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talesofstyles · 4 years

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Reconcile II

Ok so I know that I wrote the first part with reader insert, but after many, many attempts to keep it that way, it just didn’t work with this one. So I’d like for you to meet Emma. This is my first time writing with OC and wow game changer. I love her and I hope you do too!

Also, I honestly can’t thank my beta queens enough @oh-honey-styles @for-fucks-sake-h 🥺💛 thanks for allll the comments and suggestions and nice words!!! ily both xx

Read part I here

Harry

“So… are we okay now?”

We’re sitting here on the sofa, finally having that very much needed father-daughter date. Granted, a movie night in was not what I had in mind. I wasn’t too thrilled when she said she wanted to just go back home after we dropped George at his classmate’s house for a birthday sleepover. I thought she would hole up in her room instead and ignore me. But she didn’t. I got us pizza for tea, and we’ve got Shrek 2 on the telly. Her animosity towards me disappeared just like that after she asked for a puppy the other day. Of course, I’m glad to have my happy-go-lucky daughter back, but deep down I know that we need to have a proper chat. The change in her behaviour is so abrupt that I know there’s a chance that my daughter is still bitter with me deep down. And that won’t do. I can take a lot of things, but my daughter’s resentment is not one of them.

“Yeah, we’re okay,” she nods as she takes a bite of her pizza. “You’re still getting me a puppy right?”

“I still need to talk to your mum about it, poppet,” I tell her. “Puppies need a lot of attention. It’s going to be hard work and that puppy is going to be a permanent member of our family. We’ve really got to think about it before we decide.”

I expect a little excitement knowing that her mum and I are really considering getting a puppy. But what I get is quite the opposite. My little girl’s gaze drops, her face slackening. Her voice cracks a little when she mumbles, “except… we’re not a family.”

I wince, realising how serious the effect our split has on my daughter. Despite Emma and I putting on a friendly, united front for our children, Minnie is still sad that her parents are not together.

“Of course we’re still a family,” I assure her, pulling her to me for a comforting side hug. “I’m still your dad, mummy is still your mum, and you and George are still the lights of our lives.”

“But you and mummy aren’t together anymore,” she points out bitterly. “And you live so far away from us now. I miss having you at home.”

“I know, my love,” I murmur gently, and turn sideways so she can see my face. “It’s killing me too. But you never know what the future holds, right?”

“I guess,” she says glumly.

I wish I can tell her that I’m trying to win her mum back so we can be together again, but I know I can’t do that. This is far too early. I don’t want to get her hopes up in case I’m not successful in convincing my wife to give me another shot. That’ll only break her heart all over again.

Thinking back, I realised that this is the first time we have a proper chat about our split. I fled to LA the next morning after my wife asked me to leave our marital home back in London, leaving her to sit down with our children to tell them that I was not going to live there anymore. I was shocked and angry because I had no idea what I’d done. I thought we were fine. There were no fights leading up to that. I still remember exactly what I told her. ‘You’re the one who wanted to end it, you tell them.’ And then I left.

Just like that. Without a fight.

I swear to God, it’s something that I would never be able to forgive myself.

“How’s your mum?”

“She’s sad,” Minnie sighs. “She cries a lot. She thinks we can’t hear her in the shower, but we can.”

Knowing I caused that physically hurts. I rub at the throb of pain behind my breastbone and I think about all those private tears I shed through it. The ones you hope are hidden and silent.

“Can I ask you something, daddy?”

“Anything, poppet.”

“Do you still get sad too?”

I’m not sure how much to divulge here. Does my daughter need to hear that I stopped eating? That I once cried in the loo at Cafe Habana, and once had to be fished out of a bath by Jeff after I turned into a human prune? I was sad. I still wear that hat.

“I do. It’s the end of something, that’s always sad.”

“I think mum is dating someone,” she says and my eyes widen. “She told us Luke is her friend, but I think he’s her boyfriend. They’re on a date now, aren’t they?”

I can try and deny it, but I know my daughter is smart and won’t buy anything I tell her.

“What do you know about boyfriends?” I tease, my attempt to lighten up the mood.

“I’ve just turned nine, I’m not stupid,” Minnie rolls her eyes. “‘Sides I’m thinking about getting one of those boyfriend thingies.”

I sit there slack-jawed, and my daughter roars with laughter.

“Minnie Alexandra, you’re going to drive me to an early grave, you know that?”

“Hey, what are you middle naming me for? I was joking!” She says, still laughing as she picks a piece of pepperoni off her pizza.

“How do you feel about your mum dating again?” I ask her.

She pauses. “I don’t know yet. As long as he’s nice and doesn’t put me under the stairs…”

“I’m sure he won’t. In the attic maybe,” I joke.

She laughs again. I’m thinking about keeping that bloke in the attic so my wife won’t date him anymore. Or even better, six feet under my patio. That’ll do.

“It’s gonna be okay, right, dad?”

Honestly, I’m not sure. But I don’t have the heart to tell her that.

“Yeah, Min. It’s gonna be okay.”

***

I see the headlight shining into the front windows as I walk down the stairs from tucking my daughter into her bed. That must be Emma and her date. I pull back the curtain a little to peek outside, and I’m right as I see that bollockface’s car in front of the house.

You know that saying; curiosity killed the cat? Well, in my case, curiosity fucked me with a chainsaw.

I’m a bloody idiot. I should have just closed the curtain back as soon as I recognised the car. I mean… it’s the end of a date. What did I expect to see? A high five? I knew I was so sure when they left that he would not be getting anything more than a friendly kiss, but that date must have gone really well, because right now, my eyes may as well fall out of their sockets as I see that bastard’s tongue down my wife’s throat.

I’m frozen. I’m gripping the curtain so tight that my knuckles are turning white. I stand there—stunned. Watching. I’m not even sure for how long. It does feel like forever. Like an eternity.

In hell.

And then Emma pulls back, and everything seems like a blur. I have to remind myself that my daughter is sleeping upstairs so I won’t go apeshit and knock that wanker square on his arse.

I’m still glued to the floor by the door. I’m too shocked to move. I hear the sound of keys rattling before the door swings open, and she looks surprised when she sees me.

And all hell breaks loose.

“What the fuck, Emma?!” She jolts at hearing me shout. I rarely did it. In fact, I’m not even sure if I’d ever yell at my wife before throughout our marriage. “You told me last night you’d never even kissed him. You told me you weren’t ready.”

“I- I don’t know. He caught me off guard. That was-”

“I told you I wanted to make this work,” I remind her, trying to lower my voice so I won’t wake my daughter up. She doesn’t need to see this. “Us. Our marriage. I told you I wanted to fight for you. But I can’t do that with someone shoving their tongue down my wife’s throat, can I?”

As soon as the words leave my mouth, I see her tear up and I immediately feel regret. That was harsh. But before I can apologise, I can see her lip curls up and I know she’s about to get nasty. It’s a rarity with her when we’ve fought in the past, but I feel it coming.

“You’re unbelievable, you know that?” She sneers. “You think that if you put a toy down, it’ll still be sitting there when you want to play with it again.”

“That’s-”

“You have no right to be upset at me. We’ve split up for nearly a year now. What I do and what I don’t do on my dates is none of your business.”

“I want us to give our marriage another shot,” I say in exasperation. “I want to try to win you back, but fuck’s sake you’re not even giving me the time of day.”

“Oh, look how the tables turned,” she taunts. “Sucks, innit? Being the one struggling to find the time when it seems like the other doesn’t give a crap?”

“Cheap shot, Ems,” I retort.

“Truth hurts, doesn’t it, H?”

Emma averts her eyes, her lower lip quivering. I can’t tell if she regrets her harsh words or not, but she doesn’t look back my way, and she seems to have said her piece.

I knew sooner or later this was bound to happen. We never had our big fight, not even that night when she decided that enough was enough.

“I cannot possibly go through that again. It physically hurts,” she says softly. “I know I was the one who ended it, but when you just left like that the next morning without so much of a fight as if ten years means nothing to you… that really did hurt. You left me alone to talk to the kids about what happened. And sure, you did call every day. But it took you nearly nine months to finally come and see your children?”

“I needed some time. Some space,” I tell her. “Do you think it’s easy for me being there? Away from my wife and kids?”

“You chose to be there.”

“You know I couldn’t stay in London,” I murmur. “It’s too hard. At least in LA sometimes I can just pretend that everything’s okay. That we’re okay. That my wife and kids will be there waiting for me when I get home. I can’t do that in London.”

“That’s a shit excuse and you know it,” she mutters.

“I still love you, Em,” I say with a sigh. I know trying to defend myself further for what I did will get me nowhere. “We can fix this. We can be a family again.”

“Harry, it’s too late.”

“Is it him?” I can’t help but go there, because that’s a possibility. “Do you love him already?”

“Luke is a fresh start for me, H. I may not love him now but at least it doesn’t hurt looking at him. It took me months to be able to get back up again, to get to where I am right now. To finally find a little bit of peace.”

Emma’s head hangs low, and she rubs at her temple with her fingers. I want nothing more than to pull her into my arms. But by how stiff her spine is, I can tell she wouldn��t come willingly.

“I’m sorry, Emma,” I whisper, resigned. Tears well up in our eyes. There’s nothing I can say that will change her mind because we’re not seeing eye to eye. She’s still focused on the past, not that I blame her because I did hurt her badly, but I know that there is no way we can go anywhere if she can’t see past the harms I’ve caused in the past. “I hope one day you’ll be able to forgive me.”

“I’ve forgiven you a long time ago,” she says, her expression softens. Her thumb runs at a part of her finger where a ring used to be. “Now, I just want us to try and make this separation work. Focus on the kids. Let’s do the right thing by them.”

I nod.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah.”

“When did it all start?” I ask, my voice cracks a little. “When did you start feeling like you’re invisible to me?”

“I’m not sure I can point down to one exact moment,” she takes a shaky breath and pauses. “The change was gradual that by the time I realised it, I didn’t even recognise us anymore. I spent days and nights wondering what happened to us. That wasn’t us.”

I wipe that one tear running halfway down her cheek, and as soon as my thumb touches her skin, I lose it. I can’t help it by this point. Tears flow as much as I try to hold them back. She’s crying too. This is painful.

“And it’d be too easy to say that I felt invisible,” she continues. “Because the truth is, I felt painfully visible. You ignored me on purpose. I wasn’t even sure what I was to you anymore, because the only chance for me to get your attention was by getting you in bed. And that was wrong. It hurts, because it felt like you only needed me to warm your bed.”

I want to deny that statement. I want to yell it’s not true. That I never intended to take her for granted. That she still makes my heart skip a beat like a bloody teenager seeing his first crush.

But I don’t.

Because she’s right. I’m not sure what happened either, but we’d changed. Maybe it’s our jobs, maybe it’s the endless responsibilities. Domesticity, children, they wore us down. Kisses became perfunctory. Hugs became less frequent. Hell, I couldn’t even remember the last time I took my wife for a date night other than for social obligations.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her again. I’ll spend the rest of my life apologising to her if I have to, she deserves it. “I hurt you badly. I really am sorry, Emma.”

“It wasn’t all you though,” she mumbles. “I never called you out on it.”

“You didn’t,” I reply. “I never worked out why?”

“I swept it under the carpet because it was embarrassing. It felt silly having to ask for your attention. And I don’t know… pride, maybe? And the kids. I didn’t want them to know something was wrong. So I played along and carried on like nothing was happening.”

“When really…”

“It was like a punch to the guts each time. You were an excellent father. You still are, the kids adore you. This may sound insane and it’s embarrassing and painful for me to admit this, but there were times when I saw you with the kids and I couldn’t help but feel jealous. When you couldn’t even be bothered to look at me… it felt like you took a dump over all my love for you.”

“Emma…”

“I wish I could get past that. I wish I could just forget what happened and trust you again.”

I bring her in for a hug and say nothing. She needs to get this all out. This is part of the process, and I’m here to listen.

But where do we go from there?

Reconciling a broken marriage is tricky. I am not a violent person but I have never wanted to strangle people as much as I want to strangle those who wrote articles with countless advice regarding this subject, making it seem like it’s easy. Talk it out, get your point across, and you’re out of the dog house. Well, you know what, bollockface? It turns out that listening is not enough. Sod you and your dumb articles.

All I know is that I can’t rush this. She’s not ready, and that’s okay. Right now, we both have things to work on. She needs to learn to let go of her resentment, and I have to learn not to take anything and anyone for granted ever again. This is killing me, but there is no one to blame but myself. I take solace in knowing the fact that I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. Maybe one day we’ll be back together. Maybe we won’t.

“Thank you for telling me all that,” I mumble against her hair.

“Thank you for listening,” she looks up and gives me a sad smile.

***

Emma comes from a big family.

There’s Jamie, her eldest brother and the only guy. I think the fact that he grew up surrounded by sisters was what made us the closest in the first place. He hates wine, even though he makes a career out of managing his own vineyard. I know, the irony. The next is Suze, sister number one who lives in Sheffield with her husband and three girls. Suze and her husband are both orthopaedic surgeons. Then my wife, the middle child. Then Meg, sister number two who just had a baby. It’s another girl so my George is still the only grandson in the family. And then Lucy, the youngest of the clan who’s still in university.

They all live nearby, and I knew that all my in-laws hated me a tiny bit for taking their daughter and sister away. They were a hard outfit to infiltrate. You don’t enter into a relationship with one of them, you get a whole gaggle of them. It was hard to get in, but once you’re in, you’re in for life.

After we’d split, I called my parents-in-law the next morning just before my flight to LA. I wasn’t sure whether or not Emma had told them about what happened, but I felt like it was the right thing to do. After all, they’d become my parents too for a decade. So I explained and apologised. Of course, I didn’t tell them the details because I knew they were between Emma and me, and they respected us enough not to ask. They were upset, but they also understood that these things happen in life. All they wanted was just for their grandbabies to come out of this unscathed.

Now here I am, walking behind Emma and our children as we step over the threshold into her parents’ home for their monthly roast. Her parents invited me and I accepted. I don’t want to turn down any extra time I have with my kids as I’ve decided to leave today and head back to London. I was prepared to stay longer, take some time off work and fight for my marriage, but since it all has gone to pot, I figured I should leave. The world doesn’t stop even when you’re struggling with marital woes. I’ve got work to do, and I also know that it is best to give Emma space.

I hear voices as we walk inside.

“If littl’uns are going in highchairs then what’s that extra space for?” I hear Meg’s husband say.

Meg tells him. “Count again, addition was never your strong point.”

“Oh.”

The house is suddenly quiet when they see me. This is my first time seeing the whole family again after we split, and even though my parents-in-law and I are on good terms, and Jamie too, I know the sisters would be a different story. All four of them are beyond close and they’re now looking at me as if they should’ve chucked me in the oven instead of the chicken.

You don’t do that to our sister. You hurt one, you hurt all of us.

“Uncle Harry!” Freya shouts in excitement. She is one of Suze’s daughters. She and her twin sister Tessa are only a few months older than my George.

Suze, who is sitting on the sofa, looks a bit sullen, not knowing what the right call is to make. Meg and her husband freeze.

“Alright there, mate?” Jamie greets me, trying to ease the tension. Suze glares at him.

“Are you here to do magic then, Uncle Harry?” Tessa asks.

I bend down to her level. “Not sure I know any magic, Tessie.”

“Yeah you do!” Freya pipes up. “Because when we were driving here, daddy said you did a disappearing act on Aunty Ems. Show us what you did!”

“FREYA!” Her dad barks.

Meg can barely contain her giggles.

“But we like magic. You’re rubbish at magic,” she says to her dad. He widens his eyes.

The sisters are now all smiling smugly, knowing a couple of six-year-olds just shamed me on their behalf. Extra roast potatoes for those two.

Lucy, the littlest sister, suddenly enters. That’s definitely not a happy face. “Oh, it’s you. Is that why everyone went so quiet? What are you doing here?”

“Luce,” Emma mutters.

“Because I invited him,” says a voice emerging from the kitchen. My father-in-law. “Harry, glad you could make it.”

“Of course,” I reply. “Thanks for the invitation.”

Lucy stares daggers at her dad, knowing she can’t unleash her trademark rapier wit as she’s surrounded by her little nieces and nephews. That one may be the youngest but she’s the scariest out of all the sisters, my wife included.

“Look, if it’s weird, I can just leave?” I offer.

“Nonsense, you must stay for supper,” Emma’s mum replies.

“Yeah, Harry, stay,” says Emma’s dad, staring at his daughters. “I want you lot to be nice. Otherwise, I’m putting you on the kids table. You hear me?”

The three of them nod in unison.

“You two look well,” I say, my attempt to make small talk.

“You know, dad’s been singing this morning,” Emma’s mum chirps, tilting her head towards her husband. “He joined a male choir. They think they’re Westlife.”

We all can’t help but laugh. This is classic mum. The tension seems to ease away.

Let’s just hope it stays that way.

***

There’s a strange feeling of déjà vu as I take a seat on the steps in front of the cottage.

I’m all packed up and ready to go. My weekender bag is in the boot of my car. Nothing left to do but say goodbye to my wife and kids, but I don’t go straight inside.

Not yet. I need a moment.

These steps witnessed a lot of our marriage even though we’d never stayed here for longer than a couple of weeks at a time. We loved to sit out here in the summer. I remember when I first brought my stuff here shortly after we got married, we sat out here with beers, sleeves rolled up, boxes stacked into Jenga-style columns.

I also remember sitting here last year on Christmas morning. Emma and I were both in our pyjamas and slippers, sipping coffees out of our matching Christmas mugs. We watched the kids ride their new scooters up and down the street. Everything was perfect. I had no idea that my marriage would end in just two months after that.

“Harry?”

I look over my shoulder and I urge her to sit beside me. She comes over and does just that. There is silence. We don’t say a word to each other. A quiet hum of traffic in the distance, puffs of breath cloud the air making me think we should both be wearing coats. Christmas is nearly here again. My heart aches at the thought of this being our first Christmas since everything fell apart.

“I’m sorry,” she says softly.

“I should be the one apologising, Em.”

“I know you wanted to work things out,” I hear the sadness in her voice. “I really loved you, you know that, right?”

“I do,” I nod. “Our marriage, all those years… it wasn’t all bad, though, right?”

“Of course,” she quickly replies. “We had our moments. We have Minnie and George.”

We pause, letting that sink in. In all this mess, those two were and remain everything, some symbol of our marriage not being a complete disaster.

“There were also times when you were a good husband,” she adds.

“Why do I feel like you’re going to pat me on the head?”

Emma laughs under her breath.

“Your new bloke seemed a nice sort,” I tell her, because it’s true. I may hate the guy with a burning passion, but that’s only because he’s dating my wife.

“He is.”

“That got legs?” I ask her.

“Possibly.”

“I want you to be happy, Ems,” I tell her. “With or without me.”

“Harry…”

“But I also want you to know that I’ll be waiting for you. No rush, no timeline. I’ll wait for as long as it takes. Because for me, it’s either you or no one else.”

The front door opens and two little faces pop out from behind it.

“What are you doing out here? It’s freezing!” Shouts Minnie.

“Well then come here and give me cuddles to warm me up,” I tell her.

Emma and I take a kid each. She takes George and lets him entangle his legs in hers, cradling himself into the hook of his mummy’s arm. Minnie uses me like a climbing frame. I bop her on the nose as I’ve done since she was a baby, and I like that it never stops being hilarious to her. The sky starts to dim, trees casting shadows onto the pavement. A house down the road has some festive lights that switch on and flicker on and off in strange syncopated patterns.

“This is nice,” Minnie mumbles. “I miss the awesome foursome.”

“The awesome foursome, huh?” I ask.

“That’s what you used to call us,” I hear the sadness in her voice and my heart aches. I know she feels this all a lot more than her little brother. “I still remember.”

“Do you really have to go again, daddy?” George looks at me with sad puppy dog eyes.

“Yeah, do you?” Minnie asks. “I love having you here.”

“I do, my loves,” I reply sadly. “Be good for mummy, alright? I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

“I don’t like seeing you go,” George mumbles.

The emotion is a little unbearable and I see a tear trail down my wife’s cheek. George looks petrified seeing his mum cry.

“Don’t be sad, mummy.”

“I’m not sad,” she shakes her head, quickly wiping the tear off her cheek. “I’m just sorry daddy and I couldn’t make it work.”

“Did we do something wrong?” George asks, looking at his mum and then me.

“Oh, mate,” I reach out to cup his face, Emma pulls him into a hug. “Of course not. You didn’t do anything wrong. You two are perfect, you hear me?”

“Do you still love each other?” Minnie asks.

Emma looks at me in the eye as she answers our daughter. “I’ll always love your dad, because he gave me both of you.”

“And I’ll always love your mum,” I say, my eyes pinned on my wife. “No matter what.”

Emma

“So… tell me, he a good lay? He looks the sort to have some girth.”

I probably should have warned you beforehand about this sister of mine.

Lucy is my entertainer sister who has done every job going alongside studying. She went to dance school, spent six months on a cruise ship, has been an extra and once did a two-month stint in Les Misérables. On weekends she dresses up as Disney characters and does kids’ parties which means she owns a lot of wigs and always has glitter in her bra. She’s the fun one. I keep her close because as much as I love my other siblings, this one has been a good entertainment through my separation. Mum suggested for her to live with me for a couple of weeks when I first moved back to the Peak, and I’m so glad she did. It was around the time I lost a stone and would spend most of the time napping, crying and staring at the wall, surviving on cups of tea and Rich Tea fingers. She couldn’t cook or clean and she used all my shampoo but she brought some light into the house when grey clouds threatened to consume it. She was also a great distraction because I could live vicariously through her tales of going to gigs and clubs and hear how she’s not slept and got her boobs out for reasons of fun and frivolity.

However, when you talk to her, she always goes there. She’s brash and has no conversational limit. She thinks her purpose is to not only feed me but also revive a pretty dead sex life too. Actually, it’s not just her. After my husband and I split, my sisters think it’s their job to pique my interest in men again. Luke happened after a boozy Chinese takeaway about two months ago when I joked that a spring roll was the most phallic thing I’d had in my mouth for over half a year. I remember a dumpling rolled out of Meg’s mouth in shock, so Suze decided to play the matchmaker and introduced me to Luke who worked at the same hospital with her.

Tonight, we’re having another takeaway night since my parents have all the grandchildren for the weekend. Bless them for entertaining that crew of children we seem to have acquired over the past nine years. We have seven between Suze, myself and Meg, and I just hope that my parents are well stocked with wine. They will need it.

We all sit around my dining room table with the remnants of a KFC bargain bucket, a selection of Thai food, a giant bag of chips and some battered sausages. I’d admit that we were already a little drunk to buy food sanely. Luke is also here, I thought it’d be nice to give my sisters the chance to get to know him. And it doesn’t take Lucy more than thirty seconds after Luke gets up to take a phone call before asking such questions.

“I don’t know? I haven’t slept with him yet.”

Lucy looks at me in confusion. “But you’ve been on dates and stuff?”

“We did have a cheeky snog last week but we’re taking it slow.”

“What are you waiting for? Just go shag him. Erase the memory of that wanker?”

“Hey, he’s your niece and nephew’s father,” I chastise her for calling Harry names. “Don’t call him that.”

“Why don’t you want to sleep with Luke?” Meg, my other sister asks me. “Lucy is right though. He’s really tall, I bet he’s VWE.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

“Very well-endowed.”

I chuckle. “Honestly, I wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

Meg giggles and places her head on my shoulder.

“Last time I had sex was on Valentine’s Day, girls. Do your maths. The next day, my marriage collapsed.”

Both of them huddle into me like penguins.

“Which is why you just need to get over yourself,” Lucy remarks. “You need to remember what sex is like. It’ll be fun and make you feel good. If you don’t want to do it with Luke, you can have some taster session? I’ve got a uni mate who’d shag you.”

“Lovely. No.”

Lucy huffs. “You’re so boring.”

“Honestly, Em, Luke is fit. Seems like a nice fella, and he genuinely likes you. I’d have a go on him if I weren’t married. You should just do it,” says Meg.

“Yeah, you could shag him tonight,” Lucy adds. “Meg and I can piss off out and then…”

Then she does a strange rave-style dance as she thinks of her plan coming together. Luke returns from his phone call and Lucy jiggles in her seat. Don’t you bloody dare.

“Luke, we need more wine,” says Lucy. “There is not enough and we thought you could walk down to the shop and get some?”

Meg and I look at each other for a second, wondering what our sister is up to.

“Sure, yeah, I could get wine,” Luke replies. “Any other requests?”

If she tells him to get condoms in then I will skewer her with a chopstick.

“Anything you might fancy or need?”

She’s walking an incredibly thin, thin line.

Luke gets up to retrieve his coat and grazes my hand as he does. This move doesn’t go unnoticed by Meg and she gives me a sly wink. I hand him my keys and he heads for the front door. Meg stares Lucy out.

“Seriously?” She says.

“We need to prepare you if you’re going to sleep with him.”

“Like mentally?” I ask.

“Like have you had a tidy? This will be your first time. You’ll need to at least tidy up the flaps and do a bit of topiary.”

“LUCY!” I gasp and laugh at the same time, holding my hand to my face. Who is this woman? How can you raise five children in the same house and come up with such a random entity?

She stands up and heads for my kitchen drawers, rifling around until she pulls out a pair of scissors.

“Show me your bush,” she orders.

“Lucy! I prepare food with those scissors.”

“And we’ll wash them?”

Meg is in hysterics as she sees this scene unfolding in front of us.

“I’m not getting my bush out in my kitchen.”

“You’re so dull,” Lucy complains. “I’m trying to help here. What are your pits like? Shame there’s no time to tackle your upper lip.”

I put my hand over it instinctively. “I’ve got a moustache?”

“Well, you’re not Tom Selleck but it could do with a bleach.”

“You’re being cruel now, Luce,” Meg giggles. “But I think we do need the comedy of seeing Lucy trimming your bush in the kitchen.”

I stand up reluctantly and unbutton my jeans.

“Ha!” Exclaims Lucy. “You’re wearing nice knickers, you knew this was going to happen. Just peel them back a little and let me have a look.”

“Be quick for fuck’s sake. This is something that no one needs to see.”

“Do you want a shape?”

“What?”

“Yeah, like a heart? It’d be cute.”

“No!”

Meg roars with laughter.

“I’ll just trim the length then,” says Lucy. “Meg, put your hand out.”

“Do I have to?”

“Don’t you love your sister enough to at least hold her pubes?”

I’m not even sure what’s happening here. One sister is very close to my private regions with a sharp object and I hear the creak of metal as she shears away. The other collects the trimmings in a napkin in her palm. This feels like an opportune moment to ring Suze, our other sister, and start a FaceTime chat. That time we all took one for the team so Emma could reclaim her sex life.

“Thanks, Luce.”

“You don’t say this enough I feel.”

“We really don’t,” says Meg.

“Want me to look at yours, Meg?”

“I’m good.”

“What if he’s into weird stuff?” I ask.

“Like?”

“I don’t know… maybe like choking? Stuff like that.”

“Well, no one breaks out all the moves on their first time,” says Meg but Lucy gives us a look like she begs to differ.

“And I’m not on anything. I stopped the pills months ago. What if I get pregnant?”

“That’s what condoms are for?”

They both give me a look that says I am not fourteen and that I should have an inkling about how reproduction works and the preventative measures that I can put in place to stop myself from getting pregnant.

“How do I initiate it?”

“Maybe you could dance for him?” says Luce mockingly. “You’ve both had a drink, let it just happen. Planned sex is the worst kind of sex.”

“I planned nothing. You’re the one who’s got the kitchen scissors.”

“I’m done, anyway. Not my finest work but then at least he’ll be able to find it?”

Meg laughs again as she goes to the bin with her napkin of pubes. I do my jeans up and sit at the table, downing what’s left in my glass. What if he can’t get it up? Or worse, what if he doesn’t like my boobs? I have modest boobs. They wouldn’t win any competitions. What if he wants better boobs?

“You’re overthinking,” says Meg.

“I haven’t got any condoms.”

Lucy reaches inside her handbag, pulls out two packets of johnnies and hands them to me. How far ahead has she planned this?

“Any other excuse?” Lucy asks.

“Look, tonight, just get naked with the fella, have some bloody fun. Enjoy yourself.”

I hear the key go in the latch of the front door. That was quick. Crap. Luke enters the kitchen with two bottles of red that I immediately feel guilty about as I’ve got a rack of it in the utility room. He also carries a few packs of crisps and takes the kitchen scissors that were on my table.

“No!” I stop him. “Those need to be washed.”

He looks at me in confusion and I love that he puts them in the sink without any further questions asked. He rips opens the packet of crisps with his hands instead.

“Crisps?”

Lucy grabs a handful of crisps before she grabs her phone, pretending to read some texts. “Bollocks! Meg, we forgot about the party.”

Meg quickly plays along. “Oh yeah, crap. It’s that birthday party, innit?”

I feel awful. I’m sending the sisters back out into the cold so Luke and I can have the house to ourselves. They both keep winking at me which is more down to the fact that they’ve had at least a bottle of wine each for themselves tonight. Luke stands at the kitchen door while I wave everyone off. This feels weird.

“Have fun, kids!” Chants Lucy as she shepherds Meg away from the house. I shut the door.

And then there were two. I turn around and Luke is no longer at the doorway. I tiptoe into the kitchen to find him stacking plates.

“Shall we tidy up now?” He asks.

“It can wait.”

My phone on the table lights up with an incoming text. It’s Lucy. Don’t forget to adjust your tits. Make sure they’re facing forwards. Show a bit of bra.

Does this mean my boobs are not always facing forward? Where are they looking? This isn’t helping at all. I ignore it.

“Alright,” Luke says with a smile that makes me feel relaxed but also on the faint side of nauseated. It’s probably first time nerves. Is it weird that I’m thinking about the cleanliness of my bedroom? Did I pick up yesterday’s bra from the corner of my room? Do I remember how to go down on a man? What if he doesn’t fancy me?

Sometimes I can’t help but wonder whether my marriage ended with Harry because I was terrible in bed. Maybe I wasn’t attractive enough. I’ve had kids, parts of me are stretched and doughy. Maybe I didn’t provide what he needed.

In the last year of our marriage, I think it’s safe to say that I was mainly the one to initiate things between us and my success rate wasn’t 100%. There’s this nagging thought in my head that maybe even on those nights I succeeded, those were just pity shags.

You know what, sod it.

I grab him by the collar and kiss him. He stumbles a little but then lets his body fold into mine. I can do this. Crap. He’s lifting me up. He sits me on the counter and I’d like to say the moment overtakes but there’s red wine inches from my arse so I move the glass with my hand whilst still kissing him. We’re kissing. This is weird. It’s different. It’s not my husband’s lips. Why am I thinking about my husband’s lips?

I shake my head, banishing that image. Harry doesn’t belong in this room with me right now.

I feel his hands in the small of my back and then he lifts my jumper over my head. I’m in my bra. Don’t overthink it. Oh, the bra is off. My nipples are out in the kitchen. I run my fingers through his hair as he trails kisses down my neck. Is it weird that right now, at this very moment, all I can think about is that his blond, floppy hair looks like a golden retriever?

I gasp and push him away involuntarily when his mouth wraps on my nipple. This is wrong. This feels wrong. I thought it was just first time jitters but now I think this is deeper than that.

“Are you alright?” He asks, looking concerned.

I grab my jumper and quickly put it back on. “I… I’m sorry, Luke. I can’t. I have to go.”

“Emma, I’m sorry,” his face reads panic. “Did I read the signals wrong? I thought you wanted this. I feel terrible. I’m so sorry.”

“No, please don’t apologise,” I say hastily. “You didn’t. I did want this. Or so I thought. It’s just… I’m not ready. I don’t think I’ll be ready any time soon. Or ever.”

“What do you mean? Are you breaking up with me?”

I have to be straight with him. I take a deep breath. “I want to give you the opportunity to walk away. You’re a good guy, Luke. I just don’t think it’s fair for me to string you along if we can never progress.”

“Is it your ex-husband?”

He’s still my husband. But I don’t say this out loud.

“He told me that he wanted to give our marriage another shot about two weeks ago when he was here,” I tell him. “I did say no right away. I didn’t think it was a good idea. But…”

“Is it really?” He asks. “You two have a lot of history. Two kids. Why wouldn’t you give him a chance?”

“I’m worried.”

“And what are you worried about?”

“My heart?” I say quietly. “I don’t want to go through that again.”

Luke smiles at me through sympathetic eyes. “Listen to me, Emma. I’m not a cardiologist, but I know that the hearts are the strongest organs in the human body. They can go through anything.”

What happens next feels like a blur. All I know is that by midnight, I’m already halfway down the M1, on my way to London.

Harry

It was a knock on the door that woke me up.

When I first open my eyes, I’m disoriented. I don’t know what time it is, or how long I’ve been asleep. Then I realise I’m on the sofa, and it’s still dark outside. It’s also raining. I walk towards the door and open it, just in time to catch a figure going down the steps, which doesn’t take me more than a second to recognise. I am in complete shock. Is this real? Is that really my wife, standing in front of my door in the middle of the night? Or are my eyes deceiving me?

“Emma?”

She stops on the pavement and slowly turns to face me. She’s spooked through—her jeans moulded to the curves of her legs, the sleeves of her jumper dripping, her hair flat, lips slightly tinged with blue.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” she says. “Don’t know what I was thinking.”

I open the door wider, and my voice is drowsy and deep when I say, “Come on, let’s talk inside.”

She takes a step back instead.

“I just… I wasn’t thinking. I’m here. I don’t know why,” she sounds genuinely bewildered—even a little panicked.

“Are the kids in the car?” I ask her and she shakes her head. The wind blows, spraying ice-cold drops across my bare skin where my shirt hangs open. “You’re shivering, honey, come inside.”

She stares at me, so many emotions swirling in her expression. She’s like a skittish kitten who can’t decide if she should let the stranger pat her head or haul up the nearest tree. It breaks my heart.

“I don’t think I can.”

So I go to her.

The rain is cold and hard, soaking my shirt. Her eyes dart from the pavement, to my chest, up to my eyes and back again, like she’s ready to bolt—but her feet stay glued.

I lean in so she can hear me through the rain. “Do you remember the first time we went to Paris together? When we were young and crazy enough to only rent one electric scooter for both of us, and we rode around the city at night?”

The corners of her mouth tug up a little. “I remember.”

“But then I was going way too fast and we hit a rock, and both of us went flying. I didn’t want to ride anymore the next day, because I was afraid you’d get hurt. Do you remember what you told me?”

“I said…” she begins, her eyes meet mine. “I said we had to keep riding. Because it’s the only thing that made falling worth it.”

I nod tenderly and hold out my hand. “I’m not going to let us fall this time, Emma.”

Her eyes are back on the pavement. “I’m not sure-”

I know she still doesn’t trust me. I know that sadness on her face and how it penetrates so deeply. I know she’s probably better off without me, the bastard who crushed her heart and soul and took her for granted for years.

We shy away from the things that hurt us. But that’s what scars are for. They protect the wounds. They cover them with thick, numb tissue so we’ll never have to feel that same pain again. The scars that my wife has inside? They’re tough.

I beg when she continues to stare at my hand, “Please, just come inside.”

Slowly, tentatively, her hand slides into mine.

And we go in out of the rain.

I take her upstairs to the bedroom that used to be ours. Her teeth chatter as she sits on the edge of the bed. I throw a blanket over her shoulders, rubbing her arms, sliding down to cup her hands.

“Shit, you’re freezing. How long were you out there?”

“A while. I was walking… thinking.”

“Just some friendly advice. Next time you go a-wandering, stop and buy an umbrella.”

Emma shivers as she laughs. I pull the blanket closer around her and rub her back.

“So… you gonna tell me what’s this midnight adventure about?”

Her voice comes out soft and wavering in the dark room. “I was with Luke.”

“Did he do something to you? I’ve watched enough crime documentaries to pull a perfect murder.”

She shakes her head and chuckles. “We were having a takeaway night. Meg and Lucy were there too, but then they left and there were just the two of us and-”

“Please spare me the details,” I beg.

“Nothing happened. I just… I couldn’t get through it. Your face kept popping out in my head and I knew that if I went all the way through, we’d lose our chance. And I didn’t want us to lose our chance. I know this is completely the opposite of what I said to you two weeks ago but it’s true. I wasn’t ready then and maybe I’m still not ready now, but I don’t know about the future and you said you’d wait for me and…”

Her words trail off and my chest clenches with that sublime mix of excitement and trepidation. Of wanting something so much it’s like every cell in your body is stretching, reaching for it, yet there’s a grey shadow of worry that you might never get to touch it.

“Oh, Ems…”

I cup my hands around hers and blow into them. Another shiver vibrates through her.

For a moment we sit there in silence. Memories of us in this bed come flooding back. Of the kids piling in here bright and early, and us having cuddles and catch ups over the week just gone. Of the two of us and that sacred half an hour we had together before we go to sleep. Where we could have a proper chat without little voices interrupting us every few seconds. Sometimes we’d read together too, and other times when we just couldn’t be arsed, we’d simply spend that half an hour scrolling through memes and having a laugh together.

“You’ve got to get out of these wet clothes,” I say gently, with absolutely no teasing suggestion. We’re right on the precipice. I can feel it. And I have to tread so carefully, because one wrong move could send her away, truly lost to me.

I peel my soaked shirt off and let it drop to the floor. Her eyes move, trailing over my shoulders. I stand and slowly unbutton my jeans, leaving me in black boxer briefs.

Her eyes follow my every move, looking at me.

I push the blanket off her shoulders and let it drop to the floor. I grasp her jumper at the bottom and lift slowly. I wait for her to push me away but she doesn’t. She raises her arms instead. I pull the jumper over her head and it lands with a plop on the floor. I remind myself not to enjoy the view. I’m trying hard not to look.

My chest rises and falls as rapidly as hers. I sink to my knees in front of her and reach out for the button of her jeans. She lifts her hips and my fingertips graze her skin as I slide them down her thighs, leaving the white lace knickers in place.

“Get under the sheets,” I whisper and she does just that.

She scoots to her side of the bed, and I slide beside her. Without a word, she snuggles into my side. The cool feel of her flesh is a shock at first, but in just a few moments, my heat chases away her chill. Except for her feet. I practically jump when she runs one up my calf.

“Yer a bloody ice cube!”

She laughs kind of evilly.

We face each other, almost nose to nose. Her hair still drips at the ends and a drop trickles over her collarbone, down her chest, and I’ve got to take a deep breath—because I want to lick it off her so badly.

“Talk to me,” she says softly.

“I’m taking time off work.”

“But you never take time off work?”

“I’ve got a lot to make up to the kids,” I tell her. “So I told Jeff to bugger off for at least until after New Year.”

I see her smile in the dim light.

“I’m gonna stay up with my mum,” I add. “I’ll only be an hour away from you lot.”

This is something that I’ve been mulling about. If I really do want a chance with Emma, I need to move up there because absence does not make the heart grow fonder. That may be true in secondary school when you went away for the summer. But in marriage, especially in a broken marriage, absence separates people. It creates distance. That’s the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve. You want the closeness back.

My wife’s palm runs over my bicep—tentatively at first—then with a surer touch. “They’d love that.”

“Also, you remember my old mate Stu?” She nods. “We got in touch just earlier today. He’s got a litter of puppies and he offered one for us. I told him I need to talk to you first. So what do you think?”

“A puppy, huh?”

“A puppy.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” she says. “But I’ve never had a dog though.”

“I can train it first at my mum’s?” I offer. “I’ll get it all settled. Then when it starts sleeping through the night, I’ll bring it over.”

“Does it make me a terrible mum for wishing we had that kind of service when the kids were newborns?”

“We had that service. It’s called sending them to the grandparents.”

We both laugh, and when the laughter dies down, we’re silent for a few minutes. The thrum of my heartbeat jacks up as her hand continues to stroke my arm.

“Harry?” Her voice is the barest whisper, like she’s checking to see if I’m asleep.

“Hmm?”

“I… I’ve missed you. So much.”

And I’m done.

The need to kiss her, to touch her, has been pulling at me like a raging current ever since I saw her on the front step, and with those few words, I let the current take me.

***

Numerous studies have shown that having sex extends the human life span. At this rate, Emma and I are going to live forever. We probably slept twenty minutes max throughout the night and I’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve done it. I’m pretty sure the last time we did something like that was ten years ago on our honeymoon.

We’re sitting at the breakfast nook. Her hair mussy and she’s wearing one of my T-shirts. She looks freshly fucked, which I know to be true, and I reckon she’d be ready to crawl back into bed with me if I just crook my finger. But I don’t do that. Because this, us, sitting here in the morning sunlight, playing footsies under the table while we talk over coffee is all I’ve been dreaming about every morning.

“What are you thinking about?” She asks when she catches me looking.

“You,” I smile. “You look perfect.”

“No, no more,” she shakes her head frantically. “I won’t be able to walk.”

“You dirty lass, I was trying to be romantic and all that,” I can’t help but snort in laughter. “And you always do that… rebuff any type of compliment I try to give you.”

It’s true. If I tell her she looks beautiful, she waves a dismissive hand at me. If I compliment her mind, she blushes. Even an appreciative look from me has her turning shy like a schoolgirl.

When she doesn’t respond to me, I continue to poke at her. “Why is that? Why does it embarrass you when I tell you that you’re smokin’ hot?”

She wrinkles her nose at me. “Because it’s weird. I feel like you just have to say that.”

She pretends to go through one of her old magazines from when she still lived here. I reach across the table and bat at it, causing one side to pull out of her hands and reveal her entire face to me. Now she’s glaring. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”

And I grin when I see red stain her cheeks.

“And you’ve got the most gorgeous body. I take one look at you naked and I can’t help but get rock hard.”

“Stop it,” she blusters, now blushing all the way down her neck.

I change tactics, but I know this will embarrass her just as much. “You are the most amazing woman. Kindest, genuine and grounded. Funniest too. And you’re the best mother for our babies.”

“Okay,” she snaps at me as she closes the magazine and slams it down onto the table. “You’ve made your point.”

Chuckling, I stretch back in my chair and nudge her foot with mine under the table. “You’re adorable.”

She rolls her eyes, which I find to be beyond adorable.

Standing up from my chair, I walk around the table and hold my hand out to her. She willingly takes it and stands when I give her a tug. It’s a natural move for her, to walk straight into my embrace and press herself against me. I tilt my head and kiss her on her jaw. “It’s something you need to get used to… compliments from me. It’s never going to stop.”

She moans softly in my ear.

“Want to know what else you’re going to have to get used to?” I whisper as I kiss my way down her neck.

Her fingers come up, tangle in my hair, and fist tightly. “What’s that?”

“My face between your legs.”

***

Some people might not put Quaglino’s into the romantic restaurant bracket, but they’d be wrong, very wrong. In actual fact, it’s quite hard to top. The interior has this 1930’s romance charm with candlelit tables, dark-panelled walls and an adjoining room for dancing to the soft tunes of the piano man singing bluesy versions of classic songs.

Tonight, I managed to convince Emma to go out to dinner with me before she goes back to our babies. I insist on driving her since I don’t want her to drive alone at night again, which she initially refused but finally agreed.

We finish our dinner and split a slice of cheesecake for dessert. Probably not my brightest idea since I keep having to readjust myself because seeing her slowly swallow a mouthful of white, creamy concoction is a pure kind of torture. But I try to kick those dirty thoughts out of my mind and focus.

Since last night, we’ve successfully managed to avoid the talk. It feels like we’re in a bubble where everything is perfect and we’re just scared to burst it, but I know this can’t go on. Emma and I need to have a proper chat if we want this to work.

“Penny for your thoughts.”

“You and I need to talk, don’t you think?” I begin.

“You’re right,” she nods. “So…”

“What is this?” I gesture between us. “Are you ready to give us another shot?”

“I think so,” she nods. “But I want us to take it slow.”

“You set the pace,” I assure her. “I want this to work more than I want anything else in my life. So I’ll do whatever you want me to.”

“We’ll see this as a new dalliance,” she adds.

I know this is supposed to be serious so I try hard not to break into laughter. “Okay. I will court you but I won’t ask you to move to an estate in the country. Not right away at least.”

“I’m serious.”

“You sound like Austen.”

She rolls her eyes. “And we can’t tell anyone either.”

“I agree,” I tell her. “And from now on, we talk to each other, alright? I’ll try to make you happy the best way I know how. But if it’s not enough for you, then you need to tell me.”

She nods, but then her graze drops before she asks. “You really do want this right?”

“I told you I want this to work more than anything else in my life.”

“It’s just… when you first told me you wanted to fight for our marriage, I was overwhelmed because it was all so sudden. You told me everything I wanted to hear. Even at that moment, everything in me screamed for us to just fall back into it all the way. But there was also a part of me that thought you were just lonely, and maybe you thought that us getting back together was the answer to it.”

“Not true-”

Emma holds up her hand. “Maybe not true, but it’s my fear. That’s why I kissed Luke that night, because I was desperate. I wanted to push things with him because I knew I’d never love him the way I love you. I knew that if things went to pot, I wouldn’t be half as devastated. But with you? I don’t think I can survive that type of heartbreak again, H. You don’t know how much it killed me to end our marriage. I can’t afford to fall back into something that’s not going to last.”

“Emma,” I reach across the table to take her hand. “I can’t even imagine how hard it was for you. I know for sure it was not a decision you made lightly, nor on a whim. I wish I had fought you on it then… had fought for you then. There was a time when I thought our marriage was over, and I was going to let you go. But I’m not going to do that now. If it takes you weeks, months, hell, Emma… if it takes you years to fully trust my devotion to you, I’m in this for however long it takes.”

Emma nods, biting into her lower lip. I can see her eyes starting to water because every bit of this is overwhelming. She turns her head towards the music floating in from the other room. It’s a Van Morrison cover, Crazy Love.

“Wanna dance?”

The request takes me by surprise since this isn’t like her. But I toss my napkin on the table and move to stand next to her, holding out my hand. The simple delight on her face when her hand slides into mine is everything.

We step out onto the edge of the dance floor. I wrap my arm around her lower back, holding her tight and flush against me. One of her hands rests on my shoulder, playing with the hair at the nape of my neck. The other is clasped in mine just over my heart. We sway, eyes pinned at each other for a few moments.

“Thought you hate dancing?” I smirk.

“Still hate it,” she answers. “I’m just using it as an excuse to be closer to you.”

She sighs, practically sinks into my arms. Emma’s head fits against my chest like she was made to be there. My chin rests against her hair.

“Emma?”

She lifts her head from my chest. “Yeah?”

“You don’t need an excuse.”

She give me love, love, love, love, crazy love…

***

“What the-”

“Oi!” I yell, quickly pulling the duvet over my wife and I. “Heard of knocking?”

“Heard of a bedroom lock?” Lucy challenges.

Last night, we drove up the M1 straight from the restaurant. We took breaks in deserted services with shiny floors and bad lighting where we had coffees and wandered around WHSmith bulk buying sweets even though it’s really not that far. But you can never have too many travel sweets, can you?

And now, here we are, back at the cottage. The kids are still at their grandparents until this afternoon so Emma and I are enjoying the benefit of having the house all to ourselves by having a morning shag. That is until one of her sisters walks in on us. I’m very aware that I’m still inside Emma.

I pull out, roll over to lay down next to my wife, and we both stare at Lucy who is dressed from head to toe like Princess Jasmine from Aladdin.

“Party?” Emma asks her sister. We both try not to giggle as she sashays in to look at herself in the mirror then perches on the bed in her harem pants. Today, she’s gone heavy on the winged eyeliner and shows off a flat midriff. I quite like the pointy silver shoes though.

“No, Tesco,” she says dryly. “Obviously a party.”

“What are you doing here?” I ask her.

Lucy glares at me. “What are you doing here? Besides rearranging my sister’s guts, of course.”

I don’t even flinch. I’ve been married to Emma for ten years, I’m used to this sister of hers.

“I’m trying to win your sister back,” I say earnestly. I know that Emma and I talked about keeping this a secret, but she literally walked on us shagging. There’s no point in denying it. It’s best that she knows my true intention rather than thinking we’re divorced with benefits.

“Eh, about time,” she replies nonchalantly.

“Luce, please keep this to yourself for now,” Emma begs her. “This is still new.”

“I will,” she nods. “Just a friendly reminder, though, Styles. If you hurt my sister again, I won’t even think twice before starting a business selling voodoo dolls of you. Bet I could make a fortune of that.”

In their girl gang, Lucy is the wildcard, the likeliest to carry a shank. I don’t even laugh because she could be serious.

“Duly noted.”

“What are you doing here this early?” Emma asks her sister.

“I wanted to ask if I can borrow that giant tiger in George’s room?”

“Feel free to borrow the rug in the front room as well,” I cackle.

“Ooh yeah,” Emma chirps. “Are you going to find a whole new world?”

“Have you got your Aladdin?”

She pulls a face at our mocking. “My mate who’s supposed to be Aladdin is sick so I asked Jamie to fill in and he agreed because he owed me a big favour. But this lot changed their mind and wanted a genie so now I have to go to Jamie’s and convince him to let me do a full blue body paint on him.”

Emma and I roar with laughter. “Please, please, please, take some piccies.”

***

A month later…

I can only imagine the joy on my children’s faces when they open the door. I’ll be standing there with the pup in hand, but I know I’m practically vibrating with excitement myself. I glance over at the little dog crate that we’d prepared to transport him in. It’s a sweet, nine-week-old Bernese mountain dog. He’s pretty chill, curled into a round ball, but he’s not sleeping. His eyes are open and alert, as if he’s just waiting to find out what’s around the next corner.

The back of my Range Rover is loaded with two boxes of food, dog toys, bowls, a leash, and appropriate treats. Since I’m still crashing at my mum’s, that will go to her place for when the kids and this puppy come to stay. Emma has an identical list at her home, already purchased and hiding until we hand the puppy off to the kids.

I’ve got a feeling that today is going to be a good day. All morning, Emma and I texted back and forth. Some of it was practical, like making sure we agreed on all the dog rules we’d lay down with the kids tonight. Some of it was lighthearted teasing. Some of it was dirty.

I can’t remember the last time I texted my wife throughout the day just for the hell of it. I had fun with it, and I know without a doubt she had fun with it too. Which made me realise what a twat I’d been for never doing something as simple as letting her know she was on my mind in just such a way.

Pulling into the drive, I cut my headlights so the kids wouldn’t see me approach. I shut the engine off, quietly get out of my side, and press the door closed quietly. On the other side, I open the passenger door, then spring the latch on the dog crate, and this tiny little puppy totters straight at me with tail wagging.

I lift him in my arms. I shut the door and then move over to the patch of grass. I put the puppy down so he will go potty before I bring him in. When I was a kid, we had a dog called Max, but I sort of grew up with him so I didn’t remember when he was a puppy. And Emma never had a dog before, so we’re sort of winging it with this puppy training thing. But I don’t fret about it. I mean, we’ve had babies, they’re harder than this, surely?

I patiently wait for this little fella to do his business, which includes a few minutes where he attacks my shoelaces and tugs. Shite, he’s cute.

Eventually, he sniffs around, tail high and then abruptly squats to pee. I thought boy dogs lift their legs when they pee but maybe not at this age. I immediately bend and give him praise with an upbeat, positive tone that makes him excited. Who’s daddy’s clever little fella? You are! Yes, you are! You did well, mate. That was brilliant! He puts his paws up on my shin, accepting my stretches with tail wagging and tongue lolling out the side of his head. My kids are going to fall in love with this little guy.

I scoop him up in my arms when he’s done and make my way inside. But instead of entering from the front door, I circle the house so I can enter from the back, knowing they must be all in the kitchen as this is usually the time when the kids would do their homework for next week. Walking past the window, I see that I’m right. Emma is at the kitchen island with George next to her and Minnie on the opposite side. My heart starts beating faster at the thought of spending the day with my family—and apparently our new third child in my arms—and I find it almost shameful I have such excitement over it. Shouldn’t I have always been this excited? Or is it normal for things to just settle, and we take them for granted?

I shake that thought off of my mind. I had this important talk with my wife a couple of weeks ago about how we shouldn’t focus on the past. We’re both committed to repairing our marriage, and for it to work, we both know we must commit to living in the present. Because at the end of the day, the present is all we have.

I knock on the door and as planned, Emma will tell the kids to answer it.

In moments, it’s swinging open. I get a flash of Emma walking up behind our kids, but my eyes are pinned on them. They’re both in complete shock, eyes wide open staring at the puppy squirming in my arms.

Both stare at me mutely, frozen, as if they can’t believe that this is real.

Finally, I say, “surprise!”

Minnie’s gaze rises up to meet mine. “Is that ours?”

“This is ours,” I nod, laughing. But still, neither of them move forwards, so I goad them. “Come and get him?”

That’s all it takes for Minnie to scoop this little fella into her arms, pressing her nose into his head and murmuring little endearments. George scratches him and he reacts to their greetings by wiggling frantically and trying to lick both of my kids’ faces. They both laugh in a delighted way I’ve never quite heard before.

I look at my wife and see her tender smile as she watches our littles. I can tell she’s as charmed by it as I am.

I walk inside because it’s colder than a witch’s tit outside and shut the door. “He just peed outside, but we need to keep a close eye on him. If he starts sniffing around or circling, that probably means he needs a wee. Scoop him up and take him out to the back. After he’s done with his thing, give him lots of praise and affirmation.”

“Got it,” Minnie says as she plops down on the living room floor with the pup. The puppy jumps around, and all three of them start to play.

“Now, what should we name him?” Emma asks.

“Droolius Caesar?” I joke.

Emma laughs. “Jimmy Chew?”

“Sarah Jessica Barker?” I continue. “Wait, no, it’s a boy. Franz Fur-dinand?”

“Sir Barks-a-Lot?”

“Deputy Dawg?”

“Bark Twain?”

We both laugh. We’re shite at this. The kids are too busy with the puppy to comment on our suggestions.

SpongeBob SquarePants is on the telly playing in the background. None of them are watching, but I see SpongeBob scratching his snail pet under the chin before he picks up said pet and says, “I love you Gary. Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary…”

“Gary,” I say. The kids look at me and I point at the telly.

“That’s a ridiculous name for a dog,” Emma cackles. “But I like it.”

“That’s a human name?” Minnie’s brows knit slightly.

“I like it!” George exclaims, then proceeds to baby talk the pup who’s chewing on the end of Minnie’s braid. “I love you Gary. Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary…”

We laugh.

“H,” Emma calls, and my gaze moves to her. She jerks her chin to the kitchen. “Help me set up the table? I’ve got a cold beer for you.”

Minnie and George still completely ignore us as we move into the kitchen.

It would be natural for me to sit at the kitchen island while Emma gets the beer and checks on the supper, but the kids can see me from where they sit in the living room. So I follow my wife behind the island instead.

Before she can make it two steps, I move right into the back of her. Hands at her hips, I push her all the way forward until the counter catches her hips, then I dip to put my lips to her neck.

Emma’s head falls back and she utters the tiniest of sighs, one arm looping back to go around the side of my head so she can thread her fingers in my hair. It’s an intimate embrace, but not one to provoke lust. Just a message that I missed her even though I saw her two days ago, and I love touching her in this gentle, loving way.

“The kids,” she murmurs. “They might see us.”

“Oh, the tragedy,” I whisper dryly. “Our children seeing their parents hugging.”

Emma snickers and pulls away, glancing over her shoulder. “It would be shocking to them. And until we know for sure what we are and where we’re going, we need to keep them in the dark, remember? I don’t want them to get their hopes up.”

“You’re right,” I mumble in a low voice before moving to the island. I glance back at the living room and see the puppy on George’s back, trying to climb up. “No touching around the kids.”

She smiles and hands me a beer. She’s got one in her hand, and we tap bottles. She then moves to the oven, where she bends to take a peek through the window. Obviously, I stare at her arse as she does.

“It’s done,” she announces, opening the oven to pull the pan of shepherd’s pie.

“Need help with that?’ I ask, noting it looks like it probably weighs fifty pounds.

Twisting, she grins. “Sure. I made a double batch to send you home with some leftovers.”

That gets me. Not only she made one of my favourite meals, but she’s also sending me home with leftovers. I pop off the stool, round the island and take the two potholders she’s holding out to me.

After I carefully lift the pan from the oven, she shuts the oven door. I set it down on the two trivets she’s placed on the counter.

Bending over, I inhale the scent deeply. “Smells fantastic.”

Emma bumps her hip against me. “Well… you’ve been pretty amazing these last few weeks, so…”

I bump her hip back before sliding my hand around her waist. Bending my head, I murmur. “Admit it… it’s for the orgasms I gave you after the school run the other day.”

She chuckles with a sly smile. “Possibly.”

Leaning in closer, I touch my temple on the top of her head, lowering to a complete whisper. “You do know that I can give you that any day you want, right, Em? All you’ve got to do is ask.”

“Oh, I will,” she teases.

“What’s going on here?” Minnie says from behind us.

Emma and I jump apart as if we’d been electrocuted by each other. We spin to see Minnie standing there, with George next to her holding Gary in his arms. These two must have worn that pup out as he is still, watching us curiously.

Minnie’s expression, on the other hand, is condemning and suspicious.

“Nothing’s going on, poppet,” Emma says, her voice a little squeaky in panic. It’s adorable.

“Your mum and I were just talking,” I calmly explain.

“With your arm around her waist and whispering,” Minnie challenges. “Looks more like flirting to me.”

“Are you upset about it?” I challenge back. I knew she was upset when we separated and she struggled with it for a long time.

Her brows knit together. “I’m just confused.”

Emma’s expression indicates she has no clue what to say. I can’t say I’m any more well equipped, but I’m going to take this one. I give my wife a subtle chin tilt, silently telling her I’ll handle this and relief evident in her eyes.

“Come on, you lot. Help me sort Gary’s stuff,” I say, herding them towards the garage.

All three of them follow me into the garage, Gary still cosy in George’s arms.

I immediately spot the stack of supplies, which includes a dog crate similar to mine, as well as bowls, a soft dog bed, food and toys. I pick up the soft bed towards the door that leads back into the house. Minnie turns to precede me, but I stop her. “Hang on there a second, poppet.”

When she pivots to face me her expression is guarded. “You asked about your mum and me. What do you want to know?”

“Were you two flirting with each other just now?” She demands. Crap. She’s nine. She’s not supposed to know that stuff.

I can’t believe I get a little warm in the face at such a question, but I nod. I know it’s probably too soon to tell them but there’s no point in denying this. Both of my children are smart, and they deserve to know what’s going on.

Her eyes narrow. “So are you… what… getting back together?”

“Does it mean you’re gonna live with us again, daddy?” George chirps.

“Not yet, nuggets. It’s not that simple.”

“It kind of is,” she replies. “You left for months. You didn’t even come during the summer. Then once she started dating Luke-”

“What’s dating?” George turns to his sister.

“It’s when you like someone and they like you back and you become boyfriend and girlfriend then you go out to eat together and do other stuff,” Minnie explains, then she continues. “Then once she started dating Luke, you’re suddenly coming around more often. And then she told me that Luke wouldn’t come over anymore and now you two are making googly eyes at each other.”

We lapse into silence for a moment. I need to think carefully about what to say next. George beats me. “I think I’m dating someone.”

“You what?” My eyes widen.

“Yeah. I asked Poppy in the playground to be my girlfriend the other day and she said yes. Then after we were done playing on the slides we got hungry so she shared her raisins with me. I also let her take a sip of my Ribena.”

I try hard not to break into laughter but Minnie doesn’t even crack a smile.

“Okay… so here’s the thing. I was very upset. I know that was wrong of me to just leave without saying goodbye, and it was wrong of me for not visiting sooner. I needed time to let it go, and to accept what your mum wanted. But not once during that time did I not want to come back home. I’ve always wanted my family back.”

“Then what changed?” Minnie asks.

“Your mum and I spent some time apart because we both thought that was the best decision. But we were wrong. Because we realised that we didn’t want to be without each other. So now I’m trying to prove that I’ve changed. That I’m a better man, and I’m ready to be a better husband. The one your mum deserves.”

“See,” Minnie murmurs, her expression filled with confusion. George dips his head and rubs his cheek against Gary’s head, who seems to be on the verge of falling asleep. “I don’t get it. You and mum always seemed to get along great. You never argued. I never understood why you left.”

I move in close to my daughter and brush a lock of hair behind her ear. “A lot of that stuff is private between your mum and I, poppet.”

George asks. “But why can’t you just move in now, daddy?”

“It takes time, mate. Your mum and I need more time to sort ourselves out. But I promise you two that we’re trying our hardest here, okay? We need you both to be patient. Can you do that for us?”

They both nod in unison. Gary blinks twice.

“I can’t wait for us to be family again,” says Minnie.

Grinning, I bend to kiss her head. “Me too, poppet…”

***

Emma

“Gary! This way, Gary!”

Harry and I look at each other across this rather windy hilltop. The kids and Gary are exploring the neighbouring bushes and pathways as we perch ourselves on a rock nearby. We take in the view, the breeze biting at my cheeks.

My husband turns to me. “Tea? I put some whisky in it.”

“Hell, why not.”

Harry pours the tea out and we clink mugs. He brushes his thumb across my nose for no absolute reason. I was born and raised here, but this is something I’ll never tire of: these swooping hills and valleys, infinite skies and bracing breezes. As much as I loved London, I’m glad we’ve traded that life with this simpler one. There is no taxi nor Tube in sight but our kids are somehow a little bouncier and carefree. They’re happy here, and that’s all that matters.

“Ey up,” greets Harry at a group of people walking past us. They are obviously tourists as they have no way to respond and one of them is wearing bog standard Reebok Classics.

We hear the kids squeal in the distance and we both smile at each other. Getting that pup was probably one of our best decisions.

“Do you remember when we first dated?” Asks my husband. “You brought me up here.”

I nod. “I do.”

“The view was decent,” he grins.

“I know you’re not thinking about the view.”

“I was thinking about what happened when we got to the top of the meadow…”

“That was some decent shag,” I chuckle. “Nowadays, I’d worry about getting ticks on my unmentionables.”

We laugh.

I stare over at my husband taking in the view and sipping tea noisily. He always pauses for a moment on any walk to drink it all in. He rustles in his bag and gets a packet of biscuit out, opening the packaging awkwardly and offering it to me.

“Did you know that you’re supposed to call it ‘niece’ and not ‘nice’? Apparently, they’re named after the French town.”

“That’s proper pub quiz trivia knowledge right there, Styles,” I tease.

We stay up here for a little while, but since it’ll get dark soon, we start our walk back to the car. The one thing you forget about taking kids up mountains (small hills) is that for all that experience of green space and fresh air, eventually, you will have to bring them down. Despite having an entire packet of biscuit (with a whole lot of why did you bring this one? This is rubbish. You could’ve brought hobnobs), we failed to remember to pack enough snacks and a fine drizzle is now scratching at our faces. It takes George much persuading to keep walking and by the time we return to the car, the sun is dipping behind the clouds and the twilight sits in the air.

Harry decided it was fine to park in a deserted car park in the middle of nowhere to escape the throngs of regular walkers and tourists but strangely enough, when we get back there, we are one of six parked up.

“Come on, mate. Literally, just to the car. Like twenty more steps,” Harry begs our son to keep on walking.

“You lied!” He complains. “You said that twenty steps ago.”

“I’ve got Haribo in the car.”

He progresses to a light canter.

“Where did all these cars come from?” Harry asks as he approaches our motor cautiously.

“Maybe you’re not the only smart one here and people are following your lead.”

A car flashes us.

I look around at all the cars. People are sat in them. What are they waiting for? You see this sometimes when waiting for the rain to pass or when people decide to eat their lunch in the car.

Suddenly, I hear a car door open and a gentleman approaches us. His footsteps are low.

I know him. It’s Patrick. He’s our postman, so, yes, we have our very own Postman Pat. It was the first thing that tickled Harry when he found out years ago. And even better, the joke is not lost on Pat. His wife even got him a stuffed black and white cat for his cherry-red van window. I smile at recognising him, as do all of the occupants in our car.

“Emma, Harry, kids. Fancy seeing you here, of all places.”

“We’ve got a new dog and we were just taking him for a walk,” I inform him.

“Oh, lovely. What’s his name?”

“Gary,” the kids say in unison.

“Have you got a dog, Pat?” George asks him.

“No, my wife’s a cat lady. But funny you should mention dogs. This place here, people like to come here for that reason.”

“Gary seemed to like it,” pipes in Harry. “I think it’ll be his favourite.”

“That it is. People come here all the time for walking and with their dogs and other such endeavours.” His face looks slightly ashen at this point, his eyes darting towards the other cars. “And the other sense of the word… I just thought I would mention it as you have the littl’uns and it’s getting darker. I think someone just flashed his lights to warn you.”

Harry and I realise what he means exactly at the same time. “OH!” we say at the same gobsmacked volume.

“Dogg…ing…” Harry mumbles. “We should-”

“Leave, like definitely leave, like now,” I say finishing his sentence.

The kids appear confused. I look around and shield my eyes. I should shield the children’s eyes. Pat’s wife waves from the passenger seat.

“Give our regards to June,” I say.

“Will do.”

He salutes us and returns to his car. The kids have all the questions. “People come here to look at dogs?” George asks. “Where are the dogs?”

“Get. In. The. Car.” Harry mouths very deliberately.

I slink into the passenger seat. Our eyes dart in different directions trying to divert focus from any of the cars ahead. We’ll be good if Harry doesn’t drive us off a cliff face. He turns on the wipers, the engine roars to a start and he pulls away slowly.

“We could have stayed and seen the dogs,” says George, a little despondently. “Gary would’ve loved to see his mates. Wouldn’t you, Gary?”

I throw a packet of Haribo at him. Harry and I are silent. We’ve just strolled our children and our very young dog into an outdoor sex hotspot. We are terrible parents.

“Who fancies chips?” Harry says as he changes gear. He finds our littles in the rear-view mirror and studies their faces. “There’s a decent chippy down road.”

There’s a chorus of approval from the back seat. My husband smiles. He then moves his hand over from the gearstick to find mine, fingers interlocked, the sky glowing a thousand different colours.

***

“Are you calling my turkey dry?”

I look over at my older sister Suze in the corner of our family kitchen wondering where on earth she had the courage to come out with a comment like that. Even her husband stops washing up to absorb what his wife just said to our mother. I mean, you think it, but you just douse it in gravy and make do. Such is the joy of white chalky meat like turkey. Why do this now? Now she’ll harp on about the bacon she puts on the breasts and all the goose fat. But it’s Suze. She likes the challenge. I secretly think the only way she believes she can have a relationship with our mother is to spar with her regularly so they at least have one line of communication.

“It was a lovely dinner, Mum. Did you make the mince pies?” Suze winks at me.

I shake my head at her and bring the plate of mince pies through to the living room. Amidst my mother’s wreaths and tinsel wrapped around the lampshades, it’s a familiar tableau: Pop, my grandfather, asleep in the armchair in the corner, a holy green paper hat covering his eyes. Small children crawl on the floor and make angel shapes with their bodies amidst remnants of old glittery wrapping paper. I hope Mum’s made a trifle. My other sister Meg and her husband snooze on a neighbouring sofa, catching on much needed sleep since they just had a baby four months ago and I still remember four months sleep regression is hell. I like this part of Christmas where bits of old crackers litter the floor and twilight takes over.

I take a mince pie and escape to the last vacant spot on the sofa. George rests his head on my knees. “What are you eating, mummy?” I look down at his bright green eyes and wonder how he can still be hungry as he must be ninety per cent roast potato at this point.

“A mince pie.”

“With cow mince?”

“No, like fruity bits,” I pick out said fruity bits and drop them into his mouth like a baby bird. He pulls a face, tasting it, and then walks away.

Harry smiles at me from the bottom of the Christmas tree. He’s laying down on the floor with one of my nieces. He’s always been great with kids, long even before we have our own. My niece has her palm out, and Harry runs circles in it as he sings, “round and round the garden, like a teddy bear…”

She smiles and laughs, poising her fingers, ready to bounce.

“One step, two-step, tickle me under there,” he pretends to collapse into giggles and my niece’s little face broadens into laughter before she rolls over and walks away to play with her cousins.

Finishing my last bite of the tiny pie, I roll under the tree to join my husband. He looks at me as I cosy up next to him, the lights reflect off his eyes.

My mother likes a real tree for Christmas. It’s the smell, you can’t beat the smell. I like to think you can get that real pine smell from a good supermarket brand toilet cleaner but I don’t say that out loud for fear of incurring her festive wrath. And so there’s always a real tree and like we endured when my siblings and I were teens, there’s still a daily rota of vacuuming up the needles as we watch that bastard go crusty and brown as it’s shoved up against the radiator.

We lay there in silence, looking up at the branches and my mother’s multicoloured lights twinkling in some erratic fashion that my eyes can’t quite handle. I’ve been to raves that were less of an assault on the senses. It’s an overwhelming memory of our childhood, lying in silence wigging out on mum’s trippy disco lights, absorbing the magic of the season.

“You’re drunk aren’t you, tipsy-tits?”

“You were the one who poured double shots of Baileys in our coffees this morning,” I cackle.

“That’s called Christmas milk.”

“What are you doing here?” Minnie asks, her head nestling into my shoulder. I rake pine needles from her head.

“Nothing…” Harry replies. “Where’s yer brother?”

“Here,” George suddenly appears, rolling under the tree next to his dad to join us.

“Looks like the awesome foursome is back, huh?” Harry grins.

Minnie and George hum in agreement. I can see my babies smiling.

It’s time.

“Harry?”

“Yeah?”

I take a deep breath. “Will you come back home with us?”

tag list: @gohometoacactus @just-here-to-escape-from-reality @kikisparadise18 @2am-2pm @rogersdirty-louse @harrys-cherriesss @icycoldbeanieweanies @niallbestie3 @peakascum @coucoukayy @awesomebooklover17 @sunflowerryvol6 @stylessugarhigh @umadirectioner

#harry styles #harry styles one shot #harry styles fic #harry styles ff #harry styles fics #harry styles angst #harry styles fanfics #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fluff #harry styles smut #divorce harry #dad!harry #husband!harry #harry styles x oc

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larryinfinitylt · 3 years

Text

REVIEWING ALL OF THE SONGS IN EVERY 1D ALBUM CAUSE TODAY IS THE ANNIVERSARY

(TMH EDITION)

LIVE WHILE WE'RE YOUNG

1st of all the MV is one the best!! I never wanted to go to summer camp more in my life

"LET'S GO CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY TILL WE SEE THE SUN"

KISS YOU

I love the beat of the song you just go apeshit crazy to it

ZAYN'S NOTES DO I NEED TO SAY MORE?!?!?!

LITTLE THINGS

A love/praise/adoration/idk you name it song to Louis if I've heard one

Harry's parts make me want to cry 🥲

C'MON C'MON

🚫 BLOCK ME RN IF YOU DON'T LOVE THIS SONG I DON'T WANT THAT NEGATIVITY IN MY LIFE 🚫

"I've been watching you all night" Creep

LAST FIRST KISS

The Hawaiian version in This Is Us is superior.

If your 1st language is not English you probably didn't understand what the tittle meant then first time you heard it

HEART ATTACK

🚫 ALSO BLOCK ME IF YOU HATE THIS SONG 🚫

The howl in this song could give me an orgasm, I'm not sorry

ROCK ME

🚫 AGAIN BLOCK ME IF YOU HATE THIS SONG, THEY'RE ALL TOO GOOD IDC🚫

Raise your hand if you used to hear "I won't see Katie again" or something similar in the part where they are spelling "R-O-C-K-M-E AGAIN" 🙋🏻‍♀️

CHANGE MY MIND

Their vocals in this song are *chef's kiss*

We said we wanted you stay as a band AND YOU DIDN'T CHANGE YOUR MIND YOU FILTHY LIARS

Disclaimer: I love their solo careers and I know the band was bad at times, this is a joke so don't come for me

I WOULD

THAT GUITAR IS ONE OF THE MARVELS OF THIS WORLD

"I can't compete MY boyfriend" 🙂

OVER AGAIN

I'M NOT CRYING YOU ARE

"The showers that are british" is probably the best lyrics ever written in the history of music

BACK FOR YOU

Another song to go apeshit to, please enjoy

This song is so early 2010's is amazing

THEY DON'T KNOW ABOUT US

THIS IS SO SONG IS SO GAY IT HURTS 😭

Is a hate crime they never sang it live

SUMMER LOVE

This song is so soft 🥺🥺🥺

It always reminded me of Grease

SHE'S NOT AFRAID

So haha funny story I 1st heard this song in the This Is Us movie and idk why always thought it was a cover, I'm literally listening to it completely for the first time now 😅😅 (The version of TMH I had ended in Summer Lover so that too)

I only know the lyrics in the chorus, I'm such a dumbass 🤪

LOVED YOU FIRST

Not my first time hearing this one, but I have to admit I first heard it in 2019 🙃

Don't think of Louis answering this was his favorite song the close to the date when Haylor started 🙅🏻‍♀️

NOBODY COMPARES

Another one I'm not entirely familiar with I'm so sorry 😣

Harry's voice sounds babier than usual in this one idk why 🤔

STILL THE ONE

Look when I heard all these songs from the extended version in 2019 and found this one I already knew about Harry covering the Shania Twain song and my brain went 🤯🤯

This song is sooooo bubblegum pop is gives me a tooth ache

**********

To read the rest, click HERE

#one direction #11yearsof1D #this is the most nostalgic album for me 🥲#mine

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waitineedaname · 4 years

Note

"this wasn't supposed to end in murder, guys, we talked about this" with the gordon, tommy + benrey (but BENREY'S saying the line, please?)

Gordon was more surprised than he should have been to discover Benrey was a stickler for rules.

Perhaps it should’ve been expected; they’d spent the entirety of the trek through Black Mesa harassing him endlessly about rules that Gordon was fairly certain were not meant to be enforced in a life or death situation. Gordon had thought maybe it was just Benrey taking their work a little too far or enforcing the rules only to inconvenience him. While some of that may have been true -- Benrey really seemed to get a thrill out of bothering him -- it turned out to be more so because when Benrey was given rules, they liked to follow them, even when most would ignore it.

Most of the time, this only affected Benrey, and Gordon didn’t mind it. If the doofus wanted to avoid pirating movies like it was the worst crime imaginable, Gordon wasn’t going to argue with them. But sometimes, they enforced rules in a way that ruined Gordon’s fun.

Case in point: attempting to stop Gordon and Tommy from getting their frustrations out in Chuck E. Cheese.

“This wasn't supposed to end in murder, guys, we talked about this,” Benrey complained from the main area of the restaurant (because it was a restaurant, dammit, no matter what Tommy’s intimidating dad said). Tommy ignored them and continued lobbing skee balls at the animatronics at an alarming velocity. Gordon cheered him on from where he stood atop the air hockey table.

It had been Tommy who suggested an outing to Chuck E. Cheese, no surprise. Gordon was bored and had nothing better to do, so he said fuck it, sure, he’ll partake in the rat’s pizza for an afternoon. Before they entered the restaurant, he had grabbed Tommy and Benrey by the shoulders and told them (but mostly Benrey) that they weren’t going to cause trouble, please behave, he wanted to be able to take Joshua to this Chuck E. Cheese at some point and he didn’t want to get banned. Tommy hadn’t said anything, had only smiled in a way that probably would’ve conveyed “who, me?” had Gordon been paying attention and hadn’t been distracted by Benrey going “booo, Gordon banning us from fun, lame.” When they went inside to buy tokens, however, Gordon saw Benrey hanging back and reading the rules of play that had been posted near the arcade entrance. Well, if they weren’t going to listen to Gordon, at least they were going to listen to the sign.

The restaurant was virtually empty, just them and the bored employees who seemed unfazed to see three grown adults in an arcade designed for five year olds. Gordon briefly wondered if he should’ve brought Joshua just for appearance’s sake, but the kid was with his ex for the week, and besides, the employees didn’t seem to care. They had about an hour of fun fucking around with the arcade games when Gordon finally pulled himself away from the fighting game he had been playing with Benrey. The two of them had been getting way too competitive, and he had learned by now that there was a certain point where he needed to take a step back or else it would end with one of them in a headlock and the other one yelling about cheating. At least, that’s how it always ended when they played Street Fighter at home, and he definitely didn’t want to risk being the one with his face in the sticky Chuck E. Cheese carpeting. So he waved Benrey off with a promise of a rematch later and wandered over to where Tommy was standing in front of the skee ball machine, a small frown on his face.

“Hey, you good, man?” Gordon asked, putting his hand on Tommy’s arm. Tommy didn’t look away from the skee ball machine, but his mouth twisted into a tighter frown, a look of annoyance on his face that he usually reserved for truly frustrating Resonance Cascade related bullshit. Or for when Gordon or Benrey put the orange juice cartons back in the fridge with only a tablespoon of juice left in them.

“This- I think this game is rigged,” Tommy said, tossing a ball in his hand absently.

“What?” Gordon laughed a little. “Are you sure you’re not just losing?”

“No, I- I have perfect aim. This game should be a cakewalk.” Sometimes it was a little hard to tell when Tommy was joking, but Gordon was fairly certain he was dead serious about this.

“I mean, I’m pretty sure all the games are kinda rigged. They make the buttons intentionally stiff or something to scam people out of money.” Gordon rubbed the back of his head and shrugged. Tommy turned to face him, looking betrayed.

“But… that’s fraudulent! Isn’t- Aren’t there regulations against that?”

“Uh, I mean, maybe, but I don’t think they’re really enforced. Pretty much any arcade is gonna be like that.”

“They shouldn’t be allowed to do that.”

“Nope.”

“But they do it anyway?”

“Yep.”

Tommy was silent for a minute, appearing deep in thought. He then turned on his heel, and before Gordon could react, he was throwing the skee ball at the nearest animatronic with the skill of a professional baseball pitcher. Gordon’s jaw dropped, and Tommy turned back to him with a broad smile on his face. “See, Mr. Freeman? Perfect aim!”

“Yeah, I- I see that!” Gordon laughed, startled. “Why’d you do that, bud?”

“If they’re not going to follow the rules, I’m not either!” Tommy seemed to sense Gordon’s apprehension and tossed him a skee ball. “Don’t worry, my dad knows really good lawyers.”

Gordon rolled the skee ball between his hands and glanced back at the main counter. One of the cashiers looked stunned at the display of violence, but the other one gave them a bored hand wave as if to say they weren’t paid nearly enough to stop them. “You know what? Fuck it. If we get banned, we get banned.”

Tommy flapped his hands excitedly and cheered Gordon on as he climbed on top of the air hockey table. “Do something- Do something crazy!”

Gordon’s aim wasn’t nearly as good as Tommy’s, but turns out that throwing anything with a destructive intent was a good way to release energy. Tommy continued chucking skee balls at the animatronics while Gordon started kicking the pucks off the air hockey table. They were making enough noise to distract Benrey into abandoning their fighting game to investigate what the hell they were doing.

“Broooo, what are you doing?” Benrey complained, watching the two of them wreck havoc. “That’s- This is against the rules. Gonna get banned, man, whadda hell.”

“Come on, Benrey, I know you wanna break shit.” Gordon sat down on the air hockey table, which creaked concerningly underneath him, and threw a striker at them.

“Wh- No, dude!” Benrey let the striker hit them on the chest and didn’t seem to notice. “You’re killing him! You’re killing Chunky Cheese, oh my god.”

Tommy laughed, breathless. “Aren’t- Aren’t you tired of being nice? Don’t you want to go apeshit?”

Benrey sang out a panicked string of brown to white Sweet Voice. “I’m gonna hafta call security on you. Gonna send you to Chunky Cheese jail.”

“Chuck E. Cheese doesn’t have on-location security!” Tommy countered, climbing over the barrier that separated the main area from the animatronic band to better attack them.

“I’m on this location, bro.” Benrey said, even though they were clearly in sweatpants and hoodie they’d stolen from Tommy, not anything resembling their security uniform.

“You don’t work for Chuck E. Cheese.” Gordon argued, still perched on the air hockey table and repeatedly kicking the nearest arcade machine.

“Huh? I’m gonna have to ask you to stop, sir, or else I’m gonna have to take you in under Cabinet Man violations.” Benrey started to approach Gordon in an attempt to stop him, knowing they had no chance of stopping Tommy from climbing on top of the animatronics.

“You’ll never take me alive!” Gordon cried out, overcome with the giddiness of childish destruction. He clambered to his feet atop the table and almost immediately heard the distinct sound of wood breaking. He only had an instant to make panicked eye contact with Benrey before he was plummeting to the ground.

Tommy ended up driving him to urgent care, Benrey berating the two of them the whole time. They did get banned from every Chuck E. Cheese location in a thirty mile radius, but that’s fine. Josh liked Dave & Buster’s better anyway.

#hlvrai #frenreylatta if you squint #benrey #tommy coolatta #gordon feetman #my writing #okay to reblog #the chuck e cheese opinions in this fic do not reflect my own #it's not a restaurant I'm sorry king <3 #also the sweet voice translation: chocolate to rice #aren't you tired of going apeshit? don't you just want to be nice?#shoutout to clover for helping me figure out the premise of this fic dklsjfskldjf #anonymous #asks

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mlqcanonymous · 4 years

Text

MLQC Almost Domestic Bliss — Lucien Edition

Ah, finally. The long awaited finale. Well, not really. Anyway, enjoy and have fun!

Lucien

Wakes you up with the smell of coffee/tea/hot chocolate and a sweet kiss to your lips

If you don’t wake up, he’d definitely tease you with featherlight touches of his lips on your naked back while trailing a long forefinger down your arm

That’s why you pretend to sleep often and he lets you pretend :>

Never fails to deliver flowers to your office with cute little notes reminding you to take care of yourself

You telling off girls who flirt with your husband because he’s too damn oblivious by their flirtation and advances (not really. He just enjoys making you feel jealous lol)

Frequent visits to the orphanage to play with the kids every weekend

Expect to wake up in the middle of the night to find him still working three different projects at the same time

Reading you poetry with a low, hushed voice to make you fall asleep

This man has a motherfreaking dirty mouth (don’t fight me on this one) and he loves dirty talking and teasing you during sex

Anything and everything can be turned into a sexual innuendo.

He likes watching you strut around your home in nothing but his white laboratory coat

Offers to wash your back when you’re taking a bath with an innocent smile on his face — and then things turn not-so innocent after

Tending the flower garden — mostly gardenias — every Saturday afternoon

Conversations about literature, poetry, and philosophical shits in any order

Lucien will definitely probably be the one who acts the ‘wife’ between the two of you. He’s the one who does the laundry, washes the dishes, cooks breakfast and dinner, sweeps the floors, and does every household chores imaginable with an apron tied around his waist (so freakin’ adorable)

But you’re the one who prepares his lunch for him.

He‘s the one preparing a bath for you whenever you come home stressed from work complete with scented candles, soft piano music in the background and petals of roses.

Going to undisclosed and very beautiful places throughout the city, sometimes late at night and then you have sex in those places just because

Goes to different kinds of amusement parks, then to an aquarium and planetarium in Saturday dates

Foot massages from Lucien at least once a week. Enjoy.

Will call you endearingly and sickeningly cute nicknames in public, no matter how humiliating it is

Laboratory sex. Even if it’s a hazard, you two can’t help yourselves.

Not a dog or a cat, but you’ll definitely be adopting a parrot or some other bird.

Sundays are spent watching movies from 6 PM-5 AM with you falling asleep halfway through in the couch while Lucien just sits there with a bowl of popcorn in his lap

Lucien doesn’t care for your physical space but not overly PDA either. But it’s all in the little things like hands brushing against each other while walking, or pushing your hair back behind your ear, or caressing your nape, or just staring at you when he thinks no one’s watching but knowing you’re aware of him

Lucien can withstand separation in a public crowd BUT can’t withstand someone flirting or making a move on you. He’ll go apeshit— with a smile on his face.

Either you’re adopting a kid after three years or so or get pregnant in a year or two. Whichever comes first.

Lucien recording your moments together with a video camera. Most videos are of you though and he claims that they’re “scientific purposes” when you ask about them.

When he’s working overtime, he plays those videos as background noise just because he misses you :’>

And he might or might not have a compilation of your laugh, snorts, and voicemails in his phone. Just sayin’.

There, I’ve done it! I apologize it’s so short compared to the others but thank you for reading it!

#love and producer #mlqc #mr love: dream date #mr love: queen’s choice #mlqc lucien #mlqc headcanon #mlqc xu mo #mlqc imagines #mlqc imagines and headcanon #mlqc lucien x mc #mlqc lucien/mc #mlqc lucienmc #mlqc xu mo x mc

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sirsharp-a · 4 years

Text

ALEENA. ❜ ( 3 )

Summary: Owing a favour on this side of town is never a good thing. Warnings: N/A, just a bit of fun/fluff. Part: 1 | 2 | 3 |

“So this is what the famous Aces do in their free time?”

“Hell yeah,” Fayze replied, swinging the plastic gun back into its slot. The YOU SURVIVED screen lingered for a few seconds before flitting back to a simple demand for credits. “Gotta decompress somehow, right? How better than to kick the shit outta some zombies?”

“We prefer to play games together,” Seb chimed in, eyes drawn to the latest addition to their troupe. He couldn’t say he minded having such a pretty girl following them around. She came across as somebody he could get along with, tough to truly please but ultimately content to go with the flow. People who wanted for too much only annoyed him. “Better not to incite any sort of competition between two collaborative musicians, right?”

“Right,” Fayze agreed, slinging an arm around his bandmate’s shoulders. “No need to keep scores between friends.”

The first thing immediately noticeable about them, aside from their lavish house and their material wealth, was just how close they were. Though she’d only been in their lives for a grand total of an hour or so, she could see that their bond went beyond playing music on stage. They did everything together, as if they were two halves of the same vessel, and they did very little to foster resentment between one another. Any opportunity for envy or bitterness to arise seemed to be quickly quelled by two young men that had nothing to rely on but each other. That much, at least, she could respect.

There are too many fake people in this district. Too many relationships that aren’t real. They sell you happiness through a screen, and when you can’t live up to it you wonder what’s wrong with you. Why you can’t be happy like the people in the movies.

“What sorta games do you like?”

“Huh?” It felt as if the world had slammed into her, distracted mind dragged forcibly back to the present. For a moment, she felt strangely out of her element, the 8-bit trills and the automated voices accompanying overpriced video games phasing into one monotonous ringing sound. The jazzy carpet multiplied, neon lights bleaching her skin varying shades of baby pink and blue. Eventually: “Uh… I like the dance machines.”

“Oh shit.” “Hold up.”

Both boys stared at her for a few seconds before Fayze exploded into a giddy series of bounces. He remained in place, like somebody playing with a pogo-stick, but his excitement was evident-- infectious, even, for Seb soon began to smile.

“We’re SICK at those! C’mon, c’mon, we should play a few rounds.” “Oh, I don’t know…” “Oh come on! It’ll be fun. Plus, you get to see Seb jerk it out to Waka Laka.” “If you choose that song, I’m out.”

Before either of them could protest further, Fayze looped an arm with one theirs and dragged them towards the machine. They were largely unoccupied, people gravitating towards casino machines and shooting games instead. That suited their purposes just fine. If nothing else, they wouldn’t have to come off of them until they ran out of credits-- or until they grew tired of it.

Fayze fed the slot some coins, watching as the screen lit up. A catchy theme song began to play as a list of playable tracks was displayed, ready for their seasoned perusal. His arm swept outwards, back bent in the form of an overdramatic bow. “The floor is yours, Aleena.”

“W-Wait, I thought…” “Show me what you can do!”

Part of her wanted to refuse. The last thing she needed to do was make a mistake in front of two people that she idolised, but if she couldn’t afford to laugh at herself… hell, they’d probably dislike her more. Nobody liked a stick in the mud-- not even if said stick was pretty, or witty, or a prescribed girlfriend.

Trying to muster up confidence, Aleena allowed herself to smirk, stepping up onto the panel. “Fine. But I’m picking my own tune.”

There was an obvious hesitation marking the start of her routine, the sort of bashfulness that could only be brought on by a distinct need to not embarrass oneself. However, by the time the first round was through with, she’d largely forgotten about her prestigious audience, her attention wholly ensnared by the rhythm. By the time her conclusive score came up on screen, she was basking in the golden light of an impressive 93% accuracy.

“DAMN! You’re good,” offered Seb, genuinely a little surprised. Most people didn’t get those sorts of scores if they were casual players ( which in and of itself was fine too, not everybody had copious amounts of free time to blow on video games ). It made him wonder about her history with the game. “But it’s our turn now.”

“Waka Laka, Waka Laka, Waka Laka--” “We’re playing Chrome Vox first, man.”

Aleena supposed that the least surprising thing about this entire ordeal was the fact that two electronically-based musicians from Vidé were fans of clubstep music.

“Holy shit!” she exclaimed as she watched the arrows begin to fall. Trapped in her thoughts, she hadn’t paid attention to the settings they’d chosen, stunned to see a flurry of directional cues flying past at record speed. What was more surprising was the streak of constant ‘perfect!’s. It certainly suited the chaotic nature of the track, but by God was she going dizzy just watching it. How could they even begin to focus on such blinding movement?

They moved largely in sync, legs resembling a hurricane when combined. Their time learning choreography for a life in the spotlight shone through the further into the song they got. When the notes slowed a little, a build-up to what would no doubt be the ‘drop’ of the song, Aleena yelled out an enthusiastic: “You guys are killing it! How do you still have a combo?!”

“Just wait!” Fayze called back, voice filling lulls in the rhythm. “The track goes apeshit in ten!”

‘Apeshit’ was an understatement. She watched with a stupefied fascination, enraptured by the speed at which they could move their feet without falling over. They even added a couple of extra movements every now and then; little spins and turns, flourishes that only added to their conjoined performance. For a moment, she wondered if they shared a brain. Their coordination would stun even the best of players, she thought to herself. It’s one thing to be good at it on your own but to have two people in perfect tandem like that? That’s something else.

When the chimed “Perfect!” left the machine, she watched both men turn around and high-five, panting lightly.

“Remind me to never go up against either of you,” Aleena said, a hand tracing one of the railings now that they were both stood upright. “At least on these. On a shooting game… eh, I could probably kick your asses.”

She watched as Seb glanced at Fayze, their eyes meeting in a momentary flash of pride, only to settle back on her a moment later.

“That a bet, baby?”

With their lack of competition between one another, she’d failed to see just how confident Fayze could be when he was challenged within his element-- at least when he was kidding around. She found herself grinning, the tips of her pointed ears twitching somewhat.

This is nice. This is making me forget just how fucked up this whole thing is. This makes me feel like we’ve been friends for a long time. This makes me feel comfortable.

“Hah. If you want it to be, superstar.”

#🞮 — pharmacy's rotting my brain. ❜ ( fayze. )#🞮 — you blame me like i know i ain't perfect. ❜ ( seb. )#🞮 — welcome to my world﹐take a look around. ❜ ( main. )#🞮 — ask me to stay﹐i would be charmed to. ❜ ( ic. )#drabble *#aleena ;

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mousehole5000 · 4 years

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more tgcf chapters 143-173 lets goooooo

PEI MING BOO HISS except actually okay he’s mostly funny i think but still boo hiss

“hey who’s this guy who’s really pissed at you?” “oh thats my sword. i broke it.” alright then!

i think i need to go back and reread the banyue pass arc bc im still confused as to whats going on with banyue and pei su

“Banyue dropped from the sky with two pots raised. Without a word, she plummeted with the mouths of the pots facing down, trapping and detaining the shocked Ming’guang and the roaring Ke Mo within.” - THATS MY GIRL

“It must be known that, to heavenly officials, it certainly was more than natural for kingdoms of the mortal realm to fight and annihilate one another; the acts of these plays progressing on endlessly. But when it came their own turn, it was often hard to let things go. If one must stand in the same court as the one who annihilated their own kingdom, and that man cavorted in the heavens, exceedingly flashy, then it must be vexing.” - hmmmm!!

“I’ve spoken too many words in this lifetime. What are you referring to?” - okay to be fair thats a mood

okay its nice to get some pei ming backstory and its funny that he and xie lian are bonding but also still whenever pei ming interacts with a female character my hackles rise like a cat lol

“Xie Lian watched as Banyue thought really hard before cheerfully pulling out a few long, wine-red scorpion-snakes, and putting them into the bubbling pot.” - THATS MY GIRL

“Although “smell” was something colourless and formless, the instant Banyue removed the pot cover, it was as if some mysterious physical object had twisted all the air around the mouth of that pot. The group stared at the sight within the pot for a long time. Their pupils reflected an endless, bottomless darkness; like it could pull them into the abyss. No words could describe the sentiment expressed within their eyes. A moment later, Xie Lian patted Banyue’s shoulder and gave a thumbs-up.” - like father-figure like daughter-figure. amazing.

“However, what if one day mortals discovered something completely new that ran faster than horses? Then, when this new invention overtook horses, worshippers of this heavenly official who controlled horses would inevitably decrease. Such heavenly officials, flashing by like shooting stars, made up the majority of the heavens.” - obsessed with this, genuinely. life and change. worship and its purpose. my religious studies diploma on my wall is screaming at me rn. ALSO i am once again thinking about celebrities

“...” It was only then that Pei Ming seemed to notice, and started to contemplate this question. A moment later, he answered, “A habit. In a dark, creepy place like this, isn’t it normal to hold women in your arms, to comfort them and calm their fears?” “I’m sorry, but I wasn’t scared,” Banyue said.” - BANYUE I LOVE YOU. I MISSED YOU SO MUCH. god this takes me back to every college party i ever went to

LING WEN BACKSTORY????? shoeseller chosen for godhood bc she wrote a political essay and got arrested...... and now she’s face to face with the official who appointed her..... do go on.....

“Ling Wen laughed out loud, seeming to be enraged, and her voice dropped. “Very well! You said I couldn’t reach that high. Then, might I ask you: had the prominence of the Palace of Jing Wen at its peak ever reached even the knees of my Palace of Ling Wen??” - GET HIM!!!! BOO HISS JING WEN

“Compared to you, I’m not that bad,” Ling Wen said. “You’d personally order me to stay in the Palace of Jing Wen until midnight, then turn around and say I shamelessly hang around ‘til late to harass you. Words murder without form; I was much nicer responding with blatant violence.” - ling wen im love you..... also this bit... feels Real

BLOOD RAIN BLOOD RAIN BLOOD RAIN!! FLOWER PETALS TRANSFORMATION!!! see hua cheng? look as how cool it can be when you leave the story for a little while!! bc then you get to return and make an entrance!!

“Not only can you bring forth bloody rain, you can also make flowers shower. I didn’t know that. How fun!” - cute!! and in that moment we were all xie lian

“Everyone was stunned by his deed, and Ling Wen arduously gave him a thumbs-up. ”Ol’ Pei, what a man!” Pei Ming gritted his teeth. “WELCOME!” - aww three two tumors buddies!!

okay yin yu is here and xie lian did the equivalent of asking someone when the baby is due only to find out theyre not pregnant at all. then rong guang taunts yin yu and no one says anything. i do love the amount of awkward moments in this book tbh sometimes there are no words.

“All around was sand and mud crushing at him, exceedingly suffocating. The sand and mud was also moving endlessly; the feeling was like he was swallowed into the stomach of a giant monster, and that monster had also eaten a bunch of other things besides him, tumbling everything in its stomach, trying to digest” - ooooh creepy!!! the red string thing... is cute.... also xie lian being able to see hua cheng’s butterfly vision by looking directly into his eye is kinda cool. and obviously homoerotic.

“Are lower-ranked heavenly officials below other people?” Quan Yizhen asked. “No,” Yin Yu replied. Were they not? It was obvious that he himself didn’t believe in his own words, and Quan Yizhen also noticed. A good while later, he said bluntly, “I don’t like it here.” Yin Yu said nothing.” - im having emotions. and then yin yu also saying he doesnt like it there either.... also idk how this scene is going to play out but as much as im enjoying quan yizhen being an icon i can also possibly see how yin yu could eventually get to the point of “i am tired of being nice. i do just want to go apeshit” even if he really cares about qyz. it happens </3

“Indeed,” Hua Cheng said. “Half a year later when Quan Yizhen actually ascends, he won’t find it so funny anymore.” “Can we watch that part too?” Xie Lian asked. “We can. Hold on,” Hua Cheng replied.” - quan yizhen king of taking things literally. also why did this turn into hualian having a movie night

jian yu seems like the kind of asshole who would purposely give someone regular soda when they specifically asked for diet soda. god yin yu is really having a bad day i really feel for him in the whole situation with the brocade immortal

awww okay at least jian yu tried to take responsibility. im still mad at him tho that was objectively a terrible idea. god this whole situation sucked :(

“Rocks and earth crushed at them from all around, forcing their bodies to press tightly against one another, their faces brushing, their ears warm. Although it wasn’t the right time, a thought flashed through Xie Lian’s mind: “‘To die buried together’ doesn’t feel so bad.” - okay... im kind of emotional.... gay people....

okay obviously these murals and the prince of wuyong have some connection (im guessing pretty direct) to xie lian and are important but everytime they start analyzing one i feel like im back in art history class fhadskfhskjdhf not that thats a bad thing!! i liked art history a lot tbh

“Don’t worry, they’re not human,” Hua Cheng said. “It’s precisely because they’re not human that we have to worry, alright….” Xie Lian thought.” - goth ghost bf problems

xie lian: well, there is one person i trust more than anyone else, someone who’s first in my mind hua cheng, oblivious: oh :/ xie lian, also oblivious: what? hua cheng: you shouldnt trust so easily its dangerous xie lian: oh. haha. yeah. well. wanna,,, know who it is? hua cheng: its :) fine :) it :) doesnt :) matter :) but of course you can tell me if you want to gege xie lian, internally: well now ive made it weird hua cheng, 5 minutes later: actually i need you to tell me. right now. its totally for your security me: gay people smh

“As they suspected, he had been captured by Qi Rong. Although no one was bound by ropes, there were balls of greasily green ghost fires hovering over every one of their heads.” - completely off track but anybody else remember the great green globs of greasy grimy gopher guts song

“Could there actually come a day when Qi Rong was embarrassed that someone might see the manner in which he ate? Before Xuan Ji entered, she put Guzi down. Guzi, ta-ta-ta, ran in, rushing straight to Qi Rong’s side. But when he saw him, he pointed his finger. He cried, “Dad is eating bad things in secret again!” “I’m not!” Qi Rong retaliated.” SCREAM IS QI RONG LEARNING THE POWER OF LOVE NOOOO also god that poor man whose body he has im starting to doubt if he’ll ever be free jimmy novak flashbacks

everytime we get another ghost king power somewhere someone should be writing hua cheng the cyborg bf in a high tech futuristic au i think thats the only other potential setting that could truly capture this wild ride

“In truth, throughout history, there was no man in the world who didn’t love bragging. A breeze could blow the handkerchief of a brothel girl into a man’s hand, and he would turn around and say the most beautiful of renowned escorts had fallen in love with him; holding shoes and wiping benches for the emperor’s mistress’s uncle’s grandson’s cousin’s mistress would for sure become him being an important administrator at the residence of royal relatives, raising his status. Thus, men who didn’t brag were a rare species.” - SCREAM this is going in my favorite tgcf quotes folder god... mxtx come here let me shake your hand

read the story of rain master yushi huang’s ascension. why am i crying. also this bit im crying again me with my stuffed animals “Thus, while Yushi Huang was cultivating at the Temple of Yulong, every time when she went to seek water and passed that door, she would rub the head of that ox. The door knocker soaked in her essence of life, and when the Rain Master ascended, the ox ascended with her.”

okay thats enough for now i have 7 more chapters to book 4!!! woo!!!

#tgcf liveblog #bedtime now but im excited to be moving on #mouse mumbles

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screensirenfic · 5 years

Text

Menthol Cigarettes - Chapter 1

“Hey little girl, is your daddy home?

Did he go away and leave you all alone? Mhmm

I got a bad desire

Oh oh oh, I'm on fire”

- Bruce Springsteen

——————————————————

Fitzgerald once said that summer was life beginning over again, but I think it was simpler than that.

The sun was out, school was out, and the near entirety of the population of Hawkins was seeing the world through rose-tinted sunglasses.

The Mind Flayer - Forgotten.

Hawkins Lab - Closed.

A chapter firmly dead and buried as a footnote of the year 1984 of Hawkins’ story.

The world had seemed to have moved on, and I guess we had too.

My dad was no longer chasing an endless spool of thread leading to the centre of another small town sci-fi mystery, El was actually beginning to live life like a teenage girl should, and me; well, I was happy; that’s what mattered.

“Just a little more time is all we’re asking for... cause a little more time could open closing doors...”

You could honestly hear El’s cassette player from here, and that was with the TV turned up to full volume, but still; I could deal, for the kid’s sake.

What I couldn’t deal with was Mike Wheeler’s incessant wailing!

I mean; the boy sounded like a dying cat; for Christ’s sake, and insisted on singing along with every goddamn song on Boy In The Box, regardless of if he knew the words or not.

But still; I could deal.

It was for the kid.

I covered her ass, and she covered mine.

That was the deal, but with dad looking one rock ballad away from strangling someone, this was probably gonna end up a lot harder than I’d anticipated.

She’d asked me to keep dad occupied this evening so she could spend some time with Mike, and in return; I’d go out for the night under the guise of dropping the kid off.

Of course; I could probably just go out anyway.

I was eighteen and responsible for my own choices, but still that brought up questions from my dad; ones that he wouldn’t necessarily like the answers to.

So that’s why I was sat on the couch, stuffing popcorn and watching a new episode of some crusty cop show he liked, whilst trying to stop him from barging in and going apeshit at the kids.

Still; the giggling didn’t help, and even with a six pack of beer and half a bag of corn chips at his fingertips, it was getting increasingly harder to keep dad’s attention on the TV, and not on whatever was going on behind that door.

“Dad! Stop!”

I hissed under my breath, catching on to his thinly veiled attempt at spying on the kids, recliner tilted back at the optimum position to take a peak through the crack in the door.

“I’m just keeping an eye...” He whispered, continuing to crane his neck to get a better look.

It was honestly ridiculous. He was being ridiculous.

I mean; he was always a hardass about this sort of shit; it was part of the reason I never brought boys over, but did he really expect us to stay little kids forever?!

“Dad?!” I hissed again, but he paid no notice; too busy playing Magnum P.I. to stop and think he was being an overprotective jerkwad.

And it seems he wasn’t finished yet; shooting upright like a dog at the sound of the doorbell.

“Hey!!” He yelled, obviously getting the kids’ attention and leading to El mindslamming the door.

“Hey—“ He yelled again, quickly getting to his feet and making his way over to the door in something between a speed walk and a jog.

“Seriously, dad?!” I asked; honestly not believing he could be this much of a control freak that he didn’t trust the kids to be alone with each other.

“Three inch minimum! Leave the door open three inches!” Dad stated, rattling on the doorknob like a man possessed.

“Come on; dad! They’re just kids!” I complained, getting off the couch and heading over to see if I could act as some sort of buffer between him and the teens in question.

“Yeah; well they should damn well act like it...” He griped, continuing to fiddle with the doorknob before realising there was no way it was gonna open.

“El; open this door!” He demanded, pounding on the wood, and I had to refrain from rolling my eyes, because I’d seen this scene play out a hundred times before and it hardly ever ended in his favour.

“El; open the-“

The door swung open, but instead of storming in on the incriminating crime scene he had no doubt expected, he walked in on Mike and El reading magazines on opposite sides of the bed.

“What’s wrong?” Mike asked; feigned innocence colouring his voice like hair dye, and I had to stop myself from smirking at how good he was getting at this.

Still; it took no stretch of the imagination to know what they were really doing in here, and Mike Wheeler wore a guilty smirk like some boys wore aftershave, and I could see it was really getting up my dad’s nose.

“Mike, shouldn’t you be heading off to your movie?” I asked, jumping in before dad had the chance to pull out the cast irons for the poor kid.

“Oh shit!” The kid exclaimed, checking his brightly coloured wristwatch without a second’s hesitation.

“I’m gonna be late.”

“Don’t worry; I can give you a ride.” I offered, watching as he scooped up armfuls of comics and dumped them into his backpack.

“Yeah. That would be great.” He smiled up at me, before zipping his bag up, and I’d already snatched up my keys and jacket to go.

“See you tomorrow; El” Mike said his goodbyes, rushing out the bedroom door past my dad in an effort to follow me before anything could kick off.

“Alright; just drive slow okay?” Dad called after me as I made my way out the front door, shrugging on my jacket as I went.

“And make sure you’re back befo-“

—————————————————-

“Oh my god! That was priceless! Did you see his face?!”

Mike was nattering down his radio with El, one hand latched on my shoulder as we cruised down the near abandoned night roads leading from the cabin back towards civilisation.

“It was like a tomato!”

Eleven’s voice crackled through the radio; further proving that the two kids were nigh inseparable, despite my dad’s best efforts to keep them apart.

“Yeah; a fat, angry tomato!” Mike commented, cueing a fit of giggles from the other end of the radio.

“Hey; that’s my dad you’re talking about there!” I retorted, but Mike just laughed, already too used to the Hopper dry sense of humour in to mistake it for anything serious.

“I wish I was still with you...” El sighed through the radio, putting aside all quips for our regularly scheduled programming of puppy love.

“I know; me too. But I’ll see you tomorrow; alright? First thing.” Mike promised, and the near fanatical dedication of this kid nearly astounded me sometimes; him managing to make the effort to cycle three miles out to see her everyday, even on a school night.

“Tomorrow.” Eleven agreed, and the radio went silent, signalling the end of me having to unwillingly play third wheel to their amorous exchange.

Still; it was cute to see the kids so in love.

Dumb, but cute.

It got me thinking that maybe I should start telling my dad the truth of why I was sneaking out nearly every weekend.

But then again; if dad hated Mike Wheeler, he’d have a field day with my little secret, and I really don’t think I could take that amount of scorn in such a small house.

Nope.

Secrets would have to stay secrets for now; or at least for as long as I could outrun them on the back of my Triumph.

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harringroveheart · 4 years

Text

harringrove horror wip

promises to keep (and miles to go before I sleep) -- untitled sequel | follows on from [this]

:::

Billy drank so much chlorine. Bleach, when he could get it. Hydrofluoric acid, once. He felt sick all the time. Felt himself dissolving away out from under.

When the monster spears him through the chest, it’s a relief.

:::

Dying takes a long time. He can hear voices, feel Max shaking him. Crying. There are sirens too, just too late.

It hurts on and off. All over.

He twists in and out of worlds like overarm swimming – a breath on the surface and a stroke underwater. Light and nothingness. Pain, deep, sucking, all-encompassing, and then just—floating.

Time slips away.

:::

That fucking… beeping. Will someone please turn it off so he can sleep?

:::

His dad holds him, rocks with him.

“My boy, my boy, my boy,” he says, choked up on tears. His words are wet, rough, hot in Billy’s ear. “I’m going to make it right this time.”

Billy keeps rocking with him because he can’t stop.

It’s his first day back from the hospital, but he won’t know it for two more months.

:::

Max is shaking her head. “This one,” she says, putting the fork in his hand.

“I made your favorite,” Susan says, looking to Neil, eyes nervous. She puts the casserole down on the table.

Max shakes her head again: It’s not.

It tastes like crap.

It’s better than antifreeze.

:::

Home, Billy thinks. He keeps staring, forgetting how to blink, where he is, how he got here. His feet are cold past hurting.

Harrington looks around and down the long stretch of asphalt disappearing into the woods, his eyes darting back to Billy, dark and knowing. The moonlight makes them look wet.

“That’s not your home,” he says. “Let me take you back.”

He’s cold everywhere except where Harrington’s palm presses against his chest.

:::

“Thanks,” he says a little while later, in the car.

“For what?”

“For hitting me with your car.”

“Well…It wasn’t really mine.”

“Well. I wasn’t really me.”

“You’re you now, though,” Harrington says, more question than it should be. “You know that, right?”

:::

He has to wait all day to see him.

He finishes his shift late, when it’s already dark and the parking lot is still swarming with cars. People going to the movies. People picking up their kids. Harrington is too tired or too distracted to notice Billy at first. Does a double take.

When he sees that Billy isn’t there to chase him, he comes closer. Follows Billy into the dark corner behind the loading bay where the Chinese restaurant dumps its trash.

It’s just how he thought it would look: the sailor uniform. Billy feels something like a smile.

“What are you doing here?” Harrington asks, suspicious. Not as hard-toned as it could be. They’ve seen each other around. Eyes over headlights on the dark drive to the Byers’ house. Tense quiet shared in the locker room after practice when they’re both afraid of each other for different reasons.

“Just felt like seeing a familiar face,” he says.

It’s the truth. It’s all he wants. Harrington’s face is familiar and new all at once, every damn time. He looks clean, rosy. If Billy touched his cheek it would leave a mark. If he touched his hair, he could never trust himself not to stop touching it.

“You okay in there, Hargrove?” Harrington asks. “You look a little…”

I’m okay, Harrington, he thinks.

It’s just sweat.

:::

They shaved his head, Max tells him, putting her hand over his on the gearshift. In, left, second, drive.

“Neil went apeshit,” she says. “No. In, left, second, drive. There. You got it.”

“Did I look stupid?”

“No. You still looked good. Not like you, though. Do you want me to cut it again?”

He laughs. “No way,” he says. “Harrington’d kill me.”

She’s looking at him funny. He stops. Looks down at his hands. Remembering and forgetting.

“Why would Steve kill you, Billy?”

The wheel is warm under his fingers like it remembers him just fine.

:::

After dinner he washes dishes, quiet and careful, staring at his reflection caught and dulled in the opaque blackness of the window over the sink. The flower boxes outside are spilling over, heavy with big blowsy roses, petals soft and faded at the edges, their centres a vibrant rancid pink that makes his head spin.

It’s almost midnight; a year to the day. Neil bought sparkling wine and the birthday cake Billy liked when he was seven.

A dish clinks in the soapy water, the foam itching at his wrists.

“It’s ok,” he says dully, Susan’s reflection beside his like a smear of pale oil paint, watching, fretful. “I don’t do that anymore.”

She watches him a moment longer anyway. And when he leaves he hears her putting the detergent away in the cupboard.

:::

Heather’s house. Fran’s house. Gary Kenwick’s house. The house at the end of Dearborn and the house on Randolph Lane. The house with the rose garden and the house with the deadbolt and the house with the fridge-door left open and the milk all over the floor and the house with boys’ rooms and their dinosaur nightlights.

These are places he has been.

:::

If he goes to the steelworks and goes down and down and lies on the concrete and breathes in the dust and closes his eyes he can dream again but it’s not the same.

:::

“I don’t want it to have my mom.”

“It needs her, for its work.”

“I want to go home.”

“We are.”

He is. They are.

“Why did you lie?”

He doesn’t answer. Breathe in, breathe out. He has so many heartbeats now. So many names.

“Billy.”

Billy?

“You said it would be over soon.”

:::

He likes Robin. She works at the video store with Harrington and she doesn’t remember Billy from either of his befores. She should be sick of seeing him, day in and day out, but she likes his jokes and the nasty smile he shares with her when Harrington does something stupid.

“He told Keith The Karate Kid is the only movie that ever made him cry.”

“He told me his favorite actor is the Terminator.”

“He thinks Gremlins is ‘a classic’.”

“He thinks Gremlins is a documentary.”

“Hey,” Harrington says. “Do you two assholes want to help me here, or am I supposed to unpack these all myself?” He waves an exacto knife around at the jumble of half opened boxes and scattered packing peanuts.

Billy smirks. “Who let you have a sharp tool?”

“It’s got a safety on it,” Robin says.

:::

Every now and then they get high out the back of the store. It’s Harrington’s weed. Sometimes it’s the pills the government doctors give Billy each month to stop him from turning back into jelly. Robin and Harrington are fearless. They don’t care what kind of trip they have so long as they’re together.

“I don’t feel anything,” Harrington says, pacing, running his hands through his hair over and over with neurotic focus.

Robin gives one of her honking laughs. “Oh, I think you’re feeling it Stevie.”

“I don’t feel good,” he whines.

“You feel fine. You feel fine,” Robin insists. She’s doing something to her shoelaces, tying them into some intricate knot of vital importance. Billy laughs. It’s only fair. They got him so high last week he let them paint his nails.

“Does this feel weird to you?” Harrington asks, suddenly in front of him, sucking up all his attention, shoving his head under Billy’s hand. Billy’s fingers slide through: muscle memory. It’s softer than he remembers, and lighter too. Blond, in parts.

So, the Mindflayer didn’t get his highlights right.

Harrington calms down under his stroking hand. When Billy finally looks up Robin’s finished her task, shoelaces of both shoes all knotted together, and she’s staring at him, at both of them, surprised and then sad.

:::

“Does your family know you’re out here?” Harrington asks, tugging the bottle out of his hands and hopping up onto the bonnet beside him. “Fuck.” He shivers. “It’s fucking freezing out here. Aren’t you cold?”

Billy shrugs. He’s drunk. He woke up thinking about rats. Rats don’t get cold. They can probably get drunk.

Harrington is wearing a jacket pulled tight over a thin t-shirt, warm all over from sleep. He looks great. He looks too good to be true. Billy watches him take a slug of the bourbon and give it back to Billy so he can blow on his hands.

“So…” Harrington says, after a nice enough silence. “What are we doing here?”

“Watching fireworks,” Billy says.

He can feel Harrington’s eyes on him. Confused. Pitying maybe. From up here the forest looks like a toy forest and the town looks like a toy town with tiny fairy lights. The sky is cloudless, near and black. It’s empty tonight. It’s empty every night. There’re never any stars and there’re never any fireworks.

“Well, okay then,” Harrington says. “How’d you score such good seats?”

That makes him smile. “I dreamt them,” he says.

“Well, thanks for the invite then.”

“I dreamt you too.”

Harrington laughs. “Okay. Well, thanks for the hair, and the big dick.”

“You always wanted me to kiss you.”

Silence.

“Oh.”

Oh.

“Were we…”

“Yes,” Billy says.

:::

A party: a basement: a couch.

“Did it hurt you?”

“No,” Billy says.

Harrington is drunk, sloe-eyed. He has lipstick on him, just a smudge, so cruel, in the corner of his mouth, like a sore that Billy wants to scrub and scrub and scrub at. He drinks his beer instead and pretends he can taste it.

“Did it lie to you?”

“No.”

“What did it offer you?” he asks. He knows. He knows.

Billy can’t answer that. He’s not here. He’s not real. He’s a wave of tar and spare parts under thin skin.

“What did it offer you, Billy? Anything? Everything?”

Kingdoms, he wants to say. Worlds and stars and kingdoms. A road that only goes where his heart wishes it could live.

“Less,” he says.

He looks at Harrington, at the perfect inimitable color of his eyes.

Enough.

:::

#harringrove #stranger things #freeform #fic #season 3 #mindflaying

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him-e · 5 years

Note

Did you watch the joker movie? thoughts?

Yes I did last week!

(spoilers below)

It’s a great movie, but it’s depressing, gutting. definitely not an easy watch and at times made me deeply uncomfortable because it hits very close to home in many ways. It’s about feeling invisible and unable to experience things like the rest of the world does, let alone fit in; with the struggle to perform normalcy every day while not being in control of your body and mind 100%. Arthur’s uncontrollable laughter response when he’s in distress was more than a trademark or a plot device to connect his pre-Joker self to his villain self, he’s deeply ashamed of it and suffers for not being able to contain it, because it’s twice as humiliating: for himself, and for the people who inevitably think he’s laughing at them and hate him for that (see the scene with the mother & child on the bus)—it isolates him, makes him pitiful at best and a target of vitriolic, barbaric hatred at worst. He’s invisible all the time except when his laughter erupts and makes him visible in the worst possible way—like in the scene in the subway.

Something I found interesting was Arthur’s relative lack of guilt/remorse after his first kill (which begins as an act of self defense, but then he deliberately stalks and murders in cold blood the third guy who attacked him). He feels liberated, empowered, intoxicated, but he doesn’t necessarily stop feeling empathy after that. He isn’t irreparably corrupted by this act; rather, interestingly, begins to make himself whole. It’s where he starts believing he can finally become a functional human being, and where his elaborate romantic fantasy with the girl next door begins. I know that part is controversial, but I think it’s less of a *Nice Guy becomes fixated on girl and when he realizes she won’t fuck him goes apeshit*, and more of a fantasy of being accepted and understood intellectually and intimately by a kindred soul—note how he fantasies about her coming to his debut as a comedian, laughing at his jokes, comforting him when his mother is in the hospital, and also voicing his own hatred towards the rich white uptown boys who look down on him every day and contribute to his misery (the only cutting edge in an otherwise completely tame, almost childish self delusion).

It’s a hatred that clashes with his fantasy of fitting in, becoming a functioning part of a deeply ill patriarchal society. Arthur is obsessed with powerful father figures. First he romanticizes Robert De Niro’s character (in a super sad daydream where De Niro/Murray and everyone else praise him for being what he is, rather than violently mocking him as they would in real life), then, when he’s already halfway towards the Joker, he finds his mother’s letters and goes on a hail mary to try to make Thomas Wayne admit that he’s his father. Which he isn’t. (probably.) The whole secret parentage red herring is Arthur’s fantasy of being accepted and loved by these patriarchal, capitalist monsters getting torn apart, layer by layer, and finally annihilated. (he kills all his parental figures—his mother, whom he was in a not-so-vaguely Oedipal relationship with, who was mentally ill as well but also abused him and emotionally and physically stunted him; he kills her because he hates her for what he did to him and because he hates that she, just like him, spent her entire life in a romantic fantasy as a coping mechanism to avoid reality—he kills Murray, and then he ideally kills Wayne too, through a proxy with a clown mask. He does very deliberately, as his adult self, the one he chose to be and painted his face accordingly. And then when all the monstrous mommies and daddies are dead he’s finally free, and so are the people, free to go in the streets and set the system on fire; it’s the dawn of a new era where children kill their fathers and the poor get the upper hand against the rich and the “natural” order is destroyed—or restored, maybe)

The anti-capitalist theme imo is what makes the difference between THIS and your average “Nice GuyTM is unjustly and repeatedly mistreated until he finally snaps” villain origin story, and why I think it’s extremely reductive and myopic to condemn this film for “making a mass murder sympathetic” or whatever the discourse is at again. It’s probably the most explicitly political superhero movie I’ve seen, and not in your usual toothless mcu-style way. Arthur (like his mother before him)is a mentally ill person who was failed by society as a whole in unforgivable ways more than he was failed by individuals. In a world where Thomas Wayne can go on tv and call poor people “clowns” for not being productive, successful adults, Arthur’s best chance at receiving treatment was a condescending, uninspired therapist forced to work with minimal resources (herself another victim of capitalism). And yet, he made that work for him, until the entire therapy project was shut down and even those crumbs were taken away from him, leaving him alone and exposed, with no access to meds and not a single soul to talk to. It’s society’s selfishness, blind greed, middle-class hypocrisy, hatred of poor and disabled people—in short, all those lovely american values—that created the Joker, not mental illness. And not just the Joker, but the riots in the streets, the rebellion against uptown Gotham.

tl;dr; I know people are upset that Joker makes you want to empathize with a murderer—well maybe for once they fucking should, lol.

#asks #**#//#///#////#joker #joker 2019 #veinsofmantra #abuse tw #child abuse tw #mental illness tw

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citialiin · 5 years

Text

ZIGGY ✰ STARDUST

i jacked this from @cardinalrot. thank you dad. tagging: @gothsic ; @blossomingbeelzebug ; @betelguide ; @thatcertainnight ; @prophesyed ; you, specifically, reading this.

𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐬

FULL NAME. [ redacted ] * NICKNAME. ziggy GENDER. agender (he/him or they/them) / typically presents as a “man” for simplicity’s sake and also because he doesn’t care enough to think about it for more than 4 seconds HEIGHT. 5′10″ AGE. 26 (earth years) ZODIAC. ??? (he wasn’t born under our stars ... so .......) SPOKEN LANGUAGES. any/all (he doesn’t really know them, though, he uses an internal translator)

𝐩𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬

HAIR COLOR. bright red, seemingly unnatural -- but it’s natural EYE COLOR. left pale blue, right black SKIN TONE. very, very, very pale BODY TYPE. skinny. very skinny/slender/svelte. willowy and tall and bony. good for looking waifish on magazine covers but bad for lifting even vaguely heavy objects. VOICE. posh, nasally, low, the slightest bit condescending. speaks with an english accent despite not being english, let alone human. drawls his vowels and enunciates his letters. his voice is strangely clear and bright when he sings, unlike his somewhat unpleasant speaking tone, and he tends to sing in higher pitches than his speaking voice. DOMINANT HAND. ambidextrous -- but he can only play the guitar left handed POSTURE. very straight and proper, holds his head high and his shoulders square. uncertain if it’s height alone or if he really is looking down upon you. SCARS. small incision in the back of his neck where the translator was placed. barely there and usually covered by a collar or his hair, anyways. TATTOOS. none BIRTHMARKS. a large yellow disc on his forehead, rimmed with a slightly darker yellow/bronze with the slightest hint of a chromatic shift affect due to reflecting/light catching pigment in skin cells. this isn’t unique to him, however, as every member of his race has it. has the tiniest hint of a freckle above his lip, on the left side, and he hates it and wishes he could nuke it off his face. both of these are usually covered, anyways. MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURE(S). the circular mark, his unusual eyes, his sharp features, his bright hair. everything about him is weird and outlandish and strange, but it helps him maintain a striking, marketable image.

𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐝

PLACE OF BIRTH. far away. HOMETOWN. faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar away. SIBLINGS. [ grabs the steering wheel and veers straight into worldbuilding headcanon territory ] the society he comes from is no longer sexually dimorphic and typically doesn’t reproduce the natural way. having evolved far beyond such icky things, they use genetic samples from large swaths of the population to make consistent batches of new individuals -- the genetic samples are screened for defects and aberrations and sort of tossed together into a genome salad, and out comes however many individuals they need to fill in gaps in the population. there’s a lot of consistency in his species due to this: everyone has reddish hair, everyone has heterochromia, everyone is about the same height, etc. so technically, he’s related to everyone in his “batch.” PARENTS. he wouldn’t ever know -- a lot of people, probably

𝐚𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞

OCCUPATION. rockstar -- cultural icon -- celebrity -- musician -- singer -- model -- jerk CURRENT RESIDENCE. london, LA, NYC, but he’s constantly moving and tours quite often CLOSE FRIENDS. few and far in between -- he’s friends with his drummer who is named priscilla but usually goes by the stage name WEIRD, as well as siddharth, his bassist, who goes by sid in his personal life but GILLY on stage. they were the first two humans to encounter him and taught him everything he knows, from how to tie his shoes (aliens wear boots, and you should know this) to the C major scale -- because they are among the few humans who know his secret, he views them as his closest and dearest friends. his stardom isolates him from them, just a little -- he likes the spotlight but they don’t mind just being “the drummer” and “the bassist.” they don’t quite have the star power that he does. his manager -- tama ahinariki, some guy from new zealand who seemed to bumble his way into becoming in charge of one of the most successful musicians of the decade -- also knows he’s an alien, but they tend to be more business partners than close friends. tama is more interested in the money side of things whereas priscilla and sid are only interested in the music. ziggy has stock in the music, money, and his personal brand.

via rp, he’s made some friends with other characters! a few. very few. RELATIONSHIP STATUS. single -- he intends to stay that way. he gets all the action he could ever need from his legion of devoted fans and groupies. even in situations where he’s romantically involved and emotionally invested, he would never consider himself exclusive or monogamous. a lot of tabloids make rumors that he’s involved with cardinal copia, fellow rock icon, but he tends to be sneaky at hiding any time they spent together. it’s hard to keep things private when you’re both massively popular public figures, though. he goes out of his way to be sure no one knows about his predilection for spending time with thomas, because the last thing an awkward alien in disguise needs is a lot of public attention because people think you’re dating a celebrity (who they don’t know is also an alien). he hangs around annie a lot, too, but this is extra extra under wraps, because annie has a stalker named jonathan who may or may not go apeshit and try to tear his head off or something if he finds out. FINANCIAL STATUS. filthy rich. should be guillotined. DRIVER’S LICENSE. doesn’t have one. he has some paperwork, somewhere, with a “real” name and all that, but he has no idea where it is and lets his manager deal with that stuff. CRIMINAL RECORD. none ! clean slate. that doesn’t mean he doesn’t do illegal things, though. he just doesn’t get caught. VICES. smoking, drinking, la cocaina, sex, impulsive spendng, rockstar stuff.

𝐬𝐞𝐱 & 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞

SEXUAL ORIENTATION. bisexual. PREFERRED SEXUAL ROLE. submissive | dominant | switch | top | bottom | verse. this doesn’t really come up in rp because i dont write nsfw. the way i view it is that he’s lazy and would rather you take care of him than the other way around LIBIDO. pretty high, but it’s difficult for him to have as much sex as he might prefer because, uh, he has, uh, alien..............parts...........and stuff ..... like ....... some parts down there look different ....... so he’s stuck having sex with usually in the dark, under sheets, and he has to zip his pants up really quick afterwards. maybe it’s a little bit hilarious and i just think it’s funny idk LOVE LANGUAGE. selflessness (which is big, for him, king of all douchebags and lord selfish dickhead the third), rambling to you about his day, physical affection, gifts, letting you see him without make up, opening up to you about his life before earth. he might play you music, sing to you or write you songs if he’s feeling particularly sappy. this is stuff reserved for people that he finds himself incredibly romantically/emotionally attached to, though, not the people he has one night stands with. and he almost never forms any sort of lasting attachment to the people he sleeps with casually. RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES. he tends to fall for people who challenge him in some way, who aren’t easily beguiled by his status and physical looks, but who aren’t outright mean to him. that being said, he is very vain, and he loves being showered in compliments, praise or attention. he matches well with people who can put up with his antics and moodiness and odd behavior. he likes the idea of being someone’s muse or someone’s idol, so he finds himself drawn to other creative types. he has the most intimate/special connections with other nonhuman beings, especially other aliens, cuz he feels like they Get him and he wouldn’t be really giving himself in his fullest form if he had to still play pretend that he was a human being. for whatever reason he goes apeshit for goth guys/dudes with black hair who wear a lot of black. he really doesn’t like people who are too much like him, because HE’S HIM, and you’re YOU, and he really wants it to stay that way. GET OUT OF MY DRESSING ROOM

𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐬

CHARACTER’S THEME SONG. there’s a whole album about him .......... theres a song called “ziggy stardust” ....... HOBBIES TO PASS TIME. singing, music, writing -- he lives for that shid. he likes art in all forms, so he reads, watches movies, looks at paintings -- he has a lot of human culture to catch up on, and he loves all of it, from any time period and any culture. he also likes buying things, shopping, looking nice, gossip. he tends to be a party animal (party alien?) and often indulges in more hedonistic fun. LEFT OR RIGHT BRAINED. his brain is not structured like a human brain. also, head empty. no thoughts. FEARS. being perceived as ugly or untalented, being outed as an alien, being rejected for being an alien, becoming a nobody, losing his social status, becoming a conformist, becoming “outdated” or “uncool” SELF CONFIDENCE LEVEL. somehow sky high and on the floor at the same time. he usually thinks he can do anything and he’s pretty perfect, but that may just be from a solid few years of repeating that to himself and empty praise given by people who are just crazy obsessed with him -- he built his confidence level on a very shaky foundation, so it’s easy to start making him doubt himself and panic if you know what to criticize him on VULNERABILITIES. a lot of things, and im sick of typing

* pay me 100000 USD to unlock my LEVEL 20 ZIGGY STARDUST LORE pack now with NAMING/TITLE INFORMATION, HOME PLANET CLIMATE/WEATHER PATTERNS and PAST OCCUPATION/EDUCATION information. includes a piece of gum i found on the floor.

#ooc #meme #I'm so close 2 being done with finals just like one more week i turn in terrible project after terrible project #i am typing this as i wait for a group member to send me the first five pages of our cumulative 10 page essay. i hate him. i hate him.#why is he taking so long. i need to write this thing.#but after that i will go back to what i need to do ...#i run this account like a shitty ship careening into rocks #but i will go down with it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#KEEP YOUR 'LECTRIC EYE ON ME ; queue

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kwamiwayzz · 5 years

Text

some frozen fanfic that i wanted to be a frozen tv series at one point

Seeing all this new Frozen 2 content makes me think about the time I spent my early college days (like...3-4 years ago?) writing up a pitch bible for a Frozen TV series and

damn

I wrote maybe about 25+ full pages of just the premise and every single character from the first movie was in it. I kind of planned it to be a 3-arc (3 season) hypothetical tv series where the first season would focus heavily on Elsa and Anna, season 2 would have Hans take over Arendelle while Elsa and Anna were away and supposedly ends with Elsa leaving, season 3 has Anna taking the role as Queen of Arendelle after hearing about Elsa’s “death” while Elsa is trying to find her way back home as well as learn more about her powers

Season 1: There’s a festival going on in the kingdom and a prince from the Southern Isles who calls himself Lars Westergaard visits Arendelle to improve relations with them and bridge the strain between the two kingdoms. Of course, Anna doesn’t trust him due to her trauma with Hans, but Lars tries to apologize on his behalf.

Prince Lars Westergaard invites Elsa back to the Southern Isles to continue improving relations between their kingdoms. He has also paid a visit to see Elsa’s powers for himself since he finds the idea of magical powers fascinating. Anna is heavily against a prince from the Southern Isles taking Elsa someplace. Elsa is pretty skeptical too, but something about Lars seems trustworthy, and she does want to hear what the King of the Southern Isles has to say.

Anna feels too anxious letting her sister go to the Southern Isles alone (especially after getting her sister back), and decides to act as a second kingdom official to accompany Elsa to the Southern Isles (idk what you call it but roll with it). Elsa doesn’t think Anna should come because someone needs to watch over Arendelle. General Matthias (I finally found something to cover up my earlier plot hole, pepe.emoji) decides to act as a temporary head of Arendelle and Elsa promotes Kristoff as a Lord to ensure other kingdoms don’t think Arendelle has no power while the Queen and Princess are away.

Unfortunately, on the way to the Southern Isles, Lars’s ship is caught in a freak wave, causing Elsa and Anna to be lost at sea. When the two sisters wake up they find themselves on an unknown land and find themselves to be foreigners. Not many people of that country really have much favor towards them or even recognize them and the two are just trying to find a way back home (cue Elsa using her powers as performing stunt to get money so they can go back home).

After getting enough money, however, their goods are stolen by a robber girl (original Snow Queen story, who is actually a robber and a girl and Asian-coded). Elsa and Anna try to find her, they do, turns out the robber girl is part of a gang that steals from the rich and gives to the poor yadda yadda and the robber girl hates royalty and thinks they all give off a patronizing vibe. They get along at some point and offer to find a way to take Elsa and Anna back home.

(yadda yadda adventure, yadda yadda Robber Girl character development, yadda yadda anime references cause im trash)

After who knows how long, Elsa and Anna finally make it back to Arendelle only to find out that it is under a new ruler. It’s not Matthias or Lord Kristoff.

It’s King Hans.

Sparknoted Season 2: After coming back to an Arendelle under the rule of King Hans, Anna and Elsa immediately turn their suspicion to Prince Lars, who admits he had no idea Hans had smuggled away on his ship when he went to visit Arendelle. The citizens are under unrest and it doesn’t help that the people of Arendelle think the Queen and Princess died overseas similar to their parents. There are people divided on who they support, the new King Hans or their rightful ruler, Queen Elsa.

The rest of this season deals with Elsa, Anna, and Kristoff dethroning King Hans. Hans and Anna battle it out and Anna loses an eye (lmao might change this if I ever write this). Seeing Anna critically injured causes Elsa’s powers to go apeshit and almost kills Hans in the process, but Anna stops her.

Elsa becomes even more terrified of the capability she has but wants to learn more about how to use her powers effectively to help people. I think I had some part where she goes with Lars at the end and leaves Anna for awhile so she can hone her skills and help people across the world (when in reality, Lars was lowkey using her as a human weapon).

And yes, I did think of Elsa leaving and supposedly dying and Anna getting depressed about it with Anna being Queen before I saw anything Frozen 2 related.

Sparknoted Season 3: Due to the trauma that she underwent after the Battle of Arendelle and Hans, including the sudden coronation where she has to rise as a Queen, Anna feels extremely under a lot of pressure and the stress around her life along with thinking Elsa is dead turns her almost into a husk (I feel like I maaayyyy have gone a bit overboard with the angst on her, like think Fire Emblem D/imitri level of angst). She finds out from Lars that Elsa had supposedly died trying to protect one of the kingdoms they were visiting (when in reality she was trying to escape him and warn Anna about Lars’s underlying colonial ambitions). Lars tries to convince Queen Anna

This was also a season where Elsa and Anna are separated for a long time and don’t reunite until close to the end of the season. Hans is actually locked up in Arendelle prison since his father disowned him, but Anna sometimes visits him just to get the “voices” out of her head and to actually ask for help in ruling a kingdom. Hans and Anna have a bit of complicated relationship, but she eventually releases him from prison to get rid of an incoming threat since she feels as if he could be useful.

yadda yadda plot (im getting tired of making this too long lmaoooo)

Elsa returns back to Arendelle finally, reunites with Anna, Hans is redeemed after helping and spending time with Anna and Kristoff. Kristoff and Anna get back together at some point. Elsa knows that Anna is better fit as Queen and Elsa becomes the royal protector.

After Lars is defeated, Hans visits him (i swear ill explain more later) and tells him he was the only brother he cared for. Lars tells Hans that they were both trapped in the expectations of what their father wanted out of them. He was hoping to be better than their father, but Lars sees that he had become their father unintentionally through colonizing multiple countries and bringing some sort of “peace” to them. Hans sees the same in himself too, but has found peace through Anna and the others accepting him.

The end shows a royal portrait of Queen Anna, Royal Protector Elsa, Lord Kristoff, and Hans much older.

idk if ill ever write this lmao

i know i overdid the angst in some places but only cause i liked the idea of frozen going over super dark themes. I will admit, making Anna a female D/imitri at one point was overkill lmao

#frozen #fanfic #frozen fanfic thingy #turtle writes #the more i think about this fic #the more i feel like i was going more for a fullmetal alchemist kinda vibe between Elsa and Anna #hence why it was so hard for me to develop Kristoff #like at all #hans #prince hans #elsa #anna

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moonnfairie · 6 years

Text

defying gravity | ch 2

defying gravity, chapter 2

genre: angel!jimin, soulmate au

pairing: reader x jimin

word count: 6,011

warnings: slightly aggressive drunken behavior

summary: Your life had been a series of events that you had to face alone, leaving you to lead an independent yet lonely life. Come the day of your birthday, things take an unexpected turn given a twist of fate and an encounter with your saving grace, someone who just happens to be your angel in disguise.

ch 1 / ch 2 / ch 3

He’s staring at you with wide eyes for a few seconds, as if he’s discovered something the world has yet to find, then shortly after, his eyes shrink into crescent moons and displays a perfectly beautiful smile with his plump lips. You’re practically breathless at the sight, frozen like a deer in headlights. Thank god you closed your register or else people behind him would be yelling at your face to come back to Earth by now.

With a quick deep breath, Jimin’s expression changes yet again into something so gentle, so sweet, as he gets closer to where you stand and says

“These must belong to you then.”

“I’m sorry?”

Did you hear that correctly?

You step back aghast, turning the other way to hide the heat that crawls up your face. Is this insanely ethereal man, let alone insanely ethereal stranger, just messing with you?

Noticing he might’ve been too forward, Jimin nervously giggles while running a hand through his hair. “No, I’m sorry, miss-” he squints to read your name tag “-Y/N. I guess I have a thing or two to learn about appropriate pick up lines.”

He leans down and tilts his head in attempts to make eye contact with you, frowning at the still flustered expression on your face. “I promise I’m not a stalker or anything of the sort. I just” he pauses and takes a deep breath “think you’re very beautiful.”

You must be dreaming, right? To have Mr. Gorgeous walk into your grocery store, on your birthday, and even call you beautiful at first sight? Thank god you decided to get your eyebrows done yesterday, it has really made all the difference in your luck.

You stutter in response, “Well, I certainly appreciate it, and I didn’t find you to be a stalker or anything, at least from what my instincts tell me.” At this, you crack a smile, and Jimin’s eye smile returns, relieved.

“But before we get into anything,” you continue “I should probably ring these flowers up for you so you can really give them to whoever it belongs to.”

“I was in every way serious when I said they were for you, Y/N.”

Despite how wildly your heart is beating at this strange encounter, it’s as if his voice soothes your soul, calming your worries away. Did he really come here for your sake to give you flowers that just so happen to be your favorite color?

“I, uh, well” you close your eyes and heavily sigh. You really have to get yourself together. “Thank you so much…” your voice trails off as you look to him quizzically, realizing you don’t even know this man’s name.

“Jimin” he finishes, as if sensing just what you needed to hear.

“Right, thank you Jimin” you say with a bright smile that sends a rush of warmth all throughout his body. He hasn’t quite seen a smile as radiant as yours, and he revels in the fact that he gets to stare at yours in his remaining time on Earth.

After what seems like an eternity of staring into each other’s souls, you remember to pick up the bouquet, scan the barcode, watch Jimin’s delicately deft fingers reach into his wallet and slide his card through the machine, and hand the flowers back to him.

“I can’t be handed merchandise from behind the counter, so…” you meet Jimin at the end of the conveyor belt, as he gently places the purple roses back into your hands, making sure not to hurt you with any thorns.

Abruptly, Jimin speaks out, “I’m just going to go out on a limb here but… I’d love to see you again. Maybe I could take you out to dinner tonight? Or rather, any time that you were free, of course.”

You started giggling to yourself, noticing how flustered Jimin was also getting in return of your interactions.

Jimin knows he has one job, one that doesn’t require taking his soulmate on dinner dates, but there is a compelling force to you that’s driving his heart insane. It’s as if he wants to do more for you, as much as he can for you, just so you can be genuinely and wholeheartedly happy.

You nearly blurted out a big fat “Yes,” but your mind defogged at the mere thought of your best friend, Taehyung. As much as you’d love to be swept off of your feet by the mysterious yet intriguing godsend that is Jimin, you can’t even imagine leaving your one and only friend in the dust when he had made plans in honor of you.

“Jimin, I sincerely appreciate just how kind you’re being to me right now, and I’m insanely flattered, but I actually have birthday plans with my best friend tonight. Would you maybe like to do Friday night instead?”

Three whole days? You weren’t sure if it was a blessing or a curse to wait so long, but you didn’t want to come off too needy, so that would do. On the other hand, it would hinder Jimin’s trial to have to wait three days for you, but maybe he could make it work.

“Sounds good to me, Y/N. I’ll be seeing you then.” Jimin takes your free hand to kiss the back of it, and smiles ever so sweetly at you, your heart exploding with fireworks in your chest. All you could do was stare as he walked past you and outside the automatic sliding doors. You blink a couple times and clear your throat in attempts to gain your bearings, screeching as you turn around to immediately find Namjoon stood in front of you instead, grinning.

“What was that about? I’ve never seen you so expressive before” he says while chuckling loudly, drawing attention by your coworkers nearby.

“Oh, what, that? Nothing, it was nothing. Just a random guy, giving me flowers, on my birthday, no big deal.”

Namjoon raises his eyebrow at you accusingly. “A random guy doesn’t just give you flowers coincidentally, Y/N. Do you even know him?”

You gulp, and Namjoon notices the apprehensive look on your face. “Hey hey, I’m not here to lecture you or anything, but that’s pretty cool, I guess. Seemed like he really had a thing for you.”

“Did he? Really? Maybe, I don’t know…”

Namjoon grins at you again, reaching to pat you on the back before turning and walking back to the offices. “From the looks of things, I’d say you’re done for the day. Feel free to head out and enjoy the rest of your special day, bud.”

You can only nod and word a breathless “thank you” back at him before running to the break room and gathering your things so you can head home to get ready for tonight.

Despite how gloomy it had gotten outside while you were working, you still had quite the spring in your step and the feeling of joy radiating off of you as if you were the sun itself. Before entering your complex, you receive a series of text messages:

Tae

[4:47 PM] hey you

[4:48 PM] called you earlier but i guess you were still workin

[4:48 PM] just letting you know!!! that you’re NOT bailing on me tonight

[4:49 PM] and that i’m getting you DRUNK and we’re gonna go apeshit

[4:50 PM] also we’re going to have so much fun uwu

[4:51 PM] look like a bad bitch tho you never know who we’ll see ;)

[4:52 PM] ok n e ways see you soon love you bitch

You’re wheezing by the time you reach your door, turning your keys in the lock to find yourself in your empty apartment once again. Yet, for some reason, it doesn’t feel as empty today. At least you get to be out of here for the night. You slip your shoes off and walk through your spacious living room to plop onto your bouncy mattress in your bedroom, turning on your back and holding your phone up to the ceiling to respond to your best friend.

[4:59 PM] yeah, yeah shut up, i already know

[5:00 PM] best believe i’m lookin mighty fine tonight

[5:00 PM] i’m just gonna hop in the shower and all that jazz and i’ll see you tonight

You smile from ear to ear, remembering just how thankful you are to have one solid friend in your life to care about you as much as Taehyung does to be with you today and every day.

[5:02 PM] thank you again, taehyung

Tae

[5:04 PM] what, youre getting sappy on me now?

[5:05 PM] save it for when we’re drunk dude!

[5:05 PM] … but youre welcome. you already know i love you.

[5:07 PM] hey, save it for when we’re drunk!

[5:07 PM] … but i love you too

[5:08 PM] lol

At this, you plug your phone in to charge as you walk to your bathroom and take a much needed hot shower.

It’s been a while since you’ve felt this lighthearted. It could be all the interaction you’ve had today, considering when you normally go to work you try to cut all socializing to an insanely low minimum, but for once in your life you feel special, important, and wanted. You know, aside from the days Taehyung declares his undying love and affection for you and bugs you every time you deny a movie night at his place all because his roommate that can’t seem to stop ogling at you every time you’re there, but to know that some mysteriously handsome guy apparently has eyes for you too, has your stomach turning in excitement.

You keep thinking back to the moment you met eyes with him earlier, how sweet and warm his voice sounded when he told you that you were beautiful to him, and how his gaze seemed to draw you into him so effortlessly, almost tantalizingly over all the emotions that rushed to you in that exact moment. You want to dwell on the feeling, revel in the butterflies that float around in your stomach for hours thinking about seeing him on friday, but something switches on inside your brain as you realize one thing:

How were you supposed to meet again with no means of contacting him?

Before much thought could be put into creating a game plan of seeing Jimin again, your phone vibrates in spurts, signaling that Taehyung must be outside. You run to your mirror one last time to brush through your hair and smile at the reflection in front of you. You’re genuinely so excited and ready to spend your birthday with the one you love.

Walking to the designated pickup area of your complex, you see Taehyung leaning against a familiar grey civic, laughing at the confused expression that now colors your face all over.

“Ah, you didn’t tell me Jungkook was tagging along” you try to say cheerfully, but Taehyung sees right through you and pats your back rather aggressively to stop you from saying anything further.

“Indeed I didn’t, because he’s not! He was so kind to come along and drop us off. An act of kindness for your dear birthday, Y/N.” At this statement, you smile softly, crouching over to make eye contact with Jungkook in the driver’s seat. He meets your eyes quickly, grinning wildly and waving his hand frantically. You were honestly incredibly thankful for the gesture, but knew his intentions were always filled with something more, as he has always been into you from the moment you first set foot in Taehyung’s shared apartment.

Pushing these thoughts aside, however, you decide to just live in the moment and accept all the kindness you’ve gotten in one year’s worth on this very day alone. “After you, princess” Taehyung boldly declares while opening the passenger door for you, your face scrunching at his obnoxiously loud volume, and hand reaching up to pinch his cheek “You are so annoying and dumb but sweet. Thank you.”

Despite looking down into your seat while buckling up, you can’t help but feel Jungkook’s needy eyes roam your full figure, a notion you’d normally feel insulted by, but you realize he means no harm. He’s never seen you dressed up like this: tight fitting clothes, exposed collar bones, and heels, and even you seem to blush under his gaze.

“Alright Gguk, as much as you want to be staring at Y/N’s tits all night, we don’t have time for that. Let’s hit the road.” You turn around in your seat and slap Taehyung’s leg aggressively, causing him to laugh loudly in response and Jungkook to clear his throat while turning on the engine.

“Oh, don’t be such a dick Tae, and you” you sit turn to sit forward again, burning right through to Jungkook’s soul with your glare, “don’t stare at my tits and please drive safely. Thanks.”

Taehyung’s laughter is still dying down as Jungkook nods to turn on the stereo, but the air is still light knowing that’s the dynamic between you all. You’re pretty used to it by now considering most if not all of the people you interact with are men with their brains deep in the gutter.

Your favorite bar is in the heart of downtown, meaning it’s a little ways from where you live, but you really only go there on special occasions, and on nights like these, the boys really don’t mind. Through and through, you were a city girl, and if it weren’t for the insanely high price of living, you’d find yourself living in the apartment of your dreams overlooking the tall skyscrapers in the day and losing yourself in the city lights at night. To most people in your city, it was the same thing, different day, every day, but that wasn’t the case for you. You’ve managed to paint most of the town red, but there are still nooks and crannies that you have yet to uncover, and places you haven’t even hit just yet. It was like there was something about this side of the town that called to you. Something that had you longing for more, and you were absolutely determined to find out just what that was.

Pulling up to the curb, you groan at the sight of a short line at the entrance. “It’s literally a Tuesday evening, what are people doing at a bar?”

Taehyung sits forward, placing a big but gentle hand on your shoulder “literally the same exact thing we are.”

“Wow, you really got me there!” you shrug and state sarcastically, Jungkook giggling at your banter.

“Have fun tonight you guys, and happy birthday again Y/N!” You smile at him tentatively, feeling a little sad that he’s come all this way not to come with you. “Thank you, but are you sure you don’t want to grab just one drink?”

Before he could answer, Taehyung interjects “Nah, the dude has plans to play some tournament with some friends when he gets back. They’ll have their own fun.” Your gaze turns to Jungkook for confirmation, and he simply flashes a cute little bunny smile and nods.

You unbuckle your seatbelt and give Jungkook a quick hug, not noticing the way his face flushes pink before waving him goodbye and getting out of the car. Taehyung pats his shoulder next, thanking him then jumping out to meet you at the end of the line.

As much as you’d normally be impatient to wait in such a line, Taehyung passes the time by telling you about his artwork. At his university, two of his pieces have been chosen to be displayed at an exhibit of high prestige that buyers have the option to bid on. There is an amount of proceeds that go to the artists upon selling, but that was just a perk in the line of his work. He made pieces for the sole reason of creating art that spoke to him and those who got to see it. You even managed to snag a piece that he held onto dearly but ended up caving in and giving it to you at how much you loved it.

It reminded you of your mother.

It was an airy piece, but one still full of matter. It was light, it was delicate, and it was sweet. It made you feel calm, and it made you feel warm. It now sits above her recliner in your living room.

You finally make it to the front and are pleasantly surprised when the guard at the front even greets you a happy birthday. You smile and nod your thank you as you and Taehyung link arms and walk inside.

The bar is spacious yet relatively crowded for a Tuesday night, causing the temperature to rise from all the body heat, but it’s nothing you can’t handle. The ceilings are high, decorated with modern sconces that illuminate a dim, warm light. The scene is a perfectly balanced mix of a traditionally modern bar scene, split on the bottom floor with a lounge area and the actual bar itself, and the top floor for reserved parties and table service.

You were about to make your way to your usual spot near the back walls before Taehyung pulled you back to look at the staircase over to your right. “Hey, come on, you’re getting that special treatment tonight” he says with a wink, and you try to hold back all urges to gag.

“Excuse me, what? Tae we can’t just sneak up there, they have a list-”

Your bickering comes to a halt as Taehyung speaks to the server who stands at the bottom of the steps. “Uh yeah, we have a reservation under Kim.”

The server eyes Taehyung from head to toe in an almost doubtful way, then scans the two paged list within his hands. You’re almost about to apologize for Taehyung’s behavior, but the server speaks up “Ah, Mr. Kim I presume?”

The way in which you glare at Taehyung has his boxy smile shine thru, and you can only loosen up and squeeze his broad shoulder in return.

“Right this way.”

The two of you carefully climb the spiral stairway, giggling at the awfully nice treatment you are getting. The server walks all the way towards the end, missing the booths for two completely into a booth that could fit at least a few more guests.

“The waiter will be with you shortly. Enjoy your evening.”

With only a quick bow, the server turns on his feet to find his way at the bottom of the stairway once again. You blink a few times in disbelief, before turning to face Taehyung who is seated across the table from you.

“Tae,” you start with a pout, and he tilts his head and smiles “you really didn’t have to do this. I already know how much this costs and I know you’ve been selling many pieces lately but-”

“Oh shut up, Y/N. It’s your birthday! You deserve it, and you already know I’ve been saving up to do something, anything, with you, so ta-da!”

How in the world have you gotten so lucky?

You scoot over in the wide booth to sit closely by Taehyung’s side, leaning your head on his shoulder and happily sighing. Closing your eyes, you tune in to the music from the live band that is playing downstairs, tapping your foot to the downbeat of the rhythm the drummer is playing before a beautiful toned saxophone breaks through the air and plays a hypnotizing improv.

“Okay,” you say with your eyes still closed “but it must’ve costed you even more to get a full booth like this. What’s up with that?”

“Actually-” Taehyung’s voice is cut off with the sound of dress shoes clacking on the hardwood in front of you, causing you to open your eyes and sit up with shock at the sight that beholds you.

“Seokjin!”

Seokjin. The Kim Seokjin, that you made a complete and utter fool of yourself in front of the last time you were with him, oddly enough, at this very bar as well. Taehyung met Seokjin at a film festival held at his university last year, thanks to Jungkook. Seokjin, an alumna of the school, had become an incredibly popular actor and well desired by many, but always knew to remain humble and stay true to his roots by participating in judging the at the annual festival, granting Jungkook’s indie film his first top three prize.

You knew of his existence, and have seen him in trailers and movie posters alike, but never bothered to give into any of the media craze, as you thought of him as only an actor of what the market has built him to be. The night that Taehyung had set the two of you up, you drank one too many shots and revealed your true emotions for him, or at least, your perceived thoughts on who he was, and though Seokjin was kind enough (or most likely drunk enough) to let it slide, you made matters worse by insulting one of the earlier movies he starred in, The Deserted, claiming the plot was “lame” and the actors were “dry,” when Seokjin had a big part in the production, and the story had elements true to his life.

And here he was now, standing before you like one of the most handsome men you’ve ever seen in this world with your two eyes. His dark hair was perfectly swept and styled, his lips were so perfectly pink and so perfectly plump, and he was dressed simply in a black dress shirt, slacks, and dress shoes to match.

You don’t notice how you slightly topple over in the absence of Taehyung’s torso when he gets up to greet Seokjin, and you look to the side, rubbing your arm in embarrassment.

“Hey guys, I’m sorry it took a while, the driver had to take me to the back to avoid being seen in the front, you know, all that.”

“Damn, dude, didn’t realize you were getting that huge already!” Taehyung teases while playfully pushing Seokjin’s arm.

“Yeah, no, not really. The workers didn’t even know why I had to come through the back, but it was just for safety purposes.”

As if sensing your sudden alienation, Taehyung turns to slap your arm and get your attention, and you try not to squint too hard his way before turning to Seokjin and smiling as best you can, without letting the embarrassment eat you alive.

“Happy Birthday, Y/N! You look stunning tonight.”

“Ah, don’t flatter her” Taehyung jests, and you get up to slap his arm back and hug Seokjin in thanks.

You feel so small engulfed in his broad frame, but so warm in his embrace. His arms rest perfectly in the small of your back, making you feel as if you don’t want to let go. You haven’t had as much affection as a whole embrace in ages, considering Taehyung doesn’t even bother to hug you like this, and almost as if Seokjin agrees, he lets go when you do, but keeps holding you by the waist.

You don’t dare move.

“Thank you, Seokjin. I’m glad you were able to make it tonight.”

He laughs even more boisterously than Taehyung does, a sight to behold that makes your heart melt. “Well of course I was able to make it, I’m the one who booked the reservation!”

You gasp at the unexpected information, raising your brow at Taehyung who lifts his hands in surrender at your gaze.

“Hey, hey. I wasn’t lying when I said I was saving up. I’m at least paying for some of the drinks tonight, but Jin was so kind as to offer setting this all up.”

Seokjin did this all for you? What even is this luck with men suddenly being so kind to you?

You only tell Seokjin millions of thank yous after that, but you’re quickly ushered to sit inside the booth while Seokjin starts going down the menu and ordering round after round of drunks, eyeing Taehyung to see just how much he’d be willing to pay, and to your pleasure, he was willing to spend big just for you.

The menu that table service guests receive have names of drinks you haven’t seen before despite how many times you’ve been here, and Jin definitely isn’t shy to introducing you all to them.

What makes you really happy about tonight is that on most nights, you come here to ease your stress and forget the worries that life has thrown at you for just a couple of hours, but instead, you’re here with your best friend and potential man friend(?) who are paying for you to get happily drunk and enjoy your special day. Eventually you all get to the point of intoxication where your eyes are starting to droop, your limbs feel light, and your vision is only slightly wobbly, and that’s when you have to put your foot down.

You open your mouth to speak and don’t even realize how slow and slurred your speech is, “Listen... I appreciate you both so much right now, but you guys need to stop shoving liquids in me because I am this,” you hold your hand up lazily and with your fingers, try to create as small a gap as you can “this close to being completely and utterly shitfaced, and last time I was like this, I made a horrible fool out of myself in front of Seokjin”

Taehyung doesn’t seem to catch that as he’s asking the waiter for water, but Seokjin closes the gap between where you’re seated completely and places a hand on your thigh.

“Hey, I’m not even worried about that anymore. If I was, I wouldn’t even be here” he chuckles heavily, moving his hand up a tad more “don’t even sweat it.”

Oh, on the contrary, you’re sweating as if you’ve just ran a race while sitting under his gaze, but you’ve been trying to hide it as best as you can by dabbing your forehead with the readily available napkins when the drunken mess of men in front of you weren’t looking.

When your water finally arrives and you all take a minute to chug it down, Taehyung offers to go downstairs and dance, as the live band has been replaced with an open dance floor and loud beats that echo throughout the bar.

You hesitate only for a moment, wishing to stay under Seokjin’s lingering touches, but Taehyung grabs your wrist and drags you out of the booth to waddle downstairs, the both of you holding on for dear life in order to not topple down altogether.

The small floor is almost packed, but you manage to squeeze through behind Taehyung, Seokjin shortly following. You’ve always managed to dance playfully with Taehyung on nights like these, but now that Seokjin is here, you’re not quite sure what to do. After only one song, Taehyung pulls you close and speaks in your ear “Hey, I see some chick eyeing me from across the floor, you go have fun with Jin, kay?”

“Wh-what? Tae wait!” you manage to garble out without processing much of what he said, but before you can linger on it, you feel strong hands pull you by the waist as you crash into Seokjin’s firm body. It takes a while to get used to the sensation of dancing with him, but a song comes on that you recognize, and you throw all caution to the wind and just start having fun.

On this dance floor, you’ve seen many of the people around you start to get rather sleazy, dancing on their partners like this was their bedroom, but for the most part, Seokjin didn’t seem like the type to try and advance with you. Sure, his grip on your waist would get tighter every now and then the more you felt yourself in the songs that played, but it seemed as if the both of you were genuinely having fun. Holding onto each other tightly. With thanks to your heels, practically face to face mind the few inches up that you still had to look at him.

You could feel how intense his stare his gotten, his expression that looked just like what it did earlier when he had his hand on your thigh.

You were going to risk it all right then and there.

And by risk it all truly you just wanted to kiss him because god knows how long it’s been since you’ve kissed a man, especially a man with such plump lips, but before anything could be done, you hear someone calling for you from the side.

“Hey! Y/N! Listen...” he starts, eyeing up you and Seokjin holding onto each other tightly and shortly chuckles after, causing you to apologetically look up at Seokjin and peel yourself off of him.

“Oh this better be good Taehyung”

“Uh huh, yeah, I see what I’ve walked into and I was about to apologize, but it turns out my situation here could be for the better. Apparently Jungkook lost his key or whatever and left his spare inside. I gotta head back to let the dude in.”

You smile, knowing Taehyung would have probably gotten lucky tonight as well, but he cared about Jungkook too much, and for that you really admired him.

“Hey, if that’s the case, I’m going back with you-”

“Oh no no no no!” he yells above the music loud enough for the people dancing around you to look in your direction.

“You, missy, are going to have fun tonight,” he winks, and you punch his arm. “Jin definitely has means to get you back home safely so don’t even worry. Just text me from time to time, kay?”

He reaches forward to hug you tight, another first of the night, and you reach to embrace him back, yelling to him to text you when he’s home as he makes his way through the crowd.

Seokjin grabs you by the waist again, leaning down to talk into your ear “Oh, is he heading back already?”

You nod and speak loudly back since you can’t necessarily reach his ear. “Yeah, Jungkook got locked out and he’s being the hero.”

“I see” Seokjin says calmly, reaching down to whisper into your ear now, and you shiver at his breath against your lobe. “How about get out of here too, to just talk one on one?”

Your heart starts to race faster in your chest, somewhat managing to sober you up right then and there. As much as you’d love to see where the night takes you, you don’t necessarily feel comfortable in the idea right now, especially since your head is starting to pound mercilessly along with the loud music the dj keeps spinning.

“I, uh, actually should head home as well. It’s getting late and I’m actually thinking of picking up a shift tomorrow.”

You weren’t, but you figured you should say anything just to convince him, as it seems that his expression has barely lightened up, before he sighed and smiled softly before guiding you out of the crowd and outside to wait by the curb.

“I’ll call one of my drivers and he’ll take you home, alright?”

You nod frantically “Oh, no, Seokjin, you don’t have to do that, I can just call a taxi.”

He notices you shivering, and puts an arm over your shoulder to bring you closer as you both lean on a nearby wall.

“Just call me Jin, sweetheart, and” he pauses, typing fast with one hand and looking down at you right after “I already called him. He’ll be here shortly.”

“Oh, okay, thank you Jin.” you try to say politely behind chattering teeth.

It’s quiet for the next few moments, but now that you’re outside, you can definitely feel the alcohol still running through your system, as when you turn your head to watch the passing cars, you still manage to get slightly lightheaded.

“Are you alright?” he asks with a low, almost guttural voice. You turn to look up at him and lazily nod. He then proceeds to stand in front of you, pushing you up against the wall, maybe to hold you up, but from the way his body is reacting, probably for ulterior motives.

“Yeah, Jin, I’m fine, really” you smile back placidly, as he brushes a piece of loose hair behind your ear. You must be a complete mess once again in front of him, yet he’s still looking so intently at you.

“The offer still stands, you can come crash at my place, I can help you feel better.” The hand that moved your hair finds its way to your cheeks, caresses your jawline, and ever so lightly feathers over your neck.

The comfort he brought you before with his touch is now replaced with a feeling of fight or flight, your heart starting to pound in your chest, as you weakly try to push him off.

“N-no thank you, I think at this rate I just really need to sleep at home, really-”

“There’s no harm in letting me take care of you Y/N, I swear I won’t do anything you won’t like.”

“Jin please I said no-”

“Get off her!” a familiar voice rumbles not too far in front of you, and you can see Seokjin’s expression of concentration falter as he turns in the direction of the shout.

You prop yourself up weakly against the wall and squint your eyes to see a figure backlit by oncoming cars approaching you, almost as if to save you.

“Jimin…?”

Jimin rushes to your side as you practically fall into his arms, almost falling back himself but holding you steady into his welcoming embrace.

“Hey man, when someone says no, just let it go.” the way in which Jimin is speaking is a complete contrast to when you met him only hours ago, but you’re thankful as it seems to set Seokjin straight.

“Ah, I seem to have crossed the line.” he states somberly, his driver pulling up to the curb beside him. “I’m sorry, Y/N. Have a good evening.”

You say nothing more and wait until his car disappears from your line of view before sighing and sinking even further into Jimin’s arms, leaving him to giggle softly as grunts to pick you up bridal style, catching you completely off guard.

“Oh my god, please you literally don’t have to carry me like this, I can walk, I swear” he only shakes his head in protest, laughing even more.

“With the way you drank tonight? I don’t think so. It won’t be for long, I don’t live far so just enjoy the ride.”

You smile for the first time after what happened between you and Seokjin, and you thought to yourself that maybe you can relax in the arms of yet another stranger, until you start feeling light drops of water hit your face.

“You’re kidding” you state crossly, and Jimin starts to walk faster, almost jogging now with you still in his arms.

“I can’t cover your face or I’ll drop you, but protect that pretty face of yours, it’s just around the corner!”

You can feel how fast his heart is beating as your head rests against your chest, and at such endearing words, yours starts to race just as fast.

You both manage to make it into his lobby only moderately wet, Jimin’s hair sticking to his forehead and white shirt soaked through. You try your best now to stare at his chest while he lowers you onto your feet.

“Thank you so much, really, for all of that just now. I don’t even know how but you really just saved me.”

Jimin shakes his head aggressively before running a hand through his wet hair, eyes closed, exposing his forehead, looking like a man straight from a magazine spread. His shirt clings onto his torso as if for dear life, outlining his abdomen and… is that a v line? His denim is sticking onto his thick thighs like glue and you can’t help but feel yourself slightly drooling. Thankfully when he calls out to you, you wipe it off your face along with the water that drips down your cheeks and play it off like normal.

“My place is this way, only if you would like to come up. I can get you some dry clothes.”

Having been invited from one man’s place to another, you gladly accept Jimin’s invitation and find yourself anticipating what is bound to happen next.

a/n: ahhh this has been highly anticipated on my own behalf and I am so happy to have finally posted it! I have such a strong connection and good feeling about this story already, and hope you can enjoy even further down the road! much love always <3

#bts #bts angel au #jimin angel au #jimin x reader #jimin/reader #angel!bts #bts fanfiction #bts fanfic #bts fluff #bangtan fanfiction #jimin fanfiction #jimin fanfic #soulmate au #jimin soulmate au #bts soulmate au #softmochijm #defying gravity #dg2

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marshlightningrass · 7 years

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FALLOUT → MUFFY

TAGGING → Buffy Bubbles (@buffybubbles) & Marsh Lightningrass

TIMELINE → Friday, November 3, 2017

SETTING → 1128 Wizard Way

SUMMARY → Gwen drops off a little present for Buffy and Marsh.

Marsh was relieved to have a night off from Pizza Planet; all the younger kids who hung out there were probably still apeshit from whatever drama they'd caused on Halloween night, and he'd much rather chill than have to overhear all the bullshit serving pizzas all night long. He had no idea where the fuck Kitten was and he was happy to keep it that way, and with Hattie off with her boyfriend or something, that left the house to him and Buffy. He didn't have free food for her like he would have if he'd worked today, but he did have his excellent company, and hopefully that was more than good enough. Plopping down on the couch beside her, he pointed to an unmarked DVD on the table, asking, "What's this? You got a surprise movie for me or something?"

Buffy looked up from her phone as soon as Marsh sat down and shrugged at his question about the mysterious dvd that she'd gotten in the mail. "I don't know actually. But someone delivered it in the mail for me today and I didn't want to watch it myself in case it was something scary. Wanna see what this is with me first and then binge something stupid on Netflix? I can make us some edibles after this is over of you want?" She offered, picking up the DVD to stick it in the player

Marsh quirked an eyebrow. Who even still watched DVDs these days? It seemed a little weird, but he was definitely intrigued by it. "You better make lots of edibles 'cause if this turns out to be some kind of 'The Ring' shit we're gonna die in seven days anyway," he teased, leaning back on the couch and spreading his arms out across the back of it, kicking his feet up to put on the table while he waited for Buffy to put the movie in. "Should we take bets on what it's gonna be or just hit play?"

Buffy rolled her eyes at Marsh and kicked him softly before getting up and putting the dvd in. "Don't jinx us, jerk! But it's probably not a Ring tape, this dvd looks petty new." She remarked, sticking the dvd in and then picking the remote up before sitting back down on the couch longways so that she could put her feet up in Marsh's lap. "I'm not letting you guess anything after that ring comment, so lets just watch it already." Buffy laughed, turning the video on.

Marsh shrugged, pointing out, "They make new Ring movies all the time -- or they could, at least. I'm pretty sure they just made a new Saw and there was no way that shit needed a sequel, they could do anything." Marsh rolled his eyes fondly at her as she decided to use his lap as a foot pillow; he didn't mind being pinned to the couch like that, it wasn't was though he had anywhere better to be than hanging out with one of his favorite people. Now all that was left was to squint at the TV as he waited for the video to actually show something... although he was sure some of the color drained from his face as it started playing and he recognized the start of the Shiggles interview he'd agreed to do with Gwen. He snuck a glance towards Buffy, worried about what her reaction might be. It wasn't a secret; it was on YouTube and all, but he doubted she was a big fan of Lui and Gwen's show.

Buffy was trying to think up a response to Marsh's comment about the saw remake when she was suddenly distracted by the screen. Even though Marsh was the only one on the screen, she knew exactly who's voice it was interviewing him and it was not a voice she'd been expecting in the slightest. Buffy wasn't really one for having people that she actively disliked very much, she considered such negativity to be way too toxic but Gwen Shell was a MAJOR exception to that and she was sure Marsh knew that very well. "Oh. Since when are you friends with Gwen enough to do an interview with her?" She asked, in a monotone that gave away absolutely nothing about her emotions as she continued to stare at the screen almost passively as Gwen's voice giggled and cooed and the camera moved in a way that clearly meant that Gwen had moved to sit on Marsh's lap.

Marsh shrugged, pointing out, "I've known her forever, we just started running in different crowds in high school." He was sure he'd mentioned that to Buffy before, although it had probably been more of a complaint than a comment at that point in time; being in Walt at the same time and in the same kind of bodies hadn't exactly gone the way he'd always hoped it would. Still... Gwen wasn't as terrible as she'd made herself seem, he saw glimpses of the girl he'd always liked all the time now that he wasn't too stubborn to look for them. He just doubted Buffy would want to hear that, though. "I figured she'd leave me alone if I just agreed to do her stupid show," he added, trying to keep his voice level and act chill about the whole thing. "It's no big deal, there's really nothing interesting on here, we can just turn it off." Marsh tried to lift Buffy's feet off of his lap so he could shut the thing down as a horrible thought crossed his mind -- what if this wasn't just the YouTube edit? He knew exactly what came after that part but if it was on this DVD, he was screwed. He just didn't know how to get the DVD stopped without making Buffy really, really suspicious, so he prayed that she wouldn't put up a fight and would just shut it down now.

Buffy shrugged, only vaguely remembering Marsh's complaints about the other girl. And continued to watch the video with absolutely no expression on her face, even as it got kind of uncomfy to watch with video!Marsh clearly turned on by the girl in his lap while talking about their other roommate Kitten. Even though it wasn't technically that bad, just hearing Gwen derisively refer to the shy band geek as Pussy and Marsh not even reacting to it, irritated Buffy to no end and made her want to actually reach out to the girl who's only crime had been not wanting to get married at 18. "Actually, I'm super interested, Marshmallow. Or wait, do you prefer Dewdrop?" She asked, pinning Marsh down hard with just the strength of her legs.

Marsh grimaced to hear the nickname rolling off of Buffy's tongue like that; he already didn't like it, but it felt even more off coming from somebody who wasn't Gwen. Like it was their private thing -- not that he cared, because since when did he need private things with Gwen Shell? Except apparently rooms... which he really hoped that Buffy wasn't about to realize with her very own eyes. "Actually, I fucking hate that nickname," he said offhandedly, narrowing his eyes at her when she pinned him to the couch. "Damn, have you always been this strong or does Gwen hate make you go Hulk mode? This thing's been on YouTube since we filmed it, you were never interested before, it's not suddenly more interesting now," he lied.

Buffy flicked her eyes over at Marsh at his response about the nickname and then returned her gaze to the screen, not even bothering to reply to his question about how strong she was. If the video really wasn't more interesting than the video that was apparently online, then it made no sense why someone would purposely deliver the tape to her cottage and Marsh would have no reason to want to turn it off the way he did. "Shut up already. Can't you see I'm trying to watch something here? Don't be rude."

Marsh was filled with dread as he waited to see if the tape kept going after the interview or not... but with every second the DVD creeped forward, he felt more and more sure that Buffy was about to get a real eyeful of something she did not need to see. As nonchalant as he'd acted about the whole thing, he didn't really want anyone to see it, besides maybe him and Gwen. It felt like a private thing between the two of them, and he wasn't prepared for it to turn into any kind of deal. "I'm not being rude, this was dropped off against my will, I don't need the world seeing it," he grumbled, not sure what to do. He didn't want to physically force Buffy to get off of him, but... Shit. Even if he had, it would have been too late anyway, and he cringed as the screen before him started to play the beginning of his and Gwen's hookup. "Seen enough now?" he asked feebly, wishing she'd grab the remote and shut it off already.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "I'm not the whole world, Marsh. Why's it such a big deal?" She asked, almost too late when it became intensely clear that it wasn't just a recording of Gwen interviewing Marsh. Someone, more than likely Gwen, had sent her an actual sex tape of her best friend and her mortal enemy. Completely ignoring Marsh's question, Buffy tightened her hold on Marsh while keeping her gaze locked onto the screen. "You know, I never took you for such an easy lay, Marshmallow."

Marsh groaned as Buffy tightened her grip on him; it wasn't a big deal, not really, and they were all pretty open about their sexual experiences with each other; it was just what friends did. But he'd hid this one from her because he knew she hated Gwen, and maybe he'd hidden it from everyone for other reasons he couldn't quite explain. "I didn't make it easy for her," he snapped back instantly. He'd been kind of an asshole to Gwen for months before he'd caved, honestly; but he didn't talk about that with Buffy, either. Shrugging, he said, "It happened one time, it's no big deal, right?"

Buffy crossed her arms and glared pointedly at the screen. "Really? You sure could've fooled me. I'm pretty sure I just saw her get your shirt off with verrry little difficulty." Buffy hated how slut shamey all her words were coming out, but she was still trying to figure out how to properly express how upset she was about what they were watching. "She also fucked my boyfriend one time and that was a pretty big deal to me too. And you KNOW that, Marsh. Why did you do this and not even bother to be honest about it?" Buffy's voice began to crack on the end of her sentence and despite her best attempts at not displaying too much emotion over the situation, tears began to well up in her eyes as well.

Marsh chewed on the inside of his cheek; he didn't know how to explain it to Buffy. How could he explain something that he didn't even understand himself? "That was a long time ago, Buff," he said feebly, but he doubted that changed anything. He was pretty sure Gwen would still do the same kind of thing now; he couldn't make excuses for her actions because what she'd done to his friend sucked. But it was Lui's fault, wasn't it? Lui was the one who owed Buffy something, not Gwen, but somehow he didn't think that would go over well, either. He opened his mouth and shut it... once, twice, three times, unsure what to say. "I'm sorry," Marsh said finally, hoping that that would be enough. "No excuses, no bullshit, just... I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking about how you'd feel."

Buffy finally turned her attention fully from the screen to glare daggers at Marsh. "I know it was, but what about this video, Marsh? She sent this today. She likes hurting people and you clearly don't give a shit." Buffy yelled, her statement almost hilariously punctuated by a particular loud sound from Marsh on the tv. "But you know what, Marsh. It's fine. I completely accept your apology because that's the kind of loving amd forgiving person I am." Buffy sniffed once and released Marsh from her grip as she rubbed hard at her eyes. "But maybe this is a sign that our friendship has reached it's conclusion. It's not good for my energy to hang out with people who don't care about my feelings and you and your new bestie Gwen just did me the courtesy of showing me how much you don't. Thank you for letting me know."

Marsh 's jaw dropped at Buffy's statement. She didn't even want to be friends with him? Because he'd hooked up with Gwen one time? Because he had some weird, lingering attachment to her from when he was a kid that he didn't know how to get out of his system? It felt like an overreaction to him, but then again, Marsh didn't let much get under his skin... but he'd let Gwen get under it, hadn't he? How could he expect Buffy not to do the same? "Buffy..." he protested feebly, but he wasn't sure there was anything he could say right now to make her feel better. She just needed time to cool off. "I don't want to not be your friend anymore," he told her. "And I'm not going anywhere, but if you need a break or whatever, I guess that's... cool." The word rolled awkwardly off his tongue, but he didn't know what else he could do right now as she let go and rubbed her eyes. "I care about you a lot, I'm sorry I screwed that up."

Buffy opened her mouth to respond to Marsh's apology not entirely sure if she was going to accept his offer for just a break in their friendship or to deny it, when the front door of the cottage opened and Kitten walked in, clearly fresh off her shift at Pizza Planet. "Hey Kitten! How was work today?" Buffy called out, getting up from the couch to speak to the other girl in the cottage rather than respond to Marsh any further.

Marsh gaped at Buffy as she got up off the couch to greet Kitten of all things. That was a pretty blatantly obvious sign their conversation was over; none of them ever talked to Kitten, she was like the silent roommate that didn't exist. Sighing, Marsh got up from the couch, took the stupid DVD out, and put it into his bag, not sure what to do with it, as he headed for the front door rather than his room. It was pretty obvious Buffy didn't want him around, so he'd just... wander Walt until something felt right or until he was sure the coast was clear to go home.

#buffybubbles #para #para:fallout #para:buffy #buffy

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writingthingsisdifficult · 8 years

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Secrets

My sweet friend and muse, the wonderful @isamthereforeiam gave me this amazing idea. I just hope I’ve done it justice. Thank you.

What happens when both parties in a relationship keep the same secret?

Let me know what you think (keep in mind that English is my second language, so there might be mistakes I didn’t find when I read through it). Also, let me know if you wan on or off my tag list.

Word count: 2900

The phone tickled my thigh as it buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out, grateful I had remembered to set it to silent. I intended to decline the call, but Sam’s picture shone on the screen, and I pushed the green button before I even thought about it.

“Hey, darling,” I whispered, hoping my quiet voice wouldn’t give me away.

“Hey, Y/N. Am I interrupting anything? Why are you whispering?” He whispered back automatically. I don’t know why, but that was always the case when we phoned each other – mirroring the other’s mood or voice. Personally, I think I did it because of my profession, but some people are just natural mimics, I guess.

“Just working,” I replied, hoping my voice was neutral enough to hide the surge of adrenaline that coursed through me. “I’m in the middle of a… meeting. Can I call you in a few? Or was it something important?” I could hear him move around, and then something heavy clanged to the ground.

“Watch it, Sammy!” Dean growled in the background.

“No, nothing important,” Sam said, but there was a hint of sadness to his voice. “I just miss you.”

“Aw, Sam. I miss you too. More than you know.”

“Sam, come on. Gotta roll.” Dean was impatient today. But I didn’t mind: I was kinda busy myself.

“Gotta go. Love you.”

“Love you too.” I smiled and blew a kiss into the phone. “Talk to you later, okay? And give your brother a hug from me.”

After hanging up, I rested the phone against my cheek for a few seconds. I knew I had to tell Sam about my real job eventually, but for now I could handle the amount of lies I had to juggle.

With the phone securely back in my pocket, I returned to reality, listening for my pursuer from my hidden spot inside the closet by the kitchen.

The werewolf was getting closer. She didn’t conceal her steps the same way a fully-grown one would when on the prowl, but then again: she was just a cub. Recently turned, but angrier and more ferocious than I had ever seen before.

“I can hear you breathe,” she sang, and I could tell from her steps that she was coming closer. “You’re gonna be a tasty meal, and I am sooooo hungry!”

Crap. That ruled out talking some sense into her. She wasn’t interested in keeping her humanity, then. That meant time for plan B, which, if I was honest, had been plan A pretty much all along.

I fiddled with the silver bullets in my pocket. Why the hell didn’t I load my gun before I went in after her? Rookie mistake. I have been doing this shit for ling enough that I should’ve known better.

The steps stopped outside the closet door, and a shadow blocked any light from coming in under it. “There you are,” she said and threw the door open. The backlight made her grow several sizes, and the stone in my stomach grew with it.

My hand tightened around the gun, and I forced a smirk. “Here I am,” I replied just as the safety clicked off. “It was nice seeing you,” I added and squeezed the trigger.

The bullet knew exactly where it was supposed to go, and seconds later I crawled over the corpse of a young teenage girl with an exploded chest, trying not to look into her open eyes.

She stared into nothingness, looking as if she never expected to die like this. Poor girl. She should’ve been taught better. Maybe if she’d been more discreet, I would never have found her.

Briefly I wondered what her parents thought had happened to her. Did they even know what she had been made into? Or were they out there looking for her, praying for her to come home? I swallowed the lump in my throat and forced the thoughts away. No good ever came from overthinking things.

The gasoline fumes stung in my eyes as I poured a trail out of the door. Pinching the bridge of my nose hard, I made a mental note to pick up a six-pack of IPA or something before heading back to the motel. I deserved a break after this. A quiet evening of drowning my sorrows in nice beer and, if I was lucky, a good movie on TV. I watched the flames snake their way down the hall, licking the walls before I turned and ran for my car.

The door slammed shut, and I backed out of the driveway as fast as I could. In the unlikely event the neighbours hadn’t heard the shot, the house would soon be engulfed in flames, and I wanted to be as far away as possible before the fire brigade showed up.

The store I stopped in didn’t have the best selection of poison, but they had enough. And the guy didn’t even look up from his phone when I paid. If he had, he would’ve seen a customer covered in blood droplets, and then I probably wouldn’t get the relaxing evening I had planned.

It was times like this I wished I had a hunting partner, someone to carry the burden with, but I preferred to work alone. Oh yeah, I knew there was a community out there – I’d run into a couple of groups on occasion, but I could never seem to find my place. Too many testosterone filled, dick measuring idiots for my comfort. Sure, some of the stories were good. But they’re like fishing stories, I guess. Every time it got told, the apocalypse got bigger.

After showering, tending to my bruises, and throwing on a fresh pair of sweatpants and a baseball tee, I plonked down on my bed and turned on the TV, balancing a bottle and the remote control in one hand and a Danish in the other – and a second one in my mouth.

Switching through the channels, it soon became clear that although the motel boasted over two hundred channels, not one of them showed anything worth watching, so I turned off the sound and called Sam. It was always nice to hear his voice after a hunt – a reminder that there was still innocence in the world

“Hey, Y/N.” He picked up after two rings, and hearing him was as if the whole sun was pouring from the phone. A sharp pang of both love and longing hit me hard in the chest.

“Hi, Sam. Uh, am I interrupting anything?”

“Nah. Not at all. Ah-ah…” His voice was oddly strained. “Watch it, Dean!” A muttered sorry followed, and then something that sounded like metal on wood.

“You okay, Sam?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, don’t worry. Dean needs to learn to be more careful, that’s all.”

“Just slap his head. That’ll teach him.” I could just picture the giggle he was trying to hide.

“I might just do that. How was your day?”

“Nothing unusual,” I lied. Well, technically it wasn’t a lie – but I doubted Sam would think the same. “What about you?”

“Spent the day in the car,” he replied. “Boring as hell. My butt fell asleep. Made me miss you even more.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation, I miss you too. And your butt. Hey, Sam, I was thinking,” I began, absentmindedly sucking the icing off my thumb, “maybe we could meet up this weekend? There’s one last thing I gotta fix for my boss, then I’m heading back home.”

Truth be told, that one thing was a possible vampire case a couple of days’ drive from where I was parked for the night, and conveniently enough it was on the way home.

“I’d like that t – OW! Dean!” His voice was rough and miserable.

I squinted at my phone; I didn’t like sounds like that coming from Sam. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. As I said, Dean’s being a jerk.”

“Well, you tell him that I want my boyfriend back in one piece,” I giggled.

“I heard you,” Dean shouted, earning a laugh from both Sam and me.

We talked for hours, about all the small things that meant nothing to the world, but that meant everything to us; making plans, laughing at Dean, sharing small inside jokes… I felt my spirits rise just from hearing Sam’s beautiful voice, and I couldn’t wait for the weekend to come.

I parked my little car next to a beautiful, black car with long, sleek lines and lots of soul. Now, I didn’t know much about cars, and certainly not about classics like this one, but I knew beauty when I saw it. Dean liked classic cars, so I took a photo to show him. Surely he would appreciate the elegance. Maybe he could even tell me a bit about it: never hurt to learn new stuff. Might come in handy one day.

Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I found my way to room number 197 and began the meticulous task of sorting through my research; spreading my notebooks on the table and opening up the laptop to search the local newspapers.

From what I could read in the papers, there had been a string of disappearances in this little town. That was unusual in itself – the area was pretty peaceful, but combined with the growing pile of UFO conspiracy theories and the vague, online rumours of an established vampire nest a couple of miles outside of town, I was fairly sure what I was dealing with.

Took me a few tries to find the right place. At least the vamps had the decency to set up camp far from people. I parked my car down the road, and in the shadows I noticed the same black car I’d seen at the motel. Of course it had to belong to a bloodsucker. In the back of my mind an idea started forming: wasn’t it time for a new car soon? And the owner would be dead soon anyway. They wouldn’t miss it.

The short walk up to the house was tense and silent. Sneaking around had never been a strength of mine, but I wasn’t going to be discovered and miss my date with Sam just because I was careless.

Turned out I didn’t really have to worry. Peeking around the corner, I saw two big ones stationed outside the door, but they were too distracted by the fighting sounds coming from inside the house to see me.

It’s not unheard of that vampires fight each other. And I don’t blame them: if I was faced with an eternity of having to live with pretentious drama queens who insists on following ancient laws, I’d probably go apeshit too. Or stir up a fight just for the hell of it.

But I didn’t mind them fighting. That meant they were too busy to notice me creeping up on them until it was too late and heads started rolling.

“Boss said wait here,” the larger of the two said, pointing towards the ground.

“What for?” the smaller one replied, clearly rearing to go join the fight.

“Because we have the upper hand.” The first one was getting impatient. “When we get the signal, it’s time to join the crew; surprise those two nightmares.”

“But what about –“

“We can afford to lose a few heads.” He chuckled from his own joke. “Besides, it’s safer out here than in there.”

“Think again,” I muttered, swinging my machete with force. The sound of metal against skin and bones kindled a fire in me; releasing the adrenaline I craved and relied on.

Big Bloodsucker crashed to the ground, headless and undignified. The sudden movement seemed to startle his friend, and it took him long enough to figure out what was happening that when his brain finally decided on a course of action, my blade was already making contact with his neck.

“Some backup you are.” I rolled my eyes as his head settled next to the other, making it look like he was whispering sweet nothings in his friend’s ear.

So there was someone visiting from a rivalling nest. And someone probably said something offensive, and thus started a fight. Peachy. But I had seen worse, and if I was lucky, they had already thinned their own numbers.

The first bloodsucker I encountered inside definitely didn’t expect me. He pretty much looked like a bug with his eyes popping like that, and I couldn’t help but giggle from his expression: the adrenaline in my brain made me dance my way down the hall.

I turned the corner and ran straight into a group of three vampires, barely avoiding being kicked in the hip by a female soaring by me, and soon I was in the middle of the fight, brandishing my blade with fervour.

The last vamp collapsed on the floor in a messy heap, and her head bounced off the polished oak and rolled a good six feet; coming to rest under the sofa.

There was no time for me to celebrate yet, because I found myself face to face with a dripping machete. It took a few seconds of squinting for my adrenaline high to subside enough. “Dean?”

He was staring at me like he’d seen a ghost. Then, out of the shadows a very familiar voice sent daggers through my heart. “Y/N?”

“Shit.”

Sam stepped out into the light, face covered in blood splatter, but still the most beautiful man I’d ever laid my eyes on. “You can say that again. Where, I mean… why… what???”

I held up a finger. “First things first: is the place empty?”

“Yeah. Or… this building is,” Dean said. “Haven’t checked the cottage in the field yet.”

“It’s clean. No more vamps outside.”

“Alright. Let’s talk.”

Silence filled the room.

“Well?” I hardly dared to look at Sam – I had no idea how he would react.

“Well…” The word dragged a bit, and he did it on purpose, I just knew it. That made my stomach feel a bit lighter. Sam stepped closer and took my hand. “I’m kinda relieved, to be honest.”

My head snapped up, searching for something in his eyes. Of all the things he could’ve said, that wasn’t what I was expecting. But I found nothing but the soft smile he uses to cheer me up when I’m feeling insecure and stupid.

When he saw my confusion, his smile widened into a grin. “Yeah. It was exhausting trying to hide, well, everything.”

“This is fucking hilarious!” Dean looked back and forth between us, grinning like a maniac.

“But I can’t believe you kept this from us, from me…” Sam continued, ignoring his brother.

“I can’t believe you kept this from me,” I countered.

He smiled sheepishly. “Just wanted to keep you safe.”

I moved closer, and Sam wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into a gentle hug. “Yeah, me too,” I muttered, feeling like the whole world came together just perfectly.

“I can’t believe you didn’t know who we are,” Dean burst out, looking parts outraged and parts highly amused.

“Yeah, apparently you’re legends or something.” I measured him up and down and raised an eyebrow. “Guess you never impressed me enough for me to make the connection that you’re… well, you.”

“That was savage, even from you,” he chuckled, and every little trace of worry I may have had about them not approving melted away.

“You know me.”

“But seriously, though? Most hunters have heard of us.”

“Yeah. I’ve hard rumours and stuff, but figured most of it was pretty exaggerated anyway. And people always talked about those brothers, the almost never mentioned you by name.” I shrugged. “Besides, I work alone. It’s easier that way. To keep my job and private life separate,” I added when I saw Sam’s confused look. “Since you were supposed to be civilians and whatnot. If no one knew me, no one could get to you. Does that make sense?”

Sam nodded. “I guess so. Explains why I’ve never heard of you in hunter circles.”

Dean smacked his tongue and waved his arms around. “You know what? I’m getting thirsty. What do you say we discuss these recent revelations over a couple of beers?”

I could get behind that idea. “Sure. Sam? Care to join me and your brother on an adventure?”

“Coming. We’ve got so much to catch up on.” He stopped for half a second, looking at me. “No more secrets, right?”

I nodded. “No more secrets.”

Dean turned to us. “Hey, Y/N, before you met us here, what were you –“

“I was after a werewolf up near Bighorn National Forest. How about you?”

“Demon case in Gillette,” Sam answered.

“Jesus, really? So close. Fuck me, Sam, how come we’ve never run into each other on hunts before?”

“I know. How about when you said you were on that conference last month, in… in…”

“Oh yeah, in New York. It was a haunted restaurant. If we’re ever in the vicinity, we’ve got free meals waiting for us.”

Dean stopped and stared. “That was you? We came up there and everything was taken care of.” He laughed the way only he could: throwing his whole torso back, while barking loudly.

Sam tightened his grip around my waist and kissed my hair. Yeah. Everything would work out just fine.

Tagging my fabulous crew:

@awesomeahwu @brynleewolfe @funwithfanfics @babeinthebowtie @savingapplepie-eatingthings @winchesterprincessbride @savvythedork @littlegreenplasticsoldier @youtubehelpsmesurvive @schwarzwaelder-kirschtorte You are all amazing for reading my stupid little stories. <3

#sam x reader #supernatural fan fiction #sam winchester #dean winchester #reader insert #gender neutral - i think #fan fiction #secrets #writing is hard

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