#and i’m not even in the same fucking county. what am i supposed to do about this

[finelinefae]

match one [tennisplayer!harry x tennisplayer!y/n]

synopsis: y/n's struggling with harry's coaching before the first tournament and harry's feelings control him more than he controls them

word count: 10.2k

contains: enemies to lovers, set at a boarding school, slow burn, angst, tennis rivals, strict parents, fluff, harry being a boy and not being able control himself around y/n

this is part 2 of the game, read part 1 here

. . .

“Again,” 

Y/N gritted her teeth and bounced the tennis ball on the ground before throwing it into the air with a straight arm and hitting it with the racket, watching as it pierced through the air to the opposite end of the court. 

She heard a sigh come from the bench on the side of the court, “Again,” 

She inhaled sharply through her nose to try and contain her temper as she repeated the same serve. 

“Again,”

Y/N spun around on the heel of her New Balance trainers, her pleated, white skort twirling as she did. She crossed her arms and glared at the boy lying on his back in his school uniform which was now crinkled and unkempt after the school day. “You’re not even watching,” She replied for the first time after having done the same serve more than ten times already. 

“I don’t need to, I know you’re not doing it correctly,” He replied, monotonously. 

She clenched her jaw, “Well as my coach, aren’t you supposed to show me how I’m meant to do it correctly?”

“I can show you but it won’t change anything,” He said. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He sighs and sits up, “You already know how to do a flat serve, I’ve seen you do it. You’re just not hitting it hard enough. I can hear it in the way the ball lands on the other end of the court.” 

“You could have just told me to hit it harder,” She retorts. 

“Am I meant to play the game for you as well?” He quips which makes her blood boil. 

This was their third training session, and Y/N had reached her limit. With her first proper tournament just three weeks away, she had hoped that seeking help from the best tennis player at Crestwood would elevate her gameplay. 

However, Y/N was getting frustrated with each session being a monotonous repetition of drills she had already learnt herself. It grated on her nerves and she felt as though she was back to square one. 

She was beginning to regret having enlisted Harry for his mentoring in the first place. Whenever they’d try to talk mutually to each other, it would just end up in an argument of some kind where they’d end up needing ten minutes to cool off.

Y/N had already qualified for the Academy Slam before she even asked Harry to coach her. There had originally been sixteen academies from the surrounding counties competing in the games and now there were only half and Y/N was one of them. She’d passed the qualifiers all by herself and maybe she could pass the games that way too.

“Again,” He said that one word Y/N was beginning to hate. 

Who knew what she was capable of if she had to hear that word one more time. 

Feeling a surge of anger, Y/N tossed the ball into the air and hit it with all the strength she could possibly summon. She watched as the ball made a fast and straight trajectory towards her target area which just so happened to be right beside Harry’s place on the bench. 

He jumped up, a look of surprise on his face. "What the fuck?" he exclaimed, eyes following the ball as it hit the fence.

Y/N's smirk wavered as he approached her, her surprise matching his when he spoke again. "Let's move on, shall we?"

By the end of the session, every inch of Y/N's body throbbed with exhaustion. She drained an entire water bottle in one go, her fitted polo shirt clinging to her damp skin. She had thought she'd engaged every muscle in her body, but the way her calves screamed at her with every step told a different story.

“Same time tomorrow?” Harry asked, standing above her and blocking the sunlight. 

“I want to start training properly,” Y/N stated.

“We are training properly,” He argued. 

“You realize you haven’t shown me a single tactic since you started coaching me right?”

“And?” 

“How am I meant to win the first tournament if all I know how to do is basic drills?” 

“Do you know how many times my coach made me practice flat serves before we could move on?” He asks but she doesn’t answer, “A month. I went home with blisters on my hands because I was doing them non-stop six hours a day.”

Y/N’s eyebrows raise, “You think tennis is just about being tactical then you’re not playing it properly. The only way you’ll ever be a good tennis player is if you master the techniques.” He explains, “I’ve seen you play Y/N. For someone who has never had professional coaching, you are one of the best players I’ve seen but you lack confidence in your technique. That flat serve you just aimed at me? One of the best flat serves I’ve seen in a while. If you can do that in every game, you’ll have no problem winning but if you want tactics? I can draw you a diagram and it’ll save two hours of my day no problem.” 

Y/N tries not to show her surprise at his words. Instead, she takes them all in, “Shouldn’t we at least be analysing my opponent?”

She was playing against Vanya Maddison in her next game. She was tall which was a major advantage in the game but her spatial awareness wasn’t exactly on par. 

“Do you know what your biggest strength is in this game?” Harry asked.

“My speed?” Y/N frowned. 

“Your anger,” He replies, “Off the court, it’s a little annoying but on the court, it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Use it.” 

Y/N had no idea whether to take it as a compliment or not. She’d never heard Harry say anything good about her so was taken off guard by his words. “So are we still on for tomorrow because I have to meet Mitch in thirty minutes and if the answer is no at least I can actually plan on getting wasted tonight.” 

Y/N took a moment to think. She had never expected him to say something positive about her, especially about her anger. It was a side of herself she often struggled to control, but hearing Harry acknowledge it as a strength left her feeling conflicted.

As much as she considered training on her own which would give her some peace and quiet, she wanted to see where her training with Harry would go. If he was right, maybe she’d actually have more of a chance of winning than she did on her own. 

She stood up and put her gym bag over her shoulder, “See you tomorrow,” She walked past him, wanting to avoid the satisfied grin on his face. 

“Y/N!” Harry called, she could hear him jogging towards her before she stepped out of the courts, “I wanted to give this to you.”

He placed in her hands a cassette tape with white masking tape on it with the words ‘Y/N’s theme songs’ scribbled onto it in black ink. “What is this?” She asked, looking up at him.

“When I was in Australia, I used music to help me get in the zone before a match. My coach told me to use a cassette tape because phones were too distracting,” He explained. 

“You made this for me?” She frowned.

“What? You’ve never been given a gift before?” He chuckles. 

Y/N looks down at the plastic in her hands. It’s not that she’d never been given a gift by anyone before- she and Sarah always exchanged gifts over Christmas and for each other’s birthdays- but it was rare for her to ever receive anything from anyone else. Her parents would often give her practical things at Christmas or transfer money into her bank account on birthdays. 

Harry’s eyebrows furrowed at her lack of reply but she cleared her throat, “I don’t have a cassette player,” She said but Harry quickly removed his backpack and pulled out a walkman. 

“You can borrow mine,” He handed it over to her, “I won’t be needing it anytime soon since I’m not playing,” She noticed the downcast look in his eyes as he mentioned the fact he wasn’t currently able to play with his injury. 

“Um, t-thanks?” She said, unsure of how to respond to his sudden kindness. It felt unusual. 

“I picked a few songs that reminded me of you,” He smirks, “Don’t worry, they’re not all about a girl with an attitude problem.” With that he turned back around and walked towards the other exit to head to the car park. 

She felt ease on her chest as the usual teasing remarks returned, “Asshole,” She called out to him to which he just put his middle finger up in reply. 

. . . 

After taking a long shower in the girl’s shower rooms in her dorm block, Y/N headed back to her dorm after changing into a white shirt and sweatpants. She could feel the strain in her arms and legs as she flopped down onto her bed. 

Luckily Sarah wasn’t back from spending time with Mitch, so she took in the peace and quiet which came rare to her these days as all her mind had been on recently was the Academy Slam. 

Her mind wandered off to Harry and his words from earlier. Y/N knew she was a good tennis player but it was the first time she had heard someone else tell her that. She wasn’t expecting it, especially not from her tennis rival of the past ten years. 

Her eyes glanced at the cassette tape and the walkman she had placed on her desk before she headed off to the shower. Sitting up, she grabbed it and stared down at it for a moment before putting the cassette into the player and putting the headphones on. 

She laid back on her bed and looked up at the ceiling of her room. Her fingers hit the play button and the first song began to flood her ears. The first few beats of Nelly Furtado’s ‘Maneater’ began to play and she immediately rolled her eyes. Then afterwards, ‘Fergalicious’ by Fergie. 

She wondered how many songs Harry had managed to put on the cassette and how many were female anthems of empowerment. 

The next song seemed to catch her attention even further when Gorillaz ‘She’s my collar’ began to play. The beat now permanently injected into her bloodstream along with the rest of the album from the number of times she had listened to it. 

She wondered if Harry had known he had included a song by one of her favourite bands and whether he knew the meaning behind the song too. Maybe it had been a coincidence which was a thought Y/N had decided to settle on as she listened to the rest of the song. 

‘Nothing to be justified yet

She the first I'm running with

She the one that get my collar

She the one I'm running with (she's my collar)’

. . . 

The next day at school, Y/N sat in the library during her study period to study for her biology exam at the end of the week. Even though she was set on the scholarship, she still needed something to fall back on if she lost out in the next few games so she made sure she was still getting the best grades she could. It had also been ingrained in her to be the best in every class and she didn’t think that trait of hers would ever leave her. 

“Y/N!” Sarah called, her voice echoing within the silence of the library.

Ignoring the irritated glances she received, she paced towards Y/N and sat in the empty seat beside her. Y/N smiled at her friend’s excitement. They were foils to each other and that’s what made them get on so well. Whilst Y/N had a black cat personality, Sarah was sunshine in a person which was probably why she was so perfect for Mitch who was equally as bright. “What’s up?”

“I need to ask you something and you’re probably going to hate me but Harry’s already said yes and-”

“Sarah,” Y/N placed her hands on her shoulders, “Breathe.”

Sarah did exactly that before continuing, “Would you do a feature with Harry for the school newspaper?” 

Y/N frowned, “What?”

“The school newspaper? You know the club I’ve been part of for the past two years? They want to do a feature on your training for the sports section and I told them I would ask you.” Sarah explained. 

“Oh I don’t know about that-”

“Pleeeassseee,” Sarah gripped her arm that was resting on the desk and batted her eyelashes.

“You know I’d do anything for you Sarah but I don’t know if I have the time and my focus is on my next game,” Y/N replied. 

“Harry’s already said yes to it,” Sarah interjected.

“You asked him before me?” 

“Well actually,” Sarah hesitated, “Luke, the boy who’s writing the article, asked him this morning,”

“Why didn’t he ask me?” 

Sarah gave her a pointed look, “You’re not exactly the most approachable,” Y/N’s frown deepened at her words, “So will you do it?” 

Y/N sighed, considering it before giving Sarah an answer. The last thing she wanted was for someone to be asking unnecessary questions in time that could be used to train for the first round of the competition but Sarah was her best friend and she knew how much the school newspaper meant to her and her university applications too. 

“Alright,” She relented, “I’ll do it.”

Sarah squealed, receiving another round of vicious glares from other students in the library. Her arms wrapped around her in a tight hug, “Thank you,” She pulled away, “They’ll come by tomorrow afternoon during practice, is that okay?” Y/N nodded a response.

. . . 

It was raining outside. 

Y/N’s eyes stared out the window as she bounced a tennis ball on the hard floor of the gymnasium and wondered if the weather foreshadowed the next hour. 

“Will you sit down?” Harry muttered, “You’re giving me a headache,” 

“He’s late,” Y/N says, “We could have been practising,”

“Do you ever just do anything else?” Y/N shot him a glare at his sarcasm, “I get this is important to you but don’t you just want to, I don’t know, have fun?”

Y/N walked over to her seat right next to his and straightened herself for the interview the school newspaper had organised for them. Sarah had told both her and Harry to dress smartly for the occasion which, according to Harry meant a designer sweatshirt and trousers whilst Y/N had gone for a dress and pumps. It wasn’t overly smart for either of them but enough to make it seem like they had made an effort. 

“The fact that you’re even suggesting that tells me you have no idea how important this is to me,” Y/N responds, monotonously. 

She hears a scoff from beside her, “What?” 

He turns to face her, his face rather too close, she notices three moles on his right cheek that she hadn’t ever seen before, “I think I know better than anyone how important this is to you but I also know from experience how important being in high school is with people your own age.” She forgets sometimes that even though he was whisked away to fulfil his place in the Australian Open, that his time of being a kid was cut short, “I don’t go out of my way to coach just anybody,”

“What do you mean?” She frowns but before Harry could reply, the doors to the gym open and in scrambles a sixth year with a messenger bag and a tripod with a camera dangling from his neck. 

“It means,” he leans forward, murmuring, “if you had half the belief in yourself as I have in you then you wouldn’t need me at all.” 

“Sorry I’m late,” Luke’s voice echoes as he steps towards them and places all three legs of the tripod on the ground and scrambles to screw his camera to it. 

“What’s with the camera?” Y/N asked. 

“O-oh, we’re recording the interview so I can write everything up later and we’re going to need your pictures together afterwards,” Luke explained. 

“You want us to take a photo together?” Y/N frowned.

“Did Sarah not tell you?” Luke replied. 

“Calm down, love. It’s just a photo,” Harry murmured and she tried not to react to the nickname he had used for her. 

Once everything was set up, Luke sat across from them with his laptop on his thighs, questions already typed out, “So, you two have known each other for a while now?” Luke asked as he sat across from them. 

As Y/N was about to tell him how they didn’t exactly know each other on a personal level but knew each other through tennis, Harry spoke up, “Since we were both in third year. I was eight and Y/N was seven but we’ve been in the same class since we were infants.” 

Luke nodded, “That must help a lot in your partnership,” 

Harry chuckled lowly, “Something like that,”

Luke types a few things down in his computer before turning his attention to Y/N, “Um, Y/N what made you turn to Harry for his coaching other than the fact he won the Australian Open?”

Y/N frowned, what more reason did she need to give? “Well, the fact he won is a big reason as to why I approached him,”

“But isn’t he injured?” Harry stiffened beside her. The way he asked made it sound like he was defective, unusable.

Y/N furrowed her eyebrows, “Yes but I’ve seen Harry play games with a dislocated shoulder. He’d just pop it right back in and start playing again. His current injury doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s one of the best tennis players I’ve seen at Crestwood.” Y/N ignored the looks from the two boys. She knew she’d have to compliment Harry at some point during this interview, especially if they needed to show a united front for the games.

“And do think the same about Y/N?” Luke asked Harry who now seemed irritated by him.

“I think,” Y/N was prepared for a backhanded compliment but what she got was something entirely different, “Y/N has all the potential in the world to go for what she dreams of and I hope to watch her do it all even if that means I’m watching from the sidelines.” This time it was Y/N’s turn to glance at Harry, taken aback by his words. 

Luke spoke again, “You know some people are calling you the underdog in this tournament?” Y/N froze, it was the first time she had heard of it, “all the other women competing have had professional coaching and the school invests heavily in their tennis players.”

Y/N cleared her throat, “I didn’t know that but I have every intention of proving them wrong,” Harry bumped his knee with hers but she ignored it. 

“And What do your parents think about you doing this before leaving exams?” Luke asked. 

Y/N ignored the sting she felt at the thought of telling her parents what she was doing and the looks of disappointment she envisioned, which had been gnawing at the back of her head since she qualified. She answered confidently, "They're happy for me and excited to see me in the final."

Harry furrowed his eyebrows as Luke leaned in, his expression curious. "You think you'll get to the final?"

Harry scoffed, “Are you insinuating she won’t?” 

Luke backpedalled slightly, sensing he’d struck a nerve. "I didn't mean to suggest that at all. It's just that some people doubt the capabilities of those who haven't had professional coaching."

"Hey Luke, do me a favour and invite those people to the first game in three weeks' time. Let them witness firsthand what it's like watching a player as skilled as Y/N, without any professional coaching," Harry's frustration was palpable, catching Y/N off guard with his assertiveness. Typically, she would be the first to break in such situations but it seemed Harry already had.

Luke’s face warmed as he realised he overstepped, “R-right, let’s move on.” He scanned through his list of questions to find something more light-hearted to break up the mood, whilst Y/N straightened her shoulders, thankful they’d gotten to the final round of questions. “What do you both like to do outside of training?” 

“Together?” Y/N cringed, trying to picture spending time with Harry in a normal setting. 

“Not necessarily,” Luke shrugged. 

“My best friend is dating her best friend so we’ve been spending a lot more time together recently. Normally, I play guitar or recite poetry whenever I’m not coaching Y/N to volley properly,” Y/N rolled her eyes at the lies that left his mouth.  

“I study,” Y/N stated. 

“That’s it?” Luke’s eyebrows creased.

Her cheeks turned slightly pink, “I’m top of the class in all of my classes, that doesn’t just happen without hard work.”

She could feel Harry’s eyes on her and for the first time, she turned her head to catch his eyes. She noticed the frown on his lips and something in his eye that looked a lot more like concern or sympathy than the desire to tease her about her lack of social life. 

“Well, I think that will be enough,” Luke stood up and grabbed his camera, “Do you mind if we take a few photos now?”

Y/N and Harry stood from their seats, side by side and looked into the lens of the camera. Y/N’s cheeks hurt from forcing a smile as Harry did the same, “You’re standing too close to me,” Y/N spoke through her teeth as the camera flashed.

"Look who's talking with their giant foot squashing my shoe," Harry retorts, a playful glint in his eyes. Y/N inhales sharply, her gaze dropping to her foot to see what he's referring to. But before she can react, Harry smoothly slides his arm around her waist, pulling her into his side with practised ease. Their eyes meet, and just as the camera flashes, capturing the moment, Y/N side steps out of his grip with an annoyed huff.

“Okay, that will be all,” Luke smiled. 

As Luke packed his things away, Y/N and Harry stood awkwardly side by side without saying a word. Y/N glanced out the window and saw the sky had cleared up and the sun was setting. She needed to get back to her dorm to study for her French exam tomorrow as well as binge-watch tennis matches on YouTube which she’d been doing a lot recently. 

“Did you really mean that?” Harry asked, catching her attention, “All you do is study outside of school?”

Y/N looked at him, “I hang out with Sarah some days but yeah, I mostly study. I don’t really have a lot of choice and I’m not naturally smart.” Harry’s head tilted to the side like he was secretly questioning her in his head, “What? Aren’t you meant to crack a joke about me being stupid or something?”

Harry's eyes softened, his voice gentle. "I could never think you're stupid, love," he said, the nickname slipping from his lips with a tenderness that caught Y/N off guard. She found herself speechless, unable to figure out what had gotten into him recently. 

He pulled out his car keys from his back pocket and motioned his head towards the gymnasium exit, “C’mon,” He urged, “I wanna try something out and before you ask, it’s nothing to do with tennis or studying.”

Y/N’s feet stayed glued to the ground as he walked away and expected her to follow. She furrowed her brows and crossed her arms, wanting to refuse his invitation so she could get back to her dorm. But curiosity got the better of her and she followed a few paces behind him as he led her to the empty car park. 

Harry pressed the button on the car keys and the lights flashed on a black Audi hiding in the corner, “What are we doing?” She asked. 

“Have you ever driven a car before?” He wondered, looking at her with a hint of mischief. 

“Never,” She replied and was bewildered to see him open the door to the passenger seat instead of the driver’s seat. 

“Looks like it’s your lucky day, love,” He smirked.

Y/N’s eyes widened, “N-no! Harry, I'm not driving your stupidly expensive car.”

“C’mon,” Harry chuckled, “Don’t be chicken.”

She scoffed, “I’m not being chicken, I’m being sensible. If I crash that car, I don’t even think my parents will have enough money to fix it.”

“My parent’s will,” He grinned, cockily, “Get in,” 

“No, I’m not driving that car.” She insisted. 

Five minutes later, Y/N sat in the driver’s seat of Harry’s Audi with her fingers over her eyes as he instructed her on how to start. “Are you crazy?” She whimpers as he switches the engine on. 

“Stop worrying, I’ve got my hand on the break.” She looks down to see his hand already wrapped around the hand break, “Just stay calm and do what I told you to do. Clutch down, first gear and then ease your foot gently off the clutch.”

“You’re supposed to be teaching me tennis, not driving laps around the school parking lot,” Y/N argued.

“Think of this as a team bonding exercise,” He shrugged, “Okay now foot down on the clutch,”

“This is the worst idea you’ve ever had,” She strangled out, placing her shaky hands on the wheel.

“Relax,” Harry chuckled, “You’re being dramatic.”

“It won’t be so dramatic when we end up in a tree,” Y/N retorted as she carefully felt the pedals and pressed down slowly on the clutch. Feeling the car rise, Y/N gasped and removed her foot. 

“Calm down, it’s just because you put your foot on the clutch,” Harry was trying his best not to laugh at her, “Okay, now do it again.”

Y/N squeezed her hands on the wheel and repeated her actions, moving the gear stick “Okay, now carefully raise the clutch,” Harry instructed and as she did, he lowered the handbrake and the car slowly began to move forward. 

“Holy shit,” Y/N wailed, “We’re moving,”

This time, Harry did laugh unable to stop himself after seeing her reaction, “Make sure you turn the wheel or we really will end up in a tree,” 

Y/N did as she was told and turned the wheel slowly, “Okay, I’ll move into second,”

“Harry no!” She gasped but put the clutch down so he could move gears. 

“Atta girl,” He beamed.

Y/N’s worried expression soon turned into shock and then excitement as she moved slowly around the car park, “I’m driving Harry!” Y/N grinned and Harry swore it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. 

“You are,” He praised, “There’s nothing you can’t do.”

After switching between first and second gear and Y/N complaining that her feet were aching from how tense she was using the pedals, Harry offered to swap places and show her what it was really like to go out on an evening drive. 

“Harry!” Y/N choked on a laugh as he went all the way up to sixth gear down the empty streets in the middle of nowhere, “Slow down,” She squealed. 

Harry glanced at her, grinning when he saw how wide the smile was on her face. He pressed his finger on the button to wind down all the windows, “Oh shit I love this song,” He turned the volume up on the stereo as Beyonce’s ‘Love on Top’ started playing, blaring loudly through the speakers of his car. 

“Baby it’s you! You’re the one I love! You’re the one I need!” Harry screamed the lyrics of the song and Y/N’s laughter sounded through the entire car as her hair blew behind her. “Sing it, baby!” He cheered, neither of them realising what he had called her. 

“I’m not gonna sing it,” She shook her head, her eyes squeezing shut as the engine revved. 

“It’s the only way I’m gonna slow down,” He teased as the build-up to the chorus played. 

Y/N giggled as Harry began to sing solo to the chorus again, giving her a look that had her rolling her eyes before she screamed out the lyrics alongside him, “When I need you, make everything stop! Finally, you put my love on top!”

Their laughter merged together as the song played out. Harry slowed down the closer they got back to town and cast a sideways glance at Y/N who was brushing her wind-swept hair with her fingers. “You okay?” He asked, seeing the glow on her face. 

“Yeah,” She bit her lip, “I’m okay. I just don’t get to do stuff like this… ever really.”

He nodded in understanding. Harry had met Y/N’s parents a few times before. His parents were frequent visitors to their country club so he knew what they were like but he had no idea of the extent of the pressures they had put on Y/N to do well. It reminded him of his own parents and the last thing he wanted to do was allow someone to feel the same way he did whenever his parents were too hard on him. 

“Wanna pull in somewhere to get something to eat?” Harry asked. It was getting late and they both had school tomorrow but he couldn’t seem to allow himself to let her go- not when she was having so much fun. 

“Okay,” Y/N nodded. 

He pulled into a dessert shop that was still open. Y/N followed him inside and to a booth in the corner. Harry ordered both of them bowls of soft-serve ice cream and Y/N even asked if she could have a strawberry milkshake to go with it. “I shouldn’t really be eating,” She told him.

“Hmm I heard drinking strawberry milkshakes improves your footwork. They served them all the time in Australia,” Y/N shot him a look that told him she knew he was bullshitting her but it made him smile. 

“Are you nervous about the game coming up?” They’d been training non-stop every evening and Y/N was quickly improving everything she had already learnt on her own. After considering Harry’s words a few days ago, she knew Harry was right. He had been good for her technique and she felt even more sure of herself than she did at the beginning. 

“No,” She said coolly, “I don’t have time to be nervous.”

Harry scoffed, “I don’t believe that for a second.” 

The waitress came over and placed their desserts in front of them, along with a strawberry milkshake with whipped cream and a cherry on top. “Mitch says he’s going to throw a party at my place if you make it through to the semi-finals.”

“A party at your place?” Y/N quirked a brow.

Harry sighs, “He came up with the idea of throwing a party and then just kind of decided it would be at mine.” He explained. 

Y/N nodded and took a sip of her milkshake. It had been so long since she had had something so sugary and sweet. She hummed before realizing she was being watched by the boy opposite her, “Just so you know, even though you bought these desserts and taught me how to drive, doesn’t mean I like you.”

Harry laughed, his eyes crinkling and dimples carving into his cheeks. Y/N’s heart stuttered but she pushed the feeling down, “Okay, tomorrow you can go back to hating me again and we’ll pretend today didn’t happen.”

“And you can do the same,” She says. 

Harry gives her a look, his eyes flashing with something she couldn’t put a label on, “I don’t hate you Y/N.” 

She frowns, “You’ve always hated me,” 

“No,” He shook his head, “Never.”

“But you’re always making fun of me,” And she always did the same. 

“Because it’s the only way I get to speak to you.” He admits. 

Y/N’s lips parted in surprise, unable to believe what she was hearing. She had always assumed Harry had hated her since their rivalry had gone on for so long. She didn’t know what to say, confused by the sudden revelation.

“Ew,” It came out before she even had time to think, “Don’t be nice to me, it’s making me uncomfortable.” 

Harry seemed to deflate but quickly placed a smile on his face, “You make me uncomfortable and you’re singing, by the way, is awful.” 

Y/N scoffed, "At least I don't sound like a dying goat." Despite the return of their familiar banter, her heart seemed to continue to flutter under Harry's earnest gaze, stirring a mix of emotions within her that she’d never felt before. 

She didn’t know what was going on with her but the last thing she needed to think about was her emotions when her biggest goal to date was right before her. 

. . .

Three weeks had gone by far too quickly for Y/N’s liking.

“Again,” Harry drawled.

Y/N gritted her teeth and repeated the backswing technique Harry had shown her but the angle was all wrong and the ball ended up going completely off court.

“Fuck,” Y/N spat, throwing her tennis racket on the floor and squatting, balling her hands into fists on her head.

Harry sighed, walking over. “You’re nervous about tomorrow,” He stated like he didn’t need her to confirm despite the fact she had constantly told everyone she wasn’t nervous about anything. 

“I just need to win,” She mumbled.

“Get up,” Harry ordered. 

Y/N did as she was told and stood up. He grabbed the racket from the floor that she’d thrown across the court like a toddler throwing their toys out a pushchair and flipped the racket between both of his hands. He handed it back to her and grabbed his own.

“I want you to mirror my actions,” He says and stands a few steps away from her. 

He steps forward, tossing the tennis ball into the air before swinging his racket with both hands, expertly landing it in the left corner of the opposing court. Y/N tracks his every move, mimicking his actions as if she were his shadow.

Y/N’s ball lands slightly off target and Harry bites his lip to stop himself from smiling at the scowl on her face. He walks towards her and comes up behind her. Y/N’s breathing hitches when she feels his fingertips press gently on her arm. 

“You need to straighten this arm more,” He advises, his fingertips sliding down her arm and leaving a trail of goosebumps as he straightens her arm out. “Calm down,” he murmurs, his mouth near her ear, “I can feel your heart beating.”

Y/N seems to lose every ounce of oxygen when he places his hand flat against her back where he can feel her heart beating, “Breathe,” He says, “You will win tomorrow, I will make sure of it.” 

The warmth that flooded Y/N’s body quickly left as Harry took a step back, “Try it again,” He nodded towards her racket.

Y/N sighed, tensing her muscles again after Harry had practically managed to turn them into liquid. She tried to ignore the flutter in all of the pulse points in her body that were screaming to make contact with that new presence and swung her racket, landing the ball exactly where she wanted. 

“There y’ go,” He murmurs, almost as if he was saying it to himself. “I think we should call that it for today,”

“What?” Y/N frowned, “The game is tomorrow, I need to practice.”

“Y/N, we’ve been practising for half the day already. You’re going to wear yourself out if you carry on,” Harry tells her.

“Fine,” She huffed but Harry gave her a knowing look.

“Come to my place,” He offers.

“Why would I do that?” She goes to grab her sweatshirt on the bench and pulls it over her head. It was getting colder now that the sun was going down. 

“Because I know you’re just going to come back here once I leave and trust me, you don’t want to do that.” She opened her mouth to refuse but he continued, “We can watch Wimbledon on TV and order pizza.”

She wondered how he knew that Wimbledon was one of her favourite movies and pizza was her favourite food. “Is it the DVD exclusive?” Y/N asked.

Harry’s lips tilted upwards, “Of course,” Y/N nodded, following him to his car so he could drive them to his apartment. 

Y/N remembered the last time she was in Harry's car three weeks ago. It was the first time Y/N truly enjoyed being in his company and the first time she had allowed herself to have fun and relax. 

The day after,  they resumed their usual arguing as if the previous night hadn't occurred. However, Y/N found herself overwhelmed by a surge of unfamiliar emotions swirling within her.

Despite the bickering, she kept noticing things about Harry—like the way he smiled and talked. It made her feel weird like there was something more between them that she hadn't noticed before.

The air was silent between them as the radio played lowly in the background. Harry turned into a block of apartments that looked far too expensive for a student to afford all by themself. “This is where you live?” Y/N asked, her eyes widening as he pulled into a spot. 

“For now,” He says. 

Y/N trailed behind Harry as they rode the elevator to the fifth floor and made their way to his apartment. When he swung open the door, flooding the space with light, Y/N couldn't help but notice the spaciousness of the apartment, as well as its emptiness.

“I haven’t had time to unpack,” Harry said, walking to the kitchen after kicking his shoes off, “Do you want anything to drink?”

“I’ll just take a glass of water,” Y/N’s eyes darted to all of the boxes that covered the floor. 

She walked to the kitchen area and leaned against the counter, “Are those your trophies?” She asked, seeing the metal cups in an open box.

Harry smiled, “Yeah, I’ve kept all of mine even the ones that didn’t count.” 

“They all count,” Y/N grins, walking over and pulling one out, “The battle of the sexes trophy.” 

Harry smirked, walking round to stand beside her, “I still remember the look on your face when they handed me that trophy. If looks could kill, love, I don’t think I would be here.” 

“It was a big deal to me okay?” Y/N replies, “I seemed to blame you for all my losses when I was a kid.” 

Harry’s expression softens and his head turns to look at her, “Will you blame me if you don’t win tomorrow?” 

Y/N’s smile falters, “No, I’d blame myself. I think if I lost this, I don’t know who I would be anymore. Tennis is my life.”

Harry’s eyes glint underneath the soft lighting of the kitchen, “God,” He whispers, “You drive me crazy y’ know that?” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“Do you think you could love anything more?” He asks, ignoring her question. 

“I can’t think of anything, if I did I’d have to love it an awful lot.”

“Okay,” He nods like he’s accepting a challenge. 

Y/N narrows her eyes, “What are you thinking?” 

“Nothing,” He shrugs, “But I want you to know-”

Before Harry could finish his sentence, the door swings open and the shrill sound of his mother’s voice fills the air. Y/N stands straight and she notices Harry tense up, taking a step in front of her, he pushes her behind him.

“Harry,” His mother sighs, “How are you darling?” 

“Mum,” He replies, curtly, “What are you doing here?”

“Your father’s running late home so I thought I would come by to see how you were,” She says and then looks behind him.

Y/N doesn’t need Harry to introduce her as she steps forward and holds out a hand, “Hi Mrs Styles, it’s nice to see you again.” 

"Y/N?" Anne gasped, her eyes widening in surprise. "You've grown so much, you're beautiful." She reached out, taking both of Y/N's hands in hers and giving her an appraising look.

Y/N's cheeks flushed at the compliment. "Thank you, Mrs. Styles," she stammered, feeling a mixture of nerves and warmth.

Anne smiled warmly. "Oh, call me Anne," she insisted before turning her attention to Harry. "I didn't know you two were such good friends."

Y/N and Harry exchanged a quick glance, both unsure of how to respond.

"I'm her coach," they both blurted out simultaneously, the words tumbling out in a rush.

Anne's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "What?" she exclaimed, her gaze flitting between them. "You're coaching?"

Harry nodded, his expression serious. "Yes," he confirmed quietly.

"But Harry, your injury," Anne interjected, concern evident in her voice as she glanced down at his leg. "You're not meant to be—"

"I'm fine, Mum," Harry interrupted sharply, his tone making no room for argument.

"Harry, you know you can’t be playing-"

"I said I'm fine," Harry's voice rose, his frustration evident as he cut her off, causing Y/N to jump at the sudden outburst.

Anne's concern softened into a resigned sigh, her eyes reflecting a mixture of worry and understanding. "Alright, Harry," she relented, her tone gentler now. "Just promise me you're taking care of yourself."

Harry's features softened, a hint of remorse flickering in his eyes. "I promise, Mum," he said, his voice softer now, more subdued.

Anne nodded, a small smile playing on her lips. "Good. That's all I ask."

As the atmosphere relaxed, Anne turned her attention back to Y/N, her smile warm and welcoming. "Well, it's lovely to see you again, Y/N," she said kindly. “Tell your parents we’ll be stopping by in the spring.”

Y/N returned the smile, her earlier nervousness dissipating in the warmth of Anne's acceptance. "It was nice to see you too, " she replied sincerely.

Harry glanced at Y/N, a softness in his gaze that made her heart skip a beat. After seeing his mother out following her very brief visit, Y/N finally mustered the courage to ask, "What was she talking about?"

Harry's expression turned grave, his features shadowed by a sense of burden. "It was nothing," he replied.

"Why can't you play?" Y/N pushed, her concern evident in her voice.

"Y/N, I'm telling you to leave it alone," Harry warned, his tone firm.

But Y/N couldn't let it go. "If it's nothing, then why can't you tell me?" she insisted, her frustration bubbling to the surface.

"Because it's none of your business, that's why," Harry snapped, his words cutting like a knife. 

"Nothing I do or say has anything to do with you, so go back to hating me because it's a hell of a lot easier than what I have to deal with."

Y/N's heart sank at his harsh words. With a deep breath, she crossed her arms, her resolve hardening. "You know, now I remember why we never got along in the first place," she retorted, her voice laced with bitterness. With a sharp turn on her heel, she made her way to the front door. "You're such an asshole, Harry."

"Y/N," Harry called out, his voice tinged with regret as she stormed out of his apartment towards the elevator. "Y/N, come on, don't be like that."

"Go suck a dick," she shot back, stepping into the elevator before Harry could stop her.

As the doors closed, Harry's shoulders slumped in defeat. "Let me drive you back, at least," he pleaded, his voice barely audible over the sound of the closing doors.

"Fine," Y/N huffed, her tone clipped with annoyance.

The car ride back to her dorm was tense and silent. When Harry pulled into the front of her dormitory, Y/N moved to open the door finding the silence far too uncomfortable. Then, out of nowhere, Harry's voice broke the silence. "I can't play tennis anymore," he confessed, his words heavy.

Y/N's heart stopped, her breath catching in her throat. "What do you mean you can't play anymore? That's ridiculous," she exclaimed, her disbelief evident in her voice.

Harry's hands tightened on the wheel, his knuckles turning white. "I mean I can't ever play tennis again," he admitted, his voice cracking with emotion.

"Are you serious?" Y/N asked, her voice trembling with shock.

"I tore my ACL during practice for the French Open. I—" Harry's voice trailed off, unable to continue, “It was so bad Y/N and I was in so much fucking pain and no one would listen to me. I went through multiple surgeries and rehab but the doctors sat me down and said I couldn’t play unless I wanted to fuck up my leg for the rest of my life.” 

“Harry…” Y/N’s eyes glistened with tears. 

Her breath caught in her throat as the weight of Harry's words sank in. She glanced over at him, seeing the pain etched in his features, and felt a surge of empathy wash over her. It was a devastating blow for someone who had dedicated their life to the sport they loved.

"I'm so sorry, Harry," Y/N whispered, her voice filled with genuine sadness for the boy beside her.

Harry managed a small nod, his gaze fixed on the road ahead, “That’s why I had to come back here. My father can barely look at me and my mother won’t leave me alone. At least here I can be around people my own age but when I’m at home, it’s fucking suffocating Y/N.”

Y/N didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t imagine losing the one thing she loved above anything else in the world and have to re-construct everything she had ever known to find something else to love just as much. 

“I don’t expect you to say anything but I’d appreciate it if you showed me a little mercy,” He spoke. 

“Why would you offer to coach me then? Would that not make things worse?” She asked.

He looks at her, really looks at her, like there was something on the tip of his tongue he wanted to say but couldn’t, “I figured it would alleviate the pain.” 

“But I saw you play, I watched you and you beat me,” She exclaimed.

“Yeah and it hurt like a bitch afterwards,” He shook his head.

Y/N couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She wondered why Harry had been unwilling to play against her during the training sessions and now she knew why. She felt awful, her heart was hurting for him. 

“I don’t want you to feel pity for me and I don’t want this to change anything between us. I’m tired of being treated like a broken toy and I think it would kill me inside if you looked at me differently.” 

Y/N stayed quiet, facing forward and collecting her thoughts before saying, “Thank you for telling me,” She murmured, “And it doesn’t change anything. You’re still an asshole,”

Harry laughed and then his pinky brushed the side of her hand, “You will be everything tomorrow.” He whispered.

Y/N’s heart fluttered at the soft edge of his words, “You think so?”

His eyes softened, “I believe in you, more than anyone in the entire world.”

She nodded, taking a deep breath and looking out the window. The tension had settled and now a newfound respect lingered between them. 

She would win tomorrow, for herself and for him. 

. . . 

It had been a while since Harry had been to a tennis tournament. The last time he was on a court for an official match was well over six months ago, it was a challenger match he participated in during his training for the French Open before his life took a vast turn. 

He sat in the stands with everyone else from Crestwood who had come to watch the first game. Although Crestwood Academy invested more in the football team than any other sport, the turnout had been pretty good and nearly every seat was occupied by a student or teacher. 

On the opposite side was Eaststone Academy who seemed to have invested heavily in their merchandise for Y/N’s opponent. Everyone was either wearing a t-shirt with Vanya’s name on it or carrying a sign with supportive catchphrases written in bold marker. 

Harry craned his neck in hopes of seeing Y/N preparing herself somewhere outside of the court but couldn’t find her anywhere. He’d sent her a quick message this morning and asked her if she needed anything but she insisted she wanted to be alone. 

“Fuck, it’s good we got in the queue early,” Mitch came by with an anxious Sarah, holding two cokes in his hand. They were both wearing navy shirts and sweatbands around their heads, Sarah was holding a sign that had Y/N’s name on it. 

“She’s gonna hate you for that,” Harry tried not to smile.

“Oh I already know,” Sarah said, “She watched me make it last night and then almost ripped in half when I asked her if I should bedazzle it.”

Harry’s expression changed into one of concern, “How was she?”

“She’s nervous but she insisted she was okay,” Sarah rolled her eyes, “You know how she is.”

He did, which was why he was willing to accept the fact she wanted to be by herself even though he was desperate to drive over there with strawberry milkshakes just so he could see that smile he had been dreaming about for the past three weeks. 

Suddenly, Eaststone Academy stood from their seats and cheered as Vanya Maddison came onto the court. “I’ve never seen such long legs,” Sarah gasped, saying what both Harry and Mitch were thinking. 

Harry’s heart pounded in his chest as the people around him stood on their feet. He glanced down to the court and his eyes fell on Y/N as she walked onto the court with a dip between her brows and her tennis bag over her shoulder. 

She was wearing a white, pleated skort and a Ralph Lauren polo shirt. Her hair was slicked back as tightly as possible into a braid and her white runners were tied up on her feet. He noticed she was wearing earbuds in her ears and then found the walkman he had given her clipped to her skort. He smiled at that, wondering which of the many songs he had put together she was listening to. 

“There she is,” Sarah pointed and then waved to get her attention. 

Y/N held a hand over her face to block the sun and looked up at the crowd. When she caught sight of Sarah, she offered a friendly wave before her eyes landed on Harry. She gave him a nod of acknowledgement and then walked to her seat on the other side of the umpire. 

“C’mon,” Harry murmured, feeling his palms sweating at the sight of her. 

“She’s got this in the bag, H.” Mitch puts a hand on his shoulder. 

Through the speakers, the umpire calls out the start of the match and everyone falls silent as both players walk to opposing sides of the court. Y/N bounces on her feet and swings her racket backwards and forwards as though warming herself up before the match starts.

When the first serve came, Y/N's reflexes kicked in. She returned the ball swiftly, keeping the rally going with her quick movements, remembering what Harry had taught her. Each exchange became more intense, but Y/N stayed determined, chasing down every ball.

When Vanya hit the ball for the other corner, Y/N ran towards it and returned the ball swiftly, earning the first point with a well-placed shot. The crowd erupted into cheers as Y/N gained an early lead.

“That’s my girl!” Harry clapped his heart in his throat. 

But Vanya wasn't about to let up. With determination in her eyes, she fought back, winning the next two points with powerful serves and precise shots. The score was now in Vanya's favor, and the pressure was on for Y/N.

“Fuck!” Y/N released a growl and hit her racket against the floor before storming off to her seat. Harry was tempted to walk down and help her but he needed to let her see what she was capable of on her own. 

Her anger was radiating from her, “I’d hate to get on her bad side,” Mitch said. 

Harry couldn’t seem to reply as he leant forward with both his elbows on his knees. “C’mon, c’mon, you can do it.” He mutters, thinking of the first bit of advice he had given her. 

“Do you know what your biggest strength is in this game?” Harry asked.

“My speed?” Y/N frowned. 

“Your anger,” He replies, “Off the court, it’s a little annoying but on the court, it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Use it.” 

Y/N rolled her shoulders back and stood on her feet. She walked back to her line on the court and bounced the ball up and down on the ground before throwing it up in the air and hitting it with a flat serve, exactly the way Harry had taught her. Her anger radiated from her as she slammed the ball with her racket and hit it with such force it went flying to the other end of the court but not before bouncing inside the square right by Vanya’s foot. 

Harry stood to his feet and pumped his fist into the air, “Holy shit!” Mitch exclaimed as Sarah cheered beside him. 

They were now at match point and Y/N had to win this next round if she wanted to win the entire game.

The tension thickened in the air as people sat on the edge of their seats to see who would come out on top. This time, it was Vanya’s turn to serve as she launched the ball into the air and hit it with her racket to Y/N’s side of the court.

As Y/N unleashed powerful serves and precise shots, Harry found himself captivated by her every move. With each grunt of exertion, each flex of her muscles, he couldn't tear his eyes away from her. Despite the shifting heads of the spectators around him as they followed the ball back and forth, his gaze remained fixed solely on her.

Every aspect of Y/N's play had him in a trance—the way her muscles rippled as she sprinted across the court, the intensity in her expression as she anticipated Vanya’s next move, the graceful sway of her hair with each swing of her racket.

But as Harry watched, something stirred within him. A warmth spread through his veins, igniting a fire deep within him. Suddenly, he felt a tightness in his shorts, a physical reaction to the raw power and determination radiating from Y/N on the court.

"Oh, fuck," Harry muttered under his breath, his heart racing as he glanced down and saw the undeniable bulge in his shorts. Panic surged through him, his mind reeling with embarrassment.

"What's wrong?" Mitch's voice cut through his thoughts, and Harry quickly lowered his drink to conceal his arousal.

“N-Nothing,” Harry forces a smile, “I need to use the bathroom.” He doesn’t wait for Mitch to respond as she pushes past everyone to get away from the crowd.

He walks quickly over to his car and jumps into the driver's seat, slamming the door behind him. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” He didn’t know what to do. He felt like he was thirteen years old after experiencing girls for the first time again. Was it wrong to rub himself off in the middle of a tennis match when all he was looking at was the girl who played his favourite sport better than anyone he had ever seen, dominating the game with her anger and intensity like she was a complete animal?

He couldn’t shake the image of her from his mind and his cock seemed to ache the more he thought about how beautiful she was on the court, completely in her element, anger and passion emitting from her. Every grunt and groan she made as she hit the ball with so much fervor had his head spiralling. 

He looked down and tried to will it away, he needed to get back out there to see her win the game. He thought of every disturbing thing he could possibly think of and even took out his phone to google the quickest way to get rid of an erection.

The excited yells of the crowd told him someone had won and he prayed he would return and see Y/N with the medal around her neck. 

After about ten minutes of taking deep breaths, he finally felt composed enough to leave his car. With a flustered face, he made his way back toward the court, silently praying for some kind of cosmic intervention to erase the embarrassing moment from his memory.

As he turned the corner, he spotted Mitch and Sarah engaged in conversation with Y/N, who was proudly wearing the gold medal around her neck. She had won - he knew she would. 

Y/N's eyes lit up as she noticed him, a wide smile spreading across her face as she proudly displayed her medal. Unable to resist, he grinned back in response.

Sweat glistened on her skin, her cheeks flushed with exertion, and delicate strands of hair framed her face. At that moment, she radiated beauty, and he couldn't deny the sudden surge of emotions that had slowly been weaving themselves into the fabric of his feelings ever since he had returned to Crestwood. 

If the past fifteen minutes were anything to go by, Harry knew this was more than just a game of tennis. 

He was in trouble.

. . .

People cheered as Y/N entered Harry’s apartment with Sarah at her side, holding beer cans in the air and patting her on the shoulder as she sifted through the crowds of people. S&M by Rhianna played over the speakers as the apartment that was previously empty was now filled up with student’s from Crestwood. 

“There she is,” Mitch’s voice yelled over the music, “Crestwood’s very own Serena Williams,”

“I wouldn’t go that far Mitch,” She chuckled, unable to stop herself from smiling so hard after the excitement of her first win. 

Y/N’s eyes scanned the room as she went in search of the one person she wanted to see whilst everyone fell into conversation around her. 

That’s when she saw him, leaning against the wall with a red solo cup in his hand. His hair was a tangled mess, and his body was adorned in a loose, white shirt, its u-neck revealing the inked pair of swallows beneath his collarbones and gold chain around his neck. On his legs, he wore a loose pair of black trousers.

Y/N held back a smile as she made her way over to him until she realised who he was talking to. 

Her face fell as she saw the angelic blonde, tanned and glowing like she’d just come back from a holiday somewhere south of the equator. 

Harry’s face lit up as Y/N approached until he realised what was going on.

“Hey,” He smiled, trying to distract her. 

“Where were you?” Y/N snapped her gaze towards him. 

“What do y’ mean? M right here,” He spoke, “You were incredible out there.”

“Who’s this?” Y/N ignored him, folding her arms and looking at the girl he was speaking to. Y/N knew exactly who she was but felt the need to act as though she had never seen her before. 

Harry hesitated for a moment before introducing her. “Y/N, this is Astrid.”

Astrid flashed a dazzling smile at Y/N, her demeanour friendly yet confident. “Congratulations on the win today, Y/N. I’m looking forward to our match in the semifinals.”

Harry's reaction was immediate. “What?” he stammered, clearly taken aback.

“You didn’t know?” Astrid asked, surprised. “Y/N and I will be facing off in the semifinals.”

Y/N grit her teeth and forced a smile, the two girls eyeing each other up and down as Harry’s eyes darted anxiously between them.

Now that Y/N was into the semi-finals her next opponent was Astrid Anderson, one of the best junior, female tennis players in the county. 

Who just so happened to be Harry’s ex-girlfriend.

[milflewis]

going to go lie in some grass and scream into the dirt or smth and see if things are a little better after that

[englass]

Concept/Title: Viewfinder

Pairing(s): Joseph Seed x Reader? / Undecided

Word Count: 3,187

Warning(s): Supernatural elements, horror elements, mentioned gore, death/ghosts, bad language/swearing.

A/N(s): Labelling this a concept piece because it’s not that refined imo; I got violently struck by the need to write it after randomly thinking of the idea at work. Doubt I’ll expand on it, but still interesting to write. And yes, I’m fully aware I’ve missed Halloween but– shh, who am I to question when inspiration strikes?

-/-/-

“Holy shit…”

It wasn’t anything new. Really, you shouldn’t be surprised; not with all you’ve heard about them. Not with the things you’ve seen…

But it’s the volume that catches your breath, makes shaky words tumble loose in a wispy exhale despite your aim for covertness.

You shouldn’t be here. Perched precariously across a high branch, you never should have come here. You can’t even remember why you’d decided on such recklessness in the first place, far removed from your typical cautious nature.

It was likely curiosity, the damned thing. What with this local war, once a whispered rumour with the tension brewing in the county, now in full swing.

You were unaligned, vehemently against the needless bloodshed on both sides. Had seen too much death in the calm of a spring evening to ever want to see it in the wrath of an actual war.

Without your camera, an old heirloom passed down to those with your ‘talents’ in the family, you could only catch glimpses. The unnatural glint of luna’s light in the corner of your eye, reflecting off the impression of a form that isn’t there in your periphery.

With the camera however… Well, fact is oftentimes stranger than fiction and seeing the evidence of some of the ways people have died is…

It was terrifying as a child; it’s still terrifying as a young adult.

God, you’ve always wanted to throw this fucking camera away. Put your foot to it so you would never have to see the horrors that lurk behind its lens again. Save any future members of your bloodline from the trauma it will surely lash upon them.

But you can’t.

It’s like a compulsion; morbid curiosity in full unrelenting force. You can’t bring yourself to destroy it. The not knowing, the paranoia should you ever lose – even just misplace it keeps it close.

Hardly a comfort, but always better the devil you know.

And you would always rather know than not when they are looking at you.

But this… this is unprecedented.

They’re not looking at you – fuck, thank god – but they are looking at him; at them.

Fucking hell, there’s so many…

It’s sickening. Seeing one is bad enough, having one follow you is worse, but this… this man has a whole fucking army of ghosts around him. All surrounding him, all circled close along with the living but still maintaining a certain respectable distance from him.

Are they all his followers, devoted in death as they were in life? Or have some inadvertently latched on to him, tethered themselves to him from the fear or rage he caused them in their final moments? It’s hard to tell. The toils and muck of conflict stains them all, makes them indistinguishable from one another.

You suppose death never has been a biassed prick.

The sight is beyond unsettling all the same, though.

Can he feel them? You know you can, if they get close to you. Still not figured out if they can hurt you though; never given them the chance, never been brave enough to try. Only ever turned tail or shot them with your camera in a reactive bid to startle them away. Sometimes they come back, other times they don’t. Sometimes they appear to want to show you something, other times… other times you don’t know.

You don’t exactly care to look at them long enough to find out.

Thankfully, depending on who you were to ask, he doesn’t seem to notice them. None of them do. Not even the girl, their appointed sister, despite how much exposure to that fucked up Bliss stuff she’s apparently had.

You’ve heard it causes hallucinations, makes people see things; you sometimes wonder at how much of what they see is really there or not.

They all have ghosts, you notice though. More so the preacher, Joseph if you remember rightly. But the other two men – his brothers, have a few of their own too. Barely a handful each, but…

You shiver, breath a whispered gasp as you see the way they stare. There’s no emotion in a ghost's face, completely blank and expressionless save for whatever injuries or lacerations may scar them. Even their eyes are blank, void of any thought or feeling, never no different than the eyes of a dead fish; but the intensity… that is something else. That is something felt.

And if they could… well, you’re sure they’d be glaring something fierce.

Did they kill them? It’s an awful thought, but with what you’ve heard it wouldn’t be far beyond the realm of possibility. The Seeds have always had blood on their hands, as goes the local gossip. And with how fixated the two and one ghosts are on the other two brothers respectively…

There’s history there, at the least. Enough history that you don’t think they’d ever leave.

Grudge worthy history.

God, how do they sleep at night from such a look? From such a silent and inexpressible rage? It’s beyond you.

… You really should leave.

This is dangerous. The full weight of the situation you’ve found yourself in starting to drag you down. Chewing at your already fraying nerves. It’s not even like you could take a picture to hand over to the resistance as a peace offering of sorts, in exchange for your continued uninvolvement. The flash would go off; the outcome would be your worst case scenario.

Slowly, so slowly you start to move. The ramblings of the zealous preacher falling further into the background as you attempt to manoeuvre from your, admittedly awkward position across the branch.

You don’t think too much of the chill from the night air. A glance towards Joseph and his entourage is enough proof that the ghosts haven’t moved from their docile positions, dead eyes still fixed on the preacher. You breathe a sigh of relief and continue to carefully raise yourself into a sitting position, making sure to keep as much of yourself as close together and hidden as possible under the leaves and cover of night.

It wouldn’t do for anyone to see you swinging about like some damsel in distress because you lost your balance.

In a cruel moment of irony, you stretch your leg back to start shimmying to the trunk of the tree, fully intending to make your way down and skedaddle away, when your foot suddenly slips from its hook on the branch too quickly. Body tipping dangerously to one side, frantically wrapping your arms around it, camera scuffing against the sturdy wood as you pin it harshly between your chest and the branch.

Thankfully, the flash doesn’t go off.

Taking a gasping breath, your eyes skittishly dart from person to person, hoping beyond all else that no one heard your – almost – fall. When no one seems to bat an eye you sigh, slumping with the weight of it to further cage your camera against you; forehead colliding a little harsher than intended into the bark.

That was too close.

With another quieter sigh you start to rise again, adamant to get away as quickly and stealthily as possible; not wanting to test your luck any further tonight.

But then you see it.

A glimmer, an unnatural glint of silver in your periphery.

You freeze.

Breath catching in your chest, fear an icy tendril sliding down your back you stare wide eyed at nothing; eyes becoming unfocused in a vain attempt to better see what is typically hidden. To attempt to follow the things you normally can’t.

It’s a silly attempt. Worthless really, but still you make it. No different to chasing those squiggly things in your eyes.

Cautiously you slide your camera out from under you. Turning to look over the edge to the ground below, vision spinning at the sudden acknowledgment of just how high up you are. You close your eyes hard for a few seconds, take a deep breath, and raise your camera…

It’s there. Almost right underneath you.

Dead eyes staring up at you, empty and expressionless.

You don’t move. Snared in the trap that these weird moments of looking at something that shouldn’t be, that isn’t there for most people, lock you into. Almost like an invincible ledge that you don’t know the limits of, nor the depth of the fall that awaits you should you get too close.

They are a follower of Joseph’s, though. You can easily make out the mark of the cult on their shredded jumper. Can see the inked branding of a sin on the inside of their arm. You think there might be hints of another one on their face, but… if there was one it’s gone now. Missing with the entirety of their right cheek; muscle and tendon and teeth exposed, part of their tongue…

They don’t gurgle though. Or choke. Or do anything really to show off their grisly wound. Not like the way they do in the movies or on television shows. There’s no fanfare here. They’re already dead, they have no need to sputter and uselessly swallow. They’re just an apparition. A scary one, a harmless one, but an apparition all the same.

Or at least, you try to tell yourself that.

With the sting of salt in your eyes you watch in distress as the ghost raises its arm, loosely outstretched toward you. Burnt and blood coated fingers pried apart into a lethargic open grab, a claw ready to steal you from your haven.

Oh, you’re so fucked…

It’s blocking your only way down. The only good thing is that ghosts can’t climb, but one of many pieces of bad news is that it's standing guard, waiting for you to eventually leave the safety of the tree. Sadly you don’t have the luxury of staying in one place forever, unlike the dead do.

The only thing you can think to do is to jump, but that’d be stupid– even for you. If you fall wrong you're done for. Staying up here might not be ideal, but at least you're not down there with it; incapacitated to boot if you were to be foolish enough to take the risk and end up hurting yourself.

… But you need to leave.

You’re becoming too lost in your fear, can feel your finger hovering over the shutter button, the urge to press down and drive the thing away growing the higher your panic rises. The need to flee itches at you, makes you twitch the longer it stares blankly up at you through the camera. Arm raised and painfully still.

What the fuck does it want?!

Before you catch yourself your mouth is already opening, a hushed ‘go away’ on the tip of your tongue–

And then there’s a shout, a raucous rally and the sporadic spritz of gunfire.

You jump, muscles flinching violently as you move to look too quickly, arm slipping out from under you–

Hands reflectively grabbing your camera tightly to hold onto and protect–

The impression of a button under your finger–

The flash goes off.

“Ahh–!”

You’re blinded, vision seared white as you're shot near point blank, flail in your shock and feel yourself slip from the branch, scrambling too late to save yourself before the blurry world is tumbling by too quickly–

A crack of pain has you scream out.

The ground a harsh greeting as you warble a pained cry, breath a wheezing cough as you weakly roll from your back to your side.

Fuck, you think you caught your shoulder…

The world is still a blurry mess of afterimages and lights, tears threatening to fall at the pain ricocheting through you, but you don’t have a chance to try and work yourself through it all before you're being mercilessly yanked to your feet. Rough hands grabbing and clawing as you are thrown into the roaring crowd.

“G-get the fuck off me! Let me go!” Your demands are far weaker and shakier than you want them to be as you're dragged along, shoved into one person only to collide and be pulled by another, the jeering exclamations and threats of the cult loud and ringing in your ears before you’re aggressively tossed to the ground.

You barely stop your face from hitting the ground, knees and forearms taking the brunt of the assault as your head instead knocks into your shielding arms before resting there as you curl into yourself. Make yourself as small and un-intimidating as possible in the eyes of the dead and living both.

Although, you’re far more concerned about the latter…

Choking at the harsh dig of your hoodie into your jugular, you're yanked by your hood back and onto your knees. Fingers clawing at the pressure around your throat as you're made to look up into the piercing eyes of the cult’s leader: the elusive Joseph Seed.

Freezing, you barely pay any mind to how he lightly raises his hand, a hush falling over everyone at the placating gesture as the choking grip on your hood is slackened into a controlled grip; a warning hold.

… You’re so going to die here.

The realisation has you gasping on a shuddery breath, tears gathered from your painful fall now weeping down your cheeks at the physical and mental strain of it all. The emotional turmoil of being so viciously confronted with the sudden fragility of your existence.

There’s no mercy here, you realise. No conceivable way to weasel yourself out of this now that you’ve been captured. Any excuse you can think up, any plea your brain desperately provides turns to ash in your mouth. There’s no way out of this…

He’s going to kill you…

You’re going to become one of them…

Glimpsing the flickers of light snagging on their ethereal forms you try not to actively look and search them out. The cold is far more prevalent when surrounded by them all, all no doubt watching you now that Joseph’s ramblings have come to a close at your impromptu arrival.

You try not to shiver though, try not to draw attention to the fact that you’re trying to look for something that isn't there. You’re sure you fail though, if the way Joseph slowly tilts his head is any indication. Natural eye colour tinted differently with the defence of his sickly yellow glasses between you.

Effortlessly, the older man kneels in front of you. Keenly observing you as you sniffle and barely hold back a shiver, breathe a contained gasp at how close he suddenly is. You try to retreat, to back away from him but you can’t; his hands quickly yet gently take your face into his grasp, holding you steady in his subtle inspection of you.

He calls you a child, tone patronising yet insufferably endearing as if you know no better. Looming over you as he admonishes you with all the righteous authority of a concerned father. Falls into a terrifying inflection of faux-sympathy as his thumbs brush absent circles into your damp cheeks, passes too close to your vulnerable eyes to be anything less than an unspoken threat; an intimidating yet wordless demand for your compliance.

You merely stare wide eyed at him, listen halfheartedly to his fraudulent platitudes and serpentine reassurances. Addressing all present, not just yourself as the object of his unwavering stare. Manufacturing a humble spectacle as he makes voiced inquiries he has no intention of letting you answer, drawing assumptions that rile up the onlookers into a thunderous rapture as much as it eases them from the edge of action.

Completely controlled and controlling.

An arrogance thinly veiled, a power freely wielded and openly demonstrated.

He is dangerous, beyond reason and comprehension. The devil is a sweet talker, and Joseph’s tongue is an enticing silver snare for the unguarded; words an enchanting will-o-wisp preying on the gloom of a despondent soul.

It’s little wonder he has risen to such notoriety.

Then his eyes drop, his voice stills, and his smile fades.

A pause. Lengthy and considering; lined with a tenuous, yet undefinable tension.

Watched by all around with bated breath, your interaction a show upon this most undesired stage, the hum of your joint audience a silent wonder and murmured question.

… What is he–?

Before you can follow the thought, he reaches for you.

He takes your camera.

“No, wait– let go of me!”

In the midst of your renewed struggle, panicked and desperate as he frees you from the metaphorical shackle of your camera and its strap around your neck, you keep your wary sight trained on Joseph. Watch in morbid interest in case he sees something, that he’ll be scarred by whatever it is he finds on the other side, letting you go free from the fear that will no doubt begin to plague him at such a blasphemous view.

Though you also fearfully hope he doesn’t break it…

He carefully turns your camera to and fro, expression contemplative as his fingers brush over the vintage wood. Tracing the elegant silver vines and delicate spirals inlayed into its frame.

He looks to you, peers at you over the frame of his garish glasses in a manner too much like the ghosts that watch you both.

You can’t keep the contact, too quick to look away and stare wantonly at your camera instead. Casting nervous glances to the flickers of unnatural light in the corners of your vision; afterimages quick to dodge your direct line of sight.

Joseph raises the camera; looks it over one last time, before finally looking through the viewfinder.

You hold your breath, struggles ceasing a second after at the morbid wonder that has taken hold. He doesn’t jolt or flinch or give any indication that he sees anything, simply looks through it. Seamlessly turning to point the camera at the many people around him, to turn it on his own brothers and sister; to turn it on you.

You flinch violently at having the dark lens of your camera pointed at you; the abysmal eye of death’s observer trained intently on your trembling form. Your terrified and living visage reflected in the black pitch of its glass.

Click—

There’s a flash, blinding and sudden and you yelp at the revitalised burn of your eyes, held tightly closed as you attempt to blink away the afterimage seared into your poor eyes: the ominous face of your camera staring back at you, a mask upon the devil before you.

Hesitantly your eyes flutter open, ears picking up at the laborious whir of your old camera as it develops the film.

Joseph is disinterested in you, focused purely on the picture slowly drooling from the film ejector.

He takes it gently, briefly shaking it to help develop the picture quicker. Once he’s satisfied, he stares. Shaded eyes glossing over the captured details of your person.

Green tinted eyes slowly crawl from the picture to its living counterpart. Watching you from his towering advantage as you shrink further under his blank yet intense gaze. So much like them, so much like them…

And then he smiles.

“You can see them too.”

[annaphoenix1994]

Ch.125 - Gaining Leverage

Previous Chapter - Masterlist 1; Masterlist 2 - Next Chapter

Phil and Tokala discuss their partnership; Baler and Simon have a talk; Baler learns new information about Kiera and also tells Simon about his new love interest at school.

Author's Note: Yes, this chapter is over 4k words with a bit of pending drama as well as a lot of fluff between Simon and Baler. I just love their journey together and how they truly view each other after their hardships. It makes my heart melt! Also, just in case anyone was curious: I start my new job tomorrow and I'm still slowly getting back on my feet! Money is still hard to come by right now, but I'm still able to manage and get food for myself as well as take care of my animals. Thankfully, this new job pays every week, so I'm so happy about that. I also have a set schedule so that it'll be easier to plan things throughout the day! I hope you enjoy this chapter! Hopefully I'll have another out in a couple of days! 

*

“The value of the land is basically worthless without a water source, I’m afraid.” A lead executive on Tokala’s team explained.

“Worthless?” Adam, Phil’s lead executive on the project, scoffed. Aside from his arrogance, Phil thoroughly enjoyed the man’s cockiness when negotiating a deal. “A 40-acre goat farm sold for 3 million in the county over.”

“With a water source.”

“The water table on our property is 30 feet. I could dig a fucking well by hand.”

“I’d love to see that!” Angela fired back, far from intimidated from Adam’s negotiation tactics. “Your client already accepted our offer, you’re just supposed to red line the fine print if I must remind you of what your job entails.”

Tokala smirked with amusement.

“The fine print is shit. You get our land for free and then write off construction costs for years before we even see a dime?” Adam scoffed. “Phil, fucking Indian Tribes trying to steal your land.”

“The only reason you’re not choking on irony is the size of your mouth!” Angela snarled.

“Must I remind everyone that our goal here is to make a deal.” Natalie sighed.

“We agreed to a percentage as payoff. I can’t afford your asking price and build my desired project.” Tokala explained.

Phil shook his head, “I know how this works. You won’t spend a cent on construction. You’ll go to Chase or Rocky Capital and take a loan for the build. You’ll outsource the management except for promised jobs for family or friends. You’ll negotiate a heaping consulting fee for yourself and give speeches about how this will have a positive impact to the community with how much income will be brought in for schools and hospitals,” He explained, drawing in everyone’s attention by how great the future sounded coming from his mouth. “I oversaw the Las Vegas Lottery and partnered with managing casinos along the Strip. I helped write the book on this shit and I’m fine with all of this, but all I’m offering is that my piece of the pie will be just as big as yours.”

“I have no family to give jobs to, and my only friends are my partners in this business. Every dime of profit will go exactly where I say it goes. We both want the same thing, just different reasons.”

“Tokala, I look at the contract and I honestly can’t tell what you want.”

“Let me simplify it: I want everything the Jackson Valley Ranch sits on! I want that ranch and everything north towards Yellowstone and south towards Hot Springs. Do this with me and I’ll split it with you.”

“There’s probably not even a handful of people on this entire planet that can afford that ranch. You and I aren’t one of them.”

“You’re a billionaire, no?”

“Yes, but the only reason I am is because I’m smart with my money. I discuss strategies before falling through with a deal.”

“I have a plan for that, too.”

“Then what is it?”

“I only tell my plans to my partners. You and I aren’t partners… yet.”

“I’m not going to try and sabotage a deal here, Phil,” Adam spoke up, hating the sudden silence that fell between the two. “If you cede ownership of the land, would there be any worry of being pushed out by the opposing party?”

“And assume that Phil will get nothing?” Tokala arched his brow. “Is that what you assume my plan is?”

“Of course not. We’re just trying to be smart about this, too.”

“Strategize,” Phil corrected. “Is there a way that the percentage of the profit could become a percentage of ownership at the casino?”

“Unfortunately, the Tribal Gaming Commission will never license you,” Tokala answered with a sigh.

“Well, what about the hotel? We make the casino a separate structure – I own the hotel, you own the casino?” Phil proposed.

“That could work.” Natalie nodded, crossing her arms.

“I agree,” Adam nodded before looking back to Tokala. “I’ll draft a proposal. We don’t require a response right away, it’s just something to think about.”

“Of course.”

“Since we are all on the same page with the land, I would like to address a possible solution to these issues. I’ve gotten attorneys for the Clean Water Act and we are filing a lawsuit against Kiera Dutton for rerouting the river to alter the flow of the waterway. Since we have filed, we will present it to the EPA. Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout reside in these rivers, which is a food source for majority of the Grizzly Bears and Black Bears that wander through from the park,”

“Continue…” Tokala requested, a gleam of excitement in his eyes.

“Which is a violation of the Endangered Species Act.”

“Which is also a felony.” Adam finished.

“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”

“She has already been served the papers. I just figured I’d tell you the strategies after filing.” Natalie giggled.

“Good work.”

*

Kiera arrived home with a heavy sigh, eager to see her children and husband after a long day of staring at a computer screen. Unzipping her boots once she walked through the door, she mindlessly pushed them aside before hanging her coat on the rack as well as her purse, purposely leaving her phone somewhere inside as the smell of cooked beef flooded her nostrils. “What’s for dinner?”

“Baler suggested hamburger helper and it was easy enough for me to make,” Simon chuckled, shrugging his shoulders as he continued to stir the ground beef. “Is that okay?”

“I have no problem with what you two decide to make for dinner,” She giggled, meeting him at the stove to stand on her toes so she could press a kiss to his lips, smiling when she heard Baler purposely gag at the sight as he was sitting on the countertop, clear that he and Simon were having a conversation prior to Kiera arriving home. “Want me to make some sides?”

“We already have that covered, momma,” Baler snickered, leaning down so that she could greet him with a hug as well as kiss his forehead. “The twins are in the living room playing in their playpen. And before you ask, yes, I’ve been keeping an eye on them. Dad and I have been taking turns.”

“I know, baby. That’s why I didn’t ask,” She giggled. “I know you two always have them in your sights when I’m not home.”

“There’s also a slight change of plans, love…” Simon trailed off, causing her brows to furrow in confusion. “You know how we usually go to your mum’s for dinner on Wednesday’s? Well, I asked her if she’d rather come over here tonight.”

“Okay. I’ll be glad to see her over here so I can show her the Christmas tree I bought!”

“We’re really putting up a Christmas tree?—” Baler scoffed, dreading the day that he’d have to help Kiera put it up in the living room. Although he loved Kiera and Simon as his parents, putting up a Christmas tree as well as other holiday festivities is where he drew the line.

“We sure are and you’re going to help your dad chop it down.”

“Chop it down?” Simon asked suddenly, both he and Baler questioning her at the same time with the same look on their faces.

“That’s right. Mom knows a guy who was friends with dad since high school and he owns a tree farm. She and I both bought a new tree this year, so we’ll have two to put up,” She smirked. “We pick them up this weekend.”

“Bloody hell,” Simon sighed. “Looks like our hunting trip is postponed until Sunday, lad.”

“If you two want to complain about it, I’ll just do it myself.” Kiera arched her brow.

“No, we’ll do it.” Baler assured her.

“That’s how she does it, lad. It just took me three years to figure it out.”

“How she does what?”

“She’ll volunteer us to do something at the last minute, then pout when she hears me complain about it so I’ll feel guilty but even though I may not want to spend my Saturday chopping down a bloody tree, I’ll still do it because it makes her happy.”

“You sure did save yourself on that one, babe,” Kiera huffed, crossing her arms over her chest while she watched him and Baler smirk at her reaction. “I’m going to go change and find an outfit to wear tomorrow. You two sit and complain to each other while I’m gone.”

“I think you made her mad.” Baler whispered.

Simon shook his head, “No, I know when she’s mad. She can dish out the jokes but can’t take ‘em when I shoot back,” He said, knowing Kiera could in fact take a joke, but he was still in a playful mood. “One thing you’ll learn about women is that they love to volunteer us for things they can’t physically do because they know we’ll do it for them.”

“Why?”

“Because men are providers, kid. I’m going to sound old fashioned when I say this, but it’s the truth,” He shrugged, turning off the burner to the stove after the ground beef was done cooking to strain it in the sink before putting it into the mixture of the hamburger helper to let it simmer. “Women provide us by giving us children and the least we can do is be a helping hand when she needs it, but our main goal is to make sure our women are safe and feel like they’re safe when they’re with us because unfortunately, this world is too cruel for women because some men make it that way. It’s up to us to keep that part of the world away from the ones we love.”

“Didn’t think you could be so sentimental, dad.” Baler teased.

“I can be when I want, but don’t let your mum hear that,” He chuckled playfully. “She’s given me more than just the twins, but when she had those two, I watched her change completely from the woman I knew before to someone I didn’t think could be better.”

“What was mom like when you met?”

Simon breathed a chuckle, “She was wild. I’ve never met a woman that could physically terrify a man twice her size in my life.”

“Are you talking about yourself?” Baler snickered.

“If I’m going to be honest, yeah, she intimidated me – she still does sometimes.”

“She was in the military too, right?”

“If you want to refer to it like that, yeah.”

Simon glanced at Baler through his peripheral vision when he heard him scoff out of slight annoyance, “Dad, why are you so secretive about it? I’m old enough to understand these things…”

He huffed before stepping away from the stove to glance towards the hallway, seeing that their bedroom door was shut and listened for the sound of running water from the pipes below the floor, assuring himself that she couldn’t overhear what he was about to say next. “You think you’re old enough to understand?”

“I know I can.”

“Just promise me one thing.”

“Shoot.”

“You can’t look at her any different than how you do now. If what I’m about to tell you changes that, it should be how you can appreciate her more than you do now. She wouldn’t want you to feel sorry for her because it wasn’t her fault—”

“Dad, you’re scaring me…”

“Just promise me.”

“O-Okay, I promise.”

“That woman who came to the house while we were gone, that was Kiera’s supervisor in the C.I.A. She’s been involved in many missions that I was a part of too. When Kate shows up, serious things are about to happen—”

“So she’s about to leave?—”

“No, she’s not going anywhere, but I might have to—”

“Don’t leave.”

“It’s my duty, lad,” He arched his brow. “Only if I must. I met Kiera on a mission in Mexico. Unexpected for sure, but we worked alongside each other for a while before I developed feelings,”

“So, while it was raining bullets you were over there simping for my mom?” Baler snickered.

“Wh-? What does that mean?”

“What?”

“That word? Simp?”

“Oh, it’s like you were too focused on her when there were more important things going on or something like that,” Baler shrugged. “Like you were begging for her attention.”

“Not at the time, no. She definitely caught my eye, but when I’m on a mission, I’m focused on what I’m supposed to be doing because any mistake or delay and it’s your life and the life of others you’re risking.”

“So how does this factor into what you’re so secretive about telling me?”

“Got sidetracked,” Simon huffed. “Anyway, long story short, when we returned from leave, we were working with a commander who she had been investigating for tyranny. He found out she was investigating him, so when we got back, he forced her into his possession to find out any answers. When we found her, she was nearly unrecognizable – nearly beaten to death. I didn’t have to ask her what happened because it was obvious. More time went by before we found out our target was in Chicago. We get there, do our mission, and things took a turn for the worst—”

“Are you talking about that bombing that happened?” Baler questioned. “I heard that it was like the bombing that happened in Boston—”

“It turned into being a bombing, but it was originally a stealth mission,” He corrected.

“Were you there?”

“I held a sniping position on the adjacent building, yes.”

“That’s so fucking cool—”

“Focus, lad,” Simon reminded sternly. “On their way back to the main floor, Kiera, my Captain, and Sergeant along with some Marines were hit with an RPG. Johnny was the one who found her while I was making my way to the ground from the building I was in. Although I was terrified then, I still found it quite funny how the first thing she thought of after getting hit with an RPG was to bum a cigarette,” He breathed a laugh.

“So… She lived through getting blown up?”

“Obviously,” Simon scoffed. “And she didn’t get blown up, she got the worst of the hit when the RPG came through the building. Price was the one who used himself as a shield to protect her, but he was too late when he did and she ended up getting the worst of it.”

“Is… Is that why she has that scar on her face?”

Simon nodded.

“And the ones on her back?”

“How did you know about those?”

“I’m not stupid, dad. I noticed the first time she wore a dress the first summer I had with you guys and her shoulders and back looked like pepperoni. I knew they were scars instead of some birthmark.” He scoffed.

“Okay, but let’s not compare the looks of them to anything. She’s already self-conscious about it—”

“She shouldn’t. She’s just more of a badass than I thought she was already,” Baler shrugged. “How… How bad are they?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like… Is it her entire back that looks like that?”

“Yes.”

“Does it bother you?”

Simon furrowed his brows, “Does it bother me?”

“Yeah, like does it bother you that she looks like that now. Like, I’m not saying it to be mean because she doesn’t look bad, but… I don’t know. One of my friends dumped his girl because she got in a car wreck and is paralyzed now—”

“That’s not a friend, kid. Sounds like a bastard.”

“He is.”

“I wouldn’t continue to be his friend if I were you. I was on patrol that day I got the call about a wreck. I watched them pull that girl from that car and the first thing she asked was to call her boyfriend. And to now learn that he dumped her for it?”

“Fucked up, isn’t it?”

“Surely.”

“Still didn’t answer my question though.”

“The only thing that bothers me is that I wasn’t there to take the blow instead of her. Not once did it change how I felt about her. The only thing that changed was having to be more cautious around her. It’s been years, but she’s still healing from it. Her skin is very sensitive now and I must make sure she doesn’t overdo it when she does things she likes.”

“Is her skin sensitive or something?”

Simon nodded, “She doesn’t know it, but she aches when she lays too long on her back while she’s sleeping. I guess it’s because those grafts feel kind of tight to her, especially on areas as sensitive as her legs. I don’t sleep very well anyway, but I physically move her throughout the night in hopes of her not being sore in the morning.”

“Husband of the year,” Baler poked playfully, although he wasn’t going to admit that the new information, he just learned about how his father did acts of love for Kiera absolutely melted his heart. “So you really are a genuine man.” He teased.

“I don’t do it for the title, I do it because I love her. That’s what I meant when I said that us men are to provide for the ones we love. She gave me those kids and the least I could do is make it easier for her any time I can and more. So if she ends up wanting six trees to set up around the house, then you can bet your arse I’m going to cut down six trees.”

“Can you tell me more?”

He watched Simon shake his head, “I’m afraid I shouldn’t. I’ve already told you more than you need to. Just hold to your promise and don’t look at her any different.”

“You know I will.”

“Well, try not to make it obvious—”

“I’m going to look at her the way you said.”

“And what did I say?”

“To appreciate her more and that she wouldn’t want me to feel sorry for her,” He answered confidently. “Although I feel bad because I hug her kind of hard. Like I didn’t know it probably hurts and I don’t think about that stuff… I don’t want to stop hugging her, though.” He frowned.

“Then don’t stop hugging her, lad,” He assured him. “She’s never said anything about hurting afterwards, but I know she’s stubborn.”

“Should I just put my arms around her neck instead of her body?”

Simon nodded in agreement, seeing how concerned Baler was regarding the new information he had just learned. “Makes sense as to why sometimes I hear her wince when I do hug her every day.”

“It’s okay. She knows you don’t know about as to why she’s still sore from what happened—”

“She’d never tell me, either.”

“No, but that’s why I did. Even though you kept asking me to tell you.” He chuckled.

“Well, now I know what you expect of me when it comes to treating women… I can really use that advice now I’ve got a girlfriend…”

“You what?” Simon arched his brow.

“We’re not official… Yet.”

“Well, since you two aren’t “official,” you have plenty of time to make things right so that you can treat her well. What’s her name?”

“Holly.”

“Is that the girl—”

“-From the wreck,” Baler answered. “The one in the wheelchair.”

“You better treat her well, you understand?”

“Why do you think I wanted you to talk about mom?”

Simon tilted his head in confusion.

“Don’t make fun of me after I tell you this…”

“I’m offended that you think I would.”

Baler playfully rolled his eyes before looking to the floor, twiddling his thumbs in nervousness as he spoke, “I asked you to talk about mom because you get carried away. Yeah, I’m always curious about what you two did for work, but I’m really taking mental notes… I see how you talk about her and how you treat her and I just… I want to be you.”

Simon looked down towards the floor, unable to grasp the realization that he was an inspiration to someone. He really does look up to me, he thought, recalling the moment Kiera had told him how Baler felt about Simon. You were right, love.

“You… want to be me?”

��Yes. I don’t have the first fucking clue on how to take care of a girl, let alone taking care of a girl that can’t quite do the same things as me. She can’t walk on her own and is in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. I got made fun of because I confessed to my friends that I liked her and I thought I was in the wrong because my own friends thought it was stupid and I felt bad for telling them to fuck off, but I like her for who she is—”

“Please tell me you’re not still friends with them.”

“No, I’m not. At first I pushed myself away from her because I thought I had the same mindset as my friends and didn’t want to cause her more of a heartache, but this past week I’ve done nothing but help her out and pushed my so-called friends away because being around her made me happier.”

“That’s good, kid. So why haven’t you two made it official yet? You’re already referring to her as your girlfriend.”

“Did I?” He asked, furrowing his brows in confusion.

“You sure did. Looks like your heart has already decided for you.”

“But what if… what if I’m too fucked up to date her? I have a problem with my temper, I take forever to do things right—”

“I can assure you, we’ve both had our fair share of being “fucked up”. The only difference between you and I is that it took me 30 years to realize it and you had someone to save you from yourself.”

“That’s why I want to be you.”

The pair looked at each other for a few moments, now truly understanding their role in each other’s lives. Kid, as much as you’ve gotten on my nerves in the beginning, I’m sure glad you’re in mine and Kiera’s life.

On the other side of the closed bedroom door, Kiera sat with her back against it as she wept grateful tears, Kimber’s jaw laying on top of Kiera’s thigh as her fingers slowly moved through the Corgi’s fur. She failed to hear the entire conversation and felt bad for eavesdropping, but her heart was swelling with pride and love at the bond between Simon and Baler that distinctly grew over time. Babe, you were meant to find him that day.

“She will be your first girlfriend, yeah?”

“I hope so.”

“I’m sure you’ll be glad to tell your mum all about it.”

“I’m terrified to tell her. Can I wait a bit longer?”

“Why’re you terrified?”

“Because she’ll skin me alive if I do something wrong. I love her to death, but I also don’t want to risk messing up…”

“She won’t. Me and her have messed up a lot. That’s what makes us work. There’s not a relationship on this planet that has worked without mistakes. You’re going to make a lot of mistakes, even if you have us to guide you. It’ll show how you are as a man and how you handle things. This lass you’re talking to will see that, too. How you react and handle things shows her everything she’ll need to know about her relationship with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Okay, for example: if you and her are talking in the hall at school and the kids that were picking on you for liking her came up and made a cheeky comment. If you defend her without question, then she’ll feel safe with you and want to reside in you. If you just let them make their comment or even laugh along with them, she’ll feel humiliated and want to distance herself. Remember what I said.”

“You already know what I’d do.”

“I’ve seen your temper,” Simon chuckled. “If you can defend your lass like you defended Kiera that day Brady was causing trouble, I have full confidence in you.”

“But he beat my ass—”

“Doesn’t matter. What matters is that you stood your ground and didn’t hesitate to risk getting hit again to defend yourself and your mum.”

“Yeah, well, you need to teach me how to fight because watching you beat him up was so cool.”

“I’ll show you one day.”

“What ever happened to him anyway?”

“…Let’s just say he found his way to work on another ranch…” 

[stereopticons]

Ten Random Lines

I was tagged by @mostlyinthemorning @hippolotamus and @rmd-writes, thank you, lovelies!

Rules: pick any 10 of your fics, scroll somewhere to the midpoint, pick a line (or three), and share it! Then tag 10 people. 

I used a random number generator to pick fics because I cannot be expected to make actual decisions right now.

1) yeah I’m afraid (but I’ll follow you anyway)

But what if someday, it’s not enough? There’s something inherently nerve-wracking about promising forever to one person when you can’t possibly know what forever will be.

2) the same deep water as you

“I asked, though.” Rachel’s eyes go wide and he hurries to explain. “Not if he had a fiancée or whatever, but about his history.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing. I mean, he said to lock that box back up and I guess we just…never unlocked it.”

3) if I’m not beyond repair

Out in the hall, he leans against the wall and allows himself one moment to be upset. There was always a chance that David wouldn’t want him here, he knew that when he came here. He knew the hope that he had that David had left him as an emergency contact on purpose was small and distant. He knew that David must have stopped loving him a long time ago; David was the one to call things off, after all. Patrick knew all of this, and yet, he still came. Because despite everything, he still loves David. And he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to stop.

4) carve your name into my heart

But even if he hasn’t said it, he knows it. It's a new feeling, assaulting all of his senses. He can see it in the way they look at each other, Patrick’s eyes soft and wide and so fond. He can feel it in the casual (and not so casual) touches, a spark that never seems to diminish. He can hear it in their voices, tender and breathless.

5) love you in moderation (do I look moderate to you?)

David lets himself get lost in the sensation of Patrick’s hand in his hair, Patrick’s taste in his mouth, Patrick all around him, engulfing all of his senses. Patrick is chanting David’s name over and over, mixed with deliciously obscene moans and whimpers as David takes him completely into his mouth. David thinks he could stay like this forever, the feeling of wanting and being wanted in return burning hot in his chest.

6) Persistence of Memory

David remembers thinking that he had never, never, been so comfortable with someone that he could let go this much, this easily. At least not while sober. He remembers rolling onto his side, wiping away tears from Patrick’s face with a thumb and planting a soft kiss on his forehead. He remembers thinking that this must be what it’s like to love someone with your whole heart.

7) Logging Off

Did you happen to give the password to anyone else?” Patrick asks.

“No!” Alexis responds. “Oh, except I might have given it to Twyla when I was staying with her?”

“I told you not to share it!” David yells.

“Well, first of all, David, no, you didn’t, and second of all, how am I supposed to Interflix and chill with my girlfriend when she only gets the Elm County public access channel?”

8) don’t second guess your feelings, you were right from the start

He can feel the blush just thinking about it, heat spreading across his cheeks. What kind of horribly unprofessional businessperson is he that he gets a full hard-on while giving his business partner a hug? Oh god, he hopes David didn’t notice. What if David thinks Patrick went into business with him just to fuck him?

9) wish I was the moon tonight

Hi, this is Patrick, and welcome to Brewer’s Baseball History. Tonight, I’ll be taking you on a journey through the Toronto Blue Jays’ first winning season, the season of 1983.”

David could not care less about the Blue Jays’ 1983 season, but the man’s voice is mellow and comforting, which is precisely what he needs right now. The recording is thirty-five minutes long, but David doesn’t make it past the first five minutes before he’s drifting off to sleep.

10) standing on my little island with you

“We have to stop meeting like this, David.”

David yelps and nearly drops the book he’d been reading the back cover of. He hadn’t expected anyone to sneak up behind him deep in the fiction stacks, and he really hadn’t expected it to be Patrick, of all people.

“Mmkay, I don’t know what that means?” David says, once he regains his composure and turns around to see Patrick leaning casually against one of the shelves, his hands shoved deep in his impossibly tight pockets. Had his smile been that nice the last time? David doesn’t remember that, and he definitely doesn’t remember the stupid, weird fluttery feeling he gets in his stomach when Patrick laughs. What the fuck?

Tagging @rosedavid @alienajackson @jettestar @likerealpeopledo-on-ao3 @blueink3 @mr-writes and anyone else who feels like sharing!

[malspinningyarns]

Nitpicky Thoughts About Stranger Things from a Hoosier’s Perspective

Hello. I am from Indiana. Both of my parents are from Indiana. Stranger Things is supposed to take place in Indiana in the 1980s, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like it. I have notes and questions.

Where the fuck is Hawkins? It has a nearby quarry and tons of woods and hills, which makes it clearly in Southern Indiana. One episode I believe Hopper mentions they are near the Tippacanoe River, which is in Northern Indiana, which is bullshit. At some point someone mentions they are 80 miles from Indianapolis, which, k sure whatever. The official companion book has it between Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, which would be North East IN. Which is bullshit. Do you have any idea how flat Indiana in the north? Hell, how flat it is from Indianapolis up? It’s just corn and soybean fields as far as the eye can see. You don’t even start getting real hills and woods until like 30-40 minutes south of Indianapolis in Brown County. Also, I’m pretty sure quarries only are in the southern part of the state. Like I think season 4 kinda tried to rectify this, but it’s still not clear.

If Hawkins is in Southern Indiana, where is all the Indiana University gear, even on extras? Hell, or even a mention? A single poster in a storefront? The 1980s were HUGE for IU basketball. Like these were the Bobby Knight multiple National Championships years. People of Hawkins would be decked out in cream and crimson. Remember in Parks and Recreation where Ron Swanson points at a giant ass poster of Bobby Knight in his office? Yeah, still a thing. Really, there isn’t enough dropping of Indiana Colleges, even as background. I saw a Purdue shirt on an extra once. And Notre Dame gets name-checked by Robin as an alibi (as The University of Notre Dame, which is too much). I can’t explain to you how much college sports mean to the Midwest. Like, Netflix, you are paying for Coke and Jif and a million song rights, you can cough up the money to pay for some IU logos. Hell, IU would probably just give it to you for free if they could get more student enrollment.

I love that The Wheelers just let Mike go to California by himself. Continuing with their A+ parenting. Mike is like the most oblivious teenage boy ever and you trust him to take a long-ass flight alone and properly communicate with the Byers in case things change? Nancy I get, but just Mike?

How does Hawkins and whatever school Will and El go to in California have the same spring break?

Do you understand how disgusting Indiana’s weather is in March? Some days it’s snowing. Some days it’s sleet. Some days it’s raining. Some days it can be warm. It’s real unpredictable. Layers are your friend.

The Wheelers clearly have money (probably upper middle class) but do they have “private college in Boston” money? What would lead Nancy to go to Emerson anyway? Like I know IU and Ball State are state schools, but they have great journalism schools.

The Hawkins High basketball court is hilariously small. Like when we first saw it in earlier seasons, I thought it was the aux gym they use for gym classes. But nope. It’s the regular gym. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a high school basketball gym that small in Indiana. Can the entire town even fit in the stands? That would be like a community meeting place.

There has only been 1 John Mellencamp song in the entirety of the show, “R.O.C.K. In the U.S.A.” during the carnival in season 3. That’s like putting a show in New Jersey in the 1980s and only using 1 Bruce Springsteen song and that song is “Pink Cadillac”. If the show doesn’t end with “Pink Houses” or “Small Town”, I swear to God, missed opportunity.

Of all the things Angela bullies El for, it’s never that’s she’s from Indiana, which is a very open-opportunity for most people looking to bully people from Indiana. As I am sure I will get bullied for this post.

Where is Joyce getting $40,000 from to pay for Hopper’s ransom? That’s a lot of money in the 80s and a decent chunk of change today. She was clearly barely scraping by in rural/suburban Indiana and now she lives in suburban California with one extra mouth to feed? Encyclopedia Britannica can’t be paying that well. The Byers only have one working car. Is it Dr. Owens money?

The giant survival store they go to is great, no notes.

[saintclay]

Have I actually finished reading The Dreaming? No (I’ve read like. maybe half of it. shut up). Do I have thoughts and feelings about it getting removed from continuity in favour of The Dreaming: Waking Hours and Sandman Universe Presents: Nightmare County? Yes, and those thoughts and feelings are fairly negative. yes I will elaborate

Waking Hours just. It actually started fairly strong and I enjoyed the first half of it (also can we talk about how Ruin is literally a lab grown blorbo. like DC said ‘we need to make a dude who is so pathetic and yet so OP’ and they delivered. He’s actually interesting as a concept and I would like to see more about him). However. I have. Problems. With the second half of Waking Hours. These problems basically just boil down to ‘so you’re really going to throw the limited characterization we have for Daniel out the fucking window, huh?’. Like his whole thing is that he’s a kinder Dream than Morpheus was. That was basically the only cannon characterization we had left for him. I find it hard to believe that he would have taken the actions that he did, it feels out of character and inconsistent with what even the first part of Waking Hours characterized him as. that’s weirdly worded but whatever you know what I mean. They did my boy Daniel so fucking dirty and I am mad. Also the kinda transphobic true name thing. I get what they were going for and I appreciate it, but they kinda missed the mark on the delivery. And by missed the mark I mean they turned around and shot in the opposite direction. The end also feels a bit rushed, but I think thats because of the whole, y’know, pandemic thing. So I’m conflicted on judging because like yeah its not really their fault but at the same time it makes it unfun to read so I think I am somewhat justified. Actually a lot of my problems feel like the writer(s) were told that editorial wanted them to do something and they kinda had to figure out how to work it into the story that they wanted to tell, to mixed results.

Sandman Universe Presents: Nightmare County pisses me off for a multitude of reasons. The first being the name. Like of all the things to name your comic. Of all things. WHY in the fuck did they decide to name it after a story arc from The Sandman. Like ok I get that its supposed to be a callback to the introduction of the first Corinthian because he was introduced in that arc but like. You cannot abbreviate the title of this comic at all if you want to avoid confusion, unless you’re shortening it to SUP:NC which does not flow off the tongue at all. Like there are plenty more things that can and do piss me off but this is just a sticking point and I hate it. Like why not just call it The Corinthian since it seems to just be about him?  Also speaking about the Corinthian god DAMN do I hate his characterization in this. They just went ‘yeah he’s actually just as unrepentant as the first one and would probably be a serial killer if he could get away with it’ which is BORING and UNINSPIRED. I preferred the characterization that The Dreaming gave him which actually made him interesting, and I would much prefer to see a (second) Corinthian who would 100% deck his predecessor on sight than one that kinda idolizes his first incarnation. I walked into the series like ‘okay, I’m gonna withhold judgement until the first arc concludes so that I can judge the story on its own merits’, read the part in the first issue where it was like ‘oh yeah, he treasures the dream/memory-fragments of his past life’ and decided that I was no longer withholding judgement. I think it would have been super interesting to see the second Corinthian and Daniel set up as foils, considering that both of them are taking the place of a known figure, and both of them could be argued to be Morpheus’s last creations in a way. Also this is 100% a me thing but where is my boy Mathew? Where is he? 90% of the reason why I even cared about the Corinthian in the first place was because I liked his dynamic with Mathew. 

Anyway, I think everyone should read The Dreaming. Also it is my hyperfixation and I get to choose the continuity so actually I have simply decided that the new Sandman Universe stuff is out and The Dreaming is in. Thank you for your time. 

[soopissoopnotsoup]

Always Running

My feet hit the floor, and I started running. I knew too much. Too much to stay alive. But fuck it, I would not go quietly. They could take me kicking and screaming. If i was lucky and made enough noise, i would be martyred, all I did wouldn’t be for nothing.

How did I even get here? I was never supposed to be a part of this, never supposed to be a hero. The truth is, I’m a coward. I was content sitting by. Of course, I knew it was all terrible, but it wasn’t affecting me. My family was safe. That was what mattered. And honestly? It all felt fake. Those girls, and what happened to them, it was a tragedy, but it was just a horror story to me. A warning tale. They were never real people.

But now I find myself in the same position. Risking my life. Not for a better future, not to help others, but for myself. It was always for myself. That's what they don’t tell you about heroes. We never set out to be. I am a selfish, entitled, coward. I don’t deserve to be put on a pedestal. But hell, part of me enjoys it. Part of me is filled with pride because, well, look at me. I’m doing something with my life. I actually have a purpose, and sure, I’m not doing this ‘for the greater good’, but how will anyone know? They won’t. I’ll go down as a hero. What more can I ask for?

-

-

-

I’m still running. What from? I no longer know. The danger is gone. We defeated them. We took back our life. Made the future ours. I know this is terrible for me to say, to even think, but I miss those days. When I had a purpose. When I was doing something good. I no longer know what I’m doing anymore. Back then, I felt powerful. Despite the constant fighting, the struggle to stay alive, I at least had control of my life. Now? I have nothing. Oh sure, it may look like I do. I may have this lavish house, a constant source of entertainment, and I should definitely be grateful but I can’t. After all, the second I fall out of the public's favor, this is all gone. I’ve seen it happen before, to all of my fellow fighters. 

At first we celebrated, and I liked it. I had achieved what I wanted, but then they put us in charge. I never understood why. Isn’t this what we just freed ourselves from? Was all our sacrifice, all our pain, all the death, was it all just for this? I miss when I was no one, when I could rely blindly on others to take care of the situation. Now I am that other. And that is terrifying. 

-

-

-

I am running again. Now, I run from the past. Hide myself behind a bottle. It was all my fault. Always my  fault. I understand it all now. I wish I had abandoned ship when I had the chance. I wish I joined Zariah. She’s dead now. Hanged as a traitor to the New County. I would be too, if I hadn’t been so blind. She was our leader, the symbol for hope. Bet she knew what I now do. That’s why she turned. I wish I could, but still, I am a coward. And tired. I already toppled one government, and. Well. This new one benefits me. I may hate myself for the lies I tell, but I always did. Sure the reason changed, but the hatred has always been there. Burning fiercely, consuming me in every silent moment. At least now, I am comfortable. I have a nice house, and people who worship me as the New Deity. I may be alone, truly alone, but was there ever anyone who I could trust? Who would let me be me, just for a second? I don’t think so.

-

-

-

I’m so tired of running. But I still do it. I can not face myself, can’t look at all the blood i spilt, and walk away sane. One day, I will stop running, I tell myself. One day. I pray for that day to come. I could stop the system. Share what I know. But that wouldn’t change everything. Loris tried. He and I were the last of them. Now it’s only me. It’s always me. Always meant to be me. I wish I could die. I wish I never accepted the Crown. Maybe the deaths would still happen, maybe everything would still be hateful, and terrible, but at least it wouldn’t be my fault. I could be one of them, bitter and hating the system, instead of controlling it. 

This is the price I pay. For selling every aspect of myself for my fifteen seconds of fame. I doubt anyone still remembers what happens. It’s been so long. I caught my reflection yesterday. Gone is the girl with short hair and a scar filled face. Now I am porcelain, every feature shifting to be beautiful. No one can know the pain I went through. There can not be a single crack. Orai cracked. Drowned by guilt. The porcelain melted.

-

-

-

My body runs.My soul has fallen out. My joy has left. I steal others. I am cold, I am bitter, I am the world. I hear talk of another rebellion. I hope it succeeds. I hope they win where I fail, but hope is a dull thing. The situation will repeat. Again, and Again. This is the only Future. The only Past. I wonder, who is the unlucky soul who will be me? Start out by accident. End up the only Original. Not by moral means, but because they are the most willing to surrender. 

Who will be Zariah? So filled with hope, longing for a better future, and A passion to actually fulfill it, The first to realize the truth, and the first to die. Who will be Morin? The bravest, the coldest, most calculated. I was so sure he would last. He had the most determination, to be better. The second to leave. He ran away. At least he got out.  Who will be Orai? So kind, so compassionate, so likely to have been the first, but lasted till the third, when she realized the truth. I think that’s why she survived so long. She was too naive to realize the truth until it was too late.  And who will be Loris? Who only stayed as he had a hope that we could change, that we could be better. That blind faith could only carry him for so long. When he realized, he really did try, to help, to fix it. He disappeared before he could release it all. It's a shame. History always has to repeat.

-

-

-

I’ve stopped running. Finally, My feet have given out. I’m at the end of the road. And I could not be more glad. Oh, I have no doubt things will continue. Nothing will change. But it’s no longer my fault. I am not the cause, nor a passive bystander. The guilt will pass on to the next, and the next, and the next, but it will no longer be mine. She raises a sword to my  throat. I smile, one full of pity. I am sorry she has to take my burden, but not enough to stop her. “Thank you,”I whisper.”for freeing me.” She looks so bright, like she believes she can bring change. I’m sure she does. But I’ve seen this happen before. And I was in her position. She is confused by my statement, naturally  but does not hesitate to slice my throat. That ruthlessness, no question attitude will serve her well. Or prolong her suffering. Whichever way you view it. My body shakes, and I heave my final breath. “I’m sorry.”

[servin-up-surveys]

survey #035

(from two days ago, oops)

Have you ever eaten a Big Mac? No, actually. I don't like lettuce on my burgers so I've never wanted to try. What brand is your vacuum cleaner? My non-piece of absolute shit uncle got my mom I'm pretty sure a Dyson, I don't feel like checking. He was just so fucking shocked to hear JUST how long she'd been wanting a quality vacuum and just couldn't afford one; Ma mentioned she wanted to use a tiny piece of the inheritance for one, and Uncle Bill was just like "yeah, no," so then there was a vacuum at the door, lmfao. He's a good man. The primary person dealing with their idiot fucking brother. Could you win a staring contest with someone? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOONONONONONO eye contact makes me so uncomfortable, I have to consciously focus on looking at people to a point I feel is "enough." I will NEVER forget one of the therapists at the hospital pointing out I had GOOD eye contact before I even mentioned shit about my problems with it. It's pretty sad JUST how flattered I was, lmfao. Do you believe in sex before marriage? Yes, I honestly think it's smarter to do that before choosing your supposed-to-be-permanent partner. But if you wanna wait, cool, I think that's just fine. Do you feel like you need to lose weight? It is literal, clinical fact that I need to. It doesn't matter whether or not I "feel" like it, I NEED to, and I'm fucking ecstatic I finally am. Do you feel like you’re judged for your looks? Oh yes. Can you say the alphabet in more than one language? Ye, in German. Name one world issue that upsets you. The simple fact that poverty exists in a society like ours, and that the people very capable of helping do NOTHING, is absolutely fucking nauseating. Same goes for having access to proper food and clean water. Get. On. It. And stop thinking you're doing "good" while you exacerbate a disgusting economy. Have you ever seen a therapist? Oh yes, since I started middle school, and now we're making progress towards a second, trauma-focused one for me that uses what's called EMDR. I honestly don't know if I'm going to go through the treatment itself though because it is apparently very intense and can be scary with working to dig up blacked out memories and reliving things. My initial and VERY strong reaction was "hell no" if it's gonna be THAT serious (like she mentioned that the treatment could be considered inhumane if not directed by a very aware and careful professional), which... really, really makes me wonder deeper if I DID bury a memory and now I'm protecting myself from confronting it. But I want to know so, SO badly. Okay actually I'm starting to seriously cry rn so uhhhh that's going to be further explored, moving on. Tell me a random fact about yourself. Ummmm I try to think of something new everytime I see this question, so uhhh... oh, I actually forget this one a lot but is imo one of my biggest achievements/accomplishments. When I was in elementary school and I had to do I think a county-wide (state-wide?) creative short story or something along those lines, I actually ranked the highest in my county or state, idr. They literally reached out to my mom because they were suspicious of her helping, heh. For the record, I absolutely didn't, it was some random story I entirely made up about a kid's friendship with a dragon, I believe. That's cool to remember... One of those things where it makes me think about pursuing SOMETHING in writing, I dunno man. What is your dream car? Well, my DREAM car would be something pink, but i know the paint job is unrealistic for what I can afford/am willing to put into a car, so the next in line would be one that's burnt orange in color. I KNOW I want something with comfortable back seats/rear doors because oh my god I CANNOT stand getting into cars without them, even when I was small. I need breathing room. My shit is having airbags like, everywhere too. Driver's seat, passenger's, back, they better be there. How many text messages do you think you send a day? Most days, zero. I only really text my mom when she's out these days. Do your parents trust you? I mean, I'd think so. I haven't given them reason not to. Do you like morning talk shows? I don't watch them, but I don't not like them. They're just... there. Have you ever been to a water park? As a child, yes. Now they kinda... gross me out, idk. Do you like to drink water or soda better? Ugh, I'm a soda junkie again. I have neeeever liked water. How old do you think you’ll live to be? I don't know, but honestly, I really can't picture myself getting all that old, like MAYBE 70s. I've just had too many health problems already. Would you rather work during the day or overnight? During the day, I ABSOLUTELY don't want to basically be nocturnal. Do you use Google often? Lately, yes. ESPECIALLY when I was manic, if I thought of ANY question, I googled it. I actually really liked how much I was learning, regardless of how useless the knowledge was, that I try to still look up questions I have. What type of people are the reasons we have middle fingers? Oh, you know, people who can't fucking respect a person's desire to not fucking talk to them ever again so they make new accounts to literally harass you. A best friend is someone: who ISN'T ^ that :) The truth is: I need to stop fucking even considering letting people back into my life that have clearly shown they shouldn't be in it. What do you think of the name "Tori?" I have a fondness for it actually because it's the nickname of one of my sister's eldest daughter. She was recently in the hospital for mental health issues springing up, and god knows I feel for her. She's such a beautiful young lady that is so deserving of a happy life. If you could visit either Germany or Argentina, which one would you choose? Oh, ezpz, take me to Deutschland. :') Do you prefer your men/women to have light hair or dark hair? I have found I'm GENERALLY more attracted to dark hair, but I SEEEEEERIOUSLY don't care what someone hair color is. It's just a theme I've noticed. Do you know any pick-up lines in a foreign language? No, actually. Who is your biggest celebrity crush right now? DREAMY SIGH, Richard Kruspe, swoons. What are they famous for? Lead guitarist of Rammstein, singer/guitarist for his own band Emigrate, and having a kid w/ his bandmate's (maybe by then ex???)wife without getting fucking butchered for it like how are y'all okay, these mfs are tight like brothers and I?????????????? just want to????????????? UNDERSTAND???????????????????????? Other than your name, what was the last name someone called you? Uh if this counts petnames then probably "hunny," that's what Girt uses the most. If you could find one long lost friend of the past, who would it be? Megan. No debate. Have you ever been to a nursing home? Yes, to see a woman my mother used to watch/take care of. I cried, a lot; that woman was on death's fucking door, and what do you know, the next morning, Mom got the call that she was dead. Where’s the last place you took a bus to? Jason's house in high school. I would ride home with him a whole lot. Those were good memories. Do you get the meat from the deli? Mom occasionally does. Do you prefer frozen dinners to actual cooking? No. What was the last song you listened to? WHOOPS I've been bingeing "Ausländer" all day lol Earbuds or headphones? Earbuds. Obsession from childhood? Dinosaurs, dragons (esp. Spyro), Pokemon. Best way to bond with you? Ohhhh, interesting question! Maybe either play games with me, especially if they're a favorite, OR listen to music of mutual interest together and like share how songs make you feel and stuff. Places that you find sacred? Damn dude, another good one. My absolute strongest pick are big nature scenes, like the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, huge mountains, all of that. Man, I want to travel and experience some of this stuff. Nature itself is sacred to me and I wanna be in some of its highlights. Top five favorite Vines? OH GOODNESS GRACIOUS Y'ALL, there's a Tumblr account that sometimes posts this series of "Rammstein as iconic Vines" and they make me fucking sob asdakljfkl;sala;e so I might rip some off of those just because they reside rent-free in my brain now: (in no order) 1.) *ruins smoke trick* "ADAM" (this was one paired w/ Richard and I screamed, like sir please re-enact this) 2.) "i CouLDn'Ve DrOpPeD mY cRoIsSaNt" 3.) *fires gun* "THIS IS WHY MOM DOESN'T FUCKING LOVE YOU!" (I'm laughing typing it, I literally can't watch it w/o crying god i love it) 4.) *pours water on someone's sleeping face* "h e l l o ?" (& this one was matched with Ollie and I wasn't okay for the rest of the day like no he was actually the person in the video, on god) 5.) *girl does smoke trick @ club, dude turns to camera* "w o o o o w" Weirdest thing to ever happen at your school? I know there was a legitimate bomb threat once. We were outside for a hot minute. What made you laugh the hardest you ever have? Okay in a recent survey I mentioned this time Girt and I played Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, and the laugh I got during that one was I really do think the hardest I've ever laughed, like he was worried because I was CRYINNNNNNGGGGG. What did you learn from your first job? That I absolutely cannot sell shit to people. The three biggest struggles you’ve overcome? 1.) a traumatic breakup, 2.) my parents' divorce, and 3.) uhhhh fuck dude idk, a lot of things I HAVEN'T overcome If you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be? oh god the first thing that came to mind was me in a zombie game being like "same" or "mood" when a zombie makes an ugly noise or something alsdkifjwje but I would ABSOLUTELY not be that lighthearted in a fuckin zombie apocalypse, soooo idk. Favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.? Oh goodness, there are MANY, but the first that came to mind was Vincent's beloved quote from Silent Hill 3: "Monsters? They look like monsters to you?" to Heather, who obviously freaks out thinking she's killing people and Vincent just goes "lul just a joke" with a shit-eating grin when it is never ACTUALLY addressed whether or not the town's creatures are people in another dimension. Like please I get goosebumps every time. Actually still on the topic of SH, Mary's letter from the end of SH2 fucks me up EEEEEEEEEEVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Like bitch you hit me w/ that teary, "James... you made me happy" and I'm checking the fuck out to go evaluate my entire life laying in bed staring at the ceiling lmfao. GOD I don't think I will ever in my life experience a feeling that matches the first time I beat the game. Unbelievable. Five songs that would play in your club? Hmmm, let's see, good club songs... In no order, there could be 1.) "Riot" by Hollywood Undead (first because Mom and I went hard to this song in the car yesterday lmfao she LOVES it), 2.) "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark" by Fall Out Boy, 3.) "Dear Insanity (Revaleso remix)" by Asking Alexandria, 4.) "This Is the New Shit" by Marilyn Manson (that honestly probably tops the list oh my god, what a hype banger), and 5.) ig maybe "Equal Rights, Equal Lefts" by Otep even though it might be a bit much for the setting but can we please do it for the lesbians, like it's not a picturesque club dancing song but considering I would go actually insane if it played in one anyway, it's playin' in my club bitch Favorite website from your childhood? ABSOLUTELY Webkinz, but I was also big into Neopets. Any permanent scars? Yeah, I think, but I barely even know which ones of mine are gonna be permanent or not; I scar very, very easily, so I have like tiny ticks on my arms and stuff from forever ago, and then bigger marks will just... fade away. I don't know how the hell my body operates. Favorite flower(s)? Orchids top the list, but two notable mentions are dahlias and hydrangeas. <3 A fun fact that you don’t know how you learned? Oh god, I should nail this, I know SO much random trivia, lol. Uhhh how about a Disneyland/World rule I find interesting, but weird: if you ask an employee where something is, even if they don't know, they HAVE to direct you in the direction of someone else to ask, and btw they also aren't allowed to point with a finger, but rather make a looser gesture with their hand. No seriously, look at pictures. That place has WILD fucking rules and sounds absolutely miserable overall. ... Oh, I just reread the question, and I can't think of one where I don't know where I got the fact rn. The one I mentioned I learned via Good Mythical Morning years ago, haha. When did you lose your first tooth? Oh, hell if i know. Best plant to grow on a windowsill? Oh lord, I don't know. I know nothing about plants. Luckiest mistake? Uh, a "lucky" mistake... I don't know, this might not be lucky at all and just a pure mistake, but I guess MAYBE accepting Jason's friend request on Facebook because I thought he was a DIFFERENT Jason. I would've declined it if I'd known. Like these days I TRY to view our relationship as "it helped me through high school with good memories," but idk. Maybe I would've been better off never dating him. Oh well. Lamps, overhead lights, sunlight, or fairy lights? I want fairy lights in my room SO. BAD. What social stigma does society need to get over? My friend there are WAY too many immensely important ones to list JUST one. I don't want to NOT give any of them the spotlight with just one answer. When was the last time you immediately regretted what you said? Last night. Which way should toilet paper hang, over or under? I feel like I'm the only person who LITERALLY doesn't care. I just take it out and put it on the roll however way my hands are ready. Do you think you're brave? No, I honestly don't.

[miscelunaaa]

I would like to take a moment to remind everyone that, regardless of what the president says, and regardless of what countless talking head politicians say, there is still a pandemic happening. There are still vulnerable people who are feeling forgotten and unsupported.

This pandemic is not yet like the flu; it is still killing proportionally more, and still I see hardly anything about the untold numbers of people still suffering from the symptoms and scourge of long covid. And even then, we must remind ourselves that thousands of people die from influenza every year, and they were dying unseen and unnoticed. These people are frequently looked over by large media companies and elected officials; they are the elderly, the disabled, those from marginalized communities with little to non-existent access medical care. And they’re just fucking gone.

988,000.

That’s how many people we’ve lost in the United States. That is an enormous number. We cannot conceive of the untold losses there. And again, there is no accounting for the inevitably enormous number of people this pandemic has crippled with long term symptoms.

This blog is run by a person on medication for an autoimmune disease. This medicine suppresses my immune system, and the extent to which it does this is unclear. I am still wearing a mask whenever I leave my home, and yet fewer and fewer people are wearing masks around me. Fewer people are exercising caution when it ought to be exercised.

But still I’m wearing a mask, hardly leaving to go outside, hardly leaving to do anything that involves people. Avoiding the grocery store on busy days, avoiding packed indoor spaces, hoping that the people around me are the vaccinated folks in my county, and not the unvaccinated ones. Hoping desperately that if I have to get emergency medical care, that the people in the waiting room will be masked and vaccinated. With all that said it’s impossible to know who’s actually idiotic enough to not vaccinate. To quote my own unvaccinated mother: “I’m not a danger to society.” Frankly, I disagree, to the tune of nearly a million dead, the number’s increase an inevitability. 

I suppose I don’t really have a solution here, except that I feel so isolated and alone at this point that I can hardly function. And it’s because the people around me, and I mean that generally, can’t even think to exercise a modicum of precaution. This is also to say nothing of the complete and utter lack of scientific literacy that we have in this hellhole country.

This disease needs another few years to stabilize. It’s already endemic, but it’s not stable, not in the same way as the flu, or the common cold, or any number of other diseases that can snuff vulnerable people out. We lost the chance to snuff it out, to slow it down and save people, long ago.

And now we’re here. Who knows what the next surge will be like? I’m sure it’ll be hell for people like me, but a blip on the radar for people who don’t care to care.

I get that you’re tired.

But I have to ask: how do you think the vulnerable feel?

---

posted 4.19.2022

[novelconcepts]

fic: walking with the lady

Every movie, every book, every story about the horrors of letting in the ghosts has prepared Dani for the constant state of alarm. The panic. The discomfort of the situation.

Not a single goddamn one told her how stupid it would be.

***

The first time Viola Lloyd rears her spectral head outside of a dream, Dani is doing her best to enjoy an incredibly pleasant spring morning. She’s been having strange thoughts--strange echoes of night terrors that have been escalating, images weaving as though shot from the depths of some great ocean--for a few months now. Has been trying her very best to take Jamie’s advice and not worry about it. One day at a time. Stop gazing into every reflective surface in the county and just...live. 

And she’s been doing that, she thinks, with a decent amount of peaceful abandon for a woman carrying an unknown beast in the depths of her psyche. She’s traveled. She’s seen much of America, and more of Jamie. She’s learned she’ll never get any better at tea, that she’s honestly not terrible at pasta, that she can talk the ear off old women who just want to stop and smell the flowers. It’s been a serene six, seven, eight years, if she lays them all end to end, and she’s glad of it. 

But the dreams are coming faster now. With more regularity. Long stretches of night fade into black and white, into memories she can feel with her whole body, but knows aren’t her own. Corsets and sweeping skirts, a sister she never had, a husband. A child. None of this belongs to Dani, so it must be her, mustn’t it? 

It scares her. She talks about it to Jamie when she wakes--sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the middle of the night; whether she’s truly awake or not, Jamie always listens. They always hunker back down, holding tight to one another, Jamie whispering into her hair that you’re still here, you’re still you, it’s all okay, Poppins. It helps, as much as anything’s going to. 

What doesn’t help is sitting here on this park bench, a list of shopping plans open in her lap, and hearing--hearing isn’t even the right word for it, it’s like a ringing voice coming up from the very back of her head--someone say, “And what on earth is that?”

Dani sits straight upright, every line of her body rigid with fear. “What...is what?”

She’s said the words out loud, she realizes when an elderly man with a basket of stale bread turns slowly to look at her. Her mouth twists itself into a rictus grin of apology, and he shuffles off, looking very much like a man prepared for his own murder at the hands of a lunatic schoolteacher. 

“Well,” the voice says, coolly amused. “That was embarrassing for us both.”

What, Dani thinks, the fuck is going on?

“What’s going on,” Viola Lloyd’s deep, accented voice says, “is truly beyond my knowledge. Do you know the last time I had this many thoughts of my own? Must have been...oh, three hundred years, now...”

Why, Dani thinks furiously, are you having them now?

“I certainly couldn't say.” Viola sounds astonished. “The last I recall, I was trying to reclaim my child--”

Flora, Dani interrupts with a rush of anger, was not your child. 

She imagines she can feel Viola’s hand flip to and fro, carelessly. “It’s all apples in the end, isn’t it?”

She’s clenching her fists in her lap, she realizes, as if there’s anything to fight. As if she could ward Viola off from inside her own body. 

“Oh,” Viola says coolly, “I wouldn’t worry just yet. I couldn’t say for sure--it’s all rather new, you must understand--but I don’t think I could do anything to you. Not yet. Look, here, I’ll try...”

Dani’s muscles strain against an invisible force that never comes. Viola chuckles. 

“See? Nothing. The lights are on, my dear, but none but you is really home.”

Then why are you awake? Dani demands. 

“Not a clue, darling. It’s nice, though, isn’t it? You really take it for granted in life.”

Take what for--

“Seeing,” Viola breathes. “I haven’t seen anything properly in centuries. I’d forgotten how bright the world was. How full of...color.”

Is it Dani’s imagination, or does Viola’s tone hold an edge of disgust on that final word?

“So, again, I find myself asking. What on earth do you call that?”

Dani allows instinct to turn her head, somehow sensing the direction Viola wishes for her to look. She finds herself staring at a young child playing at her mother’s feet. 

I--it’s... And it’s here, in this moment, faced with the nearly impossible task of explaining to the 400-year-old ghost woman who shares her body what a Slinky is for that Dani Clayton decides this whole cohabitation thing might have been a mistake. 

***

“Hang on,” Jamie says. “Hang on, she’s awake in there?”

Dani, folded nearly double on their couch with her face in her hands, nods. Her head is pounding. Viola has been, ah, what’s the polite way to put it? Running her mouth. For nearly four hours. 

“She’s got some...opinions,” Dani mumbles into her cupped hands. Jamie stops rubbing light circles into her back, curious. 

“About what?”

“Might be a shorter list, to ask what she doesn’t have an opinion about,” Dani says. At the back of her head, she feels Viola cross her arms. 

“This sounds like you are on the path to impudence, Miss Clayton.”

“But hang on, I thought--” Jamie seems to be choosing her words carefully. “I thought she was just sort of...in there. Tucked away, like the kids said. What do you mean she can see?”

Dani blows out a long breath, wishing dearly for a cigarette. “I don’t know, Jamie, I’m not the authority on carrying Victorian women around in my skull.”

“Bit nearer to it than me, Poppins.” Jamie’s smiling, plainly trying to make her feel better. Dani turns to glower at her. 

“I love you very much. Please don’t test me right now. She hasn’t stopped talking for more than twenty minutes all afternoon.”

Jamie raises her hands in surrender. “Can she...can she see me now?”

“Tell her,” Viola says. “Tell her I can see her, and her mannishly-inappropriate hairstyle.”

“I will not be saying that,” Dani mutters. Jamie raises an eyebrow. 

“Are you having a conversation now? What’s she saying?”

“Please let her know I find her insistence upon men’s trousers silly at best, her blouses are entirely too loose, and I am bewildered by the wealth of ankle she seems to find appropriate in mixed company--”

“She says you have a nice smile,” Dani says. Jamie’s eyebrows raise to her hairline. Viola makes a horrible little noise of revulsion.

“How dare you place words in my mouth!”

“You are absolutely not telling me the truth, are you?” Jamie says in the same moment. Dani groans.

“Aspirin. I am going to need so much aspirin.”

***

It’s not all the time, thankfully; Dani thinks she’d go mad if Viola were truly there at all hours, yammering away about silks and petticoats and the good old days when a person could just drop dead of the plague with no notice. Sometimes, Viola even goes days at a stretch without saying a word, as though she’s sunk back to sleep in whatever little corner of Dani’s mind she calls a bedroom. 

And then, like a thunderstorm, she emerges once more. Usually with something snappy and irritating to share with Dani.

“Are we really wearing that?”

“There is no we, Viola,” Dani grumbles. She’s in the process of trying to choose between a flower-patterned dress and a denim vest, unable to gauge what kind of day it’s going to be when she steps out of the closet and into the chaos. Business has been booming down at The Leafling, which is wonderful, but more than a little overwhelming. And Jamie, god love her, has taken to watching Dani when she thinks Dani won’t notice, always with this worried little crease between her eyes. 

It’s making her crazy, if she’s honest about it. Jamie isn’t the worrier in the relationship, and watching her slip into the role is making Dani feel worse about the whole situation. She needs Jamie to tell her it’s all fine, it’s all perfectly all right, they’re going to make it through this new weirdness together no problem. 

“My dear, we became a we the night you said the magic words,” Viola says, a bit pettily. “Or have you forgotten me already?”

“How,” Dani grits out, “on earth am I supposed to forget you? Feel like I spend every day just...waiting for you to spring up and ask some idiotic question about cars or airplanes or deodorant--”

“For a schoolteacher, you surely lack for patience, Miss Clayton.”

Dani closes her eyes, searching for strength. Her hands grope, landing on dress and vest and yanking them free. “You know what? Both. We’re doing both today.”

“We most certainly are not! Not even a glove to be found? And again with the florals! We’ve been over how tacky the florals are, Miss Clayton. Miss Clayton, are you listening?”

“No,” Dani says decisively, wriggling into the layers and looking around for her chunkiest pair of earrings. 

“You are the scandal of the town, Miss Clayton,” Viola sniffs.

***

“Does she, ah...watch when we do this?”

Dani groans. They’d been having such a nice evening--an old movie fading slowly into wandering hands, Jamie’s mouth making its way down her neck, Jamie’s fingers slipping beneath the hem of her shirt and tickling her ribs. She’d just flipped Jamie onto her back, was just looking to remove the deeply inconvenient articles of cloth between them, when Jamie pressed a palm lightly against her chest. 

“Not trying to be weird about it,” Jamie says, breathless. Her eyes are dark and heavy; though she’s stopped Dani moving closer, one of her legs has wound around Dani’s hip, easing her in. It’s giving Dani the worst kind of mixed message, to say the least. 

“Would you like us to put this sort of thing on hold until I find a way to exorcise the demon from my head, Jamie?”

“I did not say that. I decidedly said nothing of the kind.”

Dani lets her head fall forward, covering Jamie’s face in a fall of blonde. “Sorry. That was snippy. I just...I don’t know the answer. She’s...” She tilts her head, eyes shut, searching. “Quiet. For now.”

Jamie brushes her hair back, cups the side of her face, thumb moving in a slow arc across her cheekbone. “S’all right then. Can’t blame me being curious, can you? I mean, it’s not every day you find a third party sneaks into your bed.”

Dani leans into the soft stroke of her hand, sighing. “I don’t like it, either, you know. She’s so...judgey. I hadn’t realized ghosts could be judgey.”

“What’s she judging?” The hand on her chest slides, gripping a fistful of her shirt, pulling her toward Jamie. Dani sighs again, letting Jamie kiss her with the soft determination of someone apologizing for stopping this train in the first place. 

“Me,” she murmurs against Jamie’s lips. “You.”

“Me?” Jamie sounds affronted. “What’s there to judge about me, I’m a bloody peach.”

Dani laughs, bites her lower lip until Jamie groans. “It’s not anything personal. It’s just...the whole world is so different from what she remembers. There’s TV, jean shorts, women out there having jobs and lives without consent of their husbands...for her, it must be the Wild West.”

“Judges what she doesn’t understand, is that it?” Jamie is doing an admirable job of pretending to still be invested in this conversation, even as her hands are making short work of Dani’s sweatpants. Dani sucks in a breath. 

“I guess. Yeah. Can’t blame her for that, really.”

Jamie mulls this over, fingers tracing hipbone. Her nails bite gently into soft skin. “Does she judge us for this, I wonder?”

“Do you care?”

“Not,” Jamie says, twisting her hand and bringing their mouths together hard, “in the least.”

***

“Put it out the window.”

“I am not putting it out the window, Viola.”

“Down a flight of stairs, then! What in all cosmic reaches of hell is this for, if not throwing it somewhere it can never harm another soul again!”

Dani exhales through her nose, slowly, embracing every meditative memory of dealing with errant children. “I am not,” she says slowly to the empty apartment, “going to throw my television anywhere. And I'd really appreciate it if you’d stop making that suggestion every time I turn it on.”

“You are letting your soul rot from the inside out with this filth!” Viola is all but shrieking. Dani imagines her pacing back and forth, back and forth, her hands wild. “Your moral fiber, Miss Clayton. What of your moral fiber?”

“If MTV rots away one’s moral fiber,” Dani says, as calmly as she knows how, “then I suspect we’re all lost causes, anyway.”

Viola is silent for such a long time, Dani thinks she’s done the trick. She turns her attention back to the laundry she’s been folding to the tune of Janet Jackson. Her head bobs gently in time as the videos shuffle past--Madonna, Michael, Paula, George. Then, with the hour change, newer fare. She’s still getting around to some of these artists, still trying to work out how she feels about them. 

"Did you hear that?” Viola seethes. “What was that about an anaconda? Is this man suggesting we feed a woman to snakes? What barbarism do your people accept in this age?”

Dani folds a pair of Jamie’s socks with such deliberate care, she nearly forgets to breathe while doing it. 

“Moral fiber,” Viola hisses. “Moral fiber is wasted on this age of nudity and...and...hammertime.”

Dani finds herself desperately invested in ironing the wrinkles out of a pair of jeans with her hand until Viola goes quiet again.

***

“You could have such nice hair,” Viola croons. “Such nice hair, if you would only put them away...”

“They’re convenient,” Dani says, scraping her hair back into a pink scrunchie. Viola makes a noise of disgust. 

“They’re abhorrent. Honestly, your time and its...fashions. What do you call this?”

She’s gesturing toward the bathroom counter, to the little basket that holds all the hair supplies. Dani sighs. 

“It’s a headband, Viola. We like headbands. They keep the hair out of our eyes.”

“There are other ways. Fine hats. Lovely veils. Why don’t you own any lovely veils, Dani, do you want the common folk seeing your every decision in your eyes?”

Dani reaches for the hairspray. Behind her, Jamie bustles in with shirt half-buttoned, suspenders swinging around her thighs. Viola makes another catty little noise. 

“Any news?” Jamie asks, reaching around for a hairbrush and kissing Dani’s cheek. 

“She doesn’t like scrunchies,” Dani reports. “And she’s started calling me Dani.”

Jamie frowns. “Good sign or bad?”

“Impossible to guess.���

“Tell her you want some veils,” Viola says sweetly. “And for her to learn the value of a fine skirt.”

Dani, ignoring this, reaches around the back of Jamie’s neck and pulls her into a searing kiss. Jamie drops the hairbrush with a clatter, leaning Dani back against the counter and gripping the small of her back like she’s suddenly forgotten they’re both late for work. 

When they break apart, they’re both flushed, Dani giggling into the underside of Jamie’s jaw, Jamie’s eyes glazed. In the back of her mind, she hears Viola sigh. 

“That is truly childish, you know.”

***

It’s kind of an accidental habit, punishing her inner ghost for bad behavior by channeling her frustrations into sex. She couldn’t explain it if she tried, except to say Viola does tend to shut up when Dani’s properly distracted. Maybe it’s just the way the connection works, thinner when Dani isn’t willing to give it energy. Maybe Viola’s embarrassed. Either way, a year after Viola first speaks, her life with Jamie burns hotter than it ever has. 

It’s best when Viola is trying to run her mouth over Jamie’s fashion sense, she’s noticed. It is, in fact, the only way to shut Viola up about the aforementioned fashion sense. Which Dani intellectually understands; coming up from a world 400 years away, where women dressed in endless layers and a person’s value was often found in the shine of her jewels and the rich fabric of her skirts, slamming face-first into the 1990s must have been a trip. Truly, Viola is lucky Dani didn’t cart her out of that lake earlier. If she thinks scrunchies are bad, she should have seen the heyday of shoulder pads. 

Honestly, though, the worst thing is listening to Viola trill on about how much better Jamie could look if she’d only bow to the whims of femininity. Jamie, whose primary word on fashion has always been “can I dig a hole in this?” is perfect just the way she is. In fact, as the years go on and her jeans grow cuffs, her shorts grow shorter, her tops crop midway up her stomach, Dani thinks the world is finally suiting Jamie instead of the other way around. 

“She’s prancing around for the world to see--”

“It’s ninety-six degrees out,” Dani says in a low voice. She understands these conversations with Viola can be internalized, but she tends to wind up wearing this distant expression every time, and Jamie can spot it a mile off. Best to just mutter aloud in the sanctity of their own home. 

“She’s walking her wares up and down the block,” Viola rages on. “Not a shawl to be seen!”

“Jamie,” Dani calls from the kitchen, “have you ever in your life worn a shawl?”

“That’s, uh, one of those blankets with the fringy bits, yeah?” Jamie calls back. She’s bent over the air conditioning unit, trying to coax life into the old girl. The cropped line of her black t-shirt rides up her back, revealing glistening skin. Dani tips her head to enjoy the view. “I’ll pass on account of any blanket in this heat being like to kill me.”

“Best not to test it,” Dani agrees. Viola heaves the longest-suffering sigh Dani’s ever heard. 

“It doesn’t bother you in the least, your woman out there, where anyone could see her...her bare stomach!”

“One,” Dani says coolly, “she’s my girlfriend, not my woman. Two, I’ve never once tried to dictate her clothing, and I’m not stopping because a dead woman insists. Three, I happen to like it.”

“Like what?” Jamie strolls back to her, pushing sweaty hair off her forehead with a sigh. She stops a few inches away, rocking back and forth on her heels like she wants nothing more than to close the distance despite the mind-numbing heat. 

“Viola is commenting upon your more risqué clothing choices.”

“What? This?” Jamie grasps the exceedingly high-cut hem of her shirt and tugs it gently upward, teasing. “What’s her problem with all this?”

“It’s on display, evidently.”

“As it should be,” Jamie says almost primly. “I’m a fine specimen to behold. Learn to enjoy it, love, it’ll be faster than trying to change the view.”

This last, she says in a slightly louder voice, as though speaking to the shadow behind Dani’s eyes. She’s grinning, and Dani has time to think how strange it is, how quickly they’ve learned to accommodate Viola’s appearances into their conversations--Jamie has taken to leaving beats between her sentences, allowing for Dani to process two people speaking at once--before Jamie is wrapping both arms around her and lifting her off the floor. She squeals in surprise, delight turning to desire as Jamie licks a bead of sweat from her neck. 

“Not again,” Viola sighs. “You’ll wake the whole village.”

“Apartment,” Dani corrects, catching Jamie by the jaw and kissing her hungrily. It’s too hot for this, probably, but she can’t quite remember how to care when Jamie pulls free of her grasp and slides to her knees, taking Dani’s skirt with her. 

“It’s a nightmare, regardless.”

***

Eventually, Viola proves herself capable of learning a thing or two. Namely, that she is welcome to run commentary on anyone in the world except for Jamie. 

Even old ghosts can learn new tricks, apparently, although it takes a number of months, a great deal of sex, and one memorable weekend in which--upon Viola raging over every article in Jamie’s side of the closet for half an hour--Dani simply removed the option of clothing from Viola’s sight altogether. 

“This,” Jamie panted, both of them on the floor with a sheet draped over their tangled limbs, “is working for me in the weirdest way, Poppins.”

“I think she’s really starting to hate me,” Dani said conversationally, even as her fingers slipped between Jamie’s legs yet again. Jamie’s hips rose to meet her, one hand burying itself in her hair. 

“Well, that makes one of us, doesn’t it?”

***

Not commenting on Jamie, naturally, does nothing to stop Viola talking about every other goddamn thing in the world. 

“We’re going to have to have a long talk about not shaming women for their bodies, you know,” Dani tells her one afternoon. Viola has been tearing a young woman to pieces over her short skirt, furious that someone so pristine could soil herself with such impunity. Dani must be getting used to this in the weirdest way possible, because this kind of floral language is starting to feel second-nature. 

“I would never shame anyone,” Viola protests. “I am simply stating fact. Men do not value women as it is, and while we may win their games, we get nowhere at all if we do not play them.”

“This isn’t a game, Viola, it’s her life. Her body. She can do whatever she likes with it.”

“But I want her to succeed,” Viola insists. There’s an almost disconcerting eagerness to the words. She really truly believes what she’s saying. “A woman viewed as nothing more than a strumpet will have an even more difficult time securing a dowry, and then where will she be?”

“In college?” Dani suggests blithely. “Traveling? Living isn’t just for men, Viola, I know you know this. You refused the oath of obedience on your wedding day.”

“Of course it’s not for men’s sake alone, but when the law--”

“The law is different here,” Dani says, almost gently. “Has been for a long time. Or haven’t you noticed how well Jamie and I get along without a man to be found?”

Viola’s silence stretches so long, Dani’s sure she’s either gone back to sleep or is finally choosing this moment to let the ugly banner of homophobia unfurl. She’s been waiting for this moment for years, it seems, waiting for the ghost in her head to mimic her mother on the one and only occasion she attempted to send home a letter. 

“You’re different,” Viola says at last, very softly. Dani blinks. 

“Pardon?”

“You’re different,” Viola repeats. “Jamie is your forever. Does that young girl have her forever, Miss Clayton?”

“Well--I don't know, I don’t suppose it’s my business--”

“Perhaps she will find it in one like our Jamie,” Viola says impatiently. “But perhaps she will find instead the stones of men who have not, over four centuries, really changed all that much. Is it so wrong of me, to have a mother’s care for that?”

Dani doesn’t know how to answer. Doesn’t have the first idea, when faced with a Viola who is not simply catty for cattiness’ sake, but genuine. She opens and closes her mouth a few times, unable to find argument. 

“We just. We just don’t pick on girls for what they do with their bodies, all right? It’s...it’s cruel, and it isn’t necessary.”

Viola sighs. “Fine. But we still ought to discuss the pattern choices. Those polka dots are not flattering in the least.”

It’s only later, watching Jamie chop carrots for dinner, that Dani realizes Viola had said our. Our Jamie. 

“Oh sweet Christ,” she mumbles.

***

The change is slow. Subtle. If not for the fact of carrying this woman in her head, Dani’s not sure she even would have noticed. 

“She what?” Jamie looks up from the plant she’s tending, fingernails grimed with soil, wedding ring carefully strung upon a thick chain around her neck until she can clean up again. “She...sorry, what?”

“I can’t be sure,” Dani muses. “It sounds...crazy. But I think she’s starting to like you.”

“Well, sure,” Jamie laughs. “I’m a deeply likable human being. But this is the Lady, yeah? Same one who dragged Peter fucking Quint to his death? Same one who thinks I show too much skin?”

“I’m...not convinced she thinks that anymore.” It’s really hard to say for sure. On the one hand, it’s possible Viola has shut up about Jamie’s shorn sleeves and shorts because every time she mentioned either, Dani made it her personal life’s mission to make sure Jamie never wore anything else around the house. On the other...

“I think she looked at your butt the other day.”

Jamie raises her eyes slowly, brow furrowing. “Can she do that? Turn your eyes to something you weren’t already looking at?”

“No,” Dani says, a bit stiffly, all too aware of stepping into the trap. Jamie grins. 

“Thought not.”

“But it was different,” Dani presses on through flushing cheeks. “I mean--even if I was already looking, she was--I mean--she--”

She doesn’t know how to explain it. How the rumble in her chest, already so familiar at the sight of Jamie puttering around their home, had seemed to expand until it encompassed all of her. How it was like someone had turned the heat in the room to its breaking point. 

“I can just tell, okay?” she says, aggrieved. “She looked at your butt, and she liked it.”

Jamie makes a thoughtful face, brushing dirt off her hands with slow, deliberate motions. “So...what you’re saying is...your personal ghostie has a crush on your wife?”

Dani presses her face against the counter, letting the cool metal relieve her blush. “Shit. Yeah. I think she might.”

“This is,” Jamie says triumphantly, pressing up against Dani from behind and kissing the back of her neck, “the funniest thing that has ever happened, by a country goddamn mile.”

***

A series of events, cascading in short order, that Dani almost actually feels bad about. If one could feel guilty about putting strain on one’s personal-pan Casper. 

The Britney Spears video, for one. Viola still does not like music videos--or music, frankly, unless it involves a ridiculous number of flutes and orchestral swells--but she’s grown to tolerate them. Mostly. 

That is, until Britney sways onscreen in a plaid skirt and schoolgirl pigtails. 

“Fuck,” Dani gasps, hand coming down hard against her own breastbone. It’s like someone grabbed the dial on her blood pressure and cranked it all the way up. That someone, she suspects, being the dead woman who has been more and more present of late. 

“I--I cannot--I simply am not capable of understanding--” Viola sounds like she’s short-circuiting. “I know we are not meant to comment, but what on earth is she doing?!”

“Dancing,” Dani says sharply, trying to coax her breathing back down. Is this what a stroke feels like? Is her fucking ghost roommate giving her an actual stroke? “Viola, you’ve seen dancing.”

“She is so young! She is a child! Who is protecting this person from the world?” Viola is furious. Viola is exploding. Dani sort of wonders if her chest is going to explode, too. 

“She’s...a pop star. This is what they get paid lots and lots of money to do.” It’s a bad answer, she knows. These videos make her a little uncomfortable too, when she thinks on them too long. But Viola? Viola’s rage is a towering beast of a thing. For a minute, lungs scraping at the air, Dani is genuinely afraid this is the point where the switch flips. Where she finds herself staring at the room from the back of her own head. 

“Someone,” Viola says in a low, terrible voice, “must protect these children.”

It takes almost an hour to calm her down. Dani doesn’t turn MTV back on for a while after that. 

***

“The. The moon?” The opposite end of the emotional spectrum this time. If Viola had been nearly apoplectic over Britney’s choreography, she now sounds faint.

“You should have floated that a bit more softly,” Dani tells Jamie, who looks confused. 

“Float what, all I did was mention NASA--”

“The moon,” Viola repeats. “We have seen. The moon.”

“She’s having trouble with the moon landing,” Dani says. Jamie waves her hands helplessly.

“Poppins, I have trouble understanding the geography of Texas, we all have problems.”

“We have,” Viola breathes, “stepped foot. Upon. The moon.”

Dani pours herself another large glass of wine.

***

“How’s this, then?” Jamie gives a very small, somewhat self-conscious twirl. “Too much? Too little? Too, ah, revealing, as the ghost contingent might say?”

Dani, leaning against the bedroom wall, can’t quite find the words. Viola, too, is conspicuously silent. 

“It’s bad,” Jamie says, nodding fervently. “Yeah, y’know, I think I knew it when I picked it up. Better on the sales rack, as they say. I can just...if you wouldn’t mind popping the zip real quick...”

“Yes, Dani,” Viola says quietly. “Pop the zip.”

“You don’t even know what that means,” Dani hisses. Jamie raises an eyebrow.

“What’s that?”

“It’s not bad,” Dani says quickly, ignoring the little harrumph Viola utters. “It’s very not bad. Opposite of bad, really.”

Relief floods Jamie’s face. The dress is low cut in a way very little of her clean-up clothes are, with a slit running clear up the leg. Patterned in burgundy petals, the black velvet is stark against her pale skin. 

“I won’t get run out of the convention, then? Only they said there’s a bit about drinks and networking, and it was just shy of black-tie. I could do that instead. Get a black tie. Think I’d look nice in a black tie.”

“The dress,” Viola says in a low, conspiratorial voice. “Tell her it is a nice dress.”

“It’s a nice dress,” Dani repeats with comic dazedness. “Best dress I’ve ever seen, maybe.”

“And now,” Viola says soothingly, “you go to her. Walk confidently now, shoulders back, chin up--”

“Are you...wing-man-ing me toward my own wife?” 

“Seduction requires confidence, Dani.”

“What’s she saying?” Jamie’s face has gone a curious mix of apprehensive and amused. Dani swallows. 

“Seduction requires confidence, evidently.” 

A slow grin spreads across Jamie’s face. Dani raises a hand, finger extended. 

“Don’t. Don’t make that smug face.”

“What’s smug about it?” She’s moving across the room, arms already reaching. “This is my very natural expression, I’ll have you know. The most normal expression in the world for a woman whose wife is being told to undress her by the ancient rage-ghost sharing her body.”

“Our lives,” Dani says helplessly, already pressing herself flush against Jamie, “are different than other people’s lives.”

“Yes,” Jamie agrees in a low voice, sliding the sweater over Dani’s head. “Can’t find it in me to complain, though, can you?”

***

It’s weird, almost. Weirder, that it’s almost not. That the beast in the jungle, the creature Dani spent nearly a decade dreading, has pounced at last and...mostly, she just seems to want to see Dani happy. 

Jamie finds it hilarious, in that pretend-callous way Jamie has of smoothing over genuine concern with soft laughter. She doesn’t like Dani sharing her mental space with someone at all hours, Viola popping up like a wack-a-mole game on high. But, if Dani must share the space with anyone, at least--

“It’s someone who thinks I'm gorgeous.”

“You are gorgeous,” Dani replies, a bit exasperated. “Gorgeous, silly, perfect person. But my inner ghost has a crush on you, that isn’t strange for you?”

“Poppins, my life has been strange since a doe-eyed American strolled into it and told me she still saw her dead fiancé when we kissed.” Jamie reclines on the bed in a sleep shirt and underwear, hands playing lightly with the pillowcase beneath her head. “Strange is my bread and butter these days, and if I had to sacrifice you to have it any other way, we both know how it would go.”

Dani makes a mulish sound under her breath. Jamie cups a hand to her ear. 

“Say again?”

“It’s weird,” she repeats, arms crossed over her chest. “She’s weird. I always thought she’d do something bad--walk me off a roof, or strangle someone to death, or try to rob a convenience store. But mostly she just wants to protect young girls from an uncaring world and look at your butt in the shower.”

“That is...very specific,” Jamie says lightly. Dani shakes her head. 

“It’s so bizarre. The longer this goes on, the more she sees of the world, it’s like...like she’s getting more real. More Viola, less Lady.”

Jamie sits up, hand sliding to rest high on Dani’s thigh as if to shield her from harm. “But not more solid, right? Not taking up space you already rent?”

Dani shakes her head. “That’s the thing. She doesn't feel like she’s taking over. And it feels...like she should.”

“You want her to?” 

“No, no, of course not.” Dani raises Jamie’s knuckles to her lips, raining soft kisses up and down her hand until the tension goes out of her brow. “I just don’t understand what’s happening. This isn’t...what I expected.”

Jamie exhales, shifting her weight until she’s sitting in Dani’s lap. She takes a Dani’s face between her hands, kisses her long and slow until Dani eases back against the headboard. 

“This is good, Poppins. You’re a good influence. You were on those kids, and on me, and now on this Lady of yours. Maybe that’s all a ghost needs, deep down.”

Dani leans into her, lets the rhythm of kiss and gentle bite and hands slipping beneath her clothes carry her away for a while. Still, no Viola, and she’s grateful. She doesn’t like to think how that would feel, Viola popping up while Jamie’s curling her fingers deep, groaning soft against her shoulder. There is a time and a place for hauntings, and time with Jamie is something else entirely. 

She’s pretty sure Viola even respects that. Which is, like everything else, incredibly strange. 

***

Viola attends their second wedding. Their real wedding. It’s bizarre on a level Dani isn’t prepared to deal with, feeling her surface as the plans become reality. Jamie’s got flowers, naturally, and Owen’s catering, and Henry has the kids--who are kids no longer, but fully-formed people with lives of their own--running errands on the day. And Dani...

Dani is looking at herself in a wedding dress for the second time in her life, only this time, she can breathe. 

“You are radiant,” Viola says. Dani closes her eyes for a moment, steels herself. 

“Nothing else to say? No notes?”

“You chose wisely,” Viola says. Dani sighs. 

“I figured lace was classic, and someone told me I had nice shoulders once, so--”

“The dress is beautiful,” Viola says. “But I was not talking about your grooming for the day.”

Dani gives a shaky laugh. “I love her, you know. I really do.”

“I can tell.” A beat of silence. Then: “I did not understand at first. Her. Or you. I suppose I will never understand completely. But...I understand the depths of what you feel. It is a part of me, too, I think. That devotion, sinking into all the spaces where I had forgotten.”

“You’re in love with Jamie, too?” Dani asks, not really wanting the answer. Viola laughs. 

“Yes. And no. You and I are intertwined, Miss Clayton. What you feel, I feel, to a degree. More importantly, I have seen your life with her. The life you build with the reckless joy of two people doomed one day to die.”

“Thanks,” Dani says, a bit sharply. She senses Viola putting her hands up, a terribly-modern gesture of surrender. 

“You understand what I mean. It takes courage, to love this completely. To do so while carrying a burden neither of us can truly comprehend is...something else altogether. There is a strength there I could not have understood on my most willful of days.”

“You turned Death away at your own doorstep,” Dani points out, smiling. Viola is pleased. 

“I did, didn’t I? And I could never regret it, even now. But you. You are doing something so much more incredible. Loving, even knowing what ending love must craft.”

“This is a bit dark for my wedding day,” Dani points out. Viola nods. 

“You are radiant. And you are fortunate. And I wish you both all the happiness in the world.”

It is the strangest wedding toast she’s ever heard, and something within Dani’s heart has never been more at peace.

***

“How’s our Lady doing tonight?” Jamie asks as Dani slips into bed beside her. She tips her head, thinking on it. Viola, as she usually is once Dani crosses the bedroom threshold, is nowhere to be found. 

“Good, I think. Calm.”

“And my wife?” Jamie looks at her, eyes serious. “You’ve been quieter lately. Fighting her less?”

“She’s been fighting me less,” Dani says. “She...likes it here, I think. Likes us. You know, I thought after this much time, she’d get bored or restless or...go back to her old ways, but...”

“But I’m just too gorgeous,” Jamie teases. Dani slings a leg across her body, holds tight to her with hands that never feel as though they can hold on hard enough. 

“I think sometimes...sometimes it’s just about remembering. What it’s like to be a person. What it’s like to be in love.”

“Mm,” Jamie agrees, fingertips drawing dizzying spirals on the bare back of Dani’s shoulder. “Well done, you. You’ve tamed your beast.”

Dani sighs, content. “I think it was a joint effort.”

“Yes,” Jamie agrees, kissing the top of her head. “Because I am, famously, too gorgeous to deny.”

[enigmalynne]

Something to be Thankful For - Chapter 4

Title – Something to be Thankful For Pairings – Jensen/Reader Word Count – 1,146 Warnings – RATED R FOR: Violence in the form of a mass bombing/shooting, injuries both explained and detailed, cursing SPNMixedBingo Square filled – Thanksgiving

Jensen Ackles’ life changes when he walks into his favorite coffee shop and meets Y/N, a Florida girl making a new start in Austin, Texas, as a Sheriff’s Deputy with the help of her sister. The two hit it off and quickly become an item that even the tabloids can’t tear apart. Jensen is excited to show his girl off at Thanksgiving dinner with his family, but she has to work the parade that morning first. What starts out as a normal event filled with balloons, clowns, and cheery faces soon turns deadly as one of the floats explodes and gunfire fills the air. Soon, Y/N is in a fight for her life as she and the rest of the deputies fight back against whoever it is trying to take over Downtown Austin.

Is Jensen doomed to watch the woman who brought love back into his life perish in a tragic mass attack, or will he have Something to be Thankful For after all?

Chapter 4

Holly clutched at her necklace as she watched the television screen. Her heart raced, not knowing where her sister was in that mess. The news was calling it a terrorist attack; something she was certain her sister wouldn’t see as a law enforcement officer.

“Holly…” she heard a familiar voice say. With wide, scared eyes, Holly turned and looked into the terrified face of Jensen, who had Jared in tow.

Holly slowly turned her head to look back at the news, just as the news chopper on screen captured another explosion at the parade happening downtown. Holly gasped as they watched a deputy get thrown by the explosion. At the same time, the chopper flew at a dangerous angle to get out of the way of the flames that were flying upward. The screen flicked back to two stricken-looking anchors on set.

“Holy shit,” Jared breathed.

“I don’t know where Y/N is,” Holly whispered.

“Okay, I’ve about had it with these douchebags,” Danny muttered. Y/N shook her head.

“Whatever you are thinking, don’t do it,” her rough voice ground out. She was leaning back against the car, eyes closed.

“I say we head in that direction. Cause a distraction. Give SWAT a chance to get into that building. Take out the fuck face that is blowing these bombs up. We’ve gotta end this.” Another male voice said with a shake of his head.

“No. Let’s just stay here. We are outgunned. SWAT has armor and we don’t,” Y/N said.

“Yeah, but some of us got military experience,” a third voice said. “We’ve beat these odds before.”

“I have a dislocated shoulder and a concussion,” Y/N said. “Danny, you have what I’m sure is a busted knee based on how you are moving. You, dude I don’t know, that has got to be a gunshot wound in that arm. And SWAT is right there.” Everyone turned to look at where she was pointing, the large armored vehicle speeding down the destroyed street.

“Just give them another minute,” Y/N pleaded.

“Then we can keep ‘em distracted,” Danny said, getting ready to run. The rest of the guys crouched and double-checked their weapons.

“No. C’mon, just wait,” Y/N warned. She grabbed Danny’s arm with her good hand, moving to a squat anyway. She already knew she lost the men to this daredevil idea. “Don’t do this. This is signing your death warrant.”

“You stay here and get the two on the right, Newbie,” he said with a cocky smirk, wiggling his brows. He then darted out into the open, three other deputies on his heels. Gunfire erupted.

Y/N cursed, jumping up and firing with one arm clutched to her chest. She watched as one of the two she was targeting went down and as she aimed at the second, she glanced at Danny. He got three shots off before he took a bullet to the left side of his neck.

The blood spay was large, and she forced herself to look away. She knew he’d be dead before his body hit the ground, and that pain was channeled into her trigger finger as she rapid-fire shot at the assholes who ruined what was supposed to be a cake assignment.

Holly, Jensen, Jared, and the rest of the patrons at The Last Drip watched in horror as the carnage unfolded on the television screen in front of them. Holly didn’t realize that she was crying silent tears until Jared handed her some tissues. Holly took them with a nod of thanks.

“I’m so sorry, I’m just so scared,” Holly muttered quietly. Jared shook his head.

“You have every right to be,” he said, before turning to look at Jensen. Both saw how rigidly he held himself, eyes glued to the screen with hopes of catching just a glimpse of the woman that had taken his heart. “You aren’t the only one, either.”

“What am I supposed to do if she dies? She’s my sister, the only family I have left,” Holly muttered softly, her eyes focused back on the television screen. “I don’t know how to live without her.”

“She’ll make it home,” Jared said. “She has to. She has a very special Christmas to look forward to.”

Y/N leaned back against the vehicle she was hiding behind and did a quick inventory.

Concussion? Check.

Dislocated shoulder, crudely put back in place? Check.

Massive hearing issue and bleeding from one ear? Check.

What is going to be a fantastic pattern of bruising on her back? Check.

Countless scratches and cuts, including a gouge at her hip where she got grazed by a stray bullet? Check, Check, and Check.

There was also that strange burning sensation in her leg that she hadn’t looked at yet. Overall, Y/N was starting to feel the blood loss and the concussion, her adrenaline running dangerously low. She was collapsed behind an overturned car, her head resting against the side panel. However, she heard footsteps fast approaching where she was hiding. She knew if she wanted to see Jensen or Holly again, she had to find some kind of reserve energy to lift her arm and aim her gun at the man heading toward her.

The relief that raced through her veins when it was a Tavis County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team member that turned the corner caused her to lose consciousness completely.

It had been hours since they finally neutralized the men that caused the attack on the Thanksgiving Day Parade in Austin. The news stations continued showing video of the explosions and Holly finally had to turn away before she had her third meltdown of the day.

Both she and Jensen had been calling Y/N for hours and there had been no response. Holly was thinking the worst. Jensen refused to believe it. He promised to give thanks to whatever God was listening if Y/N would just answer her phone… or sent another sign that she was alive.

All eyes turned to the door when it opened, and you could hear gasps when a uniformed deputy walked in. His eyes scanned the area, darting to the screen that showed news coverage. He frowned at it and then looked at the people watching him once again.

Holly and Jensen stood from where they were at and stepped together, clutching each other’s hands. Jared’s wide eyes watched from where he stood next to Jensen. Holly was shaking, on the verge of panic. Wasn’t this what they did when they were letting family members know that their loved ones had died? Is he here to tell her that Y/N was gone?

“Is there a Holly I can speak to?” the deputy asked kindly, his eyes and voice kind. Holly swallowed as all eyes swung to her.

TAG LISTS

Supernatural:

@akshi8278 @vicmc624 @agirlwithdemonblood @flamencodiva @hobby27 @mimaria420 @compresshischest09 @kkrivers @deanwanddamons @lovelyrocker

Jensen/Dean Taglist

@deandreamernp @siospins @sacriceria @sexyvixen7 @lanea-1 @nancymcl

Something to be Thankful For Taglist:

@wayward-gypsy @stoneyggirl2

[calif0rnia-lovers]

southpaw.

A/N: I combined two requests for this one.

“Thanks for coming to bail me out, ____.” “I came to bail you out so that I can fucking kill you.” +  being bishop’s old lady and best friends with Angel who ends up getting arrested with you one night

Pairing: Angel Reyes x Bishop Losa x Reader

Summary: When a night out gets a little hectic, you and Angel find yourself in a holding cell. Instead of calling Bishop, Angel calls Ez to bail you out. No matter how many times you swear Bishop is “a softy at heart”, Angel is still scared shitless of him. Being the person you’re with the first time you get arrested isn’t going to win him any favors with the President. 

Words: 2.3K

Somehow your brain manages to send a message to your overreacting body. 

Relax.

You come to a halt in the center of the holding cell. 

You have been pacing for the last fifteen minutes. The action had you so preoccupied you couldn't even feel the pain from your swollen hand. 

Biting your lip, you study the damage before shaking your hand out. You wince as you flex your fingers, your heart leaping in your chest at the sound of clinking metal.

A mixture of relief and panic well in your chest as you take in your best friend, Angel Reyes. 

Flanked by two officers of the Santo Padre police department, Angel gives you a warm smile as the cell is unlocked.

"Try not to start any more shit, Reyes," Franky sighs as Angel steps inside to join you. His eyes pass over you, the scowl on his face softening once he takes in your current state. "I'll be back with some ice in a bit, Y/N."

You offer a polite smile. "Thanks, Franky." 

You wait until the door is locked, and the officers are leaving to turn to Angel. 

"Did you call Bishop?" 

Angel's laughter fills the cramped cell, his brown eyes rolling as he passes you. His laugh rings throughout the room well after he's layed out across the bottom bunk of the holding cell. Tucking his arm under his head, he allows his eyes to drift shut. 

"Angel?"

Angel releases a breath, his eyes remaining closed, trying his best to ignore your panicked gaze.

"No, Y/N," he scoffs. "I did not call Bishop. That's the last person I would call right now." 

A silence falls over the room. 

You remain where you stand, back against the locked county cell door. Angel reaches back to adjust the pillow beneath him before returning to his relaxed state. 

Your arms lift into the air.

"Then who the hell did you call, Angel? In case you haven't noticed, we're in a freaking jail cell." 

Angel rolls his eyes. 

"Relax, Mayweather, it's just a holding cell." Pushing himself up, Angel runs his fingers through his hair. "Ezekiel's on his way."

"Thank God." 

He was hoping the news would be enough to make you relax, but before he can even blink you're pacing. 

Angel allows you to get off a few laps before letting his trademark grin spread across his lips. You catch sight of it out the corner of your eye, your pace slowing.

"What?"

"Franky likes you," he smirks, his brows wagging suggestively. "If you ask nicely, he’ll let you keep the cuffs. You can take 'em home with you."

"Shut up."

Getting up, Angel crosses the cell to meet you by the bars. He rests his shoulder against them before chuckling. He lightly bumps your shoulder, waiting until you glance over at him to smile.

"Relax. They’re not gonna charge you."

"I broke his nose, Angel." 

"It was fucking awesome by the way," Angel chuckles, it dying out with one look at your face. 

Your face drops into your hands. 

The memory running back for another loop in your mind. 

Angel had shown up at your house, a mischievous smile, and a plan for going out for a game of pool in tow. The drunk guy, who had his ass handed to him, didn't take too kindly to you taking his money. One second he had hands on your waist, the next you'd punched him. 

Of course, the alcohol in his system paired with his embarrassment led to him grabbing you which then led to Angel getting involved. Five minutes later, Franky's slipping you two into the back of his cruiser while his overeager rookie partner tries to cuff your poor victim. 

"How are you not freaking out right now?" You groan, your head resting against Angel's shoulder.

"I’m preparing for my mug shot."

Angel laughs as you push against his arm.

"Shut up." You laugh weakly.

"If they do book us, we'll hang your mug shot up next to mine and Ez's." He chuckles. "Induct you into the hall of fame."

As much as you hate what's happened, you find that per usual Angel's demeanor is slowly but surely helping you relax. 

"I can't believe it took you this long to wind up here," Angel teases. "As long as you've hung around me."

"I'm supposed to be the moral compass, remember," you giggle. 

A silence falls over the cell as you allow Angel to look over your hand. He drapes his arm over your shoulder before grinning.

"Pretty sure piggy over there, once he got his nose checked out, was shittin' bricks when his friends let him in on a little secret." Taking in your furrowed brow, Angel rolls his eyes. "That the girl he tried to feel up at the bar is Bishop’s Old Lady."

Silence falls over the two of you. 

His words hanging in the air as your nose scrunches in confusion.

You surprise him by allowing a laugh of disbelief to fill the room. 

"I am not Bishop's old lady," you giggle. 

Now it’s Angel's time to laugh.

He must admit. Angel wasn't too excited when he noticed you and Bishop getting close. It was too weird for him to think about. But as three months passed and you two continued to see each other, he realized it was better just to roll with it. 

"I’m serious, Angel."

"I know," he laughs, the sound mingling with his gasps of breath. "That’s what makes this so funny!"

Your roll your eyes, but find a heat setting in on your face as his laughter continues. You bite your lip.

The many nights spent wrapped in your sheets, his lips on yours, almost outweighed the phone calls, smiles and kisses shared with the President. The transition from his harmless flirting to terms of endearment so seamless it was easy to forget it hadn't always been that way. 

You let Angel's words pass back through your mind.

"He hasn't called me that," you offer up as you glance over at your best friend. "So I can't be that. Can I?"

Before Angel can answer, a tap comes on the cell bar causing you both to jump.

Turning, you find the same guy from earlier in the evening. With Franky behind him, it seems he's completely sobered up. In the light of the county sheriff's office, he looks completely different than the handsy drunk from just an hour before. 

You take in the bruise forming beneath his eyes, the swelling of his nose causing you to flex your hand. Angel stifles his laugh at the sight of your damage as your elbow digs into his side

Franky steps forward unlocking the gate. He motions for Angel to step forward. 

"You two are free to go. We're letting you off with a warning this time," Franky explains at the confusion on your face. He clamps his hand down on the young officer's shoulder. The young man's eyes narrow as they pass over Angel’s smirk. His eyes flick to yours for half a second, his ears turning red as he adverts his gaze. 

"Maybe we’ll see you around, officer," Angel smiles as he steps forward. Sliding past him, Angel winks. "Let you get a rematch, chance to win back your money."

Shoving against Angel's back you attempt to follow, but your tracks are halted as you feel a hand on your elbow.

His grip loosens, falling away as quickly as it had come. 

The officer meets your gaze for a moment before clearing his throat. When he speaks his words are clear but carefully chosen. 

"I’m sorry for the inconvenience, ma'am." He says. "I had too much to drink. I apologize if I made you uncomfortable."

Before you can respond he stalks off, shooting Angel a glare as he passes.

By the time you catch up with Angel, he's nearly out the lobby. 

When you step outside, the first thing you notice is the weight that instantly lifts off your shoulder at the feeling of the night air. 

The second is the sight of Ez, Coco, and Gilly who are waiting in the nearly empty parking lot. Coco and Gilly are sporting grins that mirror Angels, Ez for once is not following suit.

"Thanks, little brother," Angel calls as he crosses the lot. 

"I didn't do anything," Ez mumbles as Angel's arm drapes over his shoulders. "I didn't even have to pay."

"I know," Angel chuckles nodding in your direction. "Southpaw over here had them scared shitless. They didn't even book us."

"Good," Coco chuckles as he passes Angel his dwindling cigarette. "Hey, Gil? You think that'll make Bishop ease up on his ass whooping?"

"What?" 

Angel's pace slows as he takes in the President who waits across the lot. 

"Come on, Ez." he groans, his neck rolling as he punches his younger brother's shoulder. "You called Bish-"

"I didn't call him," Ez rubs at the back of his neck. "He was right there when you called."

"You couldn't lie? You lied to me for months, with a straight fucking face might I add."

A silence falls over the group as they watch Bishop. He remains seated on his back, arms casually crossed over his shoulders. Although his expression is calm Angel can't help but nervously take a drag. 

Ez mumbles. "Shit, Angel. You know how he is. He's got that..."

"All-knowing fucking gaze, I know," Angel curses before dropping the cigarette to the ground. 

"Relax," you laugh as you pass the boys. "You guys give him too much credit. He's not even that scary."

"That's because he actually likes you," Angel shakes his head as Bishop starts in your direction. 

"Don't be jealous," you tease. "It's not a good look on you, Reyes."

"Thanks for coming to bail me out, Bish." Angel jokes, cautiously testing the waters, as the President stops by your side. "Looks like you got to keep your money since we-"

“I came to bail you out so that I can fucking kill you.” 

"Hey," lightly slapping Bishop's chest, you give him a stern look. "Play nice."

"I'm not playing." 

A wave of panic slides across Angel's face as he takes in the look on Bishop's face. It's a look that each Mayan knew very well. For a man with no children, Bishop has a way of making Angel fear for the safety of his own life in a way his father never could. 

Angel shifts uncomfortably as your arms wrap around Bishop's waist. You place a kiss against Bishop's cheek before smiling. 

"Believe it or not. Angel didn't start trouble tonight. He just finished it." 

Bishop's eyes hold Angel's for a moment longer before drifting over to you. Taking in your smile, he allows his eyes to pass over your features. 

It only takes a second for him to note your swollen hand. Lifting your fingers, he places a kiss against your knuckles. His brow raises as you give him an innocent smile. Angel relaxes, only slightly, as Bishop ducks down to place a second kiss against your skin.

"I wish I could've seen it." Gilly breaks the silence, pulling a grin to your face. "We always knew you were a firecracker, Y/N. But punching a cop?" 

"Now we know who keeps you in check," Tranq chuckles as he claps his hand on Bishop's shoulder. 

"Guess the cat's out the bag," Bishop sighs as his arm wraps around your waist.

"We’re gonna have to get a cake to celebrate this momentous moment," Ez teases as you roll your eyes. "You're officially apart of the club, Y/N."

"Maybe you can convince Bish to bring me on as protection," you giggle.

As Angel begins to reenact the play by play, of how the evening unfolded, for the boys, you tighten your grip around Bishop's waist.

You smile as your lips press against his neck. Nuzzling against his skin, you relax for the first time tonight. 

Pulling back, you take in Bishop's furrowed brow. His eyes are over your shoulder focused on the sheriff's station. 

"Can you please say thank you to Angel?" You ask your question pulling his focus back to you.

Bishop's brow arches, the corner of his lips twitching up to a smile. 

"Say thank you?" He tilts his head. "I didn't kill him. That's enough of a thank you."

"Bish, I'm serious." You giggle. "Believe it or not. You're pretty freaking scary when you wanna be. Angel may front like he has a big bark, but he's scared of you."

"As he should be."

You roll your eyes as his lips press a kiss against your forehead. 

"I appreciate him looking out for you," he says. "But apparently you don't need it. I gotta start sending the Prospect to watch you too from now on?"

Bishop's lips press against your swollen knuckles. His eyes lift to meet yours, a hint of concern inside. 

"You okay?"

You know his question is not about your swollen hand. 

Nodding, you smile as his lips press another kiss against your skin.

"But I'll be twenty times better if you talk to Angel." 

The corner of his lips twitches as you shoot him a smile.

Bishop nods, turning to lead you to his bike. He takes a step before turning to find Angel cautiously watching your departure. 

"Angel." The group falls silent as Bishop wraps his arm around your shoulder. "Thanks for looking out for her."

Angel finally relaxes as a smile spreads across his face. Nodding, he shoots you a wink as you drag Bishop towards his bike. 

"So," you sigh as Bishop concentrates on slipping his helmet on you. "Is this a first?"

"Showing up here to bail Angel out?" He chuckles as he fastens the straps beneath your chin. 

"I meant bailing out your Old Lady?"

Bishop looks up, the corner of his mouth turning up. 

"Depends," he shrugs. "Is that what they’re calling you now?"

[spencereliotwinchester]

That Summer Storm Chapter Two

Title: That Summer Storm Chapter Two

Chapter Title: Once Upon a Midnight Dreary

Author: Kat

Reader Gender: Female

Word Count: 2k

Series Summary:

Jensen kept his eyes on the floor, but nodded his understanding. He was too scared to look up into the guard’s face; he didn’t even trust his voice not to break. He didn’t look up until he heard the click-lock sound of his door. The room was very small. Along one wall was a set of metal-framed bunk beds. The far wall had a small desk with a stool. Opposite the bunk beds was a toilet and sink.

He sat down on the bottom bunk, head in his hands. I shouldn’t be here, I’m only fifteen, the thought ran through his head on a loop. This was not how his life was supposed to go. Jensen rubbed his knuckles into his forehead, hard. The sobs of his mother would haunt him. It had been all he could hear the entire van ride back to juvenile hall.

Warnings: There will be feelings!

Chapter Warnings: Solitary Madness, anxiety attack

Catch Up HERE

A/N: Little bit longer of a chapter. Next one may be a bit shorter. Please please please reblog or let me know what you think!!

Character: Jensen Ackles

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Tags:

@iwantthedean@lyarr24@janicho88@deans-baby-momma@sandlee44@mrswhozeewhatsis@blacktithe7@torn-and-frayed@the-jette-blog@supernatural-jackles@sacriceria@siospins@negans-lucille-tblr@eve-loves-apples@myinconnelly1@mariekoukie6661@stoneyggirl2@thisisallicansay@jjrp-obsessed67@amyzombie1013@mrskcreeves95

---

The door click-locked shut and Jensen pressed himself into the corner of the room. He was hyperventilating and failing to calm himself down. Pressing his entire side into the cool wall and squeezing his eyes shut, Jensen tried to block out everything except the feeling of the wall. It barely registered that the door to the room opened and shut again.

“What are you doing?” It was the same voice that came to his rescue out in the yard, though it sounded reproachful. Padalecki moved around the room for awhile, pacing, then Jensen heard the top bunk bed creak. “Don’t let Roger catch you like that. He’ll throw your ass in solitary-”

“There’s too much space!” Jensen gasped. He slid down the wall, crouching in the corner.

“Jesus, did Tito dose you or something?” The bed creaked again, then there were footsteps coming toward Jensen.

Jensen started trembling, thinking back to Padalecki’s words: “he’s mine.” He’d heard stories about detention centers, stories that made his skin crawl. Now here he was, about to live through it. Instead of the rough hands Jensen had expected, a blanket was wrapped around him, tightly. The pressure around his body let him relax, finally. Jensen opened his eyes and was met with the hazel-brown eyes of his roommate.

Padalecki was tall, taller even than Jensen. He was lean and well built though. His eyes were hard, though, unkind, which was completely unmatching his actions. Padalecki had the blanket in his hands, pulling it as tightly as he could around Jensen’s body.

“Chill out, will you, Jensen? Fucking stupid name, by the way,” Padalecki said, rolling his eyes. He tied the blanket and moved away from Jensen, climbing back up to the top bunk.

Jensen moved to his bunk, slowly. He curled up as close to the wall as he could. He pulled the blanket tightly around him.

“It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea, that a maiden there lived whom you may know by the name of Annabel Lee; and this maiden she lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me,” Padalecki’s voice was soft as it drifted from the top bunk. “I was a child and she was a child, in this kingdom by the sea, but we loved with a love that was more than love - I and my Annabel Lee - With a love that the winged seraphs of Heaven coveted her and me.”

Padalecki read the entire poem in his soft, calming voice. By the end, Jensen’s breathing had finally returned to normal and he felt better than he had since he’d been arrested.

“Thanks, Padalecki,” Jensen whispered; he was unsure if Padalecki had even heard him.

“You can call me Jared,” came a few minutes later.

--May 1996--

Life at Travis County Correctional became a mundane routine for Jensen. Monday through Friday they had school and on the weekends they had more recreational time, but the schedule never deviated. Jensen and Jared had even fallen into a nightly routine, at nine pm they were sent to their room and had one hour of quiet time before lights out. They would get into their respective bunks and Jared would quietly read from his one and only possession: The Complete Tales & Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. They’d gone through the whole book at least three times, but neither of them seemed to care.

Late one night, Jensen was suddenly startled awake by the sound of laughing. It started as a low snicker but quickly worked itself up into shrieks. Jensen scrambled out of bed to find Jared sitting at the desk. He turned quickly and locked eyes with Jensen. There was no mirth in his laughter and his eyes were black and dangerous looking. Jensen’s heart was suddenly in his throat and he backed up until he came into contact with the door.

“Jared?” Jensen’s voice quivered in fear.

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, over many a quaint and curious of forgotten lore - While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door…” Jared’s voice was suddenly smooth, even, and it scared Jensen even more. Jared pointed a finger at Jensen, indicating to him to continue.

“‘Tis some visitor,’” Jensen squeaked, but his voice failed him. He turned and pressed the emergency call button that was located to the right of the door. Jared started laughing again, low and evil. He was still laughing when Barney, the night guard, came through the door. Jensen threw himself into the corner.

“There better be someone…” Barney’s voice died out as his flashlight fell on Jared, still laughing maniacally.

Barney called into his radio for backup and it was quick to arrive. They carted Jared off, but Barney stayed behind. He was a middle-aged black man, with kind brown eyes, and a little extra weight around his middle. His radio crackled, but Jensen couldn’t understand a word that was said.

“Come on, let’s go,” he said, helping Jensen to his feet.

“What?” Jensen’s brow furrowed.

“We gotta toss the room for drugs.”

Barney silently led Jensen through a labyrinth of dark hallways then through a door marked “Pod S.” A guard at a desk glanced up at Barney, nodded, and went back to his book. Barney prodded Jensen through a barred gate. They were now in a dead-end hallway with doors on either side. Barney opened door number one and lightly pushed Jensen inside. Barney gave him a sad, almost guilty look, before shutting the door. It click-locked with a finality that scared Jensen.

The only reason he wasn’t shrouded in complete darkness was the window in the door. The room he was in was small, much smaller than his normal cell. Everything was padded and the only furniture in the room was a small cot on the floor. A low rumble of thunder startled him and he wished he were back in his normal cell. Within minutes the building shook and shuddered from violent crackling booms of thunder. Jensen curled himself on the cot and wrapped the blanket around himself as tightly as he could.

He couldn’t sleep with the raging storm outside and his heart was still hammering from what had happened with Jared. Jensen looked around the padded room. Another clash of thunder. Jensen wondered what time it was, he wondered how long they were going to leave him here, and he wondered why they’d left him here. Jensen closed his eyes and started humming, trying to drown out the noise of the storm raging outside.

The storm was still going full force when the fluorescent lights clicked on. Six am. Jensen sat up on the cot, wrapping the blanket more tightly around himself. Soon, the door would unlock, and Roger would take him to breakfast. Jensen would welcome the sight of even Roger’s unfriendly face instead of the white padded room he was in.

Jensen counted the minutes until seven am. Nothing happened. At seven forty-five, there was a clicking sound. Jensen walked over to the door, expecting it to open. Instead, a rectangular hatch in the door was opened downward, creating a little table and a tray of food was set down.

“What’s happening?” Jensen yelled.

There was no response.

Eventually, the tray of food was taken out of the door and the hatch was closed and locked. Jensen paced the small room, seven steps, turn, four steps, turn, seven steps, turn, four steps, turn, seven… Alone. His thoughts matched in time with his steps. Completely alone. No one will come for you. All alone.

“Alone…”

Jensen froze. It had been a whisper, sure, but… It couldn’t be. Jensen took a deep, shaky breath. Get hold of yourself, Ackles, he thought. He rubbed his knuckles hard into his forehead. It was nothing, his mind was playing tricks on him.

“It is nothing but the wind in the chimney,” Jensen recited out loud. “It is only a mouse crossing the floor,-”

“Or it is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp!”

Jensen whirled around, his heart hammering in his throat again. The door to the padded cell was open and in the doorway was an old gentleman in a collared shirt, an argyle sweater vest, pressed pants, and loafers.

“Poe at his best! That’s one of my favorites as well. Care to have a seat, Jensen?”

Jensen slowly sat down on the cot, not taking his eyes off the man. Jensen realized the room was very quiet now, the storm must have died down while he was lost in his thoughts. The man brought with him a stool as well as a briefcase and he sat down across from Jensen. A young woman brought in her own stool and sat down in the corner. The door closed and click-locked.

“My name is Dr. Langstrom and this is one of my students, Abigail. I want to talk to you about what happened last night, and I’ll need to take some blood,” the man introduced himself, then took a small journal from his pocket along with an expensive looking pen.

“Is Jared okay?” Jensen chewed on his bottom lip.

“Don’t worry, now are you scared of needles?” The doctor asked and he began to take some plastic wrapped items out of the briefcase.

“No, but, why are you taking blood?” Jensen asked, holding out his arm.

“Just make sure everything’s alright with you.”

Dr. Langstrom took an alcohol wipe and rubbed Jensen’s arm. With his tongue sticking between his teeth, the doctor squinted at the needle. Then he paused for a moment, and pulled out a package of gloves and put them on. He took the needle again and pricked it into Jensen’s arm and Jensen hissed. Then, Dr. Langstrom actually moved the needle around, attempting to find a vein.

“Ow!”

“Sorry, sorry, let me try again,” Dr. Langstrom said vaguely.

“Doc, the tourniquet,” Abigail prompted.

“Yes, yes! That’s right!”

Dr Langstrom pulled the strip of rubber from his bag and wrapped it around Jensen’s upper arm. His second, third, and fourth attempts were no better than the first, however.

“Um, Doc, would you like me to do that? I just finished my lab rotation,” Abigail spoke quietly from the corner.

“Of course Abigail, that would be wonderful. I haven’t drawn blood in fifteen or twenty years.”

Abigail put on a pair of gloves and switched places with the doctor. She adjusted the tourniquet tighter and then she calmly took the needle and palpated Jensen’s arm. With one smooth movement, the needle was in and blood trickled into the waiting vial.

“Now, Jensen,” Dr. Langstrom started after Abigail finished drawing his blood. “Can you tell us what happened last night? Did Jared take anything?”

“I don’t know. I woke up and he was laughing. I hit the call button and Barney came in,” Jensen explained simply, picking at a loose thread on his jumpsuit.

“That’s all?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jensen shrugged.

“Were you attacked? Did he bite you or spit at you in any way?”

“What? No,” Jensen’s worry bled into his words.

“Good, good. Are you feeling well? No feelings of euphoria or despair?”

“I’m fine,” Jensen said through gritted teeth. “What’s happening with Jared? Where is he?”

“Good, good. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you anything about Jared.”

Jensen mulled that over for a moment. Then, his bladder reminded him it’d been way too long since his last bathroom visit.

“Can I go to the bathroom?”

“I’ll let the guard know.”

Abigail and Dr. Langstrom gathered their things and knocked on the door. It opened for them and closed behind them. Then, the hatch opened.

“Present yourself to be cuffed, Ackles,” came a deep baritone voice.

Jensen slid his hands through the hatch and winced as handcuffs were tightened around his wrists. Jensen stepped back and the door opened. He was taken to a small bathroom and then straight back to the padded cell. All attempts at talking to the guard were met with stony silence. Once back in the room, handcuffs removed, Jensen sat down on the cot.

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[vorish-egos]

Hot Sauce

Contains: Safe and Soft vore, G/T, slight foodplay

5 pages long

This wonderful fic was written by Mar from Vorish Egos server. All credit goes to them. Give them a lot of support and love. <3

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“Hello everybody, my name is Markiplier and, uh welcome to the stream! I can see more people have joined in the past...10 minutes, oh my lord.” He leaned forward almost, his attention shifting from his computer monitor to the camera positioned on his desktop and back with the monitor displaying that of a live stream chat. Weeks prior from this stream, Mark had sent out a tweet asking fans which game he should re-play, since he hadn’t yet had Cyberpunk and he didn’t wish to spoil any future video plans so soon. He planned to do a live stream, just for a couple of hours to give fans what they wanted while interacting with them and allowing them a live reaction of him replaying an older game. Both you and Mark had seen that many people recommended Cuphead, which was quite ironic of the circumstances of the stream, and after counting most of the tweets it was decided that Cuphead was the winner. Fans could tell from Mark continuously running his hands through his hair and drafting one of his bright colored shirts that he’d been screaming and sweating quite a bit. You almost couldn’t stop yourself from laughing when Mark stormed up from his chair and off to another end of the room, yelling and threatening to throw his own headphones. Seconds after he’d sat back down and apologized to anyone that might’ve been listening while laughing all giddy through his entire apology. 

So where did you fit into this equation? How did you somehow wind yourself up in Markiplier's room during a stream?

Mark streamed a couple of days before the current stream and, being the supporter friend of him that you are, you decided you would send him tips or bits to help support the channel. Around the same time, he was holding a contest. He asked fans to send out dares that Mark should do through either tips or the chat and whichever one received more popularity would be decided for the current stream. Such as downing an entire bottle of hot sauce or dying his hair during the stream. Months before this, scientists released that shrinking tech had been perfected and released into the public and being sold as a small pill. For 24 hours, you’d been a few inches tall and immune to any kind of disease or danger to your body. Of course this kind of formula hadn’t been perfected and no one was quite sure if the tech itself would be stable enough to return a person’s height back to its normal state. But that wasn’t on your mind. You were almost positive fans would’ve been completely weirded out by your idea of a “dare” and simply ignored it entirely. 

You dared Mark to shrink you down and “vore” you on stream. It took him a few minutes before he noticed the message going through the chat box in his stream, almost being spammed by other fans who suddenly agreed with this odd idea. He laughed, quirking a brow as he usually did when he thought something strange and deep down, he knew you were joking. Yet fate decided differently when the population of two states and a county said yes to the dare. It was almost shocking to you how many fans had closeted vore fetishes and wanted to see Mark swallow someone alive. CaptainSparklez did it. Sean hadn’t done it yet but he said if Mark did it anytime soon then he would take his chances. Mark almost wanted to let his fans down, tell him that even if the idea seemed almost absurd to him but as more tests of the pill went on day by day, the more possible it was for Mark to gain possession of the pill himself. 

And here we were, you, his keyboard, and a bottle of hot sauce and salt laid against his desk as he glanced down at your little, 5 inch form. “Fuuuuck, I didn’t think everyone was excited about this one thing! I didn’t, I really didn’t. But I came prepared…” He lifted up the bottle of hot sauce and salt up to the camera, then he extended his hand out flat to desk for you to climb on. For the past 2 hours you were both attempting to get adjusted to Mark carrying someone small and you getting used to how nervous and unsteady his touch was at first. Now, as your bare feet gently pushed down against the palm of Mark’s hand he almost seemed to have stopped himself from flinching this time. His hand was steadier this time, the squishy skin of his palm accommodating to your little form. Making sure to be careful, almost concentrated, he lifted you up to the camera for everyone to see. 

You waved towards the monitor, fashioning a smile before letting out a smile giggle as Mark used a finger to gently pop at your tummy. “This is my friend (Y/N) and as many of you know, they started this whole...stream dare thing that I’m doin’ and, as you can see, no they are not CGIed or 3D printed. This is very much a real, living, breathing person in the palm of my hand right now oh my fucking god.” Mark gently placed you back down, awkwardly giggling again as he spoke and leaned forward, looking off to the side to giggle to himself and take everything in. Meanwhile Mark’s chat was blinking to life with replies, fans on one end sending Mark support and fans on the other end weirded out yet wanting Mark to start already. 

He noticed this, looking down as he let out a heavy sigh with a wide smile. “It’s been decided by the public that they want us to, uh, do this thing, you know? Are you ok? Are you sure about this?” You shrugged, unsure of yourself now that he was asking you before you explained to Mark that your heart was pounding but both from excitement and nervousness. He lifted his hand to you once more, this time reaching over and gently rubbing at your shoulder with his thumb to calm you down, which the action itself seemed odd but you made it known that you appreciated the sentiment anyway. “Alright guys, I guess let’s fucking do this!” He ran a hand through his hair once before taking a swig of water. He fingered with the bottle of hot sauce for a few seconds before he was ready, inviting you into the palm of his hand once more. You were in one hand, the bottle of hot sauce in the other one. “I really don’t know how people usually do this, but I think I’m supposed to taste you first and then make you more edible looking?” You shrugged, the both of you laughing awkwardly together but you more or so at Mark’s giggling. 

Hesitantly, Mark brought his open hand to his lips, your world of view already filled with so much of Mark’s face that now the only thing you could see was his mouth and the pores surrounding his cheeks. He exchanged glances with the desktop monitor, as if looking back and forth between you and his before only the tip of his tongue poked out of pursed lips. He gently poked you in the face with it, sending you into a fit of tearful laugh as your feet dangled out of his hand. He looked away, giggling awkwardly once more as he looked at you with a look full of embarrassment and mock hurt. “W-What am I supposed to do?! How am I supposed to do this?!” You wiped your eyes, gesturing to your body and expressing to Mark that you wanted him to lick you, for real. You made the comparison to that of a popsicle. You asked if he was able to get a taste of you. “No” he’d said in response, as if not wanting to agree with you but clearly having no choice. 

He brought you close to his face once again, leaning his face himself until he was almost leaning on top of you now. His lips encompassed your entire vision and you almost blushed red from the distance but you reminded yourself what you were doing. His lips parted, his tongue poking out a little more now from a mouth that was slightly ajar. You couldn’t catch a glimpse inside aside from his front rows of teeth you could see and the only thing that filled your vision at the moment was the wet, pink, almost wriggling muscle. It wasn’t at it’s full length, you knew this for sure and it seemed to be half your size already. Quickly but carefully, he gently slid his tongue from your chest up to your face, now covering it in more saliva. Instinctively, you had leaned away from the tongue and Mark had already finished pulling away as soon as you’d done this. He made a face, confirming that he was able to grab your taste now as he let the flavor dance around in his mouth. You questioned him about your taste, using your sleeve to wipe the wet substance from your face. “Kinda salty but really sweet. It’s so weird, it’s like...salty caramel almost. At least I know I won’t be needing this salt.” He giggled, moving the salt to another side of his desk and turning back towards you. 

He licked you once again, both of you still quite hesitant but more accepting of the touch. Then, he proceeded to uncap the bottle of hot sauce and gently sprinkle you in it. He took another swig of water and grunted awkwardly, checking up on the stream chat before he proceeded. “You guys ready? I’m gonna do it now…” He waited a few seconds, watching as the chat blinked to life like a heart palpitation with the answer “Yes.” He nodded a few times, now seeming quite nervous himself before you gently pat the palm of his hand. He looked back down at you with such care in his eyes, displaying how worried he was over your well being before you smiled. He nodded and took a deep breath, raising you up slightly above his head as he was prepared to take you in legs first. “This is gonna be so fucking weird…” He commented. You laughed and nodded, situating yourself differently so that now you too were ready. 

You watched as Mark’s lips parted, much wider this time than before as threads of saliva broke from the white pearls of his teeth. The angle that Mark was holding you above his mouth illuminated with the help of the ceiling nipple in the room, giving you a view of the dark, fleshy chasm sitting below you. Humid air wafted against your toes. The pink muscle pulsated under you, wriggling as if preparing to accept it’s next snack. Right in the back you could just make out the vibrating silhouette of the red chandelier, surrounded by dark, fleshy walls of pink and red. Squinting almost allowed you to catch a glimpse of the back of Mark’s throat, your vision beckoning you to travel to except that the back of Mark’s tongue blocked you from seeing the entrance of his throat. The salivating chasm soon came forward, his lips gently closing around your ankles and sealing them with the fleshy, pink mass. Here goes nothing. You squirmed a bit, laughing a tad bit as his tongue licked hesitantly at the bottom half of your legs. He licked and licked, the tongue exploring any exposed skin and cleaning away the hot sauce and also continuing to tickle at you before his lips parted once more. 

The two of you sensed that he couldn’t taste your ankles for long and had to keep going with the process at hand. You could see your legs and toes, glistening with saliva as you began moving downward and more towards his mouth. He moved you closer until his lips closed around your hips, your legs sliding along the tongue as more of you entered his mouth. He licked at you and the hot sauce, somehow being able to find your taste that the muscle was searching for even through your clothes. He occasionally looked from you to the stream chat and back until he only kept eye contact with you, making sure that you were ok through the entire process. He wasn’t used to having something in his mouth without chewing it but you were both trying something new. He held you there for a second like that, swallowing down any excess saliva before proceeding. The tongue shifted under your legs, lifting them up and giving you a sense of close you were to the back of his mouth. You guessed that you must’ve been three feet, at your height, from going toe to toe with the pink chandelier in the back of Mark’s mouth. You started taking into account how big you probably were, the wriggling muscle under you practically a small blanket.

More of your body was brought into his mouth, his tongue extending out and helping to take more of its prey inside as Mark hummed almost happily and his lips closed around your upper abdomen. He seemed to be enjoying your taste more than he’d let on before and his mouth seemed to be producing more saliva at a surprising rate as he swallowed every few seconds. He almost seemed to be sucking at your body, clearing the hot sauce off and grabbing at your taste the best he could. If you wiggled your toes, you could feel something fleshy and circular almost tap them in response. When he’d grunt at this in response, you didn’t have to second guess that your toes were face to face with his uvula. He’d have to...start swallowing you by now. He seemed distracted, almost absorbed by the taste consuming his tongue entirely but he looked at you and knew what you were thinking. 

He nodded, gently tapping you with a finger and you tapped him back to signal that you were ready. He swallowed once more, though this time he made sure to take extra care in bringing your feet along the trip with the excess saliva and hot sauce. You could feel it, your legs squeezed up against the roof of his mouth and his tongue pushing your feet against the uvula this time until something below clamped around your ankles and pulled at them. His throat. Glk. He swallowed once again and he opened his mouth once more, the tongue stretching out and slipping under you as both worked together to lift you into his mouth. Soon, only your hands stuck out past his lips as you watched your thighs be sucked up by Mark’s throat. You barely had time to gather your surroundings a little more as Mark’s head turned and faced the camera. He gave the audience a glimpse of his little snack before closed and left you in humid, wet darkness. 

More comfortably now his tongue licked and prodded at your body, cleaning away at the remaining hot sauce and sucking your taste onto his taste buds. Glrk. The tongue lifted you up and your hands were now sucked into his mouth, teeth clamping shut and now completely locking you inside of his mouth. Mark grunted, cocking his head back slightly as he placed a finger against his throat. You wriggled slightly, attempting to get more comfortable as your body was dragged down towards Mark’s epiglottis, now less of you within the confines of his mouth and the rest of you travelling down towards his..stomach. His stomach, your final destination. You gently rubbed and pat at the tongue, using the chance you had now to feel at it best you could. Not only were you teasing Mark but the muscle felt so strange and alive under you that it seemed like another living organism entirely. Gluck. You felt Mark exhale against you, understanding that this was it as he took one large, hard swallow.

Your body was sucked into Mark’s throat, the back of your brushing against his uvula as he tried his best not to vomit with how large you were and with how horrible his gag reflex was. The good thing was that with the way he positioned his head, gravity assisted him alongside the amount of saliva the hot sauce helped his mouth produce. You almost saw it impossible that your eyes were open the entire time, seeing the last moment silhouettes of the tongue and those rows of teeth behind sealed lips even with a saliva drenched face. You sank, your body being pulled into Mark’s and making the tight, slick journey down his gullet. Mark kept that finger against the bulge you made against his Adams apple until the little bulge and he gulped against, exhaling heavily.

You could hear it, the wet slickness of his muscles working on hugging your body down to it’s final destination. The gurgling and groaning from the stomach that anxiously awaited it’s large, new snack. The rhythmic, almost melodic beating of Mark’s heart as you passed it on the trip. Then a sphincter opened up below your feet and your body was deposited into a fleshy, warmer chamber as you slipped into his stomach. On the outside Mark felt this, gulping to help ease you down his throat the entire way as he hadn’t usually swallowed something as large as you nor had he really prepared himself outside of a banana. He sat back in his desktop chair, placing a hand against his stomach once he felt you slide inside. The stomach walls immediately pressed themselves against your body, the space hugging you even though it wasn’t too cramped. You squirmed, Mark letting out a surprised giggle as you situated yourself into a more comfortable position within the dark space. 

Mark placed a hand against your little form, feeling every inch of you wriggling and squirming inside of you. He smiled wide, eyes squinting as he stood up slightly from his chair and attempted to take in the feeling. He laughed, looking towards the stream chat in awe. “Wooooooah, this is so fucking weeeeird.” His voice verberated and echoed through the darkness like a loud speaker and you chuckled, touching and feeling at the walls around you. “Duuude, can you hear me in there?” You responded by gently tapping one of his stomach walls, then lightly pushing since you doubted he would’ve been able to feel you in there. He giggled once more, rubbing back in response. You asked him if he could hear you. “It’s so weird, I can hear you but you’re so muuuffled. Guys this is so weird, I have to step away for a bit I’m so sorry…” Mark put a hand up to his mouth and let out a small belch, loud enough for the viewers to hear. He laughed, embarrassed but too engrossed in the feeling of a living person inside his belly to care. 

Mark had now left the desktop and off into another room, settling down somewhere comfortably with a hand still on your tiny form. You sat there with him for a while, Mark beginning to rub at his stomach and rub at your little form. The two of you shared your experiences of being eaten alive by Mark and you each laughed it off, now forgetting how nervous and embarrassed you were. Soon, Mark had returned to the stream after a few minutes and apologized to his fans for the inconvenience. He continued Cuphead, his gameplay much calmer this time during the stream as he would occasionally look down at you, calmly sleeping and enjoying the confines of Mark’s stomach as much as he was. Maybe this experience wasn’t so bad. 

[consumedkings-archive]

v. equitable exchange ✤ pre-cult au

john/elliot + “ew, that is so sappy i might vomit” taken from this prompt list!

word count: 2k

warnings: john being himself. elliot’s mother is terror. otherwise, they’re just being cute and enjoying each other. also naughty language, of course!

“It’s incredible how relaxed you get,” John remarked, sitting across from her, “as soon as you get out of Hope County.”

Elliot blinked at him. They’d only been dating for six months, but in that short time, John had proven he was more perceptive than she might have given him credit for. Sure, he was a little dense (read: selfish), but he was exceptionally good at reading her, which was rapidly becoming a problem.

That was to say—Elliot did not like being so easily read. Especially not at a dinner table in a fancy restaurant, after not having seen John for two weeks because work had gotten so busy she’d thought about pretending to be dead to get a few days of rest, and then resurrect herself Christ-like to get back on payroll.

“It’s not Hope County,” she explained after a moment. She opened her mouth to say, it’s my mom, she’s fucking bananas and will not stop harassing me about dating some nice boy that one of her ex-debutante frenemies mentions on the phone every day, but that felt like a lot to say all in one go, and a lot to say to John Seed, so she didn’t. “It’s just—stuff.”

“Ah, the ever-enigmatic and elusive stuff,” John reiterated, snagging her hand and bringing her fingers up to his mouth to kiss. “Turn that brain of yours off for a few minutes, won’t you? If you’re not going to elaborate on what it is that’s bothering you.”

“Sure,” Elliot replied dryly, “let me just find the switch here and…”

As she was busying herself mock-searching for the non-existent flip that would shut her brain down—and wouldn’t that be nice, to be fucking brain dead for a moment?—her eyes traveled the length of the room and stopped short on a tall, lean blonde laughing with a few other women as they walked into the restaurant.

Their eyes locked. The woman said, “Elli?” and in an act of self-preservation, Elliot scooted her chair out from the table abruptly and came to a stand, as though to sprint away.

“Ell?” John asked as she ripped her hand away from him.

“Uh,” she said. She then failed to elaborate.

“Elli, is that you?” her mother called, more fervently now, that sugar-sweet Southern drawl ringing around in her head as the alarm systems went off. Oh no, she thought frantically, trying to think of quick ways out—bust a glass open and just end it, maybe, pretend like she had amnesia, or literally anything—oh no, oh fuck no, oh God, fuck, I can’t do this, not right now, I’m not prepared.

“We have to go,” she blurted out. “John? Earth to John? Code red, we’re leaving.”

“But I just opened the wine—”

“Elli, that is you!”

Bless his heart, John continued curiously, “Who is that?” when he noticed the woman, and Elliot stifled a moan of agony.

“That’s stuff,” she hissed, grabbing his hand, “please, can we go—”

All of her fight-or-flight had kicked in, which was ridiculous if someone were to look at the situation objectively—that she was having this kind of a reaction, but if anyone knew anything about Scarlet Honeysett it was that—

“Go where?” her mother asked, now standing directly in the nearly-perfect geographical center between Elliot and John, on the other side, and it was painful to experience. Scarlet looked, per usual, absolutely polished; meticulously-maintained golden hair perfectly curled, her blouse and skirt pressed and prim.

“Nowhere,” Elliot managed out. “I’m—nowhere, mama. Just—” She scrambled. “Just thought I saw a… Spider on the table.”

“Ah,” Scarlet replied, and she didn’t sound convinced. A long moment stretched where she was aware of her mother waiting for her to introduce John and John waiting for her to introduce him, when finally her mother said, “Well, who’s your little friend, honey?”

Little friend. Like they hadn’t been dating for six months (not that she knew), like she didn’t let John fuck her filthy every time they visited each other. Elliot felt a dizzying surge of anxiety shoot through her body and tried to push it down.

“He’s m-my—John,” she said, and immediately kicked herself. Dropping his hand unceremoniously, she added, “My… boyf-uuh… boyf-f-”

“… boyfriend,” John finished for her, like she hadn’t just gone fucking stupid in the last five minutes for some reason. He gave her a funny, questioning look before he turned his full charm on and reached his hand out to Scarlet. “John Seed. It’s a pleasure, Mrs. Honeysett, I’ve heard a lot of nice things about you.”

Scarlet shook his hand. Her gaze flickered down, and before John could retreat, she turned their gripped hands so that the top of his was facing up, inspecting it critically. Her eyes turned back to Elliot.

“He has tattoos,” she said and did not ask, in the kind of forced friendliness she used when she was talking to one of the aforementioned ex-debutante frenemies that liked to gossip about her.

“Yes,” said John, which was really all he could say.

“It wasn’t a question, darlin’,” Scarlet murmured idly.

“Mama,” Elliot began, “we should—um, can we—it’s just—”

“Elliot Savannah!” came an additional voice, and oh, she just wanted to shrink up and disappear when the flowery rose-perfume scent washed over her. The shock of bright auburn hair immediately came into her vision and warm arms were thrown around her neck. “I was wonderin’ if we were ever gonna see you again. Aw, honey, look at your red little cheeks.”

“Delia,” Elliot greeted, feeling faint. She returned the hug but could not ignore the way that John stood to the side. She was sure that he wasn’t accustomed to not immediately charming the pants off of anyone, and certainly, it was partially her fault they were now in this situation—after all, she hadn’t prepared him at all for what her mother was like. “It’s—so nice to see you again.”

“So nice to see you, my sweet girl,” Delia replied warmly. It was not lost on her that her mother’s one true friend was the first to reach and hug her, not her own mother. “And your very handsome man-friend, too.”

Delia swept away from Elliot to rescue John, who looked almost relieved to be admired and chatted to rather than glanced over with the sort of critical eye that Scarlet afforded to just about everything and everyone that came across her path. Delia’s apparent rescue of John left Elliot to shift under her mother’s gaze.

“Bunny,” Scarlet said, keeping her voice very mild, “have you been cutting your hair short?”

“Mama,” she sighed.

“I just think you look so pretty when it’s long. You know, your daddy never knew what to do with all that hair, but he learned to braid it just for—”

“We’re in the middle of dinner,” Elliot interrupted before her mother could wax poetic about the things that her father did well prior to his clinical and methodical abandonment of them. “And I haven’t seen John for a few weeks, so.”

So. The word hung between them, the sound of Delia fawning over John and feeding him all of the admiration and older-woman-flirtation he could probably want, and Scarlet waited. She didn’t speak; she was exceptionally good at this kind of little game, which they had always played, where Elliot would say something like so with the implication that Scarlet should be able to infer what she meant and her mother would refuse to.

“… just love our Elliot,” Delia gushed warmly. “You’re taking good care of her, aren’t you?”

“Oh, the very best,” John assured her. “It’s been—”

“Six months,” Elliot supplied.

Scarlet arched a brow upward. “That’s a long time to be seeing someone.” She glanced at John. “And so alternative, too.”

“Mother.”

“I only mean,” Scarlet continued, “that I wish you would have said something. I’ve been chatting with Blaire and her son is very interested in meeting you. It just feels rude to take it back, is all, and if you answered my phone calls—”

“I’m busy with work,” Elliot protested.

“But not busy enough to date someone secretly for a few months,” her mother shot back with all of the practiced politeness of a woman who made a living out of it.

John cleared his throat. “Six months.”

Elliot passed a hand over her face, exhaling sharply through her nose as she muddled through the anxiety and fury that her mother tended to inspire in her. A moment of silence stretched, too long and far too uncomfortable, before Delia clapped her hands together and made a soft sound.

“Well, I am just starvin’!” she exclaimed. “Scarlet, honey, you ready to eat?”

“I haven’t any kind of appetite,” Scarlet responded spitefully, and Elliot groaned and said, “You are so petty,” just as her mother plunged on, “but I suppose I’m ready to go.”

“Great,” Delia said, feigning cheerfulness. “Elliot, you’ll come and find us before you leave, won’t you? We’ll let you get back to dinner with your honey, and we’ll be waitin’ for you.”

As Delia steered her mother away and back to where the gaggle of ladies were standing around and watching the interaction from a safe distance, John sat himself back down at the table and poured his glass full of wine—far beyond what was normally considered a regular pour—and then did the same for her glass.

Elliot sat too and brought the glass to her mouth. Even though her mother’s presence inspired in her the most homicidal tendencies, so much so that she tried to avoid drinking at all around her, it felt necessary at this moment.

“That can’t be your mom,” John said conversationally. “She’s so tall.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Bunny?”

Elliot moaned, burying her face into her hands. It was the worst possible series of events that could happen: there was nothing in her that had prepared in the least to have to explain herself to her mother, and so of course the thing that she had done was not explain anything, because Scarlet Honeysett could not resist taking a dig at her daughter at any point in time.

“Hey,” John said lowly, scooting his chair over so that they were no longer on opposite ends of the table but rather perpendicular from one another, “drink your wine, we’ll lock the door on their insanely pretentious bathroom-with-a-couch, I’ll get you nice and relaxed, and then you’ll be ready to deal with your mom again.”

“You don’t get it,” Elliot protested, even when John’s words made heat crawl up into her cheeks

“I don’t really need to,” John replied flippantly. “Who gives a fuck if your mom doesn’t like me?”

“I do!” she insisted, distressed. “I care, and I had a very specific way that I wanted you to meet her, and she’s—God, she’s so—she always ruins fucking everything, John, you don’t get it.”

John leaned in, tilting her chin up, and kissed her. When he did, he tasted like red wine; his fingers slid to the back of her neck and cradled her there so that he could say against her mouth, “I’m not worried about it, hellcat.”

“I am.”

“Well, stop,” he replied amusedly. “You’re my girl, and regardless of your—very tall and honestly, statuesque—mother’s opinion of me right now—”

She sighed. “John.”

“—I will make sure that she likes me,” he finished. “I will charm her so fucking hard she’ll be begging you to marry me.”

Elliot made a low, tired sound. After a second, she said, “You’ll have to go to galas. And gatherings. Weddings. There are always so many weddings. Not to mention the charity functions, and—”

John hummed. “I will. Every single event that she invites me to. Maybe even a few she doesn’t, you know, just for fun.” He paused, and kissed her again. “All for you, baby. Anything for you. Even suffering through debutante events.” And then, playfully: “Bunny.”

“Ew,” the blonde groaned, suffering through the saccharine. “That is so sappy, I might vomit.”

“Please don’t,” he said, “I’m really enjoying kissing you.”

Elliot smiled against his mouth. “Okay,” she murmured, “but only if you don’t ever fucking call me bunny again.”

“Fair trade.”