#It’s the most pig tail pulling flirting I’ve ever seen

[bunnymcfoo]

Your honor, they are in semi-violent love

December 3, 2022

[blackwoolncrown]

”This essay has been kicking around in my head for years now and I’ve never felt confident enough to write it. It’s a time in my life I’m ashamed of. It’s a time that I hurt people and, through inaction, allowed others to be hurt. It’s a time that I acted as a violent agent of capitalism and white supremacy. Under the guise of public safety, I personally ruined people’s lives but in so doing, made the public no safer… so did the family members and close friends of mine who also bore the badge alongside me.

But enough is enough.

The reforms aren’t working. Incrementalism isn’t happening. Unarmed Black, indigenous, and people of color are being killed by cops in the streets and the police are savagely attacking the people protesting these murders.

American policing is a thick blue tumor strangling the life from our communities and if you don’t believe it when the poor and the marginalized say it, if you don’t believe it when you see cops across the country shooting journalists with less-lethal bullets and caustic chemicals, maybe you’ll believe it when you hear it straight from the pig’s mouth.”

>>Copied here in case anyone gets paywalled when they click the above. The full article is...a lot.<<

WHY AM I WRITING THIS

As someone who went through the training, hiring, and socialization of a career in law enforcement, I wanted to give a first-hand account of why I believe police officers are the way they are. Not to excuse their behavior, but to explain it and to indict the structures that perpetuate it.

I believe that if everyone understood how we’re trained and brought up in the profession, it would inform the demands our communities should be making of a new way of community safety. If I tell you how we were made, I hope it will empower you to unmake us.

One of the other reasons I’ve struggled to write this essay is that I don’t want to center the conversation on myself and my big salty boo-hoo feelings about my bad choices. It’s a toxic white impulse to see atrocities and think “How can I make this about me?” So, I hope you’ll take me at my word that this account isn’t meant to highlight me, but rather the hundred thousand of me in every city in the country. It’s about the structure that made me (that I chose to pollute myself with) and it’s my meager contribution to the cause of radical justice.

YES, ALL COPS ARE BASTARDS

I was a police officer in a major metropolitan area in California with a predominantly poor, non-white population (with a large proportion of first-generation immigrants). One night during briefing, our watch commander told us that the city council had requested a new zero tolerance policy. Against murderers, drug dealers, or child predators?

No, against homeless people collecting cans from recycling bins.

See, the city had some kickback deal with the waste management company where waste management got paid by the government for our expected tonnage of recycling. When homeless people “stole” that recycling from the waste management company, they were putting that cheaper contract in peril. So, we were to arrest as many recyclers as we could find.

Even for me, this was a stupid policy and I promptly blew Sarge off. But a few hours later, Sarge called me over to assist him. He was detaining a 70 year old immigrant who spoke no English, who he’d seen picking a coke can out of a trash bin. He ordered me to arrest her for stealing trash. I said, “Sarge, c’mon, she’s an old lady.” He said, “I don’t give a shit. Hook her up, that’s an order.” And… I did. She cried the entire way to the station and all through the booking process. I couldn’t even comfort her because I didn’t speak Spanish. I felt disgusting but I was ordered to make this arrest and I wasn’t willing to lose my job for her.

If you’re tempted to feel sympathy for me, don’t. I used to happily hassle the homeless under other circumstances. I researched obscure penal codes so I could arrest people in homeless encampments for lesser known crimes like “remaining too close to railroad property” (369i of the California Penal Code). I used to call it “planting warrant seeds” since I knew they wouldn’t make their court dates and we could arrest them again and again for warrant violations.

We used to have informal contests for who could cite or arrest someone for the weirdest law. DUI on a bicycle, non-regulation number of brooms on your tow truck (27700(a)(1) of the California Vehicle Code)… shit like that. For me, police work was a logic puzzle for arresting people, regardless of their actual threat to the community. As ashamed as I am to admit it, it needs to be said: stripping people of their freedom felt like a game to me for many years.

I know what you’re going to ask: did I ever plant drugs? Did I ever plant a gun on someone? Did I ever make a false arrest or file a false report? Believe it or not, the answer is no. Cheating was no fun, I liked to get my stats the “legitimate” way. But I knew officers who kept a little baggie of whatever or maybe a pocket knife that was a little too big in their war bags (yeah, we called our dufflebags “war bags”…). Did I ever tell anybody about it? No I did not. Did I ever confess my suspicions when cocaine suddenly showed up in a gang member’s jacket? No I did not.

In fact, let me tell you about an extremely formative experience: in my police academy class, we had a clique of around six trainees who routinely bullied and harassed other students: intentionally scuffing another trainee’s shoes to get them in trouble during inspection, sexually harassing female trainees, cracking racist jokes, and so on. Every quarter, we were to write anonymous evaluations of our squadmates. I wrote scathing accounts of their behavior, thinking I was helping keep bad apples out of law enforcement and believing I would be protected. Instead, the academy staff read my complaints to them out loud and outed me to them and never punished them, causing me to get harassed for the rest of my academy class. That’s how I learned that even police leadership hates rats. That’s why no one is “changing things from the inside.” They can’t, the structure won’t allow it.

And that’s the point of what I’m telling you. Whether you were my sergeant, legally harassing an old woman, me, legally harassing our residents, my fellow trainees bullying the rest of us, or “the bad apples” illegally harassing “shitbags”, we were all in it together. I knew cops that pulled women over to flirt with them. I knew cops who would pepper spray sleeping bags so that homeless people would have to throw them away. I knew cops that intentionally provoked anger in suspects so they could claim they were assaulted. I was particularly good at winding people up verbally until they lashed out so I could fight them. Nobody spoke out. Nobody stood up. Nobody betrayed the code.

None of us protected the people (you) from bad cops.

This is why “All cops are bastards.” Even your uncle, even your cousin, even your mom, even your brother, even your best friend, even your spouse, even me. Because even if they wouldn’t Do The Thing themselves, they will almost never rat out another officer who Does The Thing, much less stop it from happening.

BASTARD 101

I could write an entire book of the awful things I’ve done, seen done, and heard others bragging about doing. But, to me, the bigger question is “How did it get this way?”. While I was a police officer in a city 30 miles from where I lived, many of my fellow officers were from the community and treated their neighbors just as badly as I did. While every cop’s individual biases come into play, it’s the profession itself that is toxic, and it starts from day 1 of training.

Every police academy is different but all of them share certain features: taught by old cops, run like a paramilitary bootcamp, strong emphasis on protecting yourself more than anyone else. The majority of my time in the academy was spent doing aggressive physical training and watching video after video after video of police officers being murdered on duty.

I want to highlight this: nearly everyone coming into law enforcement is bombarded with dash cam footage of police officers being ambushed and killed. Over and over and over. Colorless VHS mortality plays, cops screaming for help over their radios, their bodies going limp as a pair of tail lights speed away into a grainy black horizon. In my case, with commentary from an old racist cop who used to brag about assaulting Black Panthers.

To understand why all cops are bastards, you need to understand one of the things almost every training officer told me when it came to using force:

“I’d rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6.”

Meaning, “I’ll take my chances in court rather than risk getting hurt”. We’re able to think that way because police unions are extremely overpowered and because of the generous concept of Qualified Immunity, a legal theory which says a cop generally can’t be held personally liable for mistakes they make doing their job in an official capacity.

When you look at the actions of the officers who killed George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, David McAtee, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Eric Garner, or Freddie Gray, remember that they, like me, were trained to recite “I’d rather be judged by 12” as a mantra. Even if Mistakes Were Made™, the city (meaning the taxpayers, meaning you) pays the settlement, not the officer.

Once police training has - through repetition, indoctrination, and violent spectacle - promised officers that everyone in the world is out to kill them, the next lesson is that your partners are the only people protecting you. Occasionally, this is even true: I’ve had encounters turn on me rapidly to the point I legitimately thought I was going to die, only to have other officers come and turn the tables.

One of the most important thought leaders in law enforcement is Col. Dave Grossman, a “killologist” who wrote an essay called “Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs”. Cops are the sheepdogs, bad guys are the wolves, and the citizens are the sheep (!). Col. Grossman makes sure to mention that to a stupid sheep, sheepdogs look more like wolves than sheep, and that’s why they dislike you.

This “they hate you for protecting them and only I love you, only I can protect you” tactic is familiar to students of abuse. It’s what abusers do to coerce their victims into isolation, pulling them away from friends and family and ensnaring them in the abuser’s toxic web. Law enforcement does this too, pitting the officer against civilians. “They don’t understand what you do, they don’t respect your sacrifice, they just want to get away with crimes. You’re only safe with us.”

I think the Wolves vs. Sheepdogs dynamic is one of the most important elements as to why officers behave the way they do. Every single second of my training, I was told that criminals were not a legitimate part of their community, that they were individual bad actors, and that their bad actions were solely the result of their inherent criminality. Any concept of systemic trauma, generational poverty, or white supremacist oppression was either never mentioned or simply dismissed. After all, most people don’t steal, so anyone who does isn’t “most people,” right? To us, anyone committing a crime deserved anything that happened to them because they broke the “social contract.” And yet, it was never even a question as to whether the power structure above them was honoring any sort of contract back.

Understand: Police officers are part of the state monopoly on violence and all police training reinforces this monopoly as a cornerstone of police work, a source of honor and pride. Many cops fantasize about getting to kill someone in the line of duty, egged on by others that have. One of my training officers told me about the time he shot and killed a mentally ill homeless man wielding a big stick. He bragged that he “slept like a baby” that night. Official training teaches you how to be violent effectively and when you’re legally allowed to deploy that violence, but “unofficial training” teaches you to desire violence, to expand the breadth of your violence without getting caught, and to erode your own compassion for desperate people so you can justify punitive violence against them.

HOW TO BE A BASTARD

I have participated in some of these activities personally, others are ones I either witnessed personally or heard officers brag about openly. Very, very occasionally, I knew an officer who was disciplined or fired for one of these things.

Police officers will lie about the law, about what’s illegal, or about what they can legally do to you in order to manipulate you into doing what they want.

Police officers will lie about feeling afraid for their life to justify a use of force after the fact.

Police officers will lie and tell you they’ll file a police report just to get you off their back.

Police officers will lie that your cooperation will “look good for you” in court, or that they will “put in a good word for you with the DA.” The police will never help you look good in court.

Police officers will lie about what they see and hear to access private property to conduct unlawful searches.

Police officers will lie and say your friend already ratted you out, so you might as well rat them back out. This is almost never true.

Police officers will lie and say you’re not in trouble in order to get you to exit a location or otherwise make an arrest more convenient for them.

Police officers will lie and say that they won’t arrest you if you’ll just “be honest with them” so they know what really happened.

Police officers will lie about their ability to seize the property of friends and family members to coerce a confession.

Police officers will write obviously bullshit tickets so that they get time-and-a-half overtime fighting them in court.

Police officers will search places and containers you didn’t consent to and later claim they were open or “smelled like marijuana”.

Police officers will threaten you with a more serious crime they can’t prove in order to convince you to confess to the lesser crime they really want you for.

Police officers will employ zero tolerance on races and ethnicities they dislike and show favor and lenience to members of their own group.

Police officers will use intentionally extra-painful maneuvers and holds during an arrest to provoke “resistance” so they can further assault the suspect.

Some police officers will plant drugs and weapons on you, sometimes to teach you a lesson, sometimes if they kill you somewhere away from public view.

Some police officers will assault you to intimidate you and threaten to arrest you if you tell anyone.

A non-trivial number of police officers will steal from your house or vehicle during a search.

A non-trivial number of police officers commit intimate partner violence and use their status to get away with it.

A non-trivial number of police officers use their position to entice, coerce, or force sexual favors from vulnerable people.

If you take nothing else away from this essay, I want you to tattoo this onto your brain forever: if a police officer is telling you something, it is probably a lie designed to gain your compliance.

Do not talk to cops and never, ever believe them. Do not “try to be helpful” with cops. Do not assume they are trying to catch someone else instead of you. Do not assume what they are doing is “important” or even legal. Under no circumstances assume any police officer is acting in good faith.

Also, and this is important, do not talk to cops.

I just remembered something, do not talk to cops.

Checking my notes real quick, something jumped out at me:

Do

not

fucking

talk

to

cops.

Ever.

Say, “I don’t answer questions,” and ask if you’re free to leave; if so, leave. If not, tell them you want your lawyer and that, per the Supreme Court, they must terminate questioning. If they don’t, file a complaint and collect some badges for your mantle.

DO THE BASTARDS EVER HELP?

Reading the above, you may be tempted to ask whether cops ever do anything good. And the answer is, sure, sometimes. In fact, most officers I worked with thought they were usually helping the helpless and protecting the safety of innocent people.

During my tenure in law enforcement, I protected women from domestic abusers, arrested cold-blooded murderers and child molesters, and comforted families who lost children to car accidents and other tragedies. I helped connect struggling people in my community with local resources for food, shelter, and counseling. I deescalated situations that could have turned violent and talked a lot of people down from making the biggest mistake of their lives. I worked with plenty of officers who were individually kind, bought food for homeless residents, or otherwise showed care for their community.

The question is this: did I need a gun and sweeping police powers to help the average person on the average night? The answer is no. When I was doing my best work as a cop, I was doing mediocre work as a therapist or a social worker. My good deeds were listening to people failed by the system and trying to unite them with any crumbs of resources the structure was currently denying them.

It’s also important to note that well over 90% of the calls for service I handled were reactive, showing up well after a crime had taken place. We would arrive, take a statement, collect evidence (if any), file the report, and onto the next caper. Most “active” crimes we stopped were someone harmless possessing or selling a small amount of drugs. Very, very rarely would we stop something dangerous in progress or stop something from happening entirely. The closest we could usually get was seeing someone running away from the scene of a crime, but the damage was still done.

And consider this: my job as a police officer required me to be a marriage counselor, a mental health crisis professional, a conflict negotiator, a social worker, a child advocate, a traffic safety expert, a sexual assault specialist, and, every once in awhile, a public safety officer authorized to use force, all after only a 1000 hours of training at a police academy. Does the person we send to catch a robber also need to be the person we send to interview a rape victim or document a fender bender? Should one profession be expected to do all that important community care (with very little training) all at the same time?

To put this another way: I made double the salary most social workers made to do a fraction of what they could do to mitigate the causes of crimes and desperation. I can count very few times my monopoly on state violence actually made our citizens safer, and even then, it’s hard to say better-funded social safety nets and dozens of other community care specialists wouldn’t have prevented a problem before it started.

Armed, indoctrinated (and dare I say, traumatized) cops do not make you safer; community mutual aid networks who can unite other people with the resources they need to stay fed, clothed, and housed make you safer. I really want to hammer this home: every cop in your neighborhood is damaged by their training, emboldened by their immunity, and they have a gun and the ability to take your life with near-impunity. This does not make you safer, even if you’re white.

HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE A BASTARD?

So what do we do about it? Even though I’m an expert on bastardism, I am not a public policy expert nor an expert in organizing a post-police society. So, before I give some suggestions, let me tell you what probably won’t solve the problem of bastard cops:

Increased “bias” training. A quarterly or even monthly training session is not capable of covering over years of trauma-based camaraderie in police forces. I can tell you from experience, we don’t take it seriously, the proctors let us cheat on whatever “tests” there are, and we all made fun of it later over coffee.

Tougher laws. I hope you understand by now, cops do not follow the law and will not hold each other accountable to the law. Tougher laws are all the more reason to circle the wagons and protect your brothers and sisters.

More community policing programs. Yes, there is a marginal effect when a few cops get to know members of the community, but look at the protests of 2020: many of the cops pepper-spraying journalists were probably the nice school cop a month ago.

Police officers do not protect and serve people, they protect and serve the status quo, “polite society”, and private property. Using the incremental mechanisms of the status quo will never reform the police because the status quo relies on police violence to exist. Capitalism requires a permanent underclass to exploit for cheap labor and it requires the cops to bring that underclass to heel.

Instead of wasting time with minor tweaks, I recommend exploring the following ideas:

No more qualified immunity. Police officers should be personally liable for all decisions they make in the line of duty.

No more civil asset forfeiture. Did you know that every year, citizens like you lose more cash and property to unaccountable civil asset forfeiture than to all burglaries combined? The police can steal your stuff without charging you with a crime and it makes some police departments very rich.

Break the power of police unions. Police unions make it nearly impossible to fire bad cops and incentivize protecting them to protect the power of the union. A police union is not a labor union; police officers are powerful state agents, not exploited workers.

Require malpractice insurance. Doctors must pay for insurance in case they botch a surgery, police officers should do the same for botching a police raid or other use of force. If human decency won’t motivate police to respect human life, perhaps hitting their wallet might.

Defund, demilitarize, and disarm cops. Thousands of police departments own assault rifles, armored personnel carriers, and stuff you’d see in a warzone. Police officers have grants and huge budgets to spend on guns, ammo, body armor, and combat training. 99% of calls for service require no armed response, yet when all you have is a gun, every problem feels like target practice. Cities are not safer when unaccountable bullies have a monopoly on state violence and the equipment to execute that monopoly.

One final idea: consider abolishing the police.

I know what you’re thinking, “What? We need the police! They protect us!” As someone who did it for nearly a decade, I need you to understand that by and large, police protection is marginal, incidental. It’s an illusion created by decades of copaganda designed to fool you into thinking these brave men and women are holding back the barbarians at the gates.

I alluded to this above: the vast majority of calls for service I handled were theft reports, burglary reports, domestic arguments that hadn’t escalated into violence, loud parties, (houseless) people loitering, traffic collisions, very minor drug possession, and arguments between neighbors. Mostly the mundane ups and downs of life in the community, with little inherent danger. And, like I mentioned, the vast majority of crimes I responded to (even violent ones) had already happened; my unaccountable license to kill was irrelevant.

What I mainly provided was an “objective” third party with the authority to document property damage, ask people to chill out or disperse, or counsel people not to beat each other up. A trained counselor or conflict resolution specialist would be ten times more effective than someone with a gun strapped to his hip wondering if anyone would try to kill him when he showed up. There are many models for community safety that can be explored if we get away from the idea that the only way to be safe is to have a man with a M4 rifle prowling your neighborhood ready at a moment’s notice to write down your name and birthday after you’ve been robbed and beaten.

You might be asking, “What about the armed robbers, the gangsters, the drug dealers, the serial killers?” And yes, in the city I worked, I regularly broke up gang parties, found gang members carrying guns, and handled homicides. I’ve seen some tragic things, from a reformed gangster shot in the head with his brains oozing out to a fifteen year old boy taking his last breath in his screaming mother’s arms thanks to a gang member’s bullet. I know the wages of violence.

This is where we have to have the courage to ask: why do people rob? Why do they join gangs? Why do they get addicted to drugs or sell them? It’s not because they are inherently evil. I submit to you that these are the results of living in a capitalist system that grinds people down and denies them housing, medical care, human dignity, and a say in their government. These are the results of white supremacy pushing people to the margins, excluding them, disrespecting them, and treating their bodies as disposable.

Equally important to remember: disabled and mentally ill people are frequently killed by police officers not trained to recognize and react to disabilities or mental health crises. Some of the people we picture as “violent offenders” are often people struggling with untreated mental illness, often due to economic hardships. Very frequently, the officers sent to “protect the community” escalate this crisis and ultimately wound or kill the person. Your community was not made safer by police violence; a sick member of your community was killed because it was cheaper than treating them. Are you extremely confident you’ll never get sick one day too?

Wrestle with this for a minute: if all of someone’s material needs were met and all the members of their community were fed, clothed, housed, and dignified, why would they need to join a gang? Why would they need to risk their lives selling drugs or breaking into buildings? If mental healthcare was free and was not stigmatized, how many lives would that save?

Would there still be a few bad actors in the world? Sure, probably. What’s my solution for them, you’re no doubt asking. I’ll tell you what: generational poverty, food insecurity, houselessness, and for-profit medical care are all problems that can be solved in our lifetimes by rejecting the dehumanizing meat grinder of capitalism and white supremacy. Once that’s done, we can work on the edge cases together, with clearer hearts not clouded by a corrupt system.

Police abolition is closely related to the idea of prison abolition and the entire concept of banishing the carceral state, meaning, creating a society focused on reconciliation and restorative justice instead of punishment, pain, and suffering — a system that sees people in crisis as humans, not monsters. People who want to abolish the police typically also want to abolish prisons, and the same questions get asked: “What about the bad guys? Where do we put them?” I bring this up because abolitionists don’t want to simply replace cops with armed social workers or prisons with casual detention centers full of puffy leather couches and Playstations. We imagine a world not divided into good guys and bad guys, but rather a world where people’s needs are met and those in crisis receive care, not dehumanization.

Here’s legendary activist and thinker Angela Y. Davis putting it better than I ever could:

“An abolitionist approach that seeks to answer questions such as these would require us to imagine a constellation of alternative strategies and institutions, with the ultimate aim of removing the prison from the social and ideological landscapes of our society. In other words, we would not be looking for prisonlike substitutes for the prison, such as house arrest safeguarded by electronic surveillance bracelets. Rather, positing decarceration as our overarching strategy, we would try to envision a continuum of alternatives to imprisonment-demilitarization of schools, revitalization of education at all levels, a health system that provides free physical and mental care to all, and a justice system based on reparation and reconciliation rather than retribution and vengeance.”

(Are Prisons Obsolete, pg. 107)

I’m not telling you I have the blueprint for a beautiful new world. What I’m telling you is that the system we have right now is broken beyond repair and that it’s time to consider new ways of doing community together. Those new ways need to be negotiated by members of those communities, particularly Black, indigenous, disabled, houseless, and citizens of color historically shoved into the margins of society. Instead of letting Fox News fill your head with nightmares about Hispanic gangs, ask the Hispanic community what they need to thrive. Instead of letting racist politicians scaremonger about pro-Black demonstrators, ask the Black community what they need to meet the needs of the most vulnerable. If you truly desire safety, ask not what your most vulnerable can do for the community, ask what the community can do for the most vulnerable.

A WORLD WITH FEWER BASTARDS IS POSSIBLE

If you take only one thing away from this essay, I hope it’s this: do not talk to cops. But if you only take two things away, I hope the second one is that it’s possible to imagine a different world where unarmed black people, indigenous people, poor people, disabled people, and people of color are not routinely gunned down by unaccountable police officers. It doesn’t have to be this way. Yes, this requires a leap of faith into community models that might feel unfamiliar, but I ask you:

When you see a man dying in the street begging for breath, don’t you want to leap away from that world?

When you see a mother or a daughter shot to death sleeping in their beds, don’t you want to leap away from that world?

When you see a twelve year old boy executed in a public park for the crime of playing with a toy, jesus fucking christ, can you really just stand there and think “This is normal”?

And to any cops who made it this far down, is this really the world you want to live in? Aren’t you tired of the trauma? Aren’t you tired of the soul sickness inherent to the badge? Aren’t you tired of looking the other way when your partners break the law? Are you really willing to kill the next George Floyd, the next Breonna Taylor, the next Tamir Rice? How confident are you that your next use of force will be something you’re proud of? I’m writing this for you too: it’s wrong what our training did to us, it’s wrong that they hardened our hearts to our communities, and it’s wrong to pretend this is normal.

Look, I wouldn’t have been able to hear any of this for much of my life. You reading this now may not be able to hear this yet either. But do me this one favor: just think about it. Just turn it over in your mind for a couple minutes. “Yes, And” me for a minute. Look around you and think about the kind of world you want to live in. Is it one where an all-powerful stranger with a gun keeps you and your neighbors in line with the fear of death, or can you picture a world where, as a community, we embrace our most vulnerable, meet their needs, heal their wounds, honor their dignity, and make them family instead of desperate outsiders?

If you take only three things away from this essay, I hope the third is this: you and your community don’t need bastards to thrive.

RESOURCES TO YES-AND WITH

Achele Mbembe — Necropolitics

Angela Y. Davis — Are Prisons Obsolete?

CriticalResistance.org — Abolition Toolkit

Joe Macaré, Maya Schenwar, and Alana Yu-lan Price — Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect?

Ruth Wilson Gilmore — COVID-19, Decarceration, Abolition [video]

[bbrandy2002]

Little Shit:

Part 1: Wrapped Around A Finger

This is for week 96 of @wackydrabbles prompt: I can't -- I have a deadline. Prompt will be in bold.

Okay, so I couldnt fit all of this into the 2000 word limit and had to break it up and didn't have the heart to cut.

@kingliam2019​ you made a request for a Little Shit story on New Year’s Eve and it only took 5 months to come up with something, so this one is for you.

If you're unfamiliar with the Little Shit series (because it has been over a year since I wrote anything for it) Nikolas is Liam and Riley's 5 year old mischievous son who just can't help from wreaking havoc, especially toward Drake. He enjoys getting a rise out of him even if he does love his Uncle ... for the most part.

Warning: Crude Language. Mention of Covid and vaccinations.

Word count: 1928

-----------------------

Returning from the stables one afternoon, Drake was stopped at the palace door by security -- again -- for not wearing the required mask to enter.

“Mr. Walker, I’m afraid you need to have a mask on before I can allow you inside. I have to tell you this every day.”

“That because I fucking live here,” Drake grumbled as he snagged the offered surgical mask from the guard. 

“Not in the common areas, Mr. Walker.”

“You know this whole virus thing is just a conspiracy and Liam is using it to control all of us, right? He’s gone mad. This shit’s never gonna end.”

“I understand, sir.” The guard waited patiently as Drake begrudgingly slipped the mask over his face. “Perhaps, though, there is an alternative, one where you wouldn’t have to wear one anymore. They’re offering free vaccines in room 105 today. If you get the shot, you won’t need to wear a mask when you come inside,” the guard cajoled.

Drake let out a humorless laugh.“I’m sure that’s exactly what Liam wants: make a guinea pig out of me. Pump me full of that radioactive shit and in five years I’ll have a tail growing out of my face. No thanks.” Drake disregarded the information and moved past the man.

“But, sir .. .they’re giving away bottles of whiskey to the first 100 recipients. Last I heard, they were close to reaching that number. Top of the line stuff too.”

Drake turned on the heel of his work boots, glaring back, before asking skeptically. “Whiskey? They’re giving away alcohol to get this damn shot?” The guard nodded in response.

“Glenfiddich -- 1955, I believe. The King paid for it himself.”

Drake’s eyes widened in disbelief. “That’s a $90,000 bottle! And they’re just giving them away if you get this shot?”

“I … um … yes. His Majesty wants to reward those who are doing their part to create a healthier and safer Cordonia. He won’t rest until every last citizen is vaccinated from this dreaded virus. We can all fight this … together. What do you say, Mr. Walker? Will you help stop the spread?”

“For a $90,000 bottle of whiskey? Hell yeah! I’ll grow two tails out my heads for -- hold on a damn minute …” Drake burrowed his eyes into the guard who was sweating bullets, desperate for him to leave. “Where the hell is Nikolas at? This whole thing reeks of him..” Drake’s eyes began darting around the perimeter in a feverish search for the little prince’s battery operated car. “That little shit is blackmailing you, isn’t he? I should have known.”

The guard straightened and answered in a solemn tone, “I’m a serious professional, Mr. Walker. And I take your accusations of being anything but, demeaning to the loyalty and oath I’ve given to the Crown. How dare you stand there --”

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise.” Drake ran a hand down his weary face in frustration. “It’s just that kid is the bane of my existence. I’ve had a long, hard day at work and I’m in no mood for his fucking stunts.”

The guard waved him off. “Nah, don’t worry about it. I’ve heard all about the stuff he’s pulled on you.” He leaned in closer and spoke in a hushed tone, “Between you and me, he’s a little pain in my ass too; always coming down here acting like he runs this place. If you ever need help teaching that kid a lesson, I’d be happy to help.”

Drake arched a brow. “Loyalty to the crown, huh?” The man regarded that retort with an awkward shrug. “Yeah, he needs his ass busted, that’s for sure. Liam thinks he just needs a little more love. I’d like to show him the Bianca F. Walker way of love.” He slammed his hands together.

The guard chuckled. “I’m with you on that. He needs something done; he’s out of control … Anyway, you should probably head on up there and get your shot -- and whiskey -- before they’re all out. I wish I’d have waited to get mine until today.”

Twisting his face in doubt, Drake walked around the corner and leaned up against the wall as he pulled out his phone. Something just didn’t feel right, and he determined the safest thing to do was shoot off a quick text to his best friend.

Drake: Liam, are you really giving away Glenfiddich, 1955, to get the Covid vaccine?

He waited a brief moment until a response came through; he looked down at his phone and read:

Liam: Yes.

Drake: Is that all you have to say about that?

Liam: Yes.

Liam: I am in meeting for Cordonia.

Drake tilted his head to the side and scratched at it as he stared at the odd message. He typed out another response.

Drake: What kind of meeting for Cordonia? And with who?

Liam: Top secret. Can't tell you.

Drake: Uh-huh. Where’s Nikolas?

Liam: With Riley and baby in Vallteria

Liam: Shit. Valtoria

Drake: What’s the capital of the United States?

Liam: Damn it Drake I’m in a meeting!

Drake: Then hurry up and answer

Liam: Washington D.C.

Drake: Who shot me at the costume ball?

Liam: You son of a bitch. IM IN A MEETING!

Drake let out a heavy groan and decided to just call Riley. He knew without a doubt Nikolas took Liam’s phone again. If he called Riley, though, there was no way the boy could pretend he was her.

Picking up almost instantly, Riley answered cheerfully, “Hello. Queen Riley speaking.”

“Riley, it’s Drake. I was just wondering if you and Liam were really giving away whiskey for getting this shot? Sounds a little fishy to me.”

There was a moment of silence, then a clicking noise, followed by a long beep, before Riley replied. “Yes. We. Are. Giving. Away …. Whiskey. Get.The.Shot.Drake.”

“The hell is wrong with your voice?”

“I.Am.In.Valtoria.”

“Riley, why the fuck are you enunciating every word?”

“I. Have. A. Cold. And. Must.Talk.Slow. Nikolas.Is.With.Me. And. I. Must. Get ... Going. Bye. Drake ...You. Ass. Hole.” 

Drake rolled his eyes and slipped the phone in his back pocket. “He’s got her phone, too. Damn that evil-ass kid.” He hesitantly made his way down to room 105; it wouldn’t hurt anything just to open the door and see if there was anything legit about this. As he approached, a lovely lady he knew from the kitchen exited with a big smile on her aging face and a bottle she cradled in her arms; he recognized it almost instantly as the Glenfiddich.

“Miss Milly,” Drake greeting kindly and held the door open for her. “You’re looking as lovely as ever.”

“Oh, you.” She laughed bashfully in her grandmotherly voice as she stepped into the corridor. “You’re always flirting with me, Drake. One of these days, I’m going to make you take me out on a date, buy me dinner, and give me a peck on the cheek at the end of the night.” 

Drake smiled back fondly at her. “You just tell me when, Miss Milly, and I’m there.” He motioned to the bottle in her hand. “Say … couldn’t help but notice that bottle of whiskey you’re carrying around; where’d you get that at? That brand doesn’t come cheap.”

“Ohhh, I know. But I heard they were giving shots in that room right there.” She pointed with a crooked finger. “And they said I was the 99th person to stop by, and gave this to me after getting my shot. I couldn’t believe my luck. And they only have one bottle left. I can finally put my grandson through college.” 

“That’s great! And you said there is still one more bottle left?”

She nodded her head. “Yes. But you better hurry. One of the chefs is on his way here for a shot as well.”

Drake hurriedly kissed her on the cheek and opened the door. Thank you, Miss Milly!” He stepped inside, then stopped and whipped his head back out the door. “Milly, wait. Have you seen Prince Nikolas today?”

“Yes, he left with the Queen after breakfast this morning. I believe they mentioned going to Valtoria.”

Drake rubbed his hands together anxiously and thanked her. He’d known the cook for years, she’s the sweetest person he knew. There was no way she would cover for Nikolas, and Drake couldn’t imagine the boy would have any dirt to hold over her head.

When the door shut, Nikolas grinned mischievously from a dark alcove where he was parked in his black 12V Mercedes Benz S63. “This is the day I’ve been waiting for.”

He set his laptop and both parents' phones in the passenger seat and slowly pulled out. He paid $100 to Milly and asked her to put the bottle back in his father’s liquor cabinet and rolled a few paces to room 105.

======

After filling out medical forms, the palace doctor ushered Drake behind a curtain where a long rectangular table and folding chair sat. Taking the seat, Drake watched the doctor slip on a pair of gloves and pull a small tube of lube out of his lab coat pocket. Drake furrowed his brows in confusion. “Heh. What’s the lube for?” he chuckled lightly. “I’m just here for a shot, man. Nothing else is going in me.”

“Just relax, Mr. Walker. It’s all part of the process.” A squirt of clear liquid was squeezed onto the doctor's two gloved fingers as he held them up. “On your medical forms you denied having a physical exam in the past year. I just need to do a quick exam and check for rectal polyps.”

Drake started laughing in amusement, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You’ve got to be shittin' me. So let me get this straight. I can’t get a shot until you stick your fingers in my ass to check for ‘polyps?’ Yeah, that’s happening. What a bunch of horse malarky.”

The doctor let out an annoyed huff. “I see you didn’t read over the information forms. They never do,’ he mumbled. “Look, if you want me to wait here all day while you figure out what to do, I can’t -- I have a deadline to finish here. Now if you’ll move along, I have another patient waiting; you’re free to go.”

And Drake knew he was. But that expensive bottle of Glenfiddich was calling his name. He glanced over to that one last beautiful bottle sitting atop a desk on the far side of the room, calling his name. Selling it for even half of what it was worth would afford him enough to move the hell out of the palace and get the freedom from Nik he desired. Rubbing a hand over the scruff on his chin, Drake's timid gaze turned from the bottle to the doctor. He could handle a finger or two in ass for a few seconds if t made him $90,000 richer. 

“Okay. What do I need to do?”

Nikolas quietly typed on the keyboard of his laptop from the opposite side of the curtain. The images from the hidden cameras plastered on the wall where Drake was seated popped into view on his screen. Feeding a link to, and overriding the broadcast feed at the CBC, Nik crouched down low and waited with little beady eyes for the exam to begin. “Perfect ...Okay, Doc, let’s see if you can get a hole in one.”

----------

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[marinaloxely]

Week 1 - 12/26 to 1/2

Word Count: 2,388

“Basil Myles Hale!  Get down here this instant!  You’re going to be late for school!” my mother calls.  My backpack bangs against my back as I race down the stairs.  I hurriedly adjust the bright red tie around my neck. Mother stuffs my schedule and a marble rosary into my hand before pushing me out the door.

I start down the street at a brisk pace.  It’s a decent walk to school, and I only have about 20 minutes to get there.  And I have to put away my books before homeroom starts.

About halfway there, a blur of pink and navy crashes into my side.  I laugh and hug my best friend. “Hey, Dobby.” She detaches herself from my side, and I can get a good look at her as we walk.  Her curly hair is dyed pink today - as opposed to last week’s lavender shade - and her school uniform is off kilter.

She grins at me.  “Hellooooo Baz! Are you ready for senior year?”

“Ugh.  No! I just want it to be over but then we have to go to college and I’m not ready for that and I’m just stressing.”

“Well, stop that!  We’ve got a whole year to finish everything we’ve got to do here, and then we’re off to Colorado!  It’s going to be a breeze.”

“I’m not so sure, but whatever.  It’s just another school year.”

We arrive at the boring office building that is our school.  Saint Augustine Academy, a Catholic school nestled in a miniature office park in little old Pflugerville, Texas.  A few students mill about the parking lot in matching clothing, talking and laughing and generally being students.  A teacher stands at the double doors, making sure nothing too terrible happens.

Dobby and I rush into the building, splitting up to go to our lockers.  “See you in first!” I dash to my locker, which I’ve had for the past three years, and dump my stuff into it.  There’s a minute or so left to the bell, so I sprint to homeroom, managing to cross the threshold before it rings.  I can’t be counted tardy, even if Ms. Astley were here. Which she’s not. Of course. I could have taken my sweet time getting here.

I scoot to the back of the classroom, lowering myself into the back-most seat.  Once I’m settled in with a pencil out - just in case she forces us into a word search - I scan the classroom for friendly faces.  None float out of the sea of idiots. It’s going to be a long year of homeroom. I finally register the guy standing at the front of the classroom.  He’s tall and standing with a sense of boredom with the world. His dark brown hair is carefully tousled.

Ms. Astley teeters into the room.  Hunched over and using a cane, the woman is ancient.  Even the teachers can't remember a time without the crone.  She limps over to her desk, dumping her bag there, fully ignoring the hot guy standing there.

After a few moments, some brave and foolish soul pipes up.  "Uh- Ms. Astley?"

She wheels around, cataract-glazed eyes searching the crowd of fearful faces.  "What?" she screeches.

The guy saves the day.  He clears his throat. "I'm your new student."  His voice is soft but commands attention, with a slight rasp at the tail end of each word.

The crone does a complete 180° turn in her manner.  From evil gorgon, ready to eat you for breakfast, to sweet old grandma that bakes you cookies.  She even croons at him. "Why, hello, dear. What is your name?"

"Malakai Connelly."

"Well, Malakai.  It's a pleasure to have you in our class.  Why don't you take a seat? We're not doing anything today."  The rest of the class lets out a sigh of relief.

Once again, Malakai's eyes scan the classroom.  They fall on me, and the empty seat next to me. He smiles and makes his way towards me.  His stride is so smooth, it's as if he floats across the scuffed linoleum. The rest of the class watches him, rapt.  He dumps a blue messenger bag next to the chair and settles in. As if on cue, the rest of the class turns away and launches into their own conversations.  A couple of pieces of paper fly across the room. Ms. Astley ignores them and flops into her own chair, pulling out a crossword to work on. I cross my arms on the desk.

"Hi…  I'm Malakai."

I start, glancing up into his eyes.  "Hi. I'm Basil - Baz."

He smiles.  My heart flutters, and something prickles beneath my skin.  "Nice to meet you, Baz. Do you think you could help me with my schedule?"  He holds a piece of paper out to me.

I return the smile and take his schedule, pulling mine out as well.  I scan down the papers, realizing that our classes line up pretty well.  If we aren't in the same class, we're nearby. I relate this information to Malakai.  "I can help you out for the first few days while you get used to the school. If you want, that is…?"

"That would be nice."

"Cool."  I pull out a piece of paper and sketch out a map of the school.  "So we're here…" We spend the rest of the period going over where our classes are.

When the bell rings, we grab our bags and rush out the door.  As always, the hallways are crowded almost wall-to-wall. We slip through and make our way from M (Michael) hall to J (Jesus) hall.  I deposit him in front of his classroom. "There you go… your class…" The hall is starting to clear out as the bell nears. I inch backwards, towards my class.  "I'll see you when the bell rings?" He nods. I turn around.

As soon as I enter the room, a hand is waving and my name is being called.  There's Dobby. I scoot across the room and plop down in the seat next to her.  She wiggles her eyebrows at me. "So…?"

"So what?"

"Who's the guy?"

"What guy?"

"The guy you were flirting with in the hallway."

"I wasn't flirting!"

"You were totally flirting."

 Mr. Burbank, our history teacher this year, calls the class to something-resembling-order before I can respond.  He’s a tall, fairly attractive man that commands your attention, even if he doesn’t want it, which is pretty cool.  Watch this. Dobby will revert to Crush Mode in three, two, one. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see her mouth ‘Hot Damn.’  What did I tell you?  Luckily for me, Mr. Burbank doesn’t notice her and starts to call attendance.  “Jackson Caylic? Nice to see you, sir. “Melissa? Welcome back. Dorothea?” Dobby refuses to raise her hand.  “Dorothea Lambe?” Burbank stares her down, but she won’t do it. “Dorothea, if you don’t give me an indication that you’re here, I will mark you absent and be forced to call your parents.”  Dobby huffs and raises her hand grudgingly. “Thank you very much, Miss Lambe.  We’ll make you into a proper young lady yet.” He gives her a sardonic smile. She scrunches her nose at him.  Dobby may be hardcore crushing on him, but she hates her real name much more than she loves him, which is often surprising to the casual onlooker.

“Damn that handsome mother-” she starts to whisper out of the corner of her mouth.  I fake-cough, trying to cover it up in the almost silent room. We squint at each other, being a lot more obvious than we mean to be.  But Burbank is wearing a small smile and a tighter-than-necessary shirt, and she immediately turns back to the show.

“Basil?”  I raise my hand.  He nods at me, finally (after two weeks) understanding that I don’t like to draw unnecessary attention to myself.  Then, he continues with attendance.

Dobby slides a scrap of paper onto my desk.  I didn’t even realize she’d gotten a pen out, let alone paper.  Dish.  Now.

I grab my pencil and scrawl.

 No dish.

Seriously!!!  I want to knoooooooow!

There’s nothing to know.

A low growl rumbles in her throat, thankfully too quiet to draw too much attention.  

THERE’S EVERYTHING TO KNOW!!!!!  

A shadow falls over the paper.  “Miss Lambe? Mr. Hale? Do you have something to share with the class?”

“No, sir!” I squeak, my cheeks burning.

Dobby leans back in her chair, tilting the front two legs of her chair off of the floor.  Her skirt slips a little up her leg. The guy in front of us darts his eyes to her thigh. Gross.  “Nope. We’re just trading secrets. Gossiping. Y’know, the usual.” she drawls. Good-ness. Isn’t she just the poster girl for casual?  I can’t help but notice that the guy is still staring, and his buddy has joined in. I debate throwing my blazer in her lap.

“Nice to know.  Focus on my teaching, if you please, madame.”  He makes it sound like a suggestion, but I’ve seen many an unwary student fall into that devastating trap.

“Oh, no, Mr. Burbank.  But thank you. I really do appreciate the offer.”  How in the world does she manage to do that? One second, she’s madly in love with the guy, and the next, she’s the coolest little cucumber, giving Burbank all the attitude she has ever mustered.  I highly doubt I’ll ever be able to do that.

“Miss Lambe.  If you aren’t going to pay attention, go sit in the hallway.” he announces, pointing to the door.

Dobby gives him her most regal smile, slams the legs of her chair back to the floor, and forces a squeal out of the linoleum.  “As you wish.” She struts across the room, her school-issued pumps tapping against the tiles in time with the swaying of her hips.  The guys are practically salivating. Disgusting pigs.

Just before she grabs the door handle, Mr. Burbank calls, “Sit only in the hallway outside the door, Miss Lambe!”

Dobby swivels on her heel and executes a perfect curtsy - a result of years of cotillion classes.  “Yes, Your Highness.” she croons in a voice as sweet as sugar and sharp as a blade. The class bursts into laughter as she throws the door open hard enough for it to slam into the wall and leaves with a grand flourish of her arms and a swish of her hips.  If there’s one thing Dorothea Lambe knows how to do, it’s make a grand exit: she’s had lots of practice over the years.

I can just feel the dread that must be washing through Ms. Minchin, our school counselor, right now.  Dobby is in to see her daily, usually more than once, and every visit is prefaced by at least one such slamming door.  Dobby will probably go stalking down to her office in one second, after kicking off her shoes. (She really hates the school uniforms, and has made it her mission to be as rebellious as possible.)

As soon as the bell rings for lunch, my phone will veritably blow up with texts from her.  It always does. Her phone only lets her text in 100 characters at a time, so every time she decides goes on a rant, I end up with at least 10 messages within the same minute.  That woman can text faster than anyone else I know.

“Now, let’s get back to class, shall we?” Burbank strides back to the blackboard where, I now see, he’s pulled up a powerpoint.  THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT is scrawled across the board in bold lettering.  

I quickly pull out a notebook and pen.  My notes need to be thorough if I'm going to help Dobby pass this class.  Not that it's my problem, but I kind of consider her my problem.

We've been friends since we were children.  In the middle of a Relay for Life, there was a tornado warning, and our moms couldn't find us.  We had apparently been playing and fell asleep in a random person's tent. We were perfectly fine and content, but, boy, did we get in trouble for running off.  I smile at the memory and scribble down the notes.

Before I know it, the bell rings.  I gather up my stuff and dart out of the classroom.  Dobby strides up to me, cool as can be, and links arms with me.  "Hello, my darling herb." I lead her over to Lucas's classroom.

"Hello, dear.  How was Ms. Minchin?"

"Just dandy.  She says ‘hello’."

"Oh, how quaint."

"What are we waiting on?  I want lunch."

"I made a new friend, remember?  He's coming to lunch with us." Just as I say that, Malakai comes out of the classroom.  "Hey, Malakai! Ready to eat?" He doesn't seem to hear me, looking around for something.  I put my hand on his shoulder.  

He starts.  "Huh? Oh. Hey, Baz."

Dobby links her arm with his.  "Hey, handsome. I'm Dobby, Baz's best friend."  My dork grins her unconquerable grin, and I can almost see Malakai falling under her spell.

"Malakai.  Pleasure to meet you."

"Come on, come on.  Stop flirting," I interject.  "We've got to get to lunch."

The rest of the day, and the rest of the week, pass by uneventfully.  We get to know each other pretty well. I find out that Malakai lives alone in an apartment, having emancipated himself several years before.  The three of us are assigned to a semester-long research project together in our Seminar class.  

Friday night, Malakai and I meet up outside Dobby's house.  He's got his tie loosened and blazer draped over his shoulder.  Through the undone button at his throat, I can barely see a necklace laying there.  I flash a smile at him. "Hey, stranger."

He grins at me.  "Hey. Glad I managed to find the right place."

"You ready to go in?"

"I guess.  Ready as I'll ever be."  

We step up to the porch.  I knock on the door. As we wait for the door to be answered, I notice Malakai wringing his hands and shifting his weight.  "Don't be nervous. Mama Lambe is super sweet."

"Nervous?  Me? I'm not nervous."

"Of course you are.  Just take a deep breath and stop wringing your hands like that."

[ryik-the-writer]

Rumbelle fic: A Sitting Deal

A Sitting Deal 6/6

A03 Link

Rating: T+

Summary: With the threat of a rent increase being held over her head, Lacey E. French makes a deal with Mr. Gold to babysit his three-year-old son. Soon however the town troublemaker finds herself getting close to her landlord and son…which just can’t be good!

Note: for my Rumbelle Secret Santa recipient…@of-princes-and-savages, based off the prompt: Hey, who’s kid is this

Lacey began ripping off her clothes as soon as she entered her apartment, releasing a new curse as each item hit the floor.

“Mother everlasting son of a bitch!” she howled as she turned the shower to the hottest level, welcoming the burn.

She scrubbed her skin hard, taking deep breaths to ease away her wracking sobs.

What was she going to do? She was falling hard for the Golds and it was the most unnatural feeling in the world. Lacey wasn’t supposed to fall prey to domesticity. She wasn’t supposed to rearrange her life for other people!

Yet the very idea of doing just that was possessing her. How bad would it be really? To be a friend and companion to a trifling landlord and his heart-stealing little boy?

She was being ridiculous, she thought. Gold says a few nice words and his kid learns her name and she melts? What the hell!

“This is so damn stupid!” Lacey groaned as she collapsed into her bed in nothing but a towel.

There had to be a way for her to wrap her head around all of this, to come up with a plan. She could just quit, but the idea of not seeing that curly-haired heartthrob every day was too painful to think of at the moment.

And Lacey E. French was no quitter, at least not anymore…

The shadow of the past sprang forth an idea for the confused barfly. It was a long-shot, and would probably end in a thorough smackdown, but it was the only shot she had.

With a truckload of hesitation, she called the one person who could help her sort through her most recent pile of wreckage.

“Hello?”

Lacey gulped at the familiar accent. “Belle?”

There was a brief pause and Lacey expected a tone dial to follow, but instead she heard a slight strangled noise.

“Oh my gosh Lacey!” Belle cried. “I…how are you?”

Lacey released a wet laugh, grateful for her twin’s invitation.

“Um, that’s complicated Belle. How about we start with you?”

“Okay,” Belle replied, sounding positively giddy.

Lacey listened somberly as Belle relayed her job as a grad assistant, her rough edged but soft-hearted fiancé, and of course wedding plans.

“I’m sending out wedding invintations later this week. Nick wanted me to have this grand wedding, but I know he hates big to-dos. I said I would be just fine going to the courthouse and then our favorite bar afterwards, but he said his colleagues would string him up over the physics department if he denied them this.”

Lacey chuckled. “I like this guy,”

“You’ll love him. He reminds me of you in a way.”

Lacey frowned. She certainly hoped the man holding her sister’s heart wasn’t a thing like her.

“Now,” Belle continued. “Let’s here about you. How’s old Storybrooke?”

Lacey scoffed. “Same as ever, though Granny added spaghetti to her menu for some reason.”

“Wow, it’s really come up,” Belle joked. “How about you? Will you be bringing a date to my wedding?”

Lacey blushed at the very idea of being serious enough with Gold that he would come to such an affair with her. Although she’d imagined him and Bae both would look just charming in a tux—

“Son of a bitch!”

“Lace?” Belle gasped.

Lacey groaned. “Belle, I’m in real shit here.”

She quickly relayed to her sister the weeks happenings, her deal with Gold, her time with Bae, and her strange uncertain feelings she didn’t know what to do with.

“Whoa.” Belle sighed on the line. “That’s…different.”

“It’s fucking stupid is what it is!” Lacey returned. “I don’t get it! I have one conversation with the guy and share some animal crackers with his kid and suddenly I’m a pig-tailed lamebrain!”

“Did you really put your hair in pigtails?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lacey barked. “Tell me what to do! What the fuck’s wrong with me?”

“Sounds like to me Lacey that you’re in love,” Belle teased. “Or more like falling in it.”

Lacey covered her mouth to keep from screaming, the words sounding more terrifying now that they were out in the open.

“I can’t do that Belle,” Lacey sobbed. “I can’t be…that!”

“What, happy?”

“In love, or whatever this shit is!” Lacey yelled. “I’m not right for them! I’ll drag them down with me! I’ll hurt Gold and Bae someway…I don’t want to do that!”

“Lacey calm down,” Belle soothed. “Please.”

Lacey took a moment to breathe, the light tint of static over the phone soothing her back into place.

“It’s okay to be afraid,” Belle coached. “It’s okay to not be ready for this. But it’s not like you have to marry him.”

“Oh god!”

“Hush, let me finish. You don’t have to jump into something you’re not ready for. If Gold’s really as decent as you say he is, he’ll understand! Just talk to him. Let him know how you feel and that you want to take this slow.”

“But Belle…” Lacey cried, her heart pounding. “He deserves so much better than me. I pay my rent in change and my first job since high school has been a half-ass babysitter!”

“Well…maybe we can open you up a checking account, and babysitting is a damn good gig,” Belle encouraged. “And as for you not being good enough for them…”

Lacey held her breath at the long pause Belle took, wondering if she was about to hang up on her and leave her to stew in her own disaster.

“I know what you did for me,” Belle said at last. “I know you didn’t go to college so that I could.”

Lacey’s blood went cold. “The fuck how?” she hissed. She thought she had covered her tracks!

“You’re careless Lace,” Belle pointed out non-accusingly. “You set your acceptance letter on fire, but you didn’t stick around to see if it burned. I found a piece of it left, and I put two and two together.”

Lacey groaned. Classic Lacey move.

“And while we’re on the subject,” Belle voice cracked. “I’m so sorry.”

Lacey blinked. “For what? You did great, and you’re doing exactly what you wanted to.”

“But you didn’t,” Belle stressed. “I should have pushed you to go to school, to do what you wanted. We could have split the money and taken out loans to make up the difference. But I was so selfish, and I thought you just weren’t ready but when you never mentioned Mum’s trust, I figured it out.”

“You were never selfish Belle,” Lacey promised. “You’re kind of right, I wasn’t ready, not really. And you were always destined to do something with your life, to leave this place. You didn’t need to wait around for me to do the same.”

“I would have gladly waited,” Belle said. “But you can’t keep stalling. You deserve to be happy.”

Lacey closed her eyes, feeling a comforting numbness seep into her bones. For so long she had been holding herself back, and now she needed to take a leap.

“I’m scared,” Lacey laughed.

“That’s okay,” Belle consoled. “No matter what happens it will happen because you were in control. And if by some one in a million chance it doesn’t work out, you know where to find me.”

Lacey nodded, wishing her sister were in front of her so that she could hold her.

“Thanks Belle,” Lacey said, the words coming deep from her heart.

“You got it sis,” Belle returned. “Now just what are we going to do?”

Lacey licked her lip, thinking over her options. She’d never been good a planning, and it wasn’t until now that hesitation appeared in her dictionary.

Maybe things would work out if she winged it after all?

“I’ve gotta make a blue print,” Lacey said as she jumped up to find clothes.

“What?”

“Call you tomorrow bye!”

“Lacey wa—”

Lacey hung up on her beloved sister and prepared to meet her fate.

 0-0-0-0-0-0-0

He shouldn’t have tried to kiss her? What the hell had he been thinking.

Gold had bathed and clothed Bae and taken him upstairs for a story before bed. The boy had longed fallen asleep in his lap, but Gold had yet to leave the rocking chair.

He’d been fearing the worst when he first hired Lacey. He kept closing the shop early just to check in on her and catch her in the act, but he had been woefully shocked to find that—while she had created chaos—it was less damaging than he had expected.

She actually bonded with Bae and did so in her own unique way. It made him proud of her in that moment, proud in his own decision to entrust his son to her.

But his admiration of Lacey French had begun long before they made their deal. Long before he’d even taken in Bae at that.

She hated him as a landlord like any other of his tenants, but she didn’t gripe or moan. She pushed through, even if he had a jar of pennies by the time he got her rent. She’d wink at him when they passed each other in the streets but never expanded on the low-key flirting. She held her self with the upmost confidence and could look men twice her size in the eye without hesitation.

Yet all this time she had been carrying a deep self-loathing. Why hadn’t he seen that she was so sad?

Because he was a cold-hearted bastard. It was a simple but true answer. He hadn’t really cared for anyone, and Milah’s abrupt departure had him wondering why he should try.

But Lacey had changed that somehow, pulled the withered remains out into the light to rejuvenate.

He couldn’t pinpoint exactly what he felt for her, but if his want to kiss her early today was any indication, it was bordering on passion that her rushing out meant she did not want to receive.

Gold kissed Bae’s curls and carefully laid him in his bed. What kind of young woman wanted an old man with a kid? She was too young, too free to be tied down to such a commitment.

He decided as he took off his tie that he’d talk to her about it tomorrow. She’d probably feel uncomfortable and quit, but he’d swallow his hurt and pay her well before she left. He’d even offer to cash in a favor with a colleague from the nearest university to get her in so she could follow her dream.

He’d hate to see her go and lose the small spark of friendship they’d manage to create, but she deserved to take back the happiness she put on hold.

Maybe one day when she was done with her degree she’d teach him to play pool, or she’d come by his shop and just talk.

Or maybe he’d get use to being alone forever.

Just as he was undoing his belt, the doorbell wailed throughout the house. Gold held his breath, counting down and sighing deeply when his son did not begin hollering.

He grabbed his cane and swore to ram it down the throat of whoever was there. He had it poised to kill when he opened the door and found Lacey standing on his front step.

“Lacey,” he breathed, his heart picking up a beat. “It’s late what are you doing here?”

“We need to talk,” she stated simply, pushing past him.

Gold swallowed and closed the door behind him. “What’s going on Lacey—”

“I like you,” she blurted out, only a second of hesitation following her proclamation. “And hell, I like your kid. I don’t know why and I don’t know what to do about it, but I don’t want to act like I don’t feel it.”

Gold watched her fidget and tried to figure out if he was dreaming or not.

“And…years from now when I’m playing dinosaurs with Bae and I tell him about his mom, I want him to know that she was a total idiot because the second he was in my arms it felt impossible to ever let him go.”

Gold blinked, her words filling his chest with a suffocating tightness.

“Look,” she said as she hastily wiped her eyes. “I don’t know what the hell is going on, or what I really feel right now. Maybe I’m just being crazy or some shit but I…just wanted you to know how I felt so that we can get any bullshit that might happen over with.”

Gold stared at her for the longest time, his mouth slightly gaped.

“What!” Lacey cried. “So help me I will punch you in the ribs if you don’t—”

She watched him step closer—slow and careful as to not startle her. When there was only a gap between them, Lacey knew what he was about to do. He was hesitating, just like her. He was uncertain too, not wanting to push something that wasn’t ready to go forward. But he was awaiting her permission as well, and Lacey gave it to her by edging up on her toes and bringing her lips to him.

His were soft, the small bristled of unshaved hair rubbing comfortingly against her cheek. Her hand reached up to his shoulder, slowing rubbing it back and forth. The hand he placed around her waist was lighter, almost afraid.

When they pulled back Lacey was struck with just how brown his eyes were, and the faint scar on his lip that she hadn’t noticed before.

His eyes searched over her like he couldn’t believe what was happening. He had Lacey French in his arms and…she liked him. She actually like him!

“We need to be slow,” he husked.

“Yeah,” Lacey agreed with an excited gulp. “Figure this thing out,”

Gold nodded and for while they stayed comfortably in close proximity, catching whiffs of each other.

But Lacey French wasn’t one to stay still for long.

“Wanna have sex?”

Gold actively flinched, and Lacey waited rather patiently for his response.

“I…” he hesitated, trying to wrap his mind around the audacity that was Lacey French.

Finally, he just stopped thinking and took Lacey’s hand.

“Yes, I believe I do,”

Lacey smirked. “Great,” she began pulling him up the stairs. “Bedroom?”

“First door on your right.”

Lacey bit back an ecstatic smirk.

“Got it, gocha.”

Yes!

[claws-n-salt]

Marichat May Day 9 - Bell Collar

Alya not only convinces Marinette to make an etsy listing for the Chat Noir choker idea she made, but also convinces her to use the picture Alya took of Marinette in said choker. While Marinette can only see the flaws in the picture, Chat Noir only sees beauty.

Rated G || 2,707 Words

Cross posted on Ao3 || FF

Listing for One 'Chat Noir Inspired Choker'

When Chat Noir slipped into Marinette Dupain-Cheng’s room on a Thursday night to play video games, he was not expecting to find the girl sewing a small gold bell onto a black ribbon. “Uh, Princess, what are you doing?” Her hand slipped as she was startled out of her concentration, stabbing her finger with the sewing needle. Apparently, she hadn’t heard him come in, oops.

“Oww!” She stuck the injured finger in her mouth and tried to talk around it. It was a valiant effort on her part and Chat probably would have been able to understand her had he not been so focused on the fact that Marinette was sucking on her finger right in front of him. For some reason, it distracted from what she was trying to say.

“I-I’m sorry, what did you say Princess?” Marinette huffed in exasperation. Thankfully, she assumed that his lack of understanding what she said was just because of how jumbled her words had come out. Chat watched as she removed her finger from her mouth with a wet pop that caused him to physically jump. Marinette luckily didn’t notice.

“I said, sorry Chat I’m too swamped to play video games tonight but your more than welcome to stay to keep me company.” She gave him a soft smile. His heart began to beat a little faster at that smile. He realized she was waiting for his answer so he began nodding his head quickly.

She picked the sewing needle back up and resumed her work. The question of why she was sewing a bell to ribbon popped back into his head. “So, what exactly are you doing?” In reply she pointed to her computer at the other side of her L shaped desk so Chat went to look. Pulled up on screen was an etsy listing for one ‘Chat Noir Inspired Bell Choker’ with several pictures of a choker like the one Marinette was making right now. He flipped through the pictures on the listing. When he got to the last one his breath hitched and his face began to heat. It seemed to be a candid shot of Marinette laughing at something the photographer, probably Alya, said. Her hair was in two buns a top of her head, instead of her normal pig tails, which put her neck on display. Around that neck sat one of the chokers she was currently making. “Uh, P-Princess? I’m still kind of confused on what you’re doing.”

Marinette paused her sewing once more but didn’t look him in the eyes. “Um, well, I was designing the other day and the idea for a choker inspired by the bell on your suit came to mind. I couldn’t get the idea out of my head so I made one of them.” He realized she was blushing. “Yesterday I went to lunch with my friend and she said I should try selling them. I was laughing at the idea which is when she snapped that.” Marinette pointed to the screen which still showed the picture of her. “She convinced me though, so I made a listing.” Chat was staring at the picture of Marinette in the choker again and the girl seemed to notice his fixation on the picture. “Alya said I needed someone modeling the choker in one of the pictures so people could see it on an actual person. Apparently, a dress form doesn’t have enough personality. She added the picture she’d taken of me and I haven’t taken it down because, well, she’s right. I’ll probably see if she will model one of the chokers for me tomorrow so I can take that picture down.”

Chat’s brows drew together in confusion. Why would Marinette want to replace her picture with one of Alya? He couldn’t let her do that, she looked great in the picture and the world shouldn’t be denied the opportunity to see it. “Hey Princess, what if we made a deal? You keep the photo of you up and I’ll model one of the chokers myself! That way all of the internet will know that Chat Noir indorses these pretty little necklaces, especially on you.” Wait, what did he just say? “Uh, I-I m-mean, made by you. These pretty little necklaces m-made by you.” Why was he stuttering?

Marinette either chose to ignore his slip up or hadn’t realized it happened, which Chat was unbelievably grateful for. She was pondering the proposition with her thumb pressed against her lips and the rest of her fingers curled under her chin. Why couldn’t he stop staring? “Hmm, well I guess a picture of you in one would help increase sales.” She placed a hand over her eyes and sighed. “Okay, deal. Let’s just hope that the picture of me won’t cancel out any business one of you stirs up.”

Chat was confused again. Why would Marinette’s amazing picture deter business? Maybe those jealous of how pretty she looked? His puzzling out of Marinette’s statement was interrupted when she held out one of the larger chokers to him. He plucked it from her fingers and set it on his lap while his hand went to the real bell zipper at the neck of his suit.

She audibly swallowed when he began to pull the zipper down slightly. The sound made his eyes flit up to hers. He was not expecting to see Marinette’s eyes following the zipper down its path then rake over the bit of his collar bones he’d just exposed. His blood heated at her look but he had no clue why. “P-Princess?” Her eyes met his while her face turned a lovely shade of red.

She quickly turned away from him and walked the few steps back over to the side of her desk she’d been working at. Shuffling some ribbon aside she grabbed her once hidden phone. “L-Let’s get a move on kitty we don’t have all n-night.” Obeying his princess, Chat tried to latch the choker behind his neck. He failed.

“Um, Princess, can you help me with this please? I can’t seem to get it to hook on.” She giggled slightly but nodded, walking over to him. “Hey, don’t judge me, I don’t wear necklaces oft…” The rest of his sentence trailed off as her hands brushed the back of his neck, fastening the choker behind him.

“It’s not too snug right.” Her soft voice was next to his ear and he shivered slightly. Chat’s response was little more than a squeaked-out no. “Okay, good. I think it’ll be best if we take the picture on the balcony so that there aren’t any telling details of my room. I think the string lights will add a nice effect anyway.”

The two climbed out onto the balcony and Marinette clicked the lights on. The most light was shining on the brick wall so Chat leaned against it and struck a pose. His head was tilted up and to the right slightly with his left arm behind his head. Marinette snapped a few pictures and looked at the shots she’d taken. “Wow kitty, have you done this before? These are amazing!” She walked over to where he was leaning on the wall so she could show him.

For some reason, he blushed at the compliment but turned on the swagger easily. “What if I told you my civilian self is a part-time model?” He leaned in to her and wiggled his eyebrows. Chat was caught off guard when Marinette also leaned forward and quirked a brow.

“I’d believe it. You certainly have the looks.” The swagger was gone. Marinette’s face was very close to his. He panicked and forced his head away from hers, only for it to meet the brick wall behind him. She looked concerned. “Are you okay Chat?”

His face was red with embarrassment. Why was he embarrassed? He did stupid stuff in front of Marinette all the time. “Y-Yeah. Just p-peachy. Everything’s just d-dandy.” She patted his head then headed into her room. He waited a moment to compose himself before going in.

When Chat entered the room, he found Marinette frowning at the picture of herself. “Are you sure I can’t take this down?” He still didn’t understand why she wanted to remove the picture from the listing.

“Why do you want to take it down? Do you not like it or something?” He didn’t see how she couldn’t like it but he had to voice the question.

“I absolutely hate it.” She crossed her arms and huffed slightly. Chat was floored.

“Wait, Marinette, how do you think you look in this picture?” There was no way she could think she looked anything short of beautiful. She was the only one in the picture though, so it had to be something about how she looked.

Marinette threw her arms in the air. “Agh, I look terrible. You can completely see the zit on my forehead and the bags under my eyes look like someone punched me. I’m pretty sure I’m the epitome of looking bad in pictures, it’s why I have Alya model clothes for me when I need pictures done.”

Chat’s eyes widened at the revelation. “How could you possibly think something like that? This picture is amazing. The sun is hitting you in a way that’s making you glow. Though, that could just be the way you’re smiling while you laugh. The little nose crinkle you’re doing is something models strive for years to perfect but here you are just naturally doing it. This picture is perfect in so many ways. How can you not see that you look gorgeous? Marinette, you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever laid eyes on.” Both their eyes were wide as they looked at each other.

A lot of things made more sense to Chat after he said that last sentence. Why flirting with Ladybug hadn’t been as fun for months. Why he got edgy after not seeing Marinette for a few days. Why he kept blushing and stuttering around her. Why he kept catching himself staring at her. It all made sense when he realized he had feelings for Marinette, feelings that were stronger than ones he’d ever harbored for Ladybug. Marinette began to chuckle nervously. “Ha, ha, yeah, sure, very funny Chat. If you really are a model in your civilian life then you’ve seen plenty of girls way prettier than me.” She was fidgeting with her hands in her lap, not meeting his eyes.

“No, wow, no. Marinette I really mean what I said, you are the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. I don’t know if I’m just supposed to admit things like this but I just realized I have big time feelings for you.” She was now looking at him with wide eyes, body completely still.

“What about Ladybug? I thought you liked her?” There was a tightness in her voice that Chat was a little worried about.

“Yes, I had feelings for Ladybug. At one point, I thought I loved her but I realize that was just a crush. My feelings for you are so much more intense. I obviously don’t know exactly what love feels like but this is the closest I’ve ever felt to it.” Chat didn’t realize there were tears falling down Marinette’s cheeks until he’d finished speaking. “Oh, please don’t cry. Marinette I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make this weird, please just forget I said anything.” He crouched next to her and whipped the tears from her cheeks. His voice was barely a whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

She chuckled slightly and placed both hands on his cheeks. “You silly cat, I’m pretty sure I love you too.” She brought her face to his and kissed him gently. Chat’s entire body was alight with feeling. When she broke the kiss, she reached around the back of his neck and undid the choker. Chat’s eyes were still closed from the first kiss. He didn’t want to open them and find out he’d been dreaming the entire time. He was surprised when Marinette pressed her lips to his again. Her hand wrapped around the bell zipper resting just above his pectorals and pulled it back up his suit. “You know kitty, I never thought collar bones could be so distracting.”

He wanted to reply with a pun or a witty quip but his brain still didn’t know how to process everything. Instead, her name left his mouth like a small prayer and he crushed her into a hug. Her arms wrapped around his back, holding him tightly. Chat didn’t know how long they sat there on the floor like that but eventually Marinette pulled away. Her voice was a quiet whisper in the space between them. “It’s getting late Chat and I have school tomorrow. I don’t want you to leave quite yet so help me upload your picture before you go.”

“Anything my princess wants. Are you going to keep the picture of you up? You don’t have to if you really don’t want to but you do look beautiful in it.” She smiled softly at him and pressed her lips against his again.

“I’m going to keep it up. A certain boy in a cat suit showed me a few things to like about it.” This time it was Chat who pressed his lips against hers. “Come on kitty, we’ll be here all night if we don’t get up.” He complied, reluctantly.

Together they uploaded the picture of Chat to the etsy listing. Marinette kissed him goodbye and he was about to jump out the window to her balcony when he had an idea. “My Princess, can I keep the choker?” A questioning look crossed her face but she nodded and grabbed it from her desk. He blew her a kiss then jumped out the window.

The plan was devious but Ladybug couldn’t get mad at him for revealing his identity if someone just happened to find out. Right? In this case, he’d rather ask for forgiveness than permission. He honestly didn’t think he could resist being close to Marinette at school and if he started cuddling up to her as Adrien without her knowing he was Chat, he’d most definitely upset her. Taking a deep breath, Adrien stepped out of the car wearing a certain Chat Noir inspired choker

He saw her across the courtyard talking to Alya. When the blogger noticed him standing there, she elbowed her friend in the side then pointed to him. Marinette turned to look at who her friend pointed at. He was close enough that she could clearly see the choker, her beautiful blue eyes widening at the sight. Their gazes’ locks and whatever she saw in his eyes must have confirmed something for her because suddenly, she was running to him.

When she met him with a hug, he picked her up and spun her around. “Kitty, I’m so glad it’s you.” Her voice was a whisper in his ear. He set Marinette back to the ground. She pulled her face away from his neck and looked up at him. Adrien gently cupped her cheeks, as she had done to him the night before. The kiss they shared in the school courtyard was fiercer than the others. When they broke away both teens were panting slightly as they rested their foreheads together. “Well, if we don’t go say something to Alya she’s probably going to have an aneurysm trying to figure out how I ended up kissing the boy I had a crush on.”

“Aww, Princess, you had a crush on me?” His face drooped a little. “Wait, had? As in not anymore?”

When she giggled, his face was alight again. “Sorry Adrien, I kind of fell for my partner in a leather cat suit when he came to visit my civilian self.”

“My Lady.” He breathed the words out, so many things clicking into place.

Marinette pulled back and flicked the little bell on the choker. Adrien swallowed, adam’s apple bobbing. She smirked and grabbed his hand. “Come on Chaton, I’d rather not have to go to Alya’s funeral because we shocked her to death.” They began walking towards a dumbfounded looking Alya, hands intertwined.

[fangirlfanwritings]

Sister!Stark Request

Hey, how about a sister!stark where she and Jon are Twins. Lady Catelyn is having a dinner party, (Ned is bored). She and Jon (and their direwolves) accidentally crash the dinner party during one of their 'getting up to no good' schemes (They even roped Robb in on it). They embarrass Cate in front of her guests and shes livid, but Ned found it hilarious. Thanks hun! <3

Inside the feast as everybody danced, laughed, and ate Lord Stark, your father, sat unentertained by what was happening. “Try and at least look happy to be here,” Catelyn told Ned.

“I’ve gone bored of the same old feasts, Catelyn. I’d rather have a quiet dinner with you and the children.” Meanwhile you and Jon, your twin brother, were playing outside in the practice yard with Ghost and Ice, your white direwolf.

“Why aren’t we at the feast again,” you asked blocking the blow from Jon’s sword. As you retaliated with your sword he stepped back and answered.

“Because I don’t want to to see the disgusted look on Lady Catelyn’s face the whole time I’m trying to enjoy the party.”

“Fair enough.” The two of you kept fighting back and forth until he cornered.

“Looks like you’ve lost this one sister,” he gave a cocky smile.

“You know what they say brother….” you quickly wrapped your leg around his and pulled it out from under him pressing your sword to his neck, “don’t hesitate. Look’s like you’ve lost this one brother.”

“When will you two admit that you’re both equally skilled?” You both turned towards the voice and saw Robb and Grey Wind walking towards you.

“When will you admit that we are both better than you,” Jon laughed. “What are you doing out here? Shouldn’t you be flirting with the girls in the party?”

“It’s a little dry in there. Same things we always seem to do. What are you two doing out here?”

“Just sparring to pass the time.” You watched as the direwolves started running and playing around with each other.

“We should do something fun,” Jon smiled mischievously.

“And what were you thinking of brother,” Robb’s eyes gleamed.

*******

A loud crash came through the hallway outside the grand hall catching half the room’s attention. But when the doors were thrown up by three large direwolves chasing the squealing pig. The guests yelled and creamed as the three large beast growled and looked furiously at the dinner they were trying to catch. The pig ran up to Arya who was laughing hysterically. You and your brother’s skidded into the dining hall and yelled the command for Ghost, Grey Wind, and Ice to halt.

Your playing had made a wrong turn.

The three large wolves stopped their growling and healed behind each one of their owners. You looked up to the head table to see Catelyn scowling down at you. If looks could kill…

“You three....Ned’s office….now,” she seethed. You three walked the cold hallways with your tail between your legs, much like the direwolves trudging behind you that knew trouble was coming.

“Close the door,” Catelyn said through gritted teeth and took a seat in your father’s chair. “Ned,” she gave him his queue to begin yelling.

You three waited to get in the worst trouble of your life when your father did the most unbelievable thing...he erupted in laughter. “Ned,” Catelyn was shocked and appalled.

“That was the funniest thing I have ever seen.”

“Ned!”

“Catelyn it was a funny surprise in the middle of a feast I was about to fall asleep in.” The look on her face made him huff. “Ok, ok,” he turned back towards you and your brothers and sighed. “You three are grounded for a week. No swordplay, boys you get to help shovel manure out of the barns and Y/N, you get to do an hour of extra needlepoint and you have to help Arya with her needlepoint. There. Happy?,” he looked at Catelyn. “Now, you three get out of here and go straight to bed. And the direwolves have to stay in your rooms or in their pen all week. No walking around.”

You three nodded and pretended to sulk out of the room for Catelyn’s amusement. As soon as you turned the corner away from your father’s office you all broke out in laughter.  “I can’t believe we got away with that.”