#lee: this all happens the evening annie and I start talking to each other again

[bookwyrminspiration]

the reason lee and annie weren’t talking to each other practically the whole book is because the moment they started working together again they immediately accomplished like half a dozen tasks everyone else has been fighting tooth and nail for for months to years, that’s so funny to me. munda said guys i need a conflict stop solving things you’re both in time out

[remakethestars]

CABIN 7 — APOLLO

Headcanons.

❝There ought to be more drama, I think. A musical crescendo. Confetti.❞

— Jess Cooper, I Am Still Alive

Headcanon masterlist.

Oh, boy — this is my cabin, y'all; buckle up! 😁

Not all Apollo kids are good at everything their dad's good at, okay? I sure as heck can’t paint or play an instrument. 

TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of violence?

They run an underground tattoo parlor.

That's where Will & Butch got their respective sun & rainbow tats.

Apollo kids with lyrics tattooed into their skin.

Rick says there isn't much by way of décor inside, which is f*in' B.S. Apollo's the god of art; those walls have been graffitied Tangled style.

🎶 i'll paint the walls some more — i'm sure there's room somewhere! 🎶

The east wall is covered in a landscape of a sunrise, & the west has a sunset (because the sun rises in the east & sets in the — yeah, I'll see myself out).

The north & south walls & the ceiling are white, though, because it really brightens/opens up the space (C7 has the 2ⁿᵈ most campers under C11 because Apollo's a slut; things can get a little crowded in the summer).

When there’re celebrations, the artistically inclined kids bust out the face paint. Especially for the younger campers.

The artistically inclined are the ones that paint the camp beads for the end of the summer. Despite the numbers, it doesn’t take them as long as one might think.

Rick said the ceiling had cedar beams, but we're not gonna do Cyparissius dirty like that. Cypress wood is good for building; the beams are cypress. You know what? F*ck you — the whole dang cabin's cypress!

There’s a massive, potted aloe vera plant by the steps that gets moved into the C4 greenhouse in the winter. It’s one of those old ones — because everyone knows the old aloe plants work better for burns & blisters than these sh¡tty new ones. (It’s constantly getting broken off to heal burns & stuff.) 

Rick said there are potted red & purple hyacinths in the window & yellow flowers from Delos. That's true.

I'd say the flowerbeds around the cabin are full of healing plants, but I feel like they'd be better off around the infirmary for obvious reasons.

I do feel like there's a laurel tree planted outside C7, though, because Apollo's a pining b¡tch.

And there's an actual infirmary building, okay? Rick's kinda inconsistent about that. Sometimes he says "infirmary," sometimes he says the Big House is running over with injured, & apparently there's a cot dead center for injured in C7? B.S.

Or maybe I've just read too much fanfic, and the authors don't get it right?

Either way, there's an infirmary building with surgery & delivery rooms. One floor. Locker room for C7 kids to store their scrubs & sh¡t.

They go for yellow scrubs, though, because orange C.H.B. scrubs make them look like escaped convicts.

Fun Band-Aids™

They give out little orange stickers with laurels around the edges that are like I voted! stickers, but they're injury-specific.

I got my leg(s) reattached! & Percy Jackson shot me in the butt! & I ticked off Clarisse! & I made out with an Aphrodite kid in the poison ivy! & I fell off the lava wall! & I got pranked by the Stolls!

After a war or just when there’re a lot of campers in the infirmary, there seems to be a constant flow of Apollo kids singing one hymn to their father in unison to heal someone.

Sometimes, an unconscious camper wakes in a cot & thinks they’ve died & gone to the wrong afterlife for a moment because their singing sounds like angels. 

The medically inclined wash their hands like surgeons. 

Kind of germophobic?

They also go around tying surgeons knots in everything.

In the summer, they’re walking Banana Boat sunscreen & after-sun aloe lotion dispensers.

The medically inclined also have the world’s sh¡ttiest handwriting.

They have to work hard to fix it if it bothers them. 

Can check your vitals & run a blood test just by touching you.

A lot of them casually touch their loved ones (at least, the ones that aren’t in C7) every morning to check their vitals & see how their health’s doing.

They do it subconsciously every time they touch someone & don’t notice it until they pick up something’s wrong.

They can do this for themselves as well. Though it may not be as accurate? And they take daily vitamins depending on what they need.

Organize their lives via pill box (never lose an earring).

Fight surgically. Every blade in their hands becomes a scalpel, & every time they’re going in for a kill against an armed anthropomorphic monster, they slice the tendons in its arm required to grip its weapon to disable it before going in for the kill.

Back to C7, it’s got a little porch with a porch swing. The kids sit on it sometimes & teach people how to play instruments.

They leave the porch light on at night when they’re waiting for one of their siblings to come home from a quest.

Jumping into the depressing sh¡t, they never found Michael’s body, so they only presumed him dead. They leave the porch light on every night now, hoping he’ll come home.

Apollo kids are afraid of the dark. They use the buddy system after the sun goes down. 

The cabin’s central light fixture is a papier-mâché sun that’s been charmed to glow when someone sings 🎶 clap on 🎶 & stop glowing when someone sings 🎶 clap off. 🎶

The curtains are a gold fabric. They’re only closed at night. Because, again, C7 kids are afraid of the dark.

The Wikipedia says Apollo kids are cursed to be afraid of snakes (I assume by the Python Apollo killed). I feel like they’d burn a lot of aster leaves then. I read somewhere it was said by the Greeks to ward off evil spirits & snakes.

They play Go Fish with their tarot cards. They’re really good at tarot games.

Hand-drawn tarot decks featuring figures form Greek myth.

There’s a target on the back wall they practice throwing cards at. They can throw them in combat for a distraction with terrifying accuracy. 

There’s a Magic 8 ball that’s passed around on the Winter Solstice (the longest night of the year), when — as a headcanon I’m sure I’ve read somewhere has indicated — they’re up all night.

Crystal balls are allowed. However, they must be covered with a cloth or placed in a box when not in use because they’re double-convex lenses, & we don’t want another incident like the fire of 1993.

Sometimes, they make little predictions throughout the day other campers may find disturbing. Such as whipping around and catching a stray arrow without warning (spidey sense?). Or cutting you off when you’re talking about someone moments before they walk into the room.

There’s a tea cart in the corner. Because tea is good for healing & they’ve accumulated an addiction.

The cart has a radio on it that’s always on at night because a lot of C7 kids can’t sleep without noise. (Inspired by @sugarandspiceandkindanice.)

Most of the time, it’s on a nearby country station that actually plays good country at night. But sometimes they switch channels — especially when there’s a new kid settling in & they could use the comfort.

There’s a portable record player there too. The shelves under the cart are full of C.D.s & records.

I’m sure I’ve read a headcanon somewhere that they sing every morning while getting ready for the day. That’s true.

The number of times it’s been “When Will My Life Begin” from Tangled is disturbing, though. 

🎶 seven a.m., the usual morning lineup! 🎶

Luke said in The Lightning Thief C11 is up at 07:00 & breakfast is at 08:00, I think, but we all know Apollo’s waking his kids up when the sun rises. 

A lot of the time, someone will just start out with whatever song they have stuck in their head & everyone else will pick it up.

Sometimes, this leads to members having the aforementioned song stuck in their head for the rest of the day.

Even the people who aren’t musically inclined will sing along, as they’re usually drowned out by the music kids that get really into it.

So sometimes those not-music kids will find themselves singing by themselves during the day years later & are surprised to find — they actually sound good?? Or at least not bad??? And it’s because singing is a learned skill & they picked it up.

I’m sure I’ve also read a headcanon somewhere that they sing “Look Down” from Les Mis when they have to do menial chores, but I'm adding “It’s a Hard-Knock Life” from Annie, “Whistle While You Work” from Snow White, “Happy Working Song” from Enchanted, & the Smurf song.

They break into song all the time.

Lee was glaring at Tantalus once & made the mistake of saying, “Sometimes, I wish —” and the entire cabin broke out with “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

🎶 — i'd never been born at all! carry on, carry on… 🎶

As mentioned in at least The Lightning Thief & The Lost Hero, they spend a lot of time playing basketball. You can bet your butt they do a rendition of “Getcha Head in the Game” from High School Musical every time there’s a new camper passing by.

They have a sister named Jubilee, and every time someone greets her — "Hey, Jube!" — the entire cabin breaks into “Hey, Jude” by The Beetles.

🎶 hey, Jube! don't make it bad. take a sad song & make it better… 🎶

Sometimes, if there are two campers that really need to get together, C10′ll commission C7 to sing “Kiss the Girl” from The Little Mermaid (or the same song with different pronouns, obviously). 

It’s usually a capella unless someone happens to have an instrument on them.

Rickrolling. 

The “Macarena.” 

Apollo takes clandestine recordings of their jam sessions & distributes them professionally. Whatever money’s made goes directly into their college funds or they periodically find it under their pillow tooth-fairy-style.

There’s a lot of denim because the artistic members like to paint on the backs of jackets & the pockets of jeans.

A lot of them have excellent aim with most projectiles, so they toss stuff to each other a lot. This results in them being oddly in sync, so they can catch something from another sibling without warning & without looking like Sam & Dean Winchester do in Supernatural. 

Their life looks like a Dude Perfect trick shot video. 

It also results in some funny looks when they hurl things halfway across camp to each other. Namely, the whistling Nerf football. 

C7 is two stories. The second story has paint on every wall. 

The east wall upstairs has arrows mounted that got Robin Hooded along with a little tag with the name of the C7 kid & the date it happened.

They also have arrows mounted from the first bullseye if there’s a member being taught. 

Lots of musical instruments & art supplies up there.

There’s an old T.V. up there. They have all of Bob Ross’s show on V.H.S.

C7′s south wall (ground floor) holds the door to the bathroom on one side & a door leading to the stairs. 

It also hosts framed photos of Charlotte, Lee, & Michael.

Instead of saying “shoot,” they say “loose.” For everything. Instead of saying “Shoot!” when they drop something, they say “Loose!” 

It's kinda one of those things — like your friend starts saying something & you just integrate it into your vocabulary subconsciously.

They like to play a game where you shoot an arrow straight up & try to catch it as it comes back down.

That sounds really stupid on their part, but it actually comes in handy when someone tries to shoot them in combat & they catch the arrow, dumbfounding whoever's attempted to skewer them.

The cresting on their arrows is in Morse code of their nickname (·—— ·· ·—·· ·—··). They can take one look at an arrow & tell what’s whose.

And the paint color of the cresting tells them what kind of arrow it is — bullet tip, broadhead, explosive, etc. 

Every bunk in C7 is made with hospital corners. No exceptions. The kids who aren’t medically inclined learn because all the beds being made the same way makes it look cleaner for inspection.

I can’t decide if Apollo kids have really good eyesight so they fit the Hawkeye bill or if they’ve all just read — Apollo’s the god of knowledge — & painted so much they’ve messed up their eyes.

The number of times one of them has used bowstring wax on an art project in a rush instead of glue is hilariously large.

I use String Snot, and it comes in a container that looks like a glue stick.

A lot of them wear bracers all the time.

When the time it takes to sling one’s quiver onto one’s back, grab one’s bow, knock an arrow, & draw is so long, one really doesn’t have time to also strap on their bracers before rushing out of the cabin to threaten a giant bronze dragon.

Not to mention if they use a recurve, they’ll also have to string their bow.

And a number of them do use recurves due to the abilities to both knock multiple arrows at once & to restring in the field.

Bows with risers coated in golden, reflective paint & limbs painted with artistic strokes.

Trick arrows are their jam. C9 is constantly being asked for new arrows.

Explosive arrows, sonic arrows, grappling hook arrows…

That’s another saying they’ve all taken to: “___ is my jam!”

There’s a bookshelf or reference material on Apollo for new C7 kids (as Rick’s indicated), but the rest of the case is full of medical journals & textbooks & books on art & poetry & divining the future.

A lot — if not all — of them have either gold flecks in their eyes or central heterochromia.

Freckles across their noses & shoulders & on the tips of their ears. Tans. Sun-bleached hair. 

Long, nimble fingers perfect for playing musical instruments.

Either they hate the winter because the sun's out for less time (so you’ll find them walking around with blanched skin & faded freckles & with both a hoody & a parka on), or they’re perfectly fine with winter & are used by everyone around them as walking space heaters. 

They spend a lot of time with Castor & Pollux. 

Rachel sits at T7. She’s practically an Apollo kid at this point. 

While her cave was being renovated, she stayed in C7.

Their dad’s the god of truth; none of these M.F.s can lie worth a sh¡t. 

But, by the gods, they can tell when you’re lying.

And they take it as a personal insult. That you (A) would dare do something as immoral as lying in the first place & that you (B) would dare to insult their intelligence in such a way because you thought they couldn’t tell.

C6 & C7 are both known for reacting outrageously when their intelligence is insulted (see: chapter 10 of The Battle of the Labyrinth). 

The more civil of the reactions of a C7 kid being lied to is cursing the liar to tell the truth, which I believe they can. 

They can curse you to speak in rhyming couplets; they should be able to curse you to tell the truth.

You mean to tell me none of these kids have created a functioning Lasso of Truth yet?

This one's really long. 😅

A lot of people fancast Sam Claflin as Apollo, but I'm going with Ross Lynch. 'Cause I do what I want. 😎

Visit my Apollo cabin Pinterest board or my headcanon masterlist.

DISCLAIMER ━━━ These headcanons are what I consider to be canon in my fanfictions. They may be others’s headcanons I’ve subconsciously filed away in my noggin. If one’s yours and you want it removed or credited, please send me your post and let me know.

[timextoxhajima]

Playlist Feels

*SHORT SERIES

Member: Juyeon

Genre: a pinch of *TW depression/rape/abuse (not from juyeon, don’t worry)

A/N: I contemplated writing this for Seonghwa but idk i just didn’t see fit while i wrote this. and no, there will not be any crying in the club, i’m riding on the notion where you need to get over shitty times and it’s not worth crying about it 

you were shaking your head and swallowing large gulps of air, trying to get the burp in your stomach out through your throat. you could feel the slight burn in your chest from the cider you had earlier. you pull up your phone with the music blasting loudly in your ears, the clock ticking on the screen as the large, digitalised numbers shining brightly in your eyes. 

1.24am

“ah fuck... shouldn’t have stayed at the bar so late. why does school even have a bar? shit shouldn’t be allowed--” you grumble under your breath, smelling the sweet scent of the cider escaping your mouth. you burp, but you couldn’t hear it over the music in your ears. 

you look up and see your dorm building barely a five minute walk away, the only light illuminating the path you were on were the lights from the nearby faculty buildings in the area. if this wasn’t a university campus, you’d be scared shitless to even walk here. 

you walk mindlessly, only wanting to get back to your room, take a bath and knock out after a day of relentless working on your few, but tiring projects. your eyes notice a familiar figure walking across the road just about tens of metres ahead of you in your path, and you weren’t sure who it was until he started walking in your direction. 

you were pretty certain it was just someone you’ve seen around in school before, but he walks up to you and doesn’t hesitate to drape his arm over your shoulder. for a moment, you wonder if it was the cider that led your mind to play tricks on you, but you register his face under the bad lighting, immediately drawing a frown on your forehead and pulling out your earpiece to protest the action.

“what the he--”

“yah, where have you been? i thought you said you wanted to go back to your room early today?”

confusion was written all over your face, and you couldn’t choose between freaking out over the fact that someone you weren’t familiar with talk to you like you were friends, or over the fact that it was lee juyeon. 

“anni...” juyeon pulls out his phone from his right pocket, openly searching for your contact that he didn’t save, and struggles a little while typing in a message. “you said you’ll check your text messages every now and then, how was i supposed to know that you were going to go MIA?” he looks at you through the corner of his eyes, hitting send. you feel the vibration in the hand you were holding your phone with. 

there’s someone following you.

“anyway, how was your day? managed to finish whatever you needed to get done?” juyeon slips the phone back into his pocket, probably picking up on the panic that was filling your chest and your gut. 

your mind blacks out for a moment, and suddenly, a billion thoughts filled your head.

the person who was following you. there was only one person you could think of: your ex-boyfriend. things got ugly when you said you wanted to break up last year. not only did he threaten to commit suicide, but he tried to extort money from you in a bid to keep you by his side. you could never forget how he tried to make you pay him to keep your intimate secrets away from your friends and family. 

“i’ll watch you from a corner”, he said. 

‘traumatised’ might not even be the best word to use. but right now, you were scared. 

then there’s lee juyeon. it’s not that you hated him or anything. both of you knew each other, especially after you confessed to him about a month ago. not because you wanted a relationship with him, but because the knowledge that you had feelings for a boy you barely had any contact with was eating you out. you couldn’t help but to be honest with yourself, to be honest with him, and confess, for the sole reason of getting it off your chest. 

you promised him you didn’t want anything and all you wanted to do was to be honest with your feelings. 

him being arguably one of the most popular seniors who stayed in the same dorm as you didn’t really help your case of confession. 

luckily, you found out that he told only one person: hyunjae. 

after that, you never bothered to contact him again. all you wanted was for the feelings to go away as quickly as they came. 

“are you alright? you seem burnt out,” juyeon’s voice snaps you back to reality, watching you zone out and noticing that your grip on your bag straps were now tighter. your knuckles were white and the flesh on your palms were turning red from the harsh hold. 

“i’m... i’m okay.”

juyeon senses your discomfort and anxiety now that you knew someone was following you. he tilts his head subtly, noting that the stalker was still about twenty metres away from the both of you. 

juyeon continues talking and chatting like you were best friends, giving you small taps on your shoulder to encourage you to reply. his facade doesn’t falter once the entire walk to the dorm buildings, and even then, your stalker was still within sight. 

the both of you were finally at the lift lobby, where you hoped to see the security guard, but your dorm was known for having shitty security, so it wasn’t surprising to see the post empty. 

juyeon hits the button of the lift, never once lifting his arm from your shoulder. you look at him stare at the metallic lift doors while waiting for it to arrive, realising that he was observing your stalker’s reflection in the surface of the doors. he was standing barely ten metres away from the entrance of the lift lobby outside the building. 

“he’s not going to leave if i let you go up on your own.”

had he said that any lower or softer, you wouldn’t have heard it.

“i know we aren’t close, but please trust me.”

you gulp, knowing that blood was rushing away from your face and you were on the edge of passing out. your heart was racing in your chest, and you were just about on the verge of having a whole panic attack. if juyeon wasn’t here, you’d be crying by now. 

“i know it’s unfair, but please trust me,” juyeon says again, now slightly louder to ensure you heard him. you look down at your feet, trying to pull your attention away from your anxiety and the stalker while the lift arrives. 

juyeon pulls you in and turns you around so he would be looking over your head and outside the lift. you were watching your stalker in the reflection off the mirror in the lift when juyeon wraps an arm around your shoulder and uses the other to tilt your chin upwards after pressing the button for the sixth floor. 

you hear the gears of the lift doors churn, but juyeon leans forward and gives you a solid, firm kiss on your lips. your eyes remain wide open, but juyeon’s fluttered shut upon the contact. 

your eyes catch a glimpse of your stalker taking two large steps towards the lift lobby just as the doors seal shut. maybe it was juyeon’s facade and confidence that rubbed off on you, but a surge of anger and frustration motivates you to wrap your arms around juyeon’s shoulder, pulling him in closer to seal the kiss. 

you feel the lift start to move upwards, and you pull away without hesitation, using your fingers to wipe the saliva off the corners of your lips. you look away, unsure if you were embarrassed, or that the alcohol from the cider was making your face burn. 

“sorry,” juyeon licks his lips and wipes them with his finger too. “doubt he’ll be scared away if we didn’t do anything.”

“no, it’s... fine,” you stare at your feet, taking deep, large breaths to calm your breathing. you didn’t even notice how hard you were breathing until you started calming yourself. 

“are you alright? you look like you were on the verge of an anxiety attack,” juyeon sniffles, turning and leaning against the wall of the lift as if the two of you didn’t just kiss for show. 

“i was,” you huffed, pulling your bag around to the front and taking out your room key. “but thanks. i wouldn’t have known if you didn’t tell me.”

juyeon rubs an eye and watches as the lift comes to a stop on the sixth floor. he follows you out, and it triggers you to turn around, the anxiety still in your gut not making you the best person you are. 

“i’m fine now, just go.”

juyeon’s eyes widened a little, and frankly. he looked a little hurt. but that look of anguish quickly dissipates, and you wonder why he hasn’t nagged at you for being an ungrateful little bitch despite him helping you. 

“i’ll see you to your room and i’ll be camping on this floor for awhile,” he stuffs his hands into his pockets. “i don’t trust that your stalker’s gone. he’s probably just waiting for me to leave before he comes up to find you.”

you freeze, though you already weren’t moving. 

he was right.

knowing your ex-boyfriend, he was probably still downstairs, staring up at the sixth floor, waiting for juyeon to leave the building before he came up to look for you. the thought sends chills down your spine and your head to feel light-weighted. 

you hear some movements, but it wasn’t from juyeon because he wasn’t moving, and soon, you hear someone coming from behind you.

“oh? why are you-- why are you both--”

“anniya, she’s just got some notes for me, that’s all. she took a module last semester and i’m taking it now, so she’s just lending me some of her material,” juyeon walks past you and grabs hyunjae’s hand to pull him in and bump shoulders. you turn to see hyunjae with his girlfriend, who happened to be your neighbour. she smiles at you, hand in hyunjae’s.

they were probably heading to hyunjae’s room. 

“ah, arra~” hyunjae hums, giving you a bright smile as he lets juyeon go. the younger male turns to you, walking to your room and looking back at you, cuing you to follow him.

you get the door open and you nearly fall into it. your heart, though not racing anymore, was still pounding against your chest mercilessly. you dump your bag in the chair at your table, sinking down to the floor and letting your emotions eat you whole. 

you shut all your senses out while you curl up into a ball while sitting on the floor. you let your emotions and memories override you like a virus taking over a computer, and you could feel your lungs collapsing in on themselves. 

you hear nothing from juyeon, but you felt someone pat your shoulders gently and you hear him shuffle around, the friction of his pants against each other rustling as he sat down next to you. 

it didn’t matter that the boy you had feelings for was here in your room with you. you were never interested in developing a relationship with him, so this was nothing compared to what your ex-boyfriend has done to your memory and your faith in love. 

juyeon tries to unwrap you, but fails. you could feel the hot tears taking over your eye sockets and your feet starting to turn numb at the awkward position. 

“yah...” you hear juyeon call out to you, his hands still gently searching your arms and body for a way to untangle you from yourself. “it’s going to be okay. he’s not going to show up as long as he knows i’m still here, arra?”

you shake your head relentlessly, your tears finally spilling over your lids and drizzling down your cheeks. you hear juyeon sigh, and with more force now, he pulls you open. 

you fall towards your left, into juyeon’s torso as he cradles you like a baby. you tried your best not to crumble into a billion pieces, but the thought of your ex-boyfriend’s face was enough to shove you over the edge. 

“uljima,” juyeon coos into your ear, arms carefully wrapped around your shoulders and not anywhere inappropriate. you grit your teeth, completely ignoring his words as you let it all out. never have you once broken down over your ex-boyfriend in front of anybody, and you definitely didn’t expect the first person to be juyeon, someone whom you desperately wanted to avoid to prevent any awkward situations. 

you didn’t know if you blacked out from crying too hard, or the anxiety that was slowly shutting your mind off, but you wake up to a dark room, with only one source of light turned on. your swollen eyes take some time to adjust, but you see now that you were on your bed, and juyeon was at your table scrolling on his phone. 

you struggle to sit up, wondering how in the world you felt physically incapable of supporting yourself. juyeon responds to your movements, and rushes over to the space next to your bed with your water bottle. 

“drink up. your throat must feel like the sahara dessert now.”

you take the bottle and finish whatever that was left in it.

“what time is it?” you rub your eyes as juyeon locks his phone and shoves into his back pocket. 

“3.23am.”

you groan and physically face palm yourself. 

“you better head back to your room, he must’ve been gone by now.”

juyeon sighs, taking the bottle and sitting on the floor next to your bed. you look at him, too tired to make your confusion show, but you still stare at him hoping that he could see all the imaginary question marks floating above your head. 

“i’m not going anywhere after seeing you break down like that. i’ve got no morning classes tomorrow, so i’ll stay with you until you wake up,” juyeon brings his knees up to his chest and rests his chin on his right knee, looking up at you with tired eyes. 

you scratch your head, trying to stifle a yawn as the exhaustion hits you again. 

“go back to sleep. you’ll be fine as long as i’m here, i promise.”

juyeon nods backwards to your pillow, encouraging you to fall back into the mattress and shut your tired, swollen eyes. 

lee juyeon. you’re really something, huh?

Part 2: Give Your Heart A Break

[moxle]

💏 for calso

4. …where it hurts.

au: fake dating (because i cannot be silenced w my love for this trope) 

cal wished for a lot of things since the start of this arrangement. 

when they had started this, he had wished for everyone to fall for the act. he wished that he wouldn’t be seen as a pathetic ex who has yet to move on from hana. so that if she were to ever look in his direction, he would be caught with his arm around the other’s waist and not trying to avoid contact with her. 

when his friends had started becoming nosy about the relationship, he had wished that anais would be willing to keep the act going. “please, annie! i don’t want to disappoint them!” he implored her with the puppy eyes that he would often use on her to get what he wants. she’d simply sigh and reply with a exasperated “fine” before he jumps in glee and gives her a big hug for agreeing to it. 

he wished that things he’d stop having this weird feeling whenever he saw her with taeyeon. it’s fine if she hangs out with her, he thinks to himself. we’re not anything serious. i don’t have to worry about anything. and yet, no matter how many times he says that, he still can’t help but look at the both of them and feel a rotten feeling that he was not fond of feeling.

and though rumors say that wishes cannot come true if said aloud, cal made one wish aloud to her as they go up to his dorm after making out with each other in the hallways. sure, he won’t deny that he’s sexually attracted to anais. but the thing about that was he didn’t really plan on doing anything with that information. but they drunkenly kiss at a party to continue their “act”, only for the kiss to deepen and their hands to move more adventurously on each other. 

“fuck me,” he says breathlessly when she pulls away from the kiss. “please, anais. i’m all yours tonight.”

and thankfully, it does come true.

but things don’t go back to normal like he wanted it to. each passing moment with anais hurts as they continue their “act”. when she calls him babe and lovingly calls him calcifer while holding his hand. when they go out on “dates” and he takes pictures on his phone that he doesn’t really ever think of deleting any time soon. 

he wished for something impossible. that it doesn’t end. but even he’s smart enough to know that can’t happen. 

so all of a sudden, one day, he stops. whenever he goes out, if he goes out, he usually makes sure that anais is not in the same room. if she is, he avoids eye contact with her at all cost. there were a few moments in which he can hear her call out to him happily. “calcifer!” she’d say, her smile showing in the tone of her voice. but he ignores her every single time and it hurts him to do so. 

eventually she’ll forget him. eventually she’ll realize that their arrangement is over and she’s finally free of being “attached” to him. that was his logic when he had become avoidant with her. but haejin pulled him to the side one day and asks him if he’s talked to anais at all recently. 

“she’s worried sick about you, minnie,” he said with a concerned look on his face. 

“tell her i’m fine. i’ve just been busy,” he answered him, refusing to go more in-depth with his answer. 

that should’ve been taken as a caution. because all of a sudden, he hears a loud, stern knocking on his door. “lee kangmin, open the door.” 

it’s a tone he doesn’t expect to ever hear from her and he can’t help but feel afraid just from hearing how serious it is. but if anything, that meant he couldn’t avoid her any longer. with his head hung in shame, he walks over to the door and opens it, looking down to see a furious anais looking up at him, arms crossed against her chest but looking ready to knock some sense into him. 

“annie-” 

“don’t annie me, asshole,” she replies sternly. “you know exactly why i’m here. we need to talk. now.”

he sighs as he steps to the side to let the other girl into his dorm. as she stomps her way in, he closes the door behind her and looks back at. 

"what the hell is up with you?” she asks, her tone sounding demanding as if she needed an explanation from him. “you’ve been avoiding me for more than a few weeks. and don’t say you haven’t because i’m not stupid enough to know when you want to talk to me and when you don’t.” 

he sighs and runs a hand through his hair, dreading every single moment of this interaction. “i’ve been busy.” 

“no you haven’t,” she replies. “that’s the excuse haejin gave me when i asked about you. you’ve been skipping prefect meetings and whenever i try to say hi, you pretend i don’t exist.” 

when she recounts all those times to him, he feels guilt. it’s deserved, but it’s not like he can exactly tell her the reason for his actions. 

“look, i just want an explanation on why you’ve been like this with me recently. that’s all,” she states, a sigh leaving her lips as her eyes begin to soften when she looks at him. “i’m worried about you. you haven’t been acting yourself recently... did i do something wrong?” 

he shakes his head. “no. no you didn’t,” he replies quietly. 

“then please tell me what’s up, cal,” she says, walking closer to him to let him look at her. “whatever it is, we can figure it out. i don’t want things to be weird between us.”

it’s that one sentence that manages to set him off. i don’t want things to be weird between us. it’s weird that she says that now when cal had been noticing the difference in their relationship appearing before his eyes. the fact that he was the only one to even take note of that said enough to him and it does nothing else but break his heart. 

he can’t do this anymore. he needs to stop this horrible ache in his heart. 

“we need to end this.” 

there’s a silence after he tells her this and it causes a shift in the mood. he doesn’t have the strength to even face her. he tells her this with his back facing the other girl. 

“what do you mean?” she asks, her tone sounding... confused. 

"you and me. we need to end it. now,” he responds. “there’s no point in keeping it up at this point. everyone already knows that we were a thing. it’d make sense if we’d just end it here since i’ve been avoiding you.” 

there’s a silence that follows afterwards as he looks down at the ground. he doesn’t want to turn around and look at her. he doesn’t want her to see that he was breaking just from saying those words. but it’s obvious that the other wasn’t being completely honest with himself. he knows that even anais knew that, considering they were already good friends before their “fake dating” plan became a thing. so it shouldn’t surprise him when she says that makes him want to crumble at the spot. 

“cal, is there something you’re not telling me?” 

he hesitates on what to do next. the fact that he even knew she’d say something like this is what makes fall apart. but he couldn’t hide it from her anymore. after all, the pain would subside. as he turns around to face her, anais’s face drops as she sees cal’s face. he never wanted to have her see him crying in general, let alone over her. 

“i can’t do this anymore,” he replies with a forced smile, his voice breaking as he lets the truth out. “i can’t keep living this lie that we’ve made. every time you call me calcifer, it makes my heart flutter when it shouldn’t. and whenever you smile, it has this effect on me when i shouldn’t be feeling that at all. and whenever i see you with someone else, i care so much about what you think of me when i shouldn’t even be thinking about it at all.” 

“i was able to do everything right at first, but after we slept together that one night...” he laughs as he finds himself crying more. god. he really is pathetic until the end, isn’t he? “i was already too late. and i didn’t want to make things awkward between you and i because i know that this is temporary. you and i made this so that it could be temporary. and all of a sudden, i had myself thinking about it being permanent and i...” 

he stops himself from going on, already feeling the air in his lungs give out as he speaks too much in just a short amount of time whilst sobbing. he pauses to take a deep, shaky breath before he continues on. 

“ahn sojin, i love you. so much that it pains me to see you continue to continue this act when i’m slowly breaking character,” he says defeatedly. “and i’m so thankful i love you, but not when you and i both agreed that this would be a problem with this happening.” 

she’s silent at first. that’s to be expected from a situation like this. after all, the both of them had agreed on a set of rules to prevent something like this from ever happening. so the fact that cal was the one to break it while anais was unaware of it all was probably a shock to her. 

finally, she nods. “okay,” she says rather calmly. it felt like such a contrast to how he was feeling and he couldn’t help but feel even more pained by that. “yeah. let’s end it here. as soon as i leave this dorm, we can say that we’re done.” 

the way she says it sounds so cold. as if icicles were thrown to pierce at his already breaking heart. but he knew, in reality, that this should feel as if he was ripping off a bandaid. so though he was still distraught, he pulls himself together to agree to that. “good,” he responds. 

“wait.” she’s about to turn around but he stops her all of a sudden. in this moment, he wants to say his wish aloud once again to see if it’d come true. “before you go, i want you to do something for me.” 

she nods and there’s a look in her eyes that cal himself was not able to identify. a part of him wishes to believe that she was sad about this all occurring, but he feels as if that’d be a stretch. 

“lie to me,” he replies. “lie to me and tell me how much you love me. so that when this is all over, i can be able to move on as if this was like any other break-up.” 

there’s a clear moment of hesitation when he asks her that and cal already feels embarrassed for asking him that. however, before he takes it back, she nods her head to accept his plea. and he holds his breath as she says it. 

“i like how positive you are,” she starts off. “even before this, i took notice of how you were so warm and bright. you were always so optimistic about everything and hardworking because of it. i always admired that about you. and i always felt like i needed to take care of you, but i didn’t mind having to keep an eye on you every now and then.” 

“but... spending this time with you...getting closer to you and having the opportunity to be with you made me realize that i can’t imagine my life with you.” she looks up at him and it’s not hard to notice that her eyes were becoming glossy with her own tears as well. “every single day, just spending time with you made me feel like everything was going to go okay. your hugs always made me feel safe and your kisses always felt like little reminders of how lucky i am to have you in my life. to have the opportunity and getting to experience your warmth and love every single day to the point where i got used to it... to the point where you became my home, calcifer.” 

home. it’s a word that cal never thought he’d ever hear being used to describe him. who could’ve thought a word so heartwarming could hurt him so much? he doesn’t think before he closes the distance between him and her and pulling her into a slow and deep kiss, all of his emotions pouring into it. he kisses her with all the unspoken words he was unable to say and all the emotions he felt whilst longing for her. and though he touches her every so softly, his thoughts were desperate about how he didn’t want this to end, especially with how she kisses him back with the same passion. how he wished they could last like this forever, only for him to remind himself that this was the end. that this was a longtime coming.

he pulls away and puts his hands to his side, away from her face after cupping it to hold her close. “please leave,” he says brokenly. “leave before i change my mind about this.” 

she nods as she slowly makes her way to the door of his dorm silently, the sound of his door opening and closing sounding louder than anything else in this room. it practically felt deafening combined with the pitiful silence that fell onto the room after everything. 

he makes his way to his bed when he spots a piece of paper at his bedside. as he walks over to the bedside to look at the page, he reads over it quickly only to crumple it up. it was the official stamp that started off the gig to begin with: a list of rules that the both of them had come up with in this exact space. as he lies down in bed, he recounts the experience, the conversation playing in his head. 

“so rule number one is not to tell anyone that this is all fake,” he starts off. “that way, the less people will be able to figure out that this isn’t real.” 

“does that include best friends?” she asks. 

he quirks his eyebrow. “i have a best friend who can’t keep his mouth shut and another who likes to know everything about what’s going on in my life. if i can’t tell them, you can’t tell your friends either.” 

she sighs and rolls her eyes. “fine, fine,” she responds. “can rule number two be not calling each other dumbass pet names whilst we’re together?” 

he hums. “define dumbass pet names.” she makes a face. “what? do you not want to say it?” 

“you know which ones i’m talking about, calvin,” she glares at him. 

“schnookums? pookie? bubs? is that what you were talking about?” he asks with a shit eating grin. 

she shudders in response. “if you say any of those around me again, i swear.” 

he laughs and shakes his head as he writes that down onto the paper. “well, we need something to differentiate us from other couples. maybe we can give each other nicknames... like i can call you annie. and you can call me...?” 

she considers the answer to herself before she answers him. “calcifer,” she responds. “like from howl’s moving castle.” 

“the movie?” he asks. 

she smiles. “i was thinking of the book, but the movie works.” 

“good! i like the idea of being a little fire demon,” he giggles as he scribbles that down, putting their nicknames for each other in parentheses. “okay. obvious final rule: no falling in love with each other. if we do, we’ll get into a situation that gets awkward.” 

"duh,” she says while he writes that down, later drawing two lines at the bottom of the page. after he signs his name on one of the lines, he hands the paper to her along with the quill. she reads over the paper quickly before looking up at him with a sure smile. “are you ready for this?” 

“ready as i’ll ever be,” he responds, not at all aware of what was to come from the future. 

and with that, it became a blur as cal began to weep in his pillow after reminding himself of such a bittersweet beginning. 

[onedirectionfanfics]

The Shamrock Social Club by @harryonstage​

Somehow you land a consultation with Harry Styles, one of the most renowned tattoo artists on the west coast. He agrees to design your first tattoo and ink it on you himself, but over the course of your sessions together, mischief ensues… 

This month’s featured story, The Shamrock Social Club, brought together avid Tumblr fic readers and Twitter stans alike in excitement and anticipation for each update. It tells the story of a girl determined to get a tattoo and her wildly attractive tattoo artist, Harry—fondly known as “tattoorry” among readers. Check out our amazing interview with the brilliant author behind this masterpiece below!

***

How long have you been writing for?

God, as long as I can remember. I have memories of being in middle school, feverishly writing stories in my composition notebook when I was supposed to be paying attention to the lesson. I was conjuring up elaborate worlds and characters long before I ever planned on sharing them with anybody—before I even realized what I was doing.

Do you have certain habits or rituals you have to do while writing?

A lot of my followers joke about this, but I do a lot of writing in the bath. I turn off all my notifications and commit not to check my texts for awhile, and I cannot write without a giant warm beverage, usually coffee or rooibos tea with honey. I put rainstorm sounds on my bluetooth speaker. The thesaurus app and google dictionary are open at all times. Also, part of the creative process definitely happens long before I ever actually sit down to write—I’m constantly jotting stuff down in the notes app on my phone if I’m out and about when I think of a line to work into a scene later. I have all these sticky notes with like cryptic, half-baked ideas all over my desk at work… I’ll pick one up and all it says is like “The clicks a skateboard makes rolling down the sidewalk” or “The feeling of having an orange peel beneath your fingernails.” And I refuse to throw them away, even if I have no idea what I was thinking at the time. I think most people who write do that to some degree, though.

The ever famous question: how did you come up with this idea?

Honestly I was on tumblr and saw a collage of women with dragon and snake tattoos. I began thinking about the type of person who would want that symbol on them forever, and why. Minutes later, I wrote that “Tattoo You, 1981” blurb on my masterlist—of course named after the Rolling Stones album released that year—and then that became the preliminary blueprint for what is now The Shamrock Social Club. I literally thought it was going to be a one shot at most, but here we are nearly fifty-two thousand words later.

Throughout your writing in this fic, you show a great deal of knowledge about the process of getting a tattoo. Is this from experience or something you learned from researching?

Both! I have a few tattoos. One of them is a stick-and-poke. It’s been awhile since I got my last one though, so I had to refresh myself on the aftercare process. I called the actual Shamrock Social Club a few times to gauge what a master tattoo artist there would charge for something as large as the snake. I also wanted to be sure it was possible for an artist to fill in a tattoo as they work through the outline the way Harry does in the story. The researching process of a fic writer is so funny to me… I wish my readers could see me alone in my room at 2:00 AM eating dry cereal, deeply invested in a fifteen minute Youtube video comparing different types of tattoo inks.

When does a story go from an idea in your mind to paper? Is there a process you go through before writing it out, or do you just get straight in it?

I have so much respect for the writers who can just like, wing it. I personally need to have a story mapped out in bullet points beginning to end before I even open up a new document on my computer. That way, I get more time to sit with it and meditate on how close to reality it seems, and it helps me finagle the order of events and decide if there’s any room for improvement. Also, if I think of a detail or subplot that’s not in my original outline, it’s easier to pop it in and visualize how it synthetically fits with the story.

In all four parts (51k words), not once do you give a name for the main character or call her ‘Y/N’. Was this a difficult task? What was the reason for it?

This is a hot topic right now in the fan fiction community! Sometimes it’s difficult, but I think it helped make the prose in this story more seamless to read. As someone who has written original characters as well as self-insert fics, I think a strong enough writer can make a character feel personable and unique and real without an elaborate backstory, and I don’t feel that it takes anything integral away from the creative process for me. If you can get an audience to root for a protagonist in a couple of chapters through their choices, dialogue, hopes, and motivations alone, to me that’s a much more successful story… I deeply respect writers who are like “write for yourself, not for others!” but that notion doesn’t really keep me up at night. To me, it’s obvious that I’m writing for myself if I’m writing at all, and I’m very comfortable with that fact. Imagine that you’re in school for creative writing and your professor gives you an exercise with a few simple parameters… it’s a bit like that. I still only write about exactly what I want, but undergoing the challenge of writing for an audience has 100% made me a better, more versatile writer. To me that does not feel like a loss, or a compromise. Plus, I think it’s such an interesting way to engage with a story—you are explicitly the protagonist, actively steering your own trajectory with every choice you make.

Was the character ‘AJ’ inspired by anyone you know in real life, AJ?

Guilty as charged. I do tend to Stan Lee myself and my friends into my fics. Aijia, Iz, Steph, Ellen… all of those characters are based on my actual friends. It started out as a joke—I literally just needed a name for the roommate character, but someone suggested I name her AJ and I was like… why not? I love having fun that costs nothing and hurts nobody! Annie and I wrote ourselves into Under the Same Roof, too.

This fic very delicately tells the story of a girl who’s been sexually abused in the past in some way and is on a determined mission to self-healing. A topic not many will brave, but you did. Why?

This is such a good question. Honestly I was on the fence at first. As I was drafting the first installment, Nobody Fucks with a Snake, I knew I wanted Harry’s character to turn her away from the shop at first before he decided to take a chance on her, but I needed a reason why. Like, I needed him to see a glimmer of something in her, and simply him being attracted to her didn’t feel compelling enough to me. I thought it would be really meaningful and it would raise the stakes a little if Harry saw this like… tenacity and determination in her. One of my favorite scenes in the whole story is that pivotal moment in his office when we see Harry really start to understand the gravity of her predicament and how much this snake means to her. He’s so affected by her vulnerability, and it speaks volumes about both of them.

In the drafting process, I was talking with my friend Tanvi who also writes fic, and she wanted to know if there was some reason why Harry’s character feels such a strong urge to help this young woman, and why he goes to such great lengths to respect consent throughout the story. Like, does he have a loved one who was sexually assaulted? Is this a more personal issue for him? I considered this, but truthfully, I thought this story would be so much more poignant and effective if there like, wasn’t some special reason. Consent is necessary. Sexual assault is inexcusable and wrong. It is as simple and as complicated as that.

What was it like writing on an issue that makes a lot of people uncomfortable (but is still so important)? Did you feel like you had a responsibility to fulfil?

As a writer, it’s an enormous responsibility to parse trauma and heaviness and sorrow in a way that doesn’t glorify the pain, especially if you have a younger audience. Most of my readers are in their twenties, like me. I read something recently about how it’s true that writers shouldn’t cover topics such as sexual trauma, eating disorders, or major depression as to avoid romanticizing any of these terrible, life-altering experiences, but that doesn’t necessarily apply to people who have been through these hardships and turn to art or writing as an outlet.

I have an eating disorder. It’s something I talk about openly on my blog—as an aside, you should definitely browse my recovery tag! Through fic, I’ve written about what it’s like to have an ED. I’ve also used fic to write about having a stalker, and in The Shamrock Social Club, of course I write about the complex relationship one has with sex and romance and dating in the aftermath of being sexually assaulted. I write to focus on the triumphs instead of the pain, and I always try to make these experiences awkward, ugly, and honestly gross when they need to be. Without divulging too much of myself online, I’m well equipped to know what all of those hardships feel like. In fact, I’ve read many stories, fan fiction and novels alike, that portray eating disorders, stalkers, and surviving sexual assault in a really misleading light, and I wanted to create something I felt like accurately represented how insidious and terrifying all of that actually is. Most of all, for me, writing this story was so much more about the main character overcoming her strife, and finally feeling like she has agency and control over her own body again. At its core, the Shamrock Social Club is really just the story of a fiercely determined young woman on her own path to healing, who happens to meet a boy along the way. The writing process was very, very cathartic.

Your story got popular not only on Tumblr but across Twitter as well in a short period of time—an amazing accomplishment. How did you react to your (well-deserving) popularity?

Jesus, the memes that have been born out of this story on twitter and tumblr are… beyond hilarious. And trust me, nobody lurks on twitter more than me. I don’t know if I would use the word “popular” about this story or even about myself though. To put things in perspective, suddenly being under a magnifying glass is still super strange and new to me. I literally had about 500 followers for most of the eight years I’ve been on tumblr until the end of 2018, which is when I started posting fic. I think about this all the time, I could write a dissertation on how baffling it is that people suddenly seem to give me heaps of attention and put me on this pedestal when deep down I know who I am and I know how tumblr works and I know it’s just as likely that people could be sending messages and giving praise to literally anyone else. Everybody has something to offer, I just got lucky. In the grand scheme of things, this story has only reached a very small pocket of the internet and there really isn’t anything about me that makes me more special than anyone else, I’m just a person who had a few people’s attention for a little while because I wrote a story. I’m very proud and grateful to have people reading my writing and it isn’t lost on me how fortunate I am that anyone does in the first place.

The one thing I will say though, is that it’s profoundly moving to me the amount of sexual assault survivors who have come forward in the wake of this story. Anonymously or not, people have been so open, and have shared so much of themselves with me. It’s amazing how alone you can be made to feel when you don’t have an example of someone who has been through the same struggle as you and come out the other side, even if it’s a fictional character, and I think this story ended up meaning a lot more to people than I ever expected it to. I can’t wrap my brain around how special it is that something I wrote could offer some small comfort to another person who has survived something so awful. The response this story has gotten blows me out of the water to this day.

Who came up with the name ’tattoorry’?

Honestly I don’t remember but “tattoorry” is shorthand for “tattoo artist Harry.”

Lastly, anything you’d like to say to anyone who read your fic?

Thank you for reading my writing. On principal, I think that if you find something that makes you happy and it’s not hurting anyone, then that’s worth celebrating. The people who have engaged with this story made into into something so much bigger and more special than I could’ve ever accomplished on my own. 

Thank you very much, this was a lot of fun!

***

Thank you, AJ, for your time and dedication to these questions! Check out more of her work here! 

***If you would like to send in recommendations for next months featured story, please do so here.

[crazy-little-cool-cat]

Gold Digger - Chapter 4 | Gwilym Lee x OFC

A/N:  Well, worlds collided. And merged into one, big, chaotic universe.

Warnings: Unexpected plot twist ahead. Swearing. That's pretty much it.

Word Count: ~2K

The Playlist (Updates Regularly)

Chapter List:  Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3

"Mornin'." Joe murmured when he entered the kitchen to find Lizzie.

"Morning." Lizzie echoed and covered her mouth as she yawned. "Sleep well?" 

"As well as a hangover will allow." He chuckled, his voice an octave deeper than it usually is after a night of partying and drinking. "Is that breakfast?" 

"Mhm." Lizzie nodded and shoveled a forkful of omelet into her mouth. "Help yourself." 

"My God, it's like a hotel buffet up in here!" he remarked as he loaded a plate with pastry, eggs, hashbrowns, and vegetables. "Is this what you have for breakfast every day?" 

"Only on weekends," Lizzie said after swallowing. "Shelly, my roommate, works at a club and comes home at the crack of dawn, so she stops by the bakery to get the first batch of the day." 

"Oh?" 

"Yeah. Shells tends bar. Sometimes she's sort of a go-go dancer." Lizzie shrugged. "She basically makes people get drunk and spend money, either way." 

"Huh." Joe tore a piece of a croissant with his fingers and tossed it in his mouth. He noted to himself that he could see Shelly's bedroom door over Lizzie's shoulder. 

"So, last night was..." Lizzie started. 

"Fun." Joe finished her sentence. 

"Oh, definitely." Lizzie blushed slightly. "The thing is -" 

"Calm down, kiddo." Joe smiled, "it was a one-time thing. I know the drill." 

"Oh, that's not what I was going to..." Lizzie fumbled to find the right words. "It's just that I didn't expect to..." She wanted to slap herself into using language properly again. "You're Gwil's best mate, you know?" She noticed Joe nodded blankly as she spoke, not making eye contact. Following his gaze, she noticed he was staring intently at Shelly's door as if willing it to open with his mind. "You've met Shelly, then." _________________________________________________ 'About last night...' 

Lizzie held her breath as she waited for Gwilym to reply to her text and say something. Anything. She woke up with a horrible sense of guilt for hooking up with his best mate. Yes, she was drunk. Yes, she was gutted that Gwilym didn't seem to give her the time of day... but she still wanted him. He was just... better. For her, that is. He was taller, wealthy, British. Classy. A gentleman. Smooth. Charming. Other than that, Joe was wrapped around Shelly's finger, and all it took was for them to meet once. She wished Gwilym was like that with her. She had no idea he secretly was. 

'Don't worry about it. Did you have a good time?'

'You mean at the party?'

'Yeah.' Lizzie mulled over her answer. Yes, she had a blast. Did she go home with the man she hoped she would? No. Did she regret hooking up with Joe? Not at all. Did she wish he was Gwilym? Definitely.  

'Yeah, it was good stuff!' she finally replied and mentally kicked herself once the message was sent. 'Sorry for being a drunk mess.'

'You were adorable.'

'Yeah?' Lizzie felt her heart stop. 'Thought you found me a bit of a bother. You hardly spoke to me.'

'You were busy. I didn't want to intrude.' 

'You could never!' she wanted to reply. 'I wish you had!' was a close second option. 

'Joe's a blast!' was all she could manage to type out. _______________________________________________ "Do you happen to have that redhead's number?" Shelly asked as Lizzie brushed her teeth. 

"Huh?" Lizzie asked with a foamy mouth, holding her toothbrush pointing up as if it were a magic wand.

"The one you hooked up with. Joe?" Shelly leaned against the door frame. "Or were you that far gone that you don't remember hooking up with someone?"  

"Ugh." Lizzie rolled her eyes and rinsed her mouth. "Yes, I have his number. Why do you want it?" 

"I'm doing a telephone survey about your levels of oblivion." Shelly snarked. 

"You are just so bloody cunty sometimes!" Lizzie laughed. "You fancy Joe, eh?" "Just give me his number." 

"No."

"No?!" Shelly guffawed and took a step back.

"Nah." Lizzie shrugged.

"Elizabeth, you will give me his number." Shelly squared her shoulders. 

"If you fuck anything up with that man and fuck my chances up with Gwilym -" 

"Oh, unclench. It'll be impossible to ruin your chances with Prince Charming."   _________________________________________________ Lizzie and Gwilym sat on the sofa in Lizzie's flat, sharing a bowl of popcorn, watching Netflix on a rainy Sunday. They sat in what felt like comfortable silence for Lizzie but was clearly awkward for Gwilym. "I'm recently broken up." Gwilym blurted out. 

"What?" Lizzie's handful of popcorn froze halfway to her mouth as she turned to look up at him, raising an eyebrow. 

"I'm... I'm recently broken up." Gwilym repeated. 

"I'm aware." 

"Oh. Didn't think you knew that much about me..." Gwilym looked down at his hands and rubbed his thighs, sinking lower into the sofa. "So, yeah. There's that." 

"Okay." Lizzie shrugged. 

"You don't care?" Gwilym raised an eyebrow. "She's still very much around. My ex."

"I know." 

"Oh." Gwilym blinked, perplexed. "So..." 

"Do you need to talk about it, Gwil?" Lizzie asked and paused the episode of Stranger Things the two had been watching. 

"No, no." Gwil shook his head slightly. "I'm just... I felt like I should tell you. If I'm acting weird or distant or something, it's not you. It's Clara." 

"What happened to you two?" 

"Disagreements. Fights. Routine." Gwilym seemed to be brainstorming for reasons. "I think... I just didn't see her in my future. I wanted to end it for a while, but she ended up making that move for me and left me. Said the connection died, and she wasn't feeling it anymore." Gwilym took some popcorn in his big hands. "It's fine, though, because I felt the same way. I was just shocked that she actually made that move, you know?"

"Huh."

"What?" 

"Nothing. Just feels a bit knobby to leave someone like you." Lizzie put her hand on top of Gwilym's and gave it a squeeze. "How long ago did it happen?" 

"Thought you've heard the story," Gwilym smirked cheekily. 

"There's a difference between what really happens and what the press says, don't you think?" Lizzie retorted. 

"Touche." Gwilym chuckled. "Two months before I met you."  

Lizzie quickly did the math. She's known Gwilym for just about three months. 

"Wow. That is quite recent." _________________________________________________ Annie felt exhausted. Dealing with a colicky Alfie, a whirlwind of a Rory and Ben being away on some fashion appearance yet again had her running on very few hours of sleep. Gwilym, however, came to the rescue and used the opportunity to run his thoughts by one of his favourite people. 

"So, the problem is...?" Annie pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. 

Her hair stuck out of her messy bun in different directions. Ben's cutoff t-shirt was skewed on her shoulders. Her sweatpants had unrecognizable stains adorning them.

"Either she's hitting on me because she knows who I am and everything that comes with it," Gwilym bounced Alfie on his hip, "or she genuinely likes me." 

"Do you think she's after fame and money?" Annie looked at Gwilym as if he grew two heads. "Really?" 

"Look, Banana," Gwilym hoisted Alfie up higher, "when we first met, I had to chase her like a dog chasing a fox. She was unreachable. Aloof. She could give two shits about me."

"Right."

"Now she's texting me all day, every day. She's giving me these looks..." 

"How dare she!" Annie cried mockingly. 

"Look, I mean it. Something's off."

"Could it be that she genuinely likes you, you fucking insect?" Annie groaned. "It's not that deep! She likes you!" 

"How would you know? You've met her once, and she hooked up with Joe." 

"Because you kept pushing her away, you twat!" Annie scoffed. "What?" 

"I did not -"

"This is my friend Lizzie!" Annie lowered her voice to sound more manly and glared at Gwilym. "Over and over and over and over and -"

"I get it." Gwilym groaned.

"You played yourself there," Annie noted. "Pushed her right into Joe's arms. You have a thing or two to learn from Ben about neutralizing that Mazzello charm."  

"Shut it." Gwilym huffed. 

"Never." Annie smiled sweetly. "And either way, it's obvious you two are into each other. The ball's in your court, Gwilly." 

"It's too soon, Clara and I -" 

"Had a great run, but it's over, and it's time to move on."  

"Christ, Annie, have some emotion, will you?" Gwilym laughed. "It's hardly been half a year!" 

"There's something you should know -"

"I don't want to know." Gwilym interrupted her. "Whatever it is you're going to say, I don't want to know. Her life is no longer any of my business." 

"Gwil, we can't keep you two separated forever. Things are too weird." 

"And this, right here," Gwilym pointed at Annie, "is why I'm not doing shit with Lizzie. It's too weird. What if they meet up and -"

"Oh, are we playing the What If game now?" Annie feigned enthusiasm. "What if I ended up with Joe and not Ben?" 

"What?!" 

"What if Alfie was a girl?" 

"Annie..." 

"What if you and Ben were gay lovers?" 

"Your point's made, Annabelle." 

"So, what are you going to do?" She asked and took Alfie from him as he fussed around. "Hm?" 

"Nothing." _________________________________________________ "Do you think he knows?" Shelly asked Lizzie over brunch on a cold Sunday morning.

"Who?" Lizzie frowned in confusion, "Knows what?" 

"Gwilym." Shelly rolled her eyes. "About his ex." 

"What's there to know?" Lizzie looked puzzled. 

"You live under a bloody rock, eh?" Shelly chuckled. "She's getting real close with the Jamie bloke." 

"That's just tabloids being tabloids." Lizzie waved Shelly's comment off. "And even if it is true, I doubt Gwil gives a shit. They're over." 

"Enter Lizzie, stage right!" Shelly raised her eyebrows playfully and smirked. "To the rescue!" 

"Oh, come off it, Shells." 

"You clearly fancy him." Shelly laughed. "Make your bloody move!" 

"No!" Lizzie countered. "If I make my move now I'll look like some clout chasing, gold-digging -" 

"Who cares?!" Shelly groaned. "Dig that gold! Chase that clout! Maybe you'll be able to quit your teaching job and become a human again!" _________________________________________________

'Greensleeves Castmates Caught Up Close And Personal!'

Gwilym stared at his laptop and blinked, his mind utterly empty of any thought. He would never have imagined that this would ever happen. He was utterly shocked, and yet not at all surprised. 

On the screen, in bright, vivid colours, were Clara and Jamie, snogging on a white, sandy beach in the Caribbeans. He took a long swig from his beer and pursed his lips, scrolling down to read the article. On the one hand, he resented Annie for sending him the link. On the other hand, he was thankful. It was finally time for him to move on; Clara sure did. 

He sighed as he read what he already knew. Jamie's engagement broke off abruptly just weeks before the wedding. A couple of weeks earlier, he and Clara had broken up. He didn't really think she could do this, but at this point - who knew. 

'Did you read it?'

'Yes, Annabelle.' Gwilym replied.

'Are you livid?' her response came within seconds. 

'Not really, no.'

When no reply came swooshing in, he tossed the phone on the sofa next to him. He looked at the picture of a bikini-clad Clara and board-shorts clad Jamie kissing again. She looked happy, as far as he could tell. He was positive Jamie was over the moon. He always suspected there was a weird love triangle situation going on in that close-knit friendship, but now he knew for sure. 

Biting the inside of his cheek, he closed his laptop screen and looked at his phone. His fingers were tingling. He had to text Lizzie.

____________________________________________________

TAGLIST: @ramibaby @filmslutt @lose-you-to-find-me @sonic-volcano  @nosferatyou @rogertaylorin1976

[addictsitter]

F, G, Q, and T

F: What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom? consistently? god, uh. i think probably kingdom hearts? but that was years back. maybe stranger things since i did get into it like, a month after s2 aired but it was a backburner fandom. wait no nm it’s descendants. cause i’ve been more or less YES DESCENDANTS GOOD a lot for the last three and a half years. so. also kind of tortall bc i get sporadically bitter about neal/kel every month or so and have since about 2007.

G: Do you remember your first OTP, if so who was in it? ooh okay so the first otp i remember is john sheppard/teyla emmagan from stargate atlantis and i just. never really got over them. (they’re my forever otp)

Q: A ship you’ve abandoned and why: oh okay this one is kinda tough but i guess the best example is probably jay/carlos and mal/evie from descendants? like, i have nothing against the ships themselves and there’s plenty of material there. BUT. the fandom, rachel. i hate. the descendants fandom. so goddamn much. because they’re really obnoxious (never 4get the j*ylos stans who called d3 the straightest of the movies despite jay/gil being as close to canon as we were gonna get for a descendants movie just bc carlos was still with jane. also all the j*ylos stans who complained about them ~no homo’ing~ j*ylos in d2 because carlos liked jane and jay and carlos’s friendship got less focus while completely ignoring the harry/gil kiss that was scripted, filmed and then cut!!!)

(”alec are you still bitter about d2″ I AM ALWAYS BITTER ABOUT D2)

T: Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending, about anything at all (gender identity, sexual or romantic orientation, extended family, sexual preferences like top/bottom/switch, relationship with poetry, seriously anything)

ahem. excuse me. [retrieves stack of paper] we’re going to go alphabetically by fandom. and by alphabetically by fandom, i mean you’re getting some highlights.

under a cut for length

battlestar galactica: hello yes have i talked about kara thrace being a lesbian yet? no? so kara thrace is a lesbian and lee adama is a trans lesbian and they are happy and in love. thank you, have a nice day.

being human: s3 established that annie feels things that people feel when she touches them which leads me to the headcanon that mitchell, nina and george made all her old favorite foods for, like, an entire week and ate them so she could enjoy them again, along with other things. (we do not discuss the plot that involved that part i don’t acknowledge 98% of s3 for a reason.)

descendants: uma’s mother is ursula, this is canon, but i fully headcanon that her father is a deity of some flavor and she, like mal, is a full on demigoddess. aside from that, i also will live and die by the idea that ben can go beast without audrey’s magic being involved. also carlos is non-binary, evie’s a trans girl, harry is the definition of chaotic bi and non-binary and gil’s a trans boy.

elementary: i. i have so many. where do i start. um. easiest is this: during the time skip in the finale while joan underwent chemo, kitty came back to new york and archie and arthur spent, like, all their time together while sherlock and kitty traded off watching the kids. also: joanlockbell ot3 or bust.

the get down: shao got the fuck away from annie and got a happy ending and met zeke again at some point and they lived happily ever after. also DIZZEE IS TOTALLY FINE.

gilmore girls: finale what finale. revival what revival. logan and rory are happily married and working on their careers and EVERYONE IS GOOD AND NOBODY IS PREGNANT.

gossip girl: dan’s not gossip girl what the fuck show. trans girl jenny or bust. also trans girl blair.

harry potter: [insert requisite dean/seamus and sirius/remus comment here] also harry became a goddamn teacher fuck that auror shit that boy needs to get away from more fighting goddamn. also someone please get him into therapy. please.

high school musical: listen chad danforth is a trans girl and people can come fight me. also requisite chad/ryan comment here.

izombie: post-s3 did not happen, ravi is either immune or a zombie and he and liv are happily together and clive is regularly grossed out by them as a couple. major goes back to being a social worker, as he fucking should have.

i had a kingdom hearts thing here but tbh i just. have so many emotions that i can’t even touch it 

leverage: listen. listen. eliot absolutely worked for the stargate program and nobody can ever convince me otherwise. it was supposed to happen and they couldn’t manage it so i’m declaring it my canon. also hardison may or may not have learned his hacking skills from his nana.

i. had magicians headcanons and i still have magicians headcanons and one of them is genderfluid quentin and that is literally the only one i can think of without crying right now.

one piece: aro/ace lawlu or bust. genderfluid sanji or bust. lesbian nami or bust. also. my asshole babes aka cp9 aka now at least partially in cp0 are not, in fact, back working for the government inexplicably but are instead working undercover in cp0 for the revolutionary army. also mishanks was a thing bye

pacific rim: gender gets really fucking weird in the drift. nobody’s cis.

shadowhunters: hi yes do you have a moment to hear about jacemaia and how they are actually friends and spend time together and help each other with trauma and like each other

stranger things: BI STEVE BI STEVE BI STEVE BI STEVE BI STEVE steve and robin are bi/lesbian solidarity and any job they have in a non-80s small town setting involves robin roasting the fuck out of steve for failing with people of every gender. also elmax.

tortall. TORTALL. okay so. alanna is non-binary of some flavor idk what. alanna is with george and they both might also be with jon who’s publicly married to thayet who’s really married to buri who’s publicly married to raoul for ~appearances~ who’s actually w/ gary and maybe jon if he’s not being a dick that day. also. kel is married to neal and yuki and they all live together at new hope and all absolutely suck at hiding that fact and everyone at new hope just, like, conveniently ignores it. also i have A Lot of neal/kel feelings and headcanons but those would take me twelve hours, three powerpoints, a fifth of whiskey and yelling directly at tamora pierce to get through.

uhhh i think that’s it? maybe? possibly? i can’t think of anything else that i want to talk about at this point? i’ll stop now, at least.

[kellykadesperate]

heavy hearts will bleed

another teen!seb fic for you:

Seb’s got his hands down the sweetie jar when Belle stalks over to him more plastered than he wants to admit. She’s got something glittery running through her hair, almost like a tassel that’s got caught and he smiles at her as she huffs out a sigh and sits down next to him.

Seb knows his own family, knows that Belle has always looked out for him, hugged him a little longer than was necessary but now she has these big sad eyes on him and he wants to tell her to quit it.

“Alright?” He’s got a hand falling over the gummy ring and he hooks it around his finger before fishing it out with ease.

Belle doesn’t say anything, just reaches for a glass of wine and yeah it’s a family thing but she’s putting them back like it’s Christmas. 

“I was.” Belle says, all vague and unhelpful and Seb looks across to where his dads are sitting. They’re in a world of their own, playing with each other’s hands when they think no one else is looking and it’s sickening but he supposes he shouldn’t go and bother them.

They’re old, they probably need time to be soft before Annie goes and —

Annie bundles across them both and Aaron has her on his shoulders within a matter of seconds as Seb stares at them and almost forgets about the way Belle is still staring at him.

“You look like him sometimes.” Belle says, and Seb blinks out his confusion. She’s had too many, she’s rambling, she probably thinks he’s someone else. “You argue with your dad and I see that look, that — that anger. Sorry. No I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”

Seb chooses to ignore her, offer a kind smile and leave before she gets even more weird but then she pulls him back by the arm. 

“I’m talking about Lachlan.” Belle says, and the name means nothing to him. He doesn’t know what it should mean but —

“Should I get Lee?” Belle’s boyfriend, he’s got an allotment, he’s dead boring but everyone says that’s what she needs and he doesn’t get it.

Belle pulls a face. “No.” She pushes out. “I don’t want — you don’t know do you?” Her face switches into a frown, and Seb just stares at her. “About him. About Lachlan, about what he did to your mum when he —“

The music stops or something because he can’t hear anything anymore. Belle’s just sitting there crying and then Robert feels his heart thump out of his chest because he hears his name.

Within seconds he’s there, holding Seb by the arm and trying to steer him away from harms way because Belle’s always been a lose canon when it came to him hasn’t she? 

“Seb, we’re leaving.”

“No.” Seb manages to say, mouth half open as he works out what the fuck Belle thinks she’s saying. “My mum? What — what’s this Lachlan got to do with my mum?” He’s asking, almost pleading as he watches Liv drag the glass of wine away from Belle’s lips and pull her up the stairs away from sight. “No Liv, let me speak to her, let me —“

“Seb, come on.” Robert says, he’s still got a hand over Seb’s arm but there’s no use, Seb pushes him away and Robert feels hopeless against what he’s about to know.

“Who’s Lachlan?” Seb asks, and Aaron feels like the walls are closing in around them as Robert almost falls back into his arms. There’s too many memories now, they’re swirling about in his mind so much that he feels sick. 

Because all he can think about is Robert being hurt by him, them finding Rebecca’s body, the despair over Seb not knowing his mother.

It comes crawling back.

Aaron pulls a hand across his face as Robert shrinks the way he always does when they speak about the past. About that time. 

“Will someone tell me what’s going on?”

Chas is there, and Aaron looks towards her for a second like he needs her help. She sighs heavily, goes to speak.

“Love.” Chas speaks, hardly makes any effort to sound serious and then she looks at Jacob and Annie. “The kiddies need their beds now, go home and we’ll talk about all of this —“

“Nan please.” Seb’s chin is wobbling and Aaron feels his heart break. 

“Lydia, can you — get the kids out.” Aaron turns quickly, squeezes Robert’s sweaty hand as a way of letting him know what’s happening and within seconds Annie and Jacob are feeding the pigs outside and Seb’s still standing there waiting.

“Just tell —“

“He was your cousin.” Robert blurts out, because he knows he can’t stop this. He knows that it’s too late and his fifteen year old child has to hear about the worst thing that’s ever happened to him before he’s ready.

Seb raises an eyebrow and pulls at the blue hoodie he’s thrown over the shirt Robert’s made him wear. He looks uncomfortable, out of place suddenly and Robert wants to stop before he understands properly.

“My cousin?” Seb says, slow, steady and Aaron nods.

“Yeah mate.” He says, pulling his hands together nervously.

And then he works it out. 

“And he hurt mum?”

Everyone decides that’s when it’s time to leave them to it, give them space or whatever. Diane’s there, head in her hands and Marlon looks like he wants to cry or something.

They all leave and Robert has tears in his eyes as he looks at his son, taller than Robert likes for his age, freckles and a winning smile and this golden heart and —

“He did more than hurt her Seb, he — God, I’m so sorry, he’s the reason why she’s gone.”

Gone is better than what she is really, dead. 

She’s dead because he killed her and Robert didn’t know for weeks and —

“Seb look at me,” Aaron says suddenly, leans over and sees that Seb’s doing what he usually does, bottling things up until he’s breaking things and making them worry. “It’s going to be okay, I promise you, it’s going to —“

“He killed mum. He killed my mum.” 

Robert has a hand across his face now, blinks through the tears he has in his eyes because they won’t go away. 

“Don’t, please don’t —“

“Don’t what?” Seb says. “Say the truth instead of — of you lying to me.”

“We never —“

“Car crash. Quick. Painless.” Seb knows what he knows because they sat down and told him the lie when he was twelve, explained something more than just that mummy is in the sky looking down on him. 

Aaron winces as he speaks, hears the emotion thick in his son’s throat. He wants to wrap his arms around him, hold tight, kiss his head and rock him until he’s let it all out but Seb’s so angry. He knows.

“Painless.” Seb repeats. “And now, now I know that my cousin killed her. Why? Why would —“

“Seb, you need to calm down.” Aaron moves closer towards Seb, holds up a hand and turns back to see Robert staring blankly like he’s already had to say enough. 

“No. No he needs to start explaining. Oi. Dad, would you open your mouth and —“

“Don’t speak to him like that.” Aaron fights his corner like usual and Robert pulls his head up. “This, it’s so hard for —“

“How sad for him. He’s not just found out that his mum was killed by someone he’s related to!” It hits way too close to home than Seb expected and he flinches at the look on Robert’s face, the way he cowers under it.

“Seb we — we were always going to tell you.” Robert says, after the longest time in the world. “He was a monster. He wasn’t your family. He never ever will be your family okay?”

He’s angry, he’s fucking fuming as he stands taller and Seb’s there crying in front of him. 

“He killed her?” Seb whispers, like it’s sinking in and his face is pink now, freckles spotted across his nose even more visible. “He took her away from me, why?” 

Aaron shudders. “Because he was messed up.” He says, tentatively strokes at Seb’s arm and tries not to crumble under the pain he sees. “Some sick little liar who hurt us one too many times. But he got caught in the end.”

“When it was too late.” Seb whispers before sighing. “So him and Belle were —“

Robert’s jaw locks as he thinks about it. 

“Until she saw sense and ended up nearly dead herself.” 

Seb blows out a long breath, “But he’s gone now?” He says.

“Seb, he’s never going to touch a hair on your head. You got that?” Robert turns into a proper dad and Seb feels him hold his face in his hand. “He’s gone, he’s gone okay?”

“But he — he took her.” Seb says, chin still wobbling. “She was taken from me, you lied, you said that —“

“Because we couldn’t hurt you.” Aaron says, thinks of all the times where they have tried to get this out. “You’ve been so happy, and now this is on your mind and it’s the last thing we want.” 

Seb wipes at his face as Liv comes down the stairs, explains how Belle is out of it now and sorry. 

“Hey kid.” Liv says warily as she looks at Seb. “I’m so sorry.” Her own chin wobbles and she has her own memories that run through him. 

Seb shudders again, and he can’t breathe against the way they’re all staring at him.

“You’re ours, you know that?” Aaron says protectively as Robert holds Seb’s shoulders. 

“Ours.” Robert whispers, and Seb falls into his chest slowly as the tears roll down his face.

::

Jacob’s deciding to kick every aisle they walk down and Robert feels the frustration rising through him as he lets it happen.

“Seb, you’ll scuff your trainers.” He says, for the third time, now decides to yank his son over the trolley and make him stay put whilst Aaron gets the easy job, walks around picking out fruit with the soft and sensible little girl of theirs.

Figures.

“Alright?” Robert raises his head as he sees Cain standing there with Issac. He nods politely and waits for the questioning. “How’s Seb?”

Robert feels his throat almost close up as he thinks about how quiet he’s been, it’s been nearly two weeks and since that night he hasn’t asked anymore questions at all. It’s like he doesn’t want to know a thing about it, like he’s trying to erase all of it from his mind.

It’s not healthy but there’s not a lot Robert can do about it now.

“Quiet. Quieter anyway. He’s not speaking about it. Any of it.” Robert says, and even Jacob has the decency to stop bouncing in the trolley. He’s a little petrified of his uncle Cain. 

“He’s not been around the skate park either.” Issac says, a mop of black hair and dark eyes and concern written all over his face. “But I’ll keep an eye out for him.” 

“Cheers.” Robert says, feels Aaron snake a hand around his waist as he appears and voices his own concern.

They’re all concerned, that isn’t going to change any time soon and Seb coming home just after eleven a few days later is enough to make everything blow up. 

He slams the door and keeps his head down as he tries to get to the stairs before either of them can corner him.

It doesn’t work, and it’s Robert shouting for him to explain himself before he can disappear.

“Have you seen the time? Where have you been?” Robert’s eyes are wide and Aaron watches from the sofa, biting his lip nervously as he sees the exchange. “What are you —“

“What is this, twenty questions?” Seb shouts back, and it’s not him, he’s gentle, naively so at times and he shouldn’t be this angry but he is. It pours out of him and Robert blows out a breath.

“Oi, enough.” Aaron says, he’s the good cop because he always is, always happens to be more lenient and it works because Seb almost looks sorry. “We get it, this is about —“

“Shut up.” Seb says, and Robert’s eyebrow arches up. 

“Don’t speak to your dad like that.” 

“Why not?” Seb’s bright pink now, his throat is full of all this emotion and he shakes his head. “Is he gonna disappear on me as well?”

Robert swallows, tries hard to keep it together as Aaron comes towards them both. “Your mum didn’t disappear on you, she was —“

“Yeah, I know! Because some psycho took her and now I’ve got half a family left!” Seb screams and it’s enough to wake Annie who appears on the stairs with her pink blanket and a frown on her face. Aaron runs towards her and scoops her up, gently stroking her hair as he carries her back upstairs.

“You haven’t got — you haven’t got half a family left.” Robert says, “Don’t say it like that.”

“He killed my grandad and my aunt and —“

Robert flinches.

“You’ve found out?”

“How couldn’t I?” Seb shrugs dramatically. “Locked up in a shack for all that time, and then he kills her anyway. And then he burns it down, so I don’t even get to see where she was last.”

Robert winces slightly. “I wouldn’t want you to see that.”

“It’s not about you. Or dad. Or Liv. It’s about —“

“I know, I know Seb.”

“How couldn’t you know back then?” 

It’s the question he’s been dreading, the blame, the guilt rises through him and he can’t hear anything at all until Aaron appears and tells Seb to stop it.

“You don’t blame him.” Aaron says, frowning harshly at Seb. “You have no idea what it was like after we found out okay? We — your dad was in bits about it.”

Seb bites his lip the way Aaron does and chews as the tears fall down his face. “Found out a little too late though didn’t you?”

“Enough.” Aaron says again, louder as Robert shrinks.

“No! I’m not a kid anymore! You don’t get to lie to me and try to treat me like one of your own when I’m not am I? Belle sees through it, everyone sees through it!”

One minute he has his phone in his hand and the next it’s been thrown across the room and crashing towards the glass cabinet filled with pictures of them all.

There’s glass everywhere and Aaron holds his breath as Seb looks down at his empty hands.

“Seb.” Robert says carefully, because he doesn’t know what else to say, because this hasn’t ever happened before, because Seb is so good and this is —

“I’m just like him.” It’s all he says, and then he’s running out the door and Robert finds himself falling into Aaron’s chest and shaking out his fear.

::

Seb’s by the swings when they find him, it hasn’t taken them longer than ten minutes  because he’s still just a kid at heat and that’s what is so horrible about all of this.

His long legs are falling down across the gravel and the light of the moon is the only thing making him visible really.

“Thought we’d find you here.” Robert says, cautious as he speaks and Seb keeps his head down like he can’t bring himself to raise it just yet. “Though you’re a little bit big for swings now don’t you think?”

Aaron almost smiles. “Jacob’s even getting too —“

“Did they hear? Are they — are they scared?” Seb raises his head up, his nose is pink against the cold and Aaron’s heart sort of breaks as he looks at him.

“No darlin’.” Aaron says, he used to call him that when he was little because Chas did the same and it stuck. “Vic’s with them, they’re still tucked up in bed.”

Seb blinks slowly. “Good.” He says, half a smile on his face. “I didn’t want to — to scare them, I didn’t mean to do any of that.” He says, adamantly.

He looks so disappointed in himself and Robert can’t help but reach out and touch his son’s shoulder. 

“We know.” Robert says, because that wasn’t his kid, their kid, that was a sad and messed up boy who needs help. 

“Yeah?” Seb looks up again and Aaron nods his head, closes in so that he can kiss Seb’s head. “I just got angry and lost it. Maybe that’s what he did. Just got angry. Maybe I’m just like —“

“Never.” Robert stresses now, wants this known, wants Seb certain that his psycho sick cousin has nothing to do with him and never ever will. 

“I’m related to him though aren’t I?” Seb says, squints harshly because they can’t deny that. Robert drops his head a little, walks across towards him and leans against the swings, thinking so far back that he almost feels dizzy. 

“You know your grandad,” Robert blows out a breath, feels the emotion get caught in his throat and Aaron can’t believe how brave Robert is being. “He — he was a good man but he didn’t like me being who I was. Bisexual, you know?” Seb nods along and Robert feels Aaron squeezing his shoulder encouragingly. “So he hurt me for it. Just the once, but it was enough. And I grew up thinking that I could be capable of that too. I could have kids, and hurt them.”

“You wouldn’t.” Seb says suddenly and Robert nods.

“I knew that too see, I knew I couldn’t but I also knew I was his son, that his anger and disappointment was in me somehow and I couldn’t help it.” Robert hasn’t spoken about this before, he’s not ready to taint the memories he’s built up for his son of his grandad just yet but he needs to know this. 

Aaron squeezes on his shoulder again and Seb’s eyes fill with tears. 

“But I was wrong, okay? Because some things don’t get carried on like that, they just don’t. And Lachlan has nothing to do with who you are now.”

It makes sense. It makes Seb shudder and wrap his arms around himself and then Aaron’s pulling his coat off and handing it over before crouching down towards Seb.

His knees crack a little and he’s getting too old for this but he smiles as he goes and tries to hold himself together before he speaks.

“You know how I’ve always said my dad wasn’t — he wasn’t a very nice man.” He’s always said, always made sure that he knows exactly why they don’t speak about him. Seb nods. “Well he, he did some things that —“

“Dad you don’t have to.” Seb says, because he’s already knows. It’s a small village at the end of the day. 

“No I do because I thought I couldn’t be a dad to you because of him.” Aaron says. “And when we were thinking about having Jacob. I — I couldn’t get passed the fact that I could be him one day, angry and bitter and —“ Aaron hugs himself and Robert has a hand tight across his neck, stroking over and over. 

“You’re the softest man I know.” Seb says, a smile on his face through the tears. “Daddy fluffy remember?”

Aaron laughs at that, rubs a hand over his eyes and actually laughs. “Oh God.” He says. “And you got Jake and Annie saying it n’all.” 

“He couldn’t help himself.” Robert whispers, hand still stroking as he looks up at Seb and then blows out a breath. “Seb, what he did was — but he’s nothing to do with ya.” He tries to smile. 

“But — the way I, the remote hitting the —“

Aaron gathers Seb up in his arms, holds Seb’s face towards his as Robert has a hand across the boy’s back.

“You’re all ours.” Aaron says passionately, in a way that always makes Robert feel a little light headed after all this time. “You belong. Here. With me and your dad and Liv, Jacob and Annie. That’s your family okay?” Seb nods lightly. “And my crazy lot, his crazy lot, they all love you and you belong.” 

Robert blinks as he tries not to cry. “Mate, they loved you too you know? Your aunt, your grandad, your — mum. And we need you to know that you fit here with us. Always have, always will.” 

Seb is bright pink now, all freckles and blond hair and clear eyes. 

“Okay.” Seb says, almost rolls his eyes because he’s a cheeky so and so. “Stop going on, I get it.” Robert half smiles, shares a lion with Aaron and knows without a shadow of a doubt that there’s still sadness there, one that won’t ever go away. He knows that Seb doesn’t deserve to have this fucked up past either.

“Good.” Aaron says, raises to his feet and watches Seb do the same. “And next time, leave the remote where it is yeah?”

Seb’s blushing and looking all sorry and then he’s in Aaron’s arms, Robert’s kissing his head and then he’s walking ahead of them as they head home.

Robert pulls Aaron closer towards him like he needs the comfort and the younger man stretches his fingers into his husband’s.

“God I love you.” Robert says, almost too overwhelmed with everything to speak properly about how he feels. He just knows the really simple things like he wouldn’t have been able to do any of that without Aaron by his side.

“Hmm?” Aaron mumbles, walking slower. “Where’s that come from?”

Robert stops them, points to his chest and smiles. “In here you daft idiot.”

“You sap.”

“What? I’m emotional, I’ve got ever right to be.”

Aaron looks serious. “He’ll be alright.” He says. “Issac will make sure of it, and so will all of us.” He smiles faintly, hand across Robert’s waist and then he leans in and kisses him gently. There’s hardly any heat to it. Just this soft rhythm that screams ‘I’m still here, I’ll always be here’

Robert takes, holds and then pulls away as he hears Seb calling for them to stop acting like kids and hurry up before he locks them out.

“Yeah. He’ll be just fine.” 

[whenislunch]

undefined

This summer I saw my favorite artist perform live on an island off of Manhattan that used to serve as a jail/mental health institution.

When Frank Ocean came out with his screen grabbed text file posted as a “photo” on Tumblr in 2012, I knew the platform was something special - the one niche he could safely post something so revealing and vulnerable and still not open himself to the direct hate-filled or homophobic comments of any other forum. I had signed up for Tumblr the year prior. I joined with the fantasy of becoming a famous food blogger (and later as a nail artist) so I could quit my publicity job and score all of the PR perks that I so readily dished out to any 'mommy' with a touch of digital pretense.

Personal space on the vast internet was never my craving. I resisted being too present, and enjoyed the ability to control how much I “put myself out there” on facebook, twitter, and later Instagram. With my original two tumblrs, like Frank, I could focus on sharing and following the things I cared the most about: in early cases, it was fan art of Bill Murray, gifs of Daft Punk, and mostly photos of food I had eaten from the everyday life of a new New Yorker discovering the cult nature of the restaurant scene (a similar practice to my behavior as a teen taking shitty photos at punk shows in St Pete, Florida to pin on my bedroom wall). Tumblr became my collection of “curated cool," and nobody cared how hard I was trying or what I put up there, except for me, and it became my favorite place on the internet. Eventually, I realized all of the writers I was admiring on The Awl were including their Tumblrs in their bios, and I was there to follow them. I saw Rebecca Black become a meme before her one-hit would become a wedding band wonder. If sitting at the open kitchen counter at an edison bulb-lit restaurant was the closest you could get to a food industry version of “backstage”, then a Tumblr dashboard filled with all of the blogging generation of the “fake news media” was the analogy. It’s human nature to want to be seen and understood. Selfies perform better than friendies on Instagram - and GPOY’s on Tumblr… well I challenge anybody on music.ly to define the acronym without that peeking at the Childish Gambino Genius page first.

And that’s the tip of the iceberg for where I stand with Tumblr now. After three years of hanging out in the same field, they invited me to meet them at the dugout. After four months of interviewing and pitching challenges and pretending like I was at a digital optimization workshop, I was offered a job. After five years, or nearly, I’m ready for another one. I had the BEST time and the BEST TEAM working at Tumblr. Sentiment is incalculable, and being the Comms professionals that we are, we can swear to the moon that the effect of press results on a brand is unquantifiable when one piece can qualitatively alter the nature of the public’s perception versus the reality of a goal. And I had the the immeasurable luxury to be surrounded by the smartest, most creative, intensely productive, and to borrow a food world phrase - hardiest colleagues in the history of the internet.

My first day at Tumblr also belonged to six others - together we endured a questionable onboarding interaction and then were sent with laptops and branded hoodies to our respective seats at our superdesks on various floors. There were dogs everywhere. I was told that I’d be introduced to the company on Friday and to submit two truths and a lie to help them get to know me. Here they are:

I have photo credits in the New York Times and New York Magazine

I appeared as a backup dancer in a rap video in high school

I watercolor paintings of crustaceans as a hobby

Leave your guess in the comments (oh wait, it’s Tumblr, you can’t). 

Friday lunches were my lifeblood for a couple of months. Every week for at least seven thereafter unloaded a new set of amazing humans to be introduced in some absurd way by Sean from recruiting. I remember @sexpigeon vs Homer’s owner in game of pictionary, Johnny and Jake quickly competing for my heart as #1 engineer dudes, and of course, the instant classic game of Mark Coatney/ Marc Cote/ Marked Coat. Tumblr ramped up fast thanks to Lee, a fundraising series and at the tireless behest of my personal champion, Lindsey Dole.

Meanwhile, more magic was brewing in the cauldron. I heard @amandalynferri talking about some game she invented called Pretty Little Lasagna box, or I heard Maddie recalling the time she had her palm read in 14th street psychic's booth seeking refuge from a snowstorm, or @lexkap who sat on the other side of the building with a dog on her lap DM’d me on hip chat to show me her own nail art blog. Then a few of us won a chance to see a sneak preview of a new arthouse film by Harmony Korine and featuring an ensemble cast of former Disney talent that had been filmed in my hometown with a y2k airbrushed aesthetic - there was something innately emotional tied to each of us with this first viewing of Spring Breakers. When we left the midtown theater alongside the ATL Twins, I realized that this company had curated a community to match the intended behavior of its user base. We all connected on a level beyond any workplace I had experienced before.

And there was the professional side to the job - the work wins came quick because I was so lucky to sit under leaders who wanted the team to succeed. Rick Webb and Katherine encouraged me to dig in, and get deep with these shiny new toys called “evangelists” - Valentine, Nate, Liba, Annie, Max, Rachel, Jen, and briefly DCH. An enviable group of brilliant minds and creative energy who have all gone on to accomplish even more for their respective industries than a marketing budget at a start up could have enabled - and I had the pleasure to help share their Tumblr stories with the world - from a puppy bowl to annual southby's to groundbreaking art auctions to thirteen fucking fashion weeks to 35+ art and music shows (brrr)?

And then Tumblr got acquired and the Jenna Wortham turned the New York Times blue, and I got to do something I’m sure will never happen again in my entire career: I threw a party where the goody bag included a free tattoo, and multiple brave souls got them (Tyler, @bryanasortino, Megan & Johnny, among others).

And then Karen (aka #takingitallin aka @beautifulliving) joined, and me and Katherine gained a new teammate at the same time that I gained a new soul sister (and because of her self-described passion for advertising I never had to write an announcement about a new ad product ever again.) I’ve never been more challenged to succeed as I have over the three years I sat next to Karen - a generous and driven woman with endless dreams of supporting others (literally, ask her about the gap in the undergarment sector), who will always find a spot to squeeze me into a photobooth. Even at her wedding.

And lucky us, because then we invited @lilders into the #teamcomms fold and wow, wow, wow was life good. It was my honor working with Lily as she grew from FIT intern into somebody we should all aspire to work for someday.

Which leads to me to the poker faced improv master of all - Katherine. Allora @alittlespace! I am so lucky she believed that this girl who came into talk about a hypothetical strategy to get Eleven Madison Park on Tumblr and then pitched her a fantasy football launch party hosted by Nick Kroll and Mark Duplass could fit in and have the privilege to join the Tumblr Communications team. KB - I’ve already written you the dopiest thank you letter and shared my orchid growing miracle secrets - but it can’t be said enough - I am so grateful to have worked for you for all of these years. You are the best boss, and we will always be the #bestteam.

Because of Tumblr (and @david), I had the pleasure of working with so many additional incomparable people on projects outside of my designated Marketing Comms position, wearing more hats than we even produced for branded activation swag:

Designing and contenting for months with the relaunch of the precious Staff blog with David, Peter, Damien, Tag, Toph, among others

Setting the inaugural year in review with Danielle, Amanda, Christine loose (and then doing it again and again and again, with the wonderful team at DKC - especially that time we added a serving Kale to America’s breakfast.

Marathoning dozens of events with amazing producers like Julia, Suzanne and Magic - and encountering the native talent that thrives on Tumblr like Humans of New York, Chloe Wise, Sam Cannon, Johnny McLaughlin, Jillian Mercado, to a point where I can honestly say “I knew them when.”

Participating in the first ever Sales Offsite aka the greatest bar mitzvah ever thrown by Lee Brown, Dan Walsh and Sarah Won and the rest of the coolest sales team ever assembled (here’s to you @katemaxx, @jeffdtaylor, Meredith, Ari, Kira, and so many more)

Reaching back into my fashion bag of tricks and launching three different clothing lines.

Creating partnerships to show off super surprises at nerd parties at Comic Con and another breaking the internet for Art Basel

Interviewing the CEO of Shake Shack for the one-time-only live episode of “5 with a side of fries" in front of the whole company.

Urgently dealing with Legal, Ads, Trust and Safety on one of the definitive news story of a generation after nine months of back channeling and reporting.

DOING IT FOR THE CULTURE: Racing with the content and analytics teams for stats on the contentious day of #thedress, and then bling rings, witches, boneghazi, superwholockians, wholesome memes, studyblr, emojis, and of course, the toe thing! Thus redefining what it means to “go viral.”

Cleaned a ball pit for the dude from the 1975 to make a splash into them and trolled a legacy music publication

And wow - it took me this long to mention Post It Forward…I am so proud of everyone who helped make Tumblr the most empathetic community on the internet: Nicole Blumenfeld, Jeff D’Onofrio, @skiphursh “Dolphin", @dougrichard, Andy Sebela, Jess Frank, Sarah Won @swon, @pauwow, the brilliant and diligent Michelle Johnson. From building the blog, commissioning the art, recruiting and onboarding the partners, writing the endless number of give/gets, planning the sponsored posts and social content, running the day to day on the blog (and bequeathing that role to Lily), then doing it again with the Mental Health Quilt and IRL with the Post It Forward Summit - I’ve found my new track as a special projects person who can take on any issue, even suicidal teens. If this is my legacy, I’ve planted seeds in the garden I might never see. And special thanks to Victoria, who allowed me to speak at Obama’s White House about why kids need a place on the internet that can help heal - so long as they can find each other.

As it turns out, adults need that, too. From tailing Frank Ocean’s Ferrari to the most woke, mentally aware community and on to, thank god, a bonafide company to match - I will forever cherish my time at Tumblr and I’ll forever been asking #whenislunch. But from every tomorrow on, it will be somewhere else. And you can find me on the internet! 

Here’s my LinkedIn, I’m looking. 

[salvationinthestars]

Fly Me to the Moon

Lights flash, bathing the dock in blood red. Sirens sound as Zach screams to be heard over them.

“What the hell? What’s going on?”

“Don’t know. Think we got hit.”

“By what?”

“No clue. Maybe part of an asteroid. I don’t know.”

I don’t hear his response as a crash sounds and the ship shakes, forcing us to brace. Zach studies the nonsensical readings of the gauges while I frantically call out for mission control, only to be met with static.

“Ah, fuck me.” I yell, slamming my hand on the receiver.

“I’ll see if I can get it online. You wanna check the damage and see what you can fix?” I nod at Zach’s request and punch the code into the bay door. Nothing happened.

“We’re completely offline!”

“Fuck!” Zach yells as I try to force the doors open. I break open the control panel and manually override the system lock temporarily. Finally, the door groans open just enough for me to squeeze through. I make my way to the engine room. My heart drops as I hear the roar from down the hall. There’s a complete breach. A hole in the ship. I take a breath to settle myself and move to the window to survey the damage and see what I can do.

           The floor seems to drop out from under me as I observed the damage. The entire outer wall was ripped out. That would take weeks to repair with equipment we don’t have, and even then we wouldn’t be able to make it through re-entry. Parts of the engine were missing. There was nothing I could do. Twelve years of training, and I’m useless.

           In a daze, I walk to the living quarters. Ducking through the door, I step over to Zach’s personal area. I shoved mementos in hastily, knowing that I was on a clock. But this needed to be done just in case. Moving to my side, I pick up a picture and a painted rock without looking at them. I couldn’t afford to lose control now.

Grabbing necessities such as pillows, blankets, and packets of food and water, I make my way back to the command dock. Zach is still running around frantically trying to connect with the communications systems. Thankfully he had gotten the sirens shut off, leaving only the backup lights to illuminate the dim area. I drop the bag in the corner and unzip it, pulling out a framed picture.

“Did you get it fixed?” Zach turns to face me. Silently, I hand him the photograph of his wife and children that he kept by his bed. His face immediately twisted into one of desperation.

“I’m sorry.” I try.

“What are you saying?”

“Zach, we’re not getting home.”

“Kath, you can fix anything on this thing. You just have to try.”

“I can’t fix this. The entire outer wall is gone in the engine room. Along with parts of the engine.”

“A tarp. Something!”

“Zach, you know the physics as well as I do. You know what this means.”

“Dammit Katherine!” He moves closer. “You can fix this!” Tears well in his eyes. “What about Matthew?”

I cringe at the mention of the fiancé I’d never see again.

“I know, Zach. I need you to focus. I need you for this, okay? How are the comms systems?”

“Down. They’re all down.”

“Okay. Focus on outward communications. We can send a message home.”

He calms substantially. “What exactly are we looking at?”

“Best case, the wall connecting the engine room to the ship doesn’t hold, the vent system fails, and we suffocate.”

“That’s the best case?”

“Worst case is the doors shut down the manual override and lock shut, trapping us in command floating uncontrollably until we starve. That’s. . . also the most likely.

He sighs. “Let’s get to work then.”

The communications technician expertly connects wires as I open the plate on the side of the door to access the mechanism. If the door locks, it won’t matter if the rest of the ship fails. Command was built to stand on its own in an emergency. Hell of an emergency. We worked in crushing silence, both aware of our own mortality and what we were working for. Me, to hasten our deaths. Him, to send out one last message.

After about two hours, a violent quake rocks the ship, knocking me from my ladder. I swear and brace myself against the nearest wall, holding my now injured ankle. I hear a loud ratcheting, and I scream in frustration as I hear my work being undone. The door groans closed and sparks shoot from the panel. My worst fear is realized. I sit, staring blankly at the now impenetrable door. I know my mouth is open, but no sound comes out.

“Kath? What happened? Come on, talk to me.”

I stutter a few times before whispering, “we’re trapped.” Zach looks at the ground for a moment before crossing to the large med kit on the wall. He sits in front of where I’m slumped against the wall and reaches for my leg.

“Let me look at your ankle.”

I let him manipulate my sprained ankle, grimacing as he splints and wraps it. I try to crack a cheesy joke, and he laughs without a trace of sadness. In this moment, I’m incredibly grateful for him.

“Okay, I guess I should get back to work on those communications. You rest, okay?”

“Fuck you”, I laugh as I stand up.

He grins. “What are you gonna do, Kath? Fix the comms for me?”

“I have another project in mind that utilizes my skillset more effectively.” I say mysteriously. He rolls his eyes dramatically and climbs under the communications panel once again. I limp to the ship-wide speaker system. About 45 minutes later, I connected two wires and heard the crackling of the speaker. I tweaked another wire and smiled as I heard the first strains of Elton John’s Rocket Man. Before the launch, NASA had allowed Zach and I to create a master playlist for the ship. Because the trip was only supposed to be two months, we thought it would be funny to pick as many space themed songs as we could. A fitting soundtrack for the end of our world.

           Zach laughs and begins to sing along as he works. Two songs later, he finally announces he has the outward communications online. We prepare to send our final message. With a grim expression, he presses the button and begins to speak. I watch morosely.

           “Mission control. Exploration to ground. Problem assessed. Exterior wall and engine compromised. It’s. . . it’s gone. Both specialists are trapped in the command dock. Mechanical specialist Chambers has determined that the locking system is permanently offline and unable to be overridden. We have limited rations and no control of the ship. We. . . we aren’t coming home.”

Zach hesitates before continuing. “Outbound communications are up. No other communication systems are online. We would both like this recording to be accessed by our families and anyone who it may be of interest to. I’ll start. My name is Zachary Roberts. I am a communications specialist serving what was expected to be a two month mission aboard the Exploration spacecraft. We were hit by debris at approximately 0900 hours. It has been an honor to serve my country. I have no regrets and thank everyone for allowing me this experience. Now, I’d like to address my family.

           Annie, Elise, Daddy loves you more than anything. When I left, I told you that I’d be able to see you from up here. That’s still true. Now I’ll always be smiling down on you. When you get lonely at night, look for me. I’ll be the star closest to the moon. I’ve always been so proud of you both. No matter what you do in life, I will always be proud of you. Baby girls, take care of each other.

           Abby, baby, I wish there were words to tell you how much I love you. And how sorry I am to be leaving you. I wish I could dry your tears. But I don’t want this to be your last memory of me. Remember when we first moved in together? That tiny little apartment in the city? Everyone said we were so stupid for moving in together so young. We so were, baby. We couldn’t even pay the electric bill. I just remember sitting on the floor of that apartment. It was almost pitch black. But the city lights were so pretty. They were enough to light up your beautiful face. I remember thinking how goddamn happy I was. How happy I still am. Every day with you has been magical, baby. Never forget how much I love you. How much I love our beautiful family.”

Zach’s voice finally cracks. “Abby, Annie, Elise, goodbye girls. I love you to infinity and beyond.”

He steps back and clears his throat. I don’t know what to say. Zach gestures to the comms. I step forward and feel my chest seize as I realize the power of my next words. For the first time, I realize with true clarity that I will never see Matthew again. I press the button.

“My name is Katherine Rose Chambers. I am the mechanical specialist on the Exploration Spacecraft. I’d like to thank NASA for this wonderful opportunity. I know they did everything they could. This. . . this will be my last transmission. I’d like to address my fiancé, Matthew Schoonover. And express my deep regret that I never got to be Katherine Schoonover.

           Matt, I know that when you hear this, you’ll analyze every word. Just as I almost analyzed every word of this speech. But I decided to go into it not knowing what I was going to say. I’m just going to say what I feel. Know that behind every word is an incredible love. A love that I didn’t know was possible until I met you. I am so grateful to have been your Annabelle Lee, and we’ll always have the dream of our kingdom by the sea.

           Matt, when I left, you said that the only way you could bear me being up here was knowing that we’d be reunited soon. Hon, we still have that. You know I’ve never believed in an afterlife. But if an afterlife means I get to see you again, I’ll believe with everything I have. Anything that lets me see your beautiful brown eyes again is worth believing. Matt, hon, I can’t kiss you goodbye. But I promise that wherever I end up, I’ll be waiting for you. Take your time. Enjoy your life and know that I’m with you. I love you. End transmission.”

I turned away with a ball in my throat. Zach was leaning against the back wall with tears streaking his face. We had just officially acknowledged our deaths. There was nothing left to do. We had said goodbye to everything we knew.

           “I’ve never heard you speak like that. So. . . emotional.”

I sniffed and crossed to my friend as my eyes started to fill.

           “It’s Matt.” I say as he embraces me and I let the tears fall. We slide down the wall and I lay my head on his shoulder.

           “I know”, he says, resting his head on mine. We watch the infinite universe that we were now a part of through the front window.

           “I know.”

Fly me to the Moon by Sinatra flows through the speaker system as we sit together. Two trusted coworkers. Two good friends. United in death and an endless universe.

Fly me to the Moon.

[violetsystems]

#personal

Instagram made it a point to remind me of a picture of a plane ticket from exactly one year ago.  I had flown into Shanghai on a layover to land in Korea on this date.  I still haven’t been using it for anything other than messages.  Even that activity is few and far between.  The truth is most people don’t really reach out or talk to me at all.  When they do these days it tends to be more genuine.  A coffee roaster from Queens likes a picture I took at La Colombe of a little girl with a pink unicorn seated across from me.  I end up buying a bag of their coffee online.  That package ends up getting stolen.  The third such package to disappear with people onsite at the time of delivery.  I ended up going to their shop here before heading south with flowers for my mom.  When I say nothing can stop me it’s not like people don’t try consistently.  For somebody who has been around the world as much as me on my own dime, people make some pretty huge demands.  Half of the time if not most, I have no idea what people are trying to prove.  If there is one paradox to all of this it’s that you have to live in the moment.  Most people aren’t living in the moment at all.  They’re living in constructs and fabrications of reality dictated by unrealistic and unsustainable views of consumption.  The moment is far more complex than happiness and kindness on demand.  Traveling the world without borders on a legal passport is a construct all it’s own.  One can literally walk through walls like a ghost for better or for worse.  Get trapped behind a curtain of things like authority figures, politicians and business tycoons who would rather you didn’t.  For someone so in tune with themselves I don’t really understand much of the logic behind the majority of people in America.  Some of that is understandable.  If you don’t give people the chance to know you then you’ll constantly be misunderstood.  Which is why I like to take the long way out to visit my mom on public transportation.  For someone who is always so harassed and bothered, it’s deep on the south side where I feel least out of place.  Battlegroundz or BGZ is just down the street from the end of the red line.  Years ago I simply watched those videos on the internet.  Years later I’d get to watch them live.  These days I feel like I could just walk down there by myself.  The glaringly obvious politics of the moment is that I shouldn’t feel that way according to racial sentiments.  Because I’m just another white guy after all.  

One of the last pictures I took on Instagram was of the front of my work.  It’s a piece for art bash that simply says “Oh no he’s white.”  The punctuation marks that fluctuate between oh and no are neon white nooses.  The picture didn’t seem to bother me.  I caught another white guy’s head in the photo who served as a punctuation mark itself.  For whatever meta performance or art was happening, it was simply just another day at work for me.  I grew up on Public Enemy and Do The Right Thing.  Seeing Spike Lee draped in Gyakusou is something of a revelation to me.  But great minds think alike.  And most of my heros and inspirations are not white.  James Baldwin said it best.  White is a metaphor for power in America.  My own origins are much more complex than that.  But excessive chest beating and arguing doesn’t really prove my point very convincingly.  On the way down to the south side most of the train conversation was refreshing.  People speaking about their frustrations with the police.  People greeting each other and wishing blessings as they left.  Waiting at the bus stop with my Gyakusou shoes and my history of footwork that white gatekeepers buried long ago, I felt free.  A bouquet of purple and pink under my shoulder.  You had to have been there to see it.  There were no photo ops.  No opportunities to brag about my progressive values.  The snowflake that I am stood there like the street wear general I’ve become.  It’s how to interpret the things said.  Your mind and perspective can warp what you see based on fear.  I’ve come to fear white people just as much as others.  But the reality I breathe never seems to deliver the ghost stories people have nightmares about.  I walk where I want out of love and with as much positivity I can muster.  From there I take evasive actions if need be.  I actually avoid more people down town than I do in the suburbs or New York.  Everybody wants to use you.  Everybody wants to be used by you.  Like I’m a tool or a Eurythmics song.  I like Annie Lenox.  I’ve been walking on broken glass for years.  You don’t know how much white trash litters the streets of Chicago.  The real trash that sees no value in treating people with respect.  Sure there’s plenty of homeless people and mentally ill walking around at any given day.  That’s not who I am talking about.  Your best protection against anything is empathy.  And there’s a value in survival and dignity particularly in the streets that I’ve come to respect about a Chicago nobody ever sees.

I’ve grown comfortable to understand I belong where I matter.  Right now truthfully I am right here where I belong.  I talked with my mom in the hospital about New York and my focus between here and there.  She told me that distance didn’t matter if people were responsible enough to make things work.  Again this could have been the painkillers talking but I tend to agree with her.  I don’t anguish much about the future.  I live within the moment.  A year ago seems far away to me.  That chapter ended around August of last year.  August for me was the beginning of something new.  Ironically I had travelled to Korea as more of an excuse to visit Shanghai.  I wanted to prove to myself that I could go there alone.  In truth I didn’t do much.  I didn’t even visit the city.  But it didn’t mean I didn’t do what I had set out to do.  A year later I booked a trip to New York the weekend after the final running challenge.  My excuse to go is no longer some elaborate explanation of my occupational or artistic worth.  I just want a pin for running a bunch of miles.  It might mean absolutely nothing to anybody else.  But I started running again because I was inspired to do so by a person I love.  A year later she’s draped in Gyakusou running laps around everyone.  When I got my pin last time they asked if I wore a mask when I ran like a ninja in the cold.  I told them I just applied the right moisturizer.  I eat burger king and walk the Brooklyn Bridge by myself.  I’ve kept an intense training schedule since last August that never wavered regardless of how much I was physically harassed.  This was even before we were all bundled under this flag of running backwards and thinking just the same.  Resistance to the definitions of power controlled by a select group of people and not shared throughout.  I go to New York in spite of all of this with only myself to rely on.  I face my fears and learn from my failures instead of avoiding my intuition and feelings.  I learn to work around people’s perceptions actively and figure out my own way of showing my worth.  I find a new path to where I belong that doesn’t actively subvert my every move.  I don’t broadcast those anywhere but here.  And last time I checked I love you more each day in ways I can’t even explain.  I’m sure somebody out there will try on my behalf without my consent and fail.  So I’ve grown comfortable enough to tell you myself in person.  However backwards I’ve gone about that at least I’m consistent enough to stay on brand.  <3 Tim

[crazy-little-cool-cat]

Hand in Glove - Chapter 20 | Ben Hardy x OFC

A/N: Wow, it’s been a while! Life is just so insane. I’m so sorry. However, here’s a sweet little chapter. Get ready for some fun! I don’t know when ch21 will be out because my schedule is all kinds of wonky but just know that HiG is supposed to have 30 parts, total, so we still have a bit more to go! Be patient with me and love me! 

Word Count: ~1.8K

Warnings: Domestic bliss, implied smut, drunk Joe, Shitstorm Annie.

Chapter 1, Chapter 2,  Chapter 3,  Chapter 4,  Chapter 5,  Chapter 6,  Chapter 7,  Chapter 8,  Chapter 9,  Chapter 10,  Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14 , Chapter 15 , Chapter 16 , Chapter 17 , Chapter 18 , Chapter 19

"So they're not going to do anything about it?!"

To say Ben was livid would have been an understatement. Although he knew nothing had actually happened to Annie - thanks to Jamie's volatile temper - he at least expected the network execs to do something about the events for that one horrible night.

"He's a line producer, most of his work is pre-production related." Annie shrugged as she folded Rory's tiny clothes. "I didn't file a police report. Can't put a man in jail for being a tool, Benny."

"How are you so calm about this?"

"Ben, this is my job. It's one last, final season. I just want to get through it and move on."

"I can't just leave you here with this bloody predator skulking around -"

"Stop overreacting, please."

"If he ever so much as looks at you..." Ben's nostrils flared as he worked himself up with the mere thought of someone doing anything to Annie. He stood there, looking like an angry bull ready to fight his matador. "I'll fucking kill him."

"I know."

"Bastard," Ben muttered while Annie wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled the both of them flush up against each other, craning her neck back to look at him. "What?"

"Nothing." She shrugged and pursed her lips, pushing a bubbling giggle back down.

Ben looked down at her and felt the anger subside with every flutter of her eyelashes. All of the tension on his face had all but dissipated. Leaning down, he pressed his lips to hers and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, completely engulfing her.

###

Annie looked at the suitcases, placed in the middle of the bedroom. She almost felt as if an actual demon would pop out of them and attack her. Her upper lip curled up in a small, menacing snarl. Although they still have two more months before Ben had to leave, the luggage was there as a sore reminder. Taunting her.

Rory crawled over to the middle of the bedroom. Her little hands slapped against the hardwood floor as she went, babbling and cooing. Frankie, as always, walked right next to Rory. It seemed that Frankie had taken on the role of her personal bodyguard and vacuum cleaner.

The first time Annie found Frankie gobbling up Rory's spit-up, she almost hurled. No matter how hard she tried to stop it from happening, Rory would spit-up, stealthy as a ninja, and Frankie would be right behind her, lapping it up as if it was a delicacy.

It was disgusting, truly.

Annie watched silently as Rory smacked one of the suitcases and laughed at Rory's frustration when the suitcase rolled away from her on its' wheels. When one of them almost toppled over right on top of Rory, Annie sprung into action and picked her up. She gave Rory's little belly a gentle tickle and pressed a kiss to her soft, blonde mop of hair.  

"We should hide daddy's luggage so he'll never go away!" Annie cooed at her baby, tapping the tip of her nose playfully. "Don't snitch!"

"She won't have to." Ben's voice startled Annie, causing her to jump.

"Jesus Ben, don't sneak up on me!"

"I didn't!" Ben chuckled and bit the tip of his tongue. "I will not tolerate collusion, you know."

"No?"

"Nope." Ben swaggered over to his girlfriend and his daughter and wrapped them both in a tight hug. "I'm starting to feel a bit outnumbered."

"Oh?" Annie giggled.

"Yeah." Ben's voice dropped an octave. "Think we should drop Rory off at my parents' and try to even the scores, y'know?"

Ben could see the colour drain from Annie's face. Smirking, he bent his knees and nibbled on her ear, feeling her breath hitch.

"You can't..." Annie stuttered. "You don't actually -"

"Nah, just messing with you." Ben squeezed her bum and smacked playfully. "But I won't mind a little bit of practice. For when the time comes, you know."

"You cheeky little -"

"Nuh uh uh," Ben pressed a finger to Annie's lips, "she's getting older. Mind your tongue."

Annie squinted and grinned against his finger. Opening her mouth ever so slightly, she poked her tongue out and licked Ben's fingertip.  Ben's pupils dilated when Annie's lips wrapped snugly around his finger. Looking down, Annie recognised a familiar stirring in Ben's favourite grey sweatpants.

"Everything okay?" Annie smiled slyly.

"Once this little one knocks out, Annabelle Lee," Ben's hand worked its' way down her back and to her bum, "you'll pay for this."

###

“And cut!”

Annie leaped backwards, panting. She planted her hands on her crimson bodice-clad hips, panting and looking at the floor, examining the lines in the hardwood and the hemline of her floor-length dress, flouncy, Renaissance era dress. A blush appeared on her cheeks.

“You alright?” Jamie wiped at his bottom lip with his thumb, covering up his shit-eating grin. “Seem a little out of breath.”

“If you value your life,” Annie muttered, holding a finger up, eyes still locked on the floor of the set, “you will shut your fucking gob.”

“Trouble in paradise?”

“You wish, Jamie.”

“Eh.” Jamie shrugged and let the hair and makeup crew work their magic, preparing him for the next take. “Seeing you with a baby kind of killed it for me.”

“You’re so full of it.”

“Seems like you’re not full of anything…”

“Excuse you!” Annie’s eyes snapped up and locked in on Jamie’s.

“I’m just saying, you look a bit…” Jamie winced theatrically, tilting his head to the side.

“Annoyed?”

“Flustered.” He smirked.

“Oh, fuck you!”

“Seems like you just might need to, yeah.”

Annie scoffed and turned her head, closing her eyes. Her tongue darted out to lick at her cupid’s bow, careful not to smear her lipstick around.

###

“Well, well,” Gwilym leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, “is Shitstorm Annie finally about to show herself again?”

Ben looked at Annie in absolute admiration as she knocked back yet another drink. He knew this was just her way to cope with his eminent departure, but it still astounded him.

“Having fun?” He leaned close to her ear, his gravelly voice and breath fanning on her ear sending shivers down her spine. “Need another one?”

“You tryin’ to get me drunk?” Annie giggled and placed her hand on his thigh, giving it a squeeze.

“I would never. Nor will I need to.” He toyed with a lock of her hair and pushed the empty shot glasses away. “This is all you.”

Annie looked up at her boyfriend, doe-eyed. Her hand started travelling up his thigh under the table, brushing against his jeans, squeezing sporadically. As if she tried to send him a ‘fuck me’ signal telepathically. Ben smacked his thighs shut and scratched at his temple, clearing his throat. His sudden movement focused everyone else’s attention right on him, his cheeks growing redder by the second.

“Oh, good God, Banana!” Clara’s face twisted in mock disgust before she buried it in the crook of Gwilym’s neck.

Annie turned to look at her best friend and smiled wickedly.

“Yeah, that’s Shitstorm Annie, alright.” Gwilym quipped. “Hello again, old friend.”

“Lo!” Annie tipped an imaginary hat at her cousin. “Missed me?”

“Can’t say that I have, no.” Gwil shrugged.

“Well, I sure have!” Joe pulled Annie in for a drunk, lazy hug. “I knew you were in there somewhere!”  

“What’s the plan here, Ben?” Gwilym asked.

“She just needs to get toilet-hugging drunk once,” Ben held up his finger, “right to the point that her body almost shuts down on itself.”

“Ah, the old ‘I’m-Never-Drinking-Again’ move!” Clara gestured at Ben with her drink, “clever!”

“Please keep an eye on her while I’m away?”

“What?!” Joe squealed and held a hand to his chest, pushing his chair back, making everyone stare at him in confusion. “Annabelle! No!”

“I’m just saying, it could be funny!”

“What could be funny, love?” Ben intervened.

“She wants to let Rory drink her boozed-up breast milk to see if it has any actual effect!” Joe’s volume was much too high, causing the entire pub to stare at their table in silence. “This is just… How do you even think of… Annie, what the fuck?!”

After seconds of tense silence, Annie snorted and chortled. Joe looked at his friends apprehensively, gauging their reactions. When they all started chuckling and laughing, he let out a nervous giggle and scooted his chair back closer to the table.

“Annie, you know better than taking the piss on a drunk Joe.” Gwilym scolded his cousin.

“It was just such perfect timing, though!” Annie whined between fits of laughter and cackling.

“You fucking troll!” Joe pouted.

###

“All done?” Ben spoke in a hushed voice as he walked in to his and Annie’s bedroom.

“Pumped and dumped!” Annie sneered and held her thumbs up. “Talked to your mum?”

“Yes, yes. Rory’s having a great time.” Ben pulled his shirt off over his head as he filled Annie in on the details. “She’s now sleeping like an angel.”

“Did you let Frankie out?” Annie put her breast-milk pump back in its’ box and closed the lid. “Are we all set?”

After making quick work of ridding himself of his jeans, Ben took an opportunity as it presented itself. Annie had her exposed back turned to him as she gently pushed the box away with her foot. She felt the bed dip behind her, indicating that Ben was right there. When his breath fanned over the back of her neck and her shoulders, she involuntarily leaned back into him.

His hands hands worked their way up her torso, starting from her waist. Alternating feather-light touches and rough grasps, Ben’s fingers made sure not to leave a sliver of Annie’s skin untouched. Carefully, he massaged Annie’s breasts, knowing how sensitive they were due to breastfeeding.

“You…” His warm breath washed over her ear. He rolled one of her nipples between his fingers as his other hand snaked its’ way further up, barely grasping at the column of her neck. “You are just…”

With a devilish smile, Annie turned her head and tipped it back, granting Ben easier access to her lips. Ben’s eyes darted from her lips to her eyes and back again. When Annie’s tongue darted out to lick her lips, Ben grunted and crashed his plush lips onto hers.

Nibbling and sucking at each other’s lips, moaning into each other’s mouths, Ben and Annie intertwined into each other’s arms. Turning around between kisses, Annie straddled Ben’s legs, perched on his thighs, both wearing nothing but underwear. Wrapping their arms around one another, they pulled each other impossibly tighter. They started grounding their hips to one another, desperate for friction.

“I need…” Annie started murmuring against Ben’s lips, causing him to grin and squeeze her bum.

“I know.” Ben chuckled when Annie went right for his neck, biting and sucking on the one spot she knew would drive him crazy. “But we’ve got plenty of time for that.”

“You’re such a tease.”

“Says the one who tried to give me a handy under the table down at the pub.”

###

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