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bqstqnbruin · 3 years

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I hate it when you’re not around, and the fact that you didn’t call

OK so here we are with the penultimate part! BIG MASSIVE THANK YOU to the absolute loves of my life @pucksnsticksnhockeyboys and @fratboytj for helping me write this because I am a dumpster fire of a human and this would still be unfinished had it not been for them 💛💛💛

Hope you like it!

Read the whole series: I hate the way you talk to me and the way you cut your hair // I hate the way you drive my car // I hate it when you stare // I hate your big dumb combat boots and the way you read my mind // I hate you so much it makes me sick, it even makes me rhyme // I hate the way you’re always right // I hate it when you lie // I hate it when you make me laugh, even worse when you make me cry // I hate it when you’re not around, and the fact that you didn’t call // But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you, not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all

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“This right here is our issue!”

“I don’t care. You need to leave.”

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You and Evelina were leaving for Los Angeles the next day, the presentation not quite done yet as your boss bombarded both of you with texts asking for updates while you were just trying to relax at home after what had been a stressful week of work. The two of you had turned into gremlins as soon as you came home, hair tied back, sweatshirts on, hoods up, facing each other while sitting cross-legged on your living room floor, typing faster than you probably needed to every time your boss sent a new suggestion.

“Does he really think adding in a transition between these two slides is going to do anything? Like, there are no other animations in the entire presentation, why these two slides?” you huff, pushing the fly-away hair out of your face as you look to Evelina, hunched over her laptop with her computer screen illuminating her face.

Your phones continue buzzing as you try to put the finishing touches on your laptops. “Whatever this man is smoking, I need some to deal with him,” Evelina mutters. You look up from your computer, questioning the statement that just came out of her mouth. “What?” she asks, “Don’t act like you wouldn’t, too.”

“I’m texting him and telling him we’re going to stop for the night and talk with him in person about it tomorrow at the airport and on plane,” you tell her, setting your computer down next to you. You lay down on the floor, stretching your body out with your hands over your head, your toes pointed, groaning so loud you practically scream as your phone lays silently next to you.

“Have you heard from Matthew?” Evelina asks, breaking the silence that was normally broken by texts from him.

You shake your head, sitting up again. “Not a word.”

“Have you tried to talk to him?”

You take in a deep breath, closing your eyes as you pick up your laptop again. “Nope. Nothing posted on our stories on Instagram or Snapchat in a week, no texts, no calls, no Facetimes, our streak gone on Snap. We’re both radio silent,” you start, trying to fight back the tears that you knew were coming. This was for the best, maybe. You didn’t need to be preoccupied with the idea of liking someone that was just going to hurt you. He was only meant to be your friend. Your best friend.

“I’m sorry, babe,” she says, turning her head. A small piece of paper under your couch catches her eye, stretching to see what it was. “What is this? ‘For Ev and Hg’ Who’s Hg?”

“I think that’s me,” you say, reaching for the card, Matthew’s messy writing scrawled across the small paper. It must have fallen off the box that had the jerseys in it, you figure.

“That’s not right,” she says, pulling a laugh from you.

“Matthew calls me that: Hg is the chemical symbol for mercury, coming from hydrargyrum, the Latinized form of the Greek word hydrargyros, which means water-silver. Mercury stops oxygen from reaching the brain and it drives you crazy. He’s saying that I drive him crazy,” you explain, a sad smile on your face as you play with the card, curling the corners of it slightly just so you had something to do.

“That is surprisingly smart and cute for him,” Evelina gushes, a sudden wave of sadness washing over her. “I think this is my fault,” she admits.

“What?”

“Matthew not talking to you. Matthew knowing about the list.” You stare at her, not sure what to say. What was she talking about? “I told him about it the night you started it.”

“What the fuck?” you scream, “That’s the reason we had this whole fight in the first place. That’s why we aren’t talking right now. Ev, you ruined my friendship with Matthew!”

“You’ll get through it,” she tries to reassure you, unable to look at you. “Couples fight all the time.”

“We were not a couple!” you yell, standing up. “And now, because of you, we never will be.”

“Is that what you wanted?” she yells back, getting up with you as if you were about to start physically fighting. “Do you want to be a couple? Or do you just want him to be your friend? I don’t care anymore, but until you figure out what the fuck you want, you can’t fix this.”

You look down at your feet, wiggling your toes in the socks you had on. “You’re right,” you admit to her, trying to stay as calm as you could. “But why did you have to tell him about that list? What do you think it’s like to find out that someone you care about has been keeping something like this from you?” You stand there quietly for a minute, neither of you sure what to say to the other. “I’m going to go to my room,” you say, finally breaking the silence, “Just, don’t bother me for a little bit, ok?” You don’t let her answer, picking up your computer from the floor and retreating to your room to lock yourself in for the time being.

Evelina sits down on the floor, trying to figure out what she can do. This was her fault. Or was it yours? She had suggested the list, but you were the one who went along with it. She made the bet, but you wouldn’t drop it. She wanted you to be with Matthew, but you have been fighting it no matter what everyone else tells you.

She shakes her head, picking up her computer, a reminder from her calendar coming up in the top corner: Flames @ Kings, 7:00 p.m. Friday. Staples Center. With all this bullshit, would you even still want to go to the game? Evelina pulls up her phone, hearing loud music coming from your room, thankful that you wouldn’t be able to hear her conversation.

“I can see on her Spotify that she’s playing the playlist we entitled “depressed bitch” when she broke up with her last boyfriend and I can’t stand to see her like this. Why did you have to bring up the list?” Evelina barks into her phone.

“Why did you have to have Y/N start the list in the first place?” Matthew’s voice comes through on the other end. “With no list, then we wouldn’t be in this fucked up mess in the first place. You’re the reason I’m not talking to her.”

She knew he was taking his anger out on her. And he’s right, as much as she hated to admit it. “I know it’s my fault,” she says, begrudgingly, “which is why I’m trying to fix this. She cried for five hours after you left last week. She did not sleep for two days and I think the only reason she did was because our boss is an exhausting jackass. It’s because of you and me, and she’s made her peace with me as far as I can tell. I need you back in the picture.”

“Why?”

“Matthew,” Evelina groans, hating that she had to explain her reasoning to him, “you’re good for her. You’re good to her. You listen to her. You hear her. From the moment you met her, you were absolutely infatuated with her.”

“Yeah.”

“So why haven’t you talked to her in a week?”

She hears him let out a deep sigh, swearing she could hear him sniffle as if he were crying. “Because I’m in love with her. I love Y/N. And I know that the more I try to pull her back to me, the harder she’s going to push away.”

“Why do you love her?” Evelina asks, grabbing her computer, an idea popping into her head as she balances her phone between her shoulder and her ear, pulling up a blank document.

He scoffs, starting, “Her way of relaxing herself is by ranting about obscure facts that no sane person would actually care enough to read, let alone commit to memory. And she absolutely lights up when she tells you this stuff. She has this, this soft smile that still somehow reaches her eyes when she’s talking. At the end of her rant she makes that face where she scrunches her nose because she thinks it’s embarrassing that she just spewed all those facts to you.”

“Keep going,” Evelina instructs him, her fingers flying over her keyboard as he talks.

“Are you typing?”

“I’m working on...work. Keep going, I’m listening,” she says fast, hoping that he wouldn’t question her.

“I like how she dresses, and I know you think she doesn’t have good style but hear me out: she dresses how she’s comfortable. She doesn’t dress up often because it’s not something she wants to do so it’s not something she does do. But, fuck, when I see her dressed up in the slightest, she looks beautiful. She looks great in anything she wears.”

Evelina couldn’t help but smile as she continued to type, not even needing to egg Matthew on to keep spilling his guts to her, his voice getting more confident with everything he listed. “Have you ever noticed how she doesn’t hold a pen correctly? What was it, her grandmother taught her to write outside of school so when she went to school and already knew her teachers saw that so they didn’t focus on her and catch that she was holding it wrong? So now she’s constantly playing with it to distract herself from that fact, which makes no sense, but whatever. And she has ink all over her hands all the time because she keeps twirling it between her fingers and dropping it.”

“She’ll joke that it’s ‘abstract art.’” Evelina cuts in, both of them laughing.

“Come on, even you love that. She’s so stubborn. Once she gets any idea in her head, she won’t give it up because she knows she’s right. It drives me crazy.”

“Mercury,” Evelina mutters.

“What was that?”

“We found the card that you wrote with the jerseys,” she explains, peeling her shoulder away from her face and holding the phone with her hand for a moment, “You call her Mercury because she drives you crazy.”

Matthew stays silent for a moment, forgetting that you were supposed to see him in Los Angeles against the Kings that Friday. “Are you still coming to that?”

“You mean is she still coming with me?” He doesn’t answer again, leaving Evelina to fill the empty space in the conversation. “I’m going to try to get her there. I want her there. And I know she wants to be there, too.”

“I remember the night we met,” Matthew says, changing subjects, not wanting to think about the possibility of not seeing you at that game, “it was just a normal night out with the guys and then two girls who we hadn’t seen before walked in. And normally we wouldn’t think anything of it, but,” he exhales, “I don’t know. The entire energy of the bar changed. All of us felt it. And then the two of you walked up to us. You were fucking annoying,” he jokes, earning a scoff from Evelina.

“Watch yourself Tkachuk, don’t make me mad right now.”

Rolling his eyes, even though he knew she couldn't see him, he continues, “The guys loved you immediately, it was like you had known them for years the way you fit in. But then there was Y/N. She’s your exact opposite: you were this loud force of nature but she was quiet. There was just something about her that I had to get to know her. I knew she was different around people she’s comfortable with and I just had to be one of those people. Couldn’t even tell you why.”

Matthew keeps talking, Evelina typing as he keeps telling her about his feelings. In a lull in your music, you can hear her laugh from your room, thinking to yourself that you were glad at least one of you was having fun with whatever it was they were doing. You finally sit up, having been sprawled on your back on your bed staring at your ceiling trying to think of something, anything that wasn’t Matthew. You look around your room, trying to ground yourself from the pain you felt from not hearing from him, not wanting to reach out to him to begin with. You see your computer on your dresser, forgetting that you put it there once you got to your room, getting up to put something on from Hulu.

Out of the corner of your eye, in the reflection of your mirror, you see a black sleeve sticking out from the rest of the clothing that was hanging on the back of your door. You put your computer on your desk, flipping through the clothing to see what it was. You pull it off whatever hanger it was on, a wool winter pea coat, definitely not yours.

Because it was Matthew’s. When you first met him, you were so comfortable around each other. You could go over his place with ease, not feeling awkward when you fell asleep on his shoulder while watching a movie, feeling completely normal when you woke up the next morning and used his bathroom as if it were your own, eventually keeping some stuff there for when you did stay over, no matter how little use it served you the night after the charity event.

He was the same at your place. He has stuff around your room everywhere, you never really blinking an eye at the pair of his sweatpants and the tshirt that were somewhere in your drawers for when he slept over. Not even a year ago, he left in the sweatshirt, the coat he wore the night before left on the couch without you realizing it, making its home on the back of your door only to get shuffled right up against the wood as you hung more and more clothing in front of it.

You walk over to your bed, not taking your eyes off the coat. You sit down on your bed, hearing some sort of jingling sound from somewhere in the coat. Digging through the pockets, you can feel something metal in the front right one, a piece of paper poorly folded around it. Should you be going through the pockets of someone else's coat?

Who cared at this point? You take out the contents of the pocket: a key and a receipt. Your heart was racing, having a feeling about what both of these things meant. The receipt was dated the night you went out to the bar when you moved to Calgary, the night you met Matthew and the rest of the boys. Matthew’s name was on the bottom signaling that it was his, a few drinks circled by who you assumed was him.

Those were the drinks he bought for you that night, the drinks he would always ask you if you wanted befor you could get a word in first, ‘vodka sour = lemon,’ and something else you couldn’t quite make out written on the side. The next time you were out with them, a vodka sour was the drink he bought you because you told him you liked lemon but hadn’t found a drink that you liked with it in it. That was the drink he bought you the night of the charity event.

On the back of the receipt, again in Matthew’s handwriting, ‘my home is your home, Y/N.’ In your hand was a key, with a lemon charm hanging off of it.

It was a key to his apartment.

You couldn’t begin to fathom the emotions that washed over you in that moment, knowing that he was going to give you his key, probably before you even thought of giving him one for your place. Fuck, you didn’t even give him one, Evelina did. You didn’t even think about it, and there he was, a key for you, planned out, thoughtful, meaningful. You felt like crying because of sweet it was.

You pick up your phone, pulling up Matthew’s contact to call him. Your finger hovers over the button. All you had to do was press the button, and you would talk to him for the first time in a week. Before you can tell yourself no, you hit the button, a picture of the two of you coming up on your screen, ‘Matthew, calling,’ rolling over your phone in bold white text.

You didn’t even know what you were going to say, holding the phone to your ear. Actually, you knew what you wanted to say, hearing the phone ring, and ring, and ring. It wouldn’t stop ringing.

It was a sign. One that you shouldn’t be calling him, hanging up immediately and blocking his number so that he can’t try to call you back. If you were meant to be with him, then he would have answered when you wanted to talk to him most. He would have called you first.

Every emotion you felt turned into anger. You wanted him to call you. You wanted him to be there for you, because if this were happening with another guy, Matthew would be the one sitting there on the bed with you talking you down when this hypothetical man didn’t answer.

“Mother fucker!” you scream, throwing the key against your door, letting it drop to the ground, wishing it was smashed.

Evelina hears you, hoping that the conversation with Matthew would end soon so that she can go check on you when he says, “What about how she’s always so quick with her chirps? I have never met someone who’s so fast with a comeback. She’s better than any guy in the NHL. Better than anyone,” Matthew says, still on the phone with Evelina, his voice getting quiet. “Better than anyone,” he repeats himself.

“I’ve known Y/N’s last two boyfriends and between her and Thomas recounting the high school boyfriend, I feel like I knew the third,” she says, partially regretting bringing up Thomas’s name, “You really love her?”

“Haven’t I said that already?” he snaps.

“Yes, but I want you to say it again. She is my best friend and has had plenty of people say that they are in love with her. You’re the first one she’s been in love with back, though.”

Matthew’s breath hitches at those words. If Evelina was saying it about you, then it had to be true he figured. “Of course I do.”

“Ok,” is all Evelina can say, leaving the two of them in silence for a few seconds.

“Uh, bye, I guess,” Matthew says, hoping the awkward silence that fell between them would end.

“I’ll text you later about something. Bye,” Evelina hangs up the phone, letting out a long sigh before getting off the floor. Wandering to your room, she knocks on your door, waiting for any sign of life from you to tell her she could come in. “What is this?” she asks after stepping on the key, handing it back to you, plopping herself down on your bed..

“Matthew was going to give me a key to his apartment,” you tell her, waving it around in the air.

“When?” You shrug, honestly not sure how long ago the coat was left there, not sure how long it had been in his pocket in the first place. “I need to ask you something,” she says.

Not really paying attention, that stupid key in your hand, you answer her anyway, “What?”

“Do you like him?”

“Him who?”

Evelina rolls her eyes at you, telling you who even though she really didn’t need to. “Matthew.”

“Of course I do. He’s my best friend besides you.”

“Do you love him?”

“Why hasn’t he called?” you ask, quietly, her instead.

Evelina sighs, “He probably wants to give you space,” she tells you, even though she knows the real answer. “He just wants you to go to him when you’re ready. You know he would never push you to do something you don’t want to.”

The two of you sit there in silence for a moment, neither of you sure what to say. Would Matthew want you to reach out first? If he did, why didn’t he answer the phone just now? “Y/N,” Evelina presses, you knowing that she wanted you to respond to the question you intentionally left unanswered.

You pick up the receipt that was beside you, the key still in your hand, wondering how he could have thought yo give you the key before you even thought about it yourself. And why did he never give it to you? “Ev. I said no. He’s just like Thomas. He loves me and I don’t feel the same way, and I’ve lost him just like I lost Thomas,” you insist.

“You didn’t lose him,” she tries to reassure you. “This is going to work out.”

“How do you know that, Ev? He means everything to me. You and him are the two people outside of my family that I care the most about. What does it say about our friendship that we get into some stupid fight and now we don’t talk for a week?”

“Y/N,” she lets out a small laugh, “He loves you.”

You shake your head, swallowing hard as you turn the key over in your hand for what felt like the thousandth time. “If he did he would be here right now. He would have called, he would have done something to show me that he cared about me.”

“Y/N,” she tries.

“No, Ev. Can we just drop it?” you beg, reaching over to your nightstand and throwing the key and receipt in the drawer. “We have to work on our presentation, we leave tomorrow, and we still need to finish packing.”

The rest of the night was spent by the two of you not saying more than monosyllabic sentences to each other while you worked on the finishing touches of your presentation, packing the last of what you needed for the trip and triing to get your mind off Matthew. You zip your bag up, satisfied that you were finished when you see the jersey Matthew gave you sitting there on your floor, in a pile of other clothing you meant to put away.

You pick it up, like you did the jacket that was now sitting on the couch, a note laying on top of it for Evelina to give it back to Matthew. Sighing, you fold up the jersey, leaving your room to go put it with the coat. You didn’t want it. You had no need for it. All you could do was let it go.

You couldn’t sleep the night, any time you closed your eyes and managed to doze off, Matthew’s image flashed through your mind. Every single memory you had with him seemed to be manifesting themselves in your dreams, unable to shake him no matter what you did.The nights you spent together on the couch watching whatever was on TV, teaching him to make your favorite cookies, even though he burned them to a crisp no matter how many times he would check the oven, the two of you going Christmas shopping for your families, buying each other the dumbest gifts you could find to see who you laugh harder. Not a single bad memory came up, besides the last time you saw him. Was everything with Matthew actually that perfect? Or were you blocking things out?

Your alarm goes off but you were already awake for it, groaning loudly prompting Evelina to come running to your room. “Are you ok?” she asks in a panic. “Babe, did you sleep at all last night?”

You didn’t even want to know how awful you looked, just hoping that you would be able to cover it up with makeup and get some semblance of sleep while on the plane even if it were only a three hour flight. “Maybe an hour?” you guess, even though you were sure that was an over exaggeration. “Whatever. We have to go get ready.” You get out of your bed and storm to the bathroom, closing the door before Evelina could even say anything.

You looked like you had been hit by a truck, hating how you came across as you stared at yourself in the mirror. Your eyes were red, the bags underneath them so rich in color they could probably be designer, your skin discolored like you were sick. You would need makeup and a miracle to fix yourself at this point.

“Y/N?” Evelina says, opening the door without you inviting her in. “I found the coat and jersey.” You make eye contact with her through the mirror, pursing your lips and nodding as you get back to putting on your makeup. “You really don’t want them?” You shake your head, swallowing hard. If you kept them, then they would tempt you to go back to him. Getting rid of them was the only thing you could do. “I put them in my room for now, ok?” You nod again, still not saying a word.

“I’m worried about you,” Evelina says. “Even with those other guys you’ve broken up with, they have never left you this broken.”

“I’m over it. I’m just tired.”

“We both know you’re lying about this. You know how you feel. You know that you’re in love with him, you always have been.”

You put your makeup down on the counter, staring at the powder in it’s container. “I can’t say it.”

Evelina takes a step back. “What?” she asks, surprised by your response.

“Thomas said he loved me, and that was it. The friendship was over and we haven’t seen him in years. If I say it to Matthew, if I admit it at all, then it’s going to be done. It already is done and I never said it.”

Evelina could feel her heart breaking, trying everything she could not to start crying in front of you, worrying that it would set you off as well. “You know that’s not true.”

“I do in my head, but not in my heart,” you say, letting out a laugh, “That sounds like something from a stupid Hallmark movie.” Evelina lets out a small laugh with you as you continue. “Can we just drop it this weekend? We just have to get through this conference. And get through a weekend with our boss.”

“Ok. I’m gonna go finish getting ready, then,” Evelina says, backing out of the bathroom.

By the time both of you are finished getting ready, your boss had texted you that you needed to be outside waiting for him in the next ten minutes when they pulled up with the car that all of you were taking. “Ok, last check. Boarding passes?” you start your list.

“Mine is the front pocket of my bag, yours are in the folder you have with your computer.”

“Passport?”

“Same places as the boarding passes for both of us.”

“Computers?”

“Side pocket of your bag, middle of my bag.”

“Chargers?”

“Somewhere in my bag I have a phone charger and a computer charger for both of us.”

You keep going through the long list, both of you knowing where the other kept everything. You freeze when you get to the last thing on the list, written in Evelina’s hand writing instead of your own. “Jerseys.”

“I have mine. Yours is in my room.”

“Good,” you say, almost completely forgetting about the game. You shake your head as if to physically shake the thought of Matthew from your mind. “Got your keys?” you ask Evelina, her waving them in your face as you grab yours, too. “Let’s go then.”

The two of you lug your stuff towards the door, opening it and ready to leave when you see him there. “Matthew?” you say, surprised to see him standing in your doorway, a bouquet of flowers in hand, a guilty expression on his face as he looked like he hadn’t slept for days. “What are you doing here?” you ask in shock, feeling your heart start to race.

“Can we talk?” he asks quietly, debating on stepping into your apartment or not.

“No. We’re leaving for the airport now, we don’t have time,” you tell him, trying to move past him.

“Come on, we need to talk,” he insists, putting his arm against the frame of your door to stop you from moving past him.

“Why should I listen to you?” you ask, looking up at him.

“Because I love you.”

#matthew tkachuk #matthew tkachuk imagine #calgary flames #calgary flames imagine #flames #flames imagines #nhl #nhl imagines #hockey #hockey imagines

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girlgrouptrash101 · 4 years

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Doyeon (Weki Meki) - Opposites Attract

Request: “Can I fulfill all our dreams and ask for a biker, rebellious Doyeon fluff with her girlfriend who’s a rule follower and how they got together? I hope that makes any sense but pls take this prompt in any way you want!”

Word Count: 4,059 Words

Warnings: nothing but fluff!

A/N: i know i’ve been inactive for a while, but i hope this scenario can make up for it a lil bit :’]

p.s. stream crush for biker doyeon heheh (https://youtu.be/bT2AMc8hI6A)

- C

The sun was beaming down upon you as you walked to school, your backpack weighed down with textbooks you needed for homework last night. You had all your buttons done up on your shirt, your uniform tie laying perfectly below your collar. It was clear you were proud to live up to your goody two shoes nickname, with immaculate grades and a pristine track record that has been kept that way ever since you stepped foot into high school.

After a few minutes more of walking, you found yourself approaching the school doors. Your best friend, Choi Yoojung, was sitting on the wall outside school waiting for you to arrive. She hopped down as soon as she saw you, walking over with her signature bright smile.

“Hey Yoo, how did you find the maths homework last night?” You asked as both of you headed towards the main entrance of the school.

“It was pretty easy, I got it done in about an hour, you?” Yoojung countered, your conversation carrying you all the way into the school until you reached your lockers. After taking your textbooks out of your bag, you grabbed your biology copy and workbook to prepare for your morning triple class. You quite enjoyed biology, finding it one of your easier subjects. The only thing you didn’t like about that class was the seating arrangements. Most notably, your benchmate, Kim Doyeon.

Doyeon was known by every student, teacher and staff member in the whole school. She was notorious for being a delinquent, your typical highschool rulebreaker who seemed to get off on making everyone else’s life a misery. Everyone could hear her coming whenever she arrived at school, her motorbike making enough noise to deafen the whole town. You could only hope that today she had chosen to skip class so you could be left alone to do your work.

However, it seemed all your hoping and wishing had changed nothing, as Doyeon found herself sauntering into the biology lab five minutes after class had started. She barely acknowledged the teacher as she headed towards you, a lazy smirk painted on her features that made you want to roll your eyes and blush all at the same time. It was unfair that she got to look so good, it made disliking her so much harder than you’d ever like to admit.

“What’s up princess?” She asked smugly, slouching down on the lab chair in her scruffy uniform and leather jacket. You did your best to ignore her, your hair falling down to cover your face as you tried to focus on the handout your teacher had given you earlier. It was hard to deny that your heart skipped a little at the pet name, but you shook off the feeling, knowing that she’d probably said the same thing to every other student in this building.

“Ignoring me already? That’s not very kind of you is it? I thought you were nicer than that, Y/N.” She pressed further, sitting sideways on her chair to face you.

“What’s wrong Doyeon, what do you want?” You replied coldly, not wanting to miss out on any more class time. You wished she would just turn back around, and stop staring at you with those deep brown eyes, or you’d be sure to forget about your work completely and give into her charming ways. Doyeon was about to flirt with you again when, thank god, your biology teacher interrupted your conversation.

“Hey, Y/N, Doyeon, keep it quiet back there!” Your teacher said sternly, giving you both a look before returning her attention back to the papers she had been marking since the beginning of the lesson. You were quick to shut your mouth, not used to being scolded by your teachers.

“I just want to talk to you Y/N, is that such a crime?” Doyeon pressed once again, paying no mind to the teacher, or the fact that she hadn’t answered a single question on her sheet. You did your best to try and focus on your work, putting up a cold front in an attempt to stop Doyeon from talking to you, or even worse, trying to make you fall for her. As much as you wanted to give into the taller girl, you knew it would only end in heartbreak. Her track record with relationships was notorious throughout the school, and you knew that you’d be no exception to her cruel ways.

“Doyeon, really, you don’t ever want to talk to anyone except your group of dumbass friends. All you want is to bother me, then forget my name as soon as you leave this class.” You finally huffed out in response, watching Doyeon’s smirk drop at your words. Instead of responding, she just lowered her head and turned away from you. A pang of guilt could be felt in your stomach, and you wondered if you actually hurt her feelings. The minutes sped past as you sat there, completely unfocused and figuring out how to apologize to the girl beside you. In all your worrying, you completely lost track of time, and soon, the class was over.

“Alright, I expect those worksheets should be done by now, if not, well there’s your homework tonight.” You looked down at your unfinished paper, groaning as you knew you’d be done if Doyeon hadn’t been bothering you in the first place.

“Aside from that sheet, your finals are coming up soon. Instead of your result being 100% based on a written exam, I’m designating 40% to be given on a project. Make note of who your bench partners are, because they’ve now become the key to you getting your full marks in this assignment.” Your heart dropped at her words as you heard a scoff from beside you, and you knew you’d really pissed Doyeon off earlier. You had to apologize and focus on getting a good grade in this project, and you could only hope that Doyeon would accept and help you with the workload.

“Well, looks like I’ll be doing pretty well in biology this year, doesn’t it princess?” Doyeon asked, the cocky smirk back on your lips. The kindness she had shown in her compliments had disappeared, as she spat out the pet name in a way that just felt so wrong. You sighed a little as you watched her leave, before grabbing her wrist in an attempt to make her stay for a second.

“Give me your sheet.” You asked her.

“What?”

“Just pass it here.” You sighed, taking her worksheet and using the pen on her desk to write down your number.

“I’m sorry for what I said earlier, Doyeon, I didn’t mean to be insensitive. But, I know your reputation when it comes to school, and I’ll be damned if you think this project is being done by me alone. Text me when you’re free, you’re not getting out of this one.” And with that, you spun on your heel and left, not sparing a glance at the stunned girl sitting at her desk.

Doyeon was laughing to herself as you left, amused by your sudden bold actions. She couldn’t help but look down at the number written on your sheet, thinking about how cute you are when you’re annoyed. She hadn’t even been angry at you at all earlier, she just figured that acting upset would be the best way to get your attention, and she was so glad it worked.

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

II.

Two days had passed without a word from Doyeon, so you found yourself at home alone, researching topics on your computer. You scrolled endlessly through websites, videos, anything to give you some inspiration on your topic. Almost an hour into your research, your phone pinged with a notification from an unknown number.

“What’s up, princess.” The message read. Your eyes rolled back in annoyance but your heart fluttered at her words. However, you were more annoyed than you were smitten, as the two of you were running out of time to get things done, and it was clear she didn’t care as much about her grade in biology as you did.

“Nice of you to finally text me, Doyeon.” You replied.

“Well, it’s been a busy couple of days, you know. You’re just lucky I’m texting you now.” You couldn’t help but giggle at her reply, feeling the sarcasm coming right through the screen.

“Whatever. When are you free?”

“I’m always free for you baby.” She responded almost immediately, making you freeze, unable to think of a reply to such a text. You decided to keep it short and sweet, not wanting to embarrass yourself in front of the charming girl, even if it was only over text.

“Tomorrow, after school. My place.” You responded, quickly turning off your phone, not wanting to wait for a reply that could leave you even more flustered than before.

You lay in bed that night, thinking of everything that could go wrong if Doyeon came to your house… If she even turned up in the first place, of course.

In an attempt to push back your worries, your mind started to wonder as you thought of the girl in question. You couldn’t help but allow yourself to picture her in her leather jacket, with her flowing, brunette hair and those brown doe eyes that always seemed to have a hint of joy in them no matter how grumpy she tried to come across. Even though you weren’t the biggest fan of the girl’s reputation and the stories you heard, you’d still be a fool to deny how attractive she was. Sometimes you tried to ignore those stories, and focus on how nice she was to you in biology, hoping that it wasn’t all a ploy just to break your heart like she did everyone else’s.

You fell asleep eventually, your mind on overdrive about the mysterious girl that you really wanted to get to know better, but you were just afraid to do so.

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

III.

After another long day of gruelling classes, you found yourself sitting on the wall outside of school, waiting for Doyeon to show up. After a few more minutes of waiting and constantly checking your phone, you weren’t feeling confident that Doyeon was going to show. She struggled to make it to school usually, so you highly doubted that she’d make any effort to meet up after school hours to do more work. You decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and wait for ten more minutes, in case she was running late.

The minutes slowly ticked by, students pouring out of the school gates to head home for the evening, but none of them were Doyeon. You used your hands to lower yourself off the wall, your feet hitting the ground with a thud as you grabbed your backpack and slung it over your shoulders. You were just out of the school gates, heading home when a loud rumble started coming down the street. You turned to look behind you, seeing a familiar black motorbike heading your way. You scoffed as Doyeon pulled up beside you, dressed in all black, her leather jacket around her shoulders as usual. You merely watched as she parked her bike on the side of the road, pulling off her helmet and grinning at you.

“So nice of you to show up.” You deadpanned, making the tall girl laugh. She held out a spare helmet for you, motioning to get up on the bike with her. Your eyes widened at the thought, already adamantly shaking your head to say no.

“If you don’t hop on this bike right now, I’m not coming over and I’m not doing any of the project work.” She said simply, shrugging and holding the helmet out again for you to take. You crossed your arms, a frown set in your features as you looked the bike up and down, the fear making you swallow and look down at the ground.

“Come on, Y/N, just hold on tight. I promise you’ll be okay.” As much as you didn’t want to admit it, the sincerity in her voice really did put your mind at ease. You released a sigh, holding out your hand and reluctantly taking the helmet. You fumbled with it for a bit, not really knowing how to put it on your head, until Doyeon noticed and called you over. She helped you onto the bike, turning around to fit the protective gear onto your head. Your breath hitched in your throat as she leaned in closer to adjust the helmet a bit, your eyes scanning her face. It was the first time you’d ever been this close to her, and it was safe to say you really didn’t mind the view.

You were snapped out of your trance by Doyeon knocking on your helmet, laughing as you scowled at her antics.

“Hold on tight and don’t let go, okay?” She asked, looking back to see you nod once. You wrapped your arms around her waist, hugging tight out of fear. You gulped as you felt the bike moving, squashing yourself against Doyeon as much as you could. Your eyes were shut tight and your arms were like a vice grip around the taller girl’s waist. You could feel her laughing every time she felt your grip tighten, pulling her impossibly closer.

You had to yell the directions to your house over Doyeon’s shoulder, squealing every time she sped around a corner. Thankfully, you had reached your house a few minutes later, Doyeon pulling over in front of your gate.

“No one home?” She asked as she noticed the empty driveway, hopping off her bike before giving you a hand off the bike too. You explained that your parents were away at work, leaving you and Doyeon home alone all evening. You took the older girl’s hand and hopped off the bike, pulling off your helmet with your other hand. You both headed towards the front door, neither of you realising that you were still hand in hand as you went. After unlocking and stepping in the door, you stopped and looked down at your still intertwined hands. Doyeon noticed what was going on, shaking her hand out of your grip and awkwardly clearing her throat. A slight blush settled on her cheeks as you looked up, and you grinned at the intimidating girl’s sudden shy behaviour.

“Come on, my room is up here.” You kicked off your shoes, motioning for Doyeon to do the same, before following you upstairs. Doyeon stepped into your room after you launched yourself onto your bed, watching her take in her surroundings. You felt a little shy as she picked up a picture frame, a photo of you and your family being displayed on it.

“I really like your room Y/N, it’s very… you.” She said finally, before sitting down at the chair in front of your desk, spinning around on it while she waited for your response.

“And how would you know anything about me, Doyeon? I think I’ve seen you in class a total of four times this year?” You asked, a smirk gracing your lips. She simply turned to face you, her brow raised as she took in your comment.

“Believe it or not, I’m always in school, and I see much more than you’d know. I just don’t like biology.” You both laughed at her cheekiness, enjoying the unexpected comfortable silence that fell between you. Doyeon stared at you, your eyes meeting her gaze until you got flustered and looked down, clearing your throat out of nervousness.

“Uh, about the project, I did some research on topics if you wanna take a look..” You trailed off, watching as Doyeon came and sat beside you. You opened your laptop and pulled it onto your lap, the tall girl beside you leaning closer to see the screen.

“I think you should pick the topic, I trust your brain more than I trust mine. Just tell me what you need me to do, and I’ll get it done.” She replied, turning to smile at you. It was the first time you’ve ever gotten a real smile out of her, and it was so much nicer than the cocky smirks you’d become accustomed to. After picking a topic and assigning different parts of the project, both of you were working faster than you’d expected. Almost all of the project was done, and you just had to start putting together a presentation to give in front of your class.

“Doyeon, can I ask you something?”

“Mm, go ahead.”

“Why are you being nice to me?” You asked, sitting cross-legged on the floor as you leaned your head against the side of your bed. The taller girl was paying full attention now, turning to sit and face you.

“What do you mean? Have I been mean to you before Y/N?” She asked, her head cutely lilting to the side as her eyes showed nothing but genuine concern. You were honestly taken aback by the girl sitting in front of you, it seemed like a completely different person than you were used to.

“Well, not exactly I guess, but you’ve never had a proper conversation with me, and you always call me pet names in class and then go on and ignore me whenever you see me outside the biology lab.” You explained, looking straight into her big, brown eyes.

“Well, I guess we were just never in the same friend group outside of class, but I do apologize if I ever hurt your feelings, princess.” She laughed a bit at your reaction to the pet name, even though you didn’t really mind it.

“Come on Y/N, you know you love it when I call you that.” She continued, her tone a bit more serious than it had been before as she looked for your reaction to her words. You bit your lip slightly, trying to hide the blush that was threatening to creep up onto your cheeks.

“I mean… I guess I dont hate it…” You said finally, scratching the back of your neck and trying to look anywhere else except at the girl who was sitting across from you, chuffed to know that you didn’t really dislike her.

“This is a lot coming from the girl who tried to ignore me in class and called my friends dumbasses just a few days ago,” She piped up again, making you groan as you thought of what you had said back in the biology lab.

“I’m only gonna say this once, so listen up.” You said, half serious, half joking. “I’d like to apologise for what I said, and I’d also like to say sorry for judging you before I’d ever spent time with you. I’ve actually really enjoyed myself today, and I wasn’t expecting to. So… Thank you.” You finished, looking up to see a soft smile on Doyeon’s face.

You weren’t quite expecting her to crawl over beside you, nor were you expecting her to wrap an arm around your shoulder, but you can’t say you minded either of those actions. You stiffened a little at the unexpected contact, but you couldn’t help but lean closer into the girl’s side, feeling comfortable against her.

“Is this okay?” Doyeon asked, and your heart melted at her considerate words. You nodded, resting your hand on her thigh as you continued chatting away for the rest of the evening until Doyeon finally had to go. Both of you reluctantly got up, neither of you wanting to leave the other’s comfort and warmth. You walked her to the door, waiting for her to put her boots back on before she stepped out onto your porch.

“We can finish everything next week or whenever you h-”

Doyeon’s words were silenced by your lips on hers. You don’t know what came over you when you saw her standing there, the orange light of the sky framing her as the sun was setting in the distance. Your lips didn’t leave hers as she pulled you closer, both of you standing on her porch. Her hands gripped your waist tightly, her fingers squeezing you out of affection. After eventually pulling away in need of air, the two of you were shocked at what just happened.

“Sorry… I don’t really know why I did that…” You said,mumbling away to yourself as you tried to process what just happened.

“It’s okay, I… I liked it.” Doyeon said, her hand reaching out to grab your own. The blush on your cheeks was impossible to notice, even more so as Doyeon cupped your face with her free hand, pressing another soft kiss to your lips.

“Listen, I’d love to stay, but It’s getting late and I really have to go. Can we meet up after school tomorrow to… talk?” Doyeon asked, rubbing her thumb gently over your knuckles. You looked up at her with a smile, nodding as she smiled back, her eyes crinkling with joy. She leaned down once more, kissing you softly, before kissing the top of your hand and stepping off your porch to get back on her bike. You watched with a small smile as she drove off, her hair flowing from the wind as she headed into the distance.

After shutting the door and running back upstairs, you leapt onto your bed like a little kid, jumping around as the butterflies in your stomach went crazy. You pulled out your phone to text Yoojung what had happened, and it was safe to say that there was an alarming amount of exclamation marks and random love emojis thrown into the text, more than you’d ever like to admit to using.

You stayed up most of the night thinking about what had just happened, and praying that Doyeon would really stick around. Heartbreak wasn’t something you were ready for at this stage in your life, but you were confident that the tall girl felt the same way about you as you did for her. It was truly hard to believe that the Doyeon you had known yesterday was the same girl you kissed on your front porch mere minutes ago. Love worked in mysterious ways, and it was clear that you and Doyeon were no exception to the strange workings of fate.

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

IV.

“Can you believe that was a whole year ago, baby?” Doyeon asked, her arm around your shoulder. You were both laughing as you thought back to how awkward you’d been with each other. You couldn’t imagine life without Doyeon by your side now, the two of you were practically inseparable.

“Best year of my life though.” You finished, earning a kiss on the temple from your girlfriend at your sweet words. Doyeon had driven you both out to your secret spot on her bike, the two of you loving the privacy you had. It was just a small beach a little out of town, but not many people came here beside you two. You were sitting on the sand together as the sun set above the sea in front of you - the orange hues another reminder of the first kiss you two shared. The smile on your face could never be taken away, you felt like the happiest person in the world now that Doyeon was yours. This was love, it really was.

“I love you Y/N, thank you for brightening up my life when I really needed it.” You turned your head to face your girlfriend, your eyes closing as you saw she was already leaning in. Her kisses still brought butterflies to your tummy, and you could feel her smiling against your lips. You giggled as you pulled away, smitten and joyous, all thanks to the girl in front of you.

“I love you too Doyeon, so much.” You whispered out, pulling away from her lips slowly as you rested your head against her shoulder. This was true happiness, and you were never, ever going to let go of the girl beside you for as long as you could. Real love like this only comes around once in a lifetime, and it would be a crime for you to ever let something like this slip through your hands.

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kuroororo · 4 years

Text

The Tales of KurooCat and a Broke College Student: III

~~~

Art by vgmt_sue on twitter!

Long time waiting, but its here! All characters are 18+ ❤️

Part 1 Previously

~~~

It didn’t take long for you and Kuroo to fall into some sort of routine together. If anything, you were surprised at how natural it felt in the process.

While you were at classes, Kuroo liked to explore the campus in cat form. For the past week, you’ve heard a couple rumors about the school having more feline guests, but you were pretty sure it was just Kuroo they were talking about. When you’d get out of classes, he would return to the dorm room to greet you and turn back into a human. Thankfully, he was more forgiving towards clothes now.

You guys would have dinner, maybe ramen, maybe a sandwich, and afterwards you’d finish up on some assignments while Kuroo flipped through your textbooks. He was especially fond of chemistry.

“Tell me again how you’re failing this class?” Kuroo called from the bed. He was laying on his stomach, nose deep in your Intro to Organic Chemistry book. “This stuff is interesting as hell! It’s like a guidebook to all of the worlds secrets!”

“That’s a bit of stretch, but okay.” You said as you continued to work at your desk, typing viligantly. You scanned through your notes then to your work again before slapping a palm to your forehead. “Agh!! Labs fucking suck!”

Kuroo snickered. “Then why’re you taking the class?”

“For the credit. You think I’d spend that much money on a class I freaking hate?”

You heard Kuroo get up from the bed and walk over to your desk. Before you knew it, he was leaning over your shoulder, his warm breath right next to your ear.

“You spelled docosahexaenoic acid wrong.”

“Shit, you’re right” Highlighting the awful word, you left clicked to see if there were any autocorrect options to choose from. There were not. “Damn it- Hey, how do you know how to read anyways?”

Kuroo scoffed, almost offended. “Cats like me learn how to read at a young age like any other kid. The only difference is instead of storybooks, we use street signs and old newspapers.”

“I see.” You said, finding the correct spelling in your notes. “I didn’t mean to offend you or anything. I was just curious.”

Something akin to a purr or a hum resonated from next to your ear. You felt Kuroo nudge your cheek with his almost affectionately. “I know, kitty.”

You felt blood rush to your cheeks as they heated up in a blush. You hoped Kuroo hadn’t felt that. But the way his purring got louder and his nuzzles more affectionate, you regret to acknowledge that he did.

You felt him nose your cheek. “You should take a break, (Y/n).”

“Can’t. Labs due at 11:59. It’s 10:43 right now.”

“Maybe you should have managed your time better.” He snickered.

“All of my time this week has been managed by your needy ass.” You deadpanned. “You ask for cuddles all the time! You even turn into a cat to trick me into giving in!”

“Well, what am I supposed to do? You only give me cuddles when I’m in cat form.” He whined. He curled his hands in under his chin like paws and flattened his ears against his unruly heir like a mock attempt in to emulate a sad cat. “You gave me all of your attention just fine when you thought I was just a cat.”

“That’s precisely it. I thought you were just a cat.”

“Hmm, yeah. But you still seem to give me attention even after you found out I was more than that.”

Your fingers froze from their vigorous dance across the keyboard. If your cheeks weren’t red then, they sure as hell were now. And OF COURSE Kuroo noticed it too.

“Aw, my kitty likes me after all~”

“Shut your face!” You grit your teeth and fought the blush down. Slipping a hand between his face and yours, you pushed him away without sparing him a glance. “The only kitty here is you.”

“Hmm, you’re right.” You heard a poof and the sound of clothes dropping behind you. Before you knew it, a black tabby hopped up onto your desk and laid himself across your keyboard on his back. The last sentence you typed up comprised of “Thus the reaction 2wsdetghjueghhkljjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj”

“Kuroo, get off!” You nudged him. He didn’t move. “You’re ruining my report!”

“Only if you take a five minute break to cuddle.” He said. Oh, yeah. You forgot he could talk in cat form too. “You’ve been working non-stop since you got out of class, you have to be burnt out by now.”

This was true. You’ve been working none-stop on anatomy, ethics, and sociology— with your chemistry lab as the cherry on top. Maybe a short break is what you need to regain a smidge of your maximum effort to finish up your work.

“Fine. Five minutes. But you need to get off my keyboard.” Kuroo complied, an almost smug look on his cat face, as you moved your keyboard out of the way. When he laid back down, you smushed your face into his soft black fur.

“You’re a bad influence, you know that.” You grumbled, your voice muffled by the fur. “Maybe I should kick you out after all.”

“You wouldn’t. You would have done so already if you really wanted to.”

“Yeah....But shut up.”

The soft vibrations of Kuroo’s purrs massaged your face, lulling your heavy eyelids close.

Without any warning, you left the room of your dorm into your dream-state world, leaving your unfinished lab report behind.

~~~

You woke up the next day in your bed. With Kuroo in human form wrapped around you.

Needless to say you screamed. (Albeit quieter this time so you didn’t wake Yukie up again)

“Kuroo, what the hell!” Grabbing your pillow, you smacked your cat’s handsome, sleepy face. He groaned but didn’t budge, only pulling you in tighter.

“Mm, not so loud. It’s only morning, kitty.”

“I KNOW its morning— and I had a lab due LAST NIGHT.” You growled, smacking him again. This time his ear twitched and he snatched your pillow away, tossing it wherever.

“It’s fine, I finished it for you.”

“You whaT-“

Kuroo finished your lab for you? “Mhm, even turned it in. I know more about using a computer than you think, kitty.” Even with his eyes closed, he smirked at you. His right eyelid raised a tad, a smug look on his face. “You really are bad at chemistry.”

“Wha-“

“Had to fix all your mistakes and everything. Did you even read the book?”

“Of course I did! How- How do you know more than me when it comes to these kinds of things.”

Kuroo breathed in deeply through his nose before propping himself on his elbow, an arm still around your waist. He smirked down at you.

“It’s a mystery~”

You grabbed the edge of your duvet and used it to shove his face away. “A mystery only because you won’t tell me.”

“True.” He said through he fabric of your duvet. “Besides, its not that interesting of a story anyways.”

“But I still wanna know.”

“Maybe one day. But not today.”

You quirked an eyebrow at him. “Why not today?”

Kuroo gently pulled the thick blanket from his face, grinning widely.

“Today’s finally saturday again. We could actually do stuff without your studies getting in the way.”

You blinked up at him. It was Saturday already? Man, time went by fast. It feels like it was just last week you found Kuroo in the alleyway, limping out of the trash cans. Oh wait, it was.

Sitting up in the bed, you asked him, “How’s your arm feeling?”

“Terrible. Broken. Shattered. I can’t even feel it.”

You rolled your eyes. “Really.”

“I mean, do we really want the answer to that? I thought you said I’d have to leave when I got better.”

A phantom whisper of sadness curled around your heart like a cold mist. But you quickly pushed that feeling away. “I said we’d think about what we’d do, not that you’d have to leave.”

“Hmm. Sounds like an excuse to keep me here longer.”

“Alright, get out then—“

Kuroo lunged his whole body at you, his arms locking around your waist before hurriedly rubbing his ears into your stomach.

“Nooooo. I’m just playing— I don’t want to leave yet!”

You couldn’t fight the scoff that escaped your throat, nor could you stop your face from contorting into a dorky, triumphant grin. As Kuroo continued to whine into your waist, you lifted a hand up to run your fingers through his pointed ears.

“Cat? More like brat.” You chuckled with a lopsided grin. Kuroo looked up at you, returning your smile.

“I’m only a brat because you like spoiling me.” He crooned. Your smile fell from your face.

“Just kidding. Your more like a rat instead.”

~~~

“The beach?”

You and Kuroo had run to the local convience store to grab some riceballs for breakfast. Now, you both were sitting on a park bench enjoying your meal together. Kuroo’s riceball had mackerel in it.

“Yeah, we should totally go to the beach today! It’s not too hot out, so we won’t be sweating like hell— Come on, it’ll be fun.”

You gave your companion a wary grin.

“It sure sounds like fun...But, I don’t have a swimsuit.”

His head snapped towards you, gold eyes wide. “You don’t?”

“Nope.” You said, popping the p at the end. “Never needed one, really.”

“Wait, so does that mean you’ve never gone to the beach?”

“What— No, silly. I’ve just outgrown my old ones and never had a reason to get something new. Seems like a waste, when you have no one to go with.”

Kuroo looked up in thought.

“...I mean, you could always go commando—“

“KUROO!” He yelped when you swatted at his arm.

“What? Or we could go swimsuit shopping right now? I wouldn’t mind you modeling for me.”

“Alright, going to the beach is definitely off the list now.”

You could feel Kuroo pouting at you but you just forced yourself to ignore it. Instead, you looked through your phone for ideas on what you guys could do today.

Glancing up at him, you couldn’t help but laugh at the look of utter disappointment on his face.

“Maybe next time. Did you forget I’d have to get a swimsuit for you too.”

“I could always just swim in cat form.”

“Yeah, but everyone will think I’m crazy if they see me talking to a cat.”

“It’ll just make things more interesting, don’t you think?”

Maybe. Or maybe everyone will just ignore you, brushing you off for a beach coocoo and leave you alone. You haven’t been to the beach enough to really know.

“Say, Kuroo.” You started. Said cat looked back at you whilst taking a bite from his riceball. “Do you go to the beach a lot?”

Kuroo gulped down his meal. “No. But I still like to go when I can.”

“What was your first time at the beach like?” Were you a cat? Were you human? Who did you go with? All questions you wanted to ask, but you didn’t want to bombard him like the paparazzi.

He thought about it for a minute.

“I think I was with my dad? Or maybe it was with Nekomata. Either way, I remember being in cat form, chasing seagulls away.”

Nekomata? Before you could even ask, Kuroo continued.

“Yeah, I remember digging myself a little sand tunnel and hiding in there so I didn’t have to leave. Needless to say, they found me and shoved me under the beach shower since I had sand in my fur.”

You couldn’t help but imagine Kuroo as a small little kit, meowing in protest as he was held by the scruff and being scrubbed of debris. The thought made you giggle, making Kuroo glance down at you.

“Hmm? What’s so funny?”

“Oh, nothing. Just imagining you as a smol lil’ itty-bitty-kitty.” You snickered. “If you’re this much of a brat now, you had to be a monster when you were a kid.”

“Really? Actually, I was pretty quiet as a kit. Apparently I didn’t start talking til I got older.”

Kuroo? Not talking? You didn’t believe it.

You quirked an eyebrow at him. “You sure you’re not pulling my leg?”

“I swear!” Kuroo put his hands up in defense. “I couldn’t talk at all! I was too shy back then. I didn’t start talking until....”

Maybe that partly made sense. Being someone like Kuroo wasn’t easy, especially as a child. You could only imagine what would have made him so quiet and scared back then.

Kuroo jolted in his seat, startling you. “Hey, I know what we could do today.”

Taking another chomp of your riceball, finishing it completely, you nodded for him to continue.

When he turned to you, his golden eyes were lit with a fire you’ve never see before, passionate flames that could almost rival the sun. And then he smiled.

“Why don’t we play volleyball?”

~~~

“Just what do you think he’s doing?!”

“Who knows. Who cares.”

“Whaaaa? I thought you’d be way more concerned than this considering he’s your best friend!”

“Miss Kiyoko already said he was fine. Sure, he didn’t come to practice, but clearly he’s okay now. No need to worry about it anymore.“

“I know, but— Aren’t you even a little curious about the girl he’s been playing hooky with?”

“Bokuto-san, maybe we should just leave him alone for now—“

“And she’s cute too! Man, this is so unfair!”

“So what are you gonna do about it?”

The horned owl swooped down into the bushes, a large puff of smoke detonating upon impact. As the smoke cleared and parted, broad wings unveiled a very naked man with golden eyes and grey hair in a shape that looked like an owl.

“I’m just gonna have to introduce myself, of course!”

Another owl, one that had yet to transform, sighed. Beside him on the branch was a small tabby with a little pudding head.

“Bokuto...Transform back. Let’s get some clothes first or we might get arrested.”

~~~~

Trash. Didn’t proofread. My original chapter got deleted sksksk—

On another note, please continue to comment! It really helps a lot with motivation and confidence. Thanks a bunch to those who did comment ❤️❤️❤️❤️

~~~

TAGS: @irenevyas @abby-rutledge20 @something-that-idk @svtbitch @ari-hatake15

Couldn’t tag in bold!

#haikyuu x reader #haikyuu x you #kuroo x reader #hq x reader #hq x you #kuroo tetsuro x reader #tetsurou kuroo x reader

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queernarchy · 3 years

Text

Statement of Elizabeth Williams, regarding a box of tapes found in the basement of her student house. Statement given October 18th, 2018, 105 Hill Top Road, Oxford.

[INT. OXFORD, 105 HILLTOP RD, UPSTAIRS BEDROOM]

[TAPE CLICKS ON]

[SOUNDS OF BETH STUTTERING, APPARENTLY SEARCHING FOR SOMETHING TO SAY]

[A SHAKY INHALE]

BETH

Right. Um. I, uh. Right.

[PAUSE]

BETH

To be perfectly honest, I’m not really sure what I’m doing. I- I found this. It’s the only one I’ve found in the box that’s blank. You know, I’ve never actually seen a tape recorder, like in real life? It’s quite - Well, I’m not even sure I know how to use it. Except … I do. Because I turned it on. I hit the button and now I’m talking to it, like it’s a person. Like I’m crazy, which … I might be. God, I might be.

[BREATH]

BETH

I probably am. In fact, I hope I am. I hope I was just dreaming it all up. Another sign of an overactive imagination. Spending too much time with those books and not in the real world, as mum would say.

[PAUSE]

Even if it was real, there is no reason for me to be talking to you - no, to this. [TO HERSELF] It’s a tape recorder, Beth, it’s not a person. [BACK TO NORMAL] But I am. It feels right to, to tell you. So I’m going to. I’m going to tell you what happened and then it’ll be over. And I can go back to my life.

BETH (STATEMENT)

I’m not great at this. The talking, the explaining, the storytelling, it’s not really my thing, at least not anymore.

When I was a kid it was easy, you know? I was always latching onto one thing or another, letting it consume my brain and then going on and on about it to whatever poor soul I could corner long enough into listening. My parents didn’t let me use a computer until I was well into my teens - something about them making nightmares worse? It was all bollocks, really, how would they know that if they never actually let me use one? But, anyways, before that I used to spend hours in the Wokingham library touring the sections. Once, when I was twelve, I read a book on oceanography: Vanished Ocean: How Tethys Reshaped the World, and spent a solid week scouring the corners of every bookshelf for anything I could find on ancient supercontinents or vanished fault lines before giving my report to the first unlucky and unsuspecting librarian who happened to be out in the open. [LAUGHS] Poor Mike.

I never cared what the genre was, nonfiction, mystery, fantasy, that was never important to me. I just loved the pursuit, and the compelling joy of walking through a new world. It was like a secret between me and the writer, something that we knew that nobody else did.

I always dreamed of being a writer too one day, but like I said, the storytelling part never actually came natural to me, no matter how many books I consumed. I suppose it must have been that lack of skill that bugged the people around me to no end. My father spent most of his time at work and I didn’t really get along with my brother or sister, but let’s just say that my mum was never as ... enthusiastic about my new interests as I was.

It wasn’t her fault, I was deeply, deeply irritating. But to my credit, the minute I realized that, well, that’s when I finally started to shut up. Thinking back, I think that’s where it started. I had always kind of been afraid of pretty much anything and everything. But when I got old enough, I started to routinely feel a gripping terror bubbling up through my stomach, my chest, shaking my limbs and rooting me to the spot whenever I spoke for more than a minute at a time.

All this to say, a few years ago I graduated secondary school with absolutely no skill in writing, the one thing I actually enjoyed, and a lot of anxiety. It seems inevitable that I would end up studying library sciences, doesn’t it? It’s practically what I’ve always done anyways - sorting and researching. And a future as a librarian with a couple cats and a cozy cottage, surrounded by books, well … there are worse things. Much worse.

I moved into student housing right before my first term started at Oriel. I call it student housing, but it’s not, not technically. The actual dorms were a bit out of my price range, so when I saw an ad looking for flatmates in Cowley, only a 20 minute bus ride from the college, it seemed meant to be. There were ten living here all together, to start. George moved into his boyfriend’s place last year, leaving nine of us. [DARKLY] Well, eight, now, I suppose.

It was a proper house, renovated a few years back, I think, but it was already thoroughly trashed by the time I showed up. It was one of those places that, the minute you walked through the door, you could just feel the grime lurking between the worn couches and stained mattresses, that musty smell of overuse. I tried to ignore it, I did, but one Friday night a couple weeks after I’d settled in, I waited until everyone had gone and walked to the closest shop to buy a blacklight. It went about as well as you’d expect. I spent that entire weekend scrubbing this house from top to bottom. I even cleaned Sam’s room. It’s not like I’m a germaphobe or anything, I just like to know where things have been. And if they dirty again, well, at least I know it’s the slobbery of my friends rather than that of strangers.

I didn’t touch the basement, though. None of us ever did. I’m not sure why, it was always just an unspoken agreement between us. I must have asked about it when I moved in. I must have. I mean, it would be one thing if it just never came up, if it was just an unfinished and unsafe part of the house we didn’t go down to and that was that. But, you know, thinking about it now, we didn’t even mention it, not once. It’s amazing, isn’t it, what you can ignore. Right up to the moment you’re devoured by it.

I don’t remember the exact moment things started to feel wrong. Can’t have been more than a couple weeks ago. It was subtle, at first. Doors swinging closed on their own, misplaced items, shadows that didn’t really ... fit. All things that could be chalked up to the mind playing tricks out of boredom, or fatigue - just a consequence of one too many sleepless nights. I didn’t really think about it too hard, even when Sam brought it up at breakfast, started insisting the place was haunted. That was easy to dismiss, she’s always going on about some supernatural this or that and I don’t believe in ghosts, but even that would have been easily digestible as an explanation.

It was like that for a few days, and all the while, that feeling of wrongness lurked in the background, pulsing beneath us. I honestly don’t know if I would have even taken notice if Milton hadn’t started behaving the way he did. Milton is - was - every bit the hipster film student of your wildest imaginations. I swear, I saw him wear a beret once, completely unironically. We’d been friends, as I was one of the few people who would listen to him ramble on about whatever arthouse film had caught his attention that week. We got on fine, well, actually, for flatmates at least. That’s not to say that I always liked him - I’d acted in a few of his student films, just by convenience, and he wasn’t exactly the most easy to work with. Everything always had to be just the way he wanted it, down the most minute detail. I swear, if he could have tied strings around our limbs and puppeted us from afar, he would have. [PAUSE] Sorry, that’s … that’s poor taste.

It had to do with the cassettes. You see, Milton had always insisted on using magnetic tape for his recordings, refusing to even entertain the idea of a digital camera. Something about being more authentic - I never understood it, but far be it from me to get in between a film major and their precious ‘analog charm.’ He loved those tapes, and we all got used to seeing dozens scattered throughout the house at any one time. Which is why it struck me as odd when last week, they vanished entirely. When I asked him about it, he just said that he'd been editing a new project that he needed them for. I wasn’t sure what kind of project would require that many cassettes all at once, but he certainly spent enough time working on it. He’d be locked away in his room for hours, sounds of whirring machinery coming from behind his door. When he did come out, he was exhausted, gaunt. I tried talking to him about it, you know, but he’d just ignore me.

It was strange behavior, sure, but not supernatural. Perhaps I would have chalked it up to stress, just a bad week, but that’s when the nightmares started. I had always had them, just a side effect of my anxiety, but they’d died down a couple years ago, after I moved to Oxford. One sleep after this started, though, I saw Milton. He was sat at a desk, a mess of cassettes unspooled into piles of thin black magnetic tape scattered across it. He was tangled in tape as well, almost every limb bound by it. He stared at the pile in front of him with dull eyes, completely still.

I didn’t realize until the tape began to lift his arms that he wasn’t just tangled in it. The long, metallic strands were embedded directly into his skin. The strands controlling every movement, he grabbed a spool, and, very slowly, raised it to his mouth. His jaw unhinged, farther than anything natural, and he began to stuff the tape down his throat. Again, and again, and again, until the entire pile was gone. I had never felt relief the way I had when I finally woke from that dream. I didn’t know that was only the first time that I would have it.

I woke from one of these nightmares late one night, heart beating fast and body sticky with sweat. I climbed downstairs, trying to clear my head, and found Milton sitting in the living room, staring at our small television screen playing his movie. At least, that’s what I assumed it was. There was no coherence, no audio, just rapid, violent black and white images that flashed across the screen sporadically and bits of static that faded in and out at random. Occasionally, I’d see the corrupted and disjointed image of my own face cross the screen, along with the other actors. The pattern was hypnotic. Every few minutes, the images would perfectly align, shaping spindly, bony legs that almost seemed to reach beyond the glass face of the TV.

After a while, I finally managed to ask him if he was alright, if the cassette had become corrupted somehow, if there was any way to fix it. He had always been so fiercely protective of his tapes, and with the state it was in I expected him to be furious, or devastated, at least concerned. But when he turned, there was none of that written into his face. Just a calm, blank expression. He studied me carefully for a long moment, before finally speaking. ‘We should feed our guest. She’s so happy to have arrived, and she is very hungry.’ He smiled after he said that. When he did, I could have sworn I saw that thin black film tape weaved inside him - webbed in the back of his throat and threaded right through the fleshy center of his tongue. I went back up the stairs immediately and locked my door, sat in bed until the sun came up.

I managed to avoid him the days after that. I thought about telling the others, trying to explain it to them, but I knew it wouldn’t end well. They wouldn’t believe me, why would they? I wasn’t even sure that I believed me. I thought about moving out, of course I did, but I had nowhere to go. No money, no real friends outside of the ones I already lived with. And who knows if I was just overreacting, imagining it all. So I decided I’d just ignore him as much as I could until he went back to normal or I’d saved up enough money for a new place.

It didn’t last, though. It was three days ago that it happened. It was late, and I had carelessly lost time sitting in the kitchen, studying for my history exam. I was alone when he walked in. He didn’t say a word, just, met my eyes with that calm look, like an invitation. Then he turned, with a finality I had never seen before, opened the door to the basement, and vanished down the stairs.

I shouldn’t have followed him. I could have just walked away, went upstairs and buried my head in my pillow. But I didn’t. I had to know. To see.

So, I walked down those old stone steps, dodging cobwebs. I don’t remember if I closed the door behind me, or if it did that part on its own. The cellar was warm, far too warm for October. It was unfinished, and empty save for an old, lidded cardboard box that sat neatly in the center of the room. A long, jagged crack ran through the floor and up into the far wall, as though the foundation had been damaged in an earthquake or something. Milton stood facing away from me, towards the crack in the wall, whispering something I couldn’t quite make out. I called out to him, and he turned to face me, expression wild with … something. Excitement? Panic? He had started to say something before, all at once, dozens of shadowy, spindly tendrils, adorned with what looked like coarse hairs crept from the crack and began to wrap themselves around him.

I felt that familiar terror bubble up, running cold through my veins, stronger than I’d ever felt it before. I wanted to run or scream, but I couldn’t. He didn’t scream either, but I could see the fear growing in his eyes, silently pleading. He didn’t move, not even as the tendrils began to … unspool him. They reached into him, breaking into his body like plaster, and pulled. He was hoisted from the ground, his limbs yanked in different directions and elongated. They just dangled there, arms and legs and head only still attached by threads of dark, magnetic tape, like an old, torn doll hanging together by string. And then the tendrils began to move him. They took their time puppeting him, and at the end, they pulled up his head, forcing his gaze to meet mine. His cheeks were strung up into a grin, but I saw the tears that flowed freely down his contorted face.

I don’t know how long I stood there, watching him stripped him apart, piece by piece, slowly and deliberately. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. I felt hot tears roll down my cheeks, although I couldn’t tell if they’d come from the terror of it all or simply because I no longer possessed the ability to blink. I watched and watched. And when it was over, and he was gone, I waited. I waited for them to take me, a part of me just relieved that I didn’t have to watch anymore. I had already shut my eyes tightly before I understood that I could. I felt my hands twitch, regaining their will. When I finally opened my eyes again, I was alone, in that old, dank basement, with nothing but that long dark crack, and, in the center of the floor, the cobweb covered cardboard box, now open, and filled to the brim with tapes.

I don’t remember the rest of the night with any real clarity. I know I stood there for a while. I know at some point I calmly bent down, picked up the box, and walked it upstairs. I spent most of the last two days just staring at it. I’ve missed all of my classes. Sam has come to see me a couple of times, to ask how I am. This morning she actually brought me a plate of spaghetti. Imagine that, spaghetti for breakfast. I do appreciate the thought, even if it makes no practical sense whatsoever. Must be an American thing. She did mention that a man stopped by yesterday. Short, greying hair, lots of weird scars, asking about ‘strange happenings’ in the house. Sam told him about her hauntings, and apparently he had been, less than impressed. He told her he was sorry, and that she should move out, and then left without another word. [LAUGH] Creep.

I finally got up the nerve to look into the box. It’s pretty much what it says on the tin: Tapes and stationary. And cobwebs. So many goddamn cobwebs.

Nobody has said anything about Milton. I expect in the next few days someone will notice he’s gone. How do you explain something like that? I’ve been seeing it again, though. My nightmares … my nightmares have been getting worse. I keep ending up back there. I just watch, and watch, and watch, and I can’t turn away.

BETH (POST STATEMENT)

Statement ends, I suppose.

[STATIC RISES]

[STUTTERS, CONFUSED]

…. Statement? I, I don’t, I didn’t -

[STATIC FALLS]

[A SHORT SIGH]

I don’t feel better. I really thought I would. I don’t know why. Why in the world did I think that telling my stupid story to this thing would make me feel better?

The box is still sitting at the foot of my bed. I want to get rid of it, I do. So why don’t I just toss it? It would be so easy. Just … throw it out. But I can’t.

[RIFLING THROUGH THE TAPES]

Oh, huh -

[STATIC RISES]

This tape’s blank as well. I thought I’d sorted through them all, but I guess I missed one. Hm.

[TOSSES THE TAPE ASIDE]

They’re quite interesting, you know. I haven’t played any of the tapes yet, but I glanced at a few of the written accounts. Some of them are so illegible I can’t even read them but others are. Compelling. They make me feel, right. Scared, but [SIGHS]. I don’t know how to explain it.

I did some research on them, the ones I read anyways. I say research, I mean some quick Googling, a bit of asking around. They’re not real. The Magnus Institute, that’s the logo printed onto the stationary, isn’t a real place. And, as far as I can tell, these people … these people don’t exist. Anywhere. I mean, I found a few names that match but nobody who lines up to the descriptions and when I reach out to them they claim to know nothing about any of it. One of the people I called, Timothy Hodge, his name is, actually gave me the number of his psychiatrist. [LAUGH]

So maybe it’s fiction. A collection of short stories about fictional people and fictional suffering. Just a practical joke. Except, I know that it’s not. I can’t explain how, I just … Know.

I should probably move out. Only an idiot would stay in this place, after something like that. When I leave this room, I’m going to have to walk by that basement door. Every single day.. I should leave. I want to leave. I will leave. Just, not yet.

I need to understand, to unravel the mystery, and I’m getting the feeling that there is something in this box that’ll help me do just that. I’ll try to record whatever I find out. I do have another blank tape, after all. [HM] End recording.

[TAPE CLICKS OFF]

#the magnus archives #tma #tma fanfic #writing #horror #okay this is the thing i've been doing obsessively sjkdlfsf #i recorded it for myself because it's so fun to and also genuinely spooks me to listen to #anyways i should probably go make a spreadsheet for my internship bye guys #probably nobody is gonna read this so i dont even need to say but just in case ...please dont take her from me she took so much time #unreality #short story

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sleepless-in-starbucks · 4 years

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if love was a snake, it’d have bit you

Ao3

Summary: Remy, Patton, and Drew are dating. This is a fact. Remy, Patton, and Drew refuse to admit they are dating. This is also a fact. Guess it's up to Roman, Virgil, and Emile to force them to acknowledge the truth. Content: Some swearing, kissing (mostly face kisses, but some lip kisses too), nb!Patton + nb!Emile, genderfluid!Remy, oblivious gays, seriously guys, so much obliviousness, the obliviousness might kill you, gods know it killed me, Disneyland cast member AU Pairing: Romantic Mosleepceit Additional notes: So many additional notes -Big thanks to @emo-disaster for beta-ing for me and confirming the gays in this fic are wayyyyyy too oblivious -This fic is almost 11k words. it was meant to be around 3k. I’m so sorry. -Inspired by, but not actually based upon, this disneyland cast member au -This is probably hella inaccurate to real Disneyland but i don’t care alright -This fic is a (late) b-day gift for the one-and-only @notveryglittery !!! She’s an incredible person who I’m extremely happy to know, and I’m really hoping she even kinda likes this mess of a fic dsfbcdsjf

“-and if you’ll just sign here, I can finalize that upgrade for you.”

The woman smiled at Remy as she accepted the pen he offered her. She looked tired, her entire appearance screaming ‘overworked mom’ even without the literally screaming (playfully, but still screaming) kids behind her. She definitely needed the vacation.

“I can’t thank you enough for this,” she said gratefully, quickly signing the paper Remy offered her.

“It’s no problem, ma’am,” Remy said, smiling politely as he took the paper and pen back, hitting a few keys on his computer as he did. “Just happy to make your stay as magical as possible. Here’s your keycard.”

The stressed mother accepted the keycard from Remy with another smile. “Thank you.” She reiterated the sentiment before convincing her children to give her their hands and heading off for the elevators, her wife following with the luggage. Remy smiled after them, briefly letting the last of the room change form sit unfinished on his screen.

“You’re going to get yourself fired for that eventually, you know.”

Remy’s smile only grew at the sound of the all-too-familiar voice. He turned back to his work then, enough of Roman in his peripheral for Remy to tell he was strutting his stuff as a friend of Flynn’s. “Ah, you know they love me too much for that.”

“More like they don’t look hard enough to catch all your illegal ‘on-the-mouse room upgrades.’” Roman corrected, leaning against the back of the receptionist desk. “Though if they ever do? You’re screwed.”

“Shush, I’mma be gay and doing crime til Disney falls.” Remy responded cheekily. “And speaking of people who are going to get themselves fired, shouldn’t you be over in the good ol’ Disneyland already?”

Roman shrugged. “Shift doesn’t start for another half an hour. I’ve got time.”

“Time for what, exactly?”

Roman grinned at that. “Gossip, of course!”

Remy grinned now, too. “Well, if you’re looking for tales, a little birdy’s been keeping me updated on a blossoming relationship between one of the friends of Rapunzel and one of the friends of Snow White-”

“Oh, not that kind of gossip.” Roman interrupted, waving his hand dismissively. “I’m talking the good gossip- preferably about you and your boos.”

Remy scoffed, shaking his head as he hit the enter key and finished out the form. “Hard to gossip about those which I do not have, hun.”

Roman groaned, slumping against the desk and throwing his head back. “Oh, please, Remy, don’t tell me you’re still in denial.”

“Denial about what?” Remy asked, finally turning his full attention to Roman. “The fact that I’m single?”

“The fact that you have not one but TWO partners!” Roman answered, dramatically holding up two fingers. “Not only are you being a proper partner HOG you are refusing to admit as such.”

“Well if you’re just looking for someone to be the soul to your mate, handsome, I think I can hook you up.” Remy said teasingly, briefly lowering his sunglasses to wink at Roman.

Roman met the wink with a deadpan stare. “You’re a taken man.”

“Only if you make it so.”

“You can’t keep pretending your partners don’t exist.”

“I can if I don’t have any partners.” Remy told him, finally pushing his shades back over his eyes and giving up at his mock attempts to seduce Roman. “Now, of course, I have two very close friends with whom I do many things with, but given I’m not dating either of them, calling them my ‘partners’ seems a little much, don’t you?”

“I get it, I get it, I have good friends too.” Roman said, as if he were going along with what Remy was saying until he quickly added, “Except I’m not obviously DATING them!”

“You’re hopeless, princey, truly hopeless.” Remy said in response, smirking as he patted Roman’s cheek. “Ya gotta stop finding romance where it simply ain’t.”

“The only thing I am finding is the truth behind all the bullsh-”

“Remy!”

Both Roman and Remy turned from each other, gazes moving to the entrance, where the voice had originated from. The owner of the voice was hurrying over to them, their blond curls pulled back into a loose ponytail, keeping their hair out of their face and allowing them to smile brightly at both Roman and Remy. They stopped in front of the receptionist's desk, taking a moment to catch their breath and straighten their relatively small red tie.

“Heya sunshine.” Remy greeted easily, smiling at Patton in a way that was a little too soft to be a proper smirk “May I ask what brings you here in the middle of your shift? You’re gonna get yourself fired.”

“‘Worth it for a chance to see you.” Patton told him sweetly, giggling just a bit and ignoring Roman’s expression of self-confirmation. “Buuuuuuuut I'm on lunch break. Just came over to ask what you wanted for dinner. I know the plan for tonight was take-out, but I just realized that we have all the ingredients to make lasagna- aside from the noodles, which we can pick up on our way home- so I thought it might be fun to make that tonight instead!”

“Sounds wonderful to me.” Remy answered. “We’re going to keep it a secret from Dee though, right?”

“Of course!” Patton agreed. He leaned over to stage whisper to Roman, “It’s his favorite.”

“Oh, you guys know each other’s favorite dinners, do you?” Roman asked, smiling in a knowing way and wiggling his eyebrows at Patton. Patton tilted their head to the side, clearly confused, while Remy answered casually,

“Of course! You can only live with someone for so long without picking up on what they like to eat. Dee’s favorite is lasagna. Patton’s favorite dinner- which is coincidentally their favorite breakfast, lunch, and dessert as well- is waffles. And mine, of course, is a nice big cup of espresso-”

“Don’t lie!” Patton cut him off, smiling as they leaned on the counter and ended up within an inch of Remy. “Your favorite dinner is chicken soup!”

“Remy hates soup.” Roman said, raising a suspicious eyebrow.

“Not chicken soup.” Patton confirmed, not looking away from Remy. “That’s his favorite, no matter what he says.”

“Mmm, nice try, Pat, but that’s not it.” Remy denied. Patton pouted at him then, and almost immediately Remy relented with, “My favorite dinner is your chicken soup. You’re the only one who knows how to make it right, hun.”

Patton giggled. “I make it just like anyone else would!” they insisted, though their smile brightened even as they spoke.

Remy’s smile grew as well as he leaned forwards just a bit, pressing his forehead against Patton’s. “Nah, honeypie, you got somethin’ all the other recipes don’t.”

“And what’s that?” Patton asked.

“Loooooooove.” Remy answered, grinning broadly, seemingly happy to ignore how cheesy his answer was.

Patton didn’t mind the cheesiness. “You’re too much,” they said, too playfully to be chastising.

“Better than being too little.”

Patton just grinned at that. “I have to go.”

“Alright, sweetheart.” Remy said, expression seemingly not changing, though a close observer (aka Roman) might have noticed his smile dip just the slightest. “See you at six?”

“Mhmm!” Patton confirmed with a hum. They pulled away from Remy, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead before they ran off, waving one last goodbye as they reached the doors before disappearing outside. Remy lazily waved his fingers after Patton, watching the doors a moment after Patton was through them before turning back to his computer and his work.

“Ready to admit you’re definitely dating at least one of your partners?”

“Nope,” Remy replied without missing a beat. “Though if you really want me to have a partner, you’re single… I’m single…” Remy waggled his eyebrows at Roman.

Roman ignored his advances. “The chemistry between you and Patton is so strong I’m surprised nothing’s exploded yet.”

“That was weak.”

“Shush.” Roman waved his hand dismissively. “I mean, for the love of Apollo, they kissed you goodbye!”

Remy half-shrugged. “They do that with all their friends.”

“They didn’t give me a kiss.”

“They were in a rush.” Remy explained away. “But if you really want a kiss-”

“-I will get it from my darling friend of Rapunzel,” Roman finished for him, having leaned over to check the time on the bottom of Remy’s screen. “I got so distracted trying to get you to tell me the truth I lost track of time.”

“What truth?” Remy asked, tone light. “The one about us making a perfect couple?”

Roman smiled sweetly at him, as though Remy was naive. “Maybe in a universe where you didn’t literally live with your soulmates,” he said, patting Remy’s shoulder before he turned and headed towards the door. He raised his hand over his shoulder without turning back, half-waving at Remy as he added, “Call me when you’re done being in denial!”

Remy just let out a light huff of amusement, shaking his head and turning back to his work. Roman could say whatever he wanted, but the fact remained: Remy was (un)happily single and most certainly not dating his roommates.

Yeah, sure, maybe he could’ve mentioned that his ‘best friends’ were also his crushes, but, hey, it wasn’t like that was that important, right?

Patton was staring intently at the floor. Well, more technically, they were staring intently at the mess on the floor and trying to convince themself they were supposed to be cleaning up said mess and not doing anything else with it.

The bell near the front of the store rang as the door swung open, but Patton ignored it. Plenty of people filtered in and out of the store. They did, however, pay attention when the sound of approaching footsteps got closer than the signs should have allowed.

“I’m sorry, this aisle is currently closed, if you don’t mind-” Patton started immediately, tone polite as they looked up, fully expecting to find an angry customer who refused to go over one extra aisle for whatever sweet treat they were looking for. They stopped when they saw who it was, polite-but-fake smile being replaced by a genuine one. “Oh, Virgil, hello there!”

Virgil smiled back, half-waving before he turned his focus to the floor, careful to step around the mix of glass shards and chocolate-covered balls of something as he came up next to Patton. “Busy day?”

Patton shrugged. “It was fine until someone didn’t put the jar fully back on the shelf. I’m just glad no one got hurt.”

Virgil nodded. “That’s good,” he agreed. “Waste of some perfectly good candy though.”

“It is,” Patton bemoaned, looking sadly at the mess. Virgil side-eyed them.

“Pat, you haven’t been considering eating the fallen candy, have you?”

“Maybe?” Patton tried, looking at Virgil only to find his expression completely disbelieving. They sighed. “Yes. It just looks so yummy! Even mixed in with all the glass! Because the glass sparkles and makes it kinda magical looking and it couldn’t hurt to have just one-”

Virgil put a hand on Patton’s shoulder, stopping them from bending down and grabbing one of the candies before they could move an inch. “All the candy here’s magical. Eat some of the candies that aren’t also glassy.”

“Mhmm,” Patton hummed in sad annoyance. “But it’s such a waste… I can stop it from being waste…”

“You could, but should you?” Virgil asked.

Patton groaned. “I shouldn’t,” they said. “But I want to…” They sighed, turning their gaze from the tempting mess to Virgil. “Distract me. Why are you here?”

“Other than to stop you from making poor dietary choices?” Virgil asked rhetorically before going on, “I’m avoiding Roman.”

“Avoiding him?” Patton repeated. “I thought you two were getting along. Don’t tell me he started another prank war-”

“No, he’s just being annoying,” Virgil answered. “He wouldn’t stop bothering me while I worked, because Remy apparently hadn’t been in the mood to entertain his gossip, thereby making me the person stuck listening to it. Guess Kev’ decided letting me walk it off for half an hour was better than me tearing a costume in frustration.”

Patton nodded as they moved to once more hold their broom, beginning to sweep up the mess as they said, “What was the gossip?”

Virgil leaned back on the shelf behind him, waving his hand pointlessly. “Oh, same old same old. Just talking about you and your partners, mostly how oblivious Remy is- which, I get it, Remy can be obtuse, but that doesn’t mean I want to hear about it all morning-”

“What?!” Patton cut him off, voice a higher pitch than they had intended, stopping halfway through a sweep to look at Virgil in disbelief and confusion. “My- what partners?!”

“...Remy and Drew. Duh,” Virgil said slowly, blinking at Patton as if they were missing something incredibly obvious. “You know. The people you live with. And are clearly dating. Those partners.”

Patton laughed, a weird hybrid sound of amusement and awkwardness. “I think you’re a little confused there, kiddo. I’m not dating Remy or Dee- they’re just my friends!”

“Yeah. Friends you’re dating,” Virgil said, raising an eyebrow at Patton. “Don’t tell me you thought I wouldn’t notice. It’s fairly obvious.”

“I don’t know how it can be obvious if it isn’t true.” Patton responded, going back to sweeping as they looked away from Virgil. “We’re just friends. At least I am, anyways.”

“What does that mean?”

Patton briefly looked up from their work to look at Virgil instead. “Aw, shucks, Virge, you’ve seen how Remy and Dee look at each other. If anyone’s dating, it’s them.”

“And you?” Virgil pressed, prompting Patton to look down again at their work. “I’ve seen how Remy and Drew look at each other, but I’ve also seen how you look at them. They’re pretty similar looks, my dude.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Patton answered, even as their cheeks flushed a light shade of pink. They risked a glance at Virgil, only to find him looking at them disbelieving. “Okay, maybe I love them a little more than just as friends.” Continued disbelief. “A lot more! But that doesn’t mean we’re dating.”

“And why does them looking sweet at each other make them dating, but you doing the same just makes you just friends?”

“Because I think I’d know if I was dating them, silly.” Patton responded simply.

Before Patton could continue, or Virgil could speak up, they were interrupted by the sound of quickly approaching footsteps and the slight crunch of glass as the newcomer misstepped and stepped on the mess. “Well this looks… delightful.”

“Dee!” Patton said, dropping their broom against the shelf as they carefully (but still hurriedly) stepped around the mess to approach their roommate. He was dressed as a friend of Aladdin’s, wearing baggy pants and a raggedy shirt-vest combo, his small red hat carefully hiding his bun, presenting the illusion of him having short hair. Slight touches of make-up highlighted the scar running from beneath his left eye to the bottom of his jaw, Drew always happy to tell the very dramatic tale of how he got it in a sword fight (when the truth of the matter involved a very long story having to do with toast, ferrets, and the reason why he wasn’t allowed to use the ice machine anymore). “What’re you doing here?”

“Why, unhappy to see me?” Drew asked sarcastically, though he was smiling at Patton.

“Never!” Patton responded resolutely. They wobbled a bit as they got closer to Drew, almost stepping on a particularly ugly shard of glass, but Drew reached out and grabbed one of their hands before they could fall, stabilizing them and helping to lead them right up in front of him. Patton giggled at his help, not releasing his hand even once they were done moving. “Just curious. Shouldn’t you be at the wishing well?”

“Oh, I was,” Drew told them, free hand rising up to tuck a stray curl behind Patton’s ear. “But then I wished to see the loveliest face in the world and found myself here with you.”

Patton giggled again. “The wishing well must be broken if it didn’t just provide you with a mirror.”

A touch of pink coloured Drew’s cheeks at Patton’s words, and in the background Virgil turned from watching the two of them to stare blankly at the shelf across from him, as though it was a camera and he was in The Office.

“Trust me, angel, it made no error,” he said, despite his minor blush. “But to better answer your question, have you noticed how bright it is outside?”

“Of course I have,” Patton answered. “It must be warm out there.”

“It is warm,” Drew confirmed, sounding as if there was more he wasn’t saying but wanted Patton to pick up on anyways. “Some might even say it’s hot.”

“Just like you?”

Drew’s blush grew. “I think you’re missing the point.”

Patton’s smile turned a shade mischievous. “I’m not. I’m just waiting for you to admit to it.”

“Cruel, sweetpea, cruel.”

“Just admit it already!”

Drew sighed dramatically. “Alright! I fold! I admit that hydration in the face of the harsh sun is important.”

“Andddddd?”

Another sigh. “I admit that I forgot my water bottle, which I likely wouldn’t have done if I had simply used one of your sticky notes.”

“I even doodled a snake on your reminder!” Patton said, lightly hitting Drew’s chest. “It was cute AND helpful.”

“Just like you,” Drew commented, moving his hand from Patton’s hair to cup their cheek as they flushed. “And I’m sorry, dear, I really didn’t think I’d need it.”

“And yet, you’re here,” Patton teased lightly before turning towards Virgil, extending a hand. “Virgil, there should be a water bottle behind you- think you can hand it to me?”

Virgil did as he was asked, glancing behind him and finding that, yes, perched on the shelf was a metal water bottle covered in snake stickers. He grabbed it and turned back towards Patton, passing them the bottle. Patton took it and turned back to Drew, offering it to him.

“Oh, must I take it?” Drew asked, looking reproachfully at the bottle. “You’re so much nicer to hold.”

“Mmm, you need to get back to work before they catch you slacking,” Patton told him. “I’ll still be around to hold later.”

“Is that a promise?” Drew asked, even as he let his hand fall from Patton’s cheek to take his water bottle.

“Even better,” Patton answered, letting go of Drew’s hand so that they could loop their pinkies together instead. They raised their now joined hands so that they were in easy sight of Drew. “It’s a pinky promise.”

Drew smiled. “Good,” he said, bending his pinky a bit to squeeze Patton’s. “I’m holding you to it,” he punned before reluctantly stepping away, letting his and Patton’s pinkies remain linked until he was forced by distance to let go.

“So,” Virgil spoke up, slightly startling Patton, who had been waving at Drew until he walked out of sight. “You’re not dating them, you lied?”

“I didn’t lie!” Patton defended, moving back towards the broom as they spoke, once more careful to avoid the glass as they stepped. “I’m not dating him! Or Remy!”

“Oh, yeah, because calling each other petnames and trading compliments til you’re both blushing and not wanting to let go of each other and looking at each other like you’re the other’s world is really just ‘best friend’ behaviour,” Virgil said, voice thick with sarcasm.

“We’ve lived in the same apartment for months, Virgil, we’re close!” Patton said as they went back to sweeping. “That doesn’t make us partners.”

Virgil let out a breath. “I know, Pat, but you really should see the way you two were looking at each other. It sure as hell wasn’t plain-ol’ friendly.”

“Language.”

“Stop dodging the point.”

Patton stopped their work, turning to look at Virgil as they rested their chin on the broom handle. “I don’t know what point you think I’m dodging, kiddo. Dee- and Remy- are my friends. They’re dating each other, but I’m not dating them. It’s not that hard to understand.”

Virgil didn’t respond to that at first, instead just blinking slowly at Patton a few times. “I’m starting to understand why Roman was in such a mood,” he finally said as he pushed himself away from the shelves. “If Remy’s half as oblivious as you are, I’d be complaining too.”

“Oblivious about what?” Patton asked, confused. “They know who they’re dating and who they’re not.”

Virgil didn’t answer, instead just chuckling and shaking his head. “I should get back before Kevin decides to be less lenient about my wandering time. See you later, pine-on.”

“Bye, Virge!” Patton said cheerily. “And good pun!”

Virgil responded with a half salute behind his head as he wandered off. Patton watched him off as they resumed their sweeping, focusing on their work and not any of the interactions that had just occurred. Say what he would, Virgil was wrong- Patton’s relationship with Drew and Remy was strictly platonic, and they had no plans to mess with what the three of them did have (an amazing friendship) anytime soon.

Drew dropped his bag before he collapsed against the wall, sliding down it halfway as he let out a huff. Though the day had been no longer than any other, the sun had been much more annoying than usual, and he was ready to be home and surrounded by not only air conditioning but also people he could stand. Absentmindedly he rubbed at the remains of make-up on his face, the only part of his costume he was still in since having changed out at the end of his shift.

“Are you suffering from heatstroke, or just bored?”

Drew looked up, finding Emile in front of him, smiling in amusement.

“A bit of both,” Drew answered truthfully. “Forgot my water bottle at home, though Pat had grabbed it for me at least. But neither their shift nor Remy’s is over for at least another fifteen minutes, so…”

“So I’m just someone to distract you until one of your partners can take over?” Emile asked, teasing.

“My partners in crimes, you mean?” Drew said. “Because I’ve told you before, Em, I really shouldn’t be talking about them here- you’re going to ruin our plan to invade ‘Beauty’s palace and get the treasure.”

“And what treasures are you going to find in there?”

“Hopefully, the key to a full hundred years of rest,” Drew told them before adding, “And gold. Mostly going for the gold.”

“Mhmm.” Emile hummed. “Happy to hear you’ve got your future set. Your criminal enterprises sound like they’re going to go over very smoothly. Now, as to your actual partners…”

“Do you think I’m cheating on my current criminal partners?” Drew asked, sounding offended. “With whom, another team? Emile, I thought you knew me better than that.”

“I think we both know I’m referring to your romantic partners.”

“Ah, yes.” Drew crossed his arms and leaned further back against the wall. “You’re referring to my roommates, who somewhere along the line you got confused as also being my romantic partners. They’re not very good at crime, you know.”

Emile grinned. “Not even good at stealing your heart?”

Drew just waved his hand dismissively. “Patton steals the heart of everyone they meet. Remy is not subtle at all when they go for the steal. Neither of them would make it a day in the world of crime.”

“But you admit that they’ve stolen your heart.”

“I admit they steal everybody’s heart.”

“But not like they’ve stolen yourssssss.”

Drew sighed, pulling his water bottle out of his bag and taking a sip of the water while he waited for Emile to stop. “Don’t be like Virgil and Roman, Emile. You’ve been given the precious gift of actually having a brain cell. Don’t waste it.”

“You can say whatever you want, Drew, but that doesn’t change the truth, even if you’d like to pretend it would,” Emile replied calmly, sounding smug. “We’ve all seen the way you three look at each other. You can’t lie your way out of love truer than that of Tiana, Naveen, and Charlotte’s.”

“Don’t have to lie to tell the truth,” Drew responded, returning his water bottle to its place in his bag. Before Emile could rebuke his words, the door that led outside of the first aid station opened, and two people walked in.

“Excuse me,” Emile said politely to Drew before they headed towards the people. After a brief moment of conversation, Emile walked further into the building with one of them while the other came over towards Drew.

Drew smiled when the newcomer was close enough for him to identify. “Hello, darling.”

Remy returned his smile, leaning against the wall and facing Drew. Remy was clearly off-shift, both costume and nametag removed, and was now sporting a sea-green bracelet. “Good evening, charming. Miss me?”

“Constantly,” Drew answered effortlessly. “I assume the same to be true of you?”

“I miss you every second you’re not in my presence more than the moon misses the sun,” Remy answered, maintaining veir composure for a moment before veir expression broke and ve laughed. “Like that one? I heard someone in the lobby tell it to their husband.”

“It is unbearably cheesy,” Drew told ver. “Though I’m sure also very sweet, if you mean it.”

“Good thing I mean it then,” Remy said jokingly. “People suck. I got yelled at twice today. I missed you and your not-yellingness.”

“Is that all you missed about me?” Drew asked, smile turning sly. “Because I know I miss you for more than just your sometimes-not-annoyingness…”

“Oh really?” Remy asked, shifting so that ve was facing Drew even more. “Well, I miss you for your not-yellingness, and for your looks- scar most certainly included, hun, it makes you look roguish- and for your mind, and your charisma, and, of course, your snark.”

“You flatter me.”

“Look in a mirror, sugar, you make it easy,” Remy told him. “Now I’m dying to know why you missed me.”

“Oh, how could I not?” Drew asked rhetorically. “There’s your charm, as sarcastic as it may be, your humor, your refusal to stand down against idiots, and your sense of fashion- though I must confess, I consider it a sin to hide such dazzling eyes.”

“Compliment my charm when you’re the real charmer ‘round here- I see how it is,” Remy said playfully, smiling.

Drew returned the smile. “I’m just telling the truth.”

“Mhmm,” Remy hummed non-committedly, though veir smile didn’t drop. Ve reached forward, brushing some of Drew’s hair behind his ear before moving to run veir fingers through it. Drew leaned his head closer, allowing ver easier access to his hair as ve pulled it over just one of his shoulders. “Your hair’s a mess.”

“It’s been in a bun all day.” Drew explained, closing his eyes and focusing on the soft and calming feel of Remy brushing through his hair, occasionally scratching at his scalp. “It got tangled.”

“Too lazy to fix that problem yourself, sweetheart?”

“I like it better when you do,” Drew admitted.

Remy chuckled as ve continued, veir attention turning more towards gentle touches against Drew’s skin as ve worked. “I should braid your hair tonight. Might not tangle as quickly that way.”

“If we do that, we’ll need to stop at the store on the way home,” Drew said. “Our beloved sunbeam will want to put flowers in my hair, and I do not believe we have any at home.”

“We already needed to stop for some dinner fixin’s anyways,” Remy told him. “We’ll just add ‘flowers prettier than your face’ to the list, though I’m afraid if we go looking for those we’ll never find them.”

Before Drew could return the compliment, the sound of approaching steps stopped him. He opened his eyes just enough to see that they belonged to Emile, who was smiling broadly and just a touch satisfiedly at them, before he closed his eyes once more.

“Hey there, babe,” Remy greeted. “How you?”

“I’m peachy keen!” Emile answered enthusiastically. “Yourself?”

Drew didn’t need to see Remy’s face to know that ve was smirking. “I’ve got the prettiest man in the world melting into my touch, so I’d say I’m doing pretty swell.”

“Bold words from the most gorgeous being to ever grace this planet’s surface,” Drew countered, opening his eyes so he could return Remy’s smirk. “And I’m not ‘melting into your touch,’ I’m giving you easier access to the hair you so wish to tame.”

“Whatever you say, sugar.” Remy responded casually, right before ve ran veir hand through his hair again, stopping halfway through to press veir fingers against the base of his neck, rubbing just the slightest of circles into his skin, which was cheating, because ve knew perfectly well that was one of his weak points. The motion alone had Drew leaning closer towards Remy, letting out a small sigh that morphed into a huff halfway through.

“That’s cheating,” Drew said, trying to sound accusing but only succeeding in sounding tired and slightly whiny.

Remy laughed. “Don’t care, darling, not even a little.”

Drew hissed at ver, only earning himself another laugh.

“Well you two certainly seem happy,” Emile pointed out, the slightest hint of trickery in their tone.

“I’d like to think we are, yes,” Remy said.

“Not that it’s surprising,” Emile continued, failing to sound very innocent. “I’m sure anyone’d be happy spending time with one of their partners.”

“I’m sure they would,” Remy said neutrally. “Not sure what that has to do with anything right now-”

“They’re talking about my partners in crime.” Drew interrupted. “I told them earlier about my plan to raid Sleeping Beauty’s class and steal her secrets to a hundred years of sleep.”

“I see. Well I do hope you plan on sharing those secrets because goodness knows I could do with a good century of napping.”

“Goodness and me,” Drew agreed, reaching forward and pushing Remy’s sunglasses up a bit, frowning at how dark the bags under veir eyes were. “Why else would I steal the secrets if not for you?”

“Awwww, you care,” Remy cooed, tone a mix of goodheartedly mocking and sincere. “And what do you mean, ‘goodness and me’? Hun, you are goodness.”

“You’re sweet, but we both know that’s Pat.”

“I don’t see why it can’t be both of you.”

“This is getting ridiculous!”

Drew and Remy turned towards Emile at their outburst, Remy tilting veir head to the side in confusion while Drew asked,

“What is?”

Emile waved their hands at the roommates. “You two! You three! This!”

Remy and Drew glanced at each other before looking back at Emile. “This?” Remy asked.

“You’re so oblivious it puts the Scooby Gang’s obliviousness to Shaggy’s godhood to shame!” Emile said, thoroughly exasperated.

“I’m sorry what was that-”

“I mean, look at you two!” Emile said, gesturing at where Remy’s hand was still running through Drew’s hair. “All you do is compliment each other and worry over each other and know exactly what to do to make the other melt into your touch!”

Drew shrugged. “So? We’re friends.”

“And we’ve lived together for months,” Remy added. “Kinda hard to not pick up stuff about each other.”

“This moved past friendship weeks ago,” Emile told them, crossing their arms. “You can pretend to be sly, but you aren’t.”

“We’re not pretending anything,” Drew replied, raising an eyebrow. “Are you alright, Em? No offense, you seem a little... agitated over this.”

Emile squinted at them. “You’d be agitated if you were me.”

“Huh. Vaguely ominous,” Remy commented idly, unperturbed by the conversation. “You should really talk to Roman though. He’s been having the same misconceptions about me and my roommates’ relationship. I’m sure you two lovelies can find the truth if you talk it out.”

“We’ve already found the truth,” Emile said confidently.

“If you say so,” Remy responded, reaching into veir pocket as ve spoke, pulling out veir phone and checking the time. “Patton’s shift should be over in a couple of minutes. Wanna go greet them?”

“The only sunshine I always want to see,” Drew answered. “Don’t tell them we’re going to braid my hair just yet, though, alright? I’d prefer to surprise them.”

Remy grinned. “Of course, hun.”

Drew returned the grin before shifting over so that he could pick his bag up, ignoring Remy’s protest at his hair moving out of playing-with range. “You do know that going to Patton requires moving, right?”

“I do, but that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.”

Drew chuckled as he straightened up, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “You can play more with my hair when we get home, starlight, don’t worry. Come on, let’s go get Pat.”

Remy pouted, but ve still lifted veir arm and allowed Drew to slot himself in against veir side as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Remy’s arm wrapped around the top of Drew’s shoulders, holding him close as they headed towards the doors.

“Have a goodnight, Em,” Drew called over his shoulder right before they left, door lightly thudding as it fell shut behind them.

Emile let out a little huff. “Night-night lovebirds,” they said, even though they knew the couple in question couldn’t hear them. They waited a moment after they left before pulling out their phone, flicking to the group chat they, Roman, and Virgil had lovingly nicknamed ‘operation Get These Gays Together’ (originally known as ‘operation if they don’t get together I’m going to shoot them and then myself’ when Virgil named it) and sending a quick but vital text.

Usually, Emile preferred the passive route. They preferred to push people towards the solution, help them subtly, let them figure it out for themselves with only a bit of their help.

But that method was driving Emile (and Roman and Virgil) insane. They had tried the easy, passive way.

It was time to be aggressive.

The first thing Remy registered upon waking up was that they’d really rather not. The little bit of sun that made its way through their half-open eyelids was already too much and they were almost a hundred percent certain they still needed another five hours of sleep to be anything close to well-rested.

Therefore, immediately after opening their eyes, they shut them once more, rolling over and pushing their face into the surface beneath them to try and drown out all possible light. While this did solve the immediate problem of ‘too much light,’ it presented a new one for them to deal with- the fact that something close to him was warm and moving.

The discrepancy between where they remembered falling asleep last night- on the couch, alone- and where they must be now- somewhere big enough for more than one person to be sleeping, and apparently not alone anymore- was enough to convince Remy to open their eyes again. It was easier if only for the fact that the sun was now behind them, illuminating the sight in front of Remy instead of blinding them.

Remy was unsurprised to find the warm moving ‘thing’ was, in fact, their roommates- Drew curled up against Patton’s back, arms wrapped around their chest, one of Patton’s hands resting on top of Drew’s and their other sprawled out across the bed, almost touching Remy.

The sight made Remy smile. They reached out to lay one of their hands over Patton’s outstretched one, gently rubbing circles and nonsense patterns into their palm while they waited for them to wake up. While they would like to figure out how they ended up in bed instead of on the couch, and while they knew all three of them would eventually have to get up for work, they didn’t see the point in rushing anything. If they were already late for work, hurrying now wouldn’t change that, and Remy had decided long ago that there were few things in the world that mattered to them more than seeing both Drew and Patton rested, relaxed, and happy.

Slowly but surely, Patton began to wake up, shifting around in Drew’s grasp for a moment before their eyes fluttered open and they saw Remy. Upon seeing them, Patton smiled a sleepy but fond smile.

“Good morning, sweetie,” Patton greeted them, yawning partway through their sentence. They twisted their hand a bit so that they could hold Remy’s, beginning to rub circles into the back of Remy’s hand. “You look nice.”

Remy found it doubtful that they, in all their sweatpants, ratty t-shirt, and disheveled hair glory, were looking like anything more than a mess, but they were loath to reject any compliment that came from Patton.

“You look just as cute as always,” they returned, smile growing at Patton’s small giggle at their response. “I am, however, a little curious as to why I’m seeing your beauty right now.”

Patton’s brow furrowed in confusion for a moment before smoothing out as they realized what Remy was asking. “You fell asleep on the couch last night, right?”

“Last I recall, yes, and I’m sorry to say I don’t remember coming to… wherever this is.”

“It’s my room,” Patton answered. “I was cold, and I had pinky-promised Dee we could cuddle. We were goin’ to ask you to join, but you fell asleep while we were putting away the lasagna and we decided we didn’t want to risk waking you to move you. You’re such a light sleeper… and Dee said you hadn’t been sleeping as much recently.”

As Patton finished speaking, they reached out to brush a thumb underneath one of Remy’s eyes, as if they could erase the bags that were there.

Remy reached up with their free hand to catch Patton’s, gently pulling it away from their face and intertwining their fingers instead. “Don’t worry about me, sunshine, I’m fine. Just a few more sleepless nights than usual.”

Patton hummed, clearly not satisfied, but they didn’t say anymore on the topic. “I know I didn’t bring you in here,” they said instead, looking forlornly at the space roughly a foot long between them and Remy. “I wouldn’t have brought you in here for cuddles and then not cuddled you,” Patton explained, sounding melancholy.

In an attempt to at least partially console them, Remy scooted closer to Patton, narrowing the gap to only a few inches. They kept themself from moving all the way against them only because they knew exactly what would happen, knew Patton’s arms would wrap around them and hold them close, trapping them in the cuddle pile they’d have no will nor want to escape, and, as nice as it sounded to let reality drift away as they sank back into sleep so close to their two favorite people in the world, Remy knew they couldn’t, knew they had to be at least a little bit responsible and wake up and go to work and do more than just waste the day away holding each other.

Though damn if that wasn’t a tempting thought.

“So does that mean Dee moved me?” Remy asked.

“He must’ve,” Patton answered before frowning. “Though I don’t ever remember him getting up… here, I’ll just ask him.”

Patton turned over slightly, letting go of one of Remy’s hands so that they could gently shake Drew’s shoulder. “Dee? Dee, honey, do you think you could wake up for me? Please?”

In response, Drew half-groaned, half-yawned, and shifted so that his head was pressed into the crook of Patton’s neck, effectively hiding him from both his roommates and the sun. Patton giggled quietly at his action before they titled their head around and pressed a slightly awkward kiss to the top of Drew’s head. “I know you don’t want to, love, but you’ve gotta get up.”

Drew didn’t respond for a moment, but eventually he sighed, lazily lifting his head away from Patton’s shoulder. He returned Patton’s kiss atop their head before shifting his attention to Remy, blinking blearily as he focused on the third person in the bed.

“Mornin’ darling dearest Dee,” Remy greeted. “Sleep well?”

“Mhmm,” Drew hummed noncommittally, but from the way his arms tightened around Patton, holding them closer, Remy could guess he had slept very well curled up with Patton. “What’re you doin’ here?” he slurred, awake enough to realize Remy should still be out on the couch if not awake enough to speak properly.

“We were kinda hoping you could answer that one, hun,” Remy said. “Because I don’t remember coming in here, and Patton doesn’t remember moving me.”

Drew frowned. “I didn’t move you. Wanted you to sleep.”

“So I’ve heard,” Remy commented, now frowning themself. “So. If none of us put me in the bed, and none of us have any sleep walking and/or possession problems we haven’t told the others about…”

“How did you end up here?” Patton finished for them, completing the trifecta of frowns.

The unanswered question finally convinced Remy to sit up, squinting as they looked around the room for some explanation. It did appear to be Patton’s room, from the animal posters hung on every wall to the rainbow they had painted onto the light switch cover with nail polish, so it was unlikely they had all been kidnapped, which Remy was going to consider a good thing. Something did stand out to Remy, however.

“Hey, Pat, you haven’t put any random notes on your door recently, have you?”

Patton shook their head in confusion. “No. Why do you ask?”

Remy didn’t answer them immediately, instead sliding out of the bed and heading towards the door. Tapped to it was a folded note, ‘to the oblivious gays’ scrawled on the front of it. Remy pulled it off the door, unfolding it and quickly scanning the message inside. When they finished, they groaned.

“I’m disowning all of our friends.” Remy said, tossing the note to the side in annoyance as they grabbed the door handle, trying (and failing) to turn it. They groaned again. “Fuck.”

“Language.” Patton said automatically as Drew pushed their glasses onto their face for them, Patton blinking a few times as they stopped needing to squint at everything. “What is it?”

Remy ran a hand through their hair as they moved to the only window in the room, attempting to open it for a moment before deeming it a lost cause. They sighed and turned back towards the bed. “We’ve been locked in.”

This got both Patton and Drew to sit up, both looking more awake as they frowned at them. “What do you mean, we’ve been locked in?”

“Exactly what I said,” Remy replied, leaning back against the wall behind them. “Our most lovely friends have locked us all in a room together and apparently won’t let us out until we ‘confess’ or some bullsh- bullcrap, because this is 2012 and we’re a story on fanfic-dot-net.”

“Confess?” Patton repeated before realization dawned on their face. “Oh. I- Virgil was talking about that yesterday, but I didn’t think he actually- well I didn’t think he really meant anything by it.”

“Same with Emile,” Drew said. “They talk about it so often I just figured it was some sort of joke for them.”

“Roman was talking about it too,” Remy added unhappily. “He pointedly ignored all my advances as well, which was rude. I like to think my distractions are at least worth one returned flirt.”

A moment of silence stretched out between them before Drew sighed and said, “So they did this, huh.”

“That’s why I’m disowning them, yeah,” Remy informed him. “Also on the list of disownments is my cousin, because apparently he’s the one who gave them the key they used to break in here and set this whole mess up.”

“Logan’s not usually the type to go for this sort of thing,” Drew pointed out.

“He isn’t, but I think he’s still annoyed about that one time I stole all his Crofter’s.” Remy said. “Though now he’s indirectly keeping me from my coffee, so who’s the real monster here?”

“At least you’ve got us,” Drew offered.

Remy smiled at that, annoyed expression softening. “Yeah, that I do,” they agreed, pushing off of the wall and padding back over to the bed, joining the semi-circle and leaning against Patton’s side. Drew wrapped an arm around both Patton’s and Remy’s backs as soon as they were settled, holding the three of them together.

“So now what?” Patton asked after a moment of comfortable silence. “Should we call in to work sick?”

“The note said they’d cover it,” Remy answered with a scoff. “No clue how they plan to do that, but they’ve made it into a them-problem.”

“And when are they going to let us out?” Drew followed up. “Because we’re going to have to eat soon.”

“I have a bag of emergency cookies in the closet, if worse comes to worst,” Patton added.

“Of course you do,” Drew said, though he sounded only fond.

“They said they’ll swing by around lunch to free us and, I quote, ‘congratulate us on the proposals,’” Remy laughed. “Roman’s words, if you couldn’t guess.”

Drew chuckled. “And if we try to break out of our makeshift prison?”

“They’ve stolen our phones and tapped them to the door, so if we break it down, we risk breaking our phones.” Remy explained. “Logan also reminded us that glass is sharp and dangerous when broken so we shouldn’t even think about shattering the window.”

“So no breaking out,” Drew summed up. “Guess we really are stuck here ‘til they return.”

“Yep,” Remy agreed. They turned their head so that they could plant a kiss against the side of Patton’s head. “At least I’m stuck with y’all. Better be trapped with angels than free with demons.” Remy smiled when Patton blushed a shade of red that Remy thought just made them look even prettier.

“Well someone’s getting awfully poetic,” Drew quipped, though he was also blushing.

“It’s what happens when I don’t have my coffee,” Remy said offhandedly. “Deal with it.”

“Only if you accept that you yourself are also an angel.”

“Oh, rude, babe, real rude to ‘u-too’ my own compliment back at me.”

“If you want to make this easier on yourself, just accept it, my dear,” Drew advised. “I can wax just as poetic as you can, and will if I think I must.”

Remy sighed, holding out the sound for a moment before they folded. “Fiiiine, I’m an angel.” They leaned around Patton, getting close enough that they could press a kiss to Drew’s forehead. “But you’re still the prettier one.”

Drew gasped dramatically at that, but before he could respond, Patton sighed, sounding fond and vaguely melancholy. Remy pulled back from Drew just enough to look at Patton.

“Aw, our sunshine feeling left out?” Remy asked teasingly, kissing Patton’s forehead as well and wrapping their arms around Patton’s waist. “Don’t worry sweetheart, you’re just as pretty as Dee.”

“Oh, no, it’s not that, I promise!” Patton reassured them with a laugh. “You two are just so cute together, that’s all.”

“We’re all cute together,” Remy said, pressing a quick peck of a kiss to Patton’s chin. “Helps that we’re all cute.”

Patton laughed again. “No, I mean- together-together, you know? You’re a good couple.”

Remy and Drew reacted to that, both glancing at each other in confusion and uncertainty. “Couple as in two people, or…?” Drew asked.

Patton raised an eyebrow, now looking confused themself. “I mean, I guess that too, but I mean- well, I mean romantically.”

Another uncertain glance between the supposed ‘couple.’ Remy laughed awkwardly. “Hate to break it to ya, hun, but I think I’d know if I was dating such a cutie.”

“Same here,” Dee echoed.

“Oh. Oh!” Patton said, blushing red now in embarrassment. “I’m so sorry, you just- the way you act together, I- you’re so comfortable together-”

“We’re all comfortable together,” Drew pointed out, albeit quieter than he had been speaking a moment ago.

“I know, you just- I- oh, I’m so sorry!” Patton repeated, hiding their face in Drew’s shoulder. “I feel so silly,” they added, their voice now muffled.

Remy chuckled, reaching forward to card their fingers through Patton’s hair. They scooted a little closer to them as they scratched at their scalp as well. “Don’t worry about it, honey-love. Everybody makes mistakes.”

“No, it’s not that, I just…” Patton cut themself off before actually getting to their point, shaking their head a bit before they pressed their face even further into Drew’s shoulder.

“Oh, come now, beloved,” Drew coaxed, rolling his shoulders and trying to convince Patton to lift their head. “You don’t have to hide anything from us, much less your beautiful face or heavenly voice.”

“It’s silly,” Patton whined, just loud enough to be understood. Remy laughed gently, brushing their hair to the side so they could kiss the back of their neck.

“That’s okay. We’re not going to make fun of you or anything,” Remy assured them.

Drew leaned over and kissed the top of Patton’s head, pulling back only a little. “What’d you say, love? Can I see those pretty, pretty eyes?”

It took another moment of Remy playing with their hair and Drew sweet talking Patton before they were convinced, slowly lifting their head up just enough so that Drew could see their eyes. Drew smiled at them. “There you go. Isn’t this nicer?”

A little smile slipped onto Patton’s face. “Your eyes are much, much more gorgeous than the fabric of your shirt, yes.”

“I should hope so,” Drew replied, leaning his forehead against Patton’s. “Now, I’m sure both me and our lovely moonbeam are very curious as to what’s got you trying to hide from us.”

“Yeah, sugar, you’re not usually like this,” Remy added, though they didn’t sound worried, just sweet. “What’s got you feeling so silly and shy?”

Patton rested their cheek on Drew’s shoulder, looking between their roommates. “Promise you won’t hate me?”

“We could never,” Drew and Remy said at the same time.

Patton nodded, took a breath, squirmed a little in place, and finally said, “Y’know how I’ve never really said that you guys are together, even if I had no reason not to say it?”

“Uh… yes?” Remy answered, sounding slightly baffled by the question.

“Yeah, well… there was a reason for that.”

“...Okay?” Drew said, tone matching Remy’s.

“It’s because I didn’t really want to accept the fact that you two were together.”

Twin silence from Drew and Remy. Patton let out a little sigh, sounding more amused than annoyed.

“I didn’t like acknowledging the fact that you were both taken,” A pause to give their roommates a chance to finish for them; when neither of them spoke, Patton continued, “because I didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that you were both taken but neither of you were taken with me.”

Another pause, another stretch of silence as Drew and Remy each processed Patton’s words, the confessor themself once more hiding against Drew’s shoulder. Then- dawning understanding.

“Oh,” Remy said first, looking at Drew with wide eyes. “Oh. Patton, I-”

“It’s really okay if neither of you feel the same, really, I don’t even expect you too, we’re friends, and that’s what we’ve always said we were and always been, and that doesn’t need to change I just-” Patton laughed, slightly breathless as they tried to fit everything they wanted to say in only the space of a few seconds, “I just feel silly that I never even bothered to tell you guys because I thought you were dating, that’s all.”

It was quiet as Drew and Remy processed that, Drew looking at the bed as he thought while Remy looked off at the wall, clearly lost in their thoughts. It only took a moment for them to sort them, however.

“Hey, Patton?” Remy said, getting Patton to lift their head once more from Drew’s shoulder and look at them, Patton’s expression a mix of pained and hopeful. Remy reached forwards, cupping one of Patton’s cheeks with one of their hands, smiling a little stupidly as they did so. “Wanna hear a silly little secret of my own?”

Patton's eyes widened, suggesting that they knew exactly what the secret was, but they still said, in a quiet, almost awed voice, “What?”

Remy giggled, just a little, reaching out with their other hand as well and holding Patton’s face in both their hands as they answered, “I have a crush on both my roommates too,” they said in a mock-whisper, as if they were at a sleepover and they were all twelve. “I never told them because I thought they weren’t interested in me like that, but recently I’m starting to think I might be wro-”

Remy’s confession was cut off by Patton letting out a little squeal of excitement, pushing themself forward so that they could wrap their arms around Remy’s midsection, knocking them over and ending up with them both sprawled across the bed. Remy had just barely recovered from the action when Patton started peppering kisses across their face, going over their forehead and both their cheeks before they ended with a kiss on their lips, one that was brief but still sweet and loving and warm and undeniably Patton.

“You jerk.” Patton said, though there wasn’t a hint of heat in their tone as they laughed. “Why didn’t you tell me this three months ago?!”

“I had this whole friendship thing going on that I didn’t want to ruin!” Remy defended with a laugh of their own. “Though, if I had known that’d be your reaction, I’d have gone off and ruined our friendship long ago, sweetness.”

Patton’s smile broke into a grin and they kissed the tip of Remy’s nose, eliciting a quick but joyful giggle from them. “You’re forgiven for your slowness in telling me for how utterly perfect you are.”

“Why thank you, angel,” Remy said, pushing themself up just enough to give Patton a fast nose kiss as well. “But don’t you think we’re missing something- or, better put, someone- from this ‘perfect’?”

Patton’s eyes widened at the reminder. “Oh my gosh, you’re right!” they said before turning around to look at Drew. He was still sitting in the same spot he had been. It was clear he had been watching Patton and Remy, but upon them turning their attention to him, he seemed to suddenly find the entire rest of the room much more interesting to look at.

“Dee?” Patton said, forcing the aforementioned to turn his attention back to them or risk being rude to one of the people he was currently locked in a room with.

“Yes?” Drew asked, trying to sound aloof and neutral. He failed horribly, however, his voice coming out as something closer to mock-formal.

“Me and Remy have both made our confessions… do you have one of your own?” Patton asked, once more sounding hesitant.

When Drew didn’t respond instantly, Remy rushed to add, “It’s completely alright if you don’t, of course. No pressure whatsoever, we can still be friends, it’s just- well, not to sound like the people who locked us up in here in the first place, but I kinda feel like that’s not really what we should be.”

“I-” Drew started before cutting himself off, looking down as he fiddled with the hem of his shirt. “I do love you guys, really; I mean, who couldn’t after living with you for so long, you’re too incredible not to love, but… I don’t know how I love you.”

“...Care to elaborate?” Remy pushed after a minute stretched in silence.

Drew shifted in place. “I guess… we’ve spent our entire friendship doing everything a couple might do- spending time together, learning each other’s favorite things, getting stupidly domestic, literally sleeping together, cuddling, sharing little kisses, and I just… don’t know if I love you romantically or not.”

“Alright,” Patton said slowly, nodding their head before frowning. “I’m… not sure how to figure that out.”

“Me neither,” Remy admitted. “There must be something romantic we haven’t done with you, right?

Drew shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ve covered all of the bases, as far as I can tell. No wonder everyone thought we were dating…”

“Not all of them,” Patton said, pulling Drew out of his barely started musings. They smiled at him, softly and sweetly and just a bit shyly. “Dee?”

“...Yes?”

“Do you want to kiss us?”

“Kiss you- I already have kissed you, what do you…” Drew cut himself off as he realized what Patton meant, his cheeks quickly turning a crimson red.

Remy chuckled as they sat up, Patton shifting a bit to their side so that they could properly sit up. “Hate to put words in your mouth, sweetheart, but I’mma guess that means yes?”

“I… yeah, yeah it does,” Drew conceded, chuckling a little awkwardly. “That sounded awfully charming.”

“Everything you say is charming when you’re a charmer,” Patton responded, and Drew’s cheeks turned a shade darker as the awkwardness in his expression relaxed into something more akin to soft adoration.

Patton patted the bed directly in front of them and Remy. “Come over here, lovely.”

Drew did so willingly, pulling himself over so that he was once more part of the group. Patton smiled tenderly at him as he settled himself before reaching out and gently taking his face in their hands.

“Stop me if you need to, okay?” Patton said. Drew half-laughed, half-scoffed.

“I doubt I’ll want you to stop, much less need you to,” he told them, and Patton smiled wider at him before leaning in, their careful and loving hold on Drew’s face holding him still until their lips were connected.

The kiss was longer than Patton and Remy’s had been, more planned, but it was still just as welcoming and comfortable, as if this wasn’t their first kiss but instead their hundredth; somehow both oddly familiar and excitingly new.

Without even realizing it, Drew found himself leaning it, placing his hands on Patton’s waist to hold steady as he did so, more than happy to drown in the kiss as much as he could.

Patton pulled away when he was reaching the edge of breathlessness, smiling brightly at Drew even as they moved back, still holding his face. “How was that?”

“I love you,” Drew said as an answer, letting out a laugh in the form of a huff as he went on, “Oh, god be damned, Patton, I love you.”

“Language,” Patton chided lightly, though they both knew it meant nothing.

“Hey now,” Remy spoke up, drawing Drew and Patton’s attention. They were pouting, though amusement flashed in their eyes. “I’m feeling a little forgotten over here.”

“Forget you?” Drew asked, normally suave tone now simply breathless and incredulous. “I could never.”

“Then prove it,” Remy demanded, reaching out and making grabby hands at Drew despite the fact that he was barely two feet from them. Drew didn’t mind it, however, simply laughing at the display of affection. He gently took Patton’s hands off his cheeks, kissing the back of both of them (to the delight of Patton) before releasing them and closing the small gap between him and Remy.

“There you are,” Remy said, as if Drew had been hiding somewhere far off and not simply kissing their partner (their partner, not just his partner but Remy’s too) instead of Remy. “Do I get kisses now?”

Drew laughed. “Yes,” he said, not bothering to drag the moment out as he reached forwards, cupping one of Remy’s cheeks in his hand and pulling them closer. “You get kisses now.”

He kept to his promise as he kissed Remy, not holding it out for one long kiss like he and Patton had done but instead kissing them over and over and over again, quick little kisses that lasted seconds but still meant worlds to the both of them, that were still caring and inviting and loving even if they were brief. It worked better that way, Drew decided, especially when Remy evidently grew bored of just kissing his lips and moved on to covering the rest of his face with kisses instead.

“I’m starting to think I really am a jerk for not confessing anything sooner,” Remy said when they had, apparently, deemed Drew’s face properly kissed, now pulled back so that they could look Drew in the eyes as they grinned lopsidedly. “I’ve been severely neglecting giving you- and Patton- all the kisses you two deserve.”

“Not that that ever stopped you when we were friends,” Patton pointed out, leaning against Remy’s side and reaching out to hold one of Drew’s hands as well.

“That’s because even then I knew I was making a mistake,” Remy said, happily taking advantage of the fact that Patton was once more close to them to kiss their forehead.

“I just can’t believe the people who locked us up had it right,” Drew said, squeezing Patton’s hand as the hand he had been using to cup Remy’s cheek moved to hold one of Remy’s hands. “We really have been horribly oblivious, huh?”

Remy laughed. “I’d say that’s pretty accurate, yeah,” they agreed before smiling mischievously. “We’re not going to let them know that though, right?”

“Oh, goodness, of course not,” Drew responded. “Otherwise they might start thinking locking people up will always work, or, even worse, they might get an ego boost.”

“I think Roman will explode if that happens- his ego’s already big enough as is,” Patton added. Drew’s and Remy’s attention immediately turned to them, both looking shocked, to which Patton defended, “What? I can be petty towards our friends too!”

Drew chuckled as he quickly kissed Patton’s cheek. “That you can, dearheart, that you can.”

“It’s not like you’re wrong either,” Remy pointed out. “Really, letting Roman know this planned work might kill him. We’re just going to have to pretend it didn’t, for his sake.”

Patton and Drew both nodded as solemnly as they could given the circumstances. “I vote that we tell them this experience has really brought us closer together in our friendship instead,” Drew offered. “That way we can still be horribly obnoxious-” Drew paused to peck quick kisses to each of his partners’ noses to prove his point before continuing “-and also keep Roman and his ego safe.”

“A perfect plan,” Patton agreed. “Though… what do we do if they catch us calling each other partners?”

“We tell them how we decided we really felt like ‘friends’ no longer properly described how close our friendship was, so we decided to start using partners,” Remy answered immediately with a grin. “Really, we can turn anything into just another extent of our ‘friendship’ is we try hard enough. The real question is for how long do we do that? When do we give them their satisfaction?”

Drew hummed in thought for a moment before he said, a wicked smile racing his face as he spoke, “I’d say we’ll have to wait them out at least until we get married. We can tell them it’s for tax benefits.”

“We’re going to get married?!” Patton exclaimed, eyes shining at the thought.

“Well, I mean-” Drew floundered for a moment, clearly having gotten so caught up in how to best taunt their friends that he hadn’t even considered the implications of what he had said “-we’ve only just got together, but- if this lasts and we don’t regret anything, well-”

“We’re going to get married!” Patton repeated, this time with no question in their tone, tugging Drew closer to themself and pulling Remy closer as well so that they were all squished against each other. “We’re going to get married and we’re going to move out and find a better apartment with one huge bed- oh, or we could get a house with one big bed, and we’re going to adopt a dog- no, two dogs- no, ten dogs!- and-”

Drew gently stopped Patton’s rant by kissing them until they were breathless, resting his forehead against theirs when he finished. “And we’ll drive our friends absolutely insane with what a lovely life we’ll be living,” he added softly.

Remy moved to press their forehead against both of their partners’. “And we’ll be in love forever,” they added, which was an extraordinarily cheesy thing to say, but in the moment, it also felt like the right thing to say.

In fact, pressed against the two most important people in the world to them, still feeling giddy at everything that had happened in the span of barely fifteen minutes, Remy felt as if, for the first time in a long time, absolutely everything was just as it should be.

They were looking forward to getting used to that feeling.

#mosleepceit #ts patton #ts janus #ts remy #ts sleep #ts roman #ts virgil #emile picani #ts logan mentioned #the cryptid speaks #fanfic #fanfiction #ts sides #sanders sides #dani #argo #this fic is a huge mess but hopefully it's a decent one sbdfcsdjf

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queenmaracasandlove · 4 years

Text

Love Of My Life Series - Ben Hardy x F!Reader - How They Met

Word Count: 4500

Summary: Y/N works in her local hotel when a film crew arrived to stay there, making her take a break from her book.

Warnings: Mention of break up and layoff.

A/N: The ‘Love Of My Life Series’ will be a series of short One Shots featuring members of the BohRhap Cast x Reader. Although you will be able to read them indepedently, they will all follow the ‘same couple’ if that makes sense. I got a little carried away with this one... Sorry !

MASTERLIST

gif found on @rogermeddow ‘s blog

Y/N was not really happy to be working in that hotel, it was not exactly how she had planned her summer. She was supposed to be in Ibiza with her now ex-boyfriend. To be honest she did not even want to go to Ibiza in the first place. She was dreaming of much simpler thing, a road trip in Ireland. But now she was stuck in her hometown, working for the local hotel while Jack was enjoying the trip she had paid for.

Everyone around her was filled with excitement and all the town was talking about was how a big hollywoodian production was going to be filmed in their modest village. But Y/N was absolutely not thrilled. All she wanted was some peace and quiet, some time to figure out her life and move on to the next chapter. Working in the hotel used to be her summer job when she was younger, she worked there during holidays and whenever she could and was needed from her sixteenth until she eventually finished her studies and found a suitable job.

She had lost everything in the last few months. First her job, the small company for which she was working faced bankruptcy and only a few weeks after she found out her boyfriend of two years was cheating on her. She had tried to stay in the big city but without an income and with the pain, she had agreed to go back to her parents’ house, at least for the summer.

She thought she would be able to do as she used to, work without really working. Saying hi to the old couples who were used to stay here every summer, greet the new customers here and there, help with cleaning the rooms when there were more than 10 rooms occupied (the hotel only had 24) and spend most of her times reading books behind the reception desk. But now she would have to deal with a full hotel and help with the restaurant during the week-ends. More money but more trouble.

The crew was supposed to arrive today. Rumours were saying that the biggest stars would stay in the hotel as they would feel close by and the rest of the crew - number of rooms being quite insufficient - would stay in the nearest bigger town. Y/N was not really in the mood for divas and their demands. As much as she pretended like she did not care, she had taken a few extra minutes to get ready on that morning.

She was so deep into her reading that she did not hear the footsteps in the lobby. Her feet were on the desk and the bookmark between her teeth as her eyes were rapidly going from one word to the next one.

‘Excuse me’ a voice echoed in the room

Taken by surprise, Y/N almost lost her balance on her desk chair. A blond man was standing in front her. He looked amused and uncomfortable at the same time. Y/N almost cursed but knew how to remain -at least when not taken by surprise- professional.

‘Welcome to the Katherine’s’ she greeted him with a smile ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I’m… Well I’m Ben Hardy. I’m working on a film and…’

‘Oh yes. Absolutely.’

Still smiling, she looked at the computer. This thing was so old she thought, the owners -Katherine and Georges- were nice and their hotel was enough for its regular customers but some things deserved to be updated. Thankfully, she had managed to convince them to invest in better WiFi coverage. He had looked surprised that she did not who he was. But Y/N was not a big cinema fan, she preferred her books and did not care if it had hurt the blond man’s feelings.

‘Indeed’ she said, spotting his name ‘Room 13’

The rest of the exchange was quick and polite. Y/N kept smiling as she gave all the necessary information and Ben walked towards his room as the next customer was entering the hotel. People kept coming in all morning and Y/N completely forgot about the blond man.

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

Everything had been so crazy for the past few days that Y/N barely had any time for herself. She was used to work without really working but now there was an uninterrupted stream of people coming in and out of the lobby. Everybody seemed very busy but to her greatest surprise, most of the crew was also extremely polite, some of them even remembered her name. Still, she was so happy when she heard they all went early when she arrived on that morning. Apparently they needed the morning light for a scene -Katherine was aware of every little detail- and would not come back before the afternoon.

Y/N finally had some time and enjoyed the warm sun on the back terrace, a book on her knees. This new book was not very long and if it was interesting enough, she hoped to finish it before having to go back behind her desk. And indeed it was gripping, so much so that when she finally looked up -the need to go to the toilets being too strong now- her heart skipped a beat upon noticing another person on the terrace.

It was the blond guy, the first member of the team she had checked in. He pinched his lips seeing her almost falling but she knew he wanted to laugh. She wanted to hide away but she suddenly panicked. What time was it? Had everybody come back already? Did he need anything? It would not be the first time that she would not be behind the desk because she was hiding up here but Katherine probably would not be that understanding this time. She looked at her watch but it had only been forty-five minutes since she had come here and it was only quarter to eleven.

‘I am so sorry’ they both said at the same time

He scratched his head as she played with her bracelet. She was so surprised by him apologizing that she did not know what to say.

‘I didn’t want to disturb you’ he went on

‘What? No… I thought that nobody was around. I am sorry. Do you need anything?’

‘It’s fine. I wasn’t needed this morning so I stayed in bed quite late. I just wanted to enjoy the sun.’ he smiled

He did not seem upset. Y/N did not move although she wanted to run back behind her cherished desk and pretend to work as if she did not want to hide away for the rest of her life. But it was as if she was hypnotized by the man. She properly looked at him this time, his broad shoulders, his luscious lips and his mesmerizing eyes. For what seemed to last much longer than reality they both looked at each other, without a word being said. It seemed like the sun had warmed their skin all of a sudden, or maybe was it something else.

‘I…’ she hesitated ‘I should go back inside. If you need anything, please ask’

‘What’s your name?’ he asked

‘Y/N’ she smiled ‘Enjoy the sun’

She almost asked for his name, but before doing so she was hiding behind the curtain of the lobby, her hand over her mouth to hide a smile. She went to sit but was unable to focus on anything for a while, this encounter had got her completely unsettled. She eventually decided to do some work and overlooked the planning of the week. Once it was done she almost hesitated as her hand was reaching for her book but as she was doing so, she saw the man coming back inside.

‘Mr. Hardy, can I do anything for you?’ she asked as he approached

To be perfectly honest she had checked his name on the registers when he had come back inside, remembering that he was in room 13, one of the best ones.

‘I was just heading back to my room’ he politely said

‘Of course, yes’

‘Is it interesting?’ he asked’

‘Excuse-me?’ she frowned, unsure of what he was talking about

‘The book you’re reading’

‘Oh, it’s alright’ she smiled

‘What is it about?’ he asked, looking truly interested

‘Well’ she started, surprised ‘It’s about two children who are sent to Australia in the 1930s’

It looked as if he was going to say something but his phone started ringing in his pocket. He apologised and answered the call. Y/N looked back to her computer, heat rushing through her body. She could not remember the last time someone had asked her about what she was reading. Usually people did not mention it or told her that she should live in the real world and not in between pages. But when she was reading outside he had just sat, making no noise and truly seemed saddened by the idea that maybe he had interrupted her in her activity. She tried not to listen to the conversation he was having on the phone and he left the hotel before even hanging up and she saw him getting in a car.

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

The blond guy did not reappear before the end of YN’s shift that day. She tried to no think about it too much but she found herself eavesdropping as she was shopping in the local supermarket. People were talking about the film and for the first time she was interested in what was said. Apparently the actors where quite famous and they had been seen in the village this week, an information that was not particularly interesting to Y/N. She didn't even know what the film was about. She sighed and after paying started heading home. She wanted to pay a visit to the local charity shop before going home for good. She had finished her book as planned and wanted to see if they had received anything interesting. There was something about second hand books that she loved. The idea that this object already had one, even several lives maybe, that this story was being shared. She always looked for traces of the past owners, dog-eared page -although she hated doing this herself-, spilled tea or coffee, forgotten bookmarks, sand -she always imagined these books being carried around during someone’s holiday, most probably unfinished and sometimes, dried teardrops marks.

The shop was quite small but she knew it so well, most of her purchases in her younger years had been made here. She was greeted by one of the volunteers and made her way towards the books. There were often some recommendations from the people giving their time to the shop but Y/N rarely paid attention to those. Still, one of them intrigued her ‘the book that is being turned into a film in our own little parish’. She raised her eyebrows and picked the book. She knew the name of the author but she had never heard about this particular book, which surprised her. Without thinking she walked towards the cash desk and paid for the item.

Y/N walked back home, thinking about the book. She had not read the summary. It was one of her habit. If she knew she wanted to read the book even though she did not know much about it, she wanted to discover it from with as little information as possible. She kissed her mother’s cheek as she put the groceries away in the kitchen before going to her room. Y/N played with her fingers for a bit, her mouth twisted. She was now thinking about the client from the hotel. She wondered what he was doing in the film. At first she thought that maybe he was part of the production team but she could not forget his charisma. There was something that emerged from him, and his face was so perfectly made, like a greek statue. Y/N concluded that he was most probably an actor. After debating with herself she finally decided not to look at his name on the internet. If she had a chance to, she wanted to discover him without summary, they rarely did justice to the real work.

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

Y/N had her head in the clouds as she was helping with breakfast on the following morning. This was mainly due to the fact that she had spent the night reading. She had not been able to finish her latest purchase, the book was quite long and she knew she had to work on the next day. She was now obsessed with the idea of finishing the novel. Working at the reception desk was one thing but she had never been very talented with the position of waitress. Usually the little restaurant managed by the hotel owners was only opened in the evening but the film crew had requested catering for breakfast.

‘Y/N !’ someone called her ‘Order for table 4’

‘Sorry chef, on my way’ she said, grabbing the two plates

She managed to bring them to the table without spilling anything and although she thought it was almost time to close the kitchen, she saw two people walking in, Ben Hardy and a woman. She recognised the woman immediately, she was a well-known actress. She was so bad with actors but her ex could not stop talking about her and now she understood why. She was absolutely stunning. Maybe it was an actor thing, she thought, but her too had this kind of aura around her. She shook her head and moved towards the table.

‘Good Morning’ she said ‘ What can I do for you?’

‘Obviously same thing as usual, your cook should have my dietary requests by now’ the actress sharply said

Y/N tried not to look too surprised by the remark but she had to prevent herself from saying anything that could get her in trouble.

‘Of course. I am sorry.’ she tried with a crooked smile ‘Sir?’

She looked at Ben, ready to hear something similar but she perceived a saddened look in his eyes.

‘Scrambled eggs please, with coffee. Thank you very much’

‘My pleasure. I will be back with your orders’

‘Make it quick please. I have to be with hair and makeup in 45’ the actress added

Y/N pinched her lips, preferring not to say anything as she could hear another nasty comment behind her ‘I hate this hotel. I am used to a lot better’. Y/N was now too far to hear what Ben said to her but she imagined that he was agreeing. When she explained what had just happened to the kitchen crew they all laughed. Apparently it was not the first time that she was acting like a diva. Y/N knew nothing about it because she had managed to get Katherine’s personal phone number and only referred to her. There was nobody else in the restaurant anymore and Y/N waited for the order, chatting with her colleagues. She suddenly realised that she had missed quite a bit of drama as she had been determined not to care about what was going on.

One of the cook, Kevin, was telling her everything he had heard since the film crew had arrived, and there was much to say. Y/N knew the man as they had grew up together, or at least in the same area. She was one year younger than him which meant that they had never been together at school but the village was small enough that they spent some time together. They had started their work in the same summer, but Kevin had never left the kitchen and he seemed to be perfectly happy like this. Y/N was almost sad to see that the order was now ready in front of her. This meant she would not here the end of Kevin’s story and she would have to face the diva once again. She sighed before carrying both to the designated table.

‘And here you are’ she said with a big professional smile ‘Sorry again for the misunderstanding. Enjoy’

‘Thank you’ Ben said

Y/N had to wait until they finished to get rid of the dishes and she would finally be freed from waitressing duty. She went to a corner of the room, as far as she could to be able to see them and be ready to help if needed without bothering the actors. As she tried to occupy her mind, Kevin’s head appeared and looked at her ‘Hey Wormy, come back when you’re down. I’m making you some special pancakes’. Y/N immediately waved him away before hiding her face inside her hand. She looked at the occupied table to apologize but the woman was already going out, her phone going to her ear. Ben seemed to have finished so she went to clear the table.

‘I am so sorry’ they both said at the same time

They both laughed a little, it was the second time that it was happening to them. But although Y/N was curious to know why the gentleman was apologizing for, she did not dare to ask.

‘I am sorry for my friend’s intervention.’ she started

‘Nothing to worry about’ he smiled before changing attitude ‘I am sorry for her attitude’ he added waving at the empty chair ‘It’s just…’

‘It’s nothing’ Y/N said ‘I should have checked. It won’t happen again sir’

‘Please, call me Ben. You don’t have to apologize Y/N, really. So your...’

And before he could add anything, a man came inside the room and asked for Ben to hurry as he was expected to be going on the filming site. Y/N was disappointed without really knowing why.

‘Have a nice day’

‘Enjoy your pancakes’ he waved

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

Y/N indeed enjoyed the pancakes in the kitchen with Kevin when all she could think about was the actor. He had remembered her name she thought, it was not unusual that regular customers did but they had only talked three times. A few days had passed and their paths had only crossed twice, never long enough so that they could exchange more than just the usual greetings. Once a week, Y/N had a night shift. She did not mind, it was usually her easiest moment as it was rare to see any clients.

She was reading the same book for the second time. The ending had surprised her so much that she wanted to read it again, paying attention to any details that could have helped her foreseeing the unexpected ending. Suddenly, she heard some footsteps in the stairs and put her book down. Y/N immediately recognised the guest.

‘Ben. May I help you’ she asked

‘Good evening Y/N. Not really, I just wanted to enjoy some fresh air.’

‘Of course. I’m sorry I have closed the door but I’ll open it for you’

‘Oh non don’t worry. I did not know it was closed’

‘It’s not usually.. It’s just, well I’m alone and it’s quite late so I thought’

‘Naturally’

He sounded like he truly understood and patiently waited as she grabbed the keys behind the desk and went to open the double doors. The air was fresh but not cold and Y/N embraced it, closing her eyes for a second. Ben was patiently waiting behind her and she moved on the side to let him out. She stayed against the frame, watching the stars. Ben had fetched his cigarettes in his pocket and lit one before looking at her.

‘Are you waiting for me?’ he asked

‘No. Sorry I did not want to stay. Please, take as much time as you need’ she answered, ready to go back inside

‘Do you have much to do?’ he sounded like he wanted her to stay

‘No, not really. Nights are rather quite’ she admitted

‘Were you reading?’ he enquired

‘Well, yes’

He looked absolutely gorgeous under the moonlight. They were lucky enough that it was a full moon so that did not need any artificial light. His blond hair looked like silver and as he was drawing on his cigarette, a red light reflected in his beautiful eyes. The shivers that were running down her skin, Y/N had not felt them for a very long time, even when she was with Jack. She could barely remember when her ex-boyfriend had made her feel like this. It was stupid she thought. He was just a customer and probably felt sorry that she had to spend the night alone.

‘Is it the same book as last time? The one about Australia?’

The fact that he remembered what the book was about warmed her heart a little more and she decided to join him, going completely outside.

‘No in fact… It’s… It’s the book that your film is adapted from’

‘Oh, interesting. What do you think?’

‘It is an amazing story. To be honest I had not read a book that surprised me this much for a while. The style is very peculiar, but I like it. At first the rhythm was a little slow but it really helps you get into the story. The characters are well developed and you never feel like the author is saying too much or not enough. And the subplot is so intelligent and yet, so well balanced. I am reading it for the second time because I read it so fast the first time I wanted to enjoy it again’

She finished talking and suddenly realised that she had got carried away, as she always did when she was talking about a book that she liked. But he was not looking at his phone or staring at her as if she was crazy. She was used to it, especially with Jack. But he was smiling timidly.

‘I am glad you liked it. To be honest when I read the script I immediately bought the book. I really wanted to be part of the project’

‘Is it as good? I mean, I don’t know much about cinema but… I feel like it could make a good film’

‘I hope it will. But I think so’

And they started talking about the project. He told her about the film, how they changed a few things. The author was no longer alive but they had asked for advice on the adaptation. In fact, it was the first time he was part of the production of a film, he truly believed in it. She felt at ease with him, he acted so so warmly. They both sat one next to each other, facing the moon. It happened naturally, neither of them wanted to go back inside, or at least put an end to this intimate moment.

‘I just…’ she started ‘I just feel it is weird that hum… the actress that you had breakfast with is playing the main role. She just seems… A lot more confident than the character.’

Ben laughed, but not to make fun of her. He appreciated her candour.

‘You know that our job is to play different character Y/N? And… even though she can be… well let’s say she can be a lot. She is an amazing actress.’

‘Sorry’ she quickly said ‘I didn’t want to be mean. And I don’t really think you look as mad as your character’ she joked

‘Enough about this film and me. Tell me about you’

‘There is not much to say’ she looked at him, disconcerted

‘Do you live here?’ he asked, brushing away her remark

‘Yes, no… Well. I used to live in London but… Life happened.’ her voice suddenly lower

‘I’m sorry’ he apologised ‘I didn’t want to make you feel bad.’

‘It’s alright. It’s just so cliché that’s it’s laughable. I lost what was the closest thing the job of my dream, was cheated on by a stupid guy that never really loved me and now I’m back in the little village, living with mom and dad. Pathetic’ she sighed

He looked at her, not with pity in his eyes but with true sadness.

‘It’s not pathetic’ he assured ‘I am sorry it happened to you. But you don’t give the impression to be someone who give up that easily.’

‘Thank you’ she simply replied, grateful that he sounded sincere

‘What is your dream job?’

‘I want to be a book publisher. I mean… I was working in a very small publishing house but it was great. Unfortunately they bet a lot of money of dreadful book and… they had to put an end to the story’

He kept asking questions about it. On the one hand he was not surprised to see that her life revolved around books and she could not help but smile seeing that he found it remarkable rather than sad. She asked him about his work. On the other hand he was surprised that she did not know who he was, but not in a bad way. So he told him about his career, how he was not seeing himself becoming an actor but how life found a way.

‘Of course you were in EastEnders’ she exclaimed ‘My nan love this show, I was sure I saw you somewhere’

He laughed. She was so spontaneous. He was glad she had left her ‘professional’ attitude at the door. They kept talking, on and on. And then the sun started to rise and they realised that they might have been talking for a little bit too long. She apologized profusely.

‘It’s fine’ he said ‘It was probably going to be a sleepless night anyway. I am glad I spent it with you’

‘What do you mean?’

She thought she might have crossed a line but they had spent an entire night talking after all.

‘Acting can be quite a lonely life’ he simply replied ‘And sometimes loneliness is a lot’

‘Loneliness is a bitch’

He smirked. They looked at each other and they saw, that they both knew what they were talking about. How hard it was not to have someone to talk to. Not a friend, no. Someone special, someone who cared. Someone who listened carefully and held you in their arms. For a few seconds they stayed like this, wondering if they should make a move. But they exhausted and it had been a long night. Still, Ben came closer to her and once hugged her. She let her face rest on his muscular torso as she enjoyed the embrace. They parted and smiled.

He eventually made his way towards the stairs, wishing a good night, or a good day, he was not too sure anymore. Y/N went back to close the door, taking a deep breathe of fresh her before doing so. For the first time in a while she felt like the outside world was more exciting than what she could read in her books.

#queenmaracasandlove #ben hardy #ben hardy imagine #ben hardy x reader #ben hardy x female reader #ben hardy x y/n #love of my life series

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holycatsandrabbits · 4 years

Text

Dead Eye

Original fiction ficlet, rated G

Written for the Morning Coffee zine, a free, original art and fiction zine on the topic of coffee. The art pieces were even painted in coffee! Thanks to @yummi-gummi-zines for modding!

It took Gayle an embarrassingly long time to realize that something was off about a certain customer at the coffee shop where she worked. It should have been rather obvious. For one, the man, Craig, spent time every day in the shop, but he didn’t drink any coffee. Craig carried a silver travel mug with him, but he never bought anything to go in it. He didn’t even use the free creamer like a lot of rude people did, bringing coffee from home just to help themselves to what extras the shop put out for free. In fact, Gayle had never actually seen him take a drink from his mug.

For another thing, Craig didn’t talk to anybody. That in itself wasn’t so strange, some people just weren’t social. But it was also the case that nobody ever talked to Craig. When people sat at the table he was occupying, no one ever said Excuse me or Mind if I sit here? And if Craig continued to sit by them instead of moving, they completely ignored him. Gayle only knew his name because she’d tried to strike up a conversation once. He’d given her a bit of a surprised look and introduced himself, but he hadn’t seemed to want to talk to her either.

And finally, Craig was dressed like someone who was employed— nice slacks, dress shirt, and a tie— but he showed up in the coffee shop at all kinds of weird hours, and he never brought any work with him, not a computer, or notebook, or even a phone. He just sat in a chair, usually the one by the window, with his mug in his hand, and watched people.

Even with all that, it still didn’t dawn on Gayle that the man was dead. It took her co-worker Maggie mentioning the coffee shop ghost for Gayle to finally put it all together.

“What ghost?” Gayle asked, as they were cleaning up after closing.

“Oh, I should have figured you hadn’t seen him,” Maggie said, with a dramatic sigh. “You don’t have a psychic bone in your body, I can tell.” She pointed to the table by the window. “I saw him, right there. Wish I hadn’t, though. He’s bad luck. Right after that I broke two china mugs. Jess saw him and she twisted her ankle on her way home. Grant dropped his phone and cracked the screen. It was a couple of days later, but it still counts.”

“What’s he look like?” Gayle asked.

“Nothing scary. Just like a customer. Brown hair, brown eyes. Handsome. Grant saw him twice, and says he carries a silver mug. Nobody ever sees him come in or leave, he’s just in here sometimes.”

“So how do you know he’s a ghost?” asked Gayle.

“Because he doesn’t order anything, doesn’t work on anything, and doesn’t talk to anybody.”

“Oh,” said Gayle. “Huh.”

Maggie went into the kitchen then to mop the floor, and a voice spoke up behind Gayle. “The ankle and the phone weren’t my fault. But I may have been responsible for the mugs. I don’t like Maggie. She always makes the half-cafs full-decafs.”

Gayle turned around to see Craig sitting on the counter she’d just cleaned, his mug beside him and his feet swinging in space.

“You, on the other hand,” he said, “I like. You only sabotage the orders of rude people.”

“Huh,” said Gayle, again.

“Want to know what happened?” Craig asked.

“Sure.”

“I had a heart attack.” Craig pointed to that table by the window. “Right there. Five years ago, before you or Maggie started here. I never saw it coming. I was an athlete, ate a good diet. Maybe I drank too much coffee.”

“You do look healthy,” Gayle said. “I’d never have guessed you were dead.”

Craig nodded. “I was wondering how long it was going to take you to figure it out.”

Maggie hollered from the kitchen. “Who are you talking to out there?” She poked her head out into the seating area. “You better not have let in a customer—” She looked around— counters included— and apparently saw no one.

“Just thinking out loud,” Gayle said, and Maggie went back into the kitchen.

“Nobody sees or hears me as well as you do,” Craig said. “Not a psychic bone in your body, my ass.”

Gayle started cleaning the glass display case. “So how come you didn’t pass on? You know—” She waved her hand. “Go upstairs? Downstairs?”

“No idea.”

“No grander purpose? Unfinished business? Didn’t commit some atrocity and get damned to stay here until you make amends?”

“Huh,” said Craig slowly. “I didn’t think of that last one.” He slid himself off the counter. “I mean, it wasn’t an atrocity.”

“What did you do?”

Craig put his hands up sort of defensively. “Well, look, nobody died. But I may have… possibly… robbed a bank.” Craig looked slightly remorseful.

“You robbed a bank,” Gayle said.

“Well, I worked at a bank. Made it easier. I just used a computer program.”

Maggie came out from the kitchen. “That’s good enough. Let the morning shift handle the rest.” She frowned at Gayle. “Are you okay? You don’t usually talk to yourself about robbing banks.”

Craig popped up again the next Saturday morning when Gayle came in by herself to start the baking. He appeared by the oven, wrinkling his nose at the orange-cinnamon scone batter. “I never liked those,” he complained. “So how does one make amends?”

Gayle gave him a surprised look. “Why are you asking me?”

“Because there’s literally no one else I can ask.”

“Well— I guess you apologize to the bank.”

“Can’t. Most people can only see me for a few minutes at a time, and nobody can hear me except you.”

“Well, then you swear not to to it again.”

“Can’t do it again, I’m dead. What would I even do with money now?” Craig scowled at a platter of blueberry muffins. “This doesn’t make any sense. If I’m supposed to make amends to the bank, why am I not haunting the bank?”

“It does seem like poor organization,” Gayle agreed.

Craig looked thoughtful for a moment, and then he said, “Well, maybe I’m supposed to help you. Since you can see and hear me so well. I mean, you don’t want to work in a coffee shop all your life, do you? You’ve got to have dreams.”

“Oh, I do,” Gayle assured him. “One of them is owning this place. I’ve always wanted to have a coffee shop. I’m going to school for my MBA right now.”

Craig stared at her a moment and then said, “Huh.” He seemed to sort of phase himself through the counter until he was sitting on it again.

“I’ve already included you in my plans,” Gayle said. She pointed out toward the seating area. “When the shop is mine, I’m going to put a sign on that chair you like— Reserved for the Ghost.”

“A haunted coffee shop?” Craig said, looking rather impressed.

“If we get TV crews in, could you give them a bit of a show?” Gayle asked.

Craig nodded. “I can do stuff like with Maggie and the mugs if I try really hard.”

“I’ll probably have themed drinks, too,” Gayle mused. “Ghost white. Phantom Frapp. Dead eye already works.”

Craig cocked his head. “That all sounds nice, but I have to say that helping you make money doesn’t really seem like a good deed on my part. Not exactly making amends.”

Gayle frowned. “Well, I was thinking of having a policy of giving all my day-old food to the needy.”

Craig snapped his fingers. “That could work.”

Gayle paused halfway through filling a muffin tin. “Do you think you’ll move on, then, when I’ve got it all set up?”

Craig shrugged. “I guess we’ll see. I’d almost hate to, though. Sounds like it would be fun. So how long do we have to wait for all that?”

“Well, I’m almost done with school. But I’m going to have to save up enough to buy the place.”

Craig looked thoughtful. “You know— I might know where you can get the funds.” When Gayle raised her eyebrows at him, he said, “The bank never caught me! I died before they could. Money’s just sitting around in an account I set up and nobody even knows about it.”

“Well,” said Gayle, “it’s certainly not doing anything sitting around in some account, is it?”

“Definitely not feeding the needy,” Craig agreed.

The door to the kitchen banged open as Maggie came in. “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I didn’t want to be here. Are you talking to yourself again?”

“No,” said Gayle. “I’m talking to the ghost.”

Maggie gave her a confused look. “Don’t try to be funny. You aren’t.”

That day Maggie broke three mugs.

Find me at DannyeChase.com and on my Linktree

#Dannye writes #original fiction #original fiction zine #coffee

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purplesurveys · 3 years

Text

1021

survey by lets-make-surveys

1 - Do you have cats? Tell me about them. No. My sister used to have a cat, but Arlee passed away last April, I think a day or two before my birthday.

2 - Do you have an open fire in your house? Would you like one? Idk what that is, but it doesn’t sound appealing as I live in a tropical country as it is. More heat would just be uncomfortable.

3 - Are you a fan of making things cosy? What kind of things do you do to make your home feel cosy and snug? Cozy is nice, of course, but I wouldn’t always invest in them. I’d want my own place to have scented candles and fluffy pillows and blankets, but those three things are probably enough for me. I don’t really need fairy lights or oil diffusers or whatever.

4 - Do you still buy DVD’s or do you just use Netflix? Netflix. The last time I received a DVD was around...2013 maybe? when my mom gave me a DVD of Gone with the Wind for Christmas. I haven’t sought them out since, since everything is now online anyway.

5 - What kind of games console(s) do you have? What kind of games are your favourite? I grew up around video games but of all the people in my family who enjoys them, I was and am literally the only one who was never any good. I learned to be content with just watching my dad and cousins from the side, haha. Anyway, at home we’re currently using the PS3, PS4, and Switch.

6 - What was the last thing you had to drink? Water.

7 - Do you like things to be colour-coordinated or does it not bother you? Not for absolutely everything, but sure. My notes, back when I was still in school, were always color-coordinated. Also, when my parents asked me to reorganize their closets when I was younger, I liked fixing their clothes according to color too.

8 - Are you a big reader? Do you own many books that you’ve not gotten around to reading yet? I used to be, as a kid. Everyone called me bookworm and I embraced that title, haha. Then I got depressed and that never went away and everything got busy in life, and I was just slowly unable to finish books that I kept buying until I stopped reading altogether. I definitely have a number of books that are still unfinished to this day.

9 - Are you a fan of scented candles? What kind of scent(s) do you like? Mmm no, but I can see the appeal. I’d love to try buying one or two one of these days. They’d probably be perfect for Friday evenings after a work week.

10 - Do you believe that black cats are bad luck? No. I don’t believe in symbols like that. It’s also so frustrating hearing that black cats are still among the least-adopted animals in my country, because it only means people continue to believe in that ridiculous mindset.

11 - What’s your favourite breed of dog? Have you ever owned that breed before? Every breed is my favorite, except for, honestly, chihuahuas and pugs.

12 - Do you have laundry that needs to be done right now? No.

13 - Who or what was the last thing you shouted at? My family was playing Pictionary during the blackout yesterday and that was just a lot of constant yelling, lol

14 - Is there anything in your home that needs repairing or replacing? One of our electric fans broke a few months ago and we have a couple of leaks in the ceiling of our dining room which make it inconvenient whenever it rains. One of the lightbulbs in the kitchen is also close to going out, but I think my dad has already bought a replacement bulb for it.

15 - What kind of phone do you have? Do you use it often? iPhone 8. I’ve definitely been using it a lot recently. My depression for the last two or so months has made me reliant on background noise, so I have YouTube Autoplay all day long. I’m starting to see the effects on the battery hahaha, but it’s okay as I plan to get a new phone once I can finally afford a monthly plan.

16 - Who was the last person you spoke to on video chat? I was on video call with Angel and our HR supervisor on our first day last Monday.

17 - When was the last time you took any medication? Is this something you have to do regularly? I think it was a Biogesic for my headache, which is the only kind of pill I ever take anyway. No, I only pop one whenever I feel my temples start to throb, which isn’t too often.

18 - Where do you keep your shoes when you’re not wearing them? We have a storage space under the stairs, where our shoe rack also is. All my shoes are on there as we’re not allowed to bring any shoes upstairs (welcome to Asian homes, hahaha).

19 - Is your room/home generally clean and tidy? How long would you say you spent on housework each day? It’s clean. I don’t move around in here much except to sit at my desk to work and then sleep at the end of the day, so. As for housework, my mom’s a total control freak when it comes to chores, so even though I always want to help she wants things done her way, the steps of which only she knows.

20 - If you could have any snack in the world right now, what would you pick? What about a drink to go with it? I don’t have any particular craving right now, actually...maybe sushi? Deep fried maki sounds great rn. Just water would be fine.

21 - What’s everyone else in your household doing right now? Dad drove out for his work and my mom tagged along. No clue what my siblings are doing downstairs as I haven’t showed myself today so far.

22 - What was the last new item you bought for your home? (something like curtains or furniture, not something unique for you like clothes). Mom bought new plates as she felt like replacing the plate set we’ve had and been using since first moving here in ‘08. She also got a new tornado mop after the old one broke.

23 - Do you have a favourite mug to drink out of? Does your favourite change depending on what you’re going to be drinking? Yeah I used to love my color-changing mug with the wi-fi design, but now I’ve been using my mom’s Starbucks copper mug the most. As for the second question, no it doesn’t work that way for me. I’ll drink anything in my current favorite mug.

24 - What are five things you like to have within arms reach when you’re sat on the computer or settled down to watch TV? Phone, laptop charger, a hairtie, a blanket, and the cleaning cloth for my glasses.

25 - When doing surveys, do you have a certain routine or anything, or do you just sit and do them whenever and whatever? I don’t have a ~routine per se but I do have a few traditions, so to speak:

I prefer a cup of coffee to accompany me while taking them though I don’t always follow this, like now.

If I’m taking surveys in public, like at a coffee shop, I zoom out my Chrome to around 67% so that no one could see what I’m doing.

I try to check out Bzoink everyday for new survey leads, but sometimes Tumblr will be filled with good surveys (like now - there are so many good ones floating around on here recently??? I’m so not complaining) and I keep track of them by liking those survey posts to take in the future.

I generally avoid bolding surveys, but when I do take one I prefer to actually answer each item, so that it doesn’t end too quickly for me.

#survey #surveys

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imagineclaireandjamie · 5 years

Note

Is Cry Me. A River done? I thought there was more coming or did I read something wrong?

Not done, nearly though

Part Five:

The tingle of something altogether too pleasant ran along the inside of her thighs, bringing Claire out of her slumber. Two hands gripped her, keeping her gently in place as Jamie nestled himself neatly between her legs. She opened her eyes, squinting but unable to lift her head enough to see him clearly.

“Oh...God…” She moaned. Her lip caught between her teeth as her back arched off the mattress, one hand fisted in the sheets whilst the other sought out the confines of his hair, her fingers twitching against his skull as his tongue worked some sort of magic against her needy flesh.

It wasn’t long before she found herself shaky and spent, her head resting solidly against his chest as he kissed her forehead.

“I think we should finish it...together,” she whispered. The thought had been rattling around since the funeral. WIth all of Lamb’s friends gathered under one roof, Claire had been asked on numerous occasions whether his manuscript would be forthcoming and, although she couldn’t give an accurate response, she hadn’t been able to say no. “I don’t think I could do it by myself, and you have the better insight. But I would hate to see it languishing on our computers - unread.”

“When do we start?” In all honesty Jamie was excited by the prospect. It didn’t mean Claire had committed to a life in Glasgow, but it meant he would have more time to silently convince her.

“Later,” she mumbled, turning quickly in order to catch him unawares, “right now I think we have some unfinished business of our own.” Pinning him to the bed, she kissed him once on the lips, keeping him still with her hips as she began the painfully slow trip down his neck and along his chest.

-- --- --

With a fresh cup of coffee in her hands, Claire peeled open her laptop, drumming her fingers against the wood of the desk as she waited for it to load.

“So, I think we should discuss where we take this from, aye?” Jamie began, blowing the steam from his hot tea. “We’d been sort of sticking to a chronological order, ye ken from what ye’ve already read that most of the early years tales have been written, the middle too. It’s mainly the later years we have to finish off.”

“I have some of his letters, if that helps?”

Lamb, like clockwork, had written to Claire. Being caught up in her own life, she had read them -replied to a couple- though had never gone into the sort of detail he’d hoped for. But she had kept them safe, read them over and over until the ink had begun to fade from some of the pages. She had treasured them when she’d been so down that she had wanted to take him up on his offer and leave Oxford. Now, it seemed, they might be all the more useful to them.

The scent of toast wafted into the small lounge as the buzzer beeped in the kitchen. With breakfast nearly ready, she left him to finish off the food while she rushed upstairs to collect the tin. Clutching it tightly between her fingers, she placed it delicately on the table, leaving it for Jamie to open.

“He certainly covered all of his bases, didn’t he?” Jamie chuckled, taking a bite of toast and passing Claire a plate of her own. “Now we can just interpret them, I can help fill in some of the blanks and we can get a great end - something Quentin would be proud of.”

They spent the rest of the day surrounded by paper, trying to reorganise as many letters as possible, finding some semblance of an order to the stories told within them. By the time the sun was setting, the automatic lights turning on in sequence around the small room, they had already found a few that could be discarded as well as some incredibly valuable *new* anecdotes that Jamie had loosely remembered Lamb talking about but hadn’t been able to fully add to their timetable of events, not until he’d read and re-read the words a few times.

Standing, an envelope in her hands and a biro tucked neatly through her messy bun, Claire scratched her head with the end of the paper. “How long do you think this will take to finish?” She asked, knowing he might have a better idea now they’d finally completed the task of skim-reading most of the letters. “Not that I’m in a rush, of course.” A distinct red blush coated her cheeks as she smiled across at Jamie, her memories of their mornings adventures flashing before her eyes as her stomach clenched.

“Ach well, that all depends on how fast I can type.” He jested, winking -both of his eyes closing for a brief moment as his inability to do so reared its head. It looked rather like an extended blink rather than a wink which caused Claire to bite her lip as she held back her laughter.”But in all honesty I reckon we might have a good rough end in a month or two. That includes a couple of draft reads and edits.”

“Two months? Max?” A bolt of fear shot through her at the prospect of an end. After their first encounter, she had grown fond of their daily interactions. Whether it was the agonising lust that seemed to set her on fire from the inside out, or the little touches of his hand on hers as he past her on the stairs, there was something otherworldly about the way his body called to hers and the idea of another few guilt free months in his company made her heart race and her toes curl.

“What will ye do when we’re done?” The question fell from his mouth without him really thinking about it, but he could tell by the widening of her eyes that she wasn’t really sure.

In the week after the funeral, neither had really made any steps in returning to their proper routine. Jamie had made sure the shelves were stocked with good food, he had called his bosses and kept them abreast of the ever changing situation, putting their minds at ease as him and Claire had discussed some varied details of what Lamb might want in the wake of his death. Other than that, though, both had just basked in the quiet company of the other.

Claire had a few things in mind for her immediate future, she had been dreaming vividly and the more she delved into the early life of her uncle, and his days lost with her in the wilderness, the more she wanted to pen her own version of events -though she had no idea where to start.

“Maybe I’ll become like Mary Poppins,” picking up the much abused video box of the classic movie from Lamb’s shelf, she ran her finger over the front cover and smiled, “and go where the wind takes me.”

“Are ye feeling the need for an adventure now?” Tapping against one of the smaller piles, he cocked his head to the side. With the tales fresh in his mind, he could almost feel the intoxication, the lure of travel from the stories Lamb had woven into the very fabric of the paper.

“Maybe,” she sighed, a very basic plot forming in her mind, “but there’s a chance I’ll need your assistance with it.”

-- --- --

Days turned into weeks and before either of them knew it, a whole month had passed in a blur. Working day and night, powered by caffeine and the company of the other, Jamie and Claire began to put the final words down on the biography. They barely spoke of what would happen once they’d finished, but on the days she wasn’t working on Lambs memoir, Claire was thinking of her own novella.

“I think we’re ready for this version to go to the publishers now. What do you think?” Pulling his glasses from his nose and placing them beside his laptop, he stretched his legs beneath the table and suppressed a yawn.

“I agree, I think we’ve done all we can with it -- I think he’d be proud.” Gazing out of the window, the dulled glass caused the passers by to appear disjoined as they walked by. She was in a world of her own, the words swirling around her as if Lamb were here himself. His voice seemed to speak to her and it wasn’t until a flurry of activity caught her off guard and brought her out of her daydream that she realised Jamie was still talking. “C-can you repeat that, sorry…”

“I just agreed wi’ ye, he would be.” A slow smile spread across his face as she turned back to him. “He’d be so proud of you too, Claire.”

“It was a while back now, but do you remember the phone call you took for me, from Frank?”

A cold shudder ran down his spine but he nodded as he tried to hold back the vitriol. Though no more had been said about the man, he knew from the way she occasionally reacted to him that nothing good could come from her mentioning him. “Aye, I do.”

“Before you I had little to no knowledge of proper *human* relationships. I met him, Frank, in Africa when I was there with Lamb, though the two never really crossed paths. He was my first kiss and when we finally bumped into one another again back home I sort of just found myself gravitating towards him. When I was away, in the desert, in the jungle, anywhere really with Lamb he had an unconscious way about him. He kept me grounded in some way. But alone, I was useless. I was trapped, wrapped up in this elevated world hidden from mere mortals where people like Frank are completely untouchable.”

Pouring her a wee dram, Jamie walked Claire to the sofa, sitting her down before handing her the tumbler.

She took a swig before continuing. “I’m so scared.”

“Of what, lass?”

“I don’t even know!” She sighed, exasperated. “Of finishing this and having nothing. Of staying and then this turning to dust. Of going home and falling straight back into old habits - but those are the ones I know. It’s daft. I know which the terrible decision is, but you represent something infinitely worse.”

"Aye, worse am I?" He tried to joke, but it fell flat the moment the words left his mouth.

"No- harder."

"Which is it Claire?"

"I don’t know, I don't know how to explain, I’m sorry, Jamie,” she spluttered, passing the glass back, her hand shaking as she stood quickly, “I think I just need some space.” Rushing from the lounge, she headed straight up to her room and slammed the door shut.

It was the first night in a long time that she spent alone. Jamie, still shocked and flustered by her fast exit, sat for a while by himself before gathering some of his belongings and returning to his own flat for the night. Claire heard the front door slam, her hand covering her mouth as she cried almost silently. Curling up on her bed, she kept her eyes on the case she had never quite unpacked as if it’s half-filled mass was indicative of where she was always meant to end up.

There were a couple of letters she had held back from Jamie, ones that had more personal comments that she wasn’t comfortable sharing. Yet.

Morning arrived, the sun streaming in through her open blinds. She’d slept on and off and rubbed her red-rimmed eyes as she crawled out from beneath the thin blanket that she’d pulled over herself sometime during the early hours.

“Claire?”

She jumped a little, shocked that he had somehow managed to sneak back in without her hearing him. The first reply barely left her mouth, her throat dry as she swallowed and tried again. “Yes, Jamie?”

The door opened slowly, the hinges creaking as he popped his head around the wood. “I have somewhere to take ye, will you come wi’ me?”

Nodding, she plucked a piece of stray fluff from her creased jeans. “Yes, sure, can I change first?”

“Of course,” he replied, “I’ll wait downstairs.”

Quickly, she used her en-suite to wash and re-dress in clean clothes before placing her purse and notepad into her small bag. Making her way downstairs, she felt a heaviness cross her chest. He was waiting, his car keys resting between his fingers.

“Driving?”

“Aye, ready?”

“Yes.”

-- --- --

The motorway wasn’t too dissimilar from the train ride, though the sound of the wheels on tarmac were slightly more relaxing than the chug of the metal wheels against the tracks. “Do you want to tell me what surprise you have in store for me?” She tried to sound light, but somehow she still sounded worried.

“Ye’ll see.” He returned, a tight smile lifting his lips slightly.

“Have you sent the manuscript off?”

“I emailed the first PDF this morning before we left. I’ll hear soon and I’ve cc’d you into it, so ye should know the moment they respond to me.”

As they drove over each county line, a new sign popping up to indicate their direction, Claire started to feel more and more nervous. As Dumfries and Galloway came into view, she felt this almighty lump forming in her throat. Just before the Gretna junction, Jamie pulled off the motorway just as the sun peaked high in the sky. Small villages came and went until a borders train station came into view, giving her a glance at the side of a carriage as it sat quietly on the partially hidden platform.

“Will you tell me now?” She asked calmly, though she had an idea of what was about to happen.

“It isn’t due to leave for another thirty minutes,” he said, pointing at the ScotRail service idling beside them, “I’ll wait, to make sure ye get away alright, and I’ll make sure the rest of your belongings get back to Oxford safely. But I think ye might need something more than I can offer ye here.”

“You think I should go back?”

“That’s what ye’ve been thinking about, aye? Yer home. The one you’ve belonged in.”

“Home.” She mirrored, the word seeming foreign on her tongue. “What about the rest of Lamb’s biography?”

“We can email. And I can phone. It’s written, no’ much will need completing on it now.”

“...and there’s nothing for me here?” Her voice was steadily lowering, getting more inaudible as cars started to pull in and park around them.

“Only ye ken that.” Opening the car door, he gallantly walked to her side and held out his hand for her to take. “I’ll wait until yer gone, to make sure you’re safe and ye can call whenever you like.”

Finding her voice seemed impossible and she couldn’t help but replay their last conversation over and over in her head. Having confessed to him that he was the more terrifying option, she had fled and hidden in her room. Walking over to the entrance, she turned only to find him hunched over, his back facing towards her as he rested against his car bonnet. Her feet kept moving, though every step increased the stabbing pain in her chest.

Hauling himself back into the front seat, Jamie let his head flop onto the steering wheel. It was highly likely that his plan could backfire massively, but from the moment he’d mentioned the end of the book he had felt an immediate disconnect from Claire. It was fear, that much was clear, and he didn’t want to send her back to somewhere she was deeply unhappy. However, something in his gut told him that her misplaced sense of self was too fragile to be convinced to stay with words alone. At the first sign of trouble, she would run. If she wanted to stay, to make a life here with him, she needed to make this choice herself.

Sitting with her hands wrapped in her coat, Claire watched as various passengers wandered up and down the platform, the guards opening and closing the doors for them. Though it wasn’t freezing cold, she couldn’t help but feel chilled. Though she hadn’t picked up on it before, reading back through Lamb’s letters it had suddenly become clear about his intentions for her. Clearly he hadn’t voiced those opinions to Jamie but it had been silly of her to think he didn’t know of her situation in Oxford. A man in uniform raised his brows as he walked by her for the tenth time. Standing, she brushed the creases from her trousers. This wasn’t a choice between Jamie and Frank because that would have been an impossibly easy decision, but a choice between who she’d always been and a new variant of herself. As the clouds of steam cleared from the front of the train, the sight of the car sat stoically in the car park made her stumble backwards and she sighed loudly as her bottom hit the warmed wooden seat once more.

A loud horn echoed through the trees surrounding the station as the engine pulled out and disappeared off into Cumbria. As promised he waited, long enough to watch as the car park emptied and the lights dimmed in the entrance to the platforms.

Closing his eyes, he inhaled, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel as he tried to calm himself enough to turn the engine on and drive away.

A knock on the window made him sit bolt upright, sweat running down his back as he twisted to see who’d disturbed his pity party.

“Claire!”

She stood, tears in her eyes as she stepped back from the car. “Take me home, Jamie, please. To Glasgow”

Taking her hand, he bought it to his lips and kissed her softly. “Aye,” he replied, watching as she sniffed, shaking her head as she made her way to the passenger side and climbed in. “Home it is.”

#Anonymous #;Mod MBD #Cry Me A River #jamie x claire

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dutten-does-the-fanfic · 4 years

Text

I Want You Here With Me (Is It Too Much to Ask for Something Great) ch. 5

Title: I Want You Here With Me (Is It Too Much to Ask for Something Great) ch. 5 of 14 (ch. 1) Pairing: Isak Valtersen/Even Bech Næsheim Word count: 8450 Warnings: Language, mental illness, internalized homophobia

AO3

Summary: The one where it’s been two years since Isak last saw or spoke with Even, and no one knows that Isak ever knew Even at all.

Present

Despite having attended classes with these same thirtyish people for two semesters, Isak never actually went through the effort of learning their names. He’d thought that was going to be a reason for anxiety when their tutor read out who was supposed to be working together, but turns out he was wrong about that.

Because the guy who looks too much like he just rolled out of bed and doesn’t give a flying fuck has paired him up with Sana. He is paired up with Sana. He is going to be doing experiments, group projects and study sessions with Sana.

Who, Isak is sure, is a lovely – or at the very least a good – person. She just so happens to scare the shit out of all of their classmates.

Isak will deny it till the day he dies, but the stereotype about boys who are getting a science major not being able to talk to girls like they’re actual human beings applies to about half of the guys in this room – not something Isak can relate to, but he has his own reasons for that. The rest of the people in here either find her completely unapproachable, don’t want to be on the receiving end of a backstabbing, gut punching comment Sana has become known for after a guy wouldn’t take no for an answer at some party, or they throw out xenophobic and religious discriminatory comments like nobody’s business.

Isak spent about 97% of his first year not caring about anything that didn’t end up with him being drunk out of his mind, so he’s never actually spoken to her. The only reason he knows her is because Eva, Jonas’ sort-of-half-the-time-more-so-a-fuck-buddy girlfriend, is friends with her, and by proxy Isak has heard about her.

She doesn’t seem as scary when he’s heard an account of how fiercely she’ll protect her friends and of the lengths she’ll go to to cheer one of them up. Then again, she is currently sending him death glares that makes Isak dig his toes into the ground.

“You probably already know each other,” the tutor says, makes himself comfortable behind the screen of his laptop, “but go on and sit with your partners, introduce yourselves, make nice, all that jazz.”

Isak sighs as he gathers his coat, laptop and backpack. Dammit, he’d gotten the best seat in the room as well, the first seat of the row right by the door so he could be in and out within seconds. But Sana isn’t moving by the looks of it, so Isak’s just going to have to bite the bullet.

“Hey,” he greets, trying to plaster on a smile even as Sana glowers at him. “I’m –“

“I know who you are,” she interrupts.

Isak has to bite his cheek to keep from giving a retort back of his own. It won’t amount to anything good, and despite how shit this year’s kick off has been, he’s determined that this is his year, and Ev- someone’s sudden appearance and Sana’s bad mood will not be deterring him from completing his goal.

“Alright, then,” Isak slumps onto his seat.

It’s fine. He doesn’t need to make new friends. He has Jonas, Magnus, and Mahdi and that’s more than fine, it’s pretty much more friends than he’s ever had before.

He looks up to see Sana glaring at him.

“What?” he snaps.

“You might be willing to slack off and practically waste away your life, but I’m here to get an education,” she bristles at him. Her eyes look darker with the heavy ring of eyeliner around them. “This is important to me and I will not be the only one doing all the work only for you to get credit as well, you got that?”

Isak’s mouth snaps shut after it had fallen open from the indignation of being spoken to like that.

It’s, he’s reluctant to admit fair enough that she believes this of him. His first year hadn’t exactly been productive, even if he had ended up passing he had spent way too long getting drunk and partying and trying to forget about everything. There hadn’t been room to focus on anything but, and that meant homework went unfinished if he even started on it, and he’s pretty sure he never actually spoke with his study group.

“I know I don’t have the best track record,” Isak hisses, magnanimously ignoring Sana’s amused huff, “but this is serious for me too. Okay?”

“’Okay’,” Sana imitates. It sounds more like a ‘prove it’ than an agreement.

Isak doesn’t call her out on it. So be it on her if she doesn’t believe him, or doesn’t want to believe him. Isak’s not going to let that hinder him from turning this year around.

They’re painfully silent and it’s only amplified by everyone else in class talking around them. It sounds a bit too cheerful and carefree for being about possible topics, but Isak isn’t bothered enough to start listening in on mindless chatter.

Still, he should probably say something to Sana. He’s going to be working with her for six months, and he isn’t going to let it bother him, but mutual animosity rarely rakes in the 6’s.

“So,” Isak clears his throat. Sana looks up at him, not in a glare, but not particularly friendly either. “Evolution and genetics. Is there… something in particular you like?”

Sana shrugs. Helpful, thy name is Sana.

“Depends,” she finally settles on when Isak is about to lose it – or he isn’t, because he isn’t bothered.

“On?”

Maybe he’s a little bit bothered.

“Well, we could always focus on evolutionary genetics,” Sana suggests. She opens up a blank document on her computer, “but I have a feeling most of the other groups are going to do that.”

Isak snorts. Understatement of the year. He might not know any of their names, but he can already tell just from looking that half of these people are just going to settle on a topic that’s a variation of the name of the class subject instead of examining all the other topics they have to review.

“Right,” Isak agrees. “So what’s left? We have genetic mutations, heritage, we could do something on evolutionary processes?”

“Maybe.” Another shrug. “I quite like topics like behavioral genetics, you know, the topics in that area.”

Isak’s heart skips a beat and bears his fingernail down on his the skin of his thumb to avoid just blurting out ‘No. No, no, no, absolutely not’.

He manages to utter a, “Cool,” instead, but it sounds too stiff and Sana picks up on it and raises a disbelieving eyebrow at him with a frown.

Isak winces. Fuck, so much for playing it cool.

“We don’t have to do that.”

“No, no, I know,” the tone feels foreign in his mouth. He’s not usually the one to placate somebody, that’s Jonas’ territory. “It’s a good idea. Write it down.”

Anything to get her to look away from him again. Behavioral genetics hits just a tiny bit too close to home, if Isak’s honest. Sure, he’s already done a ton of research on it in his spare time, even if it has been a couple of years by now, so they would have an advantage that wouldn’t go amiss.

Still, he isn’t sure if he can go through with it.

“We should consider some more evolution-heavy topics as well,” Isak suggest. He skims the table of contents in their main book. “Maybe something like patterns of human evolution or genetic databases. Those are quite alright as well.”

Sana nods as she dutifully types, but she doesn’t look enthused, so Isak tries to suggest something else closer to what she wanted to do.

“Maybe we could find some more within genetic heritage,”

“I’m hearing a lot of talking, yet not a whole lot about science!” A voice overpowers everyone in the room.

Isak’s and Sana’s heads snap to attention. Yeah, alright, they’ve only started brainstorming, surely he isn’t expecting them to have an outline ready just yet –

“I know it’s exciting to talk about whatever celebrity it is I can hear you talking about, but try to focus now!”

Wait – celebrity?

Please, let it be an actor, a singer, hell, a politician everyone is obsessed about and not –

“Honestly, it’s not like they don’t know Even Bech Næsheim is from Oslo,” Sana mutters as she turns back to her computer.

Oh, damn. This is not happening. This is not happening.

“You a fan then?” Isak’s tongue nearly trips over the words from how it feels like it’s glued to the roof of his mouth, but the garble of noises that comes out is at least intelligible enough that Sana answers.

With an infuriating shrug. “You’re not?”

No, Isak wants to bitterly snap, but he doesn’t. Just shrugs back. “Don’t really care that much, to be honest. One of my roommates is crazy about him, though.”

That’s good, divert the attention away from himself. If only he could the topic away from Even at all.

He always feels like he’s being so goddamn obvious, like he’s practically screaming out ‘Even, Even, Even!’, always has felt like that no matter how hard he tried to make it stop. It’s stupid, because there’s no reason why anyone would even think about him and Even in any relation to each other, there’s no reason why he should be worried or suspicious, but every time his name mentioned, Isak’s mind goes off on a tangent of they know, they’ll find out, they’ll know.

“Oh, yeah – Magnus, right?”

Isak startles slightly, sliding down in his seat before he pushes against the edge of the table to stop it. God, that’s weird Sana knows that, but then again, Isak knew about Sana, so…

“Yeah,” he stutters. “Magnus.”

Sana doesn’t even look over at him, just writes down another topic and asks him what he thinks about that one.

OOOOO

It doesn’t get better the rest of the day.

Even during the lecture, people can’t seem to stop buzzing at the news. Every sentence either starts with ‘I was there’ or ‘my friend was there’ or ‘did you hear’ and Isak thinks all of it is not only overrated but entirely exaggerated because, sure, Even is famous, people love his movies and there aren’t a whole lot of people who haven’t at least heard of one of the titles, but still. He isn’t an actor, he’s a director, and Isak hasn’t really ever heard of any other director creating this sort of frantic commotion.

Just his luck, huh?

Yeah, alright, he gets it. Oslo isn’t LA, or New York, or, hell, even London. There aren’t a ton of celebrities just wandering around on the street, let alone showing up at a university party. It’s natural that some people would be talking about it. Not this amount, though.

Isak ends up slamming the door to the bathroom shut so harshly he can hear it echoing out in the hall, but he doesn’t stop moving until he’s locked up in a cubicle and has sat down on the closed toilet seat, ignoring the voice in his head talking about the amount of germs.

His skin feels too tight and he tries to alleviate the pressure by tugging harshly on chunks of his hair, grabbing onto one of the bigger curls to make it easier.

It doesn’t help. It just leaves him with a slight headache that was already too close to forming from stress and anxiety.

He turns on the sink too high. The water splatters onto the porcelain so forcefully it lands on his shirt. The cool water doesn’t even help, it just makes him too aware and he ends up dry heaving for a good ten minutes before he tries to take a sip of water and compose himself enough to go back to the world.

This wasn’t how he planned on his year starting out.

“What do you think he was doing there?” is the first thing he hears when he steps out of the bathroom.

Two girls are walking near the end of the hallway, but they’re talking loudly enough that he can still hear them.

“He used to go to UiO for film, didn’t he? Maybe he was just visiting some old friends.”

“Don’t think he was looking for a girlfriend, then?” the girl on the left playfully nudges her elbow into her friend’s side until she starts laughing and pushes her away.

“Pretty sure he already has a girlfriend.”

“Who, his PR or PA or management or whatever else she does? Sonja something?”

“Yeah, weren’t they –“

Isak runs to his right, away from the girl, and takes two steps up the staircase. If he doesn’t get away now, he’ll just have to go back into the bathroom until he really does throw up.

He can do this, he tries to convince himself even as he stumbles over the last step and nearly faceplants in front of a group of people. He ignores the snickering as he passes them and tries to focus on remembering the next auditorium he has to be in instead. He just has to focus on his coursework, on meticulously taking notes – more so than he already does, thank you very much – even when it’s boring or he’s already understood the subject.

He’s a good student, he knows that – has always been one apart from last year. Now he just needs to prove it to everyone else.

Isak sits through a lecture he doesn’t understand shit of. It doesn’t help that all the people around him are nodding and agreeing and acting like this is basic knowledge you should already know when applying for this program, and Isak is just sitting there, staring at the slides the professor runs through.

Everything being said goes in through one ear and out through the other, and Isak only manages to rile himself up even further at the thought of how many hours he’ll have to stay up tonight to read through the content until he understands it.

He tries to get out of the hall quickly, but he’s stuck behind a couple of stragglers blocking off his only exit, so he has to stand there awkwardly as they finish packing away their stuff. It’s just his luck that there’s a group two rows in front of him talking about Him, and then there are curious inquiries as to what is going on, what happened, who is it they’re talking about, and before Isak’s managed to get out of there, people are throwing around whatever bullshit they’ve heard.

Isak’s pushing his lips together in irritation to all the rumors as he bounds out of there, catching the tram right before it leaves. He’s winded and a bit sweaty, but the carriage is mostly empty, so he takes a seat the furthest away from the two teenage girls near the back.

He also shoves his ear buds in for good measure. The girls might be talking about some boy at their school right now, but before you know it, it’s all about the latest gossip and Isak can’t, he can’t handle hearing that stupid, goddamn name again today, he can’t.

Like that name hasn’t been floating around in his head for goddamn years, now it’s also being thrown at him from every single direction, and Isak feels like screaming. And crying. Isak feels like crying, can feel the lump in his throat grow so big he can’t breathe, can’t swallow his own spit, but much to his own surprise he doesn’t break down in tears. He doesn’t cry at all.

He feels so fucked up, so messed up and torn apart, like a tornado has gone through him, and it feels just as bad as when Even left in the first place, because back then he’d thought he’d gotten it right and he had finally started to think that again with his boys, that he could be someone’s friend and not fuck it all up, but he was wrong about Even and he’s apparently wrong about this as well, because he hasn’t gotten it right. Had he ever, or was this just something that had been waiting to happen?

He’s fucked up being a friend, has fucked things up with his boys, had nearly fucked up his entire first year of university, that’s two whole semesters worth of fucking up. The first one he’d spent most of simply black out drunk, and the next one he’d spent slightly more sober, but still unable to connect with anyone and not be a complete asshole. He hadn’t been able to focus on his classes at all, but had at least been able to spend his sleepless nights studying instead.

Jonas had tried so hard during their breakfast to pretend everything was normal, and Magnus and Mahdi had tried as well, but Mahdi had been more careful with his words than he has been since Isak first met him, and Magnus had constantly switched between not being able to stop staring at Isak like he’s never met him before and not being able to look at Isak at all.

It’s awkward and Isak feels awful about it even as he knows he shouldn’t. Or, partly, because part of it is his fault; he wouldn’t have worried them that badly if he hadn’t run off like that and stayed away for so long. He wouldn’t have been in this mess if he’d only –

Isak stops that thought by getting off the tram so quickly he nearly falls over when he trips over his feet going down the stairs.

The thing is, even though Isak hasn’t told them about – not even about Even, about himself – he considers those three guys his best friends. He doesn’t think he’s ever had friends as close as those three, not counting Eskild and Even, because Eskild had always been a bit of the older ‘guru’ despite only being four years older than him, and Even, well Even was just in an entirely different league of his own, so he shouldn’t, doesn’t, count either.

Isak hates how much he’s still like that fifteen, then sixteen, then seventeen, then eighteen, then nineteen year old who didn’t want to tell anyone that he doesn’t like girls. Sometimes it feels like he’s supposed to have had some type of character growth that the movies always make out to be so important, but he’s just been stuck for five years in the same mindset, with the same fears and worries, and he still doesn’t want to tell anyone.

There’s a small voice in the back of his head whispering to him how good it is that he hasn’t come out, because if he had, wouldn’t the boys have come to the conclusion that the reason Even knows him was because he ‘knows’ him? Isak tries to convince himself that he doesn’t hear that voice, even as it’s the only thing filling his head.

It’s not something he’s deliberately keeping away from them and only them, it’s everyone Isak doesn’t want to know that personal fact about him, and that’s fine. He’s allowed to not want to share everything, even if this is a bit bigger than taking the last bit of milk and forgetting to buy a new carton.

They had all moved in together because they wanted to move in together, the four of them, ‘Just how it should be,’ Magnus had crowed into their ears as he’d folded his arms over their shoulders and drawn them into a hug that smelled too much of beer and sweat to be as pleasant as it was in Isak’s memory.

But ‘just how it should be’ most certainly isn’t this. It isn’t Jonas biting his lips before saying something, it isn’t Magnus acting oddly around Isak, and it isn’t Mahdi being so goddamn reserved. It’s putting Isak on edge, more than he already is, which at this point is quite a lot, actually, and he shouldn’t be walking around feeling like this in his home.

He has tried so hard. He has been trying for so many years now, and for just a moment in time, he thought he had it. He had friends, he had a home, he had a home with his friends, and it had finally felt like life was turning around for him, and now he’s left with tension and more difficulties and Isak doesn’t know what to do.

There are pictures of them together scattered around the living room, originating back from when Eva had come around and scolded them and said this place needed to feel less like a pigsty and more like a home, that they were grown-ups and their house should ‘reflect that’.

The most grown-up things they’d been able to think of buying were pictures and sofa cushions, so now their grey sofa has yellow and orange cushions, and there are pictures hung up on the walls and scattered around on whatever flat surfaces were left. They’d gone to IKEA and gotten the frames and then printed the pictures off of their Instagrams on the university’s printer.

There are the stupid pictures of them fooling around, then there are the sweet group pictures where they’re all smiling. There’s one of Isak studying in their kitchen, the sun behind him, there’s one of Jonas and Mahdi shouting at the camera and holding up bottles of beer, and there’s one with Magnus smiling dopily at an out-of-frame Vilde. Isak’s picture is the only one with no smiles to be seen. Isak tries desperately not to reflect on that.

Just like how he doesn’t reflect on how in each of their individual rooms the others have put up pictures of their families, their current friends, the friends they don’t see as often because of life. Jonas has pictures of him and Eva and Eva alone, and Isak has nothing. Not a single picture.

He doesn’t think about the shoebox, whose contents feel forbidden, that he has hidden away in the top back of his closet, on the only shelf there. It’s stuffed underneath a pile of clothes and behind stacks of books from his previous semesters that he’ll probably never use ever again. It’s the perfect hiding place, because even if the boys decide to brave the contents of his closet, there’s no way they’d even think of going up there.

Isak’s doing a lot of that lately, of carefully strategizing, of hiding, of faking, of pretending – all of which he hates and has berated whoever was close enough to hear after a few too many drinks about, and here he is, doing the same shit as always.

It feels like he’s always doing it, never stopping. He never gets a reprieve and he hates that he desperately wants to blame Even for it, but he can’t. First of all, it’s not fair – this particular case excluded, because Even showing up in Oslo after having been away for so long has certainly been the catalyst in Isak’s rapidly declining wellbeing, but other than that, it’s all Isak’s doing.

That just makes him feel worse. The fact that it’s himself who is causing all of this pain makes Isak feel dizzy, his stomach swooping uncomfortably.

Stepping in through his front door makes his stomach curl in on itself instead. For a moment, Isak seriously contemplates just not walking in, just walking back out onto the street and never coming back. Would it be easier? Would it be better?

It wouldn’t. He can already tell himself that, at least. It wouldn’t be better, even if things are so incredibly shitty right now, leaving would do no good for Isak.

So he steps inside. His keys rattle in the lock, but not so loudly that the guys hear him before the door slams shut behind and he yells out the customary “Hello?” they always do to check who is home.

Fifteen minutes. He’d gotten a fifteen minute break between leaving the university and arriving home, and now he’s right back to pretending that everything is alright, that there isn’t a giant fucking pink tutu-wearing elephant dancing around in the room that Isak put there.

Isak’s pretending when he tries to smile at the boys. He’s pretending when he’s listening to them talking about their day, about whatever parties are coming up, about the girls they want to get with. He’s pretending when he’s in school and he’s pretending when he’s at home and he’s pretending with the people he’s supposed to call his closest friends, the people he considers his closest friends, even if they might not consider the same about him.

He’s pretending that the boys aren’t all pretending as well when they skirt around topics, when even Magnus refrains from talking about movies or his coursework, because media studies and Even might be too closely related to each other for Isak not to freak out again.

He only stops pretending when he closes his bedroom door behind him quietly, but only so much that he isn’t putting on a fake smile for everyone, because in truth he never really stops pretending, even around himself. He pretends, because maybe if he keeps on doing it for long enough, it’ll be so engrained in him it’ll be the truth, the only truth.

He slumps down against his door, sliding all the way down until his bum hits the ground with a too loud bump. He puts his head in his hands.

He still can’t breathe.

Past

Moving into the Kollektiv goes surprisingly seamlessly.

Isak can chalk it up to how everything leading up to it, how it’s been his dad leaving, the tirades of religious zeal, his mom being sick enough to being moved into a facility care, the constant worries and self-destructive behaviors Isak has picked up on over time, has been so much more difficult than anything Isak has ever experienced before, that the process of moving that everyone usually complains about just doesn’t really compare.

A lot of it is also because of Even – lovely, lovely Even who is spread out on his bed, laptop open on his stomach as he’s typing away. Isak doesn’t know whether it’s homework or ideas or an actual script, but they’re nearing midterms and Even is a senior, so Isak hopes it’s homework he’s working on.

Isak doubts it, but there’s a first for everything.

He can’t tell if it is schoolwork or not Even’s working on. They don’t attend the same high school and they don’t follow the same study line. Even goes to Bakka while Isak goes to Nissen, because he for sure won’t be going to any of those pretentious-ass schools – he’s not an obnoxious hipster and he isn’t rolling in wealth. Still, he’s looked over Even’s shoulder enough that at this point, he probably knows enough to be able to do Even’s program at Bakka, but beyond Even, Isak’s not interested in movies or media in the slightest, so Nissen will have to do.

It also helps that Elias and his crew of tormentors don’t go there, so it not only physically but also mentally felt like a new beginning, a fresh start.

Isak chances a look at Even’s screen, but Even’s flying through documents and tabs and browsers and videos faster than Isak manages to grasp. Honestly, Even can’t possibly be taking any of it in, either. Then he’s back to a document, typing away for a second before he repeats the process.

It’s… quite a bit more than what Even usually is, but Isak has only been living in the Kollektiv for nearly a week now, everything is still new and a bit exciting, so it’s understandable why Even is more wired than Isak has previously seen. It’s not like it’s a lot, just more in some way.

Plus, there’s also the extra added factor of nervousness at Eskild catching Even in his room. They already have a cover in case it happens – friends from school – but that excuse doesn’t really work if Eskild catches them during the night and asks why they’re cuddled up to each other half-naked.

Not exactly what ‘just friends’ do.

“What are you working on?” Isak asks as he turns off the lamp at his desk. His Norwegian essay can wait until tomorrow.

The joints in his back pop when he stretches back to look at Even, who is already watching him, smiling coyly as he lets his eyes linger over the length of his torso, his arms. Isak flushes, which only makes Even’s grin widen, but he lets it lie and looks back at his computer instead.

“Hmm?” Isak tries again when Even still hasn’t answered.

Isak’s twisted around on his desk chair – or, Noora’s desk chair. It still feels weird that he’s essentially using someone else’s furniture, someone else’s belongings, but Noora hadn’t been able to bring anything with her to Spain, and it’s not like Isak had a lot of his own that he wanted to bring instead – so he can look at Even, his arms resting over the back on the dark blue padding.

“Is it a secret?”

Even’s smile takes over his face, like that in itself is a much better story than whatever he’s working on. Isak can see the thoughts flying around in his head as his mind comes up with endless possibilities, but Isak isn’t really interested in all of those for a change.

It’s causality; Even smiles so Isak smiles, no question of correlation here. It makes something in Isak’s stomach twirl happily as he rests his cheek on his folded up arms.

Even hums noncommittally. “The most secret of secrets.”

The sun is hanging low on the sky, just barely shining in through Isak’s windows. It makes the white walls look golden with white patches in the shape of the window frame. Gold and red leaves frame the glass and all of it is positioned just so perfectly that the sun shines directly on Even while his face is blocked off. It makes his hair a lot more golden than it really is and Isak thinks he looks ethereal.

“So not your homework, then,” Isak teases and hides his smile in his arms when Even leans his head back up against the wall and groans dramatically.

“What are you, my mother?” Even groans.

No, Isak thinks to himself as he gets up off of his chair. I’m your boyfriend.

It’s not as difficult to say in his mind anymore, but actually saying the words out loud? Yeah, that’s not going to happen, no thank you.

It’s like Even hears him anyway, because his eyes go soft and he gets that look on his face Isak always endlessly teases him about, even if it means Even gets to tease him right back for the similar look Isak gets whenever he sees Even.

Isak vehemently denies he looks at Even with anything that could be described as ‘fondness’. He is a rock, a cold, hard rock – none of that mushy stuff for him.

Isak pads across the distance between the desk and the bed on socked feet until he can knee his way up the mattress, up over Even’s body. Even accommodates him by pushing the laptop off of his stomach and onto the bed. His breath leaves his body in a harsh ‘umph’ when Isak drops his torso onto Even’s legs so his face is pressed into Even’s stomach.

“You comfy?” Even wheezes, but Isak can feel him breathing so he knows it’s pretend.

Isak hums and nuzzles his face into Even’s stomach, following the flat planes and the dip of his bellybutton. Even’s hand reaches into his hair, twirls around a few strands to tug. It makes Isak’s toes curl and he looks up to smile shyly at Even.

Who looks at Isak like he’s pretty sure he’s actually a mirage. And then reaches over and starts typing something onto his computer.

“Sudden inspiration?” Isak teases. He presses a kiss on Even’s stomach through his t-shirt. The click-clacks of the keyboard pause for a second before Even continues.

It’s been less than five hours since Even had poured out a soliloquy about why he was showing up right now, because Isak seemed to be his muse and it was of utmost importance he was around him to work properly. He’d promised Isak he would dedicate odes to his entire being, to which Isak had reminded him he wrote manuscripts, he wasn’t a poet. Even had tutted at him and talked about artists and working in different art forms, and Isak had silenced him by kissing him until Even started talking about what he’d come over to do.

Honestly, it was more down to luck than knowledge that Even had showed up exactly when he did. Usually, they work off of precise time schedules that calculate when Eskild will be either a) busy – doing what, Isak does not care nor does he particularly want to know – or b) out of the building entirely and Linn is a) out or b) asleep so that Isak can get Even in and out without either of them noticing Isak has someone over to visit.

“Absolutely,” Even agrees, typing some more. “So if you could just stay there and be absolutely adorable, that’d be a real help, dear.”

Isak’s nose scrunches up in disdain. “’Adorable’,” he huffs, sinks his teeth into Even’s shirt just hard enough Even will be able to feel the scrape on his skin. “Piss off. I’m not adorable in the slightest.”

Even’s hum tries to be placating, but Isak isn’t fooled into believing him for even a second, so he presses another bite further up on Even’s ribs.

“Hey,” Even shudders, reaches out to grab onto Isak’s hair again. He tugs once a bit harshly, but he doesn’t direct Isak’s head away from his torso. “Menace.” And then he launches into a ramble about plot points and key elements and Isak doesn’t actually know which story he’s working on, so it all flies over his head.

Even’s also talking so quickly it’s difficult to keep up with, even if Isak had known the thoughts and theories behind it.

Isak grins as he rolls off of Even to land heavily on the free bit of mattress along Even’s side. It’s cool to the touch and it feels nice again his cheek, but it’s quite like the same temperature as the rest of the room in general. Isak should really get to asking Eskild about the heating situation before it’s dire or he’s already gotten ill for the first time this season.

Still, it feels nicer when Even curls his arm around Isak’s shoulder and pulls him in close until he’s more so lying on Even than on the bed.

It’s so easy to let his body relax completely, something Isak rarely lets himself do. It’s so easy to just close his eyes and breathe, because Even is warm underneath him and is happily rambling at him and it just feels so easy.

It’s definitely easy enough that he’s about to fall asleep.

Even must be able to feel it, some type of extra heaviness on his chest from Isak, can probably feel his breathing evening out to these deep in- and exhalations.

He doesn’t let him, though. Instead, Even sits up, forcing Isak to sit up along with him, and he doesn’t stop no matter how much Isak groans and tries to shuffle his nose into the crook of Even’s neck, right against his collarbone. Even just presses a kiss to his forehead and starts tugging at Isak’s sweatshirt, helping him get his arms in order so he can pull it off of him.

With enough persuasion, Even gets Isak to stumble onto his feet and go to the bathroom and brush his teeth for the night. The tiles in the shower are still wet, so either Eskild just left or Linn is home and probably asleep by now. Either way, they’re not going to be disturbed.

When he gets back to his room, Even is still lying on the bed, gazing out of the window like there’s something more important out there, something that should have his focus other than Isak, and Isak obviously can’t allow that, so he flops face-first sideways onto the bed. His stomach ends up over Even’s thighs, and he more so knocks out his own breath than amounts to have any impact on Even.

Even just laughs and scoots up the bed until he can pull his legs free and roll Isak over onto his back.

Isak’s limbs already feel sleep heavy, despite the brief pause to the bathroom that usually would’ve had his brain and body awake and ready to go again for at least two hours. He’s lethargic when Even pulls him up to sit so he can slide his t-shirt off of him in a similar manner as he’d done with the hoodie.

Next goes his jeans, once Isak has flopped back onto the bed, bouncing twice before he settles. Even presses a kiss to his bare stomach, right above the hem of Isak’s jeans. It feels nice, so Isak make sure to hum his appreciation as he scratches his nails along the nape of Even’s neck.

The bed is still warm underneath him from where they’d just been lying and where Even has been for the past couple of hours. That makes it so much easier to just sink into it, even as Even starts tutting at him to cooperate.

Isak doesn’t do much more than lie there, but Even still manages to work his jeans down his legs and discard them. The button clangs slightly against the floor, but Isak only just hears it over Even getting him to shuffle up to the pillows and under the covers.

“Go to sleep, baby,” Even cards his hand through Isak’s hair. It feels nice and Isak is quite fond of this bubble that’s seemingly formed around the two of them where they’re safely tucked away in his room.

“Lay down next to me, then,” Isak counters.

Even rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling and complies with Isak’s wishes without a single protest.

Isak falls asleep to the feeling of Even getting up again.

There are times where Isak wants to shout out that he likes Even, that Even likes him back, that Even is his boyfriend, and just as quickly as the impulse comes, it dissipates and Isak is left with the urge to huddle up in his room with Even behind closed doors.

He doesn’t know if that makes him a coward or if it makes him smart. There’s no one around for him to ask, no one to get a second opinion from, and that’s fine, really, it is. For every second that Isak gets the urge to just say it, he has hours and days where he’s so inexplicably relieved that no one knows yet he still gets to go home and be with Even.

It’s a system that works for them. It’s no one’s business but their own, anyway.

Isak falls in and out of consciousness for the couple of hours the night lasts. He wakes up whenever Even starts moving around, going from the bed to the floor to the desk, whenever Even gets so excited about whatever his mind has managed to conjure up that he can’t keep the laughter in or he just has to say that line out loud.

When he wakes up for longer than just a few seconds, the sun has started to peek in, and Isak can feel that it is way too early to be up, even if it wasn’t the weekend.

Isak stretches lazily as he turns over on his side so he can look over at Even who is sitting by the desk, laptop open and fingers flying over the keys. There’s nothing that tells him Even knows he’s awake.

“Even,” Isak whines, pushes his bottom lip out a bit in a pout to exaggerate but also entice. “Come and lie with me.”

Even twists around on the desk chair and Isak can see it forming on his lips, the rejection, the explanation that he just has to finish this next bit, Isak, and Isak’s already bracing himself for it.

But then, when Even really looks at him, it’s like something in his eyes softens and he kind of slumps a bit in his seat. Exhaustion is probably catching up to him, Isak thinks, and he stretches backwards to scoot his body further back, leaving a warm spot on the bed open for Even to curl up next to him in.

“Alright,” Even agrees – he’s rolling his eyes at Isak’s theatrics when Isak can’t help but grin widely at having gotten his way, but Isak has gotten his way, so he doesn’t feel the need to call him out on it. “I’ll lie with you until you fall asleep.”

Isak’s pout returns. He knows Even hasn’t slept the entire night, but there is something about him, some restless energy buzzing around in him that just won’t settle.

Even raises his arm so Isak can curl in close up against him, his own left arm curls around Even’s chest as his head comes to rest on Even’s shoulder. Isak’s still sleep warm and Even’s slightly cooler temperature feels nice against him, like a fresh change that makes his eyelids fall heavy as it becomes a struggle to keep his eyes open.

“Noooo,” Isak sighs, nuzzles his face against the hard line of Even’s shoulder. “Tell me about what you’re writing.”

Isak doesn’t have to be looking at Even to know how he looks right now; that fond look that simultaneously makes Isak both want to curl up in bed with him and look around nervously to see if anyone’s paying attention to them. Still, it makes him feel warm and safe and Isak might, might, be falling too hard too fast.

“I’m not telling you if you’re going to fall asleep halfway through,” Even pushes gently at Isak’s body, making him rock back and forth a couple times before he settles again.

“I won’t,” Isak protests, but he knows he will. He’s already struggling to stay awake, and having Even’s voice almost narrating what’s going on in his head will set him off even quicker.

“You will,” Even tells him matter of factly, but he still launches into the story he’s working on.

Isak stays awake halfway through. He gets out a murmur of, “You still owe me a beach story,” before he’s out like a light.

He wakes up again in the middle of the day. Even’s still being a busy bee, but now it’s from beside Isak on the bed and he’s scribbling something on a notepad so he wouldn’t have to move to get the laptop still perched open, screen dark from inactivity or maybe lack of battery, on the desk.

It’s so late that Isak can hear both Eskild and Linn bumbling around in the flat, and it makes his heart pick up a beat too fast. Even notices he’s awake.

“Yeah,” Even says in lieu of a good morning. He does bend down to press a kiss to the top of Isak’s head. “Didn’t want to wake you up before them. You’re too beautiful when you sleep.”

It’s risky doing this – any of it, really, but not getting up before Eskild and Linn are stumbling around the flat is almost like asking to be caught. Isak knows this, Even knows this, and Isak can feel his stomach starting to twist up in anxiety already. Any thoughts he’d had yesterday about his room being a bubble for just the two of them has popped at the prospect of other people’s proximity to them.

Isak doesn’t tell him it’s fine, because he isn’t sure if it is. It’s Sunday, probably around midday judging by the light, and Isak knows Even has plans with his parents this afternoon. Plus, it’s not like they’re able to just hide Even away in Isak’s room for an entire day, as nice as the thought is.

Isak does tilt his head back until Even appeasingly bends down to press a lazy kiss to his lips.

As uncomfortable that Isak is that Even has stayed, he’s also incredibly pleased that he got to wake up to this.

Even presses another kiss to his forehead and then turns back to whatever he was doodling on the pad of paper. When Isak turns to look at it he can see it’s some type of storyboard, but it’s too doodle-y for him to see what the story is actually about. It could be aliens, it could be penguins, Isak can’t tell.

He can the leftover strips of ripped papers see by the edge of the pad, revealing just how large an amount of papers that have hastily been torn out while Isak was sleeping.

Glancing over his room, it’s quite easy to see that Even hasn’t been sleeping next to him this entire time.

It looks a little bit like a very small hurricane has swept through while Isak was asleep. There are scrunched up paper balls littered all over the ground, discarded ideas of Even’s, but some of them look like they’ve deliberately been placed there, with Isak’s school books set up like walls of a mini-set, and every single blue article of clothing Isak owns strewn out on the middle of the floor in something that could vaguely resemble waves.

Isak doesn’t really know what to do with any of this.

“Did you get some sleep?” Isak asks even as he’s 100% certain of the answer being negative.

Even doesn’t even give him a proper answer. He grins like he’s just let Isak in on a funny secret and kisses him until he has to go.

The next ten minutes pass with Even humming theme music for spy movies under his breath, grinning whenever Isak hisses for him to stay quiet as he goes into the hallway to figure out where Eskild and Linn are in the guise of going to the bathroom.

They’re both in the kitchen which means Isak hasn’t got a chance of sneaking Even out of the front door or the backdoor. Shit.

“Alright,” Isak whispers when he ducks back into his room. His hear is pounding and he tries to convince himself it’s just from Even and nothing else in order to calm down. “I’ll have to go keep their attention on me. Then you can sneak out the front door.”

“Proper Romeo and Juliet, don’t you think?” Even kisses Isak again before Isak can protest that now may not be the time to do anything but focus on getting out without bringing attention onto themselves.

Still, it works and Isak feels his body slump down a bit in relief of being so near Even. They can do this, they have to.

Isak sneaks out into the hallway, but he has to pause before he enters the kitchen to suck in a deep breath. He can do this.

“Hey.”

Eskild jumps from where he’d had his back to Isak, one hand flying out to clutch the kitchen counter, the other to grab onto his chest over his heart like the dramatic ass he is.

“Jesus,” Eskild whines. “You’re going to end up giving me a heart attack! Make some noise when you enter a room, why don’t you?”

Isak snorts and doesn’t apologize as he goes over to get a cup of water. His heart is pounding as he simultaneously tries to think of something to say and to listen out for if he can hear Even get out safely.

“Don’t need to when you make enough noise for two,” Isak teases, chugs the water and opens the fridge to see if they have any juice as well. God, does this count as a tell that he’s hiding something? Drinking a lot?

Linn snorts, but she turns away from the sink to look over at Isak, finally facing away from the entrance to the kitchen. “Fucking hypocrite, you are. What, have you been redecorating your room? You look a bit too well-rested to have spent all of it awake.”

Isak tilts his head to the side in confusion. What on earth is she talking about?

“Oh,” Isak breathes out. Shit, had Even been making so much noise? Not enough that Isak woke up from it, but enough that Linn would? “Shit, sorry.”

He should probably tell her to come knock on his door the next time it happens, so he won’t keep her up again – he probably would’ve had it only been him in his room. The problem is it’s not just Isak in his room.

Linn huffs loudly enough the sound of the front door closing isn’t audible.

Isak’s heart doesn’t stop pounding until he has finished grabbing a bite to eat with his housemates and has checked the entire apartment for Even, just in case.

OOOOO

Two days later, Even shows up at Isak’s front door.

It’s too early. Isak knows Even’s class only finished ten minutes ago and the tram doesn’t leave for another five minutes after that. He looks at him questioningly, but Even doesn’t say anything, even as he probably knows that Isak’s realized he has played hooky.

Even’s swaddled in a winter coat that looks too warm for the just chilly air outside, and he looks tired.

He still smiles sweetly at Isak and kisses him hello, but afterwards he falls into bed and sleeps for eleven hours straight, barely tossing and turning like usual. Four times, Isak curls in close to him for no other reason than to check he’s still breathing.

When he wakes up the next morning, Isak jokes that he must’ve been tired, teasing him that he shouldn’t spend so many nights awake just so he can write. Even gets a distant look in his eyes at that and his smile seems more like he’s putting on a mask.

Isak can’t help but feel like he’s missed something, a bigger part of the story, the clue that foreshadows the climax, exactly what Even always berates him about needing to be the most advanced and difficult thing to write, to perfect.

Isak bites his tongue, looks at Even sleeping in his bed and reminds himself that his life isn’t a movie and that he shouldn’t think of it as plot points that perfectly fits into the Narrative Arc.

Next part

#Something Great #Evak #SKAM #SKAM Norway #Dutten-does-the-fanfic #Evak fanfiction #Skam fanfiction

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radkoko · 5 years

Text

Novel Idea

Second day, second prompt. Books

Ao3 Link

~~~

Iruka browsed the covers of the novels on the new table as he waited for Naruto to run through the store grabbing his senior year reading books for English class. They both wanted Naruto to graduate high school, and that meant starting early on the reading for the year.

He had far too many books at home, and Iruka knew he was going to be spending far too much on Naruto today, so when he picked up the unassuming romance novel, he wasn’t looking for anything -or expecting much- more than a distraction while Naruto searched.

It wasn’t until halfway through the first chapter that something felt off about this book. Iruka felt like he’d read this before because he was getting a strong sense of deja vu. He’d just have to blame it on the stereotypical protagonist, as most romance novels went she fit the mold, brown hair, brown eyes, the ‘not quite skinny, but not fat’ body shape, and… a scar? Okay, well that one wasn’t usually on the list.

Iruka heard Naruto call out for him, but suddenly he couldn’t take his eyes off this book. The scar she described was so strikingly similar to his, and her name… Ruika… it was all so close to him that it just didn’t seem possible. He skimmed through this coffee shop love story, picking up pieces that felt so much like memories instead of a new book.

Completely engrossed in the book, Iruka jumped when a hand clapped him on the arm and tore his eyes away from the pages.

“You okay Iruka?” Naruto asked. He looked at Iruka with his big blue eyes full of concern and a basket full of books at his side.

“I’m fine,” Iruka waved off Naruto’s concern, “You get everything on the list?” He questioned the teenager who was notorious for forgetting things.

“Yes,” Naruto grumbled, Iruka stared him down looking to get a better answer, “I went through the list twice, I swear.”

“Ok,” Iruka took him at his word, “Let’s pay and get out of here. I was thinking we could pick up ramen on the way home.” Iruka offered up the treat as a reward for a successful ‘mission’, one Naruto would never say no to.

Iruka turned to put the book down, but his curiosity got the better of him, so instead he dropped it in the basket as he took it from Naruto on his way to the register.

~~~

Iruka was a fast reader, but that wasn’t the only reason he finished the book before he went to bed that night. The book was -he’ll admit it- good, but it was the fact that it was so eerily similar to his life that stopped Iruka from putting the book down.

The girl, Ruika, was shown as practically living in the coffee shop. She had a standard table that she spread out her important paperwork on, and stayed there for hours on end. Iruka felt his life was subpar compared to hers, where his paperwork was just his student’s homework that needed to be graded. He did however have a table that he had claimed, just short of writing his name in it, for those afternoons that he sat down to get some work done while waiting for Naruto to finish soccer practice.

After seeing a standard day go by the author introduced the love interest in a scene that hit a little too close to home.

Ruika, being the self described clutz she was, proved her nature by tripping and dropping her coffee all over a man sitting at the table next to hers. Iruka remembered this being a particularly embarrassing event that happened to him about six months ago. His phone started ringing, and he rushed to pick it up in case Naruto was calling about something happening at practice. It ended up being an annoying telemarketer instead, but it was enough of a distraction that Iruka tripped over a chair that had been pulled out from a table and his coffee went flying.

He’d been lucky enough to only spill it on the floor, but Ruika’s had gone over the cute guy at the table and launched them into their great romantic love story. Iruka had tried to make conversation with the guy at that table and was left sitting in silence as the whole of the coffee shop stared at his misfortune.

If it had been just that moment Iruka might have forgiven the book for being a bit cliche, but it kept going. The time he’d offered up his table to the elderly couple. Or the time he’d gone to pick up all his papers and dropped them on the floor. Even the time that he’d gone running out of the shop, only to run back in for all the paper’s he’d forgotten to pick up before leaving.

The story even had his exact coffee order, mocha with hazelnut syrup, and the way he’d finish it off with a little extra cream from the bar.

It was all too much to be pure coincidence.

Iruka had to know who wrote this, and his best lead was the coffee shop. He’d have to start observing everyone else to see who had been watching him.

~~~

Iruka picked up his drink from the barista and sat down at his usual table. It was fortunately, or unfortunately, in the center of the cafe. So while it meant he had the best view of almost everyone, almost anyone could have been watching him. It wouldn’t help him narrow down his search for the author by seating choice.

He started looking for other clues. Sukea Chidori. That was the name printed on the cover of the book. The name sounded female, which fit Iruka’s expectation for a romance author, so that’s where he’d start. He took a mental note of all the women in the shop...

A college student, furiously working through her stack of textbooks. An older woman reading a book, maybe doing what he was, waiting for after school activities to finish. A gaggle of teen girls, each showing their phones to each other and gossiping about something. And last the barista, completely overwhelmed with the line of anxious customers wanting to get their order and leave.

Well, that didn’t help one bit. None of them seemed to fit the profile, not to mention they were all too engrossed in their own world to be noticing anything that was going on around them.

Maybe he’d just have to look at different days, who knows what kind of schedule the author kept. Iruka wasn’t about to change his routine because of a book, so he was sure to have plenty of time to keep looking for the author.

~~~

Days passed, and Iruka felt no closer to finding the mysterious author. He was getting more desperate by the day, but just couldn’t picture any of these women as the author. Even more evidence was that none of them were here day in and day out like he was. The rare few, like the college girl had a schedule, but they managed to be the few that he could rule out completely.

Frustrated with his thoughts Iruka pulled out the hair tie holding back his mess of hair. A habit of his, often fiddling with it when he got anxious.

“Hmmm,” Iruka stopped himself.

That was something he hadn’t thought about. Why did the author make his character female? Sure with his hair down he could look a little feminine, but it didn’t add up. Authors often put a bit of themselves in their protagonists, and if it was a female author then wouldn’t they be the leading woman, and leave Iruka to be the man?

No, he’d been thinking about this all wrong. The author was never female, they had to be male, and they must be something like the male lead.

Iruka whipped out the book from his bag and started reading through the sections with the love interest. Loner, always on his computer, light hair, lithe body…

There.

Iruka found his match in an instant once he was looking on the right path. He knew this guy… that was when he remembered. This guy was the man he’d tried to talk to after spilling his coffee. The exact moment that the whole book had been based around.

With an idea in mind, Iruka packed up all of his stuff, leaving out the book, and walked over to the guy.

He dropped the book down next to the guy’s computer with a thud, and sat down at the table without an invitation. The noise had called a little attention from the cafe’s patrons, but he was only focused on the author who was watching him with wide eyes.

“Mind if I get an autograph?” Iruka asked, wondering if the words sounded as menacingly sweet to the other man. He knew it was accusatory, but Iruka was certain he’d solved the mystery and was desperate to understand.

“Why would you want that?” the man asked trying to keep a fake calm that was, unfortunately for him, not very successful.

Iruka evaluated him. Silvery grey hair standing up in all directions, and ghostly grey eyes that pulled him in. His turtleneck was pulled up to cover his chin and his fingers worried the edges as if it was a bad habit like biting one’s fingernails. How he was able to wear such a thing when it was so hot outside was a completely separate question.

“You wrote this, didn’t you?” It was less of a question and more of a confirmation. The man froze in place, staring somewhere between his computer and the novel at its side.

“Why did you do this?” Iruka questioned, wanting his answers, but that man continued to stay silent. “Sukea?”

“Kakashi,” he finally spoke up.

“Huh?” Iruka started to question whether he’d gotten the wrong person.

“Sukea is a pen name. My name is Kakashi.”

“Ok, but why this?” Iruka pointed at the book.

“I…” Kakashi started to talk, but seemed to have trouble finishing what he wanted to say.

“Would it help if I said I won’t get upset?” Iruka offered, “I’m mostly interested in understanding why.”

Kakashi chuckled, a sound that made Iruka smile, “You are the most inspiration I’ve ever had to write.”

“Me?” Iruka felt his cheeks flush up.

“Yeah,” Kakashi’s voice soft with reverence. “I’ve started half a dozen stories and they all sit here unfinished, but the day you spilled that coffee, my fingers just started typing and didn’t stop until I wrote that whole story.”

It was Iruka’s turn to go silent.

“It was also my chance to change our first meeting,” Kakashi gave a tentative smile, he looked scared as if Iruka would run away if he said too much, “I was too nervous to say anything that first time, but in the book I could write it all.”

“This is what you wanted to say?” Iruka asked tapping on the book. He’d read the book a few times over by now, and that first meeting between Ruika and her love interest was a total meet cute. If it hadn’t been so real to Iruka, he would have swooned at the idea of meeting someone in such a way.

“Most of it,” Kakashi admitted.

“How about we start this all over?” Iruka offered hoping to turn this awkward meeting into something a little more novel worthy.

Kakashi nodded in agreement before fixing his turtleneck and lowering the top half of his computer to give Iruka his whole attention.

“Hi, my name’s Iruka. I think you’re a fantastic writer.” Iruka held out his hand for Kakashi to shake.

“Hi Iruka, I’m Kakashi. I think you’re cute, and I’d like to get you a drink.”

Iruka laughed, “Thank you, I’d like that.”

#My writing #kakairu #kakairu week 2019

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starringemiliaclarke · 5 years

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Emilia Clarke on Game of Thrones finale's shock twist: 'I stand by Daenerys'

Emilia Clarke read a paragraph in the final script for Game of Thrones.

She read it again and again. Seven times, she says, she read the words that revealed the devastating fate of Daenerys Targaryen, a character she’s portrayed on the HBO global phenomenon for nearly a decade.

“What, what, what, WHAT!?” the actress recalls thinking. “Because it comes out of f—king nowhere. I’m flabbergasted. Absolutely never saw that coming.”

It was October 2017. The actress had recently completed filming Solo: A Star Wars Story and had just returned to London following a brief vacation. She electronically received the scripts the moment she landed at Heathrow and recalls that she “completely flipped out,” turned to her traveling companion and said, “‘Oh my god! I gotta go! I gotta go!’ And they’re like, ‘You gotta get your bags!’”

Once at home, the actress prepared herself. “I got myself situated,” she says. “I got my cup of tea. I had to physically prepare the space and then begin reading them.”

Clarke swiped through pages: Daenerys arrives at Winterfell and Sansa doesn’t like her. She discovers Jon Snow is the true heir to the Iron Throne and isn’t thrilled. She fights in the battle against the Night King and survives, but loses longtime friend and protector Ser Jorah Mormont. Then her other close friend and advisor Missandei dies too. Varys betrays her. Jon Snow pulls away. Having lost half her army, two dragons, and nearly everybody she cares about, Daenerys goes full Tagaryen to win: She attacks King’s Landing and kills … thousands of civilians? Daenerys’ longtime conquest achieved, she meets with Jon Snow in the Red Keep throne room and … and then … then he …

“I cried,” Clarke says. “And I went for a walk. I walked out of the house and took my keys and phone and walked back with blisters on my feet. I didn’t come back for five hours. I’m like, ‘How am I going to do this?’”

Sitting next to Clarke on the flight, as it so happens, was Kit Harington, who plays Jon Snow. Harington deliberately hadn’t yet read the scripts so he could experience the story for the first time with all his castmates. Clarke, positively bursting with wanting to talk about her storyline, found the flight maddening. “This literally sums up Kit and I’s friendship,” she says, and sputtered: “Boy! Would you? Seriously? You’re just not?…”

At the table read, Clarke sat across from Harington so she could “watch him compute all of this.” When they got to their final scene together, recalls Harington, “I looked at Emilia and there was a moment of me realizing, ‘No, no…’”

And Clarke nodded back, sadly, ‘Yes…’

“He was crying,” Clarke says. “And then it was kind of great him not having read it.”

The main story driver of Game of Thrones’ final season is the evolution of Daenerys Targaryen from one of the show’s most-loved heroes into a destroyer of cities and would-be dictator. Author George R.R. Martin calls his saga “A Song of Ice and Fire.” Jon Snow is the stable, immovable ice of Winterfell; Daenerys the conquering, unpredictable fire of Dragonstone. After years apart, they came together in season 7. The duo fell in love, help saved the realm from a world-annihilating supernatural threat and, in the series finale, their coupling is destroyed — Daenerys perishes, while a devastated Jon Snow is banished to rejoin the Night’s Watch.

Was this ending Martin’s original plan? The author told showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss the intended conclusion to his unfinished novels years ago but, since then, the HBO version has made several narrative detours. The showrunners are not giving interviews about episode 6 (and told EW they plan to spend the finale offline — “drunk and far away from the Internet” as Benioff put it).

Regardless of the final season’s narrative’s origin, the Thrones writers have planned Dany’s fate for years and have foreshadowed the dark turn in the storyline. In previous seasons, producers would sometimes ask Clarke to play a scene a bit different than what she expected for a seemingly heroic character. “There’s a number of times I’ve been like: ‘Why are you giving me that note?’” Clarke says. “So yes, this has made me look back at all the notes I’ve ever had.”

After Episode 5, “The Bells,” the reaction to Dany’s “Mad Queen” turn has been explosive and frequently negative. Some critics insist Daenerys doesn’t have the capacity for such monumental evil and the twist is an example of female characters being mishandled on the series. Others say Dany’s unstable sociopathic tendencies were indeed established, but the final season moved too fast and flubbed its execution.

For Clarke, the final season arc required mapping out a series of turning points. Dany’s attack on King’s Landing might have seemed abrupt, but from the beginning of the season Daenerys has reacted with increasing anger, desperation and coldness to one setback after another, shifting the Mother of Dragons into new emotional territory that would ultimately lead to her destruction.

Sitting in her dressing room on the set of Thrones last spring, Clarke broke down Daenerys’ entire season 8 internal journey leading up to the apocalyptic King’s Landing firebombing in a single breathless monologue.

“She genuinely starts with the best intentions and truly hopes there isn’t going to be something scuttling her greatest plans,” she says. “The problem is [the Starks] don’t like her and she sees it. She goes, ‘Okay, one chance.’ She gives them that chance and it doesn’t work and she’s too far to turn around. She’s made her bed, she’s laying in it. It’s done. And that’s the thing. I don’t think she realizes until it happens — the real effect of their reactions on her is: ‘I don’t give a s—t.�� This is my whole existence. Since birth! She literally was brought into this world going, ‘Run!’ These f—kers have f—ked everything up, and now it’s, ‘You’re our only hope.’ There’s so much she’s taken on in her duty in life to rectify, so much she’s seen and witnessed and been through and lost and suffered and hurt. Suddenly these people are turning around and saying, ‘We don’t accept you.’ But she’s too far down the line. She’s killed so many people already. I can’t turn this ship around. It’s too much. One by one, you see all these strings being cut. And there’s just this last thread she’s holding onto: There’s this boy. And she thinks, ‘He loves me, and I think that’s enough.’ But is it enough? Is it? And it’s just that hope and wishing that finally there is someone who accepts her for everything she is and … he f—king doesn’t.”

And losing Missandei? “There’s a number of turning points you see for Daenerys in the season, but that’s the biggest break. There’s nothing I will not do after losing Missandei and seeing the sacrifice she was prepared to make for her. That breaks her completely. There’s nothing left to making a tough choice.”

Executing Varys for treason? “She f—king warned him last season. We love Varys. I love [actor Conleth Hill]. But he changes his colors as many times as he wants. She needs to know the people who are supporting her regardless. That was my only option, essentially, is what I mean.”

Burying Cersei Lannister under the collapse of the Red Keep? “With Cersei, it’s a complete no-brainer. Lady’s a crazy motherf—ker. She’s going down.”

Yet Clarke also had another, more personal reaction to Dany’s meltdown. “I have my own feelings [about the storyline] and it’s peppered with my feelings about myself,” she admits. “It’s gotten to that point now where you read [comments about] the character you [have to remind yourself], ‘They’re not talking about you, Emilia, they’re talking about the character.”

Like many actors who have played the same role for a long time, Clarke identifies with her character and has put much of herself into the role. She believes in Daenerys’ confidence, idealism and past acts of compassion. As the actress wrote in a New Yorkeressay in March, she played the Breaker of Chains through some life-threatening personal hardships, secretly enduring two brain aneurysms during her early years on the show. “You go on set and play a badass and you walk through fire and that became the thing that saved me from considering my own mortality,” she wrote. Clarke has drawn strength from Daenerys and infused Daenerys with her strength.

“I genuinely did this, and it’s embarrassing and I’m going to admit it to you,” Clarke says. “I called my mom and—“ Clarke shifts into a tearful voice to perform the conversation as she reenacts the call: “I read the scripts and I don’t want to tell you what happens but can you just talk me off this ledge? It really messed me up.’ And then I asked my mom and brother really weird questions. They were like: ‘What are you asking us this for? What do you mean do I think Daenerys is a good person? Why are you asking us that question? Why do you care what people think of Daenerys? Are you okay?’”

“And I’m all: ‘I’m fine! … But is there anything Daenerys could do that would make you hate her?’”

During EW’s visit to Northern Ireland last March, I took a walk with co-executive producer Bryan Cogman into the dark woods near the production camp. It was around midnight and bitterly cold. Our boots scrunched on the muddy gravel and the bustling sounds of crew activity from the set slowly receded into the distance.

“Emilia has been threading that needle beautifully this season,” Cogman says. “It’s the hardest job anybody has on this show.”

As we pass crew members our voices cautiously go silent. While Dany’s Mad Queen arc was known by all, her death in the finale was a secret even among many who work on the show. Killing Daenerys was a massive and difficult move. On a show that’s introduced dozens of distinctive breakout characters, Daenerys is arguably the most easily identifiable and iconic. She is T-shirts and coffee mugs and posters and bobbleheads and memes and the name of hundreds of kids around the world with GoTfan parents; a fearless figure of female empowerment.

“I still don’t know how I feel about a lot of what happens this season and I helped write it,” Cogman says. “It’s emotionally very challenging. It’s designed to not feel good. That said, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. The best drama is the type you have to think about. There’s a dangerous tendency right now to make art and popular culture to feel safe for everybody and make everybody feel okay when watching and I don’t believe in that. The show is messy and grey and that’s where it’s always lived — from Jaime pushing a little boy out the window to Ned Stark’s death to the Red Wedding. This is the kind of story that’s meant to unsettle you and challenge you and make you think and question. I think that was George’s intent and what David and Dan wanted to do. However you feel about the final episodes of this show I don’t think anybody will ever accuse us of taking the easy way out.”

I point out Daenerys’ final season arc shifts the entire series, or at least her role in it. Upon rewatch, every Daenerys scene will now be viewed differently; the story of the rise of a villain more than a hero.

“Yes, although I don’t know if she’s a villain,” Cogman says. “This is a tragedy. She’s a tragic figure in a very Shakespearean and Greek sense. When Jon asks Tyrion [in the finale] if they were wrong and Tyrion says, ‘Ask me again in 10 years,’ I think that’s valid.”

Tyrion actor Peter Dinklage says the showrunners on set compared Dany’s dragon-bombing of King’s Landing to the U.S. dropping nuclear bombs on the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki to decisively end World War II in 1945. “That’s what war is,” Dinklage says. “Did we make the right choices in war? How much longer would [WWII] have gone on if we didn’t make horrible decisions? We love Daenerys. All the fans love Daenerys, and she’s doing these things for the greater good. ‘The greater good’ has been in the headlines lately… when freeing everyone for the greater good you’re going to hurt some innocents along the way, unfortunately.”

Gwendoline Christie, who plays Brienne of Tarth, adds there’s another political lesson to be learned in the final season as well. “The signs have actually always been there,” Christie says of Daenerys. “And they’ve been there in ways we felt at the time were just mistakes or controversial. At this time, it’s important to question true motives. This show has always been about power and, more than ever, it’s an interesting illustration that people in pursuit of power can come in many different forms and we need to question everything.”

Killing Daenerys also forever changes Jon Snow, leading to his circular fate: returning to serve the rest of his life at The Wall. Harington spoke about the show’s finale in a production tent on the season 8 set, his voice so cautiously low a recorder could barely pick him up. Harington explained he avoids talking about the death scene on the set, and he and Clarke came up with a secret hand signal to refer to it — touching a fist to their heart.

“I think it’s going to divide,” Harington says of the finale’s fan reaction. “But if you track her story all the way back, she does some terrible things. She crucifies people. She burns people alive. This has been building. So, we have to say to the audience: ‘You’re in denial about this woman as well. You knew something was wrong. You’re culpable, you cheered her on.’”

Harington adds he worries the final two episodes will be accused of being sexist, an ongoing criticism of GoT that has recently resurfaced perhaps more pointedly than ever before. “One of my worries with this is we have Cersei and Dany, two leading women, who fall,” he says. “The justification is: Just because they’re women, why should they be the goodies? They’re the most interesting characters in the show. And that’s what Thrones has always done. You can’t just say the strong women are going to end up the good people. Dany is not a good person. It’s going to open up discussion but there’s nothing done in this show that isn’t truthful to the characters. And when have you ever seen a woman play a dictator?”

There’s plenty of tragedy for Jon as well, he points out. “This is the second woman he’s fallen in love with who dies in his arms and he cradles her in the same way,” Harington notes. “That’s an awful thing. In some ways, Jon did the same thing to [his Wildling lover] Ygritte by training the boy who kills her. This destroys Jon to do this.”

Back in Clarke’s dressing room, the actress is preparing to film one of her final scenes on the series. Understandably, she can’t quite bring herself to feel sorry for Jon Snow.

“Um, he just doesn’t like women does he?” Clarke quips. “He keeps f—king killing them. No. If I were to put myself in his shoes I’m not sure what else he could have done aside from … oh, I dunno, maybe having a discussion with me about it? Ask my opinion? Warn me? It’s like being in the middle of a phone call with your boyfriend and they just hang up and never call you again. ‘Oh, this great thing happened to me at work today —hello?’ And that was 9 years ago…”

Clarke’s phone call metaphor is characteristically witty, and the actress has given some fascinating insight about the season as a whole. But nothing yet quite feels like the bottom, the blunt truth of how she feels about Daenerys’ fate.

“You’re about to ask if me — as Emilia — disagreed with her at any point,” Clarke intuits. “It was a f—king struggle reading the scripts. What I was taught at drama school — and if you print this there will be drama school teachers going ‘that’s bulls—t,’ but here we go: I was told that your character is right. Your character makes a choice and you need to be right with that. An actor should never be afraid to look ugly. We have uglier sides to ourselves. And after 10 years of working on this show, it’s logical. Where else can she go? I tried to think what the ending will be. It’s not like she’s suddenly going to go, ‘Okay, I’m gonna put a kettle on and put cookies in the oven and we’ll just sit down and have a lovely time and pop a few kids out.’ That was never going to happen. She’s a Targaryen.”

“I thought she was going to die,” she continues. “I feel very taken care of as a character in that sense. It’s a very beautiful and touching ending. Hopefully, what you’ll see in that last moment as she’s dying is: There’s the vulnerability — there’s the little girl you met in season 1. See? She’s right there. And now, she’s not there anymore…”

A crew member comes for Clarke and she stands up. It’s time for her to go. Clarke begins to walk away, turns around, breaks away from the staffer, and comes back.

There’s one last thing she wants you to know.

“But having said all of the things I’ve just said…” Clarke says. “I stand by Daenerys. I stand by her! I can’t not.”

Source

Emilia Clarke on Game of Thrones finale’s shock twist: ‘I stand by Daenerys’ was originally published on Enchanting Emilia Clarke | Est 2012

#articles #emilia clarke #game of thrones #interview #game of thrones cast #GOT cast #daenerys targaryen #me before you #terminator

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