#i’m hoping swimming this summer helps with my joints and muscles

[barklikeagod]

went swimming for two and a half hours and i’m already a little tan it’s crazy how my skin absorbs the sun so fast

[cockasinthebird]

“I pray you, do not fall in love with me, for I am falser than vows made in wine.” -William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act 3 Scene 5

Brown and blue both stare up at the many a love declarations on the underside of the bleachers of Hawkins High. Football practice has begun, along with their ever so faithful cheerleaders, and while Robin was here just for how short those skirts went, Steve was here for both those legs, and the sweaty muscles of the blonde haired quarter back; how he shone like diamonds underneath the ruthless summer sky.

Robin hands him the roach, and he has possibly never felt more at peace than now, in the shade with the occasional breeze. But of course, he thought so every time the two of them decided to get high and lie in the grass.

“Tommy + Carol 4 Ever,” Steve reads out loud. “Fucking asshole.”

“Aw, does poor Steve still feel abandoned?” Robin pouts falsely and puts both hands behind her head.

“Shithead was my best friend for most of our lives, and now he's off somewhere licking Billy Hargrove's boot.” He frowns whilst pressing the final embers of their joint into the grass.

“You're just jealous,” she laughs mockingly at him and turns her head to peek out through the seats.

And Steve leans up on his elbows to look past her and in the same direction, to where he sees Billy Hargrove tearing off his helmet with a victorious smile, mullet done up in a low bun, bangs clinging wetly to his forehead.

“Fuck no,” he lies.

“Come on, Dingus.” Robin knocks their shoes together. “You know you can't lie to me.”

“I can try,” he huffs a laugh and looks at how she mimics him genuinely.

“You think I got it any better?” her laugh turns to a scoff and points up. “Tammy Thompson loves John Johnson.” And there's a deep silence for a few short seconds as she keeps her finger in the direction of that etching. “Who the fuck names their child John Johnson?”

Steve cannot contain his chortle, and she is right behind with her usual snort; the one that only comes forth when they're this high.

“It would be like-” Steve takes a deep inhale. “If you were named Robin Robinson!”

“Or you Steve Stevenson!”

“Is that a real name?!”

“Y-yes?” Robin fights against the grin that wants to spread all too wide, and looks at him. “Robert Louis Stevenson!”

“Who?” Steve keeps breathing slowly to try and calm down from something that isn't actually that funny, but when you got bloodshot eyes like these, everything is.

“The famous writer? He wrote Treasure Island and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.”

Steve leans up on his elbows again to stare down at her with the most bewildered look this illiterate teen can manage. “Mr Hyde as in... our chemistry teacher?”

“Oh...” Robin's blue blue eyes grow as wide as they can. “My God... Steve... No wonder you're failing literally every class.”

And his expression falls from confused to somewhat offended, but it is the inevitable truth. “It's fine,” he says with nary a worry, “I will get a job at my father's office as... I dunno, coffee guy? Mailman?”

“You really think he'd put you in charge of something as important as their postal service?”

Rather than come up with a sensible reply to that remark, he simply grabs a fistful of grass and throws it at her.

He smiles, she laughs, and the both of them settle down once more with only the loud cheers from the girls in uniform to fill the comfortable silence they find themselves in again, as they continue reading everything that's been carved and written into the far too old wood.

Steve's name can be found numerous times, both in forms of compliments-

“I wish Steve Harrington would notice me.”

“Mrs Harrington is my dream job.”

“Steve Harrington the Keg King.”

All surrounded by hearts.

On one step it reads, “Steve 'The Hair' Harrington” in suspiciously familiar handwriting.

He used to bring girls down here, too, and would have them watch as he reached high above them and wrote his name + theirs.

Steve + Laurie. Crossed out. Steve + Amy. Crossed out. Steve + Becky. Crossed out.

He never got to bring Nancy here. Brought Robin here originally for the same reason as the rest, but she was quick to tell him the truth as he stood too close.

At least they remained friends.

“Is your name up there somewhere?” he asks her, having never actually found it.

“I'm a band dweeb, what do you think?” she sighs but acts like it doesn't bother her.

“Do you want it to be?”

“Nope,” she lies and pops the p.

And of course he doesn't believe her, but he considers himself too nice to press her on any of it.

Silence drags on for what feels like eternity crammed into one minute, and he's got something on his mind, but has absolutely no clue how to work it into conversation all casual like, because it's kinda a big deal, but he doesn't want to seem a fool for thinking so.

So he tries to just flat out say it, “Robin?”

“Steve.”

“You're... smart, right?” He feels himself failing at just saying what he's thinking.

“Smarter than you, although that's not saying much,” she chuckles out and looks to him, but he seems... nervous, and she stops. “What's up, dingus?”

“I... I got a note in my locker today, and I don't really know what it means,” Steve speaks hesitantly and rips small pieces off of a blade of grass.

Robin's brows quirks up. “Oh? And you want me to decipher it for you?”

He sits up far too fast, and even though his body remains still, the world spins for longer than what is possible. “Would you?” There is such a brightness to his tone.

“Sure, what does it say?” She gets up as well and crosses her legs.

Steve fishes out a paper that has become impossibly crumbled up in his front pocket, to a point where the letters written in beautiful cursive is almost unintelligible.

“I love you more than words can wield the matter; dearer than eyesight, space and liberty.”

And while she turns the paper around and re-reads those words, Steve stares unblinkingly so at her.

“So?” he finally asks, bursting with anticipation.

“So, it's a love letter.” She hands it back, and he looks at the paper with such admiration, as if he had forgotten he was worthy of such, just to be reminded of it now. “It's Shakespeare, King Lear. It means that she loves you more than words can describe.”

At that he looks up, beaming with elation as he asks for reassurance, “Seriously?”

“Yup.” She is clearly far less excited, but there's optimism to her tone, to know that he might find what they're both longing for, whether out loud or in secret.

“Someone wrote me a love note...” His smile wide with shocked disbelief.

“Congratulations.” She rolls her eyes although with raised lips, and lies down again.

-

The very next day, shortly after lunch has begun, he finds another in his locker and runs to where Robin would be eating her lunch alone in the unattended library.

Steve slams down the paper in front of her, and she pauses just before biting into her boring ham sandwich.

“Well well well lover boy,” she mocks lightly and places her food back down on the tray. “I assume you're in need of my service once again?”

The chair next to her screeches across the floor as he sits down with a hard bump. “Yes, and it's the same handwriting as last, so that means it's the same girl, right?”

“Hey now, I haven't agreed to anything yet!” She slaps her hand down on top of the paper, and smirks. “I will help you with this, again, if you buy me pizza after school.”

“Yeah, deal, whatever, just-” He gestures wildly to the neatly folded paper. “Tell me what it means!”

Robin shakes her head and slumps back into her seat; slipping down a bit with her legs splayed out all comfortable and taking up far too much space.

“Love is blind, and lovers cannot see, the pretty follies that themselves commit.”

She nods for a moment in thought, fully ignoring the way Steve's eyes could drill holes in her skull.

“I think it's from The Merchant of Venice. It means... something like, how love makes you act different?”

And since she seems satisfied with that, nods more and lets out a little “Yeah,” so is he.

“Okay, so, someone that acts differently around me?”

Robin taps her temple with a blackened nail and continues nodding like it's all he understands. Still, to ensure he gets her point, says, “You got it.”

Now it is his turn to slump into his chair, but far more confused. “How... how am I supposed to know that they act differently around me? Isn't that how I'll always have seen them, then?”

She raises her brows at that and sits up a bit more straight. “How astute!”

As if he knows what that means.

-

Through the weekend he waits on his bed, each note in hand and smiling so wide his cheeks grow sore.

Two love letters in two days? They are meant for him, right? This girl didn't accidentally put it in the wrong locker, right?

Steve catches himself briefly hoping she's beautiful, but pushes that aside by the fact that she's so poetically inclined, so sweet and shy that her looks hardly matters, for her choice of words warms his heart and makes it beat in a way that he has oh so missed.

Another thought is what if it's Robin, but he shakes his head violently at that stupid little thing, because no, she's his best friend and that's all they'll ever be, and he truly is happy with that. But everyone gets wrong and bad ideas from time to time, so he won't fault himself for her name popping up, as he mentally goes through a list of all the girls he knows. Or thinks he knows.

And though he tries to distract himself with TV and swimming in his pool and letting Robin paint his toenails, Monday always feels so far away.

-

It is the first thing he does when he shows up at school; pushes his way through his peers to fling open his locker, and sure enough a little note slips out.

He skims it for just a second before he rushes off to stand by Robin's locker for when she eventually moves to it and shoves him aside.

“Another?” she asks with her head in her locker as she rummages for gum.

“I knew she was gonna leave me another! I could feel it in my body the entire weekend!” his tone pitched high with excitement.

“Ew, gross, I don't need to know that!” she jokes and yanks it from his grasp.

“Come what sorrow can, it cannot countervail the exchange of joy, that one short minute gives me in her sight.”

And Steve folds it, lovingly so, before placing it inside his wallet, and thankfully he doesn't have to wait long for a more modern translation of it.

“Something something about how her pain and misery goes away in your presence; in the presence of a loved one. Romeo and Juliet, which is not a happy love story!” she says ardently and points a stern finger at him for emphasis.

“Okay, but does that mean we have classes together at least then?” Steve shrugs and runs a hand through his shiny hair.

“Probably? Or maybe some extra curricular activity,” Robin's tone careless and she starts down the hall, with Steve right behind.

“But the only other extra whatever I take is basket.”

“So maybe your admirer is a guy.”

He shakes his head with conviction. “Nah, I doubt that completely, I mean you've seen the handwriting! And what guy is into Shakespeare?”

“Anything is possible Steve, don't be so close minded.”

-

For once he is early to first-period history class, and he sits on the desk Robin usually occupies, to which she responds with throwing her bag into his lap, accompanied by a cocked brow and strong stare.

Steve doesn't say a thing, simply lifts up a fourth note, and she snags with from his fingers with an exasperated sigh.

“I would not wish any companion in the world but you.”

She groans out loud now and pushes him off of her table. “Come on dingus, this one is easy! You cannot be this stupid.”

“Just tell me what it is!” he says as he shuffles into the seat in front of hers.

“She only wants you, no one else, Jesus.”

“Oh,” he breathes out, his wide grin that of pure joy, and although this is a tiring thing to be bothered with every day now, she does appreciate his happiness to some extend.

-

Wednesday morning Robin is already by Steve's locker, arms crossed and a friendly smile painted across her face.

“Let's see what your stalker has come up with this time,” she says and leans away so that he can twist the lock in the right order.

And today it is a far shorter note.

“Love hath made thee a tame snake.”

She doesn't bother waiting before saying, “Love will humble and soften even the most hardened individual.” And there's a glint in her eyes, so short and easily missed, revealing that she might have an idea as to which hardened individual this could be. Not that she hadn't thought about him before already.

For she had seen his copy of As You Like It by Shakespeare fall from his bag in English Literature, but it is not her place to out anyone.

“That's a weird one, right?” His brows furrowed as he awaits affirmation. “Hardened individual? What does that even mean?”

“Steve, I-” She rubs her eyes hard and nods. “Yeah, it is a weird one. But it probably means someone who's acting tough, but in truth softens around you.”

He folds it back up and slips it into his wallet together with the other four.

“Tomorrow, then,” Robin says and pats his shoulder a few times before heading to class.

Steve stays still for a moment, looking at how the five notes stretches the leather of his wallet. His thumb runs over their ripped edges, all seemingly from the same piece of paper, thinking about the dainty fingers that must hold the ballpoint pen to write him such loving words.

Cheeks flushed, smile tender, eyes soft, he wanders towards class as well.

-

Months ago when he and Robin became best friends, she took a very slight interest in him and his education, because he very clearly needs help with school, and she's suspicious of the fact that he might be dyslexic, but when asked about it he gets mad.

So instead she demands food and favors from him whenever he starts screwing up in school again, starts falling behind, or shows up late to class. And of course he has slept through his alarm for the first time in weeks on this Thursday, the one day of two where they have first-period together, and now he'll have to pay for dinner at the diner, but he has a good excuse!

Sat up all night with several books written by none other than William Shakespeare that he had checked out at the library.

He's hungry and tired and in a goddamn hurry to get to class ASAP; the hallways empty and silent save for the occasional teacher yelling at an unruly student, but even that he can hardly hear over the beating of his heart, which is just great, because now he'll spend all day with floppy hair and reeking of sweat.

He just has to make a quick stop by his locker to see if there's a new note, the only thing that truly matters and overshadows the importance of getting passing grades or upholding his deal with Robin.

Around the next corner and... and...

And it never dawned on him at any point, even with Robin's constant droning of “Guys can read Shakespeare, too!” that his secret admirer might not be a girl at all. Maybe he was just so stuck in the expected reality of the world, the one he's so used to, before Robin helped him see the light, to help him realize that there's other options than gay or straight.

No he never even bothered thinking that way, till he sees Billy Hargrove slip something into his locker.

[langdons-little-witch-bitch]

Skinny dipping

(edit made by me)

Summary: Y/N and Xavier unwind together after a hard day of work (well for Y/N at least) at Camp Redwood.

A/N: This was requested by a lovely anon who wanted a Xavier x male!reader fic. Sorry it took me so long! But hey what better day to post than today 😉

This is my first time writing male x male, I hope it’s ok and you’ll enjoy it 😊

(English is not my first language)

Pairing: Xavier Plympton x male!reader

Warnings: NSFW, smutty (no actual sex tho), male x male, drug use, skinny dipping, handjobs, public smut

Word count: 1133

—————————————————————–

Y/N was on his way to the lake as the sun began to set. A towel thrown over his shoulder, wearing his skimpy, tight trunks that left little for the imagination.

It has been an exhausting day. He had to take care of the youngest campers today and let’s just say they’ve been quiet a handful. He was completely worn out and just wanted to swim a few rounds to clear his head and relax before heading for bed.

Just when he took a turn around the corner of one of the cabins, he ran into a broad chest, covered in a teal shirt. Xavier.

“Hey man, I’ve been looking for you. Where are you headed?”, he asked in a joyful tone. 

“Oh just going for a swim and then to bed. Been kind of a rough day.”

“Mind if I join you? I’ve got something here", he patted the pocket of his jacket, “that can help you relax.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“I don’t know.” Y/N was hesitant. Since day one Xavier has brought them into trouble, but still he couldn’t seem to stay away from the blonde. Xavier was just too intriguing. Always carrying a mischievous glimmer in his blue eyes, a smug grin adorning his mouth and a joke on his lips.

“Come on,” Xavier whined, “let’s have some fun. We didn’t get to hang out much lately. I miss my buddy.” The way he emphasized the word buddy made Y/N’s stomach tingle. 

He and Xavier were more than pals, sort of. He was always very flirty and touchy with Y/N. First he thought that was just his nature. He was always flirting, sending winks and dazzling smiles at almost everyone’s directions. But it was different with Y/N. The blonde always seemed to seek his proximity and they spend a lot of time together after their duties as counselors. Y/N was not naïve enough to believe that Xavier wanted something serious though. It was probably just a summer fling to him, but nevertheless Y/N enjoyed the attention and affection he received. 

Xavier had led him to the shore of the lake, a bit offside.

“Ok what do you have in store for me now?”, Y/N asked.

Xavier just flashed him that infamous smirk that signaled he was up to no good. He took a little glance around to check that no one would see them, before he pulled a joint out of his inside pocket.

“Are you crazy? We’re gonna get kicked out if they catch us”, Y/N panicked.

“Then we just have to make sure that we don’t get caught”, Xavier shrugged his shoulders nonchalant. “I thought you wanted to relax, this will definitely help you.”

“You know what else would help? A good night of sleep.”

Despite his concerns he let himself got roped by Xavier. Charming fucker. Always getting his way, Y/N thought, rolling his eyes.

The two young men sat down in the grass on Y/N’ s towel and Xavier pulled out a lighter to lit the joint. He took a long drag from it, letting the smoke linger inside his mouth a bit before exhaling with a long sigh. He passed it to Y/N while asking about his day.

“It was terrible”, he groaned, “I had the kids today.”

Xavier let out a gloating laugh, earning him a playful smack to the chest.

“Sorry, I’m just glad it wasn’t my turn. These little hellions can be so annoying.”

They laughed while passing the joint. Y/N laid down on his back, feeling the impact of the weed, making him a bit dizzy. Xavier soon followed him, laying close to the boys body. He could feel the warmth radiate of the taller body next to him, his skin immediately starting to heat up too.

For a while they just lay there together, watching the dark glowing orange and reddish colors switch into a pitch black, while they kept taking drags from the joint alternately. Their conversation turning into silly nonsense thanks to the weed clouding their minds.

“Hey didn’t you wanted to take a swim? We should definitely take a swim”, Xavier suddenly announced excited. The light of the nearby lanterns illuminating his beautiful features in soft, golden light, making his face glow.

He stood up and shrugged his lavender jacket off before starting to take his shirt off.

“Come on. Get your lazy ass up”, he demanded.

Y/N couldn’t bring himself to get up yet, sleepy from the day and the weed.

“Hmmm I rather lay here and enjoy the show”, he winked at him.

Xavier smirked arrogantly, well aware of his good looks and its affect on others. He proceeded peeling the fabric off his firm chest, slowly, teasingly. Y/N’s eyes followed his every move, watching the muscles in Xavier’s bicep flex as he pulled the shirt over his head and threw it on the ground. The blonde fumbled with the button of his slacks before letting them glide down his sturdy legs.

Y/N started to feel even hotter, his mind hazy. His mouth started to go dry and he licked his lips as he let his eyes wander over the muscular thighs of the handsome boy in front of him. Damn those jazzercise classes really have paid of, he thought.

He could fell himself begin to harden as he raked his eyes over Xavier’s half naked form, especially when his gaze landed on the prominent bulge in his tiny briefs. As the blonde started to take these off too, Y/N couldn’t help but let out a low groan.

“Fuck man”, he breathed out as he ogled at the magnificent sight presented to him.

“Like what you see?”, Xavier teased with that cocky grin that never seemed to leave his lips.

Befuddled by lust Y/N just nodded before standing up.

“Come let’s go in the water”, Xavier walked up to Y/N, his hands dipping into the waistband of his swim wear, “but without these. Its only fair.” He puckered his lips in a fake pout, before pulling the fabric down Y/N’s legs, leaving them both bare.

Xavier took him by the hand, leading him to the lake before starting to sprint, letting go to dive into the seemingly black water. He turned on his back to swim backwards, looking at Y/N.

“Come in, the water is really refreshing.”

Y/N quickly jumped in, catching up to Xavier, who he could barely made out in the dark. Now that the lanterns were a fair way off, the only source of light was the bright full moon shining above them.

They swam for a while, fooling around, laughing, splashing each other with water, until Xavier led Y/N closer to the shore where they could stand in the water.

Water droplets dripped down their chests, looking like little crystals in the moonlight. Without saying anything Xavier stepped closer to Y/N, his large hands gripping the boys face before locking their lips. Y/N immediately responded to the kiss. Xavier’s soft, plump lips caressed his softly, before deepening the kiss. He coaxed the boy’s lips open with his, letting his warm tongue slide in. Their tongues exploring each others mouth, feeling, tasting. Meanwhile Xavier let his hands wander. From Y/N’s neck, down his back to his butt where he gripped the cheeks firmly, pulling him in, their crotches meeting. Y/N gasped into the kiss as he met the now rock hard length of Xavier, grinding himself slightly against him.

They broke the kiss to suck in some fresh air. Eyes dilated in lust. Y/N started to glide his hands down Xavier’s chest slowly, while he held on his waist tightly. He circled the blondes nibbles with his thumbs which elicited a faint moan from him. He continued downwards, tracing the gentle outlines on his stomach, before finally settling at his shaft. He gripped the base firmly and started pumping him at a steady pace. Xavier moaned loudly as Y/N circled the tip of his length with his thumb. He kept circling the head, before gently running his digit over the slit. Even underwater he could feel him leaking pre cum.

“Fuck”, Xavier panted, “feels so good man. Keep going.”

Y/N gladly obeyed, going back to stroking him at a faster pace now. In the meantime Xavier started to grip at Y/N’s length, wanting to make him feel good too. They both stroked each other rapidly, desperate for release. Their free hands touching and groping each others flesh while their moans and groans filled the nightly air. Xavier pulled Y/N by his length gently, but firmly, to get him even closer, bringing him into a sloppy, hungry kiss.

“God, Xavier I’m so close”, Y/N moaned, bucking his hips upwards.

“Me too. Fuck”, he hissed as Y/N squeezed him while going even faster now.

Soon they both came loudly and unbridled, not caring if someone might hear. The surrounding water washed the sticky strings of cum off their hands.

“Maybe we shouldn’t let the campers swim here anymore”, Y/N slightly cringed, making Xavier laugh.

“And you wanna explain them why?”, he aske amused.

“Oh god no.”

“Now wasn’t that better than what you originally planned?”, Xavier asked, changing the topic.

“Much better.”

They both stepped out of the water, drying themselves off with Y/N’s towel and getting closed again. Whereas Y/N didn’t had much to put on anyway and Xavier didn’t bothered to put his shirt and jacket back on.

They walked back to their cabins together.

“We definitely have to repeat that soon”, Xavier winked at Y/N before wishing him a good night and heading into the opposite direction to his sleeping place.

[wittystarkk]

The Last Five Years || Bucky Barnes || Part Seven

author: wittystark

word count: 2.8k

relationship: James “Bucky” Barnes/Reader

chapter title: A Summer In Ohio

A/N: Reader is in Ohio for the production of a script she'd written, and she misses her new husband.

Previous Chapter - Next Chapter

(Y/N) groaned when her phone reflected her own face at her, Bucky’s name in white font set across her forehead and “Dialing…” in smaller white font underneath that. She was sat on the uncomfortable mattress in her rundown apartment for the summer, exhaustion setting in after two miserable days of poor sleep and too much work. Her legs ached from swimming across the lake the day before, attempting to relieve (or rather, escape) her stress from the director of the play forcing her to rewrite the entirety of the second act. She wanted to brain the director to death with her laptop, and the fact that she was unable to talk to Bucky for two consecutive days wasn’t helping the problem. 

The moment he told her he was free she’d pressed the “FaceTime” button on her screen so fast she had hardly been aware she’d actually done it. Now she was sitting in jittery anticipation, listening to the dull dings of the ringer. 

When her phone changed from “Dialing…” to “Connecting…” her entire body tensed, her bottom lip tucking between her teeth. Bucky’s handsome face finally appearing on her screen made her heart ache with longing underneath her ribs. “Hi, baby.”

He gave her a wide smile, his whole face lighting up. “Hi,” He shifted a bit on the bed he was lying in, reaching across his body to pull the string to turn on the lamp. She smiled, being able to see him better. She’d struggled with having to leave him back home in New York, had hardly been able to part with her newly betrothed but the knowledge that he was now only a phone call away was comforting her just a tad. 

“How was your press yesterday?” She wondered, standing up from the mattress on legs that ached in protest. It took a considerable amount of effort to keep herself from letting him become aware of her sore muscles. 

“It was nothing special. I was bored most of the day, being shuffled from room to room. I wish you were here,” he added on as an afterthought. She frowned a little at his comment, slipping her feet into the tattered old Toms that were discarded beside the front door to her apartment. 

“I wish I were there with you too, babe. But instead I’m here in Ohio, withering away.” She put the back of her hand to her forehead, melodramatically acting as if she were going to die. 

“Hey, babe. Remember I’m the actor here, don’t come for my job.” He teased with a wink, watching his wife closely through the screen of his cell phone. “Where’re you right now?” He wondered, noticing the background behind her changing. 

“I’m walking out of my little apartment on the edge of camp. Though, really, it should be called a fucking hut the thing is so run down.” She sighed, walking past someone she knew, carefully angling the camera so that Bucky could see the man behind her. “That’s Carl, one of the other adults here. Has dwarfism.  He’s playing a role because he fits in with the children so easily. He’s kind of a grump and I am certain he hates me,” She informed Bucky who laughed. 

“(Y/N), c’mon. I’m sure he doesn’t hate you.” 

She panned the camera back to herself, nodding her head confidently. “No, he does. If it were up to him I’d be off of this stupid thing and they’d be using his play.”

“He’s a writer too?”

She nodded, “yes. In the most liberal of senses. I don’t think Carl is very literate.” 

He let out a howl of a laugh, shaking his head a little. “(Y/N),” he admonished. “Be nice.”

She rolled her eyes, making a mocking face at him. “I’m being nice,” she defended as she continued walking towards the camp. 

“So,” Bucky smirked. “How are you really liking the camp?”

She sighed, taking a moment to think. “It’s wonderful. I don’t think that there is anything that would beat being here. I mean, let me think. I could have a whole mansion on some hill in a remote country, and I’d be less content than I am here. I could have a satchel full of dollar bills, and I’d be like ‘pft. I shall not leave Ohio.” 

He rolled his eyes, smiling amusedly at his wife. “You’re something else.”

She shrugged, “I would certainly hope so. Who would want to be normal?” She wondered. She continued on her walk, gasping loudly when a thought crossed her mind. “Oh, shit. I didn’t tell you about the stripper, did I?”

Bucky widened his eyes in shock, “what stripper? You’re at a summer camp for children.” He reminded her, as if that weren’t painfully obvious already. She rolled her eyes, lowering her hand as she passed by a group of the children of the camp, not wanting them to see her talking to her phone. When they were a safe distance away, she raised her hand again, getting an odd look from her screen. 

“Why was I staring at your hip?” 

She shrugged, “kids were walking by.” She skipped a few feet, stopping near the dock. “So right, anyway. Her name is Alexis, right? She lives in Columbus but apparently is trying to get herself brownie points with the judge over some custody hearing thing with her kid. I don't know the whole story. Regardless, she used to be a stripper in Columbus before she got knocked up. You can tell, too. Just in the way she carries herself and dresses. She’s pretty great, honestly. Oh!” Her lips curled in a big smile as she kicked her shoes off, settling down on the edge of the dock, dangling her feet into the water. “She has a snake too. Guess it’s name?”

“Snake?” He ventured, unimaginatively.

“Wayne,” she supplied, resting her elbow on her thigh to support her arm. “He’s kinda gross, because he’s shedding right now. And you know how gross snakes are when they shed,” he nodded his head in agreement. He was smiling an almost lazy smile, just happy to be watching his wife and listening to her ramble on about the ongoings of camp and about the snake he would never meet. “Anyway. We share a room, whenever she actually bothers to come back for the night. I think she’s sleeping with the director of the camp, but. Who’s to say for certain?” 

“Who knew a children’s summer camp would have so much drama?”

Her smile was big, warming up her entire face. Bucky’s heart panged with longing, he missed her. Missed her more than he would care to let on. “How’s it apart from the stripper, and the illiterate dwarf?” Bucky wondered, shifting on his bed to get more comfortable. 

“Oh, it’s just horrible.” She groaned, rubbing her forehead tiredly. “I mean. Let me count all the things I would like more than being in Ohio for the summer.” She took a second to think before rattling things off. “Let’s see. Okay, I could literally shove an ice pick in my eye. This one.” She brought the phone a little closer to her eye, letting him get a good look at it before pulling the phone back to show her full face. “And it’d be better than this here state.” She grumbled. 

Bucky laughed, “really?”

She nodded, “yep!”

He rolled his eyes, “you’re really a drama queen you know that? I love you, I do. But c’mon. It can’t be that bad.” 

“No! It really is, Bucky. I swear to God. It’s horrible. I have no cable, no hot water - you know how much I hate having cold showers. I have no vietnamese food, which. How terrible, I miss our takeout joint. Whenever I have a bad day at rehearsal with the kids, all I want to do is cuddle up on the couch with a box of takeout. And the worst part. The very worst part is.. I don’t have you, Bucky.” 

Her frown was enough to make him feel sad too. For him to want to rush to Ohio on the first plane and pull her into his arms. To kiss her and rub her back and tell her how much he loved her. It was torture being away from her. It was torture for her to be away from him. It was all nonsense and if she never went back to Ohio, it would be too soon for the both of them. 

She sighed heavily, trying to figure out a way to lighten the mood. She came up with nothing and he had nothing either. He could smile at her, in that award winning way of his. Her heart melted. “Baby, I love you.” He said in a soothing way. She beamed a smile back at him, the smile reaching all the way to her eyes. 

“I love you too,” she responded, blowing a kiss at her phone. He grabbed at his chest, pretending like the kiss was a bullet to his heart. She rolled her eyes but couldn’t fight the giggle that escaped her lips. He was too much for her, and she was too much for him. They were under each other's spell, and marriage proved to only worsen it. 

His hand came up to rub tiredly at his eyes and she saw the glint of the simple gold band around his fourth finger. She knew that it was her ring on his finger. Her possession of him. She smiled big, “I love seeing your ring.” 

He chuckled, spinning it absently with his thumb and pinky. “I’m pretty fond of it myself,” he acknowledged. The two sat there for a moment in silence, both wishing they were together before she perked up.

“So, I forgot to tell you. The other day, the other adults and I took a quick drive to Kentucky, right?” He nodded, showing that he was listening. “And we stopped at Target because we needed to get some things. Anyway, I walked in and the entertainment section was directly to the right. Which was convenient because I have to solely rely on watching DVD’s for entertainment. And I looked over and guess who the hell I saw?”

His eyebrows raised in surprise, smiling. “Who?”

“You! You were on this like, big poster thing advertising your movie. Of course I walked over immediately and grabbed a copy. Richard followed me and he was like -” She changed her voice to be snarky, “‘All things considered I guess you don’t have to buy that’. Which, first of all? How offensive is that? Like, just because you’re my husband doesn’t mean I don’t have to buy your movie? Second of all, him being snarky about it made me want it even more. So, I smiled like Mona Lisa, walked over to check out, and bought that DVD before we even started our shopping trip.” 

Bucky laughed loudly, rubbing his hand down his face. “(Y/N),” he sighed. “You really didn’t have to do that. I know you were being petty and proving a point but you didn’t have to buy a copy of my DVD.” 

She shrugged, “like I said. We don’t have cable so I needed DVD’s to watch on my computer. It’s a good movie, baby. Like, really good.. You did such a good job in it. I’ve seen it a handful of times and every single time I’m still in awe of you, babe. I really am lucky being your wife.”

The blush on his cheek was so obvious it almost made her giggle. “You really are too flattering, babe.” She winked at him and the two dropped the conversation of flattery. 

“So, Richard. Don’t like him?” Bucky asked, bringing the subject off of himself. 

She laughed, nodding her head, her hair falling in front of her face. “No, I don’t, not really. But, God. He wants me, he really wants me. He flirts with me every single chance he can get and he doesn’t make it subtle at all. He just does everything he can to get time with me. And he’s the assistant director of this camp, so it’s not hard for him to get his way.” She shrugged nonchalantly, “it’s fine. He isn’t gonna get me. I’m kind of spoken for. I have a pretty great guy, you should meet him sometime.” 

He rolled his eyes at his wife, “yeah. I’ll make that a priority.” He rolled over onto his other side, placing the phone against a pillow to prop it up and free his tired arm. “Damn right he isn’t going to get you, though. You’re all mine.” He winked at the camera. 

She took a moment to look his face over, sighing dramatically. “God, look at you. I mean, look at me, and then look at you. Sonovabitch, I must be doin’ somethin’ right to have landed you.” She shook her head. “Hell we aren't perfect but. We’re pretty damn close, don’t you think?”

“Damn right,” he whisper cheered. 

Her head snapped to the side when she heard noises, seeing a gaggle of children running towards the lake in their bathing suits. She groaned, looking back at her phone. “I gotta go baby. I do, I’m sorry.” She sighed heavily, standing up from the dock, letting her feet dry for a moment. “Hurry up and get your ass out here to Ohio, you schmuck. I miss you.”

“I miss you too, baby.” He sat up in the bed. “I love you and I’ll see you soon.”

“I love you too,” she replied. “I gotta go though, babe. I’ll talk to you soon.” She pressed her thumb against the red ‘end’ button and turned just in time. The children all ran past her shouting ‘Hi Mrs. Barnes’ as they made their way into the lake, Richard following behind them.

“Interesting call?” He asked, raising his eyebrows at her, seeing her phone gripped tightly in her hand. 

She shrugged, “guess so. Anyway, I should probably get back and finish those last little edits to the script. I’ll uh, see you around. Good luck with them.” 

Richard’s jaw was set tight, nodding as he watched her leave. She was already missing Bucky. 

~~~

Two weeks later, she was drying her sweaty hands on her skirt clad thighs, watching the children all run around backstage, screaming and giggling while waiting for the cue that the show was going to be starting soon. To say she was nervous would be an understatement of the century. It was the first time that one of her scripts were to be performed in front of an audience. She’d helped with scripts in the past at the summer camp, editing here and there. Helping with dialogue occasionally. But never once was it solely her work. Never was it something that she had created and crafted all on her own.

She felt like she was on the verge of vomiting. Her hair had begun to come out of it’s neat bun, falling around her face and if she hadn’t just gotten her nails done she would have been anxiously picking at them. She didn’t know how people did this so often. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to it. 

Alexis noticed her legs nervous twitching, shaking her head a little at the bundle of nerves that was her roommate. “Listen,” Alexis said, walking over to (Y/N) with a pageant smile on her lips. “You’re not going out there to perform it, so there’s no reason to be nervous, okay?” She gripped (Y/N)’s shoulders tightly, rubbing them to calm her friend. “The kids all know their lines, and with any luck they’ll be half decent. Besides, they’re just playing to a bunch of elderly people. They won’t be the harshest of critics. Just breathe, and know your play is good.” 

She wanted to smile, but all that came out was a shaky laugh. “Thanks, Alexis.” 

“Yeah, I’m sure it’s wonderful. I’m excited to see it,” said a voice from behind her. Her entire face lit up as she shook Alexis’s hands off of her shoulders and spun on her heels, running to the source of the voice. She jumped into Bucky’s arms without a moment’s hesitation, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist while peppering his face with kisses. “Baby!” She shrieked between kisses. “I didn’t know you were coming.” 

He laughed, wrapping his arms around her waist to hold her against him. “I wanted to surprise you, babe. I wanted to be here for your opening night and your first performance of your first play ever.” 

She giggled, kissing him again. “You’re a wonderful husband, you know that?” 

He smirked, “so I’ve been told.”

~

Feedback is greatly appreciated! Please let me know if you want to be tagged!

@petlaufeyson​, @lovely-geek

[missmarquin]

Hot Waters

A/N: Need I an excuse for shameless smut based on my favorite vine?

Read on AO3 for better quality, including proper formatting!

...

It wasn't the first time Yuri had ever heard the phrase, "Two guys chilling in a hot tub five feet apart, because they ain't gay", but he 'd never expected to hear it as a complaint from Otabek. Funny how growing up is, especially when growing up, means falling in love with your best friend. ESPECIALLY when your best friend isn't gay.

...

Life used to be pretty simple, for Yuri Plisetsky. 

When he was ten, his days consisted of this: Wake up before the crack of dawn, get his ass to the ballet studio and dance until his feet were bruised and close to bleeding. Then it was off to the skating rink. His grandfather would cook dinner, and then they’d ice Yuri’s feet, and then it was off to bed. 

Rinse and repeat. 

When he was a teenager, his routine changed slightly: ballet and skating were swapped, the latter taking precedence. Up before dawn to be at the rink before the public. Skate until his feet were bruised and swollen. If it was Tuesday or Thursday, it was off to the ballet studio, otherwise it was home to ice his feet and rest. His grandfather still cooked, albeit slower and with more care, because he was getting old. Followed by his nightly chat with Otabek and then bed. 

Rinse and repeat, once more. 

When Yuri finally hit his growth spurt, it was absurdly late. So late that Yuri had literally lost all hope up winding northward of six-foot, but then eighteen came with a vengeance and he somehow grew a foot in a fucking year. It wrecked him, and everything about his skating.

Now it was: Wake up even earlier but still before the crack of dawn, to stretch and roll out his sore joints. Hit up the rink and stay longer, running drill after drill. Then the dance studio every fucking day, because his center of balance wouldn’t keep itself. Then home, where he’d make his own dinner, because his grandfather had moved into some fancy old-person’s home and Yuri finally had the place to himself. Then he’d ice his feet, binge-watch whatever crappy reality show was convenient, while simultaneously chatting with Beka. Usually he fell asleep during the call, food still in his lap, and Potya licking his fingers. 

Rinse and repeat. In fact, he’d rinsed-and-repeated this particular schedule for several years. 

He was just a few months into twenty-two, when his life became complicated. 

Yuri expected it really, he always expected something. He’d dealt with some pretty convoluted shit before, and he’d learned to how to react in record time. Really, life could have thrown just about anything his way, and he’d weasel through it, relatively unscathed. 

Until that summer. Like every year, Otabek came up from Almaty and stayed for a few weeks. He’d hole up in Yuri’s room, hogging the sheets at night and using too much of Yuri’s shampoo. They’d argue over what to have for dinner, bask in each other’s presence on the couch, and argue whether or not Yuri was actually a Slytherin. 

You know, the mindless and boring shit that best friends forever did on the daily. 

Otabek always showered before dinner; it was like some weird, unspoken rule of his. He’d arrived late in the afternoon that year, and hadn’t even unpacked his luggage yet. Yuri poked his head into the bedroom to tell him that dinner was in the oven and--

Otabek was pulling off his shirt. Pulling off his shirt, his legs still clad in those ridiculous leather pants he insisted on, despite it being boiling outside. His olive skin a dark contrast against the stark white walls, hard lines cut into his abdomen from years of training. Yuri watched the slight drag of his cotton shirt as Otabek lifted it up. 

Yuri had seen this sight a thousand times, over the years. 

Except that this time, his mouth went dry and his heart sped up. It was like he couldn’t breath, he couldn’t stop looking, he had to get his hands on Otabek, to see how smooth his skin really was, or how hard his muscles felt, and-- what the actual fuck was wrong with him?

Otabek had caught him staring, cocking his head to the side, just fucking waiting. 

Yuri wasn’t old enough for this. Or maybe he was too young for this, or maybe he was just right-- 

Was there a right time to realize that you wanted your best friend?

Who was also a dude, Yuri reminded himself. Yeah, that made things complicated, very complicated, because Yuri very much liked the female form. And he was well acquainted with it, at length.

That summer had been incredibly awkward. And the summer after that. And after that too, as well as all the time in between. 

By the time Yuri was twenty-six, he missed his routine, the simpler parts of his life. The mundane shit that he used to complain about when he was a child. Because if it was something that he’d learned while living in this complicated mess for years, it was that he couldn’t handle it for much longer without cracking like a fucking egg. 

…..

“Yura, why are you all the way over there?”

If Yuri were younger, he might have squawked unattractively at the sudden question. But he’d learned to hone his thoughts, to take a breath and let it out and-- 

Absolutely avoid looking anywhere below Otabek’s neck, because he was currently very shirtless. And really, those swim trunks didn’t hide shit either. 

“Leave me alone!” he practically spat. The words came out a little more harsh than he would have liked, and he barely hid his wince. But Otabek was a master of interpreting the Tone of Yuri, and thought nothing of it. “I’m just trying to get comfortable,” he finally mumbled, wiggling around slightly on the bench. 

“You know, when you said you were housesitting for Victor and Yuuri, I wasn’t expecting it to be for so long,” Otabek replied with, leaning back slightly. His arms were splayed out across the edge of the hot tub, and it took everything Yuri had to blink off the urge to sneak a peek of his chest. 

“It’s not my fault they decided to take a fucking month long honeymoon,” Yuri groused.

“They’ve been married for a decade.”

“You think I don’t know that shit? Something about renewing their vows, and blah blah. I stopped listening after they started getting handsy with each other.”

Otabek hummed at that, his lips quirking into a tiny little smile. 

“Still,” Yuri, snapped right back, “Doesn’t change the fact that they’re annoying as fuck.”

“I think they’re cute,” Otabek said, moving his hand to swirl a fingertip through the water.

Yuri gaped at him. Otabek wasn’t the kind of person to just randomly say shit like that. The things that he thought were cute were few and far between.. well, Yuri had kept a running tally. Potya, teddy bears and-- 

Yura, you’re cute when you’re angry. 

Yuri’s mouth went dry, telling himself that cute wasn’t the same as like, and Beka would never like him, because he wasn’t fucking gay. Yuri wasn’t really gay either, he’d liked plenty of girls, but none of them were-- 

Well, none of them were Beka. At twenty-six he’d finally come to terms that he’d just be fucking single for the rest of his life. 

“Their gay asses aren’t cute,” Yuri finally sad, sinking down into the water. Otabek hummed again, turning to look away. Yuri finally snuck a peek at him, his eyes sliding down his body, taking in the rich muscles and tone of his figure. God, it just wasn’t fair, was it?

“You always act like being gay is the worst fucking thing imaginable,” Otabek said quietly. 

Yuri’s blood ran cold at that. He’d never thought that. At least, now he didn't. When he was twenty, sure, but he’d long since come to terms with it being normal. What wasn’t normal was lusting after your best friend twenty-four/seven, and dating a stream of girls over the years to forget about it. 

“There’s--” But the words got stuck in his throat. “There’s nothing wrong with it,” Yuri finally finished. “I just can’t stand to see them all over each other. It’s exhausting.”

“So you’re cool with gay dudes?”

“Beka, I literally have no problem--”

“Is that why you’re all the way over there? The whole ‘two dudes chilling in a hot tub five feet away, because they ain’t gay’ thing?”

Well, this isn’t how he would have thought this night would go. 

“I think that beer is going to your head, Beka,” Yuri said lamely. But still, he crossed the distance between them, settling onto the bench beside Otabek. Even if it meant ignoring any and everything about the man, to do so. 

It was a pain, when crushes weren’t fucking crushes anymore. Love was suppose to be awesome, not a poison that slowly needled you away. 

“I’ve had one,” Otabek said, and he had the actual gall to sound offended. 

“What’s gotten into you?” Yuri finally asked, narrowing his eyes at the man. He didn’t like this, whatever this was. Otabek was rarely annoyed, and he could just feel it radiating off of him. He could see it in his face, the way that his dark eyes ghosted across his face and then to his--

Wait, why was Otabek staring at his mouth?

Otabek reached out, grabbing his wrist, just holding it. It wasn’t like they had never touched before. Fuck, Otabek braided his hair all the time, or helped him dress when he wore skating costumes that were overly complicated. But there was something about this tiny little brush of movement that was different. 

It was like the touch burned his skin, and Yuri could feel intent behind it, and suddenly his head was all foggy and his heart--

Otabek pulled suddenly, tugging him closer, and Yuri couldn’t stop himself. He practically fell into his lap, their faces close, their noses nearly brushing. They were too close, too close. 

Also, what the fuck was Otabek doing?

And then Otabek’s fingers found his chin, pulling his mouth upwards and-- 

“Otabek, what the fuck are you doing?”

“It’s pretty obvious,” he replied, his lips curving into a smirk. 

And then he was kissing Yuri, and like an idiot, he responded immediately and without a thought, because he’d wanted to do this for four fucking years. Yuri shifted his position, moving to properly straddle Otabek, his hands reaching out to grab his face. Now he had to bend down, because he had a few good inches on him, but Otabek met his lips greedily. 

It wasn’t a slow burn, or anything like he’d experienced with past girlfriends. It was all fire, and Otabek just gave it to him, and Yuri just took it. And it burned and burned and burned, until he felt like he was going to combust. The feel of lips sliding against each other, heated breaths pooling between them, and then Otabek slid his tongue along his mouth and---

Yuri abruptly pulled away, breathing hard. “I’m not fucking drunk enough for this,” he finally said. 

Otabek looked hurt, and that wasn’t something that Yuri would have ever thought possible. But then the look was as gone as quick as it had flitted across his face. “Drunk enough for what?” he asked. 

And Yuri floundered for a moment, trying to figure out what to say. “For…” It was clear that Otabek knew something, but what exactly? That he hid his never-explored-or-explicitly-stated gay self, because he was only gay for one dude? Judging by the twinkling in his friend’s gaze, he probably thought that Yuri had some stupid crush on him, that it couldn’t possibly be something so deep and heavy as-- 

Nope, Yuri wouldn’t call it that, call it love. He couldn’t, because the moment that he did, would be the moment that things shifted again, and he just couldn’t afford for his life to turn fucking upside down again. 

“For making fun of me,” he finished lamely. “Cause obviously you’ve figured out that I--”

“Making fun of you,” Otabek repeated. 

Yuri made a frustrated grunt. “Look, you can’t just go and imply that I hate gay people--” Otabek hummed at that, nodding slightly-- “And then just fucking kiss me--” Otabek’s hands moved to his side, sliding upwards against Yuri’s skin, and his words faltered just slightly. “And-- and-- this kind of goes beyond good-natured teasing--”

“I’m not teasing you,” Otabek said rather flatly. There was that slightly annoyed looking glance again. 

“Look, I might be kind of gay,” Yuri finally said, and any other moment the words might have felt good, like he was lifting something off his chest. But this time, he felt backed into a corner, because Otabek clearly knew that he wasn’t a straight arrow and picked this moment to make fun of him and-- “But you aren’t, and that doesn’t mean you can just go and--”

Otabek laughed, and it wasn’t the quiet and barely-there-but-clearly-amused kind of chuckle that Yuri was used to. This was a full-blown laugh that consumed him, fluttering up from his belly, causing his shoulders to shake. 

“Beka--”

“Yura, I’m not straight,” Otabek finally said, once he gained control of his laughter.

“What--” Yuri spluttered. “I’ve seen you date girls.”

“Yeah, I’ve dated girls. And then I met a guy who changed everything.”

Yuri would jot that down later on a list of things that he would have never thought Beka would say, ever. “So what, you’ve just been pretending to ignore it? If this guy is so special--”

“He’s been doing the same shit for years,” Otabek replied. 

“Beka--”

“Yura, you’re so fucking dense.”

“Beka--”

Otabek grabbed at his hips and pulled him closer, pressing their hips together and-- Yuri’s grip on his shoulders tightened. There was no denying it, that was… Yuri swallowed. Otabek was hard against his crotch, and it made heat pool into his stomach and his blood go clammy, because that meant one thing, and one thing only. 

The look on Otabek’s face was flushed and heavy, but not necessarily lustful, it was something else, something that made Yuri’s heart damn near burst. 

“It’s safe to say that I’m pretty fucking gay for you,” Otabek finally said.

“Wow, romantic,” Yuri said dryly. 

“What would you rather me say?” Otabek asked.  “That I’ve wanted to kiss you for years?” He yanked at Yuri’s hips again, rolling his own closer. “That I’ve wanted to feel you against me for as long as I can remember?” It wasn’t like Yuri could hide his own cock by this point, but he wasn’t prepared for them to brush against each other. Even through the swim trunks, the touch was divine, and he rocked closer, wanting more friction. 

“Beka,” Yuri whined. Otabek’s hand moved from his waist, to cross over his abs. He played with the muscles there, and then the fine and downy hairs just under his navel. Yuri wanted, needed his hand further southward, but Otabek’s hand just stayed there, unmoving.  

“Yura,” he whispered, his lips close to his ear, “Can I?”

“Beka, I swear to God if you don’t--”

“Don’t what?”

Otabek was going to make him say it. He was going to make him beg, and Yuri fucking hated it. Or maybe he loved it. Or maybe he didn’t fucking know anything anymore. AT least anything aside, Otabek straddled between his legs, his fingers brushing against his belly button, and the heat of the hot tub. 

“Beka,” Yuri whined. 

Otabek’s other hand ghosted across his jaw, catching it between his thumb and forefinger. He pulled Yuri’s lips close to his, hesitating. “Yuri, I want you, I’ve wanted you for a very long time,” he said to him, his thumb rubbing along Yuri’s bottom lip. “What do you want?”

How the fuck could Otabek ask him that? Wasn’t it obvious, with him straddled over his lap, kissing him with abandon, grinding his hips against his with ill restraint. It’s clear, Yuri thought. It’s so fucking obvious what he wants, but then there’s this look on Otabek’s face and--

“Yura,” Otabek breathed, “I want to hear it. Tell me what you want.” Yuri watched as Otabek thumbed his lip again, his own mouth twisting into a smirk. 

Oh. Otabek needed to hear it, and it wasn’t fair, how good he looked at that moment. His eyes were hazed over, half-lidded and glazed, one hand still hooked around Yuri’s face, holding it gently. Waiting for him to say something Yuri would have thought it awkward, but it wasn’t, it was perfect, because it was a look that Otabek apparently reserved for him. 

He was still trying to process that piece of information, because if Otabek had liked him for years, then why the fuck had Yuri waited for so long? “I--” Why hadn’t Beka ever said anything? 

But words weren’t at the forefront of Yuri’s mind, at the moment. Otabek was patient though, his fingertips dancing along the waistband of his swim trunks. So Yuri made a rash decision, reaching down and grabbing at Otabek’s hand, pulling it downwards and straight to his cock.

Otabek smiled at that, pressing his lips to Yuri’s neck, squeezing the bulge in his swim trunks just barely-- 

The moan that Yuri let out was the most embarrassing thing to ever pass his lips. 

Otabek kissed his way along Yuri’s jaw, and then met his mouth again. Yuri practically swallowed the kiss, his hips rutting upward towards Otabek’s hand, trying to find that pressure again and-- 

Otabek pulled his hand away, moving to slide his fingers along Yuri’s hip bone once more. 

“It’s not fair,” Yuri breathed, pulling away slightly. “How could you think… Why did you-- why didn’t you say something?”

Otabek sighed at that, lifting his other hand to brush back his bangs. “Yura, you’ve worn a new girl on your arm every weekend for the last four years. What was I supposed to think?”

Well, in retrospect, yeah, that made a lot of sense. Yuri’s obsession with reigning in his feelings had done exactly what he intended. Otabek had fallen for him hard, but he’d also fallen for his ruse. 

“I just--” He broke up when Otabek pulled his hips closer again. Yuri burned with the delicious heat between the two of them. “I didn’t want to--”

That caused Otabek to pause, giving him a very serious glance. Yuri could tell that his self-control was wavering, but he waited for him to continue. Yuri swallowed thickly. “I didn’t want to fuck things up between us,” Yuri finally said, his voice barely a whisper.

“Oh, Yura,” Otabek breathed, caressing his cheek again. “You know better than that.”

Logically, Yuri did, and when Otabek said it so easily, it made him feel really fucking stupid. Otabek was his best friend, his person. Even if he wasn’t actually gay, he probably would have waved the concern away, if Yuri had brought it up. 

Yuri grew bold at his words, reaching down to palm Otabek’s dick through his swim trunks. The low moan the man breathed was absolutely worth it. “Tell me about this man,” Yuri demanded coyly. “The man who changed everything.”

Otabek gripped Yuri’s hips, trying to move him. But Yuri was taller and more awkward, and he just didn’t really bend that way. He let Otabek guide him to the edge of the hot tub, the brick of the poolside flooring cold against his behind, contrasting to the warmth of the water that swirled around his legs. 

“He’s not always the brightest,” Otabek said, caging Yuri between his arms. Yuri opened his mouth to protest, but Otabek’s hands found him again, pulling their hips flesh together once more. The protest died in his throat, replaced by a breathy moan. “But he’s fierce,” Otabek continued, pressing his nose below Yuri’s ear, pressing a kiss against the juncture of skin there. “And he’s loyal, and he’s beautiful.” 

Yuri hitched his leg over Otabek’s hip, cradling the bone with his calf. Trying to ground himself, trying to pull him closer, trying to do anything, really. Yuri had boned a lot of women in his life, but they never compared to this. Nothing compared to this. 

Otabek pulled back just enough to look at Yuri, brushing his bangs back again, his knuckles ghosting lightly over his cheek. “Yura, you’re beautiful.”

He wouldn’t cry, he fucking wouldn’t. As if this wasn’t the one thing he’d ever wanted, that he’d ever dreamed of. And there was Otabek, pressed between his legs, hard and aching, wanting him. 

This was a dream, it had to be. 

“Beka, please,” Yuri whined, pressing his hips closer, pulling at Otabek’s shoulders. Otabek hummed at that, reaching between them, squeezing his hardness again. “Fuck,” Yuri hissed, chasing the motion with his hips. 

Otabek’s fingers slipped into the waistband of his trunks, and they both paused. Waiting. Finally, Otabek said, “Off,” tugging at them slightly. 

Yuri lifted his hips immediately, and said, “You too then.” Otabek didn’t even pause or miss a beat, effortlessly sliding off his own and kicking them to the side.

And then they were naked, and Yuri looked anywhere else, except where he actually wanted too. Otabek’s cheeks were red and flushed, his eyes sparkling with want, and God it was almost worse.

Otabek pressed his fingers back to Yuri’s abdomen, just under his navel before heading southward. Yuri swallowed again, barely able to catch onto his breath. “Yura,” Otabek murmured quietly, “This isn’t just some whim. I--”

“Beka, the pool floor is hard, I’m fucking freezing, even tho my legs are in the water and I swear if you don’t do something already, I’m literally going to combust.” 

Otabek opened his mouth, like he was going to say more, but decided against it. “Anything, for you,” he said, his lips twisting into a sly smile. 

“Beka, cut the cra--” His words died the moment Otabek gripped his length, and Yuri’s head fell back. His hands were warm and calloused, but his grip firm, and-- Oh yeah, this was totally different than any of the chicks he’d been with.

Hook-ups had always been self-serving with the intent to forget. He would never forget this, the way the Otabek seemed to touch him reverently. His grip loosened slightly so he could pump Yuri’s cock gently. 

“Oh God,” Yuri managed, hissing once more at the contact, his eyes screwed shut. 

“At least say my name,” Otabek joked. Yuri didn’t appreciate it one bit, that smug and sarcastic tone, but the thought was easily lost when Otabek slid his grip across him again. 

“Beka.”

“Yura, look,” Otabek asked. Yuri opened his eyes to regard him through a half-lidded and hazy glance. “No,” Otabek continued with. His free hand left Yuri’s hip, taking hold of his chin and tipping it downward.

Yuri saw tanned skin against pale flesh, and even he could appreciate how good his cock looked in Otabek’s grasp. And there was the matter of that man’s own length, rock hard and resting against Yuri’s thigh to the side. Yuri had already known Otabek circumsized, but he’d never really managed to sneak a good look, even when changing in the locker. 

His mouth practically watered at the sight of him. 

“Yura,” Otabek breathed, and Yuri watched he hitched his hips forward, pressing closer to him and--

Yuri’s hand snaked between them, grabbing hold of Otabek. This was new territory, this was decidedly not like touching himself, but judging by the sharp intake of breath of Otabek’s part, and the inability to hold back a moan-- well, he seemed to be doing a decent job. 

Otabek pulled Yuri’s hand away, only to grab both of their lengths, pressing them together. And then he unceremoniously licked his hand, wrapping it around the both of them, prompting Yuri to prepare to tease him about it, but--

Oh. Oooh. Yuri bit his lip, as his breath hitched instead, words failing him. Spit wasn’t as slick as lube, but it didn’t matter, it was fine. Everything was fine and it worked well enough. The heat between the two of them, the friction of skin against skin, fuck, even the smell of Otabek in general, Chlorine and all. 

Yuri hooked his legs around his waist tighter, and Otabek squeezed tighter, shifting his hips to pull back and press forward again. It wasn’t a practiced motion, but perfection wasn’t needed. 

All Yuri needed was Otabek, and that friction, and he finally had it. Otabek leaned forward, as Yuri hissed his name again, his lips pressing against his neck. His tongue snuck out, lapping at the sweat there. Yuri recognized that movement, it was something he did when he was trying to hold on, trying to eke out as much as he could, before tumbling over the edge. 

“Beka, it’s okay,” Yuri said, reaching down and grasping the hand that held them together. He could feel the tendons clench, squeezing tighter, sliding along their lengths as Otabek bucked into the grip. Yuri followed the motion. And then they repeated it several times.

“Yura--”

“Oh, I’m right there with you,” Yuri said, unable to hold the laughter from his tone. Really, the sheer and utter ridiculousness of the situation-- Otabek had gotten a firm grasp on him literally minutes ago, and already he was close to cresting that dangerous height. “I’m-- fuck--”

Despite Yuri’s dramatic curse, Otabek came first, his hips jerking slightly, his face pressed against the side of his neck and breathing heavily. And fuck it was hot, because Yuri followed right after, catching that wave and tumbling over the edge as he whined Otabek’s name, punctuated by a curse. 

They sat there in a heaving, wet and hot mess. Otabek finally let go of their cocks, slipping his hand into the hot tub, shaking it slightly. 

“Ugh, how gross,” Yuri snapped, his bite back as quickly as it had left. 

Otabek chuckled slightly, before leaning over the edge and grabbing at his towel. He wiped his hand dry, albeit shakily. In fact, everything about Otabek screamed a tight wire that had suddenly snapped. He looked as though he didn’t know quite what to do with himself.

 Well, if that didn’t do things to Yuri’s ego, he didn’t know what would. 

Yuri slipped back into the hot tub, despite his earlier disgust, the warm water a balm against his cold and clammy skin. And sore backside, because damn, those pool stones weren’t comfortable. Otabek dropped beside him, sliding in close and wrapping an arm around his shoulder. Yuri leaned into the touch without a second though. 

His heart practically burst at how natural it felt. 

“Baldy is going to fucking kill us.”

“If he finds out,” Otabek sighed. “I’m definitely not saying anything. Besides, if you think that they haven’t--”

“NOPE,” Yuri snapped. “Stop that thought right there. The last thing I want to think about right now is what they get up to in the privacy of their own home.” And out of their home, for that matter. Over the years, Yuri had been scarred enough times to literally expect it. 

Otabek hummed in amusement, pressing his nose against the side of Yuri’s hair, pecking a gentle kiss above his ear. 

“Was this your plan, or something?”

“Plan?”

“You know, getting me into a hot tub, all hot and heavy.”

“Well, no, but it’s definitely been a fantasy.” Otabek admitted. “And then you know, you walked in half naked and in a swimsuit, and--”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Yuri let out the breath he’d been holding. “We’re both pretty stupid, huh?”

“A man profits more by the sight of an idiot, than by the orations of the learned.” Fucking Otabek, and his fucking proverbs. “And before you ask,” Otabek cut in, “it’s an Arab one.”

“Of fucking course.” 

“It’s about ignorance, and do you know what my grandma says about that?”

“No, but you’re going to tell me anyway.”

He felt Otabek’s lips twitch into a smile against the side of his head. “The good thing about ignorance, is that you can learn from it.”

“Oh, is that what we were doing earlier?” Yuri asked, with a sly smile. 

Otabek splashed water at him, and Yuri turned quickly, climbing into Otabek’s lap again. And this time they looked at each other, they really did. Otabek was wrong. Yuri wasn’t the beautiful one, he was, with his high cheekbones and chiseled jaw. Slightly crooked nose and that little scar just above his eyebrow. Yuri swept his fingers over his face, before leaning over to kiss him again. 

And they just kissed and kissed and kissed. 

….

Later that night, they fell into bed to sleep. 

They’d always shared, Yuri realized, despite his discomfort. At a backward glance, he should have realized. Best guy friends don’t usually share beds into they’re late twenties. But Otabek and Yuri had always had a different dynamic and neither had ever questioned it.

Maybe they should have, because it would have led to mind blowing sex sooner. 

And yes, it was mind blowing, despite only getting as far as awkward palming and thrusting against each other. Good thing they had time, plenty of time. 

Otabek was warm beside him, pressed against his back. An arm was thrown around him, his nose pressed against his neck, just breathing. It grounded Yuri. It probably grounded Otabek too. 

“I love you,” Yuri blurted into the quiet room. 

“I know,” Otabek said, without missing a beat. And then he pressed a kiss to the bones of his neck. 

“I mean, like, I’ve loved you forever.” 

“I know,” Otabek repeated, and then repeated the kiss. 

“And that’s… I mean, is that it?”

He felt Otabek chuckle, pulling back. Yuri turned to find Otabek regarding him with a fond smile. “Of course that isn’t it, Yura,” he said. “I love you too, and that means we have everything ahead of us.” 

“You just… You can’t just say shit like that, Beka.”

Otabek reached out, twirling a long strand of Yuri’s hair between his fingers. “I knew you’d come around. I just didn’t think it’d take so long.”

“Is that a complaint?”

“Never.”

Yuri narrowed his eyes, watching Otabek carefully, waiting for the but to come. It never did. Otabek just had that slight half-smile across his lips, as his fingers played with his hair. Yuri snorted at that, but turned back around. Otabek slid closer immediately, pressing another kiss against his neck. 

“I really am stupid, you know,” Yuri whispered. 

Otabek didn’t reply immediately, only humming against the skin of his neck. Finally, he said, “There’s always tomorrow. And the day after that. You have all my tomorrows, Yura.”

Fucking Otabek and his fucking smooth words. 

But Yuri smiled, because he was right. 

[thatfairyfangirl]

Part Of That World Chapter 4

Mid July beat down on the city with an unrelenting heat difficult for even the most powerful a.c. to combat with humidity so thick you almost didn't need the h2o compressor to make the moisture that fueled your powers.

“Is this hell? I'm pretty sure this is hell.” You complained to Wanda as you both laid in front of a set of fans, feeling like the air was weighing on you.

“Tony will have the air working again soon...I hope.” She replied in her thick Sokovian accent as she wiped the sweat from her brow.

"God I hope so...insulted skin in the summer SUCKS!" You whined, feeling a bead of sweat trickling down your forehead. "I think I'm actually melting." You added before a towel landed on your face.

You both looked up to see Clint and Nat standing in the doorway clad in swimsuits. “Who wants a day at the beach?” Clint asked with a smirk as he tossed a second towel to Wanda. 

"Oh God yes please!" You exclaimed as you jumped up to rush to change into your bikini.

~ ~ ~ ~

You sat happily in the water of Manhattan Beach Park, letting the cool waves crash over you, taking care to keep the area around your gills dry to avoid unwanted attention. “Oh look the beached whale is finally going home.” Bucky joked as he looked over to you, watching you frolic with Wanda and Nat. With the way the water glistened on your skin and the way the swimsuit clung to you he was almost attracted...too bad about how much you infuriated him.

“So when are we releasing you back to the wilds of Siberia? Haven't you been on loan from Hydra long enough?” You watched as your words took root in him, building anger as the joints of his bionic arm tightened making a fist.  His long dark locks tangled in the ocean breeze as he marched toward you. His eyes were hard and cold, you could only recall one time before when you saw his eyes like that...the memory of him standing over your father’s corpse hit you like a truck, planting a hint of fear in your heart as he lurched close enough for you to feel the heat of his breath on your face.

“I swear to god if you ever bring that up again I'll throw you back to the rest of the mermaids by your gills.” His voice was a low rumble as your breath shallowed and quickened. He wished he could take some form of joy in finally seeing the fear in you, but deep down it just made him feel worse about everything, a guilt in the pit of his gut with a reason he couldn't quite place.

You stiffened your back, taking a strong stance in an attempt to hide your temporary weakness. “Wanna bet?” You hissed as your eyes met his steely blue. “I'm stronger than you. Remember?” As you spoke you reached your palms behind your back to the sea, willing two orbs of water to breach the surface awaiting your silent command.

He leaned in just a hair closer, your noses practically touching as a way to defend himself from you forcing the water into him, well aware if he was this close you would be drowning yourself as well or outing yourself as not human to the public. “Prove it.” He snarled, calling your bluff. For a moment you both just stood there, steeping in each others anger until he finally broke the silence. “That’s what I thought. Little mermaid like you will never understand guilt and regret the way I do.” He said in a low rumble before turning and stalking away...but you did… more than he realized. Your skin was crawling, blood boiling. And for the first time since you were a teenager your emotions got the better of your powers, the orbs of water throwing themselves against Bucky’s back in rage. You looked on with wide eyes, retreating to beneath the surface of the water before he had the time to turn around. It didn't take you long to swim far enough out that no one could find you.

“You think she's alright? She's been gone a while.” Clint asked the group with worry a few hours later.

“I'm sure she's fine. It's not like she can drown.” Nat answered as she rolled over on the sand to tan her back.

“Honestly I'm more worried about Bucky.” Steve said with a chuckle as he looked over to his pal surrounded by a seemingly endless supply of women. He couldn’t remember a time this wasn’t a fact of his best friend’s life...But before the war he would put his arm around them, smile...now as they reach out to touch him he pulled away, giving a more deer in the headlights look. 

“You think she might have gone home?” Wanda thought out loud, pulling her knees into her chest, hoping that wasn’t the case. Her eyes were fixed on the water, worrying for what could be going on in the deep depths you can go until a patch of blond and aqua popped up out of the waves.

“I didn’t go home. I went to cool off.” You answered as you arranged your hair to hide the gills until they closed. “And to get away from him.” You added as you looked up to the metal arm shining in the sunlight. Your head tilted to the side as you watched him for a moment, the shine of his muscles and the stark contrast of dark hair brushing against the silver of his prosthetic arm was almost enough to make your heart flutter...too bad he was such an asshole. “Ugh,” you scoffed seeing the sea of bikinis around him. You should have figured he would be the kind of guy to surround himself with beauties… ”probably think he’s god’s gift to women.” you mumbled to yourself as you grabbed a towel, patting your gills dry you moved up to the girls, Bucky in the center of the swarm. He ruined your day, you found it only fitting to return the favor. “Hey Buck, do you recognize her?” You asked, pointing to a random girl at the end of the beach.

He followed the finger before shaking his head. “Umm no.” He answered as one of his groupies stroked a finger down the scar of metal meeting his flesh, giggling when she saw him flinch and pull away from her touch.

“Oh Buck I really wish I could be surprised by that...you go through so many...Anyway Bridget over there stopped me, she said she was too afraid to tell you in person that she’s got some itchy sores, umm,” you pointed to your crotch, “down there. And since it didn’t start until you guys slept together last month she thinks you might want to get checked.” As you spoke the smiles surrounding Bucky faded, hands slowly moving away from his muscles before they slowly scattered to anywhere but there, not wanting anything to do with that.

Bucky looked around, a hesitant smile curled his lips before looking to your face. Your arms crossed, a smug grin playing at your lips and sunlight sparkling against your moist hair and skin...if you weren’t so intolerable he’d swear you were an angel. “Thanks.” He barked reluctantly, only making your smile grow.

“Oh my pleasure.” Added bonus, now you were sure half the women in New York wouldn’t want to go near him for fear of the rumored std.

“I hate when girls fawn over me like that. They don’t see me, they see the guy with the metal arm and guns...why on earth do women these days actually want a bad guy?” Your back stiffened as your smile faded with each word Bucky spoke ...you helped him...well great…

“I...you….UGH!” You waved her hand willing a splash of water in his face as you stomped away to sit by the members of the team you actually liked, pulling a copy of Fellowship of the Ring from your bag to read as you laid with Nat.

[redfoxwritesstuff]

Of Mermaids and Fairy Tails

Tom Hiddleston x OC

Romance, fluff

This is 9k words. Sorry.

Please note, all references to actual real life children will be vague. I hope to have balanced privacy and respect with my creative works. All events are fiction, I do not know Tom, nor will I likely ever have the joy of meeting him.

Warnings: Just fluffy. Free diving can be a dangerous sport, please swim responsibly.  

Summery: Tom, Chris and Chris’ children are traveling, giving mom a break. In an effort to entertain the children, they visit a Mermaid show and it’s hard to say who’s more mesmerized by the mermaid, the children or Tom. 

    Tom was tired. Chris was tired. You know who wasn't tired? The three kids bouncing around the rooms. Chris wanted to give his wife a break and it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Take the kids with him, tag team with Tom during individual interviews and spent some time with one of his best mates and his kids.

    Tom had agreed. It sounded fun. Spending time with this niece was always pleasant. What difference could it really be, being three kids rather then one? What could go wrong? Famous last words. Surprisingly, it was a big difference, having two more children then he was used to. They seemed to feed off each other, running and bouncing and talking amazingly fast. That's not to say the three were poorly behaved, just that they were young and full of life.

    You know who didn't feel young and full of life at that moment? Tom. Tom felt old, his bones ached and sleeping for a month was sounding appealing.

    Chris didn't feel so young himself as he looked through entertainment listings for child friendly things to do before passing the task off to Tom and joining the ever energetic children. Vegas was not made for kids but there was still a surprising selection. In front of Tom, giggles and laughter filled the room as Chris rough housed with the kids, trying to wear them out.

    “Okay, how about dinner?” Chris announced, dropping the twins in a heap on the bed and ordering all small people to wash faces and hands, gather socks and shoes and prepare to leave. Tom was thankful, it was less crazy when they were out in public where they had to behave under the ever watchful eye of possible press.

    “Where to?” Tom asked, slipping his own shoes on.

    “Pizza?” Chris shrugged. Tom knew he shouldn't but he didn't normally make such poor dietary choices and agreed.

    The seemingly magical thing about hotels in Las Vegas was that they contained everything. Not just one or two or even three restaurants but over 20 under this roof alone. To be fair, the resorts were huge and many had shop filled halls that ran into each other, making it hard to tell where one hotel began and the other ended.

    It was much faster to find a pizza joint by asking the staff then walking the massive expanse of the hotel. The waitstaff cooed over the children, singing praises to the men managing to take charge of them while looking so dignified and refined. If only they knew of the chaos when they were in private. Autographs were signed, pictures were taken and the meal eaten. The men discussed and planed, trying to come up with ways to entertain the kids for the night that didn't include jumping around a hotel room.

    “I'm sorry, but I couldn't help but overhear. It's best to ask the locals if you're wanting to find things for the littles. The internet seems to think all anyone does here is drink, gamble and well...” A black haired waitress spoke softly, a bit rushed as a blush dusted her cheeks. She was young, very young and looked so timid.

    “We've noticed that problem.” Tom laughs, setting his phone done and locking it, banishing away yet another article of '100 fun things to do in Las Vegas!'

    “What do you suggest?” Chris asked, doing the same with his phone.

    “Do they like mermaids?” The woman chewed at her lip. She must have been just out of high school.

    “Who doesn't like mermaids?” Chris laughed as the kids perked up. The waitress relaxed having the kid's attentions. They were much less intimidating then talking to Thor and Loki.

    “What if I told you guys,” She leaned in, dropping her voice lower as if it was a secret. “that we have a real life mermaid princess, right here and she happens to be a friend of mine?” The two girls squealed in delight, earning more hearty laughter from Chris.

    “Where can we find information on the mermaid?” Tom hadn't found anything as interesting as a mermaid show online.

    “She'll be in the shark tank in about 45 minutes. Tell the staff Maggie sent you and they'll make sure you get to meet her.

    “How much will it be?” Chris asked after directing the kids to eat their pizza.

    “Oh no, the mermaid is free, that's why she didn't show up in your searches, why promote something that wont bring any money? I'll let you get on with your meal, I do hope you enjoy the show.” Maggie left them with a smile on her face. Oh yes, Rose was going to kill her but this was worth it. So very worth it.

    Rose nearly picked up her phone, still wearing the fish muck covered gloves before she caught herself and wiggled her hand out and answered.

    “Maggie, what's up Kiddo? I'm working a long night so if you need help with Bio you're on your own.” With the phone pinned between her shoulder and head, Rose slipped the glove back on and set about preparing buckets of food for the many tanks under her care. “What do you mean, a private meet and greet? For who? If it's a surprise, how do I know who to bring back? You told the kids what?! Fine, fine, no it's fine. I don't have a crown or anything. Right, of course you are. I'll see you in ten. Bring me dinner!”     Maggie had disconnected the call before her last request made it completely out of her mouth. Rose's hips and legs ached. Earlier it had seemed like a good idea to skip lunch and spend extra time swimming. Not that she didn't swim enough, Rose spent most of her day swimming in tanks in three different resorts.

    Rose groaned when her phone slipped from her shoulder and dropped into a bucket of slop. At least it had a soft landing. Her staff always laughed that she required they all have waterproof phones or at least cases but that was the very reason why. It took no time at all the rinse the phone and set out delegating the night's feeding. It was amazing how much time was spent feeding the animals.

    They still had about 30 minutes before the curtain would open again on the shark tank when Maggie came rushing out the doors and into the sweltering summer heat, holding a bag in her hand. The poor girl was winded but excited just the same.

    “So do I get to know what all the fuss is for?” When Maggie just shook her head and pulled out a silver tone tiara with faux diamond accents, Rose sighed, sitting at the edge of the pool. “All I get to know is I'm a princess now and whatever it is, it is worth you sprinting to Excalibur and back?” Maggie set the crown on Rose's head after freeing her hair from it's braid.

    “It will be worth it, I promise. What tail are you wearing? Wear a nice one, not a fabric one!” Maggie set about weaving bunches of hair around the tiara and securing it in place with delicate braids before gathering half of the hair into a pony tail. Everything was secured in place with special ties that would dissolve quickly in the stomach should they be swallowed.

    “The silicone Midnight Beta just came in.” While Rose stripped out of her tank top, Maggie fetched the tail out of the make sift tail closet.

    “This thing weighs like 30 pounds, how do you swim in it?!” She complained, struggling not to let it drag on the ground. “Nice top, by the way.” Rose wore a simple but lacy black bikini top with a racer back. It was easier on the shoulders and comfortable with blue accents, matching the blue shine in her newest tail.

    “It's only 20 pounds.” Rose helped straighten the tail after wiggling out of her jeans.

    With Maggie's assistance, Rose slipped her feet into the base of the fin and began working the length of the tail up and over her hips. It always seemed to take forever but the outcome was always worth it. As silicone transitioned to a nylon mesh around her upper hips and the color faded out, giving the tail a more natural transition. Every day she swam in the tanks she maintained to check the health of the creatures in her care but for the kids, she did her job while making their dreams come true.

    “Go warm up, I'll let Mark know who to snag after the show. I figure you can all chill with the pod.” Maggie was grinning like a loon, far too pleased with herself. They referred to the resident small dolphin pod just as 'the pod' often enough. Rose had known some of the dolphins since they had been born and they were like a family to her. A wet family that liked to splash.

    Rose didn't bother answering, Maggie was already half way across the deck. Instead, she swam with the small pod of bottle nose dolphins, practiced their tricks and fed them treats until her muscles relaxed and she felt ready to face the crowd. With practiced grace, she swam toward the small gated port and gave the sign for it to be opened to allow her to pass. It took some convincing, but over a year ago Rose had convinced the resort that having waterways connecting all the pools would make her life easier. With the use of the water passageways creatures could be moved to a vet quarantine tank without stressing them too terribly much. It was something that likely saved lives, as stress was often fatal to aquatic life.

    One gate closed behind her as she passed inside the tunnel, taking a deep breath she descended and made her way through the passage where another gate was opened for her when she surfaced in

front of it. While she was in the shark tank, she was hidden behind one of the many fake coral fixtures. The curtain was already pulled back, it was only ever closed for feeding and emergencies.

    Rose took a handful of deep calming breaths, willing her heart rate to slow and relaxed her body and ran her hand along the back of a stingray that had come to greet her. The people on the ground outside the tank far below her wouldn't have seen her yet, hidden behind a coral fixture.

    On a good day, without actively swimming and going about her job, rose could hold her breath for between ten and 15 minutes, depending on how much she prepped for the dive. Today, however, she would be active in the water.

    With one last breath, she let go of the gate and kicked off the wall. The act propelled herself down and into view. Back and forth, she swam laps as she descended down the depths of the main tank, in front of the main viewing window allowing everyone to see her as she twisted and span. Rose kept a quick pace, not bothering yet to look at the spectators. Sometimes there were many, sometimes there were few- it didn't matter to her.

    With a twist and a flip, she dove in a shallow tunnel and gathered a breath from the air supply hose. With more flips and circles, she artfully put on a show while working all 1,300,000 gallons of the tank. No carcasses, no excessive waste, no signs of damage. More twirls and flips, more secret breaths and more inspection of creatures and enclosure alike. Work first, then the real show would start.

    Outside the tank, Tom, Chris and the children were captivated from the moment the mermaid came into sight. Mark, the man who greeted them and took them to what he promised was the best place to watch, right against the glass where they could see most of the tank, tucked into a corner that gave some privacy.

    Tom assumed that since he himself was an actor and this was anything but a high budget performance that he would be mildly impressed but no, when she came into view he was captivated by her with nothing less then childlike wonder. It shouldn't have been surprising, he had been a part of many theater productions over the years, he knew that cinema budgets and effects were not always needed to make magic. Yet he was indeed surprised and impressed.

    Blond hair danced behind her as she swam. Overhead lights danced and reflected on her hair, skin and tail. That tail, it was magnificent. It was hard to say what he expected, but this was not it. The fin trailed behind her elegantly as it seemed to be just as fluid as the water around her. It was long, paired with what appeared to be silken fabrics that seemed to dance as she moved, highlighting the graceful movements.

    Tom was suddenly sure that if mermaids were real, they would dress and adorn the base of their tail because it looked so right. The tail itself was dark, the fin just showed the hint of swirls of deep purples and blues, matching the fabrics that trailed around it. The tail itself was nearly black, yet each scale seemed to shine, blues and purples as light played off of them. The underbelly of the tail was lighter, almost a purer blue.

    When she swam passed them, They could see that even as the scales moved up over her hips, they became sparse and translucent until they were gone and her simple human belly was left unadorned. Light waved and illuminated the tiara on her head as she danced around corals and through tunnels, her hand petting over sharks and stingrays alike. The mermaid swam along side a massive sea turtle and paid no mind to sharks who's bodies were nearly four feet long.

    “She's not scared of the sharks?” A child nearby asked in amazement.

    “They know her, trust her and she them.” Mark spoke, finally beginning a small presentation. “They won't harm her unless they feel threatened. Our resident Mermaid cares for all of our aquatic creatures and with her help, we strive to provide the best environment for all our friends possible.”

    “Why do you have a mermaid princess? Shouldn't she be in the ocean?” It was Chris' oldest who voiced the question.

    “She loves the surface world and in exchange for helping us, she gets to learn more about life on the surface.” Mark channeled the Little Mermaid for that answer. No one really asked that one before, children typically just accepted that along with fish, dolphins, turtles and sharks, they would have a tank for a mermaid because why not?

    “She's not a real mermaid, dummies.” Said a older boy just far enough away. “She's just a pretend. Like how they pretend to be Thor and Loki.” The actors had been spotted and recognized, even in their somewhat private spot.  

    “I think she's very clearly a real mermaid.” Tom spoke up with a smile, not letting his eyes leave the beautiful creature for more then a moment. “How long has she been in?”

    “Going on ten minutes” Mark answered.

    “If she was just an actress, she would have had to surface for air by now.” Tom nodded to the boy, as an actor himself, he would know. “Clearly, she is the real deal.” Tom had no idea how she did it.

    After twenty minutes, the crowd began thinning and new comers started to filter in. Mark assured them that they show was best right before the end. No matter what she was doing at the moment, the kids were pressed up against the glass.

    “So what is she doing?” Chris asked Mark, soft enough that the kids wouldn't hear them talk about her as a normal person.

    “Being a mermaid princess.” Mark laughed before continuing, “She's checking the enclosure for damage, checking the animals for basic health and injuries and checking for any dead or excessive waste.

    “A lot of responsibility for someone who does a mermaid show.” Chris knew full well that that type of work normally would belong to someone with much more schooling then he assumed being a mermaid required.

    “The show came second, she's been here longer then the show. Don't underestimate her.” Mark smiled. Everyone always thought she was just a pretty face but he knew better.

    “I still can't figure out how she does it. We've been here for over half a hour and she still hasn't surfaced.”

    “It's because she's a mermaid.” One of the children piped up, earning laughs from the group.

    “Mermaids are like dolphins and whales.” Mark began the lecture anew as the mermaid swam along the sandy bottom, ducking into a tunnel and coming out the other side. “They breath the air and do have to surface from time to time. No one knows how often a mermaid has to surface however. Typically a mermaid only seems to vocalize above water, though sometimes you can hear them under the surface.

    Tom had to admit, Mark seemed to have a never ending supply of mermaid 'facts'. Mark waved them closer to the glass as they watched her approach a group not too far from them and rest her hand on the glass. It was nearing an hour into the swim now. Small children clamored to get closer and parents snapped pictures of their kids with the mermaid behind them.

    Mark instructed them to wait, that they wouldn't have to fight the crowd of they stayed put. She would come to them. With a flip and a twirl, the mermaid ducked behind a coral, playing a slight game of 'peek a boo' before returning to the group at the glass and when she blew them a kiss, it exploded in a ring of bubbles against the glass much to the delight of everyone.

    Slowly, Rose worked her way along the wall, looking for Mark who would be with her special guests. Smiling she flipped and twisted, peeking out from behind rocks where she stole much needed breaths. Her knees and hips were starting to ache again, this wasn't her first swim of the day but the shark tank was the most fun. Bubble kisses and bubble hearts were sent to children who's eyes showed nothing but joy. Occasionally she would blow a ring of bubbles and swim through it, before circling back around and swimming through the large 'sunken ship' fixture where she would hide for a short spell to catch her breath in a hidden air pocket. The air hoses were find and dandy but it was nice to breath normally before going to the last section of the tank where she was sure Mark would be waiting.

    One last deep breath and out she swam, doing a flip she swam belly out along the glass, letting all see the tail she paid way too much for. It performed amazingly so she couldn't complain, however she would make a few slight modifications to the inner fin to make it more comfortable. Finally, she set eyes on Mark who waved at her. Glare on the glass obscured the guests from her place but she had a target to swim toward at least. One flip and circle around a coral for a quick breath and she set about swimming up to them. For dramatics sake, she swam along the bottom, feeling the soft sand shift under her wake.

    Rose intended to swim, belly up the glass and do a slow flip where her face would be framed by the fabric dancing off the fin but almost froze when she saw them. It was luck that she managed to avoid hitting herself with the fin. While the smaller man could easily go unrecognized by someone only knowing him from his work with Marvel, Chris Hemsworth was unmistakable. Mark grinned, catching the falter in the flip and Rose made a mental note to splash him later.

    Slowly, as she straightened from her flip, she placed her hand against the glass as she always did for the kids to reach out and match their hands to hers. Chris was ready and eager to take pictures of his three kids. All in the party grinned wide, adults and children alike. Rose smiled at the kids as she made a heart with her hands, hovering over her own heart. The older girl copied her, bringing a large smile to Rose's face.

    Rose did another big loop, passing just out of sight to snag a breath before blowing an explosive bubble kiss a the kids who seemed to radiate pure joy. It was something that never got old, no matter how long she did the mermaid shows. Rather, it seemed to just get better with each new tail.

    Slowly she drifted up as Chris knelt with his kids. Blonde hair floated darkly around her, dancing in the slight current as her eyes met his.

    Tom Hiddleston. She had seen many of his works and knew him on sight. He was scruffy, but not bearded currently and his hair was a controlled mess of light curls cut shorter on the sides. The showy smile she wore for the kids morphed to a small smile of shock and joy.

    Being a mermaid for Chris and his kids was enough of a dream but never in her life did she expect to swim for Tom. Chris had kids, it kind of made sense but Tom, never would she have guessed. He wore a look of childlike wonder just the same as any kid standing at the tank glass. When she reached out and rested her hand on the glass, he slowly did the same with a wide smile. As her mind took a short vacation, Rose wondered if what they said about him was true, if he was really just a really tall five year old boy. He didn't look like a boy even though he wore a boyish grin.

    They stayed like that for a moment, not paying attention to those around them before a stingray ruined her moment. Rose wondered what barbecued stingray would taste like when the creature dumbly swam into the side of her head, demanding attention. They were like sea puppies sometimes.

    Breaking her eyes away from Tom's blue, she swam after the offensive creature, tickling under it's belly as it lead her into a flip. In her annoyance, she nearly whacked herself in the head with the heavy fin for a second time but was pleased when the ray finally swam away content and she turned to her special guests again. Tom's hand still rested on the glass and Rose was ever so happy to walk her fingers up from the children and Chris before resting her palm again over Tom's. For a moment, Rose wondered what he was thinking.

    The need for a fresh breath and ache in her legs however, told her she was in need of a break. All in all, she had been in the tank for a hour and a half. With the hand not on the glass, she quickly signaled to Mark that she would be leaving the tank momentarily. Rose sank down and waved at the three children as Chris stood. Again, she placed her palm against the glass, this time for Chris and he matched hers with a laugh. Even distorted through the glass and muffled, she could just hardly hear the booming sound and she almost laughed with him. Laughing under water was not a good idea. With careful flips to gather air, Rose sent small bubble kisses to the three children and their father before grabbing a lungful of air again.

    Finally, she floated up to Tom again as Mark spoke to Chris. With a parting smile she backed a bit away and brought her hands to her mouth and delivered him a kiss, blown in a ring full of bubbles and meant only for him. She watched as a delighted laughed shook his body but the sound was too distorted and muffled to really hear.

    As rose swam off, relaxed, twirling and spilling in the process while ignoring her body's cry for air as she had expelled most of it in the kiss, she smiled to herself. Tonight, she would spend as long in her tail with the children as they wanted, even if it dragged late into the night. Tonight, for as long as they wanted, she would be their mermaid. She would be Tom's mermaid.

    With a quick hand sign, she gave the order for the first gate to be opened. Once inside, she shooed a stingray back out and it closed, allowing the other to open. Rose ignored the grumble of her stomach and swam through the tunnel as her body cried for air she was being simply to lazy to give it.

    Outside the second gate, she finally surfaced with a gasping breath. It wasn't often she dove for that long on a breath, but it did her well to stay in the habit. Maybe next time she wouldn't spend so much time with nearly empty lungs however. One could never know when a air hose could fail and she could need to go farther then expected for her next breath. With nothing else to do, she turned onto her back and floated, waiting for the bell to sound that would inform her that the door had been opened.

    Tom was mesmerized when the mermaid directed her attention to his group. He hardly heard the cries of delight from the kids as she swam about interacting with them. Never once, did he see her break surface. He couldn't figure out how she did it but he knew she had to be getting air somehow but she was never out of sight for what seemed to be a few seconds.

    He had assumed that she would focus her attentions on the children and hadn't counted on being caught watching her so intently. When she floated up from the children, their eyes met and he couldn't help but grin. He didn't remember moving closer to the glass, but when she reached out and rested her palm on the hard surface, he did the same, just as the children did.

    She had crystal blue eyes, as light as the sky outside. When he looked down, he tried to spot where the tail ended and her skin began but couldn't. They stayed like that for what felt like too long yet at the same time, not nearly long enough. Tom knew he couldn't hold his breath that long but she didn't move or show any signs of distress. Their moment was comically interrupted as a stingray swam into her head. It was magically, perfectly imperfect. To his side, Chris pocketed his phone with a laugh as the mermaid swam after the creature, agitation clear even in the graceful arching of her body as she worked through the water.  

    “You're having as much fun as the kids.” Chris remarked. “I got a good shot of you with her too.”

    Before Tom could defend himself, she was back, waving, smiling and blowing airy kisses to the children. She would dart away and return and eventually offered her palm to Chris. The children urged him to put his palm up and he did as wished. His hand was so much larger then hers. After a few beats with Chris, she returned her attention to him and offered her palm. Tom matched it just the same with a smile as Mark spoke with Chris.

    “She'll be surfacing in a minute and heading to the dolphin pools. We have life vests and spare swim gear, if the group would like to swim with them?” Chris nodded and thanked the man but Tom's attention stayed with the mermaid who drifted back, a vision of elegance as her hair floated around her.

    When they locked eyes again, she dramatically drew her hands to her mouth and blew him a kiss surrounded by a ring of bubbles that washed against the glass. Tom couldn't help but laugh at the display as she swam away.

    While he played magic on movie sets, she had to be magic in the flesh, Tom decided they followed Mark through the hotel. Her display for them had been no different then what she did for the other guests, yet Tom wondered if she knew who they were. She did spend longer interacting with them at the window but she would do that for anyone who was a special guest. He was left to his thoughts of the magical mermaid as the children talked their father's ear off, clearly just as captivated by her as he himself was.

    Everyone was excited to meet the mermaid. Mark had took them into a room to change and recommended unless their phones were waterproof to leave them far away from the water's edge. It was a old standard warning, more and more people had waterproof phones, Tom and Chris both included.

    The sound of the bell over the door woke Rose from her light doze. Getting so relaxed was a bad idea, her joints felt stiff as she turned off her back and pulled her lower half down into the water. Everyone was dressed in water gear, good. With a breath, Rose slowly sank under the water before she was spotted and signaled two dolphins to her side. Now was the time for payback, even if it had collateral damage.

    In between the two Dolphins, she mimicked how they swam, rising out of the water in a wave, letting her tail catch the light as she dove back under the water just to repeat the action. Each time she surfaced, she snagged a breath and a look, lining up with the group now watching from the pool's edge.  As they reached the edge, she and the two dolphins dove low and surfaced in a flip that landed Rose tail up in the water. Rather than righting herself in any graceful or elegant way, she slammed her tail down while giving the sign for the dolphins to spit water at the target.

    Today, the target was Mark who after the dolphin's assault and the wave created by her fin slapping the water, was well and truly drenched. Chris and the twins fared better but still ended up a bit soggy as they laughed in delight. Rose surfaced, ignoring the pain in her ankle from her splashing stunt. There was a part of the inner fin she made a mental note to trim later.

    “Rose, What was that for?!” Mark cried as he wiped water off his face before pointing at the dolphins who began backing away to escape and play. “You two, you are traitors!”

    “Dear Sir, please forgive me. Tis but only how a mermaid greets their friends.” Rose chuckled as she spoke. “Now, I hear I have some special guests. Would you three be those who wished an audience with me?” Her attention was now wholly on the kids.

    They chattered a bit and soon, everyone was in the water. While they were busy petting the dolphins she freed her hair from the ties, slipping them around her wrist for safe keeping and set her tiara on the edge of the pool where it glittered in the sun.

    Chris, Tom and the kids all joined her in the water. Rose told stories of the ocean and the places she had swam, artfully mixing fantasy with reality as she edited her research travels into magical stories of mermaid pods and undersea kingdoms.

    With tiny arms around her neck, Rose gave mermaid rides where dolphins swam at their sides. The whole area was full of laughter as the children urged their father to take a “Mermaid ride”, earning a deep blush from the adults. Rose had been so focused on the children that it was easy enough to almost forget about the two very attractive men.

    “I'm too big!” Chris protested. “Too heavy. It'd be mean to make her pull me around.”

    “Want to bet, big guy?” Rose knew full well that her legs would be jelly before long but how could she pass the chance to show off? It was a once in a lifetime chance. Additionally, she didn't like anyone assuming she couldn't do anything. Even if it was something as stupid as pulling around a man who was twice her size in nearly every way. She swam up and presented her back to him as large arms wrapped around her sounders. “Relax and keep your legs to the side. Hold your breath when I say and tap when you need air.”

    Before Chris could question, Rose was off with strong strokes of her tail they surged through the water, not nearly as fast as she could with the kids. Occasionally, Chris' legs got in the way and he would get a powerful whack from the fin. The man grinned with his own delight at the ride and almost forgot to hold his breath when instructed. In a swift motion they surged up and forward, diving down under the surface.

    Rose twisted and turned, spinning their bodies as Chris clutched to her shoulders. Rose didn't wait for him to tap for air, rather she surfaced them in front of the rock cluster Tom and the children were resting on when his hand lifted from her shoulder. The cool of the water tamed her blush, Even if Chris wasn't her type, he was still a fine looking, wet man pressed up on her.

    “See, a mermaid is stronger then she looks.” Rose laughed as Chris climbed onto the rocks and tickled his tired children.

    “That was fun, I'll admit that. Tom, you should take a ride too!” He nudged his friend and laughed when a flush covered his cheeks. Tom cursed double meanings while sliding off the rock. Rose dove under the water and flipped three times, allowing the cool waters to calm her heated face while she prayed that no one caught her blush.

    “If you don't mind?” Tom smiled at her when she surfaced, right in front of him and she nearly cursed herself when she almost gasped in water.

    “No, no, tis what a Mermaid Princess does.” Presenting her back to him, she hoped Chris and the kids wouldn't see the flush on her face as it bloomed anew. The sly smile Chris shot them however, did nothing to convince her that she had him fooled. “Arms around the shoulders, please try not to strangle me. Keep your legs off to the side unless you want some new bruises that would be hard to explain.”

    “Like this?” Rose's mind went blank when Tom got into position. He was so firm against her and long. Really, both men were so similar in height but Tom felt longer. It was a trick of perception since he was so much leaner. Chris, she felt confident diving with, he was well known for his love of water but with Tom she wanted to make sure to keep him safe. If she accidentally drowned him, she wouldn't be able to enjoy any of his future works, after all. Rose realized she didn't actually answer him.

    “Yeah, that's good.” God damn was it good, she could feel his muscles work as he moved his legs to help keep above water. This was a good day to be a mermaid. A very good day. “How are you with diving and holding your breath?”

    “Diving is fine. I'm not sure how long I can go however, not nearly as long as you.” Strands of her hair danced around him and when it brushed against him in the water, her hair felt like liquid silk.

    “Okay, so when I say to hold your breath, take a deep breath and hold it. Tap my shoulder when you need air and we'll surface. Don't wait till the last second.” As he breathed, she could feel his breath washing over her neck, shoulder and passed her ear. When he nodded his understanding, she took off.

    He was much easier to pull then Chris, much lighter and being less bulky, he dragged easier through the water. When she would glace over her shoulder at him, a wide toothy grin was plastered across his face. Chris and the children were swimming their way to the edge of the pool and so Rose swam by them, raising her tail out of the water to splash them on the way by.

    “Ready to go down?” She didn't so much feel his nod as she did his chest expand, filling with a large breath of air. When it didn't contract again, she dove under.

    Swirling, her hair danced around them. Down, down she took them while being ever mindful of the time. Strong legs propelled them around the coral and rock formations as she brought her hands up to hold onto his forearms. As she turned, swimming on her back and letting him see the world above them as she so often saw it. When she glanced at him and their eyes met. This was truly the most amazing day of her life, to share this with a man she had respected and admired for so long, even if he wouldn't remember her name after a few days. It may not mean much to him in the grandness of his life, but she felt truly blessed as she took them to the surface and reluctantly let go of his arms.

    The evening flew by and soon the sun was well set and the children rested at the pool edge. She showed them dolphin tricks and told more stories as the evening turned to night. Rose slipped her tiara off the pool edge and rested it on the eldest child's head.

    “I dare say, it looks better on you!” The little girl's face was cut with a large smile.

    They played and talked until after 9pm. The twins had fallen off into sleep on a beach chair and the remaining child was nearly following. Mark brought over a cart, padded and adorned with seaweed, flowers and shells, earning a groan from Rose.

    “We still have that ugly thing?” Rose couldn't help but laugh as Mark smiled cheekily, knowing full well he was to trash the monstrosity when the last tunnel was finished and never did.

    “You can use it to cart the kids up to your room, just leave it outside and someone will bring it back” Mark offered and before long, three sleeping children were placed luggage cart turned mermaid bench.

    “Or put a sign on it that says 'burn me', that would work too.” Rose hated that thing.  

    “Thank you, Miss Mermaid Rose, for everything today. They will remember this for a long time. It means a lot to them and me.” Chris spoke with sincerity that made it clear that his family was the most important thing in the world to him. The children's joy was his joy.

    “Rose. Just Rose for you two.” She had let them call her 'Mermaid', 'Princess' and 'Highness' as that was what she was to them.

    “Thank you, Rose.” With a nod, Chis spoke again. “I should get them to bed. You coming Mate?” Tom didn't rise from the waters when he spoke.

     “I'm going to rest here for a bit, I think my legs are dead. I'll see you in the morning.” With a nod, Chris left them and Tom finally felt comfortable to ask the questions he had been trying to figure out all day as he sat on the pool edge, feet and shins in the water. “How do you do it?”

    “Do what?” With a smile, Rose looked up at him from where she rested, arms draped over the pool edge.

    “Stay under for so long. I can't figure it out.” When she laughed at him, Tom felt silly for asking. “I understand if it's a trade secrete.”

    “Have you ever been scuba diving?” The look on Tom's face showed he didn't follow but he nodded just the same. “Dive with me, and I'll show you.”

    “I can't believe you're not tired.” Tom himself felt spent from all the swimming. All he got in response was a smile as she slipped into the water and presented her back to him.

    From his place, he could just see the blush that dusted her cheeks as she told him to take a deep breath and to trust her. So he did and down they went. Down and around to the rocks, down along the pillars before she stopped and with sure hands, motioned for him to let go of her. She looked magnificent, under the water in front of him, hair dancing around and silk fabrics billowing around her fin.

    With one hand firmly on his bicep to keep him from floating up or away, she motioned to the rocks where she pulled a mesh fabric back, revealing a air hose and regulator. With the press of a button, a stream of bubbles erupted before she handed it to him and Tom took a few needy breaths. What surprised him was that she did not, rather she grabbed him and dived farther down and away from the rocks as he moved back into place, holding her around her shoulders.

    When they stopped this time, she pulled a regulator from a mess of fake seaweed and handed it to him. Again, she did not breath herself and Tom was starting to wonder if she was actually human at all. A third regulator was shown in some decorative coral along the wall and again, while he breathed, she did not. Finally, they surfaced. Rose couldn't help but gasp for a large breath of air and silently remind herself that showing off like that could get her killed.

    “Okay, that's how I could do it but you didn't breath.” Tom pointed the obvious out, even as he didn't let go of her and she laughed. It was a magical sound, raspy a bit with the need of air but it was free and sounded like bells.

    “I can go ten to 15 minutes.” Rose admitted as she slowly pulled them to the edge of the pool. “It's a part of the training. My body is just used to it after all these years.”

    “That's amazing.” Tom admitted, pulling himself out of the water. “I couldn't even begin to fathom the training just to be a mermaid.”

    “You train for your roles, do you not?” Rose pointed out. “And I'm not just a mermaid. I do this for fun, this is the side job.” A laugh softened the message but it was clear to Tom that he had done what many must of done, wrote her off as just a mermaid.

    “True. What is the main job?” With a splash, she pulled herself partially out of the water only to slide back in with a huff.

    “Marine Biologist.” Rose admitted, trying again to get out of the pool. “All the tanks are my responsibility, here and in a few other resorts. It's more fun for the kids if I inspect them dressed like this. Scuba gear is pretty boring to look at.”

    The third time she tired to pull herself from the water, she almost made it but managed to splash Tom well and good in the process. “Could I give you a hand?”

    “Yes, please?” With her joints feeling like jelly, she was well and truly stuck in the water and swimming to the ramp on the other side of the pool didn't sound like fun. Nor did figuring out how to shimmy out of the tail on her own but one thing at a time.

    Tom reached down and with a firm grip around her arms, drew her up and out of the water. As he pulled her up, his arms moved around her back for a better grip. In the process, he pulled her to his chest while dragging the tail out and over the edge of the pool. He didn't set her down, didn't take her to a seat. For a moment, he just stood, holding a mermaid to his chest as water slicked down their bodies and the warm night air surrounded them. Tom was supporting all of her weight, with her knees unhinged and bent behind her, she was unable to support herself without awkwardly flopping the tail around in front of her and she still wouldn't be able to walk.

    “Thank you.” It was Rose who broke the silence, looking away. “Sorry to get you wet all over again.”

    “It's no trouble.” With the moment broken, Tom helped her to sit on the pool edge, wide enough to double as a bench and sat next to her and motioned to the tail. “This is truly amazing. Even out of the water, I can hardly see where the tail starts.”     “It better be, lord knows this sucker cost me an arm, a leg and half my soul.” While she tired to tell herself not to blush while Tom looked intently to her abdomen, telling herself that he was looking at the tail.

    “Thank you, Rose.” Tom spoke softly, seriously. “ You made everyone's night, tonight. I'd have never imagined doing this, never dreamed of it but you made it happen. You, darling, are amazing. Never did I think I'd swim with a mermaid.”

    Just a ghost of a feeling gave away that Tom had rested his hand on her thigh, over the tail. She tried to tell herself that he probably had no sense of where his hand was, her whole lower half was covered in silicone.

    “Never did I think I would swim with the God of Thunder or Jonathan Pine.” Rose smiled up at him as his eyes widened.

    “Not Loki?” Normally people always tied him to Loki. If someone knew Chris as Thor, he would be tied as Loki.

    “You don't look much like Loki like this. More like Pine, for sure. Not that I can't see Loki, you're just not that pale and without the dark hair.” Oh god she was rambling. Alone with Tom fucking Hiddleston and she was rambling. “Sorry.”

    “No, no! It's fine, really. I was just surprised.” It was nice to be seen as something other then Loki. For so many now, he was just Loki. “I was starting to think you didn't know who we were.” Tom admitted and she laughed at him.

    “I don't live underwater, Tom. I just spend most of my days there. Occasional they roll in a TV for the resident mermaid to watch.” She admitted, half joking and looking away. Suddenly she felt so much below him, just a fan.

    “Yet you look so perfectly in place, perfectly beautiful, underwater.” The words drew her eyes back to him. She could just feel his thumb rubbing along the silicone scales on her upper thigh. He had to have known where his hand was, the tail creased and folded where her legs bent at the hips, just a few short inches above his hand. She was leaning back, out of habit to prevent the tail from pinching her and so, he was twisted to face her.

    “Thank you.” The words were just a breath, almost inaudible. Soon, they were sitting in silence. Rose didn't know what else to say as she started to drown in his ocean blue eyes. They were a pure blue, unlike anything she had seen. Pictures hadn't ever done them justice.

    He turned to face her better, drawing his hand up her outer thigh and over the curve of her hip. The silicone was thinner there, and she could feel the warmth and pressure of his hand clearer as he softly gripped her, holding her in place. Heat radiated off him as he hovered over her, supporting his weight on his outstretched arm.

    When her heart felt like it would beat out of her chest, Rose contemplated diving back into the water to escape but with how tired she was, how sore she was, she would likely drown even if she wasn't trying to have a heart attack. Additionally, whatever it was that was happening, she didn't not want it to happen. Head and heart both were overwhelmed as she took him in. Stubble dusted his face and a light tan complemented his features well, even as they stood out sharp. When her eyes returned to his, she just caught the flicker of his eyes from where they were downcast. Perhaps he took in her whole appearance again. As he moved closer to her, his eyes, dropping again she was sure he was looking at her lips.

    Breath hitched in her chest as she tilted her head up to him. Painfully slowly, he descended on her as his hand finally moved from her hip to where it rested in the curve of her waist. When he was a breath away, her eyelids fell to nothing but slits and she wondered if his did the same. A heartbeat later, his lips ghosted over hers and she stopped wondering for a moment.

    His lips were soft and just as sweet as the kiss. Tom's thumb rubbed softly on her skin and when she didn't pull away, Tom pressed himself firmer against her lips and breathed a sigh. When she shifted her position, he made to pull back but she followed him, not letting their lips part. Softly, Rose brought her hand around and rested it on Tom's forearm before allowing it to slowly trail up.

    Tom was surprised that she didn't push him away. He supposed he shouldn't be, she was a fan. On that note, he also shouldn't be kissing her, because she was a fan. Yet the whole time, she had treated him as if he was just a man, causing him to doubt himself as any man would in her presence. Softly, her hand ran up his arm and across his back. Fingers played with the curls at the back of his neck as Tom's arm snaked around her back, pulling her to him.

    The change of position caused her elbow to buckle under her weight but Tom supported her just the same and so another arm snaked up his arm to rest on his chest. She could feel the strain of muscles as he leaned her back slowly, resting her on the hard surface as he nibbled at her lower lip. When she gasped, his tongue darted inside to explore. The kiss turned hungry, passionate and Rose was left cursing her tail as it held her legs awkwardly together when she wanted nothing more then to run her leg up his, to hook an ankle around his back, to pull him as close as she could. Finally, they parted and Tom gazed down at her.

    “I had never expected to kiss a mermaid.” With a smile he kissed her again, pressing himself into her for a passionate moment before pulling back. He wanted nothing more then to do it again. Rose wanted nothing more then to let him.

    “Fairy tails do happen.” If she was talking about him kissing a mermaid or her kissing an actor, Tom couldn't be sure. Maybe both. Probably both. The heavy blush on her cheeks looked right at place and he found himself wanting to keep her flushed. It was a good look on her. A great look on her.

    “What would a man have to do to be blessed to take a lovely sea creature to dinner?” Tom asked, motivated by the rumble of her stomach announcing its own need.

    “You, kind Sir, need but only to ask. And maybe help me out of this thing.” Rose laughed as she began rolling down the mesh that hugged her lower waist, then the silicone over her hips.

    “You just roll it off?” Tom asked, tugging and folding the material down as it fought to keep in place. He expected some sort of fasteners, a zipper maybe. Something?

    “It's not easy on, easy off. That's why I've been trapped in it for the last four hours or so.” Rose admitted with a laugh. In truth, she badly needed to pee and wasn't wholly sure her legs could support walking right away. Plus, she missed dinner, was starving and Tom asked her to dinner. Did he mean tonight? She was assuming so, but it was so late. With a deep breath, she reminded herself to stop over thinking. Overthinking was bad.  

    Once her legs were free from the tail, Tom adverted his eyes after quickly taking in her legs. It felt like he was seeing a hidden part of her with the tail gone, a special part of her. It felt intimate, even as she wore a conservative bikini. She wore just a bikini and he had seen many a pair of legs but with her, it seemed so different.

    Instead of allowing the awkwardness to linger, her offered her a hand and helped her to her feet. Rose's knees buckled nearly instantly and her ankles screamed in pain as she fell against him, where she was encircled by his strong arms that held her up.

    “Are you okay?” Worry tinged his voice.

    “Just a bit wobbly, I've been swimming too long.” Rose laughed as she looked up at him. It was a strange day to be a mermaid. Tom leaned down and kissed her before taking her legs out from under her.

    “Lead the way, Dear Princess.” Today was a good day to be a mermaid. Today was a good day to visit Vegas. Today was a good day.

@kristinaraven99, It’s posted love. 

[free-pool-trash]

Sunrise- Haruka Nanase x Daughter of Poseidon Reader

Requested by @geekgreekgirl : Can I request a free! Scenario and idk if you’ve read the Percy Jackson series but where Haru’s not yet s/o is a daughter of Poseidon and he finds out somehow like he notices that she doesn’t get wet sometimes after being in the water or he sees her fighting a sea monster, however you want to write it. So they start to bond over it, like she tells stories of her life and adventures. Then they eventually fall in love. Thank you 😊

Hello my dear! I'm sorry this took so long and I haven't read Percy Jackson so I just went with what I sort of know, I'm sorry if this is not what you wanted! But please enjoy!

Word count: 2,563

Masterlist

Swimming was always something you loved, it was apart of you and sometimes it was the only way you could ever really feel connected to your father.

Being a half-blood was hard, you loved your mother but you wished you could be closer with your father but you understand that God's are busy people, you weren't the priority.

You've lived on the land your entire life, never too far away from the sea, usually in lesser populated towns since it made the gifts you inherited from your father easier to hide.

Recently yourself and your mother had moved to a small coastal town in Japan, Iwatobi. It was a cute town, close to the ocean, had good transport facilities, a few good schools, you'd been happy there.

Happy was only one of the emotions incorporated with it, though.

Loneliness had been an ever present emotion with you since you were only little, you always figured it had something to do with your father as being in water was the only thing that ever brought you some sense of being needed.

You'd hoped that in your first year of high school there would be a swim team, a group of people that loved the water as much as you did, people that you could bond with, people to help you feel less lonely.

Unfortunately, Iwatobi high school didn't have a swim team, only an out of use pool over growing with weeds.

That year has been lonely, just like every other, you'd made no true friends, only acquaintances.

You'd spent the summer on the small beach of Iwatobi, swimming in the ocean almost every day, waking up at dawn to swim and never leaving until dusk.

Most days you’d see the same two boys from your class, both acquaintances, Makoto and Haruka.

Sometimes they'd offered you to swim with them, if they asked you would always accept, they were nice but strange.

Makoto never strayed too far from the shore despite him proving to be an excellent swimmer. Haru on the other hand looked to be as excited about the ocean as you were, it was nice to see.

You'd always taken the time to speak to Makoto when he’d sit on the shoreline and simply watch Haru.

There was always a certain uneasiness in his eyes when he starred out at the blue waves, you never asked what it was about, you knew many people had fears of the ocean, maybe he'd lost someone, but it wasn't your place to ask.

He'd told you about how you reminded him of Haru and the similarities between you two, sometimes the boy in question would join in on the conversation, his interest in you was piqued when Makoto asked you what your fastest time was and you'd replied with a shrug and said “I don't swim competitively, I just love the water, helps me feel less lonely.”

He'd been happy to meet someone who, not only looked like they belonged in the water, but also had a connection with it.

To both of your disappointments the summer heat ceased and you could no longer swim in the ocean.

When school began again, you'd been placed in the same class as Haru and Makoto much to your relief since the three of you had built up a friendship since the summer began.

You weren't best friends, but they considered you at least a friend and that was good enough for you.

They shot you small smiles every now and again to which of course you responded to with smiles of your own, sometimes you even shared small talk, it was nice.

A few days into second year, the boys approached you with another smaller boy you knew to be one of the new first years, they'd introduced Nagisa as an old friend of theirs they used to swim with.

They explained that they were going to start up a swim team and wondered if you wanted to help them set it up and be apart of it, you'd smiled so brightly accepting immediately and became even closer with the two boys you'd swam with over the summer and also started to become quick friends with Nagisa.

The Iwatobi high school swim club was most definitely something you were grateful for, the boys and Gou had treated you as if they'd known you for as long as they've known each other, always pushing you forward and helping you feel welcome.

Out of everyone you had the fastest time in every stroke, which to you was nothing out of the ordinary, but they'd given you much praise for the achievement.

The only problem was that although you were an active member of the team it still needed either another three female members or one more male member to create a full team and since Nagisa was dead set on getting Rei to join the team you all decided getting one more male member would be the easy option.

After Nagisa managed to rope Rei into coming to the joint practice between your team and Gou’s brother’s team, Samezuka, you could tell the boy would most likely stay.

The joint practice had been fun, for you especially, all the boys ogling you in your swimsuit probably would've bothered you a little bit more if all the boys didn't look like they were sculpted by Gods, but hey, maybe they were.

“You’re swimming too?”

The captain, Seijuro, had asked you, seeming slightly shocked.

You'd given him a smirk and raised an eyebrow.

“Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?”

The boy then gave you a smirk of his own and let out a chuckle.

“Alright, cutie. You can race me.” He’d winked and you nodded going to stand on the block beside his.

“Don't expect me to go easy on you, cutie.” Rolling your eyes you'd placed your goggles over them and gave him one last smirk before getting in diving position.

“Wouldn't dream of it.”

When one of the other Samezuka members called it you'd dived perfectly and straight away took the lead by a significant amount, not that you were trying too hard. You'd beaten the Samezuka third year captain in record speed leaving all the opposing school’s student’s jaws on the floor, and noticing the smirk Haru sent your way made blood rush to your cheeks.

The race had brought Rin’s attention to you, he figured there was no way you could be faster than a third year male swimmer, even though, you as a female, had less muscle to lug through the water, and the fact that your father is the literal God of the ocean.

You'd gained a reputation amongst the Iwatobi and Samezuka swimmers and after some gross accusations about how you were so fast were proven wrong you'd gained most of their respects, things were good, but… not for long.

The Iwatobi team had gone on a special training camp to an island which you were ecstatic about, Makoto and Haru being fully used to this.

That same uneasiness you'd seen so often during the summer returned to Makoto’s eyes and you had a sinking feeling that you'd soon find out the reason behind his sad eyes.

After setting up the tents, and begrudgingly watching Gou and Miss A return to a hotel room to sleep, the five of you settled down for the night after deciding who sleeps with who.

You ended up in a two person tent with both Makoto and Haru, it was cozy to say the least. You didn't see why you didn't share with Nagisa and Rei seeing as they were a smaller pair but Haru insisted you shared with him and who were you to say no.

Going to sleep for the night at around 10:30pm as it was an early start, your back was to Haru’s chest and Makoto was a little bit away lying on his back.

You smiled a little bit thinking about how much this year bettered your life, the sound of Haru’s soft breathe close to your ear soothed you to sleep that night and you couldn't help but snuggle into him after sleep took over.

A few hours later you were woken up by your head being lifted slightly and your arms falling a little bit, cracking your eyes open you blushed realising you'd shifted in your sleep and ended up with your arms wrapped around Haru and your head on his chest, that discovery would've been a lot more embarrassing if Haru hadn't wrapped his arms around you too.

The two of you didn't have time to discuss this as you noticed Makoto was gone and a struggle was sounding from outside.

Quickly leaving the tent you were met with a panicked Nagisa and Rei and Makoto in the ocean which had gotten rough since earlier that day.

Wasting no time you ran toward the ocean, pulling your oversized t-shirt off and throwing it behind you onto the sand then diving into the cold water.

“(Y/n) wait!” Haru and Nagisa yelled from behind you, jumping in themselves shortly after.

Makoto, seemingly frozen was fighting hard against the waves, you thought it best to go to him, Nagisa no doubt would go to Rei so you made the choice.

Grabbing him you attempted to calm him before Haru came to your side and began to swim toward the nearest island.

“Help Nagisa!” Nodding you cut through the waves as if they were butter, Haru who took notice of this furrowed his eyebrows but continued bringing Makoto to the shore.

By the time you got to Nagisa and Rei a wave had already swept them away, you could still see them above the water so you turned again seeing Makoto unconscious on the sand.

When you got to the shore you sat on your knees by Haru’s side, who was doing CPR on Makoto, luckily the olive haired boy coughed awake and you sighed in relief.

The three of you sat in silence on the shore waiting for Nagisa and Rei to return after you told them you'd seen them safely above the water.

Haru was staring at you and you couldn't understand why, until you realized that you'd just jumped into the ocean in your bra and shorts and there wasn't a drop of water on your body.

“Oh right, that.” You sighed causing Makoto's eyes to land on you too.

“You're not wet.” Haru spoke the obvious and you nodded

“Yeah, I have a secret… My dad is well he's not like other dad's I guess.” Makoto now spoke up.

“But you said you don't know your dad that well, right?” Sighing again, you stared out at the ocean.

“I don't, he doesn't live anywhere near here. I don't get to see him much if ever.” Haru's gaze was on you but you continued to stare at the calming ocean.

“His name is Poseidon. Make of that what you will.” You sighed out, motioning toward your dry body.

The boys stared at you with wide eyes. And you dropped your head.

“Please don't start treating me differently.” Your voice was weak and it reminded them of when they first met you.

“We don't see you any differently, to be honest it makes perfect sense.” Makoto said with a kind smile.

Relief flooded over you and you gave the two a closed eyed smile.

“Haru! Makoto! (Y/n)!” The voice of Nagisa caused you to turn your head in the direction his voice came from, you smiled even brighter seeing that he was okay and so was Rei.

That night the team members had grown a lot closer, specifically you and Haru.

He knew there had been something different about you and now it made sense to him why, you had a bond with ocean because it was the closest you ever really got to being with your dad.

After nights of deep thoughts shared between the two they'd both simultaneously discovered that they held deeper feelings than just friendship for each other.

The summer after second year ended, the two didn't part for long, meeting the first day of the vacation early at dawn like the year before only this time it was just them.

The sun was only barely peeking past the horizon when the two met up on the shoreline, already clad in swimsuits.

You smiled and took his hand in yours. “There's someplace I wanna show you, come on if we hurry we’ll make it in time to watch the sunrise!”

Haru gave you a soft smile, one you'd grown used to seeing, and squeezed your hand as he followed you into the ocean, swimming beside you for about twenty minutes until you reached another shore.

You grabbed Haru’s hand again as he looked around at where you'd swam to.

“What are we doing here?” He ask following you as you walked toward a boulder which you'd stashed a bag with a towel inside, grabbing the bag you pulled Haru along.

“We're gonna watch the sunrise, but come on we may have swam here fast but we need to hurry so we can watch it all.” You yelled excitedly, running up the a steep sand doom.

Haru chuckled at your excitement and followed you up the doom, when you reached the top you walked a while longer until you'd reached the cliffs.

The pair of you sat on a grassy patch a safe distance from the edge of the highest cliff, side by side. You took the towel from out of the bag and threw a half of it over your shoulders and the other half over Haru’s, scooting closer to him to get more body heat.

The sun had yet to fully rise causing you to smile since you hadn't missed it yet, you could feel Haru staring at you and decided to let him know a few things.

“I like to come here when I'm feeling at peace, which I’ll admit lately is more than I used to, it's so serene, helps me pace myself you know? I thought that I'd share it with you since you’ve been a big part of why I've been able to come here so often.”

As you finished Haru moved even closer to you, his gaze never leaving your face, slowly you turned to him with reddened cheeks and a small smile.

“Thank you.” He spoke looking into your eyes, his voice was soft as always and your smile grew.

“Can I… tell you something else?” You looked down, noticing that your hands had become intertwined and you couldn't seem to wipe the smile off your face.

Haru nodded and your gaze met his again, “I love you.”

A smile found his face and blood rushed to his cheeks, “I- I love you too.”

You didn't wait any longer to lean into him, and press your lips gently against his own, basking in the way the light of the rising sun shone against his face.

His lips responded to yours briefly before you were both pulling away, silently you rested your head on his shoulder and stared off into the sight of the sun rising above the ocean, Haru doing the same as he rested his cheek on the top of your head.

There wasn't anywhere else you wanted to be.

[finding--cat]

That’s it, that’s all, folks. Story is halfway over. Now it’s onto NaNoWriMo to try to finish this - although, quite frankly, my spare time is hovering around level 0 these days. In the meantime, read Part II in its entirety. 

To visit the story page, click here. 

Thanks for reading pals. I’m touched that you would take time out of your day to spend on my work. If I could ask you to spare just a small amount more of your time - 1 minute max - to share your thoughts with me -- you have no idea the service you would be providing to a writer who truly wants to grow (and is curious if anyone is enjoying this and would be interested in reading more).

Part II: The Songbird 2.4 

A few days later, Ari joins Niall at Gram and Gramps’ place. Kalene gives her the day off, though it doesn’t really matter because Niall has a delayed start to the day taking Olive to the doctor to get her ears checked. Z is convinced it’s an ear infection after swimming in that possibly non-chlorinated pool at horse camp, and even though Niall assures him it’s highly unlikely, it turns out that’s exactly what it is. Her right ear is inflamed and built-up with fluid, so Dr. Gibbs gives her a prescription for banana-flavoured medicine. Niall picks it up at the pharmacy and coaxes Olive into gulping down a serving before holding her hand and walking her into school an hour and a half late.

Then he’s on the phone with Z for another fifteen minutes to receive a comprehensive list of all the reasons Z’s not going to listen to him anymore when it comes to his child and how they should’ve taken her to the doctor’s two weeks ago, but actually, no, they never should’ve let her go swimming in that disgusting pool in the first place, even though all the other kids did and Olive would’ve had to sit by herself on the sidelines and watch.

By the time Niall swings by Ari’s place, it’s close to noon, and she’s had the time to make four vegetarian wraps for their lunches, including for Gram and Gramps.

It turns out Gram isn’t home – on Tuesdays she plays Euchre with a group of ladies in the Knights of Columbus rec hall – but Gramps peers with genuine interest at the wraps until one is placed in his lap out in the garden, and then he eats quite happily, not even asking for a hit of indica until he’s done.

“Feelin’ slow, Niall,” he says, head tilted back so his eyes meet the sun.

He’s answered a question Niall never asked, but Niall replies anyway. “The slow of a good high, you mean?”

“The slow of the Tin Man when all his joints began to rust. Can’t move the way I used to.”

“Soon you’ll start to perk up again. That’s what the doc said. Haven’t been able to work your muscles in a while, that’s all,” Niall assures him. He pauses to lick a strip along the rolling paper and then expertly folds the herb into a neatly-tucked cylinder in his lap. “But for now, you’re in luck,” he adds, raising his head to flash Gramps his grin, “because summer’s turning to fall. Everything slows down in winter.”

“Well,” Gramps begins, drawling the word with that sticky molasses tone that sounds more like Waaaale… “I fear it’s the winter o’ my life.”

Though his chin is lowered to his chest, Niall raises his eyes as everything, for a moment, comes to a halt. “Please don’t say that,” he murmurs.

“Backyard’s fallin’ to pieces,” Gramps remarks, ignoring Niall and surveying the land around him with a sigh. “Linda ‘n I used to be out here all summer sprucin’ it up. Now look at it. Shithole.”

Niall snorts, his thumb smarting on the lighter before he ignites the joint and hands it dutifully to Gramps.

“Don’t tell that to Ari,” he says, gesturing with a nod toward the girl crouching over a wilted flowerbed across the lawn. “She’s doin’ her best to clean it up.”

“So she is.”

Gramps’ hand trembles as he brings the joint to his lips, almost to the point of Niall reaching over to hold it for him. He puffs on it like a cigar, because no matter how many times Niall tells him that’s not how to get the best high, Gramps can’t let go of that sophisticated, my-wife-just-gave-birth-to-my-son feel of the 1950’s. When Niall used to get on his case for being old-fashioned, Gram always corrected him to say he simply never grew up in the first place and still lives in the 50’s in his head.

“She have fun with that? Weedin’ and prunin’ and what have you?” Gramps asks.

Niall shrugs, steadying a hand on Gramps’ shoulder as he takes another series of drags. “She likes plants. Mostly, though, I think she just likes to help. She likes to feel part of something.”

His stare strays to Ari where she hunches dozens of yards away, picking one weed at a time and hoping that at some point, it makes the garden less cluttered, more workable.

She’s stayed over at his a few times now, joining Niall at Sherman’s or waiting up for him afterward, always with the same brilliant smile on her face, the same eagerness for adventure. Or recklessness. Or some kind of intimacy. Whatever it is that she gets from him, Niall’s just glad he’s the one who can provide it. Because after that first time, he knew from that inexplicable rock in his throat and the weight of her in his arms, giving him something to hold through the night, that he wanted it again and he wanted it with her. After that first time he was already fantasizing about her again. After that first time, he knew from the way his feet angled toward her and she drew him in by his chest that he was All In, whether his brain told him otherwise or not.

“Could do with more like her,” says Gramps. He folds his arms across his chest and flicks the ash off his joint, content to watch Ari work for a few moments.

“Yeah,” Niall murmurs in agreement, hand still on Gramps’ shoulder but mind elsewhere. When he comes to, Gramps is watching him.

“You good to her?”

Niall holds his gaze like a man, because it feels like this is a question meant for Man Niall and not Boy Niall.

“I try,” he answers, frustrated with himself for faltering under Gramps’ stare.

“Hmm.” Gramps thinks about this. “Might be biased, but she may be lucky to have ended up knockin’ boots with the likes of you.”

Niall rolls his eyes and uses his hand on Gramps’ shoulder to give him a light slap across the cheek. “Knock it off, old man,” he laughs, “you’re stoned.”

Unaffected, Gramps continues, “Then again, you were the one livin’ life as normal until she walked in. That’s a lucky circumstance right there.”

“That’s how I see it.” Niall swipes the joint from Gramps to take a drag, not because he needs it but because his fingers were itching for something to do.

Ari finally gives up on her squat and falls back on her bum, a bouquet of weeds and brush tumbling to the grass. She glances over her shoulder with a bout of laughter. Niall smiles despite himself.

Gramps was watching. “You don’t look at each other like that if you don’t both feel a little lucky,” he muses, “and in that case, you’re stupider than a box o’ lint if you don’t do something about it.”

Niall wraps his arms behind his back, around the iron bars of the chair, until his fingers find one another and latch on. Amused, he looks to Gramps and doesn’t say a word.

Gramps is waiting for a response. After a minute, he asks bluntly, “S’pose you should get to asking yourself if this is what you want.”

“That so, huh?”

Annoyed, Gramps empties the ash from the joint near Niall’s chair and purses his lips. “You either ask yourself now, on your own terms, or the question creeps up on you  when it’s too late.”

“You used to say it’s never too late.”

“You’re a man now, and you should know that sometimes it is.”

“Very comforting.” Niall sighs. Ari tosses weeds over her shoulder one-by-one in painstaking fashion. But he notices with a slight arch of his brows, now that she’s been at work, he can start to see the flowers and the fresh soil. Of course, it’s only two square feet of the entire yard, but if she kept working on it, conceivably, it could come alive again. “Let me ask you something,” he says, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, gaze trained to Ari, “and be honest with me, because like you said, I’m ready to hear the answer as a man: when does it start being less about what I want, and more about what’s possible to have?”

Gramps needs no more than a second to construct a reply. “When you give into it,” he says. “But what’s worth being yours if you didn’t go after it – if you didn’t truly, desperately give it a good honest shot?”

.

A week into September, Z and Niall put Olive to bed to the rousing lyrics of Billy Joel’s Vienna while Ari watches from the doorway, one ankle slung over the other and arms folded across her chest. Her fond observations are now familiar even to Z, who sings to his daughter without reserve. Ari may pretend he’s singing to her, too, as so many do when they listen to Z sing (including Niall), but every time Niall glances at her, her eyes seem to be stuck on him. At first he thought it was a fluke. He still does, but because her gaze is a honey-like rain showering over him, he lets it be.

They say their goodnights to Olive, who pouts as Niall and Ari leave the room because she likes an audience and still banks on hearing what she calls The Mighty Jungle, and they end up in the living room, where Niall works on the arrangement of Ed Sheeran’s newest material to add to his set list and Ari jots down ideas for her Maid of Honour speech.

Z joins them after he has a few minutes alone with Olive. Having changed out of his work attire, he falls onto the couch in sweat pants and a loose t-shirt and clicks through television channels until he settles on Mad Men reruns. Nose buried in her notebook, Ari slowly looks up.

“I love this show,” she says quietly, using her notebook almost as a shield in case the reaction is harsh.

From Niall’s other side, Z looks over, pulled from a trancelike state. He glances at Niall for reassurance, unsure of what to do. When Niall offers nothing, Z replies just as softly, just as timidly as Ari, “Me too.”

Silence envelopes them, thick as smog. Niall stops plucking his guitar strings and wonders if the other two are wondering, same as him, what the hell just happened and why it seemed so damn momentous. Does he dare point out that everyone and their fucking brother loves Mad Men?

“I like Peggy,” Z pipes up again. He opens his mouth to say more, but then decides to leave it at that.

Ari blinks, a small smile crossing her face. “She’s my favourite.”

That’s it. They have no more to say to one another, content to simply sit and watch the show, but Niall notices Z glance at Ari out of the corner of his eye, curious and bewildered, and though her eyes remain focused on the words in her notebook, he sees Ari’s smile grow.

.

Niall can’t troubleshoot while sewing, but he knows enough about it from that time Trisha spent an afternoon teaching him and Z how to maintain Olive’s wardrobe without constantly having to go out and buy new things. He can thread a needle and weave it through torn fabric well enough, which is the most he’s ever asked to do when Olive comes home from school with a rip in her knee or a tear in the seam of her blouse.

Tonight, he sits on the couch under a light with the intention of repairing a tattered shirt pocket. It’s meant more for decoration on Olive’s frilly purple t-shirt, but she likes to use it to hold a few coins in case she needs to use the pay phone at school to call Z at work or Niall at wherever he is on any given day. This morning, when she dug her hand in to ensure the coins were still there, the pocket fell apart.

Z tried to fix it himself, but his patience wore thin after about five minutes because he complained his fingers were too large and the needle was too small and the thread was probably, most likely, too flimsy to be productive.

So Niall took over, and now he sits wetting the tip of the thread to insert it through the eye of the needle, with Ari rubbing his back in affection as he works and Z looking on with quiet gratitude. On the TV in the background, they watch another rerun of Mad Men, because Z thinks Ari likes it and, in his own sullen way, he wants her to feel at home.

What would take Trisha ten minutes takes Niall the better part of an hour, but once he tests that the pocket has returned to the shirt and is securely fastened, he triumphantly sprawls the article of clothing across the coffee table and flops back onto the couch, massaging a crick in his neck and stretching his legs.

By then, Z has gotten up to put the kettle on. He returns a couple of minutes later with mugs of tea for Ari, Niall, and himself. He lifts the shirt to inspect it and nods, impressed. He flings it over his shoulder and murmurs his thanks to Niall.

“No problem,” Niall says in reply, even though his neck is too sore to move.

Z brings two fingers below Niall’s chin, encouraging him to raise his head. When he does, Z uses the backs of his fingers to gently trail across Niall’s cheek, sending an arrow shooting down his spine and hitting whatever target it was aiming for.

“You okay?”

“Mm hmm,” Niall assures him.

“’M gonna take this to bed,” says Z, raising his mug an inch or two in the air.

Niall nods, returning his smile. While applying pressure to the back of his neck, he watches Z cross the landing and ascend the stairs, not looking away until he’s out of sight.

He doesn’t realize he’s heaved a satisfied sigh until he spies Ari out of the corner of his eye and looks over. She cups her mug of tea with both hands and takes a sip, instantly recoiling at the heat. All the while, she watches him.

She hisses and licks her lips before blowing away the wisps of steam rising from the mug. Quietly and almost casually, she asks, “Do you love him?”

Niall blinks.

He blinks again.

She waits for him to speak.

He has half a mind to pretend to misunderstand her question, to say of course I love him, we’ve been friends since we were kids, but he can’t disavow the question in his response out of respect to her. Out of respect to Z. Out of respect to himself.

So he sighs again, murmuring a surrendered, “Yeah.”

“Oh.”

Ari replies without malice or spite, neither a smug I knew it nor an I had no idea. Like everyone else, she probably knew or suspected as much, but is too polite to admit it.

Niall squeezes his eyes shut, hating, for a moment, that everything in his life always comes back to this.

When he opens them again, words start coming to him. “I did,” he corrects himself, “back in high school, we—and then in college, I—” Frustrated with himself, he shakes his head. “I did back then. When I thought that maybe… I don’t know what I thought. But, um, he didn’t want me,” Niall finishes with a frown, “so it… it’s in the past. It doesn’t matter. It’s nothing.”

Ari continues to watch him, lips parted but unspeaking, cradling her mug close for  comfort.

“What?” Niall asks after several seconds have passed. His pulse quickens in his neck.

“Nothing,” Ari says with a shake of her head. She tucks one socked foot underneath her on the couch. “It’s just… I think every time you love someone, it matters. Even if they don’t love you back. Because it’s a feeling, you know? Love. From what I know of it, it’s a pretty strong feeling, maybe the strongest. And any time you can feel something, any time something moves you… that matters.” Niall aches to look away, to bury his head in his own frustrations, but he holds Ari’s gaze and nods.

.

On a Friday, Niall has work to do for both jobs and should be at home researching a piece he has to draft for submission early next week, but he takes advantage of Ari’s free time and meets with her as soon as she texts him that she’s done a morning yoga session, showered, watered her plants, and checked off whatever other items on her list are necessary to her mental health.

As they walk up the road side-by-side, Niall���s hands stuffed in the pockets of his black jeans and Ari struggling to fix her ponytail, Niall thinks it’s nice. Whatever they are and whatever this is, it’s nice. Nice isn’t fantastic and nice isn’t the stuff dreams are made of, but nice is something he hasn’t really had in a long time. To enjoy someone else’s company and to feel sparks crackling in his veins when she’s near and to feel warmth radiating from her smile and to get to kiss her and hold her and fuck her is fucking nice.

Niall has her laughing today as he recounts last night’s epic struggle to get Olive to sleep. He and Z had to pull out the big guns and not only perform The Lion Sleeps Tonight (or, as Olive consistently refers to it, The Mighty Jungle), but also enthusiastic and foot-stompin’ versions of All Star and I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles). Afterwards, Z confessed to him that he could literally feel the exact moment his soul escaped his body.

The air outside is fresh and cool, too warm to be truly autumn but too crisp to be mistaken for midsummer heat. Even with a clear sky and plenty of sun, Tillson City seems sleepier than usual, with very few cars and trucks whizzing past as Niall and Ari walk alongside the road. They don’t really have a destination – Niall knows that Ari is content just to walk – and somehow they end up at the high school. For some reason, it surprises Niall. He should have paid less attention to the fallen red leaves crunching under the soles of his shoes, but as usual, he’s fascinated by the new season and ready for change.

Tillson City High is a two-storey brick building initially erected in the 1940’s after a surge in the coal mining industry. There was a fire in the west end in the late 60’s and a rebuild of the gymnasium and several classrooms in the mid-90’s to remove asbestos from the walls and ceilings, but otherwise, it’s the same crummy school it’s always been: a haven for white, Christian footballers and cheerleaders and whatever circle of hell they decide to create for the rest.

Niall tells Ari this, but leaves out the last part.

“So this is where it all began?” Ari asks, inhaling deep in her chest and staring out at the faded brick and rusted metal. “You, Z, and Harry, three punks who loved music and who just didn’t fit in with the cool kids?”

Niall grins, purposely keeping his eyes on Ari and not the school. “You forgot Tafi, a loner of her own making who popped in and out occasionally to tell us what to do and how to live our lives.”

“Ah yes. Without Tafi, you might still be a virgin.”

“Oh yeah?” He chuckles to himself and brings his fist to his mouth, pretending to cough into it. “You weren’t, uh, questioning my virginity two nights ago when you had to plant your face into my pillow so you wouldn’t wake up the house with your screams.”

Ari pokes him in the side, where she knows he’s ticklish. Niall squirms away with a yelp. “Tafi teach you any of those tricks between the sheets?”

“On the contrary,” Niall jokes, looping an arm around Ari’s neck and pulling her close, urging her to walk with him around the side of the building, “I taught her everything she knows. That one night she spent with me when we were seventeen years old set her up for life.”

“Mm. Yes. Totally believable.” She melts into his side and wraps an arm around his waist. Her hand fights his for entrance to his jean pocket and wins the battle. “So where did it happen, Casanova? Science lab? Between two dusty shelves in the library? Or did it happen out back, where you guys used to go to get high?”

“For fuck’s sake,” Niall whispers under his breath, because he can’t believe they’re still talking about this. “It did not happen here, at school. That would have been in poor taste.”

“Really?” Ari lifts her head from his shoulder to give him a frown. “You never got up to any illicit sexual hijinks at school? Not after hours in English class or in the dirty gym locker room?”

Niall’s smile fades. Uninvited, a memory sweeps through his mind: puddles on the floor, a pair of cleats with knotted laces at his knees, a locker door slamming shut.

“Uh…” he trails, clearing his throat for real this time, “nah. Virgin misfit, remember?”

She shrugs and eyes him with a coy smile. “Virgins can still have fun.”

“Not this virgin.” Niall pauses, adding, “I mean, it wasn’t really all that fun.”

She hesitates, her lips flattening into a thin line as she squints at him.

“Not that I… it’s just that…” He shakes himself out of it, forcing a laugh. “My first time was with Taf in the back of Harry’s shitty old van. That’s it, that’s what I got up to in high school. Let’s talk about you now?”

Ari giggles and squeezes his waist before releasing him. As she pulls away, she grabs for his hand. Niall doesn’t resist as she intertwines their fingers and swings their arms back and forth.

“Okay,” she agrees. “I was eighteen, it was November in my first year of college, and I got just drunk enough at a dorm party to tell a guy in my bio lab that I wished he was my lab partner because he was funny and smart. We had sex in what I assumed was his bed and what he assumed was mine. We didn’t figure it out until the guy who actually lived in that dorm room came back from across the street where he’d run out to order a pizza.”

“Oh, shit!” Niall guffaws with laughter. “He walked in on you?”

“Nope.”

“How long was he out of the room?”

“Less than five minutes.”

Niall snorts. “Nice.”

“Yeah, it was real romantic. We went on one date the next weekend for Mediterranean and then we never spoke again.”

“Bio lab just got awkward.”

She chuckles. They round the building, suddenly overlooking Tillson City High School’s pride and joy: the football field. Before them are dozens of bleachers circling the field, enough room for almost every resident of the town, every seat filled under the Friday night lights at least a few times per season.

Niall’s never been, personally. While everyone in town crowds their asses onto those stone cold pieces of metal, Niall packs the bed of his truck with blankets, pillows, and his guitar and drives in the opposite direction with Z and Olive. That’s just how it is. They’re not birds travelling in a flock, him and Z. They’re more like mice scurrying away from the noise.

Ari lets go of his hand and walks ahead of him, curious to view the field up-close, with its gigantic growling bobcat painted in the center of pristine turf. The only 50,000 square feet in the entire city that everyone will chip in out of their own pockets to maintain.

“They’re in class now,” Niall remarks as Ari stands between two gigantic rows of bleachers, one hand on the pillar as she looks out, “but when that bell rings, they’ll be out here, decked out in their home uniforms and doing their drills half-assed to impress the girls who stick around to watch ‘em.”

“Who’s they? The football players?”

Niall nods. He hangs back from the field, only following Ari when she ventures underneath the bleachers and looks over her shoulder in excitement, like she’s entering a large tent. He knocks on a metal support rod and says, “These’ll be full tonight. They’ll bring in a couple foods trucks for hot dogs and ice cream, parents will paint their faces in blue and gold, and they’ll squeeze into these seats to watch a few kids run around with a ball.”

“You don’t ever go?”

She asks the question, but the way she asks it proves that she already knows the answer.

“Nah.” He steps lightly, eventually leaning against a support beam with hands in his pockets while Ari seems interested in the nooks and crannies. “Under the bleachers used to have a lot of allure, though. Their parents would be at the game, but benched players would sneak under here to make out with cheerleaders while all the fuss was happening out there. Heard it was pretty risky back in the day.”

Ari spins on her heels, a patient smile on her face. “You never tried it.”

He shakes his head. “Me, Z, and Harry were far away, in Harry’s van or in Mickey’s garage, listening to music or playing music or… smoking with music on.”

She approaches him slowly. Her head tilts toward her shoulder, a thoughtful expression written across her face. “You ever wonder if you missed out?”

Niall crosses one ankle over the other. “Yeah,” he says honestly. Doesn’t everyone? No matter what he was doing in high school, he always wondered if it would be better if he was doing it with someone else, or doing what that someone else was doing. That was his entire teenage experience.

His pulse quickens when she stops in front of him and smoothes her hands over his bomber jacket while gripping it on either side of the collar to pull him forward. His nose crushes against the side of her face as she brings their lips together, instantly licking out to catch his tongue. Niall’s in such a rush to free his hands that he turns his pockets inside out, but then he’s got the reign to cup her elbows, run his hands up her arms and slide his fingers into her hair. Her ponytail comes apart in his fingers. Ari grunts, but her irritation only makes her press him harder into the beam, claiming his mouth with her tongue and his thoughts with her insistent hands.

To be honest, if this was factored into his high school experience, he would probably think back on the whole thing more fondly.

.

An hour later, Olive’s strapped into her carseat and Niall drives along the winding road on the way home with Ari at his side. Out of nowhere Ari gasps so dramatically that Niall, stunned, nearly veers off the road.

“What the heck?!” he cries. Behind him, Olive giggles.

Ari’s palm presses against the glass window as she stares at a sign until it’s behind them. Then, so excited her eyes are blown wide, she whips around to face Niall.

“What’s a Harvest Festival?” she demands.

“Huh?”

“There’s a Harvest Festival all weekend in Somerset, starting today.”

Niall hesitates, anticipating more. Ari says nothing, but her gaze is so pressing that he breathes, “And…?”

She blinks. “Can we go?”

“What? Like, right now?”

“Yeah.”

He peels his eyes from the road to assess her level of commitment. “Seriously?”

“Yes!” She reaches out to give his shoulder a nudge. “It sounds fun. The sign said there are fresh vegetables, a pumpkin patch, hayrides, and a petting zoo.”

“I wanna go!” Olive chirps, kicking the back of Niall’s seat.

“What? We don’t even know what it is,” Niall argues.

“I just told you,” Ari says. “It’s a town Harvest Festival. There’s lots to do.”

And there are lots of people, and any quiet day in Tillson City means its residents are either in church, packed onto the football field, or taking advantage of some other town’s event. That’s what Z says, anyway. He purposely took Olive to Charleston to stay with his parents two years ago when Tillson City celebrated its bicentennial. He was terrified that if they stayed in town, Olive would beg to go, and then he’d run into someone he’d banked on never seeing again.

“It’s something to do,” Ari says gently, chiding him with a hand covering his thigh. “How often is there something to do around here?”

“Fair enough,” Niall’s quick to reply. Ari’s in and Olive’s in and that’s pretty much all it was ever going to take for Niall to be in, too. “To Somerset we go.”

.

Whatever a Harvest Festival is, Somerset throws a good one. And why shouldn’t they? Niall vaguely remembers learning in ninth grade geography that Somerset has the lowest population density and the highest ratio of pigs to people in the entire state. In other words, these folks are all about farming and fatback bacon.

Niall thinks it smells delicious, but out of respect for Ari, he avoids the communal cookout that smokes animal flesh. Turns out there are lots of other things to do. Olive begs to ride the mini ferris wheel with Ari. Ari gets motion sickness and won’t go on the Merry-Go-Round, so Niall bites the bullet and, from atop a plastic unicorn, waves to Ari with a shit-eating grin each time they spin around. She links arms with him as she browses the season’s fruit and veggies, selecting a bushel of apples and several stalks of corn to come back for later. Olive uses Ari’s phone to take photos of the autumn floral arrangements on display because Ari has the idea to bring them back to Kalene and Rosen for discussion. Niall makes the ghastly decision to allow Olive her first-ever caramel apple after she nearly loses her mind in excitement over riding a pony at the petting zoo, and then she’s a livewire, racing this way and that, jumping up and down, on an adrenaline rush and a sugar high that may very well result in an overdose.

Niall realizes just how problematic this day is going to be from Z’s perspective when he finds out, but it’s too late now.

He stands dutifully behind Ari as she digs through her wallet to pay for harvest pies – one apple cinnamon for Rosen and Jackson, one peach for Niall and Z, and one banana cream especially for Olive. Ari’s got her back turned and Olive’s tugging on his hand, begging for one last pony ride before they leave—“Pleeeeeeease, Niall? I want to ride Bubbles with the black spots! I’ll do anything!”—when Niall sees them out of the corner of his eye and feels an age-old brick of dread low in his gut.

“Well, well, well,” says a low voice, accompanied by a nasty laugh, “so this is where you are when you’re not taking it up the ass at Sherman’s.”  

It’s easy enough for Niall to ignore him at first. After all, he’s got a bit of a situation on his hands, what with Olive beginning to work herself toward the dangerous ledge of a tantrum.

“Will we see you at the tailgate tonight, Horan?” asks the other. Niall doesn’t have to look at him to see his sneer. “Millcreek versus Tillson. You could play us a few songs to lighten the mood, huh? You know the one by Katy Perry, don’t you? I kissed a boy and I liked it…”

His obnoxious singing captures Ari’s attention. With three boxed pies and a receipt in her hand, she twirls around with a grin that quickly fades as she stares at the two men beyond Niall.

“Luke?” she asks.

Niall follows her eyes. Luke looks just as surprised to see Ari, but his smile only falters for a moment even as his eyes cloud with envy and disdain. Alongside Luke and his crony are two girls Niall recognizes as well as the guys, one with a caramel apple identical to Olive’s.

“Ari,” he begins, “you should come to the game with us tonight. Get the full Tillson experience. Horan won’t take you – too much of a coward to show his face again.”

Next to Luke, Janowitz chuckles, a pitiful sidekick ‘til the end.

“What are you talking about?” Ari asks. Her face hardens. Olive stops pulling on Niall’s arm, finally aware of the tension.

“It’s nothing,” Niall says hastily. He puts a hand on her shoulder, urging her forward. “Let’s go.”

He begins to herd her toward the parking lot with Olive’s hand clutched tight in his grasp. The little girl trots along beside him but continues to protest.

“Sure you won’t come, Horan?” Luke calls after him. “I heard some of the Millcreek players need their dicks sucked. You’re the man for the job.”

In a flash, Niall lets go of Olive’s hand and spins around, nostrils flaring as he approaches the two men without fear. Fuming, he spits, “Watch your damn mouth, all right?” He gestures to Olive. “You don’t have respect for me, but at least have some for her. She’s five, man.”

Behind him, Olive starts to cry.

“That your lovechild with Malik?” asks Luke. He looks over Niall’s shoulder and directs a question to Ari. “Has he told you about that yet? About how in high school, him and Malik—”

“Shut up.” Ari’s voice cuts Luke off like a knife. She’s nearly trembling with fury, her lips pressed in a thin line and her eyes dark. “Leave us alone, Luke.”

She has her hands on Olive’s shoulders, ready to take her away. Niall’s ready, too. He doesn’t spare either of them a second glance before turning his back to them.

“Hey, Horan,” calls Janowitz as he walks away, “settle a bet for us: when it’s you and Malik, who’s top and who’s bottom?”

He doesn’t catch up with Ari and Olive before he’s spinning around again, charging towards Janowitz’s sick, smiling face with a flame of hatred. Janowitz doesn’t process Niall’s intentions until Niall gives him a hearty shove, and then, after he regains his footing and the accompanying girls shriek, he barrels forward and crashes into Niall.

Olive wails. He thinks Ari calls his name, but Niall’s tossed over a hay bale, pinned down by a man eighty pounds heavier than him, and he can barely hear a thing other than breathless grunts and Janowitz hawking his spit. Niall manages to free his arm and sends the heel of his hand flying into Janowitz’s cheek, meaning to send his saliva elsewhere, but it lands him with an elbow to the face, which hurts like fucking hell. The pain is so intense it makes his eyes water.

Even after Luke and a festival worker drag Janowitz off of him, Niall still lies there for a moment, winded and breathless. There’s some shouting, a small crowd has gathered, and Niall just hopes, fruitlessly, that he’ll never see any of these people again. When he stands, slowly and carefully rising to his feet knowing full well he’ll be sore tomorrow, he sweeps his blurry vision over the hay bale in case he left his nose behind – it may very well have become disconnected from his body when he took that blow to the face.

The owner of the pie booth comes out to yell at them. Niall can only focus for a second before he shifts his attention to the girls. Ari’s picked Olive up and holds her against her hip, while Olive clings tightly to Ari’s shirt and blubbers. Ari’s breath hitches when she takes her first glimpse of Niall’s face.

Did Janowitz really spit on him? Jesus. He goes to wipe the wetness from his lip with the back of his hand. Pulling it away, his hand is streaked with blood. Even fucking better.

Festival security, otherwise known as one single man probably two years Niall’s junior wearing a pullover labeled SECURITY across the back, joins them at the scene of the disturbance and, without asking questions, immediately begins to usher Janowitz away, trailed by Luke and the girls. With his free hand, he motions to Niall, pointing towards the exit across the way.

“Out, fellas,” he orders.

While Niall nods because duh, of course they’re being kicked out, Janowitz complains like a child, protesting, “Come on, man, he started it!”

“This isn’t a bar, this is a community event! There’s no place for your violence. Don’t come back!”

This. This is why Z hates public events.

The guard sees both parties off at the gate, leaving them to their own devices. Niall, carrying Ari’s bag of pies for her, finds a napkin inside and uses it to blot at his nose. While Luke and Janowitz get into it with the guard over the grounds of their dismissal, Niall takes his punishment soundly and trails Ari and Olive to the pickup.

Standing outside the driver’s side, Ari sets Olive on the ground and looks at Niall. He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out, and even if it did, it would be choked on the blood-spotted napkin he holds to his face. But Ari’s not looking for an explanation – after a few moments, she reaches forward and pats down Niall’s pockets herself, hearing the jingle of his keys in the left pocket of his bomber. She grabs for them to unlock the truck.

It’s Niall who’s trembling now, not out of fear or anxiety but rage. And it’s not rage directed at his own assault, but rage that they’d target him at a public event, in front of other people, in front of his family. Olive is his, not his flesh and blood but his heart and soul, and for them to go after him in her presence is despicable. For Ari to have to see it, too… it’s too much.

Niall leans against the van next to his pickup and hisses at the feel of his tongue running over the scrape on his upper lip. It stings – it might swell, like the time Olive fell off her trike on the sidewalk a couple years ago and had to go into daycare with a fat lip. Z was shattered and barely let her climb the stairs unsupervised for a month afterwards. Something tells Niall Z won’t be quite as overprotective of him when he hears of what happened.

Ari takes care of Olive now, fishing a tissue from her bag to help Olive blow her nose, speaking softly and reassuringly in her ear, and then lifting her up into her seat in the truck. She buckles Olive in with a promise that they’ll be home soon and she’ll make her a cup of hot cocoa, because she saw some powder in the cabinet the last time she was over.

Even though she’s being so wonderful to Olive, Ari probably wants to scream at him. Niall doesn’t blame her. She probably wants an explanation, because in her world, it makes no sense that high school rivals would come back to haunt her well into her twenties. All of that stuff shouldn’t matter anymore, but in Tillson City, it does. It matters that they caught Niall on his knees in the locker room at seventeen with Matt Gray’s dick in his mouth. It matters that Gray, the starring quarterback of the Tillson City High Bobcats, was so distraught from his teammates walking in on his secret that his parents transferred him to a school in Charleston. It matters that Tillson City, 7 and 0 up until that point, didn’t make the playoffs because of a freshman quarterback entering midseason.

People don’t forget their own spin on these events, not around here, not ever. Niall will be Mickey’s age, wrinkled and dying from cancer, and he’ll still be known as the gay who sucked a straight guy’s cock so good the town lost the entire football season and every single season since.

With Olive safely in her carseat, Ari gives her what remains of her caramel apple and then faces Niall. He braces himself as she approaches, pushing himself off of the van and balling up the blood-soaked napkin in his fist. With her brows pulled together in a frown, she takes his cheeks in her hands and assesses the damage to his face. Niall cringes, embarrassed.

“It’s a split lip,” she says quietly. “The bleeding has stopped.”

He nods. As soon as she lets go of his face, he drops his chin to his chest and shakes his head. After a deep sigh, he lifts his head to meet her eyes. She stares at him with concern. But surely, she must be angry.

“I’m sorry, Ari,” he murmurs.

It’s her turn to shake her head as she wraps her arms around his neck. The last thing he sees is her pained expression before she presses a lingering kiss to his cheek. Confused, Niall freezes. Surely, she’s angry. Is this the calm before the storm? He glances to Olive, who sits calm in her carseat and looks on.

He tentatively hugs back when she keeps him in her arms, one hand on the back of his head as she whispers in his ear, “Are you okay?”

“Mm,” he agrees, momentarily allowing himself to shut his eyes and breathe. “Are you?”

“Yes.”

When she pulls back, she wears a resolved smile. It’s not altogether bright and it’s not altogether cheery, but dammit, it’s a smile of strength.

Gulping down his emotions, Niall approaches Olive in her carseat. She looks at him with a frown.

“’M sorry, squidge,” he says in a near-whisper, placing a hand on the other side of the seat. “I didn’t mean to scare you like that. I promise it won’t happen again.”

“Why was that man hurting you?” she asks, lower lip extending into a pout.

“We see things differently, that’s all,” Niall assures her. He wipes a stray tear from her cheek. “But it’s wrong to fight with your fists. You know that, right?”

She nods seriously, returning, “Do you know that?”

He cracks a smile. “I do know that. I just made a mistake.”

Olive takes the last bite of caramel apple in her mouth and says matter-of-factly, “When we get home, Baba’s gonna put you in a time out.”

.

Olive is right. Z puts him in a mental time out after Niall explains (with frequent interjections from Olive) what took place at the Harvest Festival. He stays mostly silent through dinner, nearly whispers a thank-you as Ari doles out the peach pie, goes outside to watch Olive while she plays with the kids down the street as Niall and Ari do the dishes, and then keeps his stare only on Olive as they sing her a bedtime song (Sweet Child o’ Mine is tonight’s pick, followed by the chorus – and just the chorus – of The Mighty Jungle).

Niall is no stranger to Z’s silence. When he forgot to pack Olive a lunch before sending her off to school, Z didn’t speak to him for two days unless absolutely necessary to exchange crucial information concerning Olive’s wellbeing. Back in college, when Niall thought Mel was taking Z out for his birthday, he went out with Liam and got absolutely shittered, missing all of Z’s calls and texts that he would meet Niall wherever he was – Z avoided contact with him for a week after that one, with band practice being especially salty. And then there was high school, when the football team caught him sucking off Matt Gray in the locker room. Z didn’t speak to Niall for nine days after that. Niall remembers clearly: nine whole days. Gray hated him, the football team hated him, the school hated him, and the town would soon hate him, but what sucked the most was that his best friend hated him, and Niall didn’t even know why.

And now he can feel it coming like a cloud casting a shadow: another frosty silence, another thick tension. When Z gets too upset with Niall, he can’t talk to him. He can’t even look at him. He needs to stew in his own thoughts for an extended period of time – hours, days, weeks – before he comes back to Niall on his own, ready to move on.

So, when Z doesn’t come back downstairs after his final goodnight to Olive, Niall doesn’t go looking for him even though his legs are itching to race up those stairs. Instead, he traps himself in his room, pacing back and forth from his nightstand to his dresser and occasionally bringing a hand up to brush his lip, to check the cut is still there, now swollen and hot. A melting ice pack sits abandoned on his nightstand, but Niall doesn’t care to use it. He feels ill and unsettled, his stomach a boiling swamp, bubbling and sloshing from side to side.

Ari slips into his room after a ten-minute nighttime yoga session and soundlessly shuts the door behind her. She’s so quiet that Niall doesn’t look back, doesn’t even sense her presence until he spins on his heel to walk back to his dresser and nearly smacks into her. Startled, he sucks in a breath and grinds to a halt.

“I can hear you walking in circles from outside the door,” she says. Though she snorts in amusement, her eyes portray genuine concern. “Take a breather. Sit down.”

Niall mutters an incoherent decline, but somehow, he ends up seated on the edge of his bed anyway.

Ari doesn’t crowd him. While he leans over his knees and lets his head fall to his chin, staring at the traitorous creaking hardwood that divulged his actions to Ari, she backs up to the empty wall and leans against it, hands behind her back.

After a long period of silence, she says, “You’re upset.”

“No, I’m not,” Niall lies, “I’m just—Z’s upset.” He sighs and hisses at the sting when his tongue touches the open wound on his lip. “He’s pissed at me. I just feel shitty.”

“It’s not your fault they went after you,” says Ari, confident yet gentle. “You reacted – you didn’t provoke.”

“I should’ve walked away.”

“You did,” she reminds him, “and you would’ve kept going, if Olive wasn’t with you. You didn’t want her to hear what they were saying… and they wouldn’t stop.”

Niall nods, slowly straightening his back until it’s at a ninety-degree angle to the bed and he’s able to look at her again. Why is she here? Not here in his room, but here in his life. He’s got nothing going on, no prospects, no plans – everything’s the same, day in and day out. Here’s this girl who’s looking for an awakening, an experience or a place or a person to shake her alive, to rattle the bones beneath her skin and charge her veins with electricity, and yet she chooses to sit with Niall in his bare, dingy bedroom in this boring, one-horse town while he obsesses over the past.

He’s a fucking idiot. He can’t offer her what she’s looking for, but he can offer more than this.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, cheeks pinking when his voice cracks.

“Stop saying that.” She chuckles. “I’m not upset with you about what happened. I’m only upset because you’re upset. You’re upset because Zayn’s upset. Zayn’s upset because Olive was upset. And Olive? She’s over it; she had a nice evening with her baba and she’s forgotten what happened. Situations like this… you just have to let go.”

There’s a reluctance in her expression that doesn’t match the certainty in her tone. Niall can guess what she’s holding back: it’s what’s been sitting heavy in the air between them ever since their run-in with Luke and Janowitz at the Harvest Festival. It’s what probably has her wondering the same thing as Niall, albeit for different reasons: what she’s doing here, in this house, with this man, when she could be anywhere else.

Hands on his knees, he stretches out and begins to stand. “What they were saying about me today,” he begins with resignation, “I don’t, I mean, I’m—”

“Shh.” Ari holds up a hand to silence him. “You don’t have to say anything. It doesn’t matter.”

“Well, it does matter,” he counters, frustrated, “especially if they made you think—”

“They didn’t make me think anything,” she hastily interrupts, “except that I’m really glad you started talking to me that night at the bar, because if I’d had to make real conversation with Luke… I mean, he’s such an ass.” She releases a breathy laugh.

Niall pauses to read her face. She doesn’t shirk from his gaze or flush; rather, she widens her eyes, just as intent on searching his expression to ensure he understands her.

He takes a step forward, the floorboard creaking under his feet. “You don’t believe them?”

She shakes her head definitively. “I believe what you tell me,” she assures him, “not what anyone else tries to tell me about you. I don’t even care if it’s true.” Her shoulders slump, her back sinking against the wall. “If it’s relevant right now,” she says, gesturing to the space between them, “to this, whatever this is, then I’ll believe you if you tell me. Otherwise, I don’t care.” She gulps. Her eyes stray to the open window only for a second. Niall only has time to blink before her gaze is locked on his eyes, their eyes holding each other like an electromagnetic force. “They don’t influence my thoughts.”

“It’s not relevant,” Niall mumbles, though truthfully, he’s not sure. Tillson City society is fragile like domino infrastructure. With all the pieces so close together, even the slightest breeze affecting one single domino can cause the design to crumble until nothing’s left standing. But he lets that worry go, pushing it toward the edges of his mind as Ari’s image crowds the center. Niall takes another dubious step forward, and another, until he’s right in front of her, his eyeline only an inch above, her breath hitting his neck. Once in fists at his side, his fingers unfurl as his hands find her hips. “You should know, then,” he begins weakly, “that I’m really… fuckin’…” –he swallows— “into you.”

Her lips press into a shy smile, her fingers circle his wrists.

Niall uses his hold on her hips to pull her just a little bit closer. His movements are sure, his leg slotting between her thighs with confidence, but he trips over his own breath when he opens his mouth to speak again. “I, um… you’re funny, and smart, and real, and, um, really hot?” Ari’s once-coy smile spreads across her face until it stretches from ear to ear. She giggles. “And I just like being with you, and having you naked in my bed, and, um…”

He loses his train of thought and comes to a standstill, certain his cheeks are flamingo-pink as Ari’s giggles fill the silence. He drops his head, exhaling in surrender.

“Jesus,” he breathes, managing a chuckle, “I know this sounds insincere and contrived, but it’s not – not at all – I’m just, I’m not good at, like… verbal… stuff.”

“Of course not,” Ari laughs, “why would you be? It’s not like you write songs and articles for magazines.” Her hands loosen on his wrists and she trails them up his arms, finally hooking her arms over his shoulders so he can’t back away.

“That’s writing, though. With speaking, I’m garbage.”

Ari pecks him on the cheek. She winds her arms around his neck and trails her lips to his jaw, where, after a nibble, she murmurs, “It felt very unrehearsed, unlike your other performances.”

“Maybe. My mouth is better at doing other things.” With a short laugh, he tilts his head until he finds her lips. Their kiss is brief, lasting only until Niall’s swollen lip begins to sting. As he pulls away, he adds, “What I said, though… I didn’t pull it from nowhere. I do think all that stuff about you. And you should know that.”

Translating into words the flutters made by someone glued inside his chest has never been Niall’s forte, but perhaps it’s not Ari’s forte to receive feelings in words, either.

She nods. Her eyes flicker to his lips and back again. It’s difficult for her to swallow all of a sudden, and Niall fears he may have upset her until she says very quietly, almost in a whisper, “I believe you.”

Niall’s heart has always pointed him to people, and his feet have always done the travelling to close the distance between them. With Ari, for the first time, he feels a pull from her direction – like she’s thrown out a line that’s hooked him and she’s reeling him in as fast as he’s swimming towards her. And it’s strange to meet someone’s mouth earlier than he expected and to turn around to look for someone only to find them already at his side – strange, but so easy to fall into.

That night, as Ari rides him in the tangled sheets on his bed, the open window barely easing the stifling temperature in the room or their bodies, slick with sweat, Niall has to throw the back of his wrist to his mouth and bite down to keep from crying out. Ari tries to pull him up, to get him to straighten his back and seat her in his lap so he can use her shoulder to silence himself, but he’s too boneless, too breathless from the way he feels inside her, the way she opens up for him and fits him better than his best pair of jeans, so he collapses on his pillow and pulls her down with him, not even aware of the sting in his lip as she kisses him quiet when he makes his final thrust up into her.

Afterward, with the setting sun a perfect glowing semicircle through the window above the bed, Niall throws on a pair of boxers, sits cross-legged atop the crumpled bedsheets, and reaches for his guitar. Ari curls up on her side, tucks her hands between the mattress and her cheek and watches him with the kind of adoring eyes that never stare back at him, not in any crowd he’s ever played for. It reminds him of Olive’s eyes, though he can’t be sure – she’s only ever directed that kind of stare at Z.

He only plucks at strings, and he only hums the melodies. It’s enough to have Ari drifting back to sleep, her eyes struggling to widen further than slits. When he sets down the guitar and moves off the bed to get his jeans, she sighs.

“I’m getting up,” she promises, low and groggy. “Thirty more seconds.”

Niall grins at her absolute lack of commitment to being awake as he pulls his jeans up to his hips and buttons them. In fact, her eyes are sealed shut, confirmed by Niall when he waves his hand several times in front of her face and she fails to react at all.

Once he pulls a fresh t-shirt over his head, accompanied by a button-down plaid, he crouches by the bed and pokes her lightly in the nose.

“I’m getting up,” she repeats. This time, she doesn’t even open her eyes.

He laughs below his breath. “Keep sleeping,” he murmurs. “It’s okay.”

“You’re going to work.”

“Yeah. I’ll be back at midnight or so.”

It’s only a little over three hours. They’ve never done this before – he’s never left her or returned to her sleeping soundly in his bed, but he likes the idea of it. He hasn’t suggested it for fear of scaring her, because he’s not really sure what the boundaries are and doesn’t know where to begin to test the waters between them, but right now, with Ari as good as asleep and Niall with no other choice but to hop into his pickup, it seems like a good time to try.

To his dismay, her eyes open slightly, forming half-moon slits crinkling into a frown. “I can stay?”

He nods, his chin resting on the mattress near her face. “I don’t mind.”

“Okay.” Her eyes drift shut again. Her facial muscles relax into something more peaceful almost instantly.

Well. That was easier than he thought.

“Wake me up when you’re home,” she adds.

“I will,” he agrees. He’s lying.

Niall hesitates in his squat for a few moments, wondering if it’s okay to kiss her or tuck a piece of hair behind her ear or whisper that she looks very, very beautiful right now, but instead he gulps and stands up, because he doesn’t want to risk ruining any part of this.  

He shuffles quietly around the room, cringing when the floorboards creak beneath him, gathering his wallet and keys and gently placing his guitar in its case and closing the latches. With his hands full, Niall pauses at his door to glance at Ari one last time: her hair is fanned across his pillow, her arms curled to her chest as she sleeps. He frames that image of her in his mind before he slips through the door and closes it carefully behind him.

He turns to find Z in the living room, the TV on low. Z’s eyes are fixed to Niall and on the door behind him. He must know, whether he heard them or not, that Ari is beyond that door.

Niall neither confirms nor denies this. Instead, with his swollen lip and the fleeting thought that hopefully Luke and his gang will have somewhere else to go after the game tonight, he mutters a goodnight to Z and lets himself out.

If Z says anything in return, Niall doesn’t hear him.

.

On weekends, Niall hardly ever wakes with the sun. He shuts his blinds and buries his head under his pillow to cloak himself in darkness until his body can’t possibly sleep anymore.

The morning after Ari spends the night, Niall’s eyes open to the faint rays of morning light shining over the horizon, creeping around the side of the house and into his bedroom. In truth, it’s not the sun that rouses him – it’s his bladder. It’s a water balloon ready to burst. With a wince of discomfort, Niall’s quick but mindful of Ari sleeping next to him as he removes himself from the bed and darts out of the door.

He exits the bathroom feeling weightless with relief, and even though there’s a prominent ache in his fat lip and the light of the morning sun is too harsh in his eyes, he feels good. The house is quiet, the sky is clear, and Ari is in his bed exactly where he left her.

At least, she was. Niall comes to a halt in the doorframe to find the door wide open and the bed empty.

What?

A shuffling across the hall has him looking over his shoulder. Ari’s up and awake, moving from the living room to the front door to look through the screen and check the drive. Niall stands and watches her. Confused, her shoulders slump, and she turns slowly with her thumbnail between her teeth.

As soon as she spots him, her face brightens. With loose strands of hair falling from her side braid and Niall’s t-shirt falling off her shoulder, she bares all her teeth in a grin and makes her way toward him.

He’s the one she was looking for. She got out of bed to see where he’d gone, thinking he may have left. Niall’s feet lead him where his heart wants to go, but he can’t remember the last time another pair of feet led someone else after him.

When Ari’s close enough, Niall hooks an arm around her neck, helping her to right the t-shirt on her shoulders before coaxing her back into his bed.

.

Niall finds a suspicious flyer on the counter mid-month. With Ari at work and then having dinner with Rosen and Jackson, there’s nothing stopping Niall from confronting Z as soon as he can get him alone without Olive in the room.

“So, uh… what’s this?” Niall asks, tea towel slung over his shoulder and hands sudsy with soap from dinner’s dirty dishes. He points vaguely to the flyer for before- and after-school daycare.

“What?” asks Z, eyes following Niall’s finger to the ad. While he cleans up the place settings on the table, he shrugs. “Oh, that. My mom said they stuck the flyer on her windshield while she was shopping in town the other day.”

“So she gave it to you?”

“Yeah.”

Niall nods, turning back to the sink and grinding his teeth. “What did you tell her?”

“I just said thanks, is all.”

“Huh.” Niall might begin to scrub the pasta pot a little bit too hard, but that’s not his primary concern.

“What?” Z stops cleaning to straighten his back. Niall feels his glare on the back of his neck even if he can’t see it.

“Why’ve you kept it so long? You thinkin’ about it?”

“I dunno.” Z sighs. “Look at the address. The daycare center is two blocks from my office. I could drop her off and pick her up on my way every day, and if something happens, I couldn’t be closer.”

Niall glances again at the flyer to confirm that yes, the center is close to Z during the day. “But, uh… what about me?”

“What about you?” Z must have known the conversation was heading in this direction, but to his credit, he keeps his cool. “You’ve got other things to do, two jobs to work. You don’t need to be Olive’s babysitter, too.”

“I’m not her babysitter, I’m—” Niall forces himself to shut up in the middle of speaking when he realizes he’s nearly growling. Instead, he abandons the soapy pot in the sink and rinses his hands, turning to face Z while he dries them on the tea towel across his shoulder. “You know that’s why I’m here. I made my schedule the way it is to account for Olive, always. Why would you send her to daycare if I’m here to watch her?”

Z shrugs again, his expression neutral. “Maybe it’s time for a change. They say kids should be social, spend time with other kids, and Olive doesn’t have siblings, so… this makes sense. It could be good for her.”

“She goes to school, though. She plays with kids on the block.”

“Yeah, well, now she’ll meet new kids. Have even more friends.”

“How you gonna afford it?”

“I just will.”

Niall screws up his face, holding his hands at his sides until he lets them fall. “You just will?”

It’s Niall’s cynicism that sets Z off, causing him to drop the placemats on the table and approach the counter. “Yeah, I just will,” he retorts. “She’s my daughter; I need to make sure she’s taken care of. I don’t care what it costs, I’ll make it work. I just will.”

“What the hell, Z?” Niall cries, flaring up in anger instead of simmering. “You were gonna do this without even telling me? One day I’d wake up and you’d be loading her into the car to drop her off at daycare?”

“I’m just thinking about it, Jesus.” Z huffs. “It’s a thought, that’s all.”

“Why is it a thought now when it’s never been a thought before?”

“Because things change! I have to do what’s best for my daughter.”

Niall shakes his head in exasperation. He takes a moment to calm himself with a breath before saying to Z in a voice that’s soft and near a plea, “Don’t take her away from me. You know she’s mine, too.”

Z, normally affected by the mood of others around him, doesn’t settle at Niall’s tone. Instead, he bites back, “She’s not yours.”

Niall physically recoils, stung. Still quiet, he adds, “I love her.”

“Who?”

That does it. Niall hopes Olive has her door closed while she plays quietly upstairs, because he slams his hand down at the counter, blue eyes blazing. “Olive,” he spits. “I fucking adore her, Z, you know I’d do anything to protect her, to make her life better. You’re just being spiteful.”

“Get over yourself. You think this has anything to do with you?”

“How could it not?” Niall cries. “All along, we said we’d try to get by without daycare, now after Trisha hands you one fuckin’ flyer you’re sold?”

“It wasn’t one fuckin’ flyer!” Z barks. “We’ve been talking, okay? Talking about where to go from here, how to make sure Olive gets everything she needs.”

“What does she need that she doesn’t have? Tell me!” Niall demands.

“Stability! Routine. She doesn’t need to be around doped-up Mickey one day and then going pony riding at an out-of-town festival the next. She needs to be with kids her own age, doing age-appropriate things, for fuck’s sake.”

Niall’s nostrils flare. Fuming, he says, “So it is about me.”

“It’s about her. It’s always about her. Every fucking thing I’ve done in the past five years has been about her.”

“So now you’re the martyr.”

“No, I’m the father. Fuck, Niall! Grow up. Recognize that I don’t have time to pick up girls at bars and show them around town. Recognize that I put in my time at work every day to provide for my family and then I come home and put in time with my daughter. That’s my life – it’s not yours.” He snorts. “It’s very clearly not yours.”

“Oh, come on. Just because you think being celibate is the only way to go, doesn’t mean it is. Don’t you get lonely? Don’t you ever want someone? I’m not a villain just because I’m hanging out with someone new.”

“Fucking someone new,” Z corrects him.

Niall throws his head back, caught between a laugh and a snarl. “I don’t need your approval to date, or to sleep with anyone, or to do anything involving my own love life. You made it clear you don’t want a part in it.”

“Actually, you do need my approval,” Z counters, to Niall’s incredulity, “when you’re bringing your fuckmate around my house to interact with my daughter. Jesus, Niall! You didn’t even think before you brought Ari ‘round to meet Olive, and then all of a sudden, she was just here. All the fucking time. Do you not understand how fucked up that is, how damaging it can be to a five year-old?”

“Olive loves Ari, and vice versa.”

“Yeah, and what if she leaves? Let alone if you two have a falling out, but what if she actually leaves? She’s from Long Island; you know she’s not here forever. And then what? Olive feels forgotten, like she doesn’t even matter to this woman she started to love. Did you even think about that, Niall? No, of course you didn’t, because you’re not her father. You were thinking about getting laid.”

Niall bites his lip, still swollen from the Harvest Festival, no longer able to look at Z. He looks at his fingers instead, tapping angrily on the countertop. Voice calm and even, he says, “You jealous? Is that what this is?”

“Fuck off,” Z spits, “this has nothing to do with that.”

“Oh, really? Timing seems pretty convenient.”

“Timing seems pretty damn late if you ask me. You wanna do this forever?” Z asks, throwing up his arms and gesturing to the world around him. “Live here with me and my daughter, never having your own life? You want this?”

“This is your dad talking,” Niall accuses him.

“Yeah, well maybe he’s right!” Z shouts. With a growl of frustration, Z sinks into a kitchen chair. He runs a hand through his hair, eyes falling to the table in surrender. “You don’t need this, Niall,” he croaks. “This is my life. This is what I have to do because of the choices I made, not you.”

He looks up, begging Niall to meet his eyes, but Niall won’t. He can’t, because Z’s last thought is going to ruin him, he knows it.

Niall’s heart sinks into his ribcage as Z speaks again, asking him the one question he once thought he had an answer to: “So what the hell are you still doing here?”

.

The television wakes him in the middle of the night. Niall’s eyes flutter open slowly, adjusting to the faintest hint of light streaking in through the crack between his door and the frame. The kitchen lighting is harsh, and the way the single ray of grating light falls upon Ari’s sleeping form in the darkness does no justice to how peaceful she looks when she sleeps. Niall prefers the moonlight for that – for when he gets home after performing at Sherman’s or for when he wakes, due to a sudden noise or his own body alarm, in darkness and watches her sleep, chest rising and falling, soft breaths escaping, one hand usually tucked underneath the pillow to keep it warm.

Ari doesn’t know that she’s a comfort to him when she sleeps. Just having her near, calm and still next to him, lulls him back into slumber. It gives him the sense that things are Okay, and maybe they’re not Okay in the sense that Ari talks about when she talks about being Okay, but they’re Niall’s type of Okay – and it’s an Okay he didn’t quite recognize he was missing until Ari crawled under his blankets and cuddled up to him in the night.

Tonight, it’s the sound of gunshots that wake him. He comes to slowly. His arm drags over Ari’s waist, covered only by a thin sheet, to rub his eyes. A film shrouds his vision, a haze of sleep. He cranes his neck over his shoulder to check the time: half past two in the morning. Carefully, he extracts himself from Ari, gently pulling his arm out from underneath her neck and sliding his shin out from where it rests between hers. With a deep yawn that conquers his chest, he rolls to his back and considers staying there, in bed, where it’s hot and comfortable and the person next to him wants him there.

Outside his door, shouts come from the television, followed by more turmoil – machine guns or cannons and many very loud engines. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think Z was trying to wake the whole house. Niall does know better, but a part of him remains curious if Z doesn’t want to be alone. If, perhaps, he’d welcome company, if that company were Niall.

Niall peels the sheet from his body like a bandage, torturously slow in anticipation of the sting of cool air. Lifting himself from the mattress is another story: he cringes as he stands on his feet and the mattress lifts. He knows from having her in his bed for many nights now that Ari’s neither a particularly heavy nor a particularly light sleeper, but he doesn’t want to take a chance waking her and won’t dare ask himself why.

Tiptoeing across the carpet, he grabs a t-shirt flung over the chair and throws it over his head before slowly turning the doorknob, opening the door only as far as it takes for him to slip outside. It closes soundly behind him.

The kitchen lighting, white and unfriendly, makes him squint, and he unfolds his glasses and pushes them up his nose in the hopes they’ll help. They don’t, so he makes his way over to Z – sitting on the couch in the living room with only a single lamp illuminated, yolky light warm and enticing – while rubbing his eyes underneath the lenses and blinking fiercely.

They don’t greet one another. Z’s eyes shift from the screen to watch him approach, wearing just a pair of pajama pants while Niall’s scrawny chicken legs are exposed in boxers and a t-shirt, but he neither invites him closer nor turns him away.

Niall doesn’t bother pretending he’s conflicted over where to sit. He ignores the armchair and walks straight to the charcoal couch, picking up a cushion next to Z because it’s in the way of where he wants to sit. As soon as he sinks down, toes curling into the fuzz of the rug and hip knocking against Z’s, he hugs the cushion to his chest. He likes his hands to be busy, and the cushion is something to hold.

Z’s got some black-and-white documentary on TV, something about Franklin Roosevelt and Pearl Harbor. Niall barely registers the fighter jets zipping about in the sky dropping bombs on an entire island. His eyes see the images but his mind sees nothing.

“Is Ari here?” Z murmurs. He releases the remote in his hand in favour of slinging his arm across the back of the couch behind Niall’s head.

Niall nods, eyes affixed to the screen. A bomb spirals through the sky and torpedoes into a ship. He hugs the pillow tighter.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Z adds. His gums make a squishy, wet sound when he parts his lips and runs his tongue below his teeth. “Olive crawled into my bed after a bad dream, so once she fell back asleep I came down here.”

Niall hears every word, though his eyes barely flicker in acknowledgement.

Z brings the sole of his foot to the couch, his knee tucked to his chest. Fingers graze the back of Niall’s neck, tickling the hairs there. “You okay?”

Finally, Niall gives in and looks at him. It’s been a few days since he’s shaved and black stubble lines his jaw. The facial hair gives Z a refined, mature look, with none of the patchiness and fuzz that defines Niall’s struggle. Niall hadn’t noticed it before tonight because, he realizes, it’s been a while since he’s seen Z up-close. They’ve crept around one another for days now, ever since their blowout over the daycare flyer, both too proud to offer concessions to one another over the quarrel yet both ashamed for the way it dissolved into stiff silence.

Z’s brows are furrowed in concern and his gaze roams Niall’s entire face, from his chin to his nose to the still-visible lump on his lower lip. Stuck on a certain spot on Niall’s head, Z focuses on the blond tips of hair fading to brown, curling an arm around Niall’s shoulders and using his hand to fix the bedhead. Niall struggles not to shut his eyes and give into the feeling of his head being scratched but, like a dog, he’s powerless to fingers in his hair.

Z knows that.

“Thirsty?” Z mumbles, trying again to elicit a response. Niall shakes his head, just once, while Z massages the back of his head. “Could make you some tea,” he offers. “Get you a glass of water, if you want.”

Niall declines nonverbally. He keeps his eyes closed and fades into a dreamlike state. Z’s voice is musical, even when he’s not singing, and the one place Niall’s always felt at home is in music. For a moment, he allows himself the fantasy that he’s a priority to Z, that Z will take care of him, that Z loves him like he loves Olive or like he once loved Mel. The dream spikes a pleasure center somewhere in him so that he feels like he’s almost floating, cocooned in heat from within. He sinks into Z, into the warmth of his bare chest and the soft scruff of his jaw, and even though he tilts his head to one side in a silent plea for Z’s fingers to run through the hair near his ear, he won’t let himself fall asleep.

This is so easy, this routine. So comforting to sit with Z and not have to speak a word. So reassuring to feel the heat of his body and his pulse steady beneath his skin. So beautiful for the few moments he allows himself to pretend they’re each other’s, in the hazy glow of late night TV while the crickets chirp through the open window screen.

But in the morning, it’s always the same. In the morning, they’re friends, co-parents, cohabitants of a residence. That’s all they are. It’s a lot, but it’s not enough.

Niall’s waited for him for so long, hanging onto any shred of hope Z gives him in the night, and it’s led him nowhere. Same old town, same old job, same old empty bed. Z could meet someone he clicks with or he could move Olive to Charleston when he transfers to his dad’s office. Gramps and Gram still live with the sadness of a runaway daughter, but they’ll leave Niall before he leaves them. And then that’s it. Niall’s on his own.

Everyone he loves, everyone for whom he’d take a bullet and bleed dry, can’t be trusted to stay in his life. And when they go – by finding another love or by succumbing to death – he has no backup. No reason to stay, no reason to keep the life he leads.

Niall allows himself a moment of self-pity in which he dumbly decides he loves everyone more than they love him. But, as Z attentively strokes his hair, Niall knows it’s unfair to think that way. He’s felt love all through his life and has never had to look far for advice, comfort, support. Maybe it’s just that he loves people differently. He hinges every part of himself onto the ones he loves. His feet listen to his heart, and his heart is Z and Olive. Gram and Gramps. He goes where they go, no questions asked. To go elsewhere would be to separate his heart from his own body.

But where does that leave him? Twenty-five years old with half of a college degree in music, back in the same town he and Z promised they’d escape from when they were teens. It wasn’t as long ago as Niall would like to pretend it was.

His stomach flips uneasily. Niall takes that as a sign to dislodge himself from Z’s side, to stand up and peel off his glasses. The war documentary is nothing but a grey blur now, but Niall hears the pelt of bullets as he runs a hand through his hair, roughly moving it back and forth to mess it up and forget Z’s fingers were ever there. Z doesn’t say a word as Niall leaves the room and flicks off the harsh kitchen light. As Niall slips back into his bedroom, he can only make out Z’s figure sitting in the same position on the couch, Niall’s cushion now pulled close to his body. But Niall can feel his stare. He doesn’t have to see it clearly to know it’s fixed on him as he disappears from view.

He climbs back into bed just as carefully as he’d climbed out of it. As he covers his body with the bedsheet, he pulls it up over Ari’s shoulders to keep her warm. Then he turns his back to her and curls up on his side, the red glow of his bedside digital clock burning into his pupils. His hands are restless and empty, yearning for something to hold.

Ari’s sharp intake of breath alerts him that he’s woken her by mistake. She shifts on the mattress, her arm skating behind her back to feel for him. Her palm lands on his thigh.

“Did you leave?” she murmurs, voice groggy with sleep.

Niall doesn’t cover her hand with his under the blankets. Toying with the fabric on his pillowcase, he quietly returns, “Where would I go?”

Because that’s the question, isn’t it?

She rolls over. He feels the dip of the mattress as she sidles up behind him. He feels her lips press a kiss to his shoulder. He feels her hitch her thigh over his waist, her hand sliding over his chest and settling around his middle, her heartbeat thumping, only for a few seconds, against his shoulderblade. She holds him.

He lets her.

.

Ari’s meant to stay the night one Thursday evening, but Rosen phones her with what she insists is a “wedding emergency” and comes to pick her up shortly after eight o’clock. She instructs Ari to be ready and waiting on the front stoop, so Niall goes out, barefoot in the late summer mugginess, to sit with her on the steps until her ride arrives. They giggle and murmur and kiss as the sun goes down, fingers interlaced and hearts thrumming. When the Honda Civic approaches on the road, Niall stands, pulls Ari to her feet, and holds her cheeks in his hands as he kisses her long and slow and deep, sealing their mouths together for several seconds until he has to let her go.

As Ari moves to get in the car, Niall waves politely at Rosen behind the wheel. She offers a bewildered stare in return.

Then they’re gone, and Niall stands with his hands in his black denim pockets to watch the little car zip down the street and turn the corner, lost in the dark. He swivels on his heel and heads inside, shutting the door quietly behind him and turning the lock. The silence on the main floor incites a crease in his forehead. With Z’s soft, melodic voice floating down the stairs, Niall’s frown deepens.

Did Z start Olive’s nighttime song without him?

He takes the stairs two at a time, hurried but light, and by the time he reaches the landing, he recognizes the tune. Z’s voice glides easily across the range, singing in tune with the small keyboard he uses to occasionally supplement Niall’s guitar.

There’s a part of Niall that wants to storm into Olive’s room, exclaim that he’ll go grab his guitar and they can start over. But there’s another part of him that exists, and no matter how deeply it’s buried, it’s stronger: it wants to listen, to observe, like Ari does at night when she watches them play. Niall wants to be a fly on the wall, and he’s not sure why.

“And the songbirds keep singing like they know the score… but I love you, I love you, I love you like never before.”

He doesn’t know what he’s looking for until he peers around the corner and it hits him like a slap in the face, a cannon ball to the gut, a hand reaching into his chest and squeezing his heart until all the blood drains and he’s left with nothing but a shell of an organ.

Keyboard in his lap, Z plays chords to the song he knows off by heart, with Olive tucked up against his side and staring up at him like he hung the moon. Her big, brown eyes are wide and inspired, in awe of her father because he’s the man who can do anything, the one she loves most. Z’s face is warmed with a smile, and he stares right back at her because in his world, she is all that exists, she is the sun that his Earth must travel around in order to remain in the light.

This is their moment, not his. And maybe every night before this one has been their moment and Niall’s been just an accessory, a third wheel, a temporary addition to the real duo.

His heart wants him to watch, because it’s captivating and sweet and just how it should be, but this time his mind wins and he physically tears himself away, using his palm to push himself off of the doorframe and blinking his eyes, hard, to erase the image burned on the back of his eyelids.

Z and Olive are fine as long as they have each other.

But, Niall thinks forlornly, he needs them, too.

[riverdale-jugheadjiii]

I'm sick ( Reader X Jughead )

Reader X Jughead

Request: yes

Warning: topic about a disease

A/N: TO ANYONE SUFFERING WITH ANYTHING! You will be strong okay, YOU WILL FIGHT AND ILL BE HERE IF YOU NEED ANYTHING! I’m sorry if anyone suffering with The disease that’s in the story and I didn’t describe it as it is. Because no one will know how to describe such a terrible thing unless it’s the person going through it. Once again to anyone going through any problems , illness or disease. I’m here for you at any time ♥️♥️ Once again I’m sorry for any mistakes.♥️ —-

Sunday was yet another normal day, everything was going great.. Well that’s till I started noticing a small circular rash around the area of my left rib. I didn’t think much about it, just thought it was an allergic reaction or something, I added a rash cream and went on with my day to see My best friend Jughead at Pop’s.

When I had arrived at pop’s and sat down with Jughead everything was pretty much normal. When I say normal, I mean it’s quite. Jughead and I sit at our spot and order our milkshakes and drink them away

“( Y/N/N), what do you say we go enjoy the river and swim?”

I of course agree because it’s summer and basically we’re the only ones left from our group that didn’t take a road trip with our families. Right after our milkshakes Jughead and I agreed to meet at the river in about an hour, that way we get the stuff we need and I make some sandwiches for lunch. When I arrived home, I removed my clothing and was just about to grab my two-piece swimsuit but remembered the red spot that was visible. Changing my mind I wore my one piece bathing suit and dressed in a shirt and shorts , and quickly headed down to make the sandwiches.

Once I was done with everything I grabbed my bag with food, extra outfits, towels and sunscreen and i ran out the door like I was sonic the hedgehog. When I arrived to the river I noticed Jughead just arriving too, thank God. “Juggie, why on earth don’t you have a bag with your extra outfit and why do you still have your beanie crown still on, you’re going to get it wet!”

“(Y/N/N) please I know you well enough knowing you’ll bring me a towel and extra outfits that I leave in your room, besides this crown reminds me that I’m king.” Jughead smiles at me knowing that I didn’t exactly just that.

“ you know Juggie what if I didn’t bring anything, what would you do?”

“(Y/N) I know you, you’re just so caring. Any guy would be lucky to have you… and when I say any I mean ANY, including me.”

After those words i could feel my cheeks turning pink because God knows how much I have a crush on Jughead. Anyway I ignore his comment and walk to the side of the river and lay down the towel and basket, remove my outfit and get inside warm water of the river.

“JUGHEAD JONES HURRY UP AND GET IN THE WATER!” I shout from the top of my lungs because jughead looked like he was dreaming for a second. After my call jughead walks into the water and slowly swims towards where I am, during that Process He slowly starts to lower himself into the water until only his nose and eyes are the only things showing. I start to swim away because I don’t even know what he’s about to do, but before I can completely get away Jughead pulls my hand toward him and I’m now stuck with both of his arms around me.

“Juggie, don’t you dare push me down!” I wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his hips because if he plans on taking me down, he’s going down with me.

What I didn’t think or expect was that Jughead would end up gripping my waist and pulls me closer towards him till our chests are basically touching.

“ I actually like this position, for once you’re actually relying on me.”

“Juggie, I’m only holding on to you because if I die you’re dying with me… I’m not gonna let you be the Cheryl Blossom here while I’m Jason .” I joke with him

“ Look at you using sardonic humor on me.”

“ What can I say, I’ve learned from the best… Yup I knew I was a great teacher for myself.” I laugh at my own joke but notice Jughead is just looking at me. Before I can speak and ask what’s wrong, Jughead’s lips crash onto mine and I automatically kiss him back because once again I HAVE A FUCKING CRUSH ON HIM!

We kiss for a couple of seconds more until we both pull away with the sound of a ‘Pop’. Due to Jughead and I being one of the most awkward people on earth, we shy away and swim back to shore and act as if nothing just happened. By the time it’s time to leave we both have changed and picked up our things, Jughead offers to walk me home because in his words “ no one has found the killer yet so it’s safer if I walk you home.”

Once we reached my house, still I feel all fuzzy but don’t mention anything. Jughead on the other hand thought differently.

“(Y/N), I was wondering… umm I’ve been meaning to ask you out but wasn’t sure if you liked me, but after that kiss which you kissed me back. I was umm wondering if I could, i don’t know take you out on a date? I mean if you don’t want too it’s okay, but I would like it if you would.” Jughead jumbles his words as he asks me out.

“Jughead I would love to go out with you, how about Tuesday?”

He quickly nods without any hesitation. I smile and kiss his cheek and wish him a safe walk back home. I close my door and hear a small “Yes” from the other side. With a smile on my face I walk to my bathroom, shower and get ready for bed.

It’s currently Monday but I’m not feeling well, actually I’m feeling terrible. I noticed the small spot by my rib area has doubled in size and my muscles are aching me. I tell myself it was probably from the swimming yesterday and that this red spot is just an allergic reaction to something. I go on with my day and talk to Jughead on the phone for hours and don’t mention anything to him regarding my pain… it’s 7 p.m. and it’s time for me to eat with my family.

“ Mom, my joints are hurting me and I have this weird red spot by my rib area.” I inform my mom after dinner. She tells me to show her the spot and when she saw it she said it was probably an allergy or a mosquito bite. After my mother’s clarification I walk to bed and once again think that another day passed and all I can hope for is that tomorrow the pain leaves and I’ll be able to enjoy my date with Jughead.

It’s officially Tuesday the day which I’ll have my date with Jughead. My joints still hurt me and my spot is still the same size, which I think is good considering it didn’t get bigger. It’s only 3 in the afternoon but I know I have a lot of getting ready. When I’m done with everything for my date I notice that it’s 6 and that Jughead will be arriving to walk us to the one and only Pop’s. Just as I thought of that the doorbell rings indicating he’s here. I skip to get my purse but I end up feeling a great ache on my knee joint, I hiss a bit but walk it off and walk down to greet Jughead.

When i reach down the stairs and open the door, I notice Jughead standing there with his usual S shirt but layered with a blazer and his little crown. “You look beautiful (Y/N).”

I blush and close the door behind me. “ you don’t look so bad yourself Jones the third.”

After the date, Jughead asked me to be his Girlfriend and obviously I had to have fun with this moment

“ I don’t know Juggie, I’ve always wanted a crown and I’ve always like your crown.”

“Well you can’t have mine, this is my beanie crown , only the king wears this one. The queen must wear something else. ”

“Well then Jughead, this just won’t workout I should have let you drown in the river.”

Jughead quickly removes his beanie and puts it on my head. I laugh and nod my head agreeing to be his girlfriend. To say that was my best night in my life is an understandable.

— Two days have past since I’ve agreed to be Jughead’s girlfriend.. two days have passed since I was admitted into the hospital. After Jughead dropped me off home, my body and head were in so much pain that I had completely fainted. My parents walked in finding me passed out on the floor which is when I was sent to the hospital. The red spot has spread around my body and my joints are practically as hard as a rock. After countless of tests and checkups The doctor has diagnosed me with Lyme Disease,the doctor told me that living life would be a bit difficult from now on. He said I would have the good days when everything is fine and the bad days when I would be in this room with medication.

After the fourth day of me being in the hospital and countless of lies to Jughead I guess he had to take matters into his own hands and look for me.

“(Y/N) why didn’t you tell me?”

I stay quite and play with my hands. “(Y/N) (Y/L/N) I said why didn’t you tell me? Why did you lie to me? How long has this been going on?” He raises his voice and walks closer to me.

“ Because Jughead, what do you want me to tell you? ‘ oh hey Jughead I’m sick and I’m in pain,anyway; how’s your day?’ I didn’t want to worry you okay! It started the day we went to the river, I didn’t think it was anything but the day after I started to feel pain. After our date I just fainted and I’ve been here ever since..” I try to keep my eyes away from him.

“(Y/N) you were exactly supposed to tell me you’re here! I’m your best friend and boyfriend! I should be helping you, just like the way you helped me during my bad times when I had no one, back to the times I would hate myself because I never fit in and back to the times I felt unloved by my own family! Now it’s my turn to be there for you.” He walks over to my resting bed and grabs my hands.

“ Jughead you don’t understand! this isn’t like any of your situations, this will go on for God knows how long! There will be times when I’ll be perfectly fine and the next when I’ll be in the room attached to all these needles unable to move a bone in my body! I’m sick, and I’m not going to get any better any time soon.”

“(Y/N/N) and that’s why I’m going to be there the whole way! The whole way till you recover, the whole way till you smile and the whole way till I know that you won’t need me anymore

[twaaaaaa]

Update on athletics, goals and life in general

This post is long-winded, vulnerable and brutally honest. You’ve been warned.

So this season was a total bust.

I set out on the 2016-17 season with pretty clear goals: go less intense than last year, concentrate on just a few half-Ironmans and build up to an Iron in April at a pace that wouldn’t burn me out like what happened to me last year. Simple, right?

And then life got in the way.

For various reasons, I missed two half-Irons in the fall. (The first was a trade-off - cancel my vacation but take a promotion at work. The second was a missed flight.) No big deal, right? It’s a bit of missed momentum, but nothing that can’t be recovered from.

And then I just couldn’t bring myself to switch into Ironman mode. I couldn’t split my sleep schedule in two for three days a week, even though I was now working saner hours and regular weekends. I couldn’t wake up at 3:30 a.m. to run. I skipped the extra swimming sessions I promised myself I’d do. I didn’t feel that drive, that motivation, that hunger. I didn’t want to admit it to anyone, but I was burnt out.

It’s a weird thing to admit to myself even now. In theory, I still love triathlons. The community is wonderful and they’re a huge part of my identity. Race days still excite me. But just like injuries in endurance sports, burnout builds up over time and with repetition. I just couldn’t do the grind anymore.

And the burnout wasn’t just athletic. Life was getting in the way too - there was massive anxiety over my job, which turned out to have a good cause. In April the company I work for laid off almost half its staff and offered the rest of us contracts that were tough to swallow - and then gave us three days to decide on them.

Going through the buildup to the contract decision day made me realize something else: I don’t really have a support system left in Abu Dhabi. It’s a consequence of expat churn in a country of 89% expats, and the social instability that comes with it. One of the major challenges of the place is rebuilding your friend group every six months or so when your friends move to new countries or emirates, or just cycle out of your social circle in general. All the people I was talking with about the career anxiety were already overseas or expecting to leave the UAE this year anyway.

The other source of emotional burnout was the relationship side of my life. Without going into too many whiny details, there were three women who came into my life, sequentially within a few short months who independently made me think that finally, I had found someone I really liked who would turn into the kind of relationship I’d been hoping for. After nearly three years of being single and mostly dateless. And so I invested a lot of time and energy into each one, only to have things fall apart with them for reasons beyond my control. One had mental health issues and took herself out of the dating pool entirely, one had physical health problems and too busy a schedule, and one just went from full-throttle to ghost in the span of a week.

One massive disappointment like that I can handle and recover from. But three in a row hit, plus the existential anxiety about my job me hard and sent me to a bad place for a while. That was at the end of my usual UAE racing season, and by that time my training was so bad that I had downgraded my hopes for the post-season race to a half-Ironman a month later than the Iron would have been, and then just nothing at all. I don’t want to use the word depression, because it hasn’t been diagnosed by a doctor, but it was hard for me to get out of bed in the morning and I just shut down for a little while. My nutrition lapsed and I lost too much weight, which for me makes for a downward spiral. My boss even pulled me aside and told me he was concerned about my performance at work.

The expat life ain’t all sunshine and roses, despite what my Facebook feed makes it look like.

I managed to pull myself out of that spiral with a vacation and a visit from my parents. Nothing makes you get out of bed and scramble to get your life looking like it’s together like the fear of disappointing your mother. After they left I realized I had to do something to keep myself from sinking back into that same rut.

It started with the nutrition. I started planning a week of meals at a time and prepping them on the weekends. I know how losing weight from poor nutrition affects the rest of my life, so that was the clearest first step to get out of this funk.

And then April came with the contracts. I was offered one but found it unpalatable. It took me literally until the final hour to decide whether to take it, though, because it’s been four and a half years since I came here and being an expat in Abu Dhabi has become part of my identity. I went through a lot of soul searching, which could be the subject of another long post, and had a few serious what-if discussions. But in the end, I realized that the terms of the new contract would just exacerbate the problems that led to the rut I’ve found myself in these past few months, and cut off the ways I’ve been able to cope with them.

So I turned it down. My contract expires June 30. And since UAE residence visas are tied to employment, I’ll most likely be leaving the country and probably heading back to the US.

There’s one other major thing that happened as part of the contract decision. (Warning: more relationship complaints ahead.) There’s a girl back in my hometown who is everything I want in a girl. I’d been harboring a massive crush on her for years - by far bigger than anything else I’ve felt since the last breakup - but never made a move because I lived overseas and she either had a long-term boyfriend (complete with a joint mortgage and two dogs) or had broken up with the boyfriend and was still reeling. Still, we talk almost every day, spent all the free time we could together when I visit home and I’d seen some encouraging signs from her. Hell, when my parents came to visit she got up at 5 a.m. to buy a box of fresh donuts and drop them off with my parents so they could bring them to me on the plane. And it would have been more than a year since they had broken up by the time I got back to the US in August if I turned the contract down. Plus, the Tampa-St. Pete area where she lives is one of the places I’d like to find a job in.

I didn’t hang my decision on what she said, but I’d be lying to myself if I said it wasn’t a factor I had to consider. So I asked her what she thought. Unfortunately through text and not voice - I tried, but she literally fell asleep on me as I was about to bring the topic up. Snored and everything. I asked her if she would want to give dating me a shot this summer if I were to turn down the contract.

And she said no. She wasn’t attracted to me, she never had been and those donuts were something she’d do for any friend. And I was such a close friend to her that she didn’t want to risk messing up the friendship.

It hurt. God, did it hurt.

And it led to more soul-searching. I’ve always struggled with being the guy that girls love to keep around as a friend, that gets told that any girl would be lucky to have him, but never gets seen as an actual relationship prospect. Meeting people through Tinder or other dating apps helps with that, as it frames me as a romantic prospect in the girl’s mind from the get-go, but even after a few dates I usually ultimately get the same speech: “You seem like a great guy and I want to keep you as a friend, but I’m not attracted to you that way.”

This is not Nice Guy whining. The problem is not with the girls and their attitudes towards me. The problem is me, and whatever it is that doesn’t get them to see as boyfriend material.

To be brutally honest, I think one of the main factors in that predicament is looks. Something I’ve also struggled with for a long time. I don’t remember the last time I got complimented on the way I look, but I know it’s been years. Years. And there aren’t a lot of simple ways I can improve them anymore. I dress in clean, styled, well-tailored clothes. I have a haircut that I’m finally happy with and I keep current with my grooming. I even had Lasik, which got rid of the glasses and the tired eyes from contacts. Effort has certainly been made. And I don’t consider myself ugly - just not attractive.

But I’m still skinny, as is pointed out to me so many times per week. That’s what happens when most of the calories you consume are burnt up in long-distance endurance training and racing. And it’s been brought up as a factor in dating rejections. “I could never date a guy who weighs less than I do” is something I’ve heard a few times. The one that echoes, though, is from a fellow triathlete: “You don’t look athletic enough for me to be attracted to you. Now tell me how your Ironman went.”

The thing is, in long-distance running and cycling skinny means fast. It’s all about the power-to-weight ratio, and though I may not have much power I have even less weight, which makes me sleek and speedy, especially in the hot, flat places I race. That’s what I’ve tuned my body for over the past decade. God, it’ll be 11 years this weekend since I started riding seriously. And I’ve been skinny my entire life before that. Sure, I have leg muscles from all the cycling and running, but that doesn’t count for much.

And yeah, it’s shallow. But I’m in my 20s, where dating and relationships are still heavily influenced by looks and shallow aspects and everything else you notice on first and second impressions. I really do think that the combination of unassuming looks, introversion, aversion to drugs/alcohol and genial personality tip the balance toward the benign “he could be a great, caring friend” side of the scale as opposed to the “he could be a hot, loving boyfriend” side. But what would that scale look like if my looks went from unassuming to “wow, he’s hot.”

So let’s review where I’m at right now:

Dissatisfied with life. Possibly mildly depressed.

Burnt out from endurance training but still love the sport.

At a transition stage in life for the next six months. Belongings like sports equipment and clothing will be discarded or packed, and housing may change a few times.

Likely moving to an area where racing happens in the summer, not the winter like it does here.

Which means an awkward summer and fall where my normal endurance training is at a trough and everyone else is at their peak.

Likely moving to a new area, which means a whole different set of friends and potential dates.

Nutrition is actively managed with weekly prep sessions.

Solution to one of the main stressors likely involves changing myself physically, in a way I haven’t been able to because of endurance training.

Need a change.

Take all these factors together, stir them up and bake them for a few weeks of overthinking while on vacation and you get this:

Time to hit the gym.

For the past month I’ve been going down to my apartment’s gym three times a week and following the Starting Strength full-body routine. I haven’t ridden a bike or run or swam since February, apart from one crazy mountain bike race I did in Poland a few weeks ago. I’ve taught myself the basic lifts using Youtube and taking advice from a few friends who know about these things, and apart from that I’ve told almost nobody. I don’t intend to talk about it on Facebook either. I want to see who notices when I start to gain.

Because make no mistake, upper-body hypertrophy is the main goal here. There will be other benefits that hopefully will help in the long run, but first and foremost I want my shirts to not fit anymore. I want to stop poking extra holes in my watch bands. I want to catch people checking me out in the grocery store. I want to feel confident taking my shirt off at the beach or pool. I want to smile at myself in the half-length mirror in the morning.

I want people to think I’m hot. I want people to tell me I’m hot. I want to think I’m hot.

This doesn’t mean I’m taking up competitive bodybuilding or lifting. The long-term goal is still endurance sports. This move from cardio to the gym will last until winter, when it’ll be time for base miles and the start of the next (northern hemisphere) racing season. The goal is to be at the right weight and muscle mass by then, and then I’d focus on maintaining the gains while rebuilding endurance.

The gym should help in a few other ways. Having a stronger upper body will mean a much stronger swim, which has always been my weakest event. The core strength I’m looking to develop should help on longer bikes and runs. And I’m still working out my legs (even adding rotations on the leg machines, because my upper body can’t bear enough squatting weight to tire out my leg muscles yet), so the added strength there should help with technique stabilization and injury prevention.

This does mean I’ll lose cardio endurance, so I think realistically I’ll have to take a year or so to build up to half-Iron strength again, and two years to Iron strength. But my body knows what it’s like to have that much endurance already, and regaining is always easier than gaining for the first time.

Nutrition-wise, I’m ramping up the calories and shifting from a carb-based goal to a protein-based goal. I still have to drink my weight-gainer protein shake after I finish typing this up. My weight still fluctuates and I’m not always perfect in following my nutrition plan, but I’ve still weighed more this month than I ever have before. From age 16 until March my weight stayed mostly between 127 and 133 pounds, sometimes getting as high as 136. This month I hit 139 - so, so, close to the 140 mark. It’s down to 136.5 again now, but I hope to hit 140 on at least one day next month.

The gym focus also means I’ll be able to train consistently even as I move homes and do God-knows-what with my bikes and equipment. It’ll be good to have that kind of stability, even if I have to switch to bodyweight exercises for a bit.

It’s also refreshing to go back to the novice level. I’ve never gone consistently to the gym before, so I’ve had to teach myself everything. I had to figure out what my weight limits were, what exercises to do, what program to follow and even how to work some of the machines. I haven’t had to learn anything new in triathlon for years, by comparison. And I’m already making small gains.

I went to a triathlon team meeting for the first time in a while this weekend and opened up about the gym focus (though now all the reasons behind it). They were supportive and a few said I looked a little bigger - though that may have just been my clothing choice that day.

I’ll likely be leaving the UAE for good in July or August. It’s the middle of May now, which gives me about two months to gain enough to make an impression on those who last saw me in December. And six months until November kicks off the training season for 2018. This is new territory for me, so I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to grow by then.

But I know that I will be growing. I’ll be moving forward towards my goals.

And for endurance sports as well as life, momentum is a good thing.

(If you came here through Facebook, please don’t mention the relationship, job loss, country switching or gym focus on the comments about the post. I’m not keeping it a total secret, but I don’t want to broadcast it to the public yet.)

[drewsdailydose]

6 Simple Steps to Spring Clean Your Health

Spring has sprung! Let’s face it, winter can cause some unwanted changes to your body. Maybe you gained some stubborn body fat, lost precious muscle mass, or witnessed your golden tan fade away, but the truth is, not all changes can be seen externally. In fact, the most detrimental changes that happen to your body are internal. In this article, I’m going to share six science-based quick and easy tips to turn your health around in time for summer.

1. Get Some Sun

If you’re somebody who spends the winter months hibernating indoors and/or hiding behind layers of clothing, don't be surprised when I tell you that your body is experiencing some significant physiological changes that affect your overall health and well-being. As a result of the chronic sun deprivation, a couple of consequences occur: your Vitamin-D levels and UV tolerance plummet!

Even if you are getting some sunlight during the winter, you may not actually be producing much Vitamin-D after all. 
One study showed that the influence of season and latitude actually prevents the synthesis of Vitamin-D due to a reduction in both quality and quantity of UVB radiation reaching the earth’s surface during the winter months.

Spring is a perfect time to reverse these winter changes because the sun is far less intense than it is during summer, so you can afford to spend more time soaking it up without worrying about getting burnt. Use the spring months to slowly increase your UV tolerance. That way, you’ll be able to enjoy your first beach day of the summer without getting so sunburnt that you end up looking like a lobster.

Vitamin-D deficiency has been shown to increase the risk of developing a multitude of diseases such as cardiovascular disease, common cancers, autoimmune diseases, hypertension, and infectious diseases.

In an article published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the authors concluded:

 “The recommendation for the avoidance of all sun exposure has put the world's population at risk of vitamin D deficiency. This has become apparent in Australia, where a dramatic increase in skin cancer rates resulted in the promotion of never exposing the skin to direct sunlight without sun protection (i.e clothing or sunscreen). The so-called ‘sun-safe’ message has resulted in a marked increase in the risk of vitamin deficiency in Australia.”

All you need is 5-30 minutes of direct sunlight per day (depending on your skin pigmentation, time of day, and age) to stimulate adequate Vitamin-D production. Direct means no clothing and no sunscreen! Sunscreen blocks the beneficial UV rays that are responsible for stimulating Vitamin-D production.

Research suggests that you should aim to get your daily dose of sunlight between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. when the sun is powerful enough to get the job done. If you are somebody who burns easily, see how much direct sun exposure you can get away with before getting burnt. The key is not to burn. You may need to apply safe sunscreen after a period of time. That’s right, many sunscreens contain unsafe chemicals that get absorbed into the bloodstream. Do your research. 

Considering that sunlight has both positive and negative health effects, the key is to maximise the benefits (Vitamin-D production) whilst minimising the damage (sunburn-induced cellular/DNA damage). 

Take your lunch break outdoors, roll up your sleeves or take off your shirt - but please don't be afraid to soak up some precious sunshine! 

2. Go Barefoot

Do you spend the entire winter season wearing shoes? If so, you’re doing more damage to your health than you even realise, not just physically, but physiologically too! 

Chronic footwear can be compared to wearing a cast for a broken arm. The time spent in the cast causes muscular atrophy. In other words, it reduces the size and strength of the muscles (and bones) because they are completely immobilised. Shoes act like a cast for our feet which cause the bones to become less dense as well as the small muscles to waste away. Being barefoot is a simple way to stimulate muscle growth and bone mineral density of the feet which will mitigate the negative effects of wearing shoes throughout the winter.

“You’re only as strong as your weakest link”

Barefoot walking has even been shown to improve symptoms in patients with osteoarthritis by reducing knee and ankle joint loading.

Furthermore, a systematic review article looking at ‘earthing’, (the effect of the earth’s surface electrons on our bare feet) identified a range of impressive findings. ‘Earthing’ was associated with reduced inflammation and chronic pain, improved sleep, reduced stress levels, and improved immune cell activity. Being barefoot also stimulates nerve endings under your feet and increases the flow of feel-good endorphins.Walking barefoot doesn't just feel good - it’s good for your health! The science is there to back it up. 

Take off your shoes, walk (or run) through a park or on the beach. Whatever you do - start feeling the earth beneath your feet! 

3. Exercise Outdoors 

Whether you ditched exercise altogether during the winter, or you limited your training to an indoor gym environment, now is a great time to get outside and freshen things up. Let’s face it, running on a treadmill simply isn't as good for your overall health as running through a lush green park or across an expansive coastline. Not only does treadmill running encourage unnatural and bad technique, but it lacks another key component of running - nature. 

Workouts with a view can provide you with a welcomed distraction during your session. By taking in the fresh air and the scenery you'll end up running further without even knowing it. It's also a good opportunity to incidentally soak up some extra sunshine and boost your Vitamin-D production. Getting some sunshine into your eyes first thing in the morning will also promote the proper hormones responsible for a healthy sleep-wake cycle.

Get outside and get moving! Go for a run and do some bodyweight exercises along the way. Run up a hill or a flight of stairs, do some push-ups, bench dips, squat jumps, step-ups on a park bench, and planks. The opportunities to move are endless.

4. Play Outside 

If exercising outdoors isn’t for you, then you have another great option available  - play! Many people become more and more sedentary during the colder months because outdoor sports and activities become less and less appealing. Use Spring as a time to simply get moving! It doesn't have to be structured exercise. You don't have to join a gym. Playing is a great way to trick your brain into doing exercise without even knowing it. 

Play with your dog at a park or beach. Join a sports team. Kick a ball with your mates or your kids. Take up surfing, kayaking, or stand-up paddle boarding. Play tennis, golf, or whatever you desire.

The point is, simply find a way to move your body outside and have a laugh. The combination will do wonders for your well-being. 

5. Eat Seasonal Local Produce

In the same way that you change your behavioural patterns during winter, nutrition should be varied seasonally too. Find your nearest farmers market and start buying seasonal produce. Not only is it a great way to support your local farmers, but your genes and metabolism have evolved to derive different nutrients from different foods depending on the season. Listen to your local farmers. They will give you all the tips and recommendations you need when it comes to food choices and meal preparation. 

Branch out and change things up this Spring. Swap those warm, cosy, energy-dense winter meals for some raw, uncooked meals like seasonal fruit and vegetables. 

6. Find a Morning Routine

A morning routine is a great way to do the things that make you happy before the inevitable daily stressors take over. Put aside an hour or two for you! You’ll be able to deal with stress a whole lot better after you’ve had a good morning.

Personally, my morning routine looks something like this: I enjoy a walk in the park with my dog. I eat a nutritious seasonal breakfast. Then, I go for a swim in the ocean and top it all off with a takeaway coffee in my good-ol’ reusable cup (may as well save the planet while I'm at it). Throughout the process I spend the entire time in nature (some of it barefoot), I play, I get early morning sunlight which helps set my circadian rhythm, and ultimately I feel amazing for the rest of the day! There’s one way to get your daily dose of all 6 steps at once!



So, set your alarm for a little bit earlier and find a morning routine that makes you happy. Try to get a nice healthy dose of nature and physical activity before you get trapped inside the office for the rest of the day. Remember, a good day starts with a good morning!

That’s it for today's daily dose. Thanks for reading. I hope you found these tips helpful. Now, all that’s left for you to do is to start implementing them. Don’t be surprised when your health and happiness skyrocket.

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