#but i've been wanting to listen to more audiobooks while I clean

[nadjabear]

Me: "Yeah I've been listening to the audiobook I'm Glad My Mom Died and it's been pretty good so far" Friend: "That book is so sad tho"

5 minutes later

Me: "Look I just read this one and it was pretty good!" *points to My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness* Friend: "That looks like it's a pretty depressing book" Me: "It is but it's really good :D"

Another 5 minutes pass

Me: "Alright I'm going to buy this book!" Friend: "What's the name?" Me: "The summer Hikaru died" Friend: "WHY ARE YOU ONLY READING SAD BOOKS!?"

[flawless-peach]

change your life ✨️

feel free to join me in this. I'm going to try to post every day about how I did <3

- get at least 7 consecutive hours of sleep. I've found if I go to sleep and then wake up back for a couple hours and then finish the 8 hours I feel I incredibly unrested. I keep myself accountable by using pokemon sleep which has a great alarm, so I'm looking forward to trying this instead

- read or listen to an audiobook for 30 minutes. literacy is a muscle, and using it is important, but sometimes I can't just sit down and read a book, and audiobooks are great for when I'm cleaning or cooking or folding laundry

- get sun daily. humans are a lot more like plants than you would think and so it is important to get some sun, even when it's a wintery sun that's cold or when it's a blazing furnace. Since I have some mental health issues and am unable to go outside im going to at least open my curtains, and if possible, crack a window to get some fresh air

- start a hobby you can enjoy. this one can be difficult because a lot of things require some sort of financial investment. for me, my hobbies for these six months is going to be writing and annotating books. but being creative is great for the human mind.

- learn to be comfortable alone. honestly this one will be difficult. personally, I live in a studio. privacy is nothing i experience, butthe little moments where you find yourself escaping with TV playing or music pause it and sit with yourself, how else can you learn to love someone if you avoid them 🥰

- meditate daily. this will be something I struggle with so much, but I'm going to try in the mornings since that's my peak time <3 and that's when I plan on doing a yoga flow during the sunrise

- eat healthy nutritious food. I hate cooking and I hate eating. having autism can make these really difficult for me to do, but I'm really really trying. I started the week before last to work on figuring out what snack foods I can prep, and now i just need to work on planning out some meals.

- positive affirmations everyday. I really struggle to have positive self talk because it feels so awkward and uncomfortable because I've been pessimistic for so long, but I want to change that ^^

- reduce screen time. this is going to be specifically targetting mindless scrolling for me. I have a tiktok account that I use for motivation, same with my tumblr account, and I also read on my phone and use my sleep app that I need to keep open at night.

- practice gratitude. my goal is to at night reflect on the day to try and find the good. I already reflect on my days and pick a mood, but I want to create lists of things i am grateful for, especially while I'm in between jobs.

[bomberqueen17]

crabwise

I have been goddamned useless this week. I have a sort of schedule this summer where I"m at the farm three weeks and then home one, more or less, and in that one week I'm meant to get all my random shit done, but i have done none of the things I was supposed to this week and I'm going to be in trouble before the end of the month when I don't actually renew my driver's license or go to the dentist or eye doctor or any of those things. But. You know. Well.

I have spent much of this week listening to Patrick O'Brian audiobooks, which I had meant to save for car rides but they have these cliffhangers, see, and if I just-- so mostly i'm listening to them while sewing or cleaning but sometimes I'm just sitting there listening to them, which is a sinful waste of time. but. There is so little joy in this world let me have this.

This is why i don't read very much, incidentally; I am like an addict, and I only want to read and don't want to do anything else in my life, and I'd managed for a while to substitute writing for reading, which is equally absorbing but at least I can tell myself it's productive. Which is sort of a toxic way to consider it, but there it is.

Anyway I've made desultory progress on a bunch of shit this week but the one thing I *have* achieved is that I have assembled an entire novel treatment for a fanfiction literally nobody really needs, about Tom Pullings and the character variously referred to as either James or William Mowett depending which book you consult. (I think his name is really meant to be James and then he got slightly confused with William Babbington, the other midshipman.) Anyway I just think they're cute, and Tom Pullings is absolutely a black Lab, just 100% earnest, anxious, diffident shy morose guilt, except occasionally when someone offers to take him for a walk (or promote him), when he's just this radiant being, and on the occasions when he is allowed to pursue a groundhog (or, y'know, a ship action) when he is suffused with joyful, savage ferocity. But most of the time he is a little apologetic for existing and is anxiously trying to hold everything together at all times for everyone and blaming himself if it isn't perfect. And I want to chew on him like a squeak toy.

However I also used this to bribe myself into actually editing chapter 2 of Not A Crest, which is now actually perfectly postable, and I now know how to progress in that story, so perhaps I will actually have something to post at the end of this week. We'll see.

Hence the title of this post, I feel like I've been scuttling sideways by accident into any kind of forward progress in my life but at least I'm moving.

[the---hermit]

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

This book aged so poorly it's painful. Let's start from the beginning, I've had this on my shelves for a while, and I struggled to pick it up for very personal reasons. I link this story with someone who hurt me very much in the past and so picking it up was a struggle because of the instinctive association I made. I decided enough was enough, and that since one of my goals this year is to take off as many books as I can from my unread pile I would read this. I opted for the audiobook version, and I am glad about it because I would have dnf-ed this so quickly otherwise. The fact that I was doing other stuff while listening to the audiobook made it more bearable. I remember not loving Peter in the animated adaptation, but the boy in the book is a nightmare. He is so annoying I am still asking myself how is it possible he is the main character of a book? Is he a loved character? Are there actually people who like him? He is so self-centered, rude and stupid? Also weirdly violent for a kids' book. I can't stand him. And the other character around him are unexplicably obsessed with him, I don't know how these children were even fascinated by him and did everything he said. From the very beginning he is clearly not the kind of guy you want to follow around. And then we get to the whole Wendy narrative. The fact that she is brought to Neverland to be their "mother" is already weird since we are talking about a literal child (if I am not wrong she is six years old at best). But let's look over it because children often play "family" as a game. Once she is there she is genuinely only doing motherly stuff, cooking, mending, whatever. And (spoiler, but the book was published in 1911 so I guess it's not a spoiler after all) at the end she is called to Neverland once a year to do Peter's spring cleaning? For real? And (spoiler again) not only she is happy with that but she condemns her daughter and her whole family line to that? I am shocked and not in a positive way. It was published in 1911, I get it, but it aged so poorly, there would be a lot more to say. Also I really can't stand Freud in general but I'd be kinda curious to know what bullshit reading of this story the guy would make cause there's a lot for him. Leaving all my ramblings aside, this was very bad, there's way better children's stories and classics in general, do yourself a favour and read something else. I have been told there's an interesting retelling of this story, and I am really curious to get my hands on that.

[sissytobitch10seconds]

Birdsong: Ribs

Fandom: Grishaverse: Six of Crows and Shadow and Bone (TV) Summary: Wylan is kicking himself in the ass for being as late as he was. He knew that his partners had to be worried, it was almost three hours after he sat that he would be home, after all. It seems as thought the world is determined to make him even later than ever when he hears something in the parking lot near his work. Warnings: Physical assault, mentions of canon-typical grooming/child abuse, and blood Word Count: 10,501 Ship(s): Nina Zenik/Wylan Van Eck/Jesper Fahey/Matthias Helvar/Inej Ghafa/Kaz Brekker

Archive link!

A/N: At the time of writing this, I had not read the books so a lot of the plot was still pulled from the show. I've now finished the book but I don't want to rewrite the whole series so I'm editing some things as I go. If you notice inconsistencies from here on out that's why! Stay sissy and bitchy everyone &lt;3

Wylan winced as the door to his lab shut harder than he had meant it to. He had gotten so wrapped up in the work that he had been doing, finally hitting the breakthrough that he had been searching for, that he hadn’t noticed how late it had gotten. He tried to make sure that he was home no later than six so that he could eat with his partners before Kaz had to go oversee the opening of the Crow Club. Inej often had a call time around seven as well, so it killed two birds with one stone to be home before they left. That way he knew that he had at least one in person interaction with them each day, since they were usually asleep when he woke.

He had broken the rule that he had made with himself by working over what his normal limit was. He didn’t break the rule often, maybe once or twice a year. A lot of the time when he was working in the lab, he was running the same experiment over and over again, which was so monotonous that he would often skip out on a test or two that he could have run that day in favor of doing it the next day instead. It was worse when he was writing his reports, since he had to speak slowly to his speech-to-text program so that he could get it written up faster than it would take him to try and type everything. Spellcheck was a godsend, but reading and writing were so much harder for him than they were for everyone else that he worked with.

Today he had been so wrapped up in the new breakthrough that they had made, that he had totally forgotten to keep track of the time. He had been mumbling down ideas into the notepad app on his phone the entire day so that none of the ideas would escape him. By the time that he had looked up again, ripped from his thoughts as he realized that he was famished, all of his coworkers were gone and the building had been darkened.

Wylan had finished cleaning up the lab and then locked the building as quickly as he felt he could while still being responsible so that he could go home. He hurried towards the parking lot that he had found a spot in that morning after running a little bit behind. That was the annoying thing about working so close to the university campus when school was in session, it resulted in him having to walk two blocks just to get to his car so that he could go home because all the other spots were taken. Still, it meant that they got a lot of student interns so they didn’t have to spend the extra money they were already strapped for, instead just giving them credit for their classes and real world experience.

He tugged his headphones out of his bag and then connected them to his phone as he picked the audiobook that he had been listening to that week. He and Jesper had a mini book club that they participated in, though it was turning into a playful argument about which audiobook producer was the best. Despite the fact that Jesper listened to more podcasts and music than he did audiobooks, he still had very strong opinions about it. Jesper was able to read physical copies even if it was only in short bursts, but Wylan preferred to keep reading as much as he could even with his learning disability, so he tended to plow through the books that they were allegedly reading together. 

The soothing voice of the narrator washed over him as he stuck his hands into his pockets and walked down the street towards his car. He was trying to focus on what was being read to him instead of the plan that he was coming up with for the end of the study. He knew that if they made a big breakthrough and patented or sold something, then they’d be able to continue the work that they had been doing in the lab more than they ever expected to. Wylan didn’t look at science as a way of making money necessarily, he would still experiment by himself even if he wasn’t being paid to do it, but this way he could continue to work with the team that he had grown very attached to.

After about only three minutes and half a block, he decided that trying to pay attention to an audiobook just wasn’t going to happen because he was too invested in what he had been working on. Jesper and Matthias were both going to be very pouty when he got home and all he could talk about was work despite being late. At least Kaz would understand, but he’d be at work until midnight at the earliest.

Wylan let out a little put-upon sigh. It was hard to navigate adult relationships, even if the freedom of adulthood was more than worth it. Sometimes he longed for the simplicity that had come with being a teenager, but he was always quick to remind himself how much happier he was now. Even if he had his partners back then, the abuse that his father had put him through would have made him miserable despite the support of the five wonderful people he had met.

Instead, he hummed the song that had been pestering the back of his mind as he walked. Ever since they had actually started going steady with her, Jesper and Matthias had been playing the music from the band that their new girlfriend was in. The artists were very talented and Wylan had to admit that her voice was soothing, but it was still annoying that they were so good at becoming earworms when he was trying to have other thoughts.

He paused when he got to the edge of the parking lot to the bar that was on the other side of the block to his lab building. The area was mostly deserted now that students weren’t using it to get as close to campus as they could, but a few cars were still parked there. It was one of the least popular bars in town (and Wylan wasn’t biased because the Crow Club was becoming busier every day, he assured himself), so there were only about a half dozen vehicles. 

What really caught his attention was the scene that was unfolding. There was a man wearing a red and white varsity-style jacket with the last name ‘Kaminsky’ stitched into the back and a pair of blue jeans with a thick brown belt. He was advancing on a woman while shouting at her, “You think that you’re tough shit because you stole Alina away from Aleksander but you’re nothing but a fucking whore!”

“Ivan, you’re drunk, you need to go home,” the woman replied.

Wylan took a step forward so that he could get a better look at her. She had coiled brown hair that was loose around her face and shoulders, which only served to bring out the pronounced jawline and cheekbones of her face. Her lips were soft and pouty, but that was mostly because of the peach colored lipgloss that she was wearing. She had accented eyeliner in pink under the black and rosy cheeks to match the eyeshadow. She was wearing a blue mini skirt that was tucking into a loose black bodice that had sheer puffy sleeves. 

Objectively, she was very pretty. Wylan knew that women who were stereotypically attractive tended to get accosted by drunk men a lot, especially since he had begun his queerplatonic relationship with Inej. She had taught him a lot about women that he had never been able to pick up from his step-mother because of their distance. His own mother had disappeared when he was too young to learn about the kinds of things Inej had taught him and come back into his life after he had gotten together with the aforementioned acrobat.

Still, they seemed to know each other so Wylan hung back to let things play their course. He didn’t want to interrupt something and then get shouted at for it, especially when he was already feeling emotionally frayed from working too much that day. He desperately wanted to go home so that he could cuddle with his partners and eat dinner while watching bad TV, but this was important. It was possible that the situation would turn violent and she would need help, but he didn’t want to assume right away.

“You don’t get to talk to me like you know me!” the man screamed. He smashed the beer bottle that had been hanging loosely from his hand down onto the car behind her, which caused a few shards of glass to cut through her freckled skin. Beads of red blood blossomed on the skin and began to dribble down her cheek. She was pinned up against the car, the only other option for her was to move towards the wall which would result in her being trapped from all sides.

Wylan got out his phone and pointed it towards the fight. He had gotten used to doing that a lot when he was a teenager, but he was glad that something had come from that miserable time in his life. Hopefully if things escalated it could actually help the woman.

The woman had finally regained her voice after the sharp cry of panic that she had let out, “Ivan, you know that I don’t control what Alina does! I have nothing to do with the breakup, I just rejoined the band when she said she wanted to start playing again.”

That only provoked the man further instead of de-escalating it like she had no doubt hoped for. “You are the only person that was still allowed to be in contact with her from the old band. I know that you continued the music too. You really think that I’m stupid enough to believe that lie you made up for everyone else?”

“I expect you to be a rational fucking human, but apparently I set my standards too high!” she shouted back at him. “You really think that I single handedly tried to tear down The Fold?” she snarled.

Wylan could hear the fear in her voice as she did so. He took a step forward, preparing to help her if things got more serious, his phone still recording. He could feel her anxiety in his own veins, heart thrumming, lungs gasping for more air, mind racing. 

“I think that you’re a traitorous bitch that would do anything to try and ruin the career of a man you hate,” the other man replied. He kept advancing on her, caging her in with his body more and more. He was svelte, thinner than she was, but he was also a couple of inches taller than her. It was made worse based on the fact that she was cowering back against the car that he had pinned her on.

Wylan envied the confidence that took over her features as she pushed up her chest and stood at her full height despite that mostly closing the space between them. She had a fierce look burning in her eyes, one that Wylan would have never been able to summon up if he had been standing in front of his father during one of their fights. Her mouth twisted into a truly feral smirk as she said, “I had nothing to do with the falling of The Fold. I think that you should talk to your precious Darkling about why he tried to sink all of his money into shit lawsuits to get back the girl that he groomed when she finally dumped his ass and took him for all he was worth. Maybe he should have thought before he decided that he didn’t need a prenup.”

That made Ivan snap. 

He had swung his arm back and then brought it forward before Wylan even had the time to process what he was doing. The sickening crack that sounded as his fist collided with the woman’s jaw made him cringe. He shoved his phone in his pocket so that the camera was peaking out over the fabric and still recording their conversation as he rushed over. He may have been several inches shorter than the attacker, but two bodies were better than one so there was a good chance that he would actually be of some use when it came to helping her. 

“Leave her alone!”

“Stay out of this,” Ivan replied. 

The woman was bent over slightly, slumped against the car. She was supporting herself with one of her hands so that she wouldn’t fall over and holding her cheek with the other. One side was still dripping blood down her forehead so that it streaked the rest of her face and the other side was no doubt going to be blooming with a dark bruise based on the sound alone.

“You know, I don’t think that I will,” Wylan replied. He reached down into his bag for the pepper spray that he brought with him everywhere he went. He was a little less paranoid about people randomly attacking him when he was out on the street than Kaz, but the couple weeks that he had spent homeless had made it so that he never went anywhere without a way to protect himself. Just remembering the fights escalating to the point where he had decided the open streets were safer for him made him furious that the woman was being attacked out in the open like that.

Coming over to help had the effect that he wanted, which was both a good and a bad thing. Ivan had seemingly forgotten about the woman and had turned fully to Wylan, but there was more hate and rage burning in his drunken eyes than before. “This has nothing to do with you,” he snarled, spewing flecks of spit out towards Wylan.

“This has something to do with me because you’re attacking someone less than a block from the place where I work! I may not know who you are or why you’ve decided to be an absolute ass, but it’d be wrong of me to just walk away. That’s the right thing for you to do, though,” he said confidently. He uncapped the pepper spray in his bag and then wrapped his fingers around the small bottle. It would take him less than a second to bring it out, aim, and then incapacitate the man, as long as alcohol was the only thing in his system. He had seen pepper spray being used on another one of the homeless youth from his camp, and because the other had been on PCP it had been basically useless.

“He’s right, Ivan. What would Fedyor think about you doing this? I know that your husband still works for that scum but we were once friends. I don’t think that he’d be very happy about you wailing on me,” the woman said as she righted herself.

“Keep my husband’s name out of your mouth, wench,” he snarled as he turned back around. Apparently mentioning whoever she had was the wrong move, as he wrapped his hand into her dark locks and threw her down to the ground.

Wylan had moved in an instant, before he even knew what his legs were doing. He brought the pepper spray out of his bag as he moved, aiming and spraying just as he had been playing over and over again in his mind. The red liquid dusted through the air until it was covering the eyes and face of the attacker, burning into his skin.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he screamed as he fell down to his knees and began to claw at his eyes. It would do nothing to remove the irritant from where it was sticking, but it was the only thing he could think of in his addled state to get rid of the feeling.

Wylan quickly stepped around him and then offered his hand out to the woman. She had bounced hard against the asphalt of the parking lot but was already beginning to right herself, one hand once again cupping the side of her face. “Do you think that you can stand?” he asked as he offered his hand out to her.

She nodded weakly as she took it and used it to haul herself to her feet. She whimpered as she took a step, her ankle doubling because of the break in her heel. She bent down and removed both of her shoes, looping her fingers around the back so that she could carry them. Wylan took her hand in his again and then began to pull her down the street so that Ivan couldn’t get up and follow them if he somehow overcame the burning that of the pepper spray. It was unlikely that would ever happen because of the potentness of the irritant, but Wylan had learned that sticking around to make sure the monster had been taken down resulted in getting hurt.

They ran over the street, crossing against the red light because there were no other cars on the road. She held onto him like if she let go then she’d drift back to the place of pain and fear that she had been in before, something that he was intimately familiar with.

Wylan was by no means unfit, but he didn’t work out as much as his partners did. He and Kaz tried to do at least a little bit of physical activity, Wylan so that his body didn’t go stiff with how long he spent over a desk and Kaz to help self-regulate his chronic pain issues. Matthias worked out because he enjoyed it, Inej did it because it was part of her job, and Jesper somehow managed to stay fit because of the singing and acting that he threw himself at every chance he got. 

Running down two blocks and into the parking lot where his car was left him gasping for air, along with the woman next to him. Her chest was heaving to bring in air even though she was nowhere as winded as he was. He wondered what she did for a living that let her have that much breath control, but now wasn’t exactly the time to ask.

He winced as he realized what he had done, eyeing her shoes where they were still clenched in the hand that wasn’t holding onto his. He dropped her hand then when he remembered that he hadn’t yet let go and said, “I’m sorry for bringing you all the way here, I should have brought you to your car.”

She waved him off dismissively, “I didn’t drive here and this is far enough that I can’t imagine Ivan being able to follow us.” She paused for a moment as her hand drifted up to where she had hit her head through the thick chocolate curls and Wylan remembered another thing that he technically should have done.

“Would you mind if I checked you out? I may not be a medical doctor but I’m still trained in first aid so I should be able to see if you have a concussion or not,” he explained nervously. He reached into his bag and dug out the keys to his car, unlocking it with a fluid motion. He opened up the hatch to the back and then pulled the emergency wool blanket over the dirt and grim covered edge so that she had somewhere to sit that was relatively clean.

It was a bit of odd paranoia that had followed him well into adulthood, even after he had become the legal owner of a home. He knew that it was unlikely that he would ever break up with his partners and even more unlikely that it would be all of them, or that him no longer being in a relationship with them would result in him being back on the streets, but it was a worry that always hung heavy in the back of his mind. He made sure that any vehicles that he owned had enough space for him to sleep in the back comfortably so that he wasn’t quite as exposed as he had been when he was a teenager.

“Right, you probably should,” she nodded. “I think if I said no my friend Tamar would find out and actually come to kill me.”

She let out another one of her pleasant laughs. It made Wylan feel comfortable and happy, settled back into his body instead of pushed out of his skin by adrenaline and bad memories. This woman reminded him a lot of Inej, though she was soft where Inej was sharp and quick where Inej was slow. While Wylan’s queerplatonic partner was a lot more partial to fixing people that bothered her with a silent yet deadly stare that promised untold pain, the woman next to him was the type to face her problems head-on with all the ferocity that she could muster. She didn’t seem jagged and broken afterwards the same way that Inej did, her confidence letting her head stay high instead of crumbling to dust after.

Wylan wanted to get to know her more, but he could do that after he made sure that she was okay. “I’m going to check your pupils with the flashlight on my phone,” he warned her. She had sat down on top of the blanket in front of him so that he could reach her easily, which he was grateful for. Despite the fact that she had already removed her heels, which had made her a few inches taller, she was nearly a head taller than Wylan when he was standing at his full height. 

She just hummed in acknowledgement, choosing not to nod her head, which was probably for the best. Wylan grabbed his phone from his pocket and stopped the recording that he had completely forgotten about. He then placed his hand on the edge of her eyelid. He shook the device in his other hand twice to activate the flashlight before he brought it up and shone it directly into her eye. The pupil shrank and revealed more of the beautiful green color in her irises.

He repeated the process on the same eye once and got the same response before he did it to the other. When he was sure that her pupils were dilating and constricting as they should have been, he pressed the light button on the back of his trunk so that they could properly see each other. The overhead streetlights had given them enough that he wasn’t worried about hurting her while he checked her out, but it would be easier for them both to maneuver around.

Wylan fidgeted with his first aide kit as he tried to figure out what he was going to do next. Before he even got the chance to start forming a sentence, she asked, “What’s your name?”

“Huh?”

He winced. He wasn’t very good at meeting new people. 

She didn’t seem to mind very much, just laughing again. She slid further back into his car so that her knees were hugging the lip of the trunk. “I think it’s only fair that I get to know your name after everything that I put you through,” she explained easily. She was so warm, like freshly baked bread or pancakes directly off of the griddle. She had just been through something so deeply traumatizing and yet the kindness and compassion that she seemed to carry with her came off of her in waves.

“You didn’t put me through anything,” Wylan shook his head. “I could have just kept walking or gone into the bar to get one of the bouncers to help you if I didn’t want to deal with it. I wanted to help. I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of some guy’s anger.”

Worry took over her pretty features for a moment before she winced and placed her hand up on her face where she had been struck. “So does that mean that I get to know your name or are you going to be the handsome stranger that saved me for the rest of my life.”

For some reason, he didn’t feel panicky or strange when she called him handsome the way that he had when other woman had done the same thing. It made him feel bashful and excited the same way that he did when Inej called him that, like she was complimenting him objectively instead of seeing someone that she could possibly romance. It was a different feeling than when his boys complimented him, which made fire run through his veins and excitement flip his stomach. “Wylan,” he supplied after he realized that he hadn’t answered her again.

Her face fell and her eyes widened. For a moment he was worried that she was going to puke or that he had missed a pivotal sign of concussion despite her not acting like she was dizzy or nauseous before. Then she asked, “Hendriks?”

He nodded, “How did you know?”

She sighed and slumped against the side of his car, her head resting against the rubber insulation on the side that wasn’t already swelling with injury. “My name is Nina Zenik. You and I were supposed to meet tomorrow so that Jesper and Matthias could introduce me to you.”

“Oh!” he gasped. Relief washed over him as he realized just how much of a good thing it was that he had interrupted the fight instead of minding his own business. Sticking his nose where it didn’t belong had actually resulted in him getting a lot of good things in life, which is why he had made such a massive habit out of it despite the way it had treated him in childhood. “I thought that you looked a little bit familiar.”

She righted herself, squaring her shoulders dramatically before she stuck her hand out in front of her. Wylan took it and gave her a shake like she had been asking for as she said, “It’s good to meet you.”

“You as well,” he laughed. “Now, do you want me to take you back to your apartment?”

Nina deflated again. Her eyes glanced back towards the parking lot that they had come from. She took a moment before she finally, cautiously answered, “I don’t think that I can go home. Ivan and Fedyor both know where I live and where I keep my spare key. I’ve been trying to find a new place to move it but I haven’t quite figured it out yet so there’s a chance…”

“Do you have a friend that you want to stay with?” he asked instead, not judging her in the slightest for not wanting to go home. Wylan himself had struggled with panic attacks for the first week that he had been living in his family estate after he had inherited it. Matthias and Jesper had spent every waking moment that they weren’t working or spending time with their other partners helping him remodel the house so it felt more like his home and less like his prison. If she felt at all unsafe in her apartment then there was no way that he was going to pressure her to go back, especially since he understood that feeling.

A small blush joined the makeup on her cheeks, which only served to highlight the freckles brushed across her nose and ears. “I would suggest that you bring me to Matthias and Jesper if you hadn’t already told me that you were their partner.”

“I can bring you back to the house,” Wylan immediately replied. Just the idea of doing so already soothed a lot of the anxiety that had been brewing in his gut. He was worried that the second she was out of his sight something horrible was going to happen to her, like it had been before he arrived. It was a lot less creepy to suggest that he take her back to his home when he knew that she was already very familiar and comfortable around two of his partners, so he was grateful that they had learned that fact about each other that early into their interaction.

“Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to intrude or anything, I know that the five of you live together,” she touched the edge of her mascara where it was still smearing with blood. 

He offered her a shy smile as he reached into the first aid kit that he kept in the back of his car. “Well I actually own the house, so I’m technically the one that gets to decide who does and does not get to go inside of it. Step mother? Proably not. The woman that two of my boyfriends have been going out with that just got hurt? Absolutely.”

She laughed, more of the tension beginning to melt from her. It was clear that she was beginning to come down from the adrenaline rush that the fight had brought her, the exhaustion hanging off of her. Wylan wanted to get some of her wounds cleaned up in the car before they had the actual first aide expert look her over. 

Finally finding what he had been searching for, he handed her a wet wipe and asked, “Do you need to go to the ER or do you feel comfortable coming back to my place?”

“It’s going to sound so silly,” she mumbled as she picked at the edge of the wipe’s packaging.

“I don’t think anything you say when you’re going through shock is going to sound silly,” he assured her. It was a bold move from a very unbold person, but he touched her arm to try and emphasize what he had said with actions.

She leaned easily into the touch as she collected her thoughts. She then said, “All I can think about is seeing Matthias and Jesper. I know we haven’t been together for nearly as long as you have, but they’re the best thing that has happened to me in a long while.”

“Not your band getting back together?” Wylan asked.

She shook her head and then winced. She unwrapped the wet wipe and then tenderly brought it up to her face. Nina was only able to get some of the blood off of her skin, a decent amount of it already congealing and making it monumentally harder to do what she needed to.

Carefully, he pried the item from her hand and then began to patiently rub it over her skin to clear away the blood. She scrunched her nose and took in a sharp inhale when he got closer to the cuts. He couldn’t see any shards of glass so far, but he wasn’t trying to clean out the wounds, but rather make her more comfortable until he could actually tend to them properly.

While he was cleaning she explained, “My band getting back together has been messy, as you saw with my fight with Ivan. I was partially signed to the label owned by a really famous artist and when I started refusing to produce music under the contract I got in a lot of trouble. They stole a shit ton of money from me but I made it work. They didn’t really like that and so now I’m on the shit list for the rest of my life.”

“If that was anything to go by then I can see that,” Wylan murmured. He got the gauze out of the first aid kit and then wound it around his hand until it made a thick pad. He slipped it off of his nimble fingers and pressed it to the cuts on her face before they had the chance to continue bleeding. “Do you want to do the rest of the cleaning and tending back at the house?”

“Yes,” she nodded immediately. “As comfortable as the back of your car is, I would much rather have somewhere that has soap and running water.”

He held his hand out to help her steady herself as she stood back up properly. She was holding the gauze to her face with one hand and moving around the edge of the car with the other. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, the asphalt making up the parking lot had to be painful on her stockinged feet.

While she was moving, he packed up the first aid kit again and then shoved everything properly into his trunk. He clicked the light off and shut the hatch before he went to the driver’s side and got in. He turned the car on so that the heater was running and hopefully helping to warm her up since the night was a little bitter and she didn’t have a coat.

“I’m going to text the others to tell them what happened before we get going, is that okay?” Wylan asked as he motioned to his phone with his other hand.

She nodded her consent and he got to work. He opened up the group chat that he had with his partners and then held the phone up to his mouth. He spoke clearly and deliberately so that the speech-to-text program could actually write down what he wanted to say. “I’m sorry for being home so late from work, but I found Nina in a fight with someone. She’s doing mostly okay but I’m going to bring her back to the house so that we can help her. Be home soon, love you.”

He glanced at her, a bit sheepish as he sent the message off to his partners. He connected his phone to the car’s computer and opened Spotify so that he could pick some music as a social lubricant. He felt comfortable with silences, even relished in them at times, but he had been dating Jesper for long enough to know that other people felt pressured to talk when everything else was quiet. Music usually stamped that down at least a little, made silences between acquaintances more comfortable and soothed anxieties.

He had four pinned playlists other than his liked songs up at the top, each with a combination of his name with one of his partner’s. It was something cute that they had done with each other, making a playlist where they could send messages to the other, give music suggestions, or just generally be sappy. It worked best with Kaz, who loved them very, very, very much but had trouble being able to express that physically on some days.

Wylan had been thinking about Inej a lot since he had gotten Nina back to his car, a lot of the feelings he had for her recurring in his chest. Of course the emotions were nowhere near as strong as they were for Inej since he had known her longer, but they were still there. He had only ever felt the warm giddiness pooling in his chest for one other woman before, and it was the one that he was queerplatonically dating. He was going to have to take a moment to process that when he was no longer feeling quite so sleepy and frazzled. 

He finally settled on the one that he and Matthias had made for each other, setting it to shuffle before he deposited it down onto the center console. His phone lit up with a couple of texts from his partners but he was unable to read what they said or who had sent them. The only way that he had been able to parse through his playlists was because the covers had been very unique, for the express purpose of helping him when he was struggling with reading. The combination of him overworking himself earlier that day and the adrenaline made the words swim in front of him whenever he tried.

Once his bag was deposited into the back and Nina was buckled in, he pulled out of the parking lot and began the drive back to his home. He lived on the very outskirts of the city so it was going to take them a while to get there despite the ten o’clock traffic being so light that outside of the center of town, there was no one.

He had been right to start music for the drive. Nina didn’t seem to be up to doing much talking, simply holding the gauze to her forehead and switching hands when one got tired. Wylan made sure to check on her every so often by glancing in her direction, admiring how cinematic she looked when the streetlights were bathing her in soft yellow and red light.

The ride had been going smooth until they got about ten minutes away from the estate. A new song that Matthias had added came onto the radio, and it just so happened to be one of the ones that her band had produced. Wylan had been informed that it was Nina singing since those songs all happened to be Matthias’ and Jesper’s favorites, not that they were biased, but it was also deeply personal to him. He couldn’t relate to every line that was said, but it was so reminiscent of the way that he had grown up and how he would raise children if he and his partners ever decided to have them.

The sultry voice murmured out of the radio as he reached down to change the song. Before he got the chance, Nina’s hand landed on top of his and stopped him from doing so. She gave him a kind smile as she began to sing along, matching the notes perfectly since it was her.

“Marrow made a wife of Eve, but no one gave up a rib for me and mine. My hearts did expose to the elements, calloused and untouched by a man's design. Oh, my ugly organs, how lucky we are. Brick and mortar between my bones, built a kingdom fierce and fortified. My name fading from the yellow page, stones are laid upon the mountainside Oh, my savage empire, ow lucky we are, never to be moved by the words of a liar. The dark doesn't frighten me, I chose to close my eyes. It is mine, it is mine. The night doesn't frighten me, I chose to let it thrive. It is mine, it is mine. Time has changed the metaphor. Now, dust is not the origin of bone Little girl, don't let them sell you any armor, all your ribs are still your own. Oh, my precious child, how lucky you are, handed down a shield for your tender parts.”

By the time that they had reached the end repetition of the chorus, Wylan had joined her in singing the song. It felt cathartic to be able to sing it out loud when usually he was too shy to do so. The song was raw in a way that many things rarely were any more, which was only part of the reason that he adored it so much. 

Nina hadn’t removed her hand from where she had stopped him from changing the song. Instead, their hands lay on the center console. Their palms were pressed flush and their fingers slotted together without interweaving. It felt right and gentle, not forward despite them having only known each other for half an hour.

When the song finished, she took a deep breath. “I wrote that song immediately after I left The Fold. So many of my emotions went into it and it was so personal, I wanted to produce it under my other name. It fit better with Shadow and Bone than it did with Heartrender, though, and the band agreed that they’d be okay with producing it.”

“Is it about everything that happened under that label?” Wylan asked, his eyes darting towards her for just a moment. He was worried that he was asking something that was too personal or prying into a wound that hadn’t healed yet. 

She didn’t seem to mind as she gave him another affirmative hum. “It was also based off of some of the things that happened when I was young. I knew Alina, one of my bandmates, when we were both fifteen. We went to that huge Catholic school, the one that everyone else calls the Little Palace because the chapel attached to it makes it look kind of like a castle. We were both so sheltered and we had all that religious drivel drilled into us so hard. It made me feel so guilty for being able to love women as well, but it also opened us up to some pretty nasty older men. I was able to avoid it from the romantic side, but when Kirigan approached us and promised us the fame and fortune that we had been dreaming of, there was no way that we could reject it. We signed with him and things got worse for her but they eventually got better for me. We’re both okay now, but that song…”

“I relate to it too,” Wylan gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. “My dad was shit and my mom was always telling me that I had to find armor wherever I could find it. She left when I was eight and then she couldn’t be my armor anymore, so I had to find it in other things. There was no one there to protect me,” he shook his head as the memories all came pouring back.

Nina took in a deep breath and cleared her throat. “That’s enough hard stuff for tonight! We should talk about something else.”

“Yes,” Wylan nodded in agreement. His face then brightened as he turned onto the street that would lead him to his home, “Have you had the chance to meet Trassel yet?”

“I haven’t! Matthias was going to bring him to a date that we were supposed to have in a park but then we got that horrible thunderstorm and had to change to a cafe, which meant no dog,” she pouted. 

“Well you’re about to meet him. I want to warn you that in pictures he looks a lot smaller than he actually is because Matthias is massive. He’s absolutely sweet but can be kind of scary if you were expecting a dog closer to the size of a lab,” Wylan informed her. He had a bad reaction when he first met Trassel because of the sheer massive size of the dog, despite Trassel being the sweetest animal that he had ever had the fortune of living with.

They pulled into the driveway and then the garage. He noticed that Kaz’s car was gone, but the one that Matthias and Jesper shared was parked dutifully in the spot on the other side of the garage. “I knew that it had to be a big place for you to all live together but I wasn’t expecting it to be this huge,” Nina commented as she carefully got out of the car.

“We’re not secretly rich or something, this was the only thing that I inherited from my dad when he died,” Wylan explained as he grabbed his bag and phone. He got out and locked the vehicle. 

A smile pulled at his lips as he could already hear the deep barking from inside the house where his pet had heard the garage door opening. Trassel was smart enough to know that meant someone was coming home and he adored them all so much that it didn’t matter which one of them it was.

Wylan walked over to Nina and brought her to the steps that led to the backdoor of the house instead of the ones that led to the dog run in the sideyard. It had been a massive undertaking for the rest of his partners to get used to the size of the estate when they had finally moved in. The only reason that Wylan had been an exception to that was because he had grown accustomed to every nook and cranny of the place while hiding from his father and private tutor.

They stepped over the threshold and into the kitchen just as Trassel finished barreling down the stairs that led up to the bedrooms. The space that they were in was massive, but felt more snug than it had in Wylan’s childhood because of the details that his partners had helped him add to the space to make it his own. The tile was white and black diamonds that went halfway up the walls. They had recently painted the kitchen to be a butter yellow color, with red curtains hanging and drawn over the windows. All of the appliances had been updated within the last couple of the years but were also the ugliest stainless steal. The fridge was the best part, now covered in little magnets and sticky note reminders for each of them. Art hung around the cupboards, which were a rainbow set of colors in the most obnoxiously bright yet not neon colors that they could find. Every surface other than the counters was also cluttered with aloe vera and spider plants, which Inej had brought from her apartment when she had moved in. 

“Hi puppy!” Wylan beamed as he patted his lap to call the dog over to him. He knew that Nina would likely need a second or two so that she could become accustomed to the new space that she was in.

Trassel barked excitedly as he immediately ran over to Wylan. He was massive even for a utonagan, coming up to the Wylan’s waist with all four paws down on the ground. He was also about a hundred and ten pounds, most of which appeared to be fur as they got closer to the winter months. He was beautiful shade of brown-black with the white clinging to his chest and the underside of his muzzle. It would likely spread as he continued to get older, but at only five years old he had retained all of the luscious color he had been born with.

“Have you been good today?” Wylan asked as he began to run his fingers through the side of the dog’s face. The fur around the top of Trassel’s head was his favorite, soft and already brushed back so it didn’t hang in front of his eyes or nose. 

He received another bark as the dog’s excitement rose. When Trassel got so overwhelmed that he placed his hands onto Wylan’s chest to get closer to his face, Wylan reached down and took his hands. It stressed his hips enough that he calmed down, so Wylan let him go as soon as he had calmed.

When he saw Nina he barked again and rushed over to her. She knelt down in front of him as she dug her hands into his fur and began to baby talk him. “Hello there, hello! I bet I smell like all kind of interesting and same things, don’t I? You’re so handsome, so handsome,” she murmured.

The meeting was cut short as they were reminded why they were there in the first place. Matthias walked down the hall with Inej and Jesper hot on his heels. “Nina?” he called out, his voice more accented than it was normally, which just illustrated how stressed out he was.

“Hey,” she breathed as she rose to her feet. Matthias was by her side in an instant, peeling back the gauze that was just barely soaked with enough blood that it was sticking to the wounds on its own.

Trassel was wuffling and barking to be played with, so Jesper grabbed him under the collar and led him to the back door. “Go run,” he instructed with a firm point to the space that they had for him. He listened and rushed outside so that he could complete his course and get a prize. As soon as the dog had been taken care of, Jesper rushed back to his girlfriend to check on her. “What happened?”

“I was attacked by an old friend of mine’s husband. He was drunk,” Nina explained. She winced as Matthias reached up and peeled the gauze away. It broke some of the scabs that had begun to form there and restarted some of the bleeding.

“Here, why don’t we move to the bathroom to get you cleaned up,” Inej said. She swatted Matthias hand so that he would leave the wounds alone until she could take care of them herself. Matthias did know a decent amount of first aid and wouldn’t make anything horrendously worse, but he wasn’t as knowledgeable as her.

The group moved through the house until they were upstairs in the master bath. While they were walking, the shorter of the two women said, “My name is Inej. You probably guessed that since I’m the only feminine presenting person here that could be called girlfriend,” she chuckled.

“Nina Zenik,” the other replied. “You’re about to go on some sort of tour, aren’t you?”

“I have a couple of shows in Vegas that I’m doing this week,” she nodded. “I was cuddling with the boys while waiting for Wylan to get home when we got his message. I’m the one that knows first aid the best so I got up to help you. It’s wonderful to meet you, Nina, even if I wish it was under better circumstances.”

“At least we got to bring it forward?” she offered with a light laugh. 

The master bathroom was huge, so it was no trouble for the five of them to get inside. Matthias took up the spot on the edge of the tub where he could see all of his partners. Wylan and Jesper stood near the shower part of the room, leaning heavily against the gray colored glass with their fingers interwoven between them. Nina was sat down on the counter space between the two sinks while Inej spread out the things that she would need to check and clean the wounds around them. “How did you get these?” she asked as she turned Nina’s face to the side to get a better look at them.

“Ivan broke a beer bottle above my head and some of the glass got on me,” she said. “I think that they’re mostly just weeping so much because they’re on my face, they don’t feel all that deep.”

“They’re not,” the other woman answered. She got a wet cloth with some antibiotic soap and then carefully began to drag it across the wounds. Nina winced and let out a little whimper, holding her hand out towards Matthias. He was there in a second, threading their fingers together so that she could focus on something other than the pain of having her wounds checked.

Once they were cleaned, Inej put some cream on them that would help fight any leftover bacteria and numb the area to dull the pain. “Do you have any allergies?” she asked as she fished through the pile of band aides. Kaz had topical allergies, bursting into hives whenever he had an adhesive that less than medical grade on his skin.

“No,” Nina replied. “Nothing that you’d have in that kit, anyway.”

Inej plucked one of the larger plasters from the pile and then opened it up. She set it over the biggest of the cuts and then used two smaller bandaids for the others until everything was covered. “I don’t think that there’s anything I can do for that bruise, other than this,” she supplied a small jar containing a balm. “It will sting really bad and it smells quite strong, but it helps aide the healing process.”

Nina glanced towards Wylan and he gave her a confident, reassuring nod. The balm that Inej had was a godsend for sore muscles, which he and Kaz often got. “Alright,” Nina agreed with a little nod. Matthias brought his hand to the side of her head that wasn’t being tended to, running his long fingers through her thick hair as he pressed a kiss to her temple.

Inej’s skilled, calloused fingers dipped into the balm and then began to carefully and evenly spread it across the darkened area on Nina’s face. When she finished, she wiped her hands off on a baby wipe and offered Nina a makeup remover wipe. “If you’re going to be staying here tonight then I think you’d like to be comfortable.”

“Yes, thank you,” she replied as she took the offered object. Inej cleaned up the rest of the scraps before she ushered the other two boys out of the room. Wylan and Jesper hung in the background long enough to hear them making plans about clothing and where she might sleep.

Eventually, Wylan tugged his boyfriend down to the kitchen so that he could cook something. Eating always settled their nerves and made them feel better, especially since they had both been rather food insecure at one point in their lives. Jesper jumped up onto the island counter in the center of the room, folding his legs underneath him to make balancing easier while watching Wylan working. “So what happened?”

“Well, I got lost in my work, which is why I was late coming home,” he winced. He had forgotten to properly apologize for that and bringing it up had reminded both of them that it had happened in the first place. He set down the tortillas and cheese that he had gotten out of the fridge as he walked over to Jesper. He wrapped his arms around the other man’s waist to bring them closer together, knocking their foreheads together softly. “I’m sorry for not texting you as soon as I realized what time it was and for losing track of time. I know you worry about us when we go silent.”

“Inej had to talk me down like four times. I was a second away from texting Nina to get reassurance that you were alright and she doesn’t know anything about that particular issue yet,” Jesper mumbled. He was pouting slightly but there was real hurt behind his words.

“I’m sorry,” Wylan apologized again. He brushed their lips together in a sweet yet chaste kiss to accent the words with something positive.

It worked and the anger immediately drained from Jesper. “I know. I just worry that something bad has happened to you guys when you don’t respond like that. Like with my mom…”

“I love you,” Wylan whispered as he brought their lips together for another sweet kiss. Jesper’s mom was a sensitive topic that would result in a lot of feelings about his own mother, feelings that Wylan wasn’t quite emotionally prepared to look into that night. 

“I love you, too, baby,” he mumbled as he held the side of Wylan’s face.

Neither of them had been able to clock the sound of the garage opening and shutting over Trassel’s barking from the backyard. They lived far enough away from the city that sometimes he found deer and foxes out past the fence that he wanted to talk big game about but could never dream of ever getting to, so they tuned out the sound of his barking at that tempo. They both realized what he had been barking at when the door to the garage shut and Kaz said, “I thought that we had agreed no food was to be left out on the counter.”

Wylan broke away from his boyfriend and then flushed when he realized that he had been caught. They were supposed to make sure that anything that wasn’t actively being eaten or used was put away to make sure that their mischievous puppy didn’t devour it and make himself sick. “I’m sorry, I was supposed to be cooking something for myself since I missed dinner but then Jesper and I got talking and that led to…” he trailed off and felt his face flush harder. “Sorry.”

Clearing his throat loudly to get the attention on himself, Jesper jumped off of the counter and stuffed the food back into the fridge. “That is enough apologizing from Wylan! We don’t want our sweet boy thinking that he has done all the wrong in the world, after all,” he grinned as he wrapped his arms around the aforementioned man’s waist.

“Jesper,” he complained as he was bombarded with kisses. He knew that part of it was actual adoration for him and the other part was the actor trying to make sure that his anxiety didn’t overwhelm him. When it was clear that Jesper wasn’t going to stop anytime soon, Wylan turned to face their boyfriend, “You’re home early. Is everything okay?”

“It was a slow night and I thought that you would all be able to use me here more,” he replied. “Also, I got you all something to eat.”

He placed the bags of food down on the table and Wylan felt his heart sing. It was hard for Kaz to show love in the same way that Jesper did, but his actions meant so much in their relationship. “Thank you,” he breathed as he tried not to cry from how overwhelmed he felt.

“You’re alright,” Kaz reminded him gently as he brought their lips together in a very chaste kiss. That was all that Wylan was going to be able to get from his partner after work. Even if the Crow Club had only a dozen patrons, the amount of strangers that he had to be around when he was working often overwhelmed Kaz to the point where he didn’t feel safe being touched unless he instigated it. He had updated the group chat when he had been in the office for half an hour, which Wylan had seen just before he realized what time it was.

They moved to the living room with the food and an extra set of paper towels. The living room was their biggest work in progress yet since it had been a formal parlor before they had moved in. They were slowly replacing all of the hyper modern furniture with the more vintage pieces that they preferred, which meant that seating was a little bit sparse at the moment. The most modern piece that they had left in the room was the sectional that could transform into a big enough space for all five of them to cuddle together when they wanted to. The TV stand was pulled straight out of the sixties, reshaped by Matthias and Jesper so that it could actually fit their flat screen in the middle of display case. The rug and coffee table had been picked out by Inej, both of them reminiscent of how her house had been decorated before her parents’ accident.

The trio settled in to eat what Kaz had picked up for them, Wylan and Jesper both sitting on the ground with their backs pressed to the couch while Kaz sat in the armchair that he had gotten to help with his pain before they had even moved in. Other than his clothes, it was the only thing from his old apartment above the Crow Club that he had brought with him.

About fifteen minutes later they heard some of their partners coming down the stairs and turned the TV off. Nina was walking hand-in-hand with Matthias, wearing a pair of Jesper’s sweatpants and one of Matthias’ shirts since everyone else had a vastly different body shape compared to her. 

“Hey baby,” Jesper said as he moved onto the couch. She smiled, trying to hold back tears as she trekked over to him. She collapsed down onto the couch, her legs pulled up near his chest and her head immediately on his shoulder. He moved his arm around her back and pressed a kiss over the top of the band aids on her forehead. “How are you doing?”

“I’m tired and scared,” she mumbled. “Glad that it was Wylan that helped me, though.”

“Yeah, he is pretty great like that,” Matthias replied. He stooped down and kissed Wylan within an inch of his life. “Thank you for being such an amazing, kindhearted person, min brandstifter.”

“That was one time,” he muttered, his cheeks turning a dark red color with embarrassment.

Inej sat herself down in his lap and stole a couple of his fries. He didn’t mind, since she indulged in processed foods so rarely that she deserved a treat. “It’s fun to tease you.”

He buried his face into her shoulder, which he knew was why she had sat down on him like she had. “Fun for you, maybe.”

Nina laughed, which was a great sound to hear with how clearly worn out she was. The energy in the room got a lot more somber when Jesper asked her once again what had happened. She recounted some elements from her past like she had for Wylan in the car, still refusing to let herself cry. She cuddled in between her boyfriends like they were going to be able to save her from her own bad feelings, something that Wylan remembered doing vividly after he got the news that his father had died.

She finished telling her story and they all agreed to watch something calm to wind down before bed. Wylan finished his food and then gave Inej a sweet kiss on the cheek before he dumped her down onto the couch next to Kaz. He made sure that there was enough space between them that they wouldn’t accidentally crash together. “I’m going to go shower, I know you’ll all probably be in bed by the time I get back,” he sighed. He was both glad and upset that he had gotten off work so late.

“We’ll see you in the morning,” Matthias promised as he tenderly kissed his boyfriend. Jesper mimicked the movement as well before settling in next to Nina. 

“I can give you a kiss if you want, but what I really want to do is say thank you,” she replied, witty and sharp-tongued even in her exhaustion.

“I would have done it even if you weren’t dating two of my partners,” he replied as he fought back another blush. The only thing that Kaz was able to do was give his hand a squeeze through the thick leather of his gloves, which Wylan was okay with. 

He disappeared up the stairs as exhaustion sunk low into his veins. A lot had happened in one night, but the net effect seemed to be good overall. Nina fit right into their flock like she had been there from the beginning.

[larkthorne]

[Image ID: the cover of a book: Laundry Love: Finding Joy In A Common Chore by Patric Richardson with Karin B. Miller. The title is in rainbow letters on a yellow background with a stylized drawing of a front load washing machine with a heart on the door in the middle of the cover. /End ID]

Hello to all of you with laundry on chairs, etc, whose executives also fail to function, hope you're well, etc.

Just want to recommend this book to anyone who dislikes laundry or can't keep on top of it! I listened to the audiobook a couple months ago and it has changed the way I do laundry. Here's a TL;DR summary but if you can get this book from your library or whatever it's a charming, easy, quick read.

The basic gist of this life-changing laundry method is, you look at your week. You pick a day that works. That's laundry day babey. Six days a week, don't worry about it. On laundry day, do something. (Caveat: my laundry day is nominally Wednesday but well. It does shift around! For my two person household, as long as I don't go longer than 10 days between Laundry Day we're fine. Your mileage may vary.) Laundry!

Laundry Day, per the method in Laundry Love, is a celebration. One puts on a fun playlist. One watches a trashy romcom while folding. One has a disco ball in one's laundry room, etc. Laundry Day is for enacting care on the things that go on your body everyday.

(I've not quite got that far, but I do try to make it pleasant. I like an audiobook or a podcast.)

The method has you split your clothes into lights, darks, warm colors, and cool colors. I don't think this is like, totally necessary - I like to do it, but if it was a very low spoons day, just sort of making two to four mid-size piles regardless of color would be fine. It is handy to have more smaller piles rather than one or two big ones, in my experience - more on that later.

Before you wash each load, ideally you pretreat stains (the book goes into detail, i mostly just scrub soap onto stains with a toothbrush which mostly works).

(There are also ways you can process silky fabric and wool fabric to allow it to go in the machine instead of dry cleaning or just chucking it in and hoping for the best! Basically: laundry net bags. Silky things in them. Roll up wool sweaters or w/e tightly, then put in the net bag, and pin down the excess. But also, if you don't have silky or wool things, like. Don't worry about it.)

Each load of laundry is washed on warm, on the quick cycle, with extra/high spin. Use like. A tablespoon of eco-friendly clothing detergent. I use a tablespoon of washing soda in the detergent drawer of my front loader and 2 tablespoons of castile soap in the drum of the washer, because Nancy Birtwhistle from Great British Bake-Off told me to, and it's very cheap per load and very effective. But it is better to use eco friendly stuff where you can because it leads to less irritants and pollutants and, this is key, less buildup on your clothes. And use less -- a tablespoon is plenty.

The short cycle on warm is enough to get your clothes clean! Without letting them get too beat up for longer than they need. The extra spin gets them dryer so they take less time to dry.

It is ideal to dry things by hanging them on a line or whatever! That's the platonic ideal of laundry. Clothes last longer and smell nice if you dry them outside. But I've had a Month Or Two and I've been using the dryer. It does wear your clothes out faster and uses up not-strictly-necessary energy but you gotta make it out of the laundry chair cycle somehow so do what you gotta do.

The good thing about the three or four small-to-mid piles of laundry is, as they come out of the dryer, you can fold it and put it away promptly, and it can feel far less overwhelming than looking at Mount Laundry.

Rotate through the piles you made earlier - quick cycle in the wash, dry them somehow, put them away. Only one day a week! The book suggests this takes 3-4 hours. I get tired if I try to do it all at once so I tend to let it take all day, taking breaks as necessary, but it's like, my only chore to do that day. (I still sometimes leave the last load of laundry in the dryer...)

The book offers tips for if you use a laundromat too! I don't, so can't speak to that. I think, though, having the same mindset: one day a week (ish) everything gets done. Some weeks that's aspirational, but there's always another go.

But, crucially: if it's not Laundry Day, simply do not worry about laundry. Put it in a hamper and that's that.

It's not perfect and it won't work for everyone I'm sure, but I learned a lot from the book (despite having a background in costuming and being a hobby sewist - I know about taking care of fabric! And I learned a lot). I really enjoy assigning a day to be For Laundry, and just allowing it to fall off the radar the other days. I always know another Laundry Day is coming.

Anyway! That's me done being bossy on the internet today. Happy laundry!

[bazzybelle]

Current Tag Game

Thanks for the tag, @phinofthestorm @windsweptinred and @mentallyinvernation

Current time: 11:17 AM

Current mood: Honestly, emotionally drained. It's been a week.

Current activity: Answering this questionnaire, listening to Speak Now (Taylor's Version), procrastinating cleaning my house.

Currently thinking about: That's a loaded question my friend...Let's see: My rabbit's food intake (he's had a VERY rough week), cleaning the house, my WIPs...

Current Obsession: In general, definitely Sandman. I had wanted to read this comic series for years (since meeting my husband in 2012), but it's a very heavy series. Essentially, I wasn't in the right headspace to dive into Sandman's many existential themes, until 2020. So I listened to the Audiobooks and feel deeply into the lore and the characters and the amazing world building. Then the Netflix show came out last year and Dreamling became a Thing.... Yeah sorry, I'm stuck here.

On a smaller note... I'm way too currently obsessed with how much Hades is eating and pooping. He was in GI Stasis on Tuesday and we almost lost him. It's been... it's been rough over here. He's ok. Death is a mug's game for him apparently. But now husband and I are just obsessively checking his food intake and how much he's pooping while he recovers.

Current favourite song: The same one it's been for like the last decade. Dreams by Fleetwood Mac.

Currently reading: Dreamling fics (specifically You create me against your lips by @delta-pavonis) (GUYS... THIS FIC!) (no but seriously... it's SO GOOD, and the art by @teejaystumbles makes me feral).

I also bought this beautiful Jane Austen anthology, so I'm making my way through it (currently reading the intro/biography).

Currently watching: I got Disney+ recently and it's got BOTH Boy Meets World and Criminal Minds so... randomly watching eps from both shows.

The next shows I'm planning on watching are Silo and I wanna watch Nimona.

Current favorite character: Hob Gadling from Sandman. He's just SUCH a guy. I already liked him a whole lot from the comics, before Ferdinand Kingsley rocked on up all "yes, but what if you loved him MORE?"

Not only do I love Hob's zest for life and hunger for everything, I love what he represents. He's the Human Everyman in a story about eldritch beings and supernatural magical beings. Hob's just there loving life. On the other hand, he is also the representation on what it means to be human. He is NOT a good man, but he keeps trying to be. Like humanity, he keeps trying to be better and to learn. Like humanity, he strives to grow and experience. He serves as a grounding presence for the otherwordly beings we meet in The Sandman series.

I dunno... I just think he's pretty neat.

Current WIPs: Oh God... Ok... so... I've got two in my Carry On list (Youth Without Youth and No One To Save) and three in my Sandman list (Hob Hanahaki, Reincarnation AU, and Grey's Anatomy AU). I also have a Renaissance/Queer coming out novel that I've been plotting out.

Tagging (no pressure): @carryonsimoncarryonbaz, @amywaterwings, @ninemagicks, @namistrella, @aroace-genderfluid-sheep, @wellbelesbian, @yellobb, @tryan-a-bex, @artsyunderstudy, @facewithoutheart, @stardustasincocaine, @blackberrysummerblog, @ivelovedhimthroughworse and @forabeatofadrum

[galadhir]

So I bought the latest Murderbot book, System Collapse as soon as it came out, on both audiobook and ebook, and I have to say that I was ever so slightly disappointed. It is a really good example of a Murderbot novella, just like the other ones in the series, but my problem is that with it coming after Network Effect I was hoping for other things.

When Network Effect finished with ART excitedly cleaning its interior because Dr. Mensah would be coming aboard, I was excited to be able to read about ART and Mensah meeting and learning to appreciate each other.

When we got the blurb for System Collapse and it became obvious that SecUnit was having something of a breakdown due to accumulated trauma, while Barish Estranza was up to its corporate worst, I was excited at the thought that Three might have to take over some of SecUnit's more running-about-and-murdering-people duties, while SecUnit had to take the trauma treatment.

I wanted to see how the Preservation humans and ART's crew got along. Which I guess happened with Ratthi and Tarik. But I suppose I had got used to the extra space and slightly more leisurely pace of the novel, and was not prepared to go back to the tight focus of a novella.

This is all entirely my fault for having expectations, rather than just trying to enjoy what I got for its own sake. And in fact I remember feeling a little disappointed with Network Effect when that came out, while now it is my favourite in the series. So I'm sure after a few more reads and listens I will also learn to appreciate System Collapse for what it is, instead of what it isn't.

And let's face it, SecUnit was due a collapse! And now I'm eager to find out if Three gets a starship of its own with Holism. I like the fact that they are the serious non-fiction nerds of the series, while Perihelion and SecUnit are the sci-fi geeks. Bless!

~

Also I'm excited (and a little nervous) at the thought of a Murderbot TV series.

I'm excited because

you can do so much with a series in which a SecUnit is the pov character - think about how you could tell a story from the perspective of a being who is regularly experiencing life through security cameras and flying drones and

I'm not sure I can think of another series with a protag like SecUnit, who avoids eye contact, expresses emotional discomfort by turning and facing the wall, is extremely touch averse, and above all is agender and asexual and quite vocal about that.

When have we ever had a tv series where the main character's pronouns are 'it'? If they only keep that, the series will be revolutionary.

But I'm nervous because

Look at the guy they cast as SecUnit. Did he have to be so white? MB lives in a universe where most of the important characters are black or various shades of brown. It kind of defeats the importance of having so many important characters of colour if they're mostly there in order to be rescued by a white main character.

The show runners are both male. It would be so easy for a pair of straight cis male writers to ignore the widespread queerness of the setting and all the things most queer/non-neurotypical readers find so endearing about SecUnit and turn it into yet another male power fantasy where a heavily armed and deadly cyborg solves everyone's problems with ultra-violence.

It would be so easy for them to call SecUnit 'he' and churn out something like Robocop or Judge Dredd where the uncommunicative white guy with a heart of gold and a big gun gets to be the hero again. That would make it more marketable. It would make it more relatable to the straight cis white guys who make up the desired audience for SF shows (or so I've heard.) And it would take away from this agender asexual person someone who was very rare and precious to them.

Honestly listening to cis people talking about Murderbot is painful enough now when they must have read the book and they must have been bombarded for thousands of words with instances of it being called 'it' and insisting that gender was inapplicable to it and it found sex distasteful. Somehow even after all of that they will insist on calling it 'he' or 'she.' God knows how much worse it could get if the TV series did it too.

[marnz]

some thoughts about life right now;

i've been on a really intense project since late July and let me tell you, i am tired! i'm one of the few people at my job that specialize in this type of work--we are excited to train more--but for now i am just hanging out here preparing to trade one high pressure project for another for the foreseeable future. which ultimately is fine! even though it can be stressful, I would rather be doing this type of work, which is interesting and super fulfilling and matters a lot to me, than other types of work, which do not feel fulfilling and are actually pretty boring.

it's a little confusing to find myself here because last year i went on medical leave for mental health reasons and prior to that i was doing a very different kind of work, and when i came back in january they started me off with this new kind of work (which i do prefer) with basically no training from my supervisor. which is fine, i am comfortable learning on the fly and/or teaching myself, and i have both a lot of experience doing this and a lot of experience in Complex Projects, albeit in a different practice area. then i moved onto this project in late july. so like again very little training in this specific type of work but i assure you, nothing is as stressful as my last job was. and i do love this project! even though it's stressful! i've since learned that this is just going to be my specialty! which like...i am happy with the outcome but i feel like i sort of tripped and fell into it in the least expected way possible.

while thinking about it, i think i thought i'd only make it to this kind of work, this kind of project, by working hard--and i had a specific idea of what working hard looked like, what striving looked like. but i have been working hard for the last year or so, healing, learning, growing, recovering, all of it. and that is hard work. and by taking time to tend to myself, and grow and change and learn and heal, i became ready for this kind of stressful work. and that's not the narrative we have around this. culturally we have a narrative of self sacrifice and unpaid overtime and being really fucking type A and having unhealthy work/life balance, but as soon as I stepped away and said actually, i've had enough, i will not burn my life out for you, i started down a road that led me to doing the type of work i want to do in a healthier and more prepared way. and that's fucking awesome!

for now i am just trying to make it to the end of this project in mid october. which means coping skills, baby! wish i could write but i don't have capacity for it rn, and that's fine. so my priorities are: maintenance days (cleaning/chores). reading. knitting. baking. yoga. hiking. i want to make life as easy and cozy for myself as possible right now.

i haven't knit for several months and I'm thinking of trying my first sweater--this gorgeous sweater called Mountain Mist. however i've never done colorwork before so the pattern suggests doing the same colorwork in a swatch hat (here) to practice. i am SO HYPE!!! this pattern is also admittedly deeply my aesthetic. i showed it to my partner and he laughed bc it's so typically me lol. i also checked out the first book in Tana French's Dublin Murders series on audiobook to listen too while knitting. spooky season means murder mysteries. 🥰

also my work office is being remodeled so i will be working from home for the next 6ish months, and we're preparing to overhaul my little work corner in our house so it is better/more ergonomic/has more storage/is cuter. also i am going to get a standing desk for my poor knees 😵‍💫 recently worked from 8:30 to 9:30 and my knees hurt sooooo bad 😩

it's nice to know that a year ago i wouldn't have been able to handle this project or really know how to slow down and prioritize self care and after a ton of hard work on my mental health i'm now i'm like, well, it is a bit stressful but we got this. progress 😌💖

[papermint-airplane]

Tag 9 People You Want to Know Better

I was tagged by @oasislandingresident! Thank you!!

Last Song: Knock by Lee Chaeyeon. It's the catchiest song imaginable and it will never ever ever ever leave my head. 😅 Knock na-na-na-na-knock knock knock na-na-na-knock knock knocking on yo-our heart 🤜🚪💖

Last Show: This is hard because I don't really watch shows much anymore. I mostly stick to YouTube and audiobooks...you know stuff I can throw on in the background because I have a million things to do and no attention span. However, the second part of the last season of Manifest just came out on Netflix and I'm fixing to lose my mind watching it, so let's say that one. Future show, last show, it's all relative, time is an illusion.

Currently watching: See previous lmao.

Currently reading: Pretty much a similar answer. I don't have much of an attention span or time to sit down and read a physical book with my eyeballs anymore but I listen to audiobooks a lot. Right now, I'm finishing up Bare-faced Messiah by Russell Miller, which is a biography of L. Ron Hubbard, the creator of Scientology. It...explains a lot, let's just say that. 😬

Current Obsession: Probably a weird answer but my kitchen. 😮 Those of you who have read my insane ramblings lately (omg thank you but also I'm sorry lol) know that I recently embarked upon a depression cleaning quest in my house and while I'm not completely finished, my living room and my kitchen are ✨flawless✨ rn and I want to cry big sloppy joy tears every time I go out there. My kitchen in particular is my new happy place. It's been so long since I've seen clean counterspace. I can cook real food again! I've never enjoyed cooking in the past but I'm living for it right now. It's so nice to be able to move around and have everything be sanitary and organized again. THIS WAS PROBABLY MORE THAN ANYONE WANTED TO KNOW, SORRY lmao

Tag time! Everyone has probably already done this but let's see here. @softle0, @cozygirlsimmer, @hurricanesims, @cowplanty, @treason-and-plot, @simstryingtheirbestok, @frostedshore, @immdreamz, @ktarsims, @sharssims, @hazely-sims

I think that was more than 9 but I refuse to count because I'm a lil rebel. 😎 Love y'all!

[labrador-tea]

tag someone you want to know better tagged by @patron-minette - thank you!! :)

favorite color: Olive green (to the point where my wardrobe could be described as swamp/bog camouflage)

last song: I've been playing Hozier's latest album (Unreal Unearth) on repeat for a month now. Specifically last song was Butchered Tongue.

last movie: I don't watch movies very often but I finally watched Everything Everywhere All At Once a few weeks ago!

currently watching: Between shows at the moment but most recently watched Spies of Warsaw (yes for David Tennant)

other stuff i watched this year: Our Flag Means Death, Good Omens 2, Mister Sunshine, Lou et Sophie, lots of Time Team episodes, The Legend of Vox Machina, What We Do in the Shadows (the movie), Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro

shows i dropped this year/didn’t finish: Hmm I leave a lot of movies half finished. Most recently didn't finish a French film I was watching for language practice (can't remember the name).

currently reading: I'm actually not a big reader so following along with Les Mis letters has been an accomplishment for me this year. I do listen to a decent number of non-fiction audiobooks while cooking/cleaning/driving, though. Currently listening to Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness by Da'Shaun Harrison. I listen to fiction books I already know as I fall asleep and my current one for that is Early Riser by Jasper Fforde (his book Shades of Grey is on that rotation of favorites as well).

currently listening to (sneaky additional question!): I already talked about audiobooks so some podcasts I listen to regularly are Tous aux Oiseaux!, Maintenance Phase, Worlds Beyond Number, and recently have started listening to The Old Songs Podcast.

currently working on: My Master's thesis..... I'm getting so close to done but that's taking up 90% of my time and energy rn. I'm also working on translating and annotating lyrics from the Original French Concept Album of Les Mis and trying to draw more.

current obsession: Good Omens + Hozier's Unreal Unearth. Les Mis is a constant.

no pressure, only if you find this kind of thing fun: @deadgayturtles, @auxprouvaires, @the-most-sublime-fool and anyone else who sees this and wants to!

[cacodaemonia]

15, 20, 24, 25 for art ask meme?

15. Is there any new style/technique/medium you want to explore next year? Hmmmm, that's tough, since I've worked in so many styles and media... I would like to play around more with the Rebelle program because of the way it mixes colors like real pigments rather than how other digital art programs do it. But when I checked it out a few months ago, it didn't have a lot of brushes and none of them 'felt' right, so I'm hoping that there will be more brushes available in the future and maybe I'll find something I like.

20. Is there anyone you’d love to collaborate with next year? Huh... Y'know, I've barely ever collaborated with other artists before. I did one of those things where someone draws the sketch, the next person cleans up the lines, another person colors it, etc. once, but that's it, so I feel like I don't have enough data to answer that 😅

24. What did you listen to while creating this year? I've been listening to fics, podcasts, audiobooks, and YT videos a lot recently. I kind of go through phases where I focus more on music when I art, then go back to other things like these, but I haven't had much time to read fics, for example, so listening to them is a good way to still keep up with some.

25. What is your favorite work that you created this year? Hm, probably either of these two simple Waxer/Boil ones [1, 2], since they just make me feel warm and fuzzy inside XD;

ask game

[sibylsleaves]

4, 7 and 9 for the book asks?

- @buckactuallys

4. what sections of a bookstore do you browse?

I like seeing what they have right up front or on display tables/staff recs, then I go to the YA section (if it's B&N then the Science Fiction and Fantasy Teen section) and then the Sci-fi/fantasy section because I know I'm going to spend the most time there 😂 Sometimes I'll take a glance at the non-fiction section as well to see if anything catches my eye. Most of the time when I go to the bookstore to actually buy something I know what it is I want to pick up before I go inside. So when I browse it's just to browse!

7. is there a series/book that got you into reading?

Animorphs and Nancy Drew were the first books that I got super hardcore into, when I was about 8-9 years old.

9. when do you tend to read most?

I usually read fanfic at night so I like to read books in the morning when I can/have time. I sometimes will also read between work and dinner, although lately I've been working too late to do that. Now that I'm getting more into audiobooks I'll listen to them while I clean or cook or go on walks (although the weather has not been cooperating lately!!)

send me asks about books! 📚

[moodywyrm]

yay squares!! do you have any ideas on what kind of stuff you want to make in the future? :o real!! sometimes i’ll buy some ribbon just bc it looks cool 😭

60 !!! jesus christ i could never!! it took me 4 months to finish one book 😭

exactly!! and i have no idea 😭 i just follow my gfs advice tbh, she’s a lot more experienced,, she got her first at 17 and now has a lot so i’m like. whatever u say babe

me too 😞 i hate the bright lights and the people but i normally put my airpods in and ignore everyone

a chill day!! that’s so nice omg <3 i would love to listen to audiobooks but if i get too focused on something else i’ll just tune it out :( and i hope yall like it!! it’s on my watchlist :o

my day was good!! i was able to wfh today and my gf was off so we spent the day together :) it was very nice and we’re planning our vacation rn! we’re going to try to go in the next couple weeks since i’ve saved up 9 PAID!! vacation days for this year! other than that it was chill, we just finished up with dinner and i’m going to watch a movie with binx while she’s at the gym <3

how’s your day?

- 🩷

squares!! once I get a handle on all the basic stitch types I think I wanna make little headphone sprouts? eventually the goal is to make sweaters (I really wanna make marceline's sweater from Adventure Time) and those like fairy tops that tie in the front? but for now we have squares <3 and no fr, I just like having pretty ribbon <3

that's so fair!! everyone reads at different paces and mine fluctuates a lot, but I read a lot bc of my major and audiobooks. I average in a year is usually like 50? im at 30 for this year so far <3

real, I haven't gotten a tattoo yet but I just listen to what my friends say bc most of them have tattoos! still sad though, I really wanted the snake on my arm before I graduated college :(

fuck bright lights! if grocery stores were just sensory hour all the time I would like it more :( but headphones are the real mvp of grocery shopping <3

it was a nice day!! audiobooks help me when one of my tasks is more visually oriented? so like stardew or crocheting, snd then I can listen to the audiobook and keep track of both! idk how that works but the dual input really works for me. I like it so far!! it's funky and visually stimulating, so im excited to keep watching <3

aww that's sweet!! im glad yall got a day together <3 nine days PAID!!! dude!! that's fucking epic, I hope yall have an incredible vacation <3 binx and a movie!! he's a filmbro but in the best way <3

yesterday was sweet, and today's been good so far!! i walked and played with the dogs, and I've been rotating between reading, cleaning, crocheting, and playing with them <3 I've also been planning all the shit I need to buy before I leave for college again, which means hopefully a few hauls from marshals n Costco over the next few weeks <3 and I've been staring at yarns on Marshalls, so I might get some supplies before I go back, just bc I don't have a craft store over there :(

how's your day been?

[achronicwitch]

⛅️ Tuesday, July 11, 2023 🌘

Morning

I was awakened quite a bit earlier than I wanted to be by a tiny ball of fluff screaming in my ear. She doesn't look it, but I can't swear this kitten isn't part Siamese. The kids are experimenting with calling her Eclipse.

The Miracle Morning: I began the day with Pranic breathing, affirmations, and visualization followed by some stretching. I'm currently re-reading The Shower Habit, by Stephanie Ewing. I did a ten-minute braindump; any more than that would have despooned me before I could actually write.

Writing: Thirty minutes insane scribbling. I discovered the notes from an idea I had in January and realized it fit perfectly into the Solarpunk Superhero setting I'm working on.

I went back to sleep at 10:30 am listening to the audiobook Think Like a Monk by Jay Shetty on YouTube.

Afternoon

I slept soundly for five solid hours and woke up feeling almost "human."

We had the baby for a couple of hours, then swapped her out for the kitten for a couple more. I'm not sure which was noisier but at least the kitten took a nap!

I'm making headway on a new baby blanket, with a combination of stitches I'm perfecting for use on an afghan for my Partner in Crime. Only theirs is also going to be granny striped. When they send me the yarn I'll get going on that. It's going to take a while because it's a full sized afghan and I've never made anything bigger than a throw.

Another crochet project is an afghan for our neighbor we adopted. He's battling very poor health and I'd like to get it done asap. I need yarn for that, too.

Evening

Both creatures were back in the kids' apartment at sundown so the husband and I could unwind. I think I'll make that the rule unless other arrangements have been made in advance.

Crime Scene Kitchen is my current favorite cooking competition show.

I heated food (turkey and veg meatballs, baked potato, shredded cheese) and rounded up the ingredients so the husband can make himself some homemade trail mix. The kitchen is an unsanitary mess but I just didn't have the oomph to clean it.

Despite the five hours of extra sleep I was run down, tired, and a little sore all day. Nothing much got done again. and it's really hard not to be frustrated.

[messedupfan]

When I Look At You | Chapter 1

Summary: Y/n Y/l/n is on a journey of rediscovering what makes life so great. It all starts when a certain woman and her sister move in across the street.

No specific gender for reader

A/N: Well, I kind of just started typing one day and this came out of it. I hope y'all enjoy! Also this is my 200th post!

Masterlist | All Stories Taglist | All Chapters

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You wake up earlier than usual because you were trying to get into a new and healthier routine. Late nights and sleeping during the day simply wasn't going to cut it anymore. However, deciding to start this new routine with a morning jog with only an hour of sleep probably wasn't the best start. At least it was a start, is what you tell yourself as you tighten the laces on your worn out sneakers. 

You plug your earbuds into your cell phone and pick the playlist you spent most of the night organizing to motivate you to exercise. The playlist was much longer than you intended to jog for, but it did help to wake you up. You opened the front door and instead of being greeted by the glaring sun you're used to, it's a dark neighborhood. A few of the residents have their front lights on but it didn't provide much light. As you think about turning around and crashing on the couch, celebrating the effort of simply opening the door, you shake your head to clear it. You wanted to go on the run more than you wanted to sleep on your couch. 

You grab your keys and lock the door behind you before you walk down to the sidewalk and start your jog. That's all it was, a simple jog. No more, and you allowed yourself moments of less. When you return home, breathless and sweaty, the sun is rising. You sit on your front steps to catch your breath and admire the various colors the sun painted the sky with before you headed inside to shower. 

The first thing you do once you get out is order an arm phone holder online. You thought you would be fine just holding it in your hand but you hated it the entire jog. You connected your phone to one of your portable speakers to listen to an audiobook while you made yourself breakfast. It wasn't anything special, scrambled eggs with ketchup and a glass of orange juice, but you remind yourself that it's just a start. 

You check the time on your watch and quickly move to your computer. You join the online meeting with your writing team and they are all surprised to see you clean and alert. “I’m trying something new,” you say sheepishly. They congratulate you and you settle them down to get the meeting started. The deadline for your next book was closing in and you hardly had anything together. Your editor was trying to be patient with you but your agent had a different and much harsher approach to get you focused. “I know, I know,” you sigh into your hands as you stretch the skin on your face down. “It’s just hard to write a continuation of this sappy love story when I'm not the same person that wrote this crap. I was young and in love back when I started this series. I didn't think my life would be where it is today. I just… I can't keep writing this sappy fantasy anymore,” you explain.

“Well the publishing company purchased three more of these written by you and there’s a contract. There's no way out of it, Y/n!” Your manager scolds. “They made sure of it. I had your lawyer look over it plenty of times. You’re writing again and that’s final.”

“Here's an idea,” your assistant chimes in. “You write based on how you're feeling, right? So why not continue to put the characters through what you're feeling now?”

“That's actually not a bad idea,” Mike, the editor, agrees. 

You shake your head, “I don't know guys, I've always been able to keep my characters happy. I can't just jump from a happy ending to a sad beginning. That won't make any sense to my readers.”

“Why not? Isn't that what happened to you?” Natalie, your assistant, presses. “There can’t be an argument of whether or not it’s realistic because things can go wrong fast and they did.” You tell her to watch it but she doesn't let it go. “You've always said that there's a real element to your stories. There's a truth. There's you in it. Well, your life basically blew up out of the blue. Why can't the characters?”

“Because it's not fair to them,” you say with a frown as you pick at the dirt under your fingernails. “Besides, that would be a completely different concept from the one I pitched,” you mutter to your nails. 

Mike asks that you look at him and doesn't stop calling your name until you do. “If you don't want to blow up their lives then you could always write from the way you wish your life was. Give them the life you want.”

“I've tried that! And every time I start writing about… her, what she could've been doing, I just… I can't.” Your eyes begin to water as you feel yourself choke up. You apologize as you sit up straighter in your seat and clear your throat. 

Jan, your agent, sighs impatiently. “Those are your options, get to work or get sued. This meeting is over,” before anyone can say anything, she ends the call. You sigh as you slouch against your office chair. She was right. You needed to get to work. Or deal with the heavy consequences of quitting. 

You open up a new document to give it another shot. Nothing came to mind. It was hard to focus. You just had to organize what you were feeling in order to write off of that. But there were so many emotions that it felt as though there weren’t any at all. You got in a disorganized paragraph of nothing before you cleared the page again. A notification of an email from your best friend, Stevie, pops up in the corner of your screen and you open it. It mentions having found a grief group that they offer to take you to. Attached to the message is a link to the social media page. You breathe in through your nose and sigh out of your mouth reading through the page. 

You promised her that you would live a better life and this seemed like something that would help you get there. You respond to the email, agreeing to attend the meeting with them. You switch back to the empty document and start typing a random string of words. None of them connect into a sentence and they weren't supposed to. It was only to clear the clutter in your mind. 

A few hours later you startle awake from disruptive sounds coming from outside. You wipe your face, feeling the imprint of the keys from the keyboard on your cheek and see a screen of continued letters. You scoff to yourself as you delete the document entirely and open a new one. A few minutes later, you're reminded of the noises that had woken you up in the first place. You rise from the cushiony desk chair and walk over to the front window. Peaking through the blinds you see a moving truck across the street and spot a few women coming in and out of it with only a few boxes at a time. It was going to take them hours at that rate. 

Sitting in the corner of your unkempt living room was a metal dolly that held a few unpacked boxes on it. You figure that it couldn't hurt to be neighborly. So you quickly remove the boxes and roll the cart out of your home. “Um excuse me!” You call out to them from your front porch. It's no surprise they can't hear you from so far away and you silently scold yourself for being so timid. To help you regain some resemblance of confidence in yourself, you wiggle your shoulders to loosen yourself up a bit. 

You roll the dolly across the street and greet the only one outside with a kind smile. “Hi, I'm Y/n, I live across the street and couldn't help but notice you guys didn't have one of these. This thing was a lifesaver during my move.” You offer it to her and she appears to be genuinely pleased by the kindness. 

“Why thank you so much! Are you also offering your help? Because we could really use the extra hands. I had no idea how much crap my daughters owned until I sold our house.” The woman kindly asks with a joke that makes you smile. You are a little reluctant to agree to help but decide that it couldn't hurt to. It's just more steps in the correct direction, you say to motivate yourself. 

“Ugh mom! Please don't tell me you invited someone to come clean the energy of the house! Jules and I already told you the house is fine!” A woman, around your age or younger, grouches to the woman you were speaking with. The older woman rolls her eyes at her daughter's tone as she tells you to ignore her. “Thank you for driving out here but really, we don't need your services.” 

“Actually, sweetheart, this is your new friendly neighbor from across the street. They came over here to offer their assistance. Isn't that nice?” 

“Oh,” the younger woman says, regretting her entrance. “I am so sorry, my mother has a lot of weird friends that do a lot of weird things.” She extends her hand out with an obviously forced polite smile. “I'm Leigh, it's nice to meet you…” she offers you a chance to introduce yourself and you nervously do so. 

“My goodness!” Leigh's mother exclaims. “I apologize for being so rude! I must've lost my manners. I’m Amy Shaw, it's been a pleasure making your acquaintance.” You move your hand from Leigh's to Amy's and give it a quick shake. 

“It's really no problem. And it's nice to meet you both,” you get the dolly ready to move, “Shall we?” 

“Right!” Leigh turns around and climbs onto the truck. You roll the dolly up the ramp and help them unload the moving truck one load at a time. Along the way, you meet the third person, Jules. She introduced herself as you passed her. You learned that it was Leigh and Jules that were moving into this house together because neither could afford to live alone and their mom had, as she mentioned, already sold their childhood home. Amy agreed to help them find somewhere affordable for the both of them and cover the cost of moving. The place wasn’t much but it was a place to live. 

When all of the boxes and the furniture is moved in, the group of them invite you to stay for pizza and you politely decline the offer. “I unfortunately have somewhere to be.” You check the time on your watch and your heart picks up with anxiety. “I actually need to get home and get cleaned up. But it was lovely meeting all of you.” 

“Thank you so much for all of your help, really,” Leigh says as she steps around a few boxes to get closer to you. “I'll um, I'll walk you out?” She offers and when you try to decline, she only becomes more insistent. You clamp your mouth shut and gesture for her to lead the way. “Are you sure there isn't anything we could do to pay you for your help?” she asks once the two of you are out of earshot of everyone else. 

“Of course not, I offered to help. I wasn't hired,” you shrug.

“That is a very good point,” she says with a smile. “Well, thank you again for your help. If you ever need any help, well, you know where I live,” her light joke actually makes you laugh a little. Something that was hard to come by unless it was forced. “I do have a question for you though,” you hold your breath and feel your body grow tense as you wait. “Why do you look so familiar?” Her eyes are squinted ever so slightly and she crosses her arms over her chest as the two of you reach the end of her driveway. 

You nervously scratch behind your ear as you decide whether or not you want to lie to this person. She was going to find out regardless if you wanted her to or not. “Uh I'm not sure, I've had a few books published. There's a photo of me in the back of them. Other than that… I'm not really sure. But I'm certain we haven't met before today.” As she hears what you're saying it clicks in her mind where she has seen you before. You see the moment she connects the dots as soon as her face transitions from polite to sympathetic. Every bone in your body starts screaming at you to run.

“I lost my husband almost two years ago.  It's not the same as losing a child but… it was rough.” She rushes out. “And his might've been a suicide. I’ll never know for sure whether or not it was an accident.” Leigh seems to get lost in her head a bit and you shift uncomfortably. 

“I’m very sorry to hear that. May I ask why you are telling me this,” you say slowly. 

She looks at you with a small frown. “I guess, I'm trying to say sorry for your loss without saying those words exactly. I know that I hated hearing those words after Matt passed away but I have yet to figure out what should be said instead.”

“It definitely needs a little more work,” you say lightly and she smiles. “Thank you, I suppose. Uh…” you look at your watch and see that it's getting closer to the time that your friend is coming to pick you up and you're not certain you want them to anymore. “This might be too personal of a question but… Did you ever attend a support group after your husband passed?” 

“Ah, is that what you're anxious about?” You give her a confused expression and she apologizes. “Your face kind of drops every time you look at your watch,” she points out and you feel your cheeks heat up from the inability to hide your emotions. “I went to them for a while. I still go sometimes… It's… well, it's kind of something to just do. I didn't always like going in the beginning but I would still make time for it. I found it helpful sometimes. It was nice to kind of process in a room full of strangers that kind of get it, you know?” 

“So you think it's worth it?”

“I think it couldn't hurt to try but I don't really know you well enough to help you make that decision.”

Your lips raise in a small amused smile. “Smart,” you remark. Leigh nods in acknowledgement. “I think I’m going to give it a shot,” you say and give a small awkward wave goodbye. You cross the street to your house and take another shower with your music playing through a small portable speaker. Once you’re dressed, you lock your front door and sit on the porch steps as you wait for your ride. You weren’t going to allow yourself to talk yourself out of going. 

Anxiously, you check your watch and your phone as you wait for Stevie. You watch a pizza delivery car appear and disappear when you finally decide to call your friend. They apologize, and explain that traffic was worse than usual. You laugh and tell them that it was California, of course it was bad. Then you tell them that you’ll be waiting for them and hopefully the two of you weren’t too late to the meeting. When you hang up the phone, you look up to see someone approaching you with a plate in her hands. “I thought you might be hungry,” Leigh says as she gets closer. 

“Just couldn’t stay away from me, could you?” You tease her. She scoffs as she hands you the flimsy paper plate. “Thank you, I appreciate this.” You notice that she has a second plate and although it’s the last thing you want to do, you scoot over to make some room for her. “I could use the company,” you shyly remark as you take a bite of the pizza. 

“I suppose I can stay for a bit,” she says as though it was an inconvenience. Just as you’re about to come up with a clumsy response she sits down and nudges you with a short laugh as she tells you that she was only kidding. “I saw you all alone out here and couldn’t decide if you were waiting for someone or trying to convince yourself to leave.” 

“Ah, the curiosity must’ve been eating you alive.”

“That, and I have a bet with Jules. Five bucks if I’m right and ten if I can convince you to get in your car.” You laugh at their little game as you ask what her sister gets if she wins. “If she’s right she gets the five dollars, ten if it’s a date.” 

You scratch at your chin, still amused by their bet, and curious about how much Leigh has told her sister about you. “Interesting, so I’m assuming she doesn’t know about… me.” Leigh shakes her head and clears her throat as she explains that she felt it wasn’t her place. You thank her again. “I hate to make you lose five dollars, but I am indeed waiting for a friend. Not a date though. I needed someone to take me to this thing,” you elaborate for her. 

Leigh snaps her fingers and clicks her teeth. “Damn, and here I thought I was the expert on all things grief,” she jokes. 

“A little more research and I’m sure you’ll get there. Everyone is different, you know, and all you have to go on is your own experience.” You say more than you probably should have but Leigh doesn’t say anything against it. She goes quiet as she considers your words instead of telling you she was only making a joke. 

“So, okay, like I despised hearing the words ‘sorry for your loss’ but maybe someone like you might’ve appreciated them?” Leigh tries to further the conversation and you take notice. 

You hum as you think about it. “I don’t think I’m the type that despises or appreciates that phrase, but it’s not to say that someone out there does or doesn’t. I don’t care either way, to me they’re just words.”

“Uh-huh, and is that something you would want your readers to know?” 

You scoff, “What do my readers have to do with it?”

“Well, you would think a published author would care more about words than anyone else. I’m only a freelance no-name writer and even I am meticulous with the words and phrases I use in a piece.” Leigh explains and you instantly feel your blood run cool and your heart rate pick up. 

“Are you a reporter?” You ask carefully. 

Her eyes widen as she jumps into apologies. “Gosh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you like that. No, I used to write an advice column and now I just write product reviews or about my journey as a widow. I’ve never done a sneaky piece on a person. Except for one time in college but the guy was a total douche,” she quickly explains. You nod, clenching and unclenching your jaw rapidly as you decide whether or not you’re going to trust this kind stranger. 

You clear your throat and set the paper plate under your foot as you wipe your hands. “I suppose, words, as many other things in my life, have lost meaning to me. I don’t know whether or not I care that my readers know that. My team might but even they don’t matter as much to me as they used to. At this point in my life, if I wasn’t under contract, I wouldn’t give a fuck if I never wrote another book again.” 

Leigh nods slowly, she remembers not caring if the world kept spinning. But she could see how you were likely suffering more than her, you lost your family in one fell swoop whereas she only lost her husband. As Danny had rudely pointed out to her once, she could remarry. But you can’t get your child back. It had to be different for you and so much worse. In the grand scheme of things, Leigh reminded herself, a death was still a death. Your child will never grow to graduate or marry or have kids of their own. Matt graduated and married but there was still so much life he had yet to live. She had to shut her eyes to clear her head and stop the comparisons. They were no use to anybody. “Can I have your book deal then?” She slips in the joke. You look at her with a scoff and she has a slow growing smile that only makes you laugh even more. 

Stevie pulls up and hears your uncontrollable laughter when they roll down their window. They shut the car off and strut up the driveway to see what has gotten you to laugh that loud for the first time in forever. They notice the woman laughing next to you and smile. “Hello!” They greet with a big smile. Your laughter dies out, and so does Leigh’s. She is a little sad that the conversation with you has to end, but is also glad that you’ll get to experience a meeting. “Sorry I’m so late, traffic was dreadful,” Stevie introduces themself to Leigh with a sharp handshake. 

“I’m Leigh, Y/n’s new neighbor,” she greets. They ask how long she’s been in the neighborhood because they haven’t seen her around before. “Oh just today, actually, Y/n saved us while we were unloading the truck.” 

“Oh, Y/n has always worked fast like that,” Stevie teases. 

“Watch it,” you warn your friend as you pick up the empty plates. “They’re full of shit. Don’t believe a word they say,” you mutter to Leigh. “About time you got here, by the way,” you say to your friend before telling them that you’re going to toss the plates and then the two of you can go. 

  Stevie replaces you on the steps that Leigh has yet to move from. “So,” they drag out suggestively. “What are your intentions with my best friend?” 

Leigh lets out a short laugh. “Nothing, I’m only being neighborly.” 

Stevie squints their eyes skeptically, “You know about them, don’t you?” Leigh was surprised by your friend's sensitive intuition, but she didn’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing. She doesn’t say a word before Stevie starts talking again. “Mourning author with a popular series and more money than any individual needs access to…” they tiptoe around accusing Leigh to test out her response. Unfortunately for your friend, you return having overheard the small exchange. 

“You know, Stevie, you’re the only gold digger around here for miles,” you defend.

They flip their hair and strike a pose, “You flatter me too much, darling. This is California!” They shout the last word to the quiet neighborhood. “We’re everywhere, doll!”

You look to Leigh with apologetic eyes for your eccentric friend, “Please do not let my poor choice in friendship be a reflection of me. Stevie isn’t usually this…” you wave your hand in Stevie’s direction as you fail to come up with a descriptive word. Giving up, you sigh. “Well, no, this is just Stevie.” 

Stevie dips their chin towards their chest to lower their sunglasses, “And don’t you forget it, darling! Now, we must be on our way!” Stevie stands from the steps and offers their hand to Leigh again. “Tootles, hun, it was fabulous to meet you!” They walk off to the car and Leigh can’t help but burst out into another big laugh. 

You stand there blushing, waiting for a moment to speak. “Yeah, uh, Stevie was the first friend I made when I moved to LA as a starving artist. They’re not a bad person, they can just be… a lot.” You explain. 

Leigh settles her laughter as she tells you that it’s fine. “You don’t have to explain anything to me. Stevie seems great. I didn’t enjoy the implications, but I get feeling protective over those you care about. If I had a friend like you, I’m sure I wouldn’t want anyone to talk to them during their most vulnerable time either.” 

You worry that it means this will be the last conversation that the two of you will have. Part of you hopes that is the case. The last thing you needed to do was move on so quickly. Or was that exactly what you needed? You clear your throat. “Right, well, I should go. Thank you for the pizza and the company.” You say politely before wishing her a goodnight and walking to the waiting car. 

“I like her,” Stevie says as they pull away. “But you’re not ready for her. Keep your distance.” You sigh as you connect your phone to Stevie’s car and play some music to help calm your anxiety.

Chapter 2

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