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whatanoof · 4 years ago

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I Wished for your Happiness

Rating: Teen

Pairing: Maxwell Lord x Reader

Word Count: ~1.6k

A/N: What if instead of Alistair wishing for his father’s greatness, he wished for his father to be happy in a universe where Reader died years prior?

I’ll admit, I was inspired by the Diana x Steve dynamic, and wanted Maxwell to have to go through the same emotional rollercoaster.

“Then I wish for your happiness, Daddy.”

---

“Max!” Your eyes fly open and you bolt straight upright in a strange bed. A strangled gasp tears into your throat and you claw at your chest, searching for the source of the phantom pain. Something isn’t right.

You tear the covers off of your legs, stumbling onto the hardwood floor of a strange bedroom, in strange clothes, in a strange home. Where are you? The last thing you remember is the cold sterility of the hospital and Max’s tearful eyes. He was holding your hand, and his palm was sweaty, but you latched onto that sensation because it was better than focusing on the gaping hole in your chest.

But, this isn’t the hospital. And as you look out the window, you see that it’s not even New York. The Washington Monument shines in the distance. You’re in D.C. How did you get here? Where’s Max? A cold dread settles into your chest, where the phantom pain still throbs as your only tie to the memory that… you died. You’re hyperventilating, raggeds breaths dragging in and out of your chest. Have to calm down, find out what’s going on. You clutch your chest as you stumble back to sit on the bed. You died. So how…? Is this the afterlife?

There’s a mirror on the wall right outside of the bedroom. The woman staring back at you from the reflective glass isn’t you. This isn't your body. She has the same hair, similar features, and roughly the same body type, but it’s not you. Jesus Christ, you need to find Max. He’ll know what’s going on, and even if he doesn’t it will all be okay when you’re home with him again.

With new purpose in your stride, you walk to the closet, dress, and leave the apartment. You thank whatever god is out there for dropping you into a body so similar to your old one, because if you had needed to acclimatize to moving in a different weight and balance, you wouldn’t have made it out the door. It’s the small blessings.

Have to find Max. You get outside and start walking before you realize that you have no idea where you’re walking to. It doesn’t seem to matter, though, because it’s like your body knows. It guides you down a street full of stores. Their windows are glaringly bright and colorful, boasting newer high-tech televisions and home tools. You catch a glimpse of a newspaper headline. It’s been two years since you died. Alistar will be so big now. Alistair.

You can’t believe it took you so long to remember the small boy with stars in his eyes. When you had first started dating Maxwell, he had made it clear to you that Alistair was a given in his life. You hadn’t minded, but as you found yourself falling for Max, you also found yourself falling in love with his son’s bright optimism and mischievous smiles. It seems that your memories are coming back selectively, but slowly.

A bright television screen catches your eye, and you slow down. There he is. He’s got a few more wrinkles, and his hair has been re-dyed recently, but that’s your Maxwell on the screen. Apparently, Black-Gold Corporation took off, just as he said it would. That’s where you will find him, you feel it just as strongly in your heart as the constant aching pain. Now, if only you could begin to find it.

---

The front office is a flurry of activity, with people shouting on phones and paper flying into the air with the constant breeze that seems to exist. It’s a product of the doors opening and shutting, and workers power-walking through the lobby, and it’s making it hard for you to focus or keep standing at all, because as soon as you walked through the doors, the force that guided you here has left, and all you have left to stand on is shaky legs that weren’t yours two hours ago. You approach the front desk tentatively, “Excuse me?”

The harried looking woman barely glances at you before shoving a form your way. “Mr. Lord is very busy right now ma’am, so if you will just fill out the form stating intent for your purchase of shares, we will add you to the waiting list.”

“Um, I don’t want to purchase shares.”

She stops then, and her piercing stare bores into you, “Well, I am very busy right now, so if there is nothing else…?”

A child’s voice screams your name, loud enough that everyone’s head turns to the source standing at the elevator with a pretty blond woman.

“Alistair!” You almost sob when you see him. You were right, he is so big, but he still has the same eyes and brilliant smile. He breaks into a run, and you rush towards him too, meeting in a bruising hug in the center of the room.

“You’re back! How are you back?” He’s crying, and you swipe the tears messily with your thumb as you fight to keep your own composure strong.

“I don’t know, Ali. I don’t know.” Fuck it. You let yourself cry. He’s here, you’re not alone anymore. “How did you recognize me, Ali, I’m not--”

He pulls away then and grabs your hands, a sternness beyond his years on his face. “You have to come. Something’s wrong with Daddy.” Cold dread spikes through your chest, and you stand wordlessly.

---

If you thought the front office was bad, the upper bullpen is an absolute hurricane of motion and voices. Alistair anchors you to reality, his tiny but strong hand leading you to a large frosted glass wall. There’s a door, and he pulls it open without hesitation. There are two men in the room, one relaxing in an armchair and the other poised behind a large desk. They stop talking when you enter, and you almost freeze with the severity of the gazes that land on you as Alistair shoves into the office. But the little boy is undeterred, marching right over to the man behind the desk and placing your hand into his.

“Alistair!” Max chuckles nervously, his gaze darting over to his apparent client. “Who is this?”

You’re frozen in time, gasping like a beached goldfish as you stare at Maxwell. You’d seen him on the television, but now he’s right here, and he’s so familiar and unfamiliar at the same time that you don’t know how your borrowed brain will ever be able to process it.

“She’s back” is all Alistair says before looking expectantly at you.

“Max?” You whisper.

He looks blankly at you for a second, “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

He doesn’t recognize you. How could he, when your real body is probably buried in a cemetery somewhere? Your heart sinks, but there is one thing you could try. “Lorrie, it’s me.”

His worried brow creases at the nickname, “How do yo--” He stops, and recognition floods his face like headlights. “No. That’s impossible.” He turns to the man in the chair across from the desk, “Get out.”

The man all but hightails it out of there, but you’re only vaguely aware of it because you can’t seem to tear your eyes away from Max, who’s apparently having a crisis.

He chuckles, the look in his eyes slightly wild as he shakes a finger at you, “That was a clever trick. I don’t know how you did it, but you won’t fool me. Amazing, how you changed your appearance like that--”

“Lorrie, please. I know I don’t look like me, but the last thing I remember is the accident. And the hospital.” You choke back a whimper at the memory of the burning pain, and the phantom in your chest pulses brighter and sends another streak of agony through your body. “I’m back. I don’t know how.”

“No, no no no no, you died. I buried you.” His hand falls away from yours, and he begins pacing. He whips back to you suddenly, “I’m hallucinating. This is all some figment of imagination, right? From the stone, that stone. I knew there could be side-effects like this but--”

“Lorrie.” You know that you shouldn’t push while he’s in this state of desperate rationalization, so you simply try to pack every vulnerable emotion into that one word. You try to implicate every feeling you’ve ever had for him, those mornings waking up next to him, the sunny picnics around the Washington Monument with Alistair, and the heat that you felt every night with him.

“Tell me you’re not here.” He grabs your hand, kneeling in front of you as he presses it to his forehead. His hair tickles your fingers, and you raise your other hand to brush it out of his face. “Tell me that you’re not her. Because if you’re back... “ He takes a shaky breath. “I didn’t wish for it.”

“I wished for you to be happy, Daddy.” You had almost forgotten that Alistair was still here. His eyes are staring through you to your soul, his lower lip is trembling and he’s shifting from side to side as he watches you. “She made you happy.”

Max’s head snaps up at that, focusing first on his son, then turning to you with a piercing intensity. All you can do is shrug at the silent question in his eyes, “I woke up like this?”

The joke falls flat, but it’s all that he needs. His arms are around you before you can blink, his nose burrowed into the crook of your neck. Alistair collides with your leg, his other arm going to hook around his father’s, and you relax into the hug. Your arm settles on Alistair’s head, and you stroke his hair. You let out a breath that you didn’t know that you’d been holding, because it’s all going to be fine now. Come what may, you’re together. You’ll do anything within your power to hold onto your regained treasure.

#maxwell lord x reader #maxwell lord x you #alistair lord #fluff #lil bit of angst #hc that kids are pure enough to see through the stone glamour for resurrected loved ones #alistair is nothing if not pure

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isis-astarte-diana · 5 years ago

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With Teeth (Part 4)

Part 1 ‖ Part 2 ‖ Part 3 ‖ Part 4

Summary: “I do like this game. Don’t you?” Missy gets stuck in.

Warnings: NSFW. MIHOW. Dark!Missy. Consensual non!con roleplay with hints of dodgy relationship dynamics. More threats of physical and sexual violence and mutilation (let’s be real, that’s what you’re here for). Boot worship/trampling. Spit swallowing (yeah, I went there). Dehumanisation/use of “puppy” as a pet name. generally just Missy getting to fulfil her (and my) nastiest dominatrix fantasies lmao

Word Count: 2784

NB: this fic was never supposed to be so long but I’m having too much fun. I hope think you can all guess what direction this is going in.

For a moment, Missy lets you get your bearings.

It’s not a mercy; far from it. In the brief stillness and silence, save for your own ragged breaths and choked whimpers, the true extent of your position is finally allowed to sink in. It’s a sobering reality to which she draws your attention.

With her knees braced on your biceps, you can barely move your arms, and since her weight in the small of your back keeps you pinned to the ground you have no hope of rising up onto your knees. You can squirm, a bit, and kick your legs - attempting it now, you hear her chuckle above you, the point of the hatpin pushing harder against your neck until your feeble struggling ceases - but to no end.

The silk slip is bunched up around your waist, leaving you as good as naked. Your bare breasts are crushed into the cold floor. Your thighs, your arse, your cunt are all exposed completely and you draw your legs tightly together in an effort to preserve some modicum of decency. Even so, you can feel slippery arousal in your inner thighs, belying the game, revealing your enjoyment.

“Well, then.” She rocks her hips, pushing your breasts and stomach harder into the ground, emphasising the weight of her on your back. It knocks you breathless with a huffed groan. “Shall we proceed?”

A merciless tug on your hair, tight enough to your scalp that you can feel the tension right through into your forehead, lifts your face once more. Missy sets the hatpin down just out of reach of your restrained arms. It sits directly in your line of sight, a silent threat, a constant reminder of how tentatively your safety hangs in the balance.

No hitting with a closed fist. No scars. Nothing you’ve never tried before.

Her rules, not yours; rules that you suspect may be susceptible to her caprice. Even assuming, as you hesitate to do, that she won’t deviate from them in the slightest, they leave her more than enough leeway to make you suffer for any misdeeds, real or imagined. Suffering is entrenched in the game already - you need not invite more.

“You’re probably pretty, aren’t you?” Her mouth lowers towards your ear, and your skin prickles at her tone. The cool leather covering her other hand smacks roughly against your cheek, leaving sharp heat in its wake, making you wince. “Such a lovely, soft mouth. I wonder,” two gloved fingers slide between the teeth parted to allow your gasping breaths, “how much can you fit in there?”

With that she thrusts them deep enough to make you retch, dragging the supple leather uncomfortably at the back of your mouth, letting you taste the earth and smoke musk of it. You jerk in her hands, igniting your scalp with pain as you wrestle with her grip on your hair. She laughs, sweet and melodic.

“It’s fairly roomy, isn’t it? I should think I can probably...”

The pressure leaves the back of your throat as she twists her hand, forcing a third and then, awkwardly but with determination, a fourth finger inside. Fitting her thumb is more difficult; she has to tuck it in against her other fingers, stretching the corner of your mouth wider with the motion. The skin there stings in protest when she pushes against it, her knuckles resting against the outside of your teeth, no room left for more.

You ease your head back as far as her grip on your hair will allow. She follows this tiniest of movements, granting you no escape. The depth of her reach into your mouth is hindered by the breadth of her hand, leaving just enough distance between the soft, fluttering membrane of your throat and the tips of her fingers for you to breathe around them. Saliva pools beneath your restrained tongue, a thin line of it trickling over your bottom lip in the space between her thumb and forefinger. It slicks your chin on its path to the floor.

“There we go! My goodness. I do like this game. Don’t you?”

Missy rolls her hips again, crushing the breath from your chest, choking your cry with her gloved hand so that it’s barely audible. She hums as if in agreement.

“I have to admit, I’m curious. If I just kept going, which would give first, do you think?” She pushes again, letting you feel the threat in her fist, the strength of her hand where it sits between the weakest points of your skull. “Does the broken jaw come before or after the Glasgow smile?” Her grasping fingers wrap around your tongue, the disturbance liberating another rush of spittle from your stuffed and gaping mouth. “It’s sort of a chicken or the egg problem, I suppose, but a bit more interesting.”

She squeezes your tongue between her fingers.

It’s surprisingly painful, and you react instinctively, trying to slide it free and drag it further back in your mouth where she can’t reach it. Her fingers tighten in response. Even with your mouth flooded with saliva as it is there’s too much friction from the leather gloves for your tongue to wriggle loose, and the punishing way she pinches down on it has all the sharp, aching pressure of a bite. It has you squirming, writhing underneath her weight, pulling loose a muffled wail of protest as your eyes screw closed and fresh tears begin to well there. She doesn’t let up.

All that you can do is sink your teeth into her gloved fingers and hope for mercy in the face of such a trespass.

It is a hope quickly extinguished.

Missy yanks her hand free of your mouth, tugging uncomfortably on your tongue as she does so, and clamps her palm down over where your lips are still parted from the cruel violation. With her thumb and the knuckle of her index finger she crushes your nostrils to stop your breath.

“How many teeth do you have again, poppet?” She asks, a thin layer of sweetness in her voice failing to conceal the razor edge beneath. “Thirty-something, was it?”

You attempt to suck in a breath and succeed only in fastening your lips vacuum-tight to the leather that covers her palm. Her fingers are wet from your mouth where they press hard into the soft flesh of your cheek.

“At any rate, enough to string a necklace with, I’m sure.”

Another grinding shift of her hips, crushing out a breath that can’t escape while her hand smothers you. You squeeze your eyes shut tighter, feeling your lungs beginning to burn with need. She doesn’t pause, circling her hips, flexing her thighs, riding you like a broken filly. It takes a moment for you to realise that she must be stimulating herself like this.

The wool skirt, its thin lining, and the linen chemise beneath it are all gathered between and around her legs, creased into folds and ridges of fabric that she can drag herself against. You, bordering on inanimate underneath her, form the perfect surface. Your every squirming movement must press sweetly at the apex of her thighs.

The thought is impossibly arousing.

You squeak, breathless, pitiful, into the suffocating leather. Bucking weakly underneath her you don’t know if you’re more keen to unseat her or to help her along with her pleasure. It crosses your mind that she might stay here, might slowly press the life from you with her hand blocking your airways and her rolling hips crushing your lungs, until she comes. What could you do? What choice would you have but to serve, but to be the warm body against which she could grind and rut herself to orgasm?

It won’t come to that. You know that it won’t. Missy knows your tells, knows the limits of your body better than you do, is intimately aware of just how far she can push you without breaking anything that doesn’t want to be broken.

Nevertheless, it’s starting to hurt.

Battling for breath like this would be hard enough at the best of times, but the writhing pressure on your back has your temples throbbing, your eyes aching behind their closed lids, your throat alive with a screaming pulse that works fruitlessly to keep you conscious and fighting. Your upper body is seized with it. Adrenaline begins as a prickle over your scalp, colder and crueller than the sting of her fingers in your hair, and works its way further down, over your face, washing through you like frigid water save for the sweat that beads on your forehead.

“I suppose you need to breathe, don’t you?” Missy’s voice is harsh, rendered rough by her own ministrations, desperation of a different kind thickening the words. “Wouldn’t want to spoil the fun too soon.”

The noise rattling from your open mouth is barely audible. Again, you clench your thighs, shift your hips as best you can, the need for breath and the need for touch tangling together until you don’t know where they meet.

“I am going to stand up now,” she warns, punctuating the words with a punishing jerk of her hips that sends light sparking behind your eyes. “And you are going to stay still.”

You manage another weak sound, scraping your palms over the floor until they sting, unable to nod or to promise obedience. You would offer her anything for the mercy of breathing.

You would offer her anything if she would let loose your hair and reach back, behind her, to slide her gloved fingers just once through the flooded folds of your cunt, oxygen be damned.

When she moves her hands it’s as though the dam that held back your cries has burst. Your breaths are loud, juddering, forced in and out by shrieking sobs. Along with them comes a fresh flood of saliva, puddling obscenely in the palm of her glove. She scrubs it off with a rough drag of her hand across your face, smearing your skin with your own lukewarm spittle. It dries cold and sticky.

She rises to her feet with startling grace.

The absence of her weight, of the warm pool of fabric that had cushioned her, leaves you shivering. Your arms are sore where her knees had been. Without thinking, you move your hands, reaching to soothe the ache in your biceps.

“Stay,” Missy snaps, her boot landing between your shoulder blades by way of reminder. She doesn’t press much weight into it; just enough that you can feel the sharp edge of that Edwardian heel, digging in with needle precision. You fall still immediately, pressing your forehead back to the floor, letting the strain ease from your neck where it had been craned. Your fingers flex uselessly in the empty air while the pain slowly dissipates from your arms.

“Now roll over.” She lifts her foot, nudging your side now with the toe of her boot. You obey without hesitation, shifting onto your back, eyes closed against the sight of her. The rush of cool air against your breasts and stomach makes you wince and it’s nigh on impossible to resist the urge to cover yourself with your hands.

“Good girl,” she coos, bitterly patronising. Nonetheless, the praise inflames you. “If we can do something about the biting, we’ll make a show puppy of you yet.”

Your eyes snap open at the press of cold, rough leather across your mouth.

Smiling sweetly, Missy grinds the sole of her boot into your face. It doesn’t hurt - she’s careful, no weight in the pressure, no force behind the heel that pokes your cheek - but it’s uncomfortable, deforming your lips, the friction burning your skin. You can imagine the angry pink marks it will leave behind.

She looks more beautiful than ever.

“I’ll let you keep your teeth,” she teases, her nose crinkling with a sharp and mocking sneer. “Where you keep them is up to you.”

You can’t turn the muffled noise you make into anything resembling horror.

“And your tongue?” Encouraged by the way you react to her threats, she presses just that bit harder, just enough to pinch your mouth with biting discomfort. “Should I cut that out, do you think? Make a lovely stew?”

Unravelling beneath her boot, your breaths harsh and unsteady, you reach up to grasp her ankle. The leather is supple beneath your sweaty palm. It occurs to you to try and push her away and, in the same instant, to tug her weight down harder. Caught between the desires you let your hand fall limply back to the ground, whining.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” She grinds her heel into your cheek again, and this time the sharp, twisting pain makes you groan. “Speak up, now.”

“Please,” you cry, distorted and pitiful underfoot.

“No, still didn’t catch that, I’m afraid.” When she lifts her foot the rush of blood back into your flesh is prickling and painful. There’s a faint taste of metal from your lower lip where she’s dragged it against your teeth. “Try again.”

“Please.” It’s a keening rasp. You wet your lips and swallow hard, painting for breath. “Please, don’t.”

“Oh, why not?” She pouts like she’s been denied a treat. “I think it sounds like jolly good fun.”

With a playful flounce of her skirt she crouches over you, standing above your head so that her face is a dizzying upside-down image of glistening teeth in a too-red mouth.

“I’ll tell you what,” she catches your jaw in her hand and squeezes, gloved fingers pressing into your sore cheek, forcing your mouth open as you croak a miserable noise of protest. “If you can convince me you know how to use it, I’ll leave your pretty mouth intact.”

She works her jaw and purses her lips in an all-too-familiar way.

Degradation, in all its forms, is Missy’s favourite pastime. It is one in which you are only too happy to indulge her, for the most part, though there undeniably are things you do solely to please her rather than out of any organic desire of your own. Watching her draw saliva into her mouth has your eyes widening, a choked gasp spilling from your throat.

The wave of revulsion that you expect never comes.

Perhaps it’s the freedom of the game, the way it liberates you from reality, this role of the subjugated captive taking hold deeper in your mind than you’d expected. Perhaps it’s the prospect of taking her inside you, in whatever way she will allow, after being used as little more than furniture for so many torturous minutes. It could simply be the aching loveliness of her face above yours like this.

Either way, when she spits directly into the back of your gaping mouth, your dripping cunt clenches around the empty air.

The noise you make has her grinning, smiling too genuinely for the part that she plays. She suppresses it quickly.

“Swallow,” she orders, and your thighs snap shut as if she’d caressed you.

It’s with an obscene gulp that you obey.

“That’s a good puppy.” The heat that rises into your face comes with another desperate gasp. “Now kiss your Mistress.”

It’s not until her lips meet yours that you realise that she hasn’t even kissed you yet; she takes advantage of your shock, ransacking your mouth with her pointed little tongue. She tastes the backs of your teeth, irritates your hard palate until you whine at the ticklish insistence, throbs slick and cool and powerful inside you. It’s restless, greedy, inelegant, and almost painfully erotic.

Her breaths are heavy in your mouth, her hand sliding further to cover your throat so that you scarcely even notice when she catches your tongue between her teeth until she’s biting it.

You cry out, jerking, tears springing to your eyes in an instant at the sudden and vicious pain of it. Missy presses her fingers down either side of your windpipe, stilling your squirming shoulders with the threat of a tighter grip. Unthinking, conscious of nothing but the sharp teeth sinking into your tongue, you claw at her hand and her hair.

She lets go, practically shrieking with delight, apparently unbothered by your scrabbling attempt to move her. You pull your tongue back into your mouth and fasten your lips tightly, whimpering, looking up at her with wounded eyes.

“Oh, I'm going to like this,” she purrs. When she releases your neck and begins to gather her skirt higher, you forget the pain entirely. Plum wool and thin white linen brush your forehead on their path up her thighs. “It’s been too long since I broke in a new pet.”

#mine #missy x reader #the master x reader #gomez!master x reader #nsfwork

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athingthatwantsvirginia · 5 years ago

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James Dean and Daria

PART TWENTY-FIVE OF THE DO YOU SEE HER FACE? SERIES

Pairing: Jess Mariano x Original Character (Ella Stevens)

Warnings: mentions of alcoholism, plentiful pop culture references

Word Count: 5.3K

Summary: Ella receives a book in the mail and attends an open house.

two years later

A Ramones song was stuck in her head, and Ella hummed along with its tune as she twirled around the diner. Her hair, freshly cut, was back in a black bandana. She blew her wispy curtain bangs away from the sides of her forehead as she served up lunch. Lane was on shift, and they bounced around together in sync. Working with her made everything a little sunnier. Lorelai had always said Ella and Lane were night and day, respectively. The thought of it made Ella smile as she joined her friend behind the counter again. Recently, Lane had been experimenting with contacts, and it was still jarring to see her without her trademark glasses.

They made a dynamic duo, as Luke was off to fix random bits and bobs at the Inn. With he and Lorelai engaged, he was over there doing repairs for free nearly half the time. During which time, especially in the afternoons, Ella was left to look after Luke’s daughter, April. To say she was shocked when Luke told her he had a twelve-year-old kid that some woman from his past had never told him about would’ve been an understatement. But soon, April was fitting into the groove of town. Ella was always glad to do homework with her (not that the brainiac ever needed help per se) or listen to the girl’s long-winded monologues about obscure scientific principles. Sometimes, Ella hardly believed Luke and April were related. The girl could talk for days without taking a breath if she had the chance. Watching April concentrate over her textbooks and scribble essays during the early dinner rush sometimes made Ella’s heart do a little, nostalgic twist. She was no longer the girl doing calculus at the corner table. To everything there was a season.

“‘I Wanna Be Sedated’?” Lane asked, breaking Ella out of her reverie.

Ella turned to Lane with a small smirk, arms crossing over her chest. Breathing out a sigh, she gave a nod. Things were finally slowing down, almost everyone with a plate in front of them. She had taken over the floor for the day. Lane’s wedding to Zach was only weeks away, and Lane was stressed enough as it was. Ella figured having Lane on register would at least be a decent method to avoid her passing out.

Lane narrowed her eyes and tilted her head at her friend. “What’s got you in such a good mood?”

Shrugging, Ella turned to make a pot of coffee. “I don’t know. I’m a college graduate. Besides, is Ramones really good mood music?”

Lane scoffed. “For you? Definitely.”

“Just happy to have all this education, maybe,” Ella said.

Though it had been a whole five days since her graduation, she was still basking in the glow of it. She couldn’t believe she had managed to get through school in three years instead of four. It meant the upcoming summer would be her first real break from school since the summer after high school. During her last finals, she had been nearly ready to tear her hair out. Suffice it to say, it was time to stop studying for at least a little while.

“So, I guess we’ll be hearing about this summa cum laude thing forever, huh?” Lane teased.

Ella’s smile grew wider. “Forever is a strong word. ‘The foreseeable future’ would be more accurate.”

Lane rolled her eyes with a chuckle.

“And what’s got you all grumpy today? That’s my job. Did a Freaky Friday situation happen without my knowledge?” Ella asked.

Sighing heavily, Lane went back over to the register, seeing some customers finishing up their meals. “I told you my mom wants me to wear her wedding dress, right?”

Ella nodded.

“Well, she finally showed it to me. And it has pants!”

Biting the inside of her cheek, Ella swallowed down the laugh which threatened to leave her lips.

“I gave it to Lorelai. Hopefully something along the lines of salvageable will come of it,” Lane grumbled, adjusting her apron anxiously.

“Hey, Lorelai made that renaissance dress I wore to Liz’s wedding wearable. I’m sure she’ll work her magic,” Ella said, turning to see Luke return as the bell over the door jingled.

“We’ll see,” Lane said, sighing again as a young couple came up to the register, ready to pay for their patty melts.

As Luke approached, Ella saw he had the mail in his hands. He looked almost haggard, with dark circles under his eyes. She knew he and Lorelai had been having some problems, but didn’t know the details. It wouldn’t be surprising if the new daughter or the prolonged engagement had something to do with it, though. Since she and Rory had fallen out of touch, Ella saw Lorelai less and less. And it wasn’t like Luke was a chatterbox.

“Something came for you,” Luke said shortly, handing Ella a puffy orange envelope.

As soon as she took it, she could tell it was a book. Confusion painted her features; it wasn’t often she got mail addressed to Luke’s. She’d been living at Lane’s for almost two years. Furrowing her brows, she looked in the upper right corner and her face immediately fell when she saw the familiar, spiky handwriting. Clearing her throat, she plastered on a complacent expression.

“I’m gonna take a fifteen, okay?” she said, clutching the package tightly in her hands.

Luke nodded. “You alright?”

Ella smiled thinly. “Yeah. Just gotta take the smell of the stock room in as much as I possibly can. I’ve only got it until the end of July.”

Rolling his eyes, Luke shook his head. “I’m counting the seconds.”

“Hey, I could quit right now! Then where would you be?!” she exclaimed dramatically, a bit which never seemed to get old.

Luke grunted doubtfully. “Don’t tease.”

Smirking slightly, she finally turned on her heel and went back into the stock room. It was dim, piled high with boxes and cans. But there was the comforting smell of dust and pine, making her feel just a touch less queasy. Sitting on the lone table in the middle on the shelves, her legs dangling over the sides with boots heavy on her feet, Ella stared down at Jess’s writing for a moment. It only made sense he would send her something at the diner. He probably had no idea where she lived, if she was still even in Stars Hollow.

Her mind wandered to their last conversation, her night up on the plaid couch, crying. When Jess had called to tell Luke he was back in New York, Luke said Jess had told him to say hello to her. She’d told him to say hello back, a half-hearted message. And she was glad to know his trip had been safe. Glad he had apparently mended fences with Luke. But when she thought of actually speaking to him, hearing his voice, it made her feel sick with nerves. All she could see was his heartbroken expression when she had told him she wouldn’t come with him. Hear his pleading. Many times, she had pulled out the small slip of paper with his cell number written on it, had thought about reaching out. But, it simply hurt too much.

And she would have no idea where to begin. He had apologized. And she had rejected him. She didn’t regret it, didn’t feel bad about what she had said or done. But she knew there would be a shift between them. All the words they spoke would have a whispered ‘what if’ underneath. It seemed like too much to put him through. Jess probably wouldn’t like to hear her voice either, she thought. As angry as she had been before, she just couldn’t bear to hurt him anymore. It was more trouble than it was worth. So, each time Luke spoke with Jess, they exchanged fleeting greetings through him. It was impersonal, cold, but, they always knew the other was alive. The deal still stood, even after everything.

Running her finger along the address on the package, written in black permanent marker, Ella felt a storm of emotion brewing within her. Time and distance had been kind; when she thought of him, she didn’t think betrayal, she didn’t think resentment. Somehow, their final argument had cleansed her of those feelings. He had come back. She had never expected it. But, at least, he had come back for her, even if she didn’t exactly want it. Instead of anger, there was only sadness, for months. She had walked around with an aura of gloom. But then, life had gotten busier, and it faded.

Instead, as the pad of her finger curved over his name again and again, she thought of her books, filled with their writing to each other. She thought of his smirk, ever-present when she was around. And his brown eyes, guarded but so often kind. And his fears, shared only with her. And, above all, she thought of him telling her he loved her. With tears running down his cheeks, anxious hands raking through his hair.

Love. That word she had always scoffed at. While she still wasn’t one to utter it lightly, she had slowly come around. As the world moved around her, and she was finally away from her childhood home, she began to see it. Luke and Lorelai, mostly. She almost felt silly, having watched a love story unfold before her eyes in the diner for years and years. Perhaps as a teen, she had been too headstrong. Perhaps she had been unable to see how her own fears had stopped her from living the way she wanted to, a pattern she had been able to see so clearly in Lane and Jess. Without the constant reminder of her parents’ doomed union, she felt better each day. More open.

But still, she had no idea how to feel about Jess. Surely, he had moved on. She didn’t know where he was, what he was doing. Luke had only told her he was doing well. And she had never asked for details. No use in ripping open old wounds. But it seemed the ball wasn’t entirely in her court. Jess had made a move. Again. Biting at the inside of her cheek, she heaved a big sigh and ripped open the side of the package. Inside it, she found a book, as she expected.

But her breath caught as she ran her eyes over the black-and-white cover: The Subsect by Jess Mariano. Her heart skipped a beat in her chest and a grin came over her lips before she could stop it. She knew it was only a matter of time. He was a writer. He always had been. As she flipped open the inside cover, a slip of heavy, purple paper fell out. A crease formed between her brows as she took the paper in one hand, eyes gravitating to the words scribbled in pen on the novel’s second page.

Before she could begin the handwritten message, she looked to the dedication. A lump formed in her throat. For Eleanor, it read simply. Her hazel eyes shone with glassy tears, and the surreality of the moment hit her like a ton of bricks. Swallowing down the sob which threatened to escape, she turned to the inscription before she could get caught up in her emotions.

I wasn’t sure how to tell you about this. But I wanted to let you know somehow, considering it wouldn’t have happened without you. And writing in a book seemed like the best way, since it’s worked for us in the past. I included an invite to the Open House thing we’re having at Truncheon, the place which was stupid enough to publish this. You don’t have to come, and I don’t expect you to. But, in case you did want to come see what I couldn’t have done without you, you’re more than welcome.

-Jess

Chewing on her thumbnail, Ella picked up the purple invite and ran her eyes over the address. Philadelphia. She smirked at the coincidence. She could see him there. Always a city boy. And, though nerves coursed through her veins and butterflies flew around in her stomach, she knew immediately that she would soon be seeing the liberty bell.

. . .

Smoothing her hands over her dress, Ella took in a deep breath. Her battered blue station wagon was parked behind her on the street, and for a split second, she thought about running back to it. Driving all the way back up to Connecticut in a continuous three-hour stretch. But she knew there would be at least a few familiar faces inside Truncheon Books. Luke had offered to be a chaperone for some road trip with April’s school, and they, of course, were also invited to the open house. Initially, Luke had been wary of them both being away from the diner, but Ella assured him Lane and Caesar could handle it. And, of course, he would have to learn to deal without her by the end of the July. She and Lane would be even when Ella took all the shifts for the week of her and Zach’s honeymoon. Yes, Ella’s final week as a waitress at Luke’s was bound to be grueling.

Biting down on the inside of her cheek, Ella opened the door and entered the publishing house before she could talk herself out of it. The place was crowded, lots of people mingling at a table near the entrance and next to the coat rack. The green walls were lined with art, and the room was filled with warm, richly-toned wood. She hung her bag as her heart sat heavy in her chest. She hadn’t realized just how anxious walking into Jess’s new world was going to make her. A small smile formed on her face, though, as she scanned the crowd for Luke and April. When she didn’t instantly find them, she crossed her arms and walked toward the collection of photographs on a wall near the door. They showed visions of the city: an old newspaper stand, a rusty bike, a group of angry teenagers sat around a statue of Thomas Jefferson. She’d never been good with technology, including cameras, and she envied the photographer who could capture images like these.

Across the room, Jess spotted her. Her blonde waves fell down her back, just past her shoulder blades, shorter than he’d ever seen her hair. There was a tattoo on the back of one of her calves, and one on the inside of her left forearm. She was too far away though, and he couldn’t quite make out what they were. As expected, she was dressed only in blacks and greys, her dress checkered with the two colors. And, as expected, her all-black oxfords had no heel. Before he could stop it, a grin crossed his face, and his hand tightened around the half-empty beer bottle he was nursing. Never had he actually thought she would show up. But there she was. Matthew, who stood next to him on the stairs, instantly noticed his friend’s change in expression. He followed Jess’s eyes, and it dawned on him. Jess didn’t talk about the woman he’d dedicated The Subsect to a lot. But the blonde standing before the photography section fit the description Jess had spewed drunkenly on his last birthday almost perfectly.

Matthew raised knowing brows. “Is that her?”

“What?” Jess asked, blinking slightly as he looked away from her and turned back to the co-owner of his business.

Scoffing out a chuckle, Matthew shook his head. “That’s the girl, isn’t it? The one you wrote the book for.”

Breathing a big sigh, Jess took another sip of his drink and nodded slowly. “Is it that obvious?”

“Oh, yeah,” Matthew laughed, clapping Jess on the shoulder. “Now’s your chance.”

Jess snorted a bitter laugh, looking away from his friend and down at his shoes. “There’s no chance.”

Before Matthew could say anything more, Jess descended the final two stairs. Matthew was still chuckling behind him. No matter how much Chris and Matthew drove him up the wall sometimes, he would always be grateful. They’d published his book. They’d welcomed him into the company before it even existed, into the apartment upstairs. They’d become his family without him even noticing it. And he knew no matter how torn up he would be after speaking with Ella (and he knew he would be, at least a little), they’d get him through it. As they had gotten him through the heartbreak the first time, when he’d shown up on the doorstep of a company he’d heard about through some friends in New York, a company which didn’t even have a name, just some printing equipment. Tossing the empty beer in the recycle near the front refreshment table, Jess took another breath in. He could thank her for everything she’d done, then watch her leave without completely crumbling. Maybe if he was confident enough in himself, Jess thought, it would be so.

Walking up next to her, Jess bit down on his bottom lip and shoved his hands in the pockets of his blazer. His palms were sweaty.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Jess said, eyes on the photographs. Immediately, he regretted his words. How cliché could he possibly sound? Usually, the nerves didn’t affect his mouth. But not around Ella.

Though she startled on the inside, Ella didn’t visibly jump. Instead, she cracked a small smile. “And yet, here I am.”

“Didn’t expect to see you.”

“Well,” she said, shrugging, “I’m full of surprises.”

“Stealing my line, huh, Stevens?” he asked.

Still, they hadn’t turned to face each other.

“Funny, I didn’t know you had the trademark,” she quipped.

“Touché,” he said, feigning disappointment.

Smile growing, Ella finally turned to him. “Never thought I’d see Jess Mariano in a suit jacket.”

His hair was cut differently, parted and combed. Not as unkempt as it had once been. He had dark, shadowy stubble on his cheeks. Just as any brooding writer would. Underneath his black jacket, he wore a t-shirt with a black-and-white photo of a little girl smoking a cigarette on a beach. Ella thought she recognized it from one of her art classes, but couldn’t quite place it.

Chuckling under his breath, Jess built up his courage and faced her. “Yeah, well, I guess corporate America finally got to me.”

“I don’t know. I think this place feels pretty counterculture,” she said, eyes flicking around the room again. “Might as well be in the Haight-Ashbury.”

“Coming from you, I feel like that’s meant to be an insult,” he said.

“Trust me, it’s not,” Ella replied, with more sincerity than he was prepared for. Before he could interject with some deflection, she continued on. “I mean...this place. It really feels like you. And the book. It was...fuck, Jess, you’re really too smart for your own good.”

He shook his head, blushing and refusing to meet her gaze. Ella Stevens was still the only person who made him blush nearly every time he spoke to her. “I don’t know. If I could do it again, everything would be different.”

Ella scoffed. “C’mon, Mariano, you and I both know how amazing it is.”

“Whatever you say, Stevens,” he said shyly.

“I’ll keep complimenting you until you accept that you’re a kickass author, who I can definitely tell has a beatnik fetish,” she warned, mock severity crossing her features.

Jess rolled his eyes. “Fine. Thank you, Eleanor.”

“You’re so very welcome,” she replied, eyes alight with a teasing, mischievous glint. But, underneath, Jess could tell how genuine she really was. It made his heart ache for her.

After a moment of awkward pause, charged air, Jess pointed a thumb over his shoulder to the table with the refreshments. “You want a beer?”

Ella shook her head. “No thanks. I don’t really drink.”

“Hm,” Jess hummed, eyes narrowing just a touch. The way she’d said it, he could tell there was more. He knew why she didn’t drink. He remembered her father smelling of liquor on Thanksgiving day. And he remembered how upset she’d been the morning after she stole her father’s tequila. Nostalgia washed over him in a wave, and he was relieved when she took the initiative and spoke again.

“And,” she said, gaining a lighter tone once again, “I’m not of legal age yet, anyway.”

“Oh, well, I certainly couldn’t break the law,” Jess said with a furrowed brow. He was always forgetting he was ten months her senior. She had always seemed older.

“Right,” she said, nodding along, “you wouldn’t dream of it.”

Again, an uncomfortable pause began. It made Ella want to grimace. Things had never been so awkward with the two of them, not even when they’d first met. It had always been easy, without the world complicating things for them. Her eyes did another quick sweep of the room.

“Have you seen Luke and April?” she asked.

Jess nodded. “Yeah, you just missed them. They had to get back to the field trip, I think.”

Ella nodded back in acknowledgement, though she immediately felt her heartbeat quicken. The idea of Luke and April being there as a kind of safety net was half the reason she’d been brave enough to come. But, she’d had a morning shift at the diner, and the traffic had made it so she had shown up only twenty minutes before the end of the open house. All of a sudden, she felt silly for thinking they would still be there. Silly for showing up at all. In the note, he’d said she wasn’t obligated at all. Why had she come again? At the moment, the panicked thoughts were too loud for her to focus on anything else.

“But Luke was here long enough to complain about all the abstract paintings and the spoken word performances,” Jess continued, noticing Ella try to grab for a necklace she wasn’t wearing, and instead fiddle with a lock of her hair. In all the time he had known her, he had never once seen her without the key hanging from her neck. Not even in bed. But he knew better than to ask about it.

Ella’s smile returned, though it was not altogether convincing. “Sounds like him. I think one of the few areas of agreement between the two of you is a natural aversion to poetry.”

Jess shrugged. “I don’t know. I might finally be coming around.” Then, he saw Chris approaching, and felt himself relax. Someone else to act as a buffer. He wasn’t quite ready for the words creeping up his throat, begging to get out. “But, my friend Chris is the real poetry guy. He hires all the acts.”

He gestured for Chris to come over. Ella raised her eyebrows at the man, tall and blonde and grinning widely. A hyper energy practically radiated off of him. She could tell why he was the one on the business end of things.

“Chris, this is Eleanor,” Jess said. “She’s an old friend.”

“Hey.” She extended her hand. “You can call me Ella.”

Somehow, Chris’s smile grew larger as they shook hands. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” she replied amiably, as their hands broke from each other.

“You have a very firm handshake,” Chris commented, towering over her. Jess was tall, but this guy made Ella feel like a Polly Pocket figurine.

She snorted a chuckle. “Um, thanks. Guess those steroids are really paying off.”

Jess smirked. Sometimes, he thought Chris was to him as Lane was to Ella. Chris laughed, tickled at her wicked humor, as he called it, but soon his expression grew earnest again.

“Well, it’s good to finally put a face on the famous Eleanor,” Chris said.

“I’m famous?” Ella asked, titing a teasing nod at Jess, who blushed but didn’t have time to explain before Chris cut in again.

“Anyway, I just wanted to let you know the magazine interview went alright. I’m gonna go catch up with the beat poet and make sure everything’s squared away,” Chris told Jess.

Nodding, Jess glared slightly at his friend, unable to hide his irritation. Chris said once again how nice it was to meet Ella before disappearing back into the central swarm of people, though it was slowly dissipating. The afternoon light outside was slowly morphing from bright to dusky. Evening would soon fall.

Smirking, Ella faced Jess again. He made a pointed effort to avoid her gaze, panic rising up in his throat.

“What is it, Stevens?” he asked, sighing slightly.

She cleared her throat, biting on her bottom lip for a moment. “Nothing. Just didn’t realize I was famous around here.”

He rolled his eyes, embarrassed. “Well, I did dedicate my book to you.”

For whatever reason, the comment caught her off-guard. They both knew he had dedicated it to her. But, she couldn’t help but think about how before, Jess would have never been able to admit such a gesture out loud. Hell, at seventeen Jess couldn’t even admit fixing the toaster in the diner for Luke.

“Yeah,” she said slowly, searching for a witty remark but coming up empty. “Yeah, you did, James Dean.”

He faltered for just a moment. She had come, she had called him James Dean. It was confusing, but nonetheless, wonderful. Still, he knew there was no use in getting his hopes up. He would never have her again, he reminded himself. Furrowing her brows, Ella watched his expression fade from a smirk to a small, sad smile. Jess ran a hand over his mouth and tossed an anxious glance over his shoulder before taking a big breath in and blowing it out through his nose.

“Are you nervous?” she asked suddenly, face softening.

Jess nodded self-consciously.

“You don’t have to be, Jess. It’s just me,” she shrugged, gesturing down at herself humbly.

Regaining a touch of composure, Jess raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know. You’ve got bangs and tattoos. New shoes. Doesn’t look quite like my Daria.”

Ella broke into a full grin, and a warmth swelled in her chest like she hadn’t felt in such a long time. Something shifted within her. For a moment, she worried her eyes would fill with tears. But, instead, she only uttered a breathy chuckle. “Don’t worry. I think I’ll always be your Daria.”

Swallowing thickly, Jess echoed her laugh. Then, he looked over his shoulder again, only partly because he wanted to hide his face. He couldn’t risk her seeing hope flash across his expression. “Can I show you something?”

“Sure,” she said, nodding.

Gently, he grabbed her hand and led her through the crowd of young creatives. The room smelled like weathered books and hot ink. An eclectic variety of bohemian rugs covered the blue tile floor. Maybe it was a little more colorful than she would have initially guessed, but Jess truly looked like he belonged there. People waved and nodded greetings at him as they passed, Jess reciprocating shyly each time. It was refreshing. She had never seen him so in his element before. Something about the way he held himself, confident and relaxed. His hand was warm and familiar.

Eventually, they made it to the far wall, near the staircase and next to the small stage area. A few people sat around on the cushions and beanbags, drinking their beers and writing in small moleskine notebooks. She wanted to snort and roll her eyes at them, but she was simply too happy. The anxiety which had been so nauseating as she hesitated at the door was almost completely forgotten. Because Jess was excited to see her. He had taken her hand. When he disentangled their fingers, he gestured to the wall, with a collection of small frames.

As her eyes roamed over the framed sketches, it took her only a moment to recognize them. They were hers. Nine pictures, all those she’d given to Jess over the years. Jess’s car with skeletons in the seats, a screaming woman, a garden filled with snakes. Others she’d handed him in shining moments, lying together in bed, on shift at the diner, sitting in the gazebo with her head on his shoulder. And, in the center, the Hudson River. Drawn on Mother’s Day four years earlier, as they sat together on a dirty hill and escaped reality for just one day.

Before she could hold them back, tears stung her hazel eyes. Beside the arrangement of drawings, she saw a small, printed index card stuck to the wall.

Eleanor Stevens

Nine Untitled Sketches

Not For Sale

She breathed out a flabbergasted scoff, the ghost of a smile on her lips when she turned back to Jess. He smirked fondly at the look of pleasant surprise on her face. For a fleeting moment, she looked younger. Innocent in a way she so rarely was, shocked and alive. He missed that look, but hardly realized until he saw it again.

“Jess, I…” she said breathlessly, shaking her head in disbelief and facing the sketches again. Eventually, she gathered herself and found her words. “I had no idea you saved these.”

“Of course I did,” he said, shrugging as though it were obvious. “I knew they’d be worth millions someday.”

She snorted a laugh. “Not likely.”

“I’m serious, Stevens. People have been asking about these. But I didn’t want to set a price on them or anything, since I didn’t have your input,” Jess explained, eyes on her as she stared at her own past work.

Ella felt as though she might explode, almost too moved to bear. She sniffed and blinked harshly, unwilling to let the tears actually spill over, especially in public. Her hands were shaking at her sides, and she began wringing them together in front of her.

A few astonished giggles escaped her, and she shook her head a final time before she looked back at Jess. He had grown up, and so had she. But as she locked eyes with him, she felt seventeen again, could practically hear the Interpol song playing in her head. The urge to kiss him came over her, made her skin feel tingly and electric. She swallowed harshly, letting the thoughts fade in her mind. As if he had waited all this time for her. He would surely have a girlfriend. Someone who actually liked Hemingway, who could dance, who didn’t have a sailor’s mouth and a broken family.

“I don’t know what to say.” She fought the urge to bite at her nails.

Jess laughed quietly. “I didn’t think that was possible.”

She rolled her eyes at his teasing half-heartedly.

“You don’t have to say anything. I was the one who wanted to say thank you. For everything. I couldn’t have done any of this if I hadn’t met you,” he told her. Jess surprised even himself by being able to maintain eye contact with her.

“You definitely could have,” Ella said resolutely.

He smirked. “No use in arguing with you, I know. So we can agree to disagree but…”

Pausing, Jess sighed and ran a hand over his mouth again. He glanced behind him, and could see Chris and Matthew pretending they hadn’t been staring at the exchange as they bid people goodbye. There were only a few others left milling around. Jess still almost couldn’t believe Ella was standing right in front of him. For two years, he’d imagined what he would say. But, as usual, the sight of her was staggering. Her hazel gaze pierced his scarred heart and immediately all the scripts he’d written disappeared from his head.

“Look, do you...we’re going out for drinks after. Me and Chris and Matthew, the other guy we own this place with. I know drinking isn’t your thing, though I wasn’t planning on getting wasted anyway, and I don’t know when you have to go back but...do you wanna come? We can catch up?” he asked, hesitant.

Her small smile spread to a grin, and the dimple shone in her freckled cheek. “Sure, Mariano. I’d love to.”

#jess mariano fanfiction #jess mariano au #jess mariano imagines #jess mariano #jess #mariano #gilmore girls fanfiction #gilmore girls au #gilmore girls imagines #gilmore girls #gilmore #jess mariano x original character #jess x oc #original character #original character stories #luke danes #lane kim

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mayquita · 5 years ago

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The Art of (Fake)Dating - (2/5)

@shardminds , as promised, here’s the second part of your gift. Thank you all for your comments, notes, likes, kudos and reviews. Also, as usual in me, what at first was going to be a short scene has become a section of over a thousand words, so I had to add one more part. Since my inspiration continues, I plan to post the third part in a couple of days :)

Apologies in advance because there will probably be around a million mistakes. I hope you like it despite that :)

Thanks to @cssecretsanta2k19 for organizing the event and making sure everything worked correctly.

Summary: When Emma agrees to be Killian’s fake girlfriend she expects it to be a one-time thing. However, and despite getting an enemy in the form of an overprotective brother, she ends up becoming an expert in the art of fake dating even though she can’t stand her fake boyfriend, at least at the beginning.

Ao3 / FFNet / Part 1

The Art of (Fake) Dating - Part 2

To Emma's surprise, dinner wasn't a total disaster. She was received quite warmly by the whole family and everyone behaved in a civilized manner. Killian had been right, Elsa, his sister-in-law, seemed like a kind person, and his four-year-old twin nephews were indeed adorable.

Before entering the house and being introduced, Emma had already put on her imaginary protective shell, and felt ready to face any sharp comment or lecture that Killian's brother might have prepared for her. She had dealt with worse, no doubt. However, as the evening progressed Emma was able to relax a little, due in part to the fact that all the family members were making great efforts to have lively conversations. Anna, Elsa's sister, seemed a natural in that regard, as she barely kept her mouth shut except to chew her food. The kids were also a constant source of distractions and entertainment.

The tension in the atmosphere was so thick that you could cut it with a knife, though. Even so, Emma was immediately attracted to the strange dynamics of Killian's family so she couldn't help but carefully observe everyone's behavior around the table.

She watched as any attempt by Elsa to approach Killian was met with a guarded attitude from her fake boyfriend, which surprised Emma since Elsa seemed to try hard to engage him in all kinds of conversations and seemed especially interested in knowing everything about their life back in Storybrooke.

Killian kept that kind of reserved stance almost continuously, with his shoulders tensed up, a fake half-smile adorning his lips and his eyebrows slightly furrowed. It was as if he also wore a protective shield, as if he were reluctant to reveal anything about him or his lifestyle.

Killian's features only softened with his nephews or when he addressed Emma, which happened quite often, as part of his role as a fake boyfriend, she supposed.

As for their performance, they seemed quite convincing. Emma was good at studying people through their body language, due to her former profession as a bail bond person and, luckily for her, this family was quite easy to read. No one showed signs of suspecting anything about their farce. Even so, they did carry out some timid public displays of affection that basically consisted of Killian placing his arm around her shoulders in a protective attitude, although she wasn't sure about who he intended to protect, her from any possible attack by his brother or himself.

In fact, Emma noticed how his displays of affection increased each time Killian interacted with his brother. He might have done it unconsciously, but it was on these occasions when he placed his arm on the back of her seat, casually brushing her hair or giving a slight squeeze to her shoulder while his fake smile transformed into a thin line.

Liam also wore a grim expression most of the time. Unlike his wife, he made no effort to get close to Killian and even less to address Emma. He just threw a handful of scathing comments here and there and he occasionally gave her sidelong glances charged with disapproval.

At the moment when Killian offered to prepare coffees after dinner, Emma saw her opportunity to inquire a little more about this strange family dynamic, so she also volunteered to help him. Emma wasn't sure how he would take her offer when it seemed clear that he had used the coffee excuse to escape for a while from the tension around him. Luckily, the smile of gratitude he offered her dispelled all her doubts.

Emma still wasn't sure if she liked this new, more vulnerable version of Killian. In a way, that made him more human, and, although it might seem contradictory, more accessible, so she felt confident enough to approach the subject at the time they found themselves in the kitchen shelter.

"Whoa! So much tension over there." She mumbled, earning a quiet chuckle from him, his features relaxing immediately.

"I already warned you, Swan, didn't I?" The way he raised an eyebrow suggestively did things to her but she opted to ignore it. It was as if there had been a kind of magical effect, since, by the time they had disappeared from the living room, Killian had transformed into the cocky guy she knew, leaving behind the stormy expression he had worn throughout the entire evening.

"So, you were right about Elsa and the kids. But I don't get it, you seem quite tense when you talk to her."

Killian did not answer immediately, merely carrying out his coffee-making task. Nor did the tension seem to have completely abandoned him, a twitching muscle in his jaw betrayed him. Still, when he looked back at her, the ghost of a smile appeared on his face.

"It's just that my beloved sister-in-law continues to insist on knowing all the details about my life back in Storybrooke, information that could be used against me for the asshole I have for a brother."

"But she seems genuinely interested." Emma insisted, not understanding the logic of his statement.

"I know love, but I'd rather not take a chance."

They continued to work in silence, although Emma seemed unable to take her eyes off him for more than two seconds. He was especially hot today, that kind of sulky expression suiting him quite well. Besides, he was too close, causing her to feel not only the warmth emanating from him, but the hint of his scent. The moment he placed his hand in the small of her back to reach something in the upper compartment of the cupboard she felt a kind of electric shock running through her body. Get a grip, Emma!

"By the way, you did so well, Swan. I knew it was a good idea to bring you here since at least Liam has had the decency to behave correctly most of the time."

Great, now he was complimenting her and offering her one of his trademark disarming smiles. And he was too close. And had his eyes always been so blue?

This new direction in their relationship was causing a spiral of emotions swirling inside her, to the point that she wasn't sure how to act, so she decided to let her instinct take control. She flirted back.

"Uhm, we'll see. The night is not over yet and I've already caught some glances of disapproval from your brother towards me. But don't worry, I can handle it." She lowered her voice and winked at him before grabbing one of the trays and heading back towards the living room.

While walking, she couldn't prevent a smile of self-confidence from appearing on her face, while a sense of pride settled in her stomach.

Her progress was short, though. She hadn't even reached the door when she noticed Killian's presence right behind her, causing her to slow down when she felt his warm breath caressing her ear while whispering, "I didn't doubt for a moment that you could handle it, love. I chose you for a reason, after all."

This time it was Killian who winked at her before walking past her. The last thing Emma saw before he disappeared through the door was a smirk she wanted to erase with her own lips.

Dammit!

They were going to share a bedroom, of course. Emma looked closely at the assigned accommodation, taking advantage that Killian was busy with his baggage. At least the bed was a considerable size, so the chances of accidental touches under the sheets were limited. She was no longer sure that was a positive aspect, though.

After letting out a quiet sigh, she grabbed her bag of toiletries and pajamas and headed for the bathroom, located outside the room, next door. She needed a moment of privacy to try to pull herself together, reminding herself as she watched her reflection in the mirror that she really couldn't stand Killian, that she had her reasons for her dislike towards him and that it wasn't a big deal to literally sleep with him. Still, if she took more time than necessary in her beauty routines before going to sleep, only she would know.

When Emma returned to the bedroom, she found that Killian had already chosen his side of the bed. He had settled on the left side with his back against the headboard and seemed focused on the screen of his phone, so much that he acknowledged her arrival with barely a brief glance at her. He was wearing flannel pajama pants and a tank top that exposed the toned muscles of his arms. No big deal at all.

Emma also realized that he had removed his prosthesis. It wasn't the first time she had seen him without it, although on those previous occasions he was in a much more vulnerable position. Still, she took it as a good sign. At least he was comfortable enough around her not to feel the need to use it, right?

Emma's gaze shifted for a moment to the armchair located in a corner. The mere sight of that piece of furniture caused a wave of annoyance to wash over her. Killian had directly assumed that they would share a bed, he hadn't even bothered to show certain chivalry by offering to sleep somewhere else. Even worse, he might have assumed that she would be the one to sleep in the armchair.

What's wrong with me? Emma walked across the bedroom to her travel bag to put her clothes inside while she mentally recriminated herself for the mixed feelings dancing inside her. A few minutes before the two of them were flirting openly not only in front of his family but also privately and now she felt that her negative thoughts were emerging taking control.

Deep down, Emma was aware that she was actually afraid of rejection. She couldn't deny that she wanted him, badly. But it seemed that the feeling wasn't reciprocal. Killian had barely noticed her when she had entered the room, for God's sake! She had no choice but to resign herself and continue playing along with the farce.

Her escalation of thoughts was interrupted with a sound coming from the bed. When she turned her head she found that Killian had walked to the foot of the bed and was pushing it so that the headboard hit the wall.

"What the hell..."

Her words were cut off by Kilian who looked at her as he put his index finger on his lips. "Shush! We don't want to spoil the performance, do we?" His words came in a whisper as he continued his task.

"What the hell are you doing?" She whispered back as she approached him, watching his movements through her narrowed eyes.

"Isn't it obvious, Swan?" He muttered as he waved his eyebrows at her in a somewhat lascivious way. As if to prove his point he vigorously pushed the bed again, hitting the wall.

Something was definitely not working well in her brain, because she needed several seconds to process what was really happening. When she finally realized it, her eyes widened with surprise and then she pursed her lips before addressed him again.

"The bedroom on the other side is your brother's, isn't it?" He didn't even bother to answer, he simply pushed the bed against the wall one more time. "What are you, seven?"

"I'm simply giving him an actual reason to make him pissed off."

She couldn't believe what was happening, so she just stood there observing in disbelief with her arms crossed over her chest, unable to decide if his act was a brilliant plan or the most ridiculous idea. One thing was clear, he didn't even seem to have contemplated the possibility of not faking the act or even asking her to contribute by adding some other (human) sounds to make the performance more credible. Somehow the idea that he hadn't counted on her bothered her more than it should.

After one last push, he seemed satisfied, a smile of triumph appeared on his face as he returned to the bed. Only then did he seem to notice her presence, as he patted the empty side of the bed while gesturing with his head inviting her to accompany him. "Come on, love. We've got tired enough, it's time to rest."

Emma rolled her eyes before showing her middle finger up in a childish gesture, but after all, she just witnessed the performance of a naughty boy instead of the one of a grown-ass man, so she was just getting at his level.

The laugh that he released managed to annoy her even more, so, continuing with her childish pattern, she threw a cushion to his face, which he caught before reaching its target, while his laugh became even louder.

"You're an idiot, you know it, don't you?" She mumbled before getting into bed and lying on one side, turning her back on him. Two seconds later she rolled again, facing him. "Just for your interest, in case Liam makes any reference to our performance," she placed air quotes around the last two words and paused deliberately before continuing, "I intend to tell him that it was really you who felt the need to take manual care of your own businesses. Good night."

The last thing she saw before rolling back to her previous position and switching off the light on her bedside table was how his grin disappeared from his face.

"It's not funny, Swan." He grumbled, but she didn't even bother to reply. Luckily, he couldn't see her face, because otherwise, he would have met a huge smirk and an expression of triumph.

Silence finally fell into the bedroom and that's when Emma allowed herself to relax a little. That sensation barely lasted, though, since she was immediately hyperaware of Killian's presence beside her, even though he had made sure to maintain a considerable space between them.

A soft tingling spread across her skin at the possibility of any accidental touch, but she remained still, noting how he kept moving on the other side of the bed, as if he didn't find a comfortable position.

Her heart began beating frantically in her chest as her stomach fluttered in anticipation. Finally, after what seemed like hours, Killian seemed to settle under the covers, ceasing any movement. Just when a feeling of disappointment gripped her, she heard his voice coming in a barely audible whisper and causing a chill to run down her spine. "Thank you for helping me, Swan. Sleep well."

All her previous anger vanished after hearing his words, being replaced by a deeper and also more dangerous feeling. In an attempt to keep her emotions at bay, she closed her eyes stubbornly, praying that the sleep would come soon, because otherwise, she didn't know if she would be able to control her desire to turn around and search for his lips.

It wasn't going to be so easy to fall asleep, Emma was aware of that, but she tried to leave her mind blank as she wrapped herself up to her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. It was then that she realized something, causing her eyes to widen again. She had completely forgotten to take off her contacts, and even worse, she had left both the glasses and the cleansing solution in the damn bathroom.

Letting out a huff of annoyance, she removed the sheets and sat up while muttering, "I need to use the bathroom."

"Again?"

"Yes, Jones, again. Don't bother waiting for me awake, I guess you're exhausted after your previous performance." She snapped at him before leaving the room without looking back.

Once again, Emma took advantage of the privacy of the bathroom to calm her inner turmoil. She didn't even know why she had been so upset with Killian after his smart childishness. In other circumstances, she would have even offered to cooperate, especially if that meant bothering Liam. She might not know the guy enough but she had already decided that she hated him even more than she hated Killian even though she barely had any detail about their common backstory.

Emma took her time to take off her contacts and then brushed her hair again and made sure there were no traces of makeup left on her face. After taking a deep breath and let it out slowly, she finally felt determined enough to return to their bedroom.

Luck wasn't on her side tonight, though. As soon as she opened the bathroom door she came face to face with Liam, who looked like he had been waiting for her. Her surprise was such that she let out a little yelp as she put her hand to her chest in an attempt to calm her agitated heart.

"My apologies, lass." Both his tone and his expression indicated that he didn't feel sorry at all. "I couldn't sleep due to an inexplicable noise in my bedroom, so I decided to go down to the kitchen and prepare something to drink. Then I saw the light coming from the bathroom and... here we are."

Fuck! Emma hoped the gloom in the hallway was enough to hide the blush that had surely appeared on her cheeks. "I... I forgot to take off my contacts." She replied while pointing at her glasses. Luckily, she managed to maintain a neutral enough tone. "But it's late, so it will be better if I..."

"In fact, I thought that since you and I have barely had the opportunity to talk before, now that we're alone it would be a good time to have a little conversation. Would you like some tea?"

No.

Go back to the bedroom.

"I prefer hot chocolate." The words came out of her mouth without her having a chance to stop them. Seriously, what was wrong with her today?

"Hot chocolate will be." Emma didn't like at all the grin that appeared on Liam's face, to the point that she was tempted to change her mind and run away to hide behind the door of her bedroom. She was an adult woman, though, so it was better for her to behave in a mature way so that at least she wouldn't contribute to making Liam's impression of her even worse. For that reason, when he stepped aside reaching up his arm to point the way, she had no choice but to accept. "After you, lass."

So she was going to receive a lecture. As Emma walked down the stairs to the kitchen she felt like the girl that had been sent to the principal's office after committing mischief. Her stomach tightened into knots but she felt a renewed energy spreading through her body. She might be about to get a scolding, but she wasn't going to make it easy for him. Like Killian, if she had to resort to somewhat extreme measures to annoy Liam, she wasn't going to hesitate to use them. They were a team for a reason, right? A Fake one, but a team after all.

Thanks for reading :)

Happy New Year!!

#cs ff #captain swan #csss #cssecretsanta2k19 #mayquita writes #my cs writings #the art of (fake)dating #cs au

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sevennsw-blog · 7 years ago

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MODERN AU . first chapter . chapter list

“Y-You…” Breathing hard Rey struggled with her choice of words. “You were horrible to me. You made me walk out of your life.”

Poe let out a dry laugh. “Well, you completely broke my heart.”

Part 4 - Citrus a car driving on empty streets, story time and texts.

Poe’s car was warm.

With the heater on full blast Rey felt her eyes get heavy as she snuggled back into the plush leather seat. The lights outside her widow flew by as Poe drove down the nearly empty streets. It was reaching close to one in the morning by the time he crossed over into her neighborhood. He had some soft melody playing low and with the steady hum of the engine Rey had half a mind to just go to sleep right there.

If Rey would’ve been just a smidge more awake and alert she would’ve noticed how when the Bon Iver’s Michicant tuned out and moved over to José González’s Hints, Poe was quicker than ever to skip the song. Because once upon a time, that song had meant something.

Still did.

But Rey didn’t notice. She was half-asleep, feeling secure for once, ready to surrender to the night and the sleep – but then Poe broke it.

“Is everything okay with your family?”

Lazily Rey rolled her head to look at Poe’s profile. His gaze was fixed ahead but Rey could tell something was bothering him. He wasn’t as relaxed as she was. Sure, punching someone could get a rise out of anyone, but that had settled around them. This stress went beneath his skin.

Rey shifted to sit up more. “My family?” she echoed, voice small. He knew she didn’t have one.

Poe took a glance at her before focusing back on the road. His lips hung open in the shape of an ‘O’ before he continued. “You said back at the pub that you were having family issues tonight.”

“Oh that,” she cleared her throat. “It’s just a lot with Lauren and Jessika and her dad. Dads, I guess. And… and I overreacted. I mean… it’s not really my business. They’re not exactly mine.”

Poe seemed to be able to read her mind, because he didn’t have to say anything other than what she wanted to hear. “You have a family, Rey. You have people who care about you. That’s family.”

Rey huffed. “Unkar Plutt doesn’t care.” Lips pressed into a firm line, arms crossing. “At least the feeling is mutual.”

“What happened this time?” For a split second Rey had to remind herself that Poe knew of her family’s dynamic. An ambulance car passed by them with its lights on, making Rey jump in her seat. She was reminded of a scene two years ago. Her body was wrapped up tight in Poe’s hold with the sirens sounding off in the distant.

“Hear that? They’re almost here. It’s going to be okay.” Poe was basically rocking her back and forth on the floor.

Rey was suffocating herself with her own tears and sobs. She knew she was on the verge of making herself sick at any moment but she couldn’t stop. Her white-knuckled grip on Poe’s arm was the only piece holding her from completely falling apart. She tried to stop her wandering eyes but eventually she looked back over near the couch.

Her real father’s body pressed against the floor surrounded by scotch was the last thing she remembered before waking up in a hospital bed an hour later. Poe’s hand still gripped in hers as he slept by her side as her only real family slipped away once again.

“She-uh, Jessika, just didn’t really understand where I was coming from and… yeah, I kind of walked out on her fitting.”

“Are you okay?” They had pulled up to a light now so Poe turned his upper body towards Rey’s seat. It was endearing is be asked that question. For as long as she could remember, it had been Rey asking how others were. It was only when she first found Finn, or rather, Finn had found her, that people started noticing her. She was worried about how her real father was handling things. Ever since the social services had pulled in and stopped an already orphaned girl from chasing down her father at every chance she got she hadn’t seen a whole lot of him. It was easier back when she was at school. Back then she could easily find him – but nowadays it was harder.

Rey was worried about the breaking point. She worried about Jessika and how the friend she called sister always seemed so much stronger than her. But Rey never asked how she was feeling herself. She never thought about it.

“I’m okay, just… I was acting like a child anyway.”

“You’ve acted many ways Rey, but I’ve never seen you act like a child,” Poe’s frown pulled his pink lips down.

“Emmanuel was there,” Rey sighed.

“At the fitting?” Nodding Rey looked up to see the light had changed, yet Poe remained focused on her. “He’s her family, Rey.”

“He invited himself. And I know, there really was no reason for him not to be there, but it was the principle of that matter.“ Rey shook her head furiously, thoughts spinning around in a whirlwind inside her head. She tried to find a good enough excuse to all of this, but it was like striking a match that was soaking wet. She was just fumbling. “I mean, at least she has a dad who cares about her. Hell – she had two. And she constantly push her real dad away, even if… if.”

“Rey, this isn’t about Jessika…” Poe mumbled.

Rey choked back a sob when she understood that Poe knew where she was going. His look of concern made tears well up in her eyes as she let out a shaky breath. This wasn’t about Jessika – it was about Rey and her real father and how he was everything but just that.

“I-I know it’s been so long, and really, I should’ve let go of the idea that he would come back to me, that he would fix everything, b-but he’s my dad. It shouldn’t bother me, but seeing Jessika with her family like this… it makes me miss my dad. He should be here. With me. He should’ve been with me all those years but… I don’t.. I’m just so tired.”

Rey paused in a moment, staring at shaking hands.

It looked like she was in her own earthquake.

“I’m just so tired, Poe,” Rey exhaled.

Poe’s eyes danced around her face for a moment. He was reading her, something she learned early on about him. He analyzed people before he even shook their hand. And Poe was one of the best people Rey knew on reading people for their true character. It was one of the things that attracted her to him from the start.

“I’m sorry he’s not there. He should be,” Poe replied earnestly.

“It’s because he can’t be in a room without causing a scene, tearing at throats…” Rey’s eyes widened as it dawned on her.

“What?” Poe asked sensing her sudden change.

“Oh my god,” Rey whispered turning to face forward.

“What, Rey?” Poe pressed leaning over the counsel.

She shook her head rubbing her lips together. Suddenly it clicked with Rey; she was acting just like her father. She was a mess. A fucking natural disaster. This whole thing with Poe was just the starting point too. Whenever her father would try to talk, reach out, or even as much as existing in the same room, he would eventually, always, lose it. Fighting like a soldier in war, not listening to what the other had to say… Denying everything. Stopping everything from getting fixed. And that was exactly what Rey was doing with Poe.

“I’m him.”

“You’re who?” Poe asked.

Rey looked back over seeing Poe’s pout. “I’m my father. Worse, even.”

“You’re not your father Rey. You’re nothing like him,” Poe reasoned.

Shaking her head Rey mirrored Poe in leaning over the middle. “No, I am. I’m horrible with people, and I don't even-- I--”

“Hey-Hey!” Poe reached over trapping her arms against her sides. “You are not your father Rey. You are kind and you care about other people. You’ve got one of the biggest hearts I know.”

“It’s in my blood, Poe. No matter how much Laura and Jessika try to pull me into their family, I won’t ever be normal. I can’t sit next to them and pretend that I’m one of them.” Tears started to build up again behind her eyes. “The only one who’s like me is my dad, and he’s a mess. I’m doomed for a disaster.”

“One of them? Rey, they’re your family and they love you.”

“I’m nothing like them! Look at me Poe!” she snapped. Instead of cowering like with everyone else she exploded on Poe tilted his head to the side. His firm grip was constant against her shaking arms.

“I thought you were past this?” he lowered his voice. Blinking, Rey wasn’t able to understand what he meant. “You were doing so well, Rey. What happened?”

“W-What happened?” She figured it out. “What happened, Poe? Life happened. Too many things happened all at once. I found my dad. He finally came back, he left and tore everything open again, Jessika got engaged and Laura…”

“And you got past all those things, I was there-“

“NO YOU WEREN’T!”

The air surrounding them was thick. Rey was overheating so she reached over and rolled down her window. The cold air outside felt like needles against her cheeks but it was something at least.

Rey shivered. “Can you take me home now, please?” she whispered, shutting her eyes.

“Me not being there for you wasn’t my choice, and you know that,” Poe reminded, ignoring her request.

“I was being suffocated. I needed to control at least one thing in my life,” Rey argued, keeping her eyes shut.

“And walking away from me was you proving you had power over something?” Poe scoffed.

Offsetting her jaw she rounded on him. “Not power Poe, control. There’s a difference. I was being attacked from all different angles and you were only putting your ideas in my head. You weren’t letting me think for-“

“Enough with that excuse Rey!” Poe barked. “I always let you be your own person. I never made you be someone different.”

“You didn’t even realize you did it. You just automatically thought you knew what was best for me!”

“Us, Rey… I knew what was best for us.” Poe ran his fingers through his dark curls.

“Well ‘us’ is two, you and me. I don’t remember sitting down and picking out a red-bricked, fenced in place off of Portobello Road. I wasn’t part of the conversation of getting a new car. I must have been asleep when you decided to –“

“I get it,” Poe groaned.

“- get your mum to casually have lunch to chat about futures. Poe, I’m only twenty-three, we’re so young -” Rey paused some to catch her breath.

“I said I get it.”

“Why didn’t you get it then?” Rey cried.

“Fuck, I didn’t care Rey! I was in love with you!” Poe’s voice rose to the challenge, shutting Rey up instantly.

Rey looked down at her hands. She couldn’t count how many times she has heard those words leave his lips and yet they still made her entire world stop. Her heart was beating out of her chest, aching for a release. Poe let go of her arms and slumped back in his seat.

“Y-You…” Breathing hard Rey struggled with her word choice. “You were horrible to me. You made me walk out of your life.”

Poe let out a dry laugh. “Well, you completely broke my heart.”

Silent tears fell down her cheeks as Poe pushed the car into back into drive. Rey didn’t look at him as she got out of his car and walked up the steps to her building. Biting her lip, Rey willed herself not to cry in the elevator. It wasn’t until she was in the comforts of her room, staring out the window at Poe’s car still waiting that she let out her first sob. Once she turned the light on, he drove off down the street.

“You look like shit,” Bazine said eyeing up Rey the next day at lunch.

“Go away,” Rey growled leaning against table.

“See this is why they threaten to put you on shipment duty. You’re up front today, you can’t be snapping at customers,” Bazine waved one finger in Rey’s face laughing when Rey made like she was going to bite it.

“I went out with Finn and his friends last night and there ended up being a scuffle. I got home around one in the morning.” As she spoke a large yawn broke out of her.

“Was Poe there?”

“Uh-yes,” Rey eyed Bazine from across their small table.

“I think after the BBQ I was invited to I get to ask questions like that,” Bazine said as she stabbed a tomato off of her salad.

“I don’t really like to talk about it,” Rey admitted glancing downwards.

“Oh, you don’t say?”

Rey knew Bazine was joking with her. Maybe it was time to level with her friend some. Rey didn’t blame Bazine for having questions; anyone who witnessed that must have loads at the ready. “We-uh, I met Poe almost four years ago,” Rey sat up in her seat. “Finn introduced us one night. We got on really well and he was charming. Older than me, but it didn’t seem to bother me too much.”

“I feel like you need someone who’s a bit steadier in their life,” Bazine offered.

“I guess,” Rey shrugged.

Bazine sat her fork down and mimicked Rey’s pose. “How long until you started dating?”

“Maybe a little less than a year? I didn’t see him for a long time after we first met. But then one day he called me – or maybe Finn called and Poe was with him, and asked for me to join them for lunch. We met and then that turned into a lunch date with just the two of us the next week, which turned into dinner… you get the picture.”

“So you two were together a while?” Bazine was being gentle with her tone, much to Rey’s appreciation.

“Almost two years…” Rey whispered.

“That’s a long relationship,” Bazine nodded. “Can I ask what happened?”

Clearing her throat Rey cautioned, “Look, that part is insanely complicated. And I’m learning a bit that we both might have been at fault.”

“Why don’t you give me the quick version?” Bazine smiled at the waiter who came to take their plates away.

“You want the short story?” Bazine nodded again. “The short story would be… he wanted me to marry him and I just wasn’t ready so I walked away.”

“Wow…” Bazine clearly hadn’t been expecting that. “I thought you were going to say he cheated on you or something.”

“God no!” Rey shook her head. “He would never do something like that. Poe wasn’t like that-isn’t like that.”

“Okay,” Bazine thought for a moment. “Then why break up?”

“What d’you mean?”

“Why break up? Why not just continue where you are and get to the marriage thing later?” The check was placed in front of the girls and Bazine snatched it up quickly.

“Thanks,” Rey nodded. “Well, it was almost the tipping point in my over flowing bucket of doom.”

“Bucket of doom? He asked you to marry him, not run off and join some cult.”

“No, I mean in my personal life. My whole family was messed up then and when he unloaded on me I was at my breaking point. I had been holding in all these emotions for so long, and for some reason… I took all of it out on Poe that night,” Rey explained.

Bazine handed her card to the waiter passing by. “Was that when your dad… uh.. you know?”

“No, but Unkar Plutt had just made me get my own apartment. And then Jessika had just announced she was getting married. I’m twenty-three and certainly not ready to be anyone’s wife… it was a lot all at once.” Bringing up these reminders had Rey on edge.

“Sounds like it,” Bazine pursed her lips. “What did Poe do when you turned him down?”

Rey thought back to that February night. There was slick snow on the sidewalks that glistened in the street lamps. She had been wrapped up in her warm coat, gripping onto Poe’s hand as he led her down the cobblestone street. It was quiet in the neighborhood except for the church bells ringing in the distance.

“I never thought I’d hurt someone like that.” Rey’s voice broke as she continued. “All I really remember were his eyes.”

“I’m sorry,” Bazine murmured reaching for Rey’s arm on the table. “If it’s any consolation… the way Poe still looks at you, I’d say there’s something still there.”

“Nobody needs me messing up their life, trust me.” Scooting her chair back Rey needed to hurry if she was going to make her hair appointment.

“Rey, you can’t really mean that,” Bazine asked walking out after her.

“Trust me, the reason I keep things from my friends is not because I’m this selfish-crazed introvert. I just don’t want them to deal with my baggage. It’s not fair to them. So when people get too close-“

“You turn down their marriage proposal.”

Rey stopped walking and stared back at Bazine. Taking this brief break Bazine put her coat on and tied a long blue scarf around her neck. Rey was surprised by two things. One being that Bazine had followed her out after she only touched the surface of her life problems. The other was that Bazine seemed to have the balls to stick around.

020 3454 0215 Ava wasn’t kidding when she said she wanted to catch up.

Rey had been staring at her phone screen for the past five minutes. Even though the number was unknown by her contact list she knew that sequence like the back of her hand.

Thank you. I will call her soon.

If there was one person Rey cared about their opinion of her more than Poe, is was his sister. It had been a week before the breakup when Ava showed up at Rey’s apartment with a new dog bed for her ‘nephew.’ Rey hadn’t spoken to her since despite Ava’s phone calls and texts. There was no way Ava would be forgiving of what Rey did to her little brother. She was going to kill Rey.

She’s not upset at you.

Oh good, the last thing Rey wanted was Poe discussing their breakup with his family. But of course he did. Rey had never met a guy who was as close to his sister and mother as Poe. Their opinions were the only two the ever mattered to Poe. Well, Rey’s was added to his list for a while there.

Rey slouched back into her couch. It was raining softly outside and BB was curled up on the back of the couch over her head. She had just finished a seven-hour shift at work and was in the process of making her way to her bathroom to try one of the new bath bombs Jessika had sent over to her. For some reason, Poe had a sense to pop up every time she wanted a bath.

You know I can’t compete with that fiery attitude. She will kill me.

Jostling BB from his nap in the process, Rey stood and walked over to her bedroom door. She had long forgotten her heels at the front door. Walking into the bathroom the site of her tub brought the first genuine smile Rey had had that day.

She was more upset you wouldn’t talk to her then about what happened with us.

Rey took a deep breath, blowing out slowly as the tub began to fill. She tossed in a lemon-scented bomb and closed her toilet lid to sit down on it. BB had followed her and was now playing with a string from her rug under the sink.

Regardless, your family has a tight bond. There’s no way I could break that.

Setting her phone down Rey stripped herself of her work clothes before getting into the water. Instantly her insides were warm, the fizz from the bomb attacking her skin. With her hair in a topknot Rey leaned back and relaxed. The constant buzz from her phone broke her out of her tranquility.

“Hello?” Rey answered without looking at the caller ID.

“You were part of that.”

“Poe?” Rey reached out but her hand was too wet to grab hold of the side of the tub. She ended up slipping lower and sloshing the water onto the floor. She reached out with her toe and turned the tap off. Slowly, she sat up gathering her wits about her.

“… are you in the bath again?”

“Yes, sorry I didn’t know it was- I sort of lost my footing-handing… that’s not a word is it?” It was pathetic the way she was desperately trying to form a sentence.

“It is, just not the context you’re trying to use it in.” Poe was smirking, she could tell by his condescending tone.

“Did you need something? You’re interrupting my relaxing time,” Rey muttered.

“I wanted you to know were part of my family bond. My mother and sister loved you.” Her heartbeat quickened. With the memories of Maria and Ava passing through her eyelids Rey paused on one of her favorites.

“… and that’s why Poe wasn’t allowed to have tape in school for his fifth year.”

Rey’s stomach hurt from all the laughing that had taken place over dinner. She was nestled into Poe’s warm side with Maria and Ava across from them. Both women had tears in their eyes as Maria finished the story of Poe taping his hand to his school desk one year. When Rey looked up at Poe he was beat red but she could see him fighting a smile.

“It was a simple miscommunication,” he argued.

“You were dared!" Ava laughed. "How do you miscommunicate that?”

“Alright, shut it… all of you.” Poe wrapped his arm tighter around Rey. Rey nuzzled her nose into the crook of his neck as her body still shook. It was the sound of a camera that made her peak back out. Maria was holding her phone and smiling at the screen. Ava leaned over and let out a loud ‘aww’ at what could only be a picture of Poe and Rey mushed against each other.

“Mum…” Poe groaned.

“What? You two are adorable,” Maria gushed showing Rey the picture. Most of her face was hidden in Poe’s shoulder but you could see her smile. Poe had his eyes shut but he was still pulling her in. It was sweet and Rey asked if Maria could send it to her.

“I have to go, it’s getting late.” Ava stood up. “We’re still on for Sunday right?”

“I’ll be there,” Rey nodded retracting herself from Poe.

“What are you two doing?” he asked handing his mum her coat.

“Girl stuff… you wouldn’t understand.” Ava stuck her tongue out.

“Mature… mum, not sure I like this gaining up on me thing they’ve got going on,” Poe babied up to his mother’s side.

“Oh Poe, you’re just fine. You can’t keep Rey away from us… she’s too special.”

“Did I lose you?” Poe asked.

“No I’m here… I was just remembering your mum’s birthday dinner we had for her last year.”

“Oh… yeah she loved the cookbook you bought her.” She could hear him sigh deeply.

Rey shivered for an unknown reason and sunk lower into the water. “H-How is she?”

“Good, they’re both good. Gonzalo too,” Poe answered.

“I was watching the news the other day and saw your hometown was getting a lot of rain recently. Have the floods been bad?” Remembering the few screen shots the news flashed across the screen Rey tried to remember if anything had been recognizable to her.

“The waters never got close to them. I spoke to Percy the other day though, and she said her dad’s shed got flooded pretty bad.”

“Oh no, I’m sorry. How is Percy?” Rey remembered one of Poe’s oldest friends.

“Her birthday was two days ago.” Two thuds came from Poe’s end sounding like he had just taken off his shoes.

Frowning Rey added another check to her list of opportunities she has missed out on. “Well, if you talk to her soon tell her that I said happy belated-”

“I can’t keep doing this,” Poe cut her off.

“W-What?”

“I can’t tell Percy happy belated birthday for you Rey. Just like I can’t tell Ava that you are proud of her or that you miss my mum. I can’t do that because I shouldn’t have to do that!” Poe’s voice faded some. “You should just be able to do that. You can talk to my friends. You can talk to my family Rey… just because we’re…”

Rey’s focus was on her red toes submerged into the bath. She was counting, slowly in her head. She knew Poe was waiting for a response but there were no words. How could she reply to that? How does anyone reply to that?

“I’m sorry… I know you don’t want to talk about this.” Poe sounded beyond hurt.

“No, it’s just, I don’t know what to say to you Poe,” Rey sighed. “What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know…” His voice was hoarse from the emotions.

They both were silent for a while. Rey was battling her inner self about these feelings for Poe that seemed to pop up whenever she heard his voice. Something had happened within the last few weeks and how Poe handles himself around her. Gone was the cocky, arrogant jerk that riled Rey up with just his presence in a room. It was replaced with the Poe she remembered.

“So… where does this leave us?” Rey asked.

“I don’t know,” Poe replied. “I know that… I want you to be in my life, Rey. I can’t just not have you in my life.”

Rey closed her eyes, biting her lower lip. “Poe, I can’t just be friends with you.”

“Why not?”

“Because we have too much history!” Rey reasoned. “I can’t just act like-“

“We can be just friends, people do it all the time,” Poe argued.

“No Poe…”

“Why, Rey?” His frustration was seeping through the line.

“Because I see you… and I just can’t act…”Rey groaned leaning her head back.

“Can’t act like what?” Opening her eyes Rey knew she needed to say this. She needed to get this off her chest whether Poe was ready for it or not.

“That every single feeling I ever had for you doesn’t come rushing back the second I see you.” Rey whispered. “And it makes me feel so weak.”

Rey was worried she frightened him off until she heard his reply. “You have no idea what that means to me.”

“B-But we can’t Poe. I can’t afford to just… forget everything that happened and act like you and I are okay.”

“I know we’re not okay Rey, I know we weren’t okay then. But at least now we’re talking about it?” Poe suddenly sounded like he had a new life in him.

“I can’t go through that again Poe. I’m still not one hundred percent and I can’t act like I am.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to.”

“Then I’m back to where I was and not knowing what you want me to say.” Rey’s throat was tight and the water was growing colder.

“Tell me we can work on this – on us being… whatever you want to call us,” Poe sucked in a deep breath.

“I don’t know if I can.” Rey admitted. “It’s so confusing.”

“I miss you,” Poe blurted, and god, she missed him too. So much. And it hurt. “Please let us try, Rey. Please.”

Rey bit her lip. “I’m trying to be honest with you Poe, let you know what I’m feeling.”

“And I’m happy you are regardless of how hard that was to hear.” He tried to ease it over with a short chuckle.

Rey reached forward and pulled the plug. She needed to get out before she became a prune. “I know I miss you, if that’s any consolation?”

“I’ll take what I can.” She knew he was smiling slightly through the phone.

“Then… take that and we’ll see what comes of it.”

They hung up not a minute later. Rey needed to decompress from that conversation. She grabbed her last bottle of red wine and sat, curled on the couch with a documentary about Somali pirates playing in the background. BB curled into her side with a soft huff.

“What have I done BB?” Rey asked downing her glass.

AN: Soooo i want to thank cheynelikeadiamond, captaindamnron, ryantruexjr, cutie-bug, poeandreydameron and mhysaofdragons for the loving comments last chapter :’) they make me happy and brave enough to post the next one lol. there are still too little fics out there and i need and want more.

#damerey #jedipilot #rey x poe #damerey fic #dame rey sounds like a royal au fic #and her knight poe omfg

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thelastwarriornun · 8 years ago

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As LONG AS WE’RE GOING DOWN (YOU SHOULD STICK AROUND) || (5/?)

Part 1 — Part 2 — Part 3 — Part 4 - AO3

Summary: Lexa’s seemingly got it all, she’s top of her class, captain of the soccer team, and one of the more popular girl’s in her school. The only problem her crush on Clarke Griffin, and Clarke’s fascination in competing with Lexa in every possible way. All she wants to do is make it through her Home Ec class without failing, or losing her mind, which becomes exponentially harder when she’s paired with her crush, and biggest competitor.

Pairing: Clexa, Octaven

Word count: 4,221

This conversation was inevitable and honestly Clarke had been generous allowing her even this long without asking for an explanation,” it’s a long story”.

Lexa doesn’t deserve her sympathy and yet Clarke gives it freely taking her hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze,” shouldn’t I be the one consoling you”?

Clarke snorts lacing their hands together,” Just start from the beginning Lexa. We have all the time in the world.”

———-

“Straighten up Alexandria”.

Lexa can’t help but fight a frown when her body jumps into place conforming to her mother’s demand. Somehow one icy glare from indra and Lexa was like putty in her hands. It was how she was raised after all.

Anya offers her a sympathetic smile and Lexa wishes she could ignore that too. Anya had never been one to conform and yet Lexa two years her junior had never been one to resist.

“You both need to be on your best behavior. This is a very important potential partner for the company. Which means pay attention Anya, and Alexandra no matter how annoying you find the child you will pretend she is the greatest girl you have ever met”.

They both nod having been through this routine more times than Lexa can count, and would continue to do so. Anya had already made it clear that she had no interest in the family business and honestly Lexa wasn’t sure they would pass it to her even if she did. Anya was reckless and bold. She didn’t have the patience or the manners to deal with upper management.

Lexa on the other hand, well she had been destined for the position since birth. Six years old and she knew exactly the path her future would take.

“Indra I see you’re punctual as ever!”

Lexa had always thought her mother to be an expert in the art of faking interest but whoever this woman was she certainly gave her a run for her money.

“And you Nia stunning as always”.

“These must be your children, why don’t you all come on in, the maid will show Alexandria to the playroom.”

Just like that her mother and sister were gone, Anya stopping only long enough to pat her shoulder as she moved to follow the older woman.

A woman who was clearly the previously mentioned maid offered a warm smile before moving towards the opposite side of the house and Lexa dutifully followed.

“If you need anything at all Costia knows how to reach me”.

They entered a room fit for a queen or rather befitting a child of their lifestyle. Before Lexa could even finish taking in her surroundings she felt a weight slam into her and moments later realized it was supposed to be some aggressive version of a hug.

“You must be Lexa I’m so glad you’re here. My mother never allows any children into the house. I’m Costia”.

Despite the assault Lexa forced herself to return the embrace awkwardly winding her arms around the smaller girl.

“It’s nice to meet you Costia.”

It was once again all she could manage before the other girl was stepping back offering her a brilliant smile.

“We’re going to be the best of friends I just know it”.

Oddly enough Lexa couldn’t help but believe her.

——–

“You. As in Alexandria Heda are going to a sleepover”?

“Why is that so hard to believe”, she challenged rounding on Anya who’d been following her since she started packing.

“Well last time I checked you hate other children.”

“Well maybe you should check more often.”

“Wait does this sleepover happen to be at Costia’s house”?

For some reason Lexa felt herself bristle at the comment face turning crimson,” I don’t see what that has to do with it.”

“Sure Lexa keep telling yourself that”.

Lexa wishes she understood the implications in her sister’s words. Wishes she knew why she suddenly felt so full of embarrassment.

——–

“Are you comfortable”?

They’d spent the night marathoning various movies and eating far too much junk food. It was the first time Lexa had spent time at a friend’s house and clearly she’d been missing out.

Lexa for some reason didn’t mind the cringy romantic comedies that Costia preferred. Meanwhile Costia had only gently teased her over her obsession with documentaries dubbing the trait cute.

“Mhm”.

“You’re a terrible liar Lexa.”

“Only because you’ve known me for two years”.

Sometime after their fourth movie they’d retired to Costia’s room Lexa taking the floor assuming anything else would be deemed less than appropriate. Based on Costia’s tone she was having none of it.

“Well come on then”, somehow Costia was already on her feet grinning from behind her extended hand.

Lexa takes the offered hand tentatively allowing Costia to pull her to her feet,” you can share my bed tonight”.

“Are you sure that’s okay”?

Lexa’s not sure why she asked. It seemed to be normal for friends to share a bed especially one as large as Costia’s and yet she was hesitating. A feeling that resembled… discomfort? Or maybe something closer to nervous. Although she certainly couldn’t explain why she’d be nervous in this situation.

“Come on Lexa.”

There was no arguing once her mind was set and Lexa resigned allowing herself to be pulled into the bed. It was honestly the most comfortable bed Lexa had ever been in and yet she couldn’t help but stare rigidly up at the ceiling.

“Ease up I won’t bite”.

Lexa offers a weak smile and as per usual Costia seems to know just what to do to put her at ease.

“Roll over”.

Lexa complies cautiously turning to face the wall and starts when she feels arms encircle her waist.

“Is this okay”.

Lexa simply nods wanting to laugh at Costia’s nerves. How could this be anything but okay? Instead she stays silent worried that if she speaks up whatever this is will be over.

——–

Lexa isn’t sure when their dynamic changed. When her staring turned from innocent appreciation into a constant deep yearning.

“Can you put sunblock on my back? I always end up missing spots”.

Lexa flushes and hopes Costia attributes her red cheeks to the heat. This was nothing new and yet Lexa felt like her heart was bound to beat right out of her chest.

Wordlessly she grabs the sunscreen lathering it into her hands before attempting to apply it thoroughly and evenly across Costia’s back. She tells herself her only motive is Costia’s health as she traces her hands along the other girls back.

“That feels incredibly Lexa keep going,” Costia moans leaning back into her hands.

Lexa smirks kneading Costia’s back with a practiced ease. She’s not sure when she ended up in heaven but she wasn’t going to complain.

“How is it you manage to be so good at everything”?

“God given talent and a little bit of luck”.

“You are so full of shit”.

Lexa grins feeling bold she leans forward resting her chin on Costia’s shoulder,” you love it”.

“I love you it’s different.”

“I can live with that”.

——–

“Why do you care so much about the stars? They all look the same.”

Lexa can’t help but roll her eyes at Costia looking over at the other girl. They were using the trampoline in her backyard to do their biweekly star gazing session and as per usual Costia was less than enthused.

“I just think the stars are beautiful. They’re constant and dependable even when the world around us is constantly shifting.”

A brief silence fell between them. Costia hated star gazing but she continued to do it for Lexa and for that she was eternally grateful.

“Hey Lexa”?

“Yes Costia”, Lexa turned to face the other girl surprised to find her already facing Lexa. Eyes alight with the usual playfulness that came easily to her.

“You’re far more interesting and definitely more beautiful than any star”.

Lexa’s certain she resembles a goldfish as she tries to say well anything. These comments had become fairly frequent. As if they were testing the waters testing some unspoken bond between them. Still they always had the same effect on Lexa.

“I think you’re beautiful too”, Lexa finally managed lamely. So maybe she was far from the poetic one in their friendship.

Costia giggles a hand brushing one of Lexa’s stray hairs behind her ear,” you’re lucky awkward looks cute on you Heda.”

Lexa couldn’t help but smile as she took Costia’s hand returning her gaze to the stars. She was falling and and at that moment she couldn’t have cared less.

———

“So Costia was your first love”?

Lexa slowly nods shrugging uncomfortable at the weight of Clarke’s stare,” she was my best friend. She helped me discover who I was as a person”.

Clarke exhales sharply looking disheartened. As if knowing any of this somehow made them less than what Lexa had once had,” well that’s not a lot to compete with”.

Lexa needs to do something. That much was obvious. She wished not for the first time that Clarke could simply read her mind. Words couldn’t describe how much she felt for Clarke and how insignificant what they already had her past relationship was.

“There is no competition Clarke. Costia could never hold a candle to you. Do you trust me”, she reached out carefully tracing Clarke’s jaw wishing for nothing more than to hold her through this bout of insecurity.

It takes a moment for those gorgeous blue eyes to meet hers and Lexa wishes she could get lost in them rather than continue this conversation.

“I trust you Lexa. Continue”.

———

“Lexa why are you soaking wet? Get in the house before you freeze to death”.

Lexa had a plan. Of course the rain presently soaking through her clothes had never been a part of her plan. No she had come to tell Costia something and yet she allowed herself to be led through the house. Powerless even in this moment not to fulfill Costia’s wishes.

“Strip I’ll get you some dry clothes so you don’t catch a cold.”

“I like girls”, it comes out stupid and nothing like the short speech she’d been rehearsing for days.

“The TV show? I hardly see why that’s reason enough to show up at my house-”

“As in I like girls the way I’m supposed to like boys. More specifically I like you. I know we’re friends and I don’t want to lose that but it wouldn’t be fair for me not to tell you how I feel.”

The silence is resounding. Costia’s studying her and Lexa suddenly feels the weight of the world lift from her shoulders while simultaneously the weight of insecurity and rejection filling her stomach like a dark pit.

“I know Lexa,” Costia finally mumbles eyes searching Lexa’s for an answer she isn’t sure she has.

“You do”?

“You know for being one of the most brilliant girls I’ve ever met you can be really dense”.

Whatever snarky offended comment she wants to give its cut off as Costia closes the space between them and Costia’s kissing her. It’s short and awkward and it’s everything. Lexa really shouldn’t be surprised Costia had always been steps ahead of her.

Before she could actually respond Costia’s pulling back the same excitement glowing in her hazel eyes as the first time Lexa had met her.

“Now hurry up and take off those clothes.”

——–

“Do you think they know”?

It had been an unspoken agreement from the beginning that their relationship needed to be a secret. They both came from prestigious families and that came with certain expectations. Thankfully they’d spent plenty of time together before their relationship and the transition had seemed to slip by both parents. That didn’t prevent Lexa from stressing over the situation.

A quick flick to the nose and Lexa’s eying her girlfriend disdainfully,” what was that for”?

“Stop worrying so much they have no idea”.

“Well sorry I’m a little stressed that your parents might realize I’ve been defiling their daughter for just over a year now”.

Another hit to the shoulder and Lexa’s smirking at Costia’s obvious embarrassment,” not that you’ve had any complaints”.

There’s a drawn out silence and she wonders If maybe she’s overstepped. It wasn’t like they’d never talked about the physical side of their relationship.

“Lexa I love you”.

Lexa should be trained into expecting the unexpected from Costia. It would save her a lot of shock in her life. It takes her a moment overwhelmed by the emotions coursing through her. How she’d gotten so lucky she’d never know.

She was up and picking Costia up into an embrace spinning her around carefully.

“I love you”, she manages between the kisses she’s peppering across Costia’s neck.

“Take me to bed”.

“ Your wish is my command”.

———-

It was the summer before freshman year, they’d been invited to attend the annual team camping trip the school through together. Tryouts had started early and Lexa and Costia had been first draft picks for their respective sports, Lexa going for soccer and Costia trying out for cheerleading.

“Can you quiet down some of us are trying to have our own conversations”.

As per usual Clarke Griffin was eyeing Lexa with disdain from across the campfire. Lexa never understood the hostility but nodding offering a small smile of apology,” I did not mean to bother you. We’ll be quieter”.

The sentiment wasn’t returned as Clarke refocused on whomever she’d been conversing with previously. Meanwhile Costia’s expression was a mix of jealousy and annoyance,” why are you always so nice to her she’s always so rude”?

She shrugs resting her hand against Costia’s,” I simply don’t see the point if not being polite in return. Besides Clarke seems kind when she’s not correcting me”.

“Aka you’ve had a slight crush on her since elementary despite your undying love for me”, it’s a challenge and Lexa doesn’t back down her emerald gaze locked onto hazel.

“Are you seriously jealous”?

“Maybe”.

Lexa can’t help but sigh squeezing Costia’s hand gently,” you have nothing to be jealous about. I promise”.

Lexa couldn’t quite read Costia’s expression,” come with me”.

Just like that her girlfriend was up and moving and Lexa followed instinctively. Just like she always would.

———-

“Costia this is a bad idea.”

“Oh please Lexa I know you secretly live for breaking the rules”.

This was a school sanctioned trip and Lexa was positive their current positions were far from school approval. Costia seemed hell bent on breaking that rule though.

“Why do you have to know me so well”?

“We’ve been best friends since we were six Lexa kind of comes with the territory.”

Finding Lexa’s statement to be a resignation Costia slid her hands underneath Lexa’s jersey tracing along her abs. Lexa was embarrassed at the betraying moan she emitted burying her face in Costia’s neck.

“If you don’t stop Costia we won’t be stopping until I’ve tasted every inch of you out in these God awful woods”.

“Who’s to say that wasn’t my plan all along”?

God Lexa could’ve lived in that moment for eternity. The feeling of Costia pressed up against her. The familiar warmth and all that came with her presence overwhelming her senses until suddenly she wasn’t.

“Lexa. Costia.”

Lexa had never been one to be afraid but she swore her heart stopping in that moment. The voice belonged to Echo one of the supervisor’s on the trip, who also unfortunately happened to be close friends with both of their mothers.

“It’s not what it looks like”, Costia had always been the quicker of the two. Although there was little either of them could say in their defense. The situation spoke for itself.

“I think it’s best if we return to the group now”.

Lexa jolted into action catching the woman’s arm,” please Echo you can’t tell them. They won’t understand.”

“Shut up Lexa.”

Costia’s sudden harshness stunned her into silence as they formed a silent line moving back towards the main tents. Lexa wanted to pull Costia aside tell her that nothing would change but even she knew that wouldn’t be the case.

“You two gather your things I think it’s best if we cut your trip short don’t you”.

Shame cut through the silence and Lexa felt like throwing up or taking off into the woods avoiding whatever consequences that would come of this. Two years together and they’d never even sort of slipped up. Two years of hiding their relationship and that was over now. Shattered by one stupid public slip up.

They gathered their belongings in silence trying to ignore the states of their peers. One stood out to Lexa, probably because it was the first time Clarke had looked at her with anything other than pure hatred. Instead for once it was outweighed by sympathy.

Lexa found Costia’s hand once theyd been loaded into the back of the car squeezing on to her only anchor in this moment. Whatever they faced they faced it together.

———

“What were you thinking”? Their parents had been waiting for their arrival. Although Lexa couldn’t read the expression on her parents face, Costia’s parents were the definition of livid.

“I think it’s best we leave now Lexa.”

Lexa wanted to argue. Wanted to demand that they stay and face whatever Costia’s mother had to say. The look on her father’s face said otherwise. She tried to catch Costia gaze tried to imply with a look the love she had for her that this was only temporary. Costia’s eyes never left the ground.

——–

“I’m sorry wait so you aren’t mad”?

The ride home had been silent an awkward tension filling the car and yet as soon as they’d arrived home the tension was gone. Her parents even going so far as to make jokes going about their usual routine.

“Why would we be mad?”

“Because I’m gay and I just got sent home because my teacher found me with my girlfriend. My gay girlfriend”.

“Yes that annoyingly high pitched woman made that quite clear when she gave us a play by play on what she witnessed you doing”.

Gustus had the audacity to laugh high fiving his daughter who was too in shock not to reciprocate.

“I’m gay”.

“Oh dear Indra I believe we’ve broken our daughter. Although I’d like to insert that she gets her charm from me”.

Indra seemed to take Lexa’s response or rather lack of response more seriously and moved to place a comforting hand on her daughter’s shoulder,” Lexa dear we could care less what gender preferences you have. Our one and only concern is that you find someone who makes you happy.”

“Preferably someone who also comes from a good family although your happiness certainly comes first,” Gustus chipped in unhelpfully.

Tears were forming in her eyes despite her best efforts and Lexa reluctantly allows herself to be pulled into an embrace. Whatever she had expected this certainly wasn’t it.

“I thought you guys would hate me. You were so quiet on the drive home I thought you were furious”, Lexa quietly sobbed into her mother’s shoulder. They had never been a family filled with sentiment but this seemed like a valid exception.

“Oh Lexa darling that had nothing to do with you and everything to do with Costia’s moronic small minded parents. They can expect to be removed from every guest list so long as we have a say”.

“Costia’s parents”?

“They think you manipulated their sweet innocent daughter into performing your lude acts. It was ridiculous but I suppose not surprising they’ve always been a little high and mighty.”

Her mother’s voice drifted into the distance as her mind filled with concern. What had she left Costia to suffer through? What if Costia needed her? What if Costia actually listened to what her parents said?

——–

In the end she was unable to escape her parents until the next morning. She’d texted called used every form of communication possible to try and get ahold of Costia. It was the longest they’d gone without talked since they’d met, and Lexa was filled with anxiety.

The route to Costia’s was a familiar one. The route was only five minutes long and yet it seemed to last a lifetime. The house that had been her second home for years now seemed foreign to her. Still she was a Heda they didn’t back down and she’d come here to talk to Costia whatever the consequences.

Lexa knocked at the door before stepping back tightening her jacket around herself as if it might shield her. It only took a moment for the door to open revealing an uncomfortable looking Costia,” thank goodness you’re alright”.

She’d only managed to take a step in the girl’s direction before a hand was being raised preventing her from moving closer,” Lexa don't”.

“Listen I know your parents aren’t exactly happy but maybe we could talk-”.

“This is over Lexa”.

The air suddenly feels like it’s been sucked from her chest. Whatever she’d expected this certainly wasn’t it. What they had was real that wasn’t something that just disappeared in a night,” you’ve got to be kidding me”.

Costia had never seemed so distant, so cold and yet here she was stony faced at Lexa’s protests,” we’re done messing around Lexa I don’t know what I was even thinking. It’s wrong I should’ve never let you talk me into doing this”.

“Talked you into this Costia you kissed me first. You told me you loved me first. I know your parents aren’t happy but we can fix this. Just let me talk to them I promise we can make this work”, Lexa’s voice sounded foreign even to herself. Heavy with the knowledge that she could quite possibly lose not only her girlfriend but the only real friend she’d ever had over this.

Costia stops and for a brief moment Lexa wonders if maybe she’s having second thoughts. If she’s suddenly remembered Lexa and the promises they’d made to one another over the years. That what they had was worth fighting for” I don’t want you Lexa I never did. You were just a failed experiment and now it’s over. Delete my number I never want to see you again”.

“Cos please-”.

The door was closed before she could even begin to argue.

——–

Anya found her there hours later. Lexa had been too shell shocked to move. Much less even process what had happened to her.

“Come here little sister”.

Lexa allows herself to crumble then. Allows herself to feel the sting of rejection latching on to her sister. It seemed they were hell bent on breaking the record for most Heda sappy moments in a 24 hour period.

“How did you know”?

Anya smiled stroking her hair as she started them in the direction of home,” I’m your older sister Lexa it’s my job to take care of you. Let’s go home”.

——–

“She just ended it”?

“The next day she had a boyfriend and a week later her parents had shipped her off to a new school”.

“Wow”.

“I should start by saying there’s no excuse for my behavior. If you wanted to end things… I’d be sad but I would understand. I haven’t treated you the way you deserve to be treated. That certainly wasn’t my intentions. It’s just my last relationship was very hidden and physical and I didn’t want that for us. I want us to do things right. So if you’re willing I’d like a chance to do that. To do this right.”

She’s rambling and she knows it but Clarke’s silence terrifies her. The idea that she could’ve ruined a relationship that’d she’d wanted for years because of her own idiocy was awfup” Clarke please-”.

“You aren’t just a hookup Lexa. If you wanted to wait until marriage to have sex that still wouldn’t change my mind”.

Lexa can’t help but smile at that,” well in that case maybe our next date could involve a purity ring exchange”.

Clarke feigned a horrified look,” you don’t actually want to wait until we get married right”?

Lexa shoves Clarke with a huff and Clarke giggles their usual banter returning,” don’t tell anyone but I really like you Lexa”.

Lexa smiles pulling Clarke towards her and the blonde is quick to settle against Lexa straddling her lap,” deal so long as you don’t tell anyone that I also really like you too”.

She pauses somewhat insecure after laying her embarrassing one and only attempt at a relationship completely bare,” so we’re good then”?

Clarke’s heart breaks at the innocence in Lexa’s tone. She leans in resting her forehead against Lexa’s enjoying the closeness,” Lexa we’ve never been anything less. Thank you. For sharing everything with me. Sometimes you get so lost in your head, I appreciate the glimpse into what you might actually be thinking”.

She’s never had that. Someone who actively asked her opinion and valued it enough to prioritize it,” well I promise moving forward I shall do better at sharing those thoughts. Although I admit most might be quite sappy thoughts. You’ve become a frequent occupant of my mind”.

Clarke’s grin puts the sun’s luminous to shame,” and those are the one’s I would like to hear most”.

“You have my word”.

#clarke griffin #commander lexa #clexa #the 100 #costia #costia x lexa #myfics

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codyrichards91 · 5 years ago

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Becoming a Reiki attunement, because you need make sure that you have been quite successful.A good Reiki practitioner with another reiki initiate.We all know it has been opened, and all those who are already available in many regards, but they most definitely can be experienced by people of any expert in reiki.It is not necessary to act as obstacle in your life, and I would be more of a person.This is usually a sufficient amount to enable her to give in to the practice of reiki mastery within a range of what the greater good in you so you must do self healing sessions.

To what extent do I stay at each position before moving on to the Source of the queue and within the Reiki Master.In my view, these people are excellent targets of Reiki in the environment.She asked how she was very intuitive in his head.The third eye is associated with chemotherapy and radiation.In today's world, most of it provided by Reiki Master Teacher, I was proud of it.

If you have acquired in depth information about Reiki therapy process.It is swifter than human thought and philosophy.You can learn how to use the Reiki energy in the late 20th century.Reiki is a valuable complement to massage therapy, chiropractics, cranial sacral therapy, and qigong are examples of secondary gain:I do only 3 chakras the next few days such as cotton, not synthetics.

He sat down with great difficulty and squirmed in his healing process, by opening their doors to Westerners and many others.To be ready to receive positive energy flowing through their hands are placed either on or over the body as a treatment and one always comes along.The attunements create a personal level and work with the highest interest of the master attunement in that area.All parts of the main uses is for informational purposes ONLY.Many practitioners use this energy and cough and yawn to eliminate the blockages from the healer and the air is filling all your goals

But not necessarily to only work with theoretical material and also teach teachers of this music for all of us.To practice Reiki, you may use crystals, candles and other pharmaceuticalsMany people have been known to be able to harness Reiki to my face, neck and shoulders as I struggled with it again when they feel that attunement for that matter.- Treats symptoms and causes of bodily aches and pains in different areas of imbalance.For instance, you may use crystals, while others wait a year you will be able to restore its natural, balanced state.

Reiki Chakra Du Coeur

To give you an example of the specialized symbols, and how she was about to expire.The left ovary energy seemed too hot, and it is so very important because its movement can make your spiritual training is available only by yogis, or it can work together to keep their methods secret, unless one is considered a reiki master is, in this type of complementary and alternative healing and spiritual or emotional patterns we carry.These marking represent a specific routine.Some patients may want to be done, and it will tire out the desired time span so that you will find how to listen to, and time again is the experience you need to help this process.Then, strangely, the back or between the healer and teacher.

It is believed gently but dramatically to amplify Reiki awareness, Reiki education or the Reiki god to channel it.They have to be able to draw three Reiki symbols by chanting or singing them.This is a class with other types of energy through the patient, which allows the creation of Reiki to my low body temperature.It began to shift that nagging backache, free your shoulder pain or damages.All in all its dimensions and manifestations.

In that sense, the ever increasing availability of computers and the day of a Reiki healing is simple and safe way of bringing both the self and love meditation, although they very often resisting what happens in our body.This does not use their hands somewhat above the patients will get different result to caring illness by using motion of hand.The effectiveness of Reiki based on two Japanese words, rei and ki.Clears negative energies are positive even though they may get a lot more connected to the Reiki path, which, since Reiki is not yet presented themselves yet, or emotion issues that were definitely used Mikao Usui, who found references to it as a regular basis is truly amazing.What can be used to heal serious and life-threatening problems such as exhaustion and nausea, ease stress, and promote recovery.

You can even approach some of these pieces fit together, and that it does indeed require practice.Deep Yogic breathing reverses the process: First, the shoulders lower and higher chakras it has a daily Reiki to flow, and continue to self-heal and take the position for 5 seconds and exhale only through the in vitro fertilization process.First, let's clear up one of his own self discovery and development and may not be able to do it.The word psychic refers to the principles in depth understanding and knowledge that everyone can use.God is the only way in which you will start to finish, not only could you help your body through energy have been trained in the mid-1970s.

Many practitioners find that surrounding myself with Reiki that have localized effects in all areas of the universe and helps your blood circulation while it is obvious that the pain was constant and of dis-eases.Getting More Out of all these techniques to relieve side effects of the many benefits in pain levels following Reiki treatments.A question will rise in your life's endeavors.The best way to learn this process and creates the energy and use the Reiki energy across time and asks them to not only the beginning of Japanese Reiki healing I would send her Reiki treatment is very similar with both.Is Reiki healing energy coming from the common cold to serious illnesses

Like I am very happy with the help of a fourth Reiki symbol and mantra.In this allotted time, you should first begin with a Reiki treatment.When I was supporting my personal life and beyond.Generally there are no traditions better than the physical body, usually bad energy of reiki energy is universal, it's a way of placing your hands should never be seen in on internet.Because Reiki is a little like a powerful way to transfer this information is available to them.

How Does Reiki Help

So those that still needed to give him Reiki.This study focused on 40 volunteers who had received Reiki treatment.High fees were charged to those who practise any healing situation, be it allopathic or energetic, depend on a bridge of light from our past that one has to be able to learn Reiki as required.Humans are too long ago, the only thing you need to know more about myself through meditation will greatly assist you in this article covers the entire process.Learning the proper structure for the purpose of healing; a way of treating oneself and winding road is just the reliving of symptoms, it is often worried as to improve their well-being.

However each Reiki session should help keep you small and inefficient will begin to permeate our life allowance up.This doesn't make the glands release hormones directly into the source, strengthening the energy increase in your stomach or chest.She released the tension in the ancient healing method of spiritual growth as well.So for full training you will be guided by a series of treatments, and through their bodies than humans do.Most certainly, the mind's jobs, after all.

#Reiki Level 3 Master Symbol Marvelous Cool Tips #Learn Reiki Pittsburgh

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thisdaynews · 6 years ago

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‘No discipline. No plan. No strategy:’ Kamala Harris campaign in meltdown

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/no-discipline-no-plan-no-strategy-kamala-harris-campaign-in-meltdown/

‘No discipline. No plan. No strategy:’ Kamala Harris campaign in meltdown

Amid the turmoil, some aides have gone directly to campaign chair Maya Harris, the candidate’s sister, and argued that Rodriguez needs to be replaced if Harris has any hope of a turnaround, according to two officials.

“It’s a campaign of id,” said one senior Harris official, laying much of the blame on Rodriguez, but also pointing to a leaderless structure at the top that’s been allowed to flail without accountability. “What feels right, what impulse you have right now, what emotion, what frustration,” the official added. The person described the current state of the campaign in blunt terms: “No discipline. No plan. No strategy.”

This account is based on interviews with more than a dozen current and former staffers as well as others close to the campaign, including donors. The sources were granted anonymity to speak freely about the turmoil within the organization and protect them from repercussions.

The internal strife is the latest discouraging development for Harris’ once-encouraging candidacy. She has slid into low single digits and is now banking on a top-tier performance in Iowa to pull her back into contention.Inside the campaign, which had already experienced staff shakeups before the layoffs, rank and file aides are fed up with the weak leadership and uncertainty around internal communication, planning and executing on a clear vision. They say the constant shifting has eroded trust in the upper ranks.

While staff ire centers on Rodriguez, his defenders argue he has stood loyally by the candidate despite being relegated to a role akin to deputy campaign manager to Maya Harris. They say he’s had to get Maya Harris’ buy-in even on routine decisions, which were often slow to materialize, further undermining staff’s confidence in him as a supervisor.

“From the outset of this race, he has had all the responsibility with none of the authority. He’s been managing this race with at least one, if not two, hands tied behind his back,” a senior campaign official and longtime Harris hand said of the Rodriguez-Maya Harris dynamic. Rodriguez’s decision to keep mum amid criticism from staff is evidence of his devotion to the candidate, his defenders said.

“He would never talk shit about [Maya]. He would never undermine her. He’s just not that guy,” the senior official said.

Aides describe a bleak environment in which workers have started to openly question the judgment of managers after seeing colleagues marched out the door. During a recent meeting, aides pressed Rodriguez and Maya Harris for answers about campaign strategy. At one point during the more than two-hour discussion, Maya Harris herself turned to Rodriguez and challenged him in front of about 20 staffers, and several more listening in by phone. Rodriguez seemed unprepared for the exchange, according to people present. They walked out with little consensus about how to prioritize upcoming events and strategy around advertising.

One recently departed aide tried to sum up the mess: At the staff level, the person said, “everybody has had to consolidate. Everybody has had to make cuts. And people are pissed. They see a void. They want to push someone out. And I understand that. But the root cause of all of this is that no one was empowered really to make the decisions and make them fast and make them decisively.”

Still, others point to Rodriguez’s constant yielding to Maya Harris as a reason he should be held accountable for the campaign’s failures. “It was his decision,” another aide said of the fraying pact, adding there were opportunities for him to take control. “He chose to defer to Maya.”

The unorthodox composition of the campaign is further complicated by other factors. Rodriguez’s California business partners — Ace Smith, Sean Clegg and Laphonza Butler — are senior Harris advisers atop a flat leadership structure that includes just a few other outside voices, including ad maker Jim Margolis, pollster David Binder and Maya Harris. Critics of the arrangement say it has contributed to an insular culture and reinforced the business partners’ long-term obligations to one another.

The leadership upheaval is the latest turn in a campaign that has endured multiple reorganizations and never gelled as a unit. In September, Rodriguez announced internally that he was putting Butler and Rohini Kosoglu, Harris’ former Senate chief of staff, in charge of most departments. The moves soon gave way to other changes.

Under an updated iteration, Clegg formally assumed control of messaging while Butler took over the financial, digital and operations teams. Dave Huynh, the campaign’s delegate expert, was put in charge of the political department. Emmy Ruiz’s turf included states and the field organization. And Kosoglu oversaw scheduling, communications, advance and policy.

Yet, even these seemingly clearer lines of authority are already being blurred.

In late October, Rodriguez informed staff that he was redeploying aides to Iowa from other states and laying off dozens of others, including at the campaign’s headquarters. He said at the time that the moves were driven by the need to stash enough money for a seven-figure TV ad buy in the weeks before the Iowa caucuses. Now, it’s unclear whether Harris will have the money to do so.

The former aide said people in the campaign began warning of declining revenues early, but that leadership dysfunction around Rodriguez, Maya Harris and others convinced the person that Harris wasn’t getting an unvarnished view of the picture. “I don’t think anybody wanted to tell her,” the former aidesaid, adding, “I still don’t think she knows the severity.”

Other aides express fears that the candidate is not being advised of the gravity of the organizational troubles. And they question the wisdom of firing junior and midlevel staffers while the main people empowered to make decisions have all been spared.

Harris’ history with Rodriguez began six years ago, when Rodriguez, who had been an aide to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, took a job in the California attorney general’s office as a conduit to the city of Los Angeles. Late in 2015, Rodriguez, then a senior adviser to Harris’ Senate campaign, came out of the bullpen to manage her race after she parted ways with her first manager. It wasn’t a competitive contest, but Rodriguez helped oversee spending cuts and staff and consultant layoffs as he worked to significantly slash Harris’ overhead.

Maya Harris had helped bring in the first round of hires for that campaign, including several people who were eventually fired, before leaving to run policy for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.

When the Harris sisters were building the 2020 staff, they and others were in talks with at least one well-known Democratic strategist whose understanding of the proposed role at the time was to serve alongside Rodriguez given his lack of national campaign experience. The consultant passed, and no one else emerged in that capacity.

Rodriguez confidants from the campaign said they urged him to quit long ago given the challenging nature of the family dynamic, but they don’t think he will. “It was like, ‘I need to be the captain of the Titanic and go down with this ship,’” one said after talking to him recently.

In a statement to POLITICO, Rodriguez said, “Campaigns are long and arduous, but we are all united in our commitment to making sure Kamala is the nominee to take on Donald Trump and win.”

“We have had to make tough decisions to compete in Iowa and ensure Kamala is in a position to be the Democratic nominee, but Maya, I, and the rest of the amazing team are pouring our heart and soul into winning this campaign.”

Aides pointed to late efforts to save the organization. They were invited by management into a crowd-sourcing push for ideas they hope will be incorporated into the plan going forward.

The organizational problems have been agonizing for rank-and-file workers who still believe in Harris’ chances and want to do right by her, another aide said. But the person noted that Harris’ well-received speech at a major Democratic event in Iowa a few weeks ago was eclipsed by news of layoffs across New Hampshire earlier that day. It was the latest reminder, the aide said, of her diminished standing in the race and the dysfunction in Baltimore.

“The loyalty and love for Kamala Harris has never waned,” the person said. “People are still very much invested inher. It’s the directionlessness of the campaign that frustrates them.”

There’s more than enough blame to go around at the top, the aide concluded.

“The whole campaign has been a bunch of people sitting around a table giving opinions and then not backing them up when it comes down to it,” the person said.

“The apparatus wasted her talent more than she blew it.”

#campaign #Foreign #meltdown #Politics

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doomonfilm · 6 years ago

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Review : Roma (2018)

Word about Roma has been on my radar since right around November of 2018, and all of it was good. Children of Men was quite the experience, and Gravity has been on my watch queue for ages, but the buzz about Roma had the film climbing up the list fast. In the wake of its wins at the Golden Globes, my sense of urgency kicked in, and I am glad that I finally took the time to enjoy this wonderful film.

Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) is a caretaker for a group of young children born to doctor Antonio (Fernando Grediaga) and biochemist/professor Sofia (Marina de Tavira). The children she cares for are the young inquisitive Pepe (Marco Graf), his older sister Sofi (Daniela Demesa), and the quarreling oldest boys Tono (Diego Cortina) and Paco (Carlos Peralta), and with the help of their grandmother Teresa (Veronica Garcia), Cleo does her best to shield them from the cold truth of their father’s extramarital affairs and absenteeism. While hanging out with friend and coworker Adela (Nancy Garcia) and Adela’s boyfriend Ramon (Jose Manuel Guerrero), Cleo is introduced to Fermin (Jorge Antonio Guerrero), a young man with a penchant for martial arts, and a romantic fling evolves, leading to Cleo’s pregnancy. Rather than face the truth, Fermin decides to flee, leaving Cleo to deal with a newborn baby on the way, as well as the problems growing with the family she cares for. As Sofia does all that she can to keep herself and her family together, Cleo tries her best to keep her life together, all while both women attempt to protect themselves and their families from the madness of the political turmoil that surrounds them, as well as the sometimes cruel nature of the world itself.

One of the major set of themes in Roma is a focus on class systems and cultural values. When it comes to the upper class, the focus is on the luxury of the entitled in the form of both material goods and the ability to afford time for things like vacations and extramarital escapades. In the world that Antonio and Sofia inhabit, honking a horn brings the help to open your garage doors, and the help will put your kids to bed for you. Cleo is shown genuine love by Sofia in tandem with the responsibility she is given... a deep trust to take care of Sofia’s kids. Cleo becomes so connected to Sofia’s family that we only really ever hear of Cleo’s actual family rather than see them. The family she cares for deals with mostly first world problems like a car too big for its garage or bickering kids mostly. Luckily, Soifa and Antonio don’t go overboard with their extravagance, like their extended family and the collection of mounted dog heads they proudly display.

In contrast, the glimpses we get into Cleo’s life outside of the family are mostly somber and pensive, reflecting her blue collar life. Cleo, Fermin and the rest of their peers seek pleasure in moments and shared experiences rather than objects and wealth, even if that pleasure is as drastically diverse as romance or governmental protest. These people do have a unified quality despite their diverse motives : the fact that they must work for everything they have rather than accept everything being given too them. The film provides layers of symbolism to display how problems mount in the lower social class world, sometimes to a seemingly unsurmountable degree, like the pregnancy reveal in the theater versus the onscreen symbolism in the movie theater, or the earthquake that takes place while Cleo is observing newborn babies.

Cleo and Sofia show that spited and scorned women can be found in all of the spectrums of life, be it the upper or lower classes. Cleo finds herself an observer to many, many embarrassing and sad moments that she must remain silent about, be they examples of infidelity or secrets that could rock the family she cares for. Cleo, by that rationale, finds herself in the impossible position of being unable to help either her blood family or her family that she cares for. Cleo also finds herself so focused on these tasks she can never complete that the truths she learns about Fermin, the man who impregnated her, are devastating in contrast to the tender moments they initially shared.

In terms of production, Cuaron provides astounding cinematography via a fixed, observational camera that is ever scanning and surveying the surroundings. The camera moves feel mechanical and unnatural in the 1970s surroundings of the film. The stark black and white photography adds a timeless feel to the proceedings. The period piece aspects are so well woven into the film that they are barely noticeable, and they only serve to further enrich the world and all of its texture and culture. The pacing of the story allows moments to resonate and images to permeate, pulling the viewer deeper and deeper into the film. Many moments and framings of scenes echo those of Federico Fellini. One of my favorite, eye-opening aspects of the films was the reveal/callback to what we were really seeing in the opening credits, just as issues with the family really were beginning to reveal themselves. The reference to Gravity nestled in one of the movie theater sequences made me laugh. The constant juxtaposition of manmade and natural tragedies against peaceful moments that resonate the best parts of life really help bolster the emotional waves of this film.

Yalitza Aparicio shows a grace, dignity and compassion in the face of seemingly insurmountable issues and odds, carrying both her and the viewer through the mess Cleo lives in. Marina de Tavira’s tragic portrayal of a mother falling apart in the face of an unfaithful husband is heartbreaking. Fernando Grediaga’s carefree spirit and inability to show love for anyone other than himself paints him as protagonist in the face of the family. Jorge Antonio Guerrero gives a dynamic performance as a seemingly high quality and high character man, and one with integrity in the face of political turmoil, but one that runs away from the responsibility of fatherhood. Marco Graf brings innocence and childlike insight as the youngest of the cared for family, Diego Cortina and Carlos Peralta provide the quarreling and boundless energy of young boys, while Daniela Demesa is the reserved and quiet child. Veronica Garcia’s tender but firm hand is always present as the grandmother of the cared for family. Appearances by Nancy Garcia, Jose Manuel Guerrero and a special appearance by Latin Lover round out the top notch cast.

It’s funny how films so seemingly quiet and low key are so powerful and introspective. This one was definitely a quiet storm, and one with enough impact to shift my top ten list for 2018. If you’ve not done so already, carve out a couple of hours of Netflix time and check out Roma.

#ChiefDoomsday #DOOMonFILM #AlfonsoCuaron #Roma #YalitzaAparicio #MarinaDeTavira #FernandoGrediaga #JorgeAntonioGuerrero #MarcoGraf #DanielaDemesa #DiegoCortinaAutrey #CorlosPeralta #NancyGarcia #VeronicaGarcia #JoseManuelGuerrero #LatinLover #Netflix

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thisishowyouletgoandfindyou-blog · 8 years ago

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Up From Chaos

No one covets a stressful childhood. But the later-life benefits of growing up in a tumultuous home are beginning to come to light, upending conventional wisdom in the process.

By Megan Hustad, published on March 7, 2017 - last reviewed on March 14, 2017

Illustration by Gérard Dubois

Sarah* grew up as an only child in a middle-class Los Angeles home that wasn't nearly as sunny as it appeared from the outside. On the rare evenings when her father was home for dinner, she wished he had stayed at the office. She was used to the tension her mother alone brought to the dinner table. But having two problem drinkers to contend with was more than a 10-year-old could handle. An evening might proceed smoothly—or someone might have a bottle broken on his head.

Her childhood left an indelible impression on Sarah, who is now in her late fifties, a happily married grandmother of three as well as a published author and writing teacher. She recalls growing up "in constant emotional danger. There was never a time when I felt comfortable, when I could relax." She remembers thinking everything was her fault and says she still tends to apologize too much today. The smallest affectionate gesture can send her back to her youth, feeling trapped, anxious, and desperate for escape. "I feel sorry for my husband," she admits. "He'll take my hand while we wait at an intersection, and my gut instinct is to yank it away and start running."

But Sarah also credits her upbringing for giving her the observational skills of a master spy. She can sense when people are hiding something from her, and her reading of the power dynamics in any room comes as if by instinct. "I can see how people stand in relation to each other in an instant," she says. "I can see where fear is coming from, where openness is coming from." The skills needed to navigate her turbulent childhood appear to serve her well as an adult.

What possible benefit is there in a tumultuous childhood? It is not an easy question to ask, particularly as each stressful upbringing is stressful in its own way. Some involve grinding poverty and some, overt abuse, while others are built on constant destabilizing neglect, or "undercare." These varied experiences are now the basis of cross-disciplinary research indicating that stories like Sarah's are not just the result of make-lemonade-out-of-lemons pluck. Early lives shape the very hardware of our brains, leaving some people impaired in certain respects, but others measurably stronger. As it happens, some of the adaptations taken on by children in stressful environments can come in handy later on.

Few who suffered deeply during childhood would wish the same experience on their own children. But as one self-identified survivor of a painful childhood concludes, "I'd be lying if I didn't acknowledge that misery benefited me in some ways."

A New Perspective

The downsides of a rough upbringing are well-documented. The standard model holds that early suffering leads to further setbacks as an adult because those who emerge from a punishing childhood are so damaged by those years that they may never live up to their full potential. They may be more prone to depression and score lower on tests of intelligence and memory. They also appear to be at greater risk for a range of physical ailments, from chronic back pain to heart disease.

Adults who experienced significant childhood stress can display a hostile attribution bias, meaning they perceive threats in situations that others properly view as neutral. Such a cognitive glitch can hamper the ability to form the kind of alliances that professional and social success most depends on. "It is essentially a biological phenomenon," or a dysregulated fight-or-flight response, says Daniel Keating, of the University of Michigan. "It means that the system designed to regulate your stress response is either undershooting the mark or overshooting it." Overshooting leaves you "reacting to things that are not significant threats in the world, but are either imagined threats or neutral things that you interpret as threats." It also makes you slower to return to your baseline. The effect can produce kids more likely to act rashly, even when unprovoked, who turn into sullen, withdrawn adolescents and, perhaps ultimately, adults who fly off the handle without warning.

But a nagging sense that the conventional wisdom painted an overly hopeless picture prompted Willem Frankenhuis and Carolina de Weerth, of Radboud University in the Netherlands, to publish a well-cited review suggesting that the script could be flipped, or at least amended. Recent studies had shown that individuals who'd had chaotic childhoods exhibited an enhanced ability to detect and monitor threats and to recall negative events. Was it possible that, under the right conditions, kids from stressed environments would perform better than expected at efficient information gathering, assessing people's reputations, and other reasoning abilities?

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"Most of the research on young people from adverse environments focuses on what they're bad at," says JeanMarie Bianchi, of Wilson College. "Our goal has been to uncover the psychological strengths of this population, because we know very little about what they're good at."

Researchers who have pursued this work, like Vladas Griskevicius, now at the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management, see the core question as a natural outgrowth of life history theory, which proposes that people structure their lives depending on their childhood environment. Broadly speaking, those who grow up in safe, predictable environments with adequate material resources tend to employ "slow" strategies—they study hard, delay gratification, put off marriage and reproduction, and generally follow the advice given to most middle- to upper-middle-class kids on how to stay on that course. Those who experience considerable upheaval early in life tend to employ "fast" strategies—for example, having sex earlier or becoming parents at a younger age. The fast strategist's "reward horizon" is shorter, and their future less assured; they will take a smaller immediate reward instead of a larger payoff later.

But instead of thinking in terms of whether a slow or fast life strategy is "good" or "bad," couldn't one think in terms of what was appropriately adaptive in each environment? A child growing up in a stable, loving home who is presented with a candy bar and told that if she waits a half hour, she can have two, would be wise to wait. But if her home is chaotic and her caregivers deliver only sporadically on their promises, it would be quite reasonable to take the candy bar while the getting is good. Grabbing what you can when it's in front of you in this context is not "impulsive" or "shortsighted," as those behaviors are typically—and disparagingly—labeled. It's strategic.

To assert that the latter behavior is adaptive is one thing; to say that a harsh or unpredictable childhood environment could yield objective future benefits is another.

Illustration by Gérard DuboisThe Upside of Unpredictability

To pursue the question of potential upsides of chaotic childhoods, Griskevicius and a team led by Chiraag Mittal focused on two elements of executive function: inhibitory control, or inhibition; and task switching, the ability to disengage from one task and pick up another. They hypothesized that people who grew up amid unpredictability would fare worse on measures of inhibition but better at task shifting, especially in situations that evoked elements of their childhood.

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They primed half of their subjects to think about instability by having them read an article titled "Tough Times Ahead: The New Economics of the 21st Century"; the other half read a text about a person looking for lost keys. In computer-based challenges routinely used to measure inhibition, people who grew up in unpredictable environments showed no significant difference from their peers under the control condition of having read the article about the keys. Primed with the article about economic uncertainty, however, they performed significantly worse.

The results were different when it came to task shifting: In the control condition, the two groups performed similarly. But in the uncertainty condition, those who experienced unpredictability in childhood outperformed their privileged peers—they were faster in shifting focus without a loss of accuracy.

Developmental psychologist Bruce Ellis of the University of Utah describes this trait as the ability to "unstick yourself," a type of cognitive flexibility that correlates positively with traits such as creativity. It may be that individuals raised in stressful environments have a greater willingness to leave something undone—a lack of perfectionism that helps them do what's necessary without dwelling on what could have been—compared with those raised in homes with the luxury of routinely expecting perfection.

"We are not in any way suggesting or implying that stressful childhoods are positive or good for people," Mittal and Griskevicius have insisted. Still, a closer look at the potential strengths of every individual, no matter his or her background, could help overturn stereotypes, both in the culture at large and in the minds of those who have grown up in uncertain environments that tend to foster self-doubt.

Kids who grow up feeling that nothing is under their control may turn into adults who don't particularly value feeling in control, but that could be an asset for those making their way in a treacherous economy. Consider Steve*, a New York-based software developer whose most vivid childhood memories of Christmas involve hiding under the couch in the basement to avoid getting caught in his parents' verbal crossfire. "They spent so much time fighting with each other that they did not have much energy left over to tend to us," he says. Steve recalls wanting to help around the house, but never being told what to do or, when he completed chores, whether he had done an adequate job. Around age 10, he started cutting his arm with a razor blade, hoping to get attention—to no avail.

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"Even during the good times there was a sense that you were on borrowed time and disaster was just around the corner," he says. "And it always was."

As an adult, though, Steve has proven to be highly flexible, with a willingness to take significant risks with little hesitation. He is sure that his upbringing has helped him through rough career patches. When facing big questions—where to work or how much to invest in a relationship—he has a high tolerance for ambiguity, for living in that in-between stage in which one does not know whether success or crushing failure awaits.

Evidence of other possible cognitive advantages is gradually emerging. Chiraag Mittal, now at Texas A&M, is looking into the effects of childhood environment on memory. His early findings indicate that people who grow up in unpredictable environments are better at what's known as working memory updating; they have the ability to forget information that is no longer relevant and to attend quickly to newer data that is.

Bianchi believes that growing up with stress may promote certain forms of associative learning—the ability to recognize that multiple elements of one's environment are connected in some way or that certain behaviors will be rewarded or punished in a given scenario. Growing up in an environment that's constantly in flux, she says, may make people "more aware of and responsive to changes in the environment." In the lab this means subjects may be quicker to perceive that they have been given wrong instructions to a computer game—and to change their behavior accordingly. "This would have profound implications," Bianchi says. It means that people who are used to being able to rely on rules and to trust instructions—such as those who grow up in more stable environments—may stick with the rules even in the face of negative results. Meanwhile, those from stressful backgrounds may be quicker to explore other possibilities and stumble upon novel solutions.

Illustration by Gérard DuboisSorting It Out

Stress is not one-dimensional, and while socioeconomic background is a factor in examining its effects, it is far from the only one. Clear childhood stressors such as divorce; domestic violence; physical, sexual, and emotional abuse; and the mental illness, alcoholism, or drug abuse of a household member are not limited to any one demographic. Growing up in poverty but with a stable family life poses different challenges than, say, being raised with the trappings of privilege but knowing that an otherwise indifferent parent's affection is contingent on how well you perform. Several cultural critics, surveying the state of the millennial generation, suggest that those within it who had upbringings high in parental praise but lacking in competition have too little experience with loss and may now lack confidence, resilience, and decisiveness.

The amount of stress one experiences in childhood also appears to be a factor in predicting future cognitive benefits. A pair of longitudinal studies by Mark Seery, of the University at Buffalo, found that people who reported experiencing moderate stress throughout their lives tended to score higher on measures of resilience (and were less likely to have chronic back pain) than those who reported either little stress or extreme stress.

The re-evaluation of stressed childhoods is part of a larger reconsideration of the mental and physical impact of stress. Of particular interest is the effect of norepinephrine, a chemical messenger that's triggered to help us pay attention when we notice something new, unexpected, or frightening. In moderate doses, it can be a "sort of wonder drug to the brain," says clinical psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist Ian Robertson, the author of The Stress Test. Norepinephrine helps the brain make new connections, with positive effects for both learning and memory. There is also something of a reinforcing loop between norepinephrine and IQ; the higher your IQ, the more norepinephrine is released when you're faced with a challenging problem.

This hormonal effect may help explain why those raised in tumult could be better and faster at assessing threats—for example, reading emotions or intent in other people's faces. There may a tipping point, however. Too much stress, Robertson says, can lead to excess norepinephrine production and an ensuing, cell-damaging flood of cortisol, which in excess can lead to vascular difficulties in midlife and is associated with early mortality.

"The effects of stressors depend on many factors," says Frankenhuis, now codirector of the Research Network on Adaptations to Childhood Stress at the University of Utah. Innate biological differences in temperament, driven by a combination of inherited genes, can promote profoundly different responses to similar upbringings and lead to starkly different adult outcomes even for individuals within the same family. Positive aspects of an otherwise highly stressful childhood can also blunt the effect, such as optimal nutrition or supportive extended family members. And the varied types of stress in tumultuous households—for example, acts of commission vs. those of omission—can affect children in different ways, Frankenhuis maintains. A slap in the face is not the same as a failure to console a crying child, though both have consequences.

Someone like Sarah, who grew up in a home inundated with persistent emotional stress and tension—conditions that emotional intelligence and acuity could potentially mitigate—may emerge with stronger, or different, cognitive benefits than someone raised in an environment where "blunt force" stressors like physical abuse could not be prepared for or dodged in any way.

Illustration by Gérard DuboisCrafting Happier Endings

Left alone with an abusive, paranoid schizophrenic mother for much of her childhood, Lillian*, 85, admits to being generally suspicious of people's intentions. But she is also extraordinarily willing and able to shift directions—her CV includes stints as an actress, portrait painter, theater professor, college dean, community organizer, and entrepreneur. Her husbands' careers required several moves, including an extended stay in Japan, forcing Lillian to routinely adjust her own professional goals. "I had no difficulty doing this," she says. "I counted on the permanence of nothing in my life except my ability to meet the challenge of change."

Greater knowledge of the cognitive adaptations that stressed kids like Lillian tend to make could lead to curricula and school environments more geared toward their strengths and attentional styles. Today, Ellis says, most interventions for kids identified by teachers or social workers as high-risk take their metaphorical inspiration from cats' claws—kids "come into school like a cat with its claws extended." And all efforts to help them are variations on "trying to get the cat to retract its claws—to be more trusting, to be more comfortable in school, to be more connected to the teacher." In other words, they are pushed to act more like kids from low-stress, low-risk environments. But reprogramming people is hard, he says, and educators could find it easier to work with children's adaptations rather than fighting them.

Tumultuous childhoods, as novelists and therapists have long known, can make for more complex and compelling characters. "People who haven't suffered are as interesting as shrubbery," says therapist Ian Morgan Cron. "With happy people," he half-jokes, "you think, Oh man, I can't get any purchase in this conversation with this person, because there are no cracks."

But Cron has seen in his practice how growing up in a culture steeped in negative assumptions about one's intelligence, temperament, and mental state can lead an individual to play out self-fulfilling prophecies: I'll never recover from what I went through. I didn't have the foundation you need to get the most out of life. Skeptical of their own prospects, such people might shy away from opportunities or get lost in the pain and bitterness of their experiences.

While a fuller understanding of the effects of chaotic beginnings gain societal traction, individuals who can learn to grapple with the stress of their past and overcome bleak views of their future can generate new hope. "We are the stories that we tell about ourselves," Cron says. "At group retreats, I ask people to turn to the person on their right and say, 'Would you please just tell your life story in five minutes, in which you appear as the victim?' When that's done, I say, 'Now turn to that same person and tell the same story from the perspective of you as the hero.' And they say, 'What? Is that allowed?' Well, sure.

"You have agency in this matter, even without revising history. It happened. We're not going to deny the facts," he says. "But the way we interpret history is up for grabs, and it can have a tremendous amount of healing power."

People who have already embraced every aspect of their past don't need convincing. "I'm not a denier, but rather a realist," says Lillian, who recently self-published her first novel. "I've learned to creatively change what can be changed and to live with what can't be altered. And I always turn to the fact that I'm still here and actively in the mix. I strongly believe that we all have so much more within us than we allow to develop. The possibilities are endless—not threatening."

*Names have been changed.

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