he'd burned her. “Right. Yeah, we should get going.”

Though he still hated that she had to leave, he kept his word and didn't try to stop her. Argyris tried to convince him to make some grand gesture at the airport, but Mickey shut him down with a grumpy, “It's her kid's birthday. I'm not that much of a selfish asshole.”

“I can't believe you're in love with this girl!” Hooting with laughter, Argyris slapped his back. “I'm a fuckin' matchmaker! Who knew?”

“Fuck off, Cupid!” Mickey grinned and shoved him away, hoping the other man couldn't see how shitty he really felt. He moped for a couple of days, barely paying attention to the world around him, just missing the crazy girl with the temper as fiery as her hair.

Then he answered an unexpected knock at his door and was baffled by the sight of a cute, petite brunette with huge blue eyes staring up at him. “Um... Can I help you?”

“Huh.” One dark eyebrow arching up, she called back over her shoulder, “You really do have a type.”

A familiar laugh made Mickey freeze in shock as Beck stepped into view behind the girl, another one in her arms. “I made the mistake of telling Maddie that I met this awesome DJ in Greece-”

“And since I have no friends anyway,” the girl, who he finally realized was Beck's older daughter, Madeline, cut in, “I figured there'd be no problem moving my 'party' somewhere more fun than my aunt's house. For the third year in a row.”

“Jesus, you might look like your dad, but you sound just like your mom!” The words slipped out before he could stop himself. While Madeline rolled her eyes, the little girl in her mother's arms – Alice, he figured – giggled.

“Yeah,” Beck agreed with a grin, moving closer and leaning past her daughters to kiss him. “She's got my snarky attitude. Gods help me. Thankfully, this one's still innocent.” She squeezed Alice tighter against her side, making her giggle again.

“Mommy! You're squishing me!”

“Her? Innocent? Did auntie tell you what she did to my stereo?!”

“It was an accident!”

“My butt it was!”

Wincing, Beck glanced at Mickey and mouthed, 'I'm sorry.' “Girls, enough. What have I told you about bickering in front of strangers?”

“I mean, you also tell us not to spread our legs for strangers, and yet...”

“Madeline Fiona O'Brien!”

“What?!” Eyes wide and looking frustrated, Madeline gestured to Mickey. “I'm kinda right!”

He couldn't hold it in anymore. Leaning on the door frame to stay upright, Mickey burst out laughing. God help this woman, he thought as he struggled to get his breath back. Her daughter's exactly like her!

Face even redder than her hair, Beck grumbled, “I did not tell her we slept together.”

“You couldn't shut up about him and your clothes smelled like dude. Doesn't take a genius.”

“Maddie, couldja stop? I kinda wanna see more of Greece than two buildings. If mom drags us home early cuz you're being a jerk, I will kick your seat the whole way back to Boston!”

“I'll let her.”

Mickey had just about gotten his laughter under control. Still chuckling, he yanked Beck into his arms and gave her a long, slow kiss. “You are dreaming if you think I'm letting you leave again.”

“That doesn't sound kidnappy at all!”

Laughing again, he released the blushing redhead only to trap Madeline in his arms and tickle her until she squeaked. “And you, little miss Queen of Sarcasm!” With a grin, he kissed the top of her head and released her, pleased to see that she was smiling. “Happy birthday.”

“Thanks.”

As he stepped aside to let them in, it finally dawned on him that he'd never actually worked a child's party before. He was used to crowds of rowdy drunk Greeks, not two innocent little girls. He didn't even know any kids, besides his own! He glanced helplessly at Beck, who snickered and kissed his jaw.

“Just do whatever; I can keep an eye on them. Maddie was more interested in the change of scenery than an actual party.”

“Does she really have no friends?”

She shrugged, turning to watch her daughters awkwardly settle on the couch and begin nudging and poking each other repeatedly. “She's never been the most social kid in the world. Around their own age groups, Liss is the bubbly extrovert and Maddie can't be bothered; she wanted to hang with kids her own age until she realized they annoy the hell out of her.”

“Argyris might know some people with kids...” He rolled his eyes. “He'll think I'm nuts, trying to hunt down teenagers, though.”

Beck laughed and shook her head. “No, really, don't worry about it. We don't even have to actually throw a party-”

Cutting her off with a kiss, Mickey insisted, “Oh, she's getting a party. When is her birthday, anyway?”

“Today, actually.”

He flinched, glancing at the clock, and then relaxed. It was still pretty early. “She's getting a party,” he repeated firmly. “She's fourteen! That... has no special significance in any culture I've heard of, but the kid still deserves some fun on her damn birthday. Especially if the last few have been disappointing.”

“The day after is pretty significant in our culture,” she murmured, so softly he almost didn't catch it.

“Is it?” Wasn't she American? He seemed to recall a whole conversation that almost turned into an argument about it. “Since when?”

Beck blushed again, looking uncomfortable. “Never mind.”

“...Girls, make yourselves at home. I need to talk to your mom for a minute.”

“You're talking now.”

He almost wrote that off as another snarky response, until he realized it had come from Alice. Looking innocently confused, she stared at him with almost comically large blue eyes, and he smiled. “In private,” he clarified as gently as he could as he grabbed Beck's wrist and tugged her down the hall toward his bedroom.

“Door open at all times!”

With a huff, Beck dug her heels in and spun around to glare at Madeline. “Who's the mom, here?”

“Sometimes I wonder.”

“Madeline.” Wrenching free of Mickey's grasp, she crossed her arms over her chest and stared her defiant offspring down. “Who's the mom?”

Glowering right back, Madeline mirrored her pose and grudgingly admitted, “You are.”

“Good. Now that we've got that cleared up, how about you show our host a little respect?”

Madeline's face was red as a tomato, but she still looked more angry and resentful than contrite, until she took a deep breath and turned to Mickey. With a surprising note of sincerity, she grumbled, “Sorry, Mickey.”

“Jet lag gets the best of all of us. Maybe you two should take a nap while your mom and I talk.” He didn't know what the hell else to say. He couldn't say 'it's okay' and undermine her mother, and 'you're forgiven' sounded kind of dickish. With an awkward smile, he waved and resumed dragging Beck down the hall.

As soon as the bedroom door was closed behind them, Beck sighed and leaned against it, looking worn out. “I'm so sorry about her. She's been so bitchy lately; my sister said she was even copping an attitude with her, which she almost never does.”

“She's probably just tired and been missing her mom.” In truth, he thought Madeline's sass was funny as hell, but he wasn't about to step into the middle of a mother-daughter war. Instead, he focused on his own curiosity. “What 'culture' celebrates the day after a birthday?”

She winced. “It's nothing, Mickey. Forget it.”

Weird. “What's the big deal? I'm just curious.”

“Alright, fine.” Looking and sounding resigned, she muttered, “If you're gonna judge or laugh, might as well get it out of the way – I'm a witch.”

Mickey stared at her. Whatever he'd been expecting her to say, it wasn't that. “...A witch?”

“I don't ride a broomstick and I can't turn you into a toad.” Oof. Defensive. Judging by her tone, she'd had this conversation before, and it hadn't gone well. “My sister's a witch, too, and so are my girls. There's an old tradition in the craft; at thirteen we find our deity, if we're meant to serve one, and a year and a day later, we pledge to their service.”

Light dawned. “Oh, that's why you always say 'Gods' instead of 'God'! That makes sense.” Who was he to judge? He wasn't particularly religious, but was any one religion really any weirder than the next? Curiosity abated, he brushed it off and tugged her into his arms. “My very own Sabrina.”

Beck snorted and dropped her head onto his shoulder. “Sometimes I feel more like Sarah Sanderson.”

“You really want me to throw a rager for your fourteen-year-old?” He didn't know what to say about her Hocus Pocus reference – 'horny and ditzy? Sounds about right' was...probably not the right thing – so he decided to just jump back to the original topic.

She shrugged. “I honestly don't know what to do for her. Coming back here was her idea, but I kinda doubt it had much to do with her birthday. She wasn't kidding about wondering which one of us is the parent; that kid's been trying to take care of me since she was little.”

“Why?”

Sighing, she stepped back out of his arms. She looked so sad and broken suddenly that he wished he'd never asked. “I would love to say that it's just who she is – and it is, to a point. Some people are just natural caregivers, and Maddie's definitely one of them. But I was a mess before Liss was born. Maddie's had to deal with a lot of bullshit, and it made her grow up too fast.”

That settled it in Mickey's mind. As he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket with one hand and opened the bedroom door with the other, he told her again, “She's getting a fucking party.”

Three hours and a lot of yelling at Agryris to get him to stop laughing later, he was setting up speakers in front of his apartment building, surrounded by what looked like every kid in Athens between twelve and sixteen, along with their parents. It definitely wasn't his usual crowd, to say the least, but they were friendly enough. Most importantly, Madeline was already smiling and laughing.

Remembering the posters he'd seen around town, he pulled his phone out again and called a number he hadn't used in quite a while. “Well, well. So you're in Athens. What do you know? I have a favor to ask you...”

“OHMYGOD! BASTIAN!”

Mickey grinned. Clearly, he'd made the right call, and it was earning him hugs galore. For the first time all day, Madeline was acting like a teenage girl, bouncing up and down and screeching with joy as Bastian made her way through the party. With a bright smile, she hugged the birthday girl and smoothed her dark curls back off of her face before approaching Mickey and hugging him. The second she moved back, Madeline launched herself at him, squeezing so tightly he thought she might crack a few ribs. And then her laughing mother replaced her, and he'd never felt so popular.

“Hell of a dad move,” Beck teased, grinning at him as she stepped aside and Maddie barreled into him again.

“Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!”

Laughing, Mickey lifted her up and kissed the top of her head. “Happy birthday.” She was too light; idly, he made a mental note to ask what the hell Beck and her sister were feeding these kids, or failing to feed them. Then he realized he sort of was acting like Maddie's dad and he blushed, setting her down.

As she ran off to dance with her little sister, he pulled Bastian up onto the platform and picked up the mic. “First of all – let's hear it for the birthday girl!” He pointed, and grinned when the revelers around him cheered, making the brunette blush. “Maddie O'Brien! You said you have no friends back in the States-” Boos echoed around them, and her color deepened. “-So I thought, what could make a better birthday present than a couple hundred Greek friends?”

The crowd cheered again, and a few “YEAH, MADDIE” shouts made the girl in question laugh, covering her face with the hand not holding tight to Alice's little wrist. Mickey noticed that she did that a lot; whenever the younger girl wasn't in her mother's arms, she was in her sister's tight, protective grip.

“What do you guys think?” He shouted into the mic. “This girl's really cool, right? You wanna be Maddie's friends, and show her how much better everything is here in Greece?”

The cheers were deafening. Mickey was grinning like a fool, and was pleased to see that so was Madeline. Big blue eyes shining, she stared up at him like he was her hero, and for a minute, life was pretty damn good. He'd die before admitting it aloud, at least so soon, but he could easily see a bright, happy future where he was stepdad to these two beautiful little girls, and they doted over their step-brother Hector, the way Maddie doted over Alice. He glanced at their mother, and couldn't help getting just a little choked up when he saw an identical look of joy and appreciation on her beautiful face. Man, it was nice to be the hero.

Before he could get too emotional and ruin the party, he pointed to Bastian. “You guys know who this is, right?” Another enthusiastic roar; he was a little jealous this time, but shoved it down and smiled. “Well, she's gonna take over for a little while, so make sure you give her some love, alright?”

Yanking her into one more tight hug, he handed the reins over to Bastian and hopped down. Beck immediately threw her arms around him and kissed him. “You are amazing, you know that? I descend on you unannounced with a grouchy teenager in tow, and you give her the best fucking night of her life!”

“All in a day's work,” he joked, squeezing her. “She seems like a great kid; they both do. I couldn't just do nothing and let her be miserable.”

“Hector is lucky.” She was grinning so wide, her face hurt; Mickey only knew because he was doing the same. “He's got a really great dad. If you'd do something like this for a kid you've never even met before, I can only imagine the lengths you'd go to for your own.”

“Think you can pass that praise on to my ex? Maybe she'll actually let me see him.”

Smile fading, she gripped his head with both hands and pulled him down to press their foreheads together. “If you want me to, I'll help you fight for him. You deserve to see your son, and he deserves to know his dad.”

“How long are you staying this time?” He didn't want to talk about Hector suddenly; not at a party surrounded by strangers and their children.

Seeming to sense his mood, Beck smiled and glanced at her giggling daughters. They were hopping around like lunatics to the music, surrounded by kids Maddie's age. She looked like she was having the time of her life. “From the looks of things now? Forever.” Mickey thought she was joking, but the look on her face stopped him from laughing it off. “I've never seen her so happy. Athens might just become home.”

“I hope so.” He shrugged, forcing a chipper smile to hide the desperately hopeful one he couldn't quite keep in. “It did for me!”

“We'll see.”

Unlike most of the parties he'd worked, this one started winding down fairly early as kids hugged Maddie, wished her a happy birthday, and were ushered home by their tired parents. Alice was asleep in Mickey's arms, her tiny body limp as a rag doll and her silky black curls tickling his nose. As the last of her party guests wished her well and left, Madeline hurried over to him and cuddled up to the side not currently occupied by the dead weight of her sister.

“Thank you, Mickey.”

“Did you have fun?” She nodded, and he smiled softly, stroking her dark hair. “Good. Let's get inside and get the little one into bed, shall we?”

She glanced around, frowning a little. “Where's mom?”

“Already upstairs.” Grinning, he watched her for a reaction and added casually, “With Bastian.”

Bright blue eyes widening, she gaped at him. “She's staying?”

Mickey laughed. “For tonight, at least, yeah. Come on.”

As they trudged through the door of his apartment a few minutes later, Mickey found himself wishing he'd stayed outside.

“No way!” Beck whipped around to gape at him while Bastian laughed. “You didn't tell me you were in a band!”

“Oh lord,” Madeline grumbled under her breath. “Get something pierced and she'll propose to you by midnight, I swear.”

Choking on a startled laugh, he lowered Alice into her sister's waiting arms. “Put her in Hector's bed. You and your mom can take mine tonight.” As she obediently wandered down the hall to tuck the younger girl in, Mickey flopped down on the couch beside Beck and tugged her into his arms. “That was a long time ago. Then she got her big break and got all famous, and she didn't need losers like me anymore.”

“Oh, that is such bullshit!” Laughing, Bastian stretched out to kick him. “We got a break. We got a deal. You were every bit a part of all that!”

“Oh, please!” Mickey rolled his eyes. “You never needed me. It was the Bastian Show, and we were just-”

“No! No, what happened was...”

They bickered for a while, going back and forth over who was to blame for Saint Claude's ultimate demise. After a few minutes, Beck excused herself and left the room, leaving the two old friends to catch up. When the argument showed no signs of ending, Mickey huffed and stood up, muttering something about getting a drink as he walked away. He loved Bastian, but damn she could be stubborn!

“What the fuck are you doing?” A glass in each hand, he stared at her as she laid out lines of cocaine on her phone's screen.

“What the fuck does it look like I'm doing?”

“Oh, god.” He grimaced, glancing toward the bedrooms. All quiet, but he didn't know if Beck and Maddie were asleep, or just hiding from the debate. “Come on, let's go in the bathroom.”

“The Brat Pack's asleep. Don't worry about it!”

“You don't know that,” he hissed. “Come on.”

Bastian rolled her eyes, but she allowed him to usher her into the bathroom. “You're paranoid. You barely even know these people! What do you care what they think?”

“I care,” he snapped, though he didn't refuse when she offered him a line. He'd just finished, was still hunched over the phone, when the door opened and he was faced with, basically, his worst nightmare: Madeline was standing in the doorway, hand on the knob.

They both froze, staring at her like deer in headlights. Face completely expressionless, Maddie looked at each of them, then at the line of cocaine still on the phone, and then straight at Mickey. "I just wanted to thank you again for today." Without another word, she calmly turned and left the room, closing the door behind her.

"Shit." Ignoring Bastian's drug-fueled giggle fit, Mickey was on his feet and chasing after the teen in a flash. "Maddie!"

Though her face was still a stony mask, there were tears in her eyes when she whirled around to face him. "I need to talk to you. Now."

"Okay." He gestured to the couch, but she shook her head.

"Outside. I don't wanna wake up mom or Alice."

Nodding, he followed her without another word. At first he'd thought she meant out in the hall, but she didn't stop until they were outside the building. "Maddie, listen-"

"Let her go." Mickey's heart broke when she turned to face him again. Tears running down her cheeks and lower lip trembling, she stared up at him with those huge blue eyes and he almost started crying with her. "You have to let her go. Mom's loyal even when she shouldn't be. She'll never break it off."

"Maddie, I don't want-"

"I only exist because my dad drugged and raped her!" Wiping furiously at her face while he shrank back in horror, she continued more calmly, "She doesn't know I know that, or that he tried to kidnap me a bunch of times when I was little. Auntie told me. She still stayed with him for almost a year. Will hit her, Owen was a toxic psycho, Alex was a racist jerk... Alice's dad was always really nice to us all when he came around, but he almost never did. And I don't know what he did, but he's in jail for life now." With a bitter grimace, she spat, "And you're a druggie."

Maddie's had to deal with a lot of bullshit, and it made her grow up too fast.

Beck's soft voice, so full of pain and regret, echoed in his head as Mickey sank down to sit on the steps and tugged Madeline into his arms. "I'm not a druggie," he assured her as she clung to him and broke down sobbing. "One time thing, kiddo, I promise."

"Like you'd say anything else!"

The little whimper that escaped her as she scooted up his leg to get closer and dropped her head onto his shoulder very nearly made him start crying with her. For all that she insisted he get the hell out of her life, he could tell that she was desperate for someone decent to stay. This poor kid was fourteen going on forty after watching her mom date a string of losers; no wonder she had no faith in men, or in her mother's ability to make sound decisions. He squeezed her a little tighter, not sure what to do or say.

"Mickey, I'm tired," she croaked, making his heart ache for her even more. He knew she didn't mean sleepy; she was tired of being the mature one, and he couldn't say he blamed her. "I'm so tired..."

"Shhh, it's okay, baby," he whispered, rubbing her back. "You can rest now. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. You're my little girl now, okay? And I won't let anything happen to you, or your sister, or your mom. You don't have to take care of her anymore, honey. I will. You just take a breath and be a kid while you can."

"How can I trust you?"

Well, that hurt, but he got where she was coming from. Pressing a soft kiss to the top of her head, he murmured, "I gotta earn that." He pried her loose and pushed her back a little, just enough to be able to look her in the eye. "Do you think you can give me a chance to?"

After a pause that felt like an eternity, Maddie sniffled and nodded. "Okay. But if you hurt her, I'll kick your nuts back up inside."

Laughing, Mickey nodded and smoothed her hair back. "Noted.” A thought occurred to him and he frowned. “Why did you aunt tell you all that? Putting that weight on a kid... That's cruel.”

“I asked,” she admitted with a shrug. “I asked why mom was such a mess, and why I didn't have a dad. So she told me.”

I'd have made some shit up, damn. Even high, he was smart enough not to say that. He chose not to say anything at all, and just held her for a while as the cool night air soothed their frayed nerves and her breathing slowly returned to normal.

“Mickey?”

“Hm?”

Voice a small, timid whisper, she asked, “Do you really wanna be my dad?”

Smiling softly, he kissed her head again and hugged her just a bit tighter. “I am your dad.” When she tensed and let out a frustrated huff, he explained, “I'm in love with your mom, kiddo. And I already love you and your sister. We're family now, and I'm not going anywhere. I promise.”

“You're weird.” He could hear her teasing smile in her voice, and he smiled, too, relieved. “You don't even know us.”

“I know enough. Come on.” Though all he wanted was to sit there and cuddle with her all night, he gently pushed her off his lap and stood. “It's getting late. You should get to bed.”

Sending her off down the hall to his bedroom when they got back upstairs, he collapsed on the couch and sighed. He'd known when he met her that Beck would make his life more interesting... he just had no idea how interesting.

A laugh beside him reminded him of his other guest and he reluctantly opened his eyes. Judging from the way she was twitching and snickering, Bastian had finished the rest of the coke. “That was intense!”

Mickey closed his eyes again. “If it's not already gone, get that shit out of my house.”

“Oh, come on!” She shoved him, grinning impishly. “Don't try to act all virtuous now! You were right there with me, until that kid walked in.”

“'That kid'?” Annoyed now, he sat up and glared at her. “My kid.”

“Not really, though.” Confused, she twisted to glance down the hall, and then back to stare at him. “...Right? I mean, shit, she does kinda look like you...”

He shook his head. “No. Biologically, no, but I don't care. I'm not gonna add my name to the list of guys who've hurt her.”

Bastian snorted, rolling her eyes. “Mickey, you can't just decide to play daddy to this random kid on a whim just because your ex won't let you see your own. She's not yours, and changing your whole life and personality isn't going to change that.”

“I haven't touched that shit in years. I'm not changing on a whim; you just don't know me anymore.”

“Enough,” she challenged, settling back in her seat and staring down her nose at him. “I know you well enough to know this is never gonna work.”

“What isn't?”

“This!” Bastian gestured vaguely around them. “This whole self-domestication shit. You're not some house husband and stepdad – you're a musician. You belong on the road, Mickey! Not shut up in some old lady's apartment playing House with some crazy chick and her walking, talking reminders of past mistakes.”

“Beck,” he snapped, glaring at her. “'That chick's' name is Beck, and her gorgeous daughters are Maddie and Alice. They're not mistakes. Alice is adorable and so smart, and Maddie is fucking awesome and she's been through Hell. I haven't seen you in years and you think you're gonna sit here in my house and tell me who I am and what I want? I don't fucking think so, Bastian.”

“Alright, alright!” She held up her hands in surrender, eyes wide. “Chill. I just miss you, okay? I want you to come on tour with me, like the old days, not sit here and rot away in some mediocre domestic life. You could have so much more!”

Mickey sighed, staring off into space for a moment. Some part of him was drawn to her offer, but that wasn't him anymore. He didn't actually want to tour with her, he just hated feeling settled; at some point in his wild youth, stability had begun to feel like stagnation, and now he found himself often desperate to avoid it, even if it came with everything he truly wanted.

He thought about Beck, and her bright smile and her two beautiful, lonely daughters, and he thought about Hector. Beck had been spot-on; as much as he did love Greece, Mickey had really only stayed this long because of his son. He wanted to be in Hector's life. Now he wanted to be in Maddie and Alice's lives, too. He wanted a family.

And for the first time, he was willing to fight for that family.

“You're right,” he admitted slowly. “You're right, I've been hiding here, just floating around aimlessly.” Before she could get all triumphant, he stood and growled, “But that's not what I'm doing now. Now, I'm finally seeing a life that I want, and I'll be damned if I'll let anyone take it away from me.”

That said, he walked away without giving Bastian a chance to argue. He peeked into his son's room to check on Alice, smiled when he saw the way she was sprawled, half hanging off the bed, and he quietly closed the door and headed to his own room. Hopefully Maddie wouldn't mind; he'd originally intended to crash on the couch, but he couldn't stand to be in the same room as Bastian, and couldn't quite bring himself to kick her out, either. Moving slowly, so as to avoid waking either of the bed's other two occupants, he slid in next to Beck.

She immediately rolled over and cuddled close to him. At first he thought she was just fidgeting in her sleep, but then she whispered, “Don't let anyone change you or tell you who you are. Not even me.”

“I won't.” He tried to smile, couldn't quite manage it, and kissed her, instead. “Goodnight.”

“Night.”

It wasn't quite a seamless transition. Mickey's place was too small for a family of four, and he didn't exactly love the idea of moving a bunch of heavy audio equipment down those winding stairs. Though he wanted to jump right into living together, he didn't put up much of a fight when Beck started looking for her own place.

It helped that she didn't spend a lot of time at home. Once the girls were enrolled in school, their mother started dropping them off and then going straight to Mickey's place. She helped Argyris translate for Mickey and his clients, which both men had thought was a terrible idea... until they saw her in action. The short fuse he'd become so familiar with in their first couple of days together was nowhere to be found. Around even his most difficult clients, Beck was the embodiment of charm and professional courtesy. Mickey quickly found that while Argyris was better for direct translation, he was no match for Beck when it came to diplomacy and deescalating a heated argument.

“You haven't seen 'difficult',” she teased, “until you've been a woman in a male-dominated field arguing for funding. This is nothing.”

Mickey laughed, yanking her into his arms. “Where have you been all my life?”

She flinched, closing her eyes and pressing her fingertips to her mouth for a second. It was the briefest of moments, and then she was smiling again and joking, “On my knees in the dirt, mostly,” but he refused to ignore it.

“You okay?”

With a little shrug and a nod, she admitted, “Been a little queasy and lightheaded lately, but I'm fine. It never lasts long.”

“You are so American.” She glared at him and he grinned, pleased that he knew how to get her attention. “You're not in Dystopia anymore – go to a doctor.”

“Did you not hear me? I'm fi-”

“I heard 'lately,'” he countered, poking her side and immediately regretting it when she cringed. Right; queasy. Maybe don't mess with her stomach, Mickey. “'Lately' means this is not normal. It means you're sick, so go to a doctor.”

She shook her head, winced, and dropped it onto his shoulder. “I don't need a doctor.”

“You can't even move without turning green.”

“I'm fine. I don't need a doctor.”

“Why are you being so stubborn? You're supposed to help me with stubborn people, not be the Queen of them!”

“Am I your girlfriend or your lawyer?”

“That's not what I meant and you know it. Don't change the subject.” Rubbing her back, he insisted as gently as he could, “Please just go get checked out.”

“I don't need to. I'm fine.”

“Look, even if it's minor, do you wanna suffer or find out what's wrong and get better?”

“I don't need a doctor to tell me what I already know!”

What she already knew? He frowned, more confused than ever. “Is it some kind of chronic-”

“Mickey, I'm not sick – I'm pregnant!”

He froze, gaping at her in shock. She started to pull away, but he tightened his grip on her waist before she could stand up. “You're what?”

Looking nervous and uncomfortable, she mumbled, “I was trying to find the right time to tell you; we've just been so busy with that 'make it more Greek' asshat...”

“You're really pregnant?” When she slowly and carefully nodded, Mickey grinned and hugged her as tight as he dared. “That's fantastic!” He finally let her up, only to stand with her and frame her face with both hands. Between frantic kisses all over her face, he gushed, “That's incredible! Have you told the girls yet? Oh, Alice is gonna be so excited to be a big sister! And Hector! I can't wait for Hector to meet his little brother or sister!”

“Mickey...”

He glanced around, smile dimming just a bit. “Damn, we gotta get a bigger place.”

“Mickey.”

“I wonder if Agryris' grandmother had-”

“Mickey!” Shoving his hands away, Beck got a tight grip on his hair and forced him to turn back to face her. “Do you really think we can do this?”

He blinked, taken aback by that. “Don't you?”

“Three kids, and fighting for joint custody of a fourth?” She shook her head, looking at him like he was an idiot. “The thought that we might be in over our heads crossed my mind, yeah. I was struggling with just two!”

“Well, now you have me.” His cheeky grin didn't seem to comfort her as much as he'd hoped it would. “You were struggling 'cause you were alone; now you're not.”

“A single mom with two kids really isn't all that different from two parents with four,” she pointed out, releasing his hair and crossing her arms over her chest. Seeing the hurt he tried to mask, she sighed. “Look, I'm glad you're excited, I am. And whether we're ready or not, the kid's on the way, I just... I just wish I shared your optimism. I'm not excited, Mickey; I'm scared to death.”

“Well, get excited,” he jokingly commanded, pulling her close for another hug. “We'll be fine. Besides, it's not like Aspa's ever gonna give me full custody, so it's not really two to four. Maddie's old enough that she doesn't need constant hyper-vigilance from us, so it's really just two to two-and-a-half.”

Finally, finally, Beck laughed. It was quiet and weak, but a laugh nonetheless. “Jesus, you're like sunshine in human form. Does anything ever get you down?”

He shrugged. “Sure, but I try not to let it for long. And I see a new baby as something to celebrate, not freak the hell out over.”

“See, you get to see it that way because you don't have to push it out,” she teased. “It's not so perfectly sunny from where I'm standing.”

“No one said life is perfect.” Still smiling like a fool, he kissed her. “Whatever you need, I'm here. You're not doing everything alone anymore. We got this.”

“I love you.”

It didn't seem possible, but somehow his smile got even wider. “I love you, too.”

“Speaking of Aspa, though...”

“Oh, god, what?”

With a laugh and an apologetic smile, Beck ventured, “I don't think you should come today.”

“What?”

Her smile immediately faded; apparently, he was really bad at hiding it when he was confused and offended. “Baby, you're chaos incarnate. It's one of the things I love about you, but it's not exactly conducive to a civilized conversation with a woman who probably kind of hates you.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“I just think I might have better luck getting through to her, single mom to single mom.” She looked like she was waiting for him to hit her, which only made him feel worse. “I know how hard it is, and how, whether we mean to or not, we tend to villainize our exes-”

He snorted, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, well, with the stellar guys you've dated, it makes sense. It's not really villainizing if he's already a villain.”

“Exactly how much did Madeline tell you?”

Uh-oh. She was mad. Knowing he was in trouble no matter what and refusing to drag his stepdaughter down with him, Mickey hastily changed the subject. “Do you really think I'll fuck things up that badly if I go?” Why was he even asking? Offended or not, he knew she was right; Aspa hated his guts.

Thankfully, Beck let the dig about her exes drop and her steely expression melted back into one of gentle sympathy. “I just want you to have the best chance possible of getting to be an active part of Hector's life. I want him to know you, to sleep in that bed you bought him before he outgrows it, to meet his new sisters. And I think your feelings towards Aspa, and hers toward you, are probably too raw and volatile right now for a face-to-face meeting to be a good idea.”

“Alright.” Forcing a faint smile, he nodded. “Alright, go. You've got a point.”

“I'll tell you all about it when I get back, okay?” She promised with an equally strained smile, kissing his cheek.

“Can't wait.”

When she came back a little while later, she was laughing. Mickey's hopes that it meant things had gone better than expected were dashed, though, when she managed to gasp out, “She really hates you!”

“Yeah, thanks.” He shook his head. “I knew that much.”

“I'm sorry.” Still giggling, Beck wound her arms around his waist. “She was just such a bitch. I kinda respect the hell out of her.”

“What did she say?”

“That you're a baby,” she dutifully recited, “and you're irresponsible, unreliable...”

“Why is this funny?!”

“Because, Mickey... Mickey, honey...” Framing his face like he had to her earlier, she told him, “It's nothing I didn't already know. You're flighty and you're a big kid; this isn't news. She was floored that I love you anyway, and my god, the look on her face when I went off about how that childishness is what makes you such a good dad, and you're great with the girls... I haven't been able to stop laughing since! Pretty sure she hates me now, too.”

“Great!” Failing to see the humor, Mickey jerked free of her light grasp and moved away, beginning to pace the room. “So instead of helping, you just alienated her from us both!”

“We're going to see him on Saturday.”

“What?” He spun to stare at her; she wasn't laughing anymore. “Are you serious?”

Looking rather proud of herself, she nodded. “Supervised by Aspa, of course, but yep. You get to spend time with your son, and I finally get to meet him. It doesn't matter what she thinks of either of us, as long as she can see that you give a shit; that we're safe to be around Hector, and can be trusted to think of him first. Show her how much you love him, that even childish and flaky you can be reliable, that you want to be reliable, and a supervised visit might turn into father-son weekends, without your ex underfoot.”

“I... wha... how...?”

She shrugged, smiling faintly. “Mother to mother. We came to an understanding.”

Overwhelmed by emotions he couldn't even identify, Mickey closed the distance between them and lifted her up. “I fucking love you, you know that?”

Beaming as he set her down, Beck leaned in for a kiss. “I love you, too, baby.”

“That's not cute anymore.” Despite his protests, he was grinning as he backed her toward the bedroom. “Now I just feel like you're calling me a baby. That sucks. Don't do that.”

“I'll call you what I want,” she teased, pulling him down for another kiss. “And you can't stop me!”

With a hand on her belly, he joked, “How about you call me 'daddy'?”

“No.” She laughed and shook her head. “I physically cannot do that. I'll puke.”

“Well, morning sickness is pretty common.”

“No, this is pure disgust.”

They were both laughing now as they reached the bed; he almost playfully shoved her back, but then remembered the baby and thought better of it. Instead, he flopped across it himself and beckoned for her to join him. “We're gonna be okay, you know.”

Beck winced as she settled gingerly on the edge of the bed. “It's just such bad timing. I don't...”

“Hey.” He tugged at her arm until she stretched out beside him, and wound his arms around her. “It's all gonna be okay. No matter what life throws at us, we'll deal with it together, okay? I want this baby. I know you want this baby. The rest is just details.”

“Pretty big fucking details. I was supposed to go to Mongolia next month.”

“Then go.” God, he didn't want her to, but he was determined to show her that they could be together, be a family, without completely derailing her life. When she looked at him like he'd lost it, he gave her a bland 'are you kidding' look right back. “You're not really gonna try to convince me that you weren't still going on digs when you were pregnant with Alice, are you?”

She blushed. “My team didn't know...”

“So don't tell them this time, either.”

“Mickey...” Pushing his arms away, she sat up. “You really have no idea how physically demanding my work is, do you? I almost lost Alice.”

For a second, he floundered, wondering what the hell to do or say. Then he brightened and sat up, as well. “You speak a million languages; just work as a translator until you're safe to go back out into the field.”

“...I do love it,” she conceded, making him perk up. “And maybe I can finally teach you some Greek so you can talk to your son more easily.”

Mickey chuckled. “I'm not getting out of that, am I?”

“Nope.” She grinned and settled back against his chest as he leaned against the headboard. “Not until we're both fluent.”

“Alright, I'm in.” He smiled, kissing her jaw and lacing their fingers together. “New home for us, new job for you, learning a new language...”

“New baby on the way.”

“New baby on the way,” he parroted, pressing their linked hands to her belly. “New chapter.”

“Here's to a new life.”

Mickey nodded and leaned down for a proper kiss, murmuring against her lips, “Together.”