#anyway the point is that Nigel gets taken down by a couple of kids

[jessicas-pi]

The Shuttle AU where Nigel Anstruthers is even more devious and DOESN'T separate Rosalie from her family, and he pretends to be nice and good and even invites Bettina to spend her school holidays at Stornham Court one year.

(That last one was not his best idea, tbh.)

Through chance, circumstance, or maybe the weaving hand of Fate, Bettina Vanderpoel and James Hubert John Fergus Saltyre meet, speak, and quickly discover their mutual distaste for Sir Nigel Anstruthers...

Anyway I call this one Jem and Bett Ruin Nigel's Life (Ten Years Ahead of Schedule)

[bestworstcase]

bro can you just do like the entire ever on meme, I could read your headcanons and commentary all day (but for real, your takes are super interesting!)

a n o n. bsdhfsdh

How many kids do you want Rapunzel and Eugene to have?

in all honesty i Literally could not care less. maybe twins as a nod to the original fairytale, but like, a good ten years into the future. rapunzel deserves a nice long stint of just Living Her Best Life before she even thinks about having kids

Where do you want or see Cass going?

answered here. also, self indulgently, in my head at some point she ends up in antares, which is a city-state near the dark kingdom which i developed for bitter snow. it’s big and old and crowded and given that it’s built on top of a bunch of huge black rocks we’re going to just... ignore what happened to the black rocks in canon when the sundrop and moonstone fused, k?

What are some of Queen Rapunzel’s new policies?

blah! i like to think she would also institute widespread public schooling, because she’s so curious and so many of her skills are self taught out of passion and personal interest and i think she would want to inculcate those values in the children of her subjects. coronan literacy skyrockets under her reign

What will Varian think of next?

i think it’s sort of funny to take varian at his word when he calls himself an alchemist and assume he is, in fact, in a perpetual state of trying to make a philosopher’s stone. 

How many partners will Cass have, if any at all?

i mean look at her she could have her pick of any gay woman on the continent. um. in bitter snow she dates or has flings with 2... people, maybe 3 depending on how exactly we define “dates.”

What will Captain do now?

he will grow an ever more glorious beard. also this.

How will Hector, Adira, and Edmund live in the Dark Kingdom again?

they’re going to have a very welcoming immigration policy otherwise dark kingdom 2: electric boogaloo is not going to last for very long, now is it.

i think adira will spend a lot of time being the voice of reason considering that edmund lived in total isolation for twenty-five years and went a bit funny while hector lived in total isolation for twenty-five years and turned into a feral tree man and then got possessed. i also think the dark kingdom will be instrumental in the development of fantasy-telegraphs, because they do after all have a pretty pressing reason to do so

How are Stalyan and Brock doing?

stalyan met brock in, like, a dive bar somewhere and went oh my god you have to come to corona with me and pretend to be my date it’ll be so fucking funny so that’s what they did. anyway caine happened to be out on parole at the time and they bumped into each other and stalyan was like 👀 and caine was like 👀 and they’re pirate queens now. stalyan and brock are still bros.

How are the Stabbingtons doing?

they’re like three months away from getting out for good behavior. eugene is so proud.

How many times will Andrew keep trying to escape?

He Will Never Stop

How will Vex and Quaid rebuild Vardaros?

i mean we’re all basically agreed that quaid is an expy of sam vimes, right? right? which is to say they’re going to drag vardaros kicking and screaming out of the hole its in through sheer raw stubbornness and innate sense of justice and fair play. also at some point quaid is going to arrest a dragon, probably

How will the Baron react to Stalyan dating Brock?

you think stalyan is still in contact with her shitty dad? HA! it is to laugh

How are Hookfoot and Seraphina doing?

seraphina did several months of community service due to her sentence being considerably lightened after her willing return of the stolen pearl and she has since gotten her life in order and is doing a tour of the coastline with hookfoot while she tries to figure out what she wants to do with her life instead. possibly she will become a singer, since she is, as you’ll recall, immensely talented in this department.

How will the Pub Thugs react to reuniting with the Hook Brothers again?

all i know is big nose is going to ask seraphina if she has any mermaid friends she could set him up with and she is going to give him the most withering look on the planet and he’s going to write bad, sad poetry about it for at least a week. also there will be a dance party

Will Varian talk to Quirin about his mother?

my headcanon is that varian is old enough to remember his mother, and that she died when he was perhaps eight or nine. i think after the series quirin would understand that shutting down and refusing to talk about things with varian doesn’t help either of them so they will be able to have normal conversations about her sometimes.

Will Varian have his own adventure?

in all honesty i don’t think about post-series varian all that much outside of the canonical royal engineer thing so instead i’m going to talk about bitter snow varian and say that: yes, he gets a hell of a lot more adventure than he ever bargained for. 

Does Varian have a room in the Castle now? Or does he stay in Old Corona?

i mean he’s like sixteen i assume he’s still living with his dad for at least a couple more years. he’s more urban than quirin is so when he comes of age i think he’ll eventually get himself a nice little flat in corona somewhere. 

Will Faith stay as Rapunzel’s lady-in-waiting? If so, will they be close friends?

i think in once a handmaiden faith booked herself passage on the next carriage to koto and is living her best life there. it’s what she deserves

Will Nigel ever reunite with a dragon again?

[gets on my soapbox] nigel’s story is a cautionary tale about the perils of taking wild animals out of the wild and attempting to keep them as pets and having seen firsthand the dangers of doing so nigel is never going to make the same mistake again. however, he learns to appreciate them as they are, in their natural habitat, living as they please, and will one day found a dragonspotting club. [/gets off my soapbox]

Will Eugene ever talk to Edmund about his mother?

yes and edmund will tell eugene like nine million stories about her and show him the letters she wrote for their son on her deathbed and eugene will realize that he actually has more in common, personality-wise, with his mom than his dad and will end up feeling very close to her even though he never got the chance to know her. 

Is Lance still smitten over Adira?

nah not really, though he still admires her very much and i think they end up having a decent friendship. they’re foodie buddies and whenever she passes through corona she teaches the girls survival skills or practices fighting techniques with them.

Did Max and Pascal rescue the wedding cake?

probably

Will Varian and Cassandra keep in touch?

i think she’ll keep in touch with him as much as she keeps in touch with any of team corona, really. they’re friends but not especially close, yknow?

Who will Cass run into on her adventures?

like i said in one of the other asks i think she passes through ingvarr at some point and maybe bumps into the princesses there. i definitely think she encounters caine and stalyan at least a couple times in contexts that range from adversarial to reluctant allies. the idea of her passing through vardaros and helping quaid and vex out with some mystery is kind of fun. 

Will Cass become a famous adventurer or live elusively?

cass is going to fall into the sam vimes camp of her reputation preceding her completely by accident

Who will be at Rapunzel and Eugene’s child(ren)’s christening(s)?

i assume, like, all the important people. fred and arianna and edmund, lance, varian, cass if she’s around. plus they’re royalty so like, a lot of noble types and diplomats and whatnot. 

What will Rapunzel and Eugene name their children?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Who from their adventures will Rapunzel and Eugene visit? The Lorbs? Calliope? King Trevor? Vex and Quaid?

i think there will be occasional trips to the dark kingdom via hot air balloon and they’ll probably check in on vardaros from time to time. can’t see them visiting calliope unless they absolutely have to. diplomatic visits with equis are... probably unavoidable, but filled with Regret. i think the lorbs would probably be happier if the crazy fleinfloofers didn’t keep coming back to the island to trigger horb the lorb’s various failed magical cures for depression, all things considered.

Will Rapunzel make amends with Lady Caine? Will she pardon her father and let him reunite with Lady Caine?

i think caine’s dad is dead. and i think rapunzel would try to make amends, but caine is in the category of... things can’t always be made better? her father was taken from her in a horribly traumatizing way and then in all likelihood either executed (remember that corona canonically hangs thieves) or died on a prison barge years ago, and there’s nothing rapunzel can realistically do to make that better. sometimes an apology isn’t enough, you know? i think she could provide caine with some closure by helping her find out exactly what happened to him, but caine would never harbor any positive feelings for corona or for rapunzel.

Will Cassandra settle in Corona, abroad, or remain indefinitely itinerant?

i think she’ll eventually settle down but i also see her as developing a real love for travel and continuing to do it frequently even after she finds her home base, so to speak. i also tend to lean on the side of she comes back to corona to visit but doesn’t have enough positive connections to the place to ever feel completely at home there. 

Will Madame Canardist ever learn of Vigor’s origins?

madame canardist is a racist romani caricature and i don’t like thinking about her if i can possibly help it. it leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.

Will Varian rebuild any of Demanitus’ work?

dunno, maybe? varian is a demanitus fanboy for sure and if he encountered a demanitus blueprint for a machine that he could put to good use i think he’d absolutely build it at the first opportunity. i can see him rebuilding the weather device just in case zhan tiri’s blizzard were to reoccur, for example. but also, a lot of demanitus’s inventions were pretty dangerous (see: the portal to the lost realm, the body-switching ray) and varian as of season three has learned his lesson about doing Reckless Science so i think he would approach with a certain amount of caution.

Will Cass be nervous when meeting her New Dream nieces and nephews?

...a bit? maybe? i guess? prior to this i spent literally 0 braincells thinking about new dream children so i dunno. i’m not a kid person and i rarely if ever speculate about non-canonical children of fictional couples. she’d be the fun adventuring family friend i suppose.

[ijuswannawriteright]

Excerpt from a short story I’m working on

THE NIGEL ROTHMOORE ACCOUNTS                            

Today is a good day. Tonight, is going to be better. Jen from accounting agreed to go out with me. Pulling open a desk drawer, I take out my cell phone to read Jen’s reply one last time before I pick her up. We’ll be going to The Brass Tap, a local bar not far from headquarters, where more than a few of us have drinks after work. This is the first time I’ll be taking a date.

I’m a field agent at the Miami branch of the F.B.I. When I tell people what I do for a living, the first thing they think of is shows like 24, Quantico, or the blacklist. I want to punch dumbasses in the mouth when they make the comparison. There is a lot of legwork involved, but just as much paperwork, and I’d rather have a cold beer in my hand versus a ballpoint.

Yes, Nigel, I’d love to go out for drinks. Pick me up in front of the building after work. See ya soon. J. 😊

Butterflies flutter in my stomach when I think of her. She’s a sexy, intelligent, five-foot-nine, thick in all the right places, brown-skinned beauty, with legs for days. I watched her for about three months before I made my first introduction. She’s the life of the party, and a beast on Karaoke night, but I wanted to know if she was more than that. I feel the electricity from our first handshake even now. Over the last few months, we’ve talked while hanging out with the group, even flirting a little. Still, it took me all this time to ask her out. Tonight, I’ll need my A, B, and C game.

I rock from a swoon. Yes, I know it’s not a masculine gesture, but I’ve been trying to get up the nerve to ask Jen out for so long, I was beginning to think I never would. She has turned down every guy in my division, and a couple of unstable relationships in my past had me a little gun shy.

Why am I surprised she said yes? I have a great deal to offer. I’m employed, I have a master’s in business, did six years in the military, and have no kids. I own five condos downtown, so I have a fallback plan when I’m done at the agency, and I work out two hours every morning before work. I’m six-foot-six, clean shaven, even on my head, and I practice a Vegan lifestyle. I am literally the poster child for tall, dark, and handsome, I just hope Jen thinks so.

Stirring with imaginings of this evening’s possibilities, my mind wanders. Jen’s closed The Tap down a few times, but she always left alone. I never knew if I should feel sorry for her, or jealous of who she might be going home to. If all goes well, the future might have her coming to my place for a nightcap, and then who knows.

I slide my phone back into the drawer and close it. We’re allowed to have cell phones, but we can’t use them during business hours, so I keep it on silent. I work in a high-security branch of the building, and it has its own encrypted satellite phones and intranet. We are told it’s to keep the temptation for espionage to a minimum, but we all text back and forth anyway.

Trying to remember the last date I’d gone on; eight years comes to mind. I prickle a little. One, because it’s been that long, and two because the date had been a disaster. A flash of heat warms me. I’ve gone out in groups during these last few years, yeah, and I’ve socialized with ladies in a workplace setting, but no more one-on-ones since Taliyah.

I’d thought office romance was a bad Idea before I did it, now I know it is. Taliyah and I were getting to be good friends when we went out eight years ago. I made my intentions clear in the beginning, but she wanted more. I didn’t, and I slept with her anyway. It was a terrible mistake, looking back, and I’ve regretted it since. The few times I’ve run into her in the halls or got trapped with her on the elevator have been awkward, but with all my efforts to apologize, she still won’t talk to me.

I swore I’d never go out with anyone from the workplace again, and I haven’t wanted to until now. A chill spiked in my bones. The thought of getting hurt unsettles me, but the dread of hurting someone else scares me more. I don’t want to over analyze it, but it did feel good to be attracted to a fantastic woman like Jen. I can only hope she’ll come to feel the same about me.

Being on my own for so long, I’ve gotten used to it. I find comfort in late work days and solitary nights. Somehow, not wanting to date at work trickled into me not dating at all.

So off in my head, I don’t hear anyone enter my office.

“What a day, huh?" A low voice wafts just inside my doorway.

My eyes bobble. It’s John Chambers, the agency’s top interrogator. He’s the guy that gets viable intel from detainees. He has an impressive 100% success record and is known for using his methods of persuasion on his peers. Getting a confession from a detainee was one thing, using them to take a man’s paycheck in our weekly poker games was another.

I hate him and am taken aback by his stature every time I see him. Wafer thin, his pasty white skin is a contrast to his black, stringy hair. You’d think, for what he does, he’d be larger. With a 197 I.Q., I guess you don’t have to be.

I pick up my pen and begin to sign the last of my documents, not acknowledging John, in hopes he’ll go away. No such luck. John looms, his presence sucking the life from the room. In a contest of strength, John would be no match for me, but he knows how to get into your head. In that aspect, he’s formidable.

I shuffle papers around, fighting the urge to bang my fist on the desk and shoo him like the pest he is. It isn’t only me. John’s ruffled a lot of feathers around here. To make matters worse, he’s our boss.

“Niiiiigel.” John sing-songs.

I ignore him, electing to count the seconds ticking off the clock on my desk. My shift is almost over, and the sound of John’s voice can’t mean good news. The ire in me brews. He wants a favor, I can feel it, and John doesn’t take no for an answer.

“Niiiiigel.” John sing-songs again, this time his voice an octave higher.

I look over at him, now plopped comfortably in the chair on the other side of my desk.

“Jeez, how do you find anything in this swamp?” He asks, lifting corners of file folders with a pen. “Am I safe? Do I need a hazmat suit?”

My organizational skills might be haphazard, but every “i” was dotted, and every “t” was crossed. Not even John’s snide remark can ruin my mood, but a sudden stone sinking feeling says otherwise. Please, don’t let this be some last-minute bullshit assignment. If I say yes, I’ll miss my chance with Jen, If I say no, I’ll be in John’s cross-hairs—more than I already am.

"What do you want?" I ask, signing the last form of the evening.

"Is it that obvious?" John says, looking disappointed.

I pretend to search for some papers so I can get another peek at my cell tucked away in the drawer. I’d left the text open. Jen’s message is still there.

"Hell yeah,” I say, trying to hide the blush of excitement that has nothing to do with John. “I've known you for ten years, worked for you for seven. Every time you want me to do something you don't want to do, you open with a random question followed by huh. What a day huh? How about that weather huh? That was a close one huh?" I mock.

John laughs, "ya got me. Guilty as charged." He makes frantic waving motions with his hands. "I didn't know I had a tell. Thanks for the heads-up, buddy."

Opting not to react to his “buddy” crack, I look at my clock instead. One minute more, and I’m free to leave. Each click of the second hand is like a step closer to the exit door—closer to Jen. I’m no fool, John wants something, and I can’t help the curiosity building in me. Still, no matter what he says, I’m not breaking this date.

The final minute clicked into place, the clock hands pointing the way to freedom.

“Six o’clock, time to go.”

Snatching up my phone, I amble to a coat rack by the door. I slip on my jacket, slide my phone in one pocket, and pull my keys out of another.

"Since you asked,” John says.

“I didn’t ask you anything.”

“Yes, you did,” John playfully spun the chair around, revolving three times before stopping to face me. "When I sat down, you asked what I wanted.”

“I was being polite.”

“Nevertheless, you asked.”

My shoulders slump. Go’dammit! He’s about to pull rank.

“What I want… What I need—" John corrected, "—is for you to go down to interrogation and re-read those witness statements from the bombing this morning."

That’s part of your job ass hat, I screamed, but only in my head. John isn’t the kind of man you want for an enemy. But I can’t bite back the disgusted sigh forcing its way up my throat. Breaking his jaw was my first impulse, but I go with diplomacy instead.

"I'd love to boss, but I'm off as of right now," I check my watch. Shit, five minutes late. “I’d be happy to do it tomorrow.”

"I see," John says, a malevolent note in his tone, "so then I can assume the After-Action Report on today's events is finished? You are the lead investigator...riiight?"

When John feels the need to exert his control, he cuts into you with his beady, bloodshot eyes, and gives a long drawn out, “riiight” at the end of his sentence. As tall as I am, I feel four-and-half feet shorter. There’s no way I’m getting out of this but seeing Jen this evening is enough to make me try.

"I’ll do it in the morning, just like I have for the last seven years."

"Not tonight," John's bouncy demeanor turns professional, "Top brass wants it done before we leave."

“You know I hate writing After Action Reports at the end of my shift. I like to step away, go home, have a drink, relax, and do it the following day.”

A sinister grin blossoms on John’s face.

"I could do it for you,” John says, “if…"

"If I read the witness statements.”

“That’s riiight.”

Spinning my keys around on my finger, I consider his offer. I need a way out—one that doesn’t have me here longer than necessary. I must stay calm, but damn it, if he says that riiight crap one more time... It wrenches me like a wrung-out rag. My face scrunches every time he does it. He must know it bothers me—I guess I have a tell too.

“How about this, let me go, and I’ll do’em both in the morning?”

My elevated voice spills out into the hallway, momentarily pausing a few passer-byes. That was not my intention, but the idea of missing my chance with Jen has me wound up.

John looks at me—calm, sitting one leg crossed over the other.

“I kinda need it done tonight though.” He says, with his eyes drooped and his mouth pouted.

I drop my head, defeated. Being late is bad enough, now I’m going to have to cancel. My brow furrows and lips purse. He has me on the ropes, with my hands down at my sides. I’ll call Jen and see if she is open to a late dinner afterward. Maybe I can spin it on some romantic, moonlight rendezvous, something or another. She should like that.

"Fine John, I'll read the freakin' statements," I jerk my jacket from my body, almost stabbing the hook through the collar as I hung it back on the coat rack. Rumbling to my seat, I flop down hard, with a huff. "But if I do this for you,” I continue, “you're doing that damned A. A. R. for me."

"Deal," John says, voice full of excitement as he catapults from the chair. Scurrying out of my office, he finishes with, "there's only about ninety, to 100 statements."

"Ninety, to 100?" I say, my voice echoing back at me,” that’s going to take all night.”

"Nah… shouldn’t take you more than seven or eight hours tops," John says, his voice trailing off as he makes his way down the hallway, "I’m out of here, see you in the morning."

"Out of here?" Damn near climbing over my desk to get to my office threshold, I topple file folders and knick-knacks to the floor. “You said you needed everything done tonight?” Confusion mixes with my already boiling blood. "What about the A. A. R.?"

"Already done it," John says behind a wave, skipping down the corridor, his back still turned, humming aloud.

That dirty mother—he played me. I step back into my office and begin to pick up the scattered items from the floor. As I do, I try to find the best way to apologize to Jen. A good five minutes passed before I had the perfect plan. It’s worth a shot, I’ll give her a call.

[victorineb]

Adam Raki and the Accidental Nurse

Today is my darling @hotsauce418‘s birthday and the trash possum extraordinaire requested some Spacedogs sickfic. So happy birthday hotty, I hope you enjoy <3<3<3

Also on AO3.

“Fucking cocksucking asshole cab drivers!”

If he looked at it objectively, Nigel would probably allow that there was a reason cab drivers tended not to stop for him. Six foot of glowering, tattooed Romanian was probably enough to make even your most toughened Californian cabbie lock all his doors, let alone the pussies who drove in this hoity-fucking-toity neck of the woods. Objectivity was not, however, one of Nigel’s strong points, so instead he elected to continue growling obscenities at the entire cab-driving profession as he moved down towards the back of the bus he’d been forced to mount in lieu of any other transport options.

“Motherfucking dick hole son of a fucking whore!”

“Could you please refrain from swearing until you have left the bus, please?”

Nigel swung to find the source of the soft but direct complaint, fully anticipating a welcome chance to knock some cheeky fucker’s face in. What he found, instead, was a face he wouldn’t wish to see damaged by his or any other fists for all the money in the world. Bright blue eyes, wide and innocent looking, were set in a pale, smooth-skinned face, and set off by waves of brown hair, just coming loose from the neat, careful shape they had been tamed into. Nigel took in the young man sitting opposite him, the old man clothes and stiff demeanour not remotely dimming his beauty, and immediately decided to switch from offensive to charm offensive.

He grabbed the rail above the kid’s seat and hung off it, leaning down with a smile to say, “My apologies, gorgeous, I didn’t realise I was being so uncouth. I’d hate to think I made you uncomfortable.”

The kid crossed his arms in front of himself, not meeting Nigel’s gaze, and said, “I don’t like loud noises or swearing, they make me uncomfortable. In addition, I have a very bad headache and am not feeling very well, so I would appreciate it if you could wait until you are further away before continuing your tirade. And my name is Adam,” he added. “Please don’t call me gorgeous, it is demonstrably untrue and therefore either you are mocking me, or attempting to use an endearment inappropriate for someone you have just met.”

Nigel blinked, and then gave Adam a slow look up and down. “Darling, I’m not sure what you see when you look in the mirror, but from here you are very evidently the most gorgeous thing in this whole damn state.”

At this, Adam flicked his eyes up to Nigel’s for a fraction of a second before he looked away again. He sighed and said, “I can’t tell if you mean what you say. Normally I would attempt to understand, but I’m really not feeling well enough to do so today. My stop is not far away, would you mind if we don’t talk anymore?”

“I don’t mind darling,” Nigel grinned. He was suddenly very glad to have taken the fucking bus this once, if it meant getting to sit next to this strange, pretty kid for a little while. “But in return, might I sit with you, seems like all the other seats are taken. Promise to keep my trap shut,” he added, holding his hands up as Adam narrowed his eyes. The kid peered at him – or at least, near to him – for another moment, then gave a curt nod of his head, and moved a little to the side to make space for Nigel.

True to his word, Nigel didn’t utter another syllable. He did, however, take advantage of Adam’s resolutely front-facing gaze to look his fill. At first, he simply admired the kid’s trim figure, his long legs and the way his surprisingly broad shoulders tapered into a slim waist. Eventually, though, he lifted his gaze above the kid’s neck and began to get concerned. There was sweat on Adam’s brow, and high colour in his cheeks. He hadn’t been lying when he said he was sick.

“Adam, I know I said I would be quiet, but you don’t look good, darling. Are you going to be ok?” The question drew no response, and Nigel began to get truly worried at the glassy look in Adam’s eyes. He was about to try again when the bus started to slow, and Adam stood jerkily, swaying a little as he gathered his things. Apparently this was his stop. Reluctantly, Nigel stood to let him past, already wondering if he should offer to see the kid home, if that would be unwelcome to this closed off young man. His mind was made up for him, though, when Adam fainted clean into his arms.

“Adam? Adam?” Nigel stared into his face in alarm, instinctively hefting the kid up into his arms.

Adam stirred a little at his name and blinked up at Nigel, who immediately felt a rush of relief. It was short-lived though, as Adam woke only long enough to murmur, “Please, no doctors,” before passing out again.

Nigel looked down at him in dismay, at a complete loss as to what to do with the unconscious young man in his arms. He gave Adam a little shake in desperation, but Adam remained resolutely out of it. Nigel wasn’t exactly one to panic, but right now, suddenly in charge of an unwell young man he didn’t know from… well, from Adam, regardless of how familiar he’d got with his appearance in the last twenty minutes, Nigel would definitely admit to being just the tiniest bit fucking fraught.

The bus driver piping up, “You two getting off or what, I’m on a timetable,” wasn’t helping matters either.

“Gimme a fucking minute,” Nigel barked at her, casting around for help from the other passengers and finding nothing but carefully turned-away faces.

“Buddy, either you and your sweetheart get off, or I’m closing the doors and leaving, what’s it to be?”

Nigel looked down into Adam’s sleeping, flushed face and made his decision.

“We’re getting fucking off, ok?”

“Hallelujah,” came the response, and Nigel barely kept himself from growling at her in response. He hefted Adam again, retrieving the kid’s bag from his shoulder and slinging it over his own, then awkwardly manoeuvred both of them towards the doors. As he passed, the driver asked, “He ok?”

Nigel just glared at her and said, “Giving a fuck included on your fucking schedule, is it?” She looked mildly shamefaced and he threw her a sneer before carrying Adam down to the sidewalk.

Fortunately for Nigel, it was the middle of the day and Adam’s was a quiet residential neighbourhood, so there was no one around to accuse him of mugging the kid. Instead, he was able to lay Adam down on a nearby bench and, with a muttered apology, go through his bag in search of his ID. A couple of minutes and a quick search on his phone told him Adam lived five minutes from the bus stop, in a pleasant looking little house. Nigel took a moment to question what the hell he was doing, then lifted Adam into his arms once more and started walking.

He should take the kid to the hospital, Nigel knew, should drop him safely into a waiting room, make sure he got attended to and then just leave. It shouldn’t matter that the kid had asked him not to, he wasn’t well and it sure as fuck wasn’t Nigel’s job to take care of him. As if Nigel knew how to fucking take care of anyone anyway. He continued to walk, though, Adam settled surprisingly comfortably in his arms, huffing warm breath against his neck and exuding way too much heat for either man’s comfort. Nigel wasn’t sure he could have stopped if someone had told him to, some weird urge inside him telling him to stay with the kid, to make sure he didn’t have to see anyone he didn’t want to, to get him back to his home and pray to every motherfucking deity he didn’t believe in that there was someone there who could take proper care of Adam.

As they neared Adam’s house, Nigel fully expected someone to rush from their front door and ask what the hell he was doing to their nice young neighbour. No one did though, and Nigel found himself stepping up to Adam’s front door wholly unmolested, digging the keys he had retrieved from Adam’s bag out of his pocket, and carrying the kid over the threshold as if they’d just got fucking wed.

“Yeah, this’d be a fucking romantic one for the grandkids,” Nigel muttered as he kicked the door closed behind them and carried Adam straight upstairs, in search of a bedroom. “How did you and Grandpa Adam meet, Papa Nigel? Well, kiddies, I harassed him on a bus, then he fucking passed out and I broke into his house.” Nigel shook his head and gave a sigh of relief as he found the bedroom, clean and neat as a goddamn pin. Nigel carefully laid Adam on top of the sheets, removed his shoes and jacket, laid the comforter from the end of the bed on top of him, and then stopped to wonder what the everloving fuck he was supposed to do now.

Going outside and having a smoke was looking like a really good option right now.

Except, Adam was still really flushed, and he was making this little snuffling sound in his sleep that was breaking Nigel’s heart, and – after Nigel had a quick look around the house – it was really fucking obvious that there was no one coming home to take care of him. So instead, Nigel took out his phone and asked Google what the fuck you do for someone with a fever.

The first thing, getting the person to rest, Adam had kindly taken care of by passing out. Apparently the loss of consciousness was a bad sign, and Nigel once again contemplated calling an ambulance, before deciding to give it a few hours before making that decision. Adam was breathing comfortably and he seemed peaceful, so Nigel decided he was more asleep than unconscious anyway.

The second thing, getting him into some lightweight clothes, was going to be a bit more challenging. Nigel had certainly given plenty of thought to relieving Adam of his clothing before he’d realised the kid was sick, but his imaginings hadn’t involved him ransacking his drawers for a pair of pyjamas – clearly bought from the same old man store as the rest of his wardrobe – and then manhandling his unconscious, sweat-soaked body into them. They certainly hadn’t involved leaving his underwear on out of respect.

Finally, Nigel got Adam settled again and went in search of ice (for hydration), a washcloth (for cooling), and a back door (for a fucking smoke, for Nigel’s fucking sanity). He found all three, along with a fully-stocked first-aid kit and, after a blissful if abbreviated cigarette, returned upstairs to find that Adam had kicked off the comforter but otherwise looked much the same as he had when Nigel had left him. Nigel replaced the blanket and then sat next to Adam on the bed, placing a bowl of water next to him and beginning to wipe Adam’s face and neck down with it. Nigel felt acutely the strangeness of doing this to a stranger, and tried to remember the last time he had shown an ounce of kindness to another person. He thought of Gabi, and winced, deciding quickly that she had no place in this house. Nor did he, of course, but he was in too far now to leave. Far too far, he thought, as he smoothed Adam’s damp hair back from his forehead.

Nigel jumped when he realised the kid was pressing into his hand, and removed it quickly, only to find blue eyes suddenly peering not quite at him once again.

“You’re from the bus,” Adam croaked, his voice small and weak.

“That’s right, Adam. My name’s Nigel. You weren’t well so I brought you home.” Nigel hoped to God he was managing to sound kind, rather than threatening. He wasn’t sure he remembered how.

“You called me gorgeous,” Adam murmured, and Nigel wondered how awake he actually was.

“Yeah, I fucking did, gorgeous, that’s right.” Nigel slowly reached for Adam’s hand, telegraphing his movements so as not to frighten him. “Listen, darling, I don’t want to trespass further on your space. You got someone I could call to come take care of you?”

Adam closed his eyes and Nigel wondered if he’d passed out again. If he had, he really would have to call the doctor this time. After a moment, though, they fluttered open again and Adam shook his head fractionally. “No, no one. Harlan is still in New York and my father’s in Queens.” He gave a weak little laugh that worried Nigel immensely. “That means he’s dead. Harlan said it was a joke but I don’t understand why it’s funny.”

Nigel’s heart dropped as he realised that Adam had no one. He scrubbed a hand over his eyes and tried to think what to do.

“It’s ok, Nigel, you can go. I can take care of myself. The fever will break and then I will be fine.” Adam’s voice was small, but firm, the same way it had been on the bus, and just as it had then, it decided Nigel at once.

“Don’t hate me, gorgeous, but I’m not gonna take your fucking word for that,” he said. “Think I should stay and check for myself.” Adam shook his head again, but Nigel ignored it. “Now, think you could drink something for me before you go back to sleep? I brought some ice up, it’s better for you than water, so doctor fucking internet tells me.”

Adam just squinted at him some more with those beautiful blues, and then asked, almost a whisper, “Why would you stay?”

Nigel smiled at him, and this time he was almost certain he managed to make it kind. “Because you need me to, gorgeous.”

Finally, Adam raised his eyes to Nigel’s, and Nigel’s breath hitched. Even sick, this boy was truly beautiful, and Nigel couldn’t think of many better ways to spend his time than simply to look at him. Adam just nodded, resigned, and then looked away, towards the glass of ice chips Nigel had brought up.

“Think you could manage a couple?” Nigel asked, and Adam nodded again. Nigel beamed at him – fucking beamed, when had he ever – and grabbed the glass. He helped Adam to sit up a little and then held one of the chips to Adam’s lips, who looked a little reproachful but didn’t make a move to stop him. He managed three of them like this, before his eyelids started to droop again, and Nigel took the glass away.

“One last thing, beautiful, before you sleep. Let me take your temperature?” Nigel had found one of those fancy thermometers in the first-aid kit, the kind that went inside your ear and gave instant readings. Adam acquiesced easily, and Nigel took the reading. 38.8oc, high but not in the danger zone; they could avoid the hospital as long as it didn’t get any higher. Nigel looked back at Adam to give him the good news and found that the kid was already asleep again. He looked angelic to Nigel, flushed pink and with his hair forming into curls around his forehead. He looked like something Nigel wanted to protect.

Nigel woke the next morning with a stiff back and a dull ache everywhere else from spending the night in a chair next to Adam’s bed. He also woke with Adam’s hand clutched tightly in his own, and wondered at himself for getting attached so quickly. It had happened once before, of course, but… no, that wasn’t a thought he needed to have right now. He stood and placed his free hand against Adam’s forehead. No cooler than the day before, Nigel estimated, but no worse, which was good, he supposed.

He tucked the covers more firmly around Adam’s sleeping form, lingering just a little to take in how the early morning sunlight made him glow. Just looking, Nigel thought, fucking looking never goddamn hurt anyone. He spent the next hour finding ways to keep himself busy, taking a shower, having a smoke, snooping through Adam’s stuff (telescope, space books, space models… whole lot of space stuff. Nigel was really hoping he wasn’t one of those fussy nerd types, like on some bad sitcom, but Adam didn’t seem much of either from what he’d seen). Anything to keep himself distracted, because the urge to simply sit by the bed and watch Adam sleep was unsettlingly strong.

Eventually, Nigel deemed that enough time had passed for it to be completely reasonable for him to check in on his patient. He gathered another bowl of water and a clean cloth, along with painkillers and more ice chips, and climbed back up the stairs to Adam. As he set down his supplies, Nigel glanced at Adam’s face and found a blue eye cracked open, observing him closely.

“Hello, gorgeous,” Nigel said.

Adam continued to peer at him for a little while, and then said, “You’re still here,” his voice not much more than a croak.

“That I am, sweetheart.” Nigel perched on the edge of the bed and brushed Adam’s hair out of his eyes. The boy didn’t flinch, but Nigel could see the touch made him tense and he withdrew his hand. “Thought I’d be gone with the morning light?”

Adam’s eyes had followed Nigel’s hand as he drew it back, and he kept them trained on it as he said, “I don’t understand why you are here. You don’t know me, you have no reason to care about me. I don’t like not understanding, please could you explain?”

“Thought maybe if I helped out an angel, I’d get myself a free pass to heaven,” Nigel grinned, tossing a wink Adam’s way for good measure.

Adam just frowned and looked faintly irritated. “I am not an angel, Nigel, angels don’t exist. Nor does heaven, or at least it is a relatively unlikely theory and not a good explanation for your presence in my home.”

Nigel could do nothing but chuckle at the response. The kid wasn’t easy and, dammit, Nigel always liked a challenge.

“Ok, beautiful, but you won’t like it.” Adam just pouted at this, and Nigel was hard-pressed to think that he’d ever seen anything more fucking adorable in his life. “Truth is, Adam, I don’t have a good reason. Not every day that some gorgeous kid falls into my arms, thought I shouldn’t pass up the opportunity.”

“Nigel, I’m not sure at this point if you are in fact capable of being serious,” Adam protested, his voice weak and strained, “but please try.”

Nigel felt a little stab of guilt at teasing the kid when he wasn’t well, and decided to stop being an ass for a minute. “Ok, Adam, I’ll be serious. But first you’re gonna sit up and suck down a couple of these ice chips for me, yeah?”

Adam nodded, and let Nigel rearrange him without protest, accepting the piece of ice and placing it between his lips. Satisfied, Nigel told him the whole story, that Adam had asked not to be taken to a doctor, that Nigel had carried him home, that it was obvious Adam lived alone and Nigel hadn’t wanted to leave him when he was so unwell. He left out the parts about thinking Adam was the most beautiful person he’d ever clapped eyes on. Bit fucking much to lay on the kid at this point.

Adam seemed to accept this explanation, despite the fact that it didn’t really even make sense to Nigel how they’d ended up here. So Nigel figured he could ask his own question.

“Why didn’t you want a doctor, gorgeous?”

Adam sucked on another ice chip contemplatively and then said, “I don’t like doctors, or hospitals. There are lots of people there, many of whom are loud and aggressive, and there are germs and disease everywhere.”

“Well yeah, it’s where fucking sick people go.”

Adam regarded him coolly and added, “In any case, a low-grade fever does not require a doctor, only rest and hydration.”

Nigel shrugged and asked, “So you won’t go see the doc now if I suggest it, then?”

“I would prefer not to,” Adam confirmed.

“Fucking rest and hydration it is then.”

Adam’s temperature cooled during the day – assisted by a not-at-all fucking awkward bath, during which Nigel had done his best not to see anything he wasn’t meant to, and had still seen enough to turn his attraction into full-blown lust. Adam was beautiful, lithe and perfectly-proportioned, with soft-looking skin and a pretty scattering of freckles. Nigel tried very hard to tell himself he wasn’t doomed when he caught sight of them and didn’t believe himself for a second.

It had gone back up in the evening though, and Adam writhed miserably in his bed as Nigel alternately tried to warm him up and cool him down. Eventually though, he settled, and looked up at Nigel beseechingly, clearly exhausted and drained. “Would you read something to me, Nigel?”

“Like a bedtime story, gorgeous?” Nigel teased, gently. He was beginning to learn that Adam didn’t really respond to sarcasm or irony, but that he was ok with being teased, so long as it wasn’t cruel.

“Yes, but not a story, please. I don’t enjoy stories.” Adam said this with such a straight face that Nigel couldn’t help but laugh a little.

“Alright sweetheart, what would you like then? I saw a lot of space books downstairs. You want me to read about the stars?” Adam nodded, a small smile on his face at Nigel’s suggestion, and Nigel dutifully trooped downstairs, returning with a selection of books from which Adam pulled one with a pink and purple nebula on its cover. Nigel settled himself in the chair by the bed and propped his socked feet up, having checked with Adam that he didn’t mind. He was going to have to do something about his clothes tomorrow; for himself, he could happily have worn the same ones for a third day running, but he didn’t want to fucking smell around Adam. He opened the book and started reading, quickly realising that he wasn’t going to understand a word of it and not caring in the slightest. It was easy to just let the words flow, no understanding needed beyond how to say them, so long as Adam knew what they meant. Before long, both men were asleep, and when Adam’s hand crept out to curl around Nigel’s ankle, neither one was any the wiser.

Adam’s illness continued into a third day, and a fourth after that, and Nigel went nowhere (save for a fucking trek to the fucking grocery store since Adam didn’t seem to have anything in his fridge that Nigel counted as food). Instead he continued to provide cups of tea, and warm (“not too warm, please Nigel”) baths and to read to Adam from whichever book he requested. He had found some clothes in a size close enough to his own to be wearable, and though they were in a style far from his usual, they had the advantage of being clean. When Adam saw him in the neat button down and slacks, he had stared for a moment and then just nodded and said calmly, “they don’t suit you,” before burrowing back down under the covers. Nigel had stood for a moment, unsure quite what to make of that, and then had gone to put his own clothes in the laundry.

Adam slept a lot, and Nigel found ways to occupy himself – watching shitty daytime TV, smoking, calling his associates to make sure they weren’t fucking up in his absence (“What does it matter to you where I fucking am or what I’m fucking doing, nenorocitule? Do as I fucking say or I’ll rip your dick off and use it as a fucking paperweight, got it?”). Mostly, he watched Adam, having admitted that he could blindfold himself and it wouldn’t matter. Adam was etched on the inside of his eyelids, like the afterburn of a blinding light. Might as well enjoy the object of his doomed infatuation while he could.

When Adam was awake, they talked. Nigel had wondered if he would have anything to say to this strange, detached boy with his head in the stars, but conversation flowed between them with unexpected ease.

“You swear a lot. More than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Sorry about that, angel. Bad habit, years in the making. I can stop, if it bothers you. Try to, anyway.”

“No-o… I don’t think I mind when you do it. When other people swear, it sounds painful to me, like being struck. But yours is more like punctuation. You don’t swear out of anger, it’s simply part of your speech pattern. I enjoy the way you speak, there’s a rhythm to it that’s soothing.”

“Think that’s the first time anybody’s called me fucking soothing, gorgeous.”

“No one has ever called me gorgeous before, so that makes us even.”

“Must all have been fucking blind, beautiful.”

And,

“You ate it yesterday, Adam.”

“I was still feeling very unwell yesterday, it didn’t occur to me to complain.”

“But you’re well enough to do it today?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re telling me you only eat fucking macaroni and cheese?”

“And chicken and broccoli.”

“And you won’t eat the soup I made, from scratch, with ingredients that I trekked back on foot from the fucking grocery store five miles away, because all you have in your fridge is fucking mac and cheese and chicken and broccoli, unless you’re too out of it to know the difference?”

“Yes.”

“Well as long as we’ve got that fucking sorted.”

And,

“Where is your accent from?”

“Fucking Romania.”

“Were you born there?”

“Yeah. Lived there, too, until not so long ago.”

“But now you live here. Why did you leave?”

“Stupidity.”

“Who was stupid?”

“Me. Other fucking people too but, looking back, mostly me.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Not as much as I thought, gorgeous.”

And,

“What’s with all the space stuff?”

“I’m interested in space.”

“No shit, gorgeous. Kind of a smartass, aren’t you?”

“I have above average intelligence, yes.”

“Are you fucking with me right now, Adam?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Nigel.”

“You fucking are, I can see you smiling. Feeling better then, darling?”

“I’m beginning to.”

By the fifth day, though, it was clear that Adam was on the mend. He wasn’t as tired, his temperature was much lower, and he was able to get out of bed for a while, so Nigel could serve him mac and fucking cheese with only minimal complaining. He would likely be well enough to look after himself come tomorrow, Nigel realised, his stomach twisting painfully. There would be no reason for him to stay. No reason to keep waking up to the sunlight making Adam’s skin glow. No reason to listen to him talk about the stars and make it sound like the best story Nigel had ever heard. No reason to sneak smoke breaks only to stamp the cigarette out halfway through so as to get back to Adam quicker.

No reason to stay around the man he knows he’s fallen in love with.

That night Nigel climbed the stairs feeling sick himself. Five days and he couldn’t imagine an evening not spent with his feet on Adam’s bed, reading about some comet or distant galaxy, asking questions just for the sake of listening to Adam talk in that focused, expert, utterly engaged way he had when it came to the stars. Tomorrow he would go home to his empty apartment, where the only books were crappy paperbacks and nobody had anything interesting to say. He ached at the thought of it.

He wouldn’t say a word of it to Adam, though. He’d crashed into the kid’s life without asking, without giving him the chance to say no. And if he knew even part of what Nigel was, no was exactly what he’d say. No, and get out, and stay the fuck away from me. Nigel never wanted to hear those words from Adam’s beautiful mouth, never wanted to see his lovely face twisted in anger and disgust. So he climbed the stairs to the bedroom where Adam was already in bed, took his seat, let Adam choose a book, and, as always, asked his permission to put his feet up, everything exactly the same as the previous nights. Right up until Adam said, “No.”

“No?” Nigel asked, freezing in the act of lifting his feet.

“I don’t want you to put your feet up,” Adam explained.

Nigel felt a bolt of hurt go through him. Was this Adam pulling away already? Trying to put some distance between them so that Nigel would get the picture? The kid was smart, after all, far smarter than Nigel, he would already be thinking about tomorrow and-

“I’d like you to sleep next to me.”

Nigel’s brain froze along with the rest of him this time. He just stared at Adam for a few moments, trying to figure out where the joke was. When he finally remembered that Adam didn’t tell jokes, he made a concerted effort to form enough words to ask, “Could you just repeat that for me, gorgeous?”

“I’d like it if you slept next to me tonight. There’s plenty of room, you wouldn’t be uncomfortable.”

Oh, so Adam was feeling bad for him having to spend so many nights sleeping in a fucking chair. That made sense. Nigel could work with that.

“I can just go sleep on the couch, darling, you don’t have to share your bed to save my back.”

Adam frowned and flicked his eyes towards Nigel’s for a second. “I’m not making myself clear, am I? Sometimes it’s difficult for me to explain my meaning.” He began playing with the edge of his blanket, beginning to look distressed.

Nigel leaned across and put his hand on Adam’s, saying gently, “It’s ok, sweetheart, I’m not going anywhere. You take your time and keep going until I understand, ok?”

And then, instead of saying anything else, Adam just leaned in and kissed Nigel softly on the lips. Just a press, and no more, and it was the sweetest thing Nigel had ever felt. He nearly fucking whimpered when Adam pulled away again, looking adorably nervous and biting his lower lip in a way that made Nigel want to pull him back and take over.

“I want you to sleep with me, so that you can hold me, because I like you. And because you will go away tomorrow and I might never see you again, and I didn’t want never to have kissed you. I don’t know if that’s ok but I just…”

He trailed off, and Nigel gaped at him for a second before pressing him down to the bed and covering him in more kisses. “Sweet boy, gorgeous thing, I wanted to kiss you the second I clapped eyes on you, didn’t you know that?”

“No,” Adam said, panting the words between kisses, “you didn’t say.”

“Well, I guess that’s fucking true.” Nigel pulled back far enough to look at Adam properly. “Adam, let me make this perfectly fucking clear, the only reason I would leave is if you asked me to.”

Adam smiled at this, the first time he’d smiled fully at Nigel, and Nigel couldn’t help but kiss him again. Again and again. And when he was done (for the fucking moment) he curled both of them together beneath the sheets, Nigel’s chest pressed firm to Adam’s back, their legs entwined, and drifted off to sleep imagining that he would never let Adam go to sleep without kissing him ever again.

It wasn’t until about four in the morning when Nigel woke, still with Adam tucked against him, and asked himself what the fuck he was doing. He was a thug, a criminal, a killer. He had no business being with a sweet kid like Adam. He might have left the truly bad parts of his life behind in Bucharest, but he was still ready and able to kick a few heads in when they needed kicking. He still carried a gun to work. He still could put Adam in danger just by being in his life.

Besides that, Nigel knew there was something off about Adam, something different in the way he perceived the world. He was a creature of habit and routine; he’d had something close to a meltdown on their third day together, when he was well enough to know that his meal and sleep times had been disturbed, and had only settled when he’d extracted a promise from Nigel to follow his schedule from then on. How would someone like that cope with Nigel in his life, who came home at all hours, who ate leftover takeout for breakfast and hadn’t had a regular bedtime even when he was a kid?

Nigel buried his face in Adam’s hair and breathed in the clean, warm scent of him. He wanted this forever, wanted nothing more than this boy in his arms, breathing calmly and making soft little noises in his sleep. He’d take just the rest of this night, though; he could have that, no harm done, except maybe to his heart. He’d make Adam understand it was for the best, somehow.

The next time Nigel woke, it was to Adam gently brushing his fingers through his hair, pushing it off his forehead with a feather-light touch. Nigel cracked open his eyes and gazed up at his angel, bathed in the morning’s glow, and tried to fix the image in his mind, wanting to be able to remember Adam this way. If he could just keep this memory to draw on, maybe it would be enough, maybe it would ease the pain he knew leaving Adam behind would cause.

Adam caught his eye and, realising Nigel was awake, smiled down at him contentedly. “You did this to me very often while I was sick. It felt good, so I thought you might enjoy it too,” he said.

“I do, gorgeous, it feels very good.” Nigel leaned into the touch and tried to memorise it too.

“Also it means I can detect that you are running a temperature and likely have contracted the same virus I had,” Adam continued, matter-of-factly.  

“What?” Nigel asked, suddenly wide awake. He took stock of his body and realised that, fucking fuck, he was indeed feeling hot and sweaty, and his head was definitely aching in a way that usually indicated he’d hit the vodka too hard the night before. He pushed back the covers and made to get up, only to have Adam gently push him back down.

“Why are you getting up?” he asked, frowning.

Nigel tried again to rise, but the room swayed around him and he had to give up. He looked back at Adam, who was wearing a confused expression, a little crease appearing between his brows. Nigel reached up to smooth it away, and smiled gently at the kid. “I should go home while I can, gorgeous. Just let me get my shit together and then-”

“O-oh, no, you can’t go home. You took care of me when I was unwell, and now I will take care of you. I can’t take care of you if you go home. Unless I come with you but that seems like an unnecessary effort when we are both here already.”

“Gorgeous, you can’t take care of me,” Nigel sighed.

“Why? It’s Friday, so my employer told me not to bother coming in. That means I have three days to look after you, by which point you should be past the worst of the symptoms. Then you can still go home if you wish, though in fact I think you should stay here.”

“Until I’m all better?”

“Yes, but I actually meant permanently.”

Nigel could only gape stupidly at Adam for a good minute, as Adam straightened the covers around him, seemingly content to wait for Nigel’s response.

“Adam?” Nigel said, slowly.

“Yes, Nigel?”

“Did you just ask me to move in with you?”

“Yes, Nigel.”

Nigel was reasonably certain that he wasn’t running enough of a fever to be hallucinating, so he had to conclude that the beautiful boy currently methodically plumping his pillow had gone insane, and said so.

“Though I am not neurotypical, Nigel, I am perfectly sane.”

“We’ve known each other for six days, gorgeous, and you were fucking unconscious for most of them. You can’t ask someone to move in with you after six days.”

Adam looked at him, confused again. “But I don’t want you to leave. You said you would only leave if I asked you to, but when I think about you leaving, it hurts. So I want you to stay.”

It took everything Nigel had not to pull Adam down and kiss him and just say yes. Instead he said, “Sweetheart, even if it wasn’t far too soon to be asking, I’m not the sort of person you want in your life. I’m… I’m not a good person, Adam. I’m a very fucking bad, bad person, in fact.”

Adam finished fussing with the bedsheets and got up from the bed himself, gathering the discarded mugs and glasses from his nightstand. “I don’t think that’s true, Nigel.”

Nigel sighed and scrubbed a hand across his face. “Believe it, angel. I’ve done things that would scare you. That would make you stop liking me real fucking quick if you knew about them.”

Adam stopped straightening the room and turned back to the bed. “I’m aware that you make your living doing something not strictly legal, if that’s what you’re worried about. You are not quiet when you talk on the phone.” Nigel opened his mouth to protest but Adam held up a hand to stop him and continued. “And in any case, it doesn’t matter to me how you are with other people, or what you do for work. What matters to me is that you have been kind and patient with me, that you cared for me when you didn’t have to, and that you have been in my home for six days without making me feel uncomfortable or distressed. In fact having you here has made me happy, which is very rare for me. So I would like you to stay. Please.”

Nigel watched Adam give this speech, much as someone else might have read out a shopping list. It wasn’t impassioned, or desperate, it was a simple laying out of facts. Adam wanted Nigel to stay, so he had asked him to. Adam knew exactly what Nigel was, and he didn’t care. Adam was a fucking angel and Nigel was a bad, bad man.

But, Nigel considered, being a bad man didn’t mean he was a stupid one.

“Tell you what, gorgeous, I’ll move in with you, on one condition.”

Adam’s bright blue eyes seemed to light up with Nigel’s words and he smiled, wide and happy. “What is it, Nigel?”

Nigel grinned at him in return and flipped the sheets back in invitation. “That you put down all that shit and get back into fucking bed with me so I can show you just how happy you make me.”

Adam bit his lip and shook his head, but there was a gleam in his eye that Nigel found impossibly appealing. “But you’re unwell, Nigel, I don’t want you to strain yourself.”

“Darling, unless you want to be responsible for me dragging my feverish ass out of this bed, you’d better come over here because there’s no way I’m going another second without kissing you fucking silly,” Nigel growled.

And as Adam slid into bed next to him and let Nigel gather him up to be kissed, Nigel considered that, fever or no fever, he couldn’t remember ever feeling better in his entire fucking life.

[teejaydeetrip]

A Bandaged Left Hand

I had an extremely vivid dream last night in which I gave myself a vasectomy with a pair of scissors and some extremely small plastic pegs. I remember the skin of my ball sack felt like plastic or polyester and there was no blood. At some point the stitching came undone and I had not taken the pegs out and I ran around the house trying to find some kind of tool to fix it. I was worried mostly about infection. I can’t remember how it started and I don’t think it ended on any proper note on account of a loud truck rumbling past my window and waking me up. The first thing I did was check my balls. The second thing I did was breathe a sigh of releif, and the third thing I did was fall asleep again, because it was only 11.30am and I had been up late the night before. 

Being awake at night in Australia is tormenting. Nobody is awake after 1am and nobody is really up for chatting after 12. I don’t think anybody was in Japan either, but at least I had drive there. On the rare night that I wasn’t singing karaoke, or trading stories with other travellers, I was driven. I had things to write. I had things to say. I learned Japanese or sketched ideas. I watched movies in little booths on futons in internet cafes and drank ramen and lay back, contented that the moment I wanted to, I could walk outside into the bright shining lights of 3am in Osaka. Are there many places that bright at 3am in other parts of the world? I hear New York is pretty lively. 

Here, even in the trendy parts of Sydney, I’d be lucky to find a service station. Here, I watch Netflix on autopilot. I just watched the second season of The Man In The High Castle, on complete autopilot. I barely registered it at all. It’s a good show, but not at the same time. It’s intensely boring, yet utterly compelling at the same time. TV shows take up too much time. I need to learn to write more. To use this diary. 

I haven’t written in days. What have I missed? I don’t think I’ve written yet about The Dove and Olive. This bar hired me as a bartender. I applied for a bartender position, and trialled as a bartender, yet when I started, they put me on the floor. My job is not to pour beers, but to deliver schnitzels and steaks to baby boomers for 5 hours a night, then clean the shitty gross plates up and gather their shitty gross napkins and bin their shitty gross leftovers. I made it known to some of my co-workers. They told me that is just the way it is here when you start. Then others added that that is just the way it is for guys in general. Floor staff have to change the kegs over and girls are too weak for that, apparently. 

There are like 7 or 8 girls tending bar here, meaning most nights will have me on the floor. I was not happy with this and I made it known. I didn’t say to the managers what I wanted to say; that any place with an initiation process is not the kind of place that I work at, or that I came here to be a bartender, not a fucking waiter. But I made I certainly didn’t have a smile on me when I had to do these. Every day I started I would walk behind the bar and start pouring beers until someone said “Hey aren’t you on the floor today?” to which I would respond, “I don’t know, am I?”.  On Friday, the Manager On Duty didn’t know how to answer me, and just let me pour beers. I don’t know if I was supposed to be on the floor or if he was just shy, It was St Paddy’s day. Pouring Guiness is a bitch. I dropped a pint glass while trying to hang it up and tried to catch it but ended up just slamming it down even harder onto a bench. It shattered and the shards cut my pointer and index finger.  

The licensee emailed me on Saturday, after working 3 shifts. She had gotten the hint. It had been passed up the chain of command from the MOD to the DM to the licensee. She asked me if I was comfortable and I checked the Sydney Bartender Exchange group on Facebook and found an ad for a cocktail bartender in Redfern and messaged him asking for the position. 

He messaged back 3 hours later to ask if I wanted to come in for a trial shift on that evening. 

I emailed the licensee back at the Dove and Olive telling her I wasn’t happy with the way things were at the ol’ Dolive and that I would be happy to finish the shifts I had been rostered on for next week, but that was it. It was all very amicable. She thanked me for my time and I thanked her for hers and we agreed I’d finish next week, then I went and got drunk with Nigel, my old lecturer from uni. 

I haven’t seen Nigel in 5 years. Kat and I, both students of his, had emailed him from Japan, when we met up and had a drink over there. He spent some time living and working in Japan and constantly joked about how hot Japanese girls are. He was the perfect sleazy old man charming rogue stereotype, only with real experience in the music industry and genuinely funny things to say. I told Kat and Nigel to meet me at Goro’s.

I drank a lot the night before, and was early. My eyes were pounding in the back of my head and I had a sharp fuzzy feeling scratching at the back of my head. A slight pounding headache. Goro’s was shut. I couldn’t bring myself to do anything except smoke and wait. Nigel and Kat arrive eventually, and we decide to walk to El Loco, a Mexican themed place that used to be The Excelsior. It’s only a few minutes around the corner. You can’t smoke in the outside tables because they serve food there but nobody is eating, so we do anyway. 

Kat tells us about her time in London and I tell them about my time in Japan and Germany and Nigel tells us about his time at the uni, where his employment is tenuous at best, and he tells us about how he hates Germany because he got into lots of trouble there and spent some time in German prison. His story was the kind of thing you can see in your head as a movie. Nigel in a leather jacket in the 80′s, careening across Europe like a flaming satellite crashing back down to earth, bringing with it information gleaned from the void. 3 day benders without leaving the same bar in Spain, dangerous meetings with dangerous men in dangerous alleys in Germany, snuff film screenings in warehouses in Amsterdam.

Before it’s all over, we have had 4 or 5 jugs of beer and a full packet of cigarettes in the space of 2 and a half hours and my spiky hangover has been replaced by a groggy hair-of-the-dog hangover and I need to go pretend to be a cocktail bartender in Redfern. I hug the both of them goodbye and we promise to do this again sometime soon. 

Moya’s Juniper Lounge. That’s the name of the place. It’s a small bar in Redfern specialising in gin and gin cocktails. On the way, I swing by Henry and Amanda’s place to borrow a black button up shirt. Henry only has two black button up shirts. One has a floral print and the other is a tuxedo shirt. I go with the tuxedo shirt. 

The owner, Charlie, sits me down the moment I get in. I apologise for the tuxedo shirt, it was the only one I could get at late notice. He says that’s fine. He gives me the run down. The place sticks to gin classics and sours. He has like 200 different kinds of gin and a handful of whiskeys. Charlie asks about my experience. I answer. He asks me what my availabilities are like and what kind of work I am looking for.  I answer.  I pretty much have the job interview before the trial, which is a good sign. He introduces me to Nick, the other bartender, here from The Wild Rover, a whiskey bar in Surry Hills. A gangly kid that doesn’t look a day over 17. Nice kid, but a bit standoff-ish.

I fumble my way through conversation with the two of them whilst nobody comes in at all for an hour. A small group come in and I make my second ever Martini. The guy likes it so much that all his friends ask for one two. 

So my conversation skills aren’t so great while I feel this whacked out, but I have made the best martini this group has ever had, so at least my martini game is strong. They make them vintage style here. Charlie says he wants his bar to look and feel like it came straight out of the 1950′s. All the stuff you usually have in speed rails is on a table behind the bar, the furniture are all antiques or rescued from Charlies grandparents farm, music from the 30′s, 40′s and 50′s plays through the PA. and the martini’s are made with: -60ml Tanqueray gin -20ml Dry vermouth -2 Dashes orange bitters -1 Olive

We have no other customers until 9.30pm, when about 6 groups of people all mill in seemingly at once. We are chocked. I pump out Negroni’s and Martini’s and Aviation’s and Charlie Chaplin’s with relative ease. I get stuck on the Clover Club. It’s a sour whose ingrediants have escaped my mind, so I’ll have to list next time. The important thing to note here is that I have never worked a cocktail bar that didn’t have it’s egg white’s kept in a squeeze bottle, pre-cracked by whoever does that. I drop the egg yellow into the first mix by accident and ditch the whole mix. On the second attempt, I put the ice in the wrong side of the shaker, and attempt to put the other side, with is mix on top of the one with the ice, spilling the whole mix all over the prep station. On the third attempt, we have run out of squeezed lemons. so I begin to cut up a lemon and slice my thumb open and start bleeding everywhere. I have to ask Nick to finish it, and Charlie finds me a band-aid and opens it up while I keep the bleeding at bay with a tissue. 

After I’ve been patched up, I make a couple more negroni’s and aviations (aviators?) and when it hits 10, I check Facebook and realise that I’m shifted on at the club at 10, not 11. I’m about to tell Charlie this, and as I do, he tells me that’s good for tonight and if I need to get off to the club, I’m free to do so. 

I’m concerned, but he handshakes hard and strong and smiles many thank you’s He tells me that another lady is finishing up here, but he would be happy to split the time up between us if I have enjoyed myself. To top it all off, he pays me for the trial. It’s a sign of a decent man, if not heavenly entity to pay for a trial shift in Sydney. 

I change out of my tuxedo shirt and into a black T and thank Charlie again on the way out. I wave goodbye and walk right next door, into a hip hop bar called Hustle & Flow. I order a shot of tequila, tip the change and grab a cab from outside. I message Marina, letting her know I will be late, and it ends up costing me 20 dollars to get one suburb over. Fucking cabs, man. 

I can’t remember the name of the girl who is promoting the party, but she is turnt as fuck. She used to work here, and keeps letting herself in behind the bar to make Margarita’s for herself. I try to tempt her with the offer of a margarita-ish drink but she never takes me up on it, so I offer one to Marina and make her a Whisky-rita. (-60ml Bourbon -30ml Drambuie -30ml Lime)

I try to make Matty a St Croix Sour, but it turns out Creme De Ginger is way different to the ginger liqueur I am accustomed to using. 

I drink heaps of tequila on shift. And a beer or three. It’s all good fun. I clean up the bar fine and learn how to use the bottle crusher (Step 1-turn it on. Step 2-put empty bottles into it) and a broken bottle inside it makes a small cut on my finger, but only a tiny drop of blood emerges. It’s on the same hand as the other two.

I walk to The Strawberry Hills Hotel in Surry Hills with Matty and drink a red wine and run into Steve, an old uni friend, and the bar shuts nearly immediately. I take a cab home and stumble into bed at 5.30am on Sunday morning. My weekend has barely even begun.

[trishbsblog]

It is never too late to be what you might have been ̴ George Eliot Reasons for and against giving up the glitzy, glamorous world of flying: Pros: 1. No more cleaning up other people’s sick. 2. No more 2 a.m. wake-up calls, jet lag, swollen feet/ stomach or shrivelled-up skin. 3. No more tedious questions like, ‘What’s that lake/ mountain down there?’ and ‘Does the mile high club really exist?’ 4. No more serving kippers and poached eggs at 4 a.m. to passengers with dog-breath and smelly socks. 5. No more risk of dying from deep vein thrombosis, malaria or yellow fever. 6. No more battles with passengers who insist that their flat-pack gazebo will fit into the overhead locker. 7. No more wearing a permanent smile and a name badge. 8. No danger of bumping into ex-boyfriend and his latest ‘I’m-Debbie-come-fly-me’. Cons: 1. No more fake Prada, Louis Vuitton or Gucci. 2. No more lazing by the pool in winter. 3. No more ten-hour retail therapy sessions in shopping malls the size of a small island — and getting paid for it. 4. No more posh hotel freebies (toiletries, slippers, fluffy bathrobes etc.). 5. Holidays (if any) now to be taken in Costa del Cheapo, as opposed to Barbados or Bora Bora. 6. No more horse riding around the pyramids, imagining I’m a desert queen. 7. No more ice skating in Central Park, imagining I’m Ali MacGraw in Love Story. 8. Having to swap my riverside apartment for a shoebox, and my Mazda convertible for a pushbike. ‘Cabin crew, ten minutes to landing. Ten minutes, please,’ comes the captain’s olive-oil-smooth voice over the intercom. This is it. No going back. I’m past the point of no return. The galley curtain swishes open — it’s showtime! I switch on my full-beam smile and enter upstage left, pushing my trolley for the very last time ... ‘Anyheadsetsanyrubbishlandingcard? Anyheadsetsanyrubbishlandingcard? ...’ Have I taken leave of my senses? The notion of an actress living in a garret, sacrificing everything for the sake of her art, seemed so romantic when I gaily handed in my notice three months ago, but now I’m not so sure … Be positive! Just think, a couple of years from now, you could be sipping coffee with Phil and Holly on the This Morning sofa … Yes, Phil, the rumours are true … I have been asked to appear on Strictly Come Dancing. God only knows how I’ll fit it around my filming commitments though. Who are you kidding? A couple of years from now, the only place you’ll be appearing is the job centre, playing Woman On Income Support. This follow-your-dreams stuff is all very well when you’re in your twenties, or thirties even, but I’m a forty-year-old woman with no rich husband (or any husband for that matter) to bail me out if it all goes pear-shaped. Just as everyone around me is having a loft extension or a late baby, I’m downsizing my whole lifestyle to enter a profession that boasts a ninety-two percent unemployment rate. Why in God’s name, in this wobbly economic climate, am I putting myself through all this angst and upheaval, when I could be pushing my trolley until I’m sixty, then retire comfortably on an ample pension and one free flight a year? Something happened, out of the blue, that catapulted me from my ordered, happy-go-lucky existence and forced me down a different road … ‘It’s not your fault. It’s me. I’m confused,’ Nigel had said. ‘I don’t understand,’ I said, almost choking on my Marmite soldier. ‘What’s brought this on? Have you met someone else?’ ‘No-ho!’ he spluttered, averting my gaze, handsome face flushed. ‘But you always said we were so perfect together …’ ‘That’s exactly why we have to split. It’s too bloody perfect.’ ‘What? Don’t talk nonsense …’ ‘I don’t expect you to understand, but it’s like I’ve pushed a self-destruct button and there’s no going back.’ ‘Self-destruct button? What are you talking about? Darling, you’re not well. Perhaps you should get some help …’ ‘Look, don’t make this harder for me than it already is. It’s time for us both to move on. And please don’t cry, Em,’ he groaned, eyes looking heavenward. ‘You know how I hate it when you cry.’ I grovelled, begged him not to go, vowing I’d find myself a nine-to-five job so we could have more together time, swearing that I would never again talk during Match of the Day — anything as long as he stayed with me. Firmly removing my hands from around his neck and straightening his epaulettes, he glanced at his watch, swigged the dregs of his espresso, and said blankly, ‘Good Lord, is that the time? I’ve got to check in in an hour. We’ll talk more when I get back from LA.’ ‘NO!’ I wailed. ‘You know very well that I’ll be in Jeddah by then. We’ve got to talk about this now. Nigel … Nigel …!’ For three days I sat huddled on the sofa in semi-darkness, clutching the Minnie Mouse he’d bought me on our first trip to Disneyland, as if she were a life raft. I played Gabrielle’s ‘You Used to Love Me’ over and over. I wondered if Gabrielle’s boyfriend had dumped her without warning, leaving her heartbroken and bewildered, and the pain of it all had inspired her. If only I had a talent for song writing, but I don’t, so I channelled my pain into demolishing a family-sized tin of Celebrations chocolates instead. Cue Wendy, my best friend, my angel on earth. We formed an instant friendship on our cabin crew training course. This was cemented when she saved me from drowning during a ditching drill. (I’d stupidly lied on the application form, assuming that it didn’t really matter if I couldn’t swim, because if I were ever unfortunate enough to crash-land in the sea, there would surely be enough lifejackets to go round.) ‘Look, hon, this has got to stop,’ she said in an uncharacteristically stern tone, a look of frustration on her porcelain, freckled face. (As a redhead, Wendy has been religiously applying sunscreen since she first set foot on Middle Eastern soil as a junior hostess twenty years ago; whereas I would roast myself like a pig on a spit in my quest to look like a Californian beach babe.) ‘Okay, so it’s not a crime to scrub the toilet with his toothbrush, but who knows where that could lead? You’ve got to stop playing the victim before we have a Fatal-Attraction scenario on our hands.’ ‘Eight years, eight years of my life spent waiting for him to pop the question, and now he’s moving out to “find himself”. I think I’m entitled to be a little upset, Wendy.’ Prising Minnie out of my hands and hurling her against the wall, she straightened my shoulders and looked deep into my puffy eyes. ‘I promise you that, in time, you will see you’re better off without that moody, selfish, arrogant …’ ‘I know you never thought he was right for me, but there is another side to him,’ I said defensively. ‘He can be the most caring and sweet man in the world when he wants to — and I can’t bear the thought that we won’t grow old together,’ I sobbed, running my damp sleeve across my stinging cheeks. ‘Come on now; take off that bobbly old cardie. I’m running you a Molton Brown bath, and you’re going to wash your hair, put on your uniform and high heels, slap on some make-up and your best air hostess smile, d’you hear?’ she said, pulling back the curtains. ‘And while you’re in Jeddah, I want you to seriously think about where you go from here.’ ‘But I want to be home when Nigel …’ ‘You always said you didn’t want to be pushing a trolley in your forties, and how you wished you’d had a go at acting. Well, maybe this is a sign,’ she said gently, tucking a strand of greasy hair behind my ear. ‘It’s high time you did something for you. You’ve spent far too long fitting in with what Nigel wants.’ ‘It’s too late to be chasing dreams,’ I sniffed, shielding my eyes from the watery sunlight. ‘And anyway, I just want things to go back to how they were. Where did I go wrong, Wendy? I should have made more effort. After all, he’s a good-looking guy, and every time he goes to work there are gorgeous women half my age fluttering their eyelashes at him, falling at his feet. He can take his pick — and maybe he did,’ I whimpered, another torrent of tears splashing onto my saggy, grey jogging bottoms. ‘Get this down you.’ Wendy sighed, shoving a mug of steaming tea into my hands as she frogmarched me into the bathroom. ‘And don’t you dare call him!’ she yelled through the door. Perhaps she was right; she usually was. She may be a big kid at heart, but when the chips are down, Wendy is the one you’d want on your flight if you were struck by lightning or appendicitis at thirty-two thousand feet. For the last year or so, hadn’t I likened myself to an aeroplane in a holding pattern, waiting until I was clear to land? Waiting for Nigel to call, waiting for Nigel to come home, waiting for Nigel to propose, waiting until Nigel felt ready to start a family? Yes, deep down I knew she was right, but I was scared of being on my own. Did this make me a love addict? If so, could I be cured? Jeddah, Saudi Arabia ‘Hayyaa’ala-s-salah, hayya ’ala-l-falah …’ came the haunting call from the mosque across the square, summoning worshippers to evening prayer. It was almost time to meet up with the crew to mosey around the souk — again. Too hot to sunbathe, room service menu exhausted, library book finished, alcohol forbidden, and no decent telly (only heavily edited re-runs of The Good Life, where Tom goes to kiss Barbara, and next minute it cuts to Margo shooing a goat off her herbaceous border), the gold market had become the highlight of my day. Donning my abaya (a little black number that is a must-have for ladies in this part of the world), I scrutinised myself in the full-length mirror. No wonder Nigel was leaving me; far from looking like a mysterious, exotic, desert queen, full of eastern promise, it made me resemble a walking bin liner. I read the fire evacuation drill on the back of the door and checked my mobile for the umpteenth time, then cast my eyes downwards, studying my toes. I know, I thought, giving them a wee wiggle, I’ll paint my nails. It’s amazing what a coat of Blue Ice lacquer can do to make a girl feel a little more glamorous, and less like Ugly Betty’s granny. As I rummaged in my crew bag for my nail varnish, there, stuffed in between Hello! and Procedures To Be Followed in the Event of a Hijack, was an old copy of The Stage (with another DO NOT PHONE HIM!! Post-it note stuck to it). Idly flicking through the pages, my eyes lit up at the headline: DREAMS REALLY CAN COME TRUE. Former computer programmer, Kevin Wilcox, 40, went for broke when he gave up his 50k-a-year job to become a professional opera singer. ‘My advice to anyone contemplating giving up their job to follow their dream, is to go for it,’ said Kevin, taking a break from rehearsals of La Traviata at La Scala. That was my life-changing moment; an affirmation that there were other people out there — perfectly sane people, who were not in the first flush of youth either, but were taking a chance. That’s what I’d do. I’d become an actress, and Nigel would see my name in lights as he walked along Shaftesbury Avenue, or when he sat down to watch Holby City, there I’d be, shooting a doe-eyed look over a green surgical mask. ‘What a fool I was,’ he’d tell his friends ruefully, ‘to have ever let her go.’ Hah! But revenge wasn’t my only motive. Faux designer bags and expensive makeovers were no longer important to me. I wanted the things that money can’t buy: like self-fulfilment, like the buzz you get on opening night, stepping out on stage in front of a live audience. Appearing through the galley curtains, proclaiming that well-rehearsed line, ‘Would you like chicken or beef?’ just wouldn’t do any more. Inspired, I grabbed the telephone pad and pen from the bedside table, and started to scribble furiously. 1. Apply to RADA/CENTRAL any drama school that will have me. 2. Hand in notice. 3. Sign up with temping agencies and find part-time job. 4. Sell flat, shred Visa, store cards, cancel gym membership, and Vogue subscription (ouch!). From: academy@ads.ac.uk To: m.mouse@gmail.com Subject: Audition Dear Emily, Following your recent audition, we of The Academy Drama School are pleased to offer you a place on our one-year, full-time evening course. We look forward to meeting you again at the start of the autumn term, details of which are attached. Sincerely, Edward Tudor-Barnes Principal Whey hey! It was reckless, irresponsible and utterly mad, but I was tired of being sensible or doing things simply to please others. Ever since I’d played the undertaker in a school production of Oliver! I’d wanted to act. Okay, so I may be running twenty-five years late, but now nothing and no one was going to hold me back. * * *