#and Mayor likes their food bland as anything

[askblueandviolet]

the way i abruptly stopped reading at the notif HKAHAJ

HI 1!1!1!1 :3 gift time real

uhhdhdhdjbdbd..hows mayor holdin up !?!? (fav mayor real) I REMEMBER THEM LIKING MILK ICE..IN CHAP IDK, so heres milk ice for them ;D

as for Edgelord™. howreu doing uh huh. uh. heres. shadow puppets. idk do w them as u please??? AS FOR BAI HEEEEEEE, ilysm, u get a catplushie real

(ITS 4 AM. ur fic stilltastes gud, like. tarts. yummy tarts. mmwmsm,snms hopeur doijg well <3 u get a taco fr 💪back to reading lolol)

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[klaprisun]

One Sunny Day

(Stardew Valley)(Haley x Female Farmer)

Chapter 13

The day of the Flower Dance has arrived. I received a letter in my mailbox yesterday informing me of the details.

Tomorrow we're all getting together for the Flower Dance.

If you can find a partner, you might even want to participate in the dance yourself!

There's a little clearing beyond the forest west of town where we hold the dance. Arrive between 9 am and 2 pm if you're interested.

-Mayor Lewis

I don't totally want to go considering I'll have to see Haley. We have not spoken for a couple days again. This time I feel it's deliberate. At least on my end it is. My heart still aches from our last encounter with one another at the Bath by the train station. She hasn't tried to reach out and apologize once. Part of me wonders if she even remembers. I wasn't going to try to find out though.

She will be dancing away with Alex with not a care in the world. Not even a second thought about what happened the other day. Everyone else will have a partner too except for me and I will look stupid standing on the side, watching everyone else have fun.

"I have better things to do today anyway," I mutter under my breath while crumbling up the letter about the Flower Dance, "I will start the day by watering my crops like usual, then I will swing by Pierre's-... oh never mind."

Everything will be closed today. How stupid. It only takes me 30 minutes to water everything and then I'll have nothing to do.

Back in my house, I sulk around for a good hour, refusing to do anything else. I stare over at the dresser I now have in my bedroom, wondering what clothes I would wear if I were to go check it out for a second. IF I were to go.

Getting up out of bed, I pace over to the dresser and proceed to pull open the draws to see what clothes I have to wear. There is nothing even remotely nice enough to wear.

"It's not like I'd be staying anyway. I'll just go, peek around the corner and leave," I start convincing myself.

Next thing you know I am walking down to the clearing the note said the Flower Dance is held. I had just thrown on baggy jeans, and a white flannel with a light pink tank top underneath. I kept the flannel open so the pink tank top is more visible.

I made the mistake to fiddle around in the fields before I left so my knees are covered with dirt and I am kind of dusty.

I've never been this far west before. I got a little lost finding my way but I did eventually make it since I saw ropes with colorful banners leading the way. But just as I said I was going to do, I stood back and observed from a distance.

Sam, Abigail and Sebastian are huddled together. Oddly, Penny is standing around with them. Emily has arrived back in town from her trip. She is prancing around and doing her own thing. Shane is also off on his own, but moping around instead of prancing. Leah and Elliot are chatting away over some punch, and Maru is talking to Harvey while they grab food from the buffet table. The older folks are also kind of just standing around and chatting with one another.

As badly as I wanted to ignore her, I saw Haley sitting by herself in the corner of the clearing in the grass. She seems to be wiping her eyes constantly, and trying to hide away behind her golden locks. She has the most gorgeous white, spring dress on with a crown made of beautiful pink flowers. Alex is nowhere in sight.

My legs seem to have a mind of their own, because I find myself approaching Haley in the shaded corner of the clearing. No one else had my attention, only Haley. I felt everyone's eyes on me as they watched me cut across the grass to get to her.

Haley didn't notice my presence until I was directly looming over her, casting extra shadows over her since I blocked any bit of light that's shining behind me.

She quickly wiped her eyes and nose before she spoke, "What are you doing over here?" she sniffles.

"I came to see what you are doing." I respond blandly.

Haley recognizes the bland tone and proceeds to quiz me more, "if you are just going to be all grumpy, why did you even come?"

"I felt left out. I had nothing else to do today. At least I'm not crying in the corner by myself." I snap back in a monotone voice.

That made her stand up to face me now. Except she doesn't seem that threatening considering her cute little outfit and her height. She brushes off her dress before pointing an accusing finger at me.

"I didn't ask you to come over here and ridicule me. Now go on with whatever you came over here to do and be gone!" she shouts. Our conversation is not in the range of anyone else, despite the shouting.

"Why are you crying, Haley? Where is Alex?" I calmly ask to try to settle things down. I don't try putting a hand on her shoulder or anything yet because I don't think we are quite back to that level.

She broke down crying instead of answering me. She covered her face with her hands and lowered her head. I just awkwardly stand there waiting for her to get to a point that she can speak.

"Haley you are going to wreck your makeup," is the best I can do to try to stop her from crying any longer. It worked though because her wails turned to breathy inhales.

"A-A-Alex l-l-left," she manages to get out.

"What do you mean?"

"He left for Zuzu City this morning to go see someone named Taylor. I heard them on the phone talking today and he just left right after. He left me hanging here with no dance partner. I have been the Flower Queen for 5 years and again this year, but how lame is it that I don't have a partner to dance with," Haley blurts out all at once. She got angrier and angrier as she went on.

"Whoa whoa whoa, Alex just left? On the day of the Flower Dance? Does he know how important that is to you?"

Her eyes sparkle up at me with more tears ready to form.

"Yes."

"So now you don't have a dance partner?" I reiterate.

"Yes."

"Have you asked anyone at all?"

"Ew no. That's not my job," she holds her nails up to her face to admire them. They are manicured with an eye catching, sea blue color.

"Well how are you supposed to get a dance partner if you don't ask around?"

She rolls her eyes at me, "I don't. Everyone else has a dance partner. You'll see. It's the same line up of partners every year. Nothing changes. It's kind of a tradition."

"Fuck tradition," I stick my hand out to her, palm up. I watch the gears work in her head to figure out what I am doing. It finally clicks and her head rapidly moves to look up at me.

"You... want to be my dance partner?" She says hesitantly. I can't tell how she is feeling with this proposition I have made.

I reach out and gently wipe the tear marks of her mascara from her cheeks. "Someone has to be the Queen's knight in shining armor."

Haley started blushing immensely at my remark. All she could do was look up and stutter at me. It was quite the sight to see.

"It is now time for the Flower Dance to begin! Everyone find your dance partners and line up as usual," Mayor Lewis hollers.

I watch as everyone huddles around, while the dancers line up across from their partner. The pairings really surprised me. Emily is with Shane, Sebastian with Abigail, Sam with Penny, Maru with Harvey, and Leah with Elliot.

Haley takes me by the hand and drags me straight to the open spot in the middle. She sticks me where I am supposed to go and prances over to her spot across from me. Since I have taken Alex's place, I am unfortunately the only girl on the guys side.

"I'm not a very good dancer. Warning you now," I tell Haley.

"You'll be fine. Don't worry," she giggles.

Mesmerizing music starts filling the air. I can't help but feel the weight of my worries lift off my shoulders as soon as I hear the song start.

On cue, Haley and the other girls in her row start swinging their dresses side to side to the beat. My row, which is all the guys, start approaching them to the beat. I am kind of behind on all the moves, Haley is amused.

The whole world seems to stop as I get closer to Haley. I can't help admiring how gorgeous she looks in the afternoon sunlight. It starts to feel as if we are the only two in the world.

Haley starts to wave her arms in the air while swaying her hips. I am not even paying attention to what moves I'm supposed to be doing at this point. I am just kind of bopping around... although that is kind of all I'm supposed to be doing anyway.

Haley goes back to swaying her arms in the air, I sense my row is moving closer to the girls, so I approach closer to Haley. We are almost face to face now, just a foot apart.

"You are all dirty," she whispers to me, referencing the dirt on my pants from this morning.

"You have no idea," I give her a wink, causing her cheeks to flare pink. I notice her stumble in the choreography which I doubt she has ever done in the 5 years she has been Flower Queen.

All the guys go to grab their partner's waist gently with one arm, and do some sort of a formal walk in a circle move.

I grab Haley's waist and hold it tightly, giving her a slight squeeze. Our bodies are pressed up to one another. The two of us are so wrapped up in our little circle move, that we don't notice everyone else has stopped.

Mayor Lewis clears his throat off in the distance, "That's it for the Flower Dance festivals folks. Y'all have a great night."

Haley and I immediately backed off from each other severely embarrassed. I look around at the crowd and notice Elliot and Leah fanning themselves as if they're saying 'it got steamy in here'.

Haley smooths out her skirt and gives me a little curtsy. "Thank you, my knight in shining armor, for saving the day."

I return a small bow and take her hand, planting a kiss on the back of it before releasing, "You know where to find me if you ever require rescuing."

I'm so glad I ended up going to the Flower Dance this year.

[miracleweaponhunt]

Miracle Weapon Hunt Chapter 29: Cameras and a Little Privacy

Everyone was annoyed by the news reporters. Not just the ones from ShiShi, but all over. Ropear, Saoloro, Vannana and Sandala all had their own news station being sure to interview as many of the rulers as they could. Most of them were used to it, giving bland answers to satiate them or going out of their way to avoid them.

“Rory. Can you answer the questions people have about-“

“Fuck off, I already said it.” Rory said. “Go talk to my people if you want an answer.”

“I’m not entirely sure what to even say, it was all so sudden.” Was Kazumi’s usual response. “And so little time into my presidency before it all happens.” Then she would leave looking dejected and leave the news staff to find someone else. Usually Zach, who was nothing but keen to attempt to put the worries of the people at ease.

“Look, I have plans in place to assure the safety of everyone. The people back in Fightston are working on training as many new recruits as soon as possible to grands that need them. Any mayors of surrounding ships are more than free to contact us in the hopes of having a few soldiers. We want nothing more than for the Skyspace to continue to prosper.” Cassandra watched as he gave that exact speech, without fail, every time, in the same tone. It was actually kind of impressive. Hopefully someone with editing skills could layer them all and it’d end up on Skyspace’s funniest videos or something. She herself was playing a one-sided game of hide and seek around them with Roxanne, and they were all relentless. One from Saoloro had already got Julian, and the two of them were stuck making sarcastic comments at each other in an infinite loop of smartass.

“You think Willow’s stuck talking to one of them?” Roxanne asked, checking the corner for another one.

“No idea.” Cassandra replied. “How long until we get to eat?”

“Let me check…about twenty minutes.”

“Awesome.”

Julian eventually joined them in avoiding cameramen after he won the battle of wits, at least according to him. The three went around the castle’s walls, avoiding anyone they could, even if it wasn’t a cameraman. Being surrounded by the most influential people in the world was actually kind of boring, in all honestly. The three snuck their way onto the roof, where nobody was waiting.

“So is this where we’re waiting until the food?” Julian asked, looking over the city surrounding the castle. Nice lavish looking houses outside the castle with some shopping streets a small bit away. Behind those were some apartment complexes in a neatly polished white.

“Nice place.” He said to himself.

“You think?” Willow asked.

Roxanne jumped at Willow casually standing behind her.

“How long were you there?” She screamed.

“About two minutes after I joined.” Julian said casually. “Honestly, I just wanted to see how long it would take you to notice.”

“Seems I’m forgettable.” Willow said with a dramatic sigh.

“Not at all!” Roxanne yelled back. Cassandra just put a hand on her shoulder.

“So Willow, if I can ask something?” Julian interjected. “Any problems with this place I can know about?”

“What you mean?” Willow asked, joining him in looking over the grand.

“I don’t know, a seedy underbelly or something? Something that would make someone…join a weird cult dedicated to destroying it or another grand, for instance.”

“Got it.” Willow said with a sigh. “Well, I think the main one would be the lack of compensation some people are getting further out.”

“Like on the subships?”

“Further out here. The islands near the edge. Most of them deal with fishing. But it has their own issues, you see. Being separate from the mainland to allow fish societies to integrate more naturally means these fishermen either have to live by themselves or make their families live in more run-down areas. And all for pretty bad pay.”

“Bad pay, huh?”

“Anyone could catch a fish; you don’t need to learn anything special to do it. That’s the reasoning behind paying them less, despite them being arguably the most important people over here.”

“And if they were promised a better life fishing in a new society by the legion, maybe they could join them and poison the fish, or turn a blind eye to their ships.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, hopefully a certain eldest daughter steps up and takes care of things while we have to fight the big battles.”

“Sure thing.” Willow said after a moment of hesitation. Julian thought it would be interesting to press her mother further, but considering his antics yesterday, that would probably had him marked for death.

“So should we get going?” Roxanne asked. “Dinner’s in five.”

Javier was already waiting for the four of them when dinner started. There were only four chairs when they got to their table from yesterday. Everyone was sitting where they were the previous day, when a servant put a calm hand on Roxanne’s shoulder.

“I’ve been told you have a meeting with Rory.” He said calmly. “He’s at the other end of the room.”

The servant pointed her over to the table Rory and Gurpreet were sitting at. The two were making casual conversation that didn’t seem to interest either of them, and she quietly inserted herself on the lone empty chair between the two of them.

Gurpreet looked at her, but didn’t pass much heed, while Rory leaned in a little to glare at her.

“And what would you be doing here?” He asked, raising a thin grey eyebrow at her.

“I was told you wish to talk to me?” Roxanne replied, leaning back while secretly praying her chair didn’t tip over.

“I didn’t wish shite!” He snapped back.

“Be nice.” His wife said flatly.

“Sorry, sorry.” He began again, calmer this time. “I didn’t ask for you. You must be thinking of someone else.”

“But Freyja told me to come here.” Roxanne said. “I thought it might be something to do with the bow?”

“Ah, your group isn’t responsible for that. Don’t worry about it too much.”

“You sure?”

“How old are you?” Gurpreet asked.

“Eighteen.”

“So the fate of the world has been trusted to an eighteen-year-old and her friends. You have enough stresses, don’t let us add to them.”

So with her effectively shut down, the food was served. Roxanne just got what she had yesterday, still tasted as good. Rory and Gurpreet continued their own conversation, with Rory’s throaty laugh erupting over what Roxanne took as a minor statement. Some kind of inside joke, probably. Gurpreet’s wife gave a relaxed smile, so the shock was shown externally.

She stayed silent throughout the meal, not having much important to stay. Eventually the food was finished, and all the leaders and heroes were moved to the dance hall. Just like it was rehearsed, the classical music started playing and people either started dancing or mingling with drinks. Julian and Cassandra started dancing well as they practiced, occasionally having to stop for a little to allow the other couples to move past them. Willow and Javier also started moving around the room together. They also had it down, even if they weren’t as graceful and started to brush against the other dancers at times. The couples danced together, fathers danced with their daughters, it was all such a lovely display of the unity the Skyspace was showing.

Willow was bored. She noticed Roxanne taking a glass of juice after being denied alcohol, standing around in her cute attempt to be casual.

“Javier, how thirsty are you?” She asked.

“A little.” Javier replied. Understatement of the century, the room was making him sweat so much anywhere he stepped probably needed a hazard sign afterward.

“Same here, I’ll go get us something.”

Willow looked around for her mom. Talking to Mia and Kazumi while taking sips from her wine glass, more sophisticated than usual. She found Roxanne, guiding her over to Freyja’s blind spot.

“Hey Roxy, wanna get out of here?” She whispered when Roxanne went over to her.

“To where?”

“To the castle we’ll have access to?”

Roxanne glanced around the room, giving a covert nod. The two tried walking out of the room as discreet as possible, but an especially lanky servant stepped in front of the door just as they were about to cross.

“May I ask what’s going on here?” He asked calmly, offering some orange juice to the two of them.

“We just need to go to the bathroom.” Willow replied quickly.

“Both of you?”

“Is that really that suspicious?”

“A little, I’ll admit.”

Willow leaned into him.

“Look, it’s kind of an emergency. The lady specific kind.”

The waiter looked a little grossed out as Roxanne gave an uneasy nod. He let them through, and Willow looked at the door as it was closing.

“Works every time.” She chuckled.

“So now what?” Roxanne whispered. She glanced around the empty hallways with not a single servant around, and not a sound from any source that wasn’t behind them.

“Whatever we want.” Willow whispered back. “But first, I need to get out of this dress.”

The two went through the hallways while avoiding the few servants that were doing some light cleaning on the halls. After a few minutes, they were in Willow’s room.

It was extremely simple in comparison to what Roxanne thought it would be. Her bed looked exactly the same as her old one back on Miracle with a simple red blanket in contrast to the blue walls. Next to the bed was a wooden dresser. Not with any special design, just an extremely ordinary dresser and wardrobe which Willow was digging through.

“Okay, you want to borrow some clothes or something?”

“Excuse me?” Roxanne asked.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure you’re my size.” Willow replied calmly without looking, handing her a shirt. It was a neon green shirt with some cartoon character she didn’t recognise on it. Willow handed her some grey sweatpants to finish the outfit.

“You can keep the shirt; some ex gave it to me.”

“Ex?”

“Yeah, she turned out to be an assassin. Shit was wacky.”

With that information given it’s nonchalant explanation, Roxanne went into the bathroom to get out of her dress. The bathroom also wasn’t anything to write home about, other than the fact it was Willow’s personal one. She quickly got into the clothes Willow gave her, heading out to see Willow already dressed in a plain blue t-shirt and black sweatpants casually laying on her bed.

“So now what?” She asked.

A couple ideas flashed in Roxanne’s mind once the question was asked. She had a TV opposite the bed, so that was definitely an option. Or just relax with some music, she definitely had a music player.

“We’re gonna kiss.”

The words left her mouth before they were in her brain. But this was her chance. Her chance to finally seal the deal and make this love adventure worth it. They’d kiss, and then perhaps do some other stuff…okay, let’s not go too crazy yet.

“Yeah, sure.” Willow said with a slow nod.

Okay, this was it. She was ready. She crawled on top of Willow as she lay flat on her bed. She put a hand to each side in an attempt to look assertive, just like in her favourite shows. She lay down and their lips connected, followed by their tongues. This was it. It wasn’t what she expected the end to look like, but she was here.

And it felt so…

…so…

…gross.

[bill-y]

𝐈𝐍𝐔𝐑𝐄

Peeta mellark x male reader

We all know who Katniss Everdeen is, but what if Primrose hadn’t been chosen but another boy from another unfortunate family? YOUR family.

Info: This is basically a reader insert and I’ve changed a few rules, not ground breaking though. The reader is a bit bland for now but I plan for his actions to be different. Because he has different moral grounds from Katniss and such. Would appreciate feedback! FEEL FREE TO POINT OUT TYPOS. GRAMMARLY SOMETIMES DOESN’T DO MY DYSLEXIC ASS JUSTICE

Part one: Over there, buddy

Part two:You’re here right now. :)

Part three: Click here, pepperoni salami.

Wattpad account: L0calxDumbass

I separated with Gale and Katniss for a while, telling them I needed air. I sighed, leaping from branch to branch in the thicket of trees. Bread, not just bread, baker's bread. If I'm lucky I could get just enough squirrels for the baker, he had a taste for it but his wife was much of a witch, so he only buys it when she's not around.

I remembered how she found me stealing some burnt bread from the trashcan. I looked at her with wide eyes, frozen, I thought I was going to die, stealing was punishable for death, after all. But she just let me go, screaming about her frustration of Seams picking through her trash.

I got bread that day either way.

I landed on a sturdy branch, spotting a squirrel on the tree adjacent to me; it was quite huge, I'm sure he'd love this. Let's just hope the witch isn't home by the time I give this to him.

I crouched down, still as a statue as I watched the squirrel run up and down the tree. I pulled out the thin, glistening dagger, unwrapping its course, leather bindings, which became a makeshift thin rope. I felt my eyes unconsciously widen,  watching the squirrel's movements.

My arm aimed, then with a simple flick, the dagger whistled through the air. The small creature was then pinned to the bark of the tree through its eyes. The dagger's blade was thin enough to not damage anything when aimed right.

I pulled on the rope, the blade coming back, dragging the animal carcass with it. A small smile tugged on my face, I can get bread.

Kunal was surely panicking, he was the type to worry about the smallest of things. He once stepped on a cat's tail, Buttercup, Primrose's cat and he bawled, nobody could calm him down. Until he was offered food, that is.

I chuckled at the memory, slowly pulling the blade off the head of the squirrel. I held it in my hands victoriously, a grin on my face. I whistled a small 3 tone song, the chirping mocking birds falling silent before they imitated the tone.

After meeting up, we went back home, passing by the Hob. It was sort of a black market, where coals are transported directly to trains. I disliked it here, the amount of coal dust always bothered me, so when I come here I tend to cover my nose.

We managed to trade six of the fish for good bread, the other two for some salt. The lady who sells soup, the one that always glares at me because I've insulted her soup on multiple occasions, Greasy Sae: took half the greens we gathered, along with the dead dog meat that she calls "beef".

That's why I hate her soups, though it's not like I have much of an option, we can't afford luxury here. Unlike those obnoxious, entitled, privileged people in the Capitol. My jaw clenched at the mere thought of those scums.

We finish our business on the market, so we went to the mayor's house, who was particularly fond of strawberries. We knocked on the back door, his daughter, Madge opening it for us.

She's in Katniss and I's year sits beside us at almost every event because we don't really have groups of friends. For being the mayor's daughter you'd expect her to be an entitled brat or maybe a snob, but she was alright, she kept to herself.

I like that, I hate noisy people, They'll scare away the game, that and I've never really liked loud noises. I still remember the explosions in the mines, it was traumatizing, even though my father didn't meet death there. I really wished he had.

Madge didn't wear her usual attire, instead, she wore an expensive white dress, her blonde hair up with a pink ribbon. Reaping clothes. I felt my face scrunch up, that day was supposed to be a form of celebration. It's more of a way for the capitol to show who's in control.

We were being punished for the crimes of the people who failed, disguised as some form of celebration. It's disgusting.

"Pretty dress," Gale complimented. Madge shoots him a look, trying to see if it's genuine or if he was just being ironic. It was a pretty dress, but it was a waste.

She smiled, "Well, if I'm going to the Capitol, I want to look nice, don't I?"

I clenched my jaw, "But you won't be going to the Capitol," I said coolly, my voice monotone. My eyes landed on a small, circular pin on her dress. Real gold. The testament to the fact that she probably won't be chosen. "You probably have five entries, compared to us, that's a blessing."

"That's not her fault," Katniss said. Madge looked slightly hurt, probably because I've never really spoken my thoughts to her, I try my best to be polite when she engages a conversation with me.

"I know," I responded plainly. Madge smiled towards me, though it was clear it wasn't exactly genuine. She then handed the money for the berries. She looked towards Katniss "Good luck, Katniss"

"You too," She responded.

We walked toward the Seam, I can't help but feel angry. Her? Going to the Capitol? What a joke. When you're twelve your name gets put in the pile once, thirteen twice then so on. Up until your eighteen, where your name is entered seven times.

But the thing is, the rich have an advantage. You can enter your name willingly in the pile when you're starving in exchange for some tesserae. I had been doing this since I was twelve, having entered my name 3 times, for my mother, brother and myself.  Every year following suite, it has always been like this.

Now at the age of 16, I've entered my name twenty times, same with Katniss. Gale was in even greater danger, with a number of forty-two.

And she'll be the tribute this year? It can happen but it's deadly slim. I knew Gale felt the same way, listening to him rant about tesserae in the woods with Katniss was enough confirmation, along with the fact that I join in on the rants. Always end it with a promise to destroy the Capitol, somehow.

But what good does that do us?

Gale, Katniss and I divide our spoils, though it wasn't really the evenest distribution.  Gale got more, understandably since he has more mouths to feed.

"See you guys in the square," Katniss said, Gale nodded, "Wear something pretty," he joked.

I decided to stop by the bakery, by then the witch should be home but I took my chances. There was Mr Mellark, sitting outside, watching the pigs. He saw me from the corner of his eye, he grinned. "Greyback!' he called.

"Mr Mellark, still up for some squirrel?" I ask, holding the fat one up. He nodded, "You're lucky my wife isn't here, yet. Hold on, I'll get the bread for Kunal," he said, rushing inside.

I walked to the backdoor of the bakery so that he wouldn't trouble himself that much. I waited awkwardly outside, looking at a small bird fluttering about. I whistled, holding my finger out.

The bird landed on my finger, making me smile. From the corner of my eye, I saw a boy, blonde, stocky. Could probably kill me, if I'm being honest. Even though I was fast, I wasn't strong.

Soon enough, the bird flew away with the arrival of the baker, with a loaf of sweet, savoury bread, hot from the oven. "Here you go, Greyback."

I nodded, handing him the squirrel. "Oh!" he hummed, "Have you met my son, Peeta?" he asked, a smile on his face, "You're in the same year, yes?"

I didn't know what to say. Sure, I know him but I don't know that well him that well. My eyes travelled to the boy, who simply waved and briskly walked away. "I don't think so," I answered.

"I better be going, Mr Mellark. Nal needs his favourite bread after all," I said, flashing a small smile before I left. A small pit of dread boiled in my stomach, something bad is going to happen.

But then again, it's Reaping day, nothing good ever happens.

Word count: 1.3k

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:)))

[believingispowerfulmagic]

“A Helping Hand” Chapter 5: Tensions Boil Over

"Thank you so much, John," Robin said, letting his friend into his house. "Roland's stopped throwing up but still needs to recover and get some fluids and electrolytes into him."

John grinned. "No problem. You know I love to spend time with Roland, even if he's sick. Any instructions?"

Robin shrugged. "Not really. Just give him some Pedialyte and keep his food bland for now. And monitor him for a fever. Otherwise, I imagine he'll nap on and off for most of the day."

"Sounds good to me," John said. "Dare I ask how the mayor is doing?"

"I honestly don't know," Robin admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. "She had a bad day the other day and then yesterday, she did everything I asked. Today? Who knows?"

John clapped him on the back. "Good luck, mate."

"Thanks," Robin said, heading into the living room. He had set Roland up on the couch and his son was wrapped in his blanket as he cuddled his Teddy bear. Kneeling next to the couch, Robin ran his fingers through his son's curls. "I'm leaving now. Be a good boy for your Uncle John, okay?"

"Okay, Papa," Roland said. "Tell Regina I said hi and thank you for helping take care of me yesterday."

Touched by his son's message, Robin nodded. "I will, I promise. See you tonight. Love you."

"Love you too, Papa," Roland replied as Robin kissed his forehead. He then closed his eyes, holding his teddy bear tighter as he went back to sleep.

Robin stood and grabbed his bag. "Call my cell phone if you need anything. Otherwise, I'll see you at four-thirty."

"See you then," John replied. "And good luck."

Thanking him, Robin headed out of the house and got into his car. He drove to the mayor's house and parked outside, bracing himself for what would be waiting for him when he got inside.

Mary Margaret greeted him at the door. "How is Roland? Was it just a twenty-four-hour bug?"

"It was," he replied, stepping into the house and taking off his coat. "I kept him home from school today so he could recover as he's still weak. A friend is with him."

"I'm glad he's feeling better," Mary Margaret said. "Regina will be too. She sounded very fond of him. Then again, Regina always had a soft spot for children."

He nodded, thinking back to how she treated Roland and talked to him when he was awake. "I could tell. She's a natural mother."

"Yes, she is," Mary Margaret said. "When I have my own children, I hope I'm even half the mother she is."

"I'm sure you will be," he assured her, entering the kitchen. Mayor Mills sat at the table, eating breakfast. She didn't acknowledge him though Henry did. Robin greeted the boy warmly before saying: "Good morning, Madam Mayor."

She slowly took a sip of her coffee before setting the mug down. Glancing at him, she had a neutral expression as she said: "Good morning."

Robin bit the inside of his cheek as he realized what kind of day it was going to be. He decided to just ignore her and moved toward the kitchen's island to prepare her morning doses for her.

"How is Roland?" she then asked, though when Robin looked up, she still wasn't looking at him.

"He's recovering at home," Robin replied. "He needs a little more sleep and a lot of electrolytes."

"And I assume someone is with him?" she asked as if he was an incompetent father who did not know how to care for his own child.

He placed his hands on the counter as he tried to keep his annoyance in check. "No, I gave him a big bottle of Gatorade and told him I'd see him later. He's four, he'll be fine," he said, making sure each word dripped with sarcasm.

She grimaced before looking over at him. "Okay, I worded that wrong. Who is with him now?"

"His godfather," Robin replied, appreciating that Regina recognized that he was a good father. "My best mate. I'd trust him with my life. He's taken care of Roland before."

"So he's like Aunt Mary Margaret and Uncle David to me?" Henry asked, reminding Robin that the boy was still present. Henry looked intrigued.

Robin's annoyance ebbed and he nodded, smiling. "Yes, exactly like that. Roland even calls him Uncle John."

"That sounds sweet," Mary Margaret said. She then looked at Henry. "Say goodbye to your mother and get your coat on. It's time to go."

Henry jumped up from his chair and walked over to his mother, kissing her on the cheek. She told him to have a good day and said she loved him. After repeating it back, he crossed to the sink. Robin intercepted him, taking the plate from him. "I've got it. Have a good day, Henry," he said.

"Thank you, Mr. Locksley," he said before leaving the kitchen.

Robin placed the plate in the sink and walked over to Regina. "Are you done?"

"I am," she said, pushing the plate toward him. "But I'm still drinking my coffee. I'll take my pills when I'm done with it."

"Yes, Your Majesty," he said sarcastically, walking away from the table as he fumed. How dare she just order him around when it came to her medication! It was his job to tell her when to take them, not hers.

Mary Margaret stuck her head back into the kitchen. "We're on our way. Have a good day, Regina. And as always, be nice!"

"I am not one of your students," Regina snapped but Mary Margaret had already gone. Which meant Robin was alone with an irate mayor.

Just perfect.

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[d-ama-ien]

Take a Break

Summary: The District Attorney is sick, yet they drag themselves to work anyways. Damien convinces them to take a break, helping care for them after they agree to take the rest of the day off. 

Pairing: Mayor Attorney (Damien x the DA)

Warning: Some mentions of nausea and other cold symptoms

A fic for @fgfluidity 

Author note: It’s cold season y’all, take care of yourselves! Damien wants you to be health uwu

You know you're sick- yesterday your body felt tired, bone achingly tired, you weren't able to finish even half of the dinner you made yourself, and you passed out before the clock chimed 8, barely waking up to your alarm this morning. But, you're not allowed to be sick, not with the trial coming up, with all the work you need to do. So, you trudge through your morning routine, managing to make yourself look something like presentable, arriving at the office on time, as usual, smiling at the secretary like there wasn't a worry in the world. Just the short walk to your office had you exhausted, but fortunately, you could sit while doing your work, and then you'd be fine.

You were not fine. It didn't matter that the only thing you had been doing for the last hour was paperwork; you were exhausted, barely able to focus on the paperwork in front of you. Just another hour or so until lunch, then another 5 hours until you could go home, then another three days until the weekend, and then you could rest. For now, it was out of the question, and you page the secretary for some coffee before quickly changing your order to tea. Yeah, coffee wasn't the best idea with your stomach. Tea would have to do for the caffeine fix.

The tea didn't do much for your fatigue. It was warm, tasted nice, and it felt good to have something in your nearly empty stomach, but you managed to get through to lunchtime, at least. You sigh as the phone rings, not wanting to deal with a last-minute request for a lunch meeting or anything that would add to your workload, and accidentally let the phone ring through. Whoops.

It starts ringing again a moment later, and this time you force yourself to take the call.

"I'm sorry to bother you, DA. I know your lunch break just started, but the mayor has requested a meeting," You bite back a groan at the secretary's message, instead saying they could send the mayor in. You groan after hanging up, though- if it was anyone, literally anyone, else you could've said to claim you're busy and out of the office and that they could make an appointment for later. Yeah, that's not an option when it comes to the mayor.

Of course, the mayor isn't just the mayor; he's Damien, your dearest friend, and usually, you'd happily clear the day for him at the drop of a hat. Today wasn't the usual; you are sick and wanted to steal a quick nap during your lunch break so that you could push through the rest of the day. But, if Damien requests your presence, then your presence is given. There's a knock on the door then, and you prepare yourself before calling out, "Come in!"

Damien comes in, a warm smile on his face, though it falls slightly when he sees your face. He seems to know something is off, even though you had done your best to force a smile before he came in.

"Are you doing well, friend?" Damien asks, voice gentle with concern.

"Just a bit tired is all," you wave off his concern, gesturing for him to come in and sit. No reason to make him stand around; the cane only offers so much support after all.

"I'm sorry to pop in on you without warning. I realized how long it's been since we got to spend time together casually, and I know this is your usual lunchtime, so I figured we could go eat together," Damien sits on the edge of his seat, eyes trained on my face.

"That sounds lovely. Just let me grab my coat," you rise from your seat, having to pause and brace your weight on the desk when a wave of dizziness hits. Well, that's new. Damien is openly concerned now, standing and leaning on his cane as he puts a hesitant hand on your shoulder.

"Are you sure you're well? I wasn't going to say it, but you look awful," you figure you must look really bad for Damien to say something like that. He never says anything negative about your appearance, except for in university when he would be laughing about how terrible you'd look after a good party.

"I'm fine, really, just-"

"This is more than "just tired," you look like you're going to pass out!" Damien's grip leaves your shoulder, and he briefly rests the back of his hand on your forehead. You'd blush at that if your face wasn't already so hot. "You're burning up. What on Earth possessed you to come in today? Get your stuff; we're taking you home this instant,"

"Damien, I can't just leave in the middle of the day. I have work to do!" You protest, blushing as Damien levels you with a stern stare- the kind he uses when his staff acts up and needs to be reprimanded. You've always shuddered just witnessing it, but seeing it could never prepare you for being on the receiving end of it.

"You're just putting your health at risk by staying. How much work will you get done if you end up needing to go to the hospital?"

"Okay, Dames, it's a cold,"

"Colds can become serious if not properly dealt with. Gather your things now. You're taking today and tomorrow off,"

“Tomorrow?” He knows the case you have coming up, the work you have to do, and he thinks you're going to take a day and a half off?

"Tomorrow. Friend, your work will suffer if you aren't well. I know you have that case coming up, and doing this to yourself is just putting that at risk,"

You want to keep protesting, should keep protesting, but Damien is right. You and your work will only suffer if you don't nip this issue in the bud. So, with a deep sigh, you fetch your coat, obediently locking up the office and following Damien down the hall. He pauses to speak to the secretary, informing them you'll be out of the office for the remainder of today and all of tomorrow, on Damien's orders. You're glad Damien doesn't say the truth, that he's forcing you out of work because you're sick. After all, it would be rather embarrassing for the mayor to need to drag an ill district attorney home. Well, it was embarrassing, but only to you, as no one else knew about it.

Damien brought you to where his driver was waiting outside the building, quickly rattling your address off to the driver as you get settled. It isn't too far a drive, you live reasonably close to where you work after all, and soon you're sitting at your own kitchen table as Damien wanders through the kitchen, gradually collecting ingredients and cooking tools as he goes. He's taken off his jacket and vest, eventually rolling up the sleeves of his shirt as he starts fusing with some of the ingredients he had gathered.

"Dames, what are you doing?" You ask, "You got me home, you don't have to stay," Damien looks at you like you’ve grown a second head, pausing for only a moment before continuing his quest.

"Friend, you were barely able to walk from the car to your table. There's no way I would just leave you here unattended. Would you even be able to cook for yourself?"

"You don't need to cook for me. I'm fine,"

"When's the last time you ate, then?"

"Dinner last night,"

"And did you actually eat a full meal?"

"Yes?" Damien pauses again, frowning at you, "Fine, no. I couldn't finish it,"

"You need to eat, so I'll cook for you," Damien sets a glass of water in front of you before going to the pot, starting to fill it with water and putting it on the stove.

"Drink that; with your fever, you'll need the hydration," he calls over his shoulder, ignoring your grumbling. The more stubborn part of you is a bit indignant at the treatment- you're an adult, a freaking district attorney, and Damien is instructing you on how to take care of yourself like you don't know any better. The more honest part of you is relishing in the attention because it's Damien taking care of you, sweetly looking out for your health and well being. You drink the water as you watch Damien work. He slowly added things to the pot, having dug up some veggies and herbs that you had nearly forgotten about, and adding those once they're cleaned and cut.

In a half-hour, there's a warm bowl of chicken noodle soup in front of you, Damien smiling warmly as he sits at the other side of the table with his own bowl.

"I had to improvise some of the ratios, so I hope it tastes alright," he says, sounding almost nervous. Is he worried you won't like it?

It's definitely one of the better soups you've had, not over seasoned but not bland like most foods made for an upset stomach are. You find yourself smiling as you take another spoonful.

"I didn't know you cooked," you say. The last time you had seen Damien cook was back in university- if that could be called cooking with the less than stellar results of most of his attempts.

"Well, I learned the basics from Celine before she moved in with Mark, but my staff does most of the cooking anymore," Damien explains, starting on his own bowl.

"I owe Celine a thank you. Last time you cooked for me, it's what caused me to be sick," you laugh slightly as you remember that "meal," using the term "meal" loosely, of course.

"In my defense, we were drunk," Damien points out, smiling at the memory. He's only smiling because he wasn't unlucky enough to eat it.

"Yes, and then I was suffering from food poisoning," he laughs fully at that, and you're thankful that at least a funny story came out of your misery. Damien finishes much faster than you do, but he sits with you and entertains with some more reminiscing as you slowly finish the full bowl.

"Why don't you go to your room and get in something more comfortable? I'll tidy up here and will be up in a moment," Damien suggests, standing to take your bowls to the sink.

"Dames, you really don't need to stay,"

"None of that, I always have time to be there for you. Go on upstairs," your protest dies in your throat when Damien briefly rests his hand on top of yours, squeezing gently. Then he's heading back over to the sink, starting the water and rinsing the dishes. You make your way upstairs, changing into a more comfortable outfit, resting on the edge of your bed after the effort of getting upstairs and getting changed. Damien knocks before coming in, always the gentleman, bringing a glass of water with him.

"I really don't need you to supervise me taking a nap," you point out as he sets the glass on your bedside table.

"I won't be supervising; I'm just keeping you company. You get settled in; I have to grab something." Part of you is embarrassed at the idea of Damien sitting with you while you sleep, but the other part of you recognizes the number of things he had seen you do in university and, well, taking a nap beside him was nothing compared to that.

You're laying down, just getting comfortable, when Damien reenters, carrying his briefcase in the hand not occupied by his cane.

"Do you mind if I sit beside you?" He asks, not even resting his hand on the bed until you nod. You glance over at him as he settles in, first noticing he was polite enough to kick off his shoes, then noticing his bare forearms, sleeves still rolled up from preparing lunch. He pulls out a file from the briefcase, starting to read it over while humming something under his breath. Damien's voice is rich and sweet enough when speaking, but his hums are like melted chocolate. You don't even notice how tired and relaxed you are until you're dozing off, asleep in mere minutes.

The sun is setting when you wake up, Damien's silhouette practically glowing with the late afternoon sunlight that hits him from the window. He's buried in another file, pen in hand. His other hand, you notice with surprise, is holding one of yours, thumb idly stroking the back of your hand as he reads, occasionally making a note. Now that you're awake, you should pull away, because this isn't proper- Damien's your friend, and your boss, but he's also so warm, and you're so comfortable, and you never want to let go of his hand. You shift slightly, drawing his attention your way, and you could die from how much affection is held in his smile as he notices you're awake.

"Ah, there's the little monster," he greets, and even though you're awake, he doesn't pull his hand away. You look down at your joined hands, Damien following your gaze- for a second, you swear he's blushing as he pulls away, but it could easily be the lighting.

"I'm sorry about that, you grabbed at my hand while you were asleep, and I didn't want to disturb you," he explains.

"Ah, sorry about grabbing you," you reply, a bit embarrassed.

"Don't apologize, I didn't mind," now that's definitely a blush rising on his face as he realizes what he said. You don't press the topic anymore; it's clear that he's flustered,  so you just roll over and reach your arms above your head to stretch. You slowly move to sit, grabbing the water off your bedside table, and taking a long drink.

"Are you hungry? I can heat the soup, or maybe I could make some pasta if your stomach is feeling better,"

"I think I could handle some pasta," you say, Damien nodding and moving to stand up.

"Take your time getting downstairs; it shouldn't take too long to have dinner prepared," Damien says as he packs his files and pen away into his briefcase, sliding his shoes on and grabbing his cane before leaving the room. You take your sweet time stretching and moving to stand. The water is boiling, and Damien is adding pasta to the pot as you get downstairs. True to his word, it doesn't take very long for the noodles to be prepared, Damien adding a bit of butter and a hint of salt and pepper before serving you a plate.

"Hopefully, it isn't too dull a meal, but we don't want to take any chances agitating your stomach even if it's feeling better right now," Damien says. The noodles are, admittedly, very plain, but it's also nice to have something a bit heavier in your stomach, even if it isn't a very exciting meal. There's less conversation this meal- you aren't sure that you fully woke up from your afternoon nap, and Damien seems content with the silence. It's quiet even after you finish, Damien talking and washing your plates as you finish another glass of water.

"Well," Damien starts once the dishes are set in the drying rack, fusing with his cane in a way that betrays discomfort.

"Well?" You question, not having enough context to prompt him further.

"I know it's a bit early, but since you're sick, you probably should be heading to bed soon," he says.

"Right. Would you want to stay the night?" You're not sure where the boldness to ask that question came from, your face burning with a blush as soon as you say it. Damien looks just as embarrassed but, well. He hasn't shut you down, hasn't proclaimed how immoral it is to even suggest that.

And then, "Do you really want me to stay?"

That's not the response you were expecting.

"I'd be happy to have you," while the sentiment was true, it was much bolder than you would usually be.

"Then I'd be happy to stay," your heart melts when he looks at you like that- if you were a little younger, a little more confident and naive, you would call that expression one of love. As it were, you knew better than to call it that, but it made your heart flutter nonetheless.

So, you end up lying on your side in bed, respectfully facing away as Damien removes his shirt and belt and his slacks. It was the only practical way for him to sleep, you had both agreed, but you wouldn't encroach on his privacy and observe as he disrobes. The situation was indecent enough as it is; there was certainly no reason to add to it. You're blushing as the bed dips, the covers shifting a bit as he slides between them.

You reach for the bedside table, turning off the lamp, plunging the room into a darkness that feels almost oppressive. You're hyper-aware of everything- his breathing, your own breathing, the warmth of having another person in the bed, the way the bed moves as Damien shifts. Then, a deep breath.

"Would you," Damien pauses, speaking quietly, "could I hold you?"

That isn't a question you asked a friend, you think, blushing at the implications behind him asking that.

"I wouldn't mind that," you answer, and your voice sounds too loud in the quiet room. There's more shifting then, a hesitant arm resting over your side, and you can tell that Damien hasn't fully settled, posed to pull away at any moment. So, you snuggle back, feeling his chest against your back, sighing as you let yourself relax into his touch. He relaxes a moment later, his arm a comfortable pressure on your side, breath warm where it occasionally brushes your ear. You fall asleep like that, his warmth almost painfully comfortable, and you have a blissfully deep sleep for the first time in ages.

The first thing you notice is how bright the room is, the sun much deeper in the sky than it would usually be when you get up. The next thing you notice is how much better you feel, no traces of nausea and barely tired. Then you notice that your bed is empty, and it's an incredibly disappointing realization that Damien had left while you were sleeping. But, on your bedside table was a glass of water, still cool, and a folded note with your name on it in curling script.

"My dearest,

I am terribly sorry to leave while you're still asleep. Unfortunately, I received an urgent request and had to go into the office earlier than I had been planning, and you needed the rest, so I didn't want to wake you. I left instructions for reheating the soup down in the kitchen, make sure you eat lunch and drink plenty of water. After work today, I will be stopping by check in on you, but you can call me if you need anything. Feel better soon.

Love,

Damien"

He called you his dearest and he signed the note with love, and you’re nearly swooning. You can't count how many times you skim the note, grinning every time your eyes cross his signature. Eventually, you manage to get up- you haven't had a proper day off in forever, and you fully intend to take advantage of it with a proper lazy day. And, at the end of the day, you get to look forward to your dearest, your Damien, coming home to you.

Well, maybe coming down with a cold isn't the worst thing after all.

[chiseler]

The House of D

As one of his final acts in office, Mayor Jimmy Walker broke ground in 1932 for the New York City House of Detention for Women, built on the site of the old Jefferson Market jail in Greenwich Village and colloquially known as the House of D. According to sociologist Sara Harris’ Hellhole (on John Waters’ list of recommended reading), It was intended as a model of prison reform. Opened in 1934, the twelve-story monolith of brownish brick with art deco flourishes loomed behind the old Jefferson Market courthouse on Sixth Avenue, looking more like a stylish if somewhat cheerless apartment building than a prison. Windows were meshed instead of barred, and the one sign on its exterior merely gave the address, “Number Ten Greenwich Avenue.” There were toilets and hot and cold running water in all four hundred cells, and it was going to focus on rehabilitating its inmates – prostitutes, vagrants, alcoholics and/or drug addicts – rather than merely punishing them. From the start the reality was at variance with the intentions, and the facility quickly became infamous as a combination of Bedlam and Bastille. Within a decade it was chronically overcrowded with a volatile mix of inmates: women who couldn’t make bail awaiting trials that were sometimes months off, women already convicted and serving time, alcoholics and addicts, the mentally ill, violent lesbian tops, street gang girls, hookers and other lifelong multiple offenders, and teenagers spending their first nights behind bars. Tougher, more experienced prisoners brutalized and sexually assaulted the weak and inexperienced. So, of course, did the staff. The halls rang with the howls of inmates suffering the agonies of drug or alcohol withdrawal. There were cockroaches and mice in the cells and worms in the food. Village lesbians called it the Country Club and the Snake Pit. The IWW organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn did time in the House of D, as did accused spy Ethel Rosenberg and Warhol shooter Valerie Solanas. In 1957, Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement, spent thirty days there for staying on the street during a civil defense air raid drill. Her ban-the-bomb supporters picketed outside every day from noon to two; the Times called them “possibly the most peaceful pickets in the city.”

Despite its bland exterior, the House of D made its presence very known in the neighborhood through the daily ritual of inmates yelling out the windows or down from the exercise area on the roof to the boyfriends, girlfriends, dealers and pimps perpetually loitering on the Greenwich Avenue sidewalk – a carnivalesque Village tradition for almost forty years. Waters first caught the spectacle in the early 1960s. “It was amazing. No one can ever imagine what that was like. All the hookers would be screaming out the windows, ‘Hey Jimbo!’ And all the pimps would be down on the sidewalk yelling stuff.” Writer and film producer Jeremiah Newton initially encountered it at around the same time. “It was this huge, monolithic building, looking like the building the Morlocks dragged the Time Machine into, and the girls were always yelling down, screaming obscenities and throwing things out the window. It was the biggest building there. I sat on a stoop watching the people walk by. I’d never seen anything quite like it before.” The Village writer Grace Paley lived near the facility in the 1950s and 1960s, and walked her kids past it regularly. She wrote that “we would often have to thread our way through whole families calling up – bellowing, screaming up to the third, seventh, tenth floor, to figures, shadows behind bars and screened windows, How you feeling? Here’s Glena. She got big. Mami mami, you like my dress? We gettin you out baby. New lawyer come by.”

Women arrested at antiwar rallies during the Vietnam era found themselves locked up in the House of D with the hookers, junkies, crazies and butch lesbians. On Saturday, February 20 1965, two eighteen-year-old college students, Lisa Goldrosen of Bard and Andrea Dworkin of Bennington, were arrested during an antiwar protest at the UN and sent to the House of D. There, they later testified, they were brutally mistreated and humiliated by male doctors “examining” them for venereal diseases, and forced constantly to fend off the rough advances of other inmates. They were not allowed to use a telephone until Monday. That March, the New York Post ran an exposé based on their testimony. They didn’t experience anything other women hadn’t for thirty years by then, but in the 1960s those other inmates were overwhelmingly poor black and Hispanic women. Dworkin and Goldrosen were white, middle-class college coeds. As so often happens, that’s what it took to generate public outrage.

When Grace Paley herself was arrested at another war protest some months later, she was detained in the facility. Conditions had slightly improved in light of the outcry the Post had stirred up. Paley had been arrested before at antiwar protests, but it had always resulted in at worst overnight stays. This time a judge threw the book at her and gave her six days. “He thought I was old enough to know better,” she later wrote, “a forty-five year old woman, a mother and teacher. I ought to be too busy to waste time on causes I couldn’t possibly understand.” At least she could look out her cell window and watch her kids walking to school.

In October 1970, Angela Davis was arrested in the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge at Eighth Avenue and Fifty-First Street and taken to the House of D. It was not her first time in Greenwich Village. She was born in 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama, where her father was a car mechanic and her mother was a teacher and a civil rights activist. They lived in a black neighborhood called Dynamite Hill because the Klan had firebombed so many homes there. With help from the American Friends, she and her mother moved to New York, where her mother studied for her Masters at NYU while Angela attended Elisabeth Irwin High School in the Village. She went on to study philosophy at Brandeis, the Sorbonne, and at the University of California, earning her Ph.D. One of her teachers was Herbert Marcuse. By the late 1960s she was an avowed Communist, a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and affiliated with the Black Panthers. She lectured in philosophy at UCLA until 1969, when her Communist and radical affiliations got her fired.

In August of 1970 a black teen named Jonathan Jackson took over a Marin County courtroom and demanded the release of his older brother, Panther member George Jackson, from nearby Soledad prison. He took the judge, the district attorney and three jurors hostage. In the attempted getaway, Jackson, the judge and one other person were shot and killed. When police discovered that Davis, who knew George Jackson, was the registered owner of Jonathan’s weapon, she was charged as an accomplice to murder, a capital crime in California. She fled the state, which put her on the FBI’s most wanted list. A beautiful twenty-six-year-old with a huge and magnificent Afro, she became a global pop star of the revolution a la Che Guevara. When the FBI arrested her she’d spent a few days walking openly in Times Square, unrecognized because she’d slicked down the Afro and dressed like an office worker.

Within thirty minutes of her being locked up in the House of D a crowd of protesters began to gather outside the monolith, chanting; prisoners stood in their windows and chanted along, their fists raised. The NYPD sent a Tactical Defense Force unit – riot police – and House of D officials turned off all the lights inside, hoping to quiet things down. Instead, women set small fires in their cells, and demonstrators cheered the flickerings in the windows. They dispersed without major incident. Placed in isolation, Davis went on a ten-day hunger strike. She spent nine weeks in the facility while fighting extradition to California, where, she was quite convinced, she’d be convicted and put to death. In fact she would be acquitted of all charges in a San Francisco courtroom in 1972, after spending eighteen months behind bars.

Davis was the facility’s last celebrity tenant. Through the 1950s and 1960s, Greenwich Village civic and neighborhood groups had constantly called for the facility to be removed to some location more appropriate, which is to say far away from where they lived and walked their children to school. More liberal souls in the neighborhood thought it should stay, fearing that if the women were shifted to some more isolated location they might be all the more easily mistreated. Before he wrote the hit Broadway musicals Hello, Dolly! and La Cage aux Folles, Villager Jerry Herman wrote a satirical revue called Parade, which included a song about the House of D controversy:

Don’t tear down the House of Detention

Keep her and shield her from all who wish her harm

Don’t tear down the House of Detention

Cornerstone of Greenwich Village charm…

So I say fie, fie to the cynic

Know that there’s love in these hallowed walls of brown

There’s love in the laundry, there’s love in the showers,

There’s love in the clinic

'Twas built with love, my lovely house in town

Save the tramp, the pusher and the souse

Would you trade love for an apartment house?

Dworkin and Goldrosen’s testimony before a commission studying conditions at the House of D helped lead to its being shut down in 1971. Inmates were moved to a new facility on Rikers Island. After some debate about possible new uses for the Village monolith, it was simply torn down in 1973. The site is now a small, fenced-in garden. In 1974 Tom Eyen’s spoofy play Women Behind Bars, set in the House of D in the 1950s, premiered. John Waters’ star Divine performed in a later production.

by John Strausbaugh

[javistg]

Six Sentence Sunday. One Victor.

It’s been a long time since I posted one of these --a long time since I posted anything, really-- but I’ve been writing a little lately and I wanted to share this little snippet with you guys. 

This is from Chapter 25 and it’s definitely more than six sentences. 

Enjoy!

Chapter 25. Part 1.

The following morning, Katniss woke up to the sound of a blaring alarm.

Startled, she jumped out of bed and reached for the light switch.

A faint light, warm as a gentle sunrise, filled the room. The alarm stopped.

In her own bed, just a few steps away, Prim covered her head with a pillow. "What a racket," she grumbled.

Katniss slumped on her sister's mattress. Lifting one corner of the pillow, she took a peek at Prim's sleepy face. "Did you sleep well, Little Duck?"

Prim rubbed her eyes and yawned. "I was so tired last night, I could have slept on my feet. You?"

"I had a good night." Letting go of the pillow, Katniss stood up and stretched. "We should get ready. It'll be time for breakfast soon."

With the idea of food beckoning, the sisters got ready for their day.

XXOXX

"What's this?" Katniss asked, wrinkling her nose at the pale mush on her plate.

In front of her, Madge stifled a laugh.

The previous night, Katniss had been surprised at being assigned a table with Peeta, the Undersees, the Hawthornes, and a few other refugees. Now that she had gotten over the shock, she actually liked the idea.

Prim got along with everyone, and Mrs. Everdeen seemed oddly at home, sitting between Hazelle and Madge's mom. It was like the two parts of her life had finally come together.

Ignoring Katniss's dismay, Gale dug into his bowl of warm oatmeal. "The menu board says it's mashed turnips," he explained, slowly chewing his cereal and leaving the offending vegetable for last.

"Turnips?" Katniss repeated, "For breakfast?"

"Were you expecting cheese buns?" Madge teased.

With an amused snort, Katniss shoveled a spoonful of oatmeal into her mouth.

She was still new to District 13, but she already knew that the chances of finding a cheese bun nestled between her cereal and mashed turnip portions were nonexistent. The food on her tray had been chosen for its nutritional value, not its taste.

"Cheese buns?" Gale raised a curious eyebrow, "What are those?"

"They're these crusty bread rolls Peeta makes. They're filled with melted cheese, and have fresh chives sprinkled on top," Prim explained, adding an enthusiastic chef's kiss to her description.

"Sounds decadent," Gale grumbled. Looking down at the food on Peeta's tray, he smirked. "Must be hard, huh? Getting used to this simpler fare."

Katniss looked up. Her spoon —suspended midway between her bowl and her mouth— hovered in the air.

Gale's words hadn't been harsh, but his tone was the old familiar one he used to criticize people from town. Katniss didn't like hearing it directed at Peeta.

It had been a long time since Gale's prejudices against the merchant class made an appearance. After everything that had happened in the last few months, Katniss had honestly though he had let go of his old resentments.

Apparently, he hadn't.

Next to Katniss, Peeta shrugged. Unruffled by Gale's comment, he said, "Not really. We hardly ever had cheese buns when I was growing up. We sold them at the bakery sometimes, but they were too expensive for my family to eat —unless they had gone very stale." Scrapping his bowl of mashed turnips clean, he added, "Practically everything we ate was stale."

Gale swallowed his cereal. His eyes softened.

Like most people from the Seam, Gale had always assumed the shopkeepers lived a soft life. He wasn't entirely wrong; Peeta always had enough to eat. But even Gale had to admit there was something kind of depressing about living your life on stale bread, the hard, dry loaves that no one else wanted.

"Well, except for the squirrels," Peeta glanced in Katniss's direction and flashed her a smile, "those were so fresh we had to make sure they didn't make a run for it!"

Feeling inordinately proud of her role in Peeta's diet, Katniss straightened up and exclaimed, "Well, you're welcome!"

Just like that, with a good-natured laugh at his friend's enthusiastic outburst, Gale forgot all about Peeta's privileged past and went back to his bland breakfast.

"So, what's on your schedule?" Madge asked.

"Um," Katniss looked at the timetable tattooed on her forearm. "After breakfast, I have kitchen duties followed by the education center, an evaluation at the food supply sector, lunch, and then something called Command."

"Command?" Peeta's eyebrows knitted in concern.

"Mm-hmm." Katniss stretched out her arm to show him her tattoo.

"I have that too," Gale said between sips of milk, "right after lunch."

Letting go of Katniss's arm, Peeta looked at his own schedule. There, in sickly purple ink, he read 13:00 — Lunch. 13:30 — Command.

"So," Katniss asked, leaning into Peeta's side, "what's Command?"

"It's this place where President Coin meets with her advisors to discuss strategy. They have an entire wall full of screens and maps showing what's going on in Panem," Peeta said.

"The president's advisors?" Gale asked, "What do they want with us?"

Mayor Undersee, who had been sitting on the opposite end of the table with the other grownups, stood up. With a quick glance around the room, he made his way towards Katniss and her friends.

Leaning over his daughter's chair, he said, "They want to meet you."

Katniss's mouth dropped open. Before she could do anything, she heard Gale ask, "Why?"

"It was President Coin's idea," Mayor Undersee said, "She wants to see who these saviors of District 12 she's been hearing so much about are."

"Saviors?" Gale repeated.

"Yes," the mayor nodded. "According to the survivors, that's what you and Katniss are."

You can find One Victor in AO3 and FF.net.

[swatheford]

If you wanna stop the Mayor Hewitt simps, make sure to make him as vanilla as possible. I don't know, boring shit like maybe he only eats unseasoned chicken with cucumbers every day and collects vintage stamps. If you turn him into a serial killer or villain or anything despicable it'll probably make the situation worse judging from other fandoms.

make sammy bland ✍️

uh sure sam can't have more than three shakes of pepper on his food and collects baseball cards. ...i'll come up with something better eventually.

[mkw-raider]

Rescue

Pairing: Marinette/Chloé

AO3 

One early spring evening, Chloé Bourgeois stood as far away from a party full of older, rich people she didn’t actually know, trying to remember why she had told her father she would be in attendance, especially since he had disappeared earlier in the night to attend to ‘business’. Of course, the Hotel De Ville was decorated beautifully for the charity ball her father was hosting, and the food was phenomenal as usual, but Chloé hadn’t attended an event here since Hawkmoth had started terrorizing Paris. She had too many memories of being attacked here, by akumas either trying to get to the mayor or she was just caught in the crosshairs, and there were too many memories of her father being the target and the Akumas that had come to get him while he had been working. She was definitely having a ball.

Glaring briefly at the wine glass she had been nursing the entire night, and downed the rest to shove the bad memories away. She had grown since then. If there was an Akuma, she could handle herself and Ladybug would make sure her father was safe.

Trying to avoid gaining the attention of groups of men vying for her time so she could give a good word to her father, Chloé began moving through the room, looking for anything to keep her interest. There were a lot of people that had decided to attend in what Chloé could only call their worst attempt at dressing themselves, and had any of her friends been here, Chloé might have been tempted to spend longer than a few seconds judging the worst offenses, but she was alone. Adrien had not been allowed to come to events held outside of the arrondissement where he lived since his mother had died, unless Gabriel or Nathalie came with him, and both adults had refused Chloé’s best persuading. Sabrina, unfortunately, was completing a physics assignment with her group and hadn’t let Chloé pay a professional to do it so she could skip the homework. Marinette had just laughed and told Chloé that rich and fancy charity events weren’t exactly her forte, and then kissed her and told her she also had some other business to attend to. Chloé knew that meant patrol and therefore she couldn’t be mad. It still sucked though, she had wanted to hold her girlfriend’s hand and sway to whatever music her father had selected as background noise for the event. 

Lost in thought, Chloé nearly walked headfirst into a young man. Taking him in, he looked to be around her age, and if she took off her heels, she would only be a few centimetres taller than him at most. He seemed fit, with short cropped brown hair, green eyes, and an easygoing smile. If Chloé weren’t a lesbian, she might call him somewhat attractive, but as it stands she just saw him as an obstacle in her way.

“Excuse me.” Chloé said, beginning to move around him. Marinette’s voice flashing through Chloé’s mind as she began turning out of his arm, she internally grimaced and threw out a quick, “Sorry.”

Unnamed Stranger, slid his hand from her upper arm to grasp her wrist and pull her back towards him. “Don’t go yet, let’s get to know each other.”

There were many different ways Chloé was thinking of to tell him to unhand her and leave her alone, but before she could use any of her choice insults, he took the empty wine glass from her hand. Unnamed Stranger put her glass on the closest table before grabbing her wrist again to pull her towards a slightly more open area to lead Chloé in a slow dance. It was a step up from the awkward swaying of her youth, but his grip on her was too tight and his movements were not refined enough to really be considered a waltz. Opening her mouth to tear into him, Unnamed Stranger cut her off before she could even try.

“You looked lovely tonight, so different to the bland dresses the other girls were wearing and I knew I had to come offer a dance.” 

At least Unnamed Stranger had eyes, but Chloé didn’t need his compliments. She was wearing a Dupain-Cheng original. It was a deep blue, almost black, but as it caught the light, Marinette’s handiwork was revealed as the constellations and stars she had sewn in glimmered.

“My father always taught me not to let pretty girls spend their nights alone.”

Chloé would prefer to be completely alone rather than swung clumsily around the floor.

“Now we’re definitely the best dressed couple here.”

Much-Too-Confident Stranger definitely was not the reason they were the best dressed couple. Not only were they not a couple, but his suit was not up to Chloé’s standards. At first glance, his suit could pass for something fitted, but with the up close view Chloé had been awarded, she could see his suit jacket hung slightly too large on his frame, and his jacket cuffs completely came down past his sleeves. The entire outfit seemed a few years older than she would expect from the kind of people that come to these charity balls.

“Maybe later, we can get out of here. We can talk business, or I can show you a good time. Your choice, of course.”

Gone-Too-Far Stranger was incredibly close to being hit. Instead of causing a dramatic scene, even though Chloé really wanted to, she just lifted her heel and stomped on Rude Stranger’s foot.

Maybe it was harder than she had intended, as her dance partner nearly leapt away from her. He thankfully released his death grip on Chloé’s hand and waist as he lowered both of his arms to cradle his foot. She tried to hide her grin behind a hand as she attempted to feign sincerity, “Oh gosh, I’m sorry. I’m just so clumsy when it comes to dancing.”

Walking quickly backwards, Chloé ignored Rude Stranger’s attempts to call her back and openly let herself smile. Marinette might consider her actions a little much, but Chloé definitely thought they were more than appropriate.

Snaking her way through groups of people, Chloé spied a waiter carrying another tray of wine and made her way to grab a glass. She would need more than the one glass her father allowed her after dealing with the stranger. Honestly, who just forces someone to dance without even telling them your name. It was ridiculous, utterly ridiculous. Chloé was beginning to wonder why she had let her father give her driver the night off so they could arrive and leave together.

Reaching into the pocket Marinette had sewed for her, Chloé pulled out her phone to quickly send a text to her girlfriend. ‘Wish you were here, Blueberry. You would have made this much more bearable.’ A response probably wasn’t coming anytime soon, Chloé knew Marinette took her patrol nights seriously and tried to be out for at least a few hours so the city knew she was there. That didn’t mean Chloé couldn’t keep sporadically sending her complaints until she gets a response. By the time the party winds down enough for her father to let her leave, Marinette would most likely be done with patrol and home meaning they could call and Chloé’s night would take a positive turn. The positive turn could definitely happen earlier if her father would let her leave without him though.

Speaking of her father, she could see the Mayor close to the entrance of the room. Chloé couldn’t tell from the crowd if her father was alone, but he wasn’t surrounded by the normal crowd trying to bargain for political favour, so she figured now was the best time to convince or beg her father to have an early night. As she got closer, Chloé could see that her father was not, in fact alone. Standing next to him, was a man Chloé was positive she had never seen before, but for some reason seemed familiar. Chloé almost turned around to go hide in the corner or a hallway away from the party for the rest of the night except, her father turned and noticed her before she could make her escape. A large smile spread across his face and he beckoned Chloé forward with a two finger wave, leaving her no choice but to finish making her way over.

“My darling angel! Allow me to introduce you to M. Durand, an old friend. Pierre, I’m sure you remember my beautiful daughter, Chloé.”

M. Durand offered his hand. “Of course, of course. Though last time I saw you, you were much younger. You’ve grown into a beautiful young woman.” The smile he offered Chloé did not make her feel more comfortable. Sliding her hand into his, she fought the feeling of unease that rose within her when he brought her hand to his lips and kissed it for longer than she felt was necessary.

Chloé had to actively fight down the part of her that wanted to cause a scene and escape the party, the mayor’s daughter could handle a little discomfort provided by strange men she barely knew, so she plastered on a fake smile and played her part of the beautiful politician’s daughter and thanked the man before standing by her father and saying nothing. Perhaps playing her part too well, Chloé spent the next few minutes fading in and out of the conversation until her father’s hand on her shoulder brought her back to the present. 

M. Durand was looking towards the surrounding party, arm raised towards something Chloé couldn’t quite see, “-here he is now.” She tried to make sense of whatever sentence she hadn’t been paying attention to, but everything made more sense when she saw the ‘he’ that had been referred to.

Strolling towards their little group was Unnamed Stranger. Same easygoing smile in place, same shoddy suit, same uncomfortable feeling settling in the pit of Chloé’s stomach.

Unnamed Stranger stood next to M. Durand as the older man beamed and lowered his arm around the boy’s shoulder. “André, I’m sure you remember my pride and joy, Audric. He’s just finished with his schooling in England, and he’s come back to reacquaint himself with the politics in Paris.”

“I remember. He’s around Chloé’s age, isn’t he? I’m sure Chloé would be happy to help your son get reacquainted with everything here.” Her father’s hand tightened on her shoulder, and when she glanced at him, he waggled his eyebrows at her before glancing between Audric and herself.

Audric smirked at her, “We actually met earlier. Chloé allowed me the honour of sharing a dance with her.”

Chloé was going to scream. Audric kept looking at her and smiling, her father’s arm was preventing her from leaving, and it seemed like M. Durand was slowly nudging his son closer to her.

The two adults immediately started discussing increasing M. Durand’s involvement with her father’s political campaign, while Audric chimed in to mention how the two oldest children getting closer would be good press before smiling at Chloé again. Which, oh. Okay. Chloé knew where this was going now. Knew why her father was introducing her to M. Durand and his son. She knew why Audric had decided to dance with her, and why her father was trying to keep her here talking to him.

She knew her father hadn’t quite accepted her relationship with Mari so she wasn’t entirely surprised he was talking to his friends about matching her up with their sons. She would play his game, but she wouldn’t lie about the greatest thing that had ever happened to her. The smile on her face was sugar sweet as she said, “I’d love to get to know Audric further. My girlfriend and I could show you around the city and introduce you to some people we know.”

The Durand’s paused, both looked taken aback. Chloé took a moment to savour their surprise. Her father had a strained smile but his grip had loosened enough for Chloé to turn out of his grasp. “I’d love to stay and discuss further, but I have some business to attend to. If you’ll excuse me.”

Turning away from the men, Chloé wandered off into the crowd and pulled out her phone. Notifications from Adrien and Sabrina flashed on her screen, but nothing from Marinette. ‘My father still doesn’t accept that we’re together. His new plan seems to be setting me up with his influential friend’s sons. Really wishing I stayed home waiting for you to visit me.’ At least if Marinette were here Chloé wouldn’t feel so alone.

Putting her phone away, Chloé saw a young teen waving her over. It was a group that used to hang around Chloé when she was younger and came to these charity events more frequently. The conversation was more likely to be gossip and fake compliments, but at this point anything was better than standing alone in a corner waiting for this to be over and avoiding Audric. So Chloé resigned herself to joining the girls.

----

Twenty minutes later, Chloé was bored. She had been discreetly checking her phone and Marinette still hadn’t responded. She could see her father out of the corner in a group of men in the middle of the room so leaving still wasn’t an option. At this point she had been ignoring the girl’s conversation, focusing on how to excuse herself from them and make her way out of the rest of the party without drawing attention to herself. If no one noticed her leaving, she could probably go hide in her father’s office until everything started wrapping up. Or she could just walk home. Her father would be furious once he figures out she left, but she knows she’d be safe. If she decided to leave, she would just text Mari that she was walking home and Ladybug would get her before she even got halfway so long as there wasn’t an akuma.

In her focus on ignoring everything around her,  Chloé missed her companions' conversation cease. The sudden lack of noise from the rest of the party though, definitely caught her attention. The group of girls she was standing with were looking behind Chloé, mouths agape.

Turning brought Chloé face to face with her girlfriend. Except instead of Marinette, Chloé was looking at Ladybug, with a very determined expression. Most of the partygoers had stopped to focus on the hero’s arrival, and even Chloé had to admit she was confused.

“Apologies Madame Bourgeois, there’s an akuma looking for you. I’ve come to take you somewhere safe.” Ladybug half-turned away from Chloé to address the crowd, “The akuma hasn’t expressed interest in anything else, you will all be safe here. Feel free to carry on, Chat Noir and I will handle this quickly.”

Confused, Chloé allowed Ladybug to place a hand on the small of her back and begin leading her out. While moving towards the entrance of the hall, Chloé managed to spot her father’s worried face and send him a reassuring smile. Ladybug led Chloé through groups of people out into the hallway, marching forward at a quick pace.

Usually, if Marinette ran into Chloé during an akuma attack, she would tell Chloé what was happening, telling her if there was anywhere she should avoid or anyone she should look out for. Ladybug tried to speak to people she knew outside of the mask as little as possible to prevent anyone else from discovering her identity, but Chloé was still normally an exception to that rule.

“Ladybug?” Chloé questioned.

Ladybug barely glanced down, just continued navigating through the hallway and between the few partygoers near them. “I’ve got to get you away from all these people and somewhere Chat and I can protect you.”

A serious Ladybug was something Chloé was used to. So Chloé would keep her relief and questions to herself, let her girlfriend do her job, and then when this was all over hopefully have Mari drop her off at home instead of bringing her back to the party.

Stepping outside, Ladybug slid her arm around Chloé’s waist, gave her a soft smile, and threw her yoyo to the nearest building. Once safely on the roof, Ladybug moved from holding Chloé around the waist, to looping her arm under Chloé’s legs to carry her bridal style as she started to run and leap across the rooftops.

Taking the time to wrap her arms around Marinette’s neck, Chloé sank deeper into her girlfriends hold, ignored the buildings passing by, and focused on the feeling of Marinette’s hold. Despite the exertion of jumping across the roofs of Paris, Marinette’s breathing never changed from the steady rise and fall Chloé was accustomed to.

Ladybug shifted her hold on Chloé, moving to maintain the bridal carry with one arm before the other shot out to pull the duo into a sudden weightlessness only achieved by swinging through Paris. Chloé peered around her girlfriend to watch the Eiffel Tower twinkle as they swung by.

A few minutes more of swinging through Paris led to Ladybug landing on Chloé’s balcony at Le Grand Paris. Placing Chloé down, Marinette looped their fingers together before tugging Chloé towards a small basket surrounded by candles.

The basket was resting on a few blankets closer to the edge of the balcony to give a better view of the surrounding area. The blankets and surrounding area were bathed in a soft orange light, and Chloé could hear soft music drifting from inside.

Turning towards her girlfriend, Chloé was at a loss for words. “Mar-Ladybug, what?” As sweet as the whole gesture was, Chloé didn’t know if a rooftop picnic date was the safest thing to be doing during an akuma attack.

Chloé watched Marinette as she released her hand and bent towards the basket. Opening the box, Marinette began pulling out Tom and Sabine pastries, including a few of the lemon squares Chloé adores. Marinette continued pulling out snacks, until she grabbed a small bag of chocolate chip cookies and transformed. Chloé averted her eyes from the bright pink light that engulfed her girlfriend only to turn back to watch Tikki dive into the cookies and  see her girlfriend giving her a sheepish smile.

“I lied. There was no akuma.”

Plopping down beside her girlfriend, Chloé gave Marinette a once over, “You lied?”

“I finished patrol early and then I saw all of your texts. It seemed like you were having a pretty bad night and I thought maybe you could use a rescue.” Leaning forward, Marinette handed Chloé and lemon square and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek.

Chloé lifted her treat to her mouth to hide her blushing face. Her attempts to hide became unnecessary when Marinette lowered her head onto Chloé’s shoulder.

----

The two girls spent a while enjoying each other’s company, and slowly eating their way through the snacks Marinette had brought. Occasionally a quiet conversation would spark, but for most of their time together, Marinette and Chloé sat in quiet comfort, content to sit in the same space brushing fingers over hands and leaning into the other’s space.

Marinette had just finished another cookie when she saw the time on her phone. Shortly past midnight, but later than either had intended to be out. Jumping up, Marinette transformed. Heading towards the railing, Marinette stopped, paused, and turned around before leaning down to kiss Chloé softly on the lips. Leaning back, a gentle smile spread across Marinette’s face and she began heading towards the balcony again.

Chloé jumped up to follow her girlfriend before she could leave. Grabbing Marinette’s wrist, Chloé pulled the shorter girl into a deeper kiss. Face aflame, Chloé pulled back and rested her forehead against the other girl’s, “I love you.”

What can only be described as a dopey smile took over Marinette’s face, “I love you, too.” With that, Marinette threw herself backwards off the balcony, catching her yoyo on the closest building and swinging herself up releasing a ridiculous ‘whoop’ as she did so. Chloé leant on the railing watching her girlfriend swing away into the night, thankful she was with someone thoughtful, and willing to rescue her from parties she didn’t want to attend.

[bastillewolf]

The Grand Tranquility Hotel (V)

Pairing: Alex Turner/Reader

Summary: An eccentric hotel owner and an inquisitive writer find solace in each other when they both seemed to be at the edge of rock bottom.

Notes: Another chapter because it was Valentine’s Day and I love you all.

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the tag list.

Chapter V - 505

Her morning routine had been stiff, to say the least. It had taken her a while to get out of bed and dressed, because she wasn’t sure she even had the courage to present herself in front of the people who she’d had been nothing but trouble to. But when she arrived at the breakfast table, greeted by the soft yet tired smiles of Nick, Jamie, Matt and Miles she thought she’d seen the worst of it.

How wrong she turned out to be.

She took a deep breath after thanking Jamie for her serving of food. “I just wanted to apologize to you all,” she started. They all looked up from their plates and newspapers to give her a look of befuddlement. “I’ve been nothing but trouble to you and the hotel. I see now that it was wrong of me to make the presumption I could write something about it without your full permission and thus I’ve been nothing but selfish. I hope one day you’ll tell me what really happened, and it wouldn’t have to be for a novel. Until then, though, I think it’s best if I finish breakfast and take the next train home.”

“What?!” Nick blurted out; his mouth full of eggs. “You can’t just leave!”

“It’s quite alright. I don’t want to intrude on your privacy anymore than I already have.”

“Miss, you’ve been nothing but a wonderful friend to us,” Jamie intervened, “A curious and at times a bit of a meddling friend, true, but one who I hold nothing but respect for. Because I know you do it out of the good of your heart.”

“Jamie, you’ve known me for less than three days.”

Miles spoke up, “You are a bit of an open book, miss. I’d have to agree with Jamie here, I don’t sense any ill intent from you. Such a pretty visitor.” He winked and she playfully hit his arm in turn.

“You’re all too sweet. But you know I can’t stay. I’m not just doing this for myself.”

“You shouldn’t have to leave because of someone else’s personal issues,” Matt stated plainly.

The conversation quieted down when another figure stumbled into the breakfast hall, clearly looking hungover out of his mind. He’d still managed to wear a suit, but she presumed he’d added the sunglasses to cancel out the bright light and hide the bags under his eyes. He sank into his chair and waved his hand when Jamie tried to plate him some eggs.

It was silent for a while.

Finally, he lifted his shades and his eyes swept over her, almost indifferently. “What are you still doing here?” he asked with a blank undertone that no longer seemed to surprise her.

“She’s our guest, Alex. I don’t see why you have to be such a prick about it.”

“I don’t wish to argue with you about this matter now, Matthew-“

“There is no argument, Alex. She stays,” Matt repeated curtly.

Alex gave him a cold look. It made Miles clear his throat to try and lighten the mood with a switch of conversation. “So, Alex, I was wondering if you’ve continued your plans on the expansion? I’m very curious to see what you’ve come up with this time.”

It was the first she’d heard of any plans regarding the hotel, and her instant wonder was how they would manage it all with their financial problems.

“We’re not expanding,” Nick intervened quietly before Alex had a moment to respond. Miles raised his brows, “You’re not? But what about the layout of the casino-“ “Mister Turner has decided against it, thinking it’s best if we let things settle a bit after all the ruckus in the papers.”

Miles looked to Alex as if silently asking for the confirmation of this info. When Alex refused to meet his gaze, the mayor almost looked irritated. “Let things settle a bit?!” he asked, “You’ve ‘let things settle’ for quite long enough, I think! What happened to our plans of opening that casino we’d always dreamed about? What about the day spa?”

“It’s not that simple, Miles,” Alex tried to reason. He ran a hand through his slick hair, feeling his headache getting worse by the minute. But Miles was having none of it. “This hotel wasn’t just your dream, Alex. It was mine, too. And you’re selfish for not wanting to make a better future for all of us.”

The hotel owner stood up with such a force his chair scraped across the floor and fell backwards. And with the flair of his long blazer he had stormed out of the room.

 She found herself in the garden once more. And she wasn’t alone. Miles stood on the front porch, leaning his arms on the stone railing, seemingly just taking in the beautiful scenery in front of him.

“How did you sleep?” Miles asked her kindly. It was as if he’d let the annoyance from before wash off of him like the chilly autumn wind blowing the leaves from the trees before them. She admired him for it, genuinely aware she was always one to retain resentment when she’d been cross. “Surprisingly well, actually. Probably the best few nights I’ve had in a long time.”

Miles looked at her in a silent inquiry for her to elaborate. “I’ve had migraines since I was very little. They usually peak at the end of a long day or during stressful situations. Yet for some reason, I haven’t had one since I arrived here,” she explained.

“Even though you’ve had some long days and stressful situations,” Miles probed gently. She huffed, “You could say that.”

Miles seemed to mull it over for a moment. “No matter what happens at this hotel, it’s always been a very peaceful environment,” he said, “It’s the main reason we chose this particular location to open it and deem it as The Grand ‘Tranquility’ Hotel.” She hummed with interest.

“Of course, we would’ve named it something ridiculous otherwise,” he joked, “Like ‘Les Cactus’ or something. And we’d only ever pronounce it with a horrible French accent. That would be the rule.” She laughed, “Would you really have named your hotel that?” “Oh, for sure. Alex and I had it all figured out, no matter what the outcome would be.”

“Which is why you were so upset when you found out about him cancelling the casino,” she mused. He nodded, “We used to talk about everything, all the time. Now it’s like he’s always too busy to have a bit of fun. I feel like I don’t know him as well as I used to, and it worries me.”

She’d spent the rest of the afternoon strolling around the scenery with Miles, and he told her all about his ideas of a grand casino and a renewed Tranquility Base, instead of just a hotel. The sparkle in his eyes showed his excitement and she was happy to be a vent for him and his crazy dreams. She hoped it would all work out for him one day.

She hoped she wouldn’t be the one who would have to tell him about the hotel’s impending bankruptcy, because it was evident that Miles didn’t know a thing about it.

They’d all had a pretty late brunch, so dinner couldn’t come soon enough for them. But when the hotel owner himself failed to turn up, Miles seemed to sink in his seat more and more ever so slightly as the minutes passed by while they waited.

“This is bullshit,” Matt growled, getting up, “I’m sick of him running away from his shit.” “Wait,” she called out, catching up to him as he was about to talk through the doorway. “Let me speak to him first.”

 She gave Matt a questioning look when they’d arrived in front of her room and he’d halted to a sudden stop. He nodded his head in the direction of the door she’d only ever glanced at through the corner of her eye, never thinking anything else of it. “Room 505,” was all he’d said, before he left her in the corridor and went back in the direction they’d come from.

The door was opened ever so slightly, and she would’ve knocked if the eerie creak of its hinges hadn’t made her presence known already. She stepped into the room, and it was a lot for her senses to take in.

There was no lavish wooden floor, no king-sized bed with drapes hanging from the ceiling and surely enough it wasn’t the grand apartment complex she’d thought him to have within the hotel. It was just a simple room, arguably a minor downgrade from hers.

There were a few things that were possibly his own additions, such as the strange pattern on the carpeted floor and the white sofas. Other than that, however, the room was plain. A bed with a wooden headboard adorned with white sheets, illuminated by the standard glass in lead lights that could be spotted all over the hotel as its trademark.

He was sat on the bed with his back turned to her, his elbows resting on his knees with his head hung low. His shoulders were tense, and his usual slicked hair was now a greasy mess, evidently caused by the stressed fingers that had run through it. His jacket was strewn across a seat, leaving him in his white shirt, which happened to be the exact same shade as his bedsheets.

“What are you doing in here?” he asked, rubbing his chin in his hand. “I wanted to see if you hadn’t collapsed from a stroke just yet,” she replied cynically. He let out a bland hum, not really seeming to care. It was a cue to her that he might be more willing to fix the boundaries they had so blatantly steered away from when they’d made their bad start with each other. “I did come to see if you were okay, though,” she began. He turned his head for a bit, and she could see his raised eyebrows. “Why?” he asked.

“You were put on the spot. They’re asking a lot of you right now, and while I can see that they only wish to help you, there’s still a lot of things you need to work out before you can even think about remodelling or expanding. The casino, the day spa, all of it. You need more time, and they’re getting too impatient.”

He eyed her curiously. “After all I’ve said to you, after all the things I’ve spat in your face, you’re still being sympathetic? I’m sensing ulterior motives for this one, writer.” She rolled her eyes indignantly. “I’m pretty sure you see ulterior motives behind everything and everyone, mister Turner.” He gave her an amused smirk, and it made her almost instantly relax. How just one quirk of a lip could give her so much relief was beyond her. She’d taken a big step in the right direction, and that was enough for tonight.

Stepping out into the hallway, she nearly ran into Miles. “Oh, sorry, love. I was just about to knock-“ “Could I speak with you for a moment?” she interrupted him. His expression showed his evident confusion at her directness but nodded anyway.

When Miles told Alex the next day that he’d be off to deal with ‘unforeseen business’ and would no longer be staying at the hotel, Alex seemed relieved. He thanked him for the statement in the paper and apologized for his outburst however, which made Miles more content. While Matt was loading his suitcase in the car and Alex was having a smoke off to the side, he gave the writer an unexpected but welcomed hug. “You’re good for him,” he muttered in her ear, “and he needs someone like you now more than ever. You have my thanks.” It had left her speechless and all she could do was wave him off as the car disappeared behind the treeline.

[aacnaz]

Goodbye

Dick looked at his wrist and checked the time.

11:57.

Three more minutes until Raven arrived.

A small smile grew at that thought.

God, he missed her.  She was, no, is his best friend.  Sure, they might’ve drifted apart and haven’t spoken in three years, but that didn’t take away the bond they cultivated from childhood to his college graduation.

When she called out of the blue and asked to meet for lunch mentioning a cute café that opened near his precinct, he immediately cleared his whole schedule.

Babs would understand.

He looked at his watch again.

11:59.

One minute.

Just enough time to make sure he was right.

He smoothed out the wrinkles in his white, police sanction button down.  He wished he coulda wore something nicer for their reunion, but he was still on duty.  He made sure that the top button was secure and that his black tie was knocked tight yet comfortable.  He raised the collar up just a little before finally deeming his shirt presentable and his soulmark covered.

He raked his hands through his black hair, making sure not a lock was out of place.

As he brought his hands down, the gold band on his left ring finger caught his attention.  He stared at it, hesitated for a bit before he slid it off.  Even with this place being close to his station, he figured he would be safe for now.  Under where the ring once rested, a small, cursive, black tattoo of the letter ‘R’ came to sight, bringing with it the memories of his first love.

His true forever partner.

The door chime rang through the reasonably busy café, and Dick closed the band in his right hand before looking up.

His breath hitched.

There she was.

She was different.  Her once back length ebony hair was now a short bob that swooped from its side part, the waves at the end enhancing her heart-shaped face. Even with her heeled ankle boots, he could tell she was taller than he last remembered.  And she was curvier.

God, she was curvier.

Her buttoned double-breasted black trench coat with its belt tied tightly around her waist intensified her growth.

And even with all these changes, she was just as beautiful as ever.

She looked around the café for him, stopping when they made eye contact and gave him a smile.

His heart thumped.  Slipping his ring in his pocket, he rose from his seat, and made his way to her, eager to greet her.

Eager for her.

Eager to see…

He chanced a glance at her covered neck before quickly looking into her eyes.

Her beautiful, deep, almost violet, blue eye.

The eyes he always got lost in.

“Dick Grayson, or do you go by Richard now, Officer?”

The smirk she sent him had almost had him tripping over his words.

Almost.

“Dick is fine, but you know you can call me whatever you want.”

The blush that prettily danced across her face as she looked away had him cheering on the inside.

“Still a charmer, I see.  Have you ordered yet?”

“Not yet, but I’m ready if you are.”

She took this as her cue and began walking to the register and he was right behind her, watching the sway of her walk that he’s always loved.

He caught up to her as she stared up at the menu.  He turned toward it but kept his eyes on her face.

Some things didn’t change.

She still chewed her lip when she was making a decision.

If they were still in high school, he would have pulled her lip out.

If they were still in college, he would kiss her.

“What are you getting?”  She turned to him as she asked that and he quickly darted his eyes to the board.

"I was thinking about the BLT. You can't go wrong with a classic." That and he knew she would get it too. Growing up, Raven could never resist the tempting call of the crunchy and flavorful delicacy that is bacon.

She nodded. "That sounded good. I was curious about their mayo. Says they make it in house."

"And they get their bacon, lettuce, and tomato from local farmers. Can't get better than that."  She smiled and he smiled back, loving this. "If you want, we can split one like we use to."

Back in college. 

Her smile grew fonder and he felt his heart flutter. 

"That's okay. I was thinking about getting the tofu scramble."

His brain somewhat stopped and he couldn't keep the confusion from his face. 

"Did I hear right? The tofu scramble? I thought you hated meat alternatives."

He knew this as a fact.

There was a kid they knew back in high school. What was his name? Chester? Logan? Garfield! Garfield Logan. Animal rights activist. Fun guy until lunch. Complained the whole time about the meat options the school offered every. Single. Day. Until Raven finally snapped. "We respect your desire to not eat meat. Please respect our desire to eat it."

With him being in a different grade and lunch schedule, he missed her glorious speech. He wished he could've been there to see it, but he was able to get the next best thing: Raven personally telling him the story as he drove her home after school. She was so passionate and animated as she told him that that moment and its story replays itself in his mind whenever he thought of her. And it affirmed a defining characteristic about her: Raven doesn't like meat alternatives. 

Yet here she was, getting the tofu scramble.

"I've been trying new things. Broadening my horizon."

"Yea, but...tofu? I vividly recall you calling it, and I quote, a 'bland wet sponge of nothingness.'"

She laughed at that. "That I did. Back in high school, right? Can't believe you remember that."

He remembered everything about her. 

"I did use to think that, but one day a friend made tofu scramble for me. Said that wherever I tried tofu the first time didn't know what they were doing and it lacked flavor because of that. I was skeptical but I was willing to keep an open mind and I'm glad I did. So now when I go to a restaurant, if they have it, I get the tofu scramble. If they can't even get that right, I'm hesitant to try anything else."

Well, that's new. 

But he guessed that could happen.  It would happen. It's been three years since he's last seen her.  It would be weirder if she hadn’t changed.

It was logic.

But logic didn’t save the plunge his stomach took.

That’s okay.  He was gonna fix that.

They ordered their food and he directed her to the table he’d procured, wishing he could place his hand on her waist like before.

He wanted to pull out her chair and to help her out of her coat, but he hesitated.

They weren’t on a date.  They were just catching up.  And as much as he wished they were still in college when they were at the height of their relationship, he had to remind himself that they were just friends.

But, maybe he could for manners!  And with how many years manners were reprimanded into him, he could just hear Alfred’s disappointed tsk.

But...but he also knew that if he was too close to her, that if he was able to graze his fingers along her arms again, to be a hair's width away from her…

By the time he’d made his decision, she was already in her seat, her trench coat resting on the back of her chair.  As he sat in his chair, he wasn’t sure if he should be happy or disappointed. He dipped his vision to her outfit, hoping to get a quick glance of her neck, then immediately shot it back up.

That was a plunge.

Truthfully, it wasn’t that bad.  He’s seen outfits with even deeper plunges.  Heck, he’s seen more revealing outfits!

But this was Raven.

And he saw a hint of a black bra.

A black lace bra.

He could feel his face heating up.

“So,” he embarrassingly squeaked.  He subtly cleared his throat and continued, “it’s been a while since we’ve last seen each other.”

She nodded.  “Three years is a long time.  I’m glad you were free to meet, Officer Dick.”

He chuckled, loving when she called him that.  “Sorry I’ve been AWOL.  After college, I got so busy and-”

“I understand.  Life can happen.  I’m hoping we can pick up where we left off.”

And that was exactly what they did.

He recounted to her his life after graduating, moving to Bludhaven, studying and passing the police exam and his last few major cases that had the mayor personally thank him.  He left out a few things...one thing…

But he didn’t want to tell her that.

Instead, he turned the conversation to her, hoping to hear any and everything about her.  Sometime in her telling of a ridiculous college prank that one of her friends pulled, their food came.  They ate, telling more stories and laughing between bites.  Just like old times.

He never wanted this to end.

“I know you’re gonna miss that place when you graduate.  I still do!  Speaking of, when do you graduate?  I wouldn’t want to miss that.”

She gave him a disconcerting look that made him feel like he said something wrong.

“Dick, I graduated last year.”

“...really?”

She chuckled.  “I think I would know when I graduated.”

“But why didn’t you invite me?”

She gave him a different look now.  “I did.”

"I never received an invitation."

"That doesn't mean I didn't send it. In fact, I sent you two. I wasn't sure I had your address right, so I asked Bruce to send the second one. He said he called you as well."

That can't be right. When his adoptive father said he'd do something, he was always prompt to get it done. And he would stay on it until he got an answer. 

Almost obsessively so.

So if Bruce said he'd called, he did…. But for the life of Dick, he couldn't recall anything. 

He racked through his brain.

"When was this?"

She sighed and pushed her nearly finished plate away. "Let's see. I graduated early, and that was in January, so I sent out my invitations end November and beginning of December. "

December! 

Oh. He knew what happened. 

...fuck.

But he couldn't blame himself. Winter of last year was hectic with the constant phone calls and the decision making and the winter wedding.

And Bruce, Babs, and Commissioner Gordan CONSTANTLY on him about responsibility and following the law.

He could vaguely remember Bruce mentioning something about Raven during that time, but it was smashed somewhere between, "We have another meeting for potential caterers" and "Are you trying to break the law?"

Winter was a stressful season.

"I'm sorry, Rae. That time last year was pretty crazy, what with moving to a new city and finding a new job."

And the wedding. 

"I'll be honest, there were some days I didn't want to get out of bed. It was all happening so fast and," he reached out, doing what he's been thinking about since he first got close to her and took her right hand in both of his, reveling in its softness and familiarity, " I forgot to reach out to my friends. To you. From here on out, I'll be a better friend."

And maybe more…

"Anything you need, anytime."

Any time.

"You're my best friend and I'll do everything in my power to show you how much you mean to me."

Glitter of pure happiness twinkled in her eyes after his speech. 

His chest swelled with pride. 

"I'm glad you said that." She took her hand from his and leaned down to reach into her trench coat's pocket. 

His hand lingered for a second, longing to grab onto her warmth again, before he pulled his hands back to his side. 

As she sat up, she sat an envelope on the table.  Her hair tumbled out of place, falling beautifully against one side of her face while she made herself comfortable again. As she ran her free hand through her silkily soft hair, his eyes followed it’s descent to her neck and his body seized up as the ice water of reality drenched him.

Was that…

Does she…

“Did you get your soulmark?”  He could barely get that out over the lump in his throat.

She paused, taking in what he said before smiling and flipping her hair over.  There, sitting on the junction between her shoulder and neck, sat the name of her forever partner.

And it wasn’t his.

He studied it closer.

Is that...

Does that say…

“Garfield Logan?”

He’s her forever partner, and not...

She nodded, letting her hair fall back in place.

He could still see it.

“It showed up six months ago.  Sometimes I still forget it’s there.”

She chuckled but he couldn’t see the joke.  None of this was making sense.

“But...you don’t like him!”

She raised an eyebrow at his insistence.

“That was back in high school, Dick.”

“No,” he shook his head. “You didn’t like him in college either.”

“Sure, in freshman year.  But Dick, people change and sometimes...it’s good.”

A small, fond smile flittered onto her face as she said that and he knew.

He knew it wasn’t for him.

“Do you love him?”

She furrowed her brow, an unsure look taking over her face.

Maybe he still had a chance.

“Raven, run away with me.”

“Dick, what-”

She came to a complete stop, looking as if he’d lost his mind.

He just might’ve.

This was his only shot.

“Runaway with me!  Let’s get away from all this.  Get away from the rules that are keeping us apart.  From the laws telling us we’re wrong!”

She shook her head and lowered her voice.  “Richard, stop.”

“I can’t!  Raven, I,” she shushed him, looking around to make sure nobody was eavesdropping.

He didn’t care anymore. He reached for her free hand.

“Raven, I love you.”  Her eyes widened, fear etching on her face.

He kept going.

“I’ve loved you since we first met all those years ago. I was on cloud 9 when you finally agreed to go on a date with me, and I cried for three days when we broke up.”

She frantically shook her head as she snatched her hand from his.

“Stop it, Richard.”

She scooted her chair back, about to get up.  About to leave.  He quickly shoved his left hand to her face and she stopped when her eyes landed on his tattoo.

The tattoo that he got for her.

“Do you remember when I got this?”

She didn’t reply.

“It was at the middle of our relationship.  I wanted to prove to you that I love you.  That no matter what name showed up as my soulmark, you would always be the one for me.  You are my true love, my real forever partner!”

He could feel his excitement radiating from him as he finally confessed to her.

When they were younger, she wouldn’t listen to his proclamations, saying they shouldn’t try to get over on fate, but now…

Now she had to see.

She had to understand.

He loved her.

As tears built in her beautifully blue eyes, he didn't expect for his world to come crashing down when she finally responded.

“You are incredibly...selfish.”

No.

“You know for a fact that is impossible.  And you know better than anybody that the penalty for breaking the Soulmark Laws is death, Officer Grayson.”

He didn’t like how angry she sounded as she spat his name.

Her tears fell fast, so heavy with emotions that they splattered onto the table. 

"You want me to risk my life just because you're not happy in your marriage."

"You know I'm married?!"

"Yes!" She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Just because you decided to cut ties with me, doesn't mean everybody else did. Bruce even invited me!"

She was...Did she-?

"I declined. Told him that if the invite wasn't from you, then you didn't want me there and I shouldn't come out of respect." 

No.  Nononono.

This wasn’t what was supposed to happen.

“Raven, please don’t do this.  You have to understand.  I didn’t want to marry her!  I-.”

The glare she directed at him sent an unpleasant feeling of regret down his spine.

“Put your ring back on, Dick.  Your tan line is showing.”

As he pulled his hand back, she wiped away her tears, trying to stop their descent.

Their flow continued.

“To answer your question, no, I don’t love him, but I like him.  God, I like him so much, and I’m not gonna have you try to ruin it.”

He pulled back as if she hit him, and to his heart, she did.

“I…” she sighed and deflated a bit, “I didn’t come here to fight you.  I didn’t want to bring up how you were the one who broke up with me, without giving me a reason, I might add.”

He flinched at that, wishing he could forget that.

“If you would’ve just told me that you got your soulmark, I would have understood.  Instead, you broke up with me and avoided me.  You wouldn’t speak to me at your graduation.  You didn’t even invite me to your wedding!”

He felt sick.  He knew it was his fault that they were as disconnected as they were, but he just couldn’t face it.

“I wanted to forget everything you did to me.  I wanted to start anew.  I thought that maybe we could be friends again...but I see that I was wrong.”

She picked up the envelope that she retrieved earlier and handed it to him.

That was when he noticed it.

He noticed it before, many times: when they first greeted each other, in line, as she ate, but chose to ignore it.

He chose to ignore the ring that was now glaring at him as it sat so innocently on her finger.

“He proposed?”

She rolled her eyes, frustrated with the conversation.  “Of course he did.  It’s the law.  He proposed a week after our marks showed up, well within the month deadline.”

When he took the envelope from her, she slowly brought her hand to her face and admired the bejeweled band.

“It was his mother’s ring.  When our marks came, he told me that while he wasn’t sure if they were right, he would give it a try.  He left for that week and when he came back, he proposed.”  She paused for a second before a smile finally returned to her face.  “This ring is the only jewelry that he had from his late mother and he gave it to me as a promise.  That he would always keep me happy and...and I believe him.”

He loved and hated how happy she looked.

When she turned back to him, all of her fondness evaporated.

“That’s an invitation to our wedding.   I was hoping you would help me plan it, be my best man, and maybe I would even get the chance to meet your wife but…"

She paused, trying to find her words as she stood from her seat. She put on her trench coat, not even bothering with the buttons, instead only tying the belt. 

"I think it would be best if we let this friendship die out. I hope you come to the wedding, but if you don't, I understand."

Then she turned and walked away.  He had a feeling deep in his heart that this would be the last time he would see her.

And she didn't even say goodbye.

[amyscascadingtabs]

the missing pieces of my heart, they finally collide

The socks are the smallest thing he has ever seen.

Jake isn’t sure how exactly he ended up having a low-key freakout in the middle of the day at an H&M, but he figures there is a first for everything - public meltdowns over impending fatherhood included.

(In which Jake is scared of fatherhood and baby socks are really, really tiny.)

read on ao3

april

The socks are the smallest thing he has ever seen.

Jake isn’t sure how exactly he ended up having a low-key freakout in the middle of the day at an H&M, but he figures there is a first for everything - public meltdowns over impending fatherhood included.

He has been doing well with his fears since they found out about Amy being pregnant. He didn’t panic when she showed him the beginning of her pregnancy binder. He stayed calm at their first visit to the obstetrician. He did shed a tear when they got to hear a loud and strong heartbeat and see a tiny, white, moving blur that’s supposedly their baby on a screen for the first time, but in his defense, Amy cried more.

They're having a kid now, and he's ready; as ready as he feels he can be at this point. Come early December this year, he'll be saying farewell to full nights of sleep, double shifts at work and watching all the movies for adults and teens he can think of.

It’s a guarded excitement. For now, it’s this humongous secret they carry around, trying to explain away their absence at Shaw’s nights and why it looks like Amy’s always about five seconds from either throwing up or falling asleep, without revealing the truth just yet. At the same time, it’s the knowledge their lives are about to be forever changed, and it’s equal shares thrilling and petrifying.

They’ve known for three weeks, which is not a lot of time - Jake has eaten older lunches from the precinct’s fridge at least twice - but already he’s spent oceans of time thinking about it. It just so happens that when he’s not doing everything to take care of his exhausted, nauseous, and emotional wife, his thoughts circle back to the monochrome sonogram picture and the indescribable, undiluted love building inside him whenever he looks at it in his phone gallery.

He’s excited, but he’s never been more scared in his life. He’s worried about miscarriages and diseases and complications and how there’s such a thing as sudden infant death where a baby can straight-up die without any explanation. He’s scared of doing too much and not doing enough and he’s helplessly scared of becoming his own father, and so far the only person he can talk about it with is Amy. The problem is he doesn’t want to bother her with his asinine fears; he’s sure that reminding her of all the terrible things he’s learned can happen will do more harm than good, plus she’s exhausted all the time now and would likely fall asleep in the middle of the conversation. He finds it endearing how she’ll fight to keep her eyes open before falling asleep next to him on the couch, but she’s become pretty much worthless in any conversation longer than three minutes. Consequently, Jake’s keeping his fears to himself for now, taking deep breaths and hovering with his thumb over the number to the shrink he had a series of appointments with a year ago.

He takes it one day at a time. It’s what he tells Amy to do when she complains about feeling too sick and miserable to appreciate anything, so he figures he might as well follow his own advice. He handles things to the best of his ability, trudges his way through a few pages in his copy of The Expectant Father: The Ultimate Guide For Dads-To-Be when Amy falls asleep, and every Wednesday there is a new fruit or vegetable comparison available on the pregnancy app he’s downloaded. This week, their baby is the size of a raspberry, so naturally he bought two jars of them when he stopped by the fruit seller earlier in the day.

(“Are you going to do this for every week?” His wife had asked with a curious gleam to her eyes as he made her company while she ate a late, bland breakfast.

“Only for the fruits I actually like," he’d told her, and she'd laughed before accepting a few of the berries he held out to her.)

The original agenda for their Saturday was to run errands together, but Amy's had a long week already without enough time to rest. A pregnancy podcast he listened to yesterday told him that rest is crucial if you're pregnant, so Jake promptly instructed his wife to spend her day on the couch while he completed their to-do-list on his own. Her grateful smile when he handed her their best fluffy blanket and made her a cup of green lemon tea before leaving told him he made the right choice.

So far, he’s mailed a gift for Amy's great-aunt, left a carpet at the dry cleaner and picked up more of his wife’s favorite pink grapefruit shower gel. He’s also informed Amy of all this via Snapchat, using the most ridiculous filters he could find to put a smile on her lips and received equally hilarious pictures back. The last errand before food shopping is H&M; one of his best navy hoodies caught on fire at work last week, and Jake can’t risk being out of a hoodie - the world could collapse for less. He finds one that seems decent and is about to go pay for it when he catches sight of the neon sign from the corner of his eye. BABY, 0-12 MONTHS.

They’ve agreed not to start buying clothes for a few more weeks. Even window-shopping for them without Amy feels like cheating, yet it's as if a gravitational force is pulling him towards the newborn clothing section. Just to have a look, he defends it to himself as he enters it.

All the clothes are tiny.

All the clothes are overwhelmingly tiny, too much for him to take in even though he’s not sure what he expected. He walks around in a daze, eventually coming to a stop at a shelf with baby socks. Right in front of him hangs a grey-and-white two-pack with writing on them - the white pair says I ♥️ MUM, and the grey pair I ♥️ DAD.

That’s when Jake loses it.

Up until this point, he hasn’t cried. There was the single tear at their first ultrasound, the one he’s not counting in comparison to Amy’s flood of them, but aside from that? No crying. He’s held it together like the responsible dad and family man he’s going to have to become in about seven months, but he runs his finger over the soft cotton blend stuck to a piece of white cardboard, and a stubborn tear trails down his cheek. Then another, and another, bringing with them panicked breathing and a sensation of walls closing in on him.

He’s going to be a dad. He’s going to have partial responsibility for a miniature human at least up until the day they turn eighteen years old. He knows what a good dad is from watching Terry and Charles and even Holt, but he lacks all perception when it comes to the question of whether he knows how to be one.

There will be a whole new person in his world, demanding attention, love, and care. He’s going to make mistakes and have to hope what he’ll do right will be enough to outweigh them. He’s excited but he’s scared and he’s scared but he’s excited - the two keep conflicting, and he’s never certain which is stronger. He’s not sure it matters when he’s standing in a clothing store, unable to make himself stop panic-breathing and crying as he clutches the two-pack of unfathomably minuscule socks.

“Sir? Sir, I’m sorry, but are you okay?” A warm hand touches his shoulder through the leather jacket, and he spins around to find a tan-skinned, round-cheeked young woman with dark curls and an employee tag in a red lanyard around her neck. She’s giving him a worried look, and he blushes with instant embarrassment.

“Yeah, yeah.” He snivels, wiping a few tears on the sleeve of his jacket. “Sorry.”

“That’s okay," she assures him, though it sounds tentative. A wave of guilt crashes over him as he realizes how terrible a customer she must find him; no retail employee can want to spend their underpaid hours comforting crying strangers. “Has something happened?”

“They’re so small," Jake mumbles, and she raises an eyebrow, so he clarifies. “The socks.”

“They’re for babies.”

“I know.”

“So… they’re supposed to be small.”

“I know.”

“Then what’s the issue here?”

“I’m going to be a dad," he blurts out to her, realizing it's the first time he's said the words out loud. They feel foreign, like he's speaking from the perspective of another stellar undercover personality he just made up, but easier than he expected them to. “This November. My wife and I are having a baby.”

The employee smiles at him. “Aww! Congratulations. That’s amazing.”

“It is," he admits. “I’m really happy about it. But you know, it’s this huge responsibility. I suck at being responsible and I had a crappy dad.” Jake grimaces. “Like, seriously, the crappiest. Mayor of Craptown in the country of Crappy Dads.”

“You're scared you'll suck at it, too?” He nods, and she shakes her head, shrugging. “You probably won't. Lots of mediocre guys have kids that grow up perfectly fine.”

“I… thanks?”

“If you ask me," she continues, “the fact that you’re scared just means you want to do a good job. If you want to do a good job, I’m pretty sure that means you love your kid. Put those two together and you have a solid basis.”

Her comment makes Jake's mind flick back to the moment with Amy in the hospital lobby after his negotiation with Pam. He’d realized then how maybe fear could, in the end, be the key to guaranteeing he would do a good job. Trusting said realization is another thing entirely - but he wants to, and he tries to.

He clears his throat. “I do love my kid. I mean, I barely know them yet and I love them already. It doesn't even make sense.”

“Then I’m sure you’ll be okay.”

“Do you have kids, or…?”

She gives him an honest chortle before shaking her head again. “I have a cat, though.”

“Ah.”

“Are you going to buy those socks, by the way? Not to be a jerk, but I feel like you crying on them means you gotta buy them.”

“... yeah. Yeah, I’ll buy them.”

He leaves the store feeling equal parts humiliated and relieved, painfully aware he owes Amy an explanation for buying the first item of clothing for their baby without her, but somehow, he leaves it feeling better.

(He tells Amy about his breakdown when he gets home. The next day, he goes back to leave a handwritten thank-you-note for the friendly employee.)

october

Her clothes are the smallest thing he has ever seen.

With eight weeks left to the due date, Jake is getting used to the thought of what’s to come. The arrival of their daughter - they’re having a daughter, his intuition is better than Amy’s - is fast approaching, and if it wasn’t clear enough to him from the close to finished nursery in their apartment and the stroller on its way to them, Charles now has a daily countdown on his phone.

(“64 days today," had been his greeting yesterday, and Jake couldn’t even bring himself to be annoyed.)

He struggles to determine whether he feels ready, but he does feel prepared, which makes the worries easier to live with. Amy made them a Type-A-style preparation checklist the day she entered her twelfth week of pregnancy, and though Jake found it excessive at first, he knows they wouldn't have survived without it. Not only have they researched and purchased everything an infant could possibly need in terms of material things and watched four informative documentaries together, but he’s also read two and a half books about babies and parenthood and gone to a class in parenting. It turned out to be one of the weirdest experiences of his life, but at least it made him a self-proclaimed master in the art of holding a fake baby doll correctly.

His excitement is genuine now - no longer clouded beneath the veil of apprehension and nervousness it once was. It's impossible not to feel excited when every night, he'll curl up next to Amy on the couch and simply talk to their baby, drawing lazy patterns with his fingers on her bump until he's able to feel a foot or an arm, their kid kicking and pressing and doing somersaults at the sound of his voice. When he's unsure what to talk about, he’ll read Harry Potter or play Taylor Swift to his unborn daughter. Style, so far, appears to be her favorite.

The nursery has only a few last touches left to it before it’s fully ready. This week, they’re spending their Saturday dealing with one of them and sorting out their kid’s collection of clothes. It's turned out to be a project for a full day - first washing everything with hypoallergenic laundry detergent, then letting each item hang to dry, then folding, sorting and placing everything in the dresser. Jake’s been staring at newborn clothes for hours on end, and he still can't fathom how small they are.

He's seen them before, of course. He was there to buy most of them and has marveled over everything from the tiny hats to the Harry Potter-onesies to the red-and-black-checkered baby flannel Amy found, several times already. It doesn't seem to help; for each colorful item with animals, stripes or bright colors he folds and places in its correct pile, he's reminded his kid will be wearing these clothes. Once the initial sparks of excitement fade, the waves of fear he thought he was free of engulf him anew.

It's the fear he's felt each time he's been held at gunpoint, except he's no longer fearing for his own life but for his child’s. He fears something terrible will happen to them which he won't be able to stop and he fears he will be the cause of it. It's the fear that reappears at odd occasions, submerging him in nightmare scenarios of long-time undercover operations only he can execute. He fears death threats forcing him into witness protection. It's the fear where he imagines a five-year-old with Amy's nose and dark hair standing in front of him with crossed arms and downcast eyes asking where he's been for the last weeks, and then Amy's there as well asking the same thing. He fears having no better answer to give than I got too wrapped up wanting to solve a case again, I forgot to come home.

Though he’ll do everything in his power to be a good parent, there’s an inevitable risk he’ll fail. It shakes him and it haunts him and seems to paralyze him right then and there.

“Babe?” Amy’s voice, calm but suspecting, helps him snap out of it. He looks up from the mint-green onesie with smiling clouds he’s holding to find her watching him with worried advertence.  “You zoned out.”

“Sorry, Ames. You were saying?”

“Oh, just about the car seat.” She nods in the direction of a carton box near the door. “I was thinking we should install it tomorrow.”

“Car seat. Great. That’s cool," he mumbles in an attempt to fake normalcy and steer the conversation away from his looming meltdown. “Cool, cool, cool.”

“Jake.”

“I’m fine.”

Amy rolls her eyes at that, shuffling a few inches closer to him on the long-pile rug with what little gracefulness she can manage. “Clearly not. Come on, you can talk to me.”

“You don’t have to listen," he assures her, but she shakes her head.

“I already am. Wanna tell me what’s up?”

The words stagger on the tip of his tongue, faltering before he figures out how to express them.

“It's the same things. Same fears as before.”

“Do you need to talk about them?”

He does, to some extent, but she's heard his panicked thoughts before and helped him through them what feels like a million times. His eight months pregnant wife deserves better than listening to his preposterous fears when they're supposed to be folding clothes.

“I don't want to bother you," he excuses himself.

Amy glares at him in reaction. It’s the glare reserved for when one of her uniformed officers makes a detrimental mistake, or he tells her he thinks they might be ordering too much Polish food, wordlessly telling him he's made a mistake.

“I think I can handle it," she says. “Do you want to talk about them?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” She nods, putting a pair of newborn-size white pajamas with red hearts in the sleepwear pile and holding his left hand in hers. Their fingers intertwine, wedding rings next to one another. “Go ahead. I’m listening.”

There’s guilt as he rambles to her about equally unlikely scenarios and the fears he was supposed to have let go of by now. He’d meant it when he said he felt ready a little over a year ago, and he loves and wants the child that gets the hiccups in the middle of her parents’ conversation so much, which he assures Amy of in about every other sentence. The fear doesn't take away from the love, but it makes it feel more inaccessible at times, harder to reach behind the dense fog of anxiety. Jake detests that feeling. He wants to love this child without the overpowering fear, wants to feel the excitement he’s gotten used to always, and most of all, he doesn’t want to have to doubt himself each and every second of each day.

Amy’s silent while she listens. She doesn’t utter a word until she’s sure he’s finished, catching his breath from the anxiety and fast-paced talking. Instead, she hugs him from the side, letting him rest his head on her shoulder while he slowly returns to a calmer peace of mind.

“I just don’t want you to think I’m not excited," he whispers once he can speak again.

“I see your face every time she kicks when you talk to her," she replies matter-of-factly, guiding his right hand to rest high up on her belly where the hiccups have calmed down only to be replaced with stubborn kicking. The corners of his mouth twitch into a grin, and he laughs at the timing. “No one could ever see that and think you’re not excited.”

“I know.” He sighs. “But I’m not doing anything right now, it’s all you. The moment she’s here, it’ll be different. What if I don’t know what to do?”

“You know what to do, you’re practically Santiago-level-prepared at this point.”

“What if I blank?”

“You won’t blank.”

“What if?”

“Jake.”

“I know, I know.” A metallic taste in his mouth makes him realize he’s bleeding, having bitten too hard on his lip. “You have total faith in me and all that.”

“You’re saying it like you think I don't mean it," she points out, eyes narrowed. “I do have total faith in you, because I know you and would never have agreed to have this baby with you if I didn't trust you could handle it.”

“I’m scared, though. I thought I wouldn’t be scared at this point, but it’s still there.”

“So am I. So is everyone who's ever been a parent.” There’s a small smile on Amy’s lips as she reaches for a pair of socks from the pile of them. “I think it’s part of it.”

“It’s the worst part," he argues, and she lets out a short laugh.

“Maybe it is. I guess we’ll just have to see if it’s worth it.” She hands him the socks, and he can’t help but beam as he recognizes them.

They’re light grey and impossibly tiny,  with I ♥️ DAD printed on them in capital letters. It’s the very first item of clothing he bought for his child, having been made to purchase them ensuing his breakdown in an H&M store five long months ago. He’d nearly forgotten about them, but he holds them in his hands now, wondering how on earth an item smaller than his palm could ever fit a living person.

“That’s true, you know," Amy tells him in a quiet voice. He looks up to find her eyes glistening, but she wipes the threatening tears away before they fall this time. “She’s going to love you so much. She already does.”

“How can you know?”

“For one, she goes absolutely nuts when you're talking.” Amy shakes her head, grinning fondly. “Even if you’re not physically there. Like last week, when you left that message about being on your way home. I listened to it on speaker and she started kicking me in the ribs. She's getting strong now, so it hurts.”

He laughs, blushing. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. It's super cute, and it totally gets my dumb, hormone-fuelled emotions every time.”

She leans slightly forward and he takes the hint, letting go of the disarmingly cute socks to lock lips with his wife. It's short and perhaps not the most passionate of kisses, quickly interrupted the moment Amy gets too out of breath, but it lasts long enough for him to enjoy the feel of her lips against his, the softness of her skin as he cups her face.

“I love you," he declares when they break apart. The socks are next to his knees on the violet carpet and he picks them up again, smiling to himself as he places them on top of Amy's bump. “Both of you.”

“Well, cheeseball, we both love you back. You're a lucky guy.”

“I am. I really, really am.”

(The fear refuses to disappear altogether, but it stays under control for the rest of the wait. By the time Amy’s contractions start five weeks later, Jake's all excitement and little anything else.)

november

His daughter is the smallest thing he has ever seen.

Person, he corrects himself. She's a person, a whole little individual with ten fingers and ten toes and a full head of dark hair, and she’s managed to utterly and completely steal his heart in the forty-three hours she’s spent out in the world.

Leah Rose Charlotte Santiago-Peralta is marginally smaller than the average newborn, thanks to her just over three weeks early arrival, but she’s perfectly healthy and strong. After two nights at the hospital, the new family is cleared to go home.

Jake has his first minor freakout post Leah’s birth when the doctor tells them. He’ll have to drive, which means there’s an atomic but existing risk they’ll crash. Once they go home, there will be no more friendly nurses to help, no more surprisingly excellent coffee machines in the communal kitchen, and no more red buttons next to the bed they can press if they panic. They’ll be on their own in their mission of keeping a helpless infant alive, and Jake’s not sure he’s ready.

He looks over at Amy to where she’s propped up in the hospital bed feeding their daughter and opens his mouth to communicate this, but he changes his mind once he sees them. With Amy’s gratified smile overpowering the bags under her eyes and with Leah’s content suckling noises, there’s no doubt whatsoever.

He’s ready. He’s always been ready for them.

Leah cries when they fasten her in the car seat. There’s a fleeting moment where he worries the drive will be a twenty-minute crying party, but she passes out the second the car starts moving and sleeps through her first car ride like it’s no big deal. She continues sleeping through her first ride up the building’s elevator, and snoozes through being carried over the doorstep into their apartment.

“Welcome home, Lee," he tells her as they enter, hospital bags in tow. “You too, Ames.”

“Thanks," Amy mumbles.“It feels nice.”

He nods, leaving their bags on the living room floor for later unpacking as he helps her unfasten Leah in the seat. “You feeling okay, babe?”

“I guess," she shrugs. “I’d kill for a proper shower, though.”

“So go take one.”

She hesitates, observing him closely as if she’s searching for something. “Are you sure? I can stay with you if you don’t want to be alone with her for too long, I know you think it’s scary - “

“Ames.” He places a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “You can take a shower. You can take a long shower if you want to, because god knows you deserve it. Need it, even.”

“That’s hurtful.”

“Go take that shower," he repeats, kissing her forehead. “Lee and I will be okay.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

“Okay, then.” She kisses first Leah’s, then his cheek, and squeezes his hand one last time before heading towards their bathroom. “Have a good father-daughter bonding time. Kick it off with a diaper change, will you?”

“This isn't my favorite part," Jake informs his daughter as she starts waking up on the changing table, grunting when he has to take off the cozy, white overall they brought her home in. “I’m not sure it’s anyone’s. I’ll do it for you, though.”

He promised himself after seeing Amy go through twenty-six hours of torturous pain that he'd do all the changes he could for the first weeks. So far he's sticking to it; it’s not the most enjoyable of experiences, but it's simple and straightforward enough for him to feel like he's mastering it with some proficiency.

“So," he narrates while he navigates his mission. “This is going pretty well. We're doing good, Lee.”

She eyes him with skepticism, letting out a few whimpers before they’re done, but he keeps his calm and draws a breath of relief when she doesn’t start crying.

“See? We did it.” He holds her little hands, waving them like she’s the one doing it. “We’re just going to get you a new pair of pajamas and we’ll be all set.”

It’s the first time he’s dressing her without Amy’s input. Seeing how he technically has the freedom to put their daughter in a Die Hard-onesie and varicolored leggings, Jake considers it a mature use of his power when he opts for white pajamas with a pink rose print and a regular pair of grey socks.

He figures they’re a regular pair, at least. He realizes otherwise when he unrolls them to find the familiar I ♥️ DAD-print on them. They bring a smile to his lips as he thinks back to when he bought them, back when no one knew their secret yet, and he was scared out of his mind he wouldn’t be able to do the exact thing he’s doing now.

He puts the socks on Leah’s feet, shaking his head at how the itty-bitty clothing items are still almost too large for her. He has to roll the socks up so they’ll stay on, but they work, and the result is possibly the most endearing thing he’s seen. He snaps a few shots with his phone - it’s lucky he upgraded its storage, because he’s already taken enough photos to fill a museum of baby pictures - and then kisses Leah’s forehead, lifting her so she’s held against his chest as he carries her out to the living room and sinks down on the couch.

Jake must have been on this couch nearly a thousand times. From pre-relationship Thanksgiving dinners to early dates to countless movie nights on this particular piece of furniture, a substantial part of all the hours Jake's ever spent at home with Amy has been focused to the off-white seats. He's had makeout sessions, sleepless nights and lengthy discussions on it, but it's the first time he hangs out with his daughter there.

He must say she seems pretty chill about everything new so far. She lays against his legs without complaint, and he watches her as she blinks and yawns, waving and kicking her limbs with intermittent, jerky movements.

“Cool to have this much space, huh? Must've been pretty cramped in your first living quarters," he comments on her stretches. “I can't believe we have you here already. I mean, I figured you'd be early because of those Santiago genes, but your mom convinced me not to get my hopes up.”

“I kind of knew, though," he adds, holding her tiny feet through the socks. “I had a feeling. This is when you say yeah, dad, you were totally right, you're the smartest.”

Leah makes little bubbling noises with her lips in response. Jake decides to interpret them as an agreement.

The shower stops running in the background. He figures this means Amy should be back soon, but for now he has some remaining alone time to enjoy with his daughter. He's in the exact situation he was scared for his life to even think about six months ago, the only one in charge if Leah starts wailing uncontrollably or stops breathing or some other nightmare scenario, but for some reason, he's not panicking.

He's calm. Somehow, he thinks she's the secret.

“I'm still a bit nervous, you know," he tells her while she keeps up her squirming. Every now and then she squints at him like she’s trying to make out the details of his face, looking adorably skeptical. “I know what it’s like to have a crappy parent, and I’m scared of becoming one. I probably will be for a long time, but… I’m starting to think it’s going to be okay.”

He has to take a break before he keeps talking, taking a deep breath to compose himself.

“I’m going to try my best, always. Every single day. I’ll probably fail a whole bunch, but I’m always going to try. For you.”

Leah accidentally punches herself in the face with one of her fists as he says the last words, making herself gasp in confusion and Jake laugh.

“I promise," he adds with a careful grip of her tiny hands, nudging at one fist with his pinkie until her fingers close around it. “I’m not going to leave you, ever.”

It’s a dicey promise to make for someone with his profession. Too many times in his career, he’s had to pack his things and leave everything behind for reasons far beyond his control, and he’s known for getting so sucked into a case he’ll forget to eat and sleep and go home for days on end. Neither of these factors are compatible with having and raising children, and while he can’t really control whether any mafia bosses will force him to go into hiding soon, Jake knows he’s picked up his last double shift for a long, long while. He has almost all of the next month off to learn how to be a family with his wife and daughter, and even after he returns to work, the shifts will be fewer and somewhat shorter.

Four years ago it would’ve been agony. Now, he couldn’t be more excited.

He’s going to watch his daughter grow up and become the coolest little person in the Universe, and he gets to do it all with the love of his life. It’s a nonpareil joy, and he wants to describe it all in words to Leah, but he’s sleep-deprived and overtired and ever-so-slightly worried it’d be the factor to finally bring him to tears, so he starts humming Hedwig’s Theme to the newborn instead.

“Oh, man.” He notices Amy’s presence first when he hears her sniffle and sees her shake her head as she sits down next to them. Her hair is blow-dried and she’s changed into grey pajama pants and a tank-top, completing the outfit with a blue hoodie identical to his own. He suspects both the pants and hoodie are originally his, but when it comes to stopping her from stealing his clothes, he lost the battle a long time ago.“I was so proud of myself for not having cried yet today, and then you go ruin it.”

“I mean," he grins, giving her an amused look. “Is making you cry really that much of an achievement right now?”

“Don’t try me," she warns him and dabs at her eyes with the sleeves of her hoodie. “You wouldn’t last an hour with these hormones. Or any other part of it.”

“Fair judgment.”

“Yeah.” Leah’s begun to whimper again, puckering her lips at the sound of Amy’s voice. “You want to give her over? I think she's hungry.”

“Do you magically sense that or something?” He transfers his daughter over to his wife, gently as if she’d been made of crystal glass.

“My boobs feel like stone, does that count?”

“Ah.”

“Trust me, they're not the worst thing.” Jake grimaces, and Amy laughs at his reaction while she adjusts herself, a couple of pillows and Leah to a comfortable position. “Giving birth is a nightmare.”

“Sorry you had to," he says, scooching closer so he reaches to put his arm around her shoulders. “You were incredible, if it's any consolation.”

“Thank you.” She whispers the words without looking at him. Her gaze is locked on Leah, pure admiration lighting up her face while she watches the newborn eat. “I see you chose her socks.”

“She looks cute, right? I think they suit her.”

“She's wearing the mom-ones tomorrow," Amy states. “And she’s always cute, but yes. They suit her.”

As intense of an effort as it is to divert his attention from the newborn, Jake’s growling stomach eventually reminds him they haven’t eaten since lunch. Pizza seems as good a celebration as any after three days of hospital food, he decides, and manages to finish their order and end the call right when Leah finishes eating.

“I can take her," he offers, and Amy gently transfers the girl back, helping him hold her so that her chin rests on his shoulder.

“You look like such a dad.” Amy laughs. “It’s a good look on you.”

“I am a dad," he corrects her, and she smiles wide.

“You are. How do you feel about it?”

“I don’t know," he confesses. “Happy and nervous. She’s the greatest thing in the world, clearly, and I have no idea if I’ll be good enough at taking care of her, but…” He takes a deep breath. “I love her, and I hope so.”

“I know you will be. I think Lee does, too.”

As if to either confirm or deny her mother’s suggestion, Leah chooses that very moment to let out a loud burp and spit up all down the back of his hoodie.

“Burp cloth, Ames, you forgot the burp cloth," he mutters as his wife wheezes with laughter.

He doesn’t bother changing his hoodie. It would take getting up and disturbing the milk-drunk baby who falls asleep on his chest minutes later, curled up like a koala bear with her mouth open, and he can’t make himself risk waking her up.

She’s a warm, comfortable weight against his ribs, in perfect height for him to kiss the top of her head if he looks down. He’s never seen anyone look quite so peaceful.

Amy leans her head on his spit-up free shoulder, snuggling into his side and holding one of their daughter’s fists in her hand, and Jake never knew his heart could grow to the size it’s doing.

He figures it’s for the best. If he’s going to spend the rest of his life loving the two people currently falling asleep on him with everything he has, his heart will have to perform some serious expansion.

(It does.)

[societybabylon]

give me those eyes (it’s easy to forgive)

Summary: After Harry is imprisoned, he and Allie try to start anew. | word count: 5088 | read on ao3

“What do you think will happen when we go back?” Harry asked.

Allie looked over him slowly. He was hunched over a bowl of instant noodles, devouring his dinner with a plastic fork at a cartoonishly fast rate. She suppressed a laugh. “I think I’ll never eat another thing of cup noodles in my life. Only homemade noodles from then on.”

She nibbled on her own noodles, savoring the salty warmth of the broth as it hit her tongue. It seemed the Guard was running out of food to feed their prisoners—this was the third day in a row that they had been fed instant ramen for dinner.

Harry shook his head. “I, for one, think my parents will gift me with a Tesla. And maybe if you’re lucky enough I’ll let you take a ride in it one day.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, Lord Harry, what an honor it would be to ride in your Tesla. How could I ever repay you?”

He chuckled at her sarcasm. “If I remember correctly, you like my fast cars. Or did you forget our game of Fugitive entirely?”

This was a typical routine for them. They would fantasize about what their lives would be like when they returned to West Ham. Ever since Harry had been arrested and joined Allie in her imprisonment, they’d spent their time coming up with different ways to entertain themselves. It was one of the only ways they stayed sane.

Allie liked imagining the future with Harry. It allowed her to temporarily forget her fears. Because at her core, she was terrified that their time was coming to an end.

Winter had come for them.

Allie knew it in her bones, even though she hadn’t been outside in over two months. She knew it from the frost that clung to the single window of the room she was imprisoned in. She knew it from the heavy coats that Jason, Luke, and Clark had started bringing with them to their Guard shifts. And because she’d been locked up for months, she had no way of knowing whether or not the town had enough supplies to live through the winter.

All she knew was that Grizz and the search party had found an empty plot of land. That was the last she’d heard before she’d been jailed. She could only hope that New Ham had made more progress since then, but that seemed like a wishful thought.

“Allie? Allie?” Harry’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts. “Are you listening to me?”

“Sorry.” She smiled at him. “I was busy dreaming about your imaginary Tesla.”

He laughed. “Really? I should have known.”

“Well, no. Not really. I was actually thinking about winter. And about how we got here.”

She gestured at the space between them. She could tell by the gleam in his eyes that he knew what she meant. She had never expected Harry to get thrown in prison with her, but then again, she’d never imagined that she would be jailed in the first place.

New Ham had always felt like a place pulled from her nightmares. After Cassandra’s death, she thought she had learned to prepare for the worst. But she hadn’t been prepared for the coup. And she couldn’t have ever imagined what followed it.

---

The trial took place two weeks after the coup.

Every citizen of West Ham came to the church to watch the spectacle. Lexie and Harry, who served as co-judges, sat before the crowd like gods. Allie and Will, meanwhile, sat in the same place that Dewey had sat when he’d been on trial. The irony of the situation hadn’t been lost on Allie.

Grizz had generously volunteered to serve as Allie and Will’s defense lawyer. As their attorney, he was smart, quick-witted, and perceptive. He gave a brilliant opening statement before the court and questioned each witness thoroughly. But talented as he was, he was no match against Campbell. With every witness he called to the stand, Campbell sold lies to the people of New Ham. He guided Luke, Clark, and Jason to testify that they’d overheard Allie planning to rig the election. The angry crowd in the church believed it all, every false word that was said to them.

The trial was over before it even began. The people of New Ham were on Campbell’s side. Allie knew it. Will knew it. Even Grizz, who tried so earnestly to defend their names, knew it.

The jury’s verdict came swiftly: guilty.

The judges’ decision, however, came a little less quickly. Just as Allie had struggled to figure out how to punish Dewey, she knew that Lexie and Harry were grappling with the appropriate sentencing.

As much influence as the new mayors had, Allie knew they didn’t have the power to sentence Allie or Will to death. That would have caused an uproar. Besides, as dangerous as Lexie and Harry could be, they weren’t murderers.

Ultimately, the judges sentenced Will and her to ten years in prison.

Under Campbell’s leadership, the Guard had set up a formal jail in the old police station. The police station was an old, gray building with an interior as bland as is exterior. There was only one holding cell in the station, and because Campbell wanted to separate his two prisoners, the Guard put Will in the cell and locked her in the old police chief’s office.

The office was a small room in the back of the building, closed off from the rest of the station. It had one desk, a swivel chair, and dozens of pictures on the wall of the West Ham police chief with her kids.

When she first saw the room, Allie expected the Guard to handcuff her to the desk and leave her there, just like how they had handcuffed her to a radiator after the coup. Instead, they simply removed all the furniture from the room, so that there was nothing she could use as a weapon. Then, when the only things left were a single plastic trashcan, a few blank sheets of paper, and a raggedy blanket, they threw her in the room and locked the door.

Trapped in that room, Allie had no way to contact Will or anyone else in New Ham. The office only had one tiny, rectangular window, which was high enough off the ground that no one would be able to see into the room. For the first time since Cassandra’s death, she was truly alone.

It was difficult to adjust to the immense silence of her prison. There was always one member of the Guard stationed outside of her door, but no one ever joined her inside the lonely office. She was never given the opportunity to talk to Will or receive visits from any of her friends. At most, she was given the opportunity to speak to her captors a few times a day.

Slowly but surely, she began to fall into a routine. She was fed three small meals a day. Twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening, the Guard escorted her to the bathroom so she could brush her teeth and use the toilet. Every other day, they would fill up a giant inflatable kiddie pool with sink water and let her bathe in it for ten minutes at a time. Every night around nine, a member of the Guard would come in and turn off the lights in her room, letting her know it was time to go to sleep.

In the long moments of silence, she was burdened by memories of Cassandra’s death and the coup. Her sister was supposed to be at Yale. Instead, she was in a grave. And she, who had done everything she could to hold New Ham together, was living a life so empty it was like walking death.

She had nothing to occupy her time, so she became a master at entertaining herself. She made up ridiculous songs and sang them in her off-key voice. She came up with ridiculous plans to depose Harry and Lexie. She dreamt and wept and prayed.

Allie was doing her best to hold on to her sanity and to stay alive. But after weeks of near-solitary confinement, she had to confront the truth: if she lived like this much longer, she would go mad.

Then, out of nowhere, everything changed.

Three weeks after the coup, Allie watched in shock as the Guard escorted Harry into her room in handcuffs. There he was, one of the men who’d orchestrated her downfall, getting his own comeuppance. Once they had secured him in the room, the Guard uncuffed him and shut him in the office to rot with her.

At first, she had been angry with him. When she saw him in those handcuffs she felt like her blood was turning to fire. She wanted her wrath to incinerate him.

“How else did you think this would end?” Allie roared at him. “He’s Campbell. You were never going to win. You were just a pawn. And now look at us. We’re trapped here, and Campbell’s in power. Do you know what this means? It means we’re never getting out of here, Harry.”

He said nothing. He stared dejectedly at the ground, eyes glazed over and haunted. The curls of his hair, usually so perfectly done, were tangled and wild. His green shirt was torn open at the front and his sneakers were splattered with mud. He was a mess.

Whatever had happened to him, Allie knew it wasn’t pleasant.  

Unsatisfied by his despondency, she tore into him again. She didn’t care if her words destroyed him. She just wanted him to say something. She wanted him to explain himself and all the pain he had caused her.

She must have spent thirty minutes relentlessly attacking him. But he said nothing. He simply curled up into a ball, tucking his knees under his head. Fetal position, she realized. He looked more like a boy than the man she knew him to be.

He didn’t stir for the rest of the day. When the Guard delivered dinner that night—his first dinner as a prisoner—he didn’t touch his food. He did not rise for the evening bathroom break. He was a ghost in a man’s body.

Allie assumed he would come to his senses by the next morning. He didn’t. If anything, he was worse than he had been the day before. Uncontrollable spasms shook his body. Though the room was air conditioned, sweat was dripping down his hair and onto his face. If she didn’t know better, she would have assumed he was going through withdrawal.

She considered offering to help him, only to soon realize that he was the reason they were in this position at all. Even if she could convince the Guard to take him to the hospital (which was already highly unlikely), he didn’t deserve her aid. So she let him suffer.

By the second day of his imprisonment, his sweating and shaking stopped. He began to adapt to the same schedule Allie was on, from the eating to the bathing to the sleeping. He seemed to slowly be accepting to his new reality. Yet when she antagonized him or attempted conversation, he still said nothing.

After four days of near complete silence, he finally broke. “I’m sorry.”

His comments only reignited her rage. “I’m in prison, and the only thing you can think to say to me is that you’re sorry?”

“I don’t know what else to say. I—”

He never finished his sentence. He broke down into aching sobs. Allie watched him fall apart, feeling only a shadow of pity pass over her.

“Pull yourself together,” she spat. “If you want to survive this, you must be stronger.”

He bit his lip and tugged at his curls. She could see the anguish painted on his face.

“I didn’t know.” He spoke as if he were divulging his sins to God. “I feel like a coward and an idiot admitting it. But I didn’t know that they had put you here. I just assumed they locked the two of you up in the wine cellar or something, like they did with Dewey. If I knew, I would have tried to stop it.”

Allie began to cut him off. “You are so full of shit, I—”

“Please,” he begged. “Listen to me. I’m going to tell you the truth about what happened with the coup. I’m going to tell you everything. It’s not a good excuse for what we did, not by any means. But please believe me when I say I never thought that things would go as far as they did.”

She said nothing. He was watching her so intently, gazing at her with broken, exhausted eyes. She could tell he was waiting for her permission to continue. She wasn’t sure she was prepared to hear what he had to say, but she couldn’t bear any more silence, so she nodded at him to continue his story.

He did as he promised. He revealed to her the entire of how the coup came to be. He told her about how Campbell had used drugs to manipulate him, confirming her earlier suspicions about withdrawal. He told her about how he, depressed and addicted, saw the mayorship as his last chance to regain a semblance of his old life.

Then, he told his own story of how he landed in prison. According to Harry, Campbell had always intended to use him and Lexie as puppets. When they resisted his plans, he manipulated Clark, who wanted the Guard to rule, into staging yet another coup. The new mayors were deposed almost as quickly as they’d taken power. Apparently, Lexie was in the prison as well, except she had been locked up with Will.

New Ham was quickly transforming into something that resembled a totalitarian police state. And they could do nothing to stop it.

Allie was silent for a long time after he finished speaking. She didn’t know what to say him. She was still violently angry at him, and she knew she would be for a long time. But she also felt a kernel of understanding inside her. For the first time, she fully comprehended why Harry had gone to such dramatic ends to oust her.

Harry sat in silence, waiting for her to say something. Finally, she gave in.

“I’m still mad at you. I won’t be able to forgive you for a long time. But maybe someday…” she trailed off. “Besides, it seems like we’re going to be stuck here for a while. Might as well make the most of it.”

He gave her a slow, sad smile. “Might as well.”

It wasn’t much, but it felt like a start.

Over the next few days, they reacquainted themselves. They last time they had hung out was before prom, and that was months ago. Harry detailed his slide into depression and what it had been like to open his house to so many classmates. Allie talked about her struggle to mourn her sister and lead their town simultaneously.

They invented all sorts of games to keep themselves entertained. Sometimes, out of the blue, Allie would whistle a tune and Harry would have fifteen seconds to name it. Other times, Harry would list three words he associated with a person and Allie would have to guess who in New Ham he was thinking of. Then there were the old games, like 20 Questions and Would You Rather. By the end of it all, Allie felt like she knew more trivial details about Harry than she did about herself.

“You know,” he told her one day, “Lexie and I were pretty shit leaders.”

This was a delicate topic, one that the two of them frequently tried to tip-toe around, but since Harry was trying to open up to her, she figured she could set aside her anger and listen to him.

“Oh, yeah?”

“We didn’t really see eye-to-eye. Lexie hated all my ideas, but then she never had any ideas of her own, so we were just stuck. We needed you so badly. I tried to get us to privatize food and close the cafeteria maybe two weeks after you left. God, it was awful. I thought people might start shooting each other just to get the food they wanted. The whole time I tried to ask myself what you would do in my situation. Then I realized you wouldn’t have tried to close the cafeteria in the first place. That was the first time I really, really knew we were lost without you.”

She wasn’t sure how to feel about that comment. Part of her relished the fact that this society truly relied on her as a competent leader. Another part of her was bitter that despite all her efforts, she had landed in prison regardless.

So she simply said, “Thank you.” Nothing more. It wasn’t much, but at least she wasn’t ripping his head off, as she would have when he first joined her in jail. The more time passed and the better she came to know him, the more her resentment towards him began to dissipate.

She was becoming more comfortable with him. When she looked at him, she was no longer reminded of his burning hatred of Cassandra or his old connections to his family’s money. She simply saw him as Harry.

They were not exactly happy, but they had each other. And most days, that was enough.

Over time, he told her about his father’s death and how it essentially destroyed him. She told him about what it was like to grow up in her sister’s shadow, always being seen as second best. They had known each other since kindergarten, but oftentimes, it felt like they were talking for the first time.

“Would you rather eat poisoned pumpkin pie or have to work twenty consecutive garbage cleanup shifts?” Allie asked during one of their games.

“Eat poisoned pie,” he said with a playful smirk. “Because at least it’d be over quickly.”

She burst into laughter. “You’re only saying that because you’ve never tried it before,” she said in between giggles.

When she finally collected herself, she saw him gazing at her through his long lashes.

“What’s that look?” she teased.

“Nothing.” Harry quickly replied.

“Oh, come on. Don’t lie to me. What is it?”

His lips curled up at the corners a little bit. He was embarrassed. “Nothing. You just have a really beautiful laugh.”

Whatever she had expected him to say, it wasn’t that. “No, I don’t. You’re just saying that.”

“It’s true.” He was still watching her intently. It was the same look he’d had in his eyes when they’d joked around before his cafeteria shift so long ago. “You know, I always noticed you in high school. I just never thought you wanted to talk to me. I was convinced you hated me.”

“Why would you think that?” When he didn’t respond, she immediately pieced together the answer. “Because of Cassandra? You thought I wouldn’t like you because you guys hated each other? I’m not my sister.”

“I know that. But things were different back then. I remember when we took chemistry class together. You were so smart and so confident. You always seemed so unreachable.”

She scoffed. “Smart and confident? Are you talking about me, or my sister? You know that’s not true.”

“I don’t know who told you otherwise, but you’ve always been smart and confident.” He was grinning now.

“You were the one who was untouchable, not me.” Allie insisted.

“Are you saying you noticed me, too?”

“Of course I noticed you. Honestly, Harry, who didn’t? Everyone wanted to be you. You had a gorgeous girlfriend, a gigantic mansion, a bright future. It seemed like you were worlds away from me. Who would have guessed that we would be where we are right now? That we would be friends? This new world we’re in is fucked up in a lot of ways, but if there’s one thing I’m grateful for, it’s that I’ve gotten to know you.”

They had gone from acquaintances to enemies to friends in only a few months. When she stopped to process how much they had changed, it astounded her.

“You remember prom, right?”

“How could I forget?”

“Oh. Sorry. I wasn’t referring to that.” Harry ran a hand through his hair, clearly flustered by his fumble. “Sorry. I, um, I didn’t mean to bring back those memories. I was thinking of the part before that, when everyone was enjoying the night. I asked you to dance, and you said no.”

“I remember. I said I thought it would complicate things too much.”

“Well, that was me noticing you.”

It felt like something had changed in the air around them. Their conversation lost its playful quality and had shifted in to something much more delicate and serious.

“I thought you only did that because Kelly was with Will.”

“I admit that that was part of it. But there was also a part of me that really wanted to get to know you. And after everything that happened with Fugitive, I thought—” Harry cut himself off. “Nevermind. It doesn’t matter what I thought. What’s important is that we’re friends now.”

The energy between them had turned electric. What would happen if Allie pressed him to say the things he was going to say before he cut himself off? If all the unspoken words between them were said aloud?

It was a risk she couldn’t take. “You’re right. Actually, speaking of prom, that brings me to another question. Would you rather never get to go to another party again or get to go to all the parties you want, but with Campbell as your date?”

He chuckled, and the tension in the room evaporated. But Allie knew it was only a matter of time before they would have to face the unsaid truth that was lingering between them.

Roughly a week or two later, after a particularly unpleasant lunch of undercooked hamburgers, Allie fell ill. With the exception of the poisoning incident, she had been lucky enough not to get sick in New Ham yet. But it seemed her luck was up.

Her stomach rolled. The office seemed bright and hazy through her eyes. She could feel bile rising up her throat, threatening to spill out of her at any moment. Out of desperation, she pounded on the door viciously. She prayed that whoever was on Guard would answer her. If she were lucky, the person on watch would be someone like Luke, who would have enough sympathy to aid her.

To her joy, the door swung open. But it was not Luke who answered. No, it was Clark. Other than Campbell, he was probably the single worst person who could have answered the door.

“Clark,” Allie gasped as she felt her stomach turn. “I’m pretty sure I have food poisoning and I think I’m going to throw up. I need to go to the bathroom.”

Clark snickered. He was clad in his letterman as usual, the red and yellow jacket that had transformed into a symbol of the Guard’s tight grip over New Ham. “And why the fuck should I care?”

Allie heaved. She couldn’t get sick. Not here, trapped in this room with Harry. The Guard were such cruel jailers that they would likely wait a week before cleaning up the vomit.

Harry watched her with wide, horror-struck eyes. “Look at her. She’s going to be sick. You need to do something.”

Clark smirked. “You get bathroom breaks two times a day, and it’s not time for your second break yet. So I guess you’re just going to have to wait it out. Sucks for you.”

Harry rose to his feet. Angry lightning flashed in his eyes. “Son of a bitch. You’ve already jailed us. Our lives are miserable because of you. The least you could do is help her. And you will, or so help me God, I will make sure you pay.”

She knew Clark sensed the threat in Harry’s words. Allie wanted to scream at her friend to stand down. She knew from experience that Clark had no qualms about abusing his power.

“You know,” Clark began to advance to on Harry, his hands clenched into fists. “I never really liked you in high school. I tolerated you at best. You used to walk around like you were king, but I knew you were nothing. You were just a boy with a lot of money who thought he could order us around because everything had been handed to him.”

“Clark,” Allie breathed out in a raspy voice. She could feel the vomit creeping up. “He didn’t mean anything by it. Please, just help me.”

He ignored her. “Harry Bingham, the fucking crown jewel of Connecticut. You’re not king anymore. And there’s no one who will save you when I make you scream.”

Clark threw the first punch. Harry did his best to defend himself, but he couldn’t compare to the football player’s brute strength. Clark, drunk on power, beat Harry until he was nearly unconscious. Allie screamed and cried for mercy. When Clark finally released him, his face was dripping in blood and purple bruises were blooming on his skin. Nauseated by the sight, she could no longer contain her vomit. She hurled in the trash bin.

“Maybe that will teach you a thing or two about respecting your Guard,” Clark sneered. He walked out of the room and slammed the door behind him.  

Although the nausea dissipated as soon as she threw up, she didn’t feel better until the evening bathroom break. She was granted the privilege to wash the trash bin out in the sink, which was a relief to her. She brushed her teeth and washed the bin as vigorously as she could. She was desperate to recapture some feeling of cleanliness.

That night, after the lights were turned off, she sat next to him in the darkness and rested her head on his shoulder. He was as tired as she’d ever seen him before.

“You didn’t have to do that for me,” she whispered. She was so exhausted from the day that her bones felt as hollow as those of a bird.  

They sat in silence for a few minutes. She listened to the calming rhythm of his breathing—in, out, in, out—and wondered if he regretted helping her.

Finally, he spoke. “Yes, I did.”

He shifted so that her head was no longer on his shoulder. Now, he was facing her, looking her eye to eye in the darkness. He had a brand new cut slicing through his left eyebrow. Somehow, it only made him more attractive.

“I had to do it,” he continued in a soft voice. He was so close that she could feel his breath dancing across her cheek when he exhaled. “I had to, because…”

He kissed her.

It was nothing like the last time he’d kissed her. Before, when they’d been high off the adrenaline of Fugitive, their kisses had been rough, demanding. This time, his lips were soft and gentle on hers. He wasn’t taking; he was asking.

They were not the children they had once been. They’d been hardened by the society they’d created, the horrors they’d seen, and the crimes they’d committed. But they could at least find shelter in this gentle, peaceful moment with each other.

Slowly, Allie pulled away from him. Their foreheads were still touching, as if they were both afraid to break their connection. The kisses had been so delicate, but she felt lightheaded and vulnerable.

She drank him in. He was so beautiful, so broken. The fresh bruises on his face gleamed in the darkness. His dark brown eyes shone in the moonlight, betraying his vulnerabilities even as he tried to steel himself.

“Harry,” she said.

She could see that he thought she was going to reject him. He looked prepared to pull away from her. “It’s okay, you don’t need to say anything. I wasn’t thinking straight. I’m sorry.”

“Shut up,” she murmured. “I do need to say something. I do, because…”

She leaned forward and kissed him gently, just as he had done with her.

“Because you didn’t need to fight for me, but you did anyways,” she continued, mumbling against his lips. “You’re the only reason I haven’t gone fucking insane in this room. And I owe you everything for that.”

She brought her lips to his again. This time, the softness was lost, replaced by a biting sense of urgency. She needed him now. She didn’t care if the person on the night shift overheard the quiet noises they were making. This moment was for them, and them alone.

After that night, it was as if something had snapped in each of them. All the moments spent in isolation with each other had led to this: something that was not quite friendship, not quite love, but beautiful all the same.

And that took them to where they were now: two not-quite-friends-not-quite-lovers, devouring instant noodles as if they were ambrosia, enduring each day as best as they could. The winter sun was setting on them, marking the close of another slow, trying day.

A flash of white caught her eye. Glistening snowflakes fluttered outside their window, bright against the dark night sky.

“Harry,” she whispered, awestruck.

“What?” He asked through a mouthful of noodles.

“I think it’s snowing.”

Harry dropped his plastic fork and looked to the window.

“Holy shit.” Wonder was in his voice. “I think you’re right.”

Their first snow in New Ham. It was beautiful. For a second, she allowed herself to imagine a different world, one in which she and Harry embraced the snow outdoors together. She imagined the bite of the cold on her fingertips and the taste of the crystalline snowflakes on her tongue. She pictured throwing a snowball at Harry when he wasn’t looking. She could almost see the startled look on his face. He would throw a snowball back at her, and then…

But that was not her world.

She did not know what was to come. Whether or not they would live to see spring. But for now, at least, she could take solace in the beauty of the snowflakes twirling outside her window.

[bill-y]

𝐈𝐍𝐔𝐑𝐄

Peeta Mellark x male reader

[ We all know who Katniss Everdeen is, but what if Primrose hadn’t been chosen but another boy from another unfortunate family? YOUR family. ]

Info: This is basically a reader insert and I’ve changed a few rules, not ground breaking though. The reader is a bit bland for now but I plan for his actions to be different. Because he has different moral grounds from Katniss and such. Would appreciate feedback! FEEL FREE TO POINT OUT TYPOS. GRAMMARLY SOMETIMES DOESN’T DO MY DYSLEXIC ASS JUSTICE

Part three: Click this, Rumtumtugger.

Part four: you're here, jennyanydots

Part five: Clicky dicky here, buddy

Wattpad account: L0calxDumbass

Those words left my mouth without much thought. I wasn't thinking of the damned consequences at the moment.

Behind me was Kunal, an iron grip on my leg, bawling his eyes out. "Y/N! NO! NO! YOU CAN'T GO!" he pleaded, his cries getting louder by the second. 

My hand ruffled his strawberry blonde hair, messing it up. "Let go, Nal," I said in the calmest tone I could muster. He shook his head, tears running down his cheeks, I cleared my dry throat, gulping down nothing. My mouth was dry as if I just ate a handful of salt, which was honestly a luxury.

My face remained stoic, the moment I show a sign of distress I know the people in the Capitol would eat it up like good bread. It entertains them, our suffering entertains them. 

His hands slipped from my leg, gripping on my pants before he was finally taken away from me. "Up you go, Owl eyes," said Gale, his voice trying hard to remain steady. Beside him was Katniss, who was holding Kunal by the shoulders. She nodded, "Good luck, Y/n,"

I nodded, before looking back at the temporary stage. "Oh well, Bravo!" Effie exclaimed. "That's the spirit of the games!"

She was thrilled, finally seeing some action from this district. It made a pit in my stomach, I clenched my jaw. If only the roles were reversed, Capitol people fighting for their lives instead of us.

Oh, how funny that would be.

I strode to the stage, trying my best to look collected. The foreboding feeling in my stomach only grew with each step I took, my hands sweating as if they've just been dipped into water once I finally took my place.

"Do tell us your name," Effie said, her grin widening as she nodded, encouraging me to talk. It took all the will power I had to not strangle her.

"Y/n Greyback," I replied dryly, hoping it would set her off.

“I bet my buttons that was your brother. Don’t want him to steal all the glory, do we? Come on, everybody! Let’s give a big round of applause to our newest tribute!” she trilled, making me clench my fists.

Her words were met with silence. No one clapped, not a noise can be heard. Even the ones who would usually bet on who would wound up as a tribute didn't do anything.

I held back a smile, a surge of hope flowing through me. This was the most rebellious thing they could do without getting punishment of any sort. Silence.

Silence doesn't mean fear or that we're cowards. It meant that we do not accept this, we do not condone.

Just as my father always said, one does not need to shout to make a change.

The next thing that happened was even more of a surprise. Maybe it was because I was a son of a "rebel", maybe they pitied my family or maybe it was because I talked to the mayor's daughter.

Just one, then two, then a group almost all of the crowd put the three middle fingers of their left hand to their lips and held it out to me. It is an old and rarely used gesture of our district, occasionally seen at funerals. It means thanks, it means admiration, it means good-bye to someone you love.

My tense hands relaxed a sense of calm washing over me. We were united in a strange way, something I thought would only happen in my dreams.

"Look at him! Look at this one!" Hollered Haymitch, throwing an arm around my shoulder. His arm was quite heavy, understandable, he's a wreck. "I like him!"

The scent of alcohol from his breath was strong, or maybe he just smelled of alcohol. "Lots of. . ." He paused, trying to think of a word.

I cringed as he slightly swayed around, trying my best to not touch him. "Spunk!" he declared triumphantly. "More than you!"

He released me, staggering to the front of the stage. "More than you!" He declared once more, pointing towards the camera.

Was he talking to the audience? Or maybe he was addressing the Capitol. I wish it's the latter, that would be funny.

Just as he opened his mouth to continue, he fell down the stage, knocking himself unconscious in the process. I snickered slightly, my face scrunching up right after.

Thankfully, the cameras were all pointed towards him, watching as they whisked him away into a stretcher. I took this moment to glare back into the distance, watching the scenery.

There was the hill that me, Katniss and Gale were just at. It looked so peaceful, contrary to my day.

"What an exciting day!" Effie warbled, trying to fix her tilted wig. It looked ridiculous. Why would Capitol people, no, why would anyone wear that?

It looks ugly, like a beaten up squirrel. Though I'd be lying if I said it wasn't eye-catching, though, beaten up squirrels are also eye-catching. “But more excitement to come! It’s time to choose our next tribute!” she continued, putting one hand to the second bowl.

Her fingertips grab the first slip it encounters. I hoped it wasn't Gale or Katniss. I didn't want to kill them, not that I'd ever stand a chance.

Katniss was extremely skilled with the bow, she could probably shoot my head from miles away. Gale, on the other hand, was strong, compared to him, I had the strength of a broken twig.

"Peeta Mellark," She read. Oh no. Why him? Of all the people in this district. His father just "introduced" me to him this morning, not just that, I knew him.

I watched him make his way up the stage, I had a clear look at him this time. He had a stocky build, medium height,  ashy blonde hair that falls in waves over his forehead. The shock of the situation registered on his face, though you could tell that he was alarmed by the way his blue eyes looked.

Like a prey knowing it'd be hunted.

Despite this, he still manages to climb up the small flight of stairs calmly.

Effie Trinket then asked for volunteers, but no one spoke up. He has two older brothers, I've seen them. But one is probably too old to volunteer, and the other just wouldn't. This was standard family devotion, what I'd done was a radical thing.

The mayor began to say the same old words he always says every reaping day. I couldn't help but think, why him?

I remember it all too well, that day, it was raining up a storm, the wind was howling. My mother and my brother were left at home, I was tasked to find food for us since my mother couldn't bear to show her face to the district.

How could she? Her husband has been executed for rebellion against the Capitol. One of the peacekeepers found weapons under his possession and he was killed. He managed to convince them to spare us, though sometimes I wished it hadn't worked.

Within a week of his death, we began to lose money, and therefore, food. Nobody wanted to help us, nobody wanted to associate with the family of a tyrant.

Shame, the family name bared shame. My mother didn't have the gall to go out and sell any of my father's things, my brother was too young to even understand what was going on.

I was angry. How could they have just taken everything away from us that easy? Who gave them the right to do that?

But at that moment, I couldn't afford to sit still and wallow in my resentment. That was a luxury I couldn't afford. not many could afford it either.

Starvation was a fairly common thing in district 12, though the amount of covering up the peacekeepers do no one a favour and fools no one.

There I was, a boy who wasn't even old enough to be registered into the pile walking around in the harsh weather, stripped away from my dignity and whatever money we had.

I found myself in the Mellark's bakery, being told off by the baker's wife, who was tired of having brats from the Seam paw through her trash. I would've screamed back then, but I didn't want the Peacekeepers called on me.

So I left without another word, sitting at a tree for some sort of cover from the harsh rain.  I remember the snorts of the pigs beside me, and that was when I realized I'm no better than cattle; the people of Panim were no better than cattle.

My knees buckles as I collapsed onto the wet grass, shuddering from the cold and the harsh reality. Maybe I had gone insane then, but I vaguely remember talking to the pigs, ranting to them.

They didn't listen, they were too busy rolling in the mud. Looking back, I find this extremely funny, but maybe that's because I don't want to pity myself.

I didn't even notice a boy until the pigs actually rose to eat the pieces of bread thrown at them. I stared at him for a long while, mainly because of the burnt bread, the crust was scorched black.

But a red mark on his cheekbone caught my attention. Had they hit him for burning the bread? My parents have never hit me, I couldn't even imagine what that would feel like.

He took one look at the bakery as if checking if the coast was clear before he turned back to the pigs. Though instead of feeding the pigs he tossed the loaves of bread to me.

I watched him walk towards the bakery and closing the kitchen door tightly behind him. All I could do was stay silent, before shoving them up to my shirt, muttering a broken thank you as I ran home.

The loaves had cooled by the time I got home, but that didn't matter. We had something to eat. Mother looked at me, relieved I didn't die. She hugged me, apologizing.

I didn't care though, we had food, that's what's important.

And for the first time in weeks, we had a proper meal.

I was thankful, the fact that he'd probably burnt the bread on purpose never occurred to me until I crawled onto the bed, staring at the wooden ceiling. An act of kindness, someone still cared.

It was as if spring came overnight, fluffy clouds, blue sky, the warm sweet air. At school, we would always catch each other's gazes. I felt a tad bit bad, his cheek was swollen and his eye had blackened.

I couldn't come up to say thank you, instead, I watched him from a distance, contemplating whether I should. When I went to fetch Nal, out eyes met once more, I was about to mouth a thank you until Nal tugged my shirt.

He handed me a dandelion. He's always loved flowers. His love for it made me realize how I would get the food we needed. All that time I and my father spent in the forest won't be for nothing.

To this day, I still feel as if I owe my family's life to him. I had honestly given up, but he gave me something. Peeta Mellark, the boy who gave me bread and the dandelion, both gave me hope.

Maybe if I had said thank you all those years ago I wouldn't be feeling so guilty now. I could always say it but something about thanking him whilst I'm practically holding a knife against his throat seems dishonest.

The mayor finished his speech, telling us to shake hands. His were as warm and firm as those loaves of bread. He squeezed me as if reassuring me. Or maybe those were just nervous spasms.

We turn back to the crowd as the anthem of Panem plays.

There are twenty-four of us fighting in that arena, as grim as it is, let's just hope someone kills him before I'm forced to. I don't wanna kill the reason I've survived all those years.

Word count: 2026

Tags:

@nin3s

Sorry for the late update my exams are next week and im rushing to finish my requirements at school. :"

[rayomz]

animal crossing switch

PREDICTIONS:

they will change something drastically about the character design (acww: hair, acnl: taller/pants, ac switch: ???)

you still get to be mayor, or some sort of town planner

may be like happy home designer, where you can design entire facilities like shops, schools, etc, however that works

you will be able to choose where animals move in (like in previous games, houses went on top of signs placed around town. you’d be able to place signs wherever)

more public works projects

you will get to choose your face instead of having The Quiz

more customization options in general

an upgraded version of the pattern maker

a dedicated tool for path creation and not just putting paths down via patterns

MORE pattern space regardless

more complex villagers

at least one new species

one to two new personality types

one new shop type

a small online hub, maybe

an in-game gallery where you can upload custom patterns and download them from other players

if that’s not it, you will have to use your phone using the NSO app. i think animal crossing will have app functionality anyway, maybe something like splatnet where you have shop exclusives, but mainly because of voice chat. but i was thinking this app would let you scan QR codes and send them to your game since the switch doesnt have cameras

a new type of collectible (like how acnl added deep sea creatures)

the town for ac switch will be Large. Big. acnl was too tiny, i want something Large, city folk was nice but it could still be… Bigger.

they might bring back amiibo cards and the campsite

free camera in town i think is a 50/50 possibility. the switch is powerful enough to handle it but at the same time the current view is iconic i think and idk if they’d get rid of that. i will predict better cameras in places like the museum though

graphically, it will look nice. the way the ac track looks in mario kart is the dream but, i can see them doing the exact same thing from acnl. which is Not what i want

they’ll put in all furniture from pocket camp

they’ll put uh.. plants from pocket camp (birch trees please)

monthly free dlc like in new leaf

inevitable japanese-exclusive content

WISH LIST:

bat, raccoon, weasel, otter, or possum villagers

fantasy species like dragons, gryphons

more fantasy villagers at the very least (draco, julien)

biomes/landscape variety: be able to choose different town types such as mountains, forests, deserts, grasslands, tropical, whatever. or start out with the regular forest type town, and have the option to change it into anything (maybe it changes depending on what you plant? like if an area has a lot of cacti, the grass will disappear and turn into scrub)

more options for an urban/modern town

more variety in personalities per species. cats for example, a majority of the male cats are either grumpy or lazy. no smugs, and one (1) jock

more complex villagers. i want a relationship system. i’m not talking about marrying or dating anyone, i just want friendships to mean something. i want to be able to progress through a relationship.

^^ related, i want more complex villagers in terms of their OWN personality. they’re always upbeat and in a good mood in acnl. they have no bite. they lack any personality. they’re so bland. i want a villager to move in and hate me for absolutely no reason. and then maybe i can do errands for him or something, and we can slowly become friends. SOMETHING other than *knows each other for 5 seconds* “hehe we’re best friends :)”. in acnl i made NO friends other than zell and kiki (who is a staple villager for me) because i had no incentive to make any friends. everyone is exactly the same. boring

^^ maybe animals in a town can have relationships with each other? like dotty and felicity are friends, but dotty hates poncho. i dont know what this could do other than more errands to run but it would help the town feel more alive

Big Leafy Trees

fruits and vegetables. maybe leif can sell planters in his shop that allow you to grow things like strawberries or tomatoes that you can sell

cooking? i’ve seen people talk about cooking ~LiKe BrEaTh Of ThE wILd~ (bc thats the only nintendo game that exists i guess) where it effects your stats and energy/stamina and tbh animal crossing does NOT need that. i think you should be able to cook for food as furniture items, or you can give food to villagers as gifts to increase your Friendship Points. Or you could sell it for a a little bit of Money

more furniture, but that’s a given with any ac game

customizable pants! in acnl they gave us the option to customize different types of shirts but i want customizable pants and skirts now

yards. even if they’re small

half-tile placement for furniture like in happy home designer (idk if half-tiles are in pocket camp)

more customization options for houses, like windows and doors (like HHD)

an online marketplace where you can go and trade with people online without having to need to go to their town and swap FCs

nice beaches, the ones in new leaf kinda suck imo