#i did this instead of prepping for finals pray 4 me

[14buddy22]

I’ll Spend the Rest of My Life Making It Up To You Series

Part 4! WC: 6.5K

Warnings: Domestic Violence, Engagements/proposals, bruises, scars, cuts, stitches, fractures, broken bones, mention of killing, beating, prison, abuse (physical, verbal, mental, and emotional), heavy angst, marriage, weddings, biting/bite marks, throwing up, rape, blood, mention of Foyet’s stabbings/Haley’s death

A/n: This part Is from the letters. It switches off between Aaron reading them and what the reader is going through. Italicized are the letters. If I missed any warnings... PLEASE LMK

Series Masterlist // Masterlist

Aaron sat at his desk. Afraid to open up the evidence box of letters. Afraid to open up the case file. He didn’t know what to do. All he could think about was how he could let you get away, again. How was the universe treating him like this? Why did terrible things happen to the woman he loved, the woman he’s always been in love with?

Aaron was afraid of a lot. He was afraid of losing you, that’s what made him break off the engagement. Everything he was afraid of, was becoming his reality. As one of the better profilers in the FBI, how did he not notice the signs? He thought he was doing everything to protect you, to keep you safe, but staring at his desk, his thoughts proved him wrong. He could have kept you safe, and that’s his fault.

Aaron slowly took a deep breath. Shaky hands moved towards the file on his desk. When he opened it, he saw you. He saw you at your most vulnerable moments. He saw every single bruise, scar, cut, scratch, stitch, and possible fracture. He saw everything.

He wanted to kill Jake. He didn’t care if he sat in prison. What Jake did to you is something Aaron could never understand. He never understood why his father did it to his mother and him. He still doesn’t understand how someone could ‘be in love’ with someone, yet still, beat them, throw things at them, and be physically, mentally, and emotionally abusive toward someone. It’s just the one thing he couldn’t wrap his mind around.

When he slowly got through all the photos, he didn’t realize the tears that had fallen onto his desk. He was angry. He was upset. His heart hurt knowing that he ended the engagement to protect you, but instead, led you to your abuser.

It’s ironic that where Jake gave you bruises, cuts, and scars, are all the same places where Aaron had kissed and touched you when you two were together. He just prayed that if Jake did lay hands on you tonight, it wouldn’t be your face, where Aaron had held your face in his palms today.

After finally having enough and feeling sick to his stomach looking at what Jake had done to you, and finally having mentally prepped himself for getting ready to read your letters, he closed the file up, moved it over to the side, and then opened the evidence box.

There were a lot of letters. You can bet any money that he was going to read every single word you wrote in every single letter. He wouldn’t leave until he finished. He pulled out the first letter, looking at the date.

6 months after the engagement ended.

Hotchner,

I met someone. He’s funny and kind. He dances on top of tables at the bar, and even though the bouncer keeps telling him he can’t, he does it. He’s got a nice smile. His name’s Jake. He’s run into me a couple of times at the bar within the past month. I think now he’s almost stalking me, lol. I can tell he’s trying to ask for my number, which he’ll get by the way.

I don’t know why I’m writing you this, maybe it’s my way of getting over you. He’s asked about you. He knew that I must have broken up with someone. We talked about you. He wasn’t very fond of you breaking my heart, but I took some of the blame because you don’t deserve to have this man hate you and he doesn’t even know you. I know this letter will never be sent, you’ll never read it, but maybe this is my personal diary. I guess I’ll keep you updated.

With Love, Y/n

Aaron wanted to tear the letter to shreds. You wrote to him about Jake to get over him. He continued to read the next few letters. Luckily they were still in the honeymoon phase. Jake treated you great at the start. He asked for your number, took you out to dinner, didn’t try to kiss you after the first date.

Aaron hated what he was reading, especially knowing what the outcome of this relationship is 10 years later. He hated it so much. If he could have gone back in time, he would’ve told you to run. He would’ve shown up at your apartment to say how sorry he was. He would have done anything to get you back. The nights he spent drinking, working, drowning in his sorrows, wishing he had you back in his life, you were going out with Jake.

It was about 5 letters later, he finally got to the first one, about 7 months in to dating Jake.

Hotchner,

He called me fat today. Could you believe that? I was trying on a dress for a friend’s wedding and he didn’t like the way I looked. He didn’t even try to lie. I mean, seriously. What man does that? I know if it had been you, you would have said wow, you look beautiful. I know it shouldn’t be that big of a deal, but for someone to call their girlfriend fat, it just blows my mind. Even if I’ve gained 5 pounds, I guess I don’t look that good in the dress, that’s fine, but shouldn’t he try to hide it? Instead, he’s pointing out specifically where the dress made me look fat. I guess I’m missing your comments, even if you didn’t mean them, I always believed in them. I felt like the prettiest girl in the world when I was around you, but being with him makes me think I’m not. I know I’m not a model, but it makes you think, ya know?

Aaron kept on reading, intrigued by the verbal, mental, and emotional abuse that was beginning in your relationship. It tore him apart that you didn’t realize it then. He got to the letter he didn’t want to get to. Your wedding day with Jake. He had been dreading this letter. He actually didn’t even know if there would be a letter about your wedding day, but alas, there was, and he was holding it in his hands.

Hotchner, I’m really marrying him. Can you believe it? Well, maybe you can because you’re actually coming. Well, I hope you’re coming. You told me you were when we were having lunch. I’m not marrying you, god, I wish I had. We never got to have that dance that we wanted as we talked about at the wedding that you didn’t even want to go to in the first place. Hopefully, you’ll save a dance for me tonight. I hope Haley doesn’t mind if I steal you away for 1 song to dance to. Well, 2 hours until I get married. I know you’ll never read this, but, I hope you object to the wedding. We can run off, get married, and have 6 little Hotchner babies running around. It’s not fair to Haley because she didn’t do anything, but I think I’d be happier with you than Jake. Until the next letter, Y/n.

When Aaron turned to the next letter, he saw how much longer it was, there was a teardrop stained on it. He was afraid to read it. For once, he wanted to stop. To break his promise to himself that he wouldn’t stop reading until he was done, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t break another promise to you. He knew that the letters in his hand were a continuation from your wedding day because they were all stapled together, and the only date on the entire page was on the front paper, from your wedding day.

I saw the look you gave me today while you were sitting in the pew. I was trying to silently plead with you to stand up and say I object at the wedding. Had you done that, I would have run away with you. I mentioned before that Haley didn’t deserve it, but I saw the way you looked at me when I walked down the aisle. I saw the way your breath hitched when I made eye contact with you. I saw you slightly lean forward when the priest was asking if anyone objected to the marriage. Don’t think I missed it because I didn’t. I wish you would have done something because then I wouldn’t be in the situation that I’m stuck in.

When Jake and I shared our first dance, I wish that would have been you dancing with me. The entire night would have been better if you were the one I married instead of him. When you had walked outside for what I could only think to gather yourself at the end of the first dance, I wanted to follow you right when the song ended, to tell you that everything’s going to be okay, nothing would change between us, but boy, was I wrong. I couldn’t go. He told me I had to stay with him to say goodbye to those who were leaving, to stay for pictures. He had to have known I was going to go after you.

And I wish I did, because as the night ended and I hugged you, it was like I was losing my other half when you walked away. I know we promised each other lunch dates, but after what happened, which I will get to in a second, I’m not sure if there will be lunch dates, and that’s what hurts me. It hurts to know that I might never see you again.

I’m scared. What he did to me tonight, I prayed would never happen to anyone I know. After the stories, Sean told me about your father and your mom. The stories that you told about your father and you. I guess I was so naive to think that would never happen to me. I guess had I fought harder for you, I would have been right. You would have never hurt me the way he did tonight.

It started out with him being mentally, emotionally, and verbally abusive. He started saying that he didn’t like my wedding dress, although I absolutely felt like a princess in it.

Aaron took a moment to pause. He thought you looked absolutely stunning in that dress. It was perfect. You were a real-life princess. How did Jake not see that? If Jake wasn’t interested in you, why even bother to get married to you? He didn’t want to keep reading, but he had too.

He ripped the dress off me and got upset with me because I wasn’t in his favorite type of lingerie. I thought what I had bought was cute. What he likes is practically next to nothing and I didn’t want to feel bare underneath my wedding dress. The hard earned money I spent on my dress, ruined, only for him to rip it off to just get me naked. I wanted to cry right then and there. He was rough, throwing me onto the bed, I hit my head against the wall. He was possessive, dominant. I’m not saying that I wasn’t into that because you know I was, but he didn’t ask for safe words, he didn’t ask what was okay and what was not okay. 

He slapped me, hard. He called me a bitch. Who wants to be called a bitch on their wedding night? He ripped the lingerie off me and yelled at me because it wasn’t what he wanted. Then he got really rough. 

Leaving bite marks above my breasts, on my breasts, my thighs. He thought it was turning me on. I tried tugging him off, but he only got turned on even more. I didn’t want anything more to happen. 

I really didn’t. I tried to push him off before he entered me. I tried, but he just held me down and told me to be quiet. He said, “If I were Aaron, I know you’d keep quiet.”

Aaron threw up. Whatever he had to eat that day all came out into the garbage can. He couldn’t believe what he had just read. He was the reason you were sexually assaulted. Jake was jealous and it was Aaron’s fault to blame. This was Aaron’s fault, there’s no more denying that it wasn’t Aaron’s fault anymore. In Aaron’s eyes, it’s his fault that everything happened to you. As he thought that, he threw up again.

When he finally composed himself together, he picked up the letter again. Going to read the rest of your letter from that awful night.

Sorry for the tear smudge on this. I had to take a break. Crying in the bathroom as I’m writing this. I’m sorry. Anyways, I might as well continue.

When your name came out of his mouth, I knew he was jealous, he was doing this to me like I had done something terrible to him. When I told him that you weren’t into being dominant in bed, he slapped me again.

God, I never want to feel that pain ever again.

I had tears coming down my cheeks. I knew I was going to be raped and I couldn’t do anything about it. I was vulnerable, exposed to him. His father’s a lawyer. His father’s amazing, sweet, and super kind, but his son is polar opposite.

I remember asking Jake if we could stop. I told him I had a headache and that we could have sex right when we woke up in the morning. I begged him, but he just told me no. It was then that he entered me. I told him to stop. I tried to move, but he just kept going. I was frozen. I didn’t want this. I told him to stop. Tears were coming out of my eyes as he bit my. His teeth broke through my skin, I could feel the blood begin to drip down my shoulder.

Even after everything he did, he couldn’t even get me off. He finished inside me, rolled over, and went to bed.

Now it’s 2am and I’m writing this as I’m sitting in the hotel bathroom, trying to collect my thoughts, and figuring out if that really happened. I know it did. I didn’t make this up. I’m staring at the bite marks he left on my shoulder. The bite marks on my breasts, the redness on the one side of my face where he slapped me one time too many.

I’m feeling empty inside. I feel as if I’m worthless. I feel lost. I know I shouldn’t feel this way. I know you never would have made me feel like this. Even when our engagement ended, I never felt this way. What Jake did to me tonight is much worse.

I wish I would have fought harder for our relationship. I wish I would have ran away from the wedding today. I wish I had the strength to push him off of me and leave the hotel room before he assaulted me. All the things I could wish, I can’t go back in time to change it. That’s what scares me.

I just got married to what I thought was someone I loved, but instead, I was treated as a sex doll tonight. I was treated like garbage. I hope that I never feel the way I felt tonight. I’m sure it was just the alcohol that made him act out.

I’m just scared, but I should be allowed to feel that. I wish I had you so I could be in your arms. I could really use a Hotchner hug. Why does it feel like I’ll never be able to really tell you how things are between Jake and I? Like our lunch plans won’t actually work out? I’m afraid to think that way, but after what Jake did, I don’t know if it’s the same man I met at the bar 2 years ago.

I really, really miss you. And, I’m still in love with you.

It was like someone punched Aaron in the gut. He had lost all air he was holding. He wanted to throw up again but didn’t know if he could or if he should. This was like torture. He’d rather get stabbed 9 times again than read through the pain he put you through. This was only 2 years into your relationship with Jake, and there were still 8 years worth of letters to go.

He just wanted you in his arms safely. To help you get a therapist, to talk to someone so you learned to live with your trauma instead of shoving it deep down as he did. He knew all there was to know about trauma and he hated that you knew what trauma was too.

*******

When you pulled into your driveway, you were met by Jake in the garage. You just needed to calm down. You couldn’t make yourself suspicious about what you had been doing. As you grabbed Mason out of the car, you walked into the garage.

It was a weird feeling. Jake almost seemed scared that you had left.

“I thought something had happened to you. I don’t know what I’d do if something were to happen to you or Mason. Hey, there’s my baby boy. Did you have fun with Mommy today?”

It was the little things like that that made you realize that maybe it wasn’t so bad to continue to be in a relationship with Jake. Maybe you overreacted going to Aaron. Jake wrapped you in his arms and kissed your forehead. Over the past 8 years, ever since your wedding, you got used to faking being in love with him.

There were some moments when you did love him. Maybe it was the way that he’d pay for a family’s dinner at a restaurant that you and he ate at, or it was the way he was looking at you now, when he realized that at any given moment, his wife and child can walk out on him.

“I’m sorry I scared you today. Aaron needed me. Jack’s going through so much. Sean hasn’t talked to Aaron. He just needed a friend. Jack just needed a mom figure. I should have told you but I didn’t want to bother you at work. So, I’m sorry.”

You got teary-eyed, you really had to play this up. You had to play it up so much that you almost believed it.

“How’s Jack doing?”

“He misses his mom. I don’t blame him. If God forbid something happens to me, I know Mason would be okay with you, but the trauma of losing a parent when you’re young. I don’t know how Aaron’s doing it. I hope Jack’s going to be okay. Aaron convinced Jack to start seeing the therapist that he had back when it happened and after, Jack finally agreed. So, it’s progress. I’m hoping to check in and take Jack out for a dinner, and spend some time with Mason. He was so good with him today.”

“Whatever Jack needs.”

How was Jake acting like this? Like he said he was going to kill you because he knew you were with Aaron. Maybe he just lost his cool when you told him. Maybe using Jack as a decoy was going to help you get out of your relationship with him. Well, at least an escape. Maybe you were overreacting.

Mason and I are starving, so, what do you say I cook us up something to eat?”

“Honey, you know I’m good with whatever you make.”

It was weird. He was acting like you and he had been in the perfect marriage for the past 10 years. He was playing on the floor with Mason, laughing, and smiling. He had come into the kitchen, walking over to put his hand on your hip and kiss your shoulder.

It made you smile, he did have loving moments, and maybe he had an eye-opening experience with you being gone for the day. Maybe something changed in him. Maybe everything was going to be okay now.

Maybe…just maybe

…..

He hated it. He hated that you endured this pain for 10 years and he couldn’t stand the thought of you going through it tonight. He had to find you, but you promised him you’d be safe, and you always kept your promises.

If you really needed him, you would call. That’s what he was going to tell himself as he was finished with the letter. He kept that letter off to the side, in a different pile. When he reached into the box for the next one, he felt an envelope. As he opened it, he found more photos.

These were the photos you took of yourself in the hotel bathroom on your wedding night. He saw the torn wedding dress in the corner, the lingerie that was no longer on your body. He saw the way your lip was split. He saw the bitemarks on your shoulder. He saw your mascara running down your face. He saw the bruises forming, the red marks of his handprint on your face.

Rage consumed Aaron’s body. If he wasn’t an FBI agent, if he wasn’t a father to a little boy who had already lost his mom, he would’ve been a vigilante and killed Jake. Jake didn’t deserve you. You were an angel, yet you’d been through Hell.

Aaron put the letter and the photos back inside the envelope and then moved on to the next letters. The letters of your abuse were tearing him apart. He was sick to his stomach, literally. Just when he thought he had emptied his stomach contents, there was more. It wouldn’t stop.

Reading how he would hit you if you didn’t have his meal on the table when he came home, degrading you while you were getting ready for work, getting ready for a night out with him, degrading you during sex. The most intimate moment with someone and he was making you feel bad about yourself.

Aaron was in complete awe of you. How could someone who was in an abusive relationship be so composed? How could you get up for work every single day and go teach little kids? How could you be so good at hiding how what was going on in your life?

Then he got to a letter he didn’t think he could dread, but he had. The past few letters, you had been counting down until you were meeting with him for your first lunch date. Almost seeing him an entire year after your wedding, both of you just being so busy. He was dreading it, but he knew he had to read the letter.

Wow, you looked amazing today. Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I just wrote that when I’m a married woman. Well, I’m still in love with you. I don’t think I’ll ever get over you. I need to. I’m a married woman, you’re engaged to Haley. I can’t believe it. I hope she sees what an amazing man you are. The BAU seems to be going well for you. I’m glad. You were always great at putting others first before yourself. That’s what I admired about you from the start. You would take care of Sean before you took care of yourself. That was a small thing that hooked me from the start. But, I can’t believe I finally got to go out to lunch with you. It was amazing. I had such a great time from hearing about your engagement to how wedding prep is going. While I loved hearing about you, I wish you would have seen the way my heart was slowly breaking. I wish you would have seen the way I was nervously tapping my feet on the ground. I wish you would have seen the bruise that was forming on my ribs and how much pain I was in. He pushed me down the stairs today, Aaron. He found out I was having lunch with you and he got so upset. When I asked him why he did it, he said that I tripped. I KNOW I did not trip down the stairs, Aaron. He purposely pushed me because he was angry with me. He probably would have done a lot worse had I not left when I did and explained that we were in a public setting, having lunch at the local diner where his office was across the street. Gosh, it sounds terrible, but I wish you would have noticed what was going on with me and asked me. It’s not your fault. It’s my fault I didn’t speak up. I just don’t think I’ll ever be able to speak up myself, because… what if I’m crazy? He will lose it even more and hurt me even more than he has if he found out I told anyone what he does to me, especially if I told you. It was good to see your smile. I had this image of you from my wedding day and that’s not the Aaron Hotchner I wanted to recognize. I’m glad I got to see you today. It’ll be a memory and moment that helps me get through everything until our next lunch date. I hope it’s soon. Maybe the abuse from Jake will stop. I don’t know. Maybe you’ll recognize that I am being abused by Jake. You’re the world’s best profiler but you couldn’t profile me. Maybe I should play poker. You always said I was good at the game when we used to play, especially strip poker because I’d always have my clothes still on and you’d be down to your boxers before I even began to lose an article of clothing. (That’s because I felt bad and let you win). But, you always told me that I didn’t have a good enough poker face, but guess what Aaron? We were playing a game of poker today and you couldn’t even tell the cards I was trying to play tonight. My poker face was too good for you to see that I was broken, battered, and hurting. You saw a friend who you hadn’t seen since her wedding. You saw the woman you used to be engaged to now married to another man. Maybe you saw me smile and hug you right away so you convinced yourself that I had moved on, that I was okay without you. Damn it, Aaron, I got excited to hug you because I just wanted to feel loved for once since my wedding. I just wanted to be held by you because you brought me a little bit of safety and comfort. When you touched me, I couldn’t flinch because I knew you would have never done what he is doing to me. When you hugged me goodbye after our lunch, I didn’t want to let go right away because I didn’t want my time to be over with you. I just wanted to hold onto something good in my life for just a few more seconds, before I had to return to this hell. I’m hoping I get your wedding invitation soon, I owe you a dance since we never got to dance at my wedding.

Aaron remembered that day. He spent so much of that time talking about himself, you had rarely talked about you. He just remembers thinking about how beautiful you had looked. How you were smiling and laughing at whatever he was saying. You were intrigued at whatever he was talking about.

Thinking back to that lunch date and now reading the letter, he feels like a complete asshole. Why didn’t he just think to ask more about Jake? Maybe you were right. You knew he didn’t like Jake. You knew you weren’t going to talk about Jake with Aaron.

Rereading the letter again, he does remember the way your legs were bouncing under the table, he just thought you were really excited. He did remember the way you kept looking over his shoulder, like you were waiting for someone. He remembered the way you grabbed your rib cage and held it for a few seconds after laughing.

Then he remembered when you and he used to play strip poker, how he would always lose to you. He would be wanting to get you naked, yet he was always the one naked before you were. The more he would play poker with you though, he began to notice your tells, but you were right, you had perfected the poker face because he couldn’t pick up on the cards you were playing with at your lunch date.

He was an awful profiler. This was only the first lunch date you wrote about. How many other lunch dates did he miss the signs of a domestic violence victim that were right in front of him? Maybe he was trying to convince himself that you had moved on and that he had to be okay. He regrets it now. He regrets everything. Had he not broken up your engagement, you and he would be together, you wouldn’t have met Jake and he wouldn’t have married Haley. Haley was murdered because of his job. Two people he loved and both of them dealt with pain and suffering. Haley even lost her life because of it.

All because of him and his actions.

Aaron knew he couldn’t continue. He needed to get some food in him. He needed to go for a walk. He needed to cry. He didn’t know. He was hurting. He wanted to see you. He wanted to hold you in his arms again and he wanted to cry with you. He wanted to apologize to you.

As he stood up from his desk, he kept the letter folded up and placed it in his pocket. He grabbed the box of letters and grabbed his keys. He needed something to eat, but he was craving to read what you were going to write about next. He needed to get to the letter you wrote about your last lunch date together. He needed to know what lead up to it being the last one.

So, the only logical thing for him to do was to get in his car with your letters and drive to the diner that you two always met at. He sat in the booth that you two always sat at. He remembers asking you why you liked the booth and you said that you were far away enough from the front door but not super close to the kitchen. You liked being in the middle of everything, but you also liked to see everyone who was around you. Being in the middle, you could see everyone.

As he sat down at the booth, he ordered your favorite meal, not even his. He ordered what you would have gotten with him. Maybe he just needed to feel close to you. He didn’t know, but whatever it was, he was lost in rereading your first lunch date letter when the waitress asked him what he wanted and he just said your order, not realizing it until they brought it out to him.

Before he picked up the next letter, he was interrupted with a phone call from Jack. Jack was the best thing to happen to him. He was such a great kid. With everything he’s been through at a young age, Aaron was so proud of him.

******

“Mason’s asleep. Would you like to watch a movie?”

“I’m going out of town. Business trip. I’ll be out for two weeks.”

“Oh-okay. Um, when are you leaving?

“My flight leaves in two hours. Which is why, now that he’s asleep, I can have you all to myself.”

As you made your way over to kiss him, you felt him push you up against the wall. Full body covering yours. You didn’t realize your head hit the wall hard enough to put a dent in the wall.

When he grabbed your face, he said, “Do you really think I’m that dumb? Do you really think I didn’t know you went to see Aaron to see him and not his son? Your tracking device on the car was going crazy. You were at his place of work. You know what that means, huh?”

He slapped you and pushed you to the ground. As you yelped, he towered over you. You were scared. You didn’t know what was going to happen. Mason was upstairs sleeping, but you couldn’t protect him if something happened to you. You just needed to get Jake out of the house and then you were running away.

“Aaron has been a problem since our wedding. Do you remember that? Aaron’s name only ever seems to be the problem.”

“Jake. I promise nothing has happened between Aaron and me ever since Aaron and I were engaged. I can’t even look at him without wanting to yell at him. He broke my heart, but you. You saved me.”

God. You hated this. You hated lying to Jake but you were trying to keep yourself alive just until he was leaving.

“No. I’m done with this. I’m done with you running to him. No more lunch dates, ever. No more going to see Jack. No more helping Aaron. No more talking to Sean or anyone else that Aaron knows. From now on, it’s only you or I. I will hire someone to shop for us. I will get the dry cleaning if I have to. You’ll go to work, drop Mason off at daycare, and come home. That’s only where you’re allowed to go. I’ll know if you go somewhere and when I find out, I’ll be worse than I am now. I’ll really kill you.”

“Jake, please.”

“Shut up, bitch!”

Jake hit you harder. A punch that felt like you were seeing stars. You don’t know if you were knocked out, but you just closed your eyes and kept them closed, trying to fight off what else was coming your way from him.

You know you were bleeding, you could feel it coming down your head. You know you were crying. You know he was only getting madder. That’s why you were thankful that he got a phone call and that his friend was there to pick him up from their flight.

Leaving you behind, on the kitchen floor of your home, you slowly stood up, watching him get in his coworker’s car and watching the car take off down the street, you broke down crying. You needed to leave him. You had two weeks away from him. That was two weeks to get everything you and Mason needed out of the house and start a new life. You were doing it. You had finally had enough.

You grabbed your phone from the counter and called Aaron. Praying he would pick up as you were still trying to stop the bleeding from your head.

“Aaron, please. Please. Please pick up. Please, I need you right now. Please.”

You were saying a silent prayer, just waiting for him to answer.

“Hel-”

“Aaron, I need you to get Mason and I. Please. I need you, please. My address is still the same. Please, come fast.”

*****

He couldn’t even begin to read the next letter, just trying to make sure he was in the clear of throwing up before starting again. Then he got a phone call from you. It sounded like you were crying. He needed to get to you and he needed to get to you fast.

He threw money on the counter and placed the letter in the box, sprinting to his car, throwing the box in the back, and putting on his lights and sirens. He broke every law to make sure he got to you. When he pulled into your driveway, he got out of his car, and ran up to the door. He knocked on it. Probably, ore times than he needed to and probably way louder than you would have wanted him to.

When you opened the door, he saw your face. You watched the way he went from concerned to filled with rage quickly. He grabbed his gun and stepped inside your house, not caring if he had an invite in. From the looks of you, he had probable cause.

“Aaron. Put that away. He’s gone. He left. His friend picked them up, he’s going on a business trip. Aar-”

You broke down crying. All he could do was just grab your body and pull you into his. He was trying to take in everything that had happened to you within the very few hours you two had been apart. He was trying to see more cuts, bruises, and marks on you that he hadn’t seen before.

He saw the blood. He saw the busted lip. He saw the handprint on your face. He saw the way your body shook so hard in his arms. It killed him. Jake did this to you. Aaron wanted to console you for as long as he could, until you hadn’t mentioned anything about Mason.

“Where’s Mason, y/n? Where is he? Is he okay?”

“He’s. He’s upstairs. He’s sleeping.”

You began to control your breathing, just so you could stand up and begin to move upstairs toward Mason’s room. Aaron knew he had to get you to a hospital. This had to be documented. You were going to get full custody of Mason, he’ll make sure of it. But Jake had to be put in jail for what he did.

“I’m going to get you more ice and pack a diaper bag for Mason. I’m going to take you to the hospital. You need to get stiched and we’re going to file a police report. We’re going to do it together.”

“Aaron, no. It’s fine.”

“No, I’m not letting you tell me it’s fine when you call me to get you and Mason. I’m not going to let this go when you’ve just been beaten. You wanted help, please just let me help you. It’s going to be scary, but it won’t be any scarier than the hell you’ve been put through. So, please. I’m asking that you go get Mason. Pack a bag for him. I’ll get all his bottles. Grab some pajamas for yourself and some clothes for a couple of days. Some clothes for Mason. Once we’re done at the hospital you’re coming back to my apartment. I have an extra bedroom. If needed, I’ll let Jack sleep with me and you can put Mason in Jack’s room. I’m firm on this. Let me take care of you. Let me help you.”

You just wiped your tears and nodded at Aaron, which he nodded back, trying to hold his tears back from seeing you so upset. So broken. So vulnerable.

Aaron was right. You needed help. This was it. If Jake comes home tomorrow and apologizes, fine. But you cannot go back to him because you’ll be in that cycle that you’ve been in for the past 10 years. But how many times of that cycle do you have to keep repeating before enough is enough?

Aaron’s helping you break that cycle. That cycle of abuse is ending tonight.

Next Part

tagging: @8crazy-freak8 @angelmather1 @rousethemouse​ @lex13cm​ @mrs-ssa-hotch​ @camilahotchner 

[mvnvgedmischief]

unremarkable days.

summary: sirius black is trying to be a good man, a good brother, a good person. Sirius has a steady job designing book covers for a publishing house, a flat he never leaves, and a traumatized brother who was just removed from the custody of his parents. All in all, it's wildly unremarkable.

chapter:  4/?

characters: sirius black, regulus black, wolfstar, background marauders

tags: tw: canon compliant abuse, child abuse, social services, abuse

words: 3. 8 k

read it on ao3 here

read the last chapter here

Sirius knew that work was going to be high stress all day. He felt sick to his stomach, thinking about the way he would continuously have to talk to people, when all he wanted was some peace. He wanted downtime. Time when he didn’t have to think about how he needed his paycheck to put food on the table, clothes on his brother’s back, pay bills to keep his lights on, wifi for homework. Regulus occupied his thoughts at all times, protecting him was Sirius’s only priority these days. He didn’t have time for anything else. Not his friends, not his interests, not music. Nothing could come between his focus and his brother’s wellbeing, because if it did, Sirius would never forgive himself. The consequences were too dire. So instead, he just wished for downtime that wouldn’t come, and prayed for the weekend to approach even faster. 

The weekend, when he could finally sleep again, albeit not well. The weekend, when he had the time to take a breath, even if it was only brief. Because his weekends were also spent finding ways to better equip his apartment for his younger brother, going to long grocery runs so Regulus had lunch to take to school, meal prepping all of the things he couldn’t bring himself to eat for dinner. He was definitely tired of all of the ways his mind was spiraling out, he didn’t have the time. He didn’t fault Regulus for it, it wasn’t the teen's presence in his life that was causing all this stress. It really was his own fault. A bit of crying at that first hearing had given Walburga and Orion the satisfaction of a victory over him at that first hearing, and they seemed to crave more of that chaos. They wanted to watch their children suffer, and this was how they chose to do that. So instead he spiraled in the privacy of his own home, because he could practically hear the words they burned into his mind whenever he saw them, and feel the ache of old beatings. 

But it was only Thursday, and that meant he still had to do this all day, and  then get berated by the rest of the team for not attending their weekly bonding happy hour. If he was lucky,  no  one would ask him to go. He knew he should be less terrified of them asking, most of the people on his team were his friends. There was simply the question of Remus, and Sirius didn’t have the time to be thinking about him in the first place. 

He didn’t have time to think about  the way his hair curled just the right way to fall into his eyes when he slept, or the way his caramel freckles made him look sunkist. He didn’t have time to think about the  pink scars that ran down Remus’s face or how they got there. He definitely didn;’t have time to think of the comfort  of his hand combing through Sirius’s own mop of unruly curls. So instead, he needs to  put  all of that out  of his mind. It wasn’t going to help him do well at work. It wasn’t going to solve his problems. He didn’t have the  time for this, nor did he have the emotional bandwidth. Perhaps that was why Sirius was conveniently avoiding the idea that he had asked Remus on a date. With some luck, Remus would think he was just an asshole who ghosted him. That was definitely complicated by the fact that they worked together, that he couldn’t just disappear. He wanted to, he really did, because there was simply no time. 

He set up his deliverables as though he had made tons of them, because his employment in this company  rode on it. Just two months ago, he was pegged to be promoted within the next two cycles, and now he could barely hold on to his sanity enough to handle his workload. He was so fucking tired, and he had so much on his plate. He needed to mentally prepare himself for the long day of meetings ahead of him. He had no true motivation to do his job right now, all he knew was that his exhaustion was no excuse. He knew that his boss, Alice, was giving him a whole lot of leeway right now. She was probably doing more than she should to help him. Being a mentor on the senior design team didn’t mean she needed to keep tabs on his personal life and pick up his slack. 

“Sirius–” 

When Sirius focused back into the meeting he was calling into, it occurred to him that they’re talking to him. So he did what he always did, blamed it on a shoddy connection. 

“Oh, sorry, can you repeat that? My audio cut out.” 

“Remus was saying that some of  the poems could probably use illustrations, and he was wondering if you had any ideas on which ones needed it.” 

“Thanks, Peter.” Sirius was glad that he knew the people on this team, that Peter and James were as close to him as anyone could be. Because otherwise, he’d probably be fucked. 

“So I was looking through them, and I was thinking Bite, Magick, and Love I could probably use larger scale illustrations. But at the same time, we don’t want to crowd the book. How attached are you to the current order or page arrangement?” 

It felt too close, but he was lucky that he had at least read the titles of some of the poems in the first half of the book. Sirius knew Remus didn’t actually know what his level of involvement was. He thought it was just doodles, but Sirius would be responsible for presenting everything from kearning and font choice within the pages, to illustration and cover art to the design team. He was integral to the success of this book as a product, and he  needed to start acting like it. 

“I’m pretty attached.” Remus sounded cold to Sirius, and he wondered what exactly he had done wrong in this meeting. And yet, he didn’t have time to think on it. He needed to keep things moving, keep getting valuable information out of the author. Hook up be damned, Sirius needed this book to actually get off the ground. 

 “Okay, well we should get a meeting on the calender to discuss. What poems and what scale of illustrations you want–” 

“Shouldn’t you be deciding what the illustrations look like and the logistics of those. Isn’t that what you  get paid for?” Remus really wasn’t making this easy on Sirius. But he had dealt with bigger demons and divas then whatever this attitude was. So he put on a light and airy smile, one they’d never know didn’t reach his eyes over the low quality webcam and nodded. 

“If you’d like to take a hands off approach with the design work, that can absolutely be arranged. But in the case of a fledgling project with a new author, the design team, myself included, really hope to prioritize your artistic license so that we can get a better sense of your vision for your literature, should Quill move forward with other publications in the future.  We can provide a completely in-house service, with as much input as you feel necessary during the design process, and deliver collateral towards the end of the project when final edits are done, if you would prefer, Mister Lupin.” 

Sirius practically wanted to scream. He needed Remus to stop fucking with his job, with his livelihood. He couldn’t lose this project. He needed all of the billable hours he could get if he was going to justify the overtime he needed in order to provide for his brother. This was ridiculous. But his clinical and polite answer must have thrown Remus, because he didn’t get much more attitude out of him. The back and forth had ended. So instead, Sirius pulled up his deliverables for the week, which included new iterations for the covers, and twelve illustrations for the three poems he had mentioned. 

He noticed the way Remus looked at his drawings, like he was pained by whatever his thoughts were, and Sirius wants to scream that he’s under no obligation to think that they’re good. But then he remembers that Remus seemed to be nitpicking on purpose, based on his critique of the design system itself. Sirius didn’t have the time to deal with that level of petty, just because he hadn’t been answering. He was too busy. He had too much on his plate. So instead he continues his presentation. 

“I don’t like any of these. Maybe you should start over.” Remus sounded vindictive, even mean. Like he was doing this out of spite.  Sirius could feel his heart drop in that moment. He didn’t want to start over. He didn’t have the time. 

“What do you not like about them?” Sirius is trying to salvage his work while he can. 

“The vibe is off.”

“Oh, is there something specific that throws it off or...” Sirius trailed off, wondering what exactly he needed to change. 

“No, it’s the whole thing. All of them are just off.” 

Sirius needed to think quick on his feet. He didn’t have the time to start from scratch, so he pulled up his original thumbnails that he had discussed with Remus. 

“These are the original sketches we discussed. I moved forward with the ones we talked about. I’m happy to rework those sketches,” no, he wasn’t. “But if there’s another sketch that you think would fit your vision better, please let me know.” He felt like he was pleading with Remus not to hate his artwork. He’d be a liar if he said it wasn’t a blow to his self esteem to hear that everything that he did was bad. 

“No, I would suggest you start over.” 

Sirius nodded, his mind immediately whirring with ways he could start over and re-design this project. He really didn’t want to do it. He didn’t want to do hundreds of thumbnails to get set on thirty, only to be destroyed in a meeting again. Especially when Remus seemed so excited about all of his illustrations before the meetings. It felt like too much. He didn’t have the energy for this kind of behavior. 

Luckily, Marlene directed the conversation away from Sirius’s work. The rest of the call went on without a hitch, like the only person who’s work Remus had a problem with was Sirius’s. He knew that it was more likely for Remus to have a problem with him, because design work was usually something an artist thought of as easy; however, this felt calculated and cold. If Sirius had been avoiding Remus before, it definitely wasn’t about to get better. So instead, he listened to the end of the meeting, and started the project all over again. He could do this. It was an unremarkable critique. It didn’t matter.

[darker-soft-starker]

Starker High School AU, Pt. 2 (Pt. 1, Pt. 3, Pt. 4, Pt. 5)

-----

Peter will admit that during he took an extended moment during his journey home to grieve the loss of his free afternoon, and indeed the impending headaches.

And the rest of his future, if he was honest.

Not that Peter was prone to melancholy by any means, but with this assignment his fate was officially sealed, there was no misunderstanding. He was going to fail this assignment. He was going to, for the first time in his academic career, be forced to submit garbage of a caliber worthy of Tony Stark. It will forever be a black mark on his academic record.

No respectable college is going to accept him after this. In fact, he might as well drop out of school now and hit up Mr Delmar for a job. All of his prep for his MIT application is as good as useless after this. Extracurriculars? Goodbye.

Because it’s confirmed.

He’s doomed.

Swaying with the motions of the train, Peter types a text to Ned, the only person who might provide him with some much needed sympathy.

>  I’m doomed >  paired w/stark for an assignment lollllllllll.  >  help

Maybe Peter could trade with Ned. Maybe he could plead with their teacher, for honest fear of his life and scholastic integrity. He wasn’t even exaggerating. In no known iteration of this universe could Peter amicably work with Tony Stark. It would be like Harry Potter sitting down for tea with Voldemort, or Frodo and Sauron chilling with a pint and a pipe in Bag End. 

It was unthinkable. Implausible. Laughable.

And Peter would laugh, were it anyone but him in this situation.

The feeling is unusual. Never had he found reason in his life to truly dislike anybody before, everyone could be redeemed or given the opportunity for penance. Natasha has said more than once that Peter would offer the devil himself a sandwich if he appeared. 

Tony Stark on the other hand? No sandwich for him.

Well, maybe a slice of bread. A stale one.

While he waits for Ned to responds he catches sight of his injured reflection in the train window, which is admittedly pretty gnarly. Even with his hood drawn up, there was a noticeable berth allocated to him in the busy carriage between himself and the other passengers.

< sux. can I have ur lego hogwarts if u die?

> dude :( pity me.

< lol. so, can i?

Peter sighs.

> sure. Look after May for me, bro. delete my internet history.

< deal. godspeed

Pocketing his phone, Peter wonders if it’s too late to take up praying.

---

By the time he’s back in his apartment his mood has managed to swing back up.

Tony Stark is not going to be the arbiter of Peter’s fate. Hell no. He’s smart, he’s creative and hardworking - it isn’t up to anybody but Peter to determine his outcomes. If he has to do the assignment with Stark then he will. And he will work his hardest. 

If he has to do it sharing the credit with Stark, well, Peter knows a concession when he sees one.

No matter how reluctant he is.

But he powers through it, like ripping off a bandaid. It’s fine! He’s a Parker and he’s come this far in life already against ill, Parker-like odds. What was being paired for one assignment with someone who escaped the nearest hellmouth? 

It’ll be fine. 

Probably.

Not letting himself linger on his fears, Peter clears out his previous plans of going on a YouTube spiral and eating sour gummies until his teeth stick, instead utilising the time to get his foot in and and begins prepping for the assignment. Cursory, preliminary research at first, before the inevitable deep dive begins.

Neanderthal, Peter scoffs, mad all over again. Who is Stark to call Peter a neanderthal? He’s second in his class. He’s a straight A student. He likes school.

And as much as he is moderately skilled in, and enjoys JV, it’s not like he received his scholarship to study at Midtown based on his physical prowess.

The graze on his cheek that stings every time he yawns is proof of that.

Stark can eat his entire ass and choke on it, he thinks darkly, as he continues his research. He doesn’t know the first thing about Peter.

The data is sobering as he delves into job listings and statistics of his projected salary in a three year margin. This is really what his teachers earn? Wow. Depressing.

The contrast of expected salary versus the forecast of steep student loans is disheartening further still.

Teaching quietly slips from second to third on his list of ideal occupations.

Turning on a playlist on his phone, Peter continues to compile notes, amassing a truly gargantuan amount of tabs on his browser. His computer, old enough to be on its’ last teeth, whirrs loudly in protest.

It’s not until his room goes dark that he thinks to check the time.

Ah, shit. It’s nearly six.

Peter pauses. Should he tidy up the apartment?

...Nah, no point in breaking a sweat for Stark.

He continues typing. Then he hesitates, fingers suspended in mid-air. 

But what if Stark sees his unfolded laundry out on the dining table and publicly shames him for his old-but-comfortable Bulbasaur themed boxer shorts?

Goddamnit.

---

A quick, cursory clean ensues and leaves a relatively orderly Parker apartment. No freshly laundered underwear is in sight.

Peter wraps up just a few minutes before six. Right on time.

Taking a seat at the now clear dining table Peter drums his fingers on the surface and waits.

And waits.

And waits.

---

He knows when Tony finally arrives when he hears the sound of a car pulling up outside his apartment block. The riffs of a Roxette remix can be heard playing loudly  from the ground to the seventh floor of his apartment, the bass so thunderous it reverberates the windows all the way up to his floor.

Drumming his fingers on the kitchen table, Peter checks the wall clock again. It’s nearly seven.

Tony’s late.

Not that Peter is particularly affected with surprise that Tony is incapable of following basic instructions, but still. Really? Really?

By the time there is a knock on his door, Peter is already before it, his arms crossed over his chest and a scowl on his face. Every second between Tony pulling up and his ascent to Peter’s floor has him positively fuming. He can’t believe how this day played out. It started with such promise. He had such innocuous, but high hopes.

Clearly, he miscalculated.

Feeling a touch petty, he waits to answer, listening to Stark knock a second and then a third, more insistent time before he rouses enough calm to open the door.

He instantly regrets it when he does. 

Tony’s expression is curious one as he breezes right passed Peter without waiting for further invitation. There’s a smudge of something dark on his brow, his otherwise white undershirt smeared in dark stains.

Peter watches incredulously as the other boy drops his backpack by the door with a thump.

“You’re late.”

He closes the door behind Tony and scowls at the other boys easy posture, hands shoved into his pockets, eyes taking in the apartment.

“I didn’t realise you lived all the way out in fucking Queens. Do you have any idea how bad traffic is at this time of day? Also, your elevator doesn’t work. I just climbed seven flights of stairs, where’s the hospitality?”

“Try earning it.”

The other boy rolls his eyes. “Like it’s worth my time.” He breezes past Peter and slides his leather jacket off his arms, tossing it atop of his backpack in the corner. “Look, I’m here now. Okay? You can unclench now. So, do I get a tour or what?”

“Or what. This wouldn’t have been an issue if we had just started straight after class like I said.”

“Oh I’m sorry,” Tony clutches his hands to his heart before gesturing to the room. “I didn’t realise I was interrupting your busy Friday night, Parker. You got a keg and the rest of the meatheads stashed away somewhere?”

Without waiting for a response, Tony wanders around the living room like a curious child in a new play room. His gaze inspects everything all at once, from peering at up close at the wall mounted photos and hovering his grubby hands over the oddments and knick-knacks speckled throughout the space.

Apprehensive, Peter can’t help but shadow him, afraid he just let loose a hurricane in a china shop.

Without asking, Tony picks up May’s old Magic 8-Ball and gives it a good shake. Peter’s fingers itch to reach over and stop him, but stops himself because then that would require actually making direct skin contact the other boy.

Not worth it.

“Cannot predict now. Huh,” Tony says to himself before placing the ball back in the wrong spot. 

They both watch silently as it rolls precariously close to the edge. 

“Anyways,” Tony helps himself to an armchair, lounging back and spreading his legs wide. “I know your long-term memory is probably as defective as the rest of you, so don’t strain yourself recalling that I had other priorities.”

“Like what?”

“Like literally anything that isn’t being around you,” the other boy grins. “Now, are we doing this thing, or did you invite me over so you could bitch at me?”

“I didn’t invite you,” Peter grumbles, swiping his notebook from the dining table before sitting on the sofa, as far away from Stark as possible. Shifting, he takes his phone from his pocket and opens the notes he’d taken earlier.

“So, I cross referenced some websites and current job listings,” Peter scrolls through his research, adjusting his glasses as they slip down his nose. “Assuming you have no savings, we’re looking at an average of sixty-thousand per annum based on my salary alone. The average rent in --”

“-- Uh, why are we assuming I have no savings?”

"Because... we’re being realistic?”

Tony springs to his feet and paces across the living room.

“Well,” he says, gesturing to Peter, “if we’re being realistic, does having no savings also that mean I have no debt -- or are you paying off two student loans on your salary?”

“I don’t --”

“Do we have car loans? Health insurance?”

“Wait, slow your roll, Stark. I haven’t yet --”

“-- Of course you haven’t. I mean really, Parker, do you ever think ahead? You should try it, we do have a baby on the way, you know.” Tony clicks his fingers and points at Peter. “Oh, names! I want to call it Molly.”

“As in the drug?” 

“No, as in Ringwald. Anyhoo, seeing as only one of us has the intellectual capacity to construct a budget,” Tony gestures to himself, “that would be me, consider maybe that I spent my savings paying off my student loans and bought a car for me and Miss Molly, leaving you with just your own stagnant debt. Happy?”

“Thrilled,” he says through clenched teeth, feeling utterly steamrolled. “But we’re not calling the baby Molly.”

“Yes, we are. Think of all the great nicknames. Hey wait,” Tony pauses in his pacing, “are your parents going to be home soon?”

It was in that moment Peters world narrows down to one, botched cosmic joke.

Turning his gaze heavenwards, Peter prays silently for mercy. What did he do to deserve this. This is all his bad karma come at once. This is the bad place.

“Ah, no,” he replies, eyes widening. “No, my parents are not going to be home soon.”

“Cool. Lucky you.”

Oblivious to Peter’s existential turmoil, Tony resumes his patrol through the living room, picking up a frame on the mantle. It houses an old photo of Ben, May and a young, bespectacled Peter. 

It is one of the more embarrassing immortalisations of his younger self, eleven-years old and grinning widely, bearing his silver braces to the camera as he holds up a science fair trophy, curls wild and untamed.

Oh god. That was exactly what Peter needed on this unholy day - Tony Stark in his living room, witnessing Peter in his prepubescent glory. 

Quick, create a diversion.

“So, as I was saying,” he says loudly, “rent is reasonably affordable with a sixty-thousand budget in --”

“Who’s the babe?” Tony points to a younger Aunt May in the photo.

Peter gets to his feet and removes the frame from Tony’s grasp. He glowers as he places it back on the mantle. 

“No one you would have a chance with. Can you stay focused? Like, are you physically capable of it?”

“Okay, calm down,” Tony holds his hands up in surrender. “You’ve got a lot of anger for someone so vertically challenged, you know that, shortstack?” 

“Focus, dumbass.”

“I’m focused! Let’s see, we’ve established that I am excellent at managing my money. You have a shitty job and a shitty salary, and apparently my imaginary future self has terrible taste in men. So. Have I got that right? Where are we living?”

“Queens. LIC has some one bed, one baths that could be affordable.”

“Uh, rewind. Going to have to eighty-six that - I am not living in Queens.”

Peter stares at him.

Tony rubs his hands over his face and sighs. “Fine, whatever. But I want a Pontiac Firebird in this imaginary life if I have to deal with you.”

“For someone so keen on getting away you’re doing your best to prolong this experience. It’s literally painful.”

“Well, I just like to see you get all riled up, Princess,” Tony grins, leaning back against the mantle and folding his arms over his chest. “You have this vein that bulges on your forehead when you’re mad. Makes you look like a pitbull.”

Peter swallows the particularly acidic retort sitting on his tongue and tries not to let Tony’s words sting. Be the bigger man, Ben used to say. As difficult as it is to channel even a modicum of the mans’ eternal patience, Peter takes a deep breath and reminds himself to stay focused. The less he gets sidetracked by Tony’s fuckery, the sooner it’s over.

He mentions the next part with unease. 

“...Miss Ahn said that we need references and should do field research. Speak to realtors. Ask people who have a similar lifestyle and budget.”

The look that comes over the other boys face is one of unequivocal revulsion. Peter can relate. The thought of having to spend more time with this guy makes his stomach turn.

“Well, Parker, any bright ideas who we can ask?”

The hinges of the front door squeaks before Peter can respond.

Moments after, Aunt May walks into the living room, placing her bag down on the dining table. She looks between the two boys curiously.

“Hey, Pete,” she comes to his side to squeezes his shoulder. “Who do we have here?”

Tony rushes over with his hand outstretched, an eager grin on his face. 

“Tony Stark, ma’am. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Oh, ah, okay, well,” May laughs as he enthusiastically shakes her hand. Her eyes are soft as Tony smiles brightly at her. “Nice to meet you too, Tony. I’m May, Peter’s aunt. Are you... friends with Peter?”

Peter snorts. 

“Definitely not. We just have an assignment --”

“-- Great friends, actually,” Tony talks over him, taking a seat beside Peter on the sofa. To Peter’s utter disgust, the other boy puts an arm around his shoulders, squeezing his bicep encouragingly. “Aren’t we, Pete? Hmm? Best buds. We go way back.”

Peter freezes, feeling the line of heat from Tony’s against his side, the weight of his arm on his body. 

Eyes widening, he feels his skin crawl. 

“That’s sweet,” May smiles, putting her hair up in a loose, messy bun. “Well, I don’t know about you boys, but I’m starving. I’m ordering pizza, Friday special. You should stay for dinner, Tony.”

Tony places his free hand on his chest.

“I would be honoured.”

May looks at Tony strangely before retreating to the kitchen to retrieve the menus.

As soon as she’s out of sight Tony takes his arm off Peter and quickly shifts away from him like he’s been burned. 

“Dude,” Peter whispers, bewildered. “What the fuck?”

“Oh my god,” Tony whispers, shuddering as his face scrunches up in disgust. “I’m going to have to pour scalding hot water on all the places your skin just touched me. Ugh, I feel like I just touched toe fungus.”

Peter slaps his arm.

“What is wrong with you?”

Tony backhands Peter’s arm in retaliation and then shudders all over again.

“Your aunt is crazy hot, okay, I couldn’t help myself. It was an instinctual reaction. Is she taken? C’mon. Vindicate me.” 

“I’ll eviscerate you --”

“-- I mean, clearly she married into the family, she doesn’t share your unfortunate phenotype, but I didn’t see a ring on her finger. So? Yes or no?”

“You’re unbelievable,” Peter hisses as his aunt comes back in. “She’s not available to you. Not now, not ever.”

“But she is available?”

“Don’t even, Stark. You’re like, sixteen. Don’t you have any shame?”

Tony smiles, as she nears. “Not a shred.”

“So,” May waves a menu at them. “You boys happy with pepperoni?”

Closing his eyes, Peter wishes for death.

As fate would have it, he gets pepperoni instead.

-----

If you had ever told Peter that he would be sitting down for dinner with his Aunt and a dirt-streaked Tony Stark, he would have laughed.

And if Peter were outside himself he would probably find the sharing of pizza and soda over their plastic, chequered table-cloth comical -- in that uncanny, Dogs Playing Poker kind of way. But in reality there was nothing funny about the discomfort of having Tony in his personal space or the heavy, suffocating tension that has removed the air from the room. 

The entire time Tony has been hamming it up, cracking jokes with his aunt, complimenting her on the decor, asking what she does for work. Peter doesn’t know if he’s being sweet to May for the purpose of buttering her up, or, given the wealth of his family in contrast to the Parkers, if he’s being cruelly facetious. 

Nonetheless, Peter has felt on edge. It’s disconcerting, is what it is. Every single movement Tony makes, every time he opens his mouth -- frequently to sweet-talk his aunt -- has Peter’s anxiety standing at attention, hyperaware of everything the other boy does.

He’s beginning to feel like a meerkat whose den has been invaded by a lion.

Through the course of a single meal Peter’s attention moves from the sky to the floor. There is no grace or higher power that is coming to save him from this profound, unusual torture. 

So he focuses his hopes to the south, seeing through their tiny, cramped, dinner table, past bargaining. He’s willing to trade his soul to end it all. Surely some wayward being from hell would come to his rescue. 

May has Peter’s chin between her fingers. She turns it this way and that, inspecting his injuries.

“What happened this time, bubby?” She frowns, brow furrowing. “You look like you got beat up.”

Peter, very aware of Tony’s amused gaze on them, gently pulls away from her grasp. He smiles placatingly and picks at his pizza slice. God he’s never going to live this down.

“Training accident. It’s okay, I feel fine. ‘Tis but a scratch,” he brings himself to joke.

“You sure?”

“Yep.”

She leans in to kiss his cheek, carefully avoiding the fresh scabs and injured flesh. “God, you bruise like a peach. Be careful, baby, you’re our money maker,” she laughs. “What about you Tony, do you play football?”

Tony, who is mid way through chewing on a mouthful of pizza, momentarily chokes, beating his chest with his fist to swallow down the obstruction.

“Uh, no,” Tony gulps, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Nope. No recreational sports for me. Can’t.” He gestures to his chest and sighs heavily. “Asthma.”

Peter sips his coke and rolls his eyes, knowing full well there’s a half-empty pack of Marlboro Light’s in the pocket of Tony’s jeans. Asthma. What a schmuck.

“That’s a shame. Do you boys have classes together?”

Unfortunately, Peter thinks.

The other boy seems to have the same thought, as he glares at Peter from over the table. When he picks up his can of coke, he gives Peter the finger outside of May’s eye-line.

“That’s why Tony’s here,” Peter twists his napkin in his grip. “We have an econ assignment together on microeconomics. Teach says Tony’s destined to be on welfare.”

Tony leans in, chin rested on his hand. He addresses May but his stare, dark and odious, rests on Peter.

“Not accurate. Stay-at-home parent, actually. One might say that is the most important job of all. Wouldn’t you agree, May?”

She raises her Coke.

“Hear, hear.”

Tony grins roguishly, the same grin he gave the girls at the lockers earlier. “Petey here was just saying that we should ask you about your experience running a household on a single salary. We’d love to have you as a reference.”

“Was I saying that?” Peter narrows his eyes. “I can’t remember.”

Tony kicks him under the table. The hit lands right in his knee cap.

Wincing, Peter kicks back, satisfied when the other boy bites his lip to hold back a pained groan.

“Yeah, well, not surprising,” Tony says airily, waving his hand. “Hit your head today, didn’t you? Maybe you should get all that damage looked into.”

The napkin rips in Peter’s grasp.

“Maybe you should go f--”

“I’d be more than happy to help with your assignment, boys,” May cuts in.

Whatever snide reply he has in his mouth instantly wilts when he looks over to his Aunt. She looks...pleased. Delighted, almost. Her eyes under the dull, yellow kitchen light seem to get warmer, and her smile is small but softens around the edges.

Instantly, Peter feels like the worst person in the world. Of course May would be the best person to ask. She does so much for him, the least he can do is set his pride aside for one moment to make her feel good about how hard she works for their life.

He reaches over to squeeze her hand, smiling as gratitude swells unexpectedly in his chest.

“Thanks, May. That would be great.”

Across the table, a smug Tony looks like the cat who got the cream. 

Without warning, Peter’s chest goes hot with contempt, his fingernails dig into his palm. He’s not sure he’s ever met anyone he couldn’t like, until now.

I hate you, Peter mouths while May busies herself with rounding up the pizza boxes.

Kiss my ass, Tony mouths back. 

In an instant his expression flips from contemptuous to angelic when he stands and offers to help May clean up.

Peter stands too, sparing a disdainful glance to the floor. Turns out not even the devil was willing to give him a hand.

Natasha was right. It’s going to end in murder.

---

Peter walks Tony to the door after dinner to say goodbye to his ‘friend’. Following him into the hall, Peter closes the door behind them.

“What do you want, Parker?” Tony asks wearily, retrieving a cigarette from his pocket. “I’m trying to make a getaway here.”

Peter crosses his arms over his chest. “Don’t do that with my aunt. I’m not joking, asshole. It’s not cool.”

“Relax, princess,” Tony rolls his eyes, fishing for his lighter in his backpack. “I’m not actually interested. Just trying to get under your skin. Worked, see? You’re easy like that. Hey, why do you live with your aunt anyways?”

“None of your business,” he frowns as Tony holds one hand up in surrender and lights his cigarette with the other. “Dude, you can’t smoke in here.”

“Can’t, shouldn’t, gonna. By the way, you’ve got sauce on your chin, it’s very distracting.”

Peter wipes at it without thinking. When he pulls it away there is indeed a smear of red sauce on his hand.

Tony walks backwards down the hall and exhales a cloud of smoke, waving in a sardonic imitation of a farewell.

“See you Monday, bubby.”

Peter doesn’t bother with a response, too tired from the week, exhausted by this whole darn day, and it’s not like the other boy cares what he has to say anyway. He takes a moment to swallow his anger before he heads back inside, sighing. 

Well, at least he has an entire weekend free of Stark to look forward to.

May looks at him curiously when he reemerges, but says nothing. He considers for a moment about heading to his bedroom and playing a video game to disassociate - but then, suddenly, remembers her smile earlier, and how alone she looks now. A surge of affection hits him right beneath his breastbone.

He checks his watch and then catches her eye.  Tilting his head towards the living room, he says, “Hey. You wanna eat some ice cream and watch some Colbert before bed?”

She smiles just like she did earlier and kisses his cheek. “Sounds nice, Pete.”

Maybe the whole day wasn’t lost.

As May heads to the sofa and switches the TV on, Peter catches sight of the Magic 8-Ball from the corner of his eye. He walks over and gives it a shake.

Outlook good.

*

*

----

tagging: @bylerboyfriends @ravens-starker-stuff, @starker-rays, @ironspiderstarker, @notfor-temporaryuse, @tabbycat1220, @sugarfreecult, @rebel13lion39, @muse-of-gods

[michelinchefbrando]

flour baked stuff and what not (still more to be added)

Bread

To start my journey of becoming a “Michelin star chef” I decided to make bread. I’m not even going to lie but making bread is a lot easier than I thought it would be. It just mainly required a whole lot of patience.

Cake

A chef is very versatile and crafty, I decided to dabble my feet in the pond and make a cake from scratch. None of that Pillsbury Doughboy stuff we’re making it by hand and hoping and praying to god that it turns out good.

The end results.

So I made two cakes and let’s just say that it was quite the learning process. The first cake was just flat-out bone-dry, don’t get me started on how badly stuck the cake was to the pan. The second cake, however, was a major improvement. Since I decided to take my sweet time mixing my batter instead of being all gung-ho the cake was the right texture, it was fluffy and it was as if I was taking a chunk out of a cloud.

The ingredients I used

1 ½ cups of sugar, 3 large eggs, ½ cups of unsalted butter, 1 teaspoon of salt, 2 ¼ cups of all-purpose flour, 3 and ½ teaspoon of baking powder, 1 ¼ cups of milk, and finally 1 teaspoon of vanilla  (You can choose your frosting)

To start off this Mcguffin, you need to set your oven to 350 degrees (which is like 176 Celsius).

Whilst that is being set ablaze mix the flour, salt, and baking powder together and just toss it aside over yonder for a while.

Next, you just need to prep the pan. Either use butter, shortening, or baking spray and just rub the pans and try to get every nook and cranny. Once you are done put a thin coating of flour on the pan. 

Get your butter and sugar and “beat the devil out of it” until it is light and fluffy.

To prep your batter slowly add in an egg and just Whack it until it’s smooth and creamy (adding one egg at a time will make the batter smoother). When that is done just plop in the dry ingredients right in the mixer. Once that’s mixed grab your vanilla and milk and slowly incorporate and alternate it so that the milk can have a better chance of being absorbed.

In this last part make sure that the mixture is altogether so that any remaining flour is long gone to Valhalla. Once you practically erased any trace of flour left separate the mix into any cake pan of your choosing and bake it in the oven for 20-30 minutes. (Make sure to let it cool for 15 minutes when you take it out of the oven) 

Bada bing bada boom you got cake just slap whatever you want on there.

https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-a-cake-from-scratch-224370

Churros 

We’ve all had churros from Costco (I would assume) and let me tell you they are amazing. This was my inspiration to attempt to make churros at home. 

The result, in the end, was alright. Some had this soft consistency in the middle with a slightly crunchy outside and I for sure liked this. Whilst on the other hand some were hard on the inside and crunchy, which isn’t all that bad but I would have preferred them to be soft on the inside. I somewhat guessed when each churro was ready but from what I read, you need to look for this golden brown color.

What I used 

1 cup of water, ¼ cups of butter (unsalted), 1 tbsp of granulated sugar, 1 /4 tsp of salt, 1 cup of all-purpose flour 1 large egg ½ tsp of vanilla extract, and the veggie oil for the frying. (The coating can be either sugar, cinnamon, or both)

To start off heat up 1 1/2 vegetable oil in a skillet or a large pot at 360 degrees

Then to make the batter mix butter, water, salt, and sugar into a pan over medium-high heat. After a while reduce the heat to medium-low and add flour. Stir until the mixture is consistent or smooth. Transfer into a bowl and let it sit for 5 mins. After that add your egg and vanilla and once again mix. 

After you mix it all together put it all into a piping bag with a rounded star tip (if you want to get funky just change the tip)

Finally, very carefully pipe the mixture into the oil (don’t do what I did and burn myself). You can choose the length you want the churro to be. Cut the end with scissors and repeat until you’re satisfied. 

https://www.cookingclassy.com/churros/

Apple Pie

Apple pie is pretty good heck even the McDonald’s apple pies are pretty good. Apple pies are very nostalgic for me because when I was young (who knows how long ago) I and my family went out of state to bum nowhere and we’ve stumbled upon some diner (that I think was torn down for some odd reason). Getting back on topic, the first thing I ordered there was an apple pie, and my god when I took my first bite my third chakra opened. Boy, I would commit many crimes just to get another taste of that pie, but since I am unable to I’ve decided to make my own. An apple pie that is as good or even better than the one I ate all those years ago.

Long story short, it wasn’t. The pastry was all sorts of wack. The reason is that I used warm ingredients like room-temperature butter. When making pie you should be using cold ingredients. However, you shouldn’t be using ingredients that are too cold, if so then your pastry will be hard to manage thus being over-worked. Another thing that went wrong with the pastry is that the filling was too “wet”. Do I know why, not at all. From what I looked on the internet one way to get rid of this wetness is to use some sort of thickener, It could be flour tapioca or cornstarch. The thickener would bind to the water thus making it less wet. Another trick is to precook your apples or filling goodies in the oven for a bit so it can release some water from the fruit. 

Here’s what I did or what I used 

1 recipe pastry for a 9-inch double-crust pie, ½ cup unsalted butter, 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour, ¼ cup water, ½ cup white sugar, ½ cup packed brown sugar, 8 Granny Smith apples - peeled, cored, and sliced.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and Melt the butter in a pan. Stir in flour to form a paste. Then add water, white sugar, and brown sugar, and bring to a boil. Reduce the temperature and let it simmer.

Place the bottom crust in the pan then fill it with apples then once again cover with another top layer, and put butter and sugar on it.

Finally, bake for 15 minutes in the oven. reduce the temp to 350 degrees and continue baking till the apples are soft.

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/12682/apple-pie-by-grandma-ople/

https://www.eatingwell.com/article/2055346/mistakes-that-ruin-pie-and-how-to-fix-them/

Peanut Butter Cookies 

Cookies make everything good, have crippling agonizing pain, eat a cookie. Have the inability to concentrate on your work, eat a cookie and wash your stress away. Cookies are a good all-around snack from Oreos to Chips ahoys you really can’t go wrong with them... unless you get pumpkin cookies. Since I box here and there eating just plain chocolate chip cookies won’t be healthy in the slightest, that is why I’ve decided to make peanut butter cookies that I can eat post-workout. (Even if they still aren’t that healthy)

I’ve made two batches of the PB cookies and the second one was significantly better than the first. The first batch just wasn’t as good it tasted dry and whenever you took a bite it would just crumble. The cause of it was that I put too much flour in the mix. One thing I will say though is that when you take your cookies out of the oven they’ll be soft to the touch, and let me be honest with you when that happened I was shivering my timbers because I thought something was wrong, turns out everything was all good you just had to let them sit aside for a while to harden.

The ingredients I used. 

1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup butter unsalted, 1 cup peanut butter1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup sugar,1 tsp vanilla extract,1 egg large, 3/4 tsp baking powder.

The first thing you have to do is to set your oven to 350 degrees. To prep,  grab some parchment paper on there and whack it on some baking pans and you’ll be good. Next, grab your handy mixer ( If you don’t have one like me just grab a huge bowl and mix by hand). Mix the flour and baking powder together, set that aside. 

In a separate bowl mix the butter, sugars, and the PB until they’re mixed. When that’s all turned into mush mix in the egg, and the vanilla extract, as well as the flour into it. When that’s all mixed into harmony, grab a blob of that batter and roll it into a ball and place it on said baking pan. Flatten the cookies and then let the cookies bake in the oven for 10 minutes.

Bam you got cookies.

https://preppykitchen.com/peanut-butter-cookies-recipe/

Pizza

It has been a long 30 days I’ll admit, but it was extremely worth it. Now since I have worked like a mad dog throughout this challenge, I thought it would be nice to make myself a treat, pizza. As peter parker said, “It’s pizza time”. 

Making pizza was no easy task let me tell you that much. You need whole lotta things like a pizza oven. Since I’m a lazy bum I bought myself a pizza stone. Since ovens can’t naturally get hot enough to properly cook a pizza some guy at NASA invented the pizza stone. Let me tell you this thing is a godsend for those who don’t want to spend bucko bucks on a pizza oven. 

[reverxnce]

|| Continued || 

@counttwo-4​

     His courageous savior, it seemed, had lingered near one of the pews.

    Instead of the holy-looking armor, he wore a sweater that barely fit him and his old military pants that were… horribly tattered, and was barefoot. His prosthetic leg faintly gleamed a tad in the candlelight– an old thing that looked to have been added on to time and time again with a strange, futuristic technology that could only be described as alien, with techno-organic wires that looked to be brass covering a wooden-ceramic leg, like muscle covering bone, with a few golden glows beneath it. Upon his palms, strange sigils were visible– much like before. His palms, his feet (yes, including his prosthetic), and his whole back… covered by his sweater.

     Of course, beneath his attire was also quite a few bandages, too. But… his expression visibly softened for once, watching Ezekiel kneel before the crucifix and pray.

     Slowly, Ezekiel was returning to his normal self, the Arch-Judicator knew, but he knew one thing: the knowledge of Hell would still cause pain. Still cause fear. He couldn’t have that– and, soon, he’d have to help him forget it in the same way he had with the girl he considered his granddaughter… but… Not yet.

     Right now (even if he huffily didn’t want to admit it in his horrid state), he wanted to spend time with Ezekiel. He’d at least admit he really wished he had his own old clothes, but they wouldn’t fit him anymore. Not with all the muscle he gained from fighting… felt like a super soldier. Like one of those old comic books that William liked, back in the war. Captain America.

     … But, first, he found himself slowly pressing his own hands together. A small gesture, still as silent as could be, his weary eyes, weary from war, from death, from suffering and pain and living for literal eons, staring off at the crucifix, at Jesus’s face. And silently– after ages, he prayed, too.

    Lord… I know, I’ve never prayed ever since the war. I’ve done so many things in vain, I’ve succumbed to wrath and rage and things considered unforgiveable, maybe, by most. I do not deserve peace, nor happiness. I do not deserve the joys of life… but Ezekiel Brown does. All I ask is that you give the courage and the happiness and peace that he begs of you to him. He deserves it most.

     … Amen.

     He dropped his head after finding himself making a small cross, his hands soon dropping to his sides… and, he finally spoke when he knew Ezekiel had finished his prayer.

     “ … Mr. Reverend? ”

“Goodness - it’s you!” Ezekiel had promptly turned, a hand raised to his heart in a gesture of surprise. “Gosh, how long have you been there?” A light chuckle left him, greeting the other with a smile. It was always nice to hear the other vocalise once in a while. It was so very rare that he spoke, it was almost special no matter how simple the words.

“I was just prepping the altar; thought I might reopen the Church tomorrow? I think it’s about time I got back to work. Too much time spent in my room lately. Besides, I miss it. What do you think?”

He still wasn’t quite back to normal. Sleep had been a massive issue in the last couple of months; the Reverend was tired and it showed. But it was getting better, bit by bit. And Ezekiel was starting to realise that he needed to get back out there, or else he would get stuck in a rut and not be able to climb out again. He was already oversleeping daily as it was. He’d had a rest, now he needed to rework that sense of purpose back into his life. He was ready. 

Warm smile still present, he clutched the broom with both hands. 

“Sorry, here I am going on about I, me, mine - did you need something?”

[ehstarwar]

flesh stays no farther reason (2/6)

It takes three weeks for him to contact her again.

A one word text after only one night of fucking (albeit, glorious, life-altering, religion-defying fucking) shouldn’t make her heart flutter the way it does now.

-

Five times Ben looks for Rey and the one time she finds him.

-

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 4.7K

Read on AO3

2

rank sweat of an enseamed bed

It takes three weeks for him to contact her again.

She’s just gotten home from what is, quite possibly, the most draining shift she’s had this year, when the notification brightens her phone, and subsequently, her day.

From u/KyL0_R3N

Hi.

A one word text after only one night of fucking (albeit, glorious, life-altering, religion-defying fucking) shouldn’t make her heart flutter the way it does now. 

From u/R3yoflight

hey

From u/KyL0_R3N

How have you been?

From u/R3yoflight

good, for the most part

work sucks, but thats just the way it goes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

hbu?

meeting go well??

From u/KyL0_R3N

I’m glad you’re doing good. Sorry about work. 

I know how that can be, unfortunately.

The meeting did go well. Thank you for asking.

I’m sorry I didn’t call you after our night together.

Rey stares down at her phone, not knowing how to respond. 

The morning after their night together was a point of contention in Rey’s mind. On one hand, it was a hook-up. An old-fashioned, wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am hook-up that just so happened to be between two thoroughly compatible people. They had barely even talked to one another. She hadn’t made fun of his stupid, clearly made-up name, hadn’t teased him for his large ears that she found too endearing, she hadn’t even gotten his actual phone number. 

But… it was so, so sweet.

The way he had handled her was not that of an impassive man looking to get off and get going. It was of someone who knew how to take care of another, who wanted to take care of her. The gentleness of his lips from the last time they kiss will forever be burned into her brain.

Part of her had expect get a call the next day, with Kylo confessing that he had the same butterfly feeling she did. After a few days past and she hadn’t received so much as a new post alert on reddit from him, she decided to push back the feelings into a tight corner of her mind that was slowly filling up with emotions she wasn’t ready to unpack. 

From u/R3yoflight

it’s nbd, i know how hook-ups go

don’t feel bad

From u/KyL0_R3N

I think it is a big deal, but I know what you mean.

I would like to see you again.

Would you like to see me?

Would she? Would she even survive being with Kylo Ren again?

Rey decides its all comes down to attitude, and she’ll go in with a better one this time.

From u/R3yoflight

yeah, i would

u have another big meeting u need to prep 4?

It takes him a whole 10 minutes to respond, a first for him.

From u/KyL0_R3N

Sure.

What about the 8th? 

Does that work for you?

From u/R3yoflight

i work the 7th and the 8th, but the hotel we 

were at last time is p close to my job

i could meet you there and just pack stuff

for work

From u/KyL0_R3N

We can do another date so you don’t have to do that.

From u/R3yoflight

nah 

i don’t want u to have to move ur meeting

so im good if ur good

From u/KyL0_R3N

Of course.

I’m good, too.

From u/R3yoflight

🤗🤗🤗

-

Rey bounces the ball of her foot on the hard concrete beneath her, watching the clock with rapt attention. The minutes seem to slow the further she got into the day, making the last hour and a half feel like an eon. Plutt had already barked at her to make herself useful somewhere, but there’s only so much to do when they’re down cars for the day. 

The moment the clock strikes 5:30, Rey is out of the shop like a bat out of hell. She thinks about stopping in some bathroom and changing into a skirt or dress or at least some clean underwear, but she can’t bring herself to waste that much time.

She want’s to see Kylo. Desperately. 

The wall she’d constructed around all her curiosities from their last meeting had come crumbling down with the promise of a second one, and this time, she was determined to know a little bit more about the man in question.

He’d sent her the room number a few hours ago, letting her know to meet him there whenever she got off work. Her mind had already begun reeling in the possibilities of tonight by that point, and it only added gas to the flame.

There’s a thin sheen of sweat on her forehead when she walks into the lobby, and a few things become apparent at once.

One, the hotel is full to the brim with people who look like they make in an hour what she makes in 5 years.

Two, she absolutely should have taken the time to change into something that wasn’t the grease-stained overalls that had seen much better days, probably long before she’s fished them out of a bin at the goodwill.

Three, the doorman (with white gloves) looked moments away from calling the cops on her. 

“Excuse me, miss,” the doorman says, walking up to Rey. She gulps and prays with every fibre in her being that he’ll just inform her she dropped something and let her go on her merry way. “May I ask if you’re staying at this establishment?” His tone isn’t accusatory… yet.

“Um… sort of? I’m meeting someone,” She explains. A few of the posh guest are trying to remain inconspicuous as they attempt to hear what’s going on. It makes her cheeks burn red.

“Ah, well, the bar is downstairs and… there is a dress code.”

Rey has felt small plenty of times before in her life. This is nothing new.

“He’s in his- our room, already,” She tells him, keeping her eyes on the doorman and actively ignoring the now-open stares of the lobby. The doorman’s eyes narrow.

“Why don’t you check in with the front desk to make sure you have the correct room number, shall we?” Without waiting for her response, the man moves his arm and begins walking her to the far end of the lobby, where beautiful women in black blazers stare on at her.

“I really don’t think that’s necessary. I’ll just call Kylo and tell him I can’t-“”

“I beg your pardon?” The blood runs out of the face of the doorman. “What did you say your friend’s name was?”

“Kylo. He’s upstairs but I don’t want to bug-”

“My apologies, Miss. I had no idea that Mr. Ren was expecting guest. Allow me to escort me to your suite-”

“That’s really not necessary. I’ll just go now-” 

“Rey?”

Her whole body freezes as his voice cuts across the lobby. She doesn’t turn to look at him, instead still focusing on the now queezy-looking doorman. She feels his presence come up beside her, and the warm, large hand come to rest on her lower back.

“Is everything alright?” He asks.

The doorman looks at her with wide eyes and a pleading stare.

“Everything was fine, I was just coming upstairs.” The lie rolls off her tongue and she hopes she sounds convincing. Rey finally glances upwards to look at Kylo, maybe to flash him an ill-advised smile and silently say ‘lets go please.’

It is striking just how beautiful he is, especially after so long without seeing him. His hair looks even more perfect now than she was remembering it, but Rey assumes that her imagination will never quite compete with the real thing. 

“You we’re taking a while and I got nervous. I’m glad I came down when I did.” His eyes shoot over to the doorman who looks moments away from passing out, so she acts quickly.

“Well, I’m here. Let’s get going, please.” Rey takes both her hands and pushes against the solid bark that is his chest, and Kylo eventually complies, but still sending a death glare the the rest of the hotel staff.

When she’s finally pushed them into the elevator and they’re blessedly alone, Rey takes a deep breath of relief. For as poorly as that interaction went, it could’ve gone much worse.

“What did he say to you?”

Kylo’s voice is low and sends the wrong kind of nervousness to her gut. 

“He was just making sure I was in the right place. He had every right to ask what I was doing here. I mean, I know how I’m dressed and how I look, so if we could just move on-“”

“No one should speak down to you, no matter how you’re dressed, Rey. It isn’t okay.”

“But it is!” She snaps. “Because I know people in the service industry are just doing what their told and that guy is probably underpaid as is and his boss would have reprimanded him if he’d said nothing, so it’s fine!”

Kylo stays silent beside her and she can’t bring herself to look at him. The elevator takes it’s time, crawling to their floor, but blessedly does not stop to board anyone else.

“You were going to leave, weren’t you?” He asks, voice suddenly much smaller than it was a moment ago.

“I just don’t want to be a problem for anybody. For you, for the doorman, for… I probably should leave, even now,” Rey admits. For an evening she was so looking forward to, it really is going sour.

Rey feels a hand come around her cheek and gently guide her to look up at him. His expression is softer now and his lips have that delicious pout that she should absolutely not be thinking about kissing right now.

“You’re not a problem.”

Kylo stares down at her with such intensity, she thinks she’ll melt right then and there.

The elevator chime breaks them from their reverie and Kylo steps out into the hallway. He holds his hand out for her, looking at her with a question. Giving her an option. You can go back down and leave right now and just remember Kylo Ren fondly for the rest of your life or you can go with him right now and see whatever else this bizarre experience will give to you, her mind says. 

Rey makes up her mind and takes his hand.

-

She’s on him the moment he closes the door behind them. No warning, no hesitation; just Rey pouncing on Kylo. She kisses him so deeply, the way she’s thought about for the last 3 and a half weeks, that she can feel it in her toes. For his part, Kylo doesn’t seem all that surprised. He scoops her up in his arms the moment she’s between them, making Rey’s heart flutter.

He holds her up, not pinned to anything and just lets her make out with him. Suspended in air, only holding onto him, hands touching any part of him she can reach; it’s delicious. 

“We should… go to… the bed…” He says between kisses. Rey whines into his mouth (why, she’ll never know).

“No… here…” She breaths against his lips. 

Kylo immediately lowers them to the floor, and holds himself above her. The carpet is plush against her back and is almost softer than the old futon she’s been using as a bed for the last few years.

“You… deserve a bed…” He says, while quickly undoing the buttons to her overalls. She’s trying to help him, but her hands get distracted by the growing hardness between his legs. 

“What this… here is good…” She tries to say. She’s not sure if this would make sense to anyone outside of the two of them, but she’s can’t care at the moment. 

The second the last button comes undone, Kylo focuses on getting her completely bare. He practically rips off every piece of clothing on her body, until she’s left only in her tube socks. When her hands go to take them off, he stops her.

“Leave it,” Kylo orders. Rey feels herself gush. 

Once she’s in the perfect state of undress, Kylo doesn’t even bother taking off the rest of his clothes. He just opens his belt and fly, taking out his beet-red cock and pumping it a few times. 

“… Missed your cunt…” He says against her lips as he slides the head of his cock over her core. She’s squirming under him, trying to force him to put it inside of her. “… so tight and wet for me…and you’ll just… let me make a mess of it, huh? Let me fuck it ‘till it’s… molded to me… full of my come…”

She arches her back, pressing her chest into the coarse fibers of his shirt. His hands go to hold down her abdomen as he slides himself into her, stretching her out every bit of the way.

The drag of him makes Rey delirious; like Kylo is reaching a part of her that hasn’t existed until he came into her life. If she thought that her body would be more accepting of him since last time, she would be wrong. 

“… take me so fucking well, baby…” Kylo breaths, making Rey clench. He whimpers at the sensation. Her hands go up to his neck, one holding him there and the other rubbing the shell of his ear. His whole body trembles beneath her touch. He grips the underside of her thigh, as a warning almost, before pounding into her. 

Full force, no hold-backs, pounding her right into the floor. She’s sure he’ll have to tip housekeeping very well this time around. 

With every stroke, Kylo make Rey feel split in two. He bumps her cervix more often than not, and her clit rubs deliciously on the metal of his belt buckle. The hard, cold metal feels so good and so rough that Rey is reduced to muffled cries and moans agains his skin. 

He bites more hickeys into her chest and shoulders, deeper and harder than the ones last time. Her chest will be covered in purple marks of Kylo for a long time to come and she loves it. Her legs wrap around to his back, squeezing him. His movements become messy and uncoordinated and she knows he’s close, just from the sounds he’s making above her. Rey does nothing to stop her oncoming orgasm, just letting the feeling wash over her as she convulses beneath Kylo.

He with her the next moment, come spilling out of him like the grunts spilling from his mouth. His hips still thrust, harder and more infrequent, like he’s making his final claim on her body. She lets him manhandle her as she feels a warm, sloshing heat in her core. 

Kylo rest on top of her as their breathing slows. Rey feels a twinge of carpet burn on her back and her ass but ignores it. Kylo’s hands have found their way to her sides, nearly engulfing her waist. They slide up her arms until they find her hands, and interlocks their fingers together. 

He plants warm, wet kisses on her sternum, up her throat, and eventually her lips. Rey smiles into the kiss. 

Then, as if called, her stomach growls so loud, Kylo stills. He pulls back to look down at her with a quirked eyebrow. She bites her lip and her cheeks would be red from embarrassment if they weren’t already red from their fucking.

“… would you like dinner?” He asks. She nods. 

-

The wet ends of her hair tickle the back of neck, so she pushes it out of the robe. The water pressure in the massive shower was enough for Rey to sell her soul, but the burger she’s currently devouring is coming in at a close second. 

After their entryway tryst, Rey had happily jumped into the shower while Kylo had ordered them dinner, assuring her that she could order both the Tomato Bisque and french fries as her side.

When she’d gotten out and into the plush robe, Rey had found Kylo on one side of the bed, some nascar race on the TV, and him biting into his too-raw-for-her-taste steak. 

It was a beautiful sight. 

She’s sitting at the edge of the bed, Kylo on the other side and a few feet away from her, both watching the television. It’s too quiet for how loud her head is right now, so she can’t help the word vomit that forms.

“What do you mean when you say you’re in tech?” She asks, eyes still on the television screen.

“I work in research and development for a technology company,” he tells her, unhelpfully.

“What does that even mean?” She can’t help but sound exasperated. 

“My job is to come up with the next best gadget or update and figure out a way to make it work,” he says as he shifts on the bed. Rey still hasn’t looked at him.

“Must be hard to be successful in that field right now… I mean, First Order pretty much has a monopoly on any techie thing out there.”

Kylo chuckles.

“I wouldn’t exactly say monopoly… but yeah. But I still make do.”

Rey hums while chewing.

“Do you like working at an auto shop?” He asks, after a few moments of silence between them. She shrugs.

“I like fixing things, so that parts nice, but… my boss sucks.”

“Why don’t you go work somewhere else?” Rey can’t stop the sharp ‘ha!’ that escapes her.

“I’m a young, female mechanic, with no higher education degree, who’s immigration status is tenuous at best, who can barely afford her half of a shithole of an apartment. I’m not the bright, shining pupil that most places would want to take on.”

She finally looks back over at Kylo, who seems to be in thought while polishing off the rest of his food. 

“If you’re struggling financially, I could-”

She cuts him off. “No. That’s not what this is about.” The burger suddenly taste like ash in her mouth, so she sets the rest of it down. “I make due on my own. I don’t need a… benefactor.” This makes him chuckle, causing Rey to give him an incredulous look. 

“Sorry, sorry…” He chuckles, “It’s just… benefactor? I at least think I would be deserving the title of sugar daddy.” Rey rolls her eyes and throws a soggy french fry at him. He catches it and eats it right away.

“I don’t need a benefactor or sugar daddy. But… thank you.”

They fall silent for a while before Kylo gets up and removes the trays from their room. Rey scoots back, laying herself in the middle of the bed between the mountain of pillows. When Kylo returns, he stays at the foot of the bed, watching Rey. They say nothing, just keep heavy eye contact with one another. 

Her eyes rake down his form, shirtless with some joggers on. She doesn’t see a band of underwear so she hopes that means he’s going without. 

Feeling bold, she pushes herself up and craws her way across the bed to him. When she’s finally in front of him, she goes on her knees so that they’re eye level. Her hands trace the muscles in his arms and chest, dipping down to his toned abdomen. Rey feels his eyes on her face the entire time, but looks down to wherever her hands go to next. 

“I didn’t get the opportunity to ride you, last time,” her eyes flick up to his, “I think we should rectify that.”

Kylo doesn’t say anything, just keeps looking at her with that intense gaze that could kill a lesser woman. His hands come up to push the robe off her shoulders, pooling around her calves and revealing her naked body. 

His hands brush up her sides as they make their way to her jaw, and when he’s finally got a hold of her, he kisses her. It’s slower than any of the ones they shared earlier, and reminds her of that goodbye kiss from last time; the sweetest nectar that she’ll never be able to perfectly replicate with anyone else.

The kiss deepens and Kylo crawls into bed with her. They move until she’s situated over him, straddling his stomach. His hands kneed her ass, pushing the flesh until she’s sure it’ll bruise. She allows herself to grind on him, making his abs slick with her want. His hands suddenly let go of her, and she feels him go to push off his joggers. 

Rey kisses his neck, remembering what he said in all those earlier messages about liking both giving and receiving hickeys. So she bites. He gasps. 

When he’s finally naked, Rey reaches around to pull at him. He’s already so hard and dripping that Rey gets a little swell of pride. She takes him in hand once she scoots back, and holds him center with her. She glides down on him, slick enough to take him in one go.

His whole body is flushed, his lips even poutier than normal, his breath coming out in spurts. 

“Why… do I aways feel… like you’re holding back… whenever you… get your cock… in me,” She asks between shallow thrust. Kylo tips his head back as his hands go to hold her hips.

“Rey… your cunt… I could fucking come right now. I don’t care if we have sex every day for the next year… your cunt is like a vice. I could come in you right now… fuck…” Rey smiles down at him, proud to see this big man reduced to the puddle he’s currently in. It’s as endearing as it is hot.

She starts to move in earnest, riding him with her whole body. She eats up the sounds he makes, his praises of ‘good girl’ and ‘riding daddy’s cock so well.’

Without her asking, Kylo brings a thumb to her clit, moving in time with her thrust, making her yelp. “Need you… to come… with me…” He breaths. Rey nods as she adjust her angle, making him hit the spot in her that’s guaranteed to get her there in no time. 

Her hips can’t keep up with his thrust, so their movement become sloppy, until Kylo takes charge and starts guiding her and slamming up into her.

“… So perfect… riding my cock like a good girl… you’re so fucking hot… like this…” He says, but his praises are lost on her as she’s thrown over the edge. Rey complies into him and Kylo catches her, still pistoling his hips into her. He comes after a few more thrust, biting into her skin like last time.

Rey rides out the last of her orgasm while he’s still pulsing inside of her. Her hands still grip at his shoulders and Kylo wraps his arms around her back and hold her there. She feels the warm rush of fluids dribbling out of her, and Rey knows he can feel his own come dripping back down his cock, but he makes no indication that they need to move. 

They stay like this so long, Rey cradled against Kylo’s chest, feeling so safe and warm and wanted, that she falls into the deepest sleep.

-

She’s groggy when she wakes. Kylo has maneuvered them so that she’s tucked under his arm, halfway covering his torso. He’s snoring lightly and the rise and fall of his chest is oddly soothing. She lays there for a while, hours maybe, but isn’t able to fall back asleep. 

Rey busies herself by looking at him unashamedly. Kylo is built, to say the very least. His arms are thick with muscle, and even relaxed, his stomach looks well toned. 

Why did he need to post that on reddit? She thinks. He’s beautiful. He could get anyone just off his looks, let alone his wallet. 

Eventually he stirs, hands instantly seeking her out, and head going into the crook of her neck and nuzzling there. His hair tickles her, making her giggle lightly against him as he holds her even closer.

“What time is it?” He asks, voice muffled by her skin. She glances at the clock across from her.

“6:27… I’ll need to leave in an hour,” she says. Her voice is quiet and she feels a slight, almost imperceptible shift in his body language. She brings her hands up, running her fingers through his hair, hoping he’ll relax back again. 

Neither of them say anything for a while, and it’s becoming very clear that their form of intimacy is best experienced in silence. It should concern her how quickly they’re forming habits. It’s probably one of the first things he wanted to avoid when making that post.

But the sound of soft rain hitting the window, the warmth of the expensive sheets, the feel of Kylo’s body pressed against hers, makes it very hard for Rey to feel sorry for anything. 

They shower together, after she came up with some half-hearted excuse that it would save time and water, but he makes no sexual advances on her, so she doesn’t try and pester him. Would it be nice to end their tryst with some wet shower sex or even mutual oral? Sure, but Rey didn’t want to push her luck. She was glad enough to spend this time with him, even if neither of them were getting off.

When they’re both dry and dressed, him in a perfectly tailored suit and her in the same greasy overalls from yesterday, he takes her hand. She had been reaching for her bag, but lost momentum halfway through when he touched her.

“I… don’t want to go another three weeks without seeing or hearing from you again,” he tells her. 

“You can call me? I’ll give you my number. I work usually six days a week, but sometimes I’ll have a few days off in a row, so… we can meet up then, if you’re… up for it?” She tells him. Something in his face falls, but she doesn’t quite know where to place it.

“…That would be… yeah. We should exchange numbers.” 

He passes him her phone as she does the same, putting in her number with the little purple devil emoji beside it because he probably doesn’t have any emojis in his contacts and she wasn’t him to remember her. Not that she’s overly concerned with that happening, but, it’s always better to be safe.

When they exchange phones again, she looks down to see the contact he’s placed, but looks back up at him, confused.

“Ben Solo… what’s that?”

“Me… well, my real name. I haven’t gone by it in a while but… I just wanted you to know it,” he tells her. Rey’s lips tremble. You are not going to cry because he told you his real name, she chides herself. It is the absolute bare minimum to do, so you will not read into it more than you should.  

“Well…” She begins, looking down at the phone again because looking in his eyes is too much right now, “It is a very nice name. Certainly more realistic than Kylo Ren.”

Ben has the wherewithal to look a little sheepish at her teasing. He brings a hand through his hair and smiles at the floor.

“It was something I liked when I was a teenager and became too rebellious for my own good. It was my first aol email,” He says. Rey laughs as she imagines a gangly 13-year-old Ben running home to his computer every day after school and changing his AIM status to some moody-angst ridden lyric of a bad he thought was too cool for mainstream.

When the laughter dies down and Rey is able to look at him without bursting into giggles, she thanks him.

“Thank you for last night. And for… telling me your name.” He smiles at her, and puts a hand on her jaw, tilting her head further up. Before he can bring her into another soul-melting kiss, she speaks again.

“Ben is a very nice name but… I think I prefer calling you daddy.”

His grin is wolfish. 

[dear-selena]

Sketchbook (Peter Parker x Stark!Reader): Chapter 1

Peter Parker x Stark!Reader (Female) 

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8

Summary: (Y/N) never understood science based subjects, despite putting all her efforts into studying them. Kids at school bullied her, her father, Tony Stark, was disappointed in her, and the Avengers looked the other way. Peter Parker, her best friend and secret crush for almost two years, was always there supporting you when you needed someone. However, since he became an Avenger and your dad’s ‘favorite kid’, you don’t know how much longer he’ll be around for you. 

You find yourself struggling to exist with everything working against you, and instead of asking others for help, you turn to your sketchbook. 

Warnings: angst, bullying, mentions of depression / suicide 

A/N: Hey everyone! This is a story idea I’ve had for a while, and I have to say this is the most intense writing I’ve ever done. Because of how massive I’m making the character development, and the fact that I’m going back to college in two days, my updates for this story will not be quick. I can guarantee that I will not drop this story, as I have already written half the chapters. All I’m asking from you, if you’d like to follow this story, is to be patient with me as I update. I was planning on creating a mood board and everything, so I really do have confidence I will complete this story XD. 

With that said, this story is going to have heavy themes of depression and suicide, especially in future chapters. If this is triggering to you in anyway, please feel free to skip this story. I will be tagging the triggers, and will warn of any serious themes throughout this story. If there is anything else I can do to be aware of safety for my readers, please reach out! 

Hope everyone is well! Enjoy the first chapter of Sketchbook! 

Chapter 1: Flashes and Shades

Words: 1962

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

Shaking your leg under the desk, you anxiously wait for your chemistry midterm to return to you. 

As your teacher, Mrs. Smith, slowly passes exam books back to each student, you couldn’t help but pray for a good grade. ‘Please, at least a B this time… at least a B’ repeats in your head over and over. You studied your butt off the past two weeks for this exam, yet nothing would click in your brain. For some reason, balancing equations, differentiating the elements on the periodic table, and identifying every single scientific law known to man never came easy to you. 

You hope the extra studying you did would finally pay off. 

Mrs. Smith eventually came up to you and hands your exam back to you face down. Not being able to hold in your anxiety, you flip the packet over immediately, only to be met with disappointment and a wish that you never got your exam back at all. 

Written and circled in a bright red marker, a D+ mockingly spat at you. 

Eyes going wide and heartbeat accelerating, you quickly hide your exam, making sure none of your classmates saw your poor grade. You look around at your classmates to see them showing off their grades to one another, most of them with A’s or B+’s. Before you could let the significance of your peers get to your head, the bell rang. You quickly shove your failure into your backpack, and make your way to your next class, English. 

English wasn’t a hard subject for you. In fact, you enjoy the readings that were assigned and always participate in discussions. However, that didn’t really matter at Midtown School of Science and Technology, one of the top college prep schools in New York. Subjects like physics, biology, and calculus truly matter to faculty and students. 

Too bad you practically failed those classes. At least in English you could breathe easy for 90 minutes. 

As you make your way to your next class, you feel eyes following your every move. When you would look up however, students quickly look down, as if they weren’t watching. You knew they were. You’re (Y/N) Stark for God’s sake, daughter of Tony Stark, certified genius and team leader of the Avengers. Even though you were a Stark, you were a certified idiot, and everyone at Midtown knew that. 

You absolutely hate it. 

Negative thoughts start to come into your head, ones you wish you could push away. You mostly thought about your existence, how it would be for everyone if you simply weren’t there. Before your thoughts could elaborate and get more intense, your phone vibrates in your pocket and you see that Peter Parker, your best friend for the past two years, has texted you. 

From: Peter

I hope you did well on your chem midterm! I can’t wait to see you at lunch :)

You smile at your phone, practically beaming at Peter’s kind words. Peter always knew how to cheer you up and snap you out of your bad thoughts. You have no idea how he does it, but nevertheless, you love that about him. You’ve loved Peter for a long time, ever since your father took him in as his successor. But you knew he was out of your league. One day though, you hope you can share your feelings with him. 

Before you could respond to your best friend, a booming voice calls out to you. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Miss Stark herself.” You look up to see none other than Flash Thompson approaching you with a cocky grin, ultimately souring your mood. Flash likes to pick on Peter with dumb nicknames, but with you, he’s a bit more relentless. “How’d that chem test go?” 

You raise an eyebrow at him. “Why does it matter to you?” 

“I’m just looking out for you sweetheart,” Flash leans in close to your ear, grabbing your shoulders firmly. “You know, so you don’t flunk chemistry again.” 

Quickly pulling away from Flash, you try to hide your face so he can’t see the tears starting to burn in your eyes. He’s right. You took chemistry last year with Flash, Peter, and many other students in your grade. Peter would try to help you in class, and that helped a lot. However you didn’t quite make a passing grade, and when you saw how disappointed your dad was, you knew you had to retake the class and get a better grade. 

“Oh sweetheart,” Flash coos in a mocking tone. “You don’t have to be ashamed around me. A pretty girl like you can always cry on my shoulder.” If you weren’t in school, and if you weren’t your father’s daughter, you’d have spat at him. 

“I have to get to class.” You quickly say, trying to walk away. However, Flash never made it easy. 

“You don’t have to run from me (Y/N),” Flash starts, and you reluctantly turn around. “So what that you aren’t at all smart? At least you can still go here with all the money your daddy’s paying for you to stay in. That’s some lucky wealth you have at your fingertips.” 

Before Flash continues, you turn and quickly walk to the nearest bathroom, tears already falling from your (E/C) eyes. You hate it when people brought your father’s name and wealth into the picture. Logically, someone that fails classes at Midtown, especially a science one, wouldn’t have a GPA high enough to stay enrolled. But despite your poor grades that never seemed to improve, you still roam the halls of Midtown. You knew your father has something to do with it, but you’re too ashamed of yourself to talk to him about those logistics. 

As you find your way into the bathroom and lock yourself into a stall, you let your frustrations come out, silently sobbing. Things Flash would say directly to you was ultimately what your peers would say behind your back. Almost everyone at school knew you were the dumbest kid there, and they made no efforts to hide their thoughts. No matter how hard you studied or how well you took notes in class, your efforts were never enough. 

It made you struggle to find a reason to stay around. 

------------- 

Lunch rolls around quickly, and after humiliatingly walking into English late, you want nothing more than to see Peter. You knew Peter always supported you, but you didn’t know how much longer he’d be there for you. Sure, you love Peter, and he likes you as a friend (at least you hope he does). But he’s been getting all your father’s attention for quite some time now, practically taking the spot on the Avengers team you’ve yearned to have for so long. You never know what your father says about you to Peter, and you really don’t know if he thinks you’re worth it anymore. 

You’d rather not think about that right now. 

You were also close to Ned and MJ, but you found yourself super cautious around them. They never brought up how you were a Stark or practically failing school, but you never knew what they truly thought of you, and that was scary. 

At lunch, Peter saw you gloomily walk into the cafeteria and immediately knew it meant bad news from your exam. Instead of asking you about it however, Peter compliments your outfit, a gesture that makes you blush. 

Peter and Ned were talking about their AP Physics assignment, you longingly listening into their conversation, when MJ comes over and sits next to you. 

“Hey (Y/N), small question.” MJ proceeds to take out her sketchbook and open it up. “I feel like something is off in this drawing but I can’t figure it out. Can you help me?” 

She slides the drawing over to you, and you start to admire her work. It looks like she started a portrait of someone, and you have to say it looked really good! The line work was already traced with pen and she started coloring the character in black and white. However, you did notice what was off about her work. 

“Oh! You didn’t highlight their face all the way.” You say simply. She raises her eyebrows curiously, but hands you her pencil so you can explain further. “You got the dark tones on their face just right, but there’s not really any white tones to balance it.” You start to lightly erase some of the pencil work. “I like to leave white sports around the nose and cheeks like this to give the face more depth.” You hand the pencil and sketchbook back to MJ. “You try it.” 

MJ takes the pencil back and starts erasing lightly, starting to see what you mean. “Oh! Thanks (Y/N). I tend to forget about that stuff.” 

“It’s all good. It comes with practice.” You say, going into your backpack and taking your own sketchbook out. Your sketchbook was practically a safe haven, filled with doodles, designs, and poems from over the years. Whenever you find yourself struggling with negative thoughts or even wishing you were gone, you turn to the moleskin covered book and just let your mind wander. Over time, the simple doodles and haikus turned into intricate drawings and full on hand-written stories. 

Opening your sketchbook up, you turn to one of your early doodles, a drawing of your father in his signature Iron-Man suit. “I drew this of my dad a few years ago, and you can tell I didn’t know what I was doing.” You laugh at yourself. 

MJ’s eyebrows furrow. “What are you talking about? This looks amazing!” You look back at the drawing in confusion. MJ just rolls her eyes. “I mean, it’s not shaded, but you got some really good detail on your father’s suit. It kind of looks like you can even see wiring in it.” 

Sending MJ a small smile, you can feel your cheeks turning red. “Thanks… I just think my more recent drawings are a little easier on the eyes.” With that, you turn to some drawings you worked on last week, ones you did after a typical scolding from your father about your grades. These drawings were more intricate, small shapes dancing across the pages in a contemporary pattern. 

MJ’s eyes pop out of her skull. “Whoa… Can I just look through these for a bit?” 

You nod, letting her know of some pages to avoid. You told her they were crummy sketches, but in reality, those pages were filled with words that… might cause some serious concern. 

As MJ intently looks through your most prized possession. You feel eyes on you again. At first you thought your classmates were pitifully staring at you again, but to your surprise, you see Peter looking at you, biting his lip in an attempt to hide a smirk. 

“What?” You ask innocently, unsure of why Peter would be staring at you that way. Was he trying not to laugh at you…?

Peter blinks, realizing he’s been caught. “Oh, n-nothing.” He sends you a sheepish smile. 

You simply smile back at the boy, a blush once again creeping onto your cheeks. Before he could see it though, MJ starts to ask you some questions about the drawings in your sketchbook. In moments like this, you were thankful that something distracted you from your crush. After all, you were nowhere in his league. He’s a superhero with crazy abilities, one of the smartest kids in school, and your father’s most cherished mentee. 

All you are is a dumb girl with a sketchbook.

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

-Peter Parker Tag List-

@sweetcoffeeblandtea // @house-arya // @jovialpeanut

-Permanent Tag List-  

@mindset-jupiter // @romance-geek // @imcharishope // @fakindob // @cutiekoa // @wowursofunny

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt.60

Lance found himself having fun. Not having his glasses on made his vision too good, so he’d had a rather lousy start. His first bullet hit Keith’s target square in the groin, completely accidentally. Both of them feeling sympathy for the poor piece of paper. For the last three rounds they turned it into a competition. Lance losing the first one because a smiley face wasn’t approved marksmanship. He won the next two, Keith accepting that he could handle a gun if needed. Lance praying that it’d never be needed. He didn’t like the feel of pulling the trigger, even to hit a bit of paper. A smiley face was his way of coping with it... quietly certain Keith would never let him near a gun again, despite it majorly because he declared himself the “sharpshooter of their date”.

With time before dinner, Keith took him on a longer ride on his bike. This time Lance having the courage to watch the world a pass by. It was kind of how he imagined flying to be. Kind of weightless, except way louder... Seeing Platt from a bike gave him a whole new perspective. Seeing Platt from a bike while openly able to hang onto his boyfriend was kind of nice. Lance totally didn’t think Keith had done as much research as he had. Not until his boyfriend took him up some random dirty track that lead up the hills to the east of the city. Parking at the top, Lance realised they were were at a look out. The whole of Platt below them just as the sun was setting. One by one lights were coming on, lost in the orange and pink hues of the sun. He might not have been keen of the gun range, but this was nice. Or it was nice until Keith realised what the time was and that they’d be late for their reservation. Next time they came up, Lance would bring a picnic so they could watch the sunset and then the stars. Maybe bring Kosmo... He missed Kosmo.

With Keith’s driving, and a few “oh, god were going to die” moments, they were 10 minutes late for their reservation. Keith flustered when told their table had been given away. His boyfriend nearly in tears as he apologised for ruining things. Leading Keith away from the restaurant’s reception, a fancy dinner in a hotel would have been nice, but honestly he was just happy to spend time with Keith in the outside world. Finding the bathrooms as he panicked over where they could talk, he dragged his boyfriend in with him, locking the door behind them.

Leading Keith over to the bathroom counter, Lance wasn’t sure what he was doing, only that he wanted Keith to know he wasn’t mad

“Babe...”

“I’m so sorry. In my head we had time and I was going to spoil you...”

Keith’d head was hung, unable to look him in the face

“I don’t need fancy food”

“But it was going to be special”

“It is special”

“It’s not what I had planned. We were going to have dinner then spend the night. Allura already picked the keycard up and the room was all organised and now we...”

“Hang on. We have a room here?”

Keith nodded, a hand coming up to wipe at his tears a little too forcefully

“Allura helped me find this place... it was supposed to be a surprise”

With his free hand, Keith dug the hotel keycard, sniffling as he did. Lance instantly seeing how the night could be “unruined”

“Babe. I’ve got an idea”

“What?”

“We have a room. And you know what, we can order room service”

“But that’s not special. I wanted this to be special for you”

“I don’t need special. I need my boyfriend to be happy. Besides, we can order whatever we want, and we don’t even have to wear clothes, and I won’t have to leave the table to... well, you know”

Keith let out a shaky breath, before replying

“I feel like I let you down”

“No, babe. We were barely even late. They were the ones who gave our table away. Both of us are so awkward we’d probably forgotten how to use a fork, or totally choked, or I would have laughed too loud and shown off my fangs probably making some rich old lady faint into her soup. I’m totally fine with room service, if you’re fine with going upstairs with me”

“You do laugh pretty loudly”

Lance groaned. He couldn’t help that sometimes Keith said some of the funniest things he’d ever heard

“I can’t help it”

“I like it when you laugh”

“Funnily enough I like it too. Oooh... let’s take a shower before room service, then in then in the can steal the bathrobes”

“You’re really okay with this?”

“Yeah. Yeah, babe. All I want to do is spend some time with you”

*

Their hotel room had had the Curtis and Allura treatment. The pair were a menace. Sitting on the plush white blankets was a gift basket, initially the gesture was sweet. Two bottles of Lance’s favourite wine, a bag of blood, some chocolates. Things were looking good... until you looked under the top layer. Condoms. Lube. A pair of handcuffs... something pink in plastic... something with lace. Keith was struck dumb as he looked at the basket, Lance covering things back up with the bottles of wine

“Let’s just pretend we didn’t see that. Curtis is off my Christmas card list”

Picking up the basket, Lance carried it over to the two seater dining table... the basket looking a little sad there.

The whole room was beautiful. Tones of teal and white with soft wood furnishings. The art above the bed was probably questionable given as educated as he was, he couldn’t work out what it was supposed to be other than greenness on a canvas. It had its own small kitchenette, living area, and the biggest mirror he’d ever scene, which covered the fact it was a TV. Now they were alone Lance was feeling nervous again. Moving to stare out the floor to ceiling windows, he watched Keith come up behind him, a shiver running down his spine as Keith kissed his neck, arms looping around the vampire’s waist

“Pretty��

Lance didn’t know what Keith meant

“Yeah. The view from here is amazing”

“I meant you, idiot”

Nuzzling into Lance’s neck, Lance wondered if Keith was happy or horny. Maybe both? His boyfriend’s boy up against him in the shooting range had definitely gotten to him. He felt safe as Keith caged his body with his, kind of like they were two puzzle pieces coming together. It was fitting really. Lance was trying to puzzle out what Keith saw in him

“This room is kind of amazing”

“Yeah. I’m sorry about before. Allura might have a point about me being stressed”

“I know you don’t have the easiest job and you don’t have to tell me, but you don’t have to think about that tonight”

“I’m definitely not thinking about anything other than you... and food”

Lance went weak. Turning in Keith’s arms, Lance’s lips found Keith’s. Weeks of small kisses, the occasional make out section bubbled over. Keith pushing him up against the glass as he kissed him back as hard. Stopping as he tasted Keith’s blood, Lance let out a deep breath. Keith was hungry and this rate they were likely to skip straight to dessert

“We should take a shower”

Whelp. Fuck. He’d meant to say Keith should take a shower while Lance ordered them room service

“Yeah. We should”

Keith’s voice was low and Lance knew he was fucked... or very soon to be.

*

Keith didn’t know what it was that put him in the mood. He still felt bad about missing the dinner reservation, and knew a Lance hadn’t been keen on his self defence lesson. He’d planned a nice long ride with his boyfriend, misreading the time on his phone when they’d left. But now he was in the shower with Lance, he couldn’t keep his hands off his boyfriend.

Keith had wanted today to be perfect. Pidge still wasn’t talking to Lance and Keith had to work with Lotor who was feeding them nothing. 4 more dead vampires, all over the damn city. The last one was a vampire and a werewolf left in a park. Not a pretty sight or a fun time. Then there was the fact that even though Lance was in Platt, he felt so far away when they weren’t together. Allura had Lance helping her, Lance was also keeping up with his private work, Keith’s schedule was shit and Kosmo didn’t want to pee outside when the grass was wet instead saving that for next to Keith’s bed. Keith would never press Lance for sex, they hadn’t done much more than kissing in weeks, so maybe that was why now that they were finally really alone, he couldn’t stop touching his boyfriend.

On his knees, Keith had one of Lance’s long smooth legs over his shoulder, Lance’s hands in his hair as he rocked his hips. The tiled floor wasn’t working for him, not the way Lance’s moans were. Lance’s wetness rolling down his fingers as he prepped his boyfriend. Pulling off Lance’s dick, Keith gazed up at his boyfriend, jaw kind of aching and not sure if he’d been doing things right as Lance hadn’t come

“Babe?”

“I’m good... come back up here and kiss me”

Keith’s knees cracked as he stood, feeling old rather than sexy. Rinsing his mouth under the warm water, Lance giggled at him

“Who thought someone who sucked dick so good would show such manners. I knew you were a catch”

Keith rolled his eyes, pumping out a little more body wash to use as improvised lube

“Tell me that again when you’re screaming”

Lance smiled coyly, hand sliding across Keith’s side and down to grope his arse

“You best come closer then...”

“Oh, yeah, why’s that...”

“Because if you don’t fuck me right now, I think I’m going to break”

Keith was ashamed... kind of.. the sex was good. Hard, fast, sloppy, with Lance’s shoulders against the bathroom wall, arms over Keith’s shoulders, legs around Keith’s waist as he gripped his boyfriend’s arse fucking Lance on his dick more than his boyfriend riding him. Lance was flushed, fangs bared, hot as hell as he came up his stomach. Keith barely remembered he didn’t have a condom on and pulled out to come across Lance’s arse and the wall, legs shaking because fuck if he hadn’t come and hard and nearly had his orgasm torn out of him by Lance clenching around him. Leaning in, they both panted into the kiss, smiles on the corners of their lips. Keith wouldn’t say it, but he’d definitely come to appreciate Lance’s arse in a whole other way. He felt close to Lance when they had sex... not like... he didn’t know really. But like... it felt right with him.

Resting against each other, Lance suddenly jerked his head back, voice shaking

“Fuck... condom...”

Shit. Fuck... right... he’d made it in time... only just

“I pulled out...”

Lance kissed him hard, then peppered kisses to his lips, thanking him between them

“Thank god... I mean... just...”

Keith got it. Zero offence. They could barely work themselves out. He couldn’t even work a toaster and he was kind of sure there were laws against giving your kids nothing but coffee

“We’re not ready for kids”

“No”

“It’s fine”

Lance kissed him again

“Good... fuck... I think you’re going to have to carry me. I can’t feel anything beneath my hips other than my heart beat”

“Is that a good thing?”

Keith didn’t get it...

“Oh, babe... it is when you’re to blame for it”

Drying off after their prolonged shower, Lance insisted they were the fluffy bathrobes provided. Keith feeling a bit weird about nothing covering his junk... or Lance’s junk. His cheeks red when his boyfriend let his slip a little to show his thigh. Lance was either messing with him, or completely unaware as he picked up the hotel file on the bedside table. Keith swallowing hard and looking away... He couldn’t just jump Lance again... even if he wanted to... but he was also happy sitting on the bed with him, arm around his shoulder as Lance lent his head against his shoulder

“Ta-dah! Now, somewhere in here should be the room service menu... and before you say it, I know I’m a snack but you can’t eat me”

“You’re the one with the fangs. Shouldn’t I be worried about you eating me?”

Lance started flicking through the file

“Nope. What do you feel like?”

“Kind of squishy, a bit muscly... Human, I think”

Lance snorted with laughter, shaking his head

“Babe... that was bad and you should feel bad”

Keith pouted. He thought he was being witty. His brain cells had been taxed enough worrying that he’d ruined their whole night by being late

“I thought I was funny”

Lance elbowed him lightly before snuggling closer

“Totally hilarious. Ah, here it is... Jesus... I could make this... some of this... I could make the garlic bread”

Keith looked over Lance’s shoulder to read the menu. The problem with fancy places was that they couldn’t just give things normal names that were easy to pronounce. He felt kind of dumb

“I don’t know what most of this is”

“That’s because you didn’t grow in a house were food meant family time... or have a Hunk and a vampire’s memory. I think I’m going to have the pork”

Keith couldn’t see anything about pork

“It says pork?”

“It says porc with a “c”. “Agnaeu” is lamb. Aaaand my French is terrible. I wish I could forget being taught French... high school was not fun”

“How come?”

“Because like every damn test I’ve had in years I have to be careful. I can’t be... it’s weird if I’m getting perfect scores, but I don’t want to be too dumb...”

Keith hadn’t thought about it. He’d done what he could in high school but there gaps in his schooling. If he did too good in class they’d made fun of him. If he did too badly then he was a dumb delinquent. He didn’t want to think about it

“I get that... I don’t know what to order”

“Ohhh.. look, they’ve got pizza”

Lance was trying too hard now. He probably meant nothing by it, wanting to keep the mood

“We can get pizza any time”

“Ahhh... but can you get pizza with blue cheese, balsamic glazed fennel, fig and pear?”

Keith wrinkled his nose

“That sounds revolting”

“I think the term you need is “abomination” ... oh they have meat lovers”

“Babe, we can’t order pizza”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re in a fancy hotel room”

“And?”

“And I might be dumb but you don’t have to baby me”

Lance snapped. Slamming the hotel file shut, as he turned to glare at him. Keith wasn’t sure how he’d set him off

“You’re not dumb. I’m not babying you”

“You swapped to pizza when you realised I couldn’t read the menu”

“It says under everything what it is, in that super small slopey print. You’re not dumb. Hell, if French hadn’t been forced upon me because Spanish wasn’t acceptable I wouldn’t know either”

“What do you mean Spanish wasn’t acceptable?”

“Wasn’t white enough for the public school we went to”

“That’s bullshit”

Lance settled back against him, fingers rubbing over the gold hotel logo on the file

“Mhmm. So I’m not trying to make fun of you or anything. I don’t know... I thought maybe pizza was more us?”

Pizza was more them.. but they could have pizza whenever

“Not tonight... I owe you a fancy dinner”

“Then do you want me to order for both of us? There’s pork, lamb, pasta, pizza...”

“They usually use heavy cream in pasta”

“Amateurs use heavy cream. Carbonara is supposed to be eggs”

“Is pasta fancy?”

He didn’t want to be... Uncultured

“Babe. If you want pasta, you’re having pasta. I’m dying for some properly cooked vegetables... and I think I’m going to try the French fruit tart”

“I think I’ll try what you’re having...”

“Okay. But I’ll order a different dessert so we can share. Why don’t you find something to watch?”

Keith didn’t like being confused again. He hadn’t seen a TV

“Watch?”

“The mirror is a TV... did you notice?”

“I was too busy looking at you”

“Smooth. I might choose to believe that. Just don’t pick porn, they charge extra for that”

It took Keith a few moments to realise Lance said porn

“They have porn?”

“Oh, babe... Oh... On second thought you order that porn. You have a lot to learn about being skeevy in a hotel room”

He’d never done this before...

“When did you become an expert?”

Should he be jealous? Lance let out a bark of laughter

“I’m highly trained in the ways of movie watching... plus, I’m planning on doing some pretty skeevy things with you later”

“Like watching porn?”

“Like eating dinner in bed while watching a bad horror movie”

“I don’t know if that qualifies?”

“Then it’s a good thing you’re in for the “full Lance experience”

And what an experience it was.

[doc-pickles]

it’s nothing funny just to talk (p.2)

What happens when you text that random number graffitied on a bathroom stall in your favorite bar? Jo Wilson is about to find out. - In which Bar Princess and Doctor Evil Spawn meet via text.

Saturday 12:09 PM

you know what might be worse than pyramid schemes?

bridal showers

this is horrendous 

Same woman you were drinking in solidarity to?

obviously, I have like four friends 

I thought teachers were like outgoing and bubbly?

oh hell no, socializing is not my cup of tea

one of the other bridesmaids just asked who i was texting so I told her jack the ripper

Oh you couldn’t even give me a good one

i’m gonna pretend you didn’t say that 

My day off and the weekend finally coincide, which means I’m not leaving my couch all day. 

I wish I were you this shower is gonna kill me 

teachers on the weekend are a fun sight to see

You’re not partaking this time?

no i’m DD

it’s for the best, I did throw up on my shoes last weekend 

How crazy is a bridal shower that you need a DD?

there’s a mimosa bar and they’re already playing never have I ever

the mother of the groom is starting something with the mother of the bride

I gotta deal with this 

  Saturday 3:11 PM

I deserve bottle of wine for all of the shit I dealt with today

I never wanna be a maid of honor ever again

Maybe we should rename you Maid of Dishonor?

wooooooow

I throw up on my shoes ONE TIME

How’d the battle of the mothers go?

oh it was horrendous 

groom is from a rich family and bride grew up on a farm… you know how it goes 

Doesn’t sound fun. Glad you made it out. 

barely

how’s your day off going

Amazing. I get to watch baseball and sit on the couch with a bag of chips and a beer. I’m living the dream. 

I envy you

they’re making us go out again

Do you get to drink during this escapade?

yes thank god

manhattan or moscow mule?

A whiskey drinker? You might be the perfect woman. 

don’t try to butter me up, i’ve never even met you in person

We can change that. 

  Saturday 6:14 PM

Do you think birds have dreams?

I thought I was supposed to get drunk

You were talking too long. And I’m not drunk. 

I can’t think of another reason why you’d ask me about bird dreams

You’re a teacher. I was curios. 

i’m not a bird specialist

personally I do not think that birds can dream

I’m telling them you said that. 

the birds?

Yes. They deserve to know the truth. 

have you just been sitting on the couch drinking beer all day?

did you even eat

Yeah I had pizza for lunch 

what about dinner?

It’s not dinner time yet. 

dude it’s 6

Oh shit really?

Hahaha that explains it 

psh and you said I was bad when I was drunk

you’re freaking Snow White 

Is this ebcause I asked about the birds 

yes it is

I gotta go, Maggie says i’m not netting the quota for fun

Maggie sounds like a buzzkill

she’s the assistant principal, i’m scared she’ll fire me if I don’t listen

jk… kinda 

  Saturday 12:32 AM

Incoming Voice Call

  “Jo! Put the phone down! You should not be calling anyone right now!”

“Hello?”

“Doctor Evil Spawn! I’m so glad you picked up.”

“Are you drunk now?”

“Noooo….. maybe. I just wanted to say hi.”

“Hi princess.”

“Your voice is nice. It’s a good voice, it’s sexy and I like it.”

“You’re kinda crazy, you know that?”

“Josephine Wilson! Give me the phone!”

“Woah who full named you? They sound angry.”

“That’s Maggie, she’s trying to get me to go home. I can’t go home Maggie, I’m talking to a hot doctor! And he has a sexy voice!”

“You’ve never even seen me, you don’t know if I’m hot.”

“I’m judging off your sexy voice and what few characteristics I know about you. I’d be shocked if you weren’t hot.”

“You have too much faith in me.”

“I have to go, Maggie is dragging me out of the bar. Byeeee hot doctor!”

“Goodnight princess, don’t throw up on your shoes this time.” 

  Sunday 9:58 AM

How’re your shoes looking?

  Sunday 11:22 AM

You’re still dead? I mean you did call me half past midnight… but I thought you’d be up by now.

  Sunday 1:46 PM

Are you embarrassed because of what you said on the phone? Frankly I found it endearing. 

  Sunday 3:18 PM

As a doctor, I’m advising you to drink more fluids and get food in your system. Maybe a banana. It’ll make you feel less shitty, trust me.

  Sunday 6:17 PM

Hope you’re not dead in a ditch somewhere. 

  Monday 7:23 AM

oh my god I am so sorry

I dropped my phone in Maggie’s car and I just got it back

wait you were worried about me weren’t you

Well you fell off the face of the earth… so yeah. 

awwww well it’s nice to know that someone would notice if I was kidnapped and murdered 

Didn’t you say I was the one that would kidnap and murder you? 

yes but i’m having a change of heart

Is it because of my sexy voice?

I was kinda hoping I didn’t say that out loud

whoops

I told you I found it endearing. 

flattery will get you everywhere

gotta go, class is lining up and they’re already screaming

I’ll pray for you. 

  Monday 8:08 PM

dude the thai place on 7th across from old navy?

amazing

i’m in heaven

Oh so we’ve reached the stage of giving each other food recommendations?

obviously 

this is a serious relationship 

Chinese place across from Joe’s Bar has the best egg rolls. Perfect drunchies. 

i’ve never been to joe’s 

I live right around the corner from there

So we’re neighbors then? I’m off of Fullerton. 

I guess we are

that’s exciting, i bet i’ve seen you at the grocery store 

Bold of you to assume I make it to the grocery store. 

honestly same

I usually guilt steph or izzie into it

You’re the chaotic good of the group aren’t you?

obviously 

I keep things balanced 

what’re you doing?

On a break, almost done for the night. I have to round on post ops and then I’m done. 

nice!!! did you get anything fun today?

Not really just surgeries I could do in my sleep. 

typical monday’s

I have to go, we have a field trip tomorrow and i’m not emotionally prepared

Oof. Have fun, don’t die. 

who the hell ends texts like that?

A doctor. Obviously. Night princess. 

goodnight Snow White

  Tuesday 12:18 PM

whoever decided to bring 42 fourth graders to the science discovery museum should be fired 

Isn’t that you?

maybe

maybe not

It was totally you. How about a deal?

deal with an internet stranger? 

fine but if I die i’m gonna be pissed

How about I drop off a bottle of wine on your porch on my way to work? I work the night shift again. 

hmmmm I don’t think i’m supposed to give my address to strangers

but i’m pretty sure if you were going to kill me you would’ve done it by now

See you’re getting the hang of it. 

okay i’ll give you my address

but if there’s a bomb we’re going to have words

If there’s a bomb you’ll be dead. 

  Tuesday 4:54 PM

red wine AND egg rolls?

if I didn’t know better i’d think you’re trying to woo me

I think I need to meet you before we can say that. 

thank you!!! 

my roomies are teasing me about taking wine from a stranger

You’re welcome. And I’m not a stranger. I know your name and where you live. 

aaaaand way to make things creepy

BTW your blonde roommate was checking out my ass. 

hahahahaha that’s izzie for you

she has a boyfriend don’t worry 

I wasn’t too concerned about her, just thought you might want to beat her up or something. 

intentionally trying to start a cat fight? classy

she says you’re “super dreamy” so that’s a plus

Glad to know I passed the checkpoint. Does this mean I get to meet you now?

maybe maybe not

we have learned one good thing though

And what’s that?

even if you are a serial killer, you have a good taste in wine and your attractive

i’ll die happy

  Tuesday 7:32 AM

If I never work another overnight again it’ll be too soon. 

yeah you’ve been working a lot of those 

wtf is up with that

I lost a bet with Arizona. 

oof that doesn’t sound fun

at least I have nice stable working hours

summers off

i’m living the dream

Why do you do that?

do what?

Send forty texts. There’s a button to put in a period and start a new sentence. In the same text. 

you really do text like a 60 year old

I’m sophisticated, obviously. 

I know we’ve never met but I need a favor

Oof. After I dropped off wine for you?

the favor includes free food and alcohol

I’m listening… 

that wedding i’m in is next weekend

and I don’t have a date :-)

I wish I could, I’m going out of town. 

booooo

it’s okay, after i’m done being a brides bitch my weekend will open up

i’ll also be done with school for year

So I can take you out on a proper date? Instead of texting you all day? 

you do realize that you’re texting a girl who found your number at 11 pm while shit faced in a bar right

That’s always how I pictured meeting the woman of my dreams. 

oh shut up

I suppose i’ll go on a date with you, man I know nothing about 

I’m Alex, I’m 27 and I don’t think pineapple belongs on pizza

deal breaker sorry

pineapple + pizza = deliciousness 

Well at least you know more about me. 

that I do

jo, 25, who’s favorite color is purple and eats cinnamon toast for breakfast everyday, has to go educate the tiny humans

talk to you later old man

Oh come on you’re two years younger!

  Tuesday 1:26 PM

have you ever had to hot glue rhinestones to candle votives 

because I am

and I hate it

WTF is a votive?

those tiny little glass things you put a candle into

Oh. Why are you bedazzling them? 

wedding prep

today is a half day so bridezilla has us crafting for her 

Are all of you brides bitches teachers?

yes

it’s hell

you try to talk about your class and all you hear about is peonies and roses and baby’s breath

I’m glad I’m a dude then. 

ha! you better be 

oh my god, she’s gone psycho

if I don’t text she took my phone

Don’t die, I’m looking forward to our date. 

  Tuesday 7:17 PM

RIP Jo, Avid Cinnamon Toast Eater 

Killed by Her Insane Bride Friend  

I made it out!!!!

barely

Nice, I’ve heard a rabid bridezilla is hard to escape. 

it was the worst 

but she let me go when I told her I had to finish putting in grades for the year

(I finished last night)

I for one am proud of you. That’s badass. 

lol i’ll keep that in mind 

thursday is our last day before freedom

I think I might get shit faced as soon as I leave work

I support it wholeheartedly. 

good because you’ll probably get more bar princess texts

Or if I’m lucky a phone call where you call me sexy again. 

hey hey I didn’t call you sexy

I called your voice sexy

there’s a difference 

Oh sorry, I don’t know how I overlooked that. 

mhm sure 

tomorrow is crazy hair day 

Does this mean I get to see a picture of you? Because I’m definitely interested in seeing what you do with this spirit day thing. 

i’ll save it for when we meet

I’m determined not to see you until our date

Suit yourself. Gotta go remove stitches. 

oooohh how exhilarating!! 

  Wednesday 9:42 AM

How goes the crazy hair?

oh just dandy 

half my hair is pink 

You seem like the type to be able to pull of pink hair. Plus it’s pretty rad. 

you’re too kind 

I bribed the kids with cookies and a movie 

i’m totally winning today

I just took out an appendix, I think I win. 

just saying I don’t think that our jobs are comparable 

but taking out an appendix sounds cool

Not as cool as cookies though. 

I have a bunch left over

should I drop them on your doorstep? 

Only if you want to. I wouldn’t say no to a good cookie. I’m here till 5. 

i’ll stop by after work!! 

we have another half day

Sweet. I’m glad you’re the one that found my number. 

  Wednesday 12:56 PM

Dude. George says you look like an adorable preschooler. 

I FORGOT I HAD MY HAIR LIKE THIS

he was very understanding 

Rave reviews on your “kindness and beautiful eyes” 

oh my god 

I have to die now 

He might’ve mentioned your ass too. I’m painting a beautiful mental picture. 

oh lord

brb gotta wash out this stupid hair dye 

maybe bang my head against the shower wall

Oooh tell me more. I love a dirty shower fantasy. 

oh booo

you’re not even trying anymore 

  Wednesday 5:55 PM

remember the titans is on tv

and it’s really good 

in case you didn’t know 

That movie is 20 years old, of course I know it’s good. 

well clearly I didn’t 

i didn’t have cable growing up 

Oh neither did I, I just stole it from the neighbors. 

that’s pretty bad ass for a kid 

Had to keep my siblings entertained. You know how it is. 

nope i’m an only child

That sounds like a dream. I have two younger siblings and they’re both a pain in the ass. 

if you knew the half of it you’d be begging to trade places with me 

I’m looking forward to hearing all of it. 

  Thursday 11:53 AM

FREEDOM!!!!!!

I AM FREE!!!!

HALLELUJAH!!!!!

I’m assuming school is out?

Y E S

$20 says I can sneak out of here without bridezilla roping me into a stupid arts and crafts project 

I hope so, I’m enjoying talking to you today. 

aren’t you at work??

Nope. Today is my day off. 

and you’re not watching baseball and drinking beer?

It’s not even noon yet. 

time is an illusion

it’s shots o clock somewhere or whatever they say

I’m now learning that the only cultural education you have is the Backstreet Boys. I think our second date will have to be a movie marathon. 

already planning our second date?

ambitious 

I like it

My conversation is fairly limited if I can’t drop a pop culture reference or two during the day. 

I can see your points and i’m willing to sit myself down and watch the classics

okay gotta sneak past bridezilla… wish me luck

Good luck 

  Thursday 4:35 PM

Pork shoulder, corn, and potatoes all on the grill. 

i’m jealous

I can’t cook to save my life 

thank god we’re going out tonight

To celebrate finally breaking free for the summer?

exactly!! steph and izzie decided we needed to go to a club after dinner

i’ve never been to one before 

Overpriced drinks and random guys grinding up on you all night. Not the best experience. 

oh so random guys grind on you when you go out?

Shut up. 

hahahaha 

I’ve never even been to a club before. Not my scene. I just live with women so I know these things. 

well i’ll update you on the happenings

let you know if I have to pay $20 for a drink

who’s grinding on my ass

you know normal everyday things

Woah woah woah. 

what??

are you jealous??

I’m just saying if you’re gonna be shaking your ass, you might as well get random guys to buy you overpriced drinks. 

you’re making some very good points 

Of course I am. By the way, George wants me to tell you that you have a very shakeable ass so you should be taking in free drinks. 

great I have to go die again 

brb gonna drOWN MYSELF IN THE SHOWER 

  Thursday 10:38 PM

good news

i’ve secured three free drinks and a round of shots for all six of us

this ass is making money baby

I’ve created a monster. Who else is there?

steph, izzie, april, maggie, and levi

You brought the whole staff out didn’t you?

yes and I’m quite skilled at getting them drunk

You’re three drinks in and still texting correctly?

I think I danced it all off

need more fireball

And that’s another thing. Who willingly shoots Fireball?

me bitch

Ohh I love it when you call me names. 

mmm i’m sure you do

okay i’m gonna go get more drinks

wish me luck

Good luck, I’m sure your ass will take in more than enough. 

  Thursday 11:57 PM

Incoming Voice Call

“Helloo?”

“Hi, it’s me.”

“I can afford caller ID, I knew it was you.”

“Were you sleeping?”

“No, I was about to head upstairs but I’m not tired.”

“Oh good. I just got home.”

“You sound tired. Did you have fun?”

“It was nice, Steph went home with some guy she met and Izzie went to her boyfriends so I’m home alone.”

“So you decided to call me?”

“I missed your voice, I told you that you have a nice voice.”

“You said that I have a sexy voice.”

“Oh shut up. I wanted to call before I went to sleep.”

“You’ve grown fond of me haven't you?”

“If you’re gonna say it like a weirdo then yes… I have grown fond of you, Snow White.”

“I guess I can say the same about you Bar Princess. Are you yawning over there?”

“Just a little bit, but I like talking to you.”

“It’s midnight, I wouldn’t blame you for falling asleep.”

“I don’t wanna fall asleep, I wanna keep talking to you.”

“How about I tell you the story of the time I was bridesman and I had to go to a bachelorette party?”

“Okay I’m listening…”

  Friday 10:15 AM

I feel like a teenager 

who the hell falls asleep on the phone

i’m in a bad rom com aren't I 

Your snoring is really cute. 

oh christ

well at least I didn’t take body shots off a male stripper

I was really hoping you’d be asleep before I got to that part. 

oh nooo I remember that very clearly 

i’ll be filing that away for blackmail

Rude. I guess I’ll save your snoring in that file too. 

touché, I like the way you play the game

I’m an experienced player. Gotta go scrub in on a fundoplication. 

have fun!!!

  Friday 2:41 PM

I got bored and googled a fundoplication

that’s some crazy stuff, you’re kind of a badass

Easy peasy, all in a day's work. 

nooo that’s amazing stuff!! 

i’m in my classroom scraping gum and glitter off of the desks

Well you’re the reason people become doctors so I'd say you’re pretty important too. 

awww you’re still trying to impress me

it’s a good look on you

I’m trying to be a gentleman. Maybe I’ll bring up your puke shoes just to be an asshole. 

you know what even the mention of that can’t bring down my good mood

do you think I could get in trouble for drinking wine in my classroom?

Well there’s no kids around so… no. But I like the rebellious attitude you have towards the situation. 

if i’m gonna sit in a classroom with no AC and scrape boogers off desks all day then I deserve some damn wine

You’re right and you should say it. 

I DESERVE MY WINE I EARNED IT

oh shit maggie is outside i’m so fired

Hey you got her free shots last night, she should be thankful. 

you know what you’re right

oh shit it’s bridezilla

Run.

whew

forgot we have our final dress fitting tomorrow

i’m not dead yet

Oh good. I kinda don’t want the first time I see you to be your funeral. 

hahaha very funny

gotta go, we have to do this stupid year end meeting

I hate it here

Have fun, and remember don’t stab yourself with a pen!

  Saturday 8:13 AM

WHAT A BEAUTIFUL MORNING

I wanna die 

bridezilla is making us jog

and she took away my donuts

  Saturday 9:53 AM

Jesus Christ. You need new friends. 

honestly she’s not that bad when she’s not stressing over this wedding 

she’s crying because she has a pimple

Oof that’s a tough run. Unfortunately, I have to spend the day out on a boat. 

boohoo I don’t not feel bad for you

unless like… you have some childhood trauma from a boat

Nope. I get to relax and drink beer all day long. 

yeah well then screw you

I have to try my stupid dress on and go to a stupid lunch and I CAN’T EVEN HAVE DONUTS

Aren’t you at home?

yes, steph invited everyone here since we have the space

why?

Check your porch. 

YOU BROUGHT ME DONUTS?! 

you’re my favorite

thank you thank you thank you 

You’re welcome, I’m happy to be of service. 

ohhhh I might just kiss you when we finally meet 

I wouldn’t say no to that. 

okay I gotta go hide in the closet and eat my donuts 

thank you for thinking of me!!

It’s all I ever do. 

  Saturday 2:16 PM

How goes the dress trying on?

it was good!! mine fits and we have a beautiful bride on our hands 

Good. I’m glad your day is getting better. I think I’m getting a sunburn. 

you better not

that shit is dangerous 

go find sunscreen 

Now you’re concerned about me huh?

always

did you put the sunscreen on

Yes because I knew you’d spontaneously implode if I didn’t. 

good 

I didn’t want to you to burst into flames sitting in the sun

As a doctor, I can tell you that most likely would not be what happened.

now we have to sit through a boring ass lunch

it’s what the mother of the groom insists on

Is she paying for it though? …. yes

Well then stop complaining.

okay okay fine

hey quick question

which fork do i stab myself with

Go order a steak and drink an expensive glass of wine.

  Saturday 10:39 PM

Incoming Voice Call

“Well well well, how the tables have turned.” “Bar Priiiiiincessss.” “Oh my god. This is so going in the blackmail file.”

“No don’t do that. If Jo finds out I was singing to another girl she’ll be mad.” “And why don’t you want Jo to be mad at you?” “Because I want to kiss her. And hug her. And see her face.”

“Well do I have a surprise for you.” “Oh I love surprises!”

“Jo and Bar Princess are the same person. I’m Jo.” “Holy crap! NO way!”

“Yes way, isn’t that crazy?”

“Can you tell Jo that she’s the nicest person I’ve ever met.” “I will relay the message. Jo is going to bed now though. Goodnight Alex.” “Good night Bar Princess, I miss you!”

[sheusedtobesassier]

Day 10,402

Approximately two months ago I sent you a calm and collected message in which I asked seven questions about our break up. I made sure to say, “Write back whenever you feel the urge and if you never experience that urge then wow please don’t reply that’s fine. I know I need to ask, but it’s okay if you do not need to answer.” I really meant that.

You wrote me back six days later, but without answers. A polite message letting me know you were going to respond eventually. That was 2 months, 2 days, 22 hours, and some odd minutes ago. In my heart of hearts, I don’t believe you will ever send me your answers. The process would take some degree of emotional effort and truthfully I think it doesn’t matter enough to you. And that’s really really really really okay. It has to be.

I am going to answer the questions tonight. Not for you to read, but for me to write. I’ve got a glass of decent Pinot Grigio. I just heard some thunder rumbling. I think I read somewhere that there’s a full moon up there tonight. So. That all lines up for expression.

(I’m not going to include the actual questions in this post because goddamn I love to come off as elusive. I have them and you have them. Anybody else’s guess is good enough.)

1. Limit of four because limits help. You were my buddy so instead of being usually on my own I got to be usually with you. You knew how to be a steady force when I needed space to not be one. You usually felt/saw/reacted/thought differently than everybody else in the room, including me. You deliberately accessed me in ways I’d begun to believe nobody could or would ever want to.

2. Limit of four because limits help. It was extremely hard to be next to you when you were making it obvious you wanted so badly to be elsewhere. I didn’t ever laugh as hard as you like to laugh and it didn’t matter to you what I thought about music. It felt like it was always going to suck that I was a white girl. I think the shine wore off, like I think you’d lost a lot of respect for me by the end.

3. I mean. I think a few months into being officially together we were having a difficult conversation about how you were 90% sure you were going to leave camp soon. It came up that we didn’t really believe in the concept of long distance relationships. That neither of us were that kind of person. How ultimately that would be just a slower more painful break up. And like. Idk. Tbh this question is hard for me to answer and I really wish you would. That’d help me out a ton. When people ask me why we broke up I make vague jokes around it and I’m pretty sure I sound stupid as fuck.

4. Okay. Work hit a rough season financially and it put you it a bad spot. We went on a cold air walk one afternoon and you told me you were going to talk seriously to an Illinois buddy about possibly moving in with him. After that we went to the Moyers for dinner and you pulled Bill aside to speak privately. As I was falling asleep that night I asked what you’d talked about and you said, “I told him I am leaving.” I was caught totally off guard because you had not said those words to me yet. The conversation didn’t go further. I attempted to hide that I was crying and you said goodnight and left. Then for about three days you cut yourself off from the world completely. Hid out. Others started asking me what the heck was going on and I didn’t have an answer. I was subtle crying almost constantly lol, so I finally txted you and asked if we needed to talk. We acknowledged that the conversation we were about to have would require bravery. I asked my boss for some time off work and got it. Um. This is when it all gets pretty confusing for me. Looking back now I think at this point you already knew we were going to break up and were even possibly trying to do it haha, but uh. I didn’t realize your mind was made up. Which. To be fair to me, you did not communicate with me how far gone you were. So. I assumed we were still in the midst of a difficult decision making process. Perhaps I should have asked more questions than I did. But. Um. We spent like the next four days together and they were borderline perfect? Which. Lol whatever I don’t want to write about them. I want you to tell me what the fuck was going on there because I think the way you were looking at our last week together was 1000% different from whatever the hell I was perceiving. I was in a honey colored daze. I’m sorry if that time was low key tortuous for you. I truly did not understand what was happening. Um. We took each others clothes off on a Friday evening and afterwards I was laughing and realized you weren’t laughing. You were blank. Staring hard at nothing. I softly asked what was wrong and you said you had to call your friend and give him a final answer. And um. And I had to say the words, “And? You’re upset? Because? You’re going to tell him yes?” Um. All this is a blur. I don’t remember saying much else. I got dressed and began putting on make up, getting ready to go watch a children's musical with friends. You stood at the door watching me a while then left. Um I cried uncontrollably on the drive into town, through the whole damn elementary school production of Annie, and the ride back. When I got home I sent you a txt saying, “If you need things before you go or have things you need to express then please let me know and we can do that.” along with some other sad content. I didn’t hear back so then at midnight I txted you a comforting I love you message and you sent a comforting I love you message back. I fell asleep worrying about you. Mm. And then. Whatever I’m not going to write in detail about it, but you very abruptly left first thing the next morning and from that point on (THOUGH WE’VE NEVER HAD THE FUCKING CONVERSATION) we have been not together. Next question.

5. Okay. I got way too specific on that last one and would like to not make a pattern of that. Sorry. So. For this one. For me. Afterwards I went dark. I went through very ugly withdrawal. I guess I can’t really write about then. Um. I waited for weeks to hear from you and heard nothing. I read everything about our star signs and I listened to the break up playlist I’d been fucked up prepping throughout basically our entire relationship. I watched ALL the Marvel movies and I drank a lot a lot so much I just wanted to drink. I couldn’t fucking sleep ever and when I did I had cruel dreams about you. When we finally did start writing to each other I got really really really really emotionally messy. Paragraphs and then more paragraphs. DRAMATIC TAKE AFTER DRAMATIC TAKE. I didn’t call you and you didn’t call me. But I bothered you and I bothered you and I bothered you. You hardly ever seemed interested in talking to me. You’d give a little and I’d gross myself out at how desperate I was for more. You were polite and you didn’t want to talk to me. Yeah okay that’s the simplest way to describe what afterwards was like for me. I was in love with someone who didn’t want to talk to me.

6. Um. Okay. Honestly. Right now when I think of you there are a few common reactions. I think of the dialogue from Liz Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love often. “But I love him.” “So love him.” “But I miss him.” “So miss him. Send him some love and light every time you think about him then drop it.” Usually when you come to mind it’s because of one of hundreds of things that connect to stories I like about us. I’m consistently telling me, “Shut up. Nobody knows how to react when you talk reverently about your ex.” Idk. I use a lot of my 11:11 wishes on your behalf. Like unselfishly. I don’t make them about us getting back together or anything like that. No, just for your happiness/wholeness. I wish for good for you. But maybe now that I’ve typed that here none of them will come true. Sorry.

7. I am not.

[aaknopf]

The poet Quan Barry is also a fiction writer, whose mischievous We Ride Upon Sticks has just been published. In the fall of 1989, the seniors on the losing Danvers Falcons field hockey team avail themselves of some locally-sourced Salem witchery, in the hope of concocting a winning season. They make a pact, signing their names in a spiral notebook with Emilio Estevez on the cover, and rip and tie strips of Falcons-blue tube sock around all their arms, sealing their dark bond. In the scene below (which includes a special guest appearance by the poet Philip Larkin), the team mingles with members of the football team at their favorite pizza joint. We meet one of the more mysterious players, Girl Cory, so-called because there’s also a Boy Cory on the squad; Boy Cory’s story, like that of Girl Cory, their teammates Jen Fiorenza (whose awesome, high-teased bangs are known to all as “the Claw”), Abby Putnam (ancestor of an original Salem accuser), and others in the mix here, is a journey of identity, community, and the magic of high school friendships.

from We Ride Upon Sticks

“Our butts are going to States this year,” said Jen. “Where are your butts going?” Just then Girl Cory walked in. For a moment the air in Rocco’s filled with the scent of aquamarine waters and palm trees, the harmonies of steel drums, then just as quickly it was back to cheese pizza and the crackling of the deep fryer. “ ’Sup?” Log called out. Most guys at Danvers High didn’t talk to Girl Cory. From what we could glean of teen-boy-dom it seemed most teen boys only have a finite amount of confidence, and they couldn’t afford to go blowing it willy-nilly on a hopeless case like Girl Cory. It was plain to see she was out of everyone’s league. Most people accepted this. It was pure science, like the apple falling from the tree. Girls like Girl Cory didn’t date regular human boys. Historically, since the invention of written records in the girls’ third-floor bathroom concerning who was banging whom, Girl Cory had never dated anyone at Danvers High. Mostly she left in her wake a trail of names from the local private-school universe, places like the Prep, Pingree, even some faraway boy at Deerfield. Log’s “ ’Sup?” was still hanging in the air. Only he among his brethren had confidence to burn. Little did he know but “ ’Sup?” was an excellent question, one we’d been secretly wondering all our lives. Yeah, Girl Cory, what’s up? As she stood at the counter, Girl Cory nodded at Log but didn’t say a word or even take off her Ray-Bans. “And what does your soon-to-be captain have to say about you hosers going to States?” whispered Brian Robinson in a small voice, only looking at Girl Cory indirectly via a shiny plaque mounted on the wall, as if she were a Medusa with the power to transform flesh to stone. “Which is it?” he said. “You guys going to States, or 2-8 again?” “For your information, we haven’t voted for captain yet,” said Jen. Her Claw gave him the stink eye. Rocco’s adult son Vinny slammed her order down on the counter. Ceremoniously, she rose to retrieve her Diet Coke and two slices of Hawaiian. She noticed Log Winters was still staring at Girl Cory. “Take a picture, my friend,” she said, bending over and whispering in Log’s ear. “It’ll last longer.” Then she raised her voice so that all of Rocco’s could partake in the annunciation. “Besides, Cory already has a boyfriend.” “Who’s that?” said Log. “Nobody you’d know,” Jen projected. “He sent her flowers today. Isn’t that right, Cory?” Girl Cory turned and flashed Jen a look that simultaneously said both shut up and keep talking. She was an enigma like that. Honestly, none of us really knew her. Even now that we were all part of the sisterhood of the blue sweat sock, it was like she had constructed a wall to keep us out, a sunroom off the kitchen where she could sit and drink her Earl Grey in peace while the rest of us crowded around a plate of stale bagels in the breakfast nook. Girl Cory pulled a wad of napkins from the dispenser and went over to where Little Smitty was sitting with Mel. What’s up, Girl Cory? All season long, the rest of us standing around wondering, Girl Cory. What. Is. Up? And then one day we’d take a big juicy bite of the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, and to our everlasting sorrow, we’d find out. “Philip” made his first appearance during the ’88 season shortly after Girl Cory passed her driver’s test. It was late October, one of those autumn days when the afternoon sky prematurely takes on a hazy shade of winter. We were just off the school bus after returning from a massacre in Gloucester, 4-0. Truthfully, the score didn’t accurately reflect the gutting we’d endured at the hands of the Gloucester Fishermen. The two senior co-captains, Gina Packer and Mary Ellen Sommers, had gotten into a fight during the coin toss over whether to pick heads or tails. At one point, Gina reached over and ran her finger through the blue face paint where Mary Ellen had spackled the letters DHS on her cheek. We winced. It was like watching someone ruin a beautifully frosted cake. When we finally arrived back at Danvers High, Julie Kaling stopped reciting that part of the Nicene Creed about God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, her crucifix glinting in the dark of the bus. To be honest, after the kind of outing it had been, some of us found her religious yammering weirdly comforting. We’d grabbed our stuff from the locker room and headed out to wait for our moms to come get us or to bum rides with the seniors who lived in our neighborhoods. Girl Cory had hit the two-fecta, having recently passed her driver’s test and been given her own wheels to boot. Her brand-new white Fiero was parked in the student lot. The Fiero had been purchased weeks before her driving test and was just sitting around in her multi-car garage collecting dust. Driving was still a novelty to her, the monogrammed fingerless gloves still fun to slip on. That day she was giving Abby Putnam a ride home. It was Abby who pointed out the mint-green envelope stuck under the windshield wipers. Girl Cory peeled the envelope off the wet glass and held it between her fingers like a dead roach. “This is a wicked bummer,” she said. “Can you get ticketed here?” Abby shook her head. She watched as her friend tore open the soggy envelope. Girl Cory’s face betrayed nothing. If anything, she looked a little more bloodless. “Lemme see,” said Abby. She took the slip of paper in her hands and stared for a long time at the blurred writing, the washed-out words as if painted in watercolor. Roses are Red— Your Fiero—it’s White— With seating for two. Don’t! Put up a fight—take me with you! The next day before practice we showed the letter around. Heather Houston performed a close reading on it worthy of a 5 on the AP English test. She commented on the juvenile use of the Dickinsonian em dash, the strange imperatives, the elisions, the contradictory tone of both fight and flight. “Whoever wrote this is not playing with a full deck,” she concluded, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “It doesn’t even make sense. Like this part. ‘Don’t!’ Don’t what? Use your words, people!” She was practically spitting she was so worked up about it. Poor Heather Houston took weak syntactical choices as a personal affront. Julie Kaling patted her comfortingly on the back. “I dunno, I think it’s sweet,” said Little Smitty softly. This was back in the days before Emilio and the blue tube sock, back when Little Smitty ate all the spinach on her plate happily with a big smile as though it were cotton candy. “What I will say,” said Heather, offering a second conclusion about the note, “is Philip Larkin he is not.” Becca Bjelica looked at AJ Johnson and silently mouthed, Philip who? We were all thinking the same thing. Nobody rolled their eyes at her. How were we supposed to know some curmudgeonly British poet, even one who’d written: They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. And thus “Philip” was born. That first year “Philip” mostly left little things lying around in plain sight, like a cat who brings its owner dead robins. A tube of Chanel lipstick without the actual lipstick in it. A box of chocolates, but instead of sweets slotted in each compartment, there were rocks. Girl Cory took it all in stride. We didn’t tell anyone in the adult world because what was there to say? Some poor slob had the hots for a girl so beautiful she should have been in a music video, and he left her crazy presents? Back then the word “stalker” wasn’t really part of anyone’s vocabulary. Fatal Attraction had come out the year before, but that was just stuff that happened to sexy creeps like Michael Douglas, who banged complete strangers and mostly had it coming. And so Girl Cory learned to live with it. And so we learned to live vicariously through her. In time, we began to look forward to “Philip’s” offerings. They made us feel like maybe somewhere down the road, somebody, anybody, might possibly want us. Even the time he dropped a note in her schoolbag that said, “I hate you, you stupid peckerhead,” and signed it “Much l♥ve.” We were a bunch of mostly inexperienced teen girls. We thought that’s what true romance was supposed to look like. A boy telling a girl she was a stupid peckerhead, but she was his stupid peckerhead. Lord, make us worthy, we prayed. God from God, Light from Light, Boyfriend from Boy Who Considers Us a Peckerhead. It seemed like the thing to ask for. None of us ever thought to pray for a better caliber of boy.

More on this book and author:

Learn more about We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry

Browse other books by Quan Barry including her four poetry collections published in the Pitt Poetry Series

Read the full text of Philip Larkin's "This Be the Verse" at the Poetry Foundation

Peruse other poems, audio recordings, and broadsides in the Knopf poem-a-day series 

To share the poem-a-day experience with friends, pass along this link.

[magaprima]

a. Zelda was a total bitch to Lilith for refusing to help. She never trusted Lilith but without her help the Dark Lord would've killed everybody at the end of S2. She could've just accepted to hide her while keeping a close eye to her. Instead she turned her back to Lilith and why is that? Because despite their praying, she didn't help the coven? Excuse me, Lilith was dethroned if they didn't pay attention, she'd be asking for help if she could provide help instead? I mean, she accepted even

b. Gryla, a baby eating witch (and Zelda has a soft spot for babies), but not Lilith? And what pisses me off the most is M*dam Spellman fans saying they want Zelda to be Lilith’s midwife so they could finally have shippy content? I’m disgusted, because of Zelda Lilith had to humiliate herself once again, with the DL, with Blackwood and now she’s stuck with her abuser (and the unborn child of her abuser) once again. So how things work? Addressing abuse was just important for Sp*llwood or what?

Okay, first of all, thanks for your message. Second of all, yes I agree with all this about the scene. Third of all, it did however seem entirely out of character for Zelda for all of those exact reasons. 

I’ve posted on here already about how Zelda’s entire thing is always about keeping the coven safe at any cost, that witches protect other witches, that the coven is the most important thing, that anyone who abandons it is personally betraying Zelda, and she was that desperate and determined to save the coven that she called on Gryla and other Hedge Witches, who Zelda thinks very little of and vice versa and who are so dangerous and unpredictable that if not for Mambo Marie, they would have killed the whole coven. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, she doesn’t want Lilith. 

This scene smelt of rushed writing to get Lilith to a certain point (trapped with the Dark Lord) and to also, for some reason, ensure there’s no good feelings between Zelda and Lilith. Maybe to shoot down the Zillith ship in prep of Mambo Spellman? I don’t know. Either way, it felt off for Zelda’s character. She had been harsh, she can be That Bitch, but when it comes to the coven and witches, she always goes above and beyond. 

But, you’re right, from within the context of what the writers made happen between Zelda and Lilith you’re absolutely right, so I think if they did do a midwife scene, as you’re saying Zillith shippers want, it would be more likely to be a ‘Needs must’ scenario with mostly animosity between them. Which is a shame. I’m not a big Zillith shipper (I’m more ‘Yeah I see it and if it happens, cool´) but I am a big shipper of them as a dynamic. Zelda and Lilith would have made an amazing power team, and the dynamic would be wonderful, but the writers seem to refuse to give that in any way. 

I am praying Lilith is going to break free of her abuser once more (she hasn’t just bought time for her life but time for a plan, and Lilith is a survivalist) in Part 4 and we’re going to see the cycle break in a more permanent way, but when (if???) that happens, I doubt Lilith is going to forget the way Zelda was with her. Lilith does have a grudge-holding memory.So I do suspect that both friendship and romance are dead between those two, unless extreme circumstances throw them together in Part 4 in a sympathetic way....

But yeah I really hated that scene for so many reasons, but especially for how Lilith was utterly rejected by the entire coven she had helped and who had worshipped her, meaning she was, once again, having to survive on her own as she always has. No one ever sticks around or sticks up for Lilith, and that hurts. 

[thisnerdsadventures]

the last two weeks

Just two weeks ago, my friends and I went out to Yamato’s for the first time. 

It was sponsored by our dorm, so we racked up a nearly $1000 bill. We had a great time, but the end of our brunch came, and a few of us took a walk to the common for a Bernie rally, and the others went to the BPL to study. Afterwards, we all wound back on campus, and went about our Saturday doing the usual psetting. The current source of stress was the cup of grapes situation that spiraled wildly out of control, but in hindsight, it seems so inconsequential now. Eleven days ago, my friend and I went to Harvard for the day to decompress from everything. It was a beautiful day - the sun was out, we were wearing our light jackets. We went for ramen for lunch, shopped at a shoe store, and searched hopelessly for hand sanitizer. I had promised to work on my UROP but felt I deserved a day off, as I had been working tirelessly for a while. We walked around, taking it all in, I talked about how I was excited for our dinner on Friday and going to Michigan later in April for a conference. It looked like things might get better. The next day, the rumbling started. Harvard sent an email forbidding international travel. We had heard of the situation intensifying in Italy, but we were still nervously waiting to see what would happen. There were crisis-related rumblings on top of the usual school stress and all the things that had not gone well this semester, and just like that, the next day, MIT took it a step further and cancelled all large major events and banned international travel.

This was the first shock. Just earlier that day, I argued with my friend about her decision to back out of our spring break Spain trip due to coronavirus concerns. But now, five hours later, I sat on the ground in my friend's room as the shock passed over me. Every group chat was nonstop. What about CPW? What about Senior Ball? What about Springfest? Our spring break plans were definitely in the gutter now. Every question sent chills and dread down my spine. I heard someone ask whether commencement would still happen, and I cracked, not being able to face this eventuality that I prayed wouldn't happen. The rest of the day was gone, lost to the questions and stress and emails that ensued from this notification. But there were still personal conflicts. Personal problems, academic stress bubbling up to the surface for weeks, and it was coming to a head. Our dinner just over a week ago nearly didn't happen, but luckily a few of us still went to Harvard for a wonderful time. Our conversations surrounded how Harvard followed our footsteps just a day later on cancelling major events and how changes were so drastic. We contemplated whether the policy would be extended and whether our summer plans would be affected, but decided that that was too far in the future to worry about. So we ran across Harvard in the 30 degree night, snow falling from the sky, enjoying our time, not knowing what was to come. I spent what would be the last weekend preparing for a case. I prepped nonstop and thought I did really well on it in class, just this past Monday. It was a beautiful Monday, we biked to Panda Express with nothing but light jackets and we wished that every day could be like that, feeling like summer had come early in Boston. The situation outside was worsening, and we were watching closely to see what would happen. My friends from LA were trying to convince me to go to San Diego with them for a couple days now that my Spain trip was definitely cancelled. Over Twitter, we found out Princeton closed first, demanding it's undergraduates not come back from break, but i went to bed that Monday early, to prepare for a full day of research to come Tuesday, as my Tuesdays usually go, unblocked to make progress on my research. When I woke up Tuesday, there was something wrong. I knew from the blast of notifications from every group chat on every social media account I owned. My Harvard chat was 100+ messages deep by 9:30am from their closure and eviction of undergraduate students. I sat up immediately in bed and opened the other group chats, trembling. Another group of my friends were already organizing storage and coordinating travel ideas in the case that we would also be following suit after Harvard. 

I dashed to my computer to access all the other texts and call my dad, who was still awake in Taiwan. He told me to calm down and to wait. But just 30 minutes later, a screenshot leaked, confirming our worst fears - we would also be leaving campus in just a week, moving out for the semester. all classes would be online. My stomach dropped. In my attendance-based class, 2/3 of the class was present, and most were on their phone, checking for updates. We all anxiously waited the rumored 1pm email that would make it official. Everyone knew at this point, and seniors were feeling it all now, the shock, the grief, the celebration already of 4 years on campus. My friends and I cracked open a bottle of wine and took pictures on Killian with the hundreds of other students partying until 5pm. At 5pm though, the email released. It was official. All undergraduates were to move out in a week.

My floor exploded - flights frantically booked. What about storage? I called my mom and she was on it - Sunday afternoon flight booked, same one as my friend. And there was nothing to do except stare out the window of my friends room into the Boston skyline and finish off my wine bottle. And like many of my graduating peers, I realized that my senior year was done, and that I had not even a week to say goodbye to my home and to my friends. I started sobbing, nonstop. I hadn't cried like this since high school. My head of house started up a video call to the whole dorm, and hearing them talk logistics made me cry harder, and when I thought I stopped, I checked my phone and found an email from my professor berating the administration and acknowledging our irreplaceable loss. I cried again, harder. would commencement happen? Even if it did, my dad wouldn't be able to fly into the country. I continued to sob at the thought. After two hours, I eventually found my way to my friends bed where I fell asleep next to her until dinner, and with my eyes no longer swollen from tears, I wandered down to the dining hall with them. We saw other seniors, who had also been crying, judging from the redness in their eyes and cracks in their voices. The pain felt numb for me at this point. My friends stuck around for a bit, and we played some video games. No one on the floor was working, as we all had too much going on in our heads. The house team worked tirelessly to organize storage, and few of us slept that night. We stayed up chatting in the lobby about our families and going home and afterwards lied in our beds, sleepless, staring at the ceiling. The next day, I had just one class to go to, as large classes had been cancelled already. The campus was buzzing with yesterday's events. And in that class, we said our parting goodbyes, and many of us teared up yet again. But we laughed so hard too in that class, as we shared stories from our case just two days ago and for a moment, we forgot our pain. We took a class photo before we parted ways. After class, we lined up for an hour, each and every student, to personally thank our professor. 

My senior friends and I shared many meals together, and we parted, saying we'd see each other once again before we left. I watched my best friend take her swim test and watched as giant friend groups of other seniors came and cheered on their friends, fulfilling their last graduation requirement. To watch everyone support each other in these trying times brought warmth to my heart. I went home and ate dinner with my floor family, as we sat on the windowsills and drank boba and ate grilled cheeses. I was exhausted though, so I planned to go to bed at midnight, but I received a message from my best friend - she no longer was leaving on Monday, she was leaving in just eight hours.

I ran to maseeh and helped her pack until 5am. We packed up her curtains and I held her as she cried because she thought her parents were going to help her pack up her last year, just as they helped her screw in her curtains at the beginning of the year. I helped her store her stuff in the student center and we threw out bounties of trash and food. After I left, I knew with a sinking feeling that I wouldn't see her again for a while. And she cried a few more times and left early Thursday morning. When I woke up, she was gone. So I started cleaning and packing. The first boxes arrived in the green living room. In cleaning out my room, I found stuff from my first days of freshman year, my 8.02 exams, my chemistry notes, old electronics projects hidden away in boxes. And it was finally the end of my road, and so it was time to say goodbye to them. I spent so long mindlessly throwing stuff out, I had forgotten to leave McCormick until I finally went down to the lobby to hang out. And I hung out there for two hours, talking to everyone and anyone. I did a boba order for the ballerz, and my floor did yet another free dinner, so we once again ate together, laughing over the copious amount of free food on the kitchen table. Five or six of us returned to chatting and laughing about studying at home with family around in someone's room. A friend of mine invited us over to play Smash at BC, so we went and played a couple rounds. We returned to slowly packing until 11pm.

Things had been looking ok, as my dorm had dropped large amounts of money in buying everyone nice food. But when everyone received the emergency message from MIT telling us to leave by Sunday instead of Tuesday on Thursday night, the dorm exploded. Group chats started going off endlessly, with rumors of students already being sick or being quarantined on campus. I ran to my friends room, where she was already on the phone with her family, rebooking her flight for Saturday. "Just two days?" I thought to myself. "Not even two days I have left now with her and everyone and this home." She hung up the phone and started spilling rumors of Boston Logan closing on Monday. I melted to the floor, having a full panic attack. The dorm’s chat, another dorm’s chat, and every friend group chat started inciting even more fear and panic with each additional rumor. My ears were buzzing and my vision was blurring as I continued sitting on the floor. GRAs were woken up and started doing rounds on each floor, even though it was well past midnight at this point, to check on all the residents, many of whom were gathered in clusters around the floor. I went downstairs to talk to my GRA when I received a text from my friend. Chills ran down my back - "California might shut down within 24-48 hours." I did the math. The flight I rescheduled to just an hour ago was in 45 hours on Saturday afternoon. I felt another panic attack creeping up on me, so I ran off to talk to my friend. I went back up to my floor, where people were still yelling in the kitchen. She was off to the side, frantically still talking on the phone. Once I had calmed down a bit, I pulled her aside and told her about these messages, and she confirmed them in another group chat, showing me essentially a screenshot of a screenshot of a message in an unnamed group hat. Speechless, I stood in the hallway with her facing me. I guess she didn't know what else to do but hug me and reassure me it would be ok, because we had hit the point of simply not knowing what to do but say "I'm so sorry" to each other, as if it would ease the pain. I stayed up till 4:30am packing. My other friend called me, imploring me to change my flight to Friday, just 12 hours from then. I asked her bluntly, acknowledging my lack of family around the country - "if I can't go home, where am I supposed to go?" She promised I could stay with her in Texas and I stared back in disbelief, that we would reach this point of possibility that we would have no place to go, but that people would be so nice to open their homes to others who simply had no other place to go. I stared at my hopelessly unpacked room, the half consumed cider on the desk, and my sheer exhaustion, which had been kept awake by adrenaline. I called my mom again, who I'm sure was also was sleepless and asked whether our neighbor had also changed her flight. She said she didn't know whether they were able to change it. The next morning, two people woke me up two different times. Early in the morning, I fought for laundry machines and finished up most of my packing. That afternoon, I hung out in the lobby with my friends again and screamed out the window on a beautiful day as we blasted BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY into the courtyard. My dorm had a senior sendoff, complete with a senior gift and confetti, and a walk to Pomp and Circumstance, which was touching, considering we might not get commencement at the end of the year. But having everyone there to celebrate our little community and watch us walk to receive our fake diplomas and take senior pictures meant a lot to me.

Shortly after, I went up to the penthouse to watch the sunset for the last time. I had watched so many sunsets on top of that rooftop, as it was my goto spot when things went wrong. And things had never quite gone so wrong as this time. I looked at Fenway, where I went to my first Red Sox game, and Prudential, where my favorite gelato place is, and over to the right where BU is, where my friends and I run along the Esplanade. Every building, I could pin a memory. I watched the cars run down the bridge, where my friend and I pulled an all-nighter and watched the most beautiful sunrise. I watched the river slowly churn along and thought about how much I would miss seeing this every day. To think that just two weeks ago we had been yelling at each other about taking grapes out of the dining hall, that we were angry at each other for doing A or not doing B or saying C, all these problems were so inconsequential now. When you have just a few days left with the people you love, you remember that being around them and laughing and smiling with them is the most important thing, bottom line. I wrote letters to my friends to thank them for being them and sealed them into envelopes for the next day, and returned downstairs to store my stuff in the storage pod and eat dinner. Afterwards, we lied on our bare mattresses and laughed until 2am. My friend returned from maseeh also late that night, her eyes red from saying goodbye to her senior friends. I said good night and see you tomorrow, for what would be the last time for a while. That last morning, I said goodbye to so many people. It didn't really feel like goodbye, or maybe it hasn't set in yet. I watched my first friend leave in her Uber, and I hung out with my other friend until she left just an hour before me. And then it was my turn to leave, as I said goodbye to all the GRAs and my area director, promising I'd be back. And I took that one last walk out the front door. Halfway down the driveway, I took one last look back at the building I called home for four years, a place that had changed so much since I entered it four years ago, but has also changed me so much too. I thought about where I met my friends for the first time, the midnight piano in the GLR, the many nights spent talking until late night in 4 and 5 west. But the car was waiting, so I turned back to my ride to the airport, and I gave my friend one last hug and watched her wave as I drove away, down Memorial Drive, one last time.

[ladyseaheart1668]

Endless Summer Book 4 : Daughter of Vaanu (Chapter 40)

Description: Rourke’s shadow continues to loom over the Catalysts and the Northbridge Supers. But there is joy mixed in with their dread.

Tagging: @mysteli @whatmcsaid @xo-endlessmayhem-xo @endlesshero1122 @feartheendlesssummer @tigerbryn11

Chapter 40 : The Beauty of Winter

Diego

I admit to being nervous that something would go wrong in the process of obtaining our marriage license, but it seems Zahra did it again when she created Varyyn's legal identity, because nothing is questioned. We have our marriage license within an hour, with plenty of time to make it to the ceremony at the appointed time.

It's not a fancy ceremony, but I don't need it to be, and I'm pretty sure Varyyn feels the same. As far as I'm concerned, we've been married for six years, and this is really just a renewal of vows. Even the vows are of the traditional “to have and to hold” variety. Still, it's not nothing to exchange rings with the man I love and have us declared legally wed in front of witnesses. Obviously, there's no need for a reception, either. But I do manage to reserve the garden gazebo long enough for a few slow dances. I chose one song in particular, a Spanish-language love song that I heard a few years ago when it was performed by the choir at the college I was lecturing at for the semester. I bought their CD just for this song. As I sway gently in Varyyn's arms, my head resting on his shoulder, I let the lyrics wash over me.

Yo no naci sino para quereros;

Mi alma os ha cortado a su dedida;

Por hábito del alma misma os quiero.

Escrito está en mi alma vuestro gesto;

Yo lo leo tan solo que aun de vos

Me guardo enesto.

Quanto tengo confiesso yo deveros;

Por vos naci, por vos tengo la vida,

Y por vos é de morir y por vos  muero.

“This was a wonderful surprise, my darling,” Varyyn murmurs. I sigh happily, nuzzling his neck.

“I'm glad you think so. I'm glad I was able to pull it off, too. Allie and Jake helped, of course. And Zahra.”

“Do you regret at all that the rest of the Catalysts weren't present?”

“Nah. They were all at our real wedding. Besides, it's only a couple months until Sean and Michelle's wedding, and I wouldn't want to steal their thunder.”

“A fair point. Should we not tell them about this?”

“There's no need to keep it a secret. Zahra knows. We'll just let it come out naturally.” I pull back slightly so I can look him in the eye, letting my arms drape around his neck. I smile as I gaze into his eyes. “...Amor de mi alma...”

“ 'Love of my soul'?”

“That's the name of this song.” I peck his mouth with mine. “And it's what you are to me.”

“...I love you, my Diego. I don't know how I could have been so lucky to have found you...”

“You brought an army to the resort where I was staying and lassoed me right up.” I meant it as a joke, but he winces visibly. I take his face in my hands. A blue halo hovers around my fingers, barely detectable as they displace the light creating the hologram disguise. “Baby, you know I don't hold that against you, right?”

“...I know. You and I have had a long time to get past that. I am still so sorry for it. I won't ever forget the lessons I was taught over those six months. ...And I do not only mean English.”

“Well...that's a good thing. Lessons should be remembered. As long as you don't let guilt drown you.”

“I promise, if ever I am tempted to let guilt drown me, I think of my darling.”

There is nothing that needs to be said to that. I lean back into my husband's embrace, resting my head on his chest. I steal a glance over at Allie and Jake, gazing into each other's eyes as they sway. Her arms are around his neck and his fingers lace together at the small of her back, but they can't press in very close thanks to Allie's ever-expanding baby bump. The sight makes me smile.

I know trouble is coming. I don't think we're safe from Rourke. Not yet. But at least for now, everything is right with the world.

Alodia

So I get to spend my Saturday in Vegas. I get to watch my best friend be legally married to the love of his life, and I get to fall asleep that night beside mine. No one dies in my dreams that night. But I wake in the gray hours of the morning with vague memories of a journey home. It should have been simple and straightforward, just a straight shot driving down a long road, but somewhere along the way, the road twisted and turned dusty. I lie in bed with River swimming languidly in my womb, listening to Jake's soft breathing and the hum of the air conditioning as I carefully collect the scattered images of my dreams, laying them out in my brain like puzzle pieces.

They don't add up to much, and they're more than a little ridiculous now that I am awake. When the smooth stretch of paved highway that I drove down turned to a dusty dirt road, the sudden appearance of train tracks lead to a locomotive that seemed to actively pursue me like a smoke-belching dragon. At some point I escaped, but ended up driving on a track of rollercoaster instead. Somehow I must have exited the car, because the next thing I knew, I was at Hartfeld. My friends were all there, busy with classes and activities. I think Rourke was there, too. He was playing with beakers, rambling about something to do with the island, with the Endless, with Project Janus. But I was striding purposefully through the main halls, laser-focused still on getting home, convinced that all I had to do was keep going straight. I must have gotten home at some point, because the next I knew, I was in bed with Jake. But not here and now, in a Vegas hotel. It couldn't have been, because I wasn't pregnant. Instead, there was a form between us. Small and fair-skinned, like me and like Jake. Blue-eyed, of course, but with chestnut hair; a blend of my blonde and his sandy brown. A perfect blend of the two of us. I roll carefully to face Jake's peacefully sleeping form, scooting closer to drape my arm over him.

I've never actually been religious, not even in this timeline. And it's a little hard now to think of God in the traditional sense with what the Endless put the Vaanti through on her quest to protect us. But sometimes I can't help praying to whoever or whatever power might be listening.

Please... I send a thought out into the universe as I hold the image of the chestnut-haired child in my mind. Please let this be what I'm heading toward...

Jake

We do actually end up spending most of Sunday at Santa Monica Pier, which I don't regret. Exciting as Vegas is, it's nice to have a quieter day to close out the weekend. We play air hockey and pinball at the arcade, visit the aquarium, ride the ferris wheel, eat fries and sandwiches for lunch, and end the afternoon with ice cream and a walk along the docks.

The newlyweds are predictably eating more ice cream off each other's faces than their own cones. They may have been married and living together for the last five years, but I guess there's no escaping the giddy afterglow of a wedding. I'm kinda feeling it myself. When Varyyn and Diego finally manage to finish their cones, there's nothing left between them and passionately kissing and groping. In a blink, Varyyn has Diego's back pressed against a lamppost. I chuckle, bending to press a kiss to the curve of Alodia's neck.

“Those two seem to have forgotten us,” I murmur. “Wanna go get some sand between our toes?”

“Absolutely.”

We toss our cups into the trashcan and make our way down to the beach, taking off our shoes and socks to carry in hand as we walk.

“That was a real nice little wedding,” I remark. “Not sure it tops the first one, though.”

“Well, the first one had everyone there,” Alodia points out. “Though admittedly, you and I didn't get much chance to witness it, being a bit distracted.” She playfully kisses my cheek. I lace the fingers of my free hand through hers, and bend to kiss the top of her head.

“You ever think you might wanna do that someday? Get a license for the two of us and legally get hitched.”

She hesitates for a moment. “...Do you?”

I shrug. “Maybe. I ain't thinking it's a necessity, though there are practical advantages. I wasn't thinking it would be any time soon, either. Think we got enough on our plates as is with the baby due.”

She nods. The relief in the smile she gives me doesn't escape me. “Yeah. As fast as everything has been happening since I got back...I'm not sure I could handle a second wedding right now. Besides...as much as I know it's been more than five years for you...it hasn't been nearly as long for me.”

“No, I guess it hasn't. ...Guess it's like when we went through the portal and wound up six months ahead. We came out still looking like hell after the battle, and we found Diego with a beard and long hair.”

“Yeah. Exactly.” She sighs. “I think I'd like to live as husband and wife the way we were supposed to before we make it official out here.”

“...I seem to recall us making plans to have a little cottage on the island way back when. ...A mansion in Laguna Beach is a bit of a leap.”

“Well, not too much when you really think about it. If everything had stayed the way it was, we probably would have lived at the Celestial until our cottage got built. We'd have our friends around us...all of us together on our own private island...” She trails off, and I get the sense we're venturing into painful territory. I put my arm over her shoulders and pull her close to my side, kissing the top of her head.

“I guess it's a little too early for me to be thinking about how I'm gonna top this come Valentine's Day.”

She lays her head on my shoulder. “Come Valentine's Day, we'll be in Northbridge. All the Catalysts together again.”

“You just saw everyone two weeks ago. Miss them that much already?”

“Is that weird?”

I smile. “Nah. I miss 'em, too. It'll be good to see 'em again. Help with the last-minute prep for the wedding.”

She snorts. “And what kind of prep are you going to be doing? From what I hear, while I'm getting fitted for my bridesmaid dress, you and the men are going to be having wild times at the bachelor party Craig's planning.”

“Mmm, yeah. And knowing him, it will be a properly debauched affair.”

“Knowing the groom, it won't be too debauched, or else Craig will never hear the end of it.”

“You're right. Sean's a decent, modest sort of man.” I smile at her and she smiles back. She sighs, and the sound is content. I put an arm over her shoulders and she nestles into me. “...I'm not, though. I'm a lowlife lecher.”

She snorts. “Yeah, right. After five years, it's a miracle I don't have jealous ex-lovers assaulting me every day for stealing you away.”

“Of course not. They all hate me so much, they're just secretly shaking their heads, thinking you're just my latest poor victim.”

“And none of them have come forward to warn me? That's not very...” She trails off and doesn't say anything long enough that I frown.

“Very what?” I prompt.

She lifts her head, turning to look at my face. “...Jake...I think...I've had a thought about how Rourke...how he disappeared.”

I reflexively glance around, making sure we're not in earshot of anyone who might give us funny looks. I take her shoulders gently and kiss her forehead. “Not here. Tell us all together in the car.”

* * *

The atmosphere is anxious as we buckle ourselves in and I start the car. She told Diego and Varyyn the same thing she told me. That she's had a thought about how Rourke faked his death.

“What's your thought, Alodia?” Varyyn asks.

“Do you remember that...demonstration Rourke gave us when we got to MASADA? When Sean and Zahra and Craig and I were disguised as Arachnid? You know, the thing he did with the beakers and the liquified crystal?”

“...Yeah...” Diego confirms. “...Kinda.”

“I have an image in my mind of him plucking a full beaker out of thin air. He talked about the Endless being able to do that herself. And...I know he was right. What if he found away to do that himself?”

“But...how? How would he do that?”

“The same way he did it with the beakers. ...And possibly the same way the Endless did it. With the crystals.”

Varyyn shakes his head. “No...no, the time crystals were not strong enough. Only the Island's Heart had enough power.”

“He has the Prism Crystal now. That's made from my life energy. And I'm the missing piece of the Island's Heart. Not to mention the Endless. ...I think the Prism Crystal has enough power.”

“To do what exactly?” I ask. “Pluck himself out of the air like a beaker?”

“Well, that's a phrase I never thought I'd hear,” she quips. “But...yeah. Basically. ...I think the Prism Crystal could have enough power to allow Rourke to pluck another version of himself out of time and space. And kill that one. Or...apparently, make that one kill himself.”

“...And Daddy Weirdbucks is fucking twisted enough that I bet he could convince an alternate version of himself to commit suicide if it would put him toward his purpose,” I growl. “One problem with that theory, Princess, is that he doesn't have the Prism Crystal. I'm pretty sure Tahira would have told you if he'd gotten ahold of it.”

“What about Liquid Prism?”

“...I guess...if he managed to get his grimy paws on that stuff, he could find a way to use it...”

“And it's definitely possible he found a way to get some,” Diego murmurs, a tremor in his voice. “I've never stopped believing he had other lackeys running around doing his bidding.”

Alodia nods. “I'll call Tahira first thing when we get home.”

“It's gonna be three hours later for her than for us.”

“I know she won't mind. Not for something this important.”

* * *

I think Tahira was in bed when we called, but Alodia's right. She doesn't mind being bothered. We sit in the kitchen with her on speaker and tell her about our theory.

“I don't know anything about how Rourke could have gotten his hands on Liquid Prism. But it is possible it wasn't all off the streets before he disappeared.” She's quiet for a moment. “It's kind of a coincidence that you called tonight. The thing is...there have been some developments here. Caleb warned us of two pretty formidable criminals who have their eyes on the Prism Crystal. The Crystal is safe at the moment. But...just a few hours ago, Grayson told me that an entire crate of Liquid Prism has gone missing from the lab.”

Zahra

“Well, fuck me sideways...” I sit back in the chair in Santiago Lupo's office, reviewing his security tapes. “There's...nothing. Nothing at all. It's like they're ghosts. And the security systems weren't tripped at all?”  

“That's why Mr. Prescott insisted we make contact with you,” Santiago says. “He thinks the systems might have been hacked, and apparently, you're a genius with security systems and...figuring out if they have been hacked...”

“Well, he's not wrong. ...I have to wonder if this footage has been doctored at all. I can't see any sign of it right away.”

“Maybe they're using stealth suits,” Grayson suggests. “Dax was working on something like that.”

“Yeah,” I murmur. “I've encountered technology like that before myself.”

Of course, we both know he's referring to the same stealth suit that Eva claims to have 'borrowed indefinitely.' But I'm thinking of someone else. Someone who once put a katana to my back and demanded the Island's Heart. Still, I don't think stealth suits alone would be enough to pull off a heist like this. I'm looking at security footage that shows the liquid prism being locked away in a safe for the night, and then goes to the next morning when the lab tech returns to set everything up, only to discover the stuff missing. The door to the safe never even opens on the footage I'm looking at.

“There's gotta be something we're missing here,” I muse aloud. “Leave this footage with me. I'll go over it with a fine-toothed comb. I'll figure out what we're looking at.”

Caleb

It feels weird to be meeting Tahira in the underground Prescott facility where we were both prisoners, but as she pointed out, it's safe. It's not currently in use, and it's unlikely anyone who isn't in on our secrets is going to find us here.

I light up and take a drag, exhaling smoke as I lean against the smooth metal-enforced wall. Tahira looks at the cigarette between my fingers with faint distaste, but she doesn't say anything.

“...So, it was just the liquid that went missing?” I ask. “The crystal's safe?”

“It's safe. We've got it protected.” She pauses. “You don't suppose there's any chance your...associates are behind this, do you?”

“They came in and got out without leaving a trace. If Gigi or Stonewall has that ability, I don't know about it. Don't think it's their style, either. In their own separate ways, they both like to leave impressions. They want to be noticed.”

“I can see why they thought you'd fit in, then,” she quips. I make a face.

“Low blow, hero. Accurate, but low.” I take another drag. “In any case, I'll keep my eyes and ears open. If that liquid prism hits the streets, it won't be long before news starts filtering through the underground.”

“Honestly, having it on the streets isn't what worries me.”

“No?”

“That stealth tech they may have been using? ...Minuet has Dax's only working stealth suit at the moment. ...But...” She trails off into a loaded silence.

“...But...what?” When she still doesn't answer after awhile, I press further. “You think it might be an inside job? Someone who has access to his research?”

“...I guess that is a possibility...”

“But it's not the one you were thinking of?”

She sighs. “Talos and Minuet would say I shouldn't share this with you...but...Dax isn't the only one who was working on stealth tech. There was a branch of the military that had access to a stealth suit at least five years before Dax's version was perfected.”

“And...you know this how?”

“I have my sources. But that's all you're getting for now.” She frowns, her left hand drifting to cover the wristband secured just above the joint on her right forearm. “...Hang on a sec. Someone's calling.”

“Right. Secret hero stuff. Should I plug my ears?”

“I'll just take it in the next cell,” she replies with a smirk. She steps out of sight, and I hear her murmuring to whoever has contacted her. When she comes back, her expression has turned dark.

“Big trouble, I'm assuming?”

“Not sure. Minuet's found something that concerns her.”

“Something to do with the liquid prism?”

“Worse,” she says grimly. “Seems a young woman approached her outside the hospital and left some strong hints that she had been the victim of something organized and ugly, and that she wasn't the only one. Minuet's worried she's talking about human trafficking.”

“...That's not outside the realm of possibility,” I concede. “Plenty of fucks who'll take advantage of the desperate and vulnerable. Saw enough of that in my time.”

“And did nothing to stop it, I assume.”

“Hey! I never claimed to be a hero, but I've never been a bully, either. I've never gone after anyone who couldn't fight back.”

“But those people still end up getting hurt,” she retorts. “Remember the little girl who almost burned to death when you attacked the DMV?”

I scowl. Her assessment of me smarts in spite of everything. “Okay, fine. I'm scum. Guess I should leave you to go be a hero.”

“I certainly don't have any time to waste. I'll see you around, Caleb.”

“Right.”

She leaves. For awhile, I debate following her. I flip-flop long enough that my window of opportunity undoubtably closes. It's getting late by the time I leave. Late enough that I should start figuring out where to sleep. The January night air is bitterly cold, and I hunker down in my coat, pulling the collar up over my face. Definitely a night for the homeless shelter. Sleeping in my van will likely result either in me freezing to death or setting the damn thing on fire to keep warm.

There aren't many people out on the streets. At least, not in the neighborhoods I'm walking in. Not much nightlife around here. I do recognize one person that I pass on the sidewalk. Kenji Katsaros, son of the DA. What he's doing in this neighborhood, I don't know. It's pretty late for photo ops, and philanthropy isn't really his style, either. That's more Grayson Prescott's thing. Ahh, but what do I care. He's not bothering me, just blabbing on his phone. ...Whatever he's talking about, it's clearly troubling him. He steps aside for me as we pass, but barely looks at me.

“Yeah...I'll make sure Mom knows. ...Right. …Be careful, Tahira.”

The name stops me in my tracks. I turn back to look at him, but he's walking on, his back to me, totally unaware of my presence. My thoughts start to race too fast for me to follow, like there's a bomb going off in my head, or a power surge or a short circuit that leaves only intuition functioning. I can barely understand what I'm thinking. All I know is I should follow him. I'm good enough to do it without him realizing.

I really don't know why I'm doing it. I don't actually know what language the name Tahira comes from—Turkish, maybe?—but I'm sure she's not the only Tahira in the whole city of Northbridge. But I happen to know that Kenji Katsaros is closely associated with the Tahira I know. They work together at The Grand. Also, he's heading towards the DA's office. Which makes sense, if he's going to let his mother know something. But why doesn't he just call her?

Not far from city hall, Kenji abruptly ducks into an alley. A narrow path between the buildings that could be serving for a shortcut...except that he's supposed to be going to the DA's office. I press myself flush against a wall and ease myself into the alley a safe distance behind him, keeping to the shadows. He almost certainly never realizes I'm there, because in the next moment, his skin turns to bronze, and everything falls into place.

Well, shit. ...Kenji Katsaros is Talos.  

I make it to the shelter, but I don't remember getting there. I get myself a bed, but I don't really sleep. I guess that explains why he hates me more than either Tahira or Minuet do. I tried to kill his mom. Fuck. That means winning his trust is going to be a lot harder than I realized.

I think it's going to be to my advantage to lie low for awhile. At least until I figure out what I'm going to do with this information.

Eva

The next couple weeks seem to pass very quickly. Tahira, Kenji, and I have our hands full for awhile with the trafficking ring, but let's face facts, its days were numbered once we got wind of it. By February, it's been shut down, and the three of us meet with Dax and Poppy at The Grand to celebrate. Tahira helps me get home afterward, but once I get there and climb into bed, I can't sleep. Of course, that doesn't entirely surprise me. Dad has a doctor's appointment in the morning. I never sleep well before his doctor's appointments.

He's actually been doing really well. Thanks to Tahira helping me expose Mayhew, we were able to afford experimental treatments. He went into remission not long after we got Tahira back from the crystal dimension, and since then, the doctors tell me that everything has continued to be encouraging. But I can't relax. No matter how encouraging his scans, I can't shake the feeling that my father is living on borrowed time. And for all that I can put people in slow motion...I can't actually slow time down.

We arrive at the hospital's outpatient clinic with plenty of time for Dad to playfully flirt with the receptionists. He charms them as usual, and when we're taken back, we leave the waiting room in a cloud of good humor.

“You have the entire staff of this place wrapped around your finger, Dad,” I remark as I help him into a hospital gown. “I guess it helps that you flirt like it's going out of style.”

“Life is short, mija,” he says with a grin. “I will live every moment with gusto.”

My hands pause on the strings of the gown. “...I wish you wouldn't say things like that at a time like this.”

“...I'm sorry, mija. That was insensitive of me. All this is so much harder on you than on me.”

“Is it really, though? You're the one who's gone through all the pain and sickness.”

“That is difficult, it is true. But I think it is easier for me to endure than for you to watch. ...And the thought that I might die almost certainly frightens you more than it frightens me.”

“How much does it frighten you?”

He shrugs. “I don't want to die. You're still young enough that I had hoped to see many more years with you. But I don't worry about it like I would if you were still a little girl and I were leaving you without parents. You're a strong, capable young woman. And if I die in the near future, I will die with confidence that you will be all right.”

I don't say anything to that. I finish tying his gown and put my arms around his shoulders to kiss his cheek.

Not long after, the medical shenanigans get underway, and conversation becomes functional. At the end of it, the doctors are smiling, and it seems my father is still doing well. As he gets dressed, my father smiles at me with a twinkle in his eye.

“When you were a little girl and I took you to the doctor, you always got ice cream afterwards if you were brave. I think we have both been very brave today. What do you say? Do we deserve ice cream?”

“Ice cream in February?”

“I won't tell if you don't.”

So of course, thirty minutes later, we're in the glass-ceilinged atrium of Northbridge Mall, sitting on a bench in front of the fountain and watching the bubble and flow from the jets while we methodically lick the sweet, creamy heads of our ice cream cones.

“Almost like having a summer moment indoors,” my father remarks.

“If you ignore the Valentine's Day decorations and the snow outside,” I reply, gesturing up at the skylights, where a steady swirl of snowflakes is clearly visible. “I wish it were summer. I'm getting sick of winter.”

“I am grateful for winter,” Dad murmurs. “Because at this moment, it is winter. And I am grateful for this moment.”

I look back down at my cone. I dig a chunk of cookie dough out of the small vanilla hill with the nail of my index finger.

“Is that the secret to happiness then? Just be grateful for the moment?”

“I don't think it's a secret, mija. Or a guarantee of happiness. But it is how I have chosen to live since I got sick. The fact is that everyone's time is limited. Mine might be more limited than I once expected. But right now, I am alive. I am alive, and I find that this moment is worth living. ...I look forward to summer. But right now it is winter. And winter is beautiful in its own way. I won't ignore the beauty that exists now because I am waiting for something that is yet to come.”

I sigh, slipping my arm through his and laying my head on his shoulder. I feel him kiss the top of my head lightly. He has an undeniable point. I can't actually slow down time. I won't try to rush it either. It's winter, my father is alive, and I have a sugar cone topped with cookie dough ice cream. Right now, that's all I need.

Michelle

Friday morning, I wake up an hour before my alarm. I should be irritated. I don't even have to be up with my alarm, considering that I have the day off. I only set the damn thing to keep some semblance of a routine in place. But I'm not actually annoyed at all. It's excitement that has me awake so early. Today, my friends arrive from California. They're here so that my maid of honor and Sean's last couple groomsmen can have their final fittings at the tailors. It needs to be done now so that if there are any adjustments that need to be made, we'll have time to make them. I roll towards Sean, still dead to the world and snoring a little, and drape my arm over him.

In only a little over a month, I am finally going to be his wife.

*****************************************************************************************

BTW, the song Diego and Varyyn dance to is a real song. It is called Amor de mi Alma, and it is beautiful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0xtyjJ8eYo

Also, here is a translation.

I was born to love only you; My soul has formed you to its measure; I want you as a garment for my soul. Your very image is written on my soul; Such indescribable intimacy I hide even from you. All that I have, I owe to you; For you I was born, for you I live, For you I must die, and for you I give my last breath.

[nicosroom]

My Money Snapshot

[Inspired by Corporette]

Location: Ohio, small college town

Age: 29

Occupation: PhD candidate (English)/half-time instructor

Income: $16,000 before deductions

Net worth: $588 (I’m crying)

Current Debt: $12,844

Living situation: Renting with a roommate

Money Philosophy:

I grew up in the “working poor” category. My parents are divorced and my father never contributed much financially. Mom made around $21,000 per year at work and she cleaned houses “under the table” to supplement that. Somehow, we never went hungry, what we ate was relatively fresh and healthy, and she managed to put two of us through Catholic schools for a total of 14 years. I know now that mom is still paying some of those loans and credit card debts and that part of her strategy included not contributing more than the 3% that her employer matched in her 401k. Every time I complain about the financial stress I feel at my salary level, I have to remind myself how comparatively unstressful my financial life is.

I’ve always been poor and I always knew that graduate school/academia is not a lucrative career. I tell myself that if I can make things work at this pay grade, then I’m ready for just about anything. My main strategy is to have a budget, stay in the budget, and save every bit that I can.

Monthly budget

$1000-1100 for the necessities each month. Monthly spending on eating out, entertainment, shopping and other categories varies widely. I also won’t lie... dating someone who makes 4x more money than me helps... I’m fairly frugal on all of these fronts: I buy most of my clothes second hand and I tend to shop seasonally. Spikes in spending occur around the winter holidays when I’m buying gifts and when I am doing traveling. And I also have totally weak, impulsive moments - like the $3 soap sales at Bath & Body works, or that time I spent $110 on bras and underwear on a whim. Anyway:

Rent: $272.50/month

Other living expenses: $130-170/month (electric, internet, phone, renter’s insurance - lower in summer, higher in winter)

Transportation: $332/month (gas, insurance, car payment)

Healthcare: $162/month (health+dental insurance, no vision coverage)

Groceries: $120-150/month ($30/week)

Debt Picture

Student loan: $2000

Car loan: $10,488

I’m a career student & my motto for all the years I’ve been in school has been “follow the money.” I went to college on very hefty scholarships and I only had to take out the $2000 loan to cover housing costs during my first year. For the subsequent three years, I was an RA, so I never had to take loans again. I applied to graduate programs based on the research fit, and when I got my offers, money weighed heavily in the decision. I would have loved to live in Boston as a wee 22-year old, but I wasn’t about to take out loans for a year’s worth of tuition and the living expenses. And to get a PhD while living in Minneapolis, my very favorite city in the US? It would have been such a dream, but for the quite steep difference in stipends and the significant disparity in cost of living compared with Ohio. My only regret on this front is that I haven’t started paying back my tiny student loan. I’ve been able to defer it since I’m in graduate school, which was a great idea when I was a master’s student who didn’t know the first thing about budgeting. But if I had just paid $25/month from the start of grad school the balance would be $0 about the same time I graduate from this PhD program this August. Instead, I’ll be scrambling to pay off the whole balance before my 6 month grace period ends. 

The car loan is less than a year old. I finally broke down and bought a new (by which I mean used) car last summer after really pushing it with the car my parents had bought me in high school. Repairing that car put me into credit card debt more than once and I was getting so stressed about it. It was time. I have a very good credit score, so I qualified for a nice loan rate with my credit union, and to get a better rate I got my mom to co-sign my loan. It’s a popular rental fleet model so there were tons of them on the market, but average miles were high - so when I saw one that was two years old with only a years worth of miles on it at $1000 less than the average price for that make, model, and year, I jumped on it. My payments are $231/month on the 5-year plan. Currently, I’m paying that minimum, but I plan to escalate my payments as my income goes up (I’m on the academic job market now, pray for me). I folded this car payment into my existing budget by giving up solo-living and finding a roommate. When I had my own apartment, very spacious with a huge kitchen and tons of windows/natural light, I was paying about $585 for monthly rent. I hate living with people, but I hated the idea of being trapped in this college town without a car even more - one of my other mantras is “you can do anything for a year.” 

A note on credit cards: I love them. I’m one of those responsible people that charges everything and pays the balance like clockwork every month. This is the only way to make sure you’re actually taking advantage of the cash back/reward perks! Currently, I’m using Capital One’s Venture card and stockpiling airline miles for travel (it has a 40,000 mile sign-on bonus). If you’re good for it, I also recommend one card with a great balance transfer program. For me, when I get into an emergency situation, it makes me feel like I have options. It’s been about 4 years since I’ve had to use my balance transfer card to cover costs ($1400 in car repairs, summer 2015), but at my level, I can’t afford to not have back up plans. 

Savings and Investments

$5,517 Cash

$7,861 Roth IRA + employer mandated retirement account

Retirement: The biggest financial mistake I've made in grad school is that I did not opt into the retirement account offered by the university when I started my M.A. in 2012. When they ask me that “what I wish I had known before I went to grad school” question, this is near the top of the list. I did, eventually, open a Roth IRA and slowly I started to build something. This year, when my graduate funding dried up and they made me a “half-time instructor” the retirement account for public school teachers was mandatory and the contributions are high: 14% of every pay check (annoying, yes, but on the flipside, there is an equally high employer match). While I’m contributing to this, I’ve paused my contributions to the IRA. I’ll roll this money over, either into the IRA or into another state/employer retirement fund when I move on from here. 

Personal savings: I strive for a minimum of $100 per month and frequently do a little more, but each month is different and I consider it a win if I break even. Through most of grad school, I’ve taken on “second jobs” to bolster what I can save (and boost my resume). Both jobs have been through the university, so they limit me to five hours a week. When I max them out, this can be an extra $200-250 each month. 

I took up a new savings challenge this academic year to build on my “play money” savings account (a high yield savings account which my bank labels a “goal setter” account). The challenge involves tallying the “total savings” printed on my receipts each month (i.e. when the grocery store is like “you saved $6″ because of sales and coupons). So, At the end of the month, I put that running total into my goal setter account. Sometimes the total savings are like $26, but others its as much as $171. It’s an interesting challenge because it encourages me to do tedious things, like scroll through all the digital coupons on the grocery store app; but at the same time, I know that the higher that number is usually coincides with a lot of shopping which encourages some self-regulation. 

I initially set my goal at $2500 when I opened the goal setter account in 2014. When I had to dip into the account in April 2018 to pay $930 in car repairs, I finally set plans in motion to buy my car. Since I bought used, I only put 10% down on the car (just over $1200). When I sold my old car for $1000, I put that money right back into the account to start saving for new things...

What I’m saving for now:

travel: to celebrate finally finishing this PhD, I’m hoping to pull off a trip to Europe. Later this year, I’m also turning 30 around the same time that one of my regular professional conferences is meeting in Hawaii. If I can do one or both in the next year, that’d be grand. (As I mentioned, I'm saving up airline miles with my credit card program, too!)

a multicooker: think InstantPot...but more expensive because my dreams all revolve around small appliances that match my stand mixer. 

What I do to be frugal... 

I’ve been frugal my whole life, but a couple of major habits I’ve formed include:

Meal planning and home cooking (read my guide to meal prep here). The money part of that means planning what I eat around maximizing the ingredients I have to buy. I plan meals that use the same ingredients so I’m not spending on an entire bunch of celery and then throwing out 75% of it. Routinization also helps, so my grocery lists stay about the same week to week and the bill relatively predictable - for example, I eat avocado egg salad almost every day for lunch. I know, avocados are not cheap, but I also believe in spending on the things that nourish you––literally and “spiritually.” Roxane Gay once said that she never bought avocados or blueberries when she was a “poor grad student.” Once she started making money, she realized she would buy them because she could afford them, but she also threw them out all the time because she didn’t plan her meals right to actually eat them. The point is, buy the foods that you like/feel good about and build habits around them. It’s not wasted money. That said, I won’t pay more than $1.25 for an avocado!

Second hand clothes shopping, especially for my business casual (it’s amazing what people donate to the Goodwill, barely worn!)

[ashencreature]

Important Update for partners across the board

This is long, and I’m sorry, but I just wanted everyone to know what’s going on. Honestly, I’m not expecting anyone to actually waste time reading through all this, but it’s just so I can try to ease my own anxiety in case the worst case scenario does come and I left some sort of explanation.

Ok, so, some of you know there’s been a lot going on for me at home in the last 3 or 4 years. But everything’s kind of getting worse by day and at this point, I’m not sure what to do anymore. 

When I was 14, I moved in with my dad. We moved quite a few times in the first few years I was with him. Hell, that first year alone, I was in 3 different schools. All for Freshman year. And the last house we were in that year, we stayed in for maybe 2? 

But when I was 16, the factory my dad worked at closed and he lost his job. That’s kind of where all this starts. Instead of getting a new job, he decided he wanted to spend all day drinking with his new friends and occasionally doing odd jobs for them or things with them. We had to move out of that house, take my dog to the shelter, and move into a trailer. It was only supposed to be for a year. But nearly 14 years later, and we’re still here. 

Now the landlord here is a real prick. More like a slumlord if you ask me. He jacks the rent up for the dumbest reasons and acts like he’s god’s gift to humanity or some shit. He told us himself, and had the park manager tell us, that we couldn’t fix our roof to stop the leaking because the walls would collapse of we tried to move it. So literally the entire 14 years we’ve been here, the roof has been leaking. My dad tried everything he could think of, short of tearing it out and redoing it, to fix it. Nothing worked. 

And in that time, the entire back half of the house got destroyed by mold. My bedroom, being the very last room, was the first to go. I think I slept in it for a year? And ever since, I’ve had to sleep in the living room because the walls had to be torn out due to the mold. It’s right down to the studs and the scant insulation. It’s been like that for over 10 years. Well, now the mold is spreading and getting worse. The bathroom is destroyed pretty much. The back hallway is the same. The floor’s rotting away, and the toilet is falling through the floor; again. 

Now, I think my dad went to the garage he was at for the first time when I was maybe 18? I don’t remember exactly. I do remember being in junior year and my friends either having to buy me lunch, share theirs with me, or pray that we actually were cooking in cooking class; which happened a lot less than you’d think. Other than that, I didn’t eat. Senior year was a little better because I at least would get money dropped off to eat. Not that the cafeteria had a lot of choices for me to pick from. I pretty much ate nothing but gross excuse for pizza and occasionally pretzels, fries, or Belgian waffles. 

Anyway, so senior year rolls around and we’re all prepping for college. At the time, I wanted to go to AMDA for musical theater, and managed to get an audition there for that March. I had to force my dad to go to the meeting about FAFSA and to fill out the paperwork. Which he said he did, but I don’t believe it because he says they denied me. And I’ve never heard of FAFSA being denied. Not that it mattered anyway, because I bombed the audition and didn’t get in. So graduation rolls around and all my friends go off to college. I haven’t seen or spoken to most of them since. They never stop to visit when they come home and they never try to reach out on Facebook. Eventually, I got sick of being the one to initiate and maintain all conversations, so I just gave up. 

The 2 friends I still had at that time helped me to get jobs when I was 20/21 and living with them, in 2011/2012. This was because 2 of us and their mom were in a car accident on the way to my friend’s college at the time. We all nearly died. My friend had a concussion, their mom needed surgery, and I nearly got impaled by a fake Christmas tree. I ended up going to the hospital a lot later than they did with a copy of the report in the doctor’s hand and got told I wasn’t in an accident I had the flu, go home. Anyway, so after my friend’s mom’s surgery, I moved in to help around the house and look after my friend’s youngest sister. These jobs weren’t the best; Wendy’s and the deli department of one of the local grocery stores. But it was money. 

For all the good it did. Because by that time, my dad had quit working at the garage. So here I was, paying for rent, bills, gas, food, and child support for my brother. All on $200 a week. My anxiety was driving me insane. And I came to find out that my dad was going in and threatening one of the store managers, which was probably why the guy was such a scumbag to me. But I digress. So I was in the store for a month shy of 2 years. I started at maybe $7.45 or $7.50. an hour when I started. It was slightly over the minimum wage at the time. By the time I left, 2 years later mind you, I wasn’t even making $8, and I was working full time hours while only being part time. Everything that went wrong got blamed on me, even when it was my day off and I wasn’t anywhere near the store. I liked most of the people that I worked with, even if I hated the job, and the assistant department manager became a really good friend. She was 2 years older than me, and we hung out a lot. I’d spend the night at her house, I was at her wedding, I’ve been to her daughter’s birthday parties and so on. 

At one point, I was supposed to get training to be an assistant specialty cheese shop lead. They sent me to one class, told me about another, but never gave me any more details about it, even when I asked. Then they said they were going to train me over there, but never did. That was just the first of a long list of grievances. The culmination of which was on a Sunday night, our busiest day of the week. There was just me and 1 other guy in the department. Then 1 lady in the hot food section, 1 lady in the beer store, and no one in the bakery. But they expected me to take care of all 4 departments and still wait on the 20+ people that were at the counter the whole night. And I had an order to make and put away for the assistant department manager. Needless to said, I had a panic attack. I told my partner, and both of the other people nearby. They told the assistant store manager, and he didn’t care. They made me work for 3 and a half hours, through a panic attack, without a break. I couldn’t breathe and was on the verge of fainting. I finally had enough and told one of the ladies that I didn’t care what the store manager said, I was going to get my inhaler in the break room and get a drink at the water fountain, or I was going to faint. 

A few days later, I got called to the main office to speak to the store manager, who I usually didn’t have a problem with. And unfortunately, since my anger receptors are evidently attached to my tear ducts, I broke down in tears when I wanted to be furious. He basically told me that I was going to the bakery or I was getting fired. So the next day, I quit. There was a lot of other stuff too but that doesn’t really matter. Including being so sick that I couldn’t eat for over a week, fainting in the back room because they wouldn’t let me take a day off, and not being able to talk for over a month. The assistant department manager almost called the ambulance when I fainted, but you know, I’m clearly the problem here. 

So there we were, I didn’t have a job. My dad didn’t have a job. I was 23, and feeling just as helpless as I did at 16. I spent a year filling out job applications for a bunch of different things from craft stores to fast food to jewelry stores, but never heard back from any of them. The only interview I got was for Chipotle. But they wouldn’t even hire me. Naturally, cue the anxiety and depression getting worse. And around this time, our electric got shut off. This was in May I believe because it was just before my birthday. 

At that time I started thinking about going back to school. So I looked at schools and degrees you could do all online, because I knew I could never afford to go on campus. And, as most of you know, I started at CTU in July of that year. Now the program I did was an accelerated one, which meant I could finish gen ed classes faster, be done faster, and lower my tuition. I did as many as I could, but only my admission adviser was any help. My actual student adviser was never around, never responded to my emails, never called me back. But whatever. 

So for 3 years I spent pretty much all day, every god damn day doing schoolwork. I’d be at my local Dunkin from 3 in the afternoon until they closed at 11. Sometimes I’d be working even later next door because I still had stuff to do. The first year and a half I was fine. It didn’t bother mine, just like working didn’t bother me at first. But then, a year and a half after I started, I got sick. I couldn’t eat anything without my stomach cramping up and getting the worst migraines. It got so bad that one day at Dunkin, I felt like I was going to puke, and got up to go to the bathroom and almost fainted. Personally, I think it’s a combination of anxiety, depression, Celiac/gluten intolerance, anemia, and asthma. But I don’t know for sure because I haven’t had a doctor since I was going to the pediatrician. And even if I did, can’t afford it. 

So I’ve just been getting sicker and sicker. I was 125 pounds in January of this year. 11 months later, and I’m down to 108.5 the last time I checked. I think the lowest I hit was 107, and that was all 6 months after the weight loss started. There’s times it’ll go back up, but I can’t get past 110 or 111 tops. Neighbors who used to live down the road came to visit earlier this week, and all the lady could say was how skinny I got. I’m like yeah, malnourishment’ll do that to you. 

And to make things worse, my dad at some point went back to the garage and was working again, so things were slightly better. I say slightly in the loosest way possible. But, just after Christmas last year, my dad quit again. I’ve seen him apply to 1 job and go to 1 interview in the year since. Other than that, he’s been collecting scrap and doing shit for people who refuse to pay, including the landlord. In the last 7 or 8 months, despite how many times I’ve told him that my refund checks from the school aren’t free money I can spend however I want, my dad’s made me spend it. The $5,000 I had that was supposed to set me ahead for my student loans are gone. And I’m $5,000 deeper in the hole than I should be. Which means instead of being like $45 or 50 grand in debt I’m about $55 grand. 

Then, because we haven’t had electricity in almost 4 years, and with the mold problem, everything in the house is ruined. We had only cold water, and I took cold showers for as long as I could. But last winter, the shower pipes froze and burst. So even if I wanted to, I can’t do that. Plus, because we can’t use the washer and dryer, or hook up a generator thanks to the scumbag landlord, or afford a laundromat, our clothes have gone unwashed for over a year. Most of mine were sitting in the tub, which got filled with mold and bugs. I have practically no clothes left, with no way to wash them, and no way to shower unless I go to someone else’s house. And even when I do, I still don’t feel clean. Even after washing my hair 4 times or more. 

We were supposed to move into the place next door and tear this one down. But the landlord and my dad made a deal that he’d give it to us for the cost of the title transfer. Then suddenly, he wanted $600, then like $800 or $1,000. But he won’t stop asking about it, no matter how many times we tell him no. Him and his wife keep trying to say we’re $5,000 behind on rent which isn’t possible because with what rent is now, you can’t even get $5,000 as a total for a whole year, and this last year is the only time we fell behind because everything else was caught up. He gave us a bill full or errors. Payments that were made aren’t marked. Payments that weren’t made are. There’s random charges after the monthly rent cycle. Which I think are from when he was bitching about us paying the taxes for a place we didn’t even own and was still in his name. He told us we can’t run the generator for power because it was too loud. Though the noise ordinance here is 11, and it was always off by then. And when one of the neighbors asked how we were supposed to live, he told them it “Wasn’t his problem”. 

So when I started getting really sick, and unable to leave the house to go to Dunkin for school because I was too gross, the neighbors next door let us run an extension cord over to their place. Not a lot. Just enough for the light in the living room, the fan, a mini fridge, and to plug in my phone and computer. OH WANNA HEAR A GOOD ONE. THE LANDLORD TOLD MY DAD 3 SEPARATE TIMES IF I NEED TO PLUG IN MY COMPUTER TO GET A LANTERN. YES THE OLD FASHIONED OIL OR CANDLE TYPE LANTERN. WHICH YOU CAN TOTALLY PLUG AN ELECTRONIC COMPUTER INTO. So because of that, I was able to finish school and graduate in June. 

But, because I still can’t bathe or do laundry and have no clothes, I still can’t go to interviews. If I walked in with my arms, face, neck, and legs literally black from dirt, and reeking to high heaven, I’d fucking get laughed out of the place. My dad still refuses to get a real job and insists on hauling scrap or doing shit for people who won’t pay at all, or want to pay less than it’s worth. And guess what’s due this week? You got it, my first loan payment. 

I can’t figure out how much I have to pay, work on getting it lowered or delayed, or even access my account info because there’s an issue with my birthday apparently, and they can’t find it even though they have my name and social and keep emailing me. I’ve been telling him this for months, and he still won’t come with me to try and sort it out. Because what he needs has to taken care of then and there and everything else can fuck all. He blew up at me the other day about it, blaming me for going, leaving him with payments, for my mother walking out 20 years ago even though they hated each other, and pretty much for being born. Because he resents having to take care of kids he made the choice to have. Not like I asked to be born, and I’ve been wishing I was dead since I was 9, but whatever. 

Anyway. 

So, the neighbor’s dad was diagnosed with lung cancer over the summer. Like 2 weeks later, he was dead. And she’s struggling just as much. We’ve been trying to help her and she’s been trying to help us. But her ex was paying her rent and some of the other bills until she found a job because they have a young son. But he started refusing to do that, which I honestly wouldn’t be surprised it if was the landlord’s doing cause they were talking. And he was telling her to “pull the plug” on us. And his wife started harassing her about rent like 2 weeks after her father died. Then, she went to Domestic relations earlier this week and then like the day after she goes, her ex somehow gets an emergency custody on the little guy. They came for him yesterday. 

She’s most likely going to have to move, which means that we’ll be losing power and internet unless we can figure something out to get our power back on. But even then, the bill’s supposedly at least $1300, and that won’t fix the internet problem. 

So... Needless to say, if I disappear suddenly in the near future, that’s why. I don’t want to go. I’ve spent too much time here, made too many friends, and put too much work into my muses. But everything is going to shit all at once. It’s just been building and building for the last 3 years, especially the last year, but my dad refuses to see and do anything about it. Instead, he’d rather blame everything on me and expect me to fix it. As if my mental health wasn’t bad enough from childhood abuse and being sick and stressed all the time. Now I’m too fucking scared to leave the house. I haven’t been outside since the midterms when I went to vote. But I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen now. And I just wanted everyone to know that I love them. And even if I do disappear, I still plan on keeping my muses and coming back when I can. Granted Tumblr doesn’t die before then. In which case the only blog i’m worried about losing is Elizabeth’s because of all the worldbuilding, metas, and headcanons I’ve done.