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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 4 years

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But You Can Never Leave [Chapter 15: Midnight Manhattan]

A/N: Hi y’all! Thank you so much for your patience and support. I think it’ll be worth it...this chapter has something you’ve been waiting for. Only three more chapters left after this one! 💜

Chapter summary: A family visit turns awkward, Chrissie loses her cool, Roger and Y/N have a difficult conversation, John tells the truth.

This series is a work of fiction, and is (very) loosely inspired by real people and events. Absolutely no offense is meant to actual Queen or their families.

Song inspiration: Hotel California by The Eagles.

Chapter warnings: Language, babies, miscarriage, cute kids, drama, angst, more drama, more angst.

Chapter list (and all my writing) available HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii @loveandbeloved29 @maggieroseevans @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark @im-an-adult-ish @queenlover05 @someforeigntragedy @imtheinvisiblequeen @joemazzmatazz @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhye @namelesslosers @inthegardensofourminds @deacyblues @youngpastafanmug @sleepretreat @hardyshoe @bramblesforbreakfast @sevenseasofcats @tensecondvacation @queen-crue @jennyggggrrr @madeinheavxn @whatgoeson-itslate @brianssixpence @simonedk @herewegoagainniall @stardust-killer-queen @anotheronewritesthedust1 @pomjompish @writerxinthedark @culturefiendtrashqueen @allauraleigh@deakydeacy

Please yell at me if I forget to tag you! :)

They say losing a child will destroy a marriage, and you’re sure that’s often true; but it didn’t destroy yours.

Roger is the only one who can truly understand—who can feel that same aching and eternal, ravening absence in his bones—because he’s the only one who lost her too. He mourns with you, he stays awake through long nights with you, and when the future seems too oppressively bleak to imagine he drags you back into the light with tired daybreak smiles exchanged over mugs of tea and songs plucked on his acoustic guitar by the roaring fireplace, stories and jokes, walks through the green trellises of Hyde Park and the marble halls of the British Museum filled with ancient treasures stolen from Egypt and India and the Yucatan Peninsula, Italy and Greece, leaving craters of hollow memory littered across the planet like the imprint of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.

Together you bury her ashes in the garden behind the Surrey house. John brings you a pot of white calla lilies, and when the weather warms you plant them beside the small black stone carved with two names you never speak: Joan Aurora. Together you watch the blossoms grow up and grow old and wither back into the earth like everything does when the clock runs out, when the universe claims back the debt of life we borrow thinking that we own it. And through it all Roger is so persistently kind and patient and present that you’re willing to try for another pregnancy, despite the odds stacked against you like moving boxes, despite the crushing heartache that another loss would entail; despite your fearful, growing suspicion that in both casinos and the genetic lottery, the house always wins.

It never happens again, and you reach a sort of peace with this; but it’s a peace that makes you feel small and immaterial, like when you think too much about how vast the universe really is, like when you wake up restless before the dawn and wander out onto the cracked cobblestones in the garden as the sun burns the darkness off the world from east to west, watching the stars as they vanish in a sky bloodied with another world’s light.

A year passes, and then another, and then another; and every February 15th John sends you a new pot of white calla lilies to plant in the garden where other people’s children play.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Look, look, look!” Laszlo frenetically waves a crayon illustration in front of your face. On his head is the hat you knitted for him, green and featuring a large white L and with sprigs of fluffy brown hair like John’s peeking out around the edges. “I can draw like Daddy!”

It’s November 24th, 1981, and Queen is in Montreal. The band is playing two sold-out shows, one tonight and one tomorrow, and Brian and John have flown in their families for one last visit to tide their wives and children over until the touring break at Christmas. Laszlo is six years old now, Anna nearly five, Lena three, Antoni—fast asleep and presumably dreaming of such complexities as Hershey’s chocolate bars and Care Bear plushies—two; and there have been no additional Deacon children, a fact which seems to be the source of some disharmony between John and Veronica. What Laszlo has drawn with his rainbow of Crayolas most closely resembles a very chubby banana, but with black spots like a Dalmatian’s.

“Oh my goodness, you’re a young Picasso!” you exclaim. “It’s amazing! It’s a...it’s a...a...” Don’t fuck this up, don’t fuck this up. “It’s a...giraffe...?”

“Yeah!” Laszlo confirms, grinning.

Oh thank god.

“Very impressive,” John tells you. “I would have guessed pineapple with leprosy.”

“It’s not a leopard, Daddy,” Laszlo says seriously.

“Yes of course, I didn’t say leopard, I said leprosy, which is entirely different—”

“It’s not a leopard!” Laszlo insists.

“You heard the kid, Deaks,” Roger says, winking. “No leopards. Come over here, kiddo, let me see the nice giraffe...oh yes, it is so obviously a giraffe, you can tell by the expertly placed spots...”

“You’re so good with them,” Veronica marvels, perhaps not quite approvingly, noting how Antoni is dozing peacefully against your chest, a red hat stitched with a massive A snug over his jumble of auburn hair. “He never sleeps for anyone. Not even me.”

“Being comfortable to nap on is one of my many talents.”

“It’s true,” Roger notes, smiling, combing through the knots in his brittle bleached hair.

“No, no, no, don’t try to be modest, you’ve always been fantastically good at caring for people. I remember Brian was half dead when you brought him home from that hospital in Boston.” Chrissie is sitting on the floor of the dressing room with Anna and Lena, helping to facilitate a glamorous wedding for Barbie and Ken. Teddy and Evelyn, both four years old and with massive mops of dark ringlets, are scribbling on coloring book pages of screeching dinosaurs and plunging prehistoric comets above tangles of jungle treetops.

“Hmm,” Veronica agrees lukewarmly. “You’ll be a wonderful mother to your own one day.”

You wince, bite your lower lip, peer down at Antoni’s pacific little face. His eyes, when they’re open, are a greyish blue like John’s. Chrissie kicks Veronica’s ankle and glares at her. Brian glances over from where he’s tuning his Red Special, one rangy leg propped up on a chair.

“Not so sure that’s in the cards,” you demur.

“Keep praying, dear,” Veronica offers. “The Lord will provide in his own time.”

You blink at her. She stares pityingly back with infuriating, weepy eyes. Everyone is suddenly very quiet, except for Freddie; he starts humming Another One Bites The Dust and taps his white Adidas sneakers in rhythm.

“What uniquely helpful advice,” you reply.

“Well, surely one doesn’t need biological children to be fulfilled in life,” Roger tells Veronica lightly, like it’s a warning.

She looks thunderstruck, like this is such a novel concept, like Roger just shared with her the secret to time travel or immortal life. “Perhaps not, but you know...it’s so terribly important for most women.”

“How feminist,” Chrissie quips, lighting a cigarette, flicking the ashes away irritably.

John leans into Veronica. “Stop it,” you can just barely hear him say.

“It’s interesting you would bring up timing, Veronica,” you observe. “We were all so discrete about yours.”

Freddie snorts, tries to pretend it was a sneeze, smooths his moustache as he studies himself in the mirror.

“I’m just trying to help, love,” Veronica claims innocently. “All this can’t be good for you, this ceaseless globetrotting. Almost never waking up in the same place twice. The stress of it!”

“What do you want her to do?” Roger snaps. “Sit at home nine or ten months out of the year and, what, scrub the windows until I come back? Take up watercolor painting? Knit the world’s largest quilt?”

“I’m just saying that less physical and emotional strain might help with the situation.”

“Because you’re a freaking doctor, right?” Roger flares. Chrissie kicks Veronica again.

“People should spend more time close to home,” she continues, undaunted. “There’s nothing more important than family. Look at me, I should have another on the way by now, but the band’s schedule is simply murderous...”

“Trying for a football team?” you inquire. And in the same moment you realize: This isn’t about me at all. This is about her and John.

Freddie is still humming, modelling his Superman tank top and tight white jeans in the mirror, cinching and re-cinching his belt, sliding a red sweatband unto one wrist. The kids—all except the unconscious Antoni—are giggling and pushing each other around on the slippery linoleum floor, seemingly oblivious. John whispers something to Veronica, his face dark and furious.

“John should be home more,” she bursts out. “For me, for the children—”

Roger scoffs and rolls his eyes. “For christ’s sake, lady, he’s not your bloody lapdog!”

“You don’t really need him,” she protests, almost pleads. “He’s just the bassist, he thought this would be a hobby to fill his time on weekends when he was in school, he didn’t sign up to live this way and Queen could find another bassist and you don’t need him—”

“We do need him! He’s not just some bassist! He’s a genius and he’s irreplaceable and there’s absolutely no Queen without him, we swore to it, I’d leave if he ever did!”

“You did what?!” Brian exclaims. Freddie hums louder, stomping his sneakers to the beat, mock-boxing with his reflection in the mirror. John raises his eyebrows at Roger as if he had assumed Rog wouldn’t remember that, assumed he had never really meant it. Roger, flushed, fumbles with his lighter and finally lights a cigarette on his third attempt.

Antoni stirs, his eyes fluttering open, and Chrissie swoops in to take her turn holding him. She bounces him on her hip as she sashays around the dressing room, casting fierce scowls alternately at Veronica and John and Roger.

“You don’t understand,” Veronica hurls at Roger, lashing out like a cornered animal, her voice raw and splintering. “You’ve never sacrificed anything. Everything you’ve ever dreamed of just falls into your lap. No heartache. No consequences. You don’t know what it’s like to be one of the people who get burned.”

“You don’t know anything about me—!”

“Look, I get it,” you tell Veronica. “You want John to yourself. Anyone would. You want a normal life. But that’s the tradeoff when you love someone brilliant, isn’t it? You have to learn how to share them with the world. Because the world is so much better off with them in it.”

Veronica glowers, venomous and spiteful. She’s wearing makeup tonight, quite heavy makeup; she’s started doing that with increasing frequency. “I have no intention of sharing a husband the way you’ve had to.”

Roger stands, stalks to Veronica, towers over her, blows smoke into her stunned face. “Ma’am,” he says quietly, so the children won’t hear. “Go fuck yourself.”

“Okay, darlings!” Freddie flits over, pulls Roger away, fluffs his hair and straightens his black smock-like shirt as Roger glares around Fred’s shoulder at Veronica. “Fabulous. You look like a ten-year-old about to make a papier-mâché vase for his mum in art class. I adore it. Off you go.” He pushes open the door to the hallway and shoves Roger through it.

Roger nods for you to follow him, and you do.

John frowns as you pass him. I’m so sorry, that expression says.

You shake your head in reply. Not your fault.

Roger slips his arm around your waist as you disappear into the hallway with him.

“That fucking miserable, judgmental, delusional, dogmatic bitch—”

“Shhhhh.” You cup his feverish cheek with your left hand, weighty with the ruby ring he gave you four years ago in New Orleans, and yank the white bandana out of his back pocket with your right. Then you knot it around his neck, smiling. “There. Now you look a little more rock and roll.”

“You’re not mad?” he asks in disbelief. “How are you not mad?”

“She’s clearly very unhappy. I feel sorry for her.” You tug on the bandana gently, fondly. You can hear Chrissie chastising Veronica behind the closed door of the dressing room. “Don’t let it ruin your show.”

“No, I would never.” But his eyes are still distant, unsettled, anxious in a way that is rare for him. “You are a freakishly good person, you know that?”

“I try. Don’t forget to smile so I can get some good pictures.”

“Oh, I’ll smile plenty. Just like this.” A grin splits through his face, and the Roger you know and love is back: bright, triumphant, flashing the daggerish points of his canine teeth. Then he draws you into him and kisses you, his rough hands in your hair, his lips smiling against yours. “Love of my life,” he whispers, rather pensively.

He shakes out his right arm—the one with the jagged scar along the soft vulnerable underside, the one he broke in a stairwell in Yokohama in the spring of 1975—and stretches the hand a few times. And you find yourself wondering, as you always do when he seems distracted like he does now, before he starts staying out late into the night, before he starts coming home drunk or high or not at all: Is he getting bad again? Is he?

I would never have to worry about that if I had married someone like John.

You fling that thought, that inconvenient and perpetual thought, back into the shadows where it came from; like a pebble tossed into the misted tree line of a forest, like a shell pitched into the sea.

“Rog, are you—?”

“I’m fine,” he cuts you off like a blade.

~~~~~~~~~~

There’s someone screaming out in the hallway.

You reel out of bed in the darkness, step into your slippers, yank on your fuzzy white robe. The digital clock on the nightstand reads 4:11 a.m. Roger and Brian had stayed for one more round of drinks at the club when you and Chrissie left to go back to the hotel, Chrissie to relieve her nanny from kid duty, you to quiet a budding headache. You note—with a vague, drowsy sort of dread—that Roger is not in the bed beside you, his hair a disheveled blond mess peeking from beneath the covers, snoring softly, his calloused hands outstretched towards yours. Beyond the door there are earsplitting clashes of broken glass, thumps and pounding footsteps, people shouting. And now you can recognize Chrissie’s voice, shrieking and wrathful: “Now you’ve done it, now you’ve really done it, you’re going to fucking kill her!”

You throw open the door to see Roger crouched against the hallway wall, covering his head with his hands; he is surrounded by shards of glass, tiny hotel shampoo and mouthwash bottles, Bibles ripped from nightstand drawers. He’s dripping with what smells like a combination of every kind of alcohol you’ve ever tasted, and maybe some you haven’t as well.

“I wish she’d never fucking met you!” Chrissie screams, launching a bottle of Grey Goose from the minibar in her room at Roger. It explodes against the wall just above his head, and glass and vodka rain down on him. Brian is unsuccessfully attempting to coax Chrissie back into their room as she ignores him. “I wish she’d never stepped off that fucking plane because the day she agreed to come to London with you was the worst day of her life!”

“Will you stop?!” Roger yells. “Jesus christ, Chris!”

“She saved you,” Chrissie hisses, landing an elbow into Brian’s gut and sending him flying backwards. “She saved your life and this is how you repay her, you disgusting degenerate bastard!”

A bottle of Captain Morgan hits the wall and detonates two inches from Roger’s face.

“What’s going on?!” you shout at Chrissie, your arms crossed over your chest.

A few rooms down the hallway, a door opens and Freddie wanders out in a pink kimono. After a moment, John and Veronica appear from their own room in their pajamas, rubbing bleary eyes.

“I couldn’t sleep so I phoned my mum and guess what’s on the cover of the News Of The World this week.” Chrissie points at Roger. “Go on. Tell her. Tell her what you did.”

He knows; he doesn’t say anything, but he knows. You can see that he does. It’s lurking in the shallow cerulean pools of his glistening eyes like a shadow, like a ghost.

“What did you do?” John asks him, mystified.

Roger doesn’t answer. He’s looking at you, at Chrissie, back to you. It isn’t often that Roger is fearful, acutely and bone-rattlingly afraid; but he is now.

“Fine, you don’t want to own up to it? I’ll do it. I’ll tell her, you coward.” Chrissie spins to you. “Dominique Beyrand is seven months pregnant.”

I’m surrounded by goddamn mothers. “Okay. Good for her.”

Chrissie waits for it to hit you. And then it does.

Oh. Oh.

“Bleeding christ,” you hear Freddie sigh, rubbing his forehead. Veronica covers her gaping mouth with one pale hand, and she doesn’t look smug or vindicated or condemnatory; she looks terrified. John is watching you, you can see him on the periphery of your vision; you are dimly aware of him edging closer as you gaze at Roger, your eyes wide and blurring with tears, your throat burning.

You can’t understand it, can’t imagine it, and then suddenly you can: his fingers threading through her glossy black hair, his lips skating over her neck, promises whispered through nightscape phone calls, haphazard lies whispered to you; reckless, small-boned, doe-eyed children with Dom’s olive skin and Roger’s sharp little canine teeth.

This is the part where I wake up. This is the part where it turns out to be just a hellacious dream.

But you don’t wake up, because this is real.

“Oh,” you exhale, brainlessly, helplessly.

Roger doesn’t sputter some desperate apology, he doesn’t beg you to forgive him. He stares at you with huge, starry blue eyes, booze dripping from his hair, surrender etched into the concave slump of his back and shoulders.

You ask him, already knowing the answer: “It’s not just a fling, is it?”

“No,” he replies miserably. “I thought it was, but it isn’t.”

You nod, those first hot tears spilling down your cheeks. “Okay,” you concede, your words brittle and fracturing. “I’ll file as soon as we get back to London.” File for divorce. File this entire misadventure away in my mind as a horrific and juvenile mistake. Shred the good memories into oblivion so I can’t remember how alive he once made me feel.

That seems to bother Roger, jolts him into urgency. The white bandana is still tied around his neck. “You don’t have to do that—”

“Are you fucking joking?” you pitch at him. “Are you not done humiliating me yet? Am I not ruined enough? Do I somehow still look remotely whole to you?”

John’s hand closes around your wrist. “Don’t,” he tells you gently.

Roger begins: “I never wanted to hurt—”

“But you did,” you seethe, tears slithering down your face. It’s sinking in now, it’s becoming real, it’s materializing from years of gnawing distrust into fact. They were all right about him. They were always right. John’s arms circle you, holding you back as you struggle against him. “You fucking did and I forgave you like an idiot just so you could prove to me over and over and over again how exceptionally little you cared.”

“That’s not true—!”

“You’ve done enough!” Chrissie roars at him. Brian wrestles a bottle of Don Julio out of her grasp. “You deplorable slut, can’t you see that you’ve done enough?!”

Freddie approaches Roger, dusts the glinting flecks of glass out of his hair, wrenches him staggering to his feet.

“Come on,” John murmurs, towing you towards your room. Veronica is tracking him with blazing eyes. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Go ahead, Roger!” you shout as John drags you away, as Roger is corralled into Freddie’s room. “Get clean for her, get clean for her children, tell her she’s the love of your life and marry her and give her a ring but don’t forget to remind her that none of it means a single fucking thing—!”

John stumbles with you into your hotel room. He slams the door behind him, and the world goes deathly quiet. You reel aimlessly, collapse onto the edge of the bed, dazed, staring at the bland landscape paintings on the wall, ticking down the mental list of things you’ll need to get from the Surrey house: photographs, paperwork, John’s sketches, the conch shell from Ostia.

What about the calla lilies? What about her grave?

And there’s another list as well, whether you want there to be or not; a list of things you’ll never feel again.

His teeth grazing my knuckles, his palms cradling my face, his raspy voice as he writes songs on quiet nights, the way he loved our daughter, the way he sets souls alight like wildfire.

John just stands in the middle of the hotel room, heaving in ragged breaths, his hands on his waist. And for a long time, neither of you speak at all.

“Do you want me to stay?” John says finally.

“You can’t,” you reply, thinking of Veronica and the children.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“No. I’m fine. I want to be alone.”

He comes to you, lifts your chin with one careful hand, touches his forehead to yours before he leaves. “You are never going to be alone.”

~~~~~~~~~~

You hear the key clatter in the lock, and your hotel room door creaks open. You’re laying on the floor after Queen’s second show in Montreal, staring blankly up at the ceiling, counting the black dots in the tiles like stars, imagining constellations of monsters and heroes and doomed love.

John appears above you, his brow furrowed. He shuttled all of Roger’s things to Freddie’s room after you packed them up this morning, then he took Roger’s key. “What are you doing?”

“Fantasizing about my own death.”

He checks his watch. “Will you be done in twelve minutes?”

“What happens in twelve minutes?”

“We have to leave for the afterparty on a yacht.”

You groan, sitting upright, rubbing your sore and sleepless eyes with the heels of your hands. “I can’t do it, John. I don’t have it in me tonight. I can’t mingle with all of those obnoxious music industry people. ‘Yes, hi, hello, yes it’s true, I am the sad barren soon-to-be-ex-wife, oh what a charming nineteen-year-old model mistress you have on your arm there, I too was once young and desirable and disastrously stupid.’”

He smiles. “You’re still somewhat desirable.”

“Thanks.” You reach up, take his hands, let him help you to your feet.

“You realize if you don’t go I’m going to have to hide in the corner and compulsively eat miniature quiches all by myself.”

“Your enchanting wife isn’t attending?”

“She wanted to stay with the children. Also, she hates me.”

You chuckle. “She doesn’t hate you. She passionately does not hate you, which is the problem.”

“So you’ll come with me.”

You mull this over. “Can I get so drunk I forget I exist?”

“Sure. If you promise to stay near me and away from the water.”

“Yes, I suppose that you, as a convicted felon, would be high on the list of suspects if I was to go overboard.”

“Losing you would be the worst thing that ever happened to me. Who would I call to post my bail?”

You laugh as you beam up at him, knot your fingertips through his hair, see your silhouette reflected in his greyish eyes that today remind you of storm clouds, of torrential autumn rain, of thunder. “Okay. Fine. I’ll go to your torturous yacht party.”

“Aww, what a tragedy, being forced to enjoy all the trappings of stardom” John teases, and then you can see the regret wrinkle across his face; because people don’t joke about things like tragedies around you anymore.

“It’s a hard life,” you agree. “But it feels a little easier when you’re around.”

You slip into a dark blue dress and heels and your bomber jacket that doesn’t match at all. John meets you in the hallway in a black suit. You share a limo with Brian and Chrissie, who chatter nervously about anything they can think of that doesn’t involve Roger or marriage or children or love. Bri points out constellations through the open moonroof as frigid Canadian air pours in and rattles your dangling diamond earrings, whips through your hair. John smooths the runaway strands, rests his arm across the back of your seat, smiles in a tranquil sort of way and actually appears to pay attention as Brian narrates the stories of the stars and their celestial families: Pegasus, Aquarius, Pisces, tiny Triangulum, the lightning strike zigzag of Lacerta, Perseus.

“You look gorgeous,” Chrissie tells you, and she seems to mean it.

“Thank you,” you reply politely. “If only I was also French and fertile.”

The yacht is docked on the bank of the Saint Lawrence River, an island of roaring laughter and music and twinkling strands of lights in an ocean of night. John leads you onboard, waves at the photographers who douse you in flashbulb luminescence, stands with you by the railing at the stern of the vessel as it pulls out into the river. Periodically some palpably accomplished stranger will appear, shake John’s hand, start asking him about You’re My Best Friend or Another One Bites The Dust or Under Pressure; but mostly the two of you are left alone. You drain flute after flute of pink champagne as John nurses his Manhattans, debating the merits of the various appetizers; you—ever the proud Bostonian—are partial to the bite-sized lobster rolls, while John prefers the Swedish meatballs speared on puzzlingly tropical toothpick umbrellas.

Roger is on the yacht too of course, and every once in a while you catch a glimpse of his blond hair or his blush-colored polka dot suit, hear his voice carried on the cold November wind; and you ignore this as much as you can. Twice he starts migrating towards you, and you and John pretend not to notice, dart through the crowds to the other side of the boat, your hand clasped in John’s as he weaves relatively anonymously through ballgowns and suits and reporters’ microphones. And he peeks back at you, grinning, and says: “I bet you’re thrilled no one knows who I am tonight.”

Chrissie steals you away briefly to keep her company when Brian gets snared into an excruciatingly dull interview about Queen’s next album; and when Brian comes to collect her, John greets you with a fresh glass of champagne in one hand and his fourth Manhattan in the other.

“You better make sure you don’t go overboard, Mr. Deacon,” you say, taking the champagne flute and resting your forearms on the yacht’s railing as waves break against the hull. Freshwater mist peppers your cheeks, your collarbones, the backs of your hands. Through the speakers pluck the opening notes of Hotel California. “Oh god. This song.”

“Fond memories?” John asks with a smirk. “That whole night is a blur to me.”

“It makes me think of sharks for some reason. And the Olympics.”

“It makes me feel...” He considers this. “Overwhelmed with self-loathing.”

“That’s ridiculous. You’re the least loathable person I’ve ever met.” You sip your champagne, gaze out into the moonlit currents that run from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, to the shores of every place you’ve ever called your own. “How long did Dante live in exile from Florence?”

“Twenty years.”

You whistle. “That’s a long time to be away from home.” The fingers of your left hand clutch the railing, which is gold and sturdy and stingingly cold. “I feel a little like him sometimes. Except as you get older, home starts to feel less like places and more like people.” You twist off your ruby ring, glance down at it fleetingly, and toss it out into the glistening black waters of the Saint Lawrence River.

John looks over at you. “It’s really over, isn’t it?”

You nod slowly, mournfully. “Yeah. It’s really over.”

“And how are we feeling about that?”

“Relieved. Petrified. Exhausted. Mostly I’m just sad.”

“I’m sorry,” he says sincerely. “For everything.”

“Why? None of it was your fault.” You sigh, shake your head, peer out into the river, into the night sky, into the stars. “Maybe this is a good thing, you know? A blessing in disguise or whatever. I can move on knowing I did everything I could to salvage the marriage. I can be free. No more waiting up at night for someone who isn’t coming home. No more searching through pockets and suitcases for white powder or used needles. No more News Of The World headlines.”

John is still staring at you.

“What?” you ask, smiling warily.

He downs the rest of his Manhattan, twirls the glass as the ice cubes clink against each other. Finally, he says: “I could have given you a very different kind of life.”

Your lips, slick with gloss and tingling with sharp carbonation from the champagne, part to ask John what he means; but then you know. Your voice is a quivering, astonished whisper. “It was about me. You’re My Best Friend.”

“Yeah, it was. And most of the others were too.”

It was about me. All those years ago, that song was about me. And it still is.

“John...”

“I watched you fall in love with Roger, watched him fall in love with you. Watched this agonizing fucking dance that you do...he can’t give you what you want, you can’t be happy with less...and I just kept waiting to wake up one day and not want you anymore. And it never happened.” He laughs, briefly, bitterly. “I mean, for christ’s sake, I refused to propose to the mother of my child until I was sure you’d stay with Roger because I thought...I thought...you know, maybe. Maybe one day you’d change your mind. And I wanted to be there if you did.”

You gaze at him, soaking him in, unambiguously aware that there is no part of you that is afraid, no part of you that is shuddering or surrendering or apprehensive; there is no instinctive chorus begging you not to fall in love with him. There’s no sensation of falling at all. It feels like you’re somewhere you’ve never left.

“I know that next to someone like Roger Taylor I don’t look like much,” John confesses. “That I don’t feel like much. That I don’t light anything up the way he does. And if you can’t imagine a future with someone who isn’t him, someone who isn’t like him...then I completely accept that. But you’re always going to feel like home to me.”

You’re My Best Friend. You And I. Spread Your Wings. In Only Seven Days. Need Your Loving Tonight.

They were all about me. They were always about me.

“John...”

You don’t know what to say. You know exactly what to say.

From the crowd, a man dressed in a blue pinstripe suit and holding a Cuban cigar bellows for John. He whirls, offers a shy wave, trots over to say hello. But as they discuss concerts and albums and tours, John’s eyes meet yours through the sea of strangers and cigarette smoke, through the shifting shadows cast by flickering incandescence and moonshine.

And you watch him as the constellations and all their stars rage above, the same stars that in the time of Dante sailors read to point them home.

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willymywonkers · 4 years

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The Factory (5/5)

Summary: It's been a few weeks since the Factory tour, and Maude is much happier than she ever was. Charlie comes over, and tells her about his experience with Willy. She finds that he rejected Willy's offer. However, she gets a surprise visit from a familiar stranger.

A/N: the final chapter baby!!! I know it's this series was short, but I promise I will still be posting other stories with Maude and Willy, I've just got some major school shit to work out. My Masterlist should be up tomorrow.

Tagged: @holdmeicant @wonkasmissstarshine

It was a mid February day, and things seemed to be getting better for the Buckets. Harry Bucket had gotten a new job, with much better pay, and Grandpa Joe was much better.

Maude was back in school teaching. Charlie couldn't be happier to see her face again.

Maude even started a class teaching kids the chemistry behind making candy. She loved hanging out with the kids, but there was something missing in her life.

Despite being much cheerful, she couldn't get her mind off Will. She noticed Wonka's sales had been dropping. The newspaper began spreading rumors about him, but, of course, they weren't true.

The soft buzz from her door distracted her from her thoughts. Maude smiled, already knowing who it was.

Charlie smiled back at her, wiping the snow off his boots.

"Hello, Charlie." Maude chuckled, inviting him in.

"Hello, Ms. Figgle. Here, I got some extra tips from shoe shining, and I wanted to split this with you." Charlie handed her a Wonka bar from his pocket.

Maude smiled, taking the candy bar. "How thoughtful of you, dear."

She took a piece, but it didn't taste the same. It had a bitter taste, but it wasn't the chocolate. Chewing on the candy suddenly made Maude's good mood shift to a guilty feeling.

"This doesn't taste right." Maude said. The candy didn't have its velvety texture like it used to.

Charlie took a bite of the bar, and agreed.

"Did something happen with you and Will on the trip?" Maude asked, slightly concerned.

"Well, Mr. Wonka offered to give me his entire factory, but he wouldn't let me ever see my family again." Charlie explained.

Maude looked, slightly confused. "Really?"

"Yeah. I thought he was really nice at first. I guess he only cares about himself." Charlie sighed, disappointed.

Maude sighed, just as disappointed.

"Did he ever mention me? At all?" She asked.

"No, I don't think so." Charlie replied.

Maude's heart began to break. Of course, this was expected. She didn't expect Willy to remember her, and how she was his biggest influence in his life.

The cold sad guilt started to consume her once again.

Willy Wonka found himself in an odd situation. Ever since Charlie turned down his offer to live with him, he had been feeling odd. He felt guilty somehow.

This feeling greatly affected his chocolate sales, and he just didn't know why.

Childhood memories started coming back to him. It drove him nuts. He remembered the constant bullying. How he was an outcast to the other children.

Wired Willy is what the kids called him. They would pebbles at his house, taunting him.

God, how he hated his childhood. Willy sat his desk. His mind was clouded, and he could barely focus on his work.

"Check out loser Willy." The kids shouted. "He's like a turtle, slow and cowardly."

Willy couldn't stand it. He was so helpless. He remembered the kids pushing him to the ground and kicking him hard in the stomach.

He gulped hard. It was hard to make him cry, but those memories were enough to push Willy to his limit.

"Hey ASSHATS." A young girl cursed. "Leave him alone or I'll dissect you lot."

Willy remembered the appearance of a girl with messy pigtails and dirt on her face.

She threw some dead things at the kids, and all the kids ran off, terrified of the girl.

Willy wasn't terrified. In fact, the young girl was his savior. He remembered how she loved to chew gum.

"Maude." Will whispered. He felt upset saying her name out loud. She wasn't around anymore, and he hadn't spoken to her in years.

He sat with his supposed 'therapist'.

"I just don't understand." Willy said. "Why am I thinking about her now? I should be over her."

The Oompa Loompa nodded, writing something down.

"I just feel like there's something missing." Willy said, thinking. "I've been feeling terrible, so the candy's terrible. So, how do I fix that?"

The Oompa Loompa shrugged.

Will sat up. "Maybe I'm feeling this way because of my past actions lead up to Charlie ejecting my offer, and I should see things from outside my own perspective." He smirked over at his 'therapist'. "Oh, you're good."

The next day, Willy took a trip into town, wearing all black, in hopes of finding Charlie. He parked his large flying glass elevator in the most convenient spot, and saw the boy shining shoes.

As the boy went on a bit of a break, Willy took a seat on the bench and flipped through the local newspaper, conveniently covering his face.

Charlie kneeled down, and began to work on Willy's shoes.

"I hear that guy, Wendell Walters." Willy began to speak.

"Willy Wonka?" Charlie corrected.

"Yeah, him. I hear his chocolate hasn't been doing well. It seemed to he's a bad egg who deserves it." Willy said.

"Yeah." Charlie agreed.

"Have you met him?" Willy asked.

"I did once. At first, I thought he was nice, but then he wasn't. He also has a funny haircut." Charlie replied, trying to antagonize Willy. He caught on from the moment he sat down.

Willy tossed the newspaper down. "I do not."

"Why are you here?" Charlie got up, and crossed his arms.

"I don't feel so hot." Willy snapped. He sighed, frustrated. "What helps you feel better when you feel down?"

"My family."

"Ew." Willy winced.

Charlie started to get slightly upset. "What do have against my family?"

"It's not your family. It's the idea of-" Willy seemed to struggle on the right word.

"Parents?"

"That." Willy sighed. "And, something else."

"And, what's that?" Charlie asked. "Whatever it is, you should face what's troubling you. My teacher tells me that."

"Well, that sounds like a bunch of baloney." Willy scoffed.

"It's not. She's very smart." Charlie said.

"Then, maybe she should help me." Willy said, sarcastically. Then, he thought for a second. "Actually, that's not a bad idea. Do you think you could show me to her?"

Charlie nodded. "Sure."

Willy smiled wide. "That's great! You know, I actually have trans-"

He ran into the glass elevator face first. "I should really be careful to where I park this thing."

Willy walked into the elevator, with Charlie following behind. He pressed a single button, and they were off.

Maude was in her bedroom, playing the violin. Her fingers danced over the strings as the bow shifted back and forth, playing a calming tune. The smoothness of the instrument brought her temporary peace.

It had been a while since she touched the instrument, since she only played it when she was particularly sad. However, in this moment, she felt contentment.

It did hurt her knowing that Will completely forgotten about her, but she wasn't going to let that guilt follow her into the bright future.

Maude heard a soft knock at the door. She placed the instrument down, walking out of her bedroom.

It was Charlie, of course.

"Hello, dear." Maude smiled.

"Ms. Figgle, there's someone I want you to meet." Charlie said.

Behind him was a stunned Willy Wonka. He gulped hard, nervously smiling at Maude.

She stood there, baffled. "Come in." She spoke softly, gesturing the boys in.

Willy nodded, putting his coat and hat down.

The three of them sat in the living room. A silence consumed the room, as Will and Maude stared at each other for a few minutes.

"Hi Willy." Maude said, finally. "How are you?"

Willy smiled, slightly. "Hey Maude. I'm fine."

"Would you like some tea?" She asked.

He nodded. "Absolutely."

Maude drifted off to the kitchen. After a few minutes, she came back with tea and cookies.

Charlie looked over to Willy, and nodded.

"Ms. Figgle, do you know where the restroom is?" Charlie asked.

"Down the hall, and to the left." Maude said. Her eyes were still locked with Willy's.

Charlie took this opportunity to leave the two adults alone.

"So, you're a teacher now?" Willy reached for his tea.

"Yes, but I teach the science of candy making." Maude said, grabbing a cookie.

"That's great." He smiled. "You know, candy making does require a lot of smarts."

She chuckled. "Yeah."

Willy's smile slightly faded as he looked down at his tea. "Say, uh, would you ever want to get back into candy making again?"

She smiled, chuckling again. "Well, I would. I loved working with you in the factory."

"You did?" His puppy dog eyes were too much to bear.

Maude nodded. "Of course."

His smile soon faded. "Would you ever forgive me, Maude?"

"For what?" She asked confused.

"For coming between you and Ron. I know how much you loved him, and I just got so jealous that I pushed you away." Willy looked down at his tea, stirring it slowly.

Tears poured softly down Maude's cheek. "That's not true, Will."

Willy looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"Ron pulled me away from you." She sniffed. "I didn't love him."

"You didn't?" Willy repeated.

"No." She scoffed. "I loved you."

His eyes widened. He clenched his gloved hands, and gulped. "R-really?"

Maude nodded, wiping off any tears with a piece of paper tissue.

He leaned over to her. His gloved hand hovering over her wet cheek. Will placed a soft kiss on her quivering lips. Maude gave into the kiss, gently.

They pulled away after a minute or so.

Will cleared his throat, and chuckled, slightly.

Maude smiled, holding his hands in hers. She placed her head against Will's chest. Willy embraced the hug, holding Maude in his arms.

"I think I loved you too, Maude." He said. "Do you think you'd still might wanna live with me in the factory?"

She chuckled. "Only if Charlie says yes."

Behind her, Charlie was smiling brightly at the two.

"Charlie?" Willy Wonka began. "Would you and your family like to live in the factory with me?"

Charlie nodded. "Yes, of course."

He hugged both Maude and Willy.

Finally, it became clear to Willy about what he was missing.

This became the start of something beautiful.

#catcf #catcf 2005 #willy wonka #maude figgle #maude and willy #catcf fan character #catcf oc #willy wonka x reader #charlie bucket

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queenxxxsupreme · 4 years

Note

i just thought of how cute it would be to just cuddle w regis and stargaze like🥺🥺 if you could write something with that i would be eternally happy omg -🔮

A/N: BABE im soft

***

Regis led the way through the cemetery, holding your hand even as you trailed behind him.

The night was lively. The sounds of the crickets and katydids. A chorus of frogs chirped from the creek that ran along the outside of the cemetery. An owl hooted from somewhere in the treetops.

The moon, full and bright, shined down through the canopy, offering little flecks of light here and there. You could see well, but that was only due to the fact that there were torches lit throughout the cemetery. You were sure that Regis had something to do with that.

“Where are we going?” You asked, curious to know why he had dragged you out to a cemetery at nearly midnight. “You’re not going to kill me, are you?” You teased.

“Not in the slightest, no.” He chucked just a little, slowing down so he could walk alongside you. “I’d never dream of hurting you.” He brought your clasped hands up so he could kiss the back of your knuckles.

You smiled softly at him.

He took you beyond the trees of the cemetery to the little opening that rested between the cemetery and the forest.

With the help of the moon, you could see a blanket laying in the grass, as well as a bottle of what you presumed to be wine.

“Oh, Regis.” You squeezed his hand.

“I thought you’d like this.” He explained, stopping at the edge of the blanket to kiss your forehead. “You’ve always said you enjoy looking at the stars. If I remember correctly, you said you’d like to learn the constellations, isn’t that right?”

“Yes.” You nodded, biting your bottom lip in an attempt to hide the huge smile that tried to come out.

“Well, while I couldn’t sleep for the last few nights, I’ve been reading different books from all over the Continent on stars and the likes. I’d say I’m pretty well versed in astrology now.”

“So humble.” You giggled softly, teasing him.

“I can teach you, if you’d like.” Regis offered, eyes gazing at you.

“I’d love that, Regis.” You nodded enthusiastically.

He motioned for you to get down on the blanket.

You slipped off your boots and sat down on the blanket, then laid back to look at the stars. Regis followed your actions, laying down next to you. You scooted a little closer to him, taking his hand and lacing your fingers together.

He began to point out constellations in the sky and tell you the names of the stars that it consisted of. Then he’d point to locations in the sky where planets could be seen. He seemed just as fascinated as you were by the night sky, and he was eager to share his knowledge with you.

As he started a little story about how one of the stars got its name, you turned your head to look at him.

It amazed you that this brilliant, handsome nerd was yours. That you were lucky enough to have him, to love him. He had such a gentle soul and truly wanted the best for nearly everyone he crossed.

Regis felt you staring at him and paused his story, turning his head to meet your gaze.

“Is something the matter, darling?”

“No.” You answered softly, leaning over to kiss his cheek. “Everything is perfect. This is perfect, Regis. Thank you.”

“Anything for you, my love.”

You stayed out there underneath the stars for hours. Regis eventually ran out of constellations to tell you about, but that didn’t stop him from talking. He started to tell you of how whenever he was a child, his mother would stargaze with him through a window in their home. That led to other stories from his childhood.

You were mostly silent, soaking up everything he had to say. But as the night drew on, you became sleepy. You struggled to stay awake, and Regis knew this.

Eventually, you fell asleep with your head on his shoulder. His arm was wrapped firmly around you, holding you close to his body.

A little while later, he picked you up and carried you back to your home.

As he was laying you down in bed, you stirred a little. Your hands clutched at his arms, not wanting him to let you go.

“Regis.” You groaned softly.

“Right here, love.” He leaned down to kiss your forehead.

“Stay. Please?” Your eyes opened, lids heavy with sleep.

“Of course.”

Regis climbed into the bed behind you and settled there, lanky arms wrapping firmly around you.

“Good night, Regis.”

“Sweet dreams, my love.”

Taglist: @pressedinthepages @mishafaye @whitewolfandthefox @wolfyland07 @belalugosisdead @persephonehemingway @keira-hulmaster @dinonuggs69 @greatestauthorofmygeneration @shadow-hunters-lover @dancingwith-thesunflowers @tedi-fach-las @thecomfortofoldstorries @raspberrydreamclouds @natkowaa @disasteren @weathervanes-my-oneandlonely @onlyhenrys @wackylurker @criminaly-supernatural @magpie343 @permanently-exhausted-witcher @hina-chans-stuff @the-space-between-heartbeats @havenoffandoms @carriebee1 @ger-bearofrivia @naominami @writingawaymylife @reaganjenelle @theawkwardpedestrian @scarlettwitcher @badassspaceprincess @just-a-sad-donut @summersong69 @an–actual–human–disaster @rubyqueen819 @omgkatinka @c-a-v-a-l-r-y @vonxcon @mazakeen @bravelittlesunflower @thereagles @awkward-turtles-world @menalliha @cotton_mo @maan24 @thefirelordm @monkeymo @krenee1drful @nympha-door-a @unadulteratedtreecrusade @Aquarius-pisces-rose @mentallyscreamingsincebirth @fl0ating @sometimesiwrite

If your name is in italics, it wouldn’t let me tag you :(

#Regis x reader #Regis x reader fluff #Regis fluff #Regis #the witcher #kacey answers

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queen-of-deans-booty · 4 years

Text

Hammer of the Gods: Part Two

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Word Count: 2,172

Warnings: typical supernatural violence, language, angst, blood, you know the usual

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Supernatural. All credit goes to their respective owners. Any and all comments on these are appreciated. I really want to hear what you guys think about this one!

Feedback is the glue that holds my writing together.

Tags at the bottom

“An elephant?” you ask, not believing Dean’s story at all.

Apparently, he walks by a room with the door open, saw a full-grown elephant with a towel, only to double check and see a big black man in its spot. There is nothing else left to check, so you three head back to the lobby.

“Yeah,” Dean sighs.

“Like, an elephant?”

“Like, full-on Babar.”

“So, what the hell is... where is everybody?” Sam trails off once he gets a look at the lobby.

Every single person is gone, and so is Chad. The lobby is deserted. You and Dean stay put while Sam goes to check the front doors. Just like you suspected, they are locked.

“Let me guess—it's locked. So, what, the roaches check in and they don't check out?” Dean asks.

“Think about how we got here. That detour on I-90? The fucking hurricane?” Sam exclaims.

“Are you saying we were led here?” you wonder.

“Like rats in a maze.”

“Who would want us?” you ask, and both brothers give you a bitch look since you’re asking an obvious question. “Who would want us and a hotel full of people? Usually, they come after us wherever we are. We don’t get led to places. Plus, where did everyone else go?”

“We should stick together this time,” Sam says.

You take the lead on this one and walk into the dining hall. There is no one in the room, so you continue on your way into the kitchen which is also empty. You take one step at a time, slowly making your way through the kitchen. There is nothing out of the ordinary except for a pot on the stove that’s bubbling. This should not be left alone, especially in a hotel. Dean walks closer to it with a scared look on his face.

“Please be tomato soup. Please be tomato soup,” he mutters and lift the ladle that’s resting inside the pot. As soon as it surfaces, two eyeballs do as well. He lets go of the ladle in disgust. “Motel hell.”

“I knew something wasn’t right,” you sigh and continue on your way.

There is something about the meat freezer that’s in front of you. There’s nothing wrong with it visually, but it’s like something is pulling you to it. When you get face to face with it, a hand slams against the tiny glass and a face appears.

“Help us! Get us out!�� a man screams.

This must be where the hotel guests have gone. Sam reaches in his jacket to take out his lock picking tool kit, but you wave him off.

“I got this,” you say and your eyes turn blue.

Magic courses through your body from your eyes to your fingertips, showing off a stream of bright blue magic from underneath your skin. It’s like the magic is showing everyone how it works and where it’s going.

“Hurry up!” Dean yells.

“You know, I would go a lot faster if you didn’t,” you yell and turn around only to stop short when you see who is behind him, “rush me.”

“There's somebody behind me, isn't there?” he asks without turning around.

All you can do is nod slowly just as the color in your eyes and hands die out.

The three men who were behind Dean grabbed you, Sam, and Dean with force and brought you to the grand ballroom. They are a lot stronger than you, so you can’t use your magic to get yourself out of this one. The doors open and they shove you in to reveal a handful of people that look like they want to eat you.

Your eyes flit around the room and at the name badges these people wore. The big black man that Dean saw, his name is Ganesh. Ganesh is the elephant-head Hindu God of new beginnings. There is another man who is a lot older with a white beard—Odin. Odin is a war God in Norse mythology. A black woman with gorgeous black hair is named Kali. Kali is the Hindu Goddess of death, time, and doomsday. Another black man is named Baron Samedi. Baron Samedi is a Haitian God of the dead. There are others, but you assume they are also Gods of other things.

“Something tells me this isn't a Shriner convention,” Dean comments.

Chad, who is now named Mercury, pushes a food table into the room to serve dinner. Mercury is the Roman God of messengers. You knew there was something off about him.

“Dinner is served,” he announces and takes off the silver top that’s covering the course.

Like you suspected, there is a human head and his innards lying on the table for the Gods to eat. A round of applause erupts once they see the dinner plate. A spotlight suddenly appears and shines on the three of you. You shield your eyes from the brightness, and one of the main hosts steps forward with a smile. His name is Baldur, another Norse God that you can’t remember what he does.

“Ladies and Gentleman, our guests of honor have arrived,” he smiles. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming. Although in all my centuries, I never thought I'd see this. This many gods under one roof.”

“Gods?” Dean whispers to you and Sam.

The men who brought you here shoves you three to chairs and makes you sit with you in the middle of the brothers. Every single God took their place at the dinner table so that everyone is sitting except for Baldur.

“Yeah, don’t you know your mythology?” you whisper back.

“Now, before we get down to brass tacks, some ground rules. No slaughtering each other. Curb your wrath. Oh, and uh, keep your hands off the local virgins. We're trying to keep a low profile here,” Baldur continues.

“Oh, we are so, so screwed,” Sam whispers.

“Now we all know why we're here. The Judeo-Christian apocalypse looms over us. I know we've all had our little disagreements in the past. The time has come to put those aside and look toward the future. Because if we don't, we won't have one. Now we do have three very valuable bargaining chips. Michael, Amara and Lucifer's vessels. The question is, what do we do now? Anybody have any bright ideas? Speak up. This is a safe room.”

Zao Shen, the kitchen God of Chinese folk and mythology, stands and speaks in Chinese. His tone is angry, and Dean turns to you and Sam with his eyebrows raised.

“Oh I do not like his tone,” he scoffs.

“Kill 'em? Why? So the angels can bring them back again?” Ganesh responds to the Chinese God.

“I don't know what everybody's getting so worked up about,” Odin speaks his mind. “'Cause it's just a couple of angels having a slap fight! There's no Armageddon. Everybody knows, when the world comes to an end, the Great Serpent Jormungandr rises up, and I myself will be eaten by a big wolf!”

Zao Shen speaks again in his native tongue, and Odin rolls his eyes in annoyance.

“Oh yeah? And why is that?” he asks as if he can understand the language. “Because your beliefs are so much more realistic? The whole world's getting carried around on the back of a giant turtle? Ha! Give me a break!”

Zao Shen hisses back in his native tongue with his finger pointed at Odin. The Norse God gets up as if he’s going to jump across the table and bitch slap him. Yours, Sam, and Dean’s eyebrows go up in surprise.

“What are you gonna do about it?”

Zao Shen responds back in Chinese. You have no clue what they are talking about, but this might be your clue to get out of here while they are fighting. They keep up with their verbal argument, and you look at Sam and Dean. They know what you’re thinking, and you three stand up to leave the room. As soon as your back is turned to the Gods, the chandelier by the door unhooks and drops to the ground in front of you.

“Stay,” Kali interrupts as she stands. You turn around to look at her with a glare. “We have to fight. The archangels—the only thing they understand is violence. This ends in blood. There is no other way, it's them, or us.”

“With all due respect, ma'am,” Mercury speaks up, “we haven't even tried talking to them.”

There is a brief pause as Kali stares at Mercury with slit eyes. He begins to choke up blood, and he claws at his tie as if that’s going to help him breathe.

“Kali!” Baldur stops whatever hold she has on the Roman God.

“Who asked you?” she points her question to Mercury.

Just then, the double doors to the grand ballroom opens and Gabriel comes wandering in like he owns the place.

“Can't we all just get along?”

“Gabriel?” you ask, but he cuts you off with a swipe of his fingers.

Whatever he did to you, he did to the Winchesters because you can’t speak at all.

“Sam! Dean, Y/N... It's always wrong place, worst time with you muttonheads, huh?”

“Loki,” Baldur sneers.

Wait, Loki? Do they not know who he is?

“Baldur. Good seeing you too. I guess my invitation got lost in the mail,” he chuckles.

“Why are you here?”

“To talk about the elephant in the room,” Ganesh begins to stand up, indignant, but Gabriel points a finger at him to stop him. “Not you. The Apocalypse. We can't stop it, gang. But first things first,” he turns to you three with a sarcastic smile. “The adults need to have a little conversation. Check you later.”

Gabriel snaps his fingers, and suddenly, you’re in your hotel room. Your eyes widen and you start stuttering to figure out what the hell just happened.

“Okay, did that—holy shit!”

“Yeah, tell me about it. By the way, next time I say let's keep driving, uh, let's keep driving.”

“Yeah, okay, next time,” Dean mocks.

“Okay, I guess we need to figure a way out of here. First things first, we need to save the people in the freezer. Then, if we’re lucky, we kill some Gods.”

“When are you ever lucky?” Gabriel says from across the room.

He is sitting on the black leather couch with his right leg crossed over his left.

“Bite me, Gabriel,” you glare.

“Maybe later,” he winks at you.

“I should've known. I mean this had your stink all over it from the jump,” Dean interrupts with a scoff.

“You think I'm behind this? Please. I'm the Costner to your Houston. I'm here to save your asses.”

“You wanna pull us outta the fire?”

“Bingo! Those guys are either gonna dust you or use you as bait. Either way, you're uber boned.”

“Wow, 'cause a couple of months ago you were telling us that we need to “play our roles”. You're uber boning us!” Dean yells.

“Oh, the end is still nigh. Michael and Lucifer are gonna dance the lambada, but not tonight. Not here.”

“Why do you care?” you ask.

“I don't care. But, me and Kali we, uh, had a thing. Chick was all hands. What can I say? I'm sentimental,” he chuckles and gets up to stand in front of you three.

“Do they have a chance against Satan?” Sam suddenly asks.

“Really, Sam?” Dean scoffs.

“You got a better idea, Dean?”

“It's a bad idea. Lucifer's gonna turn them into finger paint. So, let's get going while the going's good, hmm?”

“Okay, then zap us out of here,” you shrug.

“Would if I could, but Kali's got you by the short and curlies. It's a blood spell. You three are on a leash.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means it's time for a bit of the old black magic,” he chuckles and takes out breath spray.

He applies two spritzes in his mouth with a smile.

“Whatever. You do that, and we're gonna take the people in the freezer with us.”

“Forget it. It's gonna be hard enough sneaking you mooks outta here,” he rolls his eyes.

“They called you Loki, right? They don’t know who you really are?” you say and step forward to make sure he knows you’re not to be messed with.

“Told you. I'm in witness protection.”

“Okay, then how about you do what we say, or we’ll tell those Gods about your secret identity. They don’t seem like the pro-angel type of crowd,” you chuckle.

“I’ll take your voices away.”

“We’ll write it down,” you say as you take one step closer.

“I'll cut off your hands.”

“Do you really think that’ll stop me?” you ask as your eyes glow blue.

“Fine,” he huffs and backs off.

The color leaves your eyes, and you smile sweetly as he vanishes from the room. You turn to the brothers with a victory smile.

“That’s how you get things done around here.”

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mykingdomforapen · 4 years

Text

first light of dawn

Yvon has read more words than many have spoken in their lifetime. In several languages, too. He carries a book in his belongings even when they take up too much room, John Milton immortalised by sheets of paper. The works of poets and scholars can live on without a single utterance, their words and stories carried onward by black ink.

Even so, when he reads, he reads out loud, so that he can taste the weight of them on his tongue, and hear them ride on the backs of breezes so that it carries forth, as if Paradise Lost is a pebble dropped in a still lake, and it ripples forward until it reaches the ocean. After all, the hemlock trees and the riverbank pebbles have no eyes to read; he does not tell anyone this, but he reads poetry from his little black book so that the forests can listen along, until they all can recite the stanzas nearly from memory.

Hamish finds this politely exasperating.

“Does it have to be Milton?” he says.

Yvon does not look up from his book.

“Have you got anything better?” he says.

“I prefer Bradstreet,” says Hamish. “She isn’t quite as long-winded.”

Yvon turns a page, but he permits himself a smile.

“That sounds like a personal problem,” he says.

His companion scowls, but saves the rest of his protesting for later. Yvon defends Milton not out of favour. Milton is a master of the English language, naturally, and he retells ancient stories with fresh blood--a practise that Yvon finds familiar, even if the story itself is not. Milton puts into lilting verse the dark beasts in each man, and Yvon finds comfort in their company.

But no matter how many stanzas of the fall of Lucifer that Yvon can memorise, Milton is a lease more than a gift--the English have given Milton to him in exchange for gratitude and devotion. They think that the fact that he can read and write English is a testament to the victory of their presence in this land. Never mind that Yvon can speak about three different languages from his mother’s side, and has learned English and French on his own before attending Harvard. Sometimes, as he quotes, “Neither man nor angel can discern hypocrisy, the only evil that walks invisible except to God alone”--he hears the English pat themselves on the back, and the thoughtful words taste bitter.

No, Yvon defends Milton simply because it irritates Hamish, and he finds that amusing.

“Tell a story that I haven’t heard before instead,” says Hamish.

The request makes Yvon laugh. Hamish has likely seen fewer winters than some of the bears wading in the river. There are thousands of stories he has not yet heard. Yvon closes his book, as he does not need it.

“Then let me tell you about Wenebojo,” he says, and Hamish listens.

When Yvon first met Hamish Goames, he expected to underestimate him. Hamish was young, barely past twenty-seven years of age, and he had that perpetual sullenness about him that only emphasised his youth. Yvon heard in passing that Hamish’s brother-in-law also worked for the Hudson Bay Company, which gave Yvon an amusing impression of a little boy tagging along with his older brother’s gang.

“Hamish Goames,” he had said with the sort of tone one would reserve for a funeral. “At your service.”

He had pale grey eyes, like the sky after a heavy storm had already passed, and his lips were constantly fixed in a worried line. He looked not the type that would last here. He seemed like someone who cared too much, and the Company wanted little to do with those sort.

“Yvon Fitzpatrick,” Yvon said. “At the Company’s, or whoever is putting the coin in my purse.”

There was a hint of cautious curiosity in Hamish’s eyes as he tried to affix the French name to Yvon’s face. Yvon smiled in spite of himself.

“It is not my only name,” he said, “if that is what you were wondering.”

Hamish had the right mind to look humbled.

“What other names are yours, then?” he said.

“I have given you one already,” Yvon said. “Don’t be too greedy.”

Their colleagues of the Company laughed at Hamish. Don’t mind Yvon, they said. You won’t find it easy to understand him. He speaks in riddles.

But Hamish shook his head. No, he said. Yvon had spoken very plainly. You just don’t like to understand when you’ve been refused.

Hamish was earnest, and honest men do not survive Turtle Island when they live among the English and the French. Yvon knew not to get too attached, but he already knew he would be sad to see Hamish go.

Some of the Company do not hide their distaste of the Iroquois. Savages, heathens, uncivilised--white men come up with many dramatic synonyms just to declare someone different.

“Skin crawls at the sight of them,” one Company man says, with a shudder. “Always feel their eyes on the back of my head when I go out. Can’t even take a piss without feeling watched.”

“I wouldn’t flatter yourself like that,” Yvon says. “There isn’t much to see.”

Only Hamish hears him. Yvon knows this because he sees Hamish choke on his drink.

“Their lot wear nothing but skins,” says another. “And usually, just their own. Bloody mad.”

Yvon resists to comment, because that is obviously bullshit. Especially in the dead of winter. The company he keeps do not resist to pitch in their two cents, because men will hallucinate rumours when they apparently have nothing better to do.

“Oi, Richards,” says another. His eyes dart sheepishly towards Yvon with a semblance of discomfort.

“Who, Fitzpatrick?” says the one named Richards. “He’s different, isn’t he? Wearing britches and a proper hat, like a proper Christian man.”

The man nibbles on their supper, satisfied with the answer. Yvon finds himself surprisingly disappointed.

“And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed,” Yvon recites.

The men’s heads turn to Yvon, as if only just now comprehending that he can hear them. Yvon regards their attention with a slight smile.

“In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him,” recites Yvon. “Buck naked, too.”

Now all conversation has been silenced. Yvon is unbothered. Normally, he would carefully consider preserving the peace of the community, but that is apparently Anishinaabe priorities--which, according to the English, is not applicable to them. So Yvon does not give a shit.

“It’s been a while since I studied all of your books,” he said. “But I think I remember correctly that it wasn’t until the devil got a hold of man did man start wearing underwear.” He shrugs and takes a bite of an apple. “But what do I know?”

Richards sputters.

“You are a sensible man, Fitzpatrick,” says Richards. “Now that you’ve come to live in our world, would you ever truly want to go back into the dark?”

Yvon crunches through his apple methodically.

“Does that mean that you think you turn into the devil’s spawn every time you strip to take a bath?” he says. He rubs his nose for good measure. “That would explain much.”

Someone snorts with amusement. Everyone’s head turns to see who it was, but whoever it is covers themselves quickly. Yvon has a sneaking suspicion he knows who it is, because when he excuses himself to walk along the creek, Hamish leaves the group and follows him.

Hamish is naturally inquisitive. Behind the glower and the monotone is a young man in a new world who wants to know everything about the rivers, the mist in the mountains, the incense of a burning hemlock. It turns out that Yvon is the only one who has the patience to temper that curiosity.

“How can you tell it is a hemlock?” he asks, and Yvon shows him the hair-thin white stripes on the back of its pines, and the tough mushrooms that sprout from the jagged bark.

“What are your stars’ stories?” he asks, and Yvon tells him of Biboonkeonini, and the coming frost ahead. When the mornings grow colder, and Hamish has to blow into his hands to feel his fingertips, Yvon hears him mutter complaints of the Wintermaker. It makes Yvon snort.

“Do you have a family?” he asks, and Yvon says, That’s enough questions for today. He spoons an extra heap of beans into Hamish’s bowl, and it shuts him up, for now.

Yvon still dreams of his mother. She looks the way he last saw her, before he left for Harvard. She is cooking soup of wild rice for him, even though he is grown and can look after himself. I do not know when will be the next time I can share a meal with you, she says.

He is no longer dressed in coats and stiff boots. He sits cross-legged beside her; there is no book of Englishmen’s words in his bag, no musket around his shoulder. He speaks in his mother’s language, and in his dreams he never stumbles over his words.

In his dreams, she is just about the same age as he is now. She had departed at least twenty-five years ago. The fires have died down, the tobacco reduced to ash, the grief internalised. And yet his mother returns, and brushes the hair behind his ears as if he is small again.

I’ve gone too far, haven’t I? he asks her.

She smiles. She calls him by the name the elders gave him. It is only in dreams now when anyone calls him such. He holds his breath for the morning when he will wake up and forget what it is.

How far can you possibly go, she says, before you can never come westward? My son, you can never go far enough that you cannot come to me one day. Follow the setting sun, and you will.

Before her hand can touch his head, he wakes up, twenty years older, in white men’s clothes with a white man’s name.

Yvon is reminded of his mother by the snowfall, when he presses a handful of the freshly fallen winter against his cheek. Hamish remembers his mother through his sister.

He carries the miniature of his sister’s face wherever he goes. Yvon initially assumed her to be his wife, and when he made a passing comment with that belief, Hamish narrowed his eyes and protectively shifted the miniature away. Alice is my sister, he said mulishly. Although any man would be lucky to have her. Which makes Randall an idiot.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Hamish would say when he showed Yvon the miniature. And Yvon would agree to be polite.

From what Yvon gathers, Hamish’s mother had passed not long after he was born. Alice was his close companion as together they navigated a childhood coloured by London fires, tumultuous revolutions, and an imposing father. Yvon risks to ask, and Hamish pretends he does not hear. Yvon does not push. Neither of them want to speak of their fathers.

“It’s strange to think,” Hamish says once, in a rare moment of honesty, “that with an ocean between us, she and I do not share the same sunrise or sunset.”

The simple longing makes him seem childlike, which Yvon does not tell him this because Hamish becomes defensive easily.

“Well,” Yvon says. “It’s still the same sun, isn’t it? Or do you English believe we don’t even share that?”

Hamish smiles wryly. He does not protest.

“Waaseyaa,” his mother calls him, in his dreams.

He wakes at the first light of dawn, and so he remembers.

#barkskins #LC writes #ok.....listen.....#ther'es no plot......there's no direction.....#i tried my best to research as much as i could but......#pls let me know if i am TERRIBLE

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sakura-blossom28 · 4 years

Text

Heartbroken

I guess I can’t stop writing! This is a more set up chapter if anything with some sweet bits at the end which I love writing! The next chapter should be fun and I’m going to jump around with the time a bit to speed this up to get to more Gaara Sakura gushy bits! Hope you guys like it let me know what you think!!

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

Going out, piece of cake. But what to wear? If she was just going to Naruto’s apartment Sakura would have just changed into some pajamas to hang out in, but they hardly went out like this, and this was barely going out. To overdress or underdress? Sakura did like getting dressed up but this was hardly the place to do it, and besides, she hadn’t had a reason to look nice in a while. Even when she was dating Sasuke they never went out. The bar scene just wasn’t for him. Sakura didn’t mind, they went to a lot of casual dining places so there was never a need.

She did miss dressing up, doing her hair, and using the nice makeup she got for Christmas. Maybe with the warm weather, Sakura could convince everyone to go out to the nice rooftop bars. Maybe even dancing! The thought made her happy. Even though she wasn’t good at it, Sakura still liked to dance. It was just a fun way to let loose and feel good.

Sakura chose to straighten her hair after her shower. She definitely needed one after kickboxing. She chose a chunky green turtle neck sweater that was darker than her eyes, dark jeans, and a pair of brown boots with a little bit of a heel. Sakura looked casual but nice enough that her mother would approve of since she was going out in public. Her makeup was light, just some blush and mascara to bring out her eyes more, and just a shiny tint lipstick to finish her look. Sakura grabbed her off-white coat and walked out the door. Her parents were away this weekend on a mini-vacation that Sakura couldn’t get time off of work for. It was fine they needed some alone time. She locked up and made her way out.

The bar was a few blocks away from Sakura’s apartment building. She remembered going there a few times with friends in the neighborhood when they all turned 21. Even her parents stopped in from time to time to get a bite to eat after work. She loved their wings. Just the thought of them made Sakura quicken her pace. As she arrived she saw two familiar people standing outside.

XxX

“Hey, Gaara, isn’t that the girl you’re crushing on? She’s way cute. If you’re not gonna make a move I will,” Kankuro said to his younger brother. At the sound of her name, Gaara looked down the street to see in fact it was Sakura. His heart squeezed a bit at the sight of her. His mind instantly played the memory from this morning of Sakura smiling so brilliantly at him during her workout. She was the first girl to catch his attention in a long time.

Sure there had been other girls before, but either they didn’t stick around, or Gaara just lost interest. Hopefully getting to know Sakura would be exciting, he could use something different in his life. Temari already liked her so that was a good sign. She never liked the girls he brought around so he just stopped.

“Not a chance Kankuro,” Gaara said and moved off the wall he was leaning on and walked up to Sakura.

“Oh hi, Gaara! I thought I would be the first one here! Hey Kankuro, nice to see you again,” Sakura said and peaked around Gaara to say hi to his brother.

“Sakura! Long time no see! You’re looking great as usual,” Kankuro said walking up and putting his arm around Gaara. She was taken aback by his comment. Sakura had never been comfortable with people complimenting her, especially not guys. She decided to brush it off, he was just being nice. Sakura was too flustered to notice Gaara practically shoving Kankuro into the street after his little comment.

“Let’s go inside and grab a table,” Sakura suggested with a nervous chuckle as she walked inside. Gaara quickly followed right behind her, making sure to close the door right in Kankuro’s face. The bar was quiet like Sakura expected. It would be very easy to push some tables together for the nine of them. After about twenty minutes everyone was finally there.

Sakura managed to be sitting next to Gaara, thanks to Temari, and across from Naruto and Hinata. For a while, everyone was chatting nicely, but then her conversation with Hinata stopped when she got up to go to the bar.

“So how are you feeling? You were doing great for the first time,” Gaara said casually leaning back into his seat to talk to Sakura.

“I actually really enjoyed it. I’m pretty tired, but I feel great! Do you always teach the beginner’s class?”

“No, I don’t usually teach all that much. I was filling in for one of the instructors since they were sick,” which wasn’t true, he wanted to see Sakura again after the other day.

“Aw, that’s too bad. I think you’re a great teacher,” she said with a smile, and Gaara smiled back.

“Do you think you’ll be coming back?”

“Definitely. The gym’s pretty close to my job so I can go right after work.”

Their conversation went forward from that point without an awkward pause or break. Gaara was really easy to talk to. They covered everything from their day to day, to what they enjoyed doing in their spare time. Sakura was happy to find that they had a lot in common. They both like to take it easy by reading and watching movies. Gaara was very intrigued in her cooking and baking efforts.

“I need to start cooking more. Kankuro can’t even boil a pot of water to save his life. And I’ve been staying late at the gym most nights that I can’t cook for him,” Gaara said throwing a sideways glance at his older brother who was happily chugging down his beer.

“I like to keep myself busy after work so I’ve been trying a lot of new things, and I have to say my cooking has gotten a lot better!”

“And why are you trying to be so busy?” Gaara regretted the question as soon as he said it. He could see Sakura stiffen at the question while her eyes widened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“No, it’s alright. I was seeing someone who preoccupied almost every thought I had and how that I’m not seeing him anymore I realized how much time I had once he was gone. So now I’m trying new things that I want to do,” she said with a small smile.

“That’s actually really cool. And good for you to focus on yourself. Most people would spiral out of control. I remember Temari did that after her first serious boyfriend dumped her. What a mess that was. If she hadn’t gotten her own version of revenge I would have probably punched the guy if I ever saw him again,” Gaara said with a smirk.

“What did she do?”

“She didn’t do anything. They were both applying to the same tattoo shop at the same time, but she got the job over him. And the best part was that they were both told at the same time so he knew he lost to her, and as he was leaving he bumped into someone and they spilled their smoothie all over him.”

“That’s actually hilarious! That’s what he gets for whatever he did to her,” Sakura said trying to hold in her laughter.

Their night went on much the same way, exchanging different stories or embarrassing things that have happened to them. Gaara steered clear of any more talk of relationships. Clearly, something bad had happened to Sakura and he didn’t want to upset her any more than he already did.

Sakura was feeling really happy. Talking to Gaara felt really natural and they seemed to be clicking. She was having a really nice time with him. Letting her guard down for once felt so freeing. She definitely noticed that she had been smiling more. It felt really good. Was she finally ready to put herself out there? Should she take a chance on Gaara? Worst case she just gets to know him and they stay friends before it can develop into anything more. Better to play it safe.

Before they knew it, it was almost 11 PM. Tenten, Neji, and Lee had already left without them noticing. Their chemistry was so noticeable that even Naruto picked up on it.

“Hey guys, we’re gonna head out, but stay as long as you want!” Naruto called out with a big smile while quickly shoving everyone else out of the bar.

Sakura just had to laugh. Naruto was just so not smooth. They paid their bill and followed the crowd outside.

“Well, I’m the other way so I’ll see you guys soon,” Sakura said to the group as they were heading towards the parking lot.

“Did you walk here?” Gaara asked starting to go in Sakura’s direction.

“Yeah if I walk fast it won’t be too bad.”

“Would it be okay if I go with you? It’s pretty dark.”

“It’s alright you don’t have to! I’m in the complete opposite direction of you anyway!”

“I really don’t mind. Plus I would feel better knowing you got home safe.” That was the same thing that Sasuke would say. Text me when you get home. It was the only thing he said to Sakura that showed her he cared. Even when he dumped her the last thing he said was get home safe. It was nice to hear again.

“Yeah okay. Thanks that’s really sweet of you,” she said with a smile.

The night wasn’t too cold, but some of the street lamps didn’t seem to be working so she was happy that Gaara was tagging along. They were talking quietly when they heard loud shouting coming towards them.

“Hey girl what are you doing out here? Come over here!” came from a group of what seemed to be three drunk guys stumbling behind them. At first, Sakura didn’t register what was happening or who they were talking to. The next thing she knew Gaara had his arm tightly around her shoulders and pulled her close. He picked up the pace and it finally clicked in Sakura’s mind that those guys were talking to her.

“Hey! We’re talking to you! Come back!” one of the more sober men started to say. Gaara stopped under the next streetlight still holding on tightly to Sakura. He turned to look at her, clearly, she was shaken up and understandably so. He couldn’t believe she almost walked home by herself.

“Stay right here where I can see you. I’ll handle this,” Gaara said in the calmest voice he could use to make her feel better.

“Please let’s just go,” Sakura begged. Her hands were already shaking. Any confrontation wasn’t her strongest point, especially with drunk men.

“I don’t want them knowing where your apartment is. I’ll be right back,” and he was gone.

It felt like hours that Gaara was gone, but Sakura knew that was impossible. She strained to hear, but could only hear muffled voices. The next thing she knew Gaara was walking back with his hands in his pockets.

“See I told you I’d take care of it-,” Gaara said. He would have said more but Sakura ran up to him and tightly grabbed him into a fierce hug. He knew she was scared, but feeling her shake against him was even worse. He gently wrapped his arms around her. She felt so small in his arms. When he heard her start crying, his heart dropped into his stomach. He did it again, someone good was scared of him.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you-” he said while he tried to back away from her, but she was holding on too tight which surprised him. She looked up at him with tears in her eyes, but he didn’t see any fear.

“You didn’t scare me! They did! I-I- That never happens I swear! It’s just awful! How do other girls deal with that all the time? Look at me I can’t stop shaking! I hate it!” Sakura looked so upset, but Gaara didn’t know what to say.

She realized how close they were, she got embarrassed and let go of Gaara. Sakura blushed but kept talking, “I just get so angry that I can’t stand up for myself. That’s why I started kickboxing classes. I thought if I physically got stronger I would feel it too.”

Sakura led the rest of the way to the apartment, keeping a little closer to Gaara as they walked. The whole time she was thinking to herself and having a small argument with herself that she almost forgot Gaara was next to her. Gaara was fine with the silence. He really had no response to give to Sakura’s statement. He felt he didn’t know her well enough to put her mind at ease.

Her apartment wasn’t too much farther and she was only on the second floor. She got her key out and opened the dark silent apartment. At that moment she forgot that her parents weren’t home.

“Oh right…” she quietly said to herself.

“Are you home-alone tonight? I thought you said you lived with your parents?” Gaara asked as he looked into a dark hallway.

“They’re away for the weekend. They won’t be back until Monday,” Sakura said in a small voice. She turned on the hall light, but it still seemed pretty dark in her home. “Thanks for walking me home. I’m really glad you did. And thank you for taking care of it. Are you going to be alright by yourself?”

“I should be fine,” Gaara said giving her a small smile to make her feel better, but she didn’t look convinced.

“Can you come in for a bit?” Sakura asked without looking at him. She felt utterly embarrassed for even asking such a question. She didn’t want him to get the wrong idea about her, but she was still pretty shaken up by what happened.

“Yeah absolutely.”

They walked into her small apartment, but it was big enough for 3 people. Sakura never minded that she lived here, she actually enjoyed it. She never had to take the garbage out in the rain, or shovel snow in the winter. The front room was spacious with cream walls and red accents all around the house. Gaara was jealous of the size of the kitchen. His apartment wasn’t as nice, but he couldn’t complain his commute to work was zero minutes.

All around the home were pictures of family, friends, and Sakura through the ages. The most recent one being her college graduation. She looked tired but happy. On one wall was an empty picture frame. It was an odd sight, but Gaara could put two and two together. There must have been a picture of Sakura and her ex in there that her family happily hung up. They really must have liked him. He would be noisy and ask Temari later on.

“I think I’m gonna call Naruto and Hinata and see if they can come over. I don’t think I want to be alone tonight,” Sakura said from the kitchen. “I’d ask you to stay, but I thought that would be creepy and rude of me to ask since we just met.”

“I think that’s a good idea. And I wouldn’t mind staying if it made you feel better,” Gaara said still wandering around her living room. Sure it wasn’t Gaara’s usual style to stay over a girl’s house, but seeing her cry like that she could have asked him for anything and he would have done it.

“Thanks. I really appreciate it Gaara,” he turned at the sound of Sakura saying his name. He saw that she relaxed a bit and she stopped shaking, which was a good sign. “I’m just gonna go get changed. I’ll get you some clothes.”

Sakura wasn’t gone too long when there was a knock on the door. On the other side were Naruto and Hinata. They rushed past him with small a small greeting and went straight towards Sakura’s room. If he really wanted to go home and sleep in his own bed this would be his chance. He turned back around to see Sakura come out in her pajamas and holding some for him.

She looked so innocent in a matching outfit of light blue button-down pajamas with little cupcakes all over them. Sakura was even rubbing her eyes like a little kid. She just looked so cute that Gaara could feel his legs moving back towards her as he shut and locked the door.

As Naruto and Hinata were fussing over her and asking a million questions, Sakura looked towards him and blushed slightly. Handing him a pair of grey flannel pants and a black long-sleeved shirt, she blushed more handing him the clothes.

“I hope these fit. The bathroom is on the left.”

“They’ll be fine. Thanks.”

When he came back, Naruto and Hinata were already set up on one reclining couch tucked in. Sakura was on the other and was waiting for him, barely staying away. He settled in and reclined the couch for them. Sakura’s eyes were heavy with sleep, but she seemed like she was trying to fight it.

“You’re okay now, get some rest. Do you want to sleep in your bed?” Gaara said as he pulled a blanket up around her.

“No no I’m okay. I feel better that you’re here,” Sakura mumbled, eventually slumping onto Gaara as she fell asleep. It was so strange to be close to someone else like this. It felt nice, it felt right. Sakura was a good person. She was interesting, funny, smart, and kind. She was someone he wanted to get to know better. He wouldn’t deny that he was already interested in her but knew good things took time.

Gaara knew she went through something pretty rough, but he was a patient person. Looking at her sleeping so peacefully he realized that waiting would be worth it if she wanted to get to know him. He knew he was getting ahead of himself, but for the first time in a while, he felt excited about the future. Maybe getting close to someone, dare he say romantically wouldn’t be the end of the world like he always thought it was. If everyone else around him seemed okay with a partner, he could give it a shot.

Part 5

#sakura #Sakura Haruno #Sabaku No Gaara #gaasaku #gaara x sakura #naruto #Naruto Uzumaki #Hinata Hyuga #temari #modern au #My writing #writing #fanfiction #fanfic #sakura fanfic #heartbroken

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agentkgent · 5 years

Text

Fic: If You Want It Back

Chapter One: You’d Probably Think (Tumblr | AO3)

Chapter Two: If You Knew | Read on AO3

(This is a short chapter, mostly establishing that our boys are on opposite sides of the country as adults; They do not remember each other and they are not happy; this isn’t necessarily a HAPPY chapter, but it’s setting up for some cavity-inducing sweet fluff heading your way!)

- - -

Eddie | 39

“Eddie, there just won’t be enough room for all of this!” Myra insists, gesturing to the boxes of clothes.

Eddie gives a half-hearted chuckle and runs a hand through his hair. “Sweetheart, I need space for my stuff, too.”

Myra quirks her eyebrow at him and continues to argue. “This is my closet. That was the deal.”

“Honey, it’s attached to our bedroom.”

Myra turns icy at his response. “It is my closet. We’re in this tiny apartment that you wanted, that you said was so important, and I said I need my own walk-in closet. That was the deal.”

“Myra, this apartment is hardly tiny. And I have to be able to put my clothes away.”

“There’s a dresser over there,” she points.

He looks for a moment. “How can I fit all my things in three drawers?”

Myra shrugs carelessly. “And I didn’t get my craft room. Figure it out, Eddie.”

He sighs in defeat. “Yes, dear, I know.”

Eddie and Myra Kaspbrak are finally moving into their first home in New York - an apartment just south of Midtown Manhattan. It’d been a long time coming, a lot of long, frustrating conversations on home amenities and proximity to the airport. He had to do a lot of traveling, after all.

Eddie knows this isn’t what Myra wanted. What she wanted was a two-story, four-bedroom, two-bath modern home and a fucking jacuzzi in the backyard. If he had a nickel for every time he had to say, “I just don’t make enough money, sweetheart,” or “That’s too far a drive from JFK,” and “We may need to move, I can’t get locked into a mortgage just yet.” He mine as well have been negotiating with his mother. (God rest her soul.) Myra only understood that Eddie made “good money” with the insurance company. To her, that meant they made “plenty of money” to afford whatever she wanted.

He pulls off his jacket, and pulls up his long sleeves to get to work on his boxes of clothes.

“Eddie-bear, you know you don’t need all those clothes. Just get rid of some things,” Myra says from inside her closet. He refuses to turn around and watch her carefully placing her designer handbags and shoes. “Just keep work clothes out and leave the rest in storage.”

“Sure and I’ll just sleep in my work clothes, too.” He says quietly to himself. He carefully cuts open the first box and looks over the stack of nicely folded shirts in air-tight bags, organized by color. He pushes the box to the side and moves onto the next box, that reads “Eddie: Miscellaneous” on the side in marker. This one might actually contain stuff he can get rid of to appease his wife.

His wife.

Eddie loves Myra. Of course he loves his wife. Eddie is a good man with a good job and goals and loves his wife very much. Myra was the perfect woman for him, exactly his type. He enjoys kissing her. He enjoys sleeping with her. She takes care of him. She loves him. Not a lot of people love Eddie, but Myra does. She’s his better half. She keeps him in check. Keeps him focused on what’s important. ...Which, would be her, he guesses?

The key to a healthy, successful marriage is repeating these things over and over again until they’re real, right?

He hears his lovely, selfless, caring wife strut out of the room towards their new living room.

He cuts open the “miscellaneous” box, full of clothes that are not in air-tight baggies nor are they organized by color. He can already smell age on them, possibly dust and mildew from sitting in his mother’s storage. He pulls a few items out, looking at them and then back inside the box. There’s not too many things in here, but it’s obvious they are not from his adulthood. He then examines the few clothing items he’s pulled out - an old fannypack (From when he was a kid, always carrying his meds around. That can go;) an old pair of pajamas (Myra will yell at him for wearing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pajamas like a teenager. These can go;) a couple old polo shirts (From college, probably. And probably too small by now. They can go;), a zip-up hoodie…

The hoodie looks like it might fit. (But he never wears ash-gray, it’s too cheap-looking for his tastes.) It is a jacket hoodie, might be nice for layering in cold New York winters. He looks over its condition. It’s very worn, almost like it’s supposed to look vintage. One of the wrist cuffs is ripped open at the seam, like someone’s been shoving their fingers through it, something only an annoying kid would do. There’s also a rusty brown stain on the opposite cuff, which is undoubtedly blood. Ew. He looks at the zipper of the jacket, which is missing a metal tab, and extra difficult to zip. Okay, well that’s great. There is no size or manufacturer tag, it’s apparently been ripped out. The strings coming out of the hoodie near the neck are discolored and dingy, and ...are those bite marks at the plastic ends? Disgusting.

There are dark, hard spots around the edges of the pockets on the front. He rubs his thumb across them gently, and knows. They’re cigarette burns. Wow. Well, this definitely wasn’t his, he’s never smoked a day in his life. He would really like to not die of cancer, thank you very much.

His thoughts are abruptly cut short when Eddie subconsciously catches a whiff of the jacket. Undoubtedly, he smells cigarette smoke. Maybe even marijuana, which he’s never touched. But there’s more than that. He pulls the jacket closer to his face, closes his eyes, and smells.

Body spray. Not the nice cologne Eddie wears, but some kind of cheap, douchey-smelling body spray meant to impress girls. Wood. Burning wood, like a bonfire. And… sweat. Someone else’s sweat. Which really should be gross, and it sort of is first, but he keeps breathing it in. It’s an unidentifiable, masculine smell from someone this hoodie belonged to.

There’s something warm in his chest. His heart is pounding as he inhales the jacket’s bouquet over and over again.

“It’s one of my faves.” He can hear a voice say quietly, from somewhere dark in his brain.

His hands are shaking as he sets it down and wipes his hand across his mouth and nose, fidgeting. His mind is racing to identify where this jacket came from, but he can’t complete his mental search. There’s like, nothingness where he expects to find answers. He can feel sweat forming on his forehead and his throat getting tighter. What is happening? Is this an asthma attack? He hasn’t had an attack in years. He puts his hand on his chest and forces himself to breath at a steadier pace, in and out, in and out.

“Eddie-bear, you ok?” He’s startled for a moment. How long was Myra standing there?

He clears his throat. “Yes, dear, I’m okay.” Gotta make up something to throw her off, he doesn’t want her thinking he has ever smoked. She’d never let him live it down. “Just trying to figure out if this is clean or not.”

Myra rips the hoodie from his hand, Eddie grasps at it pathetically. “Why? What does it smell like?” She holds the hood of it up to her nose, then scrunches her face at it. “It doesn’t smell like anything. Just smells dirty.” She tosses it back to him. “Also, it’s torn up. Why do you still have it?” She steps across the wood floors back towards her precious closet. “Just throw it out.”

He knows already this isn’t even his jacket. He just… doesn’t understand why he has it. What he does know is getting rid of it is not an option. He needs this. He’s… supposed to return it, he thinks.

He decides that there is room for it. So he folds it tightly and sticks it in the back of his bottom dresser drawer, where he hopes Myra won’t ever notice it.

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

Richie | 39

Richie wants to fall asleep. Everything will be easier if he just falls asleep. Everything will be over sooner if he just falls asleep.

He looks at his smart watch. It’s 2:40 a.m.

He’s lying on his bed in his LA home, naked except for his boxers, next to a stranger he has just had sex with. The sex was fine, pretty standard. She wasn’t interested in foreplay, which he doesn’t mind because he’s not good at pretending to enjoy it. He’s not really interested in her. She’s not interested in him either, he thinks. She’s probably just interested in writing about it on one of those bullshit ‘celebrity sex review’ blogs. A part of him kind of hopes, actually.

He’s sure of one thing: he wants her out of his home so he can continue to be miserable in peace.

The bed is shifting and he can feel a hand on his chest.

“You okay?” The stranger asks in an innocent voice that fools no one. She’s pretty enough. Rich, dark hair and brown eyes. Tanned skin and a nice body. He doesn’t remember her name or if they even actually talked at the bar. She knew who he was, and that was enough.

“Fuckin great.” He fakes a smile at her. She starts to snuggle against him, which is not the response he wanted. “Hey, listen, this was awesome, but I’m flying out early tomorrow.” He had really hoped to just doze off and deal with this in the morning. But his favorite lie usually worked to get these types of strangers out of his home, out of his life.

“Oh. Where are you going?” She rests her chin on his chest.

“...Chicago.”

“I love Chicago!” She giggles.

Another fake smile, but more difficult to pull of. “Yep.” And he gently moves from under her, leaning away.

“You should totally go to the giant silver bean and take selfies by it-”

“Listen, I gotta get up super early, so I’m gonna call you an Uber.” He lifts himself from the bed and walks across the bedroom to pull on a t-shirt.

“Oh? Okay.” She responds too happily. It’s irritating that she isn’t taking a hint. She gets up and begins pulling on her shorts and heels.

Richie heads to his nightstand, where he picks up his phone and requests an Uber to his Hollywood home. “‘Jerry’ will be here in six minutes in his ‘2015 Toyota Camry.’ He’ll take you wherever you want.” He’s not very good at hiding the fact that he doesn’t really care if she gets home, just as long as she goes.

He hears her ridiculously tall Stilettos click behind him and feels hands on his shoulders. “My number’s in your phone. Call me when you get back?”

Goddamn it, just go already. “Sure.”

Her arms drop to her sides and she makes an annoyed noise. She just got the hint.

His sexual guest struts across the living room towards the entryway, holding her bag and jacket. Richie can’t help but examine her ass as she walks, even though there’s no longer any mystery to what lies beneath her shorts. He scans the room for anything missing (he’s been robbed by a hot woman once or twice) and sees a bright pink bra and lacy top still lying on the couch. He sees that she is wearing his shirt, on her way out.

Nuh-uh, no, NOPE, they are not playing this game. “Uh, sweetheart.” He whistles. She stops and turns to him, and he responds by eyeing her up-and-down. “Can I have my shirt back?”

She tests him with a coy smile. “Well, maybe I’ll bring it back to you?”

“No, no no no no no no, you can wear your own clothes home. That’s my favorite shirt.” He extends an arm and is flexing his fingers in a ‘gimme’ motion.

She’s taken aback, but comes back towards him to take off the shirt. Slowly. Presenting her tits.

They’re not that impressive. And she’s being annoying, so he’s done pretending to be charming.

He smirks, snatches the shirt from her hand, and then walks back towards his bedroom.

He can hear her shuffle to pick up her remaining clothes, her heels clicking across the floor. She scoffs. “So, that’s it?”

He doesn’t face her, he just raises a waving hand to gesture ‘goodbye.’ “That’s it!”

“Wow. Fuck you.” She spouts.

Richie tosses his shirt on his kitchen counter. Bless his open floor plan. “Yeah, thanks for that.”

She mockingly laughs and opens the front door. “You’re an asshole. And you’re not funny.”

“Okie dokes!” He says casually at her.

The Uber driver pulls up behind her in the driveway. “ASSHOLE!” She shrieks, and slams the door shut.

He slumps onto his stupidly-expensive couch and exhales in relief. “Yep. I sure am.”

He doesn’t know why he allows himself to get used by every horny fan he meets. (And “fan” is a generous term. None of them even give a shit about his comedy, they just know who he is and that he’s got a couple specials on Netflix.)

He should be grateful. He’s got everything he could ever want and need. He’s got a huge house, plenty of money, 156K followers on Instagram, more comedy special gigs on the way, may even go on tour with some big names. He’s got a shot at Saturday Night Live, his manager tells him. Not that Richie wants to move to New York. He doesn’t know anyone in New York.

Not that he knows anyone in LA, either. Just horny fans he meets in sleazy bars.

He should be grateful, and he knows that. But he’s just miserable. And alone.

He rubs his eyes under his glasses and lets them fall back onto his nose before he stands up to march himself to sleep. He grabs his shirt on the way back to his empty bedroom.

“Bitch thought she could take my favorite shirt.” And he flicks off the lightswitch.

#reddie #fanfic #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #adult reddie #miserable reddie #dont worry we'll make them happy i promise dude #ao3 #chapter 2

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found915 · 6 years

Text

It’s Sad, But It’s True (Pt. 2)

Pairings: Billy Hargrove x Fem!Reader

Words: 1413

Summary: There’s more to Billy Hargrove than meets the eye, but you’re not sure if it’s going to be enough this time.

Part: 2 of ? (I still don’t know how long this is going to be. When I know, you’ll know. Until then, it’s all guesswork.)

Warnings: Angst, references to abuse, cursing (okay, honestly if I write it, odds are there are going to be a few “colorful embellishments”), Billy Hargrove being confusing af

A/N: Hey, guys! Here’s part 2 of ISBIT!!! I can’t believe I got this completed already, but the love I got for part 1 was astounding and I was so inspired, so thank you!!! I honestly couldn’t believe the amount of notes the first part got and I’m still a little in shock and I’m a lot honored. Thank you for going on this ride with me! I hope you enjoy and feel all the things!

(Also, please don’t think I believe it necessary to be asked for help before you give it. What I write is purely based on how I think certain characters would act and what they would do/need and I don’t think Billy Hargrove would appreciate someone trying to help him when he doesn’t think he needs it. This is in no ways a reflection on my personal opinions/beliefs. This is ultimately a story of healing and that will be understood by the end of this series, I hope. Thank you.)

Part 1

Billy ignored you for a straight week after that night, not even bothering to spare you a glance in the school hallways when you had to pass him to get to your next class. So, essentially, nothing had changed. It’s not like you were really expecting it to, but you were curious as to if you would ever catch another glimpse of the Billy Hargrove who had stood in your yard that night, looking up at the stars. Another glimpse of that scared boy who was desperate for help, but didn’t believe anyone was willing to give it. It didn’t seem too likely. That whole night was probably a fluke, anyway.

You were also really curious as to what he had told people had happened to his face. You couldn’t help, but obsess over it. The bruise was still very much there, even if it had turned to a more sallow yellow already. There were varying stories circling the rumor mill, but none of them came close to what you imagined was the truth. You guessed you’d never know. You just genuinely hoped it got better for him and you wished you knew how to help. Even if he was a dick more than half of the time. You didn’t really think that wishing on stars was enough. It’d have to be a start, though, which is why you made sure to do it every night.

After the week of absolute disregard had passed, something strange happened. You were walking home from school when the familiar roar of an engine sounded behind you, closing the distance swiftly until it began to slow down, crawling at a turtle’s pace beside you matching your stride. Not even bothering to look because you knew who it was, you just hugged your books closer to your chest and continued your trek, head held high and your eyes looking straight ahead. The signature blue Camaro continued to match your pace for a bit longer before speeding up a little and suddenly pulling up to the curb and parking. The passenger door was swung open as if waiting for you to get in. Quirking a brow and placing a lock of hair behind your ear, you simply chose to keep walking, still not bothering to look at the interior. There was no telling what the mullet wearing teen was thinking, but you weren’t entirely fond of games and this seemed like one in which he expected you to be a willing participant. You’d stick to your wishing on stars, thank you very much.

You hadn’t gotten much past the car before you heard another car door open. Rolling your eyes, you stopped, but still didn’t turn to face the boy.

“You’re pretty goddamn stubborn, aren’t you, (Y/L/N)?” Billy huffed, leaning against the hood of his car and pulling out a cigarette before lighting up. Looking over your shoulder at him, you took in his expression which insisted he wasn’t nearly as annoyed as he pretended to be. You gave a small shrug.

“I don’t remember being asked a question, so I don’t see how I’m being stubborn.”

Billy raised that famous eyebrow of his, simply looking you over for a minute. Annoyed by his silent scrutiny, you sighed and rolled your eyes before turning back around and beginning to walk away once more. There was the asshole you had become accustomed to and expected, even if it was from a distance that you were exposed to it. Okay, so maybe you had thought things were going to be different after your talk of hope. Sue you. Everyone was allowed to make mistakes. This guy got his jollies off by messing with people’s heads. You saw how he liked to screw with your friend, Steve Harrington, and the other girls at school. There was no way you were going to fall prey to his bullshit.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Okay, you weren’t expecting that. Facing him again, you noticed the only movement he had made was to cross his arms. Protecting himself. From you. That… that was unexpected. This guy sure knew how to throw you for a damn loop.

“Uh, what?” your confusion was evident on your face, you were sure of it.

“At school. Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Billy’s gaze had narrowed slightly, certain you were going to tell him that you had told someone and he just hadn’t been exposed to the consequences of your running your mouth yet. His eyes seemed to be trying to penetrate your soul in that moment, to find all the answers that he needed. It was all you could do to look away.

“Oh, um, because I didn’t think you’d want me to?” It was more of a question than an answer. You tried again. “If I thought it would make things better for you, as opposed to worse, I might have. But I knew you weren’t ready for my help, so, I, uh, kept it to myself…” you mumbled that last part, biting your lip to stop your rambling.

“You didn’t tell any of your little friends?” he asked, still dubious. He had seen you with Harrington, Wheeler, and Byers. If you had chosen to tell anyone, it would be them. Pushing away from the Camaro, Billy stamped out his cigarette before stepping onto the sidewalk and moving closer to you. Eyes following his movement, you still couldn’t quite bring yourself to look at his face. You shook your head.

“No. I’m not really one to gossip and, again, that seems more hurtful than helpful.”

“I don’t need any help, (Y/L/N).” Billy stopped a respectful distance away from you, but you still felt he was too close. The air surrounding you seemed too charged with… something. Something you couldn’t describe. Tilting your eyes from their current neutral position, you found his face once more. Billy Hargrove had another unreadable expression on his features, blue eyes charged with this foreign thing as they locked onto yours. Breathing seemed a little more difficult than it should have been in that moment.

“Right. Of course not. Sorry,” you answered with sincerity. You weren’t so used to being out of your element and this whole situation was making you feel like you were currently living underwater. Breathing was difficult, you were surrounded by silence, there was a roaring in your ears, Billy’s eyes were reminiscent of waves… Luckily for you, a gust of cold wind broke you out of your hypnosis. Unluckily for you, you hadn’t worn a jacket, just a thin, long sleeve shirt and your hair was now personally assaulting your face. Your heaping amounts of hairspray did not stand a chance against the Indiana fall winds.

Billy chuckled quietly, his smirk taking over residence on his face. When the air stilled once more, his hand came up to move a wayward lock behind your ear. Eyes widening, you tensed slightly, but he noticed causing him to drop the strand of hair. Immediately breaking eye contact and shoving his hands in his pockets, the boy stepped away from you. Opening his mouth to say something, he stopped when he noticed your shiver, changing his mind. Instead he said, “Come on. I’ll give you a ride home.”

“I’m fine. It’s not that far,” you began to insist. Billy is already opening the driver’s side door, stopping only long enough to roll his eyes at you.

“You’re freezing. Just get in the damn car, (Y/N). It’s not like it’s out of the way.” Sighing, you acquiesce and walk toward the still open passenger door. After getting in and resting your books in your lap, you finish what Billy had started, and began fixing your windblown hair. Noting that you still haven’t moved, you turn to see Billy looking at you once again. Watching your movements.

“What?” you question, cursing the obvious nervousness in your voice.

“Nothing. I just can’t seem to figure you out, (Y/L/N).”

Lurching away from the curb suddenly, you decide to buckle up as Billy Hargrove speeds down the deserted street. You hear his snicker at your movements, which earned him a glare. Choosing to look out the window as the houses whizzed by, you muttered under your breath, “That makes two of us, then.”

You don’t know if he heard you or not, but he made sure to blast the radio for the rest of the short journey to your house.

Tags: @xanaphorax @hairringtonsteve @stevesdacre @itsjustcatrin @ashrod98 @lady-thor-foster

(If you want to be tagged in this series, let me know!)

#mdakotaqwrites #mdqwrites #it's sad but it's true #billy hargrove x reader #billy hargrove imagine #billy hargrove fic #billy hargrove series #angst #stranger things #billy hargrove #stranger things fic #dacre montgomery #reader insert

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 4 years

Text

Eccentricity [Chapter 5: I’ve Lived The Life And Paid For Every Crime]

Series Summary: Joe Mazzello is a nice guy with a weird family. A VERY weird family. They have a secret, and you have a choice to make. Potentially a better love story than Twilight.

Chapter Title Is A Lyric From: Some Kind Of Disaster by All Time Low.

Chapter Warnings: Language, references to drugs and violence.

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

Tagging: @queen-turtle-boiii @bramblesforbreakfast @writerxinthedark @maggieroseevans @culturefiendtrashqueen @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark @escabell @im-an-adult-ish @someforeigntragedy @imtheinvisiblequeen @deacyblues @tensecondvacation @brianssixpence @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhye @some-major-ishues @haileymorelikestupid @loveandbeloved29

Please yell at me if I forget to tag you! 💜

Easy Questions, Evasive Answers

“So it was nothing,” Archer said, glancing up from where he was tinkering around beneath the hood of my 1999 Honda Accord, checking hoses and belts and dipsticks. “This is pathetic, by the way. That you can’t change your own windshield wiper fluid. Dishonor on you. Dishonor on your cow.”

“I never had my own car in Phoenix!” I objected around a mouthful of a Starbucks pumpkin muffin, my first of the season. And that was true: Renee and I couldn’t afford one. “I didn’t have to learn about car things!”

“No, it’s great, I love it, I have a customer for life.”

“It was totally nothing,” I told him. Meaning the photograph in the newspaper article from 1979. Meaning my paranoia surrounding beautiful, brooding, certifiably lethal Benjamin Lee.

Not Lee, I reminded myself. Benjamin August Hardy, born November 3rd 1893.

“Was it really?” Archer asked, skeptical.

“Uhhh, you were the one who was making fun of me for thinking he might be a time traveler. Or a bigfoot.” Or a vampire.

“Yeah, okay, true...” He let the hood of the Honda fall shut with a bang, then wiped the muddy streaks of motor oil from his hands with a stained rag. “But you were freaked out. Like super freaked out.”

“I was, yeah. But it wasn’t him in the photo. I took another look, there were freckles and, uh, like, uh, some other things that didn’t match up.”

“Huh.” Archer watched me with an expression I couldn’t read. “I didn’t notice that.”

“Ben laughed about it. Probably thinks I’m an idiot. A stalker and an idiot.”

Archer smirked slyly. “He must not have held it against you too much. I’ve never seen that guy laugh in my life.”

I took a moody bite of my muffin, rolled my eyes, feigned shallow schoolgirl angst. “Trust me, he’s not my biggest fan.”

“Ohhhh, and this bothers you?” Archer sauntered over and stole a crumbling hunk out of the pumpkin muffin. “Does someone have a little crush on the gorgeous, grouchiest Lee?”

“Definitely not.” I sipped my chai latte, contemplative, debating telling him more.

“Uh oh. There’s something else, I can see it. Spill the tea, you walking college-chick-who’s-obsessed-with-fall stereotype.”

“I’m so excited! I’m going to get to see changing leaves this year!” Cacti are majestic, ancient, intrepid, and they remind me of home; but they never change. They’re like desert earth that way, like the ocean. Like vampires, actually.

“We’ll have to do all the Instagram-worthy stuff. Pumpkin patches. Hay mazes. Apple picking...you can even bring that Ben guy if you want to. If he promises not to murder me with his mysterious time-travelling demon powers.”

Oh, kid, you have no idea. “So...I am kind of into a Lee guy. But it’s not Ben.”

Archer gasped, inhaled pumpkin muffin morsels, bent over as he hacked them out of his lungs. “Who?!” he rasped, scandalized, and then coughed again.

I couldn’t help but smile as his name spilled out: “Joe.”

“Which one is that? The Middle Eastern Men’s Vogue model one?”

I laughed, shaking my head. “No, not Rami. He has a girlfriend, by the way.” And has for the past half a century.

Archer wiggled his eyebrows. “Just because there’s a goalie doesn’t mean you can’t score.”

“Oh my god, please never say that phrase again.”

“Joe is the...” He closed his eyes as he drummed his fingers against the metal workbench, trying to remember.

“The Italian one,” I finished for him.

“Ahhh. The annoying one.”

“He is not annoying! Why do people keep saying he’s annoying?! He’s hilarious, and sweet, and lowkey wicked smart, and, and, and...”

Archer whistled, grinning, his dark eyes sparkling. “Damn, girl. You do like him. You really like him.”

I sighed in defeat. “Okay. I really, really like him.”

“Like him as in would swipe right on Tinder, or like him as in you want to get married and honeymoon in Hawaii and have twelve pasty, angular babies?”

“Oh wow.” And for the first time, I was confronted with the singular enigma that was a future with Joe. Vampires had relationships with other vampires, obviously, even marriages; but that didn’t mean the same rules applied to humans. Did he like me? Could he like me? What would that even look like? How would it end? And it would have to end, of course, eventually. Unless somehow I stopped aging too. “More than just a right swipe. We’ll see about the twelve kids.”

“Just make sure he wraps it before he taps it. I’m too young to be an uncle.”

“Stop,” I pleaded, gulping down my latte, averting my gaze across Archer’s small garage filled with customers’ vehicles, pretending not to be intrigued and yearning and petrified. I couldn’t imagine hooking up with someone as faultless and—presumably—experienced as Joe and being anything but a disappointment. I’ve never hooked up with anyone. At all. Ever.

“What?” he asked, concerned, thieving another piece of my pumpkin muffin. Powdered sugar dusted his fingers like the snow I’ve only seen two or three times in my life.

“Nothing. I just really wish you went to Calawah too.”

“And give up all this easy money from clueless suburbs people like you?” Archer beamed, wily and proud and affectionate. “Not a fucking chance.”

No More Sad Spaghetti

Joe gawked in horror, chomping noisily on his Big League Chew bubblegum, as I unwrapped the peanut butter sandwich I’d packed for lunch. It was mostly cloudy in the early September sky overhead, but he was still wearing sunglasses. He had traded in his ubiquitous U Chicago apparel for a Cubs t-shirt. Squirrels scurried through the bigleaf maple trees that dotted the campus, snatching up acorns with tiny clawed paws, wriggling whiskered noses in our direction.

“What’s your problem?” I asked, taking a bite. “It’s not sad spaghetti.”

He blew a small pink bubble, then popped it with his teeth. “Yeah, but it’s...like...mangled.”

“It got trapped between my textbooks!” I protested. Admittedly, the accordion-shaped peanut butter sandwich—my vegetarian alternative to fishstick Thursday—kind of sucked.

“You can’t eat that. Oh my god. It’s making me so sad. Give it to the squirrels.” Joe pulled out his iPhone. “What’s your preferred pizza topping?”

“I can’t tell you,” I replied, tossing my sandwich towards the nearest tree. A hoard of squirrels immediately descended upon it and proceeded to battle for dominance, emitting shrill, peanut-butter-crazed shrieks.

His brow furrowed. “Why can’t you tell me?”

“Because you might not like me anymore.”

“Why would I not like you because of pizza...?” And then he knew. “Oh no, oh god, please don’t say pineapple.”

“I’m a pineapple pizza person.”

“Baby Swan,” Joe said, deadly serious, pressing his palms together. “That is straight up sacrilegious. You can’t put tropical fruit on a pizza. You realize I’m Italian, like an actual Italian. I’m so Italian I’ve killed other Italians for being the wrong kind of Italian. That’s how Italian I am.”

“I feel like maybe I shouldn’t socialize with literal mobsters. It’s unsavory.”

“Settle down, I’m ordering the half-pineapple pizza, you freaking barbarian.”

I watched Joe as he tapped his thumbs against the screen, humming to himself, amused, perpetually buoyant. And I couldn’t picture him as a monster, as a killer: pulling triggers, slitting throats, digging blades into soft vulnerable love handles, feeling for the mortal puncture of a lung or kidney. I asked him, my voice quiet, hesitant, almost lost in the autumn wind: “Did you actually hurt people?”

“Nah. I didn’t have the stomach for it, even back then. I was on the deal-making side of things. The business side. I was a people person, a smooth talker, astronomically charming.”

I smiled, mischievous. “That’s difficult to imagine.”

“Okay, so no cheesy breadsticks for you.”

“I’m sorry, mob guy. Please order the breadsticks. You’re so charming I can’t stand it. My jeans are unzipping all by themselves.”

He raised an eyebrow and grinned. “So you’ll sacrifice your dignity for breadsticks. Good to know.” He finished typing and laid his iPhone on the grass. “Alright, next question.”

“Does your hair grow?” Joe’s hair—I couldn’t help but notice—seemed longer than it was the day I met him a week and a half ago, disorderly and auburn-tinted, ruffling in the breeze.

“It does, yeah. Hair and nails still grow. So you have to shave, but you can’t get razor burn. And any nicks close right up.”

“Very cool. How often do you need to eat? You know...actually eat.”

“It varies, but generally twice a week.”

“And what kind of animal has the tastiest blood? Besides...well...” I gestured towards myself. “The upright two-legged kind with opposable thumbs and a partiality for pineapple pizza.”

He blew another bubble, then leaned in towards me. And I realized, for the first time, that he had his own inherent, exclusive, totally Bath-And-Body-Works-worthy scent as well; Dr. Gwilym Lee was sandalwood and campfires and log cabins, Mercy was roses and vanilla...and Joe was pine trees, peppermint, cold night air, like all of that eternally youthful magic of Christmas Eve sieved into a bottle. I popped the sheer pink bubble with the cap of my blue pen. Joe asked: “Do humans like chocolate or vanilla ice cream? Coffee or tea? Baseball or something hella lame?”

“Depends on the human.”

“Exactly. Same deal for vampires. I prefer bears, especially grizzlies. Lucy and Mercy like deer, elk, moose, animals like that. Ones with hooves. Weirdly, Rami’s favorite is crocodile, I think because it was the first thing he ever tried in Egypt. He doesn’t get it very often, but has been known to buy them on the black market on occasion. Scarlett likes mountain lions. Also domestic cats, but you didn’t hear that from me. Gwil is a wolf guy, but he won’t kill the endangered kinds. Such a gentleman.”

“How about Ben?”

“Ben’s still coming around to the whole eating animals thing. I don’t think he has a favorite yet.”

Joe isn’t a killer, and he never was; I could believe that. But Ben... “Why is he so different than the rest of you?”

“That’s...kind of a long story,” Joe replied carefully.

“It wouldn’t be such a long story if people stopped talking about how it’s a long story and actually told it to me.”

He flashed a grin, revealing white canine teeth filed into points; they were subtle, yes, but they were there. Fangs. I envisioned pressing a fingerprint against them and feeling the flesh split in two, the blood dripping down onto his tongue like Washington rain. And unlike Joe’s skin, mine wouldn’t knit back together on its own. “But then I wouldn’t have the pleasure of tormenting you with the prospect of incredibly juicy yet confidential information!”

I rolled my eyes, sipped my can of Diet Coke, returned my attention to our lunch plans. “So garlic doesn’t repel you. That part of the lore is completely made up.”

“Yup. Thank god. Eternal life would be worthless without pizza.”

“Can you do drugs? Get drunk?”

“We can’t overdose, but we can get the effects of anything we consume. It’s not a good habit to get into though. If you’re nodding on heroin for like four days at a time, it’s pretty easy for some other vampire to find and murder you.”

“So a vampire can be killed by another vampire.”

“Absolutely. Next question.”

I consulted my mental list. “Do you sleep?”

“Yeah. Well, kind of. We nap for a few hours a day.”

“What happens if you don’t?”

“We get bitchy. Really bitchy. We essentially turn into Ben.”

I laughed, chewing absentmindedly on the end of my pen. “So that’s his problem. He hasn’t napped in a century. Now it all makes sense.”

“Something like that,” Joe said. “You gonna come over tonight?”

“I don’t know. I’m supposed to present The Walruses And Me tomorrow and I still haven’t started the book.”

“What do you know, I can tell you all about The Walruses And Me!”

“Seriously? You’ve read it?”

“No, but I can enthusiastically narrate the Wikipedia article to you while you pet Mercy’s alpacas.”

“That sounds like a terrible idea.”

“Terrible for your grade in Marine Mammals. Good for your development as an interesting and happy human.”

“Nice try, but I’m already both of those things.”

Joe reached out suddenly, jarringly, and ran the back of his hand across my cheek. My favorite Lee, I thought, thoroughly transfixed but trying to hide it. Oh no. “Interesting, definitely. But I have this gnawing, distressing suspicion that you’re still working on the happy part.”

“I miss the desert,” I confessed. That wasn’t quite all of the problem, but it was accurate: I missed the heat, the sun, the parched prehistoric air I had always called home. Although I was beginning to find reasons to like Forks, Charlie and Archer and the promise of a Pacific Northwestern autumn; and then one big reason in particular. A very old, pale, chatty, Italian reason.

“A bit of a quandary for a future marine biologist,” he replied gently, perhaps apprehensively.

“I always figured I’d live somewhere like San Diego or Los Angeles or Galveston. Someplace on the ocean, but also sunny and hot and with palm trees. The best of both worlds. But you couldn’t go there with me, could you?”

Oh no.

Oh NO.

Oh fuck, this is definitely a crushing-on-Lee-boys zone.

Joe stared at me through his sunglasses, chomping on his Big League Chew, the corners of his mouth turned up and etching lines like parentheses into his face, pleased and nodding slowly and triumphant somehow. Then he struck out his hand again, this time with his pinky raised like a flagpole. “No more pathetic depressing lunches.”

“You got it. No more sad spaghetti. No more sad peanut butter sandwiches. You have my solemn, human vow.”

He smiled as his pinky entwined with mine. “No more sad anything.”

“So this vampire thing sounds like a pretty sweet gig. No dying, no consequences for a hellacious diet or wild condomless orgies, literal superpowers, perfect hair...why doesn’t everyone get to live that way?”

He shrugged; and there was an unfamiliar, meditative tension in his face. Almost sorrow. “It’s not all pizza and orgies and heroin. We have weaknesses too.”

“Like what?”

“Hey, look!” Joe piped cheerfully, twisting around towards the parking lot. “I think our GrubHub guy is here.”

Bad Blood

I was definitely regretting that fourth slice of pineapple pizza as I waddled into Chemistry, navigating sluggishly around the hulking frat boys and giggling sorority girls and mousy bookish types who lugged around colossal backpacks that were always threatening to knock an unsuspecting passerby off their feet at each unthinking turn. But while I was arriving in the classroom—physically, anyway; emotionally I was standing in an empty field somewhere screaming I cannot be falling in love with a hundred-year-old mobster vampire!! into the void—Ben was a countercurrent darting through the crowds and towards the hallway door.

“Where are you rushing off to, old guy?” I asked him. “Bingo? To renew your AARP membership? To walk vigorously around the inside of a mall?”

Ben responded in that deep, low, humorless voice. “They’re doing some kind of blood typing experiment today. I probably shouldn’t be around for that.”

“Oh.” I glanced over at Professor Belvin, who was indeed hunched over the table at the front of the classroom and laying out rows of Q-tips and rectangular paper cards and alcohol swabs and bottles of clear liquid, whistling what sounded like Time Of The Season.

Ben sighed irritably, rubbing his crinkled forehead. “I already used up all my absences. I’m gonna have to make up a compelling last-minute tragedy. Tell Professor Belvin my grandma died or something.”

“I mean, technically, she did at some point.”

“Ugh,” Ben replied, not consoled at all.

“Wait, I got this.”

I gripped my belly, sank into the nearest chair, and groaned dramatically. It really didn’t require all that much acting. Ben watched with huge green eyes, confounded.

“Miss Swan!” Professor Belvin cried, rushing over. He was wearing khaki pants, a white shirt, and suspenders and a matching bowtie patterned with bubbling multicolored test tubes. Belvin had been Charlie’s classmate from kindergarten through high school, and still palled around with him over Bud Lights and low-quality nachos on bowling league nights. Bowling was, evidently, the sport of choice for middle-aged Forks dads. Also for Welsh vampire pseudo-dads born in the 1400s.

I whimpered in reply.

“Are you alright, Miss Swan?” Professor Belvin asked worriedly. A few students had begun to congregate around the scene. I felt a pang of genuine nausea as perspiration beaded at my temples. You better appreciate this, Mr. Hardy.

“I’m okay,” I said, in my most pained and martyrish voice. “I don’t want to miss...today’s lesson...it looks so fascinating...but I didn’t wash my kale thoroughly last night and then I had a salad for dinner and now I might have food poisoning.”

“You poor thing!” Belvin exclaimed, shaking his head. “Don’t worry about class. You can just answer some textbook questions or something, no problem. Please go get checked out to make sure you’re alright.”

“Could someone...maybe...help me get to the campus clinic...?” My eyes listed towards Ben. “Maybe...my lab partner?”

“That’s a good idea.” Professor Belvin turned to Ben. “Mr. Lee, would you be willing to escort Miss Swan to the clinic? You can do an alternative assignment as well. If you don’t mind missing the blood typing lab.”

“I’d be delighted to help,” Ben responded, still puzzled. I offered him my hand, and Ben took it, grimacing as he led me out into the hallway. As soon as we were alone, he dropped my hand and opened up several feet of space between us.

“Thanks so much, Miss Swan, you are a lifesaver,” I said, imitating his morose, rumbling British accent. “Oh, you’re very welcome, Ben. You can repay me in basic courteous conversation and Starbucks gift cards and by maybe not killing me.”

“So you’re totally fine?” Ben asked flatly.

“Of course. Nobody with taste eats raw kale.”

Frowning, frustrated, he started puffing on his vape pen. “You need to stop doing nice things for me. It’s extremely disorienting.”

“This may be difficult for you to come to terms with, but you, Ben Hardy, are worth being the recipient of nice things.”

“No, you still don’t get it,” he snapped, grabbing my wrist, spinning me around to face him in the empty hallway. “That’s all I’ve ever done. Kill people like you.”

The Fire

“Who is the cutest little alpaca I’ve ever seen?!” I cooed in a squeaky falsetto, scratching her wooly brown chin. “Who’s going to come home and live with me and Charlie forever?!”

“That’s illegal, ma’am.” Joe was watching me, arms crossed over his Chicago Cubs t-shirt, smiling wistfully.

“It is not!”

“It actually is,” Rami added. He was lying on the grass and gazing up into the roiling, grey, late-afternoon clouds with his fingers laced behind his black hair. None of the Lees were wearing sunglasses now. “A house has to be zoned as farmland to have alpacas, which ours is. Yours, tragically, is not.”

“What are you, a lawyer?” I shot back.

Rami grinned. “I was once. And I will be again, in approximately...let me count...five years.”

“That’s what you want to do with your boundless time and energy? Be a corporate shill?”

Joe cackled. “He tried that already. It lasted about five minutes.”

“Manhattan in the 1980s,” Rami reminisced dreamily. “Hundred-hour workweeks. Cocaine everywhere. What a time to be alive. And I hardly ever left the office, so the sunlight thing wasn’t a problem.”

“Okay, so you’re not in it for the Maseratis or the drugs...”

“I’m going to be an immigration attorney,” Rami told me. “Help refugees apply for asylum to come to the United States. Arabic-speaking refugees, in particular.”

“Wow. I stand corrected. That’s wonderful, Rami. I now feel like a total tool for only aspiring to save sea turtles.” But it made sense, of course. What would any good person spend eternity doing? Making the world just a tiny bit better. I glanced at Joe, teasing him. “And you just study how to get rich, huh?”

“I’m a venture capitalist,” he said brightly. “I invest in small businesses, counsel them, encourage them, connect them with other people in the industry, help them grow. And I don’t need the money, so I take a practically microscopic equity stake. I’m basically a professional charitable donor.”

“And you get to put all of those charming mob-guy skills to use.”

Joe winked. “Exactly.”

“Doesn’t it get old?” I asked both of them. “Being college students?”

Rami shrugged. “No really. The world changes, schools of thought evolve, our own interests fluctuate. Every few decades we circle back and go for another round, fresh degrees, maybe new professions entirely. You learn something new every time.”

“And I’ve been waiting for all my old professors to die so I could go back to U Chicago for fifty years!” Joe shouted. “I’m fucking pumped!”

“But...don’t you already know everything...?”

Joe chuckled. “We’re vampires, Baby Swan, we’re not prodigies. We’re sharper than the average person, sure. But it still takes effort to learn. And we all have things we suck at.”

“Like not being obnoxious,” Rami said, nodding to Joe.

“Like not minding our own fucking business,” Joe hurled back.

“I cannot control the fact that I’m a literal mind reader—”

“You boys behave yourselves,” Mercy called in her relaxed, drawling Southern accent, swinging a basket of carrots and zucchinis and cabbages that she’d dug out of her garden, wearing a long flowing yellow dress and her hair tied up in a scarf. She plodded over in her bare feet, handed me a few carrots, then pointed to the chocolate-colored alpaca I was petting. “That lady there is Athens. And the black and white one by Joe is Augusta. Then there’s Norcross, and Alpharetta, and Savannah...and that real chubby grey one heading into the barn is Marietta.”

“I adore them,” I replied, beaming. Mercy had sheep and pigs and a couple of cows too, all ambling contently around the emerald green field as the first threads of fiery, rust-hued sunset were lighting up the horizon.

“We used to have ducks, too,” Mercy mused. “But they disappeared recently...”

Rami passed Joe a knowing smirk. Joe mouthed back menacingly: Do not.

“Hey mom,” Rami piped.

Joe jabbed an index finger at him. “No, don’t you dare, don’t you fucking dare—”

“Joe ate the ducks.”

“You bitch!” Joe cried.

“Oh, Joseph,” Mercy sighed mournfully, lifting a brush out of her basket and dragging it down Athens’ fuzzy back.

“I’m sorry! It was one time! I was weak!”

“I’m not angry, sweetheart,” Mercy said. “I’m just disappointed.”

“Mom, that’s worse!”

Rami climbed to his feet and swatted grass and leaves off his cardigan sweater. “Alright folks. My work here is done. Peace out.”

“Oh no, you don’t get to do a hit and run like that, hey, Rami, hey, hey, come back here!”

Joe trotted after him, shouting a litany of insults, as Rami laughed hysterically and careened into the house. Lucy and Gwil were in the kitchen baking chocolate chip cookies; Scarlett was in the garage changing the brakes on Ben’s Vantage; Ben was noticeably absent from the Lee household and presumably out hunting. It was remarkably easy to picture his fingers closing around bloodied flesh, a wolf’s or a bear’s or an elk’s, lowering his fangs to a pulsing jugular.

“So you’re really into this whole farming thing,” I said to Mercy, looking out over the field rimmed by towering western hemlock trees. I didn’t know exactly how many acres of land the Lees owned, but it was a lot. Mercy adopted rescue animals, donated vegetables from the garden to local food pantries, and occasionally rented out the barn as a wedding venue.

“I’ve always loved it. I had a farm, you know. Before I met Gwil.”

Before she died.

“I didn’t know that,” I murmured, wanting to learn more, afraid to ask, never meaning to pry or offend. “I remember you mentioned the Civil War, and a barn...being...well...being trapped in it. When it burned down.”

Mercy nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, that’s the polite version of the story, isn’t it?” She set down her basket in the tall grass, tugged distractedly at a dark strand of hair that had escaped her scarf, stared glassily out into the sunset muted with cloud cover as Athens moseyed away. “Do you want to know what happened? I’ll tell you if you do. But I don’t want to upset you, dear.”

My voice was barely a whisper. “I’d like to know.”

“We had a little farm out in the middle of nowhere,” Mercy explained. “My husband Arthur and I.”

And it felt so outlandish to hear her say those words. Husband. She had a husband before Gwil. She had a whole life before this one.

“He had a bullet in one leg and a limp from a hunting accident when he was a boy, so he was never called up to enlist. It was a rich man’s war, but it was the poor men they sent to die in it. That’s how it always goes, I expect. And how it always will. We had two daughters, twelve and fifteen. I won’t tell you their names. Don’t take that personally, dear. I haven’t spoken their names in a hundred and fifty years.”

She turned her murky eyes—like homemade bread crust or coffee or the wood walls of a log cabin—to me.

“When the Union Army came through, they were beasts. Men like that...men who have been killing and looting and burning their way across hundreds of miles...all they want to do is get blood on their hands. That’s all they remember how to do. So that’s exactly what they did. They slaughtered our cattle for meat. They burned the house down. And then they took me and my girls, and they...they...well, you know what they did. What men do when they’re monsters. And when Arthur tried to stop them, they shot him in the chest and spit mouthfuls of chewing tobacco on him as he bled out in the dirt. Called him a coward and a deserter. Told him everything they were planning to do to me and my girls. And when they were done doing all of those things, they locked the three of us in the barn and set it ablaze. I was the only one still alive when Gwilym got there. And believe me, I didn’t want to be.”

“I’m so sorry,” I breathed, my throat burning for Mercy, for her family, for this divinely kind and benign and tender woman.

She patted my cheek fondly. “It’s alright, sweetheart. It’s not your fault. I got a second chance. Gwilym gave me a second chance. That’s what he does, you know. He finds broken people, fixes them, loves them fiercely. He gave me forever. Two more daughters. And three sons.”

Three sons, I thought. Rami and Joe and Ben. She counted Ben.

“Does someone have to be dying?” I asked her softly. “You know. To become like you.”

“No, honey. That’s just how Gwil does things.”

“But...why? What’s the possible downside? Why not change anyone who wants it?” Why not change someone like me?

And Mercy peered over at me, contemplative, curious, like tiptoeing gingerly over rotted floorboards, like weaving through a minefield. Like she was trying to figure out what I’d already been told.

“Hey Baby Swan,” Joe said, startling me. I whirled to see him waiting with a patient smile and his hands buried in his pockets. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

He led me upstairs to Gwil’s 1960s-style office, where Dr. Lee had cleaned and stitched the tiny gash in my forehead after my misadventure with Ben in the woods outside Calawah University, where the wall above the sturdy oak desk was adorned with a massive painting filled with gorgeous, unfamiliar, inhuman faces. Joe took a deep breath, and then he began.

“This,” he announced, introducing the painting, “is the vampire version of the mob. They can trace their existence back to before the Roman Empire. They find people who they think have potential, have talents. They turn them. And then they offer them a hundred-year contract. You sign it, or they murder you. When your term is up, you get to decide whether to renew or leave. But almost no one ever leaves. After a century of taking orders and guarding and killing, what else do you know how to do?” He pointed to the terrifying woman with long white hair and red eyes. “That’s Liesl. She’s literally Satan, only blonder. The chick with the tattoos is Akari. She can meet a human and tell what powers they’ll have once they’re changed. Very useful, obviously. The dude who looks like Idris Elba is Cato, and he’s actually an okay guy, he’s the one currently assigned to keep tabs on Gwil’s coven...”

I soaked the names in like rain into dark, lush Washington earth as Joe relayed them to me, strange and beautiful names: Aruna, Phelan, Morana, Adair, Zora, Araminta, Honora, Victorien, Rigel, Sahel.

“Who’s that?” I asked, gesturing to the young man standing at the center of the painting, the one with black hair and eyes so light and luminous a brown they were almost gold and a sinister, unmistakable magnetism.

“Very good question,” Joe complimented. “That’s their Al Capone. That’s Larkin.”

“And what’s his vampire superpower?” He has to have one. I know he does.

“How do I even put that into words? It’s more than charisma. It’s slightly less than mind reading. He can see through people, what they want most, what they fear. And he can make them do things.”

I gazed into those omniscient glowing eyes, feeling myself getting caught there, feeling some primal dread swelling in the capillary beds of my heart and lungs and bone marrow. “Joe, I’m thoroughly enjoying this captivating backstory, really, but...why are you telling me all of this now?”

“Because you asked why Ben is so different than the rest of us. This is why.” Joe waved broadly at the painting, at the closest thing his world had to a mafia, to unrepentant killers, to actual demons. “This is where he came from.”

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